Hunting LeRoux

by Elaine Shannon

  According to court documents, Samia and Stillwell stalked Catherine Lee for a week, driving by her house and office in a community called Las Piñas. They spoke to a neighbor about her. They emailed her, posing as Bill and Tony, a pair of Canadian tourists who were interested in looking at rental properties. She agreed to take them around.

  Around February 4 or 5, 2012, they picked up Lee at the Jolly B, also known as the Jollibee, a fast-food joint. She jumped into the back of their van as they drove around Manila, looking at houses. It was all very friendly and routine for a real estate agent. This went on for days.

  When they weren’t on the street with Lee, Samia and Stillwell studied the craft of killing. Stillwell read how-to guides they had downloaded on how to be a mercenary and how to be a hit man. (“When using a small-caliber weapon like the .22, it is best to shoot from a distance of three to six feet. You will not want to be at pointblank range to avoid having the victim’s blood splatter on you or your clothing.”)

  Samia googled cyanide, grenades, and explosives and watched YouTube videos called “homemade silencer tutorial,” “homemade wireless detonator,” “how to build a grenade,” and “how to make and explode a bomb.” He searched for an answer to the question “How does ricin work?” Ricin is a deadly poison made from castor beans. Samia would later deny that these searches were his; someone else must have used his laptop, he claimed, without explaining who else would have had access to it in a hotel room in Manila.

  As time passed, Hunter grew impatient. “Hunter was really ticked off,” Vamvakias testified, “because during the day Adam Samia and his partner are riding around town with Catherine Lee and they’re looking at properties and the murder is not getting done. And so at some point Adam Samia ends up calling to check in with Hunter and Hunter is ticked off that it’s not done yet. He says, ‘What have you guys been doing?’ [Samia] says, ‘Well, look, we haven’t had the chance. People have seen us. She’s run into friends. It started raining and there were people inside the buildings that they were looking at and they just hadn’t had the opportunity to Hunter was pissed off about that and he basically told them don’t call me back until it’s done.”

  On February 12, 2012, Samia and Stillwell asked Lee to show them some more expensive places in Cavite, an upscale community outside Manila. She hopped in the backseat of the van as usual. It was a pleasant afternoon—sunny, balmy, and barely 80 degrees, and clear. Toward dusk, as Stillwell drove, Samia whirled around and leveled the muzzle of LeRoux’s Smith & Wesson .22 at Lee. It couldn’t have been more than a foot from her face. That’s when Samia shot her in the face twice, one bullet under each eye. The two men wrapped Lee’s head in a cloth to try to catch the blood. Samia took photos of her head and body with his phone.

  They drove for several hours in the dark, looking for a place to dump the body. They settled on a pile of garbage in Taytay, Rizal, a sweat shop district twenty minutes from their apartment in the Mayfield Park Residences.

  A trash collector reported finding the body at 7:15 a.m. the next day. Besides her jewelry, the police found Lee’s Nokia C3 cell phone, which contained identifying information and an email trail between her and a man who called himself Bill. They located eyewitnesses who had seen her with two men in the Innova van, driving toward Manila at 5:30 p.m. on the previous evening. The witnesses described the men to a sketch artist.

  The next day, Samia met Hunter and handed him Lee’s driver’s license and a memory card with the gruesome photos of Lee’s head, mutilated and beginning to swell, and body. About a week later, Hunter gave Samia an envelope full of hundred-dollar bills containing the bonus payments for himself and his partner. The two hit men went to a Western Union just a mile from the spot where Lee was killed and wired $54,500 back home. The money, sent in small increments, was addressed to one of Samia’s girlfriends and Stillwell’s wife.

  Hunter was not happy. “When they contacted Hunter afterwards, he was ticked off,” Vamvakias later testified, “because they didn’t do the way he told them to do it and also they ended up leaving her purse, her cell phone, her jewelry. He wanted them to make it look like a robbery and they didn’t do any of that.”

  Hunter emailed LeRoux that the hit had “gone wrong . . . there were witnesses,” LeRoux later testified. “The individuals had been sketched.” Hunter also complained to the other mercenaries, in the bugged conversation in the Phuket safe house in March 2013, “They went to all these different houses with her, where there was people living in the houses. So every house they went to, people saw them together. They saw their faces. They saw the real estate agent. They did this for like three different days. . . . And then I was watching the news and they had the sketches, but the sketches didn’t look like them so everything was okay. One guy kinda looked like an Asian and the other guy looked like a cartoon character.”

  LeRoux put $70,000 in a bag, hand-carried it from Rio to Manila, and gave it to Hunter to pay Samia and Stillwell for the Lee hit. But he didn’t send them home. Despite their greenhorn performance, LeRoux wanted the pair to move ahead with the other hits on his list.

  Samia and Stillwell seemed blissfully unaware of the consternation over their bumbled performance.

  Two days after killing Lee, according to court documents, Samia sent a friend a message on Facebook that said, “My [dog] is going on 11 [years old] so it is coming for me to[o] . . . dreading that day . . . much easier to put down a person than a dog!!”

  Samia and Stillwell proceeded to stalk their next victim. On February 27, Hunter messaged LeRoux that the pair had gone to the house of Fitch Penalosa “for a couple of days and are going to his office today.” But for some reason, they didn’t pull the trigger. On February 29, Hunter messaged LeRoux that Samia and Stillwell were “going home for tax filing” but were “definitely coming back.” Stillwell departed on February 29; Samia, on March 5.

  LeRoux set about destroying evidence. Samia had returned the murder weapon to Hunter. “Please get the .22 barrel changed,” LeRoux emailed Hunter. He told Hunter to take the pistol to a gun club in Angeles City, which had a relationship with Red, White and Blue Arms, and have one of the staff members replace the barrel so that if the gun were subjected to ballistics tests, it wouldn’t be linked to the murder. The staffers said no, they didn’t have the tools or know-how to replace a pistol barrel. LeRoux told his aides to return the gun to the Red, White and Blue Arms warehouse.

  The bloody van was a bigger problem. Samia and Stillwell drove to public parking lot near the Howzat, intending to return it to Hunter. Hunter peered inside and saw quarts of Lee’s blood soaked into the backseat and on the floor, plus blood spatters all over the steering wheel and driver’s door handle. The gunmen clearly had no idea how much blood would pump out of a human being’s head. The little towel they had brought with them to soak it up was useless.

  Hunter left the van in the lot for three or four days. LeRoux sent a young Filipino assistant to retrieve it. He panicked and disappeared. Two Israelis on LeRoux’s staff took over. They drove the van to one of LeRoux’s houses south of Manila. LeRoux started hosing down the van himself, then turned the job over to his aides, supervising them as a cascade of water and suds poured out of the vehicle. The stains were still deep. LeRoux had the middle seat pulled out and the rest of the rear seat reupholstered. After he was satisfied that the evidence was gone, LeRoux told the aides to return the van to his warehouse in Cavite. This was not a smart move. The warehouse was also the location of his pet project, his clandestine research lab for the Iranian missile venture.

  Back in Roxboro, Samia tried to wipe his computer. He messaged Hunter that he was “on standby” for more jobs. Despite all the trouble Samia caused, LeRoux didn’t give up on him, perhaps because people with U.S. passports were valuable. LeRoux told Hunter to give Samia another task—go to Miami and buy an oceangoing vessel that Stammers and Shackels could use to transport cocaine across the Pacific from Peru to East Asia. Samia refused, on grounds that the
pay, $166 per day plus $40 a day for expenses, was ridiculously low. He couldn’t find a cheap place to stay in South Florida for that kind of money, much less feed himself. “It’s just not worth it for me,” Samia wrote Hunter.

  LeRoux blamed Hunter for Samia’s lack of discipline and subservience. He cut Hunter’s pay. Hunter fired off a furious email to Samia, dated May 18, 2012:

  Maybe there is some miscommunication or something, because I sure do not understand. First, when I say I need you there ASAP, I meant two days ago or yesterday. I have been more the lenient with you as far as your wishes. Either, you want a job or you do not. But, you seem to have it in your mind that you’re going to squeeze our balls on any issue you can find. But, thats [sic] your personality, and I will put up with it to an extent. You are not answering my emails in a timely manner and you are not answering my phone calls at all. I need team members that can get a job done!!! Not someone who thinks there [sic] in a position or have the experience to fuck this thing up!!!

  Let me explain, you signed up for a job . . . in which I am responsible for both of you. I am expected to get these things done. You said you wanted the job. First, I waited a year for you to be available because of your other plans. Then you finally come onboard, do one sloppy job which could have endangered everyone and left. . . . Dave [Smith] would not have you back because of this exact reason. He told me about you and I still had faith that you would do a good job because I worked with you for a month and thought you were OK. So I will put it to you like this: Either you are with us or you are not. Interested. If you want a job, you will answer your telephone whenever I call and you will answer my email in a timely manner, because I have no time to waste with you. Your salary will be as stated above. If you accept this job, get your ass on the plane and quit fucking around.

  Hunter and Samia negotiated over email for a while, but in the end, they couldn’t come to terms.

  Hunter, meanwhile, set out to assemble a proper kill team, this time made of experienced former military men with skills and discipline. He prided himself on possessing these soldierly virtues and wanted to hire people who would take orders unquestioningly. Midway through the recruitment process, LeRoux was arrested. As part of his cooperation agreement with the government, LeRoux started manipulating Hunter from the federal courthouse. Hunter’s next hires were being approved by LeRoux with Cindric and Stouch at his shoulder.

  The murder of Catherine Lee haunted the agents. During the plea-bargaining process, the prosecutors had agreed not to charge LeRoux with that murder or others he had set in motion. They decided they did not have jurisdiction, since the homicide of a foreign citizen overseas was normally a matter for the justice system of the nation where the crime was committed. There was a federal law permitting the prosecution of someone who conspired within the United States to commit a murder abroad, but LeRoux was never inside the United States when the seven murders he admitted to were being conceived.

  But Hunter, Samia, and Stillwell were Americans. The evidence showed that they had planned aspects of the Catherine Lee murder on U.S. soil, in violation of federal law. They couldn’t claim that they didn’t know better. They weren’t, for example, child soldiers whose minds had been twisted by deprivation and ignorance. They were relatively well educated and privileged, with all the opportunities afforded by American citizenship. The agents were determined that their crimes would not go unpunished.

  “If we don’t get them, nobody else will,” Cindric said. “The Philippines is incapable of prosecuting that case.”

  Besides, he said, “I think Samia has done this before and for other people. We’ve tapped into a global murder-for-hire ring.” If Samia went unpunished, Cindric was convinced that he would kill again and again.

  Using Hunter’s debriefings, the agents obtained search warrants for the two men’s AOL, Facebook, and Gmail accounts. Incredibly, they had not deleted their email trails even after they read worldwide headlines heralding Hunter’s arrest. Their “private” messages on Facebook were highly incriminating.

  On November 20, 2013, one of Samia’s friends sent him a link to a DEA press release announcing that Hunter and the mercenaries had been arrested:

  MALE-1: you hear bout Tim [Vamvakias] and Joe [Hunter]?

  SAMIA: . . . no what happen

  MALE-1: read this

  MALE-1: http://www.justice.gov/dea/divisions/hq/2013/hq092713.shtml

  SAMIA: Wow . . . holly Shit . . .

  MALE-1: That is crazy stuff . . .

  SAMIA: very stupid people

  SAMIA: they are done . . . they will never get out

  MALE-1: yeah I would imagine not . . . I can’t believe that they are that sloppy.

  SAMIA: they got blinded by greed

  On December 11, 2013, Samia hinted to another friend online that he had killed somebody:

  SAMIA: . . . any new ideas to get rich quick!! Lol

  MALE-2: Murder, sex, and drugs lol

  SAMIA: did those already;) . . . well no drugs lol

  MALE-2: Lol im guilty

  SAMIA: Yep . . . like you said that why we get along so wellllllll . . . lol

  Nine days after that, Samia forwarded to Stillwell a link to the U.S. attorney’s office press release, dated September 27, 2013, announcing the arrest of Hunter and the other mercenaries for “conspiracy to murder a DEA agent” and other crimes.

  On January 22, 2014, Samia wrote another friend about Hunter’s arrest:

  SAMIA: How are thing going in [the Philippines] Bro?!

  MALE-3: Feels a little chilly even though its 76F . . . Other than that, same old stuff. . . . I suppose you’ve already heard about Joe Hunter?

  SAMIA: ya that is crazy shit

  SAMIA: Got greedy an sloppy

  MALE-3: Yep . . . They’re gonna put him in a cell UNDER the prison

  SAMIA: Ya him an Tim [Vamvakias] . . . dont know the others . . .

  On September 22, 2014, one of Samia’s friends alerted him to a news report that LeRoux was cooperating with the DEA. Up to that time, LeRoux’s cooperation had been kept secret. Samia scoffed, implying that he wouldn’t get in trouble so long as he wasn’t dealing in drugs. Illusions could be very sturdy things.

  SAMIA: well that’s good news Bro . . . .how are you doing . . . anything new . . . I am going crazy need to get back out!!

  MALE-1: Nothing going on. Lachlan [McConnell] indicted in the Minneapolis case against RX Limited employees by the Feds and will be arrested soon

  SAMIA: what for what

  MALE-1: Stuff he did for [the leader of the Organization]

  SAMIA: wtf . . . how many years ago was that from

  MALE-1: Does not matter

  SAMIA: did [the leader of the Organization] get pop too

  MALE-1: [He] got lifted by the Feds in Brazil in 2012 and sang like a canary and set all his guys up

  SAMIA: Wow

  SAMIA: scary shit dude

  MALE-1: So far there have been ten guys who worked for him lifted in diff countries and extradited to US

  SAMIA: wow holy shit

  SAMIA: that is fucking BS

  SAMIA: that’s to[o] bad for Lachlan he is a good guy

  MALE-1: He’s in a bad way at the moment

  SAMIA: have they picked him up yet

  MALE-1: Not yet

  SAMIA: wonder if we r going to get brought in to this shit

  MALE-1: No

  MALE-1: They were all involved in drugs and taken down by the DEA

  SAMIA: dumb I would never fuck around with that shit

  MALE-1: They got greedy and stupid

  SAMIA: I told joe that too

  Samia and Stillwell didn’t seem to think they were going to be found out. Two months after they got word that LeRoux was in jail and was talking, Stillwell posted a snapshot of himself on his Facebook page, reclining on a motorcycle, with this caption:

  Welcome Blood Money to the family! She is wearing her winter color for now. SOON to show up in her new warpaint!!
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br />   The photo showed a police edition Harley-Davidson Road King, the model the company manufactured for police forces. Police Harleys were always white. Stillwell must have bought a police chopper that had been sold as surplus. Did he mean he intended to paint it with some of the cash Hunter paid him for the Lee murder?

  The prosecutors in Manhattan presented the case to the federal grand jury and filed a sealed indictment of Samia and Stillwell on July 14, 2015. The pair was charged with conspiracy to murder and kidnap a person in a foreign country, using a firearm in a crime of violence and conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

  Cindric and Stouch went to Roxboro and explained the situation to Sheriff Dewey Jones of Person County and Sergeant Mark Massey, who ran the sheriff’s Special Operations Division and Special Response Team, a SWAT-like unit that handled dangerous arrests. Massey and his deputies would take the lead in arresting Samia and Stillwell. It would be an amazing bit of luck if the men were even around Roxboro.

  But if they were there, the situation was risky. Cops all over America were getting shot at traffic stops, by people who didn’t have criminal records. These men had already killed, and the emails indicated that Samia, at least, was actively looking to do it again. Together, the two men probably owned more guns than some small countries.

  Massey said, no problem, Samia was a regular at Dalton’s, the saloon across from the sheriff’s office. That was the way it was in a small town. The deputies all knew him and knew all about his huge gun collection. They came up with a plan for avoiding a shootout with him.

  On July 22, 2015, Massey had the sheriff’s assistant telephone Samia and tell him to come by the department to renew the paperwork for his license to carry a concealed weapon. She was a gentle, soft-spoken woman whom Samia would not suspect of lying. When Samia showed up, shortly after 9:30 a.m., Massey, Cindric, and Stouch were there to meet him. They told him he was under arrest for conspiracy to commit a kidnap and murder in a foreign country, carrying a firearm in a crime of violence, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They relieved him of the handgun on his hip.