Bio

Lawrence Thomas "L.T." Horn was born on April 18, 1940. He served in the U.S. Navy, where he worked as a disc jockey aboard the USS Lake Champlain; his ex-wife Mildred later said he had bragged to her about shoving a fellow sailor overboard during his naval service and making it look like an accident. Horn went on to a notable career in the music industry, working as a recording engineer for Motown Records in Detroit and later Los Angeles during the label's peak years in the 1960s, where he supervised mixing and recording sessions for acts including the Supremes and Smokey Robinson. He married Mildred, a flight attendant, in 1972; the couple had a daughter, Tiffani, in 1974, and twins, Tamielle and Trevor, on August 8, 1984.

On September 16, 1986, when Trevor was not yet two years old, a medical error during a hospital procedure left him with brain damage and quadriplegia, requiring around-the-clock nursing care for the rest of his life. A lawsuit over the medical error resulted in a trust fund of roughly $1.75 to $2 million established in Trevor's name; under its terms, Lawrence Horn stood to inherit the entire fund if both Trevor and his mother, who had since divorced Horn and gained custody of the children, were to die.

By 1990, Horn had been laid off from his position at Motown and had fallen into significant debt. Through his cousin, Thomas Turner — who had met a Detroit man named James Edward Perry in prison in the 1970s — Horn was introduced to Perry, a career criminal with prior convictions for armed robbery. By late 1992, Horn had contracted with Perry to murder Mildred, Trevor, and whichever nurse happened to be caring for Trevor on the night of the attack.

Murder Story

In the early morning hours of March 3, 1993, James Edward Perry entered Mildred Horn’s home in Montgomery County, Maryland. Mildred’s sister, Vivian Rice, arrived at about 7:15 a.m. to check on Trevor because Mildred was scheduled to work an early American Airlines flight. Rice noticed the garage door open, heard Trevor’s apnea monitor sounding, and later saw Mildred’s body near the front doorway. Police found Mildred Horn, Trevor Horn, and nurse Janice Roberts Saunders dead inside the home.

Mildred Horn and Janice Saunders died from gunshot wounds to the head. Trevor Horn died by suffocation after his air supply was cut off. Court records state that Mildred was found near the front doorway, Trevor was in his bed, and Saunders was found in Trevor’s bedroom.

The murders were staged to look like a burglary. Items were disturbed, and Perry took property including credit cards and a watch. However, investigators found that valuable items had been left behind, and the crime scene did not fit an ordinary robbery. The later civil case against Paladin Press described how Perry followed instructions from the book Hit Man, including using an AR-7 rifle, altering the weapon, collecting cartridge casings, staging a robbery, and disposing of weapon parts along Route 28 in Montgomery County.

Investigators tied Perry to the area through motel and telephone records. He had registered at a Days Inn in Rockville near the crime scene on the night of the murders. The prosecution also presented evidence of many calls between locations linked to Horn and Perry, including pay phones, hotels, and locations in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Maryland.

Horn was arrested in Los Angeles on July 19, 1994, after he and Perry were indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Perry was arrested in Detroit. Horn’s attorney said at the time that Horn would return voluntarily to Maryland to stand trial.

Perry was tried first. In October 1995, he was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy and was sentenced to death. His convictions were later overturned in post-conviction proceedings, and after a 2001 retrial, he was again convicted and sentenced to three life sentences without parole, plus life for conspiracy.

Horn’s trial took place in Frederick County, Maryland, after a change of venue. On May 3, 1996, a jury found him guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of murder conspiracy. The jury found that he had hired Perry to kill Mildred Horn, Trevor Horn, and Janice Saunders so he could benefit financially from Trevor’s estate.

On May 16, 1996, Horn was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The jury declined to impose the death penalty after weighing mitigating factors, including Horn’s lack of prior violent crime and testimony about his professional skills and background. The Washington Post reported that relatives of the victims were disappointed by the sentence because Perry had received death sentences in the earlier trial.

The case also led to a major civil lawsuit against Paladin Press, publisher of Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors. The families of the victims argued that the book aided Perry in planning and carrying out the murders. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the First Amendment did not automatically bar the lawsuit because the plaintiffs alleged that the publisher knowingly assisted criminal conduct. The case was later settled, and Paladin agreed to stop selling the book and destroy remaining copies.

Lawrence T. Horn remained in prison until his death in February 2017.