Novato website roots out those who want to hire hitman

NOVATO, Calif. (KGO) -- A Bay Area man has created a website that has had the unintended effect of rooting out people who want to have someone else killed. It's called rentahitman.com, a site that wasn't meant to be about killing anyone, at all.

It's a website that started as one thing and and has turned into quite another.

"The original intention of the domain was for information and technology purposes," said Bob Innes, who created his website rentahitman.com back in 2005, with a group of fellow tech students.

"Rentahitman.com. Rent as in hire us. Hit as in web hit and men, well the group of us," Innes explains.

But over the years, some of the inquiries Innes has received have been frightening -- even criminal.

"There were a few that were actually soliciting to have others harmed," said Innes.

In one email, under services requested, a man from Los Angeles writes: "Kill two people I hate and take the car keys and deliver the car to me."

In another, a man from New England writes: "I don't have money on me however your targets have a lot of money. When you kill take their wallets."

Some even offer suggested methods: "Guns. Bombs. Anything or way to remove them."

If the solicitor seems serious, Innes will start a dialogue and ask if they'd like a "field operative" to contact them.

"And the rest is history. That's when I pass it on to my network of over 17,935 field operatives in the U.S.," said Innes, who explained the "field operatives" are actually law enforcement.

Over the years, Innes claims he's worked with investigators to save more than 100 lives in the U.S. and as far away as Canada and Indonesia.

He's even had individuals write to him seeking a job as a hitman.

And though the website is not the IT money-maker he hoped it would be, Innes says rentahitman.com has provided him with plenty in return.

"If I didn't get the email, somebody else could have and lives could've been lost."