ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The publisher of a how-to book for hit men thinks his right to free speech protects him against a lawsuit filed by the relatives of three people slain in a contract killing, his lawyer said Wednesday.
``He has a great deal of sympathy for the family,'' said Dan Hale, attorney for Boulder-Colo.-based publisher Peder Lund. ``But he feels his First Amendment rights allow for the publication of books such as `Hit Man.'''
Lund's Paladin Press, publisher of ``Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors,'' is being sued by relatives of an 8-year-old quadriplegic boy, Trevor Horn, who was killed along with his mother and nurse two years ago in Silver Spring, Md., a Washington suburb.
The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., alleges that the killer used tips from ``Hit Man'' to carry out the murders. The suit seeks unspecified damages from the publisher.
James Edward Perry, 47, of Detroit, was convicted and sentenced to death for the March 3, 1993, murders of Trevor, his mother, Mildred Horn, 43, and his nurse, Janice Saunders, 38.
Prosecutors said Trevor's father, Lawrence Horn, ordered the murders so he could take control of the $1.7 million the family was awarded by a Washington, D.C., hospital after an accident left the boy a quadriplegic.
Horn, who is charged with murder and conspiracy to murder, goes on trial in April. He and Mildred Horn were divorced.
Hale acknowledged that ``Hit Man'' was found in Perry's possession after the murders, but said ``there is no way that they can prove he was forced to buy it. Paladin Press does not mass distribute its publications, and the book had to be special-ordered.''
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB