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Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

As someone who's never participated in a bounty what is the difference between a "clean" vs. "non-clean" hit?

I would imagine a 'clean hit' is one made to look like an accident and a 'non-clean' one doesn't take the same precautions?

The police couldn't find a record of the alleged murder victim, so I'm guessing that "redandwhite" and "friendlychemist" were the same person, just playing a con on DPR to get some cash.

Wouldn't "non-clean" be cheaper then, if fewer precautions are being taken?

I took it to mean fast and relatively painless versus protracted suffering, i.e. "non-clean", messy.

I suspect doing a "clean" hit requires more skill and experience.

i was thinking the exact same thing ...

I'm just assuming it was sloppy grammar, similar to "We have two sizes, large and small, they go for $5 or $10."

Without the 'respectively', it's ambiguous whether the clean or non-clean were the cheaper of the two alternatives.

Or that he got the $300K clean for the $150k price and thus there's no trace?

That would be a very risky con. DPR had friendlychemist's real name and could have hired a different hitman.

Perhaps the name was fake?

That can't happen on the internet; it's against the law.

If Person A has known motive to kill Person B, in a "non-clean" hit Person A will immediately come under suspicion. If the hit is "clean", anything could have happened and it's a lot harder to establish it as a murder and therefore Person A has a much lower risk of being brought into the case.

Non-clean example: Pull up next to their vehicle at a traffic light, put a few bullets in their head and drive off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Guerin#Murder

Clean: Traffic accident, apparent suicide, etc.

I would infer clean means no trace, where non-clean means just do it, don't worry about cleaning up.

But wouldn't the hitman want to clean up since... they did it?

Depends how they did it. Shoot someone with an unregistered or stolen rifle from long distance, capture your brass, destroy the rifle and brass. Obviously a murder, if it were done that way. Very little effort involved, and what've the cops really got then?

You'd probably create more evidence trying to make it look like an accident than you'd clear up just by doing it some easier way.

> or stolen

That would be hazardous in my opinion. Now you have two places where you can place the preparator.

It really depends on where you are. There are vast rural areas in USA, for instance, in which there are many rifles the theft of which wouldn't even be noticed for weeks. Just don't take them during the month before deer season.

My guess is that "clean" includes disposal of the body and other evidence. Like in movies where people call up the "cleaner" after a murder to make the bodies disappear (e.g., "Victor the Cleaner" in Point of No Return).

considering non-clean is twice the price of clean, I would guess non-clean includes "sending a message"/torture before the death.

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