CARLISLE, PA. Filmmaker faces murder charge

Authorities say an Internet 'hit-man' manual may have been used.
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) -- An aspiring horror-movie maker who was nearly finished with his first project about five backpackers done in by the ghost of a vengeful coal-mining baron has himself been ensnarled in a macabre mystery, charged in the murder-for-hire slaying of his co-worker's wife.
Police charged Blaine M. Norris, 25, with murder in the Jan. 10 stabbing death of Randi Lee Trimble, 28, in her suburban Harrisburg home after he was promised "substantial" payment from the life insurance policy that would have been paid to her husband, authorities said. Police arrested him last week.
The husband, Brian T. Trimble, 28, was arrested and charged in May after he surrendered to police and, authorities said, told them he had promised Norris payment if Norris murdered his wife.
Trimble was "tired" of his wife and benefited financially from her death, quickly spending the $20,000 she had saved up in the couple's joint bank account, said M.L. Ebert, Cumberland County district attorney.
Web site
Ebert said authorities are investigating whether an online "hit man" how-to manual may have been used in the crime. The affidavit for a search warrant says Brian Trimble sent the Internet link to the Web site for "Hit Man On-Line" to Norris' computer eight days before the murder.
While the methods of stabbing a victim and then covering up the murder were not exactly a "road map" to what investigators found at the Trimbles' East Pennsboro home, there were similarities, said Ebert and court documents.
To have "two white middle-class guys with good jobs discussing [Hit Man On-Line] and then have one of their wives murdered" stretched credulity unless they were involved, Ebert said.
Norris' attorney, Michael Rentschler, said he believes his client is innocent, but declined comment on the defense he will present at a preliminary hearing scheduled for Friday. Prosecutors plan to pursue the death penalty against Norris.
Bill Braught, a public defender representing Brian Trimble, said that his client has "spoken with the police and told them of his involvement in his wife's murder," but declined to comment on why Trimble allegedly planned the murder.
Last summer, Norris, a horror film and backpacking enthusiast, assembled a cast and crew to produce a movie script he had written, called "Through Hike," about five friends who set out to hike the Appalachian Trail but end up getting murdered by the ghost of a coal mining baron who had been murdered a century or so ago.
Soon after the project began, Norris told the cast and crew that an investor who was financing the project had pulled out, but he assured them that he would find a way to finance the movie, cast members said.
A rough cut of the movie was nearly finished, they added.