Introduction to the $andycrotch Files

by Sasha Steingard, independent journalist and citizen activist

Independent journalist and citizen activist Sasha Steingard was supposed to be the sixteenth victim. His investigation into $andycrotch - the hiring platform turned murder marketplace - isn't just another tech exposé, but a survivor's attempt to understand why his friends died and he lived. Through a combination of leaked internal documents, pattern analysis, and firsthand experience with the platform's deadly evolution, Steingard methodically unravels how $andycrotch was used to systematically destroy three leftist movements in Chicago through fifteen precisely orchestrated assassinations. As a member of one of the targeted groups and the sole survivor of what he calls the "Typhon sequence," Steingard's investigation suggests these weren't random acts of violence, but a carefully conducted symphony of political elimination. Now, after three years of research, he's publishing his findings to prove these deaths weren't just connected - they were composed.

A startup accidentally creates a murder marketplace. That's the story everyone knows about $andycrotch. Simple software for hiring that leaked into something darker. But here's what no one's figured out yet: someone used it to systematically destroy three leftist movements in Chicago. Fifteen targeted assassinations, three movements wiped out, three people framed. I know because I almost became victim sixteen.

$andycrotch started clean. Upload a job, their AI matches candidates, handles scheduling, payroll, everything. The kind of boring B2B solution that makes venture capitalists rich. Then the code leaked. Some say accidentally, some say not. What matters is what happened next: someone stripped out the corporate safeguards, turned it into a pure protocol. Anyone could post any job, anonymously. The AI would find someone willing to do it.

At first it was harmless. Teenagers hiring other teenagers to deliver valentines. Startups paying people to stand in line for concert tickets. Then the jobs got darker. And then the murders started.

A venture capitalist found in his pool in the Hamptons. Three social media influencers killed mid-livestream. A megachurch pastor in his private jet. A crypto billionaire in his panic room. The murders seemed random, disconnected. Different methods, different cities, different killers. The only common thread was that impossible timing, that perfect execution. Someone was using $andycrotch like a murder symphony, conducting killers across the country.

But these were just the opening notes. The Kenwood assassinations followed historical patterns - Chrissie Liam's press secretary found like JFK in Dallas, her campaign manager staged like MLK in Memphis. Each death an echo of past political violence.

I was supposed to be part of a different pattern - the Typhon sequence. I just happened to be late that day. Late enough to find what they did to my friends instead of joining them.

Three years later, I think I finally understand why. Let me show you how deep this goes.

The files break into five parts. First, internal documents from $andycrotch itself - emails, Slack conversations, bug reports, design documents. You see the platform evolving, becoming something its creators didn't intend. Or maybe they did. The early warnings were there, buried in feature requests and client feedback.

Then three sets of murders, each with their own logic. The Echidna killings targeted a Marxist reading group, working inward from the periphery to the core, ending with Rick Petrakis, the leader they blamed. The Typhon sequence - my old collaborators, my friends - each death staged like a Greek myth gone wrong. And finally, the Kenwood Movement: six assassinations that mirrored famous political killings, culminating in Chrissie Liam's supposed suicide in police custody.

The fifth section is mine. I have a theory about who orchestrated this, about why they needed these specific deaths in this specific order. I could be wrong. That's why I'm sharing these files - to test my hypothesis, to see if you spot the same patterns I do.

Because if I'm right about the killer's identity, this isn't over. Not by a long shot.