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Speaker 1: Just before sunrise on June fourteenth, two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 1: Kimberly and Christopher Vaughan packed their three kids into the

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Speaker 1: car and headed to a water park in Springfield, Illinois,

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Speaker 1: but the road trips soon turned deadly. Kimberly Vaughan was

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Speaker 1: fatally shot under the chin in the front passenger seat,

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Speaker 1: and gunfire from that direction also killed their three children.

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Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan was discovered limping alongside the road, suffering.

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Speaker 2: From two gunshot wounds.

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Speaker 1: His first words were, I think my wife shot me.

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Speaker 1: Could a mother possibly have done this to her own family?

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Speaker 1: Police theorized that Christopher Vaughan must have staged the scene

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Speaker 1: to appear like a murder suicide, sending him away for the.

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Speaker 2: Rest of his natural life.

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Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given

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Speaker 1: voice to him and people in prison, and now we're

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Speaker 1: expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three

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Speaker 1: three two O seven four six sixty six and tell

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Speaker 1: us how these stories make you feel and what you've

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Speaker 1: done to help the cause, even if it's something as

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Speaker 1: simple as telling a friend or sharing on social media,

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Speaker 1: and you might just hear yourself in a future episode.

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Speaker 1: Call us eight three, three, two oh seven, four six

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Speaker 1: sixty six. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction and joining us

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Speaker 1: from a correctional facility in Illinois. We have a man

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Speaker 1: that should have but never was able to grieve the

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Speaker 1: loss of his wife, Kimberly and their three beloved children,

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Speaker 1: but instead was snatched away from their funeral and blamed

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Speaker 1: for their deaths. Christopher Vaughan. I can't none of us

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Speaker 1: can begin to understand your pain or your resilience, but

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Speaker 1: we're very honored to have you here with us today.

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Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you guys taking the time and interest,

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Speaker 3: I really do.

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Speaker 1: You're very welcome and joining us today, as well as

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Speaker 1: Chris's attorney, Keith Altman, who's expertise in pharmaceutical side effects

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Speaker 1: will help shed light on this unspeakable tragedy. And Keith,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much.

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Speaker 2: For being here.

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Speaker 4: You're welcome.

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Speaker 2: You're welcome.

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Speaker 1: Later on, we're going to speak with one of our

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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction hosts, Lauren Bright Pacheco, whose podcast Murder in

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Speaker 1: Illinois was the first time that almost anyone heard Chris's

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Speaker 1: side of the story. But before he ever needed, or

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Speaker 1: ever thought he would need, any sort of advocacy, he

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Speaker 1: grew up pretty much like anybody else.

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Speaker 3: I was born in Indiana, we moved to Missouri. I've

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Speaker 3: got two younger brothers. We spent a lot of time

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Speaker 3: on sports, cub scouts. I did reasonably well in high school,

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Speaker 3: graduated in ninety three. Went to the University of Missouri Raala,

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Speaker 3: focused on an electrical engineering degree, and I had met

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Speaker 3: Kimberly the summer before college. To be frank, I mean,

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Speaker 3: dating was one thing, but we didn't have consistent pictures

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Speaker 3: of what the future looked like. At the end of

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Speaker 3: that first year of college, we found out she was pregnant,

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Speaker 3: and when I had got married, Abby was born in December.

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Speaker 3: Providing for Kimberly and the baby was my number one focus,

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Speaker 3: so I went ahead and dropped out of college and

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Speaker 3: was focusing on getting a local job. I had started

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Speaker 3: down a technology career path as the Internet was really

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Speaker 3: growing in the mid to late nineties. Information risk management

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Speaker 3: that's where my focus was, so I worked for a

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Speaker 3: variety of different consulting companies. There was significantly more work

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Speaker 3: out there for consultants in my niche market, so I

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Speaker 3: started my own consulting company.

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Speaker 1: Chris's successful private cybersecurity firm eventually got him hired by

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Speaker 1: a large international firm out of Chicago, and this success

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Speaker 1: allowed the family to grow from Abbey to Cassandra just

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Speaker 1: a year later, and then Blake three years later.

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Speaker 2: On.

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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the stress of parenthood on this young couple, who

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Speaker 1: were seemingly more chosen by fate than by each other, well,

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Speaker 1: that stress began to take a toll.

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Speaker 3: Living together was rocky. We both early on we're really

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Speaker 3: trying to make it work, and we had pretty much

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Speaker 3: come into the understanding that we were both happy being

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Speaker 3: part of the family and for the kids, we'd stay

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Speaker 3: together and we provide the happiest and most nurturing home

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Speaker 3: possible for them, but as soon as they were out

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Speaker 3: of the house, we would find our own past. And

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Speaker 3: it was fully my intention to continue to help her

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Speaker 3: out in any way form or fashion I could. I

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Speaker 3: sent her to school and tried to incorporate her into

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Speaker 3: the work I was doing, but it was still fully

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Speaker 3: my intention to pursue other avenues personally, and I believe

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Speaker 3: wasn't something that she was looking forward to.

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Speaker 4: So Kim is very unhappy and having mental health details

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Speaker 4: and she's being treated and one of the medications that

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Speaker 4: she's been given as a drug called topiramate. The trade

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Speaker 4: name is topomax, which is really an anti convulsant. It's

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Speaker 4: normally given to people with epilepsy, but people have been

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Speaker 4: using it for mental health treatment as well. But what

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Speaker 4: neither she nor her doctor knew at the time is

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Speaker 4: that topomax had an increased risk of suicidal and self

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Speaker 4: injurious behavior. Now Johnson and Johnson knew this, and they

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Speaker 4: didn't tell the FDA, but nevertheless, shortly before the incident,

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Speaker 4: her dosage was changed of this drug. And one of

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Speaker 4: the things that these drugs are notorious for is that

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Speaker 4: when you change the dosage, that can lead to increased

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Speaker 4: negative mood and behavioral disturbances, the kind of things that

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Speaker 4: could cause you to take actions that you might not

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Speaker 4: have normally taken.

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Speaker 1: Which brings us up to June fourteenth, two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 1: when the couple woke up before sunrise and packed the kids,

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Speaker 1: half asleep into the car for the about three hour

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Speaker 1: drive to a water park in Springfield, Illinois.

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Speaker 3: The night before was one of Kimberla and I's many

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Speaker 3: disagreements and turned more into a spiteful argument of well

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Speaker 3: I don't spend enough time at home with the kids,

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Speaker 3: she doesn't spend enough time helping out and partic dating

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Speaker 3: with the family, And then back and forth and eventually

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Speaker 3: led to well, let's just do something together as a

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Speaker 3: family tomorrow. And in the morning got the kids up

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Speaker 3: and out to the truck, and we sat in the

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Speaker 3: truck and waited for her to come out. I remember,

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Speaker 3: particularly that morning, I had to go back up to

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Speaker 3: the front door and holler up the stairs. Eventually she

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Speaker 3: did come down through her stuff in the truck. We

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Speaker 3: left the house. It was after the point we got

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Speaker 3: on the highway. She said she wasn't feeling well, so

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Speaker 3: I found a place off the side of the road.

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Speaker 3: After I parked the truck, I asked her, you know,

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Speaker 3: is still feeling bad? She needed a few minutes, And

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Speaker 3: she really just didn't say much of anything, So I

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Speaker 3: opted to give her a few minutes. When ahead and

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Speaker 3: jumped out. Kids were asleep in the back, and I

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Speaker 3: went around and just did miscellaneous things, checked the luggage rack,

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Speaker 3: looked at the tires, and that's when I'd heard just

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Speaker 3: a horrendous racket, and I was heading for my door

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Speaker 3: to get in and find out what was going on.

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Speaker 3: I pulled the door open, and I was looking at

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Speaker 3: Kim holding the gun. She looked at me and she said,

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Speaker 3: you won't take my kids away from me. She says,

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Speaker 3: you killed them, and then she starts firing a gun

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Speaker 3: at me. And I was tumbling backward and trying to

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Speaker 3: come forward and not making much progress doing anything, And

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Speaker 3: that's when she turned the gun on herself.

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Speaker 4: In the backseat of the vehicle. The three children were

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Speaker 4: all shot twice. The ballistics show that all six shots

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Speaker 4: of the children converge over the passenger seats left shoulder,

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Speaker 4: as if somebody had turned around from the passenger seat

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Speaker 4: and fired the gun and the passenger seat of the vehicle.

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Speaker 4: Kim was shot under the chin straight up. The driver

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Speaker 4: of the vehicle, Chris, was shot in the hand and

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Speaker 4: through the leg. The shots are not fatal, but he

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Speaker 4: is seriously injured.

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Speaker 1: So there you are on the side of the road.

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Speaker 1: Had you actually looked in the car and seen what

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Speaker 1: she had done.

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Speaker 3: No more than a quick glance, probably I was just

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Speaker 3: too horrified to do anything. The vehicle had an eerie

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Speaker 3: stillness to it, the stillness when you're in a place

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Speaker 3: by yourself and the only thing I could think jop

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Speaker 3: was that I need to get help. Knowing that I

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Speaker 3: wasn't walking distance from anywhere closed, I thought, well, I'll

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Speaker 3: just drive the vehicle. And the way she was slumped,

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Speaker 3: I needed to not unbuckle her, but to buckle her.

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Speaker 3: But I was just shaking so uncontrollably trying to buckle

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Speaker 3: her and failing on the seatbelt.

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Speaker 4: Blood was found. Now one would think that if she

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Speaker 4: had been shot by Chris, as what was alleged, that

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Speaker 4: her blood would have been on the seatbelt, But it

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Speaker 4: turns out that it is not her blood that's on

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Speaker 4: the seatbelt. It's Chris's blood.

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Speaker 1: However, before the blood test, police theorized that Chris, who

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Speaker 1: had run a private security firm, never mind that it

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Speaker 1: was cybersecurity, but ignoring that, they came up with this

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Speaker 1: theory that he must have somehow been an expert in

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Speaker 1: staging crime scenes.

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Speaker 4: According to prosecutor, Chris is such a criminal mastermind that

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Speaker 4: he was able to make the scene look like she

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Speaker 4: had committed the crime he did. That, down to blood

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Speaker 4: spatter and all of these things. It is just simply prepossible.

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Speaker 4: But what it is is an admission from the prosecution

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Speaker 4: that the physical evidence does not support that Chris committed

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Speaker 4: the crime. It supports that she committed the crime.

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Speaker 1: Nevertheless, they alleged that Chris, who's by the way, just

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Speaker 1: under five foot nine, somehow reached into the passenger side

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Speaker 1: of a large SUV, shot Kim from under her chin,

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Speaker 1: then reached over her left shoulder, shooting each child twice,

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Speaker 1: then proceeded to unbuckle the seat belt stained with what

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Speaker 1: they believe was Kim's blood, to make it appear that

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Speaker 1: Kim had been free to make the shots. The theory

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Speaker 1: continued that Chris somehow inflicted two survivable gunshot wounds, one

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Speaker 1: to his left hand and one to his thigh. But

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Speaker 1: since the blood on the seat belt actually belonged to Chris,

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Speaker 1: it meant two things. One, the belt was not buckled

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Speaker 1: when Kim was shot, and the belt was stained after

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Speaker 1: Chris had been shot. Like he said, when he reached

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Speaker 1: across her, his left hand bloody pulled the belt, leaving

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Speaker 1: a stain, and then it retracted when he was unable

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Speaker 1: to buckle it.

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Speaker 3: And then I focused on the driving, but I was

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Speaker 3: just shaking so uncontrollably and just not thinking clearly enough

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Speaker 3: that driving wasn't going to be an option either, So

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Speaker 3: at that point I decided, okay, I just need to

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Speaker 3: find somebody that can make a phone call for me.

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Speaker 1: Chris then stumbled down the side of the highway, obviously

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Speaker 1: the state of shock with the two gunshot wounds, both

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Speaker 1: by the way without stippling a burn injury associated with

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Speaker 1: close range gunshots, so the shots had to have been

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Speaker 1: fired from at least eighteen inches away, if not thirty,

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Speaker 1: and the one in his thigh almost castrated him, so

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Speaker 1: we'd have to believe that he risked taking a distant

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Speaker 1: shot to stage a near miss with his testicles. Luckily

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Speaker 1: someone stopped to help him.

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Speaker 3: There was a man in a pickup truck and he

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Speaker 3: pulled up aside and asked something to the effect of

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Speaker 3: have you been in an accident? And, without thinking, the

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Speaker 3: first thing that came out of my mouth was I

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Speaker 3: think my wife shot me. It wasn't that much longer

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Speaker 3: that ambulances and police cars showed up, took me to

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Speaker 3: the hospital, released me back to the police station, and

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Speaker 3: that was the multi day interrogation. The stress of the

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Speaker 3: situation kept me in an imploded state, unable to think

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Speaker 3: and still horrified, confused because I don't think anyone in

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Speaker 3: their right mind could do anything like that. If I

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Speaker 3: had suspected that she was violent at all, I would

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Speaker 3: have taken steps years before that. But that was not

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Speaker 3: the Kim that I knew. And I remember saying that

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Speaker 3: in the interrogation, Kim could not have done this. That

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Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense. And the missing piece that I

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Speaker 3: didn't have at that point right after the tragedy was

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Speaker 3: the medication.

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Speaker 4: Well, it wasn't obvious to him, aha, It must have

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Speaker 4: been the topomax. He just knew he had a wife

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Speaker 4: who was in pain, she was still the mother of

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Speaker 4: his three children, who had done these terrible things. And

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Speaker 4: I think when you combined all of that together, he

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Speaker 4: just decided to say nothing.

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Speaker 1: Which is his right. But as we so often see

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Speaker 1: in cases like these, there are judgments about what is

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Speaker 1: the right way to react. Here, they already suspected Chris,

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Speaker 1: and when he was only expressing his bewilderment over what

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Speaker 1: Kim had done. The next question is then who did it,

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Speaker 1: at which point one might expect that he'd vehemently defend himself.

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Speaker 3: I can only sum it up in the word implosure.

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Speaker 3: Quite frankly, I was a shame that I had failed

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Speaker 3: my children and not seeing things ahead of time, been

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Speaker 3: better prepared or reacted in a better fashion. The physical

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Speaker 3: and the emotional pain was overwhelming, to the point where

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Speaker 3: I just couldn't string words together to make a sense,

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Speaker 3: let alone draw conclusions or be of any type of

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Speaker 3: productive help to my own defense.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 3: After I lost my kids, I lost my identity. I

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Speaker 3: saw myself as a dad, working and paying for a

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Speaker 3: house and taking care of the kids. At that point,

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Speaker 3: I lost meaning and purpose. The part that hurt even

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Speaker 3: more was that I was still here. I thought that

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Speaker 3: there had to have been a reason for that, because

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Speaker 3: I shouldn't be Had she completed what she had started,

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't have left that truck either. But the fact

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Speaker 3: that I did must mean that there's more meaning that

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Speaker 3: I'm supposed to be here. I've got a purpose. I

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Speaker 3: think that's what provided me with that little bit of

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Speaker 3: strength I needed to kind of start picking myself back up.

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Speaker 1: So with no confession, and the crime scene indicating Kim's guilt.

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Speaker 1: Chris was released into a cab wearing nothing but a

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Speaker 1: hospital gown. Meanwhile, there was even more at the scene

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Speaker 1: that supported Chris's innocence. For instance, d Vaughan's usually stored

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Speaker 1: their gun, a Taurus nine milimeter, in a closet in

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Speaker 1: a terrycloth towel.

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Speaker 3: There were crime scene pictures that showed a small white

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Speaker 3: towel covered in blood on Kim's leg, and when the

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Speaker 3: crime scene was processed, it was taken and washed and

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Speaker 3: sanitized and essentially destroyed as evidence.

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Speaker 1: Also, Kim's hands tested positive for gunshot residue, and while

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Speaker 1: a positive gunshot residence test has limited value, a negative

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Speaker 1: test can be used to exclude a suspect, but Chris's

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Speaker 1: hands were never tested. At least the crime seat investigator

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Speaker 1: Bob Deal was actively challenging the state's theory, citing the

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Speaker 1: bullet trajectory, the issue of Chris's smaller stature, the fact

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Speaker 1: that there were no signs of a struggle with Kim,

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Speaker 1: as well as the way the blood had hit her hand,

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Speaker 1: all of it serving as clear indications that she and

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Speaker 1: she alone had shot that gun. But Bob Deal the

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Speaker 1: investigator was ignored, and they continued to seek death penalty

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Speaker 1: even after the DNA testing revealed that the blood on

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Speaker 1: the seat belt indeed belonged to Chris.

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Speaker 4: Before the grand jury wasnt panel, they knew the blood

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Speaker 4: on the seat belt was Chris's. We know this because

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Speaker 4: there's a phone lock where the forensic examiner detailed that

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Speaker 4: she told the state's attorney that the blood was not Kims.

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Speaker 4: When the grand jury was to decide whether Chris would

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Speaker 4: be indicted or not, the question over the blood was

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Speaker 4: presented very craftily. The officer is never asked whose blood

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Speaker 4: was on the seat belt, But when you look at

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Speaker 4: the transcript, it is clear that the way the questions

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Speaker 4: were asked it was meant so that the jury would

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Speaker 4: infer reasonably infer that the blood on the seat belt

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Speaker 4: was Kim's and not Chris's.

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Speaker 1: The following is a quote from the exchange between state's

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Speaker 1: attorney Leah Norbit and the lead investigator, Sergeant Gary Lawson.

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Speaker 2: Quote.

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Speaker 1: They looked at the seat belt, right, Yes, as if

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Speaker 1: the seat belt were pulled to be seat belting. Someone

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Speaker 1: in correct, and there was blood on that seat belt?

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Speaker 2: Was there not? Yes?

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Speaker 1: And when Kimberly Vaughan was found by the paramedics and

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Speaker 1: by the police. She was not wearing a seat belt.

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Speaker 2: Correct.

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Speaker 1: Is significant because she was wearing that seat belt when

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Speaker 1: she was shot. That's correct end quote. If she had

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Speaker 1: been wearing the seat belt when she was shot, it

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Speaker 1: would have had to have been her blood, but it

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Speaker 1: wasn't Kim's blood.

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Speaker 4: It completely refutes the prosecution's allegations as to what happened

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Speaker 4: in this case. It's all documented. The other thing that

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Speaker 4: was interesting is that before the grand jury, the forensic

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Speaker 4: report was mark draft, and then the day after the

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Speaker 4: grand jury comes out with its finding, the forensic report

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Speaker 4: it's changed from draft to final, and that examiner was

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Speaker 4: asked why did she do that? And her response was

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Speaker 4: I was told to do it, and she wouldn't answer

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Speaker 4: any further.

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Speaker 1: It appears that marking the report final the day after

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Speaker 1: the grand jury indictment offered an appearance of plausible deniability

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Speaker 1: to the assistant state's attorney and Sergeant Gary Lawson. But

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Speaker 1: now they had their indictment and they had chosen to

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Speaker 1: arrest Chris while he was at the funeral of his

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Speaker 1: wife and children. The cruelty of the whole thing be

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Speaker 1: damned and effectively preparing for a capital trial, well, we

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Speaker 1: know that can take quite some time.

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Speaker 3: I didn't go to trial until twenty twelve, so I

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Speaker 3: was in the will County jail from two thousand and

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Speaker 3: seven to twenty twelve.

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Speaker 4: He was treated very poorly because of what it was

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Speaker 4: alleged that he had done, but he was under the

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Speaker 4: death penalty at the time, and there were funds provided

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Speaker 4: by the state to get the best attorneys, get the

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Speaker 4: best experts. And when I first became exposed to the case,

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Speaker 4: which is actually I had just been sworn in as

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Speaker 4: an attorney, but I had been doing the farmer covigilance

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Speaker 4: safety surveillance of drugs. That's how I got involved in

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Speaker 4: the case in the first place. And I remember sitting

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Speaker 4: in a room in Clayton, near Saint Louis with what

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Speaker 4: I considered to be the dream team of criminal defense lawyers,

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Speaker 4: and the ballistics expert had shown how it just was

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Speaker 4: totally inconsistent with Chris having shot the gun. And then

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Speaker 4: when you combine that with the topamax and at the

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Speaker 4: time I had seen a document from Johnson and Johnson

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Speaker 4: where they had concluded that Topermax increased the risk of

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Speaker 4: suicidal itself and Juri's behavior, but they never told the FDA.

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Speaker 4: So it was only after I petitioned the FDA for

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Speaker 4: action that things started to happen. And I remember sitting

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Speaker 4: there and saying, there's just no way this happening.

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Speaker 1: Chris's dream team continued to develop their defense, even deposing

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Speaker 1: the crime scene investigator Robert Dial in January twenty eleven

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Speaker 1: about the investigation, and deal said, quote, every time that

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Speaker 1: I offered up something that was contrary to what they said,

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Speaker 1: they had some reason why I didn't know what I

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Speaker 1: was talking about, or they would change their theory of

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Speaker 1: what happened to try to match the evidence, rather than

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Speaker 1: letting the evidence dictate the events that occurred.

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Speaker 2: Quote, I know he.

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Speaker 4: Was taken off the case. And you know, once again,

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Speaker 4: the confirmation bias get rid of anybody that may have

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Speaker 4: an alternate explanation as to what happened.

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Speaker 1: It's this horribly flawed human element that makes abolishing the

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Speaker 1: death penalty and absolute moral imperative. And then that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what happened. Illinois abolished the death penalty in March twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: but this had paradoxically an unintended and ultimately tragic consequence

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Speaker 1: for Chris.

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Speaker 4: When the death penalty got taken off the table, the

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Speaker 4: funds for his defense also evaporated.

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Speaker 3: It was going to continue to be so expensive to

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Speaker 3: finish out what needed to be done. In my attorney

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Speaker 3: there in Illinois, he showed up and he just apologized.

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Speaker 3: It just wasn't possible.

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Speaker 4: And the case was assigned to a public defender, and

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Speaker 4: they're overloaded, overworked, they don't have the resources. I remember

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Speaker 4: the public defender spending about five minutes with me on

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Speaker 4: the phone, and that was the last time I ever

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Speaker 4: heard from the public defender. I think he did ask

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Speaker 4: me if I would appear pro bono that there were

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Speaker 4: no funds, and I wasn't on my own, I was

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Speaker 4: working for somebody and I had just been told to

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Speaker 4: stop what I was doing. We hadn't done a report yet,

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Speaker 4: and so it is clear that the substantial evidence that

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Speaker 4: was being developed of Chris's innocence was not going to

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Speaker 4: be available to him.

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Speaker 1: The Public Defender team had to become fully steeped in

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Speaker 1: everything that had been developed over five years to combat

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Speaker 1: the States team, which had been working together for just

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Speaker 1: as long.

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Speaker 3: It's like going to the World Series and removing one

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Speaker 3: of the teams, getting them from a little league park

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Speaker 3: and throwing them in and say, oh, go ahead and

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Speaker 3: do your best.

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Speaker 1: You were also facing a situation where I have to

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Speaker 1: believe you were one of the most hated people in

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Speaker 1: the state of Illinois.

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Speaker 3: I know. The state's attorney was very vocal, and they

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Speaker 3: used the media to the nth degree to make sure

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Speaker 3: that the stage was set for their advantage.

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Speaker 1: So the scales of justice were certainly tipped all the

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Speaker 1: way to one side as the trial was set to

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Speaker 1: begin in August of twenty twelve. But as we so

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Speaker 1: often see, when the physical evidence is weak, the state

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Speaker 1: focus is on circumstantial evidence. So they dug into the

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Speaker 1: Vaughn's marriage and the arrangement that they had, presenting bombshells

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Speaker 1: like Chris had gone to strip clubs.

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Speaker 4: A lot of men go to strip clubs, a lot

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Speaker 4: of women go to strip clubs. A lot of men

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Speaker 4: who are happily married go to strip clubs. The fact

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Speaker 4: that somebody goes to a strip club doesn't speak anything

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Speaker 4: as to the state of their marital relationship or lack thereof.

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Speaker 4: It means absolutely nothing the other situation, Chris was into

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Speaker 4: survival type things, hunting, being out in the woods, stuff

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Speaker 4: he had grown up with his whole life. They took

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Speaker 4: the fact that he had a friend who talked about

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Speaker 4: these things going to go off grid meant that he

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Speaker 4: was planning to do this crime, go off grid and

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Speaker 4: live his days out.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that he'd choose to begin that

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Speaker 1: life with two debilitating gunshot wounds, but okay, it's just posterous.

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Speaker 4: During the trial, I think the prosecution present at seven

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Speaker 4: hundred exhibits, They had about fifty witnesses. The public defender,

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00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 4: put on a limited defense here, did not have the

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Speaker 4: tools to properly defend Chris. First of the prosecution, who

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Speaker 4: had effectively unlimited resources, he had not really presented the

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Speaker 4: drug issue. I know it was mentioned lightly during the trial,

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Speaker 4: but the experts that had been retained were not consulted,

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Speaker 4: and the jury found him guilty in what an hour

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Speaker 4: or so with all of that information, How could they

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Speaker 4: possibly have reviewed that information?

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Speaker 1: Jury foreman Dan Leche expressed that there was no doubt

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Speaker 1: in the juror's minds of Vaughan's guilt and that they

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Speaker 1: never even considered the defense's argument that Kimberly Vaughn had

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Speaker 1: actually committed the murders. The drug issue was not effectively raised,

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Speaker 1: a forensic expert did not effectively expose the state's nonsensical theory,

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Speaker 1: and the jury bought what they'd already heard in an media,

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Speaker 1: and Chris was found guilty on four accounts of first

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Speaker 1: degree murder, for which he received four consecutive life sentences.

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Speaker 3: To have been convicted of this was beyond my comprehension.

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Speaker 3: I've been raised to believe in the courtroom and the

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Speaker 3: judge and the jury, and they're going to find justice.

441
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 3: These are open minded people that are there to look

442
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 3: at the facts. And it wasn't until that very end

443
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 3: that I realized that everything that I had believed in

444
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 3: and that trust that I had placed in that system

445
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 3: was all or not. It's nothing like you see on TV.

446
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 3: It's not like you see in the movies. There's parts

447
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,640
Speaker 3: of it that are more grotesque and more violent than

448
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 3: they're probably allowed to show on TV. But there's a

449
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 3: lot of good people in here. There's a lot of

450
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: people that have definitely committed crimes, but there's a lot

451
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 3: of people that have learned their lessons when I got

452
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 3: to prison, I really didn't know what to expect, and

453
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,360
Speaker 3: I was frankly scared out of my mind. But early

454
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 3: on some of the older guys with life sentences pulled

455
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 3: me aside, and the advice that they gave me was

456
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 3: that the quicker that I can accept my sentence and

457
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 3: the quicker that I can get adjusted to this being

458
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 3: home for the rest of my life. They said, it's

459
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 3: just going to be that much easier on you. They said,

460
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,919
Speaker 3: don't trust and hope. All that's going to do is

461
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 3: wear you down, make you sick, and eat you up.

462
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 3: They said, make the best of each day and find

463
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 3: things that you can do to stay productive, find things

464
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 3: you can find meaning in. And for the first four

465
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 3: or five years that's what I really did. I was

466
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 3: still in contact with my parents and they still come

467
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 3: up once a month no matter where I am, no

468
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 3: matter where they are, they still come and visit me

469
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 3: in person, and I talked to them on home. But

470
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 3: essentially I made prison life first four or five years,

471
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 3: assuming that's where I was going to be. It was

472
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 3: quite some years before a very open minded person came

473
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 3: and decided to do a podcast on.

474
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: Me, and that podcast was called murder in Illinois, hosted

475
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: by our very own Lauren bred Pacheco.

476
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 5: I had been covering crime in New York for a

477
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 5: national show for a decade, and I had never heard

478
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 5: of this case until the ten year anniversary came up,

479
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 5: and so I started digging a little bit deeper, and

480
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 5: it became very obvious that it's because this case unfolded

481
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 5: under the same state's attorney in the same courtroom across

482
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 5: the hallway as another very infamous case, which was the

483
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 5: police sergeant Drew Peterson who had more than one wife

484
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:02,120
Speaker 5: go missing under dubious circumstances. And that just sucked all

485
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 5: the national bandwidth. And that's too bad, because more people

486
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 5: would have seen what I saw. There was tremendous reaction

487
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 5: to the podcast, both positive and negative. People wish death

488
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 5: on my children, that they hoped that I would experience

489
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 5: the loss that Kim had experienced. Again, I wasn't anticipating

490
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 5: that revisiting this case to see if justice was served

491
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 5: would just produce such incredible personal blowback. But there is

492
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 5: a very real pivot that happens when you know that

493
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 5: someone is innocent, where you no longer care that you

494
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 5: are criticized for being their champion. And that's the way

495
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 5: I feel for Chris. I have tremendous sympathy for Kim

496
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 5: for her family, But keep an ascent man in prison

497
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 5: is not going to bring the kids back, and it's

498
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 5: not going to bring Kem back. And so the only

499
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 5: semblance of justice left in this case is correcting this

500
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 5: agree us wrong.

501
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: She told us about the reinvestigation, which started with somebody

502
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: who our listeners might remember, Bill Clutter from the Rodney

503
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: Lincoln story, which will be linked in the episode description.

504
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 2: Now.

505
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: Bill's work as a private investigator led him to found

506
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: an organization called Investigating Innocence and also the Illinois Innocence Project,

507
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: and he had been hired as part of Chris's original

508
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: dream team.

509
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,959
Speaker 5: Bill Clutter had already done a lot of work in

510
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 5: terms of forensics and the medication she was on and

511
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 5: so when we joined forces and set out to make

512
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 5: Murder in Illinois, one of the things that we were

513
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 5: working towards was a crime scene reconstruction, which unfortunately is

514
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 5: an arduous, expensive undertaking. And so Jason, I reached out

515
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 5: to you. Sure enough, you saw what I saw. You

516
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 5: so graciously stepped forward and made the crime scene reconstruction

517
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 5: take place. Bill Clutter enlisted a former CSI named Katie Hartman,

518
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 5: who was meticulous in her approach, and she went through

519
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 5: Bob Diale's initial report with a fine tooth calmb and

520
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 5: was so impressed with the work that he had done.

521
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 5: She said she could see exactly everything within that suv.

522
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: And let's not forget how deeply Bob Deal disagreed with

523
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: the lead investigator and prosecutors on this case.

524
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 5: Bob Deal claims that within an hour that Detective Gary

525
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 5: Lawson had come up with this, in my opinion, asenine theory,

526
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 5: that Vaughn shot his wife through the passenger Explain then,

527
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 5: how there is no blood on the exterior of the car,

528
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 5: in the front or the back if he leaned through

529
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 5: this window of this gigantic suv. And Vaughan, keep in mind,

530
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 5: is five foot nine, maybe in dress heels. You know,

531
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 5: he is not a large, imposing man, and for him

532
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 5: to have gotten the trajectory didn't work, and Deal himself said, basically,

533
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 5: that's jack assery. Show me how he did it, and

534
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 5: Lawson couldn't because it was physically impossible, which is what

535
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 5: we then proved when we did the crime scene reconstruction.

536
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: But before the reconstruction, Lauren won Chris's trust. He wrote

537
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: a letter to his parents, finally explaining what had happened

538
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: that day, which he in turn shared with Lauren, and

539
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: it all matched up with what we were to discover

540
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: through the crime scene reconstruction.

541
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,959
Speaker 5: We enlisted actors who were roughly the same size as

542
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 5: Kim and Chris and put it in an identical vehicle

543
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 5: and played out the States theory and played out Chris's

544
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 5: theory again and again, and only one of them worked.

545
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 5: Only one of them was backed by the forensics, by

546
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 5: the blood in the car, and that was Christopher Vaughns.

547
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 5: And the moment when the actor recreating Chris's movements reached

548
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 5: forward and pulled that belt to try to get it

549
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 5: over the actress who was playing Kimberly's body, you see

550
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 5: exactly where his blood ended up by her foot, where

551
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 5: the blood smeared across the center console, all of it,

552
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 5: and it was such an eye opening, astounding moment of

553
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 5: undeniable proof. And with all of that, you still have

554
00:32:55,320 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 5: an innocent man who's lost everything, rotting in prison in Illinois.

555
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: Lauren also interviewed Keith for the podcast, which brought him

556
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: back onto Chris's team.

557
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 4: It had been haunting me about how he had been convicted,

558
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 4: and when she called me in and we talked about it,

559
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 4: when she told me about the letter and about him

560
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 4: talking about what had happened, and there was an opportunity

561
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 4: for me to get involved, I jumped on it. You know,

562
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 4: there are things afoot internally that we are not ready

563
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 4: to release yet, but I can tell you we're blaming

564
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 4: the third person in the car. There was Chris, it

565
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 4: was Kim, and there was Topomax. That is what it's

566
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 4: all about, because it does provide an explanation as to

567
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 4: what happened here. We intend to talk about the misconduct

568
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 4: by the prosecution during the grand jury, combined with the

569
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 4: psychological impact of what took place preventing him from really

570
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 4: assisting in his defense. And the goal is to get

571
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 4: him a new trial. We believe very strongly that's going

572
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 4: to lead to a different result.

573
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: Well, we certainly hope so. And if anyone in our

574
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: audience is move to act, what can we ask them

575
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: to do?

576
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 5: I would say to go to Keith Altman's website because

577
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 5: he has links on there. You know, I think we're

578
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 5: going to start another outreach of writing Governor Pritzker. Governor

579
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,760
Speaker 5: Pritzker is a fair, just man. I send him stuff

580
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 5: on Instagram constantly, just messages imploring him to take another

581
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 5: look at this case.

582
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: And we're going to leave ways to reach both Governor

583
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: Pritzker and Chris with messages of encouragement in the episode

584
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: description and with that we're going to go to closing arguments.

585
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: It's where I thank you again Keith, Lauren, and Chris

586
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,839
Speaker 1: for being here and sharing this unreal story. But it's

587
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: all too real. So I'm going to now turn my

588
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: microphone off and just listen to anything else you want

589
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: to share. Keith, why don't you kick it off? Then Lauren,

590
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: and then Chris, if you would please take us off

591
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 1: into the sunset.

592
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 4: This is a tough case. Three kids killed, mother shot

593
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 4: is one that doesn't sit well with anybody. Chris is

594
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 4: as much a victim here and prosecutors number one, they

595
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 4: need to have an open mind. They need to find

596
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,280
Speaker 4: out what might have happened, instead of deciding what happened

597
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 4: and then altering the investigation to fit that. It's important

598
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 4: that people have open minds, that they wait for the

599
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 4: evidence to come through because sometimes things are just not

600
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 4: quite as they seem, and upcoms Raiser really does play

601
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 4: a role here. The simplest explanation tends to be the

602
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 4: right one, and so we are very hopeful that we

603
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 4: will be able to get Chris a new trial, and

604
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 4: we're highly confident that we will be able to present

605
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 4: a very different picture as to what had happened.

606
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 5: I would just say, please, do not take my word

607
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 5: for it, don't take Jason's word for it, don't take

608
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 5: Keith Altman's word for it. Just look into it. I

609
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 5: guarantee you you will very quickly see the patterns that

610
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 5: we all know to be true. It's a heartbreaking misery onion,

611
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 5: and the layers just keep building with every single day, week,

612
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 5: and year that Christopher Vaughn is incarcerated. He needs to

613
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 5: be released and again the process of healing.

614
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 3: This is not just about me. This is about a

615
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 3: lot of people and about a system that's not working

616
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 3: like it should be. While I've been in here, I've

617
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 3: met a lot of people that have claimed innocence. When

618
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 3: I was in the outside world, I assume that anybody

619
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 3: locked up it was guilty of the crime. I believe

620
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 3: what was in the media. If they got locked up,

621
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 3: you know, good riddens. You know they were out of

622
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 3: sight and out of mind. That's just not the case.

623
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 3: There's good people in here that deserve second chance. There's

624
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 3: good people in here that are innocent of the crimes

625
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:03,359
Speaker 3: that they've been accused convicted of, and overall, out of night,

626
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 3: out of mind doesn't work because there's still human beings

627
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 3: in here, and I hope it's nothing else that this

628
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 3: starts building awareness for what's going on in these prison systems.

629
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen

630
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one

631
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus.

632
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 2: On Apple Podcasts.

633
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and

634
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler,

635
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleibern. The music in this production

636
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.

637
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms

638
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can

639
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm Wrongful

640
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts and

641
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: association with signal company Number one.

642
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:00,879
Speaker 3: The w