Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Christopher Vaughan
Speaker 1: was arrested nine days after his family was killed as
Speaker 1: he prepared for their funeral, and he was held for
Speaker 1: five years before his trial.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors had originally planned to try this case as a
Speaker 2: death penalty case. Vaughn is facing four counts of first
Speaker 2: degree murder for the killings of his wife, Kimberly, and
Speaker 2: their three children, twelve year old Abigail, eleven year old
Speaker 2: Cassandra in eight year old Blake. Prosecutors claim it was
Speaker 2: Vaughn who pulled the trigger and staged his own injuries.
Speaker 3: Prosecutors say Christopher Vaughan killed his family so he could
Speaker 3: begin a new life in Canada. Vaughan's attorney says the
Speaker 3: evidence will show Kimberly Vaughan committed murder suicide and that
Speaker 3: her medication increased her likelihood of suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 4: Blood evidence at the scene of the family's suv did
Speaker 4: not support Vaughn's version of events on that morning in
Speaker 4: June of two thousand and seven. The defense concedes that
Speaker 4: Christopher Vaughn was not a perfect husband or father, but
Speaker 4: in closing arguments, attorney George Leonard claimed that Vaughn is
Speaker 4: not a killer and that the state did not prove
Speaker 4: its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Christopher Vaughan was convicted in twenty twelve by a
Speaker 1: jury which took less than fifty minutes to come to
Speaker 1: a verdict after a five week trial. Vaughn received four
Speaker 1: lifetime sentences, one for each member of his family. Gaiale
Speaker 1: Vaughan recently found a note she'd handwritten after visiting Chris
Speaker 1: after his trial. It dated November eighth, twenty twelve, while
Speaker 1: Vaughn was still being held at Joliet and had not
Speaker 1: yet been sentenced. I've asked her to read it.
Speaker 5: The note was written on the back of my visit paper.
Speaker 5: I usually made an outline when I went to visit Chris,
Speaker 5: and we tried visiting him once a week. I took
Speaker 5: the train, So here's the note. Chris is realizing that
Speaker 5: reading chess, learning Chinese are all to keep him from
Speaker 5: feeling or understanding what happened. He needs to understand what happened.
Speaker 6: He may need help.
Speaker 5: He doesn't know where to start, who to talk to.
Speaker 5: He has for the past five years thought about everything
Speaker 5: except it has been falled off, It's okay to talk
Speaker 5: to Bill about the innocent project. George was upset over
Speaker 5: the letter from Rose. He said it should have been
Speaker 5: sent to Jerry and John. George hopes Chris can wait
Speaker 5: until after sentencing to ask for help, because he will
Speaker 5: not get it where he is now. That's what I
Speaker 5: wrote down, because then it was a trip home on
Speaker 5: the train to tell my husband.
Speaker 1: So the George you're referring to was Chris's public defender,
Speaker 1: that is correct, and Jerry and John were his first attorneys.
Speaker 5: That is correct.
Speaker 1: So Rose, your younger sister, wrote a letter to Chris's
Speaker 1: defense attorney. She was also at every single day of
Speaker 1: the trial.
Speaker 5: Yes, she was. She stayed with us the whole time.
Speaker 1: Did you know she planned to write a letter to George.
Speaker 5: No, I did not.
Speaker 1: Rose kept a copy of that letter, which she has
Speaker 1: shared with me. It gives a glimpse into the family's frustration.
Speaker 1: Having watched the five week trial and its conclusion. I've
Speaker 1: asked her to read one particular paragraph.
Speaker 7: I feel that the jury made their mind up the
Speaker 7: second week of trial. After the second week, they seemed
Speaker 7: to be asleep more than awake. Specifically, the older lady
Speaker 7: in the middle row that set next to the ball gentlemen.
Speaker 7: The men in the back road like to talk amongst themselves.
Speaker 7: The man in the corner next to the prosecution would
Speaker 7: hit himself in the face at times. I'm assuming to
Speaker 7: stay awake. After the third week, when the jury would
Speaker 7: walk in, they would have more of a glare at us.
Speaker 7: During testimony, they would glare in our direction. I would
Speaker 7: like for it to have been known that Chris and us,
Speaker 7: the family could not see any of the graphic pictures
Speaker 7: they wanted to see. All of us have emotion. I
Speaker 7: feel that the jury wanted a show. The prosecution gave
Speaker 7: them one. They had fancy power points and graphics. We
Speaker 7: did not. The interesting thing was the prosecutions weren't always true.
Speaker 7: That didn't seem to matter. They needed to know that
Speaker 7: you were a public defender, not a high profile attorney.
Speaker 7: I mean no disrespect to you, but if I was
Speaker 7: a jour that would have meant something. They needed to
Speaker 7: know why this case took so long to come to
Speaker 7: try aile. Did they think it was because we were
Speaker 7: scrounging for evidence. They needed to know about the first
Speaker 7: lawyers and why they were not on the case. I
Speaker 7: don't believe that they knew or understood what a shadow
Speaker 7: of a doubt meant.
Speaker 1: Why did you feel compelled to write that letter.
Speaker 7: Because there was such a difference in our two sets
Speaker 7: of lawyers. The first set wanted to know everything, every
Speaker 7: single thing that they could possibly learn and get any
Speaker 7: glimmer about Chris, our family structure, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 7: The second set, which is what I wrote this letter to,
Speaker 7: couldn't be bothered. We were there, but we weren't listened to.
Speaker 7: He had his own thoughts and direction. He told us
Speaker 7: that we were not allowed to talk to anybody, we
Speaker 7: were not to show emotion at all in the courtroom,
Speaker 7: and I think that really worked against us. I mean,
Speaker 7: it wasn't even an hour of deliberation and we get
Speaker 7: the verdict. It felt like a gut punch. It was
Speaker 7: twisted in such a way that it just was very
Speaker 7: much of a disregard of a human life, and it
Speaker 7: was just infuriating. It never felt like a fair trial.
Speaker 7: I mean, when a juror was asleep, sound asleep, nothing
Speaker 7: was said that we saw the judge look at him,
Speaker 7: and so how can it be a fair trial? And
Speaker 7: that's why I wrote this letter. Because somebody has to
Speaker 7: say something.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco and this is the final episode
Speaker 1: of Murder in Illinois.
Speaker 8: Cry O Game to see the Ground.
Speaker 9: Gang Crime Gage Well.
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan is now forty seven years old and at
Speaker 1: the time of this episode's release, has been incarcerated for
Speaker 1: more than fourteen years. According to the Illinois Department of
Speaker 1: Corrections prisoner Database, Christopher Vaughan remains ineligible for discharge. When
Speaker 1: we met in person, he told me he strives to
Speaker 1: go unnoticed, spending his time mostly alone, drawing, reading, or
Speaker 1: studying philosophy in Buddhists thought in effort to process his
Speaker 1: loss and his life. As Gails mentioned, he's also taught
Speaker 1: himself Mandarin and plays competitive chess. Once in prison, Vaughan
Speaker 1: made the conscious decision to develop his mind as opposed
Speaker 1: to going the prison route of building his body and
Speaker 1: brute strength, because doing that would have only made him
Speaker 1: more in keeping with what he had been accused and
Speaker 1: convicted of being a monster. Over the course of this podcast,
Speaker 1: we have laid out the complicated pieces of an unfathomable
Speaker 1: tragedy and the legal aftermath that followed in its wake.
Speaker 1: You've now heard the scope of circumstances leading up to
Speaker 1: the arrest, indictment, trial, and conviction of Christopher Vaughan. In
Speaker 1: addition to the existing evidence, both circumstantial and forensics, you
Speaker 1: now have additional insight into the complex dynamics that played
Speaker 1: into the family dysfunction and the investigation. So at this
Speaker 1: point I pose the question, do you believe there is
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt that Christopher Vaughan committed the four murders of
Speaker 1: which he's been and for which he served fourteen years.
Speaker 1: At the start of this podcast, journalist Erica Wurst was
Speaker 1: very specific about her opinion of Christopher Vaughn's guilt.
Speaker 10: I believe with.
Speaker 6: Ninety eight point nine percent, Shorty that Cresta von So
Speaker 6: his wife Emi in pe Freakot.
Speaker 1: Two days before she was scheduled to tape her final
Speaker 1: thoughts for this episode, she canceled, implying they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been utilized. This is where they would have been included. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: though worst reaction is in keeping with the polarizing nature
Speaker 1: of this case and podcast, which has sparked spirited discussions,
Speaker 1: debates online, and coverage from multiple outlets, including Rolling Stone Magazine.
Speaker 1: Local Chicago stations like WGN.
Speaker 11: That's an excerpt from a new true crime podcast called
Speaker 11: Murder in Illinois.
Speaker 4: It details the murders of the Vaughn family in Oswego
Speaker 4: back in two thousand and seven. Husband christ Vaughan has
Speaker 4: been arrested and tried and convicted for the killings.
Speaker 12: On the next Doctor Phil.
Speaker 1: The case and podcast will also be featured in upcoming
Speaker 1: episodes of The Doctor Phil Show. To put it simply,
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan's conviction has proven more than worthy of revisiting,
Speaker 1: and during the course of these twelve episodes, we have
Speaker 1: laid out multiple examples in which circumstantial evidence and emotional
Speaker 1: and confirmational bias were used in place of hard evidence
Speaker 1: against him. The newly uncovered issues with how his indictment
Speaker 1: was secured and the conclusions of the July crime scene
Speaker 1: reconstruction also provide new and relevant evidence in support of
Speaker 1: his actual innocence. After that crime scene reconstruction, I try
Speaker 1: again to meet with Christopher Vaughan. We sat alone and
Speaker 1: I asked him what I had to ask him before
Speaker 1: the end of this podcast. Did he kill his wife
Speaker 1: and children? And did he ever intend or plan to
Speaker 1: kill them? Without hesitation and holding eye contact with me
Speaker 1: the entire time. Christopher Vaughan answered no, absolutely, not never,
Speaker 1: and his eyes watered. As he said it today, fourteen
Speaker 1: years after his arrest, there are significant and powerful voices
Speaker 1: who believe there is reasonable doubt of Vaughan's guilt.
Speaker 12: When I first heard the story, I had doubt about
Speaker 12: Chris Vaughan having committed this murder. When I reviewed Clutter's evidence,
Speaker 12: that nagging doubt turned into not only reasonable doubt, but
Speaker 12: a little bit of outrage. This man is innocent. He
Speaker 12: was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1: That's Jed Stone, the Stone of Stone and Associates, a
Speaker 1: criminal defense lawyer from Illinois who is respected on a
Speaker 1: national level.
Speaker 12: We're a little teeny law firm in Jaukegan, Illinois. It
Speaker 12: is not one hundred and sixty five lawyers. It's one lawyer,
Speaker 12: one paralegal, a Spanish speaking receptionist in a little town
Speaker 12: in northern Illinois. And we've had nine exonerations and my
Speaker 12: goal is to make mister Vaughan the tenth.
Speaker 1: But Stone and Associates will not be alone in their effort.
Speaker 1: At the time of this recording, Christopher Vaughan is being
Speaker 1: represented by Jed Stone, who will serve as Vaughn's lead council,
Speaker 1: assisted by Bill Clutter, investigating Innocence, and outside consultant Richard Kling,
Speaker 1: clinical Professor of Law at the Chicago Kent College of Law.
Speaker 1: The involvement of other innocence organizations is still pending official confirmation.
Speaker 1: Here's Richard Klang.
Speaker 13: Jed is wonderful. I know Jed for forty something years.
Speaker 13: Jed has everything under control. If he has particular questions
Speaker 13: regarding forensic issues. I teach forensic sciences and I've been
Speaker 13: involved in many forensic cases. The biggest problem in this
Speaker 13: case is the physical evidence merely supports a theory. And
Speaker 13: it may be a viable theory, it may be a
Speaker 13: wonderful theory. It may be an airtight theory, but it
Speaker 13: is nothing more than the theory, and post conviction petitions
Speaker 13: or clemency are rarely granted on your theories without something
Speaker 13: more merely an uphill. It's an up mountain slope that
Speaker 13: mister Vaughan is going to have to climb at. Any
Speaker 13: time they call, I'll pick up the phone.
Speaker 1: But it's a steep effort that jud Stone believes he
Speaker 1: is both well suited and prepared to.
Speaker 12: Lead The first hurdle that any wrongfully convicted person has
Speaker 12: is the sad fact that the law loves finality more
Speaker 12: than it loves justice. Judges, prosecutors, the press will all say,
Speaker 12: this case is resolved. He's been found guilty. A jury
Speaker 12: of his peers found him guilty. In appelle at court
Speaker 12: reviewed the jury's findings and affirmed it. They don't like
Speaker 12: to have the apple cart upset. I have on my
Speaker 12: desk an encased cockroach, and I have it on my
Speaker 12: desk for a reason. When I was a graduate student,
Speaker 12: many many years ago, living in graduate student housing, I
Speaker 12: woke up one night and went into the kitchen and
Speaker 12: flicked on the light, and I saw cockroaches scurry as
Speaker 12: the light shined on them. I didn't think much about them,
Speaker 12: except that cockroaches hated the light being shown on them.
Speaker 12: And then years later I became a lawyer, and I
Speaker 12: realized that prosecutors and judges don't like the light of
Speaker 12: truth shined on them. They scurry, they get nervous, And
Speaker 12: so I put this cockroach on my desk. It's been
Speaker 12: on my desk for forty five years, and my experience
Speaker 12: has been that when the light of truth shines upon
Speaker 12: these people, they scurry for cover. It's important because your
Speaker 12: podcast is an important addition to the work that Clutter
Speaker 12: and I are doing on behalf of mister Vaughan. I
Speaker 12: believe that judges and appellate courts and elected state's attorneys
Speaker 12: are mindful of the eyes of the public that are
Speaker 12: on them, and as long as we can tell the
Speaker 12: truth and tell it in a variety of forums, they
Speaker 12: will respond. It'll be uncomfortable for them, they don't want
Speaker 12: to deal with these truths, but they will respond. And
Speaker 12: so those are the two primary hurdles.
Speaker 1: Judstone is ready to tackle those hurdles.
Speaker 12: I'm convinced that there are things in the newly discovered
Speaker 12: area of evidence that cause great question as to the
Speaker 12: quality of the trial that Chris had and the reliability
Speaker 12: of the results, and we're going to go after that
Speaker 12: with full force.
Speaker 1: And it seems they will fully be met with opposing force.
Speaker 1: On September fifth, twenty twenty one, the Chicago Sun Times
Speaker 1: was first to break the news there was now effort
Speaker 1: underway to free Chris Vaughn. In that article, the will
Speaker 1: County States Attorney James Glasgow went on record saying Vaughn
Speaker 1: would go free quote when hell freezes over unquote. It
Speaker 1: is a comment in keeping with the ones Glasgow gave
Speaker 1: at the time of the verdict.
Speaker 11: What this guy did here was a diabolical atrocity. And
Speaker 11: he's a heartless, soulless psychopath.
Speaker 10: That's the bottom line.
Speaker 11: That's what he is, without any compassion, without any empathy
Speaker 11: for other human beings. There isn't a punishment that fits
Speaker 11: this crime. You could lock him up for five hundred
Speaker 11: lifetimes and it would not compensate the victims in this
Speaker 11: case or the family members.
Speaker 1: It is worth noting that a man known for delivering
Speaker 1: such soundbites declined to speak to me about the Vaughan
Speaker 1: case or the newly uncovered troubling issues surrounding the way
Speaker 1: in which Vaughn's indictment was secured. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: here's Bill Clutter's reaction to the newspaper article.
Speaker 10: State's Attorney Glasgow's comments in the Chicago sometimes indicate that
Speaker 10: he's willing to defend this conviction despite whatever evidence we
Speaker 10: present to him. And that's all the more reason why
Speaker 10: we need criminal justice reform in Illinois that establishes a
Speaker 10: statewide Conviction Integrity Unit. When new evidence comes to light
Speaker 10: that shows that a person may be innocent, it should
Speaker 10: be an objective review rather than have the Will County
Speaker 10: States Attorney be the arbitrator of truth. That's just simply
Speaker 10: not justice.
Speaker 1: In that article, Glasgow also stated his opinion that the
Speaker 1: new theory contradicts the crime scene evidence, insisting, quote the
Speaker 1: angles are all wrong unquote.
Speaker 10: Yes, and even seeing our crime scene reconstruction, how can
Speaker 10: you pass judgment on what we've done without looking at it?
Speaker 10: That did take me back a little bit. Means he's
Speaker 10: going to dig in his heels, and you know that's unfortunate.
Speaker 10: It's a characteristic of how they jumped to the conclusion
Speaker 10: that he was guilty, and now they're going to maintain
Speaker 10: that belief despite whatever evidence we show them. It happens
Speaker 10: time after time after time in all of these cases
Speaker 10: that I've been involved in, despite strong and convincing evidence
Speaker 10: of actual innocence, the prosepcutors who got it wrong are
Speaker 10: always the last to admit that they made a mistake.
Speaker 1: That Chicago Sun Times article ended with James Glasgow declaring
Speaker 1: the evidence against Vonn is quote overwhelming unquote and that
Speaker 1: his office is quote ready for anything that occurs unquote
Speaker 1: back to Bill clutter.
Speaker 10: Well, the evidence wasn't overwhelming, and I think that time
Speaker 10: will tell what happens in this case.
Speaker 1: To that effort, Jedstone will also be overseeing a committee
Speaker 1: of powerful legal experts and innocence activists that has formed
Speaker 1: an effort to support revisiting Christopher Bond's conviction.
Speaker 12: Innocence cases require great teamwork from various angles and various
Speaker 12: professional viewpoints, and they are really team efforts. No one
Speaker 12: can do these alone. I can't do them alone. Clutter
Speaker 12: can't do them alone. Together, we're a pretty good team.
Speaker 12: The stronger our team, the better mister Vaughan's chances of
Speaker 12: obtaining justice.
Speaker 1: What is the purpose of the committee and what do
Speaker 1: you hope it will accomplish.
Speaker 12: A variety of views from a variety of different lenses
Speaker 12: will be able to analyze the evidence and come up
Speaker 12: with a plan that will formulate the arguments I'll ultimately
Speaker 12: present to the Prisoner Review Board or to a court
Speaker 12: to gain a reversal of conviction and exoneration. My job
Speaker 12: is to consolidate those various ideas into a winning idea
Speaker 12: and take the various threads and form a tapestry, take
Speaker 12: the various thoughts and form an argument. It's the creative
Speaker 12: process of being the lawyer that I love.
Speaker 1: The committee has been growing steadily at the time of
Speaker 1: this episode's release. It includes founding board member of the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project Jason Flohm, prominent defense attorneys Andrea Lyon, Keith Altman,
Speaker 1: Kitty Lyle, and Mario Kasharo. A quick aside before becoming
Speaker 1: an attorney, Mario Kasharo was wrongfully convicted of a presumed
Speaker 1: murder and serve time a minard before being freed and exonerated.
Speaker 1: There he crossed paths with Christopher Vaughn. The two played
Speaker 1: chess several times. Also on board is Jason Jutts, a
Speaker 1: civil attorney from Hawaii.
Speaker 14: My name is Jason Jutts. I'm an attorney in Honolulu, Hawaii,
Speaker 14: and I do complex civil litigation. What drew me to
Speaker 14: this case initially was the podcast. I wasn't aware of
Speaker 14: the case before listening to the first episode, and I
Speaker 14: just found the case and the idea that Chris is
Speaker 14: innocent very compelling, which drove me to start digging into
Speaker 14: the trial transcripts and the pre trial transcripts, and the
Speaker 14: more I looked at that, the more I became convinced that,
Speaker 14: if nothing else, the trial was grossly mishandled. I subscribed
Speaker 14: to the Blackstonian ratio, which is this idea or philosophy
Speaker 14: that it's better to let ten guilty persons go free
Speaker 14: than to punish one innocent person, and I think that
Speaker 14: that is very prevalent here. I just wanted to reach
Speaker 14: out to see what I could possibly do to help,
Speaker 14: even though I'm so very far away, don't have the
Speaker 14: legal background in criminal justice, let alone anything to do
Speaker 14: with Illinois law, but I thought that some of my
Speaker 14: skills could come to bear and is sitting in his
Speaker 14: exoneration efforts.
Speaker 1: Jets is now connected with Jed Stone to offer his
Speaker 1: services also pro bono.
Speaker 14: I think it's a great thing that the legal community
Speaker 14: in Illinois is starting to get together and mount support
Speaker 14: on Chris's behalf. I had a great opportunity to speak
Speaker 14: with Jed. He's a very knowledgeable, experienced attorney in Illinois,
Speaker 14: and I'm very appreciative that he's stepped up to take
Speaker 14: the lead of the committee that's working on behalf of Chris.
Speaker 14: One of the great things about this podcast is that
Speaker 14: you've shed light on Chris's flight and gained attention for
Speaker 14: him individually. But since this is sort of a national epidemic,
Speaker 14: I think that it helps bring light to the bigger
Speaker 14: issue here of how should we approach these cases moving forward?
Speaker 14: How can we help eliminate some of the bas from
Speaker 14: the bench and from the prosecutor side. I'm not even
Speaker 14: talking about the confirmation bias of the jurors, or the
Speaker 14: influence of the media, or the character assassination that Chris suffered,
Speaker 14: but just looking at it through that legal lens, what
Speaker 14: changes can we make moving forward to try to make
Speaker 14: sure that innocent individuals aren't placed in in prison. And
Speaker 14: it's really unfortunate when it happens in a situation where
Speaker 14: you're talking about somebody's life. And I think that through
Speaker 14: the discussion of Chris's case, one thing that's lost frequently
Speaker 14: is that this started off as a death row case.
Speaker 14: His life was literally on the line.
Speaker 1: Bill Clutter's nonprofit Investigating Inno Sense, will continue to fight
Speaker 1: for Chris Bond in addition to other wrongful convictions.
Speaker 10: I want to encourage listeners to get involved. There's projects
Speaker 10: in most every state, A Lisence project that helps the
Speaker 10: wrongfully connected. If listeners are interested in volunteering or assisting
Speaker 10: within the instigating innocence, go visit our website and let
Speaker 10: us know how you're willing to help. I feel more
Speaker 10: confident today that Christopher Vaughn will be free in the
Speaker 10: near future and I'll be standing at the gates of
Speaker 10: Pinkinbill Correctional Center with his parents and supporters welcoming him home,
Speaker 10: and I can envision that day happening soon.
Speaker 15: My hope is that these efforts do lead to either
Speaker 15: the governor or a judge at some point ordering his
Speaker 15: release and granting relief based on actual innocence.
Speaker 1: Clutter will also be overseeing the second crime scene reconstruction,
Speaker 1: which will challenge the state's theory in regards to the
Speaker 1: ballistics beyond what was proven in the July crime scene
Speaker 1: reconstruction with animation. As mentioned in the first episode of
Speaker 1: this podcast, Gail Vaughan has a private Facebook page titled
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan is Innocent the last word in all caps.
Speaker 5: When Chris went to prison, I tried to figure out
Speaker 5: how to share this with all the families without making
Speaker 5: multiple phone calls, so I created a Facebook group and
Speaker 5: with family and very close friends. There were seventeen of
Speaker 5: us altogether. Since this podcast started, we have been growing unbelievably.
Speaker 5: It is turned into a support group.
Speaker 1: At the time of this episode, Gail's Facebook group has
Speaker 1: grown from seventeen people to more than eleven hundred members.
Speaker 5: It's overwhelming. I mean, we have been kind of climbing
Speaker 5: a hill, climbing a mountain, and it's been tough. But
Speaker 5: now we have these people that are on Facebook and
Speaker 5: they are actually showing support and positive They are actually
Speaker 5: reading everything and coming up with their own conclusions and
Speaker 5: then discussing the possibilities of what happened. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: very refreshing to see everybody thinking, actually thinking, after reading
Speaker 5: and hearing after so many years of not so many
Speaker 5: positive results.
Speaker 1: Gail finds it difficult to express her family's feelings regarding
Speaker 1: the reaction to Chris's case.
Speaker 5: This out pouring from my Facebook, from people, especially from
Speaker 5: Jason Plumm and his generous assistance. It's overwhelming. And then
Speaker 5: we have these fantastic lawyers that are stepping up and
Speaker 5: helping us out with Chris. Chris can't believe it. He's
Speaker 5: amazed that people are helping them, but now we Chris
Speaker 5: has actually got the possibility of hope in his voice
Speaker 5: and his eyes. Chris has got hope. His eyes have
Speaker 5: changed to the look of resignation, of being here forever
Speaker 5: because there's no way of getting out to Yes, there
Speaker 5: is a spark of possibility and it's growing momentum.
Speaker 1: And hoping to build upon that momentum. Gail has also
Speaker 1: started a change dot org petition on behalf of her son.
Speaker 5: I have written a petition so to change dot org
Speaker 5: and it will be under the same heading as my
Speaker 5: Facebook page or It's easy to remember Christopher Vaughan is
Speaker 5: innocent and I am hoping to get a lot of
Speaker 5: signatures that I can take to the Governor of Illinois
Speaker 5: to ask for Chris's release or pardon.
Speaker 1: Host of the Wrongful Conviction podcast and Innocence Active Jason
Speaker 1: Flohm remains extremely optimistic about the possibility of executive clemency
Speaker 1: for Vaughn, having himself brokened an impressive number of successful
Speaker 1: ones throughout the country.
Speaker 16: Clemency is such a powerful option, and it's such a
Speaker 16: powerful power, right, I mean, for lack of a better
Speaker 16: way of saying it, that is why governors and Presidents
Speaker 16: in federal cases, of course, are entrusted and given the
Speaker 16: power of clemency because they are supposed to be the
Speaker 16: stopgap in these cases of overreach or wrongful conviction, or
Speaker 16: over sentencing, or other mistakes that are made inevitably in
Speaker 16: any criminal justicism in ours unfortunately, way too often, and
Speaker 16: probably as much or more than ever before in history.
Speaker 16: But the good news is that there's a governor in
Speaker 16: Illinois who we know to be an intelligent, fair minded,
Speaker 16: and decent man who has done phenomenal things to help
Speaker 16: to tip away at the injustice system in that state,
Speaker 16: which has a long and sordid history.
Speaker 1: Jason Flohm is committed to working on that effort, but
Speaker 1: has an additional ask too, an effort to prevent other
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions.
Speaker 16: I hope that people who are listening, when you serve
Speaker 16: on a jury, you recognize that these people are human
Speaker 16: as well. So if you get a jury duty notice,
Speaker 16: don't throw it away. I'm talking to our listeners directly.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 16: If you're busy, I know you're busy. Everybody's busy. It's
Speaker 16: a huge imposition. It's annoying, it's a nuisance, but you
Speaker 16: know you have an opportunity to literally be the voice
Speaker 16: that saves the life of the next Chris Vaughan. And
Speaker 16: that's not hyperbole. It only takes one vote on a
Speaker 16: jury of someone to go no. I heard murder in Illinois.
Speaker 16: I understand now how this can actually go off the rails,
Speaker 16: and I haven't been convinced beyond a reason doubt. So
Speaker 16: I'm not going to go along with the other members
Speaker 16: of the jury. I'm not going to do what I'm
Speaker 16: being told to do by people who I now understand
Speaker 16: are incentivized not to get justice, but to get wins. Right,
Speaker 16: these people want wins.
Speaker 1: And some of those wins come from manipulating emotions or
Speaker 1: playing into preconceived notions.
Speaker 16: And it's so hard for us. We don't want to
Speaker 16: believe that anymore that we want to believe that babies
Speaker 16: just die, or that sometimes people snap and sometimes it's
Speaker 16: a mom and we don't want to believe that. But anyway,
Speaker 16: I'll get off my soapbox now and hopefully, hopefully they'll
Speaker 16: touch somebody's heart.
Speaker 1: And if you do, find yourself moved to action. In
Speaker 1: addition to signing Gail's petition and supporting the work of Innocence,
Speaker 1: organizations in your community. Judstone offers an additional suggestion, We're.
Speaker 12: Back to my cockroach. I think that listeners of this
Speaker 12: show can talk about this wrongful conviction, talk about it
Speaker 12: in their churches and synagogues and mosques, talk about it
Speaker 12: in their workplaces, talk about it over dinner with their family,
Speaker 12: discuss how it is that an innocent person can be
Speaker 12: convicted of a horrible crime and then raise their voices
Speaker 12: and say, not under my watch, it's not going to happen, Judge,
Speaker 12: Prisoner Review Board Governor Pritsker, do justice. I'm reminded almost
Speaker 12: every week, certainly right now in this conversation, that when
Speaker 12: I was a boy sitting in synagogue with my father,
Speaker 12: there was Hebrew writing on the wall, and I could
Speaker 12: barely read English, but I certainly couldn't read Hebrew. So
Speaker 12: I said to my dad what is that? And he
Speaker 12: told me it's from one of the lesser prophets, a
Speaker 12: fellow by the name of Micah, and it asks in Hebrew,
Speaker 12: what is it that the Lord requires of you? And
Speaker 12: the answer is really clear and struck me even as
Speaker 12: a child with its clarity, What is it that the
Speaker 12: Lord requires of you? Only to do justice, to love mercy,
Speaker 12: and to walk humbly with God. And I thought, even
Speaker 12: as a kid, sit, if that's all the God requires
Speaker 12: of me, I should be able to do that. Do justice,
Speaker 12: love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Well I've gotten
Speaker 12: two out of the three. I've had a hard time
Speaker 12: with this humble stuff. But doing justice and loving mercy,
Speaker 12: that's all of our jobs in this world. And so
Speaker 12: what can the listeners do. They can rise up as
Speaker 12: a voice and say to the powers that be judges
Speaker 12: in black robes, prosecutors in their offices, governors in their mansions,
Speaker 12: do justice, love mercy. That's what the Lord requires of us.
Speaker 12: And so that that's what our podcast listeners can do.
Speaker 12: They can do justice and love mercy and raise their
Speaker 12: voices in support of the wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1: And as a closing note, the Vaughan family wanted to
Speaker 1: address you listeners of the podcast. Here's Gail.
Speaker 5: I want to thank them, thank them for opening their hearts,
Speaker 5: thank them for opening their mind, thank them for listening
Speaker 5: and drawing their own conclusions, but most of all, supporting us,
Speaker 5: supporting Chris, supporting our whole family. It's kind of an
Speaker 5: odd feeling because we have never had that feeling before,
Speaker 5: so thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And here's Pierre.
Speaker 6: I just want to say that I'm overwhelmed and thankful
Speaker 6: that people have come forward after all this time and
Speaker 6: effort that Gail and I have put into this, people
Speaker 6: on her website, and people like Jed Stone, Jason plom
Speaker 6: doctor Phil Bill Clutter, and especially you Lauren for doing
Speaker 6: podcasts and bringing this to everybody's attention. We just want
Speaker 6: to say thank you from the bottom of our heart.
Speaker 6: We're not public people, so it's very humbling for us,
Speaker 6: and once again we're very very thankful to everyone.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: As for me, I'm grateful to have played a part
Speaker 1: in creating something that has inspired discourse to a level
Speaker 1: where people have actually gotten involved, many even taking the
Speaker 1: time to pour through the trial transcripts, crime scene reports,
Speaker 1: and depositions before deliberating over the case online and in
Speaker 1: chat groups. My team and I truly appreciate your time
Speaker 1: and your ear. It's also our sincere hope that we
Speaker 1: will soon be dropping enough date into this feed. As
Speaker 1: for Christopher Vaughan, he's asked that I share this statement
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you so very much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to listen to my story. I'm hoping that in
Speaker 1: listening to the details of my case, you will pause
Speaker 1: to consider the sobering question of innocence and guilt. I
Speaker 1: am speaking in relation to the broader perspective, as this
Speaker 1: is and should be about more than my one case alone.
Speaker 1: I hope that you will consider not only the possibility,
Speaker 1: but the reality of our legal system convicting an innocent person.
Speaker 1: It will only be through your awareness and effort serving
Speaker 1: as the final check and balance, that those of us
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted will have any hope at freedom. Thank you.
Speaker 8: And the crimead You Feel the Ground?
Speaker 13: Are You.
Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois? Is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Lauren Braid Pacheco and Taylor Chackoine. Written by Lauren
Speaker 1: Brad Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, Story editing by Matthew Riddle,
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine.
Speaker 1: Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered and
Speaker 1: mixed by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chackoine. Archived news reports
Speaker 1: provided by w g.
Speaker 8: N You the word by page, Feel.
Speaker 17: The Ground, Holding Holding Okay, Buying out.
Speaker 4: O Caage.
Speaker 8: You feel the ground holding holding for you.
Speaker 4: You mean.
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Speaker 1: to you.