Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
Speaker 1: represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
Speaker 1: This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. Previously on Algorithm, I looked at two
Speaker 1: cases from Hargar's list that, upon closer inspection, looked unlikely
Speaker 1: to be the work of Darren Vaughan. The next day
Speaker 1: is when his girlfriend was found in about it big, So,
Speaker 1: I don't think it has anything to do with in
Speaker 1: the serial killer was once in a lifetime thing. And
Speaker 1: I explored Darren Vaughan's confessions with regard to Chicago. Probably
Speaker 1: had a whole while they have they have way more.
Speaker 1: But Bond later contradicted himself and didn't give any specifics
Speaker 1: that could link him to the crimes Hargrove had identified,
Speaker 1: and the interrogation ended abruptly after Vaughan informed detectives that
Speaker 1: he'd spoken with a lawyer. You said you thought lawyer
Speaker 1: day James Giving Day, he gave me a lawyer. You're
Speaker 1: going have told us that in the beginning. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not worried of me because I might have to
Speaker 1: fire from my heart radio and Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm.
Speaker 1: When Vaughn was arrested for the murder of Africa Hardy,
Speaker 1: he told police he didn't want to confess to murders
Speaker 1: that took place out of state because he didn't want
Speaker 1: to involve other jurisdictions. He wanted a speedy trial and
Speaker 1: a quick execution. But somewhere down the line he changed
Speaker 1: his mind about wanting to receive the death penalty. So
Speaker 1: I wondered what happened there and if he might now
Speaker 1: be open to talking about additional crimes. I asked Vaughn's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Guiko Kosach, to walk me through Von's trial and why
Speaker 1: Vaughan had changed his mind. At the very beginning, he
Speaker 1: just wanted to plead guilty before he even met his lawyer,
Speaker 1: and he wanted the death penalty, and of course they
Speaker 1: wouldn't allow that, so he was not very cooperative. The
Speaker 1: way we do things in Lake County is if you're
Speaker 1: ever appointed public defender to a human being, you are
Speaker 1: married to that human being for the rest of your
Speaker 1: natural lives. So Darren had had a previous felony early eighties,
Speaker 1: something like that. I can't remember the exact date. And
Speaker 1: uh he had been appointed to a certain public defender
Speaker 1: who he was very happy with because he got the
Speaker 1: case this Mr resolved quite favorably. So now when Darren
Speaker 1: comes back on this, they appoint the guy who replaced
Speaker 1: that public defender, Matt Fetch, to represent Darren. Now, in Indiana,
Speaker 1: we have a criminal rule especially deals with death penalties,
Speaker 1: and for you to be a first chair in a
Speaker 1: death penalty case, you have to have been involved in
Speaker 1: a previous death penalty case. So the powers that be
Speaker 1: decided to appoint a first chair, qualified death penalty lawyer, TERSA.
Speaker 1: Hollins Worth to start out. In his first appearance in court,
Speaker 1: Vaughn refused to answer questions and he was warned that
Speaker 1: he could be held in contempt of court. At his
Speaker 1: next hearing, he complied with the judge and a preliminary
Speaker 1: non guilty plea was entered on his behalf. But a
Speaker 1: month later, Von didn't want to come into court at all.
Speaker 1: They ended up stripping him down naked and putting him
Speaker 1: in a restraint chair and they put some kind of
Speaker 1: vest on him, wheeled him in the court and Teresa
Speaker 1: just went absolutely ape shit, and Judge Boswell agreed that
Speaker 1: you know, you're not going to have court with him
Speaker 1: naked with that restraint vest, so they ended up taking
Speaker 1: him back to the jail. After that incident, Vaughan ended
Speaker 1: up bonding with Teresa Hollandsworth, but he still wanted the
Speaker 1: death penalty and he still didn't want to participate in court.
Speaker 1: At the next hearing, Vaughn communicated through Teresa, whispering into
Speaker 1: her ear. She announced that Vaughn was waving his right
Speaker 1: to appear at all future court proceedings unless the court
Speaker 1: required him to appear. The prosecution worried that this could
Speaker 1: open them up to an appeal down the line, but
Speaker 1: the judge ruled that it was Vaughan's right to not
Speaker 1: appear in court. So things were kind of rolling along
Speaker 1: and they were doing their things for a good year
Speaker 1: or so, and Teresa got a job opportunity to work
Speaker 1: in the juvenile court for more money, so she took
Speaker 1: that position. Nobody can blame her, so at that time
Speaker 1: they had to replace Teresa. We don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of people anymore in the unequalified and death been with
Speaker 1: cases because they're just not filing them anymore. At used
Speaker 1: to file thirty fifty a year. Now if it's for
Speaker 1: they're lucky. So um, Teresa referred me and the powers
Speaker 1: that be agreed and I got involved in the case.
Speaker 1: And the proverbial should hit the fan right from the beginning,
Speaker 1: because Darren had established quite a close relationship with Teresa. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's just say she was his perfect type and he
Speaker 1: really liked her. Throughout his life, women have abandoned him
Speaker 1: his mother wife, and when she left, here's it another time,
Speaker 1: or a woman that he had some trust in he
Speaker 1: felt abandoned him. So I was locked out. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: even talk, and he wanted to go pro se, which
Speaker 1: means represent himself. So I kept banging my head against
Speaker 1: the door. I kept sending him letters. I kept going
Speaker 1: up to see him. He would refuse to see me,
Speaker 1: but I told him in my letters, I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: to see you every week. I'm proven to you that
Speaker 1: I'm in this for the long haul. And at some
Speaker 1: point he just indicated, well, I just need thirty more
Speaker 1: days to myself, and then he says, okay, come see me,
Speaker 1: and uh we kissed and made up, and uh, I
Speaker 1: think developed a pretty good relationship and I would have
Speaker 1: deep conversations with Darren. I would meet with Darren almost
Speaker 1: every week at least for a couple of hours because
Speaker 1: he needed the time with human beings. So newspapers, you know,
Speaker 1: would often go ahead and make fun of this being
Speaker 1: the Gyko costage for a one K plan, that I
Speaker 1: was just going over there needlessly to go ahead and
Speaker 1: pad my bill. But with death penalty cases, you you
Speaker 1: have to earn trust, and part of that is going
Speaker 1: over there. But you know, we would talk about things,
Speaker 1: and one of those things would be this plan of his.
Speaker 1: And uh, from the very beginning, Darren wanted the death penalty.
Speaker 1: He did not want to go back to prison. He
Speaker 1: had done prison time in Texas for a sexual assault
Speaker 1: case and he did not want to go back to prison.
Speaker 1: So he says, hey, if I give you six more bodies,
Speaker 1: can you promise me you're gonna kill me? And he
Speaker 1: says they said yeah. They say no, we were never
Speaker 1: promising that, you know, And at some point then Darren
Speaker 1: eventually decides he doesn't with the death penalty or what
Speaker 1: happened with that. There's not easy answer to your question, Ben,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's from the very beginnings, and one death
Speaker 1: and want death. I want death. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, about three days four days before we cut
Speaker 1: the a, he changed his mind. There's probably several things
Speaker 1: that played a factor in it. Cossage says that he
Speaker 1: wanted Von to take a plea deal, and the first
Speaker 1: thing that really helped was getting Bond to see his
Speaker 1: stepsister Regina and half brother Reginald. And after that his
Speaker 1: attitude changed. Someone We kept telling Darren, Darren, you know,
Speaker 1: you go to trial, you got you get convicted. They
Speaker 1: might not whack you for eighteen years with LWOP life
Speaker 1: without parole, he would be in the general population with
Speaker 1: death penalty. He's in a cage twenty three hours of day.
Speaker 1: The key then after that was Keisha. We had a
Speaker 1: fabulous and she still works with those. Keisha Evans I
Speaker 1: grew up in the Etna section of Gary and that
Speaker 1: she lives there now, so that's kind of my et noboddy.
Speaker 1: But Keisha's black. She's like a sister to him, and
Speaker 1: they just hit it off. Cossage says that they're close
Speaker 1: to making a breakthrough it Von and getting him to
Speaker 1: consider a plea deal that would avoid the death penalty.
Speaker 1: When Keisha asked to speak to Van one on one.
Speaker 1: Keisha went in there. Actually we all went in there.
Speaker 1: Keisha threw us out. Keisha talk to him for about
Speaker 1: forty minutes. She came out crying. We went back in.
Speaker 1: He was crying, and at that point in time, he
Speaker 1: agreed to take the police to life without for all.
Speaker 1: You get to this point, and you've got to get
Speaker 1: it done in the the next couple of days because when
Speaker 1: they're starting to think about it, you've gotta keep hammering
Speaker 1: and keep hammering and keep hammering and get it done,
Speaker 1: because if you give them too much time to think
Speaker 1: about it, they'll change their minds. So again, this is
Speaker 1: an ongoing process that we're going on for years and years,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden the last few days, boom,
Speaker 1: everything came together. On May fourth, almost four years after
Speaker 1: his arrest, Von pled guilty to seven murders, the murders
Speaker 1: of Africa Hardy and the six victims he led police
Speaker 1: to on the death March weeks later, Von was given
Speaker 1: seven life sentences, one for each victim. Marvin Clinton was
Speaker 1: the only person to make a victim impact statement. He
Speaker 1: read the names of the victims out loud. Africa Hardy,
Speaker 1: nineteen of Chicago, Anne Jones of Maryville, Tracy Martin forty
Speaker 1: one of Gary, Christine Williams thirty six of Gary, Sonia
Speaker 1: Billingsley fifty two of Gary, Tanya Gatlin of Highland, and
Speaker 1: Tierra Baty of Gary. Clinton said that Vaughan didn't have
Speaker 1: a heart or a soul, that he had anger for Vaughan,
Speaker 1: but that Tierra wouldn't want him to hold on to
Speaker 1: that anger. But Vaughan never heard what Clinton said because
Speaker 1: he'd opted not to show up to his own sentencing
Speaker 1: and the court allowed it. Clinton also said that while
Speaker 1: he knew the defense counsel had a job to do,
Speaker 1: he was frustrated with all of the time and money
Speaker 1: being spent assisting Vaughan. Cossage expressed him that they to
Speaker 1: all of the families in the courtroom and apologized. I
Speaker 1: was curious why Cossage in Lake County has spent so
Speaker 1: much time and effort to convince von that he didn't
Speaker 1: want the death penalty. Are you philosophically opposed to the
Speaker 1: death penalty or what motivates you to go to to
Speaker 1: all these lengths for your client? You know I waver
Speaker 1: back and forth. You know I was very much o
Speaker 1: death penalty before. Now I cannot say that I'm against
Speaker 1: the death penalty in every single case, but you know,
Speaker 1: dollars are dollars, and you do the calculation that it
Speaker 1: probably costs ten times more money to execute someone in
Speaker 1: the given life without parole. You know, the delay that
Speaker 1: was one of the selling points I think to Darren. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: is Darren, if they ordered the death penalty today, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be sixty two years old before you get executed.
Speaker 1: So you know, aren't you better off living eighteen years
Speaker 1: or whatever in g POP and die a natural death
Speaker 1: out of general population and sitting in a cage for
Speaker 1: eighteen years with a cat because I let him have
Speaker 1: cats on death row. It's one of the person death row. Um.
Speaker 1: We've been talking forever, and I probably would just keep
Speaker 1: talking forever. Um, I need to run to the bathroom
Speaker 1: really quick. If you don't mine, that's funny because I
Speaker 1: ran with my laptops. You did it while you were
Speaker 1: talking to me. No, you didn't have me on camera. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that Von decided to take the plea because
Speaker 1: I hope now that he's accepted his fate of life
Speaker 1: without parole I hope that there's a chance that he
Speaker 1: might confess to more murders. And after looking into the
Speaker 1: scarce information that there is out there about many of
Speaker 1: the murderers that her GROW's algorithm identified, I think it
Speaker 1: can feeshion from Vaughan might be one of the only
Speaker 1: ways that we can figure out some of these old
Speaker 1: cold cases. Do you have any advice to me. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the system in Indiana very well. If
Speaker 1: I wanted to reach out to Darren Vaughan and try
Speaker 1: to talk to him directly, Um, he's not gonna talk
Speaker 1: to you, okay. Um he has to put you on
Speaker 1: his list of people who correspond with He won't do that.
Speaker 1: A b uh. During the time that I represented him,
Speaker 1: he got many many letters from women, the gallows brides
Speaker 1: that are out there. He got letters from this husband
Speaker 1: and wife couple that claimed that they do interviews with
Speaker 1: serial killers and they wanted to talk to him. He
Speaker 1: had no real interest in being involved with any of that.
Speaker 1: He didn't want any more notorieting, and he already had
Speaker 1: and I don't think he's changed he will ever change
Speaker 1: in that regard. Do you know if he heard about
Speaker 1: the whole Hardgrove story. Yeah, I talked him about Yeah,
Speaker 1: he laughed. Are you able to talk to him? Are
Speaker 1: you able to reach out to him at this point?
Speaker 1: Or is he no? We stay we stay in touch.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you would just mention that
Speaker 1: there's this guy out there doing this thing and um,
Speaker 1: you know, just that I'd love to talk to him.
Speaker 1: Despite costage his insistence that Vaughan wouldn't speak to me,
Speaker 1: I wrote him a letter anyways. I told him that
Speaker 1: I'd listened through his interrogations and read articles about him,
Speaker 1: but most of the articles hadn't mentioned his traumatic childhood
Speaker 1: or the abuse that he'd suffered at the film of
Speaker 1: Marshall Children's Home. I didn't ask him specifically about the
Speaker 1: cold cases or previous murders. I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: him on the phone and see what happened. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I almost forgot I sent it until a few months later.
Speaker 1: I went to my overflowing mailbox and I found an
Speaker 1: envelope from the Indiana Department of Corrections. Just checked my mail.
Speaker 1: I was looking for a wedding invitation and instead I
Speaker 1: found a piece of mail from Darren Vonn and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: open this up. Never gotten a piece of mail from
Speaker 1: a serial killer before U It's handwritten well, so he
Speaker 1: says to ben Keybrick, Date time seven eighteen pm, I,
Speaker 1: Darren Devon would like to offer you a deal. You
Speaker 1: would have to contact my lawyer to work out an
Speaker 1: arrangement where he would have to agree beforehand. You would
Speaker 1: have to write a report of the corruption that's ongoing
Speaker 1: at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, from guards beating on
Speaker 1: inmates of rassin bullysh it, from fed founds, from shower
Speaker 1: not having hot water, from playing with legal mail, from
Speaker 1: filing false report, from threatening inmates with physical violence, to
Speaker 1: reckless behavior that but inmate life danger or I also
Speaker 1: believe that they're a law against family and friend work
Speaker 1: at the same time, and you that to stop we're
Speaker 1: cover up for ceo s and counselor that are doing wrong.
Speaker 1: For appointment to be set up, must contact my lawyer,
Speaker 1: Goko Cassach at two one nine. All right, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what to make of a lot of that,
Speaker 1: but maybe we'll be talking to Darren Vaughan. I reached
Speaker 1: back out to Cossage to see about setting up the
Speaker 1: interview Cossage was less than enthusiastic about getting involved. He
Speaker 1: said he was busy working on a murder trial and said, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm really not excited about driving to his correctional facility
Speaker 1: to meet him. He told me to talk to the
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections and try to set it up with them,
Speaker 1: and I was less than enthusiastic about that, since Vaughn
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about allegations of corruption at the prison.
Speaker 1: But I emailed the chief communications officer at the Department
Speaker 1: of Corrections in Indiana. She told me, quote, in order
Speaker 1: to get the process started, I will need you to
Speaker 1: submit the topic of your story slash project and the
Speaker 1: list of questions you plan to ask the offender. I
Speaker 1: sent her a fairly generic list of biographical questions. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable putting anything on the list about the
Speaker 1: cold cases because I figured Cossage might object, and I
Speaker 1: was also afraid that if I put any questions about
Speaker 1: prison conditions in there, the Department of Corrections might shut
Speaker 1: down the interview. I tried to hedge things and leave
Speaker 1: open the possibility to ask other questions by writing underneath
Speaker 1: my list, do you need a list of all the
Speaker 1: questions I would ask or just a representative list of questions.
Speaker 1: The officer emailed back and told me my list should suffice.
Speaker 1: The very next day, she sent another short email. It
Speaker 1: read quote, facility staff checked with the offender, Darren Vaughan,
Speaker 1: and he declined to be interviewed. I were responded. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you checking with him. I wonder if there's some
Speaker 1: sort of miscommunication, because I already have a letter from
Speaker 1: him where he's agreed to be interviewed. I'm c seeing
Speaker 1: his lawyer, Guiko Cossage. Is there a way you could
Speaker 1: ask him again and say I was the journalist who
Speaker 1: sent him the letter? She wrote back. Since he has
Speaker 1: declined the interview, we will respect his decision and not
Speaker 1: ask him again. You're welcome to write him a letter
Speaker 1: where if you're on his contact list, use email or
Speaker 1: phone to further communicate with him. I was frustrated months
Speaker 1: had passed between when I had originally sent Vaughn the
Speaker 1: letter and when I had finally heard back from him,
Speaker 1: and especially since he had complained about corruption in the prison,
Speaker 1: I worried that the Department of Corrections might not handle
Speaker 1: my request properly. I wrote back to Darren Vaughan asking
Speaker 1: him to add me to his email and phone contact list,
Speaker 1: but I've yet to hear back. I'll definitely let you
Speaker 1: know if I do, but I'm unsure of how much
Speaker 1: we can trust fund anyway. Is we'd really need an
Speaker 1: airtight confession to take it seriously. We're some sort of
Speaker 1: other evidence to verify what he said, because he lied
Speaker 1: and changed his stories throughout the interrogation and towards the end,
Speaker 1: claimed that strangling women and leaving them in abandoned buildings
Speaker 1: was new for him. Disc is a new thing. It's
Speaker 1: some more my anger tour, like I gonna lock up
Speaker 1: for profits to drop. He claimed that these murders were
Speaker 1: due to his anger at getting locked up in Texas,
Speaker 1: but I think his pattern of behavior says otherwise, and
Speaker 1: I want to explore that a little bit. I don't
Speaker 1: think he was seeking revenge on the women of Gary
Speaker 1: because of the Texas sex worker who got him arrested.
Speaker 1: I think his murders were displaced aggression towards someone else.
Speaker 1: And I'm not the only one who thinks. So let
Speaker 1: me go ahead and consent to your record. But there's
Speaker 1: anything that I'm not comfortable but being recorded. The house,
Speaker 1: saying that it's off the record. A woman from Gary
Speaker 1: contacted me telling me she had met Von sometime in
Speaker 1: the middle of his killing spree, that he was a
Speaker 1: serial killer. A woman from Gary contacted me telling me
Speaker 1: she had met Vaughan sometime in the middle of his
Speaker 1: killing spree. She wanted to speak anonymously and asked me
Speaker 1: to disguise her voice. The color said she met Vaughan
Speaker 1: through her cousin who struggled with addiction. She was telling
Speaker 1: me about this guy because quite often I would have
Speaker 1: to be the one to rescue her from the drug house.
Speaker 1: So she used to tell me about the guys that's
Speaker 1: coming in or whatever. But on this particular to day,
Speaker 1: I was there able to transaction and the guy that
Speaker 1: she had been telling me a few stories about he
Speaker 1: came in, which happened to be Garon. She was telling
Speaker 1: me about his rules. So this is his rules. Once
Speaker 1: he got high, he would started taking out all his money,
Speaker 1: so all the girls that would be in the house
Speaker 1: would see his money. And you know, when they see
Speaker 1: the money, they're trying to leave with you, especially if
Speaker 1: they know you get high, they think you discombobulated. And
Speaker 1: he played real stupid, But she was telling me that
Speaker 1: one day she tried to get some money out of
Speaker 1: his pocket and he sobered up so quick. She knew
Speaker 1: he was playing the game right. So another girl left
Speaker 1: with him. This is what a long term. It was
Speaker 1: one girl that she hustled with, who would not have
Speaker 1: gone off without telling her she wasn't coming back or
Speaker 1: what happened. You know, there was good like that. The
Speaker 1: girl left with Darren did not come back. The color
Speaker 1: said that her cousin's friend was never seen again. They
Speaker 1: were a team. There was no way she's not coming back,
Speaker 1: and she knew that Darren had done something to turn her.
Speaker 1: Four months later, another girl left with him and she
Speaker 1: didn't come back either. That's when we knew that he
Speaker 1: was a serial killer. Do you remember what either of
Speaker 1: these girls names were or like what they went by? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was two of them that they found in the
Speaker 1: band and building close to the forty third property that
Speaker 1: was closest to forty third Avenue. Four of the victims
Speaker 1: were found on forty third Avenue. We're just off of
Speaker 1: forty three, and I knew from police interrogations that there
Speaker 1: was a drug house on forty three that some of
Speaker 1: the victims would frequent was the drug house? Was that
Speaker 1: like the corner of Massachusetts And yeah, yeah, yeah. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of parts of this story that were
Speaker 1: hard to verify, but this part seemed to check out. Now,
Speaker 1: this is why this man probably went back on to
Speaker 1: check it, or the lawn didn't go out on an
Speaker 1: average every day Monday through Friday. This is the normal dude.
Speaker 1: He's a peculiar dude, but he's a he's just a
Speaker 1: normal man in his own business kind of die when
Speaker 1: he get his paycheck. Is drugs are us? And then
Speaker 1: Nika taps in it with Satan at that point, what
Speaker 1: do you mean when you say that? Okay, this is
Speaker 1: what I mean. You know some people that do drugs,
Speaker 1: they turned into a whole another person as soon as
Speaker 1: those drugs hip like it's jackal and hide. You understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And if you already had a proclivity
Speaker 1: towards the violent sex sado masochism, so he was already
Speaker 1: known for being procurliar. He likes to get high, beat
Speaker 1: and rape his girls, but he played the game so
Speaker 1: that they would think he wasn't alert. Did you see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying? I heard some people like they interviewed
Speaker 1: his son in law and that dude said he was
Speaker 1: really creepy. That you would see him kind of like
Speaker 1: talking to himself, or he would like look like he
Speaker 1: was deep in thought. Was that stuff that you ever
Speaker 1: saw around him? I wasn't close enough to observed him
Speaker 1: that way. He stayed two streets behind us. We would
Speaker 1: see him at the forty ninth gas station and he
Speaker 1: would say something like, what's up. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He'd get out the car just as cool as anybody else,
Speaker 1: what's up, what's up? His hands were clean, his clothes
Speaker 1: were clean, he smelled clean. But when he got on drugs,
Speaker 1: he tapped into satan. The day that he came over
Speaker 1: to the house, and she pointed out to me that
Speaker 1: this is the guy who she was talking about. My
Speaker 1: observation of him was watching what she told me he did.
Speaker 1: So that's what I paid attention to. I watched him
Speaker 1: get high, I watched him take out his money. I
Speaker 1: watched him try to play like he was out of
Speaker 1: his mind off the drugs and started inviting people to
Speaker 1: ride to the liquor store with him. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: day that you were there, didn't even take him up
Speaker 1: on it. I didn't. I didn't stick around for you
Speaker 1: know how you look at somebody, you already know that
Speaker 1: it's something you guys discussed. It is going down, and
Speaker 1: y'all get a look. Yeah, you guys gave each other
Speaker 1: the look. And she's like, I was telling you right,
Speaker 1: right exactly. The color said that her and her cousin's
Speaker 1: suspicions about Darren were confirmed after a woman named Ebony
Speaker 1: left the Drughouse with Darren. It was a chick named Ebony,
Speaker 1: and she was mixed. She was mexicanan black. She was
Speaker 1: the hottest ticket. So Ebony see his bank roll one
Speaker 1: day and my cousin told, how don't go with him
Speaker 1: because such and such stuff up for him. And she
Speaker 1: didn't come back. So she tell her don't go, but
Speaker 1: she goes anyway. When they see Ebony is maybe a
Speaker 1: week or two later, she got cut, scratches everything, She
Speaker 1: showed all the bruises she had. Hey, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a statistic, brutal motherfucker. Ebany, you let me explain something
Speaker 1: that she said. This is something that I do feel
Speaker 1: like you should know. She says that his strength was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: He handled hut with one hand, like he could like
Speaker 1: pick her up by the neck with one hand or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yes, he would shut her up in
Speaker 1: the window and have her watching out the window. He
Speaker 1: was telling her to look at all the people out
Speaker 1: there living Dade life. I bet that you wish that
Speaker 1: you was at home right now. You should have been
Speaker 1: at home with your children. His mom had to be
Speaker 1: a prostitute. I don't know anything about his mom because
Speaker 1: I don't know him like that, but his mom had
Speaker 1: to be everything about what he went out and killed.
Speaker 1: He had to have the spies time what a person
Speaker 1: on drugs will do as far as the property for
Speaker 1: their children, the situations, they'll leave them me in to
Speaker 1: go and get some drugs. You'll leave them with other
Speaker 1: drug addings. And if ain't nobody around but the key,
Speaker 1: what you think they're gonna do? And he killing these
Speaker 1: prostitutes because he knows the kid is going through the
Speaker 1: same thing he went through. Yeah, I don't know, No,
Speaker 1: that's what he He know the ancoul then he went
Speaker 1: through with his mom. He know that's what the kids
Speaker 1: is going through. So why is he not gonna kill
Speaker 1: you when you know what you're drawing to your children,
Speaker 1: you probably left him somebody to be out getting drugs
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I'm sure this is what he was
Speaker 1: saying to them before shade that you don't think that
Speaker 1: he had a conversation with them. To be very clear,
Speaker 1: the color is speculating here, but the colors intuition is
Speaker 1: correct about his mother. She was a drug addict and
Speaker 1: a sex worker herself, at least in her younger years.
Speaker 1: And it's also true that Van hated his mother. That
Speaker 1: was something that came up again and again and police documents,
Speaker 1: interrogations and interviews. His stepsister told police that if she
Speaker 1: were to have imagined him killing anyone, it would have
Speaker 1: been his mother. UNS Lawyer Cossa mentioned this as well,
Speaker 1: how sometimes defense lawyers used a client's mother to humanize them.
Speaker 1: One guy had nothing going for him, absolutely nothing, and
Speaker 1: he put his mom on the standard mitigation and she
Speaker 1: fainted and he jumped over the table and ran to
Speaker 1: her and hugged her and was crying, Mama, are you okay? Mama,
Speaker 1: are you okay? And the jury decided that was a
Speaker 1: redeeming factor, and based upon that, they spared his life.
Speaker 1: And we thought, gee, wouldn't it be great? And then
Speaker 1: we paused and said, well, if Darren's mom fainted during trial,
Speaker 1: Darren would probably jump over the table and try to
Speaker 1: help her pass on to the next world. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a little running joke that we had that
Speaker 1: we couldn't even use. That he didn't like his mom, No,
Speaker 1: he did not. That goes all the way back to
Speaker 1: the abandonment of women in his life, which caused him
Speaker 1: to have such a difficult time with all of these women,
Speaker 1: except for his wife, who basically was his mother because
Speaker 1: she was that much older and she treated him kindly,
Speaker 1: so she was kind of like the mom he never had.
Speaker 1: Although Von made a little mention of his mother during
Speaker 1: the interrogation, it seemed important to him to repeatedly make
Speaker 1: the point that he only killed adults, never children, and
Speaker 1: he said that he regretted killing Africa because she was
Speaker 1: so young. She feel sorry for his however, really because
Speaker 1: he was an age friend about you that just too
Speaker 1: young to me, so to you her a kid almost
Speaker 1: here because he had a chance to be was said
Speaker 1: in any way, she had a chance to be unil
Speaker 1: the color story about Von targeting women who reminded him
Speaker 1: of his mother supported my own suspicions, And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear that I'm not trying to cast blame
Speaker 1: on Von's mother or imply that his crimes are somehow
Speaker 1: her fault. But I think Von's rage and hatred of
Speaker 1: women go back much further than his Austin arrest or
Speaker 1: even the incident with Sharifa, and I suspect his murders
Speaker 1: do as well. But I wanted to see if I
Speaker 1: could talk to Ebony or someone else to verify the story.
Speaker 1: What about Ebony? Do you know how to get in
Speaker 1: contact with her? No, this is years ago. She wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been in my running circle. No way. I just
Speaker 1: called her hanging out with my cousin and got the
Speaker 1: story from her. Yeah. See, I had custody of my
Speaker 1: cousin's son for his senior year so that he could
Speaker 1: complete school and everything. M So he used to walk
Speaker 1: home with a group of friends, and you know, would
Speaker 1: have to act like that wasn't his mother standing on
Speaker 1: the corner forty third and Broadway. M walk home with
Speaker 1: a group of friends and walk past his mother. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and she has since been murdered in Indianapolish. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, this ship gets real out here,
Speaker 1: you'd be doing drugs with them folks. They they get
Speaker 1: in your house and hit them drugs and realizes that
Speaker 1: they don't want to split no drugs with you. Shit,
Speaker 1: he's spokes to turn into the absolute ex They had
Speaker 1: spent around and they'd be spending green ship the next
Speaker 1: time you see him. See when the Avenue is telling this, like,
Speaker 1: did ever know that story? Like all the people hanging
Speaker 1: out in these places? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 1: see it got to a point where he couldn't get
Speaker 1: anybody from forty three anymore. This is why is that
Speaker 1: started calling on Craiglist mm hmmm, because the cat was
Speaker 1: out of the bag. I am curious. Did you ever
Speaker 1: go to the police or talk to someone like that
Speaker 1: about it? This is why I brought that up to you.
Speaker 1: They had a sanitation meeting at City Hall and I
Speaker 1: told them, you guys have a serial killer. Now this
Speaker 1: meeting is recorded. If I say all open TV something
Speaker 1: that obserd, don't you think the police should come to me? Like?
Speaker 1: Why did you say that? What would make you say
Speaker 1: that to the police? Never came to you? No, Never.
Speaker 1: Look at how many people are missing, look at how
Speaker 1: many victims there are before the serial killers are called,
Speaker 1: and look at how they get caught. They don't get
Speaker 1: caught by investigations. They get caught once they can't control themselves.
Speaker 1: He only got caught because he couldn't help himself. He
Speaker 1: publicly killed his first victim in a public hotel. That's
Speaker 1: the only reason why they called you. There's still some
Speaker 1: old women missing. They didn't tell you that though different.
Speaker 1: There's still some more women missing that they've never located him.
Speaker 1: They got a serial killer running around right now, they posted.
Speaker 1: Next week is the final episode in this season of Algorithm.
Speaker 1: We'll look into what I think is the most likely
Speaker 1: way we can connect Darren von to additional crimes, and
Speaker 1: we'll also talk about the future of the Algorithm and
Speaker 1: how algorithms might help catch serial killers across the country.
Speaker 1: If you haven't yet subscribed to the feed, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna want to miss this one. This episode was written
Speaker 1: and produced by me ben Key Brick. Algorithm is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production
Speaker 1: assistance in mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by
Speaker 1: Makeup and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rima l Kali, Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: and Josh Thane for their help and notes. For more
Speaker 1: podcast from My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.