Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. So there's
Speaker 1: a sign that's as welcome to Pinkneyville, and the churches
Speaker 1: of Pinkneyville welcome you. And it looks like they're about
Speaker 1: twenty churches. So God in prisons. After months of letters
Speaker 1: and emails, COVID restrictions were lifted in May, and Bill
Speaker 1: Clutter and I were finally on our way to visit
Speaker 1: Chris part As we get closer to the prison, is
Speaker 1: absolutely pouring.
Speaker 2: From you, quorks of lightning, you know, thunder yet, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of churches around here.
Speaker 3: The abbess is the buckle of the Bible belt right
Speaker 3: here southern Illinois.
Speaker 1: As a result of good behavior during his time at Minard,
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan was transferred to the Pinkneyville Correctional Center in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a medium security prison located in Perry County.
Speaker 3: This is it the Pinkneyville Correctional Center.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a sprawling brick facility surrounded by
Speaker 1: the wire.
Speaker 3: It's not that old of a facility, hating. I'm within
Speaker 3: the last right twenty or twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So the parking lot looks pretty full. I'm assuming this
Speaker 1: is where we go in It is all right.
Speaker 3: Because to leave my cellphone.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we should be about two hours. I have
Speaker 1: my passport. I think we need two forms of what org.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Take a run for it, which is funny. I don't
Speaker 1: think most people say they're going to make a run
Speaker 1: for it as they're going into.
Speaker 3: Present foreshadowed by thunder.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren breg Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 5: Kay.
Speaker 6: Disjuged fop Shah.
Speaker 1: The check in process at Pinkneyville was thorough and impacted
Speaker 1: by COVID protocol. We were vetted, masked, and temperature checked.
Speaker 1: No personal belongings, phones, or recording devices were permitted. After
Speaker 1: we were individually searched and padded down, we passed through
Speaker 1: a metal detector and two additional checkpoints before entering the
Speaker 1: cafeteria like room, where inmates were individually seated at small
Speaker 1: tables surrounded by four fixed stools. Each tabletop was divided
Speaker 1: into sections by high plexiglass a COVID precaution. We were
Speaker 1: instructed to sit across from the inmate if possible, so
Speaker 1: only one of us could sit next to Vaughn. Acoustics
Speaker 1: were difficult as a result, especially when compounded by masks.
Speaker 1: After communicating through email for so many months, it was
Speaker 1: surreal to see and speak with Vaughn in person. The
Speaker 1: two and a half hours that initially felt overwhelming ended
Speaker 1: up passing quickly once we got used to raising our
Speaker 1: voices and leaning forward enough to hear and be heard.
Speaker 1: When we left and I got back into our car,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that was really interesting. I was still
Speaker 1: trying to reconcile my expectations with the man I just met,
Speaker 1: and there was a bit of an element of being
Speaker 1: taken aback because he is not imposing in terms of
Speaker 1: his height or his physicality.
Speaker 7: He comes across a little bit more tough in photos
Speaker 7: just because his head is shaven and he has a goatee,
Speaker 7: but his mannerisms are so.
Speaker 1: Mild. There's a fragility to him that goes hand in
Speaker 1: hand with the introspective nature of how he speaks and
Speaker 1: expresses himself.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what kind of struck me, because you get
Speaker 3: a sense that he's learned to survive in this environment
Speaker 3: and he can't be a pleasant experience now fourteen years
Speaker 3: in prison.
Speaker 1: During our visit, Vaughan expressed the mental and emotional repercussions
Speaker 1: of our communication. He apologized for wavering. Apparently he had
Speaker 1: a really tough December because I was asking him to
Speaker 1: access memories and feelings and emotions that he had kept
Speaker 1: compartmentalized for so long. Then he wrote the five page
Speaker 1: letter and then almost immediately he was done.
Speaker 3: And one of the things I wanted to clarify with
Speaker 3: him in our meeting was I always had concerns when
Speaker 3: he started out in that letter telling his parents he
Speaker 3: would fill in the gaps that I was concerned that
Speaker 3: some of the things he was describing may have been
Speaker 3: doing that.
Speaker 1: He had no idea what that noise was. It never
Speaker 1: occurred to him that there were gunshots happening within the car,
Speaker 1: and he was in the quiet of a morning in
Speaker 1: a big open field, and it was almost like this
Speaker 1: ominous kind of echoing in the field. He didn't put
Speaker 1: two and two together, sounds like, didn't until he got
Speaker 1: back in the car, after he believes she shot three
Speaker 1: shots at him, that she fired three times. That's when
Speaker 1: he really truly realized that the kids were all dead
Speaker 1: in the back seat, and at that point she was
Speaker 1: dead as well.
Speaker 3: He acknowledged today that he's really unclear about the sequences
Speaker 3: of which shot occurred verse the wrist or the leg.
Speaker 3: But the one memory that he did have that was
Speaker 3: vivid and clear is closing his eyes to avoid looking
Speaker 3: at Kim and reaching and grabbing her seat belt to
Speaker 3: try to fasten her seatbelt and struggling with it, and
Speaker 3: his hand was shaking, and that is consistent with the
Speaker 3: forensic evidence that large saturation stain on Kim's seatbelt. The
Speaker 3: clearest memory he has is after everything happened, I mean,
Speaker 3: his description of leaning back in his seat and looking
Speaker 3: at the children. That explains the transfer stain that was
Speaker 3: on the back right side of his jacket back to
Speaker 3: the seatbelt. And the version of the state that he
Speaker 3: somehow unbuckled her seatbelt to stage the crime scene makes
Speaker 3: no sense.
Speaker 1: Because his blood would have been on the actual female part.
Speaker 3: He would have taken his thumb and depressed the seatbelt,
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't have all that blood saturating the seat belt.
Speaker 3: But his description of closing his eyes because he couldn't
Speaker 3: look at Kim's face, that I mean just a ghastly sight,
Speaker 3: and reaching grabbing the seatbelt, trying to buckle her and
Speaker 3: struggling to buckle because her arm is covering the female
Speaker 3: part of the buckle. All of that makes perfect sense,
Speaker 3: and there's enough time for him to saturate that seat
Speaker 3: belt strap with his left wrist injury. I mean, he
Speaker 3: acknowledged that that was the clearest memory he had of
Speaker 3: what he was describing the letter.
Speaker 1: That memory was about to be put to the test
Speaker 1: in a controlled scientific crime scene reconstruction. We connected with
Speaker 1: Gail and Pierre, who traveled to meet us after the
Speaker 1: visit to share more thoughts. He was very thankful and
Speaker 1: kind of surprised that anybody cared. He reiterated how grateful
Speaker 1: he's been for your support and how much that means.
Speaker 1: I was so taken aback that there's no anger, that
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem angry or bitter. I told him that
Speaker 1: I had a couple of questions, and these are things
Speaker 1: that stuck out, particularly in terms of the press and
Speaker 1: the prosecution, and so much was made of the fact
Speaker 1: that he was wearing the same outfit, and so I
Speaker 1: asked him, why were you wearing the same clothes you
Speaker 1: wore to the shooting range, And he said, because he
Speaker 1: was working most of the night that he would often
Speaker 1: work in his study and then kind of catnap. But
Speaker 1: he brought all the clothes he was changing into. They
Speaker 1: were in the back of the car.
Speaker 6: But nobody said that.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that really came through everything he
Speaker 1: said about the dynamic of their relationship, and also that
Speaker 1: when Kimberly got that degree from Phoenix that took seven
Speaker 1: years I think to get, she was handed an empty diploma.
Speaker 1: But also learned that when she started calling, she thought
Speaker 1: that all of these doors would open to her because
Speaker 1: she had this degree. But it wasn't respected and it
Speaker 1: didn't open doors. That people actually dismissed it because it
Speaker 1: was online. That's interesting, Yeah, and that upset her deeply,
Speaker 1: and so that could have unfolded in real time and
Speaker 1: could have led to her anxiety.
Speaker 8: I still had a couple months to finish her degree,
Speaker 8: to completely finish it, she still had a couple months
Speaker 8: to go well. And in jest, when before all this happened,
Speaker 8: Chris was saying, oh, yeah, now that you're going to
Speaker 8: be a college degree person, you can go out and
Speaker 8: make the big books, and I can quit and make
Speaker 8: wood in the garage, would and play with the kids.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 8: It was all in joke back then, then when it happened,
Speaker 8: I guess that's a different story.
Speaker 1: Well, he also talks about they had gotten to the
Speaker 1: point where they were going to stay together while the
Speaker 1: kids were in the house, but that eventually they would be.
Speaker 3: Leading separate lives.
Speaker 1: In July of twenty twenty one, I flew to meet
Speaker 1: Bill Clutter in Kentucky for the crime scene reconstruction that
Speaker 1: would recreate the events of June fourteenth, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: under the direction of a seasoned crime scene investigator.
Speaker 6: My name's Kate Hartman.
Speaker 5: I'm a retired crime scene investigator from Lowell Metro Police Department.
Speaker 5: I worked for the Metro Police Department for twenty one years,
Speaker 5: started in communications and then tested to go into the
Speaker 5: crime scene unit.
Speaker 1: Hartman was secured by Bill Clutter to meticulously review the
Speaker 1: Vaughan case. Because of her lack of proximity, she was
Speaker 1: well suited to approach the task.
Speaker 6: Well, I had no preconceived notions.
Speaker 5: I'd never heard of it since it didn't happen in Kentucky,
Speaker 5: I didn't know anybody involved. Police department used to wish
Speaker 5: contacts throughout the United States, and I.
Speaker 6: Had never heard of that case.
Speaker 5: So I didn't have any of those prejudices at all.
Speaker 1: In person, Katie Hartman comes across as no nonsense and direct.
Speaker 1: She holds eye contact with a degree of scrutiny, in
Speaker 1: keeping with her profession and reputation she's built both by
Speaker 1: backing up instincts with science. She brought that same scrutiny
Speaker 1: to reviewing Bob Deal's original crime scene report.
Speaker 5: As a crime scene investigator, I really am impressed with
Speaker 5: his work, and I'm a critical person. I used to
Speaker 5: train people to do what I did, so I was
Speaker 5: looking at it very I was ready to give him
Speaker 5: Well Bill criticisms if need be, because I told Bill,
Speaker 5: I'll give you exactly what I think good better in between.
Speaker 5: And my first comment to him was, this guy's good.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because you know he was discredited.
Speaker 5: I was told that after I read that he had
Speaker 5: been discredited. So I wasn't shocked because I'm not shocked
Speaker 5: by anything that happens. I've been victimized in that way
Speaker 5: also through the years, not in the same way he has,
Speaker 5: but it can be career altering.
Speaker 1: In addition to Deal's crime scene report, Hartman scrutinized the
Speaker 1: forensic evidence bullet trajectory paths and the trial trap.
Speaker 5: With his report standing alone, he was very thorough with
Speaker 5: his photographs, and it's very difficult to photograph a crime
Speaker 5: scene that is within a car because you can't mess
Speaker 5: up anything. You got to lean in, you can't be
Speaker 5: at a ninety degree angle sometimes.
Speaker 6: To take a photograph. But with the three D.
Speaker 5: Imaging also and his references, I felt like I was there.
Speaker 5: He referred to things and I could follow it as
Speaker 5: if I was with him and standing next to him.
Speaker 5: I did not make an opinion about whether or not
Speaker 5: this was a suicide murder or murders until I really
Speaker 5: looked at the trajectories.
Speaker 1: Hartman wouldn't be willing to share her opinion until testing
Speaker 1: it through multiple scenarios, but having read the crime scene
Speaker 1: report and trial transcripts, she did have initial issues with
Speaker 1: the way evidence was presented at Vaughn's trial.
Speaker 5: Given what the jury was given, I'm not surprised he
Speaker 5: was convicted because they weren't given everything. In my opinion,
Speaker 5: if I was on that jury and was only given
Speaker 5: that information, and this is more of a personal than
Speaker 5: a professional opinion, if I was someone who is not
Speaker 5: familiar with what to ask or what to expect of
Speaker 5: a case. I would have convicted it because everything wasn't
Speaker 5: put out there.
Speaker 1: I had Hartman break down exactly what the crime scene
Speaker 1: reconstruction would cover and test. This was to be the
Speaker 1: first of two reconstructions, the second with the ballistics expert
Speaker 1: who would further map out the exact trajectories.
Speaker 5: We're going to reenact what the prosecution stated about the
Speaker 5: blood on the seatbelt and blood on Kim and where
Speaker 5: Chris was shot. We need a visual and need to
Speaker 5: be able to look at it to see if it
Speaker 5: was possible what he said or if it was possible
Speaker 5: what they said.
Speaker 6: We're going to do all scenarios.
Speaker 5: We need to be completely unbiased in that we need
Speaker 5: to prove or disprove his story or their story period.
Speaker 1: Hartman was clear that what would be revealed would not
Speaker 1: be tied to any agenda.
Speaker 5: When Bill asked me to be on this case, I
Speaker 5: told him I'm the type of person that I'm not
Speaker 5: going to give you what you want to hear. If
Speaker 5: I think something isn't no, it doesn't fall along, I'm
Speaker 5: going to tell you. That was my job.
Speaker 6: I was there to prove or disprove it.
Speaker 5: Someone did this, and if they did it, they did it.
Speaker 5: I could not look at anything else. I had no
Speaker 5: tunnel vision. Even if the person who did something maybe
Speaker 5: had done something before and wasn't the best person, Well,
Speaker 5: that's not what I was there for. I'm there for
Speaker 5: that crime and whether or not we can prove who
Speaker 5: did it.
Speaker 1: The reconstruction's purpose was to test the multiple scenarios laid
Speaker 1: out for what could have happened that day, to determine
Speaker 1: the most plausible and likely one based on the forensics
Speaker 1: of the crime scene without emotion. Hartman brought that same
Speaker 1: objectivity to Bond's five page letter.
Speaker 5: It was always my job to look at something in
Speaker 5: the most unemotional way possible. I always was able to
Speaker 5: really do that. I'm just not a very emotional person.
Speaker 5: I think about who he's writing to. He's writing to
Speaker 5: his mom and dad, and he seems still hopeless. He's
Speaker 5: almost apologizing to his mom and dad that it's going
Speaker 5: to be all brought up again. But as I read
Speaker 5: his description of what happened, it was believable to me
Speaker 5: as a crime scene person. If he had said that
Speaker 5: in his interview, it would have made all the difference.
Speaker 1: But that letter covered just one of the scenarios about
Speaker 1: to be reenacted.
Speaker 5: We're all going to get the visual of every scenario,
Speaker 5: and that's important because you'd be amazed how you think
Speaker 5: about something in your head. And everyone's different on how
Speaker 5: they hold things, how they move. Movement is almost unique
Speaker 5: to each person. So the way if she shot herself,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have shot myself that way. I would have
Speaker 5: held again, probably differently, but that doesn't mean she didn't.
Speaker 1: The crime scene reconstruction took place July fifteenth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: utilizing the exact make, model and color of the Bonds
Speaker 1: family SUV and two actors named Nathan and Patty, who
Speaker 1: are approximately the same height and weights Chris and Kimberly
Speaker 1: Vaughan were at the time of the tragedy. It would
Speaker 1: be filmed by seasoned investigative journalist, director and cameraman Ron Zimmerman.
Speaker 1: In addition to having worked on America's Most Wanted for
Speaker 1: twenty one years, Zimmerman has a resume that includes CNN
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: To film the recreation, we wanted to cover all possible angles,
Speaker 4: things that you wouldn't see just by standing on one
Speaker 4: side of the car the other. So we had three
Speaker 4: cameras small GoPros inside the car, one on the driver's
Speaker 4: side pillar, one near the rear view mirror, and one
Speaker 4: on the passenger side door pillar. Then there are two
Speaker 4: cameras outside the car, one outside the driver's window handheld
Speaker 4: and another one outside the passenger's window. The reason to
Speaker 4: have so many angles is that at certain times during
Speaker 4: the events that happened inside the car, it's best to
Speaker 4: see it from a different angle. Otherwise one camera another's
Speaker 4: going to be blocked by somebody's body. And that's when
Speaker 4: the truth emerges, when you can see all the possible
Speaker 4: angles and even slow it down to take it frame
Speaker 4: by frame.
Speaker 1: Back to Bill Clutter, the first demonstration we to do
Speaker 1: is test the theory of the stay that Chris unbuckled
Speaker 1: her seat belt, bled onto the seat belt and.
Speaker 3: Explains the pattern of bloodstains you see on it on
Speaker 3: the passenger's seat belt.
Speaker 1: The mood was somber and filled with tension that was
Speaker 1: in keeping with what was being reenacted and what it
Speaker 1: could reveal.
Speaker 3: So I think what we'll do, Katie, is we'll position
Speaker 3: Patty and we'll do the positioning based on the crime
Speaker 3: scene photos. And do the first demonstration where she's seat
Speaker 3: belted and have him on seat belt her and then
Speaker 3: Katie get Patty positioned.
Speaker 1: Hartman and clutter recreated each scenario to be tested by
Speaker 1: exhaustively referencing the crime scene photos and the crime scene reports.
Speaker 1: Each actor was placed an exact position and given the
Speaker 1: most basic directive in terms of motive or movement.
Speaker 5: Remember, her feet were flat, she is slapped. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: so you're feeling where her arm was pushed up. What's
Speaker 5: important is how where this left arm is?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: To test the state's theory that vonnat unbuckled his wife
Speaker 1: after she was shot, the actress playing Kimberly was positioned
Speaker 1: exactly as Kimberly was photographed in the vehicle, with her
Speaker 1: left arm covering the belted buckle. The crime scene reports
Speaker 1: specifically state that her body did not appear to have
Speaker 1: been moved after she was shot. Hartman then walked the
Speaker 1: actor playing Vaughn through his action without dictating any specific
Speaker 1: directive in order to observe his intuitive movements.
Speaker 5: What we're doing is these red dots signifiant what your
Speaker 5: injury is.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: Red stickers were played based on places where both Chris
Speaker 1: and Kim were actually shot.
Speaker 5: So you have an abrupt injury, all right, Okay, So
Speaker 5: even though you can't really mimic how it would hurt,
Speaker 5: and I don't really want you to, but what I
Speaker 5: want you to do is when we tell you to
Speaker 5: do something instinctively, how would you move if you had
Speaker 5: injuries like that?
Speaker 6: Okay? All I want you.
Speaker 5: To do, don't overthink it, okay is wait wait wait.
Speaker 6: What I want you to do is keep in mind you've.
Speaker 5: Been injured, right, okay, and you reach over and unbuckle
Speaker 5: per seatbelt.
Speaker 10: Period.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: When you restart, like all the scenarios, this would be
Speaker 1: run multiple times, resetting everything before each take.
Speaker 5: If you keep your arms this way until he gets
Speaker 5: in here, you can actually just lean over and ick
Speaker 5: and make.
Speaker 6: Sure you're in that position when we get ready.
Speaker 1: And each take showed the same result to.
Speaker 6: Her arm, and I did.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 11: In order to get past the arm needed to move
Speaker 11: because her elbow.
Speaker 6: I needed to move her elbow.
Speaker 3: Okay, the female part of the elbow.
Speaker 11: Was under her yes, sir, yeah, I was under her
Speaker 11: elbow that needed to be moved in order to get
Speaker 11: to that button.
Speaker 1: Each time the state's theory was tested. To unbuckle the belt,
Speaker 1: the actor playing Christopher used his uninjured right arm to
Speaker 1: reach under the actress's upper left arm to access the belt.
Speaker 11: With injuries and you know, some restricted movement to my arm,
Speaker 11: it would be difficult, and I felt I need to
Speaker 11: lean over this way and move a little more. So
Speaker 11: that's how I would do it.
Speaker 1: Doing so would have meant he would have passed through
Speaker 1: Kimberly's blood, which was pooling on the back of the
Speaker 1: center console, and none of Kim's blood was found on
Speaker 1: Chris Baud's right arm. Next up was the buckling of
Speaker 1: the belt.
Speaker 3: Let's just instruct him to buckle her without giving him
Speaker 3: the story of what happened, without showing him the photo
Speaker 3: yet right to buckle her. Yeah, just to just instruct
Speaker 3: him to.
Speaker 6: Buckle right before we do the shocking photo.
Speaker 5: Because Chris had said that he had his eyes, we're
Speaker 5: going to do have him buckle her, you know, Okay,
Speaker 5: see you see what he does.
Speaker 1: Naturally, Hartman also had a theory. She wanted to test.
Speaker 6: What I want you to do now is you've just
Speaker 6: been shot in the wrist. What's the first thing you
Speaker 6: think you would do.
Speaker 11: What do you think I would put pressure on the
Speaker 11: wound and elevate it, and you know that's what I
Speaker 11: would do.
Speaker 6: You would grab the wound because you're shot. God got you, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: Nathan immediately raised his left wrist and grabbed it with
Speaker 1: his right hand to stop the bleeding.
Speaker 5: So that just happened, and I want you to reach
Speaker 5: over and buckle her. So you've just been shot.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: I didn't tell you to keep your hand there.
Speaker 4: You don't have to.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying what your first instinct was was.
Speaker 11: To my first instinct is going to be to check
Speaker 11: it out and go oh.
Speaker 6: But yet you still want a buckler. So what do
Speaker 6: you do? Don't overthink it, just do it. Just do
Speaker 6: this as quick as I could. Now, don't look.
Speaker 3: Are you? Oh?
Speaker 10: Interesting?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, you didn't do anything wrong. You know what
Speaker 6: you need.
Speaker 5: We'd ask you to do what you would do if
Speaker 5: your wrist hurt and you had grabbed it.
Speaker 6: The reason why I was telling you what would you.
Speaker 5: Do if you got hurt and your wrist it was
Speaker 5: because I also think somebody would have put their hand
Speaker 5: on top of the wound.
Speaker 1: Each time the scenario was tested. The actor simply moved
Speaker 1: the actress's left arm and buckled her with his right hand.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, both of his hands could have been
Speaker 1: covered with his own blood had he been clasping his
Speaker 1: wounded left wrist, so he would have left some prints
Speaker 1: on her left arm which were not present at the
Speaker 1: actual crime scene. Next tested was the scenario covered in
Speaker 1: Chris's letter and his description of how he attempted to
Speaker 1: buckle his deceased wife. This was the first time the
Speaker 1: actor playing Chris was told in the actual specifics of
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 3: And so this is a recent letter we received from Chris.
Speaker 7: Ravaughan, who is the person that you're playing.
Speaker 3: For, right, and he's serving a life sentence in Illinois.
Speaker 3: He wrote this letter to his parents in March of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, and he says, she then turned the
Speaker 3: gun on herself and fired, and then I thought to
Speaker 3: drive the truck. Kim was slumped, so I tried to
Speaker 3: buckle her. My hands shook badly. I couldn't buckle the belt.
Speaker 1: He also should understand why his hands are shaking badly.
Speaker 1: He's been shot twice. But your three children are all
Speaker 1: dead in the backseat, So that's the emotion that's going
Speaker 1: through your head and part of why you're shaking.
Speaker 11: Adrenaline, shaking violently.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would be.
Speaker 1: Now, your wife also has a single gunshot wound under
Speaker 1: her chin, and this is what he's looking at, and
Speaker 1: I apologize. Swick In order to understand Christopher Vaughn's movements,
Speaker 1: we have to address what he was reacting to. The
Speaker 1: crime scene photo of Kimberly Vaughn is extremely graphic. What
Speaker 1: it captures in person would have been even more so.
Speaker 1: She slumped to the left, her head tilted back over
Speaker 1: her left shoulder and facing the driver's seat. Her left
Speaker 1: eye is bulging from its socket, and the bullet that
Speaker 1: entered under her chin has severed her upper palette and
Speaker 1: teeth into So when we visited Chris in prison, we
Speaker 1: ask him to explain what was going through his head,
Speaker 1: and as an actor, I want you to see it
Speaker 1: because it's pretty telling. He stopped, he paused, he closed
Speaker 1: his eyes, and he cringed away from it. And then
Speaker 1: he threw his right arm around her.
Speaker 12: As he leaned forward because he didn't want to touch
Speaker 12: or look at her as he was buckling, and then
Speaker 12: he used his injured left arm to assist his right arm.
Speaker 1: So that's what we would like you to keep in mind.
Speaker 11: Okay, all right, all right, Yeah, there's that photo.
Speaker 6: One more time, one more time. Now, that's right here.
Speaker 4: I think where Patty's face is.
Speaker 6: That's her. Okay, that close?
Speaker 3: All right, excellent.
Speaker 1: Each and every time the actor recreated this scenario, we
Speaker 1: watched in silence, not wanting to interrupt what was being
Speaker 1: clearly illustrated. Each time, the movement vond described seamlessly overlapped
Speaker 1: with the forensic in terms of where and how his
Speaker 1: blood appeared on the seat belt, the buckle, where the
Speaker 1: droplets were found on the passenger floor, kim shirt, and
Speaker 1: the center console, in addition to how her blood transferred
Speaker 1: to the right back of his fleece.
Speaker 6: Yeah, shaking, I see her and give up.
Speaker 11: I think that's how I would do it.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: Next, they tested the state scenario of how Vaughn was
Speaker 1: alleged to have murdered his wife. It was equally as
Speaker 1: telling and compelling as the seat belt. They first attempted
Speaker 1: it with Vaughn sitting in the driver's seat.
Speaker 3: This is the state's theory of the case that Christopher
Speaker 3: Vaughn shot and killed his wife and then stage did
Speaker 3: to look like a suicide because this wound under her
Speaker 3: chin as a classic self inflicted thing. So we want
Speaker 3: you to get her to cooperate while you kill her.
Speaker 3: So and it has to look like a suicide. It
Speaker 3: can't be jammed hard against her chin, because that didn't
Speaker 3: happen according to the autopsy. But it was kind of
Speaker 3: light contact, loose contact under her chin when it fired.
Speaker 3: And of course, Patty, you're alive, and you have to
Speaker 3: assume that you're in a struggle for.
Speaker 11: Survivor and your babies are back there right malware, and.
Speaker 5: You know what, we're making this assumption again, but in
Speaker 5: these reenactments, some assumptions need to be made because we
Speaker 5: are trying to think of how we would act as humans,
Speaker 5: human beings. So Patty, you know your mom, you know
Speaker 5: how you would act.
Speaker 6: You know it's it.
Speaker 1: Would have gotten a back seat even just acting. The
Speaker 1: re enactment participants drew blood trying to get into position,
Speaker 1: and it happened when the actors were seated in the
Speaker 1: front seats and when the actor playing Chris was positioned
Speaker 1: outside the passenger window. In keeping with Sergeant Gary Lawson's theory.
Speaker 3: All.
Speaker 13: Yes, how about in her here here, see you.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: Eventually they came to the scenario where the actor playing
Speaker 1: Chris shot the kids from the driver's seat to test
Speaker 1: all possibilities.
Speaker 3: Okay, each child is shot twice, once in the abdomen,
Speaker 3: once in the head. So you're going to be aiming
Speaker 3: for these targets there.
Speaker 9: Okay.
Speaker 1: This was one of the many moments of that day
Speaker 1: that underscored the brutal, tragic reality of what transpired in
Speaker 1: that suv fourteen years ago, but every possibility needed to
Speaker 1: be explored and tested without bias or emotion.
Speaker 6: Think of it.
Speaker 5: Okay, you've got three kids here, head to head, torso,
Speaker 5: head to it and I don't know if it was
Speaker 5: that order or not.
Speaker 6: Okay, just I want to see.
Speaker 5: We want to see how you would be able to
Speaker 5: shoot them.
Speaker 6: I'm not in it if you go on their theory
Speaker 6: or not. Okay, because they think he shot himself.
Speaker 4: And where's he going to shoot from here?
Speaker 6: He's gonna sit in the driver's seat. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 5: You need to be here because your head might be
Speaker 5: in the way. Now you've already shot Patty.
Speaker 6: Okay, she's deceased. She's deceased. Seat built on lay like
Speaker 6: you were there. You go all.
Speaker 5: Right, Okay, ready, Bill, Okay, I'm just shot.
Speaker 3: I just shot.
Speaker 6: You see how you had to Okay, that's good, that's good. Okay.
Speaker 1: Next, they tried out the scenario with Chris standing outside
Speaker 1: the car. Immediately, the height of the actor portraying the
Speaker 1: five foot nine vond stood out in start contrasts with
Speaker 1: the size of the large s u V.
Speaker 6: First, with the door shot in supposed way, the windows down.
Speaker 6: I want you to.
Speaker 11: Shoot the kids from this, yeah, one two, one two, one.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll see that he would have had to reach
Speaker 5: in overpay and feel free to stand on the running.
Speaker 3: The most reach you can get.
Speaker 14: These are shot with representation.
Speaker 6: The kids were head shots.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So what I think would be very, very difficult was
Speaker 5: for the little boy the way I mean, two girls
Speaker 5: are the trajectories crazy, But we're wanting to see how
Speaker 5: he could have even done that.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting that in every single scenario he's reached
Speaker 1: to the left of her seat. Each time the actor
Speaker 1: portraying Chris tried to make the shots that would have
Speaker 1: hit Blake, seated directly behind the passenger seat. He did
Speaker 1: so by moving the gun from the center of the
Speaker 1: vehicle to the left of the passenger seat headrest, which
Speaker 1: was not consistent with the actual trajectory according to ballistic evidence.
Speaker 6: I guess I'm.
Speaker 5: Trying to say the natural movement of a person trying
Speaker 5: to reach back there and kill those kids for us
Speaker 5: would have been crazy trajectory and very hard to do.
Speaker 6: I mean it's possible, of course, it's possible, but it
Speaker 6: doesn't match. Yeah, he's got his hand in here and everything.
Speaker 5: So okay, now one more doors open and you're killing
Speaker 5: the kids. Look that last one is what gets from
Speaker 5: either any of these.
Speaker 6: You know, left arm right.
Speaker 1: Watching the actor struggle to keep his balance on the
Speaker 1: sideboard with his left arm as he tried to lean
Speaker 1: into the suv far enough to make the trajectories of
Speaker 1: the shots fired with precision over the actress's left side
Speaker 1: called to mind the original CSI Bob Deal's words after
Speaker 1: Sergeant Gary Lawson expressed his theory the day of the murders,
Speaker 1: it was friggin' impossible. Next, Hartman gave the actress playing
Speaker 1: Kim a directive.
Speaker 5: Now, ay, I'm going you're alive, turn around to kill kids.
Speaker 6: How would you shoot people in the backseat?
Speaker 3: Just do the movement.
Speaker 6: Ready, okay, go aheadny.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to see the angle, all right, Now
Speaker 6: take it off, do something thank mm hmm. Changes the
Speaker 6: angle totally.
Speaker 1: Unbelted. The actress seated in the passenger seat instinctively and
Speaker 1: rapidly recreated trajectories in keeping with the bullets fired into
Speaker 1: the back seat if.
Speaker 5: He were to have come back to the car he's
Speaker 5: getting back in and yeah, he thought he heard an
Speaker 5: explosion or something in the car she's waiting for him.
Speaker 1: After hours of running multiple scenarios, the ultimate conclusion was
Speaker 1: that the prosecution's version of what happened would have been
Speaker 1: extremely implausible, if not impossible. Here's seasoned crime journalist Ron Zimmerman,
Speaker 1: who filmed the reconstruction.
Speaker 4: I've done hundreds of reenactments for shows like America's Most
Speaker 4: Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, and this one stands above a
Speaker 4: lot of those for a number of reasons. When you
Speaker 4: really examine the reenactment point by point by point, from
Speaker 4: all these different angles, you really see how Christopher's explanation
Speaker 4: to his parents in a letter rings true. This didn't
Speaker 4: come out at the time of interrogation, didn't come out
Speaker 4: at the time of trial. He didn't try to build
Speaker 4: a story to explain his behavior a way to investigators
Speaker 4: like us. But it was fourteen years later that this
Speaker 4: all came out in a letter to his parents where
Speaker 4: he just tried to get to the honest truth of it.
Speaker 4: And it's searingly honest that letter to his parents about
Speaker 4: what happened. Kim shot the kids, she shot Christopher, then
Speaker 4: she shot herself, and then he tried to buckle her
Speaker 4: in and failed at that. It wasn't successful in buckling
Speaker 4: her in, but he left the trail of blood. All
Speaker 4: of those are things that we can see. The blood
Speaker 4: evidence doesn't lie. It tells the story, and it tells
Speaker 4: the true facts of what happened.
Speaker 1: Katie Hartman agrees.
Speaker 5: The physicality of all of this does not match with
Speaker 5: what the prosecution said it happened, or Lowson or any
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 6: Deal was right.
Speaker 3: Deal was right. Deal was right.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, he was right.
Speaker 5: I am the last person that's going to say a
Speaker 5: policeman was wrong.
Speaker 6: I am. But when they're wrong.
Speaker 3: They're wrong.
Speaker 1: Hartman believes Deal's break with the official version of events
Speaker 1: would not have been without consequences.
Speaker 5: Other police don't like other police that.
Speaker 6: Aren't being honest.
Speaker 5: So Deal sadly he was in a vine a career
Speaker 5: ending bad.
Speaker 6: But it's my opinion that Deal was right.
Speaker 5: Really, the evidence shows that it did not happen the
Speaker 5: way the prosecution said.
Speaker 1: We proved that, and the crime scene reconstruction aligned with
Speaker 1: Christopher Bond's five page letter. Here's Bill Clutter.
Speaker 3: It is my opinion that Chris's statement to his parents
Speaker 3: disclosed in March of twenty twenty one, does explain how
Speaker 3: the blood got on the seatbelt and the left leg
Speaker 3: and arm of his wife. That does explain all of
Speaker 3: the blood that was found of Chris's and Bob Deal
Speaker 3: had it right along. The crime scene was consistent with
Speaker 3: the murder suicide. The state's theory as to how Chris's
Speaker 3: blood got on the seatbelt and on his wife's body
Speaker 3: is it simply didn't happen the way they said it did.
Speaker 3: The seat belt was such a critical piece of evidence
Speaker 3: that based on that alone, I think we've proven the
Speaker 3: sufficient evidence to vacate the conviction.
Speaker 1: I called Gale and Pierre with my thoughts as soon
Speaker 1: as I got back to the hotel, I can tell
Speaker 1: you with absolute confidence, having seen what I saw today,
Speaker 1: that we're able to very effectively show what happened that
Speaker 1: day was not what the courtroom was privy to.
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh, Lauren, that's It's like I knew it
Speaker 10: in my home and I knew he didn't do it.
Speaker 10: Right Now we have evidence for you know, everybody to
Speaker 10: look at.
Speaker 1: Once Bill had put together an initial summary of the
Speaker 1: crime scene reconstruction finds, we reached out to update Jason Vlahm.
Speaker 3: I sent you a draft of my report. But in
Speaker 3: a nutshell, we've tested the state's theory that Christopher unbuckled
Speaker 3: his wife's seatbelt somehow to stage the crime scene. It
Speaker 3: was interesting that when we gave the actor instructions to
Speaker 3: unbuckle the seat belt the passenger's seat belt, he uses
Speaker 3: his right hand, has to actually move the left arm
Speaker 3: of our actress and depresses it with his right hand
Speaker 3: without a left arm, which is bleeding over the body
Speaker 3: of Kimberly. So that really debunks the state's theory that
Speaker 3: Christopher staged the crime scene by unbuckling his wife's seat belt.
Speaker 3: The second demonstration we did was to role play what
Speaker 3: Chris described that he reached around his wife to the
Speaker 3: passenger's seatbelt in an attempt to buckle her in because
Speaker 3: he thought about driving away to get help. The movements
Speaker 3: of that scenario really explains how Chris's passive blood drops
Speaker 3: from his left wrist blood over the top of his wife,
Speaker 3: because in making that reach, the left hand arcs over
Speaker 3: the female actress, and it's totally consistent with where we
Speaker 3: find Chris's blood.
Speaker 1: So that letter and his explanation of the movement overlap
Speaker 1: seamlessly in Bill's opinion and in Katie Hartman the CSI
Speaker 1: from Kentucky, and we were able to repeat it multiple times.
Speaker 14: I can't help thinking, as we're having this conversation that
Speaker 14: probably a significant percentage of the general public believes or
Speaker 14: wants to believe that this type of stuff is done
Speaker 14: and pre conviction right or pre trial, and that our
Speaker 14: system works because people get a fair shake and you know,
Speaker 14: you get to present this evidence and CSI. I think
Speaker 14: we need to believe it works properly, because otherwise the
Speaker 14: default is to say, oh, no, this could happen to me,
Speaker 14: and nobody wants to believe that. Nobody can believe that.
Speaker 14: I think that this case is so important because Christopher
Speaker 14: could be any one of us. He was a guy
Speaker 14: who I think may be easier to relate to than
Speaker 14: some other people that are caught up in our system.
Speaker 14: For a lot of people, you know, here's a guy
Speaker 14: on the way to an amusement park with his family,
Speaker 14: working a good job, seemingly American dream type of stuff.
Speaker 14: In an instant, everything turns to shit. Rights It's a lot.
Speaker 14: So I'm sure for your audience this is a lot
Speaker 14: to process, you know, And for Chris, he's still living
Speaker 14: it every minute of every day.
Speaker 1: That reality was underscored by another takeaway from the crime
Speaker 1: scene reconstruction. When we tasked the actors to have that
Speaker 1: final shot, both actors drew blood in just trying to
Speaker 1: get into position that there was just in the act
Speaker 1: of trying to put the gun underneath. There was bruising
Speaker 1: and there was blood, and they weren't going at it
Speaker 1: full strength. So it is very telling that there is
Speaker 1: no sign of a struggle. Kimberly Bond's nails were scraped,
Speaker 1: There is no DNA belonging to Chris Vaughn. There were
Speaker 1: no scratch marks, there was no pulled hair, there were
Speaker 1: no bruises on their arm. There was nothing to suggest
Speaker 1: that she was held in place while a gun was
Speaker 1: placed ever so slightly apart from the soft area of
Speaker 1: her chin.
Speaker 14: Any mother would bite to the death in a situation
Speaker 14: like that, because she's got her kids. Whether the kids
Speaker 14: were still alive or not, in whichever scenario you want
Speaker 14: to paint, if they had already been shot, she would
Speaker 14: have been like a cat right with the claws. I mean,
Speaker 14: think about any parent, right, what they would do to somebody,
Speaker 14: regardless if it's their husband or anyone who had just
Speaker 14: murdered their children, right, or if they're still alive, you'd
Speaker 14: be fighting to keep them alive and to keep this
Speaker 14: gun away from yourself and them. And Bill, let me
Speaker 14: ask you this, because you're the expert, right, So I'm
Speaker 14: just thinking she was shot under the chin, right, which
Speaker 14: is a classic thing that people do when they take
Speaker 14: their own lives with a gun. Not everybody, but it's
Speaker 14: sort of common. But my question is just in terms
Speaker 14: of strength and leverage, right. I mean, Chris is not
Speaker 14: a huge powerful guy, and if he was to stick
Speaker 14: his arm up in a position where the gun would
Speaker 14: be pointing upwards, his arm would be weak in that position, right,
Speaker 14: And she would have a relatively easy time because she
Speaker 14: would have the leverage to be able to take her
Speaker 14: hand with her downward strength and push his arm down right.
Speaker 14: At a very minimum, the shot would have been wild
Speaker 14: because he would have had no ability to keep his
Speaker 14: hand with the gun positioned under her chin for even
Speaker 14: a second long enough they got off a shot if
Speaker 14: she was making even a modest attempt to push his
Speaker 14: arm down.
Speaker 3: No, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 14: Let's think of this logically. So then he's going to
Speaker 14: sort of gently go, honey, hold still for a second.
Speaker 14: I'm just going to gently place my hand with this pistol,
Speaker 14: which you can plainly see up under your chin, very
Speaker 14: you know, calmly, and you just hold motionless.
Speaker 3: No, I mean no, Yeah, that didn't happen.
Speaker 14: As you pull back these layers, it becomes so painfully obvious.
Speaker 14: I mean, I'm just going to come out and say,
Speaker 14: this is not what happened, and that's why we're here.
Speaker 1: As I finished this episode, I reach back out to
Speaker 1: Katie Hartman for her final analysis. After having some time
Speaker 1: to process both the reconstruction and Bill's report.
Speaker 6: My thoughts from that day were many.
Speaker 9: What was alleged to have happened by the prosecution, we
Speaker 9: were able to disprove and what was the defense's explanation
Speaker 9: wasn't fully brought to a conclusion either.
Speaker 1: In your opinion, based on what the crime scene reconstruction revealed,
Speaker 1: do you believe that there is reasonable doubt that Christopher
Speaker 1: Vond killed his wife and three children that day?
Speaker 6: Very much?
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 9: We went from everything from Christopher as the prosecution alleged
Speaker 9: to shooting from the outside. We went to Christopher shooting
Speaker 9: from the inside, Christopher shooting with the passenger door opened
Speaker 9: and shooting Kim and the kids, Christopher with the or closed,
Speaker 9: to shooting Kim and the character. None of those things
Speaker 9: were possible with the angles that the three d presented.
Speaker 9: It was shocking, to be honest, that it was even
Speaker 9: brought to trial and it ended up at the end
Speaker 9: of the day the most logical way was that Kim
Speaker 9: did it. And that's hard for.
Speaker 1: Me to say that did some murder suicide.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and that's hard because it's terrible that these three
Speaker 9: babies died.
Speaker 4: But it's hard to.
Speaker 6: Look at it and see that.
Speaker 9: The man's in prison because a lot of people got
Speaker 9: a tunnel vision and didn't didn't listen, and had already
Speaker 9: figured out in their minds what happened is It?
Speaker 1: On the final episode of Murder in Illinois. The daunting
Speaker 1: hurdles that remain for Christopher Vaughan, the.
Speaker 3: Prosepcutors who got it wrong are always the last to
Speaker 3: admit that they made a mistake.
Speaker 1: Are met with some impressive offers of assistance.
Speaker 14: We've had nine exonerations, and my goal is to make
Speaker 14: mister Vaughan the tenth.
Speaker 1: And a very significant spotlight. Murder in Illinois is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are Lauren Priie Pacheco and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chacoine. Written by Lauren Prei Pacheco and Matthew Riddle,
Speaker 1: Story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoyne. Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm
Speaker 1: New compositions engineered and mixed by Evan Tyer and Taylor
Speaker 1: Chicoran Uzo nro Down Meri Guzo row.
Speaker 2: Down on me ri Guo.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
Speaker 1: to you.