Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. On September
Speaker 1: twenty first, twenty twelve, a Will County jury consisting of
Speaker 1: eight men and four women deliberated for less than fifty
Speaker 1: minutes before convicting Christopher Vaughan of killing his wife and
Speaker 1: three children in the family's suv in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven in a bid to start a new life in
Speaker 1: the Canadian wilderness. Over the course of five weeks, jury
Speaker 1: foreman Dan Lachet and his fellow jurors heard from nearly
Speaker 1: ninety witnesses and saw more than seven hundred exhibits. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: Lachet expressed his interest in writing a book on the
Speaker 1: case and told press there was no doubt in the
Speaker 1: juror's minds of Vaughn's guilt, and they never even considered
Speaker 1: the defense argument that Vaughn's wife committed the murders. He
Speaker 1: also referenced Vaughn's flat demeanor, saying, quote, if you watched
Speaker 1: him throughout the trial like we did, I think you'd
Speaker 1: come to the same conclusion as we did. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we'll break down the circumstantial and forensic evidence that possibly
Speaker 1: led to a conviction based on what could be emotional
Speaker 1: and confirmation bias. I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is
Speaker 1: murder in Illinois. Let's start with two words. You've almost
Speaker 1: heard more in this podcast than Christopher or Vaughn. Tunnel vision.
Speaker 1: In legal terms, it's defined as a tendency fueled by
Speaker 1: bias and pressure that leads actors in the criminal justices
Speaker 1: to single mindedly focus on a suspect and build a
Speaker 1: case for conviction while ignoring evidence that points away from guilt.
Speaker 1: Bill Clutter believes it was in play throughout the case
Speaker 1: against Vaughn.
Speaker 2: This really is a text book case of tunnel vision
Speaker 2: and confirmatory bias. Because each fact that they would discover
Speaker 2: and learn about Chris his secret life of going to
Speaker 2: script clubs, Aha, you know, just reinforces you did it
Speaker 2: because he already started with that assumption.
Speaker 1: Clutter characterizes the combination of tunnel vision and confirmation bias
Speaker 1: as something Vaughn referenced in their first jail house meeting,
Speaker 1: a perfect storm.
Speaker 2: Every time they would find a new bad fact for
Speaker 2: Chris that you're spending thousands of dollars on script clubs.
Speaker 2: You went to the gun range the day before. You've
Speaker 2: got this fantasy of hiking into the Yukon and never
Speaker 2: coming back and leaving your family. I mean, these are
Speaker 2: all bad facts in terms of painting character. So it
Speaker 2: was almost a piling on effect that every time they
Speaker 2: would discover some fact like that, it just reinforced their
Speaker 2: belief that he did it without really conducting the type
Speaker 2: of objective investigation that the crime scene investigator Bob Deal
Speaker 2: was urging them to do. Followed the evidence, followed the
Speaker 2: CSI rather than your gut instincts.
Speaker 1: You've also heard Bob Deel's name a bunch. The former
Speaker 1: Illinois State Police crime investigator played a role in both
Speaker 1: high profile cases that unfolded in the Will County Courthouse
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. So even as he was trying to
Speaker 1: raise flags in the handling of Vaughn's case, Deal was
Speaker 1: being maligned for his handling of the Drew Peterson case. Deal,
Speaker 1: along with others, had initially ruled out foul play in
Speaker 1: the bathtub drowning of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio. In
Speaker 1: pursuing their case against Peterson. Prosecutors laid blame for that
Speaker 1: ruling on the former Illinois State Police crime investigator, which
Speaker 1: also made it easy to discredit Deal's thoughts on the
Speaker 1: Bond case unfolding across the hall. Here's clutter.
Speaker 2: Let me say something about Bob Deal and his defense,
Speaker 2: because this also runs along that same argument, because when
Speaker 2: Chris is being tried, it's simultaneous to the Drew Peterson case.
Speaker 2: And Bob Deal wasn't the only one that assumed that
Speaker 2: Peterson's wife drowned in this bathtub. It was also the
Speaker 2: medical examiner that determines cause of death. So it's not
Speaker 2: like they can point to one case where he got
Speaker 2: it wrong and therefore disregard everything you say about this
Speaker 2: other case.
Speaker 1: In his initial crime scene report, Bob Deal listed Kimberly
Speaker 1: Vaughan as suspect number one and Chris Vaughn as suspect
Speaker 1: number two. In his deposition, Deal contends his removal from
Speaker 1: the Vaughn investigation was because his processing of the crime
Speaker 1: scene did not dismiss the possibility that Kim Vaughn may
Speaker 1: have in fact killed her children, shot Chris, and then
Speaker 1: committed suicide. Because Deal's opinion was at odds with the
Speaker 1: Illinois State Police and the Will County State's Attorney, Deale
Speaker 1: believes he was removed from anything to do with the case.
Speaker 1: In fact, he was asked to never process another crime
Speaker 1: scene in will County. Deal felt investigators retrofitted the evidence
Speaker 1: to fit their theory that Vaughan was standing outside the
Speaker 1: passenger door when he shot his wife and kids, a
Speaker 1: theory that Sergeant Gary Lawson came up with the day
Speaker 1: of the tragedy. In his deposition, Deal says he told
Speaker 1: Sergeant Lawson that based on the crime scene evidence, that
Speaker 1: was quote friggin' impossible. Back to Bill Clutter, how did
Speaker 1: the jury react to Deal's allegation of tunnel vision an
Speaker 1: immediate bias against Vaughn, Well.
Speaker 2: They didn't get to hear that evidence. The judge wouldn't
Speaker 2: allow a Deal to testify to the judge denied it.
Speaker 2: The judge wouldn't allow him to testify about the call
Speaker 2: he received from Ken Kopis, who was the commander of
Speaker 2: the investigation unit of the only state police, that they
Speaker 2: felt that the husband did it, and wouldn't allow Deal
Speaker 2: to testify about his participation in the major case review
Speaker 2: that included the entire investigative team, including the state's attorney
Speaker 2: James Glascow, where Glascow offered his opinion that Kim was
Speaker 2: an angel. There's no way she could have done this,
Speaker 2: and Deal told him that the crime scene evidence can't
Speaker 2: eliminate her as having done this. In fact, much of
Speaker 2: the forensic evidence supports that she did, and they weren't
Speaker 2: willing to listen to the objective, basically, the science based evidence.
Speaker 1: It struck me when I was rereading Deal's deposition that
Speaker 1: he claims that Sergeant Gary Lawson came up with the
Speaker 1: theory of Vaughn standing outside the passenger window with the gun,
Speaker 1: killing Kim and then the kids the same day as
Speaker 1: the murders.
Speaker 2: That's right, and Deal had him demonstrate his theory with
Speaker 2: an unloaded gun, and then he went about demonstrating to
Speaker 2: Lawson why the bullet trajectory evidence didn't support that theory.
Speaker 2: And you know that's significant.
Speaker 1: Looking back now. Was there an unwillingness to examine the
Speaker 1: evidence objectively? And how does the prosecution's case against Christopher
Speaker 1: Vaughn hold up. Let's start with Vaughn's time and money
Speaker 1: spent its strip clubs, the first of multiple damning revelations
Speaker 1: that would make headlines after the murders. Here again is
Speaker 1: Bill Clutter.
Speaker 2: It's a tactic of the prosecutor. The goal is to
Speaker 2: get the jury to hate the defendant, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of ways they do this. In this case, they
Speaker 2: did it over the fact that he had visited Scores
Speaker 2: strip club on two occasions dropped I think almost five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars over the course of two nights. That was
Speaker 2: a character assassination. And you know, there's millions of people
Speaker 2: go to strip clubs. They don't go home and kill
Speaker 2: their wife and kids.
Speaker 1: During the trial, the prosecution leaned heavily on morality, portraying
Speaker 1: Vaughn's visits to strip clubs in the weeks before the
Speaker 1: murders as incriminating. Was the money spent on strippers anything
Speaker 1: more than circumstantial? And was it utilized as character assassination
Speaker 1: to sway a jury without hard evidence. Being unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: the field, I turned to an expert on the sub Chase, Kelly.
Speaker 3: I have been stripping for thirteen years and working.
Speaker 4: In strip clubs since two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: I am pretty well versed in.
Speaker 5: The strip club world.
Speaker 3: I also coach entertainos for a living, so I pretty
Speaker 3: much have spoken to somebody in every club in the
Speaker 3: country and some internationally as well.
Speaker 1: So from your experience in terms of working with your clients,
Speaker 1: your regulars, what percentage of men and I know this
Speaker 1: isn't a scientific answer, but in your opinion, what percentage
Speaker 1: of guys who come in are married?
Speaker 4: Let's say it's probably around sixty five to seventy five percent.
Speaker 4: This is a married man sport.
Speaker 1: While she's not involved in the Bond case, Chase is
Speaker 1: an authority on the types of clubs he visited. Because
Speaker 1: Vaughn had gone to strip clubs and he'd spent five grand,
Speaker 1: they made this sleep that he wasn't a family man.
Speaker 4: That somebody would suggest that because somebody is going to
Speaker 4: a strip club that they don't love their family. That's
Speaker 4: crazy to me, crazy, and I have been working in
Speaker 4: these clubs for twenty years.
Speaker 1: The prosecution and press focused on the thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: and time Bond spent at clubs as indicative of his
Speaker 1: level of betrayal. To quote the prosecution, he's not serious
Speaker 1: about working on his marriage. If he was, he would
Speaker 1: be in bed next to Kimberly. Here are Chase Kelly's thoughts.
Speaker 4: I think if a man wanted to cheat, he would
Speaker 4: do it for free or cheaper. If a man wants
Speaker 4: to sleep with somebody else, he's going to go and
Speaker 4: do that. If you want to preserve your marriage, you
Speaker 4: don't want to cheat.
Speaker 2: You go to a strip club.
Speaker 4: There's no cheating because there's no release, there's no physical
Speaker 4: contact on that level. It's somebody to listen to you,
Speaker 4: talk to you, somebody who make you laugh, a break
Speaker 4: from your life. You know how many great husbands and
Speaker 4: amazing fathers I've met that has spent five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: on me with not a question.
Speaker 3: To be asked about a five thousand.
Speaker 4: Dollars is a normal amount of spending a club. Some
Speaker 4: people might say, oh my gosh, that's crazy. That's a
Speaker 4: crazy amount of money. But somebody spends five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: in my club every night.
Speaker 1: How does that bill get wrung up?
Speaker 4: That's two hours, five thousand dollars, two hours in a
Speaker 4: private room.
Speaker 1: Again, that money wouldn't be buying what many have assumed.
Speaker 1: Contact is not allowed.
Speaker 4: The lapdance is what twenty thirty forty dollars depending on
Speaker 4: where you are, that you're just getting the boobs in
Speaker 4: the face right when you start spending that bigger money. Generally,
Speaker 4: what we see is that the clients become less sexual
Speaker 4: and more pockative, comfortable, relaxed. They can melt into the
Speaker 4: chair and you can ask them questions, and that's how
Speaker 4: you keep a guy m VIP for two hours.
Speaker 1: So the two women that Vaughn met in clubs, a
Speaker 1: woman named Maya and a woman named Crystal. I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble tracking them down because of the
Speaker 1: nature of the crime, but they testified and they both
Speaker 1: said he was an absolute gentleman and that he just
Speaker 1: wanted to talk.
Speaker 4: Don't see why they would have any reason to lie
Speaker 4: about that. It's very, very common for a guy to
Speaker 4: go into a club and just have a laugh and
Speaker 4: leave it behind for a minute, although many people do
Speaker 4: use clubs as therapy because of the amount of anonymity
Speaker 4: that they are granted.
Speaker 1: Anonymity played into the case against Vaughn with the strippers
Speaker 1: as well as Willett. Vaughn's wilderness pen pal Chris did
Speaker 1: not share that he was married or had children, but
Speaker 1: that too can be viewed through a different lens. Back
Speaker 1: to Chase, do you think that it's odd that he
Speaker 1: told one of the women that he wasn't married and
Speaker 1: he didn't have kids. No, in what sense.
Speaker 4: It's a fantasy world, right, So he gets to, you know,
Speaker 4: dissociate from his wife for a little bit and get
Speaker 4: to be somebody else. When I go into the club,
Speaker 4: I change my name, I change my voice, I changed
Speaker 4: my hair, I change the way that I walk, I
Speaker 4: change the way that I smile. It's a fantasy. Some
Speaker 4: people need it as escapism and some people need it
Speaker 4: as a space of acceptance. Right, So both are valid.
Speaker 6: So we create a place.
Speaker 4: It's harmless fun. We are performers, and honestly, I think
Speaker 4: if more wives knew how we conducted our business, they
Speaker 4: say thank you to us instead of quilifying us so much.
Speaker 6: I really do agree or not.
Speaker 1: This does offer a perspective the places what was circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence in another life. Another focus of the prosecution was
Speaker 1: the Wilderness Forum Vaughn joined. There is a specific quote
Speaker 1: from Henry David Throw that Vaughn posted. If you are
Speaker 1: ready to leave father and mother and brother and sister
Speaker 1: and wife and child and friends, if you never see
Speaker 1: them again. If you have paid your debts and made
Speaker 1: your will and settled your affairs and are a freeman,
Speaker 1: then you are ready for a walk. This was presented
Speaker 1: as evidence Vaughn was ready for that walk but held
Speaker 1: back by his family. In addition to the forum posts
Speaker 1: and emails to Steve Willett, focus was placed on a
Speaker 1: storage locker that Vaughn had rented and filled with camping equipment.
Speaker 1: The locker wasn't registered to Chris's home address, but rather
Speaker 1: a private PO box, and the alternate contact was Larry Vaughn,
Speaker 1: not his wife. To the prosecution, this was more evidence
Speaker 1: of murderous intent. Here's reporter Erica Wurst's recollections.
Speaker 7: Fantasizing that was and I described before is maniacal. He
Speaker 7: was of set the storage unit like not in the
Speaker 7: fact that he didn't store any of it in his
Speaker 7: empty basement while you're clearly hiding something. That whole thing,
Speaker 7: I mean, if you're looking for motivation. In his emails,
Speaker 7: he was sending to his little homeboy talking about wanting
Speaker 7: to leave all of his obligations and take the walk,
Speaker 7: and he had to tie things up at home first.
Speaker 7: And you could look at all that both ways though,
Speaker 7: if he wants him to have the money, or it
Speaker 7: could just be like I'm going to tie things up
Speaker 7: at home first. You gotta look at it all.
Speaker 1: But if one's decided someone is a murderer, everything they
Speaker 1: do can seem like a sinister act. That is confirmation bias.
Speaker 1: So let's suppose just for a minute that the storage
Speaker 1: locker full of equipment wasn't for Chris to run off
Speaker 1: into the wilderness. Then why did he have it? I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what Chris's parents thought. Can you guys
Speaker 1: explain to me your understanding of why Chris had that
Speaker 1: storage facility?
Speaker 8: We are going to try to go to Canada, Pierre
Speaker 8: and I and Chris and his family, and he was
Speaker 8: starting to accumulate the stuff the family and he was
Speaker 8: going to need, and we were starting to talk about it,
Speaker 8: and we weren't going to do it until the following August,
Speaker 8: sometime after between when the black flies start and cold
Speaker 8: weather in.
Speaker 6: We hadn't really.
Speaker 9: Penpointed it, but he figured he'd just start getting things
Speaker 9: together so that.
Speaker 8: When we said, okay, this is what we're going to do,
Speaker 8: he would have it.
Speaker 1: Okay, did he have that storage facility before they moved
Speaker 1: into the house. Is it something they had when they
Speaker 1: were in the apartment.
Speaker 9: I don't know when he got it, actually, but he
Speaker 9: did tell us that he was starting to put stuff
Speaker 9: in the storage facility units so that I would get
Speaker 9: mixed in with the basement full of stuff.
Speaker 1: There's a photo of Vaughn wearing a cowboy hat standing
Speaker 1: outside that storage facility. There's snow on the ground, and
Speaker 1: it's not a selfie. He appears to be holding his
Speaker 1: cell phone and or his BlackBerry in his hand.
Speaker 10: And we don't even know where this picture came from.
Speaker 8: Somebody had taken but.
Speaker 10: We don't know who.
Speaker 1: They didn't know who Larry Vaughn was either. When I
Speaker 1: emailed Chris for clarification about the storage facility, he referenced
Speaker 1: that picture without prompting quote. The storage facility was rented
Speaker 1: after we moved into the house. We did have extra
Speaker 1: storage space in the apartment, but that was moved into
Speaker 1: the basement at the house. The plan was to sort
Speaker 1: through the basement, get rid of stuff, and place the
Speaker 1: remainder in the new facility, which was smaller. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: it was a task that was easy to put off
Speaker 1: to next month, so I had not gotten around to it.
Speaker 1: Kim had been at the facility with me. There's a
Speaker 1: picture on the website she'd taken of me in front
Speaker 1: of the Orange Doors. Unquote, Vaughan explained the po box
Speaker 1: belonged to the company he'd started in Washington Stonebridge because
Speaker 1: he thought he could write it off as a business expense,
Speaker 1: and that Larry was a name he made up on
Speaker 1: the spot when the worker at the facility insisted he
Speaker 1: provide an alternate contact, not living in the same residence.
Speaker 1: If all that's true, the storage facility wasn't a secret stockpile,
Speaker 1: but a mixture of things from previous and future camping trips.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, Chris definitely came from a family with
Speaker 1: an unusual passion for extreme outdoor activities. Here's Pierre.
Speaker 11: That's one thing Chris wanted to do is show his kids,
Speaker 11: you know, how well they have it by taking him
Speaker 11: out in the wilderness and having them experience the wilderness
Speaker 11: life versus everything served to you, my inconveniency, a lot
Speaker 11: of modern conveniences.
Speaker 1: They made a big deal of the storage unit in
Speaker 1: the trial. Did the defense ever explain it the way
Speaker 1: you guys just explained it to me?
Speaker 11: No, there was all one side of the defense never
Speaker 11: defended it at all.
Speaker 10: As far as I could.
Speaker 1: Recollect, I have obtained both the pobox contract and the
Speaker 1: receipt from the storage facility. The Oswego PO box is
Speaker 1: in fact clearly attributed to Stonebridge and was used for
Speaker 1: mail forwarded from Bond's Washington consulting firm. In addition, it
Speaker 1: was specified to receive items addressed to both Christopher and
Speaker 1: Kemberley vonn and the contract is dated December twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, coinciding with the family's move to Illinois.
Speaker 1: The storage facility receipt is marked with the address of
Speaker 1: that PEO box in our emails. Here's how Chris characterized
Speaker 1: his communication with Willett and the Wilderness website quote, Hiking
Speaker 1: and camping was a hobby I truly enjoyed. In Washington,
Speaker 1: the kids and I spent a lot of time hiking
Speaker 1: the nearby trails. We loved our outdoor adventures. I had
Speaker 1: hiking trail books for western Washington. The kids and I
Speaker 1: spent nearly as much time selecting and planning trips together
Speaker 1: as we actually did.
Speaker 6: Hiking.
Speaker 1: Camping in Washington was regulated to the backyard, but we
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in the tent or the
Speaker 1: treehouse we built out back. Kim occasionally came hiking, but
Speaker 1: never joined us camping in Illinois. The kids were more
Speaker 1: occupied with school and their own activities, so hadn't got
Speaker 1: back to hiking yet. Plus it was Illinois. I continued
Speaker 1: to take time here and there to get outside, still
Speaker 1: very much interested. My trips grew in scope, but I
Speaker 1: was never serious about wilderness survival. That was online boasting
Speaker 1: among other enthusiasts. I liked I could take a trip
Speaker 1: to the woods and then return to my comfortable life
Speaker 1: with modern conveniences. If Vaughn's desire was to escape those
Speaker 1: modern conveniences and his marriage, he also seemed to be
Speaker 1: making contradictory efforts to salvage it. During Vaughn's initial interrogation,
Speaker 1: he was asked multiple questions about his relationship with Kim
Speaker 1: Chris never spoke disparagingly about her, and in fact spoke
Speaker 1: actively about their future plans. He also mentioned attempts to
Speaker 1: reconcile things with his wife. You've heard this exchange during
Speaker 1: the police questioning before, but it bears repeating.
Speaker 5: Let's take there on a honeymoon this weekend. We're going
Speaker 5: to go back to Herman where we had our first honeymoon.
Speaker 5: Two things all over again.
Speaker 12: Who's going to launch kids.
Speaker 5: My mom and her sister heaven out on Friday, So yeah,
Speaker 5: they're coming to the house to watch the kids for
Speaker 5: the weekend. Believe Kim and I, it was a surprise.
Speaker 5: I didn't want her to have to worry about any
Speaker 5: details or anything like that. So I set up and
Speaker 5: I told her parents. I told my parents to kind
Speaker 5: of coordinate the details.
Speaker 13: But uh, I was gonna take her cause.
Speaker 12: So your mom and your sister, No, my mom and
Speaker 12: my aunt her sister. Yeah, we're gonna come up Friday.
Speaker 12: When were they supposed to show up around dune or
Speaker 12: so maybe something? And and Kim had no idea they
Speaker 12: were coming.
Speaker 5: I was gonna tell her later today.
Speaker 12: What if she would have said, I going ain't gonna happen.
Speaker 5: I don't know why she would have said that, Like
Speaker 5: this is it was gonna be good.
Speaker 12: Do you think one the weekend of sex with your
Speaker 12: wife is gonna make her forget that you've been having
Speaker 12: sex with all these other women?
Speaker 5: You think it wasn't all these other world cup it's
Speaker 5: just one time of Mexico and it was a start.
Speaker 1: Well, we do know Vaughn did make those herman reservation
Speaker 1: and plans. Kim apparently had found out about something because
Speaker 1: she had put in for time off from her pool job.
Speaker 1: That was used against Vaughn, but others knew and could
Speaker 1: have tipped her off as to the surprise. The marriage
Speaker 1: and the last minute nature of the water park trip
Speaker 1: also came up in Vaughn's initial questioning over the.
Speaker 5: Last couple of months, I've been trying to work to
Speaker 5: make things better than that was what the honeymoon was
Speaker 5: all about. And you know, I'd looked into Emmy. She'd
Speaker 5: mentioned spend more time with kids. Were off for summer break,
Speaker 5: and I thought, well, we're gone on Friday, We're not
Speaker 5: going to be back until Sunday, and the next weekend
Speaker 5: her parents are coming up, and then a couple of
Speaker 5: weeks after that, the kids are going to be in
Speaker 5: Saint Louis for.
Speaker 12: A couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: So we didn't we don't have any like the five
Speaker 5: less family time. So I said, fine, you know, let's let's.
Speaker 12: Go to a water park.
Speaker 5: And you know, one of the things that had come
Speaker 5: up is one of the water parks that we passed
Speaker 5: in Springfield when we met her parents there, and you know,
Speaker 5: and I said, Dad, and She's like.
Speaker 1: Fine, you know, want's do that, but we're last minute
Speaker 1: trips unusual for Vaughn and his family. I asked a
Speaker 1: former neighbor from Illinois named Barbara. Did the family do
Speaker 1: strange things like take last minute trips when you knew
Speaker 1: them in the apartment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they took trips quite a bit because they had
Speaker 6: this it was like a luggage wreck on the top
Speaker 6: of their car, and they would take it off and
Speaker 6: put it back on. Yeah, they would go to water
Speaker 6: parks and on different trips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of flagged as you know, this
Speaker 1: last minute trip. But then speaking to to other family members,
Speaker 1: they did quirky trips all the time. Last minute.
Speaker 6: Yeah they were. That's not the first trip that I've
Speaker 6: seen them go on. They've gone on quite a few
Speaker 6: because I remember because of the longa trip. So no,
Speaker 6: that wouldn't have been like, you know, just one trip
Speaker 6: that they chose that was last minute. They went often
Speaker 6: to you know, different places.
Speaker 1: In addition to being an aunt of Alexa, the friend
Speaker 1: of Abigail we met in a previous episode, Barbara was
Speaker 1: close to Kim and offers insight into her personality and mothering.
Speaker 6: I felt she was pretty adjusted and then I ended
Speaker 6: up finding out she was in school online getting her
Speaker 6: criminal justice degree, and she had a lot, a lot
Speaker 6: of irons in the fire with her kids, which she
Speaker 6: always put her kids first everything. She would be in
Speaker 6: the classroom, going to drop them off, going to pick
Speaker 6: them up, just always there for them. Whatever activities they
Speaker 6: were involved in, she was there.
Speaker 1: So she seemed like super mom.
Speaker 6: Yes, I called her the mother of all mothers. And
Speaker 6: the reason why I called her that is because Kim
Speaker 6: never raised her voice. She was always so calm, and
Speaker 6: I started asking her questions like you don't ever get
Speaker 6: angry and raise your voice, because I've never seen a
Speaker 6: raise your voice at her kids. And it just shocked
Speaker 6: me because at some point some mom says, don't do
Speaker 6: that or what are you doing? But Kim was always
Speaker 6: just calm with her voice, and she always told her
Speaker 6: kids use your words all the time. I heard that
Speaker 6: from her. Her husband was out of town a lot.
Speaker 6: I met him once, but I spent, you know, some
Speaker 6: time with Kim and the kids.
Speaker 1: I know that you only met him once, But do
Speaker 1: you remember any impressions of Chris.
Speaker 6: Yes, Chris was a really nice guy. He was very kind,
Speaker 6: But I don't know why the hairs on my neck
Speaker 6: stood up when I met him. I can't even explain it.
Speaker 6: I can't. He was a nice guy. He wasn't rude
Speaker 6: or mean or anything like that. But I don't know
Speaker 6: what I was sensing. And I just said hello and
Speaker 6: I left.
Speaker 1: And this is how many people who knew Kim felt
Speaker 1: that Chris was quiet, sort of offbeat, and that Kim
Speaker 1: was just a vibrant, wonderful mother. All these years later,
Speaker 1: Barbara remains upset and confused as to what actually happened
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 6: It was unbelievable. I cried so hard. I given one.
Speaker 6: I think about it now, it makes me sad. Oh,
Speaker 6: they were such good kids. Kim was such a good mother,
Speaker 6: you know, lady was the mother of all mothers. She
Speaker 6: was so good to her kids. What in the world happened?
Speaker 6: What happened? And I'm like, whatever they were saying on
Speaker 6: the news was not making sense. When the stories came
Speaker 6: out that Chris said that she shot the kids and
Speaker 6: then shot him, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, Kim,
Speaker 6: the Kim I know would never do that. Kim, the
Speaker 6: Kim I know would have put her body on her
Speaker 6: kids and covered her kids up. So in my.
Speaker 14: Mind, I thought he would have had to shoot her first,
Speaker 14: because she would have She would have protected her kids
Speaker 14: like she was a mama bear. She was the mother
Speaker 14: of all mothers. Kim would have laid her body over
Speaker 14: those kids, I'm telling you right now, Oh God, she
Speaker 14: would have covered them, canceled. She would have thought with
Speaker 14: all she had.
Speaker 1: We'll revisit this later, But there was absolutely no sign
Speaker 1: of struggle. Kim did not have defensive wounds, bruises, pulled hair,
Speaker 1: nothing that suggests she was held in place while a
Speaker 1: shot was placed with precision, just slightly away from the
Speaker 1: soft area under her chin. And when her nails were scraped,
Speaker 1: they did not contain Christopher Vaughn's DNA. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: she had migraines. Can you just elaborate a little bit
Speaker 1: upon that. How did you know and how much did
Speaker 1: they impact her?
Speaker 6: All I know is that she suffered from them quite
Speaker 6: a bit. She would have headaches, and she talked about
Speaker 6: him sometime. She was involved with so much. But I
Speaker 6: know that she had them, and that she still was
Speaker 6: in school when the kids were gone online. She still
Speaker 6: worked in their classroom quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Did she ever talk to you about the medication she
Speaker 1: was taking for her migraines and her anxiety.
Speaker 6: No, we never talked about that.
Speaker 1: But Kim did discuss issues associated with those medications with others.
Speaker 1: Here's Bill Clutter in.
Speaker 2: Her own words on May twenty fourth of two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, and this is three weeks before this tragedy happened.
Speaker 2: There was an email she had written to Chris after
Speaker 2: she had visited an osteopath, and she reported to the
Speaker 2: osteopath that she was taking these migraine prescriptions and that
Speaker 2: she was feeling anxiety. A high anxiety was the notation
Speaker 2: in the medical records, and in her own words she says,
Speaker 2: I told him that you had noticed and I had
Speaker 2: noticed a big personality change and an anxiety change, and
Speaker 2: that I was feeling lethargic, tired all the time. And
Speaker 2: of course, when you look at the medication guide that
Speaker 2: came out a year later, when the FDA was wanting
Speaker 2: to place a black box warning on Topomax warning suicidal
Speaker 2: behavior and ideation anti epileptic drugs, including Topomax, increase the
Speaker 2: risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior and patients taking these
Speaker 2: drugs for any indications. And it goes on to say,
Speaker 2: patients treated with anti epileptic drugs for any indication should
Speaker 2: be monitored for the emergence of worsening of depression, suicidal
Speaker 2: thoughts or behavior, and or any unusual changes in mood
Speaker 2: or behavior. It described feeling agitated or restless, panic attacks,
Speaker 2: trouble sleeping, new or worse, irritability, acting aggressive, being angry
Speaker 2: or violent, acting on dangerous impulses, an extreme increase in anxiety,
Speaker 2: and talking mania.
Speaker 1: So her change in personality and her anxiety would have
Speaker 1: gone hand in hand with an adverse reaction.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Two days after the tragedy, police spoke with a sixth
Speaker 1: grade locker buddy of Abigail Vaughan about an interaction he
Speaker 1: had with his visibly upset friend on June seventh, a
Speaker 1: week before the murders. His name is Jacob. He's now
Speaker 1: in his twenties. Tell me about the conversation you two
Speaker 1: had on the last day of school in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven and why that stuck out to you.
Speaker 10: It stuck out to me because she was really upset.
Speaker 10: She said that her mom was acting crazy, and that
Speaker 10: was basically the gist of that. It was one of
Speaker 10: the first things that popped up in my head when
Speaker 10: I first heard about the murders.
Speaker 1: What he told police, according to their report two days
Speaker 1: after the tragedy, was that Abigail Vaughn said her mother
Speaker 1: was quote hearing thoughts in her head unquote end quote.
Speaker 1: Psycho Bill Clutter also spoke with him in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine.
Speaker 2: Well, I spoke to both of Jacob's parents before talking
Speaker 2: to him because he was a minor, and they explained
Speaker 2: that Jacob had related this to them, and they felt
Speaker 2: it was important for the state police to know this,
Speaker 2: and that resulted in Jacob's.
Speaker 1: Interview because they believed that his story about the mother's
Speaker 1: mental state might bear significance on the murders. Right, according
Speaker 1: to your notes, what did Abby tell Jacob.
Speaker 2: That her mother was hearing thoughts in her head. She
Speaker 2: would be talking to herself and nobody was there. And
Speaker 2: then she mentioned that her mother was sleep talking. And
Speaker 2: all of this paints a picture of some sort of
Speaker 2: mental instability that's happening with Kimberly Vaughn.
Speaker 1: During the trial, forensic pathologist doctor Larry Bloom testified that
Speaker 1: at the time of her death, Kimberly Vaughn was taking
Speaker 1: two medications known to cause increased risk of suicidal thoughts
Speaker 1: and side effects including confusion or agitation. If Kim was
Speaker 1: in fact struggling with difficulties with the medication she was taking,
Speaker 1: or exhibiting anomalies in her behavior behind the scenes that
Speaker 1: strained their relationship to some degree, Chris's behavior after the
Speaker 1: tragedy in many ways could have been seen as a
Speaker 1: normal response. According to neuroscientists and professor of human behavior
Speaker 1: doctor James Fallen Right.
Speaker 13: It's like I was my fault because I didn't understand
Speaker 13: him enough or her enough, and so they'll start blaming themselves.
Speaker 1: Let's also address Bond's personality. He came across to some
Speaker 1: acquaintances in the initial questioning the press and the courtroom
Speaker 1: as odd. He's unusually intelligent, as his former salary and
Speaker 1: profession would imply, but given his interest in druidism, writing
Speaker 1: poems in Celtic, and role playing on wilderness sites, he's
Speaker 1: also quirky. Did that add to his perception of guilt.
Speaker 1: Here's doctor Fallon's take.
Speaker 13: This reminds me a bit of somebody who is an
Speaker 13: introvert and maybe not open. You know. It brings you
Speaker 13: back to Ta kill a Mockingbird with bou Radley, who
Speaker 13: was a little excent. I don't know if Christopher phones
Speaker 13: eccentric at all, but it's just been reading it. I said,
Speaker 13: here's an easy mark, introvert who just wants to go
Speaker 13: off the grid, like I think anybody would want to
Speaker 13: do it, considering everything, and they put in their things
Speaker 13: about it. But when I went to a strip club
Speaker 13: and he had an affair, if this is the sort
Speaker 13: of evidence you need, I wonder how many das are
Speaker 13: going to pass that test, or sheriffs or anybody. And
Speaker 13: so it seemed completely made out of less than whole club.
Speaker 1: When Vaughn was convicted, here's how the will County State's attorney,
Speaker 1: James Glasgow referred to him.
Speaker 13: He's a heartless, soulless psychopath without any compassion, without any
Speaker 13: empathy for other human beings.
Speaker 1: Doctor Fallon is an expert on these terms which require evaluation.
Speaker 13: I didn't see any good psychiatric analyzes in these reports.
Speaker 13: How did he know this or how he because he
Speaker 13: doesn't seem like it right at all. For some reason,
Speaker 13: it was demonizing it. Were there people involved in the
Speaker 13: case for who were doing things for political reasons? I
Speaker 13: mean because it's when you read this whole thing says
Speaker 13: somebody's getting bamboozle.
Speaker 1: Now, let's address emotional bias in keeping with such a brutal,
Speaker 1: unfathomable tragedy. And the crime scene photos shown as evidence
Speaker 1: during the trial. You've heard the impact they had on many,
Speaker 1: including Jojosey and Erica Wurst, reporters who covered the trial.
Speaker 6: I don't think I saw the crime scene photos until
Speaker 6: the trial. They were heartbreaking. They were horrible. They were horrible.
Speaker 15: You have little babies with bullet wounds that were zooming
Speaker 15: up on and seeing and Kim with her hand like
Speaker 15: flouched down by the center council kind of and she's
Speaker 15: got her wedding ring on. That's one that's like seared
Speaker 15: into my head just because it's so sad.
Speaker 1: Bill Clutter points out something that may seem obvious but
Speaker 1: needs to be taken into account.
Speaker 2: There are evidence in the sense that it describes the
Speaker 2: crime scene, but it's not evidence that resolves the issue
Speaker 2: of who did it. And unfortunately, in this case, the
Speaker 2: prosecution had a big screen to display the crime scene photos,
Speaker 2: and more than anything else, it was the emotional impact
Speaker 2: of those photos. I think that really swayed the jury.
Speaker 1: Was Chris vond convicted on character assassination and circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back from emotion, a step back
Speaker 1: from Chris or Kim, and let's look solely at evidence.
Speaker 1: The crime scene evidence remains problematic for both the prosecution
Speaker 1: and the defense because it doesn't align with either of
Speaker 1: their versions. Let's start with the blood evidence.
Speaker 2: There's no physical evidence that supports the state's theory that
Speaker 2: Chris reached around his wife after shooting her to shoot
Speaker 2: the kids. There was no transfer of her blood on
Speaker 2: the front of his body. He would have had to
Speaker 2: lean over her body to make those shots. I mean,
Speaker 2: she's bleeding profusely and her blood is falling and it's
Speaker 2: pooling on the center council and then it's splashing up
Speaker 2: onto the back of his driver's seat. Well, there's no evidence,
Speaker 2: you know, for him to have done with the state alleges,
Speaker 2: he would have had to have reached around her through
Speaker 2: that zone of blood spatter. But there was no blood
Speaker 2: of Kims that was on his right arm or right
Speaker 2: sleeve or left sleeve. And Vaughn was right handed and
Speaker 2: Vonn was right hand.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, is it important that According to Bob Deal,
Speaker 1: there was blood on Kimberly's arm that was never tested.
Speaker 2: Well, it's important, particularly the blood on her left and
Speaker 2: right hands.
Speaker 1: Clutter contends that if Kim held the gun under her
Speaker 1: chin and used her left thumb to pull the trigger
Speaker 1: her right hand to steady the weapon, that this pattern
Speaker 1: of blood could be consistent with suicide.
Speaker 2: If she was holding the gun as soon as the
Speaker 2: bullet was fired, her blood would have been dripping down.
Speaker 2: There's patterns of passive drops of blood on her left hand,
Speaker 2: but that was never tested. But if that was her blood,
Speaker 2: that would be strong evidence that she held the gun
Speaker 2: and was bleeding onto the hands after the gun was fired.
Speaker 1: We've already really addressed the terry cloth. What would that
Speaker 1: have possibly shown had that not been disposed.
Speaker 2: Of passive bloods gains? If those had been Kim's blood,
Speaker 2: you know, that's again consistent with her having self inflicted
Speaker 2: and bleeding onto the terry cloth as she was slumping
Speaker 2: to the left. And so if we were able to
Speaker 2: identify that pattern of passive drops of blood were her blood,
Speaker 2: that would be very strong evidence that she self inflicted
Speaker 2: that wound. The wound under Kim's chin that's completely consistent
Speaker 2: with a self inflicted gunshot wound. The muzzle of the
Speaker 2: gun wasn't firmly against the chin. It was raised up
Speaker 2: to the chin, and there was enough of a gap
Speaker 2: that allowed the gas that was ejected from the barrel
Speaker 2: of the gun to darken and blacken her chin. And
Speaker 2: that's completely contrary to the initial belief of the state's
Speaker 2: attorney that the gun had been jammed under her chin.
Speaker 2: For Christopher Vaughan to have staged this to make it
Speaker 2: look like Kim self inflicted her own wound, he would
Speaker 2: have one had to have enlisted her cooperation to stand
Speaker 2: still while he placed the muzzle of the gun under
Speaker 2: her chin. There was no evidence that he had held
Speaker 2: her hair and she was trying to pull away. None
Speaker 2: of that type of evidence that would suggest that there
Speaker 2: was a violent, forceful struggle to put the barrel of
Speaker 2: the gun under her chin.
Speaker 1: There's also physical size to take into account of both
Speaker 1: the bond and the large suv.
Speaker 2: It was Sergeant Lawson's opinion that he had reached through
Speaker 2: the passenger window. He had to assumed that it was opened,
Speaker 2: because when they arrived at the scene it was rolled up,
Speaker 2: but Lawson's theory was that Chris had reached in through
Speaker 2: the window and killed Kim and killed the kids. Well,
Speaker 2: he would have to have awfully long arms to have
Speaker 2: reached all the way to the left side of the
Speaker 2: passenger seat to make those shots that killed the children.
Speaker 2: And you know, he's only five to nine. He's just physically,
Speaker 2: as Bob Diale said it, that's an impossibility.
Speaker 1: Well, Vaughn's blood was found on his wife's retractor belt
Speaker 1: and droplets by her feet. There is no evidence that
Speaker 1: shows Vaughn ever stood outside that passenger door or evidence
Speaker 1: he walked back around the vehicle to the driver side,
Speaker 1: where a bullet was lodged with his DNA.
Speaker 2: The shot that penetrated his left leg. The barrel of
Speaker 2: the gun had been thrust into the jacket, and according
Speaker 2: to the ballistics, the shot was within less than six
Speaker 2: inches from the leg when it was fired, so the
Speaker 2: trajectory from the jacket pocket to the left leg would
Speaker 2: pass just millimeters above the growing area When it penetrated
Speaker 2: the top of the left leg right at the hip.
Speaker 2: It just narrowly missed the femeral ar of the leg,
Speaker 2: which could have been potentially fatal had that bullet been
Speaker 2: lower and he had been shot in the growing, I
Speaker 2: don't think he would have been charged, yeah, or alive
Speaker 2: or alive.
Speaker 1: Clutter remains bothered by the criminal mastermind charge.
Speaker 2: Where's the evidence of that? We have to have evidence,
Speaker 2: you know, they have to have some evidence that he
Speaker 2: staged this crime scene, and there is not there just
Speaker 2: simply isn't. There's strong reasonable doubt that he did this.
Speaker 2: The forensic evidence suggests that this was a murder suicide.
Speaker 2: The state concedes it appears to be a murder suicide.
Speaker 2: But the caveat is they argue that he staged the
Speaker 2: crime scene to make it look like it was. You
Speaker 2: have to prove that. That's the concept of proof beyond
Speaker 2: a reasonable doubt, and they didn't meet that test. Twelve
Speaker 2: jurors were influenced by the emotional appeal of the crime
Speaker 2: scene photos, the dead children, the strip clubs, the character assassination,
Speaker 2: and that's why he's in prison today.
Speaker 1: But there are three major questions that have yet to
Speaker 1: be answered on the next murder in Illinois. How did
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan's blood get on the retracted safety belt, droplets
Speaker 1: of his blood on the passenger side, and Kim's blood
Speaker 1: on the back of his jacket.
Speaker 9: It is a manager revelation.
Speaker 1: Possible insight into these three unsolved mysteries in this case
Speaker 1: come from an unexpected source.
Speaker 6: Oh my God.
Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Lauren bred Pacheco and Taylor Chicogyne. Written by Lauren
Speaker 1: Brd Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, story editing by Matthew Riddle,
Speaker 1: editing and sound designed by Evan Tire and Taylor Chaqoin.
Speaker 1: Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered and
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