Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. In August
Speaker 1: of twenty twelve, five years after the deaths of his family,
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughn's case headed to court. Vaughn's initial defense team
Speaker 1: had been dismantled when its funding evaporated, so he was
Speaker 1: now represented by a public defender. Here's Bill Clutter.
Speaker 2: By the time the death penalty was abolished, it was
Speaker 2: March of twenty eleven, so we had been investigating the
Speaker 2: case and learning the case for entire four years, and
Speaker 2: then once those resources went away, when it was no
Speaker 2: longer a capital case, the funding reverted to.
Speaker 3: The county prosecutors had originally planned to try this case
Speaker 3: as a death penalty case, but in the five years
Speaker 3: since the murder, the death penalty has been abolished here
Speaker 3: in the state of Illinois, and the fund used to
Speaker 3: pay for Christopher Vaughn's public defenders has been eliminated.
Speaker 4: He now has new attorneys.
Speaker 1: Something that would have a mixed impact on Vaughn.
Speaker 2: The good news is they're abolishing the death penalty. The
Speaker 2: bad news is they're abolishing the death penalty, which means
Speaker 2: you don't get the resources to defend yourself before trial
Speaker 2: and in many cases, prosecutors were making those decisions to
Speaker 2: file their intent not to seek the death penalty because
Speaker 2: it would.
Speaker 5: Do just that.
Speaker 1: The defense that Vaughn ended up going to that courtroom
Speaker 1: with as compared to the level that the prosecution had
Speaker 1: at the time, how would you categorize it?
Speaker 2: People use the analogy of David versus Goliath, but in
Speaker 2: this case it was David versus Godzilla.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren bred Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 6: But you did ja you you.
Speaker 7: Do?
Speaker 1: To recap Christopher Vaughan was held without bond in the
Speaker 1: Will County Jail in Illinois, So from the time he
Speaker 1: was arrested at his family's funeral in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven until the time of his trial in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: he'd spent the last five years of his life in jail.
Speaker 1: Regardless of the verdict, a man who hadn't yet been
Speaker 1: convicted of a crime had already lost five years of
Speaker 1: his life to incarceration, and Gale and Pierre Vaughan were
Speaker 1: very wary about their son's downgraded defense as he headed
Speaker 1: to court.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 5: John Rogers and Jerry Killian were both expert lawyers, and
Speaker 5: they worked very hard on it for four years, and
Speaker 5: they knew the thing inside and out, and they they
Speaker 5: were ready to go to trial, but they kept the
Speaker 5: state kept putting them off. If you're on trial for
Speaker 5: murder in Illinois, like Chris was, the state pays the
Speaker 5: lawyers and pays for your defense. Once they did away
Speaker 5: with the death penalty, they called our two lawyers in
Speaker 5: said hey, look, unless you want to finish this thing
Speaker 5: pro bono, we're not going to pay you anymore.
Speaker 9: And we couldn't afford I mean, our house wasn't even
Speaker 9: a fit in a bucket compared to the money that
Speaker 9: we would have had to provide.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean, the lawyers told us that this trial
Speaker 5: was probably costing the State of Illinois somewhere into the
Speaker 5: centy of ten to twenty million dollars, and I thought, well,
Speaker 5: that's a lot for lawyers.
Speaker 8: You know, the State of Illinois also drug it out
Speaker 8: for four years. That's kind of their own fault.
Speaker 5: So lawyers just said, hey, look, you know we can't
Speaker 5: finish the thing pro bono. They offered the State of
Speaker 5: Illinois like two hundred and fifty thousand If you give
Speaker 5: us two hundred fifty thousand to finish the case, and
Speaker 5: the state of Illinois wouldn't do it. But then they
Speaker 5: hired our public defender and his two associates to get
Speaker 5: up to speed on the case. So it was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you wouldn't pay our lawyers two hundred and fifty grand,
Speaker 5: but you paid your three lawyers and you still had
Speaker 5: to pay the prosecution lawyers to be involved with it,
Speaker 5: So the money didn't add up. You know, it's just
Speaker 5: a matter of getting rid of our good quality lawyers.
Speaker 1: And Pierre had another issue with Chris's new defense.
Speaker 8: Well, and this is my opinion, here's the thing.
Speaker 5: The public defender lawyers are paid by the same people
Speaker 5: who pay the prosecuting lawyers and who pay the judges.
Speaker 8: It all comes out of the same check book.
Speaker 5: So if you're person signing your check insinuates or let
Speaker 5: you know that this is the way things should go, and.
Speaker 8: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: As mentioned before, Chris also had the misfortune of sharing
Speaker 1: a courthouse with another high profile case that was happening
Speaker 1: at the same time, along with the press frenzy that
Speaker 1: accompanied it.
Speaker 10: In just the first day, attorneys agreed on twelve of
Speaker 10: the eighteen jurors they'll need for the Christopher Vaughn trial.
Speaker 10: It's a trial taking place by the way, in a
Speaker 10: courtroom literally next door to the murder trial of Drew Peterson.
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughn's trial unfolded in the same courthouse during the
Speaker 1: same time period under the same state's attorney, James Glasgow.
Speaker 1: Here's perr Vaughan.
Speaker 5: Jude Peterson was a police officer that had a couple
Speaker 5: wives go missing, and as it turns out, his final
Speaker 5: trial came up at the same time Chris did.
Speaker 8: So it was a meet a circus. There was Chamers
Speaker 8: TVs set up outside, there was a drawing for seats.
Speaker 5: They had to they had to take a drawing for
Speaker 5: the reporters to get in and take seats in both
Speaker 5: both cases. And you know, our our judge said that
Speaker 5: that Drew Peterson's case would not have any reflection on
Speaker 5: his judgment, but it did. He was he was interviewed
Speaker 5: by the press just like everybody else, and he wasn't
Speaker 5: going to be outdone by Drew Peterson's case, let's put
Speaker 5: it that way. So, yeah, there was a big media
Speaker 5: circus at the end of every day after court, good
Speaker 5: old Glasgow would be out there in the Street talking
Speaker 5: about how he's prosecuting these two guys and everything, And
Speaker 5: he never even appeared in either courtroom.
Speaker 1: But he was holding a lot of press conferences.
Speaker 8: Oh, yes, yes he was. He was running for election.
Speaker 1: At this point, the Peterson trial had garnered national attention.
Speaker 1: Drew Peterson was eventually convicted of killing his third wife,
Speaker 1: Kathleen Savio, and his fourth wife, still missing to this day,
Speaker 1: is suspected to have met a similar fate. The case
Speaker 1: somewhat overshadowed Vaughn's.
Speaker 11: This trial is expected to last about six weeks, and
Speaker 11: interestingly enough, it's being heard right next to the courtroom
Speaker 11: where the Drew Peterson murder trial is underway.
Speaker 1: Running for reelection, Glasgow was quite vocal about his intention
Speaker 1: to secure convictions for both Peterson and Vaughn, and his
Speaker 1: opponent at the time accused Glasgow of manipulating the timing
Speaker 1: of both trials for political purposes. Here's Gail Vaughan.
Speaker 12: He was trying to be re elected and he actually
Speaker 12: used Chris as one of his platforms.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't a new development. Glasgow had been consistent
Speaker 1: on Vaughn even before his funeral day arrest a week
Speaker 1: after the murders.
Speaker 12: Yeah, their very first news conference already decided he was guilty.
Speaker 12: When it was mister Glasgow and a police commissioner and
Speaker 12: they were standing up there answering questions for the reporters.
Speaker 12: They said, yep, well we'll get it, We'll bring him in.
Speaker 12: They didn't even give him a chance.
Speaker 1: Here's Bill Clutter's take on whether those press conferences had
Speaker 1: a negative impact on Vaughan.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt about it. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: already tried and convicted in the media, and you know,
Speaker 2: just having to go into will County with all of
Speaker 2: that intense publicity. He was already convicted in the court
Speaker 2: of public opinion.
Speaker 1: Rounding out the hurdles was the police department's apparent tunnel
Speaker 1: vision as to Chris's guilt. From the very day of
Speaker 1: the murder. There never seemed to have been much doubt
Speaker 1: from the state's attorney side of things that Kim was
Speaker 1: innocent and Chris premeditated the entire thing, and the media
Speaker 1: and press followed along.
Speaker 2: It's typical in many of these cases, and time after
Speaker 2: time that I've been involved. You know, it's hard enough
Speaker 2: when you're innocent trying to prove your innocence. But it's
Speaker 2: even more difficult when you have to overcome the pre
Speaker 2: trop publicity that's already made up many of the minds
Speaker 2: of jurors when they walk into that courtroom.
Speaker 1: So Chris headed into court with a five year public
Speaker 1: perception of guilt and very few supporters. Here's Gail.
Speaker 12: There was nobody in his corner except our two lawyers
Speaker 12: and Bill.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 9: And we come from a small family, so we didn't
Speaker 9: have a lot of people to storm the court or anything.
Speaker 1: During the trial, the press made much note of Chris's demeanor.
Speaker 1: His flat affect in particular, was pointed out by many
Speaker 1: to be indicative of his guilt or lack of remorse.
Speaker 1: But there are a number of things that likely played
Speaker 1: into this perception. One was that Chris Vaughn had been
Speaker 1: in jail for five years before the trial began, and
Speaker 1: there was much more to that than the public was aware.
Speaker 1: After he was convicted, his parents would gain disturbing insight
Speaker 1: into what Chris was going through in the time leading
Speaker 1: up to and during his trial.
Speaker 13: Let me run this past you. How about this situation
Speaker 13: when you're brought over from the jail house to the
Speaker 13: courthouse you're brought over in your jail clothes, but before
Speaker 13: you leave the jail you are strip search naked, which
Speaker 13: goes back on. Get on the bus, go over to
Speaker 13: the courthouse. There you're given the clothes that we brought
Speaker 13: him to. Go into court. There again your strip search,
Speaker 13: cavity search, your closer search, and then you're allowed to addressed.
Speaker 13: In the meantime, you're being physically and verbally abused by the.
Speaker 1: Guards during the entire trial.
Speaker 8: Well, yes, and every hearing.
Speaker 13: He didn't give me your.
Speaker 14: Response, I'm speechless.
Speaker 15: Yeah, we were too.
Speaker 1: When did you find out that that was happening?
Speaker 13: He was told and threatened on what to do. We
Speaker 13: didn't find this out until he was in Thenard for
Speaker 13: a year.
Speaker 1: Manard is Illinois's largest maximum security adult male facility. It's
Speaker 1: considered the toughest prison in Illinois and where Chris would
Speaker 1: be sent after his conviction.
Speaker 16: We finally got him opened up a little bit because
Speaker 16: at you didn't have to go through a phone system,
Speaker 16: and even though they had cameras on you, we were
Speaker 16: able to talk to him a little more personable than
Speaker 16: when we had been in Joliette.
Speaker 13: On the phone.
Speaker 1: When I pressed Chris confirmed his treatment at Joliette and
Speaker 1: commented it actually prepared him for the reality of man
Speaker 1: At Joliette, it would seem many of the people responsible
Speaker 1: for overseeing Chris's well being and captivity did everything they
Speaker 1: could to make life as unpleasant as possible, particularly during
Speaker 1: his trial your scale and.
Speaker 16: While he was in captivity in joliet they had the
Speaker 16: night night squad that would come in and intimidate and
Speaker 16: shake them down and strip them and make them stand
Speaker 16: outside their cells or in their cells.
Speaker 13: And toss theirselves looking for contrabands.
Speaker 16: While you had nothing on with another group of guys.
Speaker 16: I mean, Chris was just pummeled from all directions. Psychologically,
Speaker 16: he was still trying to understand that his family was
Speaker 16: no longer there. He's being really viciously talk to, and
Speaker 16: you know, Chris is very sensitive mentally.
Speaker 1: According to Pierre and Gale, that treatment intensified during the
Speaker 1: trial and.
Speaker 16: When he was waiting. If there was a break during
Speaker 16: court and christ was taken out or he arrived at
Speaker 16: the courthouse early, they were putting in a cell that
Speaker 16: was unclean.
Speaker 13: It reached.
Speaker 16: And was nothing there, just a chair in the middle
Speaker 16: of a small cell room. Period I mean this kind
Speaker 16: of had something that duty or psyche just the way
Speaker 16: they mean him a lot.
Speaker 1: Once the trial began, the prosecution presented the jury with
Speaker 1: their version of how the incident occurred. In their series
Speaker 1: of events, Christopher Vaughan fatally shot everyone in his family
Speaker 1: on a secluded stretch of the Interstate fifty five frontage road.
Speaker 1: They alleged Vaughan pulled the family's forward expedition over, got
Speaker 1: out under the guise of checking a cargo compartment on
Speaker 1: the roof of the suv, then rabbed his wife through
Speaker 1: the open passenger window, stuck a pistol wrapped in his
Speaker 1: fleece to disguise it under her chin, and shot her
Speaker 1: before turning his attention to his three children.
Speaker 10: Prosecutors alleged Christopher Vaughan pulled their suv onto a frontage
Speaker 10: road near Shanahan during a family trip, killing them in
Speaker 10: shooting himself in the leg, but Vaughn says that his
Speaker 10: wife was the one who pulled the gun. She shot
Speaker 10: him in the leg, he told investigators before he ran off.
Speaker 10: Then he claims she killed their kids and herself.
Speaker 7: Jurors paid close attention as Fitzgerald highlighted again how blood
Speaker 7: evidence at the scene of the family's suv did not
Speaker 7: support Vaughn's version of events on that morning. In June
Speaker 7: of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Recall that Vaughn told investigators repeatedly during his initial questioning
Speaker 1: that he couldn't remember exactly what happened. Those gaps were
Speaker 1: used against him. Highly problematic for Vaughn was the fact
Speaker 1: that in the initial interrogation he gave the impression that
Speaker 1: he'd left the car before Kimberly shot herself, but her
Speaker 1: blood was found on the back right of the fleece
Speaker 1: he'd been wearing, and there were other damning things too.
Speaker 3: Prosecutor's claim it was Vaughan who pulled the trigger and
Speaker 3: staged his own injuries. They say he was hoping to
Speaker 3: cash in on a one million dollar life insurance policy
Speaker 3: he had on his wife. They also planned to present
Speaker 3: evidence that Christopher Vaughan had gone to a gun range
Speaker 3: the night before the murders and used the same handgun
Speaker 3: for target practice that was used in the killings.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also uncovered more things about Chris that would
Speaker 1: prove incredibly damaging to his defense. In October and November
Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, the year prior to the murders,
Speaker 1: Chris began online correspondence with a man named Steve Willett
Speaker 1: on a website discussing outdoorsmanship and wilderness survival techniques. They
Speaker 1: had nicknames for each other. It was Flee and Vaughn
Speaker 1: was Flint. Chris never mentioned his kids on that site
Speaker 1: or during the discussions between the two. What he does discuss, however,
Speaker 1: are survival techniques and the prospect of moving to Canada
Speaker 1: permanently in the future.
Speaker 11: Prosecutors say Christopher Vaughan killed his family all because he
Speaker 11: wanted to start a new life in Canada.
Speaker 1: And according to the police, Vaughan had been stockpiling wilderness gear.
Speaker 1: Officers uncovered a storage unit that Vaughn had rented that
Speaker 1: was full of camping equipment, sleeping bags, boots, and camp tools,
Speaker 1: in addition to a jar of peanut butter and a
Speaker 1: bottle of Jameson whiskey. The prosecution was putting together a
Speaker 1: picture of a man who had kept tons of secrets
Speaker 1: and was potentially planning to fake his own death and
Speaker 1: run away from his family. We will come back to
Speaker 1: all of this later, but according to Erica Wurst, who
Speaker 1: covered the trial as a local reporter. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: flattering picture, especially in contrast to the pictures of his
Speaker 1: deceased wife and kids.
Speaker 17: I mean, not only were the children adorable, Kim had,
Speaker 17: you know, a lot of friends, was going to school,
Speaker 17: worked in the poolhouse.
Speaker 16: Chris, as quiet as he was, still was.
Speaker 15: Providing for his family. I mean, everyone.
Speaker 17: Seemed to say he was a nice guy, just very demure.
Speaker 17: Then you find out, like all the lies in this
Speaker 17: like alter life that Chris had been having underneath.
Speaker 15: Everyone's nose, finding that out, seeing all.
Speaker 17: The camping equipment, talking to his online buddy, and planning everything.
Speaker 17: When that came out, boom, that was like another shock,
Speaker 17: a huge shock.
Speaker 1: The prosecute intended to make mention of Chris's religious beliefs,
Speaker 1: which he admitted lean towards Druidism, a modern spiritual movement
Speaker 1: based on Celtic rooted mysticism that celebrates nature.
Speaker 3: Attorneys fort Christopher Vaughan are asking me a judge, to
Speaker 3: bar any mention of his religious beliefs in his upcoming
Speaker 3: murder trial. They feel drawers will speculate on whether it's
Speaker 3: a religion or a cult. Prosecutor said they won't discuss
Speaker 3: Vaughn's religious beliefs, but may present drawers with postings Vaughan
Speaker 3: made online on a mailing list.
Speaker 1: Police had confiscated books on Druidism from von to home.
Speaker 11: He later told police during a videotaped interview that his
Speaker 11: wife was upset with him over his religious beliefs, Druidism,
Speaker 11: and his recent admission of an afair he had during
Speaker 11: a business trip to Mexico a year earlier.
Speaker 1: Here again is Erica Wurst for me.
Speaker 15: One of the big eye opening things was when they
Speaker 15: brought up the gentlemen from Canada I believe, who Chris
Speaker 15: had been corresponding with about their great walk into the wild.
Speaker 15: There's a whole mission here, there's a whole goal here,
Speaker 15: and not one of those planned missions or goals entail
Speaker 15: your family or your child. He was lying to people
Speaker 15: about being married, he was lying to people about having child.
Speaker 15: That was a big one hearing this guy talk about
Speaker 15: how he had no idea.
Speaker 17: That Chris had a family and he thought that they
Speaker 17: were going to go do this.
Speaker 1: Steve Willett testified at the trial, and the defense walked
Speaker 1: through all the various messages between him and Vaughn. Here's
Speaker 1: Bill again, I've.
Speaker 2: Read the emails years ago between him and Chris.
Speaker 1: So this is the guy Chris found on a wilderness
Speaker 1: website and he was kind of like an email pen pal,
Speaker 1: exactly right.
Speaker 2: But I mean, the thing about this is they used
Speaker 2: his testimony to try to establish the narrative that Chris
Speaker 2: wanted to get rid of his family by killing them
Speaker 2: so he can go hiking off into the wilderness with
Speaker 2: his friend that he met online. His testimony was presented
Speaker 2: and they walked him through the various email communications. Was
Speaker 2: used to paint Chris in this awfully bad light, you know,
Speaker 2: just the grind of He got a guy that looks
Speaker 2: like he's living the American dream. He's got this big
Speaker 2: house in Oswego, Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago. He's
Speaker 2: got a job and it's a successful career. He's making
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand a year. But yet he wants to
Speaker 2: escape into the wilderness and get off the grid and
Speaker 2: leave civilization and the grind of it all. But I'm
Speaker 2: convinced that it wasn't Chris's intent to kill his family
Speaker 2: to accomplish that. He could have gone off into the
Speaker 2: woods and disappeared and never returned without having to kill
Speaker 2: his family.
Speaker 1: But then there were the strippers. Chris had spent almost
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars and the weeks prior to the murder
Speaker 1: in strip clubs.
Speaker 11: As many as four exotic dancers are expected to testify
Speaker 11: that Vaughn frequented strip clubs in Chicago and the suburbs.
Speaker 11: Months before the murders. He told one of the strippers
Speaker 11: he was single, and even made bizarre statements about ancient souls.
Speaker 1: Chris Vaughn wasn't exactly coming across as a sympathetic defendant.
Speaker 1: Here's journalist Jojosey, editor of the Herald News.
Speaker 18: I don't think anybody really bought into his version of events.
Speaker 18: And then anything started to come out, with his online
Speaker 18: relationship with the guy in the Yukon and faking his
Speaker 18: dad so he get away from his family and they
Speaker 18: will get the life insurance or whatever it was, the
Speaker 18: strip clubs and dropping several thousand dollars in a couple
Speaker 18: weeks on one of the women.
Speaker 11: Prosecutors will also show the jury a cryptic poem allegedly
Speaker 11: found in Vaughn's jail cell that made references to a
Speaker 11: dancer named Maya that Vaughn had met at the Chicago
Speaker 11: strip Club.
Speaker 18: I'm not mistaken the poems. What were they written in
Speaker 18: Celtic or something. I mean, that's a unique detail and
Speaker 18: it's strange. But when you're in jail for murdering your
Speaker 18: family and you're writing poems about a stripper and running,
Speaker 18: that's probably not a great optic. So, I mean, the
Speaker 18: stuff that was coming out, it didn't look good.
Speaker 14: Here again is Erica worst When the poem that was
Speaker 14: written to Maya was read out loud, that was a
Speaker 14: little disturbing because it showed.
Speaker 15: This illusionment of love and less knowing that like his
Speaker 15: wife's anniversary was like Inja and that was just kind
Speaker 15: of that betrayal there that she wasn't even aware of
Speaker 15: what's happening.
Speaker 17: So that kind of stufted thousands of dollars he spent
Speaker 17: on these girls. Granted he didn't get dances from them
Speaker 17: or have sex with them, but I think just going
Speaker 17: there and I don't know, sort of like a retrieve
Speaker 17: for him, get away from his house's going on, all
Speaker 17: the scouting trips that he lied about. I don't know,
Speaker 17: tell me what of that is an evidence.
Speaker 1: At this point, one might ask why Chris would have
Speaker 1: gone through all of this trouble when if his marriage
Speaker 1: was supposedly so bad, he could have just gotten divorced.
Speaker 1: During Chris's interrogation, the police asked the same question, and
Speaker 1: then Chris gave the response that would do him zero
Speaker 1: favors in the courtroom. Divorce is not an option. We'll
Speaker 1: come back to that. And then there was the murder itself.
Speaker 1: The prosecution established what they believed to be Chris's motive
Speaker 1: based on his emails with Willett and his behavior and
Speaker 1: infatuation with the strippers he was visiting, while at the
Speaker 1: same time Painting came out to be the kind of
Speaker 1: mother who could not have possibly committed the crime. And
Speaker 1: then there was the prosecution's presentation of the crime scene
Speaker 1: and its emotional impact on the trial. Here's Gail.
Speaker 16: They had a large projected screen.
Speaker 9: It had to been by foot by.
Speaker 16: Seven foot.
Speaker 19: I mean it was a huge showing screen, and they
Speaker 19: had pictures bigger than life.
Speaker 7: On this end.
Speaker 8: They were awful.
Speaker 1: During the display of these photos, the jury focused on Chris,
Speaker 1: his demeanor, the look on his face.
Speaker 5: When the prosecutors put up a seventy two inch big
Speaker 5: screen and showed all the pictures of the truck, the
Speaker 5: crime scene, the bodies, every little thing that was involved
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 8: You know, they called it evidence.
Speaker 5: They showed them all the parts of the crime scene,
Speaker 5: but they didn't put it all together to make it
Speaker 5: a crime. And you know, they had this big elaborate thing.
Speaker 5: They had three or four lawyers on their side. And
Speaker 5: when our guy got up there to the public defender
Speaker 5: got up there, he brought up a laptop and set
Speaker 5: a laptop and a table, you know, with a little
Speaker 5: to each screen in front of a jury of eighteen
Speaker 5: people and expected them to be able to see what
Speaker 5: he was talking about.
Speaker 9: The prosecutors put up a big shock and awe performance.
Speaker 20: They showed pictures of the children lying dead in the seats,
Speaker 20: They showed pictures of Kimberly. They just showed pictures to
Speaker 20: make you feel really shocked.
Speaker 14: I mean, it was, it was terrible.
Speaker 9: And the whole time the screen was just for the jurors,
Speaker 9: so the people on.
Speaker 14: The defense did not see what they were seeing, but
Speaker 14: the jury could also see Cress.
Speaker 16: The jury was scaring at Chris the whole time, and
Speaker 16: our our defensive attorney, mister Lenard, had talked to Chris
Speaker 16: about this before, and Chris had told him, please, I
Speaker 16: don't want to see those pictures. So when they thought
Speaker 16: Chris was looking at it on a on these little
Speaker 16: laptop screen, there was nothing there. We were not seeing
Speaker 16: the pictures that the jury was, and they based a
Speaker 16: lot of Chris's emotion on, Wow, he's looking at those
Speaker 16: and he's looking at a fingernail, or he's staring at
Speaker 16: the ceiling, or he's looking down at a pencil. And
Speaker 16: mister Leonard had told Chris not to make comments about anything.
Speaker 1: So while the jury believed Chris's lack of reaction was
Speaker 1: to the pictures of his dead children, he was in
Speaker 1: fact seeing nothing and he was doing exactly as he
Speaker 1: was instructed by his lawyer. But what the rest of
Speaker 1: the court was seeing was horrifying. Here's Erica worst.
Speaker 14: They were horrible.
Speaker 21: They were horrible.
Speaker 22: You have little babies with you know, bullet wounds that
Speaker 22: were zooming up on and seeing and Kim with her
Speaker 22: hand like slouched like owned by the Center Council kind of.
Speaker 21: And she's got her wedding ring on.
Speaker 22: That's one that's like seered into my head just because
Speaker 22: you know, it's so sad there's a wedding ring, there's blood.
Speaker 22: It's just something hard to look at, you know, even
Speaker 22: to see the kids clothing and Kim's clothing. Every part
Speaker 22: of it just shouldn't have happened. Then when you see
Speaker 22: that it actually did and it's real, you know, it
Speaker 22: takes it to another level. Blake, Casandra and Abigail, we've
Speaker 22: seen them alive and smiling in pictures. Oh, I seriously
Speaker 22: want to pray right now. You see them the way
Speaker 22: they ended up, and someone did that to them, and
Speaker 22: if you're a human being, you can't wrap your head around.
Speaker 1: So Blake was behind Kimberley, Cassandra was in the center,
Speaker 1: and Abigail was behind the driver's seat.
Speaker 7: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And was was Abigail holding a Harry Potter book?
Speaker 21: You know, there was repower book.
Speaker 15: They had a little.
Speaker 22: Mickey mouse tissue thing. Pretty sure there was like a
Speaker 22: Charlotte's web in there somewhere. They had blankets. They got
Speaker 22: up at four in the morning, you know how they
Speaker 22: were just probably groggy and still asleep. And you know,
Speaker 22: you find Blake with his hands up and a defensive motion.
Speaker 21: That's another thing, is that just makes me lose my breath.
Speaker 21: Is like he's looking at either one of.
Speaker 22: His parents holding.
Speaker 21: A gun to him.
Speaker 22: And then the other two girls are watching what happened
Speaker 22: to the next one. And I always think about that
Speaker 22: they're stuck in that back car and they're watching their
Speaker 22: siblings get killed one after another, knowing their next and.
Speaker 21: The fear and the terror.
Speaker 1: Remember the emotion, and even the recollection of those photos
Speaker 1: will come back to it later.
Speaker 15: And then to see Kim in the front seat, in
Speaker 15: her seatbelt of courses of and you see where the
Speaker 15: gun is, but she's leading. That's hard to see. And
Speaker 15: then you see Chris with a womb to.
Speaker 16: His sky and they risked.
Speaker 15: So yeah, there's no comparison. There's no comparison. Don't five people,
Speaker 15: one in the car, one left.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also pointed out that Chris's behavior after the
Speaker 1: shootings did not line up with someone whose family had
Speaker 1: just been killed. The medics who attended to Christopher, Bond
Speaker 1: and the ambulance were called to testify. They said Christopher
Speaker 1: never made inquiries about Kim or Abigail, or Cassandra or Blake,
Speaker 1: but one medic recalled Chris Vaughn expressed concern about his
Speaker 1: cowboy boots.
Speaker 23: Now, while in the emergency room after the shootings, he
Speaker 23: reportedly was upset about blood on his cowboy boots. Taken
Speaker 23: all together, certainly this is evidence that seems difficult to overcome.
Speaker 1: Chris had sustained non life threatening gunshot wounds, which the
Speaker 1: prosecution contended could easily have been self inflicted. To help
Speaker 1: his case, here's Erica worst again.
Speaker 15: In the ambulance. He is yelling at them about cutting
Speaker 15: off his boots and not ruining his jacket because he
Speaker 15: got it in the Yukon and.
Speaker 16: It's just so narcissistic.
Speaker 15: I was like, Holy, how is that your main concern
Speaker 15: right now?
Speaker 14: Is that your main concern?
Speaker 15: And they're like, maybe he doesn't know his family and
Speaker 15: kids are killed down the road, Like I wouldn't have
Speaker 15: blessed my family and kids killed down the road. I
Speaker 15: don't know, that's the thing. It could have dreams about
Speaker 15: it every day.
Speaker 1: The defense did not have experts who could counter that
Speaker 1: perception in terms of Chris's psychological or dissociative state.
Speaker 5: Here's Pierre Well, at that time, Chris didn't know his
Speaker 5: family was dead. All Chris knew was that his wife
Speaker 5: shot him.
Speaker 8: And his blood was on his boots.
Speaker 5: And when he got into the ambulance, rather than pull
Speaker 5: his boot off, they were going to cut the boot off,
Speaker 5: and at all he did was ask them not to
Speaker 5: cut the boot off, just take the boot off. And
Speaker 5: somehow this guy all construed around that he didn't care
Speaker 5: for his family.
Speaker 1: The defense made the case Kim had been experiencing erratic
Speaker 1: behavior leading up to the incident, and again tried to
Speaker 1: argue the culprit for her rapid swing in behavior could
Speaker 1: have been one of the medications she was prescribed for
Speaker 1: her migraines, Topomax, which was flagged by the FDA after
Speaker 1: the killings. Here's Gail.
Speaker 19: Nearly two years passed before the FDA issued new warning
Speaker 19: labels and medication guides for Topamax. The warning labels inserted
Speaker 19: into the medications advised patients to immediately call their health
Speaker 19: provider if they were experiencing new or worse anxiety, feeling
Speaker 19: agitated or restless, having panic attacks, new or worse irritability,
Speaker 19: and unusual changes in moods or behavior. This was documented
Speaker 19: from one of her doctors after one of her visits.
Speaker 19: She had called Chris because she was experiencing a behavioral problem.
Speaker 19: She was experiencing mood swings. She did have panic attacks,
Speaker 19: but because the drugs weren't studied enough at that point
Speaker 19: in time, they didn't know these were danger signs.
Speaker 1: Was that discussed in the case in court.
Speaker 9: Not really, It was kind of skirted around.
Speaker 19: We had a specialist, doctor Healey, who was supposed to
Speaker 19: talk about this, but the judge disallowed him because he
Speaker 19: said doctor Healey would only be giving his opinion, not facts.
Speaker 19: This entire investigation was a tunnel vision and it infected
Speaker 19: the entire group, and they only saw Chris as the villain.
Speaker 19: They didn't seek Kim as a person that was asking
Speaker 19: for help.
Speaker 1: The testimony of other possible expert witnesses for the defense,
Speaker 1: like doctor Terry Kellyan, who diagnosed Vaughan with dissociative amnesia,
Speaker 1: was also dismissed as opinion. And then there were other
Speaker 1: issues that play. Chris's sister in law, Rachel, was called
Speaker 1: to testify about a phone call she'd received from Kimberly
Speaker 1: Vaughn shortly before the killings. Here's her take on the
Speaker 1: team defending Chris.
Speaker 4: All I can say is I know they were not
Speaker 4: very organized with me. I remember the lawyer called me
Speaker 4: once before the trial started, and he said that will
Speaker 4: probably call you to talk about your phone call. The
Speaker 4: trial's coming, but I don't know if I'm going to
Speaker 4: be called or when. So I finally called him and
Speaker 4: I said, am I supposed to be coming? Because I
Speaker 4: have to make plans. I have three children at that
Speaker 4: point and no family in town, so I need to
Speaker 4: know what's going on. And he finally said, well, we're
Speaker 4: pretty sure we'll on this day. So I had like
Speaker 4: a couple of days to get to Juliet, and I
Speaker 4: had I mean, I knew they wanted to talk to
Speaker 4: me about the phone call. I didn't know what that meant,
Speaker 4: never having stepped foot into a real courtroom before.
Speaker 1: In cases of this level, witnesses are usually walked through
Speaker 1: their testimony and prepared for possible cross examination. Rachel took
Speaker 1: the stand without the time to even revisit a statement
Speaker 1: she'd given five years before, one in which Kim confided
Speaker 1: about two emotional outbursts she'd had in recent months, one
Speaker 1: with Chris's parents, the other involving an issue with one
Speaker 1: of the children's schools.
Speaker 4: I remember talking to Bill Clutter and him saying, I'm
Speaker 4: going to write down what you are saying, and I said, okay. Well,
Speaker 4: five years later, I'm sitting outside a courtroom and they
Speaker 4: hand me a piece of paper and say, this was
Speaker 4: your statement. At that moment, I didn't remember giving a statement.
Speaker 4: I had never seen it. I had no idea, and
Speaker 4: so I cannot remember if the incident at school, because
Speaker 4: she just said something happened. I was with either a
Speaker 4: teacher or a principle or something. It was my impression
Speaker 4: she overreacted, so I don't know if that was in
Speaker 4: the statement.
Speaker 1: Apparently the defense had wanted Rachel to also testify about
Speaker 1: a comment Kim made on that call about her doctor,
Speaker 1: but in the end it wasn't allowed.
Speaker 4: I only know this because I could hear them talking
Speaker 4: to the judge. But they were trying to get me
Speaker 4: to be able to say what Kim said about her
Speaker 4: doctor and what her dad thought about her doctor and
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. But then they were, you know, hearsay,
Speaker 4: and it was too many layers in the chain there,
Speaker 4: and so they didn't allow them to ask that question.
Speaker 4: I told my husband that when I was done testifying
Speaker 4: and I walked out of the room, my very first
Speaker 4: thought was he's going to be convicted. It was in
Speaker 4: the air. You knew it when you were in there.
Speaker 4: I knew it when I was there.
Speaker 1: The prosecution made their closing arguments and the jury came
Speaker 1: back with the decision in fifty minutes. Here's Pierre.
Speaker 5: But they came into the court room at nine o'clock
Speaker 5: and for some reason, the prosecution was running along and
Speaker 5: they asked the jurors if they wanted to take a
Speaker 5: break for lunch, and they said no, they wanted to
Speaker 5: get the thing done and over with because it was
Speaker 5: a Friday, six weeks everybody was tired of it. And
Speaker 5: then we listened to the prosecution's closing statement that lasted
Speaker 5: three hours and went through all the evidence, but never
Speaker 5: never tied the evidence to the actual crime. He just,
Speaker 5: you know, just a lot of accusations in any windows.
Speaker 1: Here's Erica Wurst's take.
Speaker 22: I was surprised at how fast it came in. That's
Speaker 22: going to be one of the fastest I've been in.
Speaker 22: I don't even think they got to lunch time yet
Speaker 22: before it was thrown back, you know. And if it
Speaker 22: did take any longer than that, it was because they
Speaker 22: were sitting in their back having loans.
Speaker 21: But you know, it was a swift verdict, and that
Speaker 21: was the shocking part to me. But it just meant
Speaker 21: that they had their minds made up and that there
Speaker 21: wasn't a whole lot of tits for ted or questions
Speaker 21: coming back or anything. So they seemed pretty confident in
Speaker 21: their verdict.
Speaker 1: The reaction in the courtroom was about what one would expect.
Speaker 1: Here's Jojosey.
Speaker 18: Was anybody surprised with the verdict?
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 18: I don't think anyone was surprised at all by the verdict.
Speaker 1: And the emotion Erica worst remembers came from the Phillips side.
Speaker 21: It was crying on Kim's side.
Speaker 22: Chris got up and I just, you know, read my
Speaker 22: notes the other day and it was like he got
Speaker 22: up and he didn't even look back at his.
Speaker 21: Family while he was being taken away. And I just
Speaker 21: remember thinking that was that because he felt bad and
Speaker 21: he didn't want to look.
Speaker 9: At your mom?
Speaker 21: Is that because it was too hard to look at
Speaker 21: your mom? Is that why didn't he look back? So
Speaker 21: that that was weird. It's always a Chris cross of
Speaker 21: jubilation and utter heart breaks. But Kim did have a
Speaker 21: lot more people on that wanted justice served.
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan was found guilty on four counts of first
Speaker 1: degree murder of his wife and three children, and sentenced
Speaker 1: to four life sentences. A decision Erica Worst, who covered
Speaker 1: the entire trial, agreed with when we first started speaking
Speaker 1: about the case.
Speaker 16: I believe with.
Speaker 15: Ninety eight point nine percent, Shorty.
Speaker 17: That Crusher Vaughn chilled his wife the early and freak.
Speaker 15: I don't know so that you can show me anything
Speaker 15: outside of a confession that would prove otherwise. I mean,
Speaker 15: lots of convicts maintain or innocence. It's not unheard of.
Speaker 15: I'm not surprised that he's maintaining his innocince. I don't
Speaker 15: think I'll ever admit to killing his children in his life.
Speaker 15: It was Kim then guess why she can't tell us now?
Speaker 15: So yeah, I think he did it, And I think
Speaker 15: that I'm educated enough on the topic and steps through
Speaker 15: and looks every bit of a piece of evidence to
Speaker 15: form an educated conclusion.
Speaker 13: Are there a couple of.
Speaker 15: Things maybe you guys can find out or stick in
Speaker 15: or poking? Sure, no trial is invalluable.
Speaker 1: Here is the Will County State's attorney James Glasgow, at
Speaker 1: a press conference after the verdict.
Speaker 24: What this guy did here was a diabolical atrocity, and
Speaker 24: he's a heartless, soulless psychopath. That's the bottom line. That's
Speaker 24: what he is, without any compassion, without any empathy for
Speaker 24: other human beings. There isn't a punishment that fits this crime.
Speaker 24: You could lock them up for five hundred lifetimes and
Speaker 24: it would not compensate the victims in this case or
Speaker 24: the family members.
Speaker 1: Fourteen years after the tragedy and nearly a decade after
Speaker 1: that statement, Bill Clutter remains deeply frustrated by the verdict.
Speaker 2: We had experts that were prepared. We had the world's
Speaker 2: leading expert on medications causing homicidal and smicidal behavior, and
Speaker 2: that expert never testified. The jury never heard from that expert.
Speaker 2: We had two experts working on that issue. We had
Speaker 2: an expert in psychology working on dissociative amnesia to explain
Speaker 2: that to the jury. That wasn't done.
Speaker 1: Clutter believes it could have made a difference.
Speaker 2: The defense presented its theory of defense that this was
Speaker 2: a murder suicide. Obviously it was ineffective, but how so
Speaker 2: what else could have maybe turned their decision? Maybe hearing
Speaker 2: from key experts had never heard from.
Speaker 1: Here's attorney Keith Altman, who would have been one of
Speaker 1: those experts.
Speaker 10: That the available evidence was not presented to a jury
Speaker 10: and for them to have made a decision based.
Speaker 16: Upon the evidence, that's what superior.
Speaker 24: If the evidence was given to a jury properly and
Speaker 24: they decided to convict him anyway, then at least he
Speaker 24: had his day in court.
Speaker 1: So that's not what happened, and that's just it. There
Speaker 1: was evidence given by the prosecution with regards to the
Speaker 1: crime scene that simply didn't and still does not align
Speaker 1: with expert opinion, and based on new revelations, not all
Speaker 1: the circumstantial evidence holds up to scrutiny. If all the
Speaker 1: evidence were presented fully, what would it have shown?
Speaker 25: Money of black Oh, the same shape and side.
Speaker 26: The nice indeed them.
Speaker 21: The sense of vision.
Speaker 6: He going Garrio, She.
Speaker 26: Just changed Nzo roads.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Murder in Illinois, will carefully
Speaker 1: re examine the issues that remain regarding the crime scene.
Speaker 16: She would have protected her kids like she was a
Speaker 16: mama bear.
Speaker 1: And explain inconsistencies and key elements of the prosecution's version
Speaker 1: of events.
Speaker 2: I didn't see any good psychiatric analyzes in.
Speaker 1: These and scrutinize the way evidence was handled and.
Speaker 2: That's completely contrary to the initial belief of the state's attorney.
Speaker 1: To see if combined these things could have raised reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Murdered Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Lauren bred Pacheco and Taylor Chackoyine written by Lauren bred
Speaker 1: Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chackoine, featuring
Speaker 1: music by Cicada Rhythm and new compositions engineered and mixed
Speaker 1: by Van Tyre and Taylor Chackoine. Archived news reports provided
Speaker 1: by wgnly. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the
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