Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Nine days
Speaker 1: after they were killed, Christopher Vaughan was arrested for the
Speaker 1: murders of his wife and three children. Vaughn's arrest occurred
Speaker 1: at seven point fifty am once he arrived at a
Speaker 1: Missouri funeral home to bury his family. For investigator Bill Clutter,
Speaker 1: that timeline and the decisions driving the events is telling.
Speaker 2: I mean, they charged him so they believed he was guilty,
Speaker 2: and then just to rub salt in his wounds, they
Speaker 2: snatched him away right before he's to attend the funeral
Speaker 2: of his children, his wife. And that's a pretty harsh
Speaker 2: sentence right there, just punishing him before he's actually convicted.
Speaker 1: Do you think that was intentional?
Speaker 3: Sure it was. Yeah. They could have waited.
Speaker 2: They could have They were decent human beings, they would
Speaker 2: have waited until after the funeral, pulled him aside and
Speaker 2: then put.
Speaker 1: Him into hand and cuffs, just in terms of the
Speaker 1: message that it would have sent the media and the public.
Speaker 1: Do you think timing was intended?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was also the thing that's part of the
Speaker 2: media show voting is because the media was right there
Speaker 2: prepared to cover it.
Speaker 1: Many at the time, watched the arrest unfold in real
Speaker 1: time on the news.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, what a perfect state. And maybe they didn't.
Speaker 2: Tip off the media that he was going to be arrested,
Speaker 2: but they knew the media was going to be outside the.
Speaker 3: Fumor because it's a high profile case.
Speaker 2: It's part of the theatrics of the publicity, and there
Speaker 2: was no presumption of innocence. They decided they would punish
Speaker 2: him before he's even tried or convicted, and.
Speaker 1: To go back to that earlier point because they knew
Speaker 1: the press would be on hand. They also knew that
Speaker 1: they could arrest him quite publicly.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they did. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Brett Pacheco and is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 5: Calloy guy afty.
Speaker 6: Gay You fear.
Speaker 4: The ground, hay hay.
Speaker 1: The Once arrested, the prosecution made it clear Chris Vaughn
Speaker 1: was likely facing the death penalty. At this point in time,
Speaker 1: in Illinois, a death penalty case was advantageous in terms
Speaker 1: of defense because of what's ref to as heightened due process.
Speaker 1: Individual death penalty cases were provided hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars from the state for top tier lawyers, experts, investigators,
Speaker 1: and anything needed to provide the accused with a proper
Speaker 1: legal team and fair defense. But Christopher Vaughan's public image
Speaker 1: was under scrutiny from the start, and his guilt seemed
Speaker 1: presumed from the beginning. Bill Clutter recalls seeing the initial
Speaker 1: stages of the case on television.
Speaker 2: This was a high profile case. It was in the media,
Speaker 2: was in the state drone register, and it was on
Speaker 2: the news. I did CNN covered it live. They flew
Speaker 2: helicopters over the crime.
Speaker 7: Scene at the time, so I was aware of the case,
Speaker 7: and my initial impression, just based off the news coverage
Speaker 7: was that this is probably a sensing case rather than
Speaker 7: a guilt Innison's phase.
Speaker 1: The media immediately began to to Chris's background in history.
Speaker 1: What they uncovered didn't paint the best picture and only
Speaker 1: served to solidify his increasingly unflattering image to the public.
Speaker 1: Christopher Vaughan was not a perfect husband or father.
Speaker 8: Once detectives started questioning him, at one point saying that
Speaker 8: he didn't remember what had happened in the suv now.
Speaker 8: While in the emergency room after the shootings, he reportedly
Speaker 8: was upset about blood on his cowboy boots.
Speaker 2: I mean, right off the bat, the media reports, and
Speaker 2: this happens in so many cases where a person is
Speaker 2: really tried and convicted in the media before they even
Speaker 2: hit a courtroom. The media reports picked up on some
Speaker 2: sensational facts.
Speaker 9: Vaughn frequented strip clubs in Chicago and the suburbs. Months
Speaker 9: before the murders. He told one of the strippers he
Speaker 9: was single.
Speaker 2: And he made two visits to a strip club and
Speaker 2: spent an enormous amount of money I think over four
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. And of course this is a guy who
Speaker 2: was making I mean he moved to Chicago to take
Speaker 2: a job that was paying him almost two hundred thousand
Speaker 2: a year, which there's very few people that make that
Speaker 2: kind of salary. Those things really, I think turned public
Speaker 2: opinion against him.
Speaker 6: Lots up theirs, visits to strip clubs and plans which
Speaker 6: did not include his family, and.
Speaker 9: As many as four exotic dancers are expected to testify.
Speaker 1: The media's salacious covering of those strip club visits and
Speaker 1: other extramarital activities would later prove detrimental to Chris at
Speaker 1: his trial.
Speaker 2: Up to that point, they had the first major lead
Speaker 2: was the strip club.
Speaker 3: The interviewed the dancer.
Speaker 2: At Scores, so that was in between his initial interrogation
Speaker 2: and the arrest.
Speaker 3: Before the funeral.
Speaker 2: They had that, and then they discovered the email cats
Speaker 2: with Steve Willett in Canada, and so.
Speaker 3: That became ability.
Speaker 2: He's aha mobids, He's wanted to hike into the Yukon
Speaker 2: and leave his family.
Speaker 3: That's why he killed them. And so, which is all
Speaker 3: really weak.
Speaker 1: We'll revisit those strip club and wilderness fantasies later in
Speaker 1: greater detail.
Speaker 2: There's no stronger compelling probable cause that he did. And
Speaker 2: then it was Bob Dieal's report where he interpreted that
Speaker 2: the large satury blood on the passenger's seat belt had
Speaker 2: to have been from her bleeding onto it while the
Speaker 2: seat belt was.
Speaker 3: Buckled, I mean, nathological explanation.
Speaker 2: But then after the DNA comes back that no, that's
Speaker 2: not how it happened.
Speaker 3: But they ran with that and lost in.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Lawson, who was the case agent who deal disagreed
Speaker 2: with used that as evidence that he staged the crime scene.
Speaker 2: He unbuckled the passenger seat after Kim was killed, and
Speaker 2: that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: The prosecution's initial theory, which was based on the initial
Speaker 1: crime seen investigator Bob Deal's observations and report, hinged on
Speaker 1: the fact that the retracted passenger side seat belt, once extended,
Speaker 1: revealed sections that were saturated with blood. The prosecution's original
Speaker 1: theory was that Kimberly Vaughn was wearing that safety belt
Speaker 1: when she was shot, and that Christopher Vaughan unbuckled it
Speaker 1: to stage the crime scene by making it appear she'd
Speaker 1: removed it to enable turning around to shoot the children
Speaker 1: over her left shoulder. The problem what investigators didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time of Chris Vaughn's arrest was that the
Speaker 1: blood on the retracted safety belt didn't belong to Kimberly Vaughn.
Speaker 1: It belonged to Chris. This will prove significant as we
Speaker 1: dive deeper into the investigation and the way in which
Speaker 1: it was handled. Bill Clutter believes tunnel vision, largely based
Speaker 1: on that initial theory, was firmly in place even before
Speaker 1: the crime scene was properly analyzed.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Gary Lawson was driving that bus, but it heads
Speaker 2: with Bob Deal, the crime scene investigator, who pointed out
Speaker 2: all the flaws of this theory that he had that
Speaker 2: Christopher Vaughan did it and never conducted a complete investigation,
Speaker 2: never delved into him state of mind. Of course, later
Speaker 2: the FDA would issue its findings regarding the medication she
Speaker 2: was taken.
Speaker 1: There were safeguards that were meant to be in place
Speaker 1: to protect people from that rush to judgment. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: that work out for Chris No. Not.
Speaker 2: The recommendations of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment. That report,
Speaker 2: I think was released in April of two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: and that's the report that retrospectively studied the innocent people
Speaker 2: who had been wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 3: And put on death row.
Speaker 2: And one of the recommendations of that Governor's Commission was
Speaker 2: that law enforcement agencies need guard against tunnel vision. And
Speaker 2: they defined what tunnel vision is, and it's this rush
Speaker 2: to judgment and you disregard other evidence, you know, such
Speaker 2: as Bob Deal's point was the bullet trajectories all support
Speaker 2: a murder suicide, and they do. And our crime scene
Speaker 2: investigator Katie Hartman, who's reviewing deals work, so he concurs
Speaker 2: with that and points to that as strong evidence of
Speaker 2: supporting a murder suicide.
Speaker 3: But none of that was done. It was a rush
Speaker 3: to judgment.
Speaker 2: They had their suspect and they were going to forge
Speaker 2: the facts to fit their theory, which is what Bob
Speaker 2: Deal's deposition describes. It's classic tunnel vision. And that was
Speaker 2: one of the things that the Governor's Commission warned was
Speaker 2: that at play in many of these wrongful convictions that
Speaker 2: sent innocent people to death row. And of course, at
Speaker 2: the time Chris is facing the death.
Speaker 1: Penalty, that tunnel vision, coupled with the emotional bias the
Speaker 1: media was fully projecting, became a significant challenge in defending Vaughn.
Speaker 3: In so many cases.
Speaker 2: And there's that initial outrage, especially once you make the
Speaker 2: accusation that he did it, and oh my god, what
Speaker 2: an awful thing to kill your own these adorable children
Speaker 2: who were innocent to any of the marital conflict that
Speaker 2: they might have had.
Speaker 3: That's the part of it that people have a.
Speaker 2: Hard time understanding the emotion of that, and the media
Speaker 2: really ramping up and pointing the finger at him.
Speaker 3: He really had no chance.
Speaker 1: Clutter believes that outrage proved an insurmountable hurdle.
Speaker 2: You know, people can get caught up in the emotion
Speaker 2: of a crime and forget about the same guards that
Speaker 2: we are supposed to have the guardrails to protect an
Speaker 2: innocent person from being thrown into the meat grinder of
Speaker 2: the justice system.
Speaker 1: And do you feel that that's what happened to Chris.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely what happened to him.
Speaker 1: Chris and his family started putting together a legal team
Speaker 1: with John Rogers, a defense attorney from Saint Louis. Rogers
Speaker 1: brought on Bill Clutter as one of the investigators for
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: I received a phone call from John Rogers that he
Speaker 2: was getting involved, you know. I asked if I would
Speaker 2: be interested if it looked like they were pursuing the
Speaker 2: death penalty. A few weeks later that I traveled up
Speaker 2: to Joliet and had a meeting with Jerry Killian, who
Speaker 2: was the local council, and John Rogers. That was the
Speaker 2: first time I had worked with Kerry Killy and I
Speaker 2: had worked with John Rogers on another case that attempted
Speaker 2: murdered case in which our client had poisoned his girlfriend
Speaker 2: with dallium. It's a rat poison that had been banned
Speaker 2: years ago, so we had worked before.
Speaker 1: Because of their history, I was interested in Clutter's thoughts
Speaker 1: on Rogers.
Speaker 3: He's a very thorough attorney and very thoughtful and how
Speaker 3: he approaches cases.
Speaker 2: John has a reputation of being a sought out.
Speaker 3: Criminal defense attorney.
Speaker 2: Started out, I think as a public defender, went into
Speaker 2: private practice, and just enjoyed a very successful law practice
Speaker 2: as a criminal defense attorney. By the time we got
Speaker 2: together as a defense team, you know, Jerry had gone
Speaker 2: through the twenty hours of videotape interrogation of Chris, and
Speaker 2: I just remember in that additional meeting, Jerry had some
Speaker 2: doubts about Chris's guild based on what he saw in
Speaker 2: the video interviews.
Speaker 6: Why would she bring a gun into the car with
Speaker 6: the kids?
Speaker 10: I don't know why, he said, I can't. I can't
Speaker 10: see her doing that. I can't see her shooting me.
Speaker 10: I can't see her ever shooting the kids.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: When he was given every opportunity to blame her, he
Speaker 2: defended her to the hilt. I mean, he never took
Speaker 2: that bait that they put in front of him, which
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody were guilty, they would jump on
Speaker 2: that and be delighted. The police were inviting him to
Speaker 2: point the finger at his wife, and he defended her
Speaker 2: the entire time.
Speaker 11: I don't think she's not capable of of herting somebody
Speaker 11: like that.
Speaker 6: Then who possibly could have done it one of the kids.
Speaker 11: No, I didn't see her do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but interrogation tape observations aside. Like most
Speaker 1: of the public, Bill came on to the defense team
Speaker 1: believe Vaughn was likely guilty. And then he met him.
Speaker 2: My first meeting with him, I went in with my
Speaker 2: ex wife, who was at the time working as a
Speaker 2: mitigation specialist, and I recall going into the Will County
Speaker 2: jail being introduced to Chris.
Speaker 3: I just was struck.
Speaker 2: By how he didn't strike me as as a killer.
Speaker 2: I mean, he just didn't. And you know, I have
Speaker 2: many clients who do, and I really was.
Speaker 3: It was one of.
Speaker 2: Those things where, you know, my initial thoughts of the case,
Speaker 2: expecting to meet this cold budded killer who was charged
Speaker 2: and facing the death penalty for having killed his family,
Speaker 2: and coming away from that initial meeting just there was
Speaker 2: an incongruity between the charges he was facing and the
Speaker 2: person that I encountered in the Will County jail. I
Speaker 2: mean he was very meek, a mild individual, very introverted.
Speaker 2: The last personnel prolocu would expect to be facing those
Speaker 2: types of charges.
Speaker 1: I asked Bill to describe that meeting and it's setting
Speaker 1: in greater detail.
Speaker 2: You know, the initial meeting wasn't subsidient, but it was
Speaker 2: more of just trying to make an introduction with the
Speaker 2: client and to gather some impromation that would assist with
Speaker 2: the fact investigation.
Speaker 1: Bill elicited details about Vaughn's relationship, difficulties behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of his marriage, and some of the issues the couple
Speaker 1: had been struggling with. Based on Christopher's responses, any number
Speaker 1: of recent events within the household could have led to
Speaker 1: the tragedy.
Speaker 3: He referred to this as a perfect storm. A lot of.
Speaker 2: Things in the relationship with his wife, Kim were reaching
Speaker 2: a point where, I mean, he had recently confessed to
Speaker 2: her that he had had a relationship when he was
Speaker 2: out of the country in Mexico, when he was interrogated
Speaker 2: by police, he disclosed that.
Speaker 10: But I was trying to make things right. I was
Speaker 10: taking her on a honeymoon this weekend. We're going to
Speaker 10: go back to Herman where we had her first honeymoon.
Speaker 10: Two things all over again.
Speaker 11: Who's gonna watch kids? My mom and her sister were
Speaker 11: coming up on Friday.
Speaker 10: Tahaw, Yeah, there comes in the house to watch the
Speaker 10: kids for the weekend.
Speaker 11: Kim, and I was surprised.
Speaker 10: I didn't want her to have to worry about any
Speaker 10: of the details or anything like that.
Speaker 12: So I set it up.
Speaker 10: And I told her parents. I told my parents to
Speaker 10: kind of coordinate the details.
Speaker 11: But I'm going to take her.
Speaker 6: So your mom and your sister know my mom and
Speaker 6: my hands her sister. We're gonna come up Friday.
Speaker 3: When were they.
Speaker 6: Supposed to show up around you or so maybe something?
Speaker 6: And Kim had no idea they were coming.
Speaker 11: I was gonna tell her later today, what.
Speaker 6: If she would have said a going.
Speaker 11: Ain't gonna happen? Why should have said that this is?
Speaker 11: It was gonna be good.
Speaker 6: Do you think one weekend sex with your wife is
Speaker 6: gonna make her forget that you've been having sex with
Speaker 6: all these other women?
Speaker 11: You think who wasn't all these other one It was
Speaker 11: just one time in Mexico, and it was a start.
Speaker 1: Remember, Vaughan agreed to that interrogation, waving his right to
Speaker 1: a lawyer.
Speaker 2: There was just a lot of things going on. What
Speaker 2: struck me is is his characterization of this being a
Speaker 2: perfect storm. It's really an apt description now that I
Speaker 2: know what I know about the case, because she was
Speaker 2: under tremendous stress.
Speaker 3: She was taking an online.
Speaker 2: Class, was hoping to become a private investigator like he
Speaker 2: had been in Washington State. That was their goal as
Speaker 2: a couple, was to have a business together. That she
Speaker 2: would take this online class get her degree in criminal justice.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, she was experiencing a stress related
Speaker 2: migraine headaches and was prescribed topamax, which we later discovered
Speaker 2: had an FDA warning six months after this had happened again.
Speaker 1: Topamax, or to pyramate, is a medication used to treat
Speaker 1: migraines and sometimes by polar disorder. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: a year after the tragedy, the FDA stopped just short
Speaker 1: of issuing a black Boy warning for the drug, their
Speaker 1: firmest guidance against using a medication, and instead released a
Speaker 1: strong warning that people on top pyramid maybe twice as
Speaker 1: likely to experience suicidal thoughts. But we'll come back to
Speaker 1: that now.
Speaker 2: Well, that first meeting in Joliet, I just remember going
Speaker 2: back to Jerry Killian's office and my ex wife raised
Speaker 2: the possibility that he could be innocent. Jerry Killian, you know,
Speaker 2: I had watched the twenty hours of the video interrogation
Speaker 2: of Christopher Vaughn, and Jerry gave an example where in
Speaker 2: the interrogation the police are telling him that, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the vehicle was parked under a cell phone tower, and
Speaker 2: because of nine to eleven, we now have cameras on
Speaker 2: cell phone towers, which wasn't true. I mean, they were
Speaker 2: lying to them to extract a confession. But the way
Speaker 2: he reacted was genuine and like he wanted to know
Speaker 2: what did they show?
Speaker 10: Why can't that one guy get the video camera that
Speaker 10: he was talking about?
Speaker 11: What are you talking about?
Speaker 10: I don't know what other detective or sergeants said. He
Speaker 10: had a video camera the whole deal, in front of
Speaker 10: the truck in some tower, a video camera.
Speaker 11: It recorded everything.
Speaker 1: This remains a pretty compelling question. Why would a guilty
Speaker 1: person be so eager for police to provide what they
Speaker 1: claimed was security footage of the crime scene. And this
Speaker 1: began the foundation of the defense's case in support of Christopher.
Speaker 1: The next thing they needed to do was to examine
Speaker 1: the vehicle.
Speaker 2: The aha moment was when we inspected the vehicle. It
Speaker 2: was at the Joliet prison, the one in the Blues
Speaker 2: Brothers in the opening scene where Juliet Jake walks out
Speaker 2: of prison with That's where the four exposition was being stored.
Speaker 2: We had our bloodstain expert Tom Bevell there and he
Speaker 2: was interested in doing a trajectory of one of the
Speaker 2: shots that killed the child that was seated in the
Speaker 2: middle Sander.
Speaker 1: That examination of the vehicle became a critical moment for
Speaker 1: the defense.
Speaker 2: There was a shot that penetrated the chest and it
Speaker 2: went through the back of the seat into the third
Speaker 2: seat in the Ford expedition, it's a large vehicle, so
Speaker 2: it has two bench seats in the back well. This
Speaker 2: trajectory when we asked the crime scene services for the
Speaker 2: Wedn Estate Police to lend us a doll rod, and
Speaker 2: these are typically used to show the trajectory of the
Speaker 2: path of a bullet. When the doll rod was inserted
Speaker 2: through the bullet hole in the seat into the hole
Speaker 2: where the bullet came to rest and extended that dog bot.
Speaker 2: That shot was clearly fired by the person who was
Speaker 2: seated in the passenger seat, and that person was Gimbon,
Speaker 2: and that was really the ah moment when there was
Speaker 2: this realization that this indeed was a murder suicide.
Speaker 1: In Bill's opinion, the bullet trajectory made it impossible for
Speaker 1: Chris to have been the shooter. There was also DNA,
Speaker 1: the blood on the retracted seat belt, and other problematic
Speaker 1: things about the crime scene and the way in which
Speaker 1: it was handled. For example, the white terry cloth towel
Speaker 1: the gun was stored in was neatly laid out on
Speaker 1: Kimberly Vaughn's left thigh when our body was found. Crime
Speaker 1: scene photos clearly show its placement and that it was
Speaker 1: splattered with blood. For some reason, that towel was not
Speaker 1: saved as evidence. In fact, it was somehow discarded before
Speaker 1: the autopsy. This reflects an apparent pattern of evidence not
Speaker 1: pointing at Chris Vaughn as the shooter being discounted. And
Speaker 1: when the initial police crime scene investigator on the case,
Speaker 1: Bob Deal, expressed his concern over the investigation's nearly immediate
Speaker 1: tunnel vision, he was removed from the case. Deal was
Speaker 1: deposed by the defense in twenty eleven and shared his
Speaker 1: thoughts on the experience. Here's Bill Clutter.
Speaker 2: Normally, in Illinois, defense attorneys don't get to take depositions.
Speaker 3: But because this was a capital case.
Speaker 2: One of the reforms to prevent an innocent person from
Speaker 2: facing the death penalty was to allow depositions in criminal cases.
Speaker 2: And when we took the deposition of the crime scene
Speaker 2: investigator of the Illna State Police, I mean, he described
Speaker 2: this rushed to judgment, this tunnel vision. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I documented this in a letter to the
Speaker 2: office of the Executive Inspector General, and I wanted an
Speaker 2: internal investigation when you got to the deposition of Bob Dial.
Speaker 2: The crime scene investigator describes this pressure from day one.
Speaker 2: He described getting a phone call from the Sowne commander
Speaker 2: convinced that Christopher Vaughan committed this crime.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: He described how he was telling this commander that, you know, the.
Speaker 3: Evidence didn't support that theory.
Speaker 2: That he was looking at both theories, whether it was
Speaker 2: a murder suicide or whether it was a crime committed
Speaker 2: by Christopher Vaughan. He had all the crime scene evidence
Speaker 2: pointed to a murder suicide. And he describes how, you know,
Speaker 2: after expressing that opinion, he got taken off the case.
Speaker 2: He had no further contact with the investigators.
Speaker 3: This is classic tunnel vision. I mean, it really is.
Speaker 1: According to his deposition, Bob Deal received a phone call
Speaker 1: in which then commander of District five, Captain Ken Kalpus,
Speaker 1: told him Vaughn was a criminal mastermind who premeditated the murders.
Speaker 1: And this call came before five point thirty pm on
Speaker 1: the same day the murders occurred. And yes, that's the
Speaker 1: same District five where Vaughn was interrogated for twenty hours
Speaker 1: in his hospital gown. Throughout the one hundred and sixteen
Speaker 1: page deposition of the former Illinois State Police crime scene
Speaker 1: investigator Bob Deal, shares multiple and alarming examples of bias
Speaker 1: against Vaughn that started before Deal had even completed the autopsies,
Speaker 1: including an exchange with will County State's Attorney James Glasgow
Speaker 1: at a large meeting just one day after the murders
Speaker 1: on June fifteenth. Here's a quote. I got up to
Speaker 1: give my presentation and explained to everyone what was going on.
Speaker 1: And I believed that, and then believed this day that
Speaker 1: at some point Kimberly had that gun in her hand,
Speaker 1: and the exact thing in front of everybody was Kimberly
Speaker 1: was an angel and there's no way she could have
Speaker 1: ever held a gun in her hand, And from that
Speaker 1: day on, I was totally dismissed as to anything that
Speaker 1: had anything to do with this case. That tunnel vision,
Speaker 1: along with Bond's apparent memory gaps, presented daunting challenges. Back
Speaker 1: to Bill Clutter and the defense team strategy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I spoke to doctor Terry Killian.
Speaker 1: Terry Killian as a psychiatrist and not to be confused
Speaker 1: with Jerry Killian, one of the attorneys on the case.
Speaker 1: The defense enlisted him to evaluate Bond's behavior and statements
Speaker 1: during his initial twenty hour interrogation.
Speaker 2: Terry Killian was one of our consulting experts on the case,
Speaker 2: and he was looking specifically at the issue of dissociative amnesia,
Speaker 2: analyzing the statement that Chris had given. Of course, a
Speaker 2: big part of this case when he was indicted was
Speaker 2: his inability.
Speaker 3: To recall certain details.
Speaker 2: Doctor Killian, the thing that stands out is I think
Speaker 2: about his report is that he described that Chris had
Speaker 2: referred to his family in the present tense when he
Speaker 2: was interviewed by police and after he was shown the
Speaker 2: photographs of his family and was shown that they were dead,
Speaker 2: that he switched and started using the past tense. He
Speaker 2: said that that was something that would be very hard
Speaker 2: to fake, that nuance of going from present tense to
Speaker 2: past tense when referring to his family. So he will
Speaker 2: be able to explain issue of dissociative amnesia. Said he
Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if Chris is unable to recall what
Speaker 2: happened even to this day.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kellyan wrote a forty six page report asserting his
Speaker 1: opinion that Chris's condition was genuine. It would later prove
Speaker 1: problematic that doctor Kellian never actually spoke to Chris in person.
Speaker 1: The confirmation of dissociative amnesia and subsequent report was based
Speaker 1: solely on reviewing the hours of interrogation and other reports
Speaker 1: that were provided. The defense then turned its attention to
Speaker 1: the possible effects of the drug Kimberly was taking for
Speaker 1: her migraines. For that, they turned to Keith Altman, a
Speaker 1: principle of his own law firm as well as a
Speaker 1: litigator for the Linto Law Group who specializes in complex
Speaker 1: and scientific cases, including pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 13: I've been involved in psychiatric averress events associated with drugs
Speaker 13: for some time, including theer Pittman case then at South Carolina,
Speaker 13: which was his twelve year old who was charged with
Speaker 13: murder for killing his grand parents three days after they
Speaker 13: choose the Nola dosage, and several other SSR related cases.
Speaker 13: Will Clutter contacted me said Hey, I got a situation
Speaker 13: I want to bring in on. I was brought in,
Speaker 13: had the conversation with Jerry Tillion, who was his lead attorney,
Speaker 13: and then I remember going down to Saint Louis to
Speaker 13: meet with Mill and Jerry and some other people. And
Speaker 13: I was the one who also brought David Healing, one
Speaker 13: of the top experts in the world on psychiatric adversus
Speaker 13: as of drugs, to the equation to see what we
Speaker 13: could do here in terms of the evidence personal but
Speaker 13: general capacity topomax to cause negative mood and behavioral disturbances.
Speaker 1: Keith happened to be ideally suited for the job.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: At the time, as I happened to be working on
Speaker 13: a to a pyramid suicide case, I was extremely familiar
Speaker 13: with the capacity of pad propermax of causing suicidal and
Speaker 13: self injurious behavior and the best predictor of homicidal behavior
Speaker 13: as suicidal behavior the other way around. That's why you
Speaker 13: see so many murder suicides. And then the minute he
Speaker 13: said tokamac I said, I know what's going on here.
Speaker 13: In fact, in two thousand and nine, there is now
Speaker 13: a warning on all of the anti convulsives, including tropomax,
Speaker 13: for suicidal behavior. And I was the motivating force behind
Speaker 13: that labeling change happening because of another drug I was
Speaker 13: working on related to pyramids. I had a lot of
Speaker 13: expertise in understanding the address events associate with the drug.
Speaker 13: It just hit a nerve ride away as soon as
Speaker 13: I heard it.
Speaker 1: A reaction to the medication would have also been the
Speaker 1: best and most plausible explanation for a sudden violent outburst,
Speaker 1: if that's truly what happened.
Speaker 13: She had had a dosage change recently, and that appears
Speaker 13: to be when there's the greatest risk of a negative
Speaker 13: outcome associated with these drugs. It's the same thing as
Speaker 13: true to the antidepressants. And you see these you see
Speaker 13: these effects, And as soon as I heard that, I
Speaker 13: had a strong suspicion. But when I was in Saint
Speaker 13: Louis and learned of the ballistic evidence, I was utterly
Speaker 13: convinced that this could not could not have been Chris.
Speaker 13: For one of the problems is, and it's been Chris's
Speaker 13: problem all along, is for people to accept the horrifying
Speaker 13: reality that a mother could have killed her three children.
Speaker 1: The assumption that Chris, the father was the killer also
Speaker 1: aligns more comfortably with the sentiments we hold as a
Speaker 1: society about maternal nature. Most people find it more difficult
Speaker 1: to accept the notion that a mother could ever kill
Speaker 1: her children, despite a number of cases where this has occurred.
Speaker 13: But this is not the first time that we have seen.
Speaker 13: Is everybody probably remembers Susan Smith who drowns her children
Speaker 13: in South Carolina. This does happen. Mental illness is horrible,
Speaker 13: and these drugs can cause these horrific behavioral changes, to
Speaker 13: cause people to do things that just are unimaginable, and that.
Speaker 1: Would also explain Chris's inability. He reiterated multiple times during
Speaker 1: the interrogation that he did not believe his wife could
Speaker 1: have done that.
Speaker 13: Absolutely. Brain chemistry is a real thing. These drugs alter
Speaker 13: brain chemistry. They don't necessarily know how or why, but
Speaker 13: they do make changes, and the changes can be profound
Speaker 13: in a very short period of time. And I always
Speaker 13: tell anybody I ever know who is going to be
Speaker 13: on an antidepressant is make sure that your family watches
Speaker 13: you in the week to two weeks after you start
Speaker 13: or change the dosage, so that is when the risk
Speaker 13: is most acute. Based on all the evidence that I
Speaker 13: have seen, people just had an expectation that and mother
Speaker 13: could nevigate us for their children. But I submit that
Speaker 13: this was the drug altering her move behavior and I'll
Speaker 13: bets you're off.
Speaker 1: And now the defense had their case. Christopher Vaughn's defense team,
Speaker 1: now staffed with excellent lawyers and expert testimony, was ready
Speaker 1: to make the case that not only did forensic evidence
Speaker 1: at the crime scene not match up with the version
Speaker 1: of the events that the police were reporting, but also
Speaker 1: the idea that Kimberly Vaughn may have been experiencing behavioral
Speaker 1: anomalies due to a reaction to her medication. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to Randy's stitle and the impact his high
Speaker 1: profile case would ultimately have on Christopher Vaughn's Here's journalist Jojosey,
Speaker 1: editor of the Herald News.
Speaker 14: Randy's stitle was convicted of murder in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 14: It's convicted of murray a couple in Paris, Illinois, which
Speaker 14: is downstate southeastern part of the state Indiana. He had
Speaker 14: his co defended Herb Woodlock, were sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: Stitle appealed his wrongful conviction for more than a decade,
Speaker 1: and in doing so exposed a trail of lies and
Speaker 1: corruption that ran through multiple layers of government and law
Speaker 1: enforcement in Illinois. He was freed in two thousand and
Speaker 1: four and charges against him dismissed, citing that exculpatory evidence
Speaker 1: had been purposely withheld at trial.
Speaker 14: Stitle had two execution days before he was taken off
Speaker 14: death row. He was ultimately freed from prison, ensued a
Speaker 14: number of law enforcement officials in the state's attorney and
Speaker 14: was granted a six million dollar judgment.
Speaker 1: At the time of his release, Stitle was the seventeenth
Speaker 1: person to be released for wrongful conviction who'd been on
Speaker 1: death row in Illinois, something that resonated and resulted in
Speaker 1: active reform.
Speaker 14: There was a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois,
Speaker 14: and it was later abolished after a large number of
Speaker 14: convictions were.
Speaker 1: Revealed in twenty eleven. The same year Illinois abolished the
Speaker 1: death penalty, Stitle settled a two point five million dollar
Speaker 1: lawsuit against the Illinois State Police, and in twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: settled an additional lawsuit against Edgar County Police for three
Speaker 1: point five million. One of the defendants named in Stitle's
Speaker 1: case against the Illinois State Police, Captain Kenkalpus, the same
Speaker 1: commander of District five who called crime scene investigator Bob
Speaker 1: Deal the day the Vaughan family was killed. The arising
Speaker 1: Vaughn was a criminal mastermind who'd premeditated the murders. Stitle
Speaker 1: accused Calpus of working to keep him in prison even
Speaker 1: after it became a parent. There was not enough evidence
Speaker 1: to substantiate his conviction.
Speaker 14: In two thousand and four, ken Copus was brought in
Speaker 14: to investigate. I believe there's a captain went to State
Speaker 14: Police at the time. From what I read, he tried
Speaker 14: to orchestrate in over here shortly before Stytle was to
Speaker 14: be released from prison, and over here with another prisoner
Speaker 14: trying to implicate him in the murderer.
Speaker 1: So an over here is that he would have had
Speaker 1: another inmate try to tape a confession.
Speaker 14: Yeah, another inmate would wear a wire and try to
Speaker 14: record mister Style saying something that would implicate.
Speaker 6: Him in the murder.
Speaker 1: When the death penalty was abolished, Chris Vaughn and other
Speaker 1: Illinois prisoners who were given the benefit of heightened due
Speaker 1: process to prevent a death sentence were stripped of the
Speaker 1: funding and additional money provided for their defense by the state.
Speaker 1: So in twenty eleven, Chris's legal team was defunded and dismantled,
Speaker 1: and he was assigned a public defender for his twenty
Speaker 1: twelve trial. By this point in my research, I'd reached
Speaker 1: out to Kimberly's family multiple times, and other than a
Speaker 1: brief initial text exchange with Dell Phillips, her father, received
Speaker 1: no responses to my requests, established strong connections with Christopher
Speaker 1: Vaughan's parents, Galeen Pierre, and multiple members of his family.
Speaker 1: In addition to gathering the insights of journalists, investigators, and
Speaker 1: other experts, I prioritized focusing on the sole survivor of
Speaker 1: the Vaughn family murders. Initially, Chris and I corresponded through
Speaker 1: mailed letters. My intention was to open a line of
Speaker 1: communication before visiting him in person, and then COVID and
Speaker 1: lockdown hit. Because Chris felt phone calls were more invasively
Speaker 1: monitored by both staff and other inmates. We settled into
Speaker 1: a steady stream of emails routed through a private company
Speaker 1: the Department of Corrections contracts to link incarcerated individuals with
Speaker 1: family and friends. While our interactions were screened, we were
Speaker 1: able to discuss many intimate details about the murders, Kim
Speaker 1: and their marriage without any overt censorship. While initially awkward,
Speaker 1: I slowly cultivated an authentic rapport with Chris and in
Speaker 1: doing so, earned his trust. But it was a sensitive process,
Speaker 1: as this early email reflects, quote Lauren, sorry for not
Speaker 1: having written sooner. I keep writing, rewriting, and discarding email.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly out of practice trying to get my thoughts
Speaker 1: expressed and written word Truthfully, I'm a bit apprehensive. I
Speaker 1: have not spoken about this because I was and am
Speaker 1: convinced it will do no good. I was told I
Speaker 1: would be convicted because I was alive. Someone needed to
Speaker 1: be held accountable, and nothing I could do would change that.
Speaker 1: I have no reason to believe differently now.
Speaker 5: Unquote, as they say, Sama, well married, Tum get four
Speaker 5: thoughts till night, bah good, they get fine love.
Speaker 4: Tum wimblows gold.
Speaker 5: Do not Duzzy.
Speaker 6: I did not play found.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the next Murder in Illinois, Christopher Vaughan
Speaker 1: is put on trial.
Speaker 13: The prosecutors put up their big shock and awe performance.
Speaker 10: They showed pictures of h children lying dead in the seats.
Speaker 13: They showed pictures of Kimberly.
Speaker 1: It was terrible and more damning revelations drop.
Speaker 13: He was lying to people about being married, he was
Speaker 13: lying people about having a child.
Speaker 14: When you're in jail for murdering your family and you're
Speaker 14: writing poems about a tripper that's probably not a great optic.
Speaker 6: Called this feet to.
Speaker 5: My no nighte fly Dinna.
Speaker 4: He's swown in up, change in mind, summer, I hope
Speaker 4: he foes.
Speaker 5: Disoit to Mark sail.
Speaker 12: Toyitima Bright and yahoyitya.
Speaker 6: It's what.
Speaker 1: Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Lauren Brt Pacheco and Taylor Chaqoine. Written by Lauren Bright,
Speaker 1: Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, Story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoine. Featuring
Speaker 1: music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered in Mexx.
Speaker 1: Evan Tyer and Taylor Chicogne. Archived news reports provided by WGN.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 1: to you.