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