6. Initial Defense

Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Nine days after they were killed, Christopher Vaughan was arrested for the murders of his wife and three children. Vaughn's arrest occurred at seven point fifty am once he arrived at a Missouri funeral home to bury his family. For investigator Bill Clutter, that timeline and the decisions driving the events is telling.

I mean, they charged him so they believed he was guilty, and then just to rub salt in his wounds, they snatched him away right before he's to attend the funeral of his children, his wife. And that's a pretty harsh sentence right there, just punishing him before he's actually convicted.

Do you think that was intentional?

Sure it was. Yeah. They could have waited.

They could have They were decent human beings, they would have waited until after the funeral, pulled him aside and then put.

Him into hand and cuffs, just in terms of the message that it would have sent the media and the public. Do you think timing was intended?

Oh?

Yeah, that was also the thing that's part of the media show voting is because the media was right there prepared to cover it.

Many at the time, watched the arrest unfold in real time on the news.

Well, I mean, what a perfect state. And maybe they didn't.

Tip off the media that he was going to be arrested, but they knew the media was going to be outside the.

Fumor because it's a high profile case.

It's part of the theatrics of the publicity, and there was no presumption of innocence. They decided they would punish him before he's even tried or convicted, and.

To go back to that earlier point because they knew the press would be on hand. They also knew that they could arrest him quite publicly.

Oh yeah, and they did. And that's what happened.

I'm Lauren Brett Pacheco and is murder in Illinois.

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The Once arrested, the prosecution made it clear Chris Vaughn was likely facing the death penalty. At this point in time, in Illinois, a death penalty case was advantageous in terms of defense because of what's ref to as heightened due process. Individual death penalty cases were provided hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state for top tier lawyers, experts, investigators, and anything needed to provide the accused with a proper

This was a high profile case. It was in the media, was in the state drone register, and it was on the news. I did CNN covered it live. They flew helicopters over the crime.

Scene at the time, so I was aware of the case, and my initial impression, just based off the news coverage was that this is probably a sensing case rather than a guilt Innison's phase.

The media immediately began to to Chris's background in history. What they uncovered didn't paint the best picture and only served to solidify his increasingly unflattering image to the public. Christopher Vaughan was not a perfect husband or father.

Once detectives started questioning him, at one point saying that he didn't remember what had happened in the suv now. While in the emergency room after the shootings, he reportedly was upset about blood on his cowboy boots.

I mean, right off the bat, the media reports, and this happens in so many cases where a person is really tried and convicted in the media before they even hit a courtroom. The media reports picked up on some sensational facts.

Vaughn frequented strip clubs in Chicago and the suburbs. Months before the murders. He told one of the strippers he was single.

And he made two visits to a strip club and spent an enormous amount of money I think over four thousand dollars. And of course this is a guy who was making I mean he moved to Chicago to take a job that was paying him almost two hundred thousand a year, which there's very few people that make that kind of salary. Those things really, I think turned public opinion against him.

Lots up theirs, visits to strip clubs and plans which did not include his family, and.

As many as four exotic dancers are expected to testify.

The media's salacious covering of those strip club visits and other extramarital activities would later prove detrimental to Chris at his trial.

Up to that point, they had the first major lead was the strip club.

The interviewed the dancer.

At Scores, so that was in between his initial interrogation and the arrest.

Before the funeral.

They had that, and then they discovered the email cats with Steve Willett in Canada, and so.

That became ability.

He's aha mobids, He's wanted to hike into the Yukon and leave his family.

That's why he killed them. And so, which is all really weak.

We'll revisit those strip club and wilderness fantasies later in greater detail.

There's no stronger compelling probable cause that he did. And then it was Bob Dieal's report where he interpreted that the large satury blood on the passenger's seat belt had to have been from her bleeding onto it while the seat belt was.

Buckled, I mean, nathological explanation.

But then after the DNA comes back that no, that's not how it happened.

But they ran with that and lost in.

Sergeant Lawson, who was the case agent who deal disagreed with used that as evidence that he staged the crime scene. He unbuckled the passenger seat after Kim was killed, and that didn't happen.

The prosecution's initial theory, which was based on the initial crime seen investigator Bob Deal's observations and report, hinged on the fact that the retracted passenger side seat belt, once extended,

Sergeant Gary Lawson was driving that bus, but it heads with Bob Deal, the crime scene investigator, who pointed out all the flaws of this theory that he had that Christopher Vaughan did it and never conducted a complete investigation, never delved into him state of mind. Of course, later the FDA would issue its findings regarding the medication she was taken.

There were safeguards that were meant to be in place to protect people from that rush to judgment. Yeah, did that work out for Chris No. Not.

The recommendations of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment. That report, I think was released in April of two thousand and two, and that's the report that retrospectively studied the innocent people who had been wrongfully convicted.

And put on death row.

And one of the recommendations of that Governor's Commission was that law enforcement agencies need guard against tunnel vision. And they defined what tunnel vision is, and it's this rush to judgment and you disregard other evidence, you know, such as Bob Deal's point was the bullet trajectories all support

But none of that was done. It was a rush to judgment.

They had their suspect and they were going to forge the facts to fit their theory, which is what Bob Deal's deposition describes. It's classic tunnel vision. And that was one of the things that the Governor's Commission warned was that at play in many of these wrongful convictions that sent innocent people to death row. And of course, at the time Chris is facing the death.

Penalty, that tunnel vision, coupled with the emotional bias the media was fully projecting, became a significant challenge in defending Vaughn.

In so many cases.

And there's that initial outrage, especially once you make the accusation that he did it, and oh my god, what an awful thing to kill your own these adorable children who were innocent to any of the marital conflict that they might have had.

That's the part of it that people have a.

Hard time understanding the emotion of that, and the media really ramping up and pointing the finger at him.

He really had no chance.

Clutter believes that outrage proved an insurmountable hurdle.

You know, people can get caught up in the emotion of a crime and forget about the same guards that we are supposed to have the guardrails to protect an innocent person from being thrown into the meat grinder of the justice system.

And do you feel that that's what happened to Chris.

That's absolutely what happened to him.

Chris and his family started putting together a legal team with John Rogers, a defense attorney from Saint Louis. Rogers brought on Bill Clutter as one of the investigators for the case.

I received a phone call from John Rogers that he was getting involved, you know. I asked if I would be interested if it looked like they were pursuing the death penalty. A few weeks later that I traveled up to Joliet and had a meeting with Jerry Killian, who was the local council, and John Rogers. That was the first time I had worked with Kerry Killy and I had worked with John Rogers on another case that attempted murdered case in which our client had poisoned his girlfriend

Because of their history, I was interested in Clutter's thoughts on Rogers.

He's a very thorough attorney and very thoughtful and how he approaches cases.

John has a reputation of being a sought out.

Criminal defense attorney.

Started out, I think as a public defender, went into private practice, and just enjoyed a very successful law practice as a criminal defense attorney. By the time we got together as a defense team, you know, Jerry had gone through the twenty hours of videotape interrogation of Chris, and I just remember in that additional meeting, Jerry had some doubts about Chris's guild based on what he saw in the video interviews.

Why would she bring a gun into the car with the kids?

I don't know why, he said, I can't. I can't see her doing that. I can't see her shooting me. I can't see her ever shooting the kids.

I don't know.

When he was given every opportunity to blame her, he defended her to the hilt. I mean, he never took that bait that they put in front of him, which you know, if somebody were guilty, they would jump on that and be delighted. The police were inviting him to point the finger at his wife, and he defended her the entire time.

I don't think she's not capable of of herting somebody like that.

Then who possibly could have done it one of the kids.

No, I didn't see her do it.

I don't know, but interrogation tape observations aside. Like most of the public, Bill came on to the defense team believe Vaughn was likely guilty. And then he met him.

My first meeting with him, I went in with my ex wife, who was at the time working as a mitigation specialist, and I recall going into the Will County jail being introduced to Chris.

I just was struck.

By how he didn't strike me as as a killer. I mean, he just didn't. And you know, I have many clients who do, and I really was.

It was one of.

Those things where, you know, my initial thoughts of the case, expecting to meet this cold budded killer who was charged and facing the death penalty for having killed his family, and coming away from that initial meeting just there was an incongruity between the charges he was facing and the person that I encountered in the Will County jail. I mean he was very meek, a mild individual, very introverted. The last personnel prolocu would expect to be facing those types of charges.

I asked Bill to describe that meeting and it's setting in greater detail.

You know, the initial meeting wasn't subsidient, but it was more of just trying to make an introduction with the client and to gather some impromation that would assist with the fact investigation.

Bill elicited details about Vaughn's relationship, difficulties behind the scenes of his marriage, and some of the issues the couple had been struggling with. Based on Christopher's responses, any number of recent events within the household could have led to the tragedy.

He referred to this as a perfect storm. A lot of.

Things in the relationship with his wife, Kim were reaching a point where, I mean, he had recently confessed to her that he had had a relationship when he was out of the country in Mexico, when he was interrogated by police, he disclosed that.

But I was trying to make things right. I was taking her on a honeymoon this weekend. We're going to go back to Herman where we had her first honeymoon. Two things all over again.

Who's gonna watch kids? My mom and her sister were coming up on Friday.

Tahaw, Yeah, there comes in the house to watch the kids for the weekend.

Kim, and I was surprised.

I didn't want her to have to worry about any of the details or anything like that.

So I set it up.

And I told her parents. I told my parents to kind of coordinate the details.

But I'm going to take her.

So your mom and your sister know my mom and my hands her sister. We're gonna come up Friday.

When were they.

Supposed to show up around you or so maybe something? And Kim had no idea they were coming.

I was gonna tell her later today, what.

If she would have said a going.

Ain't gonna happen? Why should have said that this is? It was gonna be good.

Do you think one weekend sex with your wife is gonna make her forget that you've been having sex with all these other women?

You think who wasn't all these other one It was just one time in Mexico, and it was a start.

Remember, Vaughan agreed to that interrogation, waving his right to a lawyer.

There was just a lot of things going on. What struck me is is his characterization of this being a perfect storm. It's really an apt description now that I know what I know about the case, because she was under tremendous stress.

She was taking an online.

Class, was hoping to become a private investigator like he had been in Washington State. That was their goal as a couple, was to have a business together. That she would take this online class get her degree in criminal justice. But in the meantime, she was experiencing a stress related migraine headaches and was prescribed topamax, which we later discovered had an FDA warning six months after this had happened again.

Topamax, or to pyramate, is a medication used to treat migraines and sometimes by polar disorder. In two thousand and eight, a year after the tragedy, the FDA stopped just short of issuing a black Boy warning for the drug, their firmest guidance against using a medication, and instead released a strong warning that people on top pyramid maybe twice as likely to experience suicidal thoughts. But we'll come back to that now.

Well, that first meeting in Joliet, I just remember going back to Jerry Killian's office and my ex wife raised the possibility that he could be innocent. Jerry Killian, you know, I had watched the twenty hours of the video interrogation of Christopher Vaughn, and Jerry gave an example where in the interrogation the police are telling him that, well, you know, the vehicle was parked under a cell phone tower, and because of nine to eleven, we now have cameras on

Why can't that one guy get the video camera that he was talking about?

What are you talking about?

I don't know what other detective or sergeants said. He had a video camera the whole deal, in front of the truck in some tower, a video camera.

It recorded everything.

This remains a pretty compelling question. Why would a guilty person be so eager for police to provide what they claimed was security footage of the crime scene. And this began the foundation of the defense's case in support of Christopher. The next thing they needed to do was to examine the vehicle.

The aha moment was when we inspected the vehicle. It was at the Joliet prison, the one in the Blues Brothers in the opening scene where Juliet Jake walks out of prison with That's where the four exposition was being stored. We had our bloodstain expert Tom Bevell there and he was interested in doing a trajectory of one of the shots that killed the child that was seated in the middle Sander.

That examination of the vehicle became a critical moment for the defense.

There was a shot that penetrated the chest and it went through the back of the seat into the third seat in the Ford expedition, it's a large vehicle, so it has two bench seats in the back well. This trajectory when we asked the crime scene services for the Wedn Estate Police to lend us a doll rod, and these are typically used to show the trajectory of the

In Bill's opinion, the bullet trajectory made it impossible for Chris to have been the shooter. There was also DNA, the blood on the retracted seat belt, and other problematic things about the crime scene and the way in which it was handled. For example, the white terry cloth towel the gun was stored in was neatly laid out on Kimberly Vaughn's left thigh when our body was found. Crime scene photos clearly show its placement and that it was

Normally, in Illinois, defense attorneys don't get to take depositions.

But because this was a capital case.

One of the reforms to prevent an innocent person from facing the death penalty was to allow depositions in criminal cases. And when we took the deposition of the crime scene investigator of the Illna State Police, I mean, he described this rushed to judgment, this tunnel vision. As a matter of fact, I documented this in a letter to the office of the Executive Inspector General, and I wanted an internal investigation when you got to the deposition of Bob Dial.

You know.

He described how he was telling this commander that, you know, the.

Evidence didn't support that theory.

That he was looking at both theories, whether it was a murder suicide or whether it was a crime committed by Christopher Vaughan. He had all the crime scene evidence pointed to a murder suicide. And he describes how, you know, after expressing that opinion, he got taken off the case. He had no further contact with the investigators.

This is classic tunnel vision. I mean, it really is.

According to his deposition, Bob Deal received a phone call in which then commander of District five, Captain Ken Kalpus, told him Vaughn was a criminal mastermind who premeditated the murders. And this call came before five point thirty pm on the same day the murders occurred. And yes, that's the same District five where Vaughn was interrogated for twenty hours

Yeah, I spoke to doctor Terry Killian.

Terry Killian as a psychiatrist and not to be confused with Jerry Killian, one of the attorneys on the case. The defense enlisted him to evaluate Bond's behavior and statements during his initial twenty hour interrogation.

Terry Killian was one of our consulting experts on the case, and he was looking specifically at the issue of dissociative amnesia, analyzing the statement that Chris had given. Of course, a big part of this case when he was indicted was his inability.

To recall certain details.

Doctor Killian, the thing that stands out is I think about his report is that he described that Chris had referred to his family in the present tense when he was interviewed by police and after he was shown the photographs of his family and was shown that they were dead, that he switched and started using the past tense. He said that that was something that would be very hard to fake, that nuance of going from present tense to past tense when referring to his family. So he will

Doctor Kellyan wrote a forty six page report asserting his opinion that Chris's condition was genuine. It would later prove problematic that doctor Kellian never actually spoke to Chris in person. The confirmation of dissociative amnesia and subsequent report was based solely on reviewing the hours of interrogation and other reports that were provided. The defense then turned its attention to the possible effects of the drug Kimberly was taking for

I've been involved in psychiatric averress events associated with drugs for some time, including theer Pittman case then at South Carolina, which was his twelve year old who was charged with murder for killing his grand parents three days after they choose the Nola dosage, and several other SSR related cases. Will Clutter contacted me said Hey, I got a situation

Keith happened to be ideally suited for the job.

Yeah.

At the time, as I happened to be working on a to a pyramid suicide case, I was extremely familiar with the capacity of pad propermax of causing suicidal and self injurious behavior and the best predictor of homicidal behavior as suicidal behavior the other way around. That's why you see so many murder suicides. And then the minute he said tokamac I said, I know what's going on here. In fact, in two thousand and nine, there is now a warning on all of the anti convulsives, including tropomax,

A reaction to the medication would have also been the best and most plausible explanation for a sudden violent outburst, if that's truly what happened.

She had had a dosage change recently, and that appears to be when there's the greatest risk of a negative outcome associated with these drugs. It's the same thing as true to the antidepressants. And you see these you see these effects, And as soon as I heard that, I had a strong suspicion. But when I was in Saint Louis and learned of the ballistic evidence, I was utterly convinced that this could not could not have been Chris.

The assumption that Chris, the father was the killer also aligns more comfortably with the sentiments we hold as a society about maternal nature. Most people find it more difficult to accept the notion that a mother could ever kill her children, despite a number of cases where this has occurred.

But this is not the first time that we have seen. Is everybody probably remembers Susan Smith who drowns her children in South Carolina. This does happen. Mental illness is horrible, and these drugs can cause these horrific behavioral changes, to cause people to do things that just are unimaginable, and that.

Would also explain Chris's inability. He reiterated multiple times during the interrogation that he did not believe his wife could have done that.

Absolutely. Brain chemistry is a real thing. These drugs alter brain chemistry. They don't necessarily know how or why, but they do make changes, and the changes can be profound in a very short period of time. And I always tell anybody I ever know who is going to be on an antidepressant is make sure that your family watches you in the week to two weeks after you start or change the dosage, so that is when the risk

And now the defense had their case. Christopher Vaughn's defense team, now staffed with excellent lawyers and expert testimony, was ready to make the case that not only did forensic evidence at the crime scene not match up with the version of the events that the police were reporting, but also the idea that Kimberly Vaughn may have been experiencing behavioral

Randy's stitle was convicted of murder in nineteen eighty seven. It's convicted of murray a couple in Paris, Illinois, which is downstate southeastern part of the state Indiana. He had his co defended Herb Woodlock, were sentenced to death.

Stitle appealed his wrongful conviction for more than a decade, and in doing so exposed a trail of lies and corruption that ran through multiple layers of government and law enforcement in Illinois. He was freed in two thousand and four and charges against him dismissed, citing that exculpatory evidence had been purposely withheld at trial.

Stitle had two execution days before he was taken off death row. He was ultimately freed from prison, ensued a number of law enforcement officials in the state's attorney and was granted a six million dollar judgment.

At the time of his release, Stitle was the seventeenth person to be released for wrongful conviction who'd been on death row in Illinois, something that resonated and resulted in active reform.

There was a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois, and it was later abolished after a large number of convictions were.

Revealed in twenty eleven. The same year Illinois abolished the death penalty, Stitle settled a two point five million dollar lawsuit against the Illinois State Police, and in twenty thirteen settled an additional lawsuit against Edgar County Police for three point five million. One of the defendants named in Stitle's case against the Illinois State Police, Captain Kenkalpus, the same commander of District five who called crime scene investigator Bob

In two thousand and four, ken Copus was brought in to investigate. I believe there's a captain went to State Police at the time. From what I read, he tried to orchestrate in over here shortly before Stytle was to be released from prison, and over here with another prisoner trying to implicate him in the murderer.

So an over here is that he would have had another inmate try to tape a confession.

Yeah, another inmate would wear a wire and try to record mister Style saying something that would implicate.

Him in the murder.

When the death penalty was abolished, Chris Vaughn and other Illinois prisoners who were given the benefit of heightened due process to prevent a death sentence were stripped of the funding and additional money provided for their defense by the state. So in twenty eleven, Chris's legal team was defunded and dismantled, and he was assigned a public defender for his twenty

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I did not play found.

Coming up on the next Murder in Illinois, Christopher Vaughan is put on trial.

The prosecutors put up their big shock and awe performance.

They showed pictures of h children lying dead in the seats.

They showed pictures of Kimberly.

It was terrible and more damning revelations drop.

He was lying to people about being married, he was lying people about having a child.

When you're in jail for murdering your family and you're writing poems about a tripper that's probably not a great optic.

Called this feet to.

My no nighte fly Dinna.

He's swown in up, change in mind, summer, I hope he foes.

Disoit to Mark sail.

Toyitima Bright and yahoyitya.

It's what.

Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are Lauren Brt Pacheco and Taylor Chaqoine. Written by Lauren Bright, Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, Story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing and sound design by Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoine. Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered in Mexx. Evan Tyer and Taylor Chicogne. Archived news reports provided by WGN.