Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. The words the pen is Mightier than the Sword were first written in eighteen thirty nine by an English novelist and playwright. It's an interesting concept, the power of words to defend, to inspire, or to wound, especially now in a time in which technology enables us to fire off texts, shoot each other emails, and attack one another on social media or online posts. It's something I thought of often as
I set out to write this podcast. The Vaughan family had already experienced written outrage in many forms after Chris's arrest, trial, and verdict. As we neared the release of our first episode, potential response weighed heavily on everyone involved. The first article about this podcast to go live was the local Patch website in Shanahan where the tragedy occurred, and with it came reader comments like these Jim from Joliet, lock me in his cell with him. He'll remember who did it
real quick. Wally, also from Joliet. Unless the Vaughan family is saying Chris is guilty, they really need to shut up. And Phil from Wheaton, Illinois reference is another man convicted of killing his family in his post. Let's lock him up with Chris Watts and they can swap stories of how they each murdered their children and wives while we slowly burn down the place. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and
this is murder in Illinois, okay you. After Chris Vaughn's wife and three children were found dead, speculation as to Chris's guilt started immediately on message boards and reader comments beneath news articles. Here's Gail's sister Rose.
Passing judgment on people hiding behind a screen and putting words and texts on the Internet without knowing truths, not knowing whole story, only seeing parts that have been manufactured in a lot of different areas.
That's a hard one.
There's a lot, and it's billed over in person on a deeply personal level.
When this all took place, even though I don't live anywhere near Missouri, but this is where our original family started, I had to put my children of protectiveness.
At their school.
So I had two middle schoolers and I had to go and talk to the principal because there were parents that were just being I was stocked. I had people in our driveway constantly. I had reporters. We have a long driveway, like a three quarter of a mile driveway, and there were people parked everywhere. I called the police, but the police wouldn't do anything.
After Chris's arrest, many viewed the extended Vaughan family as guilty too. By relation. Gail Vaughan was particularly targeted as the woman who mothered the man accused of killing, the mother of his three kids and his children. Some were even motivated enough to express their thoughts in calls or letters they mailed to her home.
Oh pretty much, How could you be the mother of a killer?
Why did you even give him birth?
There was a gentleman that texted and said that in his opinion, Chris was guilty and he needed to be stripped and sent to Canada in the middle of the winter and see if he can survive there. And just a lot of why Chris was even here, Why are you defending your son?
He did it?
And we received that stuff, but there again, our lawyers told us not to speak the public, so we never even gave a comment to any media person at all.
The letter started coming shortly after the tragedy.
It seemed like it was about a week. The letters started coming after the funeral I got a number of hate mail that just said vile things. I got a couple letters from religious people that wanted to save Chris's soul. Many of them were very, very hateful.
Here's an excerpt from one that she's capped for fourteen years.
There was no return address, it has been typed, it was not signed, and it's dated June twenty sixth, twenty seven. Mister and missus Vaughan, as a resident of Aswego, Illinois. I am sickened at the news of the heartless, cruel act your son inflicted on his wife and beautiful children. Following the news story from the moment it broke, I had no doubt in my mind of your son's guilt. His story made absolutely no sense from the very beginning.
What kind of sick mind would put two bullets through each one of his children's bodies at such close range and then kill his wife. I can't even begin to imagine the scared thoughts running through those children's minds as this punk riddled their bodies with bullets. Matter of fact, Chris is such a coward he couldn't even put a bullet through his own head, which is where it belongs. We are delighted in the fact that he was arrested, and now Kim and his precious children may rest in
the comfort of God's peace. It would have been highly unfair for the souls of those murdered that Chris be given the opportunity to attend their burial. Congratulations to the law enforcement personnel who made his arrest early in the morning. We are now left with having to playing to our little children why the dad of Kim's three children killed them. The children in this community do not understand, and frankly, neither do the adults. Chris thought he was so cool
that he could get away with this horrific crime. I look forward to the day he is found guilty for this. Only a cold hearted, psychopathic mind would kill his children and wife, and I would be disgusted and ashamed of my son. May the souls of Kim, Abby, Sandy and Blake rest in peace. Hell awaits those so cruel.
Written things would also play heavily and to the time Galen Rose spent cleaning and clearing out the Vaughan family's os we Go home after the tragedy. In Chris's office, Rose discovered a written list on his desk.
In his office.
He had an amazing book collection that was right next to where he sat, and you could tell that he used them quite often because there were markers and napkins whatever marking places. And the books were amazing to me because these are all my loves, David Throw, Walt Whitman, Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe. There were just amazing books that he had, and they weren't like they were on the top shelf.
They were right next to his desk, and because we were cleaning everything out, they would take out annie markers or names or anything like that. I took out a piece of paper that was in one of those and it looked like it was newer than later older, and it struck me because the note was I'm looking at my notes. It was a new Year's resolution list from Chris written in his hand, and what it said on it was he wrote about being a better reader, a
better listener. Nothing on the list was selfish or one sided. Everything he wrote was about being better to be better for others, and I think that speaks mountains with his demeanor.
In Abigail's room, Gail would discover a journal with a single handwritten entry. It offers tender and revealing insight into a young girl's life and family. Later, when we would meet in person, Gail would share it with me.
This is what Abbie wrote, Read that, I mean it's touching.
Today was Valentine's Day.
My box won the contest on the best Valentine's Box. That's how I got this notebook and all the other stuff. I like the stickers best. I got a lot of candy today. I'm going to try to save it. I want Sandy and Blake to be jealous because I have more candy than them, but probably going to eat all of their candy in like two seconds. Sometimes Sandy saves hers two sometimes she eats it. Blake, well, he eats his in five seconds and then he complains to Mom that we have more candy than him. He can be
whiny sometimes, and Sandy can be bossy. I don't know why, but pain is only a four letter word. Pain seems like it should be a bigger word. Everybody hates pain, so why is one big thing so darn stinking small. It seems like it should be a seven or eight letter word, doesn't it. I don't think I've ever written this far before, but I just don't write, but I know I figured out it is the only way to express my feelings without getting mad. I am an artist.
I am cursed with the gift of art. Unfortunately it came with a couple of extra things. Anger, frustration, patience.
And of course a gazillion other things.
I just picture the thing I'm drawing in my head and draw. Here comes the bad part. I always mess up, like make mistakes, not just in drawing, but in other things too. I have to have everything perfect. I have a neatness problem. It's crazy, is it not. But think of all the great artists you know of all of them went through a lot of anger and frustration that they made their mistakes.
Right.
Well, that's how I am.
I am always angry.
When I think it's going to be a good day and it's nice and sunny out, I always get angry because of people yelling or fighting. I don't get why I have to be like this. I am. I don't want to be. I want to write more, to have more stuff to tell you, but I'm so tired. It's like when you're breathing and you want to breathe in all the way, but you just can't. It's like part of your breath is lost in some other dimension where
no one else but you have the key for. But the bad part is you lost the key, lost the key to your breath. I'm really tired now. I've written for like five pages so far.
Weird.
I think mom might be in my room again.
I'm really really tired. I don't know why, though, it seems like my eyelids are begging the top ones to come down together. Well, I think that's enough writing for now. Anyway, I have a headache.
Abby.
What's the data that it is the February the sixth.
February fourteenth, two thousand and six.
I mean, that's pretty profound for that's but the.
Subject of pain and the fighting and the hollering. Yeah, I always say that's what I picked up. Yeah, I always get angry because of people yelling or fighting. And this is interesting too. I think my mom might be in my room. I think my mom might be in my room again. I was there, so I don't know, but that was just eerie. Now, I do know that Kim told Chris he could not go into those girls'.
Room, any of the kids rooms, any of their rooms.
I reached out again to Abigail's closest friend at the time of her death, Alexa and shared the journal entry with her. Here are her thoughts.
Yeah, after reading it, it seemed like she was kind of I wouldn't I don't know how to say, like crying out for help a little bit, or she was in pain, but she was trying to figure out how to navigate through it while writing, like she was wise beyond her words or her years, like when she said, so, why is this big thing? So darn's tinking small? It seems like it should be a seven or eight letter word,
doesn't it. And then she started going into just reading, writing and being tired, and it kind of opened my eyes to seeing like maybe there were problems or issues going on that she was not talking to everybody about. Maybe she wrote about her kept to herself.
You know, it's interesting. I viewed it the same way.
And I have to say, having now mothered adolescents in addition to having been one at one point, I do feel children are like mood rings, very much manifest the dysfunction that they are around. And it's as if she couldn't articulate the real issue, the real problem, But she felt that there was one.
Yes, I agree, and she was trying to get it out through her writing.
Did you find anything odd? She does reference I think my mom's in my room Again.
I was trying to decipher what that, what that meant.
It seemed like it was like, seems like she's been in my room going through my things, or she's in my room.
I couldn't.
I couldn't decipher between the two.
That just struck out. I remember getting a little bit of a chill the first time I read that, because it's it's what does that mean exactly?
Like, what's what's really going on?
That kind of made me think, like what what did she mean by that? Does she mean she'd been going through things? Did she mean she'd you know, been through her room straightening? No idea what that.
Meant, But that made it sound like it had happened before.
Yeah, And she said.
Again yeah, and that it was something that that wasn't a good thing necessarily, It was something that seemed like it was she was conflicted about it.
Yeah, kind of like she had been, you know, going through her things. It kind of made me remember like a moment that we all had.
I remember being us.
All being in the car going to one of Blake's games, and everyone was talkative and laughing and joking, all the kids and whatnot. And then both mister and Missus Vaughn got in the car and everything was just silent and it was tense, and it was like you could hear a pin drop on the carpeting in the floor of the car, you know what I mean. Like the music was playing really really low, you could really hear it, but.
No one was talking. That's interesting.
So their dynamic altered the atmosphere in the car, I.
Would say so. And we were literally laughing joking.
I remember, like Casandra said something about Blake sucks or them being dirty and he never watches, you know, just joke, you know, like playful banter with kids and us laughing. And then all of a sudden, it was just like we all are just quiet and silent, you know, sit up straight.
Don't say anything dumb.
I remember, just sitting in the car. It was a like a switch, almost like a flip of a switch.
At this point, Christopher Vaughn and I had been communicating regularly via email for about six months, and I was making progress into gleaning increasingly more insight into the complicated marital problems and dysfunctional dynamics. He and Kim shared during his trial. Something Vaughn had said during his initial interrogation the day of the tragedy was held against him, that divorce was not an option. Here's an excerpt from an
email I sent him. Also, another question which was made over the comment attributed to you that divorce was not an option? Would you expand on it and what would it have meant to you? It resonated with me because it's actually something I've said many times to my husband of almost twenty four years. I don't mean it or hear it as a threat, but more a principle. I'd be interested in your thoughts. That appears to have struck
a chord with Chris. Here's his response, Lauren, I attempted to answer your question regarding my comment about divorce and quickly found I was unable to do it within the limits of the email character count. Context is really needed. I neglected to provide it then, and my comments were seriously misinterpreted. He then expressed he'd write in letter form and send it to my home address. That letter would never arrive. Instead, Chris went radio silent for more than
two weeks. I worried that Chris was pulling back, that COVID restrictions were easing, and I'd soon be sitting with him in person. We were getting closer to the questions I'd plan to ask him from the first moment I'd learned about this case. Chris might not remember everything about the way in which his family died that day, but he's sure as hell would have remembered planning it. I was going to ask Chris if he ever intended to kill his wife and children. Gail and I began to
exchange concern texts and emails. He'd gone radio silent with them too, for more than two weeks.
Have you heard from him from Chris?
Yes?
Yes, Oh, thank goodness. I was worried.
So when did you hear from him?
Let's see Wednesday?
Yesterday, Wednesday.
My week is all confused now because he sent us a letter, and what he has in the letter is something we don't know how to handle. But I wish you to read it. It's five pages, okay, and I'd like to send it to you some way and see how it impacts what we're doing.
Me.
It's all good, okay.
How it'll be taken.
So you know, probably the quickest way to do it would be to just take a picture of each page and text it to me.
Okay, because once you read it, it's something I really can't explain over the phone, and you have to actually read it to take it in, and I don't know how people are going to respond to it, so it's like, oh my gosh, so I don't know what to do with it to tell you the truth?
Do you want to send it to me and I'll read it right away and call you back.
Gail would first try to text images of the letter. They were too blurred to read. I waited, stomach nodded as she scanned, and email them after reading the letter. When I called Gail back, my fingers suddenly seemed too large for the keypad.
Are you there?
Yes, Yes, we are.
Here, okay. I had to compose myself.
I know I couldn't have read it to you.
My next call was to Bill Clutter, Are you sitting down?
Yes?
I am sitting down, okay, because you might lose your legs on this one. I just got off the phone with Gail and Pierre. I have been waiting to get a letter from Chris because I asked him to explain what he meant by the expression that divorce was not an option. I hadn't heard back, and Gail had reached out to me concerned because she hadn't heard back from Chris. On Wednesday, she received a five page letter from Chris. He remembers that morning. Oh my god, he remembers everything.
After hearing nothing from Chris for two weeks, his parents finally received a letter. It was likely prompted by my question about the dynamics and his marriage leading up to the tragedy. Pierre agreed to read the letter Chris sent.
Mom and dad. When Lauren showed interest in my case, I truly thought she would go the way of the others before. She still seems intent on telling the story. I know I have not been forthcoming, approachable, or even cooperative in talking about what happened. My standard deflection to any question is that I do not remember. It has been easier not to talk about the kids and more specifically, what Kim did. I have been really hopeful that I wouldn't need to talk about that morning. Ever, again, I
don't know why now should be any different. I don't know if it would be better just to leave everything as is. I don't believe anything will change my being locked up. I'm sure talking now will only get things stirred up for everyone. But I am also thinking that Lauren has already started, that you have been with me through all of this. I cannot even begin to express how truly grateful I am. If I am going to fill in the blanks, it will be for you first.
Perhaps that will be enough, and it will be of any real value to give Lauren this. Just leave it as is. I did not know how to or want to deal with what happened that morning, so I lied about not remembering how kimberly shot my kids then killed herself. This is what happened. We drove to the water park, as Kim and I had talked about the night before. Kim told me she felt sick. I pulled over and
got out to give her a minute. When I was around the back of the truck, heading back towards my door, it sounded like the inside of the truck was exploding. I opened my door, saw the gun Kim was holding, and jumped in my seat to grab it. Kim fired at me. I fell back out the door, preparing to make another attempt. Kim looked at me and said, you will not take my kids. You killed them. She then turned the gun on herself and fired. I got back in to check the kids. Nothing can be done. 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. I couldn't drive the truck. I got to the road to get help. I was and am deeply ashamed that I failed to protect the kids. I am ashamed that I drove Kim to do something so horrible. I am ashamed that had she not shot herself, I would have taken the gun and shot her myself. I did not want to deal with what happened. I was completely unequipped to do so. I did not want to
discuss why Kim did what she did. I did not want to repeat what she said to me before she killed herself. So I lied, saying I did not remember. I was certain that the investigation would make clear what happened. How could it not. During the interrogation, I was back and forth between admitting my lie and continuing on. The more questions the police asked. The deeper I got and the harder it was to explain my lie. I told myself that it wasn't going to going to matter because
the investigation itself would provide the truth. When I got a defense team, I believe they would piece it together. Any involvement for me would only hinder their efforts and show my lie. I was convinced that being caught lying would have me convicted without further consideration, regardless of the evidence. As I waited for the trial, I realized that it really did not matter that I had not fired a shot. I failed the kids. I drove Kim to do what
she did. What she said was true. I was responsible. I would let the judge decide what my punishment would be. I am sorry for so many things. I have a lot of time to go back over a lifetime of mistakes. Some made little difference and others considerable. Saying that I did not remember the owning of the tragedy was a mistake, and I am sorry. Not taking responsibility was a mistake, and I am sorry. I hope that, after waiting all this time to talk about it does not prove to
be a mistake. Also, love you both, Chris.
Many things about this case stood out as odd to me from the very beginning, but the claims of dissociative amnesia were the hardest to accept. Not only was it the largest hurdle in trying to find the truth about that day, but something about its duration seemed off. When I spoke to neuroscientist James Fallen, he conveyed his opinion that even if Christopher Vaughan had initial gaps in his memory, the likelihood was they wouldn't have been permanent.
The sausative amnesia occurs in about one percent of people after trauma, but it's short lived, and it's not very common in males, and it's temporary. The idea of this being some sort of long lasting thing, I you know, look at the litterature in the past ten years shows that this very rarely happens.
The letter also called to mind something Chris's sister in law had shared. Rachel also mentioned that she thinks that Chris blamed himself for what happened and blamed himself for not protecting the kids. It is a manager revelation That letter provided insight into how Vond's blood could have gotten onto Kim's retracted seat belt. His droplets on the passenger side and how Kim's blood transferred to the back of his jacket. But it also raised questions as to what he remembered and when.
So I wasn't sure how this would affect your podcast.
No, it doesn't, because there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. What I've said from the beginning was the only thing that could make this horrible tragedy more of a tragedy is if the person sitting in prison for the murders of the family didn't actually commit it. It is, and he's been punishing himself for the fact that he feels he drove her to it with his actions and that he didn't protect the kids.
Yep, that's it. Yeah, I'm not sure how it I mean, does it help us or does it hurt us because he lied?
Pierre, what did you think when you read it?
Well, kind of what we knew all along, but we just didn't know how it would get brought out. I just don't know.
What to do with it.
And you know what the public's reaction is going to be to it. Are they going to say, well, you lied then, or you lie up there? Do you make up the story and lie about it now? People are very cynical.
Well, this is a huge development now if you look at a man who had been through that horror and was internalizing that guilt and that shame. Of course he pushed away the pictures. Okay, this doesn't change anything. This makes it that much more important. I think that that's why he didn't want to get on the phone with me.
I think he knew we were going to figure it out.
And he had such a faith in the system that they would figure it out and this wouldn't have happened in going to prison.
And this is why he wanted to see me in person.
Right.
Having spent fourteen years trying to piece together what happened in the Vaughn SUV seemed sincerely in shock as he tried to reconcile his knowledge of the crime scene with Vaughn's version of events.
Yeah.
I'm just trying to wrap my head around that.
He got back in after she shot herself because he was going to drive the car to get help.
That's how her blood's all over, Yeah, all over the back of his jacket, opens the door he's leaning in to get in, that's when she shoots.
Yeah, I'm just trying to so With this version, she shoots the kids first, and then.
Well, he was in the back.
When I was around the back of the truck heading back towards my door, it sounded like the inside of the truck was exploding. I opened my door, saw the gun Kim was holding, and jumped in the seat to grab it.
Kim fired at me.
Oh, okay, so he is in the car.
When that's happened, I fell back out of the door, preparing to make another attempt. I got back in to check the kids. Nothing could be done. I thought to drive the truck. Kim was slumped, so I tried to buckle her, so she was slumped over the console. He tried to buckle her, so she took her belt off, and he tried to buckle it again. That explains the confusion over the blood transfer and his blood over her. My hands shook badly. I couldn't buckle the belt, I
couldn't drive the truck. I got to the road to get help.
Yeah.
What do we do with this?
Because if Chris is still in the mindset that he deserves to be punished, he might not even want to be helped.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is the first version that makes sense for the first time in fourteen years, Clutter had plausible explanation as to why and how Christopher Vaughan's blood got on the retracted safety belt of his dead wife, droplets on her side of the car, and how her blood was transferred onto the back right of the fleece he was wearing.
A scenario of the tragic events of June fourteenth, two thousand and seven that could now be used to create a crime scene reconstruction that could possibly vindicate Christopher Vaughan. The reconstruction, while expensive and complicated, would be necessary.
That letter, I don't know that that would succeed with any claim of accel innocence. You know, they would argue at self serving, which is the big hurdle.
What do you make of his use of the word lie in this letter.
I don't know that lie as an accurate description of holding back the details of what he witnessed. It's more of no mission and not wanting to reveel that information. And that's what was motivating him, is not wanting to portray his wife as the killer of his children. And you think about it, I mean, it's completely consistent with
a person who's actually innocent. If the states theory was correct, that he stages this and is able to pull it off, or he's able to line up the shots to make it look like she shot the children, and his intent is to get away with murder. He would be blaming her once they give him that opportunity in time after time after time. I can't see Kim doing this. I can't see her shooting the kids.
I think that that expression is really telling, and the fact that he uses it constantly. I can't see her shooting me. I can't see her hurting the kids. I can't see her doing this. That is something I think he's struggling with in real time during that.
Interrogation, right, right, absolutely, And I think he's still struggling with it, right.
Yeah.
He needs he needs to be evaluated.
Yeah, and it has to be someone that can do a forensic interview and to explain psychologically the unwillingness to be forthcoming. I mean that's really a more accurate description this, his unwillingness to be forthcoming with the truth.
Yeah.
I think that first and foremost, we really need to test the version of events he presents in that letter.
Right.
But here's the thing, he has never admitted guilt but he's also never shared what happened that day. This is the first time, and I think that it's because just a little bit of chipping away. I think he was convinced that I would just disappear like all the others who had expressed interest in telling the story.
Well, now you've got to get in to see him.
That's yeah.
The second it's possible I will, But who knows when that's going.
To be well, absolutely by May.
If anything, though, I think that this is a huge breakthrough.
Yeah, that it is.
That letter offered insight that could be used amount of post conviction case that could possibly clear Christopher Vaughan, But that would also entail Chris going through another trial and possibly returning to Joliet and the Will County States Attorney. That thought weighed heavily on us all.
I mean, I don't think he's done feeling bad. I don't think he's going to quit that, but he still doesn't think he's paid the price for it. I don't know if she will go through an appeal.
I don't know.
Our initial optimism about that letter would be replaced by something else. As Chris again went silent before sending me this email, Lauren, I am sorry to have wasted your time. I am done with the podcast. I let my parents drag me into something I was not comfortable with and something I did do not want to do. I've mentioned before that I do not believe it is remotely possible to get back into court. I am not willing to
pay what it would take to try. With the outcome of the court being all but predetermined, I am not willing to go through another trial. My letter to my parents was very difficult. I want to make sure you understand this is in no way personal. Thank you for your compassion and your willingness to help. I wish you all the best. Chris, I can't. I'm just open.
Father right, you are not through the lame.
I'll never leave with them.
Dam stee we dream Hello, Yes, a dream steal we algy.
Dream Love. On the next murder in Illinois, Chris's parents struggle to get him back on board.
It's an incredibly difficult case. Having this cooperation that's.
Essential, and he gains a powerful supporter in the world of criminal justice reform. He didn't believe that he could be wrongfully convicted, which is why he didn't really mount a defense. And another in the realm of defense.
I've tried about over five hundred murder jury cases, and I think it's a case that needs to be reevaluated.
Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco and Taylor Chacoye. Written by Lauren Bright Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing and sound design by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chackoyine featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered and
mixed by Evan Tyre and Taylor chackoin. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you can at the stories that matter to you.