August 17, 2021 • 30 mins
Ben investigates some of the cold cases that Hargrove identified and explores Darren Vann's connection to killings in Chicago.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener
discretion is advised previously an algorithm. After Vaughan's release from
(00:23):
prison in August, he returned to Gary and his confirmed
murders appeared to begin early in fourteen with the disappearance
of Tierra Baty as way nor call it never happened,
and although her fiance, Marvin Clinton, uncovered that a man
was using her cell phone and provided cell records to police,
(00:45):
it appears police didn't investigate this lead. They looked at
about they didn't have it, so we don't know what
the other detective dea where did it? Blew it away?
On what abblicate may be. And when Vaughan kidnapped and
sexually assaulted a sex worker, her rape kit went untested
and that left bond free to continue to kill. No
(01:05):
sexual assaults in particular, the departments are under resource, they're
not followed up on, and this is what happens when
you don't follow up on them. Sexual offenders continue to offend,
but could Vaughan have been stopped even earlier? The police
had just heated hard Groups warnings from my Heart Radio
(01:26):
and Tenderfoot TV. This is Algorithm. I'm benk kee Brick.
After I'd gone through Vond's interrogations, I reached back out
to Hargrove. I'm not sure if he remembered who I was,
so I'm sorry. I've forgotten which podcast is this. I
tried not to take it personally. It had been almost
a year since I first contacted him, and while I've
(01:48):
been going back and listening to my interviews with him
over and over as they worked on the early episodes.
To him, I was just some random guy who reached
out to him with the vague idea that I was
going to make a pie cast. But when I let
him know I'd managed to get my hands on Von's confessions,
he lit up. You did. Yeah, that's one of the
things that I was really excited about and wanted to
(02:10):
share with you. You you're making news. Yeah, So it
got a lot of audio. It's almost all of his confessions.
I told hard Growth that had gone through Von's confessions
looking for some sort of smoking gun that would clearly
connect him to one of the crimes hard Grove had identified,
but it was Hard bonded confession erically to committing many murders.
(02:32):
How many people are you responsible for killing? Is a
lifetime are couldn't need the two. But Von hadn't provided
many details about these crimes, and when it came to
cold cases in Indiana, he'd only provided specifics about two incidents,
the two murders he said he was responsible for in
Hammond when Detective Ford had pressed him. And these two
(02:55):
crimes that Von described didn't match the ones from Hargrove's algorithm,
but were cheatings and not strangulations. But I did now
have a much better sense of Vaughan and his m O,
so I decided to go back through the crimes hard
Grove had identified and researched them to see if any
stood out. I was looking for crimes from when Von
was living in Gary, especially where the victim might have
(03:18):
had a history of sex work or drug abuse, or
crimes where it appeared the victim had been discovered in
an abandoned building long after they've been killed. Hard Grove's
algorithm had identified fifteen women who had been strangled between
and two thousand seven, and he had identified what he
saw as two rough patterns. In recent years, several women
(03:40):
have been strangled in their homes. In at least two cases,
of fire was set after the women were killed. Also,
starting in the nineteen nineties, we've seen several women who
were found strangled in or near abandoned buildings. I decided
to start with one of the more recent cases on
hard Groves list. Her Grove's letter stated that an unidentified
(04:03):
female victim had been found in an abandoned garage on
February two thousand seven, and her body had been set
on fire. This would have been a couple of years
after Vaughan's incident with Sharita and the gasoline, so I
wondered if Vaughn might have a fixation with fire. Plus,
he had mentioned in the interrogations that the incident with
Sharita had made him go back out of control, it
(04:25):
had awakened his murder rages, so I thought that might
be an indication that he'd started killing soon after that.
It turned out that there had been a breakthroughing the
case after Hargrove had sent the letter to Gary police.
She has been dead for seven years. Her name remains
a mystery, but the Lake County, Indiana Corners Office it's
(04:45):
hopeful that new forensic artwork will give a real name
to Jane Gary Dough. The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children put out a new facial reconstruction of the victim.
They were hoping that a member of the public could
identify her. The new picture was published in the local paper,
which also mentioned that she was thought to be somewhere
(05:07):
between sixteen and twenty, and that she had scars in
various stages of healing on her face and torso. She
was thought to have been killed about a day before
the body was discovered. Over a year past with no
leads until August, when a woman named Kira Hill recognized
the girl in the sketch as her cousin and reported
(05:28):
it to the Gary police. She said the girl was
fifteen year old Erika Hill from Fitchburg, Wisconsin, and d
n A confirmed Kars identification. That family member who identified
Erica Hill had been holding onto a terrible secret, and
it turned out Kira didn't just know the victim, she
knew the murderer as well. Investigators say the relative, who
(05:50):
does not face charges, had been fearful all of these
years of retaliation if she told, but decided she wanted
to end the pattern of abuse. Cira's mother, Taylor, adopt
did Erica in two thousand one, after Erica's grandmother, who
had been caring for Erica, passed away. Talan was a
special education teacher who had three kids of her own.
(06:10):
She had a good reputation in her neighborhood, but Kiara
said that behind closed doors, Talan was cruel. Kira said
her mother beat all of her children, but Erica was
abused more than the rest, and as the abuse escalated,
Talan withdrew her children from school, worried that teachers would
notice the signs of abuse. One night in February two
(06:33):
thousand seven, Tlan called kar at work and told her
to come home because of a family emergency. When Kiara
came home, her mother told her to go into the bathroom,
but wouldn't tell her why. Kiarra saw Erica lying on
the floor. Her skin looked gray. Talan had shoved a
rag deep into Erica's mouth, and she'd ended up making
(06:54):
Erica choked to death. According to Kiara, her mother told
the kid to put Erica into a black garbage bag
and take her to the garage. Kia said that she
and the other siblings were terrified of their mother, so
they complied out of fear. They left Erica's body in
the garage until it started to smell A few days later.
(07:16):
Then Taylan had her children load Erica's body into their
van and they drove from Wisconsin down to Chicago. Taylan
left Erica's body under a highway overpass. She set fire
to the body and pulled out some of Erica's teeth
to try to make the body harder to identify, and
then the family returned to Wisconsin, but Taylan started having
(07:39):
second thoughts. Allegedly, Taylan began worrying that an elderly person
might stumble upon Erica's remains and have a heart attack,
so they drove back to Chicago, picked up Erica's charred body,
and took it to Gary, where they left the body
inside an abandoned garage. Kara said that if any and
(08:00):
asked about Erica, their mother would say Erica had moved
to live with another family member in Illinois. She was
never reported missing. The incident haunted Chiara, and years later,
after she'd moved out of her abusive mother's house and
begun going to therapy. She finally gained the courage to
confront what had happened, and in she came across the
(08:24):
newly commissioned facial reconstructions of Erica, and she reached out
to the Gary police. The new details led investigators to
charge Hill with multiple counts of abuse and first degree murder.
The police were able to verify much of Kira's story,
and Taylor ended up being convicted for the murder and
sentenced to twenty years in prison. I told Hargrove about
(08:48):
Erica and how she was killed. To me that that's
an example of the challenge of this, right, some of
the data is just going to be stuff like that
that an algorithm can never make that connection. No algorithm
is going to be perfect, and no computer is really
going to do the work of of police. I mean,
(09:10):
it's in the end, it's hard work to solve these Boy,
this is a strange case. So in two thousand seven,
Gary was famous enough that if you have to get
rid of a body, you know to go there, even
if you're two states away. That's crazy, Like they don't
have enough trouble. But this is the place to drop
your bodies. Erica clearly wasn't a victim of Darren Vaughan
(09:46):
or another Gary serial killer, but her case shows how
hard it can be to solve these cold cases. Even
once a body is discovered, it can be almost impossible
to know when and where a victim was killed. As
I continue you going through Hargrove's list and reading old
newspaper articles, it felt to me like the murders fell
into two categories. There were murders where the information was
(10:09):
extremely scarce, where he sometimes couldn't find a single article
about the homicide. And then there were others with more details,
details that have been published because police had eventually identified
a suspect and information about the murderer had come out
in court. For example, the very first murder on Hargrove's list,
Suzanne Router, Hargrove's letter said that Suzanne Router was found
(10:33):
on November. She was found stuffed into bags on a
back porch and she'd been strangled. Darren Vaughan would have
been about twenty years old when this took place, and
this would have been before he joined the Marines and
left the area. I found a newspaper article about Router's death.
She was a secretary who disappeared just before Thanksgiving in
(10:58):
She was later found dismember bird in a trash bag
outside an apartment building. But from the article, it seemed
like she wasn't found in Lake County, Indiana, but rather
in Chicago, and that she lived in Chicago as well,
And it looked like well the case had never been solved.
Police had made an arrest and charged someone for the crime,
a man named Anthony Pressley. Pressley lived in the apartment
(11:21):
building where Suzanne was found, and it turned out that
he knew her. According to some they were dating. Others
said he was her drug dealer. Regardless, he became the
prime suspect in the case, and he was eventually charged
with the crime. But I was confused, why was this
case on Hargrow's list in the first place if her
body wasn't found in Lake County, Indiana. I reached out
(11:44):
to Pressley's lawyer, Richard Kling, to see if the case
was somehow connected to Lake County. When I emailed you,
you know, I wasn't sure if you'd remember the case
at all. It's almost thirty years old at this point,
what what makes this case stand out to you? You know,
I have tried over five cases. Um, there are some
(12:04):
cases that stick in your mind, and this was a
case that stuck in my mind because Number one, we
had we had a good defense to the forensic evidence,
if you can call it forensic evidence. And first of all,
let me tell you that what we will talk about
is not at all based on attorney client privileged issue.
It's all based on my observations and what I know
about the case from from the case, not from words
of Mr Presley. I was appointed to represent him. He
(12:28):
was charged with murder of his girlfriend who was found
on the back porch and a body back, and his
defense was that he had been dealing drugs and that
he owed the person he was dealing with a lot
of money. The person came and essentially told him, if
you don't pay up, something's going to happen. And the
next day is when his girlfriend was found in a
(12:50):
body back. So I don't think it has anything to
do with in the serial killer. It was once in
a lifetime thing. The Chicago Police Department aim that they've
done a hair analysis that linked Pressley to the murder.
There was a hair which was found in the body bag,
or a couple of hairs on the back of the
body begs under the tape, and they were examined by
(13:11):
the Chicago Police Department, and in the opinion of the
Chicago Police Departments here analysis he came to the conclusion
that the hair on the body bag was morphologically similar
to the hair of the defendant. At the time, DNA
didn't exist. The only benefit of the hair evidence was
that under a microscope you can morphologically tell the difference
(13:34):
between Caucasian had hair, Nigroid head hair, and mono head hair.
They have different textures, different components inside, and you can
definitely tell the difference. Today, the follicles from those hairs
might be tested for DNA that could either conclusively link
the hair suppressley or show that they belonged to someone else.
But at the time the hairs were just examined under
(13:55):
a microscope, and this hair analysis could only reliably determine
the ray of the person the hairs had come from.
My cross was very simple. My cross to the hair
examiner was, when you say it's morphologically similar, that's because
you know it came from an African American. Is that right? Yes?
It is. In fact, the head hair is morphologically similar
(14:18):
to the two front jurors, is it not, Yes, it is,
And it was morphologically similar to the head hair of
the judge, isn't it? Yes, it is, no further question,
and that that was essentially the case that that blew
apart their case. The only thing they had really was
the head hair and the body on the back of
his porch. It's not good to find your girlfriend's body
(14:39):
on the back of your porch. But he had an
explanation as to why she was there, and it was
assigned by the person to go old money too that
you don't pay up, this is what's going to happen.
I think that was a good summary of the whole story.
So I came across this case in you know, what
I thought was a list of all crimes that had
happened in Wake County, Indiana, and then this is actually
(15:02):
like a case in Chicago. Do you know if any
police from Wake County, Indiana or something like that would
have been involved, or if there's some connection where it
would have ended up in a database. No, they would
not have, and to my knowledge they were not. To
my knowledge, it was strictly a body phone on the
back of a Portugal County They had the guy who
(15:23):
they believed was responsible, and that was the end of
the investigation. You know, whether it was tunnel vision. On
the other hand, it's a it's a pretty clear tunnel
when a dead body is fumed on your back porch
and there's a relationship between the defendant and the Yeah,
so I don't think Indiana was ever involved. I asked
Hargrove if he knew how a Chicago case had ended
(15:44):
up on the list. I started looking into Susanne Router.
It looks like she was actually murdered in Chicago, Illinois. Yes, yes,
just over the line. Okay, And so is that you
know it was a case when you're looking at this
Chicago metropolitan area, you identified that one and felt like
it fit in with the other cluster. Oh. In fact,
(16:08):
I think she was originally coded in Lake County and
it was a mistake. Okay. Um, so no, I think
it was a miscoding originally, although um, she does look
like part of the pattern. I was surprised to hear
Hargrove say that, because from what I've learned to me,
it didn't seem like she was part of the pattern.
Then that's one where when you look into it, her
(16:29):
body was found in the trash can of this guy
who was either her boyfriend or her drug dealer, or
maybe both. I think the fact that Router's body had
shown up in the trash can of one of her acquaintances,
it was just too much of a coincidence for it
to have been a random murder conducted by a serial killer.
And as they looked into it more, I'm not sure
(16:51):
about hargroves explanation for how she showed up on his list.
I don't think an error was made in the coding
of Router's death because there's another unsolved strangulation case and
Gary for the same year, Santina Williams, a thirty one
year old black woman who has found hung in the
bathroom at Gary Street and Gary. I can see how
(17:13):
police investigating Hargrove's list might have dismissed it when the
very first murderer is actually in Chicago and police had
identified a strong suspect in the case. But you have
to remember Hargreave was working with anonymized data. He was
trying to link cases from newspaper articles to the cases
from the algorithm himself from halfway across the country because
(17:35):
the police refused to talk to him. Also, Hargrove had
never claimed that every murder identified with the algorithm was
the work of a serial killer, just that he'd identified
a type of murder where an unusual number of killings
had gone unsolved, and that therefore these murders were more
likely to have been done by a serial killer and
should be given extra scrutiny. But while routers killing in
(17:59):
Chicago was likely unconnected to Van, Interestingly, Chicago has his
own cluster of strangulations that the algorithm identified, and in
his interrogation, Von claimed Chicago was where he went to kill.
Illinois probably had a whole lot of They had more
in India. They have way more in India. The first
(18:38):
time I spoke to Hargrove, I mentioned that police had
monitored Von's cell phone shortly after he'd murdered Africa and
they saw he traveled into South Chicago. Well, there are
plenty of unsolved maybe he had something to do with
some of those. Sources told the Chicago Sometimes that after
murdering Africa, Von had spent more than twelve hours driving
through the South suburbs of Chicago, and police in the
(19:01):
neighborhoods of Harvey, Markham and Hazel Crest searched twenty six
abandoned homes with a cadaver dog. Hargrove hadn't heard about
Bond's connection to Chicago, but he said he was interested
in a cluster of over fifty strangulations there. We are
convinced that there's a there are active, more than one
serial killers working the South and West sides of Chicago.
(19:26):
They've all been strangled, almost always sexually disrobed in some way,
and a great many of them put into trash cans.
I don't think we're done knowing all of the people
that Mr. Van killed. You're the first to tell me
that he had been hanging around Chicago. Do you know
what parts of Chicago? Because if you go to the
(19:46):
map we've done of the Chicago murders, there's a very
odd element. There is a linear pattern on many of
the South Side murders which happens to exactly conform to
the Chicago Transit green line. Um. We've told the Chicago
police that We've told them we're sure it's not a coincidence,
(20:10):
but we don't know what it means it could be
that the killer is using mass transit. It could also
mean that, um, it's a hooker walk under the elevated trains.
That's that's possible too. So we don't know if it's
an indicator of the m O of the killer or
just where the targets are easily available. We don't know,
(20:34):
but I'm pretty sure it ain't a coincidence. The linearity
of the pattern is striking. When I talk to Hargrove
again about Vond's confessions, I wanted to tell him specifically
about what von had mentioned about murders in Illinois. I
call it the states your rageous they are still don't
(20:56):
go right. I'll look, we're out. Are you try to
go to Illinoise where I have my guns? But if
I don't have a way to get there or like
right now and watching my soups the kids. So if
I get upset, I can't just leave up on sketching.
You know what I'm saying, and the schedule compressed, that's
how to do that. What does that calls you go
(21:18):
into a range flash year is brutly pan. I can't work.
I'm going to get my idea. Wont to give my
idea just so much. I'm just like I'm tired. Doesn't
do anything for you. I want to say release is pressure,
because really I just rather tell me how crazy got
time all the times? Just want to walk and something
to blow everything up. I guess what I'm asking, how
(21:41):
do you connect the rage with these people that they're right? All?
It does take your wrong person to say something or
triggers something from my past. That's why I really can't
give the Illinoise because Illinois probably has a whole lot
of they have more in the Indian Let's say that
they away more in India. Vaughn said that he killed
(22:03):
more in Illinois than he had in Indiana. And remember
what her Grove had said about the murderers along the
train line. Here's what Von told detectives when they asked
him where he'd stay in Chicago. What were you saying
that over there? I don't have the stage where he
was just I just I get on the train. But
(22:24):
I was like, I know a move. I'm trying to
get far away from my family, myself, myself living. Yes,
he said there that when he felt himself slipping into
a murder rage, he'd go to Chicago. Because he liked
to keep his murders far away from his family. But
a few days later, in another interrogation, Vaughn changed his story.
(22:47):
He repeated that he killed many how many in Chicago?
At how many do you recall in Chicago? I ain't
know for a fact, at least killed maybe over a dozen,
over a dozen of Chicago right. But this time he
(23:07):
says that these Chicago killings weren't part of his murder rages. Instead,
he says that all of the Chicago killings were gang
related and that they've taken place in the nineties, in
early two thousand's. Chicago has a lot because that's where
of gangs. Vain Chica the first time we Chica about
(23:28):
you know, lamon with the deed so obvious. In fact,
I love my virginity in Chicago. So as a long
time how many of Marko I'm kills more army rue
children hart China City? One? How long ago? If it
(23:49):
was more our early nineties? So I stayed too long?
After I go now into the service, I'm sorry traveling okay?
And these would be uh, males and females all e mails,
all these are all males, all just all gang relates.
They were all these demos between one years eighty nine
(24:17):
two thousand, in or towards the end of the final
interrogation Forda spawn if he'd ever confess to murders in
other states? Did you think that will ever find any
of the murders you did in other states? I doubt it.
I know what I'm gonna say, y'all won't find and
say y'all already found them. I know for a fact
(24:40):
the one in California, one of ones California know y'all found.
Why do you say that? Because it was everywhere if
you need it was, there was everywhere for they know area.
It was like they were having the field. They're like,
we have murder over here. Know what I'm saying. But
I won't worried about it was because all stuff of
those trason I didn't go in the house. I didn't
(25:02):
load the gun. I just checked to make sure we're fired.
And if y'all find a person killed, it ain't gonna
be my fingerprints on it. Then like the gun came
back the Indiana good old U s steel meal stripped down,
dropped in the furnace. I don't have to worry about
you all but it's sold out to whoever you want
take them. Y'all gonna have them. So y'all have found
(25:25):
some of my merriers. I know this for a fact,
having and found something. Basically, yeah, Texas and found something.
What about girls? Yeah, you'll no found him? No women
in Texas. No, I don't do That's what I'm saying.
This is a new thing. This is more of my
anger to it. Like I got locked up for a
processitude I paid. I see in my mind, why was
(25:46):
our called five years? I should have just killed her,
that was my thing. I was upset. I should have
just killed her because supposing the bodies are easy, We're
in Texas. Y'all got an ocean. I know that sounds weird,
but y'all have an ocean, and the ocean is probably
the best. Like like Michigan Lake Michigan probably have so
(26:07):
many bodies in it's not funny. They're they wash up
every now and that, right, But by telling y'all get them,
it's useless if I find a way, because I can
be resourceful here and there, say we discover one that's
out of state, I won't get you nothing. Now, we'll
just foll on the and I can keep you in Indiana,
(26:29):
even if it's written out, I can keep you in Indiana.
I'm not going on how to say this. I'm not
going to open any other jurdictions like I gave you
one and Gary because I felt they needed to get
and then pretty much you and Zego who all right, guys, Gary, Gary'
is a sesspool. I have no respect for nothing in Gary.
(26:52):
So if you was a fine thirteen of my murders,
dig up with building, or they knock it down and
building and find Gary can. I don't wanna be disful.
They can kiss me with a sun don't shine. They'll
just have unsolved on their books because they got a
couple of one songs on the book that's probably mine.
Bond said that in addition to the out of state
(27:13):
murders he didn't want to confess to, he had also
committed additional murders and Gary that he didn't want to
confess to you because he hated Gary. But the interrogation
ended rather abruptly after police learned that Bond had met
with the lawyer. If we found something that that you
had done, or I know you're not gonna talk against
somebody else or I already know that. Would you ever
(27:35):
let us know that we were on the right track
anything with gang activity, y'all will never get an answer
from me for him. Okay, if y'all actually coming and
said we think you killed this person, we know you're
probably killed them with somebody else, beaud you tell if
you killed him and I know it was a person
I killed, that maybe he didn't need to be killed.
I don't know how to ask gonna work because I'm
(27:56):
not even supposed to be. Not a lawyer came to
me that he's a y'all're not supposed to be to him,
not supposed to be to y'alla. You said you taught
a lawyer name. Yeah, you can't see you that he
gave me a lawyer because I don't go to court tomorrow.
Who who did? Y'all can't be a lawyer? Math In Finch?
You might if I that's right, because he told me
I'll speak to y'all. I'm like whatever. Because he wants
(28:18):
to do with the Mother's ship. I don't want it.
You could have told us that en up beginning, But
he's not important to me because I might have to
fire because he doesn't agree with my apology. He doesn't
believe the capital punish, which I don't understand how y'all
gave me a lawyers can cap punish and not toldom
lawyers and I don't have right. But I mean y'all
spoke to him. They could have told him he I
(28:40):
believe the capital punish, probably more than y'all believe in
capital punished. I'm more a wild West person. We've got
a problem with you. I rather just call y'all three
guineas down because it's my way. We're still being overwet.
I don't like you. That's going out of back. You know.
At the time, Bund said he didn't want to confess
(29:00):
to any murders out of state because he wanted to
get the death penalty and he wanted to get executed
as quickly as possible. But somewhere down the line he
changed his mind. So what exactly happened there and might
mean that Von would be open to confessing now next
time on algorithm. There's not easy answer to your question, man,
I mean, it's from the very beginning and want death.
(29:23):
I want death. I want death, and all of a sudden,
about three days, four days before we cut the play,
he changed his mind. Were the second biggest county in
the state. I mean, given the numbers that we have
seen at our agency of reporting people, I cannot imagine
what it would be like for a law enforcement officer
with that many cases on their death. They ended up
(29:45):
stripping him down naked and putting him in a restraint
chair and they put some kind of vest on him.
We all him into court and Teresa just went absolutely ship.
Do you know if he heard about the whole Hardgrove story? It, Yeah,
I talked to him about This episode was written and
(30:07):
produced by me ben Key. Brick Algorithm is executive produced
by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance
and mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana,
Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rema l k Ali, Trevor Young,
(30:29):
and Josh Thane for their help and notes. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And Hey, guys,
I just wanted to say I really enjoyed all the
messages we got after the Q and a episode. There
were a lot of great suggestions of cases to look into.
I haven't gotten a chance to respond to all your
(30:51):
messages yet, but I will. And thanks to everyone who
left reviews on Apple Podcasts. I really appreciate that as well.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener
discretion is advised previously an algorithm. After Vaughan's release from
(00:23):
prison in August, he returned to Gary and his confirmed
murders appeared to begin early in fourteen with the disappearance
of Tierra Baty as way nor call it never happened,
and although her fiance, Marvin Clinton, uncovered that a man
was using her cell phone and provided cell records to police,
(00:45):
it appears police didn't investigate this lead. They looked at
about they didn't have it, so we don't know what
the other detective dea where did it? Blew it away?
On what abblicate may be. And when Vaughan kidnapped and
sexually assaulted a sex worker, her rape kit went untested
and that left bond free to continue to kill. No
(01:05):
sexual assaults in particular, the departments are under resource, they're
not followed up on, and this is what happens when
you don't follow up on them. Sexual offenders continue to offend,
but could Vaughan have been stopped even earlier? The police
had just heated hard Groups warnings from my Heart Radio
(01:26):
and Tenderfoot TV. This is Algorithm. I'm benk kee Brick.
After I'd gone through Vond's interrogations, I reached back out
to Hargrove. I'm not sure if he remembered who I was,
so I'm sorry. I've forgotten which podcast is this. I
tried not to take it personally. It had been almost
a year since I first contacted him, and while I've
(01:48):
been going back and listening to my interviews with him
over and over as they worked on the early episodes.
To him, I was just some random guy who reached
out to him with the vague idea that I was
going to make a pie cast. But when I let
him know I'd managed to get my hands on Von's confessions,
he lit up. You did. Yeah, that's one of the
things that I was really excited about and wanted to
(02:10):
share with you. You you're making news. Yeah, So it
got a lot of audio. It's almost all of his confessions.
I told hard Growth that had gone through Von's confessions
looking for some sort of smoking gun that would clearly
connect him to one of the crimes hard Grove had identified,
but it was Hard bonded confession erically to committing many murders.
(02:32):
How many people are you responsible for killing? Is a
lifetime are couldn't need the two. But Von hadn't provided
many details about these crimes, and when it came to
cold cases in Indiana, he'd only provided specifics about two incidents,
the two murders he said he was responsible for in
Hammond when Detective Ford had pressed him. And these two
(02:55):
crimes that Von described didn't match the ones from Hargrove's algorithm,
but were cheatings and not strangulations. But I did now
have a much better sense of Vaughan and his m O,
so I decided to go back through the crimes hard
Grove had identified and researched them to see if any
stood out. I was looking for crimes from when Von
was living in Gary, especially where the victim might have
(03:18):
had a history of sex work or drug abuse, or
crimes where it appeared the victim had been discovered in
an abandoned building long after they've been killed. Hard Grove's
algorithm had identified fifteen women who had been strangled between
and two thousand seven, and he had identified what he
saw as two rough patterns. In recent years, several women
(03:40):
have been strangled in their homes. In at least two cases,
of fire was set after the women were killed. Also,
starting in the nineteen nineties, we've seen several women who
were found strangled in or near abandoned buildings. I decided
to start with one of the more recent cases on
hard Groves list. Her Grove's letter stated that an unidentified
(04:03):
female victim had been found in an abandoned garage on
February two thousand seven, and her body had been set
on fire. This would have been a couple of years
after Vaughan's incident with Sharita and the gasoline, so I
wondered if Vaughn might have a fixation with fire. Plus,
he had mentioned in the interrogations that the incident with
Sharita had made him go back out of control, it
(04:25):
had awakened his murder rages, so I thought that might
be an indication that he'd started killing soon after that.
It turned out that there had been a breakthroughing the
case after Hargrove had sent the letter to Gary police.
She has been dead for seven years. Her name remains
a mystery, but the Lake County, Indiana Corners Office it's
(04:45):
hopeful that new forensic artwork will give a real name
to Jane Gary Dough. The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children put out a new facial reconstruction of the victim.
They were hoping that a member of the public could
identify her. The new picture was published in the local paper,
which also mentioned that she was thought to be somewhere
(05:07):
between sixteen and twenty, and that she had scars in
various stages of healing on her face and torso. She
was thought to have been killed about a day before
the body was discovered. Over a year past with no
leads until August, when a woman named Kira Hill recognized
the girl in the sketch as her cousin and reported
(05:28):
it to the Gary police. She said the girl was
fifteen year old Erika Hill from Fitchburg, Wisconsin, and d
n A confirmed Kars identification. That family member who identified
Erica Hill had been holding onto a terrible secret, and
it turned out Kira didn't just know the victim, she
knew the murderer as well. Investigators say the relative, who
(05:50):
does not face charges, had been fearful all of these
years of retaliation if she told, but decided she wanted
to end the pattern of abuse. Cira's mother, Taylor, adopt
did Erica in two thousand one, after Erica's grandmother, who
had been caring for Erica, passed away. Talan was a
special education teacher who had three kids of her own.
(06:10):
She had a good reputation in her neighborhood, but Kiara
said that behind closed doors, Talan was cruel. Kira said
her mother beat all of her children, but Erica was
abused more than the rest, and as the abuse escalated,
Talan withdrew her children from school, worried that teachers would
notice the signs of abuse. One night in February two
(06:33):
thousand seven, Tlan called kar at work and told her
to come home because of a family emergency. When Kiara
came home, her mother told her to go into the bathroom,
but wouldn't tell her why. Kiarra saw Erica lying on
the floor. Her skin looked gray. Talan had shoved a
rag deep into Erica's mouth, and she'd ended up making
(06:54):
Erica choked to death. According to Kiara, her mother told
the kid to put Erica into a black garbage bag
and take her to the garage. Kia said that she
and the other siblings were terrified of their mother, so
they complied out of fear. They left Erica's body in
the garage until it started to smell A few days later.
(07:16):
Then Taylan had her children load Erica's body into their
van and they drove from Wisconsin down to Chicago. Taylan
left Erica's body under a highway overpass. She set fire
to the body and pulled out some of Erica's teeth
to try to make the body harder to identify, and
then the family returned to Wisconsin, but Taylan started having
(07:39):
second thoughts. Allegedly, Taylan began worrying that an elderly person
might stumble upon Erica's remains and have a heart attack,
so they drove back to Chicago, picked up Erica's charred body,
and took it to Gary, where they left the body
inside an abandoned garage. Kara said that if any and
(08:00):
asked about Erica, their mother would say Erica had moved
to live with another family member in Illinois. She was
never reported missing. The incident haunted Chiara, and years later,
after she'd moved out of her abusive mother's house and
begun going to therapy. She finally gained the courage to
confront what had happened, and in she came across the
(08:24):
newly commissioned facial reconstructions of Erica, and she reached out
to the Gary police. The new details led investigators to
charge Hill with multiple counts of abuse and first degree murder.
The police were able to verify much of Kira's story,
and Taylor ended up being convicted for the murder and
sentenced to twenty years in prison. I told Hargrove about
(08:48):
Erica and how she was killed. To me that that's
an example of the challenge of this, right, some of
the data is just going to be stuff like that
that an algorithm can never make that connection. No algorithm
is going to be perfect, and no computer is really
going to do the work of of police. I mean,
(09:10):
it's in the end, it's hard work to solve these Boy,
this is a strange case. So in two thousand seven,
Gary was famous enough that if you have to get
rid of a body, you know to go there, even
if you're two states away. That's crazy, Like they don't
have enough trouble. But this is the place to drop
your bodies. Erica clearly wasn't a victim of Darren Vaughan
(09:46):
or another Gary serial killer, but her case shows how
hard it can be to solve these cold cases. Even
once a body is discovered, it can be almost impossible
to know when and where a victim was killed. As
I continue you going through Hargrove's list and reading old
newspaper articles, it felt to me like the murders fell
into two categories. There were murders where the information was
(10:09):
extremely scarce, where he sometimes couldn't find a single article
about the homicide. And then there were others with more details,
details that have been published because police had eventually identified
a suspect and information about the murderer had come out
in court. For example, the very first murder on Hargrove's list,
Suzanne Router, Hargrove's letter said that Suzanne Router was found
(10:33):
on November. She was found stuffed into bags on a
back porch and she'd been strangled. Darren Vaughan would have
been about twenty years old when this took place, and
this would have been before he joined the Marines and
left the area. I found a newspaper article about Router's death.
She was a secretary who disappeared just before Thanksgiving in
(10:58):
She was later found dismember bird in a trash bag
outside an apartment building. But from the article, it seemed
like she wasn't found in Lake County, Indiana, but rather
in Chicago, and that she lived in Chicago as well,
And it looked like well the case had never been solved.
Police had made an arrest and charged someone for the crime,
a man named Anthony Pressley. Pressley lived in the apartment
(11:21):
building where Suzanne was found, and it turned out that
he knew her. According to some they were dating. Others
said he was her drug dealer. Regardless, he became the
prime suspect in the case, and he was eventually charged
with the crime. But I was confused, why was this
case on Hargrow's list in the first place if her
body wasn't found in Lake County, Indiana. I reached out
(11:44):
to Pressley's lawyer, Richard Kling, to see if the case
was somehow connected to Lake County. When I emailed you,
you know, I wasn't sure if you'd remember the case
at all. It's almost thirty years old at this point,
what what makes this case stand out to you? You know,
I have tried over five cases. Um, there are some
(12:04):
cases that stick in your mind, and this was a
case that stuck in my mind because Number one, we
had we had a good defense to the forensic evidence,
if you can call it forensic evidence. And first of all,
let me tell you that what we will talk about
is not at all based on attorney client privileged issue.
It's all based on my observations and what I know
about the case from from the case, not from words
of Mr Presley. I was appointed to represent him. He
(12:28):
was charged with murder of his girlfriend who was found
on the back porch and a body back, and his
defense was that he had been dealing drugs and that
he owed the person he was dealing with a lot
of money. The person came and essentially told him, if
you don't pay up, something's going to happen. And the
next day is when his girlfriend was found in a
(12:50):
body back. So I don't think it has anything to
do with in the serial killer. It was once in
a lifetime thing. The Chicago Police Department aim that they've
done a hair analysis that linked Pressley to the murder.
There was a hair which was found in the body bag,
or a couple of hairs on the back of the
body begs under the tape, and they were examined by
(13:11):
the Chicago Police Department, and in the opinion of the
Chicago Police Departments here analysis he came to the conclusion
that the hair on the body bag was morphologically similar
to the hair of the defendant. At the time, DNA
didn't exist. The only benefit of the hair evidence was
that under a microscope you can morphologically tell the difference
(13:34):
between Caucasian had hair, Nigroid head hair, and mono head hair.
They have different textures, different components inside, and you can
definitely tell the difference. Today, the follicles from those hairs
might be tested for DNA that could either conclusively link
the hair suppressley or show that they belonged to someone else.
But at the time the hairs were just examined under
(13:55):
a microscope, and this hair analysis could only reliably determine
the ray of the person the hairs had come from.
My cross was very simple. My cross to the hair
examiner was, when you say it's morphologically similar, that's because
you know it came from an African American. Is that right? Yes?
It is. In fact, the head hair is morphologically similar
(14:18):
to the two front jurors, is it not, Yes, it is,
And it was morphologically similar to the head hair of
the judge, isn't it? Yes, it is, no further question,
and that that was essentially the case that that blew
apart their case. The only thing they had really was
the head hair and the body on the back of
his porch. It's not good to find your girlfriend's body
(14:39):
on the back of your porch. But he had an
explanation as to why she was there, and it was
assigned by the person to go old money too that
you don't pay up, this is what's going to happen.
I think that was a good summary of the whole story.
So I came across this case in you know, what
I thought was a list of all crimes that had
happened in Wake County, Indiana, and then this is actually
(15:02):
like a case in Chicago. Do you know if any
police from Wake County, Indiana or something like that would
have been involved, or if there's some connection where it
would have ended up in a database. No, they would
not have, and to my knowledge they were not. To
my knowledge, it was strictly a body phone on the
back of a Portugal County They had the guy who
(15:23):
they believed was responsible, and that was the end of
the investigation. You know, whether it was tunnel vision. On
the other hand, it's a it's a pretty clear tunnel
when a dead body is fumed on your back porch
and there's a relationship between the defendant and the Yeah,
so I don't think Indiana was ever involved. I asked
Hargrove if he knew how a Chicago case had ended
(15:44):
up on the list. I started looking into Susanne Router.
It looks like she was actually murdered in Chicago, Illinois. Yes, yes,
just over the line. Okay, And so is that you
know it was a case when you're looking at this
Chicago metropolitan area, you identified that one and felt like
it fit in with the other cluster. Oh. In fact,
(16:08):
I think she was originally coded in Lake County and
it was a mistake. Okay. Um, so no, I think
it was a miscoding originally, although um, she does look
like part of the pattern. I was surprised to hear
Hargrove say that, because from what I've learned to me,
it didn't seem like she was part of the pattern.
Then that's one where when you look into it, her
(16:29):
body was found in the trash can of this guy
who was either her boyfriend or her drug dealer, or
maybe both. I think the fact that Router's body had
shown up in the trash can of one of her acquaintances,
it was just too much of a coincidence for it
to have been a random murder conducted by a serial killer.
And as they looked into it more, I'm not sure
(16:51):
about hargroves explanation for how she showed up on his list.
I don't think an error was made in the coding
of Router's death because there's another unsolved strangulation case and
Gary for the same year, Santina Williams, a thirty one
year old black woman who has found hung in the
bathroom at Gary Street and Gary. I can see how
(17:13):
police investigating Hargrove's list might have dismissed it when the
very first murderer is actually in Chicago and police had
identified a strong suspect in the case. But you have
to remember Hargreave was working with anonymized data. He was
trying to link cases from newspaper articles to the cases
from the algorithm himself from halfway across the country because
(17:35):
the police refused to talk to him. Also, Hargrove had
never claimed that every murder identified with the algorithm was
the work of a serial killer, just that he'd identified
a type of murder where an unusual number of killings
had gone unsolved, and that therefore these murders were more
likely to have been done by a serial killer and
should be given extra scrutiny. But while routers killing in
(17:59):
Chicago was likely unconnected to Van, Interestingly, Chicago has his
own cluster of strangulations that the algorithm identified, and in
his interrogation, Von claimed Chicago was where he went to kill.
Illinois probably had a whole lot of They had more
in India. They have way more in India. The first
(18:38):
time I spoke to Hargrove, I mentioned that police had
monitored Von's cell phone shortly after he'd murdered Africa and
they saw he traveled into South Chicago. Well, there are
plenty of unsolved maybe he had something to do with
some of those. Sources told the Chicago Sometimes that after
murdering Africa, Von had spent more than twelve hours driving
through the South suburbs of Chicago, and police in the
(19:01):
neighborhoods of Harvey, Markham and Hazel Crest searched twenty six
abandoned homes with a cadaver dog. Hargrove hadn't heard about
Bond's connection to Chicago, but he said he was interested
in a cluster of over fifty strangulations there. We are
convinced that there's a there are active, more than one
serial killers working the South and West sides of Chicago.
(19:26):
They've all been strangled, almost always sexually disrobed in some way,
and a great many of them put into trash cans.
I don't think we're done knowing all of the people
that Mr. Van killed. You're the first to tell me
that he had been hanging around Chicago. Do you know
what parts of Chicago? Because if you go to the
(19:46):
map we've done of the Chicago murders, there's a very
odd element. There is a linear pattern on many of
the South Side murders which happens to exactly conform to
the Chicago Transit green line. Um. We've told the Chicago
police that We've told them we're sure it's not a coincidence,
(20:10):
but we don't know what it means it could be
that the killer is using mass transit. It could also
mean that, um, it's a hooker walk under the elevated trains.
That's that's possible too. So we don't know if it's
an indicator of the m O of the killer or
just where the targets are easily available. We don't know,
(20:34):
but I'm pretty sure it ain't a coincidence. The linearity
of the pattern is striking. When I talk to Hargrove
again about Vond's confessions, I wanted to tell him specifically
about what von had mentioned about murders in Illinois. I
call it the states your rageous they are still don't
(20:56):
go right. I'll look, we're out. Are you try to
go to Illinoise where I have my guns? But if
I don't have a way to get there or like
right now and watching my soups the kids. So if
I get upset, I can't just leave up on sketching.
You know what I'm saying, and the schedule compressed, that's
how to do that. What does that calls you go
(21:18):
into a range flash year is brutly pan. I can't work.
I'm going to get my idea. Wont to give my
idea just so much. I'm just like I'm tired. Doesn't
do anything for you. I want to say release is pressure,
because really I just rather tell me how crazy got
time all the times? Just want to walk and something
to blow everything up. I guess what I'm asking, how
(21:41):
do you connect the rage with these people that they're right? All?
It does take your wrong person to say something or
triggers something from my past. That's why I really can't
give the Illinoise because Illinois probably has a whole lot
of they have more in the Indian Let's say that
they away more in India. Vaughn said that he killed
(22:03):
more in Illinois than he had in Indiana. And remember
what her Grove had said about the murderers along the
train line. Here's what Von told detectives when they asked
him where he'd stay in Chicago. What were you saying
that over there? I don't have the stage where he
was just I just I get on the train. But
(22:24):
I was like, I know a move. I'm trying to
get far away from my family, myself, myself living. Yes,
he said there that when he felt himself slipping into
a murder rage, he'd go to Chicago. Because he liked
to keep his murders far away from his family. But
a few days later, in another interrogation, Vaughn changed his story.
(22:47):
He repeated that he killed many how many in Chicago?
At how many do you recall in Chicago? I ain't
know for a fact, at least killed maybe over a dozen,
over a dozen of Chicago right. But this time he
(23:07):
says that these Chicago killings weren't part of his murder rages. Instead,
he says that all of the Chicago killings were gang
related and that they've taken place in the nineties, in
early two thousand's. Chicago has a lot because that's where
of gangs. Vain Chica the first time we Chica about
(23:28):
you know, lamon with the deed so obvious. In fact,
I love my virginity in Chicago. So as a long
time how many of Marko I'm kills more army rue
children hart China City? One? How long ago? If it
(23:49):
was more our early nineties? So I stayed too long?
After I go now into the service, I'm sorry traveling okay?
And these would be uh, males and females all e mails,
all these are all males, all just all gang relates.
They were all these demos between one years eighty nine
(24:17):
two thousand, in or towards the end of the final
interrogation Forda spawn if he'd ever confess to murders in
other states? Did you think that will ever find any
of the murders you did in other states? I doubt it.
I know what I'm gonna say, y'all won't find and
say y'all already found them. I know for a fact
(24:40):
the one in California, one of ones California know y'all found.
Why do you say that? Because it was everywhere if
you need it was, there was everywhere for they know area.
It was like they were having the field. They're like,
we have murder over here. Know what I'm saying. But
I won't worried about it was because all stuff of
those trason I didn't go in the house. I didn't
(25:02):
load the gun. I just checked to make sure we're fired.
And if y'all find a person killed, it ain't gonna
be my fingerprints on it. Then like the gun came
back the Indiana good old U s steel meal stripped down,
dropped in the furnace. I don't have to worry about
you all but it's sold out to whoever you want
take them. Y'all gonna have them. So y'all have found
(25:25):
some of my merriers. I know this for a fact,
having and found something. Basically, yeah, Texas and found something.
What about girls? Yeah, you'll no found him? No women
in Texas. No, I don't do That's what I'm saying.
This is a new thing. This is more of my
anger to it. Like I got locked up for a
processitude I paid. I see in my mind, why was
(25:46):
our called five years? I should have just killed her,
that was my thing. I was upset. I should have
just killed her because supposing the bodies are easy, We're
in Texas. Y'all got an ocean. I know that sounds weird,
but y'all have an ocean, and the ocean is probably
the best. Like like Michigan Lake Michigan probably have so
(26:07):
many bodies in it's not funny. They're they wash up
every now and that, right, But by telling y'all get them,
it's useless if I find a way, because I can
be resourceful here and there, say we discover one that's
out of state, I won't get you nothing. Now, we'll
just foll on the and I can keep you in Indiana,
(26:29):
even if it's written out, I can keep you in Indiana.
I'm not going on how to say this. I'm not
going to open any other jurdictions like I gave you
one and Gary because I felt they needed to get
and then pretty much you and Zego who all right, guys, Gary, Gary'
is a sesspool. I have no respect for nothing in Gary.
(26:52):
So if you was a fine thirteen of my murders,
dig up with building, or they knock it down and
building and find Gary can. I don't wanna be disful.
They can kiss me with a sun don't shine. They'll
just have unsolved on their books because they got a
couple of one songs on the book that's probably mine.
Bond said that in addition to the out of state
(27:13):
murders he didn't want to confess to, he had also
committed additional murders and Gary that he didn't want to
confess to you because he hated Gary. But the interrogation
ended rather abruptly after police learned that Bond had met
with the lawyer. If we found something that that you
had done, or I know you're not gonna talk against
somebody else or I already know that. Would you ever
(27:35):
let us know that we were on the right track
anything with gang activity, y'all will never get an answer
from me for him. Okay, if y'all actually coming and
said we think you killed this person, we know you're
probably killed them with somebody else, beaud you tell if
you killed him and I know it was a person
I killed, that maybe he didn't need to be killed.
I don't know how to ask gonna work because I'm
(27:56):
not even supposed to be. Not a lawyer came to
me that he's a y'all're not supposed to be to him,
not supposed to be to y'alla. You said you taught
a lawyer name. Yeah, you can't see you that he
gave me a lawyer because I don't go to court tomorrow.
Who who did? Y'all can't be a lawyer? Math In Finch?
You might if I that's right, because he told me
I'll speak to y'all. I'm like whatever. Because he wants
(28:18):
to do with the Mother's ship. I don't want it.
You could have told us that en up beginning, But
he's not important to me because I might have to
fire because he doesn't agree with my apology. He doesn't
believe the capital punish, which I don't understand how y'all
gave me a lawyers can cap punish and not toldom
lawyers and I don't have right. But I mean y'all
spoke to him. They could have told him he I
(28:40):
believe the capital punish, probably more than y'all believe in
capital punished. I'm more a wild West person. We've got
a problem with you. I rather just call y'all three
guineas down because it's my way. We're still being overwet.
I don't like you. That's going out of back. You know.
At the time, Bund said he didn't want to confess
(29:00):
to any murders out of state because he wanted to
get the death penalty and he wanted to get executed
as quickly as possible. But somewhere down the line he
changed his mind. So what exactly happened there and might
mean that Von would be open to confessing now next
time on algorithm. There's not easy answer to your question, man,
I mean, it's from the very beginning and want death.
(29:23):
I want death. I want death, and all of a sudden,
about three days, four days before we cut the play,
he changed his mind. Were the second biggest county in
the state. I mean, given the numbers that we have
seen at our agency of reporting people, I cannot imagine
what it would be like for a law enforcement officer
with that many cases on their death. They ended up
(29:45):
stripping him down naked and putting him in a restraint
chair and they put some kind of vest on him.
We all him into court and Teresa just went absolutely ship.
Do you know if he heard about the whole Hardgrove story? It, Yeah,
I talked to him about This episode was written and
(30:07):
produced by me ben Key. Brick Algorithm is executive produced
by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance
and mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana,
Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rema l k Ali, Trevor Young,
(30:29):
and Josh Thane for their help and notes. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And Hey, guys,
I just wanted to say I really enjoyed all the
messages we got after the Q and a episode. There
were a lot of great suggestions of cases to look into.
I haven't gotten a chance to respond to all your
(30:51):
messages yet, but I will. And thanks to everyone who
left reviews on Apple Podcasts. I really appreciate that as well.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.