July 6, 2021 • 33 mins
The Death March Continues as Darren Vann leads detectives to more victims... but it's unclear if he's telling the whole truth about his crimes ...
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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 journalist Thomas Hargrove warned
(00:24):
police in northwest Indiana that they might have a serial
killer and the loose. Starting in the nineteen nineties, we've
seen several women who were found strangled in or near
abandoned buildings, and four years later, after the murder of
Africa Hardy, police arrested Darren Vaughan and Detective Shaan Ford
began interrogating him. In your own words, what would you say?
(00:46):
Has brought you here today? Why do you think you
were arrested? Will say a hard Vaughn confessed to strangling
Africa Hardy, and he told Ford and Captain Hinojosa that
he had killed many more. How many people are you
responsible for killing? His lifetime or couldn't even two? Vaughan
(01:08):
took police to the body of one of his victims
to provide evidence for his murders, but he wanted to
make a deal. What are you trying to get out
of this? Before? On a birthday? From iHeart Radio and
Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm. I'm ben Kee Brick. At
(01:32):
one am on Sunday, October, Vaughan had just led investigators
to the body of Anneth Jones, and just as Vaughan
had described, they'd found her buried under a pile of
stuft animals in the basement of an abandoned building. It
appeared that Vaughan was a serial killer and his m
(01:55):
O was the same one that Hargrove's algorithm had identified
a hiller strangling women in Gary. But how many murders
was her responsible for and were any of them on
Hargrove's list. After police found anne jones body, they knew
the investigation was going to get big and they wanted
(02:17):
to keep Vaughan cooperating as long as they could. Detective
Seawan Ford and Kelly Mickey convinced Vaughan to take them
to another body, and Vaughan guided them ten minutes north
to afforded up building on nineteen Avenue. Eerily, it was
next door to a house that had a banner advertising
(02:38):
Miss Deed's Hugs and Kisses Daycare. Here, Vaughan told detectives
they'd find another body lying in the garage covered in plywood.
He warned them to announce their presence before entering the
building in case someone was quote using the house, and
once again, detective found the body just where Von said
(03:01):
it would be, in the building's garage, under a pile
of plywood boards. This victim, later identified as Tiara Baby,
appeared to have been dead for months. She was wearing
a sweatshirt and jeans, and her body looked sunken in
because her flesh had putrified inside her clothes. Detective Mickey
(03:23):
tried to keep Von talking while she recorded on her
cell phone. The audio quality is rough, but you can
hear Detective Forward returning to the car and asking Van
to take them to one more body complete jagg Off.
I have a partner I worked with on regular basis
and he dreams of stuff like this. He asked Vaughan
(03:47):
to do it as a favor for his coworker. He
just got into path. Do you have another one? I
know it's dumb to ask, that's ins ridiculous. You're going
to take the stone? I one th right. I won't
point on all somebody. I hope you're prosecuted. Well, let
me tell you this. You do, you do one more
(04:07):
and you're definitely I'm a prosecutor's attention to why you
can't be we're supposed to. Vaughn said he'd been back
to the site where he left this body, and that
he thought a worker that was demolishing abandoned buildings in
the area might have come across this victim. So Ford
called the Gary Police Department to ask them if they
had found any bodies and the area of van was describing.
(04:30):
This is a girl. It's a girl. They're all girls.
They're all the guys. I can't give you all the
guys are jobs. I can't. You'll probably figure out you
guys who hired you know what. At this point, I
don't think anybody's interested in the hiring. Well, I know
(04:53):
one of them pass FBI ramifications. Believe the things will
be very interesting. They want to know how we got
to one of the federal faras. I don't know if
he's a federal Winds or fay it my dear cop.
I think he was an undercover cop. Yeah, I think
he's on the cover cop. You killed him? Yeah? And
(05:15):
then it's more than one person of all, so I
can't give you that boblem So how many women do
you thinkers throughout the area? Here? Me or that I
know personally either or okay, and that I know personally,
maybe thirties me, maybe Quail, thirteen or year and none
(05:39):
of them, no, mine don't get found. So I don't know.
Some of these bodies should have been found. In fact,
I know Gary found three, but since no DNA, no sex,
none of head, they'll never know who killed him. Person
to recap, Vaughn was now claiming he was responsible for
(05:59):
killing thirty teen women and Gary in just the last year.
Ford returns to the car and says Gary hadn't found
anybodies recently in the area of Vaughan had mentioned, Did
they say found me he hadn't heard of. Well, at
least we're not far from all right. That's now you're
going a brawl away. As they drive to the next
(06:20):
crime scene. It's hard to tell Ford is trying to
apply Vaughan for information, where if he's just making small talk.
Do you got any good drug robbery guys in the
streets that you must specialty? They don't have that specialty,
written no more, no best I know they don't report it.
Of course they don't. That's why it's the best crime.
(06:43):
Maybe he is just making conversation figuring it will pay
dividends later in the investigation. Now, I don't want to
be putting all this in your head. But I've already done.
I know. I've been all of Florida and sex since
that's Florida. That's where it really and it jumped off
big down there California. All I say, only stuff Indiana
(07:06):
or we'll be tied up for a long time. You
can take me on vacation, man, no on, stop my
wrist me and you will be my ties. So what
is the worst part about Like when you kill somebody,
like you're like part no. But I mean, like like
(07:27):
you said, you're moving that one girl down in the
basement and like she started leaking. What is it that
you're like, dad? But bless it she leaking? We take
them away from the murder site. I really don't care
if they leak, because you're not gonna find no evidence
on the murder site. It's all I'm saying. Oh yeah,
(07:47):
I hear you. On So is that why you move him? Right?
And how long did it take you before you started
moving them? I'll always move him tough to move right?
And at what age did somebody start teaching me the
first person should? Oh, you didn't do that alone. No,
somebody had to teach me. You know you don't. But
I didn't know if it was like, you know, something happened,
(08:09):
you know what I mean, just happened. They arrived at
a third abandoned house. This one was a two story building.
At the top of the stairs, in a closet, police
found another body, and this time the body was skeletal
as it be for bo. Yeah, her bones are showing,
(08:32):
her skull is showing, saying, son of the other ones.
I couldn't bring you too, because y'all wouldn't be at
the tail. How what kills and does invation? You really
be for cold? Yeah, but at least the families could
have some peace, right. I gotta take you too once.
I know, like I'd like to say, mama's stays, I'm
taking all the MoMA's, These all mama's stakes, and these
(08:53):
keeping one's supposed to be killed. Okay, get other people
that are causing it? Said, they were pretty don exist
in the wrongs. Fie Long time. How many just between
me and you know? How many people you think keeps killing? Yeah?
Do you keep track? No? I know, I know. I
was upset when I found out there was a guy
(09:14):
who mixed I killed over five hundred. That upset because
you haven't because I hadn't. Oh so you wanted to
kill five time? I want to kill five hundred. I
was just used to being in Geary. I was known
at one time the best it was a year. And
then when he was looking at history and started reading
(09:34):
that hundred for my reason murder stuff, that people a
whole lot of more murders, so how many things? Told him, Yeah,
I'm under the hundred. I know that under a hundreds.
Since you were nine, I'm right over a hundred. I've
had to be years. What thirteen this year? I have
(09:55):
way more than thirteen this year month. Wow. At first,
when I heard Vaughn's claim of three murders a month,
I thought Vaughan was again contradicting himself, because earlier he
said he'd only killed thirteen women in Gary that year.
But then I remembered he also said he'd killed men
(10:17):
as well, and people out of state, so he's not
necessarily being inconsistent here. Still, there's something about his tone
that makes me think he's embellishing his story. The investigation
was just beginning, though. The next day, officers continued their interrogation,
and the next night Vaughn led them to even more victims.
(10:53):
On October twenty, two, days after Vaughan's arrest and the
discovery of bodies and abandoned home, two press conferences were held.
My name is Karen Freeman Wilson. I'm Mayor of the
City of Gary, Indiana. We are here to discuss the
apprehension of a suspect who was in the custom of
the Hammond Police Department. This initially started with a murder
(11:18):
in the city of Hammond at Motel six. The Hammond
Police Department began an investigation which led them to a suspect.
They began questioning him and learned that there were additional victims,
and he led them to the bodies of those victims.
Has there been any indication on how many victims may
(11:41):
be out there at this point, we are unsure of
the number. As of last night, he was continuing to
lead police to the bodies of victims as he made
any statements that they're all here. In GARYA I mean,
I know the one. We believe there may be people
in other parts of Northwest Indian to be a little
bit lord. The second press conference was held by the
(12:05):
Hammond Police Chief good afternoon. As a result of our investigation,
it is believed that the suspect is a registered sex
offender in the state of Texas, a forty three year
old resident of Gary by the name of Darren Van.
The investigations of at least six are ongoing. It is
possible that investigation will lead to more victims, so we
(12:29):
have to be careful about what we say at this point.
So I'll take at least a couple of time. We're
dealing with police. It could go back as far as
twenty years based on some statements we have and that's
yet to be coaberative. Ham And Police had found exactly
what Hardgrive described in this letter as serial killer, strangling
(12:52):
women and Gary crimes going back to the nineties and
women's bodies left in abandoned billldings. A television production company
called me and they said, had you heard about Gary?
And I said what? And they told me all about
the arrest of Mr Van. He said he had been
active going back to the nineties and took them to
(13:15):
the scenes of abandoned buildings in Gary, Indiana, where they
recovered six previously unknown murder victims. So something I think
about sometimes is was there something I could have done better?
Because they weren't even looking and seven women died after
two thousand ten, I at least knew that there was
(13:36):
a serial killer active in Gary. Eventually, Vaughan was charged
with murdering seven women and Jones, Christine Williams, Suna Billingsley,
Tanya Gatwin, Tracy Martin, Tiera Beatty, and Africa Hardy. But
none of these seven victims were in hargross list. Hard
group had generated his list back in and the seven
(13:58):
murders that von had confess us too weren't cold cases.
They were all recent murders committed in the last year.
Some of the victims hadn't even been reported missing. This
was one of the aspects of the case that confused
me when I first learned about it. Vaughan had only
been charged for these recent murders, but according to the
press conference held shortly after Vaughan's arrest, Vaughan had alluded
(14:21):
to crimes going back twenty years and also In a
since deleted Facebook post, Hammond's mayor wrote that Vaughan had
admitted to quote a couple of homicides in Hammond back
in ninety four, and based on those statements, Hargrove became
convinced that Vaughan is responsible for at least some of
the murders his algorithm identified. How convinced are you that
(14:44):
this is the work of Van or another serial killer?
And kind of what what makes you think that? Well,
first of all, that's what he told Hammond police, that
he had been active going back to the mid nineties,
and I would take him out his word that he
was responsible for some of these women who were found
in abandoned buildings. I think that's his them all, but
(15:07):
I don't have proof. When I started researching the case
and speaking to Hargrove, only a tiny trickle of information
had leaked out about Von's crimes. To try to avoid
biasing a jury, the judge put a gag order on
the case, preventing the lawyers involved, law enforcement or politicians
from discussing it publicly, and the trial faced delay after delay.
(15:30):
So for years, no one in the public, not even Hargrove,
knew the extent of Vaughan's crimes, or even what exactly
Vaughan had confessed to. Vaughan pled guilty to the seven murders,
but in a highly unusual move, the judge kept the
gag order in place after the trial ended, even though
Vaughan didn't seem interested in appealing the case. I'd never
(15:53):
heard of this happening before, and I began to wonder
if there was more to the story, something Lake County
was trying to cover up, but I also didn't want
to jump to conclusions. Yeah, it's interesting, So, yeah, there
there's a couple of statements in this press conference with
the police chief where it alludes to crimes that could
go back as far as twenty years. Then they kind
(16:14):
of put a gang order during the trial that then
justified not releasing information about his confession, even though the
case is now closed. So I'm still kind of in
the in the process of trying to get some of
that information. But you know, it almost feels like maybe
they did find some stuff and want to just sweep
(16:35):
it under the rug. I think that they were very
paranoid about making a reversible error. I couldn't tell you
more than that, I really don't know. What does that mean,
fear of reversible error, that maybe something about the way
les confession was obtained would be improper, yeah, or um
speculation that he's responsible for other murders beyond the step
(17:00):
for which he was convicted. I don't know. I don't understand.
Why do you have any theories as to why no
attempt has been made to link than to any of
these other murders, at least not to my knowledge. My
working theory is because you warned them about it, and
if it came out that indeed he was responsible for them,
that that could politically embarrassing that. I mean, that's that's
(17:23):
kind of just what in my head. But I have
no idea how people actually make these kinds of decisions. No,
that was the conversation I had with hard Grow before
I got my hands on Vond's confessions. So after him
and sent me the interrogations and police reports, I started
combing through the hours of audio and hundreds of pages
(17:44):
of documents. I was looking for any evidence that Vaughan
might be responsible for the crimes on Hargrow's list, But
also as I read and listened, I was trying to
figure out whether Von's confessions were even credible. The Hammond
(18:19):
Police Department had sent me twelve hours if Darren Vaughn's
recorded confessions, as well as dozens of interviews with Vaughn's
relatives and the friends and family of Vaughn's victims. As
I listened through them, I was especially curious to find
out what the Hammond Mayor had been referring to when
he said Vaughn had confessed to quote a couple of
(18:41):
homicides and Hammond in But I also wanted to know
how much I should trust Vaughan in the first place.
And as I kept listening through his interrogation, some of
his claims just sounded bizarre or grandiose. To try to
put vaughn story into context, I went back and re
(19:02):
listened to an interview I've done a couple of months earlier.
We created Darren. Darren at age six, was taken from
his mother put in even a worse situation. This is
Goeko Cossage, one of the public defenders who was assigned
to Vaughan's case. And then my name is pronounced Goeko Cossage.
It's like crotch itch, but it's costage um. When I
(19:27):
got your email. You know, you told me that the
gag order was still in place. So I'm curious kind
of like, what can you talk about? What can't you
talk about? Well, I think specifically I can certainly talk
about anything from the public record, and I can also
probably just kind of generically tell you a little bit
about Darren's background without getting into too many specifics. To
(19:48):
say the least Costage doesn't mince words. You have to
understand Darren Van was the product of his fourteen year
old mother being raped by the landlord. Cost It said
that when Von's mother gave birth to him in nineteen
seventy one, she was just fourteen years old. She had
three more daughters after that in very short order. So
(20:12):
this woman who was completely unequipped to probably have a pet,
had four children. When Vaughan was six, the Department of
Family and Children put him into foster care. For good
five six years. He was passed around through foster homes.
Almost in every foster home he was mistreated, and then
an eight two, he got placed at Thelma Marshall. The
(20:34):
Thelma Marshall Children's Home was a residential institution for foster kids.
They had I think it was sixteen boys, sixteen girls.
Eight of the boys were small and the girls were small.
Eight to the boys were teenagers, eight of the girls
were teenagers. They would go to neighborhood schools. They would
just stay at the home. The basketball court there, and
(20:56):
he had stuff down in the basement as far as
a ping pong table or in a pool table. In
the bedrooms were upstairs, in the kitchen was upstairs. According
to Vaughan, things might have looked fine if you visited
during the day, but after dark it turned into a nightmare.
The adults would leave at five o'clock and at night
they would be left with the counselors who were and
(21:18):
they would go down in his hellhole of the basement
and they would have gladiator games where they would have
the kids square off and have to fight each other.
Darren told us when he was being disciplined, they would
put him in a completely dark room with the dog
that he would have to climb on the pool table
and be up on the pool table pretty much all
(21:40):
night long, with his dog running around the outside of
the pool table barking at him to get at him.
When Von described his childhood to Detective Ford, he didn't
mention the years he'd spent living with the foster families
at all, but Vaughan said his time at the Thelma
marshal Um was formative. Where did you live as a
(22:03):
kid that you remember besides the boy's homes? That's all
that you know? That's all I remember that somebody had
to tell me family history when I came home because
I didn't like nobody to okay. I was hitting people
with objects, so they had to come over with some
reason for Okay, So you were, you were violent even
as a young young kid. What you're saying put to
(22:28):
be an environment where I had to be valid. So okay,
So due to this is that way you were originally taken? No,
I was. I was a kid. I had a violent
streeting me as a young young kid. But when you
go to the homes you deal with people. Is in
there for a criminal activity? What year do you think
you've got? How old do you think you are when
(22:49):
you went to the homes? I can tell you that's
the only place I remember is being home. Like when
I get depressed, I go there. I sit outside of
it really still today because my home it's not only
home I've ever known. That's insane. Well, what did you
go when? I understand what you're saying, but like it's
(23:10):
where I was made. Vaughn said that shortly after coming
to film and Marshall, one of the teenagers at the
home started targeting him. What did he do to mess
with you? You know, I'm trying to turn him into
a girl. Okay, So he was actually a predator. He's
trying to break and we don't really call them predators.
(23:31):
Y'all call them predators. We don't call them predators. What
would you call him? He's just what he is. That's
why terror. Everybody is what they is. Everybody has some
kind of busing thing. But Vaughan says, one of the
other kids, an eighteen year old, he went by big Ee,
found out about the team that was messing with. Vaughn
(23:51):
wanted to older kids older than you go to Obhi
and being his homeies. Gentleman, I remember it's Timo missing.
So the nailed him in home? Yeah? Are we always
asked jumping going on? There's always something going on in
the home. And then he came up missing later right,
it was ever found? When you say he's missing, when
(24:12):
I mean was he killed? Ya? Oh? Yeah? He was killed.
It was coming, It was coming. Fawn says that Big
E was a gangster disciple at g D, a member
of the nationwide gang that had its nerve center in
nearby Chicago, and after saving Vaughan, BIGI recruited him to
join the gang. Remember Drew Elementary School. Biggie's hit Massy.
(24:36):
It's like, make sure you looked after because you're always
gonna be going somewhere doing something for somebody. You might
be the best guy right now, really best guy. How
come he had one of the best codes of honor.
I've never seeing him break a g D rule. He's
a really good guy. As long as you do funk
(24:56):
around where he believed in, he was perfectly safe. I
remember he was a star on the Roosevelt basketball squad.
But you quit, guess some kind of trouble, okay. Joining
the Gangster Disciples was a multi step process. The first step,
getting jumped in meant getting beat up by the other
(25:17):
members of the gang. And I got jumped and for
real elementary schools, do you remember you're jumping for reading?
Really busted arm messed up? Remember all that. Yeah. Vaughn
says that before long he was spending more time with
the gang than he did in school, and his new
recruits got further initiated into the gang. They would be
(25:40):
asked to commit crimes, crimes that grew more and more violent. Now,
you said when you first became a g D that stuff.
You had an incident where you killed the first person
that you ever killed, right, and what made you kill him?
That's part of all being blessed in Chicago? What does
it mean to be blessed? You put on the books,
(26:03):
you can always call for get support if you need it.
You kind of like an official or member your official. Remember,
if you're not the own book, you're not really a member.
You're just sing you agg did you kill somebody specific
to get blessed in? I mean, I hear who they
told me to kill, and I really don't know who.
(26:23):
World didn't care, so they just gave me an assignment. Right,
But it wasn't enough for a recruit just to kill someone.
It was also how they acted after they'd done the deed.
Van brought this up with Officer Mickey the night he
was arrested. Now that the kids ever not want to
do it, you who have a choice, So like when
(26:44):
the kids do it for the first time, do they
flip out, like do you come from them? Or you
break down too much? If you're getting rid of black kills,
that's always been a gang thing. They can't take no chance.
And some of you spell in the bank, bill in
the vein for some keys y'all think are like random ers.
They're not random ers. Ideas something they can live with.
(27:07):
It started talking and start had to be get rid
of the gang that Von has been talking about. The
Gangster Disciples or g DS, was formed in Chicago in
nineteen four. The Gangster Disciples were founded by Larry Hoover.
At the time, he was serving a life sentence in
an Illinois prison for murder, but using coded messages, he
(27:29):
ran the gang's drug dealing and prostitution rackets from behind
bars for decades. Hoover created what he called the sixteen
Rules of proper behavior for the Disciples. These rules included
silence about gang business. They'd say, nothing will hurt the
duck but its own bill. Other rules prohibited homosexual rape,
(27:51):
using addictive drugs, and stealing from other gangster disciples. These
sixteen rules were to be followed strictly. If rules were
by related gang leaders would order punishments to be dealt
out by gang enforcers. The punishments could range from beatings
to death. Vaughn says he was taught how to kill
by the gang and became one of the gangs enforcers.
(28:15):
Von's lawyer, Cossage, says that as a public defender in
Lake County, Indiana, he's had many clients and gangs. You
can't even imagine, imagine what they went through in their lives.
You know, you can go ahead and talk about all
these gang manners and all these shootings and until you
you really break it down. You know, these kids are
(28:36):
eight nine years old and they live in these neighborhoods
where they're getting harassed and either they're gonna keep getting
picked on and keep getting beat up, or they're gonna
join a game, and they grow into these gangs, and
these gangs become their only family, and they do what
they're told. What never sees us to amaze me. You know,
they give you the Latin King Manifesto or the Gangster
(28:57):
Disciple Rules, whatever the hell they have, and like the
first page, first page says, I will never cooperate with
the police. I will never give evidence to the police,
or stay us to the police, that may implicate a brother.
But the sons of bitches on the very top, when
they get busted within forty eight hours, they are singing
like the loudest damn canaries you've ever heard, to save
(29:21):
their asses. They're telling them about murders they ordered, who
did them, to save their asses. And the guys on
the bottom never figure that out, never figure out, but
they're gonna get sold out by the guys on the top.
Fons lawyers wanted more information about fons early life and
gang involvement, so they tried to find out more information
(29:42):
about Big E. He was challenging though, because Von didn't
know Big EA's real name. We really really wanted to
track him down. We thought at one time it was
someone who played basketball and one of the local high
schools there, and he was on on the bench on
one of the state champ bionship teams, but that ended
up falling by the wayside. It wasn't him. We never
(30:04):
couldn't find him. The police were also interested in finding
Big E to verify Von's story and to investigate the
early murders Vaughan had mentioned. They asked Von's half brother
Reginald about it. Reginald new big e by a slightly
different name. Okay, his friend Big talk about him, a
(30:29):
big white girl in the homes gather him big whit
him big white being bad. But nobody in my family
knows being white. Nobody's ever seen big white. You know
what I'm saying. Come on, then it's not plausible? And
what is a fictional character? Because I dug further into
(30:54):
Vaughan's confessions, it was not at all this story I
was expecting. But I did discover or what I suspect
is the reason why authorities wanted to keep this case
quiet for so long. Next time on algorithm, be it
from the organic injury or something he had convinced himself.
There were episodes in Darren's life that he remembered completely
(31:17):
different than what we had incredible evidence for. All went
back out of control again. I never made it back
un Once you I don't know how to play with y'all,
y'all don't have the same or once you start killing again.
Now when you say abuse of like verbally, abuse of physically,
I don't recall all the different actually with all her
(31:39):
y'all probably caught me years ago this episode was written
and produced by me ben Kiebrick Algorithm is executive produced
by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance
in mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup
(32:00):
and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana,
Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rima l. K Ali, Trevor Young,
and Josh Thane for their help and notes, and thanks
for listening. The story is only going to keep getting
crazier and soon I'm going to need you all to
help me solve some of the mysteries regarding this case.
(32:23):
Please help spread the word about this podcast, especially if
you have any friends in Indiana, Illinois, or Texas. I
hope that through this podcast we can shed some light
on some really important issues and maybe even bring justice
and closure to additional victims. If you do have any
information about Big E, Daryn Vaughan, where crimes that you
(32:44):
think might be related, or if you just have questions
you want addressed on the podcast, please call and leave
me a voicemail with your contact information at eight eight
five zero one three three zero nine. That's eight eight
five year one three three zero nine, or you can
also reach out to me on Twitter. I'm at ben
(33:06):
Underscore Keybrick. That's b E N Underscore k U E
b R I c H. Thanks
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 journalist Thomas Hargrove warned
(00:24):
police in northwest Indiana that they might have a serial
killer and the loose. Starting in the nineteen nineties, we've
seen several women who were found strangled in or near
abandoned buildings, and four years later, after the murder of
Africa Hardy, police arrested Darren Vaughan and Detective Shaan Ford
began interrogating him. In your own words, what would you say?
(00:46):
Has brought you here today? Why do you think you
were arrested? Will say a hard Vaughn confessed to strangling
Africa Hardy, and he told Ford and Captain Hinojosa that
he had killed many more. How many people are you
responsible for killing? His lifetime or couldn't even two? Vaughan
(01:08):
took police to the body of one of his victims
to provide evidence for his murders, but he wanted to
make a deal. What are you trying to get out
of this? Before? On a birthday? From iHeart Radio and
Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm. I'm ben Kee Brick. At
(01:32):
one am on Sunday, October, Vaughan had just led investigators
to the body of Anneth Jones, and just as Vaughan
had described, they'd found her buried under a pile of
stuft animals in the basement of an abandoned building. It
appeared that Vaughan was a serial killer and his m
(01:55):
O was the same one that Hargrove's algorithm had identified
a hiller strangling women in Gary. But how many murders
was her responsible for and were any of them on
Hargrove's list. After police found anne jones body, they knew
the investigation was going to get big and they wanted
(02:17):
to keep Vaughan cooperating as long as they could. Detective
Seawan Ford and Kelly Mickey convinced Vaughan to take them
to another body, and Vaughan guided them ten minutes north
to afforded up building on nineteen Avenue. Eerily, it was
next door to a house that had a banner advertising
(02:38):
Miss Deed's Hugs and Kisses Daycare. Here, Vaughan told detectives
they'd find another body lying in the garage covered in plywood.
He warned them to announce their presence before entering the
building in case someone was quote using the house, and
once again, detective found the body just where Von said
(03:01):
it would be, in the building's garage, under a pile
of plywood boards. This victim, later identified as Tiara Baby,
appeared to have been dead for months. She was wearing
a sweatshirt and jeans, and her body looked sunken in
because her flesh had putrified inside her clothes. Detective Mickey
(03:23):
tried to keep Von talking while she recorded on her
cell phone. The audio quality is rough, but you can
hear Detective Forward returning to the car and asking Van
to take them to one more body complete jagg Off.
I have a partner I worked with on regular basis
and he dreams of stuff like this. He asked Vaughan
(03:47):
to do it as a favor for his coworker. He
just got into path. Do you have another one? I
know it's dumb to ask, that's ins ridiculous. You're going
to take the stone? I one th right. I won't
point on all somebody. I hope you're prosecuted. Well, let
me tell you this. You do, you do one more
(04:07):
and you're definitely I'm a prosecutor's attention to why you
can't be we're supposed to. Vaughn said he'd been back
to the site where he left this body, and that
he thought a worker that was demolishing abandoned buildings in
the area might have come across this victim. So Ford
called the Gary Police Department to ask them if they
had found any bodies and the area of van was describing.
(04:30):
This is a girl. It's a girl. They're all girls.
They're all the guys. I can't give you all the
guys are jobs. I can't. You'll probably figure out you
guys who hired you know what. At this point, I
don't think anybody's interested in the hiring. Well, I know
(04:53):
one of them pass FBI ramifications. Believe the things will
be very interesting. They want to know how we got
to one of the federal faras. I don't know if
he's a federal Winds or fay it my dear cop.
I think he was an undercover cop. Yeah, I think
he's on the cover cop. You killed him? Yeah? And
(05:15):
then it's more than one person of all, so I
can't give you that boblem So how many women do
you thinkers throughout the area? Here? Me or that I
know personally either or okay, and that I know personally,
maybe thirties me, maybe Quail, thirteen or year and none
(05:39):
of them, no, mine don't get found. So I don't know.
Some of these bodies should have been found. In fact,
I know Gary found three, but since no DNA, no sex,
none of head, they'll never know who killed him. Person
to recap, Vaughn was now claiming he was responsible for
(05:59):
killing thirty teen women and Gary in just the last year.
Ford returns to the car and says Gary hadn't found
anybodies recently in the area of Vaughan had mentioned, Did
they say found me he hadn't heard of. Well, at
least we're not far from all right. That's now you're
going a brawl away. As they drive to the next
(06:20):
crime scene. It's hard to tell Ford is trying to
apply Vaughan for information, where if he's just making small talk.
Do you got any good drug robbery guys in the
streets that you must specialty? They don't have that specialty,
written no more, no best I know they don't report it.
Of course they don't. That's why it's the best crime.
(06:43):
Maybe he is just making conversation figuring it will pay
dividends later in the investigation. Now, I don't want to
be putting all this in your head. But I've already done.
I know. I've been all of Florida and sex since
that's Florida. That's where it really and it jumped off
big down there California. All I say, only stuff Indiana
(07:06):
or we'll be tied up for a long time. You
can take me on vacation, man, no on, stop my
wrist me and you will be my ties. So what
is the worst part about Like when you kill somebody,
like you're like part no. But I mean, like like
(07:27):
you said, you're moving that one girl down in the
basement and like she started leaking. What is it that
you're like, dad? But bless it she leaking? We take
them away from the murder site. I really don't care
if they leak, because you're not gonna find no evidence
on the murder site. It's all I'm saying. Oh yeah,
(07:47):
I hear you. On So is that why you move him? Right?
And how long did it take you before you started
moving them? I'll always move him tough to move right?
And at what age did somebody start teaching me the
first person should? Oh, you didn't do that alone. No,
somebody had to teach me. You know you don't. But
I didn't know if it was like, you know, something happened,
(08:09):
you know what I mean, just happened. They arrived at
a third abandoned house. This one was a two story building.
At the top of the stairs, in a closet, police
found another body, and this time the body was skeletal
as it be for bo. Yeah, her bones are showing,
(08:32):
her skull is showing, saying, son of the other ones.
I couldn't bring you too, because y'all wouldn't be at
the tail. How what kills and does invation? You really
be for cold? Yeah, but at least the families could
have some peace, right. I gotta take you too once.
I know, like I'd like to say, mama's stays, I'm
taking all the MoMA's, These all mama's stakes, and these
(08:53):
keeping one's supposed to be killed. Okay, get other people
that are causing it? Said, they were pretty don exist
in the wrongs. Fie Long time. How many just between
me and you know? How many people you think keeps killing? Yeah?
Do you keep track? No? I know, I know. I
was upset when I found out there was a guy
(09:14):
who mixed I killed over five hundred. That upset because
you haven't because I hadn't. Oh so you wanted to
kill five time? I want to kill five hundred. I
was just used to being in Geary. I was known
at one time the best it was a year. And
then when he was looking at history and started reading
(09:34):
that hundred for my reason murder stuff, that people a
whole lot of more murders, so how many things? Told him, Yeah,
I'm under the hundred. I know that under a hundreds.
Since you were nine, I'm right over a hundred. I've
had to be years. What thirteen this year? I have
(09:55):
way more than thirteen this year month. Wow. At first,
when I heard Vaughn's claim of three murders a month,
I thought Vaughan was again contradicting himself, because earlier he
said he'd only killed thirteen women in Gary that year.
But then I remembered he also said he'd killed men
(10:17):
as well, and people out of state, so he's not
necessarily being inconsistent here. Still, there's something about his tone
that makes me think he's embellishing his story. The investigation
was just beginning, though. The next day, officers continued their interrogation,
and the next night Vaughn led them to even more victims.
(10:53):
On October twenty, two, days after Vaughan's arrest and the
discovery of bodies and abandoned home, two press conferences were held.
My name is Karen Freeman Wilson. I'm Mayor of the
City of Gary, Indiana. We are here to discuss the
apprehension of a suspect who was in the custom of
the Hammond Police Department. This initially started with a murder
(11:18):
in the city of Hammond at Motel six. The Hammond
Police Department began an investigation which led them to a suspect.
They began questioning him and learned that there were additional victims,
and he led them to the bodies of those victims.
Has there been any indication on how many victims may
(11:41):
be out there at this point, we are unsure of
the number. As of last night, he was continuing to
lead police to the bodies of victims as he made
any statements that they're all here. In GARYA I mean,
I know the one. We believe there may be people
in other parts of Northwest Indian to be a little
bit lord. The second press conference was held by the
(12:05):
Hammond Police Chief good afternoon. As a result of our investigation,
it is believed that the suspect is a registered sex
offender in the state of Texas, a forty three year
old resident of Gary by the name of Darren Van.
The investigations of at least six are ongoing. It is
possible that investigation will lead to more victims, so we
(12:29):
have to be careful about what we say at this point.
So I'll take at least a couple of time. We're
dealing with police. It could go back as far as
twenty years based on some statements we have and that's
yet to be coaberative. Ham And Police had found exactly
what Hardgrive described in this letter as serial killer, strangling
(12:52):
women and Gary crimes going back to the nineties and
women's bodies left in abandoned billldings. A television production company
called me and they said, had you heard about Gary?
And I said what? And they told me all about
the arrest of Mr Van. He said he had been
active going back to the nineties and took them to
(13:15):
the scenes of abandoned buildings in Gary, Indiana, where they
recovered six previously unknown murder victims. So something I think
about sometimes is was there something I could have done better?
Because they weren't even looking and seven women died after
two thousand ten, I at least knew that there was
(13:36):
a serial killer active in Gary. Eventually, Vaughan was charged
with murdering seven women and Jones, Christine Williams, Suna Billingsley,
Tanya Gatwin, Tracy Martin, Tiera Beatty, and Africa Hardy. But
none of these seven victims were in hargross list. Hard
group had generated his list back in and the seven
(13:58):
murders that von had confess us too weren't cold cases.
They were all recent murders committed in the last year.
Some of the victims hadn't even been reported missing. This
was one of the aspects of the case that confused
me when I first learned about it. Vaughan had only
been charged for these recent murders, but according to the
press conference held shortly after Vaughan's arrest, Vaughan had alluded
(14:21):
to crimes going back twenty years and also In a
since deleted Facebook post, Hammond's mayor wrote that Vaughan had
admitted to quote a couple of homicides in Hammond back
in ninety four, and based on those statements, Hargrove became
convinced that Vaughan is responsible for at least some of
the murders his algorithm identified. How convinced are you that
(14:44):
this is the work of Van or another serial killer?
And kind of what what makes you think that? Well,
first of all, that's what he told Hammond police, that
he had been active going back to the mid nineties,
and I would take him out his word that he
was responsible for some of these women who were found
in abandoned buildings. I think that's his them all, but
(15:07):
I don't have proof. When I started researching the case
and speaking to Hargrove, only a tiny trickle of information
had leaked out about Von's crimes. To try to avoid
biasing a jury, the judge put a gag order on
the case, preventing the lawyers involved, law enforcement or politicians
from discussing it publicly, and the trial faced delay after delay.
(15:30):
So for years, no one in the public, not even Hargrove,
knew the extent of Vaughan's crimes, or even what exactly
Vaughan had confessed to. Vaughan pled guilty to the seven murders,
but in a highly unusual move, the judge kept the
gag order in place after the trial ended, even though
Vaughan didn't seem interested in appealing the case. I'd never
(15:53):
heard of this happening before, and I began to wonder
if there was more to the story, something Lake County
was trying to cover up, but I also didn't want
to jump to conclusions. Yeah, it's interesting, So, yeah, there
there's a couple of statements in this press conference with
the police chief where it alludes to crimes that could
go back as far as twenty years. Then they kind
(16:14):
of put a gang order during the trial that then
justified not releasing information about his confession, even though the
case is now closed. So I'm still kind of in
the in the process of trying to get some of
that information. But you know, it almost feels like maybe
they did find some stuff and want to just sweep
(16:35):
it under the rug. I think that they were very
paranoid about making a reversible error. I couldn't tell you
more than that, I really don't know. What does that mean,
fear of reversible error, that maybe something about the way
les confession was obtained would be improper, yeah, or um
speculation that he's responsible for other murders beyond the step
(17:00):
for which he was convicted. I don't know. I don't understand.
Why do you have any theories as to why no
attempt has been made to link than to any of
these other murders, at least not to my knowledge. My
working theory is because you warned them about it, and
if it came out that indeed he was responsible for them,
that that could politically embarrassing that. I mean, that's that's
(17:23):
kind of just what in my head. But I have
no idea how people actually make these kinds of decisions. No,
that was the conversation I had with hard Grow before
I got my hands on Vond's confessions. So after him
and sent me the interrogations and police reports, I started
combing through the hours of audio and hundreds of pages
(17:44):
of documents. I was looking for any evidence that Vaughan
might be responsible for the crimes on Hargrow's list, But
also as I read and listened, I was trying to
figure out whether Von's confessions were even credible. The Hammond
(18:19):
Police Department had sent me twelve hours if Darren Vaughn's
recorded confessions, as well as dozens of interviews with Vaughn's
relatives and the friends and family of Vaughn's victims. As
I listened through them, I was especially curious to find
out what the Hammond Mayor had been referring to when
he said Vaughn had confessed to quote a couple of
(18:41):
homicides and Hammond in But I also wanted to know
how much I should trust Vaughan in the first place.
And as I kept listening through his interrogation, some of
his claims just sounded bizarre or grandiose. To try to
put vaughn story into context, I went back and re
(19:02):
listened to an interview I've done a couple of months earlier.
We created Darren. Darren at age six, was taken from
his mother put in even a worse situation. This is
Goeko Cossage, one of the public defenders who was assigned
to Vaughan's case. And then my name is pronounced Goeko Cossage.
It's like crotch itch, but it's costage um. When I
(19:27):
got your email. You know, you told me that the
gag order was still in place. So I'm curious kind
of like, what can you talk about? What can't you
talk about? Well, I think specifically I can certainly talk
about anything from the public record, and I can also
probably just kind of generically tell you a little bit
about Darren's background without getting into too many specifics. To
(19:48):
say the least Costage doesn't mince words. You have to
understand Darren Van was the product of his fourteen year
old mother being raped by the landlord. Cost It said
that when Von's mother gave birth to him in nineteen
seventy one, she was just fourteen years old. She had
three more daughters after that in very short order. So
(20:12):
this woman who was completely unequipped to probably have a pet,
had four children. When Vaughan was six, the Department of
Family and Children put him into foster care. For good
five six years. He was passed around through foster homes.
Almost in every foster home he was mistreated, and then
an eight two, he got placed at Thelma Marshall. The
(20:34):
Thelma Marshall Children's Home was a residential institution for foster kids.
They had I think it was sixteen boys, sixteen girls.
Eight of the boys were small and the girls were small.
Eight to the boys were teenagers, eight of the girls
were teenagers. They would go to neighborhood schools. They would
just stay at the home. The basketball court there, and
(20:56):
he had stuff down in the basement as far as
a ping pong table or in a pool table. In
the bedrooms were upstairs, in the kitchen was upstairs. According
to Vaughan, things might have looked fine if you visited
during the day, but after dark it turned into a nightmare.
The adults would leave at five o'clock and at night
they would be left with the counselors who were and
(21:18):
they would go down in his hellhole of the basement
and they would have gladiator games where they would have
the kids square off and have to fight each other.
Darren told us when he was being disciplined, they would
put him in a completely dark room with the dog
that he would have to climb on the pool table
and be up on the pool table pretty much all
(21:40):
night long, with his dog running around the outside of
the pool table barking at him to get at him.
When Von described his childhood to Detective Ford, he didn't
mention the years he'd spent living with the foster families
at all, but Vaughan said his time at the Thelma
marshal Um was formative. Where did you live as a
(22:03):
kid that you remember besides the boy's homes? That's all
that you know? That's all I remember that somebody had
to tell me family history when I came home because
I didn't like nobody to okay. I was hitting people
with objects, so they had to come over with some
reason for Okay, So you were, you were violent even
as a young young kid. What you're saying put to
(22:28):
be an environment where I had to be valid. So okay,
So due to this is that way you were originally taken? No,
I was. I was a kid. I had a violent
streeting me as a young young kid. But when you
go to the homes you deal with people. Is in
there for a criminal activity? What year do you think
you've got? How old do you think you are when
(22:49):
you went to the homes? I can tell you that's
the only place I remember is being home. Like when
I get depressed, I go there. I sit outside of
it really still today because my home it's not only
home I've ever known. That's insane. Well, what did you
go when? I understand what you're saying, but like it's
(23:10):
where I was made. Vaughn said that shortly after coming
to film and Marshall, one of the teenagers at the
home started targeting him. What did he do to mess
with you? You know, I'm trying to turn him into
a girl. Okay, So he was actually a predator. He's
trying to break and we don't really call them predators.
(23:31):
Y'all call them predators. We don't call them predators. What
would you call him? He's just what he is. That's
why terror. Everybody is what they is. Everybody has some
kind of busing thing. But Vaughan says, one of the
other kids, an eighteen year old, he went by big Ee,
found out about the team that was messing with. Vaughn
(23:51):
wanted to older kids older than you go to Obhi
and being his homeies. Gentleman, I remember it's Timo missing.
So the nailed him in home? Yeah? Are we always
asked jumping going on? There's always something going on in
the home. And then he came up missing later right,
it was ever found? When you say he's missing, when
(24:12):
I mean was he killed? Ya? Oh? Yeah? He was killed.
It was coming, It was coming. Fawn says that Big
E was a gangster disciple at g D, a member
of the nationwide gang that had its nerve center in
nearby Chicago, and after saving Vaughan, BIGI recruited him to
join the gang. Remember Drew Elementary School. Biggie's hit Massy.
(24:36):
It's like, make sure you looked after because you're always
gonna be going somewhere doing something for somebody. You might
be the best guy right now, really best guy. How
come he had one of the best codes of honor.
I've never seeing him break a g D rule. He's
a really good guy. As long as you do funk
(24:56):
around where he believed in, he was perfectly safe. I
remember he was a star on the Roosevelt basketball squad.
But you quit, guess some kind of trouble, okay. Joining
the Gangster Disciples was a multi step process. The first step,
getting jumped in meant getting beat up by the other
(25:17):
members of the gang. And I got jumped and for
real elementary schools, do you remember you're jumping for reading?
Really busted arm messed up? Remember all that. Yeah. Vaughn
says that before long he was spending more time with
the gang than he did in school, and his new
recruits got further initiated into the gang. They would be
(25:40):
asked to commit crimes, crimes that grew more and more violent. Now,
you said when you first became a g D that stuff.
You had an incident where you killed the first person
that you ever killed, right, and what made you kill him?
That's part of all being blessed in Chicago? What does
it mean to be blessed? You put on the books,
(26:03):
you can always call for get support if you need it.
You kind of like an official or member your official. Remember,
if you're not the own book, you're not really a member.
You're just sing you agg did you kill somebody specific
to get blessed in? I mean, I hear who they
told me to kill, and I really don't know who.
(26:23):
World didn't care, so they just gave me an assignment. Right,
But it wasn't enough for a recruit just to kill someone.
It was also how they acted after they'd done the deed.
Van brought this up with Officer Mickey the night he
was arrested. Now that the kids ever not want to
do it, you who have a choice, So like when
(26:44):
the kids do it for the first time, do they
flip out, like do you come from them? Or you
break down too much? If you're getting rid of black kills,
that's always been a gang thing. They can't take no chance.
And some of you spell in the bank, bill in
the vein for some keys y'all think are like random ers.
They're not random ers. Ideas something they can live with.
(27:07):
It started talking and start had to be get rid
of the gang that Von has been talking about. The
Gangster Disciples or g DS, was formed in Chicago in
nineteen four. The Gangster Disciples were founded by Larry Hoover.
At the time, he was serving a life sentence in
an Illinois prison for murder, but using coded messages, he
(27:29):
ran the gang's drug dealing and prostitution rackets from behind
bars for decades. Hoover created what he called the sixteen
Rules of proper behavior for the Disciples. These rules included
silence about gang business. They'd say, nothing will hurt the
duck but its own bill. Other rules prohibited homosexual rape,
(27:51):
using addictive drugs, and stealing from other gangster disciples. These
sixteen rules were to be followed strictly. If rules were
by related gang leaders would order punishments to be dealt
out by gang enforcers. The punishments could range from beatings
to death. Vaughn says he was taught how to kill
by the gang and became one of the gangs enforcers.
(28:15):
Von's lawyer, Cossage, says that as a public defender in
Lake County, Indiana, he's had many clients and gangs. You
can't even imagine, imagine what they went through in their lives.
You know, you can go ahead and talk about all
these gang manners and all these shootings and until you
you really break it down. You know, these kids are
(28:36):
eight nine years old and they live in these neighborhoods
where they're getting harassed and either they're gonna keep getting
picked on and keep getting beat up, or they're gonna
join a game, and they grow into these gangs, and
these gangs become their only family, and they do what
they're told. What never sees us to amaze me. You know,
they give you the Latin King Manifesto or the Gangster
(28:57):
Disciple Rules, whatever the hell they have, and like the
first page, first page says, I will never cooperate with
the police. I will never give evidence to the police,
or stay us to the police, that may implicate a brother.
But the sons of bitches on the very top, when
they get busted within forty eight hours, they are singing
like the loudest damn canaries you've ever heard, to save
(29:21):
their asses. They're telling them about murders they ordered, who
did them, to save their asses. And the guys on
the bottom never figure that out, never figure out, but
they're gonna get sold out by the guys on the top.
Fons lawyers wanted more information about fons early life and
gang involvement, so they tried to find out more information
(29:42):
about Big E. He was challenging though, because Von didn't
know Big EA's real name. We really really wanted to
track him down. We thought at one time it was
someone who played basketball and one of the local high
schools there, and he was on on the bench on
one of the state champ bionship teams, but that ended
up falling by the wayside. It wasn't him. We never
(30:04):
couldn't find him. The police were also interested in finding
Big E to verify Von's story and to investigate the
early murders Vaughan had mentioned. They asked Von's half brother
Reginald about it. Reginald new big e by a slightly
different name. Okay, his friend Big talk about him, a
(30:29):
big white girl in the homes gather him big whit
him big white being bad. But nobody in my family
knows being white. Nobody's ever seen big white. You know
what I'm saying. Come on, then it's not plausible? And
what is a fictional character? Because I dug further into
(30:54):
Vaughan's confessions, it was not at all this story I
was expecting. But I did discover or what I suspect
is the reason why authorities wanted to keep this case
quiet for so long. Next time on algorithm, be it
from the organic injury or something he had convinced himself.
There were episodes in Darren's life that he remembered completely
(31:17):
different than what we had incredible evidence for. All went
back out of control again. I never made it back
un Once you I don't know how to play with y'all,
y'all don't have the same or once you start killing again.
Now when you say abuse of like verbally, abuse of physically,
I don't recall all the different actually with all her
(31:39):
y'all probably caught me years ago this episode was written
and produced by me ben Kiebrick Algorithm is executive produced
by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance
in mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup
(32:00):
and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana,
Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rima l. K Ali, Trevor Young,
and Josh Thane for their help and notes, and thanks
for listening. The story is only going to keep getting
crazier and soon I'm going to need you all to
help me solve some of the mysteries regarding this case.
(32:23):
Please help spread the word about this podcast, especially if
you have any friends in Indiana, Illinois, or Texas. I
hope that through this podcast we can shed some light
on some really important issues and maybe even bring justice
and closure to additional victims. If you do have any
information about Big E, Daryn Vaughan, where crimes that you
(32:44):
think might be related, or if you just have questions
you want addressed on the podcast, please call and leave
me a voicemail with your contact information at eight eight
five zero one three three zero nine. That's eight eight
five year one three three zero nine, or you can
also reach out to me on Twitter. I'm at ben
(33:06):
Underscore Keybrick. That's b E N Underscore k U E
b R I c H. Thanks
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