July 15, 2021 • 42 mins
Before Christopher Vaughn was known as a convicted killer, he was a son and a brother in the Vaughn family of Missouri, the eldest of Gail and Pierre Vaughn’s three boys. He would meet his wife- and become a father- while he was still a teenager.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Five weeks
after the killings, a grand jury indicted Christopher Vaughan on
four counts of first degree murder in connection with the
shooting deaths of his wife and three children. His family
has never shared their story or spoken publicly about the murders,
(00:23):
the investigation, or Chris until now.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
He has always been curious. If there was a puzzle,
he had to do it. If something was broken, he
would try to fix it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Long before Christopher Vaughan was known as a killer, he
was a son and a brother in the Vaughan family
of Missouri by way of Indiana, the eldest of Gail
and Pierre Vaughan's three boys.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I compare the other boys to Aiman, I would say
they were more typical. But if he gave Chris something
to do, he did it be slightly different than I
would do it, or somebody else would do it. That
was just him. He had his own way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
When Gail speaks of her three sons, there's a definite
sparkle in her voice that shimmers with pride. But when
she shares specific memories of Chris as a child, there's
also a sense of awe.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Chris was a natural. Anything he touched, he could do.
He was really good at sports. His academic achievements are amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
There was one time it was Christmas and he had
asked for an R two D two.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It was a little motorized robot. Well, he was so
excited when he opened it up and he just his
eyes just oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you know,
and he's bouncing around, and he disappeared and we were
still opening gifts, but he has gone. Well about an
hour or two, Laters comes out of his bedroom and
(01:58):
he was so excited because he came out with a
walking dinosaur holding an object like a card in front
of him. What he'd done is he'd taken his R
two D two apart and along with some of his
other toys, made a dinosaur butler that tried to carry objects.
The way he could think was amazing. If you have
(02:20):
a routine and you do something a certain way all
the time, but it takes you twenty minutes to do it,
he would look at what you're doing and he would
be able to get the result that you got faster
than what you did in twenty minutes. It was just
aggravating sometimes because you think, man, I've done this forever
(02:42):
and look at the sool squirt. He just showed me
how to do it better and more efficiently.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So now that took quite a bit from us parents
not to Chris do it this way.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Because we tried not to do that. We tried really hard.
All the boys think on your own, you know, think
out of the box, don't always go with the crowd.
So that's kind of what we got.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
You know, think foot baby like sticky, a beautyful bards.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
You came to distress Fuxicent.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
All on broging hard cards, but you.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Did try to love somewhat. But now you've got to listen.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
To Lisa.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
During his trial, Christopher Vaughan was portrayed by the prosecution
as a fairly monstrous person, a selfish, emotionless man who
thought nothing of murdering his wife and three children. But
that depiction is at odds with the Chris the people
closest to him claim to know. As we start to
(04:20):
unpack this case, it's important to understand who Vaughn was.
According to those who have known him his entire life
for more than thirty years. Before Christopher Vaughan was a
headlined villain and later a convicted killer, he was a
son and a brother. The eldest of three, Chris's creative
mind set him apart early on. Here's his brother Eric,
(04:44):
the younger by thirteen months.
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Well, I am definitely a middle child, which in my
definition as an instiator and in the moodlifter. Chris has
always been kind of a rock. He was the brains
of the three of us until a little brother got older.
But he would always be curious on technologies, and you know,
(05:09):
he took a part in my parents' first computer and
ended up blowing it up, which was not a good deal.
He was always curious as to, you know, how things
worked and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Being so close in age, Eric and Chris were excited
about the prospect of having a younger sibling, but only
a brother. Here's their dad, Pierre.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
There was a time too that when we were living Indiana,
we found out Gail was pregnant with Adham. That the
boys huddled in their room for all morning and they
come out and they told Gails. They said, yeah, we
decided you need to have another boy, because we really
don't want a girl, and if we have a girl,
we'll have center back. Of course, they were like three
(05:53):
and four years old when that happened, so that was
pretty cute.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Until recently, Air, who also goes by the nickname Pete,
kept busy as an estimator and product manager for a
large painting company. He shares his wife's love of all
things outdoors, given the activities they've just finished or are
about to set out on each and every time I
call I joke, they're the most active retired couple I know.
(06:19):
Here's the youngest, Vaughan Adam's take.
Speaker 8 (06:22):
I think my dad probably spearheads that no pun intended
with his enjoyment of the outdoors. He's always pres only
I can remember. He's always been into fishing, fishing and hunting,
just being outside, always doing something in the yard, whether
that's maintenance or or improvement. He doesn't sit still very well,
(06:44):
so out of doors was just always a really good
good place for him. He always said that he could,
you know, sit in a deer stand or or on
a boat fishing and just relax and decompressed from work
and all that. And he attempted to pass that love
of out of doors onto my brother's snary. We did
(07:08):
do a lot of fishing.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Growing up, Gail says. Chris had an interesting spin on that.
From an early age.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
We taught the boys how to fish for catfish because
they were ponds only used for children to fish in.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
But the fish didn't realize that they were in a.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Small pond, and they were very large catfish, and Chris
showed his brother how to catch one. After we caught
a couple, he watched them and he would he always
think of ways to make things better. So what he
did was he would lock his reel once he got
a bike, and he just turned to the shore and
(07:48):
run full speed, dragging the fish out of the water with.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Him so we wouldn't have to reel it in exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So all the other kids were watching him, going wow, oh.
So pretty soon there were other children doing the same things,
and you know, the catch ratio was much better that way.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
The von boys enjoyed a childhood of camaraderie and healthy competition.
According to Pierre.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
The three boys were close, Chris and Eric. You know,
they were always doing boy things, picking on each other
and stuff like that. And they you know, those two
were close enough where they they would challenge each other
whether we were practicing archery or fishing or whatever. Typical boys,
they had to, you know, have a challenge all the time,
(08:35):
so it was a competition. But no, they were always
great and they looked out after each other, and if
one of them needed help doing something, you know, Chris
would jump in and help them, and the other ones would.
To Adam come a few of the years later, but
they included him in the brotherhood.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Chris in particular, was a huge influence on his youngest brother.
Speaker 8 (08:58):
Chris was quite a role model for most of my childhood.
Being five years older than I am, he was kind
of the trendsetter in the house. Being the oldest child,
he had to clear the path with the parents and
between Chris and my other brother, Eric, they were able
(09:20):
to explore both ends of the spectrum, which allowed me
to learn from their mistakes and successes and plot a
path right down the middle. I looked Chris a lot
for some of the direction during what I would consider
my formative years, simple things such as his passion for
soccer or his ability to buckle down and do well
(09:45):
in school.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Even now decades later, somewhat shadowed by the exhaustion and
sadness of the tragedy they've weathered. There's a fondness and
affinity for the bond the brothers have shared since childhood.
Here again is Eric.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
You know, we were pretty close to the three of us,
even with the age gap for a younger brother, but
we were the eighth team. Adam, Chris, Eric is what
we dubbed as kids, which is pretty cool. We didn't
have a lot of video games and stuff like that.
We got creative, went outside and did stuff, played outside.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And tell me a little bit more about that. It
really sounds like your parents instilled a love of outdoor
activity for you guys. So just tell me how did
the outdoors kind of become your playground?
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Well, I think what started at a pretty early age.
I was probably a five six seven range. On weekends,
usually either Saturday or Sunday, Mom and Dad would load
us up in the back of the pickup truck and
we go out to Bush Wildlife, which is a wildlife
(11:02):
area that has like forty some odd man made lakes,
and we'd spend the whole day fishing. If we got
board fishing, then we had brought games and stuff, so
we'd go back to the truck and play games, and
we'd have a picnic lunch. And as we got a
little older and parents trust us a little more, we
(11:24):
would go fishing. They it actually he could rent like
a John boat, but they wouldn't give us the trolley motor.
We had to row with oars. That was a lot
of fun. It was like the three Stooges in a boat.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
According to Adam, that sense of humor wasn't limited to
the water.
Speaker 8 (11:42):
Something comes to mind that makes me smile. Chris was
probably about medium height and build. Eric was a little
smaller and a little thinner, whereas I was always the
large one in the group. Always carried a little bit
more weight than I wanted to you, So for a
number of years there I was actually larger than Eric.
(12:06):
What Chris and Eric figured out is that one of
them could stand behind me. It was almost like a
ventriloquist skit where I would stand there and move my
mouth and then one of them would talk from behind me.
I was just kind of the teenage hijinks that we
got into.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The Vaughns all convey a functional family and a loving home. Again,
here's Adam.
Speaker 8 (12:31):
I'd say we were a pretty tight knit family. Both
parents were engaged in seeing that my brothers and I
followed the rules and did our best to do whatever
it is that we were tasked with doing, whether that
be school or work or sports. My mom had the
(12:52):
opportunity to stay home most of my school years, so
she was around and involved. My dad worked, but he
did make the effort to still interact with us quite
a bit after work. He was, you know, a baseball
coach for Chris and Eric for quite some time. Cool
(13:15):
thing about that was it was it was kind of
a family thing, and I got to be the bat
boy for a number of years as well, so that
was one of the family type events that he did.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Well. It sounds like Gallon Pierre gave Chris and his
brothers an idyllic childhood. With three boys, you'd imagine there
would be the potential for a lot of fights or
physical altercation, but that was against family rules, and it
was also against Chris's nature. According to Gail, he was pretty.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Much kind of time and he wasn't a mean spirited person.
He still isn't.
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Well.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The first rule of the house was you can't hit
the other person. You can holler at him, but you're.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Not supposed to knack anybody, So there was no physical
fights between them or anything. And they were all just
really good and work played well together all the time.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
He was just so good.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Nothing we found and Crispond's upbringing or history suggests a
predisposition or inclination towards any sort of violent behavior. His
mother recalls he had a special affinity towards animals.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
He's especially like cats, all kinds of cats, domestic panthers, tigers,
makes no difference, just as long as as a cat.
And he admired their abilities the most because they were independent,
They were great parents to their cubs. They have an
ability to observe and ponder before pouncing instead of like
(15:03):
a dog just rushing.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
In growing up, that thing to be what he was.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Trying to strive for, as in his abilities to be
independent and to observe before he did something.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And we did have one.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Cat when he was growing up in Manchester along with
our great name. Her name was Stormy, and she was
just a regular domestic cat and Chris had a lot
of patients and he taught her to do tricks and
he taught her to sit up and wave, and he
could tell her to wave one paw or wave the
(15:40):
other paw, and then he also taught her to play fetch,
among other things. Those are the things I remember the most,
because it's kind of hard to get a cat to
bring you anything back unless they want to.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That patience and sensitivity seems to have gone hand in
hand with a bit of introversion. Many I've interviewed Chris,
particularly in his youth, as quiet and thoughtful.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
There was one time in elementary school he was going
to be in a Christmas play and he was all
dressed out in his little outfit, and when it came
for him to go on to stage, he crawled under
his desk and stayed there. He didn't want to be
on the spotlight. But as he got older he got
a little better. Because he and a girl in junior
(16:27):
high for a speech contest, they did a like a
little skit about Mark Twain and he.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Did really, really, really well, and he started coming out
of his shell a little bit.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
That may have coincided a bit with teenage hormones and
Chris's growing effect on girls. Here's how Adam puts it.
Speaker 8 (16:51):
He was definitely able to catch the eyes of the
fair sex. I was always envious to that as well.
As I said he.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Was.
Speaker 8 (17:02):
He was kind of the goal of what I wanted
to be.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Back to Gail, Well, he enjoyed talking to girls.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I mean, Chris was and is a very good looking
young man.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
They would just do anything to talk to him. But
he really didn't date, so to speak. He was shy
at the dand says he didn't want to do that
and we didn't pressure it. But he would talk to
his girls on the phone, and it seemed like there
for a while he had all of his girlfriends were
the name of Christie, Kristen, Christy. He told me that
(17:41):
that was so if he said their name, they all
sounded the same and they wouldn't know he was talking
to somebody else.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
But while he may have joked about it with his mom,
Chris wasn't overly comfortable with female attention.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
No, They overwhelmed him sometime and he just kind of
took it, tried and treated him nicely, but.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He just did not single any one girl out, which
drove him crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And then right before Chris's first year of college, he
finally met the girl who would end up breaking that pattern.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
He and his brother Eric were working at a miniature
golf place and two girls came past this one girl
made a Tommy joy and he goes, oh, really, and
somehow he just picked her ball up and threw it
in the water.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Well, then she demanded he got here another mall, and
it seemed like he was just instantly smitten with her.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I mean, it was just a click. He was just there.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That encounter wasn't just by chance. Through a mutual friend,
his brother Eric met the girl he thought Chris needed
to meet, and in a way, Chris's fate was sealed.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
Vocally with introducing Chris to Kimberly. Through Kimberly's friend Colleen.
I knew Colleen from when I was in middle school.
At high school, her parents owned the golf driving range,
and that summer I was working as a painter's apprentice
from the company, my painting company my dad worked for
(19:22):
during the day, and then you know, I would go
from there to the golf driving range after they closed
and helped pick up golf balls. Well, one evening when
I was up there, Kim was up there visiting colleens.
So I got to talking with him and a little bit,
and then I went home, you know, next day, told
(19:44):
Chris that he really needed to come up and meet
this person. You know, I think he did work together.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Even though Kimberly was a bit older, Eric thought she'd
nicely balance Chris's more quiet, introspective nature.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Well, my first impression she was very bubbly. You could
see that she was pretty intelligent, just with the witty
comments that she would come back with when I was
making jokes or picking on her. Slender blonde several years
older than myself, so I wasn't unnecessarily interested, but I
(20:20):
could tell she had a really good personality and all
in all seemed to be like a nice person. That
was my first impression of her, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Once christ and Kimberly started hanging out, things progressed quickly.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
They would come over and you know, she'd bring her
school books and stuff like that, and they would sit
in the front room and talk and you know, appear
to be doing homework er studying or whatever. He would
go see her in the evenings whenever he was available,
and you know, it was more frequent that they were
(20:54):
hanging out, so it was noticeable that, you know, they
were getting to know each other better.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Gail picks it up here.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
From there, they started dating, I mean seriously dating, dinner, movies,
drive picnics, and going to her house a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Chris and Kimberly apparently became serious right.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Away instantly, I mean there was no in between, just
from just talking to all the girls to one.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But Pierre didn't necessarily feel they were an ideal match.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
She was more or less the one decided that she
wanted to be with Chris and talking with Chris. Other
than having a good time when they were together, they
really had nothing in common.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Having raised Chris and his brothers to have strong and
active ethics, both in terms of work and recreation, Pierre
and Gail found Kimberly's inclinations more sedentary and cerebral.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
With Chris, we had him doing so many different things,
and he worked at Summer help in construction. I had
him out in the field painting and delivering goods to
the painters, and so he got some construction experience. And
Kimberly's family their bookworms, their college people, and they never camped,
(22:17):
they hiked, they stayed in the house. When they weren't
studying or reading books, they were watching TV. So they
weren't outdoors people at all. So Chris was like this
amazing person that knew a lot about everything, and she
was very sheltered, so you know, that was another thing
that she liked about him.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We want to reiterate here that the Phillips family has
declined our request for an interview. What we are presenting
is the Bond's take on the dynamic between the young couple,
one in which they saw Chris as the protector, even
though he was younger than kim by two years.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Chris was always good night in shining armor. He was
always rescuing, and Kimberly came across as being very, very needy,
and she was always arguing with their parents, and she
was in tears about something that happened during the day,
and he was always trying to boister her up and
(23:18):
make her happy again and try to solve her problems.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
And as Chris was heading to college, there was another
reason why the Bonds may have wanted that to be
his focus. Here's Adam.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
I do remember a conversation between my parents and Chris
prior to Chris leaving for school in regards to Kimberly.
At that point, Chris was the first vawd that I
was aware of that attended college. My parents told him
pretty directly that they didn't anticipate his relationship with Kimberly
(23:54):
to be a long term the situation because they wanted
them to focus on school, and Chris, of course took
offense to that, as most hot blooded teenage boys will,
and said he would find a way to make it work.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Did you ever think in a million years that Chris
would come home from college and tell you guys he
was getting married.
Speaker 8 (24:18):
No, well that's not entirely true. I remember one Friday
night at Pizza Hut, we had a conversation basically to
the effect that with three boys, this was my dad talking,
do you expect us at some point to be curious
and eventually to want to be a girl? It was
(24:40):
my dad's attempt at telling us to use protection if
we ever chose to go that group that got me thinking, oh, wow,
I guess my brothers are into things more advanced than
where I was.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
During Chris's first and only year of college in Missouri,
he was traveling to see Kim fairly often. Here's Gail.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
She was going to Missou at the time in Colombia,
and he was in Ralla, Missouri, so he would make
the trip quite often and not tell us about it.
There was just no way you could put a webs
between them.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And while Chris had traditionally done fairly well in school,
Gail believed his growing relationship with Kim started to change that.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Back in high school, all of his classes were honors classes.
He had been on the honor wall the entire high
school four years, and then once he got Durala and Kimberly, his.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Grades started showing signs of stress. His report cards were
terrible and he just couldn't concentrate.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's interesting that Gail pointed out what she perceived from
Chris was stress rather than happiness, but academic achievements in
general represented very different goals to both families. Here's Pierre's
take on the Phillips.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
They're basically professional students. They went to college and they
got their degrees, and they kept going back and got
more degrees, and they eventually, you know, worked around the college.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Keep in mind, Chris was the first Bond to attend college,
while one of Kim's sisters obtained multiple graduate degrees. According
to the Vaughn family, the discrepancy left them feeling judged.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
Here's Eric, especially Kim was one of Kim's sisters. I mean,
even up into the anth that they happened in O seven,
she was still said doctorate in multiple master's degrees, and
to the lifelong student that pretty much ran on their
side of the family. I think with Susan being Kim's mother,
(27:02):
I believe she had a master's degree also in teaching.
If you didn't have that, you weren't good enough for
anybody type attitude. I just let it roll off my
shoulder as they go, Well, I mean, you know, I'm
not a book smart person. I'm more of a street smarts.
You know, you show it to me once I can
stand up and give a presentation on it. Versus they
(27:24):
were very much book smart individuals, especially.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In the early stages of the relationship. The Vaughns didn't
have many encounters with Kim's family, but when they did,
they felt definite discomfort. Eric recalls a holiday dinner they
attended at the Phillips home.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Well, we went over and we met Kimberly's parents for
the first time, and it was definitely an odd, odd family.
Her dad and her mom had a unique relationship coming
from my family and seeing their family is like, I
don't know how this works. And I remember thinking to myself,
(28:04):
if I had to grow up in a house like this,
I wouldn't be home very much at all because I
wouldn't want to be here.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Decades later, this is how he remembers that evening.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Jim's mom definitely ran the household. She was a teacher
at a local high school. And Kim's dad, Dell, he
was a attorney X army guy, I believe, and he
was very submissive. She asked him to do anything, he'd
jump up and just go run and do it. And
I had not ever seen, you know, married couple act
(28:37):
like that before. It was not cut the tension with
a knife type, but it was definitely awkward. My parents' opinion,
if I remember correctly, it was we're doing this for
Chris and Kim, we really don't want to be here
type thing, just because it just felt weird when you
(28:58):
were there. And Tim's mom couldn't cook with a darn, so,
you know, my mom being a really good cook, and
which rubbed off on me, you know, very critical on
you know, the dishes that they chose to serve.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So Eric recalls the time frame of that meal was
odd too.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
Yeah, we got there at like six o'clock. They waited
until we got there to actually start cooking it. In
my mind, I would have prepped the stuff because there's
a lot of like chopping and preparing that you could
have done ahead of time, but they didn't. They waited
until we got there to start cooking. So when we
got there, you know, Kimberly was helping her mom in.
(29:42):
Kim's dad, Dell, was in the living room watching TV,
and my parents and you know, I was kind of
bouncing back and forth instead of sitting in front of
the TV. But yeah, we came over to expecting dinner,
not to sitting awkwardly converse for almost three hours before eating.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Kim and Chris's relationship progressed in an equally awkward way
for both families. Here's Gail.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I had a very strong reaction. Chris came back on
Valentine's Day or Mother's Day and says, well, I'm going
to marry Kimberly because we're expecting and being the night
shining armor, he was going to take care of what
he had done. And I was very upset with him,
(30:34):
to say the least, that actually put a little rift
in between us for a while, but I got over
it because he was determined. He had a determination that
when he started something, he was going to finish it,
and he was actually looking forward to a family.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Christopher Vaughan was nineteen. Pierre was upset to especially since
he believed Kimberly's father had been enabling the situation the
entire time without Gail or Pierre's knowledge.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I had pretty much the same reaction as Gail did.
I was not happy with it. And then, like I said,
we found out later that her father was driving her
down for the weekends and stuff like that and.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Just dropping her off and supposedly staying with a girlfriend,
but it never turned.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Out that way. Yeah, she was really staying in Chris's
dorm because his roommate was either staying with somebody else
or going home for the weekends and stuff like that.
And then one thing led to another and we were grandparents.
But like Gail said, you know, Chris took responsibility for
it and everything like that. Even though he was not
(31:50):
happy with the situation either, he wasn't going to walk
away from it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
We will be revisiting the unexpected nature of Kim's pregnancy
in another episode, but the time, Eric wasn't all that
aware of the real reason his older brother was getting hitched.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
He didn't come out and tell me he was getting
married or the reason for getting married necessarily, but he
alluded to it, and you know, I kind of drew conclusion. Okay,
they've been dating for six, seven, eight months or so.
They seem to be pretty serious. I mean, that's natural progression.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Their wedding day perhaps included a slight foreshadowing of problems
to come.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
The wedding itself went off without a hitch, you know,
when they got to the point of the pastor said
if anybody has objections, please say so now, and then
enlightening struck. That was a little awkward. It didn't rain.
It was just like a heat lighting or something like that.
So I made a big boom. He had beenished saying it,
(32:50):
and then within like ten seconds, you know, it happened.
It was just like, okay, that's weird. Everyone kind of
looked around at each other and kind of, you tell
everyone a snicker in a little bit amongst themselves, but
standing up in the front looking back on everybody in attendance, it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Was kind of funny he was still a teenager. But
Chris brought that same driven ethic he'd applied to academics
and life in general into his marriage. Here's Pierre.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He responded very well. He was working full time and
trying to upgrade his job up times a year. It
was pretty amazing because he would change jobs, you know,
half dozen times a year just to improve himself, and
every time he did he made more money. But as
far as taking responsibility, Jim really didn't cook, so after
(33:42):
work he would come home and cook the meals and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
As newlyweds, Chris and Kim weren't quite able to afford
their own place at first, especially with a baby on
the way. Here again is Eric.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
Once they got married, they stayed with Dell and Susan
for quite a while they didn't have their own place,
and then at some point in time they stayed with
my parents. My dad and I and Chris. We made
an apartment with a full bathroom in the basement at
my parents' house. They kind of kept to themselves when
(34:17):
they were there in the house. They were downstairs, and
I really didn't go down and bug them too often.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Here's Gail's take they had nowhere to stay and they
had no money, so we had a downstairs apartment, a
one bedroom, and that's where they stayed until two days
before they induced our granddaughter's birth, and after that they
stayed with Kimberly's mom and dad, and Kimberly's mom and
(34:44):
dad were overly protective and didn't really let anybody come
and visit.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
According to both Pierre and Gale, Kim's family started to
edge out the bonds from the young couple's lives, and
they perceived it as judgmental.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Basically, Kimberly's parents attitude towards Chris and our family was
that we were the people who lived on the other
side of the tracks, and we were dumb and illiterate
because we didn't have college educations, and that.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Was a big deal in their family. College.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Apparently Kimberly didn't escape that judgment either.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Actually, they looked down on Kimberly because she hadn't gotten
a diploma on some specific venue. She never followed her
master's or did any dissertations to create anything, so her
parents actually treated her just like they treated us at times.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
After Abigail was born, Gail says Kim's parents quickly turned
into gatekeepers of sorts, making it hard for the Bonds
to visit.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
My parents were still alive and at the time of
the birth of Abigail, and we were all so very excited,
and my parents came up to celebrate and come and
see the baby, and we were actually turned away at
the door of Kimberly's moms, saying that they were busy
(36:16):
and they didn't have time to see them us, which
my mom was broken hearted. Pretty much.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
The Vaughan say they weren't even allowed to visit until
months after the baby was born, at.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Least two or three months, so she was probably three
months old when we really started to get to see her,
because that's when Kim's mom said it was okay for
them to come out and visit the world.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
In addition to restricting access, Gale and Pierre claimed Kimberly's
mom asserted an odd control over the way Ken and
Chris parented.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Kimberly's moms had weird ideas under things, baby shouldn't be
in sunlight, the baby shouldn't drink water, this, you know things.
It was just very strange.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Eventually things loosened up and Gale and Pierre were able
to visit as often as they could. Kim and Chris
had finally gotten a place of their own, just in
time for more news.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Wasn't too long after that that they moved out of
Shorty's parents' house and and got an apartment, and so
then we could we could come over and see the kids.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
It was just Abigail at the time, and then we
found out that and was pregnant with the Sandy. Then
Chris just kept building from there, and he decided that
the apartment that he had was not big enough, so
they he took it upon himself to get a house built.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
The kids came quickly. They're firstborn, Abigail, and their second Cassandra,
were born just a year apart. Chris applied an equally
accelerated approach to applying for employment, a typical but effective.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
First he applied for a job, and it wasn't just
a small job, it wasn't a fast food. He was
going for executive status at major companies, and for some
reason they would call him back and they send us
your resume. He says, no, I would rather have a
face to face, and he never used a resume.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What he did was he researched the company, he would
find weaknesses within the company. Then when he was at
the face to face, he would advise on.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
How to strengthen or relieve the weaknesses, and he would
actually just sell himself on how valuable he was on
fixing their problem and darning he got hired every single.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Time, even without a college degree, Chris would quickly create
an impressive career that would bring affluence to his young family. Unfortunately,
the couple's relationship would not be as successful. On the
(39:33):
next murder in Illinois, Kim and Chris present as a
picture perfect family with behind closed doors, their marriage is
marred by dysfunction and the stress of Chris's career.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
When nobody else was around, that dark side would come out.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
We noticed Chris turning more into a loner. He would
be in the family, but he wouldn't laugh and be
as happy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Kimberly's parents said, if you do you ever mistreat my daughter,
or if you ever divorced my daughter, or anything like that,
you'll regret it for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
I was contacted by a reporter. She told me of
the terrible accident. Then she told me that there were four.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Dead Murder and Illinois, a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
are Lauren Bright Pacheco and Taylor Chackoine. Written by Lauren
Bright Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, Story editing by Matthew Riddle,
Editing and sound design by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine.
Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered and
(40:38):
mixed by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine.
Speaker 8 (40:44):
Sunday Day World is sad, it so and leave it all.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
It's just STAGEO.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What's that used in a dream with our juerneys.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
E Speeze is so live?
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Wait you.
Speaker 8 (41:18):
Chake you up? Wait you w.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Shake you Up.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, check out the
eye Heeartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the
stories that matter to you.
Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. Five weeks
after the killings, a grand jury indicted Christopher Vaughan on
four counts of first degree murder in connection with the
shooting deaths of his wife and three children. His family
has never shared their story or spoken publicly about the murders,
(00:23):
the investigation, or Chris until now.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
He has always been curious. If there was a puzzle,
he had to do it. If something was broken, he
would try to fix it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Long before Christopher Vaughan was known as a killer, he
was a son and a brother in the Vaughan family
of Missouri by way of Indiana, the eldest of Gail
and Pierre Vaughan's three boys.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I compare the other boys to Aiman, I would say
they were more typical. But if he gave Chris something
to do, he did it be slightly different than I
would do it, or somebody else would do it. That
was just him. He had his own way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
When Gail speaks of her three sons, there's a definite
sparkle in her voice that shimmers with pride. But when
she shares specific memories of Chris as a child, there's
also a sense of awe.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Chris was a natural. Anything he touched, he could do.
He was really good at sports. His academic achievements are amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
There was one time it was Christmas and he had
asked for an R two D two.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It was a little motorized robot. Well, he was so
excited when he opened it up and he just his
eyes just oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you know,
and he's bouncing around, and he disappeared and we were
still opening gifts, but he has gone. Well about an
hour or two, Laters comes out of his bedroom and
(01:58):
he was so excited because he came out with a
walking dinosaur holding an object like a card in front
of him. What he'd done is he'd taken his R
two D two apart and along with some of his
other toys, made a dinosaur butler that tried to carry objects.
The way he could think was amazing. If you have
(02:20):
a routine and you do something a certain way all
the time, but it takes you twenty minutes to do it,
he would look at what you're doing and he would
be able to get the result that you got faster
than what you did in twenty minutes. It was just
aggravating sometimes because you think, man, I've done this forever
(02:42):
and look at the sool squirt. He just showed me
how to do it better and more efficiently.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So now that took quite a bit from us parents
not to Chris do it this way.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Because we tried not to do that. We tried really hard.
All the boys think on your own, you know, think
out of the box, don't always go with the crowd.
So that's kind of what we got.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
You know, think foot baby like sticky, a beautyful bards.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
You came to distress Fuxicent.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
All on broging hard cards, but you.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Did try to love somewhat. But now you've got to listen.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
To Lisa.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
During his trial, Christopher Vaughan was portrayed by the prosecution
as a fairly monstrous person, a selfish, emotionless man who
thought nothing of murdering his wife and three children. But
that depiction is at odds with the Chris the people
closest to him claim to know. As we start to
(04:20):
unpack this case, it's important to understand who Vaughn was.
According to those who have known him his entire life
for more than thirty years. Before Christopher Vaughan was a
headlined villain and later a convicted killer, he was a
son and a brother. The eldest of three, Chris's creative
mind set him apart early on. Here's his brother Eric,
(04:44):
the younger by thirteen months.
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Well, I am definitely a middle child, which in my
definition as an instiator and in the moodlifter. Chris has
always been kind of a rock. He was the brains
of the three of us until a little brother got older.
But he would always be curious on technologies, and you know,
(05:09):
he took a part in my parents' first computer and
ended up blowing it up, which was not a good deal.
He was always curious as to, you know, how things
worked and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Being so close in age, Eric and Chris were excited
about the prospect of having a younger sibling, but only
a brother. Here's their dad, Pierre.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
There was a time too that when we were living Indiana,
we found out Gail was pregnant with Adham. That the
boys huddled in their room for all morning and they
come out and they told Gails. They said, yeah, we
decided you need to have another boy, because we really
don't want a girl, and if we have a girl,
we'll have center back. Of course, they were like three
(05:53):
and four years old when that happened, so that was
pretty cute.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Until recently, Air, who also goes by the nickname Pete,
kept busy as an estimator and product manager for a
large painting company. He shares his wife's love of all
things outdoors, given the activities they've just finished or are
about to set out on each and every time I
call I joke, they're the most active retired couple I know.
(06:19):
Here's the youngest, Vaughan Adam's take.
Speaker 8 (06:22):
I think my dad probably spearheads that no pun intended
with his enjoyment of the outdoors. He's always pres only
I can remember. He's always been into fishing, fishing and hunting,
just being outside, always doing something in the yard, whether
that's maintenance or or improvement. He doesn't sit still very well,
(06:44):
so out of doors was just always a really good
good place for him. He always said that he could,
you know, sit in a deer stand or or on
a boat fishing and just relax and decompressed from work
and all that. And he attempted to pass that love
of out of doors onto my brother's snary. We did
(07:08):
do a lot of fishing.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Growing up, Gail says. Chris had an interesting spin on that.
From an early age.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
We taught the boys how to fish for catfish because
they were ponds only used for children to fish in.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
But the fish didn't realize that they were in a.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Small pond, and they were very large catfish, and Chris
showed his brother how to catch one. After we caught
a couple, he watched them and he would he always
think of ways to make things better. So what he
did was he would lock his reel once he got
a bike, and he just turned to the shore and
(07:48):
run full speed, dragging the fish out of the water with.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Him so we wouldn't have to reel it in exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So all the other kids were watching him, going wow, oh.
So pretty soon there were other children doing the same things,
and you know, the catch ratio was much better that way.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
The von boys enjoyed a childhood of camaraderie and healthy competition.
According to Pierre.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
The three boys were close, Chris and Eric. You know,
they were always doing boy things, picking on each other
and stuff like that. And they you know, those two
were close enough where they they would challenge each other
whether we were practicing archery or fishing or whatever. Typical boys,
they had to, you know, have a challenge all the time,
(08:35):
so it was a competition. But no, they were always
great and they looked out after each other, and if
one of them needed help doing something, you know, Chris
would jump in and help them, and the other ones would.
To Adam come a few of the years later, but
they included him in the brotherhood.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Chris in particular, was a huge influence on his youngest brother.
Speaker 8 (08:58):
Chris was quite a role model for most of my childhood.
Being five years older than I am, he was kind
of the trendsetter in the house. Being the oldest child,
he had to clear the path with the parents and
between Chris and my other brother, Eric, they were able
(09:20):
to explore both ends of the spectrum, which allowed me
to learn from their mistakes and successes and plot a
path right down the middle. I looked Chris a lot
for some of the direction during what I would consider
my formative years, simple things such as his passion for
soccer or his ability to buckle down and do well
(09:45):
in school.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Even now decades later, somewhat shadowed by the exhaustion and
sadness of the tragedy they've weathered. There's a fondness and
affinity for the bond the brothers have shared since childhood.
Here again is Eric.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
You know, we were pretty close to the three of us,
even with the age gap for a younger brother, but
we were the eighth team. Adam, Chris, Eric is what
we dubbed as kids, which is pretty cool. We didn't
have a lot of video games and stuff like that.
We got creative, went outside and did stuff, played outside.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And tell me a little bit more about that. It
really sounds like your parents instilled a love of outdoor
activity for you guys. So just tell me how did
the outdoors kind of become your playground?
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Well, I think what started at a pretty early age.
I was probably a five six seven range. On weekends,
usually either Saturday or Sunday, Mom and Dad would load
us up in the back of the pickup truck and
we go out to Bush Wildlife, which is a wildlife
(11:02):
area that has like forty some odd man made lakes,
and we'd spend the whole day fishing. If we got
board fishing, then we had brought games and stuff, so
we'd go back to the truck and play games, and
we'd have a picnic lunch. And as we got a
little older and parents trust us a little more, we
(11:24):
would go fishing. They it actually he could rent like
a John boat, but they wouldn't give us the trolley motor.
We had to row with oars. That was a lot
of fun. It was like the three Stooges in a boat.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
According to Adam, that sense of humor wasn't limited to
the water.
Speaker 8 (11:42):
Something comes to mind that makes me smile. Chris was
probably about medium height and build. Eric was a little
smaller and a little thinner, whereas I was always the
large one in the group. Always carried a little bit
more weight than I wanted to you, So for a
number of years there I was actually larger than Eric.
(12:06):
What Chris and Eric figured out is that one of
them could stand behind me. It was almost like a
ventriloquist skit where I would stand there and move my
mouth and then one of them would talk from behind me.
I was just kind of the teenage hijinks that we
got into.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The Vaughns all convey a functional family and a loving home. Again,
here's Adam.
Speaker 8 (12:31):
I'd say we were a pretty tight knit family. Both
parents were engaged in seeing that my brothers and I
followed the rules and did our best to do whatever
it is that we were tasked with doing, whether that
be school or work or sports. My mom had the
(12:52):
opportunity to stay home most of my school years, so
she was around and involved. My dad worked, but he
did make the effort to still interact with us quite
a bit after work. He was, you know, a baseball
coach for Chris and Eric for quite some time. Cool
(13:15):
thing about that was it was it was kind of
a family thing, and I got to be the bat
boy for a number of years as well, so that
was one of the family type events that he did.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Well. It sounds like Gallon Pierre gave Chris and his
brothers an idyllic childhood. With three boys, you'd imagine there
would be the potential for a lot of fights or
physical altercation, but that was against family rules, and it
was also against Chris's nature. According to Gail, he was pretty.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Much kind of time and he wasn't a mean spirited person.
He still isn't.
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Well.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The first rule of the house was you can't hit
the other person. You can holler at him, but you're.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Not supposed to knack anybody, So there was no physical
fights between them or anything. And they were all just
really good and work played well together all the time.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
He was just so good.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Nothing we found and Crispond's upbringing or history suggests a
predisposition or inclination towards any sort of violent behavior. His
mother recalls he had a special affinity towards animals.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
He's especially like cats, all kinds of cats, domestic panthers, tigers,
makes no difference, just as long as as a cat.
And he admired their abilities the most because they were independent,
They were great parents to their cubs. They have an
ability to observe and ponder before pouncing instead of like
(15:03):
a dog just rushing.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
In growing up, that thing to be what he was.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Trying to strive for, as in his abilities to be
independent and to observe before he did something.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And we did have one.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Cat when he was growing up in Manchester along with
our great name. Her name was Stormy, and she was
just a regular domestic cat and Chris had a lot
of patients and he taught her to do tricks and
he taught her to sit up and wave, and he
could tell her to wave one paw or wave the
(15:40):
other paw, and then he also taught her to play fetch,
among other things. Those are the things I remember the most,
because it's kind of hard to get a cat to
bring you anything back unless they want to.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That patience and sensitivity seems to have gone hand in
hand with a bit of introversion. Many I've interviewed Chris,
particularly in his youth, as quiet and thoughtful.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
There was one time in elementary school he was going
to be in a Christmas play and he was all
dressed out in his little outfit, and when it came
for him to go on to stage, he crawled under
his desk and stayed there. He didn't want to be
on the spotlight. But as he got older he got
a little better. Because he and a girl in junior
(16:27):
high for a speech contest, they did a like a
little skit about Mark Twain and he.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Did really, really, really well, and he started coming out
of his shell a little bit.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
That may have coincided a bit with teenage hormones and
Chris's growing effect on girls. Here's how Adam puts it.
Speaker 8 (16:51):
He was definitely able to catch the eyes of the
fair sex. I was always envious to that as well.
As I said he.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Was.
Speaker 8 (17:02):
He was kind of the goal of what I wanted
to be.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Back to Gail, Well, he enjoyed talking to girls.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I mean, Chris was and is a very good looking
young man.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
They would just do anything to talk to him. But
he really didn't date, so to speak. He was shy
at the dand says he didn't want to do that
and we didn't pressure it. But he would talk to
his girls on the phone, and it seemed like there
for a while he had all of his girlfriends were
the name of Christie, Kristen, Christy. He told me that
(17:41):
that was so if he said their name, they all
sounded the same and they wouldn't know he was talking
to somebody else.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
But while he may have joked about it with his mom,
Chris wasn't overly comfortable with female attention.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
No, They overwhelmed him sometime and he just kind of
took it, tried and treated him nicely, but.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He just did not single any one girl out, which
drove him crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And then right before Chris's first year of college, he
finally met the girl who would end up breaking that pattern.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
He and his brother Eric were working at a miniature
golf place and two girls came past this one girl
made a Tommy joy and he goes, oh, really, and
somehow he just picked her ball up and threw it
in the water.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Well, then she demanded he got here another mall, and
it seemed like he was just instantly smitten with her.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I mean, it was just a click. He was just there.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That encounter wasn't just by chance. Through a mutual friend,
his brother Eric met the girl he thought Chris needed
to meet, and in a way, Chris's fate was sealed.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
Vocally with introducing Chris to Kimberly. Through Kimberly's friend Colleen.
I knew Colleen from when I was in middle school.
At high school, her parents owned the golf driving range,
and that summer I was working as a painter's apprentice
from the company, my painting company my dad worked for
(19:22):
during the day, and then you know, I would go
from there to the golf driving range after they closed
and helped pick up golf balls. Well, one evening when
I was up there, Kim was up there visiting colleens.
So I got to talking with him and a little bit,
and then I went home, you know, next day, told
(19:44):
Chris that he really needed to come up and meet
this person. You know, I think he did work together.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Even though Kimberly was a bit older, Eric thought she'd
nicely balance Chris's more quiet, introspective nature.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Well, my first impression she was very bubbly. You could
see that she was pretty intelligent, just with the witty
comments that she would come back with when I was
making jokes or picking on her. Slender blonde several years
older than myself, so I wasn't unnecessarily interested, but I
(20:20):
could tell she had a really good personality and all
in all seemed to be like a nice person. That
was my first impression of her, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Once christ and Kimberly started hanging out, things progressed quickly.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
They would come over and you know, she'd bring her
school books and stuff like that, and they would sit
in the front room and talk and you know, appear
to be doing homework er studying or whatever. He would
go see her in the evenings whenever he was available,
and you know, it was more frequent that they were
(20:54):
hanging out, so it was noticeable that, you know, they
were getting to know each other better.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Gail picks it up here.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
From there, they started dating, I mean seriously dating, dinner, movies,
drive picnics, and going to her house a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Chris and Kimberly apparently became serious right.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Away instantly, I mean there was no in between, just
from just talking to all the girls to one.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But Pierre didn't necessarily feel they were an ideal match.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
She was more or less the one decided that she
wanted to be with Chris and talking with Chris. Other
than having a good time when they were together, they
really had nothing in common.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Having raised Chris and his brothers to have strong and
active ethics, both in terms of work and recreation, Pierre
and Gail found Kimberly's inclinations more sedentary and cerebral.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
With Chris, we had him doing so many different things,
and he worked at Summer help in construction. I had
him out in the field painting and delivering goods to
the painters, and so he got some construction experience. And
Kimberly's family their bookworms, their college people, and they never camped,
(22:17):
they hiked, they stayed in the house. When they weren't
studying or reading books, they were watching TV. So they
weren't outdoors people at all. So Chris was like this
amazing person that knew a lot about everything, and she
was very sheltered, so you know, that was another thing
that she liked about him.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We want to reiterate here that the Phillips family has
declined our request for an interview. What we are presenting
is the Bond's take on the dynamic between the young couple,
one in which they saw Chris as the protector, even
though he was younger than kim by two years.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Chris was always good night in shining armor. He was
always rescuing, and Kimberly came across as being very, very needy,
and she was always arguing with their parents, and she
was in tears about something that happened during the day,
and he was always trying to boister her up and
(23:18):
make her happy again and try to solve her problems.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
And as Chris was heading to college, there was another
reason why the Bonds may have wanted that to be
his focus. Here's Adam.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
I do remember a conversation between my parents and Chris
prior to Chris leaving for school in regards to Kimberly.
At that point, Chris was the first vawd that I
was aware of that attended college. My parents told him
pretty directly that they didn't anticipate his relationship with Kimberly
(23:54):
to be a long term the situation because they wanted
them to focus on school, and Chris, of course took
offense to that, as most hot blooded teenage boys will,
and said he would find a way to make it work.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Did you ever think in a million years that Chris
would come home from college and tell you guys he
was getting married.
Speaker 8 (24:18):
No, well that's not entirely true. I remember one Friday
night at Pizza Hut, we had a conversation basically to
the effect that with three boys, this was my dad talking,
do you expect us at some point to be curious
and eventually to want to be a girl? It was
(24:40):
my dad's attempt at telling us to use protection if
we ever chose to go that group that got me thinking, oh, wow,
I guess my brothers are into things more advanced than
where I was.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
During Chris's first and only year of college in Missouri,
he was traveling to see Kim fairly often. Here's Gail.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
She was going to Missou at the time in Colombia,
and he was in Ralla, Missouri, so he would make
the trip quite often and not tell us about it.
There was just no way you could put a webs
between them.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And while Chris had traditionally done fairly well in school,
Gail believed his growing relationship with Kim started to change that.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Back in high school, all of his classes were honors classes.
He had been on the honor wall the entire high
school four years, and then once he got Durala and Kimberly, his.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Grades started showing signs of stress. His report cards were
terrible and he just couldn't concentrate.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's interesting that Gail pointed out what she perceived from
Chris was stress rather than happiness, but academic achievements in
general represented very different goals to both families. Here's Pierre's
take on the Phillips.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
They're basically professional students. They went to college and they
got their degrees, and they kept going back and got
more degrees, and they eventually, you know, worked around the college.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Keep in mind, Chris was the first Bond to attend college,
while one of Kim's sisters obtained multiple graduate degrees. According
to the Vaughn family, the discrepancy left them feeling judged.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
Here's Eric, especially Kim was one of Kim's sisters. I mean,
even up into the anth that they happened in O seven,
she was still said doctorate in multiple master's degrees, and
to the lifelong student that pretty much ran on their
side of the family. I think with Susan being Kim's mother,
(27:02):
I believe she had a master's degree also in teaching.
If you didn't have that, you weren't good enough for
anybody type attitude. I just let it roll off my
shoulder as they go, Well, I mean, you know, I'm
not a book smart person. I'm more of a street smarts.
You know, you show it to me once I can
stand up and give a presentation on it. Versus they
(27:24):
were very much book smart individuals, especially.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In the early stages of the relationship. The Vaughns didn't
have many encounters with Kim's family, but when they did,
they felt definite discomfort. Eric recalls a holiday dinner they
attended at the Phillips home.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Well, we went over and we met Kimberly's parents for
the first time, and it was definitely an odd, odd family.
Her dad and her mom had a unique relationship coming
from my family and seeing their family is like, I
don't know how this works. And I remember thinking to myself,
(28:04):
if I had to grow up in a house like this,
I wouldn't be home very much at all because I
wouldn't want to be here.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Decades later, this is how he remembers that evening.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Jim's mom definitely ran the household. She was a teacher
at a local high school. And Kim's dad, Dell, he
was a attorney X army guy, I believe, and he
was very submissive. She asked him to do anything, he'd
jump up and just go run and do it. And
I had not ever seen, you know, married couple act
(28:37):
like that before. It was not cut the tension with
a knife type, but it was definitely awkward. My parents' opinion,
if I remember correctly, it was we're doing this for
Chris and Kim, we really don't want to be here
type thing, just because it just felt weird when you
(28:58):
were there. And Tim's mom couldn't cook with a darn, so,
you know, my mom being a really good cook, and
which rubbed off on me, you know, very critical on
you know, the dishes that they chose to serve.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So Eric recalls the time frame of that meal was
odd too.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
Yeah, we got there at like six o'clock. They waited
until we got there to actually start cooking it. In
my mind, I would have prepped the stuff because there's
a lot of like chopping and preparing that you could
have done ahead of time, but they didn't. They waited
until we got there to start cooking. So when we
got there, you know, Kimberly was helping her mom in.
(29:42):
Kim's dad, Dell, was in the living room watching TV,
and my parents and you know, I was kind of
bouncing back and forth instead of sitting in front of
the TV. But yeah, we came over to expecting dinner,
not to sitting awkwardly converse for almost three hours before eating.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Kim and Chris's relationship progressed in an equally awkward way
for both families. Here's Gail.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I had a very strong reaction. Chris came back on
Valentine's Day or Mother's Day and says, well, I'm going
to marry Kimberly because we're expecting and being the night
shining armor, he was going to take care of what
he had done. And I was very upset with him,
(30:34):
to say the least, that actually put a little rift
in between us for a while, but I got over
it because he was determined. He had a determination that
when he started something, he was going to finish it,
and he was actually looking forward to a family.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Christopher Vaughan was nineteen. Pierre was upset to especially since
he believed Kimberly's father had been enabling the situation the
entire time without Gail or Pierre's knowledge.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I had pretty much the same reaction as Gail did.
I was not happy with it. And then, like I said,
we found out later that her father was driving her
down for the weekends and stuff like that and.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Just dropping her off and supposedly staying with a girlfriend,
but it never turned.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Out that way. Yeah, she was really staying in Chris's
dorm because his roommate was either staying with somebody else
or going home for the weekends and stuff like that.
And then one thing led to another and we were grandparents.
But like Gail said, you know, Chris took responsibility for
it and everything like that. Even though he was not
(31:50):
happy with the situation either, he wasn't going to walk
away from it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
We will be revisiting the unexpected nature of Kim's pregnancy
in another episode, but the time, Eric wasn't all that
aware of the real reason his older brother was getting hitched.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
He didn't come out and tell me he was getting
married or the reason for getting married necessarily, but he
alluded to it, and you know, I kind of drew conclusion. Okay,
they've been dating for six, seven, eight months or so.
They seem to be pretty serious. I mean, that's natural progression.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Their wedding day perhaps included a slight foreshadowing of problems
to come.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
The wedding itself went off without a hitch, you know,
when they got to the point of the pastor said
if anybody has objections, please say so now, and then
enlightening struck. That was a little awkward. It didn't rain.
It was just like a heat lighting or something like that.
So I made a big boom. He had beenished saying it,
(32:50):
and then within like ten seconds, you know, it happened.
It was just like, okay, that's weird. Everyone kind of
looked around at each other and kind of, you tell
everyone a snicker in a little bit amongst themselves, but
standing up in the front looking back on everybody in attendance, it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Was kind of funny he was still a teenager. But
Chris brought that same driven ethic he'd applied to academics
and life in general into his marriage. Here's Pierre.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He responded very well. He was working full time and
trying to upgrade his job up times a year. It
was pretty amazing because he would change jobs, you know,
half dozen times a year just to improve himself, and
every time he did he made more money. But as
far as taking responsibility, Jim really didn't cook, so after
(33:42):
work he would come home and cook the meals and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
As newlyweds, Chris and Kim weren't quite able to afford
their own place at first, especially with a baby on
the way. Here again is Eric.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
Once they got married, they stayed with Dell and Susan
for quite a while they didn't have their own place,
and then at some point in time they stayed with
my parents. My dad and I and Chris. We made
an apartment with a full bathroom in the basement at
my parents' house. They kind of kept to themselves when
(34:17):
they were there in the house. They were downstairs, and
I really didn't go down and bug them too often.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Here's Gail's take they had nowhere to stay and they
had no money, so we had a downstairs apartment, a
one bedroom, and that's where they stayed until two days
before they induced our granddaughter's birth, and after that they
stayed with Kimberly's mom and dad, and Kimberly's mom and
(34:44):
dad were overly protective and didn't really let anybody come
and visit.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
According to both Pierre and Gale, Kim's family started to
edge out the bonds from the young couple's lives, and
they perceived it as judgmental.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Basically, Kimberly's parents attitude towards Chris and our family was
that we were the people who lived on the other
side of the tracks, and we were dumb and illiterate
because we didn't have college educations, and that.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Was a big deal in their family. College.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Apparently Kimberly didn't escape that judgment either.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Actually, they looked down on Kimberly because she hadn't gotten
a diploma on some specific venue. She never followed her
master's or did any dissertations to create anything, so her
parents actually treated her just like they treated us at times.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
After Abigail was born, Gail says Kim's parents quickly turned
into gatekeepers of sorts, making it hard for the Bonds
to visit.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
My parents were still alive and at the time of
the birth of Abigail, and we were all so very excited,
and my parents came up to celebrate and come and
see the baby, and we were actually turned away at
the door of Kimberly's moms, saying that they were busy
(36:16):
and they didn't have time to see them us, which
my mom was broken hearted. Pretty much.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
The Vaughan say they weren't even allowed to visit until
months after the baby was born, at.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Least two or three months, so she was probably three
months old when we really started to get to see her,
because that's when Kim's mom said it was okay for
them to come out and visit the world.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
In addition to restricting access, Gale and Pierre claimed Kimberly's
mom asserted an odd control over the way Ken and
Chris parented.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Kimberly's moms had weird ideas under things, baby shouldn't be
in sunlight, the baby shouldn't drink water, this, you know things.
It was just very strange.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Eventually things loosened up and Gale and Pierre were able
to visit as often as they could. Kim and Chris
had finally gotten a place of their own, just in
time for more news.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Wasn't too long after that that they moved out of
Shorty's parents' house and and got an apartment, and so
then we could we could come over and see the kids.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
It was just Abigail at the time, and then we
found out that and was pregnant with the Sandy. Then
Chris just kept building from there, and he decided that
the apartment that he had was not big enough, so
they he took it upon himself to get a house built.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
The kids came quickly. They're firstborn, Abigail, and their second Cassandra,
were born just a year apart. Chris applied an equally
accelerated approach to applying for employment, a typical but effective.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
First he applied for a job, and it wasn't just
a small job, it wasn't a fast food. He was
going for executive status at major companies, and for some
reason they would call him back and they send us
your resume. He says, no, I would rather have a
face to face, and he never used a resume.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What he did was he researched the company, he would
find weaknesses within the company. Then when he was at
the face to face, he would advise on.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
How to strengthen or relieve the weaknesses, and he would
actually just sell himself on how valuable he was on
fixing their problem and darning he got hired every single.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Time, even without a college degree, Chris would quickly create
an impressive career that would bring affluence to his young family. Unfortunately,
the couple's relationship would not be as successful. On the
(39:33):
next murder in Illinois, Kim and Chris present as a
picture perfect family with behind closed doors, their marriage is
marred by dysfunction and the stress of Chris's career.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
When nobody else was around, that dark side would come out.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
We noticed Chris turning more into a loner. He would
be in the family, but he wouldn't laugh and be
as happy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Kimberly's parents said, if you do you ever mistreat my daughter,
or if you ever divorced my daughter, or anything like that,
you'll regret it for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
I was contacted by a reporter. She told me of
the terrible accident. Then she told me that there were four.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Dead Murder and Illinois, a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
are Lauren Bright Pacheco and Taylor Chackoine. Written by Lauren
Bright Pacheco and Matthew Riddle, Story editing by Matthew Riddle,
Editing and sound design by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine.
Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm with new compositions engineered and
(40:38):
mixed by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaqoine.
Speaker 8 (40:44):
Sunday Day World is sad, it so and leave it all.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
It's just STAGEO.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What's that used in a dream with our juerneys.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
E Speeze is so live?
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Wait you.
Speaker 8 (41:18):
Chake you up? Wait you w.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Shake you Up.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, check out the
eye Heeartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the
stories that matter to you.
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