September 16, 2021 • 48 mins
Lauren Bright Pacheco finally meets Chris Vaughn in person before Bill Clutter mounts an ambitious crime scene reconstruction. Crime Scene Technician Katie Hartman strenuously tests the scenarios put forth by both the prosecution and defense before weighing in with her thoughts on what took place June 14th, 2007.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. So there's
a sign that's as welcome to Pinkneyville, and the churches
of Pinkneyville welcome you. And it looks like they're about
twenty churches. So God in prisons. After months of letters
and emails, COVID restrictions were lifted in May, and Bill
(00:20):
Clutter and I were finally on our way to visit
Chris part As we get closer to the prison, is
absolutely pouring.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
From you, quorks of lightning, you know, thunder yet, Yeah,
there are a lot of churches around here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The abbess is the buckle of the Bible belt right
here southern Illinois.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
As a result of good behavior during his time at Minard,
Christopher Vaughan was transferred to the Pinkneyville Correctional Center in
twenty nineteen, a medium security prison located in Perry County.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
This is it the Pinkneyville Correctional Center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So it's kind of a sprawling brick facility surrounded by
the wire.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's not that old of a facility, hating. I'm within
the last right twenty or twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So the parking lot looks pretty full. I'm assuming this
is where we go in It is all right.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Because to leave my cellphone.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, so we should be about two hours. I have
my passport. I think we need two forms of what org.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
All right?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Take a run for it, which is funny. I don't
think most people say they're going to make a run
for it as they're going into.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Present foreshadowed by thunder.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I'm Lauren breg Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Kay.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Disjuged fop Shah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The check in process at Pinkneyville was thorough and impacted
by COVID protocol. We were vetted, masked, and temperature checked.
No personal belongings, phones, or recording devices were permitted. After
we were individually searched and padded down, we passed through
a metal detector and two additional checkpoints before entering the
cafeteria like room, where inmates were individually seated at small
(03:07):
tables surrounded by four fixed stools. Each tabletop was divided
into sections by high plexiglass a COVID precaution. We were
instructed to sit across from the inmate if possible, so
only one of us could sit next to Vaughn. Acoustics
were difficult as a result, especially when compounded by masks.
(03:27):
After communicating through email for so many months, it was
surreal to see and speak with Vaughn in person. The
two and a half hours that initially felt overwhelming ended
up passing quickly once we got used to raising our
voices and leaning forward enough to hear and be heard.
When we left and I got back into our car,
(03:48):
oh my gosh, that was really interesting. I was still
trying to reconcile my expectations with the man I just met,
and there was a bit of an element of being
taken aback because he is not imposing in terms of
(04:09):
his height or his physicality.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
He comes across a little bit more tough in photos
just because his head is shaven and he has a goatee,
but his mannerisms are so.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Mild. There's a fragility to him that goes hand in
hand with the introspective nature of how he speaks and
expresses himself.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well, that's what kind of struck me, because you get
a sense that he's learned to survive in this environment
and he can't be a pleasant experience now fourteen years
in prison.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
During our visit, Vaughan expressed the mental and emotional repercussions
of our communication. He apologized for wavering. Apparently he had
a really tough December because I was asking him to
access memories and feelings and emotions that he had kept
compartmentalized for so long. Then he wrote the five page
(05:16):
letter and then almost immediately he was done.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And one of the things I wanted to clarify with
him in our meeting was I always had concerns when
he started out in that letter telling his parents he
would fill in the gaps that I was concerned that
some of the things he was describing may have been
doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
He had no idea what that noise was. It never
occurred to him that there were gunshots happening within the car,
and he was in the quiet of a morning in
a big open field, and it was almost like this
ominous kind of echoing in the field. He didn't put
two and two together, sounds like, didn't until he got
(06:02):
back in the car, after he believes she shot three
shots at him, that she fired three times. That's when
he really truly realized that the kids were all dead
in the back seat, and at that point she was
dead as well.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
He acknowledged today that he's really unclear about the sequences
of which shot occurred verse the wrist or the leg.
But the one memory that he did have that was
vivid and clear is closing his eyes to avoid looking
at Kim and reaching and grabbing her seat belt to
(06:39):
try to fasten her seatbelt and struggling with it, and
his hand was shaking, and that is consistent with the
forensic evidence that large saturation stain on Kim's seatbelt. The
clearest memory he has is after everything happened, I mean,
his description of leaning back in his seat and looking
(07:01):
at the children. That explains the transfer stain that was
on the back right side of his jacket back to
the seatbelt. And the version of the state that he
somehow unbuckled her seatbelt to stage the crime scene makes
no sense.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Because his blood would have been on the actual female part.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
He would have taken his thumb and depressed the seatbelt,
and you wouldn't have all that blood saturating the seat belt.
But his description of closing his eyes because he couldn't
look at Kim's face, that I mean just a ghastly sight,
and reaching grabbing the seatbelt, trying to buckle her and
(07:43):
struggling to buckle because her arm is covering the female
part of the buckle. All of that makes perfect sense,
and there's enough time for him to saturate that seat
belt strap with his left wrist injury. I mean, he
acknowledged that that was the clearest memory he had of
(08:03):
what he was describing the letter.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That memory was about to be put to the test
in a controlled scientific crime scene reconstruction. We connected with
Gail and Pierre, who traveled to meet us after the
visit to share more thoughts. He was very thankful and
kind of surprised that anybody cared. He reiterated how grateful
(08:26):
he's been for your support and how much that means.
I was so taken aback that there's no anger, that
he doesn't seem angry or bitter. I told him that
I had a couple of questions, and these are things
that stuck out, particularly in terms of the press and
the prosecution, and so much was made of the fact
(08:48):
that he was wearing the same outfit, and so I
asked him, why were you wearing the same clothes you
wore to the shooting range, And he said, because he
was working most of the night that he would often
work in his study and then kind of catnap. But
he brought all the clothes he was changing into. They
were in the back of the car.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
But nobody said that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And the other thing that really came through everything he
said about the dynamic of their relationship, and also that
when Kimberly got that degree from Phoenix that took seven
years I think to get, she was handed an empty diploma.
(09:31):
But also learned that when she started calling, she thought
that all of these doors would open to her because
she had this degree. But it wasn't respected and it
didn't open doors. That people actually dismissed it because it
was online. That's interesting, Yeah, and that upset her deeply,
(09:53):
and so that could have unfolded in real time and
could have led to her anxiety.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
I still had a couple months to finish her degree,
to completely finish it, she still had a couple months
to go well. And in jest, when before all this happened,
Chris was saying, oh, yeah, now that you're going to
be a college degree person, you can go out and
(10:20):
make the big books, and I can quit and make
wood in the garage, would and play with the kids.
Speaker 9 (10:26):
You know.
Speaker 8 (10:26):
It was all in joke back then, then when it happened,
I guess that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, he also talks about they had gotten to the
point where they were going to stay together while the
kids were in the house, but that eventually they would be.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Leading separate lives.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
In July of twenty twenty one, I flew to meet
Bill Clutter in Kentucky for the crime scene reconstruction that
would recreate the events of June fourteenth, two thousand and seven,
under the direction of a seasoned crime scene investigator.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
My name's Kate Hartman.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
I'm a retired crime scene investigator from Lowell Metro Police Department.
I worked for the Metro Police Department for twenty one years,
started in communications and then tested to go into the
crime scene unit.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Hartman was secured by Bill Clutter to meticulously review the
Vaughan case. Because of her lack of proximity, she was
well suited to approach the task.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
Well, I had no preconceived notions.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I'd never heard of it since it didn't happen in Kentucky,
I didn't know anybody involved. Police department used to wish
contacts throughout the United States, and I.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Had never heard of that case.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
So I didn't have any of those prejudices at all.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
In person, Katie Hartman comes across as no nonsense and direct.
She holds eye contact with a degree of scrutiny, in
keeping with her profession and reputation she's built both by
backing up instincts with science. She brought that same scrutiny
to reviewing Bob Deal's original crime scene report.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
As a crime scene investigator, I really am impressed with
his work, and I'm a critical person. I used to
train people to do what I did, so I was
looking at it very I was ready to give him
Well Bill criticisms if need be, because I told Bill,
(12:20):
I'll give you exactly what I think good better in between.
And my first comment to him was, this guy's good.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
It's really interesting because you know he was discredited.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
I was told that after I read that he had
been discredited. So I wasn't shocked because I'm not shocked
by anything that happens. I've been victimized in that way
also through the years, not in the same way he has,
but it can be career altering.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
In addition to Deal's crime scene report, Hartman scrutinized the
forensic evidence bullet trajectory paths and the trial trap.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
With his report standing alone, he was very thorough with
his photographs, and it's very difficult to photograph a crime
scene that is within a car because you can't mess
up anything. You got to lean in, you can't be
at a ninety degree angle sometimes.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
To take a photograph. But with the three D.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Imaging also and his references, I felt like I was there.
He referred to things and I could follow it as
if I was with him and standing next to him.
I did not make an opinion about whether or not
this was a suicide murder or murders until I really
(13:47):
looked at the trajectories.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Hartman wouldn't be willing to share her opinion until testing
it through multiple scenarios, but having read the crime scene
report and trial transcripts, she did have initial issues with
the way evidence was presented at Vaughn's trial.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Given what the jury was given, I'm not surprised he
was convicted because they weren't given everything. In my opinion,
if I was on that jury and was only given
that information, and this is more of a personal than
a professional opinion, if I was someone who is not
familiar with what to ask or what to expect of
(14:29):
a case. I would have convicted it because everything wasn't
put out there.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I had Hartman break down exactly what the crime scene
reconstruction would cover and test. This was to be the
first of two reconstructions, the second with the ballistics expert
who would further map out the exact trajectories.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
We're going to reenact what the prosecution stated about the
blood on the seatbelt and blood on Kim and where
Chris was shot. We need a visual and need to
be able to look at it to see if it
was possible what he said or if it was possible
(15:13):
what they said.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
We're going to do all scenarios.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
We need to be completely unbiased in that we need
to prove or disprove his story or their story period.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Hartman was clear that what would be revealed would not
be tied to any agenda.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
When Bill asked me to be on this case, I
told him I'm the type of person that I'm not
going to give you what you want to hear. If
I think something isn't no, it doesn't fall along, I'm
going to tell you. That was my job.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
I was there to prove or disprove it.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Someone did this, and if they did it, they did it.
I could not look at anything else. I had no
tunnel vision. Even if the person who did something maybe
had done something before and wasn't the best person, Well,
that's not what I was there for. I'm there for
that crime and whether or not we can prove who
(16:12):
did it.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
The reconstruction's purpose was to test the multiple scenarios laid
out for what could have happened that day, to determine
the most plausible and likely one based on the forensics
of the crime scene without emotion. Hartman brought that same
objectivity to Bond's five page letter.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
It was always my job to look at something in
the most unemotional way possible. I always was able to
really do that. I'm just not a very emotional person.
I think about who he's writing to. He's writing to
his mom and dad, and he seems still hopeless. He's
(16:55):
almost apologizing to his mom and dad that it's going
to be all brought up again. But as I read
his description of what happened, it was believable to me
as a crime scene person. If he had said that
in his interview, it would have made all the difference.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
But that letter covered just one of the scenarios about
to be reenacted.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
We're all going to get the visual of every scenario,
and that's important because you'd be amazed how you think
about something in your head. And everyone's different on how
they hold things, how they move. Movement is almost unique
to each person. So the way if she shot herself,
I wouldn't have shot myself that way. I would have
(17:41):
held again, probably differently, but that doesn't mean she didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
The crime scene reconstruction took place July fifteenth, twenty twenty one,
utilizing the exact make, model and color of the Bonds
family SUV and two actors named Nathan and Patty, who
are approximately the same height and weights Chris and Kimberly
Vaughan were at the time of the tragedy. It would
be filmed by seasoned investigative journalist, director and cameraman Ron Zimmerman.
(18:09):
In addition to having worked on America's Most Wanted for
twenty one years, Zimmerman has a resume that includes CNN
and twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
To film the recreation, we wanted to cover all possible angles,
things that you wouldn't see just by standing on one
side of the car the other. So we had three
cameras small GoPros inside the car, one on the driver's
side pillar, one near the rear view mirror, and one
on the passenger side door pillar. Then there are two
(18:40):
cameras outside the car, one outside the driver's window handheld
and another one outside the passenger's window. The reason to
have so many angles is that at certain times during
the events that happened inside the car, it's best to
see it from a different angle. Otherwise one camera another's
going to be blocked by somebody's body. And that's when
(19:02):
the truth emerges, when you can see all the possible
angles and even slow it down to take it frame
by frame.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Back to Bill Clutter, the first demonstration we to do
is test the theory of the stay that Chris unbuckled
her seat belt, bled onto the seat belt and.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Explains the pattern of bloodstains you see on it on
the passenger's seat belt.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The mood was somber and filled with tension that was
in keeping with what was being reenacted and what it
could reveal.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So I think what we'll do, Katie, is we'll position
Patty and we'll do the positioning based on the crime
scene photos. And do the first demonstration where she's seat
belted and have him on seat belt her and then
Katie get Patty positioned.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Hartman and clutter recreated each scenario to be tested by
exhaustively referencing the crime scene photos and the crime scene reports.
Each actor was placed an exact position and given the
most basic directive in terms of motive or movement.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Remember, her feet were flat, she is slapped. Yeah, okay,
so you're feeling where her arm was pushed up. What's
important is how where this left arm is?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
To test the state's theory that vonnat unbuckled his wife
after she was shot, the actress playing Kimberly was positioned
exactly as Kimberly was photographed in the vehicle, with her
left arm covering the belted buckle. The crime scene reports
specifically state that her body did not appear to have
been moved after she was shot. Hartman then walked the
(20:42):
actor playing Vaughn through his action without dictating any specific
directive in order to observe his intuitive movements.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
What we're doing is these red dots signifiant what your
injury is.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Red stickers were played based on places where both Chris
and Kim were actually shot.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
So you have an abrupt injury, all right, Okay, So
even though you can't really mimic how it would hurt,
and I don't really want you to, but what I
want you to do is when we tell you to
do something instinctively, how would you move if you had
injuries like that?
Speaker 6 (21:21):
Okay? All I want you.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
To do, don't overthink it, okay is wait wait wait.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
What I want you to do is keep in mind you've.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Been injured, right, okay, and you reach over and unbuckle
per seatbelt.
Speaker 10 (21:35):
Period.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
When you restart, like all the scenarios, this would be
run multiple times, resetting everything before each take.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
If you keep your arms this way until he gets
in here, you can actually just lean over and ick
and make.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
Sure you're in that position when we get ready.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And each take showed the same result to.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Her arm, and I did.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (22:02):
In order to get past the arm needed to move
because her elbow.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I needed to move her elbow.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, the female part of the elbow.
Speaker 11 (22:18):
Was under her yes, sir, yeah, I was under her
elbow that needed to be moved in order to get
to that button.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Each time the state's theory was tested. To unbuckle the belt,
the actor playing Christopher used his uninjured right arm to
reach under the actress's upper left arm to access the belt.
Speaker 11 (22:39):
With injuries and you know, some restricted movement to my arm,
it would be difficult, and I felt I need to
lean over this way and move a little more. So
that's how I would do it.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Doing so would have meant he would have passed through
Kimberly's blood, which was pooling on the back of the
center console, and none of Kim's blood was found on
Chris Baud's right arm. Next up was the buckling of
the belt.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Let's just instruct him to buckle her without giving him
the story of what happened, without showing him the photo
yet right to buckle her. Yeah, just to just instruct
him to.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Buckle right before we do the shocking photo.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Because Chris had said that he had his eyes, we're
going to do have him buckle her, you know, Okay,
see you see what he does.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Naturally, Hartman also had a theory. She wanted to test.
Speaker 6 (23:34):
What I want you to do now is you've just
been shot in the wrist. What's the first thing you
think you would do.
Speaker 11 (23:39):
What do you think I would put pressure on the
wound and elevate it, and you know that's what I
would do.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
You would grab the wound because you're shot. God got you, right, Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Nathan immediately raised his left wrist and grabbed it with
his right hand to stop the bleeding.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So that just happened, and I want you to reach
over and buckle her. So you've just been shot.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Now.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
I didn't tell you to keep your hand there.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
You don't have to.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
I'm just saying what your first instinct was was.
Speaker 11 (24:08):
To my first instinct is going to be to check
it out and go oh.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
But yet you still want a buckler. So what do
you do? Don't overthink it, just do it. Just do
this as quick as I could. Now, don't look.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Are you? Oh?
Speaker 10 (24:26):
Interesting?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (24:28):
Okay, okay, you didn't do anything wrong. You know what
you need.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
We'd ask you to do what you would do if
your wrist hurt and you had grabbed it.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
The reason why I was telling you what would you.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Do if you got hurt and your wrist it was
because I also think somebody would have put their hand
on top of the wound.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Each time the scenario was tested. The actor simply moved
the actress's left arm and buckled her with his right hand.
Keep in mind, both of his hands could have been
covered with his own blood had he been clasping his
wounded left wrist, so he would have left some prints
on her left arm which were not present at the
actual crime scene. Next tested was the scenario covered in
(25:04):
Chris's letter and his description of how he attempted to
buckle his deceased wife. This was the first time the
actor playing Chris was told in the actual specifics of
the case.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
And so this is a recent letter we received from Chris.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
Ravaughan, who is the person that you're playing.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
For, right, and he's serving a life sentence in Illinois.
He wrote this letter to his parents in March of
twenty twenty one, and he says, she then turned the
gun on herself and fired, and then I thought to
drive the truck. Kim was slumped, so I tried to
buckle her. My hands shook badly. I couldn't buckle the belt.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
He also should understand why his hands are shaking badly.
He's been shot twice. But your three children are all
dead in the backseat, So that's the emotion that's going
through your head and part of why you're shaking.
Speaker 11 (26:05):
Adrenaline, shaking violently.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yes, I would be.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now, your wife also has a single gunshot wound under
her chin, and this is what he's looking at, and
I apologize. Swick In order to understand Christopher Vaughn's movements,
we have to address what he was reacting to. The
(26:30):
crime scene photo of Kimberly Vaughn is extremely graphic. What
it captures in person would have been even more so.
She slumped to the left, her head tilted back over
her left shoulder and facing the driver's seat. Her left
eye is bulging from its socket, and the bullet that
entered under her chin has severed her upper palette and
(26:51):
teeth into So when we visited Chris in prison, we
ask him to explain what was going through his head,
and as an actor, I want you to see it
because it's pretty telling. He stopped, he paused, he closed
his eyes, and he cringed away from it. And then
(27:13):
he threw his right arm around her.
Speaker 12 (27:15):
As he leaned forward because he didn't want to touch
or look at her as he was buckling, and then
he used his injured left arm to assist his right arm.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So that's what we would like you to keep in mind.
Speaker 11 (27:31):
Okay, all right, all right, Yeah, there's that photo.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
One more time, one more time. Now, that's right here.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I think where Patty's face is.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
That's her. Okay, that close?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
All right, excellent.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Each and every time the actor recreated this scenario, we
watched in silence, not wanting to interrupt what was being
clearly illustrated. Each time, the movement vond described seamlessly overlapped
with the forensic in terms of where and how his
blood appeared on the seat belt, the buckle, where the
droplets were found on the passenger floor, kim shirt, and
(28:09):
the center console, in addition to how her blood transferred
to the right back of his fleece.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
Yeah, shaking, I see her and give up.
Speaker 11 (28:19):
I think that's how I would do it.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Next, they tested the state scenario of how Vaughn was
alleged to have murdered his wife. It was equally as
telling and compelling as the seat belt. They first attempted
it with Vaughn sitting in the driver's seat.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
This is the state's theory of the case that Christopher
Vaughn shot and killed his wife and then stage did
to look like a suicide because this wound under her
chin as a classic self inflicted thing. So we want
you to get her to cooperate while you kill her.
So and it has to look like a suicide. It
can't be jammed hard against her chin, because that didn't
(28:57):
happen according to the autopsy. But it was kind of
light contact, loose contact under her chin when it fired.
And of course, Patty, you're alive, and you have to
assume that you're in a struggle for.
Speaker 11 (29:09):
Survivor and your babies are back there right malware, and.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know what, we're making this assumption again, but in
these reenactments, some assumptions need to be made because we
are trying to think of how we would act as humans,
human beings. So Patty, you know your mom, you know
how you would act.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
You know it's it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Would have gotten a back seat even just acting. The
re enactment participants drew blood trying to get into position,
and it happened when the actors were seated in the
front seats and when the actor playing Chris was positioned
(29:51):
outside the passenger window. In keeping with Sergeant Gary Lawson's theory.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
All.
Speaker 13 (30:00):
Yes, how about in her here here, see you.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Eventually they came to the scenario where the actor playing
Chris shot the kids from the driver's seat to test
all possibilities.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Okay, each child is shot twice, once in the abdomen,
once in the head. So you're going to be aiming
for these targets there.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
This was one of the many moments of that day
that underscored the brutal, tragic reality of what transpired in
that suv fourteen years ago, but every possibility needed to
be explored and tested without bias or emotion.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
Think of it.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Okay, you've got three kids here, head to head, torso,
head to it and I don't know if it was
that order or not.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Okay, just I want to see.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
We want to see how you would be able to
shoot them.
Speaker 6 (30:59):
I'm not in it if you go on their theory
or not. Okay, because they think he shot himself.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
And where's he going to shoot from here?
Speaker 6 (31:07):
He's gonna sit in the driver's seat. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You need to be here because your head might be
in the way. Now you've already shot Patty.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
Okay, she's deceased. She's deceased. Seat built on lay like
you were there. You go all.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Right, Okay, ready, Bill, Okay, I'm just shot.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I just shot.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
You see how you had to Okay, that's good, that's good. Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Next, they tried out the scenario with Chris standing outside
the car. Immediately, the height of the actor portraying the
five foot nine vond stood out in start contrasts with
the size of the large s u V.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
First, with the door shot in supposed way, the windows down.
I want you to.
Speaker 11 (32:03):
Shoot the kids from this, yeah, one two, one two, one.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Okay, I'll see that he would have had to reach
in overpay and feel free to stand on the running.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
The most reach you can get.
Speaker 14 (32:20):
These are shot with representation.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
The kids were head shots.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
So what I think would be very, very difficult was
for the little boy the way I mean, two girls
are the trajectories crazy, But we're wanting to see how
he could have even done that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It's really interesting that in every single scenario he's reached
to the left of her seat. Each time the actor
portraying Chris tried to make the shots that would have
hit Blake, seated directly behind the passenger seat. He did
so by moving the gun from the center of the
vehicle to the left of the passenger seat headrest, which
was not consistent with the actual trajectory according to ballistic evidence.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
I guess I'm.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Trying to say the natural movement of a person trying
to reach back there and kill those kids for us
would have been crazy trajectory and very hard to do.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
I mean it's possible, of course, it's possible, but it
doesn't match. Yeah, he's got his hand in here and everything.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
So okay, now one more doors open and you're killing
the kids. Look that last one is what gets from
either any of these.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
You know, left arm right.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Watching the actor struggle to keep his balance on the
sideboard with his left arm as he tried to lean
into the suv far enough to make the trajectories of
the shots fired with precision over the actress's left side
called to mind the original CSI Bob Deal's words after
Sergeant Gary Lawson expressed his theory the day of the murders,
(33:59):
it was friggin' impossible. Next, Hartman gave the actress playing
Kim a directive.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
Now, ay, I'm going you're alive, turn around to kill kids.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
How would you shoot people in the backseat?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Just do the movement.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
Ready, okay, go aheadny.
Speaker 10 (34:22):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
I just wanted to see the angle, all right, Now
take it off, do something thank mm hmm. Changes the
angle totally.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Unbelted. The actress seated in the passenger seat instinctively and
rapidly recreated trajectories in keeping with the bullets fired into
the back seat if.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
He were to have come back to the car he's
getting back in and yeah, he thought he heard an
explosion or something in the car she's waiting for him.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
After hours of running multiple scenarios, the ultimate conclusion was
that the prosecution's version of what happened would have been
extremely implausible, if not impossible. Here's seasoned crime journalist Ron Zimmerman,
who filmed the reconstruction.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I've done hundreds of reenactments for shows like America's Most
Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, and this one stands above a
lot of those for a number of reasons. When you
really examine the reenactment point by point by point, from
all these different angles, you really see how Christopher's explanation
to his parents in a letter rings true. This didn't
(35:40):
come out at the time of interrogation, didn't come out
at the time of trial. He didn't try to build
a story to explain his behavior a way to investigators
like us. But it was fourteen years later that this
all came out in a letter to his parents where
he just tried to get to the honest truth of it.
And it's searingly honest that letter to his parents about
what happened. Kim shot the kids, she shot Christopher, then
(36:03):
she shot herself, and then he tried to buckle her
in and failed at that. It wasn't successful in buckling
her in, but he left the trail of blood. All
of those are things that we can see. The blood
evidence doesn't lie. It tells the story, and it tells
the true facts of what happened.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Katie Hartman agrees.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
The physicality of all of this does not match with
what the prosecution said it happened, or Lowson or any
of them.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Deal was right.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Deal was right. Deal was right.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Oh yeah, he was right.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I am the last person that's going to say a
policeman was wrong.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
I am. But when they're wrong.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They're wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Hartman believes Deal's break with the official version of events
would not have been without consequences.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Other police don't like other police that.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
Aren't being honest.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
So Deal sadly he was in a vine a career
ending bad.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
But it's my opinion that Deal was right.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Really, the evidence shows that it did not happen the
way the prosecution said.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
We proved that, and the crime scene reconstruction aligned with
Christopher Bond's five page letter. Here's Bill Clutter.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
It is my opinion that Chris's statement to his parents
disclosed in March of twenty twenty one, does explain how
the blood got on the seatbelt and the left leg
and arm of his wife. That does explain all of
the blood that was found of Chris's and Bob Deal
(37:40):
had it right along. The crime scene was consistent with
the murder suicide. The state's theory as to how Chris's
blood got on the seatbelt and on his wife's body
is it simply didn't happen the way they said it did.
The seat belt was such a critical piece of evidence
that based on that alone, I think we've proven the
(38:03):
sufficient evidence to vacate the conviction.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I called Gale and Pierre with my thoughts as soon
as I got back to the hotel, I can tell
you with absolute confidence, having seen what I saw today,
that we're able to very effectively show what happened that
day was not what the courtroom was privy to.
Speaker 10 (38:26):
Oh my gosh, Lauren, that's It's like I knew it
in my home and I knew he didn't do it.
Right Now we have evidence for you know, everybody to
look at.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Once Bill had put together an initial summary of the
crime scene reconstruction finds, we reached out to update Jason Vlahm.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I sent you a draft of my report. But in
a nutshell, we've tested the state's theory that Christopher unbuckled
his wife's seatbelt somehow to stage the crime scene. It
was interesting that when we gave the actor instructions to
unbuckle the seat belt the passenger's seat belt, he uses
(39:27):
his right hand, has to actually move the left arm
of our actress and depresses it with his right hand
without a left arm, which is bleeding over the body
of Kimberly. So that really debunks the state's theory that
Christopher staged the crime scene by unbuckling his wife's seat belt.
(39:50):
The second demonstration we did was to role play what
Chris described that he reached around his wife to the
passenger's seatbelt in an attempt to buckle her in because
he thought about driving away to get help. The movements
of that scenario really explains how Chris's passive blood drops
(40:14):
from his left wrist blood over the top of his wife,
because in making that reach, the left hand arcs over
the female actress, and it's totally consistent with where we
find Chris's blood.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So that letter and his explanation of the movement overlap
seamlessly in Bill's opinion and in Katie Hartman the CSI
from Kentucky, and we were able to repeat it multiple times.
Speaker 14 (40:47):
I can't help thinking, as we're having this conversation that
probably a significant percentage of the general public believes or
wants to believe that this type of stuff is done
and pre conviction right or pre trial, and that our
system works because people get a fair shake and you know,
(41:10):
you get to present this evidence and CSI. I think
we need to believe it works properly, because otherwise the
default is to say, oh, no, this could happen to me,
and nobody wants to believe that. Nobody can believe that.
I think that this case is so important because Christopher
could be any one of us. He was a guy
who I think may be easier to relate to than
(41:34):
some other people that are caught up in our system.
For a lot of people, you know, here's a guy
on the way to an amusement park with his family,
working a good job, seemingly American dream type of stuff.
In an instant, everything turns to shit. Rights It's a lot.
(41:56):
So I'm sure for your audience this is a lot
to process, you know, And for Chris, he's still living
it every minute of every day.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That reality was underscored by another takeaway from the crime
scene reconstruction. When we tasked the actors to have that
final shot, both actors drew blood in just trying to
get into position that there was just in the act
of trying to put the gun underneath. There was bruising
(42:28):
and there was blood, and they weren't going at it
full strength. So it is very telling that there is
no sign of a struggle. Kimberly Bond's nails were scraped,
There is no DNA belonging to Chris Vaughn. There were
no scratch marks, there was no pulled hair, there were
no bruises on their arm. There was nothing to suggest
(42:48):
that she was held in place while a gun was
placed ever so slightly apart from the soft area of
her chin.
Speaker 14 (42:56):
Any mother would bite to the death in a situation
like that, because she's got her kids. Whether the kids
were still alive or not, in whichever scenario you want
to paint, if they had already been shot, she would
have been like a cat right with the claws. I mean,
think about any parent, right, what they would do to somebody,
(43:16):
regardless if it's their husband or anyone who had just
murdered their children, right, or if they're still alive, you'd
be fighting to keep them alive and to keep this
gun away from yourself and them. And Bill, let me
ask you this, because you're the expert, right, So I'm
just thinking she was shot under the chin, right, which
is a classic thing that people do when they take
(43:38):
their own lives with a gun. Not everybody, but it's
sort of common. But my question is just in terms
of strength and leverage, right. I mean, Chris is not
a huge powerful guy, and if he was to stick
his arm up in a position where the gun would
be pointing upwards, his arm would be weak in that position, right,
And she would have a relatively easy time because she
(43:59):
would have the leverage to be able to take her
hand with her downward strength and push his arm down right.
At a very minimum, the shot would have been wild
because he would have had no ability to keep his
hand with the gun positioned under her chin for even
a second long enough they got off a shot if
(44:19):
she was making even a modest attempt to push his
arm down.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
No, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 14 (44:24):
Let's think of this logically. So then he's going to
sort of gently go, honey, hold still for a second.
I'm just going to gently place my hand with this pistol,
which you can plainly see up under your chin, very
you know, calmly, and you just hold motionless.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
No, I mean no, Yeah, that didn't happen.
Speaker 14 (44:45):
As you pull back these layers, it becomes so painfully obvious.
I mean, I'm just going to come out and say,
this is not what happened, and that's why we're here.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
As I finished this episode, I reach back out to
Katie Hartman for her final analysis. After having some time
to process both the reconstruction and Bill's report.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
My thoughts from that day were many.
Speaker 9 (45:10):
What was alleged to have happened by the prosecution, we
were able to disprove and what was the defense's explanation
wasn't fully brought to a conclusion either.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
In your opinion, based on what the crime scene reconstruction revealed,
do you believe that there is reasonable doubt that Christopher
Vond killed his wife and three children that day?
Speaker 6 (45:42):
Very much?
Speaker 3 (45:43):
So.
Speaker 9 (45:43):
We went from everything from Christopher as the prosecution alleged
to shooting from the outside. We went to Christopher shooting
from the inside, Christopher shooting with the passenger door opened
and shooting Kim and the kids, Christopher with the or closed,
to shooting Kim and the character. None of those things
(46:04):
were possible with the angles that the three d presented.
It was shocking, to be honest, that it was even
brought to trial and it ended up at the end
of the day the most logical way was that Kim
did it. And that's hard for.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Me to say that did some murder suicide.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
Yeah, and that's hard because it's terrible that these three
babies died.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
But it's hard to.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
Look at it and see that.
Speaker 9 (46:41):
The man's in prison because a lot of people got
a tunnel vision and didn't didn't listen, and had already
figured out in their minds what happened is It?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
On the final episode of Murder in Illinois. The daunting
hurdles that remain for Christopher Vaughan, the.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Prosepcutors who got it wrong are always the last to
admit that they made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Are met with some impressive offers of assistance.
Speaker 14 (47:32):
We've had nine exonerations, and my goal is to make
mister Vaughan the tenth.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
And a very significant spotlight. Murder in Illinois is a
production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are Lauren Priie Pacheco and
Taylor Chacoine. Written by Lauren Prei Pacheco and Matthew Riddle,
Story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing and sound design by
Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoyne. Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm
(48:00):
New compositions engineered and mixed by Evan Tyer and Taylor
Chicoran Uzo nro Down Meri Guzo row.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Down on me ri Guo.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
to you.
Murder in Illinois is a production of iHeartRadio. So there's
a sign that's as welcome to Pinkneyville, and the churches
of Pinkneyville welcome you. And it looks like they're about
twenty churches. So God in prisons. After months of letters
and emails, COVID restrictions were lifted in May, and Bill
(00:20):
Clutter and I were finally on our way to visit
Chris part As we get closer to the prison, is
absolutely pouring.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
From you, quorks of lightning, you know, thunder yet, Yeah,
there are a lot of churches around here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The abbess is the buckle of the Bible belt right
here southern Illinois.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
As a result of good behavior during his time at Minard,
Christopher Vaughan was transferred to the Pinkneyville Correctional Center in
twenty nineteen, a medium security prison located in Perry County.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
This is it the Pinkneyville Correctional Center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So it's kind of a sprawling brick facility surrounded by
the wire.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's not that old of a facility, hating. I'm within
the last right twenty or twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So the parking lot looks pretty full. I'm assuming this
is where we go in It is all right.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Because to leave my cellphone.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, so we should be about two hours. I have
my passport. I think we need two forms of what org.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
All right?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Take a run for it, which is funny. I don't
think most people say they're going to make a run
for it as they're going into.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Present foreshadowed by thunder.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I'm Lauren breg Pacheco, and this is murder in Illinois.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Kay.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Disjuged fop Shah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The check in process at Pinkneyville was thorough and impacted
by COVID protocol. We were vetted, masked, and temperature checked.
No personal belongings, phones, or recording devices were permitted. After
we were individually searched and padded down, we passed through
a metal detector and two additional checkpoints before entering the
cafeteria like room, where inmates were individually seated at small
(03:07):
tables surrounded by four fixed stools. Each tabletop was divided
into sections by high plexiglass a COVID precaution. We were
instructed to sit across from the inmate if possible, so
only one of us could sit next to Vaughn. Acoustics
were difficult as a result, especially when compounded by masks.
(03:27):
After communicating through email for so many months, it was
surreal to see and speak with Vaughn in person. The
two and a half hours that initially felt overwhelming ended
up passing quickly once we got used to raising our
voices and leaning forward enough to hear and be heard.
When we left and I got back into our car,
(03:48):
oh my gosh, that was really interesting. I was still
trying to reconcile my expectations with the man I just met,
and there was a bit of an element of being
taken aback because he is not imposing in terms of
(04:09):
his height or his physicality.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
He comes across a little bit more tough in photos
just because his head is shaven and he has a goatee,
but his mannerisms are so.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Mild. There's a fragility to him that goes hand in
hand with the introspective nature of how he speaks and
expresses himself.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well, that's what kind of struck me, because you get
a sense that he's learned to survive in this environment
and he can't be a pleasant experience now fourteen years
in prison.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
During our visit, Vaughan expressed the mental and emotional repercussions
of our communication. He apologized for wavering. Apparently he had
a really tough December because I was asking him to
access memories and feelings and emotions that he had kept
compartmentalized for so long. Then he wrote the five page
(05:16):
letter and then almost immediately he was done.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And one of the things I wanted to clarify with
him in our meeting was I always had concerns when
he started out in that letter telling his parents he
would fill in the gaps that I was concerned that
some of the things he was describing may have been
doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
He had no idea what that noise was. It never
occurred to him that there were gunshots happening within the car,
and he was in the quiet of a morning in
a big open field, and it was almost like this
ominous kind of echoing in the field. He didn't put
two and two together, sounds like, didn't until he got
(06:02):
back in the car, after he believes she shot three
shots at him, that she fired three times. That's when
he really truly realized that the kids were all dead
in the back seat, and at that point she was
dead as well.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
He acknowledged today that he's really unclear about the sequences
of which shot occurred verse the wrist or the leg.
But the one memory that he did have that was
vivid and clear is closing his eyes to avoid looking
at Kim and reaching and grabbing her seat belt to
(06:39):
try to fasten her seatbelt and struggling with it, and
his hand was shaking, and that is consistent with the
forensic evidence that large saturation stain on Kim's seatbelt. The
clearest memory he has is after everything happened, I mean,
his description of leaning back in his seat and looking
(07:01):
at the children. That explains the transfer stain that was
on the back right side of his jacket back to
the seatbelt. And the version of the state that he
somehow unbuckled her seatbelt to stage the crime scene makes
no sense.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Because his blood would have been on the actual female part.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
He would have taken his thumb and depressed the seatbelt,
and you wouldn't have all that blood saturating the seat belt.
But his description of closing his eyes because he couldn't
look at Kim's face, that I mean just a ghastly sight,
and reaching grabbing the seatbelt, trying to buckle her and
(07:43):
struggling to buckle because her arm is covering the female
part of the buckle. All of that makes perfect sense,
and there's enough time for him to saturate that seat
belt strap with his left wrist injury. I mean, he
acknowledged that that was the clearest memory he had of
(08:03):
what he was describing the letter.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That memory was about to be put to the test
in a controlled scientific crime scene reconstruction. We connected with
Gail and Pierre, who traveled to meet us after the
visit to share more thoughts. He was very thankful and
kind of surprised that anybody cared. He reiterated how grateful
(08:26):
he's been for your support and how much that means.
I was so taken aback that there's no anger, that
he doesn't seem angry or bitter. I told him that
I had a couple of questions, and these are things
that stuck out, particularly in terms of the press and
the prosecution, and so much was made of the fact
(08:48):
that he was wearing the same outfit, and so I
asked him, why were you wearing the same clothes you
wore to the shooting range, And he said, because he
was working most of the night that he would often
work in his study and then kind of catnap. But
he brought all the clothes he was changing into. They
were in the back of the car.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
But nobody said that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And the other thing that really came through everything he
said about the dynamic of their relationship, and also that
when Kimberly got that degree from Phoenix that took seven
years I think to get, she was handed an empty diploma.
(09:31):
But also learned that when she started calling, she thought
that all of these doors would open to her because
she had this degree. But it wasn't respected and it
didn't open doors. That people actually dismissed it because it
was online. That's interesting, Yeah, and that upset her deeply,
(09:53):
and so that could have unfolded in real time and
could have led to her anxiety.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
I still had a couple months to finish her degree,
to completely finish it, she still had a couple months
to go well. And in jest, when before all this happened,
Chris was saying, oh, yeah, now that you're going to
be a college degree person, you can go out and
(10:20):
make the big books, and I can quit and make
wood in the garage, would and play with the kids.
Speaker 9 (10:26):
You know.
Speaker 8 (10:26):
It was all in joke back then, then when it happened,
I guess that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, he also talks about they had gotten to the
point where they were going to stay together while the
kids were in the house, but that eventually they would be.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Leading separate lives.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
In July of twenty twenty one, I flew to meet
Bill Clutter in Kentucky for the crime scene reconstruction that
would recreate the events of June fourteenth, two thousand and seven,
under the direction of a seasoned crime scene investigator.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
My name's Kate Hartman.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
I'm a retired crime scene investigator from Lowell Metro Police Department.
I worked for the Metro Police Department for twenty one years,
started in communications and then tested to go into the
crime scene unit.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Hartman was secured by Bill Clutter to meticulously review the
Vaughan case. Because of her lack of proximity, she was
well suited to approach the task.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
Well, I had no preconceived notions.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I'd never heard of it since it didn't happen in Kentucky,
I didn't know anybody involved. Police department used to wish
contacts throughout the United States, and I.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Had never heard of that case.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
So I didn't have any of those prejudices at all.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
In person, Katie Hartman comes across as no nonsense and direct.
She holds eye contact with a degree of scrutiny, in
keeping with her profession and reputation she's built both by
backing up instincts with science. She brought that same scrutiny
to reviewing Bob Deal's original crime scene report.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
As a crime scene investigator, I really am impressed with
his work, and I'm a critical person. I used to
train people to do what I did, so I was
looking at it very I was ready to give him
Well Bill criticisms if need be, because I told Bill,
(12:20):
I'll give you exactly what I think good better in between.
And my first comment to him was, this guy's good.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
It's really interesting because you know he was discredited.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
I was told that after I read that he had
been discredited. So I wasn't shocked because I'm not shocked
by anything that happens. I've been victimized in that way
also through the years, not in the same way he has,
but it can be career altering.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
In addition to Deal's crime scene report, Hartman scrutinized the
forensic evidence bullet trajectory paths and the trial trap.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
With his report standing alone, he was very thorough with
his photographs, and it's very difficult to photograph a crime
scene that is within a car because you can't mess
up anything. You got to lean in, you can't be
at a ninety degree angle sometimes.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
To take a photograph. But with the three D.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Imaging also and his references, I felt like I was there.
He referred to things and I could follow it as
if I was with him and standing next to him.
I did not make an opinion about whether or not
this was a suicide murder or murders until I really
(13:47):
looked at the trajectories.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Hartman wouldn't be willing to share her opinion until testing
it through multiple scenarios, but having read the crime scene
report and trial transcripts, she did have initial issues with
the way evidence was presented at Vaughn's trial.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Given what the jury was given, I'm not surprised he
was convicted because they weren't given everything. In my opinion,
if I was on that jury and was only given
that information, and this is more of a personal than
a professional opinion, if I was someone who is not
familiar with what to ask or what to expect of
(14:29):
a case. I would have convicted it because everything wasn't
put out there.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I had Hartman break down exactly what the crime scene
reconstruction would cover and test. This was to be the
first of two reconstructions, the second with the ballistics expert
who would further map out the exact trajectories.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
We're going to reenact what the prosecution stated about the
blood on the seatbelt and blood on Kim and where
Chris was shot. We need a visual and need to
be able to look at it to see if it
was possible what he said or if it was possible
(15:13):
what they said.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
We're going to do all scenarios.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
We need to be completely unbiased in that we need
to prove or disprove his story or their story period.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Hartman was clear that what would be revealed would not
be tied to any agenda.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
When Bill asked me to be on this case, I
told him I'm the type of person that I'm not
going to give you what you want to hear. If
I think something isn't no, it doesn't fall along, I'm
going to tell you. That was my job.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
I was there to prove or disprove it.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Someone did this, and if they did it, they did it.
I could not look at anything else. I had no
tunnel vision. Even if the person who did something maybe
had done something before and wasn't the best person, Well,
that's not what I was there for. I'm there for
that crime and whether or not we can prove who
(16:12):
did it.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
The reconstruction's purpose was to test the multiple scenarios laid
out for what could have happened that day, to determine
the most plausible and likely one based on the forensics
of the crime scene without emotion. Hartman brought that same
objectivity to Bond's five page letter.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
It was always my job to look at something in
the most unemotional way possible. I always was able to
really do that. I'm just not a very emotional person.
I think about who he's writing to. He's writing to
his mom and dad, and he seems still hopeless. He's
(16:55):
almost apologizing to his mom and dad that it's going
to be all brought up again. But as I read
his description of what happened, it was believable to me
as a crime scene person. If he had said that
in his interview, it would have made all the difference.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
But that letter covered just one of the scenarios about
to be reenacted.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
We're all going to get the visual of every scenario,
and that's important because you'd be amazed how you think
about something in your head. And everyone's different on how
they hold things, how they move. Movement is almost unique
to each person. So the way if she shot herself,
I wouldn't have shot myself that way. I would have
(17:41):
held again, probably differently, but that doesn't mean she didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
The crime scene reconstruction took place July fifteenth, twenty twenty one,
utilizing the exact make, model and color of the Bonds
family SUV and two actors named Nathan and Patty, who
are approximately the same height and weights Chris and Kimberly
Vaughan were at the time of the tragedy. It would
be filmed by seasoned investigative journalist, director and cameraman Ron Zimmerman.
(18:09):
In addition to having worked on America's Most Wanted for
twenty one years, Zimmerman has a resume that includes CNN
and twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
To film the recreation, we wanted to cover all possible angles,
things that you wouldn't see just by standing on one
side of the car the other. So we had three
cameras small GoPros inside the car, one on the driver's
side pillar, one near the rear view mirror, and one
on the passenger side door pillar. Then there are two
(18:40):
cameras outside the car, one outside the driver's window handheld
and another one outside the passenger's window. The reason to
have so many angles is that at certain times during
the events that happened inside the car, it's best to
see it from a different angle. Otherwise one camera another's
going to be blocked by somebody's body. And that's when
(19:02):
the truth emerges, when you can see all the possible
angles and even slow it down to take it frame
by frame.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Back to Bill Clutter, the first demonstration we to do
is test the theory of the stay that Chris unbuckled
her seat belt, bled onto the seat belt and.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Explains the pattern of bloodstains you see on it on
the passenger's seat belt.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The mood was somber and filled with tension that was
in keeping with what was being reenacted and what it
could reveal.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So I think what we'll do, Katie, is we'll position
Patty and we'll do the positioning based on the crime
scene photos. And do the first demonstration where she's seat
belted and have him on seat belt her and then
Katie get Patty positioned.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Hartman and clutter recreated each scenario to be tested by
exhaustively referencing the crime scene photos and the crime scene reports.
Each actor was placed an exact position and given the
most basic directive in terms of motive or movement.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Remember, her feet were flat, she is slapped. Yeah, okay,
so you're feeling where her arm was pushed up. What's
important is how where this left arm is?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
To test the state's theory that vonnat unbuckled his wife
after she was shot, the actress playing Kimberly was positioned
exactly as Kimberly was photographed in the vehicle, with her
left arm covering the belted buckle. The crime scene reports
specifically state that her body did not appear to have
been moved after she was shot. Hartman then walked the
(20:42):
actor playing Vaughn through his action without dictating any specific
directive in order to observe his intuitive movements.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
What we're doing is these red dots signifiant what your
injury is.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Red stickers were played based on places where both Chris
and Kim were actually shot.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
So you have an abrupt injury, all right, Okay, So
even though you can't really mimic how it would hurt,
and I don't really want you to, but what I
want you to do is when we tell you to
do something instinctively, how would you move if you had
injuries like that?
Speaker 6 (21:21):
Okay? All I want you.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
To do, don't overthink it, okay is wait wait wait.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
What I want you to do is keep in mind you've.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Been injured, right, okay, and you reach over and unbuckle
per seatbelt.
Speaker 10 (21:35):
Period.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
When you restart, like all the scenarios, this would be
run multiple times, resetting everything before each take.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
If you keep your arms this way until he gets
in here, you can actually just lean over and ick
and make.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
Sure you're in that position when we get ready.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And each take showed the same result to.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Her arm, and I did.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (22:02):
In order to get past the arm needed to move
because her elbow.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I needed to move her elbow.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, the female part of the elbow.
Speaker 11 (22:18):
Was under her yes, sir, yeah, I was under her
elbow that needed to be moved in order to get
to that button.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Each time the state's theory was tested. To unbuckle the belt,
the actor playing Christopher used his uninjured right arm to
reach under the actress's upper left arm to access the belt.
Speaker 11 (22:39):
With injuries and you know, some restricted movement to my arm,
it would be difficult, and I felt I need to
lean over this way and move a little more. So
that's how I would do it.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Doing so would have meant he would have passed through
Kimberly's blood, which was pooling on the back of the
center console, and none of Kim's blood was found on
Chris Baud's right arm. Next up was the buckling of
the belt.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Let's just instruct him to buckle her without giving him
the story of what happened, without showing him the photo
yet right to buckle her. Yeah, just to just instruct
him to.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Buckle right before we do the shocking photo.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Because Chris had said that he had his eyes, we're
going to do have him buckle her, you know, Okay,
see you see what he does.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Naturally, Hartman also had a theory. She wanted to test.
Speaker 6 (23:34):
What I want you to do now is you've just
been shot in the wrist. What's the first thing you
think you would do.
Speaker 11 (23:39):
What do you think I would put pressure on the
wound and elevate it, and you know that's what I
would do.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
You would grab the wound because you're shot. God got you, right, Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Nathan immediately raised his left wrist and grabbed it with
his right hand to stop the bleeding.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So that just happened, and I want you to reach
over and buckle her. So you've just been shot.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Now.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
I didn't tell you to keep your hand there.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
You don't have to.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
I'm just saying what your first instinct was was.
Speaker 11 (24:08):
To my first instinct is going to be to check
it out and go oh.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
But yet you still want a buckler. So what do
you do? Don't overthink it, just do it. Just do
this as quick as I could. Now, don't look.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Are you? Oh?
Speaker 10 (24:26):
Interesting?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (24:28):
Okay, okay, you didn't do anything wrong. You know what
you need.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
We'd ask you to do what you would do if
your wrist hurt and you had grabbed it.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
The reason why I was telling you what would you.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Do if you got hurt and your wrist it was
because I also think somebody would have put their hand
on top of the wound.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Each time the scenario was tested. The actor simply moved
the actress's left arm and buckled her with his right hand.
Keep in mind, both of his hands could have been
covered with his own blood had he been clasping his
wounded left wrist, so he would have left some prints
on her left arm which were not present at the
actual crime scene. Next tested was the scenario covered in
(25:04):
Chris's letter and his description of how he attempted to
buckle his deceased wife. This was the first time the
actor playing Chris was told in the actual specifics of
the case.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
And so this is a recent letter we received from Chris.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
Ravaughan, who is the person that you're playing.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
For, right, and he's serving a life sentence in Illinois.
He wrote this letter to his parents in March of
twenty twenty one, and he says, she then turned the
gun on herself and fired, and then I thought to
drive the truck. Kim was slumped, so I tried to
buckle her. My hands shook badly. I couldn't buckle the belt.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
He also should understand why his hands are shaking badly.
He's been shot twice. But your three children are all
dead in the backseat, So that's the emotion that's going
through your head and part of why you're shaking.
Speaker 11 (26:05):
Adrenaline, shaking violently.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yes, I would be.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now, your wife also has a single gunshot wound under
her chin, and this is what he's looking at, and
I apologize. Swick In order to understand Christopher Vaughn's movements,
we have to address what he was reacting to. The
(26:30):
crime scene photo of Kimberly Vaughn is extremely graphic. What
it captures in person would have been even more so.
She slumped to the left, her head tilted back over
her left shoulder and facing the driver's seat. Her left
eye is bulging from its socket, and the bullet that
entered under her chin has severed her upper palette and
(26:51):
teeth into So when we visited Chris in prison, we
ask him to explain what was going through his head,
and as an actor, I want you to see it
because it's pretty telling. He stopped, he paused, he closed
his eyes, and he cringed away from it. And then
(27:13):
he threw his right arm around her.
Speaker 12 (27:15):
As he leaned forward because he didn't want to touch
or look at her as he was buckling, and then
he used his injured left arm to assist his right arm.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So that's what we would like you to keep in mind.
Speaker 11 (27:31):
Okay, all right, all right, Yeah, there's that photo.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
One more time, one more time. Now, that's right here.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I think where Patty's face is.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
That's her. Okay, that close?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
All right, excellent.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Each and every time the actor recreated this scenario, we
watched in silence, not wanting to interrupt what was being
clearly illustrated. Each time, the movement vond described seamlessly overlapped
with the forensic in terms of where and how his
blood appeared on the seat belt, the buckle, where the
droplets were found on the passenger floor, kim shirt, and
(28:09):
the center console, in addition to how her blood transferred
to the right back of his fleece.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
Yeah, shaking, I see her and give up.
Speaker 11 (28:19):
I think that's how I would do it.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Next, they tested the state scenario of how Vaughn was
alleged to have murdered his wife. It was equally as
telling and compelling as the seat belt. They first attempted
it with Vaughn sitting in the driver's seat.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
This is the state's theory of the case that Christopher
Vaughn shot and killed his wife and then stage did
to look like a suicide because this wound under her
chin as a classic self inflicted thing. So we want
you to get her to cooperate while you kill her.
So and it has to look like a suicide. It
can't be jammed hard against her chin, because that didn't
(28:57):
happen according to the autopsy. But it was kind of
light contact, loose contact under her chin when it fired.
And of course, Patty, you're alive, and you have to
assume that you're in a struggle for.
Speaker 11 (29:09):
Survivor and your babies are back there right malware, and.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know what, we're making this assumption again, but in
these reenactments, some assumptions need to be made because we
are trying to think of how we would act as humans,
human beings. So Patty, you know your mom, you know
how you would act.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
You know it's it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Would have gotten a back seat even just acting. The
re enactment participants drew blood trying to get into position,
and it happened when the actors were seated in the
front seats and when the actor playing Chris was positioned
(29:51):
outside the passenger window. In keeping with Sergeant Gary Lawson's theory.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
All.
Speaker 13 (30:00):
Yes, how about in her here here, see you.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Eventually they came to the scenario where the actor playing
Chris shot the kids from the driver's seat to test
all possibilities.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Okay, each child is shot twice, once in the abdomen,
once in the head. So you're going to be aiming
for these targets there.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
This was one of the many moments of that day
that underscored the brutal, tragic reality of what transpired in
that suv fourteen years ago, but every possibility needed to
be explored and tested without bias or emotion.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
Think of it.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Okay, you've got three kids here, head to head, torso,
head to it and I don't know if it was
that order or not.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Okay, just I want to see.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
We want to see how you would be able to
shoot them.
Speaker 6 (30:59):
I'm not in it if you go on their theory
or not. Okay, because they think he shot himself.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
And where's he going to shoot from here?
Speaker 6 (31:07):
He's gonna sit in the driver's seat. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You need to be here because your head might be
in the way. Now you've already shot Patty.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
Okay, she's deceased. She's deceased. Seat built on lay like
you were there. You go all.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Right, Okay, ready, Bill, Okay, I'm just shot.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I just shot.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
You see how you had to Okay, that's good, that's good. Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Next, they tried out the scenario with Chris standing outside
the car. Immediately, the height of the actor portraying the
five foot nine vond stood out in start contrasts with
the size of the large s u V.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
First, with the door shot in supposed way, the windows down.
I want you to.
Speaker 11 (32:03):
Shoot the kids from this, yeah, one two, one two, one.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Okay, I'll see that he would have had to reach
in overpay and feel free to stand on the running.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
The most reach you can get.
Speaker 14 (32:20):
These are shot with representation.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
The kids were head shots.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
So what I think would be very, very difficult was
for the little boy the way I mean, two girls
are the trajectories crazy, But we're wanting to see how
he could have even done that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It's really interesting that in every single scenario he's reached
to the left of her seat. Each time the actor
portraying Chris tried to make the shots that would have
hit Blake, seated directly behind the passenger seat. He did
so by moving the gun from the center of the
vehicle to the left of the passenger seat headrest, which
was not consistent with the actual trajectory according to ballistic evidence.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
I guess I'm.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Trying to say the natural movement of a person trying
to reach back there and kill those kids for us
would have been crazy trajectory and very hard to do.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
I mean it's possible, of course, it's possible, but it
doesn't match. Yeah, he's got his hand in here and everything.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
So okay, now one more doors open and you're killing
the kids. Look that last one is what gets from
either any of these.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
You know, left arm right.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Watching the actor struggle to keep his balance on the
sideboard with his left arm as he tried to lean
into the suv far enough to make the trajectories of
the shots fired with precision over the actress's left side
called to mind the original CSI Bob Deal's words after
Sergeant Gary Lawson expressed his theory the day of the murders,
(33:59):
it was friggin' impossible. Next, Hartman gave the actress playing
Kim a directive.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
Now, ay, I'm going you're alive, turn around to kill kids.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
How would you shoot people in the backseat?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Just do the movement.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
Ready, okay, go aheadny.
Speaker 10 (34:22):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
I just wanted to see the angle, all right, Now
take it off, do something thank mm hmm. Changes the
angle totally.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Unbelted. The actress seated in the passenger seat instinctively and
rapidly recreated trajectories in keeping with the bullets fired into
the back seat if.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
He were to have come back to the car he's
getting back in and yeah, he thought he heard an
explosion or something in the car she's waiting for him.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
After hours of running multiple scenarios, the ultimate conclusion was
that the prosecution's version of what happened would have been
extremely implausible, if not impossible. Here's seasoned crime journalist Ron Zimmerman,
who filmed the reconstruction.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I've done hundreds of reenactments for shows like America's Most
Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, and this one stands above a
lot of those for a number of reasons. When you
really examine the reenactment point by point by point, from
all these different angles, you really see how Christopher's explanation
to his parents in a letter rings true. This didn't
(35:40):
come out at the time of interrogation, didn't come out
at the time of trial. He didn't try to build
a story to explain his behavior a way to investigators
like us. But it was fourteen years later that this
all came out in a letter to his parents where
he just tried to get to the honest truth of it.
And it's searingly honest that letter to his parents about
what happened. Kim shot the kids, she shot Christopher, then
(36:03):
she shot herself, and then he tried to buckle her
in and failed at that. It wasn't successful in buckling
her in, but he left the trail of blood. All
of those are things that we can see. The blood
evidence doesn't lie. It tells the story, and it tells
the true facts of what happened.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Katie Hartman agrees.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
The physicality of all of this does not match with
what the prosecution said it happened, or Lowson or any
of them.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Deal was right.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Deal was right. Deal was right.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Oh yeah, he was right.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I am the last person that's going to say a
policeman was wrong.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
I am. But when they're wrong.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They're wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Hartman believes Deal's break with the official version of events
would not have been without consequences.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Other police don't like other police that.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
Aren't being honest.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
So Deal sadly he was in a vine a career
ending bad.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
But it's my opinion that Deal was right.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Really, the evidence shows that it did not happen the
way the prosecution said.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
We proved that, and the crime scene reconstruction aligned with
Christopher Bond's five page letter. Here's Bill Clutter.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
It is my opinion that Chris's statement to his parents
disclosed in March of twenty twenty one, does explain how
the blood got on the seatbelt and the left leg
and arm of his wife. That does explain all of
the blood that was found of Chris's and Bob Deal
(37:40):
had it right along. The crime scene was consistent with
the murder suicide. The state's theory as to how Chris's
blood got on the seatbelt and on his wife's body
is it simply didn't happen the way they said it did.
The seat belt was such a critical piece of evidence
that based on that alone, I think we've proven the
(38:03):
sufficient evidence to vacate the conviction.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I called Gale and Pierre with my thoughts as soon
as I got back to the hotel, I can tell
you with absolute confidence, having seen what I saw today,
that we're able to very effectively show what happened that
day was not what the courtroom was privy to.
Speaker 10 (38:26):
Oh my gosh, Lauren, that's It's like I knew it
in my home and I knew he didn't do it.
Right Now we have evidence for you know, everybody to
look at.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Once Bill had put together an initial summary of the
crime scene reconstruction finds, we reached out to update Jason Vlahm.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I sent you a draft of my report. But in
a nutshell, we've tested the state's theory that Christopher unbuckled
his wife's seatbelt somehow to stage the crime scene. It
was interesting that when we gave the actor instructions to
unbuckle the seat belt the passenger's seat belt, he uses
(39:27):
his right hand, has to actually move the left arm
of our actress and depresses it with his right hand
without a left arm, which is bleeding over the body
of Kimberly. So that really debunks the state's theory that
Christopher staged the crime scene by unbuckling his wife's seat belt.
(39:50):
The second demonstration we did was to role play what
Chris described that he reached around his wife to the
passenger's seatbelt in an attempt to buckle her in because
he thought about driving away to get help. The movements
of that scenario really explains how Chris's passive blood drops
(40:14):
from his left wrist blood over the top of his wife,
because in making that reach, the left hand arcs over
the female actress, and it's totally consistent with where we
find Chris's blood.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So that letter and his explanation of the movement overlap
seamlessly in Bill's opinion and in Katie Hartman the CSI
from Kentucky, and we were able to repeat it multiple times.
Speaker 14 (40:47):
I can't help thinking, as we're having this conversation that
probably a significant percentage of the general public believes or
wants to believe that this type of stuff is done
and pre conviction right or pre trial, and that our
system works because people get a fair shake and you know,
(41:10):
you get to present this evidence and CSI. I think
we need to believe it works properly, because otherwise the
default is to say, oh, no, this could happen to me,
and nobody wants to believe that. Nobody can believe that.
I think that this case is so important because Christopher
could be any one of us. He was a guy
who I think may be easier to relate to than
(41:34):
some other people that are caught up in our system.
For a lot of people, you know, here's a guy
on the way to an amusement park with his family,
working a good job, seemingly American dream type of stuff.
In an instant, everything turns to shit. Rights It's a lot.
(41:56):
So I'm sure for your audience this is a lot
to process, you know, And for Chris, he's still living
it every minute of every day.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That reality was underscored by another takeaway from the crime
scene reconstruction. When we tasked the actors to have that
final shot, both actors drew blood in just trying to
get into position that there was just in the act
of trying to put the gun underneath. There was bruising
(42:28):
and there was blood, and they weren't going at it
full strength. So it is very telling that there is
no sign of a struggle. Kimberly Bond's nails were scraped,
There is no DNA belonging to Chris Vaughn. There were
no scratch marks, there was no pulled hair, there were
no bruises on their arm. There was nothing to suggest
(42:48):
that she was held in place while a gun was
placed ever so slightly apart from the soft area of
her chin.
Speaker 14 (42:56):
Any mother would bite to the death in a situation
like that, because she's got her kids. Whether the kids
were still alive or not, in whichever scenario you want
to paint, if they had already been shot, she would
have been like a cat right with the claws. I mean,
think about any parent, right, what they would do to somebody,
(43:16):
regardless if it's their husband or anyone who had just
murdered their children, right, or if they're still alive, you'd
be fighting to keep them alive and to keep this
gun away from yourself and them. And Bill, let me
ask you this, because you're the expert, right, So I'm
just thinking she was shot under the chin, right, which
is a classic thing that people do when they take
(43:38):
their own lives with a gun. Not everybody, but it's
sort of common. But my question is just in terms
of strength and leverage, right. I mean, Chris is not
a huge powerful guy, and if he was to stick
his arm up in a position where the gun would
be pointing upwards, his arm would be weak in that position, right,
And she would have a relatively easy time because she
(43:59):
would have the leverage to be able to take her
hand with her downward strength and push his arm down right.
At a very minimum, the shot would have been wild
because he would have had no ability to keep his
hand with the gun positioned under her chin for even
a second long enough they got off a shot if
(44:19):
she was making even a modest attempt to push his
arm down.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
No, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 14 (44:24):
Let's think of this logically. So then he's going to
sort of gently go, honey, hold still for a second.
I'm just going to gently place my hand with this pistol,
which you can plainly see up under your chin, very
you know, calmly, and you just hold motionless.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
No, I mean no, Yeah, that didn't happen.
Speaker 14 (44:45):
As you pull back these layers, it becomes so painfully obvious.
I mean, I'm just going to come out and say,
this is not what happened, and that's why we're here.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
As I finished this episode, I reach back out to
Katie Hartman for her final analysis. After having some time
to process both the reconstruction and Bill's report.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
My thoughts from that day were many.
Speaker 9 (45:10):
What was alleged to have happened by the prosecution, we
were able to disprove and what was the defense's explanation
wasn't fully brought to a conclusion either.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
In your opinion, based on what the crime scene reconstruction revealed,
do you believe that there is reasonable doubt that Christopher
Vond killed his wife and three children that day?
Speaker 6 (45:42):
Very much?
Speaker 3 (45:43):
So.
Speaker 9 (45:43):
We went from everything from Christopher as the prosecution alleged
to shooting from the outside. We went to Christopher shooting
from the inside, Christopher shooting with the passenger door opened
and shooting Kim and the kids, Christopher with the or closed,
to shooting Kim and the character. None of those things
(46:04):
were possible with the angles that the three d presented.
It was shocking, to be honest, that it was even
brought to trial and it ended up at the end
of the day the most logical way was that Kim
did it. And that's hard for.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Me to say that did some murder suicide.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
Yeah, and that's hard because it's terrible that these three
babies died.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
But it's hard to.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
Look at it and see that.
Speaker 9 (46:41):
The man's in prison because a lot of people got
a tunnel vision and didn't didn't listen, and had already
figured out in their minds what happened is It?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
On the final episode of Murder in Illinois. The daunting
hurdles that remain for Christopher Vaughan, the.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Prosepcutors who got it wrong are always the last to
admit that they made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Are met with some impressive offers of assistance.
Speaker 14 (47:32):
We've had nine exonerations, and my goal is to make
mister Vaughan the tenth.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
And a very significant spotlight. Murder in Illinois is a
production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers are Lauren Priie Pacheco and
Taylor Chacoine. Written by Lauren Prei Pacheco and Matthew Riddle,
Story editing by Matthew Riddle, editing and sound design by
Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoyne. Featuring music by Cicada Rhythm
(48:00):
New compositions engineered and mixed by Evan Tyer and Taylor
Chicoran Uzo nro Down Meri Guzo row.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Down on me ri Guo.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
to you.
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