Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In two thousand and one, authorities arrived at the home
of the Bluestone family to find multiple people dead and
even more injured. Everyone was shocked to learn that Carl
Bluestone had killed his wife and two of his four
children before killing himself, as they believed that the Bluestones
were a picture perfect family. They quickly learned that not
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only had the family been experiencing domestic violence, but that
the authorities knew about it and had done nothing to
stop it. This is monsters. Carl Bluestone was born in
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nineteen sixty in Kent, England. It's been reported that he
was friendly in his youth and regularly volunteered in the community.
He joined the Kent Police Force in nineteen eighty seven
and had married a woman who isn't identified in any source.
He had a daughter named Samantha with that woman before
they divorced for unknown reasons. There was no mention of
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domestic abuse in that marriage, but there definitely was in
his second marriage. He had gone on to marry Jill,
and very quickly that marriage turned violent. It seems that
Jill was already pregnant with their first child when the
couple got married in or around nineteen ninety four. She
was a successful member of the Essex County Council and
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had been promoted during the time they were married. She
had a higher annual salary than her husband, and some
speculate that there was some jealousy in him regarding that fact.
Carl had been a police constable for seven years by
the time they married, and he was well liked by
his peers and had no negative marks on his record.
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He worked on a tactical team that would carry out
more high risk tasks amongst the police force. It was
only weeks after they got married that Carl attacked Jill,
who was five months pregnant at the time. Carl had
kicked his wife in the stomach and was arrested, but
not charged because Jill declined to press charges. He was
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arrested again in nineteen ninety nine, that time for attacking
Jill with a meat cleaver and attempting to sexually assault her. Again,
Jill declined to press charges. Only a few weeks later,
there was another altercation and Jill got into her vehicle
in an attempt to get away, but Carl smashed the windshield.
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Then he went back into the house and started throwing
things around like a toddler having a tantrum. Unfortunately, one
of his children was in the path of something he
threw and received a minor injury. He was rested, but
while being driven to the police station, he was able
to take a bunch of pills and was rushed to
the hospital. It's unclear why someone who was under arrest
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and in a police car had access to a bunch
of pills, but here we are. He took fourteen weeks
of sick leave after that, and Social services investigated but
determined there was insufficient evidence to take the case further.
They determined that he could return to work at the
end of those fourteen weeks. Now it's very unlikely that
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those were the only instances of domestic abuse happening in
the Bluestone household. They were just the ones that police
responded to. Carl was said to have been controlling, and
some of his coworkers said that it was no secret
that he slept with other women. Most people, though, said
Carl was a nice guy in a good police constable.
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Their neighbors said the family seemed very happy, and their
nanny would say quote they seemed to be the perfect
family with ties highly successful parents and four lovely children.
But that's a common view of a dysfunctional family to
the outside world. Most abusers are very good at playing
the nice guy to people around them, and they abused
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tend to hide the situation out of fear. So many times,
a relationship that's abusive behind closed doors very much looks
like the picture perfect family to the outside world. It
may be why people like myself and probably many of
you who are watching or listening, tend to become suspicious
of a relationship that seems too perfect. Fortunately, despite our
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suspicious natures, there are families that are perfectly healthy and happy.
It's not a terrible thing to stay vigilant, though. In
the years leading up to the murders, Carl became increasingly
unhappy that Jill was making more money than he was.
She had been advancing in her career while he had
not had a promotion in quite a while. It's not
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uncommon for contry trolling men to feel emasculated by their
wives making more money than them. They see their employment
as a sign of who has more control of the family,
and of course, to them, they were the only one
who should have control. He also became paranoid that Jill
was having an affair with a coworker. It's very common
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for a person who cheats on their partner to believe
that their partner is also cheating on them. It's a
psychological behavior where someone attributes their own negative actions onto
someone else. It's generally done to minimize their own transgressions
by believing their partners also being unfaithful. It can also
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be a way for the cheater to take the focus
off of themselves as their partner has to focus on
defending their own actions. There's actually a psychological disorder called
Othello syndrome, which causes the sufferer to have obsessive, intrusive
thoughts that their partner is being unfaithful. Now, it's unlikely
that Karl was suffering from Othello sin is that usually
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doesn't mean the sufferers cheating themselves. They have just become
convinced their partner is cheating for no verifiable reason. It
sounds much more likely that Carl was projecting due to
his own unfaithfulness. Jill told a friend that she believed
that Carl had been recording their conversations and she felt
increasingly unsafe. Jill had at one point told her sister
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in law that it was safer to string Carl along
than to leave him, but she eventually had enough. His
infidelity had gotten to the point that he had spent
the previous Christmas holiday with a girlfriend instead of his family.
In June of two thousand and one, Jill told Carl
that she intended to leave him and take the kids.
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He responded by strangling her to the point of unconsciousness.
At some point during the attack, he told her quote,
there is no divorce. The only way out is death.
On August twenty eighth, two thousand and one, Carl went
to work as usual, and after his shift, he went
to the local pub with some colleagues. After a few pints,
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he went home and, as far as anyone else knew,
was finishing out his day like any other. But this
wasn't any other day, because Carl seems to have already
decided it was going to be the last day of
his and his family's lives. Earlier that day, Carl had
stopped into a local building supplier and purchased a length
of rope. The shop assistant asked him what the rope
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was for, and Carl explained that he was going to
lift some furniture. When the assistant asked him the weight
of the furniture, Carl responded, quote my weight with that
purchase and what the rope ended up being used for.
It was clear that Carl had planned out the attack.
It was learned that Carl had sat down on the
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couch and watched his favorite television show before starting an
argument with Jill. It's been reported that Carl said quote,
I heard about you today, but it's unknown what that meant,
possibly something to do with the recordings he was allegedly making.
That was when he began attacking her with a hammer,
and at the same time, he grabbed their six year
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old daughter, Jessica and slammed her head into the floor.
She managed to escape and run out of the house.
She would later say that her mother had told her
to run and get the police, so we know Jill
was still alive at that point. The family lived in
a semi detached house, and Jessica went to their neighbor
and banged on the door. The resident, Ernest Lane, opened
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the door to see a terrified young girl who said, quote,
my daddy is hitting my mummy. Please call the police.
After Ernest made the call, Jessica went on to say, quote,
Daddy banged my head on the wooden floor. I cannot
get Mommy out of my mind. She had blood coming
out of her head. I don't want Daddy to kill mummy.
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Investigators estimate that Jill had received about ten blows to
the head with the hammer, but then when Jessica escaped,
he went on to attack their three other children. He
struck them all repeatedly in the head with the hammer,
with three year old Henry receiving the worst of it
ten blows to the little boy's head. Then Carl returned
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to Jill, hit her about three more times with the hammer,
and then struck her in the neck with the claw
end of the tool. Police arrived at the scene expecting
another case of domestic violence, but were met with a
horrific scene. They found Jill lying dead on the floor
in a pool of her own blood. Then they found
three year old Henry at the foot of the stairs
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in his pajamas. He had been bludgeoned ten times and
was already dead. Upstairs, seven year old Jack was still
in the bottom bunk of his bed, curled up in
the fetal position. He was severely injured, as was eighteen
month old Chandler, who was found in his crib in
a different room. The one person the constables couldn't find, though,
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was Carl. The neighbor Ernest had taken a look at
the house after he had phoned the police, and he
heard some movement in the garage. He passed that information
along to the constables on the scene, and it was
there that they found the body of Carl. He had
used the rope he had purchased earlier to hang himself. Jessica, Jack,
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and Chandler were all rushed to the hospital, where Jessica
and Jack recovered from their wounds. Sadly, Chandler died at
the hospital. Psychologists have said that the murder weapon used
showed that he had an exceptional amount of rage towards
his family. Studies have shown that the most common method
of murder with family annihilators was stabbing, followed by carbon
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monoxide poisoning. Other common methods are suffocation or arson. A
lot of those are ways that someone can kill while
staying fairly detached. Stabbing is more personal, but can still
be carried out much more quickly. To beat someone to
death with a hammer needs so much personal rage toward
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the victim. On top of that, family annihilators, who are
the husband and father commonly commit murders because the marriage
is in danger of ending and they have the mentality
that they don't want anyone else to have their wife
or family. It's a form of possession, and when they
decide to end their own life, which happens in over
eighty percent of male family annihilator cases, they believe they
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need to take their family with them. Of course, in
that case, Carl could have found a quick and less
painful way to kill his family, but he chose to
beat them repeatedly with the hammer. It seemed as though
Carl blamed his wife and children for the breakdown in
his life and took his rage out on them. With
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the perpetrator dead, a Gravesend County Court held an inquist
to determine what could have been done to prevent the tragedy.
It was identified that four incidents of domestic violence perpetrated
by Carl Bluestone were brought to the attention of the
Kent County Constabulary and all were recorded. In two of
those incidents, reference was made to the Crown Prosecution Service,
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who decided to take no further action. No disciplinary action
was undertaken in relation to any of the incidents. It's
easy to say in hindsight that the authorities should have
acted in some way to prevent the murders, but it's
not guaranteed that they could have been prevented. I agree
that Carl should have suffered consequences for his actions, but
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that might have only sped up the ultimate tragedy that
ended up happening. It's possible that they could have been
able to get Carl some type of mental health treatment,
but if Carl wasn't open to that, he wouldn't have changed.
His anger could have risen more quickly, escalating the domestic
violence to murder sooner than it happened. Again, I do
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believe that Carl's domestic violence arrests should have been taken
more seriously, but it's impossible able to say how things
would have changed if they had been. Ultimately, at the
end of the day, we can never know exactly why
Carl Bluestone did what he did, and we can never
know for sure what would have been different if authorities
had taken different action. The Kent Police Department released a
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statement saying quote, an inner agency review into the events
leading up to the murders was commissioned and concluded, amongst
other findings, that there were missed opportunities for early intervention
to break the cycle of violence. It seems that the
Association of Chief Police Officers have implemented suggestions in order
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to minimize the risk of further tragedies and highlight the
lessons to be learned from this particular case. We cannot
predict the future, but we can take reports of domestic
abuse more seriously to help reduce the amount of abusers
who go full monster and resort to murder. If you're
the victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to someone
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for help. Please talk to your local shelter, Call the
National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine
nine safe that's one eight hundred seven nine nine seven
two three three, or you can go to the hotline
dot org to chat with someone online. If you're having
feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even just
need someone to talk to, please contact your local mental
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health facility call nine one one, or call the National
Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine eight eight In
the United States, they're available twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week, and we'll talk to you about
any mental health issue you might be facing. If you're
a member of the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression,
or are in need of any support, please contact the
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LGBT National Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four
three four five six four, or go to LGBT Hotline
dot org. Thanks so much for letting me tell you
this story. If you're a fan of true crime, you
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but you can check it out if you like interesting
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