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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
And it's morbid in the morning. It sure is.
It is, so we might sound a little froggy, but we're going to get out of it.
Don't worry. Just a little ribbit ribbit.
I'm coming out of my bronchitis turned walking pneumonia phase.
You know, feeling good, taking the antibiotics that I have to take.
You're a wild girl. I'm doing it. I feel much better.
I don't sound as sultry, but, you know, you still do pass that.
Thank you. I appreciate you have a sultry natural voice, Lisa.
I appreciate that. Get it. But I think we wanted to start this episode out Just chatting really quick about like some pretty heavy shit.
Yeah. Uh, we're not gonna talk about it for too long, just because, like, it's... it's like... really just the saddest thing that we've all been living the last couple of weeks or few weeks, it should be.
I mean, for... Years for a very long time.
But like the last few weeks, I think like there's been a couple of things that have just been like, what the fuck?
I mean, the first one that's been like on my mind for weeks and I've just been like, holy shit. was the Topps Grocery Store, like, racist massacre in Buffalo.
That was shocking. And unfortunately, it was one of those things where it's like, oh, another one.
That's another one. That's the thing with all of these lately.
I'm like, oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, we haven't learned anything yet.
Oh, okay. Cool. Okay. But then, like, this one was, like, mostly elderly people.
Right, just grocery shopping. And it was just like most of them were just like, and all of them were just at the fucking grocery store.
Because that's the thing. Everywhere you go now, you have to think about that in the back of your head.
Like 10 people killed. just going to the grocery and killed by a racist piece of shit. who literally had racial slurs written on his gun.
And, like, now all this shit is coming out the, like, you know... I always, like... it's hard to like get into with like when people will say like, oh, he was radicalized online during the pandemic.
And it's like, But you have to have something in you.
Yeah, of course you do. You don't just get turned to that.
No. You're an evil person if you're able to be radicalized into that, into being that... like racist and evil of a human that you're just going to go kill a bunch of elderly black people who are shopping for fucking groceries.
Like, if you're capable of doing that, then something has always been wrong.
Something's wrong. Always. But and then it's like and also like this whole like during the pandemic, he was bored.
Like it's not the pandemic's fault. Yeah, it's like, no.
And you know what? You're a piece of shit.
And you know what? Yeah, the internet is shit.
It really is. And people are shit on the internet.
It's true. I think we're all seeing that.
Like, it's just like getting worse and worse.
Mm-hmm. And I mean, the only thing, and now this community has to struggle to figure out what they do with Topps Grocery store.
Right. And it's such an important place.
It's important and people need it for food.
It's a place like with a community like fought to get open to begin with.
And then it's like, There's something called like a food desert that can happen when like these stores go away.
Right. And it's like people don't won't have access to food.
And it's like the things they need. And it's like, but now they're trying to figure out, do we reopen?
When do we reopen? What happens here? And these people that own this grocery store and work for this grocery store shouldn't have to be faced with that.
No. Because of one racist piece of shit who just ruined everything.
Yeah, and it's like the whole, like, he wrote a manifesto.
Get fucked with your manifesto. Like, these stupid... And it's like, God, stop making... The word manifesto makes it seem like... so much more dramatic and cool.
He wrote in his journal about his hatred.
It's not a fucking manifesto. Stop using the word manifesto.
He wrote just like he spewed hate. That's what he did.
He just spewed hate vomit all over the place.
And it sounds like, though, the community is a really great community.
And it looks like they're trying to find a way to make this instead of like a place of sadness now and loss, which turn it around.
That's hard. Because it is a place of sadness and loss right now.
I mean, somebody, I mean, people lost their grandparents.
Like one lady was 86 years old. She had just left her husband at the nursing home and was stopping on her way home just to grocery shop.
That's heartbreaking. Yeah. Somebody else found out that their loved one had died by seeing them shot on social media.
What the fuck? Where are we at? Where are we at?
Yeah, we need a huge overhaul of so many things.
And that's like... I can't even get into it, but it looks like the community is trying to figure out, you know, do we open scholarships in their names?
That would be so great. And they're thinking about doing like murals of their faces on the walls to make it a place of like remembrance and like...
Honoring them, it's going to be so hard.
It's going to be really hard, but I'm glad they're looking. to do something like that because it's just such a necessary thing.
Of course. But like, I can't stop thinking of them, and I can't stop thinking of all their families.
Their loved one just went to the grocery store.
Like, I can't get over it. And it's like, you live to be 87 or, like, however old...
And this is how your life ends. That's the thing.
It's like you're 86 years old. old, you're however old and you've lived this long and some piece of shit takes you out while you're grocery shopping.
Who claims that he got bored on the internet and it like comes in and takes you out.
Like that's insane. And then... Of course, the newest thing that has happened that made us want to like talk about all of this because it just was like these two things just really hit. was the Uvalde elementary school shooting in Texas that happened.
21 kids. and adults. I never thought we would see another elementary school shooting after Sandy Hook.
Like, what? But when nothing was done after Sandy Hook?
Yeah. What? I mean, it's... I this one I can't even like I feel like I'm just like at a loss with this one because it's like I have six-year-olds who are in kindergarten, you know what I mean?
Like I have a two and a half year old that's going to be entering school.
I don't know how anybody sends their kid to school right now.
I don't want to. I don't know how you do.
And like parents shouldn't have to think about that anymore.
And teachers shouldn't have to think about that.
This is my thing. Teachers took their jobs because they love teaching. children and they love teaching children.
They do a job that no matter what, 99% of us can't do.
No. And we all learned that during the pandemic when we had to do some homeschooling.
Everybody figured out, holy shit. Why the fuck aren't teachers being paid a billion dollars?
Legit. Legit. They have the fucking hardest job anyways.
And then now they are expected to take the place of police. and expected to be bulletproof vests for our children.
Like, these teachers are jumping on top of kids to take bullets for them, which...
It's like I shouldn't, teachers should not have to do that.
That should not be expected of them. And on top of that, they're paid shit.
And they were like forced to like buy everything for their own classroom.
Classrooms buy their own security shit now because now they have to make sure that they have bats available and shit to like... make sure that they can hide kids.
And on top of that, we're putting kids into such stressful situations with like immersive. trauma basically with these drills.
Like I understand that these drills need to be done because what's going on, what have, because of what is going on, excuse me.
But what the fuck? Like, where do we live every Well, that's the thing.
It's like, okay, so we're going to teach seven-year-olds to be reactive to an assault rifle instead of being proactive and making assumptions. that that doesn't need to be a thing.
Instead of the adults being proactive. We're relying on the kids here.
I remember we didn't start doing those kind of drills until high school because really there weren't that many school shootings at that point, but then they started happening more and more.
And I think I started maybe like sophomore year.
I was, as a 16, 17-year-old, terrified. Of course.
I can't imagine a fucking six year old, a five year old, hiding under their desk and like, how do you explain that to them?
Well, that's the thing. And it's like, My kids are six.
They don't even know what a gun is, really.
No. They really don't. They don't have any kind of real conception of what it is.
We literally don't even have like water guns.
No, like we just don't. And it's like not like, you know.
It's just been a thing that like. I've never had to tell them what a gun is because we don't watch things like they don't watch things with like people getting shot.
So it's really not a thing that needed to be said.
And now it's like they're going to go to school and come home one day and be like, Mom? what is a gun and why is a bad guy going to come into my classroom and I have to hide from them?
They're going to be like, what the fuck? they're gonna be scared to go to school and then how are they gonna learn like all of these kids are gonna have crazy anxiety all the time when they start realizing how awful and this is happening.
Well, and also I hate that I can't Tell them that it won't happen.
No. I can't. How could you? And I can't... If I tell them this isn't going to happen...
How can I be sure? I can't. And I don't lie to my kids.
And if anything... all we've seen throughout the history of all this is it's going to happen and it's going to keep happening again and again and again because no one is doing anything to stop it we're all just saying wow that was really sad and everybody gets up in arms for a week and then we just let it go and these 9-, 10-, and 11-year-olds that all just got shot in their fourth-grade classroom while watching Lilo and the Stitch. are just going to be names that we talk about every once in a while, like later down the line, like, yeah, I remember that was really sad.
Right. But it's like, and these teachers that sacrificed themselves and tried their damnedest to protect those kids. when the police in Texas sat outside for 40 plus minutes.
That's inexcusable. I don't know anybody who could ever defend that. kind of shit no and actually i said and i just said did nothing i shouldn't say did nothing they were arresting parents that were begging them to go in there and save their children yeah And it's like the parents are willing to go in there.
They did. And also, it's one guy, everybody.
You're an entire police force. Right. Go in there.
I know that's what it is. I was talking about it with John, and John was like, yeah, nobody wanted to be that one guy. that went in there.
Nobody wanted to be the first one when that's their job.
Because they're scared because he has an assault rifle.
It's just like the police don't even have those.
The whole thing is infuriating. But and it's just like my like my brain starts to hurt thinking about it.
And I just want to scream about it all the time.
Like I get so fucking angry about it. It's just it shouldn't be happening, and, like, we really got to, like...
We got to do something in this country, guys, like about a lot of things, like a lot of things.
But that is top of the list. And it all kind of trickles down like, you know, this kid was being a fucking creep online. and he was posting a bunch of threats and shit online and nothing got caught.
There needs to be a big overhaul of a lot of things here in many different areas.
But we're... Okay. So... Very frustrating.
Very, very frustrating. Again, nothing, like I don't want to be, I can't even say like my thoughts are with these families.
They are, but like that doesn't matter. It doesn't. do anything.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't bring my feelings back.
And I don't want to be the person sitting here saying thoughts and prayers.
No, because I don't I don't want to do that.
I want something to happen so that like these kids didn't die in vain.
No. And it's like. God, it's like, this is just, it's really sucks.
It sucks. And seeing like, One of the fathers was on and just breaking down, being like, I just want my little girl back.
I just want my baby back. And like, I couldn't protect her.
Like, I'm about to cry. Yeah, of course.
Because you're thinking about your own children.
You can't protect them. You're not there.
No. Sorry. It's just like... No, it's insane.
I can't... Every day that I drop them off at school...
You think about it. I can't be there to protect you.
And it sucks. And it's like, we shouldn't be feeling this way.
And you know what really fucking sucks is people will talk about this for a little bit.
And then the next thing will happen and people will start talking about something else like this never happened and nothing will come of it.
And I know it's hard. With the way things are going right now.
I know it's hard because we're at the same place.
I don't know what to do. I'm just... We feel like we're screaming into the void at this point, but like something got to be done and if we if something comes about that we can pass along to like spur some action we'll do it but like We're just all trying here.
And I know there's some GoFundMes and stuff, so we'll try to wrangle those.
Definitely. and throw them in the show notes and we'll try to like let you guys know where where you can because we're we're in the same boat we're just trying to figure out where we can help we want How we can help.
We're just trying to figure it out with you guys.
So I mean, we'll all kind of do this together. hopefully we'll all figure it out together.
Right. And we just like had to talk about it because we were like, How could we not?
How could we sit here on a true, like, you know, how could we sit here and not say something about it?
And it's like hard because it's like so many things happen in the world.
Like we can't touch upon everything that happens in true crime. news because that would be the entire show.
Of course. Seven days a week. Like we'd be doing 12 hours a day of just being like, and this happened and this happened.
But there's some things that just like need to be at least mentioned here and talked about just so we can all go like, yeah. fuck, like, what can we do?
And these were two things that have been like weighing heavily on my brain for weeks here.
So yeah, with that, I, you know, we're all in this together, hopefully, and we'll figure it out together and hopefully something will come out.
I really hope something will come out of it.
After every school shooting that's happened, like, come on.
And just, like, mass shootings. I was going to say mass shooting, exactly, because we were just talking about a grocery store shooting.
All these like, you know, there's all these hate inspired shootings that are happening and it's like getting worse and worse.
But something's got to happen. Something's got to give here.
So... We'll share whatever we can share.
If you guys have anything you want to share with us that you want us to share, we'll try to share too. um like gofundmes and all that for the families but yeah we just had to touch upon it um And we'll go into our episode now, but that was just something we just had to get off our chest, you guys. this podcast is sponsored by better help life can be overwhelming and many people are getting burned out without even knowing it Symptoms can include lack of motivation, feeling helpless or trapped, detachment, fatigue, more.
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That's betterhelp.com slash morbid. And unfortunately, there's no really good way to segue out of that.
No. But it was necessary to talk about. There's not.
We're going to talk about another terrible thing today, and it is the murder of a man named Leith von Stein.
And it is incredibly senseless, as pretty much all murders are.
Yeah, pretty much. So Leith von Stein was born in Queens, New York on March 16th, 1946.
His parents were Howard and Marie von Stein.
That's a great last name. I was literally just going to say.
You know how I feel about a Vaughn last name.
Yeah, a Vaughnstein. Vaughn or Van, I'm into it.
Now, both Howard and Marie were from pretty well-off families.
So when Howard's brother Richard started his own dry cleaning company, it wasn't a shocker that the company automatically started doing great business.
So Richard ended up convincing his brother Howard to join forces.
And he was like, come on, move on out to Winston-Salem. to help me grow Camel City dry cleaners.
Yeah. Why wouldn't you? Absolutely. So after talking it over, Howard and Marie agreed.
They were like, I think this would be a good choice for our small family, our cute little fam here. and it would set them up for a good future.
So with that, they packed up their car, little baby Leith, and they headed out to North Carolina.
And over the years, I'm sure they were very happy that they did so because the business did incredibly well.
It ended up being one of the most successful dry cleaning businesses in America.
Damn. Which like. Okay. So there were multiple branches.
There was close to 150 employees between all of them.
And that meant that someday little Leith von Stein would inherit a good amount of money.
Mm-hmm. And with that comes not good things.
Yes. Great responsibility. But before that, he had a lot to get through in life.
He had a pretty typical high school experience.
He played football. had a great group of friends.
He was said to be super kind, somebody who was just easy to get along with, like very talkative.
Everyone thought he had a great sense of humor and that he was very quick witted.
So after he graduated high school, he tried out college And he decided about upon entering the School of Engineering at North Carolina State University. but it was all very overwhelming and he really wasn't doing so well.
But this was right around the time of the Vietnam War.
So instead of finishing up college, he actually ended up getting drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. okay so he was sent over to germany and luckily he was mostly able to do administrative work until he was honorably discharged in 1970.
Now, after that, He went back to college.
This time he went to Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
And while he was there, he realized that he had a knack for computers.
Once he finished his degree, he got a job at this insurance company called Intagon, and it was there that he met a fellow computer lover. bonnie bates pritchard i love it a single mother of two Now, Bonnie was also from North Carolina.
She grew up in a town called Welcome. Yep.
Like, how cute is that? Welcome. It's a very rural part of North Carolina filled with like...
Yes, exactly. Filled with rural jurors and a lot of farmland.
Now growing up, Bonnie really loved animals, she loved reading, she loved computers.
So she had been with Intagon for a while.
She got hired two years after she finished high school.
So pretty much right out of high school.
She dove into adulthood really quickly after she graduated.
She got married pretty young to a man named Steve Pritchard.
He was actually still a senior when they decided to get married.
Oh damn. And less than a year and a half later, Bonnie was pregnant with their first child, a boy that they decided to name Christopher.
Now, about two years later, they had a daughter named Angela.
But things were already headed downhill as far as the marriage was concerned at this point.
And right around the time Chris turned four, Bonnie and Steve called it quits.
And they were officially divorced around the time that he turned five.
Okay. Now, it would be about three more years, give or take, before Bonnie would meet Leith and working together.
But when they did, they hit it off right away.
Like they were constantly chatting with each other.
They kind of started with like a friendship, which... is so important.
Adorable. And then they started dating in October of 1976.
And they were married by August of 79. So they dated for a little while.
I was going to say that's like a. a perfect little like jump into that.
Yeah, I thought so too. Now, in the beginning of things, Leith took on a father role for Chris and Angela because their biological father had pretty much fallen out of the picture after the divorce.
But as the kids got older and they moved to their teenage years, they didn't really like their stepdad, even though he had been around pretty much forever.
Both of them started drinking and smoking in high school.
They were dabbling in and other things like psychedelics.
And in Chris's case, he was doing cocaine right out of high school. which obviously only led to further tension between them and their parents.
Yeah. Like, your parents aren't going to be stoked when you're 18 ripping lines of Coke and dropping tabs of acid.
No, I can safely say no. Same. And especially Leith, like he's the father role in this house. yeah and he's trying and I'm sure as like a step parent you're trying like to have a handle on the whole situation.
You're like, man, this is not working out.
And it's hard, I'm sure, too, because it's like you want to have a handle on the situation and you have been around since they were little.
But technically, you're not their dad. And they have that in their back pocket to use.
And you know they can pull it out whenever.
Yeah. So Chris goes off to college at North Carolina State, and he only dives way more into drinking and doing drugs with his friends. but he also finds a newfound love for the game Dungeons and Dragons.
He had played when he was younger, but When he got to college, he met other people that would play, and they just, like, loved it.
That, like... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
No, you're good. But I was just going to say I was watching Stranger Things, like the new season.
Oh, everybody is stoked. Yeah, it's really good so far.
But Dungeons and Dragons is like a big part of it.
Oh, is it really portion of it? Yeah, it's like a very big part of it.
I didn't know that. watch it you're just like damn that is a very intricate game i have never played dungeons and dragons You know what's funny is my dad, I don't know if he still is, but he used to be a Dungeons and Dragons head.
That's, it's like... Very intense. It looks fun, too.
And it looks like you have to be extraordinarily creative.
Because you're making up your own words. world yeah and like quick on your feet like like with your you know decision making and all that It's just like watching it, I was like, wow, like this takes like a lot.
I feel like people who play Dungeons & Dragons don't get that kind of, like, you know... credit for like actually being like, like that's a very intense thing to do.
It's not just a board game. And a lot of people treat it that way and they treat it like it's like, oh, that's so nerdy.
Oh, you're just pretending to be like elves or something.
It's like, no, you're You have to come up with George R. R. Martin style backstories and histories.
Literally, you're writing, you're basically writing your own script in your head you're writing like an epic fantasy novel every week for these things it's just like wild so if you play dungeons and dragons like Hats off to you, man.
That sounds rad. And it sounds like you're a pretty intense person, like in a good way.
Shout out to you, Dab. Shout out to D&Ders out there.
D&D heads everywhere. So yeah, not these ones, though.
Not these. I mean, there's bad eggs in everything.
Yeah, of course. But I just wanted to clarify, like, hats off not to you guys.
Not to these guys. So he and his friends, Chris and his friends, they would get baked, they'd drop some acid, and they'd spend hours in their fantasy world Which also, I'm like, wow, you would drop acid and then play this game?
Yeah, that sounds intense. I don't know.
I don't know about that. I understand getting baked before playing.
That'd be a great experience. I guess that.
I feel like I would get really freaked out if I dropped acid and played Dungeons and Dragons.
I feel like that's a recipe for a bad trip.
Yeah. Like I'd be like, oh no, am I actually dead?
Like, did you really kill my character? Was that actually a beast that slayed me?
I don't know. Is that a beast over there?
Look, over there. Over there. So scary. But they really loved it.
Now, because he was so involved though in like everything except his academic career, Chris's grades started to suffer.
Yeah. And they got so bad within his first semester or first year at college. that he ended up having to do summer school.
Like your first year. I'm like, that's a bad hit.
Yeah, that's a bad beginning. So Bonnie and Leif, they were less than pleased.
Yeah. Especially because they were not only paying for Chris's entire tuition, but they were also giving him 50 bucks a week for spending money. mom, man.
I'm sorry. When I got to college, I was in fucking high school.
I wasn't getting spending money. As soon as I had a job of my own, it was like, cool.
That's how you make your spending money.
There you go. Yeah. But Chris, not so much.
So when he got home on break, tension in the house was obviously at an all-time high.
Bonnie and Leith wanted to talk to him about what the fuck he was doing at school.
And at some point their conversation escalated and things actually ended up getting so heated that Leith and Chris almost wound up getting physical with each other like this was a big fight this night that's not good now luckily Bonnie was able to step in before anything did get physical or escalate But then later on at dinner, the fight broke out again.
And actually, according to the court documents in State v. Upchurch, and we'll get into who Up churches, Leith quote-unquote challenged Chris to a fight, but he refused.
Stop it. And I was like, that's not so great.
That's not great. I'm not sure. I'm not sure whose testimony that's based on, but woof.
That's not good. Yeah. Now, that weekend kind of wrapped itself. up.
Chris was like, yeah, I'm gonna go back to school quicker than I thought I was because this house sucks, but...
I understand why that house sucked, because you gotta do good in school if I'm paying for it.
But... Physical fights, no, no. Yeah. So Bonnie and Leif, they agreed that she should be the one to handle any ongoing school issues with Chris.
Yeah. She was like, you know, she's like, you know what?
We gave it a shot. Didn't work out. Yeah.
Let's stop. Let's try something else. But that wasn't going to be the only trouble that Chris would run into during summer school, Because later on, around July 4th, his sister Angela went out to North Carolina State because they had plans for her to visit for that weekend.
But when she got there, she couldn't find Chris anywhere, couldn't get into contact with him.
None of his friends knew where he was or they just wouldn't tell her.
Bonnie and Leith kept calling him over and over again, getting no answer.
So they got so scared thinking something happened to him that they ended up filing a missing persons report.
And Leith was the one to file it. Oh wow.
Only for Chris to just show back up with no explanation as to where he had been.
Okay. He was like, guys, I'm fine. What?
And they were like, where were you? And he was like, I don't know, just hanging out.
I was just around. Okay. So it was at that point that Bonnie was like, if I'm going to continue to give you 50 bucks a week for spending money, I'm going to need a breakdown of every last thing you're spending that money on because I'm sending it to you to get things like groceries and maybe a coffee here or there.
I'm not sending it to you so you can buy cocaine and drugs and like not do good at school.
That's the thing. It's like you are not getting that spending money just to buy drugs.
Right. And come on. And she obviously knew that he was, like, into something, and she's like, I'm not gonna be funding that.
Exactly. So... you know, she's catching on to what he's doing and she's like, yeah, it's not for me.
And Chris was pissed about that, obviously.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So validated. Yes, exactly.
So he's mad about this. He's mad at his family.
He fucking hates Leif all of a sudden. Yeah.
And sometime in his freshman year of college, he finds out that Leith's father has passed away. which meant that Leith was going to get a pretty large sum of money somewhere in the land of $2 million.
Whoa. Yeah. OK. Because he also knew Chris knew that Leif had some kind of insurance policy in place in case of his own death.
And Chris knew that he and Angela, his sister, were named as beneficiaries somewhere in that whole policy.
Oh, this is getting messy whenever there's a policy involved.
And somebody knows that they're a beneficiary.
I'm not telling anyone who Who's the beneficiary of my life insurance?
Just kill me and you'll find out. Yeah, there you go.
And guess what? If you kill me, it's probably not you.
Probably for nothing. And you won't get it because the Slayer rule.
Remember when we went over that? Yeah, we did.
Yeah. But anyways, what Chris didn't realize was that Leith's $700,000 life insurance policy came with some contingencies. which literally all life insurance policies come with some kind of contingency that people always forget about.
They're always like, oh, I thought it was just free and clear they would hand me a check as soon as you died.
Right. And the other thing is, I think people always think that they're going to get like Like they're just going to get a check for $700,000.
I'm like, in most cases, you're going to get like... like a portion of that.
Like you're not gonna get the whole thing right away.
Of course not. And that was not the case here because first Bonnie would get access to the spousal trust.
I'm also like, did you just not think your mom was going to get anything?
They always forget. at the mom too i'm like yeah there's a marriage there i'm like yeah you know she married that yeah that's the only reason why you're even a fucking beneficiary in the first exactly So Bonnie would get a spousal trust, and then when she died, $600,000 from his policy was would go into a trust for the kids, but they wouldn't even get access to that money. until Angela turned 35 and Chris was older.
So I was like, you're not actually getting anything.
Yeah. but not knowing about these contingencies about his trust fund money and and pissed that his stepfather didn't seem to be interested in the spending any of the inheritance money on him. and pissed in general about his stepdad, Chris started thinking about Leith's death and what he would do with all the money that he would be left with him if Leith were to die.
Oh my god. Where does it come to this? Where do these people come from?
It's always wild to me when people are like, yeah, you know what?
I think I'll... I'll just murder someone for this money.
And it's like, when does that ever... First of all, when does that ever work out?
Never. And two... what the fuck is wrong with you?
Like what? Jesus. I'm like, you're dad abandoned you and this man stepped into that role and like took care of you for a little while and this is what you're gonna do and it's just like nothing's worth that man like even if he did suck like yeah and it's like he was not like like this viciously abusive man or something at least I couldn't find it And even then, it's like, dude, you can't murder someone.
It's a no-no. You just can't. But since he pretty much hated school, Chris started to fantasize about what it would be like to have all that. money not have to finish college not have to get a job and he became obsessed So most of the time that he was playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, he would bring up how angry he was with his stepdad.
He would get into... how he had a right to this money and what he would do with it if he had it.
And then things just took a dark turn where Chris actually decided to act out his frustrations.
Oh boy. So he and two of his close friends, Neil Henderson and James Bart Upchurch...
They were sitting around getting high, talking about who other than Leif. and Chris's hatred toward the guy.
And then the topic came up about actually killing him.
And then when more people get involved, it's even worse.
I'm like, three people are sitting together talking about killing a man for his money like the in three college students that usually just like hang out together That's just wild to me.
Like, none of my friends even did the thing.
Like, you'll hear something like a case where somebody's like... oh, well, you know how teenagers will just say like, I wish they would die.
I'm like, I'd never say that. I'm being honest with you.
None of my friends ever said to me that they wish their parents would die.
That just never happened. Maybe I just happened to have a friend group that didn't have apparently these parents that that people wish would die.
But like, I never wished my parents would die.
I never said it out loud. My friends didn't. that would concern me.
So the fact that like these grown ass people are sitting around being like, And like that they feel comfortable enough with each other to just bring that up. as like a possibility like just being like you know what like let's what if he just what if we killed him murdered him and And that they don't think that the other person's going to be like, what the fuck?
I'm going to call the police. Like, don't say that's even scarier.
Right. I also just can't imagine being there for a conversation where people were like, yeah, let's just kill him.
I'd be like, I have to get out of here immediately.
Yeah, I'd be like, please swallow me up, Earth.
Please. Now, as the conversation progressed, it was more than Leith who was going to have to die. but also Bonnie and Angela if she was home.
My God. Yeah. When James brought up Angela, Chris just said, well, if she's there...
Then I guess her too. But if she's not, that's fine too. wow like that is his sister difference for me that is his whole ass sister Wow.
If she's there, yeah, she can be collateral damage.
If not, that works too. If not... Don't really care.
Like that human who is my literal sister.
That's zero feeling. insane that's not even a field that's zero like just i literally no fucks given no fucks Now, I'm sure that he knew to some degree that obviously some of his inheritance would be shared among the three of them. but he wanted all of it to himself, but to share with his friends.
Because as the three of them sat there coming up with different ways to kill his entire fucking family, Chris told his things about Excuse me.
Chris told his friends about all the things that he would... You can say things.
Yeah, seriously, right? I was like, you know what?
You had it right the first time. That was actually a Freudian slip.
It was. But he was telling them all about what he would do for them with the money.
And he promised James Upchurch that he would open a restaurant with him and buy a nice house in Raleigh.
Also, how much money do you think you're getting, bro?
That's the other thing. I'm like, you're going to owe it. we're at the beginning please just wait james up church was also promised fifty thousand dollars and a porsche Oh, I know, Portia.
Get fucked. Get out of here. Get fucked.
Henderson was going to get the same amount, only he would actually be more keen about getting a Ferrari out of the deal, if possible, please.
Yes, I see. And Chris was like, oh my God, dude.
Yeah, no problem. He's like, I'm about class.
Yeah, let's go. Wow. Unreal. So talking about the different possibilities and what methods of murder they thought would be best.
Chris and James decided that it would be a good idea to start some kind of fire within the home. but have everybody drugged beforehand so that they would sleep through it and obviously not be able to escape.
He sat there with his friend and said, yeah, let me sedate my mom who brought me into the world. my sister who I've known my entire life and my stepdad who's been around since I was a kid.
Let's sedate all of them and then leave them to die in a house fire so that you and me together can have nice cars and not finish school.
What? Wow. Are you fucking kidding me? I have no words.
I really have no words. When these things, I can't.
I didn't understand killing Leith. I especially don't understand killing Leith, your mom, and your sister. whoa, this escalated so quickly.
None of it makes sense. And when it's like a kid... doing this to their parents.
It's just like a 19 year old kid. Whoa. Like, what the fuck?
What the fuck happened here? That's your mom, dude.
Man. Crazy. But that was the plan that they settled on.
Wow. So Friday, July 22nd, Chris left school to make it seem like he was coming home for the weekend to get in some good family quality time jesus And after he spent the night with them on Friday, he said on Saturday he was going to be hanging out with some friends for most of the day. that he would come back and see them, and then he was gonna head back to school.
So... He wasn't just hanging out with friends that day or anything like that.
Instead, he was making his way back to campus so that he could scoop James up church and the two of them could get going on their plan.
So Friday night, he spends the night at home and then Saturday he drives back to school, gets James and then drives back to the family's house.
So he spends time with his family. Yes. The night before.
Like hung out with his family on Friday night, knowing full well that his plan the next day was for all of them to die in a house fire after being sedated.
Which is also one of the most gruesome ways to die.
That's the other thing. That is torture.
There's no good way, but that's what you go with? really hard.
So somehow James had gotten his hands on some sleeping pills.
And when Chris pulled up at school, James just got in the car, hands them over.
They make their way back to Washington, Washington, North Carolina.
And before he went home to dose his entire family, Chris just dropped James off somewhere and was like, wait here until I get back.
Oh, okay. So this kid's just going to hang out somewhere.
Just waiting for him to kill his family.
Yeah, totally. So with that, Chris goes home and he says, oh, you guys want to have like a little cookout tonight?
You guys want to do a little barbecue? You want to do a little barbecue? barbecue you want to do a little barbecue i'd love to make you guys some hamburgers hot dogs maybe i don't know about the hot dogs but he definitely made hamburgers He is about to kill them in a house fire.
And he said, do you want to do some barbecue tonight?
You want to do a little barbecue tonight?
Like, I don't know if he said that word for word, but he was like, you want to cook out tonight?
Yeah, because he got to work making hamburgers for his entire family, but he laced the hamburgers with the sleeping pills.
And then once he was done grilling them up, he handed them out to his family members, knowing full well that he was subdating them. for a fucking house fire.
Wow. Now over dinner, he explained, you know, I'm actually going to head back to school tonight instead of tomorrow.
I got a lot of stuff to do. So everybody finishes up dinner.
Chris says his goodbyes. And then he goes to pick James Upchurch back up.
Now, we can assume that Bonnie, Leith, and Angela went to bed pretty quickly after he left.
And as they were sleeping, Chris and James went back to the house and tried to crush a fuse in the fuse box so as to start a fire.
Now, by some grace, they were not able to get the fuse crushed.
So they decided to give up on this plan.
They were like, that's not going to work.
Wow. So like not the overall plan of murder.
They weren't. They were not giving up on that.
Oh, absolutely. Just this specific means of carrying out multiple murders.
Of course. Now, James actually said, Chris.
I have a better idea. Why don't we head to the army surplus store?
I'll get a machete and we can cut their heads off.
Your whole family. How? Wow. First of all, and second of all, you went from like a very hands off approach. to a fully hands-on to the most hands-on approach and like i'm glad you're this stupid but How are you going to make three beheadings look like an accidental death?
Wow. How are you going to do that? The escalation that just occurred there.
Yeah. is mind-numbing. Now luckily they were deterred from this plan. but only because the army surplus store wasn't open.
Wow. Thank goodness. Fortunate. So they'd have to come up with plan numero tres.
You'd think at some point they'd take something as a sign like this is not supposed to happen.
Thank you. Your two plans in here and it's not happening.
I feel like this happens so often too. Like we've definitely talked about this happening. in the past where like the first couple of plans didn't work and you're like, why didn't you just listen to that?
Nobody listened to that inner voice that said like, hello, maybe this is happening for a reason.
But I feel like they don't have that. No, they don't.
It's called a conscious. I was going to say, cause it's a conscience.
Conscience. Yeah. Cause consciousness is like being conscious.
Yeah. But conscience, I know it's hard to like.
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So as they laid out this next plan, they decided that Chris had been home recently.
So he should stay back at school so as not to raise any eyebrows.
Now, the very next day after the poisoning gone wrong, James and Chris went to Kmart and bought a huge hunting knife.
And it was now decided that James was going to be the one to kill both Leif, excuse me, Leith and Bonnie.
And if Angela was home, then maybe her too.
Of course. Remember that part. Yeah, totally.
They planned to make the murders look like they were just the result of a robbery gone wrong.
So we've gone from house fire, accidental house fire, quote unquote, to cutting their heads off with machetes to now killing them with a knife and making it look like a robbery gone wrong.
This is a lot. This is a lot. Now, the problem with James going out there by himself, though, was that he didn't have a license.
That's a problem. Yeah, no license. If you were to drive somebody else's car and get pulled over that would obviously deter the entire plan because he would get in trouble for driving without a license and it wouldn't be the first time that he'd gotten in trouble for that so like he'd be fucked yeah so they were like okay that's where neil comes in remember neil Yeah, let's not take this as a sign.
Another sign. No, no, no. Neil can drive Chris's Mustang. and drop James off at the scene.
Apparently, none of them thought about the possibility that Chris's car might get spotted in his own fucking neighborhood and raise some eyebrows.
And you know what? For kids who play Dungeons and Dragons, which requires a lot of plot. like we were just saying, and very complex problem-solving skills.
At least I feel that way about Dungeons & Dragons people.
Same. I feel like you must have that. They don't have any of that.
No. There's none of that happening here.
I think it's the drugs. Yeah, I think it's that they're just idiots.
The drugs of it all. And like the... The drugs and the idiot.
Yeah, and the psychopathy of it all. Yeah, so with the plan laid out, Chris would put together a map of his own neighborhood.
Like, draw a map of his neighborhood, putting an X where his house was.
And he told James where Bonnie's purse would be so that he could...
And also he told James where they kept extra cash in the house so that he could take that cash and make it look like a robbery that way.
Yeah. And then just like sent his friends off and was like, hey, let me know when my family's dead.
Let me know when you've massacred my family.
Yeah. Just hit me up. Yeah. So that Sunday night, July 24th, 1988, Chris stayed back at school while Neil Henderson drove James Upchurch from...
North Carolina State to Chris's family home in Washington.
So North Carolina State is in Raleigh and it's about a two hour drive, give or take.
So they had two hours to drive there and decide that this was not a good plan.
And I wonder if one of them ever had the idea that they are setting the way this is all set up makes it very likely that if Christopher decides he does not want to be part of this anymore, that All he has to do is start crying and say my friends went crazy and they killed my entire family.
Like no one thought of that? Yeah. That like you are now the sole person here, and he can step back and say, I had no idea they were really going to do that.
And... Neil's probably not gonna get much.
He's just driving. Yeah, but he's still gonna get that at least.
He's gonna get that at least, but... No one thought of that?
No, that was never an idea. I'm sure one person thought of that.
Oh, of course. Christopher. Yeah, honestly, maybe that's why he came up with this whole plan the way that he did, because he wasn't too keen on sharing his money with his sister. his sister and his mother.
He's removing himself completely from this situation. that was like the one ounce of like smartness that he had.
Of like problem solving skills I suppose.
That's just like conniving. Yeah it is. so they got to the von stein's neighborhood around two in the morning technically now on july 25th following the map that chris had laid out for them they were like oh there's the house But they either felt that it was too early to go in or they were like nervous.
So they ended up driving around for a little bit before returning.
More time in which you would think that they would have decided this entire thing was insane, but no.
They get back to the neighborhood. Neil parks the car away from the house, so there's no suspicion raised. and James creeps into the house carrying a baseball bat and his hunting knife. wearing dark clothing, Reebok shoes and a ski mask.
Wow. Like... like, going for it. Terrifying.
So scary. So he immediately went upstairs to Leif and Bonnie's bedroom and just started a attacking Leith.
Bonnie woke up to the sound of Leith screaming next to her in bed. but she couldn't see what was going on because she didn't have her glasses on.
Oh my God. That's horrifying. Exactly. And before she could figure out what to do, because she had a phone next to her, but she couldn't get it in time. because the figure came over to her side of the bed and started attacking her too.
She was hit over the head multiple times until she slipped into unconsciousness.
And then when she finally regained consciousness, she heard the door of the bedroom close. and the intruder obviously had thought that he finished the job in that room, but then Bonnie heard noises outside of the door,
And she was terrified that her daughter Angela was now being attacked.
But before she could do anything about it, she slipped back unconscious.
Oh. Now, when she came to again, she immediately calls the police department, and she explains what's gone on, that they've been attacked, and She knew that she was beaten brutally, but she thought maybe she heard Leith still breathing.
So she was like, please calm down. come as quickly as you can.
And she's like, I don't even know where my daughter is.
Like I, cause she couldn't get up. She had been attacked brutally.
So unfortunately, when the police arrived on scene, it was clear that Leith was not going to make it.
He was like basically dead on arrival. Ugh.
Bonnie had been stabbed in the chest as well as beaten over the head.
Holy shit. And when they walked into the room, she still had the phone grasped in her hand.
And they said that when they walked into this room...
It was like blood stained every single wall.
There was blood on the ceiling. Oh my god. on the walls on there was huge pools of blood on the carpeting around them like it was a gnarly scene just in bed just sleeping yeah both of them were just sleeping next to each other So luckily, Bonnie survived the attack and so did her daughter Angela.
So the police talked with Angela. They were like, did you hear anything?
Because she was home when this happened.
She said she had slept through the entire thing.
Her room was about 10 to 12 feet from her parents.
Not very far. It was interesting that she didn't hear a peep of anything.
Yeah. But she did have a fan going, so they were like...
I guess. Maybe. But they were like, this whole thing just feels weird.
Talking to Angela felt weird because not only did she not hear anything, but they said that she seemed incredibly unemotional, given that her mom was being rushed to the hospital with serious injuries like life-threatening injuries they didn't know at first if bonnie was gonna make it wow And a man who had played a fatherly fatherly role in her life since she'd been a child. was just stabbed and bludgeoned to death in his own bed ten feet away from hers.
Yeah. A little scary. You would think there'd be some emotion.
Some. I mean, we always say we can't judge how people react to things, but...
But it's hard, you know, your natural instinct is to be like, oh, I don't know what's going on there.
Yeah, exactly. So Angela calls Chris right away that morning.
She tells him what happens and she's like, you have to come home right away.
So Chris, knowing full well where his keys are, started ransacking his room, causing a scene trying to find his keys.
But obviously we know where his keys are.
Neil has them. So he wasn't going to find them.
So he ran to one of those emergency call boxes on campus to see if there was some way the police could get him home because he just has to get home.
Of course. So the police came to the call box where he had called from, and I guess they found him in there, like, hysterically crying.
Now, I don't know if maybe the weight of what he had planned this whole time was finally hitting him or if this was an act.
Yeah. It could be either. Could be either, because once he got into the cop car, he fell asleep for the entire ride back to Little Washington.
Yeah. Two hour ride. You've just been told that your whole family has been attacked and your mom literally might not make it and you're snoozing.
yeah i don't know i don't know about that i know grief can cause like i'm not saying him because he played in this entire course But I know grief can obviously cause crazy exhaustion.
Yeah. screaming, crying can do that. Your body will just like shut down just to survival mode.
But I don't believe that with him. Not even a little bit.
That's not what I see. I see just boredom.
I see just callousness. Literally. Just like, I don't care.
No, didn't care at all. So the officers working the crime scene, they were pretty suspicious.
They definitely wanted to talk. to Chris especially, they were like, I feel like he might know more than he's saying.
Because the entire crime scene looked staged.
Things were overturned and, like, seemed to have been ransacked, but there was pretty much nothing missing.
There was $20 still sitting on the dresser in the master bedroom where Bonnie and Leith had been attacked.
Yeah. Whenever it's a botched, like a fake robbery.
Yeah, like set up. They never do. It never looks like a real robbery.
It's what you see on TV. Exactly. That's what people do.
Yeah, $20 still sitting on the count on the, on the dresser.
There's multiple handbags on the counter in the kitchen, I guess.
Leith's wallet was left seemingly untouched.
There was like nothing missing. And there was a ton of jewelry that Bonnie had in her jewelry box in her bedroom that definitely would have been stolen if this were a robbery.
Yeah. And they also found a backpack knapsack.
They called it a knapsack the whole time.
Because isn't it one of those like drawstring bags usually?
I think so. I don't know what the difference is, but...
I've heard it called both. Yeah, I think it's like interchangeable.
And that was left near one of the garbage cans outside.
Okay. So one of the officers processing the scene was like, that feels like it's out of place.
Like, what the fuck is that? Like, what the fuck?
It would later be identified as James up Church's bag.
He literally left it behind. What the fuck?
And didn't even bother to put it in the garbage can.
I mean, I guess I understand that would still be dumb, but you just put it next to it to just be identified.
Wow. Boom. Wow. And then another note about the clearly staged scene was that so the front door was locked.
So they were like, what? Like, how'd they get in?
But the back door leading to the back porch, it was left wide open.
And there was a window next to that door that had been broken and there was like glass laying all about.
But it didn't make any sense that the window would have been broken because like the robbers wouldn't have been able to gain entry that way.
Like they wouldn't have been able to climb through the window.
Yeah. And if they were trying to make it look like they broke the window and then reached in to unlock the door.
That also made no sense because they wouldn't have been able to get to the handle that way.
Yeah. And if that was like their plan in the first place, they would have just broken one of the glass panes on the actual door.
Yeah, just reached in and unlocked it. If that's how you were trying to make it look.
Because really, we'll find out later that James had a key.
He got him with a key. Yeah, of course. horse.
And so he was just trying to make it look some type of way.
But it's like, why would you not? And I'm happy that you didn't because you're a fucking idiot you're an idiot why wouldn't you just punch out the glass on the door Because I think they were probably trying to make it look like they broke the window, climbed through, did what they did, and then on their way out, they used the door.
Right. But it's like if they weren't able to climb through that window, then all is lost.
Like if you didn't, you couldn't fit through there, then...
Then it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
No. And it was just beyond clear to everybody that the real motivation here was murder, especially because of how they were killed.
Yeah. a robber's not gonna sit there and like bludgeon somebody and stab them and come around to another side of the bed and bludgeon another person and then go like find like the daughter and like, it's like, and not take anything.
Well, that's the thing and it's like an end for the motive of just taking like literally nothing.
Right. It doesn't make any sense. Clearly, then the motivation would simply be murder, which it was.
And luckily, they were trained enough to realize that.
But before they could talk to Chris about the scene, he was like, can I go see my mom at the hospital?
And technically they had no reason not to let him.
So they were like, okay. So Bonnie had some. serious injuries, but she was expected to recover from them, luckily.
So this little fuckface, who had actually expected his mother to be dead too, sat next to her in the ICU, holding her hand while she recounted this entire series of events to him that happened earlier that morning.
And he is sitting there probably picturing it and picturing the person who carried out these acts because he is the one who set them up to do it in the first place.
Like, he planned this entire thing. sat there and waited for it to happen.
Yeah. And then listened to his ailing mother.
Yeah. Like beyond a life. talking about it it's like yeah what the fuck and he's sitting there with her in the ICU holding her hand as she goes through all of this and he's crying.
Like he's not the one who fucking set up the entire plan in the first place.
No, he was crying because he knew that he was about to get caught.
One. that was 100 he was like this is gonna fall apart and this was a botched plan botched as fuck yeah We all have different values and morals that we let us guide us through our lives.
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So now as all that was going on, like literally as this is happening, Neil Henderson and James Upchurch are making their way back to campus in Chris's car, mind you.
Cool. But not before making a few stops along the way.
So when James ran back into the car... He apparently looked at Neil and said excitedly, I did it.
I can't. believe I did it. I never want to see that much blood again for the rest of my life.
Let's get out of here. Okay. I did it. I can't believe I did it.
I can't believe. I don't want to see that again.
It's like that maybe you shouldn't murder people.
Right. It's really easy not to see that much blood.
And like, I can't believe I really did it.
Like, you didn't just like beat... level 1000 in best fiends like i couldn't believe i did that either you just slaughtered an entire family that's nothing to be proud of wow Like, we all know that.
That's so callous, though. It's unreal. So they got onto the highway and they pulled over at some point so that James could change his clothes. and then they pulled over again and drove into the woods so that he could... dispose of those clothes and the way they decided to do that was he wrangled up all his bloody clothes the map that Chris had drawn, and the knife that he had literally used to murder Leith, and they set all of that on fire. in the woods.
I feel like this is going to end really smoothly.
Did you think that the knife was going to burn in the fire?
I need to know if you thought that was going to happen.
For sure. So then they stopped another time because they had to wash the mud from the previous stop off of the car and have to get gas, obviously.
And they paid for that gas using the 60 to 80 bucks that James had taken from the house.
Didn't take anything else. Took 60 to 80 bucks to make it look like a robbery.
Yeah. Just put gas in the car. Okie dokie.
So luckily for the the police, a pig farmer in the area contacted them to let them know that around the time these murders took place, He had seen a fire in the woods, and he said, I wonder if those two instances could be related.
They were. Yeah. So the police follow up on the tip, they go out to the woods where he said he had seen the smoke, and they were able to track down the area.
Sure enough, there was an entire heap of evidence to collect.
They found clothing, what was left of the map that Chris had drawn up for his friends, a rubber sole belonging to a Reebok shoe.
Imagine. Why did you leave the sole of your shoe there?
I was just going to say, what the fuck? And a hunting knife sitting in a pile of ash.
Wow. Through more detective work, they also found out that Leith and his two Stepkids were not necessarily on the best of terms, and they also found out that Leith had just fallen into a pretty large sum of money.
It was pretty easy for them to establish a motive here for this crime.
It's lining up like dominoes. And luckily, like a lot of this stuff is kind of just falling right into their lap, which is great.
So Bonnie, Angela and Chris were all asked to take polygraph tests because at first they wondered, like, because Bonnie and Angela were like alive still, they were like, were they in on this?
Yeah, you have to at least, you know. yeah so luckily they were quickly ruled out bonnie obviously and They both agreed to take a polygraph test, but Chris wouldn't take one.
Hmm. I wonder why. Yeah, it's crazy. So that obviously only made the police want to look further into him.
And in doing so... They heard from a lot of people that Chris had just been talking about getting rid of his stepfather so that he could acquire his inheritance for like months.
They always do. They've been talking about it for months.
They always talk to everyone they know about the fact that they're going to murder someone.
It's like always. this is a campus, like everyone, and then like, Stacey's gonna tell Sally, sally's gonna tell joe joe's gonna tell schmo and we're all gonna fucking know it's the It's the tea.
It's the disgusting, horrible, horrific tea.
They're probably all sharing it being like, this guy's like a weirdo.
He's a nut. What is he doing? doing i bet he's not gonna do that he's talking about killing his stepdad like this guy's weird It's also like, guys, if anybody tells you that they're gonna kill somebody, just take it seriously and tell someone.
It's better to be overreactive than underreactive.
Just no one's going to make fun of you for being too much.
No. We're going to we're going to be like you're a shitty person if you're like not enough.
Exactly. Just go overboard. Exactly. So of course, Neil Henderson and James Upchurch's names were the ones that were most brought up in these talks because they were two of Chris's best friends and they had always been around when Chris was talking about killing So the other kids that sometimes played D&D, they were with Chris and James and Neil.
They said that they had heard the three friends talking about what would happen when Leith died, but not specifically anything about murdering him, just what they would do with the money. and everything.
I'm like, so you knew that they were going to find him.
It's like, come on. So the police get James and Neil's names and they're like, let's pay them a visit.
So first they talked to Neil, which was great because he cracked right away.
I knew it. Yeah, Neil, bitch boy. Well, I'm glad he cracked, but you're a bitch boy.
I had Neil's number from the beginning. I was like, it's Neil.
Neil's going to be the one that's like, I did it.
Yeah, 100%. He tells the investigators everything he knows and in exchange, he gets a deal.
Of course. Duh. So then they decided, okay, we're going to have to make Chris a similar deal.
In which he would plead guilty to a lesser charge of aiding and abetting because they're not going to be able to get him really on much else.
He didn't. He didn't take his hands and do it.
Right. So they were like, let's Give him a deal.
Convict him or hopefully convict him with aiding and abetting.
And then we'll get Neil on like something, but we'll give him a deal.
Yeah. So that we can get to the big guy here, James Upchurch, who had literally used his two hands to bludgeon and stab Leith to death. and try to do the same for bonnie they were like let's get him on first degree murder yeah So when the medical examiner was able to put together an autopsy report on 42-year-old Leith von Stein,
Oh, 42 years old. It showed that there, and this is horrible.
This is pretty graphic, just so you know if you want to skip ahead.
There were five lacerations to his scalp that had been caused from blunt force trauma.
My God. There were seven stab wounds to his back, and there was one that went through the left side of his chest that stabbed directly through his heart.
Oh, so the only good, like for lack of a better word thing that happened was that luckily he died quickly.
Oh, thank goodness. Because he would have just bled out within a couple minutes.
Horrible. And it showed that his body had put quite a fight up.
He was covered in bruises and scrapes as defensive wounds.
Now, the knife that was found in the fire that was reported by the pig farmer... according to the prosecution, most definitely could have caused the injuries not only found on Mr. Von Stein, but also found on Mrs. Von Stein, Bonnie.
Yeah. She was stabbed once in the chest.
Wow. And that stab actually had caused her lung to collapse and caused internal bleeding.
My God. It's like insane that she lived through this.
She too had multiple cuts all over her head.
And I don't know why this freaked me out as much as it did, but she fractured her thumb in the beginning of the attack, when she reached over for her husband because what was most likely a baseball bat came crashing down on her thumb.
Oh, Yeah. My God. This was brutal. It's like savagery.
It's insane. So James's trial starts in January of 1990, and both Neil and Chris had taken their plea deals. which meant that they were going to be the ones to testify against James Upchurch.
So Chris testified that he was the one behind the entire plan.
He said he had drawn up the map of the neighborhood for James.
He had also given him a spare key to the home.
Like, he testifies all of this. He's like, yep, did it.
He's like, because he has to, because he got his deal.
Neil testified that his only role in the murder was to be the getaway driver and the lookout.
And it seemed like most of the people in James Upchurch's life were shocked that he was wrapped up in a murder trial. and even more so that he was the one to like carry out the actual murder.
One of his teachers from high school was called to testify, and she just testified that he had been a really great student.
She actually used the word gifted, like he was in gifted classes.
And she named a bunch of clubs that he was a part of.
And he was a part of like all these great clubs at school.
I didn't see that coming. But it's like Psychologists who evaluated James testified that they found he had an absence of violent tendencies, which I was like, that's a weird phrase.
Excuse me? I don't think so. What now? But that his primary mode of dealing with things that happened to him through his life was to deny any of his thoughts or feelings about the situation. and just to like detach.
Okay. So you can kind of see, especially when he came back in and he said like, I can't believe I did that.
Like I did it and then was like, I don't want to see that again.
Exactly. Let's move on. Like that's total detachment for me.
Right. I don't know how you can detach from something like that, but the psychologist was like, yeah, he can.
Crazy. This guy can do it. Now, his own mother said that he was raised on a farm and that he came from a good family who all went to church on Sundays.
Damn. It's like picturing this like little like farmhand boy going to church with his family and this is what he does.
Yeah. And she said the only thing that she could really point to that may have disrupted him was when his parents divorced when he was 18.
Now, to be fair, though, he did have a bit of a past when it came to the law.
Like all these people are very surprised and obviously you're going to be surprised when somebody you know turns out to be a murderer.
That's a surprising thing. But it's also like he was doing a lot of drugs.
Yeah. Seems like he wasn't like, you know, the super polished student that was not doing anything wrong.
No. And by the way, he did have a past after he graduated high school.
And this is like insane. He and some of his friends went back to the school, back to the high school in the winter of 86 and broke in to steal a computer.
And they didn't end their break in there.
They actually broke into a home... What?
And that's the thing. If you can break into a home, like you've always said, home invaders are the craziest fucking people.
One of my criminal justice... teachers who was a detective always told us, Home invasions, those people are the scariest fucking people in the world.
Yes. Anybody that can walk into a house in the middle of the night not knowing what the fuck they're walking into, you don't want to tango with them.
No, you do not. You do not. So he and his friends literally did that.
And they stole alcohol, a TV, some clocks, and a set of binoculars. okay so they got caught and james obviously found out that he was gonna he could probably be convicted of these charges And the charges that he faced, he could spend up to 20 years in prison just from this robbery.
Now, he was scared about that part of it. but his parents did notice that he actually didn't seem to care or really feel sorry about the crime itself.
He was just more worried about going to jail for a long time.
Jeez. But he didn't show any... Like, remorse for doing it.
None. Wow. Now, I guess that psychologist was on to something when they said that he denied thoughts and feelings.
I was gonna say detachment. Yeah. So eventually his charges for the break-ins were actually merged and he only had to pay restitution and do community service.
That's wild. He didn't get around to doing either of those things, though.
And he actually ended up getting arrested a couple more times for things like reckless driving...
And like I mentioned in the beginning, driving without a license.
Wow. So like he was getting into trouble left and right.
What do you mean? I know you could never see something like this coming, but like...
Don't act like crazy shocked. Well, nobody's being like, yeah, you know what?
After high school, it seems like he just started going down a bad path.
Right. Like couldn't see this coming. Of course.
Bad path. Right. Some wouldn't say there was a bad path.
Don't just sit there and be like. It's just a farm bowl.
He's just a gifted student. He's a part of a lot of clubs.
I'm like, and a home invader. Yeah, it's like, he's a pretty bad kid.
Yeah. Now, in this case, James Upchurch would not plead guilty to murder, and he denied any involvement in the crime whatsoever.
He said he wasn't even there. His defense did argue that there was not one piece of physical evidence that belonged to him to tie him to that scene.
Because that knapsack was only identified to him through Neil and Chris.
So they were like, we don't know that it's his.
I mean, that's defense team. Yeah. And they said, actually, he couldn't have been the one to carry out the murders.
Really? Because the medical examiner had testified that whoever had wielded this bat was most likely right-handed because of the logistics of how everything lines up.
What is that called? The trajectory of the hits.
Trajectory, thank you. Yes, yes. But James, so he says this has to have been a right-handed person, most likely. james is left-handed oh i'm like he could like people bat both sides all the time you know switch hitter yeah So the defense, though, they were like, maybe I think it was Neil who did this and James was actually just the getaway driver.
They were like, Neil must have swung and killed Leith and attacked Bonnie.
Now, obviously, Neil denied this. And when he was shown a picture of Leith after the attack, he started crying on the stand, like sobbing.
And he told the courtroom that he simply could have never done that to an person wow i was like yeah you could just drive the person who was gonna do it there that's the thing it's like you're not innocent man you're not a good person what was happening in there and you agreed to do it he just sat there and like stew mockered it he was like peer pressure and the need to fit in.
I'm very sensitive. He literally said that.
He was like, I just needed to fit in. And they pressured me into it.
I wanted to fit in too, but I would never want to fit in with two people that were planning a murder.
Yeah, I never went to murder for it. Never.
So ultimately, it was James Upchurch who was found guilty of first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon... with intent to kill or seriously injure, conspiracy to commit murder, and burglary in the first degree.
Because though he hadn't taken that $20 off the dresser, he had taken money from Bonnie's purse to make it look like a robbery.
Mm-hmm. So he was at first sentenced to death.
Whoa. But two years later in October, his death sentence was taken away and commuted to life in prison.
Okay. Because of like constitutional stuff.
Yeah. Now, you know, that's, you know, the constitution and shit.
Yeah. So. Originally, when he was sentenced, he told the court and the judge that he was shocked and appalled by the verdict.
Of course. And that the jury... like the jury would have believed two confessed murderers over him.
What? I'm like, okay, you're all just a bunch of idiots anyway.
Losers. So when it was announced that they had voted for the death penalty and that James was going to face that, he told the judge and the courtroom.
I intend to take my own life by fasting.
I want to die with as much honor and dignity as I can scrape together.
Hon, you're going to have to do a lot of scraping.
Much scraping. A lot of scraping. Much scraping.
Because there's nothing. Yeah, you have no dignity.
Like, I love that you think you have dignity.
That's... An honor. That's a farce. Yeah, that truly is.
I love that word. So he didn't, obviously, because the death penalty ended up getting converted, but...
He will be up for parole this year. Stop.
2022. I couldn't find anything about like when his parole date is or anything like that. but he is up for parole this year.
Hate that. Hate that. So Neil Henderson was convicted of second degree murder for aiding and abetting and also aiding and abetting a assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously injure.
He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the former charge and six for the latter so 46 years total damn but he was paroled in december of 2000 only having served eight years i was gonna say i know he's not serving all of that no of course not For 50 years, American Home Shield has protected household budgets from the unexpected, like dryer that won't dry or an AC that's lost its cool.
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Chris Pritchard was convicted of the aiding and abetting charge, more specifically aiding and abetting in second-degree murder. and he was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years for the assault on Bonnie.
Whoa. Mm-hmm. So during his trial, he testified that it was all about getting the money and that his plan, if it had gone off without a hitch, was to buy a house, continue to do drugs, and just play Dungeons and Dragons all day.
Yeah. Yeah. While he just thought about the fact that he killed his whole family.
That's all I want. So his mother would visit him in prison as much as she could after she recovered from all her injuries.
Once she was healthy enough, she visited him every single weekend in prison That's some mom shit And ended up forgiving him That is some mom shit.
She later said, I visited with Chris for a long, long time in prison.
I've watched him grow. I've watched him change.
You know what? She's a mom. That's some mom shit.
When it comes to your kids, I would never... deign to say how I would react in that situation.
That's the thing, it's your kids. All I can say is like, whoo.
That's a mom. That's a big person. That is a big person.
Now, when he first got to prison, Chris was really on his fuck shit.
At first, he said, you know, I found God and like, I'm a Christian now.
But really, he was only using that for the purpose of keeping him safe in prison.
Most of them do. Yeah. And then once he learned that the other inmates were actually terrified of him, He jumped right off that religious wagon and actually just started using drugs in prison and getting into fights with people and being on his fuck shit.
Cool. Cool. Yeah. But at some point he started reading more and more about philosophy and atheism and just like a bunch of different religions and stuff like that.
And the more and more he read, the more that religion actually did resonate with him.
So one day he said he woke up and he just had this feeling that he had to get clean from the drugs he was doing in prison.
So he actually joined a 12-step program in prison.
And while he was finishing the program, he actually did become actually truthfully religious.
And he said that he realized God had been with him all along.
I don't know if God was with you when you were planning the murder of your entire family, but who am I to say?
Yeah, I don't know about that. I wasn't there, but like... Yeah, I didn't see God there, but...
He did get parole in June of 2007, and since then he's become a born-again Christian and, like... does speeches and stuff to other kids.
Okay. Says don't murder your whole family.
Now, he said in his dispatch speech that his mom was the one who pushed him forward along with God.
And he knows that he is one of the worst sinners, but that he was put on this earth to teach other people how to be a good person.
Call me cuckoo nuts crazy, but I don't know if the reason he was put on Earth was to be involved in an innocent man's murder and then teach people not to do that.
I kind of feel like most people know not to do that anyway.
Ooh, yikes. But either way, that's a lot.
He's teaching church classes these days.
Well, you know what? I hope he is truly turned around.
I also hope that... I hope he is truly believing what he is saying.
Yeah, me too. I hope that people... are hearing it.
Yeah. When they hear him and they... choose not to murder people i do hope that i hope all of that totally um i hope bonnie is doing great i know i hope so too and i hope she hope angela I hope Angela is doing great.
I hope they were able to move forward as people.
And you know what? They're big people for being able to choose forgiveness and to move forward.
That's really impressive. Agreed, but...
Wow. Wow. Yikes. Wow. That's... a lot. Yeah, it was so much.
In fact, it was so much that it inspired two books.
Cruel Doubt by Joe McGinnis. I haven't read either.
That book was adapted into a miniseries in 1992.
And another book was written that same year.
It's called Blood Games by Jerry Bledsoe.
And that one also got adapted this time into a TV movie called Honor Thy Mother.
I was just seeing that. Were you? Yeah. Yeah.
So I didn't read either of them because I heard that they kind of like...
They became more theatrical. They take some artistic license.
Yes, thank you. So I didn't want to get something that maybe like... you know, was a little much.
Yeah, you don't want to take any TV movie for real facts.
Yeah. i didn't read either of the books because i heard the same thing so i was and apparently both of the books were like very different like they had like very different tellings so i didn't want to confuse myself either no but i might read them now that i'm finished yeah um so yeah also a lot of apparently both of these like movies and uh the tv show lean really heavily into the fact that Dungeons & Dragons had something to do with this.
I hate that shit. But I think that's really stupid because the game is not the person that's responsible here because... because it's not a person, it's a game, and the people playing the game are actually the ones responsible.
And Dungeons and Dragons isn't teaching you to murder people for money.
No. That's not what that game is about. I'm sure of that.
I've never heard that. That I'm sure. And...
There was, like, this whole, like, debate over it, and, like, I think people get very into it, but I didn't want to because I'm not even gonna, like...
No, well, people bring in the whole satanic panic kind of thing with it.
It's just how people are like... you know, like this band caused this horrible massacre.
And it's like, no, they didn't. And it's like any fantasy or magic thing.
They always turn into like Satan. Satan.
It's just ridiculous. It's stupid. It's just people making bad decisions.
That's the thing. Stop taking the blame from the people who do it.
We are human beings. We make our own decisions.
Exactly. We don't need to blame games and movies and shows and music.
No. But that is the murder of Leith von Stein.
Incredibly senseless. And just like... I can't imagine what Bonnie went through losing her husband and then... having to go through the process of forgiving her child.
Like she's an amazing woman for being able to do that.
She has been through it. Seriously. That is a lot and good for her for turning it around to a positive place.
Like, damn. Yeah. Wow. That is a, I just, that poor leaf.
Like, I'm just like, that's really sad. I know.
It sounds like there was absolutely no justification here.
Not that there ever But it sounds like there was nothing you could point to to be like, even point to that kind of rage.
Exactly. It was just money. Money motivated.
That's so sad. I feel like so many of my cases lately are like inheritance.
Yeah, you've had a lot of life insurance.
I know. And I'm not doing it on purpose.
It's not a theme I look for. They're just drawn to you.
That's terrifying. I know. So with that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it. weird but not so weird that you go off to college and you start doing a bunch of drugs and you throw your whole future away and you and your friends decide to kill your entire family but you don't go along and then you think oh wow i'm gonna get away with this because i didn't go along but guess what you're not gonna get away with it you can never kill people or be involved in the process of killing people and get away with it Don't.
You can't. Bye. Bye. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
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The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
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I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
Monsieur le maire... As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
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