Friday, November 30, 2012
The convicted quadruple-killer got a quick start to his new life behind bars.
Will County didn't waste any time ridding themselves of Christopher Vaughn, packing the man who executed his entire family off to prison the day after his sentencing. Vaughn, 38, was shipped up to Stateville Correctional Center to start serving the four life sentences handed down by Judge Daniel Rozak on Tuesday. According to Department of Corrections Records, the former Oswego resident made it to Stateville Wednesday. Vaughn declined to make a statement at his sentencing hearing and sat stone-faced as Rozak told him he would never get out of prison alive. Vaughn's father-in-law, Del Phillips, later said he had hoped Vaughn "would open up and say why" he killed his wife, Kimberly Vaughn, and three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and …
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Christopher Vaughn got separate life sentences for the murders of his wife and three children.
Right before a Will County judge dropped four life sentences on Christopher Vaughn, his grief-stricken mother-in-law wondered aloud why he couldn't have abandoned his wife and three children instead of killing them all. "What a coward," said Susan Phillips, the mother of Vaughn's slain wife, Kimberly Vaughn. "If you do not want your family, divorce is always the first option, or even just walking away," Phillips said from the witness stand during Christopher Vaughn's sentencing hearing Tuesday morning. Christopher Vaughn, 38, wanted to shed his family so he could start a new life in the Yukon wilderness with an unwitting stripper. In June 2007, he packed his 34-year-old wife and their three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, …
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Drew Peterson media circus prevented Vaughn from getting a fair trial, his lawyer said, and the wife-killer's attorneys didn't help things either.
First, he killed one wife, then he was named a suspect in the disappearance of another, and now Drew Peterson's very existence has mucked up Christopher Vaughn's murder trial, the Oswego man's lawyer said Monday. Vaughn's lawyer, George Lenard, said the specter of Drew Peterson hanging over the Vaughn case is just one of the reasons his convicted quadruple-killer client needs a new trial. Besides the problem with Peterson, whose own murder trial was taking place in the courtroom next-door to Vaughn's in August and September, Lenard claimed Vaughn's case was corrupted when prosecutors succeeded in "indoctrinating" one of the jurors. Lenard also said a prosecutor insulted him during the closing arguments and he accused the jury of "improper …
Vaughn was convicted this summer of killing his wife and three children in a desperate attempt to free himself from responsibilities and start a new life.
Christopher Vaughn had set a plan in motion to start a new life in the Yukon with an unwitting Chicago stripper on whom he had a secret crush. Instead, he will be starting a new life in prison, and he will be staying there until he dies. Vaughn, 38, faces an automatic life sentence for killing his wife, 34-year-old Kimberly Vaughn, and three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, 12—in June 2007. The Oswego man will still go through what is expected to be a lengthy sentencing hearing today. Members of Kimberly Vaughn's family are scheduled to testify. The Vaughns were making an early morning trip to a Springfield waterpark when Christopher Vaughn pulled off Interstate 55 and stopped on the frontage road outside Channahon. He …
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Some may conclude that the case is not quite as black and white as it first seemed.
Last month you read a little bit about life in 1910 Montgomery, and a short synopsis of the Morris-Dumas murder. And, two weeks ago you read about the two people involved and their questionable entanglement. Now, after you read about the testimony of the individual witnesses, and the wrap-up of the attorney for Henry Morris, you may conclude that the case is not quite as black and white as it first seemed. Today’s technology would have made it possible to verify instead of merely speculate about the logistics of the shooting; and that, coupled with a clearer picture of the background and character of Mrs. Dumas, might have led to a different conclusion. What the jury did not hear was that Mrs. Dumas had been arrested a few years earlier in…
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Henry Morris was not a very nice guy when he met Mrs. Dumas. But it doesn’t appear that he was a match for Mrs. Dumas, whose past was more than a little shady.
My last column ended with the promise by Aurora Police Chief Frank Michels that an eyewitness would come forth to testify at the Morris-Dumas murder trial. So, to learn who this was, I spent several days at the Aurora Public Library, reading through page after page of old newspapers. None of them revealed what the Chief promised. I’m sorry to disappoint you, and myself as well! Perhaps he had a lead that didn’t pan out. He didn’t explain. His hint that the witness was a female, and close enough to touch, created a lot of speculation about another woman being at the scene. It would have been a very different story. Of the three women who testified at the trial, none was present at the time of the murder. Grace Allen “intimate friend of …
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The jury in the Christopher Vaughn's murder trial found the Oswego man guilty in less than an hour.
Christopher Vaughn's murder trial lasted a full month, but it only took the jury 50 minutes to signal the court that they had a verdict. That verdict was guilty on all four counts of first-degree murder. Vaughn sat expressionless while Will County Judge Daniel Rozak read the finding and as each juror repeated it in turn. "This case was not just a murder, it was an atrocity," Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said at the trial's conclusion Thursday afternoon. Vaughn, 37, killed his entire family in June 2007. He initially faced the death penalty if convicted, and that played a large part in the case's lurching progress through the court system. "If there's a case that deserves the death penalty, it's this case," Glasgow said. Gov. …
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Testimony in the Christopher Vaughn murder trial wrapped up Tuesday and closing arguments are slated for Thursday.
Close to a month of testimony wrapped up Tuesday afternoon and closing arguments in the Christopher Vaughn murder trial are set for Thursday. The Oswego man charged with executing his wife and young children as they sat defenseless in the family's Ford Expedition more than five years ago declined to take the witness stand in his own defense. The final day of testimony did feature a blood-spatter expert, an investigator from the Will County Public Defender's Office, and a neuropsychiatrist The blood-spatter expert, Tom Bevel, said it was "possible" for Vaughn's wife, Kimberly Vaughn, 34, to have shot her husband in the wrist and thigh, and to have put two bullets apiece in their three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, 12—…
Friday, September 14, 2012
Backpacks stuffed with survival gear were found in Christopher Vaughn's bedroom closet a month after his entire family was killed.
Cops armed with a search warrant found a pair of backpacks stuffed with survival gear in the bedroom closet of accused quadruple-killer Christopher Vaughn. Vaughn's entire family was wiped out in a mass execution-style shooting less than a month before agents with the Illinois State Police made the bedroom closet discovery while conducting their second search of his house, according to testimony at Vaughn's murder trial Friday. Prosecutors contend Vaughn, 37, planned to live the life of a survivalist in the Yukon wilderness after shedding the responsibilities associated with his wife and three children by murdering them all in June 2007. State police Special Agent Cornelius Monroe said he and three of his colleagues found the backpacks …
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Accused quadruple-killer Christopher Vaughn's defense is progressing at a rapid pace.
The attorney for accused quadruple-killer Christopher Vaughn rocketed through his witnesses so fast Thursday that he ran out before there was a chance for the jury to get lunch. Judge Daniel Rozak said the midday meal was still going to be delivered and that jurors could stick around to eat or take it home with them. The early end to Thursday's proceedings was prompted by defense attorney George Lenard's rapid questioning of the half-dozen witnesses slated to testify. And things only lasted as long as they did due to a relatively lengthy argument over whether the judge should call a mistrial over a question asked of the day's second witness, Illinois State Police Sgt. Gary Lawson. After Lenard established that Vaughn went submitted to a …
Flora Dora
4:33 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
He was sent to prison quickly. When will we send Drew off to prison? more ›