182: The Von Stein Attack aka The Dungeons & Dragons Murder

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Southern fried True crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. At

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four twenty seven am on July twenty
fifth, nineteen eighty eight, a North

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Carolina dispatcher received a call from a
woman who spoke very softly, saying,

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this is an emergency. I need
the police and an ambulance. My husband

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may be dying and I think I
may be too. When officers arrived,

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they found a horrific scene. There
was blood everywhere in the bedroom, even

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on the ceiling. Forty four year
old Bonnie von Steyn was lying on the

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floor of her bedroom suffering from life
threatening injuries she would miraculously survive. Bonnie's

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husband, forty two year old Leath, was lying dead on the bed.

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There was so much blood it was
clear that someone had viciously attacked the von

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stein couple, but whoever was responsible
was no longer at the scene. The

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house was empty except for Bonnie's daughter
Angela, who had not been touched,

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even though she was only feet away
from her mother's bedroom, and because it

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had been dark during the attack,
Bonnie couldn't remember much about the intruder,

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just that he was wearing something over
his face and was dressed in dark clothing

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from head to toe. Nearly a
year would pass before the intruder was identified

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and the case was solved, and
no one would be more shocked by the

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truth than Bonnie von Stein. Welcome
to episode one eighty two, The von

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Stein Attack, also known as the
Dungeons and Dragon's Murder. Forty four year

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old Bonnie Stein could barely get the
words out would she die on the phone

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because they couldn't hear her. The
Washington, North Carolina dispatcher was trying,

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and Bonnie, ever polite, apologized. She explained that the intruder may still

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be in the house, and when
the operator asked for Bonnie's name, at

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first, she could only respond,
I am bleeding. Bonnie had already struggled

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so hard just to get to the
operator in nineteen eighty eight, Little Washington

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wasn't equipped with nine one one,
so she had to press a bunch of

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buttons on her phone until she got
to an operator who connected her with the

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police. And she had been on
the floor. She had dragged herself to

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the nightstand and pulled the phone down
on top of herself with a cord and

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then tried nine, one, one
before she remembered, and then started pressing

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random numbers until she finally got an
operator. She managed to tell the dispatcher

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her name and address, and she
explained that she and her husband had been

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attacked. She thought he was dead
and she might be dying. The despatcher

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assured her that she had help on
the way and kept Bonnie talking. When

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the police arrived at the von Stein
home, the intruder was gone, but

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the scene was horrific. Police were
initially startled by all the cats. They

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seemed to be all over the place. There would be thirteen in all,

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and one rooster. Bonnie was a
member of the Humane Society and fostered the

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cats and I guess the rooster,
even though she didn't live on a farm,

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but animal loving Bonnie thought nothing of
bringing him in the house for the

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night. Once police maneuvered around the
animals, they went upstairs to the bedroom

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on the right, as Bonnie had
told the dispatcher. Despite her deadly injuries,

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Bonnie von Stein kept her wits about
her. Police found the bedroom was

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absolutely covered in blood and there seemed
to be two bodies, one on the

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bed and one on the floor.
The body on the floor was Bonnie,

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the woman who had called for help. She was alive, but barely.

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She had been stabbed in the chest
and beat about the head with something like

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a baseball bat. The officers called
despatch again, asking where the ambulance was.

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The situation was dire and nothing short
of a miracle. Bonnie received medical

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treatment and time and survived, but
unfortunately her husband wasn't so lucky. Forty

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two year old Leith von Stein was
dead. He had died before the emergency

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responders had arrived. Leith had also
been beaten and stabbed. His body lay

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on the bed, surrounded by a
pool of red blood. Someone had viciously

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attacked Bonnie and Leith von Stein,
someone angry, someone deranged, but whoever

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it was had fled the scene,
and since Bonnie had been asleep when the

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attack started, she hadn't gotten a
good look at the assailant. It was

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dark and she didn't have her glasses
on. She was very near sighted,

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so even if she hadn't been in
the midst of an attack, she couldn't

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see clearly, especially in the dark. The only thing she could recall with

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certainty was that he was wearing something
over his face, and he was dressed

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in dark clothing from head to toe. For almost a year, no one

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knew who brutally murdered Leith von Stein
and almost killed Bonnie von Stein, until

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finally, after eleven months, the
attacker was unmasked, The case was solved,

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and the detectives who had relentlessly investigated
for months and months probably celebrated.

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An officer might have received a well
deserved pad on the shoulder, maybe a

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supervisor bought everyone a round of drinks
after work. But Bonnie von Stein was

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not celebrating, first of all,
because of how long it took to get

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justice and how she had been treated
by law enforcement. It was hurtful,

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and the early investigation was dismal.
But more importantly, the man who had

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viciously attacked her, the man who
had murdered her husband, the man who

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had single handedly decimated her entire life, was someone she never would have suspected.

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I'm going to pause now for a
short commercial break. Leith Peter von

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Stein was born on March sixteenth of
nineteen forty six to his mother, Marie

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and his father, Howard, in
New York City. He was an only

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child, and because of that he
was a little spoiled. His mother,

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Marie doubted on him endlessly. Still, he was a good kid. He

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just knew from a young age that
things were always going to go his way.

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Later, Leith, a prolific jokester, would say they only had one

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because they were afraid to risk having
another one like me. When Leith was

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a baby, the small von Stein
family moved from Queens to Winston Salem,

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North Carolina, a city of over
two hundred and fifty thousand people in central

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North Carolina. Leith's dad, Howard, was going to help out with his

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brother in law's dry cleaning business.
It was called Camel City, and shortly

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after the von Stein's joined the business, Camel City became wildly successful. By

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the mid sixties, Camel City Laundry
and Cleaners had several branches across the nation

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and over one hundred employees. Leith's
dad, who had started as a general

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manager, had become a part owner, and the von Stein family was doing

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really well financially, and they were
also doing really well in general. Leith

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and his parents lived in a quaint
home and a nice part of town.

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They went to church every Sunday,
and Leith was thriving. He was a

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bright kid, and high school was
a breeze. In nineteen sixty four,

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he graduated, and then he attended
North Carolina State University to study engineering,

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but that didn't last long. Leith, a sheltered child, floundered with a

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newfound freedom that came with college plus
engineering. School was difficult, and it

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was even more difficult if he partied
hard and as often as Leith did.

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By his junior year in nineteen sixty
seven, he had flunked out. In

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the late sixties, it was the
height of the Vietnam War. As a

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result, in nineteen sixty eight,
twenty two year old Leith von Stein was

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drafted into the US Army, but
instead of getting shipped off to Southeast Asia,

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Leith somehow landed a safer assignment in
Germany. Still, he left the

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army as soon as he could.
He had only served two years, but

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that was fine with him. He
never saw himself being happy with a lifelong

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career in the military. In fact, Leith's brief military experience made him disheartened

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about the government and the Vietnam War. According to Jerry Bledsoe's Blood Games,

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Leith would often ask his friends,
why are we here? What are we

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doing? In nineteen seventy, twenty
four year old Leith enrolled in Guildford College

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in Greensboro, North Carolina. Although
he really did love numbers, he had

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been burned by his experience studying engineering
at North Carolina State. This time around,

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Leith wanted to study business, and
that's exactly what he did in between

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getting high and drunk with his friends, of course, but that was okay.

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Leith managed to balance his business schoolwork
and still enjoy himself. Leith's friends

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described him as offbeat yet charming.
He was smart and clever, with a

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quick wit that would leave even the
most stone faced professor grinning. And Leith

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wasn't shy. If he had something
to say, he would say it,

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damn the consequences. And if you
had something to say, you'd better be

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ready to defend your opinion because Leith
was known for playing devil's advocate until long

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after the cows came home. One
of Leith's friends told author Jerry Bledsoe in

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an interview, he would absolutely take
it to the hilt, make you prove

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your point. Another friend said he
liked to look at life in the absurd.

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He was a structured person, but
he was also a very creative person.

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Leith had a tremendous imagination. In
December of nineteen seventy two, Leith

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graduated from Guildford College with his business
degree. During college, he had developed

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an interest in computers, and so
he merged his love for business and computers

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by accepting a programming position at Entigone, a North Carolina insurance company. They

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needed a computer genius, and Leith
was just the right guy. While working

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at Entigone, Leith met a woman
named Bonnie lou Bates Pritchard. She,

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like Leith, was incredibly smart,
but unlike Leith, Bonnie was very shy,

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and she always had been. Blue. Bates had been raised along her

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sisters in rural Davidson County, which
was only a few miles outside of Winston

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Salem. She loved reading and she
loved animals, and in high school Bonnie

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had been on the newspaper staff and
in the drama club. But still she

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was an incredibly shy woman. She
was quiet, and as an adult it

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could make her seem unemotional. Her
daughter, Angela inherited the same reserved trait.

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Bonnie was extremely close to her parents, George and Polly Bates, and

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would lean on them tremendously after the
attack. They were as salt of the

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Earth people and she had always leaned
on them. Bonnie had a hard life

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starting out as an adult. After
she graduated from high school in nineteen sixty

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two, she began working with computers
at Entigon, and five years later,

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in sixty seven, she married her
first husband, not Leth, but a

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different man. His name was Stephen
Pritchard, and Stephen was younger than Bonnie.

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He was eighteen years old and still
in high school when he and Bonnie

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tied the knot. She was twenty
three years old. After their honeymoon,

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Stephen returned to high school to finish
up his senior year, and Bonnie went

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back to work at Entigon. We
would be horrified at this today. It

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would have been considered mildly scandalous then, but Bonnie Pritchard wasn't well known in

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their town, and neither was her
young husband, so their marriage went unnoticed,

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or at least unremarked upon, and
they started a family almost immediately.

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A son named Christopher Wayne Pritchard came
almost nine months after their marriage in nineteen

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sixty eight and second laughter, named
Angela Christine Pritchard in nineteen seventy. Eventually,

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financial turmoil got the best of their
relationship, and Bonnie and Stephen were

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officially divorced in November of nineteen seventy
three. For the record, because I

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know I'll get comments, this is
the exact age difference between me and my

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husband. But we got married in
our thirties. There is a difference,

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and I of course understand that.
But marrying a kid in high school would

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only be okay, and the era
that Bonnie and Stephen did it, and

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marrying a high school kid certainly seemed
to come with the consequence of him being

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too immature to be a husband or
father. Stephen quickly left his family and

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Bonnie was on her own, trying
to feed two small kids. There were

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a couple of very lean years,
as Bonnie worked all the time and the

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Pritchard children either stayed in daycare or
with Bonnie's parents. Bonnie tended to be

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over permissive with her kids because she
felt guilty, something she kept up even

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when they were older. But not
too long after her divorce, Bonnie and

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Leith, who knew each other from
working together at Entigon began dating, but

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nobody knew about it. For reasons
unknown, Leith had a history of being

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very secretive about his relationships with women. Maybe that's because while Leith was a

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very charismatic guy, he wasn't traditionally
attractive, and so asking women out was

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more of a struggle than he probably
liked to admit. Perhaps he kept his

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relationships a secret to ensure he wouldn't
be embarrassed if he was later rejected.

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It could also have been due to
Bonnie's reserved sha nature. She was a

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very private woman. She worked hard
to raise her kids, and she wasn't

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big on shows of affection, but
in a way that made her the yen

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to Leith's yang. They were well
matched, so Bonnie and Leith were probably

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dating long before their friends and family
realized it. In the mid seventies.

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By nineteen seventy seven, Leith told
his friends that he was thinking about marrying

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Bonnie. At that point, Leith
had left Intigone for greener pastures, but

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he and Bonnie were still talking regularly. The only thing that held him back

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from popping the question was Bonnie's children, Christopher and Angela. At this point,

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Angela was nine years old and Chris
was around eleven, and Leith hadn't

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spent much time with either of them, but Leith knew he wanted Bonnie.

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He would figure out the rest like
he always did. On August seventeenth,

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nineteen seventy nine, thirty three year
old Leith married thirty five year old Bonnie,

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and fortunately, both of Bonnie's kids, Chris and Angela, seemed to

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be big fans of their new stepfather. According to author's Jerry Bledsoe and Joe

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McGuinness, who would both write famous
books on the case, the beginning of

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the new family was a fairly peaceful
transition, helped by the fact that Leith

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traveled a lot for work. Bonnie's
kids didn't have to accept their new dad

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all at once, and they now
had more of their mother's attention. It

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really seemed like everything was falling into
place. Not long after the wedding,

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Leith became the chief auditor of a
tech extall company called National Spinning Company in

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Washington, North Carolina, known as
Little Washington. It was two hundred miles

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east of Winston Salem, but the
move would be worth it. This was

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an executive position, which meant a
lot more money, so Leith, Bonnie,

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Chris, and Angela packed their bags
and moved three hours east Washington,

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North Carolina, is a small town, just like its nickname suggests, the

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type of place where everyone knows everyone
and no one locks their doors. In

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the nineteen eighties, there were less
than nine thousand residents, and National Spinning

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Company, the textall company Leith now
worked for, was the city's largest employer.

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I'm going to pause now to hear
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main protagonist, June Parker, on
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The family settled in at one ten Losson

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00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:14.880
Road, in a neighborhood known as
Smallwood. It was the city's most exclusive

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area, as in, anybody who
was somebody lived in Smallwood, and since

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00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:25.359
the National Spinning Company was such a
big deal in Little Washington, Leith's role

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00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:30.480
as the chief auditor meant he was
a somebody, and Leith didn't take that

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00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:34.680
lightly. He worked hard, socialized
just as hard, and quickly became a

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00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:41.440
well respected Pillar of the little Washington
community. From the outside looking in,

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00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:45.160
the vaughn Stein's seemed to be living
the American dream. They had money,

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00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:49.519
they had friends, they had family. What else could you possibly need?

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00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:56.960
But Leith was unsatisfied. Friends of
Leith's told A and E reporters that he

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00:19:56.039 --> 00:20:00.839
sometimes said he wanted Bonnie's now teenaged
chi Dren to move out of the house.

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00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:04.519
He spent a lot of money on
the children, but they didn't seem

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00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:11.240
to appreciate it. He bought Chris
a nineteen sixty five white Vintage Mustang souped

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00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:15.279
up so you could hear the muffler
coming from blocks away, but Chris didn't

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00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:19.480
seem grateful enough for Leith. Nothing
he did seem like enough. It was

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00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:25.680
the same with Angela. But as
far as his teenaged stepkids moving out,

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00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:30.160
I'm not sure where Leith thought they
would go, as Stephen Pritchard had never

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00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:33.599
been much of a father to his
kids. He wasn't even living in the

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state at this point and only saw
his kids a couple of times a year.

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00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:42.160
Joe McGuinness wrote that Angela told Pritchard
to his face that he wasn't her

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00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:48.480
father, and she considered Leith her
dad. You have to wonder if sometimes

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00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:52.319
it was just plain old communication issues
with Leith and his step kids. And

252
00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:57.240
you can't buy teenagers, even though
it might seem like you can. Nothing

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00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:03.200
replaces spending time with your stepkids to
get to no trust and accept each other.

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00:21:03.480 --> 00:21:07.160
But Leith was a very busy man. He worked hard, and he

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00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:14.240
demanded respect from his stepchildren despite not
being very close to them. Things were

256
00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:18.599
especially difficult with Chris, who was
a student at Washington High School. Leith

257
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:23.519
was frustrated by his stepson's laid back
attitude, and he was disappointed that Chris

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00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:30.240
didn't get good grades despite having the
intellect. Leith saw potential in Chris,

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00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:34.079
but it felt like Chris didn't see
the potential in himself. Chris, as

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00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:40.440
peers described him as moody, different, reserved, and weird, and Chris,

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00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:45.519
by many accounts, was desperate for
attention. He would do anything and

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00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:49.079
everything to get it. Despite how
Bonnie tried to connect with Chris, he

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00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:55.319
was still always that kid in daycare, starved for love, so he acted

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00:21:55.319 --> 00:21:59.680
out a lot. One day,
he arrived at school with a python around

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00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:04.319
his neck, just casually wearing it
like a scarf. Chris put so much

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00:22:04.319 --> 00:22:07.920
time into being noticed, it's no
wonder he didn't have any energy left for

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00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.880
homework. His wild behavior didn't job
well with Leith, who was a disciplined

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00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:18.039
guy, and Leith hated spending money
on Chris just to watch him squander it

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00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:22.279
away. But despite their challenges,
things were looking up. In June of

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00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:27.440
nineteen eighty seven, Chris had just
graduated from high school and started college at

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00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:33.279
North Carolina State University. He was
going to study political science, and Leith

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00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:37.559
was starting to see some promise in
Chris. He even offered to pay Chris

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00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:41.880
his tuition and give him a modest
allowance. It was fifty bucks a week,

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00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:47.200
which is one hundred and twenty five
and today's money. Definitely enough to

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00:22:47.240 --> 00:22:52.079
cover groceries and gas money, but
that's not what Chris was spending the money

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00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:56.880
on, and it was never enough
money. According to McGuinness, he also

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00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:02.119
had credit cards he used that Bonnie
would then quiet a payoff, or he

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00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:04.480
would just ask his mom for more
money, and she rarely denied him.

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00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:10.720
In the fall of nineteen eighty seven, Chris was living on campus and his

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00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:15.240
first semester grades were okay, but
by the end of the spring semester,

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00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:21.000
his grades were declining again, and
Leith was livid Chris was back to his

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00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:26.599
old ways, and he suspected that
Chris's lackluster performance had to do with his

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00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:30.400
recreational drug use. Even though Leith
was a bit of a partier in college,

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00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:34.680
he couldn't stomach watching Chris make the
same mistakes, at least not on

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00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:41.359
his dom. Leith threatened to cut
Chris off financially and their relationship rapidly deteriorated

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00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:45.640
from there. And Leith might have
been a former partier, but I'm not

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00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.960
sure he had ever been on the
same level as Chris. It wasn't just

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00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:55.079
smoking pot and drinking. Chris was
doing cocaine and was heavily into LSD.

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00:23:56.079 --> 00:24:00.720
It's difficult to skate through even freshman
classes when you're tripping ball every other day.

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00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:04.720
In May of nineteen eighty eight,
Chris was able to finish his first

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00:24:04.759 --> 00:24:08.799
year of college by the skin of
his teeth. Then he enrolled in a

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00:24:08.839 --> 00:24:14.000
few summer courses, maybe as a
show of faith so that Leith would trust

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00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:18.400
him, or maybe Chris needed to
catch up on his credits so he could

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00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:22.759
graduate on time. Either way,
twenty year old Chris finally seemed like he

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00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:27.400
had his nose to the grindstone seemed
being the operative word, and tensions were

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00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:33.240
still high between Chris and Leith.
At the beginning of summer of nineteen eighty

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00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:37.160
eight, Chris returned to Bonnie and
Leith home for a visit. They argued

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00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:41.640
about Chris's academic performance the entire time. A few times Chris and Leith almost

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00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:47.319
came to blows. By the end
of it all, Bonnie decided she would

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00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.559
be the one to handle how to
discipline Chris. Clearly, Leith and Chris

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00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:56.519
could not be trusted to handle the
situation without becoming violent. That same summer,

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00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.359
eighteen year old Angela was supposed to
visit Chris for the Fourth of July

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00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:06.680
holiday. She drove to North Carolina
State and Raleigh, but Chris was nowhere

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00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:11.599
to be found. Angela, who
was concerned, called Chris's phone, but

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00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:15.599
he didn't pick up. Bonnie tried
to reach him too, but still Chris

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00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:21.400
was gone out of her mind with
worry, Bonnie did what no mother ever

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00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:25.720
wants to do. She followed a
missing person report for her son, and

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00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:30.200
shortly after that, Chris reached out. He was fine, nothing to worry

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00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:33.440
about sorry for all the trouble.
Now it was Bonnie's turn to be livid.

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00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:38.960
Where had Chris been for three days? Chris fed Bonnie some bullshit about

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00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:42.880
where he was, but it was
clear he was lying. According to Bledsoe's

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00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:48.400
Blood Games, during this incident,
Leith told Chris, if you're getting involved

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00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:52.359
with drugs, I'm going to kick
your ass. But Chris wasn't worried.

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00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:56.440
From his perspective, Leith had a
big bark, but not much bite.

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00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:02.799
Following this debacle, Bonnie and Lee
were sick of Chris's shit. They decided

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00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:06.960
to keep a tighter leash on him, or they said they would. The

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00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:11.799
only consequence Chris actually faced was that
now he had to tell his parents how

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00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:17.480
he was spending their money, but
they still gave him the money. Everyone

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00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:21.200
raises their kids differently, but I
think at this point Chris was a legal

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00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:25.559
adult. Rather than continue to bang
their heads against a wall, why not

321
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.160
tell Chris he had to get a
job to pay for his lifestyle. Still

322
00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:33.200
pay for his tuition as long as
he was passing his classes, but otherwise

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00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:37.000
he would be on his own.
He would either grow up or flounder and

324
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:41.559
learn a lesson. You would think
Bonnie, who had married an immateur high

325
00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:45.519
school kid, would see this,
But we are often blind to our own

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00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:51.400
children, and parents always want better
for their kids than they had themselves.

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00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:56.200
It's part of why Chris's partying drove
Leith nuts. He saw him making the

328
00:26:56.279 --> 00:27:00.200
same mistakes he had, and Bonnie
would never ever have the heart to actually

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00:27:00.200 --> 00:27:04.920
cut off one of her kids.
On Friday, July twenty second, Chris

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00:27:04.960 --> 00:27:10.640
came home again and he spent the
night. On Saturday morning, he left

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00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:15.319
to go see some friends. He
returned later that day, made some hamburgers,

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00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:18.759
and ate dinner with the family.
After dinner, Chris announced he was

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00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:22.960
headed back to the university. Bonnie
and Chris stood by his car as they

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00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:27.680
said their final goodbye, and according
to Blood Games, that's when Bonnie noticed

335
00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:33.720
something odd. Chris's car was missing. It's very nice high tech radio.

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00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:38.119
Chris explained to his mother that someone
had stolen it. He hadn't told her

337
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:42.559
because he didn't want her to worry, but Bonnie could smell the law from

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00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:47.880
them all away. Had Chris pondered
off for drug money, who knows?

339
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:52.240
Bonnie was tired. This was just
one more way that Chris was going to

340
00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:56.599
piss off Leath. She let Chris
have this one and didn't even tell Leath

341
00:27:56.200 --> 00:28:02.079
and Chris made his way back to
school. I'm going to pause now to

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Bank and Trust Member FDIC. On
Sunday, July twenty fourth, Leith and

377
00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:38.799
Bonnie went out to dinner. It
was a nice time. The food was

378
00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:42.920
good, the wine was better.
Leith and Bonnie talked about their future,

379
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:48.480
their hopes, their dreams, their
future retirement. According to Blood Games,

380
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.599
Leith told Bonnie that he would have
no life if not for her, no

381
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:57.359
reason to live without her. When
the two returned home, Leith went to

382
00:30:57.400 --> 00:31:00.759
bed, but Bonnie stayed up.
She had been looking forward to watching a

383
00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:06.799
maid for TV movie about Ted Bundy
called The Deliberate Stranger. It aired that

384
00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:11.440
night at about eleven pm. She
turned in for the night. She checked

385
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.400
on her cats, the rooster,
and locked all the doors. Then she

386
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:18.359
joined Leith in bed, and after
reading for a while, she went to

387
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:22.720
sleep. Around midnight. Hours later, Bonnie was jolted awake. Leith was

388
00:31:22.839 --> 00:31:26.079
screaming, and a dark figure was
standing at the foot of their bed,

389
00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:32.519
A man, a man who was
attacking Leith. Bonnie reached out for Leith,

390
00:31:32.559 --> 00:31:36.759
but inadvertently got in the way of
the attackers blows. Then the attacker

391
00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:41.359
started striking Bonnie as well. In
the dark. Without her glasses and groggy

392
00:31:41.480 --> 00:31:45.880
from sleep, Bonnie wasn't sure what
was going on. She lost consciousness.

393
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:51.240
Moments later she woke up. She
was on the floor. Now the intruder

394
00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:55.519
was standing near her feet, still
striking her with something. After a while,

395
00:31:55.559 --> 00:31:59.680
the attacker clearly thought Bonnie was dead
and left the room. She was

396
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.799
antic Her daughter Angelo was in a
nearby bedroom, but Bonnie couldn't get up,

397
00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:08.920
and she lost consciousness again. The
next time Bonnie woke up, she

398
00:32:08.960 --> 00:32:14.000
reached for Leith's fingers. They were
limp, but she thought she heard him

399
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:17.400
breathing. Although she was panicked and
disoriented, Bonnie knew she had to call

400
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:22.160
for help. She managed to drag
herself to the bedside table where the phone

401
00:32:22.279 --> 00:32:25.160
was and pull the phone by the
cord until it fell on top of her.

402
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:30.960
She dialed nine one one, but
there was no nine one one emergency

403
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:36.000
line in Little Washington, so Bonnie
forced herself to be logical and pressed random

404
00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:39.880
numbers. She hung up when she
heard busy signals, until finally, at

405
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:45.720
four twenty seven am, she was
connected to an operator from Beaufort County Central

406
00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:51.680
Communications. Side note, it is
pronounced Beaufort. This is North Carolina,

407
00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:55.359
not South Carolina, so I hope
the pronunciation police remember that before they try

408
00:32:55.359 --> 00:33:00.319
to come for me this time.
Thank you to local listener Ainsley who rode

409
00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:05.640
in and confirmed this for me.
Back to the story. As Bonnie spoke

410
00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:09.519
with the operator, she became more
and more incoherent, but the operator was

411
00:33:09.559 --> 00:33:15.039
able to understand enough to get Bonnie's
address and send help. When the responding

412
00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:20.200
officers arrived, they found the von
Stein's front door was locked, but the

413
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.400
back door had been forced open.
Someone had cut through the back door screen

414
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:28.200
so that they could unlock the door
from the inside, but they had broken

415
00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:31.559
the window beside the door, a
double pained storm window, instead of just

416
00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:37.480
breaking the small window on the door. Later, when a detective thought he

417
00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:39.839
would test the theory, he could
barely reach the handle from the window,

418
00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:44.880
even with his feet dangling off the
porch, and he was six feet tall.

419
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:49.160
To him, this looked staged.
The front door had been locked,

420
00:33:49.319 --> 00:33:52.319
so this backdoor was definitely the point
of entry and exit, but something was

421
00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:58.640
hinky about it. The police entered
the von Stein's house and began searching for

422
00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:02.240
victims. Upstairs, they found forty
four year old Bonnie lying on the floor

423
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.160
of her bedroom. The telephone was
still in her hand, but Bonnie was

424
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:10.960
losing blood fast. Later it would
be confirmed that Bonnie had suffered a stab

425
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:15.440
wound to the chest, e collapsed, long internal bleeding, a fractured thumb,

426
00:34:15.719 --> 00:34:22.239
and numerous cut some bruises to her
face. The police quickly determined that

427
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:27.760
Bonnie's injuries were life threatening, and
they transported her to a hospital. Forty

428
00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:30.239
two year old Leith von Stein was
on the bed. He wasn't breathing and

429
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:34.599
his heart had stopped. They had
to wait for a doctor to make the

430
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:39.239
final determination, but the police already
knew he was dead. Later, a

431
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:45.719
medical examiner would confirm that Leith had
five lacerations on his scalp, seven stab

432
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:49.920
wounds in his back, and one
stab wound in his heart. Additionally,

433
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:54.800
Leith sustained numerous bruises and scrapes as
he tried to defend himself. But as

434
00:34:54.800 --> 00:34:59.519
soon as the attacker's blade had pierced
his heart, Leith was a goner.

435
00:35:00.239 --> 00:35:04.559
He had died within minutes of the
blow. Angela, thank god, was

436
00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:07.519
fine. The police found her sleeping
in her room, which was only about

437
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:13.119
twelve feet away from her parents' bedroom. They woke Angela up and had her

438
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:19.320
weight downstairs. There they told her
what was going on. Angela remained calm,

439
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:22.840
too calm according to the police later, but I'm sure she was in

440
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:29.360
some serious shock. When Angela called
Chris, he was back in Raleigh playing

441
00:35:29.400 --> 00:35:32.679
cards with some friends. Upon hearing
the news of this attack, Chris was

442
00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:37.920
incredibly distraught. He couldn't drive,
He couldn't even find his keys, so

443
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:42.920
he called the university police and they
gave him a ride to the hospital so

444
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:46.440
he could see Bonnie. At the
time, Bonnie was in the ICU.

445
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:52.679
She would go on to make a
full recovery, but despite several plastic surgeries,

446
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.760
she would remain scarred from the attack. When she was doing better physically,

447
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:02.639
investigators spoke with Bonny if she could
remember anything about the assailant. Unfortunately,

448
00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:07.480
because the room had been dark and
she wasn't wearing her glasses, she

449
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:12.880
couldn't identify him. Bonnie could only
describe the person as appearing dark and bulky

450
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:15.800
and being armed with a stick,
club or bat. He was dressed in

451
00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:21.920
dark clothing from head to toe and
was wearing a hood or mask. When

452
00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:25.360
news of the attack on the von
Stein's was made public, residents of Washington

453
00:36:25.400 --> 00:36:30.159
could not believe it. Murders were
rare in the city, but they were

454
00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:35.079
unheard of in the small Wood neighborhood. People were terrified a madman was on

455
00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:38.199
the loose. They installed dead bolts, kept their houses locked up tight,

456
00:36:38.559 --> 00:36:44.880
and loaded their guns. Meanwhile,
the Washington police were trying to figure out

457
00:36:45.079 --> 00:36:49.800
who attacked Leith and Bonnie von Stein. This wasn't the easiest task for this

458
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:57.000
particular police force. They had very
little experience investigating a murderer. Some described

459
00:36:57.039 --> 00:37:00.440
them as being like Don Nott's character
Barney Fife from The Andy Griffiths Show.

460
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:06.760
But they tried their best. Remember, this was the epitome of a small

461
00:37:06.800 --> 00:37:09.880
town in the low country. They
didn't even have nine one one. They

462
00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:15.079
definitely didn't have a CSI unit.
There was an SBI rep on site who

463
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:19.519
tried to call in the state team, but they were at a conference and

464
00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:22.719
he didn't have the authority to make
them come. So the local cops did

465
00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:29.039
their best, but they would make
a huge mistake. When the SPI rep

466
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:34.039
named Lewis Young arrived on scene,
he saw bloody bedsheets drawing on a motor

467
00:37:34.079 --> 00:37:37.880
boat parked in the driveway. Neighbors
stood in their own yards watching the police

468
00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:42.480
work. This was supposed to be
a crime scene, and they already had

469
00:37:42.519 --> 00:37:47.079
evidence hanging outside for folks to gawk
at. Also, they closed down their

470
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:51.719
work that afternoon and opened the house
up for neighbors to come inside and clean.

471
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:54.719
The neighbors said they didn't want Bonnie
to come home to this awful crime

472
00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:59.400
scene, but she was later angry
about the police letting them in there.

473
00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:02.360
She felt like they were nosy,
looky loose, not really trying to be

474
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:07.920
helpful, and the police had not
even taken a day to investigate the scene.

475
00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:10.880
I don't blame her for being pissed, and if she wasn't close to

476
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:15.639
her neighbors, she was probably right
about them just being nosy. So the

477
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:21.159
place was scrubbed clean, and whatever
evidence was left had been washed away before

478
00:38:21.159 --> 00:38:27.360
a real CSI unit could investigate.
Luckily, a young Beaufort County detective John

479
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:30.599
Taylor, twenty eight years old with
four years on the force and two years

480
00:38:30.599 --> 00:38:35.840
into his work as a detective,
had the wherewithal to go ahead and pull

481
00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:39.000
out a camera and snap photos of
the crime scene before things had been moved.

482
00:38:40.199 --> 00:38:45.760
After searching the von Stein residence and
the surrounding areas, police found that

483
00:38:45.800 --> 00:38:49.719
some hidden cash was missing and Bonnie's
purse had been dumped out, but that

484
00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:52.800
was it. Because of the cash, this felt like a targeted and side

485
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:58.519
job. To John Taylor, this
looked like a planned murder, not a

486
00:38:58.559 --> 00:39:02.199
burglary gone wrong. A green backpack
was recovered near the home, but that

487
00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:07.599
was it. Luckily, they quickly
got a tip that led them to crucial

488
00:39:07.639 --> 00:39:12.880
evidence. A farmer had contacted the
authorities around four thirty a m. On

489
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:15.880
July twenty fifth, the same time
and day of the attack. He had

490
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:20.760
seen a fire on the side of
Highway two sixty four. This was around

491
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:25.000
nine miles west of Washington. Police
went to the area and found the remnants

492
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:30.679
of burned clothing. The rubber sole
of a reboked tennis shoe, a knife,

493
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:35.360
and a partially burned hand drawn map
of the neighborhood around the von Stein

494
00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:38.239
home. The map would be a
huge piece of evidence in this case.

495
00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:44.360
Officers showed the knife to the medical
examiner, who confirmed it could have been

496
00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:47.280
used to attack the couple. It
appeared police had found at least one of

497
00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:52.039
the weapons used during the attack.
The baseball bat or similar item was yet

498
00:39:52.119 --> 00:39:58.440
to be located. Investigators kept coming
back to the fact that whoever killed Leith

499
00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:02.920
and severely injured Bonnie had to have
known the family. The first two suspects

500
00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:07.039
were eighteen year old Angela and twenty
year old Chris, and they both had

501
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:12.639
plenty of motive. If Bonnie and
Leith died, Chris and Angela would inherit

502
00:40:12.639 --> 00:40:16.360
the von Stein estate. It was
worth around two million dollars back then today

503
00:40:16.400 --> 00:40:22.599
that's about five million. But detectives
wondered how Angela could have attacked her parents,

504
00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:27.079
cleaned herself up and crawled back into
bed before the first responders had arrived,

505
00:40:27.519 --> 00:40:30.480
and Chris had been one hundred and
ten miles away in Raleigh playing cards.

506
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:37.280
His friends confirmed it five weeks into
the investigation, and the police were

507
00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:40.400
no closer to solving it. They
hadn't even ruled out Bonnie, even though

508
00:40:40.400 --> 00:40:45.840
she was a victim, much less
the kids. Bonnie couldn't believe she was

509
00:40:45.880 --> 00:40:49.239
a suspect, but that's just how
it works. When you stand to inherit

510
00:40:49.639 --> 00:40:52.119
that kind of money. She could
have set the attack up and then been

511
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:57.960
inadvertently injured as well. The police
said they needed her and the kids to

512
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:00.880
take a polygraph to clear them,
to which she said, why didn't you

513
00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:06.320
just ask? We could have done
this weeks ago. She and Angela passed,

514
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:10.519
but Chris didn't take the test yet. Little did investigators know, but

515
00:41:10.599 --> 00:41:15.760
Bonnie von Stein had hired the most
famous criminal defense lawyer and North Carolina,

516
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:22.079
Wade Smith. He had worked on
the Jeffrey McDonald case. He sat second

517
00:41:22.159 --> 00:41:25.000
chair to McDonald's fancy New York lawyer
and was the only one on the team

518
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:30.119
who didn't rub the judge and jury
the wrong way. McDonald may have lost,

519
00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:34.000
but Smith is still one of the
most esteemed lawyers in the state.

520
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:38.000
Bonnie had never liked the way the
police had talked to her. She was

521
00:41:38.039 --> 00:41:43.079
the victim, the grieving widow,
and when she told her dad about it.

522
00:41:43.320 --> 00:41:47.119
He suggested she hire a lawyer.
Incidentally, Wade Smith is how author

523
00:41:47.199 --> 00:41:52.719
Joe McGinnis later got involved. Smith
counseled her to get Chris his own lawyer.

524
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:57.280
He felt like she and Angela were
fined since they were in the house

525
00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.960
during the attack. But even though
Chris had witnessed as to his alibi,

526
00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:05.519
he still wasn't home when it happened, so she hired another big gun named

527
00:42:05.559 --> 00:42:10.639
will Austin Senior. When Austine found
out about the polygraph, he said absolutely

528
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.480
not. He said he would set
up a private polygraph, but Chris would

529
00:42:15.480 --> 00:42:19.960
not be taking any SPI test.
When Bonnie showed up with Angela for the

530
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:23.440
test and informed Lewish Young and John
Taylor that on the advice of his attorney,

531
00:42:23.519 --> 00:42:30.480
Chris wouldn't be taking the test,
they were flabbergasted and pissed. Bonnie

532
00:42:30.519 --> 00:42:36.320
had never mentioned hiring a lawyer.
She told author Joe McGuinness that Young looked

533
00:42:36.320 --> 00:42:39.960
at her and said, why would
a victim need a criminal lawyer? Lewis

534
00:42:40.079 --> 00:42:45.400
Young certainly did not handle Bonnie with
kid gloves. Instead, he blew up

535
00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:49.920
at her. According to what Bonnie
told author Joe McGuinness. Young slammed a

536
00:42:49.960 --> 00:42:52.800
stack of papers on the table in
front of her and told her he had

537
00:42:52.840 --> 00:42:57.920
planned to walk her through all the
evidence they had, but now he would

538
00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:02.199
never talk to her about the case
again. Whether or not he really believed

539
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:07.840
she could be involved as immaterial.
Today, she would have had a victim's

540
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:13.320
advocate helping her navigate this horrible experience, not some state police guy with an

541
00:43:13.320 --> 00:43:17.320
ego bigger than North Carolina screaming at
her. Back then, she had her

542
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:22.920
own wits and the support of her
family and her dad wasn't wrong. When

543
00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:27.000
the cops want to talk to you, and especially if they're talking polygraph you

544
00:43:27.159 --> 00:43:30.480
need an attorney, even if you
are a victim. That's still true today,

545
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:35.880
and little Bonnie von Stein had quite
the spine when pushed around by the

546
00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:38.599
cops. She didn't appreciate how they
talked to her, and she let them

547
00:43:38.679 --> 00:43:44.960
know it. She and Angela took
the polygraphs as promised and passed, ruling

548
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.239
them both out. But Chris was
still a suspect. Playing cards during the

549
00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:52.960
murder or not did not rule him
out of planning the attack. Police knew

550
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:57.679
for a fact he wasn't the actual
killer, but it was possible he was

551
00:43:57.719 --> 00:44:02.440
still involved Somehow, Investigators kept digging, hoping to find enough evidence to bring

552
00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:07.760
charges. Meanwhile, Bonnie never felt
safe at home again, and she was

553
00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:13.199
anxious to get away from Little Washington. She now owned the house that had

554
00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:16.840
once belonged to Leith's parents in Winston
Salem, so she and Angela moved there.

555
00:44:19.559 --> 00:44:29.400
I'm going to pause now for a
short commercial break. By February first,

556
00:44:29.559 --> 00:44:31.840
nineteen eighty nine, there was a
new sheriff in town, so to

557
00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:37.760
speak. Washington County had a new
chief of police named John Crone, and

558
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:42.440
he considered his first order of business
the von Stein murder. They had the

559
00:44:42.519 --> 00:44:46.199
map, and they had suspects.
It was time to play hardball. Crone

560
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:51.320
put together a task force, with
John Taylor leading and Lewis Young as an

561
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:55.800
official player. Despite his animosity towards
the victim, the team took a fresh

562
00:44:55.840 --> 00:45:00.679
look at Chris Pritchard. Maybe he
had planned the attack. That would explain

563
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:05.840
while the killer had a hand drawn
map of the von Stein's neighborhood, they

564
00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:09.639
got a subpoena and got a handwriting
sample from North Carolina State. Chris had

565
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:14.679
written his home address on an admittance
card, and the team felt the word

566
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.320
Lawson was a solid match to the
Lawson road written on the map. Now

567
00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:23.440
investigators knew they were headed in the
right direction, but they needed to find

568
00:45:23.440 --> 00:45:29.000
out who could have helped Chris pull
everything off, so they looked closely at

569
00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:32.360
his friends. Chris spent the most
time with his Dungeons and Dragons buddies,

570
00:45:32.960 --> 00:45:38.679
nineteen year old Gerald Neil Henderson and
nineteen year old James Bartlett Bart up Church

571
00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:45.639
the third, but Bart's friends called
him Moog for some reason. Chris had

572
00:45:45.639 --> 00:45:49.800
met Moog when he answered a flyer
on campus about playing Dungeons and Dragons.

573
00:45:50.519 --> 00:45:54.400
Moog had even met Angela, who
visited Chris often at school. He supposedly

574
00:45:54.440 --> 00:46:00.159
had a crush on her. Neil
and bart were childhood friends who grew up

575
00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:04.559
in a small town near the Virginia
state line. They were both really smart

576
00:46:04.599 --> 00:46:08.760
guys, big math and science nerds, Nil especially so. One of his

577
00:46:08.840 --> 00:46:15.480
teachers described him as a strange little
genius. Nil's IQ was over one fifty,

578
00:46:15.719 --> 00:46:20.679
and when he took the SAT he
scored fifteen hundred out of sixteen hundred,

579
00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:25.000
the highest SAT score Nil's hometown and
county had ever seen. But Nil

580
00:46:25.119 --> 00:46:30.400
wasn't going to start any revolutions.
He just wasn't the type. He never

581
00:46:30.440 --> 00:46:34.800
got into any trouble and was an
agreeable guy, a follower, not a

582
00:46:34.920 --> 00:46:39.119
leader. Bart was intelligent too,
just not as gifted as Nil. Bart

583
00:46:39.159 --> 00:46:44.440
had an IQ of one thirty five, scored an eleven ninety out of sixteen

584
00:46:44.519 --> 00:46:49.599
hundred on the set, and was
a gifted student. As a child.

585
00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:54.440
Bart did not show any violent tendencies, but he had been in trouble before.

586
00:46:55.119 --> 00:47:00.079
In February of nineteen eighty six,
Bart and three of his friends were

587
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:04.519
caught stealing a TV, binoculars,
and several other items from a cabin.

588
00:47:05.199 --> 00:47:08.679
They also stole a computer from the
high school. For that, Bart was

589
00:47:08.719 --> 00:47:13.880
given three years of probation, but
he didn't meet with his parole officers like

590
00:47:13.920 --> 00:47:17.159
he was supposed to, and eventually
he was picked up again for driving without

591
00:47:17.159 --> 00:47:22.239
a license. It had been revoked
earlier for a traffic offense. As a

592
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:27.320
result of all this, Bart was
put on twenty four hour electric monitoring,

593
00:47:28.159 --> 00:47:31.159
which means he had to wear a
transmitter bracelet and adhere to a curfew.

594
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:37.360
In August of nineteen eighty eight,
just a few weeks after the Von Stein's

595
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:42.360
attack, Bart sawed off his transmitter
bracelet and he stopped seeing his parole officer.

596
00:47:43.280 --> 00:47:47.480
He was officially on the run,
but from what well The Washington police

597
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:52.360
suspected they knew exactly what. On
June ninth of nineteen eighty nine, almost

598
00:47:52.360 --> 00:47:57.719
a year after Leith and Bonnie were
attacked, the police spoke with Neil Henderson.

599
00:47:58.239 --> 00:48:01.599
They wanted to see if he would
squeal on Bart. They asked Neil

600
00:48:01.639 --> 00:48:06.079
if he knew where Bart was,
but Neil claimed he didn't. He said

601
00:48:06.119 --> 00:48:08.840
he hadn't seen or heard anything about
Bart since he went on the run way

602
00:48:08.880 --> 00:48:13.679
back in August. The police then
asked him if he knew anything about the

603
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:17.320
von Stein attack, and Neil did. Neil knew a lot about the von

604
00:48:17.400 --> 00:48:22.320
Stein attack, and boy was he
ready to spill. His conscience had been

605
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:27.559
killing him. Two or three weeks
before the attack. Back in the summer

606
00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:30.760
of eighty eight, Chris and Bart
had approached him. They told Neil they

607
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:36.159
had an idea, a plan for
Chris to come into his massive inheritance.

608
00:48:36.199 --> 00:48:40.519
Early Neil remarked, oh, you're
going to rob the place. Bart shook

609
00:48:40.559 --> 00:48:45.320
his head and said, no,
We're going to murder his parents. Neil

610
00:48:45.400 --> 00:48:49.559
replied, isn't that a little extreme, but Chris laughed and said, no,

611
00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:53.119
we're serious. Here, let us
show you. Chris then brought out

612
00:48:53.159 --> 00:48:58.639
a hand drawn map of the von
Stein neighborhood and explained the plan. Bart

613
00:48:58.639 --> 00:49:01.039
would kill the von Stein's, then
stage the scene to look like a burglary

614
00:49:01.159 --> 00:49:06.360
gone wrong. Chris would stay in
Raleigh so he wouldn't be a suspect.

615
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:09.440
But Bart didn't have a car or
a driver's license, and he couldn't drive

616
00:49:09.519 --> 00:49:13.800
Chris's car because if he was stopped
while driving the car without a license,

617
00:49:14.239 --> 00:49:19.239
the murder could be traced back to
Chris. So they asked Neil to drive

618
00:49:19.239 --> 00:49:24.079
Bart to the von Stein home in
Chris's car. Neil told investigators he agreed

619
00:49:24.119 --> 00:49:28.599
to go along with the plan because
he wanted to fit in. For all

620
00:49:28.599 --> 00:49:31.519
of his life, Neil's high IQ
had made him stand out. He said,

621
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:36.239
at the time, I didn't feel
very good about myself and I needed

622
00:49:36.280 --> 00:49:40.559
friends. They were my friends.
On the night of Sunday, July twenty

623
00:49:40.599 --> 00:49:45.920
fourth, Neil arrived at the campus
parking lot. He picked up Bart,

624
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.599
who had a green backpack, a
hunting knife, and a baseball bat.

625
00:49:50.199 --> 00:49:52.880
He also had a key to the
back door that Chris had given him.

626
00:49:53.039 --> 00:49:58.159
Neil asked about why Bart had brought
the bat. Bart explained that he wasn't

627
00:49:58.159 --> 00:50:00.760
sure he would be able to stab
the von Stein quickly enough. The bat

628
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:06.119
was there to knock them out.
During the two hour drive from Raleigh to

629
00:50:06.199 --> 00:50:10.199
Washington, North Carolina, Bart changed
his clothes. He put on black shoes,

630
00:50:10.280 --> 00:50:15.199
a dark shirt and pants, and
a ski mask. Neil and Bart

631
00:50:15.320 --> 00:50:20.119
arrived at Little Washington at around two
thirty am. They located the von Stein

632
00:50:20.239 --> 00:50:23.519
house and then drove around for a
while. After a while, Bart told

633
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:27.320
Neil to park the car, and
then he got out and said he'd be

634
00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:32.800
back in thirty minutes. So Neil
waited and waited. Thirty minutes came and

635
00:50:32.840 --> 00:50:37.719
went, but Bart hadn't returned.
Neil started to panic. He drove closer

636
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:42.559
to the von Stein's neighborhood to look
for Bart. After about ten minutes,

637
00:50:42.599 --> 00:50:46.039
he appeared. He was running toward
Neil's car. Bart got in and said,

638
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:50.280
I did it. I can't believe
I did it. I never want

639
00:50:50.320 --> 00:50:52.639
to see that much blood again for
the rest of my life. Let's get

640
00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:59.199
out of here immediately. Neil drove
away, After they were settled on a

641
00:50:59.239 --> 00:51:02.599
long highway, Bart told Neil to
stop in a dark place. He needed

642
00:51:02.599 --> 00:51:07.199
to change his clothes. He was
covered in blood. After he changed,

643
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:12.960
Bart through his bloody clothes in the
trunk. A while later, Neil and

644
00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:15.920
Bart stopped at a dark, secluded
spot on the side of the road.

645
00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:20.199
They made a pile out of Bart's
murder clothes, the murder weapon, and

646
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:25.039
the map of the von Stein's house. Then they dumped gasoline on the items

647
00:51:25.119 --> 00:51:30.639
and set them on fire. They
left quickly before the fire burned out,

648
00:51:30.199 --> 00:51:35.280
which is how the map didn't burn, and then they stopped for gas and

649
00:51:35.320 --> 00:51:37.920
to wash the mud off the car. Bart gave Neil the cash he had

650
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:44.039
stolen from the von Stein home to
buy gas. Neil then told the officers

651
00:51:44.119 --> 00:51:47.159
questioning him that he had stopped being
friends with Chris and Bart after the attack,

652
00:51:47.920 --> 00:51:52.639
and Chris and Bart weren't friends anymore
either. According to Neil, the

653
00:51:52.719 --> 00:51:57.320
whole situation had been too traumatic.
They only ran into each other on occasion,

654
00:51:57.519 --> 00:52:01.840
and always by accident. When Neil
was finished confessing, he took the

655
00:52:01.880 --> 00:52:07.039
officers to all the places he had
mentioned. He even gave them the baseball

656
00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:12.159
bat that Bart had hidden with all
of Neil's information. The police were confident

657
00:52:12.159 --> 00:52:16.719
in their case, and on June
fifteenth of nineteen eighty nine, bart Aka

658
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:22.800
Moog was arrested. The next day, on June sixteenth, Chris was also

659
00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:27.920
arrested. He had been staying at
Bonnie's house in Winston Salem, and on

660
00:52:28.039 --> 00:52:31.880
June twentieth, Neil was arrested.
A month later, Chris, Neil,

661
00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:37.119
and Bart were indicted on charges of
murder, conspiracy, assault with a deadly

662
00:52:37.159 --> 00:52:40.920
weapon, burglary, and other charges. They faced the death penalty if they

663
00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:47.000
were convicted. Bart and Chris both
pleaded not guilty, but Neil Henderson took

664
00:52:47.039 --> 00:52:52.760
a plea deal in exchange for his
testimony and a few luster charges. Neil

665
00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:55.960
would be sentenced to a maximum of
life plus twenty years. The death penalty

666
00:52:57.079 --> 00:53:01.599
was taken off the table. At
his hearing, Bonnie had an extreme reaction.

667
00:53:02.280 --> 00:53:07.360
She thought he resembled the attacker more
than Moog did. She even ran

668
00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:12.159
out of the courtroom, scared later
it would make her testimony tricky. She

669
00:53:12.239 --> 00:53:19.039
wouldn't identify bart Ak Moog definitively.
Chris was adamant that he was not guilty

670
00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:23.559
until right before the trial started.
Are we shocked that the death penalty spooked

671
00:53:23.599 --> 00:53:29.800
a spoiled twenty one year old kid? On December twenty seventh, nineteen eighty

672
00:53:29.880 --> 00:53:32.760
nine, Chris accepted the same plea
deal as Neil. He would spend his

673
00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:37.559
life in prison, but he wouldn't
face the death penalty. And then he

674
00:53:37.639 --> 00:53:45.800
confessed he corroborated Neil's story exactly,
and he also said more. Chris explained

675
00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:49.800
how he had first thought of killing
his mother and stepfather. Around June of

676
00:53:49.840 --> 00:53:52.920
eighty eight, Chris had been drinking
with his friends. They were all shooting

677
00:53:52.960 --> 00:53:57.159
the ship about what they would do
if they were rich, and during that

678
00:53:57.280 --> 00:54:01.880
conversation, someone brought up that chris
his parents were rich, which Chris confirmed.

679
00:54:02.519 --> 00:54:06.400
Then he said, of something were
to happen to his parents, he

680
00:54:06.440 --> 00:54:12.519
would inherit a lot of money.
So Chris and his friends began daydreaming about

681
00:54:12.599 --> 00:54:15.800
this inheritance money, how they could
use it to buy a big house and

682
00:54:15.880 --> 00:54:21.679
all live together. Over the course
of that summer, Chris became more heavily

683
00:54:21.679 --> 00:54:27.639
involved in drinking and drugs. He
started to obsess about his parents' deaths and

684
00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:32.119
how much money he would get.
On July twentieth, of nineteen eighty eight,

685
00:54:32.199 --> 00:54:37.400
Chris and Bart grab some dinner during
the mill. Chris asked Bart what

686
00:54:37.519 --> 00:54:42.800
he thought about patricide, and Bart
replied apathetically, saying, well, you

687
00:54:42.920 --> 00:54:46.280
better not believe in God. From
there, Bart joined Chris in his scheme

688
00:54:46.320 --> 00:54:52.800
to murder his parents. They began
planning the murders. In exchange for Bart's

689
00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:57.360
help, Chris would give him a
Porsche and fifty thousand dollars that would be

690
00:54:57.440 --> 00:55:01.159
one hundred and twenty five thousand today. Their initial plan was to drug the

691
00:55:01.239 --> 00:55:06.760
von Steins and then set the house
on fire. They would make it look

692
00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:09.960
like an accidental house fire by planting
a broken fuse in the electric box.

693
00:55:10.960 --> 00:55:16.480
When investigators asked Chris if he was
worried about Angela dying, Chris was unconcerned.

694
00:55:16.880 --> 00:55:21.400
He knew it was a possibility.
He was okay with her dying,

695
00:55:21.960 --> 00:55:24.639
but he was also okay with her
living. She wasn't the main target.

696
00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:30.239
On Friday, July twenty second,
Chris went home with the intent of carrying

697
00:55:30.239 --> 00:55:35.440
out his Embart's plan. That Saturday
morning, when Chris told his parents he

698
00:55:35.519 --> 00:55:39.199
was out with friends, he actually
drove to Raleigh, where he picked up

699
00:55:39.239 --> 00:55:44.159
Bart, who had a bunch of
crushed sleeping pills. They returned to Little

700
00:55:44.159 --> 00:55:49.440
Washington that afternoon with the intent of
drugging Bonnie and Leath. That's why Chris

701
00:55:49.519 --> 00:55:52.079
wanted to cook the burghers that Saturday
night. He was going to lace the

702
00:55:52.079 --> 00:55:57.360
food with the sleeping pills, and
he did, but then things started to

703
00:55:57.400 --> 00:56:01.239
go wrong. Chris told his family
was headed back to Raleigh, and instead

704
00:56:01.360 --> 00:56:06.639
he drove to where Bart was waiting. They went back to the von steinhouse

705
00:56:06.719 --> 00:56:09.199
to start the fire, but they
couldn't break the fuse that they were going

706
00:56:09.280 --> 00:56:15.320
to plant in the fuse box.
Bart panicked, plus they had no way

707
00:56:15.320 --> 00:56:19.320
of knowing if the pills actually worked. He told Chris that the plan wouldn't

708
00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:22.880
work, and they both went back
to Raleigh. On the way, they

709
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:27.880
devised a new plan. Bart suggested
that he and Chris chop off Bonnie and

710
00:56:28.039 --> 00:56:31.880
Leith's heads. It would be quick
and painless, Bart argued, but when

711
00:56:31.880 --> 00:56:36.800
the two men tried to purchase a
machette, they couldn't find one. The

712
00:56:36.960 --> 00:56:42.679
army surplus stores were closed on the
weekends. Chris and Bart started brainstorming,

713
00:56:42.880 --> 00:56:46.400
and once again they had a new
plan kill the von Stein's and what would

714
00:56:46.440 --> 00:56:51.559
look like a burglary gone wrong.
Chris said he needed to stay in Raleigh

715
00:56:51.559 --> 00:56:54.199
to establish an alibi, so Bart
would have to carry out the murder by

716
00:56:54.320 --> 00:57:00.320
himself. They would ask Neil to
be Bart's getaway driver, since Bart didn't

717
00:57:00.360 --> 00:57:05.199
have a license to stage the crime
scene. Bart would steal a few things

718
00:57:05.280 --> 00:57:07.880
from the house, which is why
the money from the secret stash was gone.

719
00:57:08.679 --> 00:57:12.880
On the morning of Sunday, July
twenty fourth, Bart and Chris went

720
00:57:12.920 --> 00:57:16.079
to kmart and bought a hunting knife. Then they spoke to Neil about being

721
00:57:16.079 --> 00:57:21.800
the getaway driver. Chris offered Neil
the same deal, a car and fifty

722
00:57:21.840 --> 00:57:28.559
thousand dollars. Neil agreed, and
the plan was in motion. I'm going

723
00:57:28.599 --> 00:57:37.039
to pause now for a final commercial
break. When Chris received the phone call

724
00:57:37.079 --> 00:57:40.440
he knew was coming in the early
morning of Monday, July twenty fifth,

725
00:57:40.800 --> 00:57:45.800
he acted shocked. It wasn't until
he saw his mother beaten, stabbed,

726
00:57:45.800 --> 00:57:52.360
and terrified in the hospital that he
felt remorse. He was disgusted with himself,

727
00:57:52.719 --> 00:57:55.440
but he didn't confess. Chris was
scared as mom would find out what

728
00:57:55.480 --> 00:58:00.519
happened, and he didn't want to
go to jail. Bonnie later said,

729
00:58:00.559 --> 00:58:05.039
prior to Chris's confession, she didn't
believe he could commit murder, but after

730
00:58:05.079 --> 00:58:07.159
he told her he had planned the
attack, she had to believe him.

731
00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:12.639
She said, I can't imagine him
telling me such a horrible story in him

732
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:16.239
not doing what he said. Despite
the fact that her son planned her murder

733
00:58:16.239 --> 00:58:22.400
and had killed her husband, Bonnie
forgave Chris and supported him throughout his court

734
00:58:22.440 --> 00:58:28.920
proceedings. Another interesting part to Chris's
confession to his mother. It happened months

735
00:58:29.079 --> 00:58:32.840
after he had already confessed to authorities. His attorneys didn't want his mother to

736
00:58:32.920 --> 00:58:37.800
know because she was supposed to be
a character witness for Chris's defense, but

737
00:58:37.920 --> 00:58:44.159
ethically, the DA and police wanted
Bonnie to know Chris was living with her

738
00:58:44.239 --> 00:58:46.960
in Winston Salem while out on bond. What if he tried to kill her

739
00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:52.360
again. Further, Chris was under
the care of a psychiatrist who was worried

740
00:58:52.400 --> 00:58:58.519
that Chris was suicidal because he had
not come clean to his mother. I'm

741
00:58:58.559 --> 00:59:01.199
no lawyer, but it does seemed
right to put a witness on who doesn't

742
00:59:01.239 --> 00:59:07.599
know all the facts. Ethically or
legally, Bonnie von Stein had a right

743
00:59:07.679 --> 00:59:10.639
to know. She had been an
adamant supporter of her son and couldn't understand

744
00:59:10.679 --> 00:59:15.559
why he was charged in the attack. She considered the entire investigation a shit

745
00:59:15.639 --> 00:59:22.039
show and it was. Bonnie read
true crime books and loved watching crime shows

746
00:59:22.039 --> 00:59:24.960
on TV. She knew from the
get go that the crime scene was mishandled

747
00:59:25.239 --> 00:59:30.320
and that the police had bungled the
investigation. Is it any wonder? She

748
00:59:30.360 --> 00:59:36.000
didn't believe her son was involved until
he finally confessed to her. When he

749
00:59:36.079 --> 00:59:39.719
finally did, it was a massive
heartbreak for Bonnie, but as I said,

750
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:45.280
she quickly forgave her son and intended
to support him through his entire legal

751
00:59:45.360 --> 00:59:49.880
ordeal. But luckily she wouldn't have
to testify for him since he took a

752
00:59:49.920 --> 00:59:53.239
plea deal. Bart was the only
one of the three men to not accept

753
00:59:53.239 --> 01:00:00.519
a plea deal. His trial began
in early January of nineteen ninety. Exsecution

754
01:00:00.599 --> 01:00:02.880
told the jury that Chris, Bart
and Neil planned the murder of the von

755
01:00:02.920 --> 01:00:07.639
Steins so they could make some fast, easy money. The motive was greed,

756
01:00:07.880 --> 01:00:12.880
plain and simple. Chris and Neil
were star witnesses for the prosecution.

757
01:00:14.159 --> 01:00:17.960
Bonnie also testified, and she was
probably Bart's only hope, as she would

758
01:00:17.960 --> 01:00:24.519
not positively identify him as her attacker. Bonnie's ethical streak was made of steel.

759
01:00:24.920 --> 01:00:30.559
She would not say something she didn't
believe. But the jury had Chris

760
01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:34.400
and Nil, and that meant more
than a traumatized victim's memory of that night.

761
01:00:35.320 --> 01:00:38.880
Without their testimony, Bart probably would
have walked free. In fact,

762
01:00:39.239 --> 01:00:44.559
the defense's arguments pointed out that there
was zero physical evidence linking Bart to the

763
01:00:44.599 --> 01:00:49.280
attack. They claimed that Bart could
be innocent, that Chris and Nil,

764
01:00:49.400 --> 01:00:53.920
and perhaps even Angela had framed him. But for all their hemming and hawing,

765
01:00:54.079 --> 01:00:59.079
this trial was pretty much open and
shut. On January twenty fourth of

766
01:00:59.159 --> 01:01:02.679
nineteen ninety, after deliberating for ten
and a half hours, the jury found

767
01:01:02.719 --> 01:01:08.519
Bart guilty on accounts. After the
verdict was read, Bart lowered his head

768
01:01:08.519 --> 01:01:13.920
and held back tears. But that
was about the only emotion he showed during

769
01:01:13.920 --> 01:01:17.639
the entire proceedings, and I'm willing
to bet it took the jury over ten

770
01:01:17.679 --> 01:01:22.920
hours due to Bonnie's testimony. Next, the jury had to decide if they

771
01:01:22.920 --> 01:01:29.119
were sentencing Bart to death. The
prosecution laid out all of the aggravating circumstances

772
01:01:29.400 --> 01:01:34.719
surrounding Leath's murder and Bonnie's attack.
First, the murder occurred during the commission

773
01:01:34.719 --> 01:01:39.079
of a burglary, second it was
committed for money, and third it involved

774
01:01:39.159 --> 01:01:45.880
violence against other people. All of
these were considered aggravating circumstances that could justify

775
01:01:45.920 --> 01:01:50.440
the death penalty in the state of
North Carolina back in nineteen ninety. The

776
01:01:50.519 --> 01:01:53.960
prosecution said that Bart should receive the
death penalty because the attack on the von

777
01:01:53.960 --> 01:02:00.880
Stein's was quote a cold, calculated, pitiless, conscienceless act. Sentencing Bart

778
01:02:00.960 --> 01:02:05.119
to death was the only way you
could assure that he wouldn't do it again,

779
01:02:05.159 --> 01:02:09.079
they said. The defense countered that
Bart should receive life in prison because

780
01:02:09.079 --> 01:02:15.639
there were eleven mitigating factors that outweighed
the aggravating. Mitigating factors included Bart's age,

781
01:02:16.039 --> 01:02:20.519
his use of drugs, the fact
that he played dungeons and dragons,

782
01:02:20.559 --> 01:02:25.679
which quote created a blur between fantasy
and reality. The defense also said it

783
01:02:25.760 --> 01:02:30.119
was unfair that Bart faced death while
his co conspirators got life in prison.

784
01:02:31.519 --> 01:02:37.039
A psychologist for the defense testified that
Bart revealed an absence of violent tendencies and

785
01:02:37.079 --> 01:02:43.320
the presence of a primary mode of
dealing with situations by denying feelings and thoughts

786
01:02:43.840 --> 01:02:46.639
that could be why he was acting
totally fine throughout the trial. He was

787
01:02:46.679 --> 01:02:52.519
in a deep state of denial.
Bonnie told the judge outside of the presence

788
01:02:52.559 --> 01:02:55.159
of the jury that she didn't think
Bart should be sentenced to death. She

789
01:02:55.280 --> 01:03:00.000
said, I don't believe that taking
another life could make amends for the law

790
01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.400
loss of Leith. The defense wanted
the jury to hear Bonnie's statement, but

791
01:03:04.480 --> 01:03:10.039
the prosecution objected, and the judge
sided with the prosecution. On January thirtieth

792
01:03:10.119 --> 01:03:15.000
of nineteen ninety, the jury recommended
that Bart be sentenced to death, and

793
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:20.440
the judge imposed the death penalty that
same day. He was also given life

794
01:03:20.519 --> 01:03:24.119
for first degree burglary, twenty years
for felonious assault with a deadly weapon was

795
01:03:24.199 --> 01:03:30.480
intent to kill, and six years
for felonious larceny and conspiracy to commit murder.

796
01:03:31.079 --> 01:03:36.360
After he was sentenced, Bart maintained
his innocence. He said his trial

797
01:03:36.440 --> 01:03:39.559
was a miscarriage of justice and that
he was quote appalled and shocked by the

798
01:03:39.679 --> 01:03:46.039
verdict and was surprised the jury had
listened to two confessed murderers. Bart told

799
01:03:46.039 --> 01:03:50.760
the court he would try to end
his own life by starving himself. That

800
01:03:50.800 --> 01:03:53.360
way he would avoid being a burden
on his family. He told the court,

801
01:03:53.800 --> 01:03:59.840
I'm not cattle to be fattened for
slaughter. After this statement, the

802
01:04:00.079 --> 01:04:03.960
judge asked that bartbie put on suicide
watch. Prison staff said they would force

803
01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:09.719
feed him if necessary, but they
didn't have to. Bart broke his fast

804
01:04:09.719 --> 01:04:14.960
by eating breakfast on his second day
in prison. On January thirty first,

805
01:04:15.119 --> 01:04:18.000
the day after bart was sentenced to
death, Neil and Chris had their sentencing

806
01:04:18.039 --> 01:04:24.079
hearing. Bonnie testified for her son, stating, I love Chris as I'm

807
01:04:24.079 --> 01:04:28.039
sure the parents of Neil an up
Church love them. I hope and pray

808
01:04:28.119 --> 01:04:32.880
that these three young men can someday
find peace within themselves. Chris addressed his

809
01:04:32.920 --> 01:04:36.320
family and stated, you don't know
the kind of mental anguish that I have

810
01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:40.440
gone through. I just want you
to know I love all of you.

811
01:04:41.920 --> 01:04:45.719
Neil was given forty years, while
Chris was given life plus twenty years.

812
01:04:45.880 --> 01:04:49.960
In December of two thousand, Neil
was paroled after ten years in prison.

813
01:04:50.559 --> 01:04:56.599
Today he's a free man. He
lives in the Raleigh area. Chris was

814
01:04:56.719 --> 01:05:00.880
paroled in May of two thousand and
seven after seventeen years in prison. He's

815
01:05:00.920 --> 01:05:05.519
also a freeman and a born again
Christian. You know x cons always find

816
01:05:05.599 --> 01:05:14.000
Jesus Bart up Churches. Convictions and
sentences were appealed. That automatically happened when

817
01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:17.920
the death penalty was given in North
Carolina. During the appeals process, Bart's

818
01:05:17.960 --> 01:05:23.800
death sentence was overturned due to errors
and sentencing instructions given to the jury by

819
01:05:23.800 --> 01:05:28.760
the judge. On September twenty second, nineteen ninety three, Bart was re

820
01:05:28.880 --> 01:05:32.880
sentenced to life in prison. Today
he is serving two life sentences in the

821
01:05:32.960 --> 01:05:41.079
Davidson Correctional Institute and Lexington, North
Carolina. You might be wondering why I

822
01:05:41.119 --> 01:05:45.440
didn't discuss Dungeons and Dragons more in
this episode, since that's one of the

823
01:05:45.519 --> 01:05:49.599
reasons this case was so famous.
The reason is simple. It's bullshit.

824
01:05:50.360 --> 01:05:56.840
It is how Chris met Moog aka
Bart James up Church. They played Dungeons

825
01:05:56.840 --> 01:06:00.199
and Dragons often while tripping on acid. Moog his dealer, and they were

826
01:06:00.239 --> 01:06:03.800
friends who were obsessed with D and
D, along with some other friends.

827
01:06:04.760 --> 01:06:10.320
But that's where it ends. The
real motive was greed. This wasn't kids

828
01:06:10.320 --> 01:06:14.760
playing a stupid game that got out
of hand. These were legal adults who

829
01:06:14.800 --> 01:06:19.239
made a plan after talking about how
rich Leith von Stein was a plan for

830
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:24.400
Chris to inherit money and then they
could all drive cool cars, live in

831
01:06:24.440 --> 01:06:28.119
a house together, and play D
and D to their heart's content. That's

832
01:06:28.159 --> 01:06:31.400
it. That's how much Dungeons and
Dragons really had to do with this case.

833
01:06:32.599 --> 01:06:36.599
If you need more convincing than that, consider that Chris and his friends

834
01:06:36.639 --> 01:06:43.119
were fine with killing his mother and
Angela. Angela was just collateral damage,

835
01:06:43.519 --> 01:06:47.320
but in court Chris admitted his inheritance
would have been larger if she were killed

836
01:06:47.360 --> 01:06:53.679
too. I'm told that one of
the big differences between Jerry Bledsoe's book and

837
01:06:53.760 --> 01:06:59.440
Joe McGuinness' is that Angela is more
of a suspect and Mcguinness's cruelled out that

838
01:06:59.559 --> 01:07:04.239
she might have helped and known what
was going down. Maybe maybe her brother

839
01:07:04.320 --> 01:07:08.559
lied in court for her because he
didn't see why she should go down for

840
01:07:08.599 --> 01:07:14.079
this too, Or maybe she just
got lucky that moog up Church once had

841
01:07:14.079 --> 01:07:16.320
a thing for her, so he
didn't decide to attack her that night.

842
01:07:17.199 --> 01:07:23.320
There is no proof about Angela,
and she did pass the spis polygraph,

843
01:07:23.480 --> 01:07:27.079
not that those are admissible in court. But they are good enough to clear

844
01:07:27.119 --> 01:07:30.199
her for the cops. If she
was involved, she got damn lucky.

845
01:07:30.840 --> 01:07:36.199
But I don't really believe she was. I think her greedy brother didn't really

846
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:40.599
want her dead, but wouldn't mind
it if it meant he didn't have to

847
01:07:40.639 --> 01:07:45.199
split his inheritance with her. No, this is a case about a smoldering

848
01:07:45.239 --> 01:07:50.519
resentment between a distant stepfather and a
spoiled kid, and it's about money.

849
01:07:51.079 --> 01:07:57.519
That's it. Leith wasn't really a
father figure to Chris, and what Chris

850
01:07:57.519 --> 01:08:01.320
coldly planned did not bother his conscience
until he saw his own mother in the

851
01:08:01.400 --> 01:08:09.199
hospital. So yes, this case
is also about remorse. Chris regretted his

852
01:08:09.239 --> 01:08:15.119
actions once he saw his mother,
but regret doesn't change anything. Though his

853
01:08:15.239 --> 01:08:19.479
mother did support him through his journey
through justice. Do they have a relationship

854
01:08:19.520 --> 01:08:24.000
now that he has gotten out.
I don't know. I did read that

855
01:08:24.039 --> 01:08:28.439
Bonnie visited him on every single visitation
day when he was in prison, so

856
01:08:28.479 --> 01:08:31.640
they did reconcile as far as I
know, But I tend to leave survivors

857
01:08:31.640 --> 01:08:35.319
in peace at the end of the
case. I understand Bonnie remains a very

858
01:08:35.359 --> 01:08:42.119
private person. Despite Chris's remorse,
it's hard to believe he's out of prison,

859
01:08:42.520 --> 01:08:45.439
but Upchurch is still behind bars.
I know he is the one who

860
01:08:45.439 --> 01:08:48.840
committed the murder, but he would
not have been there if it wasn't for

861
01:08:48.920 --> 01:08:55.800
Chris Pritchard. Neil Henderson wouldn't have
either. And Leith von Stein is dead

862
01:08:56.199 --> 01:09:00.600
at age forty two. That used
to sound so old to me, but

863
01:09:00.760 --> 01:09:03.840
really he was a youngish middle aged
man who was about to start a new

864
01:09:03.880 --> 01:09:10.319
life. He could have lived another
forty two years. His brady step children

865
01:09:10.399 --> 01:09:14.279
were both about to be in college. He wanted to invest his money and

866
01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:16.840
travel for the first time in his
life. He had been to Germany for

867
01:09:16.960 --> 01:09:21.279
war, but he still hadn't really
seen the world, and he wanted to

868
01:09:21.319 --> 01:09:26.520
do it with Bonnie, the love
of his life. He and his wife

869
01:09:26.560 --> 01:09:30.560
could start their lives anew. I'm
not saying he was perfect. Most people

870
01:09:30.640 --> 01:09:34.680
aren't, but he did care about
his family, and he loved his wife

871
01:09:35.039 --> 01:09:41.640
very much, and she loved him, and they both lost the lovely future

872
01:09:41.680 --> 01:09:45.680
he was planning for them, the
future they were on the cusp of beginning,

873
01:09:45.600 --> 01:09:49.800
a future that was stolen in the
dead of night by a plan that

874
01:09:49.880 --> 01:09:56.399
their own son put into motion.
It's more of a Greek tragedy than some

875
01:09:56.520 --> 01:10:04.239
silly dungeons and dragon's tail. Southern
Fraud True Crime is hosted and produced by

876
01:10:04.279 --> 01:10:10.279
me Erica Kelly. Today's episode was
researched and written by Andrea Marshbank and myself,

877
01:10:10.319 --> 01:10:15.159
and of course all editorial opinions are
my own. Southern Frid's original music

878
01:10:15.239 --> 01:10:17.880
is by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio
and the original graphic artist by Coley Horner.

879
01:10:18.279 --> 01:10:23.239
Today's episode was edited and mixed by
Brendan shuck Snyder of Southern Gothic and

880
01:10:23.479 --> 01:10:28.199
Erica Kelly. Thank you to Stephanie
and Ainsley for suggesting today's case, and

881
01:10:28.359 --> 01:10:32.239
especially Ainsley for protecting me from the
pronunciation police. If you have any case

882
01:10:32.279 --> 01:10:36.960
suggestions, please go to my website
and click on the listener suggestion tab or

883
01:10:38.000 --> 01:10:43.680
email SFTC Research at gmail dot com. You'll get lost in a sea of

884
01:10:43.720 --> 01:10:45.960
emails if you send it to my
main address, so this is the best

885
01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:49.039
way for me to get those little
known cases. Y'all always send me.

886
01:10:49.520 --> 01:10:54.920
Please remember that I do not accept
suggestions on social media private messages. With

887
01:10:54.960 --> 01:10:58.800
three platforms to manage, that is
very overwhelming for me. I hope you

888
01:10:58.880 --> 01:11:01.960
understand, but please come join our
Facebook group, Southern Fred True Crime Fans

889
01:11:01.960 --> 01:11:06.720
Discussion Group, where we swap recipes, worship Dolly Parton, and share memes.

890
01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:12.439
I much prefer spending my social media
time and our lovely group. We

891
01:11:12.479 --> 01:11:15.359
do, of course discuss true crime, not just Southern fraud, but all

892
01:11:15.399 --> 01:11:18.880
kinds, but it is still very
much a Southern lifestyle group. Our group

893
01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:21.439
is a safe and fun corner of
Facebook, and by God, we mean

894
01:11:21.479 --> 01:11:25.720
it when we say no shit as
is allowed. It's not just a motto,

895
01:11:25.800 --> 01:11:29.079
it's how we run the group.
If you enjoy today's show, don't

896
01:11:29.079 --> 01:11:32.079
forget to subscribe and please tell a
friend or rate and review on iTunes.

897
01:11:32.560 --> 01:11:38.439
I'm also on all large platforms like
our Heartstitcher, Spotify and now Amazon and

898
01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:43.760
Audible. Until next time, thanks
so much for listening, y'all. Take care,