Crime Junkie - MURDERED: The Hendricks Family

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

For years, David Hendricks was the walking embodiment of the true crime trope "The Husband Did It." After his family was brutally murdered in their Illinois home back in 1983, police were quick to zero in on him as their main suspect despite the lack of evidence and mostly because... nothing else made any sense. Decades later some still believe in his guilt but knowing what we know now can you still be so sure? For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-hendricks-family/ 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And before we jump in, I have to share something amazing with all of you, something that you should all be really proud of. If you are brand new here, what you need to know is that Crime Junkie is not just about telling stories. It's about helping real people behind the stories. And you likely heard our previous announcement that in the last year,

we founded a nonprofit called Season of Justice that funds advanced DNA testing to solve cold cases. But we're also super involved with other organizations outside of ours. Like, we sponsor a number of organizations who are actually doing testing for Jane and John Doe's to give them their name back. And recently, we were able to help give David John Meilek his name back after he'd just been known as the Granite County Doe since 2014. Now, that on its own is incredible.

But then, we got this email. To Ashley and Britt and the amazing people at AudioCheck. I was late to the world of podcasts, but my coworkers recommended Crime Junkie a couple of years ago, and I have been hooked ever since. I listen on my commute almost every day and hear about the great things you all do, including donating to organizations that help solve crimes.

Never in a million years did I think that my family would benefit from your kindness and generosity. My cousin walked away from our family in 2011 for personal reasons we didn't understand. Our family isn't the best at communicating, especially about personal matters, but he was an adult and he had every right to choose his own path. We all wished him well and hoped he was happy. Then, about a month ago,

my aunt and uncle got a knock on the door asking them to come down to the Sheriff's Department to collect DNA to match against unidentified skeletal remains found in another state in 2014. Seven years. For seven years, the local law enforcement didn't give up. And because of wonderful people like you who donated to the organization that studied his genetic genealogy,

my cousin has been found. I just wanted you to know that what you do every day matters. It doesn't have to be a high-profile case to make an impact. You helped find our missing piece. And for that, I will forever be grateful. But for you all, Kim. I would like to step in here and say this email was written to us, which is very, very humbling and flattering.

And I can't even comprehend. But like Ashley said at the beginning, it's not really because of us. It's because of you guys, our listeners. Like, we could not do any of that without you guys listening, without you guys being here every single week. And we're both in tears right now. Yeah, I said when this email came that, like, literally,

I feel like someone was, like, squeezing my heart. And I wanted each and every one of our listeners to feel that too, because, like you said, Brett, this is more than a show. This is a community. And you guys are the reasons we can do these things. You helped Kim and her family. So I just wanted to start off our week on, like, a real high and just say that I'm proud of you guys.

And this is only the beginning. The bigger the show gets, the more we can do. So just you guys wait. Now that we've all helped solve a mystery, let me tell you about another. The story I have for you today could seem open and shut, if not for last week's episode. Though the cases aren't connected,

the story I told you last week proved that evil can strike without warning for no reason other than violence itself. So maybe you'll go into this story with a little more of an open mind. Is it really always the husband? Or did a man lose his entire family in the blink of an eye and get railroaded by a police department's tunnel vision? This is the story of the Hendricks family. It was November 8th, 1983, at 6.35 p.m.

when the Bloomington, Illinois police receive a call through dispatch. Here is a reenactment of that call. Bloomington, please. Yeah, this is Dave Hendricks calling from... I'm up in Madison, Wisconsin. I live in Bloomington, and I'm on a business trip right now. And I'm a little concerned about my wife and kids because I've been trying to call them all day

and haven't gotten any answers. Where do you live? I live at 313 Carl Drive. Now, you hear the circumstances. I've tried to call them periodically through the day and haven't gotten them. I'm sure it's no big deal, no big emergency, but they're supposed to be at a dinner date tonight at 5.30 p.m.

so I called there to talk to her there and they never have showed up there. What's your wife's name? Susan Hendricks. And they're not at home because I called the neighbor who's gone over to the house and knocked. So I think they might have been in an accident between Bloomington and Delevin.

Probably took Stringtown Road. Oh, okay. What's your... We can go out to Carl Drive and check on that. Well, the neighbors been out there. They're not home. Well, then you should be calling the county. Oh, I see.

Do you have their number? I sure do. 827-4655. And if they can't help, you should contact the state. And what's their number? 782-3657. That's also 309. Okay, okay.

I'm making these calls on distance. There wouldn't be any way you could check this out for me. Just a moment. Sergeant Nacon. Hi. This is a Bloomington Sergeant. Yes, it is. All right.

This is Dave Hendricks. I asked her if she could check it out. I guess she just transferred the call. This is Dave Hendricks calling. I live at 313 Carl Drive. I'm calling from Madison, Wisconsin, and I live at Bloomington, and I'm a bit concerned about my wife.

I think she may have been involved in an accident, and I've been wondering about that. I've been trying to call her all day. No response. I called the neighbor. Their kids don't even remember our kids being on the school bus this morning, and my wife is supposed to be at a dinner appointment at 5.30 in Delavan, and she hasn't gotten there.

I called there earlier. Okay. What was your wife's last name? Hendricks. And you think she was involved in an automobile accident? I'm guessing she probably took off for the dinner date and didn't get there, because she's not at home. The neighbor's gone and knocked at the house,

and she's not there. Okay. Well, I wouldn't have any idea if... We haven't had a call of an accident here recently. I mean, you might check the county, or I can call over there for you and find out. Well, uh... But we haven't had any report of an accident, you know, in this, um...

What kind of car do you have? She's got a Yellow 72 Cadillac. Okay. I'm gonna check the file real quick, but I'm pretty sure we don't have anything, okay? All right. Sir, I've checked both here and the county, and they have no report of any accident for her.

All right. And you can notify them that she would have taken the Eringtown Road, you know, from us. I'm sure that's the route she would have taken from Bloomington to Delavan. Okay. Delavan is not in our state police district. Where's Delavan? Eight...

District... Eight... Bioria. Yeah, you might call Directory Assistance for this area code, you want the state police headquarters in Bioria, all right, because I don't have any way to contact them. Okay, okay. Uh, tell you what, can I leave you with my number?

Oh, did she know where you stay? No, she doesn't. Okay. Just in case something turns up, I haven't been able to call her really. It's area code 608... I'm in room 110 Motel on Madison Street. 110, and your last name is...

David Hendricks, and your first name? David. And your address is on Carl, right? 313 Carl. And your phone number? Okay, what kind of car would your wife be driving a yellow Toyota? A yellow Cadillac, 72 Cadillac with a green top. Okay, I'll do that.

Thank you for your assistance. All right, bye-bye. As instructed, just minutes after this call, David Hendricks calls the state police. State police, Corporal Siren. Hello? Hello? Yeah, is this the state police?

Yes, it is. From who? I can't hear you, sir. Is this the state police from Peoria? Yes, it is. Okay, I live in Bloomington, and I'm calling right now from Wisconsin. I was told to call you because I was concerned about my wife.

She was driving a delinquent. I think she may have been in an accident. She hasn't gotten to her destination, and she's not at home. All right. She said that's your jurisdiction? There's been nothing in our area at all. Not even any accidents. There's been nothing?

No, it's been... In fact, we haven't even had a car report of a car broke down tonight. Of course, I'm not saying anything, but she's not broke down somewhere. All right, all right. It would be... It would be Springtown Road, so that she would have taken. I'm sure that's how she always goes.

Okay. So if you could kind of alert... What's your last name? Hendricks. H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S. Do you want to hold on just a second? I'll check for the county. Thank you.

Sir? Yeah? I checked with Tazwell County, and they don't have anything either. What's your phone number there? I'm at 608... and I'm in room 110. It's a motel in Madison, Wisconsin. Okay.

If I hear anything or later on anything, I'll give you a call then. Please. Thank you, sir. Okay. Bye. Goodbye. Though the law enforcement agents on the other end of those calls weren't too concerned, because, I mean, people call in all the time looking for people who end up showing back up soon after,

David Hendricks was very concerned by the time he made those calls. He wasn't calling on a whim. He was calling out of desperation, because he had already tried everything else. He had left his family late the night before to drive up to Wisconsin for a business trip. He was going hospital to hospital to sell a back brace that he owned a patent for. According to Samira Kasem's reporting in the Argus, he left his family sleeping around 11 p.m. that night and drove straight through the night.

He tried reaching his wife and three kids the next morning after one of his appointments, sometime around 11.30, but he got no answer. And listen, the first time he got no answer, it's not a big deal. Steve Vogel, who covered this case more extensively than anyone else, said in his book Reasonable Doubt that David then went to check into his motel around Noob. He tries to rest since he hadn't slept the night before, but it bothers him that he hasn't talked to Susan, so he tries her again at 3.01. But there is no answer.

I mean, is there a chance that she's just at work? No, actually, Susan is a homemaker. So, like, yeah, she might go, like, run an errand or take the kids to the park, but not being home all day is weird to David. So that's when he starts calling around. Maybe he just missed something. Maybe she had plans that he forgot about or something came up. So David calls his office, talks to his manager, but she says, like, nope, haven't seen or heard from Susan and the kids.

He tries their neighbor, but they haven't seen them either. Tries home once more. And then he starts calling family, since at this point it's about 5.30. He remembers Susan was supposed to have dinner with her family. But when he gets them on the phone, his unease only grows, because they say she hasn't shown up either. More calls go back and forth, pinging between David, Susan's family, the police, and David's neighbors. The neighbors even try going over to the house, but they knock and knock and get no answer. So this is why David is so sure something is terribly wrong when he calls police at 6.30 that night.

After the police tell him there have been no accidents, David is done with the phone calls. He hurriedly checks out of his motel room and begins to make the drive back to his Bloomington home, stopping only to use his pay phone to check in to see if anyone had found Susan, which they hadn't. And he stops one other time, according to Steve Vogel, to exercise. Wait, what? Yeah, exercise. Okay, so let me get this straight. This guy is so worried that something is wrong with his family that he's called two different police departments.

He's cutting his business trip short. He's rushing home to find them, but he pulls over on the side of the road to do aerobics. Yes, this is actually mentioned like super offhandedly in Steve Vogel's book. And honestly, I couldn't find another single piece of reporting on it because no one seems to latch onto it. Okay, I am totally latched onto it. I'm sorry. Right. But like literally even in Vogel's book, it's like a couple of sentences where he's like, it's weird that on his way to go check on his family, David pulled over to exercise and no one seemed to make a big deal of it when he did this. The end.

So I don't know if it's something important that just got overlooked because of everything else going on, or if everyone realized it was pretty innocent. And it's just like a quirky thing in the story. Yeah. Well, yeah, because the one thing I will say is remember, dude didn't sleep the night before like he was planning to catch up on sleep that afternoon, but with panicking over his family's whereabouts, that didn't happen. So he's probably pretty fatigued. It's November, so it's dark by the time he's driving. So I can literally see him like eyes heavy, like lines in the road blurring and him pulling over to like let the cold air hit his face and like do some jumping jack.

So he can just get home safely. I mean, I guess that's fair. Yeah. And truthfully, in the end, whether he stopped once or twice or even 20 times, it wouldn't have mattered because what police were finding at his home at the very time he was driving back couldn't be stopped or undone. You see, according to a 1990 legal filing at around 1030 that night, an officer had been dispatched to do a welfare check at the Hendricks home. Another detective met him there and together they found the back door was unlocked. Just before going in, the two were met by other people prowling around the house. It was Susan's brother and his brother-in-law. They had been so worried about Susan after David had called them that they had come over themselves to poke around.

Both law enforcement officers told the men to listen to just wait outside while we go in and see what's up. And everything is clearer in hindsight. But at the time, the initial responding officer expected to find them sleeping. In reasonable doubt, Steve Vogel wrote that even as they walked through the house and saw drawers and cabinets opened and rifled through, some part of him expected that they were going to wake up the sleeping family. But that's not what they found when they got to the second floor. The kids were together in one room. Rebecca 9, Grace 7, and Benjamin 5 had all been savagely murdered. Vogel gives a detailed description of the scene in his book, but to put it as simply as possible, whoever did this to them was a monster.

Most of the wounds were to their necks and heads, and little Benji seemed to receive the worst of it. So I assume they know what they were killed with then, right? Like a blunt object or... So it was actually a knife and an axe, and they know this because according to the 1990 legal filing, the weapons were left by the killer right there in the room. Oh my God. In the master bedroom, the detective found Susan, also deceased from wounds that were consistent with the axe and the knife found in the kid's room. After calling it in, the scene outside the Hendrix home grows and grows. More neighbors, more onlookers, more official personnel to process the scene. So by the time David Hendrix makes it to his street, he has to park a couple of houses away because he can't even get to his driveway.

His family members and the lead detective rushed to him to tell him what happened, that his family was gone, and David, who is deeply religious, cries and says that his family is in heaven now. Now they can't let David back into his home, so they take him to a neighbor's house to be questioned. Wait, do they already think he's a suspect? I don't know. If you were to ask them, they'd probably say no, that he's just the only surviving family member. I mean, truth be told, there is a lot of value in what he knew about the family's last movements. But they went into that first interview with some very pointed questions. They have him give written permission to search his home and office.

He even gives them permission to physically search his body and take his clothing. And within hours, this friendly chat has moved from the neighbor's house to the police station, and they're reading David his Miranda rights before asking him even more questions. Investigators have David walk them through his last day with his family. What was it like? What did they do? And the truth was, it was so normal. According to that 1990 legal filing, David got home from work at around 4pm, and he worked on his motorcycle. Basically, he was getting it ready for like storage in the winter.

And shortly after, he rode it to the local airport. He had a hangar there because he owned a small plane, and he stored the motorcycle there with the plane in the winter. And once it's there, he like jogs home. By 5.30, he's back home, and shortly after that, Susan left the house to go to a family member's baby shower. David was solo with the kids for the evening, so he does like a fun dad night, piles the kids into the van and takes them to a Chuck E. Cheese for some pizza and play. They all shared a medium veggie pizza, and when David was ready to roll at like 7.30, the kids like, bet, just give us a little more time to add, just five more minutes.

So David said, fine, he was going to go fill up the car across the street, and then they'd go. Right, like the ultimate parent thing, like, okay, sure, five more minutes, whatever. Right, and it is a super quick thing. By 8.00, they had already stopped off at their house, grabbed some library books to return at the bookmobile by them, and they had picked out new books and were back home by 8.30. The next hour, David says, was spent getting the kids wound down and ready for bed, and after reading some of their new books to them, they were all tucked away and ready for sleep by 9.30. So that's when David started packing for his trip.

Susan got back about an hour later and was quick to go to bed. By 11.00, David said that he was out the door, his family was fast asleep, and he was sure of it. There was nothing out of the ordinary. What he couldn't be sure of, though, was whether or not he had locked all the doors. He was pretty sure he did, like, that was his habit, but could he be a hundred percent sure, a thousand percent sure? No. I mean, it's like one of those, did you unplug your hair straightener, did you trough the oven type of things? Like, yeah, you can go in circles.

Exactly. According to police, there were no signs of forced entry, so maybe he forgot, or maybe Susan woke up at some point and went out and, like, didn't lock back up. Nobody knew. When police searched David's body and collect his clothing, they asked him if those were the clothes that he was wearing the day before, and he said no. He had left his house in something else and then changed somewhere along the way at a rest stop or something before going to his meetings, which, listen, like, I did medical sales like David for a long time, and that's exactly what I would do.

Like, I didn't even stop at a rest stop. Most of the time, I would change right in my car in, like, a parking lot of the hospital. So they collected both sets of clothes and even sent officers to that rest stop to see if they could find anything else, because there wasn't any blood or evidence on any of the stuff they collected from David. So they're thinking, like, okay, if he was involved, maybe he dumped another set of clothes somewhere along the way. If he was their killer, he had to have, because that's the thing they were learning as the text processed the crime scene while they're doing this interview. It was a bloody scene. There was no way the killer walked out of that house without evidence on them.

I mean, literally, the text said that based on the cast off patterns, that there were areas that the killer's body, like, blocked the cast off. So this person would be covered. Oh, wow. But I'm telling you, David was clean, head to toe, everything he had with him on his trip completely devoid of blood. I mean, then they have to be considering that it wasn't him, right? Well, maybe, but here's the other thing about the crime scene that kind of throws a wrench in that. So, yeah, whoever killed Susan, Rebecca, Grace and Benji would have been covered. But it was like a ghost killed them because there was zero evidence anywhere else in the house other than the bedrooms.

What do you mean? I mean, like, okay, say the killer is in the room, they get covered in blood. The rooms are upstairs, so they would have had to walk out of the rooms, go down the stairs to leave the house. Assuming they did all the opening of the drawers and the cabinets and stuff before they even killed the family. But there wasn't any blood anywhere else in the house. No footprints, no smears, no droplets. I mean, was there a bathroom nearby? Could the killer have, like, cleaned up?

Yeah, but there's no evidence that they did. And I'm not just talking about, like, oh, there's no blood on the floor or in the sink or the towels. The crime scene text removed all of the p-traps in the sink, which is, like, in the plumbing, where blood would have flown down if there was someone who washed it away. And there wasn't any in the main bathrooms a suspect would have used to clean up. There was, like, the tiniest spot of blood in a downstairs bathroom, but it was so small they couldn't even test it. Well, and also, like, this is a family with three kids. Uh, kids get hurt, they get bloody noses, they get scraped knees, like, it could have been from anything. Yeah, and, again, to the point, like, if that's in the downstairs bathroom, how did the killer get from the upstairs to the downstairs and, again, nothing?

And to add to this somehow immaculate cleanup, the murder weapons, which, again, were left right there by the children's bodies, were completely wiped of prints, according to Samir Kasman's article. I mean, so what you're saying is there's literally nothing usable at this crime scene. Well, according to that same article, there was one faint footprint on the back porch, but that is hardly a slam dunk since it's not in the house and there's no telling when it was made. When you say footprint, do you mean, like, a bare footprint versus, like, a shoe print? Because if it's connected, that could mean that the killer took everything off to walk out of the house or out of the rooms, and that is why there is absolutely no blood evidence anywhere else. Maybe. I mean, that is a line of thinking, which is why, even though David had no blood on him, they weren't ready to completely write him off. Whoever did this knew what they were doing and how to cover it up. Police knew that both weapons had come from the Hendricks' home. They knew that, though the place looked tossed, it didn't seem as though anything had actually been taken. And to authorities, this attack felt personal. So even though nothing physical was saying David did this, they weren't ready to say he didn't. They're not going to write him off as a suspect when they finally do let him go home.

And just when they do this, just when they say he's free to go, almost right away, David starts talking. Not to them, but to the media. And he says something that police believe is pretty damning. David goes on the radio and on TV and says two things that stick out. Well, police really, like, hone in on one, and I kind of latch on to another. So on the radio show, he mentioned something about how police thought that something or things were taken from the house. Maybe this was like a burglary or robbery gone wrong. Right, which we already knew that the house had been kind of ransacked. We did, yes. But according to police, David didn't know. If you remember, he was never taken back into the house. After he pulled up to the street, he was taken to the neighbor's house. So he wouldn't have seen the condition of the house and police say that they never mentioned anything to him about it. So he shouldn't have known unless he'd been in the house after his family was dead. Exactly. Now, David swears this isn't true. He says that when he first got to the scene, someone was asking him about stuff that might have been taken, which is what implied to him that there was at least an attempted burglary.

And maybe they didn't realize that the family was home or something. And his brother-in-law backs that up. He says that authorities were talking about it right around David. So of course he knew. But the police swear they never said anything directly about it to him. And so they're becoming more and more sure that he only knows because he was the one who killed his family. Okay, so that's what the police were kind of honing in on. What's the other thing he said, the one that you don't like? Well, it's something I don't like it. Well, I mean, I don't love it because I just, it's because I can't wrap my head around the emotion behind it. Like I said, David is super religious. So he basically says that, you know, when his family dies, he knows they're in a better place, which whatever, I've heard that before, I even understand that sentiment. But it's what he says when the person interviewing him asks, quote, if they find the person who did this, do you believe in the death penalty? What would you like to see happen? End quote. And here, Brett, I'm actually going to have you read this paragraph straight from Reasonable Doubt by Steve Vogel. He says, quote, I would like to see him get saved. It would be worth it if one person found their way to heaven. Don't you think?

End quote. Ah, I can see why you don't like that. Yeah. Listen, I, I know with everything in my being that this is a personal reaction, like on my part, because it's not how I would respond. I am very vengeful. I would want to see that monster get taken down with the same axe and knife that he killed my family with. So again, I know this statement doesn't make him guilty, but the same way I don't like it. Again, this didn't go completely unnoticed by authorities. The authorities who are looking at David already don't like it either. They think that the way he's responding to this whole thing feels off. Like over and over again, they say he's just too calm. So they keep looking for anything to tie him to the crimes. They searched, like I said, that rest stop where he changed his clothes, but they ended up finding nothing. They searched his motel room in Wisconsin, nothing. And spoiler alert, they never find anything.

I mean, I get why they're looking at him, but I guess my question is what's the motive? Does this guy have like a girlfriend, a mistress, money problems? Like there's usually a pattern when you talk about family annihilators that even if they seem perfect on the outside behind closed doors, there are like major red flags. Is that the case here? This is what's so weird about the case that they're making against him. There is no affair. There's no girlfriend. They're more than well off. They're what many people would call rich. They had a happy marriage from what Susan's family tells police. So there is no motive, except police think maybe he just killed his family before his marriage got too bad, before he had the full blown affair. You see, when they start digging, the one thing they can find that seems just even a little off for the upstanding religious family man. David portrays to be is that he used these models to showcase his back brace at conferences and in brochures.

And when they talk to some of them, there is some like off color behavior from David. And again, it's not even like to me anything to kill for, but like a graze of the boob here, a back massage there, even an attempted kiss once, which was rebuffed and he apologized. But to police, this was the sign of a man who wanted more than his wife at home. But they knew that his religion had very strong views on divorce and apparently he could be ostracized if he got divorced. So police theorized that he killed his family so he could just start over. Basically, they thought he wanted to unburden himself. So I mean, at any point did they look or even consider anybody else being a suspect? I mean, mind you, at this point that we're talking about still we are like days, maybe weeks into the investigation. So I don't know how much of an investigation could have been done at this point.

But I do know from reasonable doubt that at some point police did assemble a list of something like it was like 100 suspects. But there isn't much reporting on any of those people or what was done to rule them out or really how they got on that list. In the first place. Yeah, I mean 100 people is like that's a lot of people. Everyone I know. Yeah, listen, I do know that they looked at Susan's brother-in-law at least long enough to question him, give him a polygraph and do some kind of search of his house according to a journal Gazette article published in 89. But ultimately he passed the polygraph so he was ruled out in police's mind. So then what like the case just goes cold. Oh, no, my dear police are sure that David Hendricks is their guy.

So within a month they all kind of look at each other and are like, well, we're never going to get any more. Might as well shoot our shot. I mean, yeah, you're never going to get any more because there isn't really anything else to get like they have nothing. Listen, you're not wrong. And literally I get that like what two weeks ago we were on our show yelling about how like in the Joyce Chang case we were saying like you got to shoot your shot. You got to shoot your shot. It's now or never. Yeah, just go for it.

Go for it. But this feels like not that case. Yeah. Okay, Joyce Chang. That was a decades old case with people pointing the finger at the guys who had been in prison for a very similar crime and police had stuff on them. This case is less than 30 days old. Like hold your horses, bro. Yeah.

So is anyone else pointing the finger at David other than the police like family friends? No, literally Susan's whole family has stood behind him since day one. Literally, according to reporting by West Smith for the Chicago Tribune, the night the family was found, Susan's mom told a reporter quote, I'll tell you one thing, there's no way David could kill those children or Susie. He loves them. They're a perfect family. End quote. And she never changed her tune, even when police arrest David on December 5th.

Those who know David and those who loved Susan and the kids know in their hearts that there's no way he did this. So they're really going to go to trial with no physical evidence and this really vague motive of him wanting to start a new life because he tried to kiss a model? Yeah. A grand jury makes an indictment. But there is one ace up the investigators' sleeves, something that they found in the autopsy that has propelled their theory. It's basically the thing that made them sure he did it and what sent them looking for motive in the first place. When the autopsy was done, there was something really important found in the stomachs of the children. There were undigested fragments from their veggie pizza, which investigators are told means that the murders happened around 9 p.m.

Oh, I mean, that changes everything. Yeah, in a pretty big way because at that time by David's own admission, he is home with his family. He doesn't leave for his business trip for another two hours. So even though there is no blood, no tangible physical evidence at the crime scene like what we're normally used to, police are like, sorry, you're saying that you're home. The stomach contents say this is when they were killed, therefore it has to be you. And David and Susan's family know all of this and they still stand by him? Yeah, they know this, but they don't agree with it. Neither does David or his defense team.

You see, once David goes to trial, they bring in experts who manage to poke holes and even the one piece of evidence that the prosecution is hanging their hat on. Now the transcript of the trial testimony is in Steve Vogel's book and the defense like rips the coroner a new one. Basically, the conversation goes something like this. The coroner is like, well, based on my findings, they would have died one to three hours after they ate, which we know is it like six ish. Okay, cool. So the defense is like, did you happen to look into whether they had any like digestive issues that would have changed that? No. Okay, did you look into how exercise changes that since these little monkeys are like jumping around in a play area, chucking cheese after?

No. Cool. What testing did you actually do on the stomach contents to get to this one to three hour like window? Well, I looked at them like with my eyeballs. Cool, cool. Wow. Okay. So what training do you have in looking at stomach contents?

None. Okay, cool. Have you taken any courses in it? No. Cool. All right. So we're eyeballing it here. What would say the stomach contents look like after five hours of digestion?

I don't know. So how can you tell after three hours? I don't know. You've got to be kidding me. So this corner is just like, let's just throw out a couple of numbers and say that this is how long it's been. What? Yeah, I wish I was kidding you, but no. Now, the state doesn't just call this corner.

They call multiple experts who all give this one to three hour timeframe, but the defense kind of does the same thing to all of them. And the defense ultimately brings their own experts who dispute all the state's experts. And does anybody come out as like the clear truth teller? Like, I feel like we see this like he said, he said with experts all the time. No. So it is all expert opinions. Now, I did a little side digging myself, which a jury is not allowed to do. And according to an iOSR Journal of Dental and Medical Science paper that was published in 2017, which again, not even available at the time.

They came to the conclusion that quote, due to variability of gastric emptying in different individuals, we cannot exactly define time since death. So other parameters like rigor mortis, postmortem levidity, cooling of the body and putrefactive changes should be taken into consideration. End quote. So basically there's no one size fits all measurement for the stomach contents in any sort of meaning in the time of death, correct? That's how I read that. But again, I was not on the jury and I'm not sure what they took away. And the state couldn't be sure either during trial. So the prosecution really relies heavily on the testimony of those back brace models.

They bring them on the stand one by one, 13 in total, according to that 1990 legal filing. And the prosecution was trying to show basically an escalation of advancing sexual behavior. They were trying to show the jury that it started like women wearing leotards. Again, that brush against the boob, a massage, asking them to be nude for the fitting and then that attempted kiss. The prosecution insisted David wanted more from these women and divorce wasn't an option because of his religious beliefs. So he murdered his family so he wouldn't have to get divorced because if he got divorced, he'd be kicked out of the church? Essentially, yeah. Okay, but I also have to assume that the church might, I don't know, frown upon murder if they frown upon divorce?

Yeah, great point, and I would agree, but all in all, the state's theory must have been compelling because ultimately the jury finds David Hendricks guilty of murdering his family. Oh my God, seriously? Mm-hmm. David and his team are so taken aback by this, they don't trust the jury anymore. David opts to have the judge sentence him rather than leaving that in the hands of the jury because the death penalty is on the table here. And when the judge hands down his sentence, the speech that he gives is like nothing I've ever heard, and it almost flies in the face of the jury's ruling. Here is a direct quote from the judge that was put into that 1990 legal filing in here, Britt, I want you to read it for us. The statement was, quote, I personally believe that the defendant probably did commit these offenses, and I must emphasize that I intend no criticism of the jury or its verdict by the sentencing order.

Based on the evidence admitted on trial against the defendant, I am not personally convinced that he has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Some might say this is a distinction without a difference, however, I feel the very fabric of our justice system depends on this distinction. If the sentence issue were anything other than the most severe and irreversible sanction of death, I would disregard my own concern over the level of proof and render a sentence based on the verdicts as I have done many times before in other cases. However, as the sanction of death, I hold the same position as do some or perhaps even all of the jurors. I cannot, in good conscience, apply the sanction of death unless I have been convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I have not, and mere belief is not enough. End quote. Wait, so let's hold on a second.

The judge is basically saying like, yeah, my gut says this guy did it, but there's so much reasonable doubt, I can't put him to death. But there's so much reasonable doubt, how can you even uphold this conviction? It's weird, right? Yeah. And it's something that David uses in his appeals. Now, his future appeals are also heavily focused on the testimony from the models and all the talk about his religion. And actually, they point out something pretty shady. So I told you that the prosecution relied heavily on that escalating sexual behavior.

Right. Well, it turns out it only seemed escalating because of how like the order in which the prosecution had the models take the stand. But they were actually out of order. What do you mean? Well, it didn't go from like a graze of the boob to a massage to, oh, they were wearing leotards and then they were naked and then it was a kiss. It was like all over the map. So it wasn't like a, like if you think of like a color scale, it wasn't like from green to red. It was just like.

No. Orange, then yellow, then red, then green. I don't know that this was the exact order, but say it was like, okay, you know, one of them is naked and then the next one's wearing a leotard and then he tries to kiss one. So yeah, it didn't go on like this color scale like you're talking about. So it was a way that they like, I think manipulated the jury. Now, ultimately, the courts uphold his conviction. But a few months later, the Illinois Supreme Court gets involved and they decide to review David's appeal. They hear the case in 1987, but don't make a ruling until 88.

When they uphold it again, David submits another appeal. And this time he also includes some astonishing information. Not only is he still saying like, Hey, I didn't do this. And here are all the things that went wrong with my trial. But this time he says, Hey, I know who really did kill my family. And it's someone police know too. According to a Journal Gazette article published in 1989, David said in his writing that it was his brother-in-law, John, who killed his family. Wait, the same brother-in-law they questioned early on and like gave a polygraph to and everything?

One in the same. David wrote quote, I am convinced he killed my family. His deepest hatred was reserved for Susie and me in part because we were so successful. John was a failure. He failed to hold down a job repeatedly. He failed to assimilate himself into the family circle. Susie and I were wealthy by his standards, end quote. So just because he didn't like the family, like that kind of feels just as weak as the case against David. Well, there's a little more. So apparently John had, at least according to David, this long standing hatred for the family, right?

Like he said, and David thinks it escalated the night of the murders because apparently that baby shower that Susan went to before she died was for one of her sisters. But her other sister, who would have been John's wife, didn't get invited. So David thinks of this enraged John. But that's just the motive. David claims that there was also opportunity and potential evidence that police missed. According to reporting by Scott Richardson for the pantograph, Susan's mom said that the day after the bodies were discovered, John showed her a spare key to the Hendricks house, which David confirmed John had. And John said they had to get rid of it or the police would think he did it. And she watched him dispose of what she thought was the key behind their house.

And, and get a load of this excerpt from Reasonable Doubt. Here, Brent. Quote, shortly after the murders, Hendricks wrote the court, John brought home a pair of surgical scrubs, the front of which was covered in blood spatter. He told Martha to wash them. When investigators asked about them recently, he claimed he got them from a doctor. John named the doctor. But that doctor did not work in that hospital until months later. When the investigators confronted John with the information, he refused to talk further. End quote. What? Yeah, there's a lot of like weird stuff around John. So apparently there's also this story how I guess shortly before the murders, he like maybe took Benji to this like graveyard nearby their house and said that this is where he was going to go when he died, which is like very strange.

I say and Benji was like five, right? Yeah. And there's one thing about this story that always stuck out to me. So I did this crime scene assessment class. It's actually like four law enforcement a while ago. And they were talking about at one point men who murder their family and how often what they see is that the boy of the family doesn't receive as much like wounds inflicted or whatever. He's like the favored one when it comes to like how he's killed. Yeah, because the thinking behind this is that because the if the killer is the father, the killer sees himself in his son like this is like a lineage thing within there. Yeah. So he'll still kill him, but he won't like attack him and like again, they usually don't go after like the face or anything like that. What I find so interesting about this theory that David has presented is if it's John, I mean, if John's hatred is for David, I mentioned earlier that Benji got the worst of it among the children. So if it was John and he hated the family so much, Benji would have been like the stand in for David, essentially.

Yeah. Again, I took one class for five minutes. So like not the expert on this, but it's something that like I couldn't stop thinking about. And on top of that, there are exceptions to every profiling rule, quote unquote. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Now, eventually the Illinois Supreme Court agrees to take another look. And I want to say maybe all this info about John made a difference and it might have because in a six to zero vote, the court reverses its own ruling and Hendricks was granted a retrial. Though, even if the John stuff made a difference, none of the John stuff was allowed in. So did they actually retry him or did anyone realize that there wasn't much there to begin with and like they needed to start back at square one? Wake up, Brett. This isn't law and order with the exception of a few prosecutor like heroes that I've come across in all my years and I can list them on one hand. I have found that securing the win will always outweigh anything else nine times out of 10.

And if you believe the prosecutors, it's because they really, truly deep down in their heart of hearts think that David did this still. And there might be a reason that they think this. So the prosecutor told Randy Gleason with the pantograph in 1994 that David actually failed a polygraph and that's part of what has him so convinced. Wait, how did this never come up? Because maybe he didn't. I'm sorry. What? I don't get it. It's a little backwards. The prosecutor says that he didn't give him a polygraph. He was never allowed to by David's attorney, which is confirmed in Steve Vogel's book. But the prosecutor told Randy Gleason that basically he knew how David's defense attorney worked like they worked together before. And he says that he knows he always gives his clients a polygraph.

And when he does, he usually comes like waving it in his face like, look, my clients innocent if they pass. But he said that he never came to show him one, which he inferred to mean the results were bad. Also, he said that a guy named Harry Lockhart would have been the one to give him the polygraph because he was the only polygrapher back then. Oh, by the way, Harry is now dead when the prosecutor is saying all of this. And he's basically like, I can tell you now because Harry's dead, which I don't understand the rules around this. But to me, it seems like you just know Harry can't argue with you. Right. Like, I'm going to say Harry did this and you can't even ask him. Yeah, well, because apparently they did ask him back in like 90 and he told the same paper that like they have a quote from Lockhart saying that never happened.

So I kind of don't think this polygraph did happen. But I think that the prosecutor thinks it did, if that makes sense. Yeah, but to that I say, stop making assumptions and look at the evidence. Right. And when a new jury looked at the evidence or the lack thereof, they see things completely differently. I don't know if it was just truly that there were 12 different people or maybe just having some time between the crime and a trial for emotions to calm down made a difference. But these new 12 people found David not guilty. David is no longer religious. He has married and divorced and remarried a couple of times, but he has been with his fourth wife for many years now.

And listen, there are things to not like about the guy if you really dig into the case. Like, for example, he was sending quote sexually graphic notes to a woman he met in prison and it happened to be while he was married to his second wife, according to Wes Smith's reporting. And he admitted at one point that he probably would have done more than kiss a model if they would have accepted his advances. But that still doesn't change the lack of physical evidence. There has never been a reinvestigation into what happened to the Hendricks family. For the Bloomington police, it's closed and a man got away with murder. For David, he can't prove his theory without the cooperation of police. His brother-in-law won't talk.

John says he doesn't think David is the killer, but he isn't either and he doesn't know what happened to the Hendricks family that night, which is a question I don't think should be forgotten. I don't feel as confident as the Bloomington police and the prosecution, especially in light of the story I told you last week. There are real monsters out there who kill for no reason at all. Ones who kill mothers and children and do the unthinkable just because they can. And I get why we try and put the husband's face to it because it's hard for our brains to even work the way a madman's does. But we can't take the easy way out because if it wasn't David, there is still a madman walking free. You can find all the source material for this on our website and I highly recommend if you are interested in digging into this case, checking out Steve Vogel's book, Reasonable Doubt. I listened to it on Audible. The audiobook was incredible.

And be sure to follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkiePodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. CrimeJunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?