Law&Crime Sidebar - Maryland Dad Beaten to Death Protecting His Son from Mob After Middle School Fight

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

A Maryland father of three was beaten to death in his own front yard while protecting his son from a middle school fight that made its way back to the family’s home on May 19. Forty-three-year-old Christopher Wright confronted the mob of what authorities described as three to four white males in their 20s and 30s when they arrived at his home and demanded that his son “finish the fight.” The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy discusses the horrifying and deadly attack with retired death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10 at http://bit.ly/3IGNFxvLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A father of three beaten to death at his home. His family says he died protecting his children after a fight from school moved to their front yard. I've covered a lot of crime stories over the years. Many of them here at law and crime, and it really gets me thinking about how we can all stay safe. Well, this is palm pepper spray, and it can help you do just that. It's a small but mighty self-defense tool. Palm pepper spray shoots up to 12 feet using the strongest legal form of pepper spray available. It's safe and easy. You just point and spray. And if you

want to try it, you can get 10% off. Use the promo code law crime 10 when you log on to palmpeper spray. And remember, if you or anyone else is ever in danger, always dial 911. I want to tell you this story is incredibly disturbing. It's just chilling. And part of this beating death was caught on camera. A father of three in Maryland, Christopher Wright, was beaten to death in his front yard while protecting his children from a school fight. This happened in Annarundle County, Maryland. Christopher Wright died last Saturday. Wright's family told WBALT, that Wright's 14-year-old son got into a fight with another teenager at Brooklyn Park Middle School the day before. After that, Wright's son went home. The next day, Anna Randall County police say three to four white men in their 20s and 30s showed up at the Wright's house. Wright's fiancé told WBAL TV, the men said, if your son isn't going to fight, you are going to fight. The sister of Wright's fiance told Inside Edition two men and three middle school kids showed up at the house, and were involved in Wright's death.

He died of a traumatic brain injury on Saturday, May 20th, hours after this fight. His family has set up a GoFundMe account. Kristen Karabchinsky, the sister of Wright's fiancé, wrote on her Facebook page just recently, On behalf of our family, we want to thank Anna Rundle County Police Department for how hard they are working to investigate this case. Please do not mistake their silence or lack of arrest for lack of action. The family is planning a candlelight vigil to remember Christopher Wright. Joining me to discuss the death of Christopher Wright is Joseph Scott Morgan.

He's a forensic death investigator, a frequent lot-long crime guest, and also the host of the Body Baggs podcast. Joseph, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for having me, Anjana. I find this case to be incredibly disturbing. It sounds like a case of almost mob mentality, a gang of people. It sounds like three to four, maybe five individuals. showing up and demanding a fight from a 14-year-old. And then when the dad says he's not fighting you, they beat him up and kill him. Tell me your initial thoughts about this upon

hearing about it. Yeah. And you said mob mentality. It almost sounds like a feeding frenzy with violence, where they're coming to do great harm. And I think that that's the key from an investigative and from a prosecutorial standpoint. When you begin to dig into the this and you look, and it's really hard in these cases to prove specific intent. And here's another thought about this case. The dad wound up deceased. Was it their intention, perhaps, initially, to kill a 14-year-old over some kind of altercation at school, you know, did you show up with that level of malicious intent in this environment?

It's not just like one person showed up. excellent thought put forward there relative to a mob mentality and this is a driver behind this and when you think about it it's not like you know this poor man stepped out in front of a car that he didn't see coming these are people that march themselves together collectively as a group to this man's home to essentially come after this boy this 14 year old and they show up and they they want something outside they're demanding that this child fight when the father doesn't cave into that they attack him they swarm him you know i guess the the old term is he's bum rushed at that point in time and the level of violence that you see in this particular case is it is

assaulting to the senses he was literally beaten to death he died of a traumatic brain injury which a traumatic brain injury basically means your your brain has been been so damaged. Sometimes, you know, there are different levels of TBIs, but basically his brain was shaken inside his skull to to the degree that he died. I mean, there may have been some other type of injury associated with this with the spinal cord, but that is just horrifying to me that a group of people in a front yard, and there's some new reporting here, Joseph, from the New York Post, who talked to Tracy Karabchinsky, who is right's fiance. I'm looking at this right now. We reached out to her family to try to talk with her and they said she's feeling too kind of tired and

overwhelmed right now to do it. But she said this was all over $30.30 dispute. Like some kid telling another kid, I stole $30. And I just can't even imagine. She lays out this account. So the fact that these people in the front yard beat up the dad to the point that he died over $30. I don't understand where that level of rage comes from. But let's talk about that. that TBI. I mean, him dying from that. It could have injured his spinal cord, I'm assuming. Yeah, it could. And right, you are when you talk about the levels that are involved in here. The brain, though, this obviously encased in skull, is very delicate organ, very delicate. You can suffer great physical diminishment by a simple strike, dependent upon where it's located anatomically.

When you have a crowd of people, a group of people, let's frame it that way, that descend upon you. And this is what we refer to as multiple blunt force trauma. There's one report that came out that said his head was slammed into a concrete sidewalk, I think at least twice. And this is not like this is perfectly orchestrated. So when you get a group of people like this, this mom mentality, they're attacking an individual.

And to this point, all we know about that they are armed with are hands and feet, knees, legs, that sort of thing. this blunt force trauma arises, and it's not like it's organized. You have multiple strikes that are taking place all over the body. So if you think that maybe he was grabbed by the hair of his head and his head was slammed down into the concrete, there's more going on here. You might have individuals that are actually restraining him while a majority of the trauma is being done to him, or they're descending upon him with multiple blows all over his body. The autopsy report will be really over the top in this particular case because, first off, this was not an instantaneous

death. So he's going to have multiple contusions all over his body. There will be a lot of abrasions, this sort of thing. You might even have lacerations that are associated with these strikes to the skull, which are those kind of nasty jagged openings that you see in the skull when people get their head cracked open. Going back to the idea that the brain is so delicate, there are what I refer to as microvessels inside of the brain. Very, very delicate. And any kind of impact injury can actually cause a disruption in those structures where the individual begins to actually hemorrhage out into the soft tissues of the brain throughout. And if you've got multiple of these that are occurring all at one time, the probability that you're going to survive

this event and still have a viable life is diminishing with every strike that's rained down on this I just want to look back at this New York Post report one more time. And Tracy Karapchinsky said, my son said his dad was thrown to the ground at one point. I know there was punching. My son said that he was being slammed against the ground. So this was incredibly brutal. She said this wasn't people fighting. This was him being beaten to death. So I just can't even imagine this. And it sounds like some of this may have been caught on video as well, at least some of the discussion through some type of security camera. Sounds like the police are going to catch these people. Somebody's got to be able to identify them. And the Annarundle County Police Department is investigating. Apparently,

they're not saying much right now, but the family is saying, don't mistake that for them not doing anything. Oh, they're doing something. They're working on this. Yeah. It's not just one camera view. And Jeanette, you've got the victim's camera that apparently they have. And then there's a neighbor's camera. So what that means is that you're going to have multiple perspectives on. this so making the identification dependent upon the environmental lighting is going to be much easier and plus you have circumstantial evidence that goes back where the principal or the school at least has commented on the fact that there was an altercation there are minors that are involved in this as well and that's important to remember and it is important backing up to what I said just a moment

ago, that this group of people showed up at this home to do harm to a 14-year-old child. Now, let that sink in just for a second. If these people are still out on the street, this is a danger to the public, period, because if they're willing to do this level of harm to a child, and then when the child's father tries to interdict the situation or insert himself in it to protect his child from this, and they attack him and they rip him to pieces like this, stomping him, kicking him, slamming his body into the concrete, slamming his head into the concrete. Who else would they be willing to do this to if they have this level of rage? And, you know, I think that we need to call for patience relative to the police as they investigate this on part of the public.

They will find these individuals and they will arrest them and they will be prosecuted. An individual is planned. A candlelight vigil is planned for Chris Wright. One other thing that I find so disturbing about this, Joseph, is the fact that Tracy Kirpchensky told the post as well that when the fight initially started at the school or, you know, this dispute, her son was in the bathroom and there were kids there wanting to tape the fight. They were wanting to record this. I'm assuming put on social media. So that's another disturbing aspect of this too. If you have kids at a middle school wanting to do something like this. This takes us to a whole other level of kind of evil and depravity.

It does. And it's a, it's, we're very, I think as a culture, as a society, rather, we're, we're very desensitized at this point in times. There's such a level of violence that's on display day in and day out. And the fact that someone would not in, in just in the context of the school, interdict the situation and say, look, we're not doing this. We're not doing this. But yet you have people standing around with cameras.

is in their hand to videotape it to mark this moment. I guess it's a special occasion for them. But in the end, it could be the CCTV that actually winds up solving this case and holding those that did this responsible. Well, I'll be interested to see how long it takes to piece this together. It's just been almost a week since this happened. It's really horrible and inexcusable. It's just awful. It sounds like Chris Wright didn't fight back from what his fiance is saying. He didn't have bruises or anything like that on his hands. So it's just a really awful thing. Joseph Scott Morgan, thank you so much for coming on to talk with us as always. We appreciate it. You bet my friend. Have a good day. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to

and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.