Murder In America - EP. 10 MAINE - The Bloody Bed & Breakfast Massacre

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

In 2006, a brutal, gruesome crime spree rocked the small town of Newry, Maine. An unhinged man slaughtered 4 people and 3 dogs over Labor Day weekend, burning and dismembering bodies and leaving a trail of death along the way. And it all started at an innocent, yet slightly creepy looking bed & breakfast on the edge of town, named the Black Bear Bed And Breakfast. This is the story of Christian Nielsen, and his descent into madness. You're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night, it's easy sometimes to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, nobody has all the answers.

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something that I love is if you aren't happy with your therapist match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. I've personally used BetterHelp in the past, and I think that if you're on the edge, if you're thinking maybe it's time to start therapy, I say just go ahead and do it. There's literally no downside because you don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash MIA. That's BetterHELP.com slash MIA. On America's East Coast, there's a small town in the state of Maine called Newry. Although it's a beautiful community, most fellow Americans have never even heard of it. The population of Newry in 2010 was a whopping

329. It's a place where a whole lot of nothing happens, especially crime. And in this small town, tucked away in the woods, is the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast. From the outside, this quaint B&B looks like a warm and welcoming place to stay. The building itself is a 130-year-old farmhouse, coated with white paint, decorated with maroon shutters, covered with lots of windows, a red roof, and inside of the house there are seven spacious rooms. It's cozy, somewhere anyone would love to stay if they wanted to get away for the weekend. But one thing you would never imagine while looking at this bed and breakfast is that one of the most heinous massacres in Maine's history took place right here.

This is the story of the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast Massacre. And you're listening to Murder in America. Small town with a short and rather unremarkable history. The area was home to settlers in the late 1700s, but it wasn't until 1805 when Newry was incorporated as an official community recognized by the United States government. There isn't much history to be found in the town, save for a famous plane crash, and really the area is known for having some pretty beautiful scenery. But on the outskirts of town, tucked away down a long, dark, winding road, sits the Black Bear

Bed and Breakfast, and in 2006, the history of Newry was about to get a lot darker. The owner of the Black Bear Inn is a 65-year-old woman named Julie Bullard, and she's been in the bed and breakfast industry for years. The first one she owned was in San Francisco, California, and it was very successful while in operation. But Julie and her 31-year-old daughter named Selby were kind of tired of the city life and they wanted to move somewhere more quiet. Selby also lost her husband in a car accident in San Francisco, so the two thought it would be nice to have a fresh star in a different city. In their search for a new location, Julie found a quaint bed and breakfast in the small town of Newry, and she instantly knew that she had found the perfect place.

So in 2004, Julie and Selby packed up all of their things and made the move across the United States, from California to Maine. It's now 2006. Two years after Selby and Julie moved to Newry, Maine, and unfortunately, the bed and breakfast isn't doing as well as Julie thought it would. There's a lot of work that goes into running a bed and breakfast, making sure all the rooms are perfect for the guests, hiring maids and maintenance workers, and cooks. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work for, lot and the B&B's location in the very small town of Newry didn't really help to bring in a lot of guests. Julie had allowed a few people to actually live there at the Black Bear Inn, one being the inn's maintenance man, a guy named James Whitehurst, and another being a man named Christian

Nielsen, who actually worked at another nearby bed and breakfast as their cook. But other than those two, the bed and breakfast remained at all times pretty empty, save for the occasional guest here and there. After a lot of consideration, Julie decided that she was going to sell the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast and moved to New York where one of her daughters lived. And in February of 2006, she put it up for sale. A friend of Julie said, quote, she loved Maine and she felt very safe in Maine, and she didn't really want to leave.

But for economic reason, she was going to sell the B&B and share a house her daughter had just bought in Brooklyn, end quote. But until then, Julie was going to do her best and work her hardest to keep the bed and breakfast afloat. Fast forward a few months. It's September 1, 2006, a Friday, and Labor Day weekend is just around the corner.

This is a great opportunity for Julie because this means she will probably have customers. But something has been bothering Julie. One of her guests, Christian Nielsen, the cook that we mentioned earlier, had actually been living at the bed and breakfast for a few months. That's not usually how bed and breakfasts work, but Julie needed the money so she worked out a deal with Christian so she could make ends meet. But when rent was due, Christian wasn't able to make his payment. Now, we aren't 100% sure, but it's alleged that Julie and the maintenance worker James were

to evict Christian from the bed and breakfast and kick him out to the streets. James was known to be a sweet man and a very hard worker. He was only temporarily living in Maine at the time, caught up in a fight to gain custody of his four kids. And everything I've read about James was that above all, he loved his children. They were his whole world. But James didn't have the easiest life. When he was just three years old, he developed polio, which made him walk with a limp.

But despite the hand he was given, he always worked hard in life. And Julie noticed this about James, which is why she hired him as the end's maintenance man. The two had a great relationship, and Julie had been letting him stay there for free while he helped maintain the place. On this particular Friday, Julie wasn't at the inn, and when she wasn't there, James kind of took over the place and ran everything. While James is on the job that day, the unwanted guest, Christian Nielsen, approaches him and says, hey, I'm going on a hike.

Would you want to join me? And James, being a guy who loved the outdoors, agreed to join Christian on this hike, even though he was kind of in an awkward situation with the guy at the moment. One thing James could have never known was that Christian had a 38 caliber pistol tucked in his waistband as the two made their way into the woods for the hike. At one point, the two stopped to share a cigarette and conversed in a little small talk. Once the cigarette is finished, Christian reaches for the gun, brandishes his weapon, and opens fire into James' body.

After falling to the ground, Christian walks over to James, stands menacingly over his dying body and fires one more fatal shot. Later when Christian is explaining the murder, he says this. You have some kind of argument or disagree with Jim about something? No. Why do you think, Chris? You decided that you wanted to shoot him. Uh-huh.

I just objected to his presence. And his body went. Just like that. And then I shot him again just to make sure, but he was dead. And then, like I said, he had a big torso, but little legs, very tiny legs. And the reason Christian describes James as having little legs is because of his polio condition. The saddest part about this murder is that Christian probably chose to kill James because he knew he was an easy target due to his condition, basically preying on the week.

And another chilling thing to note is the very matter-of-fact way that Christian is describing the murders in his interview. Almost as if he's telling you an innocent story about something funny that happened to him over the weekend. There doesn't seem to be one bit of remorse or shame in his voice. After Christian talks about shooting James, he says this. I started digging. My intentions were to dig a grave, but it would have been shallow. So you first got out here, took your shovel out and started digging here. These dimensions right here.

You can see where I started digging. I just felt that it was the right thing to do. You didn't want to leave him out in the open. Didn't want to leave him out in the open. Why? Do you a dead person. Do something with dead people. something or burn them. So anyway, for whatever reason. I know what you're digging in the grave.

It wasn't really a grave as in like, should I go back to gym, but a grave is in, let's get him in the ground before he starts to smell. Stopped, like right about here. This blood, probably. If you look, I'm sure tomorrow you'll sleep blood here somewhere. Okay. Yeah, maybe back a bit, but this boy all through here, did it all in that trail. At that point, I was just like, whew, so I put the gun back in my waist. And maybe I shot him again, I'm not sure. And then I said, I got to go to work. And I went to work. I walked back up.

You left him here. After killing James, Christian left his body in the woods and continued to go about his weekend. It wasn't until the next day that Christian figured he needed to dispose of the corpse. So he goes back to where he left James' body. And he grabs a gallon of gasoline and douses the dead body in gas before lighting a match and setting him on fire. He then dug a shallow grave and buried him in the woods in Upton. And there's a lot to think about here. First, why would Christian kill this man?

This is the question that still haunts people to this day. And I don't think that even Christian knows the answer. It seems like the only reasoning behind the violence was that he simply wanted to kill. Christian later went to work that night, as if he didn't just end a man's life earlier the day before. And it was at work that Christian started to create a plan. His murder spree was not going to end here. He knew that the owner of the inn, Julie, would be arriving sometime on Sunday the following day, and she would be suspicious of what happened to James.

So Christian created a plan to murder any witness to the crime or anyone who suspected him a foul play. The next day comes around and Christian notices that Julie has arrived at the bed and breakfast and is sleeping in one of the rooms. He actually saw her sleeping through one of her windows, and it was in that very moment he decided that it would be the perfect time to go in for the kill. Christian originally tried to enter the room through that window, but he later said that her body was turned facing him, and he was nervous that she would open her eyes and see him coming in. So instead, he walks right over to her bedroom door and tries to kick it in.

When that doesn't work, he backs up, takes a running start, and uses his shoulder to butt through the door. Julie is awake at this point and he's screaming in terror as she watches Christian burst into her room. He then proceeds to shoot her over and over, which propels her out of bed and up against the wall. She later slumps to the floor where she dies. And I want you to listen to how Christian describes this scene. So I got my gun and I walked the window. This is loud. I was looking up the window because I was in the screen.

And then I was like scared because her face was right there. The window was here and her face there. So she didn't open her eyes and seen me. Got my gun, kicked the door. the door didn't slide, and I put him in my shoulder like that, and the door popped off the lock. The door slaved open, and clearly sits up, he said, and she comes down and south of her goes, what's that? Hey, you know? I think I shot her once and said, oh, and I shot her again and again, and it blew her out of the bed into the wall. It was amazing. He's describing the murder of an elderly

woman, and he's calling it amazing while laughing throughout the entire interview. As you listen to the words that Christian uses in this interview and analyze what he's really saying. It starts to become clear that Christian is more than just a man who became backed into a corner and decided to kill. This man enjoyed killing these people, and he's clearly showing signs of psychopathy. The next part of our story is really disturbing. After murdering her, Christian takes Julie's dead body and drags it outside. He then proceeds to slice her body in half and dismember it, using an array of rusty tools, including chainsaws, hacksaws, and axes. After this gruesome interlude, Christian wraps Julie's body, or rather what's left of it,

in a tarp, and drags it deep out into the woods. He then again goes back to work at the Sadbury Inn as if nothing had happened, and it's eerie to imagine Christian using knives and kitchen utensils, cutting up food in the kitchen and serving it to random patrons of the inn's restaurant. While unbeknownst to them at the time, the cook who prepared their food that night had been carving up a body in the woods just hours before. And throughout this story, I've noticed that when Christian was at the Black Bear Inn, he's almost in this murderous mindset, where everyone is a target and anything could happen at any time. And it's almost incredible how he was able to quickly slip out of that mindset when he headed to his job at the other inn.

But it turns out that it was always while he was working at this job when he made his plans for his next kill. Now, Christian knows that Julie and her daughter, Selby, were very close, and he knew Selby would be coming up to see her mom on Monday the following day. So that day, Christian wakes up, eats breakfast like a normal person, and proceeds to clean up all the blood from Julie's room. Apparently, the scene of Julie's murder was absolutely gruesome. I can imagine that there was a lot of blood coating the walls of that room since Christian had shot Julie so many times.

And next, Christian decides to kill all the dogs that were kept there at the bed and breakfast. This is a depressing little detail that really shows you what kind of a person Christian was. One by one that day, he walks up to the puppies, pulls out his gun, and lifts it to their heads, and pulls the trigger, ending each of their lives with a little. bullet to the head. So at this point, Christian had killed James and Julie and the three dogs on the property. And when investigators ask him why he killed the dogs on top of the humans, he tells them that one of the dogs was really old and that it was way too old for a dog. But like, okay, why not just let it die naturally? Why would you have to shoot it? This is unnatural. And this is just another prime example of Christian's psychopathy. And I'm obviously not a psychologist, but I did major in psychology

at the University of Texas at Austin. And while I was in school studying, we learned a lot about psychopaths. And having absolutely no remorse or regard for other living beings is a huge indication of psychopathy. The other reason Christian gives investigators for killing the dogs is that when he dismembered Julie, he had to chop all of her fingers off and he didn't want the dogs finding them and eating them like they were treats. After concealing the bodies of Julie and the dogs, Christian sits calmly and waits until Selby arrives at the bed and breakfast in search of her mother. And before he knows it, Christian watches from afar as her car makes its way up the driveway. Now, Selby was with her friend Cindy Beetson, who was 43 years old, and I'm pretty sure Cindy

had come with Selby that day because she hadn't heard from her mother in over 24 hours. I think that they were scared that something had happened to Julie. So she possibly brought her friend for moral support in case they found some. something bad. Looking back at it, Selby should have just listened to this feeling of dread that she felt in her stomach. It was a small lapse in judgment that ended up costing her her life. After parking, Selby and Cindy both get out of the car and head straight to Julie's room in the bed and breakfast. Christian sees them and starts closely following behind. And I wasn't able to get a ton of information on what words were exchanged, but I'm sure as they approached the room,

they noticed that Julie's door was off its hinges, stemming from when Christian busted through it. So, the women slowly walk inside the room and they notice that Julie is nowhere to be seen. I can picture that the room also smells like bleach and cleaning products since Christian had been cleaning it just a few hours beforehand. At this time, Selby is starting to put everything together. Her missing mom, the broken door, the smell of bleach in her room, and the creepy man that is standing in the room with them. So she looks over at Christian and asks, Did you kill my mother?

Christian then pulls the gun out of his waistband and shoots Selby's friend Cindy in the back of her head. Selby now knows that not only did this man kill her mother, but he also just shot her best friend point blank in the head. And now he was about to kill her. I'm sure Selby was crippled with fear, pleading for her life at the time, hoping that she could break through Christians' callous shell

and convince him to let her live. But Christian clearly didn't and doesn't have any remorse. There was no amount of pleading that could stop him from what he was about to do. Like a true psychopath, Christian joyfully lifts the gun and points it at Selby's head, takes a moment, then pulls the trigger. And again, I know we just described the scene to you, but we want to play you this clip of Christian cold-bloodedly describing it himself. I'm in love to the friend.

The friend's talking to me. I met you one to be horrible. I've stayed behind the friend. And we hear Selby go in the bedroom and Selby starts talking. And the friend says, oh, please go ahead. I said, I order to ask you. So the friend walks into the bedroom. Telby says, Christian, did you kill my mother?

I don't know, apropos of what. Like, I don't know how Selby managed to take out that many clues because I wiped up most of the blood, clean most of the blood. The door was busted. That's what I gave it away. She saw the busted door. She was like, I don't know if she was joking away. But she said, Christian, did you kill my mother?

And right before she said that, or right as she was saying, I shot her in the back of the head. I shot her in the head. And they both went down real quick. Did you feel like, or do you feel now that killing Jim or Aunt Julie and Selby and a friend, do you feel like that was wrong? Well, if you had went about it badly. But I'd never done before.

Over a four-day span, Christian Nielsen has annihilated four people for seemingly no reason. After Selby and Cindy were killed, he went right back into full sicko mode and proceeded to undergo the same process he did with Julie's body. He reached for his tools and went to work. Christian sliced the bodies in half, dismembering them along the way. Wrap the two corpses in a tarp and took them to a secluded location on the property. And now that there was no one left to kill, Christian's sick little game was over and he didn't know where else to turn. So, like most people do when they're in trouble, he called his father, Charles Nielsen.

But he didn't confess what he had done right away. He actually told his dad that Julie was out of town and she left him in charge of the bed and breakfast for the weekend. But something didn't sound right to Charles. So he drove to the bed and breakfast to see what was up. And when he arrived there, he saw a thick trail of blood outside of the inn. When Charles confronted his son, Christian confessed to everything. He described what happened and showed him all the bodies.

And this is a really interesting part of the story. When Christian is talking about his father, the interview asks him, Why didn't you kill your dad? And Christian is kind of confused by this question, almost like, what do you mean? He's my dad. That's why I didn't kill him. So there's kind of this separation.

Like he really didn't know these people that worked there at the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast, so he had no issue killing them. But of course he wouldn't kill his own father. I want to take a moment to put ourselves in Christian's father's shoes. I mean, your kid, who you spent your entire life loving and raising the best you possibly could, calls you. And when you show up, you find four dead individuals, completely chopped up to pieces, all from the handiwork of your own son. And I think a lot of people here want to put the blame on the parents or put some type of blame on his upbringing or whatever it may be.

But Christian Nielsen is a psychopath. It's just a part of who he is. And a lot of times, there's nothing a parent can do to change that. According to an article published by Psychology Today, some children can start showing signs of psychopathy at just two years old. And I have to imagine all of the thoughts running through Charles's mind. Thoughts like, what do I do next? How did this happen? Where did I go wrong?

But the next thing that he did that day had to have been the hardest thing he's ever done. He picks up the phone and calls the police, telling them that he's, His son had just murdered four people, and he can lead them directly to their bodies. Officer Hansen is the first one on the scene, and he asks Christian's dad to lead him to the corpses, and he proceeds to take Officer Hansen to where Selby, Cindy, and the dog's bodies were located. Investigators later find Julie's body a few dozen yards away, but they still needed to locate James' body, so they tell Christian that they're going to Upton where Christian had claimed he was buried. And Christian tells them that they probably won't find the body since he badly burned it

and had buried whatever charmed remains were left. But regardless, he gives them directions to the location. When investigators head out to the area that Christian had described to them, they find a fire pit filled with decomposed and burned human remains that are eventually linked to our victim, James Whitehurst. Police instantly arrest Christian Nielsen on four counts of murder and bring him back to the station for a statement. In a shocking move, Christian comes clean and immediately confesses to all four murders.

And he was extremely descriptive on how he killed all of them. Like we pointed out, these interrogations make it extremely obvious that our perpetrator is a psychopath. At certain points of the interrogation, an investigator asked Christian, why did you kill these people? Their families need to know why. Can you give us an answer?

And he kind of snickers and says, I don't care what you tell them. I found a lot of these interrogation tapes on a show called Signs of a Psychopath. and there's a psychologist on the program that makes a really good point. She says that when investigators ask Christian questions regarding his remorse or what to say to the grieving families, he doesn't care whatsoever. She says, quote, this isn't a logical thing to ask him.

Why are you even asking me this? Why should I possibly care? Psychopaths generally will not experience these emotions, end quote. Julie's daughter Selby was a widow because her husband died in a car accident. When Christian killed her that day in September, he made Selby's children orphans. And to Christian, he couldn't care less. At his court hearing before the main trial, Christian is seen in photographed by the media wearing an orange jumpsuit, a bulletproof vest, and a smirk on his face, as if he's amused

by all the attention he's getting. Christian was placed in the Oxford County Jail without bail while he waited for trial, but he did not do well in jail. In one incident, he attacked another inmate and wounded his fellow prisoners so bad, that they transferred him to Cumberland County Jail. And while he was at this jail, he was placed on suicide watch because he kept cutting X's into his head with a disposable razor. Later that year, Christian went on a hunger strike during which he refused to eat, and he was already a very thin guy, but he went from 158 pounds down to 103, losing 55 pounds in a very short amount of time,

which is absolutely terrible for your body. And this hunger strike was so bad for Christian's health that they had to put him on a feeding tube because he's still, even in the face of crippling body, crippling body issues, refused to eat. This time period for Christian was so bad that he expressed to different law enforcement that he didn't want to live anymore. Christian's defense team tried to delay the trial by using an insanity plea, but this request was denied and Christian ended up pleading guilty saying, quote, I do want to avoid trial simply because the outcome would be guilty, end quote. The prosecutor of his case later stated, quote,

the defendant has shown absolutely no real remorse or even comprehension of what he has done. His psychological condition and antisocial thinking make it chillingly likely that he will reoffend in the future. End quote. And with that, Christian Nielsen was sentenced to four live terms in prison. Another important thing to note is that life sentences in Maine carry no chance of parole, which means that Christian will never be a part of society again. At the sentencing hearing, Justice Robert Crowley said, When all is said and done, Christian Nielsen has committed four of the worst criminal acts in recent Maine history.

And this is why we wanted to tell you guys the story. After the trial, a family member read Selby's 10-year-old son's victim impact statement, titled How My Life Changed and I Was Forever Wounded. And a piece of it read, they have all walked the stairway to heaven. At least there's no violence up there. It's a really scary thought to think that you can be the perfect parent. Raise your child in the most ideal environment. Meet all of their needs, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

And no matter what you do, they still can turn out to be a murderous monster. Not every psychopath becomes a murderer like Christian Nielsen, but what differentiates him from other psychopaths? Why did this man, who had a seemingly normal life, grow up to massacre four people for no reason? The thing is, we don't. have an answer to that question. And neither does Christian. He just simply wanted to do it. Well, once again, thank you everybody for listening and tuning into this week's episode of

murder in America. Thanks for being patient with us while we get these uploaded and written. It's been a whole process figuring out how much research goes into this episode, how much research goes into this, what the edit's going to be like on this one. So we're just figuring that out right now. But thank you for listening anyways. Your guys' support means the world to us. This is very exciting that we've got this podcast going. And the episodes that we're doing next are truly horrific. So stay tuned for those.

Now you know, I'm the type of guy that would love to spend the night at the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast alone. But would you? Or are you afraid of the dark? It makes you wonder. The dead don't talk. Or do they? See on the next one, everybody.