Murder In America - EP. 4 SOUTH DAKOTA - The Torture & Murder of Chester Poage

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

In the year 2000, a single, brutal murder would change South Dakota forever. Stories of serial killers oftentimes pique the interest of the public. However, sometimes it only takes a single crime to strike fear into the hearts of a population, and the brutality and depravity just one murder can be much more of a shocking event than the discovery of a serial killer. In Spearfish, South Dakota in the year 2000, the grisly torture and execution of innocent man Chester Poage did just that. Warning, this episode contains descriptions of extremely violent and disturbing events. Listener discretion is advised. You’re listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. (Co-hosted by Courtney Shannon & Colin Browen) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Stories of serial killers oftentimes peak the interest of the public. The stories of how each victim died, the thought process of the murderer, and even the story of how they were finally apprehended and brought to justice are always key talking points. However, sometimes it only takes a single murder to strike fear into the hearts of a population, and the brutality and depravity of a single killing can be much more of a shocking event than the discovery of a serial killer. In Spearfish, South Dakota, in the year 2000, a single horrifying murder. did just that. Warning, this episode contains descriptions of extremely violent and disturbing events.

Listener discretion is advised. You're listening to Murder in America. Spearfish, South Dakota, live the Pogue family. David, the Patriarch, and Doddy the Matriarch, along with their two teenage children, Chester and Samantha. The family seemed to live a normal Midwestern life. They were hard workers attended church every Sunday and they mostly kept themselves and tended to their farm. But a lot of times the perfect families aren't always so perfect. Doddy and David didn't have the best marriage and in 1996 just days after Dottie presented David with divorce papers, he killed himself, leaving a heart-stricken family in the wake. This was hard on everyone, but especially hard for their son, Chester.

Chester was often bullied in school because of his father's suicide, his funny name, and for his appearance. He was 6-1, slender with big round glasses and red hair. He played the drums and liked woodwork and electronics. He looked like a sweet and innocent boy. It wasn't easy for Chester to make friends, but he was a good kid who just wanted to be accepted. Chester was relieved to graduate high school, to get away from all the bullies and start fresh at his new college in Kansas where he would major in communication technology. He went to school for two years, then in December of 1999, about two years into his college experience, Chester moved back to Spearfish with his mom and sister. He had just finished a long internship in Denver and wanted to take the upcoming semester off.

He thought that he could move back home, take a little break from school, and enroll back in college that upcoming fall of 2000. He didn't love the fact that he moved home back with his mom at age 19, but he planned on saving up some money and getting a place of his own when he went back to school. And on the bright side, his mom had a nice place where he'd be comfortable over the next few months. Dottie said that the next few months with her son, Chester, were very refreshing. They spent a lot of time together, shared a lot of laughs, took some joy rides around town, and just enjoyed life. And I think Chester was feeling good taking a break from school, and the family just felt really close to one another. On March 10th of that year, Doddy and Samantha, who was just a junior in high school at the time, decided that they were going to take a much-needed vacation to Florida.

It had been snowing really heavily in South Dakota, and they wanted a beach vacation to get away from the cold. Chester wanted to go with them, but he ended up staying home because he had to work in walking. over the house, so he helped his mom and sister load their bags into the car and he waved them goodbye as they backed out of their driveway to the airport. Right before they left though, Chester began to feel a lot of anxiety. Doddy later said that Chester had hugged her before they left and begged her not to go. He felt like something was going to happen to the plane that they were flying on and that he was never going to see them again.

She reassured him that they were going to be fine and that they would be home before he knew it. And immediately after that they left for Florida. And you know that gut feeling you get when you do that you get when you do that just know something isn't right. It's like your intuition can see into the future and sort of warns you of what's to come. Chester had that feeling that day

and he had it for a good reason. Little did his family members know. After they waved their goodbyes to Chester that day, they would never see him again. Alive, that is. After Doddy and Samantha left, Chester wasn't really sure what to do with himself. He usually spent most of his time with his mom

and he didn't have a lot of friends. But Chester did have nice things, which occasionally attracted people to him. His family had a nice home, he had a good car, expensive electronics, and he had a really nice stereo in his car that attracted three local boys in the area. Their names were Elijah Page, Bridley Piper, and Daryl Hodley. These three men all lived together, and they lived very wild carefree lives. Bradley Piper was the ringleader of the three boys.

He was very charismatic and was known to be a natural leader, but he had a troubled past. It had been said in his younger years that he was known to set fires, grope women, and he had even committed a few robberies. The other guy that lived in the house was Darrell, and like Briley, he too had a troubled past. He spent the majority of his upbringing being abused by his mother and the men she would bring home. He didn't have the best social skills, but Darrell was known to be a likable guy. He was considered the follower of the three boys and was very impressionable.

The last of the three was Elijah Page, and Elijah definitely had the worst upbringing out of any of the boys. He had been sexually assaulted at the young age of two years old, and his family was known to find shelter in abandoned buildings around town. He was eventually placed in foster care, but his entire childhood was extremely unstable. So when Elijah met Briley, the leader of the boys, he kind of felt like he finally belonged somewhere. One day, Briley met Chester, and he kind of took him under his wing. Like we mentioned earlier, Chester didn't have a lot of friends, so I'm sure he was really excited to have a group of guys that actually wanted to hang out with him. Chester would go over to their place occasionally, maybe play some video games, have a few drinks, typical things that teenagers do.

And one day when Chester was over there, he told them, hey, my mom and sister are out of town for the week. Why don't you guys come over to my place and we can hang out there? And I think Chester was genuinely excited to show these guys his house because he was going to be home alone. And like we mentioned earlier, Chester and his family had really nice things. And I think he may have thought that this was his opportunity to kind of impress the guys and really get them to like him. So on March 12th of 2000, just two days into his mom and sister's vacation, he invited the boys over. And I'm trying to put myself in Chester's shoes and I got to imagine that he's so excited and he's probably cleaning up the house a little bit, getting it ready for his

friends, maybe getting some junk food for them to snack on later in the night, and making sure that everything is in place so that they can all have a fun night together. Later that evening, the boys show up to the Pogue residents and they start to play some video games on Chester's PlayStation. The night is going well, they're having fun, when all of a sudden, Briley and Elijah get up and wander off inside of the house. The two are gone for a while, and Chester probably thinks that this is strange, but he doesn't want to go looking for them or say anything. Because he doesn't know these guys that well and he doesn't want to come across as annoying, so he blows it off and continues to play the video game. Eventually, Briley and Elijah wander back into the room where Chester and

Daryl are playing PlayStation, and they ask if they can go back to their place, and they ask if they can go back to their place, I wasn't able to find out what they said their reasoning was for wanting to go back, but they all end up getting into Chester's Chevy Blazer, and they make their way back to the boy's house. Once they're all inside, Chester turns his head to look at his friends, and he realizes that Elijah has got a 22-caliber pistol in his hand, and is pointing it right at him. And Chester slowly begins to realize that it's not just any pistol,

it's his mother's, which should have been back at his house. When Elijah had been roaming around Chester's home earlier, he had taken the gun from one of the bedrooms and brought it to the boy's house with them. And to Chester's horror, he was now staring down the barrel of the gun, fearing for his life. This is the point when the night takes a very, very dark turn, and the three men starts screaming at Chester to get on the ground. Once he lays down, Briley starts kicking him over and over and over. And with each blow, Chester is overwhelmed with excruciating pain, fear, and uttering. confusion. Why? Why are my friends doing this to me? After dozens of brutal kicks to his body, Chester eventually slips into a state of unconsciousness. A few minutes later, he wakes up groggy

and confused. It had to be a dream. But as he opens his eyes and he looks down, he sees that he's tied to a chair, with a cord tightly wrapped around his body, restraining him. There's a tire iron placed on his feet, rendering it impossible for him to escape. Chester looks up, sees his friends standing in front of him, and he starts pleading for his life. Why are you guys hurting me? Please let me go. You don't have to do this. But Chester's desperate pleas fall on deaf ears and mean nothing to these monsters. It is at this moment that the men bring out this beer bottle, and they start bringing it towards Chester. And before he knows it, the men force open Chester's mouth and start pouring the drink down his throat.

And as horrifying as this situation sounds, that isn't even the worst of it. This beer that the boys made Chester drink doesn't taste like regular beer to Chester. And the reason why it doesn't taste right is because it wasn't just beer. The boys had crushed up different pills and mixed them into the beer, unbeknownst to Chester. And this wasn't all that was in the drink. The next ingredient is evil. The men had also mixed hydrochloric acid into the beer. And I was completely unaware of the effects of hydrochloric acid on the body until I looked it up.

And what I found was terrifying. Apparently, as soon as the acid touches the skin, there's immediate tissue damage. So as the men poured this toxic beer into his mouth, Chester probably had excruciating burns forming around his lips, inside of his mouth, and down his throat. Soon after ingesting hydrochloric acid, your throat will start to swell, making it difficult to breathe. You eventually have several abdominal and chest pains before profusely vomiting blood.

So you have to imagine the indescribable amount of pain that Chester was going through in this moment, when his friends literally forced him to drink acid. And I want to take a second to remind you guys, these were his friends. Not random guys off the street. These were people that Chester brought into his home, people that he thought he could trust. It was at this moment that Elijah reaches over to Chester's pockets and pulls out his wallet. He sort of sorts through it and pulls out Chester's ATM card. This is what they were after, his money.

And at this point, they no longer needed Chester. He was just a witness that they needed to get rid of. So while Chester's sitting there, starting to feel the effects of this hydrochloric acid, the men start to talk about how they're going to kill him right in front of him. One of the men suggests they bring him to a secluded wooded area in Higgins Gulch State Park. So they untie Chester and force him back into his car and start to make the drive. And as Chester sat in the car during this 10-minute journey, I'm sure there were a million thoughts racing through his head.

And I'm sure that one of those thoughts is that these were going to be his very, last moments on earth. His friends were going to kill him. The four men eventually arrive at the park and it's so desolate out there that no one is around to witness what is happening. No matter how loud Chester screamed, no one could hear his cries for help. After getting out of the car, the men start to make their way towards the trail, making sure Chester is a few feet ahead so he can't escape. They continuously push him, sometimes knocking him to the ground and into the thick snow. They then stripped Chester of all of his clothes except for his underwear and his shoes, and he's standing there, naked, vulnerable, and cold. They point to the dark forest and tell Chester to walk in the direction

of the woods. While walking through the woods, the men repeatedly hit Chester over and over again. At this point, Chester couldn't take it anymore. He was freezing. His internal organs were burning from the acid and his body was being beaten to a bloody pulp. They eventually reached an icy creek deep in the woods, and at that point the boys order Chester to lay down in the freezing water. Once he's in the creek, Elijah pulls out a large knife and stabs Chester in the neck. It's at this time that Chester knows that he's about to die, so he makes one last request to his murderers. Holding the wound on his neck, he asked the boys if they would let him die back at his house.

He told them that if he was going to bleed out, he least wanted to be warm. Briley surprisingly agrees to this request, but tells him to wash the blood off of his neck first. As Chester starts to wash the blood away, feeling the smallest glimmer of hope, the three boys push him back into the water and start to drown him. Briley stands on Chester's neck as the other two hold his struggling body under the water. But just before he drowns, the boys decide that they want to torture him just a bit more as if they hadn't done enough. Briley grabs the knife and stabs him a few more times before heading back to the car to let Elijah and Daryl finish the job. As Chester lays there, barely clinging to life, Elijah and Daryl grab heavy rocks and start

throwing them at Chester's head, and this is what ultimately kills him. The men leave Chester's body floating in the creek, naked, bloody, and battered. After killing him, the boys get into Chester's car and drive back to his house. The three searched through the home rummaging through everything, trying to steal anything of value. They managed to leave with a good amount of valuables, leaving the Pogue's residence destroyed. On March 19th, a week. week after Chester was murdered, Dottie and Samantha come back from Florida, and as they drive up the driveway to their home, they are blissfully unaware of the atrocity that has occurred. As they approached the home, they noticed that all the lights were off and that Chester's Chevy Blazer

isn't in the driveway. Dottie's a little disappointed at first because she expected Chester to be there to greet them when they got home, but she isn't worried just yet. She thinks that maybe he's at a friend's house, or maybe he's running errands, but when she opens the front door to her house, she becomes sick to her stomach. She has been robbed. There's broken glass all over the ground, drawers and cabinets are open. And as she runs through the house screaming Chester's name, she's only met with silence. Instantly, Dottie knows deep down that something terrible has happened, so she immediately calls the police and reports him missing. But at this point, there isn't much police can do. And a part of them probably thinks Chester's an adult. His car is missing. It's likely

that he just picked up and left. But Dottie knows that there's a lot of. That's not the case. And even though they eventually get Chester's missing person's case in the media, there are no leads. And at this point, the case goes cold. Now let's take a second to picture this scene together. It's a beautiful spring day. Flowers are blooming in the black hills, and the local wildlife has come out from winter hibernation. And there's a sense of life in the air.

A young couple decided to head out that afternoon to Higginsk-Goulds State Park to hike. As they walk through the forest, they can't help but notice how beautiful the weather is. But as the two walk through the woods, the smell of flowers slowly turn into something more sour. And as they come out from the trees to enter a clearing where the creek flows, they stumble across a dead body. It is now five weeks after Chester's murder, and this couple just happens to stumble across his body on their hike. They immediately call investigators and officers rushed to the scene. Upon arriving, investigators were shocked to see that this victim hadn't died from a hiking accident or a medical emergency. They had been murdered.

This was the first homicide that the Spearfish Police Department had seen in years, and as they further inspected the body, investigators were horrified to see the brutality that Chester had faced. And despite his corpse being in the water for five weeks, there was barely any decomposition to his body, because the water in the creek at the time was so cold. It was this cold water that allowed investigators to quickly identify this John Doe, as missing local man Chester Pogue. Although investigators had finally found Chester's body and Dottie had now been given the chance to bury her son,

there were still a huge hole left in the family's hearts because they had no clue who had brutally murdered their son, Chester. And the saddest part is that investigators hadn't made much progress in the case until a man named Danny Burkhart comes forward and he says that he's ready to talk to detectives. When he comes to the station, Danny tells investigators said he is a friend named Darrell Hodley. The two worked together at a construction site,

and he goes on to tell the officers that Darrell recently told him that he had been involved in a murder and left the body at Higgins' Gulch. And I'm sure that while he's hearing this from Darryl, Danny is freaking out about what he's being told. But at the time, he played it cool, acted like it wasn't a big deal, and then he immediately came forward to authorities.

Law enforcement knows that they can arrest Darrell based on hearsay, So they asked Danny if he would be willing to wear a wire so they could try record a confession. And luckily, Danny agrees. Police begin to prep Danny. They give him specific questions to ask Darrell, give him advice on what to say, and they wire him up and send him out. And as police are sitting nearby in an unmarked vehicle, this is what they hear. We had a 22 pistol and was his gun too. And Eli pulled out that 22 and was like, get down on the fucking floor, fuck.

And he was all like, what the fuck is going on, dude? We didn't even like use the 22 pistol because we didn't find the bullets for it. And like they got rid of the knife, everything that had any kind of blood on it, you know. This audio was exactly what they needed. But investigators still wanted to bring Daryl in to see if he would say anything else about the murder. So they bring him in for questioning and they start to press him. Daryl starts to open up to investigators. He gives up the names of Elijah and Briley, but he proceeds to tell detectives that he wasn't at the park when Chester was murdered.

and that his two friends were responsible for the crime. But investigators found this suspicious because he knew a lot of the details of what happened. He knew that there was a knife involved. He knew what happened at Higgins Gulch. So they asked him, if you weren't involved, then how do you know all these details? Daryl replies and says that Elijah told him about the murder, right before the other two boys left town. Apparently, the guys were anxious about getting caught,

so Elijah split to Missouri and Briley went to Alaska. Investigators knew that they needed to find Elijah and Briley immediately, So they sent officers to Alaska and Missouri. They were able to locate Briley in Alaska pretty quickly, but finding Elijah was extremely difficult. They knew that he had a lot of Chester's expensive items that he had stolen on his person. So they alerted local pawn shops and told them,

If you see this guy, give us a call because he's suspected of murder. And what do you know? Soon after that, they get a call that Elijah came into a pawn shop to sell a stereo. Hearing this, investigators quickly swooped in and located Elijah, and now all three boys could be interrogated. However, at first, Elijah, who had been arrested in Texas, was jailed in Texas, and Briley was being held in Alaska, so the group was still separated. But, interestingly, the day after Elijah was arrested, he confessed that he had indeed

been a part of the murder of Chester Poe, and hearing the South Dakota moved quickly through the courts, and before long, both Elijah and Briley were extradited back to the Rushmore state to face investigators. And these interrogations got really messy. Everyone was taking the blame off of themselves and pointing the finger at everyone else. Daryl was saying that it was Briley and Elijah that were responsible. Elijah was saying that it was Briley's master plan. And Briley was saying that it was Elijah's.

It was basically one big mess. And at the time, nobody wanted to admit responsibility. A key turning point in these interrogations was when investigators agreed to take Elijah over to Higgins Gulch in person to reveal how the events of the fateful night unfolded. and when he was at the location, Elijah caught all of the investigators up to speed. Elijah's videotaped confession corroborated all of the confessions and evidence that investigators had already collected and also revealed a stunning detail. Elijah stated well on the scene of the crime that Briley Piper at one point had planned to sexually assault Chester while he was beaten and bleeding

in the creek. In hearing of this planned sexual assault, Chester had decided to attempt an escape and made a run for the woods, but there was a fatal flaw in his plan. The three killers had already taken his glasses from him, rendering Chester nearly blind. Elijah ran off to capture him, dragged him back to the creek, and it was at this point that he was murdered. Eventually, all three men were convicted of first-degree murder in the case of Chester Polk, and when the details of the murder hit the press, the case shocked the state of South Dakota to its core. There were protests, there were news articles, and above all, there was doddied, Chester's grieving mother who continuously interacted with the press, but no matter how many interviews she gave, no words could bring Chester back from the dead.

Daryl had his case heard to a jury, and he was given life in prison with no possibility of parole. Briley Piper pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and found himself on death row, where he currently sits awaiting execution. Elijah Page pled guilty to first-degree murder and even requested sentencing by a circuit court, opting to avoid a trial by jury. Interestingly, Elijah reportedly asked to be given the death penalty. This is something that we rarely see. We're rarely see in murder stories. Remorse. Elijah's foster mom in an interview after his death stated her belief that Elijah was genuinely regretful for what he had done to Chester, and that he felt like his own death was the only thing he could do to help heal the wounds from the crime that he had committed.

For his last meal, Elijah requested steak, jalapeno poppers, onion rings, a salad, and ice cream. He was put to death by lethal injection on July 11, 2007. He was the first person executed in South Dakota since 1947 when a man by the name of George Sitz was electrocuted after murdering two individuals, a clerk who was killed during a botched robbery and a sheriff who he shot in Spearfish South Dakota after escaping prison. Elijah Page stated that he had no last words and died quickly in silence. Chester's mother, Dottie, was present at Elijah's execution. She told Minnesota Public Radio that her son was somebody that desperately wanted to make friends. Chester's mother, Dottie, was present at Elijah's execution. She told Minnesota Public Radio News that her son

was somebody that desperately wanted friends, but made a bad decision in befriending Elijah Page. She said, quote, he stepped out of those boundaries and considered someone a friend who took his life and he paid the ultimate price. Elijah Page had the ultimate penalty for his ultimate crime, and for that, I am proud of the state, Attorney General, and the governor for a job well done. I am proud to be an American. end quote as also reported in the minnesota public radio news after the execution sheriff richard mowell who investigated the case claimed that it was his job to protect families from individuals like elijah page he said quote never in my 35 years of law enforcement experience have i seen such a violent

torturous death as that of chester allen poge he said i can assure you that after witnessing what i witness tonight that not only did Elijah Page have a much quieter, quicker, and apparently to me, painless death, but I can assure you he will never do this again. It really does make you wonder, though, is it possible that Chester's spirit could be still out there haunting the creek where he died? Could it be that when someone loses their life in such a violent, tragic manner that they leave some sort of an energy imprint on the land where they passed on to the other side? I don't know. But I can only imagine that on a cold, dark winter's night, that the creek must have something to say to those that pay to visit.

The water, the rocks, the dirt. Those materials have all bore witness to a death, and death always leaves a stain, a permanent mark. At the end of the day, justice was done for Chester, but no matter who was convicted and who was executed, it can't erase the permanent black smear that now forever coats the banks of that creek. in Higgins Gulch State Park.

Maybe Chester's Spirit is still out there, or maybe it's not. Either way, the dark events of that night, March 12th, 2000, will forever haunt the community of Spearfish, South Dakota. And Chester's screams will continue to echo throughout Higgins' Gulch, falling on deaf ears,

until long after we're all gone. Hey guys, thank you for listening to episode four of Murder in America. I'm sorry about the delay. Courtney is at work right now. I'm just finishing this edit before I move on to my episode of the paranormal files. Next week, we're moving on to Idaho. We have two absolutely, mentally, just crazy stories that you guys are not going to believe from this golden state of Idaho. You wouldn't expect such brutal crimes to come out of a state like Idaho. Good hair days do more than we give them credit for. When your hair feels healthy, you show up differently. You feel more confident, more relaxed, and you're not constantly checking the mirror.

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Creven to South Dakota, but as we see in this podcast, they always do. Just a reminder that our Patreon is running, got those videos uploaded from the previous Texas Killingfields episode and the stuff that I shot across Texas last week. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Murder in America. You can see Courtney and I, see what we're up to, follow our adventures. We just had a tough week. We had a funeral in the family,

so it's been a bit rough for all of us, and we can't thank you enough for the support. And let me just ask you here at the very end. Do you think the Chester Pogue spirit could still be out at Hagen's Gulch State Park? Do you think that the screams could possibly be heard on a cold, dark night? It really, really makes me ask the question.

The dead don't talk, or do they? Sweet dreams, everybody. Thanks for listening. See you on Saturday.