Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Hired a Hitman To Kill His Rival - The Christopher Pence story

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

In 2021, Christopher Pence, a 43-year-old from Cedar City, Utah, attempted to hire a hitman via a dark web site, to murder two individuals in Hoosick Falls, New York. The intended victims were the biological parents of children Pence had adopted, and the plot was motivated by ongoing custody disputes. Authorities intercepted the scheme before any harm occurred, leading to Pence's arrest in October 2021.

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Which means he's going to have to do a ton of smashing. Luckily for him, he has a wife. This woman, Michelle. And Michelle also wants a bunch of kids, and so they smash, or however kids are made these days. And nine months later, they have a kid. And then they have another one. and then another one and then another one. And so by the year 2000, they have four kids.

Four kids is a lot. But see, that isn't quite enough for Pence and Michelle. And so they smash and have another kid. A few years later, they have another one. Then years later, another one. And then another one, and then another one. And finally, one more. And so by 2017, they have 10 kids total.

And then, unfortunately, one of them dies of sudden infant death syndrome. And so they're back down to nine. But then they smash and have another kid, so now they have ten again. And so Pence, Michelle, and their ten kids are one big happy evangelical Christian family, because they're super religious. And ten kids is a ton, but this still isn't enough for Pence and Michelle. They still want more. And one day, they finally get what they want.

Because they're out in their RV on a family road trip, and Michelle gets on the internet, And she checks a message board for parents who homeschool their kids, and she sees a post. And the post says that this other woman and her husband are working on some marital issues, and they're looking for someone to temporarily take care of their six kids. And Michelle is like, I want to take care of their six kids. We already got 10, but let's add six more. And so Michelle writes this couple back, and this couple is Mr. and Mrs. Cordero.

And so Michelle connects with Mr. and Mrs. Cordero, and they agree to meet up. So the Pence family drives their RV all the way up to Massachusetts to meet up with these people. Now, the Corderoes have six kids, so the pences agree to take five of these six kids. The one kid, the oldest son they don't take, is special needs. So I guess they just leave that kid behind with his parents, which seems kind of messed up. But anyway, the pincas take five kids and they put them in their RV with their other 10 kids, so now they have 15 kids total. and they all drive back to Washington.

Now, back at home, the pences are somewhat strict. They homeschool all these kids, they make them study the Bible, their house is always spotless because I guess they're making the kids clean up the place all the time. But whatever, the five Cordero kids seem happy there. Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, the Corderoes gave up five of their kids, I guess because they couldn't take care of them. However, they still want contact with them. So the pences agree to let the Corderoes have some.

contact with their five kids and they're even allowed to come visit them a couple of times a year. And about a year goes by and I guess this arrangement is still going. Which by the way, the house they live in is only 1900 square feet, which typically a 1900 square feet house is maybe three or four bedrooms, which is great, but they got 15 kids. So you've got 15 kids and two adults living in at most four bedrooms. And so therefore, at some point, they decide, eh, we could really use a bigger place. And so they finally find one, and the Pence family moves from Washington

all the way down to their new place in Texas. And it's around this time that they decide to formally adopt the five Cordero kids, and here's a picture of all of them in family court. Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, the Corderoes actually have another baby. Like what? Bro, you just gave away five of your other kids and you're having another one?

But then it gets even weirder. I guess the Corderoes miss their five kids in Texas because they suddenly relocate and move closer to them in Texas, apparently to make it easier and cheaper to visit their five kids. After that, the Corderoes get pregnant again. So they gave away their five kids and then they had two more of their own. Make it make sense.

Now at some point during all this, shhs starts to get a little crazy. because a rift starts to grow between the Pence family and the Cordero family. And the pincas don't really like the way the corderos gave their kids away and then had two more. And so the pences are like, fuck these people. And they take their 15 kids and they move again. This time from Texas all the way up to Utah. And they make sure to not tell the corderos where they're moving to.

But then, in 2020, I guess the pence has been smashing because they got. get pregnant again. And this will be their 16th kid. And so to break this down for you, there's 16 kids, two adults, plus Pence's parents live with them. So that's 20 people living in this house. And the new house is like seven bedrooms. So there's 20 people in seven bedrooms. Not only that, apparently the Corderoes are still all bitter at them. And their rivalry is still going, because the Corderos are like calling in welfare checks on the pincers trying to get them in trouble. It's a whole mess. And so the pinces and the corderos are like in this weird feud and it's pretty bad, but it doesn't

seem to be like out of control or anything. Until. One day in 2021, Pence finally just snaps. And he starts thinking that the five Cordero kids they adopted would be better off if they never see their biological parents again. And he decides to make that happen. And so he goes and he gets on the dark web and he starts looking for ways to hire a hitman. And eventually he lands on a website that's offering just that. A few weeks later, after doing a bunch of due diligence, he finally makes his request. He's like, I need someone to unalive Mr. and Mrs. Cordero and make it look like a burglary gone wrong if you

could. And then he gives them their address and he attaches their photos and a $16,000 Bitcoin payment and he hits submit. But then he's like, holy shit, and he immediately panics and cancels it. The next day, I guess he changes his mind yet again and he resubmits his order. Also, apparently he has the audacity to ask the hitman website if he can get a discount on these murders since both the victims live in the same house. Bro is really trying to get a a buy one murder, get one free. But anyway, after submitting, Pence waits. And he waits. And he waits. But yet, nothing happens. Why does nothing happen? Well, that's probably because this hitman website isn't being run by hitman at all. It's actually a scam website being run by some guys

in Romania. And so these scam artists just take the $16,000 in Bitcoin Pence paid them and they bounce and they're never heard from again. Bro got scammed. Oh, but it gets much worse for Pence. Because all the way over in the UK, there's a British hacker who's secretly been hacking this hitman website and he's feeding the hacked information to a bunch of TV producers who are making some kind of murder-for-hire TV show. And all that information is also being forwarded to the FBI. And so the FBI looks into this and now they know that this guy Pence tried to put a hit out on these other guys, Mr. and Mrs. Cordero. And so, bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And so Pence ends up taking a plea deal and he gets sentenced to seven

years in prison. Meanwhile, his wife, Michelle, is left to take care of their 16 kids all alone. And she apparently has to rely on charity to survive. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer.

Yikes.