Small Town Murder - #307 - STM Express - Smart People, Stupid Murder - Barrington, Rhode Island

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

This week, in Barrington, Rhode Island, a very educated & upright couple become friends with their financial advisor, until red flags start to appear. Red flags, like the family disappearing, and being found two months later, in a shallow grave. But who could have killed this seemingly upstanding family? Well, the main suspect says it was actually the Asian mafia, and that this family wasn't all that it seemed to be. Is that true, or is it just one depraved man, with a bloodlust? It's quite the crazy path of blood, crossbows & teeth to find out!!Along the way, we find out that Rhode Island is REALLY tiny, that the mafia generally doesn't kill librarians, and that your life can sure fall apart... FAST!! Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and choo-choo. Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. That's right. Thank you for joining us all aboard the murder train. We are pulling away from the station.

Crazy episode this week as usual. It never stops. It's always chugging along here. Very quickly before we start, shutupandgivememurder.com is where you can go for all of your merchandise and of course tickets to live shows get your tickets right now get your tickets to Milwaukee at the Pabst September the 10th come there please it's going to be our biggest show ever we're going to have so much fun

and then the next month we are in Florida we're two shows in one night at the Tampa Improv next night we're in Orlando for two shows get your tickets for those. Come and see us. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com and Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you want to get all of your bonus Small Town

Murder stuff. Bonus everything. Anybody $5 or above, you get access to all the bonus stuff. And it's a lot too. You're going to get like four new episodes a month. Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder this week, which you're going to get. For Crime and Sports, we're going to get like four new episodes a month. Yeah. Crime and sports and small town murder this week, which you're going to get for crime and sports. We're going to talk about the scandals of Michael Jordan, the scandals of the most bulletproof media guy ever in history. First of all, they're the gambling and the conspiracy theories around that and his dad's murder and all that kind of stuff.

And then, of course, his affairs, multiple paternity suits. We're talking like yearly paternity suits it would come up just hey it's paternity season there we go mike and then one of the biggest divorces in the history of the world it's the settlement is outstanding and then for small town murder we're going to do our favorite oh it's been like a year and people have been asking us for it so we got to do it again reviews of things in small towns terrific towns. Terrific. Small town reviews, businesses in small towns. Let's hear somebody complain about a red lobster in the middle of Missouri somewhere. What do you say, everybody?

Yeah. It's going to be fun. Oh, we're going to have so much fun with that. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you're also going to get a shout out at the end of the main show there. So that said, let's go on a trip after we have to. Wait, wait. Let's sit back, Jimmy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah trip after we have to wait wait let's sit back jimmy oh yeah

we do have to clear the lungs everybody wherever you are where are you uh in your car in your house maybe not somewhere too too public you never know i don't want anybody i don't want anybody in prison or anything it's time to sit back and shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. Let's go on a trip here. Oh, boy. We are going to Rhode Island.

Oh, buddy. Here we go. Rhode Island coming from North Dakota last week. Yeah. Very different from Rhode Island, I would say. This is Barrington, Rhode Island. This is far, far eastern Rhode Island. It's its own little panhandle.

This whole is Great Barrington. What is that? Great Barrington is where we went to buy weed in Massachusetts. Oh, that's it. Why does that sound familiar? Which is giving a word, which was tremendous to watch. Jimmy purchased my weed also because I was like, OK, I can get this much. Then you get this much. And he had no idea what he was buying

and it was awesome. And the guy was really giving him a rundown and he's like, oh yeah, really? Wow, great. That sounds amazing. And then asking me, which way are you going to use this? And I'm like, I don't fucking know.

Jimmy said a lot of yes and a lot of nodding. Yeah. Oh man, that sounds fun. he could have asked you anything he could have been like gonna put it in your dickhead and just light it up yep that's what i'm gonna do generally right in my urethra just stick it in there roll it in the forest you know how it goes this is in far far eastern rhode island like i said its own little panhandle uh populationulation, 16,015 people. So it's still a small little place. Median income here, $103,937.

Wow. The people of Rhode Island are great. The household. It's so tiny. I feel like it's scarce. There's not a lot of Rhode Island. So if you're going to buy some of it, it's going to be expensive. It's so expensive.

There's not a lot of it to go around. Yeah, I guess. Sublime demand, babe. Medium home price here is $524,000. That's the median home price. A little bit of history here. There was a rubber company here for a long time, the newest rubber company, until it burned down in the 40s and nobody rebuilt it. It smelled wonderful.

So you've heard the expression, like a tire fire. Well, they actually, this town, probably stunk of tire fire until at least, you know, the Kennedy assassination. So not great. The 1938 New England hurricane caused huge damage to the homes along the shoreline, fucked up everybody's boats, destroyed a railroad service for a while. It was a mess. Barrington was the only dry town in Rhode Island until 2011.

The only town in Rhode Island that didn't sell booze was Barrington. 2011? 2011. Think about it. I mean, the towns are tiny. You can go three blocks over and buy booze. But still, in your town, a dry town. In Rhode Island, in the northeast, people are drunk here. I'm from the northeast. People drink a lot. It's not you know, they're drinking all the time.

So this is crazy. And you've got beaches and shit. What goes better with a beach than getting fucked up? The town finally approved two liquor stores in 2011 so it's still like controlled though you still can't just open up a bar or something reviews of this town here we go five stars barrington is quiet friendly clean and family oriented town it hosts countless neighborhoods well yeah it has neighborhoods jimmy the town what What? No shit, really. It's not just spread out across the prairie. You're in the Northeast and you have neighborhoods. Just sparse land dotted with houses? That's all it is, yeah.

And it's one of the best school systems in Rhode Island. With plenty of nature, woods, ponds, golf course, soccer fields. Golf courses aren't nature. That's man-made nature. You knock down nature and plant it sod. That's a different thing. It's not a nature. We destroyed nature and planted sod that's a different thing it's not a nature destroyed nature in some places jesus east bay bike path and a town beach you can't go wrong most people in town are like-minded go-getters who want the best for their families the community is

one of the most involved that i have seen parent teacher organizations are a strength and the resources that are provided to the children are seemingly limitless because we're all rich. So we just keep getting money, which may be why the school system is so good. Yeah. More money equals better. Yeah, it's going to work. Generally how it works. There's a solid foundation and support of support in town from every direction.

As far as entertainment goes, there are shops to find wine and spirit stores to approve by the council, and plenty of restaurants to eat at that you can't buy booze, apparently. The town library is lovely, and right behind it is a town playground. The town is a family town and is to be adored by all who join the community. Okay. Four stars. Barrington is a lovely town with a great education. Very simple. Three stars getting worse the community is not for me i personally i personally never fit in but i can definitely see for most people it's a great place to be i want to see that guy you know what i like

this person they recognized we say all the time the review the reviews that we read they're not about the place that they're reviewing. It's about the reviewer. That's what it is. That's who you really find out about. And that person was like, you know what? I can see if I was a different person, I should be able to do it. But I'm just not up to it.

So good for you, sir. Two stars. For all but three months of the year, it's cold. If you don't like the cold, this is not the place for you. Okay. new england god damn it is i mean on the water too one star worse it says patronizing people lack of personality don't touch their laws or they will chase you literally well that's generally how it works if you break the laws people chase you uh well touch their laws don't touch their laws or they will chase you literally that's yeah wealthy kids are just so uneducated educated academically uneducated in principles the community is getting worse also try to commute to work

anywhere a nightmare and any storm power is lost for days okay yeah well you can move somewhere that's not on a little like fucking tiny a little peninsula on the edge of a fucking giant bay in an ocean maybe it would probably be different you know i don't know things to do uh the jack-o'-lantern spectacular oh yeah that's it's just a fall fall is such a big deal to new England. We were talking about that. The fall fests are insane. This is just a lot of jack-o'-lanterns that are meticulously carved and really fancy pumpkins. That's really gotten to be fucking annoying. It is.

I can see two of them and I'm like, cool. And then I don't want to see any more pumpkins. I've seen enough. That's enough pumpkins for me. I get it. You can shave it with a laser now and make it really fucking impressive. But you didn't do that with your hands, so go fuck yourself. Do that with the kit that's $3.99 in the supermarket where you get that little tiny saw blade.

That little tiny saw blade that bends when you do it. If you can do it with that in front of my eyes, I will fucking worship you. Put it that way. Do it with store-bought equipment. Or the knives my mom used to make me use. Those enormous fucking worship you. Put it that way. Do it with store-bought equipment. Or the knives my mom used to make me use. Kitchen knives. This enormous fucking kitchen knife. Butcher knife.

Yeah, that's it. You get what the average child gets, which is one of those kits at $3.99 and the kitchen butcher knife. Those are your tools. Make that fucking pumpkin and we'll all be impressed. Until then, shove the pumpkin up your ass. You can put it into a 3D Michael Myers mask like you did with all that other shit you used. And we'll discuss this. Let's see you throw down with that jack-o'-lantern, boy.

All right. So, that said, let's talk about a murder. What do you say here? Let's do it. This is, wow, what a crazy case this is. Or murderers, I should say. Let's talk about a man first here. Let's talk about Christopher Jemire, J-E-M-I-R-E, Hightower.

Now, the name Hightower, if you are our age, it's Police Academy. Immediately, it's a seven-foot-tall black guy. That's just who it is. That's Hightower. For the Houston Oilers. That's all it is right there. This is a short bald white guy so you gotta i had to say that off the top just because immediately i pictured jimmy

picturing this seven foot tall black guy walking around it's not him it's a completely different guy a tiny woman with a very high voice yeah yeah completely different guy here. He is described by his friends. He's 42 years old, and we'll get into all this in 1991 when our whole thing goes down here. He is described as his friends as, quote, a devoted father of two who taught Sunday school and coached soccer. Oh. So he's just an upstanding- Gentle little man. Upstanding pillar of the community.

He's a commodities advisor as well. Fuck, that means. It's trading like commodities, like trading places, remember? Stock market shit. Yeah, frozen orange juice. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank shit for that movie.

It really explained a lot about the economy to people like us, you know, morons. Oh, that's how that works. It told me don't get involved in trading, otherwise you will end up in a cage with a wild monkey. Yeah, that wants to have sex with you on New Year's Eve. That's what happens to you. It's true, though. But with that, it made me not ever want to mess with the stock market or be in financial stuff watching that movie as a kid i was like i don't understand

anything of what's going on in this i'm glad eddie murphy wins at the end i don't know what's happening like this is crazy i'm you know so dan akroyd going through the worst shit on earth oh that's the best i still don't know if i understand the scheme to this day, and I see the movie every year. But if I had to explain it to an economist, they'd probably call me a moron. Put it that way. So Hightower here, he's from Florida. All right. So, you know, don't hold that against him, but he's from Florida.

He graduated from the University of Rhode Island as a zoology major. Oh. How many people go from zoology to commodities trading? That's an odd. Yeah, it's a weird transition. It's a very strange transition. Yeah. Yeah.

He worked in the management. And then before he was a commodities trader, after he graduated with a zoology degree, he managed restaurants. So, yeah, he's all over the place he's got life experience we'll say that he's done a lot in uh 73 1973 he married arlene krebs who was a nurse at the newport naval hospital and where he was in the navy we'll talk about that they ended up having two daughters you know family life whatever um so So he came from Titusville, Florida. That's where he grew up.

He's the oldest of five children. And he was in the Navy. She was a Navy nurse when they got together. So, I mean, it was that sort of deal. Her name was Susan Slicker. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's his second wife. That was his first wife.

Then he married Susan Slicker is her name. And double S over here. And she's 12 years younger than him and um that was right after they got divorced he got divorced from his first wife in 1981 so he gets pretty much remarried right away to uh you know a little bit younger woman um they moved to dayton ohio jesus where he went back to school attending right state university susan was pursuing a master's degree in education and Hightower was getting a master's in physiology, and he was enrolling in a doctoral program in biomedical sciences. Jesus Christ, this guy does everything.

Holy balls. He does all the shit I don't understand he does. I don't know what any of that even means. Except for managing the chilies, I can understand that. I get what that is. I understand you have to schedule two bartenders on a Friday night. I get that part, but I don't know what is going on otherwise. But they ended up leaving Dayton.

This is very odd. I don't know if we've had this a lot before. Their house had two fires in one week. What the shit? Two fires in one week what's this shit two fires in a week so they just left dayton they just left school and left dayton now that seems like someone's after them or something right you know your house doesn't catch on fire by accident twice in a week well if it does you certainly get the fuck out of there yeah you, you go, this house is uninhabitable. But do you leave school and move from the state? You just find a different house to live in, I would think, at that point. You wouldn't leave the whole state and drop out of school.

And if you were setting it on, let's say you were trying to burn your own house down, if you tried once and it didn't work and the fire department put it out, you wouldn't go, let's burn it again on Thursday night after you just tried on Monday, would you? You got to assume the fire department didn't put it out. You wouldn't go, let's burn it again on Thursday night after you just tried on Monday, would you? You got to assume the fire, the department didn't put it out, right? It was still smoldering for days. I don't know. Just re-caught. I would think someone in the doctoral program in biomedical sciences would probably know that better than that.

Anyway, he's not a complete moron. So he ended up failing his doctoral preliminary exams shit which had to be postponed three different times because of the fires and um at that point he was dabbling in the commodities market fucking around seeing what he could do he's just a smart guy trying to do some stuff amc to the moon i can't do it so he said uh one of his friends said, it was my impression that he decided to change his career because he was doing better in the stock market. He's failing tests to be in the doctoral program and making money in the stock market. So he's like, why am I bothering with this shit?

I can just make money here. This was in the 80s? This was, yeah, in the early 80s. That's when you had to like- 82, 83. Track it in the fucking newspaper. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was crazy difficult. There was tickers back then. Yeah. Yeah, that was like- So weird. Different time. that's when you had to like 82 83 track it in the fucking newspaper oh yeah there was there was tickers back then yeah it was like so weird different time you couldn't check it on your

phone it would go at the end of the day and then you would wait till the next morning to see what the paper said it closed at which is the bizarre part because you can't watch what it does through the day no you're just seeing the finished product that's why you had stock brokers back then because they would be monitoring it over the day. All the stock firms, they had tickers, so they would monitor and buy and sell as appropriate. That's why they were. Whereas now, if you can see it yourself, it's the guy. Stock market now.

Now he's just an advisor going, hey, I heard about this one. I heard about that one. But, yeah, I don't think it would really be that great. Not that I know shit about it because I don't own a stock in anything. shit about it because i don't own a stock in anything so um his his uh his wife and his two sons here is they ended up moving to barrington and um he ended up going along as well with his new wife and all that so um his friends describe him as quote gracious and compassionate they said he was a caring man who coached the soccer and t-ball teams and was especially popular with his Sunday school classes. Everybody loves him.

He gets some good clients, too, like when they go to Rhode Island and he's doing the commodities thing. And he's kind of like taking on clients now. He's just kind of doing like a freelance commodities advisor is what he is so he ends up uh making good friends with a guy his him and his wife make friends with a couple named earnest uh earnest and alice brendel b-r-e-d-r-b-r-e-n-d-e-l and um earnest decides to invest with christopher and let christopher play with his money a little bit you know what i mean fuck around with it so small little bit. You know what I mean? Fuck around with it.

So small little commodities accounts. You know, you can give him here's a million dollars, but here's, you know, 20 grand and you fuck around with it, whatever. And we'll talk about the Brendles. They have a little bit of money. They're doing well. Ernest is a lawyer specializing in trademark and international licensing matters. Holy shit. Again, would you know where to start to do that?

No, I have no idea. I didn't even check if something exists. That just sounds like you make a lot of money. And I know it is because we trademarked. We had to trademark our Shut Up and Give Me Murder and all of our stuff. And it was not cheap to do that. It cost a lot of money. And it took so long.

Oh, it took like a year and a half and it cost so much money, like more than my car. It was like, what's happening? Why am I doing this? Yeah, what are we doing? But you have to do that shit for business, I guess. That was what we were told anyway. See, we know nothing. We don't even know what we're supposed to do. We have to have people tell us and

we're like, oh, I guess we'll do that. We have people saying, well, don't do that until you're protected because otherwise somebody can sue you and we don't want that. So we're like, oh, I guess we'll do that. We have people saying, well, don't do that until you're protected, because otherwise somebody can sue you. And we didn't want that. We were like, oh, no. Okay. We can sue others. That sounds bad.

We don't want to get sued. So now, Brendel himself had done, he's pretty good at investing, actually. He'd done pretty well putting his money here and there in the stock market. And he didn't know too, too much about the commodities market. So that's why he was like, I'd like to dabble in it. my friend seems to be an expert in it let's let him do it so ropes babe there you go um now earnest and alice alice is 46 earnest is 52 years old um she worked as a librarian at the time they met in the 1970s through the brown University Alumni Club in New York City. So they're both, they're Ivy Leaguers.

It's so foreign. None of these, I know what everyone's thinking right now. People are listening and they're looking at their phone going, like tapping it, going, is this small? None of these people belong in small town murder at all. None of them. People are successful. Where's the drifter?

These are all people that die of old age yeah surrounded by their family where where's some 55 year old man with like a scruffy beard and a 14 year old girl in tow that knocks on their door or something where's that guy is what everyone's saying yeah where's that guy okay so alice brendel yeah they met uh she was she worked at brown university by the way during this time as a librarian. They were in Providence for a while, but they lived in New York City before that. They lived in Manhattan. They didn't do anything crazy, but they were into intellectual pursuits.

One of Alice's friends said they were intellectually oriented, but kind of self effacing. They didn't go out of their way to be anything but what they were. They said what they felt. They explored ideas, but it was all genuine. We just enjoyed each other and we enjoyed being together, which doesn't sound like much. But in this day and age, it's a hell of a lot. That's one of their pretentious friends from Manhattan. pretentious friends from Manhattan there.

That's a phrase that comes out of a pretentious person's mouth and you can see them eating cheese and drinking wine. Whereas somebody that's typically on this show that says, we enjoyed each other. That is a fuck fest in a trailer. We enjoyed each other means that a sister and a

brother had sex for their entire childhood. That's what that means. We enjoyed each other so what? We shared the bucket that's right so we shared the poop bucket what's wrong with that enjoyed each other we enjoyed each other so uh they both the brendals they liked history politics literature travel music they're jesus yeah one of their friends said all of the intellectual liked history, politics, literature, travel, music. Jesus. Yeah. One of their friends said, all of the intellectual pursuits. That's it.

They married in her hometown of Redding, Pennsylvania. Then they settled in Manhattan, where Alice worked at the New York Public Library. And Ernest got a job specializing in patents and trademarks with a large law firm. That's a lot of people with sweaters on a boat. This is amazing. Yeah. These are people that go to Martha's vineyard for the weekend and shit like that. They go to the Hamptons. These are Hamptons people. A sweater on a boat is a very specific person.

That's not somebody enjoying the water or like being, you know, being crazy. That's somebody enjoying the day. They spend weekends in the Hamptons at their friends beach houses yeah that's the type of people we're talking about here so just you know but they seem like nice people anyway sure at one point earnest was assistant general counsel at uh joseph e seagrams in new york uh when that's when he finally decided to leave and move to providence they lived in providence through the

80s and then in about 88 they decided to move to Barrington, quieter life. They bought this farmhouse. You know, it's nice. They said they moved for the schools. You know, it's nicer, easier for schools, and Ernest set up his law office in the basement of their home. They have like a colonial white farmhouse,

kind of your typical nice New England home, and, you know, it's two blocks away from the school that emily went to they have a daughter they have a daughter named emily by 1991 she's eight years old and uh you know she goes to a nice school around there and it was just beautiful good shit yeah it was just everybody was really happy um they said it was all just all very well-ordered, nice farmhouse. They'd have barbecues out back and just live in an ideal kind of life, just an idyllic kind of life. So he's into business with Hightower, and things kind of go awry there. He loses some money in the trading, and it happens.

Yeah, it does. It happens. Yeah, it does. It does. I guess. Brendel here originally opened a trading account with him in March 1989, and he closed it six months later after at a small loss. He was just like, well, it's not going well. So he closed the account. And they said Brendel ended up writing, quote, I concluded that despite his claimed ability to trade his own account, Hightower seemed to be unable to trade client accounts. to trade his own account, Hightower seemed to be unable to trade client accounts. That's what Brendel wrote at that point. He also said, kept in touch with Mr. Hightower since we both lived in the same small community and I supported his efforts to become a successful trader. He also loaned Hightower $2,000 to buy computer equipment to help his business. This is after he closed his account with him and lost money. So this seemed to not affect his friendship with their friendship at all like that was it like oh that's

fine but yeah he helps him start his business and they're still good friends and everything like that as a matter of fact the uh daycare center that emily went to the house of little people which sounds like some sort of a tent at the circus in 1935 come one come all everybody step right up the house of the little people how little can they be you'll be shocked to see how little they are come on in two bits of gander like there's just babies in there with mustaches drawn on he's 44 years old look at him it's just a in there with mustaches drawn on. He's 44 years old. Look at him. It's just a four-year-old.

With a mustache and some coal miner coveralls on. We're straight from the mines. So at the House of Little People, they listed Susan and Christopher Hightower as the persons to contact in case of an emergency oh all their own baby all the way up through 91 yeah they're the emergency contact their family doesn't live in town so the hightowers are the closest people i mean the people they would trust most with their daughter um so it said the hightowers could have made life or

death decisions about emily and uh yeah it was, you know, next of kin rights at the school. So May 1990 comes around and Hightower has this. He's found some little niche in the market with a particular group of investments that he's making. And he persuades Ernest to reopen his account, shows him trading records for something called the Spaziano account, and it showed $65,567 profit on a $75,000 investment in four months. That's amazing. Which, yeah, that's like 90% profit in four months. I don't think that's – if you see that, be very suspicious.

Either that or you hit some kind of weird golden, you know. Yeah, whatever. But apparently, Brendel ended up closing that account a couple months later after he put in an initial fifteen thousand and it was dwindled down to about thirty one hundred bucks. So in a letter to Hightower, he asked him for repayment of the two thousand dollar loan and half of his investment money he said I get you know half I guess is my fault but the other half what are you doing here come on and he even said this is what Brendel wrote this is what Ernest said quote Chris I am truly sorry that matters did not develop as we had hoped I wish you all the I wish you all future success that's what he wrote to him to

at the end of the letter so like he wasn't like you motherfucker give me back none of this ever happens on this show this is all reasonable people doing reasonable things he didn't like you know drink three quarts of thunderbird and go over and stab him in the throat with a screwdriver that's what would normally happen but not today he's i probably would certainly understand that's understandable i get it sir so uh brendel started investigating basically he just started doing a little investigating of his own on the spaziano account that had so many so much profit that he saw and then then a few weeks later, he writes a little less friendly letter to Hightower. And he accuses Hightower of falsifying that trading record

and demanding his money back. Now he's pissed. He says, quote, this is, by the way, a man of his nature and upbringing and, you know, whatever in society he's standing. He says, quote, I find this information extremely distressing and impossible to comprehend. I am unable to discuss this with you since you have apparently disconnected your telephone lines.

Heard you're running. He also threatened to take the case to the authorities for possible criminal prosecution. You know, he said to the authorities, too. Yes, he didn't say, i'll turn your punk ass in he said i'm gonna call the cops i will i will contact the authorities is what he said he said for possible criminal prosecution and he even filed a complaint with the cftc which could ultimately result in the loss of hightower's trading license so oh shit the deadline for answering the complaint was september 17th 1990 or 1991 and hightower never answered it so this is that week his life completely fell apart essentially uh hightower here um his computers because of all of this are repossessed

yep they take his well the money he owes on them he's like yeah he's financed him he financed him so they repossess his computers he is barred by a court a court order from contact with his wife and sons we'll find out why um in the order susan hightower said that chris told her that he had paid five thousand dollars to have her killed he said well i paid five grand to have you killed and a thousand more to make sure it looks like an accident he told her i paid the bonus yeah i put a little extra stank on it there here's five grand here's an extra grand to get away with it what do you say like to try to get away with it Here's a grand not to leave fingerprints, please.

One of his friends said his life was in a tailspin. So no shit. She told him at that point that she wanted a divorce, Susan tells Chris. And Hightower, that's when he said that, well, I paid $5,000 and $1,000 extra and all that shit. And I put down the down payment for gloves. Suck it. Suck that. Well, what do you think of that? and a thousand extra and all that shit and i put down the down payment for gloves suck it suck that well what do you think of that this is why but while by the way they're living with her parents this is going on so oh my god yeah computers repossessed she wants a divorce it's a mess

with her parents there he's in her parents her parents yes not great So in May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing

those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible

criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This motivates Susan to seek a restraining order against him.

And also, at that point, he's ejected from the parents' home as well. So now he's really fucked. It's all over, man. He was surprised. The father-in-law, Susan's father, said that Chris seemed awfully surprised when he was served with court papers keeping him away from the house on the morning of September 21st, 1991. And the father-in-law says, he looked at me with his very cold stare that seemed to go right through me,

and he asked me if I knew this restraining order was going to be served. He said he never had a chance to reply to Chris because there was a cop there who stepped in and told Hightower that he's got to get his shit and leave. Let's go, asshole. I guess Hightower called later that night to say he would be at his son's soccer game on Saturday. The father-in-law said that I don't think you're allowed to do that, actually, because

Susan's going to be there and you can't be within whatever place of her. September 20th, 1991. This is the same day all this is going on, the 20th. Okay. The principal at the Primrose Hill School. This is where Emily goes to school a couple blocks away.

Elizabeth Dufree is her name. Emily's in the third grade. Now, the principal said that a man called that day and said that Emily should walk home from school. Said, tell Emily to walk home from school today. She can't be picked up. So the principal said that school officials couldn't confirm over the phone who the parents were. There's no, like, code word or something. So, you know, to know basically what the hell is going on here.

So nobody came to pick her up. Rather than sending her home and saying, okay, I guess she can walk home. They sent her to the Barrington YMCA where she used to go all the time for an afterschool program. Whenever they can't pick her up, then she goes to this afterschool program at the YMCA, which is right by. So they go,

well, we'll just put her, I guess she's going to the Y thing today. And then, you know, parents can figure it out, I guess she's not home she's there i guess i mean like where's my eight-year-old i don't know one of a couple places yeah yeah casual

ass approach to children's safety back then it's real this is 91 too as you would think it'd be a little better than that so um jane paluzzo who was one of of Emily's third grade teachers, she said that a man came to school looking for her later that day. And Jane Paluzzo told him that he couldn't pick her up there. She wasn't there. And so he left. And his word, the way she said, quote, his word to the effect, he said words to the effect of, I can go to the y or can i pick her up at the y so he's gonna go to the y and get her so this man shows up at the ymca asking for emily and members of the staff said well you're not an authorized pickup person so we can't just send an eight-year-old

home with you that's fucking crazy so um he left okay this guy then a man claiming to be Ernest Brendel called the YMCA like 10 minutes later and said that I'm sending a guy over Christopher Hightower. He has permission to pick up my daughter. Oh, okay. So please, please do that. So Hightower then comes back. He was there 10 minutes ago and he shows the staff Ernest Brendel's driver's license and says, look, he is that the dad even gaveel's driver's license and says,

look, the dad even gave me his driver's license to say, look, he wouldn't give a driver's license to a stranger. Obviously, I'm authorized. You know what I mean? He called and gave me his driver's license. And so they went, well, yeah, that seems reasonable. What? Here, why don't you take this eight-year-old with you?

Go ahead. A man, he's tied up right now with some work stuff, but he gave me his driver's license. Yeah. Not what? Told me it was fine. Fuck. So they said, okay, sure. Pam Poirier, who was the director of the program, said Emily was reluctant to leave early.

It wasn't even pickup time. It was early, too. She also said that she, this Pam lady, said that Emily didn't react when Hightower greeted her. And she said, quote, she just looked at him. Well, why the fuck did you let her go with him then? He's got a driver's license. Wow.

So, yeah, he picks her up. And after that, nobody hears from Emily after that. Yeah. The little girl. And nobody watched her leave and went, well, I'm probably fired. Yeah, well, that's probably good. I hope that's all on the up and up, or I'm really going to be in a lot of trouble. So the Brendles are last heard from themselves.

The Brendles are, we don't know where they are. Where are the Brendles? Because the school, I'm sure, tried to call the Brendles. last heard from themselves. The Brendles are, we don't know where they are. Where are the Brendles? Because the school, I'm sure, tried to call the Brendles. No one's answering. They're last heard from when Alice Brendle called her friend Paige and said her husband couldn't meet him at a college football game that day because his mother had been hospitalized. Now, that wasn't true. We'll talk about that. And the friend said there was absolutely nothing untoward

in her voice if something horrific had happened at that point she couldn't have disguised it so they're like she was fine at that point so they're saying on that day she didn't know it was going on that same day though that she called her friend calmly you know alice does and hightower picks up the little girl hightower uses uses one of Brendel's credit cards at the local mall as well that day. So by the evening, he's got a driver's license and some credit cards

and the little girl. And a kid. The following night, he showed up at Brendel's house, at the Brendel house, or he showed up driving their car. Okay? He shows up at the home

of Ernest Brendel's sister christine driving ernest analysis brother's car red toyota okay he came in the house her name is uh what is her name uh scra scrabby screa beanie okay christine screa beanie she had some people over. She was having like a dinner party. So Hightower tells Alexander, her husband, that he's a friend of Ernest Brendel, you know, your wife's brother there, your brother-in-law. And he said, well, you have people over. Hightower says, I'll be back in a little while. I got something to tell you. So all the guests leave.

Hightower comes back. He sits them down. And he says, listen, I've got to tell you guys something. Ernest, Alice and Emily have been kidnapped. Yeah, they've been kidnapped, most likely by members of the mafia. So, yeah. So don't say a word as most. That's what happens usually is when you're in with the mafia, they really like to go after eight-year-old girls. That's really part of the whole thing.

Yeah, and they usually tell somebody that has nothing to do with it because it's a neutral party. We've got to keep a mediator in. Well, you need to have a go-between. So you've got someone who's not in the mafia. Nothing to do with this. I just need you to break this to the family so that they will shut up and not tell anybody. Yeah, because that's what, you know nothing to do with this i just need you to break this to the family so they will shut up and not tell anybody yeah because that's what you know that's so uh i'm and i'm not saying there aren't serial killers in the mafia that would be happy to kill eight-year-olds the problem is societally for them it really doesn't work if you're the eight-year-old killer

no one will hang out with you anymore and like you can't be in anybody's stick-up gang and you know no more truck hijackings it really puts a damper on all of your activities as a mobster. So he's been kidnapped by the mafia, so there's that. He said, my own wife and two sons also kidnapped. So, I mean, they have, at this point, they have like a whole pen of them. There's six of them over there. Both of our families are kidnapped. We're all in this together is what he's saying.

Looks like a county animal shelter. It's not good good one cage for little cages for each of them too so the mafia has kidnapped six members of our combined families here um he to corroborate his story he pulls out the driver's license earnest driver's license because the mob would go take his driver's license and go talk to his sister all right they're not going to believe you they're going to want proof some of his business cards a bank card of earnest brendel's and certain papers relating to her so basically it looks like somebody robbed earnest brendel and then that's what and then gave it to him um Somebody handed him his wallet and said, here's all the proof you need.

That's it. And then also showed them some rings that he claimed belonged to Alice Brendel. So he's like, I have her rings too. This is what they handed me. And they said, you know, if you want the rest of them back, it's going to be. And he said he received a call from the kidnappers.

That's why he's coming over to tell you because they demanded $300,000 in ransom they need three hundred grand i have wallet and jewelry yeah 50 grand a pop for all the people they have basically and uh he said hightower said i can get 175 000 myself okay i can do that and has $50,000 in his brokerage account. So I can take that. Okay. But you guys are going to have to provide the rest of it. It's going to be like an extra 75 grand. I'll get the 225.

I'll cover that. No problem. You guys can pony up an extra 75 grand. We can pay these fucking guys off and get everybody back and we can go about our lives here. I got 65% of this. So clearly I'm the hero here i mean i'm i got most of it you guys i'm just asking for a little tiny piece of it from you he also said ernest brendel had resisted during the kidnapping and received a broken jaw in the

struggle he said they had to break his jaw then he said look there's his blood's in the car and everything takes everybody outside come on field trip guys we're going out in the car and everything. Takes everybody outside. Come on, field trip, guys. We're going out in the driveway. Pops the trunk of the red Toyota. And they said that Mrs. Christine, the sister, said she was shocked at the amount of blood and the overwhelming odor of blood emanating from it. Oh, my God. Her husband, who's a physician and pharmacologist, said the quantity of blood here is way too much for a jaw injury. No one, unless his jaw was ripped from his body.

This is too much blood completely. They wanted to call the police, but high tower said, no, your phone's been tapped. The mafia said they tapped all of our phones. That's why I'm here in person. Duh.

I would have just fucking called you. Jesus. You people are fucking stupid. Pay attention. So, um, he said, you can't do that so hightower left at about 1 a.m that morning and uh this they they sit around christine and alexander and they're like what do we do and um they're like we gotta call somebody so they just went to a neighbor's

house and called the fbi duh yeah it's too much blood we have to 102 he leaves at one 102 the police phone rings that's what i mean somebody's blood it's just too much blood it's just too much it's just too much boat so he said they ended up saying his story didn't quite hang together because it's ridiculous that's why right so well a guy has personal effects of two people missing and blood all over the trunk of their car and their car driving it the the logical conclusion is he fucking killed people yeah so what you're saying the mob broke his jaw stuffed him into his own trunk to drive him somewhere took him then returned the car to you how the fuck with a bunch of stuff and said here's a car here's his driver's license here's some take all this stuff all right and i want you to take it to their sister that's not how the mafia

works take this and start breaking the news to the family goodfellas came out like the year before i assume they know just from that that this is not how this all works you know i don't remember this in goodfellas at all. This is terrible. Real down low. This is not good mafia-ism here, if that's what they're doing. These guys deserve to get caught. The mafia kills people. That's all the information I need. Who's bad and scary?

Mafia. It was either that or a satanic cult. He couldn't decide. He's like, I'm going with the mafia. They seem more real. Maybe it was the mid-'80s more satanic panic but so it's generally up here in this region of the country i think i got this coming i could do this it's witchy you know in the fall you could see like people doing witch shit in a field i don't know so make some wild shit story up and everybody will go with it jesus the mafia mafia. So the FBI has an investigation.

They're told that at that point they find out that Ernest Brendel had filed a complaint against Hightower with the National Futures Association and Commodities Futures Trading Commission. And he had sought revocation of Hightower's license. He claimed he mis- You heard the thing. He claimed he mismanaged his account and all that sort of thing. So now they also found out that on September 19th, 1991

Hightower, this is before, you know, two days before everything, he went to his store and purchased a, quote, bear devastator crossbow. A crossbow called the bear devastator crossbow a crossbow called the bear devastator like a bear not bear like no clothes like a fucking giant animal ball peen hammers just pointy hammers he got that to get well he got it oh my god we were not far. He got it together with six arrows and six special bullet tip points.

Oh, my God. Exploding fucking arrows. What is he, Rambo? This is ridiculous. What kind of stupid shit is this? This is an 80s movie. He saw too many 80s movies. He missed Goodfellas.

Less Rambo, more Goodfellas, Chief. Maybe you wouldn't be in the situation you're in. Is it like a bullet on the tip of it, or is it like is it like a bullet on the tip of it or is it like a charged bullet on the tip of it bullet point tips it's got to be something that's got fucking powder charge right i guess either a powder charge or it has to be right otherwise it's because that's what the shape of an arrow is anyway well maybe it's a a pointy narrow thing rather than a big like arrowhead shape maybe it's like pointy, narrow thing rather than a big, like, arrowhead shape. Maybe it's like a, like a, like a jart, basically. Yeah, yeah. Like a jart that you're firing at fucking.

Like a lawn dart. Yeah, that you're firing at 5,000 feet per second. You know, a little different. So, now, Alice Brendel was last seen on September 20th, which was a Friday, when she rode the bus home from providence where she was worked at the library her husband didn't meet her which was the usual custom so she just walked toward home alone that was usually her husband met her at the bus stop and they walked home together and they went and picked up the kid and it was like a nice little family thing so emily was ordinarily picked up by her father after the school's out program at the YMCA. But obviously it was Hightower that picked her up that day. Now, his father, the father-in-law, Christopher's father-in-law, Mr. Slicker, he said that he

was around the night Susan told him that she wanted a divorce. And he said that you could tell he was agitated. He clomps his teeth. That's a habit he has. The more aggravated and anxious he gets, the harder he clomps them. Jesus. I guess grinds them sort of thing. Then she said that or it was said that Hightower drank the last of three scotches.

Then when he was he drank one, two. Then when he downed the third one, he threw the tumbler against the living room fireplace and just walked away with scattered with fucking glass shard exploded obviously in glass shards and he just walked away so celebration that's a lot um and then hightower's father-in-law said that hightower stayed out all night on september 19th and when he returned home the next day at 11 a.m., he was wet and covered with mud. His eyeglasses were bent and his leg was scraped. And they said he immediately showered,

put his dirty clothes in the washing machine, and asked Slicker to add some bleach to the wash. And the guy said this was the first time he'd ever seen Hightower do laundry. So this is all very suspicious. He says the night of the 19th, but it has to be the night of the 20th. He stayed out. Oh, he stayed out all night of the 19th and then the 20th because this would be. Yeah, that makes sense, actually, because then he got Alice.

So he would have got the he would have got them before 11 a.m. The adults. And then he would have gotten Alice later on. Or Emily, the little girl later on in the afternoon. Okay, that makes sense. But she would have been alive until the afternoon. Alice got off the bus. She was seen coming home on the bus.

So maybe he just – Two events? Yeah, either that or this guy's got the night mixed up, the father-in-law. That's the only other possibility. this guy's got the night mixed up the father-in-law that's the only other possibility um so september 23rd um 1991 hightower called christine earnest sister you know who he went to get ransom money from and at her home and he also called christine's husband at his office he told them not to worry about raising any money because i got this taken care of i've taken care of everything and i've arranged for return of both of our families to their rightful places all good no harm no foul um please no more contact with the

authorities because that's only going to fucking foul the deal so chill on that call them back and tell them just kidding we got this i got it totally the same day he forged a check in alice brendel's name uh in the sum of 1500 payable to himself yeah so he also he also mailed the national futures association and commodities futures trading commission a letter signed by earnest quote unquote and written on stationary bearing his letterhead earnest containing a statement withdrawing the complaint against christopher hightower that is fucking amazing he really wants to trade commodities he really does he's like i'll kill everybody to trade for fucking frozen orange juice i have to do

it so the police because you know they know about missing people and everything they came over the brendel family house about 11 a.m that morning and no one was home they knocked on the door nobody came to the door the detective checked the garage area and found a portion of it had recently been washed down and swept and then he observed a wet area around and brooms that were still wet in the garage. Uh-oh. So that's been cleaned recently.

Like, it's still wet, for Christ's sake. So the police then issued a broadcast to everybody, not to the public, but to themselves, to, if you see Christopher Hightower driving around in an 88 red Toyota, go ahead and grab him and fucking pull him over and find some way to find something to hold him on basically he's got a trunk full of blood if that's still there just you know suspicion just grab him all right so the vehicle then uh is

stopped in the parking lot of the St. John's Church on County Road and Christopher's driving um on his person are found credit cards belonging to Ernest Brendel and also a white powder covering the entire rear section of the vehicle. Like the whole backseat is covered in a white powder and also what appears to be copious amounts of blood, according to the police report in the car and in the in the trunk and everything like that. in the car and in the in the trunk and everything like that then the sergeant noticed a large bag of lime on the floor in the rear of the vehicle which would be where all the powders come comes from he's just got a half a bag of lime in the car he's the worst mob guy ever just ever he's got it behind him in the back seat like it's groceries it's not ice cream you got on the way home it's i realize that shit is useful in a lot of different applications but the only time i've ever heard it applied is in a with a body yeah

well you've never had a half a bag of it just carried in the back seat of your car behind your seat that's the thing that's one of those you buy if you need it for a garden or whatever the fuck it's used for you buy it at like home depot put it in your trunk take it home and then put it in your fucking garage or whatever and throw the bag away and then you throw it away you know you're not like i'll keep that in my car unless in case i need it for later so he's got that uh tons of blood he's taken to the police station the vehicle's towed away obviously um on him he has 1500 in cash as well. That's interesting, huh? And his wallet contained three credit cards belonging to Ernest, which is obviously there. And also they noticed, I just love a large bag, a half-empty large bag of lime on the floor. In addition to that, they also found, once they got it into the police garage and searched it thoroughly, several teeth.

Four, to be exact. A half-empty bag of lime. A bare Devastator crossbow as well. Blood type was O, which is the same type as Ernest Brendel's blood. One of the teeth is identified as his, and the rest are Alice's. Oh, no. The evidence here, they're sent to the FBI lab and everything like that. The police captain said, we had held out hope right to the end to come up with this end

result we've come up with, especially when it involves an eight-year-old girl is tough to deal with. We all have families. They don't know where they are, but they know they're missing teeth and a shitload of blood and there's lime in the car. So that's not a good sign. Not good at all um by the way the letter to the uh to the commission was found to have been printed on the brendel's computer on september 22nd this is the day after they disappeared so he went back to the house hung out wrote a letter you know he ate ate food there

you know he ate a sandwich yeah so while he while he's in custody, they found all this shit. He's charged with driving a stolen car in possession of a weapon and extortion right away. So one of the librarians, by the way, who knew Alice said, quote, I think he cracked. His personal and professional life was coming apart and something inside him just snapped. That's what everyone in town is saying. Holy shit. This guy must have fucking snapped here. So they give him his, you know, his Miranda rights and all that sort of deal.

And he tells he tells the police that he had inflated the amount of the ransom. He still says that the mafia kidnapped them. He's sticking with it. He's sticking with that. He he's well he changes it to it's not the mafia anymore it's you'll see he adjusts that he says but he was he inflated it they only wanted 200 grand my only crime here is to try to get 300 grand because he wanted to keep 100 grand for himself to help him with his financial problems otherwise he's doing the lord's work the ransom i'm just taking care of i gotta get a finder's fee here um he made statements that he hid uh in his office at and his and his uh father-in-law's home there he had a sawed-off shotgun and an automatic hand gun as well um they asked him he also said there's a large amount of blood in the back of the car

that he'd washed out of the car as well. He said he did that in the garage. That's why they had to spray out the garage or he had to clean the garage. He said he's having marital problems. He stayed at the Brendel residence the night of September 19th and 20th. Then that's when they were still alive. And he stayed at his office on September 21st for the night. So he signed a statement saying all of this. He said they go back over it with him and all that sort of shit.

He at about 4 a.m. He the sergeant says that he's going to go out and check some tire tracks that have been observed near, you know, around this area. Right. For him to possibly have buried the bodies. So Hightower responds by saying quote sarge you're wasting your time they're not buried there call me an attorney for the morning after talking to the attorney if he says it's all right i'll talk to you so in other words don't waste your

fucking time at 4 a.m i'll tell you where the bodies are tomorrow is basically what he says so the next morning a public defender comes over to see him, and now he's not saying shit about anything. He won't say where they are. Now, at this point, too, there's, like, yellow ribbons, and people have been gone, you know, three days, and people are, it's, you know, crazy. There's signs up, you know, bring home Emily and all this shit.

I mean, it's terrible, man. November 7th, 91, Catherine mccloy just a woman who lives in the area in barrington she's walking her dogs near two months saint andrews middle school yeah two months later uh in barrington one of the dogs ran into the bushes and wouldn't come back when she was calling him an obedient dog wouldn't come um so she followed the dog and found the dog sniffing and pawing at an area where there were two depressions in the ground along with a small amount of white powder. Oh, God. So this lady had gardening experience and she knew gardening and knew what lime looked like.

Right. So she thought it was lime. She saw the depressions, put two and two together. She has seen good fellas. Yeah. And she called the police. Yeah, I said, I think he's been here. Yeah.

Oh, Jesus Christ. They had to rebury him. What is that, a wing? I got a heart. We can still go for the old heart and lungs. What do we want? The leg and a wing, Henry. So they call the police in, and the police unearth the whole thing here.

And it's all three of them together. All three of them together. Ernest died as a result of two arrow wounds to the chest. Jesus. Arrow wounds to the chest. Died from wounds inflicted by an arrow to the chest. Alice Brendel was strangled and they couldn't find the exact cause of Emily at that time. It's undetermined.

She just had— She had a better, right? Her skull had problems. Oh, no. It's multiple things is the issue. They said that snapped-off arrows and arrowheads were found in Ernest Brendel's chest and buttocks. And Alice Brendel was apparently strangled with a cloth that was knotted around her neck.

So this motherfucker, yeah, this is horrific. Vicious. Oh no, Emily was the one, because Alice had problems with her skull as well. They said in Emily's case, there was no apparent visible signs of injury to her body. Good. I don't want to know. Yeah, there was

no sexual assault. That's good so i we don't know what happened to alice basically at that point so there were apparently um with uh earnest there were non-fatal fractures of the skull lacerations of the scalp and of course arrow wounds all fucking over him buttocks legs chest back clearly the target yeah clearly the target so um it's it's brutal man they said the cause of emily brendel's death could not be determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty so it's still unknown in the in the thing so i don't want to know the horrible things we don't know um well we know he didn't do certain things so at least that's helpful uh the fbi fbi laboratory analyst said that samples taken

from about two dozen items in and around the brendel's garage tested positive for the presence of human blood they found blood in five places on the crossbow that killed brendel and she was unable to make a comparison because there was no usable samples of brendel's blood to take so they said at that point you still needed a lot for dna comparison you needed to have like a half a gallon or some shit you need to basically drain somebody like a deer to be able to do any testing so you needed to be able to swish that around yeah they also said that the letter withdrawing the complaint against high tower was made printed on their computer and it was made by cutting and pasting letters that brendel had previously typed like a fucking psychopath ransom letter unbelievable unreal so

immediately they say they want to stop the rumors the uh police there's a rhode island state police official that holds a press conference and says that quote they were not dismembered because everybody there's all these rumors that emily was mutilated and all this shit so they said they were not dismembered the bodies were not mutilated nor did the bodies appear to have been dipped in acid or had acid poured over their bodies these were all rumors that were this is what happens when you involve the fucking mob god damn god damn mafia he said i only say this to dispel some of the rumors and wild stories that are going around around bararrington. There were a lot of concerns from schoolchildren in Barrington over the acid theory.

Hopefully this will help some of the schoolchildren and parents over there in any kind of small way. So, yeah, I would say so. So this is obviously fucking horrific. They one of the people here says, I said said three weeks ago they're all dead and they're out of their misery no matter what happened no matter how utterly horrible it was for them it's over this is emily's one of the our uncles here he said i had to do i i had to do that for my own sake i assumed i had to assume they're dead i had to yeah you don't want to go through it again so yikes man this is um wow and they another friend of hightower said quote people just don't understand this one how could this

have happened this is the executive director of the east bay mental health center he said mr hightower seemed like one of the pillars of the community how could someone have presented that image and then acted this complete opposite way? Who do you trust is what people want to know? Well, not him. So when the bodies are found, he's put under suicide watch because he starts acting awfully fucking crazy. Obviously, Jesus Christ, it's getting really bad. I think he he's also attacked in jail at one point.

Somebody goes after him at one point here. He's indicted on an 11-count indictment. His case, this is what he presents in court, is that he witnessed the murders. They tied him to a chair and made him watch the murders of this whole family. Okay? Okay. In his words, it is organized crime, but not the mafia. It was, quote, four men unknown to him, quote, two of whom were Latinos and two of whom were Orientals. So it's an Asian Latino gang that's gotten together to kill families and make completely unrelated people who happen to handle some minor financial matters for one of the people watch for some reason because his family's fine they're not murdered so that you know they weren't kidnapped his family so um yeah this is fucking ridiculous obviously and he also presented a case

of insanity basically oh he also said he was forced to dig the graves they made him do it that's why he was there that was his point kyoto hefe is is yeah very dangerous people very yeah it's it's obvious yeah that's how it works kim jong sanchez is a really hard guy to please you don't want to fuck with him insane because i had nothing to do with this and they're making me do awful things and it was like basically like listen i didn't do it but if i did it's because i'm crazy that's his defense so yeah he also wanted he wanted to have a separate trial on each of the three murder counts and a separate trial than that on the kidnapping count to emily as well and and they said no no it's all one thing you buried them in the same hole it It's all one thing, asshole. Yeah. The trial comes along here, and two-pronged attack, like I said.

Innocence and innocence because he's crazy. Both of those, even though those are completely against each other. He said he has multiple personality disorder now, which that's never come up before. He testifies over six days. Imagine cross-examining this idiot. There'd be a fucking ball to cross-examine this guy. As smart as he is, he's an idiot. You know what I mean?

He said the mobsters forced him to bury the family and warned him they would kill his wife and two sons if he didn't cooperate. He said that members of an Asian organized crime group killed the family over because Ernest stole millions of dollars that they were trying to launder through him from the heroin trade and i know all this but i didn't say a word to everybody no no grande yeah it's it's no yakuza grande doesn't know

so the jury when they're done laughing at him, they say guilty of Jesus Christ. Here are the counts here. Torture and aggravated battery for murder of Ernest Brendel, murder of Alice Brendel, kidnapping of Emily Brendel, child under 16, murder of Emily Brendel, breaking into an entry of the Brendel garage, entry of the Brendel dwelling without commit with intent to commit larceny, forging and counterfeiting a negotiable instrument with the intent to defraud and unlawful burial in violation of three different counts. That's 11 counts altogether. In sentencing, Christopher says, I've suffered as well. You know, that's not what you say to the judge when they're sentencing you. You say, I've done horrible things and feel bad.

You don't go, I've suffered just as much he said in addition to that suffering this is a quote i've also experienced the nightmares of the brendel's deaths their deaths are certainly a tragedy but it's not the biggest tragedy here the fact that there is a large drug ring still operating today that's the biggest tragedy your honor i can't sleep holy shit there's people dealing drugs your honor fucking eight-year-old the judge said that it was quote a very simple task to give him the maximum sentences he said i have never in my extensive legal career seen such evil in a crime as this you sir may fuck off it is let's see here count one life imprisonment without the possibility of parole count two life to be served consecutively with count one not concurrent count three to be

served uh is life imprisonment to be served consecutively to one and two it's over for you count four life imprisonment without parole to be concerned to be served consecutively to the sentences of one two and concurrently with three so still three three life without he's got so far in a row and then 10 years imprisonment for five six seven and eight so that's another 40 years and then five years a piece on the three counts of burial and also a fine of ten thousand dollars each on that and then all of that to be served consecutively by everything else it's three life sentences plus a hundred years plus you know they're gonna kick his corpse and like you know fucking piss on it when he's done 1993 the family sues the yMCA for letting fucking Emily go with him. Good.

Thankfully there. And then he's been a total dick in prison. He got beaten up in prison. He's been had to be transferred all around. One guy here said this is a guy who interviewed him, one of the mental health people. After he retired, he said, quote, he would give you the creeps. No humanity at all. You look into their eyes and you don't see a soul. There's just nothing there.

It's just hardcore evil personified. Wow. Wow. Yeah. He also sued them in 2012 and 13. He's been suing the prison system. He's in Illinois now. He's been suing.

Piece of shit. Been suing like crazy over all sorts of different shit. He was on World's Most Evil Killers. I didn't even know that. And also the con man man murderer that was the episode of world's most evil killers that everybody is barrington rhode island that's great one of the worst people to ever exist man huge people he has no like he's just like i didn't do it the worst part of it is there's a drug ring out he's like you know oj looking for the real killers he's a fucking asshole the best part about it is that he's completely incompetent and can't do this a lot otherwise this would be a fucking dangerous man oh he could do this at will

an eight-year-old girl i mean jesus if you could do that you could do anything if you like that tell the world give us five stars whatever app you're listening on those reviews help drive us up the charts they really do help the show, so thank you for those. Follow us on social media. We're at Murder Small on Twitter, at Small Town Pod on Facebook, at Small Town Murder on Instagram. Shut up and give me murder.com is the website.

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Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied.

Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.