Sword and Scale - Episode 204

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

When 19-year-old Colorado resident Lea Porter went missing from Westminster on June 3rd, 2014, her family and friends went on a mission to solve the case on their own. Police didn’t move as quickly as they’d hoped, so they put their heads together and their differences aside in order to extract a confession from their prime suspect.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised Did you miss me, baby? You miss me, baby? Did you miss me real hard? We're back Season 9 of Sword and Scale Episode 2.04! Let's go! Oh my god, I hope you had a great holiday and a great happy new year and all your resolutions in place. I hope you meet all of them.

I hope you have become a better person this year, and that all of your wildest dreams come true. You see how positive you get once you get off social media for a month? It's absolutely life changing. In any case, let's get into the story, shall we? By the way, you know, join plus all that stuff, tell your friends, you know the deal. I won't waste your time. Sword and Scale.com, Sarsh Plus.

We'll see you on the next one. Who doesn't love the idea of a hero? I mean, when we do something good, we want to get recognized for it, don't we? Sure, it can be embarrassing to have the spotlight put on us, but let's admit it, it feels good, it feels rewarding. There's no question that altruism is something humans exhibit. The question is, do we do it because we genuinely care about others? Or do we do it for the warm and cozy feeling it gives us inside?

The more cynical amongst us will pick the latter, myself included. There are multiple examples of this, especially online, the non-selfless aspect of selflessness. Hell, an entire political party is based around the idea. If it's not clear what I'm saying, it's that some people tend to do selfless things more for the recognition and the good feeling it gives them inside than any benefit it provides anyone else. Actually helping others, well, that's a byproduct. Social media and, specifically, Twitter has shed more light on these quote, unquote, white knights. You've seen the videos. People filming themselves giving food to the homeless

around thanksgiving or Christmas. Exploding these desperate and thankful reactions for views and likes and clout. Facebook and TikTok in particular are full of these viral videos, whilst places like Twitter and Reddit often call out the white night aspect of them. At first they seem innocuous, even heartwarming, but the longer you watch and the more you critically think about these videos, the weirder the whole concept starts to become. Imagine all that goes into the production. It's odd. It seems to be one of the markers of the end of Western civilization.

Can it just be good enough for you to do a good deed and move on with your life? Why do you have to point a camera at it, upload it to a social media site, and clamor for likes and follows. Pointing yourself out as a good deed or kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? That's what sets us all apart, really. Intention is where the truth actually lies. Are we doing nice things because we care about other people?

Or are we doing nice things to convince ourselves and others that we are good people? If you've ever taken a cross-country road trip from the east coast of the west, you know what a rough drive it is. This is a big country. There's a lot of miles between the two oceans, it separates. One of the most popular southern routes takes you through Missouri and Kansas before you reach the Colorado Rockies. After driving through the boring expanse of nothingness that is Kansas, Denver comes as a welcome

change of scenery. Just a few miles southwest of Colorado Springs sits a small, unincorporated town called Kota Paxi. The landscape is absolutely gorgeous, but it's far from the urban atmosphere offered by the large cities nearby. The town itself is really just the intersection of two main roads, and has fewer than 50 official residents. The main hangout in this town is a general store, which doubles as the town's only restaurant, and it's got a post office. That's about it. Kodapaxi is where 19-year-old Lee Porter and her older brother Max were raised by their

stepfather and their mother Renee Jackson. Though Lee and Max fought like most siblings, Max was her protector. He played the role of Big Brother, like no other. She had a real strong connection with her brother almost immediately, so she wanted to be like him. She wanted to dress like him, not like a little girl. She would follow him around everywhere, and that would annoy him when he was a toddler. It's certainly not uncommon for girls raised with brothers or other male peers to assimilate

a bit. Lee and her family moved into this small town at a very tumultuous time in their lives. As they moved east, they abandoned their former and very different lifestyle for this new isolated one. We moved in to Colorado in the winter of 2006. The kids were pretty young. Still, Max was starting high school and Lee was still an elementary school. We're coming into junior high school anyway.

So it was a hard move for them. Can you imagine, right as you begin to get an idea of how the world works, you're put right back at square one, just as you've found your place in a social circle and finally begin to navigate adolescence, you move to the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, and absolutely no one you can relate to. Coming from California, it was kind of a culture shock, you know, because we moved up into the mountains and it's just everything was so different.

Lee and her brother were city kids. I don't know if you remember, but especially before social media took over globally, trends were a little late to reach the rural areas of our country. Big cities have always been the first and fastest to socially progress. And as a result, Lee and her brother Max stuck out like sore thumbs. They were different and got a lot of harassment from the kids at school because they looked different and they dressed different. Though the first few months in lonely Kota Paxi were academically trying, Leedon's suffer

socially. Her grades were mediocre. She was an Australian student, but I think because she was in a new school, she was socializing more. As she grew older, Lee began to develop her own very distinct style and personality. She and her brother were becoming more opposite every day, but as they became different, they grew closer together. In their early adulthood, it just, it almost changed like a 180. You know, they became very close.

Everything was fine. Everything was fine until she graduated high school and then she went to turn a dad. No, not the island. After high school, older brother Max attended a secondary school with the hope of becoming a massage therapist. When Lee graduated high school in 2013, she followed suit. Lee went to the same college that Max did and taken the same courses with the same professor that he did and she was doing excellent. Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado is a community college that happened to offer the program Lee was interested in. The same thing Max was pursuing, the Saj therapy. 2013 was the same year Max graduated from

Trinidad and he had swift plans to move to California to open up a storefront. Later on, when Lee finished her education, the two planned to run the shop together. Max told Lee, as soon as you graduate, we're gonna get you back down here. We're gonna get a massage business going. I mean, it was a solid plan.

It was a solid plan. It was a solid plan. Being without Max and her mother wasn't as easy as Lee thought it would be. Her new college was two hours from home, and her brother was now a thousand miles away. This was truly the first time Lee was left to her own devices. Turn it at is not a good place for kids. That's when she started getting lonely. Lee began to further isolate herself from her friends and family back home. As she assimilated into this new culture, she was now immersed in. Even though there is a college there, there's, you know, it's an old town, lots of bars,

you know, she's a kid. And so, you know, she would want to go out and she liked to listen to music, so she would go out a lot. You know, so she was growing up. And, you know, so I understood that I wasn't. She was not living with me, so I didn't hear from her as much. I didn't see her every day. I saw her maybe every couple of weeks. Realistically, parents can't keep close tabs on their kids when they're away at college, not by a long shot. Understandably worried about her now 19-year-old recent high school graduate, Renee had no idea what her daughter was truly getting herself into. And all of a sudden, she just didn't stay much in contact with me as much as she used

to, you know. And that kind of worried me sometimes. So, and now I know why I didn't hear from her a lot because she had gotten in with some people that were doing heavy drugs. After a short amount of time struggling academically, becoming increasingly lonely and experimenting with dangerous drugs and shady people, Lee made a drastic decision without telling her family.

But she decided that she didn't wanna be in Trinidad anymore, so she dropped out. Renee may not have had firsthand knowledge of her daughter's true well-being, but someone else did. One person in particular, Lee's new boyfriend, Jesse Mann, in his late 30s, he was quite a bit older than Lee, but the two ended up together nonetheless. I had tattooed a friend of hers. We started flirting online or whatever and I didn't take it seriously at first when

she told me her age. I was just like, oh okay, you know, whatever. It became okay well we can hook up but you're, you know, I'm never going to be your boyfriend. We're never going to like take this seriously because it's just we're so far apart in every way. That's pretty much how things started. Max would talk to her on the phone and she hadn't been completely honest with him about this man, I'm not going to call him a boy, that she was seeing. She didn't want either of us to know, well, she didn't tell me at all, that

she was seeing anybody. She told Max she was, but she hit his age. and I think that was when she first tried heroin. I've been fighting a drug addiction my whole life pretty much since I was a teenager and I had made some New York who ended up opening a shop in Colorado. And he asked me to come out there and move out there temporarily at first and be one of his artists at this really nice shop. So I went, it was just on a mission to change my life and get away from all the addiction that I had known. And I got out there and things were really lovely for a while. Well, Jesse focused on building his career at the new tattoo shop.

Lee was chipping away at him, pursuing for a relationship. The appeal of a mysterious older man, relationship. The appeal of a mysterious older man, you just can't deny it. She kept joking with me all the time. Well, I guess she wasn't joking. I took it as a joke, but she was very serious about, you're going to be my boyfriend. I know, you know, you can't see it and you have all these preconceived notions about age and whatnot. Months went on of that and then I went on a trip. I came back here in Maryland for New Year's to tattoo for a little bit and when I went back, I had every intention. Like when she picked me up from the airport like this was the night I was gonna say like we have to stop. My plan was like get back and just end it, you know, as soon as possible. Lee was not the kind to walk away from something she wanted though. She was determined to make

Jesse see that their relationship could work. I landed at the airport and she picked me up and she had numerous gifts for me and this letter and just a whole bunch of really nice stuff and the letter was like one of the sweetest letters in a human being has ever written to me and I was just kind of like, okay, I guess I'm giving this a shot and you know, damn what people are going to think. Things were great with Lee in the beginning. She moved into Jessie's house full time and the couple began a real relationship centered around the things that both Lee and Jessie enjoyed doing.

She was a brave kid, a club kid, you know, which I also was electronic music, whatever. So we had that in common also. In the beginning her personality was just super happy, outgoing, ambitious, bubbly, warm, friendly, like a million wonderful attributes. Like I can't say enough what a nice sweet person, a genuine person she was. And as I got to know the other side of her through probably the second half of our relationship, I got to see a lot of pain and misery and to which is origins, I never fully was able to unearth with her.

It seemed that going to another new environment without the support system of her friends and family caused Lee to implode. Whatever self-destructive, pain-fueled, dark thing existed inside of her began to take over. As things progressed about halfway through, we were doing more like party drugs and we were rolling a lot. She, I don't remember the exact day. At some point, she had started asking me

after she knew my past really well. At some point, she started asking me to do heroin or try heroin or whatever. And at that time, I found out she was obsessed with this movie called Candy and Dan. The movie is called Candy, starring Heath Ledger. It's a romanticized look at love and addiction. A drama Lee may have had some conscious or subconscious desire to replicate. That's the problem though. These characters we see in movies exist for only about a two-hour chunk of time. They only exist in that tiny snow globe of a world created by producers and directors and cinematographers.

When we make destructive decisions in real life, they have real world consequences. And that's the danger of romanticizing broken, toxic love stories and hard drugs. She started, I guess, trying to like innocently inquire and then, you know, directly asking. And then when the asking began, like, sort of the, I guess the arguments ensued because I took as a personal affront. I was like, you don't understand what you're asking. You don't understand what I've been through.

That's not somewhere I'm trying to go back. And if you understood the things that's gonna do to you and our relationship, I was like, you wouldn't be asking me this. And that disclaimer in different forms and another just went on and on with the different times of her asking me. According to Jesse, this back and forth went on for weeks until one morning after a long

night of using club drugs. My defenses were done, I guess. It was like my breaking point, you know, and it's just the opportunity meeting desire and the locale and all of that, just I was just tired of arguing with her and I was also I guess put in the moment where I had the craving to. Both fragile people, this was the perfect storm in the making. in the making. League took her very first hit of heroin and fell in love. This was not a place Jesse wanted to remain. After decades of battling against the intense draw of opioids, he knew he couldn't be with this young girl who didn't yet understand the implications of such a dangerous addiction.

Then it just became a constant battle from there on because I was like no no no every day like no I'm not slipping back no I'm not slipping back I'm not doing this like if you keep asking me I'm kicking you out. I took her to meetings I went to a few to a few NA meetings for a couple weeks. I showed her the program. I explained detox and rehab and recovery and the 12 steps. To me, most of that time, it was like dragging her kicking and screaming. She didn't want to go to these meetings. She didn't want to not use, meetings she didn't want to not use but she did not want to lose me. The two continued with Jesse doing something called chipping, which is basically using every couple of days in order to prevent the body from becoming physiologically addicted.

But that didn't last long. Soon his performance at work began to decline. long. Soon his performance at work began to decline. Bills began to accumulate, and obviously Leah's performance in school deteriorated as well. You know, I saw what was happening and I was like, I'm not, I got to abort this mission, like this can't happen, like I can't go all the way down to the bottom again to try to climb out again. Like I can stop this now, I know better." Jesse scrapped together the cache for a small moving truck and planned a trip back to Maryland,

where he could check himself into a rehab facility that had gotten him cleaned before. He sat down with Lee and explained what was happening. She would no longer be able to reside in his home. He requested that she get clean too and maybe they could resume their relationship when they both got their lives back on track. And I was like, I love you. I'd be more than happy to continue dating you if you get clean. That's fine with me. So the plan was she was gonna go to treatment in Denver and I was gonna go to treatment in Maryland.

And if we were both clean, after that, I would come back to Denver and we would get an apartment. This also hinged on something she told me, which I don't know how true it is or not, but she claimed that she was pregnant at the time, which was all the more reason in my mind that this had to happen. As Lee and Jesse stood talking in the parking lot of a hotel just before he embarked

for Maryland, he had no idea it would be the last time he'd ever see Lee again. In June of 2013, 19-year-old Lee Porter had just received the earth-shattering news that her boyfriend, Jesse, would be leaving the Denver area to drive to Maryland and check himself into a rehab facility. This meant that now Lee had nowhere to live. I didn't really spy on her Facebook a lot. I wasn't into Facebook, you know? And then I noticed that she had posted something

that she was breaking up with her boyfriend and she was afraid that she wasn't going to have a place to stay. But we had made arrangements. I would never leave her with her shit in her car and nowhere to go. Like I'm not that type of dude. She had a friend that I had befriended, so I guess a mutual friend now. But in any case, I reached out to him when I knew I was leaving and Lee agreed to go to treatment. So I looked into treatment centers in Denver and I found one that was going to be a week to two weeks to get a bed. So I reached out to Brennan and I was like, where can we put her safely until this bed opens up in the treatment center, this is the plan.

Jesse and Lee's mutual friend had access to a room that would be empty during the small stretch of time Lee needed somewhere to stay. He told Jesse he could meet Lee with the key to the room the next day at 5pm. Then when a bed became available at a rehab facility, she'd check herself in. So the plan was that on the morning of June 3rd, Jessie was leaving for Maryland, and Lee was to meet their mutual friend Brennan, that following evening at 5pm. She would have a bed to sleep in, a place to stay. But she had already posted about her potential homelessness on Facebook. And so Christopher Wade started responding to her call for help.

23-year-old Christopher Wade was someone both Lee and her brother Max had attended school with in Coda Paxy. He reached out to Lee and offered to help her solve her problem. She planned to stop by Christopher's place in Westminster, Colorado, before meeting her other friend to pick up that room key later in the evening. He's supposed to help her. My understanding was like move some furniture and help her like get some stuff out of a storage unit she had is what she told me. We went through it. Now, like, not obsessive, just protective. You know, like, who is this dude? Where do you know him from?

Okay, he went to your hometown church and your high school, he knows your brother. Okay, I guess, you know, I guess. Christopher Wade had already formed a kind of relationship with her on Facebook. He offered her a place to stay at his house and she declined. So he was upset about that. When she told him she had found another place, but she couldn't get in until a certain time, he says, we'll come and hang out with me then until it's time

for you to go. Lee packed her stuff into her messy sedan, and drove to Westminster, where she met Christopher at his apartment. It became not unusual for maybe a couple of days to pass before I heard from her. The last time I heard from her, Lee messaged me, it was around seven o'clock in the morning. She had texted me and she said that she was sorry about the way she was acting, and that she loved me and that she loved Max, and that she should have realized a long time ago, but her family was more important than these people. The Renee thought it was normal not to hear from Lee for a few days at a time

Jesse and Max expected more consistent updates from her Renee wasn't even aware of this move to Denver yet So I left about 45 minutes later. I would say I got a text from her and she said I'm at Chris's I'm gonna call you as soon as we're done. And then she said, I love you, I love you so fucking much. After that, that was according to the phone records, I guess that was the last text that was ever sent from her phone. An hour later, the alarm bells started to ring in Jesse's mind. What's going on? Why isn't she calling me back? Why isn't she texting? So I'm driving for hours and hours and the mind games are going crazy from the mind games.

It's like, is she being 19 and trying to make me turn around and drive back? You know, by like fucking with me here, which is what I was hoping, or is she, is there something seriously wrong here? On the fifth, two days later, I was just getting off of work and I was actually in the drive through at McDonald's trying to just get a quick bite to eat it was late. And there's a ton of cars in front of me, a ton of cars in back of me.

And I got a phone call from Max. And he was panicked because he said, mom, I can't get a hold of Lee. I can't get a hold of Lee. I've been trying for two days and she won't return my text. She won't return my phone calls. I says, let me try and get a hold of her. So I'm in the line, in the drive-through line, and I'm trying to text her, trying to call her or phone's going straight to voicemail. And I remember, I remember my heart dropping. And I was stuck. I was stuck in the drive-through. So I got out of my car and I just started screaming that I had an emergency. And if everybody could just please back up and let me out. And they did. And they let me out. And so I drove home because I paid her bills. The first thing I did was get into my AT&T account. One name kept popping up over and over again. Christopher, Adam, Wade.

Renee began to read through some of her text messages. Mourning, how are you feeling today? Rene began to read through some of her text messages. Morning. How are you feeling today? Any temptations or slips to using again? 12.06pm. You there? LOL. I had terrible dreams last night, brownie face. I'm sorry to hear that. What were they about if you don't mind my asking? You know, you could have called me.

Like I said, you can call or text me anytime 24-7, and you have my number. 505 PM. Have you been getting my texts? Two days later, June 2nd, 401 PM. Any updates yet on what time tomorrow? Tuesday, June 3rd, 1.02 AM. Morning. Hope all is going well. I haven't heard from you.

How are things? Have you had any temptations or slip-ups? 6.32 AM. Good morning, Lee. And when I saw that the last activity on her phone was the third I about died because she had that phone glued to her. Nothing on Facebook, no post on Facebook. No activity. No activity. This was the day Renee officially reported her daughter missing. She then began to call all of the numbers listed in her daughter's AT&T account, finally making it down to the last one. The last number that ever called Lee's phone was Christopher Wades. So Renee dialed and the phone rang. he said and she just left. And so the search began.

According to Christopher, Lee left in a white or light colored truck. The first place law enforcement had to scope out was her last known location, Christopher's apartment complex. As Christopher, Renee, and Max, and all of these friends and family began posting all over social media in an effort to raise awareness, CBS News made their way to Christopher's apartment and spoke with him about his friend's disappearance. So Leah comes down here and she calls you up and she wants to come hang out and tell me how this all came about. She posted on Facebook that she needed help or something. Our messenger asked if I could help. She said that her boyfriend was kicking her out. So I asked her if she needed money or a place to stay.

She said the place to stay would be nice, but then later on she made other arrangements. Then last Tuesday, she texted me asking, saying she was pretty bummed out and asking if we could hang out. I asked her if she wanted me to meet her someplace, if she just wanted to hang out here. She said that she'd rather just hang out here. She got here around noon or so. Took her out to eat at Boston Market. I don't know that taking someone to Boston Market really counts as taking them out to eat. But that's, besides the point.

This little excursion was caught on surveillance video, confirming that Lee Porter was in fact alive and well that afternoon. Christopher then went on to tell the story about how he and Lee parted ways on June 3rd. She seemed pretty depressed and while she was smiling it didn't really go to her eyes. So that kind of was weirding me out to see her like that because when I knew her from before she was always really energetic and really happy. She said she was tired and she just wanted to crash, so I said okay. We were found some of her drugs and confronted her about it that night. Then shortly afterwards she took off. I didn't

really think much of it. I thought she was just angry at me because I was playing the part of the concerned friend. First of all I read everything on Christopher Wade's Facebook and then I read everything on Lee's Facebook, every picture she took, I read all the comments and I saw when Christopher Wade starting liking her photos. And then that's all it was for quite a while. And then he started commenting. And I saw that beginning as early as the summer of 2013. And then he started making little comments like, you know, I like your hair another color because she changed her hair color a lot. Leigh didn't respond to Christopher's comments until he left one particular comment under

a photo mentioning Le Lee's attempt at sobriety. She was very proud of the coins she received at narcotics anonymous, and Christopher thought it a good time to swoop in and be the white knight in Lee's life. You know, something about this guy's voice really irritates me. He reminds me of a guy that was pretty chummy with my significant other. And when she rejected him, he lashed out. She stopped talking to him.

And then at some point on this program, I was covering another in-cell psychopath that also reminded me of him, and I mentioned it. Well, he lashed out again, posting a bunch of personal, private, and embarrassing information about her publicly. It takes a real immature piece of shit with stunted development to do something like that. And this guy's a lawyer. I could have gotten him in a whole heap of trouble if I really wanted to. People like this are all around us. And I'm just glad I'm not a girl and don't have to deal with this shit on a daily basis.

I don't know how you do it, ladies. She confided in him that she had gotten in to heroin and that she was going to narcotics anonymous meetings and he offered to be her accountable person. Certainly, Christopher had no ulterior motives, just lurking beneath the surface of this altruism. He seems completely genuine in his generosity. He wanted her to be vulnerable. He wanted that and he saw that she was vulnerable online and That's when he went in for the attack. I get to Maryland. I'm in my mom's driveway and my phone rings and it's max And like that's when I knew like immediately like I was like if max is calling me That means that she's not answering max is calls and that's freaky and like that

means something's really wrong. So I answered the phone and Max said, dude where's my sister? And I was like, we need to find Chris Wade. That was it. Hello? I think you're out of place. I'm sorry. I think you're right.

I think you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're the second Kalamazoo minister. How you doing? Well, actually, to Rallye, please. That's our Vicky. Yes, I think to Vicky, please. Vicky, you're the second Kalamon Westminster, how you doing? I'm good, okay. Do you have a couple minutes to rest first, Jack? Yeah.

This is Vicky Wade, Christopher Wade's mother. What do you know about what's going on over here? I know. I just heard that there was a girl missing and that she was with my son right before. I got a call from her brother tonight. Okay, so please, brother. Yeah. What did he have to say?

He just had some questions about Chris. What do you have to say? Um, he just had some questions about Chris. What do you ask yet? Um, just if there was any concerns with him? Yes. Are there concerns? Nothing I know of. Oh, Vicki. This is simply not true.

Throughout her lengthy phone call with this detective, Vicki slowly began to divulge some information about her son that would raise red flags in the mind of any unbiased party. Vicki Wade isn't unbiased though. She loves her son. Can you fill the up a little bit of Christopher's history that brought up? Did he, how do you do in high school? Um, he kind of struggled in high school. He... Not really withdrawn. He's just, he's a different thinker.

And he's very smart. Um, he just, he didn't fit in that. At the time of Lee Porter's disappearance, Christopher Wade was completing a degree in criminology. He was a student. He had been medically discharged from the military just a short time prior, and he was using his GI Bill to support himself and complete school. Specifically Christopher admitted that he had been suffering from hallucinations. In addition, he told psychiatrists that he had attempted to kidnap, rape, and murder a girl in high school, but got scared and fled.

Once he got to her house and realized one of her family members was in the home with her. Cheryl told me that you provided in her about Christopher make your basically confiding in you and saying that you have a kind of serving box. Do you know what that would be? You said that you kind of could fight around specific thoughts. Um,

so, that's a great to say. Okay, so David, that's a good idea. I know. I understand. Just give me a minute here. Okay, in high school, well, growing up is a dad. We're going to pornography. And Chris found it online at a very young age. That's all young, yeah.

Ninety-ten. I mean, Chris was pretty messed up with it in high school. He was, I found these stash pictures of every sort. Well, I call it pretty hardcore. It was, it made me sick. It's not embarrassing, but it's not embarrassing. It's just hard to talk about. There's been a lot of studies that show that when young boys are exposed to pornography especially, it's more of a shame to put it out of the way to young age.

That kind of their sexual arousal bar gets set really high, really young. So it takes, it's really hard for them to get aroused. You know, I'm saying just because they've had a little hard to get around. Yeah, because you know, like with normal little kids they grew up with that. She's more about catalog or something, you know, that's their baseline of sexuality. But when you get, you know, you start up so high, it does. Now, you know, I mean, take a little bit more for... So... Yeah. I don't know. I heard things from...

I don't know, but a principal called me one day and said he had... uh, touched the girl in appropriate at school. So it seems that Vicki Wade did have a wealth of knowledge about her son's problems and former perpetration. This wasn't a weird kid who might do something bad someday. He already had, and mom didn't seem to be too bothered by it. Christopher's military report of mental status examination, disturbingly states, His time in service is 1.5 years. He was evacuated August 10th from Afghanistan after being in country three weeks. He had no contact with the enemy. He complained of boredom. Questions have been raised concerning his fitness for duty. His major psychiatric complaints included violent and fearful dreams

with depression. His main violent dream was associated with what he claimed were actual events of his life, wherein he had attempted but failed to kidnap a young girl with the intention of later raping and murdering her. He says his plan included kidnapping the girl, taking her on a camping trip into the mountains of Colorado, where he would then rape and murder her. He says he had sexual interests in this girl but never actually dated her. He claims he had developed this kidnap rape murder plan over an 18-month period. He claims that this kidnap rape murder plan went beyond the planning stage to him making

two attempts to carry out his plan. The most disturbing part of this doctor's note is when he mentions that Christopher began contacting this girl on Facebook during his time in the army when he began having dreams about his kidnap attempt. Also, he claims that he had seen her at a local mall in Colorado while he was on leave. He denies a pattern of stalking and other forms of harassment. However, he does communicate in some way with this girl about two or three times per month, he claims. Although there are no clear indications that this soldier is currently preoccupied

with reactivating his plan to kidnap, rape, and murder the girl he had selected, his periodic contact with her is troubling. She's apparently unaware that he even intended harm toward her. It is certainly possible that his current actions may be a form of grooming behavior or perhaps a preliminary form of stalking designed to gradually manipulate this young woman into some type of compromised situation where upon his more destructive underlying fantasies

may take over, perhaps resulting in her death. Given the serious nature of this case, this evaluator has considered if the present conditions are such that I am ethically and or legally bound to warn the young girl in question of possible danger. Based on my reviews of ethical standards and understanding of relevant laws regarding the duty to warn intended victims of homicide, I find that this case has no duty to warn requirement for me as a psychologist evaluator. Un-fucking-believeable Max contacts his immediately. believable.

As Jesse, Max, and Renee began to gather little bits and pieces of information about Christopher Wade from various sources, Max became certain that Christopher was to blame and Jesse was getting there too. Jesse knew that yelling at him wasn't going to be the best way to get Christopher to open up. So he tried a different approach. I called him shortly after I had been conversing with him already on Facebook Messenger.

He was from the beginning playing the role of, uh, I'm innocent obviously, um, I'm innocent, obviously. I'm really sorry this happened to your girlfriend. Let me try to help in any way I can. You know, that was his stance. So, you know, immediately, because I had suspicions, and I wasn't convinced or anything, but I had suspicions of him. So I immediately was like, let me use this to my advantage. After getting Christopher on the phone,

Jesse quickly earned his trust, spending hours talking for several days in a row. Jesse asked Christopher to go through his story numerous times in detail. So when I wasn't on the phone with him, I was writing down questions, sitting there with my mom, detail. For two people with natural animosity towards one another, Jesse and Max came together, like the Scooby-Doo detective team, to solve the case.

The one person who caused them to hate each other ended up being the reason the two men temporarily set aside their differences and put their heads together. The third day was like the break, the break in the case. He told me, and we were going through it again. We were going through the whole story again. And he was like, oh, I remembered something that I had forgot to tell you, something like that. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, oh, well, there's a part of the story that I didn't tell you about the last five or six times,

right? So I'm like, oh, really? Okay, well, why don't you share that with me then? So he proceeds to tell me about the tarot card reading. So he's like, yeah, while she was here, because up until this point she kind of like came hung out for a little bit, played some video games, got on her phone and left and got in some truck, and that was it. So now it was while she was here, I gave her this tarot card reading and when the cards identified that she was pregnant, she broke down and started crying and When the cards identified that she was pregnant,

she broke down and started crying and was begging me not to tell anybody. For those of you unfamiliar, tarot cards are generally lumped in with other occult-type things, like crystals, spellcasting, palm reading, and other nonsense like that. They weren't originally used for this purpose, but over time they've developed into a common tool for divination or fortune telling.

During him telling me this, like it occurred to me like, okay, this is totally my end, because I'm realizing like, well, A, I'm realizing, yeah, I'm pretty sure now. And then B, I'm like, okay, this is also my opportunity to get face to face with him. So I then asked him, could you do a tarot card reading for me? And he said yes, we're kind of reluctantly sounding, but like, you know, he had to, I guess, you know, how he felt. And then, I asked him somewhere in that conversation also, can you do a tarot card reading for somebody that's not present? And he was like, yeah, I would have to have personal effects. And then the questions weren't directly linked to each other at the time, so I don't know if he had put it together yet, well, I had planned, but in any case, I was like, okay, great.

Well, I'm flying back to Denver tomorrow, so I'm going to come see you in the afternoon so you can give me a tarot card reading. 19-year-old Lee Porter vanished from Westminster, Colorado on June 3, 2014. While on a trip up to Denver, she stopped at 23-year-old Christopher Wade's apartment to hang out, catch up, and get some help moving personal belongings. Then, she vanished. Lea's estranged boyfriend, Jesse Mine, and her brother, Max Porter, both flew in

from their respective destinations to help find Lee. After hours upon hours, spent on the phone with Christopher Wade, Jesse coerced him into giving him a tarot reading of his own. An opportunity Jesse and Max would use to push Christopher into what they hoped would be a confession. It was June 12th, nine days after Lee first went missing, and Jesse was scheduled to meet Chris that afternoon at his apartment. I arrived in Denver and Max picked me up via a friend of his was driving and we went to Chris's apartment complex and things got kind of strange at this point. So I got out of the car like, okay, here I go.

As he made his way to the building, Jesse was flanked by Plain Clothes detectives. Yelling, his name. And he said, Jesse, we gotta talk to you and we gotta search you for weapons. They weren't aggressive or anything. They just kind of ushered me and they were kind of like, come on with us. So they took me aside and saved for a good at least five minutes, they were just. We know why you're here. We are on board and we're gonna let you do it. They're like, but you can't fuck this up. Police had surveillance on Christopher Wade

for about as long as Lee's friends and family suspected him. How often do family members act so instrumentally in a murder case, not varying. Westminster police knew that this may be the final opportunity to get a confession from Christopher, since they weren't able to glean anything useful from him at the police station. So I go to Chris's door and I go inside, it's disgusting. Kitchen hasn't been clean, all dirty dishes laying all over the counters, food, you know, wrappers everywhere.

The floor's never been swept or mobbed. The carpet's never been vacuumed. The smell is just complete funk and like mildew and trash. The living room, there was a flat screen TV just sitting on the floor with a blanket next to it, with a big ring of like big gulp cups and like soda bottles and ship bags like around the blanket and pillow on the floor. The shared living spaces and Christopher's apartment were caked in dirt, oil, and food stains. But nothing compares to the squalor of his bedroom and bathroom. Apparently no one ever told Chris that you need to clean your toilet sometimes.

Urine and dust particles were plastered all over the toilet, along with fingernail clippings, hairs, used cotton swabs, with earwax covering the tips, fingernails, pee, and a generally thick layer of grime coated nearly every surface. I hope you're not having lunch right now. His bed had no sheets or blankets, just a flat, oily pillow, with two microwavable chicken pot pies nestled closely nearby. On the floor, more chicken pot pies. Apparently he really liked chicken pot pies. Chris liked to eat the center and leave the crust.

If that's not a big red flag, I don't know what is. I be lined for his patio at this point because the smell and the sight and everything. So I got out on the patio and I think in my like my Jesse way, I think I let him know that his place is stunk and then I did not want to be inside there. And I was like, is there a park or something like around here that we can do this at? And he was like, yeah, there's a park right down the street. Let's go. And I was like, oh, cool. Let's go. In case we need to reiterate this, Christopher was a really fucking weird dude. Above all else, though, this was a convenient opportunity for

Christa Weave, whatever story he wanted to tell. He may have even lined up these specific cards prior to meeting with Jesse. During a reading, Tarot readers pull from a deck of cards with various figures and objects on them. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that wrong? Figures, figures. If you're from anywhere other than the South. Anyway, the idea is that they interpret those cards and use them to tell the future or give advice about a particular situation. I'm sure you can see how some of these interpretations

could be subjective. Then we walked out onto a gazebo in the middle of a pond, so there's one way in and one way out is pretty trippy. With Jesse Max and another friend sitting at a gazebo in a nearby park, Christopher reluctantly began his reading, unaware that his encounter was being recorded. The five of Wands represents the enemy is perceived, but it's not known from where. I think everyone's sitting at that table's a sense of paranoia about it. Water. This is the emotions surrounding the situation, the lovers basically indicates person with a strong emotional attachment to her Then there's the spirit

The two of swords indicates a stalemate in this situation things Can't progress until something gives way but at the same time nothing See and nothing seems to or is giving way. To me it just sounded like BS sounded like he had rehearsed at the night before and that it was designed to fool me, placate me, just keep me thinking that there's hope and that he's telling the truth and that we're gonna find her.

Overall, this isn't the best reading, the best almond for reading I've done, but it is fairly positive, I don't see any indication of anything who would want anything or anyone who would want to harm her or physically impede her in any way. I don't see, but I do see that when she's coming out of this, she'll be the better for it. She'll be, I don't know about different, but I think that she will be a changed woman when she comes out of it. I don't see whether it's for the better or for the worse, but overall I would say it's for the better.

I gave Max a couple of looks during the reading and my looks were like, this is some bullshit. And his looks back to me were like, yeah, this is bullshit. At that point, yeah, we didn't even need to speak. Like our eyes were communicating well. All right, rather not talk with another reporter right now. Jeez. Okay. So Chris, I have one more favorite

I ask of you. Okay. Not as a suspect and family sitting here. But as friends and acquaintances and a group of people that used to know each other and all Are worried about this girl is missing. Yeah, instead of me and Max, you know, maybe badgering It was questions. Would you just tell all of us as friends? Like once and for good like just what happened that day. It's hard to explain the things that go on in my head sometimes to someone else, but

Chris, your stories they didn't add up at all. Not one. You told different things to other people. This offspoken voice you just heard was the voice of Max Porter. After sitting at the picnic table in the gazebo for almost half an hour, Max was beginning to lose patience. If you had something not to hide, you would have told the truth the whole time. You're not. Why did you keep things back? The first sign you told the story. Can you take your glasses off please? So I can see your eyes.

See? I saw you asking. Yeah. I have to tell you a thing, but I'll be squinting very. It's okay. Photo sensitive. That's fine.

The force sat there. Awkwardly, for a few few seconds while Christopher clicked his pen and fidgeted. Chris, we just really need to know, man. Chris, look at me, right my eyes. Dude, where is she? I don't know where she is right now. I do not know. You know what happened.

I can tell you. You can tell you. I can tell you. I know. I know. I know. What the fuck? Look, okay.

You need to tell us right now, dude. We, I need my sister back, dude. I'm going to kill myself without my sister. You need to. To Chris. Yeah. I know. Where is she? Chris, please. They're gonna find out, man. I know. The cops are gonna find out. What has happened? There's gonna be an end to this through the case. Please, and if you can end this, I won't hold grudges.

I won't hold it to you, man. We will forgive you. I will forgive you. Damn. Christopher should have taken some pointers about lying from these guys. That was quite a convincing performance. You know it's the right thing to do. I know. Tell me. Okay. Look.

And you have every right to be angry with me for... Just tell me that. For lying to you. It's not angry with you. You're about to tell me, I'm about to find where my sister is. Yeah. I'm going... And I will be going forward with the police about this. I haven't yet, because I'm trying to find the

right way to do it. So this is the right way right now. This is it. This is it. I know. The Westminster Police Department had some serious concerns about Jesse and Max's ability to extract a full-blown confession from a suspect. But here they were doing just that. Christopher of course simply thought this was a friendly confession between friends, an opportunity to get it all off his chest off the record, after which they would allow him to report himself to the police in his own time when he was ready. Can you imagine how stupid that is? What I say right now, it's going to be very hard, but until I come forward with them to it,

it'll be within the week I swear to you. But I'm going to have to ask you to keep it to yourself until then. You tell me right now what happened to my sister. You know what happened to my sister? Yes. You know if she's a live or if she's dead. You know. I do. Please. It's okay. I'm not mad at you, man. If you did something really, really bad, I will forgive you. I just need to know. Okay. I know you guys are probably not going to believe a word of this. I mean, I know what really happened and if I had been

secondhand party I would not have deleted it. Tell me. Okay, she... The first part of my story was right. She did text me and asked to come over because she was feeling really depressed. She got here, we talked for a little while then I talked her to Boston Market and got her something to eat. Then we came straight back. But unlike in my original story, I did, I offered and then performed the tarot reading for her right after we got back. Afterwards, we went out and played video games for a while while we were talking. And she, I don't know what was going through her mind,

but she just paused the game and stopped what she was saying and leaned in and she kissed me. It took me completely off guard. I did not see it coming. We weren't talking about anything to do with anything that could be construed as that. And she called all of the shots and as we proceeded from there, I stopped her several times and asked her, are you sure this is what you want? We can stop now, I won't go any farther, if. But she said that was what she wanted and we kept going.

Christopher then went on to claim that he and Lee had quote unquote consensual sex in his pig's die of a dwelling. She didn't, she wasn't yelling but she was very venomous. And she grabbed the knife that I keep by my, by my bed. And when we go back I can show it to you. She grabbed it and pulled it out and tried to attack me. Saying that she would stop attacking me if I agreed to buy drugs for her. Lee Porter was 5'5", an amazely 85-90 pounds.

Christopher Wade, on the other hand, the Nosferado looking weirdo that he is, stands six foot three with long, spindly pale limbs. Those desperation in her eyes. I do that, dude. She wouldn't do that, Chris, stop lying. I'm not lying. She wouldn't do that.

Keep going, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just overgiven. I am not lying. Okay. Chris went on to describe the attempted attack, I'm not lying. She wouldn't do that. Keep going. I'm sorry. I'm just over here. I am not lying. Okay. Chris went on to describe the attempted attack, claiming Lee lunged forward at him with the knife, but he dodged her alleged thrusts.

He must have felt like his life was truly at risk, though, because he says he grabbed Lee, putting Lee's body between himself and the knife. And then I placed my hand at her throat. Sadly, putting Lee's body between please drop the knife. And I'll let you go, you can get dressed, you can leave and go wherever. According to Chris, Lee didn't let up. She would stop when I, when one of two things happened. She said that she would stop when I, when either she was dead or if I agreed to buy her drugs.

I told her I did not want that. I told her straight up to please stop and get dressed and go. But she used up her arms to push against me with a knife, trying to cut my alarm to get me to let go so she could keep attacking. So I started squeezing on her throat. to cut my alarm, to get me to let go so she could keep attacking. So I started squeezing on her throat. I kept telling her, and I made, I wasn't whispering it to her, I was telling her in a very clear voice,

drop the knife and I'll let go, Lee. Drop the knife, please. Drop the knife, please, or throw until what happened? golly. Drop the knife and just squeeze her throat until what happened? Honestly, she, I thought that her muscles would relax when she went unconscious and that I could gradually move the knife away and let her go and let her regain consciousness. But that didn't happen. I've been running through my head trying to figure out why. Oh, please, Chris.

Sparris, the drama. But she kept shaking her head, no. And then afterwards, I did adrenaline was rushing through. I didn't see her stop shaking her head, but she was still pushing against my hand. But then it was like a rubber band snapped and she just went completely lax and it took me completely by surprise and I ended up cutting her. I'll admit it, I wasn't rational and I did things that I should not have

with what happened next. did things that I should not have with what happened next. Because even with all the character witnesses, it didn't seem like telling the truth was a good idea. And this is the God's honest truth. I should not have done it, but I covered everything up. Christopher then told the group that he redressed Lee's body and later on his bed while he thought about what to do next. He eventually put her in several white odor control kitchen trash bags and claimed he disposed of her in his apartment building's dumpster out back. After the fact, after a massive search of the landfill, all that was recovered of Lee was her clothing and personal belongings, her purse, her ID, things like that.

So if her body was not found with the clothing, Chris never dressed her. He dumped her somewhere, naked and cold, and left her there to rot. And about that little cut, he said happened accidentally. Christopher stabbed Lee, a large spot of blood on his floor, and another on his bed where Lee's body had been laying required lots of bleach. He poured it over spots. Then he says he threw all the cleaning supplies and the bloody clothing into bags with Lee. But Lee Porter was not recovered with any of those items. When he was finished with his confession, that one maxed just kind of was like a rocket.

He like, like he just shot from his seat all the way over the table, taking Chris to the ground, all in like one fluid motion and then was just sitting on his chest, pummeling his face, which was pretty, pretty good. I was worried that it might screw up the case, but at this point it was happening, so I was enjoying it. He wouldn't try to stab you, he would never try to do that fucking line, suck shit.

Look, I told you you would not believe me. I know you won't believe me, but I will be turning myself into the police. I will tell them you're going to prison right now. What do you think you're going, man? You're just going to let you walk away and drive away. You killed my goddamn sister. Shit! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just gonna let you walk away and drag away. You killed my goddamn sister Come on, let's get my fucking phone. It has all this recorded call the fucking cops

I guess for theatrics or for you know Chris's Knowledge I took my phone out which was recording and I hung it up and I read out 911 and I introduced myself and then I said I'm now gonna hand the phone to Chris Wade and he's gonna tell you what he just told us. 911. Yeah, so I took control murder. Okay, what happened? And he went through the confession a second time. The cops, I guess, were really plugged in and listening

because it was like on cue, like the end of that second confession. And it was like, oh, here they come. You know, like, I don't know, 15, probably 10, at least, maybe 15 of them. Um, and they kind of just mob Chris took me to the side. And, um, then they took Chris out and, uh, then all of us had to go to the police station forever. While Renee drove up to Westminster, she tried to get a hold of Max to see what was going

on. But Max and Jesse were in the throes of Christopher's confession. Well, I kept trying to call Max, and Max wouldn't answer, and then he called me a little bit later, and I was right outside of Casarock. And he was the sterile. And he said, Mom, please, Dad, he killed her. She's dead. I think I just died that day.

I don't know how I felt about it. I know I was scared. I was scared. I was scared of his family. I was scared of all the stories I heard. And I was scared about what he really did with the leave because of all the things that I was starting to learn. Once the Westminster Police Department had a chance to search Christopher's computer, they

found a series of disturbing Google suicide, hanging woman death, video of woman committing suicide, video of woman being beheaded in Mexico, video of woman being eaten alive, girl in pale, girl roasted cannibalism, girl cannibalized, girl in pale cannibalism, woman murdered on camera. Woman suicide wrist slit. And finally, dozens and dozens of searches related to Joseph Fritzsey, the awful case of an Austrian man who held his own daughter hostage for 24 years while she bore his children. Upon further investigation, the police also recovered more than 20 images of child pornography on his laptop. And numerous pairs of colorful little girls underwear in a set of drawers in Christopher's bedroom. They were size 14, large enough for him to wear himself, which is what he claimed he enjoyed doing. Are you starting to hate this guy yet?

Because I can't think of any set of details that would make anyone hate someone more. In order to give the family some comfort after this atrocity, the district attorney in this case offered Christopher a plea deal. He would be able to plead guilty to second degree murder and the sexual exploitation of a child in exchange for cooperation and finding Lee Porter's body. Because we'd already done the landfill search, you know, for 40 days, and she wasn't there. Chris took the plea deal, and then he said, and they said, okay, well, where's Lee? And he said, simply, I already told you. Chris continues to maintain that he dumped Lee's body and all of the evidence along with it into the dumpster by his apartment building. I'm not going to say anything except that I do think that there are other people that know where she is and that perhaps helped him because even though we were told there wasn't any witnesses, there was one witness that saw a bunch of things

being packed into a van in the middle of the night, of the day that she was killed. And the police even saw the tire tracks on the grass, and they were backed up to his apartment, and they were loading things in there. And I'm certain I know who the van belongs to. But because Christopher was already in jail, they just, you know, it was a closed case, I guess. I don't feel any case should be closed when there's still a body missing. And the fact that they were so quick to want to do a plea deal because it was a no body case. Max and I told him, you know, we would rather, we want to leave back, but we would rather, and be in jail forever, because he's going to come out and he's going to hurt someone.

Christopher was sentenced to 48 years in prison, meaning that he will be up for parole in June of 2048. His mandatory release date is June of 2060. It is likely that he will not spend the rest of his life in prison. The Porter's body has never been recovered. Her friends and family never got the chance to give her a proper farewell, but they hold out hope that someone might come forward and finally tell the truth about where she was laid to rest. For now, Jesse, Renee, Max, and all of Lee's loved ones must speak into the void, hoping Lee's spirit receives their messages. I would want her to know that I'm not disappointed in her, you know, and that I understand what

she went through, and that I wish I could have helped her and how much I love her and I miss her so much. All we can wish for is that Christopher won't be released until the last possible moment and that every second between now and then will be a living hell. Hopefully the parole board looks at his life with just a bit more scrutiny than the so-called psychologist who evaluated him for his military discharge.

Christopher Adam Wade is one of these scumbags that parades around online like a white knight. Publicly they'll show their altruistic attributes. Oh, they're just trying to help. They're just trying to be a good person. But if you know anything about human nature, it is that people are shit. And the ones that try hardest to pretend like they're good people

usually end up being the worst monsters of all. So glad to be back. Season 9 is going to be... Epic! Epic! Telefriend, rate and review, join plus, but most of all, stay safe. I'm Mike Bude, this is Samantha, a colleague from Dancuba Canada. I've been listening to your show since the very beginning in three different cities, St. Louis and Chicago as well. But I just finished episode 202 on the regular feed and one of the things that I think you do so well is you not only is your

narration really good but you emphasize the value of life and I think that's the reason why so many of us enjoy true crime is because we are appalled by the fact that others don't value life the way that you do. Thank you for all your stories. Peace. you you