True Crime Campfire - Devastator: The Crimes of Christopher Hightower, Part 2

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

When we left you at the end of part 1, con man Christopher Hightower was coming unglued. His wife was threatening to leave him. His landlords were threatening to kick him out of his office. Creditors were swarming. And his old friend Ernie Brendel was pursuing a formal complaint against him with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Can you imagine? All he did was commit a little light financial fraud! In Chris’s mind, the whole world was out to get him. And he was about to strike back in a way that would bring the small town of Barrington Rhode Island to its knees. Join us for part 2 of this unbelievable and tragic story. Sources:Death of an Angel: A True Story of a Vicious Triple Murder That Broke the Heart of a Town, by Don DavisCourt papers: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/state-v-hightower-895304220The Providence Journal: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/2021/01/26/rhode-island-murderer-christopher-hightower-killed-brendel-ernest-alice-emily/4264836001/LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-11-10-mn-1885-story.htmlBritish true crime series "World's Most Evil Killers," episode "Christopher Hightower"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. When we left you at the end of Part 1, Conman Christopher Heightower was coming unglued. His wife was threatening to leave him. His landlords were threatened to kick him out of his office, creditors were swarming, and his old friend Ernie Brandel was pursuing a formal complaint against him with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Can you imagine? All he did was commit

a little light financial fraud. In Chris's mind, the whole world was out to get him. And he was about to strike back in a way that would bring the small town of Barrington, Rhode Island, to its knees. This is part two of Devastator, the crimes of Christopher Hightower. Campers, please note that this episode deals with the murder of a child. Please listen at your discretion. This wasn't Christopher's first time looking at crossbows at Thompson's sports shop. He'd bought a small one a couple months earlier. That one was about the size of a handgun, and while it was easy,

easy to load and handle, it didn't pack even a tenth of the power he needed for the job he had in mind. I want something bigger, he told the sales clerk. Well, you're in luck, the guy said, this is the last one of these we've got. He reached behind the counter and drew out a huge camo-patterned crossbow. Let me show you how to cock it. This thing was fully three feet long, and it had the word Devastator printed on it in all caps. Its intended purpose was bear hunting. Christopher watched as the sales clerk slid his foot into the stirrup and pulled on the bowstring. It took every ounce of his arm strength to cock the thing back. It was easy to see how a bolt from this bow could take down a grizzly bear.

Perfect, Hightower said. I'll take it. Just out of curiosity, the sales guy said as he rang up the sail, what do you need it for? Raccoons, Hightower said. And you know the sales guy had to raise an eyebrow at this, right? Like, Jesus, Jones, what kind of raccoons y'all get in that you need something called the Devastator to take care of it. Those prehistoric ones, the size of grizzly bears, or I don't think those exist anymore, man. I just feel like that wasn't the most convincing lie he could have told, but what do I know, right? Right. You leave those poor raccoons alone, asshole.

Yeah. Also, you can't name your own weapon. Come on. Same rule of Nick Games. You got to find a weapon in a crypt already named. Otherwise, it's just a crossbow. No, he didn't name it. The thing is just called, it's literally called the devastating.

state or it's like printed on the side. God, weapon nerds are the worst. Fuck, you're right. I'm sorry. You said that already. I got too caught up in dunking on High Tower, but I still blame Chris for how ridiculous it is. Yeah, that's fair. Also, what do you want to bet that he picked that one because the name made him feel like a big, strong man? Oh, 100%. It's like those middle-aged dudes who buy a boat to feel cool again and then name it some dumb shit like Seeduction. You're not fooling anybody, Devastator, okay? It should have been called Midlife Crisis, or can't see my kids anymore, or my bitch-ex wife takes all my money for the kids we both have. Exactly. Just be honest, you know? You're not fooling anybody. You might as well just come right out with it.

The other weird thing to the sales clerk was the type of ammo Chris picked for the crossbow. Instead of the pointed ones the guy expected him to buy, Chris went right for the flatter-tipped ones, bullet points. Huh. After he finished up at the sporting goods store, Chris tuled over to Susan's work and was immediately suspicious when he didn't see her car in the lot. See, unbeknownst to Chris, while he was crossbow shopping that morning, Susan and her divorce attorney were at the family court building, filing for A, divorce, and B, temporary full custody of the kids, and C, an order of protection. It was Sue's 30th birthday. Not exactly a dream gift, but pretty damn good under the circumstances.

They'd serve the restraining order the next day, Sue's lawyer told her. She was nervous, but determined. And she had her parents behind her all the way, despite Chris's threats to kill them, too. When Chris didn't see Sue's car in the parking lot at her office, he was furious, and for a while, he drove around town trying to find her and figure out what she was up to. He knew it was probably something he wasn't going to like. Finally, he swung back around to her work and found her alone in her office with the door locked, where have you been he demanded banging on her office door open this door i'll break it down sue bad-ass that she is threw open the door and just swept past him and out into the parking lot telling him it was none of his damn business where she'd been chris followed her throwing a spit-flecked little toddler tantrum saying stuff like well i've been following you all day and i already know where you've been and if sue's sister hadn't happened to drive up at that moment see what was going on and immediately run over to back sue up who knows what would have happened as it was chris really really really

realized it was broad daylight in a public place, and it was two against one, and he thought better of trying anything. He just got back in his car and peeled out of the parking lot, fuming. Christopher is, above all things, a coward. Yeah. He drove to his office. Well, still his office for the moment. His landlords were threatening to kick him out if they didn't get payment like yesterday. And these landlords weren't the tight to make threats lightly. They were those big red-faced dudes who looked like they'd just as soon rip you in half as look at you. And they were done waiting on their money. Chris sat behind his desk scribbling on a notepad. Maybe he could try a plan B instead of what

he had in mind this morning at the sporting goods store. There's a very large explosive device in the building, he wrote. Do exactly as I tell you, or a lot of people will die. Just tens and 20s from the front register, he wrote. And we're monitoring police calls. If our scanners pick up a police dispatch, we will immediately blow off the building. Really? Really, Chris? You're going to try to rob a bank now with your track record at, you know, everything? Yeah, our perennial fail whale was, in fact, thinking about it. But in a rare show of common sense, he realized it probably wouldn't work out, and that particular plan stayed in the notebook where it belonged. It's a shame. If he'd tried that plan instead of the one he actually ended up carrying out,

three people might still be alive. He made one last ditch effort to try and get Ernie Brandel to drop his complaint with the CFTC, calling him up and trying all his best sweet talk and tactics. But Ernie told him no way. He wasn't dropping anything. Chris had brought this on himself. Amazingly, Susan's parents were still willing to let him in the house after he threatened to have them all killed. So Chris went home to dinner that night with the family. I guess they were just holding tight until the restraining order would take effect the next day. And after what must have been an excruciatingly awkward dinner, Chris excused himself. God, no kidding, right?

Can you freaking imagine sitting at that dinner table? You can only hear the sounds of like silverware tapping the plate and everyone chewing. It's like your nightmare. So Chris got up and he told Susan and the in-laws not to expect to see him again that night. He had some business he had to attend to, and he might be home really late or not at all. Then he stepped out into the drizzly night. In his car, he loaded up a pitchfork, a shovel, and a piece of blue fabric he'd swiped from his mother-in-law and cut eye holes into it so he could make sure nobody recognized him if they

happened to see what he was up to. He drove out to a place he'd scouted out a few nights before. He marked the spot with garden steak so he wouldn't forget exactly where it was. It was still raining a little, but Hightower didn't have any time to waste. At least it made it less likely that anybody would happen upon the spot and ask uncomfortable questions. He slipped on his homemade hood, picked up his shovel, and started digging. A hole the size he needed was going to take some time. All three of the Rendell's were happy that night.

Ernie was excited because he was going to get to go to the Browell. Yale football game with his buddy Jim on Saturday. Alice was glad that tomorrow was Friday, and Emily had a field trip in the morning. I'm sure some of you all remember that field trip feeling, right? Oh, man, yeah, there's nothing quite like it. No class, you get to ride on the bus and sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall with your friends.

You get to eat at McDonald's or Pizza Hut or somewhere cool like that instead of the shitty cafeteria. I mean, what could possibly be better than that? We used to do this little chant that said, we are not skipping school, we are on a field trip. It was fun. And everybody would like clap and stuff. It was going to be a cool trip, too.

They were going up to Newport to see some real-life Viking ships out in the harbor. And then the ships were going to dock and the kids were going to get to go on board and take a tour and learn all about the Vikings. Like, just freaking awesome. As they all headed off to bed, they would never in a million years have suspected that an enemy was right outside the house, standing in the rain, holding a crossbow, and waiting for the lights to go out. When everything was quiet in the Brendel's house, Chris made his way around to the back door. He'd brought a little pry bar with him, and he could hear the little crack as the wood of the door jam gave underneath it. The alarm chirped. Damn it that thing again. He was hoping it would be off tonight. He figured Ernie would come down to check it, so he scuttled back across the yard to hide

until he was gone. A few moments went by. Then he saw a light go on inside the house, then off again. He knew he couldn't break into the house now until morning, when the family left for work and school, so he switched to Plan B, the Brindel's big detached garage. He used the metal pry bar to break a window and climbed inside. The garage was an old repurposed barn,

and it still had horse stalls. He'd spend the night in one of those. It wasn't very comfortable or very clean, but this wasn't clean work, now was it? Chris wasn't the only one experiencing it, change in plans. When early morning rolled around, Ernie and Alice had to shift gears from their normal Friday morning, too. Alice needed a ride to work because she didn't have bus fare. You had to have exact change, and she just didn't have it. So after he took Emily to school for her field trip,

Ernie had to come back and drive his wife to work at the Brown University Library. The reason I tell you this is that Christopher Hightower, who'd spent a mostly sleepless night in a dirty horse stall in the garage, was pissed off to no end when he saw Ernie's car drive off again. He had been watching these people off and on for days, damn it, and he knew what was supposed to happen. Ernie would take Emily to school, Alice would leave for the bus stop, and Ernie would come back home, alone. What was going on now? Chris was tired, he was dirty, he was disheveled, and he was watching his perfect plan go all tits up, and he was not happy. So, if there had been any chance whatsoever that he might have changed his mind and left before Ernie got home, or just stayed long enough to talk to

his former buddy once he came home and then left him alive and well, this killed it. Christopher Hightower was furious, and he was not in the mood to negotiate. Now, content warning on this next few minutes, y'all, because this is a description of the first murder. If you're not up for the details, maybe fast forward. So it was to this that Ernie Brandella got home on the morning of Friday, September 20th. From his hiding place in the garage, Hightower heard his car coming. He picked up the Devastator and cocked it, fired a practice bolt at a bag of of mulch across the room. His aim was just fine. He loaded another bolt and slid into the shadows,

just as the garage door slowly opened up, and Ernie drove his Toyota inside. Ernie got out of his car as the garage door closed behind him, but before he could take a single step toward the door, Hightower stepped into view, crossbow in hand. Ernie was confused, I'm sure, and probably already freaked out. We can't know exactly what was said, but my guess is Hightower probably said something he thought was really movie-like and clever about how Ernie'd messed with the wrong guy or something equally cliché. Supposedly, he tried one last time, while aiming the crossbow at his former friend to get Ernie to call the CFTC and take back his complaint. But Ernie wasn't the type of guy to take back anything, and he wasn't the type to be easily intimidated. It's possible he

told Chris where he could shove it. What we know from the evidence is that Ernie tried to get back in the car and it was at that point that Hightower fired the first bolt. At the last second, Ernie turned to run. A crossbow bolt hit him in the left side, just above his buttocks, and buried itself in his lower back,

bringing Ernie to his knees. Ernie's instinct was to try and rip the bolt out, and he tried, but it was buried too deep. And as he was trying, Chris started reloading the bow. Which takes a lot of power, as we told you before, so as he struggled to get the thing loaded again, Ernie realized he was still in big trouble

and started trying to hide behind the car for cover. The second bolt sliced his ears as it flew past, then buried itself in the garage door. Showing a level of strength most people wouldn't be able to achieve in a million years, Ernie snapped off the crossbow bolt that was buried in his back, leaving only the metal part embedded in him. Good God, can you even imagine the pain.

Oh, I can't. I don't even want to try. This man was fighting hard to survive. Chris was trying to reload the damn crossbow again, so Ernie took his chance. There was a second car in the garage, and he made a break for it, crawling as fast as he could, and he almost made it, got all the way to the car door. But then Chris looked up and saw him and fired. The bolt hit Ernie square in the chest, puncturing both his lungs. Struggling for breath, bleeding horribly, Ernie staggered back to his Toyota and just managed to throw himself inside the passenger door before he ran out of strength.

He was dying, but Chris wasn't done with him yet. He dropped his crossbow on the floor and pulled the metal pry bar out of his pocket. He attacked Ernie again and kept hitting him long after his heart stopped pumping. All the rage he was feeling against everybody and everything came down on Ernie Brandel's head. His friend was dead, but Hightower still wasn't finished. He rolled Ernie's body out of the car and onto the dirty floor. And one last time, he loaded the crossbow firing one final bolt into his victim's chest. At the Brown University Library, Alice's co-workers had been talking all morning about how sweet it was of Ernie to drive her to work.

At Emily's school, the field trip was getting underway. Emily posed for a cute picture with some of her friends. They had no way of knowing what they'd be coming home to that night. Meanwhile, Chris was covered in dirt, dust, and blood. He needed to clean up, so he took Ernie's bike and peddled his way back home to take a shower. His father-in-law, who had always treated him like a son and whose heart was breaking at his recent unhinged behavior, let him come in. Even set out a glass of O.J. and a granola bar for him while he was in the shower. He was confused at why Chris looked so rough and even more surprised when he heard him toss his clothes into the washing machine.

This was not a man who usually did his own laundry. But Susan's father also knew he needed to get Chris out of the house. Today was the day the restraining order was set to take a fact. So while Chris was showering, he made a little phone call. Chris made one too, to the CFTC. Hi, I'm Ernest Brendel, he told the guy who answered, I've decided to drop that complaint I filed about Christopher Hightower. It's all been resolved.

Everything's fine now. Yeah, that's not how this works, Mr. Brendel, the guy said. You'll have to put that in writing and deliver it. to us. Otherwise, we can't cancel the complaint. This obviously wasn't what our boy wanted to hear, and he was fuming as he changed into fresh clothes and came downstairs. But his day was about to get worse. As Chris sat at the kitchen counter and ate his granola bar, there was a knock at the door. Four cops, there to serve the restraining order. Chris must have had a moment there where the bottom completely dropped out of his world thinking they knew about the murder he'd just committed, but

he wasn't much happier about what they were there for. He had not seen this coming. The cops made him pack a few clothes in a brown paper bag, then hand over the keys to the house and fuck off. So, here he was, broker than broke, with no place to stay, having just murdered somebody like an hour ago. He didn't even have his big boat of a car, a station wagon the perfect size for body disposal. He'd driven that back to his in-law's house last night,

so it wouldn't be seen anywhere near the brindells. So now he had no way to transport Ernie's body to the grave he'd dug for it the night before. See, the plan was to make Ernie disappear. That way, the CFTC would have to let the complaint go eventually, right? With no complainant to question? But if he couldn't dispose of the body, Chris was going to need more time.

He had to figure out a new plan. And as he was standing there on the sidewalk with his paper bag of clothes, wrestling with how to salvage the wreckage of his perfect murder, he realized something. Emily Brandel would be getting out of school in like an hour. And Ernie wouldn't be there to pick her. her up. Questions would be asked. People might go over to the Brindell's house and find the body. Shit, shit, shit. There are moments in a lot of the cases we cover where the perpetrator has a

chance to stop and reconsider what they're doing. Realize it's not worth this. It's time to cut my losses. But for a man like Christopher Hightower, those are almost always going to be missed opportunities. He could have walked away, right here, figured out another way to fix what was wrong in his life, but instead, he headed back to the Brindell's house, where he picked up their phone and called eight-year-old Emily's school. Hello, this is Ernie Brindell, he said to the secretary who answered, Could you do me a favor and tell Emily she can walk home from school today?

But the woman on the phone said, no, that wouldn't be possible. Someone would need to come get her. They couldn't just let her walk. Hightower was frustrated for a minute until he remembered something. Before they'd fallen out over the investment money, the Brindels had actually put Chris on their list of approved adults to pick Emily up from school. Oh, okay, no problem, he told the secretary.

As he waited for school to let out, he rifled through Ernie's desk drawers until he found a blank checkbook. He wrote out a few checks to pay off his back rent and a couple more bills, signing Ernie's name at the bottom. And then it was time to go. He tossed some baking soda over the huge bloodstain in the backseat of the red Toyota and headed over to the school. Little Emily was smiling ear-to-ear when he got there. She'd had a fantastic day looking at Viking ships. And she was eight. She didn't know anything about any investment fraud or feud between her dad and Mr. Hightower.

She was happy to see him. She grabbed hold of his hand and let him walk her to the car. Where's my dad? Emily wanted to know. Oh, he had an appointment, Chris told her. He'll be home soon. When I got back to the Brondell's house, Chris sent Emily up to her room to play with her pet turtle, and he sat down at the kitchen table to think, what the hell to do now? Alice Brindell must have been surprised when Ernie and Emily weren't there to pick her up at the bus stop like they usually did. As she walked up on the house, she saw Ernie's car in the driveway, so she expected to be puttering around in the kitchen when she got in.

But the house was strangely quiet. Glad to be home, Alice put her keys down on the table near the front door and slipped off her shoes. And when she turned around, there he was, High Tower, standing in the door to the dining room. He was pointing a gun at her, and Emily was. standing right beside him. We don't know exactly how all this happened, of course, but evidence shows that at some point Hightower forced Alice and Emily down into the basement. There was a big vertical wooden beam down there, and he tied them both to it with ropes and stuffed gags in their mouth.

I'm sure Alice was feeling desperate to protect her daughter, whatever it took. I can't imagine what Emily was feeling. And of course, they must have been wondering where Ernie was, why he wasn't tied up down there with him. Once he had them tied up and gagged, his satisfaction. Hightower left Alice and Emily in the basement and ran back upstairs to rummage around some more. He was hoping to find some cash, but no-go. But while he was looking, he got the shit scared out of him by a mattress delivery guy. He sent the poor, confused dude away.

Then Ernie's checkbook in hand, he ran a little errand to the Brandel's bank. He cashed a couple checks to himself. Then he went to Sears and treated himself to a snazzy new outfit, went over and dropped off the rent check for his office with the landlord, and then he went back to the house, left Alice and Emily tied up and gagged in the basement while he curled up on the couch and had a nice, long sleep. Woke up the next morning and helped himself to some breakfast from their pantry. While he was whipping up his own breakfast, he whipped up a little something for Alice and

Emily, too. Fruit Punch, drugged with sleeping pills. Then he dragged Alice upstairs, forced her to write a polite letter to the C.F. FTC withdrawing Ernie's complaint. Alice, smart lady that she was, tried a little SOS in the only way she could think to do it. She saved the letter on the computer under the file name C.H. Chris High Tower. Chris apparently didn't notice or care. He interrogated her about who might come around to look for them in the next couple of days, and he got it out of her that Ernie was supposed to go to a football game with a friend of his later that afternoon. So he made her call the friend

to tell him her husband was sick with the flu and couldn't make it. Later, that friend would cry on the witness stand as he described how normal she sounded on the phone. She was holding it together for Emily, he knew, because Hightower told her he'd kill the little girl if Alice put one foot wrong. He killed them both anyway, of course, once Alice had worn out her usefulness, made them drink the sedative laced fruit juice, then strangled them, one by one. Alice was first, and I hope with every atom in the universe that they were both too drugged to know what was happening. Then he dragged all three bodies to the red Toyota, stuffed Ernie into the trunk and Alice and Emily together on the back seat. Must have been a scary drive out to the grave he'd dug for Ernie a couple nights before because he didn't have his own big-ass car.

He had two dead bodies in plain view on the back seat. If he'd gotten pulled over, there wouldn't have been enough charm in the world to talk himself out of that trouble, but... He made it. He dumped Ernie into the hole and covered him up. And now, of course, he had to dig another hole for Alice and Emily. He didn't do a very good job, though, whether out of sheer exhaustion or laziness. It was a shallow grave, the kind that doesn't keep its secrets very well. There's actually some question as to whether Emily was entirely dead when Hightower dumped her body into it and then Alice is on top.

He covered the grave in lime to try and speed up the decomposition and mash the smell, unknowingly dropped a torn corner of the bag into one of the graves as he did, a little teeny scrap of paper that would turn into an explosive piece of evidence later on when the police matched it to a torn bag in the Toyota and the receipt from when Chris bought it earlier that day. And as he was leaving, for reasons known only to him, he covered Alice and Emily's grave with two branches in the shape of a cross. And then, I guess because he didn't understand the concept of irony,

he went to his kid's soccer game. He was one of the coaches, after all. He didn't even get to see the first kick. Susan called the cops the second she saw him, and they came and kicked him off the field, warned him that if he violated the restraining order again, he'd get his ass thrown in jail. Again, can we say irony?

Well, at least this meant he had his Saturday afternoon free. He went on another little shopping spree with the Brindel's money and then got to work cleaning up the garage. There was a lot of blood out there. Oh, and while he was cleaning the blood out of the garage, a couple of Emily's little friends came by to see if she could come out and play, and he was just as calm as a fridge full of cucumbers, like, oh, sorry, kids, Emily's not home right now. Gang prick. Mm-hmm. Okay, so I think it's fair to say that Chris's murder plot didn't go exactly as planned.

And I don't know if this next bit of utter lunacy was part of the plan from the beginning, but I have to assume it wasn't. I mean, we know this man is dumb, okay, I get that, but dumb enough to drag his victim's sister into it, show his big dumb face at her house, driving a bloody car that belongs to the victim, use his real name, try to blame it on the mob, and then try to squeeze 75 grand out of her? Like, that dumb? Surely not. And yet, bless his heart, that's what Chris did next, as we know from the start of part one. Somehow in his fevered little brain, he thought this would, A, help him. him establish an alibi, and B, get him some real cash to get the hell out of dodge and start new life. So enter Ernie's badass sister, Christine Scriotin, who's probably the main hero of the story, if you ask me. She pretty much didn't believe a word Chris was saying for minute one,

and she and her hubs called the FBI the second he was out of their sight. Now, there's another little story you should know before we go any further. This actually happened in January of 91, so about nine months before the Brendel's disappeared. One evening, Hightower showed up at church and waylaid Susan's sister Kathy on the way out of Bell Choir practice. Now remember, bullshitting is the one thing Chris is good at, and at that point he and Sue's sister were actually on good terms. So he took Kathy aside with sort of conspiratorial, mysterious look on his face and said, there's something I have to tell you. He was in trouble, he told her, with some bad people.

See, he'd made some investments that didn't work out. about $7,000 worth, and he made them with mob money. Mob money, his sister-in-law said, her jaw on the floor. She could not believe what she was hearing, but Chris seemed deadly serious. Yeah, they say they want $8,500 by tomorrow afternoon, or they're going to hurt Sue and the kids. Can you do it? Can you help? Kathy wasn't a rich woman. $8,500 was going to decimate her savings, but she couldn't let anything happen to sue her

kids. So she agreed. She could have it for him tomorrow. Chris handed her an envelope. It was a letter, he said, describing everything he just told her. I signed it, he said. Only bring it out if something happens. And look, I'm putting my fingerprints all over it. Now, promise me, Chris said, you won't tell Sue or anybody else anything about this. It could put us all in danger. Kathy promised. And the next day, Chris was right on time to pick up the money from her. He'd pay her back as soon as he could, he assured her. Yeah.

Right. Now, why is this story important, campers? Well, because it tells us that months and months before Hightower threatened Sue with a murder for hire, he was already planting the seeds of an outlandish alibi. You know, just in case Sue and the kids happened to turn up missing, or dead. And also, I'm sure you've already noticed how similar this story is to the one he told Christine Scriobin at the start of part one. Your brother and his family have been kidnapped by the mob, and we need X amount of dollars to get them back. Yeah. See, he'd run that little scam on his sister-in-law already, and it had worked, so why not try it again now on Ernie's sister and brother-in-law?

It was, of course, his downfall. As author Don Davis puts it, As usual, Chris Hightower had overestimated his ability. He had thought Ernie Brandel was about as stubborn as a person could be, but Hightower had not yet met Ernie's sister Christine. I love that line so much. I know. I love Christine. She's awesome. She's a badass. In part one, we gave you kind of an abbreviated version of his visit to Christine and her husband, Alex.

Now, let us give you a few more details. We already mentioned Christine taking pictures of Chris as he sat in their living. room and taking samples of the blood in the Toyota with Q-tips. She did a little more than that. This freaking warrior princess interrogated Chris Hightower like a veteran homicide detective. She asked a zillion questions. She told him she wanted to call her prosecutor friend who'd worked on organized crime cases. She made him dictate the whole mafia kidnapping story to her while she typed it up on her typewriter. All this added up to one thing for Christopher. He said, sensed, she did not trust him as far as she could toss him. And that made him nervous. So nervous,

in fact, that later that night, he called Christine and Alex and told them, never mind. He was going to be able to raise the full 300K himself after all. They didn't need to give him any money. Backpedal, back, pedal, back pedal, back pedal. Yeah, quickly, Chris, quickly. But it was too late. The Scrabbins had already called the FBI. Before long, the feds had hooked up with the Barrington PD back in Rhode Island and found some creepy little signs of trouble at the Brandel's empty house. The garage floor was damp and reeked of cleaning products. There were suspicious dark red stains. In the basement of the house, a vertical wooden beam was all dirty and dusty at the top, but weirdly clean at the bottom, as though something had been rubbing up against it. All the phone cords were missing. And the

house felt wrong. Every officer there could feel it that something horrible had happened there. One detective went upstairs to look around little Emily's room and found himself thinking, this room will never get any older. God, just gives me the chills. On the fridge, they spotted one of Emily's poems. I am Lady Emily, builder of castles. The investigators didn't know where the Brenda's were, but they had a bad feeling, and they knew one thing. They needed to talk to Christopher High Tower. So by the next morning, there was an all-points bulletin out for him, and it didn't take them long to find him, still tooling around town in Ernie's blood-stained red Toyota. They hauled him in. Back at the station, Chris was full of concern about his missing friends. He repeated basically the

same story he'd told the Scriobins, that he and Eddie had made some bad investments with mobster's money, and the mob had taken the family hostage until the money was paid back. But he changed a few things. The ransom they were asking for was a hundred grand smaller than he told the Scriobins. Plus, he admitted to the police that the gangsters hadn't taken his own wife and kids. Why'd you tell the Scriobins they did? Investigators wanted to know. Well, Chris said, I just didn't want him to feel like they were in this all alone. My dude, just... Wow. He added a few more details, too. The specific mob boss behind the whole thing, Raymond's Patriarcha Jr.

The investigators, some of whom were experienced FBI agents with organized crime experience, knew bullshit when they heard it. And the story got even shittier when they asked Chris about some tire tracks they'd found near the Brindel's house, and he blurted out, oh, that's not where they're buried. Bro, what? Wait to hold it together, man. Well played. Oh, my God.

The only thing missing is like an exaggeration. like gulp and a side eye like look inside to side before he said oh um uh i said that's not where they were married you know like a bad fucking sitcom script this guy Jesus well they talked to Christopher's CSIs went to work on the red Toyota found the torn bag of lime the bloodstains the muddy shovel the receipts and the Devastator crossboat which would later match perfectly with the weird little hole they'd found in the wall of the Brindel's garage. They also found three of Ernie's teeth. They didn't have enough to file murder charges yet, of course,

but they'd found several of the Brindel's credit cards in his wallet. Plus, they had enough for attempted extortion for what he'd tried to pull on the Scriabins. So they charged him with that and held him for questioning in the Brindel case, too. Interestingly, right around the time they put the habeas grabbous on Chris, the letter he'd made Alice Brindell write to the CFT, arrived there with Hightower's fingerprints all over it. Because as we've said, this man cannot do

anything right. Like, anything. Nope. Anyway. This made Hightower's motive for murder pretty crystal clear. Now all that remained was to find the Rendell's. So Chris sat in jail and the search began for the missing family. The whole town came out to help.

And of course, for Susan and her family, a slow horror was dawning. They must have been realizing how close they'd come to going missing right along with Ernie, Alice, and Emily. Everyone else was beyond stunned to hear that the popular soccer coach slash Sunday school teacher had been arrested in connection with the disappearance. The town of Barrington pulled out all the stops trying to find their missing friends, scent dogs, huge ground searches, even a psychic medium brought in by the FBI. I'm going to go on a limb and guess she told him the victims were near a body of water. Oh, please. Don't even get me started. I can't.

Despite all that effort, it took six weeks before the bodies were found by a lady out walking her dog. Ernie's and Alice's knees were sticking up out of the dirt. The ligature High Tower had used to strangle Alice was still tied around her neck. It was a sad day for all the investigators. When they unearthed Emily's little tennis shoe, then realized there was a little foot still in it. There wasn't a dry eye. And they weren't just sad. They were angry. It was time to charge Christopher Hightower with three counts of murder and one of kidnapping. So our boy was sitting in prison waiting for trial. The investigation was still rolling along. And one afternoon, a letter arrived at the police department. It had been passed along to them by an inmate at the prison, a confidential informant. And it was a doozy.

I wish we had the whole thing to read to you, but unfortunately we don't. We just have a couple excerpts. True crime authors, we are begging you. Just for us, just for me and Whitney, please give us access to these documents. Like, we will, we will treat them with reverence and respect by dunking on these dumbass motherfuckers writing them. Okay? We got a poem and a letter we need need comp himself, please. It kills me. It kills me dead. I can't. But I digress. The gist was this, that the police had the wrong man in jail for the Brandel murders. Poor, innocent Chris Hightower was nothing more than a pawn in the hands of powerful gangsters. He'd only done what he had to do to stay alive and protect his wife and kids. Ernie Brandelsey had stolen a cool two-mill

from the Patriarch of Crime family, so the boss sent four of his goons to the Brandel's house to make him give up the money. But he wouldn't give it up, the letter said. He was stubborn. So they executed him. They beat him with a black crowbar,

the letter said. Shot him with a crossbow, then strangled Alice right in front of him. Only when he was told his daughter was next did he give up the money location, the letter writer said. Unfortunately, it was too late. Once one was killed, they all had to die.

So they strangled Emily, then shot Ernie dead. Where did Hightower come in? Well, basically, our boy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just happened to be spending the evening over at his buddy's house and got pulled into the whole nightmare. And the gangsters figured as long as he was there, they'd use him. Once the entire family was killed, the letter said, Someone had to take the fall.

Hightower slept there. His prince must have been everywhere. Hightower did everything he was told to. They threatened that if he didn't, they'd kill Susan and the kids. And boy, was this thing chock full of details that only the killer would know. Whoever was writing this had the inside scoop. The gangsters had made Hightower do all the stuff he did in the days following the murder, the writer said. They made him show up at the Scrabin's house to try and get rand.

some money. They made him cashed those checks at the Brandel's bank. They made him buy all that stuff to clean up the garage and the lime to put on the bodies. Before signing off, the letter writer even got in a cruel little dig at Ernie. Because of Brendel's greed and stupidity, his family was killed. So why would the letter writer give up all this information? Well, duh, because he had a conscience. That's Why? God forgave me, but I cannot forgive myself for being involved in the murder of an innocent child, he wrote. High Tower did not kill the Brendel's. There's a lot more to the story.

If I'm not killed, I plan on telling it all. Which, why wait, dude? No, he has to wait and see if you're going to be killed. If I'm alive in the morning, I'll place a call to my local precinct. He's on tenor hooks about that right now. They never should have killed Emily. It's been eating away at me ever since it happened, and I can no longer take it. I'm not one of them.

The letter was signed. The links. Yeah. So how many anonymous letters is it now for us, campers, at least five or six, right, at least? And I love when they pop up, because anytime you see an anonymous letter in a murder case, especially if it's signed something like The Links. I mean, you know somebody's trying to get all Artie and it's going to come back and bite them in the ass like crazy.

I swear to God, it's Nickname Month on True Crime Campfire. Yeah, it is Nicknamed Month. I swear to God. So I'm sure you can imagine the investigators' faces when they read this thing and their utter shock when they found out from their prison informant who really wrote it. One Christopher smug-prick High Tower, right? I know, gasp. But they were all for letting the links stay in touch.

He was giving them all kinds of useful info. And this letter was only the first of several. A later missive claimed that if she didn't get back together with Chris and help him with his defense, the mob was going to have Sue and her whole family killed. You know, because mafia dons are always deeply invested in the love lives of the people they use as pawns and their murder plots. Peace sakes.

They're just gossipy, you know, and they're super involved in their victim's love lives. The prison informant had some additional intel to share too and a handwritten letter to prove it. This one wasn't addressed to the police. This one was addressed to a hitman. He wanted some people killed, the lynx said. Hightower's father-in-law and sister-in-law, Sue's dad and sister. This would scare the living shit out of Susan, enough that she'd come running back to Chris,

flush with cash from her dad's inheritance. cash they could then use for Chris's defense. Now the plan that Chris outlined to his prison buddy was that they could send copies of this letter to one of the prison buddy's contacts on the outside, and that guy would forward them on to the intended targets. Those people would be freaked out and send the letters to the police. The police would read that and think,

oh shit, Hightower must be innocent. Because these letters were all sent from the outside. So let's just let him go right away. I mean, I don't know, just. Bless his heart, you know, apparently he's lost whatever remained of his fragile mind at this point. Chris thought these lynx letters were going to be the key to his freedom, but like we've said before, campers, your prison buddy ain't you buddy. Okay, you hand them a piece of juicy candy like this,

they're going to dime you out to the cops before God gets the news. And this dude wasn't the only one to dime Chris out. Another guy came forward to saying Chris had asked him if he knew anybody who'd kill somebody for him for 20 grand. Who, he didn't specify, but I'm suspecting it was probably, Kathy and, you know, sue his death. So anyway, far from helping his case, the Lynx letters just handed the prosecution a whole stack of new evidence. Now, we don't have time to get into the trial and in a great detail. I wish we did because it was 16 kinds of nuts, okay? But I know y'all don't want to wait another week for part three, so read Don Davis's book if you want all

the details. It will be worth it. For now, we'll just give you a few highlights. First of all, All, Hightower managed to finagle himself one of the best defense attorneys in the area using his superb bullshitting skills and ended up stiffened the poor bugger on the bill. Y'all, this poor bastard, his name was Bob George, he was a very talented defense attorney. This man came to, I'm sure, hate the very sight of Christopher Hightower. Because, of course, our boy had his fucking narcissist bullshit dialed up to 11. His demeanor was all wrong. He sat at the defense table like he thought he was one of the attorneys.

He's just laughing it up, creeping out the pretty paralegal by trying to flirt with her. And how did he flirt? Of course, by writing her terrible poems. Poor lady finally begged Bob George to call him the hell off. And Chris insisted, of course, on taking the stand in his own defense, during which time he spun a story straight out of the usual suspects. Like, he was Kaiser Soze sitting there just making it up as he went along. and his poor attorney just white knuckling it on the podium, just praying it would be over soon.

It was a flippin zoo. So we're just going to try to sum up his story as briefly as we can here, but there's a ton more detail in that book. So much more detail. Yeah, this is just the cliff notes, okay? It's crazy enough, but there's more. Basically, Chris said he'd been at the Brenda's house that fateful Thursday night because Ernie had asked him to shoot a pesky raccoon that had been coming around his yard.

so he lay in wait He's a fucking raccoon hitman He's a raccoon. He is Jeff the hitman For raccoons Also like raccoons I know raccoons are Pests but like you just get a bearproof fucking trash can and you're fine

Well no but I mean like they get into shit Because they got opposable thumbs So like they can be pet little pests Because they can get into shit But I'm not saying kill him Just get better shit It's mispronounced precious angels Oh my God you're insufferable

I think you would try to tame a grizzly bear. I truly believe that. No, I would. Please, absolutely. There's no question about it. I'm sorry to the raccoon community. We're calling you pests. We will tell Laslo, Nadia, and Guillermo that you said that.

That's the family of raccoons that visit us. I forgot you have raccoons that live in your yard. Ah, yeah. Jesus. Watch your tongue. Oh, my God. So, anyway. He was laying in wait with his massive bear killer crossbow until the raccoon showed up and then he shot a dead.

This is bullshit, by the way. There was never any dead raccoon. The man, he's obsessed with raccoons. After he murdered the raccoon, he said he went inside to visit with the brindels. Alice made dinner. They invited him to spend the night because he was fighting with Sue. And the next morning, the mob goons showed up. Four of them.

He described them as two Latin guys and two. Quote, weirdly tall Chinese men, which, okay, which cracks me up because he went on and on and fucking on about how, quote, Chinese guys are usually short, but these guys were tall. What? Oh, my God. At first, all was friendly, but then the atmosphere turned. These men were searching the house for something. Bernie was on edge.

Around 2.30 that afternoon, the guys asked Chris if he'd go to Emily's school and pick her up. He said, sure, and did so, and not, like, go to the police or call 911 or, you know, do anything but pick Emily up from school. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. On it went. At one point, he said the mob guys forced him to go buy some cleaning materials. Allegedly, because the mob had been in cahoots with Ernie to smuggle heroin and wine bottles. and they'd spilled a bunch of the stuff all over the garage floor. What the hell?

It's so bizarre, I know. Chris seems to subscribe to the weirder, the more believable school of lying. Yep. Anyway, eventually, it went all wrong. Ernie wouldn't tell these guys what they wanted to know about some money he stole, and they killed the whole family and made Chris bury their bodies. Chris didn't call the cost because they threatened his own family. oh and I love this part as a thank you for a job well done the mob guy sent a letter to the CFTC withdrawing Ernie's complaint against Chris nice detail man and it might be believable if you weren't such a fucking fail whale dude you suck at everything no one would reward you for a job well done you dumb motherfucker he's never had it he's never done a job well

Oh. Bob George's defense, of course, was to try and convince the jury that Chris was mentally ill. Delusional, as he put it. It was underwhelming. Especially when put up against the mountain of evidence the prosecutors had. Receipts, weapons, the shovel, the bag of lime, the links letters, the forged letter to the CFTC, and on and on. The jury took about a day to render a verdict. To the surprise of no one, including his defense attorney,

suspect, he was found guilty as hot buttered shit. In her victim impact statement, Christine Scrabin spoke of not having to wonder what evil looks like anymore. She looked at square in the face. Christopher Hightower, she said, deserves no mercy. A fucking men to that. Christopher, of course, didn't budge an inch at his sentencing. When it was his turn to speak, he just reiterated his innocence and spat some more bullshit about tall Chinese gangsters or whatever the fuck it was, the judge was unimpressed. Christopher Hightower was sentenced to a life in prison without the possibility of parole. Susan was able to move on with her life, remarry, and raise her kids without having to worry

about this asshole for one more second. Christine Scriabin and Ernie's other siblings, Alice's family, Emily's friends and teachers, everybody was finally able to exhale and begin the important process of forgetting Chris Hightower ever existed. Oh, and apparently our boy hasn't had a great time of it in prison. Thucked around and found out, got into a little scuffle with another guy a few years into his sentence and got the crap kicked out of him, so they had to move him to a different facility. So, aw, poor pudding. Well, Chris was always determined

to make something spectacular out of his life. Leave a big neon red mark in the history books, whatever. He wanted to be admired, envied, thought of as one of a kind. Instead, he chose to take three innocent lives. So he'll be spending the rest of his days in prison PJs, which is exactly where he belongs. Bye-bye. So that was a wild one, right, campers?

You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. Until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And thanks to Katie for playing hurt. Because she had to be screaming at a tournament, volleyball tournament all weekend. And she has got almost no voice left. Yeah, I'm sorry. still managed to show up for us.

I have what I call, it's like the Phoebe Buffet, like sexy voice. That's what I've been calling it. Yeah. Because it's very like sultry, but I can't go high. It is. And when I laugh, I go higher. So that's when my voice starts breaking. But yeah, it's definitely, I'm hurting.

I was on vocal rest today. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Carrie. Shell, Sarah, Wendy with an eye, Zade, Aaron with a Y, Mary Kaye. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes even two, plus an extra episode a month. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin while supplies last at 10, virtual events

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