True Crime Campfire - When Nerds Attack: The Murder of Lieth von Stein Pt 2

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

In part 1, we introduced you to a trio of Dungeons and Dragons loving nerds: Chris, Bart, and Neal. All kids who had great potential: Smart, talented, well loved by their families, friends, and teachers. But these three guys each had a dark side, and that darkness was soon to culminate in the worst murder and attempted murder a small North Carolina community has ever seen. Join us now for part 2 of this chilling true story.Sources:Blood Games by Jerry BledsoeCruel Doubt by Joe McGinnessFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes 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] 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. In part one, we introduced you to a trio of Dungeons and Dragons loving nerds, Chris, Bart, and Neal. All kids who had great potential. smart, talented, well-loved by their families, friends, and teachers. But these three guys each had a dark side. And that darkness was soon to culminate in the worst murder and attempted murder a small North Carolina community had ever seen. Join us now for Part 2 of One Nerds Attack, the murder of Leith von Steim. Bard and Neal's gifted and talented teacher Slayton was really disturbed by Neil's charming little ideas about women and sex.

Neil would say stuff like, women are so easy to use. Oh, geez. Oh, gross. And when Slayton would tell him, well, you're not supposed to use people, Neil, Neil would say, but it's just so easy. You just have to say the right things. Can I get a yikes? Yikes. Yikes.

Neil seemed to view a lot of things in life as what he would call intellectual exercises, which I got to say is one of my pet peeves in life. I hate that kind of stoic kind of outlook. Like, ooh, emotions, yuck. Emotions are for girls, gross. Like, it's a very, I think, often misogynist viewpoint, like the idea that you have to just be this pure and spotless intellect, you know? Like, shut the fuck off. Exactly. Grow up, Manchild.

So Bart described Neil as always scheming. He controlled everybody and they didn't know they were being controlled. And by the way, the direct quotes from different people in this case are from our main source for this story, which is the Jerry Bledsoe book Blood Games, which is fantastic. There have actually been two books written about this case. The one that I read was Blood Games and it was Fab. And everything by Jerry Bledsoe is really, really interesting. Unfortunately, he hasn't written that many books, but they've all. been super fascinating. Anyway, so that's where the quotes are from. So BART's take was that

Neil was a schemer and a manipulator and that he was so skilled at it that people didn't really realize they were being manipulated. And this is how he was in the Dungeons and Dragons games too. So all of you gamer nerds who are listening, you know the type of player that I'm talking about and they're exhausting. They never seem to get the memo about these games being you know, cooperative. Like you're supposed to be on the same team. Neal's, seem to have some interesting contradictions in his personality. It seems clear to me that he did care about his mom, that he cared about Weldon Slayton, his teacher, he wanted to do well, but he just couldn't somehow bring himself to do it. For example, Neil used to say that he could commit a crime,

no problem, as long as he could justify it in his head. Case in point, in college, he took up shoplifting for other people. Like, they'd give him money, and then he'd ask what they wanted, and he'd go steal for them. Wow. Yeah. He was really good at it. But in high school, Neil was the treasurer for the band and handled thousands of dollars for the band and not a single dollar went missing. Did he justify it because it was a big store and not someone he personally knew? This is going to come up later when we're determining who's telling the truth. Neil seemed to be losing his moral compass. He showed a lot of casual cruelty to his girlfriend Kenyatta, for one thing. No violence, but cruelty.

People were worried about him. He managed to keep fairly good grades, even if he wasn't studying. He didn't end up going to Yale or Princeton, as he easily could have if he'd applied himself, like, at all. Instead, he went to North Carolina State. He got a full ride, of course, because a school like NC State is going to love having a big brain like meals on their roster. Which is no disparagement intended to NC State.

It's a state school. It's a good state school. It's just, you know, I mean, he easily could have. If he had tried, like, at all, he probably could have gone to, like, Cambridge or Oxford or, like, literally anywhere in the world. And he just didn't care to study. He probably could have gotten full rides to those places as well. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, he's got a 180 IQ for Pete's sake.

Yeah. And unfortunately for everybody involved in this story, Bart ended up at NC State, too. Mm-hmm. And so did Chris Pritchard. Okay, so as Whitney says, let's put a pin and kneel for a bit and go back to good old Chris Pritchard, son of Bonnie von Steen and stepson of our murder victim, Leith von Steen. Chris's friends described him as smart, a kid who mostly got A's and B's at school. So he was a good student in high school, but he was also a big-time attention seeker. He liked being the big man.

The kinds of words you hear floating around Chris are off the wall, weird, strange, a character, a show-off, and the kind of person that's always trying to prove something. We all know people like this, people who always try to come across like they're bigger than they are. Chris had big dreams. He talked big, but a lot of people wondered how he was going to achieve. any of them because he never seemed to finish anything. He'd lose interest as soon as any real work was required. He was also impulsive and anxious, like kind of a frenetic personality. Chris's two main passions in life were Dungeon and Dragons and Cars, and Bonnie and Leith indulged him on both. Leith and Bonnie were the kind of people that seemed to have trouble. showing emotions.

So they tended to buy their kids' stuff instead of like hugging them or saying, I love you. Oh, God. Red flag match? Mm-hmm. So they got Chris a classic Mustang for a 16th birthday. God's sake, a classic Mustang for a 16-year-old child. I was thrilled to get my parents like shitty used Oldsmobile is all I'm saying. And like it like barely had air conditioning and it like wasn't super reliable to say

the least. I was so happy to get that car. Yeah, I had a, I had an old, um, Impala, like an old, it was like an old company car. It was not, it was not, it was not a good car. Classic Mustang for his 16th birthday. So you just got your license and you have a classic car. Oh, screw you, Chris. Yeah. So people said that as soon as Chris got this car, he became a different person. Loud, braggy, obnoxious, kind of crass. In other words, he's substituting a car for a personality. Yeah, that's a common enough ailment. Exactly.

And Chris dated around a fair amount. But there were some disturbing things. One girl broke it off because he was so handsy and disrespectful. You know, a real prince. Yeah. Basically, Chris was a spoiled brat, starved for attention. Now, Chris and Angela didn't see their birth dad much. and because he was desperate for approval, Chris tended to be easily led.

He could be talked into anything, especially if he thought that you'd be impressed by it. He'd be the kid that would get talked into shoplifting or snorting milk. Or eating tidepods. Or whatever ridiculous YouTube challenge that's going around. Classic kid that needed more hugs and less stuff. And in high school, after a bad breakup and a disappointing visit with his bio, Dad, Chris's personality changed for the worse. Sounds pretty flipping bad already, but okay.

Jeez. How much worse could he get? That's the phrase that somebody said to prompt this. How much worse can he get? If he'd been loud and obnoxious before, now he became callous and uncaring and selfish, and his grades dropped. Despite all that, he was still able to get into NC State's engineering, program, which is where the cheese really started to slide off his cracker. Chris pretty much immediately started fucking up. He was drinking a lot and skipping class.

Now, of course, it's common for college kids to try drinking, but Chris tried drinking a lot. Chris tried drinking first thing in the morning. Chris tried drinking all day, every day. He was trying it a little too often. Yeah, yeah. It became a problem. and fast. Every once in a while, somebody would tell him he was becoming an alcoholic and he'd like freak out and pull himself together for a couple of months, but then he'd fall off the wagon. And then one day, a flyer in the common room of his dorm caught his eye. It said, free beer. And under that it said, now that I've got your attention, if you want to play dungeons and

dragons come to room 803. And in room 803, turned out to be Bart Upchurch and Neil Henderson. Bart and Neil roomed together for a while at NC State. It was short-lived, though, because Bart could not handle Neil's sloppy habits. Dude was gross. He couldn't hold his liquor, like he'd get drunk and throw up everywhere,

and just leave a puddle of vomit on the floor for the poor, to clean up? Oh, hell no. I'd call the police. Hell no. That's biological warfare. Fuck off with that. New way. He also would hit on people's girlfriends. Charming. Isn't he a peach? Wow. So he was pretty much falling apart. Yeah. Freshman freedom kills kids like this with no self-discipline. Totally, yeah. Neil had good intentions, but he couldn't control himself. And I mean, he wasn't super popular. because, you know, the barfing and creeping on other people's girlfriends and whatnot. And for a while, Bart and Neal broke up. Yeah, and, you know, they each had their own problems, so we know what Neal's were already.

Bart was on probation for that breaking and entering in high school where they broke into the vacation homes, and he kept getting in more trouble for, like, petty thefts and check fraud and stuff. He had no respect whatsoever for, like, law and order this kid. For some reason, though, his probation officer could never manage to. to find a judge to revoke his probation, which is just bananas given the number of little petty crimes that he got caught for. I guess it helps to be from a prominent family. And plus, he was like Mr. Charming. Unlike Neil, who just wanted to stay home and play D&D, Bart was a party guy. So

drinking in drugs were pretty much his hobbies. He knows his main interests in life. And he only went to class very sporadically. He was a student pretty much in name only. Now, unlike Bart, Neil actually made an effort to study once he got to college, but pretty soon Dungeons and Dragons and turmoil in his relationship with his girlfriend Kenyatta distracted him. And I mean, it wasn't hard to distract him, obviously. So he bombed his classes. Then he charged himself up over the summer and decided, okay, next semester, I'm going to really buckle down and try. But then he fell for a new girl. And of course, now his attention was on her. But bless her heart, Kenyatta, as always, was waiting in the wings, which, oh, Kenyatta girl, honey, no.

Oh, God. Never do that. Never do that. I know. And New Girl told Neil from the start that she couldn't decide between him and another guy that she was dating. So, like, he knew right off from New Girl, like, eh, I might pick you. I might pick him. Okay. All right. Campers, love yourselves. Right? Never wait for someone to choose you. Hell no. Uh-uh. You deserve to be someone's first choice and if they're being indecisive that's all the answer you need absolutely why would you want to be somebody's like b-string they're like second pick why no never move on to somebody who wants you wholeheartedly so of course neil because he is a man baby didn't want to be a grown up and just be honest with kenyatta and say i like a new girl now so instead he did that chicken shit

thing that people sometimes do when they don't want to be a you know grown-ass adult and he tried to ghost her first. And when that didn't work, because she kept coming around, bless her heart, he arranged for Bart to bring her to his apartment and, like, catch him in bed with this other girl. Oh, my God. How the hell that's better than just telling her the truth? I cannot imagine. Like, did he intentionally want to be cruel?

I don't know. But Kenyatta, poor baby, she ran out of their sobbing and everything. Oh, it's just awful. And ultimately, in a moment of supreme poetic justice, new girl chose the other guy. ha ha ha and neal got big time depressed he said i'd never really tried it anything before because then if i tried and i failed i would know i was a true failure but if i didn't try and i failed i could just say i didn't try i think that's very telling about neal's personality but with this girl i tried 100 and she still chose this other guy and the only possible thing that could mean is that i wasn't good

enough which basically makes me say awp puppy oh boohoo oh god it seems like neil got a taste of his own medicine. Clearly he wasn't as good at manipulating people as he thought. And of course, after that happened, all he wanted to do was lay in bed with his Dungeons and Dragons books, and eventually he missed so many classes that he lost his scholarship, which just sucks. I mean, he had a full ride to university. How many people all over the world would just kill for a full ride to school? So he tried seeing a therapist, but after like one or two sessions, he decided the guy was an idiot. So, of course, in Neil's mind, this meant therapy was bullshit and couldn't possibly work out, just arrogant little prick.

So immature. You think maybe there'd be a good therapist out there that you would actually get on with? Oh, no. One guy in my opinion is an idiot, therefore just grow up child. So now, you know, he can't go to school anymore, so now he's got to get up off his ass and get a job

and support himself and pay his own tuition. So he got a job at like Wendy's or something like that. Bart got back in touch with him around this time because he was starting a new Dungeons and Dragons group. So I guess Slobby Neil was needed again because he needed somebody to play in his Dungeons and Dragons game. And it was Bart's sign

in the dorm common room that Chris saw that day. Free beer, blah, blah. And Bart had signed it with a new nickname. Moog. Moog. Mug. Now, where did he get this nickname? Oh, campers. Well, he was sitting around with his friends

that summer and he suddenly just told him, you know what? I need a nickname. I want a nickname. Which just... Oh, God. Lord have mercy. And one of his friends suggested, for some reason, Mug. I'm not sure what Mug means.

It's kind of fun, I guess, but anyway, this was what the friend suggested. And from then on, anytime somebody called him BART, he would actually correct them and say, no, no, call me Mug. Everybody calls me Mood because I asked them, too. Okay, so advice from Auntie Whitney, campers, if you have to request a nickname, it's pathetic. Yeah. Okay? If a nickname does not occur organically, if you have asked for it and you remind people to call you that nickname, you're a dweeb. I'm sorry, I have to break it to you, but that's incredibly freaking pathetic and don't do it because it's sad.

Okay, so one afternoon, Chris Pritchard, who has just seen this Dungeons and Dragons flyer, knocked on the door, and man, Chris made quite the entrance. First of all, he was all dressed up. He's wearing like a blazer and tie, sunglasses, and nice, She's remember this is late 80s, so picture like full-on Michael J. Fox chic, right? Back to the Future Sheik. Flashy as hell. And first thing he did when he came through the door, I shit you not, is he threw his foot up on the bed and pulled up the cuff of his pants and said, excuse me while I scratched the head of my dick. No. Oh, my God.

And for some reason, they thought this was funny. And they thought Chris was cool. Yeah. Just take a moment to sit with that. I'm right there with you. I know it hurts. We're going to get through it together. So they also assumed Chris was high, which he probably was because by this point,

he was high pretty much all the time. And it only got worse when he hooked up with the Wonder Twins here, Bart and Neal. So Chris Bart and Neal, especially Chris and Bart, soon became fast friends along with a couple of other guys and started playing D&D like it was their literal job. Like they were barely going to class at all by then first. months and months and months. They just smoked weed, drank buckets of liquor, took LSD and cocaine and ecstasy, and played Dungeons and Dragons, like for hours and hours and hours a day. Which granted, I guess, in theory, sounds like fun maybe, but it isn't going to do you any favors if you're

supposed to be a college student. And they had like jobs here and there, but Dungeons and Dragons always took precedence. Nobody was keeping jobs very long. And this is why you often hear people refer to this case as the D&D panic case because, you know, these kids were obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons. And so, oh, that means that Dungeons and Dragons caused them to commit murder, which patently absurd, obviously. But by the same token, I don't think it's completely unreasonable to say that Dungeons and Dragons played a part in this case.

Now, don't start waving your torches and pitchforks because you know we love Dungeons and Dragons, Katie and I both. We're D&D nerds ourselves. And we play now. You know, both of us are in D&D games. I have a game tomorrow. So, you know, we're not saying D&D is evil or satanic or that it's going to warp your mind and make you kill your parents or any of that. But when you're doing that many drugs and drinking that much and all you do all day, every day is separate yourself from reality and strategize how to win and how to plot.

And I think if that's all you're doing for months and you're chemically altered to that extent while you're doing it, I think they were losing their sense of self. And I think that they were in a headspace that summer where, first of all, they didn't want to give up their party lifestyle. You know, none of them was going to class. Chris had already gotten reamed out by Leith and Bonnie about how, look, we're not going to subsidize your lifestyle if you're not going to be a student. So in practical terms, they saw that the party was coming to an end and that reality was coming for them like a freight train. And I think their headspace was just so focused on fantasy that what maybe normally you would never consider as possibility was a possibility suddenly. I think it became a factor at least in what was getting ready to go down.

Not the cause, but one factor among many. Okay. So pitchforks down. Anyway, at some point during the summer, Leith and Bonnie were going to take a trip and Angela, Chris's sister, and her friend were going to stay in the dorm with Chris. so they had this plan. This was a definite plan. It wasn't a maybe. Chris had said, yeah, no problem. Angela can stay while you guys are on the trip because she's still in high school at this point. But Chris was so high and drunk all the time that he just forgot about it. And so instead of being there for his sister like he was supposed to be, he decided to take a trip that weekend with Bart to go and see his aunt. And so when Leith and Bonnie show up to drop off Angela, they can't find him. And nobody knows where he is. And Leith and Bonnie were so freaked out that they filed. a missing person's report because they're assuming he's like been abducted or he's dead in a ditch somewhere like of course so finally bonnie called her sister on the off chance well maybe because she knew chris liked this particular aunt maybe went to visit his aunt and the aunt freaking

covered for him which is like amazing like i need a side story about this aunt apparently she was quite the party animal too like she had a whole party waiting for him down there with like weed and stuff like what my aunts would never either one of them so you know anyway she covered for him. He's like, no, he's not here even though he was. So they thought he was in real trouble. And on their way back up to NC State, Chris and Bart realized like shit, you know, Chris is going to be in trouble for this with his parents. So they came up with this ridiculous story and really telling little detail about Bart is that as they're driving back to school, he told Chris, look, don't worry. All you got to do is make up a story that's so ridiculous

that they'll believe it. And the more ridiculous it is, the more likely they'll believe it. So they made up this insane story that they were going to visit Bart's uncle and that on the way they got car trouble and stopped at like a farmhouse to call a tow truck. And this old woman was there and she gave them goat's milk and a bologna sandwich. And they got food poisoning from the goat's milk and had to stay in bed at Bart's uncle's house because of food poisoning that some like, I don't know, forest witch gave them. It's the weirdest story. Local Hedge witch. Yeah, exactly. that was the intention. It's very Dungeons and Dragonsy story, actually. Very Hansel and Gretel.

So anyway, this was what they came up with and Bonnie, bless her heart, bought it at first at least, but Leith knew immediately it was bullshit and told Bonnie so and told Chris so too. And he was just, you know, reaching the end of his rope with Chris at this point. So stuff was really starting to come to a head. That was kind of the last straw. And Leith in particular was seriously just so fed up with Chris that at one point in an argument, he made kind of a throwaway comment in anger about disinheriting Chris, taking him out of the will. Now, nobody believes he would actually have done it. Bonnie doesn't believe it. Angela doesn't believe it.

Nobody thinks that this was actually something he would have done. He was just mad and he said it in anger. But it made quite an impression on Chris. And as we said before, despite what he told the police, Chris did actually know that Leith had inherited millions of dollars. from his parents. In fact, he thought it was quite a bit more than the two million it actually was. He thought it was five million. So now, everything's coming to a head. He's getting ready to get cut off and have to get a job and get back to real life. And now he believes he's going to be disinherited. That all that money, not going to be his anymore. And he's

getting ready to flunk out of school. Now we're in some trouble. That's what's going on in Chris's mind anyway. So one night, the D&D guys were at the Golden Corral because nothing says heart of darkness like a contaminated chocolate fountain in old food under heat lamps. Gross. That's true. Chris was throwing money around as usual and somebody said to Chris, Hey, why don't you just kill your parents?

Then you can inherit that money. Wow. And y'all, Chris says, yeah, I thought about that. After that, that little seed started to sprout in Chris Pritchard's brain. I could do it. Then I wouldn't have to worry about flunking out of school or disappointing my parents or doing anything but playing dungeons and dragons. And he and Bart started fantasizing. Meal wasn't in on any of these initial discussions, by the way.

Some of the other friends were, though, so take that as you will. Yeah, good job calling the cops or warning. anybody or whatever it was just daydreaming at first you know well we'd never actually do this but if we did what would we do with the money chris said he'd buy bart a nightclub to run because bart is obviously a great businessman you even imagine how much that little shit would have run that business into the ground like my prediction would have been maybe like he'd make it like a month tops like that shit would have gone south so fast so hard he would have drunk up all his inventory Mm-hmm.

Aye. Yeah, but Chris, ever magnanimous, would buy everyone Porsches, and they do all the drugs and play D&D all day. Chris was drunk and high 24-7 by this point, never sober. It seems like he was running from something, but I'm not sure what. Yeah, his demons, presumably, responsibility, anxiety about the mess that he made of his life and the fact that he was getting ready to have to face. it and by the way it sounds absolutely miserable to me like the life that they were living like just never sober like wouldn't you ever want your head clear just for 10 minutes no Chris was running hard from something obviously yeah that just sounds like a nightmare dude it really does

it really does and that constant feeling of like the the Damocles uh sword above your head ready for it to drop yeah absolutely at one point Neil's roommate overheard one of these conversations, and he very helpfully gave them some advice. Isn't that nice? He said, listen, look, if you're going to do this, you should make it look like a robbery. And try to put them to sleep beforehand, and then knock them upside the head. Jesus. He later told investigators that he didn't think they were serious.

Do we believe him? Who knows? Okay, so the attacks happened. We know that part already. Let's get back to the police investigation now. The detectives were looking hard at Chris. It didn't take them long to find out about his good buddy Moog, aka Bart Upchurch. A kid on probation for breaking and entering?

Sounds like a gold lead to me. They talked to him, but he didn't give them anything to go on. Bart said, hey, I don't know anything about this. And after that initial conversation, he made himself real hard to get a hold of. They interviewed all of Chris's friends, and poor Bonnie was livid. She'd lost the love of her life, and now the police were acting like her son was guilty of something. In her mind, they were taking the easy way out to a resolution, not looking for the real killer. My God, poor Bonnie. I have nothing, nothing but sympathy for this poor woman. And I can see why she would be livid. I mean, why wouldn't you? She couldn't conceive of her own child being involved in something so evil and so dark. Of course she couldn't. Now, we're skipping over a lot to save time. But finally, through a circuitous process of interviewing Chris's friends, they landed upon one Neil Henderson. They cornered him at Wendy's where he was working as a manager.

They told him they'd zeroed it on Chris and, as cops often do, they pretended to know more than they really did. They said, look, we know Chris is involved. And Neil initially said that he didn't know anything, but eventually he sent word that he wanted to talk to them. And Neil basically confessed. He said, I can lay it all out for you. And there's a question in a lot of people's minds about why he did this. One possible interpretation is this. Neil is a schemer, a strategist, somebody who looks at the situation and determines how he can best benefit from it.

Yeah. Just like he didn't hit the D&D games. Maybe Neil could see the writing on the wall and the police circling like sharks and realize that if he didn't get there first, somebody else might pin the whole thing on him. And because of that, some people have doubts about what Neil Henderson is about to tell. I can see Merritt in that, but for various reasons, I'm pretty sure what he was saying was true. Yeah, me too. Neil told them that a few days before the murder, Chris and Bart had shown up at his apartment, saying that they needed his help with something. He was sort of peripherally aware of the murder daydreams by this point, but he hadn't paid much attention.

Now, they showed up and said that they were planning on doing it, and they needed him to drive because Bart didn't have a car or a license. They said that they'd give him money. It was either 2K or 20K. Neil couldn't remember exactly. I think that's amazing that he said. I was supposed to get 2,000 or maybe 20. I'm not sure. Like, it was so not about the money for him.

Right. Because he said it didn't matter at the time because he didn't believe for a second that they were actually going to kill anybody. He figured they were going to steal some shit. And he didn't want to seem like a wuss, which, can forbid. Never. And he wanted to impress his friends. because, as we've said, over and over, Neil is immature.

So in order to not seem like a dwee, he said, all right, I'll do it. So on the night of the murder, he picked Bart up on campus in Chris's car. Now, think back to episode one. Remember how Chris couldn't find his car keys on the morning of the murder? And he drove Bart down to Little Washington. He dropped Bart off a straight or so over from the Von Steins house and then parked at a prearranged spot to wait. Moog had a pair of baseball gloves that he had put shoe polis on to turn them black, which

the smell is just... I know, right? I'm almost surprised Bonnie didn't comment. I just like, that smell's got to be awful. Mm-hmm. He also brought a purple ski mask, a hunting knife, and a baseball bat, a green knapsack. And that little detail about the green knapsack really perked up the detective's ears because one of the first things they noticed on the night of the murder was a green knapsack on the ground right by where the screen had been cut open. It looked like it had been dropped. So, very compelling little piece of evidence there.

So Neil sat in the car and he waited. And he listened to the radio and he smoked a few cigarettes. He was still thinking this was a burglary and he could rationalize that because in his mind these were wealthy people. They could afford to lose some jewelry or stereo or whatever. He said, I weighed that against the fact that these are my friends and they said they were going to disinherit Chris. That's messed up to disinherit your child.

remember when we said earlier he could commit a crime if he thought he could justify it in his mind so in his mind he could justify stealing from these wealthy people but then as he sat there he realized that it was taken forever and he started to get a really bad feeling that either bart had gotten caught or that possibly the stuff that they were saying about killing bonnie and leath might be true so he got out of the car he started kind of pacing back and forth and then finally he started hearing running footsteps and here comes Mood just tearing down the road and he hopped in the car and go go go go go go and Mood slash Bart was just hyperventilating and he was saying oh my god I can't believe I did that I've never seen that much blood in my entire life I never want to see that again in my whole life and Neil was like what the fuck did you do and Mug told him I did what I said I was going to do oh my God and Neil's reaction was this cannot be happening this cannot be real and Bart said you need to pull over we've got to burn some stuff So, Neil, in a total days at this point, in a total panic, pulled over, went to take a pee, and suddenly here's this woof noise, and he turns around and sees these flames go up.

And of course, this is the fire beside the road that the pig farmer saw, right? And then they stopped at a gas station to get cleaned up and make their way back to campus. And it wasn't long after that, that they got word that Chris's parents had been attacked. And of course, Chris is frantically, quote, looking for his car keys. he knows exactly where they are and he had told them you know if you don't get back to give me my keys before I get the call I'll just say I can't find my car keys so that's why that went down that way so the cops of course are on cloud nine to have all this information and Bart's attorney later said that Neil only did this to get a deal to save himself but interestingly enough and this is why we say we believe him when he said to the detectives you know can we make some kind of deal the DA actually refused and he said look you tell Neil Henderson if he's involved in this we're going to charge him with murder and when he said that the detector was like well shit he's not going to say anything to us now so they were really disappointed but somehow they actually managed to talk neil into confessing so neil actually got no promises when he said all this

he went into that confession as far as he knew getting ready to get charged with murder or accessory to murder or something you know he they had no deal on the table whatsoever now you could argue that somebody as smart as neal probably realized that he would get some kind of leniency but He didn't know that for sure. So I think that's very compelling evidence in Neal's favor that he is telling the truth. Also, Weldon Slayton, the gifted and talented teacher, he has no illusions about either of his two favorite students, Neil and Bart. And he believes they're both guilty. He's not in denial about it at all.

And he firmly believes that Neal was the driver and Bart was the killer. Because in Slayton's words, Bart's the one that has the nerve. He's more the type to think of doing something like this. Neil didn't like risk. He would say, I don't know if I want to get involved in that. I might get hurt or whatever, but Bart, he would run in every time, just like with the breaking and entering. And also, he didn't think Neil had the physical capacity to do it because Neil was kind of slubby and, like, you know, Bart was real wiry and strong. So I think Neil's telling the truth, or at least most of the truth.

So now they had Neil's confession. They went and put the habeas gravis on Chris and Bart. And Bart was actually on house arrest at the time for right and bad checks. And he actually cut the bracelet and ran because he got word that all this was going on. and there's this whole like really interesting story about how they found him and if you want to know the whole thing i mean i've had to leave whole people out of this story like it's a huge story so read the jerry bledso book if you want to there's a lot more to it than this this is the cliff's notes version of this story so they arrested him and bart denied everything which shouldn't surprise anybody he said that on the night of the murder he was in his dorm room studying which is hilarious studying my left ass jake bart really you couldn't come up with something more realistic than studying if you'd said i was snorting coke off of somebody's ass cheeks, I would believe you, but not studying, my dude. Anyway, so Chris had arranged his alibi that night to be in the dorm room of some girls in his dorm, driving them flipping crazy because he wouldn't leave their room until like 3.30 a.m.

Because he wanted to make sure that they saw him while the murder was supposed to be going on. And he kept asking him, what time is it? What time is it? And they just so badly wanted him to leave so they could go to bed. finally left at like 3.30 in the morning because he could be sure by them that it was done. So, because Chris was on campus for sure, and people saw him, we know it had to have been either Bart or Neal

who did the actual murder. And I think it was definitely Bart. But he denied it. And before the arrest, Chris had stuck to his story that he had no involvement in any of this whatsoever. But now that Neal had, you know, coughed up the truth, Chris announced, okay, I want to plead. And, oh boy, when you.

Chris finally opened the floodgates there was a lot more to this story stuff that Neil clearly didn't know like for example failed murder plots you want to hear about their stupid wily coyote failed murder plots campers so much

so much because holy shit okay so here we go plan A was to kill Bonnie and Leith by fire here was the plan they were going to buy a glass fuse like for a fuse box and then they were going to break it to make it look like the fuse box had blown.

Then they were going to set a fire, but of course, Bonnie and Leith might wake up and smell the smoke, so they decided to crush up sleeping pills in their food first. So a couple days before the actual murder, Chris went home for a visit, and he had sleeping pills in his pocket already pre-crushed, and this little shit stain told his mother who carried him in her body for nine months

and raised him with love to sit down and relax because he was going to cook dinner tonight. and Chris made burgers with crushed sleeping pills in them and fed them to his entire family. Fully expecting, I'm sure, that everybody was going to pass out, but it didn't work. And everybody was still all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. So Chris told him, I have to go back to school and work on a paper.

And instead of going back to school, he went and met up with Bart, who had bought this glass fuse. And they tried to break it by slamming it into that little latchhole on the hood of a car like when you close the hood of a car there's that little hole and it worked in that it definitely did break the fuse but it also smashed it so badly that it got like stuck down in that little hole and they couldn't get it out so far the plan was just a total fail they didn't get to put the people to sleep the burgers didn't work like why in god's name he didn't just put in some lemonade or something like that's probably why it didn't work

because it was in beef and it got cooked and god only knows anyway and then they broke the fuse and got it stuck down in the little thing and the cops were actually actually later able to corroborate that little detail, which I think is fascinating. They went and looked at Chris's car and that little glass fuse was still crammed down into the little hole. And while they were fuzzin around with the fuse, Bart suddenly asked Chris, hey, what about Angela? Should I, like, kill her too? And this, apparently hadn't occurred to Chris yet. Like, apparently it hadn't occurred to him that his sister still lived at home.

And he was like, well, hmm. Okay, I tell you what, if she's there, go ahead and kill her. And if she's not, you know, I can share the in here. inheritance, whatever. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Isn't that big of him? Brother of the year. Anywho, so after the fuse debacle and the sleeping pills debacle, they realized, you know what, this is a bad plan anyway, because Chris didn't have an alibi for that night. So they decided to just abort the plan. Next plan, plan B. Chris suggested a fake robbery. And he said he wanted the murders to be as painless as possible for his dear parents. So he said, okay, why don't you cut their heads off with

a machete with a machete a flippity flippity flippin machete because he wanted it to be painless wow just wow wow wow wow holy shit i'm absolutely blown away by this statement i'm like i cannot function with this thought in my head because it is so clear that this was a total fantasy with no basis in reality just from that statement because on what planet would a machete trop off a head cleanly and painlessly? You'd have to be a high-level fighter, you'd have to roll a natural 20,

and roll full damage for that to work. So for non-nerd, she's making a Dungeons and Dragons joke there. But yes, absolutely. Probably you'd have to be like repeatedly. It would not be painless. Let's put it that way. So Bart's like, sure, that sounds great. So they went to buy one in Raleigh.

But fortunately, thank God, the freaking army surplus slash machete store. was closed for the day so they went to Kmart and got a hunting knife instead and they then realized that Bart who again did not have a car or a license was going to need a ride to little Washington and it couldn't be Chris because Chris had to have an alibi and it's really incredible to me that Neil took so little convincing to do this like apparently Bart was supposed to get $50,000 and a Porsche and Neil according to Chris was going to get $50,000 in a Ferrari which apparently Neil was either not aware of or not willing to share because he thought it was either

2000 or 20,000. Chris admitted that the murder was his idea and when he was asked why he said well I wanted the money and then he kind of trailed off and the prosecutor kind of prodded him and said well what do you mean and he said well I don't really know the answer to that question but part of me feels like if I killed them I didn't have to disappoint them anymore was just oh boy so I do think that this was primarily about greed for Chris but I buy that second part of the statement as well I think he was the kind of kid that needed really badly

to feel like he was a success and I do think he had a horror of disappointing his parents and I think he did have a case of dread of having to admit soon that he had flunked out of school and you know this is a thing that pops up all the time in family annihilator cases whether the annihilator is a spouse or an adult child. I mean, I can think of probably a dozen cases off the top of my head, where this was

at least part of the motive, that face-saving thing, if I can't admit him a failure. And to me, the saddest irony of this entire story is that Leith's estate stipulated that Chris and Angela wouldn't get their inheritance until they turned 35. So the murders would have solved exactly none of Chris's problems, but of course he didn't know that. So there was never going to be any nightclub, any Porsche, any Ferrari, Leith von Stein died for nothing. Wow, wow. Yeah, that's horrible.

So despite Chris's plea and Neal's confession, Bart Upchurch never admitted to any of this. Rather than taking a plea, Bart went to trial because of course he did. And he had a great defense attorney and he got up on the stand and was eloquent and well-spoken, Mr. Charming. but his attorney had to tell him to keep his finger to his lips like he was listening real hard because otherwise he would smirk yeah and the lawyer knew that was not a good look to the jury but by all accounts smirk or no

he was terrified throughout his entire trial his chickens were finally finally coming home to ruse he was finally getting to know a little word called consequences and James Bartlett upchurch the third a.k.a. Moog was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. And he is still on death row today in North Carolina.

I wonder if he's got a new nickname in prison. I wonder if his prison buddies. I need a nickname, guys. In the yard, you think he's like, hey, guys, I need a nickname. Oh, God, I hope so. I probably get the crap beat out of you in the yard in prison. Anyway, he's still in prison. So, Chris pled, as we said, he got 20 years eligible for parole in 19.

He's actually out now. And there was a moment before the trial when, Chris's lawyer summoned Bonnie and Angela to his office privately so that Chris could confess to them before he testified against Bart, which just, oh, kills me. And Bonnie had been so mad at everybody for suggesting that Chris was involved, that she was so livid about that. And then she had to sit across the table from her son and hear him admit, in front of her and in front of Angela, that he had wanted them and Leith dead. and Angela too She had to hear his callous little If she's there, kill her too

That must have been fun, right? It's just, it's heartbreaking But by all accounts He and Bonnie have repaired their relationship I can't imagine But a parent's love is unbelievable I mean it's Parents can apparently forgive just literally anything

So bless Bonnie's heart And I don't judge her for it She can feel about this however she wants to feel You know Yeah absolutely But holy shit. So Neil, because he had been the one to confess, he got eligible for parole in five years and got out. And, you know, I don't remember ever reading about him curing any cancer or splitting any atoms or anything.

So my guess is he and his big brain have decided to stay under the radar, which probably a good idea. Yeah. So these were three kids with amazing potential. And they all had parents who loved them and wanted the best for them and great educational opportunities. And man, did they blow it? It's just a damn waste, if you ask me. A damn waste. So, stay in school, kids.

Say no to drugs. Say no to doing nothing but drugs and D-A-D all the time. Balance, people. Both in moderation. Yes, moderation in all things, for Pete's sakes. Don't hang out with assholes like Bart Upchurch for the love of God. Oh, for God's sakes. So I would have to go out in the limb and say that was a wild one, right, campers?

and 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 we want to send very grateful shoutouts tonight to all the health care workers grocery store workers instacart and door dash drivers first responders and everybody else who's putting their safety on the line right now to keep our world running and keep our people safe

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