- 15 minutes ago
- #realityinsighthub
Murder at the Motel Season 2 Episode 7
Murder at the Motel
#RealityInsightHub
🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️
👉 Official Channel: />👉 THANK YOU ⭐❤️❤️❤️⭐
Murder at the Motel
#RealityInsightHub
🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️
👉 Official Channel: />👉 THANK YOU ⭐❤️❤️❤️⭐
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00this case was one of the most horrific cases that I have ever worked on in my 27 years of
00:09doing police work her fingertips that had been sheared off were scattered on the ground right
00:16here you can't erase something you see you like that from your mind her mangled body just in a
00:22pile over here it was one of the worst crime scenes I've ever seen the dark blood that was
00:29sprayed on the walls the bloody handprint on the register here just told the story in itself she
00:38was my mom she's my mom you don't know if this was a single act or if this person is gonna go on a mass
00:46killing spree so now it's where is he and how do we find him I've never been on a manhunt quite like
00:53this before we've got a known murderer surrounded by a bunch of innocent people the crowd starts
01:00to disperse now we have a clear shot of this guy I was looking evil into the eyes
01:239-1-1 location emergency hi I need an aimless chief officer out of America's Best Value Inn like
01:39ASAP on the morning of July 7th 2017 a housekeeper at America's Best Value Inn in Lansing Michigan
01:48makes a bone chilling discovery our housekeeper found blood all over the place and someone went on
01:55the floor okay can she tell are they breathing they don't know they just freaked out ran out the
02:02room there are three sisters who work at the motel the first one who's going through is doing checks
02:09for people who were supposed to check out but never stopped by the front door so she goes to the room and
02:15she knocks and there's no response she needs to confirm that the person has checked out so she
02:20tries to open the door she can't get it open very far but she peeks her head in and sees that there's a
02:25foot and that there's blood coming out from underneath the blanket behind the door she goes to get her
02:31sister who is another cleaning person there they then go to the third sister who works at the front
02:36desk and they ask her to call 911 and that's when the police respond
02:40all right get an ambulance and the police on the way don't let anybody else go into the room until
02:48we get there and check on it okay okay a Lansing police officer is immediately dispatched to the motel
02:56can you start for a call at the america's best all of these on the way there 172 172
03:14anytime you respond to a call where you have a potential death involved yes your emotions start
03:21to kick in and you realize that this is going to be one of those calls that you remember for the rest
03:26of your career I was actually pretty close to the call at the time that it came in I was able to make
03:35it to the scene within a minute and a half I was the first one on scene at the motel I pulled into the
03:42parking lot looked for the room number which was 172 I unholstered my gun I approached the door when I
03:51tried to open the door though I was only able to open it about a foot before it was stopped I immediately
03:57recognized that I had a body on the floor and I backed out of the room to wait for additional units
04:02to come to the scene it was more than 30 seconds to a minute and another officer appeared on scene
04:18the urgency was real we needed to go into the room we went in just the two of us together I opened the
04:28door I actually needed to push the body a little bit further so that we could get into the room we
04:35entered the room I had my gun drawn we needed to clear the room which means check the room for any
04:40other people inside of the room and make sure we had no other threats inside that we needed to deal
04:44with you don't know what you're going to come across when you go into a scene like that we walked
04:51through the room we made sure there was nobody else inside the room we checked the bathroom we checked
04:57the closet we looked under the bed we located no other people inside of the room upon being in the
05:03room I realized the severity of what we had come across what immediately we picked up on was the smell
05:11of blood there was blood on the floors the walls the bed the air conditioner the table it was one of
05:22the worst crime scenes I've ever seen detectives from Michigan State Police are called in to
05:41investigate the scene it was July when this happened it was a very very hot day but as I pull in now
05:54everything looks the same a couple cars scattered here and there the residents that have taken up a
06:03little bit permanent residency here hanging outside their rooms
06:07on this little drive this was all blocked off by yellow crime scene tape
06:17as I stood outside and I looked in the story of what happened could be followed by the blood as it started
06:33from the bed area and was sprayed up on the ceiling it was clear to those of us on scene that the fight
06:40started at the bed and moved its way over to the door there was blood on the sink where the perpetrator tried
06:51to wash off what he could this case was one of the most horrific cases that I have ever worked on in my 27
07:01years of doing police work it was very obvious that a struggle had occurred in the room there was some
07:12drugs involved as we found some drug paraphernalia in the room looking at our victim it was not
07:22immediately apparent who she was we knew she was a female by long blonde hair her anatomy but you could
07:33not look at her face and immediately tell who she was there was way too much blood on her face and too
07:41many injuries it was absolutely a scene of carnage the medical examiner assesses the extensive trauma
07:52to the victim's body and identifies the cause of death judging by the puncture wounds and
08:01everything it was very quite clear that she had been stabbed each fingertip on her hand had been cut
08:08off and in my mind I can just picture her sticking her hands up and trying to defend herself from the
08:18knife perhaps even grabbing out for the knife just to fight it away and obviously the knife is gonna cut
08:26right through right through her fingers and those who were laying on the ground right next to her
08:31other detectives in the room had found an identification card with her picture on it but
08:40you could not hold the picture next to her body and be able to say the woman in the picture is who is
08:46laying here on the floor you have no other leads to go on at that time you have to go with what makes
08:53sense here what is most likely to be true and at that time what was most likely to be true is that our
09:00victim on the floor is the one in the picture of whose identification card we found that was Christina
09:07Daffenbaugh whenever a homicide in Ingham County would happen the first thing that we would do would be to
09:18contact the victim's family and ask them to come in in this case that was her parents
09:23I was at work and I got a call on my phone and they asked me the strangest question they asked me did the
09:37Pacifica that belongs to us when my daughter was driving were the windows broken in it I said no and then
09:45they were asking something about a motel and I didn't quite understand what it was but it was
09:52something very very strange to me anxious after the call from police Patricia leaves work and gets the
10:00bus home she gets off at a stop which is directly opposite America's best value in I could see the police
10:10and something terribly going on at the motel the lights and the police and just all kinds of things
10:21going on at the motel and I got home and shortly after we got a knock on the door and detective Johnston
10:34and another detective came when they broke the news and it was terrible after the initial moments of
10:47just not even being able to understand what this victim went through and her last moments of life
10:54after that passes through your mind now it's who is this monster that put another human being through
11:00something so traumatic like this there's somebody out on the loose that is responsible for having
11:08done this and we've got to find them we had her parents come in shortly after the murder and we
11:23sat down with them and we talked to them about who Christina was what we learned is that Christina had
11:30been living with her parents she'd struggled with drug addiction they had asked her to leave for a
11:34period of time and that she was working on going to rehab around this time and they were very hopeful
11:39that she was getting better she was homeless frequenting motel to motel they spoke glowingly of her
11:48they were still involved in her life she was driving their car on this night so they were still in
11:53communication I was raised by my grandparents my mother was there she just was pretty young when
12:01she had me 18 so yes my my grandparents they they'd ran the shows mostly my grandmother bless her heart
12:12she is the one that would make sure we got off to school and got to our doctor's appointments and
12:17everything you know but she was still there I mean everybody you know like has their ups and downs but
12:24I mean she she did her best and we we were happy a lot of memories I have of her is always wanting me
12:32to do like her hair she loved having it like the tips dyed different colors and I would be the one to do
12:39that she would get the box dies and be like Becca can you do my hair purple today or blue you know like
12:45purple and blue like she let me help her do that so those are really good memories I have about 10
12:59years before her death she had started to just spiral in a way like it just slowly just started
13:06going to go down until she just couldn't get out of this rut no matter how much she tried every day
13:15just depression and anxiety and just everything just got a little much for her investigators
13:24learned that prior to her being murdered Christina had been getting her life back on track we had
13:32actually kind of hit a good breakthrough with her a little bit before you know like she was taking her
13:39meds again she was seemed a happier person seemed like she was doing really good and she was getting out of
13:47that rut and she was really trying to turn her life around at that point she was looking forward to a
13:56party the next day for her grandchild her grandson and that was something she was looking forward to and I I had talked to her the day before and I said Tina you got to get help and she says I know mom I I am going to I want to thank she thanked me for reminding her that she needed to get help
14:23she needed to get help and it was hard
14:30after informing Christina's next of kin investigators focus on finding her killer
14:47investigators speak to witnesses outside the motel so how long is it got been senior for do you know
14:54you just notice the first time we the first time he got here was yesterday morning no what was yesterday
15:02yesterday would have been Thursday so that was Wednesday the first time I saw him and then yesterday my wife
15:08my wife and I were at the Meyers gas station we pulled up he was like hey you guys at the hotel right I'm like yeah he's like I'll give you guys a
15:15ride back but my wife out of her mouth she's like I don't feel comfortable getting in the car and so we just ended up walking and so he stopped me he was like yeah I went to the casino and want some money
15:25what time was it yesterday at the Meyer gas station do you know this was
15:32it's like around five six when we came back he was standing outside his door he was like hey you guys want to smoke you want to chill I'm like no I'm like my wife and my kids down there we good
15:42mm-hmm so he came down and knocked on the door um like around 8 39 o'clock and he was like well do you know I can get some weed from something I'm like I don't know nobody up here we're from Detroit
15:52mm-hmm just played it off because I'm like I really don't know you and my wife and already said she got a bad feeling from me mm-hmm
15:57so I'm standing in the door about it had to be about 11 15 maybe 11 30 and I was smoking a cigarette and I heard a
16:06a bam and that's what made me come to the door and the room door he had slung the room door open and jumped in the car and just sped off
16:15like no no no his room what time was that this is about 11 between 11 15 and 11 30 PM
16:21yes sir what does this guy look like how tall are you six foot so he was about
16:28maybe about 6'1 black male white male and Hispanic males light skin but I know he's
16:32African American he's light skin he has a very slim build and he has tattoos tattoos
16:39yes all over his arms and his arms and he had one on the side he had one on the side of his neck going towards like down by his shoulder
16:49remember anything about the tattoos no they were writing or anything it was a pig it was a design design and then he had different pictures of stuff on his arms and stuff
17:00okay so what about this vehicle then it was a white you said it was a light Taurus
17:04older model yes it was had because I had one so it's either a 99 or 98 and it was white
17:13okay and it had like kind of like black trim a little bit not throughout the whole vehicle but certain parts had like black trim on it
17:21like on the door on the door and like the front on the sides and stuff
17:27okay never saw a license plate on it when he was at the Myers gas station there wasn't a plate on there
17:33okay that was one of the reasons why my wife said she didn't feel comfortable riding back over here with him
17:37did he ever give you a name or anything he just said call me g call me g that's all that's what he said
17:45staff at the motel give police a crucial lead
17:49so yeah so we would be looking we want cameras from about 11 11 to 11 30 ish
17:59surveillance video played a critical role in this and luckily just because it was meant to be
18:05there was a surveillance video right outside this room
18:19July 7th 2017 detectives are about to learn the name of their suspect in the murder of Christina Davenbaum
18:27the identification of our suspect was not difficult he rented the room in his own name we found a receipt
18:37inside the room where he had ordered a pizza from a local establishment we had his phone number on that
18:44receipt we were able to contact that establishment get his name that matched the name that the room was
18:50reserved under his name is Curtis Eccles
18:54further investigation revealed that Curtis was from the state of Ohio he had driven up to Michigan on that day
19:10he'd gone on a bit of a crime spree on the way down from what we understand
19:15he arrived there in a stolen car from Ohio and then he checks into the motel room
19:21it showed Christina arriving to the room what vehicle she was driving and it also showed that nobody else other than those two had been in that room that night
19:28further key evidence is uncovered in room 172
19:35they find a receipt from Meyer which is a department store nearby
19:40they find a box for a kitchen knife and they find the kitchen knife and they find the kitchen knife from that box outside in the parking lot
19:47a unique characteristic about the knife which we still aren't sure why this happened but the knife was burned at the tip and then more or less melted and pushed to kind of
19:54be like a hook that's not how it came from the package that's not how it came from the package so Curtis must have done that before or after the fact
20:01there's a department store nearby there's a department store nearby they find a box for a kitchen knife and they find the kitchen knife from that box outside in the parking lot
20:07there's a box on the desk and he saw what happened here and they're able to find the situation on the nice table in this job
20:12and saw that the knife which we still aren't sure why this happened but the knife was burned at the tip and Waterloo
20:25snoyote the seat that we found in the motel room and showed that he had purchased the knife and a roll of duct tape in here behind
20:30and a roll of duct tape from this mire behind me using that receipt they were
20:35able to find the surveillance video from the transaction what they found was that
20:39he had walked there earlier in that day after checking into the motel and he
20:44bought two things he bought duct tape and he bought a small steak knife and
20:50then he walked back to his motel unit you're staying in a motel room for a
20:55night you know you've got a girl coming over what are you walking across the
20:59street to the grocery store to buy duct tape and a knife for this was absolutely
21:05premeditated and then shortly after returning Christina arrived
21:14we don't know what happens in the room we have a few pieces of information we have
21:19the text messaging between him and her recovered from their phones where she
21:23agrees to come to that location she expresses some concern because she
21:27thinks that she may have been banned from that motel but he convinces her to come
21:31anyway we know from surveillance video that shortly before she gets there he
21:36moves his car back to the dumpster at the back of the motel complex and then walks
21:41back to the room she enters the room closes the door we see that door open one
21:47more time the surveillance video showed her hands coming out of the doorway you
21:53could see the blood from her hands in the door jam it was very obvious that a struggle had occurred in
22:03the room and that Christina was trying to get out of the room in every way possible
22:08the fact that she agreed to meet up with him that night there didn't appear to be any kind of fear
22:18of him she went there knowingly she stayed for a while and then something happened inside that motel
22:27room that just sent Curtis over the edge and he got out that knife and stabbed Christina repeatedly until she died
22:35the door closes and that's the last we see of her he leaves the motel a little bit after that gets in
22:44her car takes that to the back of the motel complex gets in the car that he had stolen that he had parked
22:50there and drove away somebody would only do that they're trying to conceal that Christina was at the motel
22:57you don't know if this was a single act or if this person is going to go on a mass killing spree so now
23:12it's where is he and how do we find him
23:15July 7th 2017 detectives have learned the name of their suspect Curtis echoes but do not know where
23:31he is now investigators contact the service provider of Curtis's cell phone in an attempt
23:37to learn his current location they have the technology to be able to locate the device right
23:45away mr. Eccles phone was turned on possibly in use and we received a location in Indiana
23:53I would presume that Curtis knows that we're going to find him eventually
24:04I was sitting post command answering the phones and assisting with dispatch when I received a phone
24:29call from the Lansing Police Department they had pinged the phone on I-80 at Edwardsburg Road which is the
24:41location of the service area on the Indiana toll Road at the 90 mile marker I dispatched to Trooper
24:50Hipshire who was working in that area when I received the dispatch about the report of the suspect on the
25:08interstate it was believed that he was approximately the center of the zone that I work so I started
25:14traveling from the 73 mile marker which is on the west end of my zone toward that location which
25:19was approximately 18 to 20 miles at that time my partner was just a few miles up the road from me
25:28and also was en route to that same location to locate the vehicle and identify the subject it was a white
25:37four-door 1999 Ford with Ohio plates however the plates may or may not be on the vehicle at this time
25:48right now we are pulling into service area five south this is the first location
25:57that my partner searched the rest area for the vehicle in question
26:05while he did that I sat at a crossover in a median of the toll road just to observe additional traffic coming by to make sure nobody got by us and for the thousands of
26:16and for the thousands and thousands of vehicles that go across the Indiana toll road it was like a needle in a haystack
26:25we also notified the Indiana toll road concession company which is a company that runs the entire
26:36interstate we asked them to monitor all their cameras at the toll plazas to see if any vehicles matching the
26:44description were to exit so as we were coming westbound the Indiana toll road concession company contacted us and
26:50let us know that a vehicle matching this the description or at least close to matching the description
26:56was exiting at the 77 exit which is the Notre Dame exit my partner exited the toll road and went into
27:04the town of Roseland and see if he could find the vehicle in question I've never been on a manhunt quite
27:10like this before because of the allegations that were against him the fact that he had this felony warrant
27:16for rape as well as being a suspect in a homicide case that was discovered that day I was beginning
27:25to get a little bit nervous that we weren't going to find the subject while we were on the interstate
27:30because of all the different ping locations and not finding a vehicle that matched that description
27:35according to the areas that we were looking wasn't sure how long the delay was on these pings that we
27:41weren't finding this because we had already come through those areas coming eastbound and now we're
27:48traveling back westbound to try to catch up to this alleged vehicle that he's operating so it was a
27:54little concerning about 10 minutes later i received another phone call from lansing police department that
28:03stated that the suspect's phone was pinging near the area of us 20 and 31. now i'm familiar with that area and
28:10i know that if they were to go on 20 if they went westbound it's a common way that they go into
28:15chicago but on the other hand if they were to go east at that location they were going right to the south bend airport
28:22july 7th 2017 indiana police are chasing curtis echoes their prime suspect in the murder of christina
28:40daffenbaugh his phone was last pinged heading towards a crossroads to either chicago or the south bend airport
28:49lansing police department called back just a couple minutes later and said his phone was pinging at the
28:54airport
29:00the ping was at the car rental parking lot which is off to my left here i'm going to be turning into
29:10as i'm traveling through here i'm unable to find a vehicle that's matching the description so
29:15i'm looking for a pedestrian that might have ditched the car and he's you know trying to flee the area
29:22or trying to find another vehicle to take and as i'm driving through i notice a pedestrian that's up by
29:29the terminal entrance which we're about to pass by and it appeared to be an employee that was on a
29:35smoke break so i was going to go over there and just ask him if he had seen anybody matching this
29:41subject's description as well as you know a white car that might have just entered the parking lot
29:46within the last few minutes
29:50as i was getting ready to speak with that individual i noticed over here off to my left
29:56that there was a bus that was getting ready to back out of the back side of the terminal
30:01from working with other pings and how we weren't catching up to any vehicles that matched that
30:07it just kind of clicked that he might be in that bus as they were looking around that bus started to leave
30:19i drove around the block then i pulled up alongside my partner's vehicle and then basically with front
30:24of our vehicles facing head on to the bus we had our emergency lights on and and we detained the bus
30:29at that point we both walked up to the bus my partner asked the driver to step off and take the
30:39key out of the ignition and then shut the door and we did that of course in case the suspect happened to
30:45be on board we didn't want him trying to take control of the bus or anything like that
30:51it was a tender situation because we've got a known murderer on the bus surrounded by a bunch of
30:58innocent people we definitely wanted to use extra caution and of course in the back of my mind i
31:04was thinking he could take one of these passengers hostage um or he could he could harm somebody else
31:11in the process of trying to to flee from us so those were all things we needed to consider
31:16so right over here as you can see the uh the blue speed limit signs it was in those areas that we
31:33had both of our squad cars positioned to block off the bus the bus was actually parked right in this area
31:39and the passengers disembarked right in this spot
31:45my partner and i decided that the best course of action at this point would be to have everybody on
31:50the bus step down the stairs one at a time and then have them stand off to the side in the grassy area
31:56and then we could clear the entire bus just to make sure he wasn't there there are only about three
32:02more passengers to come down the stairs and and probably the second to last passenger coming down
32:09kind of resembles mr eckles so i'm i'm staring at him and next thing i know he's he's staring right
32:15back at me and he's got this nervous look on his face and he's his eyes aren't going anywhere other
32:20than just staring staring me down as he's walking down the stairs it appears that he's just trying to
32:25like hide behind some people like he starts to turn his body to his to the side and show me just his
32:30left side and he starts looking toward the fence line and i'm thinking he's getting ready to bolt
32:35he's going to run from us my partner at that point comes over to me and i i describe the the suspect and
32:42then both of them make eye contact at that point um my partner starts screaming at him to get his hands
32:51in the air the crowd starts to disperse both directions so now we have a clear shot of this guy
32:56nobody on this bus has a clue that one of their fellow passengers just killed somebody up in
33:04michigan at that point i drew my weapon as my partner started rushing over to the suspect and
33:10informed him that he needed to get on his knees and keep his hands in the air and then he took him
33:14into custody at that point troopers ask him for his name and he just hangs his head and he says i don't
33:24have a name police uncover the journey eckles took in a bid to evade capture while going through his
33:36clothing the officer stumbled upon a bus ticket it was a greyhound bus ticket and it showed that he had
33:43actually boarded this bus in detroit michigan taking the bus to a stop in toledo ohio and had an ultimate
33:52destination of chicago illinois while making a stop a brief stop in south end indiana so we had just
33:59caught him on this last leg of the trip he had been on the bus for nearly seven hours at this point
34:08finding and apprehending a suspect after he's traveled through three states on the very same day
34:16that he's committed a murder and within six to seven hours of the finding of the victim
34:25and the processing of the scene is still taking place is is pretty extraordinary
34:31we were very lucky luck does play a big part in this we were looking for a white vehicle we very
34:40easily could have just bypassed these buses and went on looking for a white vehicle
34:47when you are able to close something out like that it makes you feel good inside like you did something
34:53good and that you avenged the homicide victim
35:00a lot of it was luck but a lot of it was good police work
35:03once we got word that mr eckles had been arrested by the indiana state police detective trooper adamcheck
35:12and i drove down to indiana the way mr eckles looked at me when we interviewed him i could tell
35:21there was no remorse he kind of had that long gaze where he was staring right through me i felt like
35:29i was looking evil into the eyes
35:43curtis echoes is extradited back to lansing michigan
35:47christina's family are notified of his arrest
35:52like many people they don't believe that something so terrible can happen in their life
35:58they trust people and they don't believe that that can happen he could have gone on and even done worse
36:06i hope he's ashamed of what he did that was just terrible
36:13she would have been able to see me get married she would have been able to see her grandchildren grow up
36:20she would have
36:21she would have been good like all the things that have happened since she's passed just thinking about
36:30if she was here for that how much better it would have been like
36:35it would have been amazing for her to see all this her family growing up
36:48the case is handed over to prosecutors who prepare for eckles to stand trial
36:53it was not a whodunit we had a lot of evidence against mr eckles
36:58but it takes a lot of preparation going into trial to make sure that we get the conviction
37:06because it was a senseless act there was nothing to be able to tell the jury why this happened
37:11why he did this thing and you always worry that if the jury doesn't understand why it happened
37:16that they'll have some skepticism that it did happen
37:31the trial happened in downtown lansing at the 30th circuit court
37:35started on monday finished the following monday
37:37that is something that is hard to get over and i got to see what he looked like because they had me
37:49come in and testify one day in court and he sat there with his hand like this looking at me
37:59eckles demeanor was very cold it was very distant throughout the trial there was at least one point
38:05where he seemed to get a little bit agitated and he indicated that he wanted to just plead guilty
38:09and get this all over with we took a break to allow him to talk to his attorney about that and
38:13he ultimately changed his mind but that was the only time that he had any real display during the trial
38:21the defense attorney mounted the best defense that he could in the circumstances pointing to the lack
38:25of motivation the lack of specific reasons that this would have happened or pre-existing
38:32relationship between the defendant and the victim but ultimately was not able to keep any of the
38:37evidence out that that so clearly pointed at curtis eckles
38:45the jury finds curtis jamar echoes guilty of first-degree murder he is sentenced to life without the
38:52possibility of parole mr eckles was a very violent predator he had done similar crimes in the past not
39:01homicides that we know of but abused women and it was nice to to get this conviction and get him off
39:10the street not only for the all the victims that he's he's abused in the past but especially for christina's
39:16family it's a very difficult line that you're walking in these cases particularly ones that follow so
39:23soon after the death there's nothing that you're going to do that is going to bring their loved one
39:29back and all you can try and do is get some measure of justice through a conviction i have seen a lot of
39:39things in 17 years of doing this job this was by far one of the most gruesome scenes i've been to
39:47you it does stay with you you can't erase something you see like that from your mind christina did not
39:56deserve what had happened to her getting him off the street was a service to society this case stands
40:06out because of the randomness because we don't know why this happened i've seen lots of cases where
40:12they are gruesome maybe as gruesome as this maybe more but at least you know the reason that this
40:18person did this to another person and so it is the combination of randomness and how brutal this was
40:26that that sets it apart she'd had a hard life the thing that the judge said at sentencing is that
40:33because curtis eccles did this she was never going to get a chance to get better and that has always
40:39stuck with me it's just a tragedy i never got to tell her goodbye or that i loved her no matter how
40:51much we fought no matter how much we would yell at each other or if like i hate yous or i never want
40:57to see yous anymore got thrown around like she was my mom she's my mom and i love her so much i will
41:05never stop loving her and wishing she was here
Be the first to comment