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World's Most Evil Killers S04E05
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CreativityTranscript
00:0822nd September 1991, Guilford, Connecticut, USA.
00:13Early Sunday evening, a mysterious man called at a house in the suburbs.
00:18Homeowner Christine was told some shocking news.
00:21Her brother Ernest and his family had been kidnapped and were being held ransom by the mafia.
00:28I didn't quite know what to make of it.
00:30He had Ernie's car and he opened the trunk, it was full of blood.
00:35It turned out the man at the door, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower, was a pathological liar and a killer.
00:42He claimed he needed $75,000 to release the family, but in fact he'd just murdered them.
00:50He had to stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
00:53It didn't matter who he hurt, it didn't matter who he conned.
00:56Most shocking of all, Hightower annihilated his friend Ernest with a crossbow, strangled his wife Alice,
01:04then drugged their 8-year-old daughter Emily and dumped her in a shallow grave.
01:09There was evidence that she was buried alive.
01:14That's a monster.
01:16That's a monster.
01:19But in court, he continued his lies, claiming he saw the mob carry out the killings.
01:26I couldn't believe it.
01:28It was impossible.
01:29You don't kill a child.
01:32The church-going investment broker turned out to be a con man who went on to murder three innocent victims,
01:40making him one of the world's most evil killers.
02:05Rhode Island, 1991.
02:09Residents from the affluent church-going town of Barrington helped police in the search for 53-year-old Ernest Brendel
02:17and his family.
02:18They had completely vanished from their detached suburban home.
02:24The impact of this on the community was absolutely devastating, because this is upper-middle-class America.
02:30This is the American dream.
02:33Six weeks after their disappearance on the 7th of November 1991, police made a grisly discovery,
02:41finding Ernest, wife Alice, and 8-year-old daughter Emily buried in woods next to a local school.
02:48Ernest's sister Christine never forgot the day she received the news.
02:53Her niece Emily was drugged and asleep when she was dumped in her grave.
02:57I think killing a child's bad enough.
03:00What he did with Emily, buried her alive, that's above and beyond.
03:07The man has no soul.
03:09What Barrington's residents didn't realize was the man responsible was one of them.
03:15The killer, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower, was a Sunday school teacher and a pillar of the community.
03:22There was shock across the town at news of his arrest.
03:26First, as former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs remembers.
03:31He was just a typical suburban father.
03:35There were millions of them in America.
03:37The last person you would think would commit a horrible crime.
03:40On the surface, Christopher Hightower was extraordinarily trustworthy.
03:44The sort of man that everybody trusted.
03:47But suddenly, that trust was broken.
03:51Hightower's crimes had a lasting impact on the picture book American town.
03:57People started to call when they didn't see something that looked good.
04:02Maybe a child on a bicycle late at night or a strange car in a neighborhood or these terrible events.
04:09They just bring about a heightened state of awareness.
04:13To have an individual come along who appears to be one of you, who appears to be just like everyone
04:18else and capable of such harm, really does shake people's foundations.
04:24This killer story begins on the 20th of August, 1949.
04:29Christopher Jameer Hightower was born in Winterhaven in central Florida.
04:34His father worked as a printer.
04:37In the US, this was the post-war years.
04:40It was the age of affluence, the rise of the consumer society.
04:43He comes from what appears to be a traditional nuclear family, the American dream.
04:48And nothing appears to be out of the ordinary.
04:50He was the eldest of five children, the one who got what he wanted almost always.
04:57But soon, the young Christopher would discover a dark family truth.
05:03Hightower discovered that the man whom he called his father was actually his stepfather.
05:08His real father abandoned them both when his mother was only 17.
05:13It was upsetting, but not something that someone couldn't recover from.
05:18It drove a wedge between Hightower and his stepfather that would never be repaired.
05:25I think at the time, this idea of illegitimacy is incredibly stigmatised in the US.
05:32And it would have been something that would make him quite angry.
05:35His family have lied to him.
05:37And I think that starts off some feelings of rage, some feelings of resentment.
05:43Although determined, Hightower wasn't particularly bright and only just scraped through high school,
05:50graduating on the 8th of June, 1967.
05:53At the age of 19, he left home to join the Navy.
05:57He was committed to forging a glittering career, unlike his stepfather, the printer,
06:03whom Hightower dismissed as a low achiever.
06:06When he leaves, he never sees this man ever again.
06:10To be able to just drop somebody and never see them again,
06:13somebody who's been such an influential person in your life,
06:17suggests to me that this is somebody who does not have the same emotional attachments
06:21to other people that the rest of us do.
06:23After just over four years in the Navy, Hightower wanted to start a successful new career.
06:30He married in August 1973 at the age of 24,
06:35then enrolled at the University of Rhode Island to study zoology.
06:39Next, he set his sights on medical school and would stop at nothing,
06:44even gambling his family's livelihood to get his dream.
06:48It was revealed that he was actually trying to sell the family home
06:52to pay for his college education,
06:55and his wife wasn't very happy when she found out about this.
06:59So, after just over seven years of marriage,
07:02Hightower divorced and soon found a new love in his life, Susan.
07:06They married in 1982,
07:08and his plans to become a doctor were back on track.
07:12Nothing would get in his way.
07:13When he found a course at Wright State University in Ohio,
07:18he forged his academic qualifications to get in.
07:22He had taken his transcripts from the University of Rhode Island,
07:25which were fairly pedestrian transcripts,
07:28and doctored them to make it look like he got all A's.
07:31The actual truth of the matter was
07:33is that he did terrible at URI, University of Rhode Island.
07:38He just about failed almost everything.
07:40And so he got into graduate school on a lie.
07:44Hightower had got where he wanted through deception.
07:47Now he realized how faking it could get what he desired.
07:52Soon he was lured by the highs and lows of the stock market,
07:55and this inspired his next ruse.
07:58When he was in Ohio, attending Wright State University,
08:02he had some sort of investment group
08:04where he convinced people to invest a modest amount of money.
08:07He'd turn it into a lot of money.
08:09Well, it was all a scam.
08:11He kept all the money.
08:12He was a good salesman,
08:13but he had no idea how to actually do it.
08:15He had grandiose ideas about himself,
08:18and I think he was frustrated at his lack of talent,
08:20and eventually he would be discovered to be a fraud.
08:25Despite losing his investors
08:27more than $100,000 of their life savings,
08:31Hightower was never prosecuted,
08:32but he'd stumbled upon an easy way to make money.
08:36So Hightower decided to ditch med school
08:39and, with his wife Susan,
08:41moved over 800 miles to Barrington, Rhode Island.
08:45Here, the fraudster had set up another dubious financial venture.
08:49To his neighbours, though,
08:51Hightower seemed like the happy family man.
08:54They have two children together,
08:56and they live with his wife's parents.
08:59Now, his wife's parents have got this rather lovely house in Barrington.
09:03So essentially what Hightower's doing here
09:05is he's being able to perform the perfect American family
09:09in the lovely big house,
09:11but he hasn't had to do a single thing to earn that.
09:14What matters for him is how other people see him,
09:17and he really thinks that he's got it all sorted now.
09:20In a bid to show he was going up in the world,
09:23the smooth-talking salesman started
09:25a seemingly reputable business to match,
09:29Hightower Investments, Inc.
09:30In his new downtown office,
09:33he bumped into local lawyer Ernest Brendel.
09:36He somehow convinced Ernie
09:38that he should invest some of his money with him,
09:41and he had a formula that he said was foolproof.
09:45Of course, he didn't have any formula.
09:47He didn't know what he was doing in the commodities business.
09:50Everything that he said was a total fabrication.
09:55Soon, Hightower and Ernest became the best of friends.
10:00Their families even started holidaying together in New Hampshire.
10:04By now, Hightower had become an upstanding member of the community.
10:09He was a local Sunday school teacher
10:11and a coach of the town's junior football team.
10:14He was such good friends with the Brendels
10:17that when Emily went to the YMCA after school,
10:20Hightower was on her list of approved people to pick her up.
10:23He was such a good family friend,
10:25he was actually on the list as someone they trusted to pick up their daughter.
10:28Eventually, Hightower persuaded Ernest
10:30to invest $15,000 in his get-rich-quick scheme.
10:35Hightower is a very parasitic individual
10:37who will feed off other people,
10:39and he will come to know about Ernest
10:42and how much money he had
10:44just through spending time with him and the family.
10:47So these people are predators.
10:49They identify people's vulnerabilities.
10:51They kind of get to figure out what people have
10:54and what they can get out of them.
10:56Hightower is a perfect role model,
10:59the kind of person everyone can trust,
11:01and when conmen are concerned, trust is everything.
11:06Within a year, Ernest Brendel started having doubts.
11:10He soon discovered that instead of making him money,
11:13Hightower had squandered nearly $12,000 of his investment.
11:17Ernie realized that this system was a scam,
11:21and when he realized that,
11:22he did what you would expect Mr. Brendel to do.
11:25He reported it to the Commodities Future Trading Commission,
11:28which is the commission in this country
11:29that oversees commodities.
11:31It was the wrong person for Hightower to trick.
11:36He realized there was only a matter of time
11:38before people found out exactly what he was up to.
11:42The Sunday school teaching, the coaching the soccer team,
11:46that cherished reputation that he'd built up
11:49was about to disintegrate.
11:52Not only was Hightower standing in the community in jeopardy,
11:56the complaint against him looming at the Commodities Regulator
12:00would mean he'd lose his license to trade and his livelihood.
12:05Hightower's house of cards was crumbling down.
12:14The phone at his office had been disconnected,
12:17and his landlord was chasing him for $1,800 of unpaid rent.
12:22His problems with debt caused ructions at home,
12:26and this led to the final nail in the coffin.
12:30Hightower's wife says that she wants a divorce.
12:33She doesn't want this marriage to continue.
12:34Now, for Hightower, this is terrible,
12:37because she is essentially the access route
12:40to this lifestyle that he's been performing.
12:43They live in her parents' house.
12:45It's very grand.
12:46Everybody thinks that he's very wealthy.
12:48So he threatens her.
12:50Rhode Island once had a reputation as a mob state
12:54with key figures of the Mafia
12:56believed to be operating in the area.
12:58In a desperate ploy,
13:00Hightower threatened his wife
13:02with associates he claimed he had
13:04in this criminal underworld.
13:07He allegedly had told her
13:09that he had paid a group of organized hitmen
13:12to kill her for $5,000,
13:15and for another $1,000,
13:17he would make her disappearance complete.
13:20It was just his fantasy world he lived in.
13:23I don't think there was any truth to any of that.
13:25His marriage was ending.
13:27He was concerned, I believe,
13:29about whether he'd see his kids.
13:32His professional life, such as it was,
13:34was falling apart,
13:35so this was all crashing in on him at the same time.
13:38Hightower's answer?
13:39To eliminate the man
13:40who'd started the complaint against him,
13:43threatening his livelihood and reputation,
13:4553-year-old Ernest Brendel.
13:48On Thursday, the 19th of September,
13:52Hightower set off on a six-mile journey
13:54to the town of Seekonk, Massachusetts.
13:57He goes to Massachusetts
14:00and buys a Bear Devastator crossbow,
14:03and he bought six bolts.
14:05He had told his family
14:07he would be out maybe all night
14:09or come back very late.
14:11I suspect there would have been
14:12quite a lot of stalking of the Brendel family,
14:15so he would have known what their movements were,
14:18what time they left,
14:19what time they arrived home,
14:20their routines.
14:21This was a very well-planned murder.
14:26On Friday the 20th, as usual,
14:29Ernest's eight-year-old daughter Emily
14:31left on the school bus.
14:33Then Ernest drove wife Alice
14:34to work at nearby Brown University.
14:38Seizing his moment,
14:39Christopher Hightower broke into the house.
14:42Hightower goes and hides out,
14:45essentially, in Ernest's garage,
14:47so he lays in wait for him.
14:48He could decide not to do it,
14:50but the fact that he doesn't suggest to me
14:52that this is somebody who is emotionally empty,
14:55who just does not care about harming other people,
14:57and he's there on a mission,
14:59and he's not going to leave
15:00until he's executed that mission.
15:02With his lethal weapon at the ready,
15:05Hightower watched Ernest Brendel
15:07pull up onto the drive.
15:10We believe when Ernie pulled into his garage,
15:12Hightower was waiting for him
15:14with the Bear Devastator
15:16and shot him three times with the crossbow.
15:19The first shot to Mr. Brendel,
15:22um, didn't kill him.
15:25The second shot hit him in the posterior.
15:30And then the third shot was a kill shot.
15:36Went through his spinal cord,
15:38through his esophagus, into his heart.
15:39So he killed him right away.
15:42To make sure his nemesis was dead,
15:44Hightower bludgeoned Ernest on the head with a crowbar.
15:48This individual is a psychopath.
15:50He very much lives in the present moment.
15:52And as far as he's concerned, at this point in time,
15:55Ernest has been taken out of the picture,
15:56and he's hoping that actually everything's going to be fine
16:00because this complaint isn't going to get looked at,
16:02and everything will go back to normal.
16:05Now he'd exacted his revenge,
16:07Hightower calmly cleaned up the crime scene
16:10using hydrochloric acid,
16:12then drove his former friend a mile to remote woodland
16:16on the edge of town.
16:17After burying Ernest in a shallow grave,
16:21the killer returned home and calmly washed his clothes.
16:24But then Hightower got an unexpected surprise.
16:29The sheriffs arrive with the restraining order,
16:32um, that had been sought by his wife.
16:36So when he's served the restraining order,
16:39he now has no place to live.
16:42Destitute and homeless,
16:43Hightower returned to the scene of his crime.
16:46As he monitored messages left on the Brendels' answer phone,
16:50he thought about what he was going to do
16:52with the rest of the family.
16:54Family life goes on.
16:56There are commitments, there are responsibilities.
16:58And on that particular day,
17:01Ernest was expected to pick up his daughter from school.
17:05Ernest's wife Alice and eight-year-old daughter Emily
17:08would be next on Hightower's hit list.
17:10He had to silence them before they raised the alarm.
17:14On that day, Friday the 20th,
17:17daughter Emily had been on a school trip.
17:19The killer made sinister plans to pick her up.
17:23So he calls, uh, the Primrose School where Emily attended,
17:27potentially Mr. Brendel, said, Emily can walk home.
17:30And to their credit, the school said,
17:32no, that's not, that's, that's not going to happen.
17:35Not one to be diverted from his mission,
17:37he determined Hightower,
17:39then stole Alice's car and drove it to the YMCA,
17:43where Emily was having her usual after-school care.
17:47So he goes to the Y, tries to pick her up,
17:49and they won't let her,
17:50because he's no longer on their proof list.
17:53So then the YMCA gets a phone call,
17:56purportedly from Mr. Brendel,
17:57but undoubtedly from Hightower.
18:00This is Ernie Brendel.
18:02My friend Christopher Hightower,
18:04who was on my list, is going to pick her up.
18:05I'm going to give him my driver's license,
18:07which he has access to, because Ernie's dead.
18:10So he goes to the YMCA and gets Emily.
18:13Even though Hightower was a trusted family friend,
18:17eight-year-old Emily had a sixth sense
18:19that something wasn't right.
18:21Tragically, she tried to call her father, Ernest,
18:24to warn him, leaving a message on the family's answer phone.
18:28Emily knew this wasn't right.
18:30And it's, Dad, Dad, you know, this doesn't seem right,
18:34something like that.
18:35But eventually the YMCA lets her go.
18:38And that's the last anybody that we know of saw
18:40was the woman at the YMCA who sees her
18:42walking to Alice's car with Christopher Hightower.
18:47Once home, Hightower drugged eight-year-old Emily
18:49with Benadryl, then tied her up in the basement.
18:53The brutal killer knew she'd be useful as a bargaining chip
18:56when Mother Alice came home.
18:58Alice always got the bus home.
19:00Ernest would pick her up from the stop.
19:02But on this particular evening, Ernest wasn't there.
19:05So she made her own way.
19:07Once home, she, too, was held hostage by Hightower.
19:12Throughout the day, people arrived at the house.
19:14Little girls came looking for Emily.
19:17He said she wasn't home.
19:18At one point, a discount store showed up to deliver a mattress.
19:22He sent them away.
19:23Mother and daughter were held hostage until the next morning
19:27when Hightower used Alice to carry out the final act in his plans.
19:32On Ernest's computer, he made her type out a letter in Ernest's name
19:37to the U.S. commodities regulators, withdrawing his complaints against Christopher Hightower.
19:43It's believed, though, she left a coded message for the police.
19:47She put Hightower's initials on the file she opened, and we often thought that was a clue.
19:53Now Hightower had no use for his hostages, he strangled Alice.
19:58Then later that evening, he drove her body, together with sleeping daughter Emily,
20:04to the remote woodland on the edge of town where Father Ernest was buried.
20:09Under cover of darkness, Hightower dug them a shallow grave,
20:14then buried eight-year-old Emily underneath her mother,
20:17as former detective Gary Palumbo remembers.
20:21There was evidence that she was buried alive.
20:28I know he gave her Benadryl an insufficiency amount
20:33that would make her drowsy or, you know, sleepy,
20:36but it wasn't enough to kill a child.
20:41That's a monster.
20:44That's a monster.
20:51Many people will say, well, maybe he felt bad,
20:54maybe he didn't want to kill her,
20:57and he was just burying her body,
20:59just to kind of get it out of sight, out of mind.
21:02But I think he's coming towards the end of his plan here,
21:06and perhaps that the killing of Emily wasn't as carefully thought through
21:09as the killing of Ernest and Alice.
21:13After burying the bodies, Hightower covered the graves with lime
21:18to mask the smell of decomposition.
21:21Now the killer was satisfied,
21:23he'd disposed of the entire Brendel family.
21:27He buries them quite close to their home,
21:29and this is interesting for me because he has a lot in common with other killers here.
21:34He's thought fairly carefully about the murders themselves,
21:38but he hasn't thought very carefully about the aftermath in much detail.
21:42They're in a place where they're going to be discovered.
21:44The earth would soon give up Hightower's dark, dark secret,
21:49and the reputation of the upstanding churchgoer would come crashing down.
21:55Soon Christopher Hightower, the fraudster, would become known as a triple killer.
22:03The fact that Hightower kills a child is shocking, is awful,
22:08and we reflect on the fact that he's a father himself,
22:11but he's somebody who is completely cold, who is completely emotionally empty,
22:16so he would have felt absolutely no hesitation at killing the child
22:20because he sees people in terms of what they can do for him,
22:25whether they're a threat to him, whether they're a barrier to him.
22:28There's no emotional connection to them.
22:31Barrington was blissfully unaware of the grisly family murders
22:35that had taken place in the close-knit town.
22:37The destitute and homeless killer Hightower stole Alice's Toyota,
22:42then went on a spending spree with her husband Ernest's checkbook.
22:47He went about his business, buying stuff, cleaning supplies, you know,
22:51cashing checks, we got him at a yogurt store, we got him pumping gas,
22:55we got him all over, Barrington and southeastern Massachusetts.
23:00Aware the alarm would soon be raised over the Brendel's disappearance,
23:04Hightower had to work out his alibi.
23:07Now he's scared that everything's going to come out
23:10and he's got to find a way of sorting it out.
23:12The finger of suspicion is almost inevitably going to point to him,
23:17so he devises a plan and goes to see Ernest's sister.
23:21That Sunday evening in the stolen family car,
23:25Hightower set off on the 95-mile journey to Guildford, Connecticut,
23:30where Ernest's sister Christine lived.
23:32She was very fond of her elder brother.
23:36Ernie was two years older than me.
23:38He was my big brother.
23:40And we were pretty close, I think, for a brother and a sister,
23:44and we led a very active, physically active childhood.
23:49Our parents had a house in the Pocono Mountains,
23:53so in the summer we just sort of ran wild.
23:55As adults, they remained close, even after Ernest married Alice.
24:01We had a good relationship.
24:02We argued, but we argued when we were kids too.
24:04Alice was the great peacemaker, mediator.
24:08You couldn't not have a good relationship with her
24:11because she was very easy to get along with.
24:14On Sunday evening, the 22nd of September,
24:18Christine was unaware of the tragedy that had befallen her brother.
24:22But his killer, Christopher Hightower, called at her door.
24:27We had guests for dinner.
24:30And he arrived at the door and started telling me his crazy story.
24:36And I said, why don't you go in the living room and sit down and relax?
24:42I said, because we can't do anything about this until my guests leave.
24:48So I sort of hurried them out of the door.
24:50And then my husband and I sat down with Hightower.
24:55And then we started hearing his story.
25:00Which was...
25:01nuts.
25:03Although she'd never met him before,
25:06Hightower told Christine that her brother Ernest and his family
25:09had been kidnapped and were being held hostage by the mafia.
25:14I didn't quite know what to make of it.
25:17But I didn't think what he was telling me was the truth.
25:20Then he decided that he would show us the car.
25:25As well as showing Christine and her husband Ernest's bank cards and driving license,
25:30Hightower opened up the boot of the family car to reveal a massive stain of blood.
25:35He claimed the blood came from a broken jaw Ernest had sustained during the kidnap.
25:40But Christine's husband, Alex, was a doctor and didn't believe what he was hearing.
25:45He said to me was that there was a lot of blood
25:48and is probably more than someone could bleed and would still be alive.
25:52We knew that something really bad had happened.
25:56But we didn't know exactly what.
25:58Hightower claimed the mafia wanted $300,000 to release Ernest and his family.
26:04He asked Christine and her husband for $75,000 to help pay the ransom.
26:10We just told them that we obviously don't have that kind of money around the house.
26:16We don't deal in cash.
26:18Hightower left empty-handed, but he warned Christine and husband Alex
26:23not to call the police, claiming their phones were being tapped.
26:27Once Hightower disappeared, though, they went to a neighbor's house
26:31and called the authorities straight away.
26:34We went over there and called the FBI.
26:39Because I thought that, you know, if it's kidnapped,
26:43it's much better to get them on the case.
26:46The FBI alerted the local Barrington police,
26:50who conducted a thorough search of the Brendels' family home.
26:54We forcibly entered the house.
26:56The one thing that I noticed right off the top
26:58is there were no cords to the telephones.
27:01It wasn't connected to anything, and the cords were going.
27:04So that raised my suspicion a little bit.
27:07And when we go out to the garage,
27:10the southwest window of the garage
27:13looked like somebody forcibly entered through there.
27:17Although there was no obvious evidence of a murder scene,
27:21the police were concerned about the missing family of three.
27:24The only potential link to their whereabouts was Christopher Hightower,
27:28who Christine had reported driving the family's Toyota.
27:32For Barrington's chief of police, Charles Brule,
27:35Hightower had to be brought in for questioning.
27:38I advised the dispatcher to put a broadcast out on the motor vehicle
27:43we were looking for,
27:44and one of the officers on patrol who was in the Barrington shopping center
27:48saw the vehicle exiting, stopped the vehicle,
27:52and at that point we took the individual into custody.
27:56Once in custody, Hightower feigned concern
28:00about the Brendel's whereabouts.
28:02He also told the police
28:04that they'd been kidnapped by the Mafia.
28:06Meanwhile, the family's Toyota that he'd been driving was searched.
28:11Based on the search warrant,
28:13we found an empty bag of lime,
28:15blood splatters and stains inside the car,
28:18and in the trunk there was a crossbow,
28:23and also they found three teeth,
28:26which ended up being Ernie's,
28:29in the back of the car.
28:31It was obvious about the evidence that was inside the Toyota,
28:35which was accumulation of bloodstains,
28:37more than a person would receive from a beating,
28:39from a facial beating.
28:41We thought the family was in trouble at that time,
28:43especially just observing the car without searching it,
28:46you could see the, you know, you could see the bloodstains,
28:48so we thought they were in trouble.
28:51With this forensic evidence
28:53and no sightings of the Brendels alive in the last three days,
28:58the police believe they had a triple murder on their hands.
29:01At this point, under pressure,
29:04Hightower made his first mistake in his Mafia kidnapping story.
29:08When the police commented on tire tracks found near Hightower's home,
29:12his pretense slipped.
29:14They're not buried there, he told them.
29:17Well, it's quite interesting,
29:18because that's implying I do have some knowledge about this,
29:22and this is a power play.
29:23He's basically saying to the police,
29:25I do know something about this,
29:27but I'm not going to give it up that easily.
29:29So he's trying to buy himself time.
29:32He's very much in control.
29:34As news of the Brendels' disappearance spread,
29:38concerned Barrington residents helped in any way they could.
29:42Within a week's time, they started organising searches.
29:47They would have searches where community members could volunteer,
29:51and they would come out and assist.
29:54As forensic investigators swept through the Brendels' home,
29:58they found microscopic evidence
30:00which linked to the crossbow found in Hightower's possession.
30:04Now it was a potential murder weapon.
30:08There was a little hole in the garage door
30:11that determined to be caused by an arrow, by a bolt,
30:15and forensically, they ended up finding blood splatters in that area.
30:19With news that the police had uncovered a likely murder scene,
30:24Ernest's sister Christine was giving up all hope.
30:26As time went on, it just got worse.
30:29You know, the chances that they were alive
30:32and the chances that they were unharmed were less and less.
30:37And, um, it was too much.
30:41As police dug into Hightower's background,
30:44they found a destitute man
30:46with a trail of fraud leading from his investment scam in Ohio.
30:50On October 2nd, U.S. regulator the National Futures Association
30:56told investigators about a letter
30:58they'd purportedly received from Ernest Brendel,
31:02withdrawing a complaint against a broker, Christopher Hightower.
31:06Forensics experts examined it and revealed it was a forgery.
31:10Now the police knew this complaint
31:12could be their prime suspect's motive for murder.
31:18The town was shocked when they learned
31:2042-year-old Sunday school teacher Christopher Hightower
31:24had been arrested in connection
31:26with the disappearance of the Brendel family.
31:32Despite a six-week search for their bodies,
31:35Ernest, wife Alice, and their 8-year-old daughter Emily
31:38still hadn't been found.
31:42A huge army of law enforcement, a lot of volunteers,
31:46spent six weeks looking for the Brendels.
31:48We searched cemeteries, we searched bandit pits,
31:52we looked everywhere.
31:53We had dogs, the FBI brought in mediums,
31:55we talked to profilers from the FBI,
31:57but we couldn't find them.
31:59On the 7th of November,
32:01a Barrington resident was out walking in remote woodland
32:04next to one of the town's schools
32:06when she made a sinister discovery.
32:09We got a phone call saying that a woman walking her dog
32:14had seen her dog reacted to an area.
32:19She showed us where it was.
32:21Myself and the sergeant went in,
32:23and it was briars and bushes,
32:26and then all of a sudden it was no more briars,
32:30no more bushes.
32:32And you could see an area where there were depressions.
32:35We dug the area where the depressions were.
32:39One depression revealed Ernie's knee,
32:42and the second depression revealed Alice's knee.
32:47And that's when we stopped and called the forensics.
32:51As a Barrington resident,
32:52it was the discovery even Detective Gary Palumbo was dreading.
32:57They train you, they mentor you,
33:00don't get emotional, leave it at work,
33:02but I was angry.
33:04It doesn't take a rocket scientist
33:06to realize what you found.
33:08And, and, uh, so...
33:11I was angry.
33:14The FBI and soon forensic teams
33:17swooped on the shallow grave.
33:19Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs
33:22was also called to attend.
33:24He saw damning evidence linking Christopher Hightower
33:27to the crime scene.
33:29Within the hall where Mr. Brendon was
33:31was a piece of a bag of lime.
33:33The piece of a bag of lime
33:34that matched the bag of lime
33:35that was in the car
33:37that Mr. Hightower's driving,
33:39that we had a receipt
33:40that he'd bought at a hardware store.
33:42So we knew in that, boy, we got him.
33:45In a shallow grave next to Ernest,
33:48they uncovered the body of his wife, Alice.
33:51She'd been strangled,
33:52as a ligature had been left around her neck.
33:56But underneath Alice,
33:57they found her 8-year-old daughter, Emily.
34:00It was extremely sad.
34:04And, um...
34:06You could see a little shoe in the dirt.
34:09State police, detective pressed
34:10to make sure there was a foot in there.
34:12That was a very sad moment.
34:14We had a photograph of Emily taken on Friday
34:16because she went on a field trip.
34:18She went to Newport to see a Viking ship.
34:21And we knew what clothes she had on Friday.
34:23She had the same clothes on.
34:25And that just, to me, that was just so sad.
34:27It was just so sad seeing this little girl.
34:30So it was a very emotional day for everybody there.
34:34There were police officers in the hole with them.
34:37That was a very solemn occasion.
34:39That same day, Emily's aunt,
34:42Ernie's sister, Christine, was told the news.
34:45We had, I think, already had a funeral service.
34:49And we knew they were dead.
34:52My mother was still alive.
34:55And Ernie was the absolute apple of her eye.
34:58But she was in the early stages of dementia.
35:01And she said things like,
35:06Where's your brother?
35:09Or, he hasn't come to visit me recently.
35:13I'd say, Mom, he's dead.
35:16Oh, it's very difficult.
35:19With the discovery of the Brendels' bodies,
35:23their killer would finally face justice.
35:26Christopher Hightower was charged on three counts of murder
35:29and one of kidnap.
35:31His trial started 16 months later,
35:34on the 8th of March, 1993,
35:37at the Supreme Court of Rhode Island.
35:40Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs
35:42helped prepare the case.
35:45Most cases that we prosecute,
35:47we usually have some sort of direct evidence.
35:50And a direct evidence is either an eyewitness to the crime
35:52or a confession.
35:53We had neither.
35:54He never confessed.
35:56But circumstances or cases,
35:58if you do it the right way,
35:59are the most compelling cases.
36:01Not only did the prosecution present
36:04the man who sold Hightower the crossbow,
36:07they called nearly 100 other witnesses.
36:10We could trace his receipts.
36:12And we had witnesses that saw him around town.
36:16He bought muriatic acid
36:18to clean the floor of the horse barn.
36:21Each little witness
36:23had a little essential dot to fill in.
36:26So we had witnesses
36:27that would see him at the house.
36:29We put in the delivery guy
36:32who showed up to deliver a mattress.
36:34We put in the neighbor
36:36who saw Hightower with the hose.
36:39We put in the guy at the shell station
36:41who pumped gas with him.
36:42We put in all these little dots.
36:46And at the end,
36:47they all pointed in only one direction,
36:50and that was Mr. Hightower.
36:52When Hightower took to the stand,
36:54true to form,
36:55he had an elaborate explanation
36:57for the damning evidence.
37:00Unbelievably,
37:01Hightower explained
37:02that Ernest had got involved
37:03with the mob
37:04and some serious drug dealing.
37:07Hightower claimed
37:08he was at Ernest's house
37:09when the mafia arrived
37:11and murdered the Brendel family
37:13in a dispute over money.
37:15He claimed he saw
37:16eight-year-old Emily strangled.
37:19They had already said
37:20they were going to kill her.
37:21They didn't tell them
37:22where the money was.
37:29I couldn't believe it.
37:30It was impossible.
37:31You don't kill a child.
37:37Then Hightower claimed
37:39he was threatened himself.
37:42Sometime during the evening,
37:48a pillowcase or something
37:49was placed over my head.
37:51I was taken out
37:52to one of the cars.
37:54He then said
37:56he was forced to dig
37:57the Brendel's graves,
37:58otherwise his own family
38:00would be killed.
38:02I picked up the shovel
38:03and I started digging
38:04and I begged him,
38:05please,
38:05I'll do whatever you want.
38:07Just leave him alone.
38:09Complete lies.
38:10There is no doubt whatever.
38:13Mr. Hightower claimed
38:14I didn't do it.
38:16The mafia did it.
38:18These drug dealers did it.
38:19So he got on the stand
38:20and said,
38:20I'm innocent.
38:22They didn't kill anyone.
38:26Who did?
38:28The people that were with
38:30Mr. Grendel.
38:31State attorney Michael Stone
38:34tore into Hightower's claims
38:36on behalf of the prosecution.
38:39I think he thought
38:40by testifying
38:41that he was going to convince
38:43the jury
38:44that he actually had
38:46nothing to do
38:46with these murders.
38:47I think he's the type
38:49of person
38:50who believes his own lie.
38:55Michael's pivotal moment
38:56in making his case
38:57was by proving beyond doubt
38:59that Christopher Hightower
39:00was a pathological liar.
39:03In court,
39:03he produced the transcripts
39:05Hightower had falsified
39:06to get into Wright State University
39:0911 years previously.
39:11You didn't get accepted
39:13into that master's program
39:14with a 2.5 average,
39:16did you?
39:16No, I did not.
39:17And why is that?
39:18Because I had contacted
39:20an individual
39:22at the University of Rhode Island
39:24and obtained
39:27a forged transcript.
39:28That's right.
39:33I think by the time
39:34I finished
39:35that it was evident
39:36to the jurors
39:36that he was
39:40a total fabrication
39:43and that Ernie Burndell
39:45was just the person
39:47who got in his way
39:48and was expendable.
39:50He definitely
39:51was a person
39:52who cared about
39:53nothing else
39:54but himself.
39:56After four days
39:57of cross-examination,
39:59the triple killer
40:00looked defeated.
40:01In desperation,
40:02his own defense team
40:03even brought
40:04an expert psychiatrist
40:05to the stand
40:06to testify
40:07that Hightower
40:08was delusional
40:09but the court
40:10dismissed any claims
40:12of insanity.
40:13On the 8th of June, 1993,
40:16Christopher Hightower
40:17was sentenced
40:18to life without parole.
40:20It was the result
40:21the investigators
40:22and prosecutors
40:23had been waiting for.
40:25Well, I think
40:26everybody was relieved.
40:27We're thankful
40:28we got the monster
40:29off the street
40:29and he's going
40:30to stay off the street.
40:32He's probably
40:32the lowest form
40:33of life on the earth.
40:35I had the opportunity
40:36to confront him
40:37when I was in my
40:38second employment
40:39in the federal court
40:40and I just told him,
40:41I said,
40:41you rotten bastard,
40:42I hope you rot in hell.
40:45And that's
40:46the way I feel.
40:48Because there isn't
40:49any place for him
40:50in any kind of society
40:51at all.
40:53He's despicable.
40:54It's all about him.
40:57People were objects to him.
40:59People were there
41:00to be used
41:02to further his means.
41:04Hightower is such a cold
41:05and a despicable killer
41:07because nothing
41:08gets in his way.
41:10He is literally
41:10like a steamroller
41:11and the devastation
41:13that he perpetrates
41:15lasts for a very,
41:16very long time.
41:17For Christine,
41:18there was comfort
41:19in knowing that the man
41:20who brutally wiped out
41:22the whole side
41:23of her family
41:23can never kill again.
41:25I mean,
41:26I...
41:29Emily was a dear child
41:31and the fact
41:34that he could
41:35kill her
41:36just absolutely
41:38leaves me
41:39absolutely no sympathy
41:41for him.
41:42He's an awful person
41:43and he's
41:46soulless,
41:48even though I don't
41:49believe in soul.
41:51He's totally
41:52immoral.
41:56He was a con man
41:58who masqueraded
41:59as a church leader,
42:01duping people
42:02out of thousands
42:02of dollars.
42:04He mercilessly
42:05slaughtered
42:06a family of three
42:07just to protect
42:08his reputation
42:09and cover up
42:10his trail of fraud.
42:12He kidnapped
42:13an eight-year-old girl
42:14from school,
42:15drugged her
42:15and buried her alive.
42:17That's what makes
42:18Christopher Hightower
42:20one of the world's
42:22most evil killers.
42:50in fact,
42:53I haven't seen
42:53this one,
42:54but he gave me
42:55was in the phy
42:55that.
42:55Aftergresca
42:55he was 너무
42:55dead,
42:55human
42:55is
42:55and
43:00how
43:01can
43:02dieème
43:02You