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Chester's Murder · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Dispression. On March thirteenth, two thousand, four, young men met up
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at a house in Spearfish, South Dakota, to play video games together.
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The home belonged to Chester Alan Pogue and his family and had been a long
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winding road for them to end up in this quaint rural city. Chester himself
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had been born on July fourth, nineteen eighty on a farm in Norton County,
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Kansas. The farm had been in the Pogue family for generations over one
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hundred years, and it looked like it was primed and ready to pass on
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to the next generation. First, Chester and then his younger sister grew up
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living and working on the parents farm. The work was tough and physically demanding,
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but despite Chester's small stature, he was tough. When he was done
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with the hard farm work for the day, Chester could be found playing baseball
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and basketball with the other kids of rural Norton County. But Chester was small
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and short for his age, and kids can be cruel. The other members
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of the basketball team and baseball teams bullied him, and he was almost always
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picked dead last. By nineteen ninety four, things had started to fall apart
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at home too. The marriage between his parents was feeling a strain, and
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to try to smooth things over, the family moved to Rapid City, South
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Dakota, looking for a fresh new start. It wasn't meant to be,
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however, and in nineteen ninety six, Chester's parents filed for divorce. Only
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four days later, his father took his own life. Reeling from sudden loss,
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his mother moved Chester and his sister back to Norton to be closer to
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their grandparents. Chester grew up now over six feet tall. He became good
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with his hands and interested in technology, which is partially the reason why he
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chose to study communications technology at Northwest Kansas Technical School. While Chester was away
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at college, his mother and sister moved to Spearfish, South Dakota, and
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that's where they finally settled. In two thousand, Chester was nineteen years old.
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He had just finished an internship and was six months away from graduating when
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he decided to take a short break of a few months. He moved out
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to Spearfish to be closer to his mother and sister, who were delighted to
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see him and happy that he was doing so well. But by March of
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that year, they also needed a little break, not from Chester, but
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from the harsh South Dakota in winter, so they booked a long trip to
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Florida to try to warm up. Chester decided to stay both to look after
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the house and because he'd made some new friends. Elijah Page was eighteen years
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old and originally from Titusville, Florida. His journey to Spearfish, South Dakota
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had been marked with tragedy and abuse, and unfortunately, the side effects of
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that were starting to show. Growing up, Elijah had been moved from abandoned
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building to abandoned building by his mother and stepfather. These derect homes often had
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no heating or even plumbing, and every cent his mother and stepfather came by
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went into fueling their drug addictions. When the money ran out, Elijah's mother
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found a cruel way to get what she wanted. When he was only two
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years old, his mother began selling Elijah to her dealers in exchange for drugs
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and money. Both she and these men allegedly physically and sexually abused him,
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and that was only the start. When an angry and irate dealer showed up
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at their front doorstep demanding to be paid, Elijah's stepfather used the child as
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a human shield to try to fend off the drug dealer. Finally, Elijah
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was placed into foster care, which was how the then eighteen year old ended
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up in Spearfish. But by then the damage had been done. In his
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teens, Elijah began showing the signs of psychopathy. He had rage issues that
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threatened to turn violent, and he showed no remorse or empathy to those around
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him. With Chester and Elijah inside Chester's home that day was twenty one year
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old Daryl Hoadley, another young man plagued with a troubled upbringing. His childhood
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had been shadowed by emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from his mother and
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the men that were in and out of her life, and by the time
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Daryl walked into Chester's house that day, he himself was already the father to
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an infant daughter. Wrapping things up. The supposed leader of this gang of
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misfits was the nineteen year old Alaskan born Briley Wayne Piper. At just nine
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years old, he'd set his parents' bedroom on fire. At thirteen, he'd
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been arrested for molesting a woman, and then later arrested again for robbing a
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classmate at knife point. He was later described as someone apt at manipulating others,
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but it was actually Elijah who set the wheels into motion that day that
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would lead to a devastatingly bitter and cruel end. With Chester's mother and sister
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away in Florida and the four young men over at Chester's family home to play
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video games. The scene was set. While the others were hanging out,
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Elijah began stalking through the home searching for valuables. At some point during the
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evening, he approached Darryl, and the pair of them agreed that Chester and
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his family had things that were worth taking. At around time ten p m.
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Three others convinced Chester to head over to the house that they were currently
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living in. Chester agreed and even drove them in his Chevrolet Blazer, unaware
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of what his supposed friends had planned for him. When Chester walked into their
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house later that evening, Elijah pulled out a gun and aimed it at Chester.
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The gun was Chester's mother's gun, and Elijah had stolen it during his
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stakeout earlier. Elijah ordered Chester to the floor, where Briley began repeatedly kicking
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him. He kicked Chester so hard that he ended up, cracking one of
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Chester's teeth, and Chester went unconscious, completely caught off guard and vulnerable.
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He was then tied to a chair with a tire iron place between his feet
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to keep him from moving. When he regained consciousness, Briley was standing on
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top of that tire iron, crushing Chester's feet. They then forced the remains
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of an old beer tainted with various pills and hydrochloric acid, down Chester's throat
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and finally explained to Chester what was going on. Elijah, Briarly and Daryl
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were going to rob Chester's house and they were simply getting rid of the only
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witness. But the beating and poisoned Beard didn't kill Chester and left the three
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criminals in an unexpected predicament. In front of their friend turned victim, they
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began discussing potential ways to kill him, ignoring Chester's please and the damage that
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they'd already inflicted on him. They then stole his ATM card and ordered that
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he give up the pen number. Chester complied, all the while begging to
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be let go. Instead of listening, Elijah, Briley and Darrell forced Chester
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back into his car and drove him out to the remote Higgins gulch where they
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reckoned they would kill Chester. No one would ever find out. Out in
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about twelve inches of snow, they ordered Chester to strip naked and marched him
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out towards an icy creek, beating him more along the way and jeering at
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him. They forced Chester down into the frigid water, where they beat him
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again, thinking that either the blows or hypothermia would eventually kill him. When
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that seemed to be taking too long, they then pulled Chester out of the
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water and started kicking him between them. They kicked him so hard and so
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often that they ended up ripping both of his ears off and partially scalping him.
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But still Chester clung to life. He survived being thrown back into the
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icy creek, stabbed in the neck, stabbed through the skull and into the
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brain, and then through the ear. When he cried out after the last
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stabbing, he was beaten again as punishment. By then, Chester had accepted
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that he was going to die, but he made one final plea. If
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he was going to die, he wanted to die in the warmth of his
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car, not out in the cold than the snow. His attackers agreed to
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this request and told him that he could only get back into the car if
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he washed the blood from his body. Chester dragged himself back into the water's
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edge and cleaned himself. While he was stumbling back towards his car, his
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attackers pounced again. Between blows and kicks, they confessed that it had all
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been a trick and they weren't ever going to let Chester back into his car.
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Instead, they pulled him back into the water. This time. Chester
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didn't fight, He didn't complain as the three men tried to drown him instead.
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Whenever he caught his breath, Chester either just stayed quiet or begged for
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it to be over Between them, Briley and Darrell began lifting heavy rocks and
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bashing Chester over the head. With him, Elijah had supposedly returned to the
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car. By the time the finishing blow had been dealt. Somewhere over the
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span of one evening, Chester had gone from being surrounded by friends to lie
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dead, half submerged in an icy creek in the middle of the Decote and
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wilderness. His killers then returned to his home, where they ransacked the place
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and took anything of value that could fit into Chester's car. Splitting town,
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They then drove down to Missouri, pawning off items and collecting money from Chester's
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ATM card along the way. They arrived at Elijah's sister's home, thinking that
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she would let them stay for a while, but she refused. The three
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killers then went their separate ways. When Chester's mother and sister returned from their
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Florida trip, they found their home in disarray and Chester gone. Knowing that
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something was wrong, they filed a missing person's report, but nothing came of
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it until six weeks later, when a woman found the remains of a young
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man in a creek near her property. Authorities advised Chester's mother not to identify
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her son's body herself because the damage inflicted on him in his final hours had
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been so brutal. Five days after chack Ester had been found, police brought
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in Daryl Hoadley, the only one of the three killers to return to Spearfish
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since the murder. Daryl quickly confessed and coughed up the names of his two
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accomplices. Elijah was arrested down in Texas and Briley was arrested in Alaska.
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Both Elijah and Briarley pled guilty and were found guilty of first degree murder.
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Both were sentenced to death for their crimes. Daryl was sentenced to life in
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prison, and he remains behind bars in South Dakota State Penitentiary. Elijah first
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waived his right to have a jury determine his sentence, and in two thousand
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and six he ordered his lawyers to stop and he appeals. He was executed
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by lethal injection in two thousand and seven at twenty five years of age.
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Briley, however, continues to appeal his sentence. He was resentenced by a
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jury in twenty eleven, a sentence that was upheld in twenty nineteen. He
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is currently the only prisoner left on death row in South Dakota, where he
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still awaits his execution.