Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / The Voices In Christine's Head
Transcript
- 0:02Discretion is advised. This is ten minted murder. Christine Falling was born in
- 0:24Perry, Florida, in nineteen sixty three. Her original last name was Slaughter,
- 0:30but it was changed to Falling after her sixteen year old mother surrendered Christine
- 0:35and her older sister for adoption when they were both toddlers. Christine's father was
- 0:41five decades older than her teenage mother. He was a violent and controlling man
- 0:46who terrorized his underaged spouse from the moment she was born. Christine's childhood was
- 0:52tough. She suffered from seizures, had aggressive outbursts, and was described as
- 0:57being dull witted by the people that knew her. For the rest of her
- 1:00life, her language skills never advanced beyond a sixth grade level. As a
- 1:07young child, Christine developed a habit of wreaking havoc on the neighborhood cats.
- 1:11She later admitted that she strangled the animals as a way of showing them her
- 1:15love. After she heard the myth that cats had nine lives, she decided
- 1:21to test the theory by throwing cats from the top of the tallest buildings that
- 1:25she could find, which was usually fatal. By the time she was rehomed
- 1:30to a children's refuge at nine years of age. Christine had become obese and
- 1:34you couldn't count the number of cats that she had harmed. At this point.
- 1:38The staff at the children's home described her as being a disobedient thief who
- 1:42lied for fun, and the other children bullied Christine for her low intelligence and
- 1:48obesity. When she was only fourteen years old, Christine got married to a
- 1:52man who was a decade older than her, but the marriage lasted for less
- 1:57than two months. Their reason for divorce as frequent outbursts of violence and constant
- 2:02fighting, which was unsurprising giving that Christine had grown up believing that strangulation was
- 2:08an appropriate way to show love. During one of the arguments she had with
- 2:12her husband, Christine grabbed a twenty five pounds stereo, which she threw at
- 2:16him as hard as she could, and this was likely not the outcome that
- 2:20the man expected when he chose a fourteen year old bride, and the couple
- 2:24broke up shortly afterwards. After her marriage ended, Christine's mental health plummeted for
- 2:30more than a year. She became an extreme hypochondriac, constantly convinced that she
- 2:37was seriously ill. Every week she thought she had a different disease. Over
- 2:42this time period, she took herself to the hospital at least once a week,
- 2:45but every time the doctors found no sign of illness that they could treat.
- 2:50Christine was now in her mid teens, had already been divorced, had
- 2:54no stable income. She decided to work as a babysitter, caring for the
- 2:59kids of her family members and neighbors. Despite her intellectual difficulties and her disheveled
- 3:05appearance, Christine quickly became a trusted babysitter and was known for being reliable and
- 3:10good with children, but when she turned seventeen, this reputation began to change.
- 3:16On the twenty fifth of February nineteen eighty, she was tasked with caring
- 3:21for a local girl, two year old Cassidy Johnson. Three days later,
- 3:25Cassidy passed away. Cassidy's parents rushed her to the hospital shortly after Christine's babysitting
- 3:31shift ended, and the doctor believed that Cassidy's strange symptoms were due to encephalitis,
- 3:38which is inflammation in the brain, but Cassidy never responded to treatment,
- 3:44and on February twenty eighth she died. The doctor ordered an autopsy, which
- 3:47revealed that Cassidy wasn't sick with encephalitis. Instead, she died from a severe
- 3:53head injury. The police immediately investigated how Cassidy had gotten such a serious head
- 4:00wound, and the girl's parents quickly pointed to the babysitter, Christine Falling.
- 4:04In an interview with the police, Christine provided an explanation for Cassidy's head injury.
- 4:10She had climbed out of her crib and fallen to the floor, knocking
- 4:14her unconscious, but Christine did not explain why she hadn't told the parents about
- 4:18the injury when they came to pick up their daughter. The story didn't add
- 4:23up, but the police didn't have any hard evidence that Christine was lying,
- 4:27and they had no choice but to close the investigation. Meanwhile, Christine decided
- 4:31to do what any innocent person would do. She immediately fled town and relocated
- 4:36to Lakeland, Florida. Once she was safely away from the rumors. Back
- 4:41in her hometown of Perry, she began to advertise her babysitting services again.
- 4:47It was only two months before another child died while being looked after by Christine
- 4:53four year old Jeffrey Davis. Unlike Cassidy, who fought for a life for
- 4:58three days, Jeffrey died quickly and suddenly. Because Jeffrey had no medical conditions
- 5:03and there had been no warning signs leading to his death, his body was
- 5:08autopsied. The only abnormality that medical examiner found was myocarditis, inflammation of the
- 5:14heart, which was unlikely to be the cause of Jeffrey's death. Jeffrey's funeral
- 5:18was held three days later, and his uncle and aunts needed a babysitter for
- 5:23their own toddler so that they could attend the service. For the second time
- 5:27in a week, a young child was left in the care of Christine falling,
- 5:31and once again the child died. According to Christine, Jeffrey's cousin was
- 5:36taking a nap but never woke up. The toddler's physician suggested that Jeffrey and
- 5:43his younger cousin might have both caught the same viral infection, leading to their
- 5:47sudden deaths some unknown viral infection. It was only a matter of time before
- 5:54the residence of Lakeland figured out that the two children had died in the care
- 5:58of the same babysitter. Before they had a chance to make the connection,
- 6:01Christine moved back home to Perry. She knew she wouldn't be able to get
- 6:04another babysitting job, so she worked as a housekeeper for Wilbur's Swindle, an
- 6:10elderly man with severe disabilities. This job only lasted one day. Within hours
- 6:15of Christine arriving at Wilbur's house, the old man dropped dead in the kitchen.
- 6:20Due to his poor health and old age, local police never looked into
- 6:25the death, believing it was just a heart attack. Within weeks of wilbur
- 6:29Swindle's sudden death, Christine was invited to go shopping with her stepsister. Her
- 6:33stepniece, eight month old Jennifer, came with them. Christine's stepsister decided that
- 6:39she would quickly run into the supermarket, leaving Christine alone in the car with
- 6:44Jennifer, But when she returned to the car minutes later, she found Christine
- 6:48panicking and her daughter unresponsive. Christine told her that Jennifer had suddenly stopped breathing.
- 6:55Because of Jennifer's age, doctors believed that her cause of death was sudden
- 7:00infant death syndrome or SIDS, and the case was never investigated. Christine Falling
- 7:06was followed by a string of mysterious deaths, but despite making almost no effort
- 7:12to hide her involvement, she'd been very lucky. All of the deaths appeared
- 7:15to be of somewhat natural causes, a viral infection, a heart attack,
- 7:19sudden infant death syndrome. It was only a year later, when Christine was
- 7:25babysitting a ten week old baby, that her luck finally ran out. It
- 7:29was the same story that Christine had told every time. It was the second
- 7:33of July nineteen eighty two, and Christine was caring for newborn Travis Coleman when
- 7:39he suddenly stopped breathing. Travis's grieving parents didn't believe that their healthy baby had
- 7:45suddenly died of natural causes, and they agreed to have their son's body autopsied.
- 7:50The autopsy found no sign of illness or disease, but the medical examiner
- 7:55found undeniable evidence that Travis Coleman had died of suffoc There was no chance that
- 8:01his death had been an accident. The ten week old baby had been murdered,
- 8:05and Christine Falling had been alone with him when he died. Local police
- 8:09immediately paid Christine a visit. During her interrogation, Christine quickly confessed that she
- 8:16had killed three of the children by holding a blanket over their noses and mouths,
- 8:20a method that she called smother ration. According to Christine, she had
- 8:26murdered the babies in response to the overwhelming voices that she heard in her head,
- 8:31which repeatedly chanted, killed the baby, killed the baby. She eventually
- 8:35did with the voices asked, and chose suffocation as her method of killing because
- 8:41she said she had seen it while watching television shows. She described smothering the
- 8:45babies as being simple and easy, telling the officer that no one would hear
- 8:50them scream. Not only had Christine confessed to the crimes, but she also
- 8:54seemed to be remorseless of her actions. She was convicted of murder and sentenced
- 9:01to life behind bars with no chance of parole for at least twenty five years.
- 9:05Apart from wanting to obey the voices in her head, Christine was never
- 9:09able to give a clear motive for the killings. It seemed as if she
- 9:13simply had the urge to kill and saw no problem with following through on that
- 9:18urge, even though she was recognized as being intellectually handicapped and mentally ill,
- 9:24Christine was never found to be legally insane. Her application for parole was rejected
- 9:30in twenty seventeen and her next hearing will be in twenty twenty four. That
- 9:41is ten Minute Murder for today, brief and bingeible true crime. My name
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