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Serial Killer Documentary - Christopher Hightower · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:06
Speaker 1: 22nd September 1991, Guilford, Connecticut, USA. Early Sunday evening, a
0:13
Speaker 1: mysterious man called at a house in the suburbs. Homeowner
0:17
Speaker 1: Christine was told some shocking news. Her brother Ernest and
0:21
Speaker 1: his family had been kidnapped and were being held ransom
0:24
Speaker 1: by the mafia.
0:26
Speaker 2: I didn't quite know what to make of it. He
0:29
Speaker 2: had Ernie's car and he opened the trunk, it was
0:32
Speaker 2: full of blood.
0:33
Speaker 1: It turned out the man at the door, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower,
0:38
Speaker 1: was a pathological liar and a killer. He claimed he
0:41
Speaker 1: needed $ 75, 000 to release the family, but in fact he'd
0:46
Speaker 1: just murdered them.
0:48
Speaker 3: He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
0:51
Speaker 3: It didn't matter who he hurt, it didn't matter who
0:54
Speaker 3: he conned.
0:55
Speaker 1: Most shocking of all, Hightower annihilated his friend, Ernest, with
0:59
Speaker 1: a crossbow, strangled his wife, Alice, then drugged their eight-year-old daughter, Emily,
1:05
Speaker 1: and dumped her in a shallow grave.
1:07
Speaker 4: There was evidence that she was buried alive. That's a monster.
1:15
Speaker 4: That's a monster.
1:17
Speaker 1: But in court, he continued his lies, claiming he saw
1:21
Speaker 1: the mob carry out the killings. I couldn't believe it.
1:26
Speaker 5: It was impossible.
1:27
Speaker 6: You don't kill a child.
1:31
Speaker 1: The church-going investment broker turned out to be a con
1:35
Speaker 1: man who went on to murder three innocent victims, making
1:39
Speaker 1: him one of the world's most evil killers. Rhode Island, 1991.
2:08
Speaker 1: Residents from the affluent church-going town of Ballington help police
2:12
Speaker 1: in the search for 53-year-old Ernest Brendel and his family.
2:17
Speaker 1: They had completely vanished from their detached suburban home.
2:22
Speaker 7: The impact of this on the community was absolutely devastating
2:26
Speaker 7: because this is upper-middle-class America.
2:29
Speaker 6: This is the American dream.
2:31
Speaker 1: Six weeks after their disappearance on the 7th of November, 1991,
2:36
Speaker 1: police made a grisly discovery, finding Ernest, wife Alice, and
2:41
Speaker 1: eight-year-old daughter Emily buried in woods next to a local school.
2:46
Speaker 1: Ernest's sister, Christine, never forgot the day she received the news.
2:51
Speaker 1: Her niece, Emily, was drugged and asleep when she was
2:54
Speaker 1: dumped in her grave.
2:56
Speaker 2: I think killing a child's bad enough, what he did
2:58
Speaker 2: with Emily. That's above and beyond.
3:06
Speaker 8: The man has no soul.
3:08
Speaker 1: What Ballington's residents didn't realize was the man responsible was
3:12
Speaker 1: one of them. The killer, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower, was a
3:17
Speaker 1: Sunday school teacher and a pillar of the community. There
3:20
Speaker 1: was shock across the town at news of his arrest,
3:24
Speaker 1: as former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs remembers.
3:29
Speaker 9: He was just a typical suburban father. There were millions
3:33
Speaker 9: of them in America. The last person you would think
3:36
Speaker 9: would commit a horrible crime.
3:38
Speaker 10: On the surface, Christopher Hightower was extraordinarily trustworthy, the sort
3:43
Speaker 10: of man that everybody trusted.
3:45
Speaker 8: But suddenly, that trust was broken.
3:49
Speaker 1: Hightower's crimes had a lasting impact on the picture-book American town.
3:56
Speaker 11: People started to call... When they didn't see something that
3:59
Speaker 11: looked good, maybe a child on a bicycle late at
4:01
Speaker 11: night or a strange car in a neighborhood or these
4:06
Speaker 11: terrible events, they just bring about a heightened state of awareness.
4:11
Speaker 7: To have an individual come along who appears to be
4:14
Speaker 7: one of you, who appears to be just like everyone
4:16
Speaker 7: else and capable of such harm, really does shake people's foundations.
4:22
Speaker 1: This killer story begins on the 20th of August, 1949.
4:27
Speaker 1: Christopher Jameer Hightower was born in Winter Haven in Central Florida.
4:33
Speaker 12: His father worked as a printer.
4:36
Speaker 7: In the U.S., this was the post-war years. It was
4:38
Speaker 7: the age of affluence, the rise of the consumer society.
4:42
Speaker 7: He comes from what appears to be a traditional nuclear family,
4:45
Speaker 7: the American dream, and nothing appears to be out of
4:48
Speaker 7: the ordinary.
4:49
Speaker 10: He was the eldest of five children, the one who
4:53
Speaker 10: got what he wanted almost always.
4:56
Speaker 1: But soon the young Christopher would discover a dark family truth.
5:01
Speaker 10: Hightower discovered that the man whom he called his father
5:05
Speaker 10: was actually his stepfather. His real father abandoned them both
5:09
Speaker 10: when his mother was only 17. It was upsetting, but
5:14
Speaker 10: not something that someone couldn't recover from.
5:17
Speaker 1: It drove a wedge between Hightower and his stepfather that
5:21
Speaker 1: would never be repaired.
5:23
Speaker 7: I think at the time, this idea of illegitimacy is
5:27
Speaker 7: incredibly stigmatised in the US and it would have been
5:31
Speaker 7: something that would make him quite angry. His family have
5:34
Speaker 7: lied to him and I think that that starts off
5:38
Speaker 7: some feelings of rage, some feelings of resentment.
5:42
Speaker 1: Although determined, Hightower wasn't particularly bright and only just scraped
5:46
Speaker 1: through high school, graduating on the 8th of June, 1967.
5:52
Speaker 1: At the age of 19, he left home to join
5:54
Speaker 1: the Navy. He was committed to forging a glittering career,
5:58
Speaker 1: unlike his stepfather, the printer, whom Hightower dismissed as a
6:03
Speaker 1: low achiever.
6:04
Speaker 7: When he leaves, he never sees this man ever again.
6:08
Speaker 7: To be able to just drop somebody, and never see
6:11
Speaker 7: them again. Somebody who's been such an influential person in
6:14
Speaker 7: your life suggests to me that this is somebody who
6:17
Speaker 7: does not have the same emotional attachments to other people
6:20
Speaker 7: that the rest of us do.
6:22
Speaker 1: After just over four years in the Navy, Hightower wanted
6:26
Speaker 1: to start a successful new career. He married in August
6:30
Speaker 1: 1973 at the age of 24, then enrolled at the
6:34
Speaker 1: University of Rhode Island to study zoology.
6:38
Speaker 12: Next, he set his sights.
6:39
Speaker 1: On medical school and would stop at nothing, even gambling
6:43
Speaker 1: his family's livelihood to get his dream.
6:47
Speaker 7: It was revealed that he was actually trying to sell
6:49
Speaker 7: the family home to pay for his college education, and
6:53
Speaker 7: his wife wasn't very happy when she found out about this.
6:57
Speaker 1: So after just over seven years of marriage, Hightower divorced
7:01
Speaker 1: and soon found a new love in his life, Susan.
7:04
Speaker 1: They married in 1982, and his plans to become a
7:08
Speaker 1: doctor were back on track. Nothing would get in his way.
7:12
Speaker 1: When he found a course at Wright State University in Ohio,
7:16
Speaker 1: he forged his academic qualifications to get in.
7:21
Speaker 9: He had taken his transcripts from the University of Rhode Island,
7:23
Speaker 9: which were fairly pedestrian transcripts, and doctored them to make
7:28
Speaker 9: it look like he got all As.
7:29
Speaker 3: The actual truth of the matter was that he did
7:33
Speaker 3: terrible at URI, University of Rhode Island. He just about
7:37
Speaker 3: failed almost everything. And so he got into graduate school.
7:41
Speaker 1: On a lie. Hightower had got where he wanted through deception.
7:46
Speaker 1: Now he realized how faking it could get what he desired.
7:50
Speaker 1: Soon he was lured by the highs and lows of
7:52
Speaker 1: the stock market, and this inspired his next ruse.
7:57
Speaker 9: When he was in Ohio attending Wright State University, he
8:00
Speaker 9: had some sort of investment group where he convinced people
8:03
Speaker 9: to invest a modest amount of money. He'd turn it
8:06
Speaker 9: into a lot of money. Well, it was all a scam.
8:09
Speaker 9: He kept all the money. He was a good salesman,
8:11
Speaker 9: but he had no idea how to actually do it.
8:14
Speaker 9: He had grandiose ideas about himself, and I think he
8:17
Speaker 9: was frustrated at his lack of talent, and eventually he
8:20
Speaker 9: would be discovered to be a fraud.
8:23
Speaker 1: Despite losing his investors more than $ 100, 000 of their life savings,
8:29
Speaker 1: Hightower was never prosecuted, but he'd stumbled upon an easy
8:33
Speaker 1: way to make money. So Hightower decided to ditch med
8:37
Speaker 1: school and, with his wife Susan, moved over 800 miles
8:41
Speaker 1: to Barrington, Rhode Island. Here, the fraudster would set up
8:45
Speaker 1: another dubious financial venture. To his neighbors, though, Hightower seemed
8:50
Speaker 1: like the happy family man.
8:52
Speaker 7: They have two children together, and they live with his
8:56
Speaker 7: wife's parents. Now, his wife's parents have got this rather
8:59
Speaker 7: lovely house in Barrington. So essentially what Hightower's doing here
9:03
Speaker 7: is he's being able to perform the perfect American family
9:07
Speaker 7: in the lovely big house, but he hasn't had to
9:10
Speaker 7: do a single thing to earn that. What matters for
9:13
Speaker 7: him is how other people see him, and he really
9:16
Speaker 7: thinks that he's got it all sorted now.
9:18
Speaker 1: In a bid to show he was going up in
9:20
Speaker 1: the world, the smooth-talking salesman started a seemingly reputable business
9:26
Speaker 1: to match, Hightower Investments, Inc. In his new downtown office,
9:31
Speaker 1: he bumped into local lawyer, Ernest Brendel.
9:34
Speaker 3: He somehow convinced Ernie that he should invest some of
9:37
Speaker 3: his money with him. And he had a formula that
9:41
Speaker 3: he said was foolproof. Of course, he didn't have any formula.
9:45
Speaker 3: He didn't know what he was doing in the commodities business.
9:48
Speaker 3: Everything that he said was a total fabrication.
9:54
Speaker 1: Soon, Hightower and Earnest became the best of friends. Their
9:58
Speaker 1: families even started holidaying together in New Hampshire. By now,
10:03
Speaker 1: Hightower had become an upstanding member of the community. He
10:07
Speaker 1: was a local Sunday school teacher and a coach of
10:10
Speaker 1: the town's junior football team.
10:13
Speaker 9: He was such good friends with the Brendels that when
10:16
Speaker 9: Emily went to the YMCA after school, Hightower was on
10:19
Speaker 9: her list of approved people to pick her up. He
10:22
Speaker 9: was such a good family friend, he was actually on
10:23
Speaker 9: the list as someone they trusted to pick up their daughter.
10:26
Speaker 1: Eventually, Hightower persuaded Ernest to invest $ 15, 000 in his get-rich-quick scheme.
10:33
Speaker 7: Hightower is a very parasitic individual who will feed off
10:37
Speaker 7: other people, and he will come to know about Ernest
10:41
Speaker 7: and how much money he had just through spending time
10:43
Speaker 7: with him and the family. So these people are predators.
10:47
Speaker 7: They identify people's vulnerabilities. They kind of get to figure
10:51
Speaker 7: out what people have and what they can get out
10:53
Speaker 7: of them.
10:54
Speaker 10: Hightower is a perfect role model, the kind of person
10:58
Speaker 10: everyone can trust. And when con men are concerned, trust
11:02
Speaker 10: is everything.
11:04
Speaker 1: Within a year, Ernest Brendel started having doubts. He soon
11:08
Speaker 1: discovered that instead of making him money, Hightower had squandered
11:12
Speaker 1: nearly $ 12, 000 of his investment.
11:16
Speaker 9: Ernie realized that this system was a scam. And when
11:19
Speaker 9: he realized that, he did what you would expect Mr.
11:22
Speaker 9: Brendel to do. He reported it to the Commodities Future
11:25
Speaker 9: Trading Commission, which is the commission in this country that
11:28
Speaker 9: oversees commodities. It was the wrong person for Hightower to trick.
11:34
Speaker 10: He realized there was only a matter of time before
11:38
Speaker 10: people found out exactly what he was up to. The
11:40
Speaker 10: Sunday school teaching, the coaching the soccer team, That cherished
11:45
Speaker 10: reputation that he'd built up was about to disintegrate.
11:50
Speaker 1: Not only was Hightower standing in the community in jeopardy,
11:55
Speaker 1: the complaint against him looming at the commodities regulator would
11:59
Speaker 1: mean he'd lose his license to trade and his livelihood.
12:03
Speaker 1: Hightower's house of cards was crumbling down. The phone at
12:13
Speaker 1: his office had been disconnected, and his landlord was chasing
12:17
Speaker 1: him for $ 1, 800 of unpaid rent. His problems with debt
12:22
Speaker 1: caused ructions at home, and this led to the final
12:26
Speaker 1: nail in the coffin.
12:28
Speaker 7: Hightower's wife says that she wants a divorce.
12:30
Speaker 6: She doesn't want this marriage to continue.
12:32
Speaker 7: Now, for Hightower, this is terrible because she is essentially
12:37
Speaker 7: the access route to this lifestyle that he's been performing.
12:41
Speaker 7: They live in her parents' house.
12:43
Speaker 6: It's very grand.
12:44
Speaker 7: Everybody thinks that he's very wealthy, so he threatens her.
12:49
Speaker 1: Rhode Island once had a reputation as a mob state,
12:52
Speaker 1: with key figures of the mafia believed to be operating
12:55
Speaker 1: in the area. In a desperate ploy, Hightower threatened his
13:00
Speaker 1: wife with associates he claimed he had in this criminal underworld.
13:05
Speaker 11: He allegedly had told her that he had paid a
13:09
Speaker 11: group of organized hitmen to kill her for $ 5, 000, and
13:14
Speaker 11: for another $ 1, 000 he would make her disappearance complete.
13:19
Speaker 9: It was just this fantasy world he lived in. I
13:21
Speaker 9: don't think there was any truth to any of that.
13:24
Speaker 9: His marriage was ending. He was concerned, I believe, about
13:29
Speaker 9: whether he'd see his kids. His professional life, such as
13:31
Speaker 9: it was, was falling apart, so this was all crashing
13:34
Speaker 9: in on him at the same time.
13:36
Speaker 12: Hightower's answer?
13:37
Speaker 1: To eliminate the man who'd started the complaint against him,
13:41
Speaker 1: threatening his livelihood and reputation, 53-year-old Ernest Brendel. On Thursday,
13:48
Speaker 1: the 19th of September, Hightower set off on a six-mile
13:52
Speaker 1: journey to the town of Seekonk, Massachusetts.
13:56
Speaker 9: He goes to Massachusetts and buys a bare Devastator crossbow,
14:01
Speaker 9: and he bought six bolts. He had told his family
14:05
Speaker 9: he would be out maybe all night or come back
14:08
Speaker 9: very late.
14:09
Speaker 7: I suspect there would have been quite a lot of
14:11
Speaker 7: stalking of the Brendel family, so he would have known
14:15
Speaker 7: what their movements were, what time they left, what time
14:17
Speaker 7: they arrived home, their routines. This was a very well-planned murder.
14:24
Speaker 1: On Friday the 20th, as usual, Ernest's 8-year-old daughter Emily
14:29
Speaker 1: left on the school bus. Then Ernest drove wife Alice
14:33
Speaker 1: to work at nearby Brown University. Seizing his moment, Christopher
14:38
Speaker 1: Hightower broke into the house.
14:40
Speaker 7: Hightower goes and hides out, essentially, in Ernest's garage, so
14:45
Speaker 7: he lays in wait for him.
14:46
Speaker 6: He could decide not to.
14:48
Speaker 7: Do it, but the fact that he doesn't suggests to
14:50
Speaker 7: me that this is somebody who is emotionally empty, who
14:53
Speaker 7: just does not care about harming other people, and he's
14:56
Speaker 7: there on a mission, and he's not going to leave
14:58
Speaker 7: until he's executed that mission.
15:01
Speaker 1: With his lethal weapon at the ready, Hightower watched Ernest
15:04
Speaker 1: Brendel pull up onto the drive.
15:08
Speaker 9: We believe when Ernie pulled into his garage, Hightower was
15:11
Speaker 9: waiting for him with the bare Devastator and shot him
15:15
Speaker 9: three times with the crossbow. The first shot to Mr.
15:19
Speaker 9: Brendel didn't kill him. The second shot hit him in
15:25
Speaker 9: the posterior. And then the third shot was a kill shot.
15:35
Speaker 9: Went through his spinal cord, through his esophagus, into his heart.
15:37
Speaker 9: So he killed him right away.
15:40
Speaker 1: To make sure his nemesis was dead, Hightower bludgeoned Ernest
15:44
Speaker 1: on the head with a crowbar.
15:46
Speaker 6: This individual is a psychopath.
15:48
Speaker 7: He very much lives in the present moment.
15:50
Speaker 6: And as far as he's concerned, at this point in time.
15:53
Speaker 7: Ernest has been taken out of the picture and he's
15:56
Speaker 7: hoping that actually everything's going to be fine because this
15:59
Speaker 7: complaint isn't going to get looked at and everything will
16:01
Speaker 7: go back to normal.
16:03
Speaker 1: Now he'd exacted his revenge, Hightower calmly cleaned up the
16:07
Speaker 1: crime scene using hydrochloric acid, then drove his former friend
16:12
Speaker 1: a mile to remote woodland on the edge of town.
16:16
Speaker 1: After burying Ernest in a shallow grave, the killer returned
16:20
Speaker 1: home and calmly washed his clothes. But then Hightower got
16:24
Speaker 1: an unexpected surprise.
16:28
Speaker 9: The sheriffs arrive with the restraining order that had been
16:33
Speaker 9: sought by his wife. So when he's served the restraining order,
16:37
Speaker 9: he now has no place to live.
16:40
Speaker 1: Destitute and homeless, Hightower returned to the scene of his crime.
16:44
Speaker 1: As he monitored messages left on the Brendels' answer phone,
16:48
Speaker 1: he thought about what he was going to do with
16:50
Speaker 1: the rest of the family.
16:52
Speaker 12: Family life.
16:54
Speaker 10: There are commitments, there are responsibilities, and on that particular day,
16:59
Speaker 10: Ernest was expected to pick up his daughter from school.
17:03
Speaker 1: Ernest's wife, Alice, and 8-year-old daughter, Emily, would be next
17:07
Speaker 1: on Hightower's hit list. He had to silence them before
17:11
Speaker 1: they raised the alarm. On that day, Friday the 20th,
17:15
Speaker 1: daughter Emily had been on a school trip. The killer
17:18
Speaker 1: made sinister plans to pick her up.
17:22
Speaker 9: So he calls the Primrose School, where Emily attended, and
17:25
Speaker 9: pretends to be Mr. Brindell, and said, Emily can walk home.
17:29
Speaker 9: And to their credit, the school said, no, that's not
17:32
Speaker 9: going to happen.
17:33
Speaker 1: Not one to be diverted from his mission, the determined
17:36
Speaker 1: Hightower then stole Alice's car and drove it to the YMCA,
17:41
Speaker 1: where Emily was having her usual after-school care.
17:46
Speaker 9: So he goes to the Y, tries to pick her up,
17:47
Speaker 9: and they won't let her because she's no longer on
17:49
Speaker 9: their proof list. So then the YMCA gets a phone call,
17:53
Speaker 9: purportedly from Mr. Brendel, but undoubtedly from Hightower. This is
17:59
Speaker 9: Ernie Brendel. My friend Christopher Hightower, who was on my list,
18:02
Speaker 9: is going to pick her up. I'm going to give
18:04
Speaker 9: him my driver's license, which he has access to because
18:07
Speaker 9: Ernie's dead. So he goes to the YMCA and gets Emily.
18:12
Speaker 1: Even though Hightower was a trusted family friend, 8-year-old Emily
18:16
Speaker 1: had a sixth sense that something wasn't right. Tragically, she
18:20
Speaker 1: tried to call her father, Ernest, to warn him, leaving
18:23
Speaker 1: a message on the family's answer phone.
18:26
Speaker 9: Emily knew this wasn't right. And it's, Dad, Dad, this
18:31
Speaker 9: doesn't seem right, something like that. But eventually the YMCA
18:35
Speaker 9: lets her go. And that's the last anybody that we
18:38
Speaker 9: know of saw her, was the woman at the YMCA
18:40
Speaker 9: who sees her walking to Alice's car with Christopher Hightower.
18:45
Speaker 1: Once home, Hightower drugged 8-year-old Emily with Benadryl, then tied
18:49
Speaker 1: her up in the basement. The brutal killer knew she'd
18:52
Speaker 1: be useful as a bargaining chip when Mother Alice came home.
18:57
Speaker 10: Alice always got the bus home. Ernest would pick her
18:59
Speaker 10: up from the stop, but on this particular evening, Ernest
19:02
Speaker 10: wasn't there, so she made her own way.
19:05
Speaker 12: Once home, she, too, was held hostage by Hightower.
19:10
Speaker 9: Throughout the day, people arrived at the house, um, Little
19:13
Speaker 9: girls came looking for Emily. He said she wasn't home.
19:16
Speaker 9: At one point, a discount store showed up to deliver
19:19
Speaker 9: a mattress. He sent them away.
19:22
Speaker 1: Mother and daughter were held hostage until the next morning
19:25
Speaker 1: when Hightower used Alice to carry out the final act
19:28
Speaker 1: in his plans. On Ernest's computer, he made her type
19:33
Speaker 1: out a letter in Ernest's name to the U.S. commodities regulators,
19:38
Speaker 1: withdrawing his complaints against Christopher Hightower. It's believed, though, she
19:43
Speaker 1: left a coded message for the police.
19:46
Speaker 9: She put Hightower's initials on the file she opened. and
19:49
Speaker 9: we all have to tell that was a clue.
19:52
Speaker 1: Now Hightower had no use for his hostages, he strangled Alice.
19:57
Speaker 1: Then later that evening, he drove her body, together with
20:00
Speaker 1: sleeping daughter Emily, to the remote woodland on the edge
20:04
Speaker 1: of town where Father Ernest was buried. Under cover of darkness,
20:09
Speaker 1: Hightower dug them a shallow grave, then buried eight-year-old Emily
20:14
Speaker 1: underneath her mother, as former detective Gary Palumbo remembers.
20:20
Speaker 4: There was evidence that she was buried alive. I know
20:27
Speaker 4: he gave her Benadryl, an insufficient amount that would make
20:32
Speaker 4: her drowsy or, you know, sleepy, but it wasn't enough to...
20:37
Speaker 4: To kill a child, that's a monster. That's a monster.
20:49
Speaker 7: Many people will say, well, maybe he felt bad. Maybe
20:53
Speaker 7: he didn't want her to kill her and he was
20:56
Speaker 7: just burying her body just to kind of get it
20:58
Speaker 7: out of sight, out of mind. But I think he's
21:01
Speaker 7: coming towards the end of his plan here. and perhaps
21:05
Speaker 7: that the killing of Emily wasn't as carefully thought through
21:08
Speaker 7: as the killing of Ernest and Alice.
21:12
Speaker 1: After burying the bodies, Hightower covered the graves with lime
21:16
Speaker 1: to mask the smell of decomposition. Now the killer was satisfied,
21:21
Speaker 1: he disposed of the entire Brendel family.
21:25
Speaker 7: He buries them quite close to their home, and this
21:28
Speaker 7: is interesting for me, because he has a lot in
21:30
Speaker 7: common with other killers here. He's thought fairly carefully about
21:35
Speaker 7: the murders themselves, but he hasn't thought very carefully about
21:38
Speaker 7: the aftermath in much detail. They're in a place where
21:41
Speaker 7: they're going to be discovered.
21:43
Speaker 1: The Earth would soon give up Hightower's dark, dark secret,
21:48
Speaker 1: and the reputation of the upstanding churchgoer would come crashing down. Soon,
21:53
Speaker 1: Christopher Hightower the fraudster would become known as a triple killer.
22:01
Speaker 7: The fact that Hightower kills a child is shocking, is awful.
22:06
Speaker 7: And we reflect on the fact that he's a father himself.
22:09
Speaker 7: But he's somebody who is completely cold, who is completely
22:13
Speaker 7: emotionally empty.
22:14
Speaker 6: So he would have felt.
22:15
Speaker 7: Absolutely no hesitation at killing the child because he sees
22:20
Speaker 7: people in terms of what they can do for him,
22:23
Speaker 7: whether they're a threat to him, whether they're a barrier
22:25
Speaker 7: to him.
22:26
Speaker 6: There's no emotional connection to them.
22:29
Speaker 1: Barrington was blissfully unaware of the Grizzly family murders that
22:33
Speaker 1: had taken place in the close-knit town. The destitute and
22:36
Speaker 1: homeless killer, Hightower, stole Alice's Toyota, then went on a
22:41
Speaker 1: spending spree with her husband, Ernest's, checkbook.
22:45
Speaker 9: He went about his business, buying stuff, cleaning supplies, you know,
22:49
Speaker 9: cashing checks. We got him at a yogurt store. We
22:52
Speaker 9: got him pumping gas. We got him all over Barrington
22:55
Speaker 9: and southeastern Massachusetts.
22:58
Speaker 1: Aware the alarm would soon be raised over the Brendels' disappearance,
23:02
Speaker 1: Hightower had to.
23:03
Speaker 12: Work out his alibi.
23:05
Speaker 10: Now he's scared that everything's going to come out and
23:08
Speaker 10: he's got to find a way of sorting it out.
23:10
Speaker 10: The finger of suspicion is almost inevitably going to point
23:15
Speaker 10: to him. So he devises a plan and goes to
23:18
Speaker 10: see Ernest's sister.
23:20
Speaker 1: That Sunday evening in the stolen family car, Hightower set
23:24
Speaker 1: off on the 95-mile journey to Guildford, Connecticut, where Ernest's
23:29
Speaker 1: sister Christine lived. She was very fond of her elder brother.
23:34
Speaker 8: Ernie was two years older than me. He was my
23:37
Speaker 8: big brother.
23:39
Speaker 2: And we were pretty close, I think, for a brother
23:42
Speaker 2: and a sister, and we led a very active relationship.
23:45
Speaker 8: Physically active childhood.
23:48
Speaker 2: Our parents had a house in the Pocono Mountains, so
23:51
Speaker 2: in the summer we just sort of ran wild.
23:54
Speaker 1: As adults, they remained close, even after Ernest married Alice.
23:59
Speaker 8: We had a good relationship.
24:00
Speaker 2: We argued, but we argued when we were kids too.
24:02
Speaker 2: Alice was the great peacemaker, mediator. You couldn't not have
24:08
Speaker 2: a good relationship with her because she was very easy
24:11
Speaker 2: to get along with.
24:13
Speaker 1: On Sunday evening, the 22nd of September, Christine was unaware
24:18
Speaker 1: of the tragedy that had befallen her brother. But his killer,
24:22
Speaker 1: Christopher Hightower, called at her door.
24:25
Speaker 8: We had guests for dinner.
24:29
Speaker 2: And he arrived at the door and started telling me
24:33
Speaker 2: his crazy story. And I said, why don't you go
24:37
Speaker 2: in the living room and sit down and relax?
24:41
Speaker 8: I said, because.
24:42
Speaker 2: we can't do anything about this until my guests leave.
24:46
Speaker 2: So I sort of hurried them out of the door,
24:49
Speaker 2: and then my husband and I sat down with Hightower,
24:53
Speaker 2: and then we started hearing his story, which was.
25:00
Speaker 5: Nuts.
25:02
Speaker 1: Although she'd never met him before, Hightower told Christine that
25:06
Speaker 1: her brother Ernest and his family had been kidnapped and
25:09
Speaker 1: were being held hostage by the mafia.
25:12
Speaker 2: I didn't quite know what to make of it. But
25:15
Speaker 2: I didn't think what he was telling me was the truth.
25:19
Speaker 2: Then he decided that he would show us the car.
25:23
Speaker 1: As well as showing Christine and her husband Ernest's bank
25:26
Speaker 1: cards and driving license, Hightower opened up the boot of
25:30
Speaker 1: the family car to reveal a massive stain of blood.
25:33
Speaker 1: He claimed the blood came from a broken jaw Ernest
25:36
Speaker 1: had sustained during the kidnap, but Christine's husband Alex was
25:40
Speaker 1: a doctor and didn't believe what he was hearing.
25:44
Speaker 8: He said to me was that there was a lot
25:46
Speaker 8: of blood.
25:46
Speaker 2: And there's probably more than someone could bleed and still
25:50
Speaker 2: be alive. We knew that something really bad had happened.
25:54
Speaker 2: but we didn't know exactly what.
25:56
Speaker 1: Hightower claimed the mafia wanted $ 300, 000 to release Ernest and
26:01
Speaker 1: his family. He asked Christine and her husband for $ 75, 000
26:07
Speaker 1: to help pay the ransom.
26:09
Speaker 2: We just told them that we obviously don't have that
26:12
Speaker 2: kind of money around the house.
26:14
Speaker 8: We don't deal in cash.
26:16
Speaker 1: Hightower left empty-handed, but he warned Christine and husband Alex
26:21
Speaker 1: not to call the police, claiming their phones were being tapped.
26:26
Speaker 1: Once Hightower disappeared, though, they went to a neighbor's house
26:30
Speaker 1: and called the authorities straight away.
26:32
Speaker 2: We went over there and called the FBI because I
26:38
Speaker 2: thought that, you know, if it's kidnapped, it's much better
26:43
Speaker 2: to get them on the case.
26:45
Speaker 1: The FBI alerted the local Barrington police, who conducted a
26:49
Speaker 1: thorough search of the Brendels' family home.
26:52
Speaker 4: We forcibly entered the house. The one thing that I
26:55
Speaker 4: noticed right off the top is there were no cords
26:58
Speaker 4: to the telephones. It wasn't connected to anything, and the
27:00
Speaker 4: cords were gone. So that raised my suspicion a little bit.
27:06
Speaker 4: And when we go out to the garage, the southwest
27:09
Speaker 4: window of the garage looked like somebody forcibly entered through there.
27:15
Speaker 1: Although there was no obvious evidence of a murder scene,
27:19
Speaker 1: the police were concerned about the missing family of three.
27:22
Speaker 1: The only potential link to their whereabouts was Christopher Hightower,
27:26
Speaker 1: who Christine had reported driving the family's Toyota. For Barrington's
27:31
Speaker 1: chief of police, Charles Brule, Hightower had to be brought
27:35
Speaker 1: in for questioning.
27:37
Speaker 11: I advised the dispatcher to put a broadcast out on
27:40
Speaker 11: the motor vehicle we were looking for, and one of
27:43
Speaker 11: the officers on patrol who was in the Barrington Shopping
27:46
Speaker 11: Center saw the vehicle exiting, stopped the vehicle, and at
27:51
Speaker 11: that point, we took the individual into custody.
27:55
Speaker 1: Once in custody, Hightower feigned concern about the Brendels' whereabouts.
28:00
Speaker 1: He also told the police that they'd been kidnapped.
28:03
Speaker 12: By the mafia.
28:05
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the family's Toyota that he'd been driving was searched.
28:09
Speaker 4: Based on the search warrant, we found... an empty bag
28:12
Speaker 4: of lime, blood splatters and stains inside the car, and
28:18
Speaker 4: in the trunk there was a crossbow, and also they
28:22
Speaker 4: found three teeth, which ended up being Ernie's, in the
28:27
Speaker 4: back of the car.
28:29
Speaker 11: It was obvious about the evidence that was inside the Toyota,
28:33
Speaker 11: which was accumulation of blood stains, more than a person
28:36
Speaker 11: would receive from a beating, from a facial beating.
28:39
Speaker 4: We thought the family was in trouble at that time,
28:41
Speaker 4: especially just observing the car without searching it. You could
28:45
Speaker 4: see the bloodstains, so we thought they were in trouble.
28:50
Speaker 1: With this forensic evidence and no sightings of the Brendels
28:53
Speaker 1: alive in the last three days, the police believe they
28:57
Speaker 1: had a triple murder on their hands. At this point,
29:01
Speaker 1: under pressure, Hightower made his first mistake in his mafia
29:04
Speaker 1: kidnapping story. When the police commented on tyre tracks found
29:09
Speaker 1: near Hightower's home, his pretense slipped.
29:12
Speaker 12: They're not buried there, he told them.
29:15
Speaker 7: Well, it's quite interesting because that's implying I do have
29:18
Speaker 7: some knowledge about this And this is a power play.
29:21
Speaker 7: He's basically saying to the police, I do know something
29:24
Speaker 7: about this, but I'm not going to give it up
29:26
Speaker 7: that easily. So he's trying to buy himself time. He's
29:31
Speaker 7: very much in control.
29:33
Speaker 12: As news of.
29:34
Speaker 1: The Brendels' disappearance spread, concerned Barrington residents helped in any
29:39
Speaker 1: way they could.
29:40
Speaker 4: Within a week's time, they started organizing searches. They would
29:45
Speaker 4: have searches where community members could volunteer, and they would
29:50
Speaker 4: come out and assist.
29:52
Speaker 1: As forensic investigators swept through the Brendels' home, they found
29:57
Speaker 1: microscopic evidence which linked to the crossbow found in Hightower's possession.
30:02
Speaker 1: Now it was a potential murder weapon.
30:06
Speaker 4: There was a little hole in the garage door that
30:10
Speaker 4: determined to be caused by an arrow, by a bolt.
30:13
Speaker 4: And forensically, they ended up finding blood splatters in that area.
30:18
Speaker 1: With news that the police had uncovered a likely murder scene,
30:21
Speaker 1: Ernest's sister Christine was giving.
30:24
Speaker 12: Up all hope.
30:25
Speaker 8: As time went on, it just got worse.
30:28
Speaker 2: You know, the chances that they were alive and the
30:31
Speaker 2: chances that they were unharmed were less and less.
30:35
Speaker 8: And it was too much.
30:39
Speaker 1: As police dug into Hightower's background, they found a destitute
30:44
Speaker 1: man with a trail of fraud leading from his investment
30:47
Speaker 1: scam in Ohio. On October the 2nd, U.S. regulator the
30:52
Speaker 1: National Futures Association told investigators about a letter they purportedly
30:57
Speaker 1: received from Ernest Brendel withdrawing a complaint against a broker,
31:02
Speaker 1: Christopher Hightower. Forensics experts examined it and revealed it was
31:07
Speaker 1: a forgery. Now the police knew this complaint could be
31:11
Speaker 1: their prime suspect's motive for murder. The town was shocked
31:18
Speaker 1: when they learned 42-year-old Sunday School teacher Christopher Hightower had
31:23
Speaker 1: been arrested in connection with the disappearance of the Brendel family.
31:30
Speaker 1: Despite a six-week search for their bodies, Ernest, wife Alice,
31:34
Speaker 1: and their eight-year-old daughter Emily still hadn't been found.
31:40
Speaker 9: A huge army of law enforcement with a lot of
31:42
Speaker 9: volunteers spent six weeks looking for the Brendels. We searched cemeteries.
31:48
Speaker 9: We searched abandoned pits. We looked everywhere. We had dogs.
31:52
Speaker 9: The FBI brought in mediums. We talked to profilers from
31:55
Speaker 9: the FBI, but we couldn't find them.
31:57
Speaker 1: On the 7th of November, a Barrington resident was out
32:01
Speaker 1: walking in remote woodland next to one of the town's
32:04
Speaker 1: schools when she made a sinister discovery.
32:07
Speaker 4: We got a phone call saying that a woman walking
32:11
Speaker 4: her dog had seen her dog reacted to an area.
32:17
Speaker 4: She showed us where it was. Myself and the sergeant
32:21
Speaker 4: went in, and it was briars and bushes everywhere. And
32:25
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden it was no more briars,
32:28
Speaker 4: no more bushes. And you could see an area where
32:32
Speaker 4: there were depressions. We dug the area where the depressions were.
32:37
Speaker 4: One depression revealed Ernie's knee, and the second depression revealed
32:43
Speaker 4: Alice's knee. And that's when we stopped and called the forensics.
32:49
Speaker 1: As a Barrington resident, it was the discovery even Detective
32:53
Speaker 1: Gary Palumbo was dreading.
32:55
Speaker 4: They train you. They mentor you. Don't get emotional. Leave
32:59
Speaker 4: it at work. But I was angry. It doesn't take
33:03
Speaker 4: a rocket scientist to realize what you found. And so
33:07
Speaker 4: I was angry.
33:12
Speaker 1: The FBI and soon forensic teams swooped on the shallow grave.
33:17
Speaker 1: Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs was also called to attend.
33:22
Speaker 1: He saw damning evidence linking Christopher Hightower to the crime scene.
33:27
Speaker 9: Within the hole where Mr. Brendel was was a piece
33:30
Speaker 9: of a bag of lime. The piece of a bag
33:32
Speaker 9: of lime that matched the bag of lime that was
33:35
Speaker 9: in the car that Mr. Hightower was driving that we
33:37
Speaker 9: had a receipt that he bought at a hardware store.
33:41
Speaker 9: So we knew then, boy, we got him.
33:43
Speaker 1: In a shallow grave next to Ernest, they uncovered the
33:47
Speaker 1: body of his wife, Alice. She'd been strangled as a
33:51
Speaker 1: ligature had been left around her neck. But underneath Alice,
33:55
Speaker 1: they found her 8-year-old daughter, Emily.
33:59
Speaker 9: It was extremely sad, and..... you could see a little
34:05
Speaker 9: shoe in the dirt. State police, detective pressed to make
34:09
Speaker 9: sure there was a foot in there. That was a
34:11
Speaker 9: very sad moment. We had a photograph of Emily taken
34:14
Speaker 9: on Friday because she went on a field trip. She
34:16
Speaker 9: went to Newport to see a Viking ship. And we
34:19
Speaker 9: knew what clothes she had on on Friday. She had
34:22
Speaker 9: the same clothes on. To me, that was just so sad.
34:25
Speaker 9: It was just so sad seeing this little girl. So
34:28
Speaker 9: it was a very emotional day for everybody there. There
34:33
Speaker 9: were police officers in the hole with them. That was
34:35
Speaker 9: a very solemn occasion.
34:37
Speaker 1: That same day, Emily's aunt, Ernie's sister, Christine, was told
34:42
Speaker 1: the news.
34:44
Speaker 2: We had, I think, already had a funeral service. And
34:48
Speaker 2: we knew they were dead. My mother was still alive.
34:53
Speaker 2: And Ernie was the absolute apple of her eye.
34:56
Speaker 8: But she was in the.
34:57
Speaker 2: Early stages of dementia. And she said things like, where's
35:05
Speaker 2: your brother?
35:07
Speaker 8: Or,'' He hasn't come to visit me recently.'' I'd say,'' Mom,
35:12
Speaker 8: he's dead.
35:15
Speaker 8: It was very difficult.
35:18
Speaker 1: With the discovery of the Brendels' bodies, their killer would
35:22
Speaker 1: finally face justice. Christopher Hightower was charged on three counts
35:26
Speaker 1: of murder and one of kidnap. His trial started 16
35:31
Speaker 1: months later on 8 March 1993... at the Supreme Court
35:36
Speaker 1: of Rhode Island. Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs helped prepare
35:41
Speaker 1: the case.
35:43
Speaker 9: Most cases that we prosecute, we usually have some sort
35:46
Speaker 9: of direct evidence, and a direct evidence is either an
35:49
Speaker 9: eyewitness to the crime or a confession. We had neither.
35:52
Speaker 9: He never confessed. But circumstantial cases, if you do it
35:57
Speaker 9: the right way, are the most compelling cases.
36:00
Speaker 1: Not only did the prosecution present the man who sold
36:03
Speaker 1: Hightower the crossbow, they called nearly 100 other witnesses.
36:09
Speaker 9: We could trace his receipts. And we had witnesses that
36:12
Speaker 9: saw him around town. He bought muriatic acid to clean
36:16
Speaker 9: the floor of the horse barn. Each little witness had
36:21
Speaker 9: a little essential dot to fill in. So we had
36:24
Speaker 9: witnesses that would see him at the house. We put
36:28
Speaker 9: in the delivery guy who showed up to deliver a mattress.
36:32
Speaker 9: We put in the neighbor who saw Hightower with the hose.
36:37
Speaker 9: We put in the guy at the shell station who
36:39
Speaker 9: pumped gas with him. We put in all these little.
36:43
Speaker 3: Dots.
36:45
Speaker 9: And at the end, they all pointed in only one direction,
36:48
Speaker 9: and that was Mr. Hightower.
36:50
Speaker 1: When Hightower took to the stand, true to form, he
36:53
Speaker 1: had an elaborate explanation for the damning evidence.
36:58
Speaker 10: Unbelievably, Hightower explained that Ernest had got involved with the
37:02
Speaker 10: mob and some serious drug dealing.
37:05
Speaker 1: Hightower claimed he was at Ernest's house when the mafia
37:08
Speaker 1: arrived and murdered the Brendel family in a dispute over money.
37:13
Speaker 1: He claimed he saw eight-year-old Emily strangled.
37:16
Speaker 5: They had already said they were going to kill her.
37:19
Speaker 5: He didn't tell them where the money was.
37:27
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it.
37:28
Speaker 5: It was impossible. You don't kill a child.
37:35
Speaker 12: Then Hightower claimed he was threatened himself.
37:40
Speaker 5: Sometime during the evening, a pillowcase or something was placed
37:48
Speaker 5: over my head. I was taken out to one of
37:51
Speaker 5: the cars.
37:53
Speaker 1: He then said he was forced to dig the Brendels' graves,
37:56
Speaker 1: otherwise his own family would be killed.
38:00
Speaker 5: I picked up the shovel and I started digging. I
38:02
Speaker 5: begged him, please, I'll do whatever you want, just leave
38:05
Speaker 5: him alone.
38:07
Speaker 10: Complete lies. There is no doubt whatever.
38:11
Speaker 5: Mr.
38:11
Speaker 9: Hightower claimed, I didn't do it. The mafia did it.
38:16
Speaker 9: These drug dealers did it. So he got on the
38:18
Speaker 9: stand and said, I'm innocent.
38:20
Speaker 4: They didn't kill anyone.
38:24
Speaker 12: Who did?
38:27
Speaker 4: The people that were with Mr. Brindell.
38:30
Speaker 1: State Attorney Michael Stone tore into Hightower's claims on behalf
38:35
Speaker 1: of the prosecution.
38:37
Speaker 3: I think he thought by testifying that he was going
38:40
Speaker 3: to convince the jury that he actually had nothing to
38:44
Speaker 3: do with these murders. I think he's the type of
38:47
Speaker 3: person who believes his own lie.
38:53
Speaker 1: Michael's pivotal moment in making his case was by proving
38:56
Speaker 1: beyond doubt that Christopher Hightower was a pathological liar. In court,
39:01
Speaker 1: he produced the transcripts Hightower had falsified to get into
39:06
Speaker 1: Wright State University 11 years previously.
39:10
Speaker 3: You didn't get accepted into that master's program with a 2.5 average,
39:13
Speaker 3: did you?
39:13
Speaker 4: No, I did not.
39:14
Speaker 9: And why is that?
39:16
Speaker 5: Because I had contacted an individual at... University of Rhode
39:22
Speaker 5: Island and obtained a forged transcript.
39:31
Speaker 3: I think by the time I finished that it was
39:33
Speaker 3: evident to the jurors that he was a total fabrication
39:41
Speaker 3: and that Ernie Brindell was just the person who got
39:45
Speaker 3: in his way and was expendable. He definitely... as a
39:50
Speaker 3: person who cared about nothing else but himself.
39:54
Speaker 1: After four days of cross-examination, the triple killer looked defeated.
39:59
Speaker 1: In desperation, his own defense team even brought an expert
40:03
Speaker 1: psychiatrist to the stand to testify that Hightower was delusional.
40:08
Speaker 1: But the court dismissed any claims of insanity. On the
40:12
Speaker 1: 8th of June, 1993, Christopher Hightower was sentenced to life
40:17
Speaker 1: without parole. It was the result the investigators and prosecutors
40:21
Speaker 1: had been waiting for.
40:23
Speaker 4: Well, I think everybody was relieved. We're thankful we got
40:26
Speaker 4: the master off the street, and he's going to stay
40:29
Speaker 4: off the street.
40:30
Speaker 11: He's probably the lowest form of life on the earth.
40:33
Speaker 11: I had the opportunity to confront him when I was
40:36
Speaker 11: in my second employment in the federal court, and I
40:38
Speaker 11: just told him, I said, You rotten bastard, I hope
40:41
Speaker 11: you rot in hell. And that's the way I feel.
40:45
Speaker 11: Because there isn't any place for him in any kind
40:49
Speaker 11: of society at all.
40:51
Speaker 8: He's despicable.
40:53
Speaker 9: It's all about him. People were objects to him. People
40:58
Speaker 9: were there to be used to further his means.
41:02
Speaker 7: Hightower is such a cold and a despicable killer because
41:06
Speaker 7: nothing gets in his way. He is literally like a steamroller,
41:10
Speaker 7: and the devastation that he perpetrates lasts for a very,
41:14
Speaker 7: very long time.
41:16
Speaker 1: For Christine, there was comfort in knowing that the man
41:18
Speaker 1: who brutally wiped out the whole side of her family
41:22
Speaker 1: can never kill again.
41:23
Speaker 10: I mean, I.
41:28
Speaker 8: Emily was a dear child, and....
41:32
Speaker 2: The fact that he could kill her just absolutely leaves
41:37
Speaker 2: me absolutely no sympathy for him.
41:40
Speaker 8: He's an awful person.
41:42
Speaker 2: And he's soulless, even though I don't believe in souls.
41:49
Speaker 2: He's totally immoral.
41:55
Speaker 1: He was a con man who masqueraded as a church leader,
41:59
Speaker 1: duping people out of thousands of dollars. He mercilessly slaughtered
42:04
Speaker 1: a family of three just to protect his reputation and
42:08
Speaker 1: cover up his trail of fraud. He kidnapped an 8-year-old
42:11
Speaker 1: girl from school, drugged her and buried her alive. That's
42:16
Speaker 1: what makes Christopher Hightower one of the world's most evil killers.