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