00:00:39
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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Yeah, every rose has its thorn. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling
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Yeah, b w e d o u n beer run. If you're not following us on Twitter, do so at True Crime Garage or follow the colonel
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at tcg n i c on Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it. And that's enough of the
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business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some
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true crime. The key to this case is going to be the timeline of events and David Hendricks' accountability and
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what his family was doing on that night, that Monday night in November of 1983. When we left off yesterday, we talked
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about David taking the three kids to Chuck E. Cheese. They got some pizza. They got a vegetable pizza. The kids of
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course enjoyed the play area. You get some tokens, you have a good time. The kids were running around
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having a great time that evening. One thing that's very strange in this timeline to me, captain,
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and I get it, it was a different time in 1983, but you know, you do your parenting, I'll do
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mine. David says that he leaves the Chuck E. Cheese leaving the three kids there
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to go gas up his vehicle. Remember, he's he knows that he is going to be going on
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this trip that night. And he wants to have a full tank or close to full tank of gas
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when he's going to be leaving. So, the kids are busy playing at the Chuck E. Cheese. He says, "I went to the gas
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station across the street." He has a receipt for that, so we know that he went there. Right.
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And he gases up the vehicle. He tells the police, "I was only gone about 5 minutes."
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Okay. Well, maybe that works for David Hendricks. However, I have the kids ages listed at five,
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seven, and nine. To me, that's too young to be leaving them at the Chuck E. Cheese unattended by
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an actual parent of theirs. And it doesn't make a lot of sense because he seems to be a overprotective parent
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anyways. That's And I can't make We talked about heads or tails yesterday. I can't make
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heads or tails of of him leaving to gas up the vehicle, but maybe this is something that he's done in the past.
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Maybe he's done this because they are on record as going to Chuck E. Cheese a lot
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to uh frequenting the Chuck E. Cheese a lot. And maybe this was something maybe he would leave his wife there to monitor
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the kids and just kind of got used to that. Regardless, he's back at the Chuck E.
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Cheese. The kids play for a while. They go home. Now, we also have everybody accounted
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for 8:15. This is because a bookmobile was traveling through the neighborhood and he and his wife would allow his kids
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to go on the bookmobile, pick out some books. Um this is like a traveling library
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setup that they used to do. They may still do this in some neighborhoods. So, his kids go to the bookmobile at
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8:15 and then they are back at their home. The bookmobile pulls up to their street,
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Carl Drive. So, they walk back to the house. Now, another thing that we have that can
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tell us who is alive and well and when on that Monday night is remember Susan Hendricks, his wife, is at a baby
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shower. And there's lots of people in attendance at this baby shower, several other
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people. So, she gets home according to David Hendricks, he puts his children to bed sometime between 9:00 and 9:30. Has
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to get them ready for bed, reads to them for a little bit. They're in bed by sometime between 9:00
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and 9:30. His wife, according to David Hendricks, gets home sometime between 10:00 and
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10:30. And we would be able to back that information up based off of other guests
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at the baby shower and roughly her drive time from the shower back to her home. Right.
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David Hendricks, depending on who you talk to, says that he left his home at 11:00, 11:30, or midnight that night.
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Now, in none of these situations does anyone claim that he gives an exact time. This is going to be something that we
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will circle back to here in just a little bit. So, he leaves the home and then as we
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know, unfortunately, when he returns the next day after cause of concern, finds the entire family dead.
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Police are trying to establish the time of death for these four individuals because they now have David on record as
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telling them what time he left. Police are going to tell us, the general public, "David Hendricks told us that he
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left his home that night around midnight and everybody was alive and well. His wife was even awake in bed covered up.
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He kissed her goodbye. The kids were asleep. He may or may not have checked the door
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locks and he left through the garage, drove his vehicle on down the road. David Hendricks says that he, shortly after
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leaving the home, he stopped at a Perkins restaurant to pick up a to-go coffee. And then he made his way on the 6-hour
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or so drive to Wisconsin. Police tell us, "Well, we're awfully suspicious. Why would Seems like an odd time for
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somebody to leave, leave the home in the middle of the night?" Well, the secretary assistant can back
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up David Hendricks' information by saying, "That was pretty routine. David Hendricks would often leave in the
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middle of the night to beat either beat the traffic or take his plane, which we know he did not take on this trip,
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Right. so that he was at the location that he wanted to be first thing in the morning."
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Okay. Well, that explains that away. The next thing that the police were curious about, they said,
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"You didn't have any scheduled appointments with any of these So, we think you killed your family and
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decided, 'You know what? I better high tail it out of here. I can go on this air quotes business trip and be gone,
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conveniently be gone, Right. and somebody else discover my family dead.' Yeah. Well, the assistant and David Hendricks
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both have an answer for that as well. They say most of the time these are not scheduled appointments.
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Why? Because, and this makes sense, we're we're talking to a guy who's very successful at making these sales.
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He's saying one tactic that they learned early on or that he learned early on was
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not to schedule appointments. Because if he called practice A and practice B and practice C and practice D
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all in one location that he's going to have to travel a great distance to get to
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and tries to set up appointments all for the same day, all around the same time,
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so he can hit one after another, he would often get people saying, "Oh, well, we're too busy. On that day, we're
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going to be too busy. We can't schedule anything." Where he found if he just dropped in,
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they weren't too busy. That they could talk to him for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, however long that they were not
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busy for that day, they would entertain and listen to David Hendricks give his spiel.
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So, he is saying and his assistant are saying, "Look, we would go to the location and we would
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purposely not arrange or make appointments. If we had an appointment, it was often because they called. That
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practice would call us and ask for an appointment, which would bring us to the area and
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then we would hit other practices in the area and try to make the sales or at least network with them while we were
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there. So, this is starting to make sense. And then on top of that, we know because
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police go and they talk to all these practices and say they all say, "Yeah, we spoke to David Hendricks that day.
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Yeah, he came in and he talked to us about his back brace. He told us how we could
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uh order it and then we could get it directly from him." And some of these practices had even met David Hendricks
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prior on a previous business trip, a pre- previous visit. The police say, "Well, we still think
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that you killed your family and just decided to high-tail it out of there in the middle of the night."
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The assistant says, "No." Protocol. This is how it usually worked. About a week before David would take a
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trip to another state, another city, he would tell the assistant, "On this day, I want to be in these locations.
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I'll probably leave and drive the night before so I can hit pavement first thing
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in the morning." This arrange This was the arrangement because what the assistant, one of her
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job duties, was to find all of the practices in those areas and give him the addresses and the phone numbers so
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that he could map out where he was going to go. And sometimes she would map out his route for him in advance.
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And then once he's there, he would call and say, "Oh, by the way, I'm going to be staying at this hotel. I found one
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down the street from this practice." Keep in mind, it's 1983. He's not hopping on the internet and logging into
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his IHG Holiday Inn Rewards members account to find the nearest Holiday Inn. So, all of this is playing out exactly
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how his typical business trips would take place. With the one exception, the one big
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major horrific exception of his family being killed either right before he leaves or after he's left his home.
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Well, no, and that's the problem I have with law enforcement on this is I don't understand why sometimes people
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get so hell-bent on their story. Oh, well, we think that you murdered your family then you decided to do this
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impromptu trip. You don't need to convince the public that that's how it happened. What you
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can What you simply could do is you knew that this trip was planned. So, that was your opportunity to kill your
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family and then go on to the the trip. Right. And I think that that's the hurdle that they were slow to get over.
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Now, eventually they would get over that hurdle. Because, you know, one of the other
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questions they had for him was like, "Well, why wouldn't you take your plane instead of making a a more than 6-hour
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drive?" And he was like, "The plane is great for some of these trips, but for a trip
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like this, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, hopping a plane would save me a bunch of time to getting to that first
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destination, which is more than 6 hours away. However, I'm going to be hitting all
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these stops on the way back. You're not going to fly the plane from stop to stop to stop to
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stop. He needed a vehicle to travel and hit all those locations on the way back." Right.
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He's hitting multiple cities. I want to say it was somewhere I I don't I can't find it in my notes at
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the moment, Captain, but I want to say he was hitting like four or maybe even as many as six different
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cities and a couple of locations in each city while he was going to be on this Wisconsin trip.
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Keep in mind, he His intention was not to come home that Tuesday night. He came home, as he says,
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because he's concerned about his family and their whereabouts. Right. So, it's not out of bounds for law enforcement to
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be suspicious of the husband. I mean, heck, most of the time the husband did it,
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right? And so, all all this is going to be leading up to the fact that they're going to arrest
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David and charge David with the murder of his whole family. Yeah, and he's going to be
00:14:03
waiting for this trial for a good period of time. He's actually not tried until the following year. Um and this is not
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to deny him the right to a speedy trial. This is going to be a complicated case,
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a complicated trial, and everybody knew that it was going to be a lengthy trial.
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The problem here, too, Captain, was this case, before he was even arrested, was already highly publicized.
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So, the following year, this is how publicized the case was in the state of Illinois.
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There were kids, teenagers, and even adults that were dressing up as David as a as a
00:14:48
fake David Hendricks for Halloween the following year, where they would simply walk around dressed like a regular
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middle-class white guy with an axe and say, you know, put on a a name tag or something that says, "I'm David
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Hendricks." And so, that's how publicized this case was, which one would expect so. This is
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a horrific crime, an unimaginable crimes that took place, quadruple homicide in America's heartland in in 1983.
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So, they had to arrange to move the trial to another venue. And they settled on Rockford, Illinois. There was some
00:15:29
back and forth for a while, but they settled on Rockford, Illinois. The the prosecution and the defense are both
00:15:35
and the judge all happy with Rockford, Illinois, which is about 135 miles away from Bloomington.
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And at the trial, here's what we're going to be faced with. We're going to be faced with
00:15:52
you know, we talked about yesterday how it's a coin flip, heads or tails. To me, man, I reviewed this trial at
00:16:01
length, spent days on the examining this trial. And to me, everything was gray. Everything was gray as could be, but you
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look at all these situations that are in the gray, and side you have the prosecution saying,
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"Nope, it's black." And the defense saying, "Nope, it's not gray, it's white." And both making good, strong cases to
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sway you one way or the other on this information that is not really anything that you can put your finger
00:16:36
on. So, when The best way to describe this this trial that that I I think is to say, "Both the
00:16:44
prosecution, they did a and the defense, both did a good job, but the prosecution's case against David
00:16:50
Hendricks, it was a pig. What are we going to do? We're going to slap some lipstick and some makeup on
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that pig and make it look beautiful. And we're going to trot that pig around in front of you for days and weeks, and
00:17:01
you're going to have to determine if you like this pig that we brought in here or
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not, cuz we made it so beautiful and appealing. And then on the flip of that, you have
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the defense that did the same thing. Our defense, when you get down to it, it's just a
00:17:14
pig, but we dressed it up really good to try to confuse you. The pizza becomes the crux of this whole damn
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trial. Because what happens here, Captain, when the police could not find any blood
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evidence connecting David Hendricks to the murder of his family, they had pathologists who said,
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"Well, wait a second. We put the time at time of death at 9:00 to 9:00 to 9:30 that night."
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By David Hendricks' own admission to the police, he was still at home at 9:00 to 9:30.
00:17:56
Right. And police ask ask the experts, their experts, "Well, how do you know that?"
00:18:01
"Well, the emptying of the stomach and the stomach contents are telling us that the children were killed approximately 2
00:18:10
hours after they consumed this pizza." Here became the problem that for the delay in arresting David Hendricks.
00:18:19
Remember, he would not submit by advice from his counsel to a second round of questioning with the police.
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The police wanted to question him a second time because now they're armed with this information from the air
00:18:35
quotes experts that tell them the kids were killed roughly 2 hours after they ate that pizza. Well, let's just be
00:18:42
clear. The lawyer was saying you could present questions to us and we'd answer those
00:18:47
questions, but that he wasn't going to agree to a a sit-down interrogation. Correct. You submit the questions to us
00:18:56
and we will answer. We can pick and choose which ones we're going to answer. Correct. If we answer any of them at
00:19:02
all. You have the problem here of the the investigators don't want to show their hand because the information that
00:19:09
they need from David Hendricks, as far as their case is concerned, is did the kids eat again after the time
00:19:16
you already told us? 7:15 is the time that you told us that you guys were eating the pizza at Chunky
00:19:22
Cheese. Right. Did you take any leftovers? Did you finish the pizza? Did you Did they eat anything once that they
00:19:29
got home? Because the police The experts aren't saying without a doubt they were
00:19:34
killed 2 hours after they ate the pizza. They're saying roughly they were killed
00:19:39
2 hours after the last time they had a meal. Right. So, if they ate again later, and let's
00:19:46
say they ate right before they went to bed. He says that I put the kids to bed between 9:00 and 9:30. What if they ate
00:19:50
something at 9:15? Well, now that those experts' opinions are going to put us closer to 11:00,
00:19:57
11:30, 12:00, around the time he said he left. What if they ate after that? Now it could be 1:00, 2:00.
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They wanted David Hendricks to tell them, "No, they never ate again. The kids didn't eat again the rest of that
00:20:13
night. We ate at 7:15. We were done eating the pizza at 7:15 and we went home shortly afterward."
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They wanted to get his to convict him on this quadruple homicide. They could never get that sit-down again.
00:20:28
And so now we're in court and we're trying to figure out and put and convince a jury of 12 of David
00:20:35
Hendricks' peers of what time these kids were killed. The problem, Captain, was one expert is not going to be
00:20:44
enough. The jury sat through days and days and days. 10 air quote expert witnesses giving their opinions. These
00:20:58
are all doctors, some of them from other states who viewed and examined the evidence, some of it based off of
00:21:06
photographs, some of it based off of vials of food contents that were taken from the
00:21:12
bodies. And for days the jury had to sit through and listen to all of these experts give
00:21:19
different and varying opinions on the time of death. And it wasn't so much a time on a clock,
00:21:26
8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00. It was how many hours after they consumed the food until they were killed.
00:21:36
You had some of the experts saying as early as 9:00, 9:30. Which would be two to and a half hours
00:21:44
at you know, one and a half to two and a half hours after they consumed their last meal. You have other experts saying
00:21:49
that well, I would have put it more between the two and four hour window. Other experts saying you can't really
00:21:56
narrow this down is probably more like three to four, maybe three to five hours.
00:22:02
Another expert takes the stand and tells you it's probably in the four to six hour range. A couple of experts telling
00:22:08
the jury that well, I can tell you this with certainty. They were killed prior to five hours after they consumed
00:22:16
their last meal, but I don't know when they consumed their last meal. What we would end up learning is that
00:22:26
this is a little bit of it's science, but it's a little junk science when it comes to the fact of trying to convict
00:22:33
somebody and 100% conclusively determine a time of death. Isn't that crazy? 10 experts?
00:22:40
That's a lot of experts. Well, I to me when you have 10 different experts and you have 10 different
00:22:45
opinions, there's really no opinion at all. There's no expert at all. And but what
00:22:50
we do learn from these experts and and God bless the ones that that do tell us this.
00:22:56
Because they're saying like, "Look, I can give you a range. I can't give you I can't pinpoint it down to an exact
00:23:01
hour." Right. I can give you a range. Well, what do you feel comfortable with telling us at the court? Well, I feel
00:23:07
comfortable with saying three to five hours. And then they're the prosecution saying,
00:23:12
"Well, that doesn't really tell us anything." Or the the defense arguing, "Oh, no, it
00:23:17
can't be two out." What we end up learning is this. The reason why it's not a great indicator, it can be a good
00:23:23
indicator, but you can all you also need to base that around some other evidence
00:23:28
to narrow down that time of death if you're going to use stomach contents. What we learned through this trial
00:23:35
is and I'll put it in its simplest form because as said, this was days and days of testimony.
00:23:41
Is that there are too many variables involved to come to a conclusive opinion on stomach contents in relation to the
00:23:52
time of death in this specific situation. So, there are things like emotions, behaviors, exercise, Yeah.
00:24:04
things of that nature that can speed up and slow down digestion or the stomach the stomach emptying.
00:24:13
And there are also things like with your health and how active of a person you typically
00:24:19
are. What else did you consume that day? What were your activities of that day? And not only can there be variables
00:24:26
within side of one person to a great degree, but it also varies from person to person to person.
00:24:32
Now, the prosecution had a great answer for that. They said, "Well, look, we have three persons here who are all
00:24:38
related and we know their medical histories and we have their father who's telling
00:24:44
us when they had their last meal. So, doesn't that limit the variables? And then the experts say,
00:24:52
"Not exactly because the variables within one individual could even change day to day."
00:25:01
So, there is according to these opinions, these experts' opinions at this trial,
00:25:08
there really is no conclusive opinion on when they were killed or how many hours after consuming
00:25:17
that meal they were killed. All right, we are back, you filthy animals. Make sure if you need more True
00:25:52
Crime Garage for those precious ear balls to follow us on Patreon or you could subscribe through the Apple
00:26:03
Podcast app. Colonel, cheers to you. Cheers to you, Captain, and here's where I wager a
00:26:09
Franklin. I will wager Franklin that the jurors in this trial who sat through multiple days of stomach content
00:26:18
testimony from 10 different experts and that viewed stomach contents from four deceased murdered individuals, Yummy.
00:26:28
I bet you they lost some weight over the course of those few days. Who wants to eat after visiting that? And
00:26:34
and and frankly, when we're viewing the court transcripts in the trial at length
00:26:39
over the past few days, not so hungry myself, my friends. But this case as said, it's a lot of gray area and
00:26:48
then one side telling you something's black and the other side telling you that something's white. Right. And I
00:26:53
don't know. I think that both sides did a did a damn good job. However, I don't know that either side
00:27:00
was overly convincing in this case. Now, let's talk about something else. One other cause that they believe was
00:27:07
possible motive here in this case is the religion or the group that this family belonged
00:27:14
to and how this group really looked down upon divorce. Like divorce is is one of
00:27:22
the worst things that you could do in your lifetime. And so the prosecution wants to present this theory that well,
00:27:29
this was David Hendricks' get out of jail card. Kill his whole family so he can have this better life or or or this life
00:27:37
that he wants to have. Right? That he he's had all this success. He's had all this money and now he doesn't want to be
00:27:45
a husband anymore. Maybe he doesn't want to be a father anymore, but he can't get
00:27:49
a divorce because he won't be able to have his good outstanding position with his religious group that he'll be
00:27:55
shunned and shut out. They actually call it shut up and shut out in the brethren.
00:28:00
And to me, I think that that is going to be difficult to sell that to a jury. Right? It's like you're going to say
00:28:09
that for religious purposes he murdered his whole family just to avoid the divorce? Like I think he's probably
00:28:16
going to be shut up and shut out for the murder as well in this case. So, I think that was less
00:28:23
than convincing to the jury. But one thing that we're going to find that is difficult for David Hendricks and his
00:28:29
defense team, a hurdle that's going to be extremely difficult for them to get over is he was hiring models for to
00:28:37
model his back brace and for advertisements and pamphlets and things of that nature for his back
00:28:44
braces. And he's hiring these young, attractive women. And during these sessions he would hire
00:28:53
them and he would he would schedule an hour-long fitting. And during the fitting process he would explain that we
00:29:00
need this to be skin tight. We need it to to be right up on the person. We want it to
00:29:06
look good for the pictures. So, I need to actually customize an outfit you for this
00:29:13
specific brace. So, I'm going to have to take all these measurements and markings. I'm going to have to draw up
00:29:18
diagrams and create a brace that's specifically for you to wear in these advertisements. Right. This he says
00:29:28
requires these young women to remove portions of their clothing and in some cases
00:29:35
be completely nude from the waist up. Yes. Seems a little ridiculous. Not only that, the device that he designed,
00:29:43
patented, and is selling to these practices, when he goes out and he sells them to the practices or says,
00:29:51
"Hey, you can order them from me." He's not These aren't customizable braces. These
00:29:57
are more of a one-size-fits-all situation. Right. So, why not just use a one-size-fits-all for the models?
00:30:04
The prosecution very smartly, they put they put up several of several different businesses on the stand who
00:30:13
have who have reoccurring orders with David Hendricks. And the the person on the stand saying, "Look,
00:30:22
I've outfitted a number of patients with this brace that I've purchased from David Hendricks. I've never had to have
00:30:28
anyone take off their shirt. Maybe maybe if somebody's wearing a a a coat or a very bulky sweater, they might need to
00:30:37
remove it, but this apparatus is designed to wear over top of the clothing. Not underneath of the clothing, not skin
00:30:44
tight. In fact, there are things on this brace that would be rather uncomfortable
00:30:48
if you walked around and did your day-to-day in this brace skin on the brace. Yeah, it's funny though cuz it's I mean,
00:30:58
I know this goes to character, but so we got to prove that this guy I mean, it proves he's a creep. Pervert. You
00:31:06
know, old pervert round up. Not Not Not hard to find this guy. Um but just because you're a pervert
00:31:15
doesn't mean you're a murderer of your wife and and your kids. This was not one woman. This was like like multiple
00:31:23
women. I don't remember how many, but it was seven, eight, nine. And I'm with you,
00:31:28
Captain. Just Just if he's a if he's a weirdo, he's a weirdo, but it it doesn't mean that he's killing his whole family.
00:31:36
The thing is though, David Hendricks, I'm going to give his give him some credit here, Captain. He's he is very
00:31:42
smart and he's able to pivot Pivot? based off of the information that's being presented
00:31:50
Pivot. so that he can explain things away in in a very smart, believable manner. So, David Hendricks does take
00:31:58
the stand at his trial. And at the trial, he says, "No, I was actually in the process of designing a new brace."
00:32:06
Okay. Sure. Very believable. No, he Why wouldn't you believe him? He's made thousands and thousands and thousands of
00:32:13
dollars off of this brace that that he currently is selling. Well, I'm not believing him because a
00:32:19
bunch of women came forward and said he's a creep. And so, if you're a creep, I don't put it past you that you are
00:32:25
willing to lie to make yourself look better. need to be clear about something. We don't have women saying on the stand
00:32:33
that David Hendricks is a creep. What we have is probably people in the jury that
00:32:38
are making that assumption based off of their testimony. So, these individuals are saying, "Yeah,
00:32:43
I I might have felt a little uncomfortable." And other women that are saying, "Yeah, I just
00:32:49
would It was part of the process. There was nothing that was uncomfortable about
00:32:53
it to me." Right. So, you have varying degrees of if persons felt that they were uncomfortable, none of them ever
00:32:59
saying that they felt that they were being victimized. But we Here's the thing. You can say, "I
00:33:07
think that he's a liar." That's great. You can say that you think he's a pervert, but at the same time
00:33:12
you would just said, "Just because he's a pervert or a weirdo, that doesn't mean
00:33:15
he killed his whole family." Same thing with the lying. Now, here's the situation.
00:33:22
There's no way for me to sit here as a juror and prove yes or no this guy wasn't designing a new brace.
00:33:30
In fact, if it were me being asked, I would go, "Well, that seems somewhat likely. I mean, this is how this guy's
00:33:35
made his fortune if you want to call it that or made his success, built his business."
00:33:42
And he's He's 30 years old. He's got 29 years old. It's not like he's going to retire
00:33:47
tomorrow. But here's where people start to call this into question. And this is where I think you're going
00:33:53
with it, Captain. If you're designing a new brace, are you designing a brace that is only
00:33:59
for young, physically fit women? Right. Uh what about men? What about a person who may be overweight?
00:34:10
What about a large man? What about a child? if this is for people with back problems, I would
00:34:15
assume that more men at this time period have back problems than women do. And you have no male models. Yeah, if To me,
00:34:24
I I'm thinking like if you're designing a brace, unless it's specifically for this body type, which
00:34:31
doesn't seem like a good business model to me, that you would be hiring all different
00:34:37
types of shapes and sizes of people to take all these measurements and markings and diagrams
00:34:43
and everything that you're doing to help you design this new brace. Now, what's What's interesting though, he does admit
00:34:51
on the stand that he was only designing that new brace after he had already hired a few of these models. So, his
00:35:00
his interaction with these earlier models just now seems inappropriate because he doesn't seem to
00:35:06
be doing anything professional with that information after it's proven that he didn't need any of that information that
00:35:13
he was trying to get based off of those fittings. Yeah, he just comes off to me as a little douchey.
00:35:19
Well, you're not the only one that would state that because ultimately David Hendricks would be found guilty
00:35:27
on the four homicides. Dun dun dun. Now, one thing that happens in this case that
00:35:33
doesn't happen in I've seen it one or two other times, but this is very a very rare occurrence.
00:35:41
The judge, after the jury gives their verdict, the judge then says, "Look, my personal opinion
00:35:49
based off of the evidence presented in this courtroom in my courtroom is that I would not have found David Hendricks
00:35:58
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." And I think that in some ways I agree with the judge. I think this guy's
00:36:06
guilty. But I agree with what the judge was saying after having reviewed that trial at length.
00:36:14
Now, we're going to have to speed things some things up here, Captain, because let's let's stay on a point for a second
00:36:20
because like you said, the crux of this becomes really this pizza and when the kids ate last. Yeah.
00:36:28
But by his own admission, he's saying, "Well, I left I don't know 11:30, 12:00." And a lot of these experts, if
00:36:35
you take the majority of these 10 experts, they're saying, "Well, I think they were killed within 2 hours
00:36:46
of eating. Some say, "Well, within three." Some say, "Maybe within five." Well, five
00:36:51
still puts it Some are saying four to six and others are saying that they cannot give a definite range at all.
00:36:58
Right. But what I'm saying is like even if you go, "Well, maybe within four to six." It still puts it in that time
00:37:04
range of him still being at the house. That's why I go back to some of the problems with this investigation, and
00:37:11
it's not the police's fault. It's just the time period. And we'll get into some things that I think that need
00:37:17
to be done or should have been done in this case that could have firmed up guilt or innocence because I can't I
00:37:22
cannot sit here and say to you or anyone that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that this guy killed
00:37:30
his whole family. I cannot sit here and feel good about saying that. Right. I can say if you if you need me to give
00:37:36
you a 90% answer, I feel very good telling you that David Hendricks is responsible for the murders of his
00:37:42
family. But what you have here is when you have 10 different experts almost giving you completely different answers,
00:37:48
you have really no opinion at all. And then on top of that, go back to the idea that the interview with him at the
00:37:55
police station was not recorded. It just wasn't back in 1983. The police on the stand are telling the
00:38:01
jury, "Look, he told us he left the house around midnight." Those kids, according to him, ate their
00:38:08
dinner at 7:15. Well, when David Hendricks is on the stand, he's telling the jury, "I left my home
00:38:16
at 11:00." Well, there's It's a It's a Now, it's his word against his word. There's no proof that he ever told
00:38:24
police that I left at midnight. Because had we had proof, now we can have the prosecutor saying, "David Hendricks,
00:38:30
okay, are you Were you lying then at the police station or are you lying now on the stand?"
00:38:35
Because again, he was able to pivot or he's giving the truth as he sees it or recalls it on
00:38:44
the stand. We don't have any way to verify that. And simply that 1 hour could mean a big
00:38:51
difference in this case, especially when you're really having 10 different people
00:38:55
giving an opinion on maybe the time of death for these individuals. But here's one thing that I I thought
00:39:02
was a big miss. And maybe they attempted to get this information and just could not.
00:39:09
But I We also don't see the defense visiting this aspect of the case, either. Remember, David Hendricks said that
00:39:17
after leaving his house shortly afterwards, he stopped at a Perkins to pick up a to-go coffee.
00:39:23
Yeah, where's that receipt? Where's the eyewitnesses? Could we get a receipt or an eyewitness or both to dispute
00:39:32
that time, right? We We can easily go, "All right, I traveled the speed limit from David Hendricks' home to this
00:39:39
Perkins. It took me 10 minutes to get there. If David Hendricks left his home at
00:39:45
11:00, he should have been at that Perkins at 11:10. If he didn't leave his home until 12:30 or 1:00 a.m.,
00:39:52
well, then if he went to that Perkins like he said, he would be there at 12:40 or
00:39:59
1:10 a.m. Right. So, that I think was a big misstep in one and I wonder this is what I wonder about if they were not
00:40:08
able to obtain that information or no good eyewitnesses because that part of the case is not presented by either
00:40:15
side. Now, it could mean that they did the due diligence and they did track down that
00:40:22
information and it wasn't advantageous to their case and so they purposely left it out and that could work both ways for
00:40:29
both the defense and the prosecution. But that information never came up in any of the trial records.
00:40:37
And so I think that that's a bit of a miss if you're trying to prove guilt or even innocence.
00:40:42
The other thing that I think is a big miss too and this is one thing where I think the
00:40:48
the judge was not completely sold on Hendricks's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and why he made that statement.
00:40:57
Right. What we do know, we find no blood evidence that traces us back to David Hendricks being involved.
00:41:05
What does the physical evidence at that house tell us? The physical evidence that we find at
00:41:10
the home is that they found identifiable but unidentified fingerprints inside the
00:41:17
home. They found identifiable but unidentified footprints or shoe prints inside the home.
00:41:25
Okay, this crime scene based off of the injuries that we discussed to put it as short as I can is a damn
00:41:36
bloody mess. The individual that that committed these crimes or individuals that committed
00:41:42
these crimes Uh-huh. should have been a bloody mess themselves. They would have left bloody shoe prints in the home.
00:41:49
They would have likely left bloody fingerprints. Now, the ax handle wiped clean.
00:41:56
Butcher knife wiped clean. Left right there on the floor in the girls bedroom. The prosecution would tell us that the
00:42:04
lack of evidence in this case is suggestive that David Hendricks committed the crime.
00:42:10
The defense is going to tell you the same thing. The lack of physical evidence in this case
00:42:16
is suggestive that David Hendricks did not commit this crime. You There's no way to sort that out.
00:42:22
There's no way to sit here and come up with a great feeling about your conclusion
00:42:28
based off of the lack of physical evidence. Well, it must have been David because he cleaned everything up. Well,
00:42:33
no, they checked the drains and they checked the traps and they checked his car. They took his car apart. They
00:42:37
checked his hotel room. They found no blood. Right. What they did find is identifiable but
00:42:44
unidentified fingerprints. Identifiable but unidentified shoe prints. Okay, why is that so important?
00:42:53
The routine of the Hendricks family home. Remember Susan Hendricks, stay-at-home housewife.
00:43:01
The routine was that when the kids would go off to school on Monday, she would clean that house.
00:43:08
They were killed either late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. We can make an assumption that the house
00:43:15
would have been relatively clean by the time that they were killed. Reducing the number of fingerprints and
00:43:22
shoe prints that would be found inside the home. Right. So, where one could make an argument that maybe those shoe
00:43:29
prints or fingerprints what One thing that that is not discussed at the trial is were those shoe prints or
00:43:35
fingerprints found with blood? Because if they were found with blood, we know that they were
00:43:40
they were left there during or shortly after the commission of these murders. All we are told is that they are
00:43:46
identifiable but unidentified fingerprints. I would love, man. Here we sit 40 years
00:43:53
later. Could you tell me, please, has anybody bothered or did they secure that physical evidence and continually check
00:44:01
those against AFIS? Yeah. Because what if you check those one day and you're like, oh,
00:44:08
this comes back to some guy that's murdered six other people. Right. Well, now you're going what the hell was he
00:44:14
doing in that home? You're saying bingo dingo. Yeah. Bingo jingo. Bingo jingo. Or whatever.
00:44:21
Bingo jingo. But so there's never any talk about that. Check those against AFIS. That's another
00:44:29
misstep. Now, the other thing we want to talk about expert opinions, you had crime scene experts on the stand take
00:44:35
the stand at the trial where David Hendricks is found guilty that said, look, most of the time when more than one
00:44:42
weapon is used to kill an individual, it's more than one perpetrator. There is blood evidence inside the house
00:44:49
that is suggestive that possibly two killers were inside the home. There were things at the crime scene
00:44:57
that you had crime scene experts telling the jurors there are parts of this robbery, burglary
00:45:08
that look to me like a sophisticated criminal committed these. So, like let's talk about this for a second. When you
00:45:14
view a crime scene, if you look at a dresser drawers, right? Often times it's three, four, sometimes
00:45:22
five or six drawers. When you have an unsophisticated person who who's not used to coming in and
00:45:29
committing these types of crimes that's looking for valuables, ransacking the house,
00:45:36
they will come in and you will usually only find bottom drawer open. Why is that? Because they are not
00:45:44
efficient. They don't know what they're doing. When you see a crime scene where all of
00:45:48
the drawers are open, you have an efficient experienced criminal. Why? Because when you want opens the top
00:45:58
drawer, if you are going to look at something in the next drawer, you have to close that
00:46:03
top drawer and then open the next one, then close it, then open the next one, then close
00:46:07
it, then open the next one and so on. So, often times not all the time, often times you will only find the bottom
00:46:12
drawer left open. Here at the Hendricks home, we find all of the drawers open suggestive that the
00:46:19
criminal knew what they were doing and they were efficiently ransacking the house. So, you start at
00:46:26
the bottom and work your way up because now you don't have to close any drawers after the fact. You open the bottom,
00:46:32
then the next one, then the next one, then the next one all the way to the top. Could you have something that's
00:46:36
completely happenstance where somebody comes in there and stages a crime scene and gets lucky and opens up all the
00:46:41
drawers? Yes. That's not out of the realm of possibility. But expert crime scene uh
00:46:46
experts on crime scenes will tell you that fact with the dresser drawers. The other thing that's weird about this
00:46:53
situation, Captain, is was anything missing from the home? David Hendricks says at a conference to news people,
00:47:03
well, they said that some cash was missing from the house. Right. And police say, well, now he's planting
00:47:11
something in the heads of the public and and in the news that oh, he must be innocent because someone stole cash from
00:47:17
the home. Um the problem with with cash being the only thing missing, how verifiable is it
00:47:25
that it was ever even in the house to begin with? But we don't ever have police ever
00:47:30
saying, no, nothing was missing from the home. They've never gone on record and said, no, nothing was missing from this
00:47:35
house. I don't understand why David hasn't pushed for them to identify these fingerprints.
00:47:44
So, he does fight this conviction on appeal. Right. And in fact, he ends up getting a a
00:47:50
retrial. A retrial? Seven seven or so years later, he gets a non-guilty verdict at
00:47:58
the second trial and he's released. Right. And he actually goes back into business. He got married while he was in
00:48:04
prison. I guess there was nobody else available for this woman. But Poor lady. gets married while he's
00:48:12
in prison and they get a divorce shortly afterward. Um he lost his religion a little bit, he
00:48:19
says, while he was in prison that he came out a bit of a changed man. Well, uh REM said their hit song was written
00:48:26
about David. Well, you will be happy to know that he moved to and lived in Sylvania, Ohio for a good period of time
00:48:34
and had a very successful medical supply business here in Ohio for years. And then he eventually moved down to
00:48:41
Florida where he still resides to this day. He had a practice or or a business in Florida in the greater Orlando area
00:48:48
for a good deal of time. And so here we sit here today, Captain, 40 years later and he is out. He's a free man. He's an
00:48:58
older man at this point. He's 69 years old. And as far as the police and the prosecution's concerned, David Hendricks
00:49:08
killed his family. As far as David Hendricks and many others are concerned, he's an innocent man who did a few
00:49:15
years, did 7 years in prison plus a year waiting for the trial in jail and the real killer or killers is still
00:49:23
out there. I still want to know who these fingerprints belong to. That's exactly
00:49:27
correct because they don't belong to David Hendricks. And the shoe prints don't belong to David Hendricks as well.
00:49:33
And here's the thing though is the people that think he's guilty, even if they were able to identify these
00:49:39
fingerprints and say, "Well, it's of this known killer or this known thief or whatever."
00:49:45
I think a lot of people that think he's guilty will just be like, "Well, then he
00:49:49
was in cahoots with somebody." Yeah, but that's the difficult thing, right? Like there's also ways that you
00:49:56
could say that the fingerprints do not help David or that he wasn't in cahoots with
00:50:02
somebody. What if the fingerprints came back to someone that you check them today
00:50:07
and you say, "Oh, yeah, we we've now identified who those fingerprints belong to.
00:50:13
It it's a a man who lived down the street from them and he is 47 years old. Meaning he was 7 years old when they
00:50:23
were killed. It's not likely that a 7-year-old went in there with an axe, killed four family members, and wiped
00:50:29
down the place, and left. So, you're right. I think that I just don't like when there are things that are out
00:50:36
there that could be tested and they're not tested or in this situation where you have something that is identifiable,
00:50:42
you've just not identified it. Right. It it leaves too much It does It leaves that room for reasonable doubt.
00:50:50
And in in this case, um the reasonable doubt is the unknown killer or killers, right? You have those
00:50:57
crime scene experts that are saying there are some things suggestive that there's more than one perpetrator here,
00:51:03
but they also said at the same time that you cannot conclusively determine that there was more than one perpetrator.
00:51:10
You also cannot conclusively determine that it was a sophisticated robber or or somebody that is used to and has
00:51:19
experience burglarizing homes. So, again, it's all Unfortunately, the case against David Hendricks is all
00:51:28
gray. Very little black and white in this case. Now, we do have a rare situation
00:51:35
here where a man is convicted and then later he's retried and found not guilty. He gets out of prison. He does write He
00:51:43
wrote a book and not about his case. He wrote about a a book about an individual
00:51:47
that he knew while he was serving time. It's called A Confession of a Killer I I
00:51:53
think it's called John Henry Confessions of a Killer. And this was a man that he became
00:51:59
friends with and that he's just chronicling his story. He's not saying this guy's innocent. He's not taking up
00:52:06
a fight for this John Henry person. In fact, he's just chronicling the story as it was told to him with this man's
00:52:14
permission. This individual that he wrote the book about is now out of prison. I don't know that they've stayed
00:52:19
in touch or what have you, but what the unique situation is is that David Hendricks started a website to help sell
00:52:27
and promote this book. Remember, he's What is he at his core? What made him so successful? He's a good
00:52:33
salesman. So, on his website, he opened it up to a blog and a Q&A. And so people, very rightfully so,
00:52:43
wanted to ask him some questions about his case. Forget about John Henry's case. We want to know about your case,
00:52:48
David Hendricks. Are you guilty? Did you kill your family? And so one of the questions that is featured on this
00:52:54
website is, "Who do you suspect of murdering your family? If you are innocent and you
00:53:01
didn't kill them, who killed them?" Right. This is a very interesting answer. He says, "While I was in prison, Susie's
00:53:08
younger sister made a shocking revelation. She said that shortly after the murders,
00:53:13
her then husband had given her surgical scrubs to wash. They were splattered and
00:53:18
covered in blood. She washed them saying nothing. She said that he was angry and jealous
00:53:25
of our family and that he knew where she kept her key to the home. So, that's one
00:53:32
thing that I failed to mention, Captain, and this is something the police were aware of and it was an angle that they
00:53:37
pursued. The Hendricks family kept a spare key outside of the home on their property. Right. So, you could one
00:53:47
could use that and get into the home. So, when you find the house unlocked, no signs of a struggle, and they're killed
00:53:52
in the middle of the night, that's also more reasonable doubt. Did somebody know about that key? Mhm.
00:53:59
Nobody could prove one way or the other if the key was used to enter the house that night. David Hendricks in his
00:54:05
answer here to this question is saying, "Well, my brother-in-law" He goes on to say that Susie's younger sister told him
00:54:12
that shortly before the murders that her husband, her then husband, took the 5-year-old Benjamin, or Benji as he went
00:54:19
by, to a walk through a cemetery and asked him if he was prepared to die. So, David says on this website that that
00:54:28
person is his number one suspect. He says that the problem with applying that to his case, that information to his
00:54:36
case, is that she did not say a word about any of that until uh or report this evidence until their
00:54:44
divorce. Which means she then covered up evidence relating to the murders of her sister,
00:54:52
nieces, and nephew for years. And he goes on to say, "I know that's hard for people to believe."
00:54:59
Um there are plenty of There There are statements out there. I don't know that they came directly from the police, but
00:55:06
what we do know is the police are on record saying we believe David Hendricks killed his family.
00:55:12
So, that would imply that they don't believe that this other individual is responsible.
00:55:18
What's weird here, too, is that divorce word. They're all the same family. They're all
00:55:24
the same religion and how horrible and how difficult shut up and shut out you could be for getting a divorce inside of
00:55:31
that community. He says she did not say until after the divorce about this information. Mhm.
00:55:41
Does she have a dog in the fight to throw this guy under the bus? Maybe she doesn't want to be excommunicated from
00:55:48
her community. And said, "Well, look, this is good reason to get rid of this guy. This is
00:55:52
why it didn't work out. He's a monster. He probably killed some of my family members." The people that say that David
00:55:58
Hendricks is innocent, they they point to the fact that the Palmers, Susan's family, believed David was innocent all
00:56:05
along. Forever. And as far as I can tell, still to this day. Mhm. That to me it does mean
00:56:12
something. I don't know that they're right. Maybe they're just too trusting. I worry here, Captain, that this guy
00:56:19
just got lucky, right? How the hell is he leaving his house at such close of a time to when they were killed?
00:56:26
Regardless of how you want to argue the stomach contents of the victims. It seems very much of a coincidence that
00:56:34
he would be leaving the house at such a close proximity to when the killer would have arrived and then
00:56:41
killed the whole family. Yeah, I think that's why this is a case that gets talked about a lot because,
00:56:46
like you said, the whole trial has gray area, so you can make an argument either
00:56:50
way and I could be persuaded either way. I mean, if you give me enough drinks and
00:56:55
you make a good enough argument, I probably could be swayed either way in this one. If anybody wants to do some
00:57:00
further investigating on their own, the Susie's sister's name is Martha Neals. Um so, he the ex-husband was, I believe,
00:57:10
an orderly at a hospital. That's why he's turning in these scrubs, as her story goes, or at least as David
00:57:16
Hendricks' story goes. But a couple of things that really rub me the wrong way about David Hendricks.
00:57:24
And one fact that I cannot get over is at no point in 40 years, not when he's interviewed that night,
00:57:32
not when he was denying an interview later, not when he was on the stand at his trial, not while he was in prison,
00:57:40
and not when he was released from prison, and not today on his website. This has never happened. He has never
00:57:46
said, "Go find the killer of my family." Right. When he was asked by the police within 24 hours after finding his family
00:57:56
dead, they said, "What do you think should happen to the person that killed your family?"
00:58:01
He said, "Well, I'm a very religious man. I hope that they would be forgiven. I hope that they would be saved. I hope
00:58:08
that they will go to heaven." That's a weird That sounds what That sounds like what a
00:58:14
killer asked for for their family to forgive them. I know that I strive to be a better, more evolved individual, more
00:58:22
peaceful individual. Sure. There's no way I'm saying that, man. And in part, I wonder if he
00:58:30
if that's him saying in a hopeful manner, "Well, that's how I would treat the killer
00:58:36
because I sympathize with the killer. I'm hoping that one day I will be forgiven Right. and I will be saved, and
00:58:43
that I could go to heaven, even though I killed my entire family." At no point does he ever say find the
00:58:50
killer of my family. And I love There was an article that came out on the 20th anniversary of the slayings.
00:58:57
Remember, David Hendricks is now out of prison at this point, 20 years after the
00:59:01
slayings, and the headline was, "Still no new suspects." The only suspect that they ever had,
00:59:11
right or wrong, was David Hendricks. 40 years later, there's no new suspects. That night, the next day, the next week,
00:59:20
the next month, at his trial, after he's released from prison, while he's in prison, and to this day, 40 years later,
00:59:26
on that website, I have never witnessed him say in print, verbally, or otherwise,
00:59:38
"Go find the person or persons that killed my family." He didn't even pull the OJ move where,
00:59:46
"Once I get out of prison, you know, once we clear this up, I can I can look for and help and assist and find the
00:59:53
killer of my loved one." And that seems very odd to me. You could be anywhere and you join us
01:00:17
here in the garage, that's cuz you're awesome and we love you for it. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for
01:00:24
the beautiful listeners? Yes, we do, Captain. This week we are recommending Reasonable Doubt, a
01:00:29
shocking story of lust and murder in the American heartland by Steve Vogel. David Hendricks is the husband and
01:00:37
father to Susie and the three slain children who was away on a business trip, accused and later charged and
01:00:45
convicted of the killings. Police believe he methodically murdered his wife and children before he left, but
01:00:51
why? David Hendricks has the total support of his extended family, but police paint a darker picture. Check out
01:00:59
this New York Times bestseller and true crime classic, Reasonable Doubt. Reasonable Doubt is a testament to the
01:01:05
fact that truth is stranger than fiction. The book has also been used in college-level criminal justice courses
01:01:12
to explain and illustrate the legal concept of reasonable doubt. You can find Reasonable Doubt and many other
01:01:19
great true crime books, TV shows, documentaries, and podcasts on our recommended page by going to
01:01:25
truecrimegarage.com. Make sure you're following us on all social media platforms, Facebook,
01:01:31
Twitter, Instagram @truecrimegarage. Until next week, be good, be kind, and don't litter.