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Christopher Vaughn is an American man convicted of the murder of his wife, Kimberly, and their three children. All four members of the family were shot in their van on while on the way to a Springfield, IL waterpark. Christopher sustained minor injuries to his wrist and leg while the other three sustained fatal gunshot wounds. Prosecutors alleged that shot his family to live in the Alaskan wilderness. Vaughn maintains his innocence and claims that Kimberly shot her family before committing suicide. Wrongful Conviction advocacy group Investigating Innocence is investigating the case.

History

Christopher Vaughn and his wife, Kimberly, moved to Illinois from the Seattle area approximately two years prior to the fatal shooting. Christopher had started a licensed private detective agency in Washington called Stone Bridge Security that specialized in cybercrime. Kimberly began working on a degree in Criminal Justice with plans to join the business as a private investigator. The Vaughns decided to close the business when Christopher was offered a job at Navigant Consulting's computer forensics group, and the family moved to Oswego, IL in 2005. The couple had three children: Abigayle, 12, Cassandra, 11, and Blake, 8. Kimberly, then 34, was a stay-at-home mother at the time of her death.

Shooting

In the early morning hours of June 14, 2007, the family left their home in Oswego to drive to a waterpark in Springfield, IL. Around 5:15am, a motorist near Joliet, IL noticed Christopher Vaughn limping away from his vehicle. He had two bullet wounds: one on his left wrist, and one on his left leg. When asked if he was injured in a crash, he replied, “No, I think my wife shot me”. Kimberly and the children were still inside the vehicle, having sustained fatal gunshot wounds. A 9mm handgun was found on the floor at her feet. His children had each been shot twice while his wife was His wife was slumped over the center console with a single contact gunshot wound under her chin.

Investigation

Although the witness at the scene recalled Vaughn saying that his wife had pulled the trigger, Christopher was unable to recall the event after he reached the hospital, telling a nurse, “You should call my wife. She gets mad when I don’t call her.”

Christopher was brought to the police station after being treated at the hospital and was interviewed for nearly 14 hours on June 14. He returned for two more interviews on June 15 and 17th. He told investigators that he remembered Kimberly asking him to pull over on the frontage road because she was nauseous. The nausea was a symptom of her migraine headaches for which she took Nortriptyline and Topamax. He remembered pulling off, parking in front of a cell phone tower along a frontage road and getting out of the car to check the back tires. He told police he had re-secured the strap on the topper, got back into the vehicle, and noticed that his leg was bleeding, but he claimed to have no memory of he or his family members being shot. Later, when police suggested in interview that Kimberly may have shot him, he defended her, “There was no way she could have hurt the kids."

He told police that he first learned he'd been shot at the hospital when the doctor told him, and that he didn't understand who could have shot him; no one else was around and Kimberly didn't have a gun. Later in the interviews, detectives informed him that they were not dead and asked what happened. Christopher asked detectives to bring Kimberly in so he could talk to her. He denied being involved in their deaths.

Trial

Christopher Vaughn was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and the case went to trial in August 2012.

The prosecution asserted that Vaughn killed his family because he was frustrated with his wife and wanted to live off-the-grid in the Canadian wilderness.

He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

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