Friday, November 30, 2012
The convicted quadruple-killer got a quick start to his new life behind bars.
Will County didn't waste any time ridding themselves of Christopher Vaughn, packing the man who executed his entire family off to prison the day after his sentencing. Vaughn, 38, was shipped up to Stateville Correctional Center to start serving the four life sentences handed down by Judge Daniel Rozak on Tuesday. According to Department of Corrections Records, the former Oswego resident made it to Stateville Wednesday. Vaughn declined to make a statement at his sentencing hearing and sat stone-faced as Rozak told him he would never get out of prison alive. Vaughn's father-in-law, Del Phillips, later said he had hoped Vaughn "would open up and say why" he killed his wife, Kimberly Vaughn, and three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and …
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Christopher Vaughn got separate life sentences for the murders of his wife and three children.
Right before a Will County judge dropped four life sentences on Christopher Vaughn, his grief-stricken mother-in-law wondered aloud why he couldn't have abandoned his wife and three children instead of killing them all. "What a coward," said Susan Phillips, the mother of Vaughn's slain wife, Kimberly Vaughn. "If you do not want your family, divorce is always the first option, or even just walking away," Phillips said from the witness stand during Christopher Vaughn's sentencing hearing Tuesday morning. Christopher Vaughn, 38, wanted to shed his family so he could start a new life in the Yukon wilderness with an unwitting stripper. In June 2007, he packed his 34-year-old wife and their three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, …
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Drew Peterson media circus prevented Vaughn from getting a fair trial, his lawyer said, and the wife-killer's attorneys didn't help things either.
First, he killed one wife, then he was named a suspect in the disappearance of another, and now Drew Peterson's very existence has mucked up Christopher Vaughn's murder trial, the Oswego man's lawyer said Monday. Vaughn's lawyer, George Lenard, said the specter of Drew Peterson hanging over the Vaughn case is just one of the reasons his convicted quadruple-killer client needs a new trial. Besides the problem with Peterson, whose own murder trial was taking place in the courtroom next-door to Vaughn's in August and September, Lenard claimed Vaughn's case was corrupted when prosecutors succeeded in "indoctrinating" one of the jurors. Lenard also said a prosecutor insulted him during the closing arguments and he accused the jury of "improper …
Vaughn was convicted this summer of killing his wife and three children in a desperate attempt to free himself from responsibilities and start a new life.
Christopher Vaughn had set a plan in motion to start a new life in the Yukon with an unwitting Chicago stripper on whom he had a secret crush. Instead, he will be starting a new life in prison, and he will be staying there until he dies. Vaughn, 38, faces an automatic life sentence for killing his wife, 34-year-old Kimberly Vaughn, and three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, 12—in June 2007. The Oswego man will still go through what is expected to be a lengthy sentencing hearing today. Members of Kimberly Vaughn's family are scheduled to testify. The Vaughns were making an early morning trip to a Springfield waterpark when Christopher Vaughn pulled off Interstate 55 and stopped on the frontage road outside Channahon. He …
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Glen Higginbotham of Yorkville was out of prison for almost three and a half years when he was locked up again on Christmas.
A Yorkville man convicted of killing a 10-year-old girl in a 1999 drunken wreck is heading back to prison for a boozy Christmas Day crash. Glen Ray Higginbotham, 34, was found guilty Thursday of aggravated driving under the influence and aggravated driving with a revoked license by Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak. Higginbotham took a seven-year prison sentence in April 2000 for ramming into a vehicle on State Street near 12th Street in Lockport, killing a 10-year-old girl riding in the back seat. On the night of the May 1999 crash, a county deputy clocked Higginbotham driving faster than 80 mph just moments before the collision. The girl who was killed, Candace Graham, was not wearing a seat belt. Candace's mother, Constance Graham, …
Flora Dora
4:33 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
He was sent to prison quickly. When will we send Drew off to prison? more ›