Brown’s Chicken Massacre /// Part 1 /// 640 | Forensic Files

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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crime at True Crime garage.com and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a
chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime thank you foreign [Music] the Browns Chicken Massacre is a rather
Infamous case especially in the greater Chicago area first called the Palatine Massacre then
later known throughout the nation as the Brown's Chicken Massacre was a mass murder that occurred in Palatine
Illinois when seven people at a Brown's chicken and pasta fast food restaurant were killed there are three kinds of
towns those where everybody knows everybody those where nobody knows anybody and those somewhere in between
like Palatine the newspaper headline was horrific to say the least and reads seven massacred
in Palatine police find bodies of two teenagers five adults and restaurant coolers
the Chicago Tribune reported that seven people were fatally shot and their bodies found Saturday in walk-in coolers
at a family-run chicken restaurant in Palatine nearly 24 hours after the grizzly Discovery police would not name
a motive as police inside the Browns chicken and pasta searched for Clues some restaurant workers speculated that
the visibility of the restaurants safe may have attracted the Killer Palatine Police refused to give details of the
slangs but police sources said a local man was taken in for questioning in connection with the killings
police said they found the bodies at about 2 30 a.m Saturday more than five and a half hours after closing
authorities learned of trouble at the restaurant when parents of one employee called police concerned that their son
had not returned home from work when officers arrived at the store they found a rear door unlocked inside they found
the seven bodies some face down in a cooler and a walk-in freezer the slaying stunned other Brown's
employees who rushed to the restaurant at Daybreak to learn which of their fellow workers had been killed
this True Crime garage [Music] here in the garage we are forced to use a lot of jarring terms such as blood and
murder but there are few words more disturbing than Massacre all of these True Crime cases that we cover we
certainly understand and remind everyone that the victims in these cases and these stories are always many more than
just the deceased unfortunately anytime we have multiple murders the Doom and Gloom factor is Multiplied of course but
also keep in mind the magnitude of the shock wave of grief Terror and anger that spreads for miles into the
neighboring communities and cities just like we all witnessed very recently with the Idaho University case
unfortunately now your hometown is in the National Spotlight and only strictly for extremely undesirable reasons the
best you can hope for is that in some very human way that possibly unification and strength of community can rise above
tragedy and at the very least the person or persons responsible for such senseless violence can be brought into
that light exposed and severe punishments carried out swiftly there are very few ways to deal with such loss
and that is one that I offer up to you and that's what we have here today captain in the garage
a massacre a tragedy of great magnitude that hit this community near Chicago now let's go back 30 years ago almost
exactly 30 years ago to today's date we have such great tragedy that came with so many questions it was most
certainly a massacre and unfortunately we are talking about the murder of seven innocent people as long as you didn't
skip over looking at the title of today's show well then you know we are talking about the Browns Chicken
Massacre you have heard us report in previous episodes quoting more than one detective when asked to describe the
scene of a massacre more than once the same haunting and disturbing phrase is given
wholesale Carnage the name to sum up such Carnage in this case first was labeled the Palatine
Massacre that's because of where this case took place and the otherwise wonderful city of Palatine Illinois
technically speaking it's the Village of Palatine motto a real Hometown and as you heard described in the trailer by at
least one resident there are three kinds of towns those where everybody knows everybody those where nobody knows
anybody and those somewhere in between like Palatine and that would certainly fit the bill
for a town of over 42 000 back in 1993. this is a Northwestern residential suburb of the great City of Chicago
Palatine is one of the largest communities in Illinois with the current population of about 68 000 people
on January 9 1993 no one thought that they would wake up to such horrific news and we read just one of the
headlines for you in the trailer seven Mass occurred in Palatine Police find bodies of two teenagers and five adults
in restaurants coolers now because of the hour in which the murder scene was discovered by police the story did not
hit the Chicago Tribune until the following morning's paper but the front page laid it all out there
describing what little was known about the crimes at the time the bodies were discovered by police and walk-in coolers
at the Brown's chicken and pasta restaurant at about 2 30 a.m on Saturday January 9th for those not familiar
Brown's Chicken is a chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken for those who are not familiar
with Brown's chicken and pasta its Origins go all the way back to 1949. and then Brown's Chicken expanded to
many locations throughout the United States in the 1970s and to this very day Captain there are still a whole bunch of
Brown's Chicken locations in and around the Chicago metropolitan area as the Chicago Tribune put it Palatine lost its
innocence long ago somewhere after World War II but as of January 9 1993 Palatine
joined the roster of shattered towns whose varied names echoed tragedy too enormous to place in any context
that Saturday afternoon As word lit through Palatine the seven people had been found murdered at the local Brown's
chicken and pasta many residents were too stunned and baffled by the lack of details to register any grief at all
let's dive into the timeline of this massacre so the papers aren't offering much in the way of details about this
case especially early on here Captain but of course we will be able to provide those details of this case the
investigation and the evidence as well the seven people were found in the small hours of Saturday morning but let's back
up to that Friday night the restaurant closes at nine PM now anyone who has ever worked in the
restaurant business knows exactly what this means 9 p.m hits restaurant closes doors are locked no new customers no
more orders no new sales now we've got to clean the place put everything away finish up any of the daily paperwork
drop all monies in the safe lock up and leave just like most food industry businesses often the closing procedures
and the staff closing duties of the restaurant if the restaurant is slow leading up to
that closing time well a lot of those tasks can be completed before closing or at the very least you can at least start
on those tasks it's been reported many times over that closing procedures at this Brown's
Chicken location were usually completed by 10 pm so we have a situation you close at nine and roughly one hour after
closing all the duties are done and now everyone is heading home or elsewhere unfortunately that would not be
happening here on this night we have many eyewitnesses in this case and almost all of them report it was
business as usual on a typical Friday at Brown's Chicken that's correct captain in fact all of them reported that it was
business as usual that afternoon and that night leading up to closing and that will be a key factor in this case
because remember we've talked about other cases where we have a shooting or and for unfortunately a massacre in a
restaurant or store and the customers of that day and of that night they are all
essentially Witnesses who can later come forward and they can start to fill in the gaps of time in your timeline to
when everything was fine everything was known normal they might even be able to clue you in on a potential suspect or
anything odd that they saw when they were present at the scene unfortunately here Captain all of our victims that we
will be discussing they were all working at Browns that night none of the victims
were customers the victims we have here we said there were seven we have husband
and wife Richard and Lynn ellenfeld they were actually the owners of this restaurant
Richard was 50 years of age and his wife Lynn was 49. also killed were two teenage male employees Rico Solace and
Michael Castro we also have two employees in their 30s Thomas Menace and Marcus Nelson
and then we have the seventh victim who was a cook this is a 46 year old Guadalupe Maldonado the slain workers
may not have been discovered until several hours later in fact we know that they were discovered in at 2 30 a.m or
roughly 2 30 a.m but had certain things not falling into place and certain people not taking certain actions that
night it could have been hours later until the discovery this gruesome Discovery
there at the Brown's Chicken restaurant yeah if it weren't for the parents of Michael Castro
then these victims would have been found probably not until the next day when they had to open up the store Michael
Castro he's 16 he was working to have extra money to spend on his prized possession which like most 16 year old
males was his car Michael spoke with his parents early in the night I don't have a time for that Captain but
I'm guessing it would it would have been after arriving for his shift because he
spoke with them via phone now one key detail he tells his parents is hey we're closing at nine his parents know
it takes about an hour so for the closing duties to take place he doesn't live very far from the
restaurant at all so mom and dad would be expecting Michael Castro to come home about 10 15 ish on that Friday night he
tells them on the phone right after work I'm coming straight home so they're expecting him
well he's 16 so at some point it's Friday night Mom and Dad realize Michael's not home
around midnight is when Mom and Dad start getting concerned what we have here is a gap of time where we know that
the restaurant closed at nine and the bodies are not discovered until about 2 30 a.m so that puts us at about a five
and a half hour window where we have a lot of questions what the hell happened in that five and a half hours where
everything was fine when the restaurant closed at nine but then we have seven victims at 2 30 a.m five and a half
hours later one like you said one of the protocols when you're closing up shop whether you're working in a restaurant
or a bank or anything like that is all right business is closed lock the doors so we could assume that at nine o'clock
the doors were locked yes and we can assume that and the other thing that we can later understand is that at some
point the doors had to be locked because we get witnesses that will tell us that
they found the doors in the locked position so sometime after midnight Mom and Dad Michael Castro's parents they're
getting concerned they don't live far from the restaurant and they decide you know what we'll head over there we'll
see what's going on they drive over to the restaurant Unfortunately they see their son's vehicle still parked in the
parking lot the restaurant everything from the outside appears to be normal the doors that they checked were locked
and now they're wondering okay what's going on they knock on the doors nothing happens nobody answers they return home
they decide that they're going to call the police they notify the police that their son is missing they tell them of
everything that they know the police are not really concerned they don't share the same concern as the parents but then
the parents call back with uh with a follow-up call saying look this is really not like our son and
regardless of what you're saying yes he's 16 he could be out partying with some friends however the case is this
we went to his place of work where he was supposed to be and come directly home his vehicle's still there so unless
he hopped into somebody else's vehicle there's something going on here yeah and not just Michael's vehicle but there's
other employees vehicles that are still in the parking lot correct so they really kind of pushed the envelope here
and please show up to the Brown's Chicken restaurant along with Castro's parents they checked the doors
again same result restaurants closed restaurants locked we don't know what's going on everybody Parts ways right now
after a little bit more of time expires this is when the Castro parents call back and say look
I know you've already checked the restaurant once I'm insistent that the restaurant be checked again we got to be
doing more here to find my son than just waiting one I bring up those other cars because if I'm
law enforcement and we have a teenager's parents calling and saying hey our son's
missing well he he worked that day it's possible he went out with some friends and they picked him up from work but
what doesn't make any sense to me if I'm law enforcement is the multiple cars of
multiple employees parked in the lot exactly and I will say this though in the defense of the
Palatine Police here I've worked in the restaurant business I've worked at bars and one thing that I
loved one of the key factors why I liked working in that business in that industry when I was younger was
there was always somebody to hang out with after work if you worked the second shift or the closing shift there was
almost always a party or a gathering afterwards that's because the colonel is a party animal so it's not crazy to
think that maybe they all went somewhere together but as parents you got to push the envelope and
that's what they did so now we're checking the restaurant again and this is when the police find a side door that
was actually unlocked the officer tells Castro's parents and that very good by the officer says look you need to stay
out here in the the parking lot you can't come in here with me I I will I need to go in and check out what's going
on and I'll report back to you if you're this law enforcement officer once you find that unlocked door
I think your nerves would shoot exactly the roof because that that is a red flag
that is telling you there is something wrong and man God bless that guy though because he has to then tell the parents
you need to stay back and it's my job and it's my duty to Serve and Protect and I gotta go in here well and this
officer is a different officer than the one who responded the first time so he may know or may not know that the the
building has been checked prior but if you did know that again like you said Captain all those cars in the
parking lot nothing appears to be a Miss from outside you've got to be really concerned now that you're finding that
unlocked door given the situation he goes in on his own the way that this goes down is he says that once he went
in there he immediately felt like something wasn't right so he was probably seeing some kind of signs of a
struggle but what we end up with is he stumbles upon these seven bodies and then of course all hell broke loose
so at approximately 2 30 A.M the victims were all found in the back kitchen area and as reported some
victims were located in the walk-in freezer and some in the walk-in cooler immediately the scene is sealed off what
we have here that's interesting to me though for our investigation and for the knight in question is that the police
arriving and checking the restaurant prior to 2 30 sometime after midnight the Castro's checking the restaurant
prior to 2 30. this already to me is going to close up some of those gaps in our timeline so we know the restaurant
closed at nine everybody should have been done with their closing duties around 10 and heading out of the the
place of business and once we get shortly after midnight we know that the outside of the building appears to be in
the parking lot everything outside is in the same state as it is found at 2 30. so now we're starting to go okay
whatever happened here had to have gone down somewhere between closing time at 9
00 pm and when the restaurant was first checked after midnight yeah we don't know how thorough that first check was
because it's very possible they did a check but they didn't check all the doors a man to be that officer to come across
that scene I mean you're going to feel that in your gut your nuts your butt and your Pizza Hut a lot more to get to in
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today [Music] all right Colonel we are back cheers to everybody for joining us here in the
garage and cheers to another year with the Cardinal cheers to you Captain let's get back into our timeline here so as we
said after we have this gruesome Discovery immediately the scene is sealed off the Cook County medical
examiner's office is notified of the situation and detectives and evidence technicians are requested to the scene
evidence collection begins as soon as they arrive police will be busy to not disturb the bodies or the crime
scene but also collecting evidence all the while they have to photograph the bodies from
several different angles so police are busy photographing and videotaping the scene
at 8 30 a.m We have the medical examiner this is Dr Robert Stein he arrives on the scene in this case
the victim identification was delayed and this was on purpose it was delayed to preserve the crime scene
after the medical examiner is finished with his initial investigation then we're going to have the technicians
transport the bodies to the morgue this does not take place or start to take place until between 4 pm and 7 P.M this
is when the bodies were removed from the restaurant the following day which will be Sunday
January 10th is when the autopsies would be performed all these procedures I'm assuming are taking longer because we
don't have just one victim we have multiple victims let's get into the layout of this restaurant as we are all
familiar with oftentimes there are casual and fast food restaurants located in front of or very nearby shopping
malls and shopping plazas well that was the case here this store sat at an angle
almost tilted diagonal in the Square shaped parking lot that surrounded the restaurant directly to the south of the
restaurant you have the Northwest Highway to the West is North Smith Street and to the North and the east of
the restaurant you have larger businesses Brown's Chicken was a stand-alone restaurant with its own
parking lot so surrounding the a parking lot for Brown's Chicken you have these two roads
that see a decent amount of traffic and then on the other two sides you have parking for the other larger surrounding
stores and businesses the front of the restaurant more so facing the highway is decorative
it has the words Brown's Chicken and large cursive lettering across the front roof side overhang
the restaurant is a square shaped building Windows line the front of the building with small bushes just
below looks very similar to me to uh McDonald's building because of this design the entrance and exit ways were
on both sides of the restaurant so we don't have any entrance in through the front
it's on the sides both sides there was a set of double doors on each side inside
we have the front of the house with entrances seating and room for lines in to form in front of the two registers
and then of course you have the back of the house with the cookers coolers prep table and office
you have the counter with two registers separating the front of the house from the back of the house
the victims were found in the back kitchen area and the walk-in freezer and walk-in cooler area two of the victims
Richard ellenfeld and Thomas Menace were found in the cooler this is on the west
side of the restaurant the other five victims were found in the freezer now when the first officer went
into the restaurant he went in through the unlocked door this is actually referred to by the employees people that
worked there as the back door but it's technically to the very back of one of the sides of the restaurant right this
leads directly into the kitchen area this is referred to as the back door because this is a door that was commonly
left unlocked for employees to come in and out for their shifts for trash removal and if they needed to bring in
supplies to the restaurant so even when it's working if the if the employees are
in there working this door is often left unlocked just because it makes things quicker more efficient for employees to
get in and out throughout their shifts now when that officer goes into that kitchen area immediately through the
door he enters the kitchen area as we said he says he knows right away that something is wrong he did see some signs
of a struggle but the site that took him immediately from concern to crisis mode
was when he spotted a hand and a foot sticking out of the partially open freezer door as it would turn out the
hand belonged to the lone female victim and the foot sticking out was one of the
teenagers that was found dead at the scene all seven victims were shot to death Lynn's throat was slit
but later it was stated that it was The Gunshot that had killed her blood had pulled up significantly in the walk-ins
by the time the officer found the bodies now there was a good deal of hold back information in this case and that was
for good reason one of course it's always good to have some hold back information
these would be intimate details of the crime that only the lead investigators and the killer or Killers would know
this is also to protect the investigation itself from a false confession I was just going to say the
more cases that we covered and we when we talk about this hold back information and and law enforcement having to keep
things close to the chest this show is a is a prime example that we live in a sick world with some sick people but
think about how sick it is that you have to hold back information because there's
some sickos out there that want to confess to these crimes yeah and you're going to have that on two different
levels you're going to have people that come out of the woodwork and they confess to a crime for whatever reason
usually they got some screws loose when they're doing that either they want to take
credit for something that they didn't do or they are mentally ill that's not terribly uncommon right the other thing
too that you want to protect with this hold back information is the in the Integrity of your investigation and the
Integrity of the officers in charge of the investigation right because you could have some pretty aggressive
detectives and officers that are able to get to pull out a false confession from
somebody who is confessing only because they feel pressured by the police very good point also in this case what we
will see is there will be reward money for information in this case leading to an arrest and a conviction that money
just like in Delphi it got to be a very significant amount and it grew over time so now we have
another situation where it's not terribly uncommon for someone to come forward and say things like you know so
and so told me that he did the Browns Chicken murders so why don't you go and arrest him and give me that money well
that's when investigators can go no well what else did he supposedly tell you do
you know where the murder weapon is and so on you need to give us something here
before we're just going to open up our pockets and and uh well more importantly go and arrest this man and then take him
to court now we'll get into the hold back information here in this case in a bit because this is to me a very
fascinating aspect of this case it's because things were done just a little differently here in the Browns Chicken
case some details that were not held back however and that were released to the public
through the media were we learned just like the captain had said that all of the victims had been shot to death the
one victim also had their throat cut we also learned very early on that some of the victims had multiple gunshot
wounds and also the a bloody broom was recovered at the scene and the locals put a lot of speculation into this
bloody broom and wondered what kind of killer would have stuck around in an attempt to clean up the scene or why the
the broom would have been bloodied at all we don't get any information from law enforcement as to why they believe
that the the broom was had a significant amount of blood on it I think any time that there's a crime that's committed at
a place of work it can blur the lines of what the motive is there could be a motive of Revenge there
could have been a motive of just simply we're going to rob this place and we're going to leave no eyewitnesses but there
are some times where we've seen in cases where the motive is Revenge or the motive his
murder and well we're we're here so we might as well just take some cash with us as we
go I want to stay at the crime scene here for a bit captain and discuss one what the detectives are looking for and
two a reminder every crime scene is unique every crime is unique it's not like playing a video game and once
you've conquered a few levels well you're just playing those levels again remember when we were kids after a while
you know everything you knew everything there was to know about let's say Mario World right you
play those boards once you've conquered them once you've defeated them you can forever go through those boards and
there is zero mystery left to you now you don't have that in real life or in these investigations you don't solve a
few murders and then get called to a scene and now with your experience a murder scene holds no secrets to you so
every crime scene is different every case is unique of course your experience can only help you going forward but
again you still have to unlock the secrets of the crime scene now one simple thing
here one simple fact that holds true of every crime scene investigation is that you are looking for anything that is
foreign to the scene itself that could be connected or traced back to the perpetrator it could be anything maybe
it's something obvious like in the Idaho case that one for foreign item was a sheath from a knife detectives knew the
the victims were attacked with a knife and we find no knife at the scene but oh what is this sheath doing here so that's
an example of something very obvious now we could also be talking about something
that is not obvious at all take for example the 1986 Jessica Gutierrez case where that one for an item
or your one clue all the evidence they had there was one single thumbprint that was found on a window frame so much
harder to find and by the way that episode we covered that episode in the garage it's Jessica
Gutierrez episode number 48 with a follow-up episode on off the Record episode number
147. now while the fingerprint Captain is obviously so much more difficult to find the great thing about
the fingerprint is that God bless it the fingerprint is so incredibly unique so that is very good evidence because
you're not only looking for that for an item at the scene left inadvertently or otherwise by the perpetrator but you
need to be able to connect that item or Trace that item back to your perp a fingerprint is great evidence because
you have fingerprint databases and because you can't take someone's fingerprint from one place and put it
somewhere else remember it's not just about learning who did what it's being able to prove it
a good detective is always thinking about the court and making sure his actions her actions hold up in court
and get the conviction the fingerprint then proves that that person that individual was at this location period
now one thing that was unique in this case was the location of the bodies so you're at an immediate disadvantage
because of the number of victims but here you have an advantage to the bodies to where the bodies were
found we have them found in a cooler and a freezer so in this case you have the luxury of taking much more time at the
crime scene because the bodies are secure and in the cooler or the freezer will help
with preservation on some level so you have two key factors that determine how quickly bodies should be
removed from a crime scene one is the security of the scene or the security of the body two is weather
you don't want weather to disturb your crime scene disturb the bodies here neither is a concern now do we have any
information on if these victims were killed where they were found or were these victims moved after they were
murdered there was a lot of evidence pointing to them being killed exactly where they were found
now think about this when you're thinking of crime scenes if if I could apply science fiction to real life here
for a second ideally you would want investigators would want to be able to freeze an entire crime
scene Forever Frozen in time undisturbed so it could be visited over and over again if necessary but of course we
can't do that so you have to get it right you have a ticking clock hanging over your heads counting down the
minutes remaining for you to do so for you to get it right and until that crime scene has to be disrupted by removing
the bodies and removing law enforcement and the technicians and investigators from the scene itself now in this case
1993 suburb of Chicago keep in mind blood evidence blood spatter evidence spatter investigative techniques
were very much in Vogue at this time these were techniques that were being used to better understand crime scenes
and trace evidence back to perpetrators they had been using this evidence for depending on the department depending on
the law enforcement agencies and their resources for about 10 years or so maybe longer in better
equipped agencies what they were learning and what they were doing with this information was this was helping
them to better understand the crime scene and track down the perpetrators but because of this
they also understood that there would be future advancements in technology they knew that crime scene detection
that things like blood saliva skin cells and other things will eventually lead to
DNA work being applied to investigations right they were already talking about it
specifically in this case and of course other cases as well but were unable to use DNA at that point but it's
absolutely brilliant that this was already on their minds already something that they were looking forward to in
this case and in other cases to solve homicides now do we have any information because we know all the victims were
shot where all the bullets of the same type this is something that was a little bit
tricky in the hold back information so one thing that was interesting here was that it was reported
that police believe that two guns were used in the commission of these crimes what
we ultimately learn is no that wasn't the case it was a it was one gun a 38 caliber what's tricky here is
I don't think that this was information that was fed to the media from law enforcement I think that this was
something that some reporter or somebody just kind of came up with ran the idea or suggested this theory
that two guns were used and police thought no need to correct them no need to sort that out and straighten that out
for them that now becomes hold back information for us that only we only believe that one gun was used so
obviously when you have seven victims and and this news is coming out to locals the fear level goes through the roof
because we don't know if it's a robbery that went bad or if like we said a Revenge killing or just
some psychopath or Psychopaths on the loose and a spree killing a lot of the locals started saying well
this is due to a lack of security to this business yeah and you're going to have this right people people want to
throw blame around this is a huge tragedy everybody's hurt everybody's heart broken we want answers why the
hell did this happen how can we prevent this going forward and of course the first thing that's pointed out as you
said Captain was this belief in a lot in a lack of security at the Brown's Chicken restaurant and you know what
they're they're right I can't say that that was the whole driving force behind whatever happened here but it is obvious
that you do have a lack of security and we know that because we talked about that quote-unquote back door technically
a side door but a door that is accessed by workers and in and out constantly now I will say this in
Brown's defense that's extremely common again I've worked at a bunch of restaurants I the majority of them had a
door that was always unlocked if there was somebody in the building that door was unlocked usually it is a back door
or a side door now some of the places that I've worked will have like a surrounding either fence or wall
brick wall where yes there's no cover from overhead right but you have to be let in through a locked
space and then you can access that door that remains unlocked well one of the first
things that I thought when examining this case was when I worked at a bank depending on where the branch was if we
had a bunch of employees that had their cars in the parking lot we were supposed
to keep those doors locked until all the procedures were done but if you're trying to be a good manager and this
isn't 1993 I don't think anybody had remote starts on their car so in January around the Chicago area it's going to be
pretty cold so is it possible that they let people out to go start their car and
then come back in that's one of the things I initially was interested in in this case yeah and you're right you want
to figure out when the perpetrators gain access to the restaurant was it before they closed and locked the front doors
let's say or was it after the closing time now again that back door what they're calling the back door remained
unlocked the other problems there were some other problems with security here at this particular restaurant one we
have owners leaving with money right now that's not terribly uncommon managers often leave with money as well but that
is something to consider when looking at the overall security of your business it's very easy to intercept somebody
with a large amount of cash when they are exiting the building before they get to their vehicle so here
the owners usually took the money home with them or would deposit it at the bank on their way home another problem
is the safe itself was visible to customers from the counters where customers would go up to order their
food and purchase their food and also the other thing look it's 1993. it's not it's not 1945. there were no security
cameras in this restaurant and I that's something I just do not understand and I
I get it it's 1993. it's significantly different than things are in 2023 but not having security cameras yes they
would have been rather expensive at the time but we do ads for and recommend things like SimpliSafe and ADT we're
very lucky to have had them as sponsors on our show and we are huge proponents here at the garage because look of all
these things that we talk about we are recommending to everybody secure your home secure your businesses get
security cameras put security protocols into place because here's the thing sometimes it's not about capturing what
happened or having a recording of what happened it's also a major deterrent to somebody to come in and do something
like this or attempt to rob a place [Music] I want to thank everybody for joining us
here in the garage make sure you subscribe to the show so many people listening that don't subscribe and it
really helps the channel grow it's such an intriguing case make sure you join us
back here for the conclusion tomorrow right here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't look
foreign [Music]

Brown’s Chicken Massacre /// Part 1 /// 640

Part 1 of 2

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This week in the Garage we discuss a very complicated case from Palatine, Illinois. Back in January of 1993 someone murdered the workers and robbed the Brown’s Chicken & Pasta restaurant on the corner of the Northwest Highway and North Smith street. The bodies were later located in the back kitchen area by police more than five hours after the restaurant closed that Friday night. Sadly seven people lost their lives that night. The greater Chicago area just experienced yet another massacre. Join us in the Garage as we dive into the investigation that ensued as detectives went on the hunt for a cold blooded killer.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Browns Chicken Massacre, detailing the murders of seven people in Palatine, Illinois, and the ensuing investigation.

Key points

The Browns Chicken Massacre. A mass murder that shocked Palatine, Illinois, when seven people were killed at a restaurant.
Community Shockwaves. The massacre sent shockwaves through the community, leaving residents stunned and grieving.
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Gruesome Discovery at Brown's Chicken. The scene is sealed off as police begin evidence collection after a shocking discovery.
Victims Found in Freezer. The first officer discovers victims in the kitchen area, leading to a crisis mode response.
The Importance of Security Cameras. In 1993, the absence of security cameras in restaurants raises concerns about safety.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Seven massacred in Palatine.

3:39WatchJan 13, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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