Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 20 - Root of All Evil - Full Episode | Forensic Files

in 1981 a witness claimed she saw the brutal murder and cremation of a woman underneath the tree on a stretch of
deserted farmland but there was no trace of the remains anywhere nearby and investigators were stumped
for answers they turned to the science of forensic geology [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] so marshall illinois is a small farming community just across the wabash river
from terre haute indiana the rich soil feeds vast fields of corn and acres of soybeans
the biggest landowners in town were the grabby family fred and charlotte grabby were very
prosperous both worked the farm with their daughter son and daughter-in-law the gravies had a lot going for them i
mean they they had substantial resources uh inheritance on charlotte grabby's part
uh you know and well into the six figures so these were not poor small dirt farmers
fred grabby was easy to spot at six foot four inches tall and close to 300 pounds he dwarfed his petite wife
well when i i first got into the family i thought fred was very nice very polite he was
fun to be around he really seemed to like me they worked a lot charlotte worked from
daylight to dusk the grabby marriage had its ups and downs like all marriages but this one
had some unusual twists fred grabby had an eye for younger women and shortly after he married charlotte
the couple divorced later they reconciled and married again but in 1981 charlotte again asked for a divorce and
fred moved out of the main house into a smaller cabin on the farm the reason for the divorce this time was
that fred was having an affair with the pretty 24 year old bartender vicky mcallister
not exactly the most successful person in that part of the world she attended bar
um she uh her reputation was not of the of the purest on july 24th 1981 charlotte grabby left the house to
cultivate soybeans on the farm her children expected her home by dinner time but she never returned home
when her children couldn't find her they contacted the local sheriff fred told the sheriff that he had spoken
to charlotte earlier that day near a storage shed on the grabby's farm and their conversation got heated they got
into an argument he left the machine shed charlotte pursued him in her car she got
in her vehicle drove off and was last seen i left the last saw driving up the interstate last that was his story and
consistently over time that's what he said in the shed authorities found charlotte's uneaten
lunch on her tractor her purse was also in the shed along with her migraine medication and
driver's license and the neighbors said she saw charlotte's car drive by earlier in the
day but the driver did not appear to be charlotte they saw fred's pickup go by and then
they saw charlotte's car right behind it with a blonde curly haired woman driving
it charlotte grabby has dark short hair straight hair a few days later charlotte grabby's car was found across
the indiana state line outside a bar in terre haute police found no blood no evidence of
violence but they did recover a fully loaded handgun under the seat investigators learned that charlotte had
written a letter shortly before she disappeared and that letter contained a warning
[Music] charlotte grabby disappeared from this remote field on her illinois farm
just prior to her disappearance she asked her children to make a promise if she wasn't home by 4 30 4 30 p.m we
were supposed to come and look for her the reason she was afraid of the man she was trying
to divorce fred grabby [Music] dad would have fits of rage for seemingly no reason at all
directed mainly toward my mother but sometimes toward my brother or myself more my
brother than than me actually one particular instance i heard yelling so i ran outside my brother and my
my dad were fighting physically and my dad even took my brother by the side of the head and beat his
head into the fender of the pickup just 10 days before she disappeared charlotte left several notes in a safe
deposit box in the local bank in the notes charlotte accused her husband of stealing some farm equipment and said
she didn't think she would live through a divorce she said she was afraid of fred and also
his friend and business associate dale kessler when police interviewed dale kessler he
said he was home on the night charlotte disappeared and that fred grabby had been with him
when a grand jury asked fred grabby about his whereabouts on the day charlotte disappeared he invoked his
fifth amendment rights and refused to testify with no evidence of a crime the official investigation stalled
charlotte grabby became yet another missing person despite a 25 000 reward posted by the
grabby children charlotte's disappearance remained a mystery for the next three years
it's all i thought about from the time i got up to the time i went to bed every night how am i gonna find my mom she
could be alive out there somewhere probably not but she might be and i had to go on that possibility and i kept
thinking you know if it were me she would never give up with nowhere else to turn
in 1984 charlotte's daughter hired a private detective charles pearson pearson discovered that fred grabby had
recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend vicki mcallister and pearson tracked her down in indiana
almost from the start vicki mcallister seemed anxious to talk about her life with fred grabby
he was able to to play on her emotions and to draw from her a horrible secret it was the secret to charlotte grabby's
disappearance and the story was so horrific it was difficult to believe vicky claimed that she went to the shed
to borrow a steel drum from fred to haul some trash when they heard charlotte drive up fred
told vicky to hide behind a tractor [Music] charlotte and fred immediately began to
argue and soon turned violent from what vicki mcallister told us fred actually choked charlotte several
times and then would let up on the pressure and let her regain consciousness and then would choke her
again making comments to her the whole time vicky said that after grabby choked charlotte to death
he sodomized her afterwards he used a grease gun to fill every orifice of her body
to make it more flammable he then put her body in the trash barrel and headed towards the river
[Music] vicky drove charlotte's car and abandoned it over the state line in indiana
later that night fred doused the body in diesel fuel and while vicki watched fred
burned the body the fire lasted throughout the night eventually only charlotte's skull
remained grabby threw it in the wabash river saying that it would make good fish food
he then rolled the barrel into the river the story when you hear the whole thing
it's really kind of hard to believe mcallister's tale horrified charlotte's daughter
it was almost overwhelming of course i cried a lot and [Music] over the course of the next few days
it had to sink in because there just was so much to it you know and it was so horrific as you say
i just kept praying that my mom didn't go through any pain mcallister had plenty of motive to tell
a story that would put fred grappy in prison there's no greater wrath than that of a
spurned woman she may have originally been concerned with a long-term relationship with him it lasted for a
certain period of time and then it ended and i think she was angry vicky came to
expect if not be told that she would share in the dynasty the financial dynasty of the grabby family that she
would become a part of everything and that she and fred would live happily ever after i mean that's the story that
guys tell girls and girls often believe in exchange for her testimony vicki mcallister was offered total
immunity relocation and a new identity and if grabby was convicted mcallister could claim the 25 000 reward offered by
the grabby children [Music] anytime you have just one person's word against another
it's always better to have some type of physical evidence but there was another living witness to
the events of that terrible night three years earlier and that evidence would tell if vicky
mcallister's story actually had the ring of truth [Music] fred grabby's ex-girlfriend vicki
mcallister took police to the scene of the cremation which she says took place on the banks of the wabash river
just underneath this mature maple tree but after three years there were no remains found anywhere in
the vicinity i was with one of the attorney generals that was assisting our state's attorney
in the prosecution of the case and i made a comment to him just wondering if at this burn site if there was any
possibility that petroleum products from the diesel fuel that was used could still be recovered in the soil
around the site since the wabash river frequently overflows in the area of the maple tree
any traces of the diesel fuel in the soil would have long been washed away we took some soil samples and they were
negative for our petroleum products but one piece of potential evidence survived
the maple tree under which the funeral pyre allegedly burned trees make excellent history books
because they show us when events occurred nearby the tree they can explain to us
exactly when different events happened in this photo sheriff crumrin is standing on the spot
the barrel was allegedly placed was there any way for science to corroborate vicki mcallister's story
in the spring and summer roots transport water and nutrients from the surrounding soil up through the
trunk and into a tree's branches where they fuel the growth of very large cells when the tree goes dormant in late
summer and fall it produces smaller more dense cells this cycle produces the familiar rings
we see when we cut a tree branch or trunk each ring indicates another year has passed
if the tree absorbed diesel fuel from the gruesome funeral pyre was there any way to tell
diesel fuel is a toxic material to trees it will either kill the cells or it will affect
their growth rate their metabolism adversely when it's absorbed by the tree it will slow the growth rate of the
cells that it's in contact with investigators cut five branches from the tree and when they counted back through
the growth rings they saw something startling in 1981 the growth of those branches had
dramatically slowed from what it had been in previous years growth rings from the year charlotte disappeared were much
thinner than earlier rings but there was no way of knowing why this was so to find out
pieces of each branch were ground into sawdust and given to dr donald dickerson an organic chemist
dickerson dissolved the samples and injected the sample into a gas chromatograph
the results indicated the presence of hydrocarbons compounds indicative of petroleum
products even more startling only two of the five branches showed traces of petroleum the ones on the side
of the tree where vicky mcallister said the cremation took place samples on the other side of the tree
were negative for hydrocarbons some species of trees will translocate or carry the material
laterally around the tree better than others maple trees in general tend to maintain fairly uh direct columns
between the roots and the branches above a unique forensic approach had uncovered
evidence that matched vicki mcallister's bizarre and horrifying story exactly heck of a coincidence
john o'brien spent 40 years as a crime reporter for the chicago tribune in the boondocks of marshall illinois
way down in clark county i don't think there's another crime that comes close to not only the murder
of charlotte grabby and and the means in which her body was disposed of but the story doesn't end here
another mysterious fire an attempted prison breakout and the murder of one of the grabby children
were all to impact fred grabby's trial when scientists discovered hydrocarbons in the maple tree next to where
charlotte grabby's body was allegedly incinerated fred grabby was arrested and charged with murder
[Music] the star witness was fred grabby's ex-girlfriend vicky mcallister who was
given immunity to testify her story both fascinated and horrified courtroom spectators
the first time i think i heard about the tree was when it came out in court and i thought wow you know that
that really to me proves vicki was telling the truth about everything the motive
money fred grabby had no desire to split the family assets with his wife even though
it was charlotte's inheritance which comprised the bulk of their holdings most of the farm ground that they had
it's my understanding belonged to her through her side of the family and fred was going to lose a lot of money
basically that's what it all amounted to if the love of money is the root of all
evil the roots of a maple tree soaking up errant diesel fuel sealed fred grabby's
fate fred grabby was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and was sentenced to life in prison
without parole in a bizarre twist to a bizarre story fred grabby's new girlfriend barbara
graham armed with a gun arrived at the jail one night and attempted to get him out of prison she fired five shots
wounding one deputy in the leg she is able to get up on top for says don't make me kill you and at that time
the struggle ceased for that offense bobra graham was sentenced to 16 years in prison
two months later the home fred and charlotte shared and the house their children jeff and cindy
had built next door burned to the ground arson investigators discovered both fires
were deliberately set oh i believe fred grabby probably had some involvement with it not in setting
the fires directly but i believe he probably had some involvement but we'll never know probably
fred grabby's lawyers appealed the first verdict and on a technicality won a new
trial a month before the second trial fred's son jeff grabby who had testified against his father at the first trial
was found murdered in california with three bullet wounds to the chest we were notified by seal beach
california authorities that they had found the body of jeff grabby floating in one of the harbors out there
to this day some believe fred grabby had a hand in his son's murder although fred denies it
i don't know if he had that kind of pull with people he could send out to california i
i don't think so but i there's a lot of things i don't know the second trial ended the same way as
the first fred grabby was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 75 years in prison
i wrote him a letter telling him that i forgave him for what he did i hate what he did
but i still love him because he's my dad if that makes sense no one has ever been charged with jeff
grabby's murder and no trace of charlotte grabby's remains have ever been recovered
vicki mcallister claimed her reward then left the area relocated at the state's expense
she continues to fear that fred grabby will somehow take revenge even from behind prison bars
the maple tree still grows not far from the wabash river the maple tree alive and growing
was one thing one creation that that fred grabby could not intimidate could not reach
could not destroy [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

A suspect's former lover comes forward with a fantastic tale of murder, mutilation and cremation, but there's no way to test the story's validity until a plant pathologist and a dendrochronologist conduct tests where the cremation supposedly occurred

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Charlotte Grabby was murdered by her husband Fred, with evidence from a maple tree corroborating the horrific details of her death.

Key points

The Disappearance of Charlotte Grabby. Charlotte Grabby vanished on July 24, 1981, after an argument with her husband Fred.
Vicky McAllister's Testimony. Fred Grabby's ex-girlfriend revealed shocking details about Charlotte's murder.
The Maple Tree Evidence. Forensic analysis of a maple tree provided crucial evidence linking Fred to the crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I mean they had substantial resources.

Describing the Grabby family's wealth and status.

1:28WatchNov 24, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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