The Hendricks Family Murders /// Part 2 /// 712 | Forensic Files

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

The Hendricks Family Murders /// Part 2 /// 712 Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com In 1983 in the state of Illinois there were few stories bigger than that of the Hendricks Family Murders. The Hendricks family of five were very religious folks. The kids were young, and mom and dad were as well. Susie Hendricks was a stay at home mom who took care of the families big nice house, and even read the Bible to her two daughters and young son at breakfast time. David Hendricks was a successful businessman. He was both an inventor and great salesperson for his invention, a medical device, a very popular back brace that was selling quite well in the midwest. While away in the state of Wisconsin on a sales trip David’s family was killed in their beds. This case remains unsolved to this day. Join us in the Garage for the true chilling tale of a family killed in the night and the aftermath that followed.

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Brief Summary

David Hendricks was accused of murdering his family in 1983; the case involved complex timelines and conflicting expert testimonies.

Key points

The Timeline of Events. The timeline of events is crucial to understanding the case against David Hendricks.
Suspicion on David Hendricks. Police grow suspicious of David Hendricks as he leaves home late at night.
Public Reaction to the Case. The case becomes so publicized that people dress as David Hendricks for Halloween.
The Science of Time of Death. Experts struggle to pinpoint the time of death, revealing the complexities of forensic science.
A Jury's Dilemma. The judge expresses doubt about the jury's verdict, highlighting the case's uncertainties.
The Missing Evidence. Key evidence like receipts and eyewitness accounts are absent, raising questions about the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I can't make heads or tails of him leaving to gas up the vehicle.

4:09WatchNov 2, 2023

Tension

55/ 100Some tension

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