World's Most Evil Killers - Season 4, Episode 3 - Christopher Hightower - Full Episode | Forensic Files

- MALE NARRATOR: 22nd September, 1991. Guilford, Connecticut, USA. Early Sunday evening, a mysterious man called
at a house in the suburbs. Homeowner Christine was told some shocking news. Her brother, Ernest, and his family had been kidnapped
and were being held ransom by the mafia. - I didn't quite know what to make of it.
He had Ernie's car. And he opened the trunk. It was full of blood. - NARRATOR: It turned out the man at the door,
42-year-old Christopher Hightower, was a pathological liar and a killer. He claimed he needed $75,000 to release the family.
But in fact, he'd just murdered them. - He would had stopped at nothing to get what he wanted.
It didn't matter who he hurt. It didn't matter who he conned. - NARRATOR: Most shocking of all,
Hightower annihilated his friend Ernest with a crossbow, strangled his wife, Alice,
then drugged their eight-year-old daughter, Emily, and dumped her in a shallow grave.
- There was evidence that she was buried alive. That's a monster. That's a monster.
- NARRATOR: But in court, he continued his lies, claiming he saw the mob carry out the killings.
- I couldn't believe it. It's impossible. Don't kill their child. - NARRATOR: The churchgoing investment broker turned out
to be a conman who went on to murder three innocent victims, making him one of the world's most evil killers.
- ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Rhode Island, 1991. Residents from the affluent churchgoing town of Barrington
help police in the search for 53-year-old Ernest Brendel and his family. They had completely vanished
from their detached suburban home. - The impact of this on the community was absolutely devastating,
because this is upper middle-class America. This is the American dream. - NARRATOR: Six weeks after their disappearance,
on the 7th of November, 1991, police made a grisly discovery, finding Ernest, wife Alice, and eight-year-old daughter Emily
buried in woods next to a local school. Ernest's sister, Christine, never forgot the day
she received the news her niece Emily was drugged and asleep when she was dumped in her grave.
- I think killing a child's bad enough. What he did with Emily--buried her alive--
that's above and beyond. The man has no soul. - NARRATOR: What Barrington's residents didn't realize
was the man responsible was one of them. The killer, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower,
was a Sunday school teacher and a pillar of the community. There was shock across the town at news of his arrest,
as former State Prosecutor Patrick Youngs remembers. - He was just a typical suburban father.
There are millions of them in America. The last person you would think would commit a horrible crime.
- GEOFFREY: On the surface, Christopher Hightower was extraordinarily trustworthy.
The sort of man that everybody trusted. But suddenly, that trust was broken. - NARRATOR: Hightower's crimes had a lasting impact
on the picture-book American town. - People started to call when they didn't see something that looked good.
Maybe a child on a bicycle late at night or a strange car in the neighborhood. These terrible events, uh,
they just bring about a heightened state of awareness. - DR. YARDLEY: To have an individual come along
who appears to be one of you, who appears to be just like everyone else, and capable of such harm,
really does shake people's foundations. - NARRATOR: This killer's story begins on the 20th of August, 1949.
Christopher Jamere Hightower was born in Winter Haven in Central Florida. His father worked as a printer.
- In the US, this was the postwar years. It was the age of affluence, the rise of the consumer society.
He comes from what appears to be a traditional nuclear family, the American dream.
And nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. - GEOFFREY: He was the eldest of five children,
the one who got what he wanted almost always. - NARRATOR: But soon, the young Christopher would discover
a dark family truth. - Hightower discovered that the man whom he called his father
was actually his stepfather. His real father abandoned them both when his mother was only 17.
It was upsetting, but not something that someone couldn't recover from. - NARRATOR: It drove a wedge between Hightower
and his stepfather that would never be repaired. - I think, at the time, this idea of illegitimacy
is incredibly stigmatized in the US. And it would've been something that would make him quite angry.
His family have lied to him. And I think that that starts off some feelings of rage,
some feelings of resentment. - NARRATOR: Although determined, Hightower wasn't particularly
bright and only just scraped through high school, graduating on the 8th of June, 1967.
At the age of 19, he left home to join the navy. He was committed to forging a glittering career,
unlike his stepfather, the printer, whom Hightower dismissed as a low achiever. - When he leaves, he never sees this man ever again.
To be able to just drop somebody and never see them again, somebody who's been such an influential person in your life,
suggests to me that this is somebody who does not have the same emotional attachments to other people
that the rest of us do. - NARRATOR: After just over four years in the navy, Hightower wanted to start a successful new career.
He married in August 1973 at the age of 24, then enrolled at the University of Rhode Island
to study zoology. Next, he set his sights on medical school, and would stop at nothing--
even gambling his family's livelihood-- to get his dream. - DR. YARDLEY: It was revealed that he was actually trying to
sell the family home to pay for his college education. And his wife wasn't very happy when she found out about this.
- NARRATOR: So, after just over seven years of marriage, Hightower divorced and soon found a new love in his life,
Susan. They married in 1982. And his plans to become a doctor were back on track.
Nothing would get in his way. When he found a course at Wright State University in Ohio,
he forged his academic qualifications to get in. - PATRICK: He had taken his transcripts
from the University of Rhode Island, which were fairly pedestrian transcripts, and doctored them so to make it look like he got all As.
- MICHAEL: The actual truth of the matter was, is that he did terrible at URI-- University of Rhode Island.
Uh, he just about failed almost everything. And so he'd get into graduate school on a lie.
- NARRATOR: Hightower had got where he wanted through deception. Now he realized how faking it could get what he desired.
Soon, he was lured by the highs and lows of the stock market. And this inspired his next ruse.
- When he was in Ohio attending Wright State University, um, he had some sort of investment group where he convinced people
to invest a modest amount of money. He'd turn it into a lot of money. It was all a scam.
He kept all the money. He was a good salesman. But he had no idea how to actually do it.
He had grandiose ideas about himself. And I think he was frustrated at his lack of talent,
and eventually he would be discovered to be a fraud. - NARRATOR: Despite losing his investors more than $100,000
of their life savings, Hightower was never prosecuted. But he'd stumbled upon an easy way to make money.
So Hightower decided to ditch med school, and with his wife, Susan, moved over 800 miles to Barrington, Rhode Island.
Here, the fraudster would set up another dubious financial venture. To his neighbors, though, Hightower seemed like
the happy family man. - They have two children together. And they live with his wife's parents.
Now, his wife's parents have got this rather lovely house in Barrington. So essentially, what Hightower's doing here is he's being able to
perform the perfect American family in the lovely big house. But he hasn't had to do a single thing to earn that.
What matters for him is how other people see him. And he really thinks that he's got it all sorted now.
- NARRATOR: In a bid to show he was going up in the world, the smooth-talking salesman
started a seemingly reputable business to match-- Hightower Investments, Inc. In his new downtown office,
he bumped into local lawyer Ernest Brendel. - He somehow convinced Ernie that he should invest
some of his money with him. And he had a formula that he said was foolproof. Of course, he didn't have any formula.
He didn't know what he was doing in the commodities business. Everything that he said...
was a total fabrication. - NARRATOR: Soon, Hightower and Ernest became the best of friends.
Their families even started holidaying together in New Hampshire. By now, Hightower had become
an upstanding member of the community. He was a local Sunday school teacher and the coach of the town's junior football team.
- PATRICK: He was such good friends with the Brendels that when Emily went to the YMCA after school,
Hightower was on her list of approved people to pick her up. He was such a good family friend,
he was actually on the list as someone they trusted to pick up their daughter. - NARRATOR: Eventually, Hightower persuaded Ernest
to invest $15,000 in his get-rich-quick scheme. - Hightower is a very parasitic individual
who will feed off other people. And he will have come to know about Ernest and how much money he had
just through spending time with him and the family. So these people are predators.
They identify people's vulnerabilities. They kind of get to figure out what people have
and what they can get out of them. - GEOFFREY: Hightower is a perfect role model,
the kind of person everyone can trust. And where conmen are concerned, trust is everything.
- NARRATOR: Within the year, Ernest Brendel started having doubts. He soon discovered that instead of making him money,
Hightower had squandered nearly $12,000 of his investment. - Ernie realized that this system was a scam.
And when he realized that, he did what you would expect Mr. Brendel to do. He reported it to
the Commodities Future Trade Commission, which is the commission in this country
that oversees commodities. He was the wrong person for Hightower to trick. - GEOFFREY: He realized that it was only a matter of time before
people found out exactly what he was up to. The Sunday school teaching, the coaching the soccer team,
that cherished reputation that he'd built up was about to disintegrate. - NARRATOR: Not only was Hightower's standing in
the community in jeopardy, the complaint against him looming at the commodities regulator would mean he'd lose his license
to trade and his livelihood. Hightower's house of cards was crumbling down. - ♪ - NARRATOR: The phone at his office had been disconnected.
And his landlord was chasing him for $1,800 of unpaid rent. His problems with debt caused ructions at home.
And this led to the final nail in the coffin. - Hightower's wife says that she wants a divorce.
She doesn't want this marriage to continue. Now, for Hightower, this is terrible,
because she is essentially the access route to this lifestyle that he's been performing.
They live in her parents' house. It's very grand. Everybody thinks that he's very wealthy.
Um, so he threatens her. - NARRATOR: Rhode Island once had a reputation as a mob state,
with key figures of the mafia believed to be operating in the area. In a desperate ploy, Hightower threatened his wife with
associates he claimed he had in this criminal underworld. - He allegedly had told her that
he had paid a group of organized hitmen to kill her for $5,000, and for another $1,000,
he would make her disappearance, uh, complete. - PATRICK: It was just this fantasy world he lived in.
I don't think there was any truth to any of that. His marriage was ending. He was concerned, I believe, about...
whether he'd see his kids. His professional life, such as it was, was falling apart.
So this was all crashing in on him at the same time. - NARRATOR: Hightower's answer?
To eliminate the man who'd started the complaint against him, threatening his livelihood and reputation--
53-year-old Ernest Brendel. On Thursday, the 19th of September, Hightower set off on a 6-mile journey
to the town of Seekonk, Massachusetts. - PATRICK: He goes to, uh, Massachusetts and buys a Bear Devastator crossbow.
And he bought six bolts. He had told his, um, family he would be out maybe all night,
or come back very late. - DR. YARDLEY: I suspect there would've been quite a lot of
stalking of the Brendel family. So he would've known what their movements were, what time they left, what time they arrived home,
their routines. This was a very well-planned murder. - NARRATOR: On Friday the 20th, as usual,
Ernest's 8-year-old daughter, Emily, left on the school bus. Then Ernest drove wife Alice to work at nearby Brown University.
Seizing his moment, Christopher Hightower broke into the house. - DR. YARDLEY: Hightower goes in and hides out, essentially,
in Ernest's garage. So he lays in wait for him. He could decide not to do it. But the fact that he doesn't suggests to me
that this is somebody who is emotionally empty, who just does not care about harming other people.
And he's there on a mission, and he's not gonna leave until he's executed that mission.
- NARRATOR: With his lethal weapon at the ready, Hightower watched Ernest Brendel pull up onto the drive.
- PATRICK: We believe when Ernie pulled into his garage, Hightower was waiting for him with the Bear Devastator
and shot him three times with the crossbow. The first shot to Mr. Brendel, um, didn't kill him.
The second shot hit him in the posterior. And then the third shot was a kill shot.
- ♪ - PATRICK: Went through his spinal cord, through his esophagus, into his heart.
So he killed him right away. - NARRATOR: To make sure his nemesis was dead, Hightower bludgeoned Ernest on the head with a crowbar.
- This individual is a psychopath. He very much lives in the present moment. And as far as he's concerned at this point in time,
Ernest has been taken out of the picture. And he's hoping that actually, everything's gonna be fine,
because this complaint isn't gonna get looked at and everything will go back to normal.
- NARRATOR: Now he'd exacted his revenge, Hightower calmly cleaned up the crime scene
using hydrochloric acid, then drove his former friend a mile to remote woodland on the edge of town.
After burying Ernest in a shallow grave, the killer returned home and calmly washed his clothes.
But then Hightower got an unexpected surprise. - The sheriffs arrived with a restraining order, um,
that had been sought by his wife. So when he's served the restraining order, he now has no place to live.
- NARRATOR: Destitute and homeless, Hightower returned to the scene of his crime.
As he monitored messages left on the Brendels' answer phone, he thought about what he was going to do
with the rest of the family. - GEOFFREY: Family life goes on. There are commitments. There are responsibilities.
And on that particular day, Ernest was expected to pick up his daughter from school.
- NARRATOR: Ernest's wife, Alice, and eight-year-old daughter, Emily, would be next on Hightower's hit list.
He had to silence them before they raised the alarm. On that day, Friday the 20th,
daughter Emily had been on a school trip. The killer made sinister plans to pick her up.
- So he calls, uh, the Primrose School, where Emily attended, and pretends to be Mr. Brendel.
He said Emily can walk home. And to their credit, the school said, "No, it's not-- that's not gonna happen."
- NARRATOR: Not one to be diverted from his mission, the determined Hightower then stole Alice's car
and drove it to the YMCA, where Emily was having her usual after-school care. - So, he goes to the Y, tries to pick her up,
and they won't let her, because he's no longer on their approved list. So, then the YMCA gets a phone call purportedly
from Mr. Brendel, but undoubtedly from Hightower. "This is Ernie Brendel. "My friend, Christopher Hightower,
"who was on my list, is gonna pick her up. I'm gonna give him my driver's license."
Which he has access to 'cause Ernie's dead. So he goes to the YMCA and gets Emily.
- NARRATOR: Even though Hightower was a trusted family friend, eight-year-old Emily
had a sixth sense that something wasn't right. Tragically, she tried to call her father, Ernest, to warn him,
leaving a message on the family's answer phone. - PATRICK: Emily knew this wasn't right.
And it's, "Dad, Dad, you know, this doesn't seem right," something like that. But eventually, the YMCA lets her go.
And that's the last anybody that we know of saw her, was the woman at the YMCA who sees her walking to
Alice's car with Christopher Hightower. - NARRATOR: Once home, Hightower drugged eight-year-old Emily
with Benadryl, then tied her up in the basement. The brutal killer knew she'd be useful as a bargaining chip
when mother Alice came home. - GEOFFREY: Alice always got the bus home. Ernest would pick her up from the stop.
But on this particular evening, Ernest wasn't there. So she made her own way. - NARRATOR: Once home, she too was held hostage by Hightower.
- PATRICK: Throughout the day, people arrived at the house. Um, little girls came looking for Emily.
He said she wasn't home. At one point, a discount store showed up to deliver a mattress.
He sent them away. - NARRATOR: Mother and daughter were held hostage until the next morning,
when Hightower used Alice to carry out the final act in his plans. On Ernest's computer, he made her type out a letter
in Ernest's name to the US commodities regulators, withdrawing his complaints against Christopher Hightower.
It's believed, though, she left a coded message for the police. - She put Hightower's initials on the file she opened.
And we all thought that was a clue. - NARRATOR: Now Hightower had no use for his hostages,
he strangled Alice. Then later that evening, he drove her body, together with sleeping daughter Emily,
to the remote woodland on the edge of town, where father Ernest was buried. Under cover of darkness,
Hightower dug them a shallow grave, then buried eight-year-old Emily underneath her mother,
as former Detective Gary Palumbo remembers. - There was evidence that she was buried alive.
I know he gave her Benadryl, and in sufficient amount that would make her drowsy or, you know, sleepy.
But it wasn't enough to kill a child. That's a monster. That's a monster. - ♪ - DR. YARDLEY: Many people will say, "Well, maybe he felt bad.
"Maybe he didn't want to kill her, "and he was just burying her body just to kind of get it out of sight, out of mind."
Um, but I think he's coming towards the end of his plan here. And perhaps the killing of Emily wasn't as carefully
thought through as the killing of Ernest and Alice. - NARRATOR: After burying the bodies,
Hightower covered the graves with lime to mask the smell of decomposition. Now the killer was satisfied,
he disposed of the entire Brendel family. - DR. YARDLEY: He buries them quite close to their home.
And this is interesting for me 'cause he has a lot in common with other killers here.
Um, he's thought fairly carefully about the murders themselves. But he hasn't thought very carefully
about the aftermath in much detail. They're in a place where they're going to be discovered.
- NARRATOR: The earth would soon give up Hightower's dark, dark secret. And the reputation of the upstanding churchgoer
would come crashing down. Soon, Christopher Hightower, the fraudster, would become known as a triple killer.
- ♪ - The fact that Hightower kills a child is shocking, is awful. And we reflect on the fact that he's a father himself.
But here's somebody who is completely cold, who is completely emotionally empty.
So he would've felt absolutely no hesitation at killing the child, because he sees people
in terms of what they can do for him, whether they're a threat to him, whether they're a barrier to him.
There's no emotional connection to them. - NARRATOR: Barrington was blissfully unaware of the grisly
family murders that had taken place in the close-knit town. The destitute and homeless killer Hightower
stole Alice's Toyota, then went on a spending spree with her husband, Ernest's, checkbook.
- He went about his business buying stuff, cleaning supplies, you know, cashing checks.
We got him at a yogurt store. We got him pumping gas. And we got him all over Barrington
and Southeastern Massachusetts. - NARRATOR: Aware the alarm would soon be raised over
the Brendels' disappearance, Hightower had to work out his alibi. - GEOFFREY: Now he's scared that everything's gonna come out.
And he's got to find a way of sorting it out. The finger of suspicion is almost inevitably
going to point to him. So, he devises a plan and goes to see Ernest's sister. - NARRATOR: That Sunday evening, in the stolen family car,
Hightower sets off on the 95-mile journey to Guilford, Connecticut, where Ernest's sister Christine lived.
She was very fond of her elder brother. - CHRISTINE: Ernie was two years older than me.
He was my big brother. And we were pretty close, I think, for a brother and a sister.
And we led a very active-- physically active childhood. Our parents had a house in the Poconos Mountains.
So in the summer, we just sort of ran wild. - NARRATOR: As adults, they remained close,
even after Ernest married Alice. - Oh, we had a good relationship. We argued, but we argued when we were kids, too.
Alice was the great peacemaker/mediator. You couldn't not have a good relationship with her because
she was very easy to get along with. - NARRATOR: On Sunday evening, the 22nd of September,
Christine was unaware of the tragedy that had befallen her brother. But his killer, Christopher Hightower, called at her door.
- CHRISTINE: We had guests for dinner. And he arrived at the door and started telling me his crazy story.
And I said, "Why don't you go in the living room and sit down and relax?" I said, "Because we can't do anything about this
until my guests leave." So I sort of hurried them out of the door. And then, uh, my husband and I sat down with Hightower.
And then we started hearing his story... which was nuts. - NARRATOR: Although she'd never met him before,
Hightower told Christine that her brother Ernest and his family had been kidnapped,
and were being held hostage by the mafia. - I didn't quite know what to make of it.
But I didn't think what he was telling me was the truth. Then he decided that he would show us, uh, the car.
- NARRATOR: As well as showing Christine and her husband Ernest's bank cards and driving license,
Hightower opened up the boot of the family car to reveal a massive stain of blood.
He claimed the blood came from a broken jaw Ernest had sustained during the kidnap.
But Christine's husband, Alex, was a doctor, and didn't believe what he was hearing.
- CHRISTINE: He said to me was that there was a lot of blood. And it's probably more than someone could bleed
and still be alive. We knew that something really bad had happened. But we didn't know exactly what.
- NARRATOR: Hightower claimed the mafia wanted $300,000 to release Ernest and his family.
He asked Christine and her husband for $75,000 to help pay the ransom. - We just told him that we don't obviously--
don't have that kind of money around the house. We don't deal in cash. - NARRATOR: Hightower left empty-handed.
But he warned Christine and husband Alex not to call the police, claiming their phones were being tapped.
Once Hightower disappeared, though, they went to a neighbor's house and called the authorities straight away.
- We went over there and called the FBI... because I thought that, you know, if it's kidnap,
it's much better to get them on the case. - NARRATOR: The FBI alerted the local Barrington police,
who conducted a thorough search of the Brendels' family home. - GARY: We forcibly entered the house.
The one thing that I noticed right off the top is there were no cords to the telephones.
Wasn't connected to anything. And the cords were gone. So that raised my suspicion a little bit.
And when we go out to the garage, the southwest window of the garage looked like somebody
forced--forcibly entered through there. - NARRATOR: Although there was no obvious evidence
of a murder scene, the police were concerned about the missing family of three. The only potential link to their whereabouts
was Christopher Hightower, who Christine had reported driving the family's Toyota.
For Barrington's chief of police, Charles Brule, Hightower had to be brought in for questioning.
- I advised the dispatcher to put a broadcast out on the motor vehicle we were looking for.
And one of the officers on patrol who was in the Barrington Shopping Center saw the vehicle exiting, uh, stopped the vehicle.
And at that point, we took the individual into custody. - NARRATOR: Once in custody, Hightower feigned concern about
the Brendels' whereabouts. He also told the police that they'd been kidnapped by the mafia.
Meanwhile, the family's Toyota that he'd been driving, was searched. - Based on the search warrant, we found an empty bag of lime,
blood splatters and stains inside the car. And in the trunk, there was a crossbow.
And also, they found three teeth, which ended up being Ernie's, uh, in the back of the car.
- CHARLES: It was obvious about the evidence that was inside the Toyota, which was an accumulation of blood stains--
more than a person would receive from a beating-- from a facial beating. - GARY: We thought the family was in trouble.
At that time, especially just observing the car without searching it, you could see the, you know--
you could see the blood stains. So we thought they were in trouble. - NARRATOR: With this forensic evidence and no sightings
of the Brendels alive in the last three days, the police believe they have a triple murder on their hands.
At this point, under pressure, Hightower made his first mistake in his mafia kidnapping story.
When the police commented on tire tracks found near Hightower's home, his pretense slipped.
"They're not buried there," he told them. - DR. YARDLEY: Well, it's quite interesting because
that's implying, "I do have some knowledge about this." And this is a power play.
He's basically saying to the police, "I do know something about this. But I'm not gonna give it up that easily."
Um, so he's trying to buy himself time. He's very much in control. - NARRATOR: As news of the Brendels' disappearance spread,
concerned Barrington residents helped in any way they could. - Within a week's time, uh,
they started organizing, uh, searches. They would have searches where community members
could volunteer. And they would come out and assist. - NARRATOR: As forensic investigators swept through
the Brendels' home, they found microscopic evidence which linked to the crossbow found in Hightower's possession.
Now, it was a potential murder weapon. - There was a little hole in the garage door that determined
to be caused by an arrow, by a bolt. And forensically, they ended up finding blood splatters in that area.
- NARRATOR: With news that the police had uncovered a likely murder scene, Ernest's sister Christine was giving up all hope.
- As time went on, it just got worse. You know, the chances that they were alive and the chances that
they were unharmed were less and less. And, um, it was too much. - NARRATOR: As police dug into Hightower's background,
they found a destitute man with a trail of fraud leading from his investment scam in Ohio.
On October the 2nd, US regulator the National Futures Association told investigators about a letter they purportedly received
from Ernest Brendel withdrawing a complaint against a broker-- Christopher Hightower.
Forensics experts examined it and revealed it was a forgery. Now, the police knew this complaint
could be their prime suspect's motive for murder. The town was shocked when they learned
42-year-old Sunday school teacher Christopher Hightower had been arrested in connection
with the disappearance of the Brendel family. Despite a six-week search for their bodies, Ernest,
wife Alice, and their eight-year-old daughter, Emily, still hadn't been found. - A huge army of law enforcement,
with a lot of volunteers, spent six weeks looking for the Brendels. We searched cemeteries.
We searched abandoned pits. We looked everywhere. We had dogs. The FBI brought in mediums.
We talked to profilers from the FBI. But we couldn't find them. - NARRATOR: On the 7th of November,
a Barrington resident was out walking in remote woodland next to one of the town's schools
when she made a sinister discovery. - We get a phone call, uh, saying that a woman walking her dog had, uh, seen--
the dog reacted to an area. She showed us where it was. Myself and the sergeant went in.
And it was briars and bushes. And then all of a sudden, it was no more briars, no more bushes.
And you could see where--an area where there were depressions. We dug the area where the depressions were.
One depression revealed, uh, Ernie's knee. And a second depression revealed Alice's knee.
And that's when we stopped and called the forensics. - NARRATOR: As a Barrington resident,
it was the discovery even Detective Gary Palumbo was dreading. - They train you.
They mentor you. "Don't get emotional. Leave it at, uh--at work." But I was angry.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what you found. And, uh, so... I was angry.
- NARRATOR: The FBI, and soon forensic teams, swooped on the shallow grave. Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs
was also called to attend. He saw damning evidence linking Christopher Hightower to the crime scene.
- Within the hole where Mr. Brendel was was a piece of a bag of lime-- the piece of a bag of lime that matched the bag of lime
that was in the car that Mr. Hightower's driving, that we had a receipt that he'd bought at a hardware store.
So we knew in that, boy, we got him. - NARRATOR: In a shallow grave next to Ernest,
they uncovered the body of his wife, Alice. She'd been strangled, as a ligature had been left around her neck.
But underneath Alice, they found her eight-year-old daughter, Emily. - PATRICK: It was extremely sad.
And, um... you could see a little shoe in the dirt. State police detective pressed to make sure
there was a foot in there. That was a very sad moment. We had a photograph of Emily taken on Friday,
'cause she went on a field trip. She went to Newport to see a Viking ship. And we knew what clothes she had on on Friday.
She had the same clothes on. And I just--to me, that was just so sad. It was just so sad seeing this little girl.
Um, so it was a very... emotional day for everybody there. There were police officers in the hole with them.
It was a very solemn occasion. - NARRATOR: That same day, Emily's aunt, Ernest's sister Christine, was told the news.
- We had, I think, already had a funeral service. And we knew they were dead. My mother was still alive.
And Ernie was the absolute apple of her eye. But she was in the early stages of dementia.
And she said things like... "Where's your brother?" Or, "He hasn't come to visit me recently."
I'd say, "Mom, he's dead." Oh, it's very difficult. - NARRATOR: With the discovery of the Brendels' bodies,
their killer would finally face justice. Christopher Hightower was charged on three counts of
murder and one of kidnap. His trial started 16 months later on the 8th of March, 1993,
at the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. Former state prosecutor Patrick Youngs helped prepare the case.
- Most cases that we prosecute, we usually have some sort of direct evidence. And in direct evidence,
these are an eyewitness to the crime or a confession. We had neither. He never confessed.
But circumstantial cases, if you do it the right way, are the most compelling cases.
- NARRATOR: Not only did the prosecution present the man who sold Hightower the crossbow,
they called nearly 100 other witnesses. - PATRICK: We could trace his receipts. And we had witnesses that saw him around town.
Um, he bought muriatic acid to clean the floor of the horse barn. Each little witness had a little essential dot to fill in.
So we had witnesses that would see him at the house. We put in the delivery guy who showed up to deliver a mattress.
We put in the neighbor who saw Hightower with the hose. We put in the guy at the Shell station who pumped gas with him.
We put in all these little...dots. And at the end, they all pointed in only one direction,
and that was Mr. Hightower. - NARRATOR: When Hightower took to the stand, true to form,
he had an elaborate explanation for the damning evidence. - GEOFFREY: Unbelievably, Hightower explained
that Ernest had got involved with the mob and some serious drug dealing. - NARRATOR: Hightower claimed he was at Ernest's house
when the mafia arrived and murdered the Brendel family in a dispute over money. He claimed he saw eight-year-old Emily strangled.
- They had already said they were gonna kill her if he didn't tell them where the money was.
I couldn't believe it. It was impossible. Don't kill their child. - NARRATOR: Then Hightower claimed
he was threatened himself. - Sometime during the evening... a pillowcase or something was placed over my head.
I was taken out to one of the cars. - NARRATOR: He then said he was forced to dig
the Brendels' graves. Otherwise, his own family would be killed. - I picked up the shovel and I started digging.
And I begged them, "Please, I'll do whatever you want. Just leave them alone." - Complete lies, there is no doubt whatever.
- PATRICK: Mr. Hightower claimed, "I didn't do it. The mafia did it. These drug dealers did it."
So he got the stand and said, "I'm innocent." - I didn't kill anyone. - MICHAEL: Who did?
- The people that were with Mr. Brendel. - NARRATOR: State Attorney Michael Stone tore into
Hightower's claims on behalf of the prosecution. - I think he thought by testifying,
that he was going to convince the jury that he actually had nothing to do with these murders.
I think he's the type of person who believes his own lie. - NARRATOR: Michael's pivotal moment in making his case
was by proving beyond doubt that Christopher Hightower was a pathological liar. In court, he produced the transcripts
Hightower had falsified to get into Wright State University 11 years previously.
- MICHAEL: You didn't get accepted into that master's program with a 2.5 average, did you?
- No, I did not. - MICHAEL: And why is that? - Because I had contacted an individual at, um,
the University of Rhode Island and--and, uh, obtained a forged transcript. - MICHAEL: I think by the time I finished
that it was evident to the jurors that he was a total fabrication. And that Ernie Brendel was just the person who got in his way,
and was expendable. He definitely is a person who cared about nothing else but himself.
- NARRATOR: After four days of cross-examination, the triple killer looked defeated.
In desperation, his own defense team even brought an expert psychiatrist to the stand
to testify that Hightower was delusional. But the court dismissed any claims of insanity.
On the 8th of June, 1993, Christopher Hightower was sentenced to life without parole.
It was the result the investigators and prosecutors had been waiting for. - GARY: Well, I think everybody was relieved,
were thankful we got the monster off the street. And he's gonna stay off the street.
- He's probably the lowest form of life on the earth. I had the opportunity to confront him when I was in
my second employment in the federal court. That I just told him--I said, "You rotten bastard.
I hope you rot in hell." And that's the way I feel, 'cause there isn't any place for him any kind of society at all.
- PATRICK: He's despicable. It's all about him. People were objects to him. People were there to be used to further his means.
- DR. YARDLEY: Hightower is such a cold and a despicable killer because nothing gets in his way.
He is literally like a steamroller. And the devastation that he perpetrates lasts for a very, very long time.
- NARRATOR: For Christine, there was comfort in knowing that the man who brutally wiped out the whole side of her family
can never kill again. - I mean, I-- Emily was a dear child. And the fact that he could kill her
just absolutely-- leaves me absolutely no sympathy for him. He's an awful person.
And he's...soulless, even though I don't believe in souls. He's totally amoral. - NARRATOR: He was a conman who masqueraded as a church leader,
duping people out of thousands of dollars. He mercilessly slaughtered a family of three just to protect
his reputation and cover up his trail of fraud. He kidnapped an eight-year-old girl from school, drugged her,
and buried her alive. That's what makes Christopher Hightower one of the world's most evil killers.
- ♪ ♪ - ♪

In 1991, Christopher Hightower slaughtered an entire family to cover up a trail of fraud. He buried his victims in shallow graves. In 1993, he was sentenced to life without parole.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

Christopher Hightower murdered the Brendel family in 1991 to cover up his financial fraud, leaving a lasting impact on the community.

Key points

The Shocking News. Homeowner Christine learns her brother's family has been kidnapped by the mafia.
The Grisly Discovery. Police find the Brendel family buried in the woods, shocking the community.
Hightower's Deceptive Life. Christopher Hightower, a trusted community member, is revealed to be a killer.
The Murder of Ernest Brendel. Hightower murders Ernest Brendel with a crossbow in a premeditated attack.
The Fate of Alice and Emily. Hightower kills Alice and Emily after holding them hostage, burying them alongside Ernest.
Hightower's Arrest. Christopher Hightower is arrested in connection with the Brendel family's disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

That's a monster.

Describing Christopher Hightower's heinous actions.

1:12WatchAug 12, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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