← All Cases / Episode #470
The Case of Chris Vaughn
📻 Episode #470
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Aug 15, 2024
About This Episode
On June 14, 2007, 32-year-old Chris Vaughn was found limping on the side of the road near Joliet, IL, bleeding from two gunshot wounds. When police arrived on scene, they found the bodies of his wife and three children shot in the car. Chris is unable to recount the events of that early morning, and…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
On June 14, 2007, 32-year-old Chris Vaughn was found limping on the side of the road near Joliet, IL, bleeding from two gunshot wounds. When police arrived on scene, they found the bodies of his wife and three children shot in the car. Chris is unable to recount the events of that early morning, and there are no other witnesses to the crime. Chris was subsequently convicted of 4 counts of first-degree murder. Although the state intended on imposing the death penalty, it was abolished four years after Chris’s arrest. His trial hadn’t begun, altering the state’s course of action. He is currently incarcerated and serving 4 consecutive life sentences for the killings.
Chris Vaughn’s case was covered in the hit 2021 podcast series Murder in Illinois. While Chris was interviewed extensively for that podcast, this is the first time we hear Chris Vaughn’s voice as he shares his tragic story with Jason Flom.
Featuring:
Chris Vaughn
Keith Altman (Attorney)
Lauren Bright Pacheco
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:40“Speaker 3: of the house, we would find our own past. And Speaker 3: it was fully my intention to continue to help her Speaker 3: out in any way form or fashion I could. I Speaker 3: sent her to school and tried to incorporate her into Speaker 3: the work I was doing, but it was still fully”
00:18:09“Speaker 1: would have had to have been her blood, but it Speaker 1: wasn't Kim's blood. Speaker 4: It completely refutes the prosecution's allegations as to what happened Speaker 4: in this case. It's all documented. The other thing that Speaker 4: was interesting is that before the grand jury, the forensic”
00:31:07“Speaker 5: in the front or the back if he leaned through Speaker 5: this window of this gigantic suv. And Vaughan, keep in mind, Speaker 5: is five foot nine, maybe in dress heels. You know, Speaker 5: he is not a large, imposing man, and for him Speaker 5: to have gotten the trajectory didn't work, and Deal himself said, basically,”
Listen to the Episode
🎧 Listen on Omny / the podcast's platforms
🎧 Full episode page — Lava for Good
Resources & links from the episode:
Share this case, follow the organisations working on it, and support the podcast's fight for the innocent at lavaforgood.com.
← #469 Calvin Buari #471 Stephen Carrington →
Also on the podcast: #76 Doug DiLosa and Chris Pourciau on Amendment 2 · #129 False Confessions - Chris Tapp · #203 Chris Fabricant, Tucker Carrington and John Grisham on Eddie Lee Howard