Serial Killer Documentary - Christopher Hightower

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.

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 stop at nothing to get what he wanted. It didn't matter who he hurt, it didn't matter who he conned.

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.

But in court, he continued his lies, claiming he saw the mob carry out the killings. I couldn't believe it.

It was impossible.

You don't kill a child.

The church-going investment broker turned out to be a con man who went on to murder three innocent victims, making him one of the world's most evil killers. Rhode Island, 1991. Residents from the affluent church-going town of Ballington 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.

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. That's above and beyond.

The man has no soul.

What Ballington'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 were millions of them in America. The last person you would think would commit a horrible crime.

On the surface, Christopher Hightower was extraordinarily trustworthy, the sort of man that everybody trusted.

But suddenly, that trust was broken.

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 a neighborhood or these terrible events, they just bring about a heightened state of awareness.

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.

This killer story begins on the 20th of August, 1949. Christopher Jameer Hightower was born in Winter Haven in Central Florida.

His father worked as a printer.

In the U.S., this was the post-war 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.

He was the eldest of five children, the one who got what he wanted almost always.

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.

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 stigmatised in the US and it would have 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He had taken his transcripts from the University of Rhode Island, which were fairly pedestrian transcripts, and doctored them to make it look like he got all As.

The actual truth of the matter was that he did terrible at URI, University of Rhode Island. He just about failed almost everything. And so he got into graduate school.

On a lie. 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, 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. Well, 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.

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.

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.

Soon, Hightower and Earnest 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 a coach of the town's junior football team.

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.

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 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.

Hightower is a perfect role model, the kind of person everyone can trust. And when con men are concerned, trust is everything.

Within a 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 Trading Commission, which is the commission in this country that oversees commodities. It was the wrong person for Hightower to trick.

He realized there 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.

Not only was Hightower 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. 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, so he threatens her.

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 complete.

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.

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 six-mile journey to the town of Seekonk, Massachusetts.

He goes to Massachusetts and buys a bare Devastator crossbow, and he bought six bolts. He had told his family he would be out maybe all night or come back very late.

I suspect there would have been quite a lot of stalking of the Brendel family, so he would have known what their movements were, what time they left, what time they arrived home, their routines. This was a very well-planned murder.

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.

Hightower goes 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 going to leave until he's executed that mission.

With his lethal weapon at the ready, Hightower watched Ernest Brendel pull up onto the drive.

We believe when Ernie pulled into his garage, Hightower was waiting for him with the bare Devastator and shot him three times with the crossbow. The first shot to Mr. Brendel didn't kill him. The second shot hit him in the posterior. And then the third shot was a kill shot. Went through his spinal cord, through his esophagus, into his heart.

So he killed him right away.

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 going to be fine because this complaint isn't going to get looked at and everything will go back to normal.

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 arrive with the restraining order that had been sought by his wife. So when he's served the restraining order, he now has no place to live.

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.

Family life.

There are commitments, there are responsibilities, and on that particular day, Ernest was expected to pick up his daughter from school.

Ernest's wife, Alice, and 8-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 the Primrose School, where Emily attended, and pretends to be Mr. Brindell, and said, Emily can walk home. And to their credit, the school said, no, that's not going to happen.

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 she's no longer on their proof 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 going to pick her up. I'm going to give him my driver's license, which he has access to because Ernie's dead. So he goes to the YMCA and gets Emily.

Even though Hightower was a trusted family friend, 8-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.

Emily knew this wasn't right. And it's, Dad, Dad, 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.

Once home, Hightower drugged 8-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.

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.

Once home, she, too, was held hostage by Hightower.

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.

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 U.S. 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 have to tell that was a clue.

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, an insufficient amount that would make her drowsy or, you know, sleepy, but it wasn't enough to... To kill a child, that's a monster. That's a monster.

Many people will say, well, maybe he felt bad. Maybe he didn't want her to kill her and he was just burying her body just to kind of get it out of sight, out of mind. But I think he's coming towards the end of his plan here. and perhaps that the killing of Emily wasn't as carefully thought through as the killing of Ernest and Alice.

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.

He buries them quite close to their home, and this is interesting for me, because he has a lot in common with other killers here. 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.

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 he's somebody who is completely cold, who is completely emotionally empty.

So he would have 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.

Barrington was blissfully unaware of the Grizzly 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. We got him all over Barrington and southeastern Massachusetts.

Aware the alarm would soon be raised over the Brendels' disappearance, Hightower had to.

Work out his alibi.

Now he's scared that everything's going to 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.

That Sunday evening in the stolen family car, Hightower set off on the 95-mile journey to Guildford, Connecticut, where Ernest's sister Christine lived. She was very fond of her elder brother.

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 relationship.

Physically active childhood.

Our parents had a house in the Pocono Mountains, so in the summer we just sort of ran wild.

As adults, they remained close, even after Ernest married Alice.

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.

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.

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 my husband and I sat down with Hightower, and then we started hearing his story, which was.

Nuts.

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 the car.

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.

He said to me was that there was a lot of blood.

And there'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.

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 them that we obviously don't have that kind of money around the house.

We don't deal in cash.

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 kidnapped, it's much better to get them on the case.

The FBI alerted the local Barrington police, who conducted a thorough search of the Brendels' family home.

We forcibly entered the house. The one thing that I noticed right off the top is there were no cords to the telephones. It 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 forcibly entered through there.

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, stopped the vehicle, and at that point, we took the individual into custody.

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, in the back of the car.

It was obvious about the evidence that was inside the Toyota, which was accumulation of blood stains, more than a person would receive from a beating, from a facial beating.

We thought the family was in trouble at that time, especially just observing the car without searching it. You could see the bloodstains, so we thought they were in trouble.

With this forensic evidence and no sightings of the Brendels alive in the last three days, the police believe they had 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 tyre tracks found near Hightower's home, his pretense slipped.

They're not buried there, he told them.

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 going to give it up that easily. So he's trying to buy himself time. He's very much in control.

As news of.

The Brendels' disappearance spread, concerned Barrington residents helped in any way they could.

Within a week's time, they started organizing searches. They would have searches where community members could volunteer, and they would come out and assist.

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.

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 it was too much.

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, U.S. 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.

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 got a phone call saying that a woman walking her dog had seen her dog reacted to an area. She showed us where it was. Myself and the sergeant went in, and it was briars and bushes everywhere. And then all of a sudden it was no more briars, no more bushes. And you could see an area where there were depressions. We dug the area where the depressions were.

One depression revealed Ernie's knee, and the second depression revealed Alice's knee. And that's when we stopped and called the forensics.

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 work. But I was angry. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what you found. And so I was angry.

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 was driving that we had a receipt that he bought at a hardware store. So we knew then, boy, we got him.

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 8-year-old daughter, Emily.

It was extremely sad, and..... 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 because 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. To me, that was just so sad.

It was just so sad seeing this little girl. So it was a very emotional day for everybody there. There were police officers in the hole with them. That was a very solemn occasion.

That same day, Emily's aunt, Ernie'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. It was very difficult.

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 8 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 a direct evidence is either 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.

Not only did the prosecution present the man who sold Hightower the crossbow, they called nearly 100 other witnesses.

We could trace his receipts. And we had witnesses that saw him around town. 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.

When Hightower took to the stand, true to form, he had an elaborate explanation for the damning evidence.

Unbelievably, Hightower explained that Ernest had got involved with the mob and some serious drug dealing.

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 going to kill her. He didn't tell them where the money was.

I couldn't believe it.

It was impossible. You don't kill a child.

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.

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. I begged him, please, I'll do whatever you want, just leave him alone.

Complete lies. There is no doubt whatever.

Mr.

Hightower claimed, I didn't do it. The mafia did it. These drug dealers did it. So he got on the stand and said, I'm innocent.

They didn't kill anyone.

Who did?

The people that were with Mr. Brindell.

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.

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.

You didn't get accepted into that master's program with a 2.5 average, did you?

No, I did not.

And why is that?

Because I had contacted an individual at... University of Rhode Island and obtained a forged transcript.

I think by the time I finished that it was evident to the jurors that he was a total fabrication and that Ernie Brindell was just the person who got in his way and was expendable. He definitely... as a person who cared about nothing else but himself.

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.

Well, I think everybody was relieved. We're thankful we got the master off the street, and he's going to 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, and I just told him, I said, You rotten bastard, I hope you rot in hell. And that's the way I feel. Because there isn't any place for him in any kind of society at all.

He's despicable.

It's all about him. People were objects to him. People were there to be used to further his means.

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.

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 immoral.

He was a con man 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 8-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.

Serial Killer Documentary - Christopher Hightower

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