Article on staging crime found in accused killer Chris Vaughn’s home

• Reprints

Christopher Vaughn

Article Extras

Updated: June 28, 2011 4:47AM

A magazine article about staging crime scenes and “making the death appear to be a suicide” was taken by police from the home of Christopher Vaughn after the June 2007 shooting deaths of his wife and three children, newly released court records show.

Vaughn, 36, also spent a half-hour at a Plainfield shooting range the night before the murders, the documents say, firing at targets with a gun later seized by police from between his dead wife’s feet.

The documents show the Vaughn family’s trip to Knight’s Water Park in Springfield also was planned the night before the murders, after Vaughn’s wife accused him of spending too little time with their kids. Meanwhile, an exotic dancer told police Vaughn had written her a poem about “ancient souls” and bad timing, and Vaughn might have explored the possibility of faking his death.

Finally, it appears the Oswego man wrote an ominous blog entry just weeks before the shooting about “wrapping up a few last things” before disappearing into the remote wilderness.

The clues and insights into the Vaughn murders became public after Will County Judge Daniel Rozak ordered the case file unsealed Thursday. The records inside show his three children — Abigayle, 12, Cassandra, 11, and Blake, 8 — were each shot twice.

Kimberly Vaughn was shot once under her chin, the records say.

A filing from February 2011 says Christopher Vaughn, who had been shot twice, waved down a passing motorist and said he thought his wife shot him. Today Vaughn is charged with all four murders, but his defense team argues his wife turned the gun on him and the children before killing herself.

It all happened after Vaughn pulled the family’s SUV over on Interstate 55 near Channahon on the way to the Springfield water park on June 14, 2007.

While prosecutors haven’t set forth a motive, Vaughn’s wife had a $1 million life insurance policy that listed him as a beneficiary. Vaughn also confessed to an affair in December 2006 after a trip to Mexico. Court records show the couple had been fighting, and he would sometimes sleep at the office.

Prosecutors have said Vaughn was frustrated with his life and wanted to live in the Canadian wilderness. The records show someone using his e-mail address set up a blog site for a user named “dewoodsman,” and at least one man knew Vaughn as “Flint.”

Some “dewoodsman” posts can still be found online. Though Vaughn isn’t identified as their author, they appear under his user name and are signed with his e-mail address. One, signed “Flint,” was posted one month before Vaughn’s wife and children were killed.

“I am working on wrapping up a few last things and then I am headed out for the long walk,” it reads. “I’ve been taking continually longer and more remote trips figuring that when the time comes I’ll be ready.”

Will county prosecutors and Vaughn’s public defenders declined to comment Monday on the “dewoodsman” entries found online.

Court records show Vaughn’s former private attorneys, who left the case earlier this year, asked a judge not to admit several pieces of evidence.

Among them was the article found in a magazine for private investigators about the effect of television on criminal suspects who stage crime scenes based on Hollywood portrayals. A portion of the article talked about making deaths appear like suicides. The cases referenced involved rape-murders made to look like hangings.

Vaughn, a private investigator, told police “clearly and unequivocally” he never read it.

He did not deny, however, that he spent a half hour at Mega Sports Shooting Equipment and Range in Plainfield the night before his family was killed. His attorneys said his visit was irrelevant.