MURDERED: The Longo Family

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hello, crime junkies. Welcome to another episode. I am your host, Ashley Flowers, as always, joined by my producer, Britt. Hi. And before we jump into today's episode, I want to remind you that we are brought to you by Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana. They are a wonderful organization and the whole reason that we started this podcast was to bring awareness to their cause. And they need volunteers. Whether you're here in Indiana or abroad, it's 2018 and you can [01:00] like web design or graphic design, we would love to hear from you. Email crimestoppersvolunteer at gmail.com and see how you can get involved. Also, today's episode is kind of really dark. You're going to need a good laugh after we're done with this. So my best recommendation to you is to check out the podcast True Crime Obsessed. And if you want to know what you're in for, take a listen. [01:30] And together we make the true crime comedy podcast. True crime obsessed. Each week we watch a popular true crime documentary like The Keepers or Mommy Dead and Dearest. And then using clips from the film, we break it down in a smart and respectful, but also sassy and hilarious way. Like this. That's awesome that you could just be like, I'm going to dig up my property and put in a pool. And then being like, this is going to be so lovely and luxurious and I'm going to relax. Oh my God.

[01:56] Why are there plastic bags full of dead bodies? Like, wouldn't you have to move? [02:00] a lot of questions about chloroform, you guys. Out comes the chloroform. Can you imagine? It has the skull and crossbones on every bottle, right? It has to. And it comes with a little rag, right? The dirty rag that's been used way too many times. And the bottle's half empty always, right? [02:19] You guys, with over 1,000 five-star iTunes reviews. And over 1.5 million downloads. Maybe check us out because we're probably the new true crime podcast you've been looking for. [02:30] crime obsessed anywhere you get your podcasts. Okay. Bye. [03:00] you [03:05] Today I'm going to tell you about the murders of the Longo family in Oregon. [03:12] To give you a little background on this family of five, [03:15] It's Christian Longo and his wife Mary Jane. And they met because they were both part of the same Jehovah's Witness congregation in Michigan when they were in their teens and early 20s. And I don't know if there are levels of Jehovah's Witnesses, like kind of to super Jehovah, but they both came from families that were like super Jehovah. And...

[03:37] When Christian was 19 and Mary was 25, they got married. And immediately I'm like, oh my God, 19 is too young to get married. Like nothing good is going to happen. I mean, here's the thing. [03:48] I was 20. Yeah, and I thought that was way too young to get married and nothing good was going to happen. And it took me like five years to accept your marriage. Look at us now. We're fine. Yeah. So they get married and all of Mary Jane's friends said he was the husband that made all the wives jealous. [04:07] He would dote on her, buy her flowers, take her on trips. I mean, even the ring that he got her was this like three and a half carat rock. I will say getting married at 20, I did not have a three and a half carat ring. [04:20] preach. Well, and so... [04:23] What they didn't know, too, is like it all looks like a fairy tale, but this three and a half carat rock that he bought, he bought like on this crazy payment plan. So he put down like nothing and then had this payment that was going to be more than their rent. But she had no idea. [04:38] And what people didn't know is exactly that. Chris could only give her this life on credit cards. And before their first child was even born, he had maxed out all of their cards. And there was even an instance where he either had to pay his rent or pay this payment on her ring. And he paid the payment on the ring so he could still keep up this appearance and then stole money from a job to pay his rent.

[05:08] So like right off the bat they're having problems. [05:12] Thank you. [05:13] They start having kids and almost right away they had three, each about a year apart. So they had Zachary, Sadie, and then Madison. To support their growing family, Chris takes a job with a company that distributes the New York Times. And he did pretty well at this job. He worked his way up to manager. And while there, he really developed a love for the Times and the articles that they would put out. [05:35] One journalist at the New York Times in particular that they would feature was Michael Finkel. And Michael was one of their prize-winning authors who did a ton of like really heavy-hitting pieces on topics like war and slavery. But all of his pieces involved him traveling to these other countries and he lived this very exotic life, especially to someone like Chris who's just working an average job in the Midwest trying to support a young family. [06:01] So Chris developed this kind of fascination with Michael and his work and he memorized all of his stories and would dream of what it would be like if he were rich and successful and could travel the world writing about his adventures. But at the end of the day, Chris wasn't getting rich and famous in his 9 to 5. In fact, he wasn't even making enough money to live like a mildly impressive lifestyle and he was making money. [06:23] So at 25, he decides he's going to quit working for someone else and start his own cleaning business. [06:29] And by all appearances, it seems to be going well. They're still buying nice things. They have nice cars, going on good vacations. And he even convinces his dad that business is going so well that his dad invests like tens of thousands of dollars into this business. But again, all Chris was concerned with was the outward appearance of his life. So in fact, not only was his business tanking,

[06:52] But he was finding ways to rack up even more debt. And eventually, he got to the point where even paying off credit card minimums became so stressful, he started forging checks from his clients. [07:06] Oh my god, that's ridiculous. And all of that wasn't even enough. He still had to keep up appearances. So it's not even like he's like forging these checks to get like a clean slate. He's like still going on. And he even decides like at this point, he wants a new van. So he... [07:24] makes a fake driver's license. [07:26] goes to test drive a van [07:28] and never returns it. [07:30] What? He stole a car. [07:32] and he gets caught because of this shortly after he's like pulled over while he's in the van with his whole family and he ends up getting caught for stealing the van caught for the check fraud and in michigan he had forged seven checks thirty thousand dollars and in michigan [07:49] One instance of counterfeit can be charged as a 14-year felony. [07:54] But he gets off with barely a slap on the wrist. He plays this card with police and says, look, I'm a financially strapped family man. I'm trying my best. I just got in over my head and I just want to provide my family money. [08:07] a good life and I made a mistake. And here's the thing about Christian Longo. He is a charming guy. He seems nice. He comes from a good family. He looks buttoned up. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be this career criminal. So he just gets probation with the promise of making restitution. He gives the same story to his wife, swears he's done with criminal activity, swears this was like a one-time thing that he just got in over his head and he's going to make a life for them on the straight and narrow.

[08:35] This whole situation though puts even more strain on their marriage. [08:39] because he basically gets kicked out of their church. So it turns out you can't be a criminal and a Jehovah's Witness. - Who knew? - And the way it works is that [08:49] if like you do something criminal, like you get these like warnings, but he had so many warnings back to back that he basically gets kicked out of the church and he, [08:58] Other people in the church, like if you are... [09:01] excommunicated or picked out of the church everyone in the church is really not allowed to associate with you so this puts mary jane in a really tough spot because she [09:11] decides to choose her husband because her kids were the most important thing to her in the world. And she didn't want her kids to not have their father. So naturally, because of this, their marriage gets a little bit strained. But it gets even worse when Mary Jane finds an email from Chris to another woman talking about how he doesn't love his wife anymore. He's basically not in love with her after she had kids. He's disinterested in her because she gives all of her attention to her kids. And he feels left out. [09:41] Yeah. [09:42] Okay, sure. So she goes against her family and her faith, stands by him after he stole and lied, and then he's going to go complaining to other women that she's the problem in their marriage. [09:55] can't with these kind of men. Yeah. But Mary Jane wouldn't leave him. She was determined that her family would stay together... [10:01] So... [10:03] The way she fixes it, because he's not willing to put in any work, she just gushes over him, spoils him, draws him bubble baths, all to keep him interested in her. And she was determined...

[10:14] their kids were going to have their dad around day in [10:18] day out and there's no way she could have known what a terrible mistake she was making by doing that. [10:23] because a couple of weeks after this, there's whole like fraud conviction and this email to the other woman, the Longos decide to pack up and leave town. [10:32] On a side note, in the short amount of time after he was convicted, but before he leaves town, he opens a credit card in his dad's name and charges it with... [10:42] Britt, I want you to guess. How much could you charge a credit card with in a short amount of time? Like short, like a day, day and a half, give or take? They didn't say exactly. I'm thinking maybe a couple weeks, months, a month, two months. [10:54] Maybe like... [10:56] five to ten thousand dollars depending on like how crazy I was [11:01] Over 100 [11:03] thousand dollars worth of junk how much what can you want i literally can't even i like a lot of expensive things i can't even think of spending that much money in like four weeks i honestly can't yeah and people said he was like toting around like boats and jet skis and so literally he's just buying anything that comes to his mind now not even on his own credit card but his dad's chris decides to like air quotes start anew he of course tells mary jane that this is all in the up [11:33] wants to start over somewhere else but once a liar always a liar and really he's just skipping town he has his own debt he can't make restitution to the people he was supposed to so he's gonna end up violating probation he decides to just leave and i think it should have been obvious to mary jane because when they leave michigan and move to toledo ohio they stay in this old warehouse there it is by no means a home picture an empty warehouse

[11:57] That's it. Literally no frills. There's no kitchen, barely plumbing. They're sleeping on cots. Even in this, I mean, this has to be like rock bottom. He's filling this warehouse with a bunch of random stuff that's stolen or put on new credit cards. There's no way he's able to like buy this. I don't know what Mary Jane is thinking. And what she doesn't know is at this point, he's, you know, skipped out on his parole. There's a warrant placed for his arrest. [12:27] had like tracked them down. And the way they tracked them down was insane. Like they couldn't get ahold of Mary Jane. They knew she was like in Ohio. They drove around Toledo, Ohio and happened to see the longest dog in the front yard. The front yard of a warehouse. Yeah, of this warehouse. And that's how they found them. So once the police are on to them, they basically pack up in the middle of the night and just skip town. And they leave everything. I mean, they were in such a hurry. They left her wedding dress. Like it looks as if people just picked up. All of their stuff was there. [12:57] there all of the stuff that he had stolen still there and they don't tell anyone where they're going mary jane's phone is cut off so when the family realizes that they're not in toledo anymore they don't even have a way to get in touch with them so they file a missing persons report they don't know what's happened but they all they know is that they can't get a hold of mary jane and something is wrong her sister said she could just feel it [13:21] Chime is changing the way that people bank. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking built for you. Chime has thousands of fee-free ATMs. Like, why pay to get your own money? Plus, you can get savings that grow faster with a 3.75% APY. That is nine times higher than the national average. Chime members can even staff benefits, like up to $1,150 in annual rewards,

[13:50] premium travel perks. Their Spot Me feature even lets you overdraft up to $200. And all of that is without fees. There is nothing not to like about this. It is clear why Chime is rated five stars by USA Today for customer service. Real humans 24-7. When you switch, you're not just switching banks. You are upgrading to America's number one choice for banking with a Chime checking account. Chime's not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are [14:20] Thank you. [14:47] Well, a few weeks after the missing persons report was filed, a postcard comes to Mary Jane's sister from South Dakota. And it basically says, "Sorry, we moved. I can't call you now, but we'll be in touch." [14:58] And this worries the family even more because like WTF, you have time to like buy, write and mail a postcard, but you can't pick up the phone. Seriously. So they show this to police like as evidence, like something is wrong. Like and this is like kind of they're heading in the direction of out west. But police look at this and see something totally different. [15:17] They say, like, listen, you know, she's an adult. [15:20] She is with her family. She obviously left on her own like that's what she's made contact letting you know like it's done exactly and so they closed the missing persons case but that would be a horrible mistake because this postcard came in November and just one month later the bodies of Mary Jane Longo and her three kids would be found and that's.

[15:42] the next part I want to jump to. So... [15:45] The next thing we know for sure is when these bodies were found. And on December 19th of 2001... [15:51] The body of a young boy is found floating in the waterway in Oregon. [15:55] ... [15:56] police initially think that this young boy had maybe like gotten away from home, had an accident, because he was like, [16:02] well-groomed he had you know haircut he was obviously cared for and had drowned so they canvassed the neighborhood but no kids were missing so the next thought that they have is perhaps there's a car accident like a whole family or a mom and a son like had gone into the water and his body had floated up so police send a dive team to search the waters and while they do this they also make a composite drawing of the boy and release it to the news [16:28] They figure that even if the boy's family is gone, someone had to have known this family and could recognize him. And sure enough, someone does. [16:36] Almost immediately, a woman comes forward to say she believes this is a young boy named Zachary, who's the son of a man she works with at Starbucks. [16:44] and this man is Christian Longo. She mentions to him that there's this kind of weird story, and... [16:52] They had worked together on December 17th. [16:54] And he tells her like at the end of their shift, like, hey, I just want to let you know, like, you're not going to be seeing my family anymore. Because Mary Jane is like leaving me. We're getting divorced. And she's really shocked. She said, I thought they had the perfect marriage. They seem like such a happy family. But again, Christian Longo was all about appearances. While this lady is in the police station, a call comes in. Divers have found a second body. It's the body of a little girl. They know Zachary has two sisters.

[17:24] one of them so they bring both children to the morgue and have this woman try to identify them. And she recognizes them both as Zachary and Sadie Longo who were four and three at the time. Wait, so how was Sadie found? You said divers found her? Yeah, so they found Sadie and this confirmed for them something that they already feared. This wasn't in any kind of accident. These two children had been murdered. [17:49] Sadie was found at the bottom of this body of water, with her ankle tied to a pillowcase full of rocks. [17:56] Mm-hmm. [17:56] And they determined that Zachary had been left the same way, but the tie on his ankle was somehow undone and he had floated to the surface. [18:05] Police knew they had a homicide at this point, but they were still missing three family members. They had no idea where Mary Jane, Madison, or Chris Longo were, but they kept searching the water. [18:15] On December 27th, those dive teams found something else. Now they knew what family they were looking for so they could better localize their search. So they start a new search... [18:26] at these docks just adjacent to the apartment that the family was renting. And underneath these docks they find two suitcases. [18:35] And one suitcase contained the tiny body of Madison. She's just one years old. She was stuffed in the suitcase with some clothes and like a weight because she wasn't even heavy enough to weigh her down. And when they found the other suitcase, they didn't even have to look inside to know what they were going to find. [18:53] not only have they found all these bodies,

[18:55] but they could tell by the strands of hair that were floating from between the grooves of the zipper. [19:01] they had found Mary Jane. Now they had almost the whole family except for Chris Longo, [19:08] Could he have been a victim too? Sure. But police had been searching the Bay for almost a week at this point with no additional findings. And it was becoming clear that he was likely their suspect in the murder of his own family. [19:21] When they can't find him by January, the FBI places him on their top 10 most wanted list. So his face is plastered, [19:28] everywhere. They're also able to kind of track his movements because sometime before he fled, he had written down the credit card number from a Starbucks customer and was using that to like get by and travel. So police and FBI knew that he was making his way south of the border. I feel like Chris has and has never had any long-term plans. He's literally the worst planner. If you're gonna murder your whole family and like use a credit card that can be tracked to like the place you work, [19:58] But I mean, that even goes back to like, what was his plan all along? Like you're racking up this credit card debt. You're lying to these people. You're stealing from your job. You're stealing a minivan. Like that's a bit like they're going to find you. [20:10] Well, because he has made the most well-known wanted list in possibly like all of the world, someone in Cancun, Mexico spots him. But they don't know him as Christian Longo. They know him as the acclaimed, award-winning, New York Times author, Michael Finkel. No, the writer he was obsessed with?

[20:33] he had assumed the identity of Michael Finkel. And now what makes the story even crazier is while this whole saga is going on, [20:42] Michael Finkel's life is actually exploding as well. So I want to like pause on the Longo story and tell you a little bit about Michael Finkel. [20:50] Like I said, he was this award-winning author, he traveled the world, and he was getting cover after cover of the New York Times. And he based his whole life around his career. His ego was everything at this point, and it even cost him his relationships. [21:04] Well. [21:05] His ego got the best of him, and while doing a story about an African boy who had sold himself into slavery, he fabricated a ton of material. He basically took stories from a bunch of different boys, mushed them all together into this one horror story, and said it was a single person's life. Well, when the truth comes out after the article was published on the front of the New York Times, he's basically publicly shamed and loses his job. [21:30] And when he loses his job, like they're going to post this big retraction, this big apology letter. He basically retreats to his home in Montana. And he was planning to hide from the world. He was completely embarrassed, felt like his life was over. He lost everything. And his phone rings. [21:45] His initial reaction is like, "Oh my God, this is it. It's going to be a media storm from here on out. Everyone's going to be talking about what I did. I'm a liar." [21:56] But he picks up the phone [21:57] and [21:58] This reporter asked him for comment on the murders. [22:02] And he said, don't you mean the article? And after like a few like, I'm sorry, what? I'm sorry, what? Michael realizes that this guy has no idea that he falsified this article. Or if he does, he doesn't even care. All he cares about, he tells him, is there's this man accused of murdering his whole family. He's just been captured in Mexico. And the whole time he was down there, he had been assuming Michael's identity. And Michael Googles himself. And sure enough, every hit is on this Christian Longo and not on what he had done.

[22:32] I mean... [22:34] What are the odds? And like if you are this Michael Finkel guy, like it's almost a weird relief, right? I mean, totally. Like that's like part of this that I can't get over is the timing of this for him to like blow up professionally, like in a bad way and then be totally saved by this other tragedy just because this guy happened to use his name. A perfect storm. For Michael Finkel, it was. [23:00] So, [23:01] To take us back to Chris, he's arrested and brought back to Oregon to stand trial. And he actually strikes up a friendship with the real Michael Finkel, and they start corresponding by phone, by mail, and Michael even goes to visit him regularly. He tells Michael this sob story, and you know, it starts from the beginning. His whole life, and how he grew up, and he just wanted this great... [23:23] family and he wanted to give them all this great stuff and he couldn't he was drowning in debt and [23:28] You know, all this kind of BS of like how he got here. And then he picks up the story that we didn't know and says from South Dakota, the family kept heading... [23:38] west to Oregon. When they arrive, the only job Chris could get was working a part-time job at Starbucks making like seven something an hour. That's just $140 a week to support a family of five. And Chris was back to his... [23:54] same tricks of like living beyond his means because he somehow talked his way into getting approved for an apartment. [24:01] overlooking the bay that cost over $1,200 a month. - Again!

[24:06] What was his long-term plan? He's making what, like... [24:09] $5.50, $5.60 a month before taxes. That's not even half the rent. He has a family he needs to feed. They have to pay for gas. Kids are growing. They go through clothes like crazy. Like, what was his plan? Please. I truly, I don't know. I don't know if his plan was to keep lying. And, I mean, he had gotten... [24:28] by so many years like conning people this way or I don't know if he had an exit strategy in the back of his mind for like some time but this all comes to a head. [24:39] between December 17th and December 18th. [24:43] But that's where the story that he is telling Michael always stops. And although this whole time he swears to his BFF Michael Finkel that he didn't do this, like this is all a mistake, he won't actually talk about the days leading up to when the bodies were found. And he won't talk about what might have happened if he didn't do it. [25:03] I can't tell you [25:05] What happened in those times no one knows for sure but what I can tell you is what the police the prosecutors and the jurors have speculated and said happened and [25:14] They say that Chris worked a shift at Starbucks on December 17th, and that's when he told that story to his co-worker about never seeing his family again. [25:24] They say Chris goes home that night and he and Mary Jane have an altercation about something. Likely money since there was absolutely none. Right. Right. [25:34] Mary Jane had actually recently, they find this out later, she had gone to a food bank to get information for the family and...

[25:41] you know, Chris could have found out about this and been embarrassed since all he cared about was appearances, like [25:46] having to go to a food bank would be the last thing he would want. Or, you know, maybe he had no idea and just couldn't take the mounting pressure of supporting this family of five in his apartment he couldn't afford with this mounting debt and a warrant out for his arrest. Right. Like, I feel like... [26:01] In his mind, they were very much to blame for why he couldn't live [26:06] the life he wanted to live, you know? Right. So however this escalated, police believe that it probably happened in the evening and [26:15] They think that Chris first strangled Mary Jane. She also had like some blunt force trauma. So whether he hit her or strangled her and then hit her, I don't know. But they think he killed her first. [26:27] to get her out of the way, and then he strangled their baby Madison. [26:31] In the autopsy photos they showed in court, the jurors said that [26:35] They could still see the marks around Madison's neck, even after all this time that she was in the water. [26:41] Oh my god. [26:42] He then... [26:43] shoved their bodies into those two suitcases, walked them down to the bay, and put them underneath the dock. He has two children left, Zach who's four, Sadie who's three. [26:54] one of two things could have happened i can't ice and reading different accounts in different places he either took them alive and put them into his minivan or he suffocated them both there and then put them into the minivan but he puts both children into the minivan along with two pillowcases and

[27:18] fills the pillowcases with rocks, [27:20] tied them to their ankles and one at a time carries them to the side of the bridge and [27:25] and dumps them into the water. This is honestly just so horrific. I can't. I almost don't have a reaction. I know. This case was really rough for me. The murder of children always rocks me, but there's something that just hurts me to my core when I think about a parent doing something like this. [27:43] Like to think that a little child who knows nothing about the world, who knew nothing about their dad, nothing about what he was really doing or who he really was, like to them, their dad was like a superhero. They trusted him like every moment. And even as he was, if they were alive, like... [28:01] holding them. [28:02] and carrying them to their water. [28:05] they never thought that he would hurt them. Like, cause why would they? When you were little and your dad picked you up, like that was the most comforting and like [28:12] safe. [28:12] place for you. [28:14] I cannot imagine what those kids were feeling in those moments if they were still alive. It just breaks my heart. I mean and even if they weren't when he like dropped them to have like your dad come in your room at night if he suffocated them like [28:25] Either way, like, your parents are supposed to be, like, the two people in the world who, like, have your back. And especially when you're so young and can't protect yourself... [28:33] It just makes me sick. And it's why this story upsets me so much more than even others that we've [28:38] Summer breaks should be fun, but it is also important to keep young minds active. Even though my daughter's out of preschool, we are helping her all summer continue to learn and study and just not give up building that muscle. And IXL is a great way to help kids stay engaged and avoid losing progress between school years. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. And as an award-winning online learning platform, IXL helps kids truly understand what they're learning.

[29:08] confidence, or strengthening writing skills. Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests. Proven in all 50 states, from pre-K through 12th grade, IXL offers personalized, interactive content for each child's level and pace. It is an easy way to support learning now through the summer and into the next school year. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And Crime Junkie listeners, you can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you [29:38] ixl.com slash crimejunkie. Visit ixl.com slash crimejunkie to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. [29:47] done so um we know longo was on that bridge because on the 17th a man actually pulled over and talked to him he thought he was having car trouble it was like the very early hours in the morning and longo says you know oh it's just my check engine's light on like i'm fine i don't need any help and the guy drives away [30:08] But the driver said that he seemed totally fine. [30:13] Not even in this time, like before or after he dumped his children into the water. Like, was he even disturbed by what he had done? So Longo is the only one of his family that survived. He was on the bridge over where his kids were later found. He fled the country after the murders. [30:31] And he was found frolicking in Mexico. Was he actually frolicking? Oh, he was for sure frolicking. He literally, like, when the FBI caught him, he was in a shack, smoking weed with some German tourists that he was trying to bone, like, when they caught him. He was zero sad tears. Oh my god. So, the prosecution feels like they have a really strong case, but Longo shocks everyone, including his new BFF Finkel, when he goes into court and pleads guilty.

[30:57] to only two of the murders. What? Yes. He had a completely different story. [31:04] He says that it all started on the night of the 15th, December 15th, when he and his wife went out on a date. [31:12] all that money that they have and mary jane told her husband that she felt like things were going really bad for their family and she confronted him about all of the lies like all of this stealing because he's still again telling her everything's fine and i think she was putting the pieces together that it's not and he tried to play it off but he said he couldn't keep it in any longer and the night of december 16th they stayed up and had this like all night conversation where he [31:42] his arrest and he said when Mary Jane heard all this she just lost it he said she had an emotional break like he had never seen before and the next morning he asked her like let me stay home from work let's talk about this and that's the last thing she wants so she's like no you're gonna go to work like we need the money so she drops him off because they only have the one car [32:03] But when she picks him up from his shift... [32:05] She's only wearing a bathrobe. [32:08] She's barefoot and the kids weren't with her. [32:11] When they get home is when he realizes what has happened. He said that the first thing he found was Madison, the one-year-old, lifeless on the bed. And he said he just lost control and strangled Mary Jane. And then he said he realized after he did that, he put her in the suitcase, that Madison was still alive.

[32:32] and [32:33] So he strangled her [32:35] because he didn't want her to live with what had happened. And he said, as they blew up like this, what he realized is that, [32:42] Mary Jane is the one who had killed Zachary and Sadie, and she dumped them because she had a mental break. He says that's why the bodies were disposed of in such different ways, because she killed Zach and Sadie, and he killed Mary Jane and Madison. One... [32:58] They weren't disposed of in really different ways. Am I right? They were. They were all found in water. Yes, and in different locations. [33:05] Okay. Two, like... [33:06] what a piece of crap to kill your wife and then just be like, actually, she killed everybody else. [33:11] Yeah, and I was just so mad that she killed them that I snapped. I killed her. Logical. But it was even hard for him, like, in court to, like, people to play off, like, okay, we get, say your wife did it, and you killed her because you snapped. If you found out your daughter was alive, why did you kill her? I mean, none of it made sense, and the jury didn't buy it either, and they found him guilty of all of the murders. And after he was sentenced to death, he even almost confessed. [33:41] blaming everyone and he wanted to come clean for what he had done, but... [33:45] Not long after he's like doing this, [33:48] He starts filing his appeals and he goes back to his original story in court. Truthfully, that's where things stand now. He's trying to get a new trial. [33:56] He's on death row. I'm completely disgusted. [33:59] You know what I can't figure out that I keep coming back to is, [34:02] How long do you think he was planning this? Some people think that he was the one that actually sent the postcard from South Dakota to keep her family off their trail.

[34:12] And the bodies were hidden. So, like, you know, in his mind, maybe they would never be found. And knowing that he killed them all, did he do it differently with the plan, like, the whole time of blaming Mary Jane? Man, I don't know. Like, I... [34:24] In my heart of hearts, [34:26] he did it all. Like, from day one, [34:29] He was... [34:30] - Oh, yeah. - Just completely like, [34:34] Very deceptive. Very... [34:37] manipulative, very [34:40] You know, appearances are everything. [34:42] I feel like he had to have been planning this for a while. So because he is a person who like plans ahead to a certain extent in that like plans ahead to cover his tracks. [34:53] See, I was going to say the exact opposite thing. Like, I think he's the worst planner of all time. And in my mind, like, I love... [35:01] being that kind of like conspirator and like thinking the opposite of what everyone else does. But I don't even think I can say that maybe he didn't do it. [35:10] say in other episodes, you know, maybe Scott Peterson didn't do it, maybe Robert Fisher didn't do it, but... [35:15] In this one, I don't think there's anyone out there who's like having a – [35:19] or is Christian Longo innocent kind of Facebook page? No, I completely agree. I just do think that he's been like trying to, [35:27] get ahead of the game for so long. [35:30] He had to have known that he couldn't keep this up, and he had to find a quote unquote [35:39] for his family that he couldn't support. And this was it. Yeah, maybe. This, like, really gives me Robert Fisher vibes. Like, I don't know about you. Definitely. Definitely. Whenever a guy goes missing or is, like, suspected of killing his entire family...

[35:57] seems really similar in a lot of ways. [36:00] Yeah, and I don't know if he would have never been caught. [36:03] if maybe there would be more people who thought he was innocent. But again, it's the same thing to me, like this, [36:09] family man who, yeah, has shown signs of like maybe being a liar or maybe being angry, but like was never violent. And then to just like take out his whole family. [36:21] And then even now in prison, like, he gets along really well with everyone. He's like a model prisoner. [36:27] So like it's so weird with these family annihilators that like they can just snap and disassociate with their family. I don't know. I can almost turn like on and off. Yeah. I can't figure it out. But definitely again like I have totally different feelings between this and Robert Fisher. Like I have a lot of questions about the Robert Fisher case. My only question with this situation. [36:48] Christian Longo case is [36:50] Like, why? I mean, there was no other option. [36:54] So the last I heard, so he is on death row. He's trying to file some appeals. I haven't seen if he's been approved or if it's been actually filed and is under review. I did hear some rumblings, like as I was reading through online, that... [37:10] Bye. [37:10] Mary Jane's family is raising money to get to Oregon for a new trial, but I haven't actually seen any new articles about there being a new trial. So we will obviously follow this if anything new comes up, if he does file an appeal, or if he does get a new trial. [37:24] We'll be sure to update you guys. You can go to our website, get our newsletter for all these updates.

[37:29] Crime Junkie podcast. [37:31] crime junkie is written and hosted by me all of our sound production and editing comes from brit and all of our music including our theme comes from justin daniel crime junkie is an audio chuck [38:01] *Mario's growling* [38:06] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [38:24] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [38:28] I think you'll love it too. [38:29] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.