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Welcome back. I am your host, Jim Chapman, and today
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I am bringing you another episode from the Fifty Shades
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of Evil series, and this week we are going to
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the state of Virginia. We're on a typical Tuesday evening
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in Appomattox County, inside a white farmhouse at the end
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of a long gravel drive. Two families are gathered. They're laughing,
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catching up plates still on the table. Lori Lee and
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Dwayne Sipe, who were thirty eight years old, their little boy,
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Joshua just four years old. Lower Lee's teenage cousin, Morgan
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Dibbins fifteen years old. Outside, three more neighbors stop by,
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Jonathan and Karen Quarrels, both and their fifteen year old
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daughter Emily. Sixteen year old Ronald bo Scruggs, he's there too.
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He was just dropping something off. Eight people, eight ordinary lives,
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on a seemingly ordinary night. Then, without warning, a gunshot.
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In the span of just a few minutes, This peaceful
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road would absolutely become a killing ground. By the time
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the gunfire stopped, every single person inside and outside that
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house would be dead. Today, we're stepping into one of
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Virginia's most shocking and least understood mass murder cases. The
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story of Christopher Spite. How does a quiet rule security guard,
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a man who waved to his neighbors and let their
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dogs play together become one of the state's most notorious
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mass murderers overnight. In this particular episode, I'm gonna dive
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deep from Spiite's early life in teenage years in the
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same house where these killings would occur, through that horrifying
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day on January nineteenth of twenty ten. I'm going to
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talk about the manhunt, the trials, the conviction, and the sentence,
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all the way up to where he is today. I'm
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going to pull from court records, family statements, psychological evaluations,
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and never before heard details that will paint a full
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portrait of how an ordinary man crossed into this unimaginable evil.
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Eight families were shattered that night, and their stories deserve
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to be told. So pull up a chair, because we're
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about to walk the thin line between normal life and
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pure darkness. So let's get into it. And we're going
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to start off in the rolling hills of central Virginia.
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And this is the early nineteen seventies, Appomattox County, still
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very much a place where time moved at the pace
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of the seasons. Cornfields stretched out under wide open skies.
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Gravel roads would wind between thick tree lines of oak
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trees and pine trees, and on Snap's Mill Road, just
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outside the small town of Appomattics a modest white farmhouse
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at the end of a long tree lined driveway. It
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was number thirty thirty, a simple two story home with
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a wide front porch, a big backyard that backed up
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to the woods, and enough land for maybe a garden,
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a few dogs, and the occasional deer that would wander
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too close to the house at night. That house was
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the only home Christopher Brian Spite ever really knew. He
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was born in nineteen seventy one, and he came into
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a world that was already kind of shifting beneath his feet.
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He wasn't an only child. He had a younger sister,
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lord Lee. She was just a few years behind him,
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and for a while the family felt whole. But when
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Chris was roughly nine or ten years old, everything would change.
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His father would walk out of the door one day
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and just simply never come back. The abandonment was sudden, complete,
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and it would leave a quiet wound in that household
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that would never fully heal. From that moment on, it
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was just the three of them, Chris, Lord Lee and
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their mother, and she became the unbreakable center of their world. Now,
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neighbors who knew that family described her as a strong,
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no nonsense woman who worked hard, kept the house spotless,
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and made sure her kids never wanted for anything that
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that she could provide. She would raise them in a
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farmhouse on Snap's Mill Road, and she would turn it
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into a place of stability in a world that at
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that point in time was kind of becoming very unstable
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for them. Chris and his mother were especially close, almost inseparable.
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He was the quiet boy who stuck by his mother's side.
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He would help with chores after school, mowing lawns during
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the summer, and sitting with her on the porch as
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that sun would go down over those hills. And life
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for them was simple, predictable, and deeply rooted in rural
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Virginia tradition. Kids would ride bikes down their long driveways,
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They would play in creeks that ran behind their properties,
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and they learned how to respect the land and the
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animals that lived on that land. And like so many
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boys raised in Appomatox County, Chris would develop a love
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for the outdoors that ran really deep into his soul.
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Hunting wasn't just a hobby for him or anybody that
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grew up in that area. It was really part of
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the culture. Deer season was practically sacred there. Fathers, uncles,
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grandfathers would pass down rifles the way other families passed
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down bibles. And Chris learned to handle firearms safely and
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responsibly from a very young age, and he would take
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that very seriously. He would clean his firearms meticulously, he
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would store them properly, and he would find kind of
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a piece in the quiet hours that he would spend
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in a deer stand in the early morning, waiting for
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the perfect shot. Now, to the neighbors who drove past
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that white farmhouse every day, the Spike kids, they seemed
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like typical children, polite, well behaved and unassuming in the
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best possible way. Chris was the boy who always waved
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when you passed, the one who let the neighborhood dogs
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run and play together in the yard and never complain
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about it. He was quiet, yeah, not a loud, boisterous
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type you sometimes see in these small towns. But he
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was dependable, He was hard working. He was the kind
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of teenager who did his chores without being asked. Chris
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would attend the local Appomatics County Public school. He would
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blend into the hallways filled with kids who had known
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each other since kindergarten, and he would make his way
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through without any major incidents, without any teacher notes of
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trouble or outbursts, no suspensions, no fights, no whispers of concern,
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just a quiet kid from a single parent home, seemingly
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doing his best to fit into the steady rhythm of
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small town life. Now, after graduation, Chris didn't chase college
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dreams or big city lights. He stayed right there in Appomatics.
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And he took a steady job as a security guard.
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And this was the kind of reliable, over responsible work
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that seemed suited for his personality perfectly. He earned his
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concealed handgun permit, which is something pretty common in that
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part of Virginia, and he maintained a well cared collection
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of firearms at his family home. But that quiet stability
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of that life, it would start showing cracks. In two
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thousand and six, Chris's mother, the anchor of that family,
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She was diagnosed with brain cancer. The battle was quick.
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She fought hard, but that disease moved faster than anyone expected.
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Before she passed away that same year, she did one
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final loving thing for her family. She needed that Snap's
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Mill Road farmhouse jointly to Cress and lower Lee. She
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wanted to make sure they would always have a roof
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over their heads no matter what, they wouldn't have to
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worry about a home, and it was her last act
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of protection. Now when she died, the loss hit Chris
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like a freight train. Those closest to the family would
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later describe it in heartbreaking terms. His uncle would tell
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reporters that Chris struggled after his mother's death, saying he
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didn't take it good at all. The uncle said he
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didn't think Chris ever reconciled the woman who had raised him,
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who had been his constant companion through abandonment, through adolescence
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through early adulthood. She was suddenly gone, and that farmhouse
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that had once echoed with her voice every day and
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the smell of her cooking every day, was now empty
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and cold. Now Lord Lee had already married, and she
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had started a family of her own. She brought her husband,
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Dwayne and their young children into the shared living arrangement
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at that farmhouse, and what had once been a quiet
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refuge for her mother and her two kids, it was
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now a shared space between a brother and a sister,
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navit gating very different adult lives now. It was around
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this time that something deeper was taking route, the kind
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of grief that doesn't always show itself right away, the
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time that can sit quietly for years, until one cold
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January night in twenty ten, when all of that would
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explode with violence that no one in Appomattox County could
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have imagined.
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Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today?
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Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you
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what happened in New York.
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It cannot be as crazy as the case I told
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you about yesterday in Louisiana.
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You know what, we should do a podcast.
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About it, and with that we did. Crime War Weekly
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covers the crime news headlines that have dominated the week.
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We cover trending crimes from all over the country, and
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even sprinkle in a few globally.
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Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
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your podcasts.
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Simply by searching Crime Wire Weekly or clicking the link
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in the description of this podcast. Four years have passed
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since Chris Spite's mother died, indeedd that house jointly to
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him and his sister. On paper, it was just a
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simple shared ownership, but in reality it had become a
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source of growing tension. Laura Lee had married Dwayne Sipe,
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and they started their own family. She and Dwayne, both
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thirty eight, had been spending more and more time at
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that house with their four year old son, Joshua Lord.
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Lee's fifteen year old cousin, Morgan Dobbins, was also staying
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there on this particular night on January nineteenth of twenty ten,
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and that once quiet home where Chris had grown up
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with his mother now felt very chrity contested, a place
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where two adult siblings were kind of pulling in opposite
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directions over the only piece of their past that they
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had love. Now what exactly triggered the explosion that evening
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remains really locked inside Chris Spite's mind. Family members later
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described ongoing disputes about the house, money, how the property
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should be used, but no one outside of that circle
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could have imagined what was about to unfold. And we're
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going to go to that cold Tuesday evening. It's just
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after six o'clock. Inside that farmhouse, the families had gathered
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for what should have been an ordinary visit. Lord Lee
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and Dwayne were there with little Joshua. Morgan Dobbins was
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relaxing with them outside. Three neighbors had stopped by, Jonathan
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and Karen Quarrels, both forty three, their fifteen year old
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daughter Emily, and sixteen year old Bo Scrugs. He was
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also there. He was just dropping something off of the house.
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Eight people laughing, talking, plated still on the table from supper.
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Then that gunshot fires off Chris Spite, thirty eight years old.
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He would step out of the shadows of that property
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that he had known his entire life in just open fire.
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He moved with a cold, methodical precision. First inside the house.
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Lord Lee Sype was shot multiple times in the head
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and upper body as she tried to protect her son.
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Dwayne Sipe was gunned down in that very same room,
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attempting to shield his family. Four year old Joshua spe
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was killed right where he stood, a single devastating shot.
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Morgan Dibbin's, that fifteen year old cousin. She never had
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a chance. She was shot repeatedly as she tried to
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run through the house in the gunfire. It was relentless,
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shellcasings reining onto the floor. Blood would soak the carpets
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in the walls of the only home that Chris had
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ever known. But that horror did not stop at the
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front door. SPIKEE would turn his weapon outward. Jonathan Quarrels
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and his wife Karen were cut down in the yard
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as they tried to run to their car, and their
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daughter Emily, just fifteen years old, was shot while running
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for cover. Both Scruggs, the sixteen year old who stopped by,
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was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He
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was killed instantly, and in total, spite fired more than
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fifty rounds. Every single victim was hit multiple times at
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close range. Then came the final chilling detail that would
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haunt investigators for years. Before leaving that scene, SPIKEE rigged
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the entire farmhouse with explosives. He placed devices throughout the structure,
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on doors, in hallways wired to the electrical system. It
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was a deliberate attempt to turn the family home into
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a deadly trap for anyone who might respond. That house
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was now a bomb waiting today, Spike would climb into
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his vehicle and speed away from Snapsmell Road, leaving those
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eight bodies behind. The nine to one one calls would
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start flooding in almost immediately, frantic, breathless voices from neighbors
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who had heard the rapid gunfire Appomattox County deputies would
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race to the scene, but when they arrived, they were
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met with a nightmare. The white farmhouse would stand silent,
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its porch lights still burning, while laying inside were the
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bodies of an entire family and their neighbors. The explosives
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made every step difficult. Bomb technicians had to be called
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in before investigators could even begin processing that scene, and
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by the time the first full accounting was made, the
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horror of what had happened would really begin to sink in.
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Eight people, four to forty three in age, murdered in
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a matter of minutes on a quiet road where nothing
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like this had ever happened before. Meanwhile, Chris Spite was
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on the run. He drove into the surrounding woods and
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fields that he knew better than almost anyone else, and
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for the next eighteen hours, a massive manhunt would unfold.
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Virginia State Police, local deputies, and even helicopters would scour
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the countryside. Roadblocks would go up, homes were locked down.
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Residents of Appomattox County were told to stay inside with
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their doors locked. And around noon the next day, on
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January twenty, twenty ten, of Virginia State Police helicopter spots
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movement in the heavily wooded area around the home. As