The Babysitter from Hell // 516
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♪♪♪

What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well today. Oh, my God. This case that we have for you today, I stumbled on this when I was digging for some insane stories recently, and I could not believe it.

not believe the details like this one will truly make your jaws drop. Yeah, it is like one of the wildest stories I think I've ever researched or looked into. Yes, especially because of this like severe misdirection that you guys will see and how these deaths surrounding the woman and girl teenager really in question were believed to be this medical phenomenon. Yeah.

Okay.

Wait, no, you can't. No, you can. Oh, yeah, you can pre-order it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm such a fucking idiot. Anyway, it's going to be available on July 8th for you guys to purchase. It would mean so much if you guys pre-ordered it. It helps so much. It's called Night Watcher. You can pre-order it anywhere you get your books. And it is about a masked serial killer in Portland, Oregon. It's so creepy. And I hope you guys love it. I can't wait. It comes out one week from today. I'm so excited. But...

Without further ado, let's talk about some true crime. All right, guys, this is episode 516 of Going West, so let's get into it. ♪♪♪

Between 1980 and 1982, a string of unexplained child deaths unsettled small towns across Florida.

Shockingly, the common thread was a quiet teenager hired as the babysitter. As grieving families sought answers and doctors cited rare medical conditions as the cause, suspicion began to build quietly among the grieving families. But it wasn't until the summer of 1982 that

that the truth behind the tragedies began to emerge, raising chilling questions about evil hiding in plain sight. These are the murders by Christine Falling, also known as the Babysitter from Hell.

Christine Slaughter, so crazy her original surname was Slaughter. Yes, it definitely is. Was born on March 12th, 1963 in Perry, Florida, which is a panhandle city about an hour outside of Tallahassee.

Her childhood remains shrouded in mystery, but it has been reported that she was born to a teen mother and an absentee father. Because according to one account in the news coverage at the time, Christine's mother was only 16 when she was born, and she joined an older sister named Carol.

They allegedly did not spend much, if any, time around their father, but did find a father figure in an elderly man named Tom Slaughter who worked at a local junkyard. So the girls actually lived with Tom for a period of time when they were very young, while their mother was briefly married to him, and even, of course, as you can tell, adopted his surname, Slaughter.

But another report claims that Tom Slaughter, who is 65 to their mother's 16 years old, was actually their father. I mean, that's obviously super horrible. It's disgusting. So if he was really their father or not, either way, he was like married to their teen mom.

And he was an elderly man. But this is not even scratching the surface of the shit show that is to come. Yeah, things are about to get way more fucked up. So, also I know 65 is not like elderly, but compared to 16, it is. So anyway...

Their mother apparently disappeared when they were young, which meant that the girls spent time shuffling between members of their extended family before ending up in foster care and being adopted by a couple named Dolly and Jesse Falling when Christine was three years old, hence her becoming Christine Falling. Yeah.

Yeah, and this couple, they're just a couple of absolute losers. Yeah, I mean, they were, I don't even want to say this, like able to provide a stable home because they really didn't. But I guess I mean that in more of the

literal way. Like there's literally a roof over your head and walls in a bathroom where you can go to the bathroom or whatever. Exactly. But like the actual situation that they were living in really did not improve from what they had before because the girls were raised in poverty and her family was unable to, or maybe unwilling to help them navigate the neglect that she and her sister received in their early childhood years. Yeah.

Now, Christine was diagnosed with epilepsy and prescribed strong medication starting at a young age. So all this tumult in her formative years left Christine with a low IQ and trouble forming deep connections with others. And because of this, as a coping mechanism and an escape, it seems, she developed somewhat of a fantasy life and she would enjoy the reprieve that it offered from her everyday life.

And by the way, more than anything, Christine longed to be famous. And I think this really comes from this need to be seen, this need to be accepted. Well, everybody in her life basically stepped out on her. So it's this is definitely just a way of her to possibly get some love and affection from people. Yeah. So in her mind, she's coming up with this kind of alternate life for herself where she is accepted and she's beloved and people know who she is.

Well, Christine's fantasy life became especially useful when their father Jesse began to abuse her and Carol. Jesse was described by his adopted daughters as angry and a raging alcoholic. And according to both Carol and Christine, he would beat them, lock them up, and even sexually assault them.

Christine later described, quote, In an interview, her adoptive mother, Dolly, rebutted this by saying, quote,

And Jesse denied it. He denied it. He said that it wasn't true. So I don't know whether there was anything like that that went on or not. I haven't gotten no proof of it. I think they was trying to break up a home. If you want to know the truth...

It was Christine doing it, trying to break the peace between me and my husband. What a devastating angle to take. Like, you don't have evidence of either, and here's this young girl who is your child trying to confide in you, and two girls in your care experiencing this, and you don't know if you believe them? And this is exactly why I said that this couple is... They're just shitty people. I mean...

Like she can't even, she's putting the blame on a child and saying, oh, Christine's trying to break up my marriage. No, your husband is a piece of shit and he's sexually abusing young girls. And the fact that she worded it like Christine told me that they had had sex. Like she's a child. There's no having sex when you're a child. It's abuse. It's abuse. Like girl, get real.

Yeah, because Carol upheld Christine's retelling of events and claims that she also told Dolly about this, and that Dolly refused to believe them. Through tears, Carol said that she often bore the brunt of her father's abuse so that she could protect her sister from it. So, obviously, Christine preferred to escape into her fantasy world to help her get out of her situation.

Carol remembered, quote,

The days that she was dreaming about being a movie star or becoming a sleek little model or something, those are the days that she was really down on herself. And she needed those ideas of life to get her through those days. Which makes so much sense. Like, she's trying to do anything in her head to get herself out of her horrific reality. Yeah, absolutely. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Forrest Gump where Jenny is like a young kid

And she's like, we're going to fly far, far away. You know, they're in the field. She's dreaming about this better life outside of the confines of all this abuse. Yeah, exactly. This actually is so reminiscent of this book I just read and loved recently called You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce because it explores these two sisters, one of whom is being abused, and she creates this fantasy world to escape the trauma of

And that really is what's happening here because the woman that they deserve, that Carol and Christine deserve to be able to look up to, their new mother, Dolly, isn't helping them. And it clearly psychologically is affecting both girls. And now here's Christine literally having to try to mentally escape. And we will see how much, at least I believe, this really reshapes her brain and changes her as a person. Like it seems like

this created a monster. Completely agree. Well, by the time they were teenagers, so in the late 1970s, Dolly and Jesse had either decided that they couldn't handle the girls anymore or CPS had stepped in. But either way, Christine and Carol were handed off to a reform school. But before they could get there, Carol, Christine's sister, encountered another setback in her young life. She fell pregnant at just 14. Wow.

She quickly married the boy that she had been seeing and dropped out of school to care for the baby. But Christine, her sister, was livid that she was being left alone again, you know, as her sister has this responsibility to uphold. And she recalls that she was devastated to be separated from her sister, who really was like her idol and honestly probably the only person to understand what she was going or understood what she was going through. Yeah, I mean, it was basically the two of them against the world. Absolutely. So...

Christine set off for Thomasville Girls School in Thomasville, Georgia. Remember, they had previously been in Florida, but she didn't last long without Carol by her side. She started hanging out with other teen vagrants and dropouts and frequently skipped school to get in trouble.

She and her new friends started doing drugs, stealing cars, and even breaking into area homes. And small animal abuse warning here, there are no explicit details, but disturbingly, Christine was also known to enjoy killing cats, explaining that she was simply testing the theory that they had nine lives. Yeah, so it's very clear. I mean, if she truly believes this...

It's very clear that, you know, her IQ is very low. And also on top of that, she just has way too much trauma already at her young age. I mean, this is obviously such a known sign of serial killers. Yeah, it is. Spoiler alert, Christine will become one. So, yeah, clearly, very early on, she is showing these extremely concerning signs. Yeah.

By seventh grade, she had dropped out of school altogether. And as a teen, she began to fantasize about killing a person in order to take back her power that she had lost years earlier from Jesse's severe abuse on her. And these fantasies began to intersect with her lifelong desire to achieve infamy and notoriety. They're kind of...

They're meeting hands. They're like that, like, handshake emoji. Yeah, they definitely are. Yeah, they're twisting together. And again, just going along with this serial killer thing, like the fact that she already, as she's young, is desiring to kill somebody. She enjoys killing innocent pets, innocent cats. And this is another thing that we see in a lot of serial killers is that they experience severe abuse when they're children. Like, both Carol and Christine report

reported that their father would choke them until they went blue growing up. And Christine later wondered if that was where she got the desire to do this herself, which will be much more prevalent to you guys when you hear what's to come. Christine recalled wanting to kill Jesse as young as four or five years old, feeling vengeful and plotting her retaliation.

However, Christine's community had quite the opposite perception of her. Like back home in the trailer park where she was raised, she was known for being sweet, patient, and great with kids. Oh, God. No, she wasn't. Okay. We won't even go there yet. Well, she started taking babysitting jobs for neighborhood families and was loved and respected by the parents who hired her.

Carol recalled, quote, But despite her interest in childcare, her teenage tribulations persisted. By one account, Christine didn't see her birth mother again after she ran out on her daughters. However, another alleges that she went back to live with her after leaving Thomasville.

But regardless of where she wound up after dropping out of school, she briefly married her stepbrother at the insistence of her parents, who was reportedly 20 years old when she was just 14. So, yeah, I mean, that is absolutely insane.

Yeah, like that abuse just continues. Well, she later described having four miscarriages, though it's unknown if this was just one of many of the lies that she told throughout her young life or if this was true.

Now, this relationship with her stepbrother was doomed from the start. She obviously didn't even want to be married to her stepbrother, so the marriage lasted just six weeks with constant fighting. And I can't even believe that the parents would push this on her anyway. It's just gross. Like, what are you guys doing? It's all so gross.

Well, it was around this time, according to Christine, that her health began to suffer, and she admitted herself to the hospital about 50 times in the span of two years. She claimed that she was hallucinating, menstruating irregularly, and seeing phantom floating red dots. But doctors felt that the cause was actually anxiety and a desire for attention and nothing more.

So, unable to work a typical job due to her health constraints and lack of education, she picked up babysitting and housekeeping gigs through friends, family, and recommendations. On February 25th, 1980, 16-year-old Christine was babysitting for 2-year-old Cassidy Mae Marie Johnson, who was lovingly nicknamed Muffin. Christine wound up in Bluntstown, Florida, which is a small rural community about an hour east of Tallahassee.

Cassidy's parents were blue-collar workers who were headed out to dig up worms in order to sell them for fishing bait. And Christine was appointed to watch Cassidy while they were working, of course. But about four hours into the day, Cassidy became unresponsive after what Christine described as a minor accident and was rushed to the local hospital immediately.

Christine alleged that Cassidy had fallen from her crib after passing out and hit her head, and that she began having convulsions and lost consciousness. But realizing her condition was more serious than they were prepared for, Cassidy was brought into the Superior Hospital in nearby Tallahassee, where she remained in a coma for three whole days.

Devastatingly and mysteriously, Cassidy was diagnosed with encephalitis or swelling of the brain and she died three days later. However, her autopsy listed her cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. One of the physicians who examined her, Dr. Robert Bodie, recognized this and wanted to have Christine investigated because he was like,

I feel like this teenage babysitter might be responsible here. Yeah, it wasn't something normal. And he actually scribbled this hunch on a note to be given to a police officer because he's like, hey, by the way, this is what I think. You should look into this girl. Gave them the note. But guess what, guys? The note was lost. And the possibility of Cassidy's death being a murder was...

wasn't investigated until years later when five other victims had already been claimed. I mean, just insane slipping through the cracks here. Insane. Like, especially because this is the first victim and the doctor had a feeling and if they had only looked into it then. Like, wild.

So almost a year later, off the hook for Cassidy's death with it being considered a tragic accident of a two-year-old falling from their crib, Christine found herself in Lakeland, Florida, situated in between Tampa and Orlando. And on February 23rd, 1981...

She was tasked with watching four-year-old Jeffrey Michael Davis. By Christine's account, Jeffrey took a nap on the couch while she was sitting next to him, but he never woke up. The family didn't have a phone, so Christine was forced to head to a neighbor's house to ask for help, and when Jeffrey was brought to the hospital, his cause of death was determined to be myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart.

Again, Christine not being found at fault. She got herself another babysitting gig three days later when her stepsister Geneva was out attending the funeral of young Jeffrey.

So on February 26th, 1981, Christine was watching Geneva's son, two-year-old Joseph, or Joe Boy Spring, who was Jeffrey Michael Davis's cousin, hence why Geneva was at the funeral and needed childcare. I mean, this is kind of crazy. The fact that, you know, Jeffrey had already died, and you're like, oh, hey, you know what? Maybe we should...

have our child be watched by Christine. Like, there's no possible way, there's no scenario in my mind in which I would ever make the decision to have a person like Christine watch my kid after another kid died in her care. But they didn't know, you know, like, they didn't know that two kids had died on her watch and that it was suspicious. It just seemed like, oh, he just, like,

had myocarditis and that's just like what happened no I get it and even if it wasn't Christine's fault still I would not make that decision I think because this is her stepsister she's probably like you know Geneva trusts her so I think yeah I guess so but it really is I mean it's so ironic you know

Because Christine is now watching Geneva's child so that she can be at this funeral. And it's extra ironic because guess what? Shockingly, while she was there, her own son, Joe boy, died of the same condition that claimed Jeffrey. Christine simply explained to her stepsister Geneva that she put him down for a nap and he never woke up.

She said in an interview with the press at the time, quote, And after finding him, Christine says that she plucked him from his crib and brought him to the couch in the living room where she called for an ambulance, but it was too late. And I just like, I think by this point, by Joe's death,

I am just really wondering how these dots aren't being connected, you know, after two deaths, like you're saying, Heath. But now we have three. Like, I don't know if it's because of the era and the lack of an online police database, but what the hell? Well, what's really interesting is what we're going to get into next about how society really just didn't believe that Christine was doing anything wrong. Yeah, I mean, just the fact alone, though, like you're saying that she's around kids that keep dying is such a red flag and...

I don't know if maybe it's not being... You know, I'm sure that there wasn't a police officer looking at Joe's death saying, oh, well, Christine...

was also around for Jeffrey's death and for this other girl, Cassidy's death. Like, I'm sure that wasn't happening, but it's so devastating that it wasn't. Well, yeah. I mean, it's very hard to make those connections because, like we mentioned, you know, two of these deaths happened in a different city than the first one. Yeah, and this is the 80s. Well, and of course, Joseph was issued the same cause of death, myocarditis.

Doctors really reeled at this revelation and wondered if perhaps they were, you know, caused by a communicable disease. Like their minds aren't even going to Christine having killed these children. And we have to remember, like, Christine was just a couple weeks shy of 18 years old.

Right, I totally agree. Well...

We know at least that the deaths of Jeffrey and Joe were investigated more than the others for their proximity because doctors wondered if it had been like a viral or bacterial connection. You know, they're kind of scared that this is going to spread and they're, you know, just looking in the wrong place. So tissue samples were taken from Joseph's autopsy to the Epidemiology Research Center in Tampa, Florida to test for a virus.

Then, two days later, while Jeffrey and Joseph's deaths were being investigated, two more children were rushed to the hospital.

On February 28th, Christine, of course, was watching 14-month-old Jeffrey Heil, who was one of Joseph's playmates when he fell ill suddenly and was rushed to the Lakeland General Hospital with an apparent viral infection. While his parents, Beverly and Don Heil, were by his side at the hospital, Christine was left with their older son, three-year-old Charles Heil.

And while alone with him, Charles lapsed into a seizure and fell unconscious. So after that, he was taken to the Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. With the boys having played with Joseph shortly before his death, doctors wondered if they were all connected, or if perhaps Christine was a silent carrier of a disease that was harming them. These poor people just can't figure it out. And to be fair, I do get why their minds are going this way, but this is...

The craziest aspect of the story, their minds are going to, Christine could be a silent carrier of a disease that is killing all these children and not that she's doing it on purpose. Yeah, and I mean, even the health department even went so far as to test the neighborhood water supply. And they actually managed to find an open septic tank, which they ordered to be closed.

They then tested the blood and fecal matter of the family members of the victims, as well as Christine's, hoping to establish a connection, but they were never able to do so. But still, why these four instances in under a week were not immediately determined or considered homicides is still a mystery.

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It is pretty wild because Christine had actually been open about the fact that another child, Cassidy Johnson, had already died on her watch. She was telling people this like it wasn't something to be ashamed about, especially when she's, you know, people in the area are starting to be afraid of her and her her potential virus.

Maybe you shouldn't be sharing that. Yeah, it's not great information to keep throwing out there. It's not helping you at all. So when questioned about this, about Cassidy's death in the aftermath of the deaths of Jeffrey and Joseph.

Cassidy's mother said that her daughter had never once been ill and that her sudden death hadn't made any sense to her. So this is also not helping Christine because now people know about Cassidy and Cassidy's mom is like, no, this was weird. This was not a thing. A Lakeland medical examiner who had originally said that it would be unlikely that Christine had been carrying a virus for over a year, you know, to kill Cassidy and any other boys said,

was now entertaining the possibility that she was and that this was still a medical anomaly.

As the county health department conducted their investigation, they learned of another child in Bluntstown who had been hospitalized after being cared for by none other than Christine. Two-year-old Kyle Summerlin, who is believed to be suffering from spinal meningitis and was taken to the hospital just three weeks after Cassidy died.

Strangely, both of the Heil boys, as well as Joseph Spring, you know, Joe boy. And of course, Christine as well, all suffered from chronic seizures. Remember, I was talking about earlier, Christine has epilepsy. So the Polk County health director, Dr. William Hill, was given the option to keep tabs on Christine by forcing her to stay in the area until determinations could be made.

But Dr. Hill chose not to do this. He said that this idea not to do this was motivated by not wanting to stigmatize her and because he didn't believe the community was in imminent danger, which just feels super irresponsible. Yeah, that's definitely like neglectful of the situation because we know that there are a lot of people that are dying under Christine's watch. But it goes to show you even more like we were saying earlier that people just...

either didn't think she was dangerous or they didn't think that it was possible that she could be doing this because medically it really didn't make any sense.

However, others in Lakeland did think that they were in imminent danger. They didn't want Christine around. With many families having blood work done and many other families seeking doctor's appointments just in case. Like other people are like, oh my God, what if she exposed me to something? Yeah, we need to get tested just to make sure. But this was like driving some people insane. Like Jeffrey Michael Davis's mother, Carol, was fired from her job at a gas station yesterday.

Because her manager was so worried about her infecting others because her son had died. So her boss literally said, we're afraid that whatever your son died from is in you and you're going to give it to us. So you got to go. Like people were tripping. Oh, absolutely. They really did think that there was some sort of medical condition that was running rampant through their community. So Carol remembered him, her boss, telling her, quote,

So Carol found herself needing food stamps and selling off her possessions in a yard sale just so that she could stay afloat.

As this investigation was ongoing, Jennifer Daniels, who is the daughter of Christine's stepsister Geneva, so that's kind of confusing, Geneva's daughter, she fell ill as well. So on March 6th, 1981, Jennifer lost consciousness and was having trouble breathing.

So she was admitted to the hospital and Christine herself was also taken to the hospital, reportedly complaining of diarrhea, vomiting and a fever. So we have another sick kid. And now Christine's like, I'm not feeling so hot either. Well, Christine told the local newspaper that she had come to be looked at as a pariah in her community.

And that she was depending on friends and family for shelter and referrals for babysitting work. It is. I mean, I know we keep saying this, but it's crazy that at this point, like she's a pariah, but not for the real reason she should be. But because everyone thinks she's carrying a virus that is killing their kids unintentionally. Like I have never heard of anything like this. Yeah, I have not heard anything like this either.

While Christine said, quote, Creepy. It's weird to say youngins. I hate that. She's going to say it again. Yeah, she is. However, she maintained that she was not giving up her career, saying, quote,

Oh my god, so dumb. But just four months later, Geneva's daughter Jennifer would unfortunately suffer a similar fate that her brother Joe did.

Because after her illness in March, she got better. But on July 14th, 1981, 18-year-old Christine was accompanying 8-month-old Jennifer with her mom Geneva to the doctor so that Jennifer could receive a few vaccines. Well, they stopped at a Winn-Dixie grocery store where Christine was holding Jennifer as she slept.

Then, while in the car, Christine looked down and realized that Jennifer was no longer breathing. Just like that, just she's not breathing. Magically, she was just not breathing. Well, Christine told a local publication at the time, quote,

Yeah, it must be that curse that you were talking about. Well, Jennifer's death was a mystery, and doctors believe the cause to be from SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Then another surge of concern came after news of Jennifer's death spread, because according to a nurse who worked at the hospital where Jennifer Daniels was treated, six mothers called the hospital after learning of Jennifer's death, fearing that their children would meet the same fate because they had also been in Christine's care at some point.

But Tampa-based doctor Dr. Flora Wellings reported, "...she's not carrying typhoid. As far as we can tell, she's not carrying any viruses. It seems to me this kid is just a victim of circumstance."

Shirley Morris, a mother in Christine's hometown of Perry, Florida, took pity on her and took her in, claiming, quote,

So not everybody is afraid of Christine, but most people are. Or they're just simply kind of naive to the situation. Yeah, and for those who weren't naive and knew that something was up, obviously it was still a mystery exactly what, but they knew that they just did not want to be near Christine. So her babysitting gigs were understandably slowing down. I mean, thank God. Truly, thank God so many people were like, uh, get away from us.

So Christine briefly took up working with the elderly. And death, as you can probably tell already, would follow her on this new journey. Wilburn Swindle was a 77-year-old cancer patient and father of four adult children. He was looking for help around the house as his health declined and took a chance on down-on-her-luck Christine.

January 4th, 1982 was her one and only day as a housekeeper. That's such an eerie statement. One and only day. The only one. And it was with Wilburn. And while she was in his home, Wilburn collapsed and was found to have had a deadly heart attack. You can't tell me that was a coincidence.

So Christine disappeared for a few months after Wilburn's death, moving to Huntington, West Virginia that same month. She had befriended an older couple named Shirley and Tom Collins. Tom Collins, that is a hilarious name. That's a drink, yeah. It is. And attached herself to this couple. And the three together headed to West Virginia to move in with Tom's brother.

But within a few weeks, the couple had split off on their own and left Christine to fend for herself. So somehow she did land on her feet. And by January 23rd of 1982, 18-year-old Christine was living with a different couple named Linda and Richard Harris in Proctorville, Ohio, just across the river from West Virginia. Now, it's unclear how she knew them or why they let her stay with them.

But while she was there, she was pitching in by watching their six-month-old daughter, nicknamed Pokey. Oh no, oh no, just get her away. I know, like, these poor people have no idea this woman's history, or this teenage gal's history. But she's actually gonna let them know. Yeah, but sadly, not until it was at least a little bit too late, because while Christine was in Pokey's bedroom with her...

The baby lost consciousness, so she rushed to the hospital...

but actually recovered fully and was sent home. So, you know, she was okay in the end, but obviously something's happening. And this is where what Heath said comes in, because inexplicably, Christine, you know, after Pokey was sent home safe, Christine shared news clippings of her story about the other baby's deaths with Linda and Richard, who were so disturbed that

that they kicked her out. I mean, how stupid could you be? If you're trying to keep up this ruse that you're not, that you're not this baby killer, why would you, like, why are you telling these people about this? It's almost like she wants to brag, like she wants to talk about it, just like how she told people back in Lakeland about what happened to Cassidy. And I really think this feeds into that attention-seeking thing, the fame disaster,

You know, she wants to be like, oh, I did this, even if it's horrible. Like we've seen that in other serial killer cases as well. They want to be notarized. They don't care if they're on the news for a bad reason. They want their name out there and they don't care how it how it happens. Exactly. And her thinking that just because she made the news for being this woman where that's around kids who are dying like.

You're not famous for the right reasons. And like you're in the newspaper. Come on. Yeah. I mean, but I think that is where that psychological illness comes in. Absolutely. She is such an attention seeker. Yeah. But this really did backfire on her because, yeah, they kicked her out and she just had two trash bags of clothes to her name. And she was bouncing around to boarding houses for a while after that.

But by March and April of that year, she started getting into trouble in West Virginia. Up to her old tricks, she was charged with both public intoxication and theft. And growing homesick for Florida, she actually concocted a sob story to steal enough money to get back home. Now 19 years old,

She attempted to defraud a few charities for children by seeking money in order to give her fictitious baby a proper burial. Jeez. I mean, there's no, she's got no shame. She doesn't. Well, she told them about Pokey's accident, claiming to be her mother and saying that Pokey had actually died when obviously, as we know, Pokey did not die.

By May of 1982, so a couple months later, she was back in Bluntstown, Florida, where her first victim, Cassidy, had died. It's so weird that she's going back to these areas when people know who she is. Yeah, they all know. They're not going to hire you for babysitting. They know that you're a weirdo. Well, she moved into a cheap motel there where she met Lisa Coleman, the 17-year-old mom of a newborn baby boy named Travis.

While there, she also met and started dating Robert Johnson, this is really weird, who was the uncle of Christine's first victim, Cassidy. This is the strangest story I've ever heard. I mean, it's just, I hate to say it, but it's so trash. It just is really trash. Well, within months, she moved into a dilapidated trailer with Robert and offered to take Travis in when she could as a favor to Lisa, of course.

Well, at just eight weeks old, Travis had already been through a significant health scare at his young age, having recently completed a stint in the hospital to be treated for pneumonia.

After his release, Lisa wanted to celebrate his health. So on July 3rd, 1982, she asked 19-year-old Christine if she could take him in for the night, to which Christine, of course, agreed. Isn't that wild? She wants to celebrate his health, so she puts him into the arms of Christine. Yep. Well, according to Robert, as you guys are suspecting, he woke up and found Travis dead on a mattress on the floor.

And based on the initial reports of the incident, foul play was not suspected and it was thought to be Sid's. But I mean, come on, like, why do we keep doing this? And this poor mother and all these poor parents who are just trying to get child care for their kids. And this happens. Yeah, but it's like at this point, you know, she moved to West Virginia. She came back.

And I'm sure people around these parts in this area had heard the stories about Christine. I mean, how could you not, right? But it's very possible that, you know, people just didn't. But the amount of times that Christine found herself in proximity to this specific type of tragedy was finally becoming difficult to ignore. Travis's body was brought to Dr. Joseph Cipolla in Panama City, Florida. And picking up on this pattern...

Dr. Joseph was determined to pin the crimes on Christine after far too many children had died. So on July 9th, 1982, an investigation into the deaths of the children that Christine babysat was opened quietly. Now, as Dr. Cipolla suspected, the autopsy revealed a hemorrhage in Travis's trachea, meaning that he had been choked to death.

But instead of jumping to arrest her, Sheriff Buddy Smith of Calhoun County, who had known Christine since she was a child, went to go speak with her. Based on her candor and her demeanor, Christine was determined to be severely depressed. So on July 12th, 1982, she was admitted into Goodwood Manor for assessment, which was a psychiatric hospital in Tallahassee, Florida.

There, she admitted that she was feeling suicidal, and Buddy encouraged her to seek psychiatric help as he's trying to uncover the truth about what he was growing to believe she did.

Now tentatively, Christine told officers that she knew how the babies had died, but that she wasn't ready to tell them. Oh yeah, that's not eerie and suspicious at all. I know exactly how they died, but I can't tell you quite yet. But police are just like, like... Yeah, so close. So close, like please...

Especially because she is saying she's like, she's like toying with them almost, you know, like, I'll tell you someday eventually, just not now. Well, it goes to, it goes back to that whole attention seeking thing. I feel like she's got to build it up a little bit more. Yeah, exactly. So they waited anxiously while she was assessed in the hospital, but she eventually called them back and said that she was ready to talk.

In an interrogation on July 20th, 1982, Christine was asked about each of the children who died in her care. She explained that sometimes she was irritated with them when they were crying or she felt that they were acting out, even though these were all like baby babies. They're infants. But sometimes she couldn't determine why it had happened.

Christine said, quote, When asked about her first victim, Cassidy Johnson, whom Christine had killed when she was only 16 years old, you know, when Christine was 16, she explained, quote, Anyway, I choked her until she quit breathing and she had turned purple.

Her heart had stopped beating and her pulse had stopped and she wasn't breathing. So I tried to get her back to breathing and I couldn't. So then I went and I called the sheriff department and they come out there. And then they called the ambulance to come out there. And then they took her to the hospital and they transferred her to Tallahassee.

So now the truth finally comes out. And she's so... It's almost like she just really does not care. She's so nonchalant. Anyway, I choked her until she quit breathing and she had turned purple. Like...

What the fuck? Like, bitch, what are you talking about? Well, then she kept going because she explained that her second victim, Jeffrey Michael Davis, had, quote, got hold of some sort of spray that made me mad or something. I was already kind of mad that morning. I just started choking him. So, yeah, so she's just like, there's no explanation for it. It's just like whenever she gets a little bit mad, she's like,

She's taking out her anger on an infant. Yeah, like, I don't know. I was just in a bad mood. I was just in a bad mood. So I strangled a child.

Well, again, she claimed that she didn't even realize that he had died. And when she did, she called neighbors who then called the police. Three days later, while babysitting Joseph Spring, remember Joe Boy, her stepsister, Geneva's son, she explained, quote,

So now it's not even "I'm mad about anything in life", "I'm not mad because this baby's crying",

I just simply wanted to kill. Yeah. And we have to remember back how she had mentioned that when she was young, she wanted to kill when she was as young as four or five, she wanted to kill Jesse. And then years later, after she got into killing cats, she thought she wanted to know what it was like to kill somebody. And now she's doing it. And she, she doesn't, you know, she likes it. Maybe. I think she's also just kind of a bully killer as well, because she's,

She's killing cats and babies, things that she can physically overpower. Yeah. Things that won't give her a fight or a struggle, things that she can kill without any, hardly any effort. Which is really interesting because as part of that kind of quote that I was reading earlier, how she wanted her power back by killing Jesse or by killing somebody. So that's actually a really insightful thing to point out, Heath. This was maybe in her brain, a way that she could get her power back is by

doing something to somebody that had no power. Yeah, if you overpower something that you know you can, then, you know, in her mind, she thinks that she is gaining some power here.

As we know, she also killed Joe's sister, Jennifer Daniels. And in that case, Christine told Geneva that she would wait with Jennifer in the car while Geneva ran into Winn-Dixie, right? But according to Christine, Jennifer was, quote, crying and crying and crying and making me mad. I just put my hands around her neck and choked her till she shut up.

Now, Travis's murder was perhaps the most stunning revelation with absolutely no motive at all. Honestly, seemingly like Joe Boy's because she explained very casually for, you know, that explanation, quote, I just choked him. No apparent reason. I just picked him off his palate and choked him to death and laid him back down. And then later she said, quote, I don't even know why I did none of it.

Two days later, upon her official release from the psychiatric hospital on July 22, 1982, she was arrested and charged with the murder of Cassidy Johnson and Travis Coleman. But prosecutors hope to pin the other murders on her as well.

In subsequent reports, many were dumbfounded that a crime so heinous could go unnoticed for so long, and that Christine had been able to claim five more victims after her first defenseless child.

But the Tampa Tribune highlighted the fact that these murders were going on in the impoverished, crime-ridden, and sometimes even seedy communities of Florida's Panhandle. Parts which were severely overlooked and also underserved. Particularly the trailer park from which Christine operated. Many like Christine herself were obviously no stranger to tragedy, and a freak accident didn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

Amid coverage of Christine's legal proceedings, Diane Egner of the Tampa Tribune reported, "...throughout it all, a pattern of tragedy emerged, a pattern of the bizarre set among some of the country's poorest, a pattern that found one of society's rejected, involved in the deaths of some of poverty's youngest victims."

Christine Falling's tragedy might have gone on if it weren't for the persistence of a panhandle medical examiner who operates under deplorable, under-equipped conditions by anyone's standards.

During her court proceedings, Christine enjoyed smiling for the cameras. Of course she did. Yeah, because it's finally like she's getting all that attention she so desperately craved. And it is really sad looking back to why she wanted that attention so bad and how much her childhood, like so many other killers and serial killers, affected who she became. Yeah, I mean, it's really hard here because she was obviously a victim when she was younger.

None of what happened to her should have happened to her, but she kind of carried on all of that. And she decided that she was going to kind of do the same thing that was done to her. Yeah. Two innocent children who had nothing to do with what happened to her. She wasn't getting revenge. If she killed Jesse, I don't understand that. You know, that would be like, okay, I would too, but, but that's not what happened. She killed indefensible babies. Yeah.

But on Friday, December 3rd, 1982, she and her attorneys made the decision to accept a plea deal. If she would plead guilty to three of her six murders, they would drop the charges for the other three.

So she and her team were deeply concerned about the death penalty, and this would spare her that fate while giving her three concurrent life sentences for murdering Cassidy Johnson, Jennifer Daniels, and Travis Coleman.

In an interview years later, Christine attempted to explain her motivation, saying, quote, I was getting away with it.

In 2017, Christine became eligible for parole, but it was denied immediately. Thankfully. Yeah, I mean, they're like, you don't understand. Because even in this quote, she's still like, I don't know why I did it, but they should have figured it out. They're dumb. They're dumb.

It's like, wait. You are not fit to be around society. She's not saying what I did was wrong. I shouldn't have done, you know, she's not showing that. Prosecutor Joy Powell stated, quote, this woman killed five babies from two months to four years old. She says she just did it the way she saw on TV. She says she doesn't know why she did it. Sometimes they cried and they made her mad. One time she just felt the urge.

Christine was due for another hearing as of last year in 2024, but it has yet to take place. And no one showed up to court on Christine's behalf. She will not be eligible for release until the year 2254. How do you even say that? 2254. Meaning she will never walk free. ♪♪

Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes. Thank you guys so much for listening to this one. If you were just as pissed off and irritated as we were during this episode, let us know your thoughts. Head on over to our socials. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast. You can also see the photos of Christine and

And, dude, it's just wild. It's wild to actually, like, put a face to this story. Yeah. Please go look. And like he said, go comment because I can't wait to see your guys' comments on this one. It's just...

It's like, it's so easy to be bewildered by it and just be like, oh my God, this is crazy. Ha ha. But it's also, I mean, this is truly such a devastating story about all of these innocent children who lost their lives for no freaking reason. Like what a horrific, horrific tale. Yeah. And just the first part as well, when we were talking about,

Her dad abusing her and also having to get married to her stepbrother. I mean... It's twisted from front to back. My mind was just blown. Well, thank you guys again for tuning in. Don't forget to pre-order my thriller, debut thriller novel, Nightwatcher, wherever you get your books. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Walmart, Target, wherever the hell. It would mean the world to me. And we will see you on Friday.

On the 4th of July. We will be here. So if you're listening on that Friday, happy 4th of July. Early, I guess. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world. Don't be a stranger. ♪♪♪

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