The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Algorithm. Four years after Thomas Hargrove had tried to warrant Gary, Indiana that they might have a serial killer, the police one town over in Hammond, Indiana, arrested Darren Vaughan. How many people are you responsible for killing? But it is a lifetime. How couldn't even two? Vond led investigators to six bodies? And while the m O matched one of the patterns, Hardroup had identified young women who had been strangled and left in abandoned buildings, none of these victims were on Hargrove's list. They were all more recent murders that have been committed after Hargrove sent the letter to Gary. But in a press conference, police mentioned that On had confessed to murders going back twenty years, and the Hammond mayor wrote, he'd confessed to a couple of murders into and they told Hammond police that he had been active going back to the mid nineties, and I would take him at his word. So it was Vond responsible for the killings that Hargrove's algorithm had picked up on. Where was something else going on? This episode we explore what Bond was doing back in the nineties from I Heeart Media and Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm. I'm ben Key brick. Hard Grove's algorithm had identified fifteen homicides between and two thousand seven. The first step in figuring out if Vaughn was responsible for these murders were other cold cases is figuring out where he was living and what he was doing during that period. Von told detectives that in the early eighties he was recruited into a gang, the Gangster Disciples, by an older boy named Big or Big Mike. The Bond's brother, Reginald didn't buy this story. Ok, his friend Big Mike, he likes to talk about talk about him and Big Mike grew up in homes together him, Big Wings. He remember him, Big Mike, Big Bad. But nobody and my family knows Big Mike. Nobody's ever seen Big Mike. You know what I'm saying is, come on now, it's not plausible. Big Money is a fictional character as far as I'm concerned. Well, the last thing he said I was with Big Mike. He just like we get to talk about the old days and stuff like that. He likes to build himself up to be like I don't know, I don't put it man, uh fucking guy complex. He tells stories and like, you know, back in my day, I could have sold all these drugs. You know what I'm saying. I could have been a key opinion, isn't that? You know? Fred? You know what I'm saying. But I'm talking to just sitting here, I'm telling you a little around like you want to. I know, it's not possible, you know what I'm It's not possible that he exists. Yeah, yeah, I mean I mean that you think this was possible? Really really trying to explains, Man, we we don't we don't know you probably like you know your brother. Yeah, I mean, that's why we're That's why we're here. It's just like, all right, you you talked to somebody and they come with this crazy yeas story and they just have to want to up you know what I'm saying. And when I talked to him, sometimes I just started. Notice you know he does that. You know what I'm saying. We had a conversation with the fucking neighbor. He was like, yeah, I remember the teacher got killed in Rosevelt. Roosevelt is one of the high schools. And Gary like, you remember, you remember, you know, trying to d you know, And I'm like, I don't know you're talking about I don't remember no teacher getting killed that Roselt. But that's the type that she does, Like I didn't that conversation's park Uh, we were talking about we were talking about white people. You care it's finely yeah, you know, I don't want to you know, don't worry about it. You know about it about so you know, we were much have one of those conversations. You know it's me and him and the neighbor who you were talking about. No, that's not right. I don't remember. No, tis a game Carol's house. Last time we get a conversation with him. Let me ask you this what he talks about Big Mike, because he ever see him and Big Mike do this, or him Big might do that, or know what's what's that conversation? If I gotta passed pass you know it's about selling drugs and you know, gag ship. You know what I'm saying is any game says any game? Yeah? What was her? Sasonlin decides say, hey, man, but as far as I could call him, and he was the nerdy kid who wanted to be bad, like he'd come home watch cartoons and danced movies and swearing in the hard board. You know what I'm saying it to me, It don't ain't no sense, you know. But you brought up a good point though, like I ain't picked this ship was possible. But I really don't think Big Mike is a real person. When you started to talking about Big Mike, you said, fuck it, here he goes Big Mike. Why did the team Mike? That was a lot of for years to let out. I mean, kind of this life, I honestly don't believe it's this dude is really okay, And it's borderline crazy to have flashbacks of somebody who I ain't real okay. I I don't see how include brother some of these these stories of Grids him Hill. We still have keys and stuff like that. And I've never seen more brother with more money, you know than the average person. Von's lawyers also had their doubts about some of Von's stories. Here's Goyko Cossage. All of us, I think, at some point in time, thought that Darren would tell us some things that were either puffing or maybe just going ahead and obfuscating things, because I mean, let's face it, the guy was charged with multiple death pediment accounts and to expect a full honest answer um. But he was in denial on some things. We found some people who were at Thelmbal Marshall with him, a couple of white brothers, and Darren would tell us that he was not being bothered at Tholba Marshal because he was physically stronger than the other people that were Themba Marshall and they looked at us like we were. They said he was the smallest kid there. He was tiny. We had to pretended him. He was always getting picked on and pushed around by the others, and and Darren swears that didn't happen so in his mind, be it from the organic injury or something he had convinced himself, there were episodes in Darren's life that he remembered completely different than what we had incredible evidence for happening in another fashion. It's hard to know what to make of all of this. It's clear that Vaughan isn't always a reliable narrator of his own life, and many of his stories sound crazy, but also many of the things that he did do, like strangling seven women over the course of a year, might have sounded made up as well. This is a point in the story where I'd like to reach out to you, to our listeners, I'd really like to get in touch with someone who went to the Thelma Marshall Home at the same time as Von, where anyone who knew him or this big year, big mic guy, please call and leave us a voicemail. You can get the number in the show notes or at the end of the episode, and maybe you can give us the in road we need to help figure out how much Von's story we can trust, regardless of whether Big E was real or just a figment of Vaughn's imagination. Vaughn was soon drawn away from Gary at sixteen. He was reunited with his mom and your mother picked you up getting back to Okay. Von's mother was now almost thirty and she was living with a new partner and two young children. Reginald Von's half brother, who you heard from earlier, was just three at the time, and Regina von step sister was just six. For Vaughan, it was a big adjustment. I don't know about the family, and soon after Vaughan rejoined his mother, the family moved to Lima, a small rust belt city in northwest Ohio day where I was coat shocked. They have no game at that time. Lima might not have had gangs, but Bond's life was turbulent. Even though his mother was older and more mature, she still had issues. She suffered from schizophrenia and struggled with addiction to hard drugs, and Vaughan was often running away from home. Sometimes he hitchhike the two d miles back to Gary. I ran away, called a truck while part away. It came on my rapple out and they wore booking for me in Ohio. Your grandpa keep you there And now he called don't right. It's like, just come get him. Don't mess one, because you know you're gonna get around. Von stepsister. Regina was young enough that she didn't know everything that was going on, but she told police Vawn's mother was physically abusive. It was definitely, um abuseless. I know she was abuseless. I know she was. We share Sidney, and I know bought back. She was abusive to that Sidney from a man she loves that's taking care of that shot. I can only imagine what she had no problem to all of a sudden at Dan taken Carol. Now, when you say abusive, like verbally, abusive physically, I don't recall all the different, but I know she will, right. I mean, that's why we're asking, because you know it's important for us, and also know where he's coming from, because that might actually help us, you know, to find a lot more things out about him. So um, so she was definitely abuse to ze. Regina says that when she got older, family members told her that when Vaughan's mom got really mad, she'd make Vaughn cover his skin with alcohol, presumably so that his wounds would sting as she beat him. This laws grown up. I heard it in the household from the other siblings, write telling you about it, right, I really don't remember, But I don't remember this alcohol. I thought it was a little different. Vaughan graduated from Lima Senior High School and moved back to northwest Indiana. He says that that's when he made the first of what he calls his mistakes. Killings that were not gang related were intended at all. So were these the twenty year old murders that the police and mayor were referring to. Vaughn first all detectives about these killings. On the second night of the death March, he just finished leading Detective Forward and Captain Hinajosa to three more bodies and abandoned buildings and Gary being Hammond police. Ford and Hinajosa asked Vaughn whether he had any murders to confess to that had taken place specifically in Hammond. Vaughn directed the police to a vacant lot in southwest Hammond where a bar had once been located. Vaughn said he'd robbed an older couple there sometime back in the early nineties, that it only was abandoned then. Yeah, And so these two people, why were they in the building? I'll robin, Well, but how did you get him there? At the ground the point, I'll robin, because they're why used to cut through the hilty lite used to be a way to cut through back order a mad gun point into the bill right and then rob But what did you get out of the robbery? Remember it was it was something small, remember and I was like I said, I was like, it was it just money. It's just money. That's all of that. I was just a kid, damn. After walking forward and Kinajosa through his memories of the robbery turned double homicide, Von guided detectives to an alley between Tracord and Becker Street. Von told detectives he'd gotten into a fight there and ended up shooting a man. You said that you shot him near the telephone pole that was directly across right from there. How many times do you think you shot hibouree three? Do you know what caliber gun you had or anything like? Back then, I was caring to I was going badly while I was covered here in in nineteen nineties. I know who gave you to remember that that was your sweet beat. That's what they gave all of us. Meddle months. There's bag then twenty food. The twenty five was running rapid, all of you know, officers, I think these likely are the murders that police referred to in the press conference after Von's arrest when they mentioned crimes going back twenty years. But it's a bit confusing because Vaughan says in the interrogation that these murders took place around one and in the account that the mayor wrote on Facebook, he said Vaughan had confessed to murders in ninety four, and Vaughn isn't great with dates, so maybe he changed his story at some point as far as I can tell him, and police have yet to connect these confessions to any reported crimes. To briefly recap, after graduating high school, Vaughan returned to Northwest Indiana in and he told police that around that time he shot at least three people in Hammond. Then Vaughn's life took a major shift, and in December, he enlisted with the Marines. Vaughn was first shipped out to San Diego, where he went through boot camp and got combat training. Then he trained as a missile system operator in El Passa, Texas, and from July to September he was stationed in Cherry Point, North Carolina. Here's his lawyer, Cossage. I think in North Carolina they got a big brawl that he got hit and he with a chair, doesn't remember what happened, and there were a couple of other head injuries that he suffered in Vaughan received and other than honorable discharge from the Marines. Let's just say that in the military he got discharged because of an active insubordination of some kind. It was really not related to the case. It's the insubordination, that thing you mentioned earlier with the head damage. No, no, I can't. You know Darren didn't take orders. Well, you know, he he didn't like being told what to do. And I think it's gone throughout his entire life and goes all the way back to age four. And at a certain point in time they decided, okay, you don't want to take orders. I guess we don't need you as a marine. And he said, okay, fine. So that was that. How come you get kicked out on disciplary behavior? Good soul is you're bad at home? And they say, but what led to this, uh discharge disappeared really disappearing. We don't fight, nobody go home. So you just kind of went a wall or whatever they call it. Or I told him I was gonna be late coming back, but you know, I still a wall. I don't be late. I'm in him. I mean Geary, I'll get back. I mean, when I you seem that a president, we're not at war. Vaughn wasn't that interested in serving his country. Three. What he really wanted was to die in the battlefield Vauntel detective Forward. He'd taken out a big life insurance policy with the hopes of dying in combat and then giving the insurance settlement to his younger brother, Reginald that's already not joined. Were supposed to be going to war. Okay, so you're out in ninety three. Come back to Gary, come back to hammn to Hammond, to heaven. So I living right for man. Her real life was managed. Sometime around this point, von met the woman who'ld later become his wife. Good woman, very guy until I'll find Merry a terrible person. She believe it. Yeah, she knows I have a terrible temper. She said, I'm a good guy, so I'll take care of the house and take care of I'll just have a terrible temper. It was an unusual relationship for sure. Vaughn would have been around twenty two years old and the woman, Maria, was fifty one, twenty nine years older than him. Maria was an Italian immigrant with kids nearly Darren's age. Shortly after Von's arrest, she told The New York Times that she'd met Vaughan through some mutual friends. She described him as quote intelligent, very relaxed, very nice to everyone. But what Maria saw as kind and quiet, her son ed interpreted differently. Had spoke to CNN shortly after Darren's arrest. First of all, I didn't like it for her to marry ad almost my age. Number one, number two. He was just a strange guy. I walked in and I would see him talking to himself and you're saying hello, He's like hello and looked down to the ground. He was always in the thought, always like he had something else on his mind other than what he was. When a person walks around talking to themselves and looked like the answering himselves as long with him and then he was just says that he killed the people alight. He finally topped around just a couple of years after he'd started dating Maria. Vaughn says he got sucked back into the gang life when his old mentor, Big E, was killed. Vaughn says that during the time he's spending the Marines. The gangster disciples had fractured and split up into small, competing clicks. There was no longer any need for gang enforcers, and Vaughan felt like an outsider. France killing France killing bro Nobody one murder place because all the killing that will years were running the streets. Vaughn says he struggled to adjust to this new gang hierarchy, and Maria, his fifty year old girlfriend, struggled with his return to criminal life. Things came to a head when one of the other gang members got arrested. Somebody else had busted on her. They thought that person was gonna tell on me, and they thought I was gonna tell you. They tried to murder me. Von says some gang members jumped him and started beating him. They busted open his head, but he got away. When he got home, Maria was terrified when my head got busted open. She wanted me to tell on everybody. I thought, that's not how it work. She was high as the say about it. That's how I ended up in Texas. To escape, Von and Maria moved to Austin and they married in city hall in front of a few friends. I got married in Texas. Yeah, year because the one important I'm married to rant I told you want to give marries you know alone another chick. I'm arey because she was a lot with me. She married a person didn't love her. Try to take care of me. But I know who I am. We all are super told like you know your hoss, son of a bitch. But she is like, oh yeah, he'll always protect us, right, That's how she moved Daddy. They'll go out his way to protective. Actually, without her, you would probably call me years ago because she gave me Vince. You don't need to do this. You got good mind work. And maybe Maria did provide Vaughan with some balance and stability, because for a while it seemed like Vaughan's life was getting back on track. Vaughn says he got a job in Austin working for Tell Computers. You work for Dell Computers. What did you do assembly with the Futers together program in Texas? Yeah? Nice? I work for Deal, I work for Thanks, I worked I worked for some nice complet to come. Maria's son ed though, remembered it souring quickly. You know how it is when you first moved some place as a new little relationship. He probably was in the happiest moment of his life. I don't know, he got some lady to marry him, Okay, but after that, you know, I think he works for a chimp agency, that kind of working on the tail. They fired him, you know, and from that moment on he went down ill. He became a creepy dude. You know, he wandered around at nights. My mom didn't think und strange about it about his mom her both friend or husband, whatever you want to call him. He's running around at nighttime on runbird. Mom, you know what kind of neighorhood that is. That's a prostitution store. He was a strange dude. He was doing something They need to be checking here at Austin. He might have been doing something more than just that long gerard, as we'll get into in the next episode. Von did have at least one victim in Austin, and there are cold cases in Austin that are worth exploring as well. But while Maria's son Ed identifies Vaughn's firing from Dell as the start of Von's downward spiral, Von himself identifies another movement. It's the point where he snapped the incident he could ever come back from. Sometime around the year two thousand, Vaughn and Maria moved back to Gary. Vaughn told Detective Forward he'd returned for a family obligation. I came home because with another answer, didn't happened. I just want to know Cuss got killed. We all came home. The whole family came home. Let's just say, you said it's your cousin that got killed. Right? Why did that make everybody move home? Because who retaliation? Sound? Who was that they got killed? Trying to think what they called you don't know your cousins thinks, So I told him I'm not family orientated. I only came back because my other cousin they asked me to come back. At first, it might sound like Von's bullshitting when he says he doesn't know his cousin's name, But remember Von didn't meet any of his family until he was twelve. Still, his shaking this with these kind of details makes it hard to pin down exactly where he was at a given time. Von stepsister, Regina, says that after he graduated high school in she lost touch with him, really got close back two thousands I broke off my engagement. He stayed with me for two months. I told you know, Dally appear. He moved out. Regina says that at the time, Vaughan was unhappy with his marriage. He was thirty two then and wanted to have a kid, but his wife, Maria was now over sixty. Maria told The New York Times that this was when the relationships started to fall apart. She said, quote, I didn't want to be with him anymore. He had single friends. There were signs that he was going with somebody else, and Maria was right. Von had told his step sister that he'd met another woman, that he was in love with her, and that his wish to have a child was coming true. He had gotten his new girlfriend pregnant. Vaughn's new girlfriend was a woman named Sharita. She liked that he was smart and didn't drink or do drugs. She told The Daily Mail that his idea of a night out was going to Barnes and Noble and reading books, usually science fiction or Harry Potter. Sharita new Vaughn was married, but he and Maria were living separately at that point, and he told Sharita that he had only gotten married in the first place because he hated being alone. But as Sharita and Vaughn's relationship progressed, she learned that Vaughan had a dark side. He'd get jealous easily, he didn't want her having her own friends, and he became increasingly controlling. Sometimes he would lock her in side the house when he went to work. She said that one time, when they were visiting her mother's house, he hog tied her and covered her mouth with duct tapes so she couldn't scream. Sharita realized she had to get out of the relationship, but when she would try to end things, Von would threaten her and her mother. One night, Von made Sharifa go out on a walk with him. He took her out to a desolate part of Gary and surrounded by abandoned buildings, he told her, I could easily make you disappear. Accounts of what happened next in Von and Sharitha's relationship are hazy. I tried to reach out, but I couldn't get in contact with her and her One published interview in The Daily Mail doesn't address this point, but it appears that in two thousand four, Sharitha and Vaughan had their child, but shortly after the birth, something happened and the child died. And around this same time, Tretha escaped from the abusive relationship, left Vaughn and went into hiding. And this is where Von says he snapped. He became enraged and blamed Tretha for the child Stath because just snapped it that moment, because we allowed the child and we're going through that all morning period. She was out getting high and took my money to the dope man. I was like, that's just too bad. Damn what how like fuck if you want to funk up like this, We're just gonna get this ship over with. But we all went back out of control again. I never made him back. And once you I don't know how to flame. If y'all y'all don't have the same merger, no way for me to blame the murder rages. Once you started killing again, it becomes it's like any other day. It's like if I was. I'm not an alcoholic, but if I were and I started to drink, You're off to the races, right. That's basically because you have the urge the hunt. Some people I talked to say they don't understanding, Like I went to talk to a therapist, but he wanted too much now because he said he had to report all the primes. You know what I'm saying, So you can't. Really it's hard. It would definitely be hard to explain your problem to somebody who had so you can't go. I need to help. What's your problems? Like killing people? He said, well, have you killed emybody? And that's when their discussion is going to get little fund next time on algorithm boost the gas fight and they had the whole build and filled with gas. I tried to take the girl on fire and being on fire and go to building up all the same kind Sometimes you went to scenario had to went different than two thousands four and maybe some people would still be alive. If you look at like police stories, the police stories are almost always told from the perspective of catching the wrong tour. My story starts, okay, you caught him, Now what you know, what's the rest of the story. I feel I should have got locked over. Yeah, I'll beat her by right, Well, all right, standard y'all call it right, but we don't call it right. Histories like you pay here, So what is she complaining about. This episode was written and produced by me Ben Keie Brick Algorithm is executive produced by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance and mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rima L. K Ali, Trevor Young, and Josh Thane for their help and notes. Hey, I hope you're continuing to enjoy the show. If you do have any information about Darren Vond or crimes that you think might be related to this case, or if you just questions or comments that you want addressed on the podcast, please call and leave me a voicemail at a DAD eight five zero one three zero nine. That's a D eight five zero one three three zero nine. You can also reach out to me on Twitter. I'm at Ben Underscore Key Brick. That's b E N Underscore k U E B R I C H. And that contact info is also available in the show notes for the episode. Thanks

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Algorithm. Four years after Thomas Hargrove had tried to warrant Gary, Indiana that they might have a serial killer, the police one town over in Hammond, Indiana, arrested Darren Vaughan. How many people are you responsible for killing? But it is a lifetime. How couldn't even two? Vond led investigators to six bodies? And while the m O matched one of the patterns, Hardroup had identified young women who had been strangled and left in abandoned buildings, none of these victims were on Hargrove's list. They were all more recent murders that have been committed after Hargrove sent the letter to Gary. But in a press conference, police mentioned that On had confessed to murders going back twenty years, and the Hammond mayor wrote, he'd confessed to a couple of murders into and they told Hammond police that he had been active going back to the mid nineties, and I would take him at his word. So it was Vond responsible for the killings that Hargrove's algorithm had picked up on. Where was something else going on? This episode we explore what Bond was doing back in the nineties from I Heeart Media and Tenderfoot TV. This is algorithm. I'm ben Key brick. Hard Grove's algorithm had identified fifteen homicides between and two thousand seven. The first step in figuring out if Vaughn was responsible for these murders were other cold cases is figuring out where he was living and what he was doing during that period. Von told detectives that in the early eighties he was recruited into a gang, the Gangster Disciples, by an older boy named Big or Big Mike. The Bond's brother, Reginald didn't buy this story. Ok, his friend Big Mike, he likes to talk about talk about him and Big Mike grew up in homes together him, Big Wings. He remember him, Big Mike, Big Bad. But nobody and my family knows Big Mike. Nobody's ever seen Big Mike. You know what I'm saying is, come on now, it's not plausible. Big Money is a fictional character as far as I'm concerned. Well, the last thing he said I was with Big Mike. He just like we get to talk about the old days and stuff like that. He likes to build himself up to be like I don't know, I don't put it man, uh fucking guy complex. He tells stories and like, you know, back in my day, I could have sold all these drugs. You know what I'm saying. I could have been a key opinion, isn't that? You know? Fred? You know what I'm saying. But I'm talking to just sitting here, I'm telling you a little around like you want to. I know, it's not possible, you know what I'm It's not possible that he exists. Yeah, yeah, I mean I mean that you think this was possible? Really really trying to explains, Man, we we don't we don't know you probably like you know your brother. Yeah, I mean, that's why we're That's why we're here. It's just like, all right, you you talked to somebody and they come with this crazy yeas story and they just have to want to up you know what I'm saying. And when I talked to him, sometimes I just started. Notice you know he does that. You know what I'm saying. We had a conversation with the fucking neighbor. He was like, yeah, I remember the teacher got killed in Rosevelt. Roosevelt is one of the high schools. And Gary like, you remember, you remember, you know, trying to d you know, And I'm like, I don't know you're talking about I don't remember no teacher getting killed that Roselt. But that's the type that she does, Like I didn't that conversation's park Uh, we were talking about we were talking about white people. You care it's finely yeah, you know, I don't want to you know, don't worry about it. You know about it about so you know, we were much have one of those conversations. You know it's me and him and the neighbor who you were talking about. No, that's not right. I don't remember. No, tis a game Carol's house. Last time we get a conversation with him. Let me ask you this what he talks about Big Mike, because he ever see him and Big Mike do this, or him Big might do that, or know what's what's that conversation? If I gotta passed pass you know it's about selling drugs and you know, gag ship. You know what I'm saying is any game says any game? Yeah? What was her? Sasonlin decides say, hey, man, but as far as I could call him, and he was the nerdy kid who wanted to be bad, like he'd come home watch cartoons and danced movies and swearing in the hard board. You know what I'm saying it to me, It don't ain't no sense, you know. But you brought up a good point though, like I ain't picked this ship was possible. But I really don't think Big Mike is a real person. When you started to talking about Big Mike, you said, fuck it, here he goes Big Mike. Why did the team Mike? That was a lot of for years to let out. I mean, kind of this life, I honestly don't believe it's this dude is really okay, And it's borderline crazy to have flashbacks of somebody who I ain't real okay. I I don't see how include brother some of these these stories of Grids him Hill. We still have keys and stuff like that. And I've never seen more brother with more money, you know than the average person. Von's lawyers also had their doubts about some of Von's stories. Here's Goyko Cossage. All of us, I think, at some point in time, thought that Darren would tell us some things that were either puffing or maybe just going ahead and obfuscating things, because I mean, let's face it, the guy was charged with multiple death pediment accounts and to expect a full honest answer um. But he was in denial on some things. We found some people who were at Thelmbal Marshall with him, a couple of white brothers, and Darren would tell us that he was not being bothered at Tholba Marshal because he was physically stronger than the other people that were Themba Marshall and they looked at us like we were. They said he was the smallest kid there. He was tiny. We had to pretended him. He was always getting picked on and pushed around by the others, and and Darren swears that didn't happen so in his mind, be it from the organic injury or something he had convinced himself, there were episodes in Darren's life that he remembered completely different than what we had incredible evidence for happening in another fashion. It's hard to know what to make of all of this. It's clear that Vaughan isn't always a reliable narrator of his own life, and many of his stories sound crazy, but also many of the things that he did do, like strangling seven women over the course of a year, might have sounded made up as well. This is a point in the story where I'd like to reach out to you, to our listeners, I'd really like to get in touch with someone who went to the Thelma Marshall Home at the same time as Von, where anyone who knew him or this big year, big mic guy, please call and leave us a voicemail. You can get the number in the show notes or at the end of the episode, and maybe you can give us the in road we need to help figure out how much Von's story we can trust, regardless of whether Big E was real or just a figment of Vaughn's imagination. Vaughn was soon drawn away from Gary at sixteen. He was reunited with his mom and your mother picked you up getting back to Okay. Von's mother was now almost thirty and she was living with a new partner and two young children. Reginald Von's half brother, who you heard from earlier, was just three at the time, and Regina von step sister was just six. For Vaughan, it was a big adjustment. I don't know about the family, and soon after Vaughan rejoined his mother, the family moved to Lima, a small rust belt city in northwest Ohio day where I was coat shocked. They have no game at that time. Lima might not have had gangs, but Bond's life was turbulent. Even though his mother was older and more mature, she still had issues. She suffered from schizophrenia and struggled with addiction to hard drugs, and Vaughan was often running away from home. Sometimes he hitchhike the two d miles back to Gary. I ran away, called a truck while part away. It came on my rapple out and they wore booking for me in Ohio. Your grandpa keep you there And now he called don't right. It's like, just come get him. Don't mess one, because you know you're gonna get around. Von stepsister. Regina was young enough that she didn't know everything that was going on, but she told police Vawn's mother was physically abusive. It was definitely, um abuseless. I know she was abuseless. I know she was. We share Sidney, and I know bought back. She was abusive to that Sidney from a man she loves that's taking care of that shot. I can only imagine what she had no problem to all of a sudden at Dan taken Carol. Now, when you say abusive, like verbally, abusive physically, I don't recall all the different, but I know she will, right. I mean, that's why we're asking, because you know it's important for us, and also know where he's coming from, because that might actually help us, you know, to find a lot more things out about him. So um, so she was definitely abuse to ze. Regina says that when she got older, family members told her that when Vaughan's mom got really mad, she'd make Vaughn cover his skin with alcohol, presumably so that his wounds would sting as she beat him. This laws grown up. I heard it in the household from the other siblings, write telling you about it, right, I really don't remember, But I don't remember this alcohol. I thought it was a little different. Vaughan graduated from Lima Senior High School and moved back to northwest Indiana. He says that that's when he made the first of what he calls his mistakes. Killings that were not gang related were intended at all. So were these the twenty year old murders that the police and mayor were referring to. Vaughn first all detectives about these killings. On the second night of the death March, he just finished leading Detective Forward and Captain Hinajosa to three more bodies and abandoned buildings and Gary being Hammond police. Ford and Hinajosa asked Vaughn whether he had any murders to confess to that had taken place specifically in Hammond. Vaughn directed the police to a vacant lot in southwest Hammond where a bar had once been located. Vaughn said he'd robbed an older couple there sometime back in the early nineties, that it only was abandoned then. Yeah, And so these two people, why were they in the building? I'll robin, Well, but how did you get him there? At the ground the point, I'll robin, because they're why used to cut through the hilty lite used to be a way to cut through back order a mad gun point into the bill right and then rob But what did you get out of the robbery? Remember it was it was something small, remember and I was like I said, I was like, it was it just money. It's just money. That's all of that. I was just a kid, damn. After walking forward and Kinajosa through his memories of the robbery turned double homicide, Von guided detectives to an alley between Tracord and Becker Street. Von told detectives he'd gotten into a fight there and ended up shooting a man. You said that you shot him near the telephone pole that was directly across right from there. How many times do you think you shot hibouree three? Do you know what caliber gun you had or anything like? Back then, I was caring to I was going badly while I was covered here in in nineteen nineties. I know who gave you to remember that that was your sweet beat. That's what they gave all of us. Meddle months. There's bag then twenty food. The twenty five was running rapid, all of you know, officers, I think these likely are the murders that police referred to in the press conference after Von's arrest when they mentioned crimes going back twenty years. But it's a bit confusing because Vaughan says in the interrogation that these murders took place around one and in the account that the mayor wrote on Facebook, he said Vaughan had confessed to murders in ninety four, and Vaughn isn't great with dates, so maybe he changed his story at some point as far as I can tell him, and police have yet to connect these confessions to any reported crimes. To briefly recap, after graduating high school, Vaughan returned to Northwest Indiana in and he told police that around that time he shot at least three people in Hammond. Then Vaughn's life took a major shift, and in December, he enlisted with the Marines. Vaughn was first shipped out to San Diego, where he went through boot camp and got combat training. Then he trained as a missile system operator in El Passa, Texas, and from July to September he was stationed in Cherry Point, North Carolina. Here's his lawyer, Cossage. I think in North Carolina they got a big brawl that he got hit and he with a chair, doesn't remember what happened, and there were a couple of other head injuries that he suffered in Vaughan received and other than honorable discharge from the Marines. Let's just say that in the military he got discharged because of an active insubordination of some kind. It was really not related to the case. It's the insubordination, that thing you mentioned earlier with the head damage. No, no, I can't. You know Darren didn't take orders. Well, you know, he he didn't like being told what to do. And I think it's gone throughout his entire life and goes all the way back to age four. And at a certain point in time they decided, okay, you don't want to take orders. I guess we don't need you as a marine. And he said, okay, fine. So that was that. How come you get kicked out on disciplary behavior? Good soul is you're bad at home? And they say, but what led to this, uh discharge disappeared really disappearing. We don't fight, nobody go home. So you just kind of went a wall or whatever they call it. Or I told him I was gonna be late coming back, but you know, I still a wall. I don't be late. I'm in him. I mean Geary, I'll get back. I mean, when I you seem that a president, we're not at war. Vaughn wasn't that interested in serving his country. Three. What he really wanted was to die in the battlefield Vauntel detective Forward. He'd taken out a big life insurance policy with the hopes of dying in combat and then giving the insurance settlement to his younger brother, Reginald that's already not joined. Were supposed to be going to war. Okay, so you're out in ninety three. Come back to Gary, come back to hammn to Hammond, to heaven. So I living right for man. Her real life was managed. Sometime around this point, von met the woman who'ld later become his wife. Good woman, very guy until I'll find Merry a terrible person. She believe it. Yeah, she knows I have a terrible temper. She said, I'm a good guy, so I'll take care of the house and take care of I'll just have a terrible temper. It was an unusual relationship for sure. Vaughn would have been around twenty two years old and the woman, Maria, was fifty one, twenty nine years older than him. Maria was an Italian immigrant with kids nearly Darren's age. Shortly after Von's arrest, she told The New York Times that she'd met Vaughan through some mutual friends. She described him as quote intelligent, very relaxed, very nice to everyone. But what Maria saw as kind and quiet, her son ed interpreted differently. Had spoke to CNN shortly after Darren's arrest. First of all, I didn't like it for her to marry ad almost my age. Number one, number two. He was just a strange guy. I walked in and I would see him talking to himself and you're saying hello, He's like hello and looked down to the ground. He was always in the thought, always like he had something else on his mind other than what he was. When a person walks around talking to themselves and looked like the answering himselves as long with him and then he was just says that he killed the people alight. He finally topped around just a couple of years after he'd started dating Maria. Vaughn says he got sucked back into the gang life when his old mentor, Big E, was killed. Vaughn says that during the time he's spending the Marines. The gangster disciples had fractured and split up into small, competing clicks. There was no longer any need for gang enforcers, and Vaughan felt like an outsider. France killing France killing bro Nobody one murder place because all the killing that will years were running the streets. Vaughn says he struggled to adjust to this new gang hierarchy, and Maria, his fifty year old girlfriend, struggled with his return to criminal life. Things came to a head when one of the other gang members got arrested. Somebody else had busted on her. They thought that person was gonna tell on me, and they thought I was gonna tell you. They tried to murder me. Von says some gang members jumped him and started beating him. They busted open his head, but he got away. When he got home, Maria was terrified when my head got busted open. She wanted me to tell on everybody. I thought, that's not how it work. She was high as the say about it. That's how I ended up in Texas. To escape, Von and Maria moved to Austin and they married in city hall in front of a few friends. I got married in Texas. Yeah, year because the one important I'm married to rant I told you want to give marries you know alone another chick. I'm arey because she was a lot with me. She married a person didn't love her. Try to take care of me. But I know who I am. We all are super told like you know your hoss, son of a bitch. But she is like, oh yeah, he'll always protect us, right, That's how she moved Daddy. They'll go out his way to protective. Actually, without her, you would probably call me years ago because she gave me Vince. You don't need to do this. You got good mind work. And maybe Maria did provide Vaughan with some balance and stability, because for a while it seemed like Vaughan's life was getting back on track. Vaughn says he got a job in Austin working for Tell Computers. You work for Dell Computers. What did you do assembly with the Futers together program in Texas? Yeah? Nice? I work for Deal, I work for Thanks, I worked I worked for some nice complet to come. Maria's son ed though, remembered it souring quickly. You know how it is when you first moved some place as a new little relationship. He probably was in the happiest moment of his life. I don't know, he got some lady to marry him, Okay, but after that, you know, I think he works for a chimp agency, that kind of working on the tail. They fired him, you know, and from that moment on he went down ill. He became a creepy dude. You know, he wandered around at nights. My mom didn't think und strange about it about his mom her both friend or husband, whatever you want to call him. He's running around at nighttime on runbird. Mom, you know what kind of neighorhood that is. That's a prostitution store. He was a strange dude. He was doing something They need to be checking here at Austin. He might have been doing something more than just that long gerard, as we'll get into in the next episode. Von did have at least one victim in Austin, and there are cold cases in Austin that are worth exploring as well. But while Maria's son Ed identifies Vaughn's firing from Dell as the start of Von's downward spiral, Von himself identifies another movement. It's the point where he snapped the incident he could ever come back from. Sometime around the year two thousand, Vaughn and Maria moved back to Gary. Vaughn told Detective Forward he'd returned for a family obligation. I came home because with another answer, didn't happened. I just want to know Cuss got killed. We all came home. The whole family came home. Let's just say, you said it's your cousin that got killed. Right? Why did that make everybody move home? Because who retaliation? Sound? Who was that they got killed? Trying to think what they called you don't know your cousins thinks, So I told him I'm not family orientated. I only came back because my other cousin they asked me to come back. At first, it might sound like Von's bullshitting when he says he doesn't know his cousin's name, But remember Von didn't meet any of his family until he was twelve. Still, his shaking this with these kind of details makes it hard to pin down exactly where he was at a given time. Von stepsister, Regina, says that after he graduated high school in she lost touch with him, really got close back two thousands I broke off my engagement. He stayed with me for two months. I told you know, Dally appear. He moved out. Regina says that at the time, Vaughan was unhappy with his marriage. He was thirty two then and wanted to have a kid, but his wife, Maria was now over sixty. Maria told The New York Times that this was when the relationships started to fall apart. She said, quote, I didn't want to be with him anymore. He had single friends. There were signs that he was going with somebody else, and Maria was right. Von had told his step sister that he'd met another woman, that he was in love with her, and that his wish to have a child was coming true. He had gotten his new girlfriend pregnant. Vaughn's new girlfriend was a woman named Sharita. She liked that he was smart and didn't drink or do drugs. She told The Daily Mail that his idea of a night out was going to Barnes and Noble and reading books, usually science fiction or Harry Potter. Sharita new Vaughn was married, but he and Maria were living separately at that point, and he told Sharita that he had only gotten married in the first place because he hated being alone. But as Sharita and Vaughn's relationship progressed, she learned that Vaughan had a dark side. He'd get jealous easily, he didn't want her having her own friends, and he became increasingly controlling. Sometimes he would lock her in side the house when he went to work. She said that one time, when they were visiting her mother's house, he hog tied her and covered her mouth with duct tapes so she couldn't scream. Sharita realized she had to get out of the relationship, but when she would try to end things, Von would threaten her and her mother. One night, Von made Sharifa go out on a walk with him. He took her out to a desolate part of Gary and surrounded by abandoned buildings, he told her, I could easily make you disappear. Accounts of what happened next in Von and Sharitha's relationship are hazy. I tried to reach out, but I couldn't get in contact with her and her One published interview in The Daily Mail doesn't address this point, but it appears that in two thousand four, Sharitha and Vaughan had their child, but shortly after the birth, something happened and the child died. And around this same time, Tretha escaped from the abusive relationship, left Vaughn and went into hiding. And this is where Von says he snapped. He became enraged and blamed Tretha for the child Stath because just snapped it that moment, because we allowed the child and we're going through that all morning period. She was out getting high and took my money to the dope man. I was like, that's just too bad. Damn what how like fuck if you want to funk up like this, We're just gonna get this ship over with. But we all went back out of control again. I never made him back. And once you I don't know how to flame. If y'all y'all don't have the same merger, no way for me to blame the murder rages. Once you started killing again, it becomes it's like any other day. It's like if I was. I'm not an alcoholic, but if I were and I started to drink, You're off to the races, right. That's basically because you have the urge the hunt. Some people I talked to say they don't understanding, Like I went to talk to a therapist, but he wanted too much now because he said he had to report all the primes. You know what I'm saying, So you can't. Really it's hard. It would definitely be hard to explain your problem to somebody who had so you can't go. I need to help. What's your problems? Like killing people? He said, well, have you killed emybody? And that's when their discussion is going to get little fund next time on algorithm boost the gas fight and they had the whole build and filled with gas. I tried to take the girl on fire and being on fire and go to building up all the same kind Sometimes you went to scenario had to went different than two thousands four and maybe some people would still be alive. If you look at like police stories, the police stories are almost always told from the perspective of catching the wrong tour. My story starts, okay, you caught him, Now what you know, what's the rest of the story. I feel I should have got locked over. Yeah, I'll beat her by right, Well, all right, standard y'all call it right, but we don't call it right. Histories like you pay here, So what is she complaining about. This episode was written and produced by me Ben Keie Brick Algorithm is executive produced by Alex Williams, Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance and mixing by Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup and Vanity Set and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins, Jamie Albright, Rima L. K Ali, Trevor Young, and Josh Thane for their help and notes. Hey, I hope you're continuing to enjoy the show. If you do have any information about Darren Vond or crimes that you think might be related to this case, or if you just questions or comments that you want addressed on the podcast, please call and leave me a voicemail at a DAD eight five zero one three zero nine. That's a D eight five zero one three three zero nine. You can also reach out to me on Twitter. I'm at Ben Underscore Key Brick. That's b E N Underscore k U E B R I C H. And that contact info is also available in the show notes for the episode. Thanks