Home Invasions, pt. 2: The Pure Thrill Killers

Which brings us to Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, October, 2009, and a brazen pointless crime involving four teenagers. They called their little morbid collective, The Disciples Of Destruction. Such was their bungled crime, they were caught mere days later. A 38 year old woman, Kimberly Cates, was brutally murdered and her 11 year old daughter, Jaimie, was left for dead. The father was away on a business trip during the crime. She survived multiple knife and ax wounds:  

“Jaimie Cates didn’t die,” Hinckley told a rapt jury. “When her Mom’s killers left, that little girl got up. She stopped playing dead. With one arm broken, her jaw shattered and parts of her foot completely cut off, she got up.”Jaimie made her way to the kitchen and phoned police."¹ 

You really need to watch the series of trial videos on YouTube to fully immerse yourself in this case. WMUR-TV covered the trials of the four perpetrators back in 2011. It's both frustrating and probably wise that they've turned the comments off all these videos. Frustrating because you really want to scream expletives at these fucking teenagers. They are a tough watch.

The two defendants charged with the murders, Stephen Spader and Christopher Gribble, are both blunt, unapologetic and self-congratulatory in their testimony. The quasi-leader, Stephen Spader, almost seems like he's acting though. Hard to say for sure. But Christopher Gribble goes for the full insanity defense, and does a remarkable job on the stand of proving his guilt. His pinpoint 'teenage' logic and comical sarcasm works entirely against his own favor. Teenagers are the epitome of sequestered  narcissistic intelligence.

I'm guessing his lawyer either didn't care, or was forced to allow Gribble to testify in his own defense. Tactically it was serious mistake, but probably didn't matter in the grand scheme. He spent most his time on the stand almost absurdly lucid, bluntly describing the plan and execution of the murder, and also his wretched home life. He talks about a strict and abusive religious upbringing and how much he hates his mother. The other two accomplices were not directly involved in the murders, but active participants in the break-in, and testified as witnesses against their two friends for the prosecution. Both Spader and Gribble received both Life Plus sentences and the other two somewhere between 30 and 40 year sentences. There was a fifth accomplice, not present during the home invasion, that was also convicted to a lesser sentence for helping the others cover up their crime.

Home Invasions, pt. uno....

It all starts with the sanctity of home. And the rude violation of that sanctity. In your home you feel deeply protected, even for those who don't own guns or have layers upon layers of home security. There is always that feeling of privacy and foolproof boundaries. And it can all be undone in an instant if someone, or a group of nefarious someones, decides to break in.

Home Invasions have always fascinated and disturbed me, from an early age. I read Bugliosi's Helter Skelter when I was eleven, In Cold Blood maybe a year or two later, but it goes back even further, with stories my great grandmother told me when I was five, or six. She was a sadistic loon, a very sick woman, but that's another story for another time. My parents often left me in her care, for whatever reason, I can't recall. I would occasionally freak out with terror when she told me these bedtime stories-- but now looking back those stories helped shape who I am for better or worse. One of the stories was about a black man (yes, she was absolutely 100% cerified Southern racist) who road the trains from place to place and he would sometimes hop off in the middle of the night, rapacious, eyes glowing with the 'devil's light', and slip into a random sleepy neighborhood, looking for a house to break into. Sometimes he would just grab something to eat out of the fridge while a family was asleep, or take a nap on their couch,and leave without ever being noticed, but other times he would rape and murder every living soul within that abode. And yes, she really did tell her six year old great-grandson about a black man rape fantasy. Fucked up for sure and she was adamant they were true stories as well.

So I've been a true crime/crime fiction fan for most of my life. I've even attempted to write some myself, but could never focus myself to finish most of my projects. Anyway, hopefully I will try to be consistent with this blog... Next post, I want to get into specific home invasion crimes that have captivated my attention over the years, and talk some about the different types. There are the obvious ones like drug/gang home invasions, probably the most common type. Then there are the thrill killers, who just want to create mayhem. The purest fictional vision of this I can think of is the movie The Strangers. But in real life there are usually other motives, mostly to rob and murder is the need to cover that lesser crime up. The Clutter family massacre began as simply a robbery, but descended into the pure madness of thrill killings. It's hard to even pin the Tate/LaBianca home invasions as pure thrill kill. In my mind a lesser known example might be the Mont Vernon home invasion that occurred October, 2009. Four teenagers broke into a home and killed one of the two occupants. One survived, but they didn't realize it until they were caught a few days later.... I'll get into that case in Home Invasions, pt. 2.