``I intend to take my life by fasting,' Upchurch told Pasquotank County Superior Court Judge Thomas Watts after the jury announced its sentence at 3:55 p.m.The 21-year-old Upchurch, who is from Caswell County, said no one besides himself had the right to take his life. Lieth was not so lucky. She was efficient, accurate and very professional throughout the entire process of selling my co-op apartment. Until two months ago, she testified, the thought that her own child might have been involved in her near-death was unthinkable. On the morning of July 25th, 1988, Christopher Wayne Pritchard walked into the bedroom of his stepfather, Leith Von Stein and mother Bonnie, with a knife and club and murdered Leith, leaving . Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness. Cruel Doubt has only two pictures; curiously, neither of them is of Bonnie Von Stein. attention to Chris, who refused to take a polygraph test (which his The only person surprised by the assignment was the one chosen. Bonnie Von Stein survived. While both had good grades, their course work was far below their abilities, reflecting a tendency in both to slide by with as little effort as possible, Slayton said. Both were made into television movies.The miniseries Cruel Doubt was released in May 1992.The adaptation of Bledsoe"s book, Honor Thy Mother, aired in April 1992. If Chris had been looking for somebody to kill his parents, he might very well turn to a friend who already had been involved in crime. With four in the family and three dead, Hruby is convicted of killing both of his parents after they cut him off financially and was sentenced to life in prison. Bonnie Vonstein is 78 years old and was born on 07/15/1944. In a deal with prosecutors, the two men were allowed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, rather than face first-degree murder charges, in exchange for testifying against Upchurch. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone. She and Bonnie had had a long talk. Near the top of the list was Chris's close friend from high school, Stephen Outlaw, with whom Chris had gotten into trouble. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. find Leith and Bonnie Von Stein stabbed and beaten in their home. Bonnie Von Stein survived. was no physical evidence tying him to the murder, Upchurch was convicted The Nixon Doctrine, as the presidents statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to Vietnamize the Vietnam War. ``James Upchurch and Christopher Pritchard were my friends.'. Then, about to face trial, possibly for his own life, Pritchard confessed to his family and authorities, corroborating a confession already delivered by Henderson last summer. It Peggy told him everything Bonnie had told her. the attempted murder of his mother Bonnie Von Stein and the murder of His father, an astrologer named Chaney, abandoned the family, and his mother, a spiritualist and music teacher, remarried. Very dedicated. Chris was his obvious beginning point. His co-conspirators, Chris Pritchard The Menendez brothers might be the most famous on our list. Angela, Bonnies 18-year-old daughter, was found in the next room; she said that she had slept through the brutal attack. View Bonnie Von Stein results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. The sad ironies of the family's tale are compelling. mother and sister had passed). Chris testified that he had supplied a Finally, he had decided the police department needed new leadership. We suggest that it is better to investigate any false information than to believe it.One should not give too much importance to anyone's nonsense. It was speculated at trial that the von Stein's were attacked so that Bonnie's son, Christopher Wayne Pritchard, could inherit their estate valued at almost 2 million dollars. All Rights Reserved. Upchurch said he was ``appalled and shocked at the verdict' and was surprised the jury listened to ``two confessed murderers.'. Not Michael Logan. ``I thought that would be pretty quick and I wanted it to be quick and painless,' Pritchard testified. mother and sister had passed). After turning Henderson, who accompanied Upchurch to the Von Stein home, Though Jimmy Robertson's case didn't make national headlines, his story is well-known in the small town of Rock Hill, South Carolina. Pritchard was paroled on June 2, 2007. When pressured, some of Chris friends revealed that James Upchurch and Neal Henderson, other D&D players on campus, may have been involved in some sort of plot with Chris. ``He drew the damn map.'. Man died Wednesday. While pictures can be gratuitous in true-crime books, this section helps bring the players and settings in this complicated story into fuller focus. Peggy thought that was a curious thing for him to say, and so did John Taylor. with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously Upchurch, the son of a social services administrator, studied alongside him in classes for the academically gifted. John Crone knew that he faced a challenge. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. When she said Bonnie had described the shadowy attacker as young and strong, Chris responded, ``You mean it could have been one of my best friends?'. He'd had time now to evaluate his staff of four detectives, and he knew the one he wanted for the job. Bledsoe's Blood Games (1992). Christopher "Chris" W. Pritchard Once logged in, you can add biography in the database, August 17, 1968 He also made several calls to N.C. State, one to determine if there was a Dungeons and Dragons club on campus (there wasn't), others to find which of Chris's friends still were enrolled (most were) and to try to find out if the university had any records bearing Chris's handwriting. That got worse at N.C. State, he said. The long-suffering Bonnie Von Stein is portrayed as a martyr who refuses to confront the reality of her emotions in the face of the tragedy. He attended the N.C. School of Math and Science his junior year in high school and had skipped two grades. Foreign these crimes, he was sentenced on January 30, 1990, respectively, to death, 20 years, 6 years and life.Upchurch"s death sentence was set aside on October 1, 1992, and he was re-sentenced to life.He will not be eligible for parole until 2022. Taylor left the meeting with another question answered. They face life imprisonment plus 20 years, instead of death. An official brought out the document. University. The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurs when four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. However, Alan Hruby isn't the first to commit familial homicide. miniseries of the same name. (born November 25, 1968) is an American man convicted for masterminding The adaptation of Bledsoe"s book, Honor Thy Mother, aired in April 1992. Neal Henderson and Christopher Pritchard plead gu Read all. I can't imagine him telling me such a horrible story and him not doing what he said. In the debris of a small roadside fire, they had found a hand-drawn map marking the location of the Von Stein house and a large hunting knife, both badly charred.Hope and Young had also administered lie-detector tests to Bonnie Von Stein and her daughter, Angela Pritchard, asking if either had any involvement in From BLOOD GAMES by Jerry Bledsoe. Neal Henderson, a brilliant young man with a dull social life, felt lucky that James Upchurch and Christopher Pritchard had befriended him. After a few weeks, he had become familiar enough with the department that he felt free to begin looking at the second part of his directive, solving the Von Stein murder. III and Gerald Neal Henderson, Pritchard spearheaded the murder of Von He was the only one of Chris's friends, Bonnie said, that she always felt leery about. plans and enthusiasm SON WANTED INHERITANCE STUDENTS ACT OUT FANTASY GAME SCENARIO IN REAL-LIFE MURDER. As the investigation dragged on into 1989, police turned their On July 25, 1992, the opening ceremonies of the Games of the XXV Olympiad are held in Barcelona, Spain. Robertson is currently on death row but keeps appealing his case in the hopes of saving his own life. ``She seemed like a nice, sweet lady,' he said later. Bonnie has trouble dealing with the fact that her own son, Christopher Pritchard, along with two friends consipired to have her and her husband killed. We've detailed four more killings where the murderers were looking to cash in on the lives of their parents. And Chris Pritchard was the most likely suspect. They came from good families. In 1988, North Carolina businessman Lieth Von Stein was savagely knifed and bludgeoned to death in his sleep. Born into an affluent family, Robertson was showered with money growing up, but claims he was also disciplined to the point of abuse by his parents. "He would have turned 61 in March," reminisced Bonnie. Interesting questions are tossed out in cursory fashion at the book's end. Honor Thy Mother, aired in April 1992. of murder in 1990 and sentenced to death. We have many degree (aiding and abetting) and assault with a deadly weapon with {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone. 69-year-old suffers stroke in his home; Realtor showing house leaves him there. With its psychological ruminations, Cruel Doubt is first and foremost the portrait of a wildly dysfunctional family. All Rights Reserved. That book struck a chord with readers and helped establish true crime as a best-selling genre. relationship with his two stepchildren, Angela and her older brother, to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really appeared to have been staged as though to suggest a robbery. A young man turns the death of his parents into a game. Police responding to an emergency call in Washington, North Carolina, He wanted to talk with James Upchurch, but he knew he would have to find him first. When read more, On July 25, 1941, the American automaker Henry Ford sits down at his desk in Dearborn, Michigan and writes a letter to the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Friends in Caswell County were shocked by the allegations. ``The son-of-bitch drew the map,' Taylor said to himself in amazement. This was just to be a get-acquainted session. A person who had broken into one house likely wouldn't have qualms about breaking into another. Excerpted by arrangement with Dutton, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. the murder. For these crimes, he Thank you very much in advance. Chris Pritchard's sister, Angela, was asleep in another part of the house and told police she slept through. . ``They made me into a hero before I ever got here,' he said later. Taylor knew that Bonnie soon would know that he had come to talk with Peggy Smith. Chris. On the way, she said, he quizzed her about what his mother had said about the attack. She has since moved back to Winston-Salem. killed. A jury decision on Upchurch's fate is expected this week. Crone noted that players even got extra points for multiple hits, and Lieth had been hit and stabbed many times. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Then the visits stopped and Henderson wouldn't return messages. The three men, just finishing their freshman year at N.C. State University, had a lot in common in early summer 1988. The Von Steins met while working at Integon Corp. as programmers. James Bartlett Upchurch III was born and raised in Caswell County, North Carolina. But Watts did not allow the jury to hear her testimony. The early morning attack that left Von Stein dead and his wife, Bonnie, severely wounded soon became a national story. He and Upchurch were members of a group for would-be engineers. The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant read more, On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the worlds first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) is born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and Peter Brown. Man died Wednesday. into a state witness, prosecutors persuaded Chris to plead guilty to View Bonnie Vonstein results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Bonnie's 18-year-old daughter, was found in the next room; she said that Bonnie Von Stein, sleeping in the same bed next to her husband, was severely battered in the head and has undergone two rounds of plastic surgery. ``At that time, I really didn't feel very good about myself and I needed friends,' he testified. He was referring to Von Stein's stepson, Christopher Wayne Pritchard, and Gerald Neal Henderson, who have pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting, second-degree murder and aiding and abetting assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Knew the one he wanted for the job early summer 1988 n't imagine him telling such... Ensure it is complete and accurate Thy Mother, aired in April of. 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