Cassandra 101: Under the Hood

[Music] There was nothing that was important to her as much as those kids. Those kids were her world. But the last time we got together I noticed she wasn't the sister I knew. You thought she was in danger? [Music] I knew she was. It started on December 19th, 2001. We got a report of a child in the Bay. My name is Trish Miller and I'm the lead investigator. We did an neighborhood canvas of that area. We knocked on every door. Every child in the 2000th person town of Waldo Park was checked upon. No one was found missing. It was a complete mystery. We thought that maybe there was a car accident and that a vehicle had gone in the water. And we would find the rest of the family. A sheriff's office dive team was sent to investigate the waters where the body was found. And they discovered a second child. This was a little girl and she was weighted down in the water with the rock. The feeling in town was of confusion, grief and a fear. Nobody knew if a killer was living amongst them. Identifications were made. The boy was named Zachary Michael Longo. He was a few months shy of his fifth birthday. The young girl was named Sadie and Longo. She was three and a half years old. About a week after the first body was found, the bodies of Mary Jane Longo and Madison Longo were found at the bottom of the bay. Once we found Mary Jane and Madison, we knew that our focal suspect was going to be Chris Longo. That whole family is dead. And he's nowhere to be found. It was discovered that Christian Longo had caught a plane to Cancun, Mexico. My name is Michael Finkel. I was a writer for the New York Times magazine. I had a personal connection because I learned that while Christian Longo was in Mexico, he was pretending to be a writer for the New York Times. In fact, he was pretending to be me. Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Longo. Tell me, Chris. So why me? I followed your whole career. I guess I felt like a new year. I want to tell you my side of this. Only you. Maybe at this point it doesn't matter. The truth always matters. It always seems to matter to you. I just looked him straight in the eye and I said, "Do you know Chris? Did you do what you're accused of doing?" And he was, as always, completely unruffled. Never portrayed a moment of micro panic, nothing. And looked at me and said, "I think you know." And just like, give me a little wink. What was the first thought that went through your mind when you hear, there's a man who's about to stand trial for murder who was impersonating you? I think it was complete confusion into sort of this disbelief, a wrinkle of like sort of creepiness, and also extraordinary curiosity. Like, I would like to know more. Michael Finkel's curiosity had already taken him to the far corners of the globe. His myself and a Korean climber on Chol-Yu, the fifth highest mountain in the world. Now it was about to take him into the heart of darkness. The changed your life? Every minute of it. Four years ago, Finkel was a prize-winning feature writer for The New York Times. This is from Afghanistan because of Strip. This is from my story on Haitian refugees. This was pretty heavy stuff. Absolutely, every story was extremely thrilling to me. He had a gorgeous home in Bozeman, Montana, and a beautiful intelligent girlfriend, Jill Barker. We had this magnetic chemistry between us, though. It seemed like we should give this a chance. But Finkel's ambition had a darker side. He had built his self-esteem around being Mike Finkel at The New York Times, and he was starting to get really intoxicated with all this attention. It was hard to date him, and pretty soon I realized that I had to walk away from this relationship. And in his drive to outdo his competition and himself. I wanted to write a really good story. Finkel fabricated a portion of the story on child slavery in West Africa. You lied? Yes. His bosses found out. I was caught for the deception and promptly fired. It was something I wish I could take back, really badly. In an instant, he lost the career he'd been building his entire adult life. He killed it all. He lied. That was the worst day of your life. By far. Scorned by his colleagues, the shattered shell of Michael Finkel retreated to Montana, awaiting the merciless media inquiries which were sure to come. The first call came sooner than expected. I asked him, you know, you're calling about the editor's note, right? But the reporter wasn't interested in Finkel's fall from grace. He's like, no, I'm calling about the murders. A stonished Finkel learned about Christian Longo, a man now under arrest in Oregon for the murders of his wife and three children. He says to me, you don't know about Christian Longo? And that's the first time I've ever heard that name in my life. When he also learned that Longo had been posing as Michael Finkel of the New York Times, his journalistic instincts went into overdrive. I was like, I'm going to write him a brief letter. He had to find out exactly who had been playing him. I basically said, I know that you're facing a trial and there's things you don't want to talk about, but I'm really curious about why you chose to become me. Several weeks later, the phone rang, I've ever collected a call from the Lincoln County Jail. It seemed Longo was also curious. He agreed to meet Finkel in person. I didn't know whether he was a murderer, he was accused of it, he wasn't convicted. After that meeting, The first letter Longo wrote to me. Longo began sending a series of meticulously handwritten letters. It was written in his jail cell and it goes on and on. The two also scheduled weekly phone calls. What? Call for keys. Calls that Finkel recorded. Have you seen like some obvious paths that you could have taken that you missed? It's good. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, I've seen all the rocks turn to the surface. No, no why I took this. But see so many better ways that they could have gone. I've had to put a piece in everything. Everything. Especially, quiet. And so began a journey into the mind of an accused murderer, which would eventually become a book. It seemed obvious that this was a great story. Rather or not, it actually saw the light of print. It was a great story. From Mike Finkel and the organ investigators, the story centered around one baffling question. How could a seemingly devoted family man turn into a cold, blooded killer? That mystery began under this bridge. Here in the quiet coastal community, where Chris Longo's wife and three children were last seen alive. It was a little boy. We weren't quite sure how old he was. He was, we assume, between three and six years old. Detective Trish Miller caught the call when the first victim was found floating near the bridge. He was perfectly groomed. He had a really good haircut. The Lincoln County Sheriff released this picture to the local news, helping to identify the dead boy. I thought, oh God, that can't be, you know. That can't be so accurate. Denise Thompson had babysat Zachary Longo and his two little sisters, Sadie and Madison. She knew their father, Chris Longo, from the local Starbucks where they both worked. I thought, well, you know, this can't be happening. By the time Denise got to the police station, the second body had been found. A little girl waited down with the rock. Denise identified them both. Zachary and Sadie. You never want to be in that position. "See, a little child." Investigators have determined that these deaths are not accidental. As police hunted for Chris, his wife Mary Jane and their baby were actually trying to locate them. They may well be victims. Denise remembered a strange conversation she'd had with Longo. The very day, Zack's body had been found. They made a point to come up to me while I was working and said, "You won't be seeing the rest of the family. My wife and I are getting into worse." "Are you shocked?" "Oh yeah, just surprised the heck out of me. I did not expect that." "Did they seem like a pretty happy couple?" "Oh yeah." "You just look at us, we're perfect, you know. It's just like that." A surveillance tape taken just days before shows the Longo's shopping like any normal family. They had just recently moved into an upscale housing complex. "He was real polite to everyone and seemed gross, Marr, and we were willing to just talk to you, you know, just, he was real normal." Eight days into the investigation, divers dredged up two suitcases from the harbor just outside the Longo's apartment. One suitcase contained the body of Mary Jane Longo, the second suitcase contained the body of Madison Longo. It meant that somebody killed those two human beings and stuffed them in suitcases like garbage and put them in the water to hide their bodies. With all signs pointing in one direction, either he was dead in a victim or he was a suspect. And chances were he was a suspect. The biggest manhunt in Lincoln County history was underway. "The big question, where is Christian Longo?" But Longo had a healthy head start. One month before the murders, he'd casually written down the credit card number of a Starbucks customer. Now, Longo was on the ride. "He was last seen in the San Francisco area." And before police could catch up with him, he would leave the country and his old identity far behind to start a new life as Michael think of. Tosihyván Operáttorin, Tosihyvát Kesatarjókset. Hange Kesatarjóksista uzi puhelin tableti taikúlokkeet, suntatelja kauppan, taiozoitteese, teliapisteffi. Hey, I'm going to the party. I'm in Lomála. Wanted for killing his wife Mary Jane and their three children in December 2001, Christian Longo made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List. Right alongside Osama bin Laden. "We're looking for somebody who does not want to be found." It was an unlikely place for someone so apparently devoted to his family. The Longos came from Ipsilani, Michigan, where Chris was raised in a stable middle-class home. He and Mary Jane Baker were part of the same congregation. They married when Chris was only 19 and Mary Jane was 25. Her dress was beautiful and you could tell she was just happy. Mary Jane's sister Penny Dupy says Chris was a real life Prince charming. He made other wives jealous because Chris did all of those things that a husband is supposed to do. Buy you roses, take you on trips. First of all, Mary Jane wanted children, so she was thrilled to become a full-time mom when Zachary, Sadie and Madison came along. "Hi, Maddie. Each arrived little more than a year after the baby before." "Look at the cute little family." What was Chris like as a father? "I always thought he was a great father." On March 22, Chris Longo took a job with a company that distributes the New York Times. Here in Ipsilani. Driven to succeed, he worked his way up to manager and eventually developed a fondness for reading the Times. A specially articles written by a reporter named Mike Finkel. He was somewhat of a fan. Longo would later tell Finkel that he envied the writer's worldwide adventures. He told me that if he was a writer, he'd like to write the same sort of stories that I wrote. "He's like, 'Oh, see? I won't be next.' You did it!" Longo's own life was far less exotic. At age 25, he quit his job to start up final touch, a cleaning company for contractors. "I thought everything he was doing, he was doing first family, and he wanted good things for them." And Penny says the Longos had a lot of good things. "I was wondering about the vacations that they took. They were always driving brand new cars. They're somebody's helping them, thinking Chris's parents, or they are majorly in debt." Penny's suspicions were right. Chris Longo was in debt, although he bragged to Mary Jane and everyone else that his business was booming. "I think, honestly and truly, the most important thing to Chris was his image and money." But neither Mary Jane nor anyone else knew that to keep up appearances, Chris had turned to crime. He took a minivan for a test drive and never brought it back. Then, he wrote himself nearly $30,000 worth of counterfeit checks from a client and got caught. "There was no attempts to cover up anything in this particular investigation." Detective Fred Farcus of the Michigan State Police had the goods. We had seven counterfeit checks, which were each 14-year felonies. Longo confessed, presenting himself as a financially strapped family man. "He just believed in his own mind that he'd talk or walk his way out of the charges." And in fact, he did get off easy, with only probation and restitution. Mary Jane believed Chris' promises that his life of crime was over. But then, she discovered a crime of the heart. "I've never heard my sister ever sound that just heartbroken and awful." And she confided it to her younger sister, Sally Clark. She had found an email between Chris and this other woman. He told her he didn't love her anymore and that he had stopped loving her when she started having children. And that she wasn't any fun anymore and she's spending too much time and attention towards the kids instead of him. So she tries to make herself look better, spoils him, draws him bubble baths. She didn't want her kids to grow up without their father. And she loved Chris so deeply that she wanted it to work out. Chris told Mary Jane he needed a fresh start. So in June 2001, just seven weeks after his fraud conviction, he packed up the family and skipped out. Their new home was a warehouse in Toledo, Ohio. "Of course, this whole time Chris is telling her that he's going to make things right, he's going to pay everyone." Two months later, with an arrest warrant out for Chris and Michigan for violating his probation and new reports of stolen property at the Ohio warehouse, the long goes disappeared. "Do you think he was keeping her away from her family?" "I do." Mary Jane's sisters went looking for her at the warehouse. "It was awful and I just knew that something was wrong. It looked like someone was trying to get out of there in a hurry. Mary Jane's wedding dress was there. Things that I knew she wouldn't just leave behind." And when Mary Jane's cell phone was cut off, "There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that never went away. I don't know what it was, just a feeling that we had to find her." Desperate, they filed missing persons reports. "I don't think people took us seriously." Then in early November, "Hi, Saria, wait as long to write, as I'm sure you guessed," removed. Sally got a card from Mary Jane. I still don't have an address or number. It was mailed from South Dakota. Love you guys, we'll keep in touch. Love Mary Jane." The police closed the missing persons case. One month later, Mary Jane and her children would turn up dead in Oregon, where their cross-country journey had ended. And Chris Longo was now long gone. Chris Longo's life on the run finally brought him here to Cancun, Mexico. While Mary Jane's family was still reeling from the shock of the murders, Chris Longo was partying in Paradise. Lowy smiling, laughing. Tom Taff was on vacation when he met Longo. Everyone seemed to like him around there. He had quite a few friends. He was down in a ball. While police were hunting him, Longo was beginning a new life. As the globe trotting journalists, he had always wanted to be. He said his name was Michael Finkel, and that he worked for the New York Times travel section. Little did Longo know that the real Michael Finkel would soon find him. Suspected of killing his wife and three children in Oregon, Christian Longo had made it to Mexico where he assumed the identity of a New York Times reporter. He would soon come in contact with the real Mike Finkel. Longo considered himself a pretty good storyteller, but he would tell his most twisted tale to a jury. As a fugitive in Mexico, Chris Longo did more than just tell people he was reporter Mike Finkel. He was so good at it that he could speak about my stories, his stories, eloquently and convincingly. Longo as Finkel told Taurus Tom Taff that he was actually on assignment. He was working on my enlisticism. So he was going to ruins throughout the area, which there's a lot of them down in that area of Mexico. He came up with actually not a bad topic. Like any professional print journalist, Longo needed a photographer. Fortunately for him, amateur photographer, Yenita Franca, was staying at the same cancun youth hostel. So when you guys were here, what was he doing that was a reporter taking notes all the time that made it totally believable for me that he really was right? I knew what he was doing. And still, their professional relationship grew into something more. And then it kind of took a little turn on the romantic side. Yeah. Tell me about that. Well, you know, we just got along very well and you travel and meet someone you like and was you charming? Yeah, yeah. He did a better job being Mike Finkel than I do, being Mike Finkel. Prawlicking in the surf and sign, Longo was oblivious to the fact that the FBI tracing the purchases on the credit card number he'd stolen back in Oregon was about to crash his Mexican fiesta. A tour guide in the cancun area had recognized Longo's face on this wanted poster. The fugitive enjoyed his last moments of freedom smoking marijuana in the shed. I saw a car's pulling up lights and people storming into this cabana. When police raided this campsite, Christian Longo's new life came to an abrupt end. He was handcuffed and hauled off to be interrogated by the FBI. For Longo, the party was over. For everyone else who thought they knew him, the task of untangling his web of lies had only just begun. The next day, I really started to occur to me what actually happened and who I was with for 10 days. And then, yeah, started crying. After two and a half weeks in Mexico, Longo found himself on a plane back to Oregon. He never spoke to Yannina again. I've still alive good. Instead, Longo would refocus his charm on what would become his next bizarre relationship. With the person he pretended to be. I had successfully bluffed my way through my first round of personal questioning as Michael Finkel, journalist. The real Michael Finkel, freshly fired for his fictitious feature in the New York Times magazine, needed some way to crawl back from rock bottom. At that time, I felt like he had nothing. He had nothing. He just lost everything. Jill Barker was Finkel's ex-girlfriend at the time. Mike was empty. He was a little lost. Mike was not sure who he was. And Chris came along. The timing was perfect. He just came along at the right time. And a real relationship developed. He was the only friend or person in my life to whom I felt more or less superior. As the Lincoln County prosecutors decided how to handle their high-profile case. We have elected to seek the death penalty. Longo decided to talk to only one journalist. The one no one else wanted to touch. You're the only reporter that I've heard interesting as speaking with. During more than 50 conversations with Finkel, Longo promised the real story of the murders. "There's a whole other side." "No other than my hero." He claimed to me that he had explanations for everything. And then he told me, "Point blank. No ambiguity. I am not guilty." In his handwritten letters over the next year, Longo described himself as essentially a good man, struggling to live the American dream. He needed to prove that he could not only make it on his own, but be a blazing success. But he so wanted to be a success so quickly that it blinded him to many things. Longo claims the check forging was not an act of greed. But rather a noble attempt to keep his business afloat, all for the benefit of his beloved family. "We think that they ever did for Finkel, or to survive that." If there's one thing that Chris Longo is a master at, it is justification. A circumstances overwhelmed him. Longo says he fell into a vicious cycle of lying, living beyond his means, and then leaving town. He gets a job at a Starbucks. That's the best he can get. Making $7.40 an hour part-time to support a family of five. That's hard. Once again, Longo refused to face financial reality. This time, he hustled his way into a ritsy apartment. He simply could not afford. Moving to the $1,200 month condo, again, it's sort of that, how far in the future are you thinking here? But Longo was doing more than just spinning a tail for Finkel. He was also cleverly feeding the fallen journalist's emotional needs. Longo not only wrote letters to me, I wrote letters to him, and they were quite personal at times. "I like you. I don't know why I can't help it when you think about it." One of the many things Finkel revealed was that his relationship with Jill was starting up again. "The Jill, by the way, everything is going much better." He was actually giving you advice. "Oh, yes." Relationship advice. He gave him good advice. "I couldn't ask for better advice from a friend." In fact, a friend is exactly what Longo had become against his better judgment. Part of Finkel was hoping that Longo would not be found guilty. "Why did you want him to be innocent?" "Simply, but he was on some level. He was such a nice guy. And I know that seemed so creepy and weird." But just as Longo's memoirs got to what Longo called the tragedy, "Chris writes his letters up to literally the moments before the murders and then stops." Longo had yet to explain how his entire family had ended up dead, and with the trial now looming, Finkel began to wonder, "If he'd been conned like everybody else." "If his story of his life could pass muster with me, and I was grilling him on it, all these aspects of it, then it could pass muster with a jury. And it dawned on me that I wasn't necessarily his friend or his confidant, but I was his dress rehearsal." History that doesn't suck as a legit, hard-hitting American History Podcasts told through entertaining stories, as we approach America's 250th anniversary. Now might be the time to go back and learn how we got here. With more than 200 episodes, you can bend your way decade by decade, defining event to defining event from the founding into the 20th century. Join me, Professor Greg Jackson, for History That Doesn't Suck, an Odyssey Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. [Music] One year after his arrest, Christian Longo is about to stand trial for murdering his wife Mary Jane and their three children. Mary Jane's sisters, Penny and Sally, vowed to be in court every day. Did you have any doubts whatsoever that he was responsible? None. Reporter Michael Finkel will be there too. Eager to hear what you think. long-ose theory of the crime. Long ago had tipped me off that there might be a surprise the very first day of the trial. It is one promise that Longo keeps. On Valentine's Day 2003 the proceedings begin with a bombshell. Did you unorthodoxy and intentionally cause the death of Madison Longo? Yes I did. Longo pleads guilty partly guilty. He admits killing his wife and their youngest child Madison but he maintains his innocence in the deaths of his older children Zach and Sadie confounding everyone who is following his case. Why would you admit to two murders and not four and then of course if you didn't kill Zachary and Sadie then who did? For now the defense leaves that a mystery. The prosecutors say the evidence is clear Longo alone murdered all four victims and dumped their bodies in the water. He didn't like being tied down with his wife and three kids and and the solution for him was to just get rid of these three children and his wife and assume somebody else's identity. Oregon District Attorney Josh Markey followed the case closely. He says Longo is a sociopath who deserves the death penalty. He made a conscious choice to commit a cosmically evil act. At trial truck driver Dick Ho testifies that he met a man he believes was Longo on the Walg Port Bridge late one night. The back end of his minivan was right in the middle of the bridge. Ho offered help but was turned away. I pulled up alongside him asked him if he was all right and he said his check-in and lighted came on but it was off now. jurors also hear about the divers grim discoveries and their shown graphic images. The medical examiner says Mary Jane and Madison were strangled but he cannot determine how Zach and Sadie died. It was those photos especially like the bruises that think all is disgusted both with Longo and his own bad judgment. There is no way that a person can do that without having an enormous amount of evil in them. Did you feel duped by him? Yes. Suckered in? Yes. Absolutely. A little bit of a fool. In his defense, name is Christian Michael Longo. Longo takes the stand and tells the same life story he rehearsed on Finkle. My parents never had any vices that were bad influence on my brother. I it was a good environment to grow up in. His downward spiral excuses for stealing and lying. I wanted to be able to go on vacations have nice cars have nice decent clothes. Up until the trial when Longo told his story he stopped just short of revealing how and why his family was murdered. But now in court he finally continues. Longo says late one night feeling defeated over his desperate situation. He came home here to his pricey apartment on the Oregon coast. He sat his wife down confessed all of his lies and then he says a mild mannered Mary Jane exploded. She didn't want anything to do with me at that point. The next night Longo claims he came home to find his older children missing. Madison seemingly lifeless and Mary Jane irrational. She was literally on the floor. Curled up into a ball bouncing back and forth hitting her back in so long. Then Longo tells a stunned court Mary Jane hinted that she had killed the children. Just why he says he lost control. Grab her with both hands and continue to squeeze and I didn't stop for a long time. I didn't stop until I couldn't hold her up anymore. Chillingly Longo claims he was stuffing the bodies into suitcases when he noticed Madison was still breathing. I put my hand on her throat and squeezed. In cross examination Longo is for once briefly at a loss for words. And you don't call 911 and you don't call the fire department and you don't do anything. You strangler. He was not only lying about the murders. He was slandering his dead wife in front of her own family, lying in court just blithely speaking, complete confidence in his voice. Everything was perfectly detailed. Penny says it is just one more betrayal of Mary Jane. That is probably the worst thing that Chris Avrick could have said about her. The worst because the one thing that was the most important thing to her was being a good mom. But Josh Markey believes Longo's performance has backfired. You think it hurt him? I think it hurt him horribly. It takes the jury little more than four hours to reach its decision. Guilty of the charge of aggravated murder count to guilty guilty guilty of the charge of aggravating Christian Longo is guilty of all four murders. Mary Jane's name is for once cleared as it should be. And the person that's accountable for these horrible murders is finally being held accountable. Today Longo says the verdict didn't surprise him. What do you think your punishment should be? I think I should spend the rest of my life in prison at the very least. And at the very most? At the very most death. But now he may be changing his story. So let me ask you directly, did you kill Sadie and Zachary? Carders has your family covered for every summer first, for steps, for swim lesson, or first sleepover. Our close-up kids and parents shine thanks to comfy design and easy dressing details. Visit carters.com to shop the latest styles or find a Carter's store near you. Today we're going to begin what's called the penalty phase. Convicted of killing his wife and children, Chris Longo's fate now rests with jurors who will decide whether he gets life or death. Should the defendant receive a death sentence? To this question, the jury has answered yes. Yet even now, Longo cannot stay off the stage. I'm starting to feel a remorse in an empathy that I don't think I felt before. In a shocking moment, Longo hints that he may be changing his story and admitting to all of the murders. I can damn my axe from what I did in the past and I no longer just associate myself from those acts. It's something that I did solely. Then, months later, in conversations with Sally and letters to reporter Mike Finkel, Longo comes close to a full confession. He even gives them chilling details of how he murdered Sadie and Zachary. He didn't just kill them, but he brutally killed them, those kids suffered. But today, talking to 48 hours from death row, Longo, who is working on his appeal, reverts back to his old story. Did you kill Sadie and Zachary? That's something that I'm not going to discuss right now. I'm going to essentially stick with what was brought out in court because that is on the record. Do you think we'll ever have the truth of what happened? I think the jury in their verdict said what happened. Oregon District Attorney Josh Marquis. Exactly how it happened. Well, you ever know? No, we won't. Because it's coming from the lips of a liar. This is a true story. Now, Hollywood's version of Finkel's book is about to be released. I believe we're dealing with an exceptionally dangerous man. You've had a choice of so many stories to tell and you chose his. Actually, he picked me. Didn't pick you. He used you. The psychological thriller focuses on the reporter and the killer's game of Cat and Mouse. My whole reputation's on the line. Don't give up on me. Are you really going to be the man who might set him free? Chris, did you do what you're choosing to do? I wish that parts of the story weren't true. But the story of this odd friendship continues. It's much more casual than it ever has been, but he's not completely out of my life. And I doubt he ever will until the day he's put to death. What is left to learn from this man? The biggest question of all, which is, you know, why would you do this? Why didn't you just leave? Leave your family? That's a big question. We'll never. really know. Back in Oregon we brought Mary Jane's sister Penny to see lead detective Trish Miller. This whole town was amazing to us. And to see a plaque memorializing the lives that were lost. There's something about your sister that you would like people to know and remember about her and the kids. There are four people that are gone. That would have made the world a better place. In 2022 Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of all 17 people on Oregon's death row including Christian Longo. Longo is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Michael Finkel took Longo's advice and married his girlfriend Jill. They now have three children.