MURDERED: Christion Olson

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Speaker 1 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 2 And I'm Britt.

Speaker 1 And I have a truly baffling mystery for you today. And everything in this mystery centers around one night on a quiet cul-de-sac in Ohio on July 13th, 2024.

Speaker 1 What starts out as a group of friends at a small party ends in the death of an 18-year-old, but no one knows who hurt him or where or even how he was injured.

Speaker 1 Not anyone at the party, not anyone in the neighborhood, or at least that's what everyone says.

Speaker 1 So we started talking to people, family, police, neighbors, and the strange things we found will leave you not knowing what to believe. This is the story of Christian Olson.

Speaker 1 It's a little after 3 a.m. on July 13th, 2024, when Chris Olson Jr.
gets a call about his 18-year-old brother, Christian.

Speaker 1 He'd been at a party that night with some of his teenage friends, and these friends say that he is now wasted and they don't know what they should do with him.

Speaker 1 So Chris is like, okay, just bring him home.

Speaker 1 Now, it's a good hour before they pull up, even though the party was in Brunswick Hills, which is like a 20-minute drive away from Christian's house in Medina, Ohio.

Speaker 1 But around 4 a.m., a friend of Christian's named Eric pulls up in his car with Christian and two other friends in tow, Aiden and Braylon.

Speaker 1 Aiden stays in the car the whole time, but Braylon and Eric help Chris Jr. get Christian inside the house.
And as his brother gets him upstairs, Christian is mumbling some stuff.

Speaker 1 It's like not 100% clear what he's saying, but what they can make out is him just saying ow over and over like he's in pain.

Speaker 1 And Eric is saying like he didn't know how Christian got this drunk because he's like, I drank more than he did.

Speaker 1 But he did say that he had been throwing up on the way back, which, I mean, maybe that's why it took so long to get there. Doesn't matter to Chris or even Christian's sister, who's also awake.

Speaker 1 They're just like, we got to get him sobered up and preferably without waking up their parents amidst all the chaos. But that doesn't last long.

Speaker 1 Between getting him cleaned up and drinking some water, all the commotion wakes up Christian's mom and dad. Everyone's still there, even the friends, and they admit that he's drunk.

Speaker 1 But Christian's dad, who's Christopher Sr.,

Speaker 1 he's looking at him and he's like, are we sure that that's the problem? Like, are we sure he's drunk? He looks like he got beat up. I mean, he's like drooling some blood.
He's asking for help.

Speaker 2 He's like in this state.

Speaker 1 I know, but before mom and dad woke up, it was all kids basically trying to take care of the situation. And I don't think his siblings had any clue that something more serious was up.

Speaker 1 Especially because you've got Eric telling everyone that he's just wasted. Like he was there.
Right.

Speaker 1 He even tells that to his parents after they get him in the bathroom where he's throwing up and in and out of consciousness. At one point, Chris Sr.

Speaker 1 says that he noticed what looked like a shoe print on his son's face and a cut on his shoulder. But still, his friends are trying to assure them, no, he's just drunk.

Speaker 1 So Christian's dad starts asking him over and over, like, what happened? But Christian is still just mumbling and the only thing they can really make out is him saying that he just needs to lay there.

Speaker 1 And at one point, he's able to say that he wants a Coke. so they try to get him to drink some soda, seeing if that'll shake him out of this, but that doesn't work.

Speaker 1 And then suddenly, it looks like Christian just stops breathing.

Speaker 1 911, what's the address of your emergency? Please hurry, please hurry.

Speaker 1 He passed out. I don't know what's wrong with my little brother.
Okay, how old is he? He's 18. 18? Yes.
Okay, is he breathing?

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. He's just, he just passed out.
He just burst through the door and he put it locked.

Speaker 1 And he kept saying, please help me and he started selling up blood and it starts coming out his nose and then he just passed out

Speaker 1 christian's family performed cpr until the medina police and paramedics arrived christian's still got a faint pulse so they rush him to the hospital where they try all of the life-saving measures they can but it's not enough by 556 in the morning christian is declared dead and his family is just in shock and denial i mean it all happened so fast, they can't even wrap their heads around it.

Speaker 1 One minute, their son is leaving their house to hang out with friends and now he's dead. And to add to their confusion, the coroner tells them that his death is suspicious, but that's all.

Speaker 1 They don't know anything else, not there in the hospital and not for a while after because police told the family that they wouldn't be giving them a lot of information because they don't want to take them on a roller coaster ride.

Speaker 1 But instead of the roller coaster, they're they're just in limbo. And I don't really know what's worse.
I mean, the family is calling the police often for updates, but not getting much.

Speaker 1 So without much official information being put out, rumors begin to swirl. Ones that the family know can't be true, like that Christian's death is a suicide or an overdose.

Speaker 1 And they know because they saw him, right? Like they knew it was more than that. They had the coroner tell them it was something suspicious.
And his friends were saying that he was wasted.

Speaker 1 They don't know what the combo of all of that means. And they know that no one will until the autopsy results come back, which takes a full two months.

Speaker 1 But when they do get them on September 26th, their worlds are turned upside down because Christian wasn't just wasted like his friends had said. He had severe internal injuries.

Speaker 1 His ribs and collarbone are fractured. His liver and lung is punctured, but there are no stab wounds or anything like that.

Speaker 1 He has some bruises on his face and neck and torso and abrasions on the left side of his body. And guess what?

Speaker 1 Not only was Christian not wasted to the extent his friends let on, he may not have been drunk at all because toxicology results show that there was zero alcohol in his system. Now,

Speaker 1 it is possible that he drank something because police said that that alcohol could have metabolized and gone through his system by the time he died, right? Like, he didn't die right away.

Speaker 1 He had that time where we don't know what happened between two and three, and then he's at home, and then they finally get into the hospital.

Speaker 1 But you would imagine if he was as drunk as they said he was, there would still be something.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Now, there was a small amount of weed, but nothing that would have put him in that state.

Speaker 1 In the end, his death is ruled blunt force trauma to the neck and abdomen, and his manner of death is homicide. But what the ME can't determine is how this would have happened.

Speaker 1 I mean, there is no one easy answer that explains all of his injuries, certainly not with the story his friends had given. So what really happened in the hours after Christian Olson left his home?

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Speaker 1 It's quickly determined that whatever happened to Christian likely happened in Brunswick Hills, where the party was, since that's where his friends drove him from.

Speaker 1 So Brunswick Hills PD begins their investigation immediately, like same day Christian died. So let me rewind to that.
It's July 13th.

Speaker 1 While Christian was still being rushed to the hospital, police were talking to Eric and the other two kids who brought him home, Aiden and Braylon.

Speaker 1 And they're doing that right in Christian's driveway. They're trying to figure out what led up to Christian being in the state he was in.

Speaker 1 Now, Eric's the most talkative, and he told detectives that there was a party at his dad's house on Topaz Lane in Brunswick Hills.

Speaker 1 And he and some others had picked Christian up from his parents' place in Medina earlier that night. And Eric said that they got to his house sometime after 10 p.m.

Speaker 1 Now, there was some alcohol, specifically four locos, some weed, but he said it was pretty chill, just like the small group hanging out.

Speaker 1 And he gives them a list of other names, maybe like seven in total, one of them being the girl Christian had kind of been dating, Becca.

Speaker 2 And were there any adults around?

Speaker 1 No, which is like... kind of the key to a high school party usually.
Eric lived at this house with his dad, but his dad was out that night with a new woman that he'd been dating for about a week.

Speaker 1 And the two of them didn't get back until like midnight. But when they did get back, they went straight to the basement and the kids were upstairs in Eric's room.

Speaker 1 And there's actually some photos and videos of the kids that Becca shared with us from that night. I've seen them and They're all hanging out up there.

Speaker 1 Like everyone, including Christian, are laughing and having a great time.

Speaker 1 Eric said that he and Christian left at some point for a bit to go grab donuts that had been thrown out after the donut place closed. Then they come back to the house.

Speaker 1 They're all eating them, having fun. But shortly before 2 a.m., things turned sour.
Or as Eric told police, quote, sh hit the fan.

Speaker 1 Now, I don't know what prompted this now in the night, but Becca accused Christian of sleeping with someone else. And Eric said that this prompted a giant fight.

Speaker 1 And after the fight, Becca and her friends left. So the only people left there at the house were Christian, Eric, and Aiden.
And Aiden backed this up with police.

Speaker 1 But Christian didn't stay much longer. They said that after Becca left, his mood changed and he stormed out of the house shortly after 2 a.m.

Speaker 1 And Eric said he tried stopping him because Christian was drunk, but Christian grabbed him and pushed him into the wall. So Eric just let him go and like didn't think it was worth the fight.

Speaker 2 But we know now that Christian wasn't drunk.

Speaker 2 So there's that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but police didn't know that during their initial questioning in the driveway.

Speaker 2 That's all like autopsy stuff that happens two months later. Right.

Speaker 1 So Eric tells police this, and then he says a little while later, around 3 a.m., he went to drive Aiden home, and the two of them spotted Christian laying on the ground near the end of Eric's driveway.

Speaker 1 And they stopped to see if he was okay and noticed that he had some like drool and vomit on his face. They asked him if he's okay, but all he said was that he couldn't move his upper body.

Speaker 1 So that's when they say they called his brother, got him into the truck, and got him home, which is where our story began.

Speaker 1 After talking to them in the driveway, police then take Eric and Aiden down to the station for a more formal interview and to get official statements.

Speaker 1 Now, it's not clear to me why they didn't take Braylon, given that he also brought Christian home, but it might be because they do end up finding out that Braylon wasn't actually at the house party.

Speaker 1 They end up meeting up with him later, which I'll get into in a minute.

Speaker 1 All I know is that Braylon ends up staying at Christian's family's house for a little while after while the other two go to the station.

Speaker 1 But anyways, as police continue to question Eric and Aiden, Eric's story shifts slightly. In his telling now, Christian wasn't laying near the end of his driveway when they found him.

Speaker 1 He was five or six houses down at the bottom of a neighbor's driveway.

Speaker 1 And he said the teen boy who lived there was standing outside with two of his friends, and those guys told them that Christian had knocked on their door.

Speaker 1 Everything else, though, in the story stays the same, except there is one detail that stands out to me.

Speaker 1 So Eric told police that he was driving when they dropped Christian off, but Aiden told police that he was driving.

Speaker 1 Now, Aiden also told police that he didn't drink that night, so maybe he was trying to cover for Eric, who admitted to police that he had been drinking that night.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't know if he was trying to make sure he didn't get in trouble or, or what, but.

Speaker 2 Okay, the my driveway versus neighbor's driveway is like whatever to me, but not mentioning three other guys that were outside, like, that's pretty strange.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 So what's with these kids? Like, what's their story?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So obviously they go talk to them.
Easy to find since one of them lives on the same street. Right.

Speaker 1 And the boys told them that they were hanging out having a sleepover or something when they heard someone yelling for help outside at around 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 They go out, saw Christian laying on the ground, but they didn't know who he was or what he was doing.

Speaker 2 Did they say he looked beat up?

Speaker 1 I don't know if they ever got close enough to see if he had any injuries. Like they just assumed that he was maybe high or drunk.
So they went back inside.

Speaker 1 But then there was like this knocking at the door.

Speaker 1 It was Christian, obviously, and it scared them so much that they grabbed a knife and started taking three-second Snapchat videos of Christian from inside the house.

Speaker 2 But they didn't go out and help him.

Speaker 1 Well, no, I mean, it's a random person knocking on your door at 3 a.m. Right.
But like, they also didn't just stand there and watch. They actually tried to call 911.

Speaker 1 But for some reason, the call didn't go through. They say they watched Christian go back to the end of the driveway and collapse.

Speaker 1 And then just a few minutes later, they saw two guys in a truck pull up, stand over him for a second. And that's when they went back outside and told the two boys what had happened.

Speaker 1 And then those two teens loaded him up and left. And that story matches what Eric told police the second go-around.
And when they check these kids' phones, everything lines up.

Speaker 1 Even though no call came into 911, it's right there in their call log. They had tried to call.

Speaker 1 And they show them the Snapchat videos that they took, which in one just shows Christian laying on the ground and the other shows Eric and Aiden looking down at Christian.

Speaker 2 So when does Braylon come into the picture? Because he's not in Eric's story when he's taking Aiden home. He's not in the Snapchat videos.

Speaker 2 We know he's there when they get to Christian's house, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so he's not at the party that night. but he is friends with Christian and Eric.

Speaker 1 So apparently Eric called him when he was calling everyone else to try and figure out what was wrong with Christian or like what to do.

Speaker 1 But something isn't quite adding up for me. So police actually go back and talk to Eric at his dad's house.
And this third time, he adds another detail that he previously left out.

Speaker 1 He says he didn't drive just straight to Christian's house once they found him.

Speaker 2 Which could explain why the 20 minute drive took an hour.

Speaker 1 So First, he says that him and Aiden made a pit stop so that Christian could throw up.

Speaker 1 Eric says that he had stopped for that reason several times on that ride home. And in one of those stops, they specifically stopped at this golf course.

Speaker 1 And based on what police told us, it seems like Eric told Braylon to meet them there. Apparently, Eric said that they wanted him to help get a hold of Christian's brother.

Speaker 1 And then they all took Christian home.

Speaker 2 But do they not know where he lives? Like, I don't know why they're taking time to meet up with Braylon.

Speaker 1 Well, no, they know where he lives. Remember, they actually started the night at his house.
He picked him up. So Eric definitely knows where he is.

Speaker 1 But I guess Braylon was closer to the family than Eric was. Like, both of them are Christian's childhood friends.
So maybe they just felt more comfortable having Braylon with them.

Speaker 1 I don't really know. But either way, he meets up with them and then he follows Eric and Aiden in his own car.

Speaker 2 And in all of this interaction, no one is seeing how bad off Christian is?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's certainly the question police can't get out of their heads. I actually have body cam footage of them standing in Eric's driveway asking about this in particular.

Speaker 1 And through all of this, why didn't, at some point, why didn't somebody call and say, we need to get the police or at the very least a rescue squad here?

Speaker 1 I just called his brother and he just told me to bring him home and I was freaking out.

Speaker 1 I was just calling people who I personally

Speaker 1 and the ride from here

Speaker 1 to Ivy Hill, my understanding is you guys stopped.

Speaker 1 At Bunker Hill Golf Course on Port Road. Why did you stop there?

Speaker 1 Chris was like, you got to pull over. I gotta, he's like, I'm not feeling good, even though he was already thrown up.
Okay, I was like, I'm still gonna pull over. So at that point, he was talking.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
Yes. So, like, if you asked him

Speaker 1 specific questions, was he just giving yes or no answers?

Speaker 1 No, most of the time, it was just

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 because I kept asking if he needed water or something to eat. I was like, I'll stop to get something to eat.
He's like,

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 While they were talking to Eric in the driveway, police were also inside searching the home, but they didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

Speaker 1 One of the officers said that the home looked a little too clean, but I mean, that's certainly not a crime.

Speaker 1 And no matter how many ways they ask him, the part of his story that never changed is that Christian left the house on foot, perfectly fine at 2 a.m.

Speaker 1 And then they didn't see him again until 3 when they found him messed up in front of the neighbor's place. Whatever happened to Christian likely comes down to that critical hour.

Speaker 1 But the data that police get, or rather the data they don't get from that time, only deepens the mystery.

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Speaker 1 off.

Speaker 1 Police pulled Christian's phone data, hoping that might give them insight into where he was or who he might have been communicating with within that missing hour. But the results are odd.

Speaker 1 They have some data points that shows he did go out of the house, like Eric said, at 2.06 a.m.

Speaker 2 Like location data.

Speaker 1 Well, they say yes, location data. I get a little confused.
It doesn't totally make sense to me, but that's what police say.

Speaker 2 Okay, and where were Aiden and Eric's phones like around that time?

Speaker 1 Police would only tell us that their phones were inside Eric's house between 2 and 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 But what's not clear to me is how police know that. Like they know Christian's phone's outside.
They know their phones are inside.

Speaker 1 They make it seem like it's location data, which at first I thought was like pink, like pings, you know what I mean? But that's just a general area.

Speaker 2 Like as a more of a triangulation than anything.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I kind of wonder, because I know they end up getting search warrants.
Like that's how they get all of this. They get search warrants for Christian, Eric, and Aiden's phones.

Speaker 1 And so I wonder if it isn't like. like health data or movement data or something like that.

Speaker 2 Or even based on like pictures of what they were posting or sending to other people to like locate them in those times.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they wouldn't go into detail with us. All I know is they are certain, at least to us, that Christian is outside and these two phones are inside.

Speaker 1 Now, in getting the search warrants, I know one of the things that they were hoping to see were communications from that night.

Speaker 1 But police told us that the way that the phones are set up and teens being teens, a lot of the apps that they use like Snapchat are encrypted. So it's not super easy for them to get that stuff.

Speaker 1 In fact, Eric told police when they took his phone that they might not see regular calls on his phone because he just uses Snapchat to to call people.

Speaker 1 So, really, the only other data point that they have to work off of happens at 2:14 a.m. That's when Christian's phone goes dark.
Police don't know if he turned it off or if it just died or what.

Speaker 2 And did he have his phone on him when they brought him home?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was on him and it was in fine condition. So, it's not like it broke or anything like that.
It just goes dark at 2:14.

Speaker 1 I don't know what that means, but I kind of wonder if, like, whatever happened to him happened then.

Speaker 1 So that's what they have from the phones.

Speaker 1 The next data set they try to look at are the cameras. Because when police are looking around on Topaz Lane, it's 2024 and they see doorbell cameras all over.
Yeah. Great.

Speaker 1 Someone in the neighborhood has to have surveillance footage. But when they go door to door asking the neighbors to see their footage, they are met with what I think is a strange response.

Speaker 1 Everyone said that theirs either wasn't working or their cameras didn't pick anything up that would have triggered their camera to start.

Speaker 2 And did police check all that out for themselves?

Speaker 1 Police said they, quote, fully investigated this and that they don't have any ring cam footage with Christian on it.

Speaker 2 What does that really mean? Like they looked at everyone's cameras on Topaz Lane?

Speaker 1 They wouldn't tell us. Like, I don't have any specifics.
I'm not convinced that no one has footage, even if it were just of Christian walking away.

Speaker 2 Right. It doesn't even have to be anything nefarious.
Just like putting him in a place at a time would be helpful at this point.

Speaker 1 And if we don't have him walking away, like, also, what does that say? Right. But like, if he walked away and everyone's saying their cameras weren't working, like, are they lying?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think the interesting thing to note is this is a predominantly white neighborhood. Christian is a black teen.
And we spoke with someone from the area. I'm going to call him James.

Speaker 1 He told us that that neighborhood and Brunswick Hills in general is not the most open-minded community.

Speaker 1 And I think that's being kind of generous because Christian's sister, Chrissy, and their mom, Rochelle, told us that last year during one of their justice walks around Topaz Lane after Christian's murder, people in the neighborhood were actually yelling slurs at them and yelling at them to leave.

Speaker 1 And they say residents even called the police on them, saying that they were on private property. Now, we obviously asked detectives about that.

Speaker 1 They said that they didn't receive any complaints for anyone at the march, but they did get several calls directly to the police station from concerned residents worried about the people yelling and screaming on the streets.

Speaker 1 So they patrolled the areas just in case, but no reports were filed. And for clarity, I'm not saying that everyone in the neighborhood is like that.

Speaker 1 I mean, the neighbors that our reporters spoke to really want to help in any way they can, but it's not like others in this community are rallying around the family to get answers.

Speaker 1 It feels a little more like if something happened in this neighborhood, a lot of the neighbors might cover for each other.

Speaker 1 And that's something that Resident James told us that he wouldn't be surprised by.

Speaker 1 So since police have no footage to go off of, they're left trying to piece together a theory of what could have happened based on the injuries Christian had. But even those just make no sense.

Speaker 1 Like I said, he died from blunt force trauma to the neck and abdomen, and he had some bruising, but only a small cut on his shoulder.

Speaker 1 But like all of his internal injuries made it seem like he had suffered some type of hard blow, like he made abrupt contact with the ground or something.

Speaker 2 One big impact.

Speaker 1 That's kind of what it seems like,

Speaker 1 which brings two possibilities to the forefront. Not that either is right or necessarily even the only explanation.
There could be other options that we don't know about.

Speaker 1 But my first two thoughts were fight or hit by a car. And honestly, hit by a car was my first thought.

Speaker 2 That's what I was going to bring up because like that would kind of explain like even you said there was injuries like just on one side of his body. That would like kind of track with that, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And Christian was wearing all black that night.
So if he walked out of the house, maybe somebody hit him and then ran off.

Speaker 1 Our reporter got two neighbors on the phone. One of the neighbors lived where Christian was found, and this guy brought up a suspicious blue pickup truck.

Speaker 1 He said that this truck had basically been parked near their house in that Topaz Lane cul-de-sac for like almost a year. Like broken down? Not broken down.

Speaker 1 No, like it came and went throughout the year, but like right after Christian's death, that truck just disappeared. And this neighbor said that Topaz Lane isn't well lit.

Speaker 1 So they always kind of wondered.

Speaker 1 But we brought this to detectives and they said that they already checked it out and they believed that that truck was in an unrelated wreck around the same time and that the owner of the vehicle got a new one.

Speaker 1 So the truck disappearing was just a coincidence.

Speaker 1 Moreover, the police said that if Christian had gotten hit by a car, there would be classic bruising patterns on his lower body that just aren't there. Now, a hit and run isn't totally out.

Speaker 1 They said like a very specific version of a hit and run could have happened here if he was hit and then thrown over the vehicle.

Speaker 1 But Christian's family maintains that they don't think it was a car accident at all. And I get why.
I mean, there is something about the logistics of it that don't feel totally right to me.

Speaker 1 The whole neighborhood, it's just this cul-de-sac, right? Like it's one street. I don't think anyone would be flying down it.

Speaker 1 So, okay, if a hit and run is a possibility, maybe Christian walked to the main road. That's Grafton Road, where the speed limit is 35.

Speaker 1 But then if that's the case, would he have been able to get all the way back to Topaz Lane in that condition? Obviously, police don't have a starting point.

Speaker 1 They don't know where the incident took place, but they do say that they think whatever happened to Christian could have happened where he was found a few houses down.

Speaker 1 But they are truly not sure because there was no crime scene or anything like that. And so if he's not hit by a car at a high rate of speed on Topaz Lane, then that leaves option two.

Speaker 1 some kind of physical attack. Some of the body cam footage we obtained showed that police directly asked Eric if there was a fight, but he's adamant that nobody got in a fight.

Speaker 1 That the only one physical was Christian when he pushed him into a wall on his way out because Eric was telling him not to leave. But a fight seemed to be Christian's dad's first thought.

Speaker 1 In the original police report, he said that when Christian got home, he looked, quote, scuffed up.

Speaker 1 Now, I've never been in a fight myself. There's still time.

Speaker 1 But the pictures I've always seen of somebody who's been beaten up, majority of the time, there is a lot of damage to their face, right?

Speaker 1 Like swollen eyes, bloody nose, busted lip, even busted knuckles on the victim because they're trying to fight back.

Speaker 1 But so much of that isn't here. I've seen the photos that police took of Christian in the hospital.
Now, there's only one clear shot of his left hand. I can't see his right, but like.

Speaker 1 There's nothing there like he was able to fight back. The only open wound is that one on his right shoulder.
It's like an open gash less than an inch long, but definitely bled.

Speaker 1 You mean you can tell it's open, but I mean, Christian's black sweatshirt probably absorbed it, which is why nobody saw that. Right.
Now he has some scrapes and bruising on his face.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And did you say his dad thought he saw like a shoe print?

Speaker 1 His dad did, yeah. Police don't see that.
And I see what he's looking at.

Speaker 1 Like, I think we all agree something hit his face or scraped it or who knows what, but shoe, not a shoe, I don't think anyone can tell for sure.

Speaker 1 So all that to say, if he got in a fight, it's almost like he got body slammed or something like that. That's actually what police say, which is for real when you think about it.

Speaker 1 To slam someone so hard that they die. That's not just boys horsing around.
And it's definitely not just one slam and done. I don't think that explains everything.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wonder if he was like kicked and stomped or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I have no medical knowledge to back this up, but I don't know. I would think there would be a little more bruising in that case, like especially on his abdomen, but there's not.

Speaker 1 There's not any of that there.

Speaker 2 So, say it is a fight. Say it happens on Topaz Lane.
Like, that makes the suspect pool pretty small.

Speaker 1 You'd think. I mean, the logical place to start is with the friends that he was with.
Eric says there was a big fight. Christian leaves.
He tries to to stop them. All the pieces are there.

Speaker 2 I also can't shake the fact that Eric lied about Christian being drunk though. Like, that's not something you just get mixed up about when, like, he wasn't drinking at all that night, right?

Speaker 1 Well, remember, like, he could have drank something that metabolized. We don't know for sure.

Speaker 1 But it's also possible that Eric could have just assumed that Christian had drank more than he really did. And when he saw Christian throwing up, that was the assumption he made.

Speaker 1 I mean, especially right if like he's drinking. Right.
But in his story, he's saying that Christian was drunk even when he was like trying to get him not to leave, which I'm like, we know he wasn't.

Speaker 1 Like it doesn't make sense. But Christian's level of intoxication might not have been the only thing he exaggerated.
So we tried reaching out to all of the people who were there that night.

Speaker 1 And the only person who talked to us actually was Becca. And she said that she wasn't even really mad about him sleeping with another girl.

Speaker 1 She said that her and Christian weren't exclusive or anything. So, I mean, she was disappointed, but that was it.
She said she went home and police were able to corroborate that.

Speaker 2 So then why would Eric say the fight was so big?

Speaker 1 Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe his perception of it was different.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 What did Aiden say about the fight? Did he say it was like this huge blowout?

Speaker 1 Well, no, he told police something seemed off between Christian and Becca, but he didn't see a fight or anything.

Speaker 1 And then he said he was in the bathroom when Christian actually left, so he didn't really know what state of mind he was in.

Speaker 1 And we don't have a ton more from Aiden because he lawyered up pretty quickly after Christian's death.

Speaker 1 In fact, Christian's family told us that they haven't heard from the boys that brought him home since the day Christian died. And they believe that they know more than they're letting on.

Speaker 1 We reached out to Eric, Aiden, and Braylon, but none of them returned our calls. Now,

Speaker 1 One thing Becca said on the call with us that I thought was interesting is that it wasn't uncommon for Christian to just go for a walk if he needed to blow off some steam.

Speaker 1 So him leaving the house solo didn't seem out of character or anything to her.

Speaker 2 And we've got police saying that they can confirm that Christian went outside and the boys stayed inside.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Or their phones are inside.

Speaker 2 Okay, but if not them, then who?

Speaker 1 Well, I do actually have an alternate theory for you.

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Speaker 1 Detectives told us that they're quote, investigating all possibilities, end quote. Now, one of those possibilities stemmed from a rumor about a robbery a week before Christian's death.

Speaker 1 We got court documents for said robbery that say that two people broke into a known drug dealer's house in the area on July 7th.

Speaker 1 Surveillance footage from inside the guy's condo showed two masked men stealing money and weed and like thousands of dollars worth of sneakers.

Speaker 1 So the rumored connection is that Christian was one of the masked men and that he was killed in retaliation for the robbery. If this is the case, it might explain one of Christian's injuries.

Speaker 1 So remember the thing that Christian said that was a shoe print?

Speaker 1 Detectives said that it didn't look like a shoe print to them, but they thought it actually looked like maybe Christian was pistol whipped because there is a mark on his cheek and a small cut in his hairline that you wouldn't be able to see unless you look closely.

Speaker 1 But even though this is their theory, they're open. They don't know for certain.
Now, one of the mass robbers has been arrested and convicted.

Speaker 1 The second person has never been arrested in connection with the robbery. And charging documents for the convicted person don't say anything about Christian.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's what I was going to ask. Yeah, they have one of them.
In theory, the first robber knows the other robber too.

Speaker 1 You would think, but these documents say nothing about them. Now, Christian's sister Chrissy said that she'd heard these rumors.

Speaker 1 More specifically, she heard that allegedly the guy whose house was robbed said that he was able to ID Christian as being part of the robbery based on his eyebrows that were shown in camera footage from inside the house.

Speaker 1 But Chrissy says that there's no way Christian was part of that robbery. He was not that kind of kid and she doubts that he was mixed up in anything anything like that.

Speaker 1 There would be one way to know for sure though. The charging documents said that one of the people involved in the robbery left a wave cap at the scene that had DNA on it.
Now that got tested.

Speaker 1 It got compared against the guy in jail. Not a match to him.
So it has to be the second robber's. Right.
We tried getting more detail from the Brunswick Police Department about this.

Speaker 1 Different agency from Brunswick Hills Police, since the robbery happened in their jurisdiction.

Speaker 1 We asked specifically if that DNA on the cap has been compared to Christian's DNA, but they told us they weren't allowed to comment on the robbery case since Christian's case is still an open investigation in a neighboring jurisdiction.

Speaker 2 Even if Christian had nothing to do with the robbery, that doesn't mean that the guy whose house was robbed didn't think that Christian was involved.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right? Like he doesn't have DNA evidence. Chrissy said if the rumors are true and it was retaliation for the robbery, she still thinks it's a case of mistaken identity.

Speaker 2 But for him to like recognize his eyebrows, he had to have known him kind of well, though, right?

Speaker 1 Possibly. Chrissy says that the whole family knows of this guy.
It's just like a small community, a place where everyone knows everyone type of thing.

Speaker 1 But whether Christian knew him deeper than that, we don't know. No one has ever been able to give us anything to show that he does.

Speaker 1 But, you know, one of the thoughts that I like kept coming back to was Christian's phone. So we know, right, all the kids are using Snapchat to communicate.

Speaker 1 And so many kids let their location be seen on Snapchat, which is like,

Speaker 1 don't.

Speaker 1 But what if that is why he turned it off? Like, what if he knew someone was trying to find out where he was that night? But by the time he shut it down, it was like too late.

Speaker 1 And maybe somebody already made it to him.

Speaker 2 I mean, I feel like this is a wild goose chase, but can police not tell that based on his Snapchat data?

Speaker 1 They're still trying to, like all this time later.

Speaker 1 And not just for Christian's phone, like for a lot of the phones that his friends had too. But this is what I'm talking about with encrypted data and subpoenas, like it takes so much time.

Speaker 1 But I think those communications will hold the answers. Becca told us Eric called her that night panicking, saying that Christian wasn't looking good.

Speaker 1 He even told her that Christian needed to go to a hospital. They were on the side of the road when he called, and she told us she asked Christian directly if he needed to go to the hospital.

Speaker 1 And all he was saying was, mm-hmm, or okay.

Speaker 1 She told Eric they should go to a hospital and he said, okay, and then hung up.

Speaker 2 And then didn't take him to the hospital.

Speaker 1 And then made a pit stop to meet up with Braylon on the way home, who then followed him in his own car to Christian's.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, the encrypted data is the key to everything.

Speaker 1 Whether his friends are hiding something, or if this drug dealer could be involved, who, by the way, is actually in prison now for unrelated drug and gun charges. Or maybe it's none of them.

Speaker 1 Like I said, Brunswick Hills isn't a very diverse neighborhood. What if he encountered somebody on his walk in the middle of the night? Like, here's this black teenage boy walking by himself.

Speaker 1 Maybe he came across the wrong person.

Speaker 2 I mean, in any of these scenarios, I think someone on that street knows something or saw something.

Speaker 1 Or we're missing a piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 1 One thing that really trips me up is the neighbor we talked to said that he'd had his windows open that night and his dogs didn't bark and he didn't hear anything.

Speaker 1 The teen boys didn't mention hearing anything either until Christian started calling for help. So did whatever happened to him happen inside somewhere?

Speaker 1 Did it happen so fast that he didn't have time to make noise?

Speaker 2 I I mean, I'm tripped up on the fact that he could talk. He could ask for like a Coke to drink, but he couldn't say what had really happened to him or who did it.

Speaker 1 Which I think could be a result of his injuries.

Speaker 1 I actually looked like some of this up and there are ways that his brain could have been affected by what happened to him, like not getting enough oxygen to the brain due to the punctured lung or low blood pressure from his internal injuries that affected his brain.

Speaker 1 Like he was probably even having trouble breathing from the punctured lung too, and more trouble talking.

Speaker 1 I mean, I told you, there are still so many questions about Christian's death, and maybe the truth lives somewhere in the encrypted phone data.

Speaker 1 If that's the case, the clock is ticking because police are getting close to unwinding that.

Speaker 1 And I have a feeling if anyone is hiding anything, they might fare a lot better if they go to police before police have to come find them.

Speaker 1 So if you were on Topaz Lane on July 13th, 2024, or if you have camera footage from that area and day, now is the time to come forward.

Speaker 1 If something didn't happen inside at the party, then it had to have happened nearby.

Speaker 1 And if you don't know the whole story, maybe you know a piece of it, pieces that will help bring the whole picture into focus.

Speaker 1 Chrissy says that the person who murdered Christian didn't just take one life that night. They took six.
Her family has not been the same since his death.

Speaker 1 And more than anything, they want justice for the boy that they so lovingly refer to as Fat Man.

Speaker 1 He just graduated and had big future plans to pursue a trade, but all of that was stolen from him and his family.

Speaker 1 The police chief at Brunswick Hills Police Department actually made a website specifically for Christian's case.

Speaker 1 It includes the number to their dispatch, a link to send info straight to investigators, and info on how to share tips anonymously. So, we're gonna put a link to that website in our show notes.

Speaker 1 This case is solvable, it's only a matter of time, and you can come forward now or you can wait for that knock on your door.

Speaker 1 You can find all the source material on our website, crimejunkie.com.

Speaker 2 And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 1 We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Speaker 1 Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

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