Cedar City | 13

Speaker 1 Wandry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of KO List early and ad-free. Join Wandry Plus in the Wandry app or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 Hi, it's Carl. A quick warning before we start that this episode includes allegations of child abuse.

Speaker 1 11 miles southwest of Cedar City, Utah, the Pence family home sits as a dot of white against the arid and unchanging landscape.

Speaker 1 The three-storey seven-bedroom house lies in a shallow valley. The backdrop is a mountain range of iron red rock.
It's just before dawn, and for Christopher Pence, the day begins much like any other.

Speaker 1 Chris is 40 years old and looks like your typical all-American dad with curly brown hair and square glasses. He looks like, he is, an IT security expert.

Speaker 1 He works remotely for Microsoft from his home office.

Speaker 1 Barefoot, Chris leaves his wife Michelle and pads down the hallway to wake up some of his children, including his daughter, Serenity.

Speaker 1 Today is Serenity's 11th birthday, but even so, for her and all the Pence children old enough, the day begins with Bible study. In the Pence family, children are, as Chris likes to say, a blessing.

Speaker 1 They have 16 children in total, from a tiny baby through to college-aged teenagers.

Speaker 1 Chris settles onto the floor of the living room with his children gathered around him. They begin with a prayer before turning to the scripture.
It's still dark outside as they read.

Speaker 1 The moment of quiet reflection lasts for 20 minutes and then it is interrupted by a loud and sudden bang

Speaker 1 and suddenly the house is lit up.

Speaker 1 When Chris looks out the window, he can see a fleet of SUVs parked around the drive.

Speaker 1 He walks past the schoolroom where his children do their lessons and unlocks the deadbolt that fastens the front door.

Speaker 1 Chris peers out into the cold darkness of the early dawn.

Speaker 1 No fewer than 14 people stare back at him. Bulletproof vests under their FBI jackets, pistols, and rifles drawn.

Speaker 1 They're coming in, whether Chris Pence lets them or not.

Speaker 1 My name is Carl Miller.

Speaker 1 Since 2020, I've been part of a team working in secret to stop people getting murdered.

Speaker 1 We broke into a scam murder for hire website on the dark web, and it allowed us to see every order being placed. Real money being paid to have real people murdered.

Speaker 1 The tally of these targets is now in the hundreds. We call it the kill list.

Speaker 1 So far, we've managed to help law enforcement arrest or convict more than 30 people all around the world.

Speaker 1 In doing so, we've learned that the kill list is a window into the lives of people caught up in situations you just wouldn't believe.

Speaker 1 This story stands out though, as one where the murder order itself is not the strangest nor the darkest part.

Speaker 1 The people at the heart of this case aren't the targets, but a group of five children caught in the middle of an extraordinary feud between two warring families.

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Speaker 1 From Wondery and Novel, I'm Carl Miller,

Speaker 1 and this is Kill List.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 4 so there you go. I appreciate everything, Chris.
Please get in, relax.

Speaker 1 Within 15 minutes of the FBI's arrival, Chris Pence has been escorted outside and into the back seat of an unmarked SUV.

Speaker 1 With him is Special Agent Brian DeCarr.

Speaker 4 Are you warm? I'm

Speaker 4 sitting there. Yeah, we'll get you warmed up.

Speaker 1 We've managed to get hold of the tapes. So what you're hearing now is a live FBI interrogation.

Speaker 4 I appreciate you being so understanding. Yeah, I'd love to know what's going on.
Oh, yeah, no, no. We're going to get all your questions answered.

Speaker 1 What I want to give you. Inside the house, Chris's family have been rounded up and taken to the living room whilst the team of agents carry out their search.

Speaker 1 And yet, despite the early morning raid, the drawn guns and the search warrant, Chris Pence is not under arrest.

Speaker 1 As they begin to talk, the whole tone is bizarrely friendly.

Speaker 1 By the time a second FBI agent, Chris Anderson, opens the door to join them, he finds the two men chatting away like a couple of dads at the school gates.

Speaker 4 I was just telling what this cruise I went. He's from

Speaker 4 originally from like the Seattle area.

Speaker 1 After some more small talk, the agents discreetly turn the conversation towards a subject they really want to discuss with Chris.

Speaker 4 What we're dealing with in this here is that there's just some suspicious activity on the internet,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 our obligation is to investigate that and figure out what is going on with it.

Speaker 1 Then they start to ask questions about the dark web.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you're aware of it. Have you ever been on the dark web? No.
Never? No. Okay.

Speaker 4 Do you so if not the dark web, like, look, we're all adults here, okay? So we've grown men in the car here.

Speaker 4 So, but, like, so, like, when I ask you this, like, what's tell me about the worst website you've ever been on?

Speaker 1 Tell me about the worst website you've ever been on. It's an excruciating question.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 I've

Speaker 4 looked at porn before porn, okay. That's not a crime to look at porn, right? Did you do that on the regular internet?

Speaker 4 We're all adults here. I don't know an adult that hasn't seen porn.
Okay, so let's get that. Let's get that out of the way.

Speaker 4 I don't know an adult that hasn't seen porn. Okay, do you do that on the regular internet?

Speaker 4 Yes. Okay, what kind of porn are you looking at?

Speaker 4 I'm

Speaker 4 not sure where this is going.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure where this is going.

Speaker 1 The whole atmosphere is deeply uncomfortable. First, the agents act like they're Chris's buddies.
Now they're asking him about his porn habits.

Speaker 1 And with no real explanation about what on earth is going on.

Speaker 1 But I can tell you exactly what's going on.

Speaker 1 Just under two months earlier, we passed the FBI a kill order. And that kill order led the FBI straight to Chris Pence.

Speaker 4 Good day, Admin. I have a couple targets, a husband and wife, that I'm meeting removed.
However, it is known that they and I don't quite see eye to eye on something.

Speaker 1 The user requests that the killing look like a robbery gone wrong.

Speaker 4 They most likely will have three children in the car with them.

Speaker 4 I am really trying to avoid them from being hurt.

Speaker 1 Then they settle on a price, $16,000, $8,000 per person, which is quickly transferred.

Speaker 1 The targets targets are a married couple living in Albany, New York. The user supplies photos, an address, and their names, Christina and Francisco.

Speaker 1 The FBI took our information on the kill order and traced the Bitcoin wallet account back to Chris Pence.

Speaker 1 But the FBI are worried that with so many people in Chris Pence's house, he might be able to argue that it wasn't him who placed the kill order.

Speaker 1 The FBI say that without a confession, there isn't enough evidence to arrest Chris.

Speaker 1 So this strange, meandering conversation with Chris, it's all to get to the bottom of what connects him to this couple, Christina and Francisco, two and a half thousand miles away on the other side of the country, and to make sense of why.

Speaker 1 he wants them dead.

Speaker 1 The two FBI agents quickly change the subject again, away from Chris Pencer's porn habits and to his unorthodox family situation.

Speaker 4 You know, I was just doing the math on this.

Speaker 4 You have a lot. I was just doing the stickers in my head.

Speaker 4 Those are all your biological children, too? No. No.

Speaker 4 You adopted five? So they're all still all five are their brothers and sisters. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 4 That's amazing. So you adopted five kids from one family.

Speaker 4 Oh my.

Speaker 4 Seems like you guys are cohesive now. I mean, I tell you,

Speaker 4 it's amazing.

Speaker 4 You obviously are a wonderful provider for this family, and I haven't had a chance to really talk to your wife or anyone else, but I imagine that the love you have for these kids is as if they're your own.

Speaker 4 They are.

Speaker 4 Yeah. There it is.
Perfect. Yep.
There it is.

Speaker 1 This seemingly innocent, almost wayward approach to questioning isn't an accident.

Speaker 1 Because it will pull this conversation towards answering the case's biggest mystery. The reason why Chris Pence might have wanted to attempt a double murder.

Speaker 1 The FBI suspect that what connects Chris Pence to the couple in Albany, the couple they suspect him of trying to murder, is that they are the biological parents of his five adopted children.

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Speaker 1 Chris Pence has 16 children in total, 11 biological kids with his wife Michelle, and five children, all adopted from one couple.

Speaker 1 The FBI steers the conversation to these two people, Christina and Francisco. Agent DeCarr asks Chris how he met them and their kids.

Speaker 4 No, they're we met them in Massachusetts.

Speaker 4 You met them in Massachusetts? Yeah. Did you live there? No.
Oh.

Speaker 4 So do you want the long story or the short version?

Speaker 4 Give me the long one. This is this is.
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4 So we had a child and decided to take the the paternity leave and go on a six-week vacation.

Speaker 1 It all starts with a road trip the Pence family took in October 2018 in their RV.

Speaker 1 Back then, they were living in Washington state and they were celebrating the birth of their 10th child.

Speaker 1 The reason that Chris and Michelle have so many children is because of their faith as evangelical Christians. Chris says that as a younger man, he wanted to be an investment banker.

Speaker 1 He was motivated by money. But it made him miserable, and God revealed to him that every new child was a blessing from heaven, and that the real meaning of life was to lead his family.

Speaker 1 The Pence family were driving through Massachusetts when Chris's wife, Michelle, got a message online.

Speaker 1 It was from Christina, who found Michelle through a Facebook group they were both members of for mums who homeschool their children.

Speaker 4 We were traveling around

Speaker 4 and a lady reached out saying that she needed help

Speaker 4 with her children.

Speaker 4 And she was in Massachusetts and we just happened to be driving through Massachusetts at the time. So we said, well,

Speaker 4 we can stop and pray with you, but we're on vacation

Speaker 4 and so we're not planning on staying a whole lot longer.

Speaker 4 So we stopped, we prayed with them. The mom basically said, look, I need somewhere for my kids to go.
They're not safe here.

Speaker 1 It's a big vacation. According to Chris, out of the blue, he and his wife have been asked by a total stranger if they will help rescue their children by taking them away.

Speaker 4 She didn't think the children were safe with her husband

Speaker 4 because of sexual

Speaker 4 tendencies.

Speaker 4 By the father. By the father.
Towards the children? No. Okay.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 just towards women in general. Okay, so he had some behavior, sexual behaviors, I guess.
That's not towards the children.

Speaker 4 Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 They weren't safe with her husband. They weren't safe with her husband.
That's what she said. She didn't give any reasons for that?

Speaker 4 She mentioned that he looked at porn.

Speaker 4 He looked at porn. That's what she said.
We all do, though. We just talked about that.
But that's the reason she gave for them not being safe. Okay.

Speaker 4 Maybe he was exposing them to porn. You don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 1 Beyond the father's alleged issues with porn, there were other problems, too. The family were not wealthy, and their housing situation was extremely insecure.

Speaker 1 They were a family of eight people, two adults and six children, living in an RV. Winter was fast approaching, and they had not been able to find any secure housing.

Speaker 4 So we, um, we said, are you sure?

Speaker 4 Yes, well, okay. okay,

Speaker 4 tell you what. We'll go to Rhode Island.
We'll stay there a couple days. We'll come back.

Speaker 4 And if this is still something you're interested in, we'll talk about it further. So, we went to Rhode Island, came back, and she

Speaker 4 said, Yeah, look, this is the best thing for my children. Can you just take them and go?

Speaker 1 I really struggle to make sense of this situation.

Speaker 1 The penses are being asked to take a group of children from a couple of strangers after only exchanging a handful of online messages, without apparently any contact at all with the authorities, and with only the vaguest of explanations for why the children should leave their parents.

Speaker 1 What we do know is that Chris and Michelle were looking to adopt for a while. They put up an advert online a few years earlier.

Speaker 1 Chris's wife, Michelle, had her own experiences of the care system, and she wanted to give a set of siblings a childhood she'd never had.

Speaker 1 Her words from her advert are read by Nectar.

Speaker 6 I was a foster child myself. I understand the struggles and pitfalls of going through the system and never being adopted.

Speaker 6 My sibling group was also split up, which was harder on me than losing my mother.

Speaker 6 We plan on being their lifelong family. We are committed to our adopted children, the same as our biological children.

Speaker 1 Their online advert stated the Penses could take a sibling set of up to five children, but Christina and Francisco had six.

Speaker 1 So the initial arrangement was for the Pences to take all but the eldest boy for six months. Then they would return to their birth parents.

Speaker 1 It was meant to be a temporary placement, not a permanent adoption. Finally, they gave the mother, Christina, one last chance to change her mind.

Speaker 4 Just asked, uh...

Speaker 4 And they said, yes, this is the best thing.

Speaker 4 So, we left. We got to Massachusetts with 10 children and left there with 15.
You left on the same trip? Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's a moment here that we know must have happened, but we aren't able to see.

Speaker 1 A moment that must have been just so incredibly difficult.

Speaker 1 The children, these two girls and three boys, who all seemed to be aged between one and ten, would have packed up their things and hopped into the RV and then driven away with the pences, leaving their old family behind.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine what that experience must have been like for the children to suddenly be taken away like that.

Speaker 1 Chris tells the FBI a story that gives us a clue.

Speaker 1 With their five new children in tow, along with the ten they already had, the Pencees carried on their holiday.

Speaker 1 The new enlarged family took a visit to Mount Vernon in Virginia, George Washington's home and plantation.

Speaker 4 One of the workers there said, wow, this is a lot of children. Are they all one family?

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 we're all one family.

Speaker 4 And the second oldest daughter we picked up said, no, there's 10 of them and five of us and they took us from our parents in Massachusetts. Hmm.
Okay.

Speaker 4 All right, let's keep moving.

Speaker 1 At the end of the vacation, the five children came back to Washington with the Pencees.

Speaker 1 They were homeschooled, just like the other Pence children, and just as they had been with their birth parents.

Speaker 1 So there were no public school teachers on either end of this exchange who would notice that five children had disappeared from one classroom and suddenly arrived in another.

Speaker 1 After six months, the birth parents Christina and Francisco asked for the arrangement to be extended and the Pencas agreed.

Speaker 1 And what had started as a short-term fostering situation began to spool out into a seemingly indefinite limbo.

Speaker 1 When the authorities in Massachusetts got wind of the situation, they reached out to the Pencys.

Speaker 1 The Department of Children and Family Services were already investigating the birth parents, Christina and Francisco, regarding their remaining eldest child.

Speaker 1 And they wanted to find out where the other five were.

Speaker 4 DCS came to us and said, we understand you have these five children.

Speaker 1 The Pences asked Christina what was going on.

Speaker 4 So then she said, it's not safe because we said, hey, look, DCS is talking to us about the children. And so she asked, well, would you consider adopting them?

Speaker 4 Okay. So we said,

Speaker 4 sure.

Speaker 1 The birth parents, Christina and Francisco, were scared that if the kids came back to Massachusetts as they'd originally planned, the local authorities would have put them into foster care and split them up.

Speaker 1 And so as they saw it, the only way of keeping hold of the children in some way was to allow them to be permanently adopted by the Pencees.

Speaker 1 Adopting the kids was not straightforward emotionally or practically.

Speaker 1 The authorities seemed not to have been comfortable with the whole arrangement, but Christina and Francisco would not risk the children being split in the care system if they let them return to Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 Very rapidly, an agreement was reached, and in December 2019, 14 months after their first meeting, the Pencees legally adopted the five children.

Speaker 1 With the already large family having now grown permanently larger, they needed to find somewhere new to live. So the Pencees moved to a new home in Texas.

Speaker 1 But things did not go smoothly, and the Pence's quickly realized that their adopted children were struggling to adapt to their new life.

Speaker 1 Chris's wife Michelle was stressed, and she vented her frustrations on a blog. Her words are read by an actor.

Speaker 6 Keeping everyone busy has been an essential around here because the children miss their parents like crazy.

Speaker 1 She seemed frustrated to realize how different her new children were from her own and overwhelmed by the behavioural problems that followed the children's abrupt separation from their birth parents.

Speaker 1 She wrote about the newfound disharmony in her house and epic meltdowns.

Speaker 6 Never have we had anyone struggle with sharing, and now it's a huge problem.

Speaker 6 Never have we had anyone seeking to undermine anyone else or using the level of sharp words and unkind attitudes that we see here now?

Speaker 6 Never have we seen anyone give an eye roll before this experience, not to mention the screeching and yelling and whining that accompanies the above.

Speaker 1 However, this would not just be a question of five children coming to terms with their new life with the Pencas.

Speaker 1 Because pretty much as soon as the adoption was finalized, the birth parents, Christina and Francisco, followed the Pencees to Texas to try and be closer to the children they'd just given away.

Speaker 1 We have Christina and Francisco's pictures from the Kill Order. Francisco is in his early 30s.

Speaker 1 He looks fresh-faced, with glasses and a mohawk of dark hair sitting in the centre of his otherwise shaved head. Christina looks a little older.
She has a round face, brown hair and a warm smile.

Speaker 1 Like the Pence's, they're also devoutly Christian. Christina signs off her emails, Daughter of the King of Kings.

Speaker 1 In Texas, they moved about an hour and a half away from the Pence's new home. Now, exactly what happened next is contested.
But here's the Pence's version of things.

Speaker 1 The birth parents were legally entitled to two visits per year over a period of five days. Together with the Pence's, they'd have days out together, like trips to the zoo.

Speaker 1 But according to Chris, things did not go smoothly. For starters, the adopted children learned that Christina and Francisco had decided to have two more children.

Speaker 1 According to Chris, this causes adopted kids to become upset and confused. Why would their biological parents give them up if they were going to have more?

Speaker 1 And the relationship between the Pencees and the birth parents was not just becoming more fractious, but also more intense.

Speaker 4 They were under

Speaker 4 the suspicion that they'd be able to move in with us and we'd be

Speaker 4 one big happy family.

Speaker 4 And we've

Speaker 4 had to basically state that it can't be like that.

Speaker 4 They wanted to move in with you?

Speaker 4 Wow. That's what it seemed like.

Speaker 4 They were really looking forward to moving their trailer down to our property, which we said no.

Speaker 4 They were really looking forward to moving within a block of us and going to the same church. We said it's not gonna work.
Sounds like they

Speaker 4 were looking for a solution to have their cake and eat it too, get their kids away from the state in a protected, you know, custody situation with you guys, but still be able to be the parents, it sounds like.

Speaker 4 That's what it sounded like.

Speaker 1 Chris claims that during these annual visits, he was becoming increasingly concerned that Christina and Francisco were trying to drive a wedge between them and their adopted children.

Speaker 4 The birth parents were telling the adopted children that

Speaker 4 Michelle and I, the adopted parents, were not allowing the birth parents to come over. Oh, oh, so she was feeding the kids.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 So he's got his problems and she's feeding the kids information that is supposed. supposed to look bad for you.
It's certainly not helpful for the family. I can see where the friction is.

Speaker 1 Chris tells the FBI that things came to a head at a meeting at a Whataburger restaurant in Minneola, Texas.

Speaker 4 Ended up with them having a list of demands that they wanted of us.

Speaker 4 They provided you with a list of demands.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Demands. Hey, help us, help us.
We're in a really bad spot. We need you to adopt our kids and take care of them, but now we have demands.

Speaker 4 And we know that these demands don't have any legal standing, but they're demands. Yep, here we go.

Speaker 4 I'm getting frustrated for you.

Speaker 1 The Pencees wanted to get away from Christina and Francisco. So after only a year of living in Texas, they packed up to Cedar City, Utah.
They've got no connection to the area.

Speaker 1 Chris Pence just found the house online. Michelle gave birth to their 11th biological child, taking the total to 16.
And they did not give Christina and Francisco their new address, only a P.O.

Speaker 1 box that they could write to. So in May 2021, three months before the kill order was placed, Christina and Francisco moved back to the East Coast, to their present home in rural upstate New York.

Speaker 1 So far, everything Chris Pence is saying is pointing towards a strained relationship with his adopted children's birth parents.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't explain why a very religious father of 16 would resort to murder.

Speaker 1 For their part, the FBI have been carefully lulling Chris into a false sense of security.

Speaker 1 They've been peppering him with seemingly innocent, seemingly sympathetic questions that have helped to create a shared narrative about who he is.

Speaker 1 That he's a good dad with a beautiful home who would do anything for his children. But now, Agent Dakar is ready to hit him with what they really know.

Speaker 4 I know that you've been on some websites you shouldn't be on. In fact, I know you've been on a murder for hire website.

Speaker 1 He shows Chris the messages, the Bitcoin wallet information, the IP address, and the fact that all of it traces back to Chris.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 we know that you run the murder fire website, okay?

Speaker 4 I understand why, and after talking to you,

Speaker 4 everything you're dealing with,

Speaker 4 everything that you're doing, you are the protector of these kids, okay?

Speaker 4 You are the savior of these kids, and you do this for the family. And it's clear to me, I didn't understand why before, but it's very clear to me that you would do anything for these children.

Speaker 1 He then pulls out something else: a baby book full of photos of Christina and Francisco that were given to one of the younger children to help them know where they came from.

Speaker 1 And Agent Decar focuses on one photo in particular.

Speaker 4 This picture here,

Speaker 4 that picture there, is not on the internet anywhere. We can't find it.
And that's the picture that was submitted to the Murder for Hire website by you.

Speaker 4 You see where that's cropped out?

Speaker 1 Look at that.

Speaker 4 So I know that you took a photo of a photo

Speaker 4 and you submitted it to the Murder for Hire website. I know all of this.
That's why we're here today.

Speaker 1 Alright?

Speaker 4 So what I need you to just do for me is help me understand what got got you to that point.

Speaker 4 What got you to the point where you felt like you needed to have them killed. Because you told me there was friction.
I understand that. And I get it.
I understand where you're coming from.

Speaker 4 Okay?

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 you're obviously an amazing father. Okay?

Speaker 4 They pushed you to this. They pushed you and pushed you for years and years.
They pushed you.

Speaker 4 Here's the good news.

Speaker 4 They're not dead.

Speaker 4 Okay? They're not dead.

Speaker 1 We got the sight.

Speaker 4 What we want now are the people pulling the trigger.

Speaker 4 Those are the fish we're after. We want the big fish, the dangerous people.
Chris, you're not a dangerous guy.

Speaker 4 You're just a father who loves his family.

Speaker 4 That's what you are.

Speaker 4 We need you to help us.

Speaker 4 help us understand and then help us find these guys pulling the trigger.

Speaker 4 I'm looking for the guy that is going around killing people.

Speaker 4 Give me a second. Take your time.

Speaker 4 On more than

Speaker 4 sorry

Speaker 4 on more than one occasion,

Speaker 4 the children have been abused

Speaker 4 through discipline,

Speaker 4 through

Speaker 4 by the birth parents, and I know they're talking to their other ones.

Speaker 1 Chris goes on to make specific allegations involving the names of specific children, which we won't play you to protect their privacy.

Speaker 1 And pretty much immediately, he admits that he paid to have the birth parents Christina and Francisco killed.

Speaker 4 So what you're telling me is that you paid $15,000 on the Murder for Hire website to have Francisco, Christina killed

Speaker 4 his body.

Speaker 1 Now, it's important to stress that none of these allegations of abuse have ever been tested in court, nor have Christina or Francisco been charged with any crime, and they deny abusing their children.

Speaker 1 We'll be getting into that in more detail later on.

Speaker 1 For the FBI, the crucial thing is that Chris has confessed to the murder plot. And now they've got what they came for.
He's swiftly arrested, read his rights and handcuffed.

Speaker 1 As he sits on the back seat, he considers what he's done and what now lies ahead of him.

Speaker 4 Have I ruined my life?

Speaker 4 It is a hard road.

Speaker 4 It's not going to be peaches and cream.

Speaker 4 But you'll get through it, and you... I think there's a pretty good chance that you still have some quality of life ahead of you.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Thank you for whatever that's worth.

Speaker 1 Before they leave to go to jail and then court, the FBI ask Chris if he wants to talk to his wife, Michelle.

Speaker 4 Would you like that or what would you prefer?

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 Probably not.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then, just before he's taken away, Agent DeCarr runs back with a message.

Speaker 4 Chris, a couple things. I just spoke to Michelle.

Speaker 4 It's come from her. She's very upset, of course.
But you're a family. We're going to stand by you.
And you're going to get through it together.

Speaker 1 In spite of everything he's done, Chris Pence's family are standing by him.

Speaker 1 And based on what he's told the FBI, it seems like this situation could be even darker and more complex than law enforcement first thought.

Speaker 1 But this is a man who has every reason to lie here to make his actions seem more morally defensible. Which raises the question: did Francisco and Christina really abuse their children?

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Speaker 10 Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose.

Speaker 10 Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime.

Speaker 10 Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is also increased if you take certain prescriptions, over-the-counter or herbal medications, or have liver problems.

Speaker 10 Low blood pressure and fainting can happen when you take Addi, even if you don't drink alcohol or take other medicines. Do not take if you are allergic to any of the ingredients in Addi.

Speaker 10 Allergic reactions may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sleepiness, sometimes serious, can occur.

Speaker 10 Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and dry mouth.

Speaker 10 See full PI and medication guide including boxed warning at Addie.com/slash PI or call 844PinkPill.

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Speaker 1 This is not the first time we've heard allegations of child abuse on the kill list. And when allegations like this are made, it's important to take them seriously.

Speaker 1 But we also have to bear in mind that Chris Pence has every reason to try and make his crime seem more justifiable.

Speaker 8 This is definitely one of, if not the most, complicated cases we've ever seen.

Speaker 1 That's Caroline Thornham, my producer. She's been investigating the evidence to try and find out the answer to two really key questions.

Speaker 1 Number one, what is the truth, if any, behind the allegation that Christina and Francisco abused their children? And number two, were they trying to get their children back?

Speaker 8 One of the things that's really troubling as a journalist here is that we only have one side of the story to go off.

Speaker 8 So the first thing I did was reach out to the birth parents, Christina and Francisco, to see if they might be willing to give us their side of the story.

Speaker 8 And it wasn't long before I was on the phone talking directly with Christina.

Speaker 11 So when the agent called us and let us know that you might be contacting us, I decided to write up a little thing because I don't want to say too much.

Speaker 11 I don't want to regret what I say, but I do have a couple of comments that I would be comfortable being quoted on.

Speaker 11 So I could read it to you if you want.

Speaker 8 Christina read me the statement. It's a little hard to hear, so I'll read her statement for clarity.

Speaker 8 We never would have expected this from the man we thought we knew and chose to entrust our children to.

Speaker 8 We don't expect to understand why he chose to do what he's confessed to doing, but we choose forgiveness and we pray for him and for God's will in the whole legal process.

Speaker 8 Our hearts go out to his family for all the ways this changes their lives. Our desire is for open communication and trust going forward with the adoptive mother and family.

Speaker 8 There was no intent to regain custody. Our goal in conversation was always to restore open communication and trust.

Speaker 8 Now, this statement only gets us so far in answering the questions we have.

Speaker 8 So my colleagues and I have been digging through the court documents, and we've also been talking with Christina over email to try and get her and Francisco's side of things.

Speaker 8 So one of the things that makes this case so confusing is that there are so many children between these two families.

Speaker 8 When it comes to Christina and Francisco, there are eight children that we need to be focusing on here.

Speaker 8 There's the five children who ultimately went to live with the Pencas, the eldest boy who stayed behind, so that makes six, and then two more babies that were born afterwards.

Speaker 8 So the first first thing I'm thinking is, what was the home life like for the first six children before the Pensas got involved? And what's the evidence, if any, that they were being abused?

Speaker 8 Firstly, the Pensas allege that Christina and Francisco would beat their children with rods. Now, Christina denies that this was abusive.

Speaker 8 She says that they would engage in what's described as biblical spanking, which involved spanking the children with a rod as a form of discipline.

Speaker 8 Christina told us that she believes this is mandated by the Proverbs.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, Christina's referring to the authority of scripture, but what about the authority of the law?

Speaker 8 So, in Massachusetts, just like everywhere else in the US, it's legal for parents to use corporal punishment.

Speaker 8 However, the force used has to be reasonable and it has to be done in a way that doesn't cause physical harm, gross degradation, or severe mental distress.

Speaker 8 Christina says that this biblical spanking was done, quote, with a goal of correcting the child in love, not in anger, but that is a hard line to draw sometimes as a parent and proved challenging for my husband.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, whatever you think about corporal punishment then, the idea of hitting a child with a rod in anger, as Christina said, well, that's actually definitely troubling, isn't it?

Speaker 1 But what about other allegations, Caroline, of further abuse? Things like sexual abuse? Yes.

Speaker 8 Francisco says the pence has accused him of engaging in sexually predatory behaviour by watching the children in the shower.

Speaker 8 Christina, the birth mother, denies that there was anything untoward about that and says that Francisco supervised the children in the shower for safety, but not in any way inappropriately.

Speaker 1 What about the issues around Francisco and pornography? Chris Pence, he told the FBI, didn't he? that that was a factor in why the children needed to leave them in the first place.

Speaker 8 Yeah, and we learned quite a lot about this in the court documents. So crucially, we got hold of the notes from an interview the FBI conducted with Francisco.

Speaker 8 So Francisco told the FBI that he had a pornography addiction and would watch it compulsively on his phone, at his home, or in his car, and sometimes he would masturbate in parking lots.

Speaker 8 He told the FBI that he once accidentally looked at child sexual abuse material, which he claims had been posted on an unrelated Facebook group.

Speaker 8 And he sometimes intentionally watched porn containing bestiality.

Speaker 8 All of this led to allegations by the Department of Children and Family Services in Massachusetts that Francisco had been exposing his children to porn.

Speaker 8 But Francisco maintained that he only watched it in places where the children couldn't see.

Speaker 1 So did the Department of Children and Family Services ever step in then on the base of his allegations to actually do an investigation? Yes, they did.

Speaker 8 These investigations centered on Christina and Francisco's eldest child, so that's the one who stayed behind when his siblings left with the Pencas.

Speaker 8 He was taken into foster care for 18 months, and later, when Christina gave birth to her seventh child, the baby was immediately taken into care for a week.

Speaker 8 Now, ultimately, both children were returned, and Christina maintains that she and Francisco have never abused the children.

Speaker 8 She says that despite all these interventions and investigations, the allegations weren't proven, and that she and Francisco ultimately were vindicated.

Speaker 8 We haven't been able to independently corroborate that. Christina says she has no documentation that she can share with us to show what the authorities concluded.

Speaker 8 And DCF wouldn't talk to us either, which, given how sensitive this all is, is hardly surprising.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of allegations and also actually a lot of facts there that are really unsettling.

Speaker 1 And it's hard to believe that the authorities would do something so extreme as to take away a newborn baby unless there were really very serious concerns indeed.

Speaker 1 But at the same time, there's no definitive investigation, is there? Or a judgment that we can point to that can actually help us say what did happen and what didn't and by whom and when.

Speaker 8 No, exactly. But even if we don't have all the answers...

Speaker 8 This seems to be a family with a lot of issues that make you really worry about the welfare of the kids and what they've potentially been exposed to here.

Speaker 1 What about this idea that Christina and Francisco were also trying to get their kids back?

Speaker 8 So, according to Chris Pence, this is the key trigger for why he placed Christina and Francisco on the kill list.

Speaker 8 He says that beyond all the allegations of abuse, he feared that his adopted children would be returned to their birth parents and that the kill order was a misguided attempt to stop that from happening.

Speaker 8 For her part, Christina denies trying to get the children back or ever trying to move in with the pencils.

Speaker 8 She says that they never took any steps to try and retake custody of the kids, so there was no legal process underway.

Speaker 8 However, both Christina and Francisco said things that might have given the pencils the impression that they were going to try.

Speaker 8 So during one of the annual visits, Francisco asked one of the children if they wanted to come back and live with him and Christina. Something Christina says was a mistake.

Speaker 8 And as the conversation around visitations became more and more fractious, Christina did offer to take the children back.

Speaker 8 She also told the Pencas that she and Francisco would have a case to do so via the courts, but that they wouldn't go down that route as long as the Pencas communicated more openly and honestly with them.

Speaker 1 I can't help but wonder that neither side is telling the full truth here. I mean, they're each claiming the other side is wrong.

Speaker 1 They're both claiming to be acting in the children's best interests, but they're also also both making decisions that seem really questionable.

Speaker 8 I think the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. I mean, like any conflict, both sides have a narrative and their own version of events.

Speaker 8 They've both got good reasons to spin the truth, right? Chris Pence wants to mitigate his crime, and Christina and Francisco want to see their children again.

Speaker 8 They haven't seen them since May 2021, four months before Chris Pence was arrested. So as journalists, we have to try and pick our way through these competing motives.

Speaker 8 And to me, it boils down to this. On the one hand, we can see that there really were concerns about the children's welfare, right? And those concerns were not just expressed by the Pence's.

Speaker 8 On the other hand, I don't think the children were at imminent risk of being returned to their birth parents.

Speaker 8 Like there was no legal process underway and the children were thousands of miles away in a remote location which Christina and Francisco didn't even have the address for.

Speaker 8 So for me, the idea that Chris Pence did this because he was was scared his children might get returned to their birth parents just doesn't make sense. Instead, I think the core trigger here is anger.

Speaker 8 We know that the adoption created a lot of stress in the Pence family home, and that Chris and Michelle believed those problems were being exacerbated by their children's ongoing contact with the birth parents.

Speaker 8 And as this dispute ratcheted up, Christina says Chris Pence would often leave her emails unanswered.

Speaker 8 When she asked him why, he told her it was because they made him so angry that he needed to take time to calm down.

Speaker 8 And that anger, to me, far better explains Chris Pence's actions than any of the other things we've heard in this story.

Speaker 8 To me, it seems very rich for Chris Pence to like sit there and say that he was acting with the children's best interests at heart when literally in the order messages he acknowledges the possibility that you know, Christina and Francisco could be killed in a situation which could cause their other children harm.

Speaker 8 Like, he's not even thinking about their welfare at all. So, how can he possibly claim that he's some kind of great patriarchal protector here?

Speaker 1 I mean, and ultimately, this was something that Chris Pence was trying to do to give satisfaction to Chris Pence,

Speaker 1 like, not to protect those kids.

Speaker 8 There is no possible world where the best option for these children is having their biological parents murdered.

Speaker 8 Like, to have not thought about the horrendous emotional psychological toll it would take on the kids, let alone, you know, the horrific act of against their parents.

Speaker 8 It just seems so short-sighted and blinkered, and like somebody who was not thinking clearly. Chris Pence, to me, brewed a kind of anger inside him that evolved over time into a hatred.

Speaker 8 And that hatred ultimately gave way to this fantasy about having Christina and Francisco killed.

Speaker 1 So, what happened to Chris Pence in the end? Like, did his explanation, the one that we think anyway, was so problematic, I mean, did that actually help mitigate the sentence in the end?

Speaker 8 It didn't make a big difference. He pled guilty, and in the end, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Now, that's substantially below the 10-year maximum, but still a hefty sentence.

Speaker 1 I think the most remarkable thing to me, Caroline, is that the kill list is almost like the neatest part of this whole story.

Speaker 1 I mean, Chris has admitted to it, he's been convicted for it, his family is standing by him after that conviction, and Christina has says that she's forgiven him for doing it.

Speaker 1 But has the actual source of the conflict changed?

Speaker 8 Well, the five children remain with the Pencees, and Christina and Francisco are pushing to have their visitations reinstated.

Speaker 8 In the meantime, they're still trying to involve themselves in the adopted children's lives. And the only way they have of contacting them right now is via an email.

Speaker 8 The children still live with Michelle Pence, so Christina sends out a regular newsletter to her children, and we've seen one of them.

Speaker 8 The email is full of pictures of the three remaining children, the eldest boy who stayed behind and who's now a teenager, as well as the two toddlers who were born after the other ones were given away.

Speaker 8 The words from the email are read by an actor.

Speaker 12 May began with our second round of hatching chicks. We named the fluffiest one Sunshine because she's a pretty yellow.

Speaker 8 The pictures paint this portrait of a kind of idyllic family life, right? The kids are being showered with love and cuddles. They're playing with baby chicks, dressing up in costumes.

Speaker 12 We wrapped up our study of Ephesians and the preschool class dressed up in the armor of God. We hope that you are enjoying springtime as much as we are.
We love you very much.

Speaker 8 And I can't help but think about what that must be like to receive for the adopted children. You know, there's a couple of ways of interpreting this email and, you know, that are both valid.

Speaker 8 On the one hand, it shows a family who love their children and who I think are motivated by a sincere desire to have contact with the five children they gave away.

Speaker 8 And it's possible the children find that comforting. But on the other hand, I can also see how receiving an email like this could be upsetting.

Speaker 8 One of the photos shows that Christina is pregnant again, expecting her ninth child, and it must be difficult for the adopted children to see siblings they hardly know being showered with love after they they themselves were given away.

Speaker 8 What's clear is that Christina is signalling very clearly to her adopted children that she wants to be deeply involved in their lives, and that also means being involved with the pensors.

Speaker 1 So, what we have then is a situation that is completely irreconcilable.

Speaker 1 We have two sides who want utterly different things, but also two sides who are never really really gonna be able to escape each other.

Speaker 1 I mean they were brought together almost by chance but now they're never gonna be able to fully separate for the rest of their lives and it's that connection that the full implications of this story and I think of the kill list will be fully felt.

Speaker 1 You're gonna have Christina and Francisco who amazingly will still have some sort of contact in the years ahead with the man who tried to have them killed.

Speaker 1 They might even meet him in the future face to face. But then also, and this is where the impact I think will last the longest, you have the children in the middle of all of this.

Speaker 1 Children who are going to have to live their whole lives now with this knowledge that their adoptive father tried to have their biological parents murdered.

Speaker 1 And it seems clear to me that this story isn't over, it's not even close to being over. And it won't be until the questions at the heart of all of this have at least some sort of answer.

Speaker 1 Who is really acting in the best interests of the children? What do those children want? And how are they ever going to come to terms with the choices their parents have made?

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Kill List, a young woman in Bath, England discovers that someone somewhere is watching her.

Speaker 1 And it's up to her to work out just who her stalker could be.

Speaker 13 He still continued to send texts and threats saying things like,

Speaker 13 You shouldn't have gone to the police, we'll never leave you alone.

Speaker 13 I felt so unsafe, and I knew someone close to me is trying to do something seriously wrong here.

Speaker 1 If you like Kill List, you can binge all episodes ad-free right now by joining Wandry Plus in the Wandry app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Speaker 1 Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wandry.com/slash survey.

Speaker 1 From Wandery and Novel,

Speaker 1 this is Kill List.

Speaker 1 Kill List is hosted by me, Carmilla.

Speaker 1 The reporter for this episode is Caroline Thornham, and it was produced and written by our series producer, Tom Wright.

Speaker 1 Kill List is also produced by Jay Kotayevich, with additional production by Anna Sinfield. Our assistant producer is Amalia Sortland, and our researchers are Meghan Oyinka and Lena Chang.

Speaker 1 Additional research from Chris Montero. For Wanderer, our senior producer is Mandy Gorenstein.
Fact-Checking by Fendor Fulton.

Speaker 1 Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolf for Novel.

Speaker 1 Sarah Mathers is our managing producer and Callum Plus is our senior managing producer for Wandery. Original music by Skyler Gerdeman and Martin Linebell.

Speaker 1 Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien and Caroline Thornham. Sound design and mixing by Gareth Young.
Additional engineering by Daniel Kempson.

Speaker 1 For Novel, Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan for Novel.

Speaker 1 Executive producers for Wandery are Marshall Louie and Erin O'Flaherty.

Speaker 14 I'm Raza Jaffrey. And in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Morton Storm, the spy who who lived inside Al-Qaeda.

Speaker 14 Unfulfilled with his life in a notorious Danish biker gang, Morton Storm is lost. One afternoon, he stumbles into a library looking for answers.
He finds them in the form of a book about Islam.

Speaker 14 The towering ginger-haired Dane doesn't know it yet, but that moment will hurl him into a world of radicalism and see him rise through the ranks of militant Islamist organization, Al-Qaeda, only to suffer a huge crisis of faith.

Speaker 14 He turns from devotee to spy, tasked with with rooting out some of al-Qaeda's most feared generals.

Speaker 14 The CIA and MI5 bid for his allegiance as he loses himself in a life of cash-laden suitcases, double crosses, and betrayal.

Speaker 14 Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Lived Inside Al-Qaeda, early and ad-free, with Wondery Plus.