What leads a person to kill their entire family and then go on a SCUBA tour in Mexico? Is it shame, guilt or something that no one other than the killer could understand?
On December 19th, 2001 in Waldport, Oregon a team on a fishing boat were out on the Alsea river when they discovered a floating pale corpse on the water. It was clear to them that it was a child because of its small stature. The fishermen called the police who were instantly at the scene. They would discover that the body was that of a young boy, around 3 or 4 years old, dressed in only his underwear. They couldn’t find any clear injuries or signs of his cause of death but it was clear that in life he was cared for just from his appearance he was well-fed and healthy.
The police initially believed that the boy had just walked into the water and sadly drowned. At first, the police waited for his carers to report him as missing but when that report never came, they had to take matters into their own hands. The police began sending out flyers and going door to door asking if anybody had any information about the unidentified boy. Thankful, it was a small community and their efforts paid off.
Denise Thompson spotted a flyer around town and called the police with a name. Zachery Longo.
Denise was willing to share all the information she had about how she knew the boy. Denise worked alongside Zachery’s father, Christian Longo, at a local Starbucks. She was able to tell the police that the entire family consisted of Christian, Mary-Jane, Zachery (4), Sadie (3) and Madison (1). Denise knew them so well since she would often babysit the kids.
When asked when she had last seen Christian, Denise revealed some startling information to the police. They were at work when Christian told her that Mary-Jane was breaking up with him and taking the three kids away. Christian didn’t show up for his next shift. Denise believed that he was taking some personal time since to her he was a devout family man.
The police conduct a welfare check on the remaining members of the Longo family, concerned that what was described as a devout family man wouldn’t report his son as missing. The home was a one-bedroom condo sitting on the water’s edge. When nobody answered their knocks, the police managed to get in touch with the landlord. In speaking with the landlord, the police found out that the Longos were behind on rent and that the only reason that he had rented to the family initially was because Christian told him he worked for a telephone company. Inside the condo, it looked untouched with clothes and possessions left behind but no clues as to where the family were.
The police would contact the FBI to conduct a nationwide search for the family becoming increasingly worried for their safety. At the same time as they were conducting nationwide searches, teams of divers went into the waters to search for anything that may help. Near the Lint Slough Bridge, Sadie Longo was found under the water, weighted down by a pillowcase filled with rocks tied around her ankle. A little ways from her there was a second pillowcase found, it is believed that it was tied to Zachery’s ankle.
Tips on a hotline the police set up for any information about the family or the murders only a few would lead to anything of value. One of those tips, a man was on the bridge the night of the murders and he saw someone parked on the bridge. When he pulled over to help, the man reassured him that the car just needed to cool down and he’d be fine. The man who gave the police the tip gave a basic description of the man and his red minivan. The description was eerily similar to Christian Longo.
After other tips came through that painted Christian in a suspicious light, the police began to look into his past. Raised devout Jehovah’s Witness, he would meet Mary-Jane at the local Kingdom Hall. The two would marry in the Spring of 1993 he was 19 and she was 25.
From the moment that Christian proposed his life began spiralling down into a life of lies and crime. It began with stealing $100 from work to pay for the large 3.5-carat diamond ring he proposed with. Guilt kicked in and Christian wrote a check to reimburse what he had stolen but his roommates, who were also Jehovah’s Witnesses, turned Christian into the congregation elders. He would be sanctioned for theft and he and Mary-Jane were unable to marry in the Kingdom Hall. Despite that, the couple married anyways.
The newlyweds began living a life of lavishness but neither could support that lifestyle and soon they went into debt but it is unclear if Mary-Jane knew.
In an attempt to pay off his debt, Christian and his brother founded a construction clean-up business. It became moderately successful. Yet it wasn’t earning enough money for anyone to live as luxurious as the life that Christian was living. He would lie about the money he earned to anyone that would listen, even managing to convince his father to invest tens of thousands into the business.
But the house of cards would crumble when one client missed a payment. Christian not wanting anything to seem amiss with his family, started writing bad checks to himself from the business and forging checks from clients.
Despite what he was desperately trying to do, one of the Longos’ cars was repossessed for non-payment which would lead to Christian stealing a van from a state over and gifting it to Mary-Jane.
Their lifestyle of luxury and crimes would eventually lead to Christian forcing his family to pack up their lives and move. Going through different cheap motels and campsites until the family made it to Oregon and Christian managed to get his job at Starbucks, under the guise that he just loved coffee. Mary-Jane would continue to be none the wiser, being lied to by her husband the whole time.
This would bring us back to the timeline of the case, to the day that Christian would later describe as “the beginning of the end.”. Also known as the day that Christian realised that his crimes were no longer paying the rent and he wanted Mary-Jane or the kids to be, in his words, “in a better place.”.
On December 27th, another team of divers went into the water near the condo. They would find 2 suitcases sunken at the river bed. One had human hair floating out, they would find Mary-Jane’s nude body inside, a clear hand-shaped bruise around her neck.
The second suitcase held Madison’s body along with random articles of clothes and a single dumbbell. Whoever had put her in the suitcase clearly didn’t want her to be found but they knew that her body alone wouldn’t keep the bag sunk.
The very next day Christian Longo was put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List for the murders of his three children and wife.
Within 48 hours, two tips came in of sightings of Christian, both of them in Mexico. One was a Candian tourist and the second was a Mexican tour guide who took him on a snorkelling tour before leading him back to his camp. Christian had gone by the name Mike on the tour.
Once the bureaucratic details were in order, officers put Christian Longo under surveillance. They watched as Christian, going by Mike Finkel a reporter for the New York Times, was bar-hopping and picking up women.
On January 14th 2002, Christian Longo was arrested on four counts of murder. He was in a cabana, smoking weed with a naked German photographer in his bed with him.
A jury would later find Christian Longo guilty of killing his four family members. He was sentenced to death for his crimes.
Years would go by before the official line of events would be confessed by Christian. He and Mary were making love when he strangled her with his bare hands, he then went through to Madison and repeated the process to her. He described that the action was far too upsetting for him to repeat so whilst he threw his slain victims out in suitcases, he tried to work out what to do with the other children. Once it was decided, Christian took Zachery and Sadie out for a drive in the family’s red minivan, the drive sending them to sleep. As the children were sleeping, Christian tied pillowcases filled with rocks to their ankles and tossed them into the river from off the bridge. He strangled his first two victims but because it was too saddening for him to repeat he drowned the other children in a river.
Christian remains on death row in Oregon to this day.
(originally posted on medium.com/@natasha.leigh)
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