Original subtitles

[reporter] Um, I guess,

just so I have it spelled correctly,

-I have R, Y, A, N, no surprises on that? -That's correct.

-[reporter] Okay, and the last name? -Champion.

[reporter] Okay, um,

I guess the first question in all this,

how are you personally holding up?

My parents were...

...unbelievably good people.

Unbelievably good people, they...

[Ray Burnam] This is the Champion Farm.

They've lived here as far as I know since they were married.

Miss Champion was my school teacher

and I knew her very well.

My mom worked with her sister at the hospital.

Uh, small town, we just really knew her.

I was the Sheriff of Trigg County at the time.

It's a really quiet place,

we've never had any calls out here, nothing to speak of.

Uh, certainly nothing like happened that day.

[Lisa Champion] Oh, please!

[911 Operator] Okay, ma'am, come out of the house,

I want you out of the house.

-[Lisa] I am. I am. -[911 Operator] Okay.

[Lisa] I'm out here in the yard.

[crying] I'm out here in the yard.

[Lisa] It's a farming community.

That's basically what Trigg County is,

Trigg County in Cadiz.

It was established back, I think, 1820

because we just recently had a, you know, 200-year anniversary.

My father bought this farm down here in Trigg County

where our family home is...

...and my house is directly across the road

from Lindsey and Joy's house, my brother and sister-in-law.

That morning, I was sitting in my recliner with my laptop,

and shortly after 11:00 I heard gunshots.

And they were, they were big gunshots...

[loud gunshot]

[Lisa] ...and I thought, "those were really loud."

Then I hear somebody at my front door,

"Lisa! Lisa!"

Of course, all I thought of is,

"oh, my goodness, the cow's are out, the horses are out

or my dogs are chasing somebody that's riding a bicycle."

So, I come to my front door,

and there he is.

[phone beep]

And then, that's whenever he told me,

"yes, we need a ambulance."

So, that's whenever I thought, "something's bad."

So, I cut the tape off of his wrist,

and we go over there.

I pull into the yard and I said,

"well, where is everybody?"

And he said, "they're in there."

He said, "you don't wanna go in there."

And I said, "Lindsey..."

...he just shook his head...

...and I said, "Joy..."

...he just shook his head...

and I said, "Emily!"

And he just shook his head...

...and I knew then it was, this is bad,

and I opened the door.

[Burnam] I was down at my mom's eating dinner,

and I get a call on my phone from dispatch,

and I was told there was a multiple homicide out,

and gave me the address.

First, I kinda thought it was a joke,

that doesn't happen here, but I knew dispatch wouldn't do that.

So, of course, I immediately responded.

Emergency responders were very quick to arrive,

and then they, they shooed me out of the yard area

then they finally shooed me all the way across the road,

and I did what they told me to.

[Burnam] You're at a crime scene,

and, you know, you try to put emotions aside as best you can.

We're a small agency.

We did not have the man power to investigate this.

Soon after we arrived,

the state police, the first trooper arrived on scene,

and our immediate thing at that point

was just to assess the situation, see what was going on.

Initially when I pulled up,

it just looked like an all-American farmhouse.

It was two story, a way off the road,

long winding driveway, all very well kept.

Nothing looked distracted outside,

and, uh, inside was a completely different story.

Smelled like somebody was cooking dinner,

and there was a crockpot of some type of soup

in the kitchen, warm,

and, uh, that was for the family to have

once they got home from church that day.

We walked around the back side of the house.

We found Mr. Champion first.

And, uh, in the basement part of the house,

that's where we found Miss Champion.

And in the main, main level when we got in there

in the living room area, that's where we found Emily.

It was the most gruesome thing I've ever come up on.

Where you see that tree down there,

Ryan was outside

sitting just on the right side of the driveway.

He was mumbling.

Uh, at that point I knew there was really no need for me

to question, to get into a conversation with him,

and, of course, crowds were gathering at that time.

Uh, small community, the word gets out.

Family, friends, they were all across the street there,

uh, just wanting to know what's going on.

[Vickie Hendricks] When I got the phone call...

...that Joy and Emily and Lindsey had all been killed

at their home on Sunday morning after church,

I just did not get that,

I mean, it was just, that didn't make any sense at all.

I'm thinking, "can't be true, can't be true."

Joy was my best friend

for the better part of 30 years.

I remember...

...my mother died in 1994...

[sniffling]

...and Joy came right down.

No phone call or nothing, she just came right down.

She was that kinda person.

I'm sorry.

Lindsey enjoyed people.

He especially liked helping young people.

I remember my son was I guess an older teenager,

and he decided to get into the cattle-trading business, and, uh...

...Lindsey bought a cow and calf from him.

Not because he needed it, not because he wanted it,

he bought that cow and calf jus to help my son.

He enjoyed life, uh,

and he wanted to be as beneficial to other people as he could.

Emily and I being friends, we kinda did a lot of stuff together

both inside and outside of school.

We were actually voted the most likely to succeed at graduation,

um, you know, Emily was the salutatorian.

I couldn't believe she was gone.

This just doesn't make sense, why did this happen?

It was heartbreaking.

And then we just get this little glimmer of hope that,

"oh, Ryan is okay...

...at least somebody made it out...

...but this is the worst thing that could have happened to him.

This has to be a terrible experience."

Police arrive to find a horrific discovery

at this home off of Old Dover Road

in Cadiz, Kentucky.

A family of three shot dead.

Tonight the investigation continues into how all of this happened.

[Brett Miller] I'm looking, thinking, "well, okay, the son is out here,

he's alive, but three people that were dead.

The daughter's lying in here deceased,

the father's outside deceased,

and the mother is laying downstairs deceased...

...but then there's this gentleman laying in the kitchen on his back

with a bullet hole in the front of his head.

Didn't know who he was, nobody knew anything about him,

and so then I'm thinking, "well, then what the heck's going on?"

We're not 100% sure

of the, uh, the relationship between all the folks that were involved.

Uh, it's possible that the suspect

did know them, but it was just briefly.

[Nathan Butler] We knew that Miss Champion

and Lindsey and Emily had been killed,

and we knew that there was another person inside the house,

and we're trying to figure out who it was.

That was the big thing, trying to identify this gentleman

with a bullet hole in the front of his head.

He had a, some type of birthmark on his eyebrow

that was very distinct.

Uh, it made his eyebrow look a lot darker

and larger than it was over his right eye.

We found his ID on him, and it was Vito Riservato.

Nobody knew anything about him.

Probably 200 yards from the residence in a wooded area

there was a Ford Explorer found out there.

We ran it and it came back to Riservato.

They thought maybe it was a boyfriend

or an ex-boyfriend of Emily's.

But I had never heard of Vito.

As soon as I had a little information, I got on Facebook

and looked him up, and I thought,

"I don't know this person from Adam."

He doesn't strike me as anybody

that Emily would have anything to do with.

Frankly, it's not Emily's type,

this is just, this just doesn't make sense.

Why is there another person there that's involved in this?

It leads to the question of, well,

who have they been working with, you know,

was it a farm assistant?

[police siren]

Ryan was in construction doing repair jobs,

handyman-type stuff.

He said that Vito had been down on his luck financially

and had approached him seeking a job,

and so Ryan was going to hire Vito

to assist him in redoing bathrooms

and working on houses.

[Miller] Ryan had told us that Vito...

...was attracted to his sister, Emily,

and that it was more of an obsession.

He said he fired him before he ever worked for him, really.

He was trying to protect his sister

by keeping this creepy guy away.

And that's what made him believe

he needed to come over that Sunday with a firearm.

To show his sister how to protect herself.

Ryan said he brought the gun in from his truck...

...and set it on the landing in the kitchen

where they put their keys and whatever when they come inside,

and, uh, he had showed Emily how to load it,

how to, safety and stuff like that,

and then from out of nowhere...

...this gentleman, Vito Riservato,

appeared and he had a handgun on him.

[Miller] Ryan was taped up first

because he was the man and the threat.

And then, uh, his sister was taped up as well.

And, uh, Vito was talking to her,

saying some really, as he called it, corny cheesy lines to her.

Even, at one point, laid down next to her

and was talking to her.

Ryan said that he put a fight for his life

and he was able to, uh, take the weapon away

while Vito went to reload.

And, uh, Ryan was able to get one shot off,

killing Vito.

Saving himself.

[reporter] Ryan Champion is dealing with something

most people can't even fathom,

losing his entire family.

What do you want them to know about, you know,

this incredible ordeal, how you're doing and...

To be honest, I really don't know yet, really,

how to feel about any of it.

Uh, I was kind of at a crossroads of

of being glad to get out of there,

but at the same time...

...at the same time it was just, it was horrible.

If more details come out, I can...

-I can give more details. -Sure.

But I have to be very respectful of the investigation.

-I have to be respectful of the people involved. -Sure.

My parents were...

...unbelievably good people.

Unbelievably good people.

They...

[Lisa] Joy had two miscarriages.

And, and of course back then,

medical technology isn't what it is now.

And they thought that there was no hope in having a child

and so they adopted.

And he even had red hair like my brother Lindsey and I did

which was unusual.

And then whenever Emily came along,

it was kind of like a miracle, you know, happening.

This is pretty representative of them as kids. Um...

You know, I mean, I think they just had

different personalities at that time.

Uh, Ryan wanted to, to be seen.

And he was, you know, in some cases you might even,

sometimes called, like, the class clown, maybe?

A little bit. And Emily was definitely more structured.

Emily had a full ride scholarship to Western Kentucky University.

She got admitted into vet school as a junior.

Which is unheard of.

She worked at Delta Downs Racetrack as a horse veterinarian there.

[Hendricks] Ryan was a handful.

He was a ball of fire.

He was very, uh, assured.

You never felt like Ryan was afraid of anything.

They loved those kids as much as anybody

could possibly love their children.

They just devoted their lives to those children.

The rumor mill goes very fast in these small areas.

And I think word had gotten out that there were

three people that were dead,

including Vito to make the fourth.

Vito's roommates had contacted us,

uh, wanted to speak with an investigator.

After talking to his roommates in Hopkinsville,

we had the pretty good indication that Vito had been hired.

Several things were going through my head. And, uh...

One of them was just, "Why?"

[Butler] So, this is the high school that everyone went to.

You know, the, kind of the really neat thing is that

it's all on one campus.

So, this is kind of where you finish up.

But you start down here.

And it's just this progression of

starting out from kindergarten or preschool

and then the middle school

and the high school all together.

Emily and I first would have meet in kindergarten.

I meet Ryan a little later.

The biggest thing is that we were in Scouts together.

And we would go do camping trips together.

He had this kind of interesting ability to be

the person who would maybe pick on you a little bit.

But then could simultaneously turn around and be

a little bit of a protector if someone came after you.

[Miller] What was the motive for Vito?

The motive became fairly clear when we had some people

that Vito had been living with come forward

after they had heard what had happened

and heard that Vito was dead.

The roommates said that Vito had told them

that all of his financial problems had gone away now.

Or were going to go away.

The roommates told us that Vito was a non-violent person.

He had a baby that, uh, the mother, I believe lived in Louisville.

He would plan his visitations specifically so he could

spend as much time with his kid as he could.

That piqued my interest quite a bit

and it piqued everybody's interest quite a bit.

Um, because at the scene, the shots that were taken

were headshots. And they weren't misses.

-So... -[detective] Okay.

[roommate speaking]

At this point, after hearing the information from the roommates,

we started thinking about everything Ryan had told us

about the situation and circumstances

surrounding his family being killed.

His story just seemed very odd.

-We're on now? -[man] Yeah, it's on.

[Miller] Today's date, October 29th, 2014.

Time is 1311 hours.

Ryan Champion is present for a walkthrough at the residence.

So we thought that if we got a walkthrough,

and Ryan could show us what had happened,

that might make things make more sense.

Do I need to do any of the backstory or anything,

or just the physical actions?

-[Miller] Just, tell me what's happening. -Okay.

All right, I come in that-- I come in that morning.

[Miller] We have reenactment set up at the house.

And I went and I bought the same roll of duct tape

that was used to tape up Emily and Ryan

from the same Dollar General store.

You know, I came in with the gun.

I, that was, I had a talk with her.

I was like, "Do you understand? You know, that--"

-[Miller] Oh, you came in with a gun? -Yes.

[Miller] In from where?

In from outside.

Uh, it was, the gun was in my truck.

Uh, it was dad's gun. I had it.

It was one-- It was the gun that I used when I went

anywhere for work.

[Miller] I brought an airsoft weapon that would function

now similarly to the weapon that was actually used in the crime.

Well, if you heard this door open...

The door opened. We're not thinking...

I'm just thinking that's mom walking in.

Um, I mean, like, at the time it was just a minor shock,

like, "Vito?"

But it, now it's just like creepy.

It's like it haunts me.

But he just kind of... He just kind of, like,

"Hey guys, what's up?"

And, you know, Emily...

I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at him

-from your vantage point. -[Miller] You're sitting here.

[Ryan] And I was about halfway up

and as soon as he saw me getting up,

he rounded the corner.

What'd he say?

He said, "Let's not make this any more messy than we have to be."

Mom and dad had, like, were making the drive around.

Looking, looking.

Just looked confused.

Just, "[beeping]."

He ran out.

[Miller] Okay. He's outside.

What did you hear happen next? What happened?

All right.

I come over here to Emily.

I'm like, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

And that's when I kind of hear...

Uh, that's when we hear a gunshot.

And we both kind of just freeze.

You know? We just...

During the process of the reenactment,

um, throughout, it was about an hour and a half long,

he's giving me these signals.

[Ryan] He runs back inside with the gun.

He's looking at me. He runs right past me.

And then he goes--

You step off to the side?

Yeah, I step off to the side.

He runs right in there.

I follow him in.

She had crawled around the thing

and he just reached in there and, without a word.

And was he processing this in a way that that's just how he is normally

or is he involved in this to a degree

that he's trying to appear that he's not?

-Face up? Face down? -Face down.

Everything was so matter-of-fact.

Everything was so nonchalant.

In fact, he seemed to be enjoying reenacting what had happened.

[Ryan] You know, he had just slapped that on.

That all happened so fast and boom, boom, push.

Just a little bit of a struggled, he pushed off me.

I fired very quickly.

[Miller] His demeanor didn't match the circumstances that day.

Much like he was the day that,

uh, I interviewed him in the ambulance.

So, now we've got a couple situations like that where

his demeanor doesn't match the circumstances going on.

Happens once, and, you know, whatever.

But when you see that

progressively happening every time, then

it kind of makes you think.

"Okay, is there something going on here that I need to be cueing in on?"

[detective] Here, I want to...

[Miller] But, what really piqued my interest

was when he said that Vito had to stop and reload.

When you look at the scene,

you can see that Emily was shot twice.

[Ryan] He just reached in there and, without a word.

And, including those two rounds that were spend on her,

there were two live rounds laying near here.

So that's four rounds right there.

Joy was shot one time and there was

an empty casing down there, so that's up to five.

And then, and this is a seven-round magazine we're talking about,

well, then Lindsey was shot three more times.

And there was one live round out there, so that's another four.

When you add up the rounds,

the gun had to be, you know, reloaded

two shots prior to him saying it did.

And boom, boom, push.

Just a little bit of a struggle and he pushed off me.

Ryan's got something he's not telling us.

Ryan's got something to hide.

[Miller] Ryan says that when Vito had to stop and reload,

he overpowered him and turned the tables on him.

But, because of the capacity of the magazine,

how many rounds had been shot already,

we knew that the reload

would have had to happen two rounds prior to that.

He just lost all credibility at that point.

And so we couldn't take anything that he said

regarding the situation of having any merit.

It's a complete farce. It's a lie.

And the interview turned into an interrogation at that point.

[Vickie Hendricks] A lot of people were still in that mode...

...of shock.

And, you know, maybe it's Ryan.

Being a teacher and being around kids

you'd be surprised.

You can pick up on things when they're very young.

[sniffing] But you think this is not good.

You know. Um...

Ryan was just, um...

...Ryan.

He had some of the traits,

I would say, that would indicate that, um...

...there was a possibility that he would hurt somebody.

He was all about Ryan.

He was all about looking at it from his point of view

but I never thought, well, maybe Ryan Champion did it.

[Nathan Butler] You just say, is this even possible?

Is this maybe where this is going?

Nah, there's no way.

But as he continued to talk and, and...

And lay out what happened and try to explain things

some small doubts start to rise.

And they broke in on the radio

to announce that Ryan had been arrested.

[newsreader] New information tonight.

A son charged with the murder

of his mom, dad, sister and another man.

Police have charged Ryan Champion

with four counts of capital murder

and one count of capital kidnapping.

[Lisa Champion] I know the day that the murders happened

I knew he was lying.

Big time.

I mean, it was just such a far-fetched story.

But I wasn't able to piece it together

there in my house.

But then I connected the dots.

And I mean, it was just a relief

that they had enough to pick him up.

[newsreader] Kentucky state police say Champion

is responsible for the death

of his father Lindsey Champion,

mother Joy Champion, sister Emily Champion

and Riservato.

That's something his friend, Ann Plotkin,

refuses to believe.

I don't understand it.

I really don't because I know Ryan and no.

There is no way.

I never talked to Ryan's defenders, uh, personally.

But, uh, we did have, uh, people at work

that lived in Trigg County

that just believed

that he didn't have the ability to do it.

[host] Ryan, um, they arrested you

right before your family's funeral.

How are things for ya?

[Ryan] Well, I don't wanna go overboard on this

but my indictment was today.

And this was, uh, an event

where they had to show evidence

to support the charges they had made against me.

I can't get in to details but the main thing

that I can broadcast

is that their evidence is not as strong

as they led everyone to believe.

This is a good time to celebrate.

This is the first chink in their armor.

I want everyone who has believed in me all along,

even when it was tough.

I know how rumors spread, I know how things look.

Some of my friends have stuck with me

no matter what, through thick and thin.

I'm really looking forward to leaving all this behind me

and trying to dig back up a normal life

and grieve for my family

in a way that I have not yet been allowed to.

Thank you for giving me the chance

to tell everyone that.

[host] No problem, man.

I appreciate you speaking with us.

[Brett Miller] At that point in the investigation

the question we were dealing with was...

...who else is involved?

And who else do we need to talk to?

I don't understand it.

I really don't because I know Ryan and no.

There is no way.

[Miller] Throughout the case,

Ryan was saying Vito was kind of a nobody

and, uh, kind of an outcast

and that he had dated, um, Ann Plotkin's daughter.

He was adamant that we talk to Ann Plotkin.

So that's what we did.

[Miller] She was adamant

that he had nothing to do with it.

That we had it all wrong and she knows him

and she'll swear on the bible that he didn't do anything.

And, uh, I asked her if I could look at her phone.

And that, um, broke the case wide open.

I just wanna know if there was any, uh, contact

between Ann Plotkin and Ryan or Vito.

So I took the phone

and got a search warrant for it.

And upon looking at the text messages

you could see where it was clear that...

...Vito would contact Ann who would contact Ryan

as the middle person.

And I think they decided

how they were gonna come about doing it.

They got their game plan together

at the Waffle House.

[Miller] We pulled the video

which sure enough, there's Vito and Ryan walking in.

And Ann Plotkin comes in with them.

I don't understand it.

I really don't because I know Ryan and no.

She was the go between between the three of them.

And there was, like, over a hundred Facebook messages

between them, you know, that week

that they were planning this.

[Miller] It painted a bit of a picture

of what we thought had happened.

Vito was hired by Ryan

to kill his family for $10,000 a head

to make $30,000.

Basically a hit for money.

And Ryan probably didn't wanna give the money to Vito.

Even if he did, Vito's still a liability

and able to talk as a witness.

So, I think that's the reason that he killed him.

Vito was just a stool pigeon, wasn't he?

He just lured him down here to pin it on him.

[Judge] Good afternoon. Court calls the case of, uh,

commonwealth versus Ryan Champion.

[newsreader] Ryan Champion in shackles

as he entered court on Monday.

Detectives charged him with capital murder and kidnapping.

[Miller] Ryan was ultimately charged

based on the evidence we obtained

through just his deception and lies

throughout the investigation.

Ann was charged with, uh, complicity to commit murder.

Because she knew what was gonna take place

and she didn't do anything to stop it.

And she was an active participant in planning.

[Butler] I was very angry with Ryan.

Still am, there's not a forgiveness level

that we could get to.

Um, I don't see that happening

and it's just...

How someone can do that I'll never understand.

I'll never understand it.

You just murdered your entire family

and it's your fault.

As far as a why behind this

it's hard to put a logical explanation

behind an illogical action.

Um, but probably the most thing that I saw,

Ryan was visibly jealous of Emily.

Ryan and Emily were pretty much at odds with each other.

Emily was focused on her efforts to, uh, succeed.

You know, that was very meaningful for her.

For Ryan, it wasn't.

You know. And I think that was, that... You know...

Maybe for Ryan that was a little, uh, source of... a little rub.

You know, he didn't have that focus.

He didn't have that, uh, drive.

But also his motivation would've been money.

You know, it would've been greed.

Uh, it would've been, "I don't have to work anymore.

I can sell the house, I can sell the farm.

I can sell the cows, I can sell..."

You know, "I can do whatever I want to."

And that it was okay with him if they died.

[Lisa] It's really difficult to think about

the good that they did to the world.

You know, Joy in education, Lindsey in farm lending.

Emily in doctoring horses.

You know, and then I think,

and what have you done?

What is gonna be written on your tombstone?

"I killed my family."

I went on ancestry.com where my family tree is.

I deleted him.

[reporter] I guess the first question in all this

and this has been a horrific 24 hours.

How are you personally holding up?

You seem remarkably composed.

Without going in to any details, I can say that...

...from the start...

That's the first "I."

But when everything bad happened

my nerves were shot almost...

"My."

[Ryan] ...straight from the beginning in a split second.

Uh, but I was constantly, constantly trying to zone in

on if I could do something.

[Gary Haddock] The number of times that he referenced himself

Five or six I's.

Setting himself up to be the hero.

It was always about helping others.

I don't know anybody he's ever helped but...

Anyway.

My parents were...

...unbelievably good people.

Unbelievably good people.

That was the only honest thing he said.