Join me to hear about the murder-for-hire plot schemed by Microsoft Security Architect Christopher Pence against his adopted kids’ biological parents! This is eCrimeBytes Season 3 Episode 16 – Adoptive Dad Hires Hitman To Kill Kids’ Biological Parents.
Sources:
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndny/pr/utah-man-sentenced-seven-years-prison-murder-hire-scheme
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67108935/united-states-v-pence/
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13294299/amp/Biological-mom-targeted-Christopher-Pence-murder-hire-children-years.html
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13294299/Biological-mom-targeted-Christopher-Pence-murder-hire-children-years.html
- https://youtube.com/@christopherpence8028?si=NwoURp3hz2Toii0x
Transcript:
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;15;42
Dr. Keith Jones
What’s up, you crazy bastards? Welcome to another episode of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and then roast the criminals, so you don’t have to.
00;00;15;46 – 00;00;17;45
Christopher Pence
Hey where did you get this picture of me?
00;00;17;58 – 00;00;35;59
Dr. Keith Jones
Hold on a second there, Christopher. I will tell you exactly where I found this picture in about two minutes. I had to dig real deep for this one, I tell you. But first, please tell us about yourself. And let’s get the listeners familiar with who you are and what they’re about to hear.
00;00;36;04 – 00;00;57;59
Christopher Pence
Well, what can I say? I’m a dad of 13 kids. I live with my wife and my mother and my father in this house. You see this house here? Yeah. I’m really proud of this house. I’ve also worked at Microsoft for the last seven years as a security architect. But I’ve been into computers at least 23 or more years.
00;00;58;04 – 00;01;26;11
Christopher Pence
Yeah. I’m really proud of this house. This is in Cedar City, Utah. And it, I don’t know if you can tell the size from this picture, but it’s a pretty large house. This is a seven bedroom house with approximately 5800 square feet and we are on 20 acres of property. Check out this zoom out. If you look at Google and zoom out, check this out.
00;01;26;16 – 00;01;33;14
Christopher Pence
We don’t have neighbors anywhere. So, you know, all of these neighbors are they’re way far away from us.
00;01;33;19 – 00;01;38;18
Dr. Keith Jones
I don’t understand, Chris. Why are you so excited about how far away your neighbors are?
00;01;38;23 – 00;01;55;28
Christopher Pence
Well, I tell you, if you’re a dad to 13 kids, you need you need to be able to scream into the void and just have nobody hear you. And you can’t do it anywhere else but a place like this where you have 20 acres of land and you can’t even see your neighbors.
00;01;55;33 – 00;01;59;26
Dr. Keith Jones
All right, fair enough. Chris, tell us a little more about your family.
00;01;59;30 – 00;02;18;46
Christopher Pence
We’re a very religious family. My kids, they study religion two hours a day. I get them up and they start at 6 a.m. Also, it gets worse. They don’t have any phones. Can you imagine? 13 kids without phones? I can’t escape those little fuckers. Ever.
00;02;18;51 – 00;02;25;50
Dr. Keith Jones
That’s crazy. Chris. I have three kids and I can barely handle it. I don’t know how you do it at 13. So what do you guys do for fun?
00;02;25;55 – 00;02;33;57
Christopher Pence
Come on, my man. Look around. I’ve got 13 kids. What do you think I do for fun? You know what I’m saying?
00;02;34;02 – 00;02;37;26
Dr. Keith Jones
Damn it, Chris, I didn’t even think of that. Well continue.
00;02;37;31 – 00;02;48;38
Christopher Pence
Also, we like to spend time in our RV. You got to have a lot of RVs when you have a lot of kids. But we took one of these RVs, and we went out East to the East Coast. And we met a couple out there.
00;02;48;43 – 00;02;52;05
Dr. Keith Jones
A couple Chris, that sounds kind of odd.
00;02;52;10 – 00;03;11;00
Christopher Pence
It’s about as weird as it sounds. It was through the church. Anyway, we found out that their family, they needed some kind of help. So we did a lot of praying for them, a lot of praying. But at the end of the day, they said, hey, would you would you take our kids from us? And it was five kids, Keith.
00;03;11;05 – 00;03;27;20
Christopher Pence
Five kids. If you add that to my 13, we’re talking to 18 kids now. You could play whole sports with just my kids. I have that many kids. And yeah, you may wonder why I’m crazy by the end of this. Remember, I have I have 18 kids.
00;03;27;25 – 00;03;31;40
Dr. Keith Jones
That’s crazy. Chris. So you adopted these kids, you’re saying, right?
00;03;31;45 – 00;03;55;00
Christopher Pence
Hahaha, not at all. We just took them, and the parents signed a form that says that we could take them to the doctor and give them schooling. It was a really fishy situation. So much so that DCS at one point started an investigation. So we really we had to adopt him at the end of the day because people were… they were asking a lot of questions.
00;03;55;05 – 00;04;16;31
Dr. Keith Jones
I imagine they would, Chris, because that sounded pretty damn fishy. Well, anyways, let me tell you about how I found this picture with you and a knife. Chris, you have a YouTube channel and it’s public. So I watched your videos and there’s this one video here. Let me give you a screen capture. Can you explain what’s going on in this video,
00;04;16;31 – 00;04;18;36
Dr. Keith Jones
Chris, to to our listeners?
00;04;18;41 – 00;04;34;34
Christopher Pence
Ha ha ha ha. You’re never going to believe this. Okay, well, now that I look at it, this picture doesn’t have a lot of context. It’s just me and my family and a knife. Can you go to the next picture, please? Okay. There we go. You see this child in the seat there?
00;04;34;37 – 00;04;37;43
Dr. Keith Jones
Yeah, Chris, I do. Please. Where’s this going?
00;04;37;48 – 00;04;44;35
Christopher Pence
I bet you wouldn’t believe that I have this knife. Because I’m going to cut this child.
00;04;44;40 – 00;04;46;20
Dr. Keith Jones
Chris. That’s rough, man. That’s rough.
00;04;46;20 – 00;05;05;16
Christopher Pence
Yeah. Now, go to the next slide. You see this one? That’s actually the child’s blood. I kid you not. That’s the child’s blood. No, I’m just kidding. This is just a gender reveal party. And that cake was… Well, on the inside it had pink frosting, and when I cut it, it let everybody know that I was going to have a daughter.
00;05;05;21 – 00;05;07;11
Christopher Pence
Pretty nifty,
00;05;07;16 – 00;05;18;05
Dr. Keith Jones
Chris, that sounds horrible. Thank you for not inviting me. Damn it, Chris, I didn’t see that one coming. All right, so that’s obviously not the murder. Where is the crime? Chris, tell us where the crime is.
00;05;18;12 – 00;05;37;10
Christopher Pence
Well, to get to the crime, I got to tell you what happens next. And on October 27th, 2021, I got up real early, like I usually do to get all my kids up to study Bible. And about 6:48 a.m. a bunch of lights all over my house. It lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree. I didn’t know what the hell was happening.
00;05;37;10 – 00;05;44;06
Christopher Pence
I stubbed my toe and everything. I came down the stairs and there was an FBI agent at the front door. This guy.
00;05;44;11 – 00;05;54;10
Grizzled FBI Agent
Hi. I’m your obligatory grizzled FBI agent. I’m carrying this binoculars and this gun for my and your protection.
00;05;54;19 – 00;05;57;28
Christopher Pence
Wait. Hold up. Why do you have a pistol out at me?
00;05;57;33 – 00;06;00;43
Grizzled FBI Agent
Dude, you are talking to me with a knife out, okay.
00;06;00;48 – 00;06;02;44
Christopher Pence
Okay. Touché.
00;06;02;48 – 00;06;30;01
Grizzled FBI Agent
So at this point, Chris’s family stays inside, but he decides he wants to come out and talk to us in this giant black SUV. So we go out there and we interview him. He’s under no obligation to actually talk to us. But this guy, he just can’t shut up. Let’s get in this big SUV together, interrogate Christopher Pence and see how this goes.
00;06;30;01 – 00;06;49;35
Grizzled FBI Agent
Christopher Pence. It’s nice to finally meet you. I want you to know we are treating your family well. Look at these pictures. The first one here. It’s almost like we are sitting and having breakfast with you. This second one. Jesus. How many kids do you have, man? A lot. Now, you and I, we don’t have to talk.
00;06;49;39 – 00;06;52;36
Christopher Pence
I want to talk. I can’t shut the hell up.
00;06;52;41 – 00;07;02;46
Grizzled FBI Agent
All right. In real life, this conversation happened over five hours. There was a lot of small talk that we’re just going to go ahead and skip right over now. Is that all right with you, Christopher?
00;07;02;47 – 00;07;11;24
Christopher Pence
Yeah, man, that’s fine with me. Hey, has anybody ever told you that you look like a weird combination of George Bush junior and Liam Neeson’s baby?
00;07;11;29 – 00;07;13;41
Grizzled FBI Agent
Listen, don’t make me shoot you.
00;07;13;45 – 00;07;19;03
Christopher Pence
Yes. Okay. I’m scared shitless. I want to talk. I can never shut up.
00;07;19;07 – 00;07;23;47
Grizzled FBI Agent
Okay. Here we go. Why don’t you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?
00;07;23;51 – 00;07;33;22
Christopher Pence
Well, I’ve worked at Microsoft for the past seven years doing security architect work. But I’ve been in computers for over 20 years, so I know my way around computers.
00;07;33;36 – 00;07;42;32
Grizzled FBI Agent
Hopefully you know more about that than you do. Birth control. Tell me this, Chris. Have you ever been to the dark web?
00;07;42;37 – 00;07;48;55
Christopher Pence
No, not at all. What is the dark web? How do you get on there? I don’t know anything about that.
00;07;49;00 – 00;08;04;29
Grizzled FBI Agent
Come on. Christopher. We’re all adults here. You have 12 kids. You adopted five more. I know you’re working in that department downstairs. Answer me this. Do you ever go on the internet and watch some porn?
00;08;04;34 – 00;08;16;27
Christopher Pence
Oh, no, not at all. Never. I never watch any porn. Okay. You caught me. Yeah, I watch a little bit of porn, but I’m… I’m really, really embarrassed about it. Okay.
00;08;16;31 – 00;08;39;37
Grizzled FBI Agent
I bet you do. With all those kids running around, you probably don’t have time for anything else, do you? listen, Christopher, I’m going to be honest with you right now. Other than just being in the interrogation transcripts, there was really no reason for me to ask you about surfing porn on the internet. But it’s pretty interesting that you’re embarrassed about it, considering what we find out about you later.
00;08;39;41 – 00;08;48;56
Grizzled FBI Agent
So, Christopher, why don’t you tell me a little bit more about these biological parents of the kids you adopted? Do you have a good relationship with them?
00;08;49;01 – 00;09;09;19
Christopher Pence
Yeah. It’s great. Like I said, we took their kids for them. Yeah. Uh oh okay. I can’t really lie. It’s not that great. We’re supposed to visit them twice a year. And what kind of problems with that? And we can’t visit them around our house because our kids don’t want to see them around our house, but they want to be around our house.
00;09;09;24 – 00;09;13;27
Christopher Pence
It’s just incredibly awkward. But hey, we got a great relationship.
00;09;13;32 – 00;09;25;25
Grizzled FBI Agent
Damn it, Christopher, I’m a trained investigator. Tell me and tell me now why you took these kids and how your relationship is with the biological parents.
00;09;25;29 – 00;09;47;24
Christopher Pence
Well, the mother told us that the father had, quote, unquote, sexual tendencies. I know, sounded like horseshit to me, too. But, hey, we got five free kids, so we took them. At some point, those parents, they still wanted to be parents, but they wanted us to take care of their kids for them. They wanted to come move in with us.
00;09;47;29 – 00;09;54;38
Christopher Pence
The problem is, is they would also want to spend time alone with the kids. And they would talk bad about us to the kids.
00;09;54;43 – 00;10;02;34
Grizzled FBI Agent
Wow, Christopher, this does sound terrible and like a lot of horseshit. Does this mean you want them dead, though?
00;10;02;39 – 00;10;08;12
Christopher Pence
No. Oh, God. No. Never. I would never want them dead. I would never want anybody dead.
00;10;08;17 – 00;10;19;18
Grizzled FBI Agent
Okay, Christopher, I just have one simple question for you before I tell you some stuff. What’s the password to your computers up there where all the agents are going through so we can get in and see your data?
00;10;19;23 – 00;10;28;19
Christopher Pence
Seriously? Okay. It’s in the beginning, comma. God. Exclamation point.
00;10;28;24 – 00;10;37;51
Grizzled FBI Agent
Jesus, Chris, you’re really into your religion, aren’t you? Well, this is going to be ironic, knowing what I’m about to tell you. Are you ready for this, Chris?
00;10;37;56 – 00;10;39;51
Christopher Pence
Please don’t hurt me.
00;10;39;56 – 00;11;03;59
Grizzled FBI Agent
All right, Chris, I’m going to tell you some stuff, and I don’t want you to say anything until I’m done. Okay. For once, shut the hell up. What we know so far is that some person on the dark web, wanted these biological parents killed. We also know the payment was supposed to be $16,000. Christopher, we found that payment.
00;11;04;04 – 00;11;15;21
Grizzled FBI Agent
We found that payment. We traced it back to a Coinbase account. Now, Christopher, if I had to ask you, who do you think this Coinbase account belongs to? Who would you tell me?
00;11;15;26 – 00;11;18;10
Christopher Pence
I don’t know. What the hell is Coinbase?
00;11;18;15 – 00;11;42;13
Grizzled FBI Agent
Don’t play dumb, Chris. You know this is the service you used to pay Bitcoin to a website to put out a hit on these biological parents. See what you don’t know, Chris, is we took over this murder for hire site. That admin, he rolled over on fucking everybody. What do you think about that, Chris?
00;11;42;17 – 00;11;44;52
Christopher Pence
God damn it. No, no.
00;11;44;57 – 00;12;10;14
Grizzled FBI Agent
Oh, that’s not all, Chris. We traced the IP address that accessed your Coinbase account to your home IP address. Bet ya that’s just a coincidence, too, isn’t it, Christopher? Yeah. We also talked to the admin who gave us pictures of the biological parents that you wanted killed. And when you talked to the admin, you said, these are the people that I wanted killed.
00;12;10;19 – 00;12;30;02
Grizzled FBI Agent
Now, the weird thing about these pictures, Christopher, is they’re not public pictures. These are not pictures you can get out there on the internet, off of social media or anything else. You could only get these pictures from your baby’s baby books. So we know this is you. We know it’s you, Christopher.
00;12;30;07 – 00;12;40;42
Christopher Pence
Oh, so you match the pictures to my adopted baby’s baby books. Oh, no. What do I do now? Do I need a lawyer?
00;12;40;47 – 00;12;55;12
Grizzled FBI Agent
You can have one if you want one. Like I told you earlier, you’re under no obligation to talk to anybody. But I prefer that you just be an idiot and not shut up and tell me everything you know about this situation.
00;12;55;27 – 00;13;25;02
Christopher Pence
That sounds good. I apologize for lying to you. Listen, I booted Tails, which is an operating system from a USB stick, and I’ll put a picture of that on the screen right now for those crazy bastards watching. Now, when I was on the darknet using this USB stick, I talked to another user on a website, and I submitted a hit against these biological parents for about $16,000 around June or July of 2021.
00;13;25;04 – 00;13;48;23
Christopher Pence
I forget. I mean, I submit so many hits out there. I really do forget what the time is of the different hits that I submit. Now, I guess where I went wrong is I use the same Coinbase account that I was going to invest in Bitcoin with. Yeah, I know that was dumb mixing those. Well, anyway, nobody ever contacted me from the murder for hire site.
00;13;48;28 – 00;14;13;12
Christopher Pence
I paid $16,000, heard nothing. But to be fair, I did change my mind. I canceled the next morning, and then I placed the order again. And then I also tried to reach out to a hitman directly on the site. But, you know, in the end, I knew you guys would probably be coming after me. So I ended up using the Tails Secure wipe feature when I was all done.
00;14;13;12 – 00;14;28;06
Christopher Pence
So there’s no evidence left on any of my machines other me just confessing all this to you now. Listen, don’t think bad of me, okay? I did this all for the children. All for the children.
00;14;28;11 – 00;14;52;35
Grizzled FBI Agent
You sure sound like a literal angel, Christopher. Now, listen, I have one more question for you before we haul you off to prison. We talked about this once before. I hope you bought a hat. And you’re holding on. And you’re sitting down. Listen, we were up in your office, and we found, well, these things. Could you, could you explain these to us?
00;14;52;40 – 00;15;09;26
Christopher Pence
Holy shit. Is that a rubberized ratchet? Oh, my God, you found those? Yeah, those are mine annnnd my wife. Mine and my wife. I use them for self-pleasurerrrrr with my wife. We bought them together.
00;15;09;31 – 00;15;29;58
Grizzled FBI Agent
Okay, Christopher, I’ll make a note. It’s for you and your wife. Now you know again. This has nothing to do with what we’re actually busting you for. But it is pretty interesting that we talked about them so much in the interrogation transcript, right? Now, listen, you just admitted to a whole bunch of shit that we can’t just let you go free for it.
00;15;30;01 – 00;15;47;19
Grizzled FBI Agent
Okay, so you do realize we’re handcuffing you and taking you to prison at this point? I’m going to give you one chance now just because, you know, we’re amongst friends, and you just made my job really, really easy by confessing to everything. And I’m going to give you a chance to talk to your wife. Would you like to take that chance, Chris?
00;15;47;24 – 00;15;55;46
Christopher Pence
Oh, God. No. She’ll kill me. I don’t even know how to explain this to her. Please, just take me straight to prison. Just right now. Straight to prison.
00;15;55;51 – 00;16;06;05
Dr. Keith Jones
I get it, Chris, I get it. if you watch the last two episodes, Christopher, you’ve seen my wife pop up. I’m terrified of that woman. I get it, I would go straight to prison, too.
00;16;06;10 – 00;16;14;47
Grizzled FBI Agent
Well, that’s the end of my involvement here. I’m going to turn this back over to Doctor Keith, and he’s going to talk about what happened in court next.
00;16;14;47 – 00;16;44;59
Dr. Keith Jones
Hey, Christopher. I was looking through the court documentation, and I see the FBI performed surveillance of your house by flying a plane over and taking pictures. Check these pictures out. Here’s a close up of your compound. Look at all the RVs and all the cars you got, man. And see they back up here. You can definitely tell this is part of a helicopter with all the markings and stuff around the image here.
00;16;45;04 – 00;16;55;16
Dr. Keith Jones
And then if you back up all the well, look how far you are out there in the middle of nowhere, Chris. Just out there in the middle of the desert. No wonder why you live out there so you can scream into the void.
00;16;55;20 – 00;17;01;30
Christopher Pence
Oh, God. no. That was the one day I didn’t wear my tinfoil hat.
00;17;01;35 – 00;17;24;05
Dr. Keith Jones
I know, crazy, right? Chris, I don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one. They had an indictment and November 9th, 2021, it had a single count in it. It was use of interstate commerce in connection for murder for hire, which is exactly the story that I explained to everybody here. So how do you minimize that damage of that confession that you gave to the FBI
00;17;24;07 – 00;17;25;32
Dr. Keith Jones
Chris?
00;17;25;37 – 00;17;46;30
Christopher Pence
I have no idea. First of all, I think I just need all that shit thrown out. See, my lawyers are going to argue that I was interrogated like Osama bin laden. They had their guns drawn, and they threatened to shoot me several times. So my lawyers, they put together a huge motion. It was this thing I don’t even know what it’s called.
00;17;46;30 – 00;18;08;35
Christopher Pence
It’s like motion for omnibus relief or something like that. December 20th of 2022 I really thought this was my Hail Mary. I thought this is what was going to get me out of jail, Keith. But the judge came back on October 18th, 2023 and they said, denied.
00;18;08;40 – 00;18;21;06
Dr. Keith Jones
That sounds horrible, Chris, but to be fair, you did try to have your adopted kids’ biological parents killed. So there is that. So what did you do at this point?
00;18;21;08 – 00;18;39;27
Christopher Pence
What else could I do? On December 6th, 2023, I just pled guilty. I didn’t have any other choice. And then the judge came back on April 16th of 2024 and they said, Christopher, you’re sentenced to seven years.
00;18;39;32 – 00;18;50;05
Dr. Keith Jones
Oh wow Chris. That’s tough. Hey, Chris, I got just one more question for you before we wrap this up. Do you think they have sex toys in prison?
00;18;50;10 – 00;19;14;26
Christopher Pence
Man, I couldn’t see that one coming. All right, you crazy bastards out there, please like and subscribe. And if you know of someone that would like a podcast like this, a fun animated podcast like this, please share this with them. And please let us know what you think of the new format in the comments. This is a lot of fun to put together and we hope it’s a lot of fun to watch too.
00;19;14;31 – 00;19;23;45
Christopher Pence
And with that, we hope to see you on our next episode, which will be another crazy bonkers case just like this. Thanks. Bye.
00;19;23;50 – 00;19;50;46
Dr. Keith Jones
Thanks. I’ll see you next time.
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