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The Peppleman Case
62 Plays2 years ago
In 2015, a murder-suicide gained national coverage for the choice of weapon--a chainsaw.
Join Siera and Kayley as they discuss the sad circumstances surrounding the deaths of Christopher and Nicole Peppleman. Their deaths shocked their community and inspired family members to reach out to others experiencing domestic abuse.
Sources
News Articles:
https://www.q13fox.com/news/coroner-no-drugs-involved-in-chain-saw-murder-suicide
https://abc13.com/chainsaw-deaths-husband-wife-killed-couple-dead/598079/
https://people.com/crime/pennsylvania-couples-deaths-by-chainsaw-ruled-a-murder-suicide/
Obituaries:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/inquirer/name/christopher-peppelman-obituary?id=9561368
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/philly/obituary.aspx?pid=174547746
Nicole's Place/Laurel House:
https://laurel-house.org/about/our-programs/nicoles-place/
https://laurel-house.org/about-us/
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/domestic-violence-resources/31980/
Statistics and Information About Domestic Violence:
https://www.ojp.gov/feature/family-violence/overview
https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/cv21.pdf
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Papelman Murders
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sierra. And I'm Kaley. And this is True Crime and Punishment. Episode two. Today, Sierra is going to walk us through the Papelman murders, which I know nothing about, so it's going to be interesting.
00:00:14
Speaker
Yes. This week's episode is going to be very different from last week's. Last week, we covered the Bermanzi horror. There were a lot of details to that. It covered different countries. It was this intricate plot to an extent. This week is going to be a little bit different. There aren't as many details, and this case also hits a lot closer to home, geographically for me and Kaylee, because it's in the United States this time, but also just timeline. This only happened in 2015, so it happened fairly recently.
00:00:42
Speaker
I do want to let our listeners know there is going to be a little bit of gruesome content in here regarding the murder.
Graphic Content Warning
00:00:50
Speaker
I mean, murder is never pretty. It's always a sensitive issue, but this case is particularly sad. Some of the details are kind of graphic and it deals with some sensitive topics. So just be forewarned about that.
00:01:02
Speaker
Also, there aren't a lot of details on this case, I think in part because the family is still living, and so they obviously wanted to be very sensitive on how they handled it and what they revealed. So let's get into the story.
Discovery of the Crime Scene
00:01:14
Speaker
This case took place on March 31st, 2015 in Lower Moreland Township of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It took place at the home of Christopher and Nicole Pebbleman.
00:01:25
Speaker
The couple had three sons whose names we won't be sharing on the podcast. Two of the sons were not home at the time of the incident. Their third son, a 14 year old was outside playing basketball when the incident occurred. Were all of their children teenagers or some of them grown? I couldn't find that. The only son, I don't know which son it was and they only gave his age. I don't know if he was the youngest or the oldest. I think they tried to keep a lot of that information very private. Anyway, but their 14 year old son,
00:01:54
Speaker
was playing basketball. He came home after his game, went into the basement, and there he discovered the bodies of his parents on the floor of the basement. Very bloody, and next to them was a bloody chainsaw. Yeah. A chainsaw? A chainsaw.
00:02:12
Speaker
Oh my word. And I cannot imagine being 14, walking into my home and seeing that. I can't imagine that at any age. Yeah. Wow. So he went and he called the police and they came and took care of the bodies.
Murder-Suicide Ruling and Community Shock
00:02:31
Speaker
The coroner said that the cause of death for Nicole was a sharp force injury to the abdomen aggravated by stab wounds and throttling of the neck. Like strangulation? I don't think I've heard throttling. I hadn't either. Different other sources said she was choked. So choked, strangulation. Additional coroner's report said throttling. Interesting.
00:02:57
Speaker
I really want to look into corners reports at some point because sometimes the language that they use is very specific and not typical. So I wonder if it means different things.
00:03:07
Speaker
Well, and I'll get to that in a second. And then Christopher had wounds on the abdomen, but also on his right thigh. Oh my goodness. Cole's death was ruled a homicide. Christopher's was ruled a suicide. One article that I looked at, I looked at different articles. One article said that the coroner did not want to say what weapon was used as the cause of death to make the lacerations, but the police and an attorney said it was the chainsaw that did the brunt of the damage. Wow.
00:03:33
Speaker
So, and that's the other thing with being specific about coroner's reports. I don't know, obviously I couldn't access the actual report, but I don't know if he ever did end up saying if it was the chainsaw or not. But it's just interesting to me how specific they have to be. Right. But it became well known for being like a chainsaw, murder of the husband and wife.
00:03:52
Speaker
Right? It really shocked the neighborhood. It shocked the family and their church. Different articles or different news sources reached out to family and friends. One family friend said that he had gone to high school with Nicole. He remembered her as outgoing. Everyone loved her. Really, honestly, nothing bad to say about her. And then of Christopher, he said, he was a great guy to his friends, the people who knew him. He was a really good person.
00:04:17
Speaker
And a neighbor, when he heard about the news, told reporters that they were great people. We love them.
00:04:24
Speaker
were going to miss them is my thought. They were beautiful people, beautiful children, and it's awful, absolutely awful. And then people at their church were also very shocked by the events.
Community Reaction and Obituaries
00:04:35
Speaker
And while I was doing the research, I actually came across their obituaries. And this is what was very interesting to me was seeing people's reactions to that. So I sent you the link to those. Let's look at Christopher's first. Okay, let me get that pulled up here.
00:04:47
Speaker
We're on Legacy.com. The obituary itself is very sparked with details. It just gives people that he's related to, and then it says that his services and internment were private, understandably so. But if you scroll down on this particular website Legacy.com, they give a chance for people to leave messages for the family.
00:05:08
Speaker
And it was really interesting just to look through those and see people's perspectives because I just had in my mind like this man murdered his wife with a chainsaw in their basement. But then reading through the different things that people said was just interesting to get that perspective. So I don't know if we want to. One comment here says, been thinking about you. I really wish I got to see you one last time. Please watch over our family. Love you and miss you. Which were there any details that led throughout the investigation?
00:05:38
Speaker
that led them to believe it was murder-suicide or was? Yes, we're going to get to those in a moment. Suicide is always a extremely complicated thing, especially with a murder-suicide situation. Yes. Because it is a really sudden thing, obviously. You don't really have time to prepare, especially if you don't see the signs. Looking through these comments, there do not appear to be
00:06:02
Speaker
many people who saw signs of something violent or I don't know, I don't want to say off, but something mentally going on with Christopher. He was struggling. He doesn't see that that was, Chris was the best man in our wedding. He was a hardworking, generous man, loving father.
00:06:20
Speaker
We didn't know how much we loved you until you were gone. Rest in peace. I remember he was the good guy that he was. The first part of that one, it says Chris was my landlord, but I lived on, gives the road. He always cut me a break, especially after my husband passed. So there's a lot of kindness within this. And there are a lot of comments.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah. Which obviously we can't validate every comment being from a genuine source, but typically when you see comments that are being left in jest or after a murder or whatever, what have you, it's not positive comments if someone's going to go and leave a comment. A lot of these seem very genuine and these people seem to be genuinely touched by this man. Yes.
00:07:05
Speaker
Interesting. And then looking over at Nicole's, her obituary has a little bit more information. It also lists the family members, which was how I was able to make sure, aside from the date of passing, that these were the correct obituaries. But it's also a picture for hers, and there is not a picture for his. Right. And I think part of that is because she was the victim in the situation.
00:07:26
Speaker
She did have a public funeral at their church, the Brynn. Oh, I should have looked at how to say that, Athens or Athens Cathedral, which was the church that the family went to. So she did have a public service there, but the interim was private. In lieu of flowers, a donation in Nicole's memory could be made to Laurel House, and we're actually going to get into what Laurel House is at the end of this because that plays into the story.
00:07:49
Speaker
But then looking at the comments, there's, well, the people left for family. Again, same thing. You know, she was a wonderful person. We're going to miss her. She was very dedicated to her sons. That was a common theme I thought throughout both his obituary, her obituary, and then comments and articles was that they both loved their children very much. And a lot of the comments on hers are very recent. Whereas if you look at the ones for Chris, they all kind of stop in April of 2015. So could this have been published?
00:08:20
Speaker
prior to the information getting out? Possibly. There were a couple of articles that talked about, like there were articles that came out the day or the day over the day right after talking about the incident, but I don't think as many details were released. And I'm sure the family probably didn't. Right. Well, I shouldn't say I'm sure. I would assume the family didn't tell a lot of people in their community more details. First one, Nicole's. Nicole was my hockey mom friend. I am beyond sorry for the pain you've endured or the loss of Nicole.
00:08:49
Speaker
She will live on in her wonderful voice. You are all in our prayers. That's very sad. Interesting, just to see the difference. Obituaries are written for the living. I know there's been, I've seen research in other cases, people kind of get upset when murderers or what have you get an obituary, but typically they're written
00:09:09
Speaker
by, they're written, well not typically, they're almost always written by the living unless someone has pre-written their own obituary. And they're for the living. I've written, unfortunately, multiple obituaries for family members and they were not, one of them I know, the person probably would have been like, you know, you put all that sap in there, but it was for me. It was no longer for him, it was for me. So it's, I don't know, it's still very sad because somebody clearly, people clearly love this family.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, looking through, there are so many on her page where it's just, they miss her. She was such a wonderful mom. She was such a sweet person. It's very, very sad.
Domestic Violence Reports and Nicole's Place
00:09:43
Speaker
So it did, it took the family by shock and by looking at the obituaries and even the comments that were reported by neighbors and articles, it doesn't really make sense because they seemed like wonderful people. But it was revealed later on that they had been having marriage troubles. A couple of, one source that they were separated at the time,
00:10:01
Speaker
More sources said they were divorced, but they differed on the timeline of the divorce, but they had apparently been having difficulties. One neighbor said they had been having issues and that Nicole and the boys had actually moved out of the house. Their divorce attorney was contacted after the incident. She said it was horribly tragic for the whole family, especially the boys.
00:10:19
Speaker
A family friend said that they were together for the kids. I know they loved the boys so much and wanted to do everything they could for the boys. So they'd stayed together for some time for their sons. Just for their children, right? One friend said this, I knew they had some complications with their marriage, but a lot of marriages do. Most marriages do, I'm sure. So there have been issues and people were aware of it.
00:10:42
Speaker
But as it turns out, according to different articles, police records show that there had also been issues of domestic violence in the home that had already been going on. And that ties into, I mentioned for Nicole's obituary, it said donations could be given to Laurel Place. Laurel Place is a center
00:11:02
Speaker
or Laurel House, excuse me, as a center for victims of domestic violence to give them resources and different things. It's located in Pennsylvania. What was special, also special about this is after the time of the murder, suicide took place, Nicole's family kind of helped set up a satellite of Laurel House called Nicole's Place.
00:11:26
Speaker
So that's located in Huntington Valley, and it provides support to individuals and families in Eastern Montgomery County who have been impacted by domestic violence. And they offer individual and group counseling, immediate ongoing advocacy and case management, presentations and trainings for community organizations, schools, faith communities, and other groups. They just basically give a lot of resources and help to family members who have suffered domestic violence. That's amazing. Yeah. So it's something special they did in her memory.
00:11:55
Speaker
The family, from what I could see online as I researched, didn't really go a lot into the domestic violence situation that Nicole was living through.
00:12:03
Speaker
Again, their boys are still alive. You don't want to, you know. And as awful as it sounds, that's still their father. Exactly. And even when you have an abusive relationship between parents, it still can be very difficult for those children to speak out against a parent, even if that parent was abusive to their other parent. And unless you've lived that situation, it's very hard to sympathize with that.
Discussion on Domestic Violence and Support
00:12:27
Speaker
While it was domestic violence, police were involved.
00:12:29
Speaker
but still you don't want details of your parents worst moments out there in public or even just your loved ones because it does paint them in a light that you may not want them to be seen in or maybe they themselves didn't want to be seen in
00:12:42
Speaker
When the place, when Nicole's place opened, they did interview her sister, Janine, and she said that for too long, domestic abuse has been a taboo topic, but it needs to be talked about. And she said that sometimes people will ask why the wife stayed. And she said, we shouldn't ask that. We should consider why the husband abused her. We need to be there for the victims and offer them support instead of being like, well, why are you staying with this person? Because again, like you were saying, it's complicated. Like these are family relationships, a family dynamic. They still love these people.
00:13:10
Speaker
especially in her case, it sounds like she wanted to be there for her boys and give them a home with both parents. It's always a complicated situation. I think it's very easy as people to color things black and white and say, if this is happening, you should be reacting and leaving. But if you're in that situation, there's financial aspects. There's the emotional well-being of your children. Is this person going to become more violent if I leave?
00:13:37
Speaker
There's a lot of aspects that need to be looked at, and it's very easy as someone on the outside to just say, hey, why didn't you leave? But her sister is completely right. Why aren't we saying, hey, why don't you stop abusing your spouse?
Statistics on Domestic Violence
00:13:51
Speaker
Or why are we more likely to say, well, why didn't you make it easier for us to say, obviously, he's wrong. You should leave. It's easier as an outsider person to look at that and say, well, she should have left because that's easier than confronting an abuser.
00:14:04
Speaker
That's very sad, but that is the reality. Yeah. And their story made me think about what are the statistics for domestic violence in the United States? And I did find this article from the Office of Justice Programs, and they talked about how in 2021, more than 910,000 Americans were victims of domestic violence. And that was up from 2020, which was COVID year. You would think almost domestic violence would be up in that year because everyone was on quarantine and stuck in their homes. Right. So it was a big push during COVID where
00:14:33
Speaker
If you're stuck in your house with your abuser, just know there are people who can still help you even throughout COVID. I remember that being very popular on social media during the time and I remember reading several articles about it and doing some journalistic research around that time and seeing that.
00:14:47
Speaker
being a prevalent theme. Yeah, it's really sad. So it's been up since then? It's been up, yes. Interesting. 910,000 now versus 856,000 in 2020. Wow. And I think those are just the ones that are reported. So there are more that never get reported to the police. Right.
00:15:04
Speaker
Another interesting thing about this article, it said, unlike most other crimes, intimate partner violence, also known as domestic violence, family violence, and dating violence is usually not a sudden, isolated, or unexpected incident. For victims, it may involve years of emotional and psychological trauma and physical injuries that become more severe or occur more frequently over time.
00:15:23
Speaker
And so I think while this hit the community out of nowhere when it happened, it probably, probably, and again, I can't say for certain, but the articles would say there were police records ahead of time. There probably was violence happening ahead of time. And even the autopsy, they tried to figure out if maybe he had drugs in his system, but it said that there were no drugs and there was an amount of alcohol so small that it was not worth mentioning. It appears that he acted out of rage alone.
00:15:53
Speaker
I mean, I feel like a lot of times when you hear about intimate partner violence or domestic violence that ends in death, it is rage induced because you're so angry at that person. But a chainsaw just, that is the fuddling to me to be your implement of choice. And then it sounds like, well, we could confirm that was what was used through the corner, but using a chainsaw on yourself,
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, that is heightened emotion. That was rage. And then I imagine, clearly I'm no psychiatrist. I have no background to support this, but just as a human being with emotions, that sounds like rage followed by some fairly extreme guilt. Yeah. Well, I'm sure he was thinking of his sons, like that was their mother. Right. That's impossible. Even thinking of your children in that time, his son was coming home. Yeah. So it's just,
00:16:50
Speaker
brutal. That brutal is, I guess, the right word. Yeah. It's very sad. This was a heavy one today. It's very, very sad. I can't imagine that.
00:17:01
Speaker
And just the visual, a chainsaw. And what's crazy, I'd never heard of the pebbleman case. I have heard of in some circles, I listened to a podcast or something where it was mentioned that a man had killed his wife with a chainsaw and then killed himself. But that was all I'd heard about it. Cause it was, I think it must've been recent news at the time, but it's nice to hear the rest of it, to know their names and to know about them as people and to see the impact that
00:17:32
Speaker
her family has made on other people who have suffered domestic abuse.
Legacy of Nicole's Place
00:17:36
Speaker
I think that is the beautiful but bittersweet thing that came out of it is that her family, you know, they decided to take their pain and reach out to others. And I think that's really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
So if you want to know any more about Laurel House or Nicole's Place in particular, you can go to LaurelHouse.org. We'll also put a link down in the show notes specifically for Nicole's Place. If you want to find out more about them or see how you could donate or reach out to them and support what they're doing.
00:18:03
Speaker
to help others. Again, it's just a reminder that there are people around us who could be suffering all the time and we may never know it. We may never see how much someone is suffering. Right. And that can be either under domestic violence or clearly under some mental illness type strain where they're having those sort of issues. So reach out to your people, see if they're okay. They'll always appreciate it. All right. So that wraps up this week with the Peppelman case.
Preview of Next Episode: Interrogation Techniques
00:18:31
Speaker
Join us next Sunday where I'll be going over a famous interrogation case that is also fairly recent, but it's very interesting and I think it really will give us a shot to look into the investigation techniques used in multiple cases. I'm excited. It's not going to be great, but it's going to be interesting to talk about. Informative. Informative. All right, so everybody have a great week and thanks for letting us talk at you. Have a great week. See you next week. Bye.