EP 239 - TEXAS: THE MAN WHO ESCAPED DEATH ROW: MURDERER CHARLES VICTOR THOMPSON

On April 29th, 1998, Houston Police dragged Charles Victor Thompson out of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, where he had started a fight with her new boyfriend. Charles was a jealous man, a drunk man, but the police didn’t think he was a killer. At least, not for another 3 hours. What began as a jealous feud spiraled into murder, and from there, into one of the most shocking cases in Texas history: where a death row inmate escaped from prison and proved that he wasn’t done wreaking havoc. Not yet. - Sources:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eTYeCoYyxm58DXXdoFbHQyWHlWbcH9iKGIefFcQToW4/edit?tab=t.y2yayotxnlcb Listen to our new show, "THE CONSPIRACY FILES"!: -Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5IY9nWD2MYDzlSYP48nRPl -Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/id1752719844 -Amazon/Audible - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ab1ade99-740c-46ae-8028-b2cf41eabf58/the-conspiracy-files -Pandora - https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/PC:1001089101 -iHeart - https://iheart.com/podcast/186907423/ -PocketCast - https://pca.st/dpdyrcca -CastBox - https://castbox.fm/channel/id6193084?country=us - Stay Connected: Join the Murder in America fam in our free Facebook Community for a behind-the-scenes look, more insights and current events in the true crime world: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4365229996855701 If you want even more Murder in America bonus content, including ad-free episodes, come join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderinamerica Instagram: http://instagram.com/murderinamerica/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/people/Murder-in-America-Podcast/100086268848682/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MurderInAmerica TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theparanormalfiles and https://www.tiktok.com/@courtneybrowen Feeling spooky? Follow Colin as he travels state to state (and even country to country!) investigating claims of extreme paranormal activity and visiting famous haunted locations on The Paranormal Files Official Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheParanormalFilesOfficialChannel - (c) BLOOD IN THE SINK PRODUCTIONS 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Colin Brown?

  Warning: The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects.

• 0:12Courtney Brown?

  Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children.

• 0:18Colin Brown?

  This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

• 0:23Courtney Brown?

  It was early morning on April 30th, 1998. Diane Zurnia was getting her daughter ready for school when there was a frantic knock at her door. She opened it to find her friend Chuck standing on the porch. She looked at him for a moment. His face was swollen, his eye was nearly shut. She let him inside, told him to wait in the living room, and then went back to her daughter. By the time she returned, Chuck was sleeping on her couch. Diane turned on the television and settled in. The morning news was on. There was a story about a shooting right down the road. A man was dead, a woman was fighting for her life, and police were looking for the person responsible.

• 1:08Courtney Brown?

  Diane looked at the man sleeping on her couch. When he finally woke up, she tried to lighten the mood. She nodded at his face and said, "I hope the other guy looks worse." Then, he looked right at her and said, "He does. I shot him." This is the story of Charles Victor Thompson. I'm Courtney Brown.

• 1:31Colin Brown?

  And I'm Colin Brown.

• 1:33Courtney Brown?

  And you're listening to Murder in America.

• 2:41Colin Brown?

  Tomball, Texas sits about 28 miles northwest of Houston. A close-knit community with deep historic roots. The crime rate is low, the schools are good, and the residents feel safe. Every December, visitors pour in from across the region for the German Christmas market. Both The Travel Channel and Texas Monthly have recognized Tomball for its outstanding cuisine, and it's easy to see why. Tejas Chocolate Craftery and BBQ alone has been named the sixth-best barbecue restaurant in the state. By almost every measure, it is a good place to live, a safe place to raise a family. But in the spring of 1998, that security would be shattered, and the name Charles Victor Thompson would leave a mark on this town that would last

• 3:26Colin Brown?

  for decades. Denise Hunter was born on September 19, 1958, in San Diego, California. Her mother, Winona, Noni, to everyone who knew her, raised her alone at first. Her father's name wasn't even on the birth certificate, it was just the two of them. When Denise was still very young, her mother remarried a man named Terrence, and from there, their family grew. A little brother came along, Mike. They didn't have much, but her mother, Noni, held it together. And Denise grew up watching that, watching a woman push through, make do, and keep on going.

• 4:03Courtney Brown?

  Denise had her own battles, too. From a young age, she suffered from a genetic gum disease that took her teeth while she was still a young girl. She even had to wear dentures because of it. For most kids, that would have been devastating, something to hide, something to be ashamed of. But Denise wasn't built that way. Despite everything, she was still a warm and sweet girl. She was also funny, never taking anything too seriously. She knew how to have fun and make people laugh. Now, she grew up in sunny San Diego in the sixties and seventies, a city that never really slowed down, and neither did she. By the time she was a young woman, Denise had become someone people gravitated towards.

• 4:47Courtney Brown?

  She made friends easily, which is why moving to Texas was easy for her. Now, why she made the move, we don't really know. But while there, she met a young mechanic named Felix Heslip. And in nineteen seventy-eight, when Denise was just nineteen years old, the two got married. They were young, they were in love, and they were figuring it out as they went. Felix worked with his hands. Denise worked hard too. They didn't have a lot, they never really would, but they had each other. A few years into their marriage, they had a baby boy named Wade, and Denise loved that boy with everything she had. But her marriage was complicated. Felix and Denise both liked to go out.

• 5:31Courtney Brown?

  Being so young, they hadn't quite got it out of their system just yet. The two loved to spend the evening at bars and pool tables. They liked to have fun, to stay out late. Much later on, their son Wade would say that neither of his parents met the definition of an alcoholic. But the bars had a way of creating their own problems. Wade would later say this.

• 5:53Colin Brown?

  He didn't need the alcohol, but he needed the beer joint. And the beer joint produced the alcohol, and the byproduct of that was almost daily conflict between him and my mom.

• 6:02Courtney Brown?

  You see, throughout this time, Denise and Felix's marriage started to crack. There were frequent arguments, loud ones. Sometimes, they were in public. Growing up, it was embarrassing for Wade. He was just a kid. He hated when his parents didn't get along. But he would later say that throughout all the fighting, he knew that his family truly loved each other.

• 6:24Colin Brown?

  I give my parents credit for this. They knew they weren't great parents. We all loved each other immensely and both of them loved me so much. I don't doubt that at all for one second.

• 6:34Courtney Brown?

  But in 1996, after 18 long years, the marriage was finally over. Denise and Felix divorced. Wade was just 11 years old. After the divorce, Denise threw herself into work. She was a nail technician, skilled and determined to build something of her own. She worked six days a week at the inner urban gifts and hair. The hours were long, the money was tight. There were times when she wrote checks she knew might bounce, but she always seemed to figure it out. And at the forefront of everything, she was determined to give her son Wade a good life. Denise made sure Wade went to private school. His education mattered to her deeply. No matter what it cost her, that wasn't something she was willing to give up on.

• 7:19Colin Brown?

  Wade described his mother as compassionate and humble, a woman who taught him that how you treat people is everything. He remembered telling her once that he'd befriended a new kid at school, a boy who'd been cast out by the other children because of a severe medical condition. Denise stopped what she was doing and she started to cry. She was so proud of her son. That was exactly who she wanted Wade to be, someone who treated others with respect, because that was exactly the kind of person she was. But like any mother, Denise wasn't perfect. She and Wade had their moments. Once, after a fight, Wade announced he was running away. Then he went outside and climbed 30 feet up a tree.

• 8:00Colin Brown?

  Denise stood at the bottom for five hours. She was in tears, apologizing for her part in the argument and begging him to come down. Finally, he did. And from there, Wade stormed off to his room. But Denise didn't punish him. She didn't lecture him. Instead, she climbed into bed beside him. Wade recalled it years later, wiping his eyes. "I was mad for a completely ridiculous reason. Of course, I was giving her heart palpitations and she's begging me to come down, and she's in tears apologizing even though I was the one in the wrong. Instead of trying to come at me, she came in and laid down in my bed and we talked through it. She was letting me know it was okay."

• 8:40Courtney Brown?

  By the summer of 1997, Denise was 38 years old. After a near two-decade-long marriage, she was newly single and she was still working hard, but she also allowed herself to have fun. She loved to go out with her friends. She used to joke that she was finally having the fun she missed out on in her youth. And to look at her on a Wednesday night, shooting pool, throwing darts, closing down the bar, you would have believed every word of it. Denise was the life of the party, always smiling, always laughing. Everyone around her felt like the best part of the evening was still ahead. And in the summer of 1997, those qualities seemed to have caught the attention of a man named Troy. The two had been seeing each other.

• 9:24Courtney Brown?

  It was nothing serious, just enjoying each other's company from time to time. On the evening of June 13th, 1997, they made plans to hang out at his house. Around 5:00 PM, Denise drove over there. But when she rang his doorbell, she quickly learned that Troy wasn't home. His roommate Daryl answered the door. "Come on in," he told her. Denise stepped inside. Sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand, was a friend of Troy she had never met before. His name was Charles Victor Thompson, but he went by Chuck. And that day was his 27th birthday. While Denise waited for Troy to come back home, she sat on the couch with Daryl and Chuck. Somebody handed her a beer.

• 10:07Courtney Brown?

  And from there, Denise and Chuck struck up a conversation. There seemed to be an undeniable spark between the two. Even Daryl noticed. Denise was laughing at everything Chuck said, and he gave her a plenty to laugh at. By the time the beer ran out at 6 o'clock, the two decided to go to a local bar. And for the next few hours, the spark between them grew even stronger. They talked and laughed all night long. By the end of the night, they barely even noticed that the bar had cleared out. And by the last call, neither of them were ready to part ways. So they continued spending the night together. They didn't get to sleep until nearly five in the morning. And from that day on, they were inseparable.

• 10:50Courtney Brown?

  Just two weeks after their first meeting, Chuck even moved in with Denise. But it wasn't just Denise's place. She shared a home with her teenage son Wade, her coworker Lisa Gonzalez, and Lisa's two young daughters. So it was a full house.

• 11:07Colin Brown?

  Now, Charles Victor Thompson was born on June 13th, 1970 in Houston, Texas. Most people called him Chuck. His father worked at NASA. In the 1960s, he sat in mission control, one of the men in the room during the Apollo missions, the space race, the moon landing. But in 1972, he walked away from all of it to start a new career in data point computers. The family packed up and moved to San Antonio when Chuck was two years old. He grew up the middle child of three boys. His younger brother didn't come along until the early 1980s. So for most of his childhood, it was just Chuck and his older brother. In those early years, Chuck was a shy kid. His family said he didn't speak much until he was about four years old.

• 11:51Colin Brown?

  But from what he remembered of his childhood, it was really great. He and his brother spent a lot of time playing outside. They spent their summers swimming in the lakes or running through the woods playing Cowboys and Indians. Now, at some point, the family left San Antonio and moved to a rural area outside Denver, Colorado. To the neighbors, he was just Chuck, a perfectly normal kid. One of them, a boy named Ray Martinez, played baseball with him and listened to rock and roll with him after school. He later described Chuck as cool, laid back, always smiling, always happy. Nothing to worry about, nothing to notice, but things were already unraveling.

• 12:33Courtney Brown?

  Throughout his childhood Chuck was really close with his older brother. He looked up to him. He followed him around like little brothers do. But soon enough, his brother started getting into some trouble. He was kicked out of school. He started using drugs, drinking, and breaking the law. At the time Chuck was still in elementary school, but he was still his brother's shadow. When he was just 12 years old, Chuck started hanging out with his brother's high school aged friends, giving him a front row seat to all the trouble they were getting into. And in the summer before 7th grade, Chuck said that his brother handed him his first joint. It was the moment that Chuck would later point to, the one that he said changed everything.

• 13:15Courtney Brown?

  He believed, if that had never happened, none of what followed would have either. You see, by the end of that summer, Chuck was right alongside his brother, drinking, doing drugs, and getting into trouble. He would later tell the podcast behind the bars, "Coming out of elementary school, I was naive. I wasn't exposed to any of that stuff. My older brother corrupted me that summer. Come junior high school, I hit the ground running. I had a head start on what not to do and how to be a bad boy." The following year when Chuck was just 13 years old, he was fully dependent on drugs. His parents had no idea. He never used the drugs at home, always walking to a nearby lake to smoke,

• 13:59Courtney Brown?

  and always coming back with breath mints in his mouth and eye drops in his eye. His older brother taught him how to hide things. But soon enough, he wasn't just smoking weed. He was doing acid and mushrooms too. Being 13 years old, he had no money to buy these drugs. So, to support his habit, he started breaking into cars. He would take things like stereos and radar detectors. But by age 14 or 15, cars just weren't doing it for him anymore. From there, he started breaking into boats, RVs, and houses. He would steal anything of value he could find. Then he would sell the stolen items to buy drugs. And of course, he would eventually get caught.

• 14:43Courtney Brown?

  By the time he was sixteen years old, he had been arrested several times, each ending in a probation sentence. That was also the year he dropped out of school. With all the extra time on his hands, he started breaking the law even more. One night, he said he was walking around when he passed a parked Dodge on a quiet street. Looking through the window, he saw a briefcase in the backseat. So he broke into the car, grabbed it, and took off running. When he finally got back to his house, he opened up the briefcase, and his stomach dropped. Inside was a gun, confidential files, and a government-issued credit card. The briefcase belonged to a Secret Service agent. The following day, rewards were posted.

• 15:28Courtney Brown?

  Detectives were put on the case. But that still didn't stop him. In fact, it seemed to excite him. After that, Chuck started targeting wealthier neighborhoods, watching for signs that houses were empty. Then he would park down the block and kick in their back doors. During these break-ins, he always did it with a friend. They would often split whatever they could sell. But one day, while Chuck was away on vacation with his family, his friend got arrested. During questioning, he ended up turning Chuck in too. The friend even told police about that briefcase he stole from the Secret Service agent. When Chuck and his family came home from vacation, there were a swarm of police officers on their front porch. He was facing serious charges.

• 16:13Courtney Brown?

  His parents were devastated. But while out on bond, while Chuck was supposed to be sitting tight and waiting to face the charges, he decided to run away. He hopped on his father's motorcycle and took off. And believe it or not, he kept driving until he was out of the country. He ended up in British Columbia, at the home of a girl named Sherry he had met at Disneyland the summer before. Sherry's parents had no idea he was a fugitive. As far as they were concerned, he was just a boy who would come up to visit.

• 16:45Colin Brown?

  Surprisingly, Chuck actually stayed in Canada for a while. He even got a job with a painting company that summer of 1986. He was still sixteen, still on the run, but it didn't last. Immigration caught up with him and sent him back to the United States. He then ended up in Los Angeles. From there, he bounced around a bit. He made friends along the way, surfing couches around California. One of those friends needed a ride to Tucson, Arizona, so Chuck decided to go with him. The two eventually made it there by hiding on top of a train, lying flat, trying not to be seen. But customs agents pulled them both off. After that, Chuck was taken to a juvenile facility in Pima County. He was seventeen now.

• 17:29Colin Brown?

  Denver authorities were on their way to bring him back to Colorado, but he wasn't going to let that happen. So Chuck decided to fake a suicide attempt, make it look like he had tried to hang himself in his cell. When they found him, he was transported to the hospital, shackled to the bed. But his plan didn't work, because shortly after, he was sent back to juvenile hall in Denver.

• 17:51Courtney Brown?

  Once back, Chuck was sent to Lookout Mountain School for Boys in Golden, Colorado. It's where he got his education. He enrolled in a vocational food service program where he learned to cook. He learned to work a kitchen. Two years later in 1988, he was released on a pre-relief program. He was eighteen years old on probation, staying in a halfway house. And for a moment, it looked like he might actually be turning things around. Chuck even got a girlfriend named Tammy. Together, they purchased a car and rented a house. When his parole officer came to visit, he was so impressed by what he saw, he decided to let Chuck off parole entirely.

• 18:32Courtney Brown?

  And after that, after he was free, he and Tammy decided to move to Texas. Almost immediately after moving, Tammy found out she was pregnant. They immediately drove to the Harris County courthouse and got married. Chuck was just nineteen years old. In 1991, their daughter Christina was born. At the time, Chuck had a job cleaning carpets. He had saved up enough money to move them into an apartment, but he was still drinking every day, still smoking between jobs. And he called himself a functioning alcoholic. By early 1995, the two decided to move back to Colorado where they had a second child, a son. Chuck was twenty-four years old.

• 19:14Courtney Brown?

  But by then, he had found something worse than weed. He had found meth. The first time he smoked it, he said he felt like Superman. And it wasn't long after that when his wife Tammy decided to leave him for good, and she took her children with her. The meth cost him his family, then his job. In the spring of 1995, after losing everything, Chuck left Colorado and drove south. He kept driving all the way into Mexico. He stayed there for 10 months, smoking meth, snorting cocaine, and burning through whatever money he had left. When the money ran out, he came back across the border into Arizona. He was broke, strung out, and desperate.

• 19:58Courtney Brown?

  And it's here, where he found his way into immigrant smuggling, driving people across the border for cash. He received $250 a person. The more runs he made, the more money came in. And the more money that came in, the more drugs he bought. When he got caught in Mexico and lost his border access, he took the operation stateside, which brought him to Los Angeles, Denver, New York City, Chicago, Birmingham. Whatever it paid. But every time, he blew through every dollar on drugs, parties, and strip clubs.

• 20:33Colin Brown?

  By November 1996, he was done with it. He was 26 years old. He told his boss he was out. On Thanksgiving Day, he got caught shoplifting at a grocery store. The officer let him go with a citation. From there, Chuck left Arizona and drove back to Texas, back to his parents' house. With their help, he tried again. They let him move in. He got a job as a night manager at a subway restaurant. He decided then that he was going to get his life together. He started saving up money and bought a car. After a few months, he landed at a moving company called A1 Moving and Storage, owned by a neighbor of his parents. Finally, Chuck had an honest job, a roof over his head. But he was still drinking,

• 21:17Colin Brown?

  still using meth and speed, still hiding it the same way he always had, while enough that no one looked too closely.

• 21:24Courtney Brown?

  And then one June evening in 1997, he found himself sitting on a couch at his friend Troy's place, with a cold beer and the news on. It was just another night, another day he was getting through. That is until somebody rang the doorbell. Meeting Denise Hunter Hayslip forever changed the course of his life, and they had quite the whirlwind romance. Like we mentioned before, they moved in together just two weeks after meeting. They spent all of their time together, and a lot of that time was spent partying. Chuck would later say that he and Denise would frequent bars five or six nights a week. Denise pulled strangers into conversations like she had known them for years. Chuck had never met anyone like her.

• 22:09Courtney Brown?

  She was having all the fun she had missed out on in her youth. That's what she used to say. Chuck was head over heels. He would later say, quote, "Here I was, 27 years old, and I thought she hung the moon. I was in love with her."

• 22:23Colin Brown?

  Lisa Gonzalez had known Denise for years. They worked together at Inner Urban Gifts and Hair. They were also roommates, and for a while, their living arrangement ran really smoothly. Now, they had a pretty full house. Denise and her teenage son Wade lived there, and so did Lisa with her two daughters. Then, in the summer of 1997, Chuck came to live there as well. It was fine at first, but after a few months, both Denise and Lisa realized that money was running short. And that's because they were paying for everything. Chuck wasn't pulling his weight. Now, that fall, Chuck quit his job at the moving company and took a position with ADT Alarm Systems. But work was slow. The money wasn't coming in the way he needed it to.

• 23:07Colin Brown?

  And with the full household depending on two incomes, that created tension fast. Eventually, Denise asked Chuck to chip in on the bills. She thought it was a reasonable request. However, Chuck didn't see it that way. He flew into a rage, told her to get off his back, and it wouldn't be the last time. Chuck had a dark side to him. One moment, he was charming, affectionate, the guy everyone wanted to be around. The next, he was a totally different person. He threw things, he punched walls, he kicked the refrigerator, left holes in the wall that nobody saw.

• 23:43Courtney Brown?

  One day, Lisa heard him screaming at Denise, calling her names. She walked in to find Chuck with his hands on Denise's shoulders, shaking her violently. Lisa stepped in to stop it. Then Chuck turned on her. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the ground. She scrambled to her feet, reached for the phone to call police, but the line was dead. Chuck had ripped the cord straight out of the wall. Denise's son Wade was watching all of this unfold. He was just thirteen years old, old enough to understand what was happening, but young enough that there was nothing he could do about it. He had already figured out that Chuck had a drug problem. He had found the evidence himself, right there in his mother's house.

• 24:27Courtney Brown?

  He also knew that Chuck was taking advantage of his mom. He would later say, quote, "I knew he was leeching off my mom. I was nice, I was cordial, because I love my mom. I didn't really start giving him a hard time until I noticed the abuse," end quote.

• 24:42Colin Brown?

  Over a few months, everyone in Denise's life grew to really dislike Chuck. No one ever wanted him around. There was one moment, though, that stuck with Wade. His thirteenth birthday party. Chuck showed up uninvited, just walked in like he belonged there, like it was any other day. No one wanted him there, especially not Wade. By November of 1997, the situation had gotten bad enough that a youth pastor at Wade's private school pulled him aside. He told him plainly, either he left his mother's house, or he was going to report the situation to Child Protective Services. Everyone could see what was happening to Denise. The bruises were hard to hide. Wade's options were limited. His father's house wasn't a great alternative.

• 25:25Colin Brown?

  So the thirteen-year-old packed his bags and moved fourteen miles away to his grandmother's house in Spring, Texas. But with Wade out of the house, things only seemed to get worse between the two. Throughout their relationship, alcohol seemed to really create some toxicity between them. Chuck said that because he was 10 years younger than Denise, he would come home late after a night of drinking, and Denise would think he was out sleeping with younger women. They would fight all night long. Chuck would later tell the podcast behind the bars, "Women are jealous creatures. They can be emotional, so not coming home and not calling and not being able to reach her was a no-go for her."

• 26:03Courtney Brown?

  And then came St. Patrick's Day of 1998. The bar was packed. Green plastic beech draped around everyone's necks. Shamrock string lights strung across the windows. Half the crowd in green t-shirts. Everyone with a drink in their hand. A night where the music is too loud and the beer never seems to run out. Chuck, Denise, and Lisa were all together, like they had been 100 times before. But somewhere over the course of the night, Chuck's mood changed. He wanted Denise right beside him. Instead, she was on the dance floor, laughing, moving, in her element. And every minute she spent out there, away from him, was another minute Chuck sat stewing at the bar.

• 26:47Courtney Brown?

  By the time they got back to the apartment, the night had curdled into something ugly. Words were exchanged, voices raised. And then, according to Chuck, Denise hit him. Chuck said he hit her back more than once. He said, quote, "I was drunk. She hit me and I lost my temper and I slapped her a couple times. Man, I regretted it. It was the first time I had ever hit a woman in my life," end quote. But based on other witness accounts, this was not his first time. Soon after this, Denise came into a bar late one night. It was dark. She sat down in front of her friend, Missy Cook, a bartender that Denise had known for years. And she leaned in close. She asked Missy to look.

• 27:32Courtney Brown?

  Denise turned towards her. "I got a lot of makeup on," she said quietly. Missy looked closer, and her stomach dropped. "Holy shit, what are you doing? What are you doing with this guy? You need to get away from him, he's a- Loose cannon. He drinks too much. He's doing cocaine. Please get away from him. Missy told her. I know, I know, Denise said. I need to. I really need to. But she didn't. And Missy never forgot that night. She said, quote, "I was uneasy because I knew Denise was trying to set boundaries with Chuck," end quote.

• 28:09Colin Brown?

  Fed up, Denise kicked Chuck out. For Chuck, it stung. He believed they were in love, still believed they could work things out. But Denise had made up her mind. So Chuck packed his things and moved in with his friend Will. But even from a distance, he and Denise couldn't seem to stay out of each other's lives. He was sneaking over to see her, calling her, showing up. Her roommate Lisa had made it clear he wasn't welcome anymore, but Denise kept inviting him back anyway. Eventually Denise got her own place, a townhouse at Waterman Crossing off Wonder Lake Drive. Chuck helped her move, driving the moving truck himself. And before long, he was spending six nights a week there.

• 28:51Colin Brown?

  By this point, they'd been dating for about nine months. But things between them were never quite the same after St. Patrick's Day. The trust had cracked. And while Chuck thought they were patching things up, Denise was quietly moving on.

• 29:09Colin Brown?

  Cravings aren't just about nicotine. They're about the habit, the hand-to-mouth motion, oral fixation, the momentary pause. And when that loop is broken, cravings spike. I quit vaping about seven months ago in May of 2025. And let me tell you, having a Fume device with me when I quit vaping was, in my opinion, one of the key things that helped me break the habit, break the loop, and start a whole new journey into a healthier life. Fume is a flavored air device designed to help people quit vaping and smoking by breaking that hand-to-mouth pattern. I know how hard that is to break. It's simple, natural, and honestly kind of genius. No nicotine, no batteries, no vapor, just a weighted, twisty, fidget-friendly tool

• 29:52Colin Brown?

  that gives your hands something better to reach for when cravings show up. Like I said before, Know the feeling. I know how hard it is to quit. Not only have I quit vaping, but I've also quit using pouches. So quitting nicotine was a major struggle for me. A lot of listeners online know that I've been sober for about two and a half years now. I went to rehab. I got completely clean, got my act together. But even coming out of rehab, nicotine was something that I was still using. And when I decided to quit, having a fume device with me was an absolute game changer. So this recommendation comes from an honest, earnest place where I truly believe if you want to quit, well, you have to want to quit yourself. But if you're at that point, having a device like this with you,

• 30:35Colin Brown?

  especially a fume device, can be extremely beneficial. When you grab a journey pack, you'll also get a free gift just for using our code, America. So Fume has already helped over 700,000 people take steps toward better habits, and now it's your turn. Use our code, America, to get a free gift with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com, that's T R Y F U M E dot com, and use code, America, to claim your free gift today. And now let's get back to the show.

• 31:10Courtney Brown?

  Kelly's Tea Time Ice House sat in the Champions Forest area of Houston, not far from a golf club where they held the shell open every year. Politicians, prosecutors, and judges unwound there after long days. Regulars had their usual spots. Bartenders knew your order before you sat down. It was that kind of place. Denise had been there a few times. And each time, she couldn't help but notice the bartender. He was young, easy on the eyes, quick with a smile, and even quicker with a joke. And somewhere along the way, he started noticing her too. Denise began stopping in for lunch, just a quick bite to eat at the bar while he worked.

• 31:54Courtney Brown?

  To anyone watching, it looked innocent enough, but there was an easy, comfortable chemistry that was hard to walk away from. He'd lean across the bar, she'd laugh at something he said. And before long, those lunch visits weren't just about the food anymore. By the spring of 1998, Denise and Darren were quietly seeing each other behind Chuck's back.

• 32:17Colin Brown?

  His name was Darren Keith Kane. Born on October 18th, 1967 in Wichita, Kansas. He grew up in Houston, attended Strack Middle School, and graduated from Klein Oak High School. He went on to Blinn College and spent time in the US Army. By 1998, he was 30 years old, working days at Henny's Draperies on Luetta Road and picking up shifts behind the bar at Kelly's on the side. Everyone who crossed paths with Darren seemed to walk away feeling better for it. He had a smile that people remembered, a genuine warmth that made strangers feel like old friends. He had a true love of life and would help anyone who asked without a second thought. Jim Kelly knew both of them well. Darren

• 32:59Colin Brown?

  worked his bar. Denise was a regular, and he had watched the whole thing play out from behind the counter. "My understanding was that Denise was through with Chuck," he said. "As a matter of fact, I knew she was done with him because she told me herself. She had dumped Chuck because he was just a creep. And then she met Darren, and they were the exact opposite. If you could put this guy here and this guy here, you've got an achiever and you've got a loser. Darren was very outgoing, very friendly, he had a great smile, and he was going places."

• 33:29Courtney Brown?

  Chuck had actually met Darren a few times. He and Denise had been into Kelly's together, at that same bar, and Darren had poured them free rounds without being asked. At the time, Chuck thought nothing of it. He would later say, quote, "I should have snapped when we were in the bar and he was giving us free rounds of drinks. It didn't occur to me why. I just thought, wow, this guy's being really cool to us," end quote. But in those early days of Denise and Darren's relationship, she was still seeing Chuck from time to time. Something just kept bringing them back together. Meanwhile, Chuck had no idea that Denise had found someone else.

• 34:09Colin Brown?

  On April 25th, 1998, Chuck joined a coworker out on his boat on Clear Lake. It was a big party, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine. He had planned on spending that evening with Denise, but somewhere along the way, he stood her up. When Denise found out where she had been and what he had been doing, she was furious. And in the heat of that argument, she told him she had slept with Darren that same weekend. She wanted him to know. She wanted it to hurt. Chuck was stunned. He asked her why. Denise told him it was to get back at him for seeing other women. Chuck insisted that there were no other women, just the drugs, just the marijuana and cocaine he had been hiding from her for months. The same drugs she had made clear she wanted no part of.

• 34:53Colin Brown?

  When Denise heard that, she didn't soften. She got angrier. And the two stopped speaking for a few days.

• 35:00Courtney Brown?

  Soon enough, Wednesday, April 29th, 1998, rolled around. The afternoon sun was high over Tomball, Texas. It had been four days since Chuck and Denise had spoken. Four days of silence, of distance, of cooling off after everything came out. But once again, something pulled them back together. Around 5:00 PM, Chuck pulled up to Denise's townhouse. She opened the door. Whatever happened over those last four days, they set it aside. They spent the early evening together, just the two of them. Then they headed to Bimbo's. Wednesday night at Bimbo's meant one thing, $5 steak and potatoes. And like always, they played darts and drank cold beer.

• 35:45Courtney Brown?

  The bartender, Missy, was there. Same as always. Chuck's friend Will was there too. Chuck and Denise were side by side, just like they had been dozens of Wednesday nights before. Missy said, quote, "Normal night. It's your local watering hole. Basically, an Icon dive bar that's been there." For decades. Chuck and Denise played darts. They ate and drank. Hours passed. The bar filled up and thinned out. Chuck was loose. Happy even. This was their thing. This had always been their thing. By the time last call comes around at two A M., neither of them were ready to go home. Chuck could barely see straight. They made their way back to Denise's townhouse.

• 36:30Courtney Brown?

  The night air was warm and quiet around them. They had just barely gotten through the door when the phone rang. Chuck looked at the clock. It was two thirty in the morning. Denise crossed the room and picked up the phone. It was Darren. His shift at Kelly's was winding down. He wanted to come over. He wanted to see her. Chuck watched her face from across the room. He knew. He ran over and took the phone out of her hand. He told Darren that if he came over, he would beat his ass. Darren hung up. Following the call, he found his boss, Jim Kelly.

• 37:07Colin Brown?

  Hey, I need to take off early. Chuck's over at Denise's place and he sounds angry. I'm worried about her.

• 37:13Courtney Brown?

  Jim looked at him. He knew the situation. He knew about Chuck. "Go ahead," he said. "Go make sure she's okay." With that, Darren grabbed his keys and drove straight over. Around three A M., Darren got to Denise's townhouse. Before he even reached the door, it flew open. Chuck was standing there. He had a look of anger on his face. "She's not gonna be with you," Darren said, stepping forward. "She's with me now. This is done, man." But Chuck wasn't interested in talking. He was actually holding a stick, ready to use it. The two men went at each other right there in the doorway, spilling out into the parking lot. Fists were flying, bodies slamming against cars.

• 37:58Courtney Brown?

  Chuck was drunk and furious. He'd been simmering since that phone call. But Darren was younger, stronger, and sober. He got the upper hand fast. He grabbed Chuck by the hair and slammed his head into the asphalt, once, twice. Three times. Denise ran outside. "Stop!" she screamed. "Stop it, please." She looked back and forth between them, her hands shaking. When Darren finally pulled back, she rushed to his side. She was trembling. "I'm sorry," she kept saying, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry for all of this." Chuck got to his feet and straightened up. His eye was already swelling shut. His face was red. He looked at Denise and called her a whore.

• 38:42Courtney Brown?

  Darren stepped between them. His voice was steady. "Hey, chill out, man." Chuck looked at him with wild eyes.

• 38:51Colin Brown?

  "Do you wanna die, motherfucker?"

• 38:53Courtney Brown?

  Next door, Catherine Page was jolted awake by her dog barking. She sat there for a moment, listening to the yelling and commotion outside her door. Finally, she picked up the phone and called the police. Within minutes, Deputy William Coker's headlights swept across the parking lot. He stepped out of his car and took in the scene. He walked towards Chuck. He looked at his face, swollen and bruised. He had a pretty good idea of what happened here. Chuck looked at the deputy and said,

• 39:24Colin Brown?

  "Can I just go inside and grab my work things? That's all I need, just my work stuff."

• 39:29Courtney Brown?

  The deputy looked at him. He didn't want there to be any more trouble. He told Chuck, "No, you leave right now or I take you in. Your choice." Chuck stood there for a moment. He looked at Denise. She wouldn't look back at him. Next, he looked at Darren. Then, he turned and walked to his car. It was around four in the morning when Chuck pulled out of the parking lot. The deputies stood there and watched his taillights disappear into the dark night. Denise was still outside, her hands cupped over her face, sobbing. Darren walked over and put his arm around her. She leaned into him. The deputies got in their cars, and then they were gone too.

• 40:11Courtney Brown?

  The parking lot fell silent, just Darren and Denise standing there in the dark. Whatever just happened, it felt like it was finally over. Darren walked her back inside. The door closed behind them. A couple hours passed. The sun finally came up over Houston. Next door, Catherine Page's son was getting ready for school. Just another Thursday morning. They were both tired after last night's commotion. But there were things to do. So Catherine grabbed her son's backpack. And that's when they heard it. Gunshots. Her son froze. The shots came from right next door. A few minutes later, there was a frantic banging at Catherine's door.

• 40:56Courtney Brown?

  She pulled it open, and what she saw was something she would never be able to forget. Denise was on the ground outside, completely covered in blood. Her mouth was pouring red. She was gasping for air. "Oh my god," Catherine said, dropping to her knees. "What happened?" Denise couldn't speak. She raised her hand slowly and made a sign, like someone pulling a trigger. Catherine grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "I'm calling 911 right now. You're going to be okay. Help is coming." Denise looked at her. She nodded slowly, then her eyes closed. Catherine could see her chest rising and falling. She was trying to steady herself.

• 41:40Courtney Brown?

  She was holding on, trying to breathe through it until help arrived. Catherine kept holding her hand. Finally, they heard sirens cut through the quiet morning. Red and blue lights flashed across the complex. First responders poured onto the scene. And among them was Deputy William Coker, the same deputy who stood in that very parking lot just two hours earlier. The same one who watched Chuck stagger to his car and drive away. He saw Denise on the ground outside Catherine's door, a bullet hole in her right cheek. He knelt down in front of her and looked her in the eye. "Denise?" His voice steady and calm. "Was it him? Was it the man from earlier?" Denise looked at him.

• 42:25Courtney Brown?

  Through all the pain, through all the blood, she held his gaze, and she nodded, "Yes." Coker stood up. He then made his way inside Denise's townhouse. The apartment was in chaos. Furniture knocked over, blood on the floor. And there, just inside the door, was Darren Kane. He had been shot multiple times. The officers knelt beside him. They checked for a pulse, but there was none. Darren Kane was dead.

• 42:55Colin Brown?

  Outside, paramedics worked frantically on Denise. She was alive, she was conscious, but she was fading. They loaded her onto a stretcher and rushed her to the lifeflight helicopter waiting nearby. The blades roared to life as it lifted off and banked toward Herman Hospital. Across town, Denise's son, Wade, was sitting in his science class. A regular school day for the thirteen-year-old boy. That is, until his youth pastor and vice principal appeared at the classroom door. They pulled him out into the hallway and told him that his mother had been shot. Wade didn't even flinch. "It was Chuck, wasn't it?" he said. "I knew it. I told her."

• 43:36Colin Brown?

  He walked back into class, sat down at his desk, and didn't say a word to anyone about what had happened. Inside the hospital, doctors worked quickly. The bullet had entered through her right cheek, shattering her dentures and nearly severing her tongue, coming to a stop in her jaw. She couldn't lie flat. Lying back meant choking on her own blood. But she was alive and conscious. Denise's brother Mike was already at the hospital when she arrived. He found the doctor in the hallway and needed to know. "How is she?" he asked. "Is she going to be okay?" The doctor looked at him. "The bullet is lodged in her jaw," he said. "We've got her stabilized. She's comfortable. We're going to take her into surgery and address everything.

• 44:19Colin Brown?

  The wound, the damage to her tongue, get her stitched up." Mike swallowed hard. "But she's going to make it. She's going to be okay?" The doctor nodded. "She'll likely have a speech impediment and some scarring on her face, but she's going to be okay." Mike let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He walked back out to the waiting room. Every head turned toward him the second he came through the door. Every face searching for an answer. He sat down, and then he looked up at them. "She's going to be okay," he said. "The doctor said she's going to be okay." The air in that room shifted. Someone exhaled. She was going to make it. The Conspiracy Files is the most explosive show on the internet.

• 45:03Colin Brown?

  I'm your host, Colin Brown, from The Paranormal Files on YouTube, and I'm inviting you to take this twisted journey down the rabbit hole with me. Together, we will dive deep into some of the world's most dangerous and disturbing conspiracy theories, from suspicious suicides to hidden pedophile rings and high-profile cover-ups. On my show, no story is off Limits and no detail will be spared. And trust me, after listening to just one episode, you will never look at the world the same. So if you like conspiracies, mysteries, true crime and chaos, then this is the show for you. Listen to The Conspiracy Files now on all streaming platforms or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:47Courtney Brown?

  Now that same morning on the other side of Houston, Chuck was at the front door of his friend, Diane Zernia. When Diane opened the door, she took one look at him and her stomach dropped. She had seen enough to know that something was very wrong. She let him in. Her 14-year-old daughter was still home getting ready for school. Chuck settled into the living room and passed out. Diane got her daughter off to school. Then she sat down in front of the television. The morning news was on. There was a story about a shooting at Waterman Crossing. A couple hours later, Chuck stirred. He opened his eyes. Diane looked over at him and managed a weak smile. "I hope the other guy looks worse," she said,

• 46:31Courtney Brown?

  nodding at his black eye. Chuck looked at her. "He does. I shot him," he said. Diane stared at him, not sure if he was telling the truth. And then Chuck told her everything. At the end of his confession, Diane sat very still. She didn't say a word. Chuck asked if he could use the phone to call his father. Diane nodded. Chuck's father answered. He listened. And then he came and picked up his son from Diane's house. He wasn't helping him get away. Instead, he drove him straight to the police station. A short while later, Chuck was sitting across from two detectives. He looked them both in the eye. He had a story to tell.

• 47:16Colin Brown?

  "Walk us through what happened," one of them said. Chuck nodded. He told them he had gone home after the deputy sent him away, that he had passed out, that when he woke up, he still needed his work things that were still in Denise's house. So he called her. Denise answered, half asleep. "I told her I had to come and get my work stuff. She said she was trying to sleep." He paused. "I asked her if Darren was there. She said no. I said, 'I'll be there in five minutes,' and I hung up."

• 47:43Courtney Brown?

  The detective looked up from his notepad. Did you go back there with the intention to hurt them?

• 47:49Colin Brown?

  Chuck looked him dead in the eye. If I was intentionally going to do this, he said, why would I call first?

• 47:56Courtney Brown?

  The detective held his gaze for a moment. Then he wrote something down. So you drove back over. Then what?

• 48:04Colin Brown?

  I went to the bedroom. I wasn't trying to wake her up. I was just getting my stuff, pulling clothes out of the dresser. And then she sat up in bed. She goes, oh, my God. That's when I realized there was somebody laying in the bed next to her. Darren Kane. Darren Kane, right there. She had looked me in the eyes and told me he wasn't there. So we had words.

• 48:26Courtney Brown?

  What happened next?

• 48:28Colin Brown?

  One thing led to another. He grabbed a French knife from the kitchen block and began threatening me with it. Told me I needed to leave. The pistol came out. I believe I got it from her closet. So this gentleman is threatening me with a knife and I threw down on him. I told him, you need to put that knife down. We had pretty much a standoff at that point.

• 48:46Courtney Brown?

  And then?

• 48:48Colin Brown?

  Chuck's eyes went somewhere else for a moment. What happened next is kind of a blur. I was still hungover, still drunk. From what I remember, he came at me. The first shot, the medical examiner will tell you, it was from over six to eight feet away. He was coming at me. The second shot was three feet or less. After that, it's just a big blur. We were tumbling around, fighting over the pistol. It happened so fast. And then the gun went off and she was hit. She got in the middle of us fighting. She got shot in the mouth. I checked her. I thought she was dead. I picked up the phone and called 911. Didn't go through. I freaked out. I ran. Chuck looked up at the detectives. Hands flat on the table, nothing to hide.

• 49:30Colin Brown?

  It was a compelling story, delivered by a man who knew exactly how to tell it. But if Chuck thought he was going to walk out of that station the same way he walked in, he was wrong. He was arrested, booked into Harris County Jail, charged with murder and aggravated assault. But as you've probably gathered, his version of events were anything but factual. Based on the forensic evidence and the medical examiner's findings, this is what investigators believe took place inside that apartment on the morning of April 30th, 1998.

• 50:03Courtney Brown?

  Earlier that morning, after the deputy sent him away, Chuck didn't go home, not yet at least. Somewhere in the dark of that morning, Chuck caught his hands on a gun. Then, he drove back to the complex. He parked his car, and he just sat there for a moment. The apartments were still. The lights were all off. Nobody was awake. Nobody was watching. He got out of the car and walked up to Denise's door, the same door he had knocked on hundreds of times. The same door she had opened for him hundreds of times. But this time, he didn't knock. He kicked it in. With each kick, the doorframe splintered.

• 50:45Courtney Brown?

  Soon enough, it flew open and slammed against the wall with a crash that shook the whole apartment. Inside the bedroom, Darren's eyes snapped open. He was on his feet before he was even fully awake. He rushed out into the hallway, and it's there where he came face to face with Chuck. "What are you doing here?" Darren asked. "You need to leave right now." Chuck didn't say a word. He just looked at him, the gun in his hand. Darren's eyes dropped to the weapon. He took a step back. "Chuck, put the gun down. Just walk away." From the bedroom, Denise heard everything. She got up and came into the hallway to see both of them standing there. Her stomach dropped.

• 51:29Courtney Brown?

  "Chuck," her voice was shaking. "Chuck, please, stop. Please don't do this." But Chuck wasn't stopping. He was hardly even listening. Darren wasn't yelling at him. He knew better than that. He just kept talking, slow and even, trying to walk this back from wherever it was going. Denise stood between them, pleading. She was trying to get Chuck to look at her, trying to get him to hear her, but his eyes were fixed on Darren. Darren must have known what was coming. He reached out and grabbed the end of the gun. He wasn't going to make it easy. He wasn't going to go without a fight. Chuck fired anyway.

• 52:11Courtney Brown?

  The first shot rang out through that small apartment, then the second, then the third. Then the fourth. After the fourth shot, Darren staggered. His legs gave out beneath him. Then he fell forward and hit the floor. He was face down, not moving. The apartment fell still. Just Chuck standing there in the hallway, the gun still in his hand. Denise standing nearby, in complete shock. Within that hallway Chuck stood over Darren. He looked down at him lying on the floor. Then, he pressed the barrel to the back of his head. And he fired one more time. When he turned back around Denise was standing right there. She had seen everything.

• 52:56Courtney Brown?

  Every single shot. She was frozen, shaking. Her eyes wide, hands trembling. Chuck looked at her. The gun was still in his hand. He walked towards her, put it to her cheek, right up against her skin. He then looked her in the eye.

• 53:13Colin Brown?

  I can shoot you too bitch.

• 53:15Courtney Brown?

  Then, he did it. He shot Denise in her cheek. After she dropped to the ground Chuck fled the apartments. He threw the gun in a nearby creek. Then he made his way to Diane's house to sleep it off. But it wouldn't be long until he was caught.

• 53:32Colin Brown?

  After being arrested Chuck stuck with his story that everything was a complete blur. But Denise's son Wade would later say that Chuck's version of events was bogus, saying, "He shot him five times," Wade said. "And when he was face down on the ground, he put a bullet to the back of his head. How's that a blur? That's pretty clear and vivid and intentional." He paused. He didn't go into detail about how the door got broken into. The door frame was smashed, and also the encounter in the living room and in the kitchen. So I don't know how he would have gotten into the closet to do that. He shook his head. I feel like this is like a five-year-old when you catch him doing something wrong, but they continue to maintain that they didn't do it. Even though you literally just saw them do it. And then there was Denise.

• 54:16Colin Brown?

  Chuck said she got caught in the crossfire, but the evidence told a very different story. He put a gun to somebody's face and pulled the trigger, Wade said. The reason why we know it was so close is because there were powder burns on her cheek.

• 54:30Courtney Brown?

  Across town, Denise was still fighting for her life. In the hospital, they had just taken her back for surgery. In the operating room, the medical team repositioned Denise on her side. They checked everything with a fiber optic scope, made sure everything was exactly where it needed to be. Then, one by one, they filed out of the room to go scrub for the surgery. The room was empty for just a moment, and that's when Denise lost air. No one was there to see it happen. No alarms caught it in time. By the time someone walked back through that door, minutes had already passed. They quickly performed an emergency tracheotomy. They hit her with the paddles. They brought her back. Her heart was beating again.

• 55:14Courtney Brown?

  She was breathing again, but it was too late. Denise was already brain dead. A doctor found her brother Mike in the hallway. He didn't need to say much. The look on his face said it before the words did. Mike stood in that hallway for a long moment. He stared at the floor. He thought about what he had just told everyone in the waiting room. She's going to be okay. The doctor said so. He had looked them in the eyes and said it with confidence. He had believed every word. But now, he had to walk back into that waiting room. One look at his face and the room went quiet. Mike sat down. He leaned forward. Something went wrong, he said. In the operating room,

• 55:58Courtney Brown?

  something went wrong and she's, she's brain dead. Nobody spoke. Mike shook his head slowly. I told you all she was going to be okay. I'm so sorry.

• 56:10Colin Brown?

  The anger came later, when the shock wore off and the question started. What happened in that room? How does someone go from routine surgery to brain dead? The doctors had answers, but none of them felt like enough. I don't know what happened in there, Mike said, but something happened. One thing I will say is, doctors cover doctors. They'll cover each other. For four days Denise lay in a hospital room, the family coming and going. On the evening of May 6th, 1998, at 9:25 PM, Denise Hunter Hayslip was taken off life support. The following morning, a guard came to Chuck's cell. He was taken down to the courtroom. He stood there in front of the judge, his attorney beside him, and listened as the prosecutor spoke.

• 56:54Colin Brown?

  The manslaughter charge, the aggravated assault charge, both dropped. Chuck looked at the bailiff standing beside him. "What does this mean?" The bailiff looked at him. "They're introducing capital murder charges." Chuck stared at him. "Capital murder?" "Double murder statute." The bailiff's voice was flat, matter of fact. "That means the death penalty now, boy." Chuck felt the floor drop out from under him. "Death penalty? What are you talking about? I didn't kill her, the hospital did." He had already heard from his family by then. There had been complications. Something had gone wrong in that operating room. According to Chuck, he was devastated.

• 57:36Courtney Brown?

  By July of 1998, Chuck had been sitting in a Harris County jail for three months. And during that time, he had come up with a plan. He had been reading the papers, watching how grand jury cases worked. He was paying attention to how witnesses got called. And the more he thought about it, the clearer it became. There was one person standing between him and the chance of walking out of that courtroom. And that was Diane Zernia, the woman whose house he went to after the murders. Chuck had already told her everything. And the story he told Diane was much different than the story he told police. If police questioned Diane, he was done for. He knew he would likely get the death penalty.

• 58:21Courtney Brown?

  Chuck wasn't going to let that happen. So that's when he decided that he was going to kill her too. Of course, he couldn't do it. He was in prison, so he'd have to find someone else to do it. A man named Max Humphrey had been released from prison, and Chuck had found a way to get word to him. He sent Max $125 for a down payment. He told Max that he needed to kill Diane before she could testify. Max took the money, but Chuck didn't hear from him after that. Panicking, he started looking for another hitman. His cellmate, Jack Reed, said he knew a guy. They had already spoken by phone. Chuck had told him enough to know he was serious.

• 59:04Courtney Brown?

  And now, it was time to meet this guy in person.

• 59:08Colin Brown?

  The man came into the jail and sat down across from Chuck. The man seemed nervous. He didn't like having this discussion in jail, but Chuck didn't care. There was business to tend to. Chuck looked at him and said, "I was reading the paper today. In order for a grand jury to give an indictment, they usually pull their witnesses in for testimony. There's a witness in this case I need you to take care of." Chuck told the man that he had tried hiring someone else, but the guy was flaking on him. "So, I need you to get rid of her," Chuck said. "She's the state's witness. She's the only witness they've got." Chuck agreed to pay the man $1,500 for her murder. He then wrote Diane's address down on a piece of paper. He described her home. "It's a Victorian-style house," he said.

• 59:53Colin Brown?

  "The mailbox is black and white spotted, painted like a cow." He paused. "She's about 48, 50 years old. She's a mother. She's got a 14-year-old daughter." The man looked Chuck in the eye and told him that he better get his payment if he's going to follow through with this. Chuck gave him his word. Then the man walked out of that jail. But what Chuck didn't know was that as soon as he asked his cellmate, Jack Reed, to connect him to a hitman, Jack went straight to Deputy Max Cox of the Harris County Sheriff's Department. As it turns out, the man sitting across from him that day wasn't a hitman at all. He was Investigator Gary Johnson, and every single word of that conversation had been recorded. Here's a portion of that recording.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  State's witness, the only witness they got. That's kind of more important.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  So it's more important to kill her than get the gun back? If I go ahead and take her out, and you get out, there's a chance that you could tie me up there?

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Okay, what are we talking about? How much?

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  I have your prize.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Well, you want the address? Okay, I'll kill her for 1,500.

• 1:00:58Courtney Brown?

  On April 12th, 1999, Charles Victor Thompson went on trial for the murders of Darren Kane and Denise Hayslip. The prosecution told the jury exactly what the evidence showed. Chuck had gone and gotten a gun. He kicked in the door. He shot Darren Kane multiple times in the chest and neck. Then, when Darren was already dead on the ground, he stood over him and fired one final shot into the back of his head. Then, he turned to Denise. The gunpowder residue on her cheek told them everything they needed to know. He had pushed that barrel right up against her face and pulled the trigger. And then there was Diane Zernia.

• 1:01:39Courtney Brown?

  By then, she knew that Chuck tried to have her killed before she ever set foot in that courtroom. And yet, there she was. When she walked in that day, she was pale as a sheet. Her hands were shaking before she even sat down. And she told the jury everything that Chuck told her that morning, every word of it. Juror Harold Rogers never forgot it. He said, quote, "Diane was the most frightened person I've ever seen on a stand or elsewhere. She was a very thin lady to begin with, and she was just pale. Her eyes were big as silver dollars. She was scared to death. She was frightened of this guy." End quote.

• 1:02:20Courtney Brown?

  The prosecution also brought forward a psychologist named Jerome Brown. He testified that Chuck was a narcissistic sociopath, someone who would get violent under pressure, and someone whose alcohol and drug use only made it worse.

• 1:02:35Colin Brown?

  The defense argued that Denise hadn't died from the gunshot. She had died from medical malpractice, a breathing tube that became dislodged before surgery, five to 10 minutes without oxygen. The hospital, they said, was responsible. And while that was true, the jury wasn't buying it. At the end of the day, Denise wouldn't have even been in that situation if Chuck hadn't broken into her apartment and shot her. When the jury came back from deliberations, the room went silent. Chuck rose to his feet. He had charmed his way out of tight spots before. He had looked people in the eye and made them believe him. Twelve strangers now held his entire life in their hands. The judge looked down at the paper and read the verdict aloud. Guilty. Next came the punishment phase.

• 1:03:20Colin Brown?

  And the prosecution had something they had been waiting to play. The recording from the jail. Chuck's own voice captured without his knowledge, ordering the murder of the state's star witness. They pressed play. Every word of it filled that courtroom. Chuck's voice, calm as anything, like it was just another problem to solve. Harold Richards sat in that jury box and listened. This is the first time I started thinking, wait a minute. Maybe life in jail is not the right decision for this guy. He paused. This was a guy capable of doing enormous evil.

• 1:03:53Courtney Brown?

  On April 6, 1999, Charles Victor Thompson was sentenced to death. But it wasn't over. Six years later in 2005, Chuck was granted a retrial. They found that the recording that was played at trial, where he was trying to hire a hitman to kill Diane, well, that was deemed inadmissible. Chuck was granted a new trial with a new jury. And this time, that recording wasn't allowed. Just the facts of what he had done to Darren and Denise. Jury foreman Kristen Martins was one of the 12 people in that room. She said, quote, "We're not deciding guilt or innocence. We're deciding his punishment, whether or not to give him life or sentence him again to the death penalty."

• 1:04:38Courtney Brown?

  End quote. The defense leaned hard on the fact that Denise had died six days after the shooting, that the hospital bore responsibility. Kristen wasn't moved. She said, quote, "To me, that was irrelevant. He had shot her in the face, and he did murder somebody first." End quote. She also added in the fact that a lot of the trial was focused on Denise and her death, stating, quote, "I think Darren was lost in the case. I don't think his death was brought up as much as Denise's was. I feel bad for his family." End quote. Kristen had no doubt that Chuck had intended to kill them that morning, stating, quote, "I wholeheartedly believe that he went there to kill Darren,

• 1:05:22Courtney Brown?

  and he went there to kill Denise. Darren was more of a hands-off, I just want to take him out of the picture. And I think he made it very personal when he killed Denise." End quote. Now as for Chuck himself, Kristin had a theory about that too. She said, quote, "I think for somebody like Chuck, he's narcissistic. He really enjoys the attention. I think if he were to have a life sentence, it would be a gift to him," end quote. And the other jurors seemed to agree. After deliberation, they filed back in the courtroom. Chuck rose to his feet once more. And it's here where Charles Victor Thompson was sentenced to death for a second time.

• 1:06:05Courtney Brown?

  Many of the jurors admitted that after the verdict was read, they felt a little uneasy. This was a dangerous man. Kristin even asked the judge, "Is there any possible way he's going to get out? My name is public." There's always that concern. But the judge looked at her and said, "No, he's on death row now. You're safe." However, unbeknownst to everyone, it wouldn't be long until Chuck was out on the run.

• 1:06:34Colin Brown?

  It was November 3rd, 2005, seven days after being resentenced to death. Chuck was still being held at the Harris County Jail while he waited to be transferred to the Polanski Unit in Livingston, Texas. He had been planning something for a while. Somehow, using a legal binder, the kind inmates are permitted to keep, Chuck had smuggled a set of civilian clothes into the jail. A dark blue shirt, khaki pants, white tennis shoes, the clothes he had worn to his sentencing hearing. But he also had something else, the key to his handcuffs. Nobody knows how he got that key. That Thursday afternoon, Chuck was escorted to a room in the jail for a meeting with a visitor claiming to be his attorney. They sat together, and then the visitor left.

• 1:07:18Colin Brown?

  And Chuck was alone in that room. He reached for the key, slipped out of his handcuffs, peeled off his bright orange prison jumpsuit, and changed into the civilian clothes. Then he looked over at the ID badge. It was his jail ID. He had placed a piece of tape carefully over the part that identified him as a prisoner. It wasn't sophisticated. Chuck picked it up. And somehow, he walked out of that room, moved through the jail, past one guard, two. He held up the badge when he needed to. Nobody looked too closely. He looked like a visitor, not a prisoner. He walked past three guards, four, kept moving, unhurried. He reached the visitor's lobby and walked right through it. And then he pushed open the door and stepped out onto the street.

• 1:08:03Courtney Brown?

  Once he was outside, he changed again, out of the court clothes and into a tank top and shorts. Then he started jogging, just a man out for a run on a Thursday afternoon. He jogged all the way to the nearby rail yard. Then he climbed into a boxcar and waited. Soon enough, the train started moving. Chuck later said that the experience felt like an adventure. He was covered in grease from the train, but he was free. He said that years of playing Dungeons and Dragons helped him stay in character. And it wasn't until two hours after he escaped, when the prison officials finally realized he was missing. Then they saw the footage of him sneaking out.

• 1:08:46Courtney Brown?

  The news of his escape spread like wildfire. The jurors, who had just handed him a death sentence, were terrified. Some went into hiding. Victims' relatives accepted police protection or disappeared to hotels in other parts of the state. Federal authorities offered a $10,000 reward. Airports were alerted. Schools went on lockdown. There were border controls. Law enforcement agencies across the country looking for him. Denise's son Wade got the call at work. The sheriff's department offered him surveillance and police escorts. Wade turned them all down.

• 1:09:25Colin Brown?

  The Harris County Sheriff's Department was blunt about what had happened. "There is no way to spin this," said Lieutenant John Martin. "There were multiple errors on the part of our personnel. This was 100% human error that could have been prevented." Mike Donahue, Denise's brother, had his own assessment. "There's no way Chuck had the brain power for this," he said. "He's not the sharpest pencil in the box." Somebody, investigators believed, had helped him. But nobody was ever charged.

• 1:09:54Courtney Brown?

  Meanwhile, the boxcar carried Chuck 200 miles northeast to Shreveport, Louisiana. But once he got there, he needed money. He posed as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. People felt sorry for him. They gave him cash. At some point, he stole a bicycle and used it to get around the city. He used the money to buy beer and liquor. He had also made a phone call to his parents, another to a female friend in Canada. He believed that she would help him flee the country. Instead, she turned him in for the reward money. On the evening of November 6th, Shreveport Police and the U.S. Marshals received a tip that Chuck was on 70th Street.

• 1:10:37Courtney Brown?

  When they arrived, they found him outside of a liquor store. He was drunk, standing at a payphone. They asked him his name. Chuck looked at them.

• 1:10:47Colin Brown?

  You know who I am.

• 1:10:49Courtney Brown?

  They asked again. Finally, he sighed.

• 1:10:53Colin Brown?

  Charles Thompson.

• 1:10:55Courtney Brown?

  He was too drunk to be interrogated that night. But finally, the search was over. Lieutenant Martin spoke to the press. Quote, "He should have never got out. To have him back in custody again, this is where he belongs." He was convicted of capital murder. He was twice sentenced to death. There is no scenario under which he should be free roaming around on the street. End quote.

• 1:11:20Colin Brown?

  Denise's family had spent four days hiding in hotels, staying with friends in other parts of the state. Her brother Mike was relieved. "My family can now go back to a normal living," he said. "They've been totally disrupted." Darren's brother Devon told CNN, "I'm glad to know no one else was harmed. I'm glad to know that he's back in custody." But Denise's son, Wade, had his own thoughts on how it all ended. "He goes to this great plot to escape and he succeeds," Wade said. "And then he gets caught because he got drunk at a liquor store or gas station or some type of convenience store in Louisiana." He shook his head. "You're telling me that he hopped on a train, did all this stuff, managed to walk out of a jail, but he gets drunk and they catch him?" He paused.

• 1:12:04Colin Brown?

  "At that moment, I go, what an idiot. But maybe that's not fair. I don't know what it's like to be on the run. I don't know what it's like to be in jail for 10 years. It doesn't surprise me that he was able to talk his way out of anything. He was charming and cunning and very manipulative. Chuck is quite the artist at manipulation." Chuck had something to say about all of it, too. "I think I kind of debunked future threat to society," he said. "I was running around in the free world for four days. I walked past little old ladies in front of shopping centers, getting out of their cars. I didn't carjack them, I didn't rob anybody, I didn't assault anybody, I didn't hurt anybody. But if you listen to any capital death penalty trial, they drill it into the jury's head. He's a future threat, he'll kill again."

• 1:12:50Colin Brown?

  But in reality, Chuck was only on the loose for four days. He had to be on his best behavior. Those four days of him following the rules didn't prove anything. But from there, Charles Victor Thompson was extradited back to Texas. While there, Chuck read books, he wrote letters, mostly to women. A woman in Wales created a Facebook page called Friends of Charles Victor Thompson. Through it, he fundraised for attorneys and private investigators, he gave interviews. He said his life was an open book. He continued this for years and years. By 2025, Chuck still talked to his daughter Christina. His son had long since cut contact. Chuck's older brother, the one who handed him that first joint when he was 12, the one he had spent his whole childhood following,

• 1:13:36Colin Brown?

  was about to go back to prison for the seventh time. And his younger brother, the one who had somehow come out of that family with a musical gift and managed to build something quiet and decent with it, had just been diagnosed with cancer. For decades, everyone following this case was patiently waiting for the day that Charles Victor Thompson would finally get put to death. And on September 11th, 2025, a death warrant was issued. He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on January 28th, 2026, at the Huntsville unit. By then, his appeals ran out. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his request to commute his sentence. One hour before the scheduled execution, the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal without explanation.

• 1:14:22Colin Brown?

  On January 28th, 2026, Chuck sat down to his last meal. Fried chicken, carrots, pinto beans, sweet potatoes, bread, and swirl pudding. That evening, he was strapped to a table in the execution chamber at Huntsville. A spiritual advisor prayed over him for three minutes. Darren Kane's father was in that room. When it was over, he had three words. "He's in hell." Denise's son Wade Heslip had been the first one into the viewing chamber. When Chuck was brought in, their eyes met across the glass. Wade nodded, and then Chuck spoke his final words. "I hope the victim's family can find forgiveness in their heart and that you can begin to heal and move past this. There are no winners in this situation.

• 1:15:07Colin Brown?

  It creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later. I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for what happened. And I want to tell all of y'all, I love you. Keep Jesus in your life. Keep Jesus first. To my children, get to know the Lord, and I love you all. That's it."

• 1:15:27Courtney Brown?

  With that, a lethal dose was administered. 22 minutes later, at 6:50 PM, Charles Victor Thompson was pronounced dead. He was the first execution carried out in the United States in the year 2026. Outside death row, Wade Heslip told reporters, "I sincerely hope that he's made it right with God, and that he's not somewhere burning in hell. I've had someone to oppose my whole adult life, and now I'm more or less cheering for him. I hope he meant what he said. I hope he's right with God."

• 1:16:02Colin Brown?

  Wade Heslip grew up fast after his mother died. He had no choice. For years, he had this recurring nightmare. In it, Chuck Thompson shot him. He would wake up and the day would already be carrying weight before it had even started. But despite everything he had faced, he decided to make something of himself. Wade finished school. He became the first person in his family to go to college. And at every milestone, the first date, the graduation, the wedding, the moment he held his first son, there was the same thought, the same absence, the same voice he would never hear again. He would later say, "I wish I had advice from Mom." That affirmation that she was proud of me and that she loved me. Over the years, Wade got married.

• 1:16:47Colin Brown?

  He moved to Chicago, had three boys, and his mother never met any of them. "She would have been the spoiling type," he said. He knew that about her. His father Felix died in 2009, one month before he would have become a grandfather. And then Wade had to see all the press. The documentary is the interviews with Chuck, his mother's killer. He saw the Facebook pages and the pen pals and the supporters. Every time Chuck's name appeared somewhere new, Wade had to live through it again. I've mourned and grieved her loss, he said, but it's still been an active thing because he's been so visible in the public eye. He paused. That has overshadowed who she was and what she represented. Wade spent 28 years waiting for that to change.

• 1:17:31Colin Brown?

  It's the end of a chapter, he said, and the beginning of a new one. I'm looking forward to the new one. He took her life, but he took so much from me. She taught me how to love. Humility came to me through my mother.

• 1:17:44Courtney Brown?

  Denise Hunter Hayslip was just 39 years old. She made everyone around her smile and laugh. She made everyone feel like the night was just getting started. She loved having fun. She loved her family. She was the loudest laugh in any room she walked into. Her clients loved her. Her friends adored her. She worked six days a week doing nails, writing checks she hoped would clear, making sure Wade never went hungry or never missed a day of private school. She never got to see him graduate, never got to meet his wife, never got to hold any of his three boys. She would have spoiled every single one of them.

• 1:18:26Courtney Brown?

  Darren Keith Kane was 30 years old when he died on the floor of that townhouse. He had spent that evening behind the bar at Kelly's, and when he got a phone call that worried him, he left without hesitation. He didn't go looking for a fight. He went because that's who he was. Darren was very outgoing, his boss Jim Kelly said. He was very friendly, he had a great smile, and he was going places. His obituary said he never met a stranger, that he had a true love of life and would drop anything to help those in need. That's what he did that night, and because of it, Chuck took his life. A life ended far too soon.

• 1:19:09Colin Brown?

  For today's episode, we'll be making a donation to Safe Horizon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for families and people affected by violence, abuse, and exploitation. You can learn more at safehorizon.org.

• 1:19:27Colin Brown?

  Hey everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America for joining Courtney and I for this one. We have an incredible base of listeners, each and every one of you guys Courtney and I are so thankful for and yeah, just feeling grateful today and want to say thanks. If you want to help support what we do here on the show, please consider joining us on Patreon. On Patreon, you can get early ad-free access to every episode of the show. So if you don't like the ads, consider joining us there. You can also help support the show and get access to bonus episodes on Patreon as well. So if you want to hear full-length episodes of Murder in America exactly like what you just heard, with both Courtney and I and the same sound design, music, script writing, everything,

• 1:20:11Colin Brown?

  please consider joining us there and helping to support the show over on Patreon. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram @murderinamerica to see photos from every case that we cover here on the show and leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to this podcast. It's super important and we love hearing from you all, so thank you so much. Anyways, guys, we'll be back next week. Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode and yeah, I'll see y'all on the next one.