Ep 73 | Charles Higginbotham Transcript

Ep 73 | Charles Higginbotham 

Transcript

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listen to discretion is advised. This week on Voices of a Killer,

we talked to Kansas City native, Charles Higginbotham. Over the summer break of 93. Charles joined the ranks of teenage killers when he committed a calculated first degree murder. Now behind bars, serving life without parole, 49 year old Charles reflects on the day that sealed his fate. This is a story of two troubled youths and childhood friends who did everything together, even execute a murder.

In this episode, we'll discuss the ethics of sentencing an 18 year old to life without parole, and we'll bring to light some dark secrets at the heart of this case that Charles has kept locked away for all these years. Three decades behind bars have shaped Charles, and as he expresses his remorse for the crime, we find out whether he's still the same person that once took a life.

So join us as we dig into the mind of this former teenage killer on this episode of Voices of a Killer. So I want to ask you, did you grow up in Missouri? Yes, I did. I grew up in all around the Kansas City area. I was in foster homes. Oh, how'd you get in foster homes? My mom was around either 13 or 14 when she had me, a biological mother.

And she was, I guess, for all purposes, an addict. She was a, I want to say. Unfit. Sure. And so I lived with her for four years though, with her and her mom, my grandmother. Who, she was a violent, abusive drunk. So you grew up in Missouri and you were a foster, kid. When did you, what age were you whenever you went into foster, care?

Yeah, I went through foster care, bounced all around the Kansas City area from the ages of 4 to 7, and then at 7, the Higginbothams, Charles and Joanne, took me in. And that's where you got your last name and everything. How would you describe your relationship with your parents? Was it a good relationship, or was it a bad relationship, or was it just kind of What was it?

With my adopted parents. Yeah. I had a pretty good, really good relationship with my adopted father and pretty shaky with my adopted mother. Why do you think it was shaky with her? They had a biological kid, my sister, not long after I was adopted, and it just kind of threw everything off. Did they adopt because they thought they couldn't have a child and then they did?

Right, right, she had a few miscarriages and they thought they couldn't have a kid and that was all she wanted. Wow, so then they went and adopted because they kept having miscarriages and then all of a sudden they got pregnant. So now that child is kind of above you, you thought? Right. Do you feel like that had an effect on you from then on, where that child came in, that was their blood, and you were kind of like the second hand thought?

Yeah, absolutely. Once she was born, it was like my adopted mother and I just never talked again. We never had a relationship again because she had her own kid that she always wanted. I could see where that right there actually makes an impact on the rest of your life where you come in, you have stress in your life as a child, you're the, the in foster care, which is definitely not normal, natural.

Then you get into the foster parents and then they have a child and you're kind of like second in line. What age were you when that happened? Either 7 or 8 when I was adopted. But I was 8 when my sister was born. Oh, so right after. Did you feel like when you started getting to your younger adulthood that you started to kind of drift from them?

Yeah, I mean I, Just in my adolescence, my teenage years, my adopted parents were kind of fighting and starting to split up. And when they did, everything became about who would have my sister with them. And they never, neither one of them ever asked which one I was going with. Okay, I got you. What do you think they split up for?

I don't know, honestly. yeah, really, I don't know. I mean, teenagers are self absorbed. I really don't know. Charles Higginbotham started out life without a fixed place to call home. He tells me he just turned four when his mother, a teenager addicted to her*in, lost custody of her son to the state.

Stripped from her care, Charles was then thrust into the pipeline of child welfare services, bouncing between foster parents and strange new homes. Homes across the breadth of Kansas City. Notoriously foster care in the United States is a deeply broken system, understaffed and underfunded. It sees kids falling through the cracks and ending up in placements that are negligent or downright abusive.

So everyone thought it was a stroke of luck when Charles at seven years old, was scooped out of foster care and formally adopted by a couple from the satellite City of Independence. The Higgin Boths were a married couple who'd been unable to conceive a child. Adopting Charles seemed like a perfect fit.

The boy would finally get a stable roof over his head, and they'd get the missing piece to their family. However, Charles tells me the adoption didn't unfold as his parents had hoped. Although fond of his adopted father, Charles relationship with his mother was strained, as the young boy rejected her for taking the place of his birth mother.

That only worsened with the unexpected arrival of the couple's biological daughter. From that moment on His parents attention shifted away from him, and Charles felt sidelined, a second class resident in their home. Battling feelings of rejection, and with his parents occupied with the child they'd always wanted, Charles was left to his own destructive devices.

So you got into trouble when you were 18 years old, which is basically months or days from being what's considered a child. Still today in 2024. So describe who you were in when you were 17 years old. When I was 17, that's, I was an Eagle Scout. I was an honors student. I was, in speech and debate, played football in high school, played a number of other sports.

Did you graduate from high school? Yeah, I graduated from Fort Osage High School in 1993. So at 17, in addition to being, the Eagle Scout and all the good stuff, did you also do dr*gs? Yes. Yes, I've, off and on from probably about 14 or so, I would be drinking or smoking w**d or some of that. I tried acid and mushrooms a few times.

By 17, I was doing m*th and coc**ne too. How'd you get into that at such a young age? When my parents split up, like when I was about 15, I had no curfew or anything anymore. Neither one of them worried about me, so I started staying out later and meeting worse and worse people. Yeah, so you just kind of, your parents were at their own devices and kind of left you at the wayside?

So, yeah, so whenever you graduated high school, were you 17 or 18 when you graduated? I turned 18 in April of 1993. I graduated high school in May and murdered a man on July 2nd. So you graduated in May and murdered somebody on July 2nd? Yup. So what was graduation like? by that time I was high quite a bit.

Were you high, at graduation? Probably high every day my, by that time, my senior year, almost. Really got deep into it? Yeah. Were you in this mindset that you were kind of, not just a dr*g user, but you were like a seller and you were kind of like gangster, like taking on a different persona? Not really.

I mean, I was pretty much just a dr*g user. I didn't really sell anything or anything like that. I worked odd jobs at like a, I worked at Sonic and fast food. I worked at McDonald's and I didn't think of myself as lost. What kind of people were you around most of the time? Were they people that were just doing dr*gs too and young, or were they people that were doing serious crimes and violent or what?

It's a combination. I've had a few different groups of friends. Some of my younger friends were off into the dr*gs with me. My best friend is my fall partner. He's here in prison with me. He lived at my house at that time. This is your co-defendant? Yes. Kenneth Gilbert? Yep, that's him. Yeah. Did y'all graduate together?

He got kicked out of school. He actually didn't graduate. Does he know you're doing this interview? I don't know for sure because I'm in the ITC program so that I am. When did y'all meet? When did we meet? Yeah. In the fifth grade. Fifth grade. Independence. So y'all had a bond from childhood all the way up to high school?

All the way up to now. We still have a bond. Yeah. Okay. And he's your co-defendant. So did y'all do hard dr*gs together? Yes. You know what's crazy is 18 years old, we look at that as the age that you become adult, you can go to the military, you can buy cigarettes, in some places not, but 18 to me is like I was still just a child, I didn't know anything, I can barely remember back then, I'm 45 now, but 18 just felt like that was a different person than I was. Do you feel that way? That was a completely different human being? Absolutely. I think most people would agree. Yeah. The hardest thing about that is that I wanted to think of myself as intelligent, that I was smart. Socially not smart. I was not emotionally smart either.

And I made horrible, horrible decisions I'm responsible for the rest of my life. And I was responsible for taking a life. Looking back at that 17 year old boy, Charles sees a kid who lost his way and ended up down a disastrous path. At the time, Charles was living on the edge of two different worlds. To all outward appearances, Charles was a golden kid.

He was an honor roll student, Eagle Scout, football athlete, and high school debater who seemed on track to a bright and promising future. But peel back that shiny exterior and you'd find a much darker side to Charles. Lacking supervision from his parents, Charles had fallen in with the wrong crowd and took to staying out late and experimenting with hard dr*gs.

By his senior year, Charles was getting high every day and increasingly indifferent to his schoolwork. Despite his record of extracurricular and academic success, he was teetering on the brink of self destruction, putting that once bright future at risk. One of Charles closest friends. Charles friends at the time was a boy called Kenneth Gilbert, also known as Kenny.

After Kenny had moved to Independence in the 5th grade, the two had become as thick as thieves. Back in 1993, Kenny had even taken up residence in Charles' home. As far as Charles sees it, he took on the role of the leader in their friendship, and Kenny followed closely behind on all their pursuits, even if it sometimes led him into trouble.

In fact, cut ahead just a few months after high school graduation. And Kenny would follow Charles into an act that changed their lives irreversibly. Over the summer break of 1993, he and Kenny committed a crime that would mark the end of their youth and the beginning of a life behind bars. So you're actually in there for killing somebody, was it over dr*gs?

Kind of, it did a little bit, yes. Take me back to the week before this murder occurred. What's going on that week before? Okay, it was in late June. We've graduated from high school. We have the summer off. We've been high, doing dr*gs off and on for a while now. We don't know if we're going to college this fall.

I'm kind of lost. My parents have split up. I don't even know if I'm going to have a house to live in. A lot of things were going on. A lot of turmoil. What was your relationship to the victim? Okay, I worked at McDonald's, and my assistant manager at McDonald's was a woman in her 30s that I used to hang out with, started hanging out with, partying with, and it was her brother that I killed. And how, what was the relationship between Kenneth and the victim? Same thing? Yeah. Kenny worked at McDonald's for a little while as well. And Kenny was, Kenny's like a brother to me. He lived with me at my house and we used to party and socialize at the assistant manager, her house. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie had, Stephanie was the assistant manager's name. I don't know if I should even say her name. I feel bad about that. Just the first name. Yeah. Okay. She was the manager and she had kids. She had a 10 year old son and I believe her daughter was like 13 and I used to tutor. That's how I first started coming over to her house from when I was working at McDonald's is I used to tutor her son.

And then I, while I was there, I would also tutor her daughter. Different classes in school. And that's how it became like a party place because we could smoke w**d there or whatever when the kids were off and gone to bed and that type of thing so it was. Like a safe comfortable environment for teenagers to hang out. So, what would make you have beef with the victim? He had been estranged from his sister for many years.

The one that worked at McDonald's? Right. They hadn't seen each other for a long time. And he had just come back, he just came back into her life, and before he did, she Told me that he had been away from the family for years and was sent away to a boy's home and then never allowed back into the family for things he did when she was a kid and that she was scared because he had called and said he wanted to come see her.

So she set up a meeting when he came to town to meet her with me there so that she would feel at least safer or have someone around. Why was she scared of him? Well, after he showed up in his car with all of his possessions and his dog, and said he needed a place to stay in the Kansas City area for a while, and she was a nice woman, a nice sister, and wanted him to build a relationship back, I guess.

So what became of that? He stayed there at her place, and at different times, like I said, we would party there, so he would see us there. Did you ever hang out with the victim? did he look down on you and kind of, and not respect you? He was difficult to read in a number of ways. He liked to drink beer, he drank Heineken all the time.

He had been in the military, I think, in Germany. At different times I socialized with him. So did Kenny, we talked to him and we, I don't know, we got weird vibes from the guy. We kind of learned that his past with his family was really shaky and scary that he had done something to his family members, that they would not talk to him for many years.

In July of 93, Charles's life intersected with two key people. One was Stephanie, the assistant manager who worked at McDonald's. The other was Kevin, Stephanie's mysterious brother and the eventual murder victim. Stephanie was a 30 something single mom who invited Charles and Kenny into her home on a number of occasions. The summer break after graduation is a time when most teenagers feel apprehensive about entering the next phase of their lives.

Undecided about attending college, Charles also felt the uncertainty of his future loom large. But Stephanie's house became a safe refuge over the summer where he and Kenny could hang out, drink, and escape those insurmountable fears about the future. It was around this time that Stephanie's estranged brother, Kevin, entered the picture.

Ever. Ever since Stephanie could remember, Kevin had been cut out of her life following a long standing family rift. But now in 93, he had re-emerged out of the blue and appealed to his sister for a place to stay. Stephanie had graciously agreed to take her brother in. Not much was really known about Kevin to Charles.

Over their few interactions, he learned that Kevin had a military past and a penchant for Heineken beer. But what had caused Kevin to be so forcibly exiled from his family was unclear. Even to Stephanie, the thought that Kevin had done something so bad that it had to be locked in family secrecy set Charles on edge and cast a shadow over Kevin's presence in the home.

Soon, Charles would find out that his reservations were well founded. We'll hear more about that after the break.

Did that make you create animosity towards him when you found out these weird things? Yeah, the awkwardness came is that when Kevin, our victim, would get drunk or we'd be around him at high, he would say and do weird things around the kids. Like s*xual stuff? Like stuff that's off color? Yeah, off color, like grooming.

I mean, I've grown up with a lot of s*xual abuse and violence in my life in the foster homes and earlier, so I've seen the grooming patterns, the behaviors that And it's just, I don't know, I got weird vibes, I got creeped out by him, I got, I thought that... so whenever, let me ask you this, let me stop you, so He's basically giving off this vibe of being kind of weird with the kids and did that cause you and your co-defendant to start talking about it and like, kind of showing your disapproval?

A little bit, yes. A little bit. we kind of joked things off at the time, we didn't know how to take a guy that was twice our age that had military experience. I mean, we didn't know what to think of him or what, I mean, the way he was acting was really strange. Yeah. Did y'all like start saying things like we need to do something about this?

We talked about like, should we run him off? Is that a possibility? Could we do that? I mean, we were two teenage kids run this military veteran off. So obviously you're, you guys want to do something about this guy because of his behavior, it sounds like. Did you have, what other kind of thoughts did you have besides running him off?

Was it to hurt him? Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly those types of things. Like, should, I mean, should we beat this guy up? Could, would beating him up do anything? Could we beat him up? well, how big are you? I'm 6'4 but I've always been skinny. I'm athletic, but I'm not like a huge guy. I mean, when I came to prison, I was like 6'3, 175, 180.

And I'm now 49 years old. I'm 6'4 maybe 190. What's Kenny back then do you think was his size? Yeah, he's about the same height, but he was even skinnier. He's heavier now, but yeah, he was skinnier then. Yeah, and what about the victim? How big of a person that was? Probably six feet tall and 250 pounds. Yeah.

So this, I mean, it seemed like, like what he was talking about, you kind of seemed like it was not that bad, but kind of a, it was just off color. But now it's like enough to actually harm the guy. It's almost like, was there something else against this guy? Or it was just the fact that he was saying what?

Here's what it came down to is he made, weird, like when we would be drinking with him or high, he would make weird references with me only when I was alone with him. So it was making you aggravated and kind of feel discomfort? Well, he offered me money for things and it just got really weird with him.

And like an old guy to me wasn't interesting at all, but the way he was offering money, like he would flash that he had wads of cash. Yeah. It was really weird. Did he do the same thing to Kenny? I don't think so, no. Kenny, he didn't. Did you use this in court where this was going on? No, because I never said anything like that.

I was embarrassed because he had made s*xual advances to me and that I wanted to hide that part from my life. Yeah. I didn't want anyone, I was, I have the same name as my father, he's a mechanic and he seems to be trying to earn it. I knew if his name appeared with anything like that, it's just, I was ashamed.

Yeah. As the summer wore on, Kevin's behavior became increasingly disturbing. When he was drunk. Kevin would act inappropriately to Stephanie's 10 and 13 year old kids. This set off alarm bells in Charles mind, triggering memories of the s*xual abuse he'd been exposed to in foster care. Because of that past, Charles was hyper vigilant and quickly recognized patterns of grooming that he'd seen before.

Things took an even darker turn when Kevin began making invasive s*xual advances to Charles. At various points, Kevin offered the teenager money for dubious s*xual favors and bandied around wads of cash provocatively. But Charles chose to keep his discomfort to himself. He felt an internalized sense of shame about Kevin's approaches.

And kept those details locked away, even from Kenny. Just like Charles, Kenny was also unnerved by Kevin's disturbing behavior. At first, the boys laughed things off, but those jokes eventually turned to more serious discussions about physically confronting Kevin. At 6 feet tall and 240 pounds, Kevin was a formidable figure with military experience, while Charles and Kenny were two lanky teenagers.

Realizing that they had no real chance of overpowering Kevin, the talks went nowhere. All that changed, however, after one incident that made it impossible to ignore Kevin's actions for any longer. Here's where it came to a final place for me, is that one day while we were over there, like, within the week or so before we did this, Chris, the young boy that lived there, the one I was tutoring that's 10 years old, They lived in a cul de sac, and while we were shooting baskets there, I had to quit shooting baskets with them and go to work.

And he was saying something about why I need to go to work, and I said, we all have to work for money. I gotta go work so I can take care of my car and all that stuff. And then he said, "well, Kevin's got a whole bunch of rolls of 20s in his car. You can just have those. He just showed them to me."

And so it, that, that was the end for me. That freaked me out why this man, who had offered me money, had shown a 10 year old rolls of 20 bills. And That was, I got tunnel vision. That's all I could think was. Defense mode? Yeah, like this guy has to go. That was all I could think. After this kid told you this, did you go to work or did you decide to not go to work and take care of this?

I don't remember. Those days are such a blur as far as every little detail of what I did, but I remember immediately thinking, "I can't leave this guy with the kids ever." And then it was within a day or two, a few days that the kids were supposed to be taken away. Stephanie was driving the kids to their grandparent's place for I don't know if the summer or a month of the summer or whatever, but a time period away.

And my thought was, we've got to stay there around the kids, so they're okay till then. And as soon as she takes the kids away, we've got to get rid of Kevin. He can't be there when the kids come back. Did you have any other animosity towards this guy, or it was just strictly because of his behavior with the kids?

Yeah, it was just that. Did Kenny have the same outlook as you with this victim? I don't think so. See, I didn't even, I didn't even talk to Kenny about this. When it came time for me to, for us to do this, I told Kenny. "You have to do this for me." I talked Kenny into this. Do you feel bad about that?

Absolutely. What did Kenny get? What was his sentence? Life without parole. We both pled guilty and took life without parole. We both confessed to it after we did it. I mean, we felt horrible. We felt we took another human life. So you went to Kenny and basically told him, "Hey, I need your help." Did you tell him, "Hey, I need your help,

we're killing this guy" or, "Hey, I need your help. Just, I'm going to go do something vague." Did he just say, 'okay.' Or he's like, "man, we can't do something like that." Or what was his reaction? It definitely didn't just say, 'okay.' I practically had to beg him. yeah. So did you tell Kenny, "Hey, this is how I want to do it."

yeah, pretty much. I, told him, look, we can, If we kill this guy, he's got a whole bunch of money. We can take his money. We can go party. We can whatever. And so you adding to the benefit of doing this? Right. "Here's what we have to do." Kenny didn't have a lot of friends. I was his best friend, but he was, I mean, he had a few friends.

But not many. It's just that he didn't live with his parents anymore. He lived at my house. He counted on me for everything. And I used that. I manipulated him because I knew he needed me. Yeah. Do you think that the money involved was a bigger factor than the stuff with the kids? No, not really. I made it seem like that with Kenny, so that Kenny would think it was.

Yeah. You play both sides. I couldn't even share with Kenny things about my s*xuality at the time. So what was your s*xuality at the time? Are you confused? He knows now that even back then that I had relationships with guys and girls. He didn't know then. He didn't know then. He had no idea. Yeah. So this guy hit on you and you said that was a factor, but that's what, you were doing the same thing, right?

Yeah. It wasn't that he hit on me and that was, I mean, I just wasn't interested in the guy, but it was the fact that he hit on me and tried to give me money. Right. And had already showed the 10 year old money. Right. It freaked me out. All I knew in my mind was that he got sent away from his family when he was young and his sister doesn't know why.

I mean, what would make you feel like that? Like still basically, days away from being a child, but did you feel like this was something that would solve everything and you would just be going on about your life? I didn't. Honestly, I didn't. I didn't think anything at all about going on with my life.

I didn't know where I was going. Charles reached his final straw during a game of basketball with Stephanie's 10 year old son. Out at the end of their dead end street, the boy casually told Charles that Kevin had shown him rolls of 20 bills stacked in his car. All Charles fears about Kevin came to a head with this information, and he jumped to the conclusion that Kevin must have singled out this 10 year old to be his next grooming victim.

A fierce protective instinct kicked in. Mind spinning, gears turning, Charles convinced himself that the only way to keep the children safe was to permanently eliminate Kevin from their lives. Over the days that followed, Charles' plan to kill Kevin took shape. Soon, Stephanie would be taking her children away to visit their grandparents, giving Charles the perfect opportunity to strike.

It took some persuading, but Charles enlisted Kenny's help with this task. That conversation with Kenny is something Charles deeply regrets today. He acknowledges that he was intentionally exploiting the trust of his best friend who was heavily reliant on Charles at the time. Essentially, Charles manipulated Kenny into doing the dirty work of a plan he had devised alone.

But why did Charles leap to murder? Why not confide about his concerns to Stephanie or notify the police? A few times in our conversation, I pressed Charles about his motive for killing Kevin. Was he really trying to protect the kids from a perceived threath, or is there more to this story than Charles lets on?

Charles tells me he was struggling with his s*xuality, and Kevin's advances had triggered a deep sense of shame. Could Kevin have threatened to reveal Charles darkest secret, giving Charles a reason to want him silenced? That's all speculation, and only Charles knows for sure. But it was certainly a complex mix of shame, misguided loyalty, and an impulsive teenage mind that began plotting the date of Kevin's demise.

We'll hear the details of Kevin's murder on the next episode of Voices of a Killer.

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That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

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I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 73 | Charles Higginbotham Part 2

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to the second installment of Charles Higginbotham's story. When we last left off in this story, Charles felt certain that Kevin was a s*xual predator who needed to be dealt with. Conspiring with Kenny, Charles set a plan in motion to take Kevin out of the picture. Now Charles walks us through that fateful day in our conversation on Voices of a Killer. So what was the plan? You told Kenny "Hey I'm gonna shoot this guy" or what? I told Kenny that I'm going to, tell Kevin that a friend has got a Jeep that's broke down out in the woods and that we need to, we need a big strong guy to come out and help us get it out and that Kevin's going to come with me when I lure him down into the woods where we know he will be unarmed and we'll be safe. Kenny can wait with a gun and shoot him. So you actually made it to where Kenny had to shoot him? Yes. So whenever you went to Kevin, the victim, you just went over to his place and said, "Hey, we need your help with this Jeep," and did he get in with you guys? Kenny was already, I took Kenny out in the woods, and Oh, Kenny was already, okay, your co-defendant was already waiting on the woods where you wanted to take the victim? Right, but here's the thing, there's no Jeep story with Kevin. that's what I think you're missing. Okay. Go ahead and explain it then. Okay, the night before I told Kevin that, I was ready to take some money from him, and I would do something with him, but no one could see it. So let's go out into the woods where I had a place, and went out in the woods with him the night before.

With Kenny? No, with Kevin. Oh. Kenny wasn't there the night before. This was the night before we murdered him. Okay. I went out in the woods alone. Okay. Okay, now I'm following you. My plan was, after we did what we did, that I would murder him then, myself. I couldn't find where I stashed the gun. Okay. When did you find out, when did you find out you didn't know... oh, so whenever you brought Kevin the first time, you couldn't find the gun?

Right, Kevin and I ended up going back home. And whenever you couldn't find the gun, what was the reason you brought Kevin out there the first time when you couldn't find the gun?

Because he was going to give me money for s*x. Okay. it's your story. I just thought that maybe you said it was the jeep thing. You know what I mean? No, that's what I had to tell Kenny because I couldn't tell. That's why I told Kenny I was going to lure Kevin out in the woods to get a jeep.

And that's what I told. That's what the court believes because I was ashamed to talk about having s*x with a guy. Okay. Okay. I got it. So you didn't kill him the first time, but you planned on it? I planned on doing it myself and failed at it. Why did you, did you really not be able to find the gun or you just decided not to?

I don't know. I tell myself that I couldn't find the gun. I went, stepped away from Kevin at one point,

looked around, but I don't, I don't, honestly, I don't know. I don't know if I even wanted to find the gun. I don't. Yeah. I don't know. That's... so you took him back, y'all went back to the house and that day was over? And that's when I, that's why I went back to Kenny the whole next day. "Look, you've got to help me get this guy."

And I told Kenny, "he's got a bunch of money, we can buy dr*gs, we can party, we can do this." And he was like, "what are you..." he thought I was an idiot. He would do anything for me. With Kenny's help, Charles devised a plan to lure Kevin down to an isolated area in the woods. But this wasn't Charles' first attempt on Kevin's life.

The night before the planned murder, Charles had tried and failed to kill Kevin on his own. Promising to exchange s*x for money, Charles had taken Kevin to the designated murder spot the day before. However, when Charles couldn't find the gun he'd stashed away, the plan fell through, and the two returned home without incident.

A day later, Charles tried a second time, again luring Kevin with the promise of a s*xual encounter. Too ashamed to reveal his s*xual orientation to his closest friend, however, Charles told a different story to Kenny. As far as Kenny knew, Kevin thought he was coming down to help them out with a broken down Jeep, a story Charles thought would be more palatable than the truth.

As Kevin walked alongside Charles, stepping away from Stephanie's home, the trees got denser, cutting out patches of sunlight. Happy to be led somewhere private and away from prying eyes, Charles was unaware that he was being led, this time, to the place of his death. And so now you drop Kenny off in the woods at a certain location.

And you went, Kevin, again, did you tell Kevin this was over s*x to bring him back or over the Jeep? Yeah, that's why Kevin's like "sure, I'll go back." So we went out into the woods again and walked by the area where Kenny was. hold on, hold a second. So y'all actually go back to the same area, you get out of the vehicle together?

Yes. And is Kenny like hiding in like behind a tree or something? Where we were, we'd go like a few hundred yards off into the woods in an area not far from my house that I grew up next to, so I knew really well. We had to walk down a trail and down a little hill. A secluded place is the idea.

Yeah. That's where Kevin thinks, we're going to the same place we were the night before. It's a place that Kenny had camped before. Yeah. Which is why I told Kenny that I'll tell Kevin we've got a broken Jeep here. Right. So the Jeep story goes to Kenny and the s*x story goes to Kevin.

And whenever you get out there, do you know okay, we're approaching the area where Kenny actually is. Do you probably know that exact location? Did you let, Kevin walk ahead of you or behind you or beside you? I was quite a ways out in front of Kevin. When you got to the location you saw that Kenny was there and you just waited and knew that he was right there?

Okay, I panicked at first because Kenny wasn't in the location where I had left him. And he, apparently he didn't think there was enough cover in that area so he moved behind some white collar weeds and grass and things that had grown up. So he had actually moved a little bit. You were afraid that Kevin would get there and try to make s*xual advances with Kenny just off waiting?

Exactly. That's why I was so far away from Kevin. I didn't want him to be right near me when Kenny saw us. I was, yes. Yeah. That is spot on. Yeah. So you walk up and how far away is Kevin when you notice, finally notice Kenny or did, was it the last minute? I was about, by this time, I'm moving way faster than Kevin.

I'm probably 30 or 40 feet in front of him. When I hear the shuffling and the bushes back behind us, and that's when Kenny stood up and shot Kevin. Did Kevin see him stand up and point the gun at him, or was he facing him, or what? I don't think so. I don't think so. You shoot him in his back? I shot him, I believe, in the back of the head.

And then he collapsed. What did you all do as soon as he collapsed? Did he move around or was he completely out of it? It looked like he might have been moving. Or I'm not sure. He may have still been alive. Kenny thought that I was going to have a knife on me. And that I was going to come up and help him.

I knew I couldn't have any kind of weapon. That was a lie I told Kenny. Kevin could see me, Kevin was in the car with me. I... yeah. So after y'all shoot him, how long do y'all stick around this body? How long till you finally leave? Kenny had to shoot him a second time. Because he was still moving or just to make sure?

To make sure, but we couldn't tell, or we were so panicked. We weren't sure if he was still moving. If we don't know, I'm not positive. To this day, Kenny thinks he may have still been moving. He may have been alive. So do y'all discuss this in prison? Yeah, we have talked about it. We work together in prison here.

We have been in prison for 31 years. We've talked about this a lot. Really? So y'all go back to that day and start breaking it all down together? Sometimes. it's not a thing that we go over frequently. More than anything, we go over the impact we've had on our family, on his family, on everyone involved.

Yeah. So after he shoots him the second time, did y'all just run off or did y'all stick around and talk about it or what? Yeah, we did. Blood, simple panic. We tried to we picked him up and moved him into a creek that was right there so there wouldn't be any physical evidence, and then we didn't know what to do after that.

That's when we panicked and left him there in the creek. Whenever y'all left, where did y'all go together? It was July 2nd, on that Friday, and it was 4th of July weekend. We went and bought dr*gs, coc**ne, and then went to, drove down to the lake because we were supposed to go see my, camp with my mom and her boyfriend at Palmeterre Lake. And my sister. So you went to your family as if it's a family, just a regular, family get together, but yet you just killed somebody. What was that like walking in there facing your family after that? Horrible, I, mentioned, I don't have a very good relationship with my adopted mom anyway, but it was horrible, strange.

We barely talked. It was horrible. Yeah. And where was Kenny at? Was he with you? Yeah, he was with me. Like I said, he was like a brother anywhere I went. Sure. Are y'all still, discussing what just happened, at your mom's? Some. We were Numb? Yeah, we were very numb from it. We were doing a lot of At that time, we went and bought a bunch of coc**ne.

We were drinking. On July 2nd, 1993, Charles Higginbotham and Kenny Gilbert became 18 year old killers. The second attempt on Kevin's life unfolded without a hitch. Just as he'd done the day before, Charles led Kevin down to a secluded clearing in the woods under the pretense of a s*xual encounter. When they reached the agreed upon location, Kenny, who'd been hiding in the bushes, shot the unsuspecting victim clean in the head.

Kevin hit the ground with a thud, but it would take more than a single bullet to kill the six foot tall man. Kenny shot again. This time, the body lay still. Beyond this point, the boys hadn't fleshed out their plan fully and a wild panic set in. They hastily disposed of the body in a nearby creek and watched as their murder victim sunk down, fully submerged by the muddy water.

At the time, Charles had convinced himself he was killing Kevin for a good reason, to stop a s*xual predator and protect the kids from harm. But as soon as the bullet struck Kevin, Charles remembers the flood of regret that instantly washed over him. He realizes that nothing could justify taking a man's life.

After the crime, to maintain a sense of normalcy, Charles and Kenny followed through with their weekend plans without interruption, visiting a lake with their family. But beneath those masks, both teens were acutely aware of the horror they'd done and anxiously waited for the moment Kevin's absence would be noticed.

After the break, We hear how the news of Kevin's disappearance first reached Charles.

Now, here's the crazy thing is, even in the early 90s, people know that there's these television shows where all these people just get caught so easily. Did you not see these like true crime shows where people just do things and like later on they end up getting busted. It's like they never get away with it?

Yeah, we, sadly, Kenny and I were in debate in high school in our entire freshman year. We debated prison overcrowding, so we were well versed on the subject. So how long did y'all last after that? Did you hear it on the news or did the cops come get you? When we came back to town, We stopped by a woman that Kenny knew, her house, and we did, she said something about the cops were there looking for us, so we panicked.

So they were already found in that quick? We were gone for the weekend, so we came back on Sunday evening. And somebody had already found him in a couple of days? No, they didn't. They actually didn't find him. The floods of 93 started then and they didn't find him then, but his sister had reported him missing.

Oh, I got you. Car. We left his car like a few miles away in front of a shopping center or something. Did y'all go after you killed him? Did you go back to his place and take everything? Yeah, we packed up all his stuff, took the money from his car, loaded all the stuff in his car. We forgot his dog, left it there at his sister's place, which was the big tip that he, something was wrong because he would have never left without that dog.

So the cops actually wanted to talk to you guys? We thought, we weren't sure, we fled as soon as we heard that. We took off and drove out to Colorado and we were camping out, hiding out in the mountains. Wow. To figure out what to do. Were you just basically like just living on the, in the rough out there? Yeah. And how long did you stay in the mountains? Just a couple of weeks before we ended up getting chased by the police through the mountains for a while. They were after you because you were a fugitive? I'm not even sure at first if they were or they weren't, but we met some teenagers in Colorado and I believe Kenny had mentioned to one of them that we were wanted from Missouri, and one of them got picked up for something, and immediately told the cops, "hey, those guys are..." yeah.

And that's when the... did you end up getting caught in Colorado, or did you flee Colorado? Yeah, we were caught in Colorado. How were you caught? We ended up fleeing through the mountains from the area of Canyon City and running all over and then Kenny and I got split up in the mountains. He got caught like a day or so before I did and then I got caught like a day after back at what I thought was the campsite where I could go find him when we got split up.

But by then he had already been caught and the cops were already waiting for me at the campsite. Whenever they took you into custody, did you stay a while in Colorado and then they transported you back to Missouri? Yeah, I was in Colorado about a month or so, I think, and they brought me back to Missouri.

Did you see Kenny in Colorado jail? No, he was in a different county. I made it the whole county away from where he was. Gotcha. So you get transported back and you get questioned by the police in Colorado or Missouri? Yeah, we got a question about the police in Colorado. Kenny got caught the day before I did.

They immediately flew out to see him. Did Kenny fold on him? Fold on everything? Oh yeah, he, told them everything, that he, his aspect of it, everything that he knew. What did you do? First thing I told him was I want a lawyer, which they probably didn't even pay any attention to that because what police do.

Then they came in an hour or so later and laid down Kenny's statement and let me read it. And after they let me read Kenny's statement, I basically made the same statement. Yeah, you just went ahead and told them? Now, you're faced with probably saying, hey, you're an adult, we could give you the death penalty because you planned this all out.

And they probably scared you with the death penalty to make you take the plea, right? Oh yeah, they immediately sought the death. We confessed to murder. Yeah. And the other thing was, I was almost relieved that Kenny had, Kenny knew nothing about my s*xuality, that was nowhere in his statement.

I immediately said everything that Kenny said. Yes, there's, we went out there, I told Kevin to find a chief, to, all of that, to keep that out. And I was happy with that. That was important for you to keep that secret. Yeah. 1993. From the edge of the suburbs and yeah part of school was in farms and all of that where i grew up with a bunch of cowboy kids it was a thing that i couldn't possibly fathom letting out. Sure. For nearly two weeks after kevin's murder charles and kenny lived as fugitives on the run the boys had made a break for colorado hoping to vanish into the empty plains And rugged mountains of the Southern Rockies.

By that point, Kevin's disappearance had been reported, and once the abandoned truck was located, police suspected foul play. As luck would have it, the worst of the great flood of 93 struck Missouri that July after a spell of heavy, rainfall, the river banks broke water levels surged, and Kevin's body was buried beneath volumes of water.

Because of this flooding, Kevin's body was only recovered on July 11th, 9 days after his death, at which point the missing person's case finally became a homicide investigation. By that time, Charles and Kenny were long gone, hiding out at a remote camp near Clear Creek Reservoir. For as long as they stuck to the wilderness, the teens stayed under the radar of law enforcement.

But it was an encounter with a group of teenagers in Cannon City that led to their undoing. Local police cottoned on to the two itinerant boys and matched their license plate to the homicide investigation taking place in Kansas City. Across Colorado, investigators hunted down the murder suspects.

They picked up Kenny on a road just west of Cannon City. A day later, they staked out the Clear Creek campout and ambushed Charles. This put an end to the boys desperate cross country flight, and both confessed, surrendering any attempt of covering up their crime. However, Charles was determined to cover up Kevin's s*xual advances towards him.

Back in the 90s, homophobia was rife and Charles was terrified that any questions about his own s*xuality might come to public light. All these years on, Charles has come to accept the s*xual orientation he once struggled with, but at the time, he was fiercely resistant to confess to having a relationship with another man.

Even more than he was to confess to murder and to spend his life in prison. On the next episode of Voices of a Killer, Kevin talks us through his long incarceration and the lessons he's learned along the way.

If you want to find out what happens next, right now, you can sign up at patreon.com/voicesofakiller. There you can find bonus content, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community. So go to patreon.com/voicesofakiller to sign up now. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in.

I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 73 | Charles Higginbotham Part 3

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to the final part of Charles Higginbotham's story. Last time in our conversation, Charles described his hasty flight to Colorado that ended in his arrest. Now that he's spent more time behind bars than in the free world, Charles reflects on what he's learned in jail on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

you basically are presented with a plea deal of Taking first degree murder, or you may be facing death. Is that basically the gist of it? Right, they immediately have to announce their seeking the death penalty on you. And then they do that, hanging over my head the entire time for the year and a half in the county jail before my trial comes up.

And then, as trial approaches, I get closer and closer to that, and then they say, "hey, we'll take the death penalty off the table if you come in and say here's what you did, then we'll give you life without parole and you get to live." How long did it take for you to decide on taking first degree murder?

Really, it wasn't that hard because it, from the moment we did it, we felt bad. I already felt my life was over, so. I would bet that at 18, you're imagining things to do in your head, but once you saw this guy dead, you were probably like, "oh sh*t, this is not something I should have done."

exactly. And pretty much, my life's over. And that's part of the That's part of the thing that I talk about on here a lot is, they say that your brain is not developed till around 25. So you were literally seven years away from fully being developed and you're making decisions like that.

Mixed with dr*gs and a turbulent childhood is like a recipe for sh*t like this. That's hard to face as a 49 year old man, too, because I can never excuse taking a life no matter what I thought, no matter what. Ended. You don't get to go out for parole, do you? at this time, no. I've got life without parole.

Unless they modify some kind of law or change something or, Based on my age, no, I have no parole. I wonder what the statistics are for people like you that have committed crimes at 18, how much you change. 'cause it seems like a lot of the people I talk to that have committed crimes at 16, 17, 18, even 19 and 20 sometimes they are completely different people, it seems like they've turned into someone else, and if the term Department of Corrections is actually accurate, isn't there some correcting that's going on over a 20 year, 30 year period? Do you think you deserve to be out of prison? "Do I deserve" is hard. Deserve is hard to ask for. I'd like to be forgiven.

I'd like to be I'd like to have a chance, but forgiveness is hard to ask for. You can't. So whenever you went to court, did you have the victim's family in there in the courtroom? Stephanie was there in the courtroom. Yes. What's your, what was her reaction to you doing that? She didn't say anything. She just gave me an angry stare the entire time.

What would you say to her if she was listening to this? I'm sorry, I'm sorry that she ever met me. I'm sorry that, I'm sorry that I took her brother away. No matter what I thought or what was in my mind, it was not the right thing to do. I can't give him back. I admired her, too. That's the hard part, is that, I admired Stephanie because I didn't have a mom that took care of me.

So I admired Stephanie being a single mom, taking care of her kids. Even though that we were there getting high and doing those types of things, she cared about her kids. She worked as an assistant manager long hours at McDonald's, loved her kids. So I admired her. I didn't want her in any way to get in trouble.

And I was scared the way it looked that she might get in trouble. Did she? I don't think she ever got in any trouble. The detectives kept coming and asking me questions about her forever. Yeah, I don't think she did. I think other than being victimized by having her brother murdered, the state did everything, Yeah. As Charles faced the grim road ahead, state prosecutors presented him with a plea deal, which took the death penalty off the table. Taking it was an easy decision for Charles. With the two guilty confessions in the pockets of prosecutors, the odds of getting off with Kevin's murder were next to none. Besides, Charles tells me he felt instant remorse about the murder, and was ready to accept the judge's due punishment.

His most painful memory of his court appearance was seeing Stephanie in the crowd, with an angry and unwavering stare on her face. Charles' reflections throughout our conversation reveal a man who understands the gravity of his crime and the lasting impact it's had on others. Scientific studies show that human brains only fully develop by the age of 25, making Charles seven years shy of that mark by the time of his crime.

Should we hold perpetrators to account for the actions they took when they were underage? How much can we chalk Charles crime up to the mind of a teenager with poor decision making skills, somebody who didn't register the full extent of what he was doing? It's clear Charles has undergone a significant change since then.

However, the harsh reality remains. Unless future laws change, Charles will serve the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the break, I asked Charles what he intends to do with the time ahead of him.

Did you get support from your foster, or your adoptive mom while you were in there? Hardly. I talked a few times off and on way back when, but I haven't talked to her for a while. What about your adoptive dad? Yeah, my adoptive dad, I talk to him all the time. Kept up with him until he died. He died of cancer.

And my grandmother, his mom, I kept up with her until she passed away. Not long after that. every guy needs their mother. That's really sad that you had to be, go to foster, then adoptive parents. And the mother, even before your case, rejected you a little bit and now you're telling me that you don't talk to her.

That's pretty sad on her part. Yeah. Yeah. It's been hard. I haven't been the greatest son though. I mean I, it's hard because lived with my real mom for four years and so in my mind I always thought that there was a chance my biological mom that like I would reconnect with her. So then when I found out she died a few years ago, that was hard.

Yeah. So Charles, your adoptive mom, is she still living? You I believe so, yes. Last I heard, yes. What would you say to her if she's listening? That's hard to, Do you have anger towards her? Yeah, I do. I have a lot of anger towards her and I have a lot of resentment. But I'm sure she has a lot of anger and resentment towards me because I know when they adopted me, I wasn't I didn't turn out to be what they wanted.

And the fact that I had that four years with my biological mom, in my mind, I had a mom. And so my adopted mom didn't fit. Do you think maybe as a child you had inherently just pushed her away and never let her in because of what your past was? Absolutely. You didn't meet her expectations as an adoptive child where you took her in as mom.

Right. It's really sad for everybody involved because she has expectations, but she doesn't realize that nature was involved. You had a mother there, it's, you're just a person that had a mother and then got fostered to another mother, adopted. Communicate. That's the thing. I like, I don't, I didn't know how to communicate.

I really didn't. Up until recent years of my life, I could never really even accept love from anyone else.

So now you're taking programs and like I mentioned earlier, you don't have any parole hearings. You're not supposed to get out of prison. What would motivate you to take these programs to better yourself instead of being like crazy and gangs and stuff like that? Yeah, that's a good question, Toby.

To help with sanity? Yeah, to, to just, even though I'm confined, I'm in prison, I can feel better about my life or better about myself if I clean out of my, myself, if I work on myself, if I improve to the best of my ability. These programs, this intensive therapy community I'm in especially is a great place for that.

I'm doing the 12 step program and it's, taking anger management classes, criminality classes, dr*gs, substance abuse classes, ICVC. It's a strict military style program. I just had my head shaved today. We get our head shaved every two weeks. Seriously? Yes. Wow. Strictly voluntary. We volunteer. That's a lot of programs for somebody that, in somebody's eyes, like on the outside, to us, to people on the outside, we look at your future as non existent, yet you're taking programs to better yourself when supposedly you don't have a future.

That's pretty deep. I try to pride myself on holding a job in prison. I've worked at the Braille Center, the blind. And transcribing Braille, transcribing textbooks into Braille. In the EMIT department, which is all the math and science books. Now 49, Charles has taken significant steps towards changing his life for the better.

United States prisons offer many reform programs that prisoners can take advantage of. Most of them are geared to transitioning inmates to be back in the free world. Many prisoners also elect to do them to boost their chances of getting paroled. Charles's case is an anomaly. He has no hope of ever being released from prison.

However, he derives a sense of purpose and accomplishment from participating in these programs. His future in the free world might be non existent, but Charles wants to show his capacity for growth, even if it's in the confines of a life sentence. There's one final thought that struck me throughout my interview with Charles.

Although the road ahead is long, Charles is not alone in his life imprisonment. He currently occupies the same prison as his childhood friend and accomplice to murder, Kenny Gilbert. They've taken part in school debates together, partied together, and now they've killed together. What would Kenny say if we brought him into this conversation?

I wondered what Kenny thinks about Charles opening up about their crime in this interview for the public to hear, and what insight or discrepancies he might hold. In the future, I plan to track Kenny down to hear his side of this story. Before rounding off our conversation, I put that proposition to Charles.

Yeah, I got a question for you. Are you going to tell Kenny about this interview? Yes, I am. What do you think he would say if I reached out to him and wanted to interview him as well? He's actually written a book and he's been very open and honest. He went through this ITC program back in the 90s when it first began.

He's been sober for 20 years now. Yeah. Very honest and kind man. I know it's hard to say about a murderer. No, I like I said, I think people change, especially whenever there's something, cause like I said, I'm a completely different person than I was when I was, a child. And I think most people can say that except for maybe a select few, but I think I am going to reach out to him if you're all right with that.

Yeah, you're absolutely welcome to. Although I will say that, part of it's going to, I wanted to tell him myself when I got out of this intensive part of the program, a few of the things that I hadn't ever shared cause I hadn't shared with him. He knows about my s*xuality now, but he still doesn't, didn't know, other than I've hinted around a couple of times, and he doesn't really know about Kevin, or... yeah, how do you feel about me telling him what I heard? Yeah,you, absolutely.

you, I'd like him to hear it from me, but I guess he would hear it from me if you Of course, what I said, that's understandable. I'm letting him know that I okayed it, that I said that, I wanted him to hear it. Yeah. Charles, I think I pretty much got the gist of it. I think I, if I could sum it up, it's somebody that's on the fringes of being a child that makes the decision under the influence and with a sh*tty past and childhood.

And now you're a completely different person, yet you're going by the rules of what happened decades ago. But I am going to reach out to Kenny and via email and see if I can't talk to him. And, but I appreciate you opening it up to me and all right, man. Thanks. Yep. See you. Bye bye.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer. Your co-defendant, Charles, you've been knowing him since grade school, right? Yeah, since we were 10 years old, 5th grade. Charles has a little bit different version, and he said that you didn't know about it until way later. That him and Kevin had some kind of s*xual thing going on.

Yeah, I didn't know about that at all. At all? Or you didn't know then? This is the first I've heard about it. How did that feel, raising that gun up and doing that? Sick. just can't really... your history doesn't show violence. No, I'm not a violent person. I don't like violence. I don't like hurting people.

I don't like hurting animals, any of that.

I want to thank Charles for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast.

If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.