Ep 77 | Chris Piersee Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Voices of a Killer. Today's story is a story of a man whose life spiraled out of control, leading to the tragic deaths of his wife and infant son. Christopher Piersee, a man whose life once seemed like it was on a steady path, fell into a destructive cycle of dr*g use, specifically Coricidin, an over the counter cough medicine known for its hallucinogenic effects when abused.

His struggle with addiction and the psychosis it induced led him down a path that no one could have anticipated. In today's episode, we'll hear Chris's account of what happened the night he killed his family, his reflections on the devastating impact of his actions, and the role dr*gs played in his deteriorating mental state.

We'll also explore the legal proceedings that followed, and how, ultimately, Chris ended up in prison. By the end of this episode, you'll also hear something unexpected, something that surprised even me during my conversation with Chris. Stay with us as we dive deep into a story of loss, addiction, and the search for meaning after unimaginable tragedy in this episode of Voices of a Killer.

Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from Chris, an offender at the Jefferson City Correctional Center. This call is from a correctional facility and may be monitored and recorded. To accept charges, press 1. Thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now. Chris, I did some reading on your, through the news and your crime and stuff like that and some of the headings start off with Gruesome Murder Scene Described at Preliminary Hearing for you.

Do you consider it gruesome? Yeah, I would definitely have to face a lot of what I saw when I left, it was a blur. Yeah, we can easily say that what you did was violent. I want to know, did you grow up in violence? Yeah, I grew up as weird. Part of my life was real peaceful and real awesome. I had a grandma and grandpa who were real good to me.

I had my mom who was real, real caring. I didn't know my dad growing up. And when I was seven, my mom got my stepdad, and he was definitely violent. Your stepdad? Yeah. Who did you, who'd you primarily live with? My mom and my stepdad, but I spent the summers in Iowa with my grandparents. Where was your father, your biological father?

I didn't know back then, but I actually just recently got in contact with him, and it turns out he was in Texas. Okay. So what does he think about your situation? Does he feel like you wish he'd been in your life or what? He had a little more insight into some stuff. I guess he had bashed around about some stuff before we ever got in contact with each other.

And he understands that this was an accident, that it was terrible. And I'm not denying that the accident was my fault, but at the same time, he understood it was an accident. What kind of violence did you see from your stepfather? Really, it was weird because he treated my mom pretty good.

And he treated my little brother pretty good, who was his biological son. But he really seemed to look at me almost as maybe the reminder that my mom had been with somebody before him. And so, the worst of it was emotional and a lot of screaming, a lot of yelling. So you didn't really, you didn't really get any love from him and you saw him give it to his son and your mother basically?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. And there was definitely, there was also quite a bit of physical violence, but like I said, the worst of it was the emotional side. That was the stuff that kind of stuck around the longest, I think. Did y'all live in the state of Missouri growing up? No, I actually never lived in Missouri until just a couple months before the crime happened.

What, where'd you live? We bounced around Illinois mainly, kind of lived all over the place, but mainly in Illinois. Yeah. Lived in Robertson, Illinois, when I was younger . Yeah. What kind of work did your mom and your stepfather do? He did like, like different factory jobs, like factory management. And he was actually the reason we always wound up moving, because he was always looking for, it seemed like he was always looking for the bigger, better thing. And then my mom, when I was real young, she did some factory work and things like that, but she ended up also getting involved in different types of management, different companies, actually went off to be, really, pretty successful.

Yeah. It was an interesting thing to see from her. Chris Piersee's childhood was a paradox, caught between moments of peace and the shadow of violence. He spent his early years in the care of his loving mother and grandparents, who provided a nurturing environment. Chris had a life experience filled with affection and stability.

Summers in Iowa with his grandparents were a refuge where he experienced calm and a semblance of normalcy. His mother, despite her own challenges, showed him care, shielding him from the absence of his biological father, whom Chris never knew growing up. However, this sense of safety was shattered when Chris's mother remarried.

His stepfather introduced a new reality marked by emotional and physical abuse. Though his stepfather treated his own son and Chris's mother well, Chris became a target almost as though he was a living reminder of his mother's previous life. The emotional wounds inflicted by his stepfather's, neglect and cruelty lingered long after the physical scars had healed.

Despite these harsh conditions, Chris navigated his youth moving from place to place, mostly in Illinois, following his stepfather's constant search for better job opportunities. Now, as Chris reflects on his past, he speaks not just of the hardships, but of moments that brought him solace. One such moment was when he met the love of his life, Patricia Tish Yarbrough, in 2007, a relationship that would change the course of his life.

Let's, try to figure out, you're growing up, going through life, and then you get to a position where you're, ended up killing two people. At some point, You're growing up, you have some turbulence with your stepdad and stuff like that. Did you end up getting into dr*gs and alcohol? Yeah, I think that the high school age sort of stuff, I don't think it ever really surpassed your typical kid stuff with occasionally I might drink at a party or I might smoke a joint at a party or something like that.

Honestly, I didn't have any kind of real I didn't have a dr*g habit until probably about a year and a half before everything happened, around the time my grandpa passed away. I would have been about 20, 23. How did, the victim is your wife, and obviously your son, and your wife was Patricia, how did you meet her?

I had moved up to Iowa, back where, the town that I was actually born, where I had family and stuff. And I met her going to a party one night to pick up my cousin, Courtney, who had called me and asked for a ride home. And, I went over there and knocked on the door, and Tish answered the door, and it was just one of those moments where things just clicked, and I always laughed, and she always thought this was funny, but I used to consider myself kind of a smooth talker when I was young, talking to girls and stuff, and she opened the door, and I looked at her, and immediately the first thing I said was, "Is Courtney here?" And she just started laughing, and I was sitting there stammering and everything, and she invited me in, and we became friends, and it was a few months after that we ended up going out.

Yeah. So you guys meet, did y'all hit it off pretty quickly? Yeah, I was just getting out of a relationship and so was she. So we intentionally didn't really let anything happen right away. We just stayed friends for a little while, but there was a, we both had already talked about how we planned on being together.

But we just, I think that we both wanted to give ourselves a little bit of distance between the bad relationship she was getting out of and the not necessarily bad relationship I was getting out of, but just the relationship that had turned into a lot of jealousy and stuff like that. Up to the point before you met Patricia, if I were to ask somebody what kind of person you were, what would they say?

I could probably tell you, I was a pretty friendly guy. I mean, I tended to get along with people for the most part. I didn't really have any enemies or anything like that. I have one thing, even my mom always talks about is like going to school and stuff. I typically did pretty terrible on my grades and stuff, but all of my teachers would always tell her that I was such a friendly kid, a pleasure to have in class.

They just wanted me to do better on my work. And how old were you when you met Patricia? I was 20, 22. How old was she? She was 19, about to turn 20. And what state were y'all in when you met? We were in Iowa, but it's right on the border of Illinois. And she was actually from, right across the river in Illinois.

How long did it take for you guys to get married? Let's see, we started going out in May and got married in November. So the same year? Yeah. Did you feel like it was a mistake getting married? Was it the right thing or what? I definitely didn't feel like it was a mistake. I think that some people probably thought that we had decided to get married because she got pregnant, which that really wasn't the case.

We had actually decided to get married and, it was probably about maybe three weeks to a month later that she found out she was pregnant. At the time that you guys get married, were you into dr*gs or anything? When we got married, by that point, yeah. What kind of dr*gs? Really, just w**d. Oh, just w**d?

Yeah, I drank a little bit and I smoked w**d. What about her? She drank a little bit when we first met, but for the most part stopped by the time we were getting married. She stopped when she got pregnant, but even after she had the baby, she wasn't much of a drinker. Yeah. Did y'all at any point move before the baby was born?

Yeah, we actually, she had a miscarriage with the first pregnancy. Okay. It was actually the first time that we met, but the first time that we spent together was actually the night that my grandpa passed away, which I found that out 5 o'clock the next morning. And we got a phone call, and he was a big part of the reason I had moved to PAFAC.

And after he passed away, my mom recommended that we move up to Burlington about an hour north. So, I ended up moving up there. Like I said, that was when me and her first kind of got together and she came up there with me. And she has a miscarriage. You guys move. What kind of work are you doing then? When I moved up to Burlington, I worked at a grocery store at a deli.

What'd she do? At first she worked at a family dollar and then she got a job at Kohl's up there. Do you guys ever have any big fallouts, cops called and stuff? No, there was, when everything happened, there was actually a news report that said that we had the cops called to our house one time or so, and then they ended up correcting that story because that it was the same address, but it was actually her dad and her, dad's ex-wife that had had a big fight. The cops have got called two years before we ever lived there. I think that article still up like that, that I read one of them and it said something that y'all had previous problems where the cops, domestic disturbance or something like that. So that kind of shows you how the news is usually off, but so you guys moved to Burlington, life was going on.

Did you guys get pregnant again? Yeah, it wasn't too long later. And at this point. I think that I was starting to spiral a little bit. Losing my grandpa has been a pretty big hit. Like I said, that was my father figure. That was the only real father figure I had. And so that was hard. I guess a little bit of consolation when Tish got pregnant, that almost a feeling of I've lost somebody so important in my life, but now it's the next chapter in life and everything.

And the night she had the miscarriage, it was just, it was such a horrible thing. She wasn't feeling very good that day and I had set up a whole little bed and everything out in the front room so that we could lay down out there and watch movies and stuff for a boxed snack. We were going to have just this kind of nice romantic sort of night in and it was honestly it was turning into a great night.

We had rented some movies, we were just having fun. She got up and went to the bathroom and she came back out had blood on her hands and was just about to burst into tears. You can tell it's a locked up and we called 911 and they told us there's nothing they can do and essentially said, you're just going to have to see her OBGYN in the morning.

We had to go and do that in the morning. And this woman just, this was terrible. She was so cold about it. She never even came in and told us like, "Hey, you have a miscarriage" or anything. She literally just walked in and says, "sometimes this happens. Sometimes a pregnancy is just no good and the body just gets rid of it.

So you'll be fine." And just broke down. Obviously I didn't do that. One of the worst parts was that she told us that if Tish has the fetus, that she wanted us to save it and bring it in to her because they needed to do some kind of test to make sure that everything was okay. So that was how we spent the rest of the night, her waiting on that.

And so she did at my mom's house later that night. And I remember, this was one of the worst memories I've got, but I remember having a bread bag. And pulling it out of the toilet and everything. It just, I remember just, it just felt like everything in me just broke. Like, my heart broke. I just, I felt like everything was over.

What was the, give me a size comparison. What'd you had to, the specimen of what you had to bring back to the doctor? You said a size comparison? Yeah, like how big was it? Probably I'm trying to think. Maybe about as big a round as they have, maybe a little small, even a golf ball, but not all the way around.

Was that pretty emotional doing all that? Yeah, that was, horrible. that was actually something that, that was something that I pretty much never really talked about again, but never, got out of my head. Miscarriages are among the most emotionally traumatic experiences for any couple.

The profound grief that accompanies such a loss can leave lasting scars, often creating an emotional void that is difficult to heal. For Chris and Tish, this heartbreak was particularly devastating. Having eagerly anticipated the arrival of their first child, their excitement was shattered in an instant.

The moment when Tish returned from the bathroom with blood on her hands was a horrifying precursor. Sir to the news that would follow:

their baby was gone. The emotional weight of that moment combined with the silence that followed was overwhelming. It became a pain that Chris carried with him, never fully speaking about it again, but never able to forget.

Amidst this emotional turmoil, Chris found himself spiraling the loss of his grandfather who had been his father figure. coupled with a miscarriage, left him in a fragile state. It's not uncommon for individuals to turn to substances as a means of self medication during such distressing times, seeking escape from the overwhelming grief and emotional instability.

For Chris, dr*gs became a way to cope with the internal chaos that he struggled to process. The weight of his emotional pain, compounded by his past trauma and lack of stability sent him down a dangerous path. Little did Chris know, that path would soon lead to a series of events that would turn his life upside down.

His struggle with emotional trauma and dr*g use was about to take a dark and irreversible turn. We find out more about that after the break.

So y'all get past that sad stuff. What happens after that? You guys try again or move or what? Yeah, we stayed in the same place. And I started getting high a lot more. And drinking a little more. I wasn't much of a drinker, but this was also back before w**d was legal in most slaves. So do you think you were passing on the same hostility that your stepdad, Pat, gave to you?

Did you bring that into the marriage? No, we actually got along really good. We didn't fight very much at all. this is one of the things I think that's always bugged me is that Tish's mom had been in a lot of abusive relationships and Tish was the kind of person that she was pretty dead set on the fact that she was never going to be the type of girl to be in an abusive relationship.

We, even when we had small disagreements, they were typically things that passed in the course of an hour. Yeah. Never really turned into much more than just your typical disagreement amongst the couple. So you can truthfully say before this crime that you'd never laid her hands on her?

No, absolutely. She wouldn't have stuck around. There's no way. There's no way in the world. If I had ever, if I had ever so much as slapped her, she probably would've broke my nose and head out the door. Yeah. That's great. So where'd y'all go after that? What happened? We got pregnant again. We ended up almost immediately after having our son Landon, we moved down to Missouri because Tish's dad and ex stepmom, I guess, ex stepmom, but current girlfriend of her dad, they told us that they had basically still had a lease on a house down in Missouri.

It was a pretty nice little house, and as far as rent stuff went, it was gonna be really about what we were already paying for a small apartment, and so we went down there and took over the lease on the house. How did her side of the family like you, did you feel like they liked you? Yeah, actually we, me and her brother, we were friends, even though he was troubled, but he had probably a more serious dr*g habit that he liked dr*gs that were a lot harder than what I cared for.

Did he turn you on to it? No, Cause if anything, he turned me off from it. He liked the m*th and stuff like that. Oh, that's Missouri. And that was just not something I was into. I just felt what it did to a lot of people. And it really kind of, and it also, I know it really broke Tish's heart. That was, you know, another thing that really kind of, put me off.

So you guys get settled into Missouri and you have Landon, what's life like it to whenever she gives birth and now you got a healthy baby boy, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I mean, honestly, it was amazing. I don't know. It was fun. No, it just felt. Like life was getting back to being good again. Landon was just, he was just, he was the cutest baby.

I remember, I was so scared right before he was born. You always hear about parents talking about the moment they saw their kid, that he was the most adorable thing in the world and all this stuff. And I was so scared that I was like, what if I don't think that? I had this thought of, what if I don't have that feeling?

Like they all talk about stuff. She had to have an emergency C section. And as soon as they got him out and handed him to me, I just loved him so much. He was just an adorable baby that you could ever imagine. And he was so good. He slept through the night. He was happy. He laughed about just the funniest stuff.

It was just, it was perfect. Yeah. So now you're a father, healthy baby boy. It seems like your marriage is doing good, but you said something that kind of, it makes me have lots of questions. You said it was an accident, but there's one person with a gunshot to a head. And this little boy that you love so much is beat to death.

Are both those two things accurate without going into the details?

Yeah, I don't even know with Landon what exactly happened. Despite the many hardships Chris had faced in his life, he still managed to find happiness when he and Tish eventually started a family. Their son Landon brought joy and a sense of purpose that Chris hadn't felt in years. Life seemed to be moving in the right direction for Chris. He was a father, they had settled in Missouri, and for a moment, it felt like things were getting back on track. The birth of Landon was a beacon of hope, and Chris found immense pride and love in being a dad, watching his son grow and laugh at the little things. But happiness, for Chris, would be short lived.

Beneath the surface, the pressures of life, unresolved trauma, and an increasing reliance on dr*gs slowly began to take hold. The spiral was already underway, though Chris might not have realized it at the time. Little did he know, a single mistake would soon change everything, leading to a tragedy that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

In the next episode of Voices of a Killer, Chris will tell us about the day that turned his world upside down.

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

Ep 77 | Chris Piersee Part 2

Welcome back to this episode of Voices of a Killer on the case of Chris Piersee and the tragic deaths of Tish Yarborough Piersee and Landon Piersee. When we last left off, Chris was telling us about the birth of his beautiful baby boy Landon and how his relationship with Tish had been flourishing after the tragedy of a prior miscarriage.

We rejoin Chris now on the fateful night of the tragic murders on this episode of Voices of a Killer. The day that this happened, the week prior to that, this crime, is that week just like any other week? No, for a few weeks before this, I had been with my brother in law, we had been taking the Coricidin cough and cold medicine.

What is it called? It's called Coricidin cough and cold medicine. People used to call it triple Cs. It's a cough medicine that if you take a whole bunch of it, you'll hallucinate. I've actually, idk if you're locked up with him, but he was a young guy that was doing the same thing and he was just taking large quantities and it really messes with your head.

And he actually killed one as well. You're linking up with your brother in law and y'all are doing this cough medicine, which is over the counter, and y'all are doing it recreationally, weeks prior together? Yeah. One of my friends had done it one night. Yeah, I had gone over to his house and he had a whole bunch and, my brother in law was over there and we decided to take it with him and, it was, like I said, this was when w**d wasn't legal and a lot of times you couldn't find it and so here we are, we've got this thing that gets us ten times higher than you can buy at the grocery store and yeah, we started taking it.

Pretty quickly, it's probably about a month to a month and a half before all this happened. We started taking it pretty much every day. So tell me what initially, like when you first started doing it, give me an example of how it makes you feel to where you would want to continue doing it. So at first, one of the first nights I remember we were, we took it and we were watching a movie and I felt super peaceful, but I felt like really, like almost this ecstasy kind of feeling. I remember Tish telling me the next day that she liked when I had taken it, because I was like, she said that I was like, so loving and stuff on it. Cause I remember this, I kept looking at her like, "Oh my God." And I was just, I, and I, like, I don't know. It was just this weird euphoric sort of feeling, like everything just felt great.

She didn't, she didn't have an objection to you doing that? Not at first. I think at first, she was pretty used to me smoking w**d and stuff like that. I think at first, I don't think she really looked at it as much different than that. Well, that was a pretty quick progression because it's just months before a month and a half, like you said, and then all of a sudden something happens.

So now, It looks like you locked on to this dr*g and you're doing it pretty much and at a heavy doses. Is that right? Yeah, we were taking two boxes a piece per day. Before the crime happened, did this dr*g make you do anything else that was outlandish to where you recognize that it was way different than what you should be doing?

About maybe two, three weeks into doing it, we had a really weird thing happen. Hard to make it make sense. We started having these thoughts that We were somehow getting enlightened, right? We hear about like hippies doing a lot of acid in the 60s or something and talking about achieving enlightenment.

And it was almost that kind of thought, right? We had opened up something in our mind that we started understanding. And the truth is I look back on it now and I realize we weren't enlightened, we weren't understanding anything. But at the time we thought we'd unlocked the keys to the universe or something and it got weird.

I remember Timmy, he got to the point to where he thought he could hear people's thoughts. He actually had a full on psychotic breakdown about a day before everything happened. He got put in the hospital for the breakdown? Yeah, he did. So, before the actual murder, did this cough medication ever make you violent or lash out?

No, but I had also never really done it before leading up to that time period. I knew friends that did when I was younger and stuff. I think I tried it one time in high school if I'm not mistaken, but I think I only took a couple and nothing actually happened. Chris had been experimenting with Coricidin, also known as CCCs, a common over the counter cough and cold medicine.

When taken in normal doses, it provides relief for cold symptoms. But when abused in large amounts, like Chris and his brother in law were doing, it can have powerful hallucinogenic effects. Users can experience heightened euphoria, altered perception of reality. and even dangerous psychotic breaks. The dr*g contains dextromethorphan, or DXM, which, in high doses, is known to cause dissociation, confusion, and unpredictable behavior.

For Chris, what started as an escape turned into something much darker. He described feeling peaceful at first, Even claiming that it made him feel more loving and relaxed around his wife. But over time, his use increased drastically, and the effects became far more sinister. As he continued to take two full boxes of coricidin per day, his mind started to unravel.

The dr*g distorted his sense of reality, and both he and his brother in law began to believe they had unlocked the keys to the universe. The euphoria was short lived, replaced by paranoia, delusions, and a psychotic break that landed his brother in law in the hospital. Chris was spiraling, and little did he know that the altered state of mind caused by the Coricidin would play a role in the tragic event that would soon follow.

So Chris, tell me what happened that night. Start from the beginning. So like that day we had gone out, I hadn't taken any that morning. I had taken some the night before I woke up and I was feeling off, but it's hard to explain, but it's this sort of weird thing where it almost feels like everything's shiny.

Like bright, like it's, like I said, it's a hard thing to explain. Sure. Your vision changed. Yeah. And so we went out that day to get our taxes done and went out, I think if I remember right, I think we went out and got some Chinese food because that was Tish's favorite. There's like one of my favorites too, where we used to go to Quincy all the time to get Chinese food and go and get our taxes done, but we hung out in Quincy for a little while.

And like I said, I was feeling a little off, but I wasn't feeling terrible or anything. But Timmy was still in the hospital. I think we had gone to visit him the day before and we were talking about going to see him again. Which, that's crazy how he had broken down and everything in and of itself. But, so we met up with my grandma a little later in the evening.

Went to have dinner at the casino there in town. And went home, and everything was good. It was a good day. We were excited about the money we were going to be getting on our tax returns. We were talking about either buying Tisha another car or fixing her car because it was broken down at the time, and it was just a really nice day.

And we went back to the house and started cleaning up because her dad and stepmom, they were over the road truck drivers, like I said. They were coming off the road the next day. And so we wanted to straighten up the house and cleaned up for a little while. And like I said, I kept feeling a little off.

And who's all there at the house? It was just me, Tish, and Landon at the time. We'll do it home. You, your girl, and your son? Yeah. Okay. And did you do more of the cloth medicine? I didn't that day. Okay. I didn't do any more that day. And what did end up happening was a few hours after we started cleaning and stuff, my friend Tyler came over and he asked if he could borrow an Xbox controller and then I ran over to his house to drop off the Xbox controller and to get some w**d from him. We sat down at his house and smoked I think just a joint or so. And I got in the car to go home. And I remember on the way home, it's probably one of the last things that's still real clear.

I remember just having this feeling. What time of day was it? This would have been at night. This was probably 9, 10 at night. Okay. And tell me about what was going on. And on the way home, I was having these thoughts about, like I said, it would sound stupid, but like I had unlocked the keys to the universe or something.

And I remember thinking that what I was feeling was exactly what everyone in the world is meant to feel, like this ecstasy kind of feeling of just everything perfect and stuff. And I remember thinking that I wanted to go home and tell Tish about it. And I remember on the way home, they might have said this was one of the last real clear things.

I remember thinking that I had to whisper it to her because I didn't want anybody to overhear because still thinking like my brother in law with this whole thing with being able to hear people's thoughts and stuff and if anybody else overheard they would try to take it and all this just it's one of those things in a sober mindset thinking back on it and understand how crazy it sounds.

So what did you whisper into her ear? I just told her that, I think I said something like, I figured it out. It's ecstasy. This is how everyone's supposed to feel. What did she say to you? She just, I remember her just laughing. She was actually laughing because I was whispering it to her and she had really sensitive ears.

If you kissed her on the ears, she'd like jump and giggle and stuff. And as I did that, like I said, she laughed and I kissed her. And, I remember we moved over to the couch and started to mess around, and I remember we were starting to take our clothes off and stuff, and one of the next things, I remember I'm standing, because we had moved into the front room, but then I remember standing in the dining room, and when I was in the dining room,

it was like the ceiling was being pulled off the house and I didn't, and I don't know, it's like I was in a storm. Do you think that, do you think that you being high and then being aroused with a sexual arousal kind of intensified your high? It could be, it definitely could be because it seems like that's about the moment where everything really went super haywire. So was she seeing you like real intoxicated and like out of it right there? Was she noticing you thinking the roof was coming off and things like that? At this point, at the point where the roof was coming off, I don't know because it was right around that time that I have the gun in my hand.

Where did you get the gun from? The gun was actually on the kitchen table, and that was because of the night that hit me. So y'all are going from, y'all are going from having sex to you grabbing a gun? Yeah, we were on the couch in the front room and then like I said it just almost skips forward like my memory almost like skips forward to me being in the dining room.

Correson and users like Chris. Often report feelings of dissociation and intense confusion, making it hard to distinguish between what's real and what isn't. As Chris described, he experienced the world as shiny and bright, his sense of reality completely skewed. This distortion of reality can become so severe that users forget where they are, and their surroundings may appear completely transformed.

But amidst these hallucinations and distorted perceptions, there was something much more dangerous in the room. A gun. We must highlight how Chris doesn't address why the gun was there or how it came to be on the kitchen table. Did he have it for self defense? Or is there a part of the story that in Chris's Coricidin-affected mind is missing?

Nevertheless, its presence in such a fragile, altered state of mind would soon prove to be deadly. What role did the gun play in the tragic events of that night? We'll uncover the harrowing details after the break.

Did she say anything when you went and grabbed it? Like when you scooped it off the table, cause you're supposed to be being intimate with her and you're going to get a gun. At that point, she was already in the dining room and she was on the ground in the doorway of the dining room. She wasn't shot yet, but why was she on the ground?

She was on the ground to have sex with you. I don't know why she was on the ground there. Did you hit her? I don't think that I hit her because if you were to guess, why would you go from going and get the gun and all of a sudden she's on the ground in the hallway or something? I'm thinking maybe where we were on the couch, that if I just, you know, if she was on top of me and I jumped up off of the couch, that would maybe be where she landed.

Okay. You know, So whenever you got the gun and you turned around to look at her, she's still laying there? Did you shoot her while she was on the ground? I don't really know if that's when I shot her. Tell me what you remember. What I remember is that, like I said, the ceiling seemed like it just ripped off.

It was like I was in like a snowstorm. If you imagine like a blizzard where everything hit me in the face, only it wasn't snow. It was like, almost like I was caught in like a sandblaster or something. It just felt like everything was just flying at me. And I just started, I remember swinging the gun, like swinging it out at that stuff, like trying to swat away whatever was hitting me.

And I remember unloading the gun. Unloading it by taking the bullets out of it or unloading it by pulling the trigger? Like pulling the trigger. And who, where are you pointing when you do that? I was pointing at the thing that seemed like they were hitting me. One point, I remember it was like, there was this thing up above me, like where the ceiling had been, and it was coming down like a, almost like, I don't know, spread out, like it was like a person, but it was spread out almost like a hand that was coming down.

And I remember shooting that at one point, What is your wife saying this whole time? I couldn't hear her say anything, but. So you're just completely out of it? Yeah, at that point, I don't know if she was So what happens next? Because you also, you not only killed your wife, but you also killed your son, right?

Yeah, it was a minute after that. Things seemed like they slowed down for a second, but it was still like being in that snowstorm. I remember running to get Landon, and like in my mind, I was saying, I just need to get him out of the house. And we lived right by the river and for some reason I had it in my head that we needed to get on a boat and get away.

And we were right on the Mississippi. Is she, have you already killed her? I think so at this point. The chaos Chris was experiencing in that moment was unimaginable. His mind, warped by the effects of the Coricidin had plunged him into a full blown hallucination. He described a scene where the ceiling ripped off, and the world around him transformed into a violent storm of sensations. It felt like he was caught in a blizzard or a sandstorm, with objects flying toward him, attacking him from every direction. The distortion of reality was overwhelming, and in the middle of it all, there was a gun in his hand. As he tried to swat away these perceived threats, Chris unloaded the gun, pulling the trigger in a haze, unable to differentiate between the hallucinations and the real world.

The presence of the gun, introduced in this altered state, became the catalyst for the tragedy that was about to unfold. While Chris's memories are scattered and confused, it's clear that his actions that night would have devastating consequences for both his wife, Tish, and his son, Landon. The presence of that gun would change everything, but what exactly happened next?

We'll find out on the next episode of Voices of a Killer.

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 77 | Chris Piersee Part 3

Welcome back to Voices of a Killer and to the harrowing tale of Chris Piersee and the tragic deaths of Tish Yarborough Piersee and Landon Piersee. Last time Chris was in the heat of the tragic moment where, in a dr*g-induced psychosis brought on by overuse of coricidin, he shot and killed his wife, Tish. Now we start back up with Chris still in his dining room and his retelling of the aftermath of what really happened on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

You don't remember how it all went down when you killed her? It was a little while before I realized that she was dead. That came a little bit after, after I ran to go get Landon. Okay. But I remember running in and grabbing him and I remember taking off into the front room. And I remember falling and that's part of the reason that I've always wondered if I didn't fall on them just because I remember tripping as I was trying to run into the front room from the dining room.

Is he screaming? Is your son screaming while you're holding him? I never heard him scream. I never heard him, you know, actually say it. Do you think maybe you shot him before you picked him up? No, he wasn't shot. Okay, did you still, you were holding the gun while you were holding him, though, running? I think I dropped it at that point, actually.

Okay, so you fell, and then what happened? So, I fell and I hit the ground, and I turned around and looked to see what I had tripped on, and what I had tripped off was Tish. And so I jumped over her. To, grab her. And again, like I've said, for some reason, I had this thought, like we needed to get out and get to the river.

And I jumped over her and went to grab her. And that was when I put my hand right in that puddle of blood. And that was when I realized that she was shot. How'd that make you feel right there? I can't say. It was, I, it's surreal. It was one of those things. It's almost an overload to the point to where it just shuts something off in you.

You literally went from making love to your wife, to killing your whole family. Yeah. That's a pretty crazy story. And what to me felt like a matter of seconds. I remember I looked down and I saw her. That was when I first realized that she was dead. And like I said, I didn't actually know she was shot.

Then I knew she was dead. Chris's decision making process was consumed by chaos and confusion. Under the influence of Chloricidin, His ability to rationally think and act had been drastically impaired. His mind was caught in a surreal fog where reality blurred, leaving him unsure of his own actions and surroundings.

His movements were fragmented. And as he stumbled, his perception of what was happening was warped beyond comprehension. The situation escalated as Chris grabbed his son, Landon, but in the confusion, he tripped only to find himself falling over Tish. It was in this moment, with his hand touching the pool of blood, that he was faced with the devastating reality.

His wife had been shot. This realization was overwhelming, but in his altered state, the emotional weight of what had happened barely registered. And while Chris struggled to grasp what was real and what wasn't, the gunshots that had rung out would have surely been heard by the neighbors, signaling to the outside world that something terrible had taken place.

What impact did those shots have, and how did the neighbors respond? Did y'all live in an area where people heard gunshots? We actually did. We had neighbors real close on one side and pretty close on the other side that nobody ever called the cops. So I don't know if. What did you do after you saw what you did?

and I can't really explain this, but for some reason I got it in my head that because of the whole enlightenment thing that we had gone through, me and my brother in law, that I could somehow basically bring her back. From the dead, like that. It wasn't too late that I could just save her somehow. And how would you, how are you going to do that?

Like I said, I know how crazy it sounds, but I would, basically by killing myself. One of the, one of the articles says that you beat your son to death. How'd you do that from falling on him? I, like I said, I, that's the only thing that I can think of is that I fell with him or dropped him or, cause I honestly, I don't know.

You don't think the hallucinations, you don't think the hallucinations made him a threat to you? The thing is, after a few, other than while I was in the dining room, I don't remember ever swinging at anything. So you assessed all the damage that you did. Where were the bodies at? Were they both in the same area?

Well, so Tish was laying in the doorway between the front room and the dining room. And the first time I saw Landon, he was on the floor in the bedroom. Did you try to do anything with their deceased body? I, yeah, I grabbed her and I pulled her into the bedroom and I put Landon back in his bassinet.

Where? And back in his bassinet. You know, like a little bed. Yeah. He's only five months old, isn't he? Yeah. And like I said, I, for some reason, and it seemed perfectly logical that, if I basically, if I killed myself, that they would be able to come back and cut my wrist open. I took a bunch of pills. How come you didn't use the gun?

I actually did grab the gun, but it was empty, and I didn't realize that I'm pretty sure there were more bullets in the house. But it didn't register. It was just, it was empty. I put it in my mouth at one point, just, it was just empty. So did you, at the point that you're putting your son in the bassinet and seeing the damage that you, did you realize at that point that you had f*cked up?

Honestly, I didn't realize what had happened until about two days later when I was in Dave's, the mental hospital. How'd you wind up in the mental hospital? So I don't really remember about a day or two, but I guess when I got arrested, they took me to the county jail and then they sent me from there to the mental hospital, the Fulton State Hospital, they call it big.

And I was there for a while. I honestly, I couldn't tell you right off hand how long I want to say it was like 21 days or something. Chris's narrative contrasts sharply with the information found in court documents and news reports. According to official accounts, the crime scene was far more horrific than Chris described.

The blood-smeared walls bore disturbing symbols, such as crosses drawn in blood on Tish's chest and Landon's forehead. These unsettling details weren't mentioned in Chris's retelling. But they underscore the brutal nature of the events that night. When authorities arrived the morning after, it wasn't Chris who called them.

It was Tish's father, Eric Yarbrough. Eric had entered the home to find a gruesome scene. He was holding a gun, waiting for police, and told the responding officers, I've got the Mother Effer in here, referring to Chris. who was inside the house. The officer who attended the scene said he could make out the word Lucifer and Michael written in blood on a bedroom wall.

He asked Chris while they were sitting in a patrol car if he had shot his wife. He replied, bullets wouldn't work so I used a knife. Chris also said that his wife had then gone for four or five hours and that he had used a knife to cut himself. Chris told him his wife was Lucifer, he was Michael the Archangel and Landon Piersee the Antichrist.

The cop also said Chris wanted to take credit for killing his wife and son, but instead he told the cop they had been killed by the blood of Christ through Michael. The difference between Chris confused recollection and the stark, gruesome reality of the crime scene leaves us with many unanswered questions.

How much did Chris actually understand about the horror he had caused? And what trule drove him to commit these acts? So what's it like looking back now years knowing that, I mean, you literally did this dr*g and then killed your family? That's a big headline. For the first couple of years that I was locked up, so I had a forensic psychiatrist come and see me and do some tests with me and stuff, and he diagnosed me with what's called dr*g-induced Which goes beyond the dr*g, goes beyond the high of the dr*g.

It basically is, what is basically is essentially like brain damage from a dr*g causing a long lasting psychotic episode. Yeah, but it's also not admissible in court, right? We, it's admissible for dr*g-induced psychosis, but it's hard to prove dr*g-induced psychosis. And the problem becomes that the prosecutor will pretty much always try to say, "oh, this just happened because someone was high," even though there's a difference between being high.

Did you plead guilty or not guilty? I pled guilty. but the crazy thing is when I was in county jail, they, and this is documented in my paperwork and everything, literally over medicated me into almost a vegetative state and pretty much talked my family into convincing me to plead guilty, telling me that there was nothing else I could do.

When you pled guilty, did you know your sentence or they handed that down at court from the judge? I knew. It took me about two years, or maybe three years, to start to come back to normal after that. And then while I was in county, the amount of education they put me on, it just made me pretty much a vegetable.

Most of the nine months I was in county is a complete blur. I can honestly only remember probably a week or a month's worth of the seven months that I spent told. Who did they send it to? They sentenced me to life without parole. Do you think you deserve that? It's a two sided question in a way, because on the side, just for the shame that I feel, for the remorse I feel, and the loss I feel for my wife and my son, that part of me feels like there's not a sentence bad enough that they could have given me.

But then on the legal side, just on the what constitutes first degree murder side, then I definitely know this wasn't a first degree murder. It was a horrible crime. In contrast to Chris's recounting, the prosecution painted a more chilling picture during the trial, drawing on both forensic evidence and witness statements.

One key piece of evidence used against him was the argument he and Tish had the day before the murders, an argument over credit card spending. This was presented as a possible catalyst for the violence that erupted the following day, suggesting a build up of tension in the household. Ultimately, Chris accepted a plea deal, avoiding a potential death penalty in exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of first degree murder.

He was sentenced to life without parole. Despite his claims of a dr*g-induced psychotic state, the court focused on the brutality of the crime. Tish was shot in the forehead, and their infant son, Landon, was beaten to death. These grim details, alongside Chris's admitted dr*g use leading up to the murders, left little room for doubt in the eyes of the prosecution.

During the sentencing, Chris made a tearful apology, expressing remorse for what he had done. Yet, For the family of Tish and Landon, it wasn't enough. In a packed courtroom, Tish's relatives spoke of the profound loss and heartbreak, with some expressing their wish for the death penalty, a sentence they felt was more fitting for such a horrific crime.

After the break, we get Chris's perspective on his time in prison.

So you went to prison pretty young. How does that feel knowing you're going to basically grow old and an old man in there and then pass away? For the first several years, it was just a downward spiral. I actually tried to kill myself in 2012. How'd you try to do that? I cut my wrist and I cut it. I did it bad too.

it was terrible. Did you have somebody in the cell with you? Yeah, it was, I did it almost, it was like middle of the night, early in the morning, and he had to get up and go to bed at four o'clock in the morning. And had he not gotten up to go to bed, I probably would have died. He pretty much saved my life.

Do you think you'll end up trying again? No, definitely not. No, I'm in a completely different place now. It took a long time. And there was a lot of self hatred, a lot of years of just, you know, looking for a way to die. But I'm in a completely different place now. I ended up in 2017 becoming a Christian.

And in 2020, I started, I became a part of the HLGU, freedom on the Inside, Bachelor's Degree in Biblical Studies Program. Chris's time in prison has been filled with a constant battle against the crushing weight of guilt and regret. In the years following the murders, Chris admits that he struggled deeply with thoughts of suicide.

Feeling overwhelmed by the horror of what he had done, his search for solace eventually led him to religion, a discovery that he says gave him the strength to continue living, even in the face of life without parole. While Chris may have found a way to cope with the reality of his actions, the tragedy remains undeniable.

A young mother and her infant son lost their lives in a brutal act of violence that still echoes through the lives of their families. As I reflect on this devastating case, I can't help but wonder what led to such a catastrophic outcome. Was it the instability and trauma of Chris's upbringing? His descent into dr*g use?

Or was it something deeper, something that even Chris himself might not fully understand? One question still lingers in my mind. Chris's relationship with his biological father. He mentioned only briefly that he reconnected with his father after years of separation, but we haven't delved into what that reunion meant to him.

Did his father's absence play a role in shaping who Chris became, or was it simply a missing piece in a much larger puzzle? Before we end this story, I want to ask Chris about his father, and in doing so, I discover something unexpected. Something that would change the way Chris experiences prison forever.

Why would you not have a relationship with your father, but you do now? Did you, do you think your mother kept you from him or your dad just took off and didn't care? I'm not 100 percent sure. I don't think my mom really wanted me to have too much of a relationship with him, but I also don't think that she necessarily tried to stop it,

but she wasn't super encouraging, if that makes sense.

And then with him, I think that it was After so many years of not being in my life, it was almost like, Oh, what do I say if I just pop up now? Now that y'all are talking, do y'all discuss things about why he didn't, wasn't around? yeah, a little bit. I actually made the decision before we got in touch with each other that I had really let go of some of the animosity I had as a kid.

And I just told myself that it was to win. And if I ever got ahold of him, I would be content to just get to know him. And so that's what we did when we first started talking. Did he reach out to you or did you reach out to him? I reached out to him. How'd you find him? It was actually through, I'd met a woman about, well, about three years ago and she actually helped me find him.

And, she's been a major blessing in my life. Do you have a girlfriend on the outside? Yeah, I actually, we actually would be married when she came to visit last March. She lives in Sweden. When she came to visit last March. Sweden? The country? Yeah, in Sweden, the country. Yeah, she's, we've been together about three years now.

Did she use like some kind of a website to look for inmates and found you or what? It's funny. She actually contacted someone I know and told him, I'm not looking for a relationship. I basically, Just want to talk to somebody and ask some questions about American birth and stuff like that. And he was looking for a relationship.

So he told me, he said, "Hey, I know you're not looking for a relationship. Would you be interested in talking with this girl from Sweden?" Another inmate? Yeah. Okay. And my family comes from Sweden, my grandma was first generation Swedish, so I thought that would be a cool thing to talk to her. Sure. It's funny, we just, we hit it off several months later.

We talked, we were just friends for quite a while. Yeah. What would cause you to say, "I don't want a girlfriend?" Every guy wants, especially when you're in there, you're lonely, you probably want that affection. I've spent a lot of years with just the feeling of, I'm not trying to sound like I'm on a pity party or anything, but just that feeling of, I'm not deserving to be happy.

And it really took meeting her, and our friendship for me to ever reach a point where I was okay with being happy. And not to get too personal with her, but just to allow us, me and the listeners to paint a picture. What type of girl is this? Does she have a professional job? Does she, what does she do?

Yes. She actually, when I met her, she was a ICU nurse. And she's a great woman, she's just got a great heart, she's, you know, loving and understanding, yeah, as you can imagine, she really is, she became my best friend before she became anything else. We both kind of laugh and joke now about the fact that we were pretty much in love with each other for several months before we were ever willing to talk about it.

And she's actually flown all the way from Sweden to set up a visit with you? Yeah, she came and visited about this previous March. So not last month, but the March before, and we're hoping to see each other again here before too long. That would have been horrible if she flew all the way over here and you guys got locked down or something for a week.

Oh, believe me, that's something that we talked a lot. We had to get stripped out and everything to come into the visiting room. The inmates, obviously not the visitors. And so I have to get dressed again. And I come through this little door and as soon as I cracked it open, she was the very first thing that I saw.

And I got so nervous. And it was just, I could, I was smiling so much, my face was bright red, my cheeks were hurt. I walked up and just said hi, and she got up and gave me a hug and a kiss, and it just immediately turned into just one of the best moments of my life. Wow. Yeah, it was great. This woman that's an ICU nurse and obviously probably a really good human being, she's hugging a guy that killed two people and one of them is a child and it's yours.

How did she get around that? Did she forgive you or what? We talked about it and again, like with my dad, she understood. I think getting to know me and getting to understand who I was and then Hearing what actually happened, she realized that no matter how gruesome all of this may seem in the news and online and everything like that, that the truth is that it was an accident.

And again, I always say this because I never want anyone to think that I'm trying to deny any kind of responsibility. I get that this accident was my fault, but there was no intention. There was no desire for any of this to happen. Yeah, nice. Man, I appreciate you opening up to me. I know that's difficult.

That's just crazy about that particular dr*g because I have heard that story and it's just right there over the counter and you can just take it and it's does that kind of crap. But it sucks that it happened, man. The bad thing is you can't undo it, but I hope you do your time okay, and I appreciate you opening up.

I appreciate you listening to me and giving me a platform to, I guess, tell the actual story of what happened. Yep, no problem, man. Take it easy, okay? All right, you too. All right, see you, bye bye. Bye. Bye.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer:

I was molested when I was seven. My dad used to keep trying to beat me with anything he could get his hands on. Dog chains, fan blades, stealing fan blades. My brother in law came to me and said that he knew where there was $20,000 at. All we had to do was break into the house and get it. I actually found out where they lived and I shopped their house up.

Did y'all start really ransacking the house? Yeah, there was something in her hand and I didn't know if it was a knife, a gun, or what. And so I threw her to the ground and tried to take off. And when I did, my brother in law ran back up the hallway and started stomping her in the head. Why do you think he did that?

I have no clue. I hope and pray one day that my kids will reach out to me. I want to thank Chris 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.