Sword and Scale Nightmares: Kid Van

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On December 19th, 2001, residents at a local

RV park off the coast of Oregon were focused on something unnatural, rippling the waters near

the shoreline. A closer look revealed the shape was small and pale with blonde hair. Authorities

confirmed that it was a small boy, four years old, floating face down. There were no visible

injuries. In fact, he looked exceptionally well taken care of beyond his bloated, water-soaked

features. Detectives wondered if the boy had wandered away from home and fallen into the river,

but strangely, no one reported a missing. Further investigating revealed that every

child in the county was accounted for. This boy, found wearing only his underwear,

was not from around here. After a digitally enhanced photo was distributed to the media,

a couple came forward, suggesting that it looked like Zachary Longo, a little boy

they would occasionally babysit, a little boy with two more young siblings that seem to be missing

as well.

Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares, true crime for bedtime, where Nightmare

begins now.

Three days after the body of four-year-old Zachary Longo drifted to shore,

divers searching the area came across a deeply unsettling scene. The waters were relatively

shallow, but well beneath the surface, the body of a little girl hovered in place, like a ghost.

A rock-filled pillowcase was tied around her ankle,

anchoring her to the floor. This was Zachary's three-year-old sister,

Sadie Longo. Later, police would state that if Zachary hadn't come loose from another pillowcase

they recovered from the waters, it might have been a decade before their bodies were found.

Still missing, a third, even younger sibling, as well as both parents.

A background check revealed the Longo family hadn't lived in Oregon for very long. In fact,

the Longos originally hailed from a completely different part of the country in Michigan.

Christian Longo and Mary Jane Baker's love story begins in the early 1990s,

when they meet in a church parking lot. They're part of the same congregation of

Jehovah's Witnesses, and handsome Christian Longo has been actively involved in door-to-door

ministry since he was a child. Spreading the word of God and living by Jehovah's teachings

is equally important to Mary Jane, and the two were married in 1993.

They have three kids in three years. Zachary, Sadie, and the latest addition to their happy family,

Madison. Even though Mary Jane has to stop working to take care of the kids,

Christian appears to be keeping it all together somehow. He works several jobs over the years,

eventually starting his own construction subcontracting business.

By all accounts, the Longo family lives the American dream, with the vanity license plate

to match. Kid Van. They're actively involved in their church. They're able to purchase

fashionable clothing and whatever the kids want or need. But most importantly,

the Longos appear to be a strong family unit that sticks together through the good and bad.

Which is what makes the next turn of events all the more surprising.

On December 27th, five days after three-year-old Sadie Longo was discovered,

divers searching the docks near the Embarcadero Marina observed two suitcases,

one of them containing clothing, dumbbell weights, and the body of two-year-old Madison Longo.

Strands of hair are floated from the outside of the zipper of the second suitcase,

ultimately revealed to be holding the naked body of their mother, Mary Jane Longo.

Autopsies confirm that both Mary Jane and her youngest daughter Madison

were strangled to death before being folded and stowed away like overhead luggage.

The two older siblings, Zachary and Sadie, were determined to have been

asphyxiated. While the medical examiner could not be more specific,

water was found in both of the children's lungs, leading investigators to believe they were alive

as they sunk to the bottom of the waterway and drowned to death.

It was unclear if their father, Christian Longo, was somewhere in the icy waters as well.

Maybe he had made a bad business deal with the wrong people,

or maybe he was the one who personally committed his entire family's demise.

Either way, investigators had more ground to cover than exists from Michigan all the way to Oregon.

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Customers are rushing to your store. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust or is it

a real POS? If you know what I mean. You need Shopify for retail. Did you know Shopify powers

selling in person too? Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store.

From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify has everything you need to sell in person.

With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online

sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place and know exactly

what's in stock. Connect with customers in line and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic

with plug-and-play tools built from marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond.

Get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone,

transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's POS Go mobile device

for a battle-tested solution. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success

every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 a month trial period

at Shopify.com slash sword and scale all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash

sword and scale to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash

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There's a lot that Mary Jane doesn't know about her husband Christian.

The money problems start almost immediately when Christian buys Mary Jane an engagement ring

that he can't afford. He steals money from the camera store he works at,

then has second thoughts reimbursing the company and then resigning. The credit card debts get higher

and higher in the years that follow with the birth of each new child. And Christian's lavish

spending habits make it all even worse. The construction cleanup company he starts is going

well, but soon the vendors and clients aren't paying him fast enough. Christian thinks he's

entitled to the money, so he begins cutting and cashing counterfeit checks for himself.

He makes no attempt to hide his identity. After he's caught he winds up pleading guilty to fraud

related charges and is ordered to reimburse the victims, which of course he cannot afford.

But a far worse punishment awaits him at home, as his congregation of Jehovah's witnesses have

learned about his financial transgressions. Christian's wife Mary Jane also tells leaders

of the church about emails she came across, indicating that Christian is having an affair

with another congregant. It's obvious that Christian is no longer living a moral life,

and he is disfellowshipped from the church. This means that other Jehovah's witnesses are not

supposed to associate with him. But despite it all, Mary Jane wants to make the marriage work.

Even Kidvan, the family's personalized minivan, turns out to be nothing more than an illusion.

After the family car breaks down, Christian creates a fake driver's license, takes a fully

loaded Pontiac Montana off the lot for a test drive, and never brings it back. He screws in the

Kidvan vanity license plate, even though it's from the previous car, and the records won't match.

Later, as his life in Michigan continues crumbling down all around him, Christian and the family

load up the new and improved Kidvan and set off for Ohio. Christian makes a promise that he will

change his habits and fix their money issues somehow. But first, he gives himself scuba lessons

and pays for Mary Jane's corrective eye surgery. Around this time, Christian also brings home a

set of new jet skis. He says that he won them, but he actually purchased them with a credit card

in his stepfather's name using stolen information. In the meantime, the family is living in an Ohio

warehouse without plumbing, which Christian says he'll renovate into a more livable space.

Despite his promises, he's still using forged checks to get by, which eventually catch the

attention of local authorities. Kidvan is loaded up again in the middle of the night,

further violating Christian's fraud-related probation with every state line they cross,

as they make their way to the west coast of Oregon. A day after the suitcases containing

Mary Jane and Madison Longo were pulled from the water, authorities still could not locate Christian

Longo. But by now, investigators had come across a number of unsettling clues that suggested he was

most definitely the key suspect for these gruesome homicides. A search of the Longo family's most

recent residents in Oregon, an upscale condominium complex called the Landing,

showed that their unit had been evacuated in a hurry, with only a few items left scattered

on the floor. Housekeepers at a past residence in Oregon, the nearby motor inn,

had also reported coming across several unusual items in their dumpster. Longo family photos,

baby books holding precious memories like sonograms and first footprints, and a wallet

containing Mary Jane's driver's license. A look into the warehouse the Longos briefly

lived at in Ohio unveiled that many family heirlooms were left behind, including wedding

photos of Christian and Mary Jane, as well as Mary Jane's wedding dress. Additionally,

two books of note were observed, a Spanish phrase book and another book called The Modern Identity

Changer. Investigators had recently spoken to a construction worker who heard about the corpses

found in the water and recalled driving into town very early in the morning on December 17.

He noticed a red minivan parked along the side of a bridge overlooking the same waterway

near where the bodies were discovered. The worker stopped and asked the man driving the

minivan if he needed any help, but the man told him he was fine, that it was just the check engine

light. The man he described matched Christian's description. On the same day, suspicious items

were pulled from the motel dumpster. A green Dodge Durango was stolen from a local dealership

and a maroon minivan was left behind nearby. There was no license plate on the abandoned vehicle,

but the foam underneath had been imprinted with the phrase Kidvan.

Later, the same green Dodge Durango stolen in Oregon was recovered out of state

at San Francisco International Airport. Inside was the Kidvan license plate,

along with Christian's checkbook and a diploma. On December 28, 2001, as Mary Jane and Madison

were being positively identified, Christian Michael Longo was added to the FBI's 10 Most

Wanted list and officially charged with murder. He was once again on the run,

only this time without a family to hold him back. Where he ended up next was anybody's guess.

Okay, so we're flashing back one more time to September of 2001. Christian and his family

have urgently left Ohio and they enter the state of Oregon with less than $500 to their name.

Mary Jane puns the engagement ring Christian was never able to afford in the first place

and adds another $600 to their stash. They're exhausted from too many nights on the road

and managers at a vacation rental property take pity on the polite and well-behaved family,

allowing them to pay cash and stay in a nice house for $300 a week. Within a few weeks,

Christian is unable to afford even these payments and the family is told to leave.

But before they do, Christian decides to steal a couple of crab traps, which he later pawns to

help pay for the next place. The Longos move just a few miles away into the Newport Motor Inn.

Christian gets a job working behind the counter at a department store Starbucks

and when chatting with his new boss, Christian lies and explains that he actually runs a

profitable internet company. He's only taking the part-time gig because he just loves Starbucks.

You know, we all love Starbucks. Who doesn't love Starbucks?

Living at the cramped Newport Motor Inn quickly becomes intolerable for Christian.

So he takes a drive to the beautiful waterfront condominium complex known as The Landing.

He tells the manager there that he's a subcontractor living in town while he surveys the Oregon

coastline and installs a fiber optic network. He also explains that his family lives out of town,

but it will come by for the occasional visit. The manager at The Landing lets Christian move in.

Without any money up front. And he continues to buy Christian's story that he's just waiting for

a delayed paycheck. But the truth is Christian can barely afford the groceries while he's making

$7 an hour at Starbucks. Christian knows it will only be a matter of time before they're kicked

out of their beautiful landing condo and be forced to hit the road once again.

So on the night of December 16th, Christian returns home from his barista shift around 11 pm.

Mary Jane and the kids are already asleep, so Christian quietly nibbles on some wine and cheese.

Then he goes onto the deck to contemplate how he's going to tell his wife

just exactly how much trouble they're actually in. Yet, again. On his way to the bedroom,

Christian passes by his two oldest children, Zachary and Sadie, sleeping on the living room couch.

He lays awake next to Mary Jane for hours, no doubt hearing the soft and calming

snores of two-year-old Madison who was sleeping on a comforter on the floor.

The exact time that Christian begins to manually choke his wife to death

is unclear. But not long after, Christian repeats the horrific act of violence,

this time to his youngest daughter. Detectives believe the two other children were

still asleep as Christian gives disturbing new meaning to packing up his suitcases and

loading up the kid van for an early morning drive. The two suitcases containing Mary Jane and Madison

are thrown off the docks right by the landing, their fancy condominium complex.

And Zachary and Sadie are likely just coming to their senses after a half-hour's car ride

as Christian pulls up to a bridge. Or maybe they're still sleeping as their daddy ties a

rock-filled pillowcase around each of their ankles and tosses them into the dark abyss below.

Over the next couple of days, Christian swaps his maroon minivan for a green one.

He tries to distract himself by going to the gym and renting a movie. He tells the manager

at the landing that he and his wife are having some problems in their marriage.

So he took her and the kids to the airport. Of course, there is no airport. And there is no family

anymore. He also attends a Christmas party with his fellow Starbucks employees.

There's a gift exchange and the person who opens Christian's gift gets a partially used bottle

of perfume. Mary Jane's, to be more precise. On December 19th, as a little boy's body

bobs up to the surface near an RV park, Christian works another shift and tells his co-workers

that his wife left him for another man. He works December 20th as well and plays volleyball

with a friend. And on December 21st, when the little boy is positively identified as Zachary

Longo, Christian picks up one last paycheck and leaves Oregon behind for good old California.

After arriving in San Francisco, Christian applies for a new job at a local Starbucks.

But suddenly, he has a change of heart. He books a plane ticket using a customer's stolen credit

card information and flies out of San Francisco International Airport to, well, the good old

FBI is really good at things like, you know, surveilling us and all that, but they somehow

can't catch bad guys. In fact, at this point, they were offering up to $50,000 to anyone who

could provide them with any information that would lead to Christian's arrest. The tragic story of

the Longo family was also featured on the long-running television program America's Most Wanted,

which offered a phone number for viewers to call in if they had any tips.

As desperate and chaotic as it all seemed, somehow incredibly, it worked. A woman had just

returned from a vacation in Cancun, Mexico when she saw the publicity, recognized Christian from

her trip, and reported the sighting. At the time, the man had introduced himself as Brad,

and then later, oddly, as Mike. Authorities received an even more specific tip from the tour

guide who had recently given Christian a tour of the Mayan ruins. The man he recognized hadn't

gone by the name Christian then either. Shortly after authorities apprehended him on January 13,

2002, they learned that Christian was not only living an entirely different life,

he was having the time of his life. Over the course of those few short weeks in Mexico,

Christian had convinced the entire resort community that he was a New York Times travel

journalist named Michael Finkel, an actual journalist who would later write a book about his

bizarre, tangential connection to this case. Before he was arrested, Christian spent time

at the beach. He snorkeled. He went to nightclubs. He got drunk. He smoked pot with a group of

British travelers. When he was ultimately pulled from his grass cabana and arrested,

he was sharing it with an attractive German travel photographer, one whom he had already been

sexually intimate with. It was the Mexican police who arrested Christian,

not the FBI agent assigned to the case. Years later in court, Christian's return to the United

States became a topic of contention for the defense. They suggested that Christian was tricked into

coming back by the FBI agent and that Mexico would have never extradited a criminal who might face

the death penalty back in the US. But the reality is that Christian didn't want to spend a single

night in a Mexican jail cell. He allegedly told the FBI agent that his good looks and speaking

skills allowed him to get away with so much over the years. But they were ultimately his downfall.

When asked more specifically about the murders, he said, quote, I sent them to a better place.

End quote. Wow. You have to be cold-hearted to murder someone, but Jesus.

Christian pled guilty to the murders of Mary, Jane, and Madison. But he did not want to enter a plea

for the murders of his other two children, Zachary and Sadie. In March of 2003, Christian took the

stand in his own defense and shocked everybody with his testimony. In short, he explained that on

the night of the murders, his wife, Mary Jane, picked him up from work. Only she was barefoot

and dressed in a bathrobe. He claimed Mary Jane was furious at him for the litany of crimes he

allegedly confessed to her the previous day and that she was the one who killed Zachary and Sadie.

Yep, he blamed his dead wife for the murder of his children, the wife that he killed. Yep.

Do you process that yet? Get. Let's move on. Christian said that Mary Jane hysterically

told him the kids were already in the water and that this was all his fault. According to Christian

story, he lost control in that moment and strangled Mary Jane to death out of anger. He then suggested

his youngest daughter Madison only appeared to be laying dead in their bedroom. After he killed

Mary Jane, he saw Madison was barely breathing and decided, in his ultimate wisdom, that it was best

to, you know, end her life as well, for some reason. But prosecutors suggested that Christian

had been planning to murder his family for months, pointing to his internet activity,

in particular, frequenting a site called Hitman Online, which suggested various ways to kill people.

Christian had also successfully isolated his wife, Mary Jane, from the rest of her family.

When they began to be concerned with her whereabouts, he sent misleading postcards to create a

false trail. The jury also considered Christian's long history of manipulation. Not to mention

his attempts to literally throw away any indication he'd ever been married or had kids. Christian

Longo was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death by lethal injection.

While on death row in 2011, Christian wrote a letter to a female inmate he claimed to be in

love with, in the letter he admitted to killing his entire family and that he agreed with a

psychologist's analysis that he had a narcissistic personality disorder. In 2015, a film about the

murders starring James Franco and Jonah Hill called True Story was released. As the film

was being promoted, Christian wrote another letter from behind bars where he told People Magazine,

quote, I realize I can't do anything about it now, except try to live as positively as possible

with a view that I don't deserve the breaths I get to take. I don't feel that I can be redeemed,

end quote. More recently in December of 2022, all prisoners in Oregon's death row

had their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole. Go Oregon. It's been reported

that Christian received an infraction for shipping a hole in his prison cell window.

Some viewed it as an escape attempt, but others noted that many prisoners have done this to their

windows as a way to see through to the Oregon coastline. It seems Christian Longo never stopped

loving the good life. He stopped loving his family, but not the good life. Well, at least now,

he's got a long life ahead of him, one with a completely enviable ocean view.

Sweet dreams and good night.

Customers are rushing to your store. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust, or is it

a real POS, if you know what I mean? You need Shopify for retail. Did you know

Shopify powers selling in person too? Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store.

From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify has everything you need to sell in person.

With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and

online sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place,

and know exactly what's in stock. Connect with customers in-line and online.

Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug-and-play tools built for marketing campaigns

from TikTok to Instagram and beyond. Get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone,

transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's POS Go mobile device

for a battle-tested solution. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success

every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify? Sign up for a one-dollar-a-month trial

period at Shopify.com-sword-and-scale, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com-sword-and-scale

to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com-sword-and-scale,

all lowercase, and no spaces. Shopify.com-sword-and-scale.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.