EPISODE 01
Blind rage
TRANScript
Heather:
Colleen Turner, the last person not directly involved in what happened inside the condo on 64th place had just walked away. Behind her, yelling, shattering glass. What happened over the next several minutes would leave three men dead, send three others to prison for life, and leave families, including my own, searching for answers for decades.
But here is the problem - no one that walked away from that condo tells the same story. From this point forward, there are no unbiased eyewitnesses. Every account comes from someone who had a reason to explain away, minimize, justify, or shift the blame. Richard Fikejs says one thing. Kevin Aalders tells another. Rhonda Thompson offers a version that conflicts with both of them. Their stories changed over time, contradicted each other and often conflicted with the physical evidence investigators documented inside the condo on 64th place.
So before we can understand who did what, we have to do something much harder. We need to step into the condo on 64th place. Not to sensationalize what happened there - but to carefully separate what can be proven, from what was merely claimed. Because somewhere between the bloodstains, the forensic evidence and three competing stories, the truth still exists.
Thompson, Aalders and Fikejs would all tell their own version of what happened on October 12, 1996. And there are places where their versions line up. But there are a lot more places where they don't. So I'm not going to try to give you one clean story of what happened inside that condo. Because there isn't one. Instead, I'm going to tell you what each of them said happened. And you can hear the contradictions for yourself. If you remember, in the last Episode, Colleen Turner told Fikejs to go in the condo and tell Thompson she was sick - or anything so that she would come down and take Turner home. Then Thompson and Aalders came down, and Turner noticed a knife in her hands. Thompson told Turner “I knew you would freak anyways” and her and Aalders went back upstairs. From here, there is not one story. There are two fundamentally different and contradictory accounts of what happened inside the condo on 64th place.
According to Thompson's testimony, she went back upstairs for two reasons: to say goodbye and because she'd left her cigarette lighter behind. She said Aalders was already there when she returned. Chavez was in the kitchen. My dad was in the living room. And Donald was standing near the half wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the condo. She said she began saying goodbye. She told Donald it had been nice seeing him again. She complimented his condo. According to her testimony, Donald responded, "You didn't even see the whole thing," and began showing her around. At some point, Thompson went into the bathroom. She said Donald followed her, but when she told him she needed to use it, and he backed out. When she came out a couple of minutes later, she said Donald called her into his bedroom. The lights were off. Donald wasn't wearing a shirt. And this is where Thompson says everything began to change. She testified that Donald tried to kiss her. As he pulled her toward him, they fell onto the bed. Thompson said she told him she couldn't do this - that she had an "old man" and children. And while this was happening, Thompson testified that she could see Aalders standing across the hall, in the doorway of the bathroom. She said she got up, left the bedroom and headed toward the kitchen. And as she was leaving the bedroom- Aalders was going in. Thompson's version of the events is that she left Donald in that bedroom, alive and apparently uninjured. Fikejs and Aalders told a very different story, but I will explain more about that later.
Thompson said she was in the kitchen talking to Keith Chavez when Keith suddenly got up and began moving toward the bedroom. Her testimony puts her standing in the middle of something she says she didn't understand and didn't participate in. She said Keith turned toward her and yelled: "You bitch - what kind of trash did you bring here?" As he is saying this, she says that he turns around quickly, and accidentally punches her in the face, so hard, that she has a black eye later in the day. Then, according to Thompson, Aalders began screaming at Keith. "Shut the fuck up. Get down on your knees. Turn around and get down on your knees." Thompson said she thought, at first, that Aalders might even have been talking to her. But also testifies that she did not get on her knees. Then she watched Aalders walk over to Keith Chavez - and slit his throat.
Thompson said Keith tried to make it to the door, but Fikejs stopped him. The two struggled, crashing into the entertainment center and ultimately into the large picture window in the livingroom, which breaks. Meanwhile, my dad was still inside that condo. And once again, the three accounts split. Thompson said Aalders ordered Fikejs to make my dad get on his knees. "Make him listen." Then, she said, Fikejs began beating my dad with the pipe he had got out of Aalders car during the cigarette run. She testified that he hit him so many times that my dad never got back up. Never moved again. At one point during the struggle, Thompson said, Fikejs was nearly pushed through the broken window by Keith. Then, according to Thompson, Fikejs began hitting Keith in the face with the pipe while Aalders came up from behind and stabbed him.
Thompson testified that she never stabbed anyone during the attack. In her version, she was frozen. Terrified. She said she spotted a telephone on the wall and picked it up and tried to hide it beside the table so Aalders and Fikejs wouldn't see what she was doing. Before she could make a call, she said Aalders came into the kitchen, held a knife to her face and demanded to know where the fuck she thought she was going. Then he threw her a towel. "Make yourself useful. Wipe the place down for fingerprints.” Thompson said she obeyed. As she cleaned, she testified, she could hear Aalders and Fikejs continuing to stab the men. At one point she heard Aalders say: "That son of a bitch won't die." She believed he was talking about Keith.
She testified that while she was cleaning, she went over to Donald and quietly told him to lie still. Don't make noise. Then, she said, Aalders ordered her to stab Keith. She refused. So Aalders tried again. He reminded her that he knew she had an "old man" and three kids. He told her to take the knife and put it in him. This time, Thompson said, she took it. She knelt beside Keith. She leaned over him. But she said she couldn't do it. She testified that she placed the knife beside him without stabbing him. She was crying. She couldn't see clearly.
she stood up and Fikejs took the knife. Thompson said Aalders ordered Fikejs to "go get the money." And when he went to do that, he noticed something outside. There were police. Thompson said that as Fikejs ran toward the back door, he put the knife into the bloody towel she was holding. She was not far behind Fikejs. When she got to the door which exited onto the side drive of the condo complex, she saw Fikejs running around the corner of the complex going east. She said she went toward the back of the complex, as well, but she started walking west.
If Rhonda Thompson's account ended there, the story would be relatively straightforward. She had made a terrible decision to return to that condo. She found herself trapped in a sudden explosion of violence. She was terrified of Kevin Aalders. And while she admits helping destroy evidence afterward, she insists she never willingly participated in the murders. But Rhonda Thompson wasn't the only person who walked out of that condo alive.
Kevin Aalders and Richard Fikejs told their own stories about what happened that night. And while the two men blamed each other for some of the violence, on one critical point, their accounts were remarkably similar. According to both of them, Rhonda Thompson wasn't a terrified bystander. She was part of it. Fikejs and Aalders accounts of what happened in the condo on 64th place line up a lot more than either of them do with the story that Thopson told.
In his police statement, Fikejs admitted that they all went back downstairs when Turner decided she wanted to leave, but he remembered his return into the condo differently than Thompson did. He said Aalders and my dad were sitting in the kitchen, Chavez was standing nearby, and when he walked in, Aalders motioned to him and asked if he'd gotten the pipe. Fikejs confirmed that he had. And soon, according to all three of them, it would be used as a weapon. Aalders' account adds another detail. He said that when Thompson came back upstairs, she was "rubbing all over" Donald. According to them, Thompson and Donald went into the bedroom, and when they came out Donald was doubled over, staggering and clutching his stomach. Fikejs said Donald was saying: "She stabbed me. She stabbed me." Fikejs said Thompson was screaming: "Kill him. Kill him." And he claimed Keith tried to restrain Aalders. So Fikejs hit Keith in the head twice with the pipe.
Aalders told it differently. According to Aalders, it wasn't Keith who started the confrontation. It was Fikejs. Aalders said he watched Fikejs suddenly move toward Keith and strike him with the pipe. Then Fikejs turned the pipe on my dad. Fikejs admitted hitting my dad, but in his version, my dad was charging toward him. He said he struck my dad once in the head - hard enough to knock him unconscious.
And then there was Thompson. According to Fikejs, Thompson was standing there holding a butcher knife. The same knife, he said, that he had seen her carrying earlier that night. And she was screaming: "Kill them! Kill them!" Aalders also claimed Thompson was yelling for them to kill the men. He said Keith had come at him with a knife. They struggled. Aalders cut his finger. And then, by his own description, he went into a blind rage. He turned and cut Keith's throat. Fikejs also places the knife in Aalders' hand. He remembered Keith saying: "Wait. I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding. What are you doing?" Then Aalders, according to Fikejs, told Keith to get down on his knees, everything would be all right. Just get down on your knees. And shut up. And Keith did. But what about my dad? If you remember Thompson’s testimony- she said that my dad was hit once in the head- knocked unconscious, and never got up again. But that is not what Aalders said. Aalders said my dad did begin getting back up. And according to him, Fikejs had the buck knife and cut my dad's throat. That was the same knife that just an hour or so earlier, my dad was playing with at the kitchen table. Fikejs’ story lined up with this fact, he admitted that he was the one that cut my dads throat. But according to Fikejs, that happened later. And only after Aalders ordered him to do it.
We'll come back to that.
Because Keith Chavez was still fighting. Aalders' version also has Keith knocking Fikejs into the window. He said he went after Keith, stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach while Fikejs struck him with the pipe. Fikejs' account is more detailed. He claimed Keith got back up and yelled: "Everybody get up and let's get them!" Keith attacked Aalders. Aalders yelled for Fikejs to get him. And Fikejs did. He estimated that he struck Keith with the pipe about ten times. And hard. Keith tried to block the blows with his arms. Then, according to Fikejs, Keith grabbed the pipe. They struggled. Keith shoved Fikejs into the entertainment center, spun him around - and pushed him halfway through the window.
Fikejs said Keith then fell to the floor. And standing behind him were Aalders and Thompson. According to Fikejs, both Aalders and Thompson began stabbing Keith repeatedly. Aalders and Fikejs tell a very different story about what Thompson was doing during those same moments. Aalders said Thompson had been stabbing Donald. Then, he said, she began wiping fingerprints from bottles, telling them she would "take care of it." Fikejs also said Thompson was stabbing the victims. Repeatedly. And according to Fikejs, she wasn't doing it because anyone forced her. He claimed she was still demanding that the men be killed. "Kill them. Kill them." Aalders described himself moving from body to body with the butcher knife, stabbing the men and yelling at Thompson: "You want them dead? Now they're dead!" Fikejs remembered Aalders yelling something similar:"Are you happy now?" And according to him, Thompson continued stabbing. There is one thing Fikejs does admit doing with a knife. He admits cutting my father's throat. But according to him, it happened because Aalders told him to kill him. Fikejs said my dad was trying to get up again when Aalders handed him a black-handled knife. "Kill him, Rich. Kill him." Fikejs took the knife. He said my dad was near the front door. And Fikejs cut his throat. According to Fikejs, Aalders wasn't satisfied. "You didn't do it right. Kill him. Get him good." Fikejs said he handed the knife back. "Lefty, man. You want it, you do it." And according to Fikejs, Aalders then stabbed my dad several more times. They then began searching the men for money, but did not have much time to do it. Fikejs was standing right in front of the broken picture window when he turned around to see a police officer pointing his flashlight at him. Fikejs said "Holy fuck. Coppers. Coppers!" At this point, Thompson, Aalders and Fikejs’ attention turned from the three men lying inside that condo - to themselves.
Fikejs said Thompson was wiping down beer bottles while he used his sleeve to wipe fingerprints from the front door. He said Aalders handed him the broken-handled butcher knife and told him to wipe the prints from that, too. Fikejs wrapped the knife in a handkerchief and put it in his pocket. The pipe was tucked under his arm. Then they ran.Fikejs headed for the back door and Thompson wasn’t far behind him. Aalders was hiding near the front window, but knocked over a lamp while he was trying to conceal himself and decided to run. He ran toward the back door, but at the same time, heard police at the front door, so he opened a second story window in the bedroom at the back of the condo, and jumped. He landed on his feet, regained his balance and saw Fikejs not too far ahead of him. He also saw a police officer behind him, and he started running. Fikejs said Aalders caught up with him. The two men ran toward 65th street - which was the boundary between Chicago and Bedford Park, and also a boundary between residential and industrial areas. They both ran down a service road of a nearby factory, and hid in some tall grass and bushes. And that is where their stories of what happened inside the condo on 64th place end. Three defendants. Three stories. Each admits to being there. Each admits to at least some involvement in what happened afterward. And each tells a story that shifts some of the worst violence onto somebody else. Thompson portrays herself largely as a terrified witness -threatened into cleaning the apartment and even ordered to stab one of the victims, but unable to do it. Aalders admits stabbing and killing, but describes a chaotic confrontation that began around Thompson and escalated into what he called a blind rage. Fikejs admits beating Keith and my dad with the pipe. He admits cutting my father's throat. But in his version, Thompson was demanding the carnage from the beginning, while Aalders committed - and ordered - much of the stabbing. Eventually, investigators would have to sort through those stories. They would have the broken window.
The pipe. The knives. The blood. The wounds on three men's bodies. And an apartment that someone had tried - and failed - to clean before police arrived. But all of that would come later. Because while police were beginning to piece together what had happened inside that condo on 64th Place, there were three families who didn't know yet. My family was one of them. Somewhere across Chicago, my mom was asleep. My brother and sisters were asleep. I was asleep. None of us knew that my dad wasn't coming home. And when my mom finally woke up that Saturday morning, the first sign that something was wrong didn't come from the police.
It came from a dream.