Christopher Vaughn sentenced to four life terms for brutal slayings of three children and wife in SUV

A Chicago man who fatally shot his wife and three school-aged children in the family's SUV as they drove to an Illinois waterpark has been sentenced to four life terms in prison for the heartless murder.

Christopher Vaughn, 37, was sentenced on Monday two months after jurors found him guilty of mercilessly killing his 34-year-old wife Kimberly and their children aged 8, 11 and 12 in June of 2007.

‘Our hearts ache with the knowledge that they were priceless to everyone but the one man who should have loved them more than their own life,’ Kimberly's twin sister Jennifer Ledbetter told the judge striking a rare moment of perceived emotion from Vaugh, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Family annihilator: Vaughn is pictured with his wife Kimberly, 34, and children (left to right) Cassandra, 11, Blake, 8, and Abigayle, 12

It was in the early moing of June 14 that prosecutors said Vaugh surprised his family with a trip to an area waterpark before pulling off the road and placing a 9mm Taurus pistol under his wife's chin and firing.

He next tued to each of his three children buckled in the back seat and fired at each of them, once in the chest and once in the head.

Prosecutors said Vaugh dreamed of starting a new life in the Canadian wildeess and his family was the obstacle stopping him.

Shortly after 5 am his wife, his 12-year-old daughter Abigayle, 11-year-old daughter Cassandra and eight-year-old son Blake were found dead.

Abigayle was found holding a stuffed animal; Blake's wounds indicated he had raised his arm – to shield himself.

With his life sentences the judge gave no possibility of parole. Vaughn was eligible for the death penalty when the case began, but Illinois has since abolished capital punishment.

Escape: Prosecutors say Vaughn saw his wife and children as obstacles standing in the way of his flight to Canada to live in the wildeess

Vaughn did not make a statement in court but tued and quietly looked at his attending family as he exited the courtroom.

Vaughn, who lived with his family in a spacious Oswego home, faced a mandatory life term for the killings. But the hearing in Joliet gave relatives a chance to confront him and to convey how much pain he caused.

'We had no indication from this individual that he could be so evil that he could do such acts but we did find out the hard way,' Kimberly Vaughn's father Del Phillips said at a following press conference.

The 2007 murders started out as a death penalty case, slowing the pace to trial. But Illinois has since abolished capital punishment, making life in prison the maximum penalty.

Vaughn murdered his family members, prosecutors say, because he saw them as obstacles to his dream of a new life in Canada. He posted wistful Inteet messages about building a cabin and settling in the Yukon cut off from the world.

No emotion: Like with his conviction, pictured, Vaughn was expressionless as he heard his sentence on Monday

Regis read emails Vaughn wrote to a friend before the murders saying he longed for a life unencumbered by cellphones and other hallmarks of modeity. He cited poet Henry David Thoreau about the virtue of shrugging off obligations.

'I just want to live plain and simple,' Vaughn wrote in one email.

At trial, defense attoeys told jurors that Vaughn's wife was to blame, saying she was suicidal over marital strife. They suggested she shot her husband in the wrist and leg, then killed the children and herself.

Vaugh's defense attoey added later that Kimberly Vaughn may have seen the murder of her kids as a twisted act of mercy.

'(She) was of the mindset that they if she was gone, they were better off with her ... "Come with me to heaven,"' Lenard said, depicting what the mother might have been thinking.

Prosecutors balked at that theory, asking jurors whether it seems reasonable that a woman who disliked guns could have shot her husband twice, only grazing him each time, but fatally shot each of her children with a marksman's precision.

In his closing, Mike Fitzgerald cited witnesses who testified that Kimberly Vaughn was upbeat around the time and that, just the evening before, she had fussed cheerfully over a recipe for 'cheesy potatoes.'

Moreover, he asked how the wife could have just grazed her husband with two bullets as he sat right next to her -- yet somehow managed to put a bullet into each of her children's heads.

'No way, ladies and gentlemen,' Fitzgerald said. 'No way that's possible.'

They contended that Christopher Vaughn shot himself to make it look like his wife carried out the attack, and told jurors that Vaughn showed little emotion after the shootings and was more interested in his damaged clothing than the fate of his family.

A jury took less than an hour to convict the suburban Chicago computer specialist of carrying out the horrific execution.

Vaughn showed no emotion as the verdict was read while family members of the victims cried and hugged each other in a hallway outside the courtroom immediately afterward.