Episode 39: The Mont Vernon Thrill Killing
Steven Spader
Christopher Gribble
In the small town of Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, crime was not something that happened very often, and when it did, it was not so violent that it rocked international news. So when 11-year-old Jaimie Cates called the police early in the morning of October 4th, 2009, the community was in shock.
When police arrived to the home that Jaimie lived in, they found her badly injured and barely hanging on. She had been stabbed several times, including in her back and her right lung. She was missing portions of her left foot, which had been cut off with a sharp weapon, and she had survived the attack by pretending to be dead. In the master bedroom was 42-year-old Kimberly Cates, Jaimie’s mother, who lay dead in her bed. She had been stabbed and slashed around 32 times in her face, torso, left arm and left leg.
It wasn’t long before a teenage boy confessed to his mother that he had something pressing on his mind, and needed to talk to the police. Within a few hours a horrifying story was unfolding, involving a group of 4 teenage boys with a deranged plan.
Masterminded by 17-year-old Steven Spader and his lifelong best friend, 19-year-old Christopher Gribble, who decided that their recent hobby of burglarizing homes wasn’t enough… they wanted to add killing to the mix. Steven Spader decided to make a club, called the Disciples of Destruction, and he wanted the initiation for his recruits to involve invading and killing the occupants of a home. Along with Gribble, he recruited teenagers Billy Marks and Quinn Glover to join them as they used machetes and knives to burglarize the home.
Due to the teenage boys confession to the police, and the help of a school resource officer, the 4 boys were quickly apprehended. Spader and Gribble were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while Marks and Glover were sentenced to lesser time for lesser charges.
Image sources:
bostonherald.com - “Cates family moves on”
murderpedia.com - “Steven Spader”
wmur.com - “Mont Vernon murderer injured in prison fight”