The Murder of Jackie Vandagriff

Yes, mom had texted me because she lived pretty close to Grapevine Lake, and she was like, "Look what happened." A body was found on the banks of Grapevine Lake. Nothing happens in Grapevine except for what he did. The victim was identified as Jacqueline Van de Griff. Hello everyone! My name is Jacqueline Vandegriff, but friends call me Jackie Vandegriff. I was 24 years old. I am currently a junior here at Texas Woman's University, and my major is nutrition with an emphasis on wellness. Just beyond this area, where the shade is pretty much hitting, is where we had our crime scene. There are a lot of things that will shock you, and this is by far the worst thing I have seen. My manager texts me that Charles has just been arrested.

I felt like the world was spinning and like everything was out of control. It's believed that last Tuesday, Jacqueline Vandergriff met up with Charles Bryant at a bar in Denton. Surveillance video and cell phone pings all put Vandergriff and Brya together. her I remember him just being kind and quiet. But I immediately said, "There's no way they have the wrong guy, there's no way that he did this." Are you telling me there's no evidence that Charles Bryant killed Jackie Vandegriff? The serial killers, the ritualistic killings—how are you doing today? Jim is home with the rangers; is life good today or not? This is not a normal homicide; you know how to kill someone. It all seemed to start with Caitlyn. How screwed up are you, Caitlin Man? In the early days, it was good. After that first month, that's when I started to see these warning signs that he was manipulative and very controlling. I just told him I couldn't do this anymore. This isn't working. This is over. He flipped out. He showed up at your dorm room out of the blue. You never gave him the address. The revenge that we got for his stalking of his ex-girlfriend, who had called the police on him, and how he was stalking me were completely related to Jackie Vandergriff's death. There are some similarities between the way Vandegriff looks and the way Brian's ex-girlfriend looks. Do you think there's a chance or a possibility that he walked into this bar, saw somebody who reminded him of you, and took his rage out on her? Most definitely, I think that he really wanted to kill me. I think that he wanted me dead.

When I first arrived on the scene, I saw a lot of police cars and fire trucks. There was a lot of activity. It was September 14, 2016, just before dawn, when John Luna, a captain with the Grapevine Police Department, responded to a call about a gruesome discovery here at Grapevine Lake: just off of the worn footpath, you have an area that's pretty well overgrown with weeds, but you can clearly see a small area that was burned. Just beyond where I'm standing, there was a body that was obviously charred; it had been set on fire. The body found inside a blue kiddie pool was so badly damaged that police could not determine the most basic facts about the victim. We didn't know if that was an adult or a child, a male or a female. The next day, using fingerprints, police were able to identify the victim. Jackie Vandegriff, a 24-year-old nutrition major at Texas Women's University in nearby Denton, I chose this major because I realized the importance of nutrition and overall health, which are both named Jacqueline is named after Jacqueline Kennedy, one of Jackie Vandergrift's closest friends. They met in high school, and ever since then, we were Jackie Squared, and I loved it. She made me feel like I could be myself and just be goofy and funny. Jackie Tan remembers her friend as a good student who was focused and trusted. That girl was the smartest girl I've known. She had her whole life ahead of her. She had plans. Me and my detectives went out there for her memorial service. I'm sorry for Captain Luna. The brutality of this crime hit close to home. Could it just as easily have been my daughter's fault that this happened to you? Jackie spent the last evening of her life in Denton with this man. She didn't know his identity right away, but this woman knew him very well. He would always give me flowers, especially if he had something to be sorry about. Charles Bryant lived some 20 miles away, but he had been making frequent visits to Denton, trying to rekindle a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Caitlyn Mathis, who had recently moved there to attend the University of North Texas. He was just trying to win me back, and I was just like, "Nothing is going to work." Caitlyn's involvement with Bryant had begun three months earlier, in June, in the town of Grapevine, when it came into the restaurant where Caitlyn was working as a server. The day that I met him was the day after I graduated high school. He had lots of muscles and tattoos, which kind of interested me at the time. Bryant was then 29 and working as a bartender and personal trainer. You're 18; he's 29; he's got muscles and tattoos, and he must have made your mother crazy. Being a mother of adult children is a different role that you have to let go of for them to fly away and grow up.

I've Caitlyn is the youngest of KaHulseylsey's children. She says Caitlyn was hard to miss. You know when she's in the house because she runs everywhere. And Caitlyn ran headlong into her relationship with CharBryant in the summer of 20. One of their regular date spots was at the park by Grapev Lake, where this picture was taken. a When Karen learned about relationships, she asked Caitlin to show her a picture of him. I've Got This Feeling Just deep inside my bones, I had an evil feeling, and I said, "He's going to hurt you; he's going to do something bad." Wow, and she's like, "Oh, he's nice; he's good to me; he makes me feel like an adult." Were you thinking to yourself, "You're 18; you're too young to know?" Yes, but I didn't want to insult her within weeks. Caitlyn was having serious doubts of her own about Brian, and that's when I started to see these warning signs that he was manipulative. He was a bit of an artist-narcissist. He thought very highly of himself. He would say things like, "Oh, you'll never find anyone better than me." It was toxic, and he was toxic in mid-August 2016. Caitlyn broke up with Brian; she thought that was the last she'd see of him, but the next day he showed up uninvited at her mother's house, and somehow he convinced me to get back with him. He was trying to say, "Oh, I can work on this and I can be better," and making all these promises, but Caitlyn realized she wasn't interested in promises. That was one of the things that my mom taught me: people do not change you; you can't change someone. At that point, I was just waiting for the perfect time to end things. A little more than a week later, after Caitlyn moved away to school, she told Brian it was over again. Later that night, police found him on campus, just by sheer coincidence. I had made a traffic stop, and he was driving that vehicle. Jeremy Polk was then a lieutenant for the UNT Campus Police. He pulled Brian over early in the morning of August 24th. I thought he was an intoxicated driver by the way he was driving, and that was my focus, so right now I'm at the place you're at. You know, a race so good you could just remain secret. It's all good. Bryant was not over the legal limit; he was charged with a few outstanding traffic tickets, and they let him go. Later that same day, he was back on Caitlyn's campus again. He actually knocked on the door of my dorm room; he didn't know prior to where I lived, and he said, "Oh, her name was on the door." Did that creep you out? It did. At that point, I was scared. Caitlyn got him out of there and called campus police. Captain Polk recognised Brian's name on the report and went along to interview Caitlin the next day. She told us things like, I just did not like the way Charles spoke to me. I did not like the way he treated me. And I made that choice then and there. You know, I would do everything I could to help her with this situation." Polk issued a no-trespass order banning Charles Bryant from the UNT campus, but once again Bryant did not take no for an answer. The biggest fear I have as a police officer sometimes is emotion, because emotion drives people to do things you would never imagine.

It was my first day there, and he walked through the door, and my heart just dropped to the bottom of my stomach. It was August 31st, 2016, a week since Charles Bryant had tracked Caitlyn Mathis down at her new dorm, and now he was invading her space again, coming into her new restaurant on her first day of work. I was like, "I just want you to leave." What did he say to that? He didn't really say anything. He looked upset. My new coworkers were like, "He was here yesterday looking for you." Caitlin asked her manager to keep Bryant out, but her manager said there was nothing he could do. "I can't work here. I don't feel safe enough to work here. Caitlyn went back to her old job, a half-hour's drive away. Her mother found it all hard to watch from a distance. I said, "Come home." It was my motherly instinct to protect her, and in order to protect her, I had to have her with me. But Caitlyn thought she'd be safe in her dorm a week later, on September 6th, which would have been their three-month anniversary. Bryant was back yet again. He showed up to my dorm and knocked on my door, and at this point I was shaking. I'm all alone.

I actually hid in my suitemate's closet. Yes, when I was on the phone with the police, they were like, "We can't hear you. You need to speak up." I was just afraid that he was going to hear my voice. I did hear him say, Caitlin. "I know you're in there; just open up. I have something for you, and I'm like, God, what do you have for me?" I don't want it. Bryant left flowers and a two-page letter. When the police arrived, he was gone. I heard him say, "Hey, it's Charles. He said something for you, even though for sure it was him." Yeah, I was 27 myself, and 443 police officers found him outside. Ten minutes later, you're still here. Yeah, what's your name now? I arrested him for trespassing, and you know you're not supposed to be here.

Brian posted Bond and was released within hours, although Caitlyn had already blocked him on her phone, email, and social media. He created a new email address and wrote to her later that same day: "Here I am, heartbroken and with a criminal record for bringing the girl I love flowers. That's when it became really serious for me. If an actual physical arrest doesn't stop the behavior, then you know something is wrong." Caitlyn gets an emergency protective order, and because Brian kept trying to reach her after his arrest, how are you doing? Charles, get your ID with you. Polk had his officers go to Brian's house the next day and charge him yet again, this time for stalking. This was his third arrest. 14 days, I told him if he continued to communicate with Caitlyn, I would use every email, every text message, and every phone call as a reason to have him rearrested. Two days later, Bryant posted a $5,000 bond and got out of jail. He was telling his roommate that I was the crazy one in this relationship, so all of his friends were kind of coming at me, and they were like, "Why do you need to drop these charges against him by September 13th?" Bryant was back in Denton, just a half mile from Caitlyn's dorm, in an area she had told them about back when they were still dating. I was talking about going up to Fried Street and meeting new people. Bryant went to the Fry Street public house that night at about 7 p.m. An hour later, Jackie Vandegriff walked in, asked about a job, and ended up in a conversation with the bartender and Charles Bryant. About 45 minutes later, Jackie posted a message on her Twitter: "I'm glad I decided to get off Tinder and walk to a bar." Jackie's friend Jackie Todd Jackie was a very social person. Whenever she went out, she would make friends with everybody, and it wasn't even flirty; it wasn't anything. You know, she was talking to the bartender and talking to other people at about nine o'clock. Jackie left with Bryant and the bartender. She and Bryant went to another bar nearby and started talking to a group of women. By 9:45, it was raining, and everyone was headed out. Jackie left with Charles Bryant. I feel like she felt comfortable enough with him that night because she had been hanging out with him for so long that she was like, "Hey, whatever he's just going to drop me off at, it's not that far, and I'll be good once in his car." Brian stopped at a convenience store. This was the last time Jackie Vandergriff was seen alive. The day after she was found dead, there was a new post on her Twitter. I never knew I could feel like this. It was just really bizarre. The police suspected it was a message from her killer. They knew they had to move quickly to identify the man Jackie had been with. They had some luck when they tracked down the woman. Jackie met that night, and one of the friends that was with her had gotten a business card from this person because he was a fitness instructor. Now that the Grapevine Police had Charles Bryant's name, they learned about that restraining order, so in my eyes, that played into him being a good suspect.

Grapevine Police called Captain Polk, who was in the middle of a road race. The first thing he told me was that Charles Bryant was their main suspect in Jackie's murder, and I immediately just sat down on a park bench in the middle of the race. It floored me. Bryant was emerging as a strong suspect, but Grapevine Police did not have physical evidence connecting him to Jackie's death, so for now Bryant was free, and Polk was worried about what he might do next. I called Caitlin, and I just asked, "Where are you?" I was like, "Does this have to do with the murder that happened in Grapevine?" And he's like, "I can't tell; I can't specify that to you, Caitlyn, but are you safe right now?" "I think so; he might have been wrong in the days after Jackie's murder." Charles Bryant sent Caitlin several emails, including this picture with the words first kiss under this tree." Once upon a time, that photo was taken at Grapevine Lake. He might have taken that picture that same day that Jackie was killed; it was September 2016, and Caitlyn Mathis Charles Bryant's ex-girlfriend was very worried he might have been involved in the brutal murder at Grapevine Lake just days before. I was waiting for more news to come out because, at that point, they hadn't even arrested him yet. Were you worried he was going to come after you? I was. I thought that was exactly what he was going to do. The emails in the picture Bryant had recently sent Caitlin would prove that he was still thinking about her in the days after Jackie was killed, but they were also proof of something else: it was prohibited for Charles to communicate with her in any manner, and if he did, he would have been violating that order. Captain Poke thought they could use those violations to help The Grapevine Police didn't have enough evidence to make an arrest yet, so I told the detective we could get a warrant signed on some evidence we just got and at least, you know, get him off the street. Okay, Charles Bryant was arrested on September 18th for violating Caitlyn's restraining order. Grapevine detectives were hoping they'd soon find more evidence connecting him to Jackie's death.

He's been brought to the Grapevine Police Department for an interview, and right away he's beginning to distance himself from having any interaction with Jackie. You recognize who she is, Senator Bar, and at the same time, we begin serving a search warrant for his residence. What can you tell me about her? That's about it. I guess it had been four days since Jackie's body was found, plenty of time to dispose of any possible evidence, but Captain Luna at Grapevine PD says they found a lot at Brian's home, including a large military-style knife. You know what purse was found in there too? Bryant had no way to answer for any of it, including two more items police found while he was in custody. video of him buying a shovel the night Jackie disappeared and a kiddie pool missing from his backyard that matched the one Jackie's body was found in. We have a video of you with this girl. You're at the bar. You're walking around Walmart at four o'clock in the morning. You're buying a shovel. She was found dead in a pool that came from your backyard. He even got to the point at the end of his interview with our detective where he said, "Well, I must have done it. I don't remember doing anything. Everything points to me." It's like I had to have done it as an open and shut case—not even close. Although there was overwhelming evidence that Bryant had disposed of Jackie's body, there was no evidence yet that confirmed how Jackie had died with it—Bryant had killed her. That's when they reached out to me and asked if I could come in and spend some time with him, interview him, and see what I could get because you have expertise in dealing with this kind of personality, right? This is kind of my calling. Jim Holland is the senior member of an elite team of Texas Rangers, a select division of the Texas State Police. He specialises in interviewing some of the country's most prolific killers and analysing their thoughts, and Charles Bryant seemed to fit the bill.

Jackie's body had been dismembered before being set on fire. How do you begin to understand a mind that would do that? A lot of these people, I actually want to tell you, want to tell someone that at first Bryant kept to his claim that he didn't remember a thing. Yeah, that's crazy because I really don't remember the idea that he doesn't remember doing it. Um, no, it's absolute nonsense. So you knew Charles Bryant remembered exactly what had happened. Oh yes, absolutely, and your job was just to pull that out of him. Holland says his strategy was to try to make friends with Bryant and get him talking. You obviously work out. I mean, you're a stud, right? You don't want him to look at you as a law enforcement officer. You want him to think of you as a friend, a companion, and a drinking buddy. You know, you kind of go back to what two boys would talk about in a high school locker room. You know about the girl they kissed on Friday night. You don't have any issues with girls. Okay, so something happens; bam, there's a snap, and we need to figure out what that is, and maybe you know she got mad; maybe she's giving you all the signals, and then she cuts you off. I mean, there could be all kinds of different things going on here, right? I mean, chicks, right? You know, as we're going through the interview, I'm watching him. I'm, um, in a way, a human lie detector. I'm reading him. I'm throwing things at him for which I know the answer, and I'm looking for his responses, whether they're false or true. Under the pretense of helping Bryant remember what happened, Holland suggested they do a memory exercise. What we're going to do is do these mind exercises, which means we're going to move back in time. Bryant, who first claimed he didn't know who Jackie was, then seemed to remember her; he said he could see her coming into the bar. I think she was looking for a job, and I was offering her a ride home. There are tones of things in this that I can tell you right over a pizza. As Holland tried to steer Brian to confess, he probed about a possible motive, but what does everyone want to know? Holland eventually cut to the chase and asked if what happened with Jackie was really all about Caitlyn. Was there a time that you pictured her as this girlfriend who did you wrong, or did anything like that come into play? The level of nonsense that came out of his mouth at different points about that was just astonishing. Do you think Charles Bryant looks around the bar and sees Jacqueline Vandegriff? Ah, she looks like Caitlyn. It wouldn't surprise me if you actually mistook her at first. You know, you saw her from behind and thought, "Man, you know my ex is here." I think in his mind that whole night, that's what he pictured after the murder. Right after the murder, he took Jackie's phone and used it to add me on Facebook. When Texas Ranger Jim Holland was brought in to interrogate Charles Bryant, the nature of the crime made him wonder if Brian's brain was wired like the serial killers he'd encountered. In what way is the mind of a serial killer different from the mind of a common criminal? You know, generally, people like that tend to have sociopathic or psychopathopathic mindsets, and it's just a different game. A psychopath would be someone who's basically born with a scar on their brain, and a sociopathic mindset is something that society has brought on because something happened to them that changed their psyche, something that maybe happened in their childhood. Christy Dixon got a glimpse of Charles Bryant's psyche firsthand when she met him on a dating app the year before Jackie Vandegriff's death. He seemed pretty quiet and reserved, almost like he was shy. By the second or third time that we were hanging out, I noticed he was getting pretty attached pretty quickly, and I just wasn't there; it was very casual to me. After she broke things off, he continued to pursue her. Bryant even told her that he loved her. Christy says they'd never even shared a kiss; it was a little too much, too soon, and too fast. I work with abused children, and that kind of stuck out to me. Christie says that's when she asked Brian about his childhood. He told her he had been molested, a claim that 48 Hours could not independently verify. I remember thinking that made sense. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but his behaviour sort of came off to me as maybe that of an abused child or someone who is just needing that extra love that most people probably aren't seeking yet. Christy thought he was harmless and stayed in touch.

I thought he was just a really nice guy and felt sorry for him. I'm not an angry guy, and I'm not aggressive as a Ranger. Holland continued his interrogation; he wanted to see if Bryant would answer the key question, "How did Jackie Vandegriff die?" Her autopsy didn't provide many answers. There's a lot we didn't know; we didn't know where it occurred or exactly how it broke down, and so that's what my goal was. Holland wondered if the crime had a sexual element, but initially Bryant denied anything sexual took place. You don't normally recall having sex. After three more hours of interrogation, Brian said they did have sex. According to Bryant, Jackie wanted to be choked with an oversized zip tie that just happened to be in his car. She didn't fight you in any way when you put it on. The consensual sex aspect of it was one of those things that I felt strongly that he was lying about. Bryant also claimed that neither he nor Jackie had tightened the zip tie intentionally. I could have a snag on something, or okay, then what happened? You know, she's not responsive, Shaker. Are you just thinking that this is a complete and total lie? Yeah, it's a total fabrication. Diddy killer Yes, absolutely. When you deal with these people, it's so rare that you would sit down with them and they would just tell you from A to Z that this is what occurred, and they're always going to leave out things that make them look really bad; in other words, there's an excuse. I'm not a bad person; I didn't mean for this to happen; it was an accident. Although Bryant was evasive about how Jackie died as Holland led him through the memory exercise, Bryant went into gruesome detail about how he disposed of her body. Okay, what do you see in the pool with the originals right now? Tell me exactly what you see occurring after that. I'm going to go down that path, and what happens next? Let's put it on fire. Why do you burn the body even if he can't admit to murder? Bryant seemed to waver between denial and acceptance at one point, conceding that the evidence showed he had to have done it. I can't fight it. After an intense six-hour interrogation and mounting evidence, Charles Bryant was finally charged with Jackie Vandegriff's murder.

Christy Dixon could not believe the news that night. I was actually scared to go to sleep. I had nightmares. He had never threatened me before, but just the fact that someone I felt I knew had murdered someone was potentially terrifying. Caitlyn Mathis' worst fears were confirmed, and when she tried to learn more about the woman Bryant killed, she made a shocking discovery on Facebook. I looked up Jackie Vandergriff, and I realized, "Oh my God, I'm already friends with her." Caitlyn says that digital friendships began after Jackie's death. You received a friend request from Jackie Vandegriff. Charles Bryant, that really sounds diabolical. Brian pleaded not guilty to Jackie's murder; his defense was the same story he told Ranger Holland: "These two young people met, they consumed a lot of alcohol, our position is they had kinky sex, albeit, and she died." Brian's court-appointed defense attorney, Glennis McGinty, says Jackie Vandegriff's death was a tragic accident. Are you telling me there's no evidence that Charles Bryant killed Jackie Vandegriff? Prosecutors Lucas Allen and Anna Hernandez believed the evidence they did have would be enough. They also knew that most jurors wanted to know the motive; they weren't sure they'd be able to tell this jury why they thought Jackie was targeted. You have to wonder what is driving this person to do something like that. There is no doubt that the murder of Jackie Vandergriff is connected to the stalking of Caitlyn Mathis. Yes, I think we believe that she might have just been victim number one, with Caitlyn being victim number two. To help prove this, the prosecution was hoping the judge would allow Caitlyn to testify against her ex-boyfriend turned stalker in open court. I felt sick. What do you think was the most telling part of Charles Bryant's interview? Take a look at the evidence in the case against Bryant on Facebook in 48 hours.

Jackie was the most special person. I know I'll never meet someone like her again. In April 2018, a year and a half after Jackie Vandegriff's untimely death, Charles Bryant was standing trial for her murder. Her friend, Jackie Tan, could not bring herself to be there. I wanted to go, but, to be honest, I couldn't look at him. Charles Bryant would have to answer for a long list of items the prosecution had collected, including that giant zip tie, the shovel he purchased the night Jackie died, and that large knife that police believe he used to cut up her body, all found at his house. This is something that you pray every night does not happen to your child when they go off to school. Investigators also found a stun gun in his car with Jackie's DNA on it, but it appears Jackie was spared at least one injury. Prosecutors Anna Hernandez and Lucas Allen said the medical examiner was able to run tests on Jackie's remains and found no evidence of sexual assault. There was zero evidence to support the claim that they had any type of sexual encounter. Prosecutors say this undermines Brian's story that this was kinky sex gone wrong. His attorney, Glennis McGinty, asked, "How could they have had sex if there's no evidence—no evidence to the degree of no sperm found in her? That doesn't mean they didn't have some type of consensual sexual encounter; she likes it. prosecutors choose not to play that interrogation tape for the jury which meant Bryant would have to take the stand if he wanted jurors to hear his version of events he elected not to shouldn't he be explaining to the jury why he's not at fault for her death and then that flies in the face of our constitutional rights but the defense knows it has an uphill battle to convince a jury that Brian is not guilty of murder while admitting he disposed of Jackie's body if he says it was just an accident why didn't he call for help sure fair question intoxicated panicked and his mind would not process all of that to make a rational decision that you or I would have made call the police but Bryant went further than simply discarding Jackie's body much much further and prosecutors wanted the jury to hear their Theory a huge piece of that story was the stalking but before the jury could hear from Caitlyn the judge would have to rule on whether or not to allow this evidence how is he his boyfriend local TV cameras were there when without the jury present Caitlyn took the stand and faced her ex I was disgusted just to see his face did he look at you did you meet eyes at one point we had to when they made me described to the court what he was wearing and he just had this smirk on his face there's nothing really that can prepare you for that is there no the second I walked out those doors I started bawling in the end the judge ruled against Caitlyn being able to tell her story to the jury it was definitely a real blow to us that was the right decision why she had not been convicted of anything with Caitlyn as the jury went out to deliberate the defense was hopeful I don't believe that they could prove that he murdered her I don't think that they prove that but would the jury agree they were out for a little over two hours and even without hearing Caitlyn's Story We, the jury, find the defendant, Charleston Bryant Jr., guilty of the offence of murder. Charles Bryant was found guilty of Jackie Vandegriff's murder and dismemberment. According to your way of thinking, was justice done? Yes, I knew she was up there, and I said thank you because the prosecutors had no evidence.

Bryant committed another crime at the same time as Jackie's murder, like Rapper's kidnapping. He was not eligible for the death penalty; he was sentenced to life. As terrible as this is to say, I wanted the death penalty under Texas law. Bryant could be eligible for parole after 30 years. Caitlyn says she feels like she's still looking over her shoulder and always will be. I fear that when he gets out, he'll come and find me and do something to either me or someone that I love. That's been my biggest fear ever since this happened. Caitlyn and her mother have been thinking about Jackie and her family this whole time. I wanted to reach out, but I didn't know how they felt. Nearly two years after Jackie died, they finally met her grandmother, bless her heart. She immediately came up to us and to Caitlyn, hugged her, and said, I've been so worried about you these past two years. Wow, Karen, why is this the part that gets you?" He took away their little girl in the pain I saw in their eyes. I could feel their pain, and yet the grandmother was telling Caitlin she was worried about Caitlyn. Yes, you sound like very special people. They are saying she struggled, he survived, and Jackie did not. This so easily could have been you, and some days I wish it was. It's just the guilt that eats me up. Sometimes I would have easily taken her place if I had the chance. Jackie vandegriff's family has endowed an internship in health and wellness at Texas Women's University in her name. A young mother was murdered. There was only one suspect in this case. Who else would want this sweet young lady murdered decades later? The prime suspect was arrested, but a witness changed everything. I kept the secret for 30 years.