Hi, and welcome to Serial Sisters, a podcast for my sister and I tell each other true crime stories. I'm Davana, and I'm Kristin, and this week Kristin has a story for me. Hi, and welcome to Serial Sisters, a podcast for my sister and I tell each other true crime stories. I'm Davana, and I'm Kristin, and this week Kristin has a story for me.
Okay, so you know when you're trying to find a murder for this podcast, and sometimes you're just like, well it's been a shit week, I need something kind of light-hearted, so you start googling weird shit until you can find something that's kind of light-hearted. Mm-hmm, it's my favorite, okay. Yeah, so I did this week. So I found this on from Cracked, it was one of those listicles, and it was like the five murder plots that were so ridiculous, not even Hollywood would consider them.
Okay, so that's where I found this. Okay, sweet, I'm excited. Because it's from the 90s, there's not really a whole lot of information out there because it wasn't one of the big cases in the 90s. Okay.
So it's fairly short, but it's still fucking weird. So the only places I could find any information on this were from the archives of a couple of newspapers, so I got stuff from the Seattle Times, Washington Post, and the Sun Sentinel. Okay. Alright, so Christopher Morris was born in the late 40s to Theron and Leila Morris, and it seems like he was our only child.
Okay. I couldn't really find anything about his early life, but he did have a big cocaine problem, and he spent a good chunk of time in prison for possession. Okay, well it happens, right? Yeah, it happens.
So when he got out, he was 42, and his parents, Theron was 78, Leila was 63, and they tried to help him get back on his feet and overcome his addiction. It housed him for a while in their trailer home in Pompano Beach, Florida, they bought him a car, and they found him a place to live, but he moved back in after two weeks. Oh, okay. So the neighbors said that they were yelling at each other a lot, but it was kind of unclear what they were fighting about.
Supposedly, one of the things they were fighting about was that Chris had sold them fake cocaine for $1,000, and that they had intended to resell it for profit. Mm-hmm. Which, if you're trying to help your kid kick his cocaine addiction, why are you buying cocaine from him to resell it? Exactly, yeah.
But whatever, no more business. Doesn't seem like a smart idea, but apparently it was fake anyways, so I got pissed. Well, okay. So Chris was running out of money, and he was clearly getting on his parents' nerves, so he came up with a plan to get some money.
There was an insurance policy on his ex-wife that was still in his name, and it was for $35,000. Mm. So he got together with his old cellmate, Martin Rektor, and they came up with a scheme. Martin was going to go to Chris's ex-wife's house, pretend to be delivering flowers, force his way in, and murder both Chris's ex-wife and her ten-year-old daughter because he's an asshole.
Oh, why the daughter? Yeah, didn't. No, I don't like that at all. Yeah.
So Martin tried to do this, but Chris's ex-wife is no dummy, and she wouldn't answer the door because he wasn't dressed in any sort of uniform. Mm-hmm. What the fuck are you delivering? Straight clothes?
Good for her. She didn't let him in. So they weren't really sure where to go from there, so they brought Theron and Layla in on their scheme to murder her. Apparently they were all on board, because apparently they thought having a woman whose only mistake is her terrible taste of men and her innocent daughter murdered was totally fair exchange for getting some of their money back and for their kid to get out of the house.
Oh, yeah, like totally fair. Yeah, makes perfect sense. Oh, yeah. Even exchange.
Yeah. So at some point though, they discovered that the insurance policy had laps due to non-payment, so there wasn't any financial gain to the plan, so they abandoned it, and they decided not to murder her. Okay. Thank God.
Good for her. Chris fucked up though, because his ex-wife's insurance policy may have lapsed, but his own $70,000 policy had not. Mm-hmm. Now that Theron and Layla knew another criminal, they decided that money was way more important than helping their son, and they hatched a plan of Martin.
Ah. So on January 8, 1990, Martin and Chris went over to whose parents' house. Once there, Martin pulled out a gun, and he forced Chris to lay on his stomach on the ground, where Theron bound his hands and feet with duct tape. They began to take him back to Chris's car, but Chris managed to break the tape and he tried to run away, and Martin shot him.
Oh, okay. So Martin and Theron managed to get him again, and they got him to the car by promising him that they were going to take him to the hospital. Shockingly though, they lied, and they drove him over to another town, they shot him three more times, and they left his body in the backseat of his own car. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Okay. So then they drove back in Theron and Layla's car, because she had driven to the murder scene behind them to get them back. Okay. Oh.
So when they were planning Chris's murder, they found an innocent man to pin it on as well, because they were trying to be thorough, apparently. Mm-hmm. Yeah, gotta make your homework. So John Woods was a Vietnam veteran, and he was a drinking buddy of Martin's.
Martin knew that he had a pretty bad drinking problem when he was prone to blackouts, so he thought that Woods would be the perfect sucker. So they introduced Woods to Chris in the days before his murder, and then after they convinced Woods that he had committed the crime. Oh, fuck. Okay.
Yeah. Goddamn. Yeah. Just taking advantage of people left and right.
I know. There were a bunch of shitbags. So police found Chris's body of the morning of January 9th. When they went to inform Theron and Layla, they noted that they were already awake and dressed, even though it was before 6 in the morning, and that they didn't have any questions about what had happened.
Oh, totally normal. So the police were initially suspicious of them, but they were soon nudged towards Woods by a friend of Chris's and Woods confessed to the crime readily, and he had details that hadn't been released to the press. However, his story was inconsistent, and in late January, the detectives went to talk to Theron and Layla again, and they confessed to everything. Okay.
Didn't take that much. No. He was not really as prepared as they thought they were. Hey, yeah, we did it.
Okay, you're right. Sorry. So I found a judgment for post-conviction relief for him from March 6, 1996. Okay.
It was on like an actual legal website, and it was the actual judgment. So I don't know what the fuck it means, but what I think it says is that they decided to further investigate his claims of ineffective assistance to counsel, but that was the last thing I could find. I don't know if he's still in jail or if he's out or not. Huh, interesting.
Okay. And then what I could gather is that Theron and Layla decided to plead guilty and that they were sentenced to less than 15 years. Like I think I saw 12 for Theron and 13 for Layla. Wow.
Okay. That is not much at all. So I have no idea if they were released or if they died in prison because there's nothing on this. Mm-hmm.
But it's weird as shit. So I decided to go with it anyways because this isn't that story and I don't know why there's not one there. Yeah. That's crazy.
It's always crazy. Like the ones that are like so weird and like convoluted, but you can't find stuff on them. Yeah. It's just like there are like holes in the internet where you're just like, where is this?
It wasn't even on Motorpedia. Yeah. That's crazy. I'm sure they're dead now because if they were still alive there and it would be like 108, Layla would be 93.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. But shit, that's crazy.
Yeah. I just, what made them turn? Oh, we're trying to help our son. Get him back on his feet after his prison stint.
Oh, right. No, not the money. Oh. Yeah.
Throw that plan right out the window. That's it. Oh, man. I'm glad like our parents would never be like, fuck them.
Right? Oh, that's awful. Good. And it will also pour it out that we never have life insurance.
That's true. So I'm just like, man. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
Oh, fuck. That's terrible. Oh. Fucking Florida.
Fucking Florida for sure. That's crazy. Yeah. Thanks for listening.
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