Vaughn wrote emails about new life in Canada, friend testifies

Dozens of detailed emails written by Christopher Vaughn to a friend he met on a social networking website depict a man planning to fake his own death and leave his wife and children behind for a new life in the Canadian wilderness.
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The friend, Steve Willott of Ontario, Canada, read the lengthy messages aloud today in Will County court at Vaughn's trial on charges he killed his wife and three children in 2007. Willott said he and Vaughn talked about planning an extended camping trip in British Columbia or the Northwest Territories.
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"I have been married for a long time and it was just really a few years ago I woke up and realized it was not going to work, and I did not want to be obligated to live this lifestyle until I am dead," Vaughn wrote in one email in February 2007, four months before the killings.
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He wrote to Willott that his wife, Kimberly, will "be just fine" because he planned to fake his own death so she could collect on a large life insurance policy he had taken out on himself.
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"Maybe she'll find someone who really has their mind in the game," Vaughn wrote.
?Vaughn also pictured what his perfect day would be 20 years in the future. He said it included waking up at dawn to chop wood, carrying back water from the lake, fishing, hunting and whittling arrows in the late-afternoon sun.?

The email exchanges between Vaughn and Willott began in late 2006 when the pair met on the website "43 Things." They quickly realized they had a lot in common and were both interested in ditching life in the fast lane for a solitary one living off the land, Willott testified.
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Over the next eight months, Vaughn and Willott wrote to each other almost daily. The messages read in court were all from Vaughn and go on at length about meticulous plans he was making for his trip, including fashioning homemade hunting bows and arrows and outfitting packs and sleds with survival gear.
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Vaughn wrote he was also planning a weeklong "scouting" trip to Canada in May.
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Vaughn seemed preoccupied with every detail, from what he would be able to bring across the border to the cover story he would use with Canadian police if necessary. He talked about surviving in the cold, his prowess in skinning deer and wondered if he could grow red peppers in the northern climates to make his delicious spicy beef jerky.
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"I have a tendency to over-plan," Vaughn wrote in one email. Later, however, he wrote that "being a little over-prepared never hurts."

Source: http://feeds.chicagotribune.com/~r/ChicagoBreakingNews/~3/VvTlK6rRTjo/story01.htm

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