The Cape Cod Murder Mystery

December 1, 2025

A quiet Cape Cod town is shaken when a young mother is found murdered, her toddler the only witness, and decades later the evidence still raises more questions than answers.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

And I'm the husband.

It is currently Payton's birthday. Happy birthday.

By the time you're listening to this, it's not Payton's birthday anymore.

I'll be 40.

Yeah, she'll be 40.

We're recording early. We're going to visit some family for the holidays, so yeah—that’s what we’ve got going on.

Daisy also is now 3 years old. She had her birthday, too.

Happy birthday, Daisy.

I think no other birthdays. Thank you for being here.

Before we jump into it, a reminder: if you want bonus content or if you want ad-free content, you can check out Apple subscriptions or Spotify subscriptions or Patreon. Patreon and Spotify are basically the same thing. Anyways, if you want ad-free content or bonus content, go check it out.

And for my 10 seconds… I don't know. Don't know what to say. Literally no idea. I don't have anything.

Tell me what you got me for my birthday—

Oh, okay. I got Payton… for her birthday… it’s called a Brick, and it’s just a solid brick.

Just a brick. Just a red brick. I got her a red brick. It’s really sentimental.

No, it’s called a Brick—and this isn’t sponsored, by the way—and we’ve never used it, but it helps you manage the time on your phone. It can lock your phone.

Correct. Yeah. So you can sync apps with the Brick and then say you’re like, “I want 15 minutes a day,” which yes, you can already do on your iPhone, but it's the app—this Brick app—that locks it. And in order for you to get back in, you have to go walk over to wherever your Brick is and touch your phone to the Brick.

So like… yeah, you could do it—I mean, sure—but I mean, at some point you gotta have some self… Well, like, I've tried to do the time-limit thing, and I think it's too easy. It's just too easy to ignore. And I know it sounds kind of wussy to be like, “Oh, well, I have to go unlock a Brick,” but I've seen a lot of people talk about it and they're like, “No, like genuinely, it just gives you that second to really think about like, oh, okay, I'm actually… I don't—I'm just going to not get on.”

Yeah. So, I don’t know. Payton’s been wanting it, so… for her. I don't know anything about it. But yeah, that's my 10 seconds. Sorry, I don't really have anything else.

We're kind of just getting ready for the holidays, so we've just been running around. But we are here recording, and let's get into today’s episode.

Our sources for this episode are capecodtimes.com, cbsnews.com, abcnews.go.com, thesun.com, southcoasttoday.com, bassor.edu, oxygen.com, people.com, and newyorkmag.com.

Now, when a murder happens in a small town, things get handled a lot differently than they do in big cities. I think we've seen this time and time again on the podcast. Often, the police departments don't know how to handle a case as well as, say, a larger department might, and that can lead to botched investigations, forgotten clues, and trashed crime scenes. And in a town where everyone knows everyone, anyone can really be seen as a suspect.

Being in a close-knit community can offer some perks to an investigation, too—like more access to the people you need to question, maybe even the ability to collect DNA from people in town, kind of like you’ll see in today’s case. But when the leads don’t pan out, there's usually one person who is left taking the blame in such a small town, and that is the town outcast—the one person who’s different from the rest of the town, maybe the town weirdo. But does that make them the culprit, or does it make them the scapegoat? Especially when they are proclaiming their innocence until the bitter end.

If anyone lives in a small town—I’m talking small town, like everybody knows each other—there is an outcast. Leave a comment. I'm curious. I didn't grow up in a small town. Payton did, but not small enough.

Yeah, it was small but not small enough. Anyways, leave a comment. I'm curious.

Yeah.

So today, we're taking a trip to a sleepy little Cape Cod, Massachusetts community called Truro. It's basically a seasonal vacation town that sees an influx of tourists by summer, but when the fall arrives, it goes back to being home to the 2,000 or so residents who live there year-round. It's the kind of place where people feel safe enough to leave their front doors unlocked, where they trust their neighbors with their kids, as well as their secrets—which Truro has a lot of. One of them being the mysterious single mom from New York City named Christa Worthington.

Christa was born on December 23, 1956, just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Her dad, Christopher “Toppy” Worthington—people called him Toppy—was a Harvard-educated lawyer who gave Christa, his only child, a lot of opportunities.

But Christa worked hard to see them through. She was a phenomenal student who graduated with honors and went on to attend Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. After that, Christa moved to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a fashion writer.

Christa did find a lot of success, working for publications like the New York Times, Elle magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue. She spent some time living and working in Paris and London, and even co-wrote a few fashion books throughout the years before she started to lose interest in that passion. For a time, she pivoted—making antiques and collectibles her new focus—before losing interest in column writing altogether.

But those who knew Christa said that was just kind of her. She was always chasing the next big fantasy, whether that was in her job or her relationships. Friends of Christa’s said she was always dating someone handsome, smart, well-to-do. For example, her roster included the heiress Gloria Vanderbilt’s son—not Anderson Cooper, but Stan Stokowski. But these relationships never lasted very long. Like her work, Christa would inevitably find herself getting bored, seeking the next adventure, the next rush. New romantic endeavors were what seemingly brought her joy.

However, this did worry some of her closer friends. They said that over time, her chosen partners just sort of grew a bit stranger—like the more relationships she had, the weirder the men became. Not like the men she used to go out with when she was younger. But the truth was, there was something missing from Christa’s life—something she always wanted and was told she would never be able to have—and that was a child.

But the issue wasn’t just finding the right person to do this with. It was the fact that Christa was nearing 40 and had been told by her doctors that she was unable to ever have a child. It seemed to be the thing that ate at Christa—the one unattainable goal in her life. At one point, she considered getting a donor, doing IVF. She was fine with the idea of being a single mother who raised a child on her own, but as she was weighing this decision, she realized she just wanted to slow her life down first.

So she decided it was time to move out of New York City, and she chose a quiet little town in Cape Cod where her father actually owned a few different properties—and that is our small town where the case takes place.

In 1997, the nearly 41-year-old Christa packed her bags and traveled north. Truro wasn’t a random spot on the map for Christa. She had spent some summers here as a kid, so there were a lot of great memories. Of course, life year-round would feel much different—especially when the summer months passed and all the tourists fled the area—but at least she was familiar with it. She knew it was a slow pace. In many ways, this was more Christa’s speed now.

Friends said that while she definitely occupied a glamorous little corner of the New York social scene, Christa never really felt like she fit in with the people there. She was more free-spirited, less structured. And maybe Truro in Cape Cod would be more accepting of this.

So Christa moved into this small little home on the harbor—one that was owned by her grandmother. She was just a stone’s throw away from an inlet where people went swimming and kayaking. There was a yacht and tennis club nearby. It was everything Christa was wanting, aside from the fact that people often parked their boats right in front of Christa’s home since she was right by the parking lot for the harbor.

And although this was exactly what she was wanting, this move also changed her life in a way she never anticipated—because this is how Christa Worthington met Tony Jackett.

Tony was what the locals called the shellfish constable of Provincetown and Truro. But this wasn’t just a nickname—that was literally his job title. His role was to enforce fishing laws and make sure fishermen had the proper licenses.

Well, one afternoon, as Christa was complaining to the harbor master about Tony’s boat being parked in front of her house, Tony walked into the conversation and the two were formally introduced. But the contentious conversation quickly turned flirtatious instead. The two actually took a liking to each other, and before long, Tony was going over to Christa’s house to help with a repair, and then coming over for tea. Eventually, one thing leads to another, and soon Tony and Christa are falling in love.

Okay. Sounds like a Hallmark movie.

Exactly.

Christa wrote in her diary at this point, “If there was a sweeter person on Earth between the hours of 8 and 9:15, I would not believe it. Tony became tender and we were made new, spellbound. Wait, what? I love him.”

Between 8 and 9:15 a.m.?

P.m. 8 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. What does this mean?

I think this entry just means she is delusionally in love.

Okay, got it. Hallmark. She’s been hallmarked.

Okay, so it seemed like for the first time Christa had found someone she could actually settle down with. There was just one huge problem: Tony had been married for 26 years, and he had six kids. On top of that, Truro was a tiny town where everyone knew everyone, so it was only a matter of time before someone found out about what these two were doing.

Okay. Yeah, that's an issue.

Still, that's a problem. Tony and Christa could not seem to call it quits, which became even more complicated when Christa went to Tony with some news a year later in 1998.

She’s pregnant.

Christa was pregnant with Tony’s child, which obviously came as a shock to Christa as well, because she had been told by her doctors she couldn’t get pregnant naturally, and here she was carrying her lover’s child. So Tony asked Christa what she wanted to do and told Christa he wasn’t willing to leave his wife or her or the baby.

Fair.

Christa was fine with that. She wanted to keep the baby, and if that meant keeping Tony’s name detached from the baby, then so be it.

Sad at the same time, though, because the baby’s going to grow up without a father for the most part.

Yeah.

Anyways, keep going.

But the father lives in the same town with six other kids. Kind of sad. The small towns are just—I’ve always wanted to experience one.

Does that make sense? Is that crazy?

No, I get it. Like, I don’t know. And maybe it just sounds way better than it actually is.

I think… yeah. I mean, I think maybe “better” is not the right word. Different. I don’t know, man. There’s something Hallmark dreamy about a small town, but I think it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying like, oh, I’m going to go move to a ranch, I’m going to become a cowboy. I’m not talking about like that. I'm just saying small towns.

Mhm.

So this is what she wants. And after telling Tony she was pregnant, the two actually decide to call it quits on their forbidden romance. And Christa gave birth to a little girl named Ava in May of 1999.

And around that same time, Christa actually moved to a new property just a short distance away from the harbor. Christa was basically happy living life as a single mom, though it seems she did want to find someone that Ava could eventually look up to as a father figure, since Tony wasn’t exactly in her life anymore.

So Christa began dating again. Though as the years passed and Christa became more ingrained in this small town, people started to whisper about the single mother because she had never told anyone who the father of her child was. And so people start gossiping. Why did she have so many men coming and going from her life? Which one was the dad?

Christa felt like she was kind of becoming the town pariah. A little bit like wearing a scarlet letter, but she refused to let the people of Truro drive her out. This behavior she could totally get away with in New York City, but she was having a harder time living like this in such a small town.

Okay, I know it makes sense.

So, it’s now January 2002. The 46-year-old Christa and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ava had just spent the holidays in the city seeing old friends. But after New Year’s Eve, they returned back to their modest little bungalow in Truro. And on January 6th, the most recent ex-boyfriend of Christa’s, named Tim Arnold, planned to stop by her house to return a flashlight he had borrowed.

Tim was an author himself, mostly of children’s books, so he and Christa had a little bit in common because she did used to be a writer. The two had dated for about a year. He had even offered to help out with Ava quite a bit during their relationship, but by that point, it seemed the two had just decided to be friends.

So that afternoon, Tim drove by the house with his father in tow, thinking it was just going to be a quick drop-off of this flashlight. When he pulled up to the bottom of Christa’s driveway, he noticed a few of her newspapers were sitting there, so he scooped them up and then walked up her driveway toward the house.

When he gets up there, he sees Christa’s car sitting in the driveway. So he knocks on the front door, but there’s no answer. And this is when he noticed her side door to the kitchen was just sitting slightly open. So he went over, let himself into the house, and started calling Christa’s name.

But almost instantly, he spots Christa lying on the floor, motionless. And there’s Ava next to her mother, alive and completely uninjured, but clearly in distress.

Holy crap.

Okay.

Ava turns to Tim, who she knows, and says, Mommy fell down.

Now, Tim says he didn’t notice the blood at first. All he could think about was just getting Ava. Like, Ava was clearly in distress—a little baby, a little girl. So he kind of scoops her up and gets her outside, hands her to his father, and is like, Hey, please chill with her or watch her. I need to go back inside.

It’s kind of crazy that she said Mommy fell down.

Right. Interesting.

Then Tim rushes back inside and searches for a phone in the house, but he couldn’t find any. Remember, this is the early 2000s. The cordless phones seemed to have disappeared. So Tim goes back out and rushes over to the neighbor’s house and dials 911.

911, what is your emergency?

It’s Christa, but I don’t know what happened. I think she fell down or something. I’m sure she’s dead.

He tells the dispatcher that because of what Ava said, she must have fallen down. But he was pretty certain based on how she looked when he walked in that she was dead. He wasn’t calling to say, hey, she’s hurt, can you come help her? He was calling to say, hey, Christa Worthington is dead in her house.

Okay.

So minutes later, first responders arrive at the scene, and they quickly learn this was not an accident. The front door to the house had been smashed. Christa was half-naked, covered in bruises like she had fought for her life.

Yeah.

There was a terrible wound to the left side of her head. She had been stabbed through her left lung. The blade was sent so forcibly through her body that it was lodged into the floor beneath her.

Oh my gosh.

So obviously Ava didn’t see the murder then if she said “Mommy fell down.”

I think that was just her assuming, as a little kid, she’s in trouble.

Yeah. At least she didn’t see the murder. That’s horrible.

Police get here. This is obviously a murder. And from the state of the body, they suspect that Christa had been dead for 24 to 36 hours by now.

What?

Which means, if you’re putting two and two together, Ava had been all alone during this time at the house with her dead mother.

Now, you have to remember—holy crap—this is a tiny town. It had been the first homicide Truro had seen in more than 30 years. This kind of thing just didn’t happen here. So these EMTs and the police officers who responded were not accustomed to dealing with homicide cases like this.

Yeah.

So what does one of the EMTs do when they respond and realize there’s no body to resuscitate and get to the hospital? They take a blanket from the couch and they just lay it over Christa’s body to cover it up out of respect.

And it’s obviously not… I get it, but you’re not supposed to do that, right?

I understand where they’re coming from. I’d probably do the same thing, to be honest.

Not to mention, on top of this, you have Tim Arnold and his father who had basically walked through the crime scene. And although the police did keep a crime scene log-in sheet that day—basically like, if you enter the crime scene you have to write it in—it’s incomplete. Not everyone who was there filled it out. They don’t even really know what the protocol is.

Yeah.

There were other EMTs and officers who were first on the scene who didn’t sign the log-in. So already you have a pretty messy crime scene. But there is some helpful evidence inside, like a cell phone police found that seemingly belonged to Christa, and it had one number dialed on the screen, and it was just a 9. So clearly Christa was trying to call for help but didn’t get the chance to finish.

They also found Christa’s keys, glasses, and a sock outside near her car. There also appeared to be two drag marks near her vehicle. And maybe one of the most heartbreaking details I’ve ever heard was there was a sippy cup and some Cheerios next to Christa on the floor, along with a child’s playroom that appeared to be bloody.

This is horrible.

There were also small bloody footprints all around. There was blood in the sink with a tiny step stool sitting in front of it. So police realized that during these days Ava was alone with her mother—who wouldn’t get up—Ava had been trying to clean up. She had been getting herself Cheerios and her sippy cup, but still sticking around her mother, which is just… it’s so sad.

It’s insane.

Also, can we just talk about how doubly evil you have to be to not only kill someone but kill someone and leave a toddler unattended, not knowing what happens next? That is horrible to do.

So around midnight that evening, Christa’s body was taken to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Boston. And it was determined that Christa had died somewhere between Friday afternoon, January 4th, and the morning of Saturday, January 5th.

There they took fingernail clippings and photographs. They also discovered blue and white fibers in her pubic area. The autopsy revealed that Christa had engaged in intercourse before she died. However, no sources mention whether they believe this was consensual or if she had been sexually assaulted. We just know that this had happened before she died.

And as for Ava, she was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, and they didn’t find any physical injuries on her of any kind.

She’s going to be traumatized for the rest of her life.

Now, she had a diaper rash—obviously—and just an ear infection.

I mean, I’m sure we’ll get there, but this whole thing is a mess.

One, her mom died. Two, her dad’s hidden. This whole thing is going to be a mess.

So obviously police are like— I mean, you kind of brought this up—did Ava see what happened and her brain just said “Oh, she fell down”? Did she just find her mom like that and didn’t actually witness the crime? But did she see who might have been over before this happened? They’re just wondering if Ava knows anything.

So police bring her to a children’s advocacy center where she was questioned by professionals about what happened. And through the advocates, it is determined that Ava didn’t see or witness anything that happened to her mother as far as violence. When asked when the last time was that she was changed or fed, Ava can’t tell them. She doesn’t give a response.

However, when a female state trooper spoke to Ava, she told the woman, Mommy lying down, tried to get Mommy up. Mommy dirty, tried to clean Mommy.

So she just like— gosh—was trying to take care of her mom.

Yeah, I can’t. That’s so heartbreaking, dude.

But also, might I say, goes to show how she was probably loved and taken care of, because children model. And so what a good mom Christa was, because that was her daughter’s first response—to try to fix and take care and love—and it’s just heartbreaking.

So one of the incredibly frustrating parts of this case is a guy named Michael O’Keefe.

Okay.

He’s the Cape Cod DA who led the investigation on Christa’s murder. And a lot of the comments he made about Christa after this discovery were absolutely vile.

Okay, I’ve already told you the reputation she had in town. And they do not try to hide what they felt and thought about Christa. So the DA tells one reporter on record that the case was going to be difficult because, quote, “Worthington was an equal opportunity employer. She’d f the husbands of her female friends, the butcher or the baker.”

So he gets on and he’s like, we’re going to have a hard time doing this cuz she was easy… is basically what he says.

So already there’s issues with this case when the people trying to solve it already think of the victim like this.

And no offense—this all has to do because of a small town. Sorry if you’re from a small town, but I mean, my opinion personally, I think there’s more gossip. There’s more judgment. Personally, that’s what I think.

Also, who Christa runs around with might have to do with the investigation, because you’ve got to track down everyone in her life. But what does it have to do with how she is treated? It’s not— well, it’s also not something you need to word to the public like, well, we know this. You can be like, hey, she talked to a lot of people, so we’re going to have to track them all down. That has nothing to do with how she should be treated or how her—

That’s actually extremely weird.

Yeah.

To even say that, because you’re supposed to be representing this person. Like, oh, you’re fighting for justice. I’m sorry. You’re a DA, and you have to do your job. Like, okay, go get a different job or go somewhere else. Especially if you think anyone who is murdered deserves to be talked about like that.

Yeah, that’s strange. Good point.

So either way, the police seem to feel confident it was a local because it was the off-season. There weren’t many out-of-towners. So one of the first people they turn to is Christa’s most recent ex-boyfriend, the one who discovered her body: Tim Arnold. And that mainly has to do with the blanket that was thrown over Christa’s body.

Because it turns out that blanket that an EMT had put on the body had some of Tim’s semen on it. And so that DNA was then found on Christa.

And after talking to people around town, it seemed like Tim was more into the relationship than Christa was. The two had lived together in her house for some time, but friends of Christa said she didn’t see the relationship as something long-term. She never spoke about marriage or a future with Tim.

However, when Tim was questioned, he emphatically denied having anything to do with Christa’s death and seemed genuinely distraught over this entire thing. And he says, hey, well, I had a relationship with her. It’s not that shocking you found my DNA on the blanket.

Yeah.

Now aside from his closeness to Christa, there wasn’t much to suggest him as a suspect. So police keep going. And it wasn’t long before they figure out their next person of interest. And it actually ends up being Ava’s father, Tony.

So you remember Tony and Christa were having that secret affair for two years without his wife knowing. Well, eventually after Ava was born, Christa decided she needed some help from Tony. She had been asking if he would help her with child support, adding Ava to his family’s medical insurance plan—things like that.

And when Tony was like, no, cuz my wife can’t find out, Christa hired a lawyer. I’m not sure what came of that, but I can tell you that eventually his wife finds out about this.
I don't know if he came clean or if he was pressured to come clean. And shockingly, it actually went better than anyone would have anticipated. Tony’s wife forgave him. And not only that, she was like, you had a baby with this girl — you need to take care of it. Take care of this baby. And they had actually been inviting Ava and Christa over for dinner and family things. And it was the wife who was like, no, you’re going to man up and handle what you did.

And props. Couldn’t be me, but props, honestly.

So Ava actually did know her father after all. And whether or not he did begin helping them out financially, I’m not sure. But in police interviews, Tony’s wife is like, no, I knew — it was me who wanted him to have a relationship with her. I wasn’t leaving him because of what he’d done. So there’s no motive here. There’s no reason he would have needed to hurt her. In fact, everything was working out pretty well for them right before Christa died.

She also said that Tony was home with her during the time they believe Christa was killed. And when he took a polygraph test, Tony passed with no issues.

Interestingly, after that, there was another unexpected suspect or two added to the list: Christa’s own 72-year-old father, Christopher “Toppy” Worthington, the lawyer… and his 29-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Porter.

Look, a lot of ages… whatever, it is what it is. Not my business. Doesn’t bother me.

29 and 72.

Yeah, this is pretty wild. You take what you want from that, but… okay, keep on.

So obviously Christopher, her father — the former Harvard-educated lawyer — had been having different relationships since his divorce from Christa’s mother, and the newest one was 29-year-old Elizabeth Porter. Apparently there had been a lot of bad blood between Elizabeth and Christa because Christa was like, Dad, she’s just coming after your estate. She’s here for the money, obviously.

Yeah.

And there had been several heated exchanges, and Christa tried to prevent Elizabeth from accessing any more of her father’s funds. She’s like, he’s 72, you’re taking advantage of him. And when police learn all this, they’re like, this is obviously a motive.

And frankly, the couple didn’t do themselves too many favors when it came to the investigation. For starters, Elizabeth lied about where she was during the time of the murder. And Christopher seemed to ask a lot of really pointed questions about his daughter’s death, referring to things about the crime scene that weren’t exactly public knowledge.

Wait, your own dad?

Yes. Though I will say eventually Elizabeth and Christopher provide an alibi that police were able to confirm.

Don’t believe it.

So it was more like, wow, this is pretty crappy behavior, but we don’t think they murdered his daughter.

So let’s just say police are checking people off this list, but the list keeps growing because there is one piece of evidence that might help them out — and it was DNA collected from Christa’s body. It takes nearly a year to get these results back. And it only complicates things further because the DNA was not a match for Tony, Ava’s dad, or Tim, Christa’s ex-boyfriend.

And with them being over a year into the investigation, investigators are starting to get desperate. So they come up with a pretty wild plan. They say, hey, this is a small town. We are going to ask every single man in town between the ages of 18 and 70 to come in and offer a sample of their DNA so we can rule them out in this case.

So the entire town comes in.

I mean, honestly, not a bad idea.

So around 2004 — it’s now two years after Christa’s murder — they start doing this. They get samples from the mailmen, the garbage men, the delivery boys, the grocery store checkout guy. Regardless of whether they had any relationship with Christa or not, over a hundred people come in and volunteer their DNA to clear their name. And by the end, they have over a hundred samples to compare to the one found on Christa.

Meanwhile, Ava is sent to live with a friend of Christa’s who she had named as her guardian in her will. And Tony is allowed to visit Ava one day a week. And while he tried to fight for custody of Ava during this time, it definitely wasn’t helping that he had just been ruled out as a suspect.

However, by April of 2005, police finally realized their efforts had paid off. One of the samples that had been volunteered ended up being a match.

Why would that person volunteer? That seems… okay. Maybe not look guilty? I don’t know.

But his name seems strange to me. It was Christopher McCowen. So we have Christa and Christopher. And Christopher is not her father. Got it.

Yep. This is a new Christopher. Christopher McCowen. I’m just going to call him Chris to keep it clear.

Now, Chris was 33 years old at the time, and he worked as a sanitation worker in Truro.

According to Chris’s dad, his childhood hadn’t been easy. He often had seizures as a kid, which required medication. And perhaps as a result of his illness, Chris found himself struggling in school and ended up in special education classes. He hated it so much he ended up dropping out of high school before his senior year. And this decision leads Chris to fall in with some bad crowds. He starts getting in trouble with the law, mostly for theft. After a brief stint in jail, Chris moved north from Florida to Cape Cod to be with his girlfriend.

It was around 1998 when he finally settled down in Truro. And it wasn’t easy, mainly because Chris was one of the only Black men in town. But after finding that job with the sanitation company, Chris began to find a community with his co-workers. One co-worker said Chris got so close with him and his family, he began calling his co-worker’s mom “Mom.” And the same co-worker said he never saw a violent side to Chris ever in the entire time he knew him. They said he was respectful, he took his job seriously, he was always up for the task, and he had a great rapport with the people along his route. He was generally well-liked and respected. And according to some of his friends, he even had a few relationships with women around town after breaking things off with the girlfriend he had moved there for.

Now, Chris was called in for questioning early on in the investigation, primarily because Christa Worthington’s home was one of the houses on his stop. And during those first interviews, he said that he had been seeing Christa for the last two years, since 2000, and that he usually stopped by to pick up the trash on Thursdays. When they asked if he ever went inside Christa’s home around the time she died, he said no. He didn’t even know she was dead until he saw it on the news.

So they didn’t focus on Chris much early in the investigation. And I want to point out, like Garrett said, he willingly handed over his fingerprints and DNA.

That just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know if it’s him because that just— that doesn’t make sense to me.

So as the years had passed, police had circled back to Chris even before the DNA match came through. They started looking deeper into his background. They saw his history of theft. And apparently, he had a restraining order from two former girlfriends: one said he broke her car window, and the other claimed he pushed her against a refrigerator. So police had already been zeroing in on Chris when they discovered his DNA sample was a match in April of 2005.

So they waste no time getting an arrest warrant. On April 14th, 2005, police pick Chris up at a rooming house he’s living at, and they charge him with aggravated rape and the murder of Christa Worthington.

And this time when Chris speaks to police, his story changes quite a bit. Now he says, okay, I did see Christa right before she died.

Interesting.

In fact, he said she had asked him that day to come inside and help her dispose of her Christmas tree. He said that’s when one thing led to another. The two of them ended up kissing and having sex. He said it was just once, and then he leaves. But he had nothing to do with her death.

So he’s explaining why his DNA was found on her body. He’s saying he went and they had sex.

Yes.

Did they—was there any, like, did they talk before? Was there a relationship with them before? Have people around town seen them together?

They knew each other because he came to her house every week.

Yeah. Everyone knows each other in that town, right?

Yeah.

And he’s like, so yeah, I didn’t tell you before because that looks very suspicious—for me to have had sex with her and then she dies or is murdered right after.

However, this interview becomes a six-hour-long interview, and they are just pushing Chris, prodding him, and he begins changing his story a few times throughout the six hours. Because later he says, actually, we were having a full-blown relationship. We were often intimate on Thursday afternoons when I went by to pick up her trash. In fact, he said, I did this with a few women on my pickup route. It wasn’t just her.

Police are like, yeah, but we have your DNA. We have pretty strong evidence against you, and we believe you did something to her.

And he changes his story again. He’s like, actually, I did go back there Friday. We had sex. I beat her, but there was actually someone with me—someone who killed her. His 23-year-old friend.

What? How—where did this escalate so fast from?

He says it was his 23-year-old friend Jeremy Frasier. He said that Friday the two were out drinking and partying together when they decided to go over to Christa’s house and rob her. She ended up catching them. Chris beat her while Jeremy stabbed her to death.

I think it’s insane that he just starts admitting all this.

So naturally police bring Jeremy in, and he’s like, yeah, I was with Chris partying earlier that night, but Chris left and I stayed at the party before then crashing at a friend’s house. He’s like, I don’t know what Chris is talking about.

And this is apparently confirmed.

So police are like, we think that Jeremy had nothing to do with this. We think Chris lied and said Jeremy was there with him, and we believe Chris did it by himself.

And here’s what’s interesting about all this: Chris does not have a lawyer present during his interrogations. He declines having the interviews recorded. We don’t really know what happened during this six-hour confession. We’re just going off of what police said. But when Chris later talked to 20/20 and was asked about why he said he went to the house with Jeremy, he said, That’s what the police said that I did. I didn’t say that and I didn’t do that.

So did he actually say it, or did police say it during the interview as a theory, and then he said, okay… and he doesn’t fight it? And then the police are like, yeah, we interrogated him and he said this is what happened.

Again, I want to mention he’s one of the few Black men in town, and he was in special education growing up.

Okay, so this is a very common target. Very plausible. I mean, there was a case from Payton’s hometown, very similar — very similar. They actually ended up finding later it wasn’t him because they found the actual guy who did it because of DNA, and he spent like 20 years wrongfully in prison. Anyways, curious to see where this goes. This is not… like, we know this happens. This is not inconceivable. I’m not saying it happens all the time.

We’re not saying— I’m just saying it does happen. It is possible this could be happening.

It just happens.

So was he an easy target for investigators who don’t ever really handle this kind of case and are eager to close it? Is this an easy target? Could it have been hard for them to believe that a Black man was actually just having consensual sex with a wealthy white woman? Or was he actually guilty?

Well, it’s questions like these that start eating away at the case. Once he gets a lawyer, they seem to believe that the confession was 100 percent coerced and that we don’t actually know anything that happened. And it happened so easily, since when they arrested and interrogated Chris, he had actually been high on painkillers and marijuana during this interrogation.

They also knew the crime scene investigation had been botched from the jump, like we talked about. Not to mention, there was never any indication in the autopsy — like, we never know whether she had been sexually assaulted or if it looked like there had been consensual sex. So the charges don’t make sense to the lawyers.

But the prosecution thinks, nah, we have a good case.

So when Chris’s trial begins in November of 2006, the prosecution paints this picture: that January night, Chris showed up at Christa’s house wanting to have sex with her. She denied him. So in a rage, he sexually assaulted and then killed her.

That’s the motive.

You have to remember, they do have a confession, coerced or not, and they do have Chris’s DNA on Christa’s body.

So his lawyers argue he and Christa had a consensual relationship, that they had done this before. But a friend of Christa’s also said he didn’t think that was the case. He mentioned that when he saw Christa just a week or two before her death, she never mentioned anything about a consensual relationship with a sanitation worker. And this friend said Christa would have usually shared the type of relationship she was having with people.

And that’s what this case keeps hinging on: Did Christa have consensual sex and a relationship with Chris, or did he show up that night and sexually assault her?

I don’t know how you— both could be true. Yeah, I don’t know how you… I just don’t know how you 100 percent say he— I don’t… This is confusing. I don’t know what else to say. This is extremely confusing.

What are the chances that someone has consensual sex with a woman, leaves, and then she’s murdered? That is kind of hard to not feel like that is your prime suspect. And that’s the other side — that’s true. I mean, what are you supposed to— but it’s always like, right? Does it walk like a duck, it quacks like a duck, is it a duck? Like, just the coincidences can only be so strong sometimes.

Sometimes.

But then you have the evidence on the other side—

Yeah.

Being like, well, this feels like coercion. This feels like target. This could be racially motivated.

So, like I said, the police were desperate to close this case. They found the last person Christa had sex with, and they were like, yeah, that’s our suspect. They got a forced confession out of him, maybe while he was under the influence of drugs.

Now unfortunately, they do have two pieces of solid evidence that point in Chris’s direction. They have DNA, and they have a confession. But that’s all they have. They don’t have fingerprints. They don’t have footprints. They don’t have any eyewitnesses. And as far as I can tell, they never even questioned Ava to see if she knew who Chris was.

But the jury had all they needed, and Chris McCowen was found guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated rape, and aggravated burglary.

Wow.

Okay.

Now, before he was sentenced, Chris said this:
“This case here is a very horrendous case. I feel sorry for the victim’s family, her daughter, and her. I have never meant for this to ever take place, but Your Honor, all I can say is that I am an innocent man in this case. That’s all I can say.”

Christopher McCowen was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And even… I wouldn’t have— I don’t think— I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say he did it for sure.

Well, even Tony Jackett, Ava’s father, comes forward and says, I’m not convinced Chris is the guy. He says publicly, “I feel that there was reasonable doubt all over the place in this case.”

Now, shortly after this conviction, several of the jurors said they felt there was racial bias during their deliberations. And Chris’s attorney thought, okay, that’s definitely grounds for a retrial if some of the jurors are saying other jurors were racially motivated. But after taking it all the way to the state supreme judicial court, they ruled against it, feeling there wasn’t enough evidence for a retrial — even though jurors have publicly said they felt like race had something to do with everything.

So in 2022, Ava graduated from college. She has since maintained a relationship with her father, Tony. Both have tried to kind of piece their life together after this. But in 2024, there was a development in this case.

Remember that during the autopsy, I mentioned blue and white fibers were found in Christa’s pubic area? Well, they never could figure out how these fibers related to Chris. But it turns out, as this case has been re-looked at, people have been wary about whether he really did it. And it has come out that Jeremy Frasier was found wearing a blue and white sweater at the party the night he went to that party with Chris. He was wearing a blue and white sweater the night Christa died.

So it could have been transferred from him to Chris, and Chris to her. It could have been that Chris’s story was real and that he and Jeremy did it together. It could be that Jeremy did it alone. I mean, there are so many avenues. But people believe they have found the source.

But still — how do you prove it was just Chris? How do you prove it was just Jeremy? How do you prove it was both of them together? There’s not enough, right?

Which is… but here’s the thing. Police actually knew this back in 2005. They knew about his blue and white sweater. And in May of 2024, a superior court associate approved the order to have these fibers tested against Jeremy’s sweater. Because, like I said, police knew about it back in 2005, and he had turned that sweater in to police back in 2005. Which is why the court is like, yeah, can you test those fibers? This should have been done when the case went to trial, but can you test those fibers?

And then the police are like, actually, we can’t hand the sweater over… because we lost it. So we can’t test those fibers now, in 2024, when we should have tested them back then.

That’s insane. That’s insanity, man. Come on.

So eventually, though, this is all up and down, because the sweater resurfaces in the custody of Massachusetts State Police. So if these fibers are a match — because they now have the sweater to test — it could mean, if they are a match, that there are grounds for a retrial. Not grounds for exoneration — grounds for a retrial.

Now, as of this recording, there have not been any updates on the results of this testing. But in the meantime, Chris McCowen is still in prison, and to this day he still claims to be innocent. And that is where this case is sitting — basically waiting for this testing to be done. His lawyer is fighting for a retrial, and the future of the case is basically unknown.

But that is the complicated murder of Christa Worthington.

Well, a couple thoughts. One, my heart goes out to Ava. I’m sorry for everything she’s had to go through. I don’t know her thoughts on it — maybe she doesn’t speak on it, maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it — so I don’t blame her. I’m not going to say much about that. I’ll just speak to my thoughts.

I don’t know. I don’t know if there was enough evidence. But also, I don’t know if maybe for Ava and some of them this was closure. I just… I don’t know. This is so complicated. I don’t know if there’s enough evidence. There just has to be reasonable doubt. Without reasonable doubt, if there is a shred of reasonable doubt, you cannot convict someone.

I agree with the reasonable doubt, but I also feel like there are some cases that we’ve covered where it’s obviously someone, right? And you can still create reasonable doubt, right? The reason reasonable doubt gets hard in my mind… but yes, I agree here. There’s too much in the air. I don’t think I would have sent him to prison, but I don’t know.

Listen, from what I could learn on the surface of this case — not being there, not interviewing family (I wish I could, but unfortunately releasing an episode a week, it’s just not possible) — but from what I learned, I don’t think there is enough evidence to convict. And I also don’t think there’s enough evidence to say he’s not guilty. Like, I don’t think there’s enough evidence to go one way or the other. I cannot confidently say he’s innocent or guilty.

I agree with that.

It’s just… from what I know, I do feel like this has the potential to be investigated deeply. To go and talk, because it just feels like there’s a lot of mystery clouding it. But that is what we know now. If we hear any updates, I will keep you guys updated.

But until then, this is all we have on the case. And that is our episode for this week. We will see you next time with another one.

I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye.

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