Lyle Christopher is a romance and horse industry con artist, and the murderer of Ruth Thomas.
Background[]
Christopher ingratiated himself into horse racing, exhibiting, and breeding cultures simply for living off spoils he'd never work for. The first part of his con was with horses themselves, whether he bred low-value horses for unrealistic fees or he hired professional horse killer Tibor Nichols to euthanize horses and disguise their deaths as natural, conning insurances agencies for life policy payouts. The other part was romancing women to date or marry, only to embezzle from them and divorce them, even making them his victims to sell horses in less demand or kill horses they already owned.
Christopher's fifth and latest victim he seduced was Ruth Thomas, who he met at a riding show after her husband died and was encouraged to date by her friend Judith Grayson, but Ruth caught onto his scams, as well as his plan to leave her to seduce and swindle another socialite, Susan Merriman. Ruth demanded her money back, giving Christopher until when she was to leave on a cruise to escape the stress of their declining relationship, threatening to sue and report Christopher to the police. When Christopher didn't get Nichols to kill Ruth for him, he ambushed Ruth by luring her from the dock to his car, murdering her, and setting out to sea to throw her presumably dismembered remains into the ocean. Christopher then posed as Ruth's nephew to cancel the cruise appointment.
Corpus Delicti[]
Christopher's crime started to unravel when one of his associates, Richard Brandson, requested soliciting Nichols' services to kill the Brandson family horse, as in spite of his daughter loving the horse, they weren't good enough for her jumping competitions. Trainer Susan Bauer saw Nichols leave the stables in a green jacket and reported the murder to the police. As the detectives were despondent toward the investigation at first, they caught onto Christopher's trail of habitual crimes by tracing the deaths on his farm.
When Ruth's disappearance was discovered, Christopher's offices and boat were searched, revealing his fraud records and bloodstains. He was arrested and taken to trial, Brandson granted immunity and Nichols arrested in a sting and offered a reduced sentence for their testimonies. It wasn't enough, as aggressive efforts from both the prosecution and the defense from their hearsay arguments resulted in a mistrial as a consequence. When the prosecution was preparing the deal for a retrial, Ruth's remains were found by a fisherman, resulting in McCoy tearing the document up and preparing for a maximum penalty conviction.
Christopher was arguably found guilty of some degree of murder and multiple counts of fraud and was imprisoned for life. (L&O: "Corpus Delicti")
Known Victims[]
- At least three unnamed women (embezzled)
- Mrs. Fairchild (robbed of $50,000)
- Ruth Thomas (embezzled; later murdered)
- Susan Merriman (attempted to embezzle)