Chester's Murder

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Dispression. On March thirteenth, two
thousand, four, young men met up

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at a house in Spearfish, South
Dakota, to play video games together.

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The home belonged to Chester Alan Pogue
and his family and had been a long

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winding road for them to end up
in this quaint rural city. Chester himself

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had been born on July fourth,
nineteen eighty on a farm in Norton County,

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Kansas. The farm had been in
the Pogue family for generations over one

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hundred years, and it looked like
it was primed and ready to pass on

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to the next generation. First,
Chester and then his younger sister grew up

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living and working on the parents farm. The work was tough and physically demanding,

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but despite Chester's small stature, he
was tough. When he was done

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with the hard farm work for the
day, Chester could be found playing baseball

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and basketball with the other kids of
rural Norton County. But Chester was small

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and short for his age, and
kids can be cruel. The other members

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of the basketball team and baseball teams
bullied him, and he was almost always

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picked dead last. By nineteen ninety
four, things had started to fall apart

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at home too. The marriage between
his parents was feeling a strain, and

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to try to smooth things over,
the family moved to Rapid City, South

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Dakota, looking for a fresh new
start. It wasn't meant to be,

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however, and in nineteen ninety six, Chester's parents filed for divorce. Only

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four days later, his father took
his own life. Reeling from sudden loss,

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his mother moved Chester and his sister
back to Norton to be closer to

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their grandparents. Chester grew up now
over six feet tall. He became good

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with his hands and interested in technology, which is partially the reason why he

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chose to study communications technology at Northwest
Kansas Technical School. While Chester was away

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at college, his mother and sister
moved to Spearfish, South Dakota, and

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that's where they finally settled. In
two thousand, Chester was nineteen years old.

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He had just finished an internship and
was six months away from graduating when

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he decided to take a short break
of a few months. He moved out

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to Spearfish to be closer to his
mother and sister, who were delighted to

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see him and happy that he was
doing so well. But by March of

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that year, they also needed a
little break, not from Chester, but

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from the harsh South Dakota in winter, so they booked a long trip to

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Florida to try to warm up.
Chester decided to stay both to look after

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the house and because he'd made some
new friends. Elijah Page was eighteen years

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old and originally from Titusville, Florida. His journey to Spearfish, South Dakota

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had been marked with tragedy and abuse, and unfortunately, the side effects of

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that were starting to show. Growing
up, Elijah had been moved from abandoned

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building to abandoned building by his mother
and stepfather. These derect homes often had

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no heating or even plumbing, and
every cent his mother and stepfather came by

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went into fueling their drug addictions.
When the money ran out, Elijah's mother

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found a cruel way to get what
she wanted. When he was only two

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years old, his mother began selling
Elijah to her dealers in exchange for drugs

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and money. Both she and these
men allegedly physically and sexually abused him,

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and that was only the start.
When an angry and irate dealer showed up

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at their front doorstep demanding to be
paid, Elijah's stepfather used the child as

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a human shield to try to fend
off the drug dealer. Finally, Elijah

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was placed into foster care, which
was how the then eighteen year old ended

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up in Spearfish. But by then
the damage had been done. In his

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teens, Elijah began showing the signs
of psychopathy. He had rage issues that

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threatened to turn violent, and he
showed no remorse or empathy to those around

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him. With Chester and Elijah inside
Chester's home that day was twenty one year

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old Daryl Hoadley, another young man
plagued with a troubled upbringing. His childhood

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had been shadowed by emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from his mother and

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the men that were in and out
of her life, and by the time

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Daryl walked into Chester's house that day, he himself was already the father to

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an infant daughter. Wrapping things up. The supposed leader of this gang of

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misfits was the nineteen year old Alaskan
born Briley Wayne Piper. At just nine

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years old, he'd set his parents'
bedroom on fire. At thirteen, he'd

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been arrested for molesting a woman,
and then later arrested again for robbing a

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classmate at knife point. He was
later described as someone apt at manipulating others,

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but it was actually Elijah who set
the wheels into motion that day that

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would lead to a devastatingly bitter and
cruel end. With Chester's mother and sister

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away in Florida and the four young
men over at Chester's family home to play

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video games. The scene was set. While the others were hanging out,

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Elijah began stalking through the home searching
for valuables. At some point during the

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evening, he approached Darryl, and
the pair of them agreed that Chester and

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his family had things that were worth
taking. At around time ten p m.

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Three others convinced Chester to head over
to the house that they were currently

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living in. Chester agreed and even
drove them in his Chevrolet Blazer, unaware

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of what his supposed friends had planned
for him. When Chester walked into their

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house later that evening, Elijah pulled
out a gun and aimed it at Chester.

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The gun was Chester's mother's gun,
and Elijah had stolen it during his

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stakeout earlier. Elijah ordered Chester to
the floor, where Briley began repeatedly kicking

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him. He kicked Chester so hard
that he ended up, cracking one of

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Chester's teeth, and Chester went unconscious, completely caught off guard and vulnerable.

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He was then tied to a chair
with a tire iron place between his feet

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to keep him from moving. When
he regained consciousness, Briley was standing on

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top of that tire iron, crushing
Chester's feet. They then forced the remains

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of an old beer tainted with various
pills and hydrochloric acid, down Chester's throat

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and finally explained to Chester what was
going on. Elijah, Briarly and Daryl

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were going to rob Chester's house and
they were simply getting rid of the only

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witness. But the beating and poisoned
Beard didn't kill Chester and left the three

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criminals in an unexpected predicament. In
front of their friend turned victim, they

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began discussing potential ways to kill him, ignoring Chester's please and the damage that

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they'd already inflicted on him. They
then stole his ATM card and ordered that

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he give up the pen number.
Chester complied, all the while begging to

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be let go. Instead of listening, Elijah, Briley and Darrell forced Chester

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back into his car and drove him
out to the remote Higgins gulch where they

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reckoned they would kill Chester. No
one would ever find out. Out in

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about twelve inches of snow, they
ordered Chester to strip naked and marched him

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out towards an icy creek, beating
him more along the way and jeering at

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him. They forced Chester down into
the frigid water, where they beat him

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again, thinking that either the blows
or hypothermia would eventually kill him. When

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that seemed to be taking too long, they then pulled Chester out of the

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water and started kicking him between them. They kicked him so hard and so

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often that they ended up ripping both
of his ears off and partially scalping him.

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But still Chester clung to life.
He survived being thrown back into the

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icy creek, stabbed in the neck, stabbed through the skull and into the

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brain, and then through the ear. When he cried out after the last

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stabbing, he was beaten again as
punishment. By then, Chester had accepted

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that he was going to die,
but he made one final plea. If

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he was going to die, he
wanted to die in the warmth of his

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car, not out in the cold
than the snow. His attackers agreed to

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this request and told him that he
could only get back into the car if

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he washed the blood from his body. Chester dragged himself back into the water's

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edge and cleaned himself. While he
was stumbling back towards his car, his

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attackers pounced again. Between blows and
kicks, they confessed that it had all

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been a trick and they weren't ever
going to let Chester back into his car.

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Instead, they pulled him back into
the water. This time. Chester

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didn't fight, He didn't complain as
the three men tried to drown him instead.

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Whenever he caught his breath, Chester
either just stayed quiet or begged for

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it to be over Between them,
Briley and Darrell began lifting heavy rocks and

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bashing Chester over the head. With
him, Elijah had supposedly returned to the

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car. By the time the finishing
blow had been dealt. Somewhere over the

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span of one evening, Chester had
gone from being surrounded by friends to lie

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dead, half submerged in an icy
creek in the middle of the Decote and

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wilderness. His killers then returned to
his home, where they ransacked the place

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and took anything of value that could
fit into Chester's car. Splitting town,

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They then drove down to Missouri,
pawning off items and collecting money from Chester's

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ATM card along the way. They
arrived at Elijah's sister's home, thinking that

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she would let them stay for a
while, but she refused. The three

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killers then went their separate ways.
When Chester's mother and sister returned from their

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Florida trip, they found their home
in disarray and Chester gone. Knowing that

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something was wrong, they filed a
missing person's report, but nothing came of

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it until six weeks later, when
a woman found the remains of a young

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man in a creek near her property. Authorities advised Chester's mother not to identify

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her son's body herself because the damage
inflicted on him in his final hours had

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been so brutal. Five days after
chack Ester had been found, police brought

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in Daryl Hoadley, the only one
of the three killers to return to Spearfish

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since the murder. Daryl quickly confessed
and coughed up the names of his two

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accomplices. Elijah was arrested down in
Texas and Briley was arrested in Alaska.

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Both Elijah and Briarley pled guilty and
were found guilty of first degree murder.

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Both were sentenced to death for their
crimes. Daryl was sentenced to life in

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prison, and he remains behind bars
in South Dakota State Penitentiary. Elijah first

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waived his right to have a jury
determine his sentence, and in two thousand

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and six he ordered his lawyers to
stop and he appeals. He was executed

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by lethal injection in two thousand and
seven at twenty five years of age.

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Briley, however, continues to appeal
his sentence. He was resentenced by a

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jury in twenty eleven, a sentence
that was upheld in twenty nineteen. He

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is currently the only prisoner left on
death row in South Dakota, where he

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still awaits his execution.