The Blue Moon Killer | Donald Hartung

hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video we're going to florida because of course we actually uh let me correct myself we're going to he double hockey 6 because in this story we got dare i even say it witchcraft and a blue moon not the beer so prepare yourselves because we got a spooky and as you can imagine the media and even the authorities went just book wilds on that angle but you know as we see time and time again the real motive which was uh it was much more bass than rituals and you know uh hocus pocus right so uh let's um hop on our broomsticks or whatever so first of all where exactly in america's ding-a-ling are we going penis cult pensacola in the year 2015 there lived a family the smith family good luck finding them in the address book in that family was vancil smith and she lived with her two fully grown sons john smith and richard smith monsieur had another son too the oldest 58 year old donald hartung he had a different father and didn't live with the family but did live just down the road vancil was 76 richard 49 worked for homeland security and john smith 47 worked at a local walmart donald worked as a security officer at a hospital in pensacola so what happened why are you talking about it well this on friday july 31st the year 2015 it was a blue moon day a blue moon is when you have two full moons in one calendar month it's not actually blue which is disappointing so in the late morning hours of the 31st of july the pensacola police department popped by 4605 deerfield drive they were popping by as a as a co-worker of richards who you know worked in homeland security well they said you know richard hadn't showed up for work for a couple of days you know hadn't hadn't said anything which is not like him and they couldn't contact him on the phone or any anywhere else after all richard worked on some sensitive projects and codes and so forth working on such you know top secret stuff is you can imagine his co-workers were concerned about um well so they they were worried and asked the police to do a welfare check on the smith abode when the police arrived there were two cars in the driveway one was richards theater uh the other one was one seal so it seemed like people were home john smith didn't drive to work at walmart his mother drove him as john was his mother said a little slow richard lived with them of course as he looked after them both so it seemed like you know people were home they were you know just um just not in the way hope so with no answer the police entered the home [Music] inside they found a grizzly scene the house it was a mess hot stinky and there were piles and piles of clothing doing a bit of the old autumn cleaning well they may have thought that at first till they saw a foot sticking out from under the clothing they found the bodies of vancil john and richard under separate piles they all had blunt force trauma to the head their throats could open and richard had also been shot in the head there was no sign of forced entry to the home though a back gate had been left open it didn't seem like much of a robbery not much was stolen and the police ended up discovering a significant amount of dollar bills in a safe it would take five days to go through everything in the house it was well they were hoarders but the investigation sprung up immediately into looking at who could be responsible for this triple homicide now the family were known as as quite reclusive you know the two sons who lived there they didn't have families of their own they didn't have any kids and they weren't married and nobody kind of really knew much about them they didn't get out much i mean that certainly seems true judging by the state of the house von seal it seems literally never left the house after her husband passed now that the crime scene tape is down the smith home on deerfield drive looks just like all the other houses in this quiet neighborhood but it's not neighbors like meeks willard are shaken by the murders of a mother and two of her sons early indications were that this wasn't no you know random killing and when the police held a press conference listen up it was pitchfork time the elements of this case are odd at best you know we have a very reclusive family obviously we've canvassed the neighborhood spoken to people that have lived there for years and years neighbors have related to us that they've never met members of this family although they've lived there for years the method of desk we believe through dr mindran's office was blunt force trauma we believe the weapon was a claw hammer multiple blows were struck on each and every victim their throats were slit also each and every victim richard thomas also suffered a gunshot wound entering his right ear and exiting behind the neck we believe that that was an incapacitating move on the attacker's part by the way both of the sons are very large being very tall obviously very potentially very physically powerful initial research has led us to believe that there is a potential that it was a ritualistic killer whoa ritualistic killing go on the method of the murder blunt force trauma slit throats positions of bodies and then our person of interest has some ties to a a faith and or religion that is indicative of that those of you that follow any of that we'll also note that the you know the time of death we believe on tuesday also coincides with what's referred to as a blue moon which occurs every three years it's uh witchcraft i'll say that right now [Music] well nothing scarier than uh witchcraft yo people got got hanged for that a couple hundred years ago and the literal you know lunatic the witch could still be out there massacring families killing people eating people probably you know they do that you know the scene in the movie the victims of a ritual killing police say involved witchcraft bizarre story out of florida three people are found brutally murdered in their homes but here's where it gets strange police say the killing may be connected to witchcraft as witches we don't um do human sacrifice it's strictly prohibited [Music] the police you know from the way the scene was they had their suspicions and they had their questions and so they wanted to speak with you know the the only remaining family member who just happened to live three miles down the road donald wayne hartung senior donald lived by himself and worked the tree-to-eleven shift as a security guard he has a son donald jr and was married before but uh well the you know before part will tell you that that went south and so too did his relationship with his son he did however have a pretty good relationship with you know his family they lived right down the road you know he would see them all the time he would go at least once a week and cook dinner you know for for the family he'd cook her cook whatever john wanted to eat donald will cook it because he was just a nice guy and donald was over at his family's house before you know the smith stopped showing up you know to the world of living he had been over on tuesday the 28th of july as he was every tuesday and himself and john prepared a dinner of fried chicken corn green beans biscuits and fries he left the house around 6 pm before richard arrived home from his job and that was it he never saw richard that day and last he saw they were all fine and dandy but from what the police saw in the home and the fact that donald's that would make him you know the last person to see them alive uh well so the police spoke with donald the day the bodies were found i guess you know why you're down here talk about your mom and your brothers okay um as they told me out there on the scene they are deceits okay but before we talk about all that i want to read you uh your rights because i don't know what's going on yet and i just want you to have these my mommy talk okay and be aware of them okay what's your relationship with uh john and richard you have good relationships with them well great relationship when was the last time you saw your family i always go along to my dog and uh i made them um [Music] [Music] i would not tell my mother oh yeah why would i do something like that i don't know you've shown no emotion the whole time you've been in here i mean it's like you almost prepared yourself for this you've had days try to prepare yourself for this i'm sorry i don't know i'll i'll show things [Music] right i don't know anything about this this is the first time i've ever heard any of this stuff you're talking about they were dead shot yeah and you're going to sit here and not show any emotion whatsoever of course [Music] you no as you can see the detective was really not in uh the mood for this [ __ ] he must have just [ __ ] hated witches bloody witches at it again and so then they went and searched donald's home which led them to discovering well all of this [Music] looks like some satanist [ __ ] to me no it wasn't uh donald hartung was a practicing wiccan i know nothing about wiccan other than the name i believe it's quite peaceful though so hey educate in the comments but so please this is some sick [ __ ] you know it was obviously some kind of like spooky magical blood orgy ritual blue moon it was on a blue moon they interviewed him again he admitted to being a wiccan and he celebrated the blue moon and the investigators really tried to get him to admit to sacrifices does it have to do with like many phases and stuff like that there's a lot and these ceremonies or whatever you do do you have anything like sacrifices or any trouble now there's no sacrificing under two men told two full moons sometimes they'll offer sacrifice crazy but at that time i'd have to let them go two months after a horrific triple murder was discovered in pensacola no one has been arrested nor charged neighbors on deerfield drive are starting to move on with their lives but say the crime continues to haunt them until over two months later when they arrested him actually around halloween funnily enough the only acceptable time to be a witch it seems he was charged with three counts of premeditated murder the evidence being his dna was found at the scene yep his dna was found at the place he went to he admitted he went to every week because it was his family home where he cooked dinner but to be fair it was more than that his dna was found on places it shouldn't have been the inside of richard's belt on richard's checkbook and also whoever did this cleaned up and placed items in the bin bloody items on top of those were cigarette butts with donald's dna so he clearly you know must have had a nice relaxing smoke after he you know uh killed his family so he needed to chill on tuesday july 28th of 2015 you will see that this family was brutally and violently murdered by this defendant there's no way that we know who committed these murders there's no way beyond a reasonable doubt that you could find that mr hartung is guilty of these murders the trial went ahead in early 2020. now the prosecution they were thinking odds here might be kind of hard to prove you know blue moons blood rituals that could be a tricky one the jury they might not you know they might not bite maybe we should just go with uh with money that'd be an easier motive to prove in court because it was the real motive money you will see the last will and testament of vancil smith his mother left everything to his two brothers john and richard she specifically excluded him from her will and what you will see during the course of this trial through evidence is that for him to get anything they all three had to die also donald wasn't as close with his family as he'd been letting on and he held a grudge see at the trial donald hartung jr took the stand junior said there was an incident when he was four years old john smith exposed himself to the young boy donald got furious he confronted vancil about this but she took john's side saying john was special did that incident seem to separate your father from the other three yes this incident left a sour taste in donald smith and his relationship with his family changed from there onwards and it would never be the same again he wasn't that close to his family and when in 2012 he was told by vancil that him and junior were out of her will he was infuriated yeah her will is uh yeah it seems like monsil didn't really give too much of a [ __ ] about donald because he his dad was different from you know richard and john's maybe she hated donald's that but it seems like she definitely hated donald i'll read it part of her will here it's rather cruel i hereby give devise and bequeath to my husband richard a smith providing he will survive me but if he does not survive me then an equal share to my two sons richard thomas smith and john william smith to be theirs absolutely i intentionally make no provision herein to the benefit of my son donald wayne hurtum not for lack of love or affection but because he has sufficient assets of his own so donald knew he wasn't going to get any money and if she just died will the money would go straight to richard and john so he had to make himself you know the only surviving member of the family to get that nine hundred thousand dollars that she was worth now there is actually a little bit more about like kind of uh i guess wiccan kind of stuff or magical stuff whatever you want to call it involved then just headline grabbing blue moon witchcraft murders see while in jail a man named marilyn purifoy told the jury he became close with donald and donald admitted to him that he did it people were scared of him why they thought he was a witch we talked about voodoo wicker and stuff like that he believed in wicker and i told him i believe in voodoo now did you actually believe in voodoo no no no okay did mr hartung start talking to you about this case yes ma'am he said he killed him did he tell you why he said he won't he want the money because she left him out the wheel not only that but he said donald told him specific details too about what happened that night see uh before actually committing the murders donald went and sought some advice about whether he should really go through with it or not he asked the ouija board it said yes now did he tell you if um the murders were was it just something that kind of happened or was it something he'd been thinking about well he saved me playing it last last three like three to four years said ouija board made him go overboard though the what i'm saying ouija board what about a ouija board he said that really made him do it made him go aboard then donald went to the smith home and after cooking the dinner he took down cameras that were installed by richard inside the home following an accident when vancil fell and hurt herself those cameras were found in the bin and after vancile john and donald finished her food donald went to the den area where john was sitting watching television and hid him on the head with a hammer and then cut his throat then he went to his mother's room he tortured monsil before killing her in hopes of retracting the safe code he cut off her pinky finger then he did the same as he did to jon hit her in the head with a hammer and cut her throat then he waited waited for richard to arrive home as richard entered through the back door he shot him in the head but the shot wasn't fatal richard put up a fight he had defensive wounds on his hands but in the end donald cut his throat as well then donald cleaned up placed the clothing and her textiles on the bodies and turned the heating up in hopes of making it hard to determine the exact time of death during the trial the defense didn't try to you know convince the jurors that donald didn't do it but what they aim to do was end the case in a mistrial now the inmate wasn't credible that you know it was hard to determine the exact time of death and that donald's dna being found in the house wasn't a sign of anything well the jurors didn't agree and they found donald guilty [Music] at his sentencing he took the stand and told the jury that they had been duped his representation was not proper and that this was a grave miscarriage of justice to your honor i would like to respectfully ask for a mistrial i love my jury they paid attention they paid close attention but your honor they would do you did i was duped and i was tricked and i'm willing to admit it and so were you donald got three consecutive life sentences which in this case may as well be you know the death penalty he is imprisoned at graceville correctional facility in jackson county florida the wiccan religious witchcrafty you know angle was the big headline grabber in this case and it got a lot of attention as you can imagine it would you know it's spooky it's scary cults satanic panic you know real life black magic that kind of stuff and when you know in reality nah just uh nothing to do with magic at all just plain old human greed yeah and a lot of it was actually kind of really blown out of proportion and sometimes just straight up made up like the bodies laid out in a rich ritualistic pattern [ __ ] where throats were cut ooh spooky i mean yeah that's spooky but it was not exactly you know uh culti or ritualistic the blue moon had nothing to do with anything a coincidence they latched on to as it happens like once every three years or something he asked his ouija board but he may as well have asked a magic 8-ball should i kill my entire family my sources say no best out of tree [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it um sure i'll see as always you know real soon in the next one you know yourself till then take care of yourselves mikey

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 1,988,812

Keywords: that chapter, donald hartung

Id: Wl-yuSnhuXo

Length: 24min 28sec (1468 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021