Episode Two: The Murder of Christopher Kennedy
Episode Two: The Murder of Christopher Kennedy
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
Before we start this episode, some house cleaning. In this episode, I interview Seth Tinsley, one of Chris Kennedy’s convicted murderers. Before contacting Tinsley, I reached out to the other person who was at the scene of the crime. He declined, however, to be interviewed for this podcast and did not want to be named, though it is public information. Out of respect for his wishes, I’ve censored his name. You’ll hear that censor throughout this episode.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
My name is Charlie Moss and I’ve been a freelance journalist and writer for more than 10 years. I’ve written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vice, The Bitter Southerner, and other publications. I also used to work for an online camping magazine called The Dyrt. It was there that I wrote about a haunted campground just outside of Staunton, Virginia. The more I dug into the story, the more I realized that this wasn’t just a simple Halloween ghost tale. It was something much more profound than I ever imagined. And I’ve spent the last two years finding out as much as I can about What Happened at Braley Pond.
This is episode two - The Murder of Christopher Kennedy
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
“Your cousin Kenny is in the hospital.” That’s what Seth Tinsley told Chirstopher Kennedy to convince him to get into the backseat of CENSOR’s Buick.
It was nighttime. As they drove down the road - Seth, who was in the front passenger seat with CENSOR driving - told Christopher that before they went to see Kenny at the hospital, they had to make a stop first.
SETH TINSLEY
We tell Chris before we get to the hospital, we got to make a stop off at the Lake. We have to go pick some money up first go. This was dark. All right? So we'd go out to this Lake and when we get out there, we tell Chris, look, we might have to fuck this dude up.
If you've got anything on you that could possibly identify you, you might want to take it off. Take your wash off, take your wallet out your pocket. You gotta ID take that out. You know what I'm saying? So he emptied all his pockets and stuff like that. And so the back seat. So we get out to the Lake and when we get up to the leg, he starts crying and he says, I don't want to die.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
That’s Seth Tinsley. He’s currently serving 25 years for Chris Kennedy’s murder at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virgina, which is about 4 and a half hours from Staunton.
SETH TINSLEY
We don't know how he knew, honestly, to this day, I still don't know how he knew. And he starts screaming 'I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!' . So I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? You're not going to die with, what the hell are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying. He was like, I know I fucked up. I understand. I fucked up the police. I just don't want to die.
SETH TINSLEY
Don't kill me. So at that time, CENSOR tells him that you're not gonna die.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
To show him good faith, CENSOR tells Christopher to give him some dap. Dap is an acronym for “dignity and pride” and is a symbol of solidarity. When you give someone some dap, you’re more or less slapping them five and then shaking their hand. There are a few variations of course, but the gesture is meant to tell the receiver, “We’re in this together.” Christopher accepts the offer and swings his hand around to meet CENSOR.
SETH TINSLEY
And when he does, he spends him around and he slit his throat and throws him in the Lake.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
Not long after I wrote the Braley Pond article for The Dyrt, one of the company’s employees forwarded me an email from a guy named Kevin Robertson. In the message he wrote, “I thought to myself there for a minute everyone just forgot about it and moved on….but I still keep his memory upon me. I miss him more than anything.”
To be honest, this email from Kevin is what inspired me to do this podcast. He says in his email that he believes in the spirit world, and after reading my article, wanted to meet Shea, talk to her about what happened to her at Braley Pond, maybe even take a trip back there with Shea and me.
Over the course of making this podcast, which was about two years, I’ve been in touch with Kevin on and off, typically through texting and Facebook Messenger, and the occasional phone call. Then I decided to drive to Staunton to meet Kevin in person, and he invited me to visit Christopher’s grave with him. We’re driving to the small town of Verona, which is where Christopher is buried, about five miles outside of Staunton.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
my mom, my mom's got cancer anyway. And we were at a doctor's office and man, he won't even work with her. Cause I'll tell you what I mean, I'll sit there for probably 45 minutes, man. I looked on the table and everyone was his magazine and I just opened it and flipped it open. And it said the most on places in Virginia. And I said, Oh my God said, wait a minute. I asked him, am I reading this? Right? So I just stuck in my car. I'm bought down with the paper. I said, Hey, I have this. She said, go ahead. There's plenty more. I said, alright. I went home and I read it. And I was like, you got to be kidding the way it was printed. It was printed. Don't on a local magazine. I did not know. I thought it was just online. Yeah. Yeah. I print it and I like, I need to, it's a little mom. I said, look at her. She said, Oh my God. I said, I'm thinking about emailing the author. And, and I did and stuff like that. And she was like a couple of days later, she was like, you know, I said, man, I said, this is crazy. I said, this is not just something don't happen one yet.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
I ask Kevin how he and Christopher met.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I met Scott when we was in fifth grade and all, I'll tell you what he was, uh, take a left here. He was a stubborn boy. I'll tell you what he used to come to school. I mean, just man, he, he had us, you know what I'm saying? He had plans. He had a lot, a lot of good plans ahead of him. And he used to talk so much highly about me and you know, and everything else. So I introduced him to a couple of girls. They started dating one after another. Then after knowing my stop, Oh man, he was like, Hey, or broke neck. That's when he's calling me, people call me Nick man.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
Kevin refers to Christopher by his middle name, Scott, which is what his friends called him sometimes. Scott or Scotty. They played football together. They wrestled. They were inseparable all through middle and high school. I ask Kevin what he’s thinking.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Bringing back a lot of memories, a lot of fun and fun, crazy memories. Cause I'll tell you what in high school, that's the best years of your life. You know what I mean? You party, you, you know, you just, you make mistakes in life, you know,
KEVIN ROBERTSON
You know, and then it's just, you know..it's sad. The group, you don't keep growing up without him, you know, because he was so close so well, he's a good boy.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
As Kevin speaks, he reminds me of my close childhood friend, Steven Votava. Steven, along with my twin sister Meri, and our friends Michael and Jason Shuman, who were also twins, were inseparable when we were kids. We had all met in preschool and grew up together in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Steven came to all of our birthday parties, and we attended all of his. We played at each other’s houses, riding big-wheels, playing with toys. I remember he was a big Snoopy fan.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Then, one rainy Wednesday night in December 1985, Steven’s mom was driving home from an exercise class at our local Jewish Community Center. Steven was in the backseat. The road was slick and their car skidded to the right and was broadsided. Mrs. Votava told me years later that she blacked out for a few minutes but when she woke up, the ambulance was there, and an EMT was pulling her out of the wreckage, and led her inside. It was later in the emergency room at the hospital that she was told by the doctor and the local rabbi at our synagogue at the time, Rabbi Richard Sherwin, that Steven was dead. He was 10-years-old.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR I found out at school the next day by a classmate. My sister Meri and I weren’t allowed to attend his funeral. And though it’s been more than 35 years since he died, I never felt like I got the closure I needed. When I got that email from Kevin, the murder of Christopher Kennedy became more than just a ghost story for a Halloween-themed issue of a magazine. It became something much more real, much more personal.
Kevin’s been through a lot. Christopher wasn’t the only untimely death he’s had to deal with in his life. He tells me about how his father died, and the effect it had on him.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
my dad committed suicide about six years ago, I'll get off her and tell her left at the end of my dad. Yeah. About six years ago. And I'm right down the road from actually the house he drove down there where you live now. Yeah. He drove down the road and shot himself in his head. And um, I always saw it, you know, and I, you know, and my dad left the house. He kissed mom or forehead and said that he didn't go clean out his truck. And I'll tell you what, some nights. Yeah. Lyft. But I swear, I actually just happened a month ago.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I swear to, gosh, we got an old woodshed. Then my dad used to have splits time and walnuts and all kinds of stuff. I walked past there one night and I swear, I saw my dad standing. There was his hand like it against them. I said, Oh, I said, I'm seeing something or seeing something. I said, what is going on? I said, you know, my brother was like, Hey, it could have happened.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin tells me about the last time he saw Christopher alive. It was at a gas station. Chris had been living with Kevin and his family for a couple of months after their senior year in high school. But then, Chris met a girl.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Oh, I knew over, I didn't know her know her. I knew that she bad not good news. And I've tried to explain that to him. He was like, Hey man. I said, Chris, I said, you're just all in it for fucking, I hate to say it. You know, a piece of ass.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
A couple of weeks later, Kevin saw Christopher at a gas station. But it was like he was a different person.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
So he left and a couple weeks later I seen him in Stanton and a gas station and Edna. And I say, what are you doing, man? He said, I said, Oh my God. I said, what'd you look at? Jessie looked at yourself. Like he said, um, I said, I'm sorry. I said, coming in. He said, and then two more guys got out of the car. And I was like, I knew right then and there I knew right then and there. And I tried to explain to him, I was like, crystal said, come on with me, dude. He said, nah, bro. I said, stop calling me, bro. Yes. I'm your brother. Yes. Let's go. He was like, nah, man, I'm living right behind here. Oh, Maplesville his apartments? And I was like, okay. I say, well give me up, man. He was like, hi bro. Two weeks later, we've heard you guys got out of was the [inaudible]. I seen it.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
In case you had trouble understanding what Kevin said, he told me that the two guys that were with Christopher at the gas station were the guys who murdered him, Seth Tinsley and CENSOR.
I have to backtrack a little here, because there’s more that happened at Braley Pond on the night of Christopher’s murder.
SETH TINSLEY
Well, we let him float out to about the middle of the Lake and then we'd go to leave. We're walking up the steps to leave. We thought he was dead the whole time.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
It turns out, though, that CENSOR did not kill Christopher. He didn’t even slit his throat. CENSOR was holding the knife backwards and just left a few abrasions on Christopher’s neck.
SETH TINSLEY Well, we're up at the top of the steps and we're ready to leave. We hear the splash and we turn around and look, and he's swimming back into shore. So we'd go back down there, only get back down there.
SETH TINSLEY
He standing up the water, he shipper in and shaking him saying, what was that? And all this stuff. So CENSOR was being quiet. So I spoke up, I volunteered. I was like, good. That was just a test to see where your heart was at. Duh, dah, duh, duh. Like I said, dude wasn't, he wasn't sharpest tool in the shed. So I mean, you could put my telling him whatever and he believe it. So he was like, all right. And we were like, come on, you look cold down to go home. Let's go get in the car.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Seth and CENSOR start walking Christopher back to the car. And that’s when CENSOR attacks him again.
SETH TINSLEY
CENSOR turns around and stabbed him in his shoulder. And Chris turns around and starts running back in the water and drags CENSOR in the water with him, no stabbing him the entire time.
SETH TINSLEY
So CENSOR finally gets him up out of the water and slashing down on the Bay. And CENSOR just stabbing the fuck out of him now, even though I didn't take part in the actual stabbing, I'm not innocent in this at all. All the time. I'm right beside him screaming, stab him harder, asking for him to give me the knife so I can do it. Fucking, you know, I, I didn't actually take part in it, but I might as well be just as guilty as someone who did do it, you know. So CENSOR stabs him, uh, the last time and his hand slips on the knife and he almost cut his pinky off, so no one says there's blood on his shirt. Take your shirt off. That's evidence, dah, dah, dah, dah. I saw a ripped dude shirt off at this time. Dude is not struggling anymore, but he's still alive.
SETH TINSLEY
He's been stabbed in his lungs and his heart and everything, but he's still alive and he's just pleading with CENSOR, just letting me lay here and die. Please just leave me alone. Just let me lay here and down. I'm already dead. You already killed me. Just let me be and CENSOR stabs him one more time in the heart and just holds the knife there until he's dead.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
At this point, CENSOR is bleeding profusely, and is in danger of passing out himself. Seth helps CENSOR throw Chris’ lifeless and bloodied body back into the pond.
SETH TINSLEY
And I was five foot six, maybe 120 pounds at the time, not equipped to throw body around. So it kinda like went like eight or nine inches into the water and that was about it.
SETH TINSLEY
And we left when we were driving back and way he's driving the car and on the way back I was wrapping his hand back up and he passed out behind the wheel. We were going down grieving Avenue and he passed out behind the wheel and drove the car up onto the median and hit one of the road signs and knocked it off and put a big a like indention in the front of the car at the bumper, the hood, all that stuff. So we get back to the house when you get back to the house, Candy's there and Candy's like, Oh my God, God dah dah. He ruined me.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Candy is Candace Knott. She was the so-called “gang queen” of the Gangsta Disciples, one of the prominent gangs in Staunton in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She was the one who directly ordered Seth and CENSOR to murder Chris.
In all of my research, the local news claimed Seth, CENSOR, Kenny, Candace and Christopher were all part of the Crips Set Two-11, but Seth told me that the local news got it wrong. They were all part of the GDs.
Candace was married to the gang’s leader, Bradford Knott III, who was in jail at the time for malicious wounding, which means under Virginia law, the intent to seriously hurt or murder someone. Candace was on the phone with Brad when Seth appeared with a barely-conscious CENSOR.
SETH TINSLEY
She takes him upstairs and takes it into the shower, cleaned his hand up and whatnot. And uh, I basically take all the clothes that we've wore out there. I bag it up, I take the knife, I'll put it in the bag, I've got everything. I got everything that has to do anything with the crime in the bag. So, Oh, I ring his shirt out. When we were driving back from the, uh, from the leg, the shirt that no one thought had blood on it, I had to run it out while we were driving down the road. So the next morning when we got up, there was blood all over the side of CENSOR car, like the entire side of his car. It was splattered with blood.
SETH TINSLEY
I was covered in blood from, from hands to elbows. I was drenched in blood because I was right beside it the entire time. And when I took dude shirt off, I got blood all over me. He was squirting blood all over the place. When I picked the body up, he was still bleeding. Even though he was dead. It was just, it was a mess. So I took all the clothes, but no, it was Whitney. I took all the clothes out into the woods. I poured gasoline on him and burned him. I took the knife and I threw it in a body of water almost directly beside the spot where I burnt the clothes.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Seth then told Candace that everything that needed to cover up the murder was done.
SETH TINSLEY
But, uh, CENSOR was looking like real despondent. Like he really regretted his situation and his actions in this, in this situation. He was looking, he was looking real, real remorseful and stuff and he just looked like his world had ended and I kept asking him if he's all right and he was like, yeah, I'm fine. And um, candy candy had really attached herself, told him like when we got back to the apartment, they pretty much spent all day in the bedroom. Uh, I was downstairs getting high and uh, having friends over and stuff like that.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin and I are almost to the cemetery where Chris is buried. Before we reach the turn-in to the small parking lot, Kevin tells me that a few years after Chris’ murder, he returned to Braley Pond.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
You know, Chris's death really hit me hard. Like, I mean, fanatical, you know what I mean? We're all yard. Same bus. I mean, I mean grew up. I mean, as brothers and I don't want a parent one night, man. Um, and I got out, walked to the top and then just, you know, just, I don't know, it was about nine 30 and my, Oh, the mother, my shawl called me and says, Oh, I need you.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I need you to come here and you need to check with your daughter.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin has an 11-year-old daughter and a son who’s five from two different women. While he sees his son every other weekend, Kevin has full custody of his daughter Kaylee.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I was like, alright. I said, yeah, I'll see them. I'm coming from. I said, I'm just need time to myself right now. And she's like, well, make time for her. I was like, okay, I'm coming. So I get in the vehicle brand new vehicle and I start, it will not start. It will not start no clicker, no nothing. I'm like, what more? I said, what is going on? Then I sat there and I sat there and I swear, man, it's just, I got cold. I got really, really cold, like ditch chill, just come over me. And in the middle of summer, she'll come over me. Like I've been sitting in a frozen car for about a day, just like, and I just went like this with my head. And next thing I know, and it starts, I said, what on earth? It's like, I don't know. It's like, I don't know if maybe Scott maybe try to grab my hand when he was in the truck with me or something and just, he would not start. You're not this way. I don't know.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
If I'm missing him missing him more than anything, man, I tell you what yeah.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin points out the road where he got his first traffic ticket. Christopher was with him.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
He used to talk me into the dumbest shit, dude. I'm telling you what he gets, what? He ain't going to get blamed for it. I ain't got my ass smacked. I got mean fucking hammered. I got my first ticket because of him actually right down here. We went, it was one to a truck. Stop. Two o'clock in the morning. I'm 17 years old
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Notice how Kevin slips into the present tense as he’s talking, as if Christopher is still alive.
KEVIN RBOERTSON
There was no getting out of it. How do you get my dad out of bed? Three o'clock in the morning and come down here to get us on my gosh. I got my first ticket. My first ticket on Roth Ross equipment. No seat belts. [inaudible] please let me go. Nope. That's my dad is asleep. Please. Don't call him. He's going to find why you can tell him. He said that's it. That's it. They got their hurts. I was talking to him and see dude, now ain't here. You stupid ass. Don't even say word. None of you, both of you. We to get to the house. Both of you, you go to bed. Okay. Think he's playing.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
There’s silence for a minute or so. Then Kevin speaks up.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Just, I just want to know it when you're three, like, is he still with us? Is he still here? How does that work for me?
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
We pull into the parking lot of a small brick church and drive to the cemetery lot behind it. The graveyard has maybe 20 graves in it. It's not big. I know cemeteries can sometimes feel lonely but this one in particular feels cold, isolated, and forgotten.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Okay. Um, while he was buried here, we'll never know. Did he not go to no, he didn't have it here, you know? And I've come up here before and sat. And then I was like, I actually taught talk to him and I was like, man, if you're still here, give me a sign. But it ain't here. I'm worried about is Burnley's pawn or I'm worried about where he was actually killed.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin and I walk over to Chris’ grave. He’s buried right next to his mother. There’s nothing special about the headstone - it’s gray, made from marble, it looks like. Maybe Granite. It doesn’t stand out from the other graves there. There’s an image of praying hands over a bible and maybe an olive branch, I think. It’s hard to tell. Underneath it says Christopher Scott Samuel Kennedy, Sept. 30, 1983 and then the date of his death, May 21, 2003. And then in text that’s hard to see it says, “Beloved Son.” Attached to the side of Chris’ tombstone is a permanent vase, an open invitation for visitors to leave flowers. A small bouquet of plastic purple and yellow flowers are in it. They look like they were placed there fairly recently, within the past few months or so.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Okay. Hey Buddy
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR There’s something comforting in watching Kevin interact with Chris’ grave, the way he talks to it as if Chris is still alive.
CHARLIE MOSS
So Scott was his middle name. Christopher Scott.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Whenever someone get mad at him, he'd probably be called Chris or Christy.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Shuh. I mean, it's hard. It was hard and it's gotten a little easy, but remember the first time we got in trouble for actually get taken to Canada, dip Alma had a refrigerator. I tell you what, me and him both puked our guts down right in the middle of the yard. And that's it. And see how y'all feel now. Cal said I don't feel good.
CHARLIE MOSS
Yep. Did you do the whole thing?
KEVIN ROBERTSON
We haven't put it. We tried it. You know, you're not putting it in her mouth like that. And then he swallowed his and me. I just spit mine out and he got sicker than I ever imagined. So yeah. I'll tell you what we was never bored. I tell you what, when was, when we was together,
CHARLIE MOSS Would it, would it be weird if I took a picture of you next to me? Are you okay with that?
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
I typically think it’s weird to take photos at a graveyard. I feel like it’s an invasion of privacy to those who are there, even to the people buried there. But I felt compelled to take one of Kevin next to Chris’ grave. This was his best friend, after all. And Kevin was still very much hurting over Chris’ murder. But he was happy to oblige. Kevin begins to talk to Chris again.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Yup. There you go. We never bored was we?
I've never seen. Oh, well it goes for my wife, but I'd like to, you know, just picture anymore. Yeah.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR If you’re having a hard time understanding him, it’s because he’s choking up a little bit.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
after, after does that happen? Oh, everybody just like his friends and my friends, you know? I mean dude, some of the same people, but no one, no one's brought this up since it happened. I mean, I mean, no one, I mean, I talk about him here and there and everything. And everybody was like you living in the past. I was like, no, I'm just trying to keep the memories I got.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
And you know, if Scott is still here with us, I like to think he is, you know, I've never seen a ghost. Like I'm saying I'm really, I haven't, I have to see it to believe it.
I know he's gone. I know he's gone. Oh, he's right under the sun, you know? And it's nothing but bones, but if he's still here, which I think sometimes I think he is.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
It turns out, Kevin might be right...
END -
Before we start this episode, some house cleaning. In this episode, I interview Seth Tinsley, one of Chris Kennedy’s convicted murderers. Before contacting Tinsley, I reached out to the other person who was at the scene of the crime. He declined, however, to be interviewed for this podcast and did not want to be named, though it is public information. Out of respect for his wishes, I’ve censored his name. You’ll hear that censor throughout this episode.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
My name is Charlie Moss and I’ve been a freelance journalist and writer for more than 10 years. I’ve written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vice, The Bitter Southerner, and other publications. I also used to work for an online camping magazine called The Dyrt. It was there that I wrote about a haunted campground just outside of Staunton, Virginia. The more I dug into the story, the more I realized that this wasn’t just a simple Halloween ghost tale. It was something much more profound than I ever imagined. And I’ve spent the last two years finding out as much as I can about What Happened at Braley Pond.
This is episode two - The Murder of Christopher Kennedy
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
“Your cousin Kenny is in the hospital.” That’s what Seth Tinsley told Chirstopher Kennedy to convince him to get into the backseat of CENSOR’s Buick.
It was nighttime. As they drove down the road - Seth, who was in the front passenger seat with CENSOR driving - told Christopher that before they went to see Kenny at the hospital, they had to make a stop first.
SETH TINSLEY
We tell Chris before we get to the hospital, we got to make a stop off at the Lake. We have to go pick some money up first go. This was dark. All right? So we'd go out to this Lake and when we get out there, we tell Chris, look, we might have to fuck this dude up.
If you've got anything on you that could possibly identify you, you might want to take it off. Take your wash off, take your wallet out your pocket. You gotta ID take that out. You know what I'm saying? So he emptied all his pockets and stuff like that. And so the back seat. So we get out to the Lake and when we get up to the leg, he starts crying and he says, I don't want to die.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
That’s Seth Tinsley. He’s currently serving 25 years for Chris Kennedy’s murder at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virgina, which is about 4 and a half hours from Staunton.
SETH TINSLEY
We don't know how he knew, honestly, to this day, I still don't know how he knew. And he starts screaming 'I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!' . So I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? You're not going to die with, what the hell are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying. He was like, I know I fucked up. I understand. I fucked up the police. I just don't want to die.
SETH TINSLEY
Don't kill me. So at that time, CENSOR tells him that you're not gonna die.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
To show him good faith, CENSOR tells Christopher to give him some dap. Dap is an acronym for “dignity and pride” and is a symbol of solidarity. When you give someone some dap, you’re more or less slapping them five and then shaking their hand. There are a few variations of course, but the gesture is meant to tell the receiver, “We’re in this together.” Christopher accepts the offer and swings his hand around to meet CENSOR.
SETH TINSLEY
And when he does, he spends him around and he slit his throat and throws him in the Lake.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
Not long after I wrote the Braley Pond article for The Dyrt, one of the company’s employees forwarded me an email from a guy named Kevin Robertson. In the message he wrote, “I thought to myself there for a minute everyone just forgot about it and moved on….but I still keep his memory upon me. I miss him more than anything.”
To be honest, this email from Kevin is what inspired me to do this podcast. He says in his email that he believes in the spirit world, and after reading my article, wanted to meet Shea, talk to her about what happened to her at Braley Pond, maybe even take a trip back there with Shea and me.
Over the course of making this podcast, which was about two years, I’ve been in touch with Kevin on and off, typically through texting and Facebook Messenger, and the occasional phone call. Then I decided to drive to Staunton to meet Kevin in person, and he invited me to visit Christopher’s grave with him. We’re driving to the small town of Verona, which is where Christopher is buried, about five miles outside of Staunton.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
my mom, my mom's got cancer anyway. And we were at a doctor's office and man, he won't even work with her. Cause I'll tell you what I mean, I'll sit there for probably 45 minutes, man. I looked on the table and everyone was his magazine and I just opened it and flipped it open. And it said the most on places in Virginia. And I said, Oh my God said, wait a minute. I asked him, am I reading this? Right? So I just stuck in my car. I'm bought down with the paper. I said, Hey, I have this. She said, go ahead. There's plenty more. I said, alright. I went home and I read it. And I was like, you got to be kidding the way it was printed. It was printed. Don't on a local magazine. I did not know. I thought it was just online. Yeah. Yeah. I print it and I like, I need to, it's a little mom. I said, look at her. She said, Oh my God. I said, I'm thinking about emailing the author. And, and I did and stuff like that. And she was like a couple of days later, she was like, you know, I said, man, I said, this is crazy. I said, this is not just something don't happen one yet.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
I ask Kevin how he and Christopher met.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I met Scott when we was in fifth grade and all, I'll tell you what he was, uh, take a left here. He was a stubborn boy. I'll tell you what he used to come to school. I mean, just man, he, he had us, you know what I'm saying? He had plans. He had a lot, a lot of good plans ahead of him. And he used to talk so much highly about me and you know, and everything else. So I introduced him to a couple of girls. They started dating one after another. Then after knowing my stop, Oh man, he was like, Hey, or broke neck. That's when he's calling me, people call me Nick man.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
Kevin refers to Christopher by his middle name, Scott, which is what his friends called him sometimes. Scott or Scotty. They played football together. They wrestled. They were inseparable all through middle and high school. I ask Kevin what he’s thinking.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Bringing back a lot of memories, a lot of fun and fun, crazy memories. Cause I'll tell you what in high school, that's the best years of your life. You know what I mean? You party, you, you know, you just, you make mistakes in life, you know,
KEVIN ROBERTSON
You know, and then it's just, you know..it's sad. The group, you don't keep growing up without him, you know, because he was so close so well, he's a good boy.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
As Kevin speaks, he reminds me of my close childhood friend, Steven Votava. Steven, along with my twin sister Meri, and our friends Michael and Jason Shuman, who were also twins, were inseparable when we were kids. We had all met in preschool and grew up together in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Steven came to all of our birthday parties, and we attended all of his. We played at each other’s houses, riding big-wheels, playing with toys. I remember he was a big Snoopy fan.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Then, one rainy Wednesday night in December 1985, Steven’s mom was driving home from an exercise class at our local Jewish Community Center. Steven was in the backseat. The road was slick and their car skidded to the right and was broadsided. Mrs. Votava told me years later that she blacked out for a few minutes but when she woke up, the ambulance was there, and an EMT was pulling her out of the wreckage, and led her inside. It was later in the emergency room at the hospital that she was told by the doctor and the local rabbi at our synagogue at the time, Rabbi Richard Sherwin, that Steven was dead. He was 10-years-old.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR I found out at school the next day by a classmate. My sister Meri and I weren’t allowed to attend his funeral. And though it’s been more than 35 years since he died, I never felt like I got the closure I needed. When I got that email from Kevin, the murder of Christopher Kennedy became more than just a ghost story for a Halloween-themed issue of a magazine. It became something much more real, much more personal.
Kevin’s been through a lot. Christopher wasn’t the only untimely death he’s had to deal with in his life. He tells me about how his father died, and the effect it had on him.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
my dad committed suicide about six years ago, I'll get off her and tell her left at the end of my dad. Yeah. About six years ago. And I'm right down the road from actually the house he drove down there where you live now. Yeah. He drove down the road and shot himself in his head. And um, I always saw it, you know, and I, you know, and my dad left the house. He kissed mom or forehead and said that he didn't go clean out his truck. And I'll tell you what, some nights. Yeah. Lyft. But I swear, I actually just happened a month ago.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I swear to, gosh, we got an old woodshed. Then my dad used to have splits time and walnuts and all kinds of stuff. I walked past there one night and I swear, I saw my dad standing. There was his hand like it against them. I said, Oh, I said, I'm seeing something or seeing something. I said, what is going on? I said, you know, my brother was like, Hey, it could have happened.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin tells me about the last time he saw Christopher alive. It was at a gas station. Chris had been living with Kevin and his family for a couple of months after their senior year in high school. But then, Chris met a girl.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Oh, I knew over, I didn't know her know her. I knew that she bad not good news. And I've tried to explain that to him. He was like, Hey man. I said, Chris, I said, you're just all in it for fucking, I hate to say it. You know, a piece of ass.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
A couple of weeks later, Kevin saw Christopher at a gas station. But it was like he was a different person.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
So he left and a couple weeks later I seen him in Stanton and a gas station and Edna. And I say, what are you doing, man? He said, I said, Oh my God. I said, what'd you look at? Jessie looked at yourself. Like he said, um, I said, I'm sorry. I said, coming in. He said, and then two more guys got out of the car. And I was like, I knew right then and there I knew right then and there. And I tried to explain to him, I was like, crystal said, come on with me, dude. He said, nah, bro. I said, stop calling me, bro. Yes. I'm your brother. Yes. Let's go. He was like, nah, man, I'm living right behind here. Oh, Maplesville his apartments? And I was like, okay. I say, well give me up, man. He was like, hi bro. Two weeks later, we've heard you guys got out of was the [inaudible]. I seen it.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
In case you had trouble understanding what Kevin said, he told me that the two guys that were with Christopher at the gas station were the guys who murdered him, Seth Tinsley and CENSOR.
I have to backtrack a little here, because there’s more that happened at Braley Pond on the night of Christopher’s murder.
SETH TINSLEY
Well, we let him float out to about the middle of the Lake and then we'd go to leave. We're walking up the steps to leave. We thought he was dead the whole time.
CHARLIE MOSS - NARRATOR
It turns out, though, that CENSOR did not kill Christopher. He didn’t even slit his throat. CENSOR was holding the knife backwards and just left a few abrasions on Christopher’s neck.
SETH TINSLEY Well, we're up at the top of the steps and we're ready to leave. We hear the splash and we turn around and look, and he's swimming back into shore. So we'd go back down there, only get back down there.
SETH TINSLEY
He standing up the water, he shipper in and shaking him saying, what was that? And all this stuff. So CENSOR was being quiet. So I spoke up, I volunteered. I was like, good. That was just a test to see where your heart was at. Duh, dah, duh, duh. Like I said, dude wasn't, he wasn't sharpest tool in the shed. So I mean, you could put my telling him whatever and he believe it. So he was like, all right. And we were like, come on, you look cold down to go home. Let's go get in the car.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Seth and CENSOR start walking Christopher back to the car. And that’s when CENSOR attacks him again.
SETH TINSLEY
CENSOR turns around and stabbed him in his shoulder. And Chris turns around and starts running back in the water and drags CENSOR in the water with him, no stabbing him the entire time.
SETH TINSLEY
So CENSOR finally gets him up out of the water and slashing down on the Bay. And CENSOR just stabbing the fuck out of him now, even though I didn't take part in the actual stabbing, I'm not innocent in this at all. All the time. I'm right beside him screaming, stab him harder, asking for him to give me the knife so I can do it. Fucking, you know, I, I didn't actually take part in it, but I might as well be just as guilty as someone who did do it, you know. So CENSOR stabs him, uh, the last time and his hand slips on the knife and he almost cut his pinky off, so no one says there's blood on his shirt. Take your shirt off. That's evidence, dah, dah, dah, dah. I saw a ripped dude shirt off at this time. Dude is not struggling anymore, but he's still alive.
SETH TINSLEY
He's been stabbed in his lungs and his heart and everything, but he's still alive and he's just pleading with CENSOR, just letting me lay here and die. Please just leave me alone. Just let me lay here and down. I'm already dead. You already killed me. Just let me be and CENSOR stabs him one more time in the heart and just holds the knife there until he's dead.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
At this point, CENSOR is bleeding profusely, and is in danger of passing out himself. Seth helps CENSOR throw Chris’ lifeless and bloodied body back into the pond.
SETH TINSLEY
And I was five foot six, maybe 120 pounds at the time, not equipped to throw body around. So it kinda like went like eight or nine inches into the water and that was about it.
SETH TINSLEY
And we left when we were driving back and way he's driving the car and on the way back I was wrapping his hand back up and he passed out behind the wheel. We were going down grieving Avenue and he passed out behind the wheel and drove the car up onto the median and hit one of the road signs and knocked it off and put a big a like indention in the front of the car at the bumper, the hood, all that stuff. So we get back to the house when you get back to the house, Candy's there and Candy's like, Oh my God, God dah dah. He ruined me.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Candy is Candace Knott. She was the so-called “gang queen” of the Gangsta Disciples, one of the prominent gangs in Staunton in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She was the one who directly ordered Seth and CENSOR to murder Chris.
In all of my research, the local news claimed Seth, CENSOR, Kenny, Candace and Christopher were all part of the Crips Set Two-11, but Seth told me that the local news got it wrong. They were all part of the GDs.
Candace was married to the gang’s leader, Bradford Knott III, who was in jail at the time for malicious wounding, which means under Virginia law, the intent to seriously hurt or murder someone. Candace was on the phone with Brad when Seth appeared with a barely-conscious CENSOR.
SETH TINSLEY
She takes him upstairs and takes it into the shower, cleaned his hand up and whatnot. And uh, I basically take all the clothes that we've wore out there. I bag it up, I take the knife, I'll put it in the bag, I've got everything. I got everything that has to do anything with the crime in the bag. So, Oh, I ring his shirt out. When we were driving back from the, uh, from the leg, the shirt that no one thought had blood on it, I had to run it out while we were driving down the road. So the next morning when we got up, there was blood all over the side of CENSOR car, like the entire side of his car. It was splattered with blood.
SETH TINSLEY
I was covered in blood from, from hands to elbows. I was drenched in blood because I was right beside it the entire time. And when I took dude shirt off, I got blood all over me. He was squirting blood all over the place. When I picked the body up, he was still bleeding. Even though he was dead. It was just, it was a mess. So I took all the clothes, but no, it was Whitney. I took all the clothes out into the woods. I poured gasoline on him and burned him. I took the knife and I threw it in a body of water almost directly beside the spot where I burnt the clothes.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Seth then told Candace that everything that needed to cover up the murder was done.
SETH TINSLEY
But, uh, CENSOR was looking like real despondent. Like he really regretted his situation and his actions in this, in this situation. He was looking, he was looking real, real remorseful and stuff and he just looked like his world had ended and I kept asking him if he's all right and he was like, yeah, I'm fine. And um, candy candy had really attached herself, told him like when we got back to the apartment, they pretty much spent all day in the bedroom. Uh, I was downstairs getting high and uh, having friends over and stuff like that.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin and I are almost to the cemetery where Chris is buried. Before we reach the turn-in to the small parking lot, Kevin tells me that a few years after Chris’ murder, he returned to Braley Pond.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
You know, Chris's death really hit me hard. Like, I mean, fanatical, you know what I mean? We're all yard. Same bus. I mean, I mean grew up. I mean, as brothers and I don't want a parent one night, man. Um, and I got out, walked to the top and then just, you know, just, I don't know, it was about nine 30 and my, Oh, the mother, my shawl called me and says, Oh, I need you.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I need you to come here and you need to check with your daughter.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin has an 11-year-old daughter and a son who’s five from two different women. While he sees his son every other weekend, Kevin has full custody of his daughter Kaylee.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
I was like, alright. I said, yeah, I'll see them. I'm coming from. I said, I'm just need time to myself right now. And she's like, well, make time for her. I was like, okay, I'm coming. So I get in the vehicle brand new vehicle and I start, it will not start. It will not start no clicker, no nothing. I'm like, what more? I said, what is going on? Then I sat there and I sat there and I swear, man, it's just, I got cold. I got really, really cold, like ditch chill, just come over me. And in the middle of summer, she'll come over me. Like I've been sitting in a frozen car for about a day, just like, and I just went like this with my head. And next thing I know, and it starts, I said, what on earth? It's like, I don't know. It's like, I don't know if maybe Scott maybe try to grab my hand when he was in the truck with me or something and just, he would not start. You're not this way. I don't know.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
If I'm missing him missing him more than anything, man, I tell you what yeah.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin points out the road where he got his first traffic ticket. Christopher was with him.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
He used to talk me into the dumbest shit, dude. I'm telling you what he gets, what? He ain't going to get blamed for it. I ain't got my ass smacked. I got mean fucking hammered. I got my first ticket because of him actually right down here. We went, it was one to a truck. Stop. Two o'clock in the morning. I'm 17 years old
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Notice how Kevin slips into the present tense as he’s talking, as if Christopher is still alive.
KEVIN RBOERTSON
There was no getting out of it. How do you get my dad out of bed? Three o'clock in the morning and come down here to get us on my gosh. I got my first ticket. My first ticket on Roth Ross equipment. No seat belts. [inaudible] please let me go. Nope. That's my dad is asleep. Please. Don't call him. He's going to find why you can tell him. He said that's it. That's it. They got their hurts. I was talking to him and see dude, now ain't here. You stupid ass. Don't even say word. None of you, both of you. We to get to the house. Both of you, you go to bed. Okay. Think he's playing.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
There’s silence for a minute or so. Then Kevin speaks up.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Just, I just want to know it when you're three, like, is he still with us? Is he still here? How does that work for me?
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
We pull into the parking lot of a small brick church and drive to the cemetery lot behind it. The graveyard has maybe 20 graves in it. It's not big. I know cemeteries can sometimes feel lonely but this one in particular feels cold, isolated, and forgotten.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Okay. Um, while he was buried here, we'll never know. Did he not go to no, he didn't have it here, you know? And I've come up here before and sat. And then I was like, I actually taught talk to him and I was like, man, if you're still here, give me a sign. But it ain't here. I'm worried about is Burnley's pawn or I'm worried about where he was actually killed.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
Kevin and I walk over to Chris’ grave. He’s buried right next to his mother. There’s nothing special about the headstone - it’s gray, made from marble, it looks like. Maybe Granite. It doesn’t stand out from the other graves there. There’s an image of praying hands over a bible and maybe an olive branch, I think. It’s hard to tell. Underneath it says Christopher Scott Samuel Kennedy, Sept. 30, 1983 and then the date of his death, May 21, 2003. And then in text that’s hard to see it says, “Beloved Son.” Attached to the side of Chris’ tombstone is a permanent vase, an open invitation for visitors to leave flowers. A small bouquet of plastic purple and yellow flowers are in it. They look like they were placed there fairly recently, within the past few months or so.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Okay. Hey Buddy
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR There’s something comforting in watching Kevin interact with Chris’ grave, the way he talks to it as if Chris is still alive.
CHARLIE MOSS
So Scott was his middle name. Christopher Scott.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Whenever someone get mad at him, he'd probably be called Chris or Christy.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Shuh. I mean, it's hard. It was hard and it's gotten a little easy, but remember the first time we got in trouble for actually get taken to Canada, dip Alma had a refrigerator. I tell you what, me and him both puked our guts down right in the middle of the yard. And that's it. And see how y'all feel now. Cal said I don't feel good.
CHARLIE MOSS
Yep. Did you do the whole thing?
KEVIN ROBERTSON
We haven't put it. We tried it. You know, you're not putting it in her mouth like that. And then he swallowed his and me. I just spit mine out and he got sicker than I ever imagined. So yeah. I'll tell you what we was never bored. I tell you what, when was, when we was together,
CHARLIE MOSS Would it, would it be weird if I took a picture of you next to me? Are you okay with that?
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
I typically think it’s weird to take photos at a graveyard. I feel like it’s an invasion of privacy to those who are there, even to the people buried there. But I felt compelled to take one of Kevin next to Chris’ grave. This was his best friend, after all. And Kevin was still very much hurting over Chris’ murder. But he was happy to oblige. Kevin begins to talk to Chris again.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
Yup. There you go. We never bored was we?
I've never seen. Oh, well it goes for my wife, but I'd like to, you know, just picture anymore. Yeah.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR If you’re having a hard time understanding him, it’s because he’s choking up a little bit.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
after, after does that happen? Oh, everybody just like his friends and my friends, you know? I mean dude, some of the same people, but no one, no one's brought this up since it happened. I mean, I mean, no one, I mean, I talk about him here and there and everything. And everybody was like you living in the past. I was like, no, I'm just trying to keep the memories I got.
KEVIN ROBERTSON
And you know, if Scott is still here with us, I like to think he is, you know, I've never seen a ghost. Like I'm saying I'm really, I haven't, I have to see it to believe it.
I know he's gone. I know he's gone. Oh, he's right under the sun, you know? And it's nothing but bones, but if he's still here, which I think sometimes I think he is.
Charlie Moss - NARRATOR
It turns out, Kevin might be right...
END -
Seth Tinsley explains in detail how the events of May 22, 2003 unfolded, why he and another member of the Staunton-based gang Gangsta Disciples, lured Chris Kennedy to Braley Pond and murdered him, and the aftermath. Kennedy’s childhood best friend, Kevin Robertson, reminisces about growing up together with Chris, his feelings about losing his friend so young, and how he heard about the murder.
