Dennis Vaughn
Appearances
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
I was picking up my children for the weekend. It was Easter weekend, and I saw a lot of missed messages, texts, and voicemails. So I listened to one of the voicemails, and it was just somebody sobbing.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
It was an emotional roller coaster in a lot of ways, but it was also an opportunity to get together and share John's stories.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
The morning after, I was at the police station and was questioned because I was one of the last people at his house just a few days earlier. Did they have to look at you as someone they needed to eliminate?
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yeah, so they asked a lot of questions of me and my relationship with John and things like that.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
And I think the first press information, if I'm not mistaken, locally in Blairsville, was a statement from the chief of police in Blairsville saying that the people of Blairsville shouldn't be worried. This is an isolated incident. And so I took that to mean, okay, they know that John was targeted, so they must know more.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Stunning moments from a stormy marriage. Michelle started yelling, screaming at him, how dare you? You need to get out.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
I've often wondered at the end of the day when everybody else was gone and it was just John and Michelle sitting in the house after the kids went to bed, what would they talk about?
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Over time, he started to open up to me more and more and expressing to me that he was unhappy.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Of all things, it was the furnace room. This tiny little, wasn't much bigger than a closet. He said, you know, this is really the only place in this whole house that I feel comfortable. The furnace room? The furnace room. This dark, dingy, spider webby room. What did that say to you? It broke my heart.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
The biggest event that I'm aware of from what John shared with me was when Michelle came to John and said that she had been involved in an extramarital affair. That'll do it.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
According to John, Michelle basically lost it. Started yelling, screaming at him, how dare you have an affair on me.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yes. And at that point, she said, we're going to get a divorce. You need to get out.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
John would go to pick up or drop off JJ, and from what John described, he would stand over John, you know, in a menacing manner, or stand out on the porch with his arms crossed and stare John down, things like that.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
We thought that that message had been received loud and clear because we spoke with law enforcement and anybody who would listen.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yeah, I just finally raised the question with him. Have you worked with Kevin Foley before in cases? Do you have a relationship with him? And he said, no, I don't know him.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
It was obviously a very dark and disturbing day for the Pennsylvania State Police.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yes. This was the hand that picked up little JJ. This was the hand that I shook at my wedding. That was the picture that made it seem more real to me than any of the others. The others looked like horror movie stills, but that hand just went right to my heart.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
I was watching the jury intently during that. And to me, it looked like there were a lot of glazed expressions. And so I was worried that they were going to miss the point.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
For me to be able to come to terms with what happened, I had to paint in my mind that Foley was a boogeyman, that there was something inherently evil. He wasn't. He was just like anybody else, and I still have trouble accepting that.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
It felt like a very winding road. There was evidence that seemed kind of shaky at times, and I'm watching the jury. And I was just absolutely emotionally and physically exhausted just from going through that whole process.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
I kept thinking to myself that how I see the world from this day forward really is in the hands of 12 strangers.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
One of my favorite photographs that I have of myself and John is in a frame engraved with my brother from another mother. If there was ever a person that I knew that deserved to die peacefully in bed surrounded by a loving family, it was John.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
I met John in 1985. We were both attending the same college, and I was struck immediately by his personality. You always knew where John was at a function or at a party, usually because there was a crowd of people around him.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
He was very old-fashioned. He literally was born too late in a lot of ways. All of his entertainment choices, movie, television, music, all tended to skew towards older things. And in his personal life, he was old school, too. Did not own a cell phone. Up until the day he died, he didn't own one.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
And he did. He ended up being a partner with his own dentist later after he graduated, moved back to his small town of Blairsville.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yes, yes. And I think it was mutual. I think the kids enjoyed coming to see him, too.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Michelle worked for a while as a Budweiser girl, going in a bathing suit around to bars, giving samples and things, getting her picture taken with the customers. He would tell his friends and people that he finally got the homecoming queen.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
He made the comment, something along the lines of, John better watch out for this one.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
Yeah, Michelle pretty much provided full-time care for John's mother while she was sick. And while he was tending to his dental practice, she was there most of the time caring for her daily needs.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
He was happy as a stepfather, but at the end of the day, he just wasn't fully satisfied, I think, until he could have a child of his own. That was always something very important to him. And so they tried. And finally, they made the decision then that they would just adopt and ultimately made a couple of trips to Russia that resulted in them one time coming home with a baby boy.
Dateline NBC
The Premonition
John was thrilled. I'd never seen him that happy ever. And John was just beaming from ear to ear, just so proud of this little boy.