Brother Outsmarts “Psychic” Killer by Secretly Recording This | The Case of Lea & Maxx Porter

"I don’t really have very many friends, but the friends I do have, I’m very loyal to. So even losing one is a heavy blow for me." - This man was the last person to see 19-year-old Lea Porter before she disappeared. He claims he’s a worried friend and he goes on TV to plead for her safe return, but he’s also the prime suspect. - She said she was tired and she just wanted to crash. So I said, “Okay.” And she, uh, we were... Shortly afterwards, she took off. I want her to be safe and I want her to know that I want the best for her." - You lying son of a b****. - Desperate to find Lea, her family decides to take matters into their own hands. What really happened to her would remain a mystery unless her own brother could take down the man responsible for her disappearance.

- I would give up my own life to find her. I started making him believe that he was helping us look for her." - The whole time, Maxx was recording this on his phone. - It’s 2005. Lea Porter lives with her brother Maxx, her mom Rene Jackson, and her stepdad Michael in Agua Dulce, California, about 45 miles north of Los Angeles. Rene went through a messy divorce with the kids’ biological father when they were really young and now they don’t have contact with him. Growing up, Lea’s brother Maxx helps give her stability and support and they’re very close. - She followed him everywhere and she just wanted to be like him.

- We did everything together, listened to the same music, did the same things, fought like brother and sister all the time. - In 2006, they moved to Cotopaxi, Colorado, a very small town about three hours away from Denver. They can see mountains from their house and it’s a beautiful place to raise a family. What they didn’t know before they moved is that it’s part of what’s known as Prison Valley, which has over 10 prisons. It concerns Rene when she learns about it but the family has a peaceful start in their new home and the kids make new friends at school.

In 2013, Lea graduates from high school and Maxx graduates from Trinidad State College with a degree in massage therapy. He moves to California, working to start a massage therapy business. Lea hopes to follow in his footsteps at Trinidad State and get the same degree so they can eventually run the business together. But after Maxx moves away she struggles being alone at school. Maxx texts and calls his little sister whenever he can hoping to help her adjust to college life. - At first, her responses were quite positive but over time she texted me saying that she was having a hard time. She was depressed. - She missed us, she missed her family. She missed her brother a lot. - It’s June 3rd, 2014. Rene gets a text message from Lea. - She texted me and she told me that she loved me and that she hoped that I was doing okay and that she was trying to get her life together and I texted her back and I told her I loved her. - Rene tries to support her daughter however she can but Lea often doesn’t tell her what’s going on. June 5th, two days later Rene gets a phone call from her son Maxx. - He was frantic.

He said, “I have been trying to get ahold of Lea. She won’t respond.” - I knew there was something wrong right away because I couldn’t get ahold of her. It was just days of calling back and calling, calling, calling, calling. - Lea always answers her brother and her family starts to panic. They do everything they can to look for her right away. Rene pays for Lea’s phone bill so she has access to her phone records. She looks at the most recent numbers and starts calling them, hoping for answers about where she might be. One of the numbers belongs to a hotel. She calls and finds out that Lee stayed there with a man named Jesse on June 2nd.

The last time Lea’s family heard from her was on June 3rd and they worry something bad might have happened to her after her stay at the hotel. - We needed to find Lea, we needed to spread the word that she was missing. Maxx flew in from California. Some of Lea’s friends started making missing persons posters. - Lea’s mom calls the police and files a missing persons report. She tells them what she learned about Lea staying at a hotel with a man named Jesse. The police bring him in for questioning right away but he claims he said goodbye to Lea at the hotel and he didn’t see her again after that. They don’t find any evidence against him and it’s a dead end. Police still don’t even know if there was a crime committed and Lea’s family needs answers. Rene knows Lea is really close with her brother Maxx so she turns to him hoping he might know more about what was going on with her leading up to her disappearance.

Maxx reveals that Jesse, the man Lea stayed with at the hotel on June 2nd, was her boyfriend. - She told me Jesse was an amazing tattoo artist but he lied about his age at first and then later after they clicked, then told her. She told me very specifically not to tell my mom anything. - Jesse was already 38 years old when 18-year-old Lea met him. Maxx was worried about his sister. Away from her family and struggling with depression, Lea was skipping classes and spending more and more time with her much older boyfriend. The relationship went downhill quickly and Lea told Maxx that she was scared of Jesse and his short temper. He also used drugs and with all the pressure weighing down on her, Lea started using too. - Lea didn’t want to tell us what was happening. I think she was just really having a bad time.

I felt very conflicted about it because she didn’t want me to tell my mom. I didn’t wanna push her away. - Lea confided in Maxx, and he wanted to do all he could to keep her safe but he knew if he told other people about it she might view it as a betrayal. It could’ve broken her trust in him and pushed her even further down a destructive path. He continued to offer love and support to his sister, hoping to show he would always be there for her. She told him that she and Jesse broke up, and she was trying to find a job and start her recovery process. On June 3rd, Maxx texted her offering to send money to help but she never responded. After her disappearance, Maxx tells his mom all that he knows. Rene is shattered to hear about everything her daughter was going through. - It broke my heart. Not Lea. You know, she’s so against all that stuff.

Maxx said that she was so afraid if I knew that I would hate her, I wouldn’t have hated her, I love her. - Maxx and his mom find out from one of Lea’s friends that she’d been getting clean and turning her life around before her disappearance. Her family knows she wouldn’t have just run away without calling Maxx. They continue to do their own investigating and Rene notices a recurring number in Lea’s phone records. It’s also the last number on the call log. - The number was in Westminster, Colorado, it’s a little town outside of Denver. When I called that number, a man answered. I said, “This is Rene Jackson. I’m Lea Porter’s mother and I am looking for my daughter,” and he told me his name was Chris Waide. - Chris Waide explains that he went to high school in Cotopaxi with Lea.

He said he was her accountability partner for her recovery process. Lea posted on Facebook about needing a place to stay after she and Jesse broke up. After he saw the post, Chris reached out and invited her to his apartment. He tells Rene that on June 3rd, they met up and spent the day together, but Lea decided not to stay overnight because even though they went to high school together, they weren’t close friends. - He said that she had got a message from her telephone and all of a sudden left and he was polite and he was friendly and he sounded concerned. He said he didn’t know she was missing. - As soon as he hears that Lea is missing Chris joins the search and posts on Facebook looking for help. He even goes on TV to talk about what happened that day and plead for her safe return. While on TV, he says when Lea came over he found drugs that she had with her, and he confronted her about them before she left. But as Rene watches the interview she can’t help but have doubts about Chris and his story.

He seems flustered, and his eyes are constantly shifting. He also seems to try to gain sympathy for himself and shift blame on her while still acting like he’s a close friend. - I thought she was just angry at me ’cause I was playing the part of a concerned friend. I don’t really have very many friends, but the friends I do have, I’m very loyal to. Even losing one is a heavy blow for me. I want her to be safe and I want her to know that I want the best for her. - I was shaking my head thinking, “He wasn’t a friend of hers. They weren’t friends.” - Lea’s family knows the more time that passes the less likely it becomes that they’ll find her alive. They have to take action and they focus on Chris, the last person to see Lea. Maxx has his suspicions, but he doesn’t wanna scare Chris away. So instead, he works on gaining his trust. Maxx reaches out, pretending to be sympathetic to him. - He was getting upset because he was starting to become investigated by the police.

He was saying that we were blaming him. - I started making him believe that he was helping us look for her. - We spoke to him on and off for about a week. I talked to him very nicely, really subtly. - While Maxx tries to get Chris to open up to him, police seek answers from Chris too. Just like when he talked to Rene, he acts very helpful. He offers to give investigators all the details he can to help with their search. He tells them that Lea came to his apartment around noon on June 3rd. They got lunch at Boston Market and then played video games. Then she got a text and suddenly said she had to leave. A man in a truck pulled up and she got in and left with him. When Lea’s mom hears from detectives what he told them, that detail catches her attention.

When she asked Chris earlier about the last day he saw Lea, he didn’t mention anything about a man in a truck picking her up. - Waide told the police department a different story than he told me, and that made me very suspicious of him. - June 10th, seven days after Lea was last seen, detective search Chris Waide’s apartment. There’s old food and garbage all over the floor. While picking through the trash they find a knife next to his mattress. As they look closer, they notice it has bleach stains on it. When they ask why, he says he recently cut his hand, so he cleaned it. Investigators find a receipt for bleach and rubber gloves bought on June 4th, the day after she disappeared. They also notice that the sheets and pillowcases have been removed from Chris’ bed. Now, he claims that the day Lea was there, she got a nosebleed, so he took the sheets off and put them in the hamper. But when police ask to see the sheets, he changes his story again, this time saying Lea took them with her when she left.

With all the inconsistencies in his explanations, suspicion grows that he was involved. Investigators take him to the police station for more questioning. They pressure him for answers about what happened the day he was with her, and what his intentions were when he invited her over, trying to see if he’ll slip up. - He keeps pushing his claim that he was just trying to be a good friend and offer her help while she was struggling. Without any witnesses or evidence, police need answers from him for any hope of finding her but he continues to evade their questions. - They have to let him go, but they know something seems off about him. Police put him under surveillance but the investigation stalls. Desperate to find Lea, her family decides to take matters into their own hands. - I want her found more than anything else in this world. I would give up my own life to find her. - Maxx doesn’t know how dangerous Chris Waide could be or what he’s capable of, but he knows he’s the only one who can give them answers, and he’s willing to do anything for his sister. He’s been messaging with Chris, slowly earning his trust.

Maxx wants to meet, but he doesn’t want him to think he’s going to accuse him of anything. After pretending to be on his side, Maxx is able to convince him to meet under a gazebo at a park. It’s June 12th, nine days after Lea’s disappearance, Chris thinks he’s meeting with Maxx and a few of Maxx’s friends, so he can do a tarot card reading about Lea. But Maxx has a different plan. - When he started the tarot card reading, I put my phone on record and just put it down on the table without him realizing. - Maxx doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, but he continues to play along, hoping to make him feel comfortable talking and opening up to him. He gently pushes Chris toward talking about what really happened on June 3rd. Maxx knows he has to be very careful approaching the subject. Otherwise, Chris might uncover his true intentions and quit talking to him.

Maxx continues to act like they’re friends, putting pressure on him for answers, but still encouraging him that he’ll be understanding no matter what. - Chris is still hesitant to reveal his story, but Maxx can see he’s considering telling him. He knows he did something to his sister, but Maxx is still the one to comfort Chris because he can tell showing sympathy will get him to talk. - I totally just told him what he wanted to hear. Eventually he cracked. - Finally, he starts to tell Maxx about what he claims happened that day. He says that he offered Lea a place to stay and he went out to lunch with her. Then they went back to his apartment, but he tells a new story of what happened after they got there. - He said that she tried to ask him for money. He wouldn’t give it to her. So supposedly she grabbed a knife and tried to stab him. - Maxx is growing increasingly angry but he tries to stay calm knowing that he needs to keep Chris talking. He even apologizes for questioning his story, because at any moment, Chris could decide to stop talking to him and he would never get the answers he’s been trying so hard to find.

Chris continues, saying Lea tried to stab him multiple times, but he dodged and grabbed her instead. Then he put his hand on her throat and started to choke her. - He said that he grabbed onto her neck and he held onto it and and the knife was in between them, and, oh God. All of a sudden she went limp and then he noticed that he stabbed her through the sternum. - Maxx has just learned from Chris Waide himself that he killed his sister. It takes an incredible amount of strength to keep his composure, but he’s so close to hearing what he did afterwards. Maxx even calls Chris “sir,” so he’ll still think Max respects him, and so he’ll feel like he can tell him the rest of the story. - I freaked out and I jumped over the table and I started attacking him and my friend tore me off of him. - Maxx reveals to Chris that he’s been recording everything and he finally lets out some of the anger he’s been holding in for so long. Chris Waide lied to everyone and he pretended to join in the search for Lea after he was the one who killed her. He even told her own brother that he thought she would be safe and sound.

Max has had enough of his lies and he knows if he leaves he could just run off and never come back. He won’t let him get away, and he makes him call the police to confess to them. - They don’t have to wait long before Chris Waide is arrested. Police had him under surveillance, so they watched the whole meeting take place. - No one knew that they were under surveillance, including Maxx Porter. It’s extremely rare that a family member would come in contact with a suspect while he was under surveillance. - Maxx got a confession from the prime suspect but his worst fears were also confirmed. Now he has to call his mom to tell her what happened to Lea. - He was hysterical, and he said, “Mom, Lea’s dead. Christopher killed her.” - Christopher Waide has finally confessed and has given his account of what happened that night. But after all of his lying and changing stories Lea’s family doesn’t believe he told the full truth. He claims he killed Lea in self-defense, but police quickly learn he’s not the innocent man he pretends to be. He joined the Army after high school and he practiced Jiu-jitsu for self-defense.

But after two years in the Army, he was discharged after telling psychiatrists he had fantasies of raping and killing women. - You lying son of a b****. You killed my daughter. - His argument that he keeps his fantasies separate from real life crumbles even more with the discovery that he tried to kidnap a girl when he was in high school. He intended to kill her but he was scared off by a dog and ran away. After he was discharged from the Army he started pursuing a degree in criminal justice, saying he hoped to become a police officer. But for years, he’s been dreaming of killing a woman and his claim of self-defense is falling apart. - I believe that he lured her there to kill her. - This was a cold, calculated murder. Without the body, we can’t put together what happened in that apartment. - Chris Waide claims he put Lea’s body in the dumpster, so the police go to the landfill. They search for weeks. On the 19th day, there’s a breakthrough. Police find Lea’s phone along with her purse, wallet, and clothes.

The search continues, lasting 45 days in total, but they still can’t find her body. Without her body, it’s hard for prosecutors to refute Waide’s claim that it was self-defense. They offer a plea deal, second-degree murder in exchange for the location of her body. He accepts. However, after the paperwork is signed he just tells them the same story from earlier, that he put her body in the dumpster. - We could not go to a judge and say, “We can prove that this man’s lying to us. We want you to reject this plea bargain.” There’s no way we can prove that. - We feel wholeheartedly that he lied and she was not in that dump and he did not do with her what he told the police he did with her. - They can’t prove that he hid her body somewhere else. So the plea deal stands. On November 6th, 2015, Christopher Waide is sentenced to 48 years in prison for second-degree murder. He will have to serve 75% of his sentence before he’s eligible for parole. Lea’s family still doesn’t know the full story of what happened to her, but without their efforts Christopher Waide likely would’ve gotten away with murder. They continue to think of Lea and honor her memory every day, and they won’t give up hope that someday, they might find her body and bring her home. - I look forward to the day that I get to meet my daughter. But in the meantime, I’m gonna try and find her. She needs to come home with us.

She needs to be somewhere near her family. - It took an incredible amount of courage for Maxx to not only face the man who killed his sister, but to put all his pain and anger aside while he pretended to befriend him in order to get answers. Today, he hopes to help others in similar situations, showing how you can turn tragedy into purpose. - I was so proud of my son. Maxx is a hero and he did that for his sister because he loved her so much. - It was an amazing scenario that I’d never seen in 25 years of being a prosecutor where a family member confronts a suspect and gets a confession out of the suspect. If it was my sister, I might’ve done the same thing. - Throughout everything, Maxx has always loved and looked out for Lea. It was his bond with his little sister that helped him see through her killer’s lies and bring him to justice. In a post on Facebook, Maxx writes,"