Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
it´s almost as if the the manson family broke into the house on the lake leaving a chilling calling card on the walls in bloodd redpray paint crime scene inside was horrofic and Upstairs u gruesome scene .
the bodies of a mother and her two young boys strangled while they weres a sleep.could this be some sick twisted person that came in and snuffed out this family?
the distraught husband and father who warned the cops about death threats to his family
and everyone in town is on edge woundering
could this be a serial killer ?
violent crime is something that happens across the river in st . louis .
not in in the quite suburb of columbia
tha´ts one reason christopher coleman decided to raise his family here
christopher was involved at church activities ,always doing whatever was going on at church .church has always been at the core of chris´s family and his parents connie and ron ar Co pastors of the grace church in chester illinois. 
christopher was a good student a good athlete and went to the Marine corps right after he graduated.
In the marines chris was a dog handler and it wa at a canine training seminar where he met the love of his life.cheri.
cheri weiss was an MP in the US Air Force.
chris and cheri drove up to chicago for the weekend and got married.and there was already a child on the way. and that would be garrett.his little brother gavin was not far behind.
garett was wery quiet and more subduded.
gavin he was busy all the time.
gavin he was busy all the time.
joyce is an old friend of the colemans and had known chris since he was a little boy.chris traveled with joyce all over the world.he was in charge with everything.joyce is well respect around the world but there are some who may not like televangelists and turn their criticisms into condemnation .
joyce was always getting threats and he would have to deal with them .
but coleman claimed he too was the target of hate ,telling relatives and law enforcement that he got chilling emails like this one.:
it seem unusal that the bodyguard would be getting the thteats because the bodyguard is not person with the name.and one of those thtreats was allegedly stuffed into his mailbox outside the colman´s house. everyon began to worry.
it wasn´t mailed to them it was put in the mailbox.cheri was extra frightened because that letter was delivered while chris was traveling with joyce in hawaii. when he returned he filed a police report and even set up a camera.
justin barlow lived across the street and what better neigbhor to do the job,he´a detective seargent for the columbia police.
he positioned the camera to focus on the colemans mailbox.
columbia cops put on extra patrols but they never saw anyone lurking around . the camera did ccpature these image of chris playing catch with garrett and gavin.
12 hours after this adorable family outing the boys and their mother would be dead.
it was early morning.6.45 . to be exat when a call came in to detective barlow .chris was at the gym and said. he couldn´t reach sherii by phone. when barlow entered the hos.on a ellfar check. what he saw was a harrowing scene.
and ther were other messages to effect. that you knew this was coming.
the fact that the killer had -pray-painted so much of th ehouse and spray -painted over the viticme and their beds made it seem like somthing out of the mansion,this was a monster sombody who would spray-paint he walls, sprayi-paint one of the boys.strang the kids while they slept.
the small police departement calls in reiniforcement from state. police and the FBI.
The brutal in the cobb natuire of the crime at cops wouderinf are they are they looking for a possible serial killer.
the brutal strangulaton muirders of cheri coleman and her two little boys turns the house on the lake into a major crime scene.
It´s a quet commuity you dont hear about al lot of violance and therfore a very small polis departement.not kind of policedepartement that mabey could handle as huges as this.
Columbia Illinois cops call for assistance from nearby police departements , investigators wsounder wheter a possible fanatic believed to have sent death streats to chris coleman is the cold -blooded killer.
miraculously the main target chris had escaped the carnage. perhaps they had carried out their threats ,that would have been the first suspisicon , this person threatning chirs coleman must be the killer this person making the threat said exactly what he was gonna do and it happened.
chris was the personal bodyguard for televangelist joyce meyer and they traveled the world
one email said.
Notice how both publicy and opportunities are misspelled and in the final chilling letter sent before the triple-homicide ,this :
But why would someone make death trheats against an unknown bodyguard it was a question that puzzled detectives as they search for digital crumbs that could link to the murder.
They had so many detectives on this case and they had a computer forensic expert who was tearing apart his laptop who found that these letters were generated on his work laptop, using his work login.
detectives trace the emails to chris own IP adresss thar means the emailed threats was sent to chris from inside his own house.
cops now begin to wonder was sherii sleeping with the enemy.Police looked at the husband immediately
coleman tells detectives when he left his house to go to the gym across the river ,everyone was alive and well.
surveillance video shows him pulling out of the driveway the time stamp 6:43 am.
there´s one huge hole in the story.his family was already dead. when he left.
Fame pathologist dr michael baden the former cheif medical examiner for new york city reviewed the autopsy reports and cocnluded
the thre coleman´s were killed before 3:00 am. a few hours before mr coleman left the house . at 5:43 am.
Unless it was this phantom killer ,this mysterious killer that came out of the smoke,nothing else made sense.in fact the camera point at the front of his house showed nothing the morning of the murder.
and then chris says his family is alive when he leaves at 5:45 am .yet officers who where toching the bodies say they ´re cold and stiff .
many hours before chris left.dr baden said they died .which means most likely chris is the one who killed them. and chris is the only one around. but chris says when cheri didn´t answer the phone ,he asked his neighbor off -duty pilice sergeant justin barlow to check hon her .barlow called for back up.
the surveillance video shows him walking into the colemans residence at 6:51 am.thats when he discovers the bodies and the spray-painted messages on the walls
chris is seen pulling into the driveway at 6:56. 15 seconds before the first officers arrived. the other thing police said that they were very suspicious about it ,when they told that his wife and two children were murdered ,he never really asked how or what happened.
The evidence indicates chris did not make any attempt to go up those stairs.officers envisioned that they would have to restrain this man from goingand seeing his dead family . they did not. he did not try to go upstairs. he did not ask how were they killed .
he sat somewhere in the front yard with his head in his hands.and then police took him into an ambulance
somebody notice scratches on his arm. he looked at the scratches on his arm and started punching the gurney in the ambulans.
Even with that strange behavior and growing police suspicions chris father Ron says there´s no way his son was the killer .
Ron:” that takes a very sick perseon to be able to strangle your family , i mean, you got to really have problems and chris had no problem.”
But were there problems chris´s parents didn´t know about? Colemans loooked like a loving family ,from photographs ,but friends gave an entirely different picture.friends said thet they were close to divorce, that sheri was unhappy.
cybercrime investigators discover text sheri had sent to a friend. sheri told her
cheri:” if something happens to me chris did it.
In those text cheri whrote.
chris wants a divorsce ,he said me and my kids are in the way of his job.
marriage troubles aren´t enough to make a murder charge stick. then copls discoveer someone named Tara.
chris had notes in his computer that said.
chris: “the day Tara changed my life.
chris coleman is at the gravesite burying his family. he text the mysterious Tara. did this grieving husband and father kill to cover up a double life?
cops investigating the horrific triple homicide of sheri coleman and her two young sons
find a jaw-dropping digital cluie in chris colemans computer.
and a x-rated video Tina on the camera and being recorded.
Chris is suppsed to be guardin his boss televangelist joyce meyer in hawaii not letting his guard down with a naked women in his hotel room.
You can bet chris didn´t send this video to his wife sheri.
That´s because Tara is sheri´s best friend from high school.the best friend of chris´s wife.
Tina , cheri and chris
Tara is a cocktail waitress at a poker room i in st. petersburg florida, she and chris exchanged naughty selfies and videos .
On his computer chris coleman had details about Tara ,from her measurement,her ring size and the name of a baby that they would have .the name was gonna be Zoe . chris said he was friends while detectives in florida found out that it was an affair with a promise to marriage.
how would the son of a preacher man pull that one off. chris´s dad pastor ron coleman has this stunning explanation.
ron:” every man´s got his desires and every man has to be respected.it´s built into every man . if your wife dosen´t respect you ,then you´re gonna find that respect someplace else.
and
ron: just that at short brief of time ,she had stepped back from doing her job as a wife.
Chris doesnt know it yet but the cops know all about Tara. they have seen the raunchy videos, they ´ve seen the naked selfies ,they´ve seen pictures of them kissing.and they know with with100 % certainty that those emai threats came from his own computer.
Only hours after the bodies were found ,detectives bring chris into the interrogation room.
detective: how´re you doing? i mean….
chris:i´freezing.
detective: you freezing?
chris: yeah.
they give him a blanket.but he won´t need it because ,detectives are about to turn up the heat.
detective: last night ,dig you, you guys get in any kind of argument or anything?
chris: no,it was awesome. she feel a sleep in my arms on the couch.i´d just been there this morning.
chris says there was no argument but detectives know that´s a lie.
detective: all those police officers that you saw , they were all scurrying about the neighborhood.
chris :Mm hm
detective: why would someboy tell us that, that they … thought that there was an argument at that house last night?
chris: i have no idea. none.i´m being 100 % honest , cause there wasn´t one.
detective: ok. but ,um, did ,did anything else happen that you´re not telling me?chris i´m getting the sense that you´r not being 100% truthful. and did you go up to bed at the same time?
chris:yeah ,brushed teeth, and turned the tv off downstairs , and did allthat stuff. and …going around ,check to make sure everything was locked …like i always do and then , um…
detective: what , what was she wearing when she went to bed?
chris: nothing.
detective: ok. nude?
chirs: yeah.
detective: ok. uh…is that normal?
chris: yeas .
detective: and what was you wearing?
chris :nothing.
when detectives are out of the room chris gets a text ,not from Tara but from his dad.
chris: my dad jsut texted me ,asking if i needed a lawyer. do i need a lawyer? do i need to get one for any reason?
detective: well,right now we´re just kind of going over everything with you as far as….what you did , you know, the night before.
and what they are about to go over would put the cheating bodyguard into a box,imopssible to clime out of.
detective: had you seen anyone else um, outside of your wife?
chris: what do you mean?
detective:in a romanic way.
chris: um, no, um… Tara , in florida…i talk to her a ton ,lately, but …
detective: and what´s what with that?
chris: jsut a friend , someone to talk to.
Cops ask chris how sheri seemed on the morning he left for the gym. remember , the pathologist concluded she was already dead.
Detective: and did she seem fine when you left? i mean …nothing that you could tell that …?
chris:no, she was fine.
detective: when you left the house this morning….
chris: Mm hmm?
detective: was your wife alive?
chris:oh yeah.
detective: um… what would you say if i told you , that, that i don´think she was?
chris: i don´t know. i don´t know what to tell ya.i mean i think she was.
chris thinks his wife was alive when he left the house that morning.remember that surveillance camera. that´s aimed at his house there´s nothing on there that shows anyone snuck into the home in the middle of the night.
detectives now pile on ,turning he screws even tighter.
detective: listen man. she wasn´t alive when you left.
chris: she was alive.she was. she was laying right beside me.
detective:listen to me , we can go back and forth with this all day long. but the physical evidence doesn´t lie.she was …she was not alive when you left this morning. the children weren´t alive when you left this morning.
chris: yes they were.
detective: no, com on,chris.
chris: they were…
detective: we gotta get over this. were you involved in her death?
chris: no!
detective: okej.was someone you know involved in her death?
chris: i don´t know!
detective: did you know of, uh…did you, did you talk to anybody about arranging her death?
chris:no , absolutely not.
detectives now circle back to Tara.
detective: were youhaving an affair with anybody?
chris: no.
detective: ok. you said you hada close friendship,but were , but were you actually , um…doing anything that , that you felt wouldn´t be approved by your wife?
chris:uh, some of the conversations . probably.
chris lying about the affair, but there were all this videos and pictures of h im with tara naked. he left evidence everywhere .all that circumstantial evidence is beginning to point to chris as the man who might have had the the motive to strangle his wife and his two boys.
then the cops drop a bombshell one thar will paint chris into a corner.
detective: the, uh ,st. petersburg homicide unite is talking to Tara right now and she´s shown us the pictures that you´ve sent her. you´ve got Tara down there in st. betersburg, spilling her guts to a room full of homicide detectives ,that do nothing but homicide.
its becoming obvious to detectives that the deranged strangler who killed cheri and her two sons is sitting right infront of them
detective: this is somethingwhere ,we know what happened we just don´t know why.
they know chris coleman faked the email. threats , supposedly from a fanatic
detective: so you´re saying some madman ,sat in the shadow?and waited and watched for you to leave?and then entered that house.is that what you´re trying to tell me?
chris: tat´s the only thing i can assume.
they know that he´s the one who misspelled the word in one of those emails .
a detective found that chris coleman commonly misspelled opportunities in his regular writing and in one of the trheat letters opportunity is misspelled the same way.
and they know that there´s no serial kiler on the loose.chris coleman is the only one who spray painted those manson family style messages on the walls of the murder house.
detective: do you have any paunt at your house?
chris : i don´t think so.
detective: no ,you dont?
chris: no i don´think so .
detective: any um,spray paint?
chris:if i do it´s old.
acctually its not old ,cops found this receipt dated three months earlier when chis bougth the can of apple red paint .but
but his father ron says that doesn´t mean chris is the killer .
Ron: he purchased it because of him and garett was making a bull´s -eye for them to shoot their paint guns at. and whoever did it grab the can
so if chris is the killer what would be his motive for murder . according to cops a four letter word. Tara.
detective: i know that tou guys went to hawaii toghether , i know that she used your credit card…alright ,to sit there and pay her bills last month.
Tara is chris´s secret mistress , not so secred anymore to the detectives.
detective: what do you think she´s gonna tell this guys down there in st.petersburg about you or this relationship.
columbia Illinois cops asked st.petersburgh police major shannon halstead and her team to interview Tara in her home .just hours after the triple homicide.
In the first of three interwiews with police Tara reveals that she had become possesive of her married lover. tara continues to revealing the salacious details of their scandalous affair.
detective: but you had even registred on some wedding sites and stuff looked at som rings?
tara: i locked at stuff .
detective: had you guys ever talked about haing children together?
tara:Mm hmm.
rob :” she bought a promise ring there,there were no s seriousness to that . chris was actually trying to get away from it um. when his wifw and him was getting along better. but that wasn´t working.
but chris won´t be able to break away from tara´s blow -by blow of their secret affaair. she now voluntarly goes downtown to st. petersburg police headquartters for a more formal interview.
detective:did hi send you some type of message um. shortly after all this happened…after he come home and discovered all this ?
tara: he text me.
detective: what was the message ?
tara :um, ” call you when i can ,i´m allright.”
Tara then reveals chris texte her only moments ago apparently he was right in the middle of his interrogation.
tara: i got a text,i know you know that ,and he text me , i jsut thought i´d tell you .
detective: he just texted just now? what did he want now?
tara:just said he was thinking about me and that the wake was at 3 tommorow.
columbia detective soon arrive in st .petersburg and in a third interview they suprised tara. with information about where some of her sexy selfies ended up .
detective: since going through your phone, your computer, and obviously we´ve done the same with…chris´and um. even hid dad´s .and here happens to be, picture of you, rather compromising on his father´s computer.
rara: ok. that´s pretty interesting.
detective: yeah.
tara: i don´t know anything about that.
Tara is clearly nervosus crossingand uncrossing her legs like sharon stone in Basic Instinct.
detective: did chris tell you anything about these or that he was planning antyhing like tihis?
tara:asolutley not .
detective: did you have any knowledge of these homicides ….?
tara: no knowledge.
detective: like or not unfortunately your name is tara “motive” ****
but unlike stone´s character tara is no ice Queen killer, she had absolutle no inviolvement in the triple murders.she ´s only a witness.
chris coleman was in a ” pressure cooker” he was getting pressure from sheri coleman, he was getting pressure from the ministry and ultimately tara gave him ultimatums.
back in illinows chris isn´t admiting any guilt, so cops throw a hail mary .
detective: you gotta have a come to jesus type of meeting and unless you really forgive yourself… and you´re sorry for what you did , there´s no way that you gonna go to heaven …and to see your kids or your family again when you die , you´re gonna go straight to hell.
chris isn´t going to hell ,just yet ,but he´s onhis way to the closest thing. county Jail.
2011 the trial begin. chris coleman wears a bulletproof vest as he entering court for his triple murder trial.
prosecutors say he strangled his wife sheri and their two young sons while they were a sleep. and at the small town courthouse.the star witness arrives. the bodyguards, mistress tara.
And the mistress wore a promise ring on the stand.
prosecutors introduced the steamy selfies and the x-rated vidoes to show coleman had the motive to kill so he could marry Tara .
one video was too bronzy to show to the jury .
there was a disturbing video not shown at trial but you could hear the audio and chris is in the shower and doing something for tara saying he´s never don it for anybody before .the audio it in itself is horrific.
alleged coleman killed his family because he feared he would lose his job as televangelist joyce mayers bodyguard if he got a divorce. but then they played this free tape testimony from joyce.
joyce:” we have many people that work for us that have been divorced and a person is not necessarily lose their job because they get a divorce.
the state says that coleman emailed the threats from his own computer,he claims some mystery man hacked in.but joyce discounted on that too.
did you see anybody else use that computer other than the defendant?
joyce: no.
The verdict was handed down two years to the day that Sheri, Garett and Gavin were killed.
the jury cameback and said guilty ,guilty guilty and when word hit the street. the estimated 100
people outside the court house were cheering he was hated, it was raining the day of the quilty verdict but people outside were cheering.
The jude sentenced coleman to three life terms without parole.
but chris mom is sure that her son is not a killer.
connie: “i would die for him. because i dont believe his personality has it .
coleman´s attorney requested a new trial he maintains his innocense as did his arents .
connie: i believe he´s innocent and until it comes out his mouth and somebody can prove it . i dont believe he did it.
an interesting footnote on this story, a jury in coleman´s trial told reporters the first vote in deliberations was 7 to 5 in favor of not guilty. however the jury was later swayed by what they believe to be lies about his statements to the police.
coleman says he and his parents will continue to fight to get him a new trial.
The family were put through further agony when Chris appealed, but in 2014, his conviction was upheld