Transcript for:
The Bill and Carolyn Exom Case

this video is sponsored by Aura more on them a little later on a spring evening in 1999 a man walked up to a pay phone in maltoma County Oregon he picked up the handset dialed the number on the keypad and waited for the call to connect however after letting it ring just a single time he immediately hung up this wasn't any kind of accident that call had been made to a specific unit in a nearby apartment building and the woman who lived there knew exactly what it meant the single ring was a code to let her know the man was coming a few minutes later this woman got a knock at the door which she immediately opened up however when she did she would receive the surprise of her life you see what she and the man at the pay phone hadn't realized was that they were being watched in order to understand who was watching them and why though we have to rewind 6 weeks now when someone else had been on the receiving end of a surprise one that as you'll see was far more disturbing to pretty much everyone who knew them the exm family seemed like they had everything in life figured out the family of six lived in a spacious split level home in the Portland suburb of Gresham Oregon they were well respected by their friends and neighbors and they were deeply involved in their local community community at the core of the family were husband and wife Bill and Carolyn exom who had just about as All American a love story as you could imagine they both grew up in the Portland area and had met while they were attending Sandy Union High School in 1978 bill was in his senior year at the time and was your prototypical Allstar student athlete over 6 feet tall wellb built quarterback of the high school football team you get the idea Carolyn on the other hand was a freshman though she ran with a pretty popular crowd herself she was a cheerleader and was known for her bubbly upbeat and infectious Energy bill graduated 3 years before Carolyn but the high school sweethearts managed to keep their romance alive while Carolyn was finishing up at Sandy Union High Bill attended Clackamus County college and graduated from a place called Computer Career Institute during this time he also worked on a farm in the city of boring located a short drive east of Portland the pair were married in 1983 not long after Carolyn graduated from high school within a couple of years Bill had gotten a good job with Consolidated freightways a transport and logistics company that was well known in the area at the time he would eventually work his way up to becoming a supervisor there then in the meantime the job allowed him and Carolyn to settle down and start their family over the next several years they would welcome four children into the world three three sons and one daughter after moving to their home in gram the exms quickly became a staple of the community particularly at their Church the Mount Hood Christian Center Carolyn taught preschool in kindergarten classes there and Bill who was very religious would even serve as a sort of mentor to people in the congregation who were struggling what people really admired about the exms though was how their children seemed to be at the Forefront of everything they did they would sign them up for every Sport and activity you could think of which as I'm sure you can imagine with four kids was quite hectic but then on top of that they also tried to get involved as well Carolyn was that Mom that was always driving everyone around in the family minivan while bill of course being the former High School athlete was first in line to coach all of his kids baseball and soccer teams it was for all of these reasons and more that when the exom family were the victims of a sudden and violent tragedy in the spring of 1999 no one could believe it it began when police received a late night 911 call this message is for you from the criminal investigation department of revenue Canada the reason behind this call is to notify you have didn't see you thereal I was just listening to my voicemails and as per usual I've got 10 new Robo calls from Canada Revenue looks like I owe them thousands of dollars again and for some reason they want me to pay them in gift cards seems legit right yeah I don't think so either all jokes aside as much as this particular scam might seem painfully obvious criminals are using it and others like it for a reason they work and what's worse not all of them are this unsophisticated it brings up a good question though how are scammers getting your and my information in the first place unfortunately in our increasingly digital age information like your full name email home address and even your health records are becoming easier and easier to find online luckily that's where Aura the sponsor of today's video comes in Aura helps protect your personal information from being sold on the dark web and by data Brokers they alert you if your data is compromised and automatically opt you out of data broker websites to help keep your information out of the wrong hands this is more important than ever especially with data breaches like the recent AT&T incident where over 73 million customer records were leaked on the dark web Aura provides all-in-one protection monitoring your credit offering fraud alerts and even helping you secure your online accounts with a password manager with aura always working in the background to help keep your information safe you can focus on the things that matter to you knowing you have that extra layer of security I know I definitely value my privacy and if you're looking to step up yours too right now Aura is offering a free 2E trial to Crime Zone viewers head over to aura.com crimzone or check out the link below to get your free trial and start securing your personal information today 911 uh we need police my neighbor's here she's got blood all over her husband's laying pull of blood in their house broke they upstairs okay stay on the line and keep her there we're going to get the police started right now the 911 call you just heard came in at 12:41 a.m. on March 21st 1999 it was made by a neighbor of the exm family who said that something terrible had taken place inside their home this neighbor wasn't exactly sure what had happened but she said it seemed like some sort of home invasion Carolyn had run over obviously injured and covered in Blood and was saying something about how she and Bill had been attacked when police arrived in the neighborhood located on Southeast tibet's Court they found a crowd of people gathered on the street outside several were tending to Carolyn who was holding a towel to a wound on her head she was frantic and was saying that her children were still inside before doing anything else officers made their way into the residence thankfully all four of the exm children were unharmed armed and still asleep in their beds they were brought outside to safety while officers continued to clear the rest of the house and emergency responders had a look at Caroline's injuries at the same time investigators began to speak to her about what had happened Carolyn said that she had been preparing to go to bed that night when she heard loud noises from downstairs specifically a bunch of banging noises ones that sounded like they were coming from the garage Bill had a little makeshift office space in their two-car garage and it wasn't uncommon for him to be down there late into the evening finishing up a bit of work however Carolyn said she was immediately put on edge by these banging sounds because nothing bill ever did down there made this kind of noise unnerved by what she was hearing Carolyn decided to check to make sure everything was okay when she opened the adjoining door to the garage from the house at first she didn't see much of anything part of this had to do with the fact that there was a lot of stuff in there though it was mostly because Bill's little office Nook area was kind of tucked away on the far side of the room you had to actually walk through most of the garage to get there and it wasn't until Carolyn did this that she said she discovered what she had been hearing Bill had been attacked and was lying in a pool of blood next to his desk Carolyn explained that she tried her best not to panic and immediately got down onto the floor to see if Bill was still breathing and and to help him in whatever way way she could what she hadn't realized though was the person who did this was still there as she was desperately trying to tend to her husband she was hit hard with something in the head the blow was powerful enough that it sent her into a Daz and had even momentarily knocked her out Carolyn said she wasn't sure how long she had been incapacitated for but as soon as she got her bearings back she ran straight out of the garage and went to get help when paramedics had a look at Carolyn's head wound it seemed to match with what she was saying the injury wasn't life-threatening or anything but it was clear she'd taken a solid blow and would need to be at least briefly hospitalized for stitches as well as further examination unfortunately the situation with Bill exom was a lot more Grim when police made their way into the garage they found the 39-year-old father of four dead on the concrete floor of his home office the scene was nothing short of brutal Bill's body was lying sort of half in and half out of the office area and it was obvious the majority of the attack had been targeted at his head an autopsy would later reveal that Bill had been struck at least 11 times with some sort of blunt object these hits had been so vicious that they had completely destroyed his skull in multiple places perhaps equally as disturbing as the injuries was the blood evidence in addition to a large pool around the body droplets and and spatter were scattered all over the enclosed space the walls the ceiling the floor the piles of items and office equipment almost everything had some amount of blood on it understandably this made processing the crime scene quite a daunting task for investigators that being said as they carefully began working their way through the evidence a couple of details quickly jumped out the first detail came when detectives noticed that some of the blood spots that had been left on the walls had a clear defined line to them because of Bill's injuries they already knew that he had been killed with some sort of blunt object but this seemed to offer a little more insight into what this object looked like it appeared that the murder weapon was some kind of Club pipe or piece of metal that had at least one straight edge to it the other detail that stuck out wasn't really one thing it was sort of a collection of little things that added up to a single conclusion and that conclusion was that there had clearly been a real struggle inside the garage you know there was an overturned chair random items were scattered on the ground this had been a serious fight part of the reason this was interesting was because with most home invasion cases the goal is robbery or burglary however it didn't actually look like anything was missing from the exam's house as previously mentioned bill was also a pretty big guy who would have been capable of holding his own to police it didn't seem like the kind of fight you'd want to pick if you were just a random burglar of course that left a much more unsettling possibility that Bill had been specifically targeted if that were the case though the next questions were obvious who would want to hurt Bill and more importantly why while members of the forensics team continued processing the crime scene detectives and other officers with the gussian police department turned their attention towards canvasing the neighborhood they asked residents in the area if they had seen anything unusual around the time of the murder or if there was anyone that they could think of that might be capable of committing a crime like this none of the people that police spoke with were able to give them any specific names though they did point out one possible Avenue for further investigation the neighborhood was right next to a wooded area and officers were told that homeless people had been known to live in there nothing too serious had ever happened before as a result of this although occasionally residents said that they had some stuff stolen from them detectives were intrigued by this information the exm house actually backed directly onto that wooded area so it was conceivable that this is how they had been targeted a large and meticulous search effort was organized to go through these Woods both to look for potential suspects and to see if any additional Clues could be found unfortunately this ultimately came up short while this was a setback it wasn't exactly a huge surprise as I said before investigators had already started to feel like the crime probably wasn't an opportunistic burglary or robbery gone wrong the brutal way that Bill had been murdered felt too personal to be random and police were pushed even further in this direction when it was confirmed that there were no signs of forced entry at the crime scene this meant that the killer had been let in willingly or they were able to find some vulnerability at the residence that authorities weren't aware of either way it suggested that the perpetrator had some level of familiarity with the exms and their home that being the case detectives decided to move on to questioning those close to the family they started with Carolyn who spoke to investigators at the gesan police department after being released from the hospital they asked her all the standard questions you know does Bill have any enemies is there anyone who might have a grudge against him or the family stuff like that Carolyn said that no there really wasn't anyone like that in their lives as far as she was aware everyone loved and respected Bill and there was no reason for any of this to have happened that wasn't the only disappointing news that Carolyn had for detectives since she was the only real witness to the crime authorities had hoped that she might be able to at least provide them with some sort of description of the person who had attacked her and her husband however she said that she had been hit before she ever got a look at the perpetrator the one thing carollyn was able to provide police were the pair of jeans that she was wearing at the time of the crime which had blood evidence on them investigators knew that it was a long shot that the jeans would be useful especially since Caroline said that she was pretty sure she got the blood on her while trying to help her husband still these were sent off for testing and further analysis on the off chance that the 's DNA was also on them after their conversation with Carolyn detectives continued speaking with others who were close to Bill and the exom family much to their frustration it was the same story with them as well no one had anything bad to say about the deceased father and all of them seemed just as shocked and confused as to how something like this could have happened the full weight of this was driven home even more 3 days later when a memorial service was held for friends family and community members came out in droves and packed the Mount Hood Christian Center multiple rows of pews were filled with the kids sports teams that Bill had volunteered with some of whom came in uniform to pay their final respects to their beloved coach in a fitting tribute at one point the entire church joined together to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game understandably the scene was very emotional and it was obvious to everyone present that Bill's kids were destroyed DED by the loss of their father at the same time it looked like Carolyn was doing her best to put on a brave face and keep the family together while everyone was doing their best to grieve and process the heartbreaking loss in the meantime investigators had finally started to hit their first couple of real breaks in the case this began when they decided to do another round of canvasing in the exom neighborhood it's unclear if they interviewed different people this time ask different questions or both but what we do know is that the second time around police got lucky it happened when they were tipped off about a red and silver pickup truck a resident told detectives that they had seen this pickup truck in the neighborhood at least a few times usually parked near the exam's house they thought that the truck might be important because they remembered seeing it during the day on March 20th as well as again later that evening only now it had moved a little ways down the road this would have been within just a few hours of the murder the day after receiving this lead detectives got another tip one that would prove to be even more important it was from a local florist who said that they remembered something that they thought police should know about the florist explained that a few months back they had been hired by a man to put together and deliver a bouquet of flowers that bouquet was sent to Carolyn exom and also included a card with quite the eye-catching message it read quote a little bit of sunshine to my best friend with love while the man who paid for the flowers hadn't wanted the card signed fortunately for police the florist had still collected his contact information his name was Allan Browning things got even more interesting when police looked up Allen's name and got a look at his vehicle records he was the owner of a silver and red Dodge pickup truck as authorities were about to learn though this wasn't the only connection that Allen had to the case it turned out that he had quite the compelling link to Bill and Carolyn exom one the police thought might just hint at a potential motive for murder after connecting the tip about the pickup truck with the lead from the florist detectives with the Gran Police Department finally had a person of interest in the case of course they also had a lot more questions to name a few who was Alan Browning why was he sending Carolyn exm flowers and how did he even know her and her family in the first place when investigators began digging further into Allen's background at first it seemed like he and the exm had nothing in common the exm were a large well-known and very active family in the area while Allen was a divorced father of one who worked at a print shop and lived in his parents basement funny enough it was this Last Detail that eventually led to the aha moment for police it came when they found out that Allen's parents lived close to Carolyn's parents they had grown up right near each other in fact alen was the same age as Carolyn and had attended the same high school as her and Bill this led detectives to wonder maybe there was something going on between Carolyn and Allan because they still didn't really have any concrete at this stage investigators just decided to ask Carolyn about Allan directly when they did she seemed fairly open with them but insisted that they definitely had the wrong idea Carolyn said that her and Alan were good friends now though that had happened in a kind of roundabout way they technically met in high school but they didn't know each other well back then they hung out with totally different groups of people and socially just didn't ever really overlap Carolyn said that only changed a couple of years ago when she ran into Allen after the blue for the first time in quite a while they got to talking and it was clear that Allen was going through a rough patch because of his divorce so Carolyn invited him to her church She also asked Bill if he would Minister to Allan essentially kind of take him under his wing spiritually speaking Bill agreed and helped Allan to become a member of the church as for the flower thing Carolyn said that that was Allan thanking her for helping him to get through that dark dark time in his life but really it wasn't just her and Allan that had the connection Bill and Allen had also become friends following this conversation detectiv spoke with a bunch of members of the congregation at the Mount Hood Christian Center who backed up what Carolyn had told them they said yeah Bill had kind of brought Allan in and was helping him to turn his life around though Carolyn's story seemed to check out as far as investigators were concerned Allan Browning was still a person of interest in the case after all that vehicle matching the description of his pickup truck had still been spotted near the scene around the time of Bill's murder as a result police turned their full attention towards Allen it wasn't long before they came up with a new Theory this Theory took shape when Gres and police were able to obtain copies of Sandy Union High School yearbooks from the time when Bill Carol and Allen were all students there as they thumbed through the pages an idea jumped out as previously mentioned Carolyn and Bill were both extremely popular in high school bill was the quarterback of the football team and Carolyn was a cheerleader who always had a massive group of friends around her Allan by contrast was the kind of guy that seemed to fade into the background he was shy geeky and not really involved in much of anything at the school this led detectives to Wonder Maybe Allan was obsessed with Carolyn perhaps this had started as a crush in high school school one that had never really gone away and then when Carolyn and Allan had reconnected a couple of years ago maybe it had festered into something else a second chance in Allen's mind to get the girl who had always been out of his League This Time by any means necessary now you might be thinking to yourself that's a pretty wild leap to make just from some old yearbook photos and you'd be right but this wasn't the only thing that investigators did they also went to speak to someone with a much better idea about Allen's personal life and his history his ex-wife and let's just say she was quick to agree that police were on the right track Allen's ex-wife told investigators that one of the main reasons that their marriage had broken up was because of his obsession with Caroline she always knew Allan had a thing for her but from the time that they had reconnected this had gone from like a high school Crush to an allc consuming desire one that Allan hadn't been shy about sharing in fact the woman told police that at one point she found a letter that Allan had written that was supposed to be for Carolyn with a disturbing and heartbreaking admission in it in the letter Allan wrote quote I can live without my son but I cannot live without you as truly wild as this was on its own the ex-wife still had more to share when asked if she thought that Allan could have had something to do with Bill's murder right away she said yes definitely the woman explained that at the time the murder took place she and her son were on a mini vacation when they returned home she started to hear details about what had happened because you know everyone was talking about Bill's murder interestingly though Allan never brought it up this was despite the fact that bill was supposed to be a close friend someone who was ministering to him at church detectives asked the ex-wife about any weapons might have had and she said that there was one thing that he usually carried with him it was a heavy piece of pipe with grip tape wrapped around one end that Allan referred to as his fish whacker this already sounded quite a bit like the murder weapon but there was one final detail that was even more convincing the pipe that the fish whacker was made out of was Square meaning that it would have had straight edges on it just like those left behind in the blood at the crime scene police asked the woman where Allen kept the fish whacker and she replied that it was almost always in his pickup truck behind one of the seats at this point detectives were almost positive that they had the right suspect however they weren't ready to move in on Alan Browning just yet instead they placed him under surveillance hoping to find more evidence to round out their investigation this would prove to be a critical decision Not only would it give police valuable information it would reveal the last remaining missing piece in the case on the night of May 4th 1999 so just over 6 weeks after Bill xim's murder a man walked up to a Moma County pay phone and made a call after letting it ring once he immediately hung up and then started walking away that man was Alan Browning and he was head for a nearby apartment building he would never make it though because before he could get there he was intercepted and arrested by officers from the aggression Police Department who had been watching him now for several weeks at the same time that this was happening another team of officers went into the apartment building where Allen had been intending to go after making their way to a specific unit there they knocked on the door moments later a woman opened up expectantly it was Carolyn exom wearing nothing but a neglige she was given just enough time to change into some proper clothes before she was also placed in handcuffs and taken down to the police station it turned out that when police had started their surveillance of Allen Browning a few weeks earlier they had also obtained warrants to put up a few cameras mostly in areas that Allan frequented one of these areas was a strip mall where Allan's son was enrolled in karate classes well as it happened some of the exm children also took karate lessons there and when detectives started reviewing the footage from their camera they quickly noticed a pattern every time Allan and Carolyn would drop off their kids before heading to Carolyn's van where they would promptly disappear inside the vehicle for quite some time I'll let you fill in the blanks there but let's just say they weren't playing checkers of course this in and of itself wasn't proof of any wrongdoing though it was enough for authorities to obtain further warrants specifically ones for wiretaps and listening devices which were set up in the apartment where Carolyn had moved with her children after Bill's murder the resulting audio recordings from these devices not only confirmed once and for all that Allan and Carolyn were romantically involved they also revealed a lot about the Dynamics of their relationship specifically that Carolyn was the one running the show investigators would later describe Allen as being like a puppy dog one who was completely acting at Carolyn's beck and call to a pretty unbelievable degree for instance if Allan would say something and Carolyn said the opposite Allan would just totally change his opinion and agree with her he also did everything around her schedule so like that whole thing with the pay phone that was a code so that Carolyn would know Alan was coming over so that she could sneak him into the apartment when her kids were sleep this was something police observed repeatedly during the time of the surveillance which is how they knew they would be able to catch them by surprise during the arrests speaking of arrests once Carolyn and Allan were in custody they were brought to separate interview rooms at first both of them denied any wrongdoing with Carolyn in particular sticking to her story even after being presented with evidence of her relationship with Alan as the hours went on though it seemed that Carolyn began to realize that she was trapped and started changing details of what she was saying this started small she admitted to sleeping with Alan but said that it had only happened after Bill's death but the changes slowly grew larger and larger Carolyn admitted the rest of the affair but said she didn't know anything about the murder finally she claimed that she knew Allan was behind the murder but that she didn't say anything because she feared for the safety of her and her children detectives didn't buy any this but that wasn't really the point you see during his own interview Allan said he just wanted to hear Carolyn's voice police obliged allowing him to listen outside the door as Carolyn threw him under the bus for the entirety of her husband's murder that's when Allan said he was finally ready to reveal what had really happened Allan said that when he first reconnected with Carolyn it seemed like a dream come true here was this woman who he'd been totally in love with in high school and who had always been out of his league and now Not only was she noticing him for the first time it seemed like she was returning his romantic interest for months things had gotten more and more intense between them they were having a fullblown affair by this point and carollyn seemed like she was ready to go even further she said that she wanted to be with Allan and that they should get married they even purchased a wedding dress for her and a new ring for him unfortunately Carolyn said there was a problem according to Allan Carolyn told him that if they were going to be together Bill had to be out of the picture completely things were going to be too messy with the kids involved and everything and on top of that they were going to need money to start their new life together fortunately carollyn said that the payout from Bill's life insurance policy and retirement benefits would be more than $415,000 if all of this wasn't enough to convince Allen the final thing Carolyn told him certainly got him on board she falsely claimed that she wanted out of her marriage in the first place because Bill was abusive Allan explained that on the night of the murder Carolyn let him into the house then lured bill into the garage under the pretense of a fun sexy little game after taking him into his office she tied him to a chair and put a blindfold over his eyes that's when Allan headed in armed with his fish whacker Allan stayed ated that the original plan was for him to hit Bill once by surprise knocking him unconscious once he was out they would burn down the house with him inside to make it look like an accident however this is not how things had played out bill was a big guy and he didn't go down without a fight as soon as he was hit Bill managed to stand up still strapped to the chair at which point all hell broke loose Allan went into a panic and started swinging the fish whacker around wildly he managed to get off a couple more hits but in the struggle the weapon flew out of his hands at the same time Bill's blindfold had slipped revealing to him what was going on he looked at Carolyn for help but instead she picked up the fish whacker and handed it back to Allan that's when Allan had finished him off in a scene that is almost too horrifying and heartbreaking to even imagine in Bill's final moments he not only realized that his wife had betrayed him he had to watch as she put the weapon that was used to murder him in the hands of his killer following Allen's confession he also agreed to tell police where he had hidden the murder Weapon by this time they had already seized and searched his truck but the fish whacker hadn't been inside Allan said that he buried the item in the ground in some woods behind his parents' place and described the approximate location during a subsequent search the weapon was recovered even with all of this Carolyn continued to deny everything in fact according to police in one final Act of manipulation she even had the audacity to try and get Allan to take the fall for everything this apparently happened when she sent him a letter in jail after their arrests telling him that if he really loved her he would let her go unfortunately for Carolyn Allan agreed to testify against her the testimony was bolstered by one other piece of damning evidence remember the jeans that Carolyn was wearing the ones that she said she got blood on when she discovered Bill's body and tried to help him well upon further analysis it turned out that those blood stains were from High Velocity spatter not simple contact this meant that Carolyn would have had to have been present when Bill was actually being killed after agreeing to fully cooperate and testify Allan Browning took a plea deal for Bill's murder and was given a life sentence despite her stubborn denials Carolyn also eventually saw the writing on the wall and agreed to plead guilty in January of 2001 she received a sentence of life with a minimum of 25 [Music] years I know this is far from the first story we've covered about espousal murder on this channel but I got to say this has got to be one of the most heartbreaking and disturbing cases like this that I've ever come across the level of betrayal is astounding enough on its own then you have that whole other level of manipulation with Alan Browning I definitely think Allen still deserves to be held responsible for his actions especially given the brutality of this particular crime though that being said it's clear that Carolyn had him in the palm of her hand you may have noticed that there's a bit of a loose end with Carolyn's head injury that she had at the time the original 911 call was made none of the sources that we looked at offered a clear explanation for this though if I had to guess I'd say she either deliberately had Allan hit her to make the home invasion seem more plausible or she was simply struck by accident when Allen was panicking and flailing the murder weapon around during the struggle there's actually one more loose end though that I want to address and this is perhaps the most chilling thing of all about this case so if you recall in Allen's confession he stated that the initial plan with the murder was to knock bill conscious and set the house on fire of course you might also have remembered that the eom's four children were asleep in bed at the time of the crime this led some investigators to suspect that Carolyn's original intention wasn't just to murder bill but to wipe out her whole family this is pure speculation so take that with a grain of salt but it's pretty dark to think about especially because at the end of the day there's still really no clear answer as to why Carol and did what she did I guess you could say greed and that's probably true I don't know maybe the problem is that I'm looking for sense in the senseless according to reports Carolyn exom has appealed her conviction multiple times over the years as well as applied for clemency seeking early release these attempts have been opposed by all four of her children most recently in 2022 that being said Carolyn is eligible for parole as of this year and in fact May have already quietly been released while we were able to find inmate records for Alan Browning on Oregon's Department of Corrections website a search for Carolyn's name returned no results before we wrap up we just wanted to give a huge shout out to everyone who has made it this far into the video as always we hope you found today's story interesting and informative a huge thanks as well to today's sponsor Aura don't forget to check out the link in the description below to get your two week free trial if you're looking for additional ways to support the channel we'd love to have you join us over on patreon patrons get adree and early access to all of our content as well as four additional stories per week for each of our Crimes of the week and Crimes of the week International videos you can learn more at patreon.com Zone where you'll also find some of the fine folks whose names are currently on screen once again thanks so much everyone and take care