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Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to True Crime Brewery. I'm Jill. And I'm Dick. You know, family life is not always rooted in love. For the blended family of Leith and Bonnie von Stein, life was marked by disappointments, resentment, and deep-seated hate. One summer night back in 1988, Bonnie and Leith were viciously attacked in their own bed.

Daughter Angela said that she'd slept through the attack.

Son Christopher was away, living in student housing at North Carolina University.

The primary investigation led to Christopher and his Dungeons and Dragons playing friends.

During this era of satanic panic, there was a public perception

that the brutal attacks were a real life

in a real-life manifestation of the role-playing game.

At the quiet end today, we're looking into the dark heart of family life in a small southern town.

It's a terrifying story of greed and callousness and the story of a mother forced to consider

the worst about her own son.

So I've been looking forward to covering this case for a while. We've covered several

cases about kids killing their parents but this one's a little bit different.

Well it's certainly a little more chilling to me. Well, it's certainly very brutal.

Yeah.

And the time when it happened in the late 1980s was an interesting time

with these role-playing games just really, know kind of being new and a big thing.

Yeah I played some Dungeons and Dragons with one of my coworkers. He was really into it.

I put it this way I was less into it. I put it this way. I was less into it.

Yeah. I guess I didn't have the right imagination or the role-playing stuff.

Wasn't much fun.

Well, and I think maybe it's not as big now that there's Fortnite and all that kind of stuff.

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