Man Guilty of Murdering Wife, Kids in 2007 It took five years to get to the case to trial and five weeks to get through all the testimony. But it took just 50 minutes of deliberations for jurors to find Christopher Vaughn guilty. The suburban Chicago computer specialist was convicted of fatally shooting his wife and three school-age children during what he told them was a road trip to a water park. Vaughn slaughtered his family because he saw them as obstacles to his dream of starting a new life subsisting in the Canadian wilderness, prosecutors told jurors before they withdrew to deliberate. Vaughn, 37, hunched forward as jurors re-entered the Joliet courtroom but displayed no visible emotion as their verdict was read. Sitting nearby, his wife's sister smiled and cried quietly, and family members later wept as they fell into each other's arms in a courtroom hall. Glasgow noted that Vaughn's two daughters and son were each shot in the chest and head, and he said the father's lack of emotion was the mark of "a psychopath." The jurors were later applauded by relatives of Vaughn's wife as they walked into a nearby restaurant. Vaughn faces a maximum life prison term when sentenced Nov. 26. The prosecution argued that he had compiled survival guides and posted wistful Internet messages about constructing a cabin and settling for good in the Yukon, cut off from the world. Then early on June 14, 2007, Vaughn awoke his wife and children, promising a surprise trip to a water park downstate. Prosecutors alleged that he pulled the family SUV off the highway after 5 a.m. He placed a pistol under his 34-year-old wife Kimberly's chin and fired, then meticulously shot 12-year-old Abigayle, 11-year-old Cassandra and 8-year-old Blake - each in the chest and head. Forensics experts said the trajectory of the bullet into Blake's chest indicated he had raised his arm up as he was shot. During nearly a full day of closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Chris Regis read emails that Christopher Vaughn wrote to a friend before the murders saying he longed for a life unencumbered by cellphones and other hallmarks of modernity. Regis said Vaughn felt held back by four obstacles, all of which "were eliminated on June 14, 2007." Vaughn took notes during the nearly six hours of closing arguments but displayed little emotion, even when prosecutors displayed crime-scene photos of his wife, her head hanging back and dried blood near her nose and mouth. In his closing, defense attorney George Lenard repeated Vaughn's contention that his wife was suicidal over marriage troubles and affected emotionally by antidepressant medication. The defense claimed she shot Vaughn in the wrist and leg, then killed the children and herself. (She) was of the mindset that if she was gone, they were better off with her ...