The dark minds of serial killers have been studied by experts at great length, but what becomes of their sons and daughters?
On the new special "Children of Serial Killers," Fox Nation host Nancy Grace speaks with the daughter of The Craiglist Killer Richard Beasley, detailing the bone-chilling moment she discovered her father was not the "knight in shining armor" she thought he was.
"At first, my dad was a really good dad, changing my diapers and taking care of me. We did things like painting these little googly-eyed monsters. We used to go to the park and play on the slides. We were extremely close until he went to prison the first time," Tonya Beasley, the daughter of the Craigslist murderer Richard Beasley, said.
Richard Beasley had been busted for illegally selling weapons when Tonya was just three years old, but his arrest at the time could not break their tight father-daughter bond.
Grace shared with viewers that, while in jail, Richard "reinvent[ed]" himself by studying the Bible and supposedly finding God. After his release, he got a job as a chaplain at a church, opened a halfway house, and even started a soup kitchen on Friday nights – a seemingly impenetrable cover-up.
"One of the things that was kind of goofy when he got out was that he was not aware of today's technology whatsoever. So, things like cell phones, the internet, tablets, Wi-Fi, all of that stuff was completely new to him. I also taught him how to make a Craigslist account. We had all of this extra furniture that he no longer needed and wanted to sell," Tonya explained.
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Soon thereafter, Richard returned to a life of crime. He was arrested again, granted bail, and immediately went on the run. Once his cash flow dried up, he turned to the very same technology his daughter introduced him to for help – Craigslist.
"Remember the Craigslist ads to sell his furniture? That started with good intentions, but ultimately, like nearly everything in her father's life, he uses it for evil," Grace explained in the special.
Richard posted a Craigslist ad for the "job of a lifetime" as a farmhand with the intention of robbing victims and stealing their identities – but things escalated.
On a grisly Friday morning in Ohio, authorities found the body of a Virginia man in a shallow grave - a man who'd answered the same Craigslist ad for a farm that didn't exist. The man was one of three who'd been successfully lured and killed by Beasley.
Authorities approached Tonya at work, asking her to identify her father by photo. This was the moment her life changed forever.
"He then told me that my dad had been using the internet to lure people in, specifically Craigslist. It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. Had I not created it, I personally felt as though his victims would still be alive," Tonya explained to Grace.
Richard was convicted on three counts of aggravated murder, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder. He was later sentenced to death row – an element of his story that Tonya has struggled with to this day.
Today, Tonya is expecting a newborn son – his due date? The week of her father's birthday.
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"My son is not going to have a relationship with my father. My due date is the week of my dad's birthday. I look at it as us reclaiming that day. It's no longer going to be a negative that reminds me of my dad, but more so a positive that reminds me of the future that my son has to be a better person than who my dad was," Tonya remarked.
Richard Beasley currently remains on death row and continues to maintain his innocence.
To learn more about the unfathomable life of being the kin of a cold-blooded killer, subscribers can stream "Children of Serial Killers: A Nancy Grace Investigation," exclusively on Fox Nation.
