A Midwestern Kid Aspires to International Terrorism (“The Root of All Evil,” Forensic Files)
Just a quick update this week, with a bizarre side note to the post about Fred Grabbe — whose cruelty and habit of killing those who offended him were even more profound than Forensic Files depicted in “The Root of All Evil.”
Adam Livvix in a 2003 high school photo and a circa-2014 mug shot
But Grabbe, a hulking Illinois soybean farmer now in prison for strangling his petite wife, committed crimes that were strictly local in scope.
His grandson Adam Livvix attempted to stage an international terrorist attack.
Gridiron guy. Adam is the son of Jennie Grabbe Woolverton — Fred and the late Charlotte Grabbe’s surviving child — and he seemed like a promising kid in the beginning.
A product of a Jennie’s marriage to the much older Everett Darrell Livvix, Adam was born on April 20, 1984, and played football and had a good reputation at Marshall High School, graduating in 2003, according to Tribune Star coverage. He was reportedly one of the cool kids.
By the time his dad died in 2005, however, Adam had acquired numerous legal woes, including traffic offenses, minor charges related to marijuana, and theft.
No ‘metal’ of honor. At some point, Adam (full name Everett Adam Livvix) borrowed equipment and a sum of $48,041.93 from Custom Films Inc., his father’s plastics company. His dad’s will stipulated that Adam reimburse the estate before he could claim real estate inheritances, the Tribune Star reported.
Although it couldn’t be confirmed, one source reported that Adam ended up receiving no money or property at all from his late father’s estate.
Adam tried to earn himself a windfall in other ways. In 2008, he and younger brother Tyler were accused of stealing aluminum siding and other metals from a business they had connections to, but a judge dismissed the charges, which the Livvixes blamed on a misunderstanding, the Journal Gazette of Mattoon, Illinois, reported.
Startup ambitions. In 2013, Adam skipped a court date related to his alleged theft of a bush mower, according to an AP account. It’s not clear whether he served time related to that offense.
The Dome of the Rock’s golden rooftop, right, graces innumerable Israeli post cards
But the persevering Adam — who inherited his father’s entrepreneurial spirit if not his tangible assets — started a number of businesses.
Unfortunately, what they mostly earned for him was trouble. He reportedly was accused of misusing an SBA loan.
Plenty o’ shekels. For his next act, Adam, who began claiming he was Jewish, traveled to Israel as a tourist in 2013 and hooked up with a group of Americans living there.
The beefy 6-foot-tall American opened a power-washing business in Jerusalem, but he also told acquaintances that he had made a lot of money after selling a cancer drug or that he had a rich uncle, according to the LA Weekly.
Whatever the case, Adam somehow acquired a stockpile of cash that funded outings with his new buddies, the LA Weekly reported.
Seal of approval. He ended up sharing an apartment with Kevin Orenshein, 21, an American enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces.
Adam told his new friends that he was a Navy Seal. He had a convincing-looking frogman tattoo, a symbol of the Seals, on his back, according to the LA Weekly.
Saying that he needed to protect his business after some Arabs had thrown rocks, Adam asked Kevin to provide him with some weapons used by the Israeli army.
Intercepted. Kevin believed Adam’s story and sold him $125 worth of explosives, including stun and smoke grenades, explosive bricks, and tear gas canisters.
In reality, Adam had adopted Islamaphobic and anti-Arab sentiments and was planning an act of terror.
Like his mother (Jennie Grabbe, seen at left in this vintage yearbook page), Adam Livvix was popular in school
Fortunately, Israeli law enforcement, which has a knack for smoking out troublemakers before they have a chance to strike, zeroed in on Adam.
He’s courted. Although Adam had lied about being a Seal, when officers came to arrest him, he did manage a rather cinematic — albeit failed — escape attempt. He jumped to the patio of an apartment a floor below his own, the Jerusalem Post reposted.
In 2014, Adam, then 30, was indicted for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks against Muslim holy sites, most prominently the Dome of the Rock mosque, the 1,300-year-old gold-topped shrine in Jerusalem.
His lawyer, Gal Wolf, called the charges “nonsense,” although Adam admitted to police that he made some early-stage preparations for an attack.
You’re not our problem anymore. The Israeli government also accused Adam of overstaying his visa by a year.
An Israeli court deemed Adam Livvix unfit to stand trial because of psychosis and kept him in a mental health facility. Israel eventually decided “not our circus, not our monkeys” — and sent him back to Illinois.
There, Adam faced charges for the theft of farm equipment, the LA Weekly reported.
Runs in the family. Incidentally, it’s not entirely clear to which, if any, religious group Adam belonged. He has no discernable Jewish heritage. A Palestinian news source described him as an “extremist Christian.” His mother belonged to a Methodist church.
Adam dropped off the radar screen after 2015, but his little brother picked up the torch.
Charles Tyler Livvix, known as Tyler, faced arrest after missing a court date in August 2019, according to the Robinson (Illinois) Daily News.
Back on the street. Tyler barricaded himself inside a house in Marshall, and it took local police, the sheriff’s office, state police, and an ILIAS Tactical Response Team to extricate him, the Tribune Star reported.
The Tribune Star story noted that officers “were aware of Livvix’s relation to Everett Adam Livvix.” But it didn’t mention Adam’s whereabouts at the time.
Laura and Tony George
It’s not clear why Tyler Livvix had the court date in the first place, but he is free today and maintains a presence on social media with somewhat confusing posts about politics and current events.
Race relations. Meanwhile, Tyler and Adam’s half-sister — born in 1961 to Darrell Livvix and then-wife Cynthia — has a moderately high profile but not because of any legal trouble.
A story in the Jerusalem Post notes that she’s “Laura George, who is married to Tony George, the former president and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the founder of the Indy Racing League.”
As for Adam Livvix’s onetime associate Kevin Orenshein, he works as a technology analyst for an Israeli venture capital firm, according to his LinkedIn profile.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
A Farm Family Suffers Brutality in Secret (Forensic Files, “The Root of All Evil”)
Updated on June 30, 2022
From the outside, life at Fred and Charlotte Grabbe’s country mansion must have looked enviable. The couple had a cheerleading daughter who got straight A’s, a handsome football-playing son, and a prosperous 800-acre farm near Marshall, Illinois.
Acquaintances described Fred, who was 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds with blue eyes, as outgoing and friendly.
Charlotte was a foot shorter than Fred and less than half his weight. She had a simple, elegant style and a pretty face with birdlike features.
The love between Charlotte (with son Jeff) and her children was boundless
Floodgates open. But Charlotte didn’t act like a delicate flower. On the last day of her life, she was driving a tractor and cultivating soybean fields.
And Fred didn’t treat her like she was made of china either. In fact, he physically abused her up until the day he suffocated her with his meaty hands and incinerated her body.
He had four years of freedom before authorities, who never recovered Charlotte’s remains, could put together a case against him. Fortunately, a private detective tracked down Fred’s young ex-girlfriend and she spilled everything she knew about what happened to Charlotte Grabbe.
Hulking heartthrob. Vickie McCalister was mad at Fred because he jilted her and replaced her with another blond woman in her 20s. Barbara Graham was so crazy about Fred that she attempted to break him out of jail.
For this week, I searched for Fred Grabbe’s whereabouts today and any clues as to how this violent tub of lard managed to snag girlfriends despite his horrible past and why Charlotte Grabbe married him in the first place.
I also looked for an epilogue for the Grabbes’ daughter, Jennie, who guarded many of the worst family secrets until long after Forensic Files produced “The Root of All Evil” in 2001.
The Grabbes had the largest farm in Clark County
It started in Indiana. So let’s get going on a recap of the episode along with extra information culled from online research:
Fred Grabbe came into the world on June 2, 1939, in West Terre Haute, Indiana, the son of Inez and Chester Grabbe. Before turning to farming, Fred co-owned an agricultural implement store and worked in coal-mining and oil-drilling.
Charlotte Sue Gore was also born in Indiana, on Jan. 31, 1942, the daughter of Melvin and Margaret Gore.
Margaret died young, leaving Charlotte motherless at age 7.
It was 1957, long before anyone had heard the term “date rape” and Charlotte, with no female role model to guide her, probably didn’t know what else to do but marry the man who impregnated her.
Bucolic life. The couple had son Jeffrey Leon on Sept. 1, 1958, and daughter Jennie the following year.
Charlotte caught Fred cheating on her and divorced him in 1961. He must have turned on the charm because she gave him another chance. They did have two small kids together and he hadn’t metamorphosed into a walking sea cow yet. They remarried in 1962.
The family lived in Canada for a while and eventually moved to Clark County, Illinois, in an area rich with corn and soybean fields.
Teenage mom. Charlotte lost her father in 1974 and, thanks in part to family assets she inherited, the Grabbes were able to own and operate a successful farm.
Vickie McCalister and Barbara Graham weren’t exactly on paths of glory before they met Fred Grabbe, but their affairs with him all but ruined the rest of their lives
Jennie would later say that her mother did a good job of raising her and her brother, but Charlotte was so young that sometimes she seemed more like a sister.
Father’s fury. There were some good times. The Grabbes’ daughter-in-law, Cindy Pancake, told Forensic Files that Fred could be a fun-loving and warm host.
But the unpleasant events were memorable, too.
He had fits of rage over practically nothing, usually directed at Charlotte or Jeff, and sometimes they included physical abuse, according to Jennie.
Secrets and lies. Jennie told Forensic Files that she witnessed her dad bashing her brother’s head into the fender of a pickup truck.
“My brother was hospitalized one time and we were told to make up stories…tell the doctor he fell out of the hayloft,” she recalled on the Stop Child Abuse Now internet radio show.
By 1981, Charlotte, 39, had endured enough and asked for another divorce. Fred, 42, had started cheating on her again, with 24-year-old bartender Vickie Jane McCalister.
Hard work and dedication. Fred moved out of the main house, into a cabin on the Grabbes’ property.
For Fred, a permanent split would mean freedom to continue sleeping around — but he wanted to hold onto Charlotte and not divide up the family assets.
On July 24, 1981, Charlotte left the house to do work in the soybean fields.
Her children never saw her again.
Alleged car chase. Charlotte had told the kids to come look for her if she didn’t get back by 4:30 p.m. that day. Jennie and Jeff called the sheriff right away.
During her Forensic Files appearance, Jennie Grabbe wasn’t ready to reveal the whole truth about her father – like the fact that he had numerous illegitimate children he refused to support, she said years later
Fred explained to the law officers that he and Charlotte argued in the toolshed that day. He got in his truck, and she chased him in her green Ford LTD and eventually drove off toward the interstate, Fred claimed.
But witnesses said it was a curly haired blond woman following Fred in Charlotte’s car.
Grave words. Police found Charlotte’s purse, uneaten lunch, and migraine medicine in the toolshed.
The authorities drilled open Charlotte’s bank safe deposit box and found a handwritten note Charlotte left, with the instructions to read it upon her death.
It was a voice from the grave (Sandra Duyst, Russ Stager) accusing Fred of stealing some farm equipment and declaring that she was afraid of Fred as well as his business associate Dale Kessler.
Iffy alibi. Kessler told police that Fred was with him the night Charlotte disappeared.
But when questioned by a grand jury about his whereabouts, Fred took the Fifth Amendment.
Jennie, married by now, posted a $25,000 reward for help solving the case, but it went cold for four years.
Terror in the toolshed. In 1984, she and husband Darrel Livvix, who operated a plastics plant, hired a private investigator named Charles Pierson to look for Charlotte.
Pierson found Vickie McCalister in Indiana. She was bitter about the way Fred treated her and wanted the $25,000 reward. She spilled an absolutely revolting story about what really happened the day Charlotte disappeared on July 24, 1981.
While Vickie was hiding behind a tractor, Charlotte and Fred argued in the toolshed. He attacked her. As a sadistic exercise, he repeatedly choked her until she passed out, waited until she came to, and choked her again.
Spotlight on tree experts. Fred finally strangled her to death and severely abused her corpse. Vickie then helped Fred burn the body with diesel fuel in a trash barrel under a maple tree on the banks of the Wabash River.
Vickie admitted that she was the one seen driving Charlotte’s vehicle the day she died. She had abandoned the car in Terre Haute.
Obviously, the account from a woman scorned — the holy grail for prosecutors — provided a huge break in the case. But investigators still had no trace of a body, so they had to dig deeply to find forensic evidence.
Ring of truth. Russ Carlson, a consulting arborist (a refreshing departure from the usual blood splatter expert) who Forensic Files viewers may remember from his appearance on the show, and two University of Illinois scientists cut several branches from the maple tree at the site where Vickie said she and Fred burned the body.
The experts found that the 1981 growth rings that faced the river showed a developmental slowdown consistent with exposure to diesel fuel. Further testing revealed evidence of petroleum products in the tree. And the only branches affected by the fuel were those directly above the spot where Vickie said she and Fred had placed the burn barrel.
In 1985, police finally arrested Fred Grabbe. His lawyers succeeded in getting him a change of venue to Vermilion County — after a phone survey revealed that 98 percent of Clark County residents had heard of Fred Grabbe, according to the Mattoon Journal Gazette.
Eyewitness account. Comments from the survey included, “I went to school with Fred Grabbe. Then he was real nice but now it’s another story” and “I hope they electrocute him.”
Vickie got immunity for testifying about the murder and, for the first time, Jennie and Jeff heard the story of the way their mother died.
Fred Grabbe was not thrilled about moving out of the main house and into this cabin, known as Pickens Place
The motive was money — most of their wealth sprang from Charlotte’s inheritance and Fred wanted to retain it. Vickie McCalister admitted she participated in the murder cover-up.
Son intimidated. McCalister testified that Charlotte wasn’t Fred’s first homicide victim. He told her that, at 14, he had murdered someone for killing his dog (hate to defend Fred Grabbe, but that’s a mitigating factor) and later had killed two women over a union dispute, according to court papers filed in 1986.
Jennie would later say that as a child, she witnessed Fred kill a man after a bar fight.
Jeff Grabbe also testified about the physical abuse Fred had inflicted upon family members and said that Fred had threatened to hurt him if he didn’t clam up about his mother’s disappearance.
But Fred Grabbe had some people on his side, too. Paulina Kessler, wife of Dale Kessler, claimed she spotted someone who looked like Charlotte Grabbe in a shopping mall a year after she disappeared, the Decatur Herald and Review reported.
Ridiculous attempt. Fred’s defense lawyer argued that Vickie McCalister made up the murder story to collect the reward.
Regardless, a jury convicted Fred of first-degree murder on June 24, 1985, and he got a sentence of life without parole.
But the drama didn’t stop after the guilty verdict. While authorities were still holding Fred in the Clark County lockup, Barbara Graham — the woman Fred had dumped Vickie McCalister for — shot Deputy Mike Davidson in the leg and fired off four more bullets in an attempt to blast Fred out of jail.
It’s not clear what Barbara’s long-term plan was. Where could the towering Fred ever hide?
Hairy situation. And why did the 26-year-old Graham, whom the Chicago Tribune described as a mother of three, find Fred so alluring? And ditto with Vickie McCalister?
Well, first off, as many who knew Fred explained, when he kept his id in check, he was pleasant, lively company. His daughter said he was a classic Jekyll and Hyde who sometimes seemed like “the nicest person you could meet.”
There’s also the money factor. The Tribune story mentioned that Barbara Graham enjoyed showing off a fur coat Fred bought her prior to the first trial, so maybe she hoped for more expensive gifts in exchange for her gun moll services.
Hope it was worth it. For all we know, Fred promised each girlfriend she would someday become the lady of the household at the spacious Southfork-like main residence on the farm.
Instead, Barbara Graham got a 16-year prison sentence for her futile crime. Vicky McCalister evaded any punishment for her role in Charlotte Grabbe’s murder, but she had to change her identity and flee the area out of fear of reprisal by Fred.
Her worry was well-placed. In 1985, while Fred was securely locked in jail, a fire destroyed the Grabbes’ main house as well as a small abode that Jeff Grabbe was building on the property. Illinois police found evidence of arson but couldn’t prove that Fred, from his cell, had directed any of his associates to set the buildings aflame.
Money problems. Two years later in 1987, more bad news befell the Grabbe children. Fred won a new trial on appeal because of faulty instructions given to the jury.
In March 1988, before he had a chance to testify against his father again, Jeff Grabbe went missing.
Jennie told the Herald and Review that her brother hadn’t worked since their mother died and that he was probably evading creditors, according to a story by reporter Jeffrey Raymond, who covered the case extensively.
Another watery grave. Jeff Grabbe did have a rather dicey reputation. The Herald and Review story noted that he had allegedly been seen trying to break into a local appliance store, but the authorities never pressed charges. “He’s not what you call one of our real troublemakers,” Detective Burt Bennett of the Marshall Police Department told the Herald and Review.
According to his wife, Cindy, Jeff was a financier and had gone to California to seek a loan for a client. She and Jeff had been talking on the phone every day because their baby son had pneumonia, and Jeff suddenly stopped calling.
On March 21, 1998, a boater discovered a corpse in the Pacific Ocean 1.5 miles off Seal Beach.
Died with his boots on. Clearly, this was no accidental drowning. Someone had shot the victim three times, tied an anchor to him, and thrown him fully clothed into the Ocean.
FBI-trained forensic sculptor Marilyn Droz would later comment that she could tell the victim was “at least middle class” because of his expensive snakeskin boots.
The water had rendered the face unrecognizable, but a reconstructive clay bust and dental records enabled a positive ID of Jeffrey Grabbe on May 24, 1988. A theory sprang up that one of Fred Grabbe’s reprobate associates — perhaps the same person who torched the houses — had put out a hit on Jeff.
“Seal Beach police say the killing appears to be drug-related… [Detectives] scoff at the notion that Fred Grabbe, safe in a cell in Downstate Illinois, had anything to do with it. On the other hand, Seal Beach police don’t know Fred Grabbe.”
The monster grieves. In addition to Cindy, who worked as an elementary school teacher, Jeff left behind sons Lucas, 5, and Nicholas, 9 months.
LA Times clipping shows a forensic bust of Jeff Grabbe
According to defense lawyer Frederick Cohn, Fred Grabbe cried “like a baby” in Coles County jail after hearing the news of his son’s death, the Herald and Review reported in a June 2, 1988.
His sorrow might have been real. Police concluded that Jeff was killed because he tried to double-cross some of his own business associates in a $7 million money-laundering scheme, the LA Times reported on Nov. 18, 1988.
More to the story. At Fred Grabbe’s second trial, the judge refused to allow a record of Jeff’s testimony, but his widow took the stand for the prosecution.
In April 1988, Fred was found guilty again and got 75 years in prison.
Jennie said she eventually forgave her father even though he never said he was sorry.
Fred actually had a lot more things to atone for than either of the juries ever heard.
Coping with trauma. By the time Jennie was 5, Fred had begun sexually abusing her, according to her interview on Stop Child Abuse, a show hosted by William “Bill” Murray III, who survived molestation by priests and went on to found the National Association of Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse in California.
“I would disassociate — count tiles on the ceiling,” Jennie said. “Some things I didn’t remember until I was 30 years old.”
Jennie also said that she took comfort from playing music and having dogs and horses growing up.
Solace attained. She was popular, and the classmates who elected her to the Homecoming Queen’s court and listened to her sing “Evergreen” in a school show had no idea the upbeat girl lived in a den of depravity at home.
Today known as Jennie Woolverton, she married three times, had five children, and said she ultimately found peace and healing with the help of a Christian group.
In an unfortunate and bizarre tangential note, Jennie’s son Adam Livvix made headlines in 2014, when he allegedly plotted to bomb Muslim holy sites in Israel.
In the meantime, let’s get to Fred. Today, he resides in Dixon Correctional Center in Illinois. He’s lost an inch of his height, standing 6’3, and some weight, at 254 pounds.
His profile also mentioned that he’s missing at least one finger from his right hand. My guess would be a farm-equipment accident — it’s hard to imagine even the toughest fellow inmate holding Fred down and slicing off body parts.
And speaking of horrors, Grabbe won parole and exited prison on July 22, 2022. (Thanks to readers RTH and Dennis L. for the tip.)
That’s all for the post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
