5 True Crime Cases Too Pointless to Believe

There are some cases where once you hear the motive, you can at least understand how things reached that point. These are not those cases. In these stories, people lost their lives over things so small and so meaningless that the escalation is almost impossible to comprehend. a bad internet connection, concert tickets, an accidental photo outside a nightclub. These weren't long planned murders. These were ordinary moments [music] that spiraled completely out of control. And before anyone had time to understand what was happening, someone was gone. Families were destroyed. And the person responsible is facing decades or even life in prison. Before everything went wrong, Alexis Watkins was in one of those stages of life where almost everything felt like it was still the beginning. She lived in Mcome, Georgia, surrounded by a large family, four brothers, two sisters, and a mother who she absolutely adored. Her relationship with her mom, Latoya, was especially close. Alexis talked about her often online, posting heartfelt birthday messages and thanking her for helping shape her into the person that she'd become. It was obvious that this wasn't the kind of thing someone posted because they felt obligated to. Alexis genuinely loved her mom. In fact, when Latoya eventually found herself in danger, Alexis wouldn't hesitate for even a second before stepping in to protect her. But at the time, none of them had any reason to believe that that moment was about to come. Alexis was young, outgoing, and constantly sharing pieces of her life online. Her social media was filled with lively videos, updates, and glimpses into the person that she was, and a huge part of that life was DeAndre Thomas. The two had been high school sweethearts, and their relationship had grown with them. Eventually, they got engaged, and Alexis became pregnant with their first child. Not long after, she gave birth to a baby boy named Cameron. For Alexis and DeAndre, life suddenly became about building a family of their own. They were still young, but they were very happy. They made videos together. They went places as a family and tried to settle into their completely new chapter of their lives as parents. And for Alexis, home was still very much home. She still lived with her mother and siblings. And like any large family, they would argue from time to time. Brothers and sisters got on each other's nerves. Tempers flared. Someone got annoyed. Someone said something they shouldn't. But eventually, everyone moved on. Nothing about it suggested that one of those ordinary family arguments would soon become something [music] none of them could ever take back. But on February 2nd of 2018, inside the Watkins family home, an argument would begin over something almost laughably insignificant, the Wi-Fi. And before it was over, one member of this family would be gone and another would be responsible. It was February 2nd, 2018, and Alexis was at home with her mom and one of her brothers, 16-year-old Kevin Watkins. Now, something to know about Kevin is that he was often disrespectful towards his mom and even the rest of his siblings. He also loved to play video games, and in addition to just being disrespectful, he would also often get into fights with Latoya and his siblings. And things just weren't ideal. So on this fateful day, Kevin was picked up by his mom from school and he was already in a really bad mood. Now it could be because he's just a teenager, but Kevin's default mood was always sour, especially when things didn't go his way. So after coming back home, Kevin went upstairs, plugged in his Xbox, and played video games. Now, many of us can play a game, get interrupted, take a break, and come back and finish whatever it was we were doing. It's no big deal. Nothing to even think about. But this wasn't true for Kevin. When he was playing video games, he would get incredibly aggressive with anything or anyone who got in his way. And on this particular day, the internet was slow and his online matches, they were lagging a bit. Now, there were a lot of people in the house at the time, and all of them were apparently using Wi-Fi, and Kevin did not handle this well. He wanted zero lag, and to him, his games were the most important thing in the world. So, in a frustrated attempt to get back on track, Kevin [music] went and changed the Wi-Fi password. In doing so, everyone lost access to the Wi-Fi, and Kevin was back in his room playing video games with a decent internet speed. Now, it was all golden for him. Now, at this point, Latoya and everyone else in the house finally noticed the internet wasn't working. And right away, they knew that Kevin was the one who caused that. In fact, one of the Watkins siblings went to Latoya to complain and they wanted her to do something about it because by this point, they all figured out the password was changed. And so, I guess this must have been something Kevin did a lot before because the moment it happened, all eyes were on him. Latoya was obviously frustrated. She knew that Kevin could be difficult. So, she decided to teach him a lesson right then and there. So, she took the router, put it in her room, and shut the internet off entirely. So without any notice, Kevin was disconnected from his online match. And this well to say he was angry does not even begin to cover it. Kevin was fuming. Realizing what had happened, he headed straight for his mother's room and a very aggressive argument ensued. Kevin and Latoya were getting louder and louder. And just a few doors down, Alexis was startled by the noise. She figured out that the two were fighting and she headed right in to try to calm things down. But little did Alexis know this would be the last thing she ever did. Kevin was an extremely difficult teenager. He was always angry, always bitter, and always taking his frustrations out on someone else. He had no filter in regard for the person in front of him when he was angry. When he saw red, it was the only thing he could see. So when Kevin realized that his mother had removed the Wi-Fi router, he began hurling insults, demanding she put it back, shouting as loud as he possibly could all over a simple internet connection. At one point, Latoya even feared that her own son was about to get physical with her. This was becoming a new level of angry, even for him. Now, according to reports, when Alexis went into Latoya's room, where the fight was currently going down, things were getting intense. Alexis noticed that Kevin seemed like he was about to become violent. When Alexis saw this, she couldn't just stand there and she jumped in. Now, there are conflicting reports about what exactly happened next. Some say that the siblings wrestled each other to the ground and some say that Alexis was the one who hit her brother first and that that's what fueled him to tackle her to the ground and restrain her in a chokeold. But nonetheless, it all seemed so needless. But the two siblings were now actively in a brawl with Kevin having the upper hand. Alexis was helpless against her own brother. He continued to keep her in that chokeold and within a matter of minutes, she stopped fighting back. On the side, Latoya was trying her best to break up this newly escalated fight. But Kevin had threatened her that if she came in between them, then the consequences would be dire. Latoya had no choice but to call the police and just pray that they would make it in time. She felt she couldn't do anything but watch for nearly 15 minutes as Kevin restrained his sister. According to Latoya, even though Kevin was a bit of a hotthead, this was something else. This was not her son. His eyes were crazed and nothing she would say or do would stop the fight. But finally after those 15 minutes, the family heard police sirens outside the house and they rushed to open the door and explain the situation. When police finally got in, Alexis was still under her brother's control, unable to move and unable to breathe. He was uncontrollable. He was not letting go, and what started as a needless fight over Wi-Fi was about to end tragically. When the officers swarmed the house in which both siblings were, they were shocked to see the scene in front of them. a teenager with a young woman overpowered just not letting her go for anything. The police demanded he let go and that was the only time that Kevin finally relented and loosened his grip and his unconscious sister. As soon as he did so, Alexis fell to the ground and she was unresponsive. Emergency services stepped in, but so much time had already passed and they were incredibly fearful. The whole scene was very grim and devastating. Latoya saw her daughter on the ground. The same daughter who jumped in to protect her without a care in the world, she couldn't handle herself anymore. This was so far beyond anything she could have ever imagined happening on a regular weekday afternoon. As for Kevin, he was arrested by the police and taken out of the house. In the meantime, everyone tried their best to save an unconscious Alexis. From the police officers doing their best to perform life-saving measures to then the paramedics, everyone was shocked and only had one thing on their minds. To save this young mom of one. Her condition was critical. She was rushed to the hospital, but every life-saving measure was proving to be fruitless. She was just unresponsive. And tragically, a day later on February 3rd, Alexis lost her life. Her cause of death was asphixxiation caused by her own brother and a fight that wasn't even hers to begin with. A simple argument over wifi had somehow some way just turned into a full-blown homicide investigation. Kevin Watkins was then charged with the murder of his own sister. [music] And now young Cameron was left without his mother and DeAndre was left without his fianceé. His reaction to this news was unbearable. And when he found out that the person responsible for his fiance's passing was none other than someone from her own family, I can't even imagine. At the police station, the detectives were trying to make sense of the crime at hand. They wanted to ask the culprit why he did what he did. They already knew the basic gist of the crime that had broken out over the Wi-Fi, but they needed to know why and how things escalated. But they couldn't get any information from him at the time. But when police told Kevin that his sister had lost her life and that it was his fault. Well, that finally got him to speak. Maybe the gravity of the situation finally hit him or something else. But Kevin showed remorse and he began to sob hysterically, but nothing he would do would bring his sister back. Kevin in the end still pleaded not guilty and strangely he even opted for a bench trial instead of an ordinary trial by jury. Now, a bench trial is basically when the criminal is presented in front of a judge instead of a jury in a traditional trial, and they'll review the evidence at hand, as well as listen to testimonies made by the witnesses, and they'll hand down a sentence that seems appropriate to them. One of the star witnesses at this trial was none other than Latoya Watkins, the woman who just lost her daughter and now was up at the stand to testify against her own son. to think of how this happy family got turned on its head so incredibly quickly. Part of me wonders if Latoya had even fully grasped the concept of what was even going on by this point. But at the trial, when he was asked why he went to the extreme length of overpowering his sister and refusing to let go, Kevin finally had an explanation for that. According to Kevin, he told the judge that if he hadn't overpowered Alexis, then she would have beat him up. It was that simple. He ended her life so he wouldn't get hurt for a fight that he started over something as trivial as Wi-Fi. It's a watered down excuse and doesn't do anything to take away the sheer brutality of the crime. But I guess it is what it is. It's just mind-boggling to think that he would rather resort to murder and keep his own sister in a chokeold for so long just to avoid a simple beating that, let's be honest, he kind of had coming. I mean, sibling rivalry is one thing. Grabbing someone, maybe pinning him down for a bit until they admit defeat, that's one thing. But this, the fact that he held her down until the cops showed up, you can't tell me that at some point during that time, he didn't realize what he was doing. There's no way that he didn't. Kevin, now he was a hotthead, but he's not an idiot. He knew exactly what was going to happen if he didn't let go. But during the trial, Kevin stressed that he did not mean to go this far, and he was just angry over the whole Wi-Fi situation. But after hearing all the testimonies and reviewing all the evidence, it was time for the sentencing. This was honestly a tough one for the judge because they truly believed that Kevin didn't intend to murder Alexis. But the fact that he also didn't let go and didn't get help for his sister says a lot about the incident. And in the end, while the Watkins family sat in that courtroom, the verdict was given. Kevin Watkins, who was only 16, was found guilty of murdering his sister and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Imagine losing one of your children in such a devastating and shocking turn of events and then seeing the source of that devastation who's also your child go to prison for it. The Watkins family has to live with the fact that they lost their daughter. But not only this, at the hands of their son, the victim's brother. That's a whole different level of pain and suffering. This case led to a huge debate involving video game addiction in teenagers and how these games can derail the impressionable minds of young teens. But this is a debate as old as time. I think it's high time we're all honest with ourselves and just admit the video games are not the problem. It's the people who allow themselves to hold these games above everything else in their life, even their own family, that's the real problem. Not everyone who plays video games as a hobby ends up murdering people. Not everyone who eats Little Debbie cakes gets diabetes. Overindulgence in anything is a bad thing. No video game is to blame here. Kevin is. That young man needed serious help that for some reason he was never able to receive. I just hope that in prison maybe he'll be able to get the help that's truly needed to rehabilitate him. Because this entire situation could have been easily avoided if Kevin simply knew how to control his anger towards others. By 2008, Linda Bolock had already spent most of her life taking care of other people. She was 61 years old, a mother of two, and living in Carol Stream with her boyfriend Stan Matusiaak. By all accounts, Linda was kind, charming, and deeply devoted to her family. Her twin sister Pat described her as a good mother, someone who did the best that she could, even when being a mother became far more difficult than she ever expected. And much of that difficulty centered around one of her sons, Robert. Robert had struggled with serious mental health problems since he was a teenager. He'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had a history of inpatient treatment and self harm. And he struggled to take his medication consistently. As he got older, those problems did not simply disappear. Robert had difficulty holding a job. He'd become angry and unpredictable. And at one point, he even had been evicted from a Chicago YMCA because of this behavior. By his late 30s, he was struggling to take care of himself. So, Linda did what she'd probably done countless times before, and she stepped in. Less than a year before her death, Linda invited Robert to move into the condo that she shared with Stan. [music] And from that point on, she became responsible for most of his life. She bought his clothes. She drove him where he needed to be. She helped support him financially and she pushed him to get treatment. And whenever Robert was struggling, Linda was there. According to her family, this was not a mother who abandoned or ignored her son. If anything, Linda continued trying to help Robert long after he reached adulthood. But living together was not always peaceful. The two argued, the relationship could be turbulent, and Robert was known to have bursts of anger. And whatever love existed between mother and son, there was tension still inside that condo. But still, Linda continued taking care of him. And on March 18th of 2008, Robert would ask his mother for something else. Something he wanted badly. something Linda decided she wasn't going to give him a pair of concert tickets. And before that argument was over, the woman who'd spent years trying to take care of her own son would be found dead inside her home. It was March 18th of 2008, and on this particular day, Linda had some errands to run that involved Robert. See, she didn't have plans for the day, but Robert suddenly wanted to go shopping. She agreed and the two went to the mall and that was that. But when they came back home, he had another request, or rather a demand. Robert wanted to go to a concert that was happening sometime that month. But it wasn't just any concert. It was an Aver Lavine concert. Now, if there's one thing you should know about Robert, [music] he loved Aver Lavine. See, apparently Lyndon knew a friend who could get their hands on some Averine concert tickets. I'm assuming the concert was going to happen in a place close to Carol Stream. The thing is, Robert didn't just want any tickets. He wanted the VIP tickets, Skybox tickets. Now, Skybox tickets are very expensive. Even though I couldn't find the exact price of the tickets for this particular event, they typically include premium views, lounge access, catering, whereas regular, less expensive tickets, well, I mean, we all know they just get you in the door. So, Robert specifically wanted these tickets. And after nagging his mom to go shopping earlier that day, he thought that every wish he asked for would be granted. Now, if you remember, Robert didn't even have a job. And Linda supported her son entirely from A to Z. Now, even though she wasn't opposed to getting what her son wanted as long as it was at least necessary, well, this request was too much. Even though she knew someone who could pull some strings and get those tickets, I'm just not sure she wanted to pay all that much for a concert, especially when a similar experience could have been achieved at a much more reasonable price. In this case, the Skybox Averine tickets were just too much. And this is where Linda drew the line. She didn't want to give Robert the money just to waste away on some tickets. So, she refused and didn't give into his demands. And that didn't sit right with Robert. He didn't like that at all. He wanted those tickets and he wanted his mom to buy them for him. He didn't want to move a muscle to earn money for the tickets himself. But when his mom refused, he got really mad. And little did Robert know that not only was he not going to get those skybox tickets, but he wouldn't be going to that concert at all. Because after all was said and done, he'd be spending the evening in a jail cell. According to Robert, he and his mom were not getting along well. Robert was not taking his medication and he was up for the last 30 hours on this fateful day and he was in a manic state to quote his own words. When he demanded that his mom basically buy him these expensive tickets, the two burst out into a very heated argument in the kitchen and in the middle of it, he saw Linda reaching for a kitchen knife. And that was when he lunged at her. According to Robert, he first attacked her with a champagne bottle that caused her to fall to the ground. And then he used that same bottle as well as other sharp weapons to attack his mom while she was on the ground. And he continued doing so until she stopped fighting and moving altogether. I know this sounds like all of this just sort of came out of nowhere. But that's because it did. Everything was literally fine one second, then without any warning, a massive argument broke out. And as soon as it started, it was already over, just not in the way anyone had hoped. The attack was extremely frenzied, and it left behind a very chaotic scene. Before making a run for it, Robert did something strange, though. And there's literally no explanation for this that could find other than one. See, after the harrowing incident, Robert used household chemicals like insecticides and cleaning products and poured them all over his mom's body. I genuinely don't know why he did it, but I read one source that claimed that he did it to apparently humiliate her. Again, there's no real explanation for why he would have done this. There's no real motive behind this action, but it was an odd detail that felt important to include. But after doing this, he just left the house and went to the mall, apparently to do some more shopping. According to sources, he went to a bookstore, and while he was there, he bought a book and scribbled the name of a character from a soap opera on the inside cover. We don't know why he did this either, but the case is already strange enough, so I don't even know. But back at home, neighbors had apparently heard the argument between Robert and his mom, and it got so heated that those neighbors actually called the police to check up on them. They heard a lot of screaming, but then silence. When the police arrived, they were met with a scene that they were dreading. While they hoped to find the two inside their condo having made amends and moved on, instead they found a crime scene with Linda lying on the kitchen floor and Robert nowhere to be seen. Linda Bolick was unresponsive on the ground and she tragically could not be revived. Her boyfriend Stan was notified of the incident and he couldn't believe it. Stan knew that Robert had mental struggles and challenges, but he never could have imagined something like this could have ever happened. Robert was known for throwing tantrums when he didn't get what he wanted. But this was unreal. He still struggles to come to terms with the fact that his girlfriend's own son attacked her so heartlessly because she said no to one of his requests and an outrageous request at that. Right away, the officers at the scene could tell that the attack was very vicious. One of the murder weapons was still lodged in Linda when she was found, and that says a lot about the sheer brutality of this crime. But the police knew they had to look for the culprit, who was the victim's own son. And they tracked him down just hours later that night when he was having dinner at a Hooters's restaurant at Woodfield Mall. Robert went willingly. He didn't really even put up a fight and he was taken to the police station. He was charged with the murder of his own mother, and at a court hearing, he pleaded not guilty to the charges. So, the trial was set for September 2011. Well, he was behind bars on a massive $2 million bond. When Robert's trial date finally arrived, the state went first with its arguments and how the whole incident went down. And to remind you, everything I told you up to this point was just Robert's version of events. But according to the prosecution, they also didn't believe that the attack was planned. They also didn't believe that Linda was threatening her son with a weapon and that that was the breaking point for Robert. It was her not buying the concert tickets that they believe did it for him. The state believes that all Linda did was not give in to her son's request because he was a bit spoiled by her. He acted out in rage because he didn't get what he wanted and he ended up murdering his own mom. The defense, on the other hand, went with the whole relationship was on the rocks story. They stressed that Linda was not a perfect mom and the two argued a lot. They also claimed that she was verbally abusive towards Robert and that he warned her multiple times not to turn aggressive towards him. But that warning apparently fell on deaf ears on the faithful day of the incident and it ended with Linda losing her life. The prosecution called people from the victim's life to stand to testify about the relationship between her and her son. And according to everyone who knew her, including Stan, who basically lived with the two of them, nothing suggested that she was neglectful or abusive towards her son in any way. I mean, sure, she wasn't the perfect mom. She might have engaged in some arguments that needn't be engaged with, but said arguments often stemmed from Robert's habit of buying female hostesses flowers at a restaurant that he frequented. Now, again, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's believed that Robert used his mom's money to woo women at restaurants. cuz if you remember, he didn't have a job and he was completely dependent on his mother. So her anger and frustration kind of seems justified. Now, buying flowers once or twice may be fine, but doing it as a regular habit with someone else's money, that's why there were so many arguments about this. But anyway, Robert took to the stand at trial, and he stressed that the incident was not planned. And this was something a lot of people believed, even the judge at the trial. The scene in the condo was one of just chaos and a mess. And Robert, in his own words, stressed that if he wanted to plan the incident out, he wouldn't have left all the evidence at the house. In fact, he would have planned things better. So, it's believed that the incident was just a sudden act of rage in the heat of the moment. But again, it was all needless and could have been avoided. But the defense presented Robert's mental health record in court [music] and they urged the judge to pursue a lesser charge of secondderee murder with a lesser sentence to go along with it. See, Robert was looking at a life sentence at the trial. But in the end, after the jury deliberated for just two hours, Robert was found guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison on January 23rd of 2012, almost 4 years after this unforgettable incident occurred at his mom's condo. At the sentencing, Linda's loved ones were relieved with her boyfriend Stan saying, "40 years is 40 years. It's like a life sentence." The thing is, no one is a perfect parent, even if they try to be. And clearly, Robert was suffering from a lot of [music] issues and needed more than just medication to deal with his struggles. Medication he wasn't even taking. But what he did to his mom was beyond disturbing. To think that concert tickets were more near and dear to this man's heart than his own mother, that's haunting. Teresa Annie Hungim had already experienced more loss than most people her age. Now, she was known to most people simply as Kim, and she'd been born in Vietnam, but when she was just a year old, her parents, James and Teresa, brought her and her brother to the United States and began building a life in California. For a while, that life was happy. Then, when Kim was only 5 years old, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her father did everything he could. Doctors, treatments, chemotherapy, anything that might give his wife more time, but eventually she passed away. And for Kim, that loss never really disappeared. She grew up, her family changed, and eventually her father remarried, creating a large blended family with Kim as the youngest. But even years later, she still found ways to stay close to her mom. Kim became a writer, and she wrote about her family, her faith, her emotions, and the things happening around her. and she was creative, intelligent, and deeply connected to the people that she loved. And when life became stressful, there was one place that she would often go, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, and that was where her mother's ashes have been scattered. For Kim, visiting that place was a way of being close to her again. But Kim's life wasn't defined only by what she had lost. By her early 20s, she had plenty to look forward to. She'd studied psychology at Chapman University. She'd recently married a man named Jeang. The first wedding anniversary was approaching and she just interviewed for a new job at Nordstrom and was hopeful that she was going to get it. There were plans to make, there were places to go and an entire adult life still just sitting in front of her. And on January 17th, Kim wasn't even planning on going out. She expected a quiet night at home. But then a friend sent her a message, a lastminute invitation, and Kim decided to go. And sometime after midnight outside a nightclub in Santa Ana, something incredibly small would ignite a confrontation between two people who really didn't even know each other. Within minutes, Kim would be lying unconscious on the sidewalk, and the young woman who'd already spent so much of her life learning how to live with loss would suddenly become the person her own family would be forced to grieve. January 17th was a slow day for Kip. She initially didn't have any plans to go out or go anywhere really. She just wanted to spend a night at home cooking and relaxing. Her favorite thing to make, especially for her dad, was f. And a fun fact, she actually learned how to master that recipe from James. She even visited her stepsister in the afternoon and they talked about mundane stuff like car insurance, plans for the future, just regular conversations. It was during the evening when Kim got a text from one of her friends and that last minute plan was made. One of her friends, Ben, would pick her up from her home and they would go to a bar called the Crosby located in Santa Ana. So, in the evening, Kim got dressed. She wore dark jeans, her favorite button-down shirt, a blue cardigan, and high heeled boots. And she grabbed her green bag, which was her favorite color, and she waved goodbye and got into the car with Bean. She was with a large group of friends, about 11 to be exact, but she only knew some of them. Maybe one or two were good friends. The rest were just acquaintances. As a line was forming outside that bar, that was when everything fell apart. Now, there are a couple of versions of what went down according to conflicting witness statements. So, I'm going to try my best to explain all of this as one simple situation. To set the scene, it was just after midnight, so it was January 18th by that point, and the bar was packed outside, hence the line. Kim and her group were waiting to go in as one particular group was coming out. We'll call that group group A. So, you have Kim's group and then you have group A. According to some sources, they believe that Kim had accidentally photobombed group A's picture. And suddenly, they got really mad and a fight broke out outside that club. Other witnesses say that it was the other way around. According to several witnesses, though, including Kim's friends, a woman in group A by the name of Amelia, shouldered Kim, who was busy taking a photo with her friends, and this caused her to stumble back. And in retaliation, a verbal argument ensued. Some witnesses also state that Kim was the one who threw the first punch, whereas many others, including Kim's friends, stressed that a woman from group A, attacked Kim completely unprovoked. Anyway, what we can assume from this entire debacle is that a fight broke out in front of the nightclub. The details as to what sparked the fight are unclear and it's all fingerpointing, but the bottom line is the fight started and things escalated to the point of no return. At some point during the fight, a large group that was outside the nightclub started recording the incident on their phones. They didn't do anything to try to break up the fight. The nightclub security didn't intervene, and no one knows why. Everyone just stood there watching like a herd of animals. It's reported that only Bin, who drove Kim to the nightclub, was the one who tried to break up that fight. But now, as the brawl escalated, two women from group A, Vanessa Savala and Candace Breurto, joined in on the fight. And now they were aggressively involved in attacking Kim. Mind you, while all of this is taking place, everyone's just standing there watching and just filming it on their phones. At some point during the fight, which had now reached the sidewalk of the nightclub, Kim was tackled to the ground, and the two other women, Candace and Vanessa, just kept going at her. Eventually, Kim was seen on the ground, unable to do much, if anything at all. And the girls just kept at it, never letting up for a single second. all over some stupid photograph or all over some simple misunderstanding. But Kim's friends were also helpless in the situation. They tried to do something, but things had gotten so out of hand really fast. There was basically nothing they could do. But around this time is when the police were called. The 911 call, which has been now made public, was actually made by a random woman. And it's unclear if any of Kim's friends called the police because the only call that's available for the public is the one made by this random woman outside the nightclub. When the woman was talking to the operator, Kim was still being attacked by Candace and Vanessa. At this point, everyone was starting to wonder if police were even going to make it in time because these women refused to let up no matter what. This fight, if you could even still call it that, had been going on for so long now and Kim was just completely defenseless. But within a few minutes, police showed up and what they found was no longer a brawl. It was an allout murder. A young woman was unconscious on the sidewalk and she was in critical condition. It was 23-year-old Annie Kimfan and she was rushed to Western Medical Center where it was found she'd suffered blunt force trauma to her head which led to obvious brain damage and now she was motionless. She was not responding to any treatment and doctors made a swift decision to put her on life support. In the meantime, her family was visited by the police at 6:00 in the morning on January 18th. They were honestly shocked at the sight of police officers at their front door. James was extremely anxious and deep down he knew that something was wrong with his daughter. He was notified of the incident and was also given that terrible news that his daughter was currently on life support. Just seconds ago, his life had been great, but now it was unbelievable. Kim had just left home a few hours ago. She wasn't some wild child. She'd learned from her mistakes when she got in trouble for drinking back when she was 18. She wasn't a crazy person who was just looking for trouble. She enjoyed playing board games and spending time with her family when she was at home. But suddenly, things had turned incredibly tragic. Her family rushed to her side, but she was in critical condition. 3 days into being on life support, the doctors needed the fam family to make an extremely difficult choice. To either let her live like this, hooked up to machines, or to let nature take its course. She was showing no signs of improvement and her situation only seemed to be growing worse by the day. Eventually, the family agreed that the chances of Kim waking up, even on life support, were next to none. And so, on January 22nd at 12:36 p.m., Kim tragically passed away. At the police station, the two women, Candace and Vanessa, were already arrested and booked in jail. The police were notified of Kim's passing and the two women were charged with secondderee murder. They both pleaded not guilty to the charges and a trial was held in July of 2014. Now, the prosecution used the video evidence of the attack and their argument was based on two facts. A, Kim was unprovoked and [music] B, the woman didn't stop with their assault even when Kim fell to the ground and was no longer even a threat to them. On the other side, the defense wrote on the claims that the victim was the aggressor who started the fight and the women were simply acting in self-defense. Just let that sink in. The two women who already outnumbered Kim assaulted her until she was no longer able to fight back. And even when she was struggling on the ground, they didn't stop. Yet, they somehow claimed that Kim was the one who started it and was somehow a danger to these girls in some way. Also, the most bizarre thing about this case is that the issue was so minuscule. Some say that the fight started over Kim accidentally photobombing one of their pictures. Others say that someone accidentally brushed shoulders with someone else. But think about how many times you've accidentally ended up in the background of someone's photo or accidentally brushed shoulders with someone else. Did it ever end up in something like this? Obviously not. To think that this was the issue and the whole thing escalated to the point of someone losing their life that night is just chilling and a scary reminder that things can get out of control very quickly. It's not even about who threw the first punch or whose fault it was. We can probably never know because everyone's telling a different story. But the fact that this escalated for no reason at all to the point of a young woman losing her life, that is devastating. But the fact that no one, not one single person, helped to break the fight up does not sit well with anyone, including the judge at the trial. Everyone was quick to pull out their phones and record the fight, thinking it was just fun to watch women fight outside a club. But apparently, no one thought that this fight would escalate to this extent. The bar security even didn't even step in to stop the assault. It was just mind-boggling. In the end, Candace Breurto and Vanessa Savala were found not guilty on the more serious charge of seconddegree murder, but they were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. They were each sentenced to 6 years in prison on November 14th of 2014, and they were also ordered to pay $5,000 each in fines, as well as a combined $3,500 in funeral costs. Candace and Vanessa were remorseful and emotional at the trial, and they apologized to the victim's family for their loss. The judge called it a senseless brawl and commented to the girls saying, "Why didn't you two just walk away? You're not gang members. You're not fighters. And yet, you were all in the fight up to your elbows. If any of you had just swallowed your pride and walked away, none of us would be sitting here." As far as we know, Amelia is nowhere in the picture. She was not reprimanded. Only Candace and Vanessa were. And speaking of them, they're now currently out of prison, having served their sentences. We don't know where they are or what they're up to now, but this whole case was completely senseless. Kim lost her life for no reason at all. Marriage is supposed to be a sacred and happy union, but in modern times, only about 58% of marriages in the US last with as many as 86 couples getting divorced every hour. We unfortunately seem to live in a new culture where everything is disposable, including relationships with someone who's supposed to be your lifelong best friend. Now, a great deal of these marriages end on good terms. But for some, not so much. This is painfully true in the case of Anna Walsh, who simply wanted a fresh start in life. But unfortunately, what she got was far more sinister. 39-year-old Anna Walsh was born in Bgrade, Serbia. And after graduating from high school, she attended the University of Belgrade where she obtained a French language and literature bachelor of arts. She would remain in the country until 2005 when she decided to seek a better life in the United States. She moved to Washington where she found work at a luxury in aptly called the inn at little Washington and in time she successfully applied for dual citizenship here in the states. Now later on she relocated to Massachusetts where she started working at Wheatly Hotel in Linux and here she happened to meet a man named Brian Walsh. The two hit it off very quickly with Anna and Brian getting married in 2016 and very quickly having three children. Anna would go on to work in a few more hotels but settled well in her position at a real estate firm called Tishman Spayer. But unbeknownst to her, Brian had been up to no good behind her back, conducting fraudulent business deals, and his actions were about to catch up with him. It all started when a man stumbled across an eBay listing for two Andy Warhol paintings from his Shadows collection that the artist created back in 1978. The price for both of these paintings was $100,000. And since the listing contained the original purchase receipts for a total of 240,000, he jumped at the chance of owning two pieces that most art collectors could only dream of, he contacted Walsh and the two bartered over the price, eventually settling on a total of $80,000. A contract was drawn up stating the man had 3 days to study the paintings and if he was dissatisfied, he could return them for a full refund. The man sent his assistant to pick up the paintings from Walsh in Boston on the 7th of November, and the sale was made. Walsh immediately deposited the $80,000 check into his bank account, and over the next 2 weeks, he withdrew just over $33,000 of that money. The following day, the buyer had a chance to study the paintings properly by removing the frames, but he was surprised to learn that neither contained the customary Warhol Foundation authentication stamps. Furthermore, he became suspicious that the paintings might be fakes when he noticed that the staples used to affix them to the canvas looked brand new, which would not have been the case had they been added in 1978. You could certainly expect a bit of tarnishing and rust after all that time. Worried that he may have been duped, he took a closer look at the paintings in the eBay listing, and he immediately started noticing glaring differences. Luckily, he'd drawn up the contract with Walsh, and he knew that he could get his money back since it was still within the allotted 3-day viewing period. But it wouldn't be that easy. His first few attempts to contact Walsh failed, and when he eventually reached him, Walsh had all sorts of excuses that delayed the refunding of the money. It's then that the full picture of Walsh's deceit would be uncovered. An investigation found that Walsh had first seen the original Warhol paintings at a friend's house while he was visiting South Korea. Realizing just how valuable these pieces were, Walsh told the friend that he could find a buyer who would pay top dollar for the historic pieces. And in 2011, he sold them to an art gallery. They would eventually be sold to an unknown foreign buyer, and their current whereabouts remain unknown. But in 2011, Walsh happened upon a set of replicas that he then passed off as the originals, and they were sold to the man from France who bought them on eBay. The man would never get his money back and eventually Walsh would be sentenced to 3 years and one month behind bars and he would later be ordered to pay a total of $475,000 in restitution. Not sure how the price escalated from just $80,000 all the way to $475,000. But I guess this man had a really good lawyer. But by the time all was said and done, Brian Walsh would be accused of a far more serious crime, claiming the life of his wife. By New Year's Day of 2023, Anna had made a name for herself at the Tishman Spayer and had achieved the position of real estate executive and regional general manager. [music] But according to one of her family members, she called for a ride share car to take her to Logan Airport since she was heading back to her place in Washington. but she never got on the flight and her family and friends were unable to reach her. When she still hadn't reported for work 3 days later on the 4th of January, her boss decided to file a missing person's report. This is one of the first worrying signs in this case. It seems unthinkable that a husband could find out that his wife has gone missing and then do nothing about it. But Brian Walsh seemed largely unconcerned and waited until someone else from her workplace filed a report with the Cohasset Police Department. This wasn't a good look for Brian. The subsequent investigation found that Anna was actually meant to fly back to Washington on the 3rd of January, but she was contacted about an emergency at one of the properties that she managed and had to change her plans to an earlier departure date. Investigators spoke to staff at the airport and quickly learned that Anna never boarded her plane. Furthermore, they were unable to find any proof that she had called for a ride share car or that she'd ever set out for the airport in the first place. 6 days after she had gone missing, a search of the woods near Anna's house was carried out with the assistance of search dogs, airwing units, as well as search and rescue crews, but no sign of her or any of her belongings was found despite the area being scoured for two full days. The next step was to search Anna's rental home in Washington. But all that was found here was her car. It was as if she'd simply vanished into thin air without explanation. Investigators determined to find out what happened to her checked Anna's bank accounts, credit card, and phone activity, as well as her social media accounts, but learned that none of these had seen any activity since the day that she disappeared. When Brian was questioned, he stated that on the 1st of January, he'd been driving to his mother's house in Swampscott, but that he somehow lost his bearings, and before he knew it, he'd become lost. While this story made a small amount of sense, investigators just weren't buying it. To them, something seemed off. This led them to obtain a search warrant for the couple's home. And here, they uncovered some disturbing evidence that would begin to paint a clearer picture of what had happened that day. In the house's basement, they came across a knife that had blood on its blade. And furthermore, they found more blood on the floor. With this new evidence in hand, they decided to look into Brian's alibi that he'd been traveling that day. And it didn't take long to discover that he'd been lying. He never made this trip to his mother's house, but instead spent some time at a Home Depot store where he bought around $450 worth of supplies, including duct tape and mops. I think you probably know where this is going from here. On the 6th of January, just days after the search took place, firefighters were dispatched to the family's home after a fire was reported at about 2:15 p.m. Pretty convenient timing. When officers arrived at the property, they found it ablaze. But luckily, no one was injured, as Brian and the three children made it out safely. The cause of the fire was investigated, but eventually found him not be suspicious. Yet, it was certainly suspiciously convenient. Since Brian was very quickly found to have been lying about his whereabouts the day that Anna went missing, considering he was at Home Depot, not his mother's house, he was soon arrested and charged with misleading investigators. But he proved to be uncooperative and would not offer up any additional information and he was held on a $500,000 bond. But this is where things get much, much worse. When the most damning piece of evidence of all was found when a search of a waste disposal site located about an hour from the family's house was searched, investigators found a trash bags that contained blood as well as a hacksaw and a hatchet that had been disposed of. They also came across a rug and several different cleaning supplies. And it had now started to look as though Brian was not the man he made himself out to be. [music] After his arrest, Brian Walsh claimed that he'd been to a CVS drugstore and a Whole Foods in Swampscott on the day that Anna went missing. But investigators were unable to find any CCTV security footage or any evidence that this was the case. Despite this, he entered a plea of not guilty. On the 18th of January, more charges were filed against him, including taking the life of his wife and well, disposing of her, to put it nicely. When detectives continued to dig deeper, they found some disturbing internet searches that had been conducted on his son's iPad, and they alleged that Brian was the one who used the tablet since he was likely certain that investigators would have no cause to analyze their children's devices. Yet, they did. The searches included phrases of how long before a body starts to smell, the best way to dispose of a body, can you be charged without a body and can you throw away body parts, as well as 10 ways to dispose of a body if you really need to. Even when this was presented as evidence, Brian maintained his innocence. Brian's case was damaged even further when it came to light that he made some serious threats against Anna in 2014 before they'd gotten married and just after she divorced her first husband, Mark Nip. In a phone call that lasted several minutes, he threatened to kill her and one of her friends for reasons unknown to investigators. Anna was asked to file charges against him, but she declined. And a year later, they were married. And that's just so wild to me. I can't even imagine how that discussion must have played out and how Anna could have moved on from such serious threats, [music] but to each their own, I guess. But getting back to the case at hand, some discrepancies were found in the police log regarding Anna's disappearance being reported. [music] The log stated that the police were contacted by the head of security for Tishman Spayer. [music] This person had contacted Brian when Anna didn't show up for work as planned and was surprised to learn that he hadn't reported her missing yet. But the police log showed that the company and Brian filed missing person reports at the same time, which simply wasn't the case, and police knew this for a fact. So why did the documentation claim such a thing? Brian's attorney argued that Brian was the one who contacted the company when he couldn't get in touch with Anna, suggesting that the employee who made those statements was being untruthful or that he was simply mistaken. Brian and his lawyer claimed that the company only contacted the police after Brian made them aware of Anna's disappearance, even though this obviously wasn't true. The defense then asked that Brian be released on $250,000 bail, stating that it's the law in Massachusetts that a person can't be presumed deceased for at least 7 years since there's no law against willingly disappearing. They added that no body had been found despite extensive searches being carried out and that no motive or weapon had been uncovered. But this wasn't quite true, as was soon revealed by the prosecution. The prosecution argued that Brian had grown suspicious of Anna in December, just weeks before she disappeared, since he'd started worrying that she was having an affair with another man. He'd grown so paranoid over this that he started accessing the Instagram page of one particular male friend of hers and he'd convinced himself that she was getting ready to leave him. He discussed the situation with his mother who then advised him to hire a private investigator which he then did. But despite Brian's suspicions, the detective found no evidence that she'd been unfaithful and essentially it was all in his head. The prosecution added that Anna had spoken to one of her friends and stated that she was considering ending the marriage after the whole situation came out about the Andy Warhol paintings, but she would obviously never be able to stick around to make this decision once and for [music] all. Another friend told investigators that during a dinner meeting on the 28th of December, Anna had become uncharacteristically emotional as she was certain that Brian would be sent to prison for his dishonesty. She added that if he was incarcerated, she would be moving to Washington permanently with their three children, leaving him behind. But things would only get more rocky and more convoluted when it would later come to light that Anna had indeed been seeing another man. But he described their relationship as being at the level of dating rather than intimate. He added that he'd spent Thanksgiving with Anna in Dublin, but this man's name has not been made public and he's since declined to further comment on the case. But if I were Brian, I'd be getting my money back from that private investigator. But then there was the matter of Anna's life insurance policies, which were worth over $2.7 million, and all listed Brian as the sole beneficiary. If Brian had indeed ended Anna's life, he would certainly stand to gain a lot of money. But the defense argued that Brian had more than enough money on his own and that the payouts from these policies would have made little difference to his financial situation. So, for an insurance payout to be the motive behind her disappearance, well, that theory just didn't hold much water. Next, the prosecution focused on the Google searches that have been found on their son's iPad. They claimed that this was clear evidence that Brian had either planned the crime well ahead of time or that he'd been looking for a way of disposing of Anna's remains after he carried out the heinous act. They revealed that he'd also searched Google using phrases that included [music] best hacksaw to dismember and can you identify a body with broken teeth. They also pointed to CCTV footage of Brian as he was purchasing rugs, cleaning products, [music] a tarp, a Tyveck suit, and a hatchet at the Home Depot in Rockland. It's just so incredibly nuts that this man just walked out the front door of a Home Depot while carrying all these items and no one even batted an eye. Whether he was under investigation or not, this would be suspicious for just about anyone to make off with. Investigators also revealed that Brian was captured by CCTV cameras in Abington in Brockton [music] while disposing of more than a dozen large trash bags at a complex about 45 minutes away from the family's home. Unfortunately, those trash bags could never be retrieved as they were picked up by trash collectors and incinerated. But that very same day, he performed yet another internet search for the phrases, "What happens to hair on a body?" and "Can baking soda mask or make a body smell good?" But the defense claimed that these searches were meaningless as far as the charges against their client were concerned. They stated that while some of the searches were suspicious, he'd also performed a search for how to set up a charitable corporation to give away lottery winnings tax-free. They argued that since he'd never won the lottery and had never set up a charitable trust, the searches could not be used to prove that he'd done so, and hence the problematic searches could not be used to prove that he'd taken the life of his wife either, which is a very valid point. But the detectives hit back with further evidence that had been found, which centered on additional internet searches that Brian had performed. He searched how to mix ammonia, how long a person should be missing before they're declared deceased, how to clean up a crime scene, and how to dispose of a body. Furthermore, he searched how to remove a SIM card from a phone, the locations of different apartment complexes in Brockton, as well as the names of crime scene cleanup companies, how blood is detected at a crime scene, and how one would go about removing blood stains from concrete. [music] When asked about these searches during questioning, Brian quite unbelievably blamed them on his son since the tablet belonged to him. But he was unable to explain how a six-year-old child could perform those searches without making a single spelling error. This was a question Brian couldn't answer. During Brian's interviews with police, investigators referred to a police search that had been conducted of Brian's Volvo, which was found with the seats down. It had also been lined on the inside with plastic. And upon closer inspection, investigators believed that he'd recently vacuumed the carpet. Shortly after this search was carried out, he traveled to his mother's house in Swampscott, where he placed 10 trash bags into a dumpster located in the apartment complex where she lived. Those bags were retrieved by police who then discovered the cleaning supplies, hacksaw, towels, and a receipt for a CO 19 vaccine. But the most crucial was the discovery of some of Anna's personal belongings. The bags were also found to contain a pair of boots that Anna was last seen wearing as well as a part of one of her necklaces, a CO 19 vaccination card in her name, her Hermes watch, car keys, her coat, and her Prada purse. This resulted in the house being searched and the bloody knife being found in the basement along with the further evidence. When DNA tests were done on the Tyveck suit that he' purchased, it was found to contain traces of Anna's DNA. But the defense argued that this was not enough to prove that Brian had ended her life since the match wasn't considered complete. Her DNA legitimately could have ended up on that suit for a million different reasons. Then there was the fact that Brian was still under house arrest thanks to the art fraud charges that he'd been accused of. He'd been given permission to take his children to school, but was otherwise advised to stay home. When CCTV footage was discovered showing him shopping for supplies in different stores, it became obvious that he was willing to break the conditions of his house arrest to cover up what he had done. A seemingly desperate act that he would not have performed under normal circumstances. The court claimed that Brian went to even further lengths to cover his tracks. They referred to an email that had been sent to the police in Cohassid which stated that Anna had been abducted. It went on to claim that Anna had quote messed up, but this was never further explained and that she would never be seen again unless a payment of $127,000 was made. But this letter contained no directions of where the money was to be dropped off and no further emails were ever received, which would be truly strange in an actual abduction case. To me, it kind of makes the whole thing seem like a poorly thoughtout hoax. As the trial ticked on, Brian's bank account continued to slowly run down, and he'd been having to pay exorbitant amounts of money in legal fees. As he eventually fell into poverty, Brian could no longer afford a private attorney. This prompted his defense attorney to withdraw from the case and he was provided with a court-appointed lawyer, only making matters worse for Brian, but better for the prosecution. Now, considering all of this unfolded in 2023, just last year at the time of making this documentary, the court case hasn't been fully settled yet, but I think we know 100% how this is going to end. But for Brian, well, it seems like he's beginning to grow desperate, and he began to steal money from those closest to him. most notably his deceased father. In 2023, some of his family members contacted the police to report that just before Brian was taken into custody. He had destroyed his father's will, after which he went into his home and started removing some valuable items, which he then sold. Now, why his family waited all this time to report the crime, I haven't been able to figure that out. The timeline of some of these events can get pretty murky when a case is being reported by dozens of different news outlets, but my best guess is that he must have destroyed his father's will within just a few days of being taken into custody, as the first mention of this missing will comes from January 10th, and Brian was arrested by police on January 8th. Anyway, among the items Brian allegedly stole were his father's car, pieces of art, rugs, and several pieces of jewelry. He even went as far as attempting to sell his father's house, but obviously couldn't do this since it was still registered in his father's name. His family pleaded with him to provide them with just a simple list of all the items that he stole, but he claimed he couldn't do this because he was in prison, which is just hilarious, but obviously not in a good way. The case dragged on for a long time and ultimately his family decided to drop the charges against him since they were making very little progress and had decided that there was no point in spending more money on attempting to recover the items since they were now long gone and likely would never be tracked down. In fact, it would probably cost more in legal fees and frustration than the items themselves would have even been worth. Now, while it seems obvious to most of us that Brian did take the life of Anna, he does maintain that he's innocent, and he has no idea what happened to her after leaving for her flight on that New Year's Day. As for the couple's three children, Anna's friends have asked the state to allow them to stay together, and that they be placed in homes with people who are friends of the family. After Brian was arrested, they were placed in the custody of his mother, but they were then relocated to state custody, which is just so heartbreaking to hear. They added that separating the children would only cause them further trauma, and reiterated that it would be in their best interest to remain together in the care of people who had their best interest at heart. The state responded by saying that it's their usual policy to try and keep siblings together unless there's a specific reason for one or more children to be placed separately, which seemingly isn't the case here. So essentially, no one really even knows where the kids are at this point, and the state couldn't really care less about their placement. At least that's what I make out of all this. So I'll admit I tend to be a bit biased when children get involved, but I can't stand the way that the legal system seems to treat children who've been orphaned. In the end, there are a lot of unknowns in this case, but one certainty is that the true victims of Brian's actions are his children, who will eventually have to learn what their father did to their family. Anna's story is unfortunately already over. Her suffering is done, and what Brian may have done to her, it can't be reversed. But the pain that these children are now being forced to live with, it's just unimaginable. And it's unfolding right now as we speak. The fact that Brian has continued to plead his innocence and draw this whole thing out while showing no remorse or even sadness at Anna's disappearance, it speaks volumes. One can only wonder whether his children were ever be able to forgive him for depriving them of a mother who by all accounts loved her children above all others and who would have done anything to ensure their happiness. As it stands, there's nothing any of us can really do other than stand on the sidelines and wait for the inevitable sentencing of Brian Walsh. I just hope his kids make it out. Okay. In May of 2017, 34year-old Grant Nelson was an Uber driver alongside juggling two more jobs. When he got a request for a ride that was a few blocks away from his location, he couldn't say no. But 2 minutes into the ride, Grant would lose his life after he was mercilessly attacked by the very person who held that taxi. The case of Grant Nelson is so tragic. And the saddest part is that it could have all been avoided. But the most unsettling part of this whole case is the person who committed the crime. Because who they were and what caused them to snap, well, no one saw it coming. It was Memorial Day on May 30th of 2017, a little after 3:20 a.m. It was the middle of the night. A condominium complex located on the 7200 block of Tui Avenue in Skoi, Illinois was exactly how you'd picture an apartment complex at 3:00 in the morning. There was no hustle and bustle. People were probably snoozing after the busy Memorial Day gatherings with their families, and the lobby and parking lot were quiet, but not for long. The apartment complex security guards noticed a gray 2014 Hyundai Sonata making its way into the parking lot. But as soon as the driver's side door opened, any semblance of peace was shattered. A badly injured man holding his bleeding hand and chest was seen staggering his way towards the condominium lobby. As soon as he got there, he started banging on the lobby doors and incessantly pressing the buzzer for any help. Within seconds, this condominium complex and the people residing in it were awoken by buzzing sounds and banging. The badly injured man also screamed at the top of his lungs, causing almost all the residents of the apartment complex to wake up with a start. Several witnesses heard the man yelling the words, "Help me. I'm going to die." Some of the residents sprung into action and called 911. And within minutes, 911 was getting littered with calls asking for help and emergency services at this specific apartment complex in Skoi. Witnesses also saw the car pull out from the parking lot, but they had bigger things to worry about. The man was in grave condition when the investigators and emergency services arrived as he lay on the ground barely clinging to life. Luckily though, he was still able to talk to the police, which is just incredible. The injured man was able to tell the police that he was an Uber driver and that he picked up a passenger from a local Walmart. He proceeded to tell the police the passenger launched an attack on him as soon as they entered the vehicle. All the while he was fighting for his life. The man was in terrible condition with injuries to his torso, arms, head, and chest. He was teetering on the line of life and death, and he was immediately loaded into an ambulance and taken to St. Francis Hospital. It was a short drive away from the scene, but tragically, due to the severity of his wounds, the man did not survive, and he lost his life at the hospital. The paramedics couldn't do anything. This man was hanging on to the last threads of life. And sadly, he succumbed to his wounds. As tragic as the man's death was, the investigators had two main tasks on their hands. First, [music] they had to identify this man and notify his family of his passing. And second, they needed to catch the perpetrator. Who was the person who drove this man to his untimely and brutal death? And most importantly, where was the asalent now? Were they attacking other people at that moment? The police needed to find the wrongdoer immediately. Well, a bunch of police officers got on this task, whereas the rest of them got to know who the victim was. It was 34year-old Grant Nelson. Grant Nelson, an Uber driver, had lost his life so brutally and within minutes. But who was he? Well, Grant was born in 1982 in Willilamett, Illinois. He loved classical music and he and his sister Alex had this in common. They loved to listen to music together, talk about it and discover new bands or artists together and it was kind of their thing. Grant was also passionate about acting. He did some side gigs and tried to make his mark in acting and he also had a headsh shot produced for his acting resume. He also loved watching movies partly for acting inspiration and he adored animals. Grant's brother Todd said that Grant was a pretty level-headed guy. He described Grant as a kind soul in a cruel world, and he aspired to be more like his brother. Grant was genuine, empathetic, and loyal. [snorts] Jeff Teal, Grant's friend since high school, said that he could always count on Grant to make him smile. Grant was with his family just hours before he accepted that Uber ride. It was Memorial Day, and Grant spent the evening with his family, eating good food, and enjoying the company of his loved ones. Just a few hours ago, Grant was happy, smiling, and most of all, alive. But now he was gone and he took a piece of his family with him and they would never be the same again. But let's get back to May 30th because as tragic and harrowing as Grant's passing was, it was up to the detectives to give him and his family justice. And it didn't take the investigators long to spot a trail that led them straight to Grant's killer. And it all started with a Cub's sweatshirt. Well, a red stained Cub sweatshirt that was found discarded on the road. If you remember, when Grant was banging on the lobby doors for help after getting out of his car, his car drove away. The detectives assumed that it was the passenger who used the car to flee the scene. Luckily, the car was found nearby, crashed into a median, and well, let's just say that it looked like a mess. It was clear to the police that Grant was attacked in his car. [snorts] Everything was red, and the back door of the car was also smeared with red. Fortunately, it looked like the perpetrator had left a trail for the detectives to follow. While some officers got to searching the car for any evidence, the rest of the squad spotted a discarded Cub's sweatshirt near the car, and it was also smeared in red stains, which only added to the police's horror. Whatever Grant endured during that very short, but very brutal attack, was harrowing. As the investigators rounded a corner, they noticed something, or rather someone. A young girl was crouched under an air conditioning unit in a building and she was only wearing leggings and underwear. It didn't take long for the detectives to realize that the sweatshirt they'd found belonged to this girl. But what astounded the police was what the girl had in her hands. She was holding a machete in one hand and a knife in the other. The detectives were dumbfounded, partly because of the weapons she had in her hand, but mainly because she looked so young. She didn't look nearly as old as Grant. But the investigators had other more important things at hand, and one of them was disarming her. Well, it was harder than they thought because as the detectives approached her and demanded she drop her weapons, the girl ignored them and wasn't letting things go. This left the detectives with no choice but to subdue her with a taser, which caused her to drop the weapons, and the investigators were able to handcuff. Meanwhile, the officers in the car pulled out Grant's phone and checked his Uber app. They wanted to know who the last passenger was. And when they checked Grant's history, the name on the app was Eliza. Well, it was a first name and it was enough. But within minutes, the mysterious girl was identified as Eliza Wnney. And get this, she was only 16 years old. A 16-year-old girl was the one who brutally attacked Grant in his car at 3:00 in the morning, a teenager. The detectives were blindsided by these facts. They needed answers right away. Why would a teenager attack Grant so viciously? What was the reason? Well, the only way to find things out was to talk to the teenager herself. And it turns out Eliza Wny attended Taft High School and she lived with her mom who was a single parent on the north side of Chicago. Eliza also attended a therapeutic day school and she had a very private life and her social media was about as normal as it gets. She had a bunch of pictures of herself and her about me wrote, "I will always be myself." And absolutely nothing appeared unusual. Eliza was also registered on Kids Casting, a talent hunting website for child actors. She had a few pictures on there as well, so by all accounts, 16-year-old Eliza was a seemingly normal teenage girl. The police also found no previous criminal history and nothing else to suspect she had a single ounce of bad blood in her. It was all so confusing and the detectives knew that they had to backtrack. They remembered Grant telling them that he picked Eliza up from a local Walmart. So that was as good a place as any to start. But when the investigators checked their surveillance footage, they got their upte surprise of the day. Eliza was seen walking into Walmart at about 2:36 a.m. She was seen walking into the store, picking up a knife and a machete, ripping them out of their packaging, and walking straight out the exit without paying for them. Eliza literally stole the murder weapons from Walmart. And if that wasn't astonishing enough, no one stopped her from walking out of Walmart with the stolen goods. It wasn't like she was hiding the things in her sleeves or shirt or something. She was seen walking with the machete and knife in her hands while she casually and calmly just made her way out of Walmart. Ironically, Eliza hailed three Uber rides that night. Her inexplicable adventures starting at about 1:25 a.m. on May 30th. The first Uber ride took her to a train station in Delane, Illinois. Now, we don't know what she did there, but almost an hour later at 218, she booked another Uber, and this one took her to Walmart in Lincolnwood. This being the Walmart from which she shoplifted. After walking out of the Walmart, Eliza walked around a bit before she requested her final Uber ride with none other than Grant at 3:18 a.m. Grant was a few blocks away from Eliza's location, and he accepted the ride for some extra cash. This being just a few short hours after having dinner with his family. Within minutes though, the ride turned deadly and Eliza out of nowhere attacked Grant with the weapons that she'd stolen from Walmart. Grant suffered almost half a dozen wounds. And that was when he made an abrupt stop at the apartment complex, practically jumped out of his car and screamed for help before tragically passing away. Eliza, after the attack, got into the driver's seat, but she only got so far before crashing into a median. That was when she got out, discarded her sweatshirt, but still had the weapons in her hands. She made a stop at a building on the 7300 block of Lincoln Avenue, where she was later discovered and arrested by the police. Now, there are a lot of things that are very unsettling about this case. First of all, why was Eliza even allowed to go out in the middle of the night? What was she doing? Where were her parents, for one, and was she looking for a victim? Or did something provoke her to do the unimaginable? Keep in mind, Eliza took three Uber rides and the first two drivers were unharmed. So, what happened during that final ride that led Eliza to attack Grant? Secondly, why didn't anyone at Walmart stopped Eliza with the stolen items? Even the CCTV footage showed two or three people in close vicinity to Eliza, and none of them reported her for shoplifting. If only someone had reported her, then the detectives would have come and arrested Eliza for shoplifting and maybe the attack on Grant could have been avoided. Well, after the police arrested Eliza, she refused to explain anything. She wouldn't reveal her motive and really clammed up in general, hardly speaking to the detectives at all. The investigators needed to talk to people who knew Eliza to figure out why she did what she did because the murderer, [music] a teenager, was not cooperating. When detectives got to know that Eliza attended a therapeutic day school, their ears perked up. They wondered, could Eliza be battling some sort of mental health issue that caused her to spiral and commit such a heinous crime? Now, I'm not saying that people with mental illnesses get a free pass to do anything they please. But in Eliza's case, the police needed to uncover the motive so they can at least make sense of what was going on. According to Mark Griber, principal of Taft High School, Eliza was in and out of therapeutic schools all the time. What's interesting is her case manager even told the principal that she shouldn't have even been enrolled in that school in the first place. So why was she eventually enrolled? Well, we'll never know. We also don't know if the investigators conducted any toxicology reports or any psychiatric evaluations on Eliza. And even if they have, the results of these evaluations at least haven't been made public, which makes this case all the more frustrating. But it is understandable considering she's a minor, or at least she was at the time of the case. But one thing that the police did rule out was the possibility of self-defense. Eliza had [music] no defensive wounds on her body, and nothing pointed towards the fact that Grant made her uncomfortable during the ride, or that there was a reason that Eliza attacked him in the first place. But if Grant didn't provoke Eliza in some way, then what did? If Eliza thought that she could get out of this by staying quiet, that wasn't going to happen. She was going to stand in front of a court and face the consequences of her actions regardless of her reasoning. Eliza was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on May 31st, just a day after she committed the crime. She was kept at a juvenile facility and was ultimately decided that she would be tried as an adult despite her obvious struggles with mental health and quite possibly her previous trauma. Speaking of being behind bars, Eliza was not an ideal prisoner. She racked up over 450 violations while being held in prison. The violations ranged from unauthorized movement to attacking prison guards to attacking other prisoners. It was also reported that Eliza would repeatedly bite, kick, and strike any prisoner or prison guard if they tried to touch her. This girl was insane and likely clinically so. To add to that, Eliza also resorted to harming herself in prison multiple times and had to be taken to Stroger's hospital in Cook County about six times. At one point, she even wrote the word die in big red letters on the wall of a prison cell after harming herself. And it was all just so disturbing. To top this off, a fellow detainee also came forward and shared some very eerie details about Eliza that she'd learned after being left alone with her. According to this person, Eliza wanted to go on a killing spree, and she had loads of information and knowledge on how to dispose of body parts without getting caught. This was highly alarming behavior for a teenager. I mean, who in their right mind fantasizes about harming people and getting away with it? Now, watching true crime shows and spitballing ideas around that's one thing. Those are complete innocent fantasies usually. But this girl actually wanted to carry out those crimes seemingly just for the thrill. There's something seriously wrong with this kid. But the prosecution also offered a plea deal to avoid going through the painful process of a trial. And to my surprise, in August of 2020, Eliza Wazny, who was now 19, accepted their offer. After speaking with prosecutors, Eliza pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of 34year-old Grant Nelson. On August 20th of 2020, she was ultimately sentenced to 27 years in prison. Now, it's great that Eliza spared the court the trouble of a trial, but one question still remained. Why? Why did she do this to Grant? During the hearings and even the sentencing, Eliza kept her head down and didn't converse with anyone. If anything, she only ever interacted with her mom by smiling at her during the hearings in the courtroom. But she never once gave any indication about why she claimed Grant's life. Now, Eliza will probably get out of prison in her 40s, so she'll still have a lot of life left to live. But even though she's behind bars right now, you can't help but feel unsettled about her being released when we don't really know why she harmed Grant so callously in the first place. Grant's family primarily blames Walmart for their son's death. And I mean, can you blame them? There were a handful of Walmart employees and security workers when Eliza walked in and basically stole the murder weapons in front of everyone. Surely someone must have seen Eliza doing this, but even if they did, they did not report it to the police. They literally just let her walk out the front door. Where were the security personnel during this? If it's their job to do anything at all, it's monitor the exits. At the end of July of 2017, just 2 months after Grant's passing, the Nelson family sued Walmart along with Allied Universal and Monterey Security Consultants. These were the companies that provided security services to Walmart. Walmart, on the other hand, stressed that the store officials did alert a third party security agency to a possible shoplifting incident. But even if they did, we all know by now that nothing was done to stop Eliza. Now, whether this is true or not, who knows? It kind of feels like Walmart board members probably just trying to pass the buck, but that's just me being cynical. There's really no evidence to prove this whatsoever. But as of making this video, there have been no further updates about the Walmart lawsuit. So, we don't know if the Nelson family was successful or if the charges were eventually just dropped. Either way, Grant's funeral was held on June 2nd of 2017. And as you can guess, everyone was bererieved. Grant's sister, Alex, was still in denial that her older brother was even gone. She felt like she was still waiting for Grant to come walking through the door any minute and flash his million-dollar smile at her. this never happened. We can only hope that Grant's loved ones can move on with their lives after this devastating loss, which is way easier said than done because their whole world shattered in a matter of hours, showing everyone just how cruel and uncertain the future can be sometimes. The attack on Grant infuriated and scared many online cab drivers. And they all took to their social media to rage out, and they especially targeted Eliza's social media with their rage. Everyone was just bitter and they didn't want Eliza to get away with a slap on the wrist just because she was a teenager, even though she luckily was tried as an adult. Some comments were downright violent. People suggested that Illinois bring the death penalty back in Eliza's case or give her the harshest sentence possible. The public was seing with anger and rightfully so because the comments were getting so threatening and violent that Eliza's Facebook was deactivated shortly after, which is probably for the best. Fighting violence with more violence rarely ends well. This case is frustrating on so many levels. The number one reason being we still have no idea why Eliza did what she did. This drives me nuts when convicted criminals do this because I mean you already got caught. You already got stuck with a prison sentence in her case guaranteed 27 years. Why not at least explain what you did? Even if you just did it for the thrill of it, what's the harm in just saying it at this point? I guess more than anything, it's likely just some kind of power move. Some think that mental health may have had a hand in this case, and that certainly makes the most sense, but investigators haven't come up with any official motive yet, so it could be anything. But I'm sure that we can all agree that this was heartless, cruel, and senseless. As far as the official details go, Eliza and Grant didn't even know each other, so they were strangers, which adds such a terrifying layer to this whole case. Yes, stranger danger is a thing, but teenagers committing horrific and unspeakable crimes that lead to death. If that doesn't send chills down your spine, I don't know what will. This was all just so sudden, so unexpected, and unnecessarily cruel. Usually, it's the other way around, and the unsuspecting and unaware teens are the targets of monsters with vicious intentions. But this case turned the tables rather quickly, and it left everyone feeling helpless and in fear of [music] their lives. Cases like this can't help but make your skin crawl. It begs the question, are we ever truly safe? And as scary as it may seem, I think the answer is a resounding no.