There’s nothing like coming back to the comfort of our own home after a long vacation away or a rough day at work. Our homes become our safe havens where we can change into our comfies, wash our makeup off, settle in & truly be ourselves. But what if your safe haven wasn’t yours alone?

Imagine you’ve just moved into your dream home in paradise, ready for a fresh start with your family. In this exceptionally chilling episode, we uncover the Campbell family’s nightmare—mysterious noises, misplaced belongings, and a horrifying realization that will make you double-check your locks tonight. 

In 2019, the Campbell family consisted of 36-year-old James, 37-year-old Brittany & their two young sons. Brittany & James had only just gotten married in Vegas the year before despite the fact that they’d known each other & briefly dated during high school. The pair reconnected later in life after spending many years apart in between. 

Their contrasting personalities perfectly balanced the couple; Brittany was very outgoing & carefree while James was mellow, level headed & analytical. James had two sons from a previous relationship & Brittany was both excited & terrified to start her new adventure as a wife & mother of two while James described her as a wonderful stepmom to his boys.

As if her new marriage & motherhood wasn’t enough of a change, in April 2019, the Campbell family was also in the process of relocating to Hawaii where James was stationed in the U.S. Navy. They made their move with their cat & as they settled in, they added a new dog to the mix & the family of four were all happily adjusting to their new surroundings.

They settled into a modest two-story house at the end of a quiet suburban cul-de-sac not far from the airport in Honolulu. They were all looking forward to starting a new chapter of adventures together in the beautiful landscape of their new home. The house was situated with the living space downstairs & the bedrooms upstairs, with the two boys sharing a bedroom. As you reached the top of the stairs, the boys’ bedroom was to the left while the primary bedroom was to the right with a bathroom situated between the two rooms. 

It wasn’t long after they settled in that spine tingling occurrences began happening inside their home, things that initially, only Brittany noticed.

During a typical evening at home in June 2019, Brittany headed out to the garage in search of something that she needed that was still packed away in a moving box. As she stepped into the garage, she was immediately confused when she noticed that the boxes, which had been previously neatly stacked, were now tipped over with the contents strewn out. James’ music gear was also moved around. Oddly, the contents seemed to be deliberately arranged in a way that made no sense to Brittany & it looked like someone had gone through & sorted the items.

Brittany just brushed this instance off, assuming that one of her sons must have been going through the items, looking for something or even potentially playing a prank. However, as the days went by, more & more things began happening that left her with an increasingly uneasy feeling. 

One week after the incident in the garage, Brittany was home alone, getting ready for the day in her bathroom when she was startled by the sound of the front door slamming shut. It was Brittany’s routine to get ready at her vanity while watching makeup tutorials on her phone, something she was doing that morning. She was so jolted by the sudden bang from the door that she nearly poked her eye while applying eyeliner. She initially assumed that it was only her husband or sons unexpectedly coming back into the house after maybe forgetting something, but when she called out their names, she was met with only silence. 

She got up from her vanity to investigate, but Brittany had no explanation as to how or why the door slammed, but since there was no explanation, she had no choice but to move on & shake it off. Regardless, her instincts told her that something was just not right as she made her way through the house, ensuring that all of the doors & windows were latched & secured. When she spoke with James about the boxes being moved in the garage & the unexplained slamming door, he tried to reassure that there was likely an innocent, logical explanation.

Not long after, while the family was asleep one night, Brittany was jolted awake to the unmistakable sound of the doors downstairs opening & closing. She immediately woke James, but he brushed the noises off to something typical like a draft, the house settling or the family dog moving about the house. He groggily assured her that when he came up to bed that night, he was positive he locked the door. 

James was starting to get the feeling that Brittany was just being paranoid, maybe from the stress from their major move & being in an unfamiliar location with family & friends back home. At the time, he actually found himself growing a little frustrated with his wife as he wasn’t seeing or hearing the things that she’d experienced. 

Brittany remained unsettled & unconvinced that James had locked the door so she climbed out of bed to double check that the windows & the doors were secured & as she reached the front door, she found it unlocked. Brittany immediately marched back upstairs to confront James & they got into a little argument about it. She couldn’t understand why he would tell her the door was locked when it wasn’t & even questioned if maybe one of the boys had been sneaking out at night. A normally trusting person, Brittany was upset with herself & began doubting herself, wondering if she was losing her sanity.

Later that same night, the couple, who were still upstairs, heard the back sliding door open & slam shut. Just as with the front door, James was also positive that when he checked the door before heading up to bed, it had been locked. But after Brittany asked him to go down to investigate the noise, he found that not only was the slider unlocked, but the screen door had been pulled open despite the fact that he recalled it being closed. At this point, James was still convinced that there had to be a reasonable explanation for the recent events while Brittany just assumed that the stress of her life was catching up to her with all the changes she’d recently gone through. 

Shortly thereafter, James sat practicing at the piano in the living room one afternoon when a strange feeling washed over him & he had the sensation that he was being watched. As he looked up from his seat at the piano, he was startled by a shadowy figure on the other side of the curtains. He wondered if maybe someone was walking by & stopped to hear him play, but by the time he got up, the person was gone. He felt unsettled, but chalked it up to a nosey neighbor or someone who was irritated with the noise from the piano.  

During another day, James was home alone with his boys when he glanced over at the wall calendar & noticed something written: Your rehabilitation starts today. Do as I did. Choose a house, clean it, setup all devices. James had no idea what this meant, but figured that it must have been something inspirational that Brittany had written. Being a logical person, he just questioned that maybe she wanted him to clean the house & with this, he got up & began to tidy up. 

On another evening, the Campbell family decided to go for a family outing to see a movie at the theater & as they were preparing to head out the door, Brittany went to grab a blanket they routinely used when they relaxed on the couch. However, she was puzzled when she didn’t find the blanket in its usual spot on the couch & James & the kids claimed they hadn’t touched it. Brittany continued to look around the house, irritated that she couldn’t find it despite the fact that supposedly no one had touched it. With the movie start time approaching, they were forced to leave the house without the blanket. 

On their return home from the theater, the family came in through the front door & were shocked to see the blanket, neatly folded on the couch where it usually was. This was the first time James admitted that something strange might be going on which was a tremendous relief to Brittany that her feelings were being validated. Regardless, he continued to try to make sense of what was happening & wondered if one of the boys had quickly snuck back in to put the blanket there, fearing they might get in trouble for being dishonest. 

During another night, Brittany woke up & noticed that the light on her laptop’s webcam was on so she got up & turned it off.

By September, strange occurrences had been going on for about three months when things suddenly came to an astonishing head. The Campbell family took a flight on September 13, 2019 to visit family on the mainland for a week-long vacation.  When the trip came to an end, they took an earlier flight back than originally planned & landed on September 20. As they pulled up to their house, Brittany was surprised to see her husband’s expensive road bike lying on the driveway. Because James knew that he hadn’t been using it before they left for the trip, he had no explanation as to why it was there. After they pulled into the driveway, Brittany & James climbed out of the car & instructed the boys to wait inside. 

As the family pressed the button & watched their garage door rise open, they were horrified to see that their entire garage had been ransacked. The boxes stored within had been torn apart with their contents strewn about the entirety of the room, their belongings shredded as if a wild animal had gotten into them. Immediately, James believed that their home had been robbed while they were away so he grabbed a sledgehammer from the garage before he walked toward the front door.

As he reached the front door, James slid his key into the lock & began to push the door open when he felt resistance. As James continued to push, the door cracked open & he was stunned when he saw a man standing on the other side of the door, inside his home, peeking through the opening.

The man continued to push the door forward, preventing James from getting inside as he calmly said, This is not your house. This stranger continued to insist that they were at the wrong house as Brittany screamed at him to let them in as she dialed 911. 

James, stunned, confused, with adrenaline coursing through his body, managed to push the door open & pull the man out of the house. After he dragged him out into the front yard, James noticed that the man was wearing his clothes. When he asked him what he was doing in their home, the young man told him he had nowhere to go so he assumed that he was likely homeless, on drugs & realizing that their house was empty, used his opportunity to squat there.

In the meantime, the boys had climbed out of the car, indicating that they needed to use the bathroom. James wasn’t sure how the situation was going to play out or potentially escalate before law enforcement had the chance to arrive & he was hoping he wouldn’t be forced to bludgeon this man with the sledgehammer in front of his children. With this, he shouted for them to get back into the car. By this point Brittany thought of the family cat, Mr. Franklin, who was inside the home & worried for his safety, but the man told her that the cat was fine since he’d been feeding & caring for him while they were gone. 

While James had the man at bay outside in the lawn, Brittany ran inside to check on the cat. She was immediately startled by what she found in her living room. It looked as if he had been doing inventory of their home, items, much of it James’ music equipment, was lined up as if it were on display at a yard sale. 

Mr. Franklin was in the kitchen in a crate that the family used for the puppy’s training; he had no water & it was obvious that the man had been trying to feed him dried apricots, but he otherwise looked physically unharmed.

Brittany ran back outside & found the man standing calmly in the yard. It wasn’t long before authorities arrived & James explained that they’d just come back from vacation only to find this strange man inside their home. The man remained very calm as he spoke with the police & Brittany had the sense that he wasn’t understanding that what he’d done was insanely odd & wrong. Officers placed the man in handcuffs & drove him away in their car without incident. 

With the man now gone, Brittany & James were able to go inside & investigate the state of the interior of their home & discovered that their once tidy house was now in absolute shambles. Pots & pans were piled on the stovetop, items littered every surface & James’ piano keyboard sat on the couch. Even stranger, there were prescription medication bottles filled with an unknown substance scattered about the living room & kitchen. None of these bottles belonged to the Campbell family. Disgustingly, there were also bodily fluids all over the furniture. 

As they entered the boy’s bedroom, they found the room to be a stark contrast to the rest of the home. The man had done the boys’ laundry & made their beds, leaving the room pristine.

When Brittany entered their upstairs primary bedroom, like the rest of the house, with the exception of the boys’ bedroom, the room was in disarray. She was horrified to find a collection of knives arranged neatly on their bed, lined up on a towel. 

A laptop that they no longer used sat open on the bed & when Brittany woke the computer, she found a document that was titled, The Omnivore Trials that had a subtitle that read, A Rehabilitation for Rat-like People. 

The writings resembled journal entries which Brittany began to read that seemed to be straight out of a bizarre nightmare. The writings were observations about the family that only someone who had been closely watching them would know. 

In the story, Brittany was referred to as the creature while the rest of the family were known as specimens. The entry detailed the family’s routines & private conversations about trying to have a third child. The entries indicated that Brittany should give up on trying to conceive a child & focus on the two children that she already had. The fact that they were wanting to have a third child was something they hadn’t even yet shared with their family members.

As the document came to an end, the author wrote a declaration to rehabilitate the Campbell family. In order to rehabilitate them, they would have to undergo surgeries that included hand amputations & gender reassignment surgeries, procedures that he’d looked up how to do online. He wrote about the equipment he would need that listed nine items, including a jaundice treatment light, a hospital bed that can stretch up to 6 feet, heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, a blood transfusion machine, colonoscopy/endoscopy equipment & life support machines. He wrote about his desire to make the family into his vision of ideal humans that he called omnivores.

As Brittany & James finished reading the alarming document, they glanced at the knives lined neatly on their bed & realized that these were the tools that the author intended to use on them in order to rehabilitate their family. 

In addition to this laptop, Brittany also had a laptop which she regularly used that she kept on her makeup vanity. When she began looking through this computer, she found a video file that depicted the man discussing ways that you can change your outer appearance. He titled the video cosmetology & as he sat naked at Brittany’s vanity, he drew a line using her eyeliner down his neck that was supposed to demonstrate a spiritual transformation. 

Brittany also got the feeling that he was mocking her as he made the video, recreating the moments she would sit & do her makeup while watching tutorial videos. She was terrified & immediately thought back to the night she woke to find the light on her computer indicating that her webcam was on. She could only wonder how long this stranger had been watching her family & all their private, intimate moments.

Things started to fall into place as they recalled all of the strange occurrences that had been going on from the items in their garage being rearranged & sorted, noises they’d heard from inside the house to the missing blanket, other items being moved & the dog randomly barking during the night.

Brittany & James soon learned that the man in their home was 29-year-old Ezequiel Zayas who ended up being charged with felony burglary. They were shocked & alarmed when they learned that within days of his arrest, he was granted supervised release. James was furious that this man was allowed to walk free & potentially harm his family, but it was short-lived as only weeks later he was arrested again, this time for burglarizing a Buddhist center near the University of Hawaii at Manoa & his supervised release was revoked. 

While Zayas was in custody, it was 2020 & the peak of the pandemic & after he contracted COVID he was sharing a quarantine cell with two other inmates. He went on to kill his 62-year-old cellmate, Vance Grace on August 31, 2020 in an unprovoked attack. Zayas pummeled the man with his hands, knocking him unconscious before he stomped on his head until he died. Guards were unable to open the cell door while the attack occurred due to allegedly faulty locks. 

After the emergency release was activated & Zayas was hauled from the cell, Grace lay on the cold floor for a significant length of time until a locksmith was called in to open the door. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital & his family has since filed a lawsuit against Hawaii & the Department of Public Safety.

Vance Grace had been only weeks away from release after spending 34 years behind bars for theft & drug offenses. On his release, he hoped to reconnect with his family & start a Koi pond business

During a psychological exam, Zayas showed extreme callousness toward his victims & the doctor concluded that he posed a high risk to future victims. Medical records proved that he was preoccupied with raping children, Satanism & various forms of assault.

After Zayas had been taken into custody, James & Brittany learned the full horror of what had been going on. It’s unclear how he got into the Campbell’s home or how long he’d been lurking there, but the family believed it had been there for some time based on the things that had been happening & the information he knew about the family. 

It turned out that Zayas had been living, undetected, in a crawl space above the second-floor bathroom. From his hiding spot, he was able to listen to the family & then sneak down & roam freely through the house when they left or at night while they were asleep. In the meantime, he was crafting his nightmarish manifesto, The Omnivore Trials, A Rehabilitation for Rat-like People. Based on the details of his writings, he planned to carry out these procedures that would transform them into ideal humans or omnivores after he got his tools & necessary supplies ready.

The Campbell’s lives were completely flipped upside down as they tried to psychologically recover from their terrifying ordeal. At the same time, they were exceptionally grateful that they had been physically unharmed & they realized that things could have turned out far worse. The fact that they came home from their vacation early, that the boys hadn’t run into the house ahead of them & that they caught the man during the daytime rather than the man attacking the family during the night as they slept. 

Brittany felt disgusted & completely violated as if nothing in her space was sacred or hers any longer. The fact that a stranger had been living in their home with sinister intentions chilled her to the core.

In May 2023, Zayas pleaded guilty to four charges as a part of a plea deal that protected him from a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder rather than the lesser offense of manslaughter. 

In August 2023, Zayas was sentenced to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, 10 years for first-degree burglary, five years for second-degree burglary & an additional five years for second-degree assault. The sentences will run consecutively for a total of forty years. The Department of the Attorney General prosecuted the manslaughter case while the three other cases were handled by the Honolulu Department of Prosecuting Attorney. 

Zayas’ lawyers argued unsuccessfully that the man, who was raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had been treated for mental illness before he arrived in Hawaii & should have been placed in an isolation cell rather than the shared quarantine cell. He apparently had no previous criminal record prior to the burglary & the prison attack.

In 2022, Lifetime released a true crime show, Phrogging: Hider in My House that examines the crime known as phrogging which is when a stranger secretly lives in someone’s space for days, weeks or even months. Episode one details the Campbell’s terrifying ordeal. 

The term phrogging is said to originate from frogs that leap from place to place & unlike squatters, a phrogger is not deterred by a home’s occupants. They might move about the house, blending into the background like a ghost. Homeowners might be completely unaware until the moment they come across evidence that someone is invading their sacred space; they might notice a handprint or a footprint or find evidence of the intruder on a surveillance camera. 

After Ezequiel Zayas’ sentencing in August 2023, the Campbell family left Hawaii behind, seeking solace in a quieter life on the mainland. They traded their once-cherished home for a fresh start, but they understandably struggled to fully shed the echoes of their ordeal —every creak a reminder, every shadow a question. James and Brittany focused on rebuilding, leaning on each other and their boys, determined to reclaim the safety stolen from them. Though Zayas remained behind bars, his presence haunted their world, a chilling lesson that even the most sacred spaces can hide the unthinkable & some doors, once opened, may never fully close.

References:

1. Plex: Phrogging: Hider in My House: S1, E1: Bump in the Night
2. Spectrum News: ‘Phrogger’ sentenced to 40 years for burglary, prison killing
3. New York Post: ‘He wanted to play doctor on us’: Terrifying stranger secretly lived in our home
4. Medium: He secretly documented this family’s every move, preparing for his sinister ‘surgeries’
5. KHON 2: ‘He violated our home,’ says family that came home to find stranger living there
6. Honolulu Civil Beat: Man who killed his OCC cellmate gets 40 years in prison on multiple charges
7. Daily Mail: Exclusive: My dad was killed by an insane satanist ‘phrogger’ who secretly lived in stranger’s home – I want justice 

A mother’s intuition to protect & care for their children is typically ingrained & instinctual, ready to kick-in to prioritize their child’s safety above all else. A mother might not even realize just how strong it is until the moment arrives & when it does, she would likely move mountains or stand in front of a freight train in order to keep her child safe. A mother’s love & care can be raw, relentless & dang near unstoppable, but sadly, it isn’t always the case. When a mother harms her child, it goes against every primal instinct which is why it can be so jarring. When it happens, it’s likely entangled in extreme circumstances or deep psychological breaks.

In 2017, after a 7-year-old little girl spent the majority of her short life in & out of the hospital, forced to undergo invasive painful surgeries, placements of feeding tubes & intravenous lines for nutrition, her mother, Kelly Gant, who is also known as Kelly Turner, made the decision to place her daughter on hospice care. Three weeks after her IV nutrition was removed, Olivia Gant sadly passed away with her cause of death listed as intestinal failure.

Many were saddened by the loss of the precious young child & most would believe this was the end of the tragic story. That is until within a year of Olivia’s death, Kelly was back in the hospital, this time with her oldest daughter. She explained that her daughter was suffering from bone pain, likely related to a cancer she’d previously overcome. Kelly told the physicians that she suspected the cancer had come back. However, unlike in Olivia’s case, this time, the doctor was highly suspicious & began to dig deeper. As they took a closer look, they began to unravel a horrendous web of lies that ultimately caused a young girl to die.

Olivia Gant was born on June 21, 2010 in Pasadena, Texas to Jeff & Kelly Gant & she had two older sisters. The couple had a tumultuous relationship & after their divorce, Kelly relocated with her three girls to Littleton, Colorado. 

Olivia was exceptionally close with her step-grandfather, Lonnie Gautreau & he & his wife often visited their three grandchildren. They watched movies together & Lonnie remembers Olivia as a sweet, loving child who loved to do typical things like play with her dolls.

Beginning in 2013, when Olivia was only 2-years-old, Kelly first presented to the hospital with her daughter due to concerns of a developmental delay & Olivia was ultimately diagnosed with autism. Kelly returned in January 2013, this time regarding constipation & elaborated that Olivia was unable to properly digest food, something that had been a problem since she was an infant. During her visit, the doctor noted that Olivia was within her normal growth range. On a follow-up visit for constipation in April 2013, the doctor indicated that Olivia was displaying stool withholding behaviors which is very normal in children of her age. 

However, it wasn’t long before Kelly was back in the ER with Olivia, each time saying that her daughter was having issues with eating & properly digesting food. Four years after her illness began, Olivia was taken into surgery where doctors created an ileostomy, rerouting her small intestine through an opening or stoma to a bag attached to her abdominal wall. 

After her surgery, Olivia seemed to be doing better & her constipation issues resolved. With this she was able to start pre-K & move on to kindergarten at Columbine Hills Elementary School where her classmates & teachers adored her.

Soon, Kelly was back at the hospital with Olivia, reporting that yes, some of her daughter’s symptoms had improved since surgery, but she was continuing to struggle with digestive issues. Over the course of five years when Olivia was 2-7-years-old, she had been to the hospital more than a thousand times. Doctors would later admit that all of the symptoms that Olivia suffered from as well as Olivia’s medical history all came from Kelly.

During these visits, gastroenterologists inserted feeding tubes for enteral nutrition after Kelly maintained that Olivia wasn’t able to digest food properly. It wasn’t long before Kelly claimed that Olivia was no longer able to tolerate her tube feedings & with this, she was switched to IV nutrition with what is known as total parenteral nutrition or TPN which requires a central venous catheter for infusion into a large vein.

Throughout her hospitalizations, Olivia was also prescribed strong narcotic pain medication as well as the anti-seizure drug, Keppra. Despite the fact that not one healthcare worker had ever witnessed Olivia having a seizure, Kelly told healthcare workers that her daughter’s seizures were persistent. 

Because Olivia spent so much time in the hospital, she developed a connection with the staff who came to know her as Princess since she preferred to wear her princess gowns rather than the standard hospital gowns.

When she wasn’t in the hospital, Olivia loved playing with her sisters & being a typical child who loved to play games on her iPad, watch her favorite DVDs & use her imagination. Those that knew Olivia absolutely adored her as she was a precious girl who talked non-stop & had an amazing spirit. She loved going to Dairy Queen for a vanilla ice cream cone & visiting the zoo to see the lions or Dinosaur Ridge since she was fascinated with dinosaurs.

Kelly took to social media where she started a blog in September of 2011 & eventually documented Olivia’s hospital visits & detailed her medical conditions. Her photos depicted the young girl sitting in a wheelchair, propped up in her hospital bed with her stuffed animals surrounding her, almost always wearing outfits with Disney characters. 

Because Olivia had so many visits to the hospital, medical bills were piling up so Kelly turned to various charity organizations to help cover the costs as well as provide Olivia with special events, gifts & outings. With the help of organizations such as Make-A-Wish, Olivia was able to fulfill her bucket list as Kelly indicated that her daughter was terminally ill. 

Kelly also started a GoFundMe page on July 27, 2015 that raised more than $22,270 to offset the costs of what wasn’t being covered under Medicaid. Olivia was also receiving trial medications that weren’t approved by the FDA for those under the age of 18.

During one of Olivia’s birthdays, an $11,000 bat princess birthday party was thrown in her honor at the Hyatt Regency Denver that included a limo ride, costumes, balloons & music. The party had a combined theme of Batman & Disney princesses all of which was captured on a local TV station. She was given the opportunity to pretend to be a police officer as well as a firefighter for the day. 

Over the years, Olivia’s case drew national attention.

Kelly told doctors that she wanted to implement a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order for 7-year-old Olivia. She expressed that she wanted her daughter’s TPN to be stopped, arguing that Olivia’s quality of life had gotten so bad. 

At the time, Olivia had only been receiving about one-third of the nutrition that she needed after Kelly indicated that her daughter was rejecting her TPN despite the fact that the doctor explained that this doesn’t happen & several doctors urged Kelly to reduce her dependency on the TPN & allow her daughter to eat, but she refused, saying, We’ve already tried that. 

Doctors later described Kelly as a high maintenance mother who was not afraid of surgery. At this point, the doctors refused to sign the paperwork, fully aware that the young girl would die without nutrition.

Kelly was irate & accused the healthcare team of denying her wishes. She was relentless & continued to pursue the request so she sought a different doctor to care for Olivia & this doctor consented to signing the appropriate paperwork. With the DNR order signed, Olivia’s nutrition was also stopped & she was placed under hospice care.

Throughout this time, Kelly posted photos & videos to social media, one video depicting Olivia & Kelly on their way to hospice on August 2, 2017 singing Hakuna Matata. In the video Olivia was wearing purple pajamas & playing with her tablet as she sang. During her time in hospice, the only nutrition she was receiving was the minimal amount from melted popsicles that were rubbed on her lips with a sponge. Slowly & steadily, Olivia continued to starve while her large doses of prescribed medication continued.

When Lonnie visited his granddaughter, he described her as lucid. During his visit, Olivia complained that she was incredibly hungry & Lonnie was devastated knowing that it was only a matter of time before his sweet granddaughter would die & that time was likely going to be soon. 

Tragically, on August 20, 2017, Olivia Gant died, after nineteen days without nutrition. Her official cause of death was listed as intestinal failure & her death certificate also listed that she suffered from autism as well as seizure disorder.

Sweet Olivia had been in & out of hospitals for so many years of her young life, forced to undergo painful surgeries & procedures. She was unable to eat the typical foods that children love such as ice cream or birthday cake after undergoing feeding tube & IV line placements for enteral & parenteral nutrition. According to Kelly, her daughter had been terminally ill & despite their devastation after her passing, Olivia’s extended family were in a way prepared for her death.

As the family tried to move forward with the gaping loss of Olivia in their lives, within a year of her death, Kelly was suddenly claiming that her oldest daughter had fallen ill. When Kelly arrived at the hospital with her daughter, she indicated that she was experiencing bone pain & she suspected that her cancer had returned. She explained that when they were living in Texas her daughter was treated with chemo & radiation when she was between ages 2-5 years old. 

This time, the doctor was immediately suspicious of Kelly’s story & as he began to examine her eldest daughter, something just did not feel right. It was unusual that one of Kelly’s young daughters had been so ill & now another was sick so soon after. 

The doctor questioned Kelly’s reports of her daughter’s cancer history & decided to investigate further rather than taking her words as true. With this, the doctor also began mulling about the idea that maybe Kelly had been playing a role in Olivia’s supposed illnesses & terminal condition. Maybe now with Olivia gone, Kelly was moving on & orchestrating her older daughter’s illness as well. 

When the doctor contacted the staff in Texas, they confirmed that the girl had never had cancer & had never been treated. As they did more research, they came across blogs & Facebook posts where Kelly described medical conditions that were not consistent with Olivia’s medical records that included Olivia having suffered from lymphoma. With this, hospital staff immediately contacted social services to report Kelly.

Knowing what this woman was capable of, medical professionals began taking a closer look at Olivia’s medical history that included five years of ongoing treatments, procedures, surgeries & medications. The poor girl had slowly starved to death in hospice. What was once seen as a tragic death was now being investigated as potential Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP), also known as Factitious Illness by Proxy, is a mental illness & a form of child abuse where a caregiver of a child makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms in order to make it look as if the child is ill in order to garner sympathy & attention. It’s most commonly seen in mothers of children under the age of six. It’s unknown what causes MSP, but in some cases, the person was abused as a child or has a history of Munchausen syndrome which is faking their own illness. 

In some cases of MSP, the abuser will go to great lengths in order to convince others of their child’s illness, including adding blood to their child’s urine or stool, withholding food so the child becomes weak & frail, thus appearing ill. They may falsely concoct medical records, fake labs, infect their IV line to make the child truly ill or administer medicine or a substance that will cause them to vomit or have diarrhea.

In many cases, the caretaker has worked within the medical field & are able to describe the symptoms in great medical detail. They are extremely involved with the healthcare team & present the appearance of nothing more than an involved, devoted parent. The child is often in & out of the hospital, undergoing many tests & procedures at the caretaker’s suggestion & may be suffering from strange symptoms that are never witnessed by the healthcare team, only reported by the caretaker.

In order to identify MSP, a medical team must first see the clues & be diligent about providing the medical care they believe to be correct rather than what the caretaker is suggesting. Oftentimes, the parent or caretaker is so manipulative that doctors don’t suspect any wrongdoing so it goes undiagnosed. According to the Cleveland Clinic, approximately 1,000 of the 2.5 million cases of child abuse reported annually may be related to MSP.

Warning signs that MSP may be happening include ongoing injuries, illnesses or hospitalizations, symptoms that don’t fit the disease or test results, symptoms that are worse when the child is home with their caregiver, a caregiver that is overly involved, refuses to leave the child’s side, speaks for the child & appears to enjoy the attention they receive in the hospital. Because parents & caretakers of sick children are naturally very concerned when their child is ill, thus refusing to leave their side, it can be difficult to spot.  

Had Kelly not brought her older daughter into the hospital, thus alerting their suspicions, she would have likely gotten away with Olivia’s death unsuspected. 

Authorities went on to exhume Olivia Gant’s body from the Seven Stones Chatfield Cemetery on November 28, 2018, 15 months after her death, & an autopsy found absolutely no evidence of intestinal failure or other conditions that Kelly claimed her daughter suffered from, including seizure disorder & a tumor & a build-up of fluid in the cavities deep within her brain. With these findings, Olivia’s updated cause of death was listed as undetermined.

Kelly’s two daughters were removed from her care & lo & behold, since October of 2018, her older daughter had absolutely no complaints of bone pain or other illnesses which further proved that Kelly had been lying. The names of her two surviving daughters have been withheld from the media due to their ages, but they were placed in the care of their relatives. 

Family members were horrified when they learned that everything Olivia had been put through which ultimately led to her death had all been a lie. Every moment in the hospital, every surgery, procedure, inability to eat had all been done to a healthy child who had no legitimate digestive issues.

Olivia’s obituary reads: We lost our little princess Olivia after a long battle to a rare disease at the age of 7. Through her short life & BIG battles she taught us that we can “be joyful in all things.”

After a yearlong investigation, Kelly was arrested in October 2019 at a Denver-area hotel & charged with the first-degree murder of Olivia as well as felony charges. Both girls were insured by Medicaid & Kelly is accused of fraudulently obtaining approximately $539,000 worth of care from the government-funded program. 

During the five years that Olivia suffered, Kelly took money from fundraising organizations as well as the Heflebower Funeral & Cremation Services & Seven Stones Cemetery who supported the family after Olivia’s death.  

Kelly herself spontaneously brought up Munchausen syndrome by proxy when she was speaking with investigators & said, That has never been my case, like at all, whatsoever. She acknowledged that she lied about her other daughter having cancer, but maintained that none of Olivia’s medical conditions had been fabricated.

In 2021 Lonnie Gautreau, Olivia’s grandfather, alongside Kelly’s biological father, filed a civil lawsuit against the Children’s Hospital Colorado for $25 million as they believed that the medical professionals hadn’t done enough to protect Olivia when Kelly brought her in for treatment. Despite the fact that she was a healthy girl, she had been forced to endure so many unnecessary surgeries & procedures. Lonnie fully believed that had Kelly’s lies been discovered sooner, Olivia would most certainly still be here today, healthy & thriving.

Red flags had been missed during visits to the hospital. Despite the fact that Kelly insisted that her daughter was suffering from ongoing seizures, not one single seizure had been witnessed by another. Despite the lack of evidence, doctors treated Olivia based on Kelly’s words alone. Throughout Olivia’s thousands of visits to the hospital, the idea of Munchausen syndrome by proxy had never once been broached. 

The hospital eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money in Lonnie’s civil suit. Lonnie has spoken out on the fact that he never wants what happened to Olivia to happen to another healthy child & went on to say, If anybody spoke up & protected Olivia, she would be here today.

After reporters went on to interview staff from Children’s Hospital Colorado, it was revealed that there had been some who were suspicious of Kelly during Olivia’s hospitalizations. Despite the fact that Colorado has a mandatory reporting law, no one notified authorities of their concerns or suspicions. 

For five agonizing years, Olivia was robbed of having a normal childhood, she’d suffered despite the fact that there had been nothing wrong with her gastrointestinal system. Her death had been entirely preventable, but sadly, no one had stood up against Kelly to advocate for Olivia or reported their concerns. 

According to Lonnie, it wasn’t until after Olivia died that the hospital staff went on record, telling him that it was their belief that Olivia had not been terminally ill. He was wracked with guilt that he believed what Kelly had told him & recalls spending time with his granddaughter in hospice when she voiced how terribly hungry she was. When Olivia made this complaint, Kelly jumped in & reminded Lonnie that Olivia could only have the melted popsicle juice as she was not allowed any food. Lonnie was haunted that he withheld food from his granddaughter as she slowly starved to death & cannot shake the image of the little girl opening her eyes & saying, Paw, Paw, I’m hungry.

A neurologist indicated that they ordered Kelly to stop giving Olivia Keppra, repeatedly insisting that Olivia was not suffering from seizure disorder, but somehow Kelly managed to continue to get a hold of the medication & continued to give it to Olivia. The neurologist also told Kelly that it was their belief that Olivia was not terminally ill. 

Authorities interviewed other staff members of the hospital including two pediatric gastroenterologists who agreed that Olivia had not been terminally ill. Despite this belief, no one came forward to advocate & protect the innocent, young, helpless girl from her mother.

An occupational therapist who specializes in feeding & eating also worked with Olivia & indicated that during their sessions, the child had been able to eat age-appropriate foods without issue. She showed no signs of distress in terms of eating or digesting. 

In the meantime, Olivia also had a procedure because her bladder was no longer functioning properly as Kelly claimed that at 7-years-old her daughter still wore a diaper & had no idea how to go to the bathroom. Her IV line for nutrition was frequently infected, six or seven times, according to Kelly’s indictment.

Dr. Thomas Walker, a pediatric gastroenterologist, spoke with police about how Kelly would describe her daughter’s symptoms to the staff yet no one had personally witnessed any which led them to believe that her symptoms could not have been as bad as Kelly was insisting they were. During Olivia’s hospitalizations, she acted as an energetic, playful child & staff witnessed the young girl exhibiting signs of a healthy child rather than the terminally ill patient that Kelly depicted. 

According to Dr. Walker, he’d grown so concerned about the situation that he reported his suspicions to upper management within the hospital. After the hospital’s ethics team reviewed the case, they ultimately voted against Dr. Walker & sided with Kelly. With this the hospital decided to transfer Olivia’s care from Dr. Walker to a different doctor which allowed Kelly to obtain the DNR order during Olivia’s hospitalization in July 2017 after two doctors signed off on the paperwork. With this, Olivia’s TPN was stopped & she starved to death.

During their investigation, authorities learned that two years before Olivia’s death, the young girl had been sent to Boston Children’s Hospital in 2015 for a second opinion. With this, the consulting doctor found that Olivia had undergone multiple feeding tube placements as well as surgery to create an ileostomy pouch in November 2014. The physician recommended that her ileostomy be reversed & she be taken off her narcotic medications & fully believed that she would have a full & healthy life. The doctor’s reports & recommendations were sent to the Children’s Hospital Colorado, but sadly, this advice was not followed & they continued to treat the terminal illness that Kelly claimed her daughter suffered from. 

In January 2022, 43-year-old Kelly pleaded guilty to felony child abuse that negligently caused her death, felony theft & felony charitable fraud. With this plea, other charges, including two counts of first-degree murder were dropped. Had she been found guilty of first-degree murder, she could have faced life in prison. 

Kelly was sentenced to sixteen years in prison & she also received a thirteen year sentence that would be served simultaneously with the sixteen year sentence for the felony theft & fraud charges she pleaded guilty to. The judge also ordered that Kelly cannot financially benefit from her daughter’s death should there be a movie or book deal offered to her. Any money generated from the case should be donated to the charities that she defrauded.

When word of Kelly’s involvement in Olivia’s death had gotten out, the public was outraged with how the medical community treating the young girl had failed her. For five years, Kelly had been abusing her child & all the while, she was getting away with it in plain sight. 

Those that helped fulfill Olivia’s wishes were devastated that the girl had been suffering only at the hands of her mother rather than a true medical diagnosis. Olivia should have been able to freely live her life as all children deserve to instead of undergoing unnecessary surgeries & procedures, being fed medication she did not need & prevented from eating despite the fact that she had no issues with her digestion. 

Hollynd Hoskins, the family attorney who represented Olivia’s sisters, as well as their grandparents wanted to prevent something like what happened to Olivia from happening to another innocent child. With this, they identified that more safeguards need to be implemented to prevent other young patients, like Olvia, from being subjected to unnecessary surgeries, medications or procedures from hospital staff fully relying on parents like Kelly Turner-Gant feeding them lies.

References:

1. Medline Plus: Munchausen syndrome by proxy
2. Healthline: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
3. CBS News: Indictment: Kelly Turner caused daughter Olivia Gant’s 2017 death
4. The Guardian: US woman who faked child’s illnesses gets 16 years for abuse that led to death
5. Heflebower Funeral & Cremation Services: Olivia K. Gant
6. Daily Beast: Mom who faked daughter’s terminal illness gets 16 years in prison for her death
7. Medium: The tragic murder of Olivia Gant
8. The New York Times: Mother gets 16 years for treating daughter for illnesses she didn’t have
9. Scribd: Olivia Gant case/Turner Kelly Renee indictment

Nearly five years ago, a woman set out into the wilderness & never returned. Throughout her disappearance, there have been strange & eerie sightings reported since. 

In July of 2020, 54-year-old Sandra Hughes told her family that she was planning on taking a solo camping trip in the Sierra National Forest to get away from the stress & craziness of the pandemic. Despite the fact that she was someone who was exceptionally experienced amongst the outdoors to the point that she considered herself a survivalist, Sandra seemingly vanished leaving a trail of strange clues that continue to baffle investigators. Despite these odd clues, there is still no sign of Sandra, now nearly five years after she vanished.

Sandra Johnson Hughes, known to her niece as Aunt Sandy, was born on July 26, 1966. Beginning from a young age, Sandra felt at home in nature & developed an avid love for the outdoors. Her passion was so strong that she went on to study wilderness survival in college with the goal of becoming a park ranger. However, Sandra’s career dreams hadn’t panned out as she had envisioned & instead, she went on to work as an accountant. 

Throughout the years, Sandy went on to marry & divorce twice. She never had any children which allowed her the freedom to move about the country & explore the great outdoors as she pleased. 

As 2020 arrived & the uncertainty of the pandemic began to spread, Sandy made the decision to leave her home in Maui, Hawaii in order to relocate to Madera County California where she would be near the beauty of Yosemite National Park & the Sierra National Forest. 

As she settled into her new home, Sandy had been in California for six months when she decided to take a camping trip. As the pandemic raged on & the death toll continued to rise with travel bans still enforced, she figured it would be the perfect getaway. Her travels would be local, she could be within her happy place of the outdoors, within the fresh air, maintaining distance from others while hopefully remaining healthy, avoiding the threats of the current pandemic. 

Before she set out, Sandy spoke with her family in Pennsylvania on June 26, 2020 to let them know that she was heading out on a camping & hiking trip in the Sierra National Forest. She elaborated that depending on how things went, she was also considering hiking to Yosemite. 

Since she was heading out by herself into the wilderness, Sandy assured her family that she would check in with them when she was back home from her trip. She headed out that very day in her silver Saab that was loaded with her necessary camping gear & drove deep into the Sierra National Forest. 

After driving for a little over an hour & fifteen minutes, Sandra reached Johnson Meadows, an isolated area that is spectacularly beautiful & offers dense forest with glimpses of snow capped mountains. Because the area is so remote, it’s not a location a camper would go unprepared as the rugged terrain was known for wildlife that included bears & cougars. Because Sandy was an experienced hiker, she would have set off into the wilderness with the appropriate supplies.

Six days after Sandy set off, it was July 2 when hikers were passing through Johnson Meadows & came upon an abandoned campsite which was later learned to belong to Sandy. They noted that the area was in utter disarray; her tent was destroyed, her belongings scattered across the ground. Her backpack was open with its contents spilled out & unopened cans of food, documents & other items were strewn about. The hikers were immediately concerned with the deserted,chaotic campsite so they went on to report their findings to the Madera County Sheriff’s Office once they were back within cell reception. 

Later that day when authorities arrived to investigate the scene, they were able to identify that the campsite belonged to Sandy based on her IDs that were included in her belongings. Documents within a folder at the site included a birth certificate & social security card. 

When authorities contacted her family members, they were immediately alarmed. They told authorities that Sandy was an experienced outdoorswoman who was not only meticulous & organized, but also environmentally conscious. She would have never voluntarily left her area in such a chaotic state & according to Sandy’s niece, Ashley Macus, even a piece of litter on the ground would bother her. The last they’d heard from Sandy was June 26, the same day that she set out on her trip. With this information, Sandy was officially declared missing & a search for her began.

Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, hundreds of search & rescue teams combed the surrounding landscape while utilizing helicopters & search dogs. The group included law enforcement officers, volunteers & the Air National Guard. Investigators interviewed nearby campers & hikers in hopes they had seen Sandy with her distinctive blue hair.

Since it was summertime & the height of the tourist season, Sandy’s family hung posters in nearby towns & businesses, hoping someone would see her.

On July 4, two days after hikers stumbled upon Sandy’s abandoned campsite & eight days after her family heard from her, hikers within Johnson Meadows came upon a woman who was barefoot & had visible bruising to her face. She had no gear with her, she stood calmly & didn’t appear to be in any distress so they carried on with their hike. When the hikers reached the trailhead, they noticed the missing persons flier with information about Sandy’s disappearance & realized that the barefoot woman they’d seen was her. After they contacted authorities regarding their sighting of Sandy, by the time authorities returned to the spot the hikers had seen her, she was nowhere in sight.

The following day on July 5, Sandy’s car was located five miles north of her campsite near Chiquito Creek at the bottom of a ravine that was situated next to a winding road. Based on what they saw, authorities theorized that her car rolled down the embankment after it struck a tree. Based on the damage, authorities believe the car was traveling at a slow speed of about 20 mph at the time of the collision. The car was damaged but investigators found no blood inside or other evidence that suggested that Sandy had been injured. However, as with her campsite, the items from the interior of her car had been pulled out & strewn across the forest floor in the vicinity around the car. This led investigators to wonder if Sandy suffered a head injury during the crash that caused her to be disoriented which would have prevented her from seeking help.

Sandy’s car was left at the bottom of the ravine where it was found so that if she came back to it, it would still be there.  Authorities attached a notice to the car instructing Sandy to contact them & at the bottom, they also wrote that her family was worried about her.

On July 12, one week after Sandy’s car was located, searchers came across Sandy’s sleeping bag near Spotted Lake, 2.5 miles north of the ravine where her car was found. The area was very remote & inaccessible by trails or roads which suggested that it has been purposely & deliberately placed there. It also had the appearance of having been recently slept in. Beyond the sleeping bag, there were no other supplies which would have put Sandy in great danger because of the steep terrain as well as the bears & cougars that roamed this location. Extensive searches around this location showed no further signs of her.

A little under a month later, it was August 9 when two hunters were driving through an extremely remote forest road several miles east of Spotted Lake where Sandy’s sleeping bag had been located. They were surprised when they came upon a woman who stood alone within the trees, leaning against a tree along Road 5S01 near Beasor Road. The woman had no visible gear or supplies with her, she showed no sign of distress & made no attempt to flag the hunters down. After they stopped their car & attempted to get her attention, they decided to carry on after she didn’t react to their presence, making the assumption that she was a hiker who stopped for a quick rest. 

Like the previous hikers, the men thought little of what they’d seen until they came upon a missing person flyer & recognized the woman in question as Sandy. They contacted authorities & indicated that the woman they’d seen matched Sandy’s description despite the fact that she looked visibly thinner than the photos posted. Sadly, further searches for this woman yielded no results & Sandy’s case went cold.

These sightings took place not far from areas that were burned during the massive Creek Fire that began over Labor Day weekend 2020 & was not fully contained until late December 2020. With this, the landscape has changed since the initial searches for Sandy which could be good or bad, according to investigators. Areas that may have been covered could now be exposed while debris could be shifted thus concealing evidence leading to Sandy.

A little less than one year after Sandy seemingly vanished within the wilderness of the Sierra National Forest, a family of five was making their way through the forest toward Shuteye Peak on their four-wheeler on July 21, 2021. The location was about five miles south of Johnson Meadows. Jake Gorba, his wife Victoria & their three young children were halfway up the mountain on their off-road vehicle when they noticed a gorgeous meadow that would be the perfect spot for a picnic. They decided to stop & while Jake & Victoria gathered the items they would need for lunch, they heard their 3-year-old son Kaiden talking to someone outside the car window.

Jake & Victoria asked Kaiden who he was talking to & they were chilled when he told them that there was a woman out there who needed their help. When the couple looked in the direction of the meadow where their son pointed, there was no sign of anyone. Kadyn insisted that this woman needed their help & elaborated that she was laying face down with her legs straight up. He told his parents that the woman was unable to speak or move & Victoria got goosebumps up her body as Kaiden elaborated that the woman was dead.

Jake & Victoria were understandably alarmed by what their young son had potentially seen & began searching the area, but found no one despite the fact that Kaiden insisted that he was sure of what he saw. So bothered by what their son shared, they decided to end their trip early & head home. As the day wound down, Victoria remained unsettled & decided to post about it on Facebook. The following day, the Madera County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the couple via Facebook for more information after they were alerted to her post. 

When authorities met with the Gorba family, Kaiden indicated that the woman he’d seen had blue hair & wore a black shirt & blue jeans. This matched Sandy’s exact appearance when she was last seen. Investigators showed Kaiden a series of photos & he identified Sandra as being the woman he’d seen who needed help in three of the four images. 

Two Madera County Sheriff’s Deputies went back to the meadow in question with Jake & Kaiden to further investigate & an extensive search of the area found no evidence of Sandy’s presence.  

Victoria was left to wonder if her son had seen a ghost looking for help that day & hoped that they could’ve helped Sandy’s family locate her for a sense of closure.

To this day, Sandy remains classified as Lost/Injured Missing & authorities continue to assume that she’s alive until evidence proves otherwise. Because witnesses who reported seeing Sandy described her as calm & exhibiting no signs of distress, paired with the fact that Sandy was experienced in sustaining herself in the wilderness, they will continue to search for her. However as time has continued to pass without any recent sightings of Sandy, the hope of her still being alive has dwindled.

At the time of her disappearance Sandy was 5’3” & usually weighed about 150# with wavy brown hair that had been dyed blue & brown eyes. Based on the sighting of Sandy in August 2020, she may have lost a significant amount of weight.

2025 marks 5 years since Sandy vanished. Her case has left authorities puzzled & many unanswered questions remain. Why was her campsite found abandoned & in disarray, why was her car discovered down an embankment with its contents strewn about the forest floor? Was there foul play or did she succumb to the elements or wildlife? Why did 3-year-old Kaiden report seeing a dead woman with blue hair who needed their help? 

Because Sandy had not asked for assistance when witnesses unknowingly saw the missing woman out on the trails, it gave the impression that she did not want to be found or helped. Investigators have no way of knowing what her frame of mind was as she walked through the woods & it’s unclear if she suffered a head injury from the car accident. 

If you have any information about Sandra Johnson Hughes, please contact the Madera County Sheriff’s Office at 559-675-7770. Investigators request that if you come across a potential clue to contact the department & drop a pin on the GPS app on your phone so deputies can search the appropriate area.

References:

1. Mariposa Gazette: Three years missing – Mystery of woman who vanished remains & ongoing investigation
2. Medium: The mysterious disappearance of Sandra Johnson Hughes?
3. Medium: Sandra Hughes went into the woods & never came back
4. Fox 26 News: Sheriff investigates ghost-like sighting in Madera County Mountains
5. Fox 26 News: Special Report: The latest on the search for a woman who went missing 3 years ago
6. Sierra News Online: Search still on for camper missing in Sierra National Forest
7. Strange Outdoors: The Sandra Johnson Hughes disappearance in Sierra National Forest
8. Fox 28 Savannah: Search continues for missing California woman last seen 3 years ago
9. YouTube: MrBallen: Blue haired woman TERRIFIES authorities

On the night of Thursday, January 5, 2023, April Lyda’s life changed forever & she has since been left to grapple with the kind of grief that no parent should ever have to bear. At the time of this case, April was a single mom living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, raising her three children ages three, nine & twelve. 

When April headed upstairs to bed in the apartment she shared with her children, she said goodnight to her 9-year-old son, Zander & her 12-year-old daughter. That night her 3-year-old son was staying at his dad’s house so it was only herself, her daughter, Zander & their two cats inside their apartment.

Fast forward to just before midnight when April woke to the sounds of what she would later describe as the worst scream ever. After she jumped out of bed & rushed downstairs to where the sounds were coming from, she initially thought that her son was having a nightmare. Zander wanted to sleep downstairs that night & April agreed since he didn’t have school the next day. 

As April ran to Zander’s side & began to move him on the couch in an attempt to wake him, she was stunned & confused when she noticed blood. While April tried to understand what was happening, Zander managed to say, She stabbed me. She couldn’t wrap her head around what was going on & who he was referring to, but by this time, Zander began to fade in & out of consciousness. April immediately called 911 & was instructed to begin chest compressions.

In the midst of the chaos & panic, April was unable to find her daughter so she continued to scream out her name, fearing that someone had come into their house while she had been asleep upstairs. She considered that her daughter had fled from the home in fear as her brother was attacked. While April waited for help to arrive, she lifted Zander’s shirt & saw puncture wounds on his chest.

By the time authorities, who had their body cams recording, rushed into the apartment in Tulsa’s St. Thomas Square neighborhood, they were met with a frantic 12-year-old girl who came rushing down the stairs, hysterically crying as she repeatedly screamed, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! The girl was taken outside & placed in handcuffs after she confessed to stabbing her 9-year-old brother, Zander Lyda, three times in the chest. 

Because the girl is a minor, her name has not been released to the public. Bodycam footage depicted the girl being led from the house while April could be heard screaming & sobbing, unable to comprehend why her daughter had done what she’d done as she yelled, There’s stab wounds in the chest! You better pray to God he f–king lives. 

Now standing in the front yard, the young girl told the officer that after she stabbed her brother, she ran up to her bedroom & threw the knife out the window. Shel continued to apologize over & over as she said she had no idea what happened & that it was some demonic sh-t. She walked the officer around the backside of the apartment building where he found the knife lying in the grass.

9-year-old Zander Lyda was described as one of the sweetest boys who had a huge smile, loved to ride his bike, play Fortnite & hang out with his best friends. He loved spending time with his mom & enjoyed the mundane tasks running errands together. Zander loved pizza, tacos & ice cream & he was said to be an incredible kid who wanted nothing more than to make those around him proud. 

Inside the home, April watched in horror as paramedics tended to Zander, desperately trying to save his life. After he was rushed to the hospital, he was taken immediately into surgery. While April’s daughter was in the custody of the officers, she rushed to the hospital to be with her son.

Meanwhile, the girl continued to speak with officers outside & she was asked if she had any cuts on her body. She told the officer that she did & when her hoodie was removed, the officer was able to see that the majority of the cuts on her arms looked old. One wound appeared to be fresher, but it wasn’t bleeding so he helped the girl put her hoodie back on.

After she was transferred into the patrol car, she continued to insist that she was going to jail. As they sat inside the parked patrol car, she asked the officer if she would be going to jail & he told her that it was too soon to tell. She said, I ruined my life. I ruined my whole future. It’s all my fault. The officer tried to comfort her as he told her that nothing was ruined & it was nobody’s fault. 

As she remained in the back of the patrol car, the girl told him a story about a time when her math teacher took a medical leave to undergo cancer treatment & when he came back to school just the day before, it made her like math that much more. The girl continued to cry & repeated softly that she was so sorry. She began to pray at one point as she whispered, I’m so sorry, God, please help me. What the f–k, Please, f–ing, please. 

She told the officer that when her mom was at work, she would stay home to watch her 9-year-old brother. She explained that she also had a younger brother who turned three in October, but he spent every weekend at his dad’s house.

At one point she said that she wanted to wake up from the nightmare she was in as she continued to insist that she was going to jail since what she did was super illegal.  In reference to the handcuffs around her wrists, she asked the officer, Are the handcuffs necessary? I’m a good child. 

The officer explained that the handcuffs were necessary due to departmental procedures because of the nature of what she’d done. When she was eventually transferred to the police department, the handcuffs were removed & she was allowed to use the restroom.

When April first sat down with officers to discuss the horrific events of that night, she was told that Zander was breathing & the medical team was doing everything that they could. He explained that he’d just talked to the doctor & it’s all good things right now. With this news, April immediately breathed a sigh of relief as she sobbed, I don’t want to lose both my kids tonight. However, tragically, sometime after this conversation, Zander took a turn for the worse & succumbed to his injuries at 2:30 am.  

Before she was made aware of the devastating news, April conveyed that she couldn’t wrap her head around why her daughter had done what she’d done to her little brother. She elaborated that she’d never been aggressive & though they argued like typical siblings, they’d never once gotten into a physical altercation. Despite the fact that the two had always been close, April had noticed that toward the very end of Zander’s life, they were fighting more than usual

April indicated that her daughter was always a happy, energetic child who loved school. Other than ADHD, she had never been diagnosed with a mental disorder, she was happy & well-behaved & had never even yelled at her mom in anger. 

According to April, her kids weren’t allowed to watch scary movies, they were not allowed to swear & her daughter had never displayed any hints that she was capable of such a violent act. She admitted that her 12-year-old was beginning to rebel, but believed she was only going through normal, teenage changes.

Yet after April went to bed that night, while Zander & his sister sat on the couch together watching their favorite show, Henry Danger, she went into the kitchen & grabbed a five-inch steak knife. She walked back to the couch where Zander sat, completely unaware of the danger he was in & plunged the knife into her brother’s chest three times for no apparent reason.

There were no other warning signs of the violence to come, but after Zander’s death, April learned that two weeks earlier, her daughter had confided in friends about having the urge to stab her brother. This was something that April was never made aware of, possibly because her daughter’s friends were too afraid to speak up or potentially believed she was only joking. April had noticed that her daughter was recently spending more time in her room by herself, but figured she just wanted her own space like many teenagers want.

April later indicated that her children were always well behaved & what happened on that horrific night had to have been the result of a manic episode of some kind as she discussed the medication her daughter had taken for ADHD. 

April indicated that her daughter’s ADHD wasn’t bad, but she struggled to focus at school & was prescribed a low daily dose of Intuniv, which she’d been taking for five years since she was 7-years-old. She said her daughter started having visions & hallucinations & told her that she was seeing ghosts. She told April that she saw a little girl who sat next to her in her bedroom late at night & her face was cut up & bleeding & the ghost would tell the girl that she was going to die. She also saw a woman in the mirror who wore a red coat & had no face.

There was also a morning when April’s daughter ran from her room because she thought that thousands of ants were crawling over her body despite the fact that there were no ants. According to April, because of these side effects, they eventually made the decision to take her daughter off Intuniv & she was transitioned to homeschooling. 

After coming off the medication the visions stopped & she eventually went back into the public school system & asked to start taking the medication again. April took her daughter back to the doctor & he prescribed the medication once again. It wasn’t long before her daughter’s mood became angry & irritable & she started spending more time isolated in her bedroom. This was around the same time she spoke with her friends of desires to stab her brother & she also began harming herself.

April indicated that because her daughter wore long-sleeve shirts, she was unaware of the fact that she had been harming herself. When someone at school noticed, they called April & when she confronted her daughter, she confided that it made her feel better about herself. Weeks later, she stopped taking the medication for ADHD, but April went on to read that the side effects can last weeks to months.

When April spoke out for the first time in an interview with NewsNation, she indicated that it was her daughter’s medication that caused her to act out in violence. However, Dr. Kelly Posner, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, discussed the importance of separating fact from fiction. She agreed that the correct thing to do was to first consider the medical issues or medications in this case when trying to find the cause of the terrible outcome. 

However, according to Dr. Posner medications don’t cause these terrible outcomes & it’s the underlying medical conditions that these medications are treating that are responsible for many things. She feels that it’s dangerous to blame the medications because when people believe these medications are dangerous, they may take themselves off them when they are potentially lifesaving. 

The medication in question, Intuniv, is a non-stimulant treatment for ADHD which studies have proven to be both safe & effective. According to Posner, those with a history of self-harm or aggression may also be experiencing a mood disorder. Dr. Posner believes that it’s clear that April’s daughter was undiagnosed & suffering & like many, she was suffering in silence which resulted in her not getting the care that she desperately needed.

Dr. Darcy Sterling, a licensed clinical social worker, agrees that pieces of the puzzle are missing in this case & the medication was likely not the only factor at play as she had never heard of a situation where a child inadvertently did something like this with zero warning signs. It is her opinion that the medication alone would not make someone homicidal. 

On the other hand, New York emergency medicine expert, Dr. Stuart Fischer, indicated that there is evidence that ADHD medication can contribute to behavioral changes in children & in extreme cases, can turn dangerous or pathological. April believes that her daughter’s case is one of these extreme cases. 

In response to the old cuts on her daughter’s arms, April indicated that her daughter had been immediately taken off her ADHD medication at the advice of her doctor when she initially began to cut herself. She clarified that the cuts were from two months before & insisted that her daughter was not a cutter as the fresh cuts on her arm were from the night she attacked her brother. However, April had mentioned that her daughter did engage in self-harm the night before the attack, something she’d only done once before.

According to April, Zander had been awake at the time of his attack since he didn’t have school the next morning as he had been in the process of transitioning to a homeschooling program within Oklahoma. Days before his death, they met with his teacher & were waiting for his books to arrive before he could start.

April feels a tremendous guilt that she wasn’t there to protect her son since she’d always promised her children that she would never let anything like this happen to them. It was her goal that their home be a safe space where they had nothing to fear & for that, she feels she failed both her son & daughter.

Zander’s death is not the only case of violence that the family dealt with. Six years earlier, in 2017, when Zander was four & his sister was six, Zander’s father, Levi Lyda, was charged with felony animal abuse in Missouri for allegedly torturing his daughter’s kitten to death. At the time of this incident, he & April were divorced, but he was alone in her house. When she came home, she noticed drops of blood inside & Levi told her, I got rid of the cat. She eventually found the kitten’s lifeless body in the backyard.

Levi told investigators that he was extremely intoxicated after he drank a six-pack of beer & a half-bottle of vodka. He said he does not recall killing the kitten, but elaborated that after the family cat gave birth to the kitten, caring for it had become a burden on the family which is why killed the helpless family pet. 

He eventually agreed to a plea deal that traded jail time for substance abuse treatment & at some point he was cited for beating a fellow inmate so severely that he sustained moderate brain injury. Levi is not the biological father to April’s 12-year-old daughter, but April told investigators that he treated her like his own when she allowed him to see her children during times when he was sober.

April said she hadn’t realized that Zander’s father was an alcoholic until eight months after they got married & they lived apart during much of their marriage until they ultimately divorced.

April gave birth to her daughter in 2010 & records show that the girl’s father is a convicted felon who is currently behind bars & has been in & out of the prison system since January of 2014. In April 2023, three months after their daughter killed Zander, he was involved in a police chase after he failed to pull over in a routine traffic stop for a defective tail light. After he crashed his car into a guard rail, he began running & officers found crystal meth in a pill bottle, a loaded syringe & a baggie with a white powdery substance inside.  

The man also has ties to the white supremacist gang, Universal Aryan Brotherhood. According to April, he has not been involved in raising their daughter & owes her tens of thousands of dollars in child support. She allowed her daughter to visit him in prison a couple times when she was younger & didn’t understand the concept of what prison was. 

April admits that she too had once been a hardcore drug addict, but indicates that she stopped the moment she discovered that she was pregnant with her daughter.

The 12-year-old girl was said to have grown up surrounded by felons, drug addicts & white supremacists. April remains adamant that the family’s background is not to blame as she shielded her children from these troubled men & fully believes that her ADHD medication is to blame. April indicates that she plans on suing the drug company as well as the doctor who prescribed the medication.

April’s daughter was ultimately transferred to the Family Center for Juvenile Justice, a juvenile treatment facility where she would undergo a mental evaluation with a subsequent treatment plan.

In the meantime, April was trying to put one foot in front of the other as she mourned the loss of two of her children. She coped by keeping her mind busy in order to keep the tears & panic attacks at bay. She indicated that things within their home triggered memories of the good times they once had together as she tried to grapple with what her daughter had done to her son. 

April acknowledged that life without Zander seemed to make her whole world dark. She misses the jokes they came up with to tell each other, singing or playing games together. 

According to April, during her daughter’s time in treatment, she’s been very well behaved & she has stood by her side, supporting her through the grief & shock of what she did to Zander. She recognizes that they both have a great deal of healing ahead of them which needs to happen before they can ever live together again as well as the fact that her daughter will require ongoing mental & emotional help.

April indicated that her 12-year-old daughter remains heartbroken & guilty & has no idea why she did what she did & voices that she feels like it wasn’t her who killed her brother.

She said that before the attack, Zander & his sister had gone Christmas shopping with their grandparents & bought presents for each other. Afterwards, she came across letters that her daughter wrote to Zander that expressed that she was excited to hang out with him. Zander had taken one of the letters & cut it into the shape of a heart & posted it to his wall. 

Because of the girl’s young age, many details about the case have not been released, including the possible charges that she faces. A law in Oklahoma allows children 13 & older to be charged as adults as those under this age lack the decision-making abilities that older children possess. 

It’s unclear how far the girl was from her thirteenth birthday at the time of Zander’s murder, but had she been a little older, she could have faced five years in a juvenile facility & then spent the rest of her life in prison. Because she was twelve, she will likely spend a few years in a juvenile facility before she’s released home.  

If there is a trial, she could attempt an insanity defense, arguing that she was under the influence & impaired by the ADHD medication she’d been taking. However, according to Carter Jennings, an Oklahoma Criminal Defense Attorney who handles juvenile cases, she would have a low chance of success due to the fact that after she stabbed Zander, she ran upstairs & threw the knife out of the bedroom window. Because she tried to cover her tracks, this would not suggest a diminished capacity defense.

Her sentence will focus on rehabilitation & according to Jennings, these juvenile facilities are under guard & can be highly unpleasant. It’s not exactly prison, but it’s very serious & while in the facility, she may be restrained by cuffs, eat at certain times & sleep at certain times, things that are very reminiscent of prison.

Reports indicate that the facility where April’s daughter is receiving care from a team of counselors & psychiatrists, resembles a school in certain areas; it has a gym & an outdoor recreation area. At night, the children are in lockdown in rooms without bars with see-through doors. According to April, her daughter is attending school & has good grades. There are things she remembers from that night & other details that she doesn’t. She knows what she did & that because of her actions, there are consequences.

A gofundme page has been created for April to help cover expenses so she can relocate herself & her son to a new home, pay for legal fees & allow her to take a step away from work to attend weekly counseling sessions & visitations with her daughter & her care team.

Since the harrowing bodycam footage from that horrific night was released in June 2023, the case has gathered a lot of attention. April has since made a statement thanking those that have made donations while voicing her frustration that the videos have been made public, something she considers should not be legal. She discussed the ignorant, hateful comments that have since followed & admits that yes, her children have different fathers, but they were good kids & she never let that prevent her from providing for them in every way.

She argues that her children never physically harmed each other before this despite the fact that she noticed that they’d been fighting a lot more than what was normal. She describes her son’s death as a horrible tragedy that was completely unseen & unimaginable

References:

1.  Law & Crime: ‘I’m supportive of her & love her very much’: Mother of 12-year-old girl who admittedly killed her 9-year-old brother says her daughter ‘has been very well behaved’ in lockup
2. Law & Crime: ‘I don’t know why I did it.. I’m a good child’: 12-year-old girl who allegedly stabbed her 9-year-old brother to death cries, apologizes, questions her actions in body cam footage
3. NewsNation: Expert disputes medicine responsible for 9-year-old’s death
4. NewsNation: Mom of 12-year-old says ‘manic episode’ to blame for stabbing
5. Mamamia: ‘My 9-year-old son was stabbed to death by my 12-year-old daughter. I still love her.’
6. The New Zealand Herald: Zander Lyda stabbed by sister: April Lyda’s full statement after tragic death
7. Gofundme: April & her family
8. New York Post: Mom of 12-year-old who fatally stabbed brother stands by her daughter despite horrific attack
9. Fox2now: St. Charles man accused of killing daughter’s kitten
10. Medium: 12-year-old shows remorse after stabbing her brother
11. Daily Mail: Oklahoma girl, 12, who stabbed her brother to death would have been facing life in prison if she was 13 but will likely only spend a few years in a juvenile center instead
12. Daily Mail: Mother of girl, 12, who stabbed her brother, nine, to death in ‘demonic’ rage pens heartbreaking 800 word defense of her ‘happy, energetic, normal, god-fearing child’ – as she vows to stand by her
13. Daily Mail: Exclusive: Hallucinations & self-harm. Mom of 12-year-old ‘brother killer’ describes her daughter’s troubled life & says she has gained weight & is getting good grades as she undergoes therapy in youth facility where she lives with hardcore criminals
14. Daily Mail: Exclusive: Inside the tragic life of Tulsa girl, 12, who stabbed younger brother to death: Her dad is a white supremacist hardened criminal currently locked up for drugs, her cat-torturing stepfather is an alcoholic & her mom is an ex-junkie

When some children have idle time on their hands, they might head outside in search of a friend to hang out with, but in Graham Young’s case, when he was only fourteen years old, he used his spare time to test out poisons on his family, eventually killing his stepmother. Sadly, after spending only nine years in a mental hospital, he was released back into the world to tinker with his ongoing fascination with poison that led to the death of at least two more innocent victims.

Graham Fredrick Young was born in Neasden, North London on September 7, 1947 to Fred & Bessie Young. Three months after his birth, Bessie developed tuberculosis after suffering from pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue that surrounds the lungs & lines the chest cavity, during her pregnancy. Sadly, Bessie succumbed to her illness which left Fred devastated to the point that he was unable to care for their infant son or his older daughter.

Graham was placed under the care of his paternal Aunt Winnie while his older sister, 8-year-old Winifred, was sent to live with their grandparents. Graham ended up living with his Aunt Winnie & Uncle Jack as well as their daughter, Sandra, his cousin, for the first two years of his life in which he grew very close with the family. In 1950, after his father remarried, Graham & Winifred were sent back to live with Fred & their new stepmother, Molly. 

Being only somewhere around three years old, Graham was highly distressed at being removed from Winnie & Jack’s home, the only parents that he’d ever known. The Young family came back together in St. Albans & Fred & Molly noticed that Graham was a very solitary child who made no effort to socialize with other kids his age.

As Graham learned to read, he was fascinated with nonfiction stories of murder & delved into the story of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American homeopath ear & eye specialist who was executed in 1910 for poisoning & dismembering his second wife, Cora, in London. As Graham moved onto his teenage years, he also had an unhealthy interest with Adolf Hitler & began wearing swastikas & glorifying the virtues of what he considered was a misunderstood. 

Graham also delved into the occult & claimed to know of Wiccans & their local covens & tried to involve local children into strange occult ceremonies that in one instance, went as far as sacrificing a cat. Around this time, numerous local cats seemingly vanished which suggested that Graham was regularly holding these ceremonies.

During his time in school, Graham showed a strong interest in chemistry, forensic science & toxicology, having little interest in his other studies. Because his courses were limited in their coverage of these subjects, he was forced to read about these topics outside of school. His father was supportive of his son’s interest in science & purchased him a chemistry set which occupied Graham for hours at a time. 

Because he spent much of his free time studying toxicology, Graham managed to convince local chemists that he was 17-years-old when he was actually only thirteen. With this, he was able to get his hands on a dangerous amount of poisons as well as quantities of the heavy metal, thallium, for what he convinced them were for his study purposes. He also obtained antimony, a silvery white metal with atomic number 51 on the periodic table of elements with the symbol Sb.

Exposure to antimony typically occurs in workers involved in metal mining, smelting & refining or those working in coal-power plants without proper protection which can lead to disease of the lung, heart as well as gastrointestinal tract, leading to abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting & ulcers.

Graham’s first victim was a classmate from his science class, Christopher Williams, who went on to suffer from ongoing periods of abdominal cramping, vomiting & headaches after he was unknowingly given a mixture of poisons. Christopher, his family & doctors were baffled as to what was causing his sudden, debilitating symptoms, but the boy thankfully managed to survive. This is likely because the boy was back at home, under the care of his family, in the safety of his home, away from Graham. 

On the other hand, Graham did have unlimited access to those he lived with & decided to set his focus on his own family. In 1961, when Graham was somewhere between 13 & 14-years-old, his family began falling ill, his father initially believed that they were being inadvertently poisoned as a result of his son’s careless use of his chemistry set. When Fred confronted Graham, he denied being responsible & at the time, Fred never suspected the idea of deliberate poisoning as Graham himself had even been ill on a number of occasions. It’s unclear if he’d purposely poisoned himself to avoid suspicion or from simple carelessness, forgetting which teacups he’d poisoned. Either way, Fred warned his son to be more careful when messing about with those bloody chemicals.

In November 1961, Graham’s older sister, Winifred, was found to have been poisoned by belladonna. Despite the fact that Fred again suspected his son, he took no action. However, it was Graham’s stepmother, Molly, who became his number one target & began growing sicker & sicker until April 21, 1962 when Fred discovered  her in the back garden of their home, writhing in agony. Meanwhile, he noticed that his son stood by, watching in fascination. Molly was immediately rushed to the hospital, but sadly, she died later that night. 

After her death, doctors determined that she died as a result of a prolapsed cervical disc from a car accident & she was quickly cremated at Graham’s suggestion & no further action or investigation was taken. It was later discovered that because Graham had been slowly & steadily poisoning his stepmother’s tea with antimony, she’d actually developed a tolerance. Growing impatient, on the night before her death, he decided to give her thallium to speed up the process.

Thallium, like antimony, is a chemical element with the symbol TI & the atomic number 81 on the periodic table. It’s a silvery white metal that tarnishes quickly & was once commonly used as a household rodent or ant killer, but went on to be banned in many countries due to cases of unintentional as well as criminal poisonings of humans. 

Oftentimes, an initial side effect of thallium poisoning is gastrointestinal distress followed by neurological symptoms & hair loss or alopecia. Thallium is a colorless, water soluble, tasteless heavy metal & in many cases, a victim is unaware that they have consumed the substance. Because thallium poisoning is rare, it’s often misdiagnosed until it’s confirmed by increased concentrations found in the urine & blood that results in a delay of treatment. Ongoing exposure leads to a pins & needles sensation of the skin, muscle pain, lethargy, heart abnormalities, coma & death. Treatments include Prussian blue & hemodialysis. Prussian blue is a blue pigment made from iron, cyanide & water & in pill-form, binds with thallium in the intestines.

After Molly’s death, Fred became increasingly ill with painful bouts of abdominal cramping & vomiting that eventually led him to be admitted to the hospital for treatment where he was diagnosed with antimony poisoning. Doctors told Fred that he had been only one dose away from death. It was actually Graham’s chemistry teacher who contacted the police after he discovered poisons & literature about poisons in his desk at school. 

Graham was first sent to see a psychiatrist & after it was determined that he had an extensive knowledge of poisons, he went on to be arrested on May 23, 1962, a little over a month after Molly’s death. At this time, he admitted to poisoning his father, his sister & his classmate, Christopher Williams, but no murder charges were brought against him for Molly’s death after the evidence was destroyed with her cremation. 

Graham pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey & indicated that he’d doctored cream biscuits with antimony in an attempt to poison Christopher Williams. Despite his young age of only fourteen, Graham was sent to Broadmoor maximum security hospital where he was the youngest inmate since 1885 after he was given a maximum sentence of fifteen years.

Within weeks of his arrival to the facility, John Berridge, another inmate, died from cyanide poisoning. Authorities were baffled by his death & Graham claimed to have extracted the cyanide from the leaves of the laurel bush. However, his confession was not taken seriously & Berridge’s death was declared a suicide. 

During his time in Broadmoor, there were occasions that staff & inmate’s drinks were found to have been tampered with & contained what was commonly known as sugar soap, an abrasive sodium compound that is used to prepare painted walls. The compound was found inside a tea urn before it was served which could have led to mass poisoning had it not been discovered. Graham once told a doctor within the facility, I am missing my antimony, I miss the power it gives me.

Being locked away did not stop Graham from continuing to read about poisoning, something he concealed as on his release, authorities believed he was no longer interested in such things. By the late 1960s, his doctors had no idea that he remained obsessed with his studies & on his release, it was believed that he had been cured. His initial application for release was rejected in 1965 while his father demanded that he never be released.

This declaration happened after Graham told a nurse within the facility that he intended to kill one person for each year he’d been locked away & despite the fact that this statement was recorded in his file, he still went on to be released.

Graham was released on February 4, 1971 under supervision at age 23 & moved into a hostel. He continued to have contact with his sister, Winifred who’d moved to Hemel Hempstead after she was married. Despite the fact that she herself had fallen ill after her brother poisoned her, she was quick to forgive him, unlike Fred, who wanted nothing to do with his son. 

During a trip to London, Graham stocked up on antimony, thallium as well as other poisons from unsuspecting pharmacists & it didn’t take long until another resident of the hostel, 34-year-old Trevor Sparkes, began to fall ill with abdominal cramps, but he survived after months of recovery. Another man he’d befriended grew so weary from his ongoing illness & pain that he went as far as to take his own life, but no connection was made to Graham at the time. 

Graham went on to work as assistant storekeeper at a lab that manufactured infrared lenses for military equipment in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, John Hadland Laboratories. Ironically, the equipment he would be working with just so happened to be made from thallium but none of it was stored on site.

Graham’s employer was aware of his stay at Broadmoor, but had no idea of his history of poisoning. With his new position, he had his supply of antimony & thallium from London. Those that worked alongside Graham likely viewed him as a charming man as he was quick to offer to make a cup of tea or coffee for a coworker. 

Sadly, it wasn’t long before his boss, 59-year-old Bob Egle, grew ill. He began experiencing severe abdominal cramps & dizziness that was attributed to a virus that was going around known locally as the Bovingdon Bug.

Other employees within the lab were also falling ill with similar cramps, but none nearly as bad as Bob. When home sick, Bob seemed to recover, but as soon as he was back to work, he was afflicted with his illness yet again. Bob grew so ill that he was admitted to the hospital & sadly died an agonizing death on July 7, 1971 where it was determined he died from pneumonia related to a rare form of Guillain-Barre syndrome. 

Two months later, in September 1971, many of the employees at the laboratory were falling ill, particularly 60-year-old Fred Biggs, who was suffering from similar symptoms to what Bob dealt with prior to his death. The amount of employees calling in ill was unprecedented, each suffering from various ailments that included cramps, hair loss & sexual dysfunction. With so many people sick who shared a work connection, it was questioned if the water source was a source of contamination & questioned if maybe there was a leakage of chemicals that were used by the firm itself.

Fred Biggs was eventually admitted to the London Hospital for Nervous Diseases where he suffered a long, drawn out illness. The fact that the man was taking so long to die was a frustration to Graham who recorded his displeasure within the pages of his diary. Like Bob Egle, Fred went on to die an agonizing death on November 19, 1971 four months after Bob succumbed to his illness. 

Because there were two deaths in previously healthy individuals within the same company in under a six month span of time, employees within the company were understandably concerned. By this point, about seventy employees had complained about similar symptoms & workers were worried for their personal safety & wellbeing. 

When an onsite doctor was firm on the fact that health & safety standards were being followed within the company’s procedures, he was taken aback when Graham challenged him in the presence of his colleagues & asked him why thallium poisoning hadn’t been considered. When Graham argued that thallium was used in the photographic process, the doctor was shocked by his extensive knowledge of the substance. With this, the doctor brought his concerns to the attention of management who then involved authorities. Thus, Graham, who would have continued to skirt under the radar of suspicion, had turned the focus on himself. 

It wasn’t long before authorities learned of Graham’s previous conviction for poisoning & the fact that they not only discovered his collection of poisons, but also his diary. In his entries, they found that he recorded explicit dosages that had been administered to individuals as he documented their reactions to the doses over time. When police apprehended Graham, he had thallium in his pocket & antimony, thallium, aconitine, a toxin from a plant, in his home.

Because the Home Office concealed the reason for his previous conviction, Graham was able to go on another killing spree. Totally unaware of his past deeds, when his coworker’s symptoms began, they blamed them on a simple stomach virus, never suspecting they were being poisoned. 

On November 21, 1971, two days after Fred Biggs died, Graham was arrested in Sheerness, Kent while he was visiting his father. At the time of his arrest, authorities found thallium on him & despite the fact that he admitted to the poisonings, he refused to sign a written admission of guilt. 

His trial began on June 19, 1972 at St. Albans Crown Court where he was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder & two counts of administering poison after he poisoned factory workers Ron Hewitt, Diana Smart, David Tilson & Jethro Batt. 

He pleaded not guilty & strongly believed he would be acquitted as his previous conviction could not be entered into evidence. He felt that there was no way that the court could prove that he was the person to poison Bob & Fred.

Graham relished in the media attention he received during his trial while he didn’t appreciate being dubbed The Teacup Poisoner, as he felt it wasn’t sinister enough, believing it diminished his skill & knowledge. 

Since in Graham’s stepmother Molly’s death, the evidence had been destroyed when she was cremated, he went into this trial with a confident air about him as he considered her death as the perfect murder. 

Meanwhile, the jury heard each disturbing detail written by Graham himself in his journal that listed the agonizing effects that the poisons would have on their victims & whether he was going to allow each person to live or die. With this information, the jury went on to deliberate for one hour & 38 minutes & Graham Young was found guilty of all charges. On June 29, 1972 & he went on to receive four life sentences.

After learning that Graham was released from the psychiatric facility where he had been deemed cured, they recommended an immediate review of the law regarding the public sale of poisons. This case highlighted the importance of putting dangerous, deadly substances under better control. Since the 1960s domestic use of thallium has been prohibited, limiting use to industrial applications.

The Home Secretary also declared an immediate review of the control, treatment, assessment & release of mentally unstable prisoners despite the fact that during the trial, Graham was deemed legally sane. The fact that he had been released from the hospital after making highly alarming statements to a psychiatric nurse as well as the fact that he continued to read literature that fueled his obsession with poisons & murder, allowed at least two other people to lose their lives. 

Upon his release from the facility Graham was given the freedom to obtain more deadly substances & he was hired at a facility that contained additional poisons within reach. He worked alongside colleagues who were unaware of his violent, sinister past as they grew more debilitated with the side effects from the poison they were unknowingly consuming. 

The Aarvold Report, a British government document, was published in January 1973 & led to the reform of the way prisoners would be monitored upon release which resulted in the creation of the Advisory Board for Restricted Patients.

When Graham was asked if he felt any remorse for his actions, he replied, What I feel is the emptiness of my soul. When he was asked why he’d done what he’d done, he replied, I suppose I had ceased to see them as people – at least part of me had. They were simply guinea pigs.

He was sent to the maximum-security Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight which is home to Britain’s most dangerous criminals, often reserved for those with severe mental conditions. During his time behind bars, he befriended Ian Brady, who alongside Myra Hindley, was responsible for a series of child murders in & around Manchester, England between July 1963 & October 1965. Brady was said to have been infatuated with Graham, who was 24-years-old at this point & the two bonded over their fascination of Nazi Germany while they played chess together, Graham often sporting a Hitler mustache. 

Graham Young was delighted when Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors added a wax statue of himself alongside his childhood hero, Dr. Crippen.

Graham Young died at age 42 on August 1, 1990 inside his cell at Parkhurst, his official cause of death listed as heart failure. However, many wonder if he grew tired of his life behind bars & speculate that he’d conducted one final scientific experiment on himself. With the exception of Ian Brady, many of his fellow inmates were said to be wary of him, fearful he would find a way to poison his next victim. 

Graham Young brought worldwide attention to thallium as a deadly poison which had previously been used extensively as a coating on U.S. missiles fired during the first Gulf War with a devastating effect.

In 1995, the black comedy-drama film, The Young Poisoner’s Handbook was released based on the life of Graham Young. 

Although thallium poisoning is usually accidental & extremely rare, it can be fatal in small doses which is why its domestic use has been prohibited, following Graham Young’s murders of his known three innocent victims, Molly Young, Bob Egle & Fred Biggs as well as the countless individuals who suffered the agonizing side effect of thallium poisoning. 

References: 

1. Wikipedia: Hawley Harvey Crippen
2. NIH: A successful treated case of criminal thallium poisoning
3. Wikipedia: Moors murders
4. Wikipedia: The Young Poisoner’s Handbook
5. JYMS: Thallium poisoning: A case report
6. Biography: Graham Young
7. National Library of Medicine: Antimony toxicity
8. Wikipedia: Thallium
9. Ati: The chilling story of ‘Teacup Poisoner’ Graham Young & his lethal chemistry experiments
10. The Sunday Times: Cover-up allowed teacup poisoner Graham Young to kill his colleagues
11. The Herts Advertiser: The hideous murders of the St Albans poisoner Graham Young

Non-family, stranger abductions are the rarest of the five case types of missing children & account for only 1% of the missing children cases reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). According to the NCMEC, the majority of child abductions occur when a child is on their way to or from school or a school-related activity. The most common times of an abduction happen before & after school & after dinnertime between 7-9 am, 3-4 pm & 6-7 pm on school days. These most often occur on the street where children are walking or playing. 

According to investigators, a double abduction is extremely rare within the United States & between 1973-2011, there had only been fifteen cases. 

Yet in this case, two young cousins headed out for an innocent bike ride on a hot, summer day in 2012, never to return again. 

8-year-old Elizabeth Collins & 10-year-old Lyric Cook may have been cousins, but they were as close as sisters & did everything together. The girls’ moms, Heather & Misty, were sisters & they lived in the small town of Evansdale, Iowa with a population of less than 5,000. The girls loved playing outside together, singing, creating dance routines & dressing up. Being a small town, Evansdale was tight knit & residents felt safe to leave their doors unlocked & allow their children to roam free. But what happened on a summer Friday in 2012 changed everyone’s sense of safety.

Elizabeth June Marie Collins was born on July 31, 2003 to parents Drew & Heather Collins. She was a student at Poyner Elementary where her playful, bubbly personality brought joy to those around her. She loved life & all that it had to give to her & she was rarely seen without a huge smile across her face. 

8-year-old Elizabeth loved to get her hair & nails done as much as she loved to play sports & explore nature. She had a strong-willed personality & loved playing with her three siblings & ordering them around. She loved spending time with her family, going shopping with her mom & having family movie night with popcorn. Elizabeth was exceptionally social & her third grade teacher reflected that she was always the last to finish her lunch since she was so busy talking. 

Lyric Cook was born on October 2, 2001 to parents & high school sweethearts Daniel & Misty Cook-Morrissey. She loved playing video games with her brother, Dillin, spending time outdoors, fishing with her dad & swimming off the dock at her great grandma’s house. During the winter, Lyric would rush out on a snowy day to go sledding & like Elizabeth, she loved to have fun with her family. The 10-year-old was a gentle, loving girl who was also fearless & tough. 

On Friday, July 13, 2012, Drew got up for work at about 6:30 am & Elizabeth crawled into her parent’s bed for snuggles with her mom as she so often did. Since it was summer break, she was off of school & home for the day & looked forward to spending time with her cousin that day.

Lyric’s parents were separated at the time & she & her mom were staying at her grandma’s house, Wylma Collins. Since Misty had to work that day, Wylma headed over to Drew & Heather’s house to watch the girls so they could play together while their parents worked. Heather remembers saying goodbye to Elizabeth, who was still in her pajamas, as she headed out the door. Tragically, this would be the last time she ever saw her daughter alive.

Right around noon, Wylma was gearing up to make the girls lunch when at about 12:15 pm, Elizabeth & Lyric asked their grandma if they could go out on a bike ride. Wylma said that would be fine but asked the girls not to be gone long since Misty was coming back soon to pick Lyric up. The girls assured their grandma that they would be back soon & Wylma watched as they pedaled away. 

Misty got off of work at 1 pm & planned to swing by Heather’s to pick Lyric up so they could go to the local pool together. However, by this time the girls had been gone for about 45 minutes & they still hadn’t come back from their bike ride so Wylma began to worry. When Heather came home from work & the girls still weren’t home, she immediately believed that something was terribly wrong.

When Drew came home, he recalls seeing how concerned Heather was as she told him about the girls’ bike ride & the fact that despite hours passing, they still hadn’t come back. He tried to assume the best & suggested that maybe the girls had stopped by a friend’s house. The family began driving all around town, but there was no sign of the girls anywhere. 

With a growing fear & sick feeling inside, Heather headed into the local police station a little before 3 pm to report the girls missing. The day was exceptionally hot, so investigators theorized that maybe they’d stopped into a friend’s house to escape the heat. 

At about 5 pm, when the girls had been missing for close to four hours, investigators found their bikes by Meyers Lake, a little over a mile away from Elizabeth’s house. It was a place that Elizabeth had been before, but never without an adult & Heather didn’t think her daughter would have remembered how to get there. 

The bikes were located at the southeast corner of the lake at a gated entrance to the overflow which was a little peninsula that runs off the lake. The gate was found open & investigators worried that maybe the girls had gone into the lake to cool off & drowned. After divers did a quick, preliminary search, they felt confident that the girls were not in the lake.

The area around Meyers Lake was surrounded by eight foot fences & Elizabeth’s Hannah Montana purse was found discarded over the other side of the fence with her cellphone inside as if someone had tossed it there. As soon as Drew sent Heather a picture of the discarded purse, she immediately knew in her heart that the girls were gone.

As days went by, volunteers came in droves to help search for the two little girls who seemed to have vanished into thin air. The Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the FBI as well as the Department of Criminal Investigations. 

Three days after the girls disappeared, when Meyers Lake was drained, the FBI sent their divers into the deeper underwater pockets of the lake & they were able to determine definitively that the girls hadn’t drowned. Aerial searches were conducted & investigators also interviewed local sex offenders to eliminate them as suspects.

Investigators also analyzed the family’s computers to eliminate the possibility that the girls could have been talking to someone online. The family members were eliminated as suspects as well. At the time that Lyric disappeared, Misty & Dan were separated & had each spent time in prison for felony drug convictions. Misty spent three years behind bars & Dan was actively awaiting trial on charges for making & dealing meth. He had only just turned down a plea deal one day before the girls vanished. 

Because of their pasts, investigators focused on the couple & the possibility that their nefarious backgrounds could have introduced a troubled person into their lives that may have retaliated against them by harming the girls. Dan was actively using drugs at the time of Lyric’s disappearance while Misty was clean. Both of their polygraph tests came back as inconclusive while Dan insisted this was the case because he was under the influence. At this point in time, they stopped communicating with law enforcement, which to investigators, was a red flag. 

The situation caused a lot of animosity & divide between the family members in an already horrifically stressful time. Dan went on to retake the polygraph test three days later when he was drug free & he passed. 

Surveillance video was reviewed from a local business that depicted the girls riding by on their bikes shortly after noon on the day they vanished which was the last time they’d been seen. Eye witnesses also saw them at various locations around Evansdale that helped establish a timeline or potential evidence. 

One woman recalled seeing a man standing near a no outlet sign with two little girls. One girl was on his shoulders while the other was next to him & the girl on his shoulders appeared to be fighting him. The woman made the assumption that the little girl was mad at her dad for taking her away from playing. She also noticed a white van parked across the street where this was happening. The day after the abduction, investigators received two or three tips involving a white van.

Candlelight vigils & press conferences were held to bring attention to the case in hopes that Elizabeth & Lyric would return home safely. However, time continued to tick by & there was no sign of them.

Drew remembers that through his immense grief, he recognized that he still needed to put food on the table while he felt he was trapped inside of a nightmare. He would push himself through the days until he broke, allow himself to completely fall apart & then get back up & do it all over again. The families met with investigators daily during the week for debriefings & investigators were holding out hope that Lyric & Elizabeth were still alive somewhere.

On December 5, 2012, after five gut wrenching months went by with no sign of the girls, the families were contacted by their minister & asked to come down to city hall since there was a major break in the case. When they arrived, they were given the devastating news that Elizabeth & Lyric’s bodies had been found. 

It was the last day of the deer hunting season & the weather was on the warmer side of what was typical when hunters out in rural Bremer County at the Seven Bridges Wildlife area, a location about twenty miles northeast from where the girls were last seen, saw a pink cloth on the ground. As they pulled the cloth away, they were shocked to find a human skull. As they looked more closely, they noticed another nearby skull & shoe, the remains scattered around the area. 

The residents of Evansdale felt shocked to the core as if they’d been hit by an atomic bomb. It was likely that the killer was familiar with the park because of how remote it was & investigators turned their focus on individuals that might know the location.

When investigators processed the scene for evidence, they found that the entirety of the girl’s clothing & shoes were present. Because the location was a distance from any area of parking, it’s likely that their killer walked them to the spot where they were murdered. 

Moving forward to ten months after Elizabeth & Lyric were abducted, it was Monday, May 20, 2013, when investigators in Dayton, Iowa received a frantic 911 call from 12-year-old Dezi Hughes. Dezi was hysterical as she told the dispatcher that a man had abducted her & her 15-year-old friend, Kathlynn Shepard. She had managed to escape, but the man still had Kathlynn. 

After Dezi & Kathlynn had gotten off their school bus, they were less than a block away from their homes when a man in a red truck pulled alongside them as they walked. He asked if they were interested in making some money by helping him mow lawns in the area. The girls told them they were close to home & they would need to quickly ask their parents if it was okay. He offered them a ride & the girls climbed into his truck as he shook their hands & told them his name was Michael. Dezi recalled that he was a large man weighing anywhere between 250-280#.

As Michael began driving in the opposite direction of where they lived, Dezi reminded him that they needed to ask for permission before going off to help him. He explained that they would be able to use the phone at the house they were going to. Soon, he drove out of Dayton & began taking the back roads & as time passed, the girls became more & more unsettled with the situation. 

Michael eventually stopped at a rural hog confinement & pointed the girls in the direction of the lawnmowers. After they turned around, he pointed a gun at Dezi & Kathlynn & ordered them to lay on the ground on their stomachs. He zip tied their hands behind their backs & he told them that if they did what they were told, he would allow them to go. Dezi recalls crying out in pain as the man stepped on her leg, he apologized & rubbed her leg & she wondered why he was being sympathetic at the same moment he was holding them against their will. 

After he set the gun down, he pulled out a knife & the girls begged him to let them go. The man grew angry at Kathlynn for talking so he ripped her up from off the ground by her arm & pulled her in a direction around the corner. As Kathlynn began to move out of Dezi’s view, she yelled out her friend’s name. 

With the man now out of sight, Dezi took her opportunity & quickly manipulated her hands so they were in front of her. She grabbed the gun & ran into the woods as quickly as she could. When Dezi stopped to catch her breath, now in the safety amongst the trees, she checked the gun & noted that it was a hog tranquilizer that was empty. 

Dezi suddenly heard the sounds of the man screaming out in anger during the moment he realized she’d gotten away. He jumped into his truck while she further concealed herself in the woods. Dezi ran through the thick brush of the woods in shorts & a t-shirt, her shoes & socks pulled off her feet as she ran through the thick mud that coated the ground. The thorns from the raspberry bushes tore at the flesh of her legs & feet & despite the blood that poured down her legs, she felt no pain at the time. Adrenaline coursed through her body as she continued to run, still able to hear the sounds of the man’s truck in the distance, fully aware that he was searching for her. 

As she continued to rush through the dense woods Dezi suddenly heard the sounds of voices as she came upon a farm. She was frantic as she tried to tell the owners what was going on & they handed her a phone to call 911. Dezi handed the phone back to the farmers so they could calmly tell the dispatcher where she could be located. 

Dezi tearfully explained that her friend was still at the hog confinement & she needed help immediately. A friend of the farmer’s went to the hog confinement with a gun & came back shortly after, explaining that there was a large area of blood on the ground, but there was no man, no teenage girl & no truck.

When investigators responded to the hog confinement, they were told by the property owner that his son-in-law, 42-year-old Michael Klunder, drove a red Toyota Tundra truck. Not only that, but Klunder was a convicted sex offender with multiple convictions for violent felonies.

After Dezi was transferred to the hospital, detectives arrived & showed her a photo of Klunder & she was able to quickly confirm that this was the man who abducted her & Kathlynn. When detectives arrived at his house, no one was home until his wife returned. She indicated that she’d received a strange text from him that read something to the effect of, I love you, I’m so sorry.

Investigators began pinging Klunder’s phone as his father-in-law headed to check his other properties. Investigators were soon notified that Klunder had hung himself in a machine shed on one of the farms. The pickup truck was present with blood on the tailgate, but there was no sign of Kathlynn. 

Searchers began combing the area with horses, ATVs & on foot, in hopes of finding the teen alive. Meanwhile, Dezi was frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to help search for her best friend. Investigators were able to track Klunder’s movements once he left the hog confinement as his cell phone was tracked over a forty mile area as he drove aimlessly around, likely in a panic, trying to find a place to go. This made finding Kathlynn much more difficult.

One day after the girls were abducted, Dezi & Kathlynn’s backpacks were recovered in the town of Frazier in a ditch on the side of the road, likely thrown from Klunder’s truck. Investigators assume he was following the river as he drove so they turned their attention to the river & teams began to search.

Weeks passed & there was still no sign of Kathlynn until June 7, 2013, eighteen days after she was abducted, a fisherman found her body wrapped in plastic in the Des Moines River, twenty miles south of the hog farm. It was determined that she died from multiple sharp blunt force injuries after she had been stabbed 27 times & her throat had been slashed. She’d also been beaten about her head. The medical examiner’s office has never revealed to the public if Kathlynn had been sexually assaulted.

Dezi was heartbroken when she learned the devastating details of her friend’s murder & couldn’t wrap her head around how someone could do that to another person. Kathlynn was described as innocent, fun-loving & caring. 

After her friend’s death, Dezi spiraled into self-hatred for being unable to save her best friend in the world while investigators assure her that she would have likely been murdered had she not run away, which would have allowed Klunder to continue on with his destruction. 

Investigators could not help but notice the similarities in what happened to Elizabeth & Lyric in Evansdale & Dezi & Kathlynn in Dayton. Both crimes happened in the middle of the day, less than one year apart, one hundred miles & less than a two hour drive from one another. Investigators felt that it was very possible that Klunder could have been the person responsible for abducting & murdering Elizabeth & Lyric. 

Throughout many of his teenage years, Michae Klunder had been in juvenile detention centers for violent offenses. At age fifteen, he beat a girl in a bathroom so viciously that she was near death. For this, he was sentenced to sex offender treatment & served nearly two years behind bars in 1989.

In 1991, he followed a 21-year-old woman in his car & flashed his headlights at her, signaling for her to pull over in the pretense that her tail light was out. After she climbed out of her car, he threw her to the ground & threatened her with a knife, wrestling her into his car. Thankfully, she was able to wave out his window to an oncoming car & she was able to escape. 

The very next day, he abducted two 3-year-old girls from an apartment complex, put them in the trunk of his car & drove them to a state park. He’d been angry at the mother of one of the children. Thankfully, they were found alive in a secluded dumpster where he’d left them to die. A doctor later determined that the children had been choked. This was his first double abduction & in 1992 he was sentenced to 41 years in prison. 

In 2011, Klunder was released from prison after serving only twenty years, less than half of his sentence. This was seventeen months before Elizabeth & Lyric were abducted & 25 months before Dezi & Kathlynn were abducted.

Lyric & Elizabeth’s double abductions were the 16th case in the United states since 1973 & Dezi & Kathylnn’s was number 17. There have been three total cases in Iowa & Michael Klunder was knowingly responsible for two of these three cases, the other involving the 3-year-old girls. 

Investigators began searching for evidence that Klunder was responsible for Elizabeth & Lyric’s murders & tried to find a connection between Klunder & Evansdale & the girls. They realized that when Kluder was a teenager & in a detention center, he escaped & hid out in Seven Bridges where the girl’s bodies had been found which proved that this was a location he was familiar with. 

They desperately hoped to connect Kluder to Elizabeth & Lyric’s murders which would give residents of Evansdale comfort, knowing their killer was gone. However, after one year of looking into Klunder, in May 2014, investigators officially ruled him out as a suspect in the case after they determined he hadn’t been in Evansdale on the day of the murder.

Despite this, many people remained convinced that Klunder could have still been responsible, questioning if maybe he’d just left his cell phone behind on the day he traveled to Evansdale. 

Some wondered if Richard Allen, who was responsible for murdering Abby Williams & Libby German in 2017 in the small town of Delphi, Indiana, 400 miles (a six hour drive) from Evansdale, could be Elizabeth & Lyric’s killer. This is a case we covered in episode one 179 which was released on February 2, 2025.

13-year-old Abby & 14-year-old Libby vanished on February 13, 2017 after they went out for a hike along the Delphi Historic Trail. When their bodies were found the following day, Libby’s phone showed that she had filmed a video minutes before her murder. The video depicted Abby walking across the Monon High Bridge & in the background, a man could be seen following. As the video ended, experts were able to enhance audio & the man could be heard saying, Guys, down the hill. The man, who wore blue jeans, a navy blue coat & a brown winter hat, came to be known as Bridge Guy.

Despite the concrete video as well as witness recollections from those who had been on the trail that day who had seen both Bridge Guy & Libby & Abby & the fact that investigators believed that he was local to Delphi, Richard Allen wasn’t arrested until October 2022, more than 5.5 years later. However, there was no reason to believe that these two cases were connected despite their similarities.

The FBI’s behavioral analysis unit created a profile of the person responsible for Elizabeth & Lyric’s murders. The person was likely local to Evansdale & familiar with both the location where they’d been abducted at Meyers Lake as well as the area where their bodies were located at Seven Bridges Wildlife Area. It’s likely that they altered their physical appearance after the murders, maybe changing their hairstyle or facial hair. The appearance of their car may have also been altered. The person responsible may have previously attempted to abduct children or adults in the past as it’s highly unlikely that this had been their first time.

In 2017, five years after they lost Elizabeth, Drew & Heather went on to divorce after 25 years together as a result of the stress & grief from their loss. Since they each grieved differently, it ended up driving them apart. 

The investigation also focused on Jeff Altmayer, who tried to entice children into his van by offering them $100 while he was working as a traveling automobile damage field inspector.

Since Lyric & Elizabeth’s murders, Meyers Lake has since been renamed Angels Park in honor of the girls. In 2022, which marked the ten year anniversary of their deaths, a 10-mile ride & drive was held to raise money for Crime Stoppers. 

The Elizabeth Collins Foundation was created which partners with Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers to bring awareness to cold cases in hopes of generating new tips & leads. Their mission, in addition to helping families associated with missing individuals, is to educate the community on prevention of abduction, sexual abuse & trafficking.`

Despite the passage of nearly thirteen years, the grief remains raw for Lyric & Elizabeth’s families as they remain hopeful that one day, their case will be solved & their killer will be brought to justice.

There is a reward that is now more than $100,000 to help find the person who murdered Lyric & Elizabeth. If you have any information about this case, please email the Division of Criminal Investigation at dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us or call the Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 855-300-8477.

References:

1. Daily Beast: The double abduction & murder that confounded police
2. The Seattle Times: Man who kidnapped 2 Iowa girls had long record
3. COMINGSOON.NET: Taken Together: What happened to Lyric & Elizabeth
4. Max: Taken Together – Who Killed Lyric & Elizabeth
5. KCCI Des Moines: Case of murdered Evansdale cousins still unsolved 12 years after girls’ bodies were found
6. Elizabeth Collins Foundation 
7. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: Non-family abductions & attempts
8. Independent: The unsolved 2012 murders of two young Iowa cousins still haunts this town

A heartbreaking phone call came through 911 just before 3 am on Monday, March 28, 2005 when a 5-year-old little girl told the dispatcher that there was blood coming out of her dad’s mouth, there was a bullet on the floor & she believed that her parents were dead in their New Smyrna Beach home. 

Dispatcher Donna Choufani, a mother of two herself, sat at her console at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s Communication Center, just about nine hours into her shift when she answered the call that lasted five minutes & 22 seconds. She was astounded by the young girl’s composure & bravery as she tried to keep her calm & get help to her home as quickly as possible. 

When officers arrived at the home, they discovered 31-year-old Julie & 29-year-old Aeneas Hernlen clinging to life & covered with blood. 

It was a sunny day in Daytona Beach, Florida when Julie Morgan noticed lifeguard Aeneas Hernlen & the two got to talking. Very quickly, it was clear that there was a connection & basically love at first sight. On top of their shared sense of humor, the couple had a passion for the beach & outdoor activities & loved to go surfing together.

Julie was born & raised in upstate New York where she lived with her parents & brother until they relocated to Florida. Here, she became an avid soccer player during her time in high school & was said to have a spirited & vivacious personality. Despite facing a learning disability, Julie went on to obtain an AA degree from Valencia Community College & BA degree from Flagler College in psychology & deaf education. She was described as a committed person who loved to learn new things & wouldn’t allow her learning disability to hold her back. Julie worked with the Department of Children & Families & prior to returning to school, she worked in the federal security field.

Julie went back to school for legal studies with a goal of becoming a lawyer & shortly after her death, she received an AA degree in legal studies posthumously from Daytona Beach Community College.

Aeneas was raised in DeLeon Springs, Florida with his parents & two brothers. He was always described as an incredibly energetic, creative & hard working person who loved to be outdoors, especially at the beach, camping, boating & fishing. As much as he loved the water, he equally loved the mountains of North Carolina. During his time in high school, he was a wrestler.

In order to pair his love of the beach with work, Aeneas went on to work as a lifeguard for the County Beach Services for many years. In 2005, he was working as a fabricator for a sign company with the goal of one day working as a firefighter/paramedic. Aeneas was the kind of guy who never hesitated to step up to help others in need & the 2004 hurricanes were a prime example of this. He was there for all of his friends & neighbors whose homes were damaged that hurricane season.

Julie & Aeneas went on to get married in 1997 in St. John Virgin Islands. When the couple welcomed their daughter, Tia Skye, into their lives in 2000, they came back to the U.S. later that year when Tia was nearly one & settled in Daytona Beach. 

Julie & Aeneas were completely dedicated to their daughter & centered their lives around her. They made sure to include her opinion on things such as movies to watch together, the colors for their house & the vacations they would enjoy as a family. The family of three lived with their dog & three cats in the cheerful yellow home with lime-green trim & a pink door. 

Julie & Aeneas wanted to create a safe & loving environment for their daughter & the family of three were inseparable. By 2005, Tia was 5-years-old, 29-year-old Aeneas had recently started a new job & 31-year-old Julie was preparing to graduate in May from Daytona Beach Community College with honors as a paralegal. Despite her dedication & focus on her studies, Julie remained devoted to her family. Her professors described her as outgoing, hardworking & always willing to step forward to help her classmates. Julie was excited for her future as a lawyer so she would be able to help others going through a difficult time who needed legal assistance.

Sadly, the lives of the sweet family of three were shattered on what began as a typical Sunday evening. Julie had always taught Tia that if there was ever an emergency, she was to dial three important numbers to get help & Tia had been shown how to dial 911 on the family’s landline. 

Sometime during the early hours of Monday, March 28, 2005, Tia woke to what she believed was the sound of a gunshot. When she climbed out of bed & went into her parent’s bedroom, she saw her dad lying on the floor near his bed with blood coming out of his mouth. She told the dispatcher, Donna, that there was blood on the plants & on the floor of her parent’s bedroom & she thought they were dead as when she called out their names, they didn’t respond. 

Donna Choufani was floored by how composed & well-spoken this young child was in such a terrifying situation. Tia told Donna that it was only herself, her parents, her dog & her three cats & elaborated that there was no robber in the house. She told Donna that she saw a bullet on the floor, but there was no gun.

Donna wanted to keep Tia talking so that she felt safe until help could arrive & reassured her that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Tia admitted that she was scared & asked Donna, Can you send a deputy down here? They talked about her pets & told Donna that her dog was a black Lab with brown eyes named Lizzah. 

Later review of the 911 call proved that Donna had handled the call with such professionalism as well as compassion. While keeping Tia calm & comforting the young child, she was also able to gather necessary details from a little girl who had just seen the two people she loved the most, covered in blood & unresponsive.

Donna knew that what Tia had seen that night was something no child should ever see, a scene she would likely see each time she closed her eyes for the rest of her life & said, This poor baby had woken up to a living nightmare. And the one person she needs is her mommy.

As she spoke with Tia, Donna also worried for the little girl’s safety & knew it was possible that the person who had done this to her parents might still be in the house. As police arrived at the Hernlen home & Donna was sure that Tia was in good hands, she ended the call. 

Donna had worked with the Daytona Beach Police Department for twenty years & had transferred to Volusia County in October 2004, five months earlier. She ended up leaving later that same year in December 2005. No doubt, her conversation with Tia would stay with her for the rest of her life.

As Tia opened the front door, she was met with County Deputy Brian Williams, the first officer to the scene. Once inside, he picked Tia up & carried her to the safety of his patrol car where she sat quietly for nearly an hour as deputies assessed the crime scene. Brian later said, I felt so bad for her; she didn’t cry. But I wanted to cry for her.

The scene inside the Hernlen home was truly devastating. By the time officers arrived, they determined that Julie was deceased. Aeneas was clinging to life & was airlifted to Halifax Hospital where he was placed on life support until it was removed the following day, March 29, when he passed away.

Police were determined to find out who had gone into the family’s home & brutally shot Julie & Aeneas, leaving 5-year-old Tia to discover the horrific scene. It did not take long before they had the answer as to who was responsible.

Investigators learned that only two months earlier, on January 11, 2005, Julie had filed a restraining order against a 33-year-old man, David Edward Johnson, who had been a former friend. Despite the fact that Johnson had been harassing the family for months after he incorrectly believed they were responsible for his November 2004 arrest on charges of growing marijuana & possessing steroids, the judge denied Julie’s request. The judge indicated no proof of violence & that it was too hard to prove stalking with the outlined allegations.

In the end, it was determined that Julie & Aeneas had absolutely nothing to do with Johnson’s arrest, something that police had frequently advised him before that horrible night yet the man remained convinced that the couple had turned him into the narcotics unit for his drug business. Someone called in a burglary in progress into his home & for whatever reason, he placed the blame on the Hernlons. 

Julie had been extremely fearful for her family’s safety in the months before their murder & had confided in family & friends that she felt that Johnson was ruining her life & spoke of how terrified she was. Julie did everything correctly; she kept a meticulous record that started in December 2004, three months before their murders, that detailed every incident where she felt threatened by David Johnson. She documented times when he would call, make a threat or drive by their home, one time he even attempted to run them off the road. Julie noted dates, times & descriptions of his behavior before she went on to file the restraining order. 

When Julie learned that the restraining order was denied, she called her best friend, Michelle, in tears & told her, If I’m not here next week, this is the reason why & this is who killed me.

With this information, police set their sights on their prime suspect & obtained a search warrant before they went to his home to arrest David Johnson. However, by the time they arrived, it was too late & David was found dead inside after he’d taken his own life, shooting himself in the chest. The man never faced justice for murdering two innocent people & ruining the lives of so many around them, namely, Tia, who would live the rest of her life without her parents.

Authorities believe that Johnson broke in through the back door of the Hernlen’s small, single-story yellow house on the 100 block of Ellison Avenue. Once inside, he made his way to the couple’s bedroom, shot them with his 9mm pistol & fled back to his home where he killed himself that same day. He did not leave behind a suicide note.

Investigators found newspaper clippings regarding his November arrest that were pinned to his refrigerator as well as documents detailing his upcoming trial. Johnson had been in court less than a week before the murders on March 22, 2005 for a pre-trial hearing related to the stalking charges.

After her parent’s murders, Tia Hernlen went to live with her grandparents, Julie’s parents, Richard & Nancy Morgan, in Central Florida where she was surrounded with love & a stable environment after living through such a traumatic event.

A trust fund was later set up at Gulf States Credit Union in Tia’s name by the community to help ease any future financial challenges. The community wanted to be sure that Tia was allowed further education since education was very important to Julie & Aeneas.

Dispatcher Donna Choufani was praised for the compassionate way that she handled Tia’s 911 call which earned her the department’s Medal of Merit. Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson went on to say about Tia during her call, Her composure was extraordinary given what she had just seen. She was an amazing little girl. The information she gave us & the manner she gave it to us – we wish we could get that out of adults.

Donna said that she would never forget that phone call & hoped to one day meet Tia so she could give her a big hug although it’s unclear if the two ever met.

After their murders, family members of Julie & Aeneas were outraged that the police & the entire system had failed to protect them. Julie had done everything right; when she realized that Johnson was a threat to her family’s safety, she maintained precise documentation of each & every incident yet when she filed a restraining order in hopes for protection, she was denied assistance. 

Julie’s father went on to publicly criticize Volusia County authorities & in an email to the Orlando Sentinel, he wrote, One of her last conversations with police was ‘What has to happen? Does he have to kill me before you do anything?’

Sheriff Ben Johnson defended his investigators & indicated that they had warned David Johnson to stay away from the Hernlen family & added, It’s a bad situation & something we sure don’t like to see happen, but when you take someone just this side of possessed, that’s someone that’s awfully hard to stop. 

Johnson was someone who would not accept the rules & because he was set on taking action so it was highly unlikely that the man would have been stopped by the restraining order. Ben Johnson believed the only thing that would have kept Julie & Aeneas safe was if David Johnson had been behind bars.

Circuit Judge Richard Graham recalled receiving the request for injunction that arrived by fax with limited information & expressed deep regret when he learned of Julie & Aeneas’ murders. He indicated that had he had more information, he would have likely granted it & acknowledged that he would have liked to have done things differently, but each case is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

According to Sheriff Ben Johnson, on any given day, there are 3,600-3,700 restraining orders in effect which makes it impossible to stay on top of someone at all times. 

The family of Julie & Aeneas went on to file a wrongful death lawsuit against David Johnson’s estate, citing emotional distress, mental anguish & the loss of Tia’s parents. The suit cited the fact that David Johnson was aware that with murdering Julie & Aeneas, it would no doubt be Tia to enter her parent’s bedroom & make the horrific discovery.

With the help of counselors as well as the love & support of family, Tia was able to conquer the emotional trauma & loss she suffered. Her family shielded her from the media coverage around her parent’s case & tried to provide her with a normal childhood given the circumstances. As she grew, she pursued music, painting & athletics. Now an adult of about 25-years-old, Tia volunteers for several charities & has become a role model to those around her.

References:

1. The Sheriff’s Star – May/June 2005
2. YouTube: 911 Chronicles – Heartbreaking 911 call: 5-year-old girl calls 911 to report her parents murder
3. POMC: Julie Morgan-Hernlen Aeneas Hernlen
4. Influencer Today: Rising from tragedy – The inspiring journey of Tia Hernlen
5. The Hunter’s Life Forums: Tia Hernlen
6. Medium: “I said Mommy & Daddy & they didn’t even answer” – 5-year-old finds her parents dead in their bedroom
7. CBS News: 5-year-old’s 911 call for help
8. Tampa Bay Times: Trust fund created for orphaned 911 caller
9. Medium: Tia Hernlen: The 5-year-old who found her parents murdered

On the morning of Friday, November 3, 2006, Meredith Fisher headed to her sister’s home on 5108 Birchleaf Drive in Raleigh, North Carolina, after she’d received a call from her brother-in-law, Jason Young. He told her that he was out of town & asked if she could do him a favor & grab some printouts from his home printer in his upstairs office. Jason lived with Meredith’s 29-year-old sister, Michelle Young & their 2 & a half year-old daughter, Cassidy. Michelle was also five months pregnant with their baby boy.  

Jason left Meredith a voicemail that Friday at 12:10 pm where he explained that before he left for his trip, he had been searching for a Coach purse on Ebay for a belated anniversary gift for Michelle & accidentally left the papers on the printer in their upstairs home office. He was worried that Michelle would come across them & the anniversary surprise would be spoiled. 

As Meredith entered her sister’s home through the garage door & then through the unlocked kitchen door into the home’s mudroom at about 1 pm, she found the house eerily quiet. There was no sign of Michelle or Cassidy despite the fact that Michelle’s car was parked in the garage & her purse & car keys were sitting on the kitchen counter. The house also seemed oddly cold & an unsettling feeling immediately washed over her. 

As Meredith began calling out Michelle’s name, she was met with nothing but silence. The only sound she heard was from the family dog, Mr. G, who was whimpering, but Meredith didn’t see him & wasn’t sure where he was.

Finding no sign of her sister or her niece on the first floor of the home, Meredith made her way upstairs. As she reached the landing of the second floor, she noticed what she initially believed to be red hair dye on the floor. The red substance was at the top of the stairs & in the bathroom & she worried that Cassidy had smeared dye around the house.  

When Meredith looked to the left, she was horrified to see her pregnant sister laying in her bedroom, surrounded by blood. Bloodied footprints trailed across the floor & blood splattered across the walls. Meredith noticed a baby doll nestled against her sister’s lifeless body which was later believed to have been placed there by Cassidy in a heartbreaking attempt to comfort her mother.

As Meredith desperately tried to process the horrific sight, her niece suddenly emerged from under the covers of her mother’s bed. She was wearing pink fleece pajamas without a diaper or underwear. She immediately scooped Cassidy up, ran from the house & called 911. Cassidy, who was physically unharmed, told her aunt that she needed bandages because her mommy had boo boos everywhere.

Meredith told the dispatcher that she believed that her young niece said that there was somebody in the house. 

When paramedics arrived they sadly confirmed that Michelle was deceased & had been for some time. She was dressed in sweatpants & a zip-up sweatshirt, her body was discolored, cold & stiff. She was lying outside a closet marked his closet & there was also blood inside the closet. Cassidy had dried blood on her toenails & the bottom of her pajama pants, but was physically unharmed. 

When detectives responded to the Young’s home they immediately noted that the attack against Michelle had been both brutal & frenzied. An autopsy showed that she suffered extensive injuries that included blunt-force trauma to the head resulting in multiple skull fractures & brain hemorrhaging. She was also strangled & had 13 lacerations to the back of her head. Her lips were badly bruised & several of her teeth were knocked out. There was a strand of hair stuck in blood that was found in her left hand. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Because her murder was so vicious, it suggested a crime of passion which led investigators to begin to look at those closest to Michelle. 

When Meredith was asked if Michelle was having any marital issues, she explained that her sister & her brother-in-law did frequently fight but elaborated that the fighting wasn’t anything too ridiculous.

Meredith called her mother, Linda, to break the devastating news & when Linda called Jason’s mom, Pat Young, she told her that Jason was on his way to her house in Brevard from his business trip in Virginia. When he arrived, his step-father broke the news of Michelle’s death & when he eventually spoke with Meredith, she told him that Michelle’s death was a homicide & to come to her house since his was a crime scene. Meredith indicated that he asked about Cassidy as well as what happened to Michelle & she said he seemed upset.

As Jason & his family made the four hour drive from Brevard to Raleigh, his friends told him that detectives were asking about the status of his marriage. With this, he made the decision to hire an attorney & when authorities contacted him on his drive over, he refused to answer any questions, indicating that it was the advice of his counsel. He refused to come to his house to do a walk-through with investigators to determine if anything was missing or out of place. He never asked authorities about his daughter’s wellbeing or the nature of his wife’s death.

Jason, Pat, his sister & his brother-in-law arrived at Meredith’s house between 9 & 10 pm. He gave Meredith a hug & went to check on Cassidy. When investigators arrived, he continued to refuse to speak with them.

Despite Jason’s refusal to speak with investigators, they were able to determine that he’d left Raleigh one day earlier on Thursday, November 2 for Virginia for a sales meeting at the Dickenson Community Hospital in Clintwood that was scheduled for 10 am the following morning. He checked into a Hampton Inn in Galax, Virginia, about 160 miles (257 km) away from their home, right around 11 pm on the previous night. Friday morning, he attended a sales meeting & then drove to his parent’s house as he previously planned.

Police saw no signs of forced entry into the home & the only blood found outside of the second story was on the doorknob that led from the kitchen to the garage that was later determined to belong to Michelle. The garage door was broken but had been for some time. The drawers of Michelle’s jewelry box were removed & various pieces, including Michelle’s wedding & engagement rings, were missing despite the fact that she was always known to wear them. The rings have never been recovered. The house hadn’t been ransacked & was otherwise in order & nothing else had been taken.

No blood was found in Jason’s car, on his clothing or in the hotel room where he stayed on Thursday night.

Michelle was born in Sayville, New York on February 17, 1977 & had always been described as the all-American sweetheart by her family & friends. She was unassumingly confident, had an infectious smile &  was a beloved member of her community. 

During high school Michelle was the co-captain of her cheerleading squad & when paging through her yearbook, her beaming smile could be seen on many of the pages. On top of her beauty, she was an incredibly ambitious, hard working girl. After graduating from high school Michelle moved on to North Carolina State University to pursue a degree in finance. 

During her time in college, Michelle was part of the cheerleading squad until she stepped back to focus on her studies. She ended up graduating with a master’s degree in accounting & looked forward to securing a promising career in the finance industry, specifically working as a tax lawyer. 

In February 2001 Michelle was out celebrating her 24th birthday at The Poor House, when a man accidentally knocked over her glass of wine. After he profusely apologized, he bought her a fresh drink. This was the moment that Michelle met Jason Young, who would eventually become her husband. The two immediately hit it off & bonded over their shared alma mater as well as their love of NC State’s football team, the Wolfpack. 

It wasn’t long before Jason & Michelle began spending every moment they possibly could together. Jason was working as a salesman for Black & Decker & often configured his schedule so he could be in the Raleigh area to catch up with Michelle. He eventually moved to Raleigh & the couple moved in together.

Within two years of meeting at The Poor House, Michelle realized she was pregnant. It was a surprise for the couple as Jason was initially hesitant about marriage & fatherhood, but as the idea settled in, the pregnancy ultimately brought them closer together. 

Somewhat out of necessity, Jason & Michelle decided to get married so that Michelle could get onto Jason’s health insurance before the baby was born. In October 2003, the couple was married in what appeared to be a happy, joy filled day & five months later, their daughter, Cassidy Elizabeth Young was born on March 29, 2004. In 2005 the family moved into their home in the Enchanted Oaks subdivision near Lake Wheeler in Raleigh.

Two years after Cassidy was born, Michelle & Jason faced a loss when they were involved in a car accident in May 2006 while visiting his parents that resulted in a miscarriage. The couple had been driving outside Brevard when their Mitsubishi drove off a mountain road, down an embankment & became partially submerged in a river. The state trooper who conducted the investigation indicated that he saw nothing suspicious, but prosecutors later suggested otherwise after Michelle’s death. Not long before the crash, the couple had increased their life insurance. 

A later arrest warrant detailed an email exchange between Michelle & Jason from July 12, 2006, four months before Michelle’s murder gave a glimpse into their relationship:

Michelle: I know you are mad & I’m really sorry. I know you have been doing a lot around the house & with Cass & I really appreciate it. I have just been really busy at work & I thought this is a slack time for you with your job so you could handle it. Please give me a call – I want to know who is picking up Cass today.

Jason: I don’t care who gets her.

Jason: I just got home & the goddamn power is out. I called progress & crew is already out. Cass pissed herself all over the floor, it’s hot as hell inside & I can’t entertain her enough w/o tv to finish the goddamn yard. I am taking beer & her to the pool. I am in a mood that makes our trip to myrtle seem mild, pray the beer kicks in. I could kill u for not letting me finish the yard this morning.

During the summer of 2006 Jason began working as a salesman for a medical records software company that afforded Michelle the option of dropping down to part-time at her job as a senior financial consultant in the tax department of Progress Energy. By the fall, Michelle realized that she was pregnant with their baby boy. 

Now on the morning of Friday, November 3 both Michelle & her unborn baby boy were gone after she had been brutally murdered. Investigators began to trace her last steps in hopes of finding their killer. They learned that on the previous evening, she’d hung out with her friend, Shelly Schaad. 

Shelly explained that she’d gotten to Michelle’s house that Thursday at about 6:30 pm & she was surprised to see that Jason was still home when she arrived. She brought dinner for herself & Michelle so she asked him if he planned to eat with them, but he explained that he was going to stop at a Greensboro Cracker Barrel to eat on his way to Galax, a drive that would have taken just under three hours. The next morning, he planned to make the nearly 3 hour drive from Galax to Clintwood for his 10 am meeting. 

According to Shelly, after Jason left, Michelle gave Cassidy a bath, dressed her in her pajamas with a diaper & put her to bed. Once Cassidy was settled, Shelly & Michelle watched Grey’s Anatomy. While they hung out & watched TV, Michelle told her friend that she & Jason had been arguing a lot lately over holiday plans since Michelle wanted her mom to stay with them from Thanksgiving until Christmas, but Jason felt that was too long. 

Through review of phone records, police learned that Jason had called Michelle seven times that Thursday night.

Shelly told investigators that she left Michelle’s house sometime between 10-10:30 pm & as she walked outside, she had a strange feeling that the house was being watched. She elaborated that she wasn’t sure why she felt uneasy, but she was so unsettled that Michelle walked her to her car. Michelle also told Shelly that Jason had been hearing a lot of noises around the house & she said, If someone is going to break in & their intention is to kill you, then that’s what they’re going to do. After she learned the news of her friend’s murder, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Michelle had said to her before she left. 

According to Shelly, Jason & Michelle were either hot or cold & were not at all opposed to fighting in front of others. Meredith confirmed this & told investigators that the couple would get into screaming matches in public. According to Meredith, when they got into a fight on November 1, Jason threw a remote at his wife.

As investigators spoke with Jason, his alibi initially appeared to be airtight. However, as they dug deeper, they spoke with the night clerk from the Hampton Inn where Jason stayed on Thursday night & learned that he found an emergency exit door propped open with a small rock early Friday morning. Even more troublesome, he discovered that the security camera covering that exit had been unplugged & readjusted so that it pointed upwards at the ceiling. Surveillance video from the Hampton Inn proved that Jason had checked in at 10:49 pm, but at 11:20 pm, the footage went black after the camera had been tampered with.

Keith Hicks, the employee at the hotel, found a red rock holding a first floor emergency door open which was normally locked between 11 pm – 6 am. When he went back to the desk to review the hotel’s surveillance cameras, he noticed that the camera for that doorway was malfunctioning & stopped recording at 11:19:59 pm on Thursday.

A maintenance worker plugged the camera back in at 5:50 am on Friday morning & indicated that someone who was six feet tall would be able to easily reach the camera’s plug (Jason is 6’1”). The camera was functioning until 6:34 am, but at 6:35 am, someone pointed it up at the ceiling. At 6:38 am the maintenance worker fixed the camera a second time. Prior to this incident, the cameras had not been tampered with in several years. Jason’s fingerprints were not located on the camera & no fibers from the hotel room were located in the Young’s home.

Forensic analysis of Jason’s phone showed that he had made several brief phone calls on the morning of November 3. One call at 7:40 am was placed 30 miles from the hotel when Jason called his mom. Each call lasted only 10 seconds & painted the picture of someone who may have been panicked & frantic. Jason, who was a normally punctual person, had also arrived 35 minutes late to his sales meeting, claiming he’d gotten lost. The hospital representative later described Jason as hyper & nervous during their meeting.

After his meeting, Jason purchased gas at 12:06 pm & left a voicemail for Meredith about the printouts on his home office printer.

The most damning piece of evidence came from a gas station attendant, Gracie Calhoun, who was working at the  Four Brothers Food Store in King, North Carolina in the early morning hours of Friday, November 3. The location was two hours from the Young’s home & was situated along the route Jason would have taken to drive back home. This account was in direct contrast to the story he told police that he’d simply been at the hotel the entire night.

According to Gracie Calhoun, Jason entered the gas station in the pre-dawn hours, right around 5:30 am. Following the station’s policy for early morning customers, she asked the man for both his ID as well as his credit card for verification purposes before he was allowed to pump gas. 

Gracie clearly remembers the man’s visit to the station because her routine request was met with extreme anger & agitation. The man refused to comply & began to spew profanities & insults at her. Before the customer left, he threw a $20 bill at Gracie to cover the $15 in fuel he ultimately pumped & sped off into the darkness.

As investigators began to look more closely at Jason & Michelle’s marriage, they learned that there were many issues within the relationship. When they spoke with Michelle’s family & friends, they painted a picture of a very tumultuous relationship. As the couple welcomed their daughter, Cassidy, into the world, Michelle wanted to settle down & embrace motherhood while Jason seemed to struggle with shedding his bachelor, college lifestyle. The fact that they weren’t on the same page led to frequent arguments. 

Investigators also learned that Jason was involved in at least two affairs just prior to Michelle’s death.

Michelle was exceptionally close with her mom, Linda & the two spoke on a near daily basis. It didn’t take long before Linda was concerned with her daughter’s relationship which led to friction between herself & Jason.

Jason was arrested in December 2009, three years after Michelle’s death, & charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.

It wasn’t until June 2011, nearly five years after Michelle’s murder, that Jason went to trial. The prosecution highlighted a tumultuous marriage involving an unfaithful husband who no longer wanted to be married. 

They presented the evidence that painted the picture of what happened to Michelle on the night of her murder as investigators retraced Jason’s steps starting on Thursday, November 2 when he left his home in Raleigh for Virginia in his white Ford Explorer. He stopped for gas at 7:30 pm & called his mom, Pat & told her he was going to talk with Michelle to see if she was okay with him spending Friday night at her house en route from his business meeting since Pat was giving him a wash stand & an antique dresser. He planned to head back home to Raleigh on Saturday morning since guests were coming over to watch the NC State football game.

Jason paid for his dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Greensboro at 9:25 pm & checked into the Hampton Inn in Galax, Virginia at 10:54 pm. His room’s key card was scanned into his room at 10:56 pm & he never used his key to re-enter the room for the remainder of his stay. He tampered with the security camera & propped the door open so he was able to drive home & kill his wife unnoticed, confident that he now had an alibi.  

Security footage showed that Jason wore a light shirt, jeans & brown slip-on shoes at the Cracker Barrel & upon his entry to the Hampton Inn. When Jason’s car was seized on November 3, investigators found two pairs of brown slip-on shoes in his car.

Just before midnight, Jason was seen on surveillance at the front desk of the hotel as well as walking down a hallway that led to stairs & an exit door, this time he was wearing a darker colored shirt with light-colored horizontal stripes across the chest. This was the last time he was seen on surveillance footage that evening.

Jason tampered with the surveillance camera at 11:20 pm & sometime after midnight, he made the 2 hour & 45 minute drive back home to beat & strangle his wife to death, knowingly leaving his 2-year-old daughter home alone with her mother’s dead body. Investigators found small, bloody footprints tracked through the house. & there was blood streaked across the walls at a child’s level in her bathroom after Cassidy had been left alone for hours. 

On his way back to the hotel, he stopped for gas at the Four Brothers Food Store in King, North Carolina at about 5:30 am where he was confrontational & aggressive with the attendant after he was asked to hand over his identification. Gracie Calhoun testified that the aggressive customer had been Jason as she couldn’t forget because I don’t forget nothing like that, when somebody is cussing & fussing at me.

Gracie elaborated that the man driving the white SUV stopped at the farthest pump & tried to pump gas numerous times. Because the pump wasn’t working, he came into the station & began cursing at her. She explained that during the night & early morning hours the pumps were locked until a customer provided ID or money. The man gave her $20, pumped $15 worth of gas & left without retrieving his change. 

Later that morning, Jason utilized express checkout so the hotel could not confirm what time he checked out. He pointed the hotel’s security camera up toward the ceiling at 6:35 am after it had been plugged back in by a maintenance worker at 5:50 am. He called his mom at 7:40 am which placed him 30 miles away from the hotel near a cell tower in Wytheville, which is about 2 hours & 15 minutes from the hospital where he had his 10 am meeting. With this, he was set to arrive just before 10 am though he ended up being 35 minutes late. When he arrived, he seemed hyper & nervous.

After his meeting he contacted his sister-in-law with the ruse of printouts for a Coach purse so Meredith would find her sister’s body. Jason assumed he would be in the clear since he was allegedly hours away at a hotel in Virginia.

Michelle’s friends & family testified about the couple’s rocky relationship & their frequent arguments. Linda, Michelle’s mom, said that she’d spoken with Michelle about leaving Jason since she often witnessed him belittling her daughter. Linda spoke of Michelle during her testimony & said, She had so much to offer. There was so much about Michelle that was just, she was an NC State cheerleader. I mean, she had that pep, that vivacious, you know, she loved life & he took it away from her, just took it away from her.

According to Linda, she was often the center of Jason & Michelle’s arguments since she often visited North Carolina & stayed with the couple for long periods of time, something that Jason was not happy about. Linda even offered to cover home renovation costs so she could live with the family & help with taking care of her grandchildren, an arrangement that Michelle was on board with, but Jason wasn’t. 

The court heard that after Michelle’s murder, Jason moved into his parent’s house with Cassidy & Linda hired a lawyer so she could see her granddaughter. After a lot of back & forth, Jason eventually gave Meredith full custody of Cassidy. 

Jason’s affairs were also brought to light & one mistress, Michelle Money, who was also Michelle’s college friend & sorority sister, indicated that she first met Jason at their wedding. As of September 2006, two months before Michelle’s murder, the two were in contact on a regular basis & on October 7, 2006, he came to visit her in Orlando over the weekend despite the fact that it was his & Michelle’s 3rd anniversary. During that time, the two regularly had sex & Jason went on to tell a friend that he was in love with Michelle Money. Over the course of one month, they contacted each other 980 times. 

One day before Michelle’s murder, they were in contact 51 times & Michelle Money was the last person Jason was in contact with on Thursday & the first person he called at 7:49 am on Friday, the day Michelle’s body was found. She testified about Jason’s expression of deep unhappiness in his marriage & his desire to leave Michelle to be with her instead. 

Another woman, Carol Ann Sowerby, had known Jason since they were teens. During the fall of 2006, only ten days before Michelle’s murder, Carol came over to see Jason while Michelle was out of town. During her visit, she & Jason had sex on the living room couch. Carol testified that Jason took her wedding ring off her finger & pretended to swallow it, but ended up giving it back to her the next day. 

The medical examiner who conducted Michelle’s autopsy, Dr Thomas Clark, testified that Michelle died from blunt-force trauma to the head after sustaining at least nearly thirty blows. The worst of the injuries was inflicted by a heavy object with a rounded surface that resulted in crescent-shaped skull fractures. There were also signs that she’d been strangled & she sustained a broken jaw, skull fracture, brain hemorrhaging lacerations, abrasions & dislodged teeth. She was approximately 26 weeks pregnant at the time of her death.

Cassidy returned to daycare on the Monday after her mother’s death & her teacher, Brooke Bass, indicated that the young child kept to herself more than usual that week. She noticed Cassidy playing with a doll that had long brown hair that she called the mommy doll & another female doll with short hair. She watched as Cassidy hit the two dolls together. When another teacher, Ashley, asked her what she was doing, Cassidy said, Mommy’s getting a spanking for biting. After she laid the doll face down on a dollhouse bed, she said, Mommy has boo-boos all over, Mommy has red stuff all over. After her teachers told police what Cassidy said, she didn’t return back to the school.

Genevieve Cargol, Jason’s former fiance, testified that during their relationship, she had been a victim of domestic abuse. During one argument, Jason violently pulled off her engagement ring while they were at a wedding in Texas & Jason was intoxicated. When they began to argue about his drunkenness, he demanded the ring back & when she couldn’t get it off, he began to pull at it. She indicated that she’d never seen him like that before & his eyes were glazed over as if he wasn’t seeing her. During another argument, he broke the windshield of the car by punching it & during another fight he damaged a wall in their apartment.

Genevieve had no contact with Jason for years until he suddenly emailed her on September 12, 2006 & told her that he still loved her.

Investigators detailed the forensic evidence found at the scene of the crime that included bloodied footprints that were consistent with size 12 Hush Puppy Orbitals that Jason purchased in July 2005. Jason claimed that Michelle had since donated the shoes to Goodwill.

They heard from neighbors who witnessed a white car that was similar to Jason’s, parked outside the Young’s home on the night of the murder. Terry Tiller, a woman who was delivering newspapers on Friday, November 3, was near the Young’s home between 3:30-4 am & noticed that the interior, exterior & driveway lights were on which she found unusual at such an early hour. She also saw a light colored SUV in front of the house & a minivan across the street. 

Another woman, Cynthia Beaver, saw what she described as a light-colored soccer mom car at the edge of the Young’s driveway at about 5:20 am. She believes that she saw a white male sitting in the driver’s seat & possibly a female in the passenger seat. A third witness, Fay Hinsley, drove past the Young’s house at 6:15 am & saw an empty SUV at the edge of the driveway. 

A search of the Young’s computer indicated that at some point in time, there were internet searches for anatomy of a knockout, head trauma blackout, head blow knockout & head trauma.

Meanwhile, the defense argued the lack of evidence to prove this story & claimed that Jason didn’t have enough time to kill his wife as well as the lack of blood evidence inside his SUV or clothing. There were also no injuries found on his body other than a bruised & broken toenail. They also argued that just because he wasn’t an ideal husband, didn’t make him a killer.

Jason maintained his innocence & said that he’d been looking forward to the birth of their baby boy. An email he sent to Michelle on October 24, 2006 showed his willingness to attend counseling. He argued that he & his wife didn’t argue any more than the average couple, they just argued in front of others more often than the typical couple.

Michelle’s counselor testified that when she saw Michelle on October 27, she cried during her entire session & the counselor’s assessment of the situation was that she was being verbally abused.

According to Jason, after he checked into the hotel, he reviewed the demonstration software for his meeting the next morning since he was nervous because it was going to be his first solo sales call & he wanted to be prepared. He said that he realized that he left his laptop charger in his car so he propped the exit door open the first time so he could run to his car to grab the charger. He said he left his hotel room slightly ajar so he could re-enter without disturbing his neighbors. As he walked out the exit door toward his car, he broke off a piece of shrubbery to prop the door open. He grabbed the charger & came back to the room.

Jason claimed that after he finished reviewing his work information, he logged off a little before midnight & wanted to smoke a cigar & catch up on sports news. He stopped at the front desk to get a copy of USA Today & was seen at the front desk of the hotel at 11:59 pm. From there he said he walked down the hall, put a stick in the door & went outside to smoke. When he was done, he came inside & went to sleep. 

Meredith as well as some of Jason’s friends testified that he didn’t like smoking & disliked the smell of smoke. On top of that, the Thursday night he’d stayed at the Hampton Inn had been cold & windy & Jason hadn’t packed clothing that would have kept him comfortable had he gone out to casually smoke a cigar.

When asked why he was thirty minutes late to his meeting, he said he’d gotten lost & when he tried to call the appointment to let them know, the call wouldn’t go through because of the lack of cell service.

He said that after his meeting, he drove to his mom & step-dad’s house & when he arrived, he just broke when his step-dad informed him that Michelle was dead. After his friends called & advised him to secure an attorney, his sister left a message for an attorney she’d used in the past & when he eventually met with them, he was advised not to speak with police. 

When asked about the internet searches regarding knockouts & blackouts, he claimed they were done a long time ago in relation to a car accident he’d witnessed. He said he was the first to come upon an accident where the person had been knocked out.

Because the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, it resulted in a mistrial with 8-4 for acquittal. 

The second trial began in February 2012 after prosecutors came back together to build an even stronger case. This time around, Jason didn’t didn’t testify, but a video recording of his first testimony was shown to the jury.

After six hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a unanimous verdict & found Jason Young guilty of first-degree murder. He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. During his sentencing, Judge Donald Stephens spoke of the violence that led to Michelle’s death & how Jason only stopped beating her when he became too exhausted to carry on.

In 2017, Jason appealed his sentencing which was rejected. 

Michelle’s grieving family felt closure that Jason was facing justice, despite the fact that it would never erase the loss of Michelle. Cassidy lost both of her parents & went on to live with her aunt Meredith & was loved & cared for by the rest of Michelle’s family. They wanted to surround her with love after she had witnessed unimaginable violence & trauma at such a young age. Not only had Michelle’s vibrant life been cut tragically short, but her family also mourned the loss of her unborn son. 

This case highlighted the fact that domestic violence can be hidden behind a seemingly perfect facade & prompted discussions about the warning signs of abuse & the importance of supporting those who might be involved in a dangerous relationship. 

Michelle’s family work to keep her memory alive & focus on who she was as a person. She had a bright smile, an infectious laugh, a drive for success & an endless capacity for love. 

References:

1. Medium: The tragic end of Michelle Young: A marriage unraveled
2. Audio Boom – Let’s Go To Court! The murder of Michelle Young
3. ABC News: Jason Young gets life in prison for wife’s murder
4. Chilling Crimes: Michelle Young
5. The News & Observer: The murder of Michelle Young & the trials of Jason Young: A timeline of events
6. Young: Warrant
7. WRAL News: Jason Young’s daughter spoke of him during 911 call
8. State v Young

This case asks the question, how does a person vanish without a trace on a weekday morning in a large condo complex never to be seen again? This is the question that Drew, Joyce & Logan Kesse have been asking themselves each & every day in the nineteen agonizing years since their daughter & sister disappeared in Orlando, Florida.

24-year-old Jennifer Kesse was born in New Jersey on May 20, 1981 to parents Drew & Joyce Kesse. The family relocated to Tampa, Florida & after Jennifer graduated from Vivian Gaither High School, she moved to Orlando where she attended the University of Central Florida. She went on to graduate in 2003 with a degree in finance.

According to her parents, Jennifer was a beautiful girl whose smile could light up any room & as beautiful as she was on the outside, she was a million times more beautiful on the inside. Her younger brother, Logan was not only her brother, but also her best friend. While they were younger, they had the typical sibling relationship of naturally annoying each other but as they entered their 20s, their relationship grew even closer & their circle of friends merged into one. Jennifer was at as many of Logan’s soccer games as she could attend, rooting for her brother from the stands. 

While they were growing up, Drew & Joyce taught their kids the importance of personal safety after the couple were held at gunpoint while living in New Jersey. With Jennifer now 84 miles (135 km) away, she was often in contact with her parents back in Tampa & she routinely checked in with friends & family on a daily basis, sometimes even multiple times a day. Jennifer was always aware of her surroundings & routinely carried pepper spray with her.

Despite Jennifer’s young age, two months before she vanished she was able to purchase her own condo in an up-and-coming area. This came after she secured a job working as a financial analyst for Central Florida Investments Timeshare Company where she was promoted twice within her first year of employment. Her condo was located at the Mosaic at Millenia in an area of the city that was slowly being revitalized. Jennifer loved the fact that there was a brand-new, upscale shopping mall right nearby since she had a love for retail therapy. She chose that particular complex with safety in mind since it was a gated community with a guard.

Because Jennifer’s condo was actively under construction & in the process of converting from apartments to condos, contractors & construction workers were routinely milling about the complex. Some of these workers were even staying in the vacant units. Because there were so many people in & out, Jennifer was made a little uneasy & often talked on the phone with a family member or friend while she made her way from her car to her unit or vice versa. 

In January of 2005, Jennifer was out at an Orlando bar with her friends when she met Rob Allen, who was in town from Ft. Lauderdale. Rob was in town for his roommate’s trade show & despite the fact that they lived hours apart, they began dating & despite the distance, they made it work. The two hit it off & spoke on the phone sometimes hours at a time, never wanting to end the call because they enjoyed talking to each other so much. There would be times when they were shocked to realize that four hours had gone by.

Between January 2005 when they met until January 2006 when Jennifer disappeared, they made the three hour drive back & forth to see each other & tried to squeeze getaways into their busy careers & lives. 

During the weekend of January 20, 2006, Jennifer & Rob went on a romantic getaway to St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. They had the best time & absolutely dreaded the idea of coming back to work & reality. Their trip ended on Sunday, January 22 when they came back to Rob’s place & Jennifer stayed the night. She left first thing the next morning so she could drive straight back to work & on her way, she called to catch up with her mom to let her know all the details of her weekend away. Joyce remembers just how happy her daughter sounded that morning.

While she was at work that day, Jennifer also checked in with her dad & brother since they were a very tight knit family & always in contact with one another. While Jennifer had been gone that weekend, Logan actually stayed at her condo with some friends & one of them accidentally left his cell phone behind so Jennifer mentioned shipping the phone back. He looks back, never imagining that would be the last time he would ever hear his sister’s voice.

Jennifer left work at her usual time of 6 pm & at about 10 pm that night, she checked in with Rob. Jennifer mentioned that she was tired, but that was expected since she’d just come back from their getaway & she had a long drive early that morning, followed by a full day of work, but otherwise, nothing was amiss. While they spoke, Jennifer was in bed & they both said that they missed each other & were looking forward to the next time they would get together. As their conversation wrapped up, Rob said they got into a minor disagreement about the stress of their long-distance relationship & the fact that Jennifer wanted the reassurance that he was in it for the long haul. 

The following day, Tuesday, January 24, 2006, it’s assumed that Jennifer left for work at her typical time between 7:30-8 am. However, when she failed to arrive as expected, her co-workers were immediately concerned. Rob also tried to contact her at various times of the day, but each call went straight to voicemail. He remembered calling her after his 9 am meeting & when he still hadn’t heard from her by lunchtime, he was starting to get a little concerned. But, he made the assumption that she was just busy with work & meetings & figured she would just call him back later that day when she was free to talk. 

Jennifer normally called Rob on her way to work, but that morning she hadn’t. According to Rob, she routinely got up & out the door before he did so he usually woke up to a sweet text message. When the message didn’t come through as expected, he found it a little strange. 

Jennifer missed a morning meeting that Tuesday & since she was such a reliable employee & someone who would call in even if she was running five minutes late, her boss made the decision to contact her parents. They called Drew at 11 am & he was immediately worried. Both he & Joyce tried calling her, but like Rob, the calls went straight to voicemail which was very much out of the ordinary. When they called Logan, he was at the gym & he hadn’t heard from his sister either so they decided to drive from their home in Bradenton to Jennifer’s condo in Orlando. 

On their way, they called the building manager at Jennifer’s condo & he let them know that her black Chevy Malibu was not in the lot. They gave two of the managers permission to enter her condo & they told the family that Jennifer’s door had been locked & there was nothing unusual inside. They also contacted local police stations & hospitals, but there was no sign of Jennifer. 

Once they arrived at Jennifer’s condo, the building manager let them inside Jennifer’s unit & just as they’d been told, there was nothing concerning inside her condo. They saw her suitcase in the living room from her weekend away, waiting to be unpacked. It was clear that based on the things they saw inside, Jennifer had gotten ready for work that morning. There was a damp towel draped over the bathroom sink, the shower was still wet, clothing was on her bed & her make up was on her bathroom counter. 

There was no forced entry into her condo & her iPod, cell phone, car keys & Chevy Malibu were not there which indicated that she’d left that morning to head to work. They couldn’t imagine what happened after she walked out of her condo & locked the front door. They had no way of knowing if she’d gotten into her car by herself or not.

Logan began questioning some of the construction workers onsite & immediately felt unsettled since he got the feeling that they were hiding something. 

Rob & his mother drove up from Ft. Lauderdale & he explained that he’d last spoken with Jennifer the night before & mentioned the small argument they’d gotten into. When it was suggested that Jennifer left on her own volition because she was upset about the fight, her parents were firm on the fact that there was no way she would have done that. 

Jennifer’s family & friends were distraught by the fact that police seemed unconcerned about her disappearance since they knew that it was absolutely not in her character to leave without telling anyone. She would have never gone off, missing work & ignoring their phone calls so they began handing out flyers with her information. However, by early evening, the police officially declared Jennifer missing after she still hadn’t come home or contacted family.

There was no activity on her ATM card & when they pinged her phone, there was no response. 

When cell tower data was analyzed, investigators got the idea that she had been abducted on Monday night despite evidence that she’d gotten ready for work on Tuesday morning. The data indicated that Jennifer was out of her apartment on Monday night in the middle of the night, something that Drew & Joyce insisted was not accurate. Soon, investigators realized that the data had been misinterpreted. 

When investigators spoke with her neighbors, they indicated that they saw Jennifer’s 2006 black Malibu swerving out of the complex at about 7:40 am on Tuesday morning, but they weren’t sure what direction the car traveled. Very quickly, Jennifer’s family as well as Rob, were ruled out as suspects.

Since Jennifer’s condo was under construction & not only were workers milling about, but also staying in the empty units in the complex, they became persons of interest in her disappearance. When she talked with her family, Jennifer mentioned that some of the workers would just stop & gawk at her while she came in & out of her condo. Her friends advised her to go to the management if the workers ever verbally harassed her, but it never came to that.

Since many of the construction workers within the complex were undocumented immigrants from Mexico, they fled from the area when they learned that police were starting an investigation. This made it impossible for authorities to question the entirety of the workers. While the family were gathered at Jennifer’s condo on the afternoon of her disappearance, they noticed that workers were installing carpet in the unit across the hall. 

Despite the security guard & gate at the front of the complex, there were sadly no security cameras in place at the Mosaic at Millenia. 

On Thursday, two days after Jennifer went missing, investigators were contacted by a resident of the Huntington on the Green condo complex one mile away from where she lived, who reported seeing Jennifer’s car. When authorities arrived, they confirmed that the car was indeed Jennifer’s. According to police reports, after the car was examined, there was no sign of a struggle. It was clear that robbery had not been a motive as a DVD player & other valuables remained inside although her purse, cell phone & iPod were nowhere to be found. 

There was no forensic evidence found in the car that could help authorities as it’s likely the car had been wiped clean since there were no fingerprints on the steering wheel.

Investigators went door-to-door to speak with residents within the complex to see if someone witnessed her car being abandoned or may have seen Jennifer, but no one had. They also utilized bloodhounds that tracked Jennifer’s scent from her car back to her condo.

Investigators soon learned that Huntington on the Green had security cameras in place that depicted footage related to Jennifer’s case. One camera depicted someone driving Jennifer’s Chevy Malibu into the complex at approximately at 12 pm on the Tuesday she vanished. After the driver parked the car near the pool within the complex, they straightened the car out & remained inside for about thirty seconds before exiting. It may have been during this time that they wiped their prints from the steering wheel. 

After a person climbed out of the driver’s seat, they casually walked away in the direction of Jennifer’s complex & never looked back. Unfortunately, the footage was grainy & the person’s face was perfectly obstructed by a gate so the driver of the car could not be identified. Because the camera was programmed to take pictures every three seconds, in each frame, the person’s face was obstructed by the larger posts of the gate.

Drew & Joyce were chilled by the images, sure they were looking at the person responsible for whatever happened to their daughter. A person, no less, who was bold enough to discard their daughter’s car in the middle of the day, in a residential complex where they risked being seen by not only a witness, but surveillance video.

The Orlando police reached out to the FBI for assistance in analyzing the surveillance footage. They were able to determine that the person was between 5’3”-5’5” & was wearing white clothing that would be typical for a painter or construction worker. The gender of the person has never been identified, but based on their size & their gait, investigators believed that it was a man. 

It’s theorized that as Jennifer left her condo for work, she was abducted by a worker within the complex somewhere in between the time she locked her front door & when she approached her car. 

During the weekend after Jennifer’s car was found, more than 1,400 people came together to search the surrounding area for any sign of her. 

Drew & Joyce stayed at Jennifer’s condo for months, wanting to be close to the investigation while Rob slept on her couch for weeks. Jennifer’s disappearance wasn’t the only heartbreak Rob dealt with that year as five months later his father died. He was sick from grief from having lost two of the most important people in his life, other than his mom, in such a short span of time. However, Rob could only imagine, as distraught as he was about Jennifer’s disappearance, what Drew & Joyce must be feeling.

Drew & Joyce came up with the idea of printing Jennifer’s image & description on decks of playing cards that would ultimately be distributed to local jails. This resulted in an inmate at the Seminole County Jail, David Byron Russ, to contact Drew Kesse regarding information about his daughter’s disappearance.

David was in prison after he murdered 55-year-old Madeline Leinen. Because Orlando police refused to speak with David, Drew went to the prison to meet with him, but came back without any helpful information. It’s likely that David had no information about what happened to Jennifer & only reached out in a ploy for attention.

On the two year anniversary of Jennifer’s disappearance in 2008, her family & friends gathered on a street corner in Orlando, holding signs with Jennifer’s photo & information with a $10,000 reward in hopes of keeping her case alive & prompting a potential witness or suspect to come forward.

In 2009, detectives took a fresh look at Jennifer’s case & spoke with a housekeeper that worked within Jennifer’s condo. When she was shown the security video of the suspect walking away from Jennifer’s car, she thought it looked like a man she knew as Chino but she wasn’t sure it was him. This was the first time investigators had heard this name & learned that he previously lived in another building within Jennifer’s complex. He was also a former maintenance working there & had only been working on site one week before she vanished. 

When investigators entered the name Chino into a leads tracking system, an anonymous tip popped up that had come through in the first week of Jennifer’s disappearance that suggested Chino may have been involved in her abduction. It’s unclear if he’d ever been interviewed as a suspect at that time. 

Investigators soon tracked the man down; he was behind bars for statutory rape of a teenage girl that he committed two years after Jennifer disappeared. When he was interviewed, he indicated that he had done work inside Jennifer’s unit & she had been the person who let him inside. While he was there working, she got ready for work & left. When he was shown images of the person who abandoned her car, he denied being the person pictured. He was also 5’9”, four inches taller than the higher estimated height of the suspect. The man was familiar with the case & investigators indicated that he was very cooperative. He passed a polygraph test, but remained a potential suspect.

A second maintenance worker was interviewed who had been working alongside Chino in Jennifer’s condo. He indicated that he’d spoken with Jennifer about what work needed to be done inside her unit & that was the end of it. When detectives spoke with the building manager of the complex, he was unaware of anyone that may have had an issue with Jennifer.

Once again, the case seemed to stall & the detective who was taking a second look at the case was removed from the case in 2010 & Drew & Joyce felt abandoned. They have since voiced their disappointment & frustration at the lack of assistance from the Orlando police department. For years they’ve requested that Jennifer’s case be declared a cold case in order to have additional resources available, but they continued to be denied. The department insisted that Jennifer’s case was very much active despite the fact that they fully believed that nothing was being done with Jennifer’s case whatsoever.

In 2016, ten years after she vanished without a trace, Jennifer was declared legally dead. Drew acknowledged that making this decision was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

In 2018 Drew & Joyce went on to sue the Orlando police department for their daughter’s case records. They were successful & received over 16,000 pages of documents & hours of audio & video recordings. With this, the Orlando PD indicated they would no longer be heading up the investigation. The Kesse family went on to hire a private investigator who combed over the files & immediately felt that police had dropped the ball in many regards. 

During the critical first hours of the investigation, they failed to speak with potential witnesses so the PI started by interviewing Jennifer’s neighbors at Mosaic at Millenia. Other female residents voiced their discomfort at living amongst the construction workers who were staying in the empty units of the complex. One resident recalls routinely coming home at night to find a group of men gathered outside, drinking. As she walked past them to get to her home, she felt uncomfortable with the stares & comments they would mutter. When she complained to the leasing office manager, they apologized but indicated there was nothing they could do about it.

Another resident indicated that while she lived within the complex, she started to suspect that maintenance workers were entering her unit without her knowledge or approval when she wasn’t home. She would come back to find signs that someone had been there. Her underwear drawer looked as if someone had rifled through it, the shower was wet, she noticed footprints in her closet. Another time, she caught a peeping tom peering through her patio window, pleasuring himself as he looked in. She believed he was a worker within the complex, but he immediately fled in a white van. She filed a police report but the man or his van have never been located.

When the private investigator for the Kesse family spoke with another woman, she mentioned the name Chino. She claimed that when she would come back home late at night from work he would approach her which made her extremely uneasy. 

A woman who moved into the complex a couple of months after Jennifer vanished told the private investigator that she knew Chino to be a very friendly, funny man. She never suspected that he had anything to do with Jennifer’s disappearance until 9 months after Jennifer vanished when Chino suddenly moved out of the complex in the middle of the night. She felt unsettled by this & went on to contact the crime line with a statement but no one ever followed up with her.

As years have gone by, the man by the name of Chino, continues to deny having anything to do with Jennifer’s disappearance.

According to the private investigator who has been working with the Kesse family for years, based on interviews with Jennifer’s neighbors, there were up to ten construction workers living in an empty unit directly across from where Jennifer lived. It’s his belief that on the morning of Tuesday, January 24, 2006, as Jennifer left for work, one or more of the men abducted her while she had her back to that unit as she locked her door. She was likely dragged inside & murdered. He has been unable to locate any of the men in question & there is no evidence that investigators ever tracked these men down as there was no documentation of who was living in that unit at the time Jennifer vanished.

The private investigator also learned that ten months after Jennifer vanished, a person was seen dumping a rolled up piece of carpet into a nearby lake. The men that were staying in the unit across from Jennifer’s just so happened to be installing carpet at the time she vanished. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department were called to the scene & conducted a three-day search. When dive crews searched the lake they found no carpet or evidence that Jennifer had been placed there.

When the Kesse’s private investigator’s team searched the area with their own private cadaver dog, the dog alerted to something.

Joyce & Drew went on to create a GoFundMe page to help continue the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance as their resources were completely drained in the efforts to find their daughter. Thus far, they have raised about $127,000 of their $200,000 goal. They also advocate for other families of missing persons & have worked tirelessly to keep their daughter’s spirit & memory alive. According to the page, they are currently working with a woman within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who has started the investigation from the beginning & they remain optimistic that their daughter might still be found.

Those that know & love Jennifer are forced to live their lives not knowing what happened to her on the routine morning she left her condo to head to work. They don’t know if she was murdered, if she is dead or alive or if she was abducted for human trafficking. Horrific scenarios of what may have happened to her haunt their daily thoughts as they continue to hold out hope that someone will one day come forward with information leading to Jennifer’s whereabouts. 

Jennifer’s family describe living in a state of limbo that has gone on for nearly 2 decades. One of their daughter’s friends discovered she was pregnant right after Jennifer vanished & they’ve watched the baby grow into a teen, a gut wrenching reminder as to how much time has passed with no answers. Joyce indicated that as a parent, there will never be a right time to give up searching for your child. She can only hope & pray that they’ll have answers while they’re still alive. If she’s no longer alive, they hope a bone or another piece of evidence is found so they can know where she is & what happened to her. 

Logan was set to move to California one week after his sister disappeared to be with his girlfriend, but he decided to stay in Florida in hopes of finding Jennifer. He began traveling between the two states & eventually got his real estate license. As time went on, his parents encouraged him to travel & enjoy his 20s. He eventually started his career, got married & had kids. Despite the fact that he no longer lives in the area, he will never stop looking for his sister until the day he dies. Logan won’t stop until someone is held accountable, someone that he is positive was a worker in Jennifer’s complex.

At the time of her disappearance, Jennifer had medium length blond hair, green eyes that could sometimes look blue in certain light & she was 5’8” & weighed 135#. 

There is a $15,000 reward for anyone with information. If you have any information about Jennifer’s disappearance, please contact the Find Jennifer Kesse Facebook page or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at 1-888-356-4774.

References:

1. CNN Transcripts: What happened to Jennifer Kesse?
2. Medium: Missing in Orlando
3. Gofundme: Help us find Jennifer Kesse
4. CBS News: Parents of Jennifer Kesse take over investigation in hopes of solving missing daughter’s case
5. Facebook: Find Jennifer Kesse
6. NBC News: Family refuses to give up search for Jennifer Kesse who vanished 14 years ago from Orlando, Florida home

At about 9 am on Friday, October 2, 2020, 24-year-old Alyssa Burkett pulled into her usual parking spot at the Greentree Apartment complex where she worked in Carrollton, Texas. As she sat inside her car with the windows closed, likely gathering her things, witnesses would later tell authorities that they saw a man who was holding a gun climb out of his black Ford Expedition SUV. He walked up to Alyssa’s car & fired the gun through her closed window, striking her in the left eye & part of her face.

Likely assuming that Alyssa was dead, the man climbed back into his car & began pulling away. Meanwhile, Darin Ickeler, who was a maintenance supervisor who worked with Alyssa, just happened to be standing only fifteen feet away when he heard the blast from the gun. Unsure of what was happening, he noticed a dark SUV backing out of its parking spot. The next thing he saw was Alyssa climbing out of her car, heading in the direction of the leasing office to get help from her co-workers. Unbeknownst to the shooter, Alyssa had survived the gunshot wound to the face.

Darin watched in shock as he saw the shooter suddenly stop his car & sprint in Alyssa’s direction, now holding a large hunting knife in his hand. Meanwhile, the employees within the leasing office stayed inside, fearing an active shooter situation. Bloody handprints could be seen streaking the windows where Alyssa desperately tried to get someone to come out to help her.

Sadly, the man from the SUV began a frenzied attack & stabbed Alyssa 44 times, plunging his knife into her body over & over until he fled from the scene in his black SUV. At the time that he left, Alyssa was still breathing despite being shot in the head & stabbed so many times. At this point, her co-workers came out of the office & tried to begin lifesaving measures as another called 911.

The caller told the dispatcher that someone had just shot their assistant manager & only left in his car seconds earlier. The fire department was the first to arrive at the scene & immediately began tending to Alyssa, but sadly it was too late & she was already gone.

Alyssa Ann Burkett was born on December 31, 1995 in Mesquite, Texas to parents Josh Forsyth & Teresa Burkett. She was described as a loving mother to her daughter, Willow Ann & a strong-willed, ambitious, fiercely determined & driven woman. Her mom went on to marry a man named Chad Collard & between her parents, she had five siblings.

When Teresa Collard was given the devastating news of her daughter’s brutal murder, she was told that it was a black man who’d attacked her daughter. However, Teresa said that she knew exactly who was responsible & he was a white man named Andrew Beard. Teresa elaborated that Andrew was a very evil man who was in an active custody battle with Alyssa over their 1-year-old daughter, Willow. The custody battle spanned as far back as when Alyssa was still pregnant. 

Once Willow was born, Andrew began demanding full custody of their daughter. Alyssa was adamant from the beginning that this was never going to happen. 

Alyssa & Andrew met on a dating app two years earlier when Alyssa was 22-years-old & Andrew was 30.  Initially, their relationship was very casual since Alyssa was so young & still trying to figure out what she wanted to do in life. However, things quickly changed when Alyssa realized that she was pregnant. Her close friends recall her bursting into tears & hysterically crying as she tearfully handed over her positive pregnancy test for them to see.

As Alyssa progressed in her pregnancy, her doubts & fears were eventually replaced with excitement. When she realized that she was having a baby girl, she was thrilled. Willow Ann was born on July 23, 2019 & Alyssa immediately took to being a mother. Her younger sister, Madison Grimes, indicated that Willow clung to her mother every second of every day.

After Willow was born Alyssa went back to college & started working as an assistant property manager at the Greentree Apartments. She hoped to one day secure a career that would give her the means to raise Willow in a stable environment where they didn’t have to struggle.

After their daughter’s birth, Alyssa & Andrew shared custody of Willow & they each spent a few days a week with her. However, as time went on, Andrew began to push for primary custody, forcing Alyssa to drain her bank account in order to cover the lawyers fees as she was in & out of court hearings.

According to Madison, her sister was living in constant fear of losing her daughter, who was the center of her universe. She worried that because Andrew was more financially stable, he would be granted full custody. Andrew had an established career at a tool company, he owned a nice house & even owned a plane. Since he had all the nice things that she could yet to afford, she realized that he had the upper hand.

However, Andrew’s mom, Lizette Bowers, believed that her son was fighting for custody from a place of love rather than malice because he believed that he could provide Willow with a more stable life than Alyssa could. Lizette described Andrew as loving & warm & someone who operated from the heart. She indicated that her son was an amazing father who constantly doted on Willow. She elaborated that anytime he had Willow, she could always be found strapped to his chest in a baby carrier so that she could experience the world alongside him each day.

In March 2020, when Willow was 8 months old, the dust began to settle & Alyssa & Andrew managed to find common ground. They reached an agreement on a visitation schedule & established child support. Alyssa began to relax as things grew calmer & the custody battle was resolved.

By this time, Alyssa was in a relationship with a new man named Ben while Andrew had also moved on & was in love with a woman named Holly Elkins. This was a relief to Alyssa & she was hopeful that Holly’s support would help the situation. Holly sent a text to Alyssa that read, … look forward to having a super healthy relationship with you & Ben! Alyssa responded, I hope your influence helps because I’d love nothing more for us all to have a healthy relationship.

Holly & Andrew’s relationship progressed very quickly. They began dating in April 2020 & by the following month, they were actively shopping for engagement rings. By the summer of 2020, Holly moved in with Andrew. 

Alyssa’s hope that Andrew’s new love life would lead to a more harmonious co-parenting journey was short lived when she began to notice that Andrew’s demeanor was yet again shifting & he was becoming very hostile. It wasn’t long until the upheaval began again & Andrew was once again demanding primary custody of Willow & dragging Alyssa back into court.

Teresa noticed that Andrew was very short, rude & hateful in the way that he communicated with her daughter. The calm from March had taken a 180 degree turn yet again. With this, Alyssa carried an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach & had the sensation that someone was watching her. She told her family & friends that Andrew seemed to have an uncanny knack of always knowing where she was & what she was doing.

According to Teresa, when Willow was under her mother’s care, Andrew seemed to keep constant tabs on them. Alyssa’s friend, Shelbie, recalls a time when Alyssa was at a bar in downtown Dallas when Andrew suddenly showed up. Alyssa grabbed her phone & texted her shock at randomly seeing him & questioned if he was somehow tracking her. By this point in time, she felt like she was living her life looking over her shoulder in constant fear.

After Alyssa’s murder, her family discovered a video on her phone that she never shared or posted. It depicted Alyssa saying, Hi everyone, my name’s Alyssa. So this past year I have been going through a custody battle. A very ugly one. I have a 1-year-old child. It’s taken a toll on my mental & physical health… With that being said, I’ve become a lot stronger in the process.. And I guess just my message is no matter what you’re going through, stick it out. You can do it. And stay strong.

Things continued to be exceptionally challenging for Alyssa & in September 2020, one month before her murder, a man who identified himself as Frank Marrow called 911 & claimed that Alyssa was selling drugs out of the trunk of her car at work. He explained that he could both smell it & see it. He provided her license plate number from her which he described as a little Toyota Corolla.

With this, police visited the Greentree Apartments & confronted Alyssa in the leasing office where she was working. Alyssa was completely caught off guard & baffled as she quickly handed the keys to her car over. When officers opened her trunk, they not only found drugs, but also a pistol & some cash inside, just as the caller indicated they would. 

It was very obvious that Alyssa was being set-up & made to look like a criminal which put her at risk for losing her job & more importantly, her daughter. She feared that she would be arrested for something she had nothing to do with. Alyssa was sure that the person who identified himself as Frank Marrow was actually Andrew.

Later that same day Alyssa texted her roommate Shelbie & wrote, he is going to try to get someone to kill me next. Those that knew Alyssa knew her as a very strong & brave person so the fact that she was asking for help proved that she was genuinely scared.

Madison remembers receiving texts from her sister that read, Come over while I walk inside. Lock the door behind you. Do you see anyone around you. Madison noticed that things were only getting worse & her family clearly recognized that Andrew was trying to have Alyssa arrested so he could gain full custody of Willow. They wondered what he could be capable of next & feared it was killing Alyssa. Only one month after the drugs were planted in her car, she was gone.

When Teresa responded to the scene of her daughter’s murder, she immediately told police that she knew exactly who was responsible as she spoke about Andrew. She was terrified, knowing that Willow was with him that day. If Andrew was capable of murdering her daughter, he was also capable of harming Willow & Teresa voiced that she wanted her grandbaby away from him.

Within hours, police pulled Andrew over in his F-150 pickup truck for an alleged traffic violation. Both he & Holly, who by this point was his fiance, were instructed to get out of the car while Willow remained in the backseat. Officers noted that Andrew seemed very unfazed & calm by the situation. Andrew was free to go because of the lack of evidence against him at this point & he left with Willow since he had court mandated visitation rights. The police seized his truck & told him not to go back to his house so he, Holly & Willow checked into a hotel.

When investigators searched Andrew’s home that night, they came across evidence that included an envelope with incriminating notes scrawled on it. The notes included Alyssa’s license plate number, the color & make of her car which was the information that the so-called Frank Marrow had given to police about the alleged drugs Alyssa had been selling out of her car. They were floored that he held onto the incriminating evidence for a month.

During the investigation authorities also discovered a tracking device on Alyssa’s car & right within plain view in his home, the lead detective found charging stations & batteries that matched the tracking device. Authorities assume that he installed the device on Alyssa’s car in hopes of catching her doing something that she shouldn’t be doing to gain an advantage in the custody battle.

When Andrew’s F-150 was searched, investigators found two dark vials of makeup inside of a backpack that contained a foundation called Java. Based on the dark shade, investigators immediately believed that he used the makeup to disguise his face during the attack to make himself look African American. They also discovered a pair of men’s hiking boots that had been cut up & were soaking in bleach.

Officers found the sheath of a knife at the scene of the crime but they were unable to locate the knife itself or the gun that was used to kill Alyssa. However, one day after Alyssa was killed, investigators found a black SUV that had been abandoned less than a mile from Andrew’s home. They soon learned that he’d specifically purchased it to use for the murder.

Images of Andrew were captured on a home security system fleeing through the neighborhood from the black SUV. Once this vehicle was processed, investigators discovered blood in multiple spots that later proved to be Alyssa’s. They also found a fake beard that was smeared with dark brown makeup. With this evidence, an arrest warrant was secured.

Investigators found Andrew at an Airbnb where he was staying with his mom, Holly & Willow. Lizette indicated that while they were there, her son received a phone call informing him that he was going to be arrested. Three days after Alyssa was killed, Andrew turned himself in to the Carrollton Police Department & was charged with her murder. 

In the meantime, Willow was sent to stay with Teresa while Lizette was confident that police had the wrong man. Holly felt the same, unable to believe that the man she was ready to marry could be responsible for something this horrific. From Holly’s standpoint, she was engaged to the most wonderful man on the planet.

Holly went into the station in hopes she could convince investigators that they had the wrong guy. She said that Andrew was incapable of doing such a horrific thing to anyone, let alone a woman. Investigators spoke with her for about an hour with the goal that eventually they could convince her that Andrew had a side that she did not know & hoped she could be a witness for the prosecution. 

According to Holly, Andrew had been with her at home when Alyssa was murdered, but the detective was firm that this was not possible & she was not being truthful. There were hours from the day of Alyssa’s murder when he had not actually been there. She remained adamant that she would have known had he left the house that day & described herself as a stage 5 clinger of a girlfriend. 

Holly tearfully told investigators that she was torn apart by what happened to Alyssa & what her fiance was being accused of. As the interview came to an end, Holly remained loyal to Andrew & remained at the Airbnb with Lizette. Lizette & Holly bonded over their ongoing belief in Andrew’s innocence.

After two weeks behind bars, Andrew was released on bond, something Lizette was overjoyed about. When she told Holly about his planned release for the following day, Lizette was taken aback when Holly indicated that she would be leaving & going back home to Michigan. She watched as Holly packed her bags & climbed into an Uber, never to return.

Within two & a half weeks of Alyssa’s murder, Holly Elkins left Texas & returned to her home state of Michigan. Upon her return, her childhood best friend, Stephanie Goddard, said that Holly never once mentioned Alyssa’s nor Andrew’s names. Within seven months of her return, she had her own condo, a new Lexus & a new boyfriend. According to Stephanie, Holly was known to always have a man by her side who was wrapped around her finger, always the one to control the relationship.

With Andrew now free, Detective Chevallier was exceptionally concerned for Willow’s safety & contacted the federal government to take the case under federal firearm laws after an unregistered silencer was found in Andrew’s home. Because of this finding, they agreed & Andrew was rearrested only eight days after he bonded out & he was charged with cyberstalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death. 

In June 2022, one year & eight months after Alyssa’s murder, Lizette received a phone call from her son & was stunned when he told her that he planned to plead guilty. Lizette remained convinced of her son’s innocence, believing that he was absolutely not capable of murder. She also felt that the crime itself had been very sloppy & stupidly done & since Andrew wasn’t stupid, he was not the one responsible. She told him that he could not admit to doing something that he did not do & recalls falling to her knees as if she had been punched in the stomach.

Andrew spoke with the FBI as part of his plea deal & explained that the murder plot had been fully planned out. During this conversation, investigators learned that Holly Elkins hated Alyssa with a burning passion. As they looked into text messages between Andrew & Holly, they read the derogatory words that Holly used in regards to Alyssa. She called her ugly, fat, a bad mom & Alyssa’s contact information in Holly’s phone was saved under the name C**t Baby Mama. It was clear that Holly’s message to Alyssa about their healthy co-parenting relationship for the sake of Willow was a complete farce.

With the revelation of these untrue, ugly messages, Alyssa’s family believed that Holly’s hatred was based on sheer jealousy. It’s likely that she viewed Alyssa as a barrier to a happy little family of three between herself, Andrew & Willow. As Andrew continued to speak with agents, they quickly saw that it was Holly who was running the show, telling him what he was going to do & how he was going to do it.

According to Andrew, Holly was the mastermind behind the planting of the drugs in Alyssa’s car & she’d even tried to get Teresa, Alyssa’s mom, arrested. After Andrew & Holly failed to return Willow to Alyssa as scheduled, Teresa & Alyssa drove to their house & Teresa saw Holly driving a golf cart with Willow on her lap. The cart drove to the end of the driveway, Teresa got out of the car & took Willow from Holly & she, Willow & Alyssa drove away.

After they left, Holly immediately contacted the police who arrived wearing body cameras & officers captured the conversation where Holly indicated that Teresa had assaulted her when she grabbed Willow from her lap. She said, She literally attacked me from behind or from behind side. I was facing the lake. She pulled up her shirt & showed officers scratches on her stomach that Teresa was allegedly responsible for, yet Teresa denies ever touching her. Police agreed that the wounds appeared to be self-inflicted.

It was obvious that the previous attempts to remove Alyssa from the picture wasn’t working which meant that the next step was to truly get rid of her. Holly had written a text to Andrew where she expressed that she didn’t want to be involved with a pushover & instead, wanted a man who protected his woman & child above everything. Andrew admits that he was emotionally drained & agreed to do whatever Holly wanted. 

A week & a half before the murder, Holly left for Mexico but continued to text Andrew. On September 25, 2020, she wrote, I hope you handle it. I’m not coming home to BS. Andrew replied, That’s my goal. Holly responded, Well, it will be a whole different conversation if I feel like you are ride or die. If not, then I don’t know.

According to Andrew, after he murdered Alyssa, Holly begged him to tell her the details about what he did. She specifically wanted the details while they were in bed together.

On May 24, 2023, Andrew Beard was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison. It’s likely that by this point, Holly believed that the case was closed & behind her. However, a month & a half later on July 6, 2023, nearly three years after Alyssa was murdered, Holly Elkins was arrested by federal agents in Miami after she came back from a vacation to the Dominican Republic.

Holly pleaded not guilty & was charged with conspiracy to stalk & stalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death. Inspection of Holly’s phone proved that she had searched for tracking devices, she was with Andrew when the ammunition & the knife were purchased. They also tied her to the makeup that Andrew applied to disguise himself as a black man.

Despite the fact that Andrew was calm & cooperative as he confessed their murder plan, no one could not forget that he was a brutal killer who chased the mother of his child down after shooting her in the face. He stabbed her with an incredible force & brutality that the detectives had never before seen. When discussing the stabbing, he basically indicated that he was putting Alyssa out of her misery when she didn’t die as a result of the gunshot wound.

In April 2024, Holly was on trial where she was accused of being Andrew’s co-conspirator. The prosecutors said that Andrew was a monster, but he was Holly’s monster. She maintained that she didn’t need a lawyer as she did nothing wrong & had nothing to hide.

After Andrew & Holly were engaged in May 2020, she grew frustrated by Andrew’s ongoing association with Alyssa & by summer 2020, she began a campaign to harass Alyssa. This included placing a GPS tracker on her car, making a false 911 call where she claimed that Alyssa was driving erratically on the interstate, the false reports about Teresa attacking her that included self-inflicted scratches across her chest & stomach. Holly & Andrew had also hired a private investigator in an attempt to dig up dirt on Alyssa & her new boyfriend, Ben. She also helped Andrew plant drugs & a gun in Alyssa’s trunk & then told police that she was selling drugs to black men out of her car.

They purchased dark clothing & makeup, ammunition, a knife & dark makeup. One week before Alyssa’s murder, Holly texted Andrew & told him to handle it. Shortly after this exchange, Andrew searched the internet for how to remove gunpowder from his hands.

Lizette, who had previously adored Holly, later described the woman as wicked to the core. She couldn’t imagine how a woman could orchestrate such a thing against another woman who was the mother of a young child that she had come to love. Lizette feels that had Andrew not met Holly, he would never have committed such an unspeakable act & Alyssa would still be alive today. She acknowledges that she is the mother of a murderer & that what Andrew did was the worst thing anyone could do.

After a six day trial the jury deliberated for 90 minutes & found Holly Elkins guilty. On August 15, 2024 she was sentenced to two life terms, a much harsher punishment than what Andrew received.

Alyssa’s family were both relieved & heartbroken with the verdict since Alyssa was getting the justice she deserved while they were left to wade through the grief of losing her. Alyssa’s younger sister Madison is left in a world without her best friend who she described as her person.

Teresa recalled a day when Willow cried for the first time, asking to see her mommy one more time. She explained that her mommy was in heaven & Willow asked the heartbreaking question if she had a phone number for her in heaven. When Willow is old enough, Alyssa’s family plan on sharing the whole story of what happened to her. It’s their goal that when she does learn the truth she will see the beauty in her mom’s life rather than the tragedy of her death.

References:

1. Culturemap Dallas: Rowlett woman found guilty of plotting to kill ex-fiance’s girlfriend
2. CBS News: Ex-boyfriend & his fiancee behind fatal stabbing, shooting of Texas mom Alyssa Burkett
3. CBS News: A week before Texas mom Alyssa Burkett’s murder, the killer received a text: “I hope you handle it”
4. Rest Haven: Alyssa Ann Burkett