A 21-year-old American woman has died after being assaulted by another American tourist near a castle in Germany, police said Thursday, according to the AFP news agency.
The woman was hiking with her friend, 22, near Neuschwanstein Castle when they met a 30-year-old man who told them to follow him down a trail leading to a secret viewpoint, AFP quoted police as saying.
A view of the Neuschwanstein Castle, with the Marienbrücke bridge, June 15, 2023, near to where a man attacked two women, leaving one with fatal injuries.
Frank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty
When the two women followed him, he allegedly attacked the 21-year-old victim. Her friend tried to intervene and the man choked her and pushed her down a steep slope, AFP said. He then attempted to sexually assault the 21-year-old, according to police, before pushing her down the slope as well.
The Associated Press said the American man was arrested in connection with the incident.
Rescue workers found the two women, and the 21-year-old was flown by helicopter to a hospital where she died of her injuries.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for further details.
Prosecutors filed a murder charge Tuesday in the death of a teenager whose remains have not been found despite an extraordinary monthslong search last year at a suburban Detroit landfill.
More than a dozen Detroit police officers wearing protective suits, respirators and goggles picked through tons of rotting summer trash for any trace of 17-year-old Zion Foster, a search that was finally halted in October. On Tuesday, Zion’s cousin, Jaylin Brazier, was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
Brazier served a brief prison sentence last year after admitting he had lied to police during the investigation.
James Royster, Zion’s father, told CBS Detroit it has been extremely painful for him during this nearly year and a half long investigation.
“Every day knowing that the person who murdered my child is waking free, like it’s ok. And like it was alright that it happened. And the fact that honestly, I did nothing about that,” he said. “I felt as a failure as a father, as a person, as a man, every day of my life.”
Photos of Zion Foster, 17, are shown in a staging at the Pine Tree Acres Landfill in Lenox Township, Mich., on July 28, 2022.
Paul Sancya / AP
Brazier, 24, has publicly said that Zion, who lived in Eastpointe, suddenly became unconscious while they were smoking marijuana at a Detroit house in January 2022. But he denied having any role in her death.
“There is a compelling body of evidence” against Brazier, assistant prosecutor Ryan Elsey said in requesting that he be returned to jail without bond.
Zion “walked into his house late at night and she came out dead,” Elsey said. “She was put in the trunk of his car, and he disposed of her body in a dumpster. … This idea that this is just some innocent person standing here is not going to be beared out by the facts.”
Police said Zion’s body was placed in a trash bin. The contents eventually were transported to Pine Tree Acres landfill in Macomb County.
Defense attorney Tim Doty disputed that a homicide occurred and urged a magistrate to release Brazier with an electronic tether.
“He is not a threat to anybody,” Doty said.
Brazier, however, was returned to jail without bond.
“It is unbearable,” Foster’s mother Ciera Milton told CBS Detroit in January. “How am I supposed to function on this? You know, yes people keep telling me you have other children and you know you gotta live for them and all that other kind of stuff, but no one that I know has ever been through this.”
“What is a lethal dose of fentanyl” is one of many phone searches that investigators say were made by Kouri Richins, a Utah widow accused of killing her husband before she authored a children’s book about grief.
The new details on the widow’s alleged search history emerged as part of the prosecution’s case against Richins, 33, who will be in a Park City, Utah, court Monday for a detention hearing. A judge is expected to decide if she should be released or remain in custody pending the outcome of her trial.
Prosecutors allege she killed Eric Richins, her husband of nine years, with a lethal dose of fentanyl. She faces charges of criminal homicide, aggravated murder and three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. She has not yet entered a plea.
The documents released Friday also give insight into Richins’ defense. Her attorneys argue “there is no substantial evidence to support the charges” and say she should be released as she awaits trial.
Among the details released in the documents are internet searches investigators say were found on Richins’ phone that were described by prosecutors as “incriminating.”
Some of the articles pulled up through her searches focused on fentanyl, life insurance payments and others relating to police investigations and how data is collected from electronic devices.
The searches found on Richins’ iPhone include the phrases: “can cops force you to do a lie detector test?” “Luxury prisons for the rich in America,” “death certificate says pending, will life insurance still pay?” “If someone is poisoned what does it go down on the death certificate as,” and “How to permanently delete information from an iPhone remotely.”
Eric Richins was found dead at the foot of the couple’s bed in March 2022. His wife told investigators at the time that she brought her husband a Moscow Mule cocktail in the bedroom of their Kamas, Utah, home, then left to sleep with their son in his room and returned around 3 a.m. to find her husband lying on the floor cold to the touch.
About a year to the day after her husband died, Richins published a children’s book, “Are You With Me?” about navigating grief after the loss of a loved one.
Prosecutors say Richins withdrew money from bank accounts without her husband’s knowledge and tried to change a life insurance policy to make herself the sole beneficiary. They also point to various incidents where she allegedly may have attempted to poison him.
Meanwhile, her lawyers argue in filings made Friday that Richins had the right to withdraw money from their joint accounts, claim “there is no evidence identifying the computer from which the login was initiated” when the life insurance policy change was attempted, and say she did not attempt to poison him.
Investigators also detailed a series of illicit fentanyl purchases in the months leading up to her husband’s death, according to the documents. His death was six days after the latest alleged pill delivery, investigators say.
An autopsy and toxicology report revealed that Eric Richins, 39, had about five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system, according to a medical examiner.
The defense insists there is no proof their client gave her husband the lethal dose.
“Law enforcement never identified or seized any fentanyl or other illicit drugs from the Family Home,” her defense lawyers wrote in a motion. Also, “the State has provided no evidence that there was fentanyl found in the home. Nor have they provided any evidence that Kouri gave Eric the fentanyl at issue.”
Eric Richins is described as a “partier” and someone who “loved a good time,” in the defense motion. “He would consume alcohol and THC in any form,” the document said.
The defense motion also points to discrepancies in witness testimony, adding that law enforcement told one witness that “if she gave them what they wanted, it would constitute her ‘get out of jail free card,’” the document says.
Potentially previewing what may be presented in trial, another filing in the case includes allegations that some of Eric Richins’ financial documents may have been forged.
The professional opinion of Matt Throckmorton – a forensic document examiner who looked at three specific documents relating to durable power of attorney and life insurance – is included in the filings.
After comparing those documents with dozens of other documents Eric Richins authored, Throckmorton indicated that signatures on the three items in question appear to have been forged.
“The forgeries in this case are ‘simulated forgeries.’ That is when someone tries to copy, draw or duplicate another person’s characteristics and habits and tries to create a fraudulent signature or set of initials with enough similarities they might get passed off as genuine,” Throckmorton explained.
“Eric made and requested several unusual to highly unusual choices and provisions to his estate plan,” said attorney Kristal Bowman-Carter, who counseled Eric on estate planning, according to the documents.
Those unusual requests included that his wife not be designated as his health care agent should one be needed and that his wife and children be provided for, but with the caveat that she should be unable to control the financials. Eric chose his father and sister to be trustees on his family’s behalf, according to the documents.
Eric sought to “protect the three young sons he and Kouri had together in the long-term by ensuring that Kouri would never be in a position to manage his property after his death,” Bowman-Carter said.
In a phone conversation the day after Eric’s death, Bowman-Carter explained the trust to Kouri. She said Kouri “became extremely upset. Her behavior (led) me to believe she was learning this for the first time.”
In an email included in the filings, Richins wrote to police clarifying information about her previous testimony, including a reference to an affair her husband previously had. “Eric’s affair was the same year I ‘moved out,’ the trust was created as well as him looking into a divorce,” she wrote. “Eric and I figured things out like most couples do,” she added.
This story previously aired on April 23, 2022. It was updated on June 10, 2023.
These are the words of Mark Twitchell, written to investigative journalist and author Steve Lillibuen:
Steve Lillibuen [reading letters]: “It would appear that I’m unique in the world. There is no key. No root cause … If I really were capable of premeditated murder … Normal, healthy, well-adjusted 30-year-old men … I once heard the legend of another worthy victim … I dealt with his remains in a disrespectful manner that traumatized me forever … psychopathic serial killer … I quickly grew to resent and hate this man.”
“He wrote me probably 30 or 35 different letters — up to about 350 pages … like an entire book worth,” investigative journalist and author Steve Lillebuen said of Mark Twitchell. “I’d ask him one question … and I’d get 10 pages back as an answer.”
Mark Twitchell letter
Steve Lillibuen [reading letter]: “It’s what it is and I’m what I am.”
Lillibuen is revealing the contents of Twitchell’s letters. It’s a rare look inside the mind of a killer.
Steve Lillibuen (reading letter): “Nobody would side with Dexter Morgan if he went around slaughtering schoolteachers and mail carriers on a whim.”
Police say Twitchell was fascinated by the fictional character in the hit Showtime series “Dexter.” Showtime is a division of Paramount Global, which owns CBS.
Steve Lillibuen: Twitchell’s been dubbed “The Dexter Killer” because of the numerous links between the television series and the real-life crimes.
So how did this young Canadian filmmaker end up accused of horrific acts? The story begins in October 2008.
Det. Bill Clark | Edmonton Police: To hear how everything happened … it was like you’re watching the movies … But now we have it happening in real life.
Det. Bill Clark: Gilles Tetreault was online on the plentyoffish.com website … Which is a dating site.
Tetreault, who was 33 at the time, was excited to meet the woman who called herself “Sheena.”
Gilles Tetreault [driving]: I was actually late, so I was driving quite fast to get there.
Gilles Tetreault: She said … “I’ll just leave the garage door open for you. And then you just go in through the garage.”
Det. Bill Clark: I don’t think he ever imagined in a million years what would happen to him in that garage.
Gilles Tetreault: It was dark … then I kind of looked around for the door she told me to go through … and that’s when somebody came out … attacked me from behind.
Gilles Tetreault: Finally, I look back, and that’s when I see this man — kinda hovering over me with a hockey mask … There’s just this chill down my back, as I — wow, this is no date.
Gilles Tetreault: He’s about 6 foot and this black and gold hockey mask painted — all painted up on his face.
The hockey mask wearing man had ordered him to the ground at gunpoint.
Gilles Tetreault: And he tore a piece of tape and he covered my eyes with it. … I start hearing different things… like a jingling noise and stuff like that … my head is just racing, like it’s like thinking, “What’s goin’ on? What’s he gonna do? Is he takin’ another weapon out?”
Tetreault decided he wasn’t waiting to find out.
Gilles Tetreault: I can’t do this, I gotta fight back … so I got up and I ripped the tape off my eyes. … And he was stunned that I got up and started yelling at me to back down on the ground.
Instead, he grabbed the attacker’s gun.
Gilles Tetreault: When I … grabbed the gun, I felt the gun was plastic. This is the greatest feeling I ever felt in my life, because then I knew I had a fighting chance to get away.
Gilles Tetreault: That’s when I was ready to fight … I punched him and I felt really weak. I’m like “Wow, why was my punch so weak?
What Tetreault didn’t realize was that he had been weakened by the effects of a stun baton.
Gilles Tetreault: And then he starts punching me on the side of the head.
Just about then, he came up with a plan.
Gilles Tetreault: He grabbed my jacket … I jerked forward to make sure he had a good hold on it, and I thought it’s … the perfect time.
Troy Roberts: That was part of your plan, you’re thinking he grabs my jacket, and I can get free …
Gilles Tetreault: Right. And that’s when I slipped out of the jacket, rolled underneath the garage door and then got up…. And it worked.
Gilles Tetreault: And I tried to run and all of a sudden my legs wouldn’t work … I just fell, boom right on the gravel driveway. … That’s when he grabbed my legs and started pulling me back to the garage…. So, I’m like, “Oh no, what am I gonna do now. I’m dead.”
Tetreault was thrown back in the garage, but he surprised himself by rolling out again. This time, he managed to get into his truck.
Gilles Tetreault: I stuck the key in the ignition … and then I just sped away.
When Tetreault got home, he discovered the profile on the dating site had been deleted. And he did his best to erase his own memory.
Troy Roberts: Why didn’t you go to the police immediately?
Gilles Tetreault: At first, I was in shock. I said- I told myself I’ll do it tomorrow. And tomorrow came and I was…I felt so ashamed that I got duped.
Embarrassed and confused, Tetreault convinced himself that perhaps it wasn’t as serious as he first thought.
GillesTetreault: I really thought it was a mugging at the time.
But just one week later, another man, Johnny Altinger, would answer a similar dating ad and disappear.
Gary Altinger: Where is he? What’s going on? He wouldn’t do this to us.
Gary Altinger, Johnny’s older brother, says the last time anyone heard from him was on October 10, 2008, when the 38-year-old left for a date with a woman named “Jen.”
Gary Altinger: Not a message, nothing. … And then, not showing up for work? Totally out — out of character. … John was very, very, very responsible.
Troy Roberts: And when did you grow concerned.
Gary Altinger: When I received that email … And this e-mail was completely out of character.
Troy Roberts: What did it say?
A week later, the masked man would find his next target, Johnny Altinger, who wouldn’t be as lucky as the first victim.
Edmonton Journal
Gary Altinger: I’ve met a woman named Jen. And I’m going away with her to — Costa Rica and I’ll call you at Christmastime.”
Gary Altinger: I just thought right away after I had read this, that’s gotta be the weirdest message I’ve ever received.
That identical strange message had gone out to all of Johnny’s friends as well. Desperate for some answers, Johnny’s friends broke into his apartment.
Gary Altinger: They found his passport. And they found dirty dishes. And they found everything just like as if he were going to return an hour or two later … And with that information, then they went to the police, and they said, “Hey, listen. You’ve got to do something.”
Det. Bill Clark: His red Mazda was missing. … He had taken his vehicle; it couldn’t be found. So obviously that’s what we’re gonna look for first. Easier to find a car than — than a person.
Det. Bill Clark: Based on the emails, they talk about Costa Rica, the officers search all the parking lots at the airport … It’s not found. … Everything’s turning up negative.
But there was one clue that would give police their first big break in the case. On the day he disappeared, Johnny Altinger had forwarded the directions of where he was going to friends.
Det. Bill Clark: Well, John’s friends were concerned. … And his friend even questioned him on the email. You know, be careful … And John said, “Yeah, well, here’s the directions. And if anything happens to me, you’ll know where to look.”
Armed with the directions, police were led directly to that garage.
Det. Bill Clark: They learned, of course, the garage is rented out to an individual named Mark Twitchell.
Twitchell, then 29 years old, a married man with a young daughter, had used the garage as a set for a recent movie project.
MARK TWITCHELL [graduation video]: “I’m glad I got to work with you all and I hope I see you all in the industry.”
Twitchell denied knowing anything about a missing man or a red Mazda and he had no problem with the police wanting to search the garage.
Det. Bill Clark: They have a look around and they see some…what looks like blood. And Mark Twitchell’s explaining, “Oh, no, that’s my movie prop. We did a film about … killin’ a guy in here and I filmed it all. And I’ve been cleaning it up over the last couple weeks …”
Det. Bill Clark: And there are some things that were, you know, raisin’ your Spidey senses in this one. Goin’, “Yeah, this isn’t right. … Something goin’ on here.”
QUESTIONS FOR THE FILMMAKER
For detectives in the Edmonton Police Department, the disappearance of Johnny Altinger was a mystery in more ways than one.
Det. Bill Clark: It’s a missing persons case. … We don’t know if foul play’s happened here. We — we don’t have a body. We don’t even know if we have a crime.
Their only lead was Mark Twitchell’s film set garage. Voluntarily, the amateur filmmaker came down to the Edmonton Police Station to speak with detectives.
DETECTIVE [interrogation]: Altinger … Does that name ring a bell to you or mean anything to you?
MARK TWITCHELL: No.
DETECTIVE: Never heard it before?
MARK TWITCHELL: No.
Twitchell appeared to be eager to help. He had no history of violence and was hardly a suspect. In fact, he seemed guilty of nothing more than wanting to brag about his film career.
MARK TWITCHELL [interrogation]: I’m working on a comedy right now. Which is a — it’s actually a full-blown feature that’s actually gonna have a decent budget in the neighborhood of about three-and-a-half million …
Twitchell’s first film project, a “Star Wars” fan film, had received some media buzz back in 2007.
MARK TWITCHELL movie interview]: “The word has gotten around that I’m making a 100 million dollar movie for 60 grand, and some production and directing jobs have already come my way.”
During questioning, filmmaker Mark Twitchell appeared to be eager to help investigators. He had no history of violence and was hardly a suspect.
Edmonton Police Service
But the police were more interested in Twitchell’s latest production: a suspense thriller called “House of Cards,” where a hockey masked serial killer lures a man to garage via the internet and kills him.
DETECTIVE [interrogation]: I mean it’s kinda odd that you’re filming that kind of thing.
MARK TWITCHELL: Mm hmm.
DETECTIVE: And we end up going to that garage because of a missing person who supposedly went there.
MARK TWITCHELL: Yeah. It’s really freaky too … And as soon as they called me on the phone … I got this weird chill.
Det. Bill Clark: He looked pretty comfortable in the interview. … And when it was done and I watched, I went, “Wow, that guy interviewed well.”
Hours later, Twitchell even agreed to let officers back into the garage where he had filmed “House of Cards.” Little did they know the case was about to take an unusual turn.
Det. Bill Clark: Detective Murphy goes, you know, and meets him and talks to him. And there’s this huge revelation about “Oh yeah, I bought a red car off a guy.” It’s like — I remember getting the phone call at the police station just thinking “holy crap.”
That’s because police were still looking for Johnny Altinger’s red Mazda. So, investigators called Twitchell again. And again, he voluntarily agreed to answer more questions. This time Bill Clark conducted the interview.
DET. BILL CLARK [interrogation]: So, as you know Mark, we’re just here trying to find this John fellow. John Altinger.
MARK TWITCHELL: Mm hmm.
Clark listened while Twitchell told him how he came into possession of a red car — a detail he failed to mention when he spoke with police earlier.
MARK TWITCHELL [interrogation]: This guy, uh, taps on my window … you know, “Hey buddy do you wanna buy a car? … I — I’ve shacked up with this really rich lady … She’s even gonna buy me a new car … so I’m just looking to unload mine… how much do you have on you?”
Twitchell claimed he bought the red Mazda for just $40, and that it was parked at a friend’s house.
Troy Roberts: What are you thinking when you hear that? That he purchased a car for $40?
Det. Bill Clark: I just thought, “That’s unbelievable.” Right away I’m saying to myself this is a bunch of crap.
The strange story about the red car, the serial killer movie being filmed — for Clark it could only mean one thing.
Mark Twitchell tells police about the deal he got on a red Mazda.
Edmonton Police Service
DET. BILL CLARK [interrogation]: There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that you’re involved in the disappearance of John Altinger. No doubt in my mind at all Mark.
MARK TWITCHELL: Why?
But it was only a hunch. Clark had no hard evidence against Mark Twitchell. Police began digging deeper into his background. They were interested in speaking with anyone who had worked on “House of Cards,” where actor Chris Heward’s character meets an untimely, bloody end in the film.
Chris Heward: My character was killed with a samurai sword. … They said they would have a mannequin or a dummy to run the sword through, and when I got there, there was none. … When I looked at the weapons … that was my first sign. … When I saw that they were real, I thought, “This is off. … Why didn’t I tell somebody where I am?”
Heward left the garage film set unharmed but rattled. His unease only escalated when police asked him about that allegedly fake movie blood they spotted in the garage.
Chris Heward: “How much of the blood splatter on the wall was from your filming?” I said, “None of the blood splatter was from us.”
And then, in a search of Twitchell’s belongings, police found his laptop.
Det. Bill Clark: They pulled off the hard drive a deleted file … titled “SK Confessions.”
“SK Confessions.” Police believed “SK” was shorthand for “serial killer.”
Det. Bill Clark: One of the first lines … it says — “I’m not sure when I decided to become a serial killer, but it was a feeling of pure euphoria.”
“SK Confessions” told the story of a man who was lured to a garage and stabbed to death — a plot strikingly similar to “House of Cards.”
“SK CONFESSIONS” PASSAGE: “I plunged the knife deep into his neck …”
Det. Bill Clark: It was unbelievable. … I just remember reading it all and just was fascinated by this document going, “Holy mackerel.”
But was the document a screenplay? Or was it in fact Mark Twitchell’s confession of murder?
THE “DEXTER” CONNECTION
Two weeks after the disappearance of Johnny Altinger at a garage film set, police had sharpened their focus on filmmaker Mark Twitchell.
Det. Bill Clark: It just doesn’t make sense. … where there’s smoke there’s fire.
Police cameras were rolling as a forensics team processed Twitchell’s family car and the garage he rented.
And a few miles away, detectives had been at the Twitchell home where they found Jess Twitchell — Mark’s unsuspecting wife of two years.
Det. Bill Clark [in car in front of Twitchell’s house]: What I said was, “We’re investigating a missing persons. I believe your husband’s got somethin’ to do with it … and this quite possibly — you know, could be a homicide.” I didn’t really go into anything more, but I think that was enough. I mean, she was emotional.
Police soon discovered that the Twitchell marriage was already fractured.
Det. Bill Clark: They had been livin’ and basically sleeping in separate bedrooms. She was basically livin’ on the main floor, he was livin’ in the basement. So, there was obviously troubles in paradise there, we knew that …
Mark Twitchell, 29, had rented the garage space to film his movie “House of Cards.” The short film featured a killer luring men to a garage and murdering them. Investigators say Twitchell was obsessed with the fictional serial killer at the center of the TV series “Dexter.”
QMI Agency
Mark Twitchell had been having an affair with an old girlfriend and lying to his wife about having a job.
Det. Bill Clark: We found out he was telling his wife he was going to work every day. He had no job. … He was getting his friends to invest in his alleged movie-making business with his Hollywood connections … And basically, Mark Twitchell was living off their money.
Interestingly, the document police had found in Twitchell’s laptop titled “SK Confessions” also referenced a crumbling marriage and secrets. It read “I went through great lengths to bring my wife over to the comfortable belief I wasn’t cheating on her.”
Det. Bill Clark: It was basically almost like a movie script.
But what was real and what was fiction? The closer police looked, the more the lines blurred.Police discovered Twitchell spent countless hours making elaborate Halloween costumes.
Det. Bill Clark: It’s almost like, at times, Mark Twitchell lives in a fantasy world.
But it was Twitchell’s Facebook page — comparing himself to TV’s fictional serial killer Dexter Morgan — that really raised eyebrows.
“Mark has way too much in common with Dexter Morgan” read Twitchell’s status.
Det. Bill Clark: He talked a lot about how he loved the show “Dexter.”
Twitchell even posed as Dexter Morgan on Facebook.
Renee [reading Facebook message]: “We all have a dark side, some darker than others and you’re not the only one to relate to Dexter. It sometimes scares me how much I relate. I mean look at this profile.”
That profile had caught the attention of a woman named Renee from Cleveland, Ohio.
Renee: I’m a huge fan of the Showtime show “Dexter.” … So, I thought, “Oh, well, you know, I’ll be friends with him.”
Eventually, Twitchell revealed his true identity.
Renee: He was a filmmaker … and he was working on — a new thing called “House of Cards.”
Renee was intrigued. After all, she was an aspiring writer and a friendship with a movie maker could open doors.
Renee: I thought it was gonna be like a working relationship, a working friendship. You know, we had a lot in common.
Troy Roberts: So, I mean, you spoke to him a couple of times a day online?
Renee: Couple of times a day.
Troy Roberts: Was it flirtatious?
Renee: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Their email exchanges soon became dark. It was shortly before Johnny Altinger disappeared.
Renee: We talked about— you know, serial killers … and, you know, the psychology behind a serial killer.
At the time, Renee was upset with her ex-husband’s new wife.
Renee: And I wanted her dead, at the time. … But I said I couldn’t do it. … And hypothetically, how would you get away with it?
Troy Roberts: How do you get away with it?
Renee: He said, “You cut her up in little pieces. You put her in trash bags, like Dexter.” And since I was close to the lake, “You rent a boat and — dump her out in the middle of Lake Erie.”
But then, she began to wonder.
Renee: He said over the weekend he did something, and he liked it. … “I crossed the line and I did something and I liked it”
Troy Roberts: And what did you take that to mean?
Renee: That he killed somebody. What other line is there to cross? … Something inside my head just gave me red flags and said, “He did it.”
And her suspicions kept growing with another email he sent.
Renee [reading email]: “There’s an enormous missing person, possible homicide investigation going on centralized around a location I’ve rented for film work. … So of course the police have tossed my house and impounded my car … Not fun considering they won’t find anything …”
But Twitchell had underestimated the police.
Det. Bill Clark: He thought he was way smarter than the police. One of the biggest mistakes I think that he made was he had no idea how we do our job and that was a huge advantage to us.
Adding to their circumstantial case: Twitchell possessing Altinger’s car, the “SK Confessions” document and his “Dexter” obsession. Investigators finally had hard evidence — they had found Altinger’s blood in Twitchell’s trunk.
Det. Bill Clark: When we got the word that the DNA matched, we briefed our tactical team—our arrest team, and we had officers ready to make the arrest.
On Halloween morning 2008, while Twitchell was putting the finishing touches on his Halloween costume at his parents’ home, police were busy laying a trap.
Det. Bill Clark: We got an undercover operator to work the internet and pretend he was gonna — an investor. … He was lured out on the promise to meet this guy at this coffee shop … And when he got about three blocks from his house, the tactical team swooped in on him and took him down. Tough guy Mark Twitchell peed his pants he was so scared. And it was a little taste of his own medicine, I guess.
Back at the station, Detective Clark and Mark Twitchell came face to face in the interrogation room once again.
DET. BILL CLARK [Mark Twitchell interrogation]: As I told you that night, I knew that you were involved in the disappearance at that time of Johnny Altinger. That’s changed slightly … I now know that you killed John Altinger.
Three weeks after Altinger’s disappearance, police charged Twitchell with first-degree murder. The once talkative movie director barely uttered a line.
Det. Bill Clark and “48 Hours” contributor Troy Roberts watch Twitchell’s reaction as Clark told him “I now know that you killed John Altinger.”
CBS News
Troy Roberts [watching interrogation video]: You didn’t get much of a reaction, did you?
Det. Bill Clark: No, he’s uh — well he knows not to say anything … he’s talking to his lawyers. He’s not gonna admit to anything.
He didn’t have to. “SK Confessions,” which police had been dissecting word by word, spoke volumes. They were now convinced it was no screenplay, but rather a diary of murder.
One passage about a knife read: “I thrust it into his gut. His reaction was pure Hollywood.”
Det. Bill Clark: We do believe, as investigators, that the account written by Mark Twitchell in that “SK Confessions” is exactly what he did to John Altinger.
By now, Renee had called police. As authorities began building their case, there was one crucial part of “SK Confessions” they wanted to verify … about a victim who had survived.
Det. Bill Clark: It was just a huge piece of evidence ’cause not only would it verify what was written in “SK Confessions”… it would also have — a living witness … so it was paramount that we find this person.
THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY
Detective Bill Clark knew his next move was finding the alleged victim who had escaped from Mark Twitchell’s garage.
Det. Bill Clark: You know, one of the first things we did was check the police records … figuring hopefully someone called the police on this. And we have nothing.
But police had found a helpful clue during the search of Twitchell’s home.
Det. Bill Clark: One of the things they had found was a hockey mask…the “SK Confessions” talked about how … Mark Twitchell had worn this mask when he attacked both victims. But we figured it was something the first victim would key on.
Police soon took to the airwaves.
DET. MARK ANSTEY [to reporters, holding up hockey mask]: We have some details on this male victim who was attacked, and we would like him to come forward.
Gilles Tetreault was at home oblivious to the horror he had escaped when a friend told him to watch the news.
DET. MARK ANSTEY [to reporters]: To date we do not know who this victim is…. I believe the victim entered the garage and was attacked by another male who was wearing a hockey mask …
Gilles Tetreault: And it’s the same hockey mask that I saw. … Wow, yeah, this is — this is the guy. This is what happened to me. It’s the same mask, everything.
What Tetreault heard next came as an even greater shock. Another man had been lured to the same garage and met a gruesome end.
DET. MARK ANSTEY [to reporters]: We have not found John Altinger’s body.
Troy Roberts: And what were you thinking when — when you heard this?
Gilles Tetreault: I couldn’t believe it. … Once you — find out the whole story … I knew at that point it was not just a mugging. It was actually — he was probably going to kill me. … And I’m like, “Wow, I— I have to go forward now. I have to come forward.”
Exactly one month after he was attacked, Gilles Tetreault walked into the Edmonton Police Department and told police his incredible story.
GILLES TETREAULT [police interview]: I was off balance, I couldn’t run … I fell down on the gravel driveway and, uh, basically crawling. … So, he dragged me back to the garage.
Tetreault’s story matched nearly word for word what was in “SK Confessions.”
“SK CONFESSIONS” PASSAGE: “I grabbed him by the leg as if to drag him back into the garage caveman style.”
Det. Bill Clark: So, I know that this diary we have is true.
GILLES TETREAULT [police interview]: After this all happened, I realized how lucky I was.
Seven days after Tetreault was attacked, police say Twitchell wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
Troy Roberts: How did he kill John?
Det. Bill Clark: We know that he lured him to the garage in the same way he lured Gilles Tetreault. … And then in this case … because he learned from Gilles that the Taser didn’t work, he hit him over the head with a lead pipe.
“SK CONFESSIONS” PASSAGE: “Please stop hitting me … oh my skull.”
Following the narrative, police believe Altinger was then stabbed and dismembered on a makeshift autopsy table.
Troy Roberts [outside Twitchell’s garage]: What was the most damning piece of evidence that you discovered?
Det. Bill Clark: We had a, you know, luminol tests done on the floor. … Large amounts of blood had been spilled on the floor of the garage. … Probably one of the … biggest pieces, a piece of tooth that was found inside there. That piece of tooth matched up to our victim.
According to “SK Confessions,” the killer then broke into Altinger’s apartment and sent out those emails about taking an exotic vacation.
The killer then attempted to burn the remains in a barrel but failed. He next tried to dump them into the river but was afraid of being seen.
Det. Bill Clark: Ultimately Mark Twitchell drove around with it, according to the “SK Confessions” document. … He even talked about driving around with him and pulling up beside people at red lights and looking at them thinking that “they don’t know I have a dead body in the trunk of my car.”
But where was Johnny Altinger’s body? “SK Confessions” described the killer finally choosing a sewer to dump the remains, but that’s where the pages stopped. It was a story without an ending.
Det. Bill Clark: In any homicide investigation you obviously want to bring closure to the family… So not only do you want to make that phone call saying, “We got the guy that did this to your loved one,” but in this case, we wanted to say to ’em, look, “we found Johnny.”
Detective Clark hoped Twitchell would provide the final chapter.
DET. BILL CLARK[interviewing Twitchell]: I’m gonna go get the car ready. We’re gonna take a drive.
Troy Roberts: You guys were driving around and there was a camera trained on him in the back of the police car. Tell me about that.
Det. Bill Clark: When you — you read all the experts’ books about these type of individuals is they tend to like the media attention. … So, we thought, “Well, maybe if we drive him around and we’ll put a camera on him, maybe he’ll just — we’ll just take him to places,” ’cause we had no idea where — where Johnny remains were at that time.
DET. BILL CLARK [to Twitchell in police car]: So, in order to finish the movie, we have to find the body, take it back to the people, the family — done. Movie’s over. And you can write it all down.
Detective Clark was relentless, taking Twitchell on a tour of his old neighborhood.
Det. Bill Clark: And we first drove to his parents’ house where he had been staying. … We actually … demanded that he tell us. He wouldn’t.
DET. BILL CLARK [to Twitchell in police car]: Look familiar Mark? Are we parked right on top of the sewer where you dumped the body?
Next stop, the scene of the crime.
DET. BILL CLARK [to Twitchell in police car]: So here we are back at the killing garage. The “Dexter” garage.
OFFICER [to Twitchell outside garage]: Bring back any memories? You wanna tell us where the body is now? Get this over with?
But Twitchell remained silent. So, police kept searching on their own, looking in sewer after sewer.
Det. Bill Clark [driving]: So, all these manhole covers were pulled off in this alley. … So anytime I’d seen one I’d always have my flashlight with me and would get out and actually take a look.
Weeks, then months, passed and still no luck. Then a year-and-a-half after Johnny Altinger disappeared, Twitchell, while awaiting trial, broke his silence and gave the police a map.
Investigators followed it to an alleyway just a half block away from where they had stopped the search.
In June 2010, as Mark Twitchell prepared to take the stand at his trial and argue that he had “accidentally” killed Johnny Altinger in self-defense, he decided to finally disclose the location of Altinger’s body. Twitchell’s handwritten directions on a Google map led police to a manhole where Twitchell had dumped Johnny’s remains.
Edmonton Police Service
Det. Bill Clark [with Roberts at sewer]: And he had marked an “X,” “X” marks the spot, and took us right to this sewer cover here. … We could see what looked like pieces of human torso down there.
In March of 2011, Mark Twitchell went on trial for the murder of Johnny Altinger. Prosecutors called Gilles Tetreault to testify, and to prove that what Twitchell described in “SK Confessions” was not a work of fiction but an account of what had actually happened.
Gilles Tetreault: I wasn’t really afraid of him at that time. … I knew he couldn’t hurt me anymore.
The only witness the defense called was Mark Twitchell and he had one unbelievable tale to tell. Steve Lillibuen, a college professor and an investigative journalist, was covering the trial for the Edmonton Journal and went on to write a book, “The Devil’s Cinema,” about the case.
Steve Lillibuen: Mark Twitchell testified … that this was all a big misunderstanding … he had killed Johnny in self-defense …
Twitchell claimed that Altinger’s death was nothing more than a publicity stunt gone horribly awry. He said he intended to let both men go so they would create a buzz for his film by telling people that this had actually happened to them. But he claimed Altinger became enraged at being tricked, and he accidentally killed him in self-defense.
Steve Lillibuen: He blames Johnny, saying it was Johnny’s reaction to his attempt at this promotion is what happened.
In the end, the jury took just five hours to find Mark Twitchell guilty. He was sentenced to 25 years to life. But for Lillibuen, there were still so many questions.
Steve Lillibuen: So, the motive is the mystery, the why did he do this. … What’s Mark Twitchell’s psyche? What led to this happening?
Questions Lillibuen hoped might be answered when he got a call out of the blue from Mark Twitchell himself.
Steve Lillibuen: He just said straight out, “If you’re gonna be writing a book about me, you might as well come straight to the source.”
A KILLER’S OWN WORDS
Steve Lillibuen: The first time I met him, he actually had me laughing. … He’s very charismatic.
Mark Twitchell was nothing like author Steve Lillibuen expected.
Steve Lillibuen: He has very much that salesman slick behavior, he knows how to put it on to get people to like him.
Twitchell began writing to Lillibuen before he was even convicted in 2011. Over the course of almost three years, they exchanged dozens of letters.
Steve Lillebuen exchanged dozens letters with Mark Twitchell during a three-year period. Lillebuen wrote a book about the case titled “The Devil’s Cinema: The Untold Story Behind Mark Twitchell’s Kill Room.”
CBS News
Steve Lillibuen: I learned really quickly that he preferred to talk through writing.
Troy Roberts: These weren’t ramblings of a crazy man. There was actually some substance in these letters?
Steve Lillibuen: Yes absolutely. So, he’s not crazy. He is lucid.
At first, Lillibuen didn’t want to push Twitchell away with too many probing questions about his crimes.
Steve Lillibuen: I asked him a lotta softball questions just about who he was, his family, his upbringing — all that kinda background detail.
Steve Lillibuen: He was newly married and a new father. So he was, you know, just a typical local guy who had dreams of making it big in Hollywood and really no red flags. No warning signs that something like this was on the horizon.
In letters, Twitchell clung to his defense that he had no choice but to kill Johnny Altinger and then dismember him.
Steve Lillibuen [reading letter]: He writes, “I killed Johnny Altinger in a horrific accident of self-defense. After cursorily shoving aside my human sensibilities, I dealt with his remains in a disrespectful manner that traumatized me forever.”
Steve Lillibuen: … still is adamant … that this was not a planned and deliberate murder … and to be frank, he is wrong.
Police believed Mark Twitchell’s garage resembled a scene right out of the Showtime series “Dexter.” The garage had plastic sheets covering all the windows, a table with blood spatter, and cleaning supplies laid out.
Edmonton Crown Prosecution Office
Lillibuen points to “SK Confessions,” where Twitchell describes how he turned that garage into a kill room, set up a makeshift autopsy table, had plastic sheeting, and a processing kit similar to the one Dexter Morgan used.
Steve Lillibuen: Mark Twitchell wrote to me quite extensively about his interest in “Dexter.”
“Dexter” on his mind, Twitchell drew a portrait of Michael C. Hall – the actor who plays him. And to Lillibuen’s surprise, even behind bars Twitchell was able to feed his obsessions.
Steve Lillibuen: Mark Twitchell had actually been granted access to finish watching the series while he was incarcerated.
In 2012, Michael C. Hall was asked about Mark Twitchell on a Canadian radio program.
MICHAEL C. HALL (audio): it is horrifying to entertain the notion that something you did inspired that.
Twitchell’s response to Hall’s comments was to downplay his fascination with the “Dexter” character.
Despite comparisons to the fictional TV character Dexter Morgan, in a letter to Steve Lillebuen, Twitchell writes, “As you’re aware, Dexter has ‘almost nothing’ to do with my case. It has no bearing whatsoever on what actually happened.”
Mark Twitchell letter
Steve Lillibuen [reading letter]: He wrote to me “As you are aware, Dexter has almost nothing to do with my case.”
Throughout their correspondence, Lillibuen continued to grapple with what drove Twitchell and then Twitchell told him:
Steve Lillibuen [reading letter]: “There is no key. No root cause …there is no school bully or impressionably gory movies … or Showtime television series to point the finger at. It is what it is and I am what I am.”
Julia Cowley: He’s a depraved individual, and he knows that.
Retired FBI criminal profiler Julia Cowley didn’t work on this case, but she spoke with Detective Clark and reviewed Mark Twitchell’s writings and letters for “48 Hours.” She thinks she knows what made Twitchell tick.
Julia Cowley: I think he identified with Dexter to some degree. … I think he is different than Dexter.
Julia Cowley: He’s not killing bad guys. He is killing very innocent, good people living productive lives.
Julia Cowley: And while he’s technically not a serial killer … he was headed in that direction if they hadn’t have caught him.
Cowley believes Twitchell took pleasure in planning and executing his crimes as if they were romantic trysts.
JuliaCowley: I think the primary motivation was sexual.
Troy Roberts: Sexual?
Julia Cowley: Yes. … He is targeting men that perhaps he would be interested in having a date with. … It’s a combination of a sexual motive and thrill killing.
Julia Cowley: He is pretending to be a woman … He … writes extensively about … what he’s going to wear, the weapon that he chooses. He sort of describes it in seductive language. “I wanted the weapon used for the deed itself to be simple, elegant and beautiful.”
And in a strange twist, Twitchell’s been able to feed that obsession too. In 2017, he was allowed to join an online dating website for inmates.
Steve Lillibuen: Which, you know, I find quite surprising considering that the way he ended up in prison … I believe it’s been taken down since then.
The man who was tricked into that very bad date in Twitchell’s garage, Gilles Tetreault, continues to be haunted by the experience. Tetreault, who has written a book about his ordeal, spoke to “48 Hours” recently.
Gilles Tetreault: I still think about the painted-up hockey mask. I still think about the stun gun. You know, the fight for my life —
In 2023, Twitchell will be eligible to apply for early parole. Experts say it’s a long shot, but it worries Tetreault.
Gilles Tetreault: I’m scared that he might want to finish what he started and come after me.
Julia Cowley: Mark Twitchell cannot be rehabilitated. This is who he is.
And for Mark Twitchell, the aspiring filmmaker, there may be one final plot twist. Author Steve Lillibuen sold the rights to his book “The Devil’s Cinema” to a film company. Twitchell’s story may be coming to the big screen.
Produced by Asena Basak. Michael McHugh is the producer-editor. Lourdes Aguiar and Anthony Venditti are also producers. Joan Adelman and Michelle Harris are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Susan Zirinsky and Judy Tygard are the executive producers
Inside the mind of murderer Mark Twitchell. Newly revealed letters from the man police say wanted to be like fictional serial killer Dexter. “48 Hours” contributor Troy Roberts reports.
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A Tennessee woman was indicted on federal charges after allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on a dating site.
Melody Sasser, 47, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was taken into custody last month for allegedly trying to arrange the murder. She was indicted on “use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire” on June 7th, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
According to court documents, Sasser was upset when she found out a man she had met on a dating website got engaged – and she later sought to have his new wife murdered using an online market.
Investigators in Alabama first learned of the alleged murder-for-hire plot on April 27 after receiving information from a foreign law enforcement agency, according to a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee on May 11.
The tip-off from the foreign agency contained messages between a user and administrator of a site on the “dark web” known as Online Killers Market, which “purports to offer ‘hitman for hire’ type services,” the complaint says. The site allows users to submit an “order” for specific services, including “full intended victim details,” according to the complaint.
Screenshots taken from the site show that the order for the murder-for-hire in Sasser’s case was placed on January 11, according to the complaint.
The user account “cattree,” which authorities believe belonged to Sasser, describes in detail how she wanted the murder to be handled. “It needs to seem random or accident. or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation,” the user wrote, according to the complaint.
The user also uploaded a photo of the intended victim, identified only with by the initials J and W in the criminal complaint, and details about her home, vehicle, and work schedule. Authorities believe Sasser used the hiking app “Strava” to track the woman and her husband’s movements, even sharing details on the dark web about a two-mile hike the intended victim had taken. The woman was living in Prattville, Alabama, at the time, according to the complaint.
Sasser paid for the order through Bitcoin purchases over the span of several months, totaling about $9,750, the complaint states. Authorities matched her Bitcoin purchases at a cryptocurrency ATM to the payments sent by “cattree.”
As weeks went by after the order was submitted, “cattree” sent follow-up messages to administrators on the Online Killers market website asking why the job was still uncompleted, according to the complaint. She eventually sent more Bitcoin to the administrators to have another purported hitman assigned to the task.
When authorities informed the victim that there was a threat to her life, she identified Sasser as a possible suspect, according to the complaint.
The woman told law enforcement that her husband and Sasser were “hiking friends” in Knoxville before he moved to Alabama, the complaint said. The victim said Sasser traveled to the man’s Prattville, Alabama, home unannounced last fall after he told her he was engaged to be married, to which she responded, “I hope you both fall off a cliff and die,” according to the complaint.
The woman also said that she began receiving “unpleasant phone calls” from someone disguising their voice through an electronic device after Sasser’s unannounced visit and that her car was keyed.
The woman’s husband told police that he and Sasser met on Match.com. He also said Sasser had helped him plan to hike the Appalachian Trail.
If Sasser is convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, restitution, and a maximum three-year term of supervised release, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
CNN has reached out to an attorney listed for Sasser for comment.
The trial of the former school resource officer who remained outside a Parkland, Florida, high school five years ago while 17 people were gunned down inside started in earnest Wednesday, as prosecutors began presenting their opening statement.
The state has accused retired Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Scot Peterson of failing to follow his active shooter training by staying outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, taking cover for at least 45 minutes while a former student carried out what remains the deadliest high school shooting in US history. Among the slain were 14 students and three staff members; 17 others were injured.
The case highlights the expectations for officers responding to active shooters as the country faces a seemingly endless scourge of gun violence, with schools such as those in Parkland; Uvalde, Texas; and Newtown, Connecticut, etched in public memory as the scenes of some of the most devastating massacres.
Peterson has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts – including seven of felony child neglect, three of culpable negligence and one of perjury – and maintains he did nothing wrong. The 60-year-old, who retired as criticism of his alleged failure mounted, has said he didn’t enter the unfolding scene of carnage in the school’s 1200 building because he couldn’t tell where the gunshots were coming from.
Before the shooting, Peterson was a dedicated and decorated officer who had served for more than three decades, his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, told CNN.
“After a 32-year career, this loving husband and father of four went from hero, and in 4 minutes and 15 seconds, he went to criminal,” the defense lawyer said.
Jury selection began last Wednesday, yielding a panel of six jurors and four alternatestasked with weighing the state’s unusual case, which experts have described to CNN as the first of its kind and a legal stretch.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office charged Petersonunder a Florida statute that usually applies to caretakers, arguing the then-deputy, in his capacity as a school resource officer, was a caregiver responsible for the protection of the high school’s students and staff.
Peterson was at the school administration building on February 14, 2018, when the shooter opened fire on the first floor of the 1200 building, according to a probable cause affidavit. Peterson got to the building’s east entrance about 2 minutes later, per a timeline in the affidavit.
Peterson moved about 75 feet away and “positioned himself behind the wall of the stairwell on the northeast corner of the 700 Building” – a third campus structure – the affidavit says, calling it a “position of cover” he held for the duration of the shooting.
In a blow to both the state and the defense, the judge last week ruled jurors will not make a trip to the scene of the shooting, as the jury in the shooter’s trial did, CNN affiliate WPLG reported. Eiglarsh wanted the jury to see the exterior of the 1200 building, which has been preserved pending the trials of the shooter and Peterson, while prosecutors had wanted jurors to see the building’s interior, too.
Beyond the child neglect and culpable negligence charges, Peterson was charged with perjury for telling investigators he heard only two or three gunshots after arriving at the scene of the shooting, the affidavit says, while other witnesses said they’d heard more.
Peterson’s attorney intends to argue, in part, that his client’s confusion about the location of the shooter was reasonable and shared by others at the scene, including members of law enforcement, teachers and students, Eiglarsh told CNN. The lawyer also contends Peterson’s actions at the scene illustrate he was not negligent but reacting as well as he could with the information he had, he said.
Additionally, Eiglarsh disagrees with the decision to charge his client under the caretaker statute, he told CNN, calling the choice “preposterous.”
“He’s not a legal caregiver,” Eiglarsh said, acknowledging he understands the argument. “But he’s not a teacher, he’s not a parent, he’s not a kidnapper who’s responsible for the well-being of a child. He’s not hired by the school system.”
In the past, Peterson and his attorneys have argued the caretaker statute does not apply to him, emphasizing one person is responsible for the deaths and injuries that day: the gunman, then-19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury declined to unanimously recommend the death penalty.
That outcome angered and disappointed many victims’ families, including some who see Peterson’s trial as another opportunity for justice.
“We should not portray or allow the defense team or the deputy who failed to act properly to portray himself as a victim,” Tony Montalto, the father of 14-year-old victim Gina Montalto told CNN before jury selection. “He was charged with keeping the students and staff safe, and he failed to do so.”
“Regardless of the outcome in the trial,” he said, “I hope he’s haunted every day by the fact that his actions cost lives.”
A shooting after a high school commencement ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, killed two people Tuesday evening – an 18-year-old man on his graduation day and a man who’d attended the event – and wounded five others, spreading terror among hundreds who were celebrating, police say.
The gunfire happened in Richmond’s Monroe Park, where graduates and guests were reveling and taking photographs after Huguenot High School held its commencement at a theater across the street, officials said.
The shooting sent people running in all directions, and a 9-year-old girl was injured by a car that struck her during the chaos, the city’s interim police chief said in a news conference.
A suspect – a 19-year-old man – was taken into custody after the shooting. Police intend to seek charges of second-degree murder against him, and other charges could follow, Edwards said. The names of the suspect and those killed and injured were not immediately released.
“This should have been a safe space,” the interim chief, Rick Edwards, said Tuesday night. “It’s just incredibly tragic that someone decided to bring a gun to this incident and rain terror on our community.”
It’s unclear what motivated the attack. The chief said it was unknown Tuesday whether the suspect is a student.
“We think the suspect knew at least one of the victims,” the interim chief said, without elaborating.
Huguenot High’s ceremony was the second Richmond high school commencement to happen Tuesday at Altria Theater, and a third graduation ceremony scheduled there that day was canceled after the shooting, school officials said.
Though Edwards said the 18-year-old who died had graduated Tuesday, Edwards did not say from which school. The other man who died was a 36-year-old who’d just attended the ceremony, the interim chief said.
The other gunshot victims were a 14-year-old boy and four men ranging in age from 31 to 58. The 31-year-old had life-threatening injuries as of Tuesday night and the rest did not, Edwards said
The 9-year-old girl who was hit by a car was being treated at a hospital Tuesday night with non-life-threatening injuries, he added.
The shooting marks one of at least 279 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The shooting happened just before 5:15 p.m. ET, when three off-duty officers who were working security at the ceremony heard gunshots and reported them on their radios, and officers working traffic duty nearby responded, Edwards said.
“The initial officers indicated there was a barrage of gunfire, but it was over quickly,” he added.
The suspect fled on foot and was found and detained nearby by security officers with Virginia Commonwealth University, nearby, Edwards said. Monroe Park is part of VCU’s Monroe Park campus.
Police initially announced detained two people but later said one of them was not involved in the shooting.
Police seized several guns following the shooting, the interim chief said.
Turmoil unfolded when the shooting happened, Edwards said.
“I heard the call come over my radio, and you can hear the chaos and the screaming,” Edwards said.
“People were having panic attacks, falling on the ground screaming,” Edwards added. “Some people fell. One child was hit by a car.”
Naomi Wade was outside the Altria Theater selling flowers and teddy bears for the graduates, she told CNN affiliate WTVR. Images of smiling graduates in caps and gowns turned to scenes of panic as gunshots were heard, she said.
“Everyone literally started running for their lives, trampling each other. Trampled me. Trampled our whole entire stand. It was scary,” Wade said.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney decried the shooting Tuesday and promised whoever was involved would be brought to justice.
“Is nothing sacred any longer?” Stoney said at a news conference.
“This should not be happening anywhere,” Stoney said “A child should be able to go to their graduation and walk at their graduation and enjoy the accomplishment with their friends and families.”
Richmond Public Schools is closing all its schools Wednesday out of an abundance of caution, the system announced on its website.
The rest of this week’s high school graduations in the district also have been canceled.
“We’ve been preparing for an event like this. We’ve prepared for it with our partners and hoping that this day would come,” Edwards said. “But it came to Richmond.”
A woman condemned as Australia’s worst female serial killerhas been pardoned after serving 20 years behind bars for killing her four children in what appears to be one of thecountry’s gravest miscarriages of justice.
New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley intervened to order Kathleen Folbigg be freed, based on the preliminary findings of an inquiry that had found “reasonable doubt” as to her guilt for all four deaths.
Daley told a news conference Monday that he had spoken to the governor and recommended an unconditional pardon, which had been granted, and she would be released from Clarence Correctional Center the same day.
“This has been a terrible ordeal for everyone concerned and I hope that our actions today can put some closure on this 20-year-old matter,” said Daley, who added that he had informed Craig Folbigg, the babies’ father, of his decision. “It will be a tough day for him,” he said.
Kathleen Folbigg was jailed in 2003 on three counts of murder and one of manslaughter following the deaths of her four babies over a decade from 1989. In each case, she was the person who found their bodies, though there was no physical evidence that she had caused their deaths.
Instead, the jury relied on the prosecution’s argument that the chances of four babies from one family dying from natural causes before the age of 2 were so infinitesimally low as to be compared to pigs flying.
They also noted the contents of her diary, which contained passages that in isolation at the time were interpreted as confessions of guilt.
As recently as 2019, an inquiry into her convictions found there was no reasonable doubt she had committed the crimes. But another inquiry began last year after new scientific evidence emerged that provided a genetic explanation for the children’s deaths.
In her closing submissions, Sophie Callan, the lead counsel assisting the inquiry, said that “on the whole of the body of evidence before this inquiry there is a reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”
She also told the inquiry that in its closing submissions, the NSW director of public prosecutions had indicated she was also “open to the Inquiry to conclude there is reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”
Folbigg was just 20 years old when she married Craig Folbigg,who she’d met in her hometown of Newcastle on the northern New South Wales coast.
Within a year she fell pregnant with Caleb, who was born in February, 1989 and lived only 19 days. The next year, the Folbiggs had another son, Patrick, who died at eight months. Two years later, Sarah died at 10 months. Then in 1999, the couple’s fourth and longest lived child, Laura, died at 18 months.
The police investigation into the deaths of all four children began the day Laura died, but it was more than two years before Folbigg was arrested and charged. By then, the couple’s marriage had fallen apart, and Craig was cooperating with police to build a case against her.
He handed police her diaries, which prosecutors argued contained the deepest thoughts of a mother tortured by guilt for her role in her children’s deaths.
Examination of the babies’ remains failed to find any physical evidence they’d been suffocated, but without another plausible reason to explain their deaths, suspicion focused on Kathleen, their primary carer.
In 2003, as he sentenced Folbigg to 40 years in prison, Judge Graham Barr recalled her troubled past. Folbigg’s father had killed her mother when she was just 18 months old, and she had spent many of her formative years in foster care.
According to court documents, Barr said Folbigg’s prospects of rehabilitation were “negligible.”
“She will always be a danger if given the responsibility of caring for a child,” he said. “That must never happen.”
That initial conviction ruling now stands in stark contrast to the latest inquiry, which looks set to paint a far different picture of Folbigg as a loving mother who was devastated and confused by the successive deaths of her babies.
As he ordered her release Monday, Daley distributed a memorandum of the findings by retired judge Tom Bathurst, who said after reviewing the evidence he was “unable to accept … the proposition that Ms Folbigg was anything but a caring mother for her children.”
In the case of the two girls – Sarah and Laura – Bathurst found there was a “reasonable possibility” a genetic mutation known as CALM2-G114R “occasioned their deaths,” and that Sarah may have died from myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, identified during her autopsy.
In the case of Patrick, who had an unexplained ALTE, an apparent life-threatening event, when he was 4 months old and died at 8 months, Bathurst found that it’s possible his death was caused by an underlying neurogenic disorder.
During Folbigg’s 2003 trial, the prosecution used “coincidence and tendency” evidence to allege that Folbigg had also killed Caleb. In other words, that having been allegedly responsible for the deaths of three children, it was likely she killed him, too.
However, Bathurst found that the reasonable doubt over Folbigg’s role in his siblings’ deaths meant that the prosecution’s case against her for Caleb’s murder “falls away.”
In relation to her diaries, Bathurst said the “evidence suggests they were the writings of a grieving and possibly depressed mother, blaming herself for the death of each child, as distinct from admissions that she murdered or otherwise harmed them.”
Bathurst also expressed doubts about evidence from Craig Folbigg, who had claimed his wife had been “ill-tempered” with their children and had “growled at them from time to time.”
“The balance of evidence … (was) that she was a loving and caring mother,” wrote Bathurst, whose full report will be released at a later date.
The case polarized public opinion and Chamberlain was jailed before evidence emerged that she was telling the truth.
In 1986, Azaria’s matinee jacket was found half-buried in the dirt, prompting officials to free Chamberlain, later known as Chamberlain-Creighton. Two years later, a court overturned her conviction, and in 2012 a coroner ruled that a dingo was indeed to blame for Azaria’s death.
Like Chamberlain-Creighton, Folbigg’s release from prison could be the start of a long process to clear her name.
Daley told reporters Monday that Folbigg’s pardon only meant she did not have to serve the rest of her sentence, and that it would be up to the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash her convictions.
He said it was too early to talk about compensation, as that would require Folbigg to initiate civil proceedings against the New South Wales government, or to approach it seeking an ex-gratia payment.
Daley acknowledged that after 20 years of believing Folbigg’s guilt, some people may not accept her innocence.
“There will be some people who have strong views. There’s nothing I can do to disavow them of those views, (and) it’s not my role to do that,” he said.
But he suggested the events of the past two decades should elicit some compassion for a woman who has lost so much.
“We’ve got four little bubbas who are dead. We’ve got a husband and wife who lost each other. A woman who spent 20 years in jail, and a family that never had a chance. You’d not be human if you didn’t feel something,” he said.
Megan Hargan was suspected of killing her mother and sister. Her defense had an unusual theory: her sister was the one who pulled the trigger – with her toe. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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Viktoria Nasyrova is accused of using cheesecake as a murder weapon. Her motive was to steal the identity of Olga, who looks a lot like her. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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Hong Kongers living overseas are helping to keep the flame of remembrance alive for the victims of China’s Tiananmen massacre as authorities in a city that once hosted huge annual vigils continue to stamp out dissent.
Until recently Hong Kong was the only place within China where large-scale gatherings each June 4 were tolerated to remember the moment in 1989 when the Communist Party sent tanks in to violently quell peaceful student-led democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
But the annual candlelight vigils have been silenced the last three years in the wake of pandemic restrictions and Beijing’s ongoing political crackdown in Hong Kong, which was upended by its own huge democracy protests in 2019.
This year is set to be no different. Victoria Park, the site that used to hold the vigils, is again open after three years of coronavirus pandemic closures.
But it is hosting a fair put on by pro-Beijing associations whilst many of those who once organized the city’s Tiananmen commemorations languish in jail or have fled abroad.
As a result, it is overseas where the most concerted commemorations were taking place for the 34th anniversary.
Protests, vigils and exhibitions are planned in multiple cities around the world including in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, the United States and Canada bolstered by a growing cohort of Hong Kongers who have chosen to move overseas.
“I think it’s sad to say that what Beijing and Hong Kong are doing is trying to erase history and the memory,” said Kevin Yam, a former lawyer in Hong Kong, who will be attending a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia, where he now resides.
“For those who can still remember, we have the obligation to let the world know that we have not forgotten,” he told CNN.
A new museum in New York is a vivid example of how Tiananmen commemorations are going global.
On Friday, Zhou Fengsuo and Wang Dan, two former student leaders who took part in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and now live in the United States, unveiled a June 4th Memorial Exhibit on 6th Avenue.
The display includes items collected from those who survived the massacre including newspapers chronicling the event, a blood-stained shirt from a former journalist and a decades-old printer used by protesters that was sneaked out of China.
Zhou said the idea to create a New York exhibition began five years ago but the closure of Hong Kong’s own June 4 museum by authorities in 2021 “added to the urgency”.
“Hong Kong has been carrying the torch for commemorating the Tiananmen massacre, keeping the legacy alive. When the museum was shut down, with the Hong Kong alliance’s leaders in prison, we knew it was a critical moment,” he said.
“We have to continue here in the United States.”
The 2,200-square-feet venue in New York can host up to 100 guests at a time, with schools and universities already reaching to request for a tour, Zhou said, adding they have raised enough funding to keep it running for “many years”.
No official death toll is available, but estimates range from several hundred to thousands, with many more injured.
Authorities in mainland China have always done their best to erase all memory of the Tiananmen massacre: Censoring news reports, scrubbing all mentions from the internet, arresting and chasing into exile the organizers of the protests, and keeping the relatives of those who died under tight surveillance.
The censorship has meant generations of mainland Chinese have grown up without knowledge of the events of June 4.
But Hong Kong was different.
Somber and defiant vigils were an annual political cornerstone, first under colonial British rule and then after the city’s 1997 handover to China. Every June 4, come rain or shine, tens of thousands of people would descend on Victoria Park with speakers demanding accountability from the Chinese Communist Party for ordering the bloody military crackdown.
But Hong Kong’s political culture has changed drastically in the aftermath in 2019’s huge and sometimes violent democracy protests.
Authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021 citing coronavirus health restrictions – though many Hongkongers believe that was just an excuse to clamp down on shows of public dissent.
Last year, the park remained in darkness again, barricaded off on all sides with police stopping and searching passersby to “prevent any unauthorized assemblies which affect public safety and public order, and to prevent the risk of virus transmission due to such gatherings,” according to a government statement.
The Hong Kong Alliance, the group behind the past vigils, has disbanded with three leading figures in jail facing national security charges.
In the run up to this Sunday’s anniversary, authorities made clear commemorating Tiananmen this year would not be tolerated.
Security secretary Chris Tang – a former police chief – said he expected some might use “this very special day” to advocate Hong Kong independence and subvert state power, acts banned by the new national security law.
“But I want to tell these people that if you carry out these acts, we will definitely take decisive action,” he warned, adding: “You will not be lucky.”
Hong Kong police maintained a heavy police presence around the park on the anniversary’s eve, deploying multiple police coaches and even an armored vehicle at one point.
A handful of artists and activists defied warnings and turned up either at the park or surrounding streets on Saturday evening to make private commemorations with floral tributes and banners, only to be quickly intercepted and taken away by officers.
A police spokesman said four people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly behavior in public or carrying out acts with seditious intent as of Saturday. Police said some individuals had protest props bearing allegedly “seditious” wording. Four others were brought in for further investigation, police added.
Richard Tsoi, former secretary for the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, said he planned to commemorate the event either at home or at a private location.
“Definitely there will be not be large-scale commemoration activities. Whether one can mourn in public without breaking the law is also a question,” said the ex-organizer, who used attend every vigil in the past.
Throughout Hong Kong physical reminders of the Tiananmen massacre, including a famous “Pillar of Shame” statue that used to stand in the city’s oldest university, have been dismantled in recent years.
Yet last month a replica of the “Pillar of Shame” was erected in Berlin, with the help of its original Danish artist Jens Galschiot and a prominent Hong Kong activist now living in Germany. The artist also provided more than 40 giant banners printed with an image of the pillar to 18 cities for their commemoration events, including Los Angeles and Boston.
“It is true that the commemorations around June 4th have expanded and become more global since it has become impossible to do anything in Hong Kong,” he told CNN.
Hong Kongers, Zhou says, are playing a key role in keeping Tiananmen remembrance alive overseas,
“Since last year, many places have seen record numbers in attendance largely because of Hong Kong immigrants,” he said.
Many Hong Kongers have left for overseas with the city’s population dropping from 7.41 million to 7.29 million last year.
In Britain – where more than 100,000 Hongkongers have since settled after London offered an easier pathway to citizenship two years ago – about a dozen marches and vigils are slated to take place throughout June 4 across the country, from Nottingham and Manchester, a popular destination for Hong Kong immigrants.
In London, marchers will gather at Trafalgar Square before marching to the Chinese embassies, where a vigil will be held.
A South Carolina store who allegedly fatally shot a 14-year-old boy who was wrongly accused of shoplifting was involved in a previous shooting in 2018 for which he was not criminally charged. Nicole Sganga has more.
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Police officers found Tony Peralta earlier this month sitting on a curb not far from the convenience store in a small southeastern New Mexico community where he borrowed a cellphone – so he could call 911 and confess to killing his landlord 15 years earlier.
Sweating and taking puffs from his cigarette, he told them he’s tired of covering it up, tired of living with the lie and tired of being overwhelmed by guilt. He agreed to take the officers to where he buried the body before standing up and volunteering to be cuffed.
Police in Roswell released the 911 recording and nearly an hour of officer body camera video in response to a records request filed by The Associated Press. The May 1 footage shows Peralta repeatedly thanking the officers for picking him up.
“I confess, man. I confess. I don’t want to live life anymore without confessing,” he said while sitting in an interview room at police headquarters.
The uniformed officers and detectives who talked with Peralta peppered him with questions about when the killing happened, how he did it and why. Peralta kept answering that he didn’t know or didn’t remember, acknowledging that he had been drinking “a lot” the day he called 911.
Peralta, 37, was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of first-degree murder but did not attend the hearing. He pleaded not guilty to the charge through his public defender, Ray Conley, who declined to comment after the hearing. Conley has said he will ensure Peralta’s due process is respected as the case moves through court.
A judge on Tuesday also set Peralta’s trial for October but said that date could change.
At times, the authorities had asked if Peralta was making up the story and leading them on a goose chase since he wasn’t providing many details, other than saying he had killed someone a long time ago.
“There’s a dead body in there, dude!” he told one officer while in the back of a patrol car parked in front of the home where he once was a tenant of 69-year-old William Blodgett. Peralta said he’d feel better once the body was found.
Investigators said they obtained a search warrant and found a boot, bones and dentures after removing plywood floorboards from a detached room on the side of the house.
The dentures were compared with Blodgett’s dental records – obtained in early 2009 after he was reported missing – and that led to a positive identification, according to police.
CBS affiliate KRQE-TV reported Blodgett’s son reported him missing in January 2009, saying he had not been seen since Christmas Eve. Court records reveal police used a cadaver dog on the property days after he had disappeared. According to a police report, a witness told police Blodgett had accused Peralta of stealing his wallet and tried to evict him. But, according to the report, neither the police dog nor Peralta gave provided any leads and police closed the case the station reported.
William Blodgett was last seen in December 2008.
Roswell Police
A tearful Peralta told police he didn’t know why he had killed Blodgett. At one point, police video shows him putting his head down onto a table during an interview and sobbing.
Peralta told police he decided to come forward because “his heart hurts” and that he thought about it every day. He told an officer that Blodgett was a good man and that he took his life for no reason while high on methamphetamine.
“I don’t have an excuse,” he told police. “A lot of people have an excuse. I don’t have one.”
Blodgett’s girlfriend and family had not seen him since late December 2008. She told police that Peralta, who was considered a suspect by police early on, allegedly had some sort or argument or fight with Blodgett, who had tried to evict him.
Authorities at the time had talked to Blodgett’s family, friends and neighbors and visited the home the two men shared, which appeared to have been abandoned with personal belongings still in place. Police found no immediate signs of foul play and Blodgett’s vehicle was still there, according to the original missing person report.
Detectives would periodically drive by the house but never spotted anyone.
Police said the case went cold after investigators exhausted all leads until Peralta’s 911 call.
Peralta said he wanted to confess because of his own family and the detective told him he was helping Blodgett’s family too, KRQE reported.
“Tell them that he was a good man, and I shouldn’t have done what I did,” Peralta said. “He was always good to me, and I took his life for no reason, and I don’t have an excuse.”
A third man has been charged in the 2002 shooting death of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay, prosecutors said Tuesday, marking the latest movement in a case that languished for years.
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York filed a superseding indictment on Tuesday, charging Jay Bryant, 49, in the death of Jason “Jay” Mizell, known professionally as Jam Master Jay.
Two other men, Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., had previously been indicted in August 2020 for the death of Jay. The hip-hop trailblazer was shot in the head in his studio in Queens on Oct. 30, 2002.
Jam Master Jay of Run DMC performs on stage at the Respect Festival, Finsbury Park, London, United Kingdom, 2001.
Getty Images
Bryant’s attorney, César de Castro, said in an email that they had just learned of the charges.
“Securing an indictment in a secret grand jury, applying an extremely low burden of proof, is one thing. Proving it at trial is another matter,” he said.
Bryant, from Queens, was in custody already on unrelated federal drug charges.
When Jordan and Washington were indicted in 2020 on murder and drug charges, prosecutors at the time said that they had entered Mizell’s recording studio, where Jordan allegedly fired two close-range shots at the DJ. One of the shots struck Mizell in the head, killing him. The second, prosecutors said, struck another person in the leg.
Prosecutors at the time also disclosed that an investigation revealed that the murder took place after Mizell acquired 10 kilograms of cocaine from a Midwest supplier and informed Washington that he would not be distributing the drugs in Maryland.
In a letter filed with the court on Tuesday, prosecutors said Bryant and the two other men entered the building that evening, and then fled after the shooting. They said Bryant was seen going into the building, and his DNA was recovered at the scene.
Jay was in Run-DMC with Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniel in the early 1980s. The group helped bring hip-hop music into the mainstream. Run DMC’s hits include “King of Rock,” “It’s Tricky” and a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.”
For years, Jay’s death lingered as a cold case, with witnesses reluctant to speak up despite reward money being offered.
A man in Virginia has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Eunice Dwumfour, a 30-year-old councilwoman who was found shot to death in her car in Sayreville, New Jersey, in February, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday.
Rashid Ali Bynum, 28, has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun and second-degree possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone told a news conference.
Ciccone said Bynum was arrested outside Chesapeake City, Virginia, Tuesday morning and that authorities previously tracked Bynum’s cell phone from near the scene of the shooting and back to Virginia.
On the day of the February 1 murder, Bynum had searched the internet for details related to Dwumfour’s church, Ciccone said.
“A search of the victim’s phone revealed Bynum as a contact in Eunice Dwumfour’s phone with the acronym FCF,” the prosecutor said. “FCF is believed to be an acronym for the Fire Congress Fellowship, a church the victim was previously affiliated with, which is also associated with the Champion Royal Assembly, the victim’s church at the time of her death.”
Dwumfour, a Republican, was found by police with multiple gunshot wounds just after 7 p.m. on February 1 and was pronounced dead on scene, according to Middlesex County officials.
She was inside her car near her home when she was shot, according to CNN affiliate WABC. The vehicle then took off down the road and crashed into other parked vehicles, the affiliate reported.
Bynum is awaiting extradition from Virginia to New Jersey to face the charges, according to Ciccone. No timetable for the proceeding was provided.
CNN has been unable to determine if Bynam has an attorney.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin spoke directly to the Dwumfour family at the news conference, telling them it was the beginning of the healing process and a sense of justice.
“There are no words that can be said to you that can make you whole,” Platkin said Tuesday.
At the time of the murder, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called it “a shocking, awful event.”
“I’ve asked a whole bunch of electeds and folks in the know who have been around for a long time, can they ever remember a sitting elected official in the state being shot and killed, and no one can remember, I mean, this is a shocking, awful event,” Murphy said on the “Ask Governor Murphy” radio show on February 2.
“God bless this woman,” Murphy said at the time.
Within a week of Dwumfour’s murder, another New Jersey councilperson was murdered
The council member was found shot to death in a car, though that case was determined to be a murder-suicide, a spokesman for Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office told CNN.
Milford Borough Councilman Russell Heller, 51, was in the parking lot of a PSE&G energy company facility in Somerset County when a former employee approached his car and shot him, the prosecutor’s office said previously.
Police identified Heller’s shooter as former PSE&G employee Gary T. Curtis, 58, the Somerset County prosecutor’s office said.
Hours after the killing, police found Curtis in a nearby town. They found Curtis with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the prosecutor’s office said. Curtis was declared dead at the scene.
This story previously aired on Sept. 17, 2022. It was updated on May 27, 2023.
Gabby Petito‘s road trip in the summer of 2021 started as an adventure story. Months later, it turned into a nationwide search for a missing woman before ending with the discovery of her remains in Grand Teton National Park.
It has now become a cautionary tale.
Mary Fulginiti: Ultimately her death … will hopefully lead to many women being rescued and saved from these situations, well before it gets to murder.
Gabby Petito
Instagram/Instagram
Former prosecutor and CBS consultant Mary Fulginiti says Gabby’s story is really about recognizing the warning signs of domestic violence, which are often hard to read.
Mary Fulginiti: There are people who believe that Gabby Petito’s story didn’t have to end the way it did. If only the warning signs had been picked up on, would it have been different.
To most eyes, Gabby Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie were compatible in every way.
GABBY PETITO (internet video): Gabby Petito never goes outside.
Joseph Petito: Coolest chic you’ve ever met, man. By far, she’s going to make you — she’s going to make you smile
Gabby’s dad, Joseph.
Joseph Petito: She’s the coolest chic you ever met. Simple as that.
Twenty-two years old, a New York girl from Long Island with an appetite for adventure.
Her mom, Nichole Schmidt.
Nichole Schmidt: She knew she wanted to take this trip.
Nichole Schmidt: She had told me about it probably a year before it started.
GABBY PETITO (internet video): Brian’s stretching, doing some morning yoga.
Rose Davis: Brian’s very charismatic. He always comes off as such a sweet person and just kind of, like, “I’m here.”
One of Gabby’s close friends is Rose Davis. They met soon after Gabby moved to Florida.
Rose Davis: She texted me one of the sweetest messages I think I’ve ever got from someone. And it was just, like, “You seem so cool. I really wanna be your friend.” And I was just — “absolutely.”
They made TikTok videos together for fun. Rose says Gabby was good friends with Brian back in high school in New York. Then, after Brian moved to Florida, Gabby moved there too — to be closer to him.
Rose Davis: I always told her her life is kind of like a movie because I was just, like, this happens in movies.
Soon, they were in love and living together.
Rose Davis: She’d let me know what they did and, you know, he’d — he’d make her breakfast. And it was always such a cute little thing. And they did cute, little dinners.
“Anyone that’s met the two of them has been, like, ‘They seem like such a nice couple,” Rose Davis says of her close friend Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. “But a lotta couples look nice on Instagram.”
Gabby Petito/Instagram
In July of 2020, they got engaged. They even got tattoos together. But Rose says Brian could sometimes exhibit what she calls toxic traits.”48 Hours” spoke with Rose when Gabby was first reported missing.
Rose Davis: When Brian wants something, he’s going to get it. And I don’t mean in a physical way, he’s going to force it. He’s just going to — I don’t want people to say I’m calling him a full manipulator, but he’ll manipulate the situation to get what he wants out of it. And, you know, he didn’t want her to go out one night with me and he stole her ID because you can’t get into the bar without your ID. And, you know, this was really upsetting to her. You know, you’re engaged, it’s not like — you know, it’s not supposed to be like that.
But the couple seemed to put any drama behind them as they got ready for their adventure. Gabby worked hard at Taco Bell and with Brian at Publix supermarket, saving money for their trip.
Nichole Schmidt: They bought the van, they converted it.
The goal was to spend four or five months crisscrossing the country, having adventures, even working on organic farms and chronicling it all in real time on social media.
Rose Davis: She was just, like, “I want to document this. This is so cool to be doing.” And she just kind of — yeah, kind of like a vlogger, just let everyone know what she was up to.
Nichole Schmidt: She was excited starting her van life — digital journey where she’s creating this whole, you know, following of van lifers, and that’s what she was really into at the moment.
Briian Laundrie and Gabby Petito at the start of their journey on July 4, 2021. Gabby would document their adventure on social media.
Brian Laundrie/Instagram
They rolled out officially on July 2. Gabby posted constantly — every little detail.
GABBY PETITO (“Van Life” video): You can’t keep chocolate in Utah — not in July.
But all those selfies may have been hiding a darker story.
Rose Davis: It’s everything behind the scenes you don’t know.
Six weeks into their trip, on the afternoon of August 12 in Utah near the Arches National Park, Gabby and Brian’s Instagram road trip came to a shuddering stop.
It was around 4:45 p.m., according to a police officer’s bodycam:
OFFICER [bodycam video]: Driver is showing some obscure [sic] driving. Possibly intoxicated.
OFFICER: Currently doing 45 miles an hour, zone through here is 25. Oh — subjects just hit the curb! Correction, speed limit is 15.
OFFICER: What is your guy’s name?
GABBY PETITO: Gabby.
BRIAN LAUNDRIE: I’m Brian.
OFFICER: Gabby, Brian? OK.
It was the stop that could have changed everything.
A CONFRONTATION
This 911 call was made on August 12, 2021, in Moab, Utah, four weeks before Gabby Petito was reported missing:
OFFICER: Grand County Sheriff’s Office …
911 CALLER: We’re driving by and I’d like to report a domestic dispute …
The caller reports seeing what appeared to be an alarming confrontation between Gabby and Brian:
911 CALLER: Florida license plate … white van.
OFFICER: What were they doing?
911 CALLER: Uh, we drove by ’em. A gentleman was slapping the girl.
OFFICER: He was slapping her?
911 CALLER: Yes. Then we stopped, they ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off.
Officers from the Moab Police Department are dispatched, and within minutes Gabby and Brian’s white van is spotted driving erratically outside the Arches National Park.
They’re pulled over. The officers separate the couple and begin questioning them. Gabby is visibly shaken.
OFFICER: You wanna tell me what’s going on?
GABBY PETITO: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s just — some days I — I have really bad OCD and I just — I was just cleaning and straightening up the back of the van before and I was apologizing to him and saying, “I’m sorry that I’m so mean …”
Police body camera video shows Gabby Petito talking to a Moab, Utah, officer after police pulled over the van she was traveling in with Brian Laundrie, near the entrance to Arches National Park on August 12, 2021.
Moab Police Department
GABBY PETITO: And I’m trying to start a blog, I just have a blog. So — so I’ve been building my website so, I’ve just been really stressed and … he doesn’t really believe that I can do any of it so that’s kind of been like a — I don’t know, he’s like — I don’t know, we’ve just been fighting all morning and — and he wouldn’t let me in the car before, and then I –
OFFICER: Why wouldn’t he let you in the car? ‘Cause of your – ’cause of your OCD?
GABBY PETITO: He told me I — he told me I needed to calm down.
The officer walks over to Brian.
Police question Brian Laundrie about a 911 caller’s report of seeing an alarming confrontation between Brian and Gabby Petito.
Moab Police Department/AP
OFFICER: So, tell me, what’s going on?
BRIAN LAUNDRIE: Well, she just gets worked up sometimes, and I try and really distance myself from her, so, like I – I locked the car and I walked away from her.
Brian tells them Gabby attacked him — scratching his face and his arm — as she tried to get back into the van.
BRIAN LAUNDRIE [to officer]: She had her phone and was trying to get the keys from me. So, I was backin’ away — I was just trying to — I know I shouldn’t have pushed her, but I was just trying to push her away to go — let’s take a minute to step back and breathe. And you see — she got me with her phone [shows officer his face].
Another officer asks Gabby for more details about what happened.
OFFICER: — people that came to us and told us that they saw him hit you …
GABBY PETITO: Well, to be honest, I definitely hit him first.
OFFICER: Where’d you hit him?
GABBY PETITO: I slapped him on the — on the face.
OFFICER: You slapped him first? Just on his face?
GABBY PETITO: He had just told me to shut up.
OFFICER: How many times did you slap him?
GABBY PETITO: Just a couple maybe.
OFFICER: And then what? And his reaction was to do what?
GABBY PETITO: Grab my arm … and so I wouldn’t slap him.
OFFICER: He just grabbed you?
GABBY PETITO: Yeah.
OFFICER: Did he, did he hit you though? I mean, I mean it’s OK if you’re saying you hit him, I understand if he hit you, but we want to know the truth if he actually hit you. ‘Cause you know —
GABBY PETITO: I guess — I guess yeah but I hit him first.
OFFICER: Where did he hit you? Don’t worry. Just be honest.
GABBY PETITO: Well, he, like, grabbed my face like this, I guess. He didn’t, like, hit me in the face. Like, he didn’t, like, punch me in the face or anything.
OFFICER: Did he slap your face or what?
GABBY PETITO: Well, like, he, like, grabbed me, like, with his nail and I guess that’s why it looks — I definitely have a cut right here ’cause I can feel it. When I touch it, it burns.
The officers never directly asked Brian if he slapped or hit Gabby. They also didn’t talk to the 911 caller who reported seeing Brian hit Gabby. But one of the officers did speak with a second eyewitness that day.
OFFICER [talking to another officer on bodycam video]: The witness says I never saw him hit her, I saw him shove her, but I couldn’t tell if it was an aggression against her or a defense against her … So, at this point, from what — unless the guy’s screaming that he needs to go to jail and did something to this girl — it sounds to me like she was the primary aggressor.
In Utah, if officers find evidence of a domestic violence assault, they are required to make an arrest or issue a citation. An independent investigation would later conclude that the officers did not have a clear understanding of the law.
OFFICER 2 [bodycam video]: Gabby. This is a very, very important question. How you answer this question is going to determine what happens next. But the only person who can answer this question is you.
GABBY PETITO: OK.
They mistakenly believed that Gabby had to intend to harm Brian to mandate an arrest.
OFFICER 2: When you slapped him those times, were you attempting to cause him physical pain or physical impairment? Is that what you were attempting to do to him?
GABBY PETITO: No. Never.
OFFICER 2: What were you — what were you attempting to do? What was the reason behind the slapping and stuff? What was it you were attempting to accomplish by slapping him?
GABBY PETITO: I was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down.
OFFICER 2 [to the other officer]: Well, it doesn’t sound to me like she attempted to injure him.
Ultimately, officers on the scene decided to separate the couple for the night – Gabby was told to stay with the van.
OFFICER [to Gabby]: I’m gonna give you the keys to the van.
OFFICER: I’m giving him a ride over to the hotel.
As the assumed victim, Brian was sent to a hotel.
BRIAN LAUNDRIE: I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
OFFICER: No problem. Nice meeting you Brian. [officer shakes Brian’s hand]
BRIAN LAUNDRIE: Nice to meet you.
No one was arrested or issued a citation. Forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie has worked closely with law enforcement on issues of domestic violence.
Kris Mohandie: The officers that responded to Gabby and Brian were compassionate … their hearts were in the right place of wanting to help. … they were trying to do what they mistakenly believed was the right thing … by cutting them a break.
Weeks later when the bodycam footage was released, there was a public uproar. For Gabby’s friend Rose, those images were almost impossible to watch.
Rose Davis: It takes a lot for her to get her that hysterical. … so, when I saw the bodycam, I knew it was more than a little argument. She’s not gonna slap him for no reason.
GABBY PETITO [to officer on bodycam]: But I’m so calm, I’m calm all the time and he really stresses me out.
The release of the 911 call drew outrage.
Followers of the story on social media erupted in anger.
“… my blood is boiling at how they failed this poor girl.”
“All I Know is this didn’t have to end like this. Police missed an opportunity.”
Mohandie says the officers seemed to miss signs of domestic abuse, such as Brian describing Gabby as “crazy” and Gabby accepting the blame:
BRIAN LAUNDRIE [to officer]: She’s just crazy. No. [laughs] …
GABBY PETITO [to officer]: And I was apologizing to him saying, I’m sorry that I’m so mean.
Kris Mohandie: In a domestically violent relationship, it’s not uncommon for one party, you know, to take the blame, you know, for what really is the behavior of the other party.
The independent investigator later wrote that “it’s very likely that Gabby was a long-term victim of domestic violence.”
The ramifications of the officers’ actions during that stop would play out in the days ahead — and months later would be questioned by Gabby’s parents and their lawyers
Just days after that traffic stop, Gabby and Brian were back on the road headed north to Salt Lake City.
On August 19, Gabby posted an edited eight-minute video showing their journey together.
GABBY PETITO [“Van Life” video]: Hello, hello and good morning … It is really nice and sunny today.
The video showed no signs of any tension between Gabby and Brian.
Later, Gabby told her mom they were leaving Utah and driving to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Nichole Schmidt: She was happy, she was excited to keep going on her journey and that was the last time I spoke to her. Verbally.
One of the series of photos in Gabby Petito’s last Instagram post.
Gabby Petito/Instagram
On August 25, Gabby posted a series of photos on Instagram in front of a butterfly mural in Ogden, Utah. It would be her final post on Instagram.
AUGUST 25 TO SEPTEMBER 11
The Instagram post on August 25, 2021, was the last time Gabby Petito would publish on social media. And shortly after she’d said she and Brian were headed to Grand Teton National Park, Gabby’s parents stopped hearing from her.
Mary Fulginiti: She seemed to have been in communication with her parents on a regular basis throughout the totality of this trip … and they were checking in on her regularly
Gabby Petito photographed at Bryce Canyon National Park on July 21, 2021.
Gabby Petito/Instagram
Then, on August 27, 2021, her mother says she received a strange text message from Gabby’s phone. It read, “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls.” Stan is Gabby’s grandfather.
Mary Fulginiti: The mother thought it was odd because she never refers to her grandfather as Stan.
It was out of character and disconcerting, but as far as the Petito family knew, Gabby and Brian were still together on their trip.
MIRANDA BAKER [TikTok video]: Hi, my name is Miranda Baker and on August 29th, my boyfriend and I picked up Brian at Grand Teton National Park at 5:30 at night at Colter Bay.
Forty-eight hours after Gabby’s mother received that cryptic text, Miranda Baker says she and her boyfriend picked up a man she believes was Brian Laundrie. She says he was alone.
MIRANDA BAKER [TikTok video]: He approached us asking us for a ride, ’cause he needed to go to Jackson. … Before he came into the car, he offered to pay us like $200 to give him a ride like 10 miles, so that was kind of weird. … He then told us that he was camping for multiple days without his fiancé — and that she was working on their social media page back at their van.
Suddenly, says Baker, things took a turn when there was confusion over where they were going.
MIRANDA BAKER [TikTok video]: He freaked out — he’s like, “Nope, I need to get out right now. Like pull over” … We dropped him off at 6:09 p.m. on August 29th.
Meanwhile Gabby’s mother, Nichole, did receive one more text from Gabby’s phone. It said that there was “no service in yosemite.”
Nichole Schmidt [September 13, 2021]: The last text I received from her phone was August 30th.
Jericka Duncan | “48 Hours” contributor: Are you confident that was from her or you’re not sure?
Nichole Schmidt: I can’t comment on that.
During Gabby’s travels, she had been staying in touch with her friend Rose Davis. Rose was expecting to hear from Gabby on her birthday.
Rose Davis: So, we talked and my birthday’s August 29th. So, we decided, “Call me then …”
Friends Rose Davis and Gabby Petito
Instagram
But But no birthday call or text came.
Rose Davis: I honestly didn’t think anything of it when she didn’t text me or anything ’cause … she’s traveling cross-country. And, you know, once it got — it got later into it — around, like, the — the — 8th and 9th of September … that was the point where I was, like, “She woulda called me … Why haven’t I heard from her yet?”
What Davis did not know was that on September 1, Brian Laundrie was back in North Port, Florida. He had driven the van there — and he was alone. The Petito family knew none of this, but they had already become alarmed when they stopped hearing from Gabby altogether, and her cellphone had stopped working.
Jericka Duncan: Did you ever reach out to her boyfriend to figure out what happened and where — where your daughter is?
Nichole Schmidt: We can’t comment on it.
Jim Schmidt: We’re not commenting on that.
But Gabby’s mother did reach out to police.
Nichole Schmidt: It was actually Friday, the 10th, that I decided to call police because I had had 10 days, 10 — almost 11 days was enough for me to not hear from my child. And I got the runaround. Nobody wanted to report her missing. She’s an adult. She’s traveling. … As a mother, I said, “it’s not like her.” Finally, that Saturday, I went personally to Suffolk County Fifth Precinct … and now this is where we are.
Gabby Petito was officially declared a missing person on September 11, just over two weeks after her last Instagram post. As the nation remembered so many lives lost 20 years earlier, the Petito family focused on one life — that of their missing daughter.
Nichole Schmidt: We’re looking for her and only her, not the van, not the two of them, just — just her. Keep your eyes out and we’ll find her.
On Monday, September 13, 2021, the story of Gabby Petito’s disappearance hit the news.
WINK NEWS REPORT: A woman disappeared on a cross-country trip with her boyfriend.
KRISTINE JOHNSON | WCBS: The parents of a missing woman from Long Island need help finding her.
Gabby’s mom and stepdad, Nichole and Jim Schmidt, held up her photo for reporters.
JIM SCHMIDT: Gabby is 22 years old. She is an absolutely beautiful, beautiful soul inside and out.
Rose Davis was devastated to see her friend’s picture on TV.
Rose Davis: My mom called me into her room, and Gabby’s face was all over the news. … and I kinda just went into shock.
What happened to Gabby Petito?
THE SEARCH FOR GABBY GOES VIRAL
Once it became clear that Gabby Petito had gone missing, her mom and stepdad, her father, Joe Petito, and stepmom Tara, set up a “Find Gabby” page where people could post tips and information. She was reportedly last seen near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming around August 27, 2021.
On September 11, 2021, Nichole Schmidt, Gabby Petito’s mother, files a missing person’s report with the Suffolk County, New York, Police Department. Schmidt and husband Jim appeal for Gabby’s safe return.
WCBS
NICHOLE SCHMIDT: We want her home.
JOSEPH PETITO: We want her home safe and sound
Rose Davis: I immediately, immediately — made, like, a collage of all of our photos, edited it for a TikTok and posted the information … Facebook, Instagram, everything.
Within days, videos about Gabby’s disappearance exploded across social media. Even people with no connection to Gabby joined the search to help to find her.
WOMAN [TIKTOK VIDEO]: We are going to be going to the Grand Tetons to see if there’s anything that we can do to help in the search of Gabby Petito.
Joseph Petito: You know, the social media has been amazing watching it, getting everybody to post it repost it … we need for her to come back home. And anything you guys can do to help us get there is is just appreciated … and we just got to keep doing it.
For Gabby’s parents, this spotlight — in the media and online — was invaluable. But as former federal prosecutor Mary Fulginiti points out, not all missing persons cases receive this level of attention.
Jericka Duncan: What was it about Gabby Petito’s story that resonated with so many people across the world?
Mary Fulginiti: You know, there seems to be a tendency in these types of cases to give a disproportionate amount of attention to … a certain type of individual … and I think Gabby Petito was a young, beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed girl.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Kris Mohandie.
Kris Mohandie: This case, you know, is a bit of a commentary on who gets news attention, traction in social media … There are people in these situations every single day that don’t fit that description. …Native American communities, you know, gay communities … Are they being treated differently? Are they being ignored?
The disappearance of Gabby Petito prompted many social media users to highlight how there are still many cases of missing people of color who have not been found. https://t.co/rDoTHfzZpvpic.twitter.com/vI3izWEzNp
Mary Fulginiti: Whether it’s newsworthy or not shouldn’t be dictated by somebody’s color of skin … because these stories … if they rise to a level of notoriety, I mean, they really can help solve the mystery behind some of them.
But there was one person who wasn’t helping solve the mystery of what happened to Gabby: Brian Laundrie. North Port Florida, police spokesman Josh Taylor said investigators were frustrated. Neither he nor his parents would answer their questions even though Gabby had lived with them.
JOSH TAYLOR (press conference): We were essentially handed the information for their attorney. That is the extent of our conversation with them.
Rose Davis: First word that popped in my brain was “coward,” to be honest with you. You’re supposed to love her. You’re supposed to marry her. Where is she?
Police confiscated the white Ford van, searched it for evidence and then released it, posting that Brian was now a person of interest in Gabby’s disappearance. Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino spoke briefly to the press.
STEVEN BERTOLINO [press conference]: On behalf of the Laundrie family, our hope that Ms. Petito is located and that she’s reunited with her family.
Gabby’s parents responded through attorney Rick Stafford with a scathing letter:
RICK STAFFORD [press conference]: “We believe you know the location of where Brian left Gabby. We beg you to tell us. As a parent, how could you let us go through this pain, and not help us?”
Six days after Gabby was declared missing, the Laundrie family reported that they didn’t know where Brian was. They said he’d left for a hike at the Carlton Reserve days earlier. Police immediately began to comb the huge local park, looking for Brian.
MICHAEL GEORGE (“CBS Evening News” |September 9, 2021): A massive search. More than 50 officers and FBI agents combing a 24,000-acre park near Sarasota, Florida, looking for Brian Laundrie.
Protesters gather outside of the home of Brian Laundrie’s parents in North Port, Florida, on September 20, 2021. Police served a search warrant at the home.
WINK
Anger at the Laundrie family’s silence prompted protesters to gather outside the Laundrie home demanding answers. While authorities were searching for Brian in Florida, the search for Gabby in and around Wyoming intensified.
Mary Fulginiti: It was, like, a nationwide hunt too, you know, between social media and all the other avenues … people were looking for the van. People were looking for where it went, when it went. They were looking for Gabby Petito.
And in this case, all of that social media attention ultimately helped investigators locate Gabby when Kyle and Jenn Bethune came forward with information they had spotted Gabby and Brian’s van.
The Bethunes had been in Wyoming’s Teton National Park around the time Gabby’s family last heard from her. On August 27,2021, the Bethunes had their GoPro cameras rolling for their YouTube channel when they went looking for a campground.
Jenn Bethune: We’re driving down this road … passed this van … and it had Florida plates … However, the van was completely dark … we assumed that they were just out hiking or doing something else.
Once the Bethunes left the park, they didn’t think about the van again until late on September 18, when Jenn checked her phone and was stunned to learn authorities now believed Gabby had been in the Tetons the very same night the Bethunes were there. Jenn instantly remembered the white van.
Jenn Bethune: And I immediately got goosebumps all over my body. I rushed back to the computer … and I saw that white speck of van, and I was like, please keep going, please keep going, please keep going, and it did, and it got bigger and bigger.
Kyle Bethune: We just some reason instantly knew that it was hers.
Jenn Bethune: When I called the FBI I was like, “I have found Gabby’s footage, like, patch me across to somebody, like, this is huge”… because I knew deep down what it was, and I knew how important this footage would be to finding Gabby.
As instructed, the Bethunes uploaded their footage to the FBI website. They also posted it on YouTube and Facebook.
Just hours later came the devastating announcement.
CHARLES JONES [FBI press conference]: Today, human remains were discovered, consistent with the description of Gabrielle” Gabby” Petito.
The FBI says Gabby’s remains were found at the Spread Creek camping area inside Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. An autopsy confirmed the remains were Gabby’s and the coroner determined her death was a homicide, by manual strangulation.
CHARLES JONES (press conference): We have no additional comments.
Gabby’s family asked for privacy, but her father Joe sent out a tweet that summed up the moment. It read simply: “she touched the world.”
Hours after it was announced Gabby had been found, over a dozen FBI agents and police officers swarmed the home of Brian’s parents.
JERICKA DUNCAN [at the scene]: Police arrived, the FBI arrived, they were carrying a battering ram, and they also announced they had a warrant … I think seeing these FBI agents and police here, you now wonder, “do they know know where he is?”
The next day, North Port Police, the FBI, and other agencies ramped up the search of the nature preserve near Brian’s home.
POLICE OFFICER: The terrain is very difficult. 75% of it is underwater.
On October 20, 2021 — 49 days after Brian had returned home without Gabby — the FBI made an announcement:
FBI PRESS CONFERENCE | Tampa: Earlier today, investigators found what appears to be human remains …
That notebook contained writings from Brian explaining what he says really happened to Gabby Petito, writing:
“I ended her life, I thought it was merciful …”
SEEKING JUSTICE
Before Brian Laundrie put a bullet through his head, he wrote a story describing how Gabby died.
Mary Fulginiti: It was dark, they were running across a stream. She must have fell and hurt herself. And he went to help her, but she seemed to be in extreme … pain.
In that small notebook found in a dry bag near Brian’s remains, he wrote:
“I ended her life, I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes I made.”
Kris Mohandie: It was a self-serving narrative that portrayed that there had been an accident and that there had been a mercy killing by him of her because she was suffering.
Kris Mohandie: … it speaks to selfishness and a degree of narcissism that it was important … how other people looked at him, his image. … He had the last word.
While Gabby’s parents will never see Brian Laundrie face a jury, they are seeking their own version of justice. They sued Brian’s estate for wrongful death and his parents for intentional infliction of emotional distress .
Patrick Reilly | Attorney: It’s our belief that … the Laundrie family was aware … that Brian had murdered Gabby and … was aware where her body was located.
Reilly says that belief is based on information from the FBI. He says the FBI believes that Gabby was murdered on August 27, 2021 … and that Brian made a lengthy phone call to his parents on August 28. He says, according to the FBI, Brian’s parents then contacted an attorney that same day.
Jericka Duncan: How damning is that? Why would they get an attorney so fast?
Mary Fulginiti: It’s very damning. … It does not pass the smell test.
The Laundries’ attorney issued a statement denying the allegations made in the lawsuits, and saying “this lawsuit does not change the fact that the Laundries had no obligation to speak to Law Enforcement or any third-party including the Petito family.”
But there’s more says Reilly — a letter allegedly written to Brian by his mother Roberta Laundrie. Reilly says he and Gabby’s mom read it while reviewing evidence at the FBI’s Tampa office.
Patrick Reilly: There was one part that sticks out, which is, “If you go to prison, I’ll bake a cake with a shiv in it.” … And by the way, the envelope that the letter came in — had written on the front of it, “Burn after reading.”
If it can be proven when and if Brian’s mother did indeed write that letter, it could be very damaging, says Fulginiti.
Mary Fulginiti: ‘Cause it shows the mindset of the mother, that she’ll do anything to protect her child.
In addition to the cases in Florida, Gabby’s parents filed a lawsuit against the Moab Police Departmentrelating to how they handled that domestic violence stop with Gabby and Brian.
Attorney Brian Stewart: The family believes that Gabby would still be alive today if the police officers had had the proper training and had followed the law in how they responded to — Gabby’s situation.
According to attorney Brian Stewart, the bodycam footage shows there was a fundamental problem.
OFFICER [to Gabby Petito]: The very best thing I can do is call my supervisor and see if I’m missing something here.
Brian Stewart: It’s clear that the officers did not have a clear understanding of the law that they were supposed to enforce that day.
OFFICER: Gabby, try to calm down and I’m going to go call a supervisor …
The Moab Police Department commissioned the captain of another Utah police department to conduct that independent review of the officers’ actions that day. Among the report’s conclusions: there was “probable cause for an arrest.”
Brian Stewart: So, by choosing not to apply the statute and effect an arrest, the officers left Gabby and Brian in a dangerous situation.
The report cited other unintentional mistakes, says Mary Fulginiti.
Mary Fulginiti: They didn’t follow up with a key witness, which is the 911 caller. … They did not follow up with questions to Brian Laundrie about whether or not he grabbed her face or grabbed her arm. … They didn’t document Gabby’s—wounds … photographically or in the report.
Gabby Petito in Colorado Springs, Colorado on July 8, 2021.
Gabby Petito/Instagram
Fulginiti believes they also missed some classic telltale signs of domestic violence.
Mary Fulginiti: Here was a girl who is hysterically crying, who’s immediately takin’ the blame, who’s also tryin’ to minimize her boyfriend’s actions … All of this while he remained calm, cool and collected through his interview. So, I think if you look at that in the totality — and had all those things been addressed, we might’ve had a different outcome here.
Kris Mohandie: This could have been a game changer. We don’t know for sure, we’ll never know. But certainly, intervention would have been more possible under that scenario.
One of the officer’s involved told the independent investigator after Gabby’s death, “I would have done anything to stop it if I would have known that was coming.”
In a statement, the City of Moab said it believed the officers showed kindness, respect and empathy in their handling of this incident.
OFFICER: Let’s get you in the van. Let’s get you on your way, alrighty?
The city intends to implement the recommendations of the independent review which include more “domestic violence investigation related training” and “legal training to ensure officers understand Utah State laws.”
The attorneys for Gabby’s parents insist their lawsuits are not about money. They’re about raising awareness. Gabby’s mother Nichole recently told the Associated Press: “I get people messaging me all the time that they were inspired by her to get out of a relationship.
Mary Fulginiti: Yeah, and I think that in and of itself is a huge, huge victory for a family that has sadly — encountered such tragedy … but there can be … these bright lights that come out of these bad circumstances. And if there is one to be … shined here, it will be hopefully that there will be young girls out there that say, “You know what? I’m gonna walk away. I’m not gonna stay,” or “I’m gonna get myself the help I need to get the strength to walk away.”
A smiling Gabby Petito at Zion National Park on July 16, 2021.
Instagram
Gabby Petito. Doing in death, what she did in life.
Rose Davis: I’ve always described her as this light, you know? She’ll do everything to bring the light out in you. And if she can’t, she’ll give you some of hers.
Gabby Petito’s family was awarded $3 million in their wrongful death lawsuit against Brian Laundrie’s estate.
If you or a loved one are a victim of domestic violence, call the Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
Produced by Liza Finley, Lauren Clark, Paul LaRosa, Chuck Stevenson, Chris Young Ritzen, Ruth Chenetz, and Mary Ann Rotondi. Mead Stone is the producer-editor; Tamara Weitzman is the coordinating producer;Ryan Smith, David Dow and Cindy Cesare are the development producers; Emily Wichick, Jordan Kinsey and Richard Fetzer are the field producers; Marcus Balsam, Mike Vele, James Taylor, Atticus Brady, Gary Winter, Philip J. Tangel, Michael McHugh and Marlon Disla are the editors. T. Sean Herbert and Anam Siddiq are the network producers; Hannah Vair, Chelsea Narvaez, Emma Steele, Elizabeth Caholo and Danielle Arman are the associate producers; Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor; Anthony Batson, Patti Aronofsky and Lourdes Aguiar are the senior producers; Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
A grand jury in Harris County, Texas, on Thursday indicted a man for the murder of Takeoff, a member of the rap group Migos.
Patrick Clark, 33, was arrested in connection with the death in December.
Takeoff, 28, was shot to death outside a private party at 810 Billiards and Bowling in Houston on November 1. “There was an argument outside the bowling alley which led to the shooting,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said at the time. Another man, Cameron Joshua, was arrested and charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon in relation to the shooting.
Police described Takeoff as an “innocent bystander” to the argument that preceded the shooting.
In the arraignment document, the state claims Clark “unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly commit the felony offense of Deadly Conduct by knowingly discharging a firearm at and in the direction of” Takeoff.
Clark’s defense attorney, Letitia Quiñones-Hollins, told CNN that the indictment was expected.
“We would ask people to remember that getting an indictment requires meeting a very, very minimal standard of proof,” she said in a statement. “When we get inside a courtroom and in front of a jury, where we will be able to put on our evidence and cross-examine the state’s witnesses – where the standard of proof is guilt beyond reasonable doubt – we expect the jury will come back with a verdict of not guilty.”
Clark remains under house arrest on $1 million bond.
Takeoff was the youngest member of the trio Migos, alongside his uncle Quavo and rapper Offset. Artists including Justin Bieber and Drake remembered Takeoff as a talented rapper and loving friend and family member at his memorial last year.
Three people were killed, including two police officers, in a shooting and stabbing attack in central Japan on Thursday, NHK reported citing police.
Police received a call in the late afternoon with reports that a “man stabbed a woman,” a Nakano City police official told CNN.
When officers rushed to the scene, the man fired something resembling a hunting rifle, striking four people, before fleeing the scene and barricading himself in a building, he added.
The woman was taken to hospital where she was subsequently pronounced dead.
Public broadcaster NHK later reported that two police officers also died from their injuries and that one other person was injured.
NHK reported the suspect was wearing a camouflage hat, top and bottoms with sunglasses and a mask.
Nakano City urged citizens to stay indoors in a statement posted onto social media Thursday.
Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan. The country has one of the lowest rates of gun crimes in the world due to its extremely strict gun control laws.
In 2018, Japan, a country of 125 million people, only reported nine deaths from firearms – compared with 39,740 that year in the United States, according to data compiled by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.
However, Japan was rocked by a shooting last year that reverberated around the world.
His murder sent shock waves through Japan and the international community, and also sparked questions about whether enough security was in place to protect him despite Japan’s track record for being a safe place.
Getting hold of a firearm in Japan is extremely difficult and the suspect in Abe’s shooting used a homemade weapon.
