She Was His Girlfriend

The 29-year-old single man and his 28-year-old single brother both lived with their parents. They were close siblings. Both went into nursing. The nursing program expelled the older brother who found a job with a hospital but later lost that job as well. The younger brother did well in nursing.

Because the younger brother had been a model employee, a co-worker called the police when he hadn’t shown up for work and wasn’t answering his phone.

The police did a welfare check and found the brother, mother, and father deceased in the home. The older brother was not at the home.

They found the older brother the next day at a hotel in the area. With him were his father’s and brother’s credit cards. They questioned him, released him, and later arrested him on murder charges. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s “familicide.” When a family member murders multiple family members.

After the older brother lost his place in the nursing program and then his job, he became depressed. He isolated himself, became fixated on online gaming and a live cam model from Bulgaria. In order to continue to have one-on-one time with the model, he had to pay for her time. With no source of income, he resorted to stealing from his family members.

When his parents learned about the live cam model and that their son was paying a lot of money to chat with her and who knows what else—all via the internet—they were upset. He explained she was his girlfriend. They sent him to live with his aunt, and while there he stole from her too. His parents talked his aunt out of filing charges and took their son to a rehabilitation clinic for pornography and internet addiction.

The son didn’t complete the rehab program. Back home with his parents and younger brother, the family gave him rules for continuing to live in their home. Of course, resuming the online live chat relationship would get him kicked out. By that time, he’d spent nearly $200,000. Money he’d stolen from his family or from items he’d stolen from his family and pawned.

He couldn’t abide by the rules. While his father and brother were at work, he killed his mother. When his father arrived, he killed him, then waited hours for his brother—whom he loved dearly—and killed him. He wrote a letter from his brother and staged the scene to look what he considered a murder/suicide would look like.

Investigators saw the crime for what it was—an unemployed adult son, addicted to online porn, who wanted to continue his life without the restrictions his parents had placed on him. When the investigators showed him photos of the crime scene and his family, he displayed no emotion. He claimed his father and brother were abusive.

He went to trial on three counts of murder. A jury found him guilty on all counts. At the sentencing, the jury spared his life and gave him life in prison without the possibility of parole. When asked why he killed his mother, she said, “He couldn’t let her live.”

He has since filed an appeal. The appeal court denied the application, upholding the verdict and sentence.

The son who committed these heinous crimes wrote a letter of apology—not to his family—to his online gaming friends and to his live cam ‘girlfriend’ for misleading them into thinking he was a man with money.

Source: Florida Circuit Court, Seminole County Sheriff, NBC News, People, Law & Crime, Oxygen True Crime

All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.