Home surveillance camera captures crime in Phoenix home

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[Music] it's a picture of domestic heaven and Donald Mellon is your typical doting daddy a clean-cut family man his little girls admire and adore he always helped people without them asking for help he really was a nice caring guy Donald's family owns successful McDonald's franchises in their hometown of Phoenix Arizona and that means Donald his wife Karen and their three kids have a pretty comfortable life we used to go on road trips a lot family trips to Disneyland and Hawaii and we got to do a lot of cool things with him like that but there are also trips down darker roads unfortunately he turned to alcohol and he just wasn't strong enough to give up the alcohol for his family and with raising three kids I couldn't do it anymore Karen divorces Donald but how does this clean-cut all-american dad go from this to this the newly single dad is now under the influence of more than just liquor drowning his sorrows in the intoxicating charms of an exotic dancer Rebecca Cheever she was some young girl that was stripping drinking and she met an older man that had money and she needed money he needed company turns out this is no rebound romance it leads down the aisle and to big trouble Donald sets himself up in a new hall with his new wild child bride and her young son Thaddeus now daddy can really cut loose my first thought was wow this lady's funny their friend kita Adair says parties with this Odd Couple were a blast he was very charismatic funny one of the most amazing giving individuals I've ever met in my life Rebecca was young beautiful feisty fun but if you ask Donald's ex the hard partying extra for Rebecca too much fun way too much she showed my daughter a picture of her giving him oral sex she was taking them to go egging houses and the amount of alcohol in the house I I knew that that was not any situation for any child to be in all that alcohol isn't good for Donald either Donald the clean-cut family man starts to change first on the outside then on the inside answering to Rebecca's nickname for him DJ submit you met her he turned into DJ into something that I had no idea who he was anymore in DJ and Rebecca are armed and armed racing down a path of destruction stocking up not only on liquor but a terrifying arsenal of guns friends say they're locked and loaded in every possible way and even their party buddies smell trouble they woke up their breakfast was a big old bottle of Chardonnay by lunchtime they were drinking vodka mixed with something doing shots wine all night long and it seemed like they never slept or ate it was just a recipe for disaster and on a hot night in July that simmering tension explodes hello yeah my husband is leaving I need to be at home now if Rebecca wants Donald to live she's not helping just listen to her incoherent call to 911 doing he's bleeding okay what happened to him I don't know he's bleeding I'm trying to figure out what's going on them you're not really giving me any information why okay Jenna dies you know okay why I don't know but by the time EMS arrives there's no saving Donald from a single gunshot wound to the head he's dead at the hospital two hours later and responding officers find this pistol stuffed between the seat cushions at the police station of woozy Rebecca tells cops she had been drinking and has no idea of what happened to her husband I drink like two drinks he drink two drinks I like came out of the room and then I was like why are you like laying on the ground my what are you doing and then I was like oh my god like like there was like like I got me out of his side and I like I called 9-1-1 like right away Rebecca may not know but Donald's own daughter's hear the awful truth for themselves a message from their father at the very moment Rebecca kills him my sister Ashley she was like he called me last night he left me a voicemail 'let's listen to him received yesterday at 9:44 p.m. so he put the phone on speaker and my dad said call me it was like he looked up and he saw her with the gun cuz then he says and then you heard a boom and just to know wow I heard my dad's last words you know Donald's daughters are sure that's Rebecca sounding so determined just before she pulled the trigger my first thought was his evil eye I knew that she was capable of something like this turns out a camera on the living room wall would prove Darcy right when investigators view security footage at the moment mark nine five forty-four pm full story of that night suddenly emerges she flipped out she killed him in a tape so shocking and gruesome police won't let us show it Rebecca enters the living room while Donald's leaving that message for his daughter Rebecca raises a gun to Donald's face takes aim and fires the bullet grazing his skull and lodging in Rebecca's wedding picture she went and changed shirts she went and put on a shirt that said shooters world and then she went back and shot him in the head what the tape reportedly shows after that fatal gunshot is just as horrifying cops say while blood pours from Donald's head Rebecca sits down on the couch right next to her dying spouse for 23 full minutes and casually smokes a cigarette I think she sat next to him I smoked a cigarette thinking die die die die Donald's daughter believes those 23 minutes were the difference between life and death for her dad but the time Rebecca fondly mates that rambling call for help it's too late to save him that to me is what confirms she's evil how do you not only do that to someone but then sit and let them die and watch them die the video proves it this is an open-and-shut case of cold-blooded murder or is it when cops dig deeper into the rest of the home security tapes shocking discoveries turn the case on its head next I won one where Sherman Oh see he's getting his dyes you know okay why is Donald Mellon murdered one brutal gunshot to the head the shooter his young wife Rebecca there is no doubt she pulled the trigger it's right there all caught on home security video the first thing I said I was like she did it I just knew she did it it's even in a voicemail Donald was leaving for his daughter police say in disturbing home surveillance footage Rebecca just sits there for 23 long minutes smoking a cigarette patiently waiting for her husband to die that to me is what confirms she's evil how do you not only do that to someone but then sit and let them die and watch them dying but is this a case of cold-blooded murder they were so out there towards the end kita and Marcus Adair lived with Donald and Rebecca for a year witnessing firsthand the out-of-control drunken parties and much more it would be so calm and chill and then somebody had too much to drink and Rebecca could be nagging and annoying and not know when to stop would he get upset he would get upset there were times or she would instigate there were times he would hit her the boozing is non-stop and the violence is so frequent kita and marques finally have had enough got to a point where they were just both so bad that we just we had we couldn't stay any more something bad was about to happen and we didn't want to witness it Phoenix police witness it a lot in just one year prior to the murder cops are called to the home in alarming 21 times calls for welfare checks domestic violence and assault normally you don't see police going out and interacting with one specific home with that frequency it all adds up not to a party but to relentless abuse in a tragedy waiting to happen on a visit dated March 13th an officer notes swelling and redness around both of Rebecca's eyes and a chilling exchange with the battered woman right in she was mouthing the words help me in cops say when Rebecca here's Donald as being arrested she says this in the police report you have no idea what you guys just did to me you have killed me he's just gonna kill me she became extremely terrified because she felt like DJ was gonna be thrown into such a state of anger that he would kill her in the future Donald tells cops they're all lies but were they Jennifer Wilmot is Rebecca's attorney well-known for defending Jodi arias a notorious murderer convicted of killing her allegedly violent lover Wilmot says Rebecca's horrific abuse is all there caught on tape there's surveillance in almost all the rooms of the house and outside when we actually looked through hours and hours of tape we actually found quite a few more incidents terrifying incidents like this Rebecca on the receiving end of a ferocious roundhouse slap here Rebecca smudging Donald's computer screen gets her dragged to the ground right in front of her son Thaddeus then in the kitchen in attack Rebecca never sees coming a punch to the back of her head is followed by a humiliating dose of water and the fights aren't just behind closed doors one of the other incidents that we found on the surveillance was in their backyard watch closely the backyard camera catches a furious Donald chasing down a family pet then going after other prey Rebecca comes outside and she walks towards mr. Mellon he walks towards her and then he just grabs her by the shirt and he's dragging her by her feet and then he pulls her up by her shirt and ultimately tosses her in the pool he where he comes inside and he locks the door then there are the guns a locker full of pistols shotguns and assault weapons adding an alarming level of danger to the couple's combustible War of the Roses he would pull guns on her he pretended to play Russian roulette one time with her here's the result of messing with Donald's gun lock that's just in one week's time and that just happens to be caught on tape and so who knows what was going on before that and how often it was according to wilmot Rebecca writes in her journal there was one final threat that sent her over the edge what Rebecca remembers is that he had been talking about how he was going to hire somebody to break in to the house and make it look like a burglary and she was gonna get killed in the process all I need to do is make the call but Donald's family says the defense has it backwards Donald's only threat was to leave Rebecca and he feared retribution from his violent bride you know why there were surveillance cameras because she he was afraid she was gonna kill him he knew somewhere in his head she was gonna hurt him Kieran says the clips only show his violent reaction and not Rebecca's terrorizing of Donald I know she antagonized him I know she would do things to purposely hurt him and I get in his face and say this is what I did did it hurt you and what are you gonna do about it I think people hear her version and they think oh my god well good for her good for her for getting him and it infuriates me it infuriates me because it's not true you're literally hearing one side the story which is being told by a pathological liar he never ever ever raised a hand in me much less his voice and there's something else that could call Rebecca's version of events into question remember Rebecca's 9-1-1 call he's gonna die you know that name okay why is Marcus in Keita you've both seen Donald and Rebecca at their very worst here they listen to that horrific voicemail for the very first time Rebecca who just minutes later was so incoherent here on tape sounds oddly composed she seemed a very poison together usually her when she has been drinking she slurs she doesn't make sense and that was just clear as as day they both yeah like not impaired to me like to need that sounds not impaired knowing them whatever state of mind for ''tis know Rebecca's the shooter but her fate is for a jury to decide Rebecca maintains she doesn't remember what happened is that true Rebecca melon in custody for the point-blank shooting death of her husband Donald his family says he never had a chance someone's gonna do something when they're blitzed out of their mind Rebecca claims she never had a choice she believes if that was it and that he was gonna kill her Rebecca is charged with first-degree murder held on a 1 million dollar bail her defense claims she was a battered woman who shot her husband in self-defense these disturbing videos could sway a jury but she's gambling with her life again by going to trial had Rebecca gone to trial and lost she would be facing the rest of her life in prison she would never ever get out she didn't want to risk it so before a jury gets to decide on guilt or innocence Rebecca takes a plea deal second-degree murder her attorney Jennifer Wilmot still argues Rebecca never intended to kill Donald why would a woman who had been continually abused for years fire one shot that just grazes his head if she was truly intending to kill him what would be the point of that it would be much more likely for her to fire numerous shots to make sure she got him and then call 9-1-1 once she knew he was dead state of Arizona vs. Rebecca melon in her sentencing Rebecca admits she was drinking that terrible night and maintains she doesn't remember the crucial 23 minutes after the shooting the 23 minutes that could have been the difference between life and death for Donald Nolan when he lay bleeding to death while she sat and calmly smoked a cigarette but it's evidence the Maricopa County judge can't ignore she's seen the video I have a recollection of it I watched it I watched as you sat on the sofa slowly smoking a cigarette patiently waiting as mr. melon died despite her claims of abuse the plea deal still puts Rebecca melon behind bars for 20 years for the murder of Donald melon it seems crazy to me I mean my dad's gone forever and she gets to kill someone and be free with more than 15 years still left in her sentence Rebecca Mellon agreed to talk about that tragic night for the first time on national television in a phone interview from behind bars with crime watch dailies in a Garcia Rebecca when you look at that videotape of you shooting your husband mm-hmm what do you think I think it looks horrible and it's it just sucks because it's like I don't I don't remember it happening and in a grilled her about that smoke she had while her husband's life slipped away but you have the ability in the concentration to sit down and have a cigarette and based on the video it appeared like you were latching yeah I didn't even I didn't remember even smoking or any of that and I didn't come back into focus until I saw him on the couch what's wrong with him can you be more specific Rebecca anyone who endured what we saw you in during those videos how could you not want to hurt him back for the way he treated you I mean that back to me almost sounds logical it's I mean it it's just not the type of person I am I've never been like that and I've never done anything to hurt anybody and you know I had like never even been in a fight or anything like that I'm not that type of person then she reminds Anna of her shocking claim that on the same night she pulled the trigger Donald was planning to have her killed when the gunshot went off it was everything went blurry and I didn't mean for it to go off you know I would just was trying to plead my case before he made you know this phone call that was supposed to be the hit man coming for me for Donald's heartbroken daughter the memory loss is all just another excuse from Rebecca that's just screams bull crap to me that's just a dumb story now that I hear that I'm just like that's a lot of crap you know he wasn't a bad guy and he wasn't this man that is being put out there that's not who he wasn't any way shape or form Rebecca he's really good about portraying herself as his meek little battered woman and that's she's far from that and Darcy believes justice should have been life for the life Rebecca stole from her I wanted her to be locked up in there forever [Music]

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Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 1,280,459

Rating: 4.7318001 out of 5

Keywords: Donald Mellon, Rebekah Cheever, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily

Id: UGc8Ocsl1q4

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019

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