How A Man Killed His Roommate While Sleepwalking

officers found 21-year-old Brooke Preston dead on the floor stabbed multiple times meanwhile he remains Behind Bars without bot the question here tonight remains why because even he says he can't remember have you ever sleepwalked or do you know someone who has people can do strange things as they walk around oblivious to their surroundings in their sleep but in this bizarre case you are going to learn how sleepwalking was used as mitigation in a murder trial Brook Chantel Preston was living her best life blossoming as a young woman but her life would be cut short by the actions of one of her friends someone she trusted implicitly we would like to send our condolences to the friends and family of Brooke Chantel Preston who was taken from this life far too soon the 24th of March 2017 Palm Beach Florida two people Randy Herman Jr and Brooke Preston were out having a drink together on the beach they had been friends since childhood and were more like brother and sister Brooke had moved to New York recently and had returned to collect some of her things and decided to stay on for a few days the two friends collected some drinks and went out on the beach for a day of sun sea and drinking tragically it would be their last together after leaving the beach the pair went to another shop and picked up some more beer but Randy was drinking much more heavily than Brooke to the point where she was becoming rather annoyed by him another friend Kyle was supposed to be coming around to see them but Brooke was in no mood to party at this point she texted Kyle and says there's been a change of plans can you come and get me I'm ready to kill Randy he's pissed me off by the time Kyle arrived Randy was too drunk to even register Kyle's appearance instead spending his time stumbling around the home looking for more to drink initially Kyle said that he would stay the night to make sure that Brooke was okay but Randy's Behavior became worse and Brooke insisted that they leave she went to the closet to pack her things finding Randy naked on the floor moving only to put his finger to his mouth and say the next morning Brooke returned home to pack some more of her things Randy got out of bed unsurprisingly not feeling too great Brooke invited him down for breakfast but Randy refused as he was in no fit State and decided to go back to bed and this according to Randy is where his memory fades he says he remembers Brooke closing the door and that's all 20 minutes later Randy said he woke up with a hunting knife in his hand and laying at his feet was the brutally mutilated body of Brooke she had been stabbed approximately 25 times and was unrecognizable from the beautiful young girl she had been just a half an hour earlier Randy was covered in scratch marks from his neck down to his feet whatever sparked these events a struggle had clearly taken place neighbors also reported hearing a woman screaming that morning but none went around to see what was happening Randy clearly in a panic made his way to the nearest park where he called 9-1-1 telling the dispatcher that he wasn't sure what happened but admitted that he must have been the one to kill Brooke he then sent a text to his mom saying I love you and waited for the police to arrive I didn't know what was happening you know that's why I called 9-1-1 if I wanted to I could have ran but that wasn't what was on my mind I didn't do this intentionally and this was a person I cared about this was a close friend so I mean my mind was just I was just in shock Randy Ellen Herman Jr was born on December 28 1992. in the small town of laceyville Pennsylvania to his parents Kathy Adams and Randy Herman senior laceyville is a very small town with a population of around 500 people by the time Randy went to high school he was considered a well-rounded individual liked by other students in his school he grew very close to one person in particular Jordan Preston who he considered to be his best friend Jordan and Randy had similar backgrounds both having one younger sibling they were inseparable the families knew each other and would often eat together at the Preston household at least once a week Brooke was Jordan's younger sister despite being younger she became just as close to Randy as Jordan had the three of them all spent time together viewing each other not just as friends but like family when Randy was little I wanted him to do something I just pretend I was crying and he'd do it just so I didn't cry and even when he got older enough to know that I was pretending and I was faking he'd still do it because he didn't want to see me sad all right fine just get that look off your face and I'll do it he's always been very good kid very supportive very respectful Randy graduated from school in 2011 and soon became the first person in his family to attend college electing to study criminal justice at Manfield University in Pennsylvania and he took a part-time job as a correctional officer at the county jail house during college however Randy's life took a turn for the worse in August of 2013 he was arrested for possession of cannabis leading him to be fired from his job at the jail on Labor Day of the same year he was arrested again this time for drunk driving his drug problem had grown worse leading him to drop out of college and go back home to begin working in the family's stone cutting business Randy thought that by leaving college going home and getting a job he could leave his past behind but that wasn't the case old habits die hard and his problems followed him in 2014 his sister got married Randy of course attended the event got drunk and decided to go for a drive his mother and other guests did try to stop him telling Randy that he had had too much to drink to drive but he said he was fine and he drove anyway once again he was caught and arrested by police and he found himself being charged for the second time with drunk driving because it was his second offense Randy was forced to spend a month in prison this came at the same time his father was on the run from the law Randy Herman senior was a chief suspect in a murder of his girlfriend and had fled to Alabama to avoid law enforcement before he could be apprehended Randy senior took his own life Randy senior had made little to no effort to be close to his children remaining a distant stranger but despite this Randy Jr took the death of his father badly after being released from prison Randy contacted his best friend Jordan who had recently moved to Florida as you might expect the two of them spoke regularly with Jordan providing constant updates on his new life in the Sunshine State life in Florida sounded good to Randy so he himself decided he wanted to go and live there Brooke and Randy decided they would move to Florida and move in with Jordan just to get settled in with the three of them being so close anyway living together wasn't a problem and Randy seemed to be getting his life together he landed a well-paid full-time job at a marketing company he was proud of his work and knew that working full-time was making his friends and family proud of him but the job wouldn't last after less than six months Randy quit his job because he wasn't happy with the commission he was earning this was probably the worst thing that he could have done he had money in the bank due to his father leaving him twenty five thousand dollars when he died and now that he was unemployed he had a lot of time on his hands and nothing to occupy it as a result Randy fell into his old ways drinking excessively every night his life once again spiraling out of control he also developed a serious cocaine habit and within three months of receiving his inheritance money Randy was broke Brooke had also had enough of Florida she had seen someone for the last four years her boyfriend landed a great job in New York and asked Brooke to move in with him which she did the couple moved to Buffalo New York in December of 2016. Brook would return to Florida in early 2017 to collect the rest of her possessions Brooke arrived on the 23rd of March and was surprised to see Randy in the state that he was in the excessive drinking and drug use had taken its toll on him he was at a true low point but he had vowed to take positive actions to change his lifestyle two weeks prior to Brooke's arrival he had said that he would stop drinking and doing drugs for good and so far he had managed to stay clean sadly though once again it didn't last he and Brooke would decide to go on a day drinking trip to the beach on the 24th of March where the last ever photo of Brooke alive would be taken the next morning Brooke would be dead when the police arrived they quickly handcuffed Randy and went to survey the scene at the apartment Randy was questioned by police for two hours he didn't really seem with it he didn't appear to understand the gravity or seriousness of the situation when the police investigators were asking him the questions foreign that's what we we need to find out now are they are they friends girlfriends wife no nobody will do you do you want to be the one or do you want us to make a phone call like I said this is Steve I'm Jeremy um basically we just want to try to figure out what happened and what's going on okay and we need your help for that the police handle Randy very carefully even telling him that they can see that he is remorseful a heavy-handed approach to this interview would really get them nowhere Randy was so upset that he could barely breathe properly much less answer questions what do you want us to tell your mom okay what's Mom's number do you want to talk to Mom the police clearly getting nowhere with their questions ask Randy if he would like to talk to his mom or if they should do it for him perhaps thinking that if he had his mom by his side it might help Randy to compose himself and answer their questions the police it seems had some genuine sympathy or at least some empathy for Randy's situation let me ask you an easy question who did you have in the incident with [Music] is it Jordan Brooke okay it's Brooke okay and Jordan is Jordan did she leave state well right now they're back they're back at the scene um Everything is Everything is is still developing the police continued with their questions what happened how did it happen how can we contact Brooke's family but Randy continues to tell them that he didn't know what had happened or why it happened he asked them if Brooke was alive but at that time the police were reluctant to tell him that Brooke was already dead possibly fearing that it would make the interview even more difficult than it already was okay you didn't just wake up today and say that something bad is going to happen or something good is going to happen things happen for a reason Randy okay you have to know you know what happened you just don't want to get it out but you need to okay it's tearing you up in there andy you need to get it out okay what is Brooke going to tell me happened okay so you're gonna say that you attacked her okay what is she going to tell them you need to do this now all right you need to do this for Brooke all right it is highly unlikely that the police interviewing Randy wouldn't have known that Brooke was dead but one of the officers leaves the room and the other becomes ever so slightly more forceful with Randy firing questions at him even implying that Brooke was still alive by asking what is Brooke going to tell me is she going to tell me that you attacked her the police tried everything good cop bad cop the more assertive of the two officers would try to probe harder but nothing really seemed to work Randy was adamant that he couldn't remember a single moment of the events which led to Brooke being murdered with no results the police basically abandoned their attempts to get any information from Randy it wasn't through a lack of serious effort of course but they were clearly wasting their time Randy was charged with first-degree murder and booked into jail where he would remain until his trial Randy spent the next two years behind bars awaiting his trial in that time he penned a 20-page letter to his attorneys telling them why he was a good person outlining the best qualities of himself he wanted them to share this with the police and the court but they didn't at the request of his attorney though he was taken to a forensic psychiatrist for a psychological analysis the psychiatrist discovered that Randy had a history of sleepwalking which could potentially explain his memory blackout throughout the entire tragic event his attorneys decided to enter a plea of not guilty and went for a plea of insanity due to him not being entirely responsible for his actions because he had been sleepwalking throughout this might sound like a strange argument but it was not the first of its kind there had been a precedent set in 1846 a Boston man was committed after killing a sex worker and trying to burn down the brothel she worked at it was argued that he was a sleepwalker in the 1860s a man from Kentucky fell asleep in a hotel lobby and when he was awoken Suddenly by another man he shot him three times this was also put down to sleepwalking but not everyone who uses this defense has gotten away with their crimes more recently in 1997 a man from Arizona stabbed his wife 44 times and then dragged her still alive to their swimming pool and then held her head under water he tried the sleepwalking defense but was convicted of first-degree murder anyway the forensic psychiatrist was called to testify in Randy's trial he told the court he was genuinely puzzled by the case he did say that homicide while sleepwalking was highly unlikely but also that Randy fit the criteria for it to be possible the criteria outlined were the person attacked was well loved by the attacker Randy had no History of Violence he could wouldn't remember anything from the attack Randy's mother also testified on his behalf stating that he had been sleepwalking since he was a little child but Jordan Brooke's sister also testified saying that in all the years that she had known Randy she had never seen him sleep walk once the prosecution also brought up their own forensic psychiatrist who said there was no way that Randy could have been sleepwalking when he murdered Brooke he said that in his opinion the actions were far too complex for someone to sleep through the entire event even suggesting that Randy's motivation again in his opinion may have been sexually motivated possibly the result of sexual advances by Randy that were rejected by Brooke it was this testimony that was the most damning for Randy and it sealed his fate he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison he is serving his sentence at the Hardy Correctional Institution a Maximum Security Prison in Florida Freedom he has tried to make the best of his situation by working as a math teacher and Administration Assistant though it is said he rarely mixes with other people instead choosing to immerse himself in different books that he acquires from the prison Library he has never denied murdering Brooke but maintains to this day that he cannot remember the incident at all he wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he stated what happened in this case may have been the result of stress depression trauma and alcohol abuse but despite accepting responsibility he is still trying to have his conviction overturned because as he put it I was sleepwalking he has since stated that he believed his attorneys did not act in his best interests by pleading Insanity because sleepwalking is not a mental illness he has filed motions to have his conviction overturned but none of these have been successful so far whether Andy Herman was sleepwalking or not that night it is hard to argue that he does not deserve the punishment for taking away the life of a talented independent young woman he is now 30 years old and still remains in the high security prison in Florida with little to no chance of release as always at beyond evil we put the victims of these crimes and their memories first Brook Chantel Preston was described by someone as bringing Joy to the lives of everyone she knew her mother described her as my happy-go-lucky baby she was only 21 years old when her life was so cruelly taken away by the actions of Randy Herman she was enjoying life with her boyfriend and had recently embarked on a new exciting chapter of her life in New York she had so much living left to do and so much more to offer the world but now she will never be given those chances or opportunities we hope that the Preston family and everyone else who knew Brooke has managed to rebuild their lives as best they can she may be gone but it is certain that this bright young woman will never be forgotten rest in peace Brooke Chantel Preston if you found this story compelling 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Channel: Beyond Evil Podcast

Views: 89,635

Keywords: interrogation, beyond evil, true crime documentary, jcs inspired, crime psychology, crime scene

Id: rZgGRda8w8U

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2023