MIKE THOMPSON: Two people sleeping in their bed at night were murdered
by apparent gunshot wounds. NARRATOR:
A sunny O.C. family
ripped apart by gunfire. It was absolutely
a brutal crime scene. They were very successful, and by all accounts they had
a wonderful, loving family. It-It's heartbreaking.
I'm sorry, it's heartbreaking. NARRATOR:
Detectives dive in
and discover the victims could have a deep list
of enemies. EBRAHIM BAYTIEH:
It was possible the murder had something to do with
the victims' business dealings. Tenants had disagreements, -civil litigation.
-They had investors. BAYTIEH:
Did they owe somebody money? A lot of people had
potential motivation. NARRATOR:
The investigation reveals
a suspect close to the victims found lurking in the shadows. Greed overtook everyone. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Millionaires litter
the hills of Orange County like shells on a beach, and one such entrepreneurial
power couple, Andra and Brad Sachs,
found each other and climbed to the top. Oh, here's Andra
in her red Mercedes. Andra is my younger sister. She is the youngest one
in the family. Here's Andra and I
when we were younger. It looks like we were
at a party. Wow, how good I looked. She looked good, too. Andra was always
a businesswoman, from I'd say five years old
she mentioned it first. "I'm going to be rich." BRAD:
Uh, how do you focus this thing? LESLEY:
Andra and I went to
a computer trade show to sell some of her
excess inventory. She was selling computer chips
during the computer chip crunch. (laughing):
Andra and I were super hot when we were young, and there was no women
working there. So we got a lot of business.
That's the truth. Opportunities came to her,
and she took them. I remember when Andra met Brad at a computer convention. EISENBERG:
They were soul mates from day one. They saw each other,
and they clicked. ANDRA:
Say hello, Brad. ALLEN SUMMERS:
Brad is rad. That's all I can really say. He-he was a drummer. He liked doing, like, sports,
surfing. Brad was a surfer,
but he was also a very hardworking businessman. They had all these businesses and techy ideas making money. LESLEY:
Brad and Andra started an Internet company
called Flashcom. They had a lot of investors. They did business
with a lot of people, and they had real estate. They were very wealthy. Say hello. Andra wanted to have
a lot of children, and they had Myles, Ashton, Alexis and Sabrina. EISENBERG:
Myles had a business brain. He was always trying
to figure out a way to make a couple dollars. Ashton was intelligent.
A very-very smart child. Lexi was quiet. She just watched everything. And the baby, Sabrina,
a little Cabbage Patch doll, was cute. She was a very good mother. She loved her children
very, very much. NARRATOR:
While the Sachs rose
to their role as Orange County royalty,
their picture-perfect family was suddenly struck by tragedy. Andra lost her youngest,
Sabrina, in a horrible casualty. LESLEY:
I heard a lot
of different stories, but the story that
Andra told me is that she fell in the Jacuzzi
and got sucked into the bottom of the Jacuzzi. EISENBERG:
And Ashton said to me when I first came,
"Sabrina's dead." It was like he wanted to see
my reaction. I don't think kids knew
how to deal with death. LESLEY:
Brad was sitting under a table crying like a little baby
after it happened. He, like, lost it. EISENBERG:
There was so much blame
and anger and... Andra didn't believe in crying. You stay tough,
even in crisis. It was hard on the family. NARRATOR:
Although they had lost an irreplaceable light
in their life, the Sachs found a way to move on and bring new love
into their family. EISENBERG:
Andra went over to Russia
with Myles to adopt a little girl, Lana,
who would fill that void I feel they all had. She had a little brother. She only planned to get
one child, (laughs):
but she came back with two. LESLEY:
Landon was so cute. I mean, honestly, I don't think I could've left him there,
either. (chuckles) They were happy, very happy. You know, I found it amazing,
with tragedy, that everybody was... still going on. Eventually, Myles and Ashton,
when they grew up and they wanted to go
to college, they moved to Seattle. Andra was very proud
of her kids. She always talked about,
like, getting old, and she said that
we could sit in her house and watch the boats go by
on the dock, joke about our kids and stuff. NARRATOR:
Andra and Brad Sachs had found their perch above it all
on Peppertree Bend in San Juan Capistrano, a street lined
with enormous mansions and ocean views. Stories of powerful ascension
and hushed betrayal are woven through
these Orange County hillsides. But the Sachs enjoyed a perfect
O.C. life upon the crest-- until their castle became
a crime scene. THOMPSON:
February 9, 2014, at about 2:30 in the morning,
I was at home asleep in bed and received a telephone call
of a murder that had happened in the city
of San Juan Capistrano, and they requested the Homicide Unit
to respond to the scene. BAYTIEH: I didn't just want
to see the pictures of the crime scene, I wanted to see the crime scene. When I arrived,
it looked like a mansion. It has a private gate. It's a large residence,
multiple-story home. THOMPSON:
The master bedroom is
at the end of a long walkway. Two people were deceased
in the master bedroom... (gunshot) ...by apparent gunshot wounds. MEGHANN CUNIFF:
It was clear that
the two people dead inside the home were
the owners of the home, the parents,
Andra and Brad Sachs. Apparently,
they were asleep in their bed, and then they had
three of their kids asleep in their home, too--
Landon, Lexi and Lana. There were numerous
shell casings about the floor
in the master bedroom. BAYTIEH:
I think there were
eight gunshot wounds for the father, and I
think seven for the mother. THOMPSON:
There were shell casings outside
of the little boy's room. A little boy
had been shot and injured. BAYTIEH:
The eight-year-old victim had already been transported
out of the residence and to the hospital, because
obviously he was still alive but in grave, serious condition, and I am hoping and praying
that he's gonna survive. This is gonna be a double-murder
or a triple-murder case. THOMPSON:
The two uninjured people
in the house were two teenage girls. CUNIFF:
Landon's sister Lana was actually asleep
in the bedroom in between Landon's bedroom
and the parents' bedroom, and then the older sister, Lexi, was in another bedroom
on another floor. THOMPSON:
The older teenage girl, she had been asleep
in the middle of the night and was woken up
by a kicked door and a very dark, shadowy figure
firing a gun at her. And she heard the cries
of her... brother for help that she went and then
discovered what had happened. BAYTIEH:
The other teenage girl
did not hear the gunshots. The older sister woke her up. It was absolutely
a brutal crime scene. THOMPSON:
It did not appear as if this was
an interrupted burglary to us. BAYTIEH:
There was no evidence
of a robbery. There was no evidence
of ransacking at all. THOMPSON:
It didn't appear to me that it was
a completely random act. Based on where the house
was located, the victims,
how they were shot, the shooting of the little boy, whoever committed this murder, it seemed like they had to know
where they were going. The crime lab personnel were out there
for an extended period of time, and the forensic evidence
didn't immediately produce any suspects of note, and so we really had a whodunit. LESLEY: She talked about having
a lot of debt and everybody
coming after her money. BAYTIEH:
There are a lot of people that don't like
the way they do business. CUNIFF:
There was a lawyer they owed huge amounts of legal fees. They're calling all of us.
It was scary. NARRATOR: The O.C. mighty had fallen, as Brad and Andra Sachs were slain in their sleep, and the Sachs' youngest son, Landon,
lay fighting for his life after the horrific
midnight massacre. BAYTIEH:
We knew by that time
that the two decedent victims had two adult children that did not live in California. CUNIFF:
Ashton, the younger one, was in Seattle
going to a community college, and then the oldest son,
Myles, was in Pullman,
at Washington State University. THOMPSON:
We made the decision to make a death notification
via telephone to them. It was approximately 10:30
in the morning, I believe. My partner called
the older boy, and I called Ashton. It went to voice mail, and he returned that message
after 12:00. I told him that, um,
I regretted to inform him that his parents
had been murdered, that his brother
had been wounded. He became hysterical
on the phone. I mean,
I-I was genuinely concerned if he might harm himself. Eventually he was
able to collect himself, and we had
a very limited conversation. He made arrangements
with his brother to fly down that day
to Orange County. Death notifications are...
are terrible. We don't deliver good news
when we call. So, they're hard.
They're heartbreaking. LESLEY:
The detectives
knocked on my door. They said,
"Your sister is deceased." And I'm like, "What?" I go,
"No, I just talked to her." They told me that
they were shot in their bed, and I pretty much
didn't want to hear it, okay? I was trying to shut--
I didn't want to hear it. I was-- I go, "Oh, no.
Don't tell me. Don't tell me." And, uh, oh... It was very hard to come to
terms with what was going on. EISENBERG:
Not one, but two murders? Uh... (sighs) It was a life cut short,
two lives, two successful people
who love each other. They love their family
and their children. ALLEN:
They were the closest
family I had. I was just crying hysterically. I didn't know who could do that. I didn't know why they would
go after the kids either. LESLEY:
Landon was shot in the back. He was laying on the floor and he was grabbing for his toy. I know.
It-It's heartbreaking. I'm sorry, it's heartbreaking. (shudders) Landon didn't die
from the gunshot. He was in critical condition
in the hospital. And I remember that the funeral
for Andra and Brad was very hard. Alexis seemed devastated. Lana was trying
to comfort Alexis. And then, when I saw the
caskets there with the flowers, I saw the reality of it, and I just started
crying like crazy. I couldn't stop crying. (sighs) Growing up, my mom
was always a hero to me. She was just
an incredible person. Everyone who knew Andra and Brad knew how much
they loved each other. They're still together, and they'll be together forever. LESLEY:
She didn't work her whole life, and have all those
beautiful children, and accumulate whatever she did
to lose it all in the end. It's not fair. THOMPSON:
These people
did not deserve this, and I'm gonna do everything
I can to find out who did it and hold them
responsible for it. So at that point,
we're trying to find out who might have a motive
to hurt or kill a member of this family. Everybody is open
for consideration. You can't immediately eliminate
family members. NARRATOR:
Detectives first looked at whether
the other Sachs children were victims or suspects. THOMPSON:
We had to get a search warrant to search
the cell phone records of every member of the family
who had a cell phone-- including the two older boys, the two teenage girls, and Brad and Andra. There's a time delay
in getting those. You don't get those immediately. You're waiting for that
for a few weeks. CUNIFF:
Detectives wanted to check in with Myles and Ashton
and see if they had, you know, any suspicions about who might've
committed the murders. BAYTIEH:
You figure, right,
if the victims, the mom and dad,
have some dispute with somebody, maybe they talk to
their adult sons about it. Do they know about any disputes,
right? So, uh, you know,
do they know about anybody that their parents were
in business with? NARRATOR:
Myles and Ashton were quick to aid the investigation, offering exactly
the kind of insider info the detectives hoped
would break the case. THOMPSON:
We received a list
from one of the boys with names that they believed were people of interest
that we should be looking at. BAYTIEH:
There are a lot of people
that don't like the way they do business. Uh, they had a lot of
lawsuits involved in the way they do business. We found a number of people, either through civil litigation, through business disputes,
who were not upset at the deaths of Brad and Andra. Within a very short
period of time, there appeared to be a lot of
people who may have had a potential motivation
to kill the Sachs. NARRATOR:
While investigators
chased the trail of the Sachs' critics
across the county, a possible piece
of hard evidence emerged right next door. THOMPSON: We also did
a neighborhood canvass, trying to talk to every neighbor to see what, if anything,
they knew. In the early stages of
the investigation, we determined that one of the neighbors
had surveillance video footage. THOMPSON:
The point of focus on the video
was a-a patio of a neighboring house. At the far end of the camera, you had a view
of Peppertree Bend. BAYTIEH:
It's not the kind of street where people can just drive by. This was on a kind of
a cul-de-sac kind of a street. THOMPSON:
The victims' house was right
near the end of the cul-de-sac. And approximately 30 minutes
before the 911 call, a vehicle is seen traveling
down Peppertree Bend in the direction
of the cul-de-sac. There are no other cars
in the neighborhood for any appreciable time
before or after the murder. What is this car doing
at 1:30 in the morning in this neighborhood? BAYTIEH:
We know now we have
a car of interest. The person driving
towards the crime scene is a potential suspect.
That's a lead. THOMPSON:
Essentially, we're gonna
take it from there to find out who did this. NARRATOR: The children of Brad and Andra Sachs were left holding the ashes
of a perfect Orange County life after their parents' murder and the shooting
of their little brother. Fortunately, a neighbor's
security camera offered a new break for detectives-- footage that may have captured
the killer's car. Because of the lack of lighting, it-it's basically
a black-and-white video. There was no license plate
that we're able to get. THOMPSON:
All we could really say was
it's a light-colored car. At that point,
we took the video to a local Toyota dealership. Spoke to the service manager. He thought
the brake light pattern belonged to a Prius. In Southern California, a Prius
is a very common vehicle. BAYTIEH:
There was nothing
about it that said, okay, this is what's gonna break
the case for us, but it was a relevant factor
for us. When we found that video
surveillance footage of the Prius in the location
of the residence, part of what we did is
to try to go back and try to see
if we can find any videos from a major intersection
that close by. And you wait and you see what
other pieces are you gonna get to be able
to connect them together. At the same time, the eight-year-old son
of the two victims was shot, and he was in grave condition. Um, I asked
to be completely updated on the condition
of the eight-year-old. Uh, we start getting
the good news that it appears
that he's gonna survive. It is a sense of urgency to give the victims
the justice they deserve, so you got to try to figure out
some potential evidence pointing at
the potential perpetrator. NARRATOR:
Climbing to the top of
the Orange County ladder doesn't come without
stepping on the fingers of those on the rungs below. BAYTIEH: The investigators
had a lot of roads to go down. Every single one of these roads
had something to do with the victims'
business dealings. We had to look at:
did they owe somebody money? There was a really major lawsuit
against the Sachs that was spearheaded by a lawyer
named David Weinstein, who was basically tasked with overseeing
the bankruptcy of Flashcom. LESLEY:
Flashcom was
the Internet business that Brad and Andra started. Was it a success? It bombed large. They had investors. She talked about having
a lot of debt and everybody coming
after her money and stuff. Initially, I thought one of
the investors from Flashcom had committed the murders. That was scary. So, Weinstein had been
litigating this bankruptcy case for years, basically going
after the Sachs, saying that they'd illegally
saved themselves from financial ruin
by keeping money for themselves that should've gone
to the creditors of their bankrupted company. Weinstein was owed
huge amounts of legal fees. He'd been told
that there was gonna be a big payout at the end, but in the end he was
still owed money on this. And he'd made it really clear
that he disliked the Sachs. THOMPSON:
And we did consider
the possibility of a professional
contract killer. So, at this point, we're
looking for this individual to try to go interview, to see... would he talk to us? NARRATOR:
Detectives worked their way
down a list of potential suspects
provided by the Sachs' sons and learned that
the Sachs' empire reached beyond the tech sector and into a whole new realm
of potential suspects. THOMPSON:
Brad and Andra had both commercial and residential
real estate. For one reason or another, several of those tenants
had disputes with the Sachs over conditions
at the different properties. We found a site on the Internet
where people can post reviews. Kind of like
a consumer-type site. There were
some negative reviews. Some were... very blunt. So we went through those sites. We tried to identify
the parties involved, and sought to interview them. NARRATOR:
As detectives followed leads prompter by
the older Sachs sons, the two boys stayed close by
with their sisters at a family home in Coronado,
doing whatever they could to help their family
through this nightmare. LESLEY:
After the murders, Landon was
mostly on medication. Myles and Ashton were bringing
him video games to play with. He had a lot of good attention
from the nurses. But they said the bullet went
right through his spine. And they said
that Landon was paralyzed. EISENBERG:
It's awful.
This child was shot, and be... that much in pain. And paralyzed-- It's awful. (stammers)
There's no words for it. There's just no words for it. We all rallied
around each other. I was very hopeful that
they would resolve the crime, and get to the bottom of it
and figure this out. NARRATOR:
As detectives dove deeper into the Orange County business
contacts of the Sachs, suspects continued to rise
to the surface. CUNIFF:
According to the case file, investigators talked
to Weinstein, and he's very up front
about the fact that he was trying to get money
from the Sachs and that he didn't like them. But he is adamant that
he would never cross the line. Investigators can't really find any evidence connecting him
to any of this, so he's eventually
just labeled a nonsuspect. THOMPSON:
We continued
interviewing people, chasing down sometimes the most
obscure leads we could find, because you-you just don't know. And you don't know
what you don't know. CUNIFF:
According to the case file, there was a former Marine sniper
that was actually staying at one of the Sachs'
rental properties. He had actually
written something on a consumer report website, kind of celebrating the fact
that Brad and Andra were dead. The fact that he was a sniper
in the Marines obviously caught
the police attention, because they're like, "There's
somebody who knows how to use an assault rifle and
could possibly shoot someone." THOMPSON:
We talked to him, and we couldn't establish
that he was in the area at the time of the crime. And he was eliminated
as a potential suspect. At this point
in the investigation, there were a number of people
who were considered, but all my prime targets
aren't... aren't working out for me. For me personally, I was
starting to feel concerned about solving the case. And then,
the turning point came. We obtained video
from traffic lights just south
of the Sachs' residence. And in reviewing
the video footage, we uncovered a new lead
to track down and follow up on. Every time he made a phone call,
we're able to show the location, a road map for the travel
of the suspect. THOMPSON:
Why is he driving down here? Why is he misleading us in the
investigation a-a month before? Why would you do that? NARRATOR: The Orange County Sheriff's Department was scouring for evidence
through the abundance of surveillance cameras
in upscale San Juan Capistrano, seeking a new suspect
in the murder of the Sachs. A neighbor's video had revealed that a white Prius could be
the killer's vehicle, and a traffic cam captured
the same car. THOMPSON:
Approximately a half hour prior to the 911 call, a white Prius is seen
going northbound in the direction
of the Sachs' residence. Approximately 30 minutes later, a white Prius
is going southbound. The car is traveling so fast--
approximately 60, 70 miles an hour,
maybe even faster. That was immediately
of interest to us, because that struck us. That's somebody who's running
from the crime scene. That seemed to correspond
with what we had seen in the surveillance video
at Peppertree Bend. So, at this point, we know
we're definitely looking for somebody who drives
a white Prius. During the course
of the investigation, we learn of the Sachs'
former businesses. One of their tech adventures was a company called
Plug-In Solutions, which made modifications
to a Toyota Prius, I believe. So, at that point,
an investigator calls Myles,
the older brother, asking him
to give us an inventory of who's driving what car. And it was at that point
that we learned that Ashton, his brother,
was driving a white Prius. And that was huge. So, then it becomes this focus
on Ashton. NARRATOR:
Ashton was clearly in Seattle
when detectives called to notify him
of his parents' death. But was it possible
that his Prius was the car caught on video? Could the Sachs' good,
grieving son have somehow been involved
in their murder? THOMPSON:
At that point, Ashton seemed
to be very helpful. It gave the appearance
of cooperation, that Ashton wanted to see
this murder solved. NARRATOR:
While investigators
awaited evidence from the family's subpoenaed
cell phone records, they examined Ashton Sachs
in a whole new light and a terrifying possibility
began to emerge. And here's Ashton.
Oh, my God. He was such an adorable baby. Ugh. EISENBERG:
See? And that was Ashton.
Devious little Ashton. (laughs)
His shoe... Lexi's shoe. He threw it in the fountain. Ashton was a handful. He had energy. (chuckles):
Maybe sometimes too much. He could get away with a lot
because he was so cute. (laughs) The signs of depression
and mental issues didn't come till way later. NARRATOR:
After the death of his sister,
Ashton's family watched his darkness blossom
with each passing year. EISENBERG:
Andra expressed to some
of the family members she was on edge
with Ashton around. Brad and Ashton had friction. Ashton wouldn't listen
to him many times, so she asked him to move
to Seattle. LESLEY:
It's not like she just
kicked him out. She gave him a condo,
she gave him a car, she set him up, she was flying
back and forth to see him. She kept in constant contact
with him and was sending him money
to go to school. EISENBERG:
She had an idea, I think,
that if he was in Seattle, he would do better. He'd be in school. He was not going, though.
(laughs) And Andra got very upset
with him. She wasn't gonna
funnel them money; they weren't on a free ride. LESLEY:
I think he got into drugs. I think-- I-I know for a fact
there was marijuana involved, and I think maybe
he was taking meth. NARRATOR:
No one could expect
the afflicted O.C. son to turn on those
who loved him the most. Had Ashton's dark side
finally consumed any part of him that was good? Could he have pulled
the trigger himself? BAYTIEH:
I clearly remember
realizing that maybe we have a son who murdered
his mother, his father, and tried to murder
his brother and his sister. A question that we did not have
the answer to, which is "why?" Why would you do that? NARRATOR:
Detectives hoped
that new evidence would serve as Ashton's alibi
for better or worse. THOMPSON:
We had gotten a search warrant for cell phone records
on the day of the murder. And about the time
that we were learning that we were looking
at a white Prius and Ashton drove a white Prius, the cell phone records
came in for Ashton. Cell phone records can be a treasure trove
of information about people. BAYTIEH:
Cell phone evidence is, uh,
the beauty of technology. It gives you a road map. It tells you
where somebody was located at a specific period of time. THOMPSON:
And there's software, you can map cell phone towers, and it paints a perfect picture
of where they've been. And so, looking through
the call detail records, there was evidence
that Ashton drove southbound... ...from Seattle
to San Juan Capistrano. Beginning 12 hours or so
before the murders. BAYTIEH:
It gives us an amazing amount
of information that helps us hopefully be able
to solve this crime. THOMPSON:
We hadn't taken a closer look
at the boys because they appeared to be
out of the area. We knew with certainty
that they were in Washington at the time that we made
the death notifications. I didn't think
it was possible for Ashton to make it back to Seattle
and make it back to his condo in the time that was necessary
to answer my call. But now, he became
the 100% focus of our efforts. NARRATOR: A wealthy Orange County family had been gunned down in a spray of bullets,
and troubled son Ashton Sachs told police he was
a thousand miles away. But his cell phone told
a darkly different story, as it pinged all the way home
on the night of the murder. THOMPSON:
Why is he driving down here? Why is he misleading us in the
investigation a-a month before? Things started coming together
pointing to Ashton. But could there be an innocent
explanation to all of this? It's starting to look like not. But you want to have
the best case that you can. We need to make sure that
we have all of our I's dotted, all of our T's crossed before
we go down and make the arrest. NARRATOR:
Ashton's phone records
didn't lie and corroborated the two videos
placing his car at the scene. But if he had driven
all the way to Orange County to commit the crime, how was he
in Seattle just hours later to take the detective's call? And where was his car now? Every time he made a phone call, every time he accessed
information on his phone, we were able
to show the location where that information happened. THOMPSON:
We've kind of done a cursory look
at cell phone records, but now we need to figure out,
on the day of the murder, who is Ashton talking to
on his phone? And we find out that he calls
American Airlines. I obtained a search warrant to get records
from American Airlines and learned that Ashton had,
in fact, purchased a flight on February 9, to fly
from John Wayne Airport in Orange County to Seattle. We obtained surveillance video
from John Wayne Airport that showed Ashton
being dropped off by a taxi cab in the early morning hours
of February 9 until eventually
boarding his flight going back to Seattle. He told us a bunch of baloney.
He lied to us. THOMPSON:
And we find out he calls
a transportation company to move his car
in San Juan Capistrano shortly after the murders. A member of the Sheriff's
Homicide Unit contacts the owner of this transportation company, says, "Hey, uh, do you know
anything about Ashton Sachs?" And he says,
"Yes, as a matter of fact. "I've got his car, and he's not coming to get it,
and he owes me money." It is a white Prius. He goes, "It's at my property
in Seattle." And so it's like,
"Hold that thought." We asked him not to tell Ashton, and we reached out
to Seattle PD Homicide to secure a search warrant. NARRATOR:
Ashton was still
playing the part of the "good brother"
in Orange County, completely unaware that he
was now the number one suspect in the murder of his parents, and that the evidence
was betraying his lies. BAYTIEH:
Using that cell phone, it allowed us to show
a road map for the travel of the suspect. Now we have enough evidence
to prove Ashton Sachs had traveled down from Seattle
to Orange County at a time
when the murders had happened. He made arrangements for
his Prius to be shipped back to Washington state,
called a cab, ended up in the airport. Flew back to Washington state, took the phone call
from the detectives, pretending to be... the sad, poor, poor son of two victims
that were murdered. The picture on the board was becoming clearer
and clearer and clearer. Subsequently, when we did
all the investigation, we were able to locate
that Prius back in Washington state. We were able to get a search
warrant for that Prius. We were able to have
that Prius searched. I distinctly remember being
on the phone and being told, "You're not gonna believe
what we found in the Prius." THOMPSON:
In the back seat of the car, we have
a Ruger .22-caliber weapon. What are the odds? I mean, this is almost like
a perfect Hollywood moment. Ballistics determined that that's the murder weapon. BAYTIEH: And we were able
to do an examination on the murder weapon and
find out that it was purchased by Ashton Sachs. What he did became
very, very clear to us. NARRATOR:
A horrifying series of truths revealed themselves
to detectives, exposing a dark betrayal
and an indelible stain on sunny Orange County. THOMPSON:
In my mind, there was
no innocent explanation to all the facts that
we'd accumulated at that point. NARRATOR:
Ashton had lingered closer
to home in the three weeks
since his parents' murder, having holed up
with his siblings at a second family home
near San Diego. THOMPSON:
So, on March 6 of 2014, we drove down to Coronado down in San Diego County in Southern California,
about an hour and a half south of Orange County, where Ashton was living
with his siblings. We were able to speak to Ashton
alone at his residence. He is very... animated as he talks. He's sitting up straight. And Ashton didn't know
what we knew at the time. As we asked him
these very narrowing questions, his body posture,
and even his voice, became very crouched
and defeated. He eventually
came to a point where he said, "I don't want to answer
those questions." And at that point, we told him we were placing him
under arrest. And from there,
we transported him to sheriff's headquarters
in Santa Ana. We went down there with
the hopes of interviewing him and possibly getting
a confession from him. BAYTIEH: Every step of the way, the evidence that we had allowed us to be able to say,
"Ashton Sachs is not just a suspect--
this is the perpetrator, this is the person
who committed these horrendous crimes. NARRATOR:
A trail of evidence
had led investigators far from the O.C.
to find the weapon that killed Brad and Andra Sachs in the trunk
of devious son Ashton's car. It was time for Ashton
to face the facts, with the hope
he would shed some light on his very dark turn. THOMPSON:
When we arrived
at sheriff's headquarters, he waived his Miranda rights
and agreed to talk to us. You want to get
a confession to see, is he gonna give you
a motive for what he did, why he did it. So from that standpoint,
a confession, or at least a statement
from the suspect, is very, very important. THOMPSON: I think he'd come
to the realization of what was happening to him,
that he was... gonna be going to prison
for a very long time. THOMPSON:
I remember just being surprised that he actually
was confessing to the crime. He obviously wasn't trying
to talk his way out of it. CUNIFF:
The only child
who wasn't shot at that night was Lana. Ashton knew she had dogs
in her room and that if... something happened,
the dogs could start barking. THOMPSON:
He admitted
that he was inside the house for 30 minutes,
going back and forth, trying to weigh
in his own mind on... whether to do it
or not to do it. He obviously knew
what he was doing. THOMPSON:
I think the reason he did it was because he
had dropped out of school and he was gonna have to face
his parents for that. He felt slighted by his parents. I think that's what drove him. This is a copy
of the initial complaint that I filed, um,
day after he was arrested. This is him writing down, admitting the conduct of killing
his mother and his father with premeditation
and deliberation. It was horrendous,
it was tragic, but it was very, very clear. Ashton Sachs executed
his mother and his father while they were asleep. He also cowardly shot
at his eight-year-old brother, and then sat by the bedside
holding his hand, telling him
how much he loved him, knowing very well that he was
the one who paralyzed him. Never in my experience
have I seen a case with such overwhelming evidence
of a person's guilt. BAYTIEH:
And he came in,
entered a guilty plea, admitted to every single
element of the charges that I indicted him on,
he admitted those, and he was sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. LESLEY:
It was very hard
to come to terms with what he had done, because we
just couldn't believe it. His own parents,
that raised him. I just couldn't understand it. It's just disbelief, like
you go into some altered state. You don't believe it. We don't know how to feel,
to be honest. We loved him,
so we still love him. It's an odd place to be. I feel... he wasted his life. This kid,
this smart child that was... had so much going for him. LESLEY:
During the funeral,
I sat next to him, and I kept looking at him,
and he was crying like crazy. He was crying
probably as much as I was. So maybe he was remorseful. Whether he was crying
because of what he did, or the fact that
he just ruined his whole life, I don't know. I think he got what he deserves. I think he
should be in there forever to think about what he did. BAYTIEH:
It's unfortunate, this case, what's telling for me,
this case, is... how tragic it is when people
take things for granted. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR:
Ashton Sachs, a one-time heir to the riches of Orange County, now has nothing to leave
to the future but a legacy
of torment and tragedy. CUNIFF:
There have been reports
in the last couple of years that, uh,
the kids are doing well, that Myles has kind of
stepped into a patriarchal role in the family,
and that he's taken on the parents' businesses. Eight-year-old Landon,
he was paralyzed, but reports are, from Myles,
that he-he's doing well today. EISENBERG:
Andra and Brad
were in love, truly. I think they
would have grown old together. I remember
Brad was always smiling. He was a happy-go-lucky guy. Easygoing. But creative. He was amazing. He didn't deserve this. LESLEY:
It's sad. Andra and I had
the closest relationship because of our children. I lost a friend and a sister. She called me Izzy
and I called her Fred. (laughs): Those were
our nicknames for each other. Andra was funny and warm-hearted. She did have a heart of gold. I just remember her
in a swimming pool. I think she was holding Landon
up in the air in the pool and, you know, playing with him, and he was giggling
and she was laughing. She really absolutely loved
her children. She did at least have
those good times in her life. For more information on
Real Murders of Orange County, go to oxygen.com.
