The Craziest Interrogation You'll Ever See

i'm not demanding i'm asking nicely as a kind civilian that also knows how to manipulate cops this is 22 year old russell jones just hours prior to the filming of this interrogation footage he was arrested for helping a 15 year old girl execute the brutal murder of her father that's uh 7 o'clock shall we in approximately 3 seconds you will witness an extreme shift in his demeanor you're listening and on my conversations aren't you so we can do this the nice way or we can do it the hard way and i can release my bipolar let's make a deal one thanks for the food two i see ellie and daven because they are both under my protection three before you release ellie to her parents or parent do a background check as well as a dna test as well as not dna a drug test and if you find out that her parent her mom is in fact doing drugs you are to release her to me tell him to release gavin and ellie thank you and i know i'm being recorded you you can keep that on there unless you're a nice cop then i take it back but if you're one of those two timing donut eating piece of crap that don't like rules a high school bully with a badge i'm sorry buddy but i eat high school bullies for breakfast so you want the whole story make a deal or i let out my bipolar a your choice the following footage contains never before seen personal accounts of the suspects involved in this crime through in-depth interviews we've obtained rare insight into the minds of three criminals who display behavior that is among the most disturbing we've seen yet i can still twist your little eye aaron fryer's murder was reportedly one of the most gruesome homicides medford police had seen the investigative team assigned to the case knew there was significant cause for concern just from viewing the crime scene alone aaron's two youngest daughters sierra and olivia walked out of their bedroom the morning of october 2nd 2017 to find the horrifying evidence of the crime but their father was nowhere to be found the two who were not yet in high school called their father's girlfriend for help and it was not long before the police were involved only a few hours later investigators picked up and detained three young individuals walking roadside a short distance from aaron's abandoned silver mercury marquis his eldest daughter fifteen-year-old ellen rose fryer was part of the trio her 19 year old boyfriend gavin curtis mcfarlane and his longtime friend 22 year old russell pierce jones accompanied her what's your first name mike okay mike what schmidt mike smith okay that kind of sounds like one of those weird mike smith does sound like a very common i'm sure it's not russell well that is one thing i haven't pat him down or anything i don't really have any weapons or anything okay that makes me feel a whole lot easier all right yeah let's go ahead and stand here spread your feet real quick i probably would be really stupid saying this but did you happen to notice my wrists at all your wrists what about them stick one well good that i can dislocate my wrist okay don't do that though please okay you seem like a nice one i appreciate it i won't make it hard on you all right i only make it hard on the bad ones i actually started my own production business did you yeah what kind of protection yeah i know it's kind of risky but okay so you're going to protect like runaways yeah so you provide protection for runaways and get them like a place to live yeah okay ellen was a sophomore student at south medford high school medford oregon and gavin was a previous student who had dropped out a quarter before his graduation ellen would tell police that she met gavin walking through south's hallways according to ellen she reached out via facebook messenger and started a conversation that would evolve into a forbidden romance she only 15 was under age and gavin 19 was her lover friends and family were appalled but no one as much as ellen's father aaron in addition to ellen's mother maggie immediately set clear boundaries she was no longer allowed to see gavin characteristic to many teenagers who do not get their way ellen rebelled she snuck out and lied to see him secretly maintaining their bond it was not long before ellen's lies caught up to her and aaron discovered that instead of staying the night at a friend's as she'd been claiming she was sleeping over at gavin's aaron furious stormed over to gavin's house pounded on his door and threatened him warning him not to come near his daughter again or else it was following this incident that the couple in addition to russell who claimed to own a protection business developed an insidious plan that reached far beyond sneaking out or running away as is typical of many teenagers they began to conspire to murder ellen's father who ellen alleged had abused her although they initially intended to execute their plan after the new year when ellen would turn 16 ellen began to claim the abuse was growing worse and i was not happy with the text and that's the one that talked about the abuse yeah okay and further that she was pregnant with gavin's child this spurred a sense of urgency that drove them to act sooner rather than later on the saturday preceding the crime when ellen was absent attending a high school band event gavin and russell attempted to break into her house through her bedroom window with murder in mind messaging ellen all the while they quickly found that aaron's girlfriend was asleep in the room and ran off although the attempt drew attention and concern the police were not involved at that point aaron would pick his daughter up from the banned event take her and her siblings halloween shopping and treat them to burger king the next day and return to their home to watch a sunday night movie the events that followed the next morning were a tragic contrast to this seemingly wholesome day of family events gavin and russell again arrived outside of ellen's bedroom window in the early hours of that monday morning ellen prompted gavin to enter and he obliged while russell remained outside in her yard over a period of an hour or so gavin and ellen whimsically discussed their future full of marriage and lifelong love but this was only to pass time they were waiting for aaron who rested on the living room couch to fall asleep eventually they heard snoring and gavin began to make his way to the living room his first attempt failed when he accidentally kicked a trash can it was still dark aaron woke up gavin retreated to the bedroom and ellen pretended that she had to use the restroom oblivious to his impending fate aaron purportedly said to ellen stop scaring me with all these people breaking in lately when the two heard his snoring once more ellen handed gavin an aluminum baseball bat something aaron had kept close by for protection and told gavin take him out after gavin was finished he sent ellen a message informing her that it was done russell who had stood outside with a machete for backup entered the home at that point to assist with transporting aaron's body russell reported that he was shocked and that he immediately retreated to the bathroom sickened by the scene of the crime aaron's face as shared by russell was scary due to the nature of aaron's fatal injuries gavin wrapped a towel around aaron's head and a blanket around his body russell holding the blanket at aaron's feet and gavin holding it at his head carried his body out to aaron's own car and hoisted him into its trunk ellen was the last to re-enter her home she stole money out of her recently murdered father's wallet said goodbye to her sisters who later told police they heard their father say a bad word when they were just waking up for school and retrieved her dog before leaving the trio proceeded to drive to walmart while aaron's body remained in the trunk ellen used the money she had stolen to buy junk food and hair dye before leaving they walked into an ssi building so that russell who was on disability for reasons we'll learn later could retrieve money with gavin serving as his rep payee the following eerie footage captures these moments [Music] they dumped aaron's body off an embankment along the side of a road also off the embankment alongside the road they threw various incriminating pieces of trash and clothing articles they ditched aaron's car and walked away with plans of hiding low in an abandoned house and eventually retreating to california he dropped his body off on the side of like a pretty well known road man like some lady was like locking her dog and then found his body we interviewed dozens of friends and family who knew these suspects and we found that almost all of them shared the same sentiment i spent like the whole year with her and dan doing competitions and whatever someone pulled me aside was like did you hear what happened with ellie fryer and i was like no i haven't heard anything and literally a week or two previously i had spoken to her and been around her it shocked me it was a shock it was a little bit shattering it was a you know a murder and a really kind of mysterious and gruesome one and i don't think anybody was expecting that all signs aside no one expected that this would happen think about this your daughter's 15 16 and she's with a grown ass man doing drugs i would tell never talk to my daughter again and it's like some romeo and juliet type you know i mean they're not supposed to be together but they want to be together romeo and juliet laws could be applied there because of the three year age difference what is the romeo and juliet law so they do something drastic you know and unfortunately it was taking aaron's life in such a messed up way they found like actual evidence of them planning to kill both ellie's father and the other guy whose name i can't remember his dad as well who's your father oh what's so bad about him um his past as well as my past growing up with him over 22 years i know at the very least gavin and ellie were present when uh one or both of them beat um ellie's father to death with a baseball bat they you know then took his car with his body dumped him not even that far away i don't think in a ditch were caught like not that long after in the car i think which is crazy and meant for police at least say it's one of the goriest scenes they've ever all factors involving these specific three individuals culminated with a deadly storm that ultimately led to aaron's traumatic murder this is the beginning of an end for ellen fryer she sits stiffly in an uncushioned chair the walls are bare and narrowly enclosing experts designed this room to spur feelings of discomfort isolation and unfamiliarity the interrogation has already begun throughout the following interrogations we will analyze all forms of communication forensic linguistics and the complex relationship between suspects criminal behavior and unique underlying psychology only hours previously ellen stood outside her home while gavin murdered her father after she rings her hands and cracks her fingers one by one she stares stoically at the camera her behavior is markedly inconsistent with the nature of her recent experiences an important aspect of reading body language is observing individuals baseline nonverbal cues followed by clusters of nonverbal cues which can occur consecutively or simultaneously comparing these in the framework of individual circumstances including environment is an additional critical consideration upon contemplating ellen's non-verbal language also note her peril language or the language that she conveys through vocal tone pitch prosody volume etc they may assist law enforcement in building criminal profiles determining suspects motivations or even detecting deception ellen shows little to no arousal physiologically behaviorally or emotionally mark this as our first significant behavioral observation yeah so that's the interesting thing is that if you met ellie she doesn't seem like the type of person that would hurt somebody she really was a sweet and soft individual i think that's what was so shaking about it was that it doesn't it didn't really make sense to me that someone like ellie would do that didn't seem in her character at all she was really sweet she like was a really great person so i was like okay i can be friends with this person she just seemed like the normal 15 year old girl many classmates knew ellen as the girl who always raised her hand in class she was accounted as intelligent polite and kind but something that few could later explain lied dormant in ellen hiding amidst high school band trips homecoming dances and ap classes here that something sits patiently and composed waiting for an investigator in an empty interrogation room the following interrogations have been analyzed by a qualified team including two licensed attorneys one being a former criminal prosecutor and a psychologist trainee hi hello are you ellie no what's your name i have the right training in silence okay you do have the right to bring thailand the investigative team on this case may have selected this specific investigator detective stephanie smith to conduct ellen's interrogation for tactical reasons police psychology experts outlined that investigators with traits similar to suspects are more likely to succeed in building rapport in facilitating open honest communication this concept applies to the broader field of psychology as well it may be used as a vehicle of manipulation to appear more likable otherwise termed the liking similarity effect ellen is more likely to respond positively to a female who speaks softly than a male who speaks gruffly ellen immediately displays a high level of resistance as the interrogation unfolds detective smith will navigate each obstacle to open communication that ellen throws her way [Music] is that what you're choosing to do yes okay uh i at least need to know your name though do you you don't want to tell me your name rain rain mark lying as our second notable behavior observation in display of resistance ellen's first word is a lie and she lies about her name lying is a common exploitive tool compulsive lying or pathological lying is characterized by lying about subjects surrounding identity as a means of control okay rain well if you choose that you want to talk i'm around okay i would like to know why i'm in handcuffs and why i'm detained i have the right to know okay ellen is angry this reflects in her expression which is a significant contrast between her flat disposition minutes previously her eyebrows are raised unusually high and she holds them there she asks the investigator with a childlike voice in an indignant defiant tone why she is being detained why am i being detained for eye contact is unfaltering advanced situational awareness training would identify this behavioral cluster as indicating a need for dominance so we got a call of concern at your house today well first i'm going to tell you all your rights i'm going to tell you all your rights okay and then i'm going to explain to you what's going on and if you choose to talk after that that's completely up to you this is a lesser-known rapport building tactic that functions by reminding suspects they have some level of autonomy ellen appears to grow more receptive okay okay you have the right to remain silent so you said you want to remain silent then i would like to know why i'm detained okay so we got a call of concern at your house today and your little sisters are pretty scared about what happened there and so what we're doing is trying to figure out what happened and the police went to your house and we're also a little bit worried about what's going on over there detective smith is vague that law enforcement is worried about what is going on over there ellen's house at this point she's trying to build rapport this is a soft and indirect approach detective smith wants ellen to fill in the gaps i haven't been there all night well there are things that would indicate otherwise i gave you guys what you wanted normally it would take about 24 hours to get missing persons report if there wasn't evidence of blood then if the person's missing for a total of 48 hours and 48 hour mystery dumbass then you do your little search puffy by then gavin me and her would be in california and i'd like to talk to you about that but with your wishing to remain silent it's really difficult to kind of get to the bottom of all of that good let's talk okay so what i want to do is make sure you understand what i told you about what your rights are because that's super important okay so can we go through those one more time yes okay so you have the right to remain silent what does that mean to you detective smith reiterates the miranda rights and asks ellen to explain what each right means to make sure there is understanding states often require this if suspects are 15 years of age or younger so this morning your little sisters ran over to your mom's house and told your mom about something that worried them that they saw in your house okay and what that was was a large amount of blood and they described a few things that you had been doing at the house kind of the way you said goodbye and that it worried them because they weren't sure if they were going to see you again and they love you and that really worried them a lot about where you were going and why you were leaving so quick because they care about you and they love you she frames the story from ellen's sister's perspective describing how scared they were to appeal to ellen's humanity but ellen seems relatively unaffected you know do you love your sisters yes and you care about kind of how they feel about you yeah anybody would you know that yeah yeah so kind of that's what we need to hash out you know what did your sister see why are they worried yeah they see that's what i'm going to ask you to be honest i don't have a clue ellen becomes abruptly animated she raises her eyebrows sharply and they linger there something about the expression seems off it doesn't reach the rest of her face indicating chirality or match her verbal expression this abnormal behavior further supports that ellen struggles with issues of affect or apathy ellen's expression whatever it is does not appear normal ellen's ex-best friend jillian mcfeeters commented on ellen's mental health to investigators stating that ellen had displayed signs of bipolar disorder the switch would go off sometimes and i mean it was not very long it was just kind of a whoo and then it was gone but this is a critical piece of information confirmed by someone who knew ellen best ellen's mood fluctuations indicate that she suffers from heightened emotional reactivity and sensitivity in response to triggering stimuli this contrasts with mood swings typical of bipolar disorder which are not as transient you said that there was a large amount of blood is everybody okay that's what we're trying to figure out yeah do you go to school no no what's the last grade you completed 12. you completed 12th grade detective smith begins to ask background questions to establish ellen's behavioral baseline or the behavior she normally displays when answering fact-based questions later in the interrogation when she poses questions relevant to the crime she will look for behaviors that diverge from helen's behavioral baseline when ellen responds we will expand on the formal technique of this concept later in the interrogations how old are you 18. okay all right where did you go to school south medford high school when did you graduate last year class of 27 this year sorry class of 2017. i graduated with an honors diploma that's exciting as we know ellen is lying when she answers most of these questions because we know she's lying we can see the way ellen expresses herself non-verbally when she lies based on facts one ellen's tone drops and flattens a notable deviation in her peril language do you go to school no no what's the last grade you completed two her eyebrows raise three this is a cluster of non-verbal indicators ellen looks up into the right she smiles laughs as she answers and then moves her hands apart when did you graduate last year four we can see another cluster when she corrects her lie with another lie this time we can tell she's more flustered she scrunches her face to the point that she closes her eyes she falls starts we see her eyebrows drop dramatically she rapidly shakes her head back and forth and finally she aggressively flicks her hair out of her face and tilts her head back five last we see another eyebrow raise what kind of classes did you take ap ap what ap american studies ap human geography ap psychology ap biology goodness pretty much everything i could take yeah and i know you live with your sisters because i know somebody else has talked with them today i didn't talk to them and who else do you live with just them ellen responds just them and she sounds more emotionally expressive she may have a soft spot for her sisters the investigator seems to think so as she often includes them in her questioning and my mother okay where do you live in the area i don't know the exact address so you live with your sisters and your mom and you graduated last year okay and you were walking down the street it sounds like today who were you with i was with my friends and i wasn't there so i really don't know yeah who who who are your friends the two males that have also been detained okay who are they to you they're friends okay what are their names okay so what have you been up to today i haven't been home and now i'm really concerned about what's been going on ellen puts up her defenses in a setting outside of an interrogation defensiveness naturally elicits a negative response from the listener detective smith is trained to employ the resistance countering technique reframing in this instance she utilizes reframing to refocus ellen's attention on something more positive holding positivity assists with resetting the flow of conversation prevents defensiveness from building and increases efficient information gathering this tactic draws from the field of positive psychology which arose from the idea that reorienting focus and reframing perspectives away from negativity results in greater life equilibrium where were you how like out where just out and about couldn't sleep when ellen lied about graduating from south medford high school i graduated with an honors diploma she stated that she graduated with an honors diploma an identity lie this is unnecessary detail in contrast her responses here are short and vague out and about she's unable to provide any detail an investigative team will analyze amounts of detail and specificity in the context of what suspects say they might note that ellen was overly specific when she provided detail when detective smith didn't prompt her to honor's diploma they might also know that ellen was overly vague when the investigator prompted her to be specific her actions both warrant attention in an interrogative environment where's the last place you slept at the house at your mom's house well we've talked to your mom you know that she's super worried about you she's so worried about you detective smith shares that she knows ellen is lying but follows with an empathy statement there is no perceptible response from ellen but it's clear detective smith is still trying to earn ellen's trust and break the ice this is an attempt to make an emotional connection but ellen holds steadfast maintaining her resistance i would actually like to speak truth today okay i think that your mom is it's been a long time since i've seen a parent like your mom was today she was on her knees on the ground sobbing because that's how worried she is about you so i do know that that's not where you spent last night so where'd you spend last night i didn't sleep last night so where's the last place you slept my mother in my father's house well i've talked to your mom and so i know that you haven't been staying there right it's my father's weekend i go back and forth though because my father is a little bit abusive okay ellen mentioned her father's abusive behavior relatively out of context her parents shared joint custody which explains why she went back and forth between their houses further her response beared no relevance to the question consider that ellen conspired to kill her father and very recently encouraged and stood by as her boyfriend murdered him lifted his body into the trunk of her father's car and threw it over an embankment her statement regarding her father's abusive behavior extends beyond a lack of remorse resembling something more like revenge when investigators spoke to ellen's old friends they shared that she had been consistently confiding in them about the abuse i know that he was kind of rough on her and she said that he would like emotionally abusive and physically abusive but i'm not sure how true that is what she would bring up is things weren't out like they were not good at her household she felt her dad wanted to kill her he started getting abusive he started mistreating her sisters and her when the medford pd posted details surrounding the crime and suspects on their facebook timeline there was an outpouring of mourning and kind words for aaron many comments portrayed aaron as the opposite of abusive stating aaron cared more about his girls than anything members of the friar family in the medford community were shocked so what's the last house you left from my father's house okay and when when did you leave there not near you okay and then where'd you go just wherever i felt like going i just went for a walk and i didn't stop walking so today is monday and it is 11 30. okay so i've been awake for almost 24 hours so you left at noon what day sunday okay yesterday and what was going on before you left the house detective smith is attempting to establish timelines but this proves difficult due to ellen's continued lying innovation my father was very upset about something what was he talking about i can't recall he is very violent outbursts okay my dog was hit by a car because he smashed a glass table onto my dog and the gate was open so my dog ran outside and got hit by a car my goodness when did that happen a couple of weeks ago okay so what was going on yesterday to make you leave just didn't really like the environment i just didn't like the vibe okay so who was home when you left my sisters and my dad okay where's my dad now ellen attempts to act as though she's concerned about her father but she fails badly consider which behavioral cues indicate deception and post the time stamps in the comments i don't know so you leave what door did you leave out of the front door okay did you tell anybody you were leaving no then where'd you go just turn here turn there just kind of wandering around town ellen describes walking and seeing the nearby market though she says her memory is fuzzy my memory is pretty fuzzy and she claims she doesn't remember much else and then what else did you see nature preceding interrogation investigators may engage in an exercise termed perspective taking they place themselves in the suspect's shoes suspects will often prepare themselves to answer questions that are central to the crime they committed by viewing the situation from suspects perspectives investigators are more likely to determine what questions suspects might expect or not expect investigators will then begin the interrogation by asking anticipated questions to establish a behavioral baseline and follow by asking unanticipated questions this allows investigators to make a comparison between baseline responses and responses that suspects provide when caught off guard well at some point you must have met up with some friends oh yeah i ran into them where were you when you saw them i can't remember okay so i feel a little bit tiny but like we might just be like playing cat and mouse and going back and forth okay in addition to displaying high levels of resistance ellen pushes back at the investigator she exhibits prolonged eye contact this is a confrontational behavior indicating aggressiveness she will continue to do this periodically throughout the interrogation your sisters have actually been already talked to by somebody and they are pretty good on their times when they saw you because they were getting up and alarms were set and looking at tablets and things like that okay and so you know i just want to have an honest conversation with you i think that your sisters are are beyond scared beyond worried okay like for instance the dog where's the dog where is my dog what's his name squeaker beak or something where is he you tell me where's my dog i don't know where is sparklebeat oh no okay well for me to have an answer about where sparkle beak is i don't because you're actually the one that took sparkle beak i took him for a walk around the block and then i dropped him back off sparkle beak is not anywhere to be found your sisters remember you taking your sisters actually remember you taking him this morning and walking out the door with sparkle pink i think only you know the answer to that no i don't it would be nice to be able to at least let sierra and olivia know i don't know okay do you have a boyfriend my parents made us break up oh they did [Music] tell me about that they just didn't like him note that detective smith is skilled at asking very open-ended questions to entice ellen to speak open-ended questions encourage narratives that are rich in detail and allow investigators to collect further information and insight related to the case how did you meet him school okay and so you've been out of school for a bit but your parents didn't like him yeah how come they didn't like him i don't know well you must have had some kind of conversation about why your parents don't like your boyfriend they're just like we don't like this guy get rid of them so what did you do i ended it what was that boyfriend's name gavin justin huh what's his last name can't remember i wasn't dating for very long maybe two weeks you don't know your boyfriend of two weeks last name it's no we could find him in a yearbook though oh okay don't you think okay you didn't have any other boyfriend no every detail holds the potential to be significant the non-verbal indicator that follows is very subtle almost unnoticeable i've had a few like weak relationships that i don't really consider those to be real everything is noteworthy when it comes to body language analysis note that ellen displays asymmetrical eye blinking and has done so several times throughout the interrogation up to this point as part of a standard neurological examination practitioners document asymmetrical facial movement including eye blinking as well as out of the ordinary ocular movement blinking is controlled by the nervous system specifically through voluntary neural control in the autonomic nervous system this could be a sign of a neurological neuropsychological or psychological issue as well as medication or drug use overtiredness may also cause asymmetrical eye blinking and ellen has purportedly been awake for approximately 24 hours or more although overtiredness is a likely cause we must also note that ellen displays other abnormal eye movements at different points during the interrogation as well as significantly and consistently odd behavior we can only speculate what exactly this may be but we do know there is a strong possibility that each time ellen does this she is experiencing some form of abnormal brain activity tell me about the boyfriend you had that your dad thought was too old for you [Music] oh yeah that's another situation my dad's just flat out i don't like this guy you need to break up with them and of course i want my father's wishes for the person i'm seeing who was the guy that was too old for you so what was that circumstance though tell me about that my parents are very controlling yeah my dad is very abusive in what way verbally emotionally when i did something that he didn't like he would grab me right here and he pinned me against the wall now what would happen and then my little sisters would freak out and then he'd stop so what was being said or what was being done or what happened to lead up to him putting his hand on you i honestly don't know i'd like to know that myself well i don't have that answer because you were the one that was there well like i said he was drunk but he's done it sober as well but what words were being said like few it's very emotionally damaging hear your father tell you that and who all was there when that happened just me after school i thought you said your sisters were there ellen shared only moments ago that her sisters asked him to stop so who was home when you left my sisters and my dad okay here she explains that she was alone when it happened investigators may ask the same questions repeatedly to look for the slightest deviation in suspect's stories particularly to those who display high levels of resistance like ellen does among the handful of ellen's friends and acquaintances who spoke to the police and or accepted our invitation to interview to mention that ellen was not always honest and she came to school one day with a thing on her leg and said it was from her sister's pushing her but i don't know because ellie has kind of lied to me before which did hurt jillian mcfeeter shared the story of an event that occurred closely preceding aaron's murder with police mcfeeter stated she decided at that point that she could not forgive ellen for what she'd done she was telling her father that she was at my house when she was actually at her boyfriend's house so i got a call from ali that was very frantic saying i need you to cover for me so of course i'm thinking okay maybe something really bad is going on so her dad calls me and of course i cover for her and then he finds out so he ends up thinking that i was covering for her the entire time when i did not have a clue that she was lying this one time i thought maybe she's in a dangerous situation of course i'm gonna help her because she's my best friend and i trusted her and that was the wrong decision jillian ended her friendship with ellen after that night and explained to the investigator that she would never trust her ex-best friend again she knew ellen was going down a wrong path and she refused to follow here sitting opposite a trained investigator ellen does exactly what cost her jillian's friendship she lies sometimes i go we go over there by ourselves and we just want to get away from the other two having two younger sisters is stressful everything's an argument the following questions are generic about whereabouts the last time she saw her father and some of her locations over the past 24 hours smith is establishing a timeline and frame of reference to compare it to what she knows about ellen and the crime and what she will learn from russell's and gavin's interrogations so you were at the park on the other side of the street from dairy queen and blackbird and then you saw your friend and what were your friends doing just hanging out eating goof balls okay we know that elenin said friends were certainly not just hanging out being goofballs ellen does not appear to be attached to what she says seeming guiltless she also comes off as equally removed from impending consequences as an honors student with stellar grades ellen has demonstrated advanced cognitive ability she would need to possess assets like strong critical thinking skills working and long-term memory and at least an average or above iq to excel as she has if ellen is intellectually gifted we have less of an explanation for why she consistently tells lies that she cannot keep up with her approach to evasion and resistance is persistent but not logical let alone strong and it brings up a question as to whether ellen is in a normal healthy state of mind at the time of this interrogation a more sinister explanation ellen could be doing this intentionally manipulating the investigator and setting the scene for an insanity defense and then what was the conversation hey what are you doing nothing much what are you doing just walking around uh you want to hang out sure i wish i was walking and when do you think that was i'm not quite sure what kind of car does your dad drive grand something what color is it uh like goldish silver okay when's the last time you were in that car when he uh drove me to the store detective smith continues to ask questions surrounding details of the crime she has reasonable suspicion that ellen was in that car only hours ago with her dead father in the trunk and she's probing for behavioral discrepancies between answers ellen provides here and answers ellen provided earlier when responding to questions unrelated to the crime when's the last time you drove that car the last time i drove that car when i parked the car at walmart okay that was so today's monday and you said that was a couple days ago what time of day we had to get something for dinner so i'd say about six pm and who all went to walmart just me and my dad okay what'd you guys get me kind like what were you guys making oh i'm vegetarian so i don't really care by the way did you know sausages are actually the leftover pig guts and intestines and the heart and the liver pork chops they're used okay when's the last time you saw your dad yesterday i'm too tired to keep talking i'm really sorry you want to take a little break okay do you want some water or anything no thank you you just want to sit here for a few minutes i'd like a place to lay down and sleep okay will you just sit tight for a few minutes and we'll try to figure that out okay okay [Music] it may be difficult to imagine that this mild-mannered 15-year-old girl conspired to kill her father she has denied knowledge and culpability and claimed abuse she has likewise lied consistently throughout the interrogation many involved in this case seem to want an answer to a question they are hesitant to ask was ellen truly a victim of abuse or is she lying we spoke to multiple sources who questioned why ellen planned and encouraged the murder of her father when other options of escape from the alleged abuse were available to her they argued that she could have gone to the police her doctor the fire station or other local sources of support they asked why she'd not chosen to run away they admitted that they simply couldn't understand what had happened it's relevant to note that cases of patricide are extremely rare the circumstances of aaron's tragic murder were less than .002 percent likely to happen this innocent sweet sounding 15 year old girl is not a typical young teenager her actions were so unusual that even the fbi lacks the words to describe them ultimately though ellen didn't swing the baseball bat that killed her father gavin was kind of one of those kids that kind of everybody knew at least because he had kind of a very specific outward kind of image that i think he was trying to display you know very dark very kind of shady you know overall he really was relatively nice but just kind of a weird weird kid gavin was a normal guy he was really cool you know he's always outgoing he was an open person he was like he had friends but he wasn't like popular if that means it just makes sense that he would do something like that i mean he makes threats to kill people he obviously has the outward image of somebody who it seemed like he was playing an imitation game it's like the classic you know trench coat mafia at your school like it seemed like you wanted to be one of the columbine shooters many of those who knew gavin held mixed perceptions of him from multiple accounts he seemed to be as much of a friend as he was an enemy as normal as he was eccentric and as outgoing as he was reserved some said that they noticed him changing over the couple of years leading up to aaron's murder others said that he had always been the way he was regardless of whether pre-murder impressions of gavin were positive or negative most who responded to our request interview didn't believe that he could have done what he did he was never liked at me and no one would have ever guessed that he would have been a murderer you know in social environments he can be cool if you're just with him like he'll start saying that makes me think like oh he shouldn't say that don't say there's anybody else yeah i mean like keep that one gavin's behavior and responses to investigators framed within the context of what family and old friends and acquaintances have said serve as an opportunity for a unique insight into a crime that no one anticipated this interrogation occurred less than a day after gavin bludgeoned aaron to death but shortly after he sits he lightheartedly mechanically asks how's your morning been so far busy mark this heavy contrast is our first behavioral observation of gavin he displays no visible signs of remorse just as we observed in ellen gavin appears unfazed by the seriousness of his past actions and present situation whereas ellen initially presented as emotionally flat gavin teeters on the edge of jovial this is the start of what is known as the reed technique the first step in such technique is isolation which they've done for an extended period the second step deployed here is called maximization the reed technique recommends five minutes of isolation but gavin has been isolated for hours with the exception of an officer keeping a close watch on him following isolation and maximization the read method incorporates three primary categories fact analysis investigative interview and interrogation as part of the fact analysis step investigators gather the facts involved in the case and analyze them to search for motive potential to commit the crime and likelihood to commit the crime law enforcement will use both dependent and independent corroborating evidence in this stage during this stage investigators develop a full understanding of the crime scene and other relevant aspects of the crime all right so um we've been me and jim have been have spent about four hours with you probably know him as mike yeah wow and uh detective stephanie smith has spent about the same amount of time with ellie and i just want to throw some things at you so all i want you to do right now is just listen to me okay and let you know what's going on okay okay step one positive confrontation at this point the investigators have acquired enough evidence to reasonably suspect that gavin committed the crime as part of positive confrontation the primary investigator lays it all out on the table objectively stating the facts he does this in an intentionally soft soothing voice to appear non-threatening and to give gavin a false sense of security mike took us out to east antelope and pointed out the tarp and we've we have people out there right now recovering ellie's dad he's deceased ellie's dad was basically wrapped up in a a blanket and a tarp and taken out and dumped the investigator opts to use words that are non-accusatory while presenting the evidence he does not say you took his body and dumped it he says his body was taken out and dumped the latter is passive voice as opposed to active controlling suspects levels of resistance and defensiveness is critical to the success of an interrogation we don't know if this is something that's been planned out a long time ahead or if this was just like last night you guys decide to go over there and get ellie the hell out of a bad situation the investigator implements step two theme development here he frames the crime from a perspective that fulfills gavin's moral justifications this is the investigator's moral theme if gavin murdered aaron he did it to protect ellen this will occur and build as the interrogation progresses the investigators pre-planned this likely structuring it around information gleaned from other sources like gavin was only protecting ellie we will call the investigators theme development the hero theme this isn't a matter of when it happened where it happened who was involved it's more a matter of why this happened and what was going on through all of you guys's minds at the time we don't take sides in these kind of cases we're basically truth seekers we're here to seek the truth as to what happened and ellie has been 100 cooperative with us are you ellie no what's your name i have the right training and then how long have you known ellie ellie it's been almost a year now i'd say okay boyfriend girlfriend it's only about six months there's some information that ellie might be pregnant has she told you that okay gavin confirms that he was both dating and sleeping with ellen that is he confirms that he was both dating and sleeping with a minor it took a handful of seconds for this investigator to prompt gavin to admit to a statutory offense he would like hang around middle schools when he had turned 18 is when everybody likes found out that he was he was with like a 15 year old people were automatically like okay bro like that's not cool and a lot of people stopped talking to him and he wanted her at any any cost no one else could either because gavin shows little resistance and doesn't reject or deny the investigator's accusations the investigator can bypass steps three and four of the read interrogation technique handling denials and overcoming objections instead he jumps straight into step five of the read technique procurement and retention of suspects attention the investigator must guide gavin's attention away from the potential repercussions of the crime and back to the main theme he does this through minimization or through rationalizing that the crime was not that serious of an offense you guys are only what three four years apart a little over three yeah okay because of the investigators redirection here gavin is back in the the hero mindset from gavin's perspective investigators are only concerned about aaron's abuse of his daughter not his murder and gavin has exactly the information they need her dad's an alcoholic and he goes and like and he's and she said that he's beating her and locked her in the bathroom before and stuff has you ever told you that anything in regards to that was just recently that's what set me off so okay this is a turning point in just over 10 minutes gavin has fully bought into the hero theme the next steps are crucial to the success of the interrogation they almost have a full confession but sticking true to the read method the investigator immediately continues as though gavin merely commented on the state of the weather the hero approached to theme development was gavin's achilles heel his greatest weakness his crime was gruesome and ruthless but he seemed to desire to be a hero as much as he desired to be a villain among the dozens of friends and acquaintances we interviewed only one confirmed a possible explanation as to why this theme worked so well for investigators he was very protective of the people he cared about actually how we met i was i was bad-mouthing a couple people not realizing that uh he was connected to those people they had pissed me off and for whatever reason i just wanted to talk and he gave me a black eye although jacob laughed it off the example he gave supports the theory that gavin possesses a low anger threshold meaning he's anchor-prone some might argue that gavin's actions display extreme loyalty whereas others might protest that they served as outlets for his aggression when did she tell you about that and what did she tell you that was yesterday what's your understanding what he did to ellie he basically like lay next to her naked and start and then so you mentioned that that kind of set you off upset you obviously it would upset me too this is an empathy statement something that encourages reciprocity establishing reciprocity in this case emotional reciprocity in an interrogative setting is a form of persuasion if the investigator provides a small favor the suspect may feel a need to return it thereby lowering resistance the empathy statement also creates an opportunity for gavin to elaborate on what he meant when he said he lost it but the investigator quickly moves on once gavin responds linguistic analysis involves the interpretation of words and phrases in context so is a transitional expression the simple linguistic interpretation here is that gavin wants to move on from this topic of conversation the investigator intuits this and immediately resumes asking questions along the lines of the hero theme and then so what was the plan going over to ellie's last night was it to pick up her belongings and get her out of that situation up some stuff and get her out of there yeah okay aaron's hold he's helped me get a gun point before he's what he's starting my life and help me at gunpoint before aaron has over at his house and then there was one time he came over banging on my door because he was all mad i actually called you guys for that because i was like i didn't want to go out the door look out the window to see anything because i didn't know if he had a gun or not but how long ago was that that you called us i think it was on one thing though and then what was when was the situation where he pointed a gun at you where was that where did that happen how long ago was that gavin describes his interactions with aaron as being characterized by fear he claims that aaron threatened him more than once beyond gavin's reports of aaron's threatening behavior ellen claimed to him that aaron abused her the fear response is an evolutionary physiological survival mechanism that's triggered in reaction to perceived impending harm it's otherwise termed the fight-or-flight response which includes the following reactions fight flight freeze and fun we'll discuss the fight-or-flight response concerning gavin as the interrogations progress so i went over to his house one time this was where i knew that he didn't like me or whatever and like i came over and he's like what the hell are you doing here and then i'm like i was here to say hi to ellie she said that i want to come over she's and he's like no so i grabbed a gun and was like out of here i'm giving you 20 seconds did ellie witness that no i don't know what caused him to not like me anymore okay so he was really relaxed i mean he was of course being like a protective dad she said i'll walk out he's here hurt my daughter and i was like yeah i understand does he drink a lot so yes he's an alcoholic if aaron suffered from alcoholism ellen could have been in a considerably unstable environment children of individuals who struggle with alcoholism are more likely to develop mental illness moreover and in reference to ellen's claims greater consumption of alcohol relates to greater rates of inappropriate unwanted advances so you get this text you get this text yesterday last night and when you got over there what time of the morning do you think it is now that you guys arrive it was 2 30 in the morning 2 30 in the morning is when you guys get there okay gavin must be in his hero mindset believing that the investigators view his crime as morally justifiable once gavin is primed to be more receptive open and honest the primary investigator dives into information gathering note that the second investigator is present to ensure proper execution of step nine of the read interrogation technique converting an oral confession into a written confession a third party witnesses and writes down suspects confessions where is she at when you first see her she's poking her out the window being like come on in how does it out of her bedroom window okay and what do you what do you and rj do at that point at that point rj was like okay and then um um gas level um i go in the window rj waits outside he waits outside and then do the bags start getting passed out the window yeah how many bags do you think she has ready to go at that point when you get there gavin appears calm and collected unaffected by his present circumstances however as the investigator probes more deeply into the specifics of that night gavin crosses his arms tightly over his chest this is a self-pacifying behavior a self-hug meant to reduce stress and regulate emotions when we got there she had four packs she had a guitar the pellet rifle the pellet rifle yeah and then she had like a makeup kit and then another thing in it so now it's you and ellie in the bedroom and you mentioned that dad heard you did dad hear you guys in there or did well he got up and then ellie was like oh i'm squatting actually i could go to the bathroom or whatever because i mean i was i didn't want this guy to come and start beating the crap out of me so how'd the conversation go between ellie and her dad at that point when she's saying i got up and went go pee and he's like all right well stop scaring me with all the people trying to break in lately and i was like wait what because that was the first night we had gone we went over there last night but i mean we we didn't go for it because um her dad's girlfriend was there okay saturday night so you'd want to saturday night to try to get her out of there yeah i know i'm into your trouble aren't i well we need to figure out what happened and you know there's a lot of things in play here but so now you've been there about 20 minutes before ellie interacts with her dad his tone is even and his responses are level but when gavin removes his jacket we can reasonably assume that he is more stressed than he's letting on actions like tugging at a sure collar or removing clothing as gavin does here may be referred to as ventilating behaviors when circumstances are heating up humans may lean on these behaviors to cool down and i know this is going to be a little bit difficult to talk about gavin but you've got to be 100 honest and truthful with this what happens next so then ellie got out and they waited in the car and then ellie went to the car did she go out the window or the front door she went out the window okay as gavin answers he rubs his nose while nose touching under high stress circumstances does not necessarily indicate deception it does indicate heightened stress it appears that gavin's feelings of discomfort are building and when you said they waited in the car are you talking about rj and her i can tell you that the car is seen on video on a surveillance camera at a neighbor's house leaving at about 5 50 in the morning if you're getting into that into the bedroom at about 2 30 you're talking about three hours until you guys leave does that sound about right yes okay that entire three hour time uh what's what's going on inside the bedroom i mean what's the purpose of waiting so long to try to wait for him to fall asleep again so that we could get out okay and then he starts to wake up and i just acted on instinct and i i don't know what i was doing we know that gavin was aware of what he was doing but it appears that he displays little to no signs of discomfort or deception in this moment and then like i just kept hitting him until i until he stopped and i heard like gurgling and i was like what's going on i'm really sorry next gavin does something unexpected i know you are and i know this is difficult and that's what we're trying to were you let me ask you this gavin were you up to that because of everything that was that ellie had told you okay i i didn't want to kill him i didn't want to kill him right but why not at 4 30 when you know she has keys why not just everybody go out the window and leave ellie hates her parents she doesn't want to go back there again she wants she wanted him dead i didn't want to kill him and i was like i'm not going to kill him she was all like no i don't want him around me i don't want to rub my sisters anymore i mean so sorry i don't have a prison for murder aren't i well that's what we need to figure out here we need to figure out what your intent was and it's important to know try to protect so do you think that ellie could have influenced gavin absolutely absolutely i would never see my nephew acting in that behavior of brutally killing somebody from my point of view and everybody else you know my family we all agree that ellie was 100 100 it was not long before gavin admitted to his role in executing aaron's murder as opposed to ellen he put up little to no resistance immediately acknowledging that the events that morning had transgressed and that he had solely swung the bat that killed aaron russell would prove even less resistant uninhibitedly spilling nearly all details involved in the crime just as gavin stated he was doing russell insisted that he was protecting alan what we are about to observe is among the most bizarre behavior we have seen in an interrogation up to this point is that a camera right there that would rather not have a camera aimed at me yeah i don't know protect the board but i think they're required to so it's not finished wherever we go you know that even the police bathroom i feel like it probably yeah yeah you have a seat man sit down [Music] russell tries to show dominance and control by stating he doesn't want to be recorded and then after the officer tells him he can sit down he replies you can sit down this immediately shows he's trying to display his lack of fear of authority of the three who participated in the crime earlier that morning russell appears to be the least impacted while gavin's behavior evolved from casually polite to distraught and ellen's from flat to angry russells is steadily lighthearted and upbeat his conduct is eccentric driven by a variety of psychological factors that will break down as his interrogation progresses my mom kind of took him under her wing trying to help him he mentioned that he's autistic and so he has trouble finding work and it wasn't too long before that that my youngest son was diagnosed with autism so that was our kind of like our instant connection he did a lot of family things with us he spent easter with us he's gone to dinners with us so we're pretty close i mean he calls me his sister he calls my mom really yeah it's kind of a nice place yeah it's probably something so that people uh well people can get loud and hold themselves because sometimes we bring like drunks here from driving drunks are the worst yeah not a big fan of them like i protect people like i said russell persistently claims that he owns a protection business he unshakingly asserts this and the police don't at any point question it when individuals are convinced of something untrue despite all evidence indicating otherwise for an extended period they're said to hold a delusion oftentimes delusions are bizarre meaning they're highly improbable or not set in reality eg an individual consistently believes that the neighbor reads minds other times delusions are non-bizarre involving beliefs that are within the realm of possibility eg consistently believing one is being followed russell's protection business could be a delusion while outside of the norm it could nonetheless be true qualifying as non-bizarre we would require additional information such as input from friends and those russell claims to protect to determine this but um i try not to resort to violence good i always try and talk to the person yeah her father is a drunk compared to what she's told me and i want to talk to him over the phone probably once or twice he seemed really not that good of a father really yeah he uh her father yeah who is her father's name you know i all i know him i know is aaron that's all i know of course then again i know like aaron martinez aaron her father but i don't know his last name uh and i know aaron novi so okay russell starts rambling and the investigator allows him to do this this is a strategy to keep the accused talking so they feel comfortable and the more comfortable a person feels the more likely they are to say something incriminating this is also a way for the officer to build trust i met him when i was living in medford working at a place called the purple parrot he was trying to find a job so he could find a place to live because he was homeless he was very sweet very clean cut you know very nice he's just a savior that's all he wanted to do was help people you know all his life he was let down he went from foster home to foster room foster home so i would let him come in to get warm and then one day he didn't even have a coat and it was like three degrees and i go where are you going and he said well i'm just gonna walk around until mcdonald's open and i'm like no no you're gonna come home with me so you'll be warm you know i felt like you know enough was enough you know this poor kid needs some help and no one's gonna help him i think it was like a good two years that he was in our lives mostly in my mom's life like she he really did become like a son to her anytime he was looking for help or or willing to take help she would help him russell stated previously that he's diagnosed with autism as a neurodiverse individual russell likely struggles with certain aspects of communication although he largely displays well-developed social skills he exhibits circumstantial speech here the various individuals named aaron are not directly related to the conversation at hand we'll continue to observe examples that support this diagnosis as well as others throughout the interrogation yeah i know i don't think i've ever met her father before yeah i don't think i've met her before you don't want to i've never met you and i don't think i've met him yeah but he got a hunting rifle yeah it's a nice one i've never seen it oh okay i've never imagined we had one uh she told me because uh no one likes to drink a lot okay so and the other night the reason why i was helping her was because he went into her room and laid next to her really did she tell you that yeah and that's why i got her out yeah we went down to uh the park we met up there i told her just like leave everything yeah and just like get the hell out there grab like backward close um union he says union is a question with his voice trailing upward these are both indications that he may be lying he hasn't said um prior to this so it's not a normal pattern of his speech and answering a question with the inflection of a question shows uncertainty in your answer either because you're lying or aren't confident in the response being correct but i've always been kind of a protector of people so this isn't the first time russell has claimed to be a protector of people he looks out for people and i think that he takes it a little too far one of my family members drank a lot and he wanted to go over and beat him up because he was emotionally abusive to me i really disagree on what he did but i think that he had the right intentions he would always give you a jacket off his back i mean he did it in the worst way but he just cares and he also had this grand idea of creating a community for homeless people or just young people that need help that don't have help so it's like he was always trying to go out and resource that like trying to build that up he still does he still talks about that people looked at him like a protector and he really liked that he made him feel valued gave him a sense of purpose because that was another problem he didn't really have a sense of purpose he was just kind of left in the wind unless people piss me off and they become the uh not really target in a bad state yeah just like target as in like someone that needs a firm talking to okay or slap across the face depending on how should we pay for that have you been made yet or not financially no because i can't legally work with the ssi yeah because i can only work under the table jobs and those don't how much society do you get uh 735 plus a 22.00 yeah russell begins giving the officer details of his family and personal life which is a good indication he's developed trust with him the investigators entered the room and the officer asked one of them to step out [Music] likely to brief him on what they discuss that is relevant to the case to see if he is consistent and possibly to also let him know a little about his personality so the investigator knows the best approach and techniques to deploy and getting what he needs from the interrogation before we get too wrapped up in this thing i just got here to work yeah so i kind of want to explain why we're here today for you and just i don't even know why i'm here okay i'm gonna have you just sit and listen to what the story is okay yeah i have nothing to hide so okay good you were very cooperative with this on that last deal except for um when the car like drove up onto the sidewalk i was like a little bit struggled yeah surprised right not too surprised in my line of work and then they told me to get on the ground and i was trying to go on the ground okay and they actually like helped me onto the ground like they told me get on the ground so i'm trying to get on the ground you don't have to push my ass seriously seriously i can do it on my own take a moment to place yourself in russell's shoes this is more than likely not something someone would say to a member of law enforcement in this situation it's not tactical let alone remotely helpful he does this countless times and it becomes increasingly clear that there are some other disturbing factors at play surrounding his involvement in the crime but you seem like a nice guy the guy that i was talking to seemed like a nice guy so no sprite perfect is that good yeah okay perfect now all i need is a cigarette and i'll be happy but it's that weekend though do you want to get a smoke sure do you have any smoke i got some in my desk are we up to smoking yeah we can go outside and smoke oh wow so outside of a cigar real quick sure all right let's go yeah because i smoke uh i talk better when i have a cigarette okay right now i'm like stressed out and i don't know the investigators give russell a drink and allow him to go out and have a cigarette both things are done to further put him at ease and to gain favor with him sometimes it's used as a carrot to get someone to confess and they will tell the person that they can smoke after they tell them what happened etc people being interrogated are sometimes not yet under arrest so they can leave if they want to and they certainly cannot be forced to speak the police try to make them feel less inclined to want to leave by giving them food and drinks and cigarette breaks and so as not to violate any due process rights russell proceeds to tell investigators everything they need to know you can sit in that chair over there and bring your as has been the case with russell so far we have few words to explain what exactly it is that happens next [Music] over the next few minutes russell continues to narrate his experience eating mcdonald's french fries but he also behaves in ways which we really don't know how to describe [Music] hmm part of the read interrogation technique discussed earlier involves isolation or letting suspects sit on their own without much stimulation or social interaction the goal is to increase suspects feelings of panic or wanting to escape it seems that russell responds differently to attempts at isolation than most others between his dramatic displays of odd behavior he begins to leak disturbing information critical to the case we begin to receive small doses of the terrifying truth it was really self-defense so much as it was deepening her you're listening and on my conversations aren't you camera off yeah i don't care if you're better not i can still twist your little mind don't piss me off nothing appears to register for russell in terms of the gravity of his situation he's unashamedly confrontational with law enforcement when they're out of sight he holds delusions of grandeur specifically related to power these types of delusions often form when individuals have been an abusive situations in which they were powerless and i think that's really why he went to go help well what he thought was helping these people that he got wrapped up in i mean literally for his 21st birthday he had never had a party i made him a cake we had a little party at my daughter's house he ran around with the kids so even though he's 21 he was playing with ten-year-olds you know and having a great time and let him to be a little kid because he told me he never got to be a little kid for kids that are high functioning they're you know very giving loving they just want acceptance the cops were nice maybe i should talk to him more often because russell continues to talk and is making useful and incriminating statements the investigator will likely let him sit in the room alone talking for as long as he continues to do so russell had numerous encounters with law enforcement leading up to this moment there are several charges on his record preceding this crime including sodomy and abuse in the third degree i wonder if i can be an undercover agent there's evidently no one in the room with russell so he's either vocalizing and imagine dialogue or hearing someone who's not there if the latter is true this could be an auditory hallucination meaning that russell is hearing something non-existent this coupled with his delusions would strongly indicate that he is in a state of psychosis individuals commonly reference the word psychotic when they see others acting in an aggressive unusual unstable or other abnormal manner but the technical definition involves issues with reality testing distinguishing between what is objectively real and what is objectively not real behavioral manifestations may include delusions or hallucinations and we know that at a minimum russell experiences delusions we'll later see that russell previously commented that he suffers from bipolar disorder bipolar disorder creates abnormal swings from neutral mood states to periods of abnormally high energy and or irritability or mania to periods of abnormally low energy and or sadness or depression this mental illness affecting nearly 2.6 percent of the united states population is the country's sixth leading cause of disability and it tracks that russell is on that list up to this point we've witnessed particularly strange behavior but none so strange is what follows you do know i know you're listening right so listen here ellie fryer is my client my protect e i would like to see her asking being polite i know you're looking directly at me aren't you the information i gave is not worth six bucks it's worth a lot uh more russell behaves as though he's a super villain he's so removed from the reality of the situation that it may prove difficult to imagine the events that occurred earlier that day when he accidentally turns off the recording device he seems surprised that he can do so and begins playing with it the gravity of the situation he's in is clouded but we don't yet know by what he's visibly happy with this new sense of control he feels by being able to turn the recording device on and off red means you can't hear me green you can gavin and ellie are to be released to me because the assault her father did the morning of the incident defending a female now here's the thing i know the cops twisted little pathetic rule game and actually sometimes i like to think that i invented the rule book i'm not exactly bragging but uh i use reverse psychology which makes me be able to russell steeples his hands which is a gesture to indicate superiority over those you're speaking to make you think it's not gavin but in fact your own kid by reverse psychology making you look like the lunatic we can play it the easy way or the hard way i'm talking nice he got two choices one put a bullet through my head or two for all the evidence that i gave you guys right there on a silver platter right there down to the last detail not one thing missing a whole list step by step by step even a third grader could read how easy that was for one ellie is still technically a minor russell is speaking to the officers in a condescending tone and looking at a non-existent watch he's under the delusion that because he has confessed every detail of the crime step by step they owe him something now you want play hardball i played baseball when i was younger i wouldn't go there and i know everything that i'm saying is being recorded and i'm doing it on purpose i can easily turn the speaker off and rant and then you guys will come in thinking i'm a loony because you don't hear me here's the thing i'm not the one with the donut fetish give a cop a doughnut and he'll want a coffee to go with it give a mouse a cookie and he'll want a glass of milk give a moussa muffin and he'll want something else but here's my favorite one what is it when a cop car is towed by a tow truck when the officers don't respond to his threats russell begins making police jokes and using police stereotypes he continues on his narcissistic rant and delusions of having control and dominance in this situation so we can either tell pig jokes all day or we can have a little chat i'm very uh good at convincing people and i don't even use hit no speak i think i just might yeah again russell speaks to someone who is not there this is either a hallucination or vocalized internal dialogue so ellie is to be handed over to me as soon as you guys can get her here two gavin is released so that when ellie's kid is born it can have a father ellen had faked a pregnancy and there was talk that she used this as a tool to motivate gavin and russell to kill aaron when she first got locked up she told you she was pregnant i've known for about two weeks now two weeks i told you okay did you tell ellie you don't want to kill him i told her like i don't want to do this i told her that that like i didn't i didn't want to kill it so when these kind of things happen guys there's usually something that clicks and you make a decision on what you're going to do the investigator starts establishing premeditation which is required for a first degree murder charge how long before you hit dad with the bath is that conversation come up he's been talking about it for a long time i i tried to be civil with aaron and stuff i was like should i offer to go and have a cup of coffee and discuss why he has beef with me so going back to you guys getting there around 2 30 in the morning is it possible you got there early earlier than 2 30. i mean we were union at like about 1 30 and did you guys have to wait around for a little while we did ellie was like just wait till he falls asleep and come in and where did you grab the bathroom where did you grab the bath from before you walked into the front room no i wanted to keep the bat for myself okay ironically the bat that gavin wanted to keep for himself the bat that gavin used to beat aaron to death was the bat that aaron had on hand for protection at best gavin used the murder weapon that was most convenient at worst gavin took pleasure in this irony claiming an ultimate power by using aaron's sense of safety and security is a weapon against him and walking out the door with it perhaps gavin desired the bat for himself as a trophy so now you're walking from ellie's room with the bat and the plan for you is to walk out the front door that's what i was i wasn't i mean ellie wanted me to kill him but i didn't want to i was planning on just walking straight out the front door did you play along with ellie and say okay i'll kill him he did but then he woke up did you tell ellie how you were going to kill him did she ever mention hey use the bat well she said that if you if i wanted to i could and i was like it's not that hard to punch someone in the throat here gavin displays an out-of-place boastful sense of pride over holding violence-related knowledge this is a strong indicator of aggressive tendencies family and numerous friends and acquaintances confirmed that gavin held a violent streak another of gavin's close old friends shared the following we used to get together and like play football or different things like that with a bunch of guys we knew and a couple different times he ended up punching somebody broken his nose at one point and then a couple other times yeah sort of unprovoked kind of fight somebody at our youth group it was more of just a one or two thing and then he would walk away it's not like he was trying to kill somebody at that time obviously an additional past friend described that gavin displayed unusually aggressive behavior a week preceding the murder yeah yeah so last time i had seen him we were just hanging out like smoked a little bit he wanted to like wrestle me like he's like i know he's like i'm a black belt like we should fight he's never really wanted to fight so i didn't know if maybe he was like trying to get prepared for you know like this obviously he's like after thoughts like that's weird you know like he wasn't very good at it i don't think he was really a black though it was just like what kaiden who had attended south medford high school with gavin explained that everyone in the school knew that he was scary and seemed dangerous when he shared his friend's experience he threatened one of my best friends where he had actually sent like a picture of a revolver to him making the threat that he was going to you know harm him and then when they took it to the school the school didn't do anything about it we've watched gavin cry and state repeatedly that he did not want to kill aaron we've also heard friends and family share stories depicting that he was quick to rage often searching for an outlet for his aggression whether it existed in tackle football playful wrestling or defending his friends it leads us to a question of whether aaron was another one of gavin's outlets so she hands you the bat in the bedroom and tells you to go take that out okay what were her exact words she said go out in the front room take him out and text me let me know when it's done and to me i was like okay so i guess she wants me to kill him but i don't want to kill him so you kick the bin and the dog barks where's the dog at sleeping on the couch with him how do you know the dog was on the couch with him like his eye was like when we were in the house like i heard like one of the reasons he's used the word like periodically throughout the interrogation but here gavin uses it almost back to back this is a notable deviation from baseline and a strong indicator of general stress most likely nervousness in the context of the topic before leaving because we heard him say sadie move and i was like oh okay because like he's probably disturbed a little bit is it possible gavin that you hit him while he was asleep i don't think so no is it possible though it's possible he might still been asleep this eliminates any possible self-defense theory his lawyers might have wanted to use a trial what makes you think that he woke up he was like what the [ __ ] who were you but is that after you hit him once or before that was before earlier in the interrogation gavin had clearly described that aaron woke up and in turn gavin acted on instinct he is beginning to contradict himself but it's not long before we hear the full truth is it possible that he might not have said that and you just hit him while he was asleep on the couch i don't remember are you 100 sure he said who's that or could you just be telling me that thinking that trying to minimize this making it look a little better because i just hit him while he was asleep okay so let's if you're going to tell the truth let's tell the truth all the way okay was he awake when you hit him yes or no no okay i mean i i wasn't wanting to kill him but then the dog started barking and i i knew where i was i just i just snapped because i didn't want to deal with him it was after like the the second swing he was like what the [ __ ] and then was he ever able to get up off the couch or did you know and be honest with us don't try to minimize things how many times do you think you hit him i think i hit him about six times six times five or six times and were all those hits where did you swing and hit him like his chest in his head okay ultimately did he stop talking stop moving okay when did you turn the light on like i i stood there for for a little bit i i don't know it seemed like hours and i was just like what did i just do okay like one time we were at my mom's house i told him to come inside he wouldn't listen to me so he's been outside and oh my gosh i know this might be tough gavin but it's important to know you stand right there for me right there stand up for me and tell me that first time you swung the bat tell me exactly how you swung the bat the first time the investigator gets gavin to reenact the actual murder which helps both verify the confession and to show his actions match the evidence this makes a false confession claim harder to get around just like it's like right here okay his head's right here i'm standing right here a little bit at an angle i went over the shoulder the first time and then i started going up above my head and you the first time you swung it it was over the shoulder and all the rest of the times you hit him did you come up over the top yeah you work at del taco right did you take some gloves from work yeah okay are they light blue gloves latex gloves and where did you put those on before you went out in the front room i had those on the entire time because i i didn't want to i mean i was really just playing going in and out and trying to leave this like like no fingerprints or anything so and these are the clothes that you were wearing the this that you have on where the where the clothes i went home and i washed them okay are they in the washer yeah is that over in almond no that was over at bobby's and and i have a note here but who's bobby bobby jackson's my best friend and i'm his best friend been that way since like sixth grade and gavin kind of ended up joining us in that kyle shared that he bobby and gavin were close but no one else who we interviewed mentioned that this trio existed gavin embodied multiple personas he didn't belong to any one group and those he regularly spent time with seemed unaware of others he regularly spent time with interestingly kyle and bobby in one location and jacob in another claimed that gavin was living with them at the time of the murder we were close she was actually living with me and another guy and his mother when this all happened gavin's friend christopher snow had also reported that gavin was his roommate at the time christopher spoke to the press the day after the murder explaining he was shocked disbelieving that gavin and ellen were at odds with her father the person who disagreed most with their relationship according to christopher was ellen's mother does anybody know that you did this besides you and ellie and rj did you tell anybody else no gavin may not have told anyone that he followed through with aaron's murder but he certainly talked about wanting to kill him no one we or the police spoke with commented that they'd suspect that he would go through with it but many commented that he'd spoken of it in fact one individual commented that gavin regularly told others that he could get away with killing someone example would be he would say something along the lines of i'd be able to get away with killing and be easy i know all these things i watch all these documentaries like it was just something normal to say everything in his life seemed like he was a game to him interestingly gavin displays a non-verbal behaviors which indicate feelings of insecurity and discomfort for example he hunches his shoulders and crosses his arms tightly over his chest making himself smaller and more contained essentially an upright adapted version of the fetal position before you leave the house are you being a hundred percent honest with me that ellie was out in the car because without a bit confused because when did she come back and get the dog she came back in after her after i had her dad note that gavin commented hit her dad not kilder dad this is distancing language or language that places psychological space between the topic under discussion and the speaker either gavin doesn't register the murder or he cannot stand the thought that he killed someone why do you think he hit him to me in my eyes i felt like he was an enemy like he was out to hurt me so what do you think happens when you hit somebody in a head with an aluminum bat and there's a lot of brain damage do you think it could cause somebody to die yeah this is to establish another element of first-degree murder is that it must be committed with some sort of intent to kill the person the murderer must therefore have attacked or harmed their victim with the purpose of ending their life did you do anything to try to give him any kind of aid and how does ellie get in the house she just comes in through the front door hold on when she comes through the front door what does she see she sees her dad laying on the couch what did she say well she didn't say anything you should shock her was she upset not really no did you tell her what you did no was it obvious it was obvious yeah okay this is to show that ellen knew this was going to happen and that she was a co-conspirator so she can't later deny knowing gavin was planning to kill him when ellie comes in is he making gurgling noises or is he stopped making those noises gavin's body language is an extreme show of emotional distress more genuine than the adapted version we witnessed previously he is sitting in an upright fetal position holding his knees to his chest this is blatantly self-pacifying indicating gavin is far more affected by this than his vocal tone and straightforwardness suggest so she comes in gets the dog does she go outside or does she stay in the house with the dog she just goes outside rj and i we opened the trunk and then we put him in there so tell me about let's back it up and walk through that slowly i'm sorry individuals compress their lips under periods of great distress gavin's lips have disappeared and rj came in to the front door and rj saw what did rj say to you he was like oh god that's gross and then i was like okay you grab him you grab his feet and then we'll get him out to the trunk and then we kind of drug it through the yard and then we just like lift them up into the trunk so so um you're in the house do you guys go back into the house after this is to establish a possible burglary charge it also shows the callousness and lack of remorse after the fact for the crime remember getting any money in the house oh yeah she went and took some money from her dad's wallet yeah how much cash did she get she said it was like 40 dollars from his wallet yeah so he obviously didn't have his wallet on yeah ellen can argue that she planned this to protect her sisters and she can argue that he abused her but few words if any explain why she would possess any moral justification to steal from her recently murdered father what was he wearing on the couch when you turn the light on he was wearing a black raider shirt a pair of black shorts okay when did she first bring up that she wanted her dad dead like after he slapped her how long ago how long ago was that like this was a week before she texted me this shows that this specific incident of abuse was not the motive for the murder at least not for ellen a prosecutor might submit to a jury that the likely actual motive for the killing of her father was him not letting his minor daughter and gavin date okay and then once as that conversation developed did you ever come to uh what are we gonna do with him afterwards i mean rj was like trying to tell me i have a friend we can go up leave the car there he can tear the car apart that way there's no car left i'm very uh good at convincing people so when you go to bobby's house bobby's um i i stopped by i just uh like swapped clothes and i left again no one was awake so and then you end up over on almond street okay investigators later learned that gavin had led them astray hoping they would stop by bobby's house so his friends would know that something had happened and run through us with what you were wearing at the time that you hit him with the bat i was i was wearing my gray hoodie i got that one it was a great pullover hoodie it was it wasn't this one though like all my hoodies what was on under the gray hoodie and then i had on uh it was my batman t-shirt i think okay and that i think i actually looked at the house but i don't think there was any blood or anything on that and what pants were you wearing well i'm still wearing the same pants i didn't change my pants i changed my jacket so you were wearing those pants yeah and what shoes were you wanting i was one of my boots the ones you have on now yeah or the ones i don't think there were no they took them off yeah okay what do you do when you get to the location where you guys dump erin we kind of sit there and we're like ah nature it was kind it was peaceful and it was relaxing gavin discusses how it was peaceful and relaxing looking at the woods and lake while sitting in the car with aaron's dead body in the trunk this shows a serious lack of remorse when you get there though what do you guys do oh i'm sorry um so we kind of sat and we we kind of enjoyed the field because it was nice out gavin goes off on a tangent displaying a symptom characteristic to his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis lack of focus and then what happened and then we're like okay let's get this done before anyone drives by or anything how did you get him out of the trunk by himself or with the blanket i kind of just went up and grabbed him by the underneath the shoulders and lifted them so and then rj kind of like picked up his legs it was the blanket pillow and all and then we just like let it roll and it kind of wrapped itself up so when it was wrong down the hill guitar prepped itself up around him i i kind of i kind of tried to wrap it him up a little bit like cover up his feet the investigators keep a cool head while gavin describes throwing aaron's body off the embankment along with some trash is there still any blood in the trunk i don't know i think there's still some on the outside because he was just kind of leaking everywhere okay and then where do you guys go from there and then we're like okay which way to walmart we and that's when we went to walmart where does rj stay he's he just stays outside and smokes and where'd he get those cigarettes those were her dads remember what kind of cigarettes they were they were camel 99s okay ultimately you and ellie go in you buy some junk food did she buy a pregnancy test yeah can you guys come out of walmart and we were going to ssi like ellie and i went upstairs because she had to use the restroom and she also was gonna and she was gonna check out the hair dye so i gave the hair dye she went to the bathroom she came back out was like this is the wrong stuff when you go to turn it we went back to walmart and we got the refund of 977 with the refund and then we go back out picky about makeup and hair dye sneaking out of a bedroom window to see a forbidden older boyfriend and conspiracy to commit petricide one of these things is not like the other one of these things just doesn't belong you need something bathroom water or something like that can you get some water please yeah you want a soda or anything no you can't have mountain we'll be right back gavin is offered a drink and he states how nice the police are being to him showing that the read tactic they have employed has worked well and they're seen as allies to him it proves difficult to determine whether gavin is experiencing true remorse over what he's done or regret over the repercussions or both whatever the case gavin's emotionality indicates that he didn't go about this entirely in control and intelligently up to this point we can reasonably speculate that gavin displays aggressive tendencies violent behavior and impulsivity there's more to this story but we'll cover that later gavin had displayed concerning behavior throughout childhood into adulthood so much so that he was considered a possible threat to others at south medford high school people talk about schools having like a list of kids who are potential threats i'd say he was like the poster child for that person at our school it was it was like an understood thing you know about gavin that's kind of the person that he was kind of a scary person not someone you would uh think to mess with yeah it's just kind of gave me like an off vibe sometimes you know everyone jokes around like okay if we had a school shooter it'd probably be him anything concerning with gavin yes we did a threat assessment a threat to others assessment i can't remember when he grabbed a student's and was inappropriate on a few occasions we also i believe did a risk to self-assessment on him at least once like that he'd said he was going to kill himself yeah something split in his head man something he cracked like i said it's like she did help kill her dad but like i swear to god she was crazy and when i heard you know she's some crazy i don't think she would have killed her dad all right i'm doing it you're barely awake you are i'll tell ya if i was at a police department i would be wide awake detective smith is consistently direct with ellen she implies here that ellen should be more alert despite ellen being sleep deprived because of the circumstances this seems rather counter-intuitive considering that ellen is already displaying high levels of resistance which interrogators typically counter with empathy and kindness we talk to everybody that is involved and then okay okay i've been under the weather lately oh goodness okay ellen makes poor attempts at eliciting sympathy in whatever way she can throughout the interrogation but the investigator pays a little mind often implying that ellen is for lack of a better word dramatic this is markedly histrionic behavior histrionic essentially means melodramatic in the mental health world histrionic behavior is heavily and unsurprisingly present in histrionic personality disorder it can be a symptom of a variety of other disorders as well but generally refers to maladaptive attention-seeking and exaggerated behavior and then we talk and try to like hammer out and figure out what who's saying what what's going on and try to really get the real story from everybody okay do you is it okay if i keep talking to you kind of about what we've learned okay and then if you feel like letting me know stuff you can do that does that sound fair yes okay so this morning when the police were called to your house it was because your sisters actually saw you and gavin and somebody else and there are a couple other people in there leaving then they saw a lot of blood in the house okay so then what they did was call michelle you know michelle no i don't know michelle i'm pretty sure that's her name your dad's girlfriend who was over at the house last night oh mickey mickey thank you her name is mickey okay thanks for helping me out they called mickey and then ran to your mom's house and so everybody is really concerned and worried about you um and your dad because we actually don't know where your dad is right now that's really frustrating that's really it's really disturbing to hear i agree consistent with previous displays this behavior is more than awkward it's uncomfortable what some might call cringy to watch we can tell she's attempting to muster up and replicate something resembling shock panic or concern but she falls considerably short of the mark non-verbal experts might determine she is being disingenuous from reading her robotic arm movements chiral facial expression or incongruent verbal and nonverbal communication even her word choice comes off as suspicious imagine being detained sitting across the table from an investigator in an interrogation room and learning that your father is missing and there is blood everywhere in your living room would your response be a robotic that is very disturbing to hear this is more so an explanation of an emotion not an expression which is why we easily sense that something is off the investigator directly challenges allen with step one of the read interrogation technique discussed earlier positive confrontation she lays all the evidence law enforcement has indicating ellen's involvement up to this point we also can tell from this moment and from points earlier in the interrogation that detective smith is attempting to set up a theme that involves ellen's sisters similar to gavin's moral justification for committing the crime ellen's might be that she was trying to protect her two younger sisters i absolutely agree and your sisters are a little bit disturbed by that as well they you know because they they're scared that they saw you leaving they're scared there's a blood in your house and they're scared that nobody knows where your dad is so they're awfully little to have those kinds of worries maybe he was looking for me so where did all the blood come from in your house i don't know okay mickey knows that you were there sierra was there olivia was there your dad was there so it would be nice if we could get some of this figured out like i said detective smith makes a skillful confrontation about figuring out what's going on without making a direct contradiction to ellen who begins to gesture and move without purpose for instance she momentarily glances at her nails here these meaningless gestures and movements grow to be progressively more pronounced meaningless movement otherwise known as fidgeting is a widely known nonverbal indicator of nervousness pay attention to the topic of conversation during times when ellen fidgets the most so you know somebody else was talking to gavin somebody else was talking to mike oh a little alley there that's it okay so it would be nice if we could get on the same page now okay excuse me what's your name stephanie stephanie i'm barely awake right now and i barely have any recollection of what happened yesterday or within the 24 hours do you need coffee i hate coffee okay i try to stay away from caffeine and other chemicals and you don't eat meat is there anything we can get you like from a fast food restaurant that would no thank you okay in all honesty i don't feel like i deserve that you don't deserve food why finally ellen expresses something resembling guilt at least that is what it seemed like before she said i don't feel like i deserve any of my basic human rights oh especially when it comes to my father okay help me understand that they've shamed me for the way that i eat for years okay like in what way just shaving me where you don't eat meat do they comment about that my dad ridicules me for that okay well that doesn't have anything to do with you being hungry and us wanting to go out and grab you something if you want something no thank you okay but thank you for the offer well you bet yeah some may feel bad for ellen but keep in mind what she was recently part of it could be that her father ridiculing her over food was only one piece to the puzzle that set her off but fixating on this detail in this moment going so far as to share it with detective smith indicates egocentrism which involves interpreting life as though it exclusively revolves around the self and maladaptive self-pity there could be a persecution complex here if ellen holds a persecution complex she possesses a persistent belief that others have mal intent to ward her it's hard to determine whether there's mental illness involved at this point she could be playing the sympathy card tell me about gavin being at the house this morning he was walking with me everywhere so if we weren't there then he was there okay and what were you guys doing there probably i don't know i miss i don't sleep again i am absolutely not trying to sound rude but some some things i just kind of have to lay out okay i understand are you are you an ap student yes you take ap classes taking ap classes you've got to work really hard in those classes and i know that okay so i know there were times you were really super tired and you were still studying so for you to sit here and tell me how tired you are and you can't remember i feel like maybe that's just an excuse because you don't want to talk about something that's super hard to talk about detective smith is narrowing the ability for ellen to be evasive we are all trying to piece together what happened because we're very worried about your dad and i get that it doesn't sound like to you he was the best dad of course i'm going to be worried about him he might have abused me for most of my life but he's still my father ellen uses every opportunity to sneak in a comment about how her father was abusive again we re-arrive at the idea that ellen is not fully aware or functional during this interrogation only because she is so poorly lying and concealing her negative feelings toward her father which would as ellen might logically reason add to motive she's reportedly intellectually gifted it raises a question as to whether ellen is attempting to pull off shock or whether she's a 15 year old struggling to comprehend how to get out of a bad situation so one of the things that has also happened is south budford high school has a school resource officer and apparently you're still a student there and you had like a band thing this weekend and your dad came and picked you up from the school at like three in the morning ellen coughs nearly every time she takes a drink and looks up to detective smith to see her reaction this is histrionic dramatic and pity-seeking behavior but it also occurs each time the conversation becomes more heated note that detective smith is quite direct in her confrontation in this moment are you gonna choke on your water it worries me my throat's burning right now okay well you're welcome to drink the water but if it's gonna hurt maybe give it a little break does that sound okay anyway have you met officer jackson he's a school resource officer at south no okay they haven't so officer jackson says you are a current student there why would officer jackson say that i mean because you're a current student there and you're kind of pulling my leg a little bit and that you're in band i do know about a lot of underage people having marijuana though okay well that's probably a dime a dozen these days ellen makes an additional attempt to divert attention away from her wrongdoing onto someone else's wrongdoing this is otherwise known as deflection and it's ellen's favorite type of defense mechanism i've had temporary amnesia in the past there was a couple of instances where i have passed out and lost my vision and my memory okay and it was when i had a throat stone do you have a throat stone right now no oh a while ago okay so when you have this temporary amnesia who takes you to the doctor i don't really talk to anybody or reach out you would certainly tell your mom or your dad if you have temporary amnesia i don't i feel like i can't really go to them for anything feel like i'm a bother where's your dad i don't know if you needed to get a hold of your dad right this second what would you do no call a cell phone what's his career or what does he know how to do sometimes he does like yard work or something what was the last job he did like i said a roofing job or something or the working job you said for a neighbor yeah okay did he get paid for that i believe so how much money did he get for that i don't know stephanie okay okay you know i'm just trying to figure out what happened that's all i'm trying to piece together everything right now well so far you've told me you're 18 and your name is rain and i'm here to tell you you're 15 and your name is ellie okay maybe you go by rain do you go by rain yes okay rain and rose so your friend would know you as that like russell goes by mike okay note that while ellen has allowed detective smith to state that her name is ellie and she's 15 ellen has not accepted blame or outright acknowledged that she was lying ellen's lie surrounding her identity could indicate that dissociation is present ellen would be in a state of dissociation in this moment if she's protecting herself by psychologically separating herself from something in this case her identity separating oneself from one's identity is a form of dissociation termed depersonalization for example she wants to be someone else who did not conspire to kill her father and potentially go through traumatic abuse rose they call me rose i'm so out of it right now i haven't taken any drugs okay you can test me for anything you'd like okay rumor was that ellen began to dabble with thc and nicotine once she reached high school following the occurrence of a specific taboo incident literally her and some kid like did it on the bus got like in trouble for it after that she like started like smoking and like doing bad things based on accounts of others evidence is mounting that ellen's problem behavior emerged around 14 or 15. 50 of all mental illnesses begin by the age of 14. i've told you sierra saw you at the house with gavin this morning olivia saw you at the house this morning with gavin and a couple other people um sparkle beak is somewhere i don't know that you took sparkle beak this morning from your sister so i mean that's just like what i'm coming up with off the top of my head as things that i have told you that would should be perking you up and waking you up and like oh my goodness i'm sitting at the police department i've just heard all of these facts i've talked to a lot of people about difficult stuff and the things you're doing right now are not unusual for people to do when they don't want to talk about something or it's hard for them to talk about something okay i don't i don't want you this is flynn oh it's phlegm okay i don't want to take your water away because if you want it you need it but you also keep worrying me about every time you drink it it's all back in my throat now okay you're good then okay all right what was gavin doing at your house walking around okay doing what though walking around so what was gavin doing in there then if he was there then i and my dad let him in i wouldn't leave a lot of men without talking to my dad well you were there too because you were packing up yeah we need to get past the this tough stuff to talk about in reference to tough stuff to talk about this is a passive confrontation made in an effort to appear sympathetic and understanding saying i don't remember saying i'm tired saying any of that is a cop-out so the truth is the cop-out so what's the truth i don't remember i'm so out of it what do you think gavin and mike are saying i don't know so i see magic hocus pocus okay i have no idea this is an obvious ploy to play the prisoner's dilemma law enforcement regularly utilizes the prisoner's dilemma to coerce drug dealers into ratting each other out technically it occurs when two parties each make self-beneficial decisions which result in a less than ideal outcome for both do you think they're being honest yeah you know them to be honest people i know that gavin knows the police force here who's mike you haven't been mine friends okay or gavin's but detective smith has made a sliver of progress she's gotten a small foot in the dorm the foot in the door technique is used to counter resistance and interrogations ellen has acknowledged that the two other detained individuals are in fact gavin and russell and that she does in fact know who they are this may seem like a small victory but by way of the foot in the door technique detective smith has greatly increased the chances of ellen providing more important information and that was actually the older boyfriend we were friends with benefits but never really a relationship okay and did you have your dad approve of that relationship i didn't really tell him about it but he saw us holding hands and he freaked out it's just dawning on me and i'm going to point this out to you that you have a pretty good memory of all of that stuff but you can't tell me what happened as my past 10 hours ago not even 10 hours ago my past is ingrained in me okay because of how much pain it's brought me you know what happened seven hours ago do i yeah like i said it's been a long time since i've seen a parent ask the way your mom was acting this morning she was literally on the ground sobbing on her knees with her head buried into the ground sobbing she's worried about you she's worried about aaron i'm worried about my dad too from what you've said there's blood at the house and he's gone yes i feel like that probably doesn't come as a complete shock to you i'm very good at hiding my emotions i have to be strong for my little sisters well yeah i mean there's a lot at this point you owe your little sisters what if your dad can still be helped then let's find him detective smith is gauging ellen's response were you at a band thing up in salem pci what's that pacific coast invitational what instrument do you play it's like the front percussion i don't even know the name of the instrument i play do you play symbols no do you play a triangle no detective smith is warming ellen up encouraging her to talk about something she knows ellen enjoys music most of those we spoke with who knew ellen knew her through band she was just kind of you know an average band student i think she played the clarinet and bass clarinet she did band camp so she did marching band i would say that's like where the majority of her friends were kind of located she was one of the kids who um like hung out you know in the area during lunch and stuff so she was you know just a regular band kid you gonna take a little sleep i'm really tired okay all right ellen puts her head down as if to go to sleep passively ending the conversation at this point a very common tactic employed when a suspect is not getting the information they want from the investigators since she cannot craft her story to fit the facts she attempts to stop talking excuse me i get some nausea you know there's a garbage can right there okay i'm gonna see i know we have like tylenol advil ellen then asked for a place to lay down detective smith leaves afterwards owen continues picking at her skin and her nose and appears to place her fingers in her mouth consider the meaning behind ellen's non-purposeful gestures in these moments although ellen appears guiltless at times her physical ailments may be legitimate somatic manifestations of her guilty conscience okay i found blanket [Music] is that fine she knocks on the door an officer comes by and ellen asks for the restroom [Music] the officer then leaves she's avoiding her surroundings any way she can sleep leaving the room asking for nausea meds which will likely make her tired and sleep this is a common avoidance triad often used by suspects hi do you need to use the restaurant yes okay come on ellen is getting bored this is a common tactic we see where a suspect is left alone in an interrogation room and they become bored and anxious the goal is to convince them that talking will get them out of there sooner leading to a sort of reprieve both physical and psychological detective smith returns she brings paper and crayons while this is seemingly infantile for a 15 year old girl of allegedly sound mind it could be her drawings will be examined for indicators of evidence state of mind or other information they may also serve a relaxer and ease her anxiety making her somewhat more likely to talk though ultimately still be bored with such simplistic items when questioning resumes hi a mermaid well i know what it is and a pretty treat detective smith reminds ellen over rights this is common whenever there's been a break in questioning so i know gavin was at the place at your house this morning i know your dad saw him i know mike was that standing outside your house i know you guys went down to gavin's house on almond i know that you move the car around okay i'm not i want you to know that we know what's going on and the bottom line bottom bottom line in all of this is why did all this happen today she's searching for corroboration write it off i'm sorry can i get some more water yeah you can but you haven't been doing this stuff with your throat since i've left i mean playtime's a little bit over so why did this happen today in response to detective smith's question about why did this happen today why today ellen asks if she means her plans to run away [Music] but detective smith quickly closes down this denial by stating you know that's not what i'm talking about this is an indirect confrontation purposefully left vague to encourage the suspect to speak of the crime in their own words why was gavin at your house why was mike standing outside your house or russell or whatever you call him why did you guys go down there why did you guys end up out on highway 140 well i actually know the answer to that we're not playing anymore we detective smith insists that they have the facts they have stories and statements but they don't have facts this is common misdirection and at this point the questioning will get more direct and targeted detective smith is done playing games and ellen knows it can we can we start from the beginning of your side now we have other sides what i don't have is your side because you've been messing with me all morning can we have your side yes tell me your side where should i start have you been taking clothes out of your house yes okay start there well my situation with my father abusing me had gotten worse so i was looking for a way out so i started a plan to run away so i started transporting all of my clothes to gavin's house note as ellen talks she also keeps scribbling with the crayons she's splitting her attention to avoid the interrogation as much as possible all of that blood that your sister's walked in on is your dad's blood what attacked my father ellen states russell attacked my father and his bloody machete is over by the northern walmart this signifies a major shift in her psychological stance towards both detective smith and the interrogation so tell me everything you saw that happened to your dad i didn't see anything like i said i was in the back room and when i heard the whole thing going on i jumped out the window and i ran okay there's something different about the way ellen speaks here versus the way she's spoken previously the cadence is off she cuts herself short she's lied consistently up to this point but this moment seems significant perhaps the outcome of the conversation is more salient to her at this point whatever the case her speech deviates significantly from baseline an indication of heightened physiological arousal okay i'm gonna take note so i can keep track of this okay how do you know russell was with your father because gavin was with me with myself he was with my stuff how do you know gavin was with your stuff because i could see him through the back window how do you even know that a machete was involved prior to going out to that north walmart area because he had it on him and then he pulled it out and i saw the blood on it and i realized what had happened and how were you guys getting around like to the walmart or that kind of thing russell got the keys and we took my dad's car this is another inconsistency in terms of the last time ellen claimed to have been in the car several days prior to the murder ellen continues to scribble with the crayons so where did you meet up with whoever was in your car was in the car the alley okay took me back and it wasn't i pulled it into the alley and what's the very next thing that happened then gavin and i go in to get the rest of my stuff and gavin has the car started and russell has a tarp hanging out of the back seat like a back trunk yeah and then did you stop at gavin's house first yes we did okay you drop all of my stuff off and then i was hungry what about your dog we dropped the dog off there okay now okay okay so you and gavin go into walmart and then you said you go to the ssi building yeah that's what mike wanted to do what did he want to do there i guess he wanted to make gavin his rep pay did you go back to walmart yes i went back into walmart to return something oh what did you return here okay where was mike during that well since he killed my dad and i have suspicions that he was in the trunk maybe he went to do something with the body detective smith pauses i mean i've been a little bit like blunt with you during that's what i appreciate when i don't like people that beat around the bush this is a dissonant contrast to her previous behavior playing an extensive game of cat and mouse then i'm going to be blunt with you the information i have is you knew your dad was in the trunk my guess is it probably wasn't a great feeling to know that your dad was in the trunk am i right yeah what were you saying to um mike and gavin about your dad being in the trunk i was asking him about it like what what's in the trunk with the tarp and then like a body and like whose body why is my dad in there and russell says yes i i believe that russell's the one that killed my father okay was anybody wearing gloves today russell was okay were you at one point yes i think because russell was the one that insisted that i put the gloves on and then what happened you put the gloves on i put the gloves on you go to walmart so when we get the video footage from you in walmart we're gonna see you in latex gloves walking around i didn't put them in my pocket then yes okay did you help with your dad out on 140 because that would have been hard too 140 yeah out um we have found your dad and we know he is dead and we know that you and gavin were there when he was taken out of the trunk that's just things we know okay they did pull over somewhere that must have been where it was yeah and then russell threw the body over how did that make you feel whether a suspect expresses remorse or is perceived to express remorse it may influence severity of sentencing a defendant who confessed and appears remorseful is more likely to avoid the death penalty i felt really bad [Music] what did you say about it i yelled i blew my top off what did you yell a lot of things like did i regret tell me an example knowledge of the crime now has been clearly established and detective smith is working towards establishing elements of both the crime of murder and additional crimes like conspiracy but i was so mad that i used just a bunch of swear words to who mike more than not feeling ellen struggles to identify emotions that would fit this moment stating that she was using a bunch of swear words when gavin and russell or as ellen tells it just russell were throwing her father's body off the side of the embankment one of the things also out there by your dad is the baseball bat a baseball bat is that what he used my dad kept a baseball bat by the front door for protection okay as a reminder compare ellen's behavior throughout the interrogation to the behavior detective smith established at the beginning of the interrogation this behavior is similar to what ellen was expressing when detective smith collected ellen's baseline her paralanguage and micro expressions are similar where is that baseball bat now well you said it was found so he must have saw it and used it along with the machete because the machete did have blood on it and it was dried how do you know it was blood it was red okay dark red dried blood i know what dried love looks like i'm a woman okay and tell me about what the baseball bat looked like it was dark it was a black metal baseball bat the information we have is that you actually threw that baseball bat up into the tree what but i was in the car well i'm a little bit thinking maybe you weren't in the car she is digging deeper into the extent of ellen's participation in the crime the whole time she remains sympathetic and calm with ellen did you put it up in the tree i kicked it i don't know if i kicked it that's my nightmare that's mine oh you wait let me see you have a line on your foot from kicking the baseball bat okay i don't know if you can tell was he making any noise or anything no could do could you tell if he was alive or if he was dead no he was wrapped up i saw his head covered in towels and he was in a blanket okay and how did his head get covered in towels i guess mike or gavin must have wrapped him but gavin seemed just as shocked that that happened as i did i think mike took it too far and did that okay where was he when you saw that they were pulling him out of the trunk and when you say that you mean gavin and mike yeah mike did most of it though okay but i mean he needed help yeah ellen states they were dumping the body but stated previously that russell did this on his own she continues to struggle to keep track of her lies like what do you know the names of rhodes yeah you do what roads were you on that you know the names of i know that we went on hillcrest you know you went on hillcrest that's all i can remember i wasn't i was just kind of sitting there freaking out staring at the road okay okay so however way you're on hillcrest and then you get out to that the road where your dad is taken out of the car okay detective smith employs a variety of active listening skills active listening encourages individuals to discuss difficult topics detective smith additionally attempts to recreate the route taken to dump the body this is another part of the narrative that will be important to the da's case against the suspects it will also help corroborate times and locations so mike and gavin were out they tell you to get out they tell you to do something what throw things over gavin handed me the baseball bat somebody handed you a shirt a pink shirt was it pink because that was its normal color yeah okay did it have blood on it if they must have thrown it out then i guess so it was all bunched up they felt like it was a problem so they wanted to get rid of it okay and then what do you see next i see the mic particularly push it down like it goes i saw it go over did you see your dad's face no while this seems an odd question it goes to knowledge of the circumstances and would confirm whether any or all suspects disposed of the body or if they only disposed of other items at that time okay then they drive away and then mike gave gavin directions as to where to leave the car i don't remember where somewhere hilly ellen fiddles with a wristband another meaningless action and indication of physiological arousal of some sort and so then what happens well i got my speaker back from a friend who was that person jeff did you guys tell jeff anything about what had been happening no law enforcement stopped by jeff's house and discussed exactly what had happened i asked how they were doing they said they were doing fine and they were smiling gave him the speaker and i said all right well i gotta get back inside gavin gave me a hug and then they left and then we got detained so tell me about your relationship with your dad well he used to be a good father but he started getting abusive about three years ago and you had told me about a time he called you mean names has that happened more than once it happens all the time or did happen all the time i don't know what brings it on he just does it i take all of whatever happens how does he treat your sisters like gold he would get drunk and when wherever i was sleeping he would come and he would lay naked with me and he would okay so i would leave and try to sleep somewhere else in the house when's the last time that happened a couple of days ago saturday after i came back from my band trip okay and mickey came in and pulled him back into the room when she came out would she have seen him laying on the couch she saw his head but that's i think that's about it because she just kind of poked her head around the corner and said aaron come back into the room he's like oh okay crazy lady has he ever yes okay he got a hand but then i went i just started scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing because i felt so dirty when was that i'm so ashamed of myself like right after i turned 15 like in the new year i feel so ashamed of myself why would he do that to his daughter father shouldn't do that to my little girls you're the first person i really told about this because it's hard it's hard to break me down because i just suppress those memories i never told my mom about it and she's going to be angry when she finds out that i had it well what does gavin think that your dad's doing you just think he knows that he's been abusive towards me as far as the name calling and the physical and the emotional abuse but not i would you call this abuse i'm not sure so i think different people have different definitions so that would certainly be up to you if you think that i'm not sure what to call it at this point do you want me to find tissues for you i'll be fine this jacket is waterproof okay okay i can i think we will have somebody bring us in some tissues okay because i know this is hard to talk about [Music] i know why me why is he doing to me i don't i have no idea what he's done to my sisters because ellen has been consistently dishonest many of us may question whether her behavior is an outlandish form of deflection and diversion at this point as this line of questioning progresses detective smith hears about possible motives but again it's unclear that any of ellen's claims are true he had said this girl was being abused possibly by her dad the other thing that he had said is that she had a boyfriend that the dad did not approve of so that's also why we're kind of like is she really being abused you know or does she just really she just wants to date what she wants to make i just want to know why he did it why you thought it was okay because there was a few times when he was sobering sorry yeah i'm really sorry it's okay i mean are you sorry you're crying my dad would hit me when i cried she is clearly distraught here recall gavin's less blatant self-hugging non-verbal in his interrogation plan is to get her bags and get her the hell out of there believe it this seemingly insignificant posture is a prominent tell that individuals are emotionally distressed in some way a new non-verbal indicator even more telling if interpreted with ellen's pacifying self-hug is that ellen is raising both shoulders high up to either side of her ears this is also known as the turtle effect turtles recede into their shells to protect themselves against threat and we can imagine that if ellen had a shell she would be tucking her head into it right now so much tears well i'm just gonna give you a minute okay i'll only be gone for a second i'll be gone long enough for me to find you a tissue okay ellen appears to be experiencing genuine surges of emotion well after detective smith has exited the room she alternates rapidly between highly distraught to neutral expressions recall jillian's statement about ellen's rapidly shifting moods which we discussed more accurately resembled rapidly shifting emotions we could infer from ellen's expressions in this moment that she's struggling to regulate her emotions this isn't to say that it's not reasonable for ellen to be distraught over the alleged abuse but rather that her specific way of responding hints at potential abnormal emotion regulation and possible psychopathology she's just kind of filling us in and she's going to come back in and chat with you okay okay all right it can be really important that you're truthful about everything at this point and we're gonna help get through this okay all right so she'll be back in just a minute the officer encourages ellen to be truthful about everything common thing to say to play as if the truth is liberating and will help the suspect it rarely helps them though you are an artist it sounds like there was some there's been some talk about your dad and the way he treats you and like what to do about that and how to fix that do you know anything about those conversations this is the overture to establishing premeditation discussing conversations also sets up the stage for charges of conspiracy to commit murder there's not anything that i was involved in that i know about it sounds like at least something had been planned i think mike might have planned something i don't know yeah because i heard a knock on the door and mike was the only one in the yard at that point and then i heard the door open and i guess i don't know maybe he did maybe he tackled my dad since all of the blood was on the couch the majority of it at least from what i saw i don't know i feel like you're putting a lot on mike ellen spends a large portion of her interrogation blaming russell and russell spends a large portion of his interrogation demanding her release it's a tragic contrast three all charges are to be dropped and every recording due to that is to be destroyed russell seems completely detached from reality relishing in his perceived position of power by the demands he makes i know cops are really good at that oh i misplaced that file i know you're sick twisted games boy two hours because i know gavin has been put in a different holding cell in a different building release him bring him here without handcuffs you guys can hold on to the goods i really don't give so we can do this the nice way and we negotiate or we can do it the hard way and i can release my how to beat bipolar legal system with its own laws too never trick me buddy what are you diagnosed with autism bipolar definitely don't get me mad 90 of the time i'm cool okay unless you give me reason to hit you then i hit you but actually you don't really want that he seems to grow increasingly frustrated when none of these tactics gain traction so he next try setting a time limit to which they must comply and arrogantly turns off the recording gesturing to it as if it's some sort of standoff that the police are actually contemplating gavin ellie there or i say no more punk these are non-verbal signs of aggression and dominance oh macdonald had a farm russell begins to more directly mock law enforcement showing clear signs of lack of respect for authority he's joking but there are highly negative undertones to what he relates with that grease grease there and a grease grease there everywhere grease grease all over the road all the way home five little piggies eating at the trough wait no wrong one three little monkeys jumping on the bed um wait no hey you guys wanna hear another cop joke three little pigs fell in the mud that's a dirty joke you wanna hear a clean joke you didn't scrub hard enough his behavior grows progressively confrontational and his demeanor is far less light-hearted oh boy that's not good i should really have a talk with my bipolar side no you shouldn't yes i should some may argue that russell is unknowingly working against the potentially damaging effects of the isolation aspect of the reed interrogation technique russell takes control of his situation regardless of whether it's founded in reality likely reducing his feelings of boredom thereby contributing to reduced emotional or psychological distress please send gavin and ellie fryer into this room please thank you asking nicely he might be under a delusion but russell's behavior is still notably histrionic similar to what we see throughout ellen's interrogation he puts on a variety of melodramatic displays scissors and pocket knives are nowhere on me but my teeth are very sharp as well i just found the wire that goes into the wall and i'd really hate to get hurt by a cop or is it the other way around i forget the police continue to let him speak giving him all the rope he needs to hang himself further who cares anyway i just saw gavin go bye here's the thing you pass the door bring him back please thank you individuals exposed to violence often display violent tendencies that develop as defense mechanisms here it's almost as if russell is putting up fists preparing to fight with his past the one which reportedly included a significant amount of violence so what one thing that we just to kind of run you through it and i'll let jim take over is you wanted to have a cigarette who went outside he gave you a cigarette five buys you give you miranda rights you remember that yeah said you understood your rights the investigator wants it on record that he allowed russell to smoke a cigarette and that he advised russell of his miranda rights twice the investigator begins to quickly recap his previous testimony and what they did on the crime scene visit so he doesn't have an opportunity to retract his prior statements of guilt this room's recorded it's got a mic and don't let he turned it off earlier well i turned it off and on several times you really told us that last night is when you and gavin walked over yes to ellie's house and that you met her at union park uh yeah okay is what you told us yeah is that is that still true no okay we could easily interpret russell's behavior as psychopathic and that he doesn't display signs of remorse even occasionally laughing based on information from sources and from what russell has stated about himself he more likely does not comprehend the true meaning and impact of what he's done so why don't we start from the beginning and just just give us the i mean you've been very cooperative and truthful you're very intelligent yeah russell is more likely to respond by continuing to be truthful because he may wish to be perceived as intelligent that was part of his problem is because he can hold an adult conversation and you think wow this kid's pretty smart but it's not because he knew what he was talking about is because he memorized what he had read so we headed over we waited across the street down the alley we were waiting there till she texted saying that he's asleep so i started wanting to head over and write when i wanted to head over she texts so it's almost like she made my mind so we headed over he went through the gate because we were going to go through talk about he again uh gavin went through her window i followed shortly after kept nervous about it but hey that's what i do for luna we got all the bags loaded out and she said that she's gonna grab the keys and pull the car around while gavin isaiah talks to the guy but that's far from there is widespread belief that individuals on the spectrum cannot distinguish between moral right and wrongness contrarily individuals diagnosed with autism often possess an even greater conceptualization of right and wrong in russell's case he seems to have an extreme idea of what is right in this situation believing that what happened to aaron was fully justifiable did you ever climb through the window no okay no i only went through the front door afterwards yeah after the beating just as gavin told investigators that he hit aaron instead of killed after i hit her russell tells investigators that he only entered the location after the beating versus after the killing or the murder this again is distancing language essentially psychological avoidance so earlier at this point what you told us was her dad came in with a gun and threatened him that part was not true okay i just wanted to make it look like he was a good guy and he is a good guy who is gavin so when you went in what did you see uh very scary face i think what you originally told us that his body was still twitching when he got there yeah he was dead gavin checked his pulse and everything it was still moving due to the gases and stuff in the chemical uh mixture within the body okay i went through the front door went straight to the bathroom okay what we're learning is something that ellie has been wanting to happen for a while and that those three of you guys have been having those conversations um i was not in the planning of killing him what he says here contradicts his prior testimony the evidence and gavin's testimony we've been talking about like moving her out several weeks and then the big finale was make it look like he kidnapped her he calls the plan to make it look like a kidnapping the grand finale once again showing no remorse almost as if this is a movie or novel plot and put him in a car gavin would drive over state line to california i was going to do you guys are going to time in the front seat of a passenger car with him alive and drive him across skeletons yeah that was my idea killing was not my idea at all did you know going over last night that gavin was gonna kill him no or hit or assault him well probably assault but i didn't expect him to actually kill him just like probably a few broken ribs or something i mean that's something he talked about he talked about killing russell was aware that murder was a possibility under the law he would have already been guilty of felony murder which is when in the commission of a felony like aggravated assault i.e assault with a weapon here or burglary if one defendant kills the victim during the commission of another felony even if it wasn't planned all defendants can be charged with the murder i tried to talk him out of killing him but when they talked about it what did they propose to do take him over state line cut the brakes or whatever make him go into a gas station all kinds of things got talked about yeah but i always popped holes in every system did ellie ever come out and say he's going to take a bath and do this tonight she just said that gavin says that she handed him the bath yeah go do it did you see that no i didn't know what'd she tell you when she came out uh she said that she's gonna go around the block grab the car give the signal and gavin would go take care of business so you knew when i had the car that cabin was going to take well i didn't i know that he was going to kill him billy just i thought take care of business as in like hurt the guy okay russell contradicts himself by saying he thought take care of business meant just hurt the father after he just finished telling the investigator all the ways he shot down the other various methods gavin and ellie suggested killing him so you have the samsung phone uh yes the red and black the red and black one and we did we find that on you when we uh yes and is that passcoded yes what's the passcode on that it's a pattern can you draw the pattern for me so if this is the top of the phone [Applause] it should be easy okay because my new name is mike smith oh i can already see what it is do you recall how they talked about that they were going to kill him when they wanted to kill him besides the big of all these pages that i wrote down um the majority of this sounds fairly accurate it's just the gun stuff wasn't accurate okay i just wanted to make it look more helpful on his end consistent with the interrogation up to this point russell seems to be prouder that he could help than worried that he did you've told us several times throughout our conversation that you didn't cause the death no i did not do you think he was awake when he got hit probably just falling asleep all i heard was like i said the thuds and the moaning in pain one of ellen's neighbors had also heard aaron's moans likening them to an animal dying that same neighbor declined an interview stating hello abby thank you for asking so kindly but i don't think i'd like to discuss it for your platform it was a pretty traumatic experience for me personally so i think i'll have to pass have a great day any other stops after you left aaron's house before you got the bombing street he said he took his gray sweatshirt and put it in a washer over the friend's house after you guys left before you go to home holland do you remember that no i was probably still terrified that there was a dead body in the trunk right behind me russell does not necessarily deserve credit but take note that this is the first time any one of the individuals involved in this crime expressed discomfort with the fact that aaron's body was in the trunk of the car while they ran errands one of the things that ellie is telling of another detective is that it actively got talked about as far as planned out different things got talked about yeah we talked about it but never really i wasn't really going to do anything kind of like i could say i'm going to punch a cop but that doesn't mean i'm going to actually do it russell displays his disdain for authority when he makes an analogy involving punching a cop which may be a subtle way to threaten the investigator it also shows his lack of intimidation for their authority and or lack of social or situational comprehension i was agreeing to a degree okay but not a hundred percent agree do you think ellie knew that it wasn't 100 i'm not sure what goes through women's heads if men knew we'd be able to understand women and not have arguments with their wives she didn't say anything about him killing her she just said take care of her business did she say take him out probably it was a lot of things went on last night and i was i'm still terrified that there was a dead body again russell is the only member of the trio who expresses shock at the sight and or presence of a dead body but what he says next is particularly unsettling did you send anybody text messages i believe what we just did no you believe i'm right in the car with a dead body no no i'm not i might be blonde but i'm not stupid ever thinking about trying to see if i mean if i could be mr popular because i have a dead body behind me no no or or if aaron needed help i mean were you pretty convinced he was dead yeah you told us that you were high functioning autistic yeah okay so do you know the difference between right and wrong uh sometimes would it be wrong to kill someone the investigator brings up russell's autism and directly asks him questions that a defendant would be asked to see if that defendant is mentally fit to stand trial doing this helps defeat a possible insanity defense or mental incapacity defense he may try to use later because of his autism diagnosis consider that mental illness and its role in influencing criminality is highly complex a mental health professional would spend several hours over multiple sessions determining this this is only a starting place well see here's another trick with that um what's to say that it's wrong to kill someone in self-defense okay but what if so killing is killing so what if this isn't self-defense uh self-defense would be if her dad came at him right and there's no evidence versus him getting mad that her father aaron tried to sleep with his daughter okay do you think do you think it would be wrong to kill somebody to kill somebody that's sleeping with their daughter it's not lawful for fathers to do that with their kids lawful understanding differs from moral understanding russell is either aware of what the investigator is attempting to do or exhibiting signs of genuine confusion surrounding morality would you consider yourself an intelligent person to some degree what uh what is your diagnosis uh bipolar which i keep down with cigarettes okay cigarettes do not keep down bipolar disorder if anything nicotine ingestion increases the likelihood of the onset of depressive and manic episodes um are you bipolar just bipolar yeah any schizophrenia no the investigator may ask this because he also believes that russell exhibits delusions and potentially hallucinations hallucinations and delusions as stated previously are symptoms of psychosis not typically associated with bipolar disorder and more typically associated with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia fewer people know that bipolar disorder can occur with psychotic features this is more likely what russell is experiencing you talked about punching a cough in the face you know it's wrong to punch a cop in the face yeah okay plus i know it's wrong kill somebody yes depending on the situation so was it talked about prior to going over there or while you were over there that that that cabin was going at the plan that gavin was going to assault the dad he said that he didn't like it and he was not happy with the text either were you upset about that uh being a protector of females yes okay and if anyone tried to do that to my daughter i'd probably grab a shotgun too because no one harms my family like that how did the assault how was that supposed to happen we were supposed to try and find chloroform and knock them out but we couldn't find any chloroform because it's not online anymore he gavin told me that he knew some karate i said well is there any pressure points that would uh not kill him he said there were and that they would try to but i guess they didn't want to the reason that you brought the machete was kind of a backup yeah just a backup if he was to try and come at one of us but i wasn't gonna go like i'm gonna kill you no it's more like stay back or i will but it was never needed so if uh gavin would have said come on in through the window and gavin's got a bat and gavin says to you i'm going to take this bat and bash it over his head hypothetically what would you have done i would have tried to convince him only to break aaron's rib cage but not kill him okay just knock him out for like one hit and knock him out then then continue on with trying to convince him to once he's knocked out put him in the car and take him to california yeah russell doesn't skip a beat before answering that he would have taken aaron to california after knocking him out he is oblivious that guilt would be an appropriate emotional response because that's the other part of the plan right that was one of the plans what's the other plan my plan was to um time in the woods have a stern talking to him like you do not do that to your family and hopefully that would scare him and me and uh gavin and ellie would drive off and leave him there and he could go to california or somewhere else uh probably just back to the house and wait till my grandma gave me the rv and then we were going to take my rv that was the ultimate plan gavin would later claim that russell's firm talking to aaron plan was in reality a tie him to a tree and murder him plan note gavin's nonverbal indicators throughout this portion of the interrogation he appears the most distressed in relation to the crime this is logical both in that the repercussions are the most severe and what he did was the most severe whose idea was it to cause harm to her now who first brought it up she did ellie brought it up she's the one who first wanted to still have to speak up a little bit i can't hear her excuse me i'm sorry um she was the one who who first was like i want my dad dead rj was wanting to knock him out and then go take him out somewhere and then kill him rj was that that was what he was did would you ever talk about tying him up to a tree and having a stern talk with him he didn't tell me about that no how would your plan be to take him out and kill him so what my plan would have been was like if we'd gotten the chloroform whatever i would have gone in i would have like knocked everybody out with her or whatever knocked everybody out who well her she had sisters or his girlfriend whoever was in the house your plan was to use chlorophyll on all the kids and the girlfriend and him yeah even the investigator cannot hold back a shocked and disgusted facial expression investigators are human and they have limits so is ellie kind of responsible for facilitating this bat thing yes does very talk about getting a gun and just shoot him that's what rj was wanting to do the entire time but i was like you're gonna have to walk past him to get to the guns and he's probably gonna wake up before then uh do you know the difference between right and wrong yeah you do have you ever been diagnosed with any kind of mental disorders adhd according to family gavin was also diagnosed with autism everything we've mentioned about russell also holds the potential to apply in some capacity to gavin he could struggle to realize the true impact of what he's done although it seems clear to him that the outcome is not good at this point in the interrogation the family member we interviewed further mentioned that not everything registers for him when did you get diagnosed with his adhd i was like seven and it hasn't changed i mean i've been off medication for it since i was 17. well you were up you were using medication until you were 17. his struggle with these reported disorders could have largely influenced the execution of this crime an anonymous acquaintance who spoke with us shared that he had noticed gavin changing roughly around the time gavin states he stopped taking his adhd medication oh he changed you can just tell by looking at him he didn't have the same confidence he used to have he just looked like he didn't sleep well his hair became greasy he just wasn't himself bottom line getting off medication and or stopping therapy when those interventions are needed has dire consequences for those and others who know those who struggle with mental illness and then i was like i don't want medication anymore did you need it i didn't feel like i needed it no and i've been so i mean i i messed up victim you guys going over there and getting her bags when did it start passing through your mind that you're going to take them out well let me ask you this i was just so angry i didn't want to note how he bends his head down submissively hunches his shoulders and raises his vocal pitch gavin seems or is attempting to seem honest and simultaneously respectful of law enforcement in the room but when she hands you the bath did you feel like oh this is going to go down i'm going to go take i'm going to go i sold i was thinking like i was thinking is this really happening i'm about to go even though this was calculated gavin could have been genuinely afraid in this moment fear of what aaron might do to him should aaron have woken up may have pushed gavin to do something that he ultimately would not have followed through with we mentioned the fight-or-flight response previously and what gavin relays to investigators is that he froze individuals may also freeze as part of the fight-or-flight response in gavin's case freeze may have turned to fight once he was closer in proximity to here we aaron so what's your monster we made the third quarter of your 12th grade year yeah what happened i just want to get done with school because a lot of people were giving me a little sufficient about like assault there were rumors going around i mean i hadn't done anything to anybody it was a lot of pressure so i just wanted to get out of there i knew killing myself wasn't the answer because that would just be pure stupidity so and i'm guessing i'm not going home i would guess that that's probably correct okay i get paid tomorrow okay murder is an automatic life sentence isn't it when people ask me questions like that it's not just a simple easy answer to say yes i mean i think there's a lot of different variables to it is ellie going home she's not she's still talking with detectives am i allowed to talk to her at all probably not gavin appears to genuinely care for ellen interestingly in speaking to sources we found that gavin had cheated on ellen i mean i know this might be tmi but i actually like hooked up with them everything was seemingly normal we flirted a lot back then and talked about the possibility of a relationship i did find out after hooking up with him that he was dating that other girl so we pretty much just stopped talking due to that he was really nice at the time it could likewise have something to do with his adhd diagnosis untreated adhd can increase the risk of promiscuity and infidelity this is again largely due to issues of impulse control excess energy poor coping mechanisms and poor emotion regulation have you used any drugs today or drank at all no do you use any drugs i do smoke weed did you have a clear mind when this happened had you been drinking or using drugs when this happened okay many of gavin's old friends mentioned that he always had weed he always had a weed yeah one of the last things he had messaged me was uh like supposed to get an ounce don't come over and smoke he further elaborated that gavin may not have responded the best of the drug and made some accurate and relevant points at potential negative outcomes of using it he was so high he couldn't walk we found a we found a shopping cart on the side of the road he hopped in it and forgot all of his stuff on the side of the road right so i picked it up for him i was like carrying his board and his backpack and he was just sitting in this in this shopping cart like you know i'm thinking it made him think weird so like some people just can't handle this no i've heard that some mental disorders can be amplified when you smoke weed i just know i just like seriously put myself over with this from the beginning i i had a bad feeling about all this and i was like i knew i shouldn't i should have gotten involved but we've been dating for a long time we've known each other for a while gavin is regretful but not for taking aaron's life he implies here that he was doing this all because ellen wanted him to although his family reported that ellen was the prime culprit in manipulating gavin there are others who disagree i can't help but blame gavin for a lot of it so you think that he was the mastermind if he had put his foot down i guess ellie would have been like okay maybe we shouldn't kill my dad oh boy why do i have a bad feeling about all this we jim's gonna explain some things to you bags evidence uh probably handcuffs are gonna be coming next for all three of us because what we did well i didn't beat the crap you told me that you spent a lot of time in the watching and and doing uh detective work stuff so yeah this is a a search warrant okay gavin's property no this is for your body i'm just going to explain that to you because part of what we're going to collect i have nothing on me except for my clothes okay mike part of what we're going to collect is dna samples [Music] here we see a more blatant display of russell's anti-authoritarian attitude a search warrant can be ate just like my homework by my dog which i never had let me explain something because the judge signs a search warrant saying that we're we're going to collect so a judge judge signed it yeah well the judge said that so let me read this to you okay it's long in the circuit court the state of oregon for the county of jackson search horn you are hereby commanded to search the circle commanded and russell pierce jones date of birth seven eleven and ninety five who are required seven eleven seven one seven one ninety five okay okay you're gonna have to tie me down and straight check it to get my evidence okay and that may happen okay you've been very quick yes i tend to talk out of my head just try not to stick your finger in my mouth i was protecting a kid once and um she had four guys hold my arms and legs down and so she thought i was safe enough to put her hand close to my mouth let's just say she needed rabies shots after i bit her don't fight me please when's the last time you slept uh three days ago individuals who have bipolar disorder struggle to sleep during periods of mania this is highly suggestive that russell is experiencing a manic episode which tracks with the fact that he is also experiencing and delusions let me stand right there with your back against that wall so i can take some pictures of you try not to get my face i'll get your good side okay promise come on i'll get your good side back against the wall back towards back against the wall and baits me okay hold the sign you know you can you don't have to hold your mouth open like that i don't okay i just feel like i'm like at school with the photos my cat told you uh probably i always say don't face me and hold your hands out in front of you uh i always say six but i'm actually five nine probably can you hold them up and out a little bit like hitler or a zombie or something like that still pull him over for me bring him down a little bit turn around face the wall forward what'd you do with your underwear i tossed it i covered it with a lot of paper towels though so he he did not have this the skills really to be on his own and this was kind of just the final final situation for him i mean we don't know honestly that he'll even make it out of prison i don't know i mean prison sounds like a pretty rough place so he doesn't get the severity of what gavin did he still wants to help her i go she lied to you about all this abuse and all that was all alive well you know what i still would like to help her if i could oh my god that's how he is i kid you not so what's the situation with ellie will she be going home or what's her case i don't know maybe they did plan something i don't because i wasn't with them all of this weekend yeah they had plenty of an opportunity to do that ellen has transitioned to using they it appears now that ellen is moving her focus to protecting herself over gavin i'm going to figure out if there's any new stuff and see if we could talk about it is that fine okay i don't like being alone you don't no i don't if i find somebody to come hang out with you that's not me is that okay okay i'm gonna do that fear of being alone occurs alongside feelings of abandonment in intimate relationships individuals prone to feelings of abandonment may rely too heavily on their partners should their partner seek to end the relationship or spend more time with others for example these individuals may respond in extreme ways threatening suicide or providing their partners with ultimatums such as stay with me or else another common extreme attempt to avoid abandonment present among women who suffer from this fear is lying about being pregnant this maladaptive attachment may develop in those suffering from various mental illness maladaptive attachment in adulthood also often develops when individuals possess an anxious attachment style which is characterized by a longing for closeness and as ellen mentions she has fear of being alone can i hug you no what's wrong you know i need a hug why because i finally opened out about i've told somebody about the abuse that i'm going through okay we're gonna hold off just a little bit okay i can sit in here with you though how long have your parents are having problems they've been divorced since i started middle school which was formed three or four years ago now okay divorces that are not amicable cause great distress among children and may lead to negative externalizing behavior otherwise referred to as acting out in women and girls that may more commonly lead to internalizing issues such as increased anxiety and shame turbulent divorces may also lead to issues of attachment like draw i'm also a musician it's so hard to talk about i don't think i'll ever be able to play guitar again because my dad was the one that taught me how this is what seems to be ellen's first display of genuine remorse and sadness over the loss of her father i feel like i should say something but i don't want to draw away from what's going on right now i know miners that have marijuana in their possession and they regularly smoke oh that's not good so i thought since i'm here i'd make a report about it okay it's interesting that ellen calls out miners for smoking when she was known to have smoked herself i've never had any drugs or alcohol that i know of unless my dad did something to me spicy drink because that's what he does to his girlfriend when his girlfriend didn't do what he wanted and i have suspicions that he's done that to me in the past talk to me about how how gavin is what's he like he's subjective okay so how did when you had that conversation with him on saturday how what was his reaction he just tried to make me feel better he told me it's not my fault that he's doing these things and he said that he wanted to punch him in the face ellen claims gavin had violent intentions towards her father but this didn't allegedly involve murder or great bodily harm from this point forward ellen mostly draws with little interaction between her and the second investigator a few minutes later she restarts the conversation with small talk ellen seems comfortable with the silence but the second investigator is giving ellen a break for a few minutes this type of mental reset can let new thoughts surface then when questioning restarts new information may be shared how long have you been a vegetarian since i was about five oh okay is anyone else in your family vegetarian no they all make fun of me for the way i eat that's not very nice very hurtful because your family is supposed to be the one that loves and accepts you you've always been the black sheep the therapist at south medford high school said that ellen only mentioned that she was depressed that there were more rules in her household than she would have liked and that she was in a relationship with gavin ellen seems to have a lot more to say right now than the therapist shared she did at the time they spoke and this was within an approximate two-month time frame it's worth noting that this is a dramatic shift and we can only speculate what it might mean so she came in on her own and i asked her how her summer went and she said things had been going really well you know since like august she'd been feeling some more depression coming on and so we talked about that as a therapist i kind of usually jump into problem solving she seemed to me to be a little bit resistant and said she just needed to vent and so i said of course you know you need to vent when therapists jump into solving problems it can make clients feel as though they are not being heard mental health professionals are typically trained not to do this until they are well into the therapeutic relationship after rapport has been established so there's a question as to why this therapist jumped into problem solving as she stays here and i really like to help people to solve their problems you know that's kind of how we ended our conversation which was like you know i'll check in with you in a few weeks and see how things are going this applies to interrogation techniques as well suspects respond more positively when they feel the investigator is listening understanding and empathizing with them that is why they learn how to effectively employ active listening skills as part of their training the second investigator immediately starts reviewing her text messages this is probably message passing to help her direct further questioning while ellen eats her food [Music] i don't really know how i feel right now okay i just kind of feel empty my whole life is like a bottomless pit never release the film okay feelings of emptiness this is an additional symptom of mental illness common to disorders we have mentioned previously we can by no means unequivocally assert that ellen suffers for mental illness but from what we've observed and from accounts of old friends we can reasonably question whether some level of psychopathology is present alternatively it's possible remorse is catching up to her yeah gavin is being 100 honest right now and you are not i told you everything so we need to talk about the conversation that you and gavin have had regarding your dad and i had angered feelings towards them and classic read technique starts here with maximization she told ellen she would no longer put up with her lies earlier in the interrogation but she's more blatantly authoritative and stern with ellen here attempts at building rapport have failed so it seems as though the investigative team has decided that detective smith should take a different approach they came over this morning about 2 30 gavin was in your room and your dad woke up is that right or wrong did you tell me that you told me your dad woke up okay well i missed that part even when backed into a corner without a way out ellen clings to her lies i told you that my dad woke up detective smith is attempting to break through ellen's resistance she needs ellen to admit to lying so you have told me this whole time gavin never came in your house no i said i never said that he didn't go in my house so gavin was in the house and tell me about the conversation that you and gavin had when your dad went back to sleep were you saying things like i want him dead i don't want him around anymore i don't want to be around my dad anymore i want him out of my life okay well when you tell gavin i want him dead those are pretty specific words i said he's dead to me although it takes a second for her to recast her statement in more innocent tones she demonstrates a high degree of mental acuity and agility with the ongoing word games you kind of have been playing games with me you know darn good well what was going to happen today what happened where would you like me to start i want you to start with the truth sorry excuse me what kind of conversations have you and gavin had about this what words were you using the nature of the conversation will determine and help prove the existence of a conspiracy for conspiracy there must be an agreement among participants and this will be crucial to proving this charge such as i hate the way i'm being treated very anger written words aside from you telling gavin you want your dad dead he said you're actually the one that got the keys out of the living room is there a reason you're lying about so much no ellen does not deny any of detective smith's accusations this is the beginning of the truth where did the keys come from the living room who got the keys i did why did you get the keys to pull the car around why are you lying to me why are you putting all this on mike because it was his original plan to take out my father gavin is not saying that in fact he used i believe those exact same words taken out from you uh my original plan was to run away and then mike got involved about the possibility of doing that of doing what taking out my parents and what does that mean to you killing you then what and then we started talking more about it what were you texting mike essentially what you just said no i want to hear from you it's self-incrimination time and this is why the miranda rights state anything you say can and will be used against you to have him get drunk and then he would come in and take him out and at what point did gavin get involved i kind of forced gavin into this we all agreed that ellie was 100 100 maybe ellie had him wrapped around his finger and kind of manipulated him in a way to do it any man i think is capable of extreme violence if it's for the sake of someone they love tell me how you forced gavin into this i pressured him he said can you help us out he said i don't know i really don't want to get involved with that but i kept mike started being more adamant about it too i want to hear your part because i feel like you're really minimizing your part in this ellie he was originally going to help us run away but only gavin was talking to him about it and then i texted him about it and he brought up this whole thing about taking out my dad and you thought that was a good idea okay i kind of denied it at first but he kept saying let's do it so i agreed and we started planning and then what happened and then we did it do you check to see if your dad's asleep and was he yes he won what's the very next thing that happens then gavin comes in and what do you say to gavin i said i'm ready when you are okay what did you mean by that when you do this we're in it together what did you mean when you said when you do this kill me again okay so what conversations were you guys having leading up until that point about how we were in love we would get married teenage planning a wedding fantasizing about it what kind of life you guys are going to have okay what conversation do you and gavin have about looking for the bat i was angry because i had seen it there earlier today so i said i know it's there and if it's there i'm going to be really upset and so then you go look for the bat and you find it by the door what's your dad doing at that point he's asleep can you actually see him how did you feel about that i just i thought i need to get the bat and i need to get out okay so then what's the very next thing that happens then he tries but he hit something in the hallway so he ran back in the room and that's when i pretended to be in the bathroom okay so then do you guys kind of regroup and have a conversation about what to do next yeah we were gonna wait for him to fall asleep and i would be out getting the car while he did it and he would unlock the front door and have rj help him drag the body out into the trunk did you help at all no i did help try to clean up a little bit in the inside though how did what did you do i got a towel and i kind of soaked up to the big puddle of blood by the door and tell me what is the first thing somebody says when you get in the car i can't believe we actually did that who said that mike okay and i said the same thing how'd you guys feel we were all kind of on an adrenaline rush ellen's word choice of adrenaline rush usually used when describing positive experiences as opposed to something more like shocked or horrified is telling and how were you showing that i was actually pretty calm but i was i felt pretty like kind of explosive inside ellen has been guarded lying throughout the interrogation we might expect that she would in the very least attempt to feign sadness or distress the way she describes how she feels here explosive inside comes off as though this was a thrilling experience for her and again i mean it's kind of not the biggest deal in the world but gavin is saying that you really threw that bat like you threw that that hard okay thank you for being honest what did you kick with your leg i didn't kick anything with my leg okay it's just weird tan lines you uh okay thank you for being honest with me detective smith continues thanking ellen for being honest this is reinforcing the bond between them in order to keep the truth coming what did you um talk to your sisters about about how i said i'd be leaving and i'll come back to see them okay i mean how does that make you feel having that conversation with your two little sisters it hurt to leave them that i felt like i was going to a better place did they hear anything probably what did you guys think was gonna happen we thought that if we lay alone we just kept ourselves locked in the house we wouldn't be found out since nobody knew where he lived since someone knew where gavin lives hi hi oh i'm here to relieve you perfect this is decided round she'll take care of you for just a little bit okay okay okay you sure you're okay you have enough to eat okay would you have some fries but then i got nauseous i will only eat about 20 types of food okay so 20 things that's not a ton name some of them french fries yeah french fries top ramen quesadillas pancakes waffles hi you're out okay and hex and smith will be right back in so let's see are you what grade are you in school sophomore sophomore detective smith begins to ask the same questions that she did at the beginning of the interrogation ellen answers truthfully this time oh there's a goodness tiny like microscopic splinter here and it's been bugging me oh okay i can't get it out where do you think that came from dirt somewhere yeah so if and when this goes to court will be tried as an adult or a minor you know that is actually not a decision i make i would like to be tried as an adult you would tell me about why you'd like to be tried as an adult because this is what i've done and i need to step up and take responsibility for what i've done okay it's unclear where this self-deprecation comes from if it's genuine or concocted for purposes of seeming remorseful are you and gavin like boyfriend girlfriend now are you do you guys like have like a relationship too no he's a he's a legal adult and i'm a minor oh he would get into trouble okay even aware of the consequences and aware that gavin has told everything to investigators ellen attempts to protect him are you having sex with anybody no okay but like i said i don't really know what my dad's done to me well you would know that one of the things i heard was that when you guys went to walmart you actually bought a pregnancy test i had concerns but by concerned by gavin's baby gavin thinks it's his baby when did that happen will i get to see gavin again if i if i do have a kid then i want him to be involved i feel like they should have the right to that i feel like i probably don't have the answer to that right now that's okay it doesn't hurt to try yeah what do your sisters like to do play with dolls yeah are their mom and dad the same as yours yeah but i have these suspicions that the youngest child isn't really my dad's do you know the whole thing about blood types and how they work how for an o to be born both parents have to be o's because they're recessive okay my dad is a b so what's that mean it's not your dad that's what i thought what's gonna happen to all the food that we bought this is an odd question while ellen seems to understand the gravity of her situation it's as if she's trying to distract herself from thinking about her predicament how do you feel about what happened to your dad today i feel bad do you like perform for choir and go places yeah i got a solo last year the scariest experience of my life i bet it was no one came to my concert nobody comes to my concerts from my family yeah did your dad work no he just chooses not to come because he doesn't really care well i wonder what would have been different if you would have told somebody me too you think water okay ellen is taken from the interrogation room in handcuffs we might be left with questions as to whether she suffered from something that could have influenced the behavior that led to her father's murder or whether the abuse she described truly occurred ellen stood up in front of a courtroom at her sentencing hearing and claimed that she copes with post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the abuse she experienced suffering from horrendous flashbacks she had no words of remorse for conspiring to murder aaron rather she shared that she had accepted jesus christ as her savior in addition to thanking her legal team and youth ministry she looked across the courtroom at her mother and grandmother and thank them for their support through tears before reading the quote even when the world throws its worst and turns its back there is still always hope in 2019 ellen fryer was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit a class a felony and sentenced to 25 years in prison spending 10 of those years in a juvenile correctional facility russell was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder an attempt to commit a class a felony he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison gavin was convicted of murder conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years

Channel: EXPLORE WITH US

Views: 19,835,320

Keywords: documentary, true crime documentary, psychology, law, educational

Id: B2WVEla34Tk

Length: 207min 42sec (12462 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Prestigious-You-3286]

I haven’t seen it yet, but I went to high school with him and even spoke to him a few times. He was super weird, he always wore a long trench coat to school, he was even suspended once when ammo fell out of his bag in class. So it was really no surprise when I first heard about this murder a few years ago.

[u/twitchosx]

Oh shit. This is the piece of shit who killed my buddy. The picture of the bald guy in the beginning was one of my best friends.

[u/aberg227]

Yeah I went to school with the killer…

[u/babbylonmon]

I need to watch this later. Fucking crazy

[u/[deleted]]

It’s weird that the blonde guy is the least worse of all of them, just so detached from reality. Freaky that it was the most normal looking typical 19 year old. So freaky that some super normal looking person could just end up being capable of murder.

Shocked to find out the zoom interview kid with the long hair and beanie even associated with him.

[u/OR_ST_BEAVER]

When I saw the 3 1/2 hour length I thought there was no way I’d make it close to the end - but I did and was surprised how fast the time went. Typically I have at most a moderate interest in “true crime” docs, but that was fascinating (to say nothing of creepy to see the detachment all three subjects display over what they did).

They ditched the car 100 yards or so from where my folks live and I happened to call my dad that day and he talked about seeing a ton of police activity for what seemed like just an abandoned car and that got the story on my radar back when it happened, so it was interesting to see all the details in the interrogations.