[THEME MUSIC] MAN: It just sounds
like something bad is happening to her. WOMAN: I heard her
scream, no, stop it. MAN: I heard some gunshots. OFFICER: Drop that! Whatever it is, drop it! MAN: That is not true,
that I killed my wife. WOMAN: We know what
happened because the video tells us what happened. MAN: The camera doesn't lie. NARRATOR: This
time, on "Killers-- Caught on Camera"-- NARRATOR: --in
Jacksonville, Florida, a woman is found
dead in her home. NARRATOR: A history of
violence is revealed by cameras hidden in plain sight. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
Some of the most shocking footage that I've ever
seen in my entire law enforcement career. NARRATOR: And in
Manchester, in the UK, a family become the
unintended victims-- AMBER HAQUE: Michelle's
eldest son, Kyle, was getting into a bit of a bad crowd. NARRATOR: --of an
unimaginable act of revenge. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
This is a very heartbreaking story that shocked the nation. Palm Coast-- a small community
an hour south of Jacksonville, home to 25-year-old
Brandi Celenza, her six-year-old son, Ryland,
and Brandi's sister, Amber. AMBER CELENZA: These photos
bring a lot of memories back, happy ones. I can't really remember
a sad day with her. NARRATOR: Brandi became
pregnant with Ryland at just 19. My favorite photo of
when she had her baby. She was young, not even
out of high school, and was getting pregnant
so she had nothing. She played like a
child, and Ryland got to just, have a fun mom. She was always around. She was carefree. NARRATOR: A few years
later, in May 2014, she met Keith Johansen. They fell in love
and married in 2017. [MUSIC PLAYING] Nicole Quintieri was
part of the community's police force in Flagler County. NICOLE QUINTIERI: They were
just this big, happy family that went out and did
family activities, and everything was just amazing. Brandi's son, who
was not Keith's son, according to Keith,
referred to Keith as daddy. AMBER CELENZA:
Everybody was happy. They had their life
all right there. NARRATOR: After getting married,
Brandi, Keith, and Ryland moved into a new
house in the suburbs. Even though, it's cold, it's
still beautiful to be here. [KISS] [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Detective
George Hristakopoulos knew the area well. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: I
worked this zone on patrol for about, a year or so. Very quiet
neighborhood, retirement community, very quiet area. AMBER CELENZA: She was
friends with everybody, just had that personality. No judgment, ever. She loved laughing. She just, I think, she
liked hearing herself laugh, and that made
everybody else laugh. She had that giggy laugh. It was this beautiful,
perfect marriage. They were getting ready
to have a vow renewal. They had just gotten a new home. NARRATOR: On April 7, 2018,
they were all at home. Brandi was making breakfast
for her son, Ryland. NARRATOR: Two religious
visitors knocked at the door. Good morning, ma'am. How are you doing? Hello. NARRATOR: A very normal
morning, but just a couple of hours later-- [SIRENS] NARRATOR: --Emergency Services
responded to a 911 call about a shooting in the home. NARRATOR: When they
arrived at the house, they found Brandi in the
bedroom with two gunshot wounds to the chest. Keith was distraught. NARRATOR: There would be
no renewal of wedding vows. [MUSIC PLAYING] Brandi was pronounced
dead at the scene. AMBER CELENZA: The
phone rang at work, and I just basically,
dropped the phone and just fell right
then and there at work, in front of everybody. NARRATOR: Police body
cams recorded everything. NARRATOR: With
everyone in shock, Keith's dad turned up
to comfort his son. Keith was worried about
the guns in the house. I understand. Yeah, I understand. NARRATOR: Police
discovered Brandi's six-year-old son, Ryland, was in
the house when his mother died. NARRATOR: Keith was the only
adult witness, his account of events was vital-- NARRATOR: --but Keith's physical
appearance confused officers. NARRATOR: The medical
examiners began to determine exactly, how Brandi died. Keith explained to detectives,
what he thought had happened. NICOLE QUINTIERI: We're
interviewing Keith and he says that Brandi
was probably, just being a good housewife and tidying
up moving the firearms, and they both fell and both
went off and both shot her. He described, the most perfect
marriage, the most perfect relationship in the world, and
he said that they never argued, and they were thinking
about renewing their vows. NARRATOR: But the picture
perfect family life Keith described started to unravel. NICOLE QUINTIERI: When I started
asking the deeper questions of, were there any issues
in your relationship? Were you guys faithful
to one another? Keith Johansen told us that
Brandi, very nobly, came to him and told him that she might
have had an online relationship or some sort of online affair-- NICOLE QUINTIERI: --but that
was nothing, no big deal. It was all water
under the bridge. NARRATOR: Back at the
house, officers discovered a home rigged with cameras-- NARRATOR: --and an armory of
small firearms monitored 24/7. NICOLE QUINTIERI: We
noticed multiple gun safes, multiple cameras on
every angle of the house. NICOLE QUINTIERI:
To go into a house where the residents have
cameras in all of the rooms, like the bathrooms,
was very abnormal. NARRATOR: Police discovered
recording devices close to where Brandi was found. Surveillance cameras
are an absolute game changer in law enforcement. The Sheriff instituted a
real-time crime center here at the Flagler County
Sheriff's Office, and we have analysts
almost around the clock so we can conduct a
better-informed investigation. NARRATOR: Detective's new
analysis of the footage would be key to
solving the case, but when they asked Keith
to view the recordings, he was uncooperative. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
None of the passwords that he gave us
worked, and he gave us several different variations
of the same password. NARRATOR: The
detectives had no idea, what the footage would show, but
they knew it could be crucial. They issued a
warrant for the video from the surveillance company. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
I tried for seemingly, forever to just try
to get a human being that I could serve
this legal process to and get this search warrant. NARRATOR: It was a frustrating
delay in the search for evidence, but the
autopsy provided detectives with their first breakthrough. NICOLE QUINTIERI: We
received information from the Medical
Examiner's Office that said there were
two gunshots, which it's very uncommon for somebody
to shoot themself two times. One time, suicide--
understandable. Two times-- unlikely,
but still possible. But the big kicker
was, one of the shots was a distance shot,
which you can't shoot yourself from a distance. NARRATOR: The forensic pathology
revealed a major discrepancy in Keith's version of events. Brandi's husband was
now, the prime suspect. The home surveillance
camera system had become a vital electronic witness. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: If we
were successful in getting this footage, we knew that
it would be absolutely, absolutely groundbreaking. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Assistant
State Attorney Jennifer Dunton was brought in. She knew the digital recordings
could help her go back in time. JENNIFER DUNTON: In this case,
we didn't have an eyewitness, which we rarely do, so it
was very important to piece together all the evidence. The video evidence
was sort of, like-- it was an eyewitness to events. NARRATOR: When the footage
eventually arrived, it revealed what had gone
on behind closed doors. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
What we saw was some of the most
shocking footage that I've ever seen in my
entire law enforcement career. NARRATOR: An argument about
alleged flirting online had been escalated by Keith. NICOLE QUINTIERI: Watching these
videos, the drastic difference between what the
suspect portrayed to us and what was
actually going on, I don't know that I've ever had a
lie so in-depth to the contrary of the actual incident. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: I think,
we could see whether he was portraying his sniveling,
begging us to see his side of things version
versus this version, where he absolutely,
looks like a monster. NICOLE QUINTIERI: Never,
in a million years, would I have thought that
Brandi Celenza was going through what she went through
for the days leading up to her death. NARRATOR: Brandi's body
language was revealing. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS
(VOICEOVER): She just sat there and cried in a fetal
position much of the time. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS
(VOICEOVER): Even the way he positions
himself on the bed-- looking at her, threatening her. It's just a-- it's completely different. JENNIFER DUNTON: You can try
to envision what that life is like, but you don't know
until you live that, and so this was a
true insight into what domestic violence looks like. So people typically stay
in abusive relationships because there is a
gradual shifting baseline. So you experience more
and more abuse over time. The violence escalates. It usually starts as
psychological or coercive control, so belittling a
partner, as psychologically controlling their behavior,
maybe controlling finances, mocking them when they try to
go out and see their friends, and then, that often escalates
into physical violence and/or sexual violence, which
then can escalate even further, to murder. [MUSIC PLAYING] NICOLE QUINTIERI: At this
point, he's so enraged that he's telling her
to use a gun on herself so he doesn't have to. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
And giving her a gun and telling her to use
it, you could tell, she's just absolutely
broken at this point. He's totally broken
her, her self-esteem, and she just looks in disbelief,
like, what's happening? She can't believe it. JENNIFER DUNTON: It was horrible
having to sit there and go through those videos
and watch and imagine, what she was going through. NARRATOR: Brandi's
whole family had no idea what she was going through. AMBER CELENZA: She was happy. That house is a happy house. I don't understand. AMBER CELENZA: There,
everybody was happy. Why didn't she say anything? I grew up with you for ever,
we've done everything together, and you can't even say
one thing or, like, hint? I never got a hint. Telling your loved
ones that you're in an abusive relationship is
often, an incredibly difficult thing to do, and it's
because of the barriers to reporting being really high. So for one, as a victim of
intimate partner violence, you often feel, like, it's
maybe your fault so there's an internalization of the
perpetrator's coercive control and psychological manipulation. So the perpetrator has convinced
you that, maybe, you do deserve to be violently
treated because they've belittled you for so long
that you've internalized that. Not telling family
and friends is often, also because maybe you're
dependent on your partner, and you don't want to
dissolve the relationship. You don't want to
break up or maybe you're worried that
it'll get worse. So there's lots of
different barriers, some are more
because of dependence on the person than others. And there's also shame
and guilt and feeling like you shouldn't have gotten
yourself into the situation. [MUSIC PLAYING] NICOLE QUINTIERI: You can see
when Keith Johansen is just mentally abusing her,
that she's staring off, you know, a thousand
miles just to not feel what she's going through. You can see the tears
rolling down her face, but she's emotionless,
almost, on her face because she just
has nothing left. NICOLE QUINTIERI: When someone
is mentally and emotionally controlled by their
partner or by their spouse, it gets to the point of
where they feel like they are actually the person that
their spouse is telling them that they are-- that they'll be
nothing without their spouse, that they will make
nothing of themselves, that they are nothing, that
they're not worthy of anyone else other than them. Behind closed doors, you don't
know how far bickering can go. We had never seen, on video,
in such great detail, somebody being so evil towards
another human being, who he supposedly, loved. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: There
was almost, no doubt in my mind that he killed his wife. NARRATOR: But there
was a crucial element missing from the recordings. JENNIFER DUNTON: The murder
was not caught on video so you have to piece
it all together and prove your case
in a different way. NARRATOR: Investigators believed
Keith deleted the footage from the day of the murder. The question remained-- was
there enough video evidence to prove a motive? JENNIFER DUNTON: If he did it,
what points to premeditation? So every time I'm looking at
something, that's the lens that I'm looking at it through. JENNIFER DUNTON: Every time the
word "I'm going to kill you" comes out of your mouth,
that clip's coming out. Any threat to do harm-- --and then what-- to
give context, what the fight was over,
what the motive was, what he was upset about. NARRATOR: Every threat made by
Keith was building evidence. NICOLE QUINTIERI: It
gave a very clear picture that, Keith Johansen
had it in his mind days before that he was going
to kill Brandi Celenza. He said it several
times, on video, that he needed to leave the home
so that he wouldn't kill her. She needed to kill herself
so that he wouldn't kill her. JENNIFER DUNTON:
The video evidence showed both motive, a reason why
he would want to kill his wife. He was very, very upset with
her in the days leading up about this perceived
or apparent cheating she may have been doing. JENNIFER DUNTON: We were
confident that Brandi Celenza didn't shoot herself. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't suicide. NARRATOR: The team
then, combined the video with the 911 call. It revealed a difference between
his words and his actions. NARRATOR: Keith never actually
tried to save his wife's life. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
Our 911 operator tried to have Keith check
if Brandi had a pulse and things of that
nature and tried to get him to stop the bleeding. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: Keith
was saying, Brandi, Brandi, stay with me, stay with me. NARRATOR: CCTV footage
showed Keith wasn't even in the same room
as Brandi when he talked to the 911 dispatcher. NICOLE QUINTIERI: Here he
is in the living room hiding his narcotics because he was
more worried about getting in trouble for the
drugs in his house than saving his wife's life. The connection
between substance use and alcohol and intimate
partner violence, particularly intimate partner
homicide, is so strong. People who already have
violent tendencies are going to act on them because you're-- the front part of your brain,
your prefrontal cortex, is usually, sort of
diminished, and so you're making worse decisions, and
you're less likely to inhibit things like violence. [SIRENS] JENNIFER DUNTON: In the
videos, you had verbal abuse-- that demeaning type
of treatment of her-- but it very, very,
quickly, escalated to actual threats of harm
and threats of death, and then, ultimately,
two days later, unfortunately, deadly
violence was used. NARRATOR: The footage
of Brandi just moments before she died revealed
a calm and loving mother. JENNIFER DUNTON: We were looking
at as many pieces of evidence to show that minutes
before she was killed, she was functioning
completely normal. We had her on video just three
or four minutes before he calls 911 acting completely normal. JENNIFER DUNTON: She had
the interaction at the door with the religious visitors
and answered questions, and you can see her
picking up a cat. JENNIFER DUNTON: And
then, feeding her child, talking to her child about
going to the fair, just a normal sleepy, slow
morning in her house. AMBER CELENZA: We made
plans for the fair coming up that weekend. She was being a
very loving mother. Her son was just being
a typical little boy-- GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS: Telling
his mommy that he loves her. They parted ways in the
kitchen, and Brandi's son would never see her, again. NARRATOR: Individual cameras
brought into focus, the control Keith had over Brandi's life. GEORGE HRISTAKOPOULOS:
Keith apparently frowned on her having friends
and wanted to isolate her. NICOLE QUINTIERI:
His intentions were to have full control
over everything that she did in her life. He can see anybody and
everybody that she's talking to. He bought the house. He can put cameras and
stuff wherever he wants. He made her quit her job
so she has to stay home. So really, everything that
Brandi Celenza wanted to do in her life, he controlled. Get the [MUTED]
out of my life. NARRATOR: The cameras in the
home provided damning evidence. Three weeks after
Brandi's death, Keith was arrested and
charged with murder. JENNIFER DUNTON: We
initially arrested him on second degree murder. And then, after we had
a chance to thoroughly go through those videos again
and we saw both the motive, but really the premeditation
that those videos outlined-- all of his threats, direct
threats to kill, and to hurt her and do bodily harm, and
the removal of the camera just days before-- that really showed premeditated
design from his perspective-- JENNIFER DUNTON: --so
we chose to upgrade it to first degree
murder at that point and take it to a grand jury. NARRATOR: The trial
began in October 2021. JENNIFER DUNTON: The video
surveillance was key. I think, without the
video, you would have not seen the death threats. No one would have
known about that. Brandi was not here to tell us. So those videos spoke
for Brandi in court, which we very rarely have. With the CCTV footage, it
helps the jurors and the court find Keith guilty of
first degree murder. JENNIFER DUNTON: It was a tragic
example of that escalation of violence that
occurs, and it can go from just verbal abuse
to deadly force very, very quickly. NARRATOR: Keith
Johansen was found guilty of first degree
murder and sentenced to life without parole. AMBER CELENZA: That's what we
wanted to hear from day one. That's what we knew. We knew that he did this,
and just finally hearing it, it was, like,
waves just crashing and just, it was
an awesome feeling. JENNIFER DUNTON: It's just
relief, relief that we've gotten justice for the family. AMBER CELENZA: She
was my best friend. She was a mom. She was an aunt. She was a daughter,
a granddaughter. She was all these things--
a best friend to everybody. Little things were
big things to her-- a butterfly. Just, amazing person
all the way around, had no fear, an awesome person. [THEME MUSIC] NARRATOR: Whether it's
inside or outside the home, cameras now follow
our daily lives. All-seeing digital eyes
capture our words and deeds. Often, they record
crucial evidence of our darkest thoughts, like
in the case of Michelle Pearson. Walkden, Salford, in
the North of England-- home to journalist Amber Haque. AMBER HAQUE: Michelle Pearson
was a single mom to five kids. The oldest was Kyle,
Demi, Brandon, and Lacie, and the youngest was Leah. It's quite a
tight-knit community, lots of terraced houses. Michelle was very
well-known in the area. NARRATOR: December 11, 2017. Around 5:00 AM, Emergency
Services were called to a fire. It was Michelle's house. Mike Broadley was working
for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service. MIKE BROADLEY:
Michelle Pearson makes a 999 call from a mobile phone. By the time this is passed
from the BT operator, Michelle's call has dropped, and
there is no information passed. The crews make a
very fast response. AMBER HAQUE: All the neighbors
are out in the street, and they can see the house
completely engulfed in flames, and the neighbors know
that Michelle is in there with her five children. MIKE BROADLEY: This was a
very rapid developed fire. NARRATOR: Michelle's eldest
son, Kyle, was on the top floor. MIKE BROADLEY: Kyle exited via
the box bedroom front window onto just above the
door and got to safety. NARRATOR: The upstairs
window was wide open. Air flowed faster
through the house, and the fire accelerated. MIKE BROADLEY: And the
heat, smoke, and flames just raced up the stairs, ripped all
the plasterboard off the walls, caused extensive damage, and
straight out of their bedroom. And due to the scaffolding being
up the front of the property, they couldn't open the
windows either to escape. By the time the
crews answered, they found Michelle next to the
bath, the baby in the bath. NARRATOR: Fire crews got
Michelle and her youngest daughter, Leah, out
of the bathroom, and they were put
in an ambulance. Brandon and Lacie were
also pulled from the fire, but were pronounced dead on
arrival, at the hospital. MIKE BROADLEY: When the crews
were searching the bedroom that Demi and the siblings
were in, it had been on fire and suffered heat
and smoke damage. NARRATOR: Demi
died at the scene. Michelle and her daughter,
Leah, were left in the hands of emergency doctors. Fire investigators got to
work at the scene to find out, what happened? Mike Broadley was one of
the lead investigators. MIKE BROADLEY: We go into a
full investigation looking for evidence, signs
of burn patterns that could indicate
where the fire started, and why it traveled the way it
did and behave the way it did. We discounted that it was
accidental through electrical, through candles,
through smocking, through the cooking process. And once we discounted
all the accidental causes, we were only left with
the one option of, this is a deliberate act. NARRATOR: The Pearson home
was now, a crime scene. Perpetrators of
this kind of crime often think, they're
not going to get caught, and so that's a key motivator
for doing it because if you think, well, the evidence
is going to burn up anyway and they won't catch me
then, this is a good avenue to get justice, in some way. It might be easier to distance
yourself from the consequences of setting a fire
than knowingly, say, stabbing someone or
hurting someone in another way because you have that possible,
psychological justification where you go, well, I don't know
what the fire is going to do? I don't know, whom it's
going to harm or not? And so, you can
distance yourself a bit from the
potential consequences of that fire setting. [THEME MUSIC] NARRATOR: Fire
investigators needed to know how the fire was started. MIKE BROADLEY: It quickly
became apparent that the kitchen window had been smashed. We found evidence of a Budweiser
bottle on the kitchen counter with a bit of a burn wick. When we went into
the front room, we actually found that there
was a glass bottle at the front and near the door
leading to the staircase. This was the bottle that
delivered the fatal fire, unfortunately, and
where it landed, blocked the escape
to the front door. This fire took less
than two minutes to develop the way it did. So as soon as our bedroom window
was open, it was straight away. It was instant. NARRATOR: Mike and his team
decided, the fire was started by two Molotov cocktails. MIKE BROADLEY: It was concluded
that a bottle had been introduced through
the kitchen window, containing an accelerant,
which we believe was petrol. NARRATOR: Police collected
footage from any surveillance cameras they could find. AMBER HAQUE: Incredibly,
and quite crucially, the investigators found CCTV
that showed the perpetrators, MIKE BROADLEY: Shortly
before two minutes to 5:00 in the morning, the offenders
had lifted the back fence panel up and made entry
through the garden to the back kitchen window. NARRATOR: Dr. Vasileios
Karagioannopoulos is an expert in cybercrime at
the University of Portsmouth. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
The CCTV footage definitely shows us how useful CCTV
footage from the murder scene can be because we can see the
suspect or any accessories. The petrol bombs are thrown
in the ground floor-- the first flash and then the
second one from the explosion. Obviously, it was very hard
for the family to escape. NARRATOR: This was now a
multiple murder inquiry with a recording of the event. Emi Polito is a
forensic video analyst. EMI POLITO: It is
very rare, in a murder case, for the police
to be able to find CCTV of the actual incident. In this instance, even
though the CCTV was not of good quality, but it was
able to put a number of people at the scene and actually show
the extent of the incident and of the damage
that is caused. NARRATOR: The chilling
footage revealed more than one
person was involved and the direction
of their escape. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
We can see the offenders trying to get away. We can see how big
the flashes are. You can see them running away. NARRATOR: The
search for evidence included the cameras on the
fire trucks at the scene. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
They joined their accomplice in a getaway car, and we can
see footage from the dash cam of an emergency vehicle
Catching the escape car as it's leaving the scene, after
the petrol bombs have been thrown in the Pearson property. Quite compelling
evidence and images for the police during an
investigation, and it's very powerful. EMI POLITO: This is important
information because they actually show the incident. It really starts putting
the picture together. NARRATOR: Police had no idea
who the figures caught on camera were, but new information
came to light. MIKE BROADLEY: There had been
an emergency call earlier on that morning to the police
because somebody had been outside shouting for one of the
children and being a nuisance, so they had called
the police earlier. AMBER HAQUE: Michelle's
eldest son, Kyle, was getting into a bit of a bad crowd. He'd ended up in a feud
with another young lad, and there was this cycle of
sort of tit for tat revenge violence that was going on. NARRATOR: But Greater
Manchester Police still needed more information. LEWIS HUGHES: That feud
involved minor crimes and incidents, several
incidents, and retaliation between the two groups. NARRATOR: It escalated when
Kyle set fire to a car. AMBER HAQUE: Kyle had caused
fire damage to this guy's car, and in revenge
for that, this guy had started to threaten Kyle. He also later, turned
up to the family home and started threatening
Michelle, as well. NARRATOR: The
discovery of the feud gave police a prime
suspect, but the CCTV couldn't identify the man. AMBER HAQUE: The police
received a tip off. They were told that the
perpetrators had been seen in an Off Licence just
hours before the arson attack had happened. VASILEIOS KARA
GIANNOPOULOS: The police acquired point-of-sale
CCTV from the Off Licence. Point-of-sale cameras are very,
very useful for various kinds of investigations. They can show us who is
making a purchase so we can see their faces, for example. We can see the way they've
paid, whether they've paid with cash or with credit cards. We can see what
they've purchased and when that happened. NARRATOR: The
footage showed three young people buying alcohol. Police identified one
of them as Zak Bolland-- the man who threatened
Kyle and his house hours before the fire. EMI POLITO: We can
clearly, see the faces, and they are buying alcohol. NARRATOR: The beer brand
matched the bottle used to make the Molotov cocktail. VASILEIOS KARA
GIANNOPOULOS: They're holding a box full of bottles
of beer, which, we believe, were then used to
commit the arson. NARRATOR: But it wasn't
enough to make an arrest. AMBER HAQUE: They're
kind of laughing and joking with each other. To be honest, they look,
like, they don't really have a care in the world. NARRATOR: Then, a breakthrough
on another liquid purchase. The police also got CCTV
footage from a petrol station. NARRATOR: Two men
are caught on camera. Their identity hidden. Their purchase clearly seen. EMI POLITO: They think they
are being clever by covering themselves up with the hoodies. However, we are able to pick
up patterns on the clothing, on the jackets, the
color of the trousers, even features on the shoe ware. And the combination of the
clothing items between the two people are similar
to those that we are able to see in the
first bit of CCTV footage. NARRATOR: It can't
be a coincidence. Zak Bolland is clearly,
linked to both locations. They then, enables
the police to assume that they are the same person. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS: If
the suspects are masked in some of the footage, that doesn't
mean that investigators cannot combine and use that footage
with other CCTV in order to reinforce their case. NARRATOR: Police identified
the two others with Zak Bolland as David Worrall and his
girlfriend, Courtney Brierley. All three were arrested. LEWIS HUGHES: Zak Bolland denied
the attack, his girlfriend, Courtney Brierley, went no
comment to all questions asked, and Dave Worrall
was the only one who gave a comprehensive
account on interview. He actually told us
that he believed, they were going to set fire
to a bin at the premises. We've set about disproving
this, proving that the bins were at the front of the premises,
exactly where the group knew they were from the
earlier incident where they've threatened
the Pearson's. And there were, in fact,
no bins in the back garden. NARRATOR: On the 13th
of December 2017, Michelle's youngest child,
Leah, died in hospital. She was only three years old. Michelle had now, lost
four of her five children. AMBER HAQUE: Due to the
severity of the injuries that Michelle had
sustained, she struggled a lot with memory problems. She would often ask,
where the children were because she didn't
remember or recall that they had suddenly died. MIKE BROADLEY: The
children had the procession through the local area
and arrived on horse drawn carriages to the church, where
there was a very big turnout of friends, family, and
the local community came to support everybody, as well. NARRATOR: In May 2018,
Courtney Brierley was found guilty of manslaughter. Zak Bolland and David
Worrall were found guilty of the murder of four
children and the attempted murder of Michelle and Kyle. MIKE BROADLEY: Zak,
Courtney, and David were all sentenced for a total
of 98 years between them. Today, may be at
the end of the trial, but it's not the end for
us, as we may try to recover and get on with our lives. This incident led to
the death of, pretty much, a whole family. And when you look at the
images from the staircase and the bedrooms, it
was extremely hot, and it had been extremely
terrifying for that family. So here, we're going
from very petty disputes to really serious consequences,
and it's really easy to think, how can that happen? And surely, that's not
normal, but actually, statistically speaking,
that's exactly, how a lot of these situations happen. They start from
these really petty, normal human
interactions and then they spiral out of
control into these really extreme consequences. [THEME MUSIC] NARRATOR: The
point-of-sale cameras were an unexpected
and vital witness. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
In this particular case, the point-of-sale cameras
were instrumental in actually, cracking the case. CCTV and video evidence
is effectively, crucial. It's a crucial piece of evidence
in a criminal investigation. NARRATOR: But the
killer's convictions were not the end of the story. AMBER HAQUE: On the
25th of August 2019, Michelle Pearson,
very sadly, passed away following
some complications after she had an operation. She said, she'd lost any
will to live at this point and just wanted to let go, to
be with her babies, her angels. NARRATOR: It was 20
months after the fire. Michelle was 38 years old. Zak and David had
their sentences increased by three years. Her coffin, followed by four
white horse-drawn carriages, one for each of her children. VASILEIOS KARA GIANNOPOULOS:
This is a very heartbreaking story that shocked the nation. This was just, such
a desperately tragic and completely harrowing
story that not only affected the local community in Salford,
but all across the city of Manchester and beyond. They were known locally,
as the Walkden Angels. It had that much of an impact
on the local community here. MIKE BROADLEY: This
incident is one that will always stay with me. The whole idea that you could
do that act and just drive away and you've left that
devastation behind you, I just can't believe somebody
can do that and just drive away and get on
with their lives, knowing that you've potentially,
wiped the whole family out. [DRAMATIC MUSIC]
