Ellen Greenberg was a first grade school teacher and loved her job and her life. She'd met the man of her dreams and the two were engaged to be married, but in January of 2011, all of that would change. A winter storm forced Ellen to leave work early, returning home to her apartment. At around 5 p.m. that evening, a terrible tragedy occurred. When Ellen's fiancé returned home from the gym, he found his soon-to-be wife on the floor in their kitchen, completely unresponsive. When responders and investigators arrived just seven minutes later, rescue personnel announced that there was nothing they could do. The crazy thing is, according to detectives, Ellen had been wounded more than 20 times and many of these injuries were on her back, very clearly suggesting that Ellen had been ambushed while her fiancé was away. But after a relatively brief investigation, police determined that Ellen had done this to herself. Ellen Greenberg was just 21 years old in 2011. She'd been living in Philadelphia for much of her adult life, but had originally come from Harrisburg. Ellen taught first grade students at the Juniata Academy, located in Philadelphia. Even though the school is labeled as an academy, which in my area means it's a pretty high-end decent place to be, well, the school seems average at best. With math and reading proficiency scores coming in at 20 and 39% respectively, well, it's not really the best school in the world. Overall, it ranks in the mid to low ratings compared to other schools in the area, but Ellen never let that deter her. If anything, this just meant that her students needed her more now than ever. Ellen seems to have been incredibly happy with her job at the school, and she seems to have loved all of her students dearly. At least that's how it appeared on the outside. In reality, underneath it all, Ellen, known by her family as Ellie, have been struggling pretty severely. We don't specifically know what led to all of this, but her parents had known that she'd been dealing with some pretty serious anxiety for quite a while. Considering Ellie lived in a less than desirable area, there's a chance that the crime and unpredictability of the city just placed her on edge. There's a chance that she'd been struggling with her students at school. There's just so much that's uncertain and so much that we don't know about her private life. But what we do know is that Ellie called her parents just a couple weeks before the crime unfolded and announced that she wanted to quit her job and, in her words, come home. Her parents were very sympathetic to Ellie's struggles. They openly welcomed her back into their home, but they requested that she get some professional help with her anxiety if she decided to do so. When they pressed her about what was bothering her, all that Ellie revealed was that the stress of planning a wedding was getting the best of her. Her wedding was set to take place in August, about seven months away. She also revealed that her job as a teacher had been super busy lately and it was really starting to stress her out. She'd been planning for her wedding for a number of weeks and she sent out her Save the Date cards just four days before tragedy struck. While all of these complaints are certainly understandable, none of them should have been enough of a reason for Ellie to have done what the police claim she did, which was take her own life. According to Ellie's father, when he spoke with her on the phone in January of 2011, he felt like something was a little bit off about Ellie. He claims that her personality had changed and she didn't sound like her typical happy-go-lucky self. He says that Ellie had been continually complaining about how the stress of her job was affecting her and she felt like she may have been falling behind. But when the teacher who eventually took Ellie's class over, looked through her books and general housekeeping, she said that everything looked perfect. It appeared as though Ellie was on top of everything and was doing remarkably well with her class. After learning this, many people began to wonder if Ellie had been sharing the whole truth with her parents. Was her job really the problem here or was there something else going on that she didn't want her family to know about? Eventually, Ellie gave in to her parents' wishes and agreed to go to a professional for help with her anxiety. This professional appears to have been chatting with Ellie extensively for several weeks, with the two meeting on at least three separate medications as far as I was able to confirm, but it's possible that they'd been meeting for a lot longer than this. Her doctor says that at no point during any of their discussions, did Ellie give any indication that she would want to claim her own life. She was a perfectly healthy young woman who was simply overwhelmed by various stressors that had appeared all at once in her life. In the end, the doctor offered Ellie a couple medications to help her sleep and help her take the edge off so that she could have a clear head to try to work through whatever it was that was bothering her. While seeking help should have been the start of a new beginning for Ellie, unfortunately, it just wasn't. In fact, it was quite the opposite. If anything, it merely marked the beginning of the end. It was January 26, 2011. A terrible winter storm had begun to blow into the area and the local schools quickly became concerned that the buses may not be able to finish their rounds before the roads were covered in snow and ice. As a result, school was called off early that day and all the children were sent home in the early afternoon hours. The teachers would follow soon after. After leaving the school, Ellie headed to a nearby gas station and filled up her car with gas before returning home to her apartment that she shared with her fiance, Sam Goldberg. Sam was a local television producer and he and Ellie had met about three years prior. By all outward appearances, the relationship between Ellie and Sam was going great. Shortly after Ellie had returned home from school that day, Sam announced that he was going to head to the nearby gym, which was still open despite the storm. He left their apartment at about 4.45 PM that day, saying goodbye to Ellie and not thinking anything else of it. He was at the gym for around 30 minutes before he returned home. When he got back, he tried to open the door to their apartment, but it was wedged shut. Sam quickly realized that someone had engaged the swing lock from inside of the apartment. He tried and tried to open the door, but he just couldn't. Clearly frustrated, he began to text Ellie, asking her to open the door. Ellie didn't respond. He texted her again and again, with this taking place over the course of around an hour. His texts grew increasingly frantic and he got so frustrated with Ellie's lack of response that he went and found one of the apartment building's security personnel and asked them to unlock the door. But they refused, claiming that it was unethical and against their building's policy. Sam, undeterred, returned to the apartment and broke through the latch that was keeping the door closed.  As he peered into the apartment, he saw Ellie slumped down on the kitchen floor. She was covered in pools of evidence as was the ground around her. Sam immediately called the police and explained what was going on. He was instructed to begin CPR, hoping to keep Ellie alive until rescuers could arrive, but that's when he noticed the knife. The emergency responder then instructed Sam not to conduct CPR and to wait until first responders could get there. Paramedics showed up within a couple of minutes, but it was quickly determined that Ellie was gone. She was pronounced deceased at 640 p.m., not even two hours after Sam had last spoken to her. The big question here is, who could have done this to Ellie? After all, the door was not only locked, but it was also lashed from the inside. So who could have been responsible? Well, if investigators are to be believed, Ellie. Once detectives entered the apartment, they immediately noticed there were no signs of forced entry aside from the broken latch that Sam had burst through in order to gain access to the apartment. As police canvassed the apartment, there was no sign of anything being disturbed outside of the kitchen. Very clearly, the crime had begun and ended within the boundary of the kitchen. In fact, it doesn't even seem as though Ellie had even walked around in the kitchen. Best I can tell, all of the evidence was collected in one small corner of the kitchen, where Ellie had collapsed in the corner of a set of cabinets. A fresh bowl of blueberries was found on the counter, as was a freshly peeled orange. It seemed as though Ellie may have either prepared herself a snack or was getting ready to have dinner, but she was ambushed from behind. But detectives refute this belief. When a medical examiner arrived, it was determined that Ellie had passed away from a total of 20 individual wounds. Each wound was infected with a single weapon, the knife that was still found in the kitchen. 10 of the wounds were found on the back of her head, her back and her neck.  What's crazy is that no matter how much police investigated the scene of the crime, they couldn't find a single shred of evidence that suggested anyone else had been inside the apartment that day. There were no shoe prints, obviously no forced entry, no open windows, nothing. So how had someone broken in, taken Ellie's life, and then fled without leaving a shred of evidence behind? Well, investigators first looked at the weapon for any signs of evidence. They found no fingerprints nor any DNA outside of Ellie's. They also began to look at all the exterior walls of the home. They noticed that the home had a large balcony, but none of the snow that had fallen on the balcony had been disturbed. There was also no evidence that anyone had entered the home after being in the snow. No wet marks on the floor or anything else of the sort. There was nothing. This led police to one seriously dangerous but honestly understandable conclusion that Ellie had taken her own life. Police quickly contacted the apartment security team, hoping they captured CCTV footage of someone that day. The apartments did have cameras set up in the main lobby, but they didn't have any surveillance in the hallways of the building, likely for privacy reasons. After combing through the footage, police found no evidence of anyone who couldn't be accounted for. When speaking with neighbors, investigators recalled that none of the nearby residents heard anything unusual that day outside of Sam, repeatedly banging and shouting at the door trying to get inside. Sergeant Tim Cooney remembered the investigation and said that the entire crime unfolded in the exact spot where they found Ellie in the corner of the kitchen cabinets. He said the rest of the apartment was unremarkable. No further evidence was found outside of what was collected from the kitchen. When speaking about the case, Detective Cooney explained that the case was not ruled as a homicide for a number of reasons. The most obvious was the lack of any further evidence suggesting such, but he also recalled the state of Sam, the fact that he never left the scene of the incident for that entire night, as well as the fact that Sam was extremely cooperative throughout the investigation. I say this because naturally, police always suspect the spouse or partner, especially considering Sam was the only other person with the key to the apartment as far as we know, outside of security staff. But Sam's alibi checked out and there was zero reason to believe he was involved in the crime. I remember reading one report that claimed that there was evidence found on Ellie's laptop, claiming that she'd been looking up details regarding taking one's own life. But the best I can tell, this report was false. Every other report I've found claims that nothing was found on her laptop or in her search history, but it does clarify that police did check into her laptop just to be sure. Now, at this point, you might be thinking, okay, cool story, Ellie was more depressed than she let on and she eventually took her own life, case closed, right? Well, no, not exactly. And in fact, not at all because the results of Ellie's autopsy soon came in and what they revealed would cast the case in a completely different light. Just a day after Ellie lost her life, the local medical examiner began the autopsy. He began searching her body for wounds. When he would find one, he would label them with the letter, obviously beginning with the letter A. By the time he was finished, he made it all the way to letter T. He noted that Ellie had a total of eight wounds on her chest alone. Each of these injuries range from a couple centimeters to more than four inches. Now, I could certainly understand how someone may have done something like this to themselves in an attempt to claim their own life. I'll admit there are easier ways of going about this, but we don't know Ellie's mental state at the time. So this may have been a reasonable option for her. But what about the 10 wounds that were found on her back? How in the world would a petite person like Ellie have been able to get herself in the back with such tremendous force? Worse yet, how could she have done this and still been able to inflict the final tin blows on the front of her body? After all, one expert took a look at the results of this investigation and explained that the wounds on her back appear to have taken place first. But she would have been in such excruciating pain that she would have either been rendered unconscious or maybe even paralyzed. This is because the wounds on her neck completely severed much of her nervous system. To put it plainly, there's no logical way that Ellie did this to herself. The examiner also found 11 bruises on her body with them being in various stages of healing. This seems to suggest that Ellie may have been in some sort of a scuffle in the days leading up to her demise, though admittedly she was also an elementary school teacher. First graders are nuts, so many of these bruises may have just come from her day to day life as a teacher, we just don't know for sure. I've seen several people suggest that these bruises prove that Sam may have been abusive and this could have led to Ellie's sudden change in personality as well as her sudden onset of anxiety. But police found no evidence to support this theory and I didn't find any reason to believe this either. The bruises are certainly suspicious, that much is obvious, but that doesn't mean that Sam was involved in any way. At the end of it all, the medical examiner weighed the options and listed Ellie's case as a homicide. But that's not the end of it because no sooner than Ellie's case was handed off to the homicide unit, it was updated once again. This time the homicide unit rejected the idea of her case being listed as such and they once again claim that Ellie had done this to herself. They claim that they believe this to be true after Ellie had obviously been struggling with her mental health, as well as the fact that there was literally nothing found at the crime scene. When investigators eventually spoke with Ellie's closest friend Debbie, she revealed some information that didn't really help this ruling. Debbie explained that in the weeks leading up to Ellie's demise, she had become incredibly reserved and didn't wanna talk about much of anything. When Debbie pressed her about this, Ellie would shut down and refused to reveal what had been bothering her. Debbie says that if she asked her anything, there'd be a long pause followed by Ellie saying, I don't wanna talk about it. Debbie worked alongside Ellie at school and she says that while working, Ellie didn't seem any more stressed than any of the other teachers. She believes that whatever's going on, it wasn't work related. Ellie's father says that despite Ellie's obvious signs of anxiety, she never complained about anything or anyone in particular outside of her wedding plans. When investigators spoke with Ellie's psychiatrist, she revealed that Ellie never complained about anyone either. She specifically explained that Ellie never complained about her relationship with Sam, which in essence completely rules Sam out as having any involvement in this. Her psychiatrist even recalled that when speaking about Sam, Ellie would begin to smile. Ellie's family rather obviously does not buy into the belief that Ellie claimed her own life. They firmly believe that she had her life stolen from her. They've hired various detectives on their own and one of these detectives described a scene of the crime as a so-called Blitz attack, which is essentially an attack that's carried out incredibly quickly and would certainly explain the number of Ellie's wounds as well as the varying severity of them. But still, investigators were undeterred. In the end, Ellie's family took the case to court and demanded that it be reexamined as a homicide. This all took place as recently as September of 2023, just a few weeks ago at the time of making this video. But in a two to one vote, the case was rejected. Ellie's demise is still listed as having been carried out by herself. Now, I tend to be fairly quick to be critical of investigators during cases like this, but if we take a step back for a moment, we have to ask ourselves, what other choice do officers have? Rather, obviously, they should continue pursuing the case and looking for leads. But as the case stands, there's simply no evidence pointing to anyone else being in that apartment that day. The only two entrances were the front door and the balcony, which was on the sixth floor of the building, mind you. The front door was latched shut from the inside and the balcony was covered in countless inches of snow, all which had been undisturbed. Now, to be clear, I'm not defending the belief that Ellie did this to herself, not for one second, but in terms of a simple black and white investigation, what other option do investigators have?  Sam has since moved on and continued with his life, and he's now a married man and a father of two young children. But for Ellie's family, the pain never stops. They've announced that they plan to continue pushing for justice, and I'm so thankful that they have the strength to do so. In the end, something happened to Ellie that day, and I for one do not believe she was alone in that apartment. All we can do is hope that at some point, more information will become available. Investigators will finally be able to get this case solved properly. A detective's daughter isn't someone you would expect to become caught up in a true crime story. But in the case of Georgia Williams, that's exactly what happened. Now, Georgia wasn't this criminal's first victim, but investigators ensured she was certainly his last. Georgia was lured to the home of someone she felt completely comfortable around, someone she felt she could trust more than anyone else in the world. But this notion of trust was quickly shattered when Georgia realized she was in for a lot more than she bargained for. Georgia was subjected to what was likely hours upon hours of unspeakable terror, unlike anything you could imagine. What should have been a calm evening between friends turned into the stuff of nightmares. Georgia Williams was born on a cool day in mid-September back in 1995 in Shropshire, England. She had a sister who was a bit older than her and the two would grow up in the home of their parents, Lynette and Steve Williams, with Steve being a detective. Georgia is remembered for being a very lively girl that was always full of energy, someone who could make friends with darn near anyone, the type of person many of us aspire to be. Growing up in her younger years, though, Georgia didn't always have it easy. When she was in middle school, she began to be bullied quite a lot. Thankfully, this bullying didn't last very long and after enduring a few years of aggravation and pain, high school rolled around. And that's when things really began to take shape for Georgia. By the time she reached the age of 16 or 17, Georgia's luck had completely turned around. And not only was she now considered to be one of the popular girls, but she was eventually elected head girl of her class. Now, for anyone who may not be familiar with this term, myself included, that's basically the British equivalent of being class president, a single student who the others have elected to be the lead voice of the entire student body. Needless to say, Georgia had a pretty prosperous time in high school, and when her schooling finally began to wind down when she turned 17, she revealed that she planned on continuing her education so that she could become an Air Force paramedic, an incredibly noble position to aim for. In order to make these dreams a reality, though, she needed to fund her future education to do this, she opted to get a job at a local gas station. After beginning work at the gas station, Georgia made friends incredibly quickly. It didn't take long before she was on good terms with every member of staff, but there was one guy in particular who Georgia took an interest in. She noted that he was incredibly shy and didn't really hang out with the rest of the team, but she wanted to change that. Knowing all too well how it felt to be an outcast in her younger years, Georgia made sure to take time with this guy to make sure he felt welcomed and accepted. This man would be Jamie Reynolds, who was about 22 years old at the time. Georgia went out of her way to make sure Jamie was invited to all of the coworkers get-togethers and gatherings. While he wasn't the type of person to really be seen in a social or a public setting, well, things quickly changed. As soon as he began hanging out with Georgia, it was like his entire personality changed, while he'd previously been reserved, awkward and shy, his confidence had finally come to the surface. It was clear that there was a deep bond developing between the two, but it seems like they weren't really on the same page. As you probably have come to expect, before long, Jamie had fallen head over heels for Georgia, but there was one problem. She didn't really feel the same way about it. Jamie ended up asking Georgia out on a couple of dates, but she turned him down and explained that she wasn't really looking for a boyfriend at the moment. She was more focused on making her career dreams a reality, and she explained to him in the gentlest way that she could that she just wanted to be friends. Jamie was understandably upset about this, but he made it clear that he completely understood why Georgia had turned him down. He took the let down in stride and basically just let it go, or so it seemed. As anyone who's been rejected knows, being turned down isn't always easy. Now it's simple enough to let the situation pass and move on with your life, but just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Jamie understood this all too well, because this was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. It would seem that Georgia was one of the only people who was ever really willing to give Jamie the time of day, and he was terrified of letting her slip away. So he concocted a plan to make sure that would never happen. By the time Jamie turned 23, he and Georgia had been friends for the better part of a year. Feeling like he could confide in her, he'd spoken with Georgia multiple times about how unsatisfied he was with his life. He couldn't fathom the thought that the best life would ever be for him was working a job at a gas station. He wanted more, and who could blame him? Georgia spoke with him about what his dreams were, what his hobbies may have been, and what he wanted to do with his life. Jamie explained that one of the biggest passions of his was photography. And that's when Georgia suggested that he tried taking up a job as a photographer, find some people to shoot photos for, maybe do weddings, things of that nature. Jamie loved this idea, so much so that he asked Georgia to help him establish a professional portfolio to show off his work. Not only this, but he asked Georgia to be his first model, and she jumped at the opportunity to help out her friend. The plan was for Georgia and a few others to head over to Jamie's house on May 26th, 2013. They'd planned a huge photo shoot for that day so that Jamie would be able to get heaps of photos of various people to ensure his portfolio was as diverse as possible. The only problem was Georgia would soon learn that her family had planned a big barbecue party that same day, and her grandparents would be coming to town for a short visit as well. Georgia did not want to miss this barbecue, but she also didn't want to let Jamie down. She knew that the two only lived about four or five minutes apart, so she decided to get dressed up and go do the photo shoot, then hurry home afterwards so that she could spend time with her grandparents. She did her hair, put on jeans and a leather jacket, and then took off. It would be around 7.30 that evening when Georgia headed off towards Jamie's house. Her family expected her to be back within a fairly short amount of time, maybe 30 minutes to an hour or so, but when three full hours had passed by, they started to get a bit concerned. They weren't worried or anything, but they couldn't understand what had been taking so long. Her mother ended up texting her to make sure everything was going okay, and Georgia explained that they'd finished the photo shoot quite a while ago and that she'd been hanging out with friends there and she simply lost track of time. Georgia explained that she would probably not be home until fairly late that night, letting them know not to wait up for her. With that, her parents turned in for the night, they had no idea that the person they'd been texting wasn't Georgia. By the following morning at 6.30 a.m., Georgia's mother quickly realized that Georgia still hadn't returned home. This is when things really began to become bizarre because her mother knew that Georgia had a music festival scheduled later that day and she wouldn't miss it for the world. She'd been planning on attending for weeks. Her parents assumed that she'd probably just be heading off to the festival from her friend's house, so again, they didn't put too much thought into it. After all, Georgia had never been the type of person to get into trouble, so they assumed she had it all figured out as she always did. By later that evening though, they started to get suspicious. See, Georgia didn't have her driver's license just yet and she was taking driving classes before actually taking her test to ensure that she knew the ins and outs of everything. Her classes were scheduled to take place early the next day, so her parents expected her to return home later that evening, but she never did. They waited up late that night, expecting her to come home at any moment, but they never heard a word from her. She also stopped responding to texts and calls. By late that evening, her parents had taken to calling friends, family, anyone who may have seen Georgia, but no one had. When Georgia still hadn't returned home the next morning and eventually missed her driving lesson, that's when her parents called the police to file a missing person report. When police showed up at the Williams home later that day to take their statements, they asked all the usual questions, including when they'd last seen their daughter and where she was supposed to have been. Her parents explained that the last they knew, she'd headed off to a photo shoot at her friend, Jamie's house. Admittedly, this wasn't much information to work with, but the obvious first step was to look into Jamie and see what he may know about her disappearance. But as officers began to look up information in their database about Jamie, they were shocked to say the least. As they brought up Jamie's profile in their system, they quickly learned that Jamie was caught by officers back in 2008 for attempting to claim the life of a teenage girl. The crazy thing is the police didn't actually arrest him, nor was he charged with a single crime. Now, I'm sure there's more to the story than what's been reported, but this definitely seems bizarre to me. In the end, Jamie was just given a warning and was allowed to walk away without any repercussions while this innocent girl was left with lifelong trauma. This seems utterly nuts to me, but again, I feel like there has to be more to the story than this. Surely the police weren't this negligent, but the truth is maybe they were. Thankfully, investigators weren't willing to take George's case so lightly. They knew now that Jamie had a history of violence, so they began the hunt for Georgia, firing on all cylinders. They showed up at Jamie's door and knocked, but received no response. Desperate for answers, they didn't waste any time. They kicked down his door and forced their way inside. They searched every inch of the home, but didn't find any signs of Jamie. They immediately sent out calls for help and Jamie was now considered to be a wanted man. Detectives first went to the gas station where Jamie and Georgia worked, but none of their coworkers had seen them in days and both of them had missed their shifts. This was not good news. They tracked down details of Jamie's van and sent out information to all available officers to be on the lookout for the vehicle. After searching the ends of the earth for any sign of him, officers eventually tracked him down more than 200 miles away in Scotland of all places. This man hadn't just skipped town, he fled the country entirely. This was all the info police needed to know that Jamie was up to something, but what was it? When police questioned him about Georgia, they quickly pulled the I don't know card and left it at that, insisting he had no knowledge of where Georgia went after the photo shoot that day. Investigators weren't having any of it. They detained him and transported him all the way back to Shropshire for a proper interrogation. But the news that he would reveal, well, it wasn't anything that Georgia's family wanted to hear. Police were now highly suspicious of Jamie. In fact, the text messages that Georgia's family had received on the night that she went missing, now these were getting called into question as well, as Jamie may have been the one to send them. Considering he had a history of assault and was found while fleeing the country, police now had enough evidence to search his home for clues about Georgia. They didn't know how he was involved in her disappearance, but they felt highly confident at the very least that he knew more than he was letting on about Georgia. As they searched his home, they managed to track down the camera that he'd been using on the day of the photo shoot. Lucky for them, the SD card was still inside the camera too. The only problem was the card had been completely wiped. Not a single photo remained. But investigators weren't going to let this stop them. Detectives brought the SD card to their digital forensics team. And without much issue, the team was able to recover all of the deleted photos. See, when you delete a photo off of something like an SD card or a hard drive, those photos aren't actually deleted. To put it in super simple terms, they basically just be moved to a hidden folder where they'll just sit there and wait until that space is needed for other files. Then they'll be gradually deleted one by one. You could think of it as throwing something in the trash, but not taking the trash out.  That's basically how these photos were recovered. When forensic specialists managed to recover the photos, nothing could prepare them for what they had found. Turns out, Jamie did have a photo shoot that day, but he and Georgia were the only ones in attendance. Unbeknownst to Georgia, no one else had ever even been invited. The photo shoot began like any regular photo shoot. There were various photos of Georgia looking happy, smiling and posing. But all of a sudden, the tone of the images shifted. Soon, Georgia's clothes were missing. Things only got worse from here, as the next few photos showed Georgia with a rope hanging loosely around her neck with a very concerned, terrified expression on her face. The next few photos, well, they were worse. It was incredibly clear that Georgia was being held against her will. What was even more clear is that between two of the photos, things took a tragic turn and Georgia had now lost her life. Immediately after Georgia's life had been taken, Jamie continued to take hundreds of other photos, literally hundreds, of her in various poses at different angles, so on and so forth. I truly can't get into all of the details of what these photos showed, but it was unlike anything you could ever imagine. This was horrendous, and that's putting it so, so lightly. Police continued to search Jamie's home, and that's when they found, in addition to the photos of Georgia, a minimum of 16,800 photos that showed incredibly violent acts being carried out on various people. Detectives don't believe Jamie took all of these photos himself if he took any of them at all, but simply possessing them was a crime. There were also 72 graphic videos that were found as well, and again, each was more and more violent than the one before it. Considering Jamie was still living with his parents when all of this came to light, his parents were asked to speak with officers to give their side of the story, hoping they could shed some light on the situation and explain how all of this had taken place and how Jamie managed to get ahold of these photos and videos. What his parents told the police was downright shocking because what police had found in Jamie's room, it was nothing new. In fact, his parents had known about it for the better part of a decade. When all of this was taking place, the photo shoot, the crime and everything in between, Jamie's parents had been out of town on vacation, but as soon as they got the call from investigators about Jamie's arrest, they rushed back home as quickly as they could. When police confronted the couple about what they'd found in Jamie's room, their jaws hit the floor.  When the police pressed them about this issue, Jamie's parents admitted they'd first caught Jamie watching videos like this when he was just 14 years old. After this discovery, his parents reached out to their internet provider and had them block access to these websites. But it's pretty much all that was ever said about the situation. To make matters worse, I feel the need to clarify that this is simply when his parents caught him watching these videos. That doesn't mean it was the first time he'd ever done it. Truth be told, he could have been watching stuff like this since he was in middle school, we just don't know. But here's where things get crazy. When Jamie found out that his parents had blocked access to these websites, he actually called the internet provider himself and paid for his own private internet connection. His parents were none the wiser. Each month, he would pay the bill with his own money and his parents never had a clue. When his parents did eventually find out about his private internet access, they decided to call the police as well as child protective services. From what I've gathered, neither of these parties did anything to actually fix the situation. I found one report that claimed that possessing these videos isn't even illegal in England, but I personally find that hard to believe. If these videos were as violent as some sources suggest they are, then they may have been documenting actual crimes, which in fact is a crime in and of itself, at least here in the States. I feel it's safe to assume that this would be a crime in England as well, but I may be wrong. But regardless, no one did anything about it. Jamie wasn't willing to obey his parents and despite their constant complaining, he made it very clear that he was gonna do what he wanted to do and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Jamie continued to grow up surrounded by this incredibly damaging content. In me is to say it had a profound effect on him in his later years, as is evidenced by this very case. When police continued searching Jamie's home after his arrest, they managed to track down at least 40 separate notepads on which Jamie had written stories and fantasies about what he wanted to do to Georgia as well as various other women. Now, these weren't your typical fan fiction type stuff that you'd find on the internet. No, these were highly detailed, incredibly graphic stories about what he planned to do to a woman if he was ever given the opportunity. Each of these stories ended the same way with the females losing their lives. As police combed through each and every one of these stories, they found one that caught their eye. It was titled Georgia Williams in Surprise. The story documented an explicit detail exactly what happened to Georgia that day. It was like a play-by-play of the crime. According to one article, police say that he began writing the story in January and finished writing it just a few weeks before the crime actually unfolded. When police confronted Jamie about this story, he didn't budge. He continued to claim that he was innocent and was 100% uncooperative with the investigation. This meant police had to resort to good old-fashioned detective work to figure out what exactly had happened to Georgia and where she was now. Their investigation first began at a gas station nearby. It's unclear if this is the same station where the two had worked or if this was a different station entirely. Jamie was caught on CCTV here, filling up his van with gas. It's believed that at this very moment, Georgia had already been stowed away in the back of the vehicle. Immediately after getting gas, he drove to a nearby movie theater and watched a movie. All while Georgia was still in the back of the van, just leaving her there for hours while he laughed it up inside the theater. Police weren't sure where he went after this, but a few witnesses later reached out and explained that they'd seen that exact van driving through a mountain road in North Wales. As it would turn out, while driving through the area, Jamie's van got stuck in the mud and a few people actually helped him get his van unstuck and back onto the road. All the while, Georgia was likely still in the back. This is what led police to head to the woods where the van was stuck and check out the surrounding area. Sure enough, in the thick brush of the woods, they found Georgia's body tossed amongst the trees like some animal. It should go without saying that at his trial a short while later, Jamie was found guilty. Interestingly, he'd been proclaiming his innocence all the way up until the very day of the trial. Then, as he stood before the court, he finally changed his tone and pleaded guilty. He was the youngest person in English history to be given a life sentence with no possibility of parole. In the wake of the trial, it came to light, not only did the police fail the public back in 2008 when Jamie tried to take the life of that teenage girl, but various other institutions also failed to properly get this man off the streets. A mental health nurse made a public statement in which she said that she knew about Jamie's violent behavior years before the trial. She recalled a series of photos that Jamie had drawn, presumably when he was a child, each of which depicted a woman with a rope hanging around her neck. According to this nurse, nothing was done about this and the situation just faded away. Now, she didn't say this part outright, but her verbiage led me to believe that she may have attempted to speak with investigators about this, but it didn't really go anywhere if so. By this point, Jamie's parents were also well aware of his violent tendencies, having caught him watching the aforementioned videos on multiple occasions. His parents did everything they knew how to do, but outside of kicking Jamie outside of their house, what can you do if your child just outright refuses to cooperate? Now, I suppose he could have been involuntarily admitted somewhere, and surely if his parents knew just how bad this behavior was, they would have explored that. But the truth is, this case can't just be blamed on one person. Jamie isn't the only one responsible. If he'd gotten the help he needed when he was younger, it's likely that none of this would have ever happened. And I'm not blaming his parents for this by any means. From the reports I've read, they legitimately did their best. The mental health nurse that he saw also seems to have done her best to bring awareness to this situation and the poor teenager who he attacked also seems to have done her part. But the investigative teams at each of these institutions just failed. There's another way to explain it. Let this be a lesson to parents everywhere. Take note of what your children are doing on the internet, what content they watch, what games they play, who they're speaking to. Cases like this don't have to happen. Stories like this don't have to be told. If something seems a bit weird, chances are it's because it's weird. If your kid is watching something you don't understand, take the time to understand it and make an educated judgment call. If you catch your child repeatedly watching content like this, it's your job to go as far as you need to to keep them safe. Cancel your internet entirely if you have to. Take their phone, their computer, tablet, whatever it is, throw that junk in the trash if that's what it takes. I don't care what it costs. We're all responsible for the children in our lives, even if they're not our own. It's our job to keep these children safe and keep tabs on them until they're old enough to make good decisions on their own. If something strange is going on with your kid, it is never too early to reach out to a professional for help. There's no shame in it either. It doesn't make you a failed parent or a guardian if you've learned that your kid needs more help than you can provide. What makes you a failed parent or guardian is if you're unwilling to reach out and admit when both you and your kid need help. Ultimately, in Jamie's situation, his parents didn't know just how disturbed he really was. And his parents reached out to the police and mental health experts. But sadly, that still wasn't enough because their cries fell on deaf ears. I don't know who to think is responsible for this, but I do feel with every ounce of my being that this could have been avoided. It didn't have to end this way. It was August 25th, 2016, and Shanna Grice was home alone. What's crazy about this case is that Shanna had already complained to the police five times about fears that she was being stalked. In fact, during one of these reports, she was reprimanded by the police and handed a fine of $90 for wasting police time. If only officers knew just how wrong they would be about Shanna. They'd be forced to learn the hard way that Shanna's fears were justified and her life was in serious danger. Shanna Grice grew up near Brighton in Sussex and she had a pretty ordinary childhood. Shanna was an only child, but she had plenty of friends at school to make up for a time that was spent alone at home. We don't know too terribly much about Shanna's upbringing or her time in school. Her family haven't really shared much personal information about her since that awful crime took place. What we do know is that she was described as incredibly lively and vivacious, so it's clear to see that she was a young girl who had a passion for life. As far as we know, Shanna's early years played out without too much of a fuss, but the time Shanna had entered secondary school as we call it here in the States, she'd already taken her life into her own hands and started crafting a future for herself. It was while she was attending high school that she ran into a boy named Ashley Cook. The two met sometime around 2013 when Ashley was 17 and Shanna was 16. From the outset, the two were inseparable. What began as a passive interest in one another grew to something far, far greater within a matter of a few months. Before they knew it, the two started dating and not long after that, things began to get quite serious between them. After graduating from high school and moving on with their lives, the two remained together and were deeply dedicated to one another, or so it seemed. See, Ashley was dedicated to the relationship more than anything, but Shanna, well, she was beginning to have a change of heart. After school, Shanna had found a job at a local fire alarm company and when starting a new job, you're bound to meet all sorts of new people. And one of these people was Michael Lane. Up until this point, the relationship between Shanna and Ashley, I've been nothing but perfect, but after meeting Michael, Shanna began to have second thoughts. See, as far as I can tell, neither Shanna nor Ashley had ever been in another serious relationship before this point. And I mean, how could they have been? They were literal children when they first started dating. And while this is nothing to really be concerned about, the two obviously didn't have much life experience behind them. So when Shanna met Michael Lane, well, she began to wonder if Ashley really was the one like she had thought. Michael and Shanna were always able to laugh with one another, no matter what they did, whether at work or otherwise, they had fun. The same was true between Shanna and Ashley, but with Michael, things were different. He had an energy about it that was captivating and infectious. To top this off, he made Shanna feel like she was the only thing in the world that really mattered. Before long, Shanna realized that she'd started to develop feelings for him. Now, we don't know how the situation played out specifically, but one thing led to another and Shanna started to feel like she and Ashley may not have been the perfect couple that she thought they were. She proposed the idea of the tube taking a break, testing the waters and making sure they'd explored all of their options before dedicating themselves to one another at such a young age. It seems that Ashley likely disagreed with this idea, but what was there that he could have done to stop it? After all was said and done, the two agreed to take a break and they went their separate ways. Immediately after setting their feelings aside for a while, Shanna began dating Michael Lane. But there was one big problem here. See, Michael was definitely the sweetheart that he portrayed himself to be, at least in the early days. But as time passed by, Shanna began to realize that there was much more to Michael than meets the eye. Rather quickly, Shanna began to feel trapped, smothered. It took her less than three months to realize Michael was not the person she thought he was. She knew she'd made a big mistake. Before we keep going with the video, I wanted to show you guys a great new mobile game called June's Journey. If you're into true crime and mysteries as much as I am, this game will be perfect for you. June's Journey is a hidden object game, but with a pretty captivating story involving a murder mystery. It takes place back in the 1920s, and each new scene and level takes you through a different chapter of the story, setting up June Parker, the main character, to solve the mysterious murder of her sister. This game is completely free to download, and the basic idea of the game is hunting for clues and hidden objects that may help bring June one step closer to solving the case. You can customize and remodel your mansion as well as your garden island along the way. Now, I grew up playing Seek & Find games like this, so this game is right up my alley, and I feel like you guys will enjoy it as well. It's super relaxing to play and easy to pick up when you have a few free minutes here or there throughout the day. You can click the link below in the description to download the game on iOS and Android devices, but it's also available on PC through Facebook Games. So if you're ready to dive headfirst into a captivating murder mystery and help June solve the mysterious case surrounding her sister, just click the link below to download June's Journey. When Shana first met Michael, Michael had been working as a mechanic at Brighton Fire alarms, while she had a position somewhere else in the company. Needless to say, there was a serious attraction between the two, but this is likely because Shana had no idea about Michael's colorful past. See, by the time Michael and Shana had met, Michael had already been arrested just a few years prior. The specific number has never been revealed, but we know that several women had filed complaints against Michael. Now, I don't know about your specific definition of the word several, but to me, that means it must have been at least three or more women. These women had filed complaints against Michael that covered a span of around 10 years. Mind you, he was only in his late 20s when he met Shana. So this guy had been in constant trouble for his entire adult life. One of these women who filed charges against him described him as being, quote, very controlling in their relationship. A few of these women accused him of obsessive and stalker-like behavior. At least one woman claimed that he sent her erotic photos against her will, and this report seems to suggest that he might have done this on several occasions involving multiple women. Several of these women claimed that he would show up to their homes unannounced, harassing them by luring outside of their doors or windows. One of these women even claimed Michael had become physically aggressive with her at one point. Since Shana was blissfully unaware of Michael's history, it's clear to see that she had no idea what sort of red flags she should be looking out for. The two continued dating for a period of around three months, but all of a sudden Shana had a change of heart that seems to have come from nowhere. Ashley, Shana's former boyfriend, has never revealed why Shana decided to do this, but he says that he got a call from her out of the blue one day, and she admitted that she made an awful mistake by breaking up with him. She made it clear that the time that she'd spent with Michael only helped to prove how deep her love for Ashley had really gone. She begged for Ashley to take her back, and considering he'd spent most of his time hoping and praying for a call like this to come through, he had no issues with reigniting the relationship. But that doesn't mean there wasn't trouble in paradise, because you've got to remember Michael had fallen head over heels for Shana by this point. Michael knew that he'd been somewhat of a third wheel from the very beginning. It was clear to see that the bond between Shana and Ashley went much deeper than anything you could have ever hoped to have with Shana. After all, the two had essentially grown up together. That's not a bond that can be easily replaced. Needless to say, Michael was angry.  Immediately following their breakup, Michael confided in a friend about how he had been feeling, ending their conversation by saying quote, she'll pay for what she's done. If you're watching this video, chances are you're familiar with the man by the name of Ted Bundy. The interesting thing about Ted Bundy is that he was able to lure women in by making them feel safe, valued, heard and respected. He had a charisma about him that was unrivaled. While we all know the monster that he turned out to be, the women he attacked could never be blamed for falling into his trap. He was a master manipulator, but he put on a front like no one else. He gave the impression of being someone you could let your guard down when you were near, someone you could trust. See, Michael Lane was the same way. He was a man that you and I both clearly know was a bully, and that's putting it incredibly lightly. But for the women that he had an interest in, he was able to put on a front that was downright irresistible. In the days after Shanna and Michael had broken up, he became incredibly depressed. Not only this, but he began to obsess over the months that he'd shared with Shanna, and he vowed to do whatever it may take to get her back. He initially took to harassing Ashley, first by leaving a note on his car taunting him, saying Shanna will always cheat on you. Thankfully, Ashley knew that this simply wasn't true and didn't really let it get to him. Shanna, on the other hand, wasn't as willing to let it go. She contacted the police and reported Michael's actions, but they didn't really do much to help. They showed up and gave Michael a verbal warning, but that was pretty much the end of it. But soon after this happened, Michael installed a tracking device on Shanna's car. This device would alert his phone anytime Shanna's car moved, giving Michael time to jump into action and follow her wherever she went. One day, he followed her home. He approached her as she was just outside the front door and grabbed her phone. He then chased her around while Shanna did everything she could to escape his grasp. But that's when he lunged toward her, grabbed her hair, pulling her closer to him. Once Shanna was able to break free, she called the police and it seemed like they were willing to take the case more seriously at this point. When officers showed up, they immediately arrested Michael for assault, but rather strangely, no sooner than he was taken to the station, he was released. When officers were questioned about this, they explained that they let him go because as far as they could tell, no crime was committed. They believed that this was nothing more than an argument between a young couple. So they wrote the whole situation off rather quickly. The reason they believed this to be the case was because as they searched through Michael's phone records and his text messages, they noticed that some of the texts that were sent by Shanna had been signed with five kiss emojis. Investigators exact words were, quote, Shanna would be signing texts to Michael with five kisses. This is not harassment. Now, I'll admit it is certainly a bit bizarre that if Shanna felt so threatened by Michael that she would be signing her texts with kisses, especially after just getting back together with Ashley. I don't really understand what's going on here, but to top this off, Shanna was hit with a $90 fine for supposedly wasting police time. The thing is, just prior to Michael being picked up by the police, Shanna had reported him for stalking and leaving unwanted flowers on her car. So if the two were already at odds with one another, weeks prior to this, it just makes the kiss emojis all the more bizarre. A couple months after this, the situation escalated dramatically when Michael stole a key from Shanna and let himself into her home without her knowledge. He snuck in in the middle of the night while he thought she was sleeping, just standing beside her bed and watching her. After a while, he turned and left. As of a turnout, Shanna wasn't asleep. She'd heard someone enter her home, so rather than running or trying to hide, she thought it was best to just fake being asleep, hoping that whoever had broken in would just take whatever they wanted and leave her alone. She only realized that the criminal had in fact been Michael, when she saw him walk past her window as he was leaving. Needless to say, Shanna reported this incident to the police as well. Michael was once again arrested, but was once again let go, simply being told by the police to stay away from Shanna. The very next day, Shanna would receive seven phone calls from a blocked number, believed to have been Michael, in which he would do nothing but heavily breathe into the phone. When Shanna tried to report this, police basically shut down and said that they would not be looking into the situation any further. Two days later, when Michael was seen stalking Shanna, she reported him once again with the responding officer claiming that this was nothing more than a low-risk case, adding that he'd make the case leader aware of it, but we all know that this means he basically wrote the whole situation off and never spoke of it again. Finally, on August 4th, 2016, Shanna spotted Michael hanging outside of her home. She confided in a friend that she was terrified the police wouldn't believe her, obviously based on her previous five experiences. Her friend actually witnessed this particular situation, so we know without a shadow of a doubt, Shanna was telling the full truth. Ashley backed up Shanna's claims as well. Regardless, this time, Shanna didn't call the police. And unfortunately, this would prove to be a fatal mistake. It was August 25th, 2016. Shanna was at home with her roommate, but at some point in the evening, the roommate stepped out for a while. As it would turn out, this ended up being an evening in which Michael was loitering outside of Shanna's home, keeping tabs on her and watching for when she'd be left alone. No sooner than he saw Shanna's roommate leave, Michael jumped into action and let himself inside of her home, presumably using the same key he'd stolen a few months prior when he watched her sleep. The only problem was this time, Michael had much more nefarious intentions. As he burst into Shanna's home, he made a quick work of the situation.   This was a rapid escalation unlike anything that could have been predicted. But that wasn't all. Before he left, he deactivated the fire alarm in the home, then set Shanna's bedroom on fire while she was still inside. He then locked the door and just walked away. Ashley had last seen Shanna a few hours before. He'd kissed her goodbye and left for work as he always did, not knowing that this would take place just hours later. He said he didn't realize anything was wrong until he got a message from one of Shanna's coworkers later on, claiming Shanna'd never shoot up for work. He wasn't able to stop by her apartment on his own, so Ashley called his younger sister and asked her to stop by and check on Shanna. No sooner than she arrived, she called him back, sobbing and panicking because she noticed a red stained footprint near the door and no one was answering the door to let her inside. At this point, Ashley began panicking as well. He called his father immediately and asked him to stop by and see what was going on. He arrived a few minutes later and made his way into the apartment. The moment he stepped inside, it was clear what had taken place. He found Shanna in her bedroom in a state which he's never put into words. Investigators would later reveal that Shanna had in fact lost her life in her bedroom that day. We don't know if Michael took her life himself or if the flames and smoke did it after he left, but needless to say, the situation was incredibly grim.  But Ashley's father says that he's simply thankful that it wasn't Ashley who had to find her that way. Needless to say, there was one primary suspect in this case, Michael. Police closed in on him immediately and when questioned, Michael obviously denied any involvement. He admitted to being over at Shanna's home that evening but insisted he hadn't been involved in the crime. Even though investigators have been pretty well useless up until now, they made a quick work of the investigation and immediately charged Michael for claiming Shanna's life. But there's one big issue here for many people. Why had it taken such a tragedy for police to actually do something about Michael? The thing is, Shanna had obviously reported Michael to the police on five separate occasions. If they'd even spent as much as two minutes searching his record, they could have easily seen that he was a terrible, awful person with a colorful history that perfectly documented what he was capable of. Yet they did nothing to protect Shanna. How is it that after all this time in all these reports, no one ever even bothered to once open up his criminal record? After Shanna lost her life, a police watchdog group intervened and investigated the way the Sussex police handled the case. A total of 13 officers were investigated and three were held accountable and faced disciplinary actions. One officer defended himself claiming that Shanna admitted to having an affair with Michael while she was in a relationship with Ashley. But how is this a defense? What does that even prove? Affair or not, the girl was clearly being stopped. She reported Michael's violence towards her as clearly as she possibly could and Michael had an obvious history of violence towards other women as well. I was able to confirm that the three aforementioned officers did in fact get punished, but I haven't found any reports that claim any of them faced any jail time or really any sort of repercussions for their actions outside of a gentle slap on the wrist. In the words of Shanna's family, the whole situation was a joke and the hearing was a sham. In the end, I'm grateful that Michael was finally caught and put behind bars. He'll be facing a sentence of 25 years for what he's done. But in no world should it have taken such disastrous consequences for police to have acted on this man. This whole case is just sickening and the loss of Shanna's life was, well, pointless. Police had more than enough information to arrest this man and actually charge him with something, but they chose not to. Shanna begged and begged for help five times or more, but police turned a blind eye to this heinous serial criminal. I just hope that at the very least, these three officers lost a great deal of sleep over the next few weeks, months and hopefully years because the loss of Shanna's life rests solely on their shoulders. It was 1992 and Shanna's share was just 12 years old. She recently moved to a new school and was having trouble with one particular girl who just wouldn't leave her alone. The girl would send Shanna countless threatening letters with each letter growing more and more violent than the last. This all culminated in one seriously disturbing crime that investigators simply couldn't understand. Shanna would eventually go missing, but two of her so-called friends would soon make a shocking confession that no one could have seen coming. Detectives were left speechless, questioning how a few teenage girls could have such twisted minds and carry out a crime of such vile and repulsive proportions. This is one story you won't wanna miss. Shanda Sherer was born in Pineville, Kentucky back in June of 1979. Her parents, Stephen and Jacqueline, were deeply in love at the time of her birth, but unfortunately, their marriage simply didn't stand the test of time. I can't tell exactly when this took place, but the two divorced while Shanna was still quite young. After the two were divorced, it didn't take too long for Jacqueline to get remarried, moving to Louisville to live with her new husband. Here, Shanna would begin attending her fifth and sixth grade school years at St. Paul. Shanna got on very well at St. Paul and was able to find many friends here very quickly becoming a member of the in-crowd. Shanna would go on to play volleyball and softball and was even accepted onto the school's cheerleading team. It was very clear to everyone that Shanna was destined for greatness, but her success wouldn't last very long. The details of the situation have never been made public, but for some reason, Shanna's mother once again got divorced and once again decided to pull Shanna from school and transfer her to yet another middle school. This time, Shanna and her mother moved to New Albany, Indiana, reportedly so Shanna could be closer to her biological father, though I wasn't able to confirm whether or not this was entirely true, as all the records I could find simply said that Shanna's father lived in the neighboring state of Kentucky. They never got more specific than that. In 1991, after settling down in New Albany, Shanna was enrolled at Hazelwood Middle School. I'm sure as is true with most kids, Shanna was terrified about having to start a new school and make new friends, and for this to have happened to her twice over the span of just a few years, I'm sure it only made things that much more difficult for her. But it certainly didn't help things when Shanna almost immediately began getting into fights at her new school. See, the kids in Shanna's past always welcomed her with open arms and she was always considered to be one of the popular girls. But at Hazelwood, things were much different. Just a few days after starting school, a girl named Amanda Hevrin came into the picture and appears to have been dead set on making Shanna's life miserable. Now, we don't know who started the bullying, but before long, they were both deeply involved in it. The two girls got into a fistfight with one another on at least one occasion, and Shanna's mom seems to have suggested that Amanda was the one to throw the first punch. Though, admittedly, this is all rather irrelevant because they both ended up in detention regardless. But things got a bit weird from here. Once the two were forced to sit beside one another in detention, they actually got to know each other and found out they had a lot in common. While Shanna's mom certainly had some reservations about Amanda considering they just bended each other's throats just days before, Jacqueline was just happy that Shanna was beginning to make new friends. But things got a lot more serious for the girls from here. As it would turn out, Amanda didn't simply want to be friends. She wanted to be much more than that. The two girls would often pass notes to one another in class and in detention and Amanda began to ask questions about Shanna, specifically asking if she liked girls. Amanda would compliment her clothes and always made sure to tell Shanna how pretty she was. Now, we've all heard the stories of how kids bully each other, not specifically to be mean, but because they secretly like each other but don't know what to do with these complex emotions. Well, this seems to have been the case here as well because before long, Shanna and Amanda began a romantic relationship with one another and even went to the school's fall dance together, something that was really daring for a couple young kids in a strongly conservative state in 1992. But this dance wouldn't lead to the happy memories that the two had hoped for. While the dance itself went along perfectly, issues began to arise when Shanna was introduced to a 16-year-old girl named Melinda Loveless. The only problem was Melinda wasn't looking to become friends. That's because in her eyes, Shanna had stolen her girlfriend. See, Melinda had been dating Amanda for about a year and to a teenager, a year may as well have been a lifetime. The two broke up a short while before Amanda met Shanna, but Melinda hadn't healed from the breakup just yet.  This is where things began to get a bit complicated. Now, I mentioned that Amanda and Melinda had broken up, but this isn't entirely accurate. While Amanda was certainly under the belief that the two had broken up, Melinda hadn't really accepted the breakup. She felt that the two were just having problems and that they would eventually work things out. But it seems as though Amanda had checked out of the situation entirely. So while Amanda thought that she was in the clear to start dating other people, Melinda was stuck in the mindset that Amanda was cheating on her. This was all made worse by the fact that while all of this was taking place, Melinda's father had just left the family high and dry and her mother was quickly moving on to someone else. Needless to say, Melinda was already feeling completely betrayed by her family. And the last thing she needed was to be betrayed by her girlfriend as well. These compounded emotions were too much for Melinda to handle. And before long, she wanted revenge. It was late 1991 at this point in the story. Melinda was at an all-time low, but somehow she felt like she couldn't stop herself from sinking even lower. It's been reported by Midwest Crime Files that Melinda and all of her older sisters decided to come out to their mother around this time. Apparently, while Melinda had come out at school a long time ago, her mother was blissfully unaware. But no sooner than Melinda came out, all of her siblings joined in to back her up and express their relationship preferences as well. Melinda's mother was shocked by this to say the least. In fact, some reports claim she was downright furious, but as time passed by, she had come to accept her children's decisions.  But unfortunately for her, Shanda didn't trust her mother enough to directly come out and tell her how she'd been feeling about other girls. Instead, Shanda and Amanda kept their relationship a secret, pretending to simply be friends around Shanda's family.  While we don't know the specific contents of these notes, Shanda's mother says that they were very clearly revealing that the two were far more than friends and certain details suggest that the two had been involved in a physical relationship with one another. Shanda's mother immediately forbade her from hanging out with Amanda anymore. But as is true with most teens, this didn't stop Shanda from doing what she wanted to do. All it caused her to do was be more secretive about it. According to Shanda's mother, her issue wasn't with Shanda being interested in other girls, her issue was with the age gap between the two. Amanda was 14 at the time and Shanda was just 12. Well, two years isn't really a big difference in the grander scheme of things. You got to remember to younger kids, even an age difference of six months can make a world of difference in terms of your maturity, your mental ability, and your decision-making skills. In her mother's own words, Shanda was still a baby and she felt that she was being pressured into doing things she wasn't comfortable with. Now, she may have been right about this or she may have been completely wrong, we just don't know. But that was all beside the point because things were about to get much darker. Rumors had begun to spread that Melinda was truly livid with Amanda for seemingly stepping outside the relationship. But it doesn't appear as though she was specifically mad at Amanda. Instead, she was mad at Shanda. These rumors suggested that Melinda wasn't going to sit back and watch this all unfold. She was gonna do something about it.  Melinda began to deliver more and more threatening letters to both Amanda and Shanda. And Amanda grew so concerned that she began turning the letters into a local youth prosecutor. But the problem was the prosecutor didn't take the threat seriously. In fact, in Amanda's opinion, the prosecutor never followed up on the letters at all. Now, we obviously don't know if this is 100% accurate, but as far as the evidence suggests, there's nothing that would suggest any sort of investigation took place during this time. And things were about to get very serious very quickly. It was January 10th, 1992, a night that Melinda had been anticipating for a very long time. Melinda had spoken with three of her friends, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippy, and Tony Lawrence, and asked him to come over to her house that afternoon. Once the three arrived, Melinda revealed that she'd concocted a plan to get Shanda away from Amanda once and for all. She then showed the girls a knife. Melinda explained that she was going to use the knife to scare Shanda into breaking up with Amanda. She told her friends that she believed Shanda was nothing more than a copycat that stole her girlfriend. The girls had learned that Shanda had been staying with her father on the weekends, with Shanda's father living in Jeffersonville at this point. It appears that Laurie must have either owned or borrowed a car, and the girls all headed towards Shanda's father's house. Once they arrived, they came up with a plan. Two of the girls knocked on the front door of the home and claimed to be friends of Amanda, saying that they were on their way to meet Amanda, but that Amanda had requested that they all stop by to pick up Shanda along the way. They urged Shanda to get into the car so that they could meet at an old abandoned house nearby, known locally as the Witch's Castle. Shanda wanted to go with the girls, but she knew her parents wouldn't allow her to. It was still fairly early at this point, but Shanda assured them she'd be able to sneak out if they came back around midnight. Melinda was incredibly angry about this, but they left anyway and attended a local concert while they waited. The girls began to drive back towards Shanda's house around 12.30 a.m. And remember at this point, all the girls believed that Melinda simply wanted to scare Shanda into breaking up with Amanda, but things began to get more and more twisted as the ride progressed. And before long, Melinda spoke out and said, she couldn't wait to kill Shanda. Naturally, this change in plans shocked the girls, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say the girls probably didn't think Melinda was actually serious, but they had no idea how wrong they would be. When the girls finally arrived at the house, Tawney refused to coerce Shanda into the car. Seemingly having a change of heart after learning about the links, Melinda was willing to go to, but that's just a guess. Either way, two of the other girls went to speak with Shanda while Melinda ducked down into the back seat and hid under a blanket, claiming to a knife that she had brought with her. Shanda was a bit reluctant to go with the girls. I don't know if she sensed something was wrong or if she just believed that she would get into trouble, but regardless, the girls talked her into leaving. And just minutes later, Shanda got into the car with them. As the group drove down the road toward the Witch's Castle, Melinda leapt out from underneath the blanket and placed the knife on Shanda's neck. She began interrogating her about the details of her relationship with Amanda, and Melinda only got more and more angry as time passed by. Soon enough, they arrived at the Witch's Castle and Shanda was forced from the car, tied up and taken into the building. Once inside, Melinda and her friends stole Shanda's jewelry, including her favorite Mickey Mouse watch. Melinda spoke about how pretty Shanda's hair was, then asked how she would look if she were to cut it all off while running the knife through her hair. One of the girls then pulled a shirt out of the car and brought it into the so-called castle, lighting it on fire just a moment later. Why the girl did this, I have no idea, but the smoke coming from the shirt was so overwhelming that the girls feared someone passing by might notice. So they gathered up Shanda, stowed her away in the car, and drove further down the road, eventually towards Madison, near where Laurie lived. Laurie directed the girls to an abandoned logging road that was surrounded by forest and trees. The girls drove deep into the road and when they reached an agreeable location, they pulled Shanda from the car.  Two of the girls stayed inside the car because they were terrified by what was about to take place, but before long, Melinda coerced the girls to help hold Shanda down while she finished the job. She then pulled out the knife that she had brought along with her and attacked Shanda again, then used a rope that she'd found to ensure that the deed was done. Once this night of terror was seemingly over, the girls then loaded Shanda back into the trunk of the car and drove to Laurie's house to clean up and get a few drinks to cool off. While they were inside the house, they began to hear Shanda screaming from the trunk of the car. Laurie immediately sprang into action, grabbing a paring knife and quickly making her way back to the trunk of the car. She then came back inside, cleaned up again, and then Laurie and Melinda got back into the car and began to cruise the local country streets. It was about 2.30 a.m. at this point. Before long, they heard Shanda calling out from the trunk once again. This time they pulled over and grabbed a tire ire, with Laurie believing she had finally finished the job at this point.  When Melinda and Laurie returned home early the next morning, the two girls were still at Laurie's house waiting for them to return. When they asked what had happened to Shanda, Laurie began to laugh and describe the crime in extreme detail, adding that Shanda was still in the trunk of the car.  One of the girls went inside and grabbed a two liter Pepsi, pouring out the Pepsi and filling the empty bottle with gasoline. The girls then drove to Lemon Road, north of Madison and pulled Shanda back out of the car. They placed her just off the side of a gravel road, poured the gasoline on her and started a fire. A corner would later reveal that, despite what the girls believed, Shanda was still alive at this point. All of the girls returned home after stopping at a local McDonald's and having breakfast along the way. Melinda met up with Amanda later on that day and probably confessed what she had done to Shanda. Amanda obviously didn't believe her at first, but that's when Melinda took her to the trunk of the car where Shanda's hand prints could be seen all over the trunk with her socks still being found inside as well. Amanda was speechless, truly speechless. Melinda then turned to her, swore her love for her and begged Amanda not to tell anyone. Terrified, Amanda agreed. Later on in the morning on January 11th, the morning after the crime took place, two brothers were heading out to the Jefferson Proving Ground to go hunting. Along the way, they noticed something on the side of the road that looked an awful lot like a crime scene, but they believed it to be a mannequin that someone had ditched until they got closer. They ran to the nearest phone to call the police as soon as they realized what they had uncovered. The police asked them to return to the scene of the crime and wait on a team of investigators to take their statements. Several state troopers and detectives showed up and began to collect forensic evidence from the scene of the crime. Police initially believed that this was some sort of gang violence, especially considering that the body had been placed in a suggestive pose before being burned and abandoned. They also learned that the victim's face and hands had been a particular point of focus for the assailant, as it seemed as though they were purposefully burnt so that the victim couldn't be identified. As all of this was taking place, Shanda's father had just woken up and found out that Shanda wasn't in her room. He looked all over for her, but she was nowhere to be found. He called her mother and explained what was going on and they both searched for her all to no avail. By that afternoon, they met with local investigators and filed a missing person report with the Clark County Sheriff. By 8.20 that evening, Hope and Tawny, Melinda's two friends, unexpectedly showed up at the local police station alongside their parents. The two girls were hysterical and could barely even speak. They were eventually able to get out that the victim police had found earlier that day had been none other than Shanda. The girls confessed to everything, telling investigators the entire series of events that had taken place that evening. Several local counties worked together to piece the story together and eventually the Clark County Sheriff was alerted that the missing person report that had been filed earlier that day had officially been solved. Detectives soon obtained dental records and were able to positively identify Shanda. Both Melinda and Laurie were arrested the following day while the other two girls were already being held in police custody. By April of 1992, Tawny accepted a plea bargain with police. By September, both Melinda and Laurie accepted plea bargains as well. Both Melinda and Laurie were later sentenced to 60 years in prison, but rather shockingly they were both paroled after just 26 and 25 years respectively. The two other girls were given much lesser sentences with Hope being given 35 years though she only served 14 and Tawny being sentenced to 20 years but only serving nine. At the end of it all, I really don't know what to make of this case. I usually give you guys my brief input before the end of the story but I just don't know what to say here. Many people may be quick to defend Melinda blaming her actions on her remarkably dark childhood that was filled with abuse and deception and I'll admit, Melinda had a very, very hard time growing up. So much so that Melinda's story would be enough to fuel a video of her own but in the end, Melinda's actions and the actions of her friends are inexcusable. There's no denying that Melinda was fully aware of what she was doing and she was fully aware of the consequences of her choices but she continued with the crime anyway. But particularly disturbing were the actions of Laurie Tackett as it's rumored that she hadn't even met Shanda until the night that she helped claim her life. I wish there was some sort of silver lining here but this just isn't one of those cases. I just sincerely hope that while spending all that time behind bars, the girls were able to truly rehabilitate themselves from the awful disgusting crimes they committed and maybe somehow they can learn from their terrible choices and become decent people moving forward however unlikely that may be. It's just terrifying to know that these women are now walking free among us. It was January 8th, 2012. Melinda Coleman was sleeping peacefully in her bed when she was startled awake by the sound of a commotion in her front yard. Without hesitation she ran to the front door and looked outside. What she saw brought her to her knees. Lying just feet away from her covered in snow was her teenage daughter Daisy.   Melinda ran to get the help of her three sons and together they pulled the girl from the snow and dragged her inside to the warmth of their home. They first tried to warm her up by wrapping blankets around her but when that didn't work they placed her in a tub of warm water. That was when her mother noticed the bruises. Daisy was immediately rushed to the hospital for treatment but when the police arrived her mother couldn't have prepared herself for what she was about to hear. See the police were largely unconcerned. In fact, in their eyes this young girl she got what she deserved. Considering this story takes place in the small peaceful town of Marival, Missouri it was a story that shocked the entire state when news began to break regarding what had happened to young Daisy Coleman. Daisy had grown up in Missouri with her three brothers and her mother Melinda Coleman who was a local veterinarian. The children were forced to grow up without a stable father figure in their lives because tragically Michael, Daisy's father lost his life in a car accident when Daisy was about 11 years old. To say that Michael's passing had a profound effect on the family would be a tragic understatement. The loss of Michael nearly tore the family completely apart. The family of five had only just begun to recover from Michael's passing when this situation with Daisy reared its ugly head. Prior to the crime, Daisy had been an outgoing incredibly happy and carefree young girl. She was incredibly popular in school and was even one of the star cheerleaders. To say that she had it all well, that'd be putting it lightly. Daisy was a girl that every other girl her age aspired to be. She was surrounded by a flock of close friends, had access to all the cutest guys in her school and to top it off, her brother was best friends with the school's most popular football player. With all this in mind, it made it all the more shocking when the events of that fateful evening unfolded, leading up to Daisy being found nearly frozen on her front lawn. When Daisy was rushed to the hospital at about 5 a.m. on January 8th, it quickly became clear what had taken place. Doctors and nurses ran to Daisy's side and from the very beginning, they were certain of one thing. Daisy had been forced against her will and taken advantage of. The evidence was obvious. She had bruises that covered the insides of her legs, proving she'd endured some serious trauma. She was almost completely unconscious and her alcohol level was 0.13%. The legal limit in Missouri is just 0.08%, so Daisy was nearly doubled at. But you have to keep in mind by the time Daisy was taken to the hospital, it's believed they'd been about five hours since the crime had actually taken place, meaning her alcohol level had been gradually dropping that entire time. So if it was at 0.13% after all this time, you could only imagine how intoxicated she must have been when the crime unfolded. She would have been nearly comatose. When Daisy finally began to regain consciousness a few hours later, it was very clear that she was in no condition to recount the events of that evening. But thankfully, she wasn't the only person present that night when the crime unfolded. Daisy's close friend, Paige Parkhurst, stepped up and helped police better understand what had taken place that night. Paige appeared to have been profoundly affected by the events of that evening. When she spoke with investigators about the night in question, she seemed a bit distant and was clearly rattled. Still, she managed to tell detectives that she and Daisy have been invited to a small party at the home of Marvel's star football player, Matt Barnett. She recalls that Daisy had gotten the phone number of Matt and the two were texting back and forth throughout the evening. Now, some sources say that the two had been flirting between one another, but I haven't been able to 100% confirm this. Either way, during their conversation, Daisy learned that Matt was having a small get-together at his parents' house in the basement. The only thing was, his parents didn't know about it. It was just a small gathering between Matt and a few of his friends, nothing crazy, and Matt asked the two girls if they wanted to come. Obviously, with Matt being the most popular guy in school, the girls jumped at the opportunity. No sooner than the girls arrived at this party, though, they grew a bit nervous because they quickly realized they were the only two girls in attendance that night. This definitely put them on edge a little bit, but nothing about the party seemed too crazy. It was just a bunch of teenagers getting together to share some laughs amongst their friends, but then the alcohol came out. Shortly after they arrived, Paige says that the host of the party, Matt Barnett, started pushing drinks on Daisy. Paige seems to have suggested that prior to this night, neither she nor Daisy had ever had alcohol before, but not wanting to disappoint their peers, they both accepted drinks and vowed to have a good time. They were both ushered to the basement where they were told to stay quiet so as not to wake up Matt's parents. And this was the moment when everything changed. Paige says that as the door to the basement shut behind them, she realized what was really going on here. Just minutes later, without any warning, one of the boys grabbed Paige by the hand and forced her into a nearby room. And when he shut the door, well, things didn't go the way Paige had planned. She was taken advantage of and considering this boy was far, far larger than her, she was helpless to stop it. When the event was finally over and Paige was able to break free, she took off into the other room and quickly noticed Daisy was nowhere to be found. Matt Barnett was missing as well. Paige made her way to one of the only other rooms in the basement, and that's when she found both Matt and Daisy. Tragically, Daisy was in the midst of suffering the same fate as Paige. It didn't take long before Matt exited the room, seemingly clear-headed and perfectly coherent, almost looking as though he was proud of what he had done. When Daisy finally stumbled to the doorway, it was clear she was not in a good place. She wasn't able to stand up on her own without assistance, and she was more or less limp due to the amount of alcohol she'd consumed by this point. We don't know how much alcohol she consumed willingly and how much was forced on her by the boys at the party, but needless to say, she was wildly drunk and had no idea what was going on. Almost immediately after Daisy exited the room, barely even conscious, the girls were then led to a car and taken home. The boys drove the girls back to Daisy's house where the two had been having a sleepover before sneaking out for this party.  They said that they would take care of Daisy and make sure that she made it in. Paige believed them and headed back inside, going to bed, fully believing Daisy would be inside just a minute or two later. As soon as Paige's head hit the pillow, she was out like a light. She only awoke hours later when she heard the commotion caused by Daisy's mother and brothers bringing her inside from the cold. No one knows just how many hours had passed since Paige had gone inside that night, but considering Daisy's hair was frozen solid and stuck to the ground beneath her, it's safe to assume she'd spent an incredibly long time out in the cold. It would eventually be discovered that after Paige made it inside that night, the boys just pulled Daisy from the car then tossed her onto the front lawn in the middle of the snow. Speeding away from the scene so as not to get caught in the act. They could not have cared less about her if they tried. And after Paige revealed all of this to the police, Daisy's brother Charlie opened up and said that he knew Paige was telling the truth because he'd found Daisy's phone buried in the snow near where she'd been dumped. When he looked through her text messages, he found that she'd been having flirtatious conversations with Matt Barnett, a guy who up until this point, he'd considered to be one of his closest friends. Considering he knew Matt better than anyone, he knew what he was capable of. But the police, well, they weren't buying it. After Paige told her story to investigators, they called Matt Barnett down to the station for questioning. Needless to say, Matt's version of events was completely different from what Paige had said. According to Matt, he didn't simply invite Daisy and Paige over that evening. According to him, Daisy had begged him for an invite to their get together. And he seems to have only agreed because he found her attractive. He also claims that Daisy had been slightly drunk when she arrived at the party. And this statement may have actually been true because Paige admitted later on that she and Daisy had snuck a few sips of alcohol from Daisy's mother's liquor cabinet just moments before sneaking out to go to the party, trying to loosen themselves up and not embarrass themselves in front of Matt. According to Matt, when the girls arrived at the party, Daisy agreed to follow him to the bedroom before she'd ever even been handed a drink. He insists that their actions were consensual and Daisy only began drinking after their relations were over. He made it painfully clear that Daisy knew exactly what she was getting herself into and that she had been a willing participant. But the more he shared his version of events, the more things changed. See, at first he claimed he didn't know the name of the girl that had tagged along with Daisy that night. But just a few moments later, he referred to her by name, Paige. He also claimed to have never given Daisy a drink until after they had relations. But again, moments later, he admitted to giving her a few drinks to, quote, break the ice. What's insane about this whole ordeal is that the officer who was conducting the interview with Matt was totally unconcerned and he made that incredibly clear. In fact, at one point during the interview, the officer can be seen lounging in his chair hands behind his head as if shooting the breeze with a close friend. When Matthew admitted to dropping Daisy off in her front lawn that evening, literally tossing her into a pile of snow, the officer didn't even question it. He actually applauded Matt for making sure she made it home, quote, safely. If this weren't bad enough, one of the other boys who'd been present that evening, Jordan Zek, admitted that he'd filmed the relations between Daisy and Matt that evening, capturing the footage through a small crack in the doorway. But interestingly, as soon as the police asked to take a look at this footage, Jordan miraculously been deleted. Why he deleted the footage, well, that's never been explained. But I think it's clear to see that Jordan was most likely covering for his friend. Thankfully, despite the fact that the police had largely been blowing the whole thing off and doing their best to sweep it under the rug, they finally agreed to act on the situation. Before the sun had set that evening, police arrested Matt Barnett, Jordan Zek and another boy who's never been named. But unfortunately, things wouldn't be that easy. By this point, Daisy had begun to wake up. And the story she told investigators, well, it wasn't pretty. When we hear about awful stories like this, it can be easy to forget that we can all end up in bad situations sometimes, whether it's a night out with friends that suddenly goes horribly wrong, or if it's a simple mistake we've made that alters the course of our day or even our lives. The best way to keep ourselves out of dangerous situations is to keep our wits about us. But for some of us, we may need a little extra help doing that. 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As Daisy finally began to come to her senses, she could only remember bits and pieces of what had unfolded that evening. She didn't remember many details at all, but she did remember drinking before sneaking out of her home that night, then being given copious amounts of alcohol after arriving at the party. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that she'd overindulged until it was far too late. She couldn't recall having any sort of relationship with Matt that evening. And the only clear image of that evening that she could remember was a dog jumping on her lap while she was sitting on a couch. Seconds later, she passed out. Now, for anyone with half a brain, you know that Daisy's version of events clearly proves that from the moment she arrived at that party, she was not in control of her body. This alone should prove that Matt almost certainly took advantage of her that night. There was no way that he didn't, especially if she was already drunk the moment she arrived, as she would later admit. Even though Matt denied all of the charges that were placed against him, his friend, the one who's never been named, confessed to what he had done to Paige that evening. He pleaded guilty in court and recalled every detail of that night, including every time that Paige begged him to stop and she repeatedly told him no. In the end, he was sentenced to spend time in a juvenile facility, but Matt wasn't going down without a fight. He denied everything from the very beginning and even made sure to tell all of his friends and peers that Daisy was nothing more than a liar. With the intention of putting this whole situation behind her and letting the law decide how things should play out, Daisy then made the incredibly brave call to return to school while the investigation was carried out. She'd hoped that her friends and peers would support her and back her up on her allegations against Matt, but nothing could have been further from the truth. When Daisy arrived back at school, it seemed as though the entire student body had turned against her. In stark contrast to her expectations, everybody was being supportive of Matt, not Daisy. She was subjected to every type of bullying you could imagine because everyone believed that she'd made the whole thing up. The thing is, in the small community of Marival, Matt's family name was known far and wide. His whole family was known for being the best of the best in everything they did, so it seemed unfathomable that Matt would be capable of something like this. Considering the influences family had over the town, well, it's easy to see why everyone sided with Matt. As a result, Daisy lost most of her childhood friends who'd now turned their back on her. She was labeled every offensive name you could think of and no one wanted anything to do with her anymore. Daisy's brother, Charlie, who was supremely popular at the school and had formerly been best friends with Matt, was pretty much the only person who tried to protect her from the hate and the bullying. He took every opportunity to explain that he had proof that Daisy's allegations were true, but no one wanted to hear it. Within a matter of days, Daisy was merely a fragment of her former self. She lost all of her friends, she lost every bit of her popularity, and worse yet, she had to live in a world where no one believed a word she said. If this weren't bad enough, the Marival town sheriff, Darren White, had spoken up and made it painfully clear he didn't believe Daisy either. He repeatedly claimed that his sympathy was with Matt, who was being held against his will for crimes he didn't commit. Sheriff White wanted more than anything to have these charges dropped and move on with his career, but in his eyes, these two lying girls simply wouldn't let that happen. When Sheriff White was later confronted with the idea that he may be wrong and the girls may be telling the truth, he literally laughed. He believed that the girls were simply doing it for attention, even though Page's assailant had already confessed, been charged, and sent to juvenile detention. If this wasn't bad enough, he even took to insulting Daisy's mother, Melinda, claiming that Melinda loved being able to play the victim and get sympathy from her peers. Remember, this is a widowed single mother who was simply doing the best she could to keep her family together less than three years after the tragic loss of her husband and the horrific assault of her daughter. At what point in time are you allowed to be a victim if not in this exact situation? But if you could imagine, the worst was yet to come. After several months of being told that a court date would be set very soon, the Coleman family finally received news from the local authorities. They were excited to hear what kind of development had taken place in the case, but that's when they were told every charge against both Nat and Jordan, the boy who filmed the ordeal, had been dropped. Nothing else would be done, and both boys were free to return to their daily lives. The reason the police were able to do this was because of a slip of the tongue on Daisy's part. When Daisy was first coming out of her drunken days in the hospital, the officers posed a loaded question. Is there any chance that you may have told the boys that you would exchange sexual favors for alcohol? Daisy replied, quote, I guess, and that was the end of it. The legal team used this statement against her and had the entire case dismissed. Paige, who was coherent the entire evening, claimed she'd never witnessed such a phrase leave Daisy's mouth, but it was pointless. The damage was done and the case was closed. The thing you have to keep in mind is that Daisy didn't even remember anything from that night, so her response of, I guess, was nothing more than an honest assessment of the situation, not a suggestion or admission of guilt.  Well, the only honest answer would be, sure, I guess. You have no idea what's inside the box. Any more than Daisy had any idea what was going on in that basement. At this point, many people began to wonder if Matt's grandfather may have played a part in having these charges dropped. See, his grandfather was a former cop and a state representative, so to say that he had some pull with the Marival Police Department would be an understatement. I honestly can't find the words to describe just how much of an influence the Barnets had over this small town, it's truly sickening. At this point for Daisy, her life was essentially ruined. She faced relentless bullying, both online and in person, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. This led her to attempt to take her own life four times. She became so fragile and such a danger to herself that her family removed the door from her bedroom so that they could always keep an eye on her. I can't believe I'm saying this, but somehow things still managed to get worse from here, because while the family were away one evening, someone actually set their home on fire. Thankfully, no one was harmed, but the Coleman family vowed this was the end of the road. They packed up what was left of their belongings and left the city, moving several miles away to a neighboring town with a different police force and a whole new set of faces, finally giving themselves a fresh start. It was around this same time that Daisy's case started to gain attention on a national scale and it didn't take long before an underground group of hackers learned of the criminal mischief that Sheriff White was up to and they promised to put an end to it. A team of hackers known as Anonymous stepped up and they didn't just ask for the case to be reopened, they demanded it. Their historic tagline sent chills down the spine of the Marival Police Department and everyone involved in the investigation. We are Anonymous, we are Legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget. For those of you who may not be aware, Anonymous is a group of people that you don't want to mess with. No one even knows how many members of Anonymous there are, but each and every one of them is the best of the best when it comes to hacking. These people will find out information about you that you yourself probably didn't even know. They took on a similar case from Ohio and managed to hack into the personal social media accounts of various high school students who were connected to an eerily similar crime that took place there, exposing not only their personal information, but also private chats, photos and videos, each of which confirmed the involvement of many students who police didn't even consider to be suspects at that time. When Anonymous took on Daisy's case, the Marival Police knew they had messed up. When they demanded justice for Daisy, Missouri state authorities finally knew they had to step in and do something. Soon afterward, they announced that a new prosecutor would be taking a look at the investigation and reexamining the evidence. But unfortunately, there simply wasn't enough here to lead to a conviction or even lead to new charges. The police had Daisy cornered that one statement she made while still stuck in a drunken stupor had tainted the entire case. There was simply nothing that could be done. Thankfully, Matt was finally held accountable for something, though. While he couldn't be charged for taking advantage of Daisy, he was charged and convicted for dumping her in the snow that evening. But still, he didn't spend a single night in jail. He was given two years' probation and a four-month suspended sentence. He also had to pay $1,800 in restitution to the Coleman family, as if that actually did anything. After all was said and done, Daisy somehow managed to continue pushing herself through high school and eventually even got a scholarship to Missouri Valley College. She later decided to get as far away from her haunting past as she possibly could, opting to move to Colorado to begin life anew as a tattoo artist. By this point, she was suffering severely with PTSD. She wanted it so desperately to get away from the ghosts of her past, but no matter how fast she ran, tragedy was lurking just around the corner. In June of 2018, as Daisy was packing up her things and moving homes, her mother and brother offered to help her with the move. Her brother Tristan was riding with Melinda, their mother, when they were involved in a single car accident. Melinda was severely injured, but made it out. Tristan did not.  But by this point in the story, you have to realize there's several minutes of this video left and the story of the Coleman family is far from over. In the years following the horrific ordeal that Daisy had to endure, she decided the only way to move past this was to share her story with others as a warning.  She started speaking much more openly about her traumatic past and appeared in various interviews and speaking events to share her message. But by the summer of 2020, Daisy's past had finally caught up with her. Around four in the afternoon on August 4th, 2020, Melinda called in the Denver police and asked them to perform a welfare check on Daisy because she'd been incredibly depressed and hadn't heard from her in a while. When officers showed up, everything seemed fine. As a precaution, a crisis prevention agent stayed behind for a good while to better assess the situation and ensure that Daisy was safe. He left later on that evening. No sooner than he drove away, Daisy claimed her own life. She was pronounced deceased at the age of just 23 at 8.30 that evening. When Sheriff White found out about Daisy claiming her life, it seems he had a change of heart and finally admitted he may have been wrong all those years ago. At least that's the story I wish I could share. As it would turn out, Sheriff White doubled down on his stance against Daisy. In fact, it was election season and he was running to be re-elected as the town's sheriff. In one of his speeches, if you could even imagine, this man took to the stage and proclaimed that Daisy decided to take her life at this particular moment as a way to spite him, bringing her story back into the spotlight and ruining his chances of winning the re-election. This man literally said this. Praise God, this man lost the election by a landslide. But still, the story isn't over.  It's safe to say at this moment she wasn't just thinking about Daisy though. I feel certain that memories of Tristan as well as her late husband must've been flooding her mind because right after posting to social media, she too took her own life. Caroline Crouch was just 19 years old when a trio of criminals broke into her home that she shared with her husband. These criminals ambushed Caroline, tying up her husband and leaving him to watch the crime unfold. After the crime took place, Caroline and her beloved seven-month-old puppy had both lost their lives, leaving only Caroline's husband and their infant daughter behind. The crime that was left behind shook the entire country of Greece and investigators couldn't understand what the couple could've been in possession of that would've been so valuable to warrant such a vicious and heartless crime. But that's when they realized there was much more to the story than meets the eye. Investigators and prosecutors soon uncovered a plethora of evidence that no one could've expected, landing one man in prison for the rest of his life. Before we get started with today's video, I wanna let you know about an amazing new game called Love and Pies. Love and Pies is a free-to-download mobile game that can be played either on your mobile phone or tablet. It's a surprisingly addictive game that I can't recommend enough mostly because it's just so easy to pick up and play. It's super easy to just pick up and play when you're taking a short break from work or maybe taking a warm bath after a particularly long day. The story involves you taking over your mother's cafe that burnt down, where you aim to rebuild the cafe into a thriving business.  Love and Pies is a great way to unplug from the busy, overwhelming world around us. And if you love juicy secrets, mystery, and captivating drama, I can't recommend the app enough. As someone who has a soft spot for those classic mystery TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Pretty Little Liars, this game is just perfect. One of the best aspects of this game is that you get to customize your newly rebuilt cafe, however you want. And with a diverse cast of characters, this is a game you won't wanna miss. Now it's your turn to jump into the world of Love and Pies and join me in unraveling this mystery and uncovering the many dark secrets that Love and Pies has to offer. So what are you waiting for? Download Love and Pies now using my link below. Thanks to Love and Pies for sponsoring today's video. Carolyn Crouch was born and raised in the UK for much of her childhood. Her transition to Greece isn't very well documented and her parents haven't shared too many details about Carolyn's personal life and upbringing. One source stated that Carolyn moved to Greece when she was just eight years old, but we don't know what prompted such an unexpected move. Some sources suggest that Carolyn's father remained in the UK for much of Carolyn's life, so it's probably safe to assume that her father and mother must have split up at some point, but other sources claim that Carolyn moved to Greece alongside both her mother and father. So what caused Carolyn to end up in Greece? Well, we really don't know. Most of the sources I found claim that she moved there with both of her parents, so that's the version of events that we'll run with here. Just know that that may not be completely accurate. But either way, Carolyn spent the majority of her childhood years in Greece, following Greek customs and being raised in a traditionally Greek lifestyle. And this, believe it or not, is what caused things to get a bit weird, at least from an American's perspective. See, Carolyn was the daughter of a retired engineer with some sources claiming that this engineering experience was spent working with oil and gas companies, suggesting her father had quite a reasonable income for much of Carolyn's life. And when looking at some of the photos of Carolyn's later years, it certainly seems that the family lived a pretty comfortable lifestyle. And that's what makes this next series of events seem rather unusual. I'm sure most of us are familiar with two things. The first being that love has no age limits. That's just a simple fact. The second is that around the world, many cultures will marry for financial or political gain. Keep both of these things in mind and we'll get back to this in just a moment. When Carolyn was entering her teenage years, she'd been considering what she planned on doing for the rest of her life. She'd been actively attending school and was doing quite well for herself, but that's when she met a man named Babise. Carolyn met Babise when she was just 15 years old, sometime in 2017. The two hit it off, but I can't for the life of me understand how. Like I said, Carolyn was 15 at the time, still presumably living with her parents, but Babise was 29 when they met, twice her age and Carolyn was still a minor. Now, there may be some sort of cultural difference here that I just don't understand, hence why I suggested that this just seems a bit odd, specifically from an American perspective. But keep in mind, in Greece, just like in America, you can't legally marry until you're 18. So by all means, Babise was in an intimate relationship with an underage girl and her parents were totally fine with this. We know that her parents were aware of this unusual relationship because in 2019, just two years later, the two got married. Even at this point, Carolyn was still underage. Many her parents needed to sign the documents to allow this marriage to take place. Now, I'm not gonna judge someone for a situation I don't fully understand due to potential cultural differences, but this just seems a bit off to me. As mentioned, love has no age limits, but if you want my opinion, that rule only applies if you're of a legal age, not still considered a child. Either way, Carolyn and Babise were married and everything seemed great afterward. The two appeared to be very happily in love and everything was going well, at least to the outside world. See, behind closed doors, things were not at all what they seemed. Allegations of abuse had begun to run rampant and to this day, we still don't know whose allegations were more closely aligned with reality, but things were about to change for the Crouch family and in ways no one could have ever seen coming. The following version of events has been told from the perspective of David Crouch, Carolyn's father. This story has been passed along by him as being completely truthful. So for the sake of this video, I'll be presenting it in the same way, but in the interest of full transparency, this exact series of events has not been proven, at least not as far as I can tell. David says that Carolyn and Babise would frequently go to a local restaurant near Athens. They'd been to the restaurant countless times in the past and it was one of their favorite places to visit. As time passed by, Babise would become close friends with the owner of the restaurant, a man who's never been named publicly. At this same point in time, Babise was a helicopter operator and it was a job he seems to have been quite proud of. Babise was a very confident pilot, seemingly with many hours under his belt and anyone who knew him knew that being a pilot wasn't just a job for Babise, it was part of his identity. Naturally, as Babise and the restaurant owner spoke time and time again, Babise's time spent working as a pilot was a frequent topic of their conversations. But one day, these conversations took a dark turn that no one could have seen coming. According to David Crouch, the restaurant owner began to speak to Babise about his secret business that involved smuggling illegal goods all around the country. This restaurant owner was deeply, deeply involved in his business. In fact, it may have been the whole reason behind him owning the restaurant in the first place. After all, what better way to clean dirty money than to funnel it through a highly profitable business? David says that the restaurant owner approached Babise and told him about a gang that he'd been involved with. The gang had recently been dealing with some pipeline issues, so to speak, and he felt that Babise would be the perfect man to fix these issues. With Babise's easy access to helicopters, there would be no better way to smuggle goods around the country than through the air. This would keep the police off the trail of any potential drops as sniffer dogs and drug enforcement agents can't really patrol the air, at least not very easily. Babise, whether willingly or by coercion, allegedly agreed to this business endeavor, and in the process, struck up a deal with the devil. Babise seemingly had no idea that this job would take everything from him, including his wife and daughter.  While Babise may have been an excellent pilot, he didn't have a good sense of business nor did he know about keeping people on a need-to-know basis.  Now, I'm sure most of us are familiar with this idea, but anytime someone conducts shady business deals, it's always the best practice to never tell anyone about it. That's just common knowledge. This isn't usually done in an attempt to lie to the people you love, but rather to keep them safe. After all, if they don't know anything about your crimes, they won't be the ones to go down when the ship inevitably sinks. This keeps your family and loved ones at a safe distance from anything going on so that if things do start to go south, you're the only one that has to atone for what you've done, not them. But Babise didn't seem to have understood this concept because as soon as he struck up the deal with the restaurant owner, Caroline was the first person that he told. Naturally, being a good person, Caroline wasn't okay with this new line of work, yet it was going to bring in a massive sum of money for the small family, but it wasn't money that Caroline was interested in accepting. She fought back against these plans every chance she got, but there was little she could do to stop her husband. Worse yet, there was even less that she could do to stop her husband's new employers. When Caroline realized that her words had no weight in the eyes of her husband, Caroline's father says that Caroline started to walk out on Babise. Babise couldn't stand by and watch this happen, but the problem was Babise's new employers weren't willing to sit by and watch this happen either. Thus, they forced Babise to silence his wife once and for all. David Crouch says that all of this was revealed to him in a handwritten letter that was given to him by Babise while Babise was incarcerated. David says that Babise wanted to set the record straight once and for all, and he felt that Caroline's father deserved to know the truth. But for many people, this so-called truth was just a bit too much to believe, especially considering that Babise had told a dramatically different story up to this point. In fact, Babise's attorney says that this entire story is nothing more than a fabrication on the part of Caroline's father, and he even goes on to claim that such a letter was never handed over to David because that letter doesn't even exist. And according to Babise's public statements, he wasn't involved in the crime at all. In reality, he was just another victim. It was May 11th, 2021. It was a day like any other for Babise and Caroline. That is, until nighttime rolled around. At some point in the middle of the night, a trio of armed robbers broke into the couple's home, which at the time was occupied by Caroline, Babise, their seven-month-old husky puppy and their infant daughter, Lydia. When the three broke into the home, they immediately grabbed the puppy and heartbreakingly ended its life using its own leash. Once this was done, the three made their way upstairs where they pulled out weapons and demanded all the money that the couple had to offer. Babise told the men that they had about 10,000 euros and even told them where to find the money. But Caroline wasn't going to let them take it without a fight. Caroline had been trained in martial arts and she began to fight back against the robbers. But when they began to resist, they threatened little Lydia, who'd been in the room with the couple that evening. The leader of the three robbers managed to overpower Caroline after making threats against her child, then ended her life by restricting her breathing, leaving her on the couple's bed and fleeing the home. But before they left, they tied up Babise and gagged him with him fainting just a few minutes later. This all took place around 4.30 a.m. and when Babise eventually woke up, he managed to free himself from his restraints and call the police for help. When officers arrived at the scene, initially everything that Babise had told them seemed to have been true. Unfortunately, when they checked the home security camera for evidence, they found that the robbers had stolen the SD card, meaning that nothing was left behind outside of an obvious mess and a disturbing crime scene. The Crouch family and Babise would later mourn the loss of Caroline, with photos from the funeral showing Babise embracing Caroline's mother as she wept. But just a few weeks later, police would reach a breakthrough in the case, finding new information that would turn the investigation on its head and paint Babise in a much different light. As investigators were doing their best to get to the bottom of the awful crime that transpired in the couple's home that night, they began to notice some inconsistencies in Babise's story. Police requested access to Caroline's phone on the night of her passing in an effort to better pin down her final moments and what took place leading up to the crime, likely in an effort to find out if she'd been in contact with anyone suspicious in the days or weeks leading up to her demise. It was when searching through her phone that they gained access to her fitness data. This is when things get very interesting. So if you have a modern smartphone or smartwatch, you should know that your devices are always collecting data on you. Most of us think of this as purely being your location data, but if you have a smartwatch such as an Apple watch, then your phone is also documenting things such as your heart rate, your physical movements, and in some cases even your temperature or other details about your health. When investigators looked into Caroline's health data, they found something interesting. According to her health data that was pulled from her Apple watch, which documented her sleep patterns, Caroline had been fast asleep immediately before losing her life. Worse yet, her location data showed that she never once got out of bed, which was inconsistent with what Babise told investigators about Caroline doing her best to physically fight off the assailants using martial arts. To make matters worse, Babise also claimed that the attack had taken place sometime around 4.30 a.m. But investigators learned from their home security system that the memory card had been removed at precisely 1.20 a.m. More than three hours before Babise claims that the crime began. Caroline's Apple watch also showed that her heart stopped beating at about 4.20 a.m. Again, disputing the timeline that Babise had claimed. With all of this information taken into account, police theorized that from 1.20 a.m. to 4.20 a.m., Babise had been staging the scene of the crime. They believe he made multiple attempts on Caroline's life during this time, making sure to cover his tracks along the way, to make sure that things appear as though there was a break in. But the bigger question here that many of us are wondering is, why? Well, that's the problem. There are multiple answers, depending on which version of events you believe. Was Babise truly threatened by an elusive gang member? If so, then he probably took his wife's life because he was told to. Did Caroline truly find out about Babise's smuggling crimes and threatened to leave, sending him into a fit of rage? Well, that's certainly possible too. But in more recent accounts from Babise during his trial, he even claimed that the marriage between the two had been filled with physical abuse. He claimed that his reason for taking Caroline's life was because he was sick of her assaulting him, referencing several occasions in which she would punch and kick him when things didn't go her way. He says that he grew so tired of this that he smothered Caroline with her own pillow while she slept. But if this were true, then why did he also take the life of her dog? That part just seems excessive. If you want my personal opinion, I think the guy's just a cold-blooded monster. He likely had a million different reasons that he was able to justify in his own mind, none of which hold water when you look at them from a logical perspective. Ultimately though, none of these theories matter. The only thing that we know for sure is that Babise was in fact, responsible for taking the life of his wife, regardless of his reasons. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 11 years for the crimes against Caroline's dog, though unfortunately his so-called life sentence only lasts around 20 years. He's expected to remain behind bars until he's in his 50s, at which point he'll be eligible for parole. In the aftermath of the crime and Babise's conviction, Caroline's family has been highly critical of the investigation and the allegations that Babise has made. Caroline's father in particular believes that there's much more to the story than Babise is letting on. And considering Babise has changed his version of events at least three times since his initial interrogation, there's a good chance that Caroline's father may be right. We may never know just how deep this rabbit hole really goes.  She'd just gotten a college degree, was surrounded by friends who loved her, and she was on the path to secure the job of her dreams. But all of that changed when she got unexpectedly involved in a love triangle that she couldn't get out of. Laura was blissfully unaware that the man that she'd fallen for had a series of incredibly dark secrets that he'd been keeping from her. Investigators claim that Laura was subjected to an unspeakable crime, and it ultimately resulted in her losing her life and being disposed of in the most creative, yet heartless way you could imagine. Detectives spent months collecting evidence and investigating this crime, and in the end, two criminals were placed behind bars, but they're not anyone you would have expected. This is a story that is bizarre from beginning to end. This is the twisted case of Laura Babcock. Before we keep going with today's story, I wanna let you guys know about the sponsor of today's video, MyHeritage. MyHeritage is the leading global service for family history research, and they even offer DNA testing that adds a whole new spin on researching your genealogy. MyHeritage is incredibly easy to use, and it's super useful if you're trying to build your own family tree. I was able to set up my own personal family tree in a matter of minutes. Once you add in the information abo