5 Cases Too Disturbing to Make It To Netflix | True Crime Documentary 

Halloween is a holiday that combines fun costume parties, homes decorated with eerie decor, jack-o-lanterns, and children trick-or-treating at neighbors doors. Scary stories, ghosts, evil forces that come out to people on this day. However, of course, everyone understands that these are just madeup tales.

 For New Jersey native Stephanie Pars, the week of Halloween in 2019 turned into a real nightmare. First, an illness that nearly took Stephanie to the other side, then a dead bird and smeared handprints on the bathroom mirror. For the 25-year-old girl living in a big house all alone, these were bad omens. And unfortunately, the invented horrors of the holiday turned into gruesome reality.

Help this channel grow. Like the video, try the new hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories. This helps us a lot. Thank you. Back in 1982, Edward Pars met his destiny. Her name was Charlene Quinn. Ed and Charlene were high school students. The young man was into art classes and on the very first day noticed the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

 It was love at first sight. But the senior girl didn’t even look in his direction, which only drew more of his attention. One day, Par unexpectedly stood up, walked over to the girl, and sat next to her. When Charlene gave him a surprised look, the young man said he didn’t bite. And by the way, his name was Ed.

 That’s how their friendship began, smoothly transforming into a passionate romance. After graduating high school, the young man got a job in security and his girlfriend got a job as an operator at a telephone company. Charlene and Ed’s wedding took place on September 15th, 1991 in the Chapel of St. Rose of Lima in Freehold, New Jersey.

 Looking at the newlyweds, one could confidently say that a wonderful life together awaited them. And so it happened. Charlene continued working in customer support while Ed was now an emergency services operator in the sheriff’s department and a volunteer rescuer. The man also founded his own limousine rental company.

 Soon Charlene learned she was pregnant. On February 19th, 1994, the couple had their first born, a girl named Stephanie Nicole Pars, a little bundle of joy that gave Ed and Charlene the new status of mom and dad. In the following years, the Par family grew with three more daughters, Briana, Cararissa, and Haley. Despite being surrounded by girls, it didn’t stop Ed from becoming the best dad in the world.

The young man’s entire life now revolved around spending as much time as possible with his little ones. Everyday, the Par family gathered in the big room and played board games. On vacations, Ed and Charlene took the kids fishing, went hiking in the woods with the girls, relaxed on the beach, or did rafting events.

 They visited the world of Disney, staying in the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and the amusement park. Every year before Christmas, Ed and the girls decorated the house with twinkling garlands, put figures in the yard, and participated in the contest for the most magical holiday light show. The Par family lived in a nice little two-story house at the very end of the street.

Their home was visible from afar thanks to the huge number of blinking garlands and all sorts of decorations. It was in this captivating atmosphere of parental love and care with the support of her younger sisters that Stephanie’s bold extroverted personality was formed. Friends and relatives called her a firework.

 She grew up confident, unafraid of others opinions, stubborn and independent, yet generous, loyal, and with a positive outlook on the world. Family activities led her to love sports. Stephanie joined the school softball team. With her father, they regularly attended baseball games and cheered for the local hockey team together.

 She often played bowling with her sisters. Sports became her way to connect with the people around her. With her mom, Charlene, Stephanie loved shopping for shoes and adding to her collection of new models. She also held a special place in her heart for her dog named Jasmine. But her true passion was art. She loved drawing, painting, ceramic sculptures, and creating illustrations for scary stories.

 As she got older, her passion for visual arts found an outlet in makeup. After high school, Stephanie enrolled in cosmetology school. It was a rigorous program specializing in makeup, skin care, nails, waxing, and hair care. To get a cosmetology license in New Jersey, she had to complete 1,200 hours of training. So, it took a full year.

Stephanie was talented. In cosmetology school, her creative abilities showed not only in her professional work, but also in her unconventional appearance. She dyed her hair in all the colors of the rainbow, wore bright, shiny outfits, earrings, rings, piercings, and [music] did striking makeup.

 With the development of the internet, the girl was able to make a living by growing her YouTube channel, where she demonstrated new looks on camera and created her own cosmetic brand. It was in cosmetology school that Steph met her boyfriend, Tom Senator, who was studying to be a hair stylist. Tom was just her type.

 Light blue eyes, dark hair, tongue piercing, and tattoos all over his body. Outwardly, he exuded a bad boy vibe, but he was very sweet. They started dating in October 2013, going to concerts and festivals together, hanging out at the beach, in nightclubs, and cheering for the local hockey team. Tom Senator shared Steph’s passion for cosmetology, fitness, family adventures, and night life.

 They developed a serious relationship based on support and common interests. Soon, Stephanie got a job at a nail salon, and she continued to perfect her makeup techniques on her younger sisters. In 2015, Pars enrolled in the school of art with a major in fine and applied arts. She created an account called Wild Rose Art on social media where she sold clay jewelry.

 Five of her works were nominated for the Spring Art Award and exhibited in an art gallery. In 2016, Stephanie took advanced cosmetology courses at the Makeup Academy and got a job at a beauty salon specializing in brow and lash services. Then her dream came true. Stephanie was invited to do makeup for New York Fashion Week. For her developing career, this was a huge achievement.

 She created her own brand called CNP from the first letters of her name and continued experimenting with special effects makeup and promoting her services on social media. Pars’s main goal was to do what she loved while one day becoming her own boss. And the girl did everything to achieve her goals. Stephanie often posted photos with her boyfriend on her internet page.

 She wrote touching captions thanking her guy for help and support and confessing her love. Despite some difficulties in their life together in October 2016, Tom and Stephanie celebrated their 3-year anniversary. But after Valentine’s Day in 2017, the young people broke up, remaining friends. Stephanie, who dreamed of spending her whole life with Tom, was devastated.

 She had to move in with her grandmother, who was suffering from a terminal illness. The girl was forced to become the main caregiver for the elderly woman. Now she had to juggle work, studies, and constant care for her sick grandmother. In 2017, Par launched another YouTube channel where she gave lessons on all types of makeup.

 Her signature was looks from horror movies like Pennywise, Joker, Coraline, and others. By adding bright accents to monster characters, Steph created unique, glamorous makeup. She knew how to make the most realistic and grotesque wounds on people’s faces and hands using special effects makeup. Her services were especially in demand at themed parties and during Halloween.

She considered her calling to be a special effects artist, as she had a special talent for it. Stephanie’s career was also moving forward. She worked as a makeup artist, manager, and waxing specialist in various salons and continued taking additional advanced courses. Given her love for children, she also babysat, looking after a neighbor’s girl.

 In 2018, the grandmother Pars had been caring for passed away and left Stephanie her house and pets. The home was just a 10-minute drive from her parents’ house. There was more than enough space for a single girl. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a beautiful large outdoor terrace, and a very big backyard perfect for walking dogs.

 At first, Stephanie eased her loneliness by communicating with the animals left in her care after her grandmother’s death. But animals couldn’t replace human interaction for the young girl. Soon, she started dating a guy named Michael Arino. Stephanie’s new boyfriend worked as a roofer. He was a tall young man with curly chestnut hair and a wide smile.

 They bonded over their love of hockey, but the romance didn’t last long. At some point, Par realized she needed a completely different man. She told Michael that, and after breaking up, she tried to focus on her work again. Plus, Stephanie had gained weight in recent months and decided it was time to take care of herself. After the breakup, Michael insisted he still loved Stephanie, but the girl wasn’t going to change her decision, feeling she wouldn’t be happy with him.

 The thing was, Par was looking for more than just a boyfriend. She was at the age when she was seriously thinking about starting a family and having children. She had a wonderful example in Ed and Charlene, and she wouldn’t settle for less. Once again, without a partner’s support, Steph desperately turned to dating apps.

Her father, Edward, was not thrilled with what his eldest daughter had come up with. The man worked in the sheriff’s department, and like no one else, knew how scary and unpredictable the consequences of online dating could be. The family policy of Charlene and Ed was that their daughters should never allow their partners to pressure them, publicly humiliate them, touch them inappropriately without permission, or anything like that, let alone a man raising his hand against his woman.

 The parents wanted only happy relationships for their girls based on love and mutual trust. Mom and dad had tried to show this by personal example since childhood. Ed convinced his eldest daughter to be very careful with online dating. You never know for sure who’s on the other side of the screen.

 To which Stephanie laughed and told her father he was just getting old and too cautious. In 25-year-old Stephanie’s opinion, she needed to find a guy quickly before she got too old. One of her younger sisters had recently had a baby and Steph didn’t even have a suitable boyfriend. Though the girl was already ready to start a real family and have her own children, it was hard for her father to argue because he met Charlene in high school and couldn’t fully understand his daughter’s worries since he hadn’t been in her situation. Nevertheless, he tried

to convey to Steph the importance of trust and respect in relationships with a young man. Meanwhile, Stephanie continued swiping through men’s profiles on dating apps. She liked getting attention and compliments from guys. Before going on a date with someone, the girl communicated with the candidate via messages for several weeks to get to know him better.

 That’s how she met 29-year-old John Ozbilen. At first, the young people chatted in a messenger. Jon told her about himself, saying he worked as a stock broker in Staten Island. The guy was a romantic and knew exactly how to win over a girl he liked. Plus, he was older than her previous boyfriends, meaning he had more serious intentions.

 At least that’s what Stephanie thought when she agreed to go on a date with him. When they finally met, Osbilan was exactly as he described himself. Tall, handsome man with a stable job who could provide not only for himself, but also for his future family. The young people gradually got to know each other, had dinners, went to the beach, and [music] walked.

 However, after just a few meetings, Stephanie felt they were too different. Jon was overly emotional. They didn’t agree on some things at all, and that angered Ozilen. After several outbursts of anger, Stephanie decided it would be better to distance herself from him and returned to the dating app. In August 2019, Stephanie woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe.

 It seemed like her lungs were filled with fluid. The girl was seriously scared. She immediately called her parents and her father took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with an infection and severe pneumonia in both lungs. Pneumonia can be fatal, but it’s rare. However, Stephanie nearly died. She spent several days in a hospital bed scaring her loved ones.

On August 9th, dressed in a hospital gown and connected to a breathing device, Stephanie addressed her subscribers and talked about the consequences of vaping. She said she almost lost her life and urged others to quit. This appeal showed Stephanie’s empathy and care for others. She described how hard the first days were.

She didn’t even have the strength to turn over in bed. She had to call the nurse. And all this turned out to be from the harmful habit. Besides her parents and sisters, the guy she had broken up with shortly before, John Osbilen, visited Stephanie in the hospital. He offered help and let her know he wanted to be there.

 The young man kept his word. Every day he visited Stephanie, brought flowers and treats, listened to her fears. Stephanie realized she really mattered to Jon, and that made her happy. When Par recovered and was discharged from the hospital, she and Jon went on a weekend trip to Atlantic City to relax on the beach.

 In the hotel room, Osbilan officially asked Stephanie to be his girlfriend, hiding a note among the drinks, and she agreed without hesitation. The girl’s parents, unlike her, were not thrilled with her choice. The guy didn’t appeal to them from the first meeting, though there seemed to be no objective reason, and the dislike was mutual.

Jon sabotaged joint vacations and Stephanie’s relationship with her family in every way. As soon as they started dating, the girl appeared less often at her parents’ house. Ed and Charlene were honest people, so they told their daughter they didn’t really like her boyfriend. Stephanie tried to defend Jon, blaming it on his shyness while highly valuing her family’s opinion.

 At first, the romance with Obilan really seemed like a fairy tale to her. The girl was in love and her social media flourished along with her personal life. Stephanie’s makeup skills were in high demand. Subscribers and followers noticed her offline. Pars’s talent spoke for itself, but Stephanie’s YouTube career and attention from others began to irritate Jon.

 He didn’t like that the girl spent a lot of time recording videos, communicating on social media, and didn’t want to share her with anyone. So, Stephanie had to set priorities. Over time, the relationship with Jon deteriorated again, and by the end of September, Par’s social media status changed to single. Now, the girl wasn’t rushing into new relationships.

She spent more time with her family and newborn nephew. Plus, the neighbors asked her again to babysit their child, which she gladly agreed to. October came and Halloween was approaching. During this period, creepy things started happening to Stephanie, making her feel unsafe in her own home. The girl called her mom and said her grandmother’s house was haunted.

 Par was sure the place was possessed by an evil spirit. Otherwise, who could be causing mischief in a locked room? One evening, returning [music] from work, Stephanie found several handprints on the bathroom mirror. They were smeared across the glass in a strange pattern and looked more like Slenderman’s long, thin fingers, a fictional character.

 The girl even shared a video on social media. Naturally, Stephanie was scared. She hadn’t left handprints on the mirror and couldn’t understand who did it. She washed the surface and tried to forget the incident. But a couple of days later, the girl came home and found one of her parrots on the cage floor. The poor bird was dead.

 There were no signs the day before that the parrot was sick. The sudden death of the bird made Stephanie panic. She even borrowed a baby monitor from her sister for a while and placed it near the front door to hear from the bedroom what was happening in the hallway. Stephanie couldn’t be called a coward. It was just the combination of the creepy holiday atmosphere and strange events that caused her some panic.

Living alone in a house where someone had recently died was quite a challenge. The closer Halloween got, the more her fear grew. As if on the eve of the holiday, dark forces could not just scare, but really harm the young homeowner. Perhaps deep down, Steph felt danger was looming. 3 weeks after the Mirrorand Prince and the bird incident on October 30th, 2019, the day before Halloween, Stephanie went with her sisters and mom to a psychic show.

 They wanted to see firsthand how a medium contacted the spirit world and predicted the future. Of all the pars women, only the youngest sister, Cararissa, was lucky. The medium singled her out from the crowd and read her future. An excited Steph told her subscribers on social media how the psychic predicted success for her sister in the future, but a heavy grief in the near future.

Some serious loss that would completely change her life. Cararissa was doing well in school, dating a guy she was in love with, so she had no idea what the medium was talking about. For people not into esotericism and not believing in clairvoyance, such a prediction might seem like generic phrases, and the school girl took it lightly.

 But the medium’s words would haunt Cararissa for the rest of her life, because that joint evening before Halloween would be the last time she saw her older sister, Stephanie, alive. After the psychic show, the girls returned to their parents’ house, had dinner, chatted a bit more, and those who lived separately went home.

 Steph kissed her mom goodbye and promised to text when she got home. Her grandmother’s house, where Pars lived, was just a 10-minute drive away. Usually, Stephanie used Snapchat to message her mom. On the way, she sent Charlene a photo of their favorite family restaurant, saying they should go there sometime on the weekend.

 to her mom’s question if she got home. The girl didn’t reply. Then she ignored several more messages from her parents. Charlene and Ed were sure Stephanie had turned off the sound on her phone during the psychic show and forgot to turn it back on. Probably she was exhausted from the whole day, came home and fell asleep right away, forgetting to write to her parents.

The next morning on Halloween, Charlene checked Snapchat again and saw that the messages she sent her daughter the night before were still unread. This was very unlike Steph, so the woman got worried and immediately started calling her cell. Charlene knew that by 7:00 a.m. her daughter should be at the neighbors where she babysat, but no one answered.

Ed and Charlene dropped everything, got in the car, and drove to the grandmother’s house. A white Honda Sonata belonging to Stephanie was in the driveway. That meant she still hadn’t woken up. Ed stayed in the car while Charlene headed to the house. She knocked but got no answer. Then she turned the handle and the front door opened.

 The woman cautiously entered and she was out of sight for a while. When Charlene appeared on the doorstep again, she shook her head anxiously, signaling to her husband that their daughter wasn’t there. The fact that the front door was unlocked was alarming enough, especially since Stephanie had been feeling scared lately.

 But then Charlene discovered that lights were on throughout the house in both bathrooms, the attic, the garage, and even the basement. It was quiet inside except for the dogs barking. It looked like the girl had walked around the house, turning on lights everywhere, checking every room to make sure there were no monsters.

 The dog was locked in the bathroom, which was also abnormal. Stephanie would never lock up the animal. Charlene let the dog out, then checked her daughter’s bedroom, but she wasn’t there. The coat and shoes the girl wore to the psychic show were lying next to the couch in the living room. That meant Stephanie had come home, possibly gone to the bedroom and disappeared the next morning.

 Overall, the situation was confusing and worrying for the parents. Charlene and Ed went home and started calling the sisters and friends of their eldest daughter, but no one could even reach her. Stephanie wasn’t answering anyone. It was strange because she always had her phone with her.

 Due to her online activities, the girl never parted with her mobile. When Stephanie showed up a few hours later, mom and dad were seriously worried. Charlene returned to Stephanie’s house with her youngest daughter, Cararissa, to look for clues and figure out where the girl might have gone. They carefully inspected the rooms, then checked the nightstand and found a large kitchen knife inside.

 Apparently, Stephanie was really scared of what was happening in the house to the point of keeping a weapon for protection nearby. At the same time, Charlene couldn’t find her daughter’s wallet, phone, or keys. But on the piano were leftovers from yesterday’s food, what they bought at the show the day before. Where could Stephanie be in such a hurry that she didn’t turn off the lights, lock the house, or even put the food in the fridge? Could there be some other creepier reason why the girl wasn’t answering calls? Now, Charlene decided

to dial Stephanie’s phone number again, and to her surprise, the gadget rang somewhere nearby. The mobile was found between the couch cushions, and that was scary. As mentioned, Steph never parted with her phone, let alone voluntarily leave the house without it. Neither mom nor sister could unlock the phone since it was password protected, but notifications were visible on the lock screen.

 Stephanie had received many text messages, including one from the woman whose child she was supposed to babysit that morning, meaning the girl didn’t show up for work. It was at that moment that Carissa remembered the medium’s prediction and realized that her older sister’s disappearance was the grief awaiting her in the near future. In a way, the high schooler felt responsible for Steph’s disappearance.

 When Charlene met Ed and told him about the found, the father felt an unpleasant burning in his chest. As a sheriff’s department employee, he knew that a missing adult report wouldn’t be accepted until 24 hours had passed since the disappearance. Though the first hours after a disappearance are the most important, as there’s still a chance to prevent the worst outcome, yet police don’t start searches earlier than a day later.

 However, the parents weren’t going to waste precious time. They called all of Stephanie’s acquaintances, hoping to stumble upon someone who had seen the girl or knew her whereabouts. Then father and mother searched the neighborhood, showing people her photo. They talked to Stephanie’s neighbors. Unfortunately, no one could provide any new information.

 One of the sisters managed to hack into Stephanie’s social media account. She saw several messages from different people, including from ex-boyfriend John Obilan. He was the last person who wrote to Steph the night before. Some messages were still unread. From what Jon wrote, it was clear the young man was agitated.

 He used many emotionally manipulative phrases like, “Where are you? I feel bad. Why are you ignoring me again?” The young man accused Stephanie of ruining their relationship. Obviously, the girl didn’t reply because she spent the whole evening with her mom and sisters. Plus, she and Jon had broken up back in September.

 Steph’s sister, who read all the messages, contacted Jon from her own social media page and directly [music] asked if he knew where her sister was. Ozilan replied within an hour, saying that on Halloween Eve, [music] he went to Stephanie’s house and spent the night with her. At 7:00 a.m., they woke up and Jon went home because the girl was rushing to her babysitting job.

 He hadn’t seen her since. So Jon was the last person to communicate with Steph before she disappeared. Finally, Mom Charlene called 911 and reported her daughter’s disappearance to the dispatcher. The woman said she last saw Stephanie on October 30th at 10 p.m. After that, the daughter didn’t call or write that she got home safely, but her car was in the driveway.

 Charlene added that John Osbilan, the ex-boyfriend, saw Steph the night before and spent the night with her. After partying in the morning, he also hadn’t heard from the girl. Fear and panic were audible in the mother’s voice. But the detective handling the case calmed the woman, saying police would do everything possible to bring Stephanie home safe and sound.

 Only his words somehow didn’t inspire trust in the mother. Perhaps on a subconscious level, she understood that something terrible had happened and she would never see her child again. On Monday, November 1st, a team of officers searched Stephanie’s house and found no signs of forced entry. If Jon was telling the truth, perhaps someone else entered the house after he left.

 At least that would explain why the girl didn’t take her phone and didn’t lock the front door. By the way, her keys were found in the car. Meanwhile, one of the sisters logged into Steph’s social media and posted an appeal to subscribers asking for any information about the girl’s whereabouts. By the way, this post got over 600 comments from people worried about Par’s disappearance.

 Many were concerned that the disappearance coincided with Halloween. Some claimed to have seen the girl in another town. Some suggested contacting a medium or psychic. and some ill-wishers immediately started writing where to look for her body. There were many tips, all very different, but almost all useless. The media instantly picked up the story of the girl who disappeared on Halloween night.

 It made headlines and the search for Pars expanded geographically. Now she was being looked for not only in Freehold, but also in nearby towns in the state. Police needed to check all of Stephanie’s ex-boyfriends. But first, they wanted to talk to John Osbilen, the last known person to see the girl alive. Detectives requested a warrant to search John’s cell phone, computer, and his parents’ house, located 13 minutes drive from where Stephanie lived.

 There were no signs of the missing girl in the Osbilan home. John himself was fully cooperative. He came to the police station for questioning and told the same story he had told Steph’s sister earlier. The detectives listened to the guy and during the interview noticed some strange scratches on the young man’s neck.

 Reviewing his messages provided additional evidence of Jon’s anger issues and sudden outbursts of aggression. After the breakup on September 23rd, Jon continued writing to Stephanie, denying the breakup. He was possessive toward her, controlled the ex-girlfriend’s actions, and literally bombarded her with messages. Par could have blocked him, but she was afraid it would only make things worse.

Freehold police suspected that when Stephanie didn’t reply to her ex’s messages because her phone was on silent, Jon decided to sneak to her house and wait at the door since he lived nearby and had the opportunity. However, investigators didn’t want to jump to conclusions because besides Osbulen, there were other ex-boyfriends in the girl’s life.

 First, they needed to rule out everyone uninvolved. Detectives considered different scenarios. Did Stephanie leave the house because she was scared by evil spirits? Could she have been kidnapped? Was she being held hostage? Or had the worst scenario happened and the girl was already dead? Stephanie’s father, Ed, was also running various versions through his head.

 His imagination ran so wild that he felt like he was going crazy. The family put up flyers hoping someone might have seen Steph. While law enforcement studied the case materials and tried to determine a specific search area, Par’s parents and friends, about 200 volunteers in total, managed to comb nearby wooded areas, checked trash containers and riverbanks.

 At one point in the search, they came across a pile of tied black trash bags. The father couldn’t bring himself to open them. When one of the men cut the bag, blood poured out. Ed almost fainted, imagining his daughter’s body could be inside the bags, but it turned out to be a dead deer.

 The man thanked God it wasn’t his daughter. However, he couldn’t shake the horrible thoughts that flooded his mind at the sight of the black bags and blood for a long time. The searches continued. Days passed. Investigators got information from Jon’s cell phone and other devices. According to geoloccation, the ex-boyfriend did spend Halloween night at Par’s house.

 The next day, the young man drove toward his work. Everything looked normal except that he ended up at Clay Pit Ponds Park on the southshore of Staten Island in a marshy nature reserve located 50 km from Stephanie’s home. Jon stayed there for 6 hours before returning to New Jersey. It all looked suspicious.

 If the guy decided to get rid of Stephanie’s body, it would be an ideal place. A team of 200 law enforcement officers, New York Police K9 units, and helicopters were sent to Clay Pit Ponds Park. They combed the area, but didn’t find the girl’s body. But another team of experts found a compromising photo in J’s phone related to child abuse.

 Oz Bilgan claimed he had no idea how the photo got on his phone. Nevertheless, he was detained for possible thirdderee child endangerment and temporarily placed in the Monmouth County Correctional Facility in New Jersey. John faced up to 5 years in prison if found guilty. John Osbilen was born in July 1990 in Brooklyn.

 His father was a bus driver in New York and his mother was a cosmetologist. They raised John and his brothers in the Rossville area on the southshore of Staten Island. Jon graduated high school and became a stock broker. He was into bodybuilding and was popular with the opposite sex. J’s criminal history included four different cases.

 The first was related to his ex-girlfriend from New York who filed a restraining order against him. Another girl claimed Jon crossed boundaries during sex and choked her until she passed out. Then the victim withdrew the complaint, not wanting to face the man in court. In June 2019, a third woman called police about J’s aggressive behavior.

She complained that he hit her. The fourth complaint against this person came recently on September 23rd. From the contents of Osbilan’s phone, Stephanie was the only one he communicated with in recent months. John was messaging a dozen other women at the same time. Unfortunately, 11 days later, Ozbilgan was released on bail at his lawyer’s request.

 Police couldn’t yet charge him in connection with Stephanie Pars’s disappearance since there was no concrete evidence. The short-term consequences of the arrest were that Jon could no longer use the internet and he had to find another job since he was fired from his previous one. Charlene and Ed began recalling all events related to John Osbillan.

 They talked to Steph’s friends and learned that the first time the girl broke up with her boyfriend was because he grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against the wall. It caused her to bleed. The next [music] day, Par ended the relationship, but didn’t tell her father and mother the truth. If Stephanie hadn’t ended up in the hospital with pneumonia later, and Jon hadn’t sat by her bed all those days, the girl probably wouldn’t have forgiven the guy.

 Jon spent every evening with Steph, convincing her to come back, and it worked. On September 23rd, the Par’s spouses were about to go to bed when the phone rang. First, Charlene heard a scuffle, then Stephanie’s horse voice saying, “John hit her.” The call cut off. The mother immediately called 911 and Ed rushed to the car and sped to his daughter’s house.

 When he pulled up on her street, he saw a girl running barefoot in pajamas. It was his daughter Stephanie, covered in blood. Ed stopped the car, picked up his daughter, and sat her in the passenger seat. When they arrived at the house, police were already there. Officers prevented Ed from making a mistake. The enraged father was in a state where he could easily kill his daughter’s boyfriend.

Osbilan was arrested and [music] Ed was asked to take Stephanie to the police station so she could file charges. The girl was shocked by what happened. That evening, she filed a complaint stating that Jon hit her on the head and arm so hard that she bled. But later, Stephanie told her father she didn’t want to press charges to leave it all behind quickly.

Ed couldn’t understand her reasoning, but Steph was an adult and decided for herself. After such an incident, there could be no talk of a relationship. Par posted on her social media wall, “Starting over is okay. Moving on is okay. Saying no is okay. Being alone is okay.” The girl was taking steps to rebuild her life after her self-esteem was destroyed by a pathetic monster.

 She didn’t know that Obilan regularly communicated with other women and had no idea that such behavior was normal for him. If someone had warned her, perhaps Stephanie’s parents wouldn’t be starting everyday searching for their daughter now, and most likely the girl would be alive.

 Ed Pars hated John Ozbilen with all his being, who was under house arrest at the time. The father was almost 100% sure that this man was involved in his daughter’s disappearance. Unfortunately, Ed himself couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t go and force the scumbag to tell where he put Stephanie. On November 22nd, almost a month after the girl’s disappearance, at 4:30 a.m.

, Ed received an anonymous phone call. The person on the other end said he was dead, then hung up. It took Par some time to understand the context, but when the meanings sank in, he had a nervous breakdown. He screamed, punched walls, threw things because now they would never know what happened to Stephanie. The father of the missing girl got in the car and drove to the Osbilen house.

Officers already there asked Ed to go home and threatened arrest if he didn’t comply, but Par wanted to know exactly what happened. Did John leave a suicide note before leaving this life? Police refused to give any information about the incident. John Osbilan’s body was found in the garage just 3 days after his release from jail.

 The detective had no other information at the moment. Ed tried with all his might to come to terms with it. He went home and told his family what happened. The search for justice in Stephanie’s case had reached a dead end and he didn’t know what to do next. The Par family spent their first Christmas without Stephanie.

 And though enough time had passed since her disappearance, the parents didn’t stop searching for their daughter. Over 87 days, relatives, friends, and volunteers checked 88 different locations in Freehold and its surroundings. Ed posted the meeting place and time for the search group on his page in advance. He warned people to dress warmly since it was cold outside and searches could last until late evening.

 And finally, on Sunday, January 26th, 2020, Stephanie was found. She was discovered by two young men from New Jersey, aged 17 and 18. They were walking along the highway shoulder to work when they suddenly noticed a mannequin in the bushes behind the guardrail. When the teens got closer, they realized it wasn’t a plastic doll, but a dead human body.

 It was lying face down with arms raised as if someone had accidentally fallen asleep on the ground under a tree. The guys immediately called police. Several emergency services responded to the call. Though the remains were only 5 to 6 m from the road. Drivers passing on the highway couldn’t see what was in the ditch behind the guard rail.

 Only a random pedestrian could notice it. Because the highway was mostly traveled by cars, no one noticed the body below. A friend called Ed Pars and suggested turning on the news. The agitated father watched the place he had driven past dozens of times in the last 3 months. It was a known dump near the highway.

 It seemed like someone stopped on the shoulder and pushed the body down the hill. It rolled into the ditch and a nearby tree hid it from view. The worst part was that this place was very close to the banquet hall where Ed and Charlene once got married and where Stephanie in a beautiful purple dress had fun at her prom and now she was dumped there like unwanted trash.

Ed and Charlene called the two teens who found Stephanie Angels sent there for a purpose. The young men themselves had heard about the girl who disappeared from her home on Halloween Eve [music] and were glad the family would finally get answers. The autopsy confirmed Ed and Charlene’s worst fears.

 It really was their eldest daughter missing for almost 3 months. Stephanie’s body showed signs of severe decomposition since it had been outdoors and exposed to the elements. This prevented the medical examiner from determining the exact cause of death. However, given John Osbilan’s history of accusations, it was assumed the girl died from asphixxiation.

Investigators believed the ex-boyfriend Jon was responsible for Stephanie’s death. Her death became the reason for Jon to take his own life. Now that Stephanie was found, detectives could finally close the case. J’s parents denied their son had anything to do with the attack on Stephanie. They expressed condolences to the Par family and presented the most likely reason their son committed suicide.

In the mother’s opinion, Jon was innocent. He couldn’t handle the constant pressure and false accusations from others, as well as constant searches and suspicions from police. It’s no wonder the father and mother believed their child’s words. They never saw firsthand how he behaved alone with women.

 In a way, they can be understood because their confidence was based solely on their son Jon’s words. Before the guy voluntarily put a noose around his neck, he left two handwritten notes. Ed and Charlene learned about this much later when Stephanie’s body was already found. The first letter was addressed to mom and dad.

 John apologized to his parents and wrote that he couldn’t handle life behind bars. He also warned that most of what they would hear about him on TV was true. Obilan admitted he was happy only once in his life with a girl from New York who filed the restraining order against him. He asked that a photo of him with her be used at his funeral.

 The second message John addressed to that same girlfriend from New York. In it, he wrote that Stephanie caused chaos in his life and heard him over and over when he needed support. He also said several unflattering words about Pars. The notes didn’t mention where he hid Stephanie Par’s remains or directly say he took her life.

 However, detectives suspected that before this, Jon sent his parents several messages hinting at Stephanie’s disappearance or perhaps even confessed the crime to them. But the Osbilan spouses refused to provide police with that information. An investigation into obstruction of justice began.

 John’s parents refused to cooperate with the investigation, covering their son’s memory, who [music] had voluntarily gone to the other side. Stephanie’s funeral was held at the church of St. Rose of Lima. She was buried in a white and gold coffin. In tribute, Ed wrote an appeal to his daughter on his social media page. Stephanie, my angel, sleep peacefully.

Mom bought you a beautiful soft outfit and blanket to keep you warm. Today is a hard day, baby. Close your eyes and rest. See you later. These days were the hardest in the Par’s spouse’s lives. No parent should bury their child. Ed couldn’t even look at his daughter’s photo, fearing his strength would leave him.

 He tried to hold himself together to remain a support for Charlene and the other daughters. The man promised to ensure Stephanie’s legacy lived on and she could help other women through her story. Of course, the Par’s family’s life would never be the same. However, mother and father are glad Stephanie is home now and they can take care of her.

On February 19th, 2020, the family gathered again to celebrate Stephanie’s 26th birthday. They held a candlelight vigil attended by over 1,800 people wishing to honor the memory of the deceased girl. Ed Pars said that during the night vigil, the family noticed one bright star in the sky that made them feel like Stephanie was nearby watching over them.

Investigators ultimately concluded that John Osbulen repeatedly used violence against Stephanie. Thanks to her amazing makeup artist talent, she knew how to hide the traces of his beatings. But when the family got involved, Stephanie made a firm decision to end the unhealthy relationship. Jon reacted by demanding even more control over the girl.

 Wanting her back, the guy started scaring Steph, thinking it would make her run back to his arms. When on Halloween, Eve Par ignored Ozilan’s message. He got angry and drove to her house. He acted as if they were still a couple. What happened inside the house can only be guessed. Most likely, it was a classic case of if I can’t have you, no one can.

 If Jon couldn’t get Stephanie, he wouldn’t let anyone else have her. After the attack, Osbilan dragged the body to the back door. To pull his car closer, he needed to move the girl’s car. But he couldn’t find her phone or keys to the Honda Sonata. So, he turned on lights and searched every room in the house, the attic, and the basement.

 Finding the keys, Jon moved Steph’s car to the driveway. He pulled up to the back door in his car to load the body unnoticed. All this was done under cover of night. Then Ozbilgan drove his car along the highway toward Staten Island, but halfway he turned around, caught on one of the road cameras. Most likely Jon stopped the car on the shoulder, choosing a moment when no other cars were nearby.

 He discreetly threw Stephanie’s body over the guard rail and continued to Clay Pit Ponds Park. Perhaps he wanted to mislead police and divert suspicion from himself. or he just didn’t want to go home yet. Ed Pars felt irresponsible for not protecting his daughter from the obsessive boyfriend. But what could a father do if Stephanie herself wasn’t ready to press charges against Jon? In memory of their deceased daughter, Charlene and Ed founded the Stephanie Nicole Pars Foundation to help fight domestic violence and support families

of missing persons. They help people facing similar problems, teach them safety issues. Ed enthusiastically tells parents how to react when their child reports violence from an intimate partner. Stephanie Nicole Pars achieved success in the online world. The girl also sought to realize herself as a devoted wife and responsible mother soon, but unfortunately one dark, unchangeable person managed to destroy all her bright high plans.

If you have finished watching, [music] you are a real fan of true crime. Subscribe to the channel, turn on the bell notifications, and put the like. See you in the next video. Brandon loved riding motorcycles more than anything in the world and dreamed of becoming a good father to his son. Unfortunately, both turned against him.

In a family life where the husband is satisfied with his wife and the wife with her husband, happiness [music] will undoubtedly continue. Brandon Duran and Amber Andrews were perfect for each other. But it turned out that each had their own understanding of family life. Help this channel grow.

 [music] Like the video, try the new hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories. This helps us a lot. Thank you. On June 24th, 1980, a son named Brandon was born to Cynthia and Mark Duran. Soon after, the boy’s parents divorced, agreeing on joint custody of their son. Brandon spent his childhood traveling between New Mexico, where he lived with his father, and San Diego, [music] where his mother, stepfather, and younger brother, Garrett, had settled.

In elementary school, Brandon was not very bright, but was a calm and sweet child. He was not one of those who craved being in the spotlight, but everything changed when the boy grew up. Brandon turned into a wild, fearless teenager who listened to heavy rock, dressed to attract attention, and was ready to defend his opinion with his fists if necessary.

 Garrett, who was 5 years younger than Brandon, respected his older brother, and wanted to be like him in every way. Despite living in different cities, the guys remained friends throughout their lives. Garrett described his brother as a natural leader and admired his human qualities. In addition, Brandon was a very good snowboarder and dreamed of becoming a professional athlete.

 To achieve his goal at 18, he moved permanently to San Diego. Duran’s father was an avid motorcyclist and at one time was a member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, which the FBI considered a criminal organization. The childhood spent in his father’s company and surrounded by other bikers influenced Brandon’s passion for motorcycles.

 They often spent time in the garage where the father disassembled his iron horse, repaired it, and then taught his son to assemble the motorcycle back. Brandon liked living with his father, but sometimes he still missed his mom and brother. for himself. The guy decided that he would find the one and only who would live in love and harmony for life.

 Duran did not want his children to be torn between two parents either. Unfortunately, in 2005, Brandon’s father, Mark, unexpectedly died from a blood disease. The man simply went to the hospital for a liver biopsy. The doctors immediately noticed something wrong. The life of Duran Senior ended suddenly. No one expected such an outcome.

 The death of his father hit the older son the hardest. This tragic event became a turning point in Brandon’s fate, who was very attached to his father. The death of his parent literally emptied the young man. Brandon fell into a deep depression, stopped snowboarding, and abandoned all his previously favorite activities. With his father’s departure, it was as if he had lost a part of himself.

 It was Mark who taught him to make things from metal. And now Brandon handmade an earn for his father’s ashes, which he kept at home. Still unable to come to terms with the sudden loss of a loved one, Brandon decided that California was no longer for him. He packed his things and went to Las Vegas, Nevada, where many of his father’s friends lived.

 Being close to the members of the local Bandidos chapter who knew the deceased better than others, Brandon found comfort. Duran got a job in construction, spent his free time with new buddies, and delved deeper into the biker life. His most valuable acquisition was a fly ride chopper motorcycle with his name embroidered on the seat.

 It was from his father that Duran inherited his love for motorcycles. Despite his menacing appearance and biker attributes, Brandon radiated kind positivity. He never became a full member of Bandidos because he dreamed of a completely different life, but he managed to maintain good relations with his father’s friends.

 One day in Vegas at one of the biker events, Brandon Duran met 24-year-old tattoo artist Amber Andrews. The guy was crazy about Amber, a mysterious and uninhibited young woman. The bright brunette with red lipstick on her lips embodied all his masculine dreams. Deep down, Duran believed that his father had sent Amber into his life to pull him out of depression and give him a push toward new achievements.

Brandon was a hopeless romantic. He didn’t want dates or meaningless relationships. He was immediately looking for a life partner. Brandon Duran and Amber Andrews were an unusual couple, but they were perfect for each other. And two months later, the young people got married. June 6th, 2006. Choosing this date because of its numerical value.

 Three sixes are a popular symbol in biker and rock culture. A biker patch with three sixs has no religious connotation. The number 666 in this case is the abbreviation FFF expressed in numbers meaning friends forever friends. The wedding took place in a small chapel in Vegas. The dressed up Brandon, his friends, and his family stood in the parking lot when a white limousine pulled up, and Amber stepped out in a black wedding dress that she had sewn herself.

 During the ceremony, as expected, the bride and groom vowed to love each other in sorrow and in joy, in wealth and in poverty, in sickness and in health, until death do them part. Brandon’s best man was his younger brother, Garrett. In Brandon’s family, Amber immediately seemed a bit strange, as if tired of life.

 Mother Cynthia whispered that in a black dress, the bride looked more like a black widow. She seemed to immediately sense a threat in this unusual girl. But Brandon stood up for his chosen one, and explained to his mother that he was concerned with the woman, not what she was wearing. Moreover, Amber was pregnant.

 Brandon loved his father, so he was very excited about soon becoming a dad himself. 6 months after the wedding, on December 15th, 2006, the couple, [music] surrounded by family, welcomed their first born. The boy was named Brando Marcos Duran, almost like Brandon and Mark Duran. The birth of a child always brings changes to the usual routine of young parents, and not everyone is ready for these changes.

Amber, it seemed, had a much harder time than Brandon. She had particular difficulty taking on the role of a mother. The couple decided that Amber would quit her job and become a housewife since the infant needed constant care and attention. So now Brandon had to put in maximum effort to provide his family with a roof over their heads and fill the refrigerator with food.

 It was during this period that difficulties appeared in the spouse’s relationship. Amber had always been a party girl, and caring for her young son forced her to stay home alone because her husband was constantly working. The feeling of isolation tormented the young mother so much that as soon as she finished breastfeeding the baby and could afford to leave the house, Amber took full advantage of the opportunity.

 She started meeting with girlfriends again, partying and drinking. The woman began leaving the house more often. She left the son with Brandon [music] when he came home from work or hired a nanny. Of course, Duran also loved parties and could drink a little to relax, but he knew his limits because he was now the father of little Brando. But Amber let loose completely.

Not only did she often come home drunk, but one day her husband noticed that her pupils were dilated and her behavior had sharply changed for the worse. Most likely, the woman was not limited to alcohol. It got to the point where Amber would leave during the day on errands and return only late at night.

 Sometimes she was wearing different clothes for some reason or her hair was wet as if she had showered somewhere. When her husband asked her questions about this, Amber got very angry and refused to talk altogether. At that time, Brandon’s younger brother Garrett was living in the house with them along with his wife.

They had specifically come to Las Vegas for a while to help with the baby, so they often became unwilling witnesses to scandals in the house. Brandon didn’t like that his wife was always going somewhere. Because of this, they often argued. And one day, the argument ended in a fight, and the police had to be called enraged by her husband’s claims.

Amber grabbed the urn with Brandon’s father’s ashes, the earn he had made with his own hands and carefully kept, ran out into the street, and threw it on the ground in the yard, scattering the ashes. The arriving police somehow calmed the spouses and insisted that the woman pack her things and leave the house for a while to give Brandon a chance to calm down.

 That same night, Amber left and returned only a week later. Despite all the madness, Brandon forgave his wife. He always forgave her because he wanted the best life for his son, wanted his child to have a happy childhood surrounded by loving parents. Moreover, he himself still loved Amber and didn’t want to part with her, no matter how toxic a person she was.

 For some time after the reconciliation, [music] everything was fine in the house. Amber promised Brandon to spend more time with her family and forget about night parties. She cooked meals, played with the child, and met her husband from work, but her enthusiasm didn’t last long. Very soon, the woman forgot her promises and went all out again.

Amber belonged to the type of people who are ready to say anything. Everything you want to hear just to keep you in their life. The arguments resumed, but now they were less loud. Brandon simply didn’t want to show all this negativity to his family. He often walked around with bruises, and relatives guessed how the marks appeared on his body.

 However, Brandon endured as long as he could. Finally, the relationship between the spouses reached a critical point and after four years of marriage in 2010, the couple filed for divorce. They agreed on joint custody of Brando and the child spent a week with his mother and a week with his father. Of course, Brandon would have liked to take his son for himself, but he perfectly understood that the boy needed a mother.

Nevertheless, the man tried to get the most out of the time they spent together with his son. Their weeks were filled with laughter, fun, and love. Brandon loved his boy very much and was ready to do anything to make his childhood happy and carefree. One day, arriving with his mother, Cynthia, at Amber’s house to pick up his son, Brandon encountered a locked door.

No one answered the knock. When the man used the keys he kept just in case and went inside, judging by the absence of things, Amber had taken the son and disappeared without warning her ex-husband. She simply took the child and moved to Oklahoma without saying a word to her ex-husband.

 Brandon got in the car and together with relatives set off on a 24-hour trip to Oklahoma to find his son. They learned that Amber and her son had settled with her new boyfriend named Justin. However, disappointment awaited Brandon there, too. No one was home, although Amber’s car was in the driveway or they simply didn’t open the door.

They waited for 9 hours, but no one appeared. However, as soon as Brandon left for half an hour to a cafe to grab a bite, his ex-wife’s car disappeared from the driveway. The man had no choice but to call the Oklahoma police to help him get Brando back, but the police couldn’t do anything either. They advised him to contact a lawyer to resolve the custody issue, which Brandon did.

 In the end, he filed a missing person report for his son, and the next day, Amber contacted him herself and promised to personally bring Brando to his father. By court decision, Brandon received full custody of his son since it turned out that the mother had kidnapped the child and transported him across state lines. The judge considered Amber an unfit mother and did not allow her to see the boy.

 Brandon and Brando returned to San Diego, where his family lived, to start over and simply get their life in order. He raised his son with love and faith in the best, taught him to snowboard, told him about motorcycles and music, and for some time everything really went well. Now little Brando had a stable home, a caring father, and loved ones nearby.

Father and son lived alone for the entire year of 2011 and heard nothing about Amber at all. But in 2012, Amber contacted Brandon, said she loved him, that she wanted to try to fix everything. She finally admitted that she had behaved wrongly. Then the woman came to San Diego and said she wanted to give their marriage a second chance.

Wanting to get his family back, Duran agreed to leave the past behind. He wanted his son to have a full, strong family, for Brando to have a mother nearby, and for him to have his beloved woman. Of course, after partying with Amber, Brandon dated other girls, but none of them made him feel what he felt next to his ex-wife.

In the summer of 2012, Amber returned to reunite with Brandon. His family was not thrilled with the news, but they had to come to terms with it. The man believed in the best, believed that his ex-wife had changed. How cruy he was mistaken. Brandon and Amber planned to settle together in San Diego.

 Brando was supposed to go to kindergarten and before the start of the school year, they went together to pick up things from Oklahoma. The spouses took a truck, put Brandon’s motorcycle in the bed, and set off on the trip. They were supposed to be gone for just a week, but Brandon Duran never returned.

 His dreams of a happy family life were shattered. On August 8th, 2012, a man named Van Emblem contacted the sheriff’s office in southern Oklahoma and reported that the previous evening he had helped a friend get rid of a dead body. The police granted the witness immunity in exchange for him telling all the details of the incident.

 And here’s what Van Emblem told the detectives. The previous evening on August 7th, 2012, his childhood friend Justin Hammer called him and said he needed help loading and that he had just shot someone. At first, Emblem thought it was some stupid joke, so he said he’d do whatever was necessary without issue. But when Van arrived at Justin’s house and saw numerous buckets and streams of blood around them, he realized his friend wasn’t joking, but was serious.

 In Hammer’s house, there were several 5gallon paint buckets filled with cement and dismembered human remains. Despite the buckets being closed, blood was seeping through the lids and flowing down the sides, Van Emblem got scared. If Justin had really killed someone, he could do the same to him. The man didn’t show that he was afraid.

 He simply helped his friend load these buckets with their horrific contents into the truck bed. Then he hastily said goodbye, jumped into his car, and immediately contacted a lawyer because it dawned on him that he had become an unwitting accomplice to the crime. The lawyer advised him to go to the police and tell everything.

 Justin Hammer was arrested that same evening. The man didn’t deny it and immediately confessed to everything. He told the police that he had indeed shot a person, but it was done in self-defense. The guy broke into his house and started threatening. The frightened Justin grabbed a gun and pulled the trigger. When he realized what he had done, he panicked.

 But instead of calling the police right away, he decided to get rid of the uninvited guest. Hammer cut the dead body into parts, put them in buckets, poured cement over them, and threw them into a pond on his property. To verify Justin’s story, the authorities had to drain the pond. The first thing they saw at the bottom was a dog crate containing a human torso wrapped in tarp.

Continuing the search, specialists found five plastic buckets with other body parts poured with cement. The body had been cut into 25 pieces, and in life, it belonged to 32-year-old Brandon Duran. He had to be identified by his tattoos. The officers called Brandon’s family in California and reported what had happened.

 Initially, Mother Cynthia picked up the phone, but she couldn’t finish the conversation. The woman dropped the phone from her hands. A sharp pain pierced her heart. It seemed that her son’s life was just starting to get better and suddenly such a tragedy struck. The mother was unable to comprehend what was happening. She was crushed by grief.

 It was good that her younger son Garrett was with her at that moment. When the initial shock passed, the family called Amber to find out what had happened, but the ex-wife was not aware of what was going on. According to her, everything was fine. On August 7th, 2012, she and Brandon went to a doctor’s appointment together. On the way, during the conversation, Amber casually mentioned the name of her boyfriend, Justin Hammer, with whom she lived in Oklahoma, and this infuriated Duran.

 Usually calm, Brandon got incredibly angry because of this conversation, stopped the truck, pulled his motorcycle out of the bed, got on it, and saying he would deal with the situation himself, rode off, leaving his wife alone on the road. That was the last time Amber saw him. The police tracked down Amber at her mother’s house in Oklahoma and now officially informed her of Brandon’s death.

 She seemed shocked by the news and very upset. The woman told the authorities that reconciling with her ex-husband was complicated by the fact that she had not ended her official relationship with Justin Hammer. Amber claimed that the day before she had argued about this with Brandon, after which he rode off on his motorcycle to talk to Hammer face to face.

 She didn’t know what happened next, so the subsequent events became known from Justin’s account. He was at home doing everyday chores when suddenly the front door burst open with a bang [music] and Brandon Duran walked in. The uninvited guest stated that Amber had returned to him and advised Hammer to stay away from her, otherwise someone would get hurt.

 Not expecting the sudden intrusion, Justin feared that Amber’s ex-husband would harm him. He had heard from his girlfriend more than once about her husband’s aggressive and hot-tempered nature. Hammer rushed to the gun safe, pulled out a shotgun and a pistol, and shot Brandon in the head with both weapons simultaneously. Duran fell dead.

 When Justin realized what he had done, he panicked and decided to get rid of Brandon’s body. He did this in his own bathroom using a hacksaw. Then, laying out the remains in buckets, he filled the containers with cement to add weight. With the help of his childhood friend, Van Emblem, Justin loaded the buckets into the car and dumped them into a pond on his property in Elmore City, Oklahoma.

 The cleaning products he used to cover up the traces of the crime and the victim’s clothing. The man burned in a metal barrel, and Duran’s motorcycle was later given to a relative who disassembled it for parts. By the way, [music] when the police later found the shotgun and pistol in the gun safe, Brandon’s blood was still on them.

 In August 2012, Justin Hammer was formally charged with first-degree murder. The trial began two years later in July 2014. In his testimony, Justin portrayed Brandon as a cruel biker criminal who broke into his house and threatened him with violence over his relationship with Amber.

 Hammer claimed that he genuinely feared his girlfriend’s ex-husband because he believed him to be a member of the criminal Bandidos group. The investigators even contacted Duran’s family just in case, and they made it clear that Brandon was never a member of the Bandidos’s motorcycle club and never even tried to join it. After his father’s death, he communicated with his friends for a while.

 But after getting married, the communication faded. Although Hammer’s claims that he was afraid of bikers were baseless, the man continued to insist that it was just self-defense. But the prosecution team understood perfectly well that the attack was premeditated. The thing is during the search of Hammer’s house, the police found several very interesting items.

 Hidden deep in the gun safe filled with various ammunition, pistols, and rifles was a piece of paper. It was handwritten and listed items such as a hacksaw, meat grinder, pepper spray, 5gallon plastic buckets, tarp, bleach, carpet cleaner, ammonia, and a change of clothes. Essentially, it was a list of items for a planned crime.

 The police also found security camera footage showing Justin buying items from this list [music] the day before the murder. And before that, in a conversation with his friends, the man mentioned a potential crime he might commit, Hammer told his buddies that he would try to avoid punishment by blaming it all on self-defense.

 So, there could be no talk of any accident. The court found Justin Hammer guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [music] It sounds like the end of the story, but there was more to it. Although Justin claimed that he acted alone and no one else was involved, some facts indicated that at least two people were involved in the case.

 According to Hammer, he fired from two weapons simultaneously. His story might have been believable if not for the direction of the shots. They were fired from different points. The autopsy showed that Brandon Duran was shot three times in the back of the head with a small caliber pistol and then finished off with a shotgun blast to the face.

 Blood spatter showed that more than one person was shooting. The police immediately suspected that a woman was involved. Even without considering the two different types of gunshot wounds, the list of items needed for the crime, judging by the handwriting, was clearly written by a woman’s hand. In the end, the examination showed that the handwritten list hidden in Hammer’s gun safe was written in Amber’s handwriting, Brandon’s ex-wife.

This pointed to her involvement in the crime. All this time, while the investigation was ongoing, Amber Andrews was free and even managed to give birth to another child whose father she claimed was Justin Hammer. For some time, it was thought that it might be Brandon’s child due to their reconciliation. But it turned out that neither Hammer nor Duran had anything to do with the baby.

 Andrews became pregnant by a completely different man. It seems this woman didn’t waste time and wasn’t particularly grieving over her ex-husband’s death. So, the police thoroughly examined Amber’s alibi, starting with a conversation with a girl named Aaron, who was babysitting Brando while his parents went to the doctor’s appointment.

 Aaron confirmed that Amber and Brandon left in their truck with the motorcycle tied in the bed. Then, around 11 p.m., Amber returned home alone without her husband and was very upset. She explained that her husband had left her in the car in some remote area and he rode off on the motorcycle to Justin Hammer’s house.

 It seemed to [music] match, but there was one detail that ruined the whole story. Brandon’s motorcycle was not running. It turned out that it simply didn’t work. Duran took it with him to fix it while Amber was visiting her family. This contradicted the woman’s claims that after the argument, her ex-husband got on it and rode [music] away.

 In addition, Aaron told the police that that day Amber mistakenly took her cell phone instead of her own. It could have been an accident or it could have been done on purpose because if Amber was lying, she knew the police would definitely track her mobile. So, she left her phone and took the nanny’s phone.

 However, Amber didn’t consider that the detectives could track Aaron’s cell phone just the same. It turned out that just before 5:00 p.m., the nanny’s phone, which Amber had, pinged in the area of Justin Hammer’s house. The call was picked up by a tower in that area. Then the mobile was immediately turned off and not turned on until 9:00 p.m.

 It was during these four hours, as the police believe, that Brandon Duran was shot. In Amber’s own phone, investigators found one text message from Hammer sent at 300 p.m. Inc. ready, Justin wrote, apparently hinting that everything was ready for the attack. All that was left was to bring Brandon. It turns out that Duran’s death was definitely not accidental.

 The crime was planned in advance. Amber, as she herself admitted, was still in a relationship with Justin. Her desire to reunite with her ex-husband was nothing more than part of the plan. The woman wanted to lure her husband, who had taken her child, to Oklahoma to set up an ambush and send him to the next world.

 Andrews’s friends told investigators that she was planning to return to Brandon. According to them, Amber deliberately told her new boyfriend stories about her cruel ex-husband. She complained that he had taken her son and forbidden her even to see the child. Amber did everything to make Hammer want to rid his beloved woman of her aggressive ex-husband himself.

 And blinded by feelings, Justin easily fell for the tricks he hid Amber’s involvement in the crime until the end. In September 2015, Amber Andrews was arrested. She was charged with first-degree murder, but in the end, she was released on bail, which incredibly upset Brandon’s family. Two years later, in April 2017, Amber’s trial began.

 This woman behaved as if she had nothing to do with the murder of her ex-husband. She smiled friendly at the public, waved her hand, looked openly and confidently into the cameras of photographers and media, and chatted about meaningless topics with acquaintances. With her whole appearance, Amber clearly wanted to make it clear that she was not prone to violence and incapable of harming anyone.

 But witness testimonies and phone call recordings confirmed that she was at the crime scene at the time when Brandon Duran was shot. Amber insisted on her innocence and did not plead guilty, but the jury thought otherwise. So what, according to the police, happened that day? On August 7th, 2012, Amber, under some pretext, drove Brandon to Justin Hammer’s house.

Duran hardly suspected that his ex-wife was sending him to certain death. When the husband and wife were inside the house, Amber, standing behind Brandon, shot him three times in the head with a pistol. And then Justin finished him off with a shotgun blast. Making sure Duran was dead, the lovers stuffed the body into a large trash bag to reduce blood and dragged it to the bathroom where they dismembered it into 25 parts together and threw the remains into plastic buckets, pouring cement over them. After dealing with the body, Amber

left to make it back to the nanny for the child and create an alibi for herself and Justin called his childhood friend Van Emblem to help with cleanup and disposal of the remains. When the buckets were at the bottom of the pond, Justin collected the deceased Brandon’s clothes, his personal belongings, bottles of cleaning products he used to clean the crime scene, put it all in a metal barrel, and burned it.

 Hammer gave Brandon’s motorcycle on which he supposedly arrived for parts. The conspirators didn’t even think to check if it was running when making up their false story. The motive for the crime was the custody battle. Amber was very angry at her husband for taking her son. She didn’t just want to get Brando back, but also to take revenge on Brandon.

 The woman took her ex-husband’s life because he fully controlled the situation. Amber could no longer get her way through the court or any other means. So to get Brando, she went to extreme measures. Amber Marie Andrews was found guilty after just 5 hours of deliberation. She was given the maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the charge of firstdegree murder and an additional 17 years for conspiracy to commit the murder and desecration of Brandon Duran’s body. Amber tried to appeal the

decision, but the Oklahoma Court of Appeals upheld the sentence, and most likely the criminal will remain in prison for the rest of her days. This means that no other man will suffer from Amber Andrews cunning. Unfortunately, little Brando lost both parents. First, he was placed in a children’s shelter, then handed over to a foster family in Oklahoma.

 Brandon’s family went through a lot of formalities to take the child and in the end custody of the boy was given to his grandmother Cynthia, the mother of the deceased Brandon. Cynthia said that Brando remembers and loves his dad and she in turn does everything to ensure the child doesn’t forget him. Looking at Brando, she often thinks of her son whose life was so senselessly cut short due to his ex-wife’s treachery.

 If you have finished watching, you are a real fan of true crime. Subscribe to the channel, turn on the bell notifications, and put the like. See you in the next video. Brooke Lee West, just like her father in the past, tried to eliminate anyone who stood in her way. As soon as someone started opposing Brook’s desires, their life was in danger.

 The district attorney called this crime the most disgusting, the strangest, and the most unusual case he had ever handled. And this case captured the attention of the entire country. This is the chilling story [music] of Brook Lee West and her bizarre family. Help this channel grow. Like the video, try the new hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories.

This helps us a lot. Thank you. On February 5th, 2001, a warehouse manager in Las Vegas called the police to report a foul odor coming from one of the storage units. He had unsuccessfully tried to contact the unit’s owner before breaking the lock and opening the door. When police arrived, they found a sealed plastic trash barrel inside, emitting a putrid stench and leaking a strange liquid.

 As it turned out later, the barrel contained a badly decomposed dead body. At first, officers thought it was a child’s body because of its size. But when the remains were pulled from the barrel and the plastic wrap around them was unwound, to their shock, they discovered the corpse of a frail elderly woman.

 In the same storage unit, police found a purse containing an ID belonging to a certain Christine Smith. Books were also discovered there, the Satanic Bible and the Geography of Witchcraft. After a forensic examination and cross-referencing with police missing persons reports, detectives established that Smith had disappeared three years earlier.

 The victim’s face had been covered with a plastic bag. This suggested she had either been suffocated or asphixxiated. Unfortunately, due to the advanced decomposition, police were unable to determine Christine’s exact cause [music] of death. Christine Smith was born in 1932 during the Great Depression to a family of Eastern European immigrants. Her childhood was difficult.

She grew up in poverty. The family survived in a very peculiar way. Her parents literally sold their daughter, forcing the teenager to service adult men. That’s why Christine dropped out of school at 13 and rushed into marriage at 16. It was an extremely toxic marriage because her husband continued what her mother and father had done.

 He forced the young girl into prostitution. She felt humiliated, angry, yet terrified of her husband, whom she considered a gangster. The marriage lasted about 2 years. Then she managed to escape. Christine’s second husband was Leroy Smith, a US Army veteran who had served in the El Paso Police Department.

 They had two children, daughter Brooke and son Travis. After Leroy lost his job with the police, the family moved to California, hoping to take advantage of new economic opportunities. Leroy himself was a controversial figure. He openly proclaimed white supremacy, practiced Satanism, and was heavily involved in the occult, so life under the same roof with him was far from ideal.

 Christine’s and Leroyy’s fates were very similar. Smith was the son of Russian immigrants who had moved to the US while he was still an infant. When the boy was five, he watched his drunken father attack his mother with an axe. An ordinary family argument ended in tragedy. The man swung the ax and chopped off his wife’s head.

 Naturally, the woman died. Leroy was left in the care of his three older sisters because his father was imprisoned for murdering his own wife. But the child’s hardships didn’t end there. The sisters quickly grew tired of sacrificing their youth to raise their little brother. The girls wanted freedom, not to babysit a small boy.

 They put Leroy on a bus with a note saying he was an orphan, that his mother was dead, and his father was in prison. The sisters hoped someone else would take care of the child. After a couple of stops, realizing he was surrounded by strangers, the boy got off the bus and burst into tears. He didn’t understand where he was, where his home was, or what to do.

 He [music] was only 5 years old. A kind woman noticed the crying boy and took him with her. But in reality, she had nothing to offer him either. She was homeless and an alcoholic. Nevertheless, Leroy lived for 11 years in a tent on the street with his new mom and her friends. When he grew older, he joined the US Army and never saw the woman who had essentially raised him again.

 At 18, Smith met his peerine, who later became his wife. At this point, the lives of two young people who had endured so much childhood trauma could have taken a turn for the better. The couple could have supported each other and healed from the past together, but unfortunately that never happened. Soon after the wedding, Leroy left the army and became a police officer.

Apparently, his difficult childhood caught up with him. He began abusing his authority and flaunting his status as a law enforcement officer. Someone like Leroy should never have become a cop. First, Smith openly proclaimed white supremacy and bullied people of other races.

 Second, when arresting people for drug possession, he simply pocketed their [music] money, kept the drugs, and resold them. While on duty, he often arrested women working the streets, and used their services for free. Constant access to illegal substances and alcohol led Leroy to severe addiction. He drank hard liquor like water, and various prescription drugs were freely stored in his kitchen cabinets and drawers.

Christine was also far from an ideal wife and mother. She tried to drown her childhood traumas and difficult life in wine. The woman didn’t work and spent most of her time hanging around bars. Naturally, this infuriated her cop husband. Drunken fights, scandals, and brawls were constant companions of the couple.

 They were wildly jealous of each other, each trying to prove they were right. Neither parent, consumed by their personal lives, cared about their children. One could say Brooke and Travis grew up like orphans. No one raised them or took an interest in their lives. So from the cradle, the children were left to fend for themselves. By the time Brooke turned seven, her father had been fired from the police for stealing money.

 Leroy wanted a fresh start, but realizing his reputation in town was ruined. The whole family moved to Bakersfield, California. The move and the children’s hopes for a better life came to nothing. Christine and Leroy didn’t even bother renting a house or apartment. They stayed in cheap motel and leaving the kids in the room, went out partying.

 Sometimes they wouldn’t return for days. Then seven-year-old Brooke, forced [music] to care for her four-year-old brother Travis, went room to room begging food from other motel guests. When the parents came back from their binges, the children had to endure endless insults and beatings. Their bodies were constantly covered in bruises and scratches because Leroy would grab whatever was at hand and lash the kids with it.

 So, Brooke was actually glad when her parents didn’t come home at night. In short, Christine’s and Leroyy’s difficult childhoods gave them no incentive to change anything in adulthood. They simply repeated their own parents’ behavior, turning their sons and daughters childhoods into real torture. On top of everything, Leroy repeatedly cheated on his [music] wife, leading to constant fights and confrontations.

One night, after yet another argument, when her husband fell asleep, Christine grabbed a gun, pointed it at Leroy, and pulled the trigger. There was no bullet in the chamber, so no one was hurt. The woman put the gun under the pillow, and went [music] to sleep. It’s unknown whether Christine really wanted to punish her unfaithful husband that way or if she knew the gun was unloaded.

Brooke and Travis were forced to wander with their parents from motel to motel. The children had no permanent home and lived half starved. They were punished and beaten for no reason. So, it’s no surprise that both the boy and the girl were completely broken. Eventually, the family situation became so unbearable that Christine and Leroy split up.

 The man was tired of hearing his wife’s constant, though justified accusations, so he simply left her, taking the children. Leroy was never a loving, caring father, but this way he probably wanted to hurt his wife even more. Soon the man moved in with his mistress, with whom he had been having an affair while still married. Christine didn’t grieve alone either and started a relationship with a married man named David. The fling didn’t last long.

 David quickly realized what a mistake he’d made and suggested they part ways amicably. However, Christine had no intention of accepting being dumped again and decided to take revenge. She arranged to meet David in a busy bar supposedly to discuss the situation. The man knew Christine was capable of anything, so he showed up with his wife, to whom he had confessed the affair.

 The couple planned to talk to the husband’s mistress like adults, but Christine was beside herself with rage. It turned out she had smuggled a gun in her coat and at one pointed the weapon at David trying to shoot him. She was arrested for assault and attempted murder. The court sentenced Christine to 14 years in prison.

 Now Leroy Smith had to tell the children they wouldn’t see their mother for a long time because she was in jail. Brooke already understood what was going on, but little Travis needed some explanation. The man came up with nothing better than to lie to his son that his mother had died. And worse, he didn’t talk to Travis himself, but forced Brooke to lie.

 When Brooke started school, classmates who learned her mother was in prison for attempted murder began bullying her. Kids can be very cruel. So now Brooke felt unsafe both at home and at school. School only made her life worse. Instead of stepping in and fixing the situation like any normal father would, Leroy decided he had been too hasty taking the kids.

 One fine day, he put Brooke and Travis in the car and drove them to an orphanage. And that was the best decision Leroy ever made because for the first time, the siblings experienced care, a quiet, peaceful life, full stomachs, and attention from caregivers. Two years later, Brooks and Travis’s lives were turned upside down again.

Their mother, Christine, having served only a couple of years, was released and suddenly wanted her family back. She quickly got back together with Leroy. But when they arrived together to pick up the kids from the orphanage, Travis put on a whole show. First, for 2 years, the boy had believed his mom was dead.

 He couldn’t understand how she could suddenly come back. [music] Second, the child loved life in the orphanage so much that he categorically refused to go home. Travis kicked and screamed and they had to drag him out by force. The children somehow sensed nothing would change in their relationship with their parents and that’s exactly what happened.

After leaving prison, Christine tried to be a good mother for only a short time. But soon her alcohol addiction overpowered all her good intentions. She started drinking heavily again and disappearing into bars until late at night. [music] And when she was home, she usually suffered from brutal hangovers lying on the couch.

 Leroy continued cheating with other women. The parents behavior only deepened the children’s feelings of resentment and worthlessness. Eventually, Brooke reached her teenage years, entered high school, and despite everything she had been through, managed to graduate successfully. Right after school, the girl wanted to live separately from her family.

 The only affordable way she saw was to enlist in the army. But being a good soldier requires certain qualities. Brooke didn’t serve long. She quickly realized the army wasn’t for her. She had no choice but to return to her mother’s house. Although only a couple of months had passed while she was in service, her parents had managed to fight and split up again.

 This time for good. Her younger brother Travis also left home. The young man struggled with mental health issues. He started using the illegal drugs that were freely available in the house and eventually became homeless. After the breakup, the Smith’s lives changed radically. Christine turned to religion, Christianity, realizing she had lived wrong all these years and now wanted to turn her life around.

 She wanted to quit drinking and completely stop taking illegal drugs. Her husband Leroy chose the exact opposite path. A woman who proclaimed herself a dark witch entered his life. She constantly talked to her new acquaintance about magic, love spells, curses, and the like. She told him what advantages devil worship offered, how to cast spells on enemies, and control others.

 Gradually, the acquaintance with the self-proclaimed witch pulled Leroy into a dark world. He began calling himself a mage, attending meetings held in the woman’s basement and performing various magical rituals. So Christine and Leroy went in completely opposite directions. And what about Brooke? She stayed to live with her mother, but their relationship was nothing like that of close family.

 The girl always had the example of a toxic family before her eyes. And although Christine had now found the right path, as they say, her daughter simply didn’t know how to build normal relationships, the women would fight, hate each other, then seem like a normal family. Most likely, despite her church-going mother, Brooke became interested in non-traditional beliefs.

 She kept in touch with her father and like Leroy, practiced Satanism. Anyway, Brooke desperately wanted to get out of the house she shared with her mother, Christine. And soon an opportunity presented itself. She met a young man named Ry and soon married him. The newlyweds moved in together and soon they had a child.

 Brooke and Ry were struggling financially, so the baby’s birth brought them little joy. The young woman found it very hard to cope with her maternal duties. Interacting with her firstborn caused her extreme stress and tension. A few years later, Brooke decided she no longer wanted to be a mom and suggested to her husband that they give the child up for adoption.

 But Rey, unlike his wife, had no intention of giving up his own child. And a huge fight broke out. Brooke, accustomed to solving problems with violence, talked her father, Leroy, into somehow helping her convince her husband. And one day, a masked man showed up at Ray’s grandmother’s doorstep. The elderly woman opened the door and immediately took a bullet to the chest.

 The masked man was never found, but it suspected that someone from Leroyy’s cult broke into Ray’s grandmother’s house. He shot the elderly woman to intimidate Rey and force him to agree to give up the baby for adoption, and the plan worked. Naturally, after that, Brooke and Ry divorced, and the woman had to move back in with her mother.

 Their relationship never improved over the years. Mother and daughter seemed to hate each other, yet couldn’t live apart. They constantly argued, were dissatisfied with each other, but stayed under the same roof. Brooke accused her mom of trying to control her life. Christine complained that her daughter abused her. The problems were worsened by money troubles, and neither woman had steady work because they often stole food from stores.

 One day, they were both caught and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Another strange aspect of Brooke and Christine’s relationship was that they preferred to pick up men together. One of their hunting grounds was Alcoholics Anonymous [music] meetings. The women would dress up in their best outfits and go looking for potential partners. This went on for years.

At some point, Brooke did manage to change her life. She got a well-paying, steady job. She bought herself a new Jaguar and saved enough money to buy a house for herself and her mother. In 1994, Brooke West turned 41. At one of the AA meetings, she met Howard St. John. The man was 35. Sometime earlier, he had quit drinking and was now on the road to recovery.

 Just a few weeks after meeting, Brooke and Howard got married. The man moved in with his wife and her mom, and things in the house became far from ideal [music] because Christine couldn’t stand her daughter’s husband. For some unknown reason, she took an instant dislike to her son-in-law. Every day, the house erupted in scandals over the smallest things.

Christine fought with Howard. Brooke fought with Christine. Overall, the atmosphere was extremely toxic. One day, Brooke got fed up with her mother’s whims. After all, she was the one supporting her. West bought an old RV, parked it near the house, and told her mother she would now live separately.

 Since Christine had nowhere else to go, she moved into the motor home. Despite a good salary, money was still tight because Brooke spent more than she could afford. As a result, she again fell into financial trouble. Unpaid bills piled up. The Jaguar payment was due and there was no money to be found. So, Brooke hatched an insurance fraud scheme.

 She talked her husband into helping her torch the car to collect the insurance money. Late one night, Howard and Brooke drove the Jaguar to a deserted spot and set it on fire. The next morning, West reported the car stolen to the police. The burned vehicle was soon found. The insurance company paid the couple $18,000. Brooke was thrilled.

 Now she could pay off old bills and start living large. But the detectives handling the theft case suspected insurance fraud and called Howard in for questioning. Though the man told police nothing, Brooke panicked, convinced that since they let him go, he must have confessed everything. As soon as Howard got home, his wife threw a tantrum, accusing him of betrayal.

 As mentioned earlier, Brooke was used to solving problems with violence. So, at one point, she pulled out a gun and shot her own husband. The bullet hit his neck. Covered in blood, Howard ran screaming from the house and fled to the neighbors. Police and an ambulance soon arrived. Brook West [music] was arrested for domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon and illegal possession of a firearm.

Howard was taken to the hospital and given emergency care. The man survived, but his joy was short-lived. By the time he was discharged, Brooke was already out on bail. She knew full well her fate was in her husband’s hands. First, he knew about the car scam and insurance fraud.

 Second, he could press charges for the shooting, which he initially did, but later Howard withdrew the complaint. The thing was, he had genuine feelings for Brooke, and she took full advantage of that. The woman apologized for her hot temper and promised to do anything he asked. She was even ready to sign the house over to him.

 The husband fell for her charms and believed his wife could change. He returned home, hoping to start over, and then tragedy struck. Just two weeks after the shooting incident, Howard St. John was found dead in the California National Forest. A member of the public discovered the body lying on a riverbank not far from Brook’s house.

 The victim had multiple gunshot wounds and a plastic bag over his face. Suspicion immediately fell on Brooke West. [music] She was arrested given her prior attempts. However, due to lack of direct evidence, the woman was released. Police assumed Howard had enemies who might have had a motive to harm him. The investigation into St.

John’s death was temporarily suspended. Apparently, Brooke didn’t handle loneliness well because after losing her husband, she invited her mom back into the house. The women made up and decided to start fresh. They packed their things and moved to Las Vegas, renting an apartment with Brook’s insurance money.

Christine was thrilled with Vegas. She instantly made tons of friends, started attending church events, and enjoyed life. Brooke, on the contrary, lost all purpose. She didn’t want to leave the house. Her mother, who now had everything going well, started irritating her again. Brook’s mental health issues flared up, and she began seeing a therapist in Vegas.

 During sessions, Brooke shared her childhood traumas with the doctor, complained that because of Christine, she had conflicts with her husband and described her current situation. The therapist concluded that the mother appeared to be the root of all the patients problems. Brooke decided something had to be done. She was truly fed up with her mom.

 One day in February 1998, one of Christine’s new friends stopped by the West apartment. The women had been planning to catch up, but when the door opened, Brooke was standing there. She said her mom no longer lived there, that Christine had moved to California to live with her son Travis and probably wouldn’t return to Las Vegas.

 The friend was very surprised. From what Christine herself had said, she knew Travis was homeless, so where could she have gone? But the woman didn’t ask unnecessary questions. Simply took Brooke’s story at face value and left. After that, no one ever saw Christine again. The elderly woman vanished without a trace.

 Brook’s mother couldn’t have gone to her son, not only because he was homeless, but also because in 1993, Travis himself had disappeared. But that became known much later. On February 5th, 2001, exactly 3 years after Christine vanished, the manager of a public storage facility started receiving complaints from tenants about an extremely foul odor.

Some people even said it smelled like death. So, the manager checked every unit trying to locate the source of the stench. It turned out the smell was coming from unit 317, rented by Brook Lee West. Unable to reach the owner, the manager opened the container with a master key and found a plastic barrel inside.

 The trash barrel was sealed with a lid and wrapped in duct tape, so he couldn’t see what was inside. When the employee got closer, he saw a whole puddle of strange, almost black, murky liquid had leaked underneath. The manager immediately called the police. Investigators opened the barrel and what they found made them vomit. Right under the lid floated a layer of dead maggots, and beneath them were human remains.

 Due to extreme decomposition, most internal organs had turned to liquid. When detectives looked inside the plastic barrel, its contents barely resembled a human body. It was half solid, half liquid, and cube- shaped. Clearly, the remains had been inside for a very long time. Despite the overall condition, it was visible that the victim’s head was covered with a plastic bag.

 Otherwise, it was hard to determine how the person had died or how long they had been in the container. The ID found there provided some answers. The medical examiner performed an autopsy. It turned out the remains belonged to Brook Lee West’s mother, Christine Smith. Detectives immediately went to Brooke to ask a few questions.

 West claimed her mother had moved to California to live with her son, Travis. However, police found no evidence to support this statement. It also emerged that Brooke had been illegally cashing her mother’s social security checks. Her fingerprint was found on the duct tape sealing the barrel. On September 5th, 2001, the woman was arrested on suspicion of murdering her own mother.

 Faced with mounting evidence, Brooke claimed her mother had died of natural causes. She said she panicked, put the body in the trash barrel, and then took the plastic container to the rented storage unit. At that point, police only had circumstantial evidence, so they hoped Brooke would confess to killing her mother, but she didn’t.

 She kept insisting Christine had died in her sleep while they were on a short trip and had stopped at a motel. The next morning, when Brooke found her mom, she panicked and didn’t know what to do. West was afraid police wouldn’t believe her and would accuse her of Christine’s death, especially since she was already suspected in the murder of her husband, Howard St. [music] John.

Brooke swore she never harmed her mom. Yes, she acted stupidly by hiding the body and telling no one, but she didn’t take Christine’s life. Of course, Brook’s story sounded unconvincing. The police didn’t believe her. Nevertheless, it seemed time was on West’s side. Three years had passed, and the medical examiner stated that due to advanced decomposition, he couldn’t determine Christine Smith’s exact cause of death.

The books on witchcraft and devil worship found in the unit suggested some kind of magical ritual. However, police quickly dismissed that theory, and Brooke herself denied any involvement with dark forces. The case might have ended there if not for the testimony of Neil Haskell, a forensic entomologist from St.

 Joseph’s College in Renelair, Indiana. It turns out that when someone dies, the first insect to land on a human body is the blowfly. Insects appear within minutes of death, starting the decomposition process. Dr. Haskell determined there were no blowflies on Christine’s body. Instead, most of the maggots he found belong to coffin flies or graveyard flies, insects that feed on corpses after initial decomposition.

To figure out what time of year Christine disappeared, the expert decided to study the insect larae floating on the surface of the plastic barrel. At first, after receiving the insect samples, Dr. Haskell was very disappointed. Then, he realized why there were no blowflies. Christine must have been placed in the trash barrel within the first minutes after death, preventing those insects from reaching the corpse.

 But that version completely contradicted Brook’s story. A far more likely scenario was that Christine was still alive when she was put into the plastic container. So Brooke’s entire tale about her mom dying in a motel room was complete nonsense because there was no way she could have transported her mother’s body to the storage unit without letting insects get to it.

 This proved West was lying. The fact that there were no blowflies on Christine’s body was taken by police as evidence of premeditated murder. The case eventually went to trial. During the preliminary investigation, even more evidence against West surfaced. It turned out more than one person had suffered at this woman’s hands.

 In 1996, Brook’s father was battling cancer. At the time, he was in a relationship with a woman named Diana. She claimed Brooke attacked her with a stun gun and tried to knock her to the ground. Fortunately, Diana managed to escape. It also came to light that Brooke had not only been collecting her mother’s $1,000 monthly social security payments for 3 years, giving her a clear financial motive, but had also tried to cash her younger brother Travis’s social security checks.

 Travis disappeared in 1993. Although his body was never found, West was accused of involvement in her brother’s disappearance after it was discovered that someone had used Travis’s social security number to register at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The bill was sent to the address where Brooke lived. Travis’s body has never been found, but given what West did to her mother, investigators were certain she had also killed her brother.

The investigation into Travis’s disappearance continued, but detectives couldn’t find enough evidence. As with her husband, Howard Street John, Brooke managed to avoid punishment. Her trial took place in July 2001. Brook Lee West was found guilty of the premeditated murder of her mother, Christine Smith, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Christine Smith was 65 years old. She was described as a friendly and cheerful woman. Her difficult childhood affected her adult life and as a mother she made many mistakes. Later, Christine found faith in God and tried to turn her life around. But her own daughter decided to take revenge for all the past hurts and got rid of her mother in the most brutal way.

 In 2004, Brooke demanded a retrial, again, insisting her mother had died in her sleep of natural causes. The prosecution argued there was sufficient evidence for the guilty verdict. In the end, Brook’s appeals were rejected and the sentence stood. Brook Lee West was imprisoned for one heinous crime, though she was suspected of three.

 She was supposed to remain behind bars for the rest of her days, but Brooke thought otherwise. In 2012, early one morning while inmates were heading to breakfast, West dressed up, altered her appearance, and tried to walk out of the women’s correctional facility like a regular visitor. At 6:30 a.m.

, prison staff spotted Brooke at the security gate near the visiting room. She was stopped just a few steps from the main entrance, mere meters from the freedom she craved. Brook Lee West was not born a monster. She became the product of an upbringing in a dysfunctional family. Of course, one cannot deny that Christine was partly to blame for what her daughter turned into.

Clearly, the parents had their own psychological traumas and they passed those traumas on to their children. But Brooke also had her own demons that she nurtured in her soul. By the time she committed the crime, West was an independent adult and she alone bore responsibility for her actions. If you have finished watching, you are a real fan of true crime.

 Subscribe to the channel, turn on the bell notifications, and put the like. See you in the next video. First love, selfies with a best friend, the thrill of adult life. These and much more are what high school seniors experience. Each of them has their ups and downs, but for two teenage girls, everything suddenly went downhill when a criminal walked through the open doors of the dormatory.

 Help this channel [music] grow. Like the video, try the new hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories. This helps us a lot. Thank you. The action of today’s case takes place in South Africa, a country with a long and complex history. The nature of South Africa is [music] beautiful and amazing. It has deserts, savas, plateaus, mountain ranges, and a multitude of wild animals.

 In the course of historical events, South Africa was divided into provinces. Its distinctive feature is racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. Today’s events unfold in the northwest province in a tiny town called Stella, where most of the population is engaged in livestock farming. There are fewer than a thousand residents there, and 70% are light-skinned Christians who speak the local dialect.

 This is a small community with one bar, one primary school, and one high school. For entertainment, there’s the annual cattle fair, which attracts many tourists. The rest of the time, Stella is a quiet, cozy town. People don’t lock their doors and fences are meant to keep livestock in or simply create the appearance of security.

 Like any similar small place, it has its problems, but for the most part, it’s a wonderful place to live and raise children where all the residents know each other. Today’s story is about two girls, Mara and Charnell, two best friends who attended the local school. Mara Angelre was born in 2001 and grew up not far from Stella in the town of Vryberg on her parents’ farm.

 The girl’s father was involved in drilling wells for water and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Mara was a very home-loving girl, shy, quiet, and she loved animals very much. She studied diligently at school and after classes she ran to the farm where she played with dogs, cared for cows and sheep and bottle-fed newborn goats.

Mara also had her own horse. The school girl was into horseback riding and spent all her free time outdoors. In the future, the girl planned to become a veterinarian and was already picking up injured animals and nursing them back to health on her farm. Upon reaching her teenage years, Mara entered the high school located in Stella, which was a boarding school.

 5 days a week, [music] boys and girls attended classes and stayed in two separate dormitories, and on weekends, they went home. The girls lived in a two-story building with shared bathrooms and multi-person bedrooms. The entire grounds were fenced with a low fence and gates that were locked at night. There was plenty to do in their free time.

 The campus had good sports facilities and tennis courts. Thematic parties, holidays, and competitions were regularly held. All students wore uniforms and looked very respectable. The main goal of this boarding school was to distract children from phones and computers and make them communicate more with each other as well as focus on sports and talent development.

 In March 2018, 32 boys and 39 girls lived in the dormitories on the campus grounds. There were restrictions, but boys and girls could gather in their dormitories and spend leisure time together. Before this, Mara was shy, quiet, a bit withdrawn, and often overlooked. But in her first year of high school, she became a star of her class in the literal sense.

 Every quarter, the top students in the class received gold, silver, or bronze medals for their achievements, the so-called order of the star. Mara received the bronze award several times for success in natural sciences and mathematics. It was during this period that the girl got a best friend, Charnell Huff. Charnell was the complete opposite of Mara, but as they say, opposites attract.

 a bright blonde with green eyes and an attractive smile. She was very sociable. In fact, the girls had been friends since kindergarten, but lost contact in elementary school. Meeting again at Stella High School, they resumed their communication and became practically inseparable. The students even moved into the same room to be closer to each other.

 Every weekend, the friends visited each other’s homes. Together with the rest of the family, they went hiking, rode horses, fished, played netball, just hung out on the farm, and recorded numerous videos for social media. Charnell Huff was born on March 8th, 2001, and was an only child in the family. She grew up on her father’s farm in Delrayville.

The girl’s parents divorced, so Charnell spent most of her time with her father and visited her mom in Coaster. When her father remarried, the girl got a brother 7 years younger than her, whom she adored and took everywhere with her. Charell’s father was very warm toward his daughter’s friend, Mara, and considered her part of the family.

Stella’s school was 45 minutes drive from his farm. And all 5 days, the man missed his girls incredibly, but his daughter Chararnell liked being independent. She dreamed of becoming a professional photographer, although due to her bright appearance, she was predicted a career as a photo model, believing she shouldn’t hide her beauty behind the camera lens.

 Charnell was athletic, completely non-confrontational, and approached everything she did with childlike enthusiasm. Mara, on the other hand, was quiet, sweet, but at the same time quite stubborn. However, the more time they spent together, the more they adopted some of each other’s character traits. In March 2017, 16-year-old Charnell met 17-year-old Xander Balesma.

 Tall, handsome, a bit mysterious rugby player immediately caught the girl’s eye. She very soon became the most important person on earth to him. Xander was ready for anything for his girlfriend and treated her like a queen. Charnell’s father and stepmother also liked the guy. He was polite, hardworking, but the most important quality, he genuinely loved their daughter.

 Ironically, Xander turned out to be Mara’s third cousin. And now this trio became inseparable. Xander was very close to his mom, Marsha. His parents divorced when their son was in elementary school. This fact brought him very close to Charnell. When Xander met his first love, he was finishing his senior year. At that time, he liked fishing and hunting.

 But when Charnell appeared on the horizon, all hobbies faded into the background. The lovers talked a lot about their families and even made plans for the future. About 6 months into the relationship, the honeymoon period ended. The rosecolored clouds began to dissipate little by little, and Charnell started noticing her boyfriend’s negative traits.

 Xander was possessive and didn’t want to share his girlfriend with anyone else. He began isolating her even from her closest people. Mara was confused as to why Charnell stopped inviting her over on weekends. It turned out the reason was her boyfriend. Xander checked his girlfriend’s cell phone to see who she was communicating with on social media, who she was calling.

 Serious trust issues appeared in their relationship. Charnell confessed to Mara that although she loved Xander, she wasn’t sure if they had a future together. After much thought, the girl made the difficult decision to break up. She felt that these relationships and constant [music] control were starting to weigh on her, which she told her enamored boyfriend.

Not expecting such a turn, Xander was very upset. He asked for forgiveness and said that these were his first serious relationship, so maybe he was behaving wrong. The guy promised to change and do everything to make Charnell happy with him. The teenage romance would resume and then end over minor quarrels.

 Xander couldn’t change in a second and continued to be jealous of everyone. Every time Charnell decided the relationship was toxic and tried to end it, the boyfriend apologized and they both sincerely rejoiced at the reconciliation. When you’re so young and emotions are boiling inside, it’s really hard to make a final decision on what’s right.

 On one hand, you don’t want to lose the person you love. On the other, any little thing becomes a reason to break up. Meanwhile, the date of the big ceremony for seniors was approaching, the prom, and Xander invited his girlfriend to accompany him to this event. Of course, for Charnell, it was an exciting event because she herself was still far from graduation.

 The girl went to her mom in Cost and chose the most beautiful dress she could find in the store. She was preparing for the festive evening, just like Cinderella once dressed for the ball. But Xander quickly ruined her uplifted mood by saying he had already picked a dress for her. It was his ceremony, and Charnell had no choice but to agree with her boyfriend’s choice.

 Xander asked his girlfriend to come to him in her usual clothes without makeup or jewelry, and Charnell agreed. Nevertheless, the evening turned out magical. Anyway, the boyfriend’s mom did the girl’s hair and light makeup. The black lace dress turned out to be really beautiful and suited Charnell very well, and their couple looked very impressive at the ceremony.

 In any case, it’s worth remembering that for most girls, preparing for an event, choosing an outfit, hairstyle, and accessories means much more than the event itself and usually brings more pleasure than the event. Charnell was independent. She never had problems choosing a special dress and looking stunning. So, Xander’s actions hurt her incredibly.

 It seemed like a cute gesture, but given his possessive tendencies and constant jealousy attacks, it could be another way to exert control. By the end of 2017, Charnell and Xander’s relationship finally fell apart. The girl first confessed to her best friend Mara that she was unhappy. The latter, who initially approved of their romance, advised breaking up with the boyfriend for good.

 In December, Charnell wrote on her social media page that when you give your heart to someone, don’t forget to save peace for yourself. And in January, [music] she ended the 11-month relationship with Xander. However, the young man had no intention of giving up his [music] love. In December, he finished school, but continued calling and texting Charnell everyday.

Sometimes, he showed up at Stella school to talk to his girlfriend and refused to acknowledge that their romance was over. Afraid to hurt her ex-boyfriend and cause him pain, Charnell didn’t block his calls, sincerely hoping that sooner or later he’d get tired of chasing her and back off on his own.

 Over time, she and Mara started hanging out with other friends, among whom was Brandon [music] Victor and another rugby player. It turned out this guy had been in love with Charnell Huff for a long time, but kept his feelings secret, not wanting to interfere in her relationship with Xander. But now that the girl was free and spent a lot of time in his company, Brandon decided to confess.

 He was patient [music] and ready to wait until the girl completely forgot her ex. But Charnell was cautious. She didn’t want to jump into something new, so she let everything go naturally. Over time, the high school senior got used to Brandon’s constant presence nearby. But as soon as Xander appeared on the horizon, her heart started beating hundreds of times faster.

 Nevertheless, by May 2018, Brandon and Charnell started gently holding hands and became more than just friends. They weren’t ready to admit it to everyone and kept their relationship hidden from outsiders. Only Mara knew about their romance. In South African high schools, there are four quarters. The second quarter lasts from early April to mid June.

 May 25th, 2018 was an ordinary weekday. Friday, for 18-year-old Brandon, 16-year-old Mara, and 17-year-old Charnell. It was the height of the rugby season. Brandon was going with the team to Coster for a game that weekend, so he invited both girls to join them as cheerleaders. For Charnell, it was a great opportunity to visit her mom, spend time with her boyfriend, and have the weekend with her best friend.

Brandon was thrilled that the girls wanted to come to his game and planned to carry out a certain plan after the match. The young man wanted to ask Charnell to officially become his girlfriend. In the afternoon of May 25th, Mara’s mom was driving past Stella High School and stopped at the gates to say hello to her daughter.

 They chatted a bit and the girl said she would spend the weekend in the dormatory. Then she waved goodbye and ran off. Her mom watched her growing daughter and didn’t know it would be the last time she saw her girl alive. The friends had dinner that evening in their room, then had fun jumping on beds, chasing each other and throwing pillows, enjoying youth and freedom.

Other students had gone home for the weekend. That Friday, the girls were alone in their first floor dormatory room, and no one could disturb them from enjoying life. Their loud laughter was interrupted by a phone ring. Charnell’s dad called. The man heard Mara laughing in the background.

 Deep down, he envied their carefree happiness and wishing them a good time at tomorrow’s game, hung up. He remembered them as joyful, content, and laughing. After talking to Dad, Charnell and Mara went to the dorm supervisor and asked the woman to wake them at 6:00 a.m. so they could get ready. The school bus was leaving at 6:30 from the boy’s building.

 It was a few minutes walk away. The girls asked Crystal, the supervisor’s name, not to lock the dormatory doors at night because they wanted to take a short walk before bed. It was against the rules, but Crystal knew Mara and Charnell were responsible students, so she trusted them. The woman left the doors unlocked and went to sleep.

 Meanwhile, the girls hung out drinking coffee in the common lounge. But by 11:30 p.m., they got bored and invited Brandon over to have coffee with them. Fortunately, the dormatory doors were unlocked. While the supervisors slept peacefully, the youth had fun. Charell’s mom woke up around 6:00 a.m. On her phone, the woman saw a message from her daughter written at 4:17.

 The girl wrote how much she loved her mom and that she was very sorry. The word sorry was misspelled. This random mistake somehow made mom worry. Usually Charnell wrote correctly. She couldn’t misspell such a simple word and her daughter never sent messages at 4 in the morning. The woman tried calling but the call went to voicemail.

Surely the girls partied all night and were now hurriedly getting ready for the game. Charnell’s mom calmed herself, but bad thoughts wouldn’t let her focus. She dialed her ex-husband’s number. He assured her that their daughter was fine. They had talked the night before. When the man hung up, he saw several text messages from Charnell.

 The first was at 3:42 a.m. It was a photo of his daughter in a bra with the caption, “I love you, Brandon.” The second message was to dad asking to forgive them for leaving this place with Mara. The father felt his heart fill with horror. Were the girls drinking alcohol or how to understand this phrase about leaving this place.

 Had they run away from the dormatory? What was going on? Questions popped up one after another in Charnell’s father’s head. At 6:15 a.m., the man couldn’t hold back and [music] called the principal of Stella High School. The director exhaled and shared the news he had just learned himself. Mara and Charnell were dead. Crystal, the senior in the girl’s dormatory, woke up on the morning of May 26th, shortly before 6:00 a.m.

 She got dressed and left her bedroom. The path to the girl’s room passed by the common bathroom. The supervisor noticed a strange clump of dark hair on the floor, but still sleepy, didn’t realize what it was. She approached the staircase between the first and second floors and only then noticed a long green nylon rope tied to the railing.

 What Crystal saw next made her freeze in place. A few inches above the bicycles standing below in the stairwell dangled a pair of legs in white socks. It was the lifeless body of Charnell Huff. Crystal stood in complete shock and couldn’t move. When the woman could move, she ran outside and rushed to the boy’s dormatory.

 The building doors were open. Rugby players were hanging around everywhere, waiting for the school bus. Some were having breakfast, others packing sports gear. Crystal knocked on the boy’s dormatory supervisor’s door and couldn’t even explain what happened. She didn’t want any students to learn about the incident before police arrived.

 Together, the supervisors called emergency services and decided not to tell Mara about her friend’s death yet. They were sure the girl was sleeping in her room, but the bedroom was empty. When Brandon boarded the bus, the girls weren’t there. He asked the coach if he had seen Charnell and Mara. The man said he knew nothing, but averted his eyes.

The 2-hour trip to the game turned into a 100 needles piercing the enamored guy’s heart. Brandon had a bad feeling. It seemed to him that his girlfriend was in the hospital and he should run to her, not go to the match. The coach, seeing the guy’s state, approached and told him he couldn’t share any details until they arrived in Costa.

 When police arrived at Stella High School, they were met by two adults. They explained to the officers that one of the students, Charnell Huff, had committed suicide and her best friend, Mara Engelre, was missing. Law enforcement officers searched the entire dormatory and found Mara in the bathroom. She was lying face down as if she had fallen to her knees, pushing off from the sink.

 A long strap was wrapped around her neck, tied to one of the faucets. It looked like a bag or backpack strap. The scene was horrific, and the sergeant assumed Mara had also committed suicide. He didn’t know what caused it. In any case, it was abnormal for two friends to decide to end their lives in one night. Most people in Stella grew up in religious families and voluntary departure from life was considered a sin.

 So why did two young girls choose this fate? That was what needed to be figured out. First though, the girl’s parents had to be notified. It’s unimaginable what wall of grief crashed down on several families at once. their joyful daughters, who just yesterday were full of life and happy suddenly took their own lives out of the blue.

 It was wrong and didn’t make sense. So, the parents of both students rushed to Stella school, still hoping it was some mistake. The worst was when Charnell’s father appeared at the dormatory door and his daughter was still hanging over the stairs. Police were waiting for forensic experts and wouldn’t allow the body to be taken down. They wanted to rule out foul play.

Mara’s parents also found their daughter hanging from the strap. They immediately suspected it wasn’t Mara’s decision. Someone had moved the girl’s body and hung it in that position. Charnell’s father wasn’t going to watch this. He asked his brother to cut the rope. When his daughter’s lifeless body fell into his arms, his knees buckled.

 The man gently sat on the floor. He stroked his girl’s hair and whispered something in her ear. The police watched silently. They didn’t want to interfere in the father’s grief, though there was a high chance he was destroying potential evidence. None of the officers could bring themselves to tell him that.

 A few minutes later, the man agreed that police should continue the investigation. He placed his daughter’s head on sofa cushions and went outside. At that very time, Brandon was on the bus. He texted and called Charnell over and over, but the girl didn’t pick up. When they arrived at the rugby field, the coach lined up all the players and told them the tragic news about the deceased high school girls.

 Brandon listened to the horrible words and didn’t understand what the coach was talking about. What does unnatural death mean? That evening, the young man was going to ask Charnell to be his girlfriend. He had been waiting for this moment for months, and now she had died an unnatural death. Everything seemed unreal.

At that moment, Brandon didn’t know the friends had committed suicide. Otherwise, he would have immediately said it couldn’t be. Just 6 hours earlier, he was hanging out with the girls, and everything was fine. They weren’t planning to leave this world. So, first thing, Brandon called Charnell’s father and told him how he and the girls spent the previous evening.

 The young man at the friend’s invitation came to visit from the boy’s dormatory. Everything was good. They held hands, danced to music, and chatted nicely until Charnell’s phone started blowing up with calls and texts. Her ex-boyfriend Xander desperately wanted to meet her. The group tried hard to ignore it, but the calls didn’t stop.

 At midnight, Charnell picked up, putting the conversation on speaker. Xander’s first words were about who she was with now. Not wanting unnecessary arguments, the high school senior said she was alone, but had no intention of meeting him. The guy started inventing reasons to see her. Charnell was firm. Before hanging up, Xander said she would regret her words and reckless actions.

 At that moment, the good mood vanished instantly. The girl remembered how her ex had previously threatened to kill himself if she broke up with him. Those threats always depressed her because she wished Xander no harm. She always tried to calm the guy, but now she realized it was just manipulation. Brandon offered to stay with the girls in the room or go wake the supervisor, but Charnell assured him everything would be fine and sent him to bed.

 The young man reluctantly left as he had an important game in a few hours. Charnell’s father thanked the young man for the detailed story. He liked this guy. At the same time, Brandon was the last to see his daughter alive. And who guarantees he was telling the truth now? The man didn’t know what to believe. Finally, forensic investigators arrived at the scene and began collecting physical evidence.

 It was a clump of dark hair on the bathroom floor, Charnell and Mara’s cell phones, the rope and bag strap on which the victims were hung. Forensics took fingerprints from various surfaces, and detectives interviewed Crystal, the girl’s dormatory supervisor. When police learned the building’s entrance doors were not locked at night, and the boy’s dormatory, too, the suspect pool expanded significantly.

 Essentially, it could be anyone. a rugby player, a random stranger, or someone from the girl’s close circle. As soon as the school principal learned about the unlocked dormatory doors, he panicked. The victim’s parents could easily sue the school for negligence in student safety. So, the principal hired a private detective to resolve the matter quickly.

 Christopher Saunders was brought in for the investigation. His main task was to prove that Stella School bore no responsibility for this tragedy. The girl’s parents weren’t quick to leave. Together, they tried to figure out what could have happened. After Charnell’s father told about Brandon’s call, Mara’s father recalled a conversation with his daughter in March of the same year.

 The girl complained to her father that her third cousin Xander was insulting her, considering her the main culprit in his breakup with Charnell. The man called his relative and for the first time faced disrespect from Xander. The guy yelled that no one would tell him how to behave and if they didn’t leave him alone, he’d solve the problem with a gun. Then he hung up.

Mara’s father initially thought it was teenage drama. He didn’t take the kid’s threats seriously, so he just asked the girls to stay away from this person and not provoke him on purpose. Soon, everything quieted down. But now his daughter’s words resurfaced in memory and the father couldn’t forgive himself for not resolving the issue completely.

 He worried, “What if Xander carried out his threats?” The man couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t just stand there guessing what happened to Mara. So, he got in the family car and headed toward Xander’s father’s house, intending to confront the guy and even shoot him if necessary. Since the young man finished school, he lived on the farm and worked for his father.

 Private detective Saunders examined the crime scene and talked to the deceased girl’s parents. They told him about the strange text messages Charnell sent at night. The mention of Brandon’s name in one of them made one think. None of the parents believed their daughters committed suicide. Most considered Xander the criminal, but they also confirmed Brandon was the last to see the girls alive.

When Saunders learned Mara’s father was heading to Xander with a weapon, the detective immediately followed to prevent vigilante justice. The upset man could do something he’d regret later. Just in case, the detective turned on his recorder. He always recorded conversations to listen again later and catch what he missed the first time.

Arriving at the farm, Saunders immediately saw Xander lying near the house wall. Mara’s father was waving a gun and yelling something, and another man was apparently protecting his son. Saunders’s primary task was to prevent bloodshed, so he quickly cooled the girl’s father’s aror, saying he was a law enforcement officer and would do everything to solve [music] the case.

Then the private detective asked Xander to come with him to the police station to answer a few questions. The guy’s father didn’t lie and told Saunders he had no alibi for his son. He saw Xander leave at 6:30 p.m. Friday evening and returned to the farm at 6:00 a.m. Saturday. The detective advised the man to find a good lawyer in that case.

 The private detective immediately noticed the guy looked sleepy and sluggish, as if under the influence of some drugs, so he didn’t take the chance to talk him into opening up. Xander explained his condition as shock from what happened to Charnell and Mara. That morning, a relative called and told him his ex-girlfriend and third cousin had taken their own lives.

 Charnell Huff was his only love, and the young man couldn’t come to terms with her sudden departure so easily. Saunders tried psychological tactics to [music] make the guy talk if he was indeed guilty of something, but he answered no to all questions. According to his version, Friday evening, he felt lonely. He felt isolated, so he went to visit a friend.

After a couple of hours there, he bought more beer, drove to a vacant lot, and drank alone, then showed up at his mother’s work early in the morning. Xander fell silent, then told Saunders he actually didn’t remember if he went to the dormatory that night because he was pretty drunk. Then his story changed and gained details.

 Now, he claimed he was definitely at Stella High School to reconcile with Charnell. He came to the dormatory after Brandon left. So, after 1:00 a.m., he and the girl sat on the stairs and talked. Charell allegedly confessed she still loved Xander. [music] But because everyone considered their relationship toxic and insisted on breaking up, she couldn’t stand up to her parents and best friend.

 practically admitting he saw the girls alive after Brandon left. Xander still denied any involvement in their deaths. Then Saunders used another method. He told the guy in detail how the girls died, then convinced him he’d need a good lawyer, but he’d have to tell the lawyer the whole truth, whatever it was. And then the guy broke.

He started saying he wanted the death penalty, so he’d tell everything asked. He couldn’t live in this world without Charnell. Then Xander changed his story again. He admitted he was very angry at Mara, who interfered in their relationship and ruined everything. When Charnell went to throw on something warmer, he saw Mara go into the bathroom.

 The girl was washing her hands when he approached from behind, grabbed her hair, hit her, then wrapped the bag strap around her neck, and tightened it, then attached the strap to the faucet, so it looked like Mara took her own life. At that moment, Xander thought he solved the problem. But when Charnell returned from the bedroom, it was like she was replaced.

 She said she was now dating Brandon and he should forget about everything. That’s when the guy hit the girl in the chest and grabbed her throat. While she was unconscious, he wrapped the rope around her neck, dragged her to the railing, and threw the body over. The words sounded pretty harsh for an enamored [music] teenager. Then he started saying Charnell wanted to die herself.

 The girl accidentally sent her dad a photo meant for Brandon and now she was very ashamed. Plus, she couldn’t be with Xander and was too upset to stay on Earth. Essentially, Xander had just confessed to the crime. But remember, Saunders obtained this confession using a special method, and it gave no guarantee the person was telling the truth.

 The guy just answered yes or no when the private detective asked leading questions. The car pulled up to the police station and Detective Saunders was glad he managed to record their entire conversation with Xander on the recorder. It wasn’t an official interrogation, but it could surely serve as a good starting point for the investigation.

 The private investigator handed the young man over to other officers. The guy’s parents had arrived at the station by then. Police and Xander refused a lawyer and made an official confession. According to him, Charnell no longer wanted to be on Earth and cause pain to others. She asked him to help her end it. They agreed Xander would come up with a way for her not to feel pain.

The young man tied the rope to the stairs while Charnell was still alive, then rendered the girl unconscious and lowered the body down. So, she left without suffering as planned. According to Xander, after that he saw Mara heading to the bathroom. The guy quickly scanned the lobby and noticed someone’s bag with a long strap.

He used it as a weapon, strangling his third cousin. He didn’t even remember if there was any conversation between them or if he attacked immediately. Xander changed his narrative yet again, only he didn’t account for Mara having to pass the stairs and not notice her friend hanging on the railing.

 Most likely the guy was lying, but it didn’t matter because he was immediately arrested on two counts of intentional murder of the school girls. Detective Saunders continued working for his fee and began interrogating witnesses. First, he was interested in Brandon. He needed to confirm his alibi and rule the young man out as a suspect.

The detective asked the young man for his cell phone to check the timeline via text messages. Brandon had no problem cooperating. There was nothing unusual in his correspondence with Charnell. The guy respected her boundaries and cared for her safety. On May 26th, at 1:00 a.m.

, the lovers sent each other their last messages. Brandon asked if everything was okay and offered to return to the two friends room to act as a personal bodyguard. He also suggested the girls spend the night in the boy’s dormatory to avoid meeting Xander. In response, Charnell said it was a bad idea and they could get in trouble because of it.

 The girl wished Brandon good night and assured him everything would be fine with her. According to cell phone location records, Brandon didn’t leave his room after that until 6:00 in the morning or he went out without his phone. Saunders heard Brandon’s alibi again and learned about Xander’s late phone call. The detective managed to view the call log on Charnell’s phone.

 There were about a dozen missed calls from her ex-boyfriend, and she answered only one call. The story matched what Brandon said. The young man also told police [music] that in the months before the crime, Xander periodically showed up at Stella High School. Charnell didn’t want to see him, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

 The forensic pathologist performed autopsies on the deceased girls. Mara had several injuries. A clump of her hair was torn out as evidenced by the dark strand on the floor near the bathroom doors. Her jaw was also broken. This didn’t support the voluntary suicide version. Mara’s cause of death was strangulation with the bag strap, but it didn’t match the hanging as the criminal wanted to stage it.

 It was clear third party interference. Simply put, the girls were helped to the next world and the strap was tied to the faucet after the fact. Apparently, the school girl left the room and noticed her friend hanging on the railing. [music] It’s also possible Mara attacked the perpetrator herself.

 For friendship, this petite girl was capable of such an act. As for Charnell, she had a blunt force injury to the chest. Most likely, the attacker hit her, then tried to squeeze her throat. The high school senior had two types of strangulation marks on her neck. The first matched human hand sizes, the second the rope’s width.

 The most horrible thing was that Charnell most likely regained consciousness when the body was thrown over the railing. At that moment, she fought for her life. Her nails on both hands were completely broken and her neck was scratched bloody. Charnell wanted to tear off the noose, but failed. She didn’t take her own life either.

 Both girls’ deaths occurred approximately between 2 and 4 in the morning. So, who could send strange messages to their parents at 4:17 a.m. When Detective Saunders listened to the recording again, he was convinced once more that Xander couldn’t know Mara was hit in the face and Charnell in the chest unless he was at the scene that day. So, the criminal was behind bars.

Now, it was just a matter of gathering enough evidence to prevent his release. In search of additional information, police interviewed local residents. A witness came forward who saw Xander’s car near the girl’s dormatory Friday evening. And besides Mara and Charnell, there were no other students there.

 All the school girls living in the dormatory at that time were offered to talk to a psychologist. However, it did little to help the fact that in the common rooms where they spent so much time, two of their classmates were killed. The students walked the stairs and used the bathroom, knowing that not long ago, the lifeless bodies of their peers were there.

 It was a heavy trial and seriously affected the emotional state of teenagers not used to seeing death so close. Who is Xander Balesma? What could drive a handsome guy to commit a crime? wild jealousy or revenge against an ex-girlfriend. Xander was born on May 13th, 1999 to Marsha and Monty. The parents spent years trying to have a child.

 And when the miracle happened, Marca got pregnant with a son, but in the first months, she contracted Reubella. This disease can affect an unborn baby, leaving irreversible consequences. That’s why doctors recommended terminating the pregnancy. However, the woman couldn’t refuse the one she had waited for so long.

 Xander was born small and sickly, but eventually fully recovered and became a normal child. Marsha considered him a gift from heaven and was ready to do anything for him. Locals knew Xander was a mama’s boy. When the parents divorced, it was very hard for the son to cope. He became a troublemaker at home and started behaving inadequately at school.

 He was taken to a mental health specialist to talk about his feelings and experiences. Xander refused to speak at all. His behavioral problems worsened with age. He bullied female classmates and was suspended from classes in Stella several times for fighting, drinking alcohol, and even sneaking into the girl’s dormatory room.

 Because of this, he finished school a year late. There were not very good rumors about Xander, and many Stella residents thought the parents should have punished the guy more often so they wouldn’t suffer from his behavior. Now, the young man’s favorite activity was hunting wild animals. Local farmers even paid him extra to shoot jackals that attacked their livestock.

 Xander loved hunting and loved weapons. The passion for taking innocent lives turned into intentional murder of people when the line between good and evil was erased. What else can you expect from such a person? Investigators talked to the families and friends of the deceased. All of them were against Charnell dating Xander, although at first he seemed like a good, polite boy to them, but his reputation and behavior spoke of real problems in his head.

 Charnell, on the other hand, was used to giving people a chance to show their best side. Unfortunately, the young man didn’t want to take it. It got to the point where he wouldn’t let his girlfriend post photos on social media, forbade makeup, and tried to fatten her up with sweets so she gained weight and stopped appealing to others.

 Xander insisted Charnell quit sports. His goal was to lower her self-esteem, so the school girl relied only on him in everything. If control slackened, he could easily use physical force. Charnell deliberately delayed until December. She was waiting for Xander to finish school and stop stalking her. In early 2018, she ended the relationship.

 The high school senior didn’t think her ex was capable of radical measures. That was her mistake. In June 2018, the girls were buried next to each other. Hundreds of people came to honor their memory. Blue, pink, and purple balloons were released into the sky. This tradition symbolizes release from grief and allows souls to ascend to the heavens to become free.

 Charell’s father told journalists that his daughter was the meaning of his life. Now that she was gone, nothing held him to this earth either. But first, he would achieve justice for his girl. All loved ones believed the tragic death of the two friends was Xander’s doing. However, the general public didn’t think so.

 Private detective Saunders didn’t publicize the guy’s initial confession, and the evidence against him was only circumstantial. Even DNA analysis yielded no specific results. All evidence at that point was unconvincing. The outcome of Xander’s detention was that no charges were filed against him. He completely recanted his confessions, claiming [music] he wasn’t even near Stella school that night.

 The young man accused Mara’s father and Saunders of intimidating him. The guy’s family also hired a lawyer, but it’s hard to defend someone who invents new stories every time. By blaming the private detective, Xander essentially dug his own grave. He didn’t know the investigator had a recording of their car conversation and was ready to present it in court.

 The messages sent from Charnell’s phone after her death could also play a decisive role. If the perpetrator, presumably Xander, sent both friends to the next world and then sat next to their bodies for half an hour thinking how to cover his tracks. It wasn’t a crime of passion. He sent an explicit photo of the girl in a bra to her father to paint her in a bad light, but in the end gave detectives a lead to unravel the whole case.

 The young man had more than one lawyer replaced. His father even had to sell the farm to pay for the hired defenders, but the young man himself cared little. While awaiting trial, Xander was detained and placed in custody. The guy must have had winds blowing in his head when he wrote a letter to his mother asking her to find a corrupt judge to release him on bail and even specified a country to flee to until people forgot about him.

 Xander threatened that if mom didn’t help him get out of prison, he’d kill himself. The son demanded the woman think about him for once in her life and help. Apparently, the young man somehow forgot what his parents did for him. He sent this message not knowing that letters from inmates are checked. At the hearings, a psychiatrist showed the defendant had paranoid personality disorder.

 Xander was depressive and impulsive, a recluse. He thought everyone was stupid and easy to manipulate. He behaved so arrogantly that the next lawyer refused to defend him right in the courtroom. Charnell and Mara’s parents waited over a year for Xander’s trial to begin. Then the hearings were postponed another year to May 2019.

 By then, prosecutors had gathered enough evidence to charge the young man with the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her best friend. First, Xander knew exact details about the girl’s injuries before the autopsy was done. Only the person who inflicted the blows could know that. These confessions were on private Detective Saunders recorder tapes.

 Second, a random witness saw the guy’s car at the girl’s dormatory and cell towers recorded Xander’s phone location on Stella High School grounds. Third, the prosecution presented another witness. It was a girl named Anastasia Viser who attended another high school but knew Xander well. The young people messaged occasionally, but since they lived far apart, their communication didn’t grow into something serious, though flirting was definitely there.

When Charnell broke up with Xander, the young man started writing to Anastasia more often and for months just complained about his ex’s treachery. On Thursday, May 24th, Anastasia was watching TV when her phone rang. It was Xander and he was definitely enraged. The young man learned Charnell started dating Brandon and he couldn’t accept it.

 He yelled on the phone that if he saw his ex again, he wouldn’t control his anger. Xander threatened to ruin Charnell’s life and drive her to suicide. The guy also said he’d find explicit photos on his ex’s phone and send them to her father to show how shameless his daughter was. Anastasia tried to sort out the situation. She understood Xander was driven mad by the news of his ex’s new romance and she didn’t like being in the middle of someone else’s relationship.

She didn’t take the young man’s words seriously. So, she told no one about the call. But two days later, when she saw the news about the tragedy at Stella’s school dormatory, Anastasia felt guilty and told her parents about Xander’s call. Mom and dad convinced their daughter to go to police and repeat what she told them.

 After the girl’s testimony, [music] the message saying, “I love you, Brandon,” sent from Charnell’s phone to her father made sense. Thus, the sender not only undermined the girl’s reputation with her parents, but also cast suspicion on Brandon. At the same time, it gave a clear motive for the attack. Xander Balesma asked to speak and gave testimony on his own behalf.

 This time, he had a completely new story about that night when Stella School lost two [music] students. This time, the young man said he didn’t enter the dormatory, but talked to Charnell in the car. The girl called Brandon just to cover so relatives and friends wouldn’t lecture her about Xander.

 They had a long talk, after which the guy left. It was long before 3:00 a.m. Now, the young man tried in every way to shift suspicion to Brandon, thereby convincing the judge and jury of his own innocence. Xander didn’t know Brandon heard their entire phone conversation with Charnell and knew about his threats. As usual, such people think they’re smarter than everyone around.

 They believe all bad deeds will easily go unpunished. When prosecutors asked Xander why he changed his story so many times, the young man blamed it on countless lawyers, each forcing him to say different things. At the moment, Xander had no alibi, no convincing account of that night’s events, but he did have a ticket to places not so remote.

On February 17th, 2020, the judge called Xander a liar and manipulator who heartlessly took the life of his third cousin Mara while she innocently washed her hands, then strangled his ex-girlfriend. His actions were deemed premeditated, [music] motivated by jealousy and anger over Charnell’s new relationship.

 Xander decided that since she neglected him, she didn’t deserve happiness either. Though it was Xander’s first criminal offense and he was found guilty of double murder of high school girls, the girl’s parents could finally breathe. But due to the pandemic, they had to wait until August for the verdict. The judge sentenced Xander to two life terms.

 The convicted guy’s parents were outraged. They rushed to hug their son because they still believed in his innocence. Then Xander’s father lunged with fists at one of the investigators. The man blamed having to sell the family farm and spend a ton of money not on his own son but on those who framed him as a criminal.

 Marsha the mom insisted to the end that her son was a tender, sensitive boy incapable of horrible acts. Xander tried to appeal the sentence but failed. He changed lawyers again but it didn’t help him get free. Despite the fact that the criminal who destroyed two young souls will rot behind bars. It won’t bring the girls back.

 Charnell and Mara had their whole lives ahead, cruy cut short by Xander. They will never marry, have children, or build careers. Charnell will never become a successful photographer. And hundreds of animals will never receive Mara’s care. And the blame lies with the person who decided his hurt ego was worth more than the lives of these wonderful girls.

If you have finished watching, you are a real fan of true crime. Subscribe to the channel, turn on the bell notifications, and put the like. See you in the next video. Once a 13-year-old boy learned a dirty secret about an adult. It happened by accident. Perhaps the child would have preferred never to see it, but the deed was done.

 The dirty secret came to light. The only thing the dirty person could think of was to take the life of the witness. Help this channel grow. Like the video, [music] try the new hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories. This helps us a lot. Thank you. On November 9th, 2012, 51-year-old Mark Redwine woke up at 700 a.m.

 When he entered the living room, he saw his 13-year-old son, Dylan, sleeping on the couch. The man knew that the teenager was planning to meet his friends early in the morning, so he tried to wake him up, but Dylan said he wanted to sleep and wasn’t going anywhere. Leaving his son to finish his dreams, Mark went about his business and returned home around 11:30 a.m.

 Dylan was no longer in the room, but an empty cereal bowl remained on the coffee table. The TV was broadcasting cartoons on the children’s channel Nickelodeon. Mark walked around the house and noticed that Dylan’s backpack, cell phone, and fishing rod were also missing. Apparently, his son had woken up after all and rushed off to his friends headlong.

 He even forgot to turn off the TV. The man decided to take the opportunity and nap a bit. He lay down on the couch and woke up around 1:30 p.m., but Dylan was still not there. Mark picked up his phone and dialed his son’s number. No one answered the call. The phone was out of network coverage. Waiting until 300 p.m. the father went to Dylan’s friends to find out where he had disappeared to.

However, none of the friends had seen the boy or talk to him that day. Dude, your dad is looking for you. You okay? We’re all worried about you. Your mom called. She’s worried. Dylan, seriously, when you get this message, call someone. Text messages from friends poured in one after another.

 But 13-year-old Dylan Red Wine never responded to anyone, never called back, and never returned home. At that moment, Mark got nervous and went to the [music] police station to file a missing person report. Right from there, he texted his wife, Elaine, and asked if she had spoken to Dylan and if she knew where he might have gone, to which the alarmed Elaine angrily replied that she was 7 hours drive from Durango, and how could she know where her son might have gone.

 The woman insisted that Mark immediately contact the police, to which she received a response that he had already done so. The mother’s worries were not in vain since their son never made contact that day. After this very alarming exchange of messages between the ex-spouses, Mark completely stopped responding to Elaine. He completely ignored his ex-wife’s calls, who did not miss the opportunity to accuse him of the disappearance of their youngest son.

On the eve of November 18th, 2012, 13-year-old Dylan Redwine flew to Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with his father, Mark. His parents had divorced several years earlier. Relations with his father could not be called good, so deep down, the school boy was afraid of this trip. When the boy finally arrived at his father’s cabin in Durango, Colorado, he sent his mom a message that he had arrived safely.

 Elaine supported her son, saying he did great and that she was proud of him. Unfortunately, this was the last message from her son. Dylan Red Wine was born on February 6th, 1999 to Elaine and Mark. He had two older brothers, Cory and Brandon. Brandon was their halfb brotherther. Mark’s son from his first marriage. 13-year-old Dylan was described as a typical teenager.

 He played baseball, spent time on video games, loved riding his bike, and hanging out with friends. The boy never got into trouble, and did not associate with bad company. Dylan’s father, Mark, was a longhaul trucker. Due to his job, he was not often home, and this affected not only his marriage, but also his children’s relationship with him.

 In 2007, after 18 years of marriage, Elaine decided to leave her husband. It was a very difficult [music] and messy divorce. The expouses had to divide everything they had and go through a custody battle. In the end, the court gave the children to the mother and the father received visitation rights. Mark was very upset and stressed about the divorce and unfortunately took out his irritation on his own children.

 Because of this, the son’s attitude toward their father changed. They practically hated him. Dylan and Corey were very happy with the arrangement because they stayed with their mom. Brandon by that time was already old enough and had moved out to start his own life. After the divorce, Mark moved to Durango, [music] Colorado, which was about 6 to 7 hours drive from where Elaine and the children lived.

 The man was very upset that he could not see his sons often, so he took them to his place for holidays. Once in 2012 during another school break, Mark called Elaine and asked if Dylan could come to him for Thanksgiving. Although the boy was resentful toward his father, he knew he had to comply with the court order, so he was forced to agree to the trip.

So on November 18th, 2012, Elaine drove Dylan to the airport. The older son, Cory, was already 18 and did not want to go anywhere, so Dylan went to Durango alone. The boy was afraid not only of his father’s explosive temper, but also of the fact that Mark lived in an isolated cabin in the middle of the forest.

 There weren’t many entertainments there. The only saving grace was a couple of Dylan’s friends who lived nearby. That day, Mark met his son at the airport. They went to the store for groceries together. On the way home, they stopped at a fast food restaurant, got takeout, and had dinner at home. That very first evening, Dylan asked his father if he could spend the night at a friend’s.

 The boy hoped to spend more time with friends than with his father, but Mark said no. So Dylan arranged to meet his buddies at 6:30 a.m. He was so desperate to get out of that house that he was ready to stay up all night. And less than a day after arrival, the teenager disappeared. Elaine was beside herself because Dylan had not made contact and [music] Mark was ignoring her calls.

 The mother and her older son Cory got in the car and headed to Durango. Arriving there late at night, Elaine first went to the police station. Together with several officers, they headed to Mark’s house to find out the details of the disappearance and search the property. It turned out that while his family and the police were trying to find the child, Mark was sleeping peacefully.

There were no lights on in his house, as if nothing had happened. The detectives found no clues indicating where the boy might have gone, and now they were trying to piece together what they knew. The police knew for sure that Dylan had indeed arrived at the airport. This was confirmed by surveillance camera footage.

 There were also frames showing the father and son picking out groceries at the store and then visiting McDonald’s. The police examined Mark’s movements that morning in more detail. From 8:30 to 11:30, the man was indeed running his errands. He stopped by his company’s accounting office, picked up his paycheck, then went to the divorce lawyer’s office and sent a child support check to his ex-wife, Elaine.

Mark thought Dylan had either gone to the nearby lake to fish or headed through the forest to a friend’s house. The latter was less likely since that house was 15 km away. Given the frosty weather in Colorado, it was unlikely the teenager decided to walk that distance. 51-year-old Mark Red Wine lived near the San Juan Mountain Forest.

 So, the police had to cover a huge area. The authorities organized large-scale searches involving canine units, volunteers, helicopters, and drones. Hours passed, days passed. The searches continued. Thanksgiving came and went, but no trace of Dylan was found. His mother, Elaine, decided to create her own search team.

 They held press conferences, made flyers, and posters about the missing child. Elaine organized fundraising, and created a social media page dedicated to searching for the boy. A reward of $50,000 was also offered to anyone who provided any information about Dylan’s whereabouts. All this time, Elaine was extremely suspicious of Mark.

 When she first came to the sheriff’s office, she learned that her ex-husband had not contacted the police. At least, there were no records of it. Mark, in turn, insisted that his wife was happy to accuse him of every mortal sin, even that he was to blame for his son’s disappearance. However, Elaine was sure that Mark was lying.

According to her ex-husband, when he entered the house, the TV was showing the children’s channel Nickelodeon, but Dylan had long outgrown the age when kids adore cartoons. The thing was, the boy hadn’t watched Nickelodeon for about a year. He was 13 at the time and was more into music on MTV. Elaine was very disappointed.

 Her ex-husband knew his own son so little that he couldn’t even come up with a plausible lie. During another search, the canine handlers dogs finally picked up a scent near the lake divers were called in. But unfortunately, on the ninth day of searches, [music] they found nothing. The police knew this was not just a runaway.

 Now they were definitely looking for the teenager’s body. Brandon, Dylan’s half brother, was in another state at the time. He was married and had his own children. But when he heard the news of the teenager’s disappearance, he dropped everything and immediately flew to Colorado to help with the searches.

 For some strange reason, only the child’s father didn’t search for the child. And when Elaine appeared on television and publicly stated that she suspected her ex-husband Mark Red Wine, it was very strange and hurtful for her to see that Dylan’s father practically did not help with fundraising, [music] social media pages, or even the searches.

 He also completely ignored the police. The griefstricken mother was disappointed. She fought every day to find her son, while Mark just sat and did nothing. Later, the police obtained a warrant to search Mark’s house. They found several drops of Dylan’s blood, but Mark explained that the boy had cut himself when he visited him last year.

Nevertheless, the man was called to the police station to answer a few questions. At first, the detectives had no suspicions about Mark. Everyone grieavves differently. For some, like Elaine, you need to do something, take action to cope with the pain. For others, like Mark, they worry inside without appearing in public.

 However, when the man was brought to the police, he exploded over the questions the detectives were asking him, Red Wine caused a loud scandal, shouting that he was the victim, the injured party who had lost his son, and they were interrogating him like a criminal. Such behavior only led to the investigators becoming suspicious.

 Mark was forced to take a polygraph test, which he ultimately failed. In February 2013, another thorough search was conducted at Mark’s house, and again, no traces of the boy were found. The disputes and mutual accusations of Dylan’s parents raised questions, [music] so Mark and Elaine were invited to the Dr. Phil show. Mark denied any involvement in his son’s disappearance, while Elaine pointed out signs that her ex-husband was lying.

 In the end, the host invited the older son, Cory, and asked him to talk about family relationships. According to the young man, all three sons couldn’t stand their father because Mark abused them physically and emotionally. He was cruel, rude, and mentally unstable. However, the father ignored his son’s words here, too.

To sort out the situation, Dr. Phil offered to take a lie detector test in front of a live audience right in the studio. Mark agreed, but when the polygraph expert appeared, Red Wine suddenly changed his mind. He said it was a waste of time and then got up and left the stage to the booze of the audience.

 And even the polygraph expert said afterward that in all his years of work, he had never met a parent who was desperately searching for their child, but refused to take a lie detector test. In June 2013, the authorities organized new searches [music] for 5 days. Over an area stretching more than 16 km around the house where Mark lived, volunteers, police, and special search teams scoured the forest.

 Now they were looking for remains belonging to the boy as no one believed he could still be [music] alive. This time the search operation yielded results. In the forest they found pieces of torn fabric from a t-shirt, headphones, a sock, a shoe, and a strand of hair. All of this, as later confirmed, belonged to Dylan.

 The police decided to continue the searches, and on June 27th, human bones were discovered in the wooded area. Partial remains of 13-year-old Dylan Red Wine were found about 13 km from his father Mark’s house. When forensic experts examined the found bones, they could not extract specific information indicating the cause of the teenager’s death.

 Was Dylan’s death the result of an attack by wild animals, or did he suffer at the hands of a human? In the spring of 2014, Mark Red Wine called one of the reporters and said he was going to check himself into a psychiatric hospital because he felt like he was going crazy from all these persecutors and haters. The man claimed that Elaine drove past his house and shouted that he was a murderer.

 Soon after, Elaine obtained a restraining order against Mark because she feared not only for her own safety, but also for the safety of her two sons, Cory and Brandon. The woman said that during their 18 years of marriage, there were cases where Mark showed aggression and got physical.

 The sons always took their mother’s side. And in August 2015, almost a year later, Mark Red Wine was finally named the prime suspect in the case of his son Dylan’s death. Mark was the only one who had serious inconsistencies in his story. Plus, all this time, he behaved really strangely. On November 1st, 2015, a biker was riding along the road when he came across a human skull about 1 and a half kilometers from the original burial site of the skeleton’s bones.

 It was later determined that the remains belonged to Dylan Redwine. During the examination, the pathologist found a skull fracture right above the left eye and blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Earlier, Mark claimed that Dylan got lost in the forest and was mauled by wild animals. But the medical examiner checked this theory, stating that the injuries were clearly inflicted by a human, although the previously found remains had been mutilated by animals that left tooth marks on them.

 When the father suggested that unknown persons kidnapped the boy and then killed him, throwing the bones near his house, the investigators directly told Red Wine that nothing indicated kidnapping. It simply made no sense. So Mark came up with another new story and told everyone that in his opinion, Dylan got lost in the forest and was accidentally shot by a hunter.

The man believed so strongly in this theory that he even filmed his own investigative experiment on video where he demonstrated how the boy could have been hit by a hunter’s bullet. Moreover, Mark posted this video on social media. Everyone was shocked because it seemed like he was the only one coming up with various theories but never participated in the searches.

 Everyone knew that Dylan’s skull was damaged from a blow with a blunt object. And if it had been a gunshot wound, there would have been a bullet hole in the skull. Despite the gruesome finds, the case was not moving forward. Elaine was in despair and took extreme measures. She gathered people and held a rally right outside Mark’s house to force her ex-husband to go to the police and get justice for Dylan.

The mother, who had lost her son and was doing everything to find him, was now certain of one thing. While she was raising funds, speaking at press conferences, and giving all her strength to searching for the child, the boy’s father, who knew the answers to all the questions, just sat at home and made up incredible stories.

 However, many considered Elaine’s actions to be over the top. In the summer of 2017, after five long years of struggle, the police finally had enough evidence to arrest Mark and officially charge him with killing his son and child abuse resulting in death. At that time, the man had moved from Colorado to Washington DC.

 Tired of the constant rallies outside his house organized by his ex-wife, Mark was arrested right at work. In August 2017, Mark Redwine pleaded not guilty to the charges. Elaine was not even surprised because he never took responsibility for his actions, even despite the evidence presented.

 In fact, the trial only began in 2021 because it was postponed more than 10 times due to various delays. The first time it happened because of Red Wine’s lawyer who was arrested himself for domestic violence. Then Mark had to find a new defender. Then the pandemic started. Many trials were postponed at that time.

 The new lawyer got co which delayed the case even more. But in 2021, a trial date was finally set. And that’s when all the truly horrific and disturbing details came to light. The prosecution team believed that Mark killed Dylan by hitting him on the back of the head with something heavy. The guy fell to the living room floor and during the fall received a fracture of the brow ridge.

 Then the man dismembered the body, put the remains in the bed of his truck, and scattered them throughout the forest. Specially trained dogs smelled human remains in Mark’s truck bed, on his clothes, and in the living room. The police using ultraviolet lamps and luminol also discovered blood stains throughout the living room, on the floor, on the couch, on the coffee table, and under the rug.

 It was becoming obvious that Mark was the one who sent his son to the other world. But the question arose, what was the motive? How could a father raise his hand against his own child? And then Dylan’s older brother, Corey, [music] testified. He said that a year before Dylan went missing, the brothers were on a trip with their father.

 Mark was a long haul trucker and took his sons on a run. Dylan and Corey sat in the back seat watching videos and movies on their father’s laptop. When they wanted to browse photos, they opened the photo gallery and came across very disturbing pictures of their father. The brothers immediately closed the laptop and waited until they got home.

 Once home, they locked themselves in the bathroom and photographed the pictures from the laptop onto their cell phones. In these photos, Mark’s face was adorned with provocative makeup with bright red lipstick and blush. He was wearing a red bra, a blue lace top, and an adult diaper full of human feces. In the next photos, Mark was licking feces off the diaper and then shoved it into his mouth altogether.

 Naturally, after such photos of their father, both guys were shocked. They couldn’t wrap their heads around how an adult could voluntarily do such a thing. But the teenagers also knew they couldn’t tell anyone about it. After all, Mark was their father. Dylan was 12 at the time. The photos from his father’s laptop undoubtedly traumatized his psyche.

 Over the year, the boy brought up the topic a couple of times with his older brother, Corey, and there were suspicions that Dylan asked Mark about the photos when he came to visit him for Thanksgiving on November 18th, 2012. Essentially, Dylan was still a child all this time. Curiosity was tearing him apart because he didn’t understand what it all meant.

 He probably also couldn’t get the horrific images out of his head. And his father was the only person who could explain it all to him. But Mark completely lost it. He yelled at Dylan and was beside himself with rage. It was this intense anger that led Mark to make the horrific decision to take his son’s life so he couldn’t reveal his terrible secret.

 The man clearly had mental issues, but during the crime, he was fully aware of what he was doing. In response to the charges, Mark said that the photos did not depict him, although it was obvious to anyone that they were his photos. Then the man accused his ex-wife, saying that Elaine had deliberately used Photoshop to attach his face to photos from the internet to make him look bad.

 As for Dylan’s bones found in the forest near the house, Mark said that the kidnapper deliberately planted the remains so that suspicion would fall on him. The prosecution called Mark Redwine’s first wife, Betsy, as a witness. She had been married to him for 6 years, and they had a son, Brandon. Their marriage also had a lot of arguments, a lot of shouting, a lot of insults.

 During the divorce, Mark threatened her, saying he would rather kill Brandon than give him to Bets’s custody. Most likely, this was why the son from the first marriage was raised in Elaine and Mark’s family. Brandon himself also testified against his father. He noted that all this time he had never seen Mark cry, get nervous, or be depressed.

 It was as if the father didn’t care what might have happened to his youngest son. Mark’s defense tried to dismiss all the evidence and claimed that the compromising photos had nothing to do with the case and were made public to portray Mark Red Wine in a bad light. The lawyer said that no one even suspected Mark until Elaine spread rumors and turned the crowd against him.

Red Wine’s defense claimed that the child most likely died from an attack by a wild animal. However, the evidence indicated that death occurred as a result of violent actions. Witnesses reported that just a few days before the searches began, Mark was seen on the same road where Dylan’s remains were later found.

 It took the jury 6 hours to reach a verdict and in the end Mark Redwine was found guilty of seconddegree murder, child abuse resulting in death. He was sentenced to 48 years in prison. Although it was not a life sentence considering that Mark was 59 at the time, the court imposed term meant he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

 When the defendant was read the sentence, he showed no emotion and sat with a blank stare. Surprisingly, to this day, many believe that Mark Redwine is not guilty, that there is no connection between Dylan’s death and the explicit photos, and that the defendant’s intimate life should not have been put on display. However, the court considered the father’s dirty secret the main motive for killing his own son.

If you have finished watching, [music] you are a real fan of true crime. Subscribe to the channel, turn on the bell notifications, and put the like. See you in the next