Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 7 Shocking Details of Alabama Family Massacre That Left Mom, 4 Kids Dead

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Brandon Kendrick faces five counts of capital murder for the shooting deaths of his wife, Kelse, their two young children, Kaleb and Kynli, and their cousins, Colton and Hailey Daniels. Kendrick claims he was mentally ill at the time of the shooting. His grandfather, a pastor at an Alabama church, revealed details of the shocking massacre during his sermon on Sunday. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy details the revelations from Pastor Allan Kendrick with Dr. Katherine Ramsland in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Dr. Katherine Ramsland https://x.com/KatRamslandCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I've had a few people call, Pastor, you can't preach Sunday. A pastor in Alabama delivers a sermon days after he says his grandson, Brandon Kendrick, murdered his wife, two children, and a niece and nephew. I have seven details about what Brandon Kendrick's grandfather says happened and what may have led him to do the unthinkable.

Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Brandon Kendrick faces five counts of capital murder for the death of his wife, Kelsey, their son, Caleb, their daughter, Kinley, and the children's cousins, Colton and Haley Daniels. The crime is absolutely unimaginable. Last Thursday was like any other summer night, with some exceptions, of course. Family members of Kelsey Kendrick told the Daily Mail that she was trying to be a supportive wife to Brandon Kendrick because of his mental health issues. Kelsey's Facebook page shows a number of posts that would lead you to believe she was not happy for many months.

She shared a video in April that said, No one talks about the guilt you feel when you finally decide to leave someone you really love because they constantly hurt you and don't want to change. Kelsey also shared a TikTok video that started with, quote, A man playing the victim in his life will say these things to his wife. It's really sad because there are other posts that show that the couple was once very happy. In September of 2022, Kelsey wrote, happy anniversary to my person. Six years ago, I fell for you. And four years ago today, we said forever and ever. Throughout everything, we have stuck together side by side. And six hard years

and two beautiful babies later, here we are with forever and ever to go. I love you so much. Last Thursday night, Kelsey, her children, and their cousins had planned to stay with family somewhere else for the night. But family members told the Daily Mail that Brandon Kendrick wanted Kelsey to come home. So she did, bringing the children with her. Brandon Kendrick's grandfather, Alan Kendrick, is the pastor at Oasis Church. He described in a sermon on Sunday, seeing Brandon right before the shooting. I will say this. Ten minutes

before I heard a gunshot. My grandson was sitting in my bedroom with me and Gabe. Laughing. Talking. Talked about the first time we ever took him to a restaurant for his 13th birthday. He had never been in a restaurant. We took him there for his birthday. Pastor Kendrick went on to talk about the terrible childhood Brandon had had and the abuse he had suffered.

All he'd ever known for 12 years was abuse. Physical, sexual, mental, drug. When I got him at 12 years old, he weighed 58 pounds. He was on nine different psychotic medicines. At 18, the system failed him. Took him off a disability, took him off medication because we couldn't afford to buy it, because they canceled his Medicaid. Gay and I watched him all these years try so hard. Now you heard Kendrick say that he was talking with Brandon 10 minutes before he heard a gunshot. He revealed other disturbing information. Pastor Kendrick claims that earlier that morning,

Brandon actually called 911 asking for help for his mental health issues. He reportedly suffered from schizophrenia. One o'clock on Thursday morning, he's calling 911, asking for help, only to be turned down. In the bedroom of me and Gay, we're talking about the Jay Alexander dinner we took him to. A few other things, we'd laugh and talk, and his wife had gotten home. She came in, laughed with us a little while, left. He got up 10 minutes later, pow! I told gay, I said, that's a gunshot. Pastor Kendrick then described Brandon Kendrick walking into his home with a gun. I didn't have my shoes on, so I'm putting my shoes on.

Here he walked in our bedroom with a gun in his hand. She was closest to him. She grabbed the gun. It went off. I don't know how it kept from hitting her. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I know. Because our prayer team.

According to published reports, Pastor Kendrick then called 911. What the deputies found when they arrived was beyond the pale. Five people shot in the head. Brandon Kendrick's wife, Kelsey, their two children, Caleb and Kindly, and the cousins of the children, Colton and Haley Daniels. Haley died later at the hospital. Brandon and Kelsey had been living in an apartment above the garage on Pastor Kendrick's property. A family member claimed that the door appeared to have been knocked off its hinges and one of the children was shot while trying to run away. Colton and Haley were not even supposed to be there, but family members told the Daily Mail that their mother was scheduled for surgery the next morning, so Kelsey was watching them. Family members of Kelsey, Caleb, Kinley, Colton, and Haley are reeling. They are now planning five funerals and they're trying to

figure out how to pay for them. They've set up a GoFundMe page, hoping to raise enough money to pay for those funerals. Meanwhile, Brandon Kendrick has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. One family member told a local TV station that plea was shocking to her, given what she knows about the family. I want to take a moment to tell you about this awesome app that I've tried.

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and the fact that his family is saying he was declining mentally in the weeks before this shooting. Well, apparently he's been declining for a while, but my first thoughts were this is a father killing a family. And we do have a lot of information about fathers who kill. Often they see their family as an extension of themselves. But I did wonder about not just the potential mental illness factor, but any other stressors in his life. And it seemed that he had lost his government aid for getting

the medication that he needed. So he was not taking medication. He had lost his job. So then financial pressures were beginning to set in. And according to some social media, his wife was considering either separating from him or leaving him. And she had found him to be abusive, narcissistic, demanding. And so that's a lot of stressors on somebody who's also suffering from not really having mental resources. So I think when you see a lot of that coming together, but we don't know, maybe that he did not plan this, but they got into an argument. Clearly, he didn't plan to kill the other two children who were relatives, who were brought back by his wife to stay with her because their mother was going to have a surgical procedure. So whether it was planned or not is not clear. Certainly he was armed, but

it does look as if he was reacting to something. Colton and Haley are the two, the niece and nephew who were killed. It's just absolutely awful. There are a few things though that you mentioned that are really really interesting to me uh the fact that you know he they weren't even going to stay there that night from the reporting on this story he asked specifically for kelsey to come home and she did so she brought of course all of the children because she was going to be watching not only her own children caring for her children but watching colton and haley as well so so he did ask them to come home but what's interesting too to me is the fact that his grandfather pastor alan kendrick gave

a sermon in church on sunday and said that 10 minutes before he heard the first gunshot brandon had been in his house and they were talking about old times and about you know this the dinners they would go out to in restaurants and everything seemed fine and then he hears a pop 10 minutes later I mean how can things go so wrong in a 10 minute period of time where you're talking to your grandmother and grandfather in their house and within 10 minutes you've killed you've killed five people? So that's why I think he was reacting to something. Either he's reacting to something or he had relaxed with the knowledge of what he was going to do. But my sense was that there had been a plan in place where his wife was going to stay away, take care of the cousins. Their two children were with her and he was not asking her to come back, begging her.

He kept calling and kept harassing her about coming back. And so that suggests some issues with his own sense of control over the situation. When she did come back, that was a period of time when he seemed to be relaxed, but then went out and shot all of them. And that's why I think the possibility was they were arguing about it. She might have been very angry at him for bringing her back when the plan had been set for her to stay away, to watch the other children, to help out the other family. And she probably was angry because we can see from her media posts that she's already annoyed at him for the kinds of things he's been saying to her,

the attitudes he's been adopting, the fact that she now has the financial burden, but she can't herself carry it, you know, take care of him, take care of her kids, and try to pay the bills. So I think it's possible they had an argument that things had reached a point where both were for help and that he didn't get any help for his, you know, mental illness. I mean, so he obviously had, if that happened, if that indeed happened, he knew that he wasn't all right. He knew that he was in a bad place. Well, you can't, you know, each state has its own laws about this, but somebody is not going to be taken in for observation if they're not an imminent danger to self or others. If he did not express that, that he really thought he was going to harm somebody or harm himself,

then there's really nothing a 911 dispatcher can do about it. They can't just take him in against his will. It's very hard to evaluate somebody over the phone. It's not clear how many other times he might have called since he had been off his medication. It's not clear what he actually said on the call. So, it's hard to address that and I also don't really know the laws of that state regarding that. But I do know it's very difficult to get people who are even in crisis into a place for observation. It is very difficult. His grandfather said he took custody of him when he was 12 years old and that he had been the victim of sexual physical and emotional abuse probably not uncommon things for people sadly who suffer from mental illness I mean

he his parents could have had severe mental illness as well just a really sad case though you know if that's indeed the fact he's raised by his grandfather who's a pastor victim of abuse suffering from schizophrenia in decline for some time and then this happens so do you see that as a common thread that abuse coupled with mental illness leads to people who commit crimes to commit crimes well i think it's i mean it's hard to generalize, but in his situation, apparently he was diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia when he was just nine years old. When he's got an unsupported family, he's subjected to abuse, having to be rescued by a grandfather. And I believe they were living in a garage apartment so that's also difficult because he's failing in so many ways and I'm sure it was very

difficult for him to admit to that we do see periods of time where he had good marriage his wife was happy she's celebrating with him she's celebrating him as of her husband so we know we know that there were times when he could get it together, when he could hold a job. But having that background from childhood, on top of early onset schizophrenia, on top of not being able to take to get the resources he needed, or even if he did maybe not taking the medication that he was supposed to take, on top of financial difficulties. We have a lot of events converging in this particular case that you would expect violence to come out of it if he's armed. And that's a question, too.

How in the world did he get to have a gun? But if he's armed and he's desperate and he's feeling the pressure and he just can't take it anymore, you have the ingredients for violence. It's just a really terribly sad case. And he's pleading not guilty by reason of mental illness and mental defect. Is it possible that people who are insane, you know, and I don't know if you can answer this question, but is it possible that people are insane just for a few minutes while they're committing an act and then they go back to being sane?

Is that a possibility? Well, and we do know that he even said to his grandfather, what did I do? And he seemed confused. Yeah, we certainly have moments of lucidity with mental illnesses, even extreme mental illnesses, where they can seem fine and then they have a psychotic episode. There's all kinds of legal precedent for that. I think it's the right thing for him to do to plead not guilty by reason of insanity because he does have a history of diagnoses and medication and the lack of medication and what he does when he doesn't have access to it. I think his grandfather actually made the statement that the system failed him. And that's possible. If he was no longer able to get the kinds of aid that he needed

in order to buy the medication he needed, then yeah, that's a failure on the part of the system. Dr. Ramsland, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.