Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Florida Teen Prays While Admitting to Shooting Parents in Chilling 911 Call

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Trevor Lee, 14, called 911 early Monday morning and told a 911 dispatcher that he shot and killed his parents. Trevor lived in Clay County, Florida in the Jacksonville area. When deputies arrived at his parents' home, they found David Lee and Brandi Smith-Lee, shot to death in their bedroom. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook about the latest in the investigation in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CRIMEFIX at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/crimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Sheriff Michelle Cook https://www.facebook.com/ccsoflDave Aronberg https://x.com/aronbergProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME 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 Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Just after midnight this morning, our 911 Communication Center received a call from a young man who stated he had just killed his parents. That young man was a 14-year-old boy, and he made a shocking 911 call from a church. You need to pray? I look at the disturbing double homicide case out of Florida, and the sheriff will join me with new details about the case. And after he committed this heinous, you know, terrible crime, he called her first.

Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. A family in Clay County, Florida, is mourning a terrible, terrible loss and likely trying to figure out what happened after a 14-year-old boy called 911 and admitted to shooting and killing his parents. This all happened in Middlesburg, Florida, which is in Clay County in the greater Jacksonville area. This is a relatively safe area. And while this would be shocking no matter where it happened, it was particularly surprising to happen in this community. The sheriff says 14-year-old Trevor Lee shot and killed his parents at the family's home on Silver Point. It happened sometime early Sunday morning. An incident report says Clay County deputies found Dave Lee and Brandy Smithley with gunshot wounds in their bedroom. And their son, Trevor Lee, had walked to a church

and called 911, but not before his sister called 911 first. Take a listen. Are you there? Are you there? I'm all the way in California. Please, I need you to send help. I don't know. I don't know where you get. I have no idea where you're at. But please, hurry up. Now, as I mentioned, that was Trevor Lee's older sister, and she's in the military in California. Trevor's sister said something that might be important later. I'll just say, I'm in the military. I don't know what it goes on. Mother's just had a good day. They want to go. They want some of a movie. The older sister told that 911 call taker that they had had a good day and had gone to the movies. So who knows what that could reveal. Then Trevor Lee called 911 from the Cross Point Church early Sunday morning.

Now, a lot of these calls are redacted, because in Florida, if a person makes admissions to a crime, they are redacted from the public record until the case ends. Now, I'm in one now. Can I help you? Hello. I'm by the road. I threw my backpack away from me. I'm stripped. I'm waiting for a leaf. What do you mean? You're nothing in my pocket. I, like, I empty my pockets and everything. There's nothing in my pockets. And I want this. I'm not on the sidewalk, like, on the sidewalk. I'm, like, in the middle park.

You're going to be in the parking lot? No, no, like, in the middle part. The middle part of what? If the church. I'm going to pray, first. I need to pray. You need to pray? Yes, ma'am.

Okay, before you start praying, tell me exactly where you're at. If you're, if you're driving, towards the church I'm right out in front of the church is a big cross. Now keep in mind during this call, Trevor Lee has told the call taker

that he shot and killed his parents. At one point during the call, the 14-year-old relies on that call-taker for comfort. Do you pray? Yes, sir. Go ahead. I'll listen to you.

Well, I was going to ask if you could pray for me, ma'am. I'll definitely be praying for you, son. Okay, we've asked them. not to point guns at you. Okay, they're going to be approaching you any minute. Now, this 911 call taker, she's worried that this could be an ambush. Sheriff Michelle Cook, she's going to join me to discuss why very shortly. Detectives and crime scene texts spent the morning at the house processing the scene, and a friend of Trevor Lees told local news outlets that they are stunned by what has

happened. One of the friends said that Trevor's family was one of the nicest that he knew and that David and Brandy treated him very well and that they considered him like a son and, treated him as such. That same friend told a local TV station that Trevor called him around midnight to say good night and told him he loved him. Records show that the Clay County Sheriff's Office has been called to the home five times since 2021. Once for a suicide threat that year, in 2022 there was a call for a disturbance. In 2024, deputies were called to the house twice for a sick person, and in April of this year, there was an unknown follow-up investigation. Then came the call for the shooting early Monday morning.

I cover a lot of really scary crime stories here on Crime Fix, and if it's taught me anything, it's that privacy and personal safety absolutely cannot be compromised, especially when it comes to your personal info online. You would be really shocked at how much of your data, like your name, phone number, even your home address, is just floating around the internet for data brokers to find and sell. Ever wonder why you get so many of those annoying spam calls and emails?

Well, that's why. Our sponsor Incogni is a crucial tool that helps you take back control by automatically identifying which data brokers have your info and then demanding they remove it. Incogni actually found more than 50 brokers with my information and within days, they started getting me removed. It's really easy to use. Just create an account, authorizing Cogni to act on your behalf and let them handle the rest. And now, Incogni users, they can wipe their info from an even wider range of websites with the

Unlimited plan's new custom removals feature. All you need to do is copy and paste the links to sites where you've noticed concerning data breaches, cropping up, and creating issues in your life. And a team of privacy specialists will take care of the rest. The new Incogni unlimited feature even allows users to customize their data removals and tackle the toughest of breaches with the help of a team of privacy specialists. So if you care about your online safety and you really should, take your personal data back with Incogni. Use code. crime fix below on the screen and get 60% off an annual plan. So to discuss this incredibly disturbing case, I want to bring in Sheriff Michelle Cook.

She is the sheriff of Clay County, Florida, and her detectives are handling this investigation. So Sheriff Cook, thank you so much for coming on. What's the very latest in this investigation? Well, you know, a little bit of news to share. This is obviously extremely tragic when you. you have a 14-year-old that feels such a way that the only solution is to kill their parents. We are still very early in this investigation. The suspect has been very cooperative with our detectives and, you know, walking us through

his thought process and all of that will be revealed in time. But, you know, through the investigative process, we did discover that he had called called his sister prior to calling 911. And so that's some new information that we're going to have to track down. His sister is in the military, is stationed in another state. So we're going to have to get her in and interview her regarding this issue, this terrible, terrible incident. Wow. That kind of blows my mind.

I mean, it does and it doesn't. I mean, he's done something that he's admitted to. And he calls his older sister. Obviously, she's older. She's in the military. Do we have any idea kind of how much older? I mean, is she, is she 18, 19? I don't know how old she is.

I know she's old enough, you know, obviously she's stationed out in, I believe, in California. And after he committed this heinous, you know, terrible crime, he called her first. You know, what's interesting is after he shot his parents, he walked over a mile, about a mile and a half to a church. And we believe during that time that he was walking. to the churches when he called her. And then when he got to the churches, when he called our 911 communication center. Do we have an idea? I mean, that's, you know, another kind of strange thing about this. Do we know why he decided to walk to the church? I mean, I can kind of connect a dot and think that he called his sister to tell her what he did. And she likely told him to call law

enforcement. That's where I'm going in my head with that. But why walk to the church? Well, Where his house is in relation to the church, even though it was probably close to a mile and a half walked, it was a pretty direct line. This church sits up on a major road and is easily discernible as you're walking. And I'm thinking like you that his sister just encouraged him to call 911 and he probably felt that walking up

to the church and waiting for deputies to arrive was probably the safest place. for him to do that. So he walks to the church and he calls 911. Your call takers or the 911 center call takers, I'm assuming, you know, they're dispatching. They're trying to get information from him. They're talking to him. What can we glean from this whole thing about how, why this unfolded the way that it did? You know, interestingly enough, we've had quite a few swatting calls in our community over the past couple of years. So, you know, Initially, when the call came in, there was some concern with our communication center

that this was going to be another swatting call. So our communication center kept him on the line for quite a while as deputies responded to the house and surrounded the house and then attempted to make contact with the documents inside the house. And based upon the information that our communication center was being given, the deputies made the determination to go ahead and make entry into the home to do the, what we call a protective sweep where the deputies found the two deceased parents. And then our comm center our dispatcher did a fantastic job, keeping him on the phone and talking to him. And within just

a couple of minutes, we were able to put eyes on him at the church. You know, and in this point, we don't know if he was still armed. So the deputy that had eyes on him waited for a couple of backup deputies to get there. And then they came up with a plan and took him into custody. He came into custody peacefully, he did not, you know, push back at all. He was, in fact, extremely cooperative with the deputies who took him into custody at the scene at the church and then also with the detectives later on in the evening who were interviewing him. What did he say happened as far as this, you know, I guess maybe a disagreement with his parents? I mean, what do we know about that? At this point, you know, there's not a whole lot I can release

regarding that, because that, you know, leads to a potential mode over a potential defense for him. And, you know, I will say that he was very candid about an argument that happened with his parents earlier in the evening. And he felt that, you know, that this was his only way out, so to speak, was to take matters into his own hands. Very, very sad. Wow. Do we have any, you know, do we have any inkling or do you have an idea of how long it was between this argument and him actually shooting his parents? I mean, was there any cooling off period? I don't have the exact time, but I would say a couple of hours of him contemplating on what his next steps would be. And, you know, again, a heavy burden for a 14-year-old to be in that.

position and feel that that, you know, that was his, his way of handling it, so to speak. But the, the argument had happened earlier in the evening, so probably at least a couple of hours before. And he uses his own parents, their firearm to carry this crime out. As far as we know, the weapon used, belonged to his mother. So did it, did this, did the homicides happen right before he calls the sister? Or did he wait? I mean, I mean, were they asleep in bed? I mean, what was going on? You know, that I don't know.

I don't know from the time he shot his parents to the time he called his sister. I don't know how much time had lapsed. And we will probably be able to figure out a timeline through our investigative process. I do know that, you know, it probably took him a good 15 minutes to walk that mile and a half from his home to the church. So, you know, I don't know if he, you know, left immediately after killing his parents and walked to the church or if he waited around and then walked to the church. But we'll be able to figure that out through our interviews and piecing together the evidence that we have. You know, you never know what goes on behind closed doors in somebody's house, you know, but we've seen some kids on the local news down there saying that this seemed like a, you know, a nice family, like that the parents were welcoming. to the other kids and they I mean these kids are shocked they can't believe it these friends of

Trevor Lee so I mean it's this to me is very confounding again I say that you know saying that you never know what's going on behind closed doors you know shocked tragic Clay County is an extremely safe community we are you know we have a population of about 240,000 people in our community we are a very safe community. This has shocked the core of our community. Trevor was known by a lot of people. He was a local football player. And, you know, just very shocked and tragic.

And you never know what's going on behind closed doors. And I'm hoping that, you know, for the sake of the family, that we can at least come to some conclusion as to what led up to this. Most certainly. Well, it sounds like, you know, the teenage boy is cooperating. As you said, Trevor Lee is cooperating. But my God, it's, wow, it's still, you know, having covered crime for a long time, this is very shocking to me. Sheriff Cook, is there anything else she'd like to add? What I would like to say is, you know, parents, make sure you're talking to your kids. make sure you have an open line of communication with them. And, you know, if there's a kid that's struggling, you know, that may hear this,

reach out and ask for help. No doubt. Sheriff Michelle Cook, thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Now, there are still so many questions that we really don't have the answers to right now. And one is whether Trevor Lee will be charged as an adult. I spoke with former Palm Beach County State Attorney, Dave Ehrenberg, about that. So, Dave, you know, you're now in private practice as a defense attorney on the other side of the courtroom.

This is an absolute tragedy on many levels. And there are still a lot of questions that we don't have the answers to. But I want to ask you specifically, you know, we've got a 14-year-old boy who calls 911 from a church and says, I've shot and killed my parents. And so he's fessing up on a 911 call. We don't know anything about the circumstances surrounding this. Right now, he's charged with second-degree murder. His name is out there. How do you handle this as a state attorney as the elected prosecutor?

Well, first, it's good to be back with you, Ingenet. It's a tough one whenever you have someone so young, but the crime is so heinous that it should be treated most likely as an adult crime. Because if you treat this as a juvenile crime, then you're limited to the sanctions. that can be imposed. The juvenile system will lose jurisdiction over you. At the age of 19, there's some exceptions, but this person, no matter what motivated him to do this, you would probably say that he deserves to be treated by the criminal justice system beyond the next five years, that this is not someone who you would want let out on the streets at the age of

20. And so I think that's why adult sanctions are more appropriate. We don't know enough about this case to make a termination right now, but I can tell you, especially in Clay County, a very conservative area, that's almost certainly the direction they're going to go. So you see this likely, based on the limited facts we have now, all we really know is that this 14-year-old calls 911, and he's apparently killed his parents with one of their guns, says I did this. I mean, he does call and says I'm at this church. I mean, he's he's giving law enforcement the information. It kind of shows you there may have been some regret. I mean, there's a level of, I don't know what going on because we need more information. But you see them moving forward with this and charging this 14 year old as an adult. Yes, I do. Now, you cannot get the death penalty for an underage person. The Supreme Court, some years ago,

made that unconstitutional. And so you can, though, get a maximum of life in prison. You just have to jump through extra hoops because it's a juvenile, but a juvenile can get life in prison. We don't know exactly what motivated this person. I mean, by the media's accounts, the family looked very normal from the outside. They had apparently loving parents,

but we don't know what was going on there. And if it turns out to be something less than murder, manslaughter. It still should be treated by the adult system because, again, the juvenile system will lose jurisdiction over this young man in just a few years. Second degree murder is the charge right now. Do you see that potentially being bumped up to first degree? Yes. There really is no extra benefit about charging him with first degree murder. You have to prove premeditation. This looked like, by all accounts, it was an angry fight that went on and an impetuous 14-year-old who grabbed the parents' gun and shot them both. And if you did seek first-degree murder,

the main punishment used there, capital punishment, the top punishment, is off the table anyway. So you're dealing with a situation where second-degree murder seems to be the more correct charge because he's not going to get capital punishment. He's ineligible. And you can still get life in prison for a second-degree murder charge just as you could for a first-degree murder charge? You know, a 14-year-old, and we don't know if this 14-year-old has had some trouble in his background. We don't know if he's got a prior criminal record because he's a juvenile. So we don't really have access to that information, but we know right now he's in custody. He's not on the jail roster in the adult jail. So do you house him, I guess, even though he's likely

going to be charged as an adult, still in juvenile detention? Well, yeah, there's a special floor of the jail in Palm Beach County, and I would assume it's similar in other counties in Florida, where you have juveniles who are charged as adults, they're kept away from the adult population. You don't want to put a 14-year-old with the adult jail population. So there is a way to accommodate a situation like this. Now, 14 is extra young. That's even young for the juvenile system. But we've seen murders of even younger defendants than 14. So more details will come out about this, but when you're 14, your brain's still developing and you should never give a 14-year-old access to a gun. It looks like the gun was not

locked up. The 14-year-old obviously knew where it was, and it was accessible to him. So this is yet another example of gun owners not taking the proper precautions. Gun safety is so important. I'm a gun or myself. I would never think to have a gun hanging around the house easily accessible to a teenager. That is something that's really been brought up to me and in comments about this story is the fact that this teenager used his parents' gun more than likely to kill his parents during a domestic dispute. And so even if there are just adults in the home, you know, they recommend that you should always be storing these firearms in a gun safe. They shouldn't just be easily accessible or laying out kind of willy-nilly for anybody to handle.

That's right. And parents could be charged if they don't take the proper precautions, but they're dead here. I mean, this is such a tragedy. And so they're not coming any further charges relating to that. and now the son is going to face repercussions, really the rest of his life, and I'm sure he's going to have serious regret. He's 14. His brain is still developing. I'm sure he pretty much does not comprehend what he just did entirely. I mean, he just did something that destroyed three lives, his two parents and his own. And we don't know what was going on inside the home,

but we do know that a lot of the friends of this teenager have been saying, you know, I've been over there. The parents always treated me really nicely. You know, this is something that happened, as far as we can tell, close to midnight. We don't know what was going on in the home. You never know what's going on behind closed doors. So, but from what the friends are saying, these teenage friends, they didn't see any red flags, or at least they're not saying that they did right now.

Correct. But as you correctly said, you don't know what goes on behind those closed doors. family that seems perfect from the outside can be far less. Once you're inside the home, this was at midnight, though. Tensions were heated. There was a bad fight, and somehow he got access to a gun and started shooting and then reported on himself. Called 911, went to the church, and was arrested. But now, this is a tragedy all around, and it's going to drip out the details in the next few weeks, and we'll learn more and more. But even if there were at home never justifies taking law on your own hands and shooting to death your parents.

I mean, even, you know, the Menendez brothers who alleged to a sexual abuse in the home, they would have still been convicted of a crime. It would have been manslaughter, perhaps, and not murder. So we're not talking about, even if there was a bad situation at home, that this would be still an exoneration. This would be a get-out-jel free card. No, you still have to face the consequences of your actions. And unless there's some, self-defense here. And there's no evidence that the parents grab the gun that was trying to kill the son. So self-defense would not seem to be a defense here. This kid's going away for a long time. Yeah. And violence is never the answer, especially gun violence. Picking up guns to solve

problems is never the answer. So how long do you think this decision will take? How long do you think the state attorney in Clay County do you think that it'll take long? for that person to make this decision? Or do you think it'll be like pretty clear cut? Well, they'll be quick about the decision. There are time limits in place. And they'll move ahead with the decision. They'll announce that he's going to be tried as an adult.

I'm sure it'll be a murder charge, most likely second-agree murder. I would be shocked if they decided to now move into the juvenile system. Also, the cat is out of the bag. In the juvenile system, everything is done confidentially. and in the adult system, everything's out in the public. Well, we already know the names of everyone involved here. And so there's not a lot of incentive to all of a sudden put the toothpaste back of the tube and now say, okay, we're going behind closed doors.

We're not going to let anyone know who the parties are. We're going to put this in a juvenile system. We're going to get them rehabilitation. And we'll be back on the streets at the age of 19 or 20. So, no, that's not going to happen. I think for sure in that area in Clay County, they're going to prosecute him. him as an adult. Yeah, only a matter of time.

Well, we will keep an eye on it. Dave Aaronberg, thank you so much. Thank you, Ingenet. And right now, Trevor Lee is being housed in a juvenile detention center. He faces two counts of second-degree murder. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me.

I'll see you back here next time.