Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOY "MASSACRES FAMILY" WHILE SISTER, 11, PLAYS DEAD, CALLED "POLITE"

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

The King County, Washington, 911 call center receives a call an area known for multi-million dollar homes in the Fall City area at 4:55 am. A 15-year-old boy says he is hiding in a bathroom on the main floor of the house because his 13-year-old brother, Benjamin, just shot is family and then "took himself out." Another call comes in to the 911 center at 5:02 am. Bradley Dennis lives down the street from the Humiston residence and says the 11-year-old sister of Andrew Humiston arrived at his home ringing the doorbell over and over until they answered the door. The girl says her family has been shot and are all dead. Bradely Dennis says the girl appears injured by a possible gunshot wound and she is bleeding from her neck and hand.  The 11-year-old girl tells 911 dispatch she survived the attack by pretending to be dead when the gunman came into her room. As soon as the gunman left, the girl says she climbed out a "fire window" and ran into the middle of the street. When she looks into a window at the front of their home she saw the gunman who shot her.  When an operator asks who that was, the girl tells 911 that her brother is the one who killed everyone--and she is terrified he will come to the neighbors house to kill her.  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Guy D’Andrea - Former Prosecutor, Attorney at Laffey Bucci D’Andrea Reich & Ryan Dr. Lisa Long - Forensic Psychologist and Owner of Dr. Long and Associates, drlisalong.com Barry Hutchison - Former 26 year law enforcement veteran and detective, now owner & Chief Investigator for Barry & Associates Investigative Services located in Kansas & Missouri, pibarry.com Dr. Kendall Crowns Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: Burnett School of Medicine at TCU (Texas Christian University) Germania Rodriguez - Chief US reporter dailymail.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A fall city boy massacres his family while his little sister, just 11, plays dead in order to save her own life. Now his defense attorneys are calling the boy polite, telling the judge he loves camping and fishing. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Fall City is an idyllic small town just outside of Seattle, Washington, nestled between rivers and mountains. The perfect place for a seemingly perfect family, like the Humistons. Until one October morning, when multiple gunshots are heard from the Humiston family home.

The 11-year-old sister says she shares a room with her sister Catherine, and they were awakened by the sound of gunshots. Looking out the bedroom door to the hallway, she could see her 9-year-old brother Joshua with blood in dead, played dead in order to save her own life. Imagine what this young girl has survived. The only surviving member of the family. She then manages somehow to escape through a window. Listen. The 11 year old girl with two gunshot wounds tells 911 dispatch she survived the attack by holding her breath and pretending to be dead when the gunman came into her room to check on her. As soon as the gunman left, the girl says she climbed out of a fire window, ran into the middle of the street, and when she looked into the window of the front of their home,

she saw the gunman who shot her. It's not the first time that we have heard of little children climbing through windows to save their own life. I'm sure you all recall the little boy who climbs through a window, his hands shackled, starved at the hands of his own mother, Ruby Frankie, the online megastar who gives out parenting advice. Her children found abused and starving, shackled, mistreated, forced to work outside in deadly heat, barefoot. He manages to escape through a window, run to a neighbor to save his life and his little sister's life. And then there is, of course, the house of horrors, the Turpin family horror, where all of the children were beaten and starved systematically. And one girl finally bravely gets through a window to run to neighbors to call 911.

Imagine an 11-year-old girl playing dead and then climbing through a second story window to save her own life. That is what we are talking about. Where is Fall City? What is Fall City? Joining me in all star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, I want to go out to special guest, chief U.S. investigative reporter with DailyMail.com, Germania Rodriguez. Germania, thank you for being with us. Where and what is Fall City? Thank you, Nancy. So yeah, Fall City in Washington state is just 30 miles east of Seattle. And it's really what everyone

has described as a picture perfect place to raise your family. It's actually where a lot of the scenes for the iconic show Twin Peak was filmed back in the day. The chief of police right outside the scene said that this is the type of place where families come to raise their families after making money in other places. This actually was in the Lake Alice neighborhood, as we're seeing there. This house was right by the water. Neigh water neighbors described the family as really as i said looking picture perfect going out to the lake doing water sports playing activities we now know that they were homeschooled and that neighbors just said that they seem like a very christian family very dedicated parents the mom appeared to have been a nurse but has

had since been staying at home with the children. But as we are now uncovering, it appears that there was a horrific situation behind what appeared like the perfect American family in this perfect woody Washington state location. Now, another interesting thing about this. And let me go out to a veteran trial lawyer joining us, along with Hermania Rodriguez from Daily Mail. Guy D'Angia is with us, former prosecutor, now lawyer at Lafey, Bucci, D'Angia, Reich and Ryan. Guy, thank you for being with us. Another thing is, according to what I've learned during this investigation, is it's a very, very low population, 2,018 people as of the 2022 census. Now, what does that mean? That means it's very low crime. It's in an almost rural setting. It's on a lakefront, Lake Alice, and you don't have a lot of people coming in and out of the area,

which greatly reduces crime, Guy. It does. Thank you for having me, Nancy. It does reduce crime, but representing abused and assaulted children now in my private practice, I always take issue or at least raises a red flag when a family has a child in a very isolated setting and then chooses to isolate even further by homeschooling their children. No one knows what's going on inside of that house. So there's at least something to look into as potential red flags as to what was really happening. Guy D'Andrea, are you actually attacking homeschooling? No. Are you? Because there are millions of children across the country that are being homeschooled and they're doing fairly well at it.

Mine are in regular school, but I mean, my first cousin homeschools. Her children are brilliant. They were reading Shakespeare when they were in the third grade, for Pete's sake. And mine were like doing their ABC. So I don't know where you're going with this. Are you somehow blaming the dead parents? The whole family's been massacred. And you're saying, oh, homeschooling, red flag. That's what you've got to tell me? No, no, no. When you're all you already in an isolated community. Somebody's doing the backstroke. What? So when you're already in an isolated community and then you isolate your children even further, I just think it's something to look into, which will be taken into consideration, I'm sure, when they're looking into the factors that the court will have to consider.

Guys, an 11-year-old girl suffers two gunshot wounds. Did she manage to escape? Harmonia Rodriguez, another question for you. Harmonia, joining us, Chief U.S. Investigative Reporter with DailyMail.com. Harmonia, the little girl is shot twice. Now, I've looked at the layout of the home, and I think she got out of a second-story window. Is that correct? Yeah, so one of the 911 calls the girl managed to make from a neighbor's house. Actually, she got there, as you mentioned,

by jumping out of her window after pretending that she had been killed because she was shot twice, once in the neck and once in the hand she's actually out of the hospital a hospital right now and doing well um but yeah she jumped out of her bedroom window after her little sister was killed after she herself was shot twice and then ran to a neighbor's home apparently the neighbor uh had some medical training and was able to help her uh and help her call help her call 911. And that's how police

reach the scene. Joining me right now, in addition to Dr. Kendall Crowns, Hermania Rodriguez, attorney Guy D'Andrea is Barry Hutchinson, former law enforcement veteran owner and chief investigator for Barry and Associates Investigation Services located in Kansas and Missouri. Barry, thank you for being with us. You know what, Barry? A miracle. Now, a lot of people will say, ah, just bad aim. That 11-year-old girl survived is a miracle.

And you and I have seen it a million times in court and homicide investigations. The one that lived to steal a phrase from Harry Potter, the girl who lived. I find this to be a miracle. Shot twice, Barry, and we've seen it over and over in horrible, horrible mass homicides like this Fall City Massacre. One person lives, shot twice, plays dead, sees her whole family brutally murdered, jumps out of a second story window and somehow stands up and runs Barry Hutchinson. Yeah, it was amazing. I guess it just shows that the child's will to live

and God was with her. I mean, that's all there is to it. You were hearing about two 911 calls from Hermonio Rodriguez. Listen. Humiston is reporting the massacre of his family at the hand of his 13-year-old brother when another call comes into the 911 center at 5.02 a.m. Bradley Dennis lives down the street from the Humiston residence and says the 11-year-old sister of Humiston arrived at his home, ringing the doorbell over and over until they answered the door. The girl says her family has been shot and are all dead. Bradley Dennis says the girl appears injured by a possible gunshot wound and she is bleeding from her neck and hand. Straight back out to Hermania Rodriguez. Hermania, so the 11-year-old girl

jumps from a second story window, runs, but there is another call. The other call is from inside the family home, the bathroom. Who is calling? So yes, the person that we now know was a 15-year-old shooter calls 911 from the bathroom of the home and tells police that his 13 year old brother, Benjamin, killed his entire family with his father's gun.

Now, police arrive and start looking at the scene and start really looking at whether what the 15 year old said was true. But speaking of the miracle of the nine year old girl, the 11 yearold girl who survived pardon, she also had a different story to tell police. Barry Hutchinson joining me, 26 years in L.A., law enforcement veteran detective and now owner of Barry and Associates Investigative Services. Barry, the defense with a straight face in court said you should let him out, Judge, because he's been described as very polite and he loves water sports and camping. So did David Berkowitz, you know, the son of Sam. Truer words were never spoken, Barry. Explain what you're saying. David Berkowitz, who was the son of Sam Kilder in New York City, had never, ever been in any kind of trouble. He was described by everybody that knew him as being the most polite person that you had or possibly could ever meet. And a lot of people liked him, but he killed

six or seven people. And again, Barry Hutchinson, this is not Mr. Congeniality. I'm not asking for him to be crowned the king of the ninth grade. Okay. That's not what this is about. Five people, including, and you heard Dr. Lisa Long say it's very rare that a young boy will murder his own mother. You know, about last year sometime, we were all having, we went out for brunch on a Saturday morning and my son was changing

and putting on a sweatshirt at the table. And when he did, he stretched his arm out, bought me in the head. Do you know, he still apologizes for hitting me in the head when he was changing his sweatshirt to this day, it's been over a year and he still feels bad about that one little thing. It just, when Lisa Long said, it's very rare that a mother is murdered by a child. I'm curious, and I don't know that I'll ever get the answer in this case, what drove him to murder his whole family, including a seven-year-old little sister and a mother. But that said, Barry Hutchinson, I played sound earlier when Derek Rosa, I believe Derek was about 14 years old, when he, I guess, angry because mom had remarried and had a baby. Derek Rosa was an honor student, all A's, very sweet, described as timid and mild.

He murdered his mother, murdered her with the baby sleeping, the baby sister sleeping right beside her in a baby bed. He was polite too, Barry Hutchinson. That's true. I mean, in today's day and age, there's so much evil out there. I mean, there's really no explanation to a lot of the stuff that happens. We just kind of have to pick up the pieces and work the crimes as they occur. And it's really, really, really an awful thing. And, you know, it's hard to deal with on a lot of occasions. If you don't mind, I'd like to revert back to some of the characteristics about the shooting and the positioning of the gun that the doctor was speaking of earlier. There's a phenomenon known if you're a firearms instructor or a lot of times when you work homicide cases or even shooting cases.

There's a phenomenon known as limp-wristing a handgun, okay? Especially somebody that has a handgun in their non-dominant hand. And we have to really combat this when we teach firearm tactics in the police academy. If you don't hold a gun in the proper way, you don't exert the right amount of strength for the firearm itself. The actual slide on the gun will have what's called a stovepipe malfunction. If that 13-year-old boy would have shot that gun with his non-dominant hand, there is a very, very high likelihood that that gun would have experienced a malfunction of what I just described. Plus, the stippling on the other side of his head would be indicative of showing whether or not that gun was close to the head or if it was an execution shot. And beyond the physical aspects of that you spoke

of earlier, it's almost impossible. And I would go as far as say that as long as I've been around cases like this, I've never known anybody to shoot theirself twice in the head like that. Never. And I'm sure that, you know, freak things can happen. I've just never personally experienced that. And the other thing that really bothered me about the case also was the code calculations of this child and the mindset that he had. Like you said earlier, he went from body to body and checked to see their vitals, whether or not they were dead. And the father had an execution shot behind his left ear. That's how heinous this crime was. That's how heinous this individual child was that committed this murder or these murders.

A chilling 911 call at 4.55 in the early hours of the morning details a grisly crime scene. A 15-year-old's entire family has been shot dead in the dark of the night, with the sole survivor being the eldest son. The entire family wiped out except for the 11-year-old little girl and the 15-year-old boy who's barricaded himself in the family bathroom to call 911. To Hermania Rodriguez, tell me where the bodies were found. Right. So we now know that the body of the father, Mark, was found in the first floor as well as of Joshua 9 and Benjamin 13. And then Sarah, the mother, was found bent over in her bathroom that was inside her bedroom in the second floor.

And Catherine, the seven-year-old girl, was shot, as we discussed, as she was exiting the room that she shared with the 11-year-old girl. And the 15-year-old, as we mentioned, was found in a bathroom hiding, allegedly. I'm trying to make sense of what we are hearing straight out to Guy D'Andrea, former prosecutor, veteran trial lawyer. Guy, so it seems to me the dad, and correct me if I'm wrong, Hermonia, and one brother are found on the first floor. I don't believe that there are bedrooms on the, I don't believe that that's where they slept. So they were on the first floor. The mom was in a different bathroom. It sounds like some of the shooting started in one of the children's bedrooms and that the mom ran one way and the dad and little brother ran a different way. Mom's barricading herself in one bathroom

and dad and brother are downstairs. Does it? I mean, think about it, guy. It's four fifty five a.m. What does that tell you about the sequence of events, guy? Yeah. The father running downstairs makes sense in terms of what's going on where is this shooting happening right the the younger brother it does seem strange to me that he would be down there with the father look anything could happen you know but you would think from a parental perspective if the father saw the one child he would tell him go back to your room go back to your room daddy's got it or something to that effect unless unless the shooting was upstairs, if the shooting is happening upstairs and just let's just go with this, follow it through to his logical conclusion.

The shooting, if it's erupts upstairs, then I could see the dad and the little boy running out into the hallway and then taking off downstairs. We know I can see that. Hermonia, isn't the mom in an upstairs bedroom, upstairs bathroom? Correct.

She was in the bathroom of her room, which was upstairs. There's Mark, the dad, Sarah, the mom, Benjamin, 13, Joshua, 9, Catherine, 7, and the 11-year-old little sister that survived. Right? That's correct. Yes. Benjamin's 13? That's correct. Yes. Benjamin's 13. Benjamin's 13. I find that statistically hard to believe, Dr. Lisa, that a 13 year old boy unleashes

on his whole family. I mean, at that age, if he looked at porn online, if that's a big if, if he did at that age, I would think that he would be more embarrassed than angry. What about it, doctor? Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Nancy. And you're correct that the rate of familicide is extremely low. So there are so many factors that need to be looked at in this case, especially if we were going to assume that a 13 year old boy had partaken in any of this. There are a multitude of factors, risk factors that we would want to look at and protective factors. Such as? So as far as the risk factors go,

was there any criminal history for any of the juveniles involved in? I can tell you right now there was zero, Dr. Lisa Long. Right. And earlier you brought up, Nancy, that they were describing the they were describing the 15 year old boy as being kind, enjoying camping. So really being able to weigh out, you know, in each specific case, we need to look at everything and the culmination of whether there are any adverse childhood experiences. So the ACEs scores for these kids and really going through and looking at, is there any history of acting out behavior? I know they were homeschooled. We discussed that earlier. Did they have involvement within the community? Were they really isolated?

And it's my understanding that they weren't isolated. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace dr lisa let me ask you another question and when you say it's statistically low i'm just going anecdotally and guessing when there is a family massacre, it's extremely rare, but number two, it's typically the dad just kills everybody. I've seen that more often when there is a rare family massacre. It's usually the dad is a family annihilator for whatever reason. Number two, you rarely see a mother get rid of the whole family. Very rare. Occasionally, you'll see a male teen do that. But for a male teen, for instance, the 13-year-old, to shoot the whole family, a family massacre, that's extremely rare, isn't it? Absolutely. Especially when you see the mother

being killed as well. That's what makes this case even more of an anomaly. That really stands out. And because typically children have intense or children have closer attachments with the maternal figure, you would expect that in most cases. And typically, the mother is the primary caretaker for children. So the mothers usually don't see that type of violence, especially perpetrated by their children. That's what also makes this case stand out. The eldest son of the Humiston family frantically calls emergency services for help, claiming he's the victim of a botched murder-suicide plot perpetrated by his younger brother. Okay, there's so many things wrong with this scenario. The 15 year old tells 911 his little brother, Benjamin, just 13,

shot and killed the entire family and then quote, took himself out. His words, not mine. But let's examine the injuries to 13 year old Benjamin, also found dead. Did he, could he have committed suicide? To Dr. Kendall Crown's chief medical examiner, Tarrant County, I want to analyze this. So Benjamin Huniston, the little brother, is shot twice. Am I supposed to believe that he shot himself once in the left cheek with the bullet traveling through his brain and the second gunshot behind the right ear. Okay. Whoa, hold on. One gunshot wound goes through the left cheek with the bullet traveling through the brain, which is an upward angle. The other shot is behind the right ear. We have not, it hasn't been revealed the trajectory path of that. Wait for it, Dr. Kendall Crowns. The Glock is found

in Benjamin's left hand. Our investigation reveals that Benjamin is right hand dominant. There is no blood spatter on his left hand or on the Glock, which tells me the Glock was wiped clean and then placed in the hand. But for the purposes of your participation, Dr. Kendall Crowns, how can you shoot yourself once in the head and continue shooting until you kill yourself? Okay, so you can shoot yourself in the head and then continue to function. It just depends on what part of your brain was damaged. If you hit in the center part of your brain, which is called the motor strip, it will instantly stop you from being able to move your arms and legs, etc. But if you hit more in the frontal part of your brain, you can still function. It's just it'll it will be difficult

to function. And we have I have over the years seen people shoot themselves more than once and attempts to suicide. It's usually when they've put the gun too far forward and taken out the frontal lobe of their brain. They're still able to function and move the gun and reposition it and shoot themselves again. If the kid has the gun in his left hand, he's right hand dominant, which would be odd. But the fact that he shot himself in the right side of his head, he would have to do something like this or that to pull that off, which is highly unusual. So the positioning is odd. The fact that the gun is clean is odd.

Dr. Krause, can you do that again? Can you do that again? Because I don't see how you can hold the gun if you're right-hand dominant and shoot behind your head. Okay, go ahead. So in your left hand, if he's shooting himself in the back of the right side of his head, he'd have to reach around and do it like that or something along those lines, which is really awkward and hard to do. And, you know, if you're going to shoot yourself, you're just going to put it to the side of your head or in your mouth or under your chin.

You're not going to reach around and do something weird. And that's after you've already shot yourself once. Correct. So you'd already have the gunshot wound in the left cheek that's hit his brain. So whatever brain function is compromised at that point, he's still going to have to be maneuvering around and doing some sort of complex maneuver to get it to the right side of his head, which would be highly unusual. So if his brain's already compromised, shooting himself in the left cheek, if he's still able to function, I think he'd put it in his mouth or put it on the left side of his head, not right side of back of head, which would be hard.

As first responders are dispatched to the quiet neighborhood of Lake Alice, a second 911 call comes in. An 11-year-old girl who identifies the Humiston family shooter as her oldest brother. Dear Lord in heaven, what this child has witnessed, and now she no longer has. A mother, a father also killed. Benjamin Humiston, just 13, Joshua Humiston, just nine and seven year old Catherine Humiston, all dead, all dead straight out to Harmonia Rodriguez joining us from dailymail.com. Tell me what the 11 year old little girl saw, Harmonia. Yeah. So that's the latest developments in this story because we now know from court what the 11-year-old told police. She said that she woke up early on Monday with shots ringing out. As we have heard already, she was shot twice. She saw who shot her,

told police it was her older brother who was 15. She played dead. She told police that she saw her brother checking on the family members to make sure they were dead before she made her escape. She also told police that it was only the 15-year-old who had access to the father's weapon. She also said her older brother had been in a lot of trouble lately, particularly when it came to his schoolwork. And that's what we know right now from the girl who's now being taken care of by a relative who lives in the area. You know, I'm just trying to take in what has happened. A 15-year-old boy now accused of annihilating his entire family. The 11-year-old little sister says she laid there and held her breath after she was shot so her own brother would think she was dead to save her own life. She says that her 15-year-old brother got her dad's Glock. She heard someone yelling, stop and help.

She sees her older brother leaning over the three dead bodies, actually touching their necks and chests to see if they're still alive. He comes back in her room and the little girl holds her breath, pretending to play dead as he stands next to her bed where she is lying bleeding. She hears him leave the room. She goes out a window in her room to escape from the second floor and starts running. As she turns back, she sees the 15-year-old Hemiston talking on the phone in the home's front entry. Wow. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Guy D'andrea joining us former prosecutor veteran trial lawyer i've heard a lot of trial lawyers usually defense lawyers argue that children are not good witnesses and i'm sure they're going to argue this 11 year old little girl has no credibility because she's a child. I've argued to many, many juries, Guy D'Andrea, that the exact opposite is true, that children have less cunning, less ability to lie.

Also, no way can a insanity or mental disturbance defense be mounted here. Why? Because if this is true, and I have no reason to disbelieve the 11-year-old little girl, the 15-year-old brother had the wherewithal to check the pulses of his dead mother and dead father, dead brother, dead sister. He checked their pulses to make sure they were dead. He went and checked on the little sister and saw she wasn't breathing because she was holding her breath.

Then he goes downstairs and makes his fake 911 call, claiming his brother did it, the 13-year-old, because he was angry. Then wipes the gun clean and places it in the brother's hand. A last cowardly act to frame the 13 year old little brother. No way is he going to be able to claim he's crazy, maybe like a fox. Yeah, the mental health defense as it relates to insanity, you're right. It's a difficult position to take post, given all the things he did. I would expect and we don't know if this is true or not, but I would expect the mental health defense is going to. We'll have to wait and see, but align itself with physical or sexual abuse at the hands of the parents. Now, look, I'm not saying dear Lord in heaven.

Andrea, did you just say physical or sex abuse by the parents? Did you say that? What I'm saying is if I expect to see that potentially from the defense attorneys, because what else are they going to say? Meaning he did so many things post-shooting that it would make it very challenging from a insanity defense, because if you can show that someone had the wherewithal to cover things up, to create an alibi or create a self-defense or create what he created here, which was it was my younger brother murder suicide. It's very difficult. So they have to have some defense. We don't know what it's going to be. But so you're basically saying it doesn't matter if it's true or not, but they've got to come up with a defense. Well, it's not the first time

a young boy this same age turned family annihilator. I don't know if the name Derek Rosa rings a bell because I will never forget it. Listen. Okay. Where else did you stop?

They're all cutting her neck? Where is your sister? She's in her crib sleeping. I did not touch her. How old is your sister? She's only like a week old. Okay. And you did not touch her, correct? No, I did not touch her. I didn't want to touch my sister. I need to know if your mom is breathing. She said, miss, I have the gun with me. I was going to shoot myself, but I didn't want to.

I didn't want to. I pulled back the slide, but I did not shoot. Humiston is transported to the Sammamish police station where he is put in touch with an attorney who then tells detectives that Humiston will not be speaking with them. The lone survivor of the attack, Humiston's 11-year-old sister, is transported to Harborview Medical Center for treatment for her non-life-threatening injuries. A miracle that this little 11-year-old girl, she is the sole survivor out of her family. Her mother murdered, her father murdered, her brother 13, Benjamin, murdered, her nine-year-old brother, Joshua, murdered, and even her little sister, 13, Benjamin, murdered. Her nine-year-old brother, Joshua, murdered.

And even her little sister, Catherine, murdered. She's left with no one but her 15-year-old brother, now charged with murder. Now, is it true, Hermania Rodriguez joining us from Daily Mail. Hermania, is it true that lawyers asked for him to be released and they stated that he is described as, quote, polite and loves fishing and camping? That's what they've got. Did they actually say that? That is what happened last week in court. He waived his right to appear in court, but his lawyers appeared there for him and they asked for him to receive bond, arguing that he has no criminal history.

And also, as you said, that he was a nice, polite boy that enjoyed water sports and had an active life sort of filled with nature. And again, no criminal past. However, a judge did not buy that, did not go for that argument. I'm sorry, Hermione, I just want to make sure that I'm hearing correctly. Did you say he enjoyed nature? Correct. That's kind of how they are describing. Well, we ain't going to see a lot of that in JV jail. OK, the big question right now is, will he be treated as an adult?

We all know all of you legal Eagles that there are seven deadlies, Guy D'Andrea, seven deadly sins, crimes that will automatically in most cases, transfer you out of juvenile court to adult court. That does not mean you are in GP general population with adult males. You are held juvenile, but you'll be tried as an adult. And those sevens are, I think, murder, rape, child molestation, armed robbery, arson, sodomy, aggravated assault, shooting somebody. To the best of my recollection off the top of my head, those are called the seven deadlies. You do that as a juvenile, typically over 12, you're going to be tried as an adult. The defense will have to do a backflip to get a judge to remand this back down to juvie court. Yeah. So Washington, if you are 16 or 17 and you

are alleged to have committed this type of crime, first degree murder, aggravated first degree murder, it is a auto, what they call in Washington, an auto declination, meaning it's going to be an adult. But he's 15. Correct. He's 15. That's right. I'm just sharing out the difference. This is a discretionary decline. So now, and the prosecutor has done this. They filed their motion to say this is not appropriate for juvenile court. Now the defense will have to compile a defense to fight this. And there will be motions and hearings and disputes regarding whether or not it's appropriate to have this individual tried as an adult. Given the gravity, I strongly believe they would have to have, it's a hill that I would not want to have to climb as a defense attorney. Dr. Lisa Long, an earlier introduced forensic psychologist in honor of Dr. Long and associates. Dr. Lisa, this is a hurdle for the prosecution, as Guy D'Andrea was alluding to earlier, because when you see a young boy, he's just turned 15, take out his whole family, including his mother and his little seven-year-old sister, which I find just anecdotally almost impossible to believe, but the facts say it happened, a jury is going to want to believe the 15-year-old is mentally ill

because the alternative is to believe, as you heard Barry Hutchinson describing earlier, and he's right, a teen boy systematically seeing if he was successful in murdering his whole family. So the jury will probably want to believe he's mentally ill so they don't have to believe the alternative. But the facts tell me something very different, Dr. Lisa. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Nancy. I mean, this is a horrific case. And, you know, unfortunately, we don't have enough information right now if there was anything posted on social media or more risk factors. I know it was discussed earlier that he doesn't have a criminal history, but those are some of the factors that we would be looking at

if they moved forward and did a forensic psychological evaluation on him. You know, they would be looking at the attachment, if there was any history of substance abuse, his academic functioning, his cognitive functioning. There's no indicators as of yet that there was any impaired cognitive functioning or any significant family dynamics that would result in this type of tragedy. You know, that's one of the main, an area that gets a lot of attention and there's a lot of research, the ACEs. We would want to know those scores for him. So have there been any adverse childhood events for this family, for this child? And up until now, it doesn't look as though there has been. It really looks as though this is an ideal family and a family where we would think this just couldn't happen.

One of those, a case where there aren't the risk factors. We just aren't seeing them yet where we would see them flagged. We wait as justice unfolds and our prayers, of course, for the 11-year-old little girl that lived. We stop now and remember an American hero, Staff Sergeant Jesse Sherrill, New Hampshire State Police, killed in the line of duty. He served New Hampshire State Police 19 years, survived by wife, now widow, Nicole, and children, Peyton and Quinn. American hero, Sergeant Jesse Sherrill. Thank you to our guests for being with us, but especially to you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.