Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen cuts off aunt’s boyfriend’s head in grisly murder, leaves severed head as 'gift'

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

A teen boy goes to live with his aunt and her boyfriend. The arrangement gets violent when the boy refuses to work and help out. What happens next is the makings of a horror movie as the teen attacks the boyfriend and dismembers him, leaving the body parts in his aunt's bed.Joining Nancy Grace today: Salena Diaz - Daughter of victim   Sylvestre Diaz-Hernandez- Son of victim Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia, Defense Attorney Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Beverly Hills, ww.drbethanymarshall.com  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet" featured on "Poisonous Liaisons" on True Crime Network  Rummana Hussain -  Assistant Metro Editor, Chicago Sun-Times    Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. When we say the word Christmas, it evokes Christmas cards with happy families on the front, firesides, Christmas trees, maybe Hanukkah for you, but all good things, all good things at Christmas. That is not true for everyone. Why does Christmas resentment turn to anger? And why does that anger boil over into Christmas violence? You know, I could ask why all day long, but as a trial lawyer, I'm trained to look at evidence. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here on Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to this.

18-year-old Alexis Valdez has been living with his aunt and her boyfriend for about six months. He moved into the basement apartment with the understanding that he would go to school, work, and help pay the bills, but that didn't happen. In fact, Valdez quit his job, which led to tension in the household. Neighbors say you could hear the arguments from inside the home. Eventually, Valdez was told he would have to move out. We are talking about Alexis Valdez, a teen boy or man under the law. That's a man, 18 years old. With me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. First of all, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University,

author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and Starving New Kids series on the True Crime Network, Poisonous Liaisons. Also with me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, and you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Daryl Cohen, former felony prosecutor turned defense attorney, practices all over the country, but now joining me from the Atlanta jurisdiction.

A special guest joining me from Chicago is Romana Hussain, assistant metro editor with the Chicago Sun-Times. And two very special guests joining me, Sylvester Diaz and Selena Diaz. First of all, straight out to you, Romana Hussain with the Chicago Sun-Times. Tell me about where this happened. Chicago's a very big town. This happened on the northwest side of the city. And could you describe that? I know this was an apartment. Yes, it's a residential area. I believe this happened in a basement apartment on the northwest side of the city. I'm just thinking about the family dynamics here. You've got a young man, teen, Alexis Valdez, moving in with his aunt and her longtime love, her boyfriend, Sylvester. So let me go to Selena Diaz and Sylvester Diaz. That is Mr. Diaz's son. First to you, Selena, tell me about your dad and his relationship with the aunt in this scenario.

He did speak about it here and there. Not very often. I wasn't too excited of the new idea that he had a girlfriend. What about you, Sylvester? My story is kind of different. I was actually in the apartment at one point, and I actually encountered with her. And, you know, nothing was right in that situation when my dad brought me down there. I'm trying to take in what you're saying. With me is Sylvester Diaz-Hernandez's son, also named Sylvester. You're telling me you were in the apartment just before tensions boiled over and you felt, quote, nothing was right.

What was that feeling you got? You know, like, he didn't really speak to me about anything that was happening in his personal life because me and my little sister, we, you know, my older brother took care of us. So we live with him and we really didn't see my father as much, you know, once my, once my mother passed away. So the day I did go into the apartment, it didn't seem right. I had a couple of young-age kids drinking. I wasn't the one drinking, but I seen kids drinking in there. Hold on just a moment right there.

I want to follow up on what you're telling me because it's really important, Sylvester. Yes. You know, I want to go to Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst joining us from Beverly Hills. Bethany, you and I have touched on this before. Two things that Sylvester is telling us. One, when he went into the apartment that his dad shared with his sweetheart, the young nephew had moved in, Alexis Valdez. And immediately when he got there, he said something wasn't right. It was just a feeling. And I've asked him, you can't really put his

finger on that feeling or identify it. But you know, when there's tension, like if my husband and I are having an argument of some sort, it could be serious. It could be over dinner that night. And Lucy or John David walks in. They go, what's going on? Right. They know something's different. And you may not know what it is, but you know. And you should not discount that feeling.

Nancy, those feelings are so important. Whether it's the energy Sylvester felt when he walked into that basement apartment or a series of stories or even omissions leading excuse me leading up to meeting the aunt it sounds like there was a great deal of secrecy around this household and in fact secrets were taking place um if there was underage drinking there that That leads me to my next thing, Dr. Bethany, what you just said. Yes. Underage drinking. You put three people together and, you know, when you got three people living in a basement apartment, I'm getting the sense that it wasn't a big apartment. You have three people in there and suddenly Alexis Valdez quits working. Look,

if they were making tons of money, they wouldn't be living in a basement apartment. I've lived in an apartment like that before. I know. So you've got the three of them in this apartment, then suddenly he quits working and then you throw in teen drinking. The only teen living there was Alexis Valdez. That's like pouring gas on the flame, Bethany. Absolutely, because we know teenagers, their prefrontal cortex isn't fully formed. That's the breaking system in the brain. So whatever they feel and think is going to come boiling over. And when somebody drinks, that already greases the wheels of negative emotions. Nancy, one more layer is that this aunt and nephew had known each

other probably since the nephew's birth. They had their own dynamics, their own way of being together. Maybe the aunt was being codependent with the nephew or coddling him or quite the opposite. Maybe she was strict and authoritarian, but you add an outside person coming into a pre-existing dynamic, that is ripe for conflict because it's the person who's outside the primary household who usually sees pretty accurately what's going on. So that person's going to speak up, that person's going to be authoritative, and that person also is going to get punished for seeing things clearly. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about Christmas tensions and anger boiling over into violence. This is unlike any case I have ever seen before. And as it unfolds,

the grisly crime scene left behind is one I will not forget. Take a listen again to Jackie Howard with Crime Online. 18-year-old Alexis Valdez has been living with his aunt and her boyfriend for about six months. He moved into the basement apartment with the understanding that he would go to school, work, and help pay the bills. But that didn't happen. In fact, Valdez quit his job, which led to tension in the household. Neighbors say you could hear the arguments from inside the home. Eventually, Valdez was told he would have to move out. So you see, trouble is a-brewing. And in the great words of Benjamin Franklin, who I've quoted many, many times, fish and house guests start to stink after with us. So here we are in this residential area with

these three people living downstairs. And then suddenly, the next thing we know, Ramona, is this. Take a listen to Mike Krauser, News Radio. The details of the alleged crime read like a horror story. According to prosecutors, 18-year-old Alexis Valdez hid a hammer behind the door to the basement apartment where he lived with his aunt and her boyfriend, 41 year old Silvestri Diaz Hernandez. Assistant State's Attorney Kingsley Sawyers says Valdez and Diaz Hernandez went out for a while and when they came back, it occurred. And as the victim went into the house, the defendant took the hammer, hit the victim in the head several times, and then dismembered and decapitated his body. Valdez, according to the prosecutor, left parts of the dismembered body as a present for his aunt, who was out at the time.

He called 911 and reported a dead body and was asked if he tried CPR and was said to be laughing as he told the operator the body was decapitated. Straight to Ramona Hussain, assistant Metro editor, Chicago Sun-Times. What can you tell me about what happened? I will tell you. First of all, I wanted to first of all express my condolences to Mr. Diaz's two children, two adult children. I'm sorry to relive this again. But what happened was that Alexis Valdez was drinking at home while his aunt and her boyfriend were out at a party. So Mr. Diaz came home and he realized the beer was out. So they went out. So he and Mr. Valdez went out to go get some more beer. And before they had left, Mr. Valdez had hidden a hammer in the house.

And so when they returned, Mr. Valdez allowed Mr. Diaz to go inside the house. And so when he went inside the house, that's when he grabbed the hammer, according to prosecutors, and began attacking Mr. Diaz. To Selena Diaz, this is the daughter of Sylvester Diaz, when did you learn your father had been attacked? So it was the day of Christmas. I had my father and my mom's kind of best friends when they were younger and my cousin who walked into my room and told told me that he had passed they didn't technically tell me how and that's when I found out I found out Christmas morning around like 10 10 o' Selena, two things to tell you. My dad and he and I were like two soulmates.

He passed away right before Thanksgiving. And now as Thanksgiving approaches every year, that, I mean, I'm trying to plan a wonderful Thanksgiving for my children and my family. But on my mind, as each day gets closer and closer, I think about my dad. And I also remember when you said they first told you that he had passed and didn't tell you how. When my fiance was murdered, I found out that he had passed from his sister. But I didn't know for about an hour that he had actually been murdered.

And in my mind, I was playing out all these scenarios. Was he in a car crash? What happened? I just assumed it had been a car crash. When you were first told by your family friends that your dad had passed, what did you think had happened? I wasn't too for sure um I was quite young I didn't really think too much about it um I didn't have I didn't have any ideas because I didn't know how who where when why it was not until maybe a couple days later that that my family kind of told me about it. Because I was so young, they didn't want to tell me quite everything and how it happened and all the details. Sylvester, who is Sylvester Diaz's namesake, when did you learn your dad had passed away okay so um so i was calling my dad so i spoke to him

um the day prior and you know i went out and i got him a gift and everything so i spoke to him day prior and i told him that i got him something so i called him in the morning a couple times and i realized he wasn't answering so i I waited a couple hours and you know like my you know I'm the oldest so my my uh my cousin called me and he told me he's like hey dude like I don't want you to worry too much but you know something might have happened but we're gonna figure it out and I'm gonna pick you up you know You know, I haven't talked to this guy in a couple years, so, you know, I knew something was up. So he picked me up and, you know, I spoke with the detectives

and they told me they had had two Hispanic bodies in the morgue and they wanted to make sure that, you know, they identified my father. You know, I thought about it like this can't, you know, this can't be right, you know they identified my father you know I I thought about like this can't you know this can't be right you know like but I know when once he was wasn't picking up the phone something wasn't right so you know I was with my father when he had when he got some um tattoos so I was able to identify two of the tattoos on his body and that's when they confirmed it and it was nine in the morning on Christmas day when I found out with with my my cousin and you know Sylvester so the first time you realized that your dad may have been may have passed away is when they said there are two bodies at the morgue and we

want to see if it's your dad that's how you found out yeah yeah and my cousin and sent me some links that he had seen on like on the internet and i recognized the the basement i recognized the basement from the from the last time that i'd been there. And, you know, I put the pieces together and, you know, I figured it out. You know, to Daryl Cohen joining me, former felony prosecutor in inner city Atlanta, now defense attorney, joining me out of Atlanta, Daryl Cohen, how many times have you heard a victim's family say they knew their loved one had passed before they were told? They had figured it out. They knew something horrible had happened.

Like right now, when I would call you, Daryl, if you don't pick the phone up, I don't think anything nefarious has happened. But in these cases, so many times I've heard the person say, this time when they didn't pick up, I knew something had happened. Nancy, it's not what people say sometimes. It's the tone of voice. It's the emotion. And, you know, there was an old radio show called The Shadow. Yeah. And it reminds me of who knows what old radio show called The Shadow. Yeah.

And it reminds me of who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man and woman. Yes, it's not what I'm about to tell you, but you hear it in my voice. You hear the emotion. You hear every fiber of my body telling you that I can't tell you what I'm about to tell you, but choice I do not have. So I make that, and I finally tell. So, yeah, I agree with you 1,000%. I've seen it over and over and over where victims' families know before they're told.

How did Christmas animosity boil over into murder? That is what we are talking about now. Take a listen to Mike Krauser News Radio. The details of the alleged crime read like a horror story. According to prosecutors, 18-year-old Alexis Valdez hid a hammer behind the door to the basement apartment times and then dismembered and decapitated his body. Valdez, according to the prosecutor, left parts of the dismembered body as a

present for his aunt, who was out at the scene. The victim was arrested for assault and was charged with murder. The defendant was charged with murder and was charged with murder and

murder. The defendant was charged with murder and murder. The defendant was charged with murder and murder. The defendant was charged with murder and murder. The defendant was charged with murder and murder. The defendant was charged withitated his body. Valdez, according to the prosecutor, left parts of the dismembered body as a present for his aunt who was out at the time.

He called 911 and reported a dead body and was asked if he tried CPR and was said to be laughing as he told the operator the body was decapitated. Laughing when he told the 911 dispatcher, the body was decapitated. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Selena Diaz, the loss of your father by a blow to the head with a hammer is bad enough. When did you learn what had really happened to your dad? Well, I kind of find out through the internet. My family told me only certain parts of the incident due to how graphic it actually was. They didn't quite tell me everything to kind of make sure I don't kind of upset myself by crying and being too upset.

So they told me just a little bit of it. And I was just questioning it and questioning it and questioning it. And then I decided to read some of the news stories. And that's when I found out like the whole, the whole truth of it. Sylvester, when did you find out exactly what happened to your dad. It happened the same day that I had to go to the police station to identify the body with my cousin. You know, they didn't give me too much details, but they did tell me that my father wasn't going to be able to be buried.

Sylvester, when you think about your dad, for the longest time after my dad passed away, I would think about being with him at the moment he died, waiting with his body until it was taken away and walking with it until it was put in a vehicle. For the longest time, that is what was in my head. Now the happy memories are trickling in. When you think about your dad now, do you think about this horrific event that took

his life? Or has that been replaced with happy memories you know what like um it's a little bit of both because like you know i lost my mother the year before and you know we lost our father and you know like we think about this every single day you know of our life but this this can't this can't hold us back from you know achieving our goals you know we got to make somebody proud and I feel like you know this is something that will never be erased from somebody's mind and just the fact of how things went you know you don't really hear too much about these kind of stories. And it's just crazy.

It's mind-blowing. And I understand because sometimes Daryl Cohen, I'm hearing what Sylvester and Selena are saying. Sometimes I would dread an opening statement because it was going to be grisly and awful. And I tried to break the jury in when we had the jury panel. So they would know what they were getting into before you get the petit jury, the jury of 12. But when he says you don't hear about this a lot, you don't. Because at Christmas time, people want to hear about the holidays. They want to hear about the nativity scene.

They want to hear about shopping. They don't want to hear this, but it's the truth. Nancy, I am recalling the times when we had those grisly cases, and I had a very difficult time in relating that to a jury initially, because I got into the heads of the victim's family. And when you do that, you not only sympathize, you empathize. It was very difficult. So I had to get a worry about what happened rather than emotionally being involved in it. Because as you and I both know, if you're involved in something emotionally, you don't see it, as you pointed out earlier correctly.

I look at it as if it's a football game. You have to be on the 50-yard line, but not on the field. You have to be up top. I was never able to do that, Darrell, and still can't. I would be too involved with the victims and their families and have never been able to disassociate from that. To Ramona Hussein, assistant Metro editor of Chicago Sun-Times, tell me when police arrived what they observed. Valdez was sitting in the front yard with his iPad and he just said, aren't you going to arrest me? And they were like, why would we arrest you? Or, you know,

aren't you going to ask me? He's asking if he was going to ask them any questions. And then he said, police said that he said that, quote, I just killed a man. He's in the basement. And so that's how, you know, that's how the story was unveiled. And apparently he was, Mr. Valdez was holding an iPad when police had arrived. And after, you know, he had said what he said, admitting that he had killed his aunt's boyfriend, he took the iPad and smashed it and police ended up arresting him. To Justice Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, you know what, we see dismemberment cases on movies, very rarely on TV. We hear about them very, very rarely. This is incredibly uncommon, and it's not an easy physical feat to do. For instance,

if you watch Dexter, remember Dexter, who was always dismembering bodies? That's not real. That is extremely rare and very hard to do. Joe Scott? Yeah, it is, Nancy. It's very difficult. I spent many, many years, in addition to being an investigator, working in the morgue as well, was present for over 7,000 autopsies. And for us, from a clinical perspective, we have methodologies that we employ. We have methods that we use and the right tools to use. And we've talked about this before, Nancy. But the fact that he went into such detail with, you know, the only way I can say it, with this dismemberment dissection, it wasn't simply a decapitation. There were other elements involved. It really gives you a clue as to kind of the inner workings of his mind and that he was still able to go out in the yard

as has been reported seated in a chair holding an iPad and this is why this ghastly thing is taking place Nancy I have actually been present in the morgue when we were doing very simple procedures and I had very strong bold men that were down in the morgue and got weak-kneed threw up passed passed out, all these sorts of things just at the first sight of blood. This environment, we've talked about this apartment and how small it is. It's a cramped space. Nancy, this would have been a bloodbath in this environment.

It's a very tiny area. And the work that he did while he was there, this grisly work, would have been portrayed. You know, you would have seen this when you walked in. I cannot imagine the reaction that the local police had when they walked in. They probably thought they were walking through the gates of hell. You know, I've been on many, many crime scenes, literally thousands of real crime scenes, not on TV. I've never seen anything like this.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How did Christmas anger and tension boil over and end up not only in a brutal murder, but a decapitation for a present to his aunt. Take a listen to CrimeOnline.com's Jackie Howard. On Christmas Day, Alexis Valdez and Sylvester Diaz-Hernandez leave to go to a nearby drugstore, which turns out to be closed for the holiday. When they return, Diaz-Hernandez enters the home drugstore, which turns out to be closed for the holiday. When they return, Diaz Hernandez enters the home first. As Valdez comes in, he grabs a hammer he has stashed by the front door earlier in the day. In a surprise attack, he hits Diaz Hernandez in the head. The 41-year-old falls to the floor where Valdez hits him at least 10 more times. Valdez then covers the windows and plays loud music to mask the crime. You know what? I'm learning so much. There is no way in H-E-double-L that this guy could claim

insanity or even delusion because the planning. Did you hear this to you? Let me ask you, Ramana Hussain with Chicago Sun-Times. Do I have this right? He stashed the hammer by the door when he and his uncle left to go to the pharmacy, leaving it there upstairs neighbors can't hear what's going on. Then he calls 911, starts laughing, says that there's been a decapitation, and is sitting there thumbing through on his iPad when the cops arrive and says, I just killed a man. All of that shows he was of sound mind. Do I have those facts wrong in any way, Ramona? No, you have the facts correct. These allegations, or I should say, this is what was laid out when at his bond court hearing in 2013, prosecutors laid out what exactly happened. And they mentioned that he hit the hammer right by the door right before they went out to go get some beer. And when they came back, he, you know, allowed Mr. Diaz to go first so he could attack him. And, you know, from what we understand is like when he started playing the loud music,

that's when the decapitation happened. And he cut off Mr. Diaz's head, ears, nose, and left those body parts on his aunt's bed. According to my colleague, Stefano Esposito, who was at the bond court hearing, this Mr. Valdez had also pulled out Mr. Diaz's eyes with his bare hands. And from what I understand, prosecutors said that he also had cut his left arms, but he left certain body parts on his aunt's bed to, you know, as a, as what he said, quote, a present, unquote. And the aunt wasn't at home, but I believe Mr. Valdez had told authorities that he would have killed his aunt too, if she was home at the time. Ramona Hussain, why? What was his motivation?

It was, it was the anger, you know, according to prosecutors, the anger, the tension that was going on, and the fact that his aunt and boyfriend and her boyfriend had wanted Mr. Valdez out of the apartment. That probably just started, you know, started the tension from brewing over that they wanted him out of the basement apartment. To psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, Bethany, I hardly even know where to start. You have the planned attack, a brutal attack, the overkill of beating this victim, just 41 years old, the father of these two awesome children, beating him over and over and over, then the decapitation, then leaving body parts for the aunt to discover? The aunt that took him and Bethany? And Nancy, we read in the wires that it was because they wanted him to get a job.

I think that is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. This young man is so disturbed, obviously not insane from a legal perspective so that he can't stand trial. But I would say at the very least, you have a young man who has sociopathic tendencies, maybe impulse control problems at a very pathological level. This may have been what we call catathymic homicide, where there's a compulsion to kill that waxes and wanes over time. Because think about it, he had to get the hammer, he had to plan ahead in terms of how he was going to dismember the body, he plucked out the eyes. So there is this extreme pathological rage towards the aunt and the aunt's boyfriend.

And then what we call context-dependent thinking. He's not thinking beyond... Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. What? Context. What? Context-dependent thinking is when you're only involved in that particular moment. You're not thinking that you're going to be arrested or spend the rest of your life in jail or that, you know, hey, it's not so bad to get a job and help support the household. The alternative is being behind prison bars. That's big picture thinking. People who are homicidal are only lost in their own rage and their own inner workings. The aunt, the presence, which were the nose, the lips, parts of the victim's body.

What does that mean? Well, my first thought, Nancy, is it's primitive. In my field, when we use the word primitive, it's like it comes from the deepest part of the brain that's earliest in our evolutionary biological heritage. My neighbor has cats, and the cats are constantly leaving lizards, mice, all kinds of things on my doorstep as a present. That's primitive. That's animal-like. It's not even what human beings do in the civilized world. So that tells me that maybe he was, you know, on the brink of a psychotic episode.

Again, not legally insane. Maybe there was drug use, methamphetamine. We've seen bath salts, you know, street drugs that have synthetic elements to them cause this kind of behavior. So hopefully he's going to have a full psychiatric exam so we can figure out what the genesis is of this mutilation and bloodbath. I just don't understand why he didn't just go get a job or move out. Why didn't Scott Peterson just divorce Lacey? Exactly. Why didn't Casey Anthony give up her child for adoption?

There's this sense that if you're on this planet, my life is going to be miserable. So I have to eradicate you. I'm not just going to move down the block or get a job at McDonald's or something like that. I'm going to wipe you off the face of the planet. That's the thinking. Why Christmas, Dr. Bethany? What is it about the holidays that makes resentments and angers boil over? The reason is that at Christmas, people who are not well psychologically have very childlike fantasies that on this holiday, everybody is going to treat them as being special, and they are going to make up the disillusionment. It's like, let's say I'm thinking my parents were terrible. They didn't give me the gifts I wanted when I was six years old.

My mother didn't cook. Nobody treated me as being special. So on this holiday, I'm going to coerce everybody around me to make me feel special and childlike and joyous. And when they don't, it's going to be hell to pay. So it's profound idealization of the holiday and then really bitter disillusionment. To Selena Diaz, this is Sylvester Diaz's daughter. How has this affected your life now? It's been hard. I grew up without my mom or my dad.

The holidays kind of suck for me. I enjoy them as much as I can, being as I have other families that make it so much better than what it could be. It's just really hard. I mean, it's, I can't even explain it. It's just been so rough and it's been so, so awful. And then just all the things in the future that I was a kid, I won't get to do certain things with my dad. My kids won't ever get to meet him. My husband won't ever get to meet him. So it's just, I don't understand why.

I mean, I think it was very unfair. You know, I mourned my fiancé for so many years, over 20 years, before I would let myself remarry and find joy in my life. And to you, Sylvester Diaz, it makes me, you know, when I see them in the morning, I think, you know, this could be my last day with them. I've got to make it the most special, most wonderful, happy day for them. And losing somebody as you were, you were 18 when you lost your dad, I think, it changes the way you grow up. It changes the way you see the world. Sylvester?

Yeah, I agree. You know, it's been hard for both of us, but I have to be strong for my sister. And, you know, like you said, things haven't been, you know, the same ever since that happened. But, you know, we live our day by day, so not really much we can do. You know, things were hard at the beginning, for sure. You know, our lives were, like, completely turned around. Like, I would never wish that upon anybody. on anybody you know like you got two teenagers no parents you know who to turn to and you know like what are you supposed to do you know I have people that I know who still have their parents and you

know they go they go they go to them for guidance and you know like we we didn't have that and I'm proud to say that you know me and my sister we're doing so much better and you know, like we didn't have that. And I'm proud to say that, you know, me and my sister, we're doing so much better. And, you know, we keep three single day. Since that day. Things that things things will always be rough, but we push through it. That's all we can do to Selena and Sylvester. Selena, what is your advice to other crime victims, to other people that have lost their mom or dad to violent crime?

My best advice would be just to think about all the good times, all the memories you have. Family is a big thing for your support. Friends that are always there for you. Sylvester, what can you say to other crime victims at this time of year? As Christmas is approaching and you and Selena have this in the back of your mind, what can you tell other people to help them based on what you've learned? You know, my family has always been distant, but, you know, through the hard times, you know, all I could say is to, you know, keep close, you know,

you know, things happen overnight. And all I can really say is, you know, enjoy the times that you have with your family because what we've been through, it's only temporarily. You know, people come and people go. And I just want to say to everybody, just keep your family close and your friends, your loved ones. And, you know, all the bad times that people have with each other, you've got to make it right. And, you know, love one another because soon soon enough somebody's going to be gone to ramona hussein where is alexis valdez now in 2017 mr valdez was sentenced to 33 years in prison nancy grace crime story signing off goodbye friend

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