MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Murder Mansion (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

In the early morning hours of February 9, 2014, 17-year-old Lexi Sachs was asleep in her bed, inside of her parents' mansion in San Juan Capistrano, California – one of the nicest and most affluent neighborhoods in the country. And as she lay there, suddenly there was a loud bang on her door that woke her up. Instinctively, Lexi just pulled the covers up over her head like she did when she was a little kid and was scared. As she lay there, she held her breath, hoping the sound she just heard was in her dream, and not in real life. But then, she heard her little brother screaming in the hallway. At that point, Lexi threw off the covers and ran out of her room. And what she found at the end of the hallway would not only turn her life upside down, but it would also leave one of the wealthiest communities in Southern California in complete shock.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. In the early morning hours of February 9th, 2014, 17-year-old Lexi Sachs was asleep in her bed inside of her parents' mansion in San Juan Capistrano, California. And as she lay there, suddenly there was this loud bang on her door that woke her up. And instinctively, Lexi just pulled the covers up over her head like she did when she was a little kid and was scared.

And as she lay there under her covers, she held her breath and stayed totally still, hoping the sound she had just heard was actually from her dream and not in real life. But then she heard her little brother begin to scream in the hallway. And then she heard her little brother begin to scream in the hallway. And at that point, Lexi jumped into action. She threw the covers off and ran out of her bed, out of her room, into the hall. And what she found at the end of the hallway

would not only turn her and her siblings' lives totally upside down, but it would also leave one of the safest and wealthiest communities in the entire country in total shock. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Deliberton story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please kindly rob a bank and leave clues behind that frame the Amazon Music Follow button. Okay, let's get into today's story. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities.

And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one.

It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses

is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the

first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts

or the Wondery app. On the evening of February 6th, 2014, 54-year-old entrepreneur Andra Sachs lit two candles on top of a cake, then started singing Happy Birthday as she carried that cake out of the kitchen inside of her sprawling mansion in San Juan Capistrano, California. Three of Andra's five children joined in the singing and followed their mom. Andra was 5 foot 11 inches tall with dyed blonde hair, and she was the type of person who could take over any room she walked into. So even a simple chorus of happy birthday with her kids felt like a big production whenever Andra was leading it. As Andra, her two teenage daughters, and her eight-year-old son continued to sing Happy Birthday, they walked past a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Their

huge three-story house sat on top of a hill, and the windows looked out over the Pacific Ocean. Then Andra and the kids walked into the dining room, where Andra's ex-husband, Brad, was sitting at the dining room table, smiling. Brad was over six feet tall, he had salt and pepper hair, and he almost always had a tan. Andra put the cake down on the table, and then she and the kids finished singing Happy Birthday. Brad leaned over the cake and blew out the two candles that were shaped like a five and a seven. The kids cheered, and Brad thanked them all for singing. Andra smiled at Brad, but she noticed he was hiding his hands just below the dining room table. She knew why Brad was doing it.

It was because he didn't want the kids to see the tremors that were making his hands shake. Two years earlier, Brad had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which is a disorder of the central nervous system that can include symptoms like muscle stiffness, loss of balance, and tremors. And recently, Brad's symptoms had gotten worse. The kids knew their dad was dealing with Parkinson's, and so they were used to the changes in his movement that the disease could cause. But that night, Brad was celebrating his 57th birthday, and he just wanted the kids to have a good time and not worry about him. So he kept his hands out of sight while Andra cut up pieces of the cake and handed them out to the kids. Then Andra sat down next to Brad

at the table and she rubbed his back. Andra watched the kids laughing and eating their cake. Then she told Brad she wished their two oldest sons, who were away at college, could have come home to visit for his birthday so the whole family could be together. Brad said it was alright, and he pointed out that before they knew it, the girls would go off to college, and their 8-year-old boy would grow up, and it would just be the two of them together most of the time like it had been at the beginning of their relationship. Andra and Brad had met almost 25 years earlier when they were both starting out as entrepreneurs in the growing tech industry. They were both very smart, and they had great minds for business, but other than that, they seemed like they didn't have much in common.

Andra had grown up without a lot of money. In fact, there had been times as a child when her parents struggled just to make mortgage payments. As she got older, Andra had told herself she never wanted to experience anything like that when she was out on her own. So, after she earned a business degree in college, she had worked hard to develop her sales skills herself she never wanted to experience anything like that when she was out on her own. So after she earned a business degree in college, she had worked hard to develop her sales skills and to learn about as many industries as she could in the hope that she would always have job security. Andra was full of energy, she could talk to anybody, and she could be intimidating. And those traits had helped her find success as a salesperson at a pretty young age. But Andra was also driven and

fixated on success, so she had wanted to be her own boss and to make even more money. So by the time Andra had met Brad, she was already formulating plans to start and run her own company. Brad had first seen this tall, stunning, laser-focused woman at a computer convention back in 1990, stunning laser-focused woman at a computer convention back in 1990, and he was totally floored by her. Unlike Andra, Brad had come from money. He was the son of a legendary Southern California surfer, and Brad had wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. So he'd spent a big part of his life traveling and surfing waves on beaches all over the world. And Brad embraced the laid-back surfer attitude. He almost never raised his voice, he never looked like he was in a hurry to get anywhere, and nothing really seemed to stress him out.

And so, when Andra and Brad had met, it really was a case of opposites attracting. Brad had been drawn to Andra's drive and energy, and Andra had been drawn to Brad's kind of quiet, calm demeanor. The two had gotten married a year after they met, and they'd started a family soon after that. They had their first son, Miles, and he was followed two years later by his brother, Ashton. Then, a few years after that, Andra and Brad's first daughter, Lexi, was born. In the dining room, Andra and Brad watched 17-year-old Lexi gather up wrapped birthday presents with her 8-year-old brother, Landon. Andra appreciated that Lexi went out of her way to take care of her little brother because Andra spent a lot of time working and she wasn't always around.

And as Brad's Parkinson's progressed, it was more difficult for him to do certain things around the house and to look after Landon all the time. But there was something about watching Lexi with Landon that always made Brad and Andra a little sad. It wasn't the kids' fault, but seeing them together brought up memories of the worst time in Brad and Andra's lives. Less than a year after Lexi had been born, Andra and Brad had welcomed another daughter, and as their family grew, their businesses had grown alongside it.

Andra and Brad had started multiple companies together and also separately on their own. Then Andra had used some of the profits from one of her companies to invest in rental properties and to build a massive real estate portfolio. In her time as an entrepreneur, Andra had often said it was easy to make money, but keeping it was the hard part. So she saw real estate as a way to protect her and her family's money and to build on the wealth that she had started to make from her other businesses. It turned out that Andra was a very savvy real estate investor, and soon after getting into that business, her investment properties were bringing in millions of dollars. So Andra,

who had been determined never to face the financial struggles her parents had gone through, felt like she had already accomplished more than she could have hoped for. She was making more money than she had ever imagined, and she and Brad had just bought their first house together. It was a modest house compared to the mansion on the hill they would move into years later, but it had a beautiful pool and also had a hot tub. And the happiest part of Andra's life was that she and Brad had two perfect sons and two perfect daughters. But on a day in 1999, 15 years before Brad's family birthday party, two-year-old Lexi and her 16-month-old sister had been at home with a nanny while Andra and Brad were working and the two boys were at school. While the nanny fed the

baby in her high chair, Lexi had walked out of the house, into the backyard, and onto the deck by the pool and the hot tub. Inside the house, the nanny had seen Lexi out the window, so she grabbed the baby from the high chair and rushed outside. Lexi was close to the pool and the nanny panicked. She put the baby down on the deck and then reached out and grabbed Lexi. But when the nanny had grabbed Lexi, the baby had somehow fallen off the deck into the reached out and grabbed Lexi. But when the nanny had grabbed Lexi, the baby had somehow fallen off the deck into the hot tub and drowned.

Following the death of their youngest child, Andra and Brad felt like everything they built together had just been destroyed. It didn't take long for them to start blaming each other for what had happened, and the tensions at home spilled into their work and pretty soon each of them had tried to push the other one out of the businesses they owned together and their marriage fell apart. Andra and Brad had gotten divorced but things had only gotten worse from there. They had sued each other over business assets and personal finances and Andra had even filed a report with police stating that Brad had tried to physically assault her. During this time, their three living children, Miles, Ashton, and Lexi, had clung to each other for support and tried to make both of their parents happy. Miles,

the oldest, had seen himself as the one in charge, the one who was responsible for taking care of his younger siblings, and the other kids followed Miles' lead. But only a couple of years after the ugly divorce, Andra and Brad reconciled. Their friends and family had been shocked, but Andra and Brad seemed happy, and they had moved into the mansion on the hill in San Juan Capistrano that Andra had bought with money from her real estate investments.

So the family was back together again. And then Andra and Brad had expanded the family by adopting Landon and his older sister. But after the divorce, Andra had sworn she would never share her money with Brad again, so she and Brad had not gotten remarried. And the house, and most of the family's assets, were still under Andra's name. In the dining room, Lexi and Landon brought in one final birthday present for Brad. It wasn't wrapped, but it had a bow on it, and when Brad saw it, he lit up. It was a large water bicycle designed to let him ride the ocean waves while sitting on top of it. Parkinson's disease had taken surfing away from Brad, but now with this water bicycle,

he'd be able to get back in the water. He thanked the kids for the great birthday party, then he turned to Andra, gave her a kiss, and thanked her for the incredible gift. They both knew a lot of people did not understand their relationship, an ex-husband and wife living together without getting remarried or sharing their money, but they didn't care. Because Andra and Brad believed that they and their kids were as happy, successful, and loving as a family could be. On February 8th, 2014, so two nights after the birthday party,

Andra helped Brad to their bedroom on the third floor of the house. They hadn't told their younger kids yet, but Andra had recently purchased a new one-story property and she was going to sell the home they lived in. Andra and Brad knew the kids would be disappointed to move out of the mansion on top of the hill, but it was getting too hard for Brad

to deal with the size of the house and to navigate all the stairs, and so Andra wanted a place where he could get to everything he needed on just one floor. While Andra and Brad went to their bedroom, 17-year-old Lexi walked into her little brother Landon's room on the third floor and said goodnight to him as he got ready for bed. Then Lexi and her 15-year-old sister played with the family dogs and talked about school for a little bit before Lexi headed to her own bedroom, which was just down the hall from her brother's.

Lexi got dressed for bed, she laid down, she looked at her phone, and sent a couple of text messages to friends. After a while, she put her phone on the bedside table, flipped off the lamp, and then went to sleep. A few hours later, at about 1.45 in the morning, Lexi woke up startled. She thought she heard a loud noise coming from down the hall, but she didn't know if it was real or if maybe she'd been dreaming. Then, Lexi heard something bang against her bedroom door, and the door flew open. Without thinking, Lexi immediately held her breath and pulled the covers up over her head, like she had done when she was a kid when she got scared. She heard a loud noise, but obviously couldn't see it,

and then something smashed into the wall just above her. Lexi tried her best just to be totally still and not make a sound, but then she heard footsteps running down the hallway, followed by her little brother Landon screaming. Hearing her brother calling out made Lexi jump into action. She threw the covers off of her, she got out of her bed, ran into the hallway, and she saw Landon lying on his chest a few feet outside of his bedroom in the hallway. And he was screaming and crying and saying he couldn't feel his legs.

Then Lexi heard footsteps again coming from behind her, and immediately her body tensed up. But then she turned around and saw it was just her sister running towards her. Lexi yelled for her sister to go call 911, so her sister turned around and ran back to her room on the second floor to get her phone and make the call. Lexi turned around and looked down at Landon and promised him he would be just fine and that she needed to go somewhere but she'd be right back.

And then she turned and ran down the hall towards her parents' room. And when Lexi got inside, her screams carried across the entire house. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time,

somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Hey, Mr. Ballin fans. Did you know you can listen to episodes of this very show ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right.

All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes. But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020 all ad-free too. And you know what that means, uninterrupted listening, so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts, so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy.

45 minutes later, at about 2.30 in the morning, Detectives Justin Montano and Mike Thompson of the Orange County Sheriff's Department drove past a set of large palm trees as they headed up the hill towards Andra and Brad's house. The house was surrounded by a wall with a gate, but the gate was open. Detective Montano drove through the open gate, and he and Thompson saw an ambulance and several squad cars parked out front. The detectives stepped out of their car and looked up at the three-story mansion. Both of these detectives had handled cases in similar Orange County neighborhoods, but they were still taken aback by some of these huge multi-million dollar properties

like the Saxes house. Montano and Thompson made their way up to the mansion and walked inside. One of the first officers who had arrived at the scene met them and led them through the foyer to a large staircase and up to the third floor. Montano and Thompson walked down the third floor hallway past Lexi's bedroom and they saw members of the forensics team examining spots of blood on the floor outside of Landon's room. The detectives followed the officer to the main bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was open, so before they even stepped into the room, they could see inside, and they could see there was blood covering the back wall.

And they could see there were two bodies still lying in the bed. They were Andra and Brad, and they both were deceased. Montano thanked the officer for leading them to the bedroom, and then he and Thompson stepped into the room and walked towards the bed. Neither of them could get over the amount of blood that was covering the sheets. Montano thought this looked more like a gangland hit than a typical homicide. A ballistics expert waved the detectives over and showed them multiple bullet casings he'd already found in the room, but there was no murder weapon left at the scene. Montano went back to the officer who had led them to the bedroom and asked him what he and the paramedics had found when they first entered the house the officer said

the victim's three children who lived in this house had all gathered in the hallway right outside of their parents bedroom the officer said it appeared that the two teenage girls were okay but the eight-year-old boy had lost feeling and movement from the waist down all three kids have been taken to the hospital montano nodded and thanked the officer again for his help. Then Montano and Thompson looked at the scene on the bed again, and for some reason they both had the same thought. Did the two teenage girls murder their parents and maybe paralyze their little brother in the process? The idea of that upset both detectives, but they couldn't rule it out.

The detectives had a theory that the motive for most murders boiled down to one of three things, money, sex, or revenge. And in a mansion like this, in such a wealthy neighborhood, there was definitely a chance that the kids had gone after their parents to maybe get their money. So after spending hours at the crime scene and organizing a canvas of the neighborhood, Montano and Thompson decided to really begin their investigation by talking to the Sachs children. That morning, a few hours after Andra and Brad's bodies had been discovered, their

19-year-old son, Ashton, was sitting on his couch playing a video game inside of his one-bedroom condo in Seattle, Washington. Ashton was lanky with straight brown hair that hung down over his forehead. It was a Sunday afternoon and one of Ashton's favorite things to do on Sundays was to sit on his couch, smoke a little pot, and play the video game League of Legends for hours on end. And so he was doing that when his phone rang on the coffee table and he glanced down from the TV and he saw it was his older brother, Miles, calling him. So Ashton paused his game and he answered his phone. The two brothers both lived in Washington, but they

attended colleges on opposite sides of the state, so they didn't get to hang out very much. But they still made it a point to check in with each other fairly frequently and they got along reasonably well even though they were not really alike. Miles, who was 21 years old, had always been seen by his siblings as the golden boy of the family and he definitely took after his mom when it came to business. Miles was already managing some of his mother's real estate properties in Washington and he had dreams of starting his own company someday, just like his parents had done. Ashton was way more into computers than he was into business, so he'd gone to college in Seattle to study computer science, and he hoped

he'd be able to get into a tech or gaming company when he was a bit older. When Ashton put the phone to his ear, he heard Miles's voice cracking on the other end, and he couldn't understand anything Miles was saying. Ashton asked Miles to slow down and to tell him what was going on. Then Miles, somewhat point-blank, told Ashton that their parents had been found murdered, their brother was now in the hospital and couldn't feel his lower half, and their sisters were now talking to the police. Ashton just sat there in silence for a second. Then Miles told him he needed to fly home immediately and help take care of their younger siblings. Ashton had always seen Miles as the leader among the Sacks' children. After all, Miles was the oldest and their parents had always trusted him. So Ashton, who was clearly in shock, said he would do whatever Miles thought was the right thing to do. Later that day, Miles and Ashton both flew from Washington to Orange County, California.

And after they both arrived, they immediately went to the hospital to check on their brother, who was still in recovery. And then they reached out to the hospital to check on their brother, who was still in recovery. And then they reached out to the police. Several hours after they had arrived in Orange County, Miles and Ashton, the two oldest Sachs children, sat down in an office at the sheriff's station to talk to Detectives Montano and Thompson. Miles was significantly taller than his brother Ashton. He wore a dress shirt and slacks, and he had brown curly hair. Earlier that day, Montano and Thompson had talked to the boys' sisters,

and they still considered them suspects, but police didn't have any evidence to hold them at that point. So, the boys had gotten to see their sisters earlier, which made them feel a bit better than they had when they had left Washington. At the sheriff's station, Miles and Ashton looked like they were doing their best to hold everything together. But Montano and Thompson could tell, underneath their kind of tough exterior, they both seemed exhausted, and the detectives had no idea what they were going through after all they were hit with that day. So, the detectives started

by thanking the brothers for coming in, and then they gently asked them, you know, where they had been when the rest of the family was at the house. Miles and Ashton explained that they'd been in Washington, where they both went to college. Then Montano asked the brothers if they could think of anyone who might have had a grudge against their parents. Miles and Ashton looked at each other, and Miles nodded, and Ashton looked at each other and Miles nodded and Ashton nodded back. It was like one of those moments where siblings can say a lot to each other without actually saying anything. Miles took a breath and then looked at Detective Montano and said there was a long list of people who had it out for their parents.

A look of surprise came across both detectives' faces. In the short time they'd been working this case, everybody the police had talked to made it sound like Andra and Brad were very well liked and admired by just about everyone. But Miles said that just wasn't the case. He told detectives that his mother's very aggressive way of doing business had led her to make a lot of money and a lot of enemies over the years. There were investors who felt like Andra had cheated them out of money, there were clients who felt like she had ripped them off, and there were tenants in some of the rental properties Andra owned

who believed she was an evil landlord. Miles thought most of the people who were angry at his mom were really just jealous of her success, or that they didn't understand how business worked. But once those people believed Andra had wronged them in some way, there was just no changing their minds. Then Montano asked if Miles or Ashton could name any particular person that was one of Andra and Brad's potential enemies. And Ashton said they would actually need a couple pieces of paper to be able to list everybody.

they would actually need a couple pieces of paper to be able to list everybody. By the end of the interview, Miles and Ashton had provided police with two pages filled with the names of previous business associates and renters who might have wanted to harm their parents. So, Detectives Montano and Thompson immediately went back to their theory that most murders are about money, sex, or revenge. Their first instinct had been that one of the Sacks' kids might have wanted to get their parents' money, and so that was why they attacked them. But now, looking at all these names on these two pages, the detectives started to think that it was very likely that Brad and Andra might have been killed by someone who was out for revenge.

In the days following Andra and Brad's murders, Montano and Thompson learned that the murder weapon had been a Ruger.22 semi-automatic rifle. So, part of the investigative team focused on tracking down that weapon in the hope it would lead them to the killer. During that time, Montano and Thompson concentrated on the list of people that Miles and Ashton had provided them. And as they did this, the detectives discovered that there was even more anger towards Andra and Brad than their sons may have even realized.

While searching social media, the detectives found multiple posts from people celebrating Andra and Brad's deaths. Most of the people posting were disgruntled renters who had lived in properties that Andra owned. So Montano added all those people who were making posts like that to their list of suspects and started to work through that list. But out of all the people they had looked into, from social media to the lists of names the brothers had given them, one group of people in particular stood out to the detectives. They were board members who had worked with Andra and Brad at one of the first successful companies they had started together. It turned out that years earlier,

the board of directors had kicked Andra out of her own company because they said her business tactics and what they called her destructive raging were damaging the business. Andra had not left without a fight, and she had threatened to sue everybody involved with the company. And so finally, the board had just given her a payout of $9 million to walk away quietly. But when the company had faced bankruptcy, the board had started going after Andra in court to get the company's $9 million back. So Montano and Thompson saw these board members

as people who wanted both money and revenge. The detectives met with individuals from the board and they almost all said the same thing. They thought Andra was a terrible person to do business with, but they were horrified by what happened to her and her husband and her son. Those interviews also led to a list of even more past business associates who had grievances with Andra and Brad. And so Montana and Thompson felt like they really were just swimming in names of potential suspects and they still hadn't even ruled out Brad and Andra's daughters.

The investigative team was willing to methodically go through the entire suspect list if necessary, but Montano and Thompson believed if they could just track down the murder weapon, they could propel the investigation forward a lot faster. So they started to delve into the cell phone records of everybody they thought could possibly be connected to the murders. And they caught what looked like a huge break. A cell phone call had been placed from a car driving on the street at the bottom of the hill just outside of Brad and Andra's mansion around the same time the murders had taken place. But just like the murder weapon, the car that the phone call had been made

from seemed to have vanished. About a week after Andra and Brad's murders, four of their five kids, so all the siblings minus Landon, who was in the hospital, stood huddled together at the front of a church in between their parents' coffins. Over the past several days, those four siblings had barely left each other's sides, and they had spent most of their time with their little brother, Landon, in his hospital room, until they had finally gotten the good news that Landon was going to live. However, doctors said he would not walk again. At the funeral, Miles, the oldest sibling, spoke first about his unique relationship with his mother. He called her Andra, and not Mom, because he felt the connection they shared went beyond that of just mother and son.

They were also friends and business partners, and Andra had always treated him as an equal. After Miles spoke, he went back over to his sisters and wrapped his arms around them. He was much, much taller than both of them, and so it almost looked as they were standing there like Miles was their father and not their brother. Then Ashton, the other brother, stepped forward and took a piece of paper out of his pocket, and as he read the eulogy from this piece of paper, you could see his hands shaking. Ashton spoke about how lucky he had been to have parents like Andra and Brad, but for most of the time that Ashton spoke, he spent his time talking about his little brother, Landon, and how

whoever had done this had robbed an eight-year-old boy of the chance to grow up with a mom and dad, and how they'd also robbed him of the use of his legs. It was just so tragic. After Ashton had finished talking, people in the church were openly sobbing as they offered condolences to all the kids. And even though those people knew the family had money, they wondered who would take care of the kids, and how they would ever move on from what had just happened to their parents. In the days following the funeral, the other Sacks' siblings began to notice a change come over Miles. It was like he stopped being a normal older brother and switched into business mode like they had seen their mom do before. Miles met with authorities so that he and Ashton could obtain legal guardianship over their younger siblings.

Then he moved all of the kids out of the mansion on the hill and into that one-story home Andra had bought with the intention of making Brad's life a bit easier. The other kids were angry about the move, but Miles said it was the right financial choice to make. This way, he could complete the sale of the mansion like his mom had intended, and the family would make millions of dollars. The kids were confused and upset, but they'd always looked up to Miles, and he seemed to have a clear plan, and he assured them that everything he was doing was in their best interest. So, in the span of a couple weeks, the Sachs kids had lost and buried their parents, and had moved out of their beloved house,

and the younger kids had started having to answer to their own older brother, Miles, as if he was their parent. While Miles tried to get the family situated in their new home, he also reached out to his parents' lawyers to make sure he would have control of Andra's rental properties. Again, Miles said everything he was doing was just to make sure the rest of the kids would be taken care of and that they wouldn't have to worry about their financial futures now that their parents were gone. But even some of the kids' aunts and uncles thought Miles' behavior following the death of his parents was very bizarre. They understood that he did have a lot in common with Andra when it came to doing business, just being really aggressive and straightforward, but it almost seemed like he had already moved on from

grieving, which just seemed impossible. Miles' actions didn't go unnoticed by police either, so Montano and Thompson returned to the idea that maybe money had been the motive for murder, and they wondered if maybe Miles had killed his parents just to get a hold of their financial assets and their companies. But Miles and also his brother Ashton's alibis had both checked out, people had seen them both in Washington on the morning of the murders, so Montano and Thompson just kept pursuing the two pieces of evidence that they thought would break the case wide open. The Ruger.22 semi-automatic rifle used in the murders, and the car that someone had placed a call from just outside of the mansion at the time of the murders.

About three weeks into the investigation, Montano and Thompson were sitting together at the sheriff's station reviewing the steps they had taken so far. They were still pursuing every lead they had, including the seemingly countless number of enemies that Andra and Brad had made over their years of doing business. Just then, Montano's phone rang. He picked it up, and a member of the investigative team was on the other line, and the officer sounded excited.

He said cell phone records had finally led them to a man who was in possession of the car that that phone call outside of the Sacks' house had been made from. Montano hung up, and the police got right to work securing a warrant to search the car that investigators had been made from. Montano hung up and the police got right to work securing a warrant to search the car that investigators had just tracked down. When the warrant came through, Montano and Thompson and other members of the team went to do a full search of the car. And when police popped the trunk of that car, they found a pile of clothes and also a Ruger semi-automatic rifle inside. They now knew who had murdered Andra and Brad. Based on cell phone records, interviews conducted throughout the investigation,

and evidence found at the scene of the crime and in that car, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened when somebody murdered Brad and Andra Sachs in the early morning hours of February 9th, 2014. At 1.30am on February 9th, the killer drove their white Toyota Prius slowly down the road at the bottom of the hill right below Andra and Brad's mansion. The Prius didn't make much noise, but the killer didn't really need to worry about being heard or seen anyway, because the Sax's mansion was totally secluded and it sat on an acre of land, so nobody really lived that close to them. The killer parked the Prius at the bottom of the hill and stepped outside. There was a light,

cool breeze coming off the ocean, and it was a very mild 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The killer wore jeans, a t-shirt, and gloves, and they had a knit hat pulled down almost to their eyes. The killer then walked around their car, opened the trunk, and pulled out a loaded Ruger semi-automatic rifle with a sling on it. The killer slung the rifle over his shoulder, closed the trunk, and then began walking up the hill towards the mansion. The moonlight shone through the palm trees and the killer could hear waves crashing on the beach nearby. Everything felt so calm, but the killer's heart was pounding in their chest. The killer reached the top of the hill and came to the wall that surrounded the front of the house.

The killer stretched out their arms and grabbed the top of the wall and then pulled themselves up and climbed over it into the front yard. The porch was lit, but the rest of the house looked dark. The killer stayed low and ran to the front door. They opened the door and walked into the large foyer in the front of the house. The huge windows allowed enough light into the house for the killer to clearly see the staircase leading up to the third floor. But the killer didn't move. Instead, they just stood there silently for several minutes. And then the killer began to pace around the first floor deciding what to do next. Finally after the killer had been on the first floor for nearly

15 minutes they took a deep breath they unslung their rifle and marched upstairs to the third floor. The killer walked quickly down the hallway of the third floor towards the main bedroom. They hesitated when they reached the closed bedroom door. But after taking a breath to steady themselves, the killer reached down with one hand, they opened the door, they stepped into the open doorway, raised their rifle, and began to fire. Bullets riddled Andra and Brad while they slept, and blood spattered the walls and soaked the sheets. The killer had fired almost 25 bullets into the room before they stepped back out of the doorway.

But when the killer stopped shooting Andra and Brad and they turned around, they saw a little boy running the opposite way down the hall. So the killer just raised the rifle again and fired off two shots and the boy fell to the ground. Then the killer walked further down the hall past the boy who was now writhing in pain on the ground and came to another closed door. They kicked the door open and fired a shot blindly into the dark room. That bullet struck the wall just above the bed where 17-year-old Lexi was hiding under the covers. Then the killer heard the little boy he had shot

screaming in the hall right behind him, so the killer just slung the gun on their back again, ran down the hall, and flew down the stairs. The killer reached the first floor, their head was pounding, their ears were ringing, and they were out of breath, but they heard movement on the floors above them, so they ran out the front door and across the yard. They reached the wall, pulled themselves up and climbed over it. Then they ran down the hill back to their car. The killer opened the trunk, took the rifle off their back and chucked it inside. They pulled off their knit hat as well and tossed it in with the gun. Then they took off all their clothes and chucked them in the trunk and then grabbed some fresh clothes from the trunk and put those on.

Then the killer hopped into the driver's seat of the Prius, started up the engine, and hit the gas. Then, as they were driving away from the house, the killer grabbed their cell phone from the passenger seat and made a quick call. The killer's head was still pounding, and they still felt like they couldn't breathe, but they knew their night was not over yet. So the killer tried to focus. They drove across town to an apartment building and pulled the Prius into a parking garage. They parked, got out of the car,

and then walked a few minutes towards a major street nearby and found a cab waiting for them. The killer climbed inside and the cab drove them to the airport. Hours later, at about 10 a.m., the killer landed in Washington state. They caught a cab at the airport and drove home. They caught a cab at the airport and drove home. When they got home, they made sure their neighbors physically saw them, and they also texted one of their closest friends in the area just to make a show that they were in Washington and not in California.

Then the killer headed inside of their place, sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and started playing League of Legends. sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and started playing League of Legends. 19-year-old Ashton Sachs had murdered his parents, he had shot and paralyzed his little brother Landon, and fired a gun into his sister Lexi's room that easily could have hit her. It turned out Ashton had always deeply resented the way his parents treated his older brother, Miles. Ashton felt like Miles was treated like the golden boy, and his parents treated him, Ashton, like a failure. And that resentment had festered for years until Ashton started to consider murdering his parents in cold blood. Ashton went so far as to do serious research into different types of weapons and to figure out

the differences between first and second degree murder. Then Ashton had gone out and actually bought a semi-automatic rifle. But even after he'd gotten the gun, Ashton still wasn't sure he could actually go through with killing his mom and dad. He felt like he hated them and he blamed them for a lot of his shortcomings, but he just didn't know if he could actually pull the trigger and end their lives. But then, the day after Brad's 57th birthday, Andra had texted Ashton to tell him how disappointed she was that he hadn't even called to wish his father a happy birthday. Ashton, very sarcastically, said that he only forgot it was his dad's birthday because his dad had forgotten he had a second son a long time ago. This led to an argument between Ashton and Andra,

and Ashton finally decided at the end of that argument to go through with his plan. On the day before the murders, Ashton had driven his white Prius 18 hours from Seattle to San Juan Capistrano, California. He waited patiently in town for a few more hours, and then he carried out the murders in the early morning. Ashton had arranged for a cab to meet him and take him to the airport, and for a transportation company to drive the Prius back to Seattle and to keep it for him until he was ready to pick it up. So immediately after the murders, he called that transportation company to verify the address where he would leave the car

for them. Then he had dropped the car off in that parking garage, met the cab, and flew home. And it was that phone call to the transportation company that he made right after killing his parents that led police to Ashton. Using cell phone data, they tracked down the owner of the transportation company and they learned that he had Ashton's white Prius in his possession. Then the search of Ashton's car led police to the murder weapon. When police had initially questioned Ashton, they believed he had been in Seattle on the morning following the murder. But the discovery of the Prius undercut that alibi and made it clear that he would have had time to commit the murders and fly home by the time he had been seen in Seattle.

But before police arrested Ashton, they wanted to make sure they had an airtight case that would lead to a conviction. So they dug deeper into his life. It turned out that Ashton had dropped out of college without telling any of his family and that he had started to isolate himself from most of the people around him. Police also searched his internet history and found all the research on weapons and the different degrees of murder and what each one means and so police believed they had more than enough evidence against him. When police arrested Ashton, it didn't take long for him to confess. But he made it clear that he had not just killed his parents because he thought they liked Miles better than him.

Ashton said his parents had always made him feel like he was weak. He said dating back to the time when he was just a little kid and his baby sister had drowned in the hot tub, his parents didn't seem to care about how upset he was or even try to get him some help to deal with the grief he was going through. And then not long before the actual murders, Ashton had gone through this very bad breakup with his girlfriend and gotten really depressed and he had tried to take his own life by overdosing on painkillers. And Ashton said he felt like his parents didn't really even care. While the other children had a totally different view of Andra and Brad, Ashton felt like murdering his parents was his way of getting revenge on them

for all the times they'd made him feel unimportant. Ashton was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder. He was given four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 100-year sentence for what the court referred to as special circumstances surrounding the use of firearms. As of 2022, Miles, the oldest sibling, was still looking after his younger siblings like he was their parent. And now at 17 years old, Landon, who was paralyzed from being shot, became one of the top 20 wheelchair tennis players in the entire United States, and he hopes one day he'll be able to compete at Wimbledon. So that's going to do it.

If you enjoyed today's story, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, just called Mr. Ballin, that has many more stories just like this one, but a lot of them are only on YouTube. Again, that YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. Okay, that's going to go. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

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