Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Monster in the House - The Murder or Nara Patterson and her Children

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

A mother and her three children were murdered in a horrifying act of domestic violence, leaving behind grieving loved ones and unanswered questions. Shaun & John explore the warning signs of family annihilation, the systemic failures that allowed it to happen, and what can be done to prevent future cases. When Schinara Bernoudy married Marvin Patterson in May 2019, she thought she’d met “the one”. Marvin seemed to have a good relationship with her children, and they ended up having a baby together. Things seemed good until they weren't.It's inconceivable what Marvin was accused of and how the story ended for Schinara and her children less than 5 years later. No one loved them more than Nara’s sister, Michaela (Kaylaa). This week we talk not only about the victims of a horrible tragedy but also about the loving family they leave behind, the survivors.http://sinspod.co/episode20sourcesDomestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag!Apple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.

To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show! When Shannara Bernoudi married Marvin Patterson in May of 2019, she thought she'd met the one. Marvin seemed to have a good relationship with her children, and they ended up having a baby together.

Things seemed good, until they weren't. It's inconceivable what Marvin was accused of and how the story ended for Shannara and her children less than five years later. No one loved them more than Shannara's sister Mikayla, or Kayla, as she's known to her social media followers and her friends. This week, we talk not only about the victims of this horrible tragedy, but also the loving of this horrible tragedy, but also the loving family they leave behind, the survivors.

Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence. I'm your host, Sean, and with me, as always, is the one and only John. I am the only John in the room. Today's episode is unfortunately another story of a family annihilation right here in Las Vegas. A few months ago, we covered the similar murder of Fikeo DeJodum and her three children by their father. One of the things we want to talk about later in the episode is the idea of how these can be potentially prevented and what we can all look for in people's words and actions that could tip us off that violence is a possibility. It's unthinkable that someone we know could be capable of this, but there are always people who know the men well who carry out these horrible crimes. They have friends and family, at least, who know them

and can be on the lookout for warning signs. We would never imply someone is to blame for an incident, though. The blame lies squarely with the unhinged murderer. But if we know what to look for, maybe we can act and prevent more of these from occurring. Intervening with a friend or family member you're worried about may or may not prevent a tragedy, but ignoring it certainly won't. Another thing that's important to understand is the inciting incident. In the case of Fuqueo's family, she was at the point where she finally decided it was time to leave her husband Jason when he went on his murderous rampage. There's always a tipping point in these tragedies that drives the perpetrator over the edge. We also need to look at the risk factors. Later in the episode,

we'll talk about what we see as the risk profile. It's not an exact science, but looking at the data, we can see what factors make these horrible tragedies more likely. As Sean reminds me, not everyone who fits the risk factors will resort to murder, but many of the people who have resorted to murder will have these risk factors. So, do you want to start by talking about Shannara and her kids? Of course, as we do. We'll be focusing primarily on the victims in the story and the survivors, the family and friends who are left behind, rather than the murderer. When examining the

perpetrator of a crime like this, we believe the most important part is understanding what drove him to it, whether those causes were inside his head or things that happened to him. Shannara Bernudi, who we're just going to call Nara because that's what people generally call her, was born on December 10th, 1989. She has a sister named Michaela, Kayla, who we'll also talk a fair bit about, who she was extremely close with. Kayla loved her sister and her sister's kids so much, and it comes across in all of her social media.

They're from Long Beach, California originally, but moved here to Las Vegas. Nara had three children. The youngest was Zamyra Patterson, born on September 12, 2017. Her aunt Kayla called her Doody. The middle child was Derek Cox, who went by DJ for Derek Jr. since his dad's name is also Derek. He was born on December 6, 2012. The oldest was Keziah Cohn, who was born on October 6, 2009. She went by Zia. There are so many photos out there of these adorable kids, and we will be sure to share those. Kayla has shared so much about her nieces and nephew, and they were just the sweetest kids imaginable.

There are videos of them showing how carefree and goofy they are and how much they love their aunt Kayla. Marvin Ray Patterson was eight years older than Nara. They were married on May 11, 2019 in a lovely and traditional ceremony in which Nara's now late father gave her away. To all outward appearances, the couple seemed very happy, and Marvin assumed the role of stepfather to Zia and DJ, and of course Marvin and Nara had one child together, the youngest, Judy. A side note here, when searching for court records on Patterson, we found something interesting. We found a divorce decree that was finalized in April of 2019, just a month before his marriage to Nara. He had two children from that marriage and we have found no mention of them anywhere in all of the coverage of this case,

but we wanted to mention it because we found it interesting. There are also no court records or accounts that indicate there was any previous domestic violence in their relationship and their social media shows them having fun together and going about their lives. From the outside, there was no reason to suspect anything at all was amiss with the family or Marvin. One of the things you'll notice about Nara is that she was so talented and creative. She was a cosmetologist, and her sister is too, and had a serious talent for hair braiding, which she often showed off on social media.

She was also a very hard worker. She had a business that she was growing called On Point Customs, where she created clever custom clothing and favors and snacks for parties. We saw photos and videos of some of the amazing and clever party favors she created for her own kids' birthdays, including for a Barbie-themed sixth birthday for Judy. They were serious about the business, having created an LLC together, which is a really important step for growing a business. And it seemed like her business was growing, that she had a serious social media following building up, and that she was on a great career trajectory when

something shocking happened. Marvin was arrested in October of 2022 on child sex crime charges. Court records show that he was jailed and charged with five counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14, five counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 16, and two counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16, all of which are felonies. His bail was initially set at $100,000, which he could not pay. Because of that, he sat in jail for two months awaiting his trial. His preliminary hearing was held on March 23, 2023. According to court records, the charges occurred over nearly a decade starting between June 1, 2014 and August 31, 2014, with one charge then of lewdness with a child under the age

of 16, all the way up to June 2022, long after he was married to Nara. There was also a charge in 2018 of sexual assault with a minor under 16. The victims in these court documents are kept private, and we will not speculate on who they are out of respect for their privacy. The important point here is that according to the charging documents, this man has a long history of sexually assaulting minors under 16 and even under 14 years old, and he was arrested and charged with these crimes after Nara was already married to him. If you listened to our episode about what happened to Fukayo DeJodum and her children, you'll remember that one of the turning points was the court's failure to provide Fukayo with a restraining order or any degree of protection against Jason. While no one can claim that a restraining order would

have changed the horrific outcome in that case, you can't help but wonder if it may have. Initially for these horrific alleged sex crimes against children, as John said, Marvin was given a bail of $100,000 by Judge Jessica Green, who was performing the role of substitute judge on the case initially, given the severity of the100,000 by Judge Jessica Green, who was performing the role of substitute judge on the case initially, given the severity of the crimes and her assertion that he was a flight risk. The conditions for the bail made these facts apparent. The conditions for the bail included no contact with anyone under the age of 18, because he is accused of sex crimes against minors, surrendering his passport, indicating that the court considered him a flight risk, no contact with the alleged victims, high-level electronic monitoring,

also known as ankle bracelet. Notably and horrifyingly, there were no restrictions on his ownership or access to firearms. We'll talk a bit more about that when we get to the topic of risk factors later. I mentioned before that he was arrested and jailed in October of 2022 and that he spent two months in jail. You might be saying to yourself, wait a minute, that brings us only to December of 2022. What happened after that? Well, Brett Whipple from the Justice Law Center filed a request for order setting reasonable bail and reasonable release upon conditions on December 12, 2022. Essentially, this was an effort by the accused and his legal representation to reduce

the bail to allow Marvin out while he was awaiting trial in April of 2024. That might strike people as odd given the nature of the crimes, but to be clear, Brett Whipple was doing his job and required duty as an officer of the court, giving Patterson a vigorous defense. In the opening of the court filed document, Whipple offers the following skewed personal history of Patterson. Mr. Patterson was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has a wife and three children. He's a video engineer and is also co-owner of a company, On Point Industries, LLC. He has a patent pending for a special type of domino. His wife is a hairdresser and they have a good relationship and share responsibilities with the children. He is the primary breadwinner of the household. The document also gives a skewed and contradictory version of his offenses,

attempting to paint them in a less horrific light, choosing instead to mention that he has several character witnesses like his brother, his wife, his ex-girlfriend, and his son. The description downplays his crimes by seeming to imply that the minor victims had some sort of agency in their situation, which flies in the face of the nature of the charges, all in an effort to get his bail reduced from $100,000 to $10,000. He claimed that Patterson wasn't a flight risk because he self-surrendered his passport, which seems pretty questionable as an argument since we can see in court documents that the court demanded his passport. Finally, he asserts that the bail should be lowered because Marvin doesn't have the financial means to pay that bail.

They make no effort to alter the conditions of the bail, but he does go on to make a compelling argument for reasonable bail. The argument he made in the document as a legal matter, speaking as someone who isn't a lawyer, seems like it's built on precedent and looks to be a solid argument just from a purely legal perspective, despite the incredibly skewed and subjective description of Marvin and his crimes. And as Sean mentioned to me when we were researching it, there wasn't an effort to remove the restrictions, at least. This seemed only to be an effort to get him out of jail, pending trial. Unfortunately, there isn't a great way to enforce those restrictions, especially the most important one, arguably, which is for him to have no contact with anyone

under the age of 18 years of age. In the end, Judge Diana Sullivan ruled that the bail would be reduced to $10,000 but left all of the restrictions in place. Marvin was released from jail in December of 2022 and placed under house arrest with an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts. That meant that he had to live apart from Nara and the children because he was restricted from being anywhere near anyone under 18. One thing to note here is that since they had to live apart, now the family had to pay two rents at a time when rents in Las Vegas were very expensive, which had to be a serious financial burden on the family, which is a common stressor. Almost exactly a year later, on December 11, 2023, just one day after Nara's 34th birthday, Las Vegas Metro got a panicked call from Marvin's brother, Jason.

Marvin had sent Jason some text messages that had him worried, so he stopped by to check in on Marvin. Marvin had allegedly told him that he was about to be evicted and his car repossessed. When Jason arrived, he made a horrible discovery. He found Nara, Zia, Doody, and DJ had all been shot at close range, along with his brother, and only DJ seemed to be alive. He immediately called 911 and asked for an ambulance to be sent to try and save his nephew and anyone else they could. The EMTs were able to keep DJ alive and rush him to UMC, University Medical Center Hospital,

where he thankfully survived but with horrific injuries. UMC is the only level 1 trauma center in the Las Vegas area, so it makes sense that he was transported there. DJ was the only one who survived. We don't know why Nara and the kids were there that night, but we do know that in November, she and the kids were evicted from their home. There's a lot of speculation and victim blaming that has gone on in this case from people who weren't there and don't know the circumstances. Of course, we are not going to speculate and feed

into that. At one of the vigil events held for the family, Nara's mother made it clear that she thinks Marvin should never have been let out of jail, and that her daughter and grandkids would still be alive if they had just kept him in, and that seems about right to us as well. It's yet another example of the system failing the most vulnerable, allowing that seems about right to us as well. It's yet another example of the system failing the most vulnerable, allowing a man the opportunity to harm and murder his family. The guidelines for bail and the criteria for lowering bail have to be changed in Nevada to protect families so that no other family has to go through what Nara's family and friends have had to go through. There have been several vigils recently for Nara's family.

At duty school, her classmates gathered around her desk and took turns listing the things they liked about her. Kayla, Nara's sister, has worked tirelessly to make sure that her beloved sister, nieces, and nephew are all remembered. She also did an amazing job documenting the vigils they have had for them. They had a candlelight vigil with a balloon release and organized a beautiful funeral ceremony. She recorded it and you can watch it on TikTok. It's very moving and we'll share a link to that. They also had a fundraiser for the family involving the Trap Wings food truck event where the proceeds were donated to the

family. As for DJ, his dad is documenting his recovery on TikTok and he's making progress and we hope that he makes a full recovery. We'll share the link to his TikTok as well so you can see how he's doing. We talked a little about Nara's work as a cosmetologist and how she was building her business, but her sister Kayla has her own cosmetology brand as well. She's on Instagram as Truth Beauty Hair Collection,

collection with a K, and we encourage everyone to check it out. Just like her sister, she's working hard and has a great and vibrant social media presence and needs the community's support. It's too late to save Nara and her children, unfortunately, so the next question we have to ask is, how can we prevent this from ever happening again? Yes, this is a good time to talk about what the research tells us about family annihilations. I'm going to talk about a couple of studies here, but based on what I was able to learn, I'm not confident how much data from Vegas has been captured in these studies.

I think that's likely because of how perhaps the police are recording this information. Family annihilation is the most severe form of domestic violence, and thankfully, it's not very common. From 2020 to 2023, there were 227 mass murders that were labeled as being a family annihilation. Research has shown that for crimes like these, where a spouse or former partner kills their partner and at least one of their children, 94 to 95% of the time, a man is the perpetrator. That man is white, non-Hispanic, and between 30 and 50 years old. 86% of the time, he uses a gun. 87% of the time, he will attempt to kill himself or succeed in killing himself. In almost every case, the crime is premeditated. The most common risk factor for family annihilation is a history of domestic violence. According to Dr. Jacqueline Campbell, a well-known researcher and writer on domestic violence,

70% of the time, there is some prior domestic violence within the family. However, only 25% of the time has there been a prior arrest for domestic violence. The evidence of the family going through domestic violence is discovered after the murders in interviews with the people who knew the families closely. Other studies have indicated that in 44% of cases, the couple was in the process of separating or already separated. And in 18% of the murders, the murderers expressed severe jealousy. Other risk factors of note include there being a stepchild at home. These murderers don't usually have a criminal record at all, only about 10% of the time. And it's the same for substance abuse disorders. They are only identified in about 10% of the cases. Those five risk factors are interesting to me, and I want to repeat them, reminding people that the presence of these risk factors doesn't always mean there will be a violent family homicide.

But in cases where a violent family homicide happens, these risk factors are often found to be present. Number one, there's a gun present in the house. Number two, there are one or more stepchildren, like the perpetrator is the stepfather. Number three, more often than not, there's no criminal history or drug use, only like 10% of the time, you said. Number four, there's some form of estrangement. And number five, most often there's some form of domestic violence. So domestic violence plus the presence of guns

plus stepchildren equals some degree of risk for family annihilation. It makes sense to at least be aware of that or if you know someone with any of these risk factors. Not only does there seem to be a lack of a criminal record or history of violence in these cases, but the majority of the time, there's no evidence of anything at all being amiss in the man's life or with his relationship. Most of these murderers are known for being good fathers to the point where sometimes that is even included in their obituaries. Their devotion to their families or community is noted in spite of the horrific reality of the crimes they committed. Some folks might recall Michael Haidt because his obituary was shared widely

on social media. In January of 2023, Michael Haight from Enoch, Utah, he shot and killed his wife, Tausha, and their five children, 17-year-old Macy, 12-year-old Briley, their seven-year-old twins, Eamon and Sienna, and their youngest four-year-old Gavin, as well as Tausha's mother, Gail Earl. His obituary went viral for stating, Michael made it a point to spend quality time with each and every one of his children. Michael enjoyed making memories with the family. One other risk factor I didn't mention earlier that I want to add here is that, interestingly, 20% of the time, these mass family murders occur in the month of August. In 2014, there was a British research study on family annihilations published in the

Howard Journal of Criminal Justice. The authors looked at newspaper articles over multiple decades from 1980 to 2012 to gather details and information about these horrific murders to attempt to develop a profile of family annihilators. And they came up with four main profile types for men who commit these crimes. The author of the study noted that these four characteristics are all closely related to a man's ideas about gender roles and his place within the family. These murderers tend to view their family as property, and therefore they have a right to end their lives. They see themselves as the primary person responsible for meeting their family's needs, which has a lot to do with society, gender roles, and ideas about masculinity. The first profile type they identified they called self-righteous. Self-righteous killers hold the mother responsible for the breakdown of the family, and they will often call her before it happens to explain what they're about to do. This is the most common category they identified with

32% of the killers fitting this profile. These murderers are narcissists. They are men who are trying to regain control over their lives by focusing on eliminating the family that they see as a threat to their success. They are controlling, and they view their family and their sole ability to support them as the very definition of their masculinity. The common motive in murders by self-righteous killers is family separation, custody disputes, jealousy, and affairs,

all of which are motives we have noted in other domestic violence cases before. These murderers are often described as being histrionic and dramatic, choosing significant dates, such as Father's Day, to commit their crimes. Probably worth noting here that Marvin Patterson chose the day after Nara's birthday to commit this crime. The second profile type they call disappointed. Disappointed killers believe their family has let them down. They are not achieving some standard he has set in his mind for them. Maybe the children are not

living up to religious standards or following some religious custom, or perhaps their child is suffering from an illness. The motives for these murders include financial stress or separation or custody disputes. The third profile is what the researchers refer to as an anomic killer. Anomic individuals see the family as a symbol of their own economic success, and if they suffer some kind of economic failure or general disruption of their life, such as bankruptcy or foreclosure, the family no longer serves this function for them. Primarily, the motives in these murders is financial distress. And it's not just because they are now broke that they do this. It's that their identity

is so wrapped up in their bottom line, in their profession, that losing a job or a house disrupts their whole worldview. They often don't really perceive any boundaries between themselves and their families. They see them as a possession or something to be controlled, and they can't bear the pain of leaving them, so they take them with them. The last group they identified is paranoid. So these killers are often motivated by a desire to protect their family from a perceived threat, such as having children taken away by social services. Half of the time in these cases, the motive is a need to protect their family. One case of note involves a father who

killed his wife and his disabled children as he had grown too old to care for them properly. Sometimes this has included a need for concealment, a desire to conceal crimes that they may have committed. And one case in their research involves sexual abuse of a stepdaughter. Financial difficulties played a factor in half of these cases as well. So those were British cases, and they only looked at cases where men were the perpetrator. There are some where women are, but they were only looking at men. So in 2020, there was a similar study published on American cases of familicide from 2009 to 2019. And from this study, the research developed two additional profiles. The first one they call self-preserving. This,

to me, is like the other side of the coin from Paranoid. These men kill their families to protect themselves with complete disregard for their family members. 60% of these offenders were motivated primarily by their public appearance, and 40% were motivated by a family breakdown. Multiple offenders had a history of domestic violence, separation from their significant other, or had been accused of a serious crime. In only 60% of the cases, the father killed himself. The rest denied their guilt and fled or evaded being caught. I want to pause here and ask you if this profile reminds you of a case that was covered heavily in the media recently. Yeah, the Murdoch case comes to mind for this one for sure.

He seems to perfectly fit the self-preserving category. Yeah, I agree. The final category that was identified in the American study was mental illness. These are men who murder their families, and there is no evidence of any outside trigger or factor other than mental illness. And in every one of these cases studied, the father took his own life. Of note, these are individuals who are struggling with serious psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, and personality disorders. I'm sure as all of you were listening to this, you can hear that there are some fuzzy lines here,

and a lot of these categories might overlap at times. And the purpose of this overview was to give us all some context to answer the questions about why. Why do these things happen? And what are the warning signs so we can try to prevent tragedies like this from happening? I want to take a moment also and give credit to writers Katie Collins, Tracy Ortlieb, and Jill Filipovich, who covered the topic of familicides, Katie for Wired, Tracy for Parents Magazine, and Jill for Ms. Magazine, as this is not only a very hard topic to wrap your head around, an emotional one to read and write about, but there's a lot of research out there, and they synthesized a lot of these different studies together,

and that was my foundation for a lot of what I talked about here. All the links will be in our show notes. In addition to Fukeo's story that we shared in our show notes. son, John Dillon Jackson, aka Johnny, who was just two days shy of his first birthday. He then shot and killed the family's golden doodle, Noodleton, and fatally shot himself. He was 40 years old. Karen was born July 15, 1982, in Winter Haven, Florida, to John McMullen and Patricia McMullen. She has a sister, Dawn, and two brothers, John Jr. and Garrett. She served in the Air Force and obtained the rank of senior airman. She later studied to become a family nurse practitioner at the University of Cincinnati. And on July 5th, 2017, she took and passed her nurse practitioner board exam just five days before the murders. She is yet another woman whose star was on the rise,

just like Debbie Flores, Gwen Amisrala, Leslie Palacio, and so many others. Karen also had an older daughter from a previous marriage who was around 11 years old at the time, but thankfully she was not home and was physically unharmed. The police reported there were no prior calls for domestic violence at the home. They had been called out for a nonviolent custody matter in December of 2016, but that was it. A friend of John's did say that she received a call from him a few days prior, but she had not had the chance to return that call. John didn't have a criminal record. He was a doctor who worked as a medical director for the American Red Cross Blood Services in Las Vegas. A friend of his reported to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he also had served as a doctor in the Army.

According to Patricia, Karen's mom, Karen was preparing to break up with John and was in the process of moving out. Neighbors had reported seeing a moving truck at the house the weekend right before they were killed. Patricia said, My daughter was a wonderful human being. She was a go-getter.

She had dreams in her life, and she accomplished her dreams. So I think the big takeaways from all this are, Number one, listen to your friends and family when they're expressing despair or stress. For both John Lunetta and Marvin Patterson, there was some evidence of them reaching out to someone to talk about what was going on. If you can see that your friend or family member is also experiencing some of these other stressors, such as breakups, custody disputes, or discovering an affair, you can try to have them call 988 to talk to someone or any telehealth provider, or even a domestic violence hotline to talk to someone to get help with their struggles.

If you know your friend has experienced some kind of trauma or might have PTSD, reassure them there's no shame in seeking support. You can contact 988 or a domestic violence hotline yourself to talk to an advocate who can help guide you in talking with your friend or provide access to other resources that can help. No one can guarantee that doing these things will prevent a tragedy, but we can be certain that doing nothing won't help. Lastly, if you yourself see these patterns in your life or in your relationships, please remember there is no shame in getting help. As we always do, we'll continue posting resources along with every episode. We encourage everyone listening to

recognize the warning signs and not be afraid to act. It's far better to act and end up overreacting than to ignore a situation and have it end in tragedy. It doesn't matter where you are, because as we always remind you, what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty.

This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.