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

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: A Fall City boy massacres his family while his little sister,
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Speaker 2: just eleven, plays dead in order to save her own life. Now,
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Speaker 2: his defense attorneys aren't calling the boy polite, telling the
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Speaker 2: judge he loves camping and fishing. I'mancy Grace, this is
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Speaker 2: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 3: Fall City is an idyllic small town just outside of Seattle, Washington,
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Speaker 3: nestled between rivers and mountains. The perfect plays for a
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Speaker 3: seemingly perfect family like the Humiston's until one October morning,
0:45
Speaker 3: when multiple gunshots are heard from the Hummiston family home.
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Speaker 4: The eleven year old sister says she shares a room
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Speaker 4: with her sister Catherine, and they were awakened by the
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Speaker 4: sound of gunshots. Looking out the bedroom door to the hallway,
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Speaker 4: she could see her nine year old brother Joshua with
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Speaker 4: blood in his mouth and her dad Mark with blood
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Speaker 4: on his head lying in the hallway. Seven year old
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Speaker 4: Catherine gets out of bed and enters the hallway from
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Speaker 4: their bedroom and another shot rings out.
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Speaker 1: Catherine falls to the floor.
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Speaker 2: This eleven year old girl reports that she played dead,
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Speaker 2: played dead in order to save her own life. Imagine
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Speaker 2: what this young girl has survived. The only surviving member
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Speaker 2: of the family. She then manages somehow to escape through
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Speaker 2: a window.
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Speaker 1: Listen.
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Speaker 5: The eleven year old girl with two gunshot wounds tells
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Speaker 5: nine to one one dispatch she survived the attack by
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Speaker 5: holding her breadth and pretending to be dead when the
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Speaker 5: gunman came into her room to check on her. As
1:45
Speaker 5: soon as the gunman left, the girl says, she climbed
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Speaker 5: out of a fire window, ran into the middle of
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Speaker 5: the street, and when she looked into the window of
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Speaker 5: the front of their home, she saw the gunman who
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Speaker 5: shot her.
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Speaker 2: It's not the first time that we have heard of
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Speaker 2: little children climbing through winds to save.
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Speaker 1: Their own life.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure you all recall the little boy who climbs
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Speaker 2: through a window his hands shackled, starved, at the hands
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Speaker 2: of his own mother, Ruby Frankie, the online megastar who
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Speaker 2: gives out parenting advice her children. Found abused and starving, shackled, mistreated,
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Speaker 2: forced to work outside in deadly heat, and barefoot, he
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Speaker 2: manages to escape through a window, run to a neighbor
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Speaker 2: to save his life and his little sister's life. And
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Speaker 2: then there is, of course, the house of horrors, The
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Speaker 2: Turpin Family horror where all of the children were beaten
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Speaker 2: and starved systematically, and one girl finally bravely gets through
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Speaker 2: a window to run to neighbors to call nine.
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Speaker 1: To one one.
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Speaker 2: Imagine an eleven year old girl playing dead and then
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Speaker 2: climbing through a second story window to save her own life.
3:05
Speaker 2: That is what we are talking about. Where is Fall City?
3:09
Speaker 2: What is Fall City? Joining me in all star panel
3:12
Speaker 2: to make sense of what we know right now, But
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Speaker 2: first I want to go out to special guest, chief
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Speaker 2: US investigative reporter with dailymail.
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Speaker 1: Dot Com, Harmonia Rodriguez. Harmonia, thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 1: Where and what is Fall City? Thank you? Nancy.
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Speaker 6: So Yeah, False City in Washington State is just thirty
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Speaker 6: thirty miles for east of Seattle, and it's really what
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Speaker 6: everyone has described as a picture perfect place to raise
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Speaker 6: your family. It's actually where a lot of the scenes
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Speaker 6: for the iconic show A Twin Peak was filmed. Back
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Speaker 6: in the day. The chief of police right outside the
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Speaker 6: scenes said that this is a type of place where
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Speaker 6: families come to raise their families after making money in
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Speaker 6: other places. This actually was in the Lake Alice neighborhood
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Speaker 6: as we're seeing there. This house was right by the water.
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Speaker 6: Neighbors described a family as really, as I said, looking
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Speaker 6: picture perfect, going out to the lake doing water sports,
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Speaker 6: plane activities. We now know that they were homeschooled and
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Speaker 6: that neighbors just said that they seem like a very
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Speaker 6: Christian family, very dedicated parents. The mom appeared to have
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Speaker 6: been a nurse, but has had since been staying at
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Speaker 6: home with the children. But as we are now uncovering,
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Speaker 6: it appears that there was a horrific situation behind what
4:27
Speaker 6: appeared like the perfect American family in this perfect woody
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Speaker 6: Washington state location.
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Speaker 2: Now, another interesting thing about this, and let me go
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Speaker 2: out to a veteran trial lawyer joining us along with
4:40
Speaker 2: Harmonia Rodriguez from Deally mail. Guy DeAndrea is with us
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Speaker 2: former prosecutor now lawyer at Lafey Butch DeAndrea Reich and
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Speaker 2: Ryan Guy.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 2: Another thing is, according to what I've learned during this investigation,
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Speaker 2: is a very very low population two thoul and eighteen
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Speaker 2: people as of the twenty twenty two census. Now what
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Speaker 2: does that mean. That means it's very low crime, It's
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Speaker 2: in an almost rural setting, it's on a lake front
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Speaker 2: lake Alice, and you don't have a lot of people
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Speaker 2: coming in and out of the area, which greatly reduces crime.
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Speaker 1: Guy, it does, Thank you for having me, Nancy.
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Speaker 7: It does reduce crime. But representing abused and assaulted children. Now,
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Speaker 7: in my private practice, I always take issue or at
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Speaker 7: least raises a red flag when a family has a
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Speaker 7: child in a very isolated setting and then chooses to
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Speaker 7: isolate even further by homeschooling their children. No one knows
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Speaker 7: what's going on inside of that house, so there's at
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Speaker 7: least something to look into as potential red flags as
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Speaker 7: to what was really happening.
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Speaker 2: Guy, Dandrea, are you actually attacking homeschooling now?
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Speaker 3: Are you?
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Speaker 2: Because there are millions of children across the country that
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Speaker 2: are being homeschooled and they're doing fairly well at it.
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Speaker 2: Mine are in regular school, but no doubt. I mean,
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Speaker 2: my first cousin homeschools. Her children are brilliant. They've been
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Speaker 2: reading Shakespeare when they were in the third grade for
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Speaker 2: Pete's sake, and mine were like doing their ABC.
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Speaker 1: So I don't know where you're going with this. Are
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Speaker 1: you somehow blaming the.
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Speaker 2: Dead parents the whole family's been massacred, and you're saying, oh,
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Speaker 2: homeschooling red flag, that's what you've got to see me.
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Speaker 7: No, no, no, When you're all already in an isolated.
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Speaker 1: Community, somebody's doing the backstroke.
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Speaker 7: What so when you're already in an isolated community and
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Speaker 7: then you isolate your children even further, I just think
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Speaker 7: it's something to look into which will be taken into consideration.
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Speaker 7: I'm sure when they're looking into the factors that the
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Speaker 7: core will have to consider.
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Speaker 2: Guys, an eleven year old girl suffers two gunshot wounds,
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Speaker 2: then she manages to escape. Harmonia Rodriguez, another question for you,
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Speaker 2: Harmonia joining US chief US investigative reporter with dailymail dot Com. Harmonia,
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Speaker 2: the little girl is shot twice. Now, I've looked the
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Speaker 2: layout of the home and I think she got out
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Speaker 2: of a second story window.
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Speaker 1: Is that correct?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, so one of the nine one one calls the
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Speaker 6: girl managed to make from a neighbor's house. Actually, she
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Speaker 6: got there, as you mentioned, by jumping out of her
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Speaker 6: window after pretending that she had been killed. Because she
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Speaker 6: was shot twice, once in the neck and once in
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Speaker 6: the hand. She's actually out of the hospital a hospital
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Speaker 6: right now.
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Speaker 1: And doing well.
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Speaker 6: But yeah, she jumped out of her bedroom window after
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Speaker 6: her little sister was killed, after she herself was shot twice,
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Speaker 6: and then ran to a neighbor's home. Apparently the neighbor
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Speaker 6: had some medical training and was able to help her
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Speaker 6: and help her call nine one one, and that's how
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Speaker 6: police reached the scene.
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Speaker 1: Joining me right now.
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Speaker 2: In addition to doctor Kendall Crowns, Hermania Rodriguez, Attorney Guyandy
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Speaker 2: Andrea is Barry Hutchinson, former law enforcement veteran, owner and
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Speaker 2: chief investigator for Barry and Associate Investigation Services, located Kansas
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Speaker 2: and Missouri.
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Speaker 1: Mary, thank you for being with us. You know what
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Speaker 1: very a miracle. Now.
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Speaker 2: A lot of people will say, uh, just bad aim
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Speaker 2: that that eleven year old girl survived. It's a miracle,
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Speaker 2: and you and I have seen it a million times
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Speaker 2: in court and homicide investigations. The one that lived, to
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Speaker 2: steal a phrase from Harry Potter, the girl who lived.
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Speaker 1: I find this to be a miracle.
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Speaker 2: Shot twice, Barry, and we've seen it over and over
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Speaker 2: in horrible, horrible mass homicides like this Fall City massacre.
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Speaker 2: One person lives, shot twice, plays dead, sees her whole
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Speaker 2: family brutally murdered, jumps out of a second story window
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Speaker 2: and somehow stands up and runs.
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Speaker 1: Barry Hutchinson, Yeah, it was amazing.
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Speaker 8: I guess it just shows that the child's will to
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Speaker 8: live and God was with I mean, that's all there
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Speaker 8: is too.
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Speaker 2: You were hearing about two nine one one calls from
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Speaker 2: Harmonia Rodriguez listen.
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Speaker 4: Humiston is reporting the massacre of his family at the
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Speaker 4: hand of his thirteen year old brother when another call
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Speaker 4: comes into the nine one one center at five two am.
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Speaker 4: Bradley Dennis lives down the street from the Humiston residence
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Speaker 4: and says, the eleven year old sister of Humiston arrived
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Speaker 4: at his home, ringing the doorbell over and over until
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Speaker 4: they answered the door. The girl says her family has
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Speaker 4: been shot and are all dead. Bradley Dennis says, the
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Speaker 4: girl appears injured by a possible gunshot wound and she
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Speaker 4: is bleeding from her neck in hand.
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Speaker 2: Straight back out to Harmonia Rodriguez Harmonia. So the eleven
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Speaker 2: year old girl jumps from a second story window, runs,
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Speaker 2: but there is another call. The other call is from
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Speaker 2: inside the family home the bathroom.
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Speaker 1: Who is calling?
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Speaker 6: So, yes, the person that we now know was a
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Speaker 6: fifteen year old shooter calls nine to one one from
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Speaker 6: the bathroom of the home and tells police that his
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Speaker 6: thirteen year old brother, Benjamin killed his entire family with
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Speaker 6: his father's gun. Now police arrive and start looking at
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Speaker 6: the scene and start really looking at whether what the
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Speaker 6: fifteen year old said was true. But speaking of the
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Speaker 6: miracle of the nine year old girl, the eleven year
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Speaker 6: old girl who survived pardon, she also had a different
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Speaker 6: story to tell police.
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Speaker 2: Barry Hudson, joining me twenty six years in LA law enforcement,
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Speaker 2: veteran detective and now owner of Barry and Associates Investigative Services.
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Speaker 2: Barry the defense with a straight face in court, said
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Speaker 2: you should let him out, Judge, because he's been described
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Speaker 2: as very polite, and he loves water sports and camping.
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Speaker 8: So did David burker Woods, you know, Son saying.
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Speaker 2: Truer words were never spoken, Barry, Explain what you're saying.
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Speaker 8: David Burkowitz, who was the son of Sam Killer in
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Speaker 8: New York City, had never ever been in any kind
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Speaker 8: of trouble. He was described by everybody that knew him
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Speaker 8: as being the most polite person that you had or
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Speaker 8: possibly could ever meet. And a lot of people liked him,
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Speaker 8: but he killed six or seven people.
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Speaker 2: And again, Mary Hutchinson, this is not mister congeniality. I'm
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Speaker 2: not asking for him to be crowned the king of
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Speaker 2: the ninth grade. Okay, that's not where This is about
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Speaker 2: five people, including and you heard doctor Lisa Long say
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Speaker 2: it's very rare that a young boy will murder his
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Speaker 2: own mother. You know about last year sometime we were
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Speaker 2: all having we went out for a brunch on a
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Speaker 2: Saturday morning, and my son was changing and putting on
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Speaker 2: a sweatshirt at the table, and when he did, he
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Speaker 2: stretched his arm out he bought me in the head.
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Speaker 2: Do you know he still apologizes for hitting me in
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Speaker 2: the head, but he was changing his sweatshirt. To this day,
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Speaker 2: it's been over a year, and he still feels bad
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Speaker 2: about that one little thing.
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Speaker 1: Just when Lisa Long.
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Speaker 2: Said it's very rare that a mother is murdered by
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Speaker 2: a child, I'm curious and I don't know that I'll
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Speaker 2: ever get the answer in this case. What drove him
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Speaker 2: to murder his whole family, including a seven year old
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Speaker 2: little sister and a mother. But that said Barry Hutchinson,
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Speaker 2: I played sound earlier when Dereck Rosa I believe Derek
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Speaker 2: was about fourteen years old when he I guess angry
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Speaker 2: because mom had remarried and had a baby.
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Speaker 1: Dereck Rosa was an honor student.
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Speaker 2: All A's very sweet, described as timid and mild.
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Speaker 1: He murdered his mother. Murdered her with.
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Speaker 2: The baby sleeping, the baby sisters sleeping right beside her
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Speaker 2: in a baby bed.
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Speaker 1: He was polite too, Barry Hutchinson.
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Speaker 9: That's true.
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Speaker 8: I mean, in today's day and age, there's so much
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Speaker 8: evil out there. I mean, there's really no explanation to
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Speaker 8: a lot of the stuff that happens. We just kind
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Speaker 8: of have to pick up the pieces and work the
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Speaker 8: crimes as they occur. And it's really, really, really an
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Speaker 8: awful thing, and you know, it's hard to deal with
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Speaker 8: and on a lot of occasions, if you don't mind,
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Speaker 8: I'd like to revert back to some of the characteristics
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Speaker 8: about the shooting and the positioning of the gun that
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Speaker 8: the doctor was speaking of earlier. There's a phenomenon known
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Speaker 8: if your firearm's instructor or a lot of times when
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Speaker 8: you work homicide cases or even shooting cases, there's a
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Speaker 8: phenomenon known as the lemp resting a handgun, Okay, especially
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Speaker 8: somebody that has a handgun in their non dominant hand.
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Speaker 8: And we have to really combat this when we teach
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Speaker 8: firearm tactics in the police academy. If you don't hold
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Speaker 8: a gun in a proper way, you don't exert the
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Speaker 8: right amount of strength for the firearm itself, the actual
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Speaker 8: slide on the gun will have what's called a stove
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Speaker 8: pipe malfunction. If that thirteen year old boy I would
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Speaker 8: have shot that gun with this non dominant hand, there
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Speaker 8: is a very very high likelihood that that gun would
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Speaker 8: have experienced a malfunction of what I just described.
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Speaker 1: Plus the sibling on.
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Speaker 8: The other side of his head would be indicative of
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Speaker 8: showing whether or not that gun was close to the
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Speaker 8: head or if it was an execution shot. And beyond
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Speaker 8: the physical aspects of that you spoke of earlier, it's
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Speaker 8: almost impossible. And I would go as far as say
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Speaker 8: that as long as I've been around cases like this,
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Speaker 8: I've never known anybody to shoot theirself twice in the
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Speaker 8: head like that. Never, And I'm sure that you know
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Speaker 8: freak things can happen. I've just never personally experienced that.
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Speaker 8: And the other thing that really bothered me about the
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Speaker 8: case also was the cold calculations of this child and
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Speaker 8: the mindset that he had. Like you said earlier, he
14:53
Speaker 8: went from body to body and checked to see their
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Speaker 8: vibals whether or not they were dead. And the father
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Speaker 8: had an execute she'd shot behind his left ear. That's
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Speaker 8: how heins this crime was. That's how hens this individual
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Speaker 8: child was that committed this murder or these murders.
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Speaker 3: A chilling nine one one call at four fifty five
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Speaker 3: in the early hours of the morning details a grizzly
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Speaker 3: crime scene of fifteen year old's. Entire family has been
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Speaker 3: shot dead in the dark of the night, with the
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Speaker 3: soul survivor being the eldest son.
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Speaker 2: The entire family wiped out except for the eleven year
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Speaker 2: old little girl and the fifteen year old boy who's
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Speaker 2: barricaded himself in the family bathroom.
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Speaker 1: To call nine one.
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Speaker 2: One two, Harmonia Rodriguez, tell me where the bodies were found.
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Speaker 6: Right, so, we now know that the body of the father,
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Speaker 6: Mark was found in the first floor, as well as
15:50
Speaker 6: of Joshua nine and Benjamin thirteen, and then Sarah the
15:55
Speaker 6: mother was found it bent over in her bathroom that
15:59
Speaker 6: was inside her bedroom in the second floor, and Catherine,
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Speaker 6: the seven year old girl, was shot, as we discussed,
16:07
Speaker 6: as she was exiting the room that she shared with
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Speaker 6: the eleven year old girl, and the fifteen year old,
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Speaker 6: as we mentioned, was found in a bathroom hiding allegedly.
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Speaker 2: I'm trying to make sense of what we are hearing
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Speaker 2: straight out to Guy DeAndrea, former prosecutor, veteran trial lawyer. Guy,
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Speaker 2: So it seems to me the dad and correct me
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Speaker 2: if I'm wrong. Harmonia and one brother are found on
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Speaker 2: the first floor. I don't believe that there are bedrooms
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Speaker 2: on the I don't believe that that's where they slept.
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Speaker 2: So they were on the first floor. The mom was
16:43
Speaker 2: in a different bathroom. It sounds like some of the
16:48
Speaker 2: shootings started in one of the children's bedrooms, and that
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Speaker 2: the mom ran one way and the dad and little
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Speaker 2: brother ran a different way. Mom's barricading her in one
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Speaker 2: bathroom and dad and brother are downstairs.
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Speaker 1: Does it?
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Speaker 2: I mean, think about it, Guy, it's four fifty five
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Speaker 2: a m.
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Speaker 1: What does that tell you about the sequence of events? Guy?
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Speaker 7: Yeah, the father running downstairs makes sense in terms of
17:17
Speaker 7: what's going on. Where is this shooting happening? Right, the
17:20
Speaker 7: younger brother. It does seem strange to me that he
17:24
Speaker 7: would be down there with the father. Look, anything could happen,
17:27
Speaker 7: you know, but you would think from a parental perspective,
17:29
Speaker 7: if the father saw the one child, he would tell
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Speaker 7: him go back to your room, go back to your room,
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Speaker 7: daddy's got it, or something to that effect.
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Speaker 2: Unless unless the shooting was upstairs. Guy, if the shooting
17:40
Speaker 2: is happening upstairs, and just let's just go with this,
17:44
Speaker 2: all it through to its logical conclusion. The shooting, if
17:46
Speaker 2: it erupts upstairs, then I could see the dad and
17:50
Speaker 2: the little boy running out into the hallway and then
17:55
Speaker 2: taking off downstairs.
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Speaker 1: We know, I can see that Harmonia is the mom
18:00
Speaker 1: in an upstairs bedroom, upstairs bathroom.
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Speaker 6: Correct, she was in the bathroom of her room.
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Speaker 1: Which was upstairs.
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Speaker 2: There's Mark the dad, Sarah the mom, Benjamin thirteen, Joshua nine,
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Speaker 2: Catherine seven, and the eleven year old little sister that survived. Right,
18:17
Speaker 2: that's correct, Yes, Benjamin's thirteen.
18:20
Speaker 1: Benjamin.
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Speaker 2: I find that statistically hard to believe, doctor Lisa, that
18:24
Speaker 2: a thirteen year old boy.
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Speaker 1: Unlisia's on his whole family.
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Speaker 2: I mean, at that age, if he looked at porn online.
18:34
Speaker 1: If that's a big if if he did at that age.
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Speaker 2: I would think that he would be more embarrassed than angry.
18:44
Speaker 10: What about it, doctor, Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Nancy,
18:47
Speaker 10: And you're correct that the rate of familia side is
18:52
Speaker 10: extremely low. So there's so many factors that need to
18:55
Speaker 10: be looked at in this case, especially if we were
18:59
Speaker 10: going to assume that the thirteen year old boy had
19:03
Speaker 10: partaken in any of this, there are a multitude of factors,
19:08
Speaker 10: risk factors that we would want to look at and protective.
19:12
Speaker 1: Factors such as.
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Speaker 10: So as far as the risk factors go, was there
19:17
Speaker 10: any criminal history for any of the juveniles involved in.
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Speaker 1: Like I tell you right now, there was zero, doctor
19:24
Speaker 1: Lisa long right.
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Speaker 10: And earlier you brought up, Nancy that they were describing
19:28
Speaker 10: the they were describing the fifteen year old boy as
19:32
Speaker 10: being kind and joining camping, So really being able to
19:37
Speaker 10: weigh out, you know, in each specific case, we need
19:42
Speaker 10: to look at everything and the culmination of there any
19:47
Speaker 10: adverse childhood experiences, so the ACES score for these kids
19:53
Speaker 10: and really going through and looking at is there any
19:55
Speaker 10: history of acting out behavior? I know they were homeschooled,
19:59
Speaker 10: We discussed that earlier.
20:01
Speaker 9: Do they have involvement within the community. Were they really isolated?
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Speaker 9: And it's my understanding that they weren't.
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Speaker 1: Isolated crime stories with Nancy Grace.
20:23
Speaker 2: Doctor Wallisa, let me ask you another question, and when
20:26
Speaker 2: you say it's statistically low, I'm just going anecdotally and
20:31
Speaker 2: guessing when there is a family massacre, number one is
20:37
Speaker 2: extremely rare. But number two is typically the dad just
20:41
Speaker 2: kills everybody.
20:42
Speaker 1: I've seen that more.
20:44
Speaker 2: Often when there is when there is a rare family master,
20:49
Speaker 2: it's usually the dad is a family annihilator for whatever reason.
20:53
Speaker 2: Number two, you rarely see a mother get rid of
20:57
Speaker 2: the whole family, very rare. Occasionally you'll see a male
21:03
Speaker 2: teen do that. But for a male teens, for instance,
21:09
Speaker 2: the thirteen year old to shoot the whole family a
21:14
Speaker 2: family massacre, that's extremely rare, isn't.
21:17
Speaker 10: It, absolutely, Especially when you see the mother being killed
21:21
Speaker 10: as well.
21:22
Speaker 9: That's what makes this case even more of an anomaly.
21:26
Speaker 10: That really signs out because typically children have intense or
21:33
Speaker 10: children have closer attachments with the maternal figure. You would
21:37
Speaker 10: expect that in most cases, and typically the mother is
21:42
Speaker 10: the primary caretaker for children.
21:45
Speaker 9: So the mothers usually don't see.
21:49
Speaker 10: That type of violence, especially perpetrated by their children.
21:54
Speaker 9: That's what also makes this case stand out.
21:58
Speaker 3: The eldest son of the Humiston family frantically calls emergency
22:03
Speaker 3: services for help, claiming he's the victim of a botched
22:07
Speaker 3: murder suicide plot perpetrated by his younger brother.
22:12
Speaker 2: Okay, there's so many things wrong with this scenario. The
22:17
Speaker 2: fifteen year old tells nine to one one his little brother, Benjamin,
22:21
Speaker 2: just thirteen, shot and killed the entire family and then
22:25
Speaker 2: quote took himself out his words, not mine. But let's
22:30
Speaker 2: examine the injuries to thirteen year old Benjamin also found dead.
22:35
Speaker 2: Did he could he have committed suicide? To doctor Kendall,
22:40
Speaker 2: Crown's chief medical examiner, Terrence County, I want to analyze this.
22:45
Speaker 2: So Benjamin Hunterston, the little brother, is shot twice. Am
22:50
Speaker 2: I supposed to believe that he shot himself once in
22:54
Speaker 2: the left cheek with the bullet traveling through his brain
22:59
Speaker 2: and the second gun shot behind.
23:01
Speaker 1: The right ear. Okay, whoa hold on?
23:08
Speaker 2: One gunshot wound goes through the left cheek with the
23:12
Speaker 2: bullet showling through the brain, which is an upward angle.
23:17
Speaker 2: The other shot is behind the right ear, we have not.
23:22
Speaker 2: It hasn't been revealed the trajectory path of that. Wait
23:26
Speaker 2: for it, Doctor Tendll Crowns. The glock is found in
23:33
Speaker 2: Benjamin's left hand. Our investigation reveals that Benjamin is right
23:41
Speaker 2: hand dominant. There is no blood spatter on his left
23:45
Speaker 2: hand or on the glock, which tells me the glock
23:53
Speaker 2: was wiped clean and.
23:56
Speaker 1: Then placed in the hand.
23:58
Speaker 2: But for the purposes of your participation, doctor Kendl Crowns,
24:03
Speaker 2: how can you shoot yourself too once in the head
24:06
Speaker 2: and continue shooting until you kill yourself?
24:08
Speaker 11: Okay, So you can shoot yourself in the head and
24:11
Speaker 11: then continue to function. It just depends on what part
24:14
Speaker 11: of your brain was damaged. If you hit in the
24:17
Speaker 11: center part of your brain, which is called the motor strip,
24:21
Speaker 11: it will instantly stop you from being able to move
24:24
Speaker 11: your arms and legs, et cetera. But if you hit
24:27
Speaker 11: more in the frontal part of your brain, you can
24:29
Speaker 11: still function. It's just it'll it will be difficult to function.
24:34
Speaker 11: And I have over the years seen people shoot themselves
24:37
Speaker 11: more than once and attempts to suicide. It's usually when
24:41
Speaker 11: they put the gun too far forward and taken out
24:44
Speaker 11: the frontal lobe of the brain. They're still able to
24:46
Speaker 11: function and move the gun and reposition it and shoot
24:48
Speaker 11: themselves again. If the kid has the gun in his
24:52
Speaker 11: left hand, he's right hand dominant, which would be odd,
24:55
Speaker 11: but the fact that he shot himself in the right
24:57
Speaker 11: side of his head, he would have to do something
25:00
Speaker 11: like this or that to pull that off, which is
25:02
Speaker 11: highly unusual. So the positioning is odd. The fact that
25:06
Speaker 11: the gun is.
25:08
Speaker 1: Can you do that again? Can you do that again?
25:11
Speaker 2: Because I don't see how you can hold the gun
25:15
Speaker 2: if you're right hand dominant and shape behind your had Okay,
25:18
Speaker 2: go ahead, So.
25:19
Speaker 11: In your left hand, if he's shooting himself in the
25:22
Speaker 11: back of the right side of his head, he'd have
25:23
Speaker 11: to reach around and do it like that or something
25:26
Speaker 11: along those lines, which is really awkward and hard to do.
25:30
Speaker 11: And you know, if you're going to shoot yourself, you're
25:32
Speaker 11: just going to put it to the side of your
25:33
Speaker 11: head or in your mouth or under your chin. You're
25:36
Speaker 11: not going to reach around and do something weird.
25:38
Speaker 1: And that's after you've already shot yourself once.
25:41
Speaker 11: Correct, So you'd already have the gunshot wound in the
25:43
Speaker 11: left cheek that's hit his brain. So whatever brain function
25:48
Speaker 11: is compromised. At that point, he's still going to have
25:50
Speaker 11: to be maneuvering around and doing some sort of complex
25:53
Speaker 11: maneuver to get it to the right side of his head,
25:55
Speaker 11: which would be highly unusual. So if his brain's already
25:58
Speaker 11: compromised himself on the left cheek, if he's still able
26:01
Speaker 11: to function, I think he'd put it in his mouth
26:04
Speaker 11: or put it on the left side of his head,
26:06
Speaker 11: not right side of back ahead WHI should be hard.
26:10
Speaker 3: As first responders are dispatched to the quiet neighborhood of
26:14
Speaker 3: Lake Alice, a second nine to one one called comes
26:18
Speaker 3: in and the eleven year old girl, who identifies the
26:22
Speaker 3: Homiston family shooter as her oldest brother.
26:26
Speaker 2: Dear Lord in Heaven, what this child has witnessed and
26:30
Speaker 2: now she no longer has a mother a father also
26:34
Speaker 2: killed Benjamin Humiston just thirteen, Joshua Humiston just nine, and
26:41
Speaker 2: seven year old Catherine Humiston all.
26:45
Speaker 1: Dead, all dead.
26:48
Speaker 2: Straight out to Harmonia Rodriguez joining us from dailymail dot com.
26:53
Speaker 2: Tell me what the eleven year old little girl saw, Harmonia.
26:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's the latest developments in this story, because
27:00
Speaker 6: we now know from court what the eleven year old
27:03
Speaker 6: told police. She said that she woke up early on
27:06
Speaker 6: Monday with shots ringing out. As we have heard already,
27:10
Speaker 6: she was shot twice. As she saw who shot her,
27:13
Speaker 6: told beliefs it was her older brother, who was fifteen,
27:17
Speaker 6: she played dead. She told police that she saw her
27:20
Speaker 6: brother checking on the family members to make sure they
27:23
Speaker 6: were dead before she made her escape. She also told
27:26
Speaker 6: police that it was only the fifteen year old who
27:29
Speaker 6: had access to the father's weapon. She also said her
27:32
Speaker 6: older brother had been in a lot of trouble lately,
27:36
Speaker 6: particularly when it came to his school work. And that's
27:40
Speaker 6: what we know right now from the girl who's now
27:42
Speaker 6: being taken care of by a a relative who lives
27:45
Speaker 6: in the area.
27:46
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just trying to take in what has happened.
27:50
Speaker 2: A fifteen year old boy now accused of annihilating his
27:57
Speaker 2: entire family. The eleven years little sister says she laid
28:03
Speaker 2: there and held her breath after she was shot so
28:08
Speaker 2: her own brother would think she was dead to save
28:13
Speaker 2: her own life. She says that her fifteen year old
28:18
Speaker 2: brother got her dad's block. She heard someone yelling stop
28:24
Speaker 2: and help. She sees her older brother leaning over the
28:29
Speaker 2: three dead bodies actually touching their necks and chests to
28:34
Speaker 2: see if they're still alive. He comes back in her
28:38
Speaker 2: room and the little girl holds her breath, pretending to
28:43
Speaker 2: plate dead. As he stands next to her bed where
28:47
Speaker 2: she is lying bleeding. She hears him leave the room.
28:52
Speaker 2: She goes out a window in her room to escape
28:55
Speaker 2: from the second floor and starts running.
28:59
Speaker 1: As she turn turns.
29:00
Speaker 2: Back, she sees the fifteen year old Hemiston talking on
29:05
Speaker 2: the phone in the homes front entry. Wow Crime Stories
29:18
Speaker 2: with Nancy Grace to Guy DeAndrea joining us former prosecutor,
29:23
Speaker 2: veteran trial lawyer, I've heard a lot of trial lawyers,
29:27
Speaker 2: usually defense lawyers, argue that children are not good witnesses.
29:32
Speaker 2: And I'm sure they're going to argue this eleven year
29:34
Speaker 2: old little girl has no credibility because she is a child.
29:38
Speaker 2: I've argued to many many juries, Guy DeAndrea, that the
29:43
Speaker 2: exact opposite is true, that children have less cunning, less
29:48
Speaker 2: ability to lie. Also, no way can a insanity or
29:55
Speaker 2: mental disturbance defense be mounted here?
29:58
Speaker 1: Why?
29:59
Speaker 2: Because if this it is true, and I have no
30:01
Speaker 2: reason to disbelieve the eleven year old little girl, the
30:04
Speaker 2: fifteen year old brother had to wherewithal to check the
30:08
Speaker 2: pulses of his dead mother and dead father, dead brother,
30:13
Speaker 2: dead sister. He checked their pulses to make sure they
30:18
Speaker 2: were dead. He went and checked on the little sister
30:22
Speaker 2: and saw she wasn't breathing because she was holding her breath.
30:27
Speaker 2: Then he goes downstairs and makes his fake nine one
30:31
Speaker 2: one call, claiming his brother did it the thirteen year
30:35
Speaker 2: old because he was angry. Then wipes the gun clean
30:40
Speaker 2: and places it in the brother's hand, a last cowardly
30:44
Speaker 2: act to frame the thirteen year old little brother. No
30:48
Speaker 2: way is he going to be able to claim he's crazy.
30:51
Speaker 2: Maybe like a fox.
30:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, the mental health defense as it relates to insanity,
30:56
Speaker 7: You're right, it's a difficult position to take posts given
31:00
Speaker 7: all the things he did. I would expect, and we
31:03
Speaker 7: don't know if this is true or not, but I
31:05
Speaker 7: would expect the mental health defense is going to We'll
31:09
Speaker 7: have to wait and see, but align itself with physical
31:13
Speaker 7: or sexual abuse at the hands of the parents.
31:15
Speaker 5: Now, look, I'm not saying.
31:16
Speaker 2: That, Dear Lord in Heaven, and Andrea, did you just
31:20
Speaker 2: say physical or sex abuse by the parents?
31:23
Speaker 1: Did you say that.
31:24
Speaker 7: What I'm saying is, if I expect to see that,
31:27
Speaker 7: and potentially from the defense attorneys, because what else are
31:29
Speaker 7: they going to.
31:30
Speaker 1: Say, meaning he did so many things.
31:33
Speaker 7: Post shooting that it would make it very challenging from
31:37
Speaker 7: a insanity defense, because if you could show that someone
31:41
Speaker 7: had the wherewithal to cover things up, to create an alibi,
31:45
Speaker 7: or create a self defense, or create what he created here,
31:48
Speaker 7: which was it was my younger brother murder suicide, it's
31:51
Speaker 7: very difficult.
31:52
Speaker 1: So they have to have some defense. We don't know
31:54
Speaker 1: what it's going to be.
31:56
Speaker 2: But so you're basically saying it doesn't matter if it's
31:58
Speaker 2: true or not, but they've got to come with a defense. Well,
32:01
Speaker 2: it's not the first time young boy the same age
32:06
Speaker 2: turned family annihilator. I don't know if the name Derek
32:09
Speaker 2: Rosaw rings a bell because I will never forget it.
32:12
Speaker 1: Listen, I don't want to look at.
32:16
Speaker 6: Okay, where else did you stop?
32:18
Speaker 10: There?
32:19
Speaker 8: Old and night caught in her neck?
32:20
Speaker 6: So where is your sister?
32:22
Speaker 1: She's grip sleeping.
32:25
Speaker 6: How old is your sister?
32:27
Speaker 5: She's only a week old?
32:31
Speaker 10: Okay? And you did not touch her?
32:32
Speaker 8: Correct?
32:33
Speaker 3: No, I did not touch you.
32:34
Speaker 9: I didn't want to touch my sister.
32:36
Speaker 10: I need to know if your mom is breathing.
32:39
Speaker 1: She said, miss I have the gun with me.
32:42
Speaker 8: I was going to shoot myself, but I didn't want to.
32:45
Speaker 3: I didn't want to.
32:46
Speaker 1: I pulled back to side, but.
32:47
Speaker 5: I did not see Pumiston is transported to the Samamish
32:51
Speaker 5: Police station, where he is put in touch with an attorney,
32:54
Speaker 5: who then tells detectives that Humiston will not be speaking
32:57
Speaker 5: with them. The lone survivor of the attack, homiston eleven
33:00
Speaker 5: year old sister, is transported to Harbor View Medical Center
33:03
Speaker 5: for treatment for her non life threatening injuries.
33:06
Speaker 2: A miracle that this eleven year old girl. She is
33:08
Speaker 2: the sole survivor out of her family. Her mother murdered,
33:13
Speaker 2: her father murdered, her brother thirteen, Benjamin murdered, her nine
33:18
Speaker 2: year old brother Joshua murdered, and even her little sister
33:23
Speaker 2: Catherine murdered. She's left with no one but her fifteen
33:28
Speaker 2: year old brother, now charged with murder.
33:32
Speaker 1: Now. Is it true, Harmonia Rodriguez joining us from dally
33:36
Speaker 1: mail Harmonia?
33:38
Speaker 2: Is it true that lawyers asked for him to be
33:43
Speaker 2: released and they stated that he is described as quote
33:47
Speaker 2: polite and loves fishing and camping.
33:52
Speaker 1: That's what they've got, did they actually say that.
33:55
Speaker 6: That is what happened last week in Cord. He waved
33:57
Speaker 6: his ride to appear in Cord, but his lawyers appeared
34:00
Speaker 6: there for him, and they asked for him to receive bond,
34:05
Speaker 6: arguing that he has no criminal history and also, as
34:08
Speaker 6: you said, that he was a nice, polite boy that
34:11
Speaker 6: enjoyed water sports and had an active life sort of
34:16
Speaker 6: filled with nature and again no criminal past. However, a
34:20
Speaker 6: judge did not buy that, did not go for that argument.
34:25
Speaker 1: I'm sorry hermione. I just want to make sure that
34:27
Speaker 1: I'm hearing correctly. Did you say he enjoyed nature? Correct?
34:32
Speaker 6: That's kind of how they are describing.
34:33
Speaker 1: Well, we ain't going to see a lot of that
34:35
Speaker 1: in GV jail. Okay.
34:37
Speaker 2: The big question right now is will he be treated
34:39
Speaker 2: as an adult. We all know, all of you legal eagles,
34:43
Speaker 2: there are seven deadlys, Guy DeAndrea, seven deadly sins, crimes
34:48
Speaker 2: that will automatically in most cases transfer you out of juvenile.
34:54
Speaker 1: Court to adult court.
34:55
Speaker 2: That does not mean you are in gp general population
34:58
Speaker 2: with adult males. You are held at juvenile, but you'll
35:02
Speaker 2: be tried as an adult. And those sevens are I
35:06
Speaker 2: think murder, rape, child, molestation, armed robbery, arson, sodomy, aggravated assault,
35:20
Speaker 2: shooting somebody. To the best of my recollection, off the
35:23
Speaker 2: top of my head, those are called the seven deadlies.
35:26
Speaker 2: You do that as a juvenile, typically over twelve, you're
35:30
Speaker 2: going to be tried as an adult.
35:32
Speaker 1: The defense will have to do.
35:33
Speaker 2: A backflip to get a judge to remand this back
35:36
Speaker 2: down to Juvicourt.
35:37
Speaker 7: Yeah, So Washington, if you are sixteen or seventeen and
35:42
Speaker 7: you are alleged to have committed this type of crime
35:44
Speaker 7: firstgree murder, aggravated first murder, it is a auto what
35:48
Speaker 7: they call in Washington an auto declination, meaning it's going
35:51
Speaker 7: to be an.
35:52
Speaker 1: He's fifteen, correct, He's fifteen.
35:55
Speaker 11: That's right.
35:56
Speaker 7: I'm just sharing how the difference. This is a discretionary decline.
36:00
Speaker 7: So now and the prosecutor has done this, they filed
36:02
Speaker 7: their motion to say this is not appropriate for juvenile court.
36:07
Speaker 7: Now the defense will have to compile a defense to
36:11
Speaker 7: fight this, and there will be motions and hearings and
36:14
Speaker 7: disputes regarding whether or not it's appropriate to have this
36:18
Speaker 7: individual tried as an adult. Given the gravity, I strongly
36:23
Speaker 7: believe they would have to have It's a hill that
36:26
Speaker 7: I would not want to have to climb as a defenseitur.
36:28
Speaker 2: Doctor Lisa Long earlier introduced forensics psychologist and owner of
36:32
Speaker 2: Doctor Long and Associates.
36:34
Speaker 1: Doctor Lisa, this is a hurdle for.
36:37
Speaker 2: The prosecution, as Guy DeAndrea was alluding to earlier, because
36:41
Speaker 2: when you see a young boy he's just turned fifteen,
36:45
Speaker 2: take out his whole family, including his mother and his
36:49
Speaker 2: little seven year old sister, which I find just anecdotally
36:53
Speaker 2: almost impossible to believe. But the fact say it happened,
36:57
Speaker 2: a jury is going to want to believe the fifteen
37:01
Speaker 2: year old is mentally ill, because the alternative is to
37:04
Speaker 2: believe as you heard Barry Hutchinson describe me earlier, and
37:08
Speaker 2: he's right, a teen boy systematically seeing if he was
37:13
Speaker 2: successful in murdering his whole family. So the jury will
37:19
Speaker 2: probably want to believe he's mentally ill, so they don't have.
37:23
Speaker 1: To believe the alternative.
37:26
Speaker 2: But the facts tell me something very different, Doctor Lisa.
37:30
Speaker 10: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Nancy. I mean, this
37:33
Speaker 10: is a horrific case, and you know, unfortunately we don't
37:38
Speaker 10: have enough information right now. If there was anything posted
37:41
Speaker 10: on social media or more risk factors, I know, it
37:46
Speaker 10: was discussed earlier that he doesn't have a criminal history,
37:49
Speaker 10: but those are some of the factors that we would
37:51
Speaker 10: be looking at if they moved forward and did a
37:56
Speaker 10: forensic psychological evaluation on him. You know, they would be
38:01
Speaker 10: looking at the attachment, if there was any history of
38:05
Speaker 10: substance abuse, his academic functioning, his cognitive functioning. There's no
38:09
Speaker 10: indicators as of yet that there was any impaired cognitive
38:14
Speaker 10: functioning or any significant family dynamics that would result in
38:21
Speaker 10: this type of tragedy. You know, that's one of the
38:26
Speaker 10: main in an area that gets a lot of attention,
38:29
Speaker 10: and there's a lot of research in the aces.
38:32
Speaker 9: We would want to know those scores for him.
38:34
Speaker 10: So have there been any adverse childhood events for this family,
38:39
Speaker 10: for this child, and up until now, it doesn't look
38:44
Speaker 10: as though there has been. It really looks as though
38:48
Speaker 10: this is an ideal family and a family where this we.
38:53
Speaker 9: Would think this just couldn't happen. One of those.
39:00
Speaker 10: A case where there aren't the risk factors, we just
39:03
Speaker 10: aren't seeing them yet where we were flagged.
39:08
Speaker 2: We wait as justice unfolds and our prayers, of course
39:12
Speaker 2: for the eleven year old, a little girl that lived.
39:16
Speaker 2: We stop now and remember an American hero. Staff Sergeant
39:19
Speaker 2: Jesse Cheryl, New Hampshire State Police, killed in the line
39:25
Speaker 2: of duty. He served New Hampshire State Police nineteen years.
39:30
Speaker 2: Survived by wife now widow, Nicole, and children Peyton and Quinn.
39:36
Speaker 2: American hero Sergeant Jesse Cheryl. Thank you to our guests
39:42
Speaker 2: for being with us, but especially to you from being
39:44
Speaker 2: with us. Nancy Grace signing off, goodbye friend.