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True Crime Documentary - Online Stranger Danger： Breck’s Story · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Okay, Barley.
0:19
Speaker 2: Breakfast born on Saint Patti's date was kind of special
0:22
Speaker 2: because you could hear everybody celebrating outside. I dressed him
0:28
Speaker 2: like a little old fashioned English outfits, and people always
0:32
Speaker 2: thought he was a girl because he was so pretty.
0:38
Speaker 2: I was so proud of him. It was the happiest
0:41
Speaker 2: time of my life.
0:45
Speaker 3: He was super nice at home, and I would sit
0:48
Speaker 3: next to him at restaurants.
0:50
Speaker 4: I know people like.
0:51
Speaker 3: Wouldn't believe that, or he's an older brother, he's going
0:53
Speaker 3: to be annoying, but he was super helpful in any
0:56
Speaker 3: way that I needed. I couldn't ask for a better
1:00
Speaker 3: older brother.
1:02
Speaker 5: Breck was a guiding figure for us. He would teach
1:06
Speaker 5: us things. He always come up with games. I'd always
1:10
Speaker 5: be at his shoulder, just tapping him and annoying him,
1:15
Speaker 5: just desperate to get his attention. He was such a
1:19
Speaker 5: cool older brother.
1:25
Speaker 2: Twenty thirteen was when Breck was first meeting this new friend.
1:31
Speaker 2: By the end of that year, Brek seemed like a
1:33
Speaker 2: completely different person. He was disinterested, he didn't want to participate.
1:39
Speaker 2: He wasn't the same at all.
1:41
Speaker 3: My Mum and Brec were arguing like crazy. I just
1:43
Speaker 3: thought it was about spending too much time on the computer.
1:47
Speaker 3: I wasn't aware of anything deeper, anything more sinister.
1:53
Speaker 1: Can I help, Yes, I have a fourteen year old son,
1:57
Speaker 1: and I feel like you're seeing groomed.
2:01
Speaker 6: The perpetrator seemed very, very young, and that was how
2:04
Speaker 6: he was able to disarm Bread.
2:06
Speaker 4: He just seemed like another one of the boys.
2:09
Speaker 2: When I took away a Brex technology, he wasn't pleased.
2:12
Speaker 2: I said to him, okay, do we understand now? You
2:14
Speaker 2: know you are not to spend time with this guy online,
2:18
Speaker 2: and he said, okay, Mom.
2:20
Speaker 3: He was actually enjoying time with the family, and it
2:24
Speaker 3: felt like normal again.
2:26
Speaker 2: It felt like I had fixed the problem. I had
2:29
Speaker 2: no idea that predator was still lurking in the background.
2:34
Speaker 4: All along.
2:34
Speaker 2: I had known that he felt dangerous, but I never
2:37
Speaker 2: realized how dangerous he actually was.
2:41
Speaker 7: Six place mergers say hello, I need police and a
2:45
Speaker 7: forensic team to my address plate.
2:47
Speaker 2: What's happened?
2:48
Speaker 7: My friend and I got into an altercation and I'm
2:53
Speaker 7: the only one who came out alive.
3:18
Speaker 2: The only time I remember Bret being sad was the
3:22
Speaker 2: day I was meant to go to the hospital to
3:24
Speaker 2: have the triplets, and it was confusing for him, and
3:28
Speaker 2: he was crying when I was going to the hospital,
3:30
Speaker 2: which just tugged at my heart strings. But after that
3:33
Speaker 2: he just took on the role of big brother. I
3:40
Speaker 2: remember other children being jealous of their siblings, and he
3:44
Speaker 2: just wasn't. He was only two when they were born,
3:49
Speaker 2: and if I said, can you get mammy, you know
3:51
Speaker 2: some nappies over on the changing table, he'd toddle over
3:54
Speaker 2: and bring them back. I think he actually liked taking
3:58
Speaker 2: on responsibility, quite grown up even from the start.
4:05
Speaker 3: Look at school, he pretended he didn't know who I was.
4:08
Speaker 3: You know, it's going to be cool and tough with
4:10
Speaker 3: all his friends. But at home he was so sweet
4:14
Speaker 3: and so smart, and he really did love us and
4:18
Speaker 3: he really did look out for us.
4:27
Speaker 2: Breck always easily got good grades. He did try, but
4:30
Speaker 2: he also was naturally clever. Oh, I've got three marriage
4:34
Speaker 2: for the history project.
4:35
Speaker 8: I do really well.
4:46
Speaker 2: He wanted to be a pilot, which I thought was amazing,
4:49
Speaker 2: and so I would drive him to air cadets and
4:52
Speaker 2: that was sort of some of my favorite memories because
4:54
Speaker 2: it was just with the two of us in the
4:56
Speaker 2: car and there were no distractions. It was just us
5:00
Speaker 2: and we could chat the whole way and listen to
5:01
Speaker 2: music together. He was just innately good. I barely ever
5:09
Speaker 2: had problems with that child. He was laid back, chilled, clever, easy, fun,
5:16
Speaker 2: funny good.
5:20
Speaker 4: He was special.
5:28
Speaker 2: As Brett got older, his passions were were anything to
5:31
Speaker 2: do with technology. He loved spending time on his devices,
5:36
Speaker 2: gaming computing.
5:39
Speaker 5: I would enjoy watching Breack play games more than I
5:41
Speaker 5: enjoyed playing them myself. Just Breck being in the middle,
5:45
Speaker 5: all the triplets gathered around, just at his shoulder and
5:47
Speaker 5: just peering in and watching what he was doing. We
5:51
Speaker 5: just idolized him and everything that he did. I was
5:55
Speaker 5: just always so impressive. That was always an all.
6:03
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Barry, the children's dad, and I separated when the
6:06
Speaker 2: children were still in primary school, and you know, it
6:10
Speaker 2: was hard for the family. Obviously, Barry and I always
6:13
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure it was the best for the children.
6:20
Speaker 3: Things were a little bit difficult because we were going
6:22
Speaker 3: back and forth from my dad's and my mom, but
6:25
Speaker 3: we were still all very close as a family.
6:29
Speaker 2: Because of the divorce, Breck had to switch schools, and
6:32
Speaker 2: the school that I found him it reconnected him with
6:35
Speaker 2: friends that he knew back from primary Breck was invited
6:38
Speaker 2: into a gaming group, and I was pleased that he had,
6:41
Speaker 2: you know, rekindled this relationship with his friends.
6:45
Speaker 5: All the boys would hang out at school during the
6:46
Speaker 5: day and then they'd all race home, get on their computers,
6:50
Speaker 5: and enter their kind of second life, their virtual life.
6:55
Speaker 4: I knew where these friends lived, I knew their parents.
6:58
Speaker 2: We had a history together, and it felt safe, and
7:02
Speaker 2: I was pleased for him.
7:04
Speaker 3: He seemed to love it, and he put a lot
7:06
Speaker 3: of money and effort into his perfect gaming setup.
7:14
Speaker 2: As Brett grew older, he started to expand his games
7:18
Speaker 2: and played more wargames fighting games, which was ironic because
7:22
Speaker 2: he was such a chill guy himself. When the children
7:28
Speaker 2: were young, we only had a family computer in the kitchen,
7:33
Speaker 2: and that was obviously easier to hear and see what
7:36
Speaker 2: was happening. As Brett got older, he earned the responsibility
7:42
Speaker 2: and he had his own computer in his room. The
7:46
Speaker 2: door was always open and I could hear what was happening.
7:49
Speaker 2: I could see what was happening. Breck had three screens.
7:53
Speaker 2: One would be all the players but their names were
7:56
Speaker 2: and you'd have the action screen, and then on the
7:58
Speaker 2: other side you'd have messages popping up and it was
8:01
Speaker 2: so cool. I could understand why Breck liked to game
8:04
Speaker 2: this way, but I didn't realize the danger that he.
8:08
Speaker 4: Was up against.
8:20
Speaker 9: When I joined the police, I was a standard police constable,
8:24
Speaker 9: did that for a number of years, and then as
8:27
Speaker 9: I was working with Essex Police, I got involved viewing
8:30
Speaker 9: images that were being shared online. And then as my
8:35
Speaker 9: knowledge and my skills grew, I joined the digital Forensics
8:38
Speaker 9: unit with Essex Police in two thousand and eight. There
8:44
Speaker 9: is no accounting for what people look at, what people
8:47
Speaker 9: are interested in, what groups they will take part in.
8:50
Speaker 9: Became quite evident to me that there's a sort of
8:54
Speaker 9: full range of how people behave and how they would
8:57
Speaker 9: disassociate themselves from what they're doing online, So how that
9:00
Speaker 9: would work in your life.
9:03
Speaker 2: I could hear what everyone was saying, and I recognized
9:06
Speaker 2: all of the voices.
9:07
Speaker 4: But I remember literally.
9:09
Speaker 2: The day that I heard a deeper sounding voice and
9:13
Speaker 2: it did not sound like someone who was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
9:17
Speaker 2: the AGO's friends. It sounded like someone older, an adult,
9:21
Speaker 2: and I immediately in my head was concerned. I pictured
9:26
Speaker 2: some creepy forty year old guy behind a screen hoping
9:31
Speaker 2: to entice some boy into doing something sexual. That was
9:35
Speaker 2: the exact image that I got from this voice. Breck
9:41
Speaker 2: told me that this stranger was the one who ran
9:44
Speaker 2: the server the best that he'd ever gained on the
9:46
Speaker 2: fastest and most efficient. And you know, I said, Okay,
9:51
Speaker 2: who is this stranger? Breck told me all about this
9:55
Speaker 2: new friend. He told me he was seventeen. He had
9:59
Speaker 2: an amazing job in New York City. He was working
10:02
Speaker 2: for the US government and contract and worked his own hours.
10:06
Speaker 4: He told me his name.
10:09
Speaker 3: I never knew the name new as Danes. I had
10:12
Speaker 3: no idea that was.
10:14
Speaker 9: He was talked of as a computer engineer, as having
10:17
Speaker 9: a very successful business, saying that he was like a
10:20
Speaker 9: covert operative, and so he was portraying himself as this
10:25
Speaker 9: very important person who was living this fantastic lifestyle.
10:34
Speaker 2: It was obviously someone who had very similar interests, a
10:37
Speaker 2: huge knowledge of technology.
10:40
Speaker 4: Successful and fun and funny. Sometimes I would go into the.
10:48
Speaker 2: Room and funny things would pop up on the screen.
10:51
Speaker 2: We'd laugh and it'd be entertaining, and I'd be like,
10:54
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, they're so quick. If you talked about
10:57
Speaker 2: a news story, it would flash up. If you talked
11:00
Speaker 2: about a movie it would flash up. But with Brek
11:03
Speaker 2: being just thirteen fourteen, I didn't necessarily want him gaming
11:07
Speaker 2: with seventeen or eighteen year olds anyway. I'd rather have
11:11
Speaker 2: him hanging out with kids his own age.
11:14
Speaker 9: Little things started to add up for Mum and dad.
11:19
Speaker 8: Just as to.
11:21
Speaker 9: Feeling uncomfortable, getting these little clues is to this really
11:26
Speaker 9: just doesn't seem right.
11:32
Speaker 2: Whenever I tried to talk to Breck about my concerns,
11:35
Speaker 2: Breck would just defend him. I would say, well, how
11:38
Speaker 2: does he have time to game with you guys? If
11:40
Speaker 2: he has this amazing career, and Breck is like, that's
11:43
Speaker 2: because you know, he can work his own hours.
11:46
Speaker 4: I would ask Breck if he had seen this stranger,
11:50
Speaker 4: this new friend.
11:50
Speaker 2: Breck would say, no, he can't show his face because
11:53
Speaker 2: of the work he does. There was an answer for everything.
11:58
Speaker 2: When I tried to speak to a game group, Re's
12:01
Speaker 2: friends that I knew would get kind of quiet. They
12:03
Speaker 2: didn't want to talk to a mom, where As the
12:06
Speaker 2: person that I didn't know would speak to me openly,
12:08
Speaker 2: Hey mom, how you doing?
12:09
Speaker 4: What's going on?
12:11
Speaker 2: And he would say, oh, yeah, I'm in New York City.
12:13
Speaker 2: It's great and so you know what's the weather like,
12:16
Speaker 2: and oh, yeah, it's about the same. He never really
12:19
Speaker 2: had any New York stories, even though he claimed to
12:22
Speaker 2: live there. I couldn't gather any information that would lead
12:26
Speaker 2: me to believe that he either lived there or that
12:29
Speaker 2: he was who he said he was.
12:40
Speaker 4: As time went on, I had rules in the house.
12:43
Speaker 4: Breck had to come to dinner.
12:44
Speaker 2: I cooked dinner because I wanted to chat with my children,
12:47
Speaker 2: so I'd say, Breck, you do have to come down
12:49
Speaker 2: for dinner. Well, this predator used it against me. Oh well,
12:53
Speaker 2: why is your mom making you eat if you're not hungry?
12:55
Speaker 2: Why does your mom insist that you eat when she
12:57
Speaker 2: wants to eat. I felt like I was constantly fighting
13:01
Speaker 2: against this person that I didn't know who he was,
13:04
Speaker 2: almost as if he was another parent. I noticed Breck's
13:16
Speaker 2: personality changing in the summer. He stopped being easy about
13:23
Speaker 2: doing the things that I asked him. He would question them,
13:27
Speaker 2: and in a way I couldn't tell as this normal
13:29
Speaker 2: teenage behavior or is this something different.
13:34
Speaker 3: He always wanted to go into the eCorps training, and
13:38
Speaker 3: Breck was saying that he wanted to drop out and
13:42
Speaker 3: continue gaming, and they were like, what but you've always
13:45
Speaker 3: wanted to be a pilot. You've always wanted to pursue that,
13:48
Speaker 3: and he was saying that he didn't want to anymore.
13:51
Speaker 5: Breck would be really sullen, like he just didn't want
13:55
Speaker 5: to be hanging out with the family, who'd much rather
13:58
Speaker 5: be back in his room on his computer. I felt
14:03
Speaker 5: quite far away from him.
14:13
Speaker 2: I started to pop in more often to see what
14:16
Speaker 2: I could see, and instead of funny things popping up
14:19
Speaker 2: on the screen, it would be the Wicked Witch of
14:22
Speaker 2: the West from the Wizard of Oz would fly across
14:24
Speaker 2: on her broomstick. And the next time I'd pop into
14:27
Speaker 2: the room, Breck's time for dinner. A command Hitler would
14:30
Speaker 2: goose step across the screen. He was turning me into
14:33
Speaker 2: the bad guy when all I was doing was trying
14:36
Speaker 2: to be a good parent.
14:40
Speaker 6: Lewis Daines used multiple methods of grooming on Breck. He
14:44
Speaker 6: will have worked out what Breck needed, what he liked,
14:49
Speaker 6: and found something in common with him. He contacted him
14:53
Speaker 6: on the daily basis, and he created a fantasy of
14:57
Speaker 6: an individual that Brett and the rest of the boys
15:00
Speaker 6: would have believed because none of them knew any facts
15:04
Speaker 6: about this individual. Because he didn't let them see even
15:07
Speaker 6: his face online.
15:09
Speaker 2: Just like a face to face abuser would take somebody
15:13
Speaker 2: off to a different room or a different place. That's
15:16
Speaker 2: what happens online as well. Breck was being taken to
15:19
Speaker 2: other better places to gain, taken to other sites and
15:23
Speaker 2: other channels of communication because he was special.
15:28
Speaker 9: Breck saw in Lewis what he wanted to see, over
15:32
Speaker 9: and above all his other friends. Lewis actually meant something.
15:36
Speaker 9: Lewis is what he aspired to.
15:46
Speaker 2: On the day I decided to phone the police. I
15:49
Speaker 2: was scared, but I had I got feeling that things
15:52
Speaker 2: were quite wronging.
15:55
Speaker 9: Cirdly not Can I help?
15:57
Speaker 1: Yes, I have a fourteen year old son, and there's
16:00
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old unknown well he says he's eighteen
16:04
Speaker 1: year old person, and I feel like he's being turned
16:06
Speaker 1: against his family, and I'm getting really concerned that this
16:09
Speaker 1: person isn't actually who he says he is.
16:12
Speaker 2: I gave the predator's real name, I gave his alias,
16:16
Speaker 2: I gave where he lived.
16:18
Speaker 4: Lies he was telling to the boys.
16:20
Speaker 1: He's grooming him for something because he's trying to change
16:23
Speaker 1: his thinking set on everything.
16:26
Speaker 7: And what happens when you speak to your son about it?
16:29
Speaker 7: What does he say about it?
16:30
Speaker 1: He and the rest of the guys in this group
16:32
Speaker 1: completely looked up to this older boy.
16:35
Speaker 2: I felt a great sense of relief that I had
16:39
Speaker 2: made the report. I got off the phone and I
16:47
Speaker 2: took away all of brex technology as a stance to say,
16:51
Speaker 2: I'm worried and I need you to take this seriously.
16:54
Speaker 2: But what I missed was a little MP three player,
16:57
Speaker 2: which was how Breck was able to record the intervention
17:01
Speaker 2: meeting when instructed by this predator. It might sound.
17:07
Speaker 1: Apparently, but but it felt like it was even brilliant
17:11
Speaker 1: behavior that's grooming.
17:17
Speaker 7: And that's what's more.
17:18
Speaker 9: We're concerned and the stuff that we are.
17:20
Speaker 7: Scared of, the death.
17:24
Speaker 4: Brec was defending him. He's a good guy.
17:27
Speaker 2: So we said at this meeting, okay, fine, let's meet him.
17:32
Speaker 3: They said they wanted to meet him for coffee, and
17:34
Speaker 3: I remember Brex saying that he didn't want to meet them.
17:38
Speaker 2: Was something Brex said, he thinks parents are too judgmental,
17:42
Speaker 2: and so we said, well, if you won't meet up
17:44
Speaker 2: with us, you know what about the dads.
17:46
Speaker 4: He said no, he won't, Well, then that's it.
17:50
Speaker 2: We're going to have to forbid you from gaming, speaking
17:53
Speaker 2: or socializing to this guy because we don't know who
17:55
Speaker 2: he is. The predator now knew that we were onto him,
18:01
Speaker 2: so it became that much more dangerous because everything then
18:04
Speaker 2: went underground and became more secretive, And that was the
18:12
Speaker 2: point in which the predator sent Brack a brand new
18:14
Speaker 2: smartphone so they could communicate secretly. So I think, as
18:20
Speaker 2: much as I was trying to do the right thing
18:23
Speaker 2: by forbidding, it's actually a tool that predators will use
18:28
Speaker 2: to make the parents seem as if they're the bad guys.
18:34
Speaker 9: When mum and dad tried to go to the police
18:37
Speaker 9: and say my boy's being groomed, it's very much a
18:40
Speaker 9: case of, well, where's the evidence for that, because you've
18:44
Speaker 9: got a child chatting with an older male, but there's
18:48
Speaker 9: no grooming events going on as such in terms of
18:52
Speaker 9: the legal framework. That was a pride to then try
18:55
Speaker 9: and progress something.
18:57
Speaker 2: Unfortunately I found out too late that they had closed
19:02
Speaker 2: the investigation that very evening because they didn't recognize the
19:08
Speaker 2: signs of grooming that I was telling them about.
19:12
Speaker 9: The wordflex earlier on. Because Lewis was separating Break from
19:18
Speaker 9: the rest of the group, Breck was enamored. Lewis was
19:24
Speaker 9: all that Bret wanted to be in terms of this
19:27
Speaker 9: computer engineer is out in America. That's all wow, that's great.
19:34
Speaker 9: But Brec had no way of checking it.
19:37
Speaker 2: Breck wasn't normally, you know, devious or secretive, but he
19:41
Speaker 2: was being brainwashed.
20:03
Speaker 3: It was Christmas when he had his computis taken away
20:06
Speaker 3: from him, and it was like the perfect Christmas because
20:09
Speaker 3: he wasn't on his computy.
20:14
Speaker 2: It was only a week off of technology, and I
20:17
Speaker 2: got to see more of him, and that's what I wanted.
20:20
Speaker 2: I wanted to spend more time with my children. I
20:22
Speaker 2: didn't want them to be each separated in their own
20:25
Speaker 2: little world.
20:28
Speaker 3: He was actually enjoying time with the family, and it
20:31
Speaker 3: felt like normal again.
20:35
Speaker 2: After Brett got his technology back and he started with
20:38
Speaker 2: the new gaming group with his old friends, he seemed normal.
20:44
Speaker 2: He was happy, go lucky, he was chilled again. He
20:47
Speaker 2: did his chores again, he came to meals when I asked.
20:51
Speaker 2: I felt that everything was back to normal. I never
20:53
Speaker 2: heard that deep and distinctive voice again. Early two thousand fourteen,
21:07
Speaker 2: I was so pleased and proud of him because he
21:09
Speaker 2: was doing a Spanish exchange trip, and that was something
21:12
Speaker 2: that I didn't get an opportunity to do when I
21:15
Speaker 2: was young.
21:17
Speaker 4: I took a couple of pictures of him, and.
21:19
Speaker 2: As he walked away, I remember being so proud, I
21:23
Speaker 2: guess because he was becoming a young man, and I
21:26
Speaker 2: never expected that to be the last time I would
21:29
Speaker 2: see him alive.
21:36
Speaker 4: When Brack returned from.
21:37
Speaker 2: His trip, I was away, so his dad picked him
21:40
Speaker 2: up from the airport, and everyone noticed how confident he seemed.
21:44
Speaker 2: He had met a girl there, and I messaged him
21:48
Speaker 2: and said, oh, I can't wait to hear about your trip,
21:51
Speaker 2: and he just said he, you know, couldn't wait to
21:53
Speaker 2: tell me about it. A few days later, Breck asked
22:05
Speaker 2: his dad to go visit a friend from school.
22:09
Speaker 5: There was something about Bret going on a sleepover, and
22:12
Speaker 5: he didn't often do that kind of thing, so I
22:15
Speaker 5: was excited for him that he had something different going on.
22:19
Speaker 2: Breck hadn't lied before, he hadn't snuck off before, he
22:23
Speaker 2: hadn't been bad. So Breck went with his devices to game,
22:28
Speaker 2: to compute, to learn, to laugh, to enjoy his passion.
22:34
Speaker 2: And poor Breck would have never expected how that evening was.
22:39
Speaker 4: Going to go.
22:51
Speaker 7: Six place Mergers say, okay, hello, I need police and
22:58
Speaker 7: a forensic team to my address.
23:00
Speaker 2: What do you mean, what's happened?
23:03
Speaker 7: My friend and I got into an altercation and I'm
23:08
Speaker 7: the only one who came out alive.
23:10
Speaker 2: Are you telling me you've killed somebody? Yes? Right?
23:13
Speaker 7: And who am I speaking to? My name is Louis Danes.
23:22
Speaker 4: I remember.
23:24
Speaker 2: I woke up with an impending sense of doom and
23:27
Speaker 2: I then get a message from their dad that said
23:30
Speaker 2: Breck didn't come home last night. He stayed at his
23:33
Speaker 2: friend's house and I can't get a hold of him,
23:36
Speaker 2: and I immediately started to panic. His dad called me
23:44
Speaker 2: back and it was literally the worst phone colony parent
23:46
Speaker 2: could ever get, and it was his dad saying, I
23:50
Speaker 2: don't know how to.
23:50
Speaker 4: Tell you this, but Lewis has killed Breck.
23:55
Speaker 2: And honestly, you know, you might as well just die
23:58
Speaker 2: at the same time. And I'm a huge part of
24:02
Speaker 2: me did and I couldn't stop screaming, and I had
24:06
Speaker 2: to be sedated, and I just couldn't believe it because
24:10
Speaker 2: I always knew from the start in my heart that
24:13
Speaker 2: this guy was a baddie, but I had no idea
24:17
Speaker 2: he was a killer.
24:26
Speaker 9: The nine nine nine call. When I first heard it,
24:29
Speaker 9: I very much felt that Lewis wanted to be in control.
24:35
Speaker 9: He was measured, There was no real emotion.
24:40
Speaker 7: My friend came to say the night with me yesterday
24:44
Speaker 7: feeling very down, feeling suicidal, and I woke up this morning.
24:51
Speaker 7: He was in a mess that I tried to calm
24:52
Speaker 7: him down. I hugged him and said that I was
24:58
Speaker 7: there for him. He shrugged me off.
25:02
Speaker 1: You're telling me he is definitely dead.
25:05
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm telling you he's definitely said.
25:08
Speaker 9: The call handler was trying to establish what had taken place.
25:14
Speaker 9: She was trying to understand, but Lewis wanted to get
25:18
Speaker 9: over his side of it.
25:21
Speaker 5: What's happened this morning?
25:23
Speaker 7: He was going on about how he didn't want to
25:24
Speaker 7: go home, he was fed up with his life. He
25:28
Speaker 7: didn't want to go right, okay, I had a pen
25:32
Speaker 7: knife folded. He picked it up, opened it, and then
25:36
Speaker 7: lost control.
25:39
Speaker 6: His account of what happened is that there was a struggle,
25:41
Speaker 6: an altercation because Breck was apparently uncontrollable with emotion in
25:47
Speaker 6: the way that he described it.
25:49
Speaker 7: I in self defense put my left arm up to
25:53
Speaker 7: block him from stabbing me. Effectively, we struggled. I got
25:58
Speaker 7: him to the ground, he got up, I got the knife,
26:06
Speaker 7: and you can you not interrupt me with this part? Okay,
26:08
Speaker 7: go on, Okay, it's being recorded anyway, is it.
26:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's rehearsed. Sounds rehearsed to me, which is a
26:17
Speaker 6: way of saying, don't don't stop me. Don't stop me,
26:20
Speaker 6: because if he gets interrupted, he won't be able to
26:23
Speaker 6: remember the story he's concocted.
26:27
Speaker 7: I don't remember exactly what happened that the fight ended
26:31
Speaker 7: with me cutting his throat. I believe I turned around
26:35
Speaker 7: and I splashed his throat.
26:40
Speaker 9: He'd admitted that he'd caused break to die, but he
26:44
Speaker 9: was trying to say it was self defense.
26:47
Speaker 7: I don't remember what happened after that. All I know
26:50
Speaker 7: is I dropped the knife and my whole way, I
26:54
Speaker 7: stripped down and just sat in the shower.
26:56
Speaker 1: Well, you've left the weapon in the whole way.
26:58
Speaker 7: Yeah.
27:01
Speaker 9: The very fact that he went and sat in the
27:03
Speaker 9: shower for a while then decided to then ring the police,
27:07
Speaker 9: You're then starting to think, well, actually he's trying to
27:11
Speaker 9: get his head together before he calls the police to say, yeah,
27:17
Speaker 9: I've killed.
27:17
Speaker 1: Somebody and had spent how long sitting in the shower.
27:23
Speaker 7: I don't know the police on their way.
27:25
Speaker 4: I can hear they are, they are.
27:26
Speaker 7: I'm going to go and do thank you for your help.
27:42
Speaker 9: When the police turned up, Lewis Daynes dis arrested at
27:44
Speaker 9: the scene. He was just trying to play it down. Yes,
27:48
Speaker 9: I've killed somebody, but it wasn't my fault. It was
27:50
Speaker 9: very compliant, almost separating himself from the actual act.
27:57
Speaker 3: I got home and there were two police cars outside
27:59
Speaker 3: the house, and the two police ladies they got out
28:02
Speaker 3: their car. They came up to me and they were like,
28:05
Speaker 3: where's your brother?
28:06
Speaker 5: Is he home?
28:08
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, my dad came home and that's
28:10
Speaker 3: when the shouting started, and it was loud and we
28:14
Speaker 3: were we had no idea what.
28:16
Speaker 7: Was going on.
28:18
Speaker 5: My Dad's sounded like he was in pain. Eventually, my
28:22
Speaker 5: dad comes into the living room, sits on the couch
28:25
Speaker 5: next to us, bloodshot eyes, and he tells us that
28:29
Speaker 5: Breck is dead, and we just let it sink in
28:38
Speaker 5: the horrible truth of it. That was the first time
28:47
Speaker 5: we heard it, That was the first time we felt
28:50
Speaker 5: that blow, and honestly, from that moment that would change
28:56
Speaker 5: us forever.
29:07
Speaker 9: When I got to the address, it was very tidy.
29:10
Speaker 9: In the lunge, I saw that there was a laptop
29:12
Speaker 9: on the sofa, which was Lewis Jaines's laptop. I was
29:16
Speaker 9: then asked if I could seize the laptop from in
29:20
Speaker 9: the bedroom. I hadn't realized that when I walked into
29:25
Speaker 9: the bedroom the brake was still on the floor. He
29:28
Speaker 9: was covered in blood, the bed was covered in blood,
29:31
Speaker 9: and the laptop was covered in blood. I was directed
29:38
Speaker 9: into the bathroom because in the sink there were three
29:40
Speaker 9: mile biophones and a couple of hard drives and some
29:44
Speaker 9: USB sticks which had been put into the water. They
29:49
Speaker 9: were a priority because they needed to be dried out
29:52
Speaker 9: to a state where we could then start getting data
29:55
Speaker 9: from them.
29:59
Speaker 6: Detectives and forensic experts would be looking for a variety
30:03
Speaker 6: of different evidence at a crime scene. First of all,
30:06
Speaker 6: they would be looking for hair, so anything that could
30:09
Speaker 6: contain DNA, skin, looking for signs of a struggle, any
30:14
Speaker 6: breakages in the house, assessing the crime scene to see
30:17
Speaker 6: if there's anything in that environment that could give them
30:21
Speaker 6: clues as to what had happened.
30:25
Speaker 9: There was duct tape in the bin in the bedroom,
30:28
Speaker 9: but there's also duct tape in the bin outside, and
30:32
Speaker 9: it was forensic material that suggested there had been some
30:35
Speaker 9: sort of sexual activity between Brick and Lewis at some point.
30:41
Speaker 6: They found DNA on the tape which matched the hairs
30:45
Speaker 6: on Breck's legs. It is found blood stained clothes. They
30:48
Speaker 6: found a tube of lubricant with blood on it as well,
30:52
Speaker 6: and this certainly would suggest that Breck was tied up
30:55
Speaker 6: and assaulted. Dane's account of Breck apparently uncontrollable with emotion.
31:03
Speaker 4: Doesn't support that at all.
31:04
Speaker 6: The evidence found was actually that he would have been
31:07
Speaker 6: incapacitated because he was tied up.
31:14
Speaker 9: The last activity from the laptop that Breck had was
31:18
Speaker 9: at court past nine the morning of his murder, or
31:22
Speaker 9: the nine to nine to nine call went into the
31:24
Speaker 9: police at about eleven o'clock, so two hours before he
31:28
Speaker 9: was killed, Breck was still doing something with his laptop,
31:31
Speaker 9: and so I think it would just been completely unaware.
31:34
Speaker 9: He would have been there doing what he enjoy doing,
31:37
Speaker 9: which is playing with these computers.
31:40
Speaker 2: Police found loads of evidence at the killer's flat. Breck
31:44
Speaker 2: had been lured there, it was premeditated. There was evidence
31:47
Speaker 2: that they had pizza, which Breck loved. They found a
31:51
Speaker 2: bag of Breck's belongings and all of his devices were destroyed.
31:58
Speaker 2: But for some reason, one of Breck's devices was in
32:02
Speaker 2: his bag undestroyed, and so that helped police get more
32:06
Speaker 2: evidence because they were really struggling to get the evidence
32:09
Speaker 2: out of the other devices.
32:13
Speaker 9: We found a hard drive that had been opened up
32:16
Speaker 9: and the chip had been scored across the back. We'd
32:19
Speaker 9: stopped that working.
32:21
Speaker 8: But the important one.
32:22
Speaker 9: Was Rere's tablet, which we were able to get into,
32:26
Speaker 9: and that's where most of the communication data in relation
32:30
Speaker 9: to Brec and Lewis came from. In the January, all
32:45
Speaker 9: the communications showed as Breck was going out to Spain
32:48
Speaker 9: for a week. I think Lewis was quite nervous about
32:51
Speaker 9: this because Breck was going to be with another group
32:54
Speaker 9: of friends. He was going to be out somewhere else,
32:57
Speaker 9: which Lewis didn't like. He could lose Break because the
33:03
Speaker 9: Break was going to become involved with another group of people.
33:07
Speaker 9: So he panicked and he said, can you research the
33:11
Speaker 9: online platform that was being developed at the time. Part
33:20
Speaker 9: of that communication that was taking place was that he
33:23
Speaker 9: was dying or he was ill, and that Break was
33:27
Speaker 9: to take over this company. And the words were you
33:34
Speaker 9: are in a man's world now.
33:36
Speaker 8: So you need to step up.
33:37
Speaker 9: So we have this situation now where Lewis is trying
33:43
Speaker 9: to formulate how he's going to get Break from his
33:46
Speaker 9: home address to Lewis's address in Essex. They had to
33:51
Speaker 9: speak in person for him to be able to properly
33:53
Speaker 9: hand it over.
34:02
Speaker 4: Bratt would have.
34:03
Speaker 6: Probably been looking forward to seeing his friend in person,
34:07
Speaker 6: but as a fourteen year old you wouldn't necessarily recognize
34:10
Speaker 6: some of the language as been coercive control, which is
34:14
Speaker 6: what they were.
34:14
Speaker 4: At this point.
34:17
Speaker 9: You would say, that's the ultimate dream for a fourteen
34:19
Speaker 9: year old to be handed a company that's worth millions
34:24
Speaker 9: that he is going to run. It was arranged on
34:29
Speaker 9: the beginning of February that Break would be visiting Lewis,
34:35
Speaker 9: but the parents didn't know this. Of course, Lewis has
34:45
Speaker 9: given Break an idea as to how to catch this trip.
34:50
Speaker 9: He's said that on the day to tell his dad
34:54
Speaker 9: that he's going to go to a friend's address which
34:57
Speaker 9: is two roads away, not to say anything until he
35:02
Speaker 9: is actually in Lewis's address. So Dad's thinking Breaks just
35:07
Speaker 9: around the corner.
35:08
Speaker 8: Nobody's thirty odd miles away.
35:30
Speaker 2: It was a month from when he was killed on
35:33
Speaker 2: my birthday to when he was buried on his birthday,
35:37
Speaker 2: on St.
35:38
Speaker 4: Patti's Day.
35:42
Speaker 2: I did my best to try to have his funeral
35:45
Speaker 2: on his birthday because it just made it feel like
35:48
Speaker 2: it might be more special, and his birthday was always
35:51
Speaker 2: going to be a hard day anyway. It was the
35:54
Speaker 2: most beautiful funeral, and the whole town came out and
35:57
Speaker 2: we had a procession.
35:58
Speaker 4: And it was.
36:03
Speaker 2: Gorgeous, and then everybody goes home, and then you're just
36:09
Speaker 2: left to your own devices.
36:16
Speaker 5: It was only after the family had left and all
36:18
Speaker 5: that chaos was gone that I started having to figure
36:21
Speaker 5: out how to live with my grief and how to
36:24
Speaker 5: learn to live with that gap in my life that the
36:28
Speaker 5: Brack had left.
36:40
Speaker 4: I was in bed for a year.
36:42
Speaker 2: I only got up for meetings or anything to do
36:46
Speaker 2: with Breck. I did get up for the triple at
36:53
Speaker 2: school events, but I was a zombie.
36:59
Speaker 3: She'd always died inside and we couldn't do anything to
37:03
Speaker 3: help her.
37:05
Speaker 5: I saw the way that she felt her grief. Her
37:09
Speaker 5: grief was rough, the way that it hits a mother
37:14
Speaker 5: when she loses a child. I've never seen pain like
37:18
Speaker 5: that before.
37:20
Speaker 2: The triplets, not only last the brother, they lost a
37:24
Speaker 2: normal acting mother.
37:27
Speaker 3: Luckily, I had my siblings who were going through the
37:30
Speaker 3: exact same thing, so we sort of carried ourselves through
37:33
Speaker 3: that we were twelve. I really couldn't have done it
37:36
Speaker 3: without them.
37:47
Speaker 9: When I saw Lewis and Courty look very young, he
37:51
Speaker 9: didn't look his age, He's very quiet, didn't show any emotion.
37:57
Speaker 2: I was shocked because he looked like a teenager and
38:02
Speaker 2: he was wearing a long sleeved black T shirt like
38:05
Speaker 2: Brick might have worn. I remembered just glaring at him, thinking,
38:10
Speaker 2: you know how, why could you have done this? And
38:13
Speaker 2: I thought you could have been friends. You know, you
38:16
Speaker 2: could have come over for pizza, you could have been
38:19
Speaker 2: part of our family.
38:23
Speaker 6: Danes all the way through investigation have maintained his story
38:28
Speaker 6: that this was self defense. And then he changed his plea.
38:38
Speaker 2: I noticed my barrister looking at me funny. And then
38:41
Speaker 2: in came the killer and they asked him again what
38:45
Speaker 2: his plea was, and he said guilty, and you could
38:49
Speaker 2: have heard a pin drop because nobody expected a psychopathic
38:52
Speaker 2: liar to change his plea.
39:00
Speaker 6: The only way of him taking back control over this situation.
39:04
Speaker 6: Is to be honest and plead that he's guilty.
39:09
Speaker 2: It saved us from sitting through weeks and weeks of hell.
39:12
Speaker 2: But then in the sentencing we did still have to
39:14
Speaker 2: sit through a lot of the horrific, you know, things
39:19
Speaker 2: that Breck endured. When I think about that last moment,
39:24
Speaker 2: I think, you know, he must have said.
39:27
Speaker 4: Oh my god, my mom was right. My mom was right,
39:31
Speaker 4: but it was too late.
39:43
Speaker 6: On January the twelfth, twenty fifteen, Lewis Dayes was sentenced
39:47
Speaker 6: to life for the murder of Bret Bedner, with a
39:50
Speaker 6: minimum term of twenty five years.
39:54
Speaker 3: I don't think justice has truly been served. Twenty five years.
39:57
Speaker 3: It's not enough for the way it was planned and
40:00
Speaker 3: the torture that he gave to my brother and my
40:02
Speaker 3: whole family. It's just he's truly the most disgusting human being.
40:08
Speaker 3: I just couldn't imagine that someone so young would be
40:11
Speaker 3: so cunning and manipulative to be able to do that
40:14
Speaker 3: to a young child.
40:18
Speaker 4: He had a record.
40:20
Speaker 2: He had groomed a boy in the States as well
40:23
Speaker 2: as boys in the UK. He had sexually assaulted a
40:27
Speaker 2: boy's own age, and he was known to have indecent
40:31
Speaker 2: images of boys in his computer.
40:34
Speaker 6: Although Danes looked very young, he was an eighteen year
40:37
Speaker 6: old man who was grooming a fourteen year old. The
40:40
Speaker 6: fact that they found child pornography on his computer isn't surprising.
40:44
Speaker 6: Danes was a pedophile at the end of the day.
40:56
Speaker 5: My mum is the most powerful woman that I know.
41:00
Speaker 5: She's so strong, and she really had to fight to
41:06
Speaker 5: live through that pain and to get up and get
41:10
Speaker 5: out of bed and choose to live. And then she
41:14
Speaker 5: gets off and she starts a charity and manages to
41:21
Speaker 5: find some light in Breck's death, and she goes and
41:26
Speaker 5: makes sure that what happened to Breck doesn't happen to
41:30
Speaker 5: anyone else.
41:37
Speaker 2: I think if Breck had seen another boy's story, I
41:42
Speaker 2: in a way think he would have been the typical
41:44
Speaker 2: teenager that said that will never happen to me. So
41:48
Speaker 2: when I decided I needed to set up the charity
41:51
Speaker 2: with the help of the local community, because there was
41:54
Speaker 2: so much to learn. When I teach about Breck's story,
41:59
Speaker 2: I try to make sure that young people look after
42:02
Speaker 2: each other because the parents won't see what's happening or
42:05
Speaker 2: won't recognize it, but the friends or your siblings are
42:12
Speaker 2: the ones that see the change and the personality. They'll
42:15
Speaker 2: see what's happening on the platforms. They'll see what's being
42:18
Speaker 2: said behind the scenes, the person that's being groomed. It's
42:23
Speaker 2: very difficult for them to see. And that's why I
42:27
Speaker 2: want to speak about Breck's story so that other parents
42:30
Speaker 2: can be better able to help their children when they
42:35
Speaker 2: meet people online to keep safe. I feel bad that
42:52
Speaker 2: Breck didn't get to reach is full potential. It was
42:56
Speaker 2: so clever, I mean, for he surpass any cleverness I've
43:01
Speaker 2: ever remotely had, and just good, innately good and kind.
43:12
Speaker 3: He was just a great older brother because he was
43:14
Speaker 3: so driven by his passions. He was truly someone to
43:19
Speaker 3: look up to. Whenever I do something cool, I like
43:23
Speaker 3: to think that he can see it too. I don't
43:26
Speaker 3: know wherever he is if he's.
43:27
Speaker 5: Looking down on me. I like to think that he'd
43:30
Speaker 5: be proud of me, because I am so far away
43:34
Speaker 5: from the twelve year old that he knew. I wish
43:39
Speaker 5: he could get to know me now.
43:46
Speaker 1: Bob was in the kitchen popping corn.
43:48
Speaker 2: Just as the animals settled in.
43:50
Speaker 9: To watch the sound of music, the phone rang.
43:58
Speaker 2: The only thing Farmer Brown heard on the other end
44:00
Speaker 2: was giggle, gigle, quack, gigle.
44:03
Speaker 7: Move, giggle awake.
44:05
Speaker 6: Uh oh, Dark screams Farmer Brown.
44:10
Speaker 4: It's for you, Bob. And there he is sleeping.
44:36
Speaker 2: M m hmm. Four