00:00:06
a young mother arrives home one morning
00:00:08
to a scene of carnage even some of the
00:00:11
most seasoned
00:00:13
detectives were just shocked when they
00:00:15
saw brutal i mean really brutal
00:00:18
manling sang had stumbled upon her whole
00:00:20
family
00:00:21
slain
00:00:22
but to cops her response didn't add up
00:00:26
crying one minute but then acting like
00:00:28
everything was a joke the next how much
00:00:30
of manling's story is true she said that
00:00:32
when she left the house at around 4 am
00:00:34
she left the door unlocked who was
00:00:36
responsible for murder in an la suburb a
00:00:39
jealous ex
00:00:40
an unknown intruder
00:00:42
or a killer much closer to home
00:00:47
[Music]
00:00:53
[Music]
00:01:04
[Music]
00:01:12
according to statistics in western
00:01:14
societies so-called family annihilators
00:01:17
are most likely to be white males in
00:01:19
their 30s
00:01:21
family annihilators are are driven to
00:01:23
kill their family
00:01:25
in an act known as familicide
00:01:29
95 of family annihilators are male and
00:01:32
in half of cases after they've murdered
00:01:34
their family they then go on to take
00:01:36
their own life
00:01:38
men when they commit this act it's
00:01:40
typically for egotistical reasons
00:01:43
men who kill their families might have
00:01:45
failed financially
00:01:47
they might think their wife has betrayed
00:01:49
the family and so must be punished
00:01:52
everything from a man being so
00:01:55
crazily obsessed and jealous that his
00:01:57
girlfriend or wife is out at night
00:02:00
and when she comes home he's beat the
00:02:01
baby to death it's a pretty bizarre
00:02:04
phenomena they start to blame the child
00:02:07
for the behavior of
00:02:09
the
00:02:09
other person in their relationship i've
00:02:11
never personally worked a case where
00:02:13
someone just killed their child
00:02:15
without having some sort of rage with
00:02:17
the other party
00:02:19
pretty sick people
00:02:21
some of whom decide their family isn't
00:02:23
the status symbol that they hope they
00:02:25
would be
00:02:26
such are the typical cases of familicide
00:02:30
but every now and then a case of
00:02:32
familicide comes along which breaks all
00:02:34
of the conventions
00:02:36
and that's what happened in roland
00:02:37
heights los angeles county on august the
00:02:39
7th 2007
00:02:42
with mandling known as ling sang
00:02:44
at the heart of tragic events
00:02:47
she didn't have rage against her
00:02:48
children she might have seen them as an
00:02:50
impediment to her future goals or future
00:02:52
plans
00:02:54
during the hot dry summer of 1999 in the
00:02:57
eastern suburbs of los angeles
00:02:58
california two shy teenagers crossed
00:03:01
paths for the first time
00:03:04
neil had been
00:03:06
talked into going a friend talked him
00:03:07
into going to a performance of the rocky
00:03:10
horror picture show and that's where he
00:03:12
meets manling
00:03:14
neil williams a student who worked
00:03:16
part-time at a fast food restaurant had
00:03:18
been raised in a close loving
00:03:20
single-parent family in the photogenic
00:03:23
town of whittier
00:03:25
neil williams
00:03:27
was
00:03:28
just kind of one of those nice guys that
00:03:30
you don't necessarily remember from
00:03:32
school he grew up with his mother jan
00:03:35
and his sister mala in the los angeles
00:03:39
county
00:03:40
he was described as somewhat of a geek
00:03:43
he and his mom jan were very much alike
00:03:46
she says
00:03:47
she says that they were both geeky they
00:03:49
both liked star wars a lot uh computer
00:03:52
gaming
00:03:53
quoting monty python and he liked to
00:03:57
collect things particularly had kind of
00:03:59
an obsession with collecting unusual
00:04:02
swords uh samurai type swords
00:04:05
manling sang had a less harmonious
00:04:07
relationship with her parents
00:04:10
men ling sang
00:04:12
of taiwanese descent she was born also
00:04:15
in the l.a county area and grew up there
00:04:18
she had a more difficult ride
00:04:20
she had
00:04:21
a learning disability and so that made
00:04:24
it kind of rough in school and you can
00:04:25
imagine that she wouldn't have enjoyed
00:04:27
her school years this much
00:04:28
[Music]
00:04:30
i think when children have a difficult
00:04:32
time growing up maybe a difficult time
00:04:33
being accepted possibly even being
00:04:36
bullied made to feel unloved
00:04:38
it's really hard to get your footing in
00:04:40
life forensic psychologist dr judy ho
00:04:44
believes what manding experienced during
00:04:46
her formative years could well have
00:04:48
shaped her personality
00:04:50
and not for the better
00:04:51
it's really hard to feel good about
00:04:53
yourself to believe that you deserve
00:04:55
good things and to have good
00:04:57
decision-making i think when those types
00:05:00
of adverse factors happen in your
00:05:02
childhood sometimes it makes it more
00:05:04
difficult for you to not not be
00:05:06
narcissistic when you're an adult to
00:05:09
think about other people and the good of
00:05:11
others
00:05:12
this was not a side of herself that she
00:05:14
showed to the young man she met at the
00:05:16
movies in 1999
00:05:18
and mandling a meal both on the fringes
00:05:20
of their peer groups for different
00:05:21
reasons
00:05:22
hit it off
00:05:24
neo was probably just your your textbook
00:05:27
geek
00:05:28
i'm thinking that saying williams was
00:05:30
not so much a geek as she was awkward
00:05:32
uh as as a result of her upbringing i
00:05:35
think neil and manly gravitated toward
00:05:37
one another because they needed one
00:05:38
another their kindred spirits in many
00:05:41
ways they were both a little bit of an
00:05:43
outcast and they got to geek out
00:05:44
together over things that they mutually
00:05:46
enjoyed and bonded over and he's really
00:05:49
never met anyone like her before and he
00:05:51
just thinks she's just amazing she's
00:05:53
beautiful and she's smart and she's
00:05:56
funny and manly and neil become an item
00:05:58
and they start dating
00:06:00
the young couple was smitten but their
00:06:02
days of being carefree and unencumbered
00:06:04
were few a missed period unexplained
00:06:08
nausea a trip to the drugstore and
00:06:11
confirmation of the news that brought
00:06:12
their youthful happy-go-lucky
00:06:13
relationship to something of an abrupt
00:06:16
end
00:06:19
before long
00:06:20
uh menling is pregnant
00:06:23
so
00:06:24
in 2000 she gives birth to a baby boy
00:06:28
and the couple
00:06:30
do sort of a rush marriage
00:06:33
it didn't seem like it was planned and
00:06:35
they kind of got thrown into marriage as
00:06:37
a result they go to the county
00:06:39
courthouse and they get married and then
00:06:41
they plan and have later
00:06:43
a more formal wedding in a taiwanese
00:06:46
church the big formal wedding with all
00:06:47
the friends and family
00:06:50
they were just 21 years old
00:06:52
it was a rocky start to married life
00:06:55
let's not forget they married at a young
00:06:57
age there was no support from her family
00:06:59
for that marriage in fact they were
00:07:00
scandalized by it
00:07:02
but neil and manling were in love and
00:07:04
with the optimism of youth they were
00:07:06
certain they could make a go of things
00:07:09
in some ways i think they were each
00:07:10
other saving grace i think they saw each
00:07:12
other at that time during their young
00:07:14
age as a way towards a better life and
00:07:17
it explains why they would rush towards
00:07:19
marriage at such an early age perhaps
00:07:21
even before they really understood what
00:07:23
marriage would be about i think their
00:07:25
relationship escalated so quickly and
00:07:27
advanced so quickly because they were
00:07:30
all that the other person had at the
00:07:32
time
00:07:33
the newlyweds heard something to prove
00:07:35
they wanted to show their families that
00:07:37
they could cope that the marriage hadn't
00:07:39
been a mistake
00:07:41
a couple years later the couple has a
00:07:43
second child a little boy again
00:07:45
to everybody else this looks like kind
00:07:48
of the picture-perfect marriage the
00:07:49
couple seems to be happy the children
00:07:51
are happy
00:07:54
the young family moved to a condo in the
00:07:56
18200 block of camino bello roland
00:07:58
heights an area known to the local
00:08:00
taiwanese immigrant community as little
00:08:03
taipei
00:08:04
manling and neil rented the apartment
00:08:06
from mandling's parents who run a
00:08:08
business in the area
00:08:10
she's working as a waitress she's doing
00:08:11
pretty well with her tips her husband is
00:08:14
working at a amusement park at disney
00:08:16
amusement park and it's great for him
00:08:19
because he's that fun-loving geek he's
00:08:21
still kind of a just a big kid
00:08:24
they put on a good show for family and
00:08:26
friends but playing at being grown-ups
00:08:29
was not easy
00:08:31
i think it's so difficult to have
00:08:32
children when you're still young and
00:08:34
you're still a child yourself in many
00:08:36
ways and you're still developing and all
00:08:38
of a sudden now having all these
00:08:40
responsibilities where you have to take
00:08:41
care of others
00:08:42
and you can't think about your own
00:08:45
interests and needs and goals and you
00:08:47
have to already put the needs of your
00:08:50
children ahead of yours and i think that
00:08:52
was probably a struggle for both of them
00:08:55
very quickly manling realized
00:08:58
she wanted more from life
00:09:00
menling is not happy with
00:09:02
where they're living she wants a house
00:09:04
instead of this little apartment
00:09:06
she wants to be able to spend more money
00:09:08
and they don't have that much
00:09:11
pretty early on in the marriage ben ling
00:09:13
and neil are having financial
00:09:14
difficulties they're struggling to to
00:09:16
make ends meet he's not bringing in as
00:09:19
much money and meddling pressures him so
00:09:22
in 2006 he quits his job at the
00:09:24
amusement park and at her urging he
00:09:27
takes a course and tries to learn to
00:09:28
sell life insurance
00:09:30
but he's not really much of a salesman
00:09:32
so it's not going so well and that job
00:09:35
doesn't last neil really struggled with
00:09:37
holding down jobs
00:09:40
manly ended up having to work full-time
00:09:44
manning increased her hours at the
00:09:46
restaurant where she waited tables
00:09:48
while neil gave up working together to
00:09:50
become a full-time stay-at-home dad
00:09:53
for him it was the ideal scenario
00:09:56
he loves being with the kids he loves
00:09:58
being a dad it's perfect for him and
00:10:00
then in his spare time he can play video
00:10:02
games manling though was left feeling
00:10:05
like she got the raw deal
00:10:07
neil basically regressed into a child
00:10:09
when he became the stay-at-home father
00:10:12
and manling continued to work full-time
00:10:14
he basically just stayed home never
00:10:15
cleaned the house didn't really cook
00:10:18
menling is
00:10:19
really desperately unhappy she's working
00:10:22
as a waitress and she's really had it
00:10:23
with her husband neil because she will
00:10:25
come home from work and while neil was a
00:10:28
good dad he was a pretty terrible
00:10:30
housekeeper and the place is always a
00:10:32
mess
00:10:34
six years into her marriage mrs williams
00:10:36
had begun to wonder if she was cut out
00:10:38
to be a wife
00:10:39
or a mother
00:10:41
she's kind of had it with being a mom
00:10:43
she hadn't really bonded with her
00:10:44
children and they were part of the cause
00:10:47
for her unhappiness
00:10:48
was there any way out of what she
00:10:50
thought was a miserable life one that
00:10:52
she had made for herself
00:10:54
who knew but the seeds of a horrific
00:10:57
story had just been sown
00:11:04
by the spring of 2007 neil and manling
00:11:07
williams marriage was on the rocks
00:11:09
so the couple is now
00:11:11
six years seven years into their
00:11:13
marriage and they're fighting all the
00:11:15
time i'm in loud fights as their
00:11:17
relationship deteriorated it was
00:11:19
reported that they'd have these huge
00:11:21
arguments and screaming
00:11:23
matches back and forth sometimes the
00:11:25
neighbors can hear them screaming it's
00:11:27
pretty clear that things aren't going
00:11:29
well
00:11:30
it was around this time that maddling
00:11:32
sang williams first raised the idea of a
00:11:34
divorce
00:11:35
neil i think it's time to really get
00:11:38
serious i want a divorce neil says no
00:11:41
there's no way my parents got divorced i
00:11:43
don't want that i don't want that for us
00:11:45
i don't want that for our kids
00:11:47
so
00:11:47
he's resisting she's unhappy
00:11:51
so the couple stayed together but in
00:11:53
manling's mind the marriage was all but
00:11:55
over
00:11:57
i think when manley started to think
00:11:58
about this relationship as being over
00:12:01
wanting to divorce wanting to leave neil
00:12:04
i think the more she talked about it the
00:12:06
more resolute she became in this
00:12:07
decision i think the more she talked
00:12:09
about it she decided that this had to
00:12:12
happen one way or another i don't think
00:12:13
that she was thinking maybe there's a
00:12:15
way to work around this
00:12:17
it wasn't just her marriage she was
00:12:19
disillusioned with manling's young sons
00:12:21
were beginning to feel like a millstone
00:12:23
around her neck
00:12:25
she's kind of had it with being a mom
00:12:27
kids are getting a little older they're
00:12:28
not as cute and cuddly as they were when
00:12:30
they were babies it definitely seemed
00:12:31
like manly had a hard time bonding with
00:12:33
her children and it may be that there
00:12:35
was a part of her that resented having
00:12:37
them in the first place maybe she could
00:12:39
have bonded with them better but she
00:12:40
just didn't want to and she didn't want
00:12:42
to become more invested in them because
00:12:44
if she did then she would have to even
00:12:46
spend more time in her life dedicating
00:12:48
herself to her children's needs and so i
00:12:50
think it was a conscious effort to not
00:12:53
get closer to her family you know it
00:12:55
sounds like manling had this feeling
00:12:57
that she things were just beyond her
00:12:59
control that she really didn't have a
00:13:00
say in in much of what had happened to
00:13:03
her life
00:13:04
she told her friends that she felt like
00:13:06
she was rushed into this marriage
00:13:07
because she got pregnant and suddenly
00:13:09
now she has two young children and she's
00:13:12
a housewife and working
00:13:15
as a waitress and
00:13:16
and she never wanted that life manling
00:13:20
may have struggled with motherhood and
00:13:22
neil may not have been the provider his
00:13:24
wife wanted him to be but there was
00:13:26
somebody else in their life who was
00:13:28
happy to pick up the slack
00:13:30
neil's mother jan
00:13:32
she and her son were so close
00:13:35
and once he was married manling was like
00:13:38
a daughter to her and she was very
00:13:41
supportive of the two of them
00:13:43
she helped them out financially when
00:13:45
they needed she was very close to the
00:13:46
children she was just the most wonderful
00:13:49
grandmother loves spending time with her
00:13:52
two little grandsons
00:13:54
years later jan williams would recount a
00:13:57
memory that continued to haunt her
00:14:00
she remembers this one night where she
00:14:02
was caring for her two little grandsons
00:14:05
and little ian asked her to sing one of
00:14:07
his favorite songs puff the magic dragon
00:14:10
so she starts singing it and in the
00:14:12
middle of it devin stops her and he says
00:14:15
no stop i'm scared and she says why why
00:14:18
are you scared and he said because the
00:14:20
song says
00:14:22
the dragon lives forever but not so
00:14:24
little boys and she laughs and she says
00:14:26
honey that just means that little boys
00:14:29
grow up to be grown-ups and they don't
00:14:32
need their toys anymore
00:14:34
though just seven years old the little
00:14:36
boy's question to his grandmother jan
00:14:37
would turn out to be
00:14:39
eerily prophetic
00:14:41
she says that song now comes back to
00:14:44
haunt her
00:14:45
she says i told him he'd be safe in his
00:14:48
bed
00:14:49
and he wasn't
00:14:51
that was in the spring of 2007. by the
00:14:54
early summer manning had begun to rebel
00:14:56
against the situation that she found
00:14:57
herself in acting in many ways as though
00:15:00
the last six or seven years had simply
00:15:02
never happened
00:15:04
she was
00:15:05
spending a lot of her off time partying
00:15:07
with her friends going out drinking
00:15:09
instead of being a mother june of 2007
00:15:13
manling gets on myspace which was the
00:15:16
hot place to be before facebook arrived
00:15:19
manling discovers an old flame
00:15:24
and she's intrigued so menling and her
00:15:28
old flame and her friends from high
00:15:30
school
00:15:31
all get together they're out having a
00:15:33
wonderful time having drinks talking
00:15:36
remembering the good old days manling
00:15:39
feels free like she hasn't in years a
00:15:43
few days later she asked her
00:15:44
mother-in-law jan to take care of the
00:15:46
two little boys because she had to go to
00:15:48
santa barbara for work imagine
00:15:51
asking your mother-in-law
00:15:54
to watch your kids so that you can go
00:15:56
out and cheat on her son with some other
00:15:58
guy but that's just what meddling has
00:16:00
done
00:16:01
so she gets to santa barbara
00:16:03
and she gives her old boyfriend a call
00:16:06
and she says hey i'm in town
00:16:09
why don't we get together so they
00:16:11
actually met up and
00:16:14
during that weekend they had sexual
00:16:16
relations
00:16:17
manling sang williams
00:16:19
a wife and mother had crossed the line
00:16:23
she sees this life unfolding before her
00:16:26
she can just imagine being with him and
00:16:28
not having to deal with with being a
00:16:30
housewife and and kids and all of that
00:16:33
that goes with it and the messy house
00:16:35
and she's so enthralled with this guy
00:16:38
and he says you know menling um
00:16:41
you're married
00:16:42
i don't i don't feel right about this if
00:16:44
you want to have a relationship you have
00:16:46
to get out of the one you're in
00:16:48
the affair came to nothing but manling
00:16:51
still only in her 20s had got a taste
00:16:53
for what life could be like if she was
00:16:54
once again free and single
00:16:58
i don't think that manly was actually
00:16:59
looking to be with the man she had a
00:17:01
brief fling with it was very brief and i
00:17:03
think that was just her acting out
00:17:04
because she was unhappy in her life
00:17:06
i think that it gave her a taste of what
00:17:08
freedom could feel like
00:17:10
that summer los angeles county was hit
00:17:12
by drought
00:17:14
during the long hot nights manling sang
00:17:16
williams struggled to sleep
00:17:19
manling is
00:17:21
just
00:17:22
seriously unhappy
00:17:24
and she's having trouble sleeping and
00:17:26
she tells her sister that she's having
00:17:28
this recurring nightmare
00:17:30
she dreams that she comes home to find
00:17:32
her whole family dead and that she
00:17:34
commits suicide
00:17:36
manling confided in her sister that in
00:17:39
other dreams neil had murdered their
00:17:41
little boys before taking his own life
00:17:44
it begins to look like either she really
00:17:47
is coming apart and she's building this
00:17:50
in her own imagination or she's actually
00:17:52
plotting what's about to happen the fact
00:17:54
that madeline was basically fantasizing
00:17:56
in her dreams about neil being dead i
00:17:59
think
00:18:00
there was a blurring of reality versus
00:18:03
fantasy i think in her mind she probably
00:18:05
thought this would be the cleanest way
00:18:06
to go
00:18:08
had manling begun to plan her escape
00:18:10
from the family the family she had come
00:18:12
to resent
00:18:14
she really looked at her husband as a
00:18:16
reason for all of her suffering because
00:18:18
she needed to pin it on somebody and i
00:18:20
think she decided to pin everything on
00:18:22
her husband making it his fault that she
00:18:24
got pregnant too early and making it his
00:18:26
fault that now they have two children
00:18:28
and she has to be a full-time working
00:18:30
mom while still having household and
00:18:31
child care responsibilities she also
00:18:34
started saying that neil had changed and
00:18:37
that she was afraid that he may have
00:18:39
hurt her or hurt the boys
00:18:43
to former homicide detective rod emery
00:18:45
manling's claims about her husband
00:18:47
didn't drink true
00:18:49
neil was not a violent person nor did he
00:18:51
ever display any personality of such in
00:18:55
hindsight these stories were
00:18:56
manufactured to kind of lay the
00:18:58
groundwork for what was about to happen
00:19:01
as the long hot la summer of 2007 wore
00:19:04
on manling's dissatisfaction with her
00:19:06
marriage
00:19:07
grew
00:19:08
how would this unhappy union end
00:19:12
let's not kid ourselves she intended for
00:19:14
him to die whether he did it by his own
00:19:16
hand or hers
00:19:23
august 8 2007.
00:19:26
as the sun rose on a still dry day in
00:19:28
los angeles county the piece of the
00:19:30
early morning was shattered by a woman's
00:19:32
screams
00:19:33
it was manling sang williams in the
00:19:35
doorway of her roland heights condo
00:19:38
surveying a horrifying scene
00:19:41
oh my god what's happened here
00:19:44
oh my god and her neighbors all come to
00:19:46
her aid and they're all surrounding her
00:19:48
and she says
00:19:49
my husband my husband oh my god he's
00:19:52
dead he's dead the neighbors described
00:19:54
her as being barefoot wearing boxer
00:19:56
shorts smelling like alcohol so she's
00:19:58
screaming you know oh my god who's done
00:20:00
this my husband somebody help me
00:20:04
her hands and feet spattered with blood
00:20:06
manling begged her neighbors for help
00:20:09
she told them that she just returned
00:20:10
from a late night drive to cool off her
00:20:12
hair
00:20:14
she likes to do that from time to time
00:20:15
when she can't sleep and she was
00:20:17
watching the sun rise so when the
00:20:19
neighbor went in the house they saw
00:20:22
neil who was obviously dead
00:20:24
blood all throughout the house
00:20:26
there was clearly no saving 27 year old
00:20:29
neil williams the shop neighbor dialed
00:20:31
9-1-1
00:20:32
officers were there in minutes
00:20:34
so the police arrive they go inside
00:20:38
they find neil at the top of the stairs
00:20:42
covered in blood it's blood everywhere
00:20:45
he has clearly been stabbed and next to
00:20:48
him in this pool of blood
00:20:50
is this big samurai sword and it's
00:20:53
bathed in blood
00:20:55
the officers could tell that even with
00:20:58
the blood and all the destruction that
00:21:01
the house was not well kept there was
00:21:03
garbage overflowing from the garbage
00:21:05
cans there was things in disarray and
00:21:08
the house just wasn't very much cared
00:21:09
for
00:21:11
what are the two little boys neil
00:21:12
william's sons
00:21:14
where were they in all of this carnage
00:21:17
as they continued to look around they
00:21:19
went to the boys bedrooms looks like the
00:21:21
children are still sleeping
00:21:23
so
00:21:24
you know they're relieved and then they
00:21:25
realize
00:21:26
wait a minute
00:21:28
and they try to wrestle the children and
00:21:29
they realize
00:21:31
the children are not sleeping both were
00:21:33
dead in their beds
00:21:34
the young one ian on his bottom bunk
00:21:38
and then above on the top bunk the older
00:21:40
brother devin they're both dead in their
00:21:42
beds
00:21:44
it was a devastating discovery manling's
00:21:46
husband and her two little boys lay dead
00:21:49
in the family home
00:21:51
yet the hysterical young mother seemed
00:21:53
oblivious to the finality of her loss
00:21:56
she's screaming does anybody know is my
00:21:58
husband is my husband still alive is he
00:22:00
still alive and she's saying my baby's
00:22:02
my baby somebody please help my babies
00:22:05
manling was taken to a sheriff's outpost
00:22:08
six miles away in walnut
00:22:11
williams hearing for the first time of
00:22:13
the tragedy that had befallen her son
00:22:15
and grandsons assumed manning's
00:22:17
questioning was a formality
00:22:20
within hours the grieving grandmother
00:22:23
would be hit by the shocking truth
00:22:26
police take meddling down to the station
00:22:29
um for questioning
00:22:30
and they asked her you know where was
00:22:32
she she said she she was out she told
00:22:34
them that she had just gotten home from
00:22:36
shopping she had early morning grocery
00:22:38
shop
00:22:41
this was not the same story that she had
00:22:43
told neighbors the one about the early
00:22:45
morning drive because she couldn't sleep
00:22:47
a game of detective cat and mouse was
00:22:50
about to begin
00:22:52
stories are not adding up and she's
00:22:54
really sort of grasping for stories here
00:22:57
but cops are starting to suspect that
00:22:59
that something is really wrong here she
00:23:01
changed her story slightly and she told
00:23:03
police that she couldn't sleep that
00:23:05
night so she got up went to the ridge to
00:23:07
smoke a cigarette and came back home to
00:23:09
find the
00:23:11
family dead
00:23:12
she said that when she left the house at
00:23:14
around 4am she left the door unlocked
00:23:16
then she asked if her husband was okay
00:23:18
and if her children were okay
00:23:20
so when she heard that they were dead
00:23:22
she had a huge reaction she screamed and
00:23:25
cried and wailed she gets sick
00:23:28
and she could stick into a trash can
00:23:29
this could have been just an
00:23:30
overwhelming stress
00:23:32
response
00:23:34
detectives were baffled
00:23:36
i think this point the police weren't
00:23:38
sure what her reaction was was it
00:23:40
genuine or was she acting or did she
00:23:42
really know more than she was saying so
00:23:45
police are saying you know
00:23:46
who would do this why would anyone want
00:23:48
to kill your husband can you think of
00:23:50
anything and she says well
00:23:52
you know my husband was actually having
00:23:54
an affair
00:23:55
for over a year he just confessed to me
00:23:58
recently that he was having this affair
00:24:00
and
00:24:01
you know i don't i don't know you know
00:24:04
could this maybe be a jealous
00:24:07
person as
00:24:08
his girlfriend that might have done this
00:24:10
or maybe she had somebody do it
00:24:12
could it be jealousy
00:24:14
detectives interviewed manling for hours
00:24:17
over the course of that day and she
00:24:18
consistently denied knowing anything
00:24:20
about the murders of her sons and
00:24:22
husband
00:24:23
investigators found her version of
00:24:25
events hard to believe
00:24:27
and her behavior even stranger
00:24:30
one of the things that the investigators
00:24:32
mentioned during her interview was that
00:24:34
her moods changed quite a bit you know
00:24:36
one minute she was arrogant one minute
00:24:38
she was sad one minute she was happy and
00:24:41
the the variations in the mood were just
00:24:43
too odd i think manley probably did feel
00:24:46
a couple of different conflicting
00:24:48
feelings as she was processing this in
00:24:50
the aftermath but the fact that she was
00:24:53
so
00:24:54
dysregulated
00:24:56
crying one minute but then acting like
00:24:58
everything was a joke the next probably
00:25:00
shows the
00:25:02
truth of her emotional instability if i
00:25:05
were interviewing her then it would be
00:25:09
a challenge to find out why the mood
00:25:11
swings
00:25:13
what did detectives make of the grieving
00:25:15
mother's bizarre behavior in their place
00:25:18
rod demery would have seen it as a vital
00:25:20
clue
00:25:22
was it because she actually
00:25:24
was in shock about what happened or was
00:25:26
it because she was pretending that she
00:25:28
didn't know what happened or trying to
00:25:29
make up a story or a personality so it
00:25:31
would have been very interesting to find
00:25:33
out exactly
00:25:35
at what point and what question was
00:25:36
asked that her mood changed
00:25:38
while manling answered hour after hour
00:25:41
of questions and neil's family waited
00:25:43
for news detectives were searching the
00:25:46
williams condominium in rowland house
00:25:49
there they made a discovery that turned
00:25:51
manning's story upside down
00:25:55
detectives have been investigating um
00:25:57
all kinds of of leads
00:25:59
and
00:26:00
one thing they're looking at is
00:26:01
electronic devices and computers as they
00:26:03
always do um and when they look at the
00:26:06
computer in the home they find a suicide
00:26:11
note supposedly written by neil
00:26:14
saying that he has just killed the
00:26:17
children
00:26:18
and he's going to kill himself
00:26:21
could this explain what had really
00:26:23
happened at that cluttered apartment on
00:26:25
camino bello
00:26:26
to answer that detectives turned to the
00:26:28
crime scene examiners who were building
00:26:30
a picture of how the father and his
00:26:32
little boys had died
00:26:34
three-year-old ian and seven-year-old
00:26:36
devin showed no signs of traumatic
00:26:39
injury
00:26:40
it appeared they may have been
00:26:41
suffocated to death
00:26:44
neil williams was a different story
00:26:46
even some of the most seasoned cops when
00:26:48
they found neal's body they were just
00:26:50
horrified he's lying in this pool of
00:26:54
blood and he has
00:26:56
just countless
00:26:58
stab and slash wounds
00:27:01
in all over 90 of them
00:27:04
the autopsy would reveal several stab
00:27:07
marks a large x mark on the stomach his
00:27:09
hands from defensive wounds were mingled
00:27:11
basically he's been butchered
00:27:14
the suicide note supposedly written by
00:27:17
neil suggested he was going to take his
00:27:19
own life
00:27:20
but could he really have stabbed himself
00:27:22
92 times
00:27:25
how could we expect anybody to commit
00:27:26
suicide with a samurai sword it's odd
00:27:29
because that doesn't add up with what's
00:27:31
actually happened
00:27:33
he couldn't have killed himself with
00:27:35
that sword
00:27:37
still manling stuck to her guns perhaps
00:27:40
neil's jealous mistress had killed her
00:27:42
family perhaps neil himself had done it
00:27:45
then comes the smoking gun in this case
00:27:48
it's a cigarette pack
00:27:50
as officers continued their meticulous
00:27:52
investigation into the couple's lives
00:27:54
they seized the game-changing piece of
00:27:56
evidence
00:27:58
inside manling's car
00:28:00
police find a cigarette pack with blood
00:28:04
on it
00:28:05
and they trace that blood
00:28:07
and they find that it goes back to kneel
00:28:10
so police confront
00:28:12
manling
00:28:13
we found
00:28:14
the cigarette box
00:28:16
in your car why it's important that they
00:28:19
found a cigarette box in the cart with
00:28:21
blood on it is it shoots her story out
00:28:25
manling had told cops that she'd been
00:28:27
for a drive into smoke before coming
00:28:29
home to the scene of carnage
00:28:31
she claimed that she left the house came
00:28:34
home and found them
00:28:36
dead
00:28:37
if she had done that there would be no
00:28:39
blood on a cigarette box in her car so
00:28:42
obviously when she got into the car she
00:28:44
had blood on her
00:28:46
and got it on the cigarette box and now
00:28:48
she knows
00:28:49
it's over
00:28:50
and she breaks down and she confesses
00:28:53
everything
00:28:54
what exactly had happened that night
00:28:57
in the home
00:28:58
of mr and mrs williams
00:29:00
and you imagine he has been asleep and
00:29:02
he's waking up and he's being stabbed to
00:29:04
death
00:29:12
late on the 8th of august 2007 in an
00:29:14
interview room at the walnut
00:29:16
headquarters of the los angeles county
00:29:17
sheriff's department 27 year old manling
00:29:20
sang williams walked detectives through
00:29:21
the grisly events of the night before
00:29:24
so august 7th menling
00:29:27
feeds her children pizza for dinner so
00:29:30
hawaiian pizza with pineapple and ham
00:29:32
their favorite
00:29:34
and she puts them to bed and
00:29:36
she tucks
00:29:38
the youngest one into his bed
00:29:41
with his
00:29:42
favorite little blanket
00:29:45
the little teddy bears all over it
00:29:48
and she tucks her older son into the top
00:29:50
bunk and he's lying there with his
00:29:52
little blanket his favorite with
00:29:54
spongebob squarepants
00:29:57
and then she
00:29:59
lets them fall asleep
00:30:01
once they were sleeping she crept back
00:30:04
into their room
00:30:05
she goes over to the youngest one ian
00:30:10
she takes the pillow
00:30:12
and she puts it over his head and she
00:30:14
holds it there and he's squirming and
00:30:16
she holds it there until she doesn't
00:30:19
feel him breathing anymore
00:30:21
she's
00:30:22
pushing the life out of her son
00:30:25
it must have been a very tough way to go
00:30:28
for her children to be struggling for
00:30:30
what probably would have been minutes
00:30:32
she gets on the ladder and she climbs up
00:30:34
to her older son devin's bed
00:30:37
she does the same thing she takes his
00:30:39
pillow
00:30:40
she puts it over his face and she holds
00:30:43
it there and he's squirming a little
00:30:45
harder
00:30:46
he's a little older and she holds it and
00:30:48
she forces it and she is squeezing the
00:30:51
life out of her little boy
00:30:53
her husband kneel out of the house
00:30:55
manling was focused on what she needed
00:30:57
to get her life back
00:30:59
i think at that point manly was
00:31:01
completely single-minded she hadn't
00:31:03
really bonded with her children and they
00:31:05
were part of the cause for her
00:31:06
unhappiness and so perhaps she even
00:31:09
delighted in taking her children's lives
00:31:11
and in fact she did so in such an
00:31:13
intimate and painful way
00:31:16
she then arranged their bodies she
00:31:19
kind of put them in a natural sleeping
00:31:21
position with their favorite blankets
00:31:23
and toys and they both look like they're
00:31:24
just sleeping
00:31:26
and she leaves the bedroom with her two
00:31:29
now dead children and she goes to her
00:31:32
computer and she turns it on
00:31:35
she logs on to myspace
00:31:37
[Music]
00:31:38
after looking at the profile of the man
00:31:40
she'd so recently cheated with at around
00:31:42
9 30 pm manling sent text messages to
00:31:45
friends showered got changed and went
00:31:48
out
00:31:49
she went to tgif fridays and had drinks
00:31:52
with friends
00:31:54
you're the mother of these two young
00:31:55
children
00:31:56
you have just
00:31:58
with your bare hands you have smothered
00:32:00
both of your children to death
00:32:02
and then
00:32:04
you go out and have drinks
00:32:06
that shows me that there's a profound
00:32:08
lack of empathy callousness involved
00:32:11
what's mending intended to happen next
00:32:13
is a matter of speculation
00:32:16
it appeared that she was hoping that
00:32:18
neil would come home find the kids dead
00:32:21
and commit suicide it's very possible
00:32:23
that neil would have said something to
00:32:25
her to that effect god if anything ever
00:32:27
happened to you or the kids i would kill
00:32:29
myself and it's you know she might have
00:32:31
taken that at face value and thought
00:32:32
that he was absolutely serious
00:32:35
when manning returned to the condo
00:32:36
little after midnight neil had done
00:32:39
nothing of the sort he was sitting at
00:32:41
the computer oblivious to the bodies of
00:32:43
his sons lying in the bunk bed just
00:32:44
meters away
00:32:46
she gets home and she opens the door and
00:32:48
the place is just a mess it is trash
00:32:51
there's trash everywhere and neil has
00:32:54
left his his dinner what's left of it
00:32:56
sitting out on the counter everything is
00:32:58
just the trash is overflowing
00:33:00
she's furious she is so angry
00:33:05
the couple argued according to manling
00:33:07
it was about sex a neighbor heard raised
00:33:09
voices then neal went to bed and fell
00:33:12
asleep leaving manling enraged that her
00:33:15
plan for him to take his own life hadn't
00:33:17
come together
00:33:19
lisa's how the story goes when he didn't
00:33:21
do that that's when she took actions
00:33:23
into her own hands
00:33:26
she goes to his collection and she pulls
00:33:28
out the samurai sword and she gets to
00:33:32
her husband and she starts
00:33:34
stabbing him and she stabs and slashes
00:33:39
over and over neal woke up and began to
00:33:43
try to defend himself and run off but as
00:33:47
he ran she kept slicing she chases him
00:33:50
from the bedroom he's he's literally
00:33:52
dying he's been stabbed she just doesn't
00:33:54
stop she just keeps slashing and
00:33:56
stabbing
00:33:58
over 90 times she is so enraged she
00:34:01
doesn't stop until she knows he's dead
00:34:04
in his last words were was something
00:34:06
like like like help me
00:34:09
help me
00:34:11
an autopsy would later find that neil
00:34:13
had 92 separate wounds including 22 on
00:34:16
his hands where he had tried desperately
00:34:18
to defend himself the tips of two of his
00:34:21
fingers had been severed
00:34:23
his lungs were punctured as was his
00:34:25
small intestine
00:34:27
his skull was fractured and in a blow
00:34:29
that even without the others would have
00:34:31
caused certain death he had been stabbed
00:34:33
through the heart
00:34:34
manling's annihilation of neil indeed of
00:34:37
her entire family was complete
00:34:41
it's just
00:34:42
an unbelievable thing to imagine what he
00:34:45
must have looked like at the end of his
00:34:46
death when she had hacked at him so many
00:34:49
times there was obviously so much built
00:34:52
up anger and resentment but also i
00:34:54
believe a semblance of evil for somebody
00:34:56
to do it that many times when you know
00:34:58
you probably already killed the person
00:35:00
by the fourth or the fifth slash of the
00:35:02
sword
00:35:03
she had got what she wanted she was once
00:35:05
again free and unencumbered but had she
00:35:08
planned her next steps
00:35:10
i believe manling
00:35:12
did completely think through
00:35:15
her
00:35:16
murders of her family members i just
00:35:18
don't think that she thought through
00:35:19
what would happen
00:35:20
after she murdered them i think she
00:35:22
thought through to the point of when i
00:35:24
remove these obstacles to my happiness
00:35:26
that my life will be different but she
00:35:28
didn't really have a plan afterwards for
00:35:29
what that would actually look like once
00:35:32
her entire family was dead
00:35:34
first there were practical
00:35:35
considerations
00:35:37
she changes her clothes and she grabs
00:35:39
the bloody clothes and she takes them
00:35:41
with her
00:35:42
she gets in her car and she drives and
00:35:44
on the way she stops and she dumps this
00:35:48
pile of bloody clothing into a trash can
00:35:52
and then she continues on and goes to
00:35:54
her favorite place this ridge near their
00:35:56
home and she lights up a cigarette and
00:35:58
she smokes
00:35:59
and she waits for the sun to rise
00:36:01
[Music]
00:36:04
on august 9 2007 having taken manling's
00:36:07
shocking confession
00:36:09
detectives charged her for her crimes
00:36:12
she's charged with three counts of first
00:36:14
degree murder
00:36:16
multiple murder
00:36:18
and lying and weight if found guilty she
00:36:21
could be sentenced to death
00:36:24
the callousness of premeditation and the
00:36:26
planning of it and the fact that you had
00:36:28
to be pretty certain that you wanted to
00:36:31
kill these people to go through so much
00:36:32
forethought whereas
00:36:34
in a heated situation where you just
00:36:38
flow
00:36:39
to changes the scenario for the
00:36:41
punishment
00:36:43
news that manly had been charged came as
00:36:45
a shock to the couple's families but it
00:36:47
would be three long years before they
00:36:49
would find out if the case against her
00:36:50
could be proven
00:36:53
in the fall of 2010 the trial began and
00:36:56
the prosecution's
00:36:58
point of view was that madeline just
00:36:59
wanted her life back she wanted to be
00:37:01
free and single and not have the
00:37:03
responsibilities or the restrictions of
00:37:05
a marriage and children she just wanted
00:37:07
to get back to where she was
00:37:09
calling the man that she had slept with
00:37:10
in the summer of 2007 to the stand
00:37:13
prosecutors used the affair to make
00:37:15
sense of the killings
00:37:17
the prosecution argues that
00:37:20
you know her motive was that she wanted
00:37:21
to get back with this old boyfriend that
00:37:23
was it during closing arguments the
00:37:25
prosecution
00:37:26
showed or attempted to show that
00:37:29
this was pre-meditated for months before
00:37:32
and some of the stories that meddling
00:37:34
had told family and friends about neil
00:37:37
that weren't true were kind of set the
00:37:40
groundwork for a story that she wanted
00:37:42
to finally reveal after she committed
00:37:44
this murder
00:37:46
the defense had a different story they
00:37:47
believed that
00:37:49
she was abused by her husband she
00:37:53
had a difficult childhood a difficult
00:37:56
past abusive past no this was not
00:37:59
planned this was you know uncontrolled
00:38:01
rage she just sort of snapped madeline's
00:38:04
father actually testified and said that
00:38:06
he believed that
00:38:09
he might have done something for her to
00:38:11
behave that way and he apologized to
00:38:13
neil's family
00:38:14
which version of manling's crime would
00:38:16
be the most believable to the jury the
00:38:18
trial concluded in november 2010
00:38:22
the jury deliberates for eight hours in
00:38:25
november of 2010 meddling was found
00:38:27
guilty of all charges including the
00:38:29
special circumstances of land and weight
00:38:32
a few days later a jury convened once
00:38:34
again to decide manling's fate
00:38:37
then comes the punishment phase
00:38:40
life in prison
00:38:42
or the death sentence
00:38:43
the jury deliberates and deliberates and
00:38:46
they can't come to an agreement
00:38:48
it's a hung jury the verdict was split
00:38:51
eight for the death penalty and four
00:38:53
against
00:38:54
it was a blow for jan williams neil's
00:38:56
mother who simply wanted the process to
00:38:58
be over so she could begin to properly
00:39:00
grieve and process the loss of her son
00:39:03
grandchildren
00:39:04
both manling's family and neil's family
00:39:08
agreed or asked the judge to give her
00:39:11
life in prison rather than the death
00:39:13
penalty
00:39:14
because
00:39:16
of the appeals processes and the
00:39:18
cumbersome processes of a death row or
00:39:21
death sentence
00:39:23
they just wanted it to end
00:39:25
their pleas fell on deaf ears in august
00:39:28
of 2011
00:39:30
a second jury convenes for the
00:39:32
punishment
00:39:33
of manlington williams
00:39:36
in this case in the end the jury is
00:39:39
unanimous they recommend the death
00:39:41
penalty
00:39:42
and in january 2012 the judge makes it
00:39:45
official
00:39:46
manling sang williams is sentenced to
00:39:49
die
00:39:51
in summing up the case the judge made
00:39:53
his contempt of manling's actions clear
00:39:56
he said
00:39:58
she had savagely killed her husband
00:40:02
and
00:40:02
just heartlessly murdered her children
00:40:06
for selfish
00:40:08
narcissistic reasons because she wanted
00:40:10
to start a new life with a new man and
00:40:13
leave her old life behind
00:40:16
he said
00:40:17
she killed her own two children when
00:40:19
there were people who would have been
00:40:21
happy to take these children in and
00:40:23
those are long and brutal deaths several
00:40:26
minutes and during each time she could
00:40:28
have reflected and decided not to but
00:40:31
she continued on
00:40:33
he said you know she planned this this
00:40:36
was clearly premeditated she laid out
00:40:38
this plan over two months
00:40:41
she had plenty of time to reconsider and
00:40:43
back out the fact that she wore gloves
00:40:46
when she killed her husband or latex
00:40:48
gloves when she killed her husband
00:40:50
showed that this was not in the heat of
00:40:52
passion the judge said
00:40:54
you know this was a heartless killer
00:40:57
selfish narcissistic heartless killer
00:40:59
who could take her own children's lives
00:41:03
he said you know i it's not for me to
00:41:05
forgive and the people
00:41:07
who the only people who would be in a
00:41:10
position to forgive aren't here anymore
00:41:14
the case against manling sang williams
00:41:16
was overwhelming
00:41:17
despite the death penalty she remains
00:41:19
alive
00:41:20
[Music]
00:41:21
meddling is currently on death row
00:41:23
marlene sam williams is currently being
00:41:26
held at the california central women's
00:41:28
facility in chauchila california of the
00:41:31
700 death row inmates in california
00:41:34
prisons
00:41:36
less than two dozen are women
00:41:38
and
00:41:39
the death penalty was only restored in
00:41:41
california in 1976 and since then 13
00:41:45
inmates have been executed not one of
00:41:48
them has been a woman
00:41:49
manling would be the first
00:42:35
[Applause]
00:42:37
[Music]
00:42:42
um
00:42:49
[Music]
00:42:58
you
