00:00:09
NARRATOR: This time on
"Killers Caught on Camera." A huge manhunt
for a spree killer
00:00:15
and a woman who are on the run. I could see that
there were two bodies deceased from gunshot wounds.
00:00:22
There was a lot of blood. NARRATOR: Two more victims
in Alabama and Florida are left in their path
before the net closes in.
00:00:33
People can run and they
can hide, just not forever. NARRATOR: And in the UK,
a night out in Newcastle
00:00:39
ends with a young man
left dead in the shower. In addition to the
fatal stab wound,
00:00:46
they found stab wounds between
Jason's shoulder blades. MAN 1: It just
sounds like something
00:00:54
bad is happening to her. WOMAN 1: We know what
happened because the video tells us what happened.
00:00:59
MAN 2: I heard some gunshots. POLICE OFFICER 1: Drop it. Whatever it is drop it!
00:01:03
That does not prove
that I killed my wife. MAN 3: The camera doesn't lie. NARRATOR: The United states,
Milton, Florida, a small city
00:01:20
northeast of Pensacola. On January 31, 2017,
dispatchers received a disturbing 911
call from an employee
00:01:32
at the Emerald Sands Inn. NARRATOR: Captain Scott Jones
was one of the first responders
00:02:04
on scene. I could see that
there were two bodies deceased from gunshot wounds. There was a lot of blood.
00:02:12
And it was very
quickly determined that, you know,
obviously, this was not-- this was not a natural death.
00:02:18
This was going to
be something to it. NARRATOR: Earlier in the
week, close friends Alicia
00:02:25
Greer and Jacqueline Moore had
checked into the Emerald Sands. BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN:
Alicia Greer was
00:02:31
a 30-year-old mother of three. She was a friend of
Jacqueline Moore's. Jacqueline Moore
was 39 years old
00:02:40
and was also a mother
of some small children. NARRATOR: They kept
their location quiet
00:02:45
because Alicia
was trying to hide from a very violent ex-partner. She had actually been
hospitalized from some injuries
00:02:54
that she sustained
from a violent attack. Alicia had been trying
to hide and she was just
00:03:00
with her friend Jackie
at that hotel room, just as a friendship,
as support. NARRATOR: Police
identified the two victims
00:03:15
as Alicia and Jacqueline. The staff member found
murder victims Alicia Greer and Jacqueline Moore in a
room registered in Moore's name.
00:03:27
NARRATOR: But the killer
remained a mystery. And they brought
in a 3D scanner, a laser-based device creating a
walkthrough of the crime scene,
00:03:39
identifying one body on the
floor, the other on the bed. A 3D representation, allowing
a virtual camera to travel
00:03:49
freely through the
immediate aftermath to reexamine the evidence. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:04:03
This was a rare and
hyper violent event. Bob Johnson is the Sheriff
of Santa Rosa County.
00:04:10
We don't have a lot of
homicides in Santa Rosa County, much less double homicides.
00:04:16
The fact that two innocent
women were basically zip tied and executed,
that shows signs
00:04:22
of a really sick individual. I knew we had a
maniac on the loose and I knew we had to
get him pretty quick.
00:04:32
NARRATOR: After being made
aware of Alicia's previous toxic relationship, police identified
the man as William "Billy"
00:04:39
Boyette. Boyette was well known to us. He was a violent
offender who had a long history with our agency.
00:04:48
NARRATOR: His most
recent offense was against Alicia, which
prompted her to go into hiding
00:04:52
at the Emerald Sands Inn. Billy Boyette had
a pending warrant for his arrest on that charge.
00:05:01
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: Billy Boyette
quickly became suspect number one for the double homicide.
00:05:13
NEWS PRESENTER 1: A massive
manhunt is underway in Escambia County, Florida, for Boyette.
00:05:17
He's wanted as a
person of interest. SCOTT JONES: The manhunt
is on for Billy Boyette.
00:05:21
We're going out. We're trying to locate him. We're going to all
of his known friends,
00:05:25
associates, anybody that would
have had contact with him. NARRATOR: Dominic Guadagnoli was
assigned to the investigation.
00:05:32
We knew that, OK, he had
this rental car so we knew what kind of car he was driving.
00:05:37
NARRATOR: The car was
a black Ford Edge SUV. The police urgently
needed to find both the vehicle and the man.
00:05:45
Detectives fanned out
both sides of Highway 90 where the hotel was located and
just started going door to door.
00:05:52
NARRATOR: As the hunt for
Billy Boyette widened, the Ford Edge was
caught on camera
00:05:57
30 miles from the murder scene
at a Walmart in Crestview. But when the police
examined the footage,
00:06:08
it's not Billy who gets out. It's a woman. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] The woman seen
entering the Walmart
00:06:18
was identified as Mary Rice. Her life was
potentially in danger. The police needed to find
her and Billy Boyette.
00:06:31
SCOTT JONES: Several people that
were associated with Mary Rice were expressing concern
that she was missing.
00:06:36
At the same time, family members
had actually called in to report that Mary Rice was missing.
00:06:41
So at this point, we were very
concerned that Mary Rice may have potentially been
a victim of homicide
00:06:45
or was potentially a hostage
being held against her will. NARRATOR: Bridgette Myers
Jensen was the assistant state
00:06:52
attorney assigned to the case. Mary Rice was known to be an
acquaintance of Billy Boyette's
00:06:58
while he was incarcerated. She became like a pen
pal of sorts with him. And then once he was
released at the end of 2016,
00:07:06
he reached out to Mary Rice. NARRATOR: The fact that Mary
Rice wrote to Billy Boyette
00:07:12
while he was in prison could
tell us more about the dynamic of their relationship.
00:07:18
There's a number of
reasons why women choose to write to male inmates. And one of them,
the most common,
00:07:24
is what's called the
manipulator, which is someone who is writing to
a person in prison
00:07:28
and basically wants
to control them. The other category of women
who write to male prisoners
00:07:34
are what are sometimes referred
to as neurotic or anxious. And the one that
Mary Rice fits into
00:07:39
is neurotic, which means that
she perhaps sees herself as bad and she's looking for someone
else to see her as caring,
00:07:47
and as loving, and as
considerate because she doesn't see herself that way. NARRATOR: Police had
no idea whether she was
00:07:55
being held against her will. SCOTT JONES: That's her getting
out of the car right now.
00:08:01
Boyette is pulling off. He's going to go park in a spot. And here she comes into
the store unaccompanied.
00:08:07
Mary Rice is in the
store for a long time, walking up and down the aisles. She's purchasing
camping supplies,
00:08:13
survival items and ammunition. Here we see Mary Rice
entering the sporting goods section of Walmart.
00:08:21
She proceeds to
purchase over 100 rounds of .38 caliber ammunition. NARRATOR: It was clear
both her and Billy
00:08:30
were now armed and dangerous. They also seemed to be
preparing to slip off the radar.
00:08:39
This isn't just to buy some
supplies to make it to a road trip to another place.
00:08:44
They're looking to hide. NARRATOR: They needed to catch
them before they went off grid.
00:08:50
BOB JOHNSON: A manhunt for us
consists of every hand on deck, pretty much. You know, everybody
drops what they're doing
00:08:56
and tries to find
this individual and stop them as
soon as possible. Because in the manner of which
these two women were killed,
00:09:03
we knew it was just a matter
of time before he did it again. NARRATOR: Then just three
days after the double homicide
00:09:11
at the Emerald Sands Inn,
a woman was killed 40 miles away in Lillian, Alabama. Peggy Broz was located in
the front yard of her home,
00:09:22
shot in the face and
her car was missing. POLICE OFFICER 2: He is
armed and very dangerous.
00:09:28
He may use violence again
to carjack a vehicle. NARRATOR: 52-year-old Peggy Broz
was a respiratory therapist.
00:09:38
She was returning
from a night shift at the hospital
when she was killed. Gina Herrington
is Peggy's sister.
00:09:48
Peggy and I are a year
and a half apart in age. She was older than me. I'm younger than her.
00:09:53
We went to school together. After she graduated
junior college, she got her education to
become a respiratory therapist
00:09:59
at the hospital at Pensacola. Peggy and I talked. She would call me
every evening and we
00:10:05
would talk on her way to work. She would tell me
what's going on. She'd be like, I'll
be glad when I retire.
00:10:11
I like my job, but I'll
be glad when I retire. So I can be home with my family. NARRATOR: Peggy
had two children.
00:10:19
Her daughter Hannah,
is the youngest. I always remember
my mom being there, even though she worked
the graveyard shift.
00:10:27
She was very active in my
schooling when I was a kid. She was just always the
one there taking pictures.
00:10:37
NARRATOR: A strong mother in the
wrong place at the wrong time. A random victim of an
opportunistic killer.
00:10:46
GINA HERRINGTON: Peggy
was coming home from work. She was shot right in
the bridge of her nose
00:10:52
and the bullet lodged
into her temple. Just for a car. We were told she died instantly
because her brain didn't
00:11:04
have time to register
to shut her eyes. So her eyes were open. HANNAH BROZ: When I
initially got there
00:11:10
and I saw that the
road was taped off, I was like, this is serious. But I just couldn't understand
that my mom was dead.
00:11:22
NARRATOR: Witnesses saw a
man driving Peggy's car, followed by a woman
driving the black Ford
00:11:28
Edge they were looking for. Police managed to track down
surveillance footage to support
00:11:34
what the witnesses said. This is surveillance
footage from a car dealership near the scene
of Peggy Broz's murder.
00:11:42
Here we see Peggy
Broz's vehicle coming by and we see the vehicle
that Billy Boyette was in,
00:11:47
the black Ford Edge
coming right behind it. Mary Rice is driving
this vehicle. NARRATOR: Three minutes later,
they're caught on camera
00:11:55
again in a parking lot. You'll see Billy Boyette
get out of the driver's seat of that vehicle and you see Mary
Rice get out of the driver's
00:12:04
seat of the black Ford Edge. They then proceed to take
items from the Ford Edge and put them into
Peggy Broz's car,
00:12:11
leaving the Ford Edge
abandoned in the parking lot. This surveillance footage shows
that Mary Rice is helping.
00:12:16
It's also critical evidence
in the murder of Peggy Broz because she was murdered
just moments before.
00:12:20
Here we have the prime
suspect driving her vehicle. NARRATOR: Peggy
Broz's family were
00:12:26
advised that Billy Boyette
was the prime suspect for Peggy's murder. HANNAH BROZ: My dad just had
this guttural animal-like
00:12:35
reaction and my brother
had to hold him down while the police told us
about the two other women that
00:12:42
were killed a few days prior. SCOTT JONES: She was
an innocent victim. We believe that Billy Boyette
just followed her to her home
00:12:53
and killed her for the sole
purpose of taking her vehicle. He got what he
wanted but killed
00:12:58
anyways, which tells you what
a human piece of trash this guy was. This is just so cold blooded
to get what you want,
00:13:07
you ask them for something,
you know they're defenseless and you kill them anyways.
00:13:12
GINA HERRINGTON: I know, Peggy. Peggy would have said,
dude, you can have the car,
00:13:15
you can have everything in it. And hey, I'll be glad
to go in the house and fix you something
to eat, too.
00:13:19
That's the kind of
person Peggy was. NARRATOR: The death
toll was three victims in just three days.
00:13:27
Billy Boyette and Mary Rice
were still on the loose. We didn't know what
was going to happen.
00:13:33
They hadn't been caught. Nobody knew where they were. The streets was silent. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:13:42
SCOTT JONES: This is
just an all out manhunt. At this point, we've got three
murder victims in two states
00:13:49
and the media is all over it. And the citizens are
concerned, rightfully so. It's everyone's worst nightmare.
00:13:56
There's no rhyme or reason to
the victims he chooses other than they're helpless females.
00:14:01
NARRATOR: Sheriff Bob
Johnson used the media to send a clear message. I'm speaking directly
to Billy Boyette or anyone
00:14:09
who can get him a message. Mr. Boyette, there are two
places you can end up-- prison or a cemetery.
00:14:17
The choice is yours. The people coming
for you are not the unarmed, defenseless victims
like you have been preying on.
00:14:23
They're professional law
enforcement officers that will take you off the streets.
00:14:27
How it happens is
totally up to you. NARRATOR: Two days later,
a man spotted Peggy Broz's
00:14:35
car dumped in Escambia County. Peggy Broz's vehicle
was discovered abandoned and broken down near
the intersection of Nine
00:15:02
Mile Road and Interstate 10. NARRATOR: Police tried to
find any cameras nearby that might have captured
Billy Boyette and Mary Rice.
00:15:12
The breakthrough came
from a device usually deployed to track down animals. SCOTT JONES: We located
surveillance footage
00:15:20
in the Beulah area
from trail cameras. It showed Billy Boyette and Mary
Rice walking through the area.
00:15:29
NARRATOR: Caught
in the cross-hairs of a motion-sensitive camera. BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN:
Billy had a firearm.
00:15:36
Mary had a sleeping bag. And it just showed
that they were together and that they were
walking through the woods,
00:15:42
probably looking for
their next opportunity. NARRATOR: But when they
emerged from the woods,
00:15:49
the cameras captured her
and Billy Boyette digitally. But it was the police who
actually had to catch them.
00:15:58
BOB JOHNSON: By the time
we would get those videos and figure out where exactly
it occurred at, we'd get there
00:16:03
and they would be gone. It's just it was
very frustrating. They were one step ahead of
us pretty much the whole way.
00:16:11
Our fear all along
was that Billy Boyette was killing people at random. NARRATOR: Without
a car, police felt
00:16:18
it was only a matter of time
before Billy would strike again. On the morning of Monday,
February 6, 911 dispatchers
00:16:28
received an alarming call. NARRATOR: 28-year-old Kayla
Crocker lived in Beulah. She had two children.
00:16:45
Kayla Crocker was
getting ready for work that morning with her
small child in his crib.
00:16:51
NARRATOR: But Kayla didn't
show up for work that morning. SCOTT JONES: Her mother
was aware of everything
00:16:57
going on with Billy Boyette, who
had been located in the area. So at this point, her mother
goes over to check on her.
00:17:08
Kayla had been tied up
and shot in the head. Her hair pulled out in clumps. Her car had been stolen.
00:17:20
Police suspected
for the first time that Mary Rice was directly
involved with restraining
00:17:25
Kayla prior to her death. We believe Billy and Mary
came upon Kayla's house with the car running, went
inside, tied Kayla up, shot her
00:17:37
in the head, stole some of the
food and goods from her home, and then took her car.
00:17:43
NARRATOR: Later in
hospital, Kayla died from her horrific injuries. Killing someone or
committing a crime in order
00:17:52
to, say, get a car or to
have access to something, that's what we refer to
as an instrumental crime.
00:17:57
It's not about
killing the person. It's about getting the car. In this case, I think
that's not what happened.
00:18:02
You don't tie somebody up and
then shoot them in this way. If all you want is access to
their car, you just shoot them.
00:18:11
SCOTT JONES: At this point. Billy Boyette is all over. The media is going crazy.
00:18:15
Social media is going crazy. We're getting probably 100
tips a day about sightings.
00:18:20
So when this murder happened,
it really intensified. NEWS PRESENTER 2:
The Sheriff believes
00:18:25
Boyette has stayed in the area,
spending time in the woods. We immediately put out
the vehicle description
00:18:33
of Kayla Crocker's vehicle. We don't want Billy to
abandon that vehicle and kill someone
else in cold blood.
00:18:40
NARRATOR: After
the fourth murder, the wanted poster was
circulated across the states
00:18:44
of Florida and Alabama. When there's already
a search out for you and people know that you've
committed your previous crimes,
00:18:53
I think at that point you
also have way less to lose. And so the idea
that, OK, well, we've
00:18:58
already committed a murder. Oh, we've committed another one. People know that
this has happened.
00:19:03
They're already after us. They're looking for us. And you're going to resort
to more extreme measures
00:19:08
to try and get out
of that situation because you've just raised
the stakes from a normal life
00:19:13
to a life in prison or
potentially the death penalty. And so what you're running
away from makes total sense
00:19:19
because you're not
escaping normality, you're escaping death by
committing more crimes.
00:19:24
And that is a very different
calculation to be making. NARRATOR: As suspects
in four murders,
00:19:33
Rice and Boyette were
still on the loose. The police needed
to work out if Mary was his hostage or accomplice.
00:19:41
The footage captured
after Kayla's murder was key to working this out. This footage was consistent
with the trail camera footage
00:19:50
of her walking through
the woods with Billy Boyette carrying many supplies. This shows that she
was in the store
00:19:56
alone, unaccompanied
by Boyette, and she could have clearly
called for help or gotten away from Boyette
if she truly wanted to.
00:20:05
NARRATOR: Billy and
Mary were caught on camera again at Hardee's
drive-thru buying breakfast.
00:20:13
And four hours later,
Mary Rice was captured on camera at Dollar General. Her change of appearance
was of interest.
00:20:22
Her hair color is
different, indicating that she's dyed her hair in an
attempt to disguise herself.
00:20:28
At no point during the
time that she's in here shopping alone did she ask
any of the employees for help
00:20:33
or ask anyone to call
the police on her behalf. Again, this indicates
that she was acting
00:20:38
through her own fruition
to help and assist Billy Boyette with his crimes. NARRATOR: As the cameras
tracked their movements,
00:20:47
time was running out. I used to tell
people all the time, people say that saying, you
can run, but you can't hide.
00:20:54
I'm like, no, people can run and
they can hide, just not forever. NARRATOR: The police
finally got the breakthrough
00:21:01
they needed over 200 miles
north in Troup County, Georgia. We received a call
from an alert citizen
00:21:08
that Kayla Crocker's
stolen vehicle had been located at a motel in Georgia. At that point, law
enforcement responds.
00:21:17
And obviously, because
of who the suspect is, the fact that they've
loaded up on ammunition,
00:21:23
law enforcement is prepared
that Billy Boyette may try to shoot it out with them.
00:21:31
We just basically removed
people from the motel, keep the area safe, and started
knocking on the door and saying,
00:21:36
hey, we're here. We're not going anywhere. Come out peacefully
or we're coming in.
00:21:43
There is some conversation
back and forth. I'm not coming out. We're not coming out.
00:21:46
So there's realizing
this is going to be maybe a barricade situation. They get in the armored vehicle,
assault rifles, heavy artillery.
00:21:53
At this point, we're
just going to come in and start taking the door down. And at this point, Mary
Rice walked outside.
00:22:01
We made her safe. And then that next
point, we're going in. And as we were
going in to do that,
00:22:09
that's when he shot himself. SCOTT JONES: The
manhunt is finally over. I don't think he
was man enough ever
00:22:18
to stand in front of somebody,
and look them in the eye, and apologize. I don't think he had it in him.
00:22:28
NARRATOR: With
Billy Boyette dead, the police focused their
attention on Mary Rice
00:22:34
and her role in the killings. NARRATOR: In her
interview with police, Mary told them she was taken
by Billy and held hostage.
00:22:52
She claimed to law enforcement
that she had been held against her will and that basically
she had been kidnapped and was
00:22:58
a victim of Billy Boyette's. During the course
of this interview, Mary tries to claim that she
was forced to do these things,
00:23:37
that she was scared
of Billy Boyette and that she was not
a willing participant.
00:23:52
However, during
the interview, she made several statements that
were contrary to that narrative.
00:24:00
NARRATOR: Mary claimed there was
another person acting with Billy when Peggy Broz was killed.
00:24:37
NARRATOR: But Mary's
story didn't stack up. SCOTT JONES: Obviously, the
goal in any interrogation
00:25:01
is we either want a confession
or we want a provable lie. In this case, we had
several provable lies.
00:25:13
NARRATOR: The video
footage was also crucial for disproving Mary's claims. The video surveillance clearly
contradicts the statements
00:25:21
that she's making
during the interview. The video surveillance that
shows that she's clearly walking
00:25:26
into Walmart, she's
walking around by herself, and she's not asking
anyone for help,
00:25:30
and then the video surveillance
from the trail camera, which shows her carrying all
of their camping and living
00:25:35
supplies, clearly indicated
that it's not what she portrayed in the interview. One video is helpful, but when
you have multiple videos that
00:25:44
show multiple times she
was in stores unaccompanied and on alone, it builds a very
convincing case that she was
00:25:50
acting in her own free will. NARRATOR: In jail,
Mary continued to protest her innocence.
00:25:59
I ain't doing a thing. Yeah, [BLEEP] man. He [BLEEP] me up, man. He [BLEEP] me, like,
almost every day.
00:26:10
If she was the victim
of domestic violence, then maybe she was worried
that he would kill her.
00:26:15
And she might not even
know herself exactly why she went along with it. What we do see is that for
co-offending behavior, where
00:26:20
women are perpetrating with
men, men are controlling the situation almost always.
00:26:24
Women are going along with it. And that question comes
up every single time-- why did she do it?
00:26:29
Why did she go along with it. And the answers are the same
as for lots of human behavior,
00:26:32
because of love, because of
coercion, because of pressure, because of other reasons.
00:26:36
And in this case, the
thing you're doing is just a heinous crime, but
the motivations are often
00:26:44
the same fundamental
human motivations that encourage
people to do anything else with their partner.
00:26:51
SCOTT JONES: It's not
a crime to be a victim. But if you're an
accomplice, you're now
00:26:55
an accessory to four murders. So, yeah, you're looking at
a pretty significant prison
00:27:00
sentence when you're
an accomplice. Mary Rice was sentenced
to life in prison for the murder of Kayla
Crocker, and she was also
00:27:09
sentenced to 30 years in state
prison for being an accessory after the fact to the
murders of Jacqueline
00:27:15
Moore and Alicia Greer. SCOTT JONES: It felt good to
finally get that conviction.
00:27:21
At the same time, you know,
you mourn for the victims. There was four innocent women
who were murdered senselessly.
00:27:30
NARRATOR: Mary Rice
still hasn't been tried for the murder of Peggy Broz. HANNAH BROZ: This is
going to sound bad,
00:27:37
but there is a, sort of,
comfort knowing that Mary Rice will never leave prison.
00:27:43
She'll live the rest of her
days stuck behind a jail cell. It's good to know that there's
no one else that she could hurt.
00:27:52
And I guess that's
closure enough. NARRATOR: But Billy
Boyette will never have to answer for his crimes.
00:28:02
BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN: I don't
believe the victims got justice. He basically took that from
them by taking his own life.
00:28:08
And we didn't have the
opportunity to prosecute him for all the heinous
things that he did
00:28:12
to all the different victims. [MELANCHOLIC MUSIC] HANNAH BROZ: When I do something
that I'm really proud of,
00:28:23
I hate that she's not there. It's hard not to
focus on everything that they're going to miss.
00:28:31
PEGGY BROZ: Hannah,
what you doing? Huh, what you
doing big old girl? Things like not being
able to see me get married,
00:28:40
or have kids or graduate
with a bachelor's degree, stuff like that,
or see where I go in life.
00:28:51
I just miss having my mom there. That's the most-- that's
the thing that I miss the most, being
able to talk to her,
00:28:57
have conversations that a
mother and daughter would have. I mean, I think
about her every day
00:29:05
and sometimes I'll listen
to one of the few voicemails that I have of her just to
hear her voice call my name.
00:29:13
PEGGY BROZ: Hanner! Hey, Hannah, give mama call, OK? Your title came in today. OK, love you.
00:29:22
Having the voicemails is
almost like a saving grace, to be honest. Because it's not that I
would forget her voice,
00:29:31
but I'm glad that I
can still listen to it. I'm glad that I saved
them, even though I didn't
00:29:38
know that I'd need them later. [MELANCHOLIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: Billy Boyette
was a spree killer.
00:30:00
But how do you distinguish
between a spree killer and a serial killer? These are incredibly
unusual events.
00:30:07
And ultimately, it
often comes down to how long someone is killing for. So is someone going out
and killing, sort of,
00:30:13
rapid sequence back to back? That is more likely to be called
a spree killing because it's
00:30:17
one continuous event. Whereas, a serial killer might
be killing once every couple
00:30:23
of months over years
or even decades. Spree killing is more likely to
come out of an intense emotion.
00:30:30
Whereas, serial killing
is more likely to be planned and targeted with
specific individuals.
00:30:37
NARRATOR: Billy
Boyette carried out his killing spree
with the nation's most prolific murder weapon.
00:30:43
JULIA SHAW: Almost
all perpetrators of murder in the United
States use a handgun.
00:30:48
Using a knife is
actually relatively rare. This is US specific. So this is really
important because it
00:30:56
comes down to access to guns. But in places like
the United Kingdom or other places where guns are
harder to get, that proportion
00:31:03
changes dramatically
and way more people are killed with knives. NARRATOR: In our next
case, a knife was key.
00:31:12
In the UK, in North East
England, the city of Newcastle, home to two universities
and nearly 50,000 students,
00:31:24
including Jason Brockbanks. LUCY EDWARDS: Jason was a
24-year-old from Whitehaven.
00:31:31
He moved to Newcastle to study
at Northumbria University. He was a person that cared a
lot about people and just an
00:31:39
all around, kind-hearted lad. NARRATOR: Jason had grown up in
a small coastal town in Cumbria.
00:31:49
JULIA SHAW: Homosexual people
who grew up in small communities often flock to the city.
00:31:54
There's a real draw
into what are perceived to be more liberal, more
queer friendly spaces,
00:31:59
and that there's a
clustering that happens where you find a new community. And so it can be a very freeing
experience for someone to leave
00:32:07
a smaller community, to
go to a bigger community where they find
more LGBT people.
00:32:15
NARRATOR: But on
September 24, 2022, Jason stopped
replying to messages from friends and family.
00:32:23
LUCY EDWARDS: An accommodation
manager got a phone call from Jason's parents. They were just concerned
for his welfare.
00:32:29
They hadn't heard from
him in three days. She used a master key to
gain entry to his room.
00:32:35
The room was in a
bit of disarray. The bed covers were off the bed. The TV was on.
00:32:42
When she went into
the en suite bathroom, she saw blood on
the walls and Jason very visibly dead in
the shower cubicle.
00:32:51
[OMINOUS MUSIC] NARRATOR: The police launched
a murder investigation. Student residence
was cordoned off.
00:33:06
Lucy Edwards covered the case. For police, it's about
getting crime scene teams in,
00:33:13
it's about DNA, it's
about digital forensics and seeing what kind
of picture they can
00:33:19
build about what's happened. NARRATOR: Jason's body
was sent for an autopsy. The pathologist found sharp
force injuries, one of which
00:33:30
was horizontal on his right
flank, which they did believe was the main wound that
caused him to bleed out.
00:33:38
In addition to the
fatal stab wound, they found two additional stab
wounds between Jason's shoulder
00:33:44
blades. NARRATOR: The police needed to
find out who had killed Jason. They searched his
room for evidence.
00:33:54
LUCY EDWARDS: The room the
police walk into is in disarray. They find Jason's phone
tangled in his bedding.
00:34:01
Obviously, the police will take
the phone away for evidence. And they discovered
messages on Grindr, which
00:34:08
is a gay dating app,
which obviously opens the floor of multiple
different people
00:34:13
who he might have been speaking
to who could be suspects. NARRATOR: Police
analysts examined
00:34:18
Jason's online dating matches. And they started to look
through CCTV footage from the university.
00:34:28
They spotted Jason
in a patterned shirt arriving at his student
accommodation the day
00:34:33
he went missing. Police needed to work
out who was with Jason. Ray Evans is a forensic
image analyst who regularly
00:34:46
works with the police. The footage is a
little bit blurry, but we can make out
general details.
00:34:52
We can see he's wearing
dark-tone trousers, dark-tone shoes and a pale top
with some interesting stripes.
00:34:59
You can see the
shape of his nose, and the hairline and actually
the rest of the head.
00:35:05
The police would use
this kind of footage to track his facial features and
the clothing worn by the person.
00:35:12
That's quite useful to us. NARRATOR: Newcastle
has a booming nightlife and there's nothing
inherently abnormal
00:35:21
that would raise the alarm. And yet forensic psychologist
Coral Dando sees added layers
00:35:29
to the human interaction. In order to access
university accommodation, they've got to use a swipe
card, a magnetic swipe card,
00:35:36
but it hasn't been
able to access it. This other man searches
it quite briskly, I think.
00:35:44
What you notice there is
that Jason stands back, closes his arms. He steps quite
far back from him.
00:35:51
I think it makes him
look quite vulnerable. NARRATOR: The footage
helped the police
00:35:57
to retrace Jason's last steps
and try to build a profile of the person he was with.
00:36:05
Using the time stamp
on the footage, the police tracked Jason
and the unknown man
00:36:09
as they moved
through the building. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] CORAL DANDO: This other man
tries to access the door.
00:36:22
Jason, at this point,
puts his hand on his hip and puts his arm out
to take his card back.
00:36:29
I don't actually think he
gives the card to Jason. The way he's opened
that door, he's flung
00:36:38
that door open quite hard. That's quite an
aggressive action. The important aspects about
this piece of CCTV footage,
00:36:50
it's short, but it
gives us a really good idea of who the person
was that last saw Jason alive.
00:36:58
NARRATOR: 30 minutes
later, a person matching the same description
is caught on camera
00:37:05
leaving Jason's residence. We can see now he has
got an overcoat on so that obscures the clothing beneath.
00:37:15
But we can still see he's
got a pale top underneath. We can see, again, the
shape of the hairline.
00:37:21
We can see the
shape of the face. And were we to compare
those, then we'd be able to fairly
confidently include
00:37:29
that person as being the same. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] CORAL DANDO: He entered and
he was quite cross, quite
00:37:40
brusque, quite firm with Jason. And he's left very calm. NARRATOR: The police also
obtained video from the parking
00:37:50
lot behind Jason's building. RAYMOND EVANS: The footage
is useful for tracking because we're able to say, well,
the person goes into the lift,
00:38:01
20 seconds later, they
come out of the building. Jason went in with
a certain person.
00:38:07
The person was dressed
in a certain way. That person then came back out. Apparently, they were the last
person to be seen with Jason.
00:38:14
So we can be fairly
sure that there was something going on there. NARRATOR: Jason was never
seen leaving his residence.
00:38:24
Detectives had to find
the unknown man in white. RAYMOND EVANS: The opportunity
for this person to be
00:38:32
the killer is absolutely there. There's no further
footage showing anybody else in the vicinity.
00:38:37
So logically, he would
be the prime suspect. NARRATOR: The man in the footage
matched someone in Jason's phone
00:38:45
who also appeared in
the dating app he used. His name Aaron Ray. LUCY EDWARDS: Jason and
Aaron's relationship
00:38:55
was around three months long. It's not really known if
they were fully official,
00:39:03
if they were absolutely
an exclusive couple or if it was a bit more
casual, as is the nature
00:39:09
of being in university. NARRATOR: Police
became aware of a video on social media posted
by Aaron that night
00:39:17
while Jason was asleep. It has since been deleted. A video has been posted
to social media of Aaron
00:39:27
scrolling through Jason's
contacts, his messages. Aaron is recording
himself, looking
00:39:34
through these
messages in Jason's bathroom in his
university accommodation. Aaron has found messages
on Jason's phone
00:39:43
that are of a sexual nature, and
that's sparked some fury in him. He's getting quite
riled up by this.
00:39:51
He's under the impression that
him and Jason are exclusive. NARRATOR: When the police
looked into Aaron's history,
00:39:59
they discovered a disturbing
incident which had made local headlines years earlier.
00:40:05
When he was a teenager,
he killed his parrot by slitting its neck. He was found guilty
of abusing an animal.
00:40:16
That type of behavior
toward animals is a big red flag when we come
to understand an individual
00:40:26
and their propensity to move
forward to commit more serious and more violent crimes.
00:40:35
NARRATOR: The police moved in to
arrest Aaron in the early hours of September 29.
00:40:50
LUCY EDWARDS: It's all
captured on body cam footage. It's in a very normal
and unassuming home.
00:41:06
It's almost like it's
a massive inconvenience that he's been called out of his
bedroom in his dressing gown.
00:41:25
He's not being
verbally aggressive. He's not being
physically aggressive in the way that I think we
saw him in the earlier CCTV
00:41:33
when he was going with Jason
to the student accommodation. He was quite snatchy.
00:41:38
He was quite bolshy. He was quite, you
know, in charge. We don't see that here. The fact that he's not looking
the police officer in the eye,
00:41:52
he's not asking any questions,
this is the, sort of, behavior that we often see from
people when they are arrested.
00:42:00
It doesn't necessarily mean much
in terms of understanding guilt or innocence. But I think it's quite
interesting that he doesn't
00:42:08
ask any questions at all. NARRATOR: Aaron was
taken into custody and questioned by police.
00:42:16
Aaron immediately
starts defending himself by placing blame on Jason. And he starts to
say that there was
00:42:25
a bit of a violent
altercation between him and Jason over the
accusation of cheating.
00:42:33
NARRATOR: Aaron claimed he'd
stabbed Jason in self-defense and didn't know that he
had died from his injuries.
00:42:40
The prosecution used
the CCTV footage from the early hours
of September 24 to undermine Aaron's
self-defense argument.
00:42:50
The fact that he's
just wandered out, doesn't look upset,
doesn't look stressed,
00:42:55
looks, if anything, less
cross, less anxious, less annoyed now than he
did when he tried to get
00:43:04
into the accommodation
when Jason was still alive, we could suggest that it's
been a cathartic exercise, a
00:43:12
violent but cathartic exercise. And that he now feels
that he's, you know, done what he needed to do
in order to satisfy himself.
00:43:23
NARRATOR: This calm demeanor,
after his alleged need to defend himself didn't help his case.
00:43:30
This footage has
been fundamental, I think, in undermining
that defense. It seems incredulous that he's
had a violent fight with someone
00:43:39
that's necessitated him to
attack them with a knife in order to defend himself. He's got no defense
wounds by the looks of it.
00:43:47
Aaron did not call
for help at all. He must have absolutely been
aware that he had potentially
00:43:54
fatally injured Jason. What he's done is
he's put his coat on, put his rucksack on,
put his headphones on
00:44:00
and he's just left. NARRATOR: In court, one
of Aaron's ex partners said he had to take
legal steps to stop Aaron
00:44:11
from contacting
him after Aaron was violent and threatened
to kill him. Having someone who is
more hyper masculine,
00:44:20
who identifies with, sort of,
these traits of masculinity like strength, and someone who is
maybe more feminine or maybe who
00:44:27
doesn't identify as much
with those gender-normative characteristics, what you can
find is that the person who is
00:44:32
most likely to be
victimized is the person who is less masculine by the
person who is hyper masculine.
00:44:39
So you see a, sort of,
playing out of gender norms, but within a homosexual context,
in a, sort of, different way.
00:44:49
CORAL DANDO: He experienced
intense feelings of possession, wanting to be the
most important person
00:44:56
in that individual's life. That type of jealous,
controlling behavior is very problematic
in a relationship.
00:45:06
NARRATOR: Jason was attacked
while he was sleeping. He woke up and
staggered to the shower
00:45:11
where he collapsed and died. In the days after
he'd killed Jason, Aaron searched the question,
can schizophrenics be murderers?
00:45:21
The fact that he has
googled, can schizophrenics being murderers, just shows that
he is outright lying in court,
00:45:28
that he is aware that
he has killed Jason. NARRATOR: The jury took
just two hours to find
00:45:36
Aaron guilty of Jason's murder. Aaron Ray was sentenced
to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years.
00:45:47
It doesn't end there. For Jason's family,
they have to go on in life knowing that
Aaron took Jason away
00:45:57
as such a young, bright person. It's something that
no parent, no person, no friend ever wants to imagine
is going to happen to somebody.
00:46:16
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]