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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for
00:01:47
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always we call him the Velvet bulldozzer ladies and gentlemen the
00:01:54
captain I've been bulldozing your eardrums with my velvet tones for years it's good to be seen it's good to see
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you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are featuring Wicked
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Seas by bone hook brewing in Naples Florida Wicked Seas is a juicy citrusy and clean New England style IPA by the
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very good and rapidly growing bone hook Brewing Company garage grade 4 and A4 bottle caps out of five and this week's
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beer was brought to us by these Wicked schot listeners right here first up a big thank you to our friend who we met
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at crime con 2018 and I believe in again in 2019 so cheers to Melissa and Three Bridges New Jersey and a big we like
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your jib to Jennifer C and Parts Unknown next up we have Lynn and Marv a Navy family stationed in beautiful Japan
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thank you for your service thank you Marv could be Lynn thank you both for your service and a big shout out to
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we have we have Maria in Daran Illinois cheers to everyone who took the time out
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of their busy day to go to True Crim garage.com and contribute to this week's beer fund and last week we talked about
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nursing students so a big cheers to all the nurses out there much love to you for everything true crime garage check
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out True Crime garage.com sign up on the mailing list and that is enough of the business I
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thought you were talking about nursing students that would have been weird all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] we have all heard the cautionary tales
00:04:20
to parents in this internet age don't let your kids spend too much time online know who your kids are talking to online
00:04:30
be sure your kids don't give out any personal information make sure your kids aren't engaging in inappropriate
00:04:37
behavior with people online and explain to your children and help them to understand the difference between
00:04:45
virtual relationships and real human connections but what happens when your child is an
00:04:53
adult what happens when these cautionary tales are applied to a grown man who SP
00:04:59
spends too much time online who is talking online with a stranger who does not have his best interest at
00:05:08
heart then one day the online stranger once more this virtual friend request just a little personal information and
00:05:18
how about some private information and the two are exchanging inappropriate materials adult internet Voyer has
00:05:26
become its own form of addiction as several websites stream live amateur and professional webcam girls guys and
00:05:35
couples generally showing nude performances and sexual acts this has also established a new line of sex work
00:05:45
accessible to anyone with a computer so what happens when someone confuses a virtual relationship for a
00:05:54
real relationship and then it grows into an obsession an obsession ession he would kill
00:06:01
for this is true crime [Applause] [Music] garage Grant Amato was the youngest of
00:06:27
three Sons Sons of Margaret and Chad Amato he and his brother Cody still lived at home with their parents but
00:06:35
their older brother Jason had moved into his own place Jason was still close with
00:06:40
his family and spoke with his mother about once a week where our story really takes off is when these three brothers
00:06:47
are all grown adults two still living at home with Mom and Dad but let's back up
00:06:53
for just a minute Margaret and Chad provided a nice life for their three boys they lived in an expansive home and
00:07:01
had all the trappings of affluence cars video games and horses yes Margaret was a horse person as everyone knows the
00:07:10
garage loves horse people yeah centors she adopted and rehabilitated a retired racehorse named lady and even after a
00:07:19
lady died she still went to the Stables daily to work with other horses Margaret
00:07:24
worked as a client operations manager at a healthc care company Chad Amato was a
00:07:30
clinical pharmacist who worked for CVS and who also had a second job he was a self-professed computer Guru one of his
00:07:40
co-workers said that Chad was very proud of his sons but there are Rumors in this
00:07:46
case and some references to it by two people close to the case that Chad Amato the father was a quite difficult man
00:07:55
yeah most computer people are a side note Jason the oldest of the three boys was not Chad's biological son he adopted
00:08:04
him when he married Margaret this was way back when Jason was just 3 years old it doesn't seem that Jason was as close
00:08:12
to his brothers as they were to each other according to Jason they were known as the football family because they went
00:08:21
to every Florida Gator's home game together but Jason no longer lived at home and he had moved on with his own
00:08:28
life so the true Brothers not the half Brothers Grant and Cody they they seem to be
00:08:34
Inseparable Cody is just one year older than Grant and they did everything together they were on the weightlifting
00:08:42
team together at Timber Creek High School and planned on buying matching BMWs and living in the family home well
00:08:49
after their parents retired to their other house which was located in Tennessee one of their favorite
00:08:55
activities involved shooting Airsoft rifles and real guns as well and you can see on Grant Amato's Facebook profile
00:09:04
picture that he is trying to look like a militant badass with a big rifle M Cody
00:09:10
and Grant were on a competitive Airsoft team called remedy the brothers even went on to enroll in nursing school
00:09:19
together this after Grant graduated from the University of Central Florida even early on it seems that Cody was somewhat
00:09:28
of a caretaker for Grant he had it all together while Grant was more scattered in June of
00:09:38
2018 Grant was caught stealing medication from his job at Advent Health which is located in Orlando Florida do
00:09:47
we do we know what kind of medication he stole I'm going to get into that right now the hospital staff noticed eight
00:09:53
empty vials of propop fall in two rooms where Grant was working he had taken vials they were worth together a
00:10:02
combined amount of $2,067 these were taken from a storage machine that required a thumb print to
00:10:11
access the machine he was captured on surveillance video which was reviewed by the hospital after the propal was
00:10:19
discovered missing he was seen accessing the machine and putting the vials in his
00:10:24
pocket this amounted to Grand Theft hospit hital officials confronted Grant who told them according to the police
00:10:32
report that quote he had administered the drugs to patients who were not being adequately relaxed by doctor ordered
00:10:41
medicine in other words he thought patients needed more drugs than what they were being given so he wasn't
00:10:47
stealing the drugs for himself to use but to use on patients that's his statement that's his story and he's
00:10:55
sticking to it we don't know for for certain admin rators believe that this was not the first incident of this kind
00:11:03
that he probably had stolen these items before while being questioned a couple days after he was caught stealing Grant
00:11:11
apparently said he was suicidal so the police were called this was on June 21st Grant was arrested but they determined
00:11:21
that there was not grounds to hold him under Florida's Baker Act which allows an involuntary hold of people deemed to
00:11:29
be dangerous to themselves and for reasons that have never been disclosed the grand theft
00:11:37
charges for stealing propal were eventually dropped but needless to say Grant was out of a job he was fired and
00:11:46
as a consequence of this event he was expelled from anesthesiology school as well and his dad who was funding legal
00:11:55
representation for his son well he was out of a lot of money this was money that was set up for Grants lawyers yeah
00:12:05
but Le let's break this down a little bit cuz a lot of times if if there is a conflict at work even if it is stealing
00:12:13
they normally won't prosecute as long as they get the material back we got the material back we didn't lose any money
00:12:19
and we're going to then sever our ties with this individual by firing them yeah I mean he he's he's fired 100% I don't
00:12:27
know what their reasons were for dropping the charges if you want me to speculate my guess is they
00:12:33
probably didn't want his defense of oh I was giving them to your patients right to be in the newspapers whether that's
00:12:41
what he was doing with them or not we we just don't know yeah stay away from the
00:12:46
bad publicity so Grant is unemployed and living with his parents so what did Grant do all day now that he was
00:12:54
unemployed of course he did what any hardworking able-bodied 20 something American male would do and of course I'm
00:13:02
being sarcastic he spent his days gaming and watching porn this on a site called
00:13:08
cam girls Grant soon met a webcam model named Sylvia from Bulgaria wait hold on can you spell that website for me Grant
00:13:19
began what he felt was an intimate relationship with this woman the virtual kind Grant LED Sylvia to believe that he
00:13:28
was a successful ambitious young professional gamer who had his own apartment and drove a BMW according to
00:13:36
the Orlando Sentinel Grant spent about 4 hours every night online watching Sylvia
00:13:43
dance and model euphemisms for one-on-one virtual pornographic activity and of course this cost money in fact
00:13:53
the woman's attentions to Grant seem to depend on how much money he paid her Grant admitted that her shows cost 90
00:14:03
that's 90 tokens per minute to view which he purchased 5,000 tokens at a time for
00:14:10
$600 he and Sylvia would video chat as well Grant seemed to think that the woman was his girlfriend eventually he
00:14:19
began sending her clothes and sex toys which Sylvia would model for him often in pornographic videos how was paying
00:14:29
for all of this well we'll get into that in a minute first hang on let me get out
00:14:34
my porno calculator real quick yeah so that's 5,400 tokens an hour and times that by 4 hours a day or
00:14:46
a night that's 21,600 tokens a night hold on my calculations say that's a lot of poor
00:14:54
now that's 2,000 that's 2,500 $92 a day or a night however you want to swing that hammer it would be
00:15:03
cheaper to be addicted to meth but remember kids don't do meth then in December of
00:15:12
2018 I I apologize Captain but when I was reviewing this information and putting together all the math I don't
00:15:19
know why but it popped in my head out of all the things that you could be addicted to this is a very expensive
00:15:25
addiction yeah well I guess we'll know why are our show won't continue um the colonel got addicted to meth don't do
00:15:33
meth then in December of 2018 Cody Grant and their friend Jericho they went on a trip to Japan Cody was
00:15:45
very nice he paid $10,000 for this trip so Cody is paying for the both of them for him and Grant but when the boys
00:15:54
returned home this is around December 15th Grant found that his father was very disgruntled that Grant still
00:16:01
had not landed a job by this point it's not clear exactly when the Amad found out that their son was involved in a
00:16:10
virtual relationship with a webcam girl some news reports state that Margaret noticed mail showing up for Grant from
00:16:18
Bulgaria yeah and then was horrified that her son had given their home address to
00:16:26
a to somebody in the porn business let's say right uh we can only imagine what that conversation was like unfortunately
00:16:35
for Grant though it seems that his parents also discovered something else at some point toward the end of
00:16:43
2018 Chad Amato discovered that some money was missing and actually this was a lot of money grant was stealing money
00:16:52
from his own family Grant told his parents that he spent this money to promote himself on on Twitch I captain
00:17:01
I'm sure you could inform us what twitch is oh cuz I'm such a loser that I have all this time to do well I don't know
00:17:09
exactly what it is so I thought maybe you might well I don't know much about it I've never been on it I think people
00:17:15
can be very profitable on it there's many millionaires from it and I guess what it is is that you you're a gamer
00:17:24
and then people can watch you game okay and then pay for like a subscription so um so there there are people that are
00:17:33
doing very well it's it's but it's kind of a the video game world to me I haven't been into it since Super Mario
00:17:42
Brothers so I don't really know much about it but it's it's huge I mean you can uh so when he's saying I promoted
00:17:50
myself or I'm this could turn into a profession not just a profession but if if it takes off he could become like a
00:17:56
multi-millionaire like basic basically like becoming a YouTube star or something right I was going to say for
00:18:02
dummies like me the the simplest form it's kind of a social media Instagram meets YouTube kind of thing yeah for
00:18:10
gaming primarily yeah so the truth be told though that's not where the money went he actually blew it all on his very
00:18:19
expensive hobby or what I would call obsession with Sylvia yeah but even if it went to promoting himself on this
00:18:27
platform it's a it's a big risk cuz to become a YouTube star or become a twitch star
00:18:35
it's very difficult so now thus Begins the family meltdown okay on December 19th 2018 thead called 911 this was to
00:18:47
report Grant was missing he had walked out of the house after an argument with Chad and his mother was concerned
00:18:54
because he seemed very depressed at this time and she says possibly suicidal in fact Margaret told the sheriff's office
00:19:03
she told the deputies that she got a text from Grant saying that he was quote really tired of everything end quote and
00:19:10
was quote just going to handle it his own way that's as much of the text that I have but regardless believing that he
00:19:19
had been unsuccessful looking for work and had shown some instability in connection with the propa fall incident
00:19:27
right he's out of school and now he's spending his days like you said playing video games and watching pornography and
00:19:35
if the family just knows that he's just up in his room playing video games all day maybe not knowing too much about the
00:19:43
pornography but when somebody says I'm tired of it all and that's all they're doing mhm I think that's a bad sign well
00:19:51
and you know she has his mother has other texts and other information other conversations that were had that not
00:19:58
privy to so calling the police seems like a very smart motherly move here in this this spot in December of 2018 Cody
00:20:07
confided and his girlfriend Sloan that he was concerned about his brother he was concerned that Grant was going to
00:20:15
kill everyone is what he said when Grant left the home that day he took Refuge at
00:20:22
the home of his aunt this is Donna Amato with whom he was very close she later said that he was looking lost and
00:20:33
depressed at her house Grant slept during the day and stayed up all night she and her husband hid all of their
00:20:41
guns while Grant was with them having been warned by the Amad that he was possibly
00:20:47
suicidal while Grant was staying with her Donna's bank account was hacked and strange charges started showing up at
00:20:56
least that's what she thought right she came to find out that the nephew she had
00:21:02
taken in stole her credit card information and she wasn't the only one according to the Orlando Sentinel
00:21:10
pictures of credit cards belonging to Grant Amato's grandmother uncle and one of his cousins were found on his
00:21:18
computer upset and betrayed Donna called her husband's brother grsa Chad Amato totally out of character Chad broke down
00:21:28
on the phone he told Donna that he had been forced to remortgage the family's home to cover
00:21:35
$150,000 worth of debt racked up by Grant Donna says quote he told me on the phone yeah I'm going to have to work a
00:21:45
few more years than I thought I'd have to but it's okay I'll do it for Grant I don't want him to go to jail furthermore
00:21:54
other family members called Donna urging her not to press charges in fact it was
00:22:00
Cody who promised to pay back any of his brother's fraudulent expenses so how much debt did Grant Amato rack up he
00:22:10
stole $150,000 from his parents he stole or spent $60,000 of Cody's money and then stole
00:22:20
and sold Cody's guns he stole an unknown amount from three other relatives in three months Grant Amato spent over
00:22:30
$200,000 to interact virtually with Sylvia who was thousands of miles away so the Amad had a family meeting while
00:22:40
they decided what to do about Grant while they made up their minds family members took shifts outside of Donna's
00:22:48
home to be sure that Grant stayed on the premises then on December 22nd the Amad
00:22:55
waylay Grant in Donna's driveway around 3:00 a.m. a intervention of sorts and Chad Margaret and Cody drove him to a
00:23:05
voluntary Rehabilitation clinic in South Florida his commitment form reflects that his entry there was voluntary
00:23:14
Grant's family agreed to pay the $115,000 for him to obtain a 60-day treatment while Grant was at rehab Cody
00:23:24
and Chad hacked into Grant's computer to see exact what he had been doing online
00:23:30
they discovered his carefully curated online identity as a successful professional gamer Chad contacted all of
00:23:38
Grant's online friends and told them in no uncertain terms that it was all a lie
00:23:44
that Grant was a poser a fraud and a fake he actually lived at home and he had no job and in what was likely
00:23:52
considered the ultimate betrayal by Grant they conveyed this information to Sylvia as as well they told Sylvia the
00:23:59
webcam girl who thought Grant was a sugar daddy that in fact Grant was a fired nurse who lived with his mom and
00:24:07
dad and stole their money to pay for his new obsession Grant only made it about 2
00:24:14
weeks in rehab he left the facility and came home on January 5th when he returned home there was a new set of
00:24:22
rules Chad sat Grant down at a California Pizza Kitchen in water for lakes and showed him a two-page list of
00:24:31
rules Grant would have to agree to them if he wanted to remain in the home his other options were according to Chad to
00:24:39
move out or to join the military yeah I mean it wasn't like you know yeah get to
00:24:44
working and stop your jerking well this laying down of the rules this kind of thing that a parent does you typically
00:24:53
see this for a rebellious 16-year-old not a 29-year-old old man now among these rules Grant had to get a job
00:25:02
during the day and stop spending his entire night online he was not permitted on the internet after midnight he had to
00:25:09
come up with a written personal recovery plan and submit it to his father uhhuh his phone service was cut off he was
00:25:18
forbidden from watching porn and was required to go to therapy he was on his own financially and had to repay the
00:25:26
$200,000 he had taken and issue apologies to his family yeah this is just a mess very sticky situation a
00:25:35
cover note on the rules page said quote this is critical as Grant through his past transgressions has relied on the
00:25:42
knowledge the family would not report him and would cover him family relationship abuse Beyond tolerance this
00:25:49
is a promise you better heed the warning it's real but the rules contained one final rule that Grant no doubt
00:25:58
considered a deal breaker he had to end things with Sylvia he could not contact her again if he did he would be kicked
00:26:06
out of the house the last line reading quote you chose a stranger physically non-existent over family and he also put
00:26:14
his family in almost like Financial Jeopardy Grant agreed to the rules and the family returned to normal it seems
00:26:23
that things improved for a bit Jason says Grant seemed better when he got home and Margaret had told him that
00:26:30
Grant was acting like part of the family again but sometime in January Margaret confessed to a friend at the Stables
00:26:37
about the difficulties at home she said that her son Grant had stolen quite a bit of money from the family Margaret
00:26:45
clearly had a soft spot for her youngest son almost certainly unbeknownst to Chad
00:26:51
she allowed Grant to continue to message with Sylvia via Twitter using Margaret it phone now it's possible that Grant
00:27:00
used her phone without her permission but told her it was for legitimate purposes it's not known whether Margaret
00:27:08
knew that she was helping Grant break the rules and it's not known whether Sylvia was receptive to Grant's
00:27:16
continued contact with her considering he couldn't pay her but either way on January 24th Chad somehow found out what
00:27:26
was going on Chad tells Grant you've ruined my retirement and he ordered Grant to leave the house then Chad left
00:27:35
for work Grant started packing up his stuff meanwhile Cody was at work and his girlfriend Sloan said he had to leave
00:27:44
after conversations with people at home around 9:15 p.m. but before he left Cody
00:27:51
told Sloan he had to go home to deal with quote stupid [ __ ] [ __ ] in other words
00:27:58
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[Music] that all right we're back cheers mates cheers to you captain on Friday January
00:30:28
25th 2019 the simal County Florida Sheriff's Office received a call from a Chris Cisco Chris is an employee at
00:30:38
Advent Hospital in East Orlando Chris told the dispatcher that he was concerned because his friend and
00:30:44
cooworker Cody Amato did not show up for work and was not responding to his calls
00:30:50
and text according to Chris who worked for years with Cody at the center he says Cody never so much as came in late
00:30:59
to work much less not show up at all yeah well he had a lot of bills that he had to pay for well and Cody was always
00:31:08
he always had his phone with him too so this is even more concerned yeah the two
00:31:13
were actually supposed to meet for coffee that morning but as said Cody never showed up Chris also worked with
00:31:19
Cody's girlfriend Sloan and she was equally concerned deputies obtained the address of the home Cody shared with his
00:31:29
parents Margaret and Chad and headed over to 2112 Sultan Circle to perform a welfare
00:31:36
check this was at 9:17 a.m. upon arrival deputies announced themselves as they patrolled the perimeter of the large
00:31:47
three-story home the home sits on multiple acres and this looks to be a pretty nice neighborhood with big houses
00:31:55
and far stretching property lies so police are knocking on doors and announcing themselves and no one is
00:32:02
responding this in spite of a car in the driveway and they could see two vehicles
00:32:09
sitting inside the garage including the car that was registered to Cody Amato the deputies tried calling the cell
00:32:18
phones of the residents having obtained the phone numbers from Chris and Sloan of course these calls are going
00:32:25
unanswered the five doors to the home were all locked and disturbingly the windows on the first story of the home
00:32:32
were covered on the inside by paper this fact plus the cars being there and the unexpected absence of Cody from work as
00:32:42
well as the Sheriff's Office history with the home was sufficient grounds for concern deputies even resorted to using
00:32:50
an airhorn you know the yeah that's not a good air horn that was really bad all right Nick you're fired
00:32:57
all right well see you guys next week well I won't see you again um they well I mean you never know you could get
00:33:04
better at your air horn start my own show um they were using an air horn outside
00:33:10
of the home in case people inside just they weren't hearing them uh but again this is still just met with silence and
00:33:18
Stillness finally after receiving permission from higher ups Deputy Todd motors used a knife to I open the lock
00:33:28
on an exterior door to the master bedroom uhhuh and a deputy outfitted in tactical gear proceeded inside followed
00:33:37
by the deputy one of the first things that they saw was the body of a man and he
00:33:45
appeared to be older he's lying on his back on the kitchen floor as a later affidavit in the case
00:33:51
would State there was much blood around the man's body that was quote inconsistent with life the crime scene
00:34:01
photos show a lot of pulled dried blood in two separate areas of the kitchen as well as drag or claw marks through the
00:34:11
smeared blood between the two pools okay later it would be determined that this man had been shot twice in the head
00:34:20
lying partially in the blood was an open insulated lunch bag with a fork tucked into the netting on the lid there was
00:34:29
damage from a bullet in one of the Cherry kitchen cabinets two chicken cutlets were defrosting on the counter
00:34:38
as if someone was preparing a meal two bottles of water and a cup for sitting on the kitchen table so from that
00:34:47
picture we paint that picture to show you what was going on and potentially going on this man this person was killed
00:34:54
in this location of the home and it appears that somebody was just going about their normal everyday business of
00:35:00
maybe preparing a meal or putting together a lunch it's a lot of blood yes yeah the deputies proceeded further into
00:35:08
the home and discovered two more corpses one was a woman sitting at a desk in the
00:35:14
home office she was slumped over her computer clearly shot in the back of the head and the other was a younger man
00:35:22
dressed in Scrubs curled in a fetal position lying on the floor FL at the entrance to the garage from the home gym
00:35:31
which is off of the kitchen at this house yeah he also had been shot once this time he was shot in the face a
00:35:40
backpack was on the floor near the body deputies noted right away that there were weapons in plain sight that could
00:35:47
have been used in these shootings in fact one weapon a Glock was strapped in a holster on the right hip of the older
00:35:54
man on the kitchen floor and a second gun a 9mm Smith and Wesson M andp handgun was lying 5 ft from the younger
00:36:03
man yeah I believe they find four bullet casings and so there's two by the older
00:36:10
man and then one by each individual other than him yeah each of the other victims so they appeared
00:36:18
consistent with the handgun that was found on the floor near the younger man's body and it looked very much like
00:36:25
this was the weapon had killed all three people according to the deputies including the younger man near the
00:36:33
garage who was the closest to the gun mhm this kind of appears to be a classic murder suicide situation where we have
00:36:44
the son of the Dead couple and had some kind of confrontation with his parents killed them and then shot himself right
00:36:53
indeed it was quickly confirmed that the deceased were 30-year-old Cody Amato and
00:36:59
his parents 61-year-old Margaret and 59-year-old Chad Amato except Captain deputies perusing the crime scene were
00:37:09
very observant and had reason to be skeptical of what appeared to be a simple and open and shut murder suicide
00:37:17
case yeah well the other question here too is we have three of the individuals that live in the house and we know that
00:37:23
there's four individuals that live in the house this was not the first time that the Sheriff's Office was at this
00:37:28
home so they they know that four people most of the time reside at this home right and so things look hinky to
00:37:38
them furthermore where is this other person right why if if there's four that live
00:37:46
in the home why is this other person not a victim and if he's not a victim then where is he
00:37:53
so the very smart Sheriff's Office they by late Friday afternoon they put out a bolo a be on the lookout for a person of
00:38:03
interest in the killings this was for 5' 10 in 120 lb 29-year-old Grant Amato son
00:38:11
of Margaret and Chad and brother to Cody yeah he was not on the premises although
00:38:16
he was known to reside in the home and his phone had been disconnected he was thought to be
00:38:23
driving a white 1996 Honda Accord DX with the license plate number L1 gh7 and he was to be considered armed
00:38:35
and dangerous it's not clear how detectives knew this but news reports from January 25th state that detectives
00:38:43
believed that weapons were missing from the Amato home mhm saying quote it looks
00:38:49
like this wasn't a random act of violence it looks like the person responsible for these murders was known
00:38:55
to the family and we're we're going to do everything we can to get this person in custody very very soon end quote that
00:39:03
was from Sheriff Dennis Lima it didn't take long for cops to catch up with Gran Amato in fact by Saturday just the next
00:39:12
day they had subpoena his Easy Pass records right to narrow down the location of his vehicle they patrolled
00:39:20
the area and his car was spotted parked at a Double Tree motel in Orange County this is brilliant and we don't have a
00:39:30
lot of tolls here in in Ohio actually I I can't really even think of ever going through a toll in Ohio but if you have
00:39:39
one of these easy passes it it kind of Records your movements you know what tolls you've gone through and how
00:39:45
recently you've gone through them yeah so what they can do is basically look at a map and go okay well he has to be
00:39:51
somewhere in this general area this could be a fairly big area that we're talking about but we have reason to
00:39:59
believe that this vehicle this Honda Accord that we're looking for is somewhere in this general area so you
00:40:06
you tell everybody all of your Patrol men everybody in squad cars go out there and while you're out there protecting
00:40:13
and serving let us know if you see a 1996 Honda Accord DX with this license plate because we're looking for this
00:40:19
dude and I cannot stress enough the the how important and how direct the term armed and dangerous is in this situation
00:40:32
if you believe that the person of interest is the fourth member of the home who is not found at the home when
00:40:39
all three of the others are found killed inside of the house and it appears two of the victims were armed themselves
00:40:47
right not only did this perpetrator were they able to kill three individuals they were able to do it in a
00:40:54
potential uh it could have been a potential gunfight yeah well we know that this individual practices in a
00:41:02
virtual world the police they spot this vehicle his his vehicle and find it at a
00:41:08
Double Tree motel in Orange County sure enough Grant was in a hotel room there he was taken in for questioning but was
00:41:15
not handcuffed or placed under arrest at that time deputies had put it together pretty quickly that they had been at the
00:41:23
Amato home before actually recently simal County Sheriff Lima said in a statement on Friday the 25the we had a
00:41:31
call that I am aware of back in December of an individual suffering from depression so this brings us to Saturday
00:41:40
January 26th yeah now we have Grant Amato sitting in a room at the simal County Sheriff's Office and he's talking
00:41:48
with investigators now mind you he's not under arrest just investigative detention at this point right and he
00:41:55
said he was was fine with talking to the investigators in the 7 hours of interviews he pretended to be
00:42:03
forthcoming about what had been going on in his life during the past 3 months he
00:42:09
told investigators about the missing money he admitted that his father gave him an ultimatum and required him to go
00:42:15
to rehab he told investigators about the rules that he had agreed to to continue
00:42:20
living in the home but he says on the night of the 24th had confronted him about his
00:42:28
continued contact with Sylvia and told him he had to leave the home Grant told detectives that Cody had been there when
00:42:37
he left when Grant left the house that night and that Cody had promised grant that he would try to smooth things over
00:42:45
so Grant's story to the detectives at this point kind of sounds like hey I left last night and when I left all
00:42:54
three of them were there and they were fine right but and also setting up a confrontation cuz he his brother is
00:43:00
saying hey I'm going to talk to Mom and Dad and try to smooth this over yeah he's going to let them kind of maybe
00:43:08
take the bait and run with it for a little bit but the problem here is they're not going to take the bait
00:43:14
because 3 hours in to this sitdown meeting right and any investigator would find this to be very
00:43:25
suspicious by 3 hours in Grant had never asked why he was there or what had happened to his
00:43:32
family it kind of seems like he already knows why he is there right he and he already knows what happened to his
00:43:38
family so what what you're saying is he he tried to be slick and say hey I left the house last night yeah they told me I
00:43:45
had to leave mhm I left my my brother was going to talk to my parents and and maybe that's when
00:43:53
there was a confrontation but he he doesn't know what happened to the parents or shouldn't know what happened
00:43:58
to his family and like you said he never brings it up yeah he says that he saw on
00:44:04
the news that something did happen to his family but he hadn't tried to find out what uhuh okay so here's how some of
00:44:14
the interrogation proceedings from there went on and this is according to the Orlando Sentinel you can see the and I
00:44:22
know you've watched it Captain but you can see this what I would call interrogation video online now we have a
00:44:29
detective here that opens a folder wait hold on I'm surprised on how small he is
00:44:35
yeah you know he's almost 30 years old yeah I mean he's very small so in in one scene that you could see online a
00:44:43
detective opens up a folder with crime scene photos so she the detective placed a picture of Cody's body in front of
00:44:53
Grant and asked did you leave the house house with your brother Cody looking like that to which Grant covered his
00:45:00
face the detective then pulls out two more photos and she asked or did you leave the house with your father looking
00:45:09
like that or your mother is that how you left your family yeah no Grant says but
00:45:15
his voice is breaking you can clearly hear his voice breaking during this she goes on to ask who did this to your
00:45:21
family and then Grant looked at the photo of his mother at the top of the stack and then covered part of his face
00:45:30
he says no I didn't do any of this investigators asked Grant if he had any remorse according to the arrest
00:45:37
affidavit his response was quote his family had been blaming him for months for ruining their lives stealing and not
00:45:45
following the rules of the home so he might as well be blamed for this too end quote he had originally told detectives
00:45:55
it took a few hours for him to pack up his things and that he had left the house around 9:30 p.m. his family was
00:46:03
just fine at that point he said in fact he said he met up with Cody outside the neighborhood to tell him what had
00:46:10
happened but he changed his story when pressed saying that he left closer to midnight and his brother was home at
00:46:18
that time he claimed he spent the night in a parking lot of a nearby Publix before driving to a morning job
00:46:25
interview off of Lee Vista road the detectives told him Cody and Chad Amato could not have shot each other crime
00:46:33
scene investigators had come to this conclusion after making some observations about the crime scene they
00:46:39
asked who else could have killed his family I don't know Grant said I've been getting blamed for the last half of a
00:46:48
year for everything and I've been trying to move forward in a positive direction
00:46:53
and then every day I am reminded of all the trouble that I had caused and then I
00:46:58
keep being told the same thing over and over again that there's nothing I can do
00:47:03
to change it Grant continued to deny that he was responsible for the murders but acknowledged that he was the only
00:47:12
one with a motive and with the opportunity to commit them yeah so Grant well and this is this is a smart
00:47:31
thing here too Grant is allowed a private meeting with his soul surviving brother
00:47:38
Jason and I think a lot of people maybe the name Grant Amato doesn't ring any bells when you see the
00:47:46
title or you see the show notes yeah you say tomato i' say Amato but when you hear this portion of the story this is
00:47:53
when you're going to go okay I I know this case or I remember seeing this case in the news Grant was allowed a private
00:48:00
meeting with his so surviving brother Jason video and audio footage of this meeting is available online and has
00:48:07
probably been seen by most of our listeners while Jason Embraces Grant when he first enters the room it is
00:48:14
clear that he is fairly certain that his brother killed the rest of their family
00:48:19
Jason tries to talk to Grant about you know what what happened yeah and Grant tells him d kicked me out because I
00:48:26
broke the rules I didn't stop talking to that woman but he reiterates that he left Cody Chad and Margaret alive
00:48:34
leaving the house around 12:30 a.m. by this point notice his time keeps on changing as we get further along right
00:48:41
after loading his stuff into the car this is when he left Jason isn't buying it he says to Grant if anyone was going
00:48:49
after someone in the family it would be you who would be the target meaning these other three wouldn't be dead you
00:48:56
would be the one that would be dead if somebody went after our family or someone in our family well I just think
00:49:01
what you were saying before I mean he goes into the room and he Embraces and this is his technically his half brother
00:49:08
he pretty much believes that and cops believe at this point that Grant is responsible for his whole family being
00:49:15
murdered but at the same time you you've seen the depression you've seen the addiction you've seen um possibly this
00:49:24
kid that once was good and I I call him a kid because it seems like he at this point even though he's
00:49:31
approaching 30 he hasn't grown up any so to be able to embrace him on one side to
00:49:38
say why I love you and care about you I know you're hurting but hey our family is gone and you're responsible I think
00:49:47
I'd have a very difficult time um embracing that individual you know Jason's not buying any of this Jazz that
00:49:57
Grant's trying to sell him and he says he says this before getting up and walking out of the door he says I'm
00:50:03
going to pray for you brother because I can't pray for Mom Dad or Cody anymore right now Grant was released on the
00:50:14
26th the detectives are going to have to build their case in a different manner because he didn't confess to anything
00:50:23
mhm so now that out talking they're going to continue to talk with Jason with his brother Jason they're going to
00:50:29
talk to Cody's girlfriend Sloan and anybody else that they can speak with Jason and and Sloan they both told
00:50:38
investigators about Grant stealing the money from his family they tell them about the whole Sylvia thing and they
00:50:44
explain all of the problems with Grant over the past few months and Sloan told detectives that Cody told her that he
00:50:53
was afraid that Grant would kill kill everyone now eventually Grant is in fact arrested and the arrest affidavit filed
00:51:05
in Grant's case provides a glimpse into what exactly crime scene investigators found to be suspicious about the murder
00:51:13
suicide theory that was going around and led them to believe that the Tableau at
00:51:18
the am home was in fact just staged right for one thing they found Cody's body next to the closed internal door to
00:51:29
the garage but there was no blood on the door jam and frame indicating that it had been open when Cody was shot in the
00:51:38
face the affidavit States quote based on The Gunshot Cody received he would not have been able to close the door after
00:51:46
he had been shot right Cody had clearly been moved as well the pool of blood that had come from his head wound was
00:51:54
actually found at his feet and there was almost none on the floor where his head
00:52:00
was positioned the autopsy findings on Cody sealed the deal according to the affidavit there was quote no possibility
00:52:09
that Cody's injuries were self-inflicted further they observed from the blood spatter blood smears and
00:52:16
bullet marks on the cabinets in the kitchen and on the tile floor that Chad had been shot first while standing near
00:52:24
the cabinets he had crawled to the other side of the center Island and then been shot a
00:52:32
second time in the back of the head execution style while he was lying face down on the floor wow the bullet had
00:52:40
entered the tile floor but Chad was found 3 feet away on the kitchen floor on his back clearly having been moved as
00:52:48
well Margaret was at the desk shot once in the back of the head and had not been
00:52:53
moved at all so if Chad D was shot in the kitchen by someone who later moved him and Margaret and Cody did not shoot
00:53:01
themselves the obvious conclusion is that the shooter was a fourth person someone who had accessed the home
00:53:09
without breaking and entering well and like you said too I mean these these crime scene photos
00:53:15
are are pretty bad and and a lot of times when you see a murder take place in a tiled area you can see you know the
00:53:24
blood smeared everywhere and but you can see the tile underneath or it's very transparent and there's sections that
00:53:31
you can't see the the tile at all it's just this very dense puddle of blood so Grant is arrested in charged with three
00:53:41
counts of premeditated murder now when he's arrested in his possession uh they find a pair of leather gloves and credit
00:53:49
and debit cards belonging to his father and brother Cody right he also had with him a his passport leading investigators
00:53:57
to speculate that he was planning on trying to leave possibly to meet Sylvia in person
00:54:05
in Grant's Car they found a handwritten note that appeared to have been written from Cody Amato's perspective which said
00:54:14
Grant I'll take care of all of your problems I just need you back I can't live without you brother I said I'd take
00:54:22
care of all of your problems at the house and I have no one will bother you again regarding
00:54:28
this just please come home I can't do this again if you think I'm part of the problem here then I've really lost you
00:54:37
and I can't take that loss after everything when detectives pushed Grant about this strange letter he admitted
00:54:45
that he himself wrote the letter from quote unquote from Cody right but he wasn't able to provide a satisfa
00:54:55
explanation as to why he would write this letter it seems that this might have been a further way to push this this
00:55:07
whole scheme to frame Cody for the murder suicide Theory well it sucks because they were so close and his
00:55:15
brother seemed to go to bat for him time and time again and to not only commit these murders but then to try to put the
00:55:23
blame on the brother that helped you so many times now the trial the murder trial would start in July of last year
00:55:31
and we really learned a lot about the state's case against Grant Amato during the trial proceedings so their case was
00:55:40
Grant Amato killed his father mother and brother in a premeditated murder spree so he could take all of their money they
00:55:48
State Margaret died first shot in the head from behind as she sat at her desk Cody and Chad were not home when the
00:55:56
first murder occurred Grant shot his father in the kitchen after he got home from work and was possibly cleaning out
00:56:03
his lunchbox Grant shot Cody in the eye as he entered the home they say Grant spent several hours at the home with the
00:56:11
bodies as he staged the scene to look like Cody had been responsible for a murder
00:56:19
suicide I don't I'm not going to get too much into the defense side of things because I really found it kind of blah
00:56:29
you know it just really wasn't they did they didn't try to claim that he was insane or temporarily insane they didn't
00:56:36
really push that he was abused or drug addicted or mentally unstable or anything like that as their defense
00:56:44
right or their narrative yeah right so I'd really like to know what the conversation between him and and this um
00:56:53
virtual girlfriend was and if in any way she was pushing him in this direction at
00:57:03
all I I wouldn't think so I mean it would seem extreme I think what we have here
00:57:11
Captain is it it was more one-sided it was on his end if I can't log on each day and talk to this person now I have a
00:57:19
huge problem I don't think she cares one way or the other as long as he's buying
00:57:23
these tokens right and spending money day after day he's not well I I don't know this to be certain but I I feel
00:57:31
very strongly about this he's not her only customer let's say yeah but he has a BMW okay which in his case would stand
00:57:41
for well the thing is the the thing here is um I think that the defense was fine
00:57:50
with floating out the murder suicide Theory and and letting that be a Poss possibility right because if you can't
00:57:57
get past that possibility then you probably shouldn't convict this guy Beyond A Reasonable Doubt beat meat
00:58:04
whacker that's what it stands for so during the testimonial phase of the trial some interesting information came
00:58:09
out the the the four bullets that were used to kill Chad Margaret and Cody yeah did not come from any of the handguns
00:58:17
that were found at the house the four shell casings found at the scene did not come from the gun found near Cody they
00:58:25
came from a an unknown weapon that was never found so we think that Grant moved that that weapon somewhere or disposed
00:58:34
of it somewhere well that in itself really pokes a big giant hole in the murder suicide Theory the the murder
00:58:42
weapon was not found at the home yeah right so it disappeared now what the state is saying is that Grant planted
00:58:49
the bullet casings to make it appear that Cody shot his parents and then shot himself right also I mean this is all
00:58:56
good science stuff here there was no blood found on the gun near Cody's body also the holster that was on Chad's
00:59:05
right hip they found a a gun holster on Chad's right Chad's right hip uhuh they could prove that it was placed there
00:59:12
after his death because there was a spot of blood found on his pants Under The holster which would have been impossible
00:59:20
had the holster been in place the entire time yeah you know when he was shot so he wasn't even wearing the holster is
00:59:26
what you're saying corre after he was murdered violently murdered then the individual which we believe is Grant put
00:59:36
the holster back on him yeah forensic investigators testified that there was no activity on Margaret Amato's computer
00:59:44
after 4:45 p.m. so on this on Thursday January 24th so since she was found dead at her computer prosecutors asserted
00:59:55
that she had been killed first while she was working on the computer and she and
00:59:59
Grant were in fact Home Alone they believe that next Chad was killed when he got home from work this around 5:30
01:00:08
p.m. finally Cody was shot in the face when he arrived home from work sometime around 9:30 p.m. prosecutors introduced
01:00:17
evidence showing that Chad Amato logged into his USAA banking app on his iPhone using the fingerprint reader at
01:00:27
1208 a.m. on the night he died while prosecutors weren't able to establish Chad's exact time of death the
01:00:36
implication was that Grant had used his dead father's finger to unlock his phone
01:00:43
in order to access the banking information the Sheriff's Office crime scene manager uh this is Christine
01:00:50
Snider testified that Chad's right index finger had been cleaned of blood presumably to use the fingerprint
01:00:58
scanner crime scene Tech testimony at the trial stated that when Grant Amato was arrested remember they found that
01:01:06
pair of leather gloves those gloves tested positive for gunpowder residue GSR were they able to test those gloves
01:01:13
to pull DNA from them um I know where what you're getting at um yeah it's called DNA right right getting at DNA do
01:01:22
we have DNA evidence here well th this is interesting and this shows the level of what I've been referring to as
01:01:31
addiction or Obsession right so according to the prosecutors Grant used Cody's credit
01:01:39
card to pay Sylvia more money this just within hours after his family was murdered he sent her
01:01:50
$600 while sitting in his car in the Public's parking lot in in the middle of the night as his family's bodies lie
01:01:58
Cooling in the home see that's why I just think there had to be some kind of conversation with her about at least
01:02:06
about the conflict between him and his family Grant's defense I mean yeah they worked hard to try to establish some
01:02:13
kind of Reasonable Doubt but it only took the jury 8 hours to convict Grant Amato of the first-degree premeditated
01:02:23
murder of all all three of his family members right grant stood emotionless as the verdicts were read aloud in the end
01:02:33
the jury decided against the death penalty handing down a sentence of life without
01:02:45
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