5 True Crime Stories You Might Have Forgotten About

Hos Wayne Benham was born on March 11th, 2013 in Coleman, Alabama. He was born to Crystal Ballinger and Brody Wayne Benham. Hos, who had big, adorable, chubby cheeks, blonde hair, and blue eyes, was described as always happy and smiling. In 2011, Hos’s parents, Crystal and Brody, would become a couple shortly after they met at the Burger King, where Crystal was a manager.

 Shortly after they became a couple, Crystal and Brody would move into a trailer park in Cullum, Alabama off of Route 31 at Monk’s Trailer Park. Now, things moved quickly in their relationship, and to their surprise, in August of 2012, they found out that they were expecting a baby boy. Unfortunately, they had already been suffering with money problems, and adding a baby to the mix was not going to help.

 Given this, Crystal’s family was not thrilled about her pregnancy. Regardless, in March of 2013, Crystal and Brody would welcome their new baby boy into the world, Hos Wayne Benham. In September of 2013, the couple’s already bad financial situation would get even worse when Crystal lost her job.

 And soon after that, she and Brody would also break up, which meant that Crystal now needed a new place to live with Hos. Being desperate for a place to live, Crystal would post on Facebook asking if anyone could help her out. So, at the beginning of 2014, the then 23-year-old Crystal along with Hos would move in with Jeffrey Hugh Brown.

Jeffrey was a 47year-old man who lived in the same trailer park as Crystal and Brody had. When they first moved in with him, I don’t believe that they were in a relationship, but a few weeks later, they did begin a romantic relationship, and it seemed like Crystal was determined to prove herself worthy enough to be with Jeff.

 She complained on social media that she loved him, but she did not know if he loved her back. And Crystal did not want to lose her new boyfriend. Why, you ask? No idea. Not really a catch. So on March 10th, 2014, the day before Hos’s first birthday, Crystal along with family and friends would celebrate his birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese.

 She took pictures and posted them on Facebook. Everyone looked happy, but that was soon about to end. Just the next day on March 11th, around 11 p.m., Crystal and Jeffrey would rush baby Hos to the emergency room at Cullman Regional Medical Center. He was unconscious and Crystal insisted that he had drowned in the bathtub of their trailer home.

 But by the time they had arrived at the hospital, there was nothing that doctors could do for Little Hos. And unfortunately, he was pronounced dead on March 11th, 2014. Now, there were injuries to Little Hos’s body that did not match the stories that Crystal and Jeffrey had told medical staff. Hos had excessive bruising all over his body, and he had a fractured skull.

Doctors knew something was definitely not right, and they contacted the Coleman County Sheriff’s Department, who would then go down to the hospital to get statements from Crystal and Jeffrey. And more officers would be sent to the couple’s trailer at the same time to collect evidence. So, the statements that Crystal and Jeffrey would give police did not match up.

 Crystal would first tell them that she had been giving Hos a bath when suddenly he had slipped under the water. He had accidentally gotten water in his mouth. Crystal said she then pulled him out of the bathtub and he was able to cough up the water. She said he was fine until a little while later when Jeff would find him not breathing.

 She would also admit to police officers that on multiple occasions she had seen Jeffree put hot sauce in Hos’s mouth as punishment. Now, Jeff’s story was that he had arrived home from work on March 11th to find Crystal in the kitchen cooking and Hos in the bathtub alone, unsupervised. Jeff said that Hos was fine when he first saw him, but when he later went back to check on him, Hos had slumped under the water.

 So, neither one of them thinks it’s necessary to keep an eye on a one-year-old in a bathtub. Good. Good. Jeff said at this point he pulled him out of the water and pushed on his stomach and he was able to get him to cough up some of the water. He said that Hos was breathing fine, but a little while later he said that the little boy coughed up more water and at that point he stopped breathing.

 But neither Crystal or Jeffrey could come up with a good explanation as to why Hos had so many bruises as well as a fractured skull. The couple were not placed under arrest quite yet, but two days later on March 13th, 2014, Jeffrey Hugh Brown was placed under arrest, and he was charged with aggravated child abuse.

 He was then held with a $30,000 bail. And the following day, Crystal would be arrested and charged with the same thing. They also both tested positive for methamphetamines. Surprise, surprise. And were both ordered to undergo mental health evaluations. An autopsy was authorized to be done on Hos’s body.

 And on March 13th, the Huntsville Department of Forensic Sciences would release a preliminary autopsy report, but not yet Hos’s official cause of death. So, even though the cause of Hos’s death was not yet made public, the coroner did determine that he had been forcibly held underwater. The autopsy revealed that Hos had sustained 38 different injuries to his head and neck that had been caused by blunt force trauma.

 He also had burns on the bottom of his feet, cuts in his mouth, four injuries to his eyes, bruising to his scrotum, and rectal tearing that was consistent with sexual abuse. Following the autopsy results, the state would charge both Crystal and Jeffrey with capital murder. When the investigators again spoke with Crystal, she would tell them a new story about what had happened to Hos on the night of March 11th.

 She said that she had actually walked into the bathroom to see Jeffrey holding Hos underwater for 20 to 25 seconds at a time. He told her that he was trying to teach him how to float and that the little boy could hold his breath. But apparently he couldn’t because shortly after Crystal said that Jeffrey had to perform CPR on Hos.

 But after he did this, Hos was fine again. So they put Hos to bed. And then it was only hours later that they realized he was not breathing. There’s always a portion of time in between the incident and when he actually died in their stories because they don’t want there to be a direct correlation between what happened and him dying.

 So they figure if there’s time in between, then maybe something else could have mysteriously happened to him. I’m pretty sure that’s the thought behind it. During this interrogation, Crystal would also tell investigators that she had been giving Hos, who was under one years old, cough medicine whenever he had been teething.

So, she was just drugging him up. Police would also speak with Jeffrey’s teenage daughter, who lived in the home, though, it would later be said that Jeffree didn’t actually have custody of her. So, I’m assuming she was just visiting at the time rather than living there permanently. So, Jeffrey’s daughter would say that she had bathed Hos the night before he died.

 and at that time she didn’t notice any bruises on him. However, there were bruises in various states of healing, so that could not have been the case. The teen also said that for some reason her father would always insist on being in the bathroom alone with Hos during his bath time. A motion was filed by Jeffrey’s attorney and then subsequently approved in April of 2014 to reduce his bail from 30,000 to only 15,000.

However, the district attorney filed a motion asking for a reconsideration of the reduction of Jeff’s bail. He said that Jeff was a flight risk. Jeffrey had several prior convictions and he had lost his home in Coleman. He also had a history of failing to report to previous court hearings.

 He actually had a pretty substantial criminal history in the state of Florida, including larseny, trafficking stolen property, and a fugitive escaping from justice. So, yeah, I’d say he’s more than just a flight risk. I’d say he’s a definitely he’s definitely going to fly. Yeah, if he can make bail. The judge would then grant the district attorney’s motion to set Jeffrey’s bail back to $30,000, saying that there was a previous misrepresentation of facts.

 On October 20th, 2015, Crystal Ballinger was indicted on her charges, old and new ones. She was charged with sexual torture, capital murder of a child under the age of 14, aggravated child abuse, and capital murder during sexual abuse. Crystal had originally only been charged with aggravated child abuse. Her boyfriend, Jeffrey Hugh Brown, was indicted on the same charges, and both of them would be held without bail at the Coleman County Detention Center.

 And on December 13th of 2019, Jeffrey Hugh Brown would plead guilty to felony murder. The other charges against him were dropped. Just days later, Crystal plead guilty to felony murder. Her charges of aggravated child abuse, capital murder during sexual abuse, and sexual torture were all dismissed. Both Crystal and Jeffrey each received 40 years in state prison.

 Prior to their sentencing, the prosecution would say a baby suffered horrific sexual abuse inflicted by his mother and her boyfriend and died in horror and pain on his first birthday. It’s really unbelievable and just hard to hear what happened to this child. His last 36 hours were spent in pain. Poss great-grandmother wrote an online tribute to him saying, “He was my first greatgrandson, and I miss him every single day, and he is always on my mind.

I look to heaven every night and tell him good night because I know he is in heaven and watches over all of us. I love you and miss you. And I miss the beautiful smile that was always on your face.” Hos Wayne Benham’s funeral was held on March 17th, 2014 at Moss Funeral Home Chapel.

 He was then buried at the East Point Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery. Moss Funeral Home Chapel was kind enough to help Hos’s family with any of the unforeseen expenses related to burying the little boy. The only thing that they had been unable to give to them was a gravestone marker. So, the family set up a GoFundMe to help get a headstone for Hos.

 Then on October 11th, 2015, the family came up with enough money to buy a marker for Hos’s grave. When the headstone was placed, the family also did a small balloon release. Hos’s little cousins also put pictures of butterflies on the balloons, saying that butterflies can fly very high, and they can tell Hos how much they love him. Well, thank you for listening to all of Hos’s story today.

 This poor little boy was brutally tortured and killed on his first birthday. And just the day before, his mother had brought him to Chuck-E-Cheese to celebrate. To go from a party one day to the next day, torturing and killing him. It makes me think that Crystal was just willing to do anything. It makes me think that Crystal was just so desperate for Jeff to love her and not leave her that she was willing to do anything, including murdering her baby.

 It’s so disgusting when a mother puts a man before her child, but then on top of that, Crystal also actively participated in the torture and murder of her own child. It’s unbelievable how anyone can be that way. [music] Grace Packer was born on August 14th, 2001 to her mother, Rose Hunicker, and her father, Rodney Hunicker.

 She also had a brother named Josh, who was three years younger than she was. Grace was a warm and caring girl who would always try to befriend the kids in school who didn’t have any friends. Grace loved the colors purple and pink and she also loved flowers and butterflies. Grace had a passion for animals of all kinds and she loved being outdoors.

 Some of her favorite music was country and hiphop. Now, it said that Grace had a learning disability, but there’s no more information on it besides that, so I’m not sure exactly what her disability entailed or how it affected her. Sadly, soon after Grace was born, her parents lost custody of her and she went into state custody.

 Grace’s parents had lost custody of her because they were unable to provide a safe home. This was in part due to her mother’s mental illness and her father’s intellectual challenges. It’s also said that she was sexually abused by other family members. Shortly after her little brother was born in 2004, Grace and Josh were sent to live with their new foster family, Sarah and David Packer.

 At the time, the couple lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour away from Philadelphia. The couple had cared for dozens of foster children in the past, and Sarah actually worked as an adoption supervisor. Three years after they were brought into their new foster home in March of 2007, when Grace was six and Josh was three, the Packers decided to adopt the children.

 So now Grace and Josh were part of the Packers family. But unfortunately, the way that they doted on Josh was not at all like how they treated Grace. In fact, Sarah would often scream at Grace, hit her mentally and physically abuse her, confine her to either her bedroom or the basement, and just generally mistreat her.

 Also, Sarah, knowing that Grace had some learning disabilities, would always yell at her to just be normal. And many of the other foster children that the Packers had in their home at the time noticed that Grace was being treated much differently from her brother. A few of these foster children had actually reported this back to child services that Grace was being abused, but I guess clearly nothing was done.

 In September of 2010, the police showed up at the Packer’s house. They were responding to a call that they had received saying that David had been sexually abusing Grace along with another one of her foster siblings. He was arrested for his crimes. Grace’s foster sister, David’s other victim, would come out and talk about the abuse that she had suffered at the hands of David.

 She would say that he made her wear revealing clothes and he would force her to sleep in the bedroom that was directly across from his. Sometimes he would even teether her or chain her to his bed for long periods of time. And the assaults were going on for years. So there’s no way that Sarah didn’t know about it.

 Now, the reason the police finally caught on to this was because the Packers had fostered a new foster child. And while the girl was in the home, she got kind of a weird vibe from David. Hm. Wonder why. So, she decided to look into his cell phone. When she did this, she saw pictures as well as videos of David abusing the foster children and Grace.

 She quickly alerted other family members and the police were called. And a year after his arrest, David Packer would admit to abusing Grace from the time that she had come into the home when she was only three. Now, you’re probably wondering, well, what about Sarah? Did she get arrested? Nope. Sarah was simply indicated by Childline, meaning that she had been investigated as a perpetrator of child abuse.

 and that she had known it was going on in the Packer household. But for some reason, she was never charged in relation to any of her husband’s crimes. And despite all this, Grace and Josh were allowed to remain in the home with Sarah. Unbelievably, she was not allowed to foster any more children though after that. But still, after this, Sarah also lost her job as a Northampton County adoption supervisor.

So, going forward a few years, in 2013, Sarah met a new man and moved him into the house with her, Grace, and Josh. This man was named Jacob Sullivan. And just a side note, this was 2013, but she didn’t actually officially divorce David until 2016. Just saying. When Sarah and Jacob had first met, Sarah said that he was originally Grace’s biggest advocate.

 But as she put it, she educated him. And that soon changed. On July 11th, 2016, Sarah contacted her local police department and reported the now 14-year-old Grace as missing. She told them that she had stolen $300 from her and then ran away. She also made sure she told the police that Grace had done this in the past, which I don’t believe she actually did.

 And Sarah most likely told police this so that they wouldn’t take Grace’s case as seriously. And I’m sure she was hoping that they probably wouldn’t look any further into it. Just consider her a missing runaway teenager. She’ll come back. So, police began their search for Grace. But as the investigation progressed, Sarah had refused to answer their phone calls.

 And when they showed up at the family’s home, which was located on Tetris Avenue, they found that it was now vacant. So, police made an appeal to the public for anyone to come forward if they had any information on Grace’s disappearance and now what they were considering to likely be her murder. Sarah also hid Grace’s disappearance from other family members.

 They ended up finding out through the media. So, needless to say, Sarah was not acting like a mother who had a child that had just gone missing. In fact, an investigation would uncover that Grace and Josh had been pulled out of school and only her brother had been reenrolled at Quakertown Community School District. So, while Grace was missing, Sarah had decided to move her family to the Richland Township, and she hadn’t told police about this at all.

 She also refused to share any photos of Grace with the police for months after her disappearance. Then 3 months after Grace disappeared in October of 2016, a group of hunters would come across a dismembered body in a wooded area in Lzern County. The body would later be identified as Grace Packer.

 The investigators on the case immediately announced that Sarah was now a suspect. Until they could prove that she had murdered Grace, though, she was to be charged with child endangerment and obstruction of administration of the law. In the month after Grace’s body had been found, in November of 2016, it was discovered that Sarah had cashed over $3,600 worth of social security disability checks that were intended for Grace.

 At that time, investigators also came across a letter that had been in amongst Grace’s school things. It was typed out, addressed to her family, and it was a apology saying, “I’m sorry for being a burden.” She then goes on to say that she’s leaving her family. But investigators knew that this letter was not written by a 14-year-old.

 It was clearly written by an adult. Then it was discovered that Jacob and Sarah had actually been in a polyamorous relationship with a woman by the name of Katherine Albbright. Authorities finally uncovered this because in January of 2017, Catherine had actually discovered Jacob and Sarah in the bedroom of their home.

 They had both overdosed in an attempted pact. Later, when Jacob awoke in the hospital, he told staff that he was responsible for Grace’s murder, and he also implicated Sarah. Jacob Sullivan was arrested and charged with 19 different crimes, including kidnapping, homicide, rape, and conspiracy. Sarah was also charged with 17 crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, conspiracy, and abuse of a corpse.

 They had confessed that Grace had been horrifically sexually abused by the couple before they had murdered her. Jacob would say that the sexual assault and murder of Grace had been planned by both him and Sarah, and the two had been planning it for over a year. So, back to this third party, Catherine. Catherine had actually been in a relationship with Jacob and Sarah for 18 months at this point, and she was also a social worker.

 She however was never charged with any crime though it would be discovered that she had lived at the house. So and later in court it would also be revealed that Jacob, Sarah and Catherine had installed a sex swing in front of the closet that they had kept Grace’s body in. According to a neighbor, she didn’t even know that Sarah lived in the house. Yes, Sarah.

Because apparently Catherine and Jacob were the two that seemed to be living in the house full- time. She didn’t even know about Sarah’s existence. So why Catherine didn’t get charged with anything? The Bucks County District Attorney Matthew would say the hours and days leading up to her murder were probably the most horrible and traumatic thing that any person should ever have to experience.

 In the many months leading up to Grace’s murder, Sarah had actually been grooming Jacob to sexually assault Grace. And Sarah had also been putting sleeping medication into Grace’s pudding to make her groggy on occasion. So, 3 days before Sarah had reported Grace as missing, July 8th, 2016, Sarah and Jacob had driven with Grace to their new home in Quakerstown.

 Once they arrived, Jacob struck Grace in the face quite a few times, leaving her with a cut lip. The couple then took Grace up to the attic where Jacob would sexually assault her while Sarah watched on. And when Grace would look to Sarah during this attack for help, Sarah said to her, “There’s nothing I can do.

 This is your life now.” Jacob would also tell detectives that he got off on the idea of Sarah not helping Grace and he believes that Sarah also got off on it too. After the couple had assaulted Grace, they bound her wrists and ankles with zip ties. They silenced her with a ball gag and then they drugged her with sleeping pills.

 After this, they took her and they put her in a closet that was up in the attic. They then left the house, which means they left Grace up in the attic, which was boiling hot as it was the middle of July. Grace eventually managed to escape some of her bindings and spit out the ball gag, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to make it out of the house before the couple returned back about 12 hours after they had initially left.

 So, it was around 3:00 a.m. on July 9th when Jacob and Sarah discovered that Grace was still alive and they decided to finish what they had started at this point. And Jacob went up to the attic and strangled her. Following this horrific act, Sarah and Jacob would drag Grace’s body to the bathtub.

 Then, they went out and bought a saw so that they could start dismembering Grace’s body. For a few months, the couple tried to conceal the stench of decomposition with cat litter, but it didn’t really work. Eventually, they decided to stuff her body parts into two separate plastic totes and then dump the totes into the forest where they were later found.

 In March 2019, the case against Sarah and Jacob would go to trial. The prosecution believed that for years Sarah had tolerated the sexual abuse that was going on in the household and she had even enjoyed watching it. The prosecution alleged that Sarah had been the driving force in all of this since she had been the one that groomed Jacob into assaulting Grace.

 They had also found Facebook messages from Sarah to another man altogether talking about how she could get him a virgin to assault. When the details of the crime were read out in court, they were so horrific that afterwards the judge urged the jurors to get counseling. And while these horrific details were being read out, Sarah and Jacob were seen smiling and smirking.

 The Bucks County District Attorney told jurors that he had agreed to a life sentence for Sarah Packer in exchange for her confession and a guilty plea. He had done this because the evidence against Sarah was weak. Jacob had been the one who had assaulted and murdered Grace. And he also did this because Sarah’s crimes did not qualify for the death penalty, and that’s what he wanted.

 In keeping her end of the deal, Sarah went up to the witness stand and after she told her version of what had happened to Grace that day in July, she also then told the courtroom that Grace had a discipline problem and was a very difficult child. She admitted that she actually hated Grace and wanted her dead for a while.

 She also told the courtroom how her and Jacob had shared the same rape murder fantasy and that they had originally had other plans for Grace. They were going to keep her and just sexually assault her whenever they felt like it. Sarah would also say that she participated in these acts against her daughter because she didn’t want to lose Jacob and she got carried away.

 Jacob would state that Gracie was a nightmare and the couple just wanted her gone. But they still wanted to receive the monthly checks that she was getting. Of course they did. While he had been in custody, Jacob Sullivan asked that he be put in protective custody because he was fearful of the other inmates. Oh no.

Though it’s not said if this request was actually granted. I don’t think it was. But the judge pointed out that Jacob was now living in fear of the very same torture and abuse that he had put Grace through. The judge also could not help but tell Jacob that he had no soul. So Sarah plead guilty to Grace’s murder and was given the agreed upon life sentence.

Jacob plead guilty to the sexual assault, first-degree murder, and a few other smaller offenses related to Grace’s death. The prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for Jacob. The defense, of course, just wanted life in prison. But after deliberating, a Philadelphia jury gave Jacob the death penalty.

 He had zero reaction when this was being read out. Grace’s relatives would also testify about the impact of her murder. Her cousin Carrie would say, “It sickens me to know that Grace was abused, tortured, and literally thrown away like she was a piece of trash.” Grace is in a better place now, free from evil and pain.

 In a statement read by detectives, Grace’s younger brother, Josh, who was then 14 at the time, said the only way he can bear his loss is if adults know Grace’s story and then act to prevent child abuse. He said that if his big sister was told that she could save children’s lives by giving her own, she would have asked, “What do I have to do?” He went on to say, “Watch out for all the kids so a loss like Grace’s loss never happens again.

 Do your best to help kids who can’t help themselves.” The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services said in a 2019 report in regards to Grace’s life and death that the state’s child welfare system was simply overwhelmed at the time and in need of more accountability. Yeah, you think. Repeatedly, the report on Grace indicates that she was sexually assaulted.

 The report also mentioned how Grace had been attending behavioral health services. However, the main issues such as things like her sexual abuse had never been talked about during these sessions. On January 16th, 2017, many people gathered to honor Grace Packer’s life. Many people who never even knew her. The Abington community wanted to find a way not to lose sight of the person that Grace was and not just all the horrible details that had been shared about the way that she had been murdered.

 The community had also raised more than $12,000 to put towards Grace’s memorial service, and it was held at the New Life Presbyterian Church. Attendees at the service said they felt drawn to know more about Grace Packer as a person. Grace’s biological mother, Rose Hunicker, also attended the memorial service.

 She was visibly upset the entire time and said her memory and smile will never fade away. >> I’m a mother. I I will protect my children and I feel very hurtful and very, you know, mad at myself for not be able to protect Grace. When she, you know, was in that hot attic dying by herself, she was alone taking her last breath.

 She was alone, you know, being raped. She was alone, you know, I couldn’t imagine I couldn’t even imagine the feelings that that little girl was feeling. I can’t I can’t imagine any feeling that that little girl was feeling. Well, from my perspective, you know, as being a biological mother that lost her child, you know, it’s hard.

 I want people to realize that I’m not, you know, the bad parent person that Sarah or excuse me, Miss Packer put me out to be. I was young. I was a teenager. You know, I made mistakes as a parent. You know, there’s not one perfect parent out there. There’s not one person per perfect person out there. Everybody makes mistakes.

 And you know, if I could go back in time and have a time machine, I would fix them mistakes. >> I would do the same thing. >> I would fix every mistake that I made. You know what I mean? Just so my daughter would be here today. And that tears me up with guilt. It tears me up with anger on myself. You know, I feel that I’m a failure as a mother, as a woman, as a you know, because I wasn’t able to protect my child from any harm.

You know, like a mother should protect her children from any harm and any danger that come their way. And I feel, you know, I feel guilt and I feel like I’m a failure for that. I there’s a lot of, you know, deep down emotions that I’m going through that I have to deal with to try to get through this. >> Like I’ve been trying to stay behind her for everything.

 Like it’s hard for me to do it. See, I’m the father of the child and I’m going through the same thing. I just got to stay strong for her, you know, like she cries and I see her cry, I try to back it off. Like I try to keep it in. It’s hard for me to keep it in. She’s crying. It’s like it’s hard for us to do everything. >> It’s just the saddest thing that I ever had to endorse.

 I got through my mom’s death like a little champ, but this one I don’t think I’ll be able to get through. It’s going to take many, many, many years, if I ever do, get through this. Many years. >> An $ 8.9 million settlement was reached on behalf of Grace’s estate. It was against three defendants who had provided foster, adoption, and behavioral health services to Grace throughout her life.

 Oh, and a little bit of good news here at the end. In May of 2020, 47year-old Jacob Sullivan died at a local hospital after a major blood vessel ruptured. That’s a little bit of karma. Well, thank you for listening to all of Grace’s story today. I’m a little bit aggravated that the girlfriend Catherine didn’t face any charges.

 She lived in that house. She had to have known about the abuse that was going on. And she lived in the house after Grace was murdered when her body was upstairs in the attic in the closet. A closet that she also used. I forgot to mention that. And she didn’t know. She definitely knew. And poor Grace, all that she had to go through in her life.

 And she seemed like such a sweet young girl. And then after all the abuse that that poor girl had gone through, these psychopaths went and took her life, too. >> [music] >> on the ground. On the ground. Put your hands down. Your back. >> Camila Francesci was born on December 3rd, 2021 in Nagatuck, Connecticut. Her mother’s name is Crystal Neves and her father’s name is Christopher Franciscuini.

 Little Camila was adored by her family and was a happy, smiley baby who rarely fussed. She also loved watching Coco Melon and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Camila and her parents had been living with Christopher’s father, Ramon, and Ramon’s wife and Ramon’s daughter, Jasmine. Now, the couple along with Camila had been living in the basement of the home since December of 2020 when Chris had been released from prison.

 Chris had been in prison for pistol whipping somebody close to death and had been sentenced in 2012 to 10 years behind bars along with an additional 10 years of special parole for first-degree assault. But it was not long after his release that Christopher was back in jail again the following November of 2021. This time though, it was for an alleged carjacking in West Haven, Connecticut.

 He had been arrested just hours after. And while in police custody, Christopher fought with police officers and he tried to escape their custody. He had actually stolen a pepper spray from one of the officers and began to spray it at them. So, that gained him some additional charges. Keep in mind, this was only weeks prior to Camila’s birth.

 Probably not how a new dad should be acting. Christopher would not be released until June of 2022 on special parole with a $375,000 bond. He was then fitted with a GPS ankle monitor. And Christopher also had other arrests on his record as well. Possession of narcotics, risk of injury to a child, and assault and battery. Now, in addition to having a long criminal history, Camila’s father, Christopher, also suffered from multiple mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder.

 And Christopher had actually been put on medication for this. But his family said that they did not believe he was taking his medications. One of the reasons they believed this was because Christopher had told Camila’s mother, Crystal, that he heard voices. Voices that were telling him to kill his father, but he said he would never do that.

 He would never harm anyone, which is odd because it seems like he tried to kill somebody back in 2012 by almost pistol whipping them to death. Chris [snorts] could also be very paranoid and he thought that somebody was out to get him. So, since Christopher was incarcerated when Camila was born, he didn’t get to spend the first few months of her life with her.

However, when he was released, Crystal said that Christopher was a great dad. He adored his daughter and always wanted to be around her. Christopher would also frequently post social media pictures of him and Camila together. With Christopher on house arrest, he grew increasingly impatient and irritable.

 He was upset that he couldn’t leave the house to look for a job. And on top of that, he and Crystal had been arguing more and more and had recently been talking about ending their relationship. On the night of November 17th, 2022, Christopher would ignore his father, Ramon. Ramon had just finished feeding Camila, and Christopher had not come up yet to get his daughter to put her to bed for the night.

 And Ramon asked Christopher if Camila was going to be sleeping in the basement with them or up in his room in her crib. Since Christopher didn’t answer his father when he asked him this, Ramon assumed that Cama would be sleeping upstairs in his room. So, he went to his bedroom to put her down for the night. Ramon thought this was kind of weird since the little girl’s parents were normally her primary caregivers.

 But on this night, Christopher seemed like he wanted nothing to do with his daughter. Then the following morning on November 18th, 2022, Ramon would wake up early around 4:30 to drive Crystal to her job at Dunkin Donuts. After Ramon had dropped off Crystal at work, he went back home to take a nap. At this time, he said that he did not know if Camila was still in her crib.

 He had just assumed that she was because the little girl would normally sleep until 11:00 a.m. and the play pen that she was sleeping in had a blanket over the top of it so that she wouldn’t get cold from the fan that was in the room. When Ramon woke up from his nap around 10:00 a.m., he noticed that there was a mis call from Crystal on his phone.

 And when he called her back, she asked him for a ride home from work. He agreed. But prior to him heading out of the house to pick up Crystal, Raone heard his son Christopher in the basement. So he went downstairs to talk to him. When he did, Christopher told his father, “I’m mad at you. I hate you.” Raone asked him why, as he hadn’t done anything, but Christopher just laughed and walked away.

 Brushing it off, Raone left the house to go get Crystal. When they got back home, Crystal was tired from working such an early shift at work, and she decided that she wanted to take a nap. However, before she made it down into their basement bedroom, Christopher stopped her. He insisted that she did not need to lay down.

 Instead, they needed to go shopping for Thanksgiving food. Crystal told him fine, she would go, but she needed to change her clothes quickly first. However, Christopher did not want her to do that either and told her not to go in the room. He said it was too messy, but he was going to clean it when they got back home later.

 Crystal saw a quilt on the floor and just wanted to move that out of the way, but Christopher objected, saying, “I got to go before probation tells me no.” I don’t think he’s supposed to be out of the house anyways. I don’t think probation ever told him yes. So Crystal and Christopher left for the store after this, borrowing Ramon’s Chevy Impala.

The couple then headed to Waterberry. On the way there, Crystal said that she saw Christopher texting somebody, though she didn’t know who it was, but he had texted them in regards to a mental health treatment facility called CHA. So Christopher and Crystal were supposed to be headed to Walmart to buy their Thanksgiving food.

 But on the way there, Christopher had changed the plans. He needed his medicine, as he put it, so they were now going to be meeting up with somebody in the PetSmart parking lot. On their way to the store, many roads had been closed off, and Christopher had gotten angry at Crystal for it. His frustration would build until they got to Pets Smart and a car pulled up next to them with a male driver in it, presumably who Christopher was meeting.

 And right then, Christopher would also ask Crystal if he could have her cell phone. She gave it to him. And then he asked her a strange question. He asked Crystal if she would do absolutely anything for him, even if that meant putting on a collar and a leash and being led around by him. to which she obviously said no and she asked for her phone back, but Christopher would not return it.

 Crystal asked him several more times. Then Christopher said to her, “Since you want your phone so much,” and he took his phone and her phone and smashed them into the ground. Crystal, who was scared and upset by the way Christopher was acting, decided to walk into PetSmart at that time to borrow a phone to call for another ride back home.

 Police would later find the two phones smashed in the parking lot alongside a credit card with Christopher’s name on it and his cut off GPS ankle monitor. After she was able to make a phone call, Crystal returned back outside to wait for her ride. And at that time, she noticed that Christopher and the Impala were gone. Upon returning back from the pet store, Crystal went down to their room to clean up.

 And as Crystal entered the bedroom, she noticed that there was something red on the floor next to the quilt that she had seen earlier. And she figured that Christopher must have spilled something. So Crystal lifted up the quilt, and underneath there was red everywhere, along with the lifeless body of her baby girl, Camila.

 Crystal started screaming, “The baby, the baby.” Her family members rushed downstairs to see that the little girl had been stabbed as well as dismembered. Christopher’s sister, who also lived in the home, would call 911, and Ramon would call his wife, who was at work, and he would tell her to come home because Chris killed the baby, he said.

And when the first responders arrived, the paramedics checked Cama for signs of life, but the little girl was pronounced dead at 11:46 a.m. on November 18th, 2022. An autopsy of Camila’s body was performed, and it was found that she had marks consistent with strangulation as well.

 Her cause of death was determined to be neck compressions with sharp force injuries. Her death was ruled a homicide. Upon searching the home, investigators would find several pieces of clothing in the basement bedroom where Camila had been found, and they would take these in as evidence. There were two gray Nike sneakers with blood splotches that were found on the other side of the room, away from where little Camila had been found.

 Family members later told the police that the shoes were indeed Christophers. Detectives also found a t-shirt and a gray child’s sock with blood on it, a towel, suspected marijuana joints, and a smoking device. Police determined that Christopher Francis Guini was their prime suspect and they placed a warrant out for his arrest.

 He was charged with murder and risk of injury to a child. A press conference was held on the day of Camila’s murder in order to alert the public of the crime as well as alert them that their main suspect was Christopher and he was on the run. He was also likely driving the Impala. The FBI would also become involved with finding Christopher and they would offer a $10,000 reward.

 And after days of searching for him with no results, this reward would then be upped to $25,000. The search efforts for him were huge, and there were even billboards placed along interstates 84, 91, and 95 with a picture of Christopher, information about him, as well as the reward money for his capture. Police would speak with all of the members of Camila’s family.

 The last time anyone had seen Cama alive was when Christopher’s stepmother, the one whose room she had slept in the night before, had kissed the little girl on the head before she had gone to work. Now, this was around 7:15 in the morning. Police also wanted to know why Ramon had almost immediately after finding Camila’s body told his wife that it was Chris who had done it.

 Ramon said it was because Christopher was the only one in the house at the time. Then he remembered that his daughter’s boyfriend, Angel, was actually in the house as well. But Ramon was not concerned that Angel was involved in any way because he only ever left his room to take medication and eat. He was also known to be very calm and non-confrontational.

Raone also said that Angel had no idea what had happened to Camila at the time of the interview. However, police also wanted to speak with Angel. Angel said he had gotten up that morning, gone downstairs to make himself some eggs and take his medication, and then he had returned back up to his room.

 He said he later heard screaming and then saw police cars outside the window in his room, but he didn’t go outside because he didn’t know what was going on and he didn’t want to get involved. When Camila’s mother, Crystal, spoke with police, she told them that when she had gotten in the car with Christopher earlier that day to go to Waterberry, she had noticed that he was profusely sweating.

 And when she asked him why, he just said it was because of the heat being on so high in the car. She also said she did not notice any blood on him at the time. Crystal was so confused, though. Christopher had never showed any signs that he would ever hurt his baby girl, and he had never told Crystal that he had had any voices in his head telling him to hurt their daughter.

Christopher’s sister, Jasmine, who lived in the house, spoke with police as well, and she told them that she was in and out of sleep from about 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. After that, she would get up and get ready for work. Jasmine told the police that she may have heard a faint cry in the morning, but she was unsure.

She also said she had seen the Impala leaving the driveway earlier and had gone downstairs to have a word with her father, Raymond, about why Christopher was leaving the house when he was supposed to be on house arrest. Soon, the police would begin to receive reports of interactions between members of the public and Christopher.

 And one of these reports led police to find the gray 2006 Chevy Impala that Christopher had been driving. The car was found on the same day that Camila was murdered. It was found abandoned with an empty gas tank on the side of Interstate 91 South in New Haven. The person who had called in this tip told the police that he had helped Christopher, who had been parked on the side of the highway while the man was on his way to get his son.

 The man told police that he had driven Christopher to multiple gas stations looking for a gas can. He also let Christopher use his cell phone. After a little while, he told Christopher he needed to go. He had to go pick up his son and he wouldn’t be able to help him any further. He did, however, leave him with a few dollars and directions to New Haven.

 Upon locating the Impala, police recovered 13 pieces of evidence, including a black folding knife, which they would later find out was indeed the murder weapon, and they found splotches of blood on the driver’s seat, as well as a few other places in the car. There were reported sightings of Christopher on Quinnipac Street in New Haven later that same weekend.

 Then, yet another person called into police and reported that they believed they had interacted with Christopher. Christopher had run out of gas again and he had no money, so he wanted to know where the nearest bus or train station was. This caller also reported that Christopher had altered his appearance, but was still recognizable.

 Police would finally end up taking Christopher into custody 2 weeks after Camila’s murder. Another citizen had called in and told police that they had seen Christopher at a bus stop on December 2nd. Christopher was then surrounded by officers with their guns drawn and placed under arrest. I have a little bit of the body cam footage here that I’ll play for you.

>> Get on the ground. On the ground. >> Get on the ground. On the ground. >> Get on the ground. Get off the ground now. >> I got him. I got him. >> Close your hand. Get on the ground. GET ON THE GROUND. >> GET ON THE GROUND. GET ON THE GROUND. >> ON THE GROUND. >> ON THE GROUND. >> PUT YOUR HANDS OUT NOW. Christopher was then charged with murder under special circumstances.

 He was also charged with risk of injury to a child, secondderee breach of peace and secondderee criminal mischief. He was held on a $5 million bond. During the two weeks that Christopher had been on the run, he also had missed two court dates in Bridgeport and Milford, which led him to racking up failure to appear charges on pending cases.

 When Christopher went before Waterberry Superior Court, he waved his right to a probable cause hearing and entered not guilty please on his charges. The total of his bond amount was also increased at that time to $7 million. The judge would also issue protective orders barring Christopher from communicating with three unnamed people.

Though my guess is that it’s Crystal, his father, and his stepmother or his sister. At the time of this hearing, Christopher’s attorney also asked the judge to place his client on a selfharm watch. And luckily, Christopher, who is still being held, will not be released from jail, even if he was somehow miraculously able to come up with the money for his $7 million bond due to his parole being revoked on other cases he had been out on bond for prior to his daughter’s death.

 At most of his hearings since his arrest, Christopher has also refused to speak out loud to the judge or anybody else. >> This hearing happened very quickly. His attorney requested a probable cause hearing and right when Francis Guiny was being escorted out the courtroom, we heard a very strong reaction from his father. >> You’re all set.

 Chris, you’re not going to say nothing. Chris, you’re not going to SAY NOTHING. >> YOU’RE NOT GOING TO SAY NOTHING. >> The father of Christopher Francis Queenie having a major outburst in the courtroom as Francis Queenie remained silent during the brief hearing. So, police would soon find out that on the day of Camila’s murder, after Christopher had left the parking lot of PetSmart, he had allegedly changed his clothes at an apartment in Waterberry before he headed to New Haven.

Christopher had gone to this apartment looking for someone he knew who resided there, but they had not been home at the time. Christopher, however, knew some of the other people who were at the apartment at the time, and they allowed him inside. Several people would tell police that they knew Christopher’s brother, but they hadn’t seen Christopher or talked to him in years prior to that day.

 They also noticed that he had been extremely sweaty, and he had asked a few of them if they wanted to buy his dad’s car from him. Another person at the apartment said that Christopher had used his phone to make fake Facebook and Snapchat accounts. This person also told police that Christopher had asked for a sweatshirt and someone had given him a white sweatshirt with a black and white checkered pattern on it.

 The one he was seen wearing in the security camera footage. And ironically, 4 days before the homicide, Christopher had actually received a favorable report from his probation officers who oversee pre-trial defendants released on bond. and Christopher had been allowed to be removed from his court-ordered house arrest on Thanksgiving as well as Christmas Day.

 Christopher’s trial date for Camila’s murder has yet to be scheduled, but he is currently being held at the Garner Correctional Institution, where inmates with serious mental health disorders are placed. Little Camila had died just weeks prior to her first birthday, but her family and the community would celebrate her on that day anyways.

 They came together in the center of Nagatuck to hold a candlelight vigil. The Nagatuck police asked the community to wear pink or display pink lights on Cama’s birthday, December 3rd. The Nagatuck police also wore their pink #justice for Cama bracelets in show of support for Camila’s loved ones. And Camila’s mother, Crystal, spoke to the crowd thanking them for their support since the murder and saying that the best birthday gift for her baby is justice.

On the six-month anniversary of Camila’s death, there was also a private memorial service. Members of the Nagatuck police attended as well, many of them who had severely been affected by Camila’s death. The memorial service included a tree planting ceremony. The tree was a dogwood donated by the Waterberry Home Depot.

 Lilac lettering was painted on a nearby stone reading, “Your memory will forever bloom.” Well, thank you for listening to all of Camila’s story today. Camila’s murder was one that nobody had seen coming. But people who are as violent as Christopher was known to get can be completely unpredictable. This man was just dangerous to be around from the sounds of it.

 A ticking time bomb. Sweet little Camila didn’t stand a chance. >> [music] >> October Anne Perez, also lovingly called Toby, was born on January 10th, 2009 to her mother, Christy Perez, in Great Falls, Montana. The little girl loved making cookies with her grandmother as well as playing in the snow. She also enjoyed riding her tricycle, playing with her grandmother’s dog, and October was just obsessed with trying on and walking around in other people’s boots and shoes.

 When October was born, her mother Christy was married to a man named Freddy Perez. And at first, he thought that he was the little girl’s father. However, it would soon be discovered that he was not. Instead, a man named Michael Art was October’s biological father. And at the time of her birth, he was actually stationed overseas in Afghanistan.

Soon after Freddy Perez found out that Christy had been cheating on him, they went their separate ways. And it wouldn’t be long after that until Christy began to date a new man named David Heislop. Now, while October’s biological father, Michael, was stationed overseas, his visitation time with his daughter went to his mother, whose name was April Hall.

 Though, once Michael was actually home on leave one time, he met Christiey’s new boyfriend, David, and was not a fan of him. He had not gotten a good impression at all and did not want his daughter to be near the man. So following that, he hired a lawyer and began to try to gain full custody of October.

 Christy had moved in with her new boyfriend, David. And almost immediately after, April began to grow concerned about her granddaughter, October. This was after the little girl started showing up at her house with bruises, cuts, and scrapes all over, and she would often show up dirty. Additionally, October’s older brother told the grandmother that Christy and the new boyfriend, David, had been using drugs inside the home.

 So, April contacted child protective services and let them know about her concerns. They then sent a case worker over to the home where October lived to check on things. This case worker’s name was Rachel Zinn. The thing is, as soon as the state started their investigation, this made Christy very angry and she stopped letting October see her grandmother, April.

 In February of 2011, Christy would finally cave and let April begin to see October again. Though, she was still angry, so she wanted April to pick October up from her mother’s house instead of directly from Christy. When April went to pick up her granddaughter this time, October was crying, and she wouldn’t stop.

 Her crying even got worse when she went to put on her jacket and when she went to put the little girl into her car seat. So, April asked Christiey’s mother what had happened to October. because even though she was 2 years old, she had been so badly neglected that she had no words of her own yet. When Christy’s mother confronted her and asked her why October was crying non-stop, Christy claimed she hadn’t noticed and she had no idea.

 So, April decided that she needed to bring October to the emergency room because this was not normal crying and it wouldn’t stop. But Christy didn’t want that to happen, so she dragged her feet. But eventually she would end up giving in and going to the hospital with October and April. Good thing too because they ended up finding out that October had a broken arm and child protection services was again notified.

Once child services did get involved, October’s grandmother, April, was given emergency custody of her for 5 days and was told to bring her to the pediatrician for a follow-up the next day. It would be during that appointment that doctors would discover that October’s other arm had actually previously been broken and never treated.

 Then, just days after this doctor’s visit, April would receive a phone call from child services telling her that there was not enough information to keep October away from her mother, Christy. And April needed to return her immediately. And this is even though the doctor who had checked on October’s injuries had said that they were nonacal.

 It was only months later in April of 2011 that April was allowed to see her granddaughter October once again. This time she met up with Christy and October for a lunch date and she was shocked by her granddaughter’s condition. The 2-year-old was filthy, rire of marijuana, was missing a tooth, and had bald spots, like her hair had been pulled out, not shaved.

 Christy would insist that her daughter had a medical condition that resulted in her hair falling out. Though later, October would be taken to her primary care doctor for blood work, and that was proven to not be true. April would again contact Child Protective Services because she knew that these injuries were not just an accident.

 But the case worker, Rachel Zinn, whom she spoke to on the phone, was rude and dismissive. So, April then went down to the child services building in person to try to meet with Rachel and tell her why she was so worried about October. But this proved to do nothing other than make October’s mother, Christy, punish April yet again and take away her visits.

 This didn’t last very long, however, and Christy would allow October’s grandmother, April, to take them out for dinner. Unbeknownst to the grandmother, it would be the very last time that she would see October alive. In the days after their dinner meet up, April tried to set up a parenting plan with Christy, but Christy didn’t want anything in writing as far as October’s custody went, which was likely because April had been giving Christy money for child support in cash.

 And Christy was receiving state assistance for October. So, if anything was made legal, that would cut into the amount of money that she received. At the same time, April was trying to set up a dentist appointment because she was determined to prove that October’s tooth had not just fallen out on its own, but rather was a result of abuse.

 She figured if she could get this appointment made, she would be able to prove to child services that something needed to be done to remove October from her mother’s care. However, Christy was fighting this appointment being made. Then on June 3rd, April would receive a phone call from Christiey’s aranged husband, Freddy Perez, whom Christy shared a son with.

Freddy told April that he received a letter from Christy, and in it, there had been pictures of October. He noticed that the little girl was now missing three teeth. And keep in mind, she’s only 2 years old. Normally, children don’t start losing their teeth until they’re at least five or six. These photos of October would be directly sent to her caseworker Rachel Zinn.

Additionally, Freddy Perez along with April, October’s biological father, Michael, and other relatives expressed their concerns to the caseworker. But these concerns were again ignored, and October’s case was closed out shortly thereafter. The thing is, had her case worker Rachel just gone out to the home where October was living with her mother Christy and Christiey’s boyfriend, she would have seen just how filthy it was.

Or maybe she did and she just didn’t care because she supposedly was going out to the home for a few hours each week. [snorts] Not to mention, inside the small one-bedroom home located at 1305 4th A South lived October, her older brother, her mother Christy, her mother’s boyfriend David, David’s brother Kendall, and Kendall’s girlfriend Janetta, all in a one-bedroom house.

 It’s also said that David had two children of his own whom he had lost custody of previously due to drug charges. Another thing that child services should have known about. Then on June 23rd, 2011, April received a phone call saying that October had fallen down and hit her head twice, either in the basement or on the sidewalk.

 Christy and her boyfriend could not keep their story straight. Regardless, 2-year-old October was now in the emergency room fighting for her life. Even though the girl’s injuries had been played down, when Christy told April about them, April would receive a second phone call just a little while later, telling her that October was likely not going to make it.

 October had originally been brought to Great Falls Hospital, but upon her arrival there, she had to be lifellighted to Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The little girl had a broken back. She clearly had not just fallen down and hit her head, as claimed. A scan would also reveal that she had broken her back a second time, just days or weeks prior, and it had gone untreated.

 Doctors additionally found a large hematoma on the side of her head, and many of her toes were also broken. Now, October’s father, Michael, had immediately gotten onto a plane and flown back home when he heard that his daughter was so badly injured. Sadly, he would not make it home in time before she passed away.

 When police went out to the home where October had been living with her mother along with all the other adults, they would find absolutely deplorable living conditions. This included maggots in the refrigerator, dirty diapers on the floor, and trash strewn all about, a floor drain in the basement that October slept near had even been used as a urinal.

 And as I said, according to her caseworker, Rachel Zinn, she had gone out to this home each week during the time that October’s arm was broken. The thing is, even though there had been four adults inside the home, none of them seemed to know what had happened to October. Eventually, David’s brother Kendall would speak up, and he told police that he had heard David in the basement shouting at October to go to bed.

 Then he heard three loud bangs coming from the basement. The basement where the children slept. It wasn’t a redone basement either. It was a creepy, dark, dirty, cluttered basement. When Kendall asked his brother about the noises that he heard, David just told him that he had hit his head a few times in the laundry room.

 So, authorities of course wanted to speak with David as well, and he would tell them that he believed October’s injuries had occurred due to some bad hot dogs, which clearly makes zero sense. After police revealed more and more injuries that had been found on the little girl’s body, David’s story began to change.

 Eventually, he told detectives that he had dropped October on the concrete floor in the basement. However, he also said it was just an accident. David then claimed that after he had done this accidentally, he knew that he had done something bad because October didn’t cry at all, but rather started to have a seizure. Instead of getting her any type of help, though, David just decided to go back upstairs.

 Once Christy got back home from her job a little while later, she would hear her daughter down in the basement whimpering. But David told her not to worry about it. The little girl was just having a bad dream. So instead of checking on the toddler, Christy decided just to leave the house with David to go get some food. Then upon their arrival back home, Christy and David had sex just feet away from where October was laying dying.

 Christy would also admit to rubbing her daughter’s back after this. And when she had, she said the little girl had abnormal posturing, which is indicative of a head injury. And apparently Christy was currently taking courses to be an EMT, so she knew what this meant, but still didn’t get any help. Eventually, they would end up calling emergency services, but not until around 6 hours after October had originally received her injury.

 Now, not only had Christy failed to get her daughter medical attention that day, but she also hadn’t got her any help in the days prior when she had another spinal fracture that was likely causing her a great deal of pain. Christy had also been clearly compliant in the abuse and neglect of her daughter, but for some reason, David would be the only one who was charged with October’s murder.

 He would end up going to trial in 2012 and he was found guilty for which he was sentenced to life behind bars. And October’s case worker, Rachel Zinn, the one who claimed to be going out to the house at least once a week, but in reality had just been completely ignoring October’s family’s concerns, stopped working for child services shortly thereafter.

Little October’s organs were donated following her death, making her the reason that other children were able to continue living their lives. A nonprofit called Toby’s House was also started in October’s memory by her family. And the organization provides immediate refuge and safety to children in need. [music] Well, thank you for listening to October’s story today.

 David is an absolute monster and I’m glad that he’s serving life behind bars. But I’m also very bothered by the fact that neither October’s mother Christy or her case worker Rachel Zinn faced any sort of punishment for what they allowed to happen to the toddler for months on end. October did not have to be subjected to that filthy house and abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, David.

 She had a loving grandmother who wanted her like so many stories we’ve heard before. But child services again just looked the other way and allowed her to stay in a home where she would end up losing her life. >> Sades Lane has now been missing for more than 4 days [music] at this point. And the search and the effort to find her is getting much more intense.

 She was uh last seen with Miller at that economy in at an economy in just off of US30. FBI agents and state police are all in town uh working to help the Plymouth Police Department find this little girl. Mercedes Lane was born on September 24th, 2020 in Plymouth, Indiana to Tiffany Coburn and Kenneth or Kenny Lane.

 She was affectionately nicknamed Sadie and was said to be full of smiles that could light up the darkest room. Mercedes also had three older sisters. Ever since Mercedes mother, Tiffany, had become pregnant with her oldest daughter, her family had concerns and began calling child protective services. Tiffany was known to have a problem with methamphetamine.

 And as her family said, she and Kenny were just not cut out to be parents. Mercedes grandmother, Angie Owens, had called child services on the couple at least eight times. Angie even told Tiffany that she would adopt and take care of Mercedes full-time shortly after she found out she was pregnant. However, Tiffany refused to hear of it.

There were even multiple reports made to Child Services by other people who were living in the same motel where Mercedes and her family were currently residing. This motel was the Economy Inn in Plymouth, Indiana. In July of 2021, child services had actually sent the parents notices saying that the agency was going to be conducting an investigation due to alleged child abuse and neglect.

 But since legally child services had up to 40 days to complete this assessment, they would of course wait and they would end up waiting too long because just 28 days after that notice was issued, 11-month-old Mercedes would be reported as missing. It was on the morning of August 15th, 2021 that Kenny Lane called up the Plymouth, Indiana Police Department and reported that his daughter was missing.

 A silver alert was then issued and the search for Mercedes began. The FBI would even be brought in to assist in looking for the little girl. When Mercedes parents spoke with authorities, they informed them that they had dropped her off with a family relative two days earlier on August 13th.

 This was because, according to them, they were having a hard time with the little girl and needed a break from parenting. This relative whom the parents had entrusted Mercedes with was Kenny’s cousin, Justin Miller. Kenny and Tiffany had dropped her off with Justin after they initially called him to buy drugs, but he had then offered to watch the little girl.

 Justin was then supposed to drop her back off at the motel where her parents were living on August 15th. However, he never had. Thing is, starting the day before on August 14th, Mercedes parents had started texting Justin about their daughter, but they had received no response. It wasn’t until they tried to reach him the next day that Justin finally told them that he had left Mercedes with a neighbor because when he tried to drop her off, they weren’t home.

 It was then that they called the police. According to Justin, this person that he had just left Mercedes with had been someone who was inside Tiffany and Kenny’s hotel room. And while he’d seen this person before, he didn’t really know them. Then after the parents gave this information to detectives, they suddenly became uncooperative and neither Tiffany or Kenny would return police phone calls and they missed multiple interviews.

 Also, on the same day that the parents had called and reported Mercedes as missing, they had brought a duffel bag over to a neighbor’s house and asked them to watch it because they needed to report their daughter as missing. The duffel bag contained a safe that had illegal narcotics inside. When police were able to catch up to Justin and speak to him, he would tell them that on August 12th, Mercedes father, Kenny, had contacted him to purchase some synthetic marijuana.

 But the conversation had quickly turned into how the parents were having a difficult time with the 11-month-old. So, Justin told him he’d be willing to babysit while the parents took a little break. Justin then informed authorities that the day after her parents dropped her off on August 13th, he had taken Mercedes with him over his girlfriend’s house to watch her there. They had then spent the night.

Though oddly, Justin and Mercedes were sleeping on a futon in one room while his girlfriend was sleeping in a separate bedroom. To be fair, this also could have been because of the fact that Justin and his girlfriend were fighting as he said that she came into the living room where he was sleeping on the futon with Mercedes multiple times, waking the little girl up.

 Now, Justin, who had been smoking some synthetic marijuana at the time, became frustrated. He was angry that Mercedes kept waking up crying, so he smacked her with the back of his hand. He did this a few times, and a few of those times he had hit her so hard that it caused her head to hit the wall. But he had put her back to sleep after that.

 And the next morning, when Justin woke up on August 14th, he had gotten out of bed to roll another synthetic marijuana joint. And that’s when he had noticed Mercedes lifeless body. Upon realizing that the child was dead, Justin went to a neighbor’s house to borrow some money for gas. He then grabbed Mercedes body and drove to a remote wooded area of Stark County where he buried her.

 It was after that that Justin lied to Mercedes parents and told them that he had dropped her off with a neighbor. After giving this confession on August 18th, Justin would lead investigators to the area where he had buried the little girl’s body. It was near an intersection of County Road 125 East and 50 North.

 Her little body was found wrapped in a pink blanket. Then she’d been covered in leaves, dirt, and trash found in the area. An autopsy would later find that the cause of Mercedes death was blunt force injuries to her head. She also had extensive bruising, hemorrhaging on her brain, and cuts and swelling to her eye, cheek, mouth, and chin.

 Her death was ruled as a homicide. Inside of Justin’s car, detectives would find a number of items that had both his and Mercedes blood on them. Justin Miller would be arrested and charged with a neglect of a dependent. However, this would be upgraded to murder after Mercedes autopsy was officially complete. The girl’s parents, Kenny Lane and Tiffany Coburn, were also arrested and charged with the neglect of a dependent.

 These criminal charges also stemmed from the fact that the couple had been using drugs in the motel room where they lived with the Mercedes when the little girl and her sisters were present. Now, all three of these wonderful people had prior drug charges. Kenny and Tiffany involving methamphetamine and Justin involving synthetic marijuana.

Additionally, Mercedes father, Kenny, had quite the history of neglecting children. He had been convicted of just that back in 2016 and had served two years in prison. This had come after his daughter, Paige Hodgej, made multiple allegations against both her father and her biological mother, whose name was Mary Lane.

 Before Paige was even a teenager, she had been forced to drink alcohol on a regular basis from as young as eight. She said she was also forced to take drugs because her parents got a kick out of seeing her and her siblings messed up. Paige also recalled being punched in the face multiple times by Kenny and eventually being forced to have sex with adults.

 This began happening around the time that she was only 12 years old. At the end of that year, 2014, Paige had found out that she was pregnant. Then, when it was discovered that 20-year-old Angel Dilipaz was the father, an investigation was opened by police. Come to find out, in October of 2014, an arrangement had been made between the Lanes and Angel.

In exchange for letting him live there and continue his relationship with their 12-year-old daughter, he had set bills that he had to pay and set things that he had to give to Kenny and Mary, like drugs. At the time, Paige’s mother, Mary, also had a boyfriend named Cody living with them.

 Yes, she was married and had a boyfriend living there. According to Paige, she had told Cody, Kenny, and Mary about what was going on with Angel, but their response was that she was just going to continue doing it. Eventually, even though her parents had wanted her to have an abortion, Paige would give birth to a baby boy named Oakley.

 However, they would be separated at the time that he was born. As I said, Kenny was later convicted of neglect in regards to this. Mary as well. Kenny had gotten two years behind bars and Mary had gotten 18 months of probation. Angel Deipaz was given 2 years behind bars. But according to Paige, police finding out that the 12-year-old was pregnant by a 20-year-old was not enough to remove her and her siblings from the home.

 It took her parents failing a drug test given to them by DCS for them to remove her and her two sisters. Paige would be adopted by a new family when she was 16 and eventually reunited with her son. She now blames not only her parents for what happened to her and her sisters, but also child protective services.

 She said that multiple cases had been opened, but they had all been closed. There was even one time that her sister had gotten a vacuum thrown at her face. But time and time again, child services said they could do nothing because there was no bruises that they saw at least. So following all this, Paige had not contacted her biological father, Kenny, in years.

 Then when her halfsister, Mercedes, had gone missing, she called up the girl’s mother, Tiffany. However, Kenny had answered the phone, so Paige hung up. But her father called her back, and she knew that she’d have to talk to him if she wanted to get any answers. During the second phone call, Kenny told Paige about Justin watching Mercedes, saying that he had taken her to babysit her on August 12th.

 However, he was supposed to bring her back the following day for a birthday party. Now, Paige knew Justin Miller because she had grown up around him, and she said that she was surprised that he was involved with Mercedes death at all. Kenny then went on to tell Paige that he and Tiffany had tried to find Justin and Mercedes when he didn’t arrive back as scheduled.

 But when Paige started to ask more questions, Kenny changed the subject and asked her how she was doing. According to her, it did not seem like he cared much. Now, while Kenny and Tiffany were being held on their charges in relation to their daughter’s death, surprisingly, a judge would allow them out of jail to attend Mercedes funeral under police supervision, of course.

 Then in February of 2022, Mercedes mother, Tiffany Coburn, would plead guilty to her charge of neglect of a dependent, and she would receive the maximum sentence for it, 2 and a half years behind bars. Kenny Lane would also plead guilty to his exact same charge, and he would be given the same sentence as Tiffany.

 They were both given credit for their six months already served. Following that, Kenny would go to prison, but only for a short time because he would be released early. Don’t worry, he got himself back into trouble and he was once again in jail in October of 2023. This time he was one of four people that were arrested following a drug overdose that had happened at a Plymouth motel.

 He was also charged for possession of methamphetamine back in February of 2023. So, he did not serve much time at all. A month prior to Mercedes parents taking their plea deals, Justin Miller had also taken a plea deal on his charges. He too was sentenced to the maximum possible sentence, but his was for 65 years in prison.

 As part of the plea deal, he waved his right to appeal. With good behavior, however, Justin could be out of jail as early as 204. Therefore, Mercedes family is not very happy with what he received. Mercedes grandmother, Angie Owens, said that Justin took everything from the child whom he was supposed to care for. She continued by saying, “The rest of our lives are now hell, so why shouldn’t yours be Merced Lane’s funeral was held on August 27th, 2021 at the Knox United Methodist Church.

” Then about a year after her death on the evening of August 15th, 2022, a candlelight vigil was held honoring Mercedes Lane. Her family released balloons while saying, “Fly high, Sadie Bug. We miss you more than anything, and we love you to the moon and back.” Also in the little girl’s memory, a brick with her name was placed at Pinhook Park in South Bend.

Well, thank you for listening to Mercedes story today. I think one of the things that upsets me the most about this case is the fact that her father had previously gone to prison for neglecting a child, yet he could just go on and have other children still in his custody. other children who were also ignored when child services were called for help.