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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
This is just Morbid.
It just is. It is. It's just morbid.
Why did you say that?
I don't know. I was trying to think of something else to say and that's all that came up.
I was also trying to think of something to say in the intro, like, and this is.
And then I was just like, morbid.
Just going with it.
It's just morbid. Oh, no. I don't know.
We're tired. It's a gloomy day here.
Yeah, I had a yucky tummy yesterday.
It still feels yucky.
Which, what's up with everyone's GI issues suddenly?
Everyone's just dealing, we're living in a land of GI issues.
I mean, welcome to my actual life.
But I was going strong on my IBS journey for a minute there.
I was like living regular life and it was fine.
Sorry, my phone just rang.
I turned it off, I swear.
You would think five years into this I would have figured that out by now.
But here we are. It's just like, oh my gosh, where's the ding?
I don't know. No, yeah, your journey was going pretty solid there.
I know. I think I got like a little tummy bug.
I don't think it's my bus.
my ibs your ibs yeah everybody's got weird i was that um tiktoker beach gym my girl my girl our pediatric emergency room doctor who everybody should go follow because she's awesome fantastic amazing um world renowned i'm just gonna keep giving you tiktok recommendations you're good I find some good ones you absolutely do but um she was saying that it's like GI bugs this year are like everywhere and also like weird like there's like a million different ones it's not just straight up neurovirus now which like I don't like that shit yeah don't even say that things are like different like they're
all like little branches off of neurovirus yeah so I think think it's just like maybe i think the pandemic like everyone's immune systems got a little fuck during that yeah so i think we're just gonna see some weird viruses for a little while but hopefully it'll it'll settle down yeah i was just like run down and run into the banyo i was going girl i'm sorry for that i'm sorry for your ass now that you know all my my gi business my gi biz nasty if you know nasty do we have any biz nasty you do we do oh there's a couple of things we did a collab with red handed and it was so much fun they're so awesome
and their accents are the best like so soothing yeah guys hannah's name is not hannah it's hannah it's hannah and and i will fight anyone who calls her hannah hannah hannah and it's so fun to say it is hannah and saruti oh they're just really sweet and they're hilarious two of the kindest girlies i would do collabs with them all day every day up the wazoo you know but you just got one so don't worry we're not going to bombard you but it was a lot of it was a lot of fun we're glad we did it check it out because we did kind of like a handoff so there's one on their feed one on our feed and they're
really cool like old timey fun stories um but other than that go buy your pre -order of the paperback version of the butcher and the wren because you know why there is a sneak peek at the sequel and i read it and i said oh my motherfucking gosh that's what she said i did direct so you can get a little sneaky peeky at the sequel so you can know what's going to be what you're in for or if you're like me you're currently reading along as she writes but yeah go get your pre -orders you can go pre -order them anywhere they're on like like, you know, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, anywhere you want to check
it out. I don't think it is tiny URL .com slash a butcher in the rent anymore.
So it will be, I think at one, it'll be with the new book.
Oh, okay. But, uh, cause I'm excited.
Don't worry. We'll give you another one of those.
Yeah, please, please give me that.
But yeah, go do that.
It'll be great. And paperbacks are fun and you can just throw them in your bag or you can, you know, bend them around if you need to.
Love doing that. And then the spine gets all crazy and yeah, the spine gets all like, like cracks, like like your spine does when you go to like a chiropractor yeah that yeah that's what it is so go check that out oh i'm excited to see it yay yay books and reading and literature and literacy and literacy you're you're i was gonna say you're illiterate but it sounded like you're illiterate yeah and you're like you're like the most literate thank you yeah some would argue that but you know fuck them we don't listen to those they're not true so sorry i really had to readjust That's my cita.
You hear the squeaky squeaky?
So it's like secret.
What's that from? That's from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The later years.
I can do it now, too.
The later years. Do you guys remember that?
Don't worry. We're going to get into the case.
No, we're not. Sometimes we take it old school and we just need to like talk at you for a little while.
Yeah, just like get into it, you know?
And it's funny because there still is very divided camps on whether they want to hear us speak about being human beings or not.
um and that's funny to me but that does anyone remember the later years of sabrina the teenage witch i bet you you wish you didn't but no i thought they were good like later high school ones were good and like maybe the beginning of college but after that what do you mean i don't i'll watch it like hi i'm here i'll watch it it's not my favorite those last couple ones it's almost was like the last season of gilmore girls or the last couple of seasons of the office yeah you lost me there just whoop i'll watch it because i'm here i'm here for this ride but like i'm not enjoying myself i know i love
um i love roxy though in the later years yeah she's a great one i think it's when sabrina starts working at a newspaper that it gets that gets boring well she starts dating a guy that i'm very confused by to this day josh uh nope josh i understood it was this other random i don't remember his name i don't remember either that's how much he matters maybe i didn't see the last season yeah i think it's the one she's gonna marry until oh no no no okay yeah which like thank goodness the heart yeah i love that but you know what that was sabrina for today and now we're gonna talk about something not as
fun at all nope no not at all but um this is like like a pretty well -known true crime case um and i know you guys like to hear like some more current ones so i figured i'd hand this on over to you this is the amato family murders it's a really sad case and at the center of it is a man's named grant grant tiernan amato was born on may 20th 1989 in chuliota florida and if you look at that you would never think that it said chuliota but But guess what I did?
I went to pronouncednames .com and she told me how to say it.
And I said, thank you.
I love that. But anyway, Chuliota.
He was the youngest son of Chad and Margaret, a pharmacist and an operations manager, respectively.
I really love saying respectively after a sentence.
I don't know about you.
Respectively. Respectively.
Now, Margaret brought a son, Jason, to the marriage from her previous marriage.
marriage and actually Chad wouldn't end up uh adopting Jason down the road.
Oh okay. I thought it was really sweet.
Yeah. But then the couple went on to have Cody the middle son and then finally Grant the youngest son.
Okay. Now Margaret and Chad raised their family like I said in Chulio to Florida.
It's like a semi -small rural town in uh the seminal county of Florida.
It's about half hour outside of Orlando.
Okay. Which like I'm gonna be there soon and I'm like oh Ooh, spooky.
Not in Chuliotta, that is.
In Orlando. Orlando.
But by all accounts, the family dynamic was a good one.
Chad and Margaret both were able to maintain stable, really well -paying jobs.
They could provide a good life for their children.
And they could also pursue their own passions and their own hobbies outside of work.
And for Margaret, I just think this is so sweet, that hobby for her was her love of horses.
And she particularly loved this one horse named Lady.
Lady. Lady. Lady. What a cute name for a horse.
Right? Lady was actually a former racehorse that Margaret adopted in the late 2000s, and she'd been boarding Lady at the Miracle Lane Stables, not too far from their house.
Now, according to people that knew Margaret, her relationship with Lady, who was a rather stubborn horse, was really reflective of how she was so committed to the people that she loved, especially her husband and her children.
Yeah. She had an unwavering commitment to those people.
people cute now while their household was generally loving and supportive jason would later tell a jury that his father could be strict and had very high expectations for his children and this was occasionally a source of tension especially as the boys started entering their teenage years grant and cody though they were inseparable while growing up like they had a bond like no other they were really close in age there was just two years between them and they had a ton Unincommon. By the time they were in high school they went to um Timber Creek High if you're from the area.
They were doing almost everything together.
They were both on the school's weightlifting team in high school and even beyond high school they still maintained like a super close relationship.
After graduation they both enrolled in nursing programs at the University of Central Florida and once they finished those nursing programs they wanted to continue their their education so they each decided to study anesthesiology oh wow which like like all right you know and now according to grant their long -term plan included buying matching bmws and living in their parents house together after chad and margaret moved to a smaller retirement home in tennessee that they actually purchased a few years before their deaths so part of the plan was buying matching bmws yes okay no comment yep it's
giving stepbrothers yeah right like let's get matching bmws and live in mom and dad's house when they move to Tennessee and it's giving them Menendez brothers as well see I actually don't know a lot about that case yeah that's that's a that's an interesting one we'll cover that one eventually yeah that's a you case for sure it's giving Menendez brothers in like one respect not in both respects one of these people is fantastic the other not so much yes yes now while their commitment for each other went both ways Cody definitely was the more responsible of the two and usually got Grant out of a lot
of shit and would like clean up his messes solve his problems yeah you know because from the outside Grant seemed like he was you know successful and responsible and all that but things really took a turn in the mid 2000 I never know how to say that 2010s 2010s yeah there you go I don't know know it's weird. It's not like the 70s.
The 2010s because that was when Grant was kicked out of his graduate nursing program and instead found a nursing job with Advent Health, a large hospital system in central Florida.
Okay. It's sort of unclear why he was kicked out of the anesthesiology program at the University of Central Florida but that definitely is the event that marked the beginning of a very downward spiral that would eventually lead to murder awesome so on June 21st 2018 staff at Advent Health actually realized that eight bottles of propofol which is a powerful sedative that they usually give people before surgery sedative oh my god idiot why can't Ash talk I could let that go no you shouldn't have let that go because it just sounded so cute sedative sedative i'm reading maybe that is one way to say
it who knows um i hope not i never know i like sedative but yeah sedative that they give people before surgery they realized eight bottles had gone missing from the locked cabinet where they usually kept it now the empty bottles were found a short time later in two rooms that were being overseen by grant as far as anybody could tell the medication hadn't been ordered and security records showed that it was grant who checked the medication ah so when he was confronted about this whole thing he swore up and down no i wasn't stealing it to sell it because they probably thought that that's what was happening
there but instead he told them quote he administered the drug to patients who were not uh being adequately relaxed oh okay so all right slightly understandable but like you can't just like you can't do that for no reason and not tell anyone so the hospital had no proof of any wrongdoing but they also believed that this was not the first time propofol in particular had gone missing under Grant's watch. So he was fired immediately.
Yeah, I can kind of see that.
Now what made the entire ordeal worse was that during the confrontation over the missing medication, Grant made a ton of comments about relating to self -harm and suicidal ideation.
So they had to call the police and he was, he had to be taken into custody as like a protective measure.
Yeah. Now, at the time, Advent Health administrators seemed to be intent on pressing charges for the theft of the medication.
So now Grant was unemployed and he was waiting to hear whether he was going to face charges for grand larceny.
So he started spending a lot of time online because I guess that's what you do.
It's not great. It never leads to good things.
No, he wasn't on like ziprecruiter .com looking for a job.
Sponsor us. Because that was just a little drop there.
There you go. But he was frequently visiting porn sites and he really loved to use Twitch for watching lives and gaming.
So he's just gaming and doing stuff in his room.
Yeah, you know. He actually told his parents, though, not long after he was fired, that he really wanted to build a career for himself as a live streamer on Twitch. OK.
which, you know, I'm like, I'm sure you could probably make good money doing that at this point in time.
But I think back then that was a relatively new platform.
So that might've been a little worrisome to us.
I can see that. I'm sure like the YouTube thing in the beginning too, when somebody's like, when it first came out and people were like, I'm going to be a YouTube star, people were probably like, yeah, yeah.
Like that's never going to happen.
But now look, it really can.
So at the same time though, because they were, they were starting to get worried about Grant because at the same time, Chad and Margaret had been noticing large amounts of money missing from their bank accounts and multiple credit card charges from websites that they'd never heard of.
So when they confronted Grant about this missing money, he actually spilled the beans.
He admitted everything and said he had taken the money and he had used it to promote himself on Twitch. Okay.
Which wasn't necessarily true.
That's not great. No. Either Either way, that's not great.
Well, don't steal money.
That's the thing, like, you can't use people's money to do those things.
No, you got to use your own money.
Yeah. Now, or you could ask for a loan because that's also an option.
There you go. If you do want to use other people's money, you just ask first. Precisely.
Now, what Chad and Margaret didn't know, but they were about to find out, was that Grant hadn't taken the money to help build his career.
He really was spending it on private shows and conversations conversations with a cam girl named sylvia sylvie vencis lavova hopefully okay now grant had been spending a lot of time on sylvie's site in particular and her site operated by like users would buy tokens that they could use to pay for performances and her performances cost 90 tokens per minute oh which like damn some coin damn girl now tokens could also be used for tipping and like any kind of other transaction on the site i don't really know how it works but grant was probably sylvie's most generous customer and he would purchase 5
000 tokens a night for 600 and he was spending about four hours every single night on this website oh he was developing i was an addiction that's becoming a problem yeah and as his addiction to the website got worse and worse he started sending Sylvie quote clothes and sex toys which she would model for viewers but he's not spending like he's spending his parents money on these things to send to this that's the thing it's like this is not okay no it's one thing if you're sending it like with your own money like have at it yeah like do you whatever you're I don't care into but like you're taking
your parents yeah you can't take other people's money and do these things and also like Like you don't feel yucca -yucca about using your parents' money for this?
Yeah. Like. I would.
I would feel yucca -yucca about that.
Yeah, that's just me.
I don't know. I don't need.
That's just me. Yeah.
We don't have to go into it.
But anyways. I don't need.
I was like, I'm about to go into it.
And then I was like, you know what?
Never mind. You know.
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So over time, Grant's relationship with Sylvie came to include chat sessions, they were texting, and like other communications like the performances and stuff like that.
It did give the illusion of a personal relationship because that's the point.
But in reality, Sylvie was just promoting herself and obviously encouraging Grant to spend more money because that's her job.
Of course. Girls got to eat.
Yeah. On Grant's end of things, though, the constant contact and the emotional high was enough to convince him that he was deeply in love with Sylvie.
Oh, no. And for that reason, he kept stealing money in order to keep in close contact with her.
Oh, this is really stressful.
It's really sad. It's so sad.
That's the thing. It's like very stressful.
sad. Yeah. So the more money he had to spend, the closer he felt to her.
Now the illusion of a romantic connection between Grant and Sylvie was mostly fueled by the performances, the texts, the chats, like I was just saying, but it was also kind of fostered by this online community on the cam girl site because Grant wasn't only chatting with Sylvie, but he actually made friends on this site and he was catfishing all of these people, leading them to believe that he was this this super successful gamer guy who drove a BMW and owned this beautiful house when in reality none of that was true.
He did live in a beautiful house but it was his parents home.
Yeah exactly. In a letter he wrote to five or six friends about a month before his whole family was murdered he vented about his family calling them controlling and complaining that they quote did not understand how I could care for someone as much as I cared for Sylvie.
Oh, this really is sad.
It is. Now, by the fall of 2018, so remember this started in like the 2010s.
Now it's 2018. This has been going a while.
Grant had retreated even further into this fantasy world.
He was stealing more money from his parents.
Now he was stealing from his brother Cody to continue this relationship.
And when he wasn't able to get hands on their cash, he would steal their belongings.
belongings. Cody had some guns that Grant ended up stealing and selling for cash.
Oh, this is like very real addiction.
Oh, it's like very deep and very real addiction.
Super real. Yeah. And around the same time, he also managed to take out a sixty five thousand dollar loan using his parents house as collateral.
Holy shit. Isn't that bonkers?
What? Like there is this is so intense.
10th it's so deep rooted oh my goodness so the family finally reached their breaking point in late november at that point grant had stolen around 150 000 from his parents and 60 000 from cody his brother shit so they sat down and confronted him they were like we need to figure this out like this isn't okay and this is so unhinged that it's like that must have been really scary to sit him down and be like this can't happen because you're like what is he he gonna do it's gotten to a point where clearly he'll do anything something is yeah like he's got no boundaries yeah so i'd be scared yeah so when they
confronted him he admitted that no he wasn't just promoting himself on twitch he really was stealing money to send to sylvie the bulgarian model that he was in love with he said so the family tried to be supportive because they realized what this was he was struggling with addiction and with their support he actually started to to get serious about getting his life together and, you know, like, getting healthier.
Yeah. So things really started to improve in early December.
Advent Health actually dropped the charges against Grant for the stolen medication.
Wow. So now he wasn't facing those charges anymore.
That's lucky for him.
Really lucky. And he and Cody had been planning this trip for a long time to go to Japan.
They had planned it, like, before he lost his job.
And Cody was like, let's still go.
Like, let's still go on the trip.
We'll figure it out.
Wow. So they went on the trip together.
Wow, so he had, like, a very supportive unit around him.
Well, like, way more supportive than a lot of families would be.
Abso -fucking -lutely.
Like, he had... These people had his back and especially his brother.
And that's very rare.
Mm -hmm. But unfortunately, by the time they got back home, Grant seemed to be slipping into old habits.
Just days after they got back from their trip to Japan, Grant and his dad got into another argument about the stolen money and the fact that grant was saying he was gonna get a new job but not making any moves to do so because i think his dad was like dude like you just got home from this trip that you probably shouldn't have even gone on in the first place and now you're just like lounging around my house all day like yeah it's time to get a job it's time to start paying back the money because he's like 30 yeah come on like like get it together get it together yeah in in the regard of like look
for a job yeah like being adults exactly so grant would later say of his father quote with him it was every single day hours a day he'd come home from work and then he just talked to me about the same exact thing over and over and over and over again like yeah probably because they wanted you to better your life and as your father he's concerned and when you're making no move to better your life they're going to keep saying the same thing hoping that sometime it clicks right because you're just doing the same thing over and over and over and over they feel like they're banging in their heads against
a wall. They're all in the same boat, though.
Yeah. Now, a few days later, on December 19th, the tension caused yet another fight between Chad and Grant.
And this time, Grant stormed out of the house and didn't say where he was going.
Now, in the weeks leading up to this latest fight, the family had actually started going to family therapy together.
Oh, wow. And Grant was said to express during these meetings, quote, strong feelings of worthlessness.
and at one point he quote broke down emotionally and admitted to being severely depressed okay and he hadn't said anything about wanting to harm himself but because he was clearly in this like heightened emotional state when he left the house after the fight with his dad cody and margaret were really worried i see that especially when he still didn't come home the next day they were like i don't know like yeah i would have been feeling about this yeah they were like he's in a low place he left in the middle of a fight like we don't we're very worried and he's been very unpredictable he's very
much not himself very erratic exactly a lot of like very you know he's being very um impulsive yeah like for a while now so it's like i would be worried and we and we love him you know like that's the brother and their supportive family it sounds like they are so they decided the best course of action would be to file a missing persons report just to find out where he he was according to the missing person report cody and margaret told officers that grant had been in contact via text since they reported him missing and that he told them he was quote really tired of dealing with everything and he
is just going to handle it his own way which worried them even more yeah because given the stress that he'd been under and the fact that he had easy access to fire home firearms excuse me in the family home cody and margaret were at at this point quote 100 percent convinced that grant would try to harm himself no so the day after the missing persons report was filed the seminole county sheriff's office got a call from an officer in apopka i believe is how you say it florida uh saying that grant actually had been located luckily and when officers responded to the call about a suspicious car they
found that it was registered to grant amato so that's how they found him when they spoke to them he said He said he came to Apopka to visit family and then told them that he needed a break from his mom and he had no intentions of hurting himself.
He was like, you have nothing to worry about.
I just needed to get out of here for a while.
Yeah. So the interviewing officer asked the standard questions about safety and self -harm and was able to determine that Grant didn't need any kind of psych eval, like he was all right.
And it turned out, though, that after the fight with his father, Grant had gone to his Aunt Donna's home.
home and she would later tell police he showed up quote skinny and lost looking and that he slept all day since he arrived and she was worried about him now while she originally thought that he probably had come to her in a time of need he was really just scamming her yeah i could have seen that a few days after grant had shown up at the door donna noticed strange and unfamiliar charges just to her credit card in large large sums of money and this poor lady is just trying to just trying to be a good family member and she's an aunt by marriage too oh so she didn't even like she had no like you
know her obligations were pretty small here and she really took damn this guy sucks he really does like this is so mean it is it's due to people who care about you to fuck Fuck over your family like this.
Yeah. Like it's just like this lady is taking you into her home.
Like that's really shitty.
Exactly. Now knowing that the situation was getting touchier and touchier by the day, Donna decided that it would be better to speak with Cody, Grant's brother, than confront Grant head on.
Smart. So she called Cody and told him everything that had happened and he was so apologetic, so embarrassed, and also begged his aunt not to press charges and actually told her he He would pay back his aunt whatever Grant had charged.
Are you kidding me?
He was like, if you don't press charges, I will pay this back to you.
Please, we're trying to get him straight.
We're trying to make this work.
It's a precarious time.
It's a very precarious time.
Chad also begged his sister -in -law not to press charges.
And he actually broke down crying over the entire situation.
Oh, that kills me. And it was, quote, the first time Donna said she had heard him cry in the 27 years she knew him.
Oh my god that breaks my heart.
Just like so stressed.
Yeah. And he explained to her the full extent of Grant's problems and he confided in Donna that he and Margaret actually had to remortgage their home.
Oh my god. In order to cover the $150 ,000 that had been stolen from them.
them I can't imagine what this poor family was going through it must have just been hell and it was years of this yeah like just years and ups and downs like oh yeah exactly and it was like just when they thought he was getting better he goes and fucks over like it's one and I'm sure it's one thing for him to fuck them over like you're angry about that but then you're like oh my god you're you're my child and you're capable of doing this to you're taking it into the family family.
Exactly. And like the embarrassment and the shame and the shock.
Like, that's awful.
I can't imagine. Now, according to Donna, Chad told her, yeah, I'm going to have to work a 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.
Oh my God. Yeah. I don't even know what to say.
It was clear that the stress was taking a considerable toll on everybody, but especially Chad.
At that point, he had to take on a second job just to cover Grant's debts so that his son wouldn't go to jail.
That breaks my heart.
And I'm looking at pictures of this family and I'm just like, oh.
Right? And that's like love.
Like the love that he had for his son.
Like that's the thing.
It's like that's straight up just loving your kid unconditionally, just wanting to.
And I know they're like probably shielding a lot.
And it's like, but you just want to.
You want to shield them from any harm.
Even if they're the ones doing harm, you want to shield them.
I mean, we've even seen it.
it in our own family with certain people and I've seen it in other people's families like it's family so sad you know and he was the youngest too so I feel like that plays such a role like it's your it's actually your baby that's definitely part of it and that's the thing as far as everybody could tell the Amato family was going to incredible lengths and some people's opinions maybe even too far of course to shield Grant from the consequences of his actions but at the same time they were also trying to create and enforce boundaries surgeries but as we know it's impossible in a situation like this there's
no way of knowing how to deal with this kind of situation no because there's no right or wrong way there's no handbook on it and everybody reacts different in these kind of situations he's so incredibly addicted to this that it's like it could be any reaction under the sun that could happen and there's no way to predict it exactly you know like you might come at him nicely and that might piss him off right you might come at them aggressively and that's the thing that calms them down you have no idea it's just like raising kids like how you have to like treat each kid so differently tailor how
you react to each one exactly but so that they were going to these incredible lengths that create all these boundaries but stealing from the extended family from donna and troy amato was the last straw for margaret and chad yeah and on december or excuse me no don't excuse Excuse me.
I was saying the right thing.
But excuse her anyways.
Just excuse me. Just excuse me.
I don't know why that was funny.
But on December 22nd, the entire family surprised Grant with an intervention in Donna's driveway.
Among other things, they insisted that he take responsibility for the mistakes that he'd made, and they demanded him.
They were like, it's come to the point where you need to check yourself into rehab.
Yeah. Like, we've got to figure this out.
Absolutely. So he ultimately agreed to checking himself into a clinic in south florida and he was going to be uh addressing his addiction to sex and pornography okay so grant returned home from rehab on january 5th 2019 after less than two weeks of treatment and in addition to the more than two hundred thousand dollars at this point that he'd stolen from his parents and brother he racked up several more debts that he had no means of paying on top of the ten thousand dollars he paid so that the two could take the trip to japan cody agreed to cover eight thousand dollars in accrued attorney's fees
and the fifteen thousand dollar bill for the stay at the south florida rehab his brother sat there and took all of that on for him and when you oh i keep looking at the pictures and i'm like he does have like cody has such a kind face only well i mean he was a nurse.
And that's the thing, he's just a good person.
Absolutely a good person.
It rips my heart out.
Everything that he was willing to do to keep his brother who didn't give a shit.
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So, similarly, Chad, the father, had allowed the fraudulent $65 ,000 on the house to go through uncontested.
Oh, come on. so it wouldn't be reported because they figured this would give grant a clean slate to start over but there was going to be changes in expectations if that was going to be the case but at the same time it's like maybe if you would let some of this go through and he had gotten in real trouble like maybe that's sometimes that's what people need i'm not saying it would have stopped anything i'm just saying sometimes you gotta let some tough love yeah slip through there especially to a 30 year old it's like absolutely i think he needed that but i can but it's easy to say that from over
here if that's your own kid no fucking way totally you know what i mean but like looking at it from the outside you're like just let him get in trouble oh you know but like i've seen it in families where the person doing this or the person you know struggling with addiction is like 50 60 and their parents will still yeah anything oh yeah that's no matter what and so many families families have this happening in various forms and various degrees.
Like more families do have this going on than do not.
And that's so sad. It's so sad.
And you never think that as a parent that you're going to be, you know, 70 or like moving into retirement age and this is what you're going to be dealing with.
Cause that's the thing.
Like I had said, like they, they were preparing to retire in tennessee they bought a home that they wanted to retire in like and it's like you and then they had to take on a second job done your the hardest part of your job you know raise them exactly but oh but this is where it got even harder my heart so grant comes home from rehab early like did not get the treatment that he should have and the family decides that they're gonna have dinner at a california pizza kitchen which like great fucking decision i love california pizza i do too actually i haven't had that in a long time me either me
and drew used to go on dates there all the time when i worked in boston because there was one like right there fucking good wow but this one probably wasn't that great so the evening after he returned home they head over to california pizza kitchen probably thinking like a public place will be a better place to have this discussion and chad laid out a series of rules and expectations that he had written up for his son it was like a two page two pages on a yellow legal pad okay among other things grant was expected to uh get a job during the day how terrible i was just gonna say already fuck it
right discontinue his use of the internet past midnight which like okay you're in my fucking house well and it's a you have proven that you can't be trusted with it so we do have to give you a boundary and it's it's for your own good that's the thing he needed to um begin paying for his own cell phone bill this is such basic shit he needed to develop a plan to pay back the money he's stolen from his family members very rational go to regular therapy apologize and make right with the people he'd stolen from all great and most importantly he needed to sever his relationship quote -unquote with sylvie
immediately it's like all of that you can see what they're negotiating right that last one i'm sure was the the non -negotiable one totally yeah so the document it also highlighted the reasons for the new set of rules it stated that quote grant through his past transgressions has relied on knowledge the family would not report him and cover him yeah and it accused him of quote family relationship abuse beyond tolerance that's That's 100 % how to describe it to family relationship abuse because it is knowing that they will not do anything and using that to your own advantage.
Absolutely. And it hinted at the hurt that he'd caused the family around him.
Chad's document pointed out, quote, You chose a stranger physically nonexistent over your entire family.
That's the part that's like in the way that that that said is really hits you hard because it's true.
Yeah. I mean, it's like there's really no other way to describe that.
But it's so fucked because like to us, we're sitting here, we're like, it's a girl on a website.
But to him? But his mind was in such an altered state because of the addiction that he formed, you know?
Yeah. That's why it must be so wild like for them to be sitting there.
It's probably so frustrating for them because it's very clear and logical that statement.
Right. But to him, it's like Sylvie was his girlfriend.
yeah like as far as he's concerned you're severing a the most important relationship in his life exactly which it's like that's why that's why therapists and psychiatrists and mental health facilities exist because they know how to deal with that kind of thinking right like normal people are not supposed to like everyday people i mean like your family right are not supposed to know how to deal with like i don't know how to deal with that no thinking and that's why i think honestly that's why they were going to family therapy exactly because they were even making the effort to try to understand exactly
and that's what like therapy is for it's like you really but he needed some intensive therapy i feel like this family is like the like the poster children of like what you should do you know because it seems like they were doing everything they could like they were trying to keep him out of trouble so that they could handle it as a family they were going to therapy they sent him to rehab they paid for the rehab they laid out what he needed to do and then laid out why he needed to do it when they had no need to do that no it was pretty clear why he needed to do all those things but they took the extra step
to be like this is why we are asking this of you that's huge and i feel like and that even shows like all the work that they did with behavioral specialists because i was gonna say that does seem like very much a tool that you would get through like you know therapy or treatment exactly it's like you need to explain why you are requiring these things of this person it's like a small child like a form of respect I'm asking you to do this you should know why right you know and it's like kids it's like yeah when you're teaching them like you can't do this because this will happen this is the reason I'm
not just asking you to do this right now but it would be it was made clear to Grant during the meeting that if he broke any of the rules or any of those expectations he would be kicked out of the house immediately like this was this was the final we've reached the end game here exactly so he agreed to the terms during the meeting but it's pretty unlikely that he ever had any intention of following through yeah with that promise to change his behavior in a letter sent to his friends from the cam girl website he referred to his father as controlling and abusive and claimed that his mother was quote simply
around for security oh god which i'm like you don't know what you're talking about like ridiculous and the letter also Also hinted at desperation and discouragement that he felt over the ultimatum.
He told his friends, I hate myself for what I did and I hate the thought of never getting to be with her again, meaning Sylvie.
After everything that I gave and everything that I tried to do with her, I just can't comprehend being without her.
Seeing her be able to be so happy without me in her life is something I hope you guys never have to live through.
Wow, this is so deep.
It's so deep. It really is.
Oof. So it's unknown whether the letter raised any red flags in Grant's online porn community, but if it did, nobody took the alarming tone or the obvious desperation seriously enough to contact anybody.
Which happens a lot.
Of course, yeah. That's why online is just not safe.
No, it's really not.
But at the same time, nobody ever could have expected that his frustration would manifest into what it did a very short time later.
just after nine o 'clock on the morning of january 25th the seminole county sheriff's office got a call from craig cisco uh an administrator actually at advent health he was one of the multiple employees who were really concerned after cody had failed to show up for work that morning because remember they worked together before grant got fired cody also wasn't responding to any of the calls placed to him by co -workers it was entirely unlike him and according to cisco cody quote had never missed a day of work oh no now because it was so out of character his co -workers were requesting a well -being
check so the deputies arrived at the amato house on sultan circle just shortly after taking the call and they found cody's car parked in the driveway as well as chad and margaret's cars parked in the garage they continuously knocked on the door but nobody was coming to answer.
So when their knocks on the door failed to get anybody's attention, officers called the cell phones of the three people inside, believed to be home, and actually even blasted air horns in an attempt to get their attention.
Yeah. But nothing. So as far as they could tell, the windows and the doors were locked.
So one deputy ended up having to use a knife to disengage the deadbolt on the back door, and the officers went into the home to conduct the wellness check now when you can't get in like that you must i wonder what those like investigators were thinking because when you can't get in like that you have to be like we are not we're coming into something good exactly you know and they were not as soon as they walked in the house deputies immediately discovered the body of chad amato this is really brutal just so you guys know the discovery of these bodies is rough okay he was lying on his back in the kitchen it
was clear that there was no signs of life.
He'd been shot twice in the head and it was lying in a large pool of his own blood.
There was actually a holster around his waist when he was discovered with a handgun tucked inside but it didn't look like he tried to retrieve it before he was shot.
Oh man. So they moved throughout the house and they found Cody's body next.
This is horrible. He was curled into a fetal position in the storage room off of the garage and he had been shot in the face.
and was covered in blood he was still wearing his nursing scrubs indicating that he just got back from work oh my god and like his father a handgun was discovered on the floor just a few feet from his body oh then the officers found margaret last she was lying face down at her computer in the family's office she had been shot in the back of the head and there was blood covering her entire face so to the responding officers the house seemed neat and orderly other than what they had just found in there were a lot of valuable items easily visible throughout the house but nothing seemed to be missing
so they were pretty much able to rule robbery out right off the bat and investigators obviously suspected that the motivation was execution because the evidence at the scene pretty much showed that yeah so crime scene technicians noted that cody had barely made it into the garage when he'd been shot, meaning that the killer did not hesitate to pull the trigger as soon as he got the opportunity to.
And evidence - That's chilling.
It's so chilling. Evidence collected from the kitchen seemed to indicate that Chad had been shot while standing, but the second shot was delivered, quote, execution style while he was on the kitchen floor near the center island.
And Margaret had been taken out similarly because she was also shot in the back of the head, execution style so the picture to investigators was becoming clear whoever killed this family had come to the house with that exact purpose and no other purpose yeah whatsoever so the deputies had been dispatched to the home actually less than a month earlier so they knew that there was another occupant of this house but when they arrived he that person wasn't home grant Grant, and neither was his car.
So a BOLO alert, be on the lookout, was immediately issued for Grant, even though at the time it was unclear whether he was a suspect, a victim, or neither.
And investigators also started pulling toll records for his toll transponder, which showed him driving eastbound in the morning, then westbound in the afternoon.
But other than that, they were unable to locate him.
So you know what's going on.
Mm -hmm. So his absence in the house became even more suspicious when the investigators spoke to Cody's girlfriend, Sloan.
She told them all about the issues that had been going on between Grant and the rest of the family.
And according to Sloan, Cody had become concerned about Grant's unstable behavior in the weeks leading up to the murders.
Okay. She said he, quote, was afraid that Grant would kill everyone.
Like he was literally worried about it.
That that was even a thought.
I think because he was getting more and more unhinged as, like, the days and weeks went on.
Wow. Yeah. Can you imagine having that be an actual fear of yours?
Absolutely not. About your own flesh and blood?
Like, being like, I am legitimately scared that they are going to kill everyone in this family.
I can't even imagine.
Like, I can't even imagine.
It must have gotten to such a point.
And she also told the officers that she had been at work with Cody on January 24th, the day before the family was discovered.
he got a call from his father a little after nine and his chad said to cody like you need to come home like something's wrong yeah and when sloan asked cody what was going on all he said was stupid fucking bullshit and then he left work he's probably so sick of it so absolutely you know like it was probably just like daily oh it had you know so he's probably like jesus and when you're not the one creating all the issues and you're like yanked into it every time exactly i can't imagine and he must have just been so frustrated but a half hour after that she texted Cody to check in and she was like
hey like is everything okay and he said all okay you didn't need to worry which like so sad oh and that was the last time they spoke so when he didn't show up for work the next morning that was when she and Chris Sisco got concerned and requested the well -being check oh man so while a team of officers interviewed friends and associates of the Amato's detective Detective James Galena and Lilium Agrinsoni, I believe, spoke with Jason Amato and let him know, and that's the oldest brother, let him know that, quote, three unidentified bodies had been discovered in his home, or in the Amato home he
didn't live there. So Jason explained to the investigators that while he was Cody's emergency contact on most forms, he really didn't speak much with their family or engage with them very much. he said the only person that he talked to regularly was his mother and they spoke every week okay he confirmed what sloan had told police about grant's theft and destructive behavior he knew all about that and when they asked whether he could think of anybody who might want to harm the family jason told them about grant's relationship with sylvie and he mentioned you know grant gets mail from her sometimes
so she has our address like or she has their address yeah so that became like oh out like another layer to their story like oh is it her like are they together like yeah they have to think of all these things so the next morning grant's car was located by the orange county sheriff's deputies in the parking lot of a double tree hotel in orlando according to hotel staff he had checked in the day before which was january 25th he checked in just after 2 30 in the afternoon and he only registered himself for one day he was scheduled to check out the next afternoon so So quick, quick, quick.
Yeah. Now, as officers were speaking with the front desk staff, he actually came out of his room and was confronted by the deputies.
Wow. Crazy. Wow. So he eventually agreed to return to the sheriff's office for a formal interview.
Wow. Bonkers. I mean, they would have got him anyway, but the fact that he just came out of his room, crazy.
Yeah. During their interview, he confirmed that he had met Sylvie six months earlier.
year and since then he'd been talking to her regularly and sending her tons and tons of money he told detectives that he initially agreed to the ultimatum that he got from his dad when he had gotten back from rehab but then he felt that the rules were very unfair quote because he believed sylvie was his girlfriend and they had a relationship it's like very unfair yeah you know what i think is unfair the fact that your parents had to remortgage their home yeah because you stole that much money from them.
I'd say that's pretty unfair.
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Now, according to Grant, his dad found out that he was still speaking with Sylvie, and on the evening of the 24th, they got into an explosive fight over the relationship.
relationship grant said his dad grabbed him by the shirt and demanded that he get out of the house so he was able to scoop up some of his belongings and then he said he got out of there he said he was driving down the street and he met cody and cody told him like oh i'll go straighten things out with mom and dad and like come back later like i'll figure it out for you but he said that was the last time he saw or spoke to any of his family members so the detectives were like okay okay yeah like cool cool cool like one problem with your story though Cody was working that night so you didn't run into
each other. Oof. Yeah.
Didn't think of that did you?
Like you didn't run into each other by chance on the side of the road like you claimed.
No. So Grant was like oh sorry I was lying.
Oh yeah oops. But I'm gonna thank you for reminding me that I was lying.
I'm gonna tell you the truth.
Yeah like I'm sorry about that.
I actually didn't leave home right away.
I waited for Cody to get back home you know like my dad just let that happen after after we got in this explosive fight oh yeah and then he got home and i told him everything and that's when he said he would talk to our parents and i left and no of course i haven't been back yet no and he said he's like how i got that wrong my bad sorry it was like he was at home it was the side of the road yeah the same it's crazy yeah he told them it was around midnight that he left and that he spent the night in his car in the parking lot of a public's grocery store so he then told them that he had every intention to
return home the next morning and he actually started heading that way and he got to his neighborhood but at the last second he changed his mind and he decided you know what i'm not ready to go back home yet but he did get to the neighborhood so the detectives were like oh like did you see anything unordinary or like out of the ordinary like the morning because that that could have been when it happened like did you you see anything crazy yeah and he was like no nothing sus at all but of course the detectives knew that um had he actually returned to the neighborhood that morning he would have seen
several police cruisers and news vans parked outside of the house which um would certainly qualify as out of the ordinary or at the very least memorable to me i was just gonna say i think that would be something that i would mention like hey there was this crazy thing yeah that i saw so they pushed back with that they were like that's weird that you didn't see all the news vans and like the police like presence that's wild that you didn't see that and he was like oh i'm so sorry i just keep lying like i'm gonna tell you the truth again though sorry about that i did see those cop cars and the news
vans and that's why i left oh okay he's like thank you for reminding me of that as well i totally forgot that i saw those but i did yeah and then i was like i did so the detectives were like you saw all that like most innocent people stumbling upon a scene like that on their front lawn would want to make sure everyone in their house was safe and unhurt like you didn't yeah and grant was just like i don't know i don't know what to say he's like you know what i don't have an answer for that he just told them once he left the area he went to a local fast food restaurant to use their wi -fi and when he
did he checked a local news site and that's how he learned there was a shooting in his neighborhood wow a shooting okay and when asked again why he didn't feel compelled to check on the family he told the officers i just didn't want to know.
Wow. Like you're, you're something.
You are the worst liar I have ever heard in my entire life.
Truly. Yeah. So he was interviewed like this for hours and hours and hours by the Seminole County Sheriff's detectives.
And throughout most of their interview, all, wow, I just got really I was just going to say, damn, you got real bossy.
That was wild. Yeah.
All Grant did was make himself look more suspicious.
And after more than three hours of the conversation, Grant still still hadn't asked detectives what had happened to his family are you kidding me three hours and they're like they're like yeah do you have any curiosity heavy police presence shooting like you want to know what happened no and he still didn't seem too alarmed by the situation at all wow okay so detective um altari was getting more and more convinced that this is their guy clearly yeah and he was really hoping to get a confession though because of course that's what you need Yeah.
So she placed, or sorry, I had said he earlier, she placed multiple crime scene photos of Cody's body in front of Grant and directly asked, quote, did you leave the house with your brother Cody looking like that?
Holy shit. And Grant covered his face, but gave no response.
So Multari then produced crime scenes of Chad and Margaret and said, or did you leave the house with your father looking like that?
Or your mother? Holy shit.
Is that how you left your family?
Damn. And Grant glanced at the photos before covering his face again.
saying no i didn't do any of this wow like looked back at them and was like no initially he suggested it could have been a murder suicide and he tried to blame cody are you kidding me the person that was there for him through everything oh that pisses me off through wrestling in some type of way through work through their trip to japan through the fucking craziness with aunt donna there through rehab through all of it the best brother you could literally ever ask for or even dream up to be quite honest must have been cody and then he must have just turned the gun on himself oh my god what an actual
piece of human fucking shit like that's where i'm like fuck yeah like this like obviously you're a fucking murderer like go fuck yourself exactly and you had to twist it at the end there you really had to do that and it's like dude cody was found in the fetal position barely in the house and evidence that doesn't even make sense evidence showed you didn't even hesitate before you shot your brother in the face what a piece of your own flesh and blood what a piece of shit shot him in the face like wow you're disgusting truly because it's one thing to steal money from people when you're going through
addiction like that's not okay but i understand you're suffering it's a very different thing to shoot people in the face yeah i would say so that's holy on another level yeah piece of shit so the detectives were like yeah no like straight up monster no that doesn't work like that so then he admitted you know i know i have all the motives i have all the means to carry out this murder but i didn't do it like i know it looks that way but i didn't do it so the detectives were like if it's not you then who would have done this and he said that it's not you too right he said i don't know i've been getting
blamed for the last half a year for everything and I've been trying to move forward in a positive direction and then every day I'm reminded of all the trouble I caused and then I keep being told the same thing over and over again that there's nothing I can do to change it is how old is he again like 30 like in his 30s okay so he's not six no okay no he's checking he's not because like really really like every day I keep hearing the same stuff because I steal money from them It's like, what the?
It's like, yeah, okay, cool.
People are pissed. Now you're talking about your dead family, by the way.
And blaming it on your brother who did everything for you.
The fact that he was so willing to turn around and be like, probably Cody.
It's so crazy to me.
Holy shit, dude. You are, like, bottom of the barrel, piece of shit.
Legit. Like, you couldn't even say some stranger came in there.
You blamed Cody? Right.
What the fuck? Like, that is fucked.
What a coward. word on another level but at the same time detectives felt like they were super close to getting a confession because they're poking they're oh yeah and they're like we're gonna get there so what they did was they ended up contacting his older brother jason and they were like why don't we get the two of you in a room together and you confront him i know so jason goes in the room and immediately asked grant whether he had anything to do with it and grant said no i have nothing to do with it and grant told him i want or excuse me jason told him i want to believe you Grant, but you're
the last person I could put in that house, and I know what happened over the last six months.
I can understand that trouble that you've been going through, but it's hard for me to think you would break to this point.
Yeah. So they had a 15 -minute conversation as detectives watched, and they could tell it was clear that Jason didn't believe Grant's denial either.
No. And it became particularly evident when he wondered out loud what would have happened had Had he been in the house at the time of the murders?
He said, I may not have been able to stop you.
You probably may have hurt me too, but at least I would have known what happened.
Oh. And he kept going, just trying to get Grant to confess.
He said they didn't deserve it.
No matter what feelings were felt by anybody, they were good people.
Yeah. And just when they thought Grant was going to budge, he said, I know.
And they showed it by protecting me.
Wow. It's like, so now you were home?
Wow. And they protected you and you're the sole survivor?
Like, what the fuck?
What? And it's like, is he talking about that or is he talking about protected him throughout this whole ordeal?
I don't even know. Either way, it's like, wow, you're a fucking monster that you're acknowledging that?
Right. Like, wow. Exactly.
Holy shit. So while all of that was going on down at the sheriff's office, crime scene technicians began a thorough search of the house, Grant's car and the hotel room that he'd been staying at uh in Orlando at the Doubletree now in the search of his car crime scene analyst Eric Brothers found a handwritten letter that detailed all the issues that had been going on in the family for the last six months and it included a quote saying I said I'd take care of all your problems at the house and I have no one will bother you again regarding this just please come home what the hell was that so back
Back in the interview room, like detectives heard about this and they asked Grant about the letter.
Okay. And he said he was the one that had written it.
He was like, yeah, like that's mine.
And the quote was something Cody said to him the night that he was kicked out of the house.
And they were like, why would you write a letter in first person as Cody?
And he said he was just trying to document their conversation.
But like if I was just trying to document that conversation, I'd be like.
And then Elena said, da -da -da -da -da.
No. That doesn't make any sense.
That doesn't make sense.
So meanwhile, analysts combing through the evidence at the Doubletree found several credit cards.
After he murdered his family, he stole their credit cards.
They found multiple belonging to Cody and Chad.
That checks a lot. And a later search of the Amato house would turn up even more credit cards and also images showing the credit card information that Grant had stolen from his aunt and uncle.
Based on the, quote, totality of the investigation, an arrest warrant was issued and Grant was officially taken into custody.
He was charged with three counts of first -degree premeditated murder for the deaths of Cody, Chad, and Margaret.
Wow. So, on March 27th, 2019, there was a Bond hearing to determine whether he should be eligible for Bond, which is wild.
Yeah. His lawyer, Jeff Doughty, argued that there was no physical evidence tying Grant to the murders.
because he lives in the house i was gonna say of course yeah and he should be allowed bond in order to prepare for the trial but during the hearing the prosecutor played the 16 minute conversation between jason and grant during his initial interview and that was followed up by testimony from jason who was able to detail all the issues that had been going on in the home and in his closing arguments the prosecutor stewart stone said everything points to the defendant in this case and no one else no one else had any issues or problems with the victims and even though there was a lack of forensic
evidence linking grant to the crime scene but that's because he lived there like it's hard to it's like there's a lack of forensic evidence linking anyone to the crime scene exactly that's the problem here exactly yeah but because or excuse me even though there was that the judge actually denied the request for bond oh okay and And Grant was returned back to his cell.
Bye, bitch. Bye. But the issue of Bond was revisited again in late April.
And the defense attorney pointed again to the lack of forensic evidence, blah, blah, blah.
And the judge actually ended up siding with him because still at this point, there was a lack of proof coming from the prosecution side.
So he granted a $750 ,000 bail.
Damn. Which Grant would need to pay 10 % of.
Yeah, he's not going to.
No. And it came, of course, with additional requirements.
Grant, if he was to be out on bond, would have to wear a GPS ankle monitor, avoid contact with any witnesses in the case and avoid the Internet altogether, which we all know would not have happened.
So even though he was in jail and strictly forbidden from using the Internet, meaning he had no way of keeping in contact with Sylvie, he was committed to his belief that she was in fact his girlfriend.
friend in a handwritten letter to the girlfriend of his cellmate grant explained that he and his cellmate had bonded over their shared interests and work histories he said to the woman i know the pain of being separated from the woman you love my god you've always been separated from the woman you love literally always and then he went on to tell her that he and sylvie had plans behind us.
Bebe, you murdered your entire family and even if you're still claiming innocence that you didn't, your entire family was murdered.
Thank you. That's, that was going to be my next thing.
It's like, even if you're going to keep claiming that you had nothing to do with this, that's not something you're going to put behind you.
You're not sad at all that your whole family was brutally slain in their house.
In the house that you plan to live in with your brother that was curled up in the fetal position in the garage or in the storage room next to the garage.
None bothering you at all i know he's just gonna go on a cruise with sylvia cool very also like did sylvie know that yeah did sylvie know that you guys were going on a cruise because i don't think so that's what does sylvie know she knew that he became obsessed with her and she was just like it wasn't that for me it was work yeah like there was no relationship no he was just under the impression i think she must have been terrified yeah so it's honestly unclear uh why grant was was writing long, detailed letters to his cellmate's girlfriend.
Yeah, I was going to ask that next.
Yeah, I don't really know.
But most of his other correspondence made sense under the circumstances.
He was clearly unable to come up with the $75 ,000 bond, so he tried to access the payout from his parents' life insurance policies.
Fuck that. Are you kidding me?
But, you know, he was informed that his indictment for their murder happened to make him ineligible for that money.
So, like, there's this little thing standing in your way.
Tiny rule of like, if you're the one on trial for the murder, you actually don't get the money.
You actually don't get that.
It's crazy. I know, it's wild.
Sorry. Very unfair.
Sorry about that. Speaking of unfair.
Yeah. Yeah. You know all about that, Grant.
For sure. But anyway, the conditions of his bail made it so that he couldn't use any funds from his parents' estate anyway to make bond.
So instead, he began reaching out to news outlets, offering, quote, to trade exclusive interviews to reporters in exchange for getting money to bond out of jail.
Wow. So he's like, yeah, yeah, I'll talk to you about my life.
Yeah, it's totally fine.
So I can get out of here.
And an email to a reporter in New York, he complained about his inability to come up with the money saying, it seems to be my half brother's mission to make my life that much harder by not believing me, communicating me or even helping me even after I was blessed with a very high bond.
Wow. Like you think it's fucking Jason's responsibility to bond you out of here?
you murdered his mother, his adoptive father, and his half -brother.
He's so delusional.
He is. His other message to journalists were very similar in tone, and they usually contained a list of repetitive complaints about everything from his experiences in jail.
He would write about his interest in Japanese culture, and then he would start complaining again about the lack of support outside of jail and his, quote unquote, elitist neighbors back home.
He called them elitist. elitist what i'm like i don't think they're judging you because like you don't have money yeah i don't think they're judging you because um you murdered your whole family and you murdered their neighbor yeah so i think that's that's part of the judgment i don't think it's elitist no i wouldn't say it was now despite his quote -unquote efforts grant was never able to come up with the money and he remained in jail awaiting trial but as he was trying his hardest the seminole county investigators continued collecting and analyzing a seemingly endless amount of evidence actually
coming from the car and from the house the more prominent evidence included hundreds and hundreds of images and screenshots of sylvie there were text conversations between the two and there were screenshots of the bank transactions showing proof of his countless purchases of those tokens that he could use on the cam girl website so his trial for the murder murder of his parents and his brother finally began on july 15th in the seminole county circuit court stewart stone was arguing for the prosecution and again jeff dowdy was leading the grant leading grant's defense team so in his opening statement
stone laid out the prosecution's theory that grant had been faced with the ultimatum of giving up his fantasy relationship with sylvie or losing the support of his family so he chose to continue that relationship with sylvie and also chose to murder his parents and brother awesome Awesome.
Thinking that with them out of the way, he would be free to continue on in his relationship and live off of their money.
Yep. Now, the prosecution pointed to the fact that just a few hours after killing his family, Grant logged on to the Wi -Fi at Publix and tried to connect with Sylvie.
My God. A few hours.
This is so beyond obsession.
Yeah. I can't imagine.
Wow. Wow. So the prosecution told the jury, quote, his parents and brother's bodies aren't even cold and he's already reestablishing or trying to reestablish contact with Sylvie.
Yep. He was just waiting for her to say, I love you, too.
Come to Bulgaria. Come see me.
But that didn't happen.
Oh, my God. Because this is her job.
It's not. She's not in love with you.
She's not in love with.
That's the thing. No. Like, this is literally her job.
Right. That's it. So throughout the trial, it went on for two weeks.
The jury was presented with the by then well -known story of Grant's full blown obsession with Sylvie, his theft of more than at that point $200 ,000 from his family, and the incredibly tense relationship that had developed between him and specifically his father as a result.
but the more damning evidence actually came from the uh murder weapon it was in i hope i got this right iwi jericho 941 pistol that belonged to his best friend blake turpin so turpin was called to testify and he told the jury that he realized his gun was missing from his home about a month or two earlier and remembered leaving Grant in his bedroom where the gun was kept quote for about 10 minutes two weeks prior to the killings oh damn so he not only stole a shit ton of money from his family stole their belongings but he stole from his best friend to kill his family I was gonna say and then use
that thing to murder his entire family so that it would be traced back to his best friend wild and was willing to say that it was Cody who did everything yep like he You will throw anybody under the bus.
Anybody. So on July 31st, 2019, after more than eight hours of deliberation, which I truly can't even believe it took that long, the jury unanimously delivered a guilty verdict.
Good. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Bye. In all three charges of first degree premeditated murder.
Yep. And the penalty phase of the trial took place on August 12th.
And it was particularly important because actually Grant was potentially facing the death penalty for these murders.
Oh, damn. But during that part of the trial, Jason Amato testified and told the judge, It's so hard to go through the grieving process when there are multiple losses and uncertainty in the future.
I can't fathom that.
Through all this, though, I'm a proud Amato, and I will rise up smarter and stronger than before.
And ultimately, the judge sentenced Grant Amato to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bye, Grant. The end.
Bye, Grant. circumstance fucking holy wild wow i am like without words but that's it wild i didn't know that story i can't believe i've never heard that story i actually i have to tell you and i have to give credit where credit is due i actually learned of this case from bailey sarian oh shit it was one of the first videos i ever watched of hers oh i love that yeah like years ago oh that's crazy oh i love bailey i love bailey so much sweetest human like truly so if If you want any more information on this case, I would definitely suggest going to Bailey's channel and watching that.
Oh, man. You know what it is?
It's the name sounded familiar.
Yeah. But I did not know this.
Yeah. I did not know this.
And crazy that it really wasn't that long ago.
So sad. I know. It's such a sad case.
Like that at the end, you're like, bye Grant.
See you later. But then you're like, fuck.
Oh, but like everyone is gone.
I feel so bad for Jason.
and like having like what he said going through the grieving process with this as part of it you can't even you're grieving your entire family and grieving the loss of your brother to your remaining brother who did all of this of course it's so upsetting and i can't imagine i would just never trust anybody ever again no honestly you shouldn't no i mean i don't anyways but wow what a story sad well told thank you um shout out to dave for helping me with the research David.
The most beautiful, beautiful being.
A majestic unicorn.
Him. So yeah, guys, we thank you for listening, and we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that any of this.
Yeah. None of it. Not even one part of it.
Except shop the Publix, because I heard it's a great grocery store.
Definitely do that.
All right. Love you.
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Hey, weirdos. You know Ash and I have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong.
Oh yeah, there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that.
Well, get ready for a love story that's gonna blow your minds, because this one is happening right now and get this it's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed.
Meet Travis he falls head over heels for Lily Rose she's gorgeous she's understanding and she's literally perfect and she's not human.
That's right Lily Rose is an AI companion a computer program designed to be Travis's dream woman and at first it seems like a perfect relationship but when Lily Rose's behavior starts getting strange this love story takes a dark and twisted to turn that no one saw coming.
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