Grant Amato ////// 370 | Forensic Files

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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] we have all heard the cautionary tales
to parents in this Internet age don't let your kids spend too much time online know who your kids are talking to
online be sure your kids don't give out any personal information make sure your kids
aren't engaging in inappropriate behavior with people online and explain to your children and help them to
understand the difference between virtual relationships and real human connections but what happens when your
child is an adult what happens when these cautionary tales are applied to a grown man who spends too much time
online who is talking online with a stranger who does not have his best interest at heart then one day the
online stranger once more this virtual friend request just a little personal information and how about some private
information and the two are exchanging inappropriate materials adult internet voiding has become its own form of
addiction as several websites stream live amateur and professional webcam girls guys and couples generally showing
new performances and sexual acts this is also established a new line of sex work
accessible to anyone with a computer so what happens when someone confuses a virtual relationship for a real
relationship and then it grows into an obsession an obsession he would kill for this is true crime garage
[Music] Grint Amato was the youngest of three sons sons of Margaret and Chan Amato he
and his brother Cody still lived at home with their parents but their older brother Jason had moved into his own
place Jason was still close with his family and spoke with his mother about once a
week where our story really takes off is when these three brothers are all grown
adults to still living at home with mom and dad but let's back up for just a minute Margaret and Chad provided a nice
life for their three boys they lived in an expansive home and had all the trappings of affluence cars videogames
and horses yes Margaret was a horse person as everyone knows the garage loves horse people yes Centaurus she
adopted and rehabilitated a retired racehorse named lady and even after lady died she still went to the stables daily
to work with other horses Margaret worked as a client operations manager at a health care company
Chad Amato was a clinical pharmacist who worked for CBS and who also had a second
job he was a self-professed computer guru one of his co-workers said that chad was very proud of his sons but
there are rumors in this case and some references to it by two people close to the case did Chad Amato the father was a
quite difficult man yeah most computer people are a sidenote Jason the oldest of the three boys was
not Chad's biological son he adopted him when he married Margaret this was way back when Jason was just three years old
it doesn't seem that Jason was as close to his brothers as they were to each other according to Jason they were known
as the football family because they went to every Florida Gators home game together but Jason no longer lived at
home and he had moved on with his own life so the true brothers not the half-brothers grant and Cody they seemed
to be separable Kody is just one year older than grant and they did everything together they were on the weightlifting
team together at Timber Creek High School and planned on buying matching BMWs and living in the family home well
after their parents retired to their other house which was located in Tennessee one of their favorite
activities involved shooting airsoft rifles and real guns as well and you can see on grant Amato's Facebook profile
picture that he is trying to look like a militant badass with a big rifle Cody and grant were on a competitive airsoft
team called remedy the brothers even went on to enroll in nursing school together this after grant graduated from
the University of Central Florida even early on it seems that Cody was somewhat of a caretaker for grant he had it all
together while grant was more scattered and June of 2018 grant was caught stealing medication from his job at
Advent health which is located in Orlando Florida do we do we know what kind of medication he stole I'm gonna
get into that right now the hospital staff noticed eight empty vials of propofol in two rooms where grant was
working he had taken vials they were worth together a combined amount of 2067 dollars these were taken from a storage
machine that required a thumbprint to access the machine he was captured on surveillance video which was reviewed by
the hospital after the propofol was discovered missing he was seen accessing the machine and putting the vials in his
pocket this amounted to grand theft hospital officials confronted Grant who told them according to the police report
that quote he had administered the drugs to patients who were not being adequately relaxed by doctor ordered
medicine in other words he thought patients needed more drugs than what they were being given so
wasn't stealing the drugs for himself to use but to use on patients that's his statement that's his story
and he's sticking to it we don't over for certain administrators believe that this was not the first incident of this
kind that he probably had stolen these items before while being questioned a couple days after he was caught stealing
grant apparently said he was suicidal so the police were called this was on June 21st Grant was arrested but they
determined that there was not grounds to hold him under Florida's Baker Act which
allows an involuntary hold of people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and for reasons that have never been
disclosed the grand theft charges for stealing propofol were eventually dropped but needless to say grant was
out of a job he was fired and as a consequence of this event he was expelled from anesthesiology school as
well and his dad who was funding legal representation for his son well he was out of a lot of money this was money
that was set up for grants lawyers yeah but look let's break this down a little bit because a lot of times if if there
is a conflict at work even if it is stealing they normally won't prosecute as long as they get the material back we
got the material back we didn't lose any money and we're going to then sever our
ties with this individual by firing them yeah I mean he's fired 100% I don't know
what their reasons were for dropping the charges if you want me to speculate my guess is they probably didn't want his
defense of oh I was giving them to your patients right to be in the newspapers whether that's what he was doing with
them or not we we just don't know yeah stay away from the bad publicity so grant is unemployed and living with his
parents so what did grant do all day now that he was unemployed of course he did
what any hard-working able-bodied 20-something American male would do and of course I'm being sarcastic he
spent his days gaming and watching porn this on a site called cam girls grant soon met a webcam model named Silvia
from Bulgaria wait hold on can you spell that website for me grant began what he
felt was an intimate relationship with this woman the virtual kind grant led Silvia to believe that he was a
successful ambitious young professional gamer who had his own apartment and drove a BMW according to the Orlando
Sentinel grant spent about four hours every night online watching Silvia dance and model euphemisms for one-on-one
virtual pornographic activity and of course this cost money in fact the woman's attentions to grant seemed to
depend on how much money he paid her grant admitted that her shows cost 90 that's nine zero tokens per minute to
view which he purchased 5,000 tokens at a time for $600 he and Sylvia would video chat as well grant seemed to think
that the woman was his girlfriend eventually he began sending her clothes and sex toys which Silvia would model
for him often in pornographic videos how was grant paying for all of this well we'll get into that in a minute
first hang on let me get out my porno calculator real quick yeah so that's 5,400 tokens an hour and times
that by 4 hours a day or a night that's 20 1,600 tokens a night hold on my calculations say that's a lot of porn
now that's two thousand that's two thousand five hundred ninety two dollars a day or a night however you want to
swing that hammer it would be cheaper to be addicted to meth but remember kids don't do meth then in December of 2018
I apologize to captain Bubb one who was reviewing this information and putting together all the math I don't
know why but it popped in my head out of all the things that you could be addicted to this is a very expensive
addiction no I guess we'll know why our show won't continue the colonel got addicted to meth don't do meth then in
December of 2018 Cody grant and their friend Jericho they went on a trip to Japan
Cody was very nice he paid $10,000 for this trip so Cody is paying for the both of them for him and grant but when the
boys returned home this was around December 15th grant found that his father was very disgruntled that Grant
still had not landed a job by this point it's not clear exactly when the Amato's
found out that their son was involved in a virtual relationship with a webcam girl some news reports state that
Margaret noticed mail showing up for grant from Bulgaria yeah and then was horrified that her son had given their
home address to a to somebody in the porn business let's say right we can only imagine what that conversation was
like unfortunately for grant though it seems that his parents also discovered something else at some point toward the
end of 2018 Chad Amato discovered that some money was missing and actually this was a lot
of money grant was stealing money from his own family grant told his parents that he spent this money to promote
himself on Twitch I'm captain I sure you could inform us what twitch is oh I'm such a loser that
I have all this time to do well I don't know exactly what it is so I thought maybe you might blah I don't know much
about it I've never been on it I think people can be very profitable on it there's many millionaires from it and I
guess what it is is that you you're a gamer and then people can watch you okay then they could pay for like a
subscription so so there there are people that are doing very well it's it's but it's kind of a video game world
to me I haven't been into it some Super Mario Brothers so I don't really know much about it but it's it's huge
I mean you can so when he's saying I'm promoted myself or I'm this could turn into a profession not just a profession
but if it takes off he could become like a multi-millionaire like basically like
becoming a youtube star or something right I was gonna say for dummies like me that the simplest format it's kind of
a social media Instagram meets YouTube kind of thing yeah for gaming guy merrily yeah so the truth be told though
that's not where the money went he actually blew it all on his very expensive hobby or what I would call
obsession with Silvia yeah but even if it went to promoting himself on this platform it's a it's a big risk because
to become a youtube star or become a twitch star it's very difficult so now thus begins the family meltdown okay on
December 19th 2018 the matos called 911 this was to report grant was missing he had walked out of the house after an
argument with Chad and his mother was concerned because he seemed very depressed at this time and she says
possibly suicidal in fact Margaret told the Sheriff's Office she told the deputies that she
got a text from Grant saying that he was quote really tired of everything and quote and was quote just going to handle
it his own way that's as much of the text that I have but regardless believing that he had been unsuccessful
looking for work and had shown some instability in connection with the propofol incident right and he's out of
school or now he's spending his days like you said playing video games and watching
pornography and if the family just knows that he's just up in his room playing video games
all day maybe not knowing too much about the pornography but when somebody says I'm tired of it all and that's all
they're doing mm-hmm I think that's a bad sign well in you know she has his mother has other texts and other
information other conversations that were had right that we're not privy to so calling the police seems like a very
smart motherly move here in this this spot in December of 2018 Kody confided in his girlfriend Sloane
that he was concerned about his brother he was concerned that Grant was going to
kill everyone is what he said when Grant left the home that day he took refuge at
the home of his aunt this is Donna Amato with whom he was very close she later said that he was looking lost and
depressed at her house grant slept during the day and stayed up all night she and her husband hid all of their
guns while grant was with them having been worn by the Amato's that he was possibly suicidal while grant was
staying with her Donna's bank account was hacked and strange charges started showing up at
least that's what she thought right she came to find out that the nephew she had
taken in stole her credit card information and she wasn't the only one according to the Orlando Sentinel
pictures of credit cards belonging to Grant Amato's grandmother uncle and one of his cousin's were found on his
computer upset and betrayed Donna called her husband's brother Grant's father Chad Amato totally out of character Chad
broke down on the phone he told Donna that he had been forced to remortgage the family's home to cover 150,000
dollars worth of debt racked up by Grant Donna says quote he told me on the phone
yeah I'm going to have to work a 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 more other family members called Donna urging her not to press charges in fact
it was Cody who promised to pay back any of his brother's fraudulent expenses so
how much debt did grant Amato rack up he stole one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from his parents he stole or
spent sixty thousand dollars of Cody's money and then stole and sold Cody's guns he stole an unknown amount from
three other relatives in three months grant Amato spent over two hundred thousand dollars to interact virtually
with Sylvia who was thousands of miles away so the Amato's had a family meeting while they decided what to do about
grant while they made up their minds family members took shifts outside of Donna's home to be sure that grant
stayed on the premises then on December 22nd the Amato's waylaid grant in Donna's driveway around 3:00 a.m. a
intervention of sorts and shad Margaret and Cody drove him to a voluntary rehabilitation clinic in South Florida
his commitment form reflects that his entry there was voluntary grants family agreed to pay the fifteen thousand
dollars for him to obtain a sixty day treatment while grant was at rehab Cody and Chad hacked into grants computer to
see exactly what he had been doing online they discovered his carefully curated online identity as a successful
professional gamer Chad contacted all of grants online friends and told them in no uncertain terms that it was all a lie
that grant was a poseur a fraud and a fake he actually lived at home and he had no job and in what was likely
considered the ultimate betrayal by grant they conveyed this information to Sylvia as well they told Sylvia the
webcam girl who thought grant was a sugar daddy that in fact grant was a fired nurse who
lived with his mom and dad and stole their money to pay for his new obsession grant only made it
about two weeks in rehab he left the facility and came home on January 5th when he returned home there
was a new set of rules Chad sat grant down at a California Pizza Kitchen and Waterford Lakes and
showed him a two-page list of rules grant would have to agree to them if he wanted to remain in the home his other
options were according to Chad to move out or to join the military yeah I mean it wasn't like you know yeah I get to
work in and stop your jerkin well this laying down of the rules this kind of thing that a parent does you
typically see this for a rebellious 16 year old not a 29 year old man now among these rules grant had to get a job
during the day and stop spending his entire night online he was not permitted on the internet after midnight he had to
come up with a written personal recovery plan and submit it to his father uh-huh
his phone service was cut off he was forbidden from watching porn and was required to go to therapy he was on his
own financially and had to repay the $200,000 he had taken and issue apologies to his family yeah this is a
mess it's very sticky situation a cover note on the rules page said quote this is critical as grant through his past
transgressions has relied on the knowledge the family would not report him and would cover him family
relationship abuse beyond tolerance this is a promise you better heed the warning
it's real but the rules contain one final rule that grant no doubt considered a deal-breaker he had to end
things with Sylvia he could not contact her again if he did he would be kicked out of the house
the last line reading quote you chose a stranger physically non-existent over family and he also put his family and
almost like financial jeopardy grant agreed to the rules in the fee Emily returned to normal it seems that
things improve for a bit Jason says grant seemed better when he got home and Margaret had told him that grant was
acting like part of the family again but sometime in January Margaret confessed to a friend at the stables about the
difficulties at home she said that her son grant has stolen quite a bit of money from the family Margaret clearly
had a soft spot for her youngest son almost certainly unbeknownst to Chad she allowed grant to continue to message
with Sylvia via twitter using Margaret's phone now it's possible that grant used
her phone without her permission but told her it was for legitimate purposes it's not known whether Margaret knew
that she was helping grant break the rules and it's not known whether Sylvia was receptive to grants continued
contact with her considering he couldn't pay her but either way On January 24th Chad somehow found out
what was going on Chad tells grant you've ruined my retirement and he ordered grants who leave the house then
Chad left for work grant started packing up his stuff meanwhile Cody was at work
and his girlfriend Sloane said he had to leave after conversations with people at
home around 9:15 p.m. but before he left Cody told Sloane he had to go home to deal with quote stupid [ __ ] [ __ ]
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to you captain on Friday January 25th 2019 the Seminole County Florida sheriff's office received a call from a
chris cisco chris is an employee at Advent Hospital in East Orlando Chris told the dispatcher that he was
concerned because his friend and co-worker Cody Amato did not show up for work and was not responding to his calls
and texts according to Chris who worked for years with Cody at the center he says Cody never so much as came in
late to work much less not show up at all yeah we had a lot of bills they had to pay for well and Cody was always he
always had his phone with him - so this is even more concerned yeah the two were
actually supposed to meet for coffee that morning but as said Cody never showed up Chris also worked with Cody's
girlfriend Sloane and she was equally concerned deputies obtained the address of the
home Cody shared with his parents Margaret and Chad and headed over to 2:112 Salton
Circle to perform a welfare check this was at 9:17 a.m. upon arrival deputies announced themselves as they patrolled
the perimeter of the large three-story home the home sits on multiple acres and this looks to be a pretty nice
neighborhood with big houses and far stretching property lines so police are knocking on doors and announcing
themselves and no one is responding this in spite of a car in the driveway and they could see two vehicles sitting
inside the garage including the car that was registered to Cody Amato the deputies tried calling the cell phones
of the residents having obtained the phone numbers from Chris and Sloane of course these calls are going unanswered
the five doors to the home were all locked and disturbingly the windows on the first storey of the home were
covered on the inside by paper this fact plus the cars being there and the unexpected absence of Cody from work
as well as the Sheriff's Office history with the home was sufficient grounds for
concern deputies even resorted to using an air horn you know the perp up yeah that's not a
good air horn that was really bad all right Nick you're fired all right well see you guys next week
well I won't see you again they saw I mean you never know you could get better at your airplane start my own show they
were using an air horn outside of the home in case people inside just they weren't hearing them but again this is
still just met with silence and stillness finally after receiving permission from higher-ups deputy Todd
motor s'en used a knife to pry open the lock on an exterior door to the master bedroom and a deputy outfitted in
tactical gear proceeded inside followed by the deputy one of the first things that they saw was the body of a man and
he appeared to be older he's lying on his back on the kitchen floor as a later affidavit in the case would state there
was much blood around the man's body that it was quote inconsistent with life the crime-scene photos show a lot of
pooled dried blood in two separate areas of the kitchen as well as dragged or claw marks through the smeared blood
between the two poles okay later it would be determined that this man had been shot twice in the head lying
partially in the blood was an open insulated lunch bag with a fork tucked into the netting on the lid there was
damage from a bullet in one of the cherry kitchen cabinets two chicken cutlets were defrosting on the counter
as if someone was preparing a meal two bottles of water and a coupler sitting on the kitchen table so from that
picture we paint that picture to show you what was going on and potentially going on this man this person was killed
in this location of the home and it appears that somebody was just going about their normal everyday business of
maybe preparing a meal or putting together a lunch it's a lot of blood so yes yeah
the deputies proceeded further into the home and discovered two more corpses one
was a woman sitting at a desk in the home office she was slumped over her computer clearly shot in the back of the
head and the other was a younger man dressed in scrubs curled in a fetal position lying on the floor at the
entrance to the garage from the home gym which is off of the kitchen at this house yeah he also had been shot once
this time he was shot in the face a backpack was on the floor near the body deputies noted right away that there
were weapons in plain sight that could have been used in these shootings in fact one weapon a Glock was strapped and
a holster on the right hip of the older man on the kitchen floor and a second gun a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson M&P
handgun was lying five feet from the younger man yeah I believe they find four bullet casings and so there's two
by the older man and then one by each individual other than him yeah each of the other victims so they appeared
consistent with the handgun that was found on the floor near the younger man's body and it looked very much like
this was the weapon that had killed all three people according to the deputies including the younger man near the
garage who was the closest to the gun mm-hmm this kind of appears to be a classic
murder-suicide situation where we have the son of the dead couple and had some kind of confrontation with his parents
killed them and then shot himself right indeed it was quickly confirmed that the
deceased were 30 year old Cody Amato and his parents 61 year old Margaret in 59 year old Chad Amato
except captain deputies perusing the crime scene were very observant and had reason to be skeptical of what appeared
to be a simple and open-and-shut murder-suicide case you know well the other question here too is we have three
of the individuals that live in the house and we know that there's four individuals that live in the house this
was not the first time that the Sheriff's Office was at this home so they they know that four people most of
the time reside at this home right and so things look hinky to them furthermore where is this other person right
why if there's four that live in the home why is this other person not a victim and if he's not a victim then
where is he so the very smart Sheriff's Office they by late Friday afternoon they put out a
bolo a be on the lookout for a person of interest in the killings this was four five foot ten inch 120 pound 29 year old
grant Amato son of Margaret and Chad and brother to Cody yeah he was not on the premises although he
was known to reside in the home and his phone had been disconnected he was thought to be driving a white 1996 Honda
Accord DX with the license plate number l1 gh7 and he was to be considered armed and
dangerous it's not clear how detectives knew this but news reports from January 25th state
that detectives believed that weapons were missing from the Amato home mm-hmm saying quote it looks like this wasn't a
random act of violence it looks like the person responsible for these murders was
known to the family and we're going to do everything we can to get this person in custody very very soon end quote
that was from Sheriff Dennis Lima it didn't take long for cops to catch up with grant Amato
in fact by Saturday just the next day they had subpoenaed his easy records right to narrow down the
location of his vehicle they patrolled the area and his car was spotted parked at a Double Tree motel in Orange County
this is brilliant and we don't have a lot of tolls here in in Ohio and I can't really even think of
ever going through a toll in Ohio but if you have one of these easy passes it kind of records your movements you know
what tolls you've gone through and how recently you've gone through them no so what they can do is basically look at a
map and go okay well he has to be somewhere in this general area this could be a fairly big area that we're
talking about but we have reason to believe that this vehicle this Honda Accord that we're looking for is
somewhere in this general area so you you tell everybody all of your patrolmen everybody in squad cars go out there and
while you're out there protecting and serving let us know if you see a 1996 Honda Accord DX with this license plate
because we're looking for this dude and I cannot stress enough the the how important and how correct the term armed
and dangerous is in this situation if you believe that the person of interest is the fourth member of the home who is
not found at the home when all three of the others are found killed inside of the house and it appears two of the
victims were armed themselves right not only did this perpetrator were they able
to kill three individuals they were able to do it in a potential it could have been a potential gunfight yeah well we
know that this individual practices in a virtual world the police they spot this vehicle his
his vehicle and find it at a Double Tree motel in Orange County sure enough grant
was in a hotel room there he was taken in for questioning but was not handcuffed or placed under arrest at
that time deputies had put it together pretty quickly that they had been at the Amato home before actually recently
Seminole County Sheriff Lima said in a statement on Friday the 25th quote we had a call
that I am aware of back in December of an individual suffering from depression so this brings us to Saturday January
26th yeah now we have Grant Amato sitting in a room at the Seminole County Sheriff's Office and he's talking with
investigators now mind you he's not under arrest just investigative detention at this point in rain and he
said he was fine with talking to the investigators in the seven hours of interviews he pretended to be
forthcoming about what had been going on in his life during the past three months
he told investigators about the missing money he admitted that his father gave him an ultimatum and required him to go
to rehab he told investigators about the rules that he had agreed to to continue
living in the home but he says on the night of the 24th Chad confronted him about his continued
contact with Sylvia and told him he had to leave the home grant told detectives that Cody had been there when he left
when grant left the house that night and that Cody had promised grant that he would try to smooth things over
so grants story to the detectives at this point kind of sounds like hey I left last night and when I left all
three of them were there and they were fine right but and also setting up a confrontation because he's his brother
saying hey I'm gonna talk to mom and dad and try to smooth this over yeah he's going to let them kind of maybe take the
bait and run with it for a little bit but the problem here is they're not going to take the bait because three
hours in to this sit-down meeting right and any investigator would find this to be very suspicious by three hours in
Grant had never asked why he was there or what had happened to his family it kind of seems like he already knows why
he is there right and he already knows what happened to his family so what you're saying is he he tried to be slick
and say hey left the house last night yeah they told me I had to leave mm-hmm I left my
brother was gonna talk to my parents and and maybe that's when there was a confrontation but he doesn't know what
happened to the parents or shouldn't know what happened to his family and like you said he never brings it up yeah
he says that he saw on the news that something did happen to his family but he hadn't tried to find out what okay so
here's how some of the interrogation proceedings from there went on and this is according to the Orlando Sentinel you
can see the and I know you've watched a captain but you can see this what I would call interrogation video online
now we have a detective here then it opens a folder boy hold on I'm surprised on how small he is yeah you know he's
almost 20 pounds yeah I mean it's very small so in one scene that you could see online a detective opens up a folder
with crime scene photos so she the detective placed a picture of Cody's body in front of grant and asked
did you leave the house with your brother Cody looking like that to which grant covered his face the detective
then pulls out two more photos and she asked or did you leave the house with your father looking like that or your
mother is that how you left your family yeah no Grant says but his voice is breaking you can clearly hear his voice
breaking during this she goes on to ask who did this to your family and then grant looked at the photo of his mother
at the top of the stack and then covered a part of his face he says no I didn't do any of this investigators asked grant
if he had any remorse according to the arrest affidavit his response was quote his family had been blaming him for
months for ruining their lives stealing and not following the rules of the home so he might as well be blamed for this
too and quote he had originally told detectives it took a few hours for him to pack up his things and that he had
left the house around 9:30 p.m. his family was just fine at that point he said in fact he said he met up with
Cody outside the neighborhood to tell him what had happened but he changed his story
when pressed saying that he left closer to midnight and his brother was home at that time he claimed he spent the night
in a parking lot of a nearby Publix before driving to a morning job interview off of Li Vista Road the
detectives told him Cody and Chad Amato could not have shot each other crime scene investigators had come to this
conclusion after making some observations about the crime scene they asked who else could have killed his
family I don't know gran said I've been getting blamed for the last half of a year for
everything and I've been trying to move forward in a positive direction and then
every day I am reminded of all the trouble that I had caused and then I keep being told the same thing over and
over again that there's nothing I can do to change it grant continued to deny that he was responsible for the murders
but acknowledged that he was the only one with a motive and with the opportunity to commit
yeah so grant well and this is this is a smart thing here to grant is allowed a private meeting with his sole surviving
brother Jason and I think a lot of people maybe the name grant Amato doesn't ring any bells when you see the
title or you see the show note yeah you say tomato I say tomahto but when you hear this portion of the story this is
when you're gonna go okay I I know this case or I remember seeing this case in the news grant was allowed a private
meeting with his sole surviving brother Jason video and audio footage of this meeting is available online and has
probably been seen by most of our listeners while Jason embraces Grant when he first enters the room it is
clear that he is fairly certain that his brother killed the rest of their family
Jason tries to talk to grant about you know what what happened yeah and grant tells him dad kicked me out because I
broke the rules I didn't stop talking to that woman but he reiterates that he left Cody Chad and Margaret alive
leaving the house around 12:30 a.m. by this point notice his time keeps on changing as we get further along right
after loading his stuff into the car this is when he left Jason isn't buying it he says to grant if anyone was going
after someone in the family it would be you who would be the target meaning these other three wouldn't be dead you
would be the one that would be dead if somebody went after our family or someone in our family
well just think what you were saying before I mean he goes into the room is any embraces and this is his technically
his half-brother he pretty much believes that any cops believe at this point that Grant is
responsible for his whole family being murdered but at the same time you you've seen the depression you've seen the
addiction you've seen possibly this kid that once was good and I call him a kid because it seems like he at this point
even though he was approached in 30 he hasn't grown up any so to be able to embrace him on one side
to say why I love you and care about you I know you're hurting but hey our family
is gone and you're responsible I think I'd have a very difficult time embracing that individual you know Jason's not
buying any of this jazz that grants trying to sell him and he says he says this before getting up and walking out
of the door he says I'm going to pray for you brother because I can't pray for mom dad or Cody anymore right now
grant was released on the 26th the detectives are gonna have to build their case in a different manner because he
didn't confess to anything mm-hmm so now they're out talking they're gonna continue to talk with Jason with his
brother Jason they're going to talk to Cody's girlfriend Sloane and anybody else that they can speak with Jason and
in Sloane they both told investigators about grant stealing the money from his family they tell them about the whole
Sylvia thing and they explain all of the problems with grant over the past few months and Sloane told detectives that
Cody told her that he was afraid that grant would kill everyone now eventually grant is in fact arrested and the arrest
affidavit filed in Grant's case provides a glimpse into what exactly crime scene
investigators found to be suspicious about the murder-suicide theory that was going around and led them to believe
that the tableaux at the Amato home was in fact just staged right for one thing they found Cody's body next to the
closed internal door to the garage but there was no blood on the door jamb and frame indicating that it had been open
when Cody was shot in the face the affidavit states quote based on the gunshot Cody received he would not have
been able to close the door after he had been shot right Cody had clearly been moved as well the
pool of blood that had come from his head wound was actually found at his feet and there was almost none on the
floor where his head was positioned the autopsy findings on Cody sealed the deal
according to the affidavit there was quote no possibility that Cody's injuries were self-inflicted
further they observed from the blood spatter blood smears and bullet marks on the cabinets in the kitchen and on the
tile floor that Chad had been shot first while standing near the cabinets he had
crawled to the other side of the center island and then been shot a second time in the back of the head execution-style
while he was lying face down on the floor wow the bullet had entered the tile floor but Chad was found three feet away
on the kitchen floor on his back clearly having been moved as well Margaret was at the desk shot once in the back of the
head and had not been moved at all so if Chad was shot in the kitchen by someone who later moved him and Margaret
and Cody did not shoot themselves the obvious conclusion is that the shooter was a fourth person someone who had
accessed the home without breaking and entering one like you said too I mean these crime-scene photos are pretty bad
and a lot of times when you see a murder take place in a tiled area you can see you know the blood smeared everywhere
and but you can see the tile underneath or it's very transparent and there's sections that you can't see that the
tile at all it's just this very dense puddle of blood so grant is arrested and charged with three counts of
premeditated murder now when he's arrested in his possession they find a pair of leather gloves and credit and
debit cards belonging to his father and brother Cody he also had with him a his passport leading investigators to
speculate that he was planning on trying to leave possibly to meet Sylvia in person in
Grant's car they found a handwritten note that appeared to have been written from Kody Amato's perspective which said
grant I'll take care of all of your problems I just need you back I can't live without you brother I said I'd take
care of all of your problems at the house and I have no one will bother you again regarding this just please come
home I can't do this again if you think I'm part of the problem here then I've really lost you and I can't take that
loss after everything when detectives pushed grant about this strange letter he admitted that he himself wrote the
letter from quote-unquote from Cody Wright but he wasn't able to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why he
would write this letter it seems that this might have been a further way to push this this whole scheme to frame
Cody for the murder-suicide theory but it sucks because they were so close and his brother seemed to go to bat for him
time and time again and to not only commit these murders but then to try to put the blame on the brother that helped
you so many times now the trial the murder trial would start in July of last year and we really learned a lot about
the state's case against grant Amato during the trial proceedings so their case was grant Amato killed his father
mother and brother and a premeditated murder spree so he could take all of their money they state Margaret died
first shot in the head from behind as she sat at her desk Cody and Chad were not home
when the first murder occurred grant shot his father in the kitchen after he got home from work and was possibly
cleaning out his lunchbox grant shot Cody and the eye as he entered the home they say grant spent several hours at
the home with the bodies as he staged the scene to look like Cody had been responsible for a
murder-suicide I know I'm not going to get too much into the defense side of things because I really found it kind of
blah you know it just really wasn't they didn't try to claim that he was insane or temporarily insane they didn't really
push that he was abused or drug addicted or mentally unstable or anything like that as their defense right or their
narrative yeah right so I'd really like to know what the conversation between him and and this
virtual girlfriend was and if in any way she was pushing him in this direction at
all hmm I I wouldn't think so I mean it would seem extreme I think what we have here captain is it was more one-sided it
was on his end if I can't log on each day and talk to this person now I have a huge problem I don't think she cares one
way or the other as long as he's buying these tokens right and spending money day after day he's not well I don't know
this to be certain but I feel very strongly about this he's not her only customer let's say nobody has a BMW okay
which in his case would stand for well the thing is the the thing here is I think that the defense was fine with
floating out the murder-suicide theory and and letting that be a possibility right because if you can't get past that
possibility then you probably shouldn't convict this guy beyond a reasonable doubt be me whacker
that's what he stands for so during the testimonial phase of the trial some interesting information came out the the
four bullets that were used to kill Chad Margaret and Cody yeah did not come from
any of the handguns that were found at the house the four shell casings found at the scene did not come from the gun
found near Cody they came from a an unknown weapon that was never found so we think
that grant moved that that weapon somewhere or disposed of it someone well that in itself really pokes a big giant
hole in the murder-suicide theory the the murder weapon that was not found at the home yeah right
so what's appeared now what the state is saying is that Grant planted the bullet
casings to make it appear that Cody shot his parents and then shot himself right
also I mean this is all good science stuff here there was no blood found on the gun near Cody's body also the
holster that was on Chad's right hip they found a gun holster on Chad's right Chad's right hip they could prove that
it was placed there after his death because there was a spot of blood found on his pants under the holster which
would have been impossible had the holster been in place the entire time yeah you know when he was shot so he
wasn't even wearing the holster is what you're saying Karenna after he was murdered violently murdered than the
individual which we believe is grant put the holster back on him yeah forensic investigators testified that
there was no activity on Margaret Amato's computer after 4:45 p.m. so on this on Thursday January 24th so since
she was found dead at her computer prosecutors asserted that she had been killed first while she was working on
the computer and she and grant were in fact home alone they believe that next chad was killed when he got home from
work this around 5:30 p.m. finally cody was shot in the face when he arrived home from work sometime
around 9:30 p.m. prosecutors introduced evidence showing that Chad Amato logged into his USAA banking app on his iPhone
using the fingerprint reader at 12:08 a.m. on the night he died while prosecutors weren't able to establish
Chad's exact time of death the implication was that grant had used his dead father's finger
to unlock his phone in order to access the banking information the Sheriff's Office crime scene manager this is
Christine Snyder testified that Chad's right index finger had been cleaned of blood presumably to use the fingerprint
scanner crime scene tech testimony at the trial stated that when grant Amato was arrested
remember they found that pair of leather gloves those gloves tested positive for
a gun powder residue GSR were they able to test those gloves to pull DNA from them I know where what
you're getting at yeah it's called DNA right that's right getting at DNA do we have DNA evidence
here well this is interesting and this shows the level of what I've been referring to as addiction or obsession
right so according to the prosecutors grant used CODIS credit card to pay Silvia more money this just within hours
after his family was murdered he sent her six hundred dollars while sitting in his car in the Publix parking lot in the
middle of the night as his family's bodies lie cooling in the home see that's why I just think there had to
be some kind of conversation with her about at least about the conflict between him and his family
grants defense I mean yeah they worked hard to try to establish some kind of reasonable doubt but it only took the
jury eight hours to convict grant Amato of the first-degree premeditated murder of all three of his family members right
grant stood emotionless as the verdicts were read aloud in the end the jury decided against the death penalty
handing down a sentence of life without parole [Music] whatever struggles you are facing from
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Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-2j3w4-d262a8

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Brief Summary

Grant Amato murdered his family after becoming obsessed with a webcam model, leading to a shocking investigation and trial.

Key points

The Velvet Bulldozer. Meet the hosts of True Crime Garage, Nick and The Velvet Bulldozer.
A Juicy IPA Feature. This week's beer is Wicked Seas, a New England style IPA.
Grant's Dark Descent. Grant Amato's life spirals as he becomes addicted to a virtual relationship.
Family Meltdown. The Amato family confronts Grant about his theft and addiction.
A Family in Crisis. Margaret confesses to a friend about her son Grant's thefts, revealing family tensions.
The Shocking Discovery. Deputies find three bodies in the Amato home, raising alarms about a murder-suicide.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What happens when someone confuses a virtual relationship for a real relationship?

Introduction to the theme of the episode.

4:50WatchFeb 5, 2020

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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