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

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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for
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thought you were talking about nursing students that would have been weird all right everybody gather around grab a
chair grab 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 SP
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 Voyer has
become its own form of addiction as several websites stream live amateur and professional webcam girls guys and
couples generally showing nude performances and sexual acts this has 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 ession he would kill
for this is true crime [Applause] [Music] garage Grant Amato was the youngest of
three Sons Sons of Margaret and Chad 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 two 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 video games and horses yes Margaret was a horse person as everyone knows the
garage loves horse people yeah centors she adopted and rehabilitated a retired racehorse named lady and even after a
lady died she still went to the Stables daily to work with other horses Margaret
worked as a client operations manager at a healthc care company Chad Amato was a
clinical pharmacist who worked for CVS 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 that Chad Amato the father was a quite difficult man
yeah most computer people are a side note 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 3 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 Gator's 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 they seem to be
Inseparable Cody 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 M 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 in 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 going to get into that right now the hospital staff noticed eight
empty vials of propop fall in two rooms where Grant was working he had taken vials they were worth together a
combined amount of $2,067 these were taken from a storage machine that required a thumb print to
access the machine he was captured on surveillance video which was reviewed by the hospital after the propal was
discovered missing he was seen accessing the machine and putting the vials in his
pocket this amounted to Grand Theft hospit hital 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 he 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 know for for certain admin rators 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 propal 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 Le let's break this down a little bit cuz a lot of times if if there is a conflict at work even if it is stealing
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 he's 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 hardworking 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 Sylvia 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 Sylvia 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 4 hours every night online watching Sylvia
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 seem to depend on how much money he paid her Grant admitted that her shows cost 90
that's 90 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 Sylvia would model for him often in pornographic videos how was 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 21,600 tokens a night hold on my calculations say that's a lot of poor
now that's 2,000 that's 2,500 $92 a day or a night however you want to swing that hammer it would be
cheaper to be addicted to meth but remember kids don't do meth then in December of
2018 I I apologize Captain but when I 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 yeah well I guess we'll know why are our show won't continue um 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 is 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 Amad 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 uh 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 on Twitch I captain
I'm sure you could inform us what twitch is oh cuz I'm such a loser that I have all this time to do well I don't know
exactly what it is so I thought maybe you might well I don't know much about it I've never been on it I think people
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 game okay and then pay for like a subscription so um so there there are people that are
doing very well it's it's but it's kind of a the video game world to me I haven't been into it since Super Mario
Brothers so I don't really know much about it but it's it's huge I mean you can uh so when he's saying I promoted
myself or I'm this could turn into a profession not just a profession but if if it takes off he could become like a
multi-millionaire like basic basically like becoming a YouTube star or something right I was going to say for
dummies like me the the simplest form it's kind of a social media Instagram meets YouTube kind of thing yeah for
gaming primarily 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 Sylvia yeah but even if it went to promoting himself on this
platform it's a it's a big risk cuz 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 thead 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 end 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 propa fall incident
right he's out of school and 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 mhm I think that's a bad sign well
and you know she has his mother has other texts and other information other conversations that were had that not
privy to so calling the police seems like a very smart motherly move here in this this spot in December of 2018 Cody
confided and his girlfriend Sloan 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 warned by the Amad 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 cousins were found on his
computer upset and betrayed Donna called her husband's brother grsa 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 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 furthermore
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 $150,000 from his parents he stole or spent $60,000 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
$200,000 to interact virtually with Sylvia who was thousands of miles away so the Amad 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 Amad
waylay Grant in Donna's driveway around 3:00 a.m. a intervention of sorts and Chad Margaret and Cody drove him to a
voluntary Rehabilitation clinic in South Florida his commitment form reflects that his entry there was voluntary
Grant's family agreed to pay the $115,000 for him to obtain a 60-day treatment while Grant was at rehab Cody
and Chad hacked into Grant's computer to see exact what he had been doing online
they discovered his carefully curated online identity as a successful professional gamer Chad contacted all of
Grant's online friends and told them in no uncertain terms that it was all a lie
that Grant was a poser a fraud and a fake he actually lived at home and he had no job and in what was likely
considered the ultimate betrayal by Grant they conveyed this information to Sylvia as 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 2
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 in water for 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 get to
working and stop your jerking 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 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 uhhuh 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 just a mess 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 contained 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 in almost like Financial Jeopardy Grant agreed to the rules and the family returned to normal it seems
that things improved 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 had 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 it 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 Grant's
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 Grant to leave the house then Chad left
for work Grant started packing up his stuff meanwhile Cody was at work and his girlfriend Sloan said he had to leave
after conversations with people at home around 9:15 p.m. but before he left Cody
told Sloan he had to go home to deal with quote stupid [ __ ] [ __ ] in other words
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[Music] that all right we're back cheers mates cheers to you captain on Friday January
25th 2019 the simal 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
cooworker Cody Amato did not show up for work and was not responding to his calls
and text 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 well he had a lot of bills that he had to pay for well and Cody was always
he always had his phone with him too 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 Sloan and she was equally concerned deputies obtained the address of the home Cody shared with his
parents Margaret and Chad and headed over to 2112 Sultan 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 lies 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 Sloan of course these calls are going
unanswered the five doors to the home were all locked and disturbingly the windows on the first story 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 airhorn you know the 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 um they well I mean you never know you could get
better at your air horn start my own show um they were using an air horn outside
of the home in case people inside just they weren't hearing them uh but again this is still just met with silence and
Stillness finally after receiving permission from higher ups Deputy Todd motors used a knife to I open the lock
on an exterior door to the master bedroom uhhuh 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 was quote inconsistent with life the crime scene
photos show a lot of pulled dried blood in two separate areas of the kitchen as well as drag or claw marks through the
smeared blood between the two pools 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 cup for 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 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 FL 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 in a holster on the right hip of the older
man on the kitchen floor and a second gun a 9mm Smith and Wesson M andp handgun was lying 5 ft 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 had killed all three people according to the deputies including the younger man near the
garage who was the closest to the gun mhm 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 and 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 yeah 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 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 for 5' 10 in 120 lb 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 mhm 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 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 Gran Amato in fact by Saturday just the next
day they had subpoena his Easy Pass 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 actually I I can't really even think of ever going through a toll in Ohio but if you have
one of these easy passes it it kind of Records your movements you know what tolls you've gone through and how
recently you've gone through them yeah so what they can do is basically look at a map and go okay well he has to be
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 Patrol men 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 direct 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 uh 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 simal County Sheriff Lima said in a statement on Friday the 25the 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 simal County Sheriff's Office and he's talking
with investigators now mind you he's not under arrest just investigative detention at this point right and he
said he was was fine with talking to the investigators in the 7 hours of interviews he pretended to be
forthcoming about what had been going on in his life during the past 3 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 had 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 Grant's 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 cuz he his brother is
saying hey I'm going to talk to Mom and Dad and try to smooth this over yeah he's going to let them kind of maybe
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 3 hours in to this sitdown meeting right and any investigator would find this to be very
suspicious by 3 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 he and he already knows what happened to his
family so what what you're saying is he he tried to be slick and say hey I left the house last night yeah they told me I
had to leave mhm I left my my brother was going to talk to my parents and and maybe that's when
there was a confrontation but he 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 uhuh 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 it Captain but you can see this what I would call interrogation video online now we have a
detective here that opens a folder wait hold on I'm surprised on how small he is
yeah you know he's almost 30 years old yeah I mean he's very small so in in one scene that you could see online a
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 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 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 end 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 Lee 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 Grant 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 them yeah so Grant well and this is this is a smart
thing here too Grant is allowed a private meeting with his soul 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 notes yeah you say tomato i' say Amato but when you hear this portion of the story this is
when you're going to go okay I I know this case or I remember seeing this case in the news Grant was allowed a private
meeting with his so 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 d 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 I just think
what you were saying before I mean he goes into the room and he Embraces and this is his technically his half brother
he pretty much believes that and 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 um possibly this
kid that once was good and I I call him a kid because it seems like he at this point even though he's
approaching 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 um embracing that individual you know Jason's not buying any of this Jazz that
Grant's trying to sell him and he says he says this before getting up and walking out of the door he says I'm
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 going to have to build their case in a different manner because he didn't confess to anything
mhm so now that out talking they're going to continue to talk with Jason with his brother Jason they're going to
talk to Cody's girlfriend Sloan and anybody else that they can speak with Jason and and Sloan 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 Sloan told detectives that Cody told her that he
was afraid that Grant would kill 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 Tableau at
the am 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 jam 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 3 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 D 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 well and like you said too I mean these these crime scene photos
are are pretty bad and and a lot of times when you see a murder take place in a tiled area you can see you know the
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 the the tile at all it's just this very dense puddle of blood so Grant is arrested in charged with three
counts of premeditated murder now when he's arrested in his possession uh they find a pair of leather gloves and credit
and debit cards belonging to his father and brother Cody right 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 Cody 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 right but he wasn't able to provide a satisfa
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 well 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 in 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 in 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 don't 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 did 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 um
virtual girlfriend was and if in any way she was pushing him in this direction at
all I I wouldn't think so I mean it would seem extreme I think what we have here
Captain is it it was more one-sided it was on his end if I can't log on each day and talk to this person now I have a
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 I don't know this to be certain but I I feel
very strongly about this he's not her only customer let's say yeah but he has a BMW okay which in his case would stand
for well the thing is the the thing here is um I think that the defense was fine
with floating out the murder suicide Theory and and letting that be a Poss possibility right because if you can't
get past that possibility then you probably shouldn't convict this guy Beyond A Reasonable Doubt beat meat
whacker that's what it stands for so during the testimonial phase of the trial some interesting information came
out the 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 somewhere well that in itself really pokes a big giant hole in the murder suicide Theory the the murder
weapon was not found at the home yeah right so it disappeared 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 a gun holster on Chad's right Chad's right hip uhuh 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 corre after he was murdered violently murdered then 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
1208 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 uh this is Christine
Snider 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 gunpowder residue GSR were they able to test those gloves
to pull DNA from them um I know where what you're getting at um yeah it's called DNA right right getting at DNA do
we have DNA evidence here well th 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 Cody's credit
card to pay Sylvia more money this just within hours after his family was murdered he sent her
$600 while sitting in his car in the Public's parking lot in in the middle of the night as his family's bodies lie
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 Grant's defense I mean yeah they worked hard to try to establish some
kind of Reasonable Doubt but it only took the jury 8 hours to convict Grant Amato of the first-degree premeditated
murder of all 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
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Grant Amato ////// 370

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What happens when someone confuses a virtual relationship for a real relationship, and it then grows into an obsession? An obsession he would kill for?

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Brief Summary

Grant Amato murdered his family over an online obsession, leading to his conviction for three counts of first-degree murder.

Key points

The Online Obsession Begins. Grant Amato becomes deeply involved with a webcam model, leading to dangerous consequences.
Family Meltdown. The Amato family confronts Grant's spiraling behavior and financial theft.
Intervention at Dawn. The family stages an intervention for Grant in the middle of the night.
Family Ultimatum. Grant is forced to end contact with Sylvia or face eviction from the family home.
Welfare Check. Concerned friends call the police after Cody Amato fails to show up for work.
Discovery of Bodies. Deputies find the bodies of Cody and his parents in a gruesome scene.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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

Introduction to the theme of obsession in the story.

5:51WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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