The Boy Who Killed His Twin | Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] Harris County 911. What's the location of your emergency? I just killed my sister. Oh my God. Tell me what your name is. Benjamin Elliott.
OK, tell me exactly what happened. I thought it was a dream. I I took my knife and I stabbed her.
Please, I don't want her to die. Sorry. How old is she? 17, we're twins. Is she awake? Yes,
she's like barely alive. Is there anyone else there in the house with you? There is. It's my
parents, but they're asleep. Okay, I need you to go wake them up. Mom...Dad? We're going to
have to start CPR right now. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 1, 2 ... Keep tapping her chest just like that,
OK? Where's your son? Where's your son? OK. OK. We got ... EMS is coming. OK, slow down a little bit. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 1, 2, 3, 4 ... Can we take over? Can you step out? Thank you. What happened? It was
a dream. He said it was a dream, honey. What the f---. I don't know. I don't know what I'll
do if she dies. It was just a dream and then it wasn't. I'm going to do a search of you real quick and then
I'm going to put you in the back seat out of this rain, OK? What was your first reaction when you
heard about the case? I was skeptical. Why does he have a knife next to his bed at night? This
is the first study that we did on Ben. I'm Dr. Jerald Simmons. I'm a neurologist, sleep disorder
specialist. See, these are rapid eye movements. I was asked to review the case of Benjamin Elliott.
The claim was that he was sleepwalking and stabbed his sister. We have a video of him right here. Oh,
there he is. Yeah. OK. You are convinced this was a sleepwalking incident? Yes. Are
you saying then that he did kill his sister, but he didn't intend to kill his sister?
I wouldn't say that it's impossible for someone to commit a crime while sleepwalking. I just don't think that was the case with Benjamin Elliott. Were you
able to find any evidence that there was a problem with these twins? No, we definitely looked into it and tried. The biggest thing that they're hanging their hat
on is the lack of motive. My name is Megan Long. I'm one of the prosecutors on the case.
[Music] So, this is really hard, isn't it, Mike? I hate this. I hate that she's gone.
This was not Benjamin's fault. I've never thought of him as somebody responsible
for this. What makes you so sure that you stabbed your sister while you were sleepwalking? I would never have done that. I loved her. She was my best and closest friend.
[Music] [Music] [Music] On the morning of September 29, 2021, 17-year-old Benjamin Elliott
was in a Harris County Sheriff's interrogation room in Houston, Texas. So, what happened,
Benjamin? You ever have like a really realistic nightmare or like just everything feels real,
but also off at the same time. Benjamin told detective Freder Muñoz that he stabbed his
twin sister once with this knife, but had little memory of what had happened. So,
you go to sleep. What's the next thing you remember? The next thing I remember is like
the feeling of stabbing something. I was in her room and I turned on the light and I was
panicking and I tried to stop bleeding with the the the pillow. So I run in my room and
I unplugged my phone and I dialed 911. No more. What's the location of your emergency? I stabbed
my sister. How many times did you stab her? Just once. I heard the 911 call and I screamed. What's
going on? You what? And I went to go move into the bedroom. As I moved, I I saw Meghan and she was uh
really She was uh gray. You know, Michael Elliott remembers calling out to his wife,
Kathy. I I heard Michael yell, "Oh my God." I was trying to figure out what's going on and Michael said, "The police are here. Where's the brother at?" And I just ...
Arriving paramedics took over CPR. They took Benjamin out of the house. He was shocked.
He said it was a dream. What the What did you make of that? I don't I mean I just I couldn't
believe it. I mean, I couldn't. Not that Ben you knew. So, it would have to been that he
was ... Something would have had to happen. Benjamin, his parents say, sat handcuffed in a police car
for three hours while police confronted with an apparent homicide took control of the crime
scene. I just want to see her. We can't. No, we can't see her. Nobody would tell us if Meghan was
OK. What was going on? Take a picture for me. Let me see something. Can we see something? No,
sir. The Elliotts say they felt isolated by the police and eventually called a longtime friend
who is also an attorney. He went and got some information and he told us that Meghan had died.
It was news police didn't share with Benjamin. Is she OK? Benjamin asked Detective Muñoz several
times if his sister was all right. She is okay. But the detective withheld the truth. Yeah. Last
time I I know about she was uh being checked out by the EMS. Authorities say this is a textbook
police technique to keep a suspect talking and they wanted Benjamin talking about his feelings
for his sister. So, how's your relationship with Meghan? Good. She's my twin sister. I'd do anything
for her. No rivalry there? No. You guys having any recent fights or anything like that? No,
we're pretty close for siblings. Benjamin, who spoke to police without a lawyer,
said he loved his sister and described what he says he remembered before the stabbing.
Phone records show he was scrolling the web. And Benjamin says he thinks he fell
asleep somewhere around 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning. Where would that phone be at right
now? Somewhere at the crime scene. Benjamin provided Munoz with his iPhone password and
permission to search his phone. Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental illnesses? No.
Benjamin said there were no problems at home and said that he was looking forward to college. I'm
thinking about mechanical engineering. I'm taking the SAT I think Friday. No, Saturday.
And let me ask you, the knife that you had in your hands, where'd you get it from? From my
dad. He had given it to me that day. It was like an Air Force survival knife. I was really enamored
with it. Benjamin and Meghan's parents had a big collection of knives and gear. The family is big
into camping. Kathy is senior manager with the Girl Scouts of America. Michael is a stay-at-home
dad. I know that if I had not given him that knife, this would not have happened. And um
after 2 hours in that interrogation room, at 11 a.m., Munoz finally revealed that
Meghan was dead. I deserve that. Meghan did not make it. [Music] He and Meghan are so close, you could never picture anything bad happening between them. Longtime
friend Drue Whittecar was stunned to learn Benjamin was in police custody. He was very protective of
her. She says her family and the Elliotts have been closed since 2005. Ben was very engineering
focused. Whitaker, herself an engineer, described Benjamin as soft-spoken, smart, funny, and a bit
nerdy. While Megan was sensitive, wrote poetry, and loved to draw. As a teenager, Meghan had been
diagnosed with autism. And how did she feel about Ben? She loved him. She looked up to him. You
would see her walk up next to him when she would feel uncomfortable and just kind of stand by him.
Did he ever get tired of having to take care of Megan? I think he was proud of it. Like he
liked he liked being a protector. The Elliotts say the twins seemed happy in the weeks before
the stabbing. With their eldest child, Elizabeth, already off at college. The twins toured separate
universities. Meghan at this point had started coming out of her shell as well. She was finding
her voice and she had found friends online and she had a YouTube channel where she was doing art.
The night before Megan's death, father and son spent hours playing popular video games such as
Survive the Nights. It was in that video game that Benjamin noticed a military-style knife that his
father said resembled one that he owned. Michael offered to give it to Benjamin. Unfortunately,
I went and got the knife out. The Elliotts remember heading off to bed. Was there any,
you know, any problem at all between the twins? The Elliotts, like police, couldn't make sense
of why Benjamin stabbed Meghan, but police had the teenager's confession, the bloody knife he used,
along with a disturbing detail discovered at autopsy. Megan hadn't been stabbed just once.
She had two stab wounds. Benjamin Elliott was charged with the murder of his twin sister.
[Music] After several days on suicide watch, 17-year-old Benjamin Elliott was released on bail.
His parents were there waiting for him. I saw them put him out and he just kind of stood there
on the sidewalk and I - sorry, it's OK. I went up to him and and he seemed I told him I said,
"Hey, Ben." You know, and and he seemed like like he didn't see me. He's surprised to see
me. [Music] We started driving and we we were asking him if he was OK and we were getting
very, very quiet ... quiet like, you know, single word answers. So Michael pulls the car over
um and stops and and gets up comes around and takes his face in his hands and he says he's
like, "Hi, we love you. Hi." And he just, yeah. And I saw him kind of I was sort of awake.
[Music] And then he just hugged us. Yeah. The Elliotts knew they could never sleep in their
home again and had already moved in with Kathy's mother. Ben was worried that he might walk around.
He was worried that he might do something and he wanted to make sure everybody was safe. The
Elliotts were worried, too. The first two nights I slept in a chair. Yeah. In front of the door. The
couple even installed an alarm on Benjamin's door. Because his attorneys had asked them not to speak
with their son about the night Meghan was killed. They couldn't ask him the burning question,
why? There's never been anything wrong with him at all. My bandwidth was a mental health
something. Kathy's father was schizophrenic. She now feared her son might be. So did Benjamin's
lawyers, Wes Rucker and Cary Hart. So we had a psychiatrist sit down with him. I fully expected
her to come back and say he's got schizophrenia or he's severely bipolar. When she calls me up,
she said, "Wes, he's fine." It blew my mind. They came to suspect that Benjamin experienced
something else entirely. He was actually sleepwalking when he killed his sister.
Had either one of you ever had a case quite like this? Never. No. You have a twin um causing the
death of the other and the last thing you think of is this a sleepwalking case. But Benjamin had told
police that I stabbed his sister, it felt like a dream. And his lawyers say that sleepwalking
defenses have been used successfully in the past. In 1987, Canadian Kenneth Parks drove his car 14
miles to his mother-in-law's home, beat her to death with a tire iron, and stabbed her.
He claimed he was asleep the whole time, and a jury believed him. And in North Carolina in 2010,
Joseph Mitchell strangled his 4-year-old son and attacked two of his other children,
all while sleepwalking. A jury also found him not guilty. The big question here is
just whether Ben Elliott in fact killed his sister while he was sleepwalking. Correct.
Just here. So Benjamin's lawyers reach out to Dr. Jerald Simmons, a neurologist and a sleep
disorder expert. When I first was approached, I was very skeptical. The next question is,
did I even want to deal with this? My first reaction to this is, you know, well,
who else are they going to go to? I mean, within the field of sleep medicine, this is what I do.
Simmons wanted to do a sleep study with Benjamin to test if it's possible Benjamin could experience
something called a parasomnia. In general, think of a parasomnia as an abnormal behavior
that occurs during sleep, like sleepwalking. Sleepwalking would be a parasomnia. Simmons
asks if Benjamin had a history of sleepwalking, and his lawyers say he did. When he was about
10 years old, Benjamin's older sister, Elizabeth, found him sleepwalking by her bedroom door. There
was also a sleepover with childhood friends the night this photo was taken. When Benjamin
was found asleep on a couch eating a donut when they woke him, he seemed surprised and confused.
Simmons also learned that there were other members of the Elliott family who sleepwalked.
the likelihood genetically is higher to have uh parisomnia, specifically non-run parisomnas if
there are other family members that have had that. My uncle apparently used to sleepwalk when he was
a teenager. He would go out into the garage and you know with the tools and apparently he walked
in on my mom one time when she was in the shower. Kathy also had an aunt who once walked out of her
house while she was asleep, r an out into the woods in the middle of the night and waking up in the
middle of a thunderstorm outside. Yeah. And here's a video of him right here. Simmons conducted two
sleep studies with Benjamin in his sleep lab 6 weeks apart. In each, Benjamin was hooked up to
machines that monitor just about everything his body did as he slept. This is brain wave activity
here. So, we did the sleep study. I saw that he had obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep
apnea says Simmons is where the airway becomes partially blocked creating a disturbance in the
sleep pattern. So he's sleeping struggling a bit to get breath and that could be the
trigger. Yes. A trigger that Simmons says could cause a sleepwalking episode. Particularly when
Benjamin's brain waves enter what is known as a non-REM slow-wave sleep. Now he's in slow-wave
sleep. This is slow-wave sleep. Sleepwalking will typically occur in non-REM slow-wave sleep. During
the sleep studies, Benjamin did not sleepwalk, but Simmons observed how quickly Benjamin entered that
non-REM slow-wave sleep. So it was 11 minutes from the time we turned off the lights until
he was in slow-wave sleep. This is important because on the night Benjamin stabbed Megan,
his phone activity stopped at 4:17 a.m. It was just 24 minutes later that he was on his phone
calling 911. I just found my sister. What you looking at? Simmons says the fact that Benjamin
is able to reach slow-wave sleep so quickly means it's possible Benjamin was sleepwalking during
that period of time his phone was inactive. Our father was becoming [Music] Do you believe Ben
killed his sister without even realizing he was doing it in his sleep? Yes, Ben definitely killed
his sister. He did it. There's no question. He's the one that had the knife and he stabbed her.
But I believe it was part of a parasomnia. He didn't do this voluntarily. There was no
motivation. Dr. Simmons' findings took Benjamin's parents by surprise. It's scary as hell. If that
can happen to us, then that could happen to anybody with with the sleep problem. [Music]
He realized he was sinking the knife into something or someone and then woke up and
realized it was his sister. After sleep expert Dr. Jerald Simmons made his assessment that
Benjamin was sleepwalking when he killed his twin sister, the Elliotts were hopeful prosecutors
might drop the case. At that point, we thought it might not go to trial. But in April 2023,
a year and a half after Meghan's death, a grand jury indicted Benjamin Elliott, then 19 years of
age, of first-degree murder. We just didn't think that what we saw was sleepwalking. Megan Long and
Maroun Koutani would handle the prosecution. It wasn't Long's first sleepwalking case. In 2019,
she successfully convicted a man who claimed he was sleepwalking when he shot and killed
his wife. And Long told us she herself was a sleepwalker as were her children. Still, Long
disputes the Elliotts' claim of a family history since she says neither of Benjamin's parents have
been sleepwalkers. From our conversations with our sleep expert, family history of
sleepwalking is a factor. It's more prevalent when it's um like first-degree family members,
so your parents. The prosecutors hired their own sleep consultant, psychologist Dr. Mark Pressman,
who concluded Benjamin was not sleepwalking when he stabbed Meghan. He says sleepwalkers become
aggressive only when someone physically interferes with them and they respond by hitting or kicking
or throwing furniture, but that's that's that's like a reflex, you know, an instinctive reflex
to protect themselves. And he points out that Benjamin would have had to have unchath the
knife before he used it in the stabbing, which Pressman believes is a complex conscious action,
not an unconscious one. The next thing I remember is the feeling of stabbing something. He also
says it's unusual for a sleepwalker to recall details the way Benjamin did to authorities
after he stabbed Meghan. He remembered the feeling of the knife going into the neck. OK, so that's
a memory. OK. Shouldn't be able to have that memory. Aren't there sometimes pockets of memory?
Not in these cases. No. Dr. Simmons disagrees. He says Benjamin told police what he could recall. If
he was trying to fabricate this or just use this as an alibi, it would have been just as easy for
him to say, "I don't remember anything." Instead, he's I interpret it as he's trying to be as
honest as he can. But Pressman felt he had enough information to make his determination. You didn't
think you needed to talk to Ben? No. Prosecutor Long knew she needed more than an expert's
assessment to convict Benjamin, especially because she couldn't identify a motive for
murder. No one had witnessed any problems between the twins. Is there no motive because he was
sleepwalking or is there no motive just because no one's willing to come forward and tell us?
and they think they could convince a jury that Benjamin's actions were intentional that night,
stabbing Meghan twice. One wound was 4 inches deep and severed her carotid artery and jugular vein. So,
he's saying that he stabbed her in the neck, removed the knife with where she was stabbed,
blood would be coming out of her neck, you should see some sort of blood spatter on the walls, and
there isn't any of that. Benjamin had told police he used a pillow to stop the bleeding. And I tried
to stop bleeding with the pillow that was behind her. I like to did that. Long doesn't believe
that. I think he wanted to cover her face. I think maybe even muff if she were to scream or anything
like that. The only way for there not to be that blood spatter is it had to be there when he took
the knife out. It wasn't there for life-saving measures. But he's calling 911, so he's not trying
to hide what he had done, right? I think at that point when he's making that 911 call, he realizes,
I can't hide what I've just done. What's your name? I just killed my sister. Koutani claims
Benjamin is whispering on the 911 call. [Music] And is suspicious why he's not yelling to his
parents for help. Please, I don't want you to die. I think he's whispering because he doesn't want
his parents to come to the same reality that he's now living in that he took his sister's
life. I think that that's why he doesn't awake them before calling 911. I think that's why he
doesn't scream in the house when he realizes what he's done. And they argue Meghan was already dead
by the time Benjamin called 911. Okay, sir. Can we can we take over? By the time EMS got there, she
wasn't breathing on her own. She had no heartbeat. Our medical examiner said that with the wound that
she suffered from, she would have been dead within minutes. Benjamin's interrogation raised even more
questions, they say, especially when Benjamin described his house as a crime scene. Benjamin
Elliott is asked by Deputy Muñoz, "Where's your phone?" Benjamin Elliott responds with, "It's at
the crime scene." And to us, that was significant. Not many 17 year olds would respond with, "At the
crime scene." Most people would say, "At my house, in my room." And there is more, says Koutani. His
demeanor and his behavior is very calm. Certainly not the type of behavior you would expect from
somebody who comes to with a knife in their hand and their sister uh dead in the sleep of the of
her own bedroom. Could he be in shock? I mean, realizing what he had done. Isn't that possible?
I think based on his response to Deputy Muñoz in a couple portions of the interview,
we can tell that he's not necessarily in shock with what the consequences of his actions were.
During the interview, Benjamin told police that his sister had struggled with her mental health.
My sister had um a pretty severe depression for a while, Meghan. To prosecutors that suggested maybe
everything wasn't so perfect in the Elliott family. A contention that Benjamin's lawyers
find ridiculous. They say investigators made virtually no effort to learn about the Elliotts
or Benjamin. They don't have a clue about this kid. They weren't even curious. He would know
what was going to happen to him if he killed his sister. There was nothing for him to gain. There
was everything for him to lose. There's just no reason why he would have done that. Before trial,
prosecutors offered Benjamin a 30-year plea deal. He turned it down. The tragedy is now
the family lost their daughter, but they're now losing their son. He's on trial for his life.
[Music] All right. He's a victim. He went to sleep. He woke up and he he found out he had killed
his sister. After struggling with Meghan's loss, maybe. The Elliotts now face the possibility they
could lose Benjamin, too. It's a nightmare that happened to all of us. All right, for the jury.
Benjamin's first-degree murder trial began on February 18, 2025. You tell your colleagues,
"I have a client who killed his twin sister and we believe he was sleepwalking." And they think
you're crazy. But with no evidence of any problems between the twins, Benjamin's lawyers hope they
could convince a jury that sleepwalking is the only explanation. Even prosecutors knew the lack
of motive could be a problem. I think our biggest hurdle going into this trial was the why. So,
you made sure you had jurors who at least be open to the idea they may never know
why Meghan Elliott was stabbed, right? In his opening remarks, Maroun Koutani made it clear
that while there was no motive, they had their murderer. He calls 911 at 4:41. Hello. Hello.
I just killed my sister. I stabbed her with a knife. Oh my God. He's whispering. Prosecutors
told jurors about Benjamin's behavior during that interrogation. And you'll see his demeanor
in the interview, pointing to Benjamin's reaction when the detective tells him Meghan is dead. Sorry
to tell you this, but Meghan has succumbed to her injuries. And the defendant says,
Witnesses offer details about her wounds, the lack of blood spatter, and the prosecution's theory that Benjamin covered Meghan's head with a pillow while he stabbed her.
And Benjamin's father was surprised to learn that prosecutors would ask him to identify Meghan's body for the record. This is a photo taken from an autopsy.
Yeah, that's Meghan. No question drama. After the prosecution rested, defense attorneys Cary Hart
and Wes Rucker took over. Good morning. Making their case about sleepwalking. And this is not
a ruse. This is not some defense to get Ben off of a tragic tragic set of circumstances.
This is a real phenomenon. And that call Benjamin made to 911, the defense says that's evidence he
was desperate to save Megan. He's saying things like, "Oh my God, I thought it was a dream. I
thought it was a dream. I don't want her to die. I don't want her to die. He's trying to do CPR.
Family friend Drue Whittecar told the jury about Benjamin's devotion to Meghan. Ever noticed that
if the sweet kid or the tender kid change into somebody else? Absolutely not. Appearing by Zoom,
childhood friend Anand Singh told the jury about that sleepover when he found Benjamin asleep
and eating a donut. Just the sheer confusion on his face like he genuinely seemed baffled
as to how that happened. Benjamin's great aunt, Martha Knight-Oakley, a psychologist,
told the jury about her own sleepwalking history, including finding herself in the woods one night.
All I know is I came to in the bushes clutching my dog. But the defense team's star witness
was Dr. Jerald Simmons. He testified for four hours detailing the science and sleep studies
that convinced him of Benjamin's innocence. It totally fits in line with a process we
call sleepwalking violent behaviors. On rebuttal, prosecutors called their own sleepwalking expert,
Dr. Mark Pressman. I concluded uh he was not in a sleepwalking state. How did you come to
that conclusion? He had memory. He is said to have come out of the state much faster than any
sleepwalker could ever do. In closing arguments, prosecutors described a deliberate murder.
Benjamin Elliott walked into his sister's room with this very knife and he stabbed her in the
neck twice. There's no blood spraying in the room. You know why? The only thing soaked in
blood is the pillow that he muffled her screams with. Benjamin's defense attorneys push back.
you if you're trying to cover something up, you're not calling 911. You're not begging for someone to
help your sister. And they appealed for justice. You do not convict a young man, a 17-year-old,
because of how he looks or because how he answers interrogation questions. But prosecutor Megan Long
had the final word, and she suggested the family was involved in a cover up that began with calling
the friend who is a lawyer. And look, I'm a mother. I understand wanting to protect your
children. I get it. But you can't let them get away with it. They have been protecting him from
the get-go. Long didn't leave it there. They want to say that this family life was perfect,
but we don't necessarily know what happens behind closed doors. And what she said next
stunned the courtroom filled with the Elliott family and friends. I want you to look in
this courtroom. There are so many people here for Benjamin. There is not one person here for Meghan.
The judge let the prosecution continue. You have to be her hero. He knew exactly
what he was doing. There's been no remorse shown here in this courtroom by him. After
four days of testimony, the case went to the jury. We took a vote immediately. Jurors were divided. It was split seven to five. Could they reach a verdict?
I was a sleepwalker and one of my own children used to sleepwalk too as a young. Several of
the jurors who decided Benjamin's fate knew a lot about sleepwalking. You know someone
who was a sleepwalker? Absolutely. Yes. Had a had a family member. Yes. On my mom's side,
my grandfather. But even with their experience, they were deeply conflicted about Benjamin. We
spent a lot of time with the interview by the detective. I'm taking the SAT I think Friday.
He talked about how he was going to go take the SAT. He just seemed to not have a lot of
remorse. It didn't take them long to come to a unanimous decision. All right. For the jury,
my understanding is that y'all have a verdict. Is that correct? After four hours of deliberations,
we the jury find the defendant Benjamin David Elliott guilty of murder is charged
in the indictment signed by the foreman of the jury, printed by the foreman of the jury.
I remember hearing guilty and I was completely shocked. Benjamin Elliott, who did not testify at
trial, later spoke to "48 Hours" inside the county jail. I feel like this has been a I don't know,
a miscarriage of justice. Like it's I am not guilty of murder for my sister Meghan Elliott.
Benjamin, now 21 years old, said he and his family were appalled by the way prosecutor
Megan Long ended her closing argument. There are so many people here for Benjamin. There is not
one person here for Meghan. That was crazy to me. What do you mean? Everyone in that courtroom was
there for Meghan. I understand wanting to protect your children. And his parents were outraged by
the statements made by prosecutors, hinting to problems within the family. We don't necessarily
know what happens behind closed doors. They were lying. Yeah. It was horrible. They waited until
the closing when they knew that nothing could be said afterwards to to pull out these outlandish
implications about you don't know what happens behind closing. Yeah, she knows damn well there's
not a shred of evidence that anything unourred was happening in our house, in our family.
Benjamin and his parents had little time to let the guilty verdict sink in. Does he have to say
hug? Yes. They were back in court for sentencing the following day. and he is the one that went
into her room that night and snuffed the life out of her. Prosecutors asked for 40 years,
but a member of the jury asked the judge for leniency because he worried about Benjamin's
family. Stand up, Mr. Elliott. Judge Danilo Lacayo told the court he wanted a sentence that he could
live with. I sentence you to 15 years in prison. This time you will go with the the request for
leniency says Benjamin makes him wonder if a few jurors had more doubts than they wanted to admit.
If you believe that I crept into my sister's bedroom and murdered her while she was asleep, why
would you possibly want leniency for that person? That person is horrible. Are you that person? No,
I'm not. I'm not that person. I mean, I'm I I try to be genuine. I try to be honest. I'm I'd
like to think of myself as a good person. Benjamin says authorities misconstrued everything he did.
Started with that 911 call. The prosecutors say you were whispering on the phone. Were you? No.
That's ridiculous. I wasn't whispering. inside. I don't want to get by. I'm so sorry. I was
panicked. I wasn't screaming into the phone cuz I'm just not a I don't really yell. And Benjamin
insists that as soon as he realized what he had done, he was trying to help Meghan using
the pillow to try to stop the bleeding. The state says that you didn't use the pillow to
try to stop the bleeding. You did it to keep her from screaming. What do you say to that? That's
crazy to me. And there's absolutely absolutely zero forensic evidence for that at all. And what
about his seemingly calm demeanor throughout the police interview? The plan is I'm taking
the SAT. You're talking to a deputy and you're talking about SATs and colleges. I'm trying to
get my mind off of things. I've had some issues with school stuff sometimes where I think you
can see it in the conversation. I keep pretty much steering the conversation away from what happened.
I don't want to think about it. As for learning Meghan had died, Benjamin says he just shut down
and that he was desperately hoping she'd be okay. Do you feel you're guilty of anything? No,
you don't. No. No. I I don't think this is my fault at all. I used to blame myself for it
because it's like I mean I I was the one holding the knife, right? But I mean I've come to realize
that I'm not, you know, I couldn't have done anything any different than what I had done.
And Benjamin says he misses his twin. It's really hard that she's not here. Isn't it hard to know that ...
it's because of you she's not here? Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard. We did everything together. Like we we were we were very very close.
And she was a wonderful person. She was an artist. The way she looked at the world. She
looked at it with like a creative mind. So she would just see just beautiful things everywhere.

A teenager stabs his sister — a crime with no known motive. His defense says he was sleepwalking. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Benjamin Elliott stabbed his twin sister Meghan while allegedly sleepwalking, leading to a complex murder trial.

Key points

A Shocking Confession. Benjamin Elliott calls 911 to confess he stabbed his sister, revealing a chilling moment.
The Dream That Became Reality. Benjamin describes the surreal experience of stabbing his sister, blurring the lines of reality.
Sleepwalking Defense. Experts debate whether Benjamin was sleepwalking when he stabbed his sister, raising complex questions.
A Family's Nightmare. The Elliott family grapples with the loss of Meghan and the potential loss of Benjamin.
The 911 Call. Benjamin calls 911 after the incident, revealing his shock and confusion.
The Verdict. After four hours of deliberation, the jury finds Benjamin guilty of murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was just a dream and then it wasn't.

Benjamin's haunting reflection on the stabbing incident.

1:27WatchOct 3, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.