The Quad Spree Killer | Killers Caught On Camera | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: This time on "Killers Caught on Camera." A huge manhunt for a spree killer
and a woman who are on the run. I could see that there were two bodies deceased from gunshot wounds.
There was a lot of blood. NARRATOR: Two more victims in Alabama and Florida are left in their path before the net closes in.
People can run and they can hide, just not forever. NARRATOR: And in the UK, a night out in Newcastle
ends with a young man left dead in the shower. In addition to the fatal stab wound,
they found stab wounds between Jason's shoulder blades. MAN 1: It just sounds like something
bad is happening to her. WOMAN 1: We know what happened because the video tells us what happened.
MAN 2: I heard some gunshots. POLICE OFFICER 1: Drop it. Whatever it is drop it!
That does not prove that I killed my wife. MAN 3: The camera doesn't lie. NARRATOR: The United states, Milton, Florida, a small city
northeast of Pensacola. On January 31, 2017, dispatchers received a disturbing 911 call from an employee
at the Emerald Sands Inn. NARRATOR: Captain Scott Jones was one of the first responders
on scene. I could see that there were two bodies deceased from gunshot wounds. There was a lot of blood.
And it was very quickly determined that, you know, obviously, this was not-- this was not a natural death.
This was going to be something to it. NARRATOR: Earlier in the week, close friends Alicia
Greer and Jacqueline Moore had checked into the Emerald Sands. BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN: Alicia Greer was
a 30-year-old mother of three. She was a friend of Jacqueline Moore's. Jacqueline Moore was 39 years old
and was also a mother of some small children. NARRATOR: They kept their location quiet
because Alicia was trying to hide from a very violent ex-partner. She had actually been hospitalized from some injuries
that she sustained from a violent attack. Alicia had been trying to hide and she was just
with her friend Jackie at that hotel room, just as a friendship, as support. NARRATOR: Police identified the two victims
as Alicia and Jacqueline. The staff member found murder victims Alicia Greer and Jacqueline Moore in a room registered in Moore's name.
NARRATOR: But the killer remained a mystery. And they brought in a 3D scanner, a laser-based device creating a walkthrough of the crime scene,
identifying one body on the floor, the other on the bed. A 3D representation, allowing a virtual camera to travel
freely through the immediate aftermath to reexamine the evidence. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
This was a rare and hyper violent event. Bob Johnson is the Sheriff of Santa Rosa County.
We don't have a lot of homicides in Santa Rosa County, much less double homicides.
The fact that two innocent women were basically zip tied and executed, that shows signs
of a really sick individual. I knew we had a maniac on the loose and I knew we had to get him pretty quick.
NARRATOR: After being made aware of Alicia's previous toxic relationship, police identified the man as William "Billy"
Boyette. Boyette was well known to us. He was a violent offender who had a long history with our agency.
NARRATOR: His most recent offense was against Alicia, which prompted her to go into hiding
at the Emerald Sands Inn. Billy Boyette had a pending warrant for his arrest on that charge.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: Billy Boyette quickly became suspect number one for the double homicide.
NEWS PRESENTER 1: A massive manhunt is underway in Escambia County, Florida, for Boyette.
He's wanted as a person of interest. SCOTT JONES: The manhunt is on for Billy Boyette.
We're going out. We're trying to locate him. We're going to all of his known friends,
associates, anybody that would have had contact with him. NARRATOR: Dominic Guadagnoli was assigned to the investigation.
We knew that, OK, he had this rental car so we knew what kind of car he was driving.
NARRATOR: The car was a black Ford Edge SUV. The police urgently needed to find both the vehicle and the man.
Detectives fanned out both sides of Highway 90 where the hotel was located and just started going door to door.
NARRATOR: As the hunt for Billy Boyette widened, the Ford Edge was caught on camera
30 miles from the murder scene at a Walmart in Crestview. But when the police examined the footage,
it's not Billy who gets out. It's a woman. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] The woman seen entering the Walmart
was identified as Mary Rice. Her life was potentially in danger. The police needed to find her and Billy Boyette.
SCOTT JONES: Several people that were associated with Mary Rice were expressing concern that she was missing.
At the same time, family members had actually called in to report that Mary Rice was missing.
So at this point, we were very concerned that Mary Rice may have potentially been a victim of homicide
or was potentially a hostage being held against her will. NARRATOR: Bridgette Myers Jensen was the assistant state
attorney assigned to the case. Mary Rice was known to be an acquaintance of Billy Boyette's
while he was incarcerated. She became like a pen pal of sorts with him. And then once he was released at the end of 2016,
he reached out to Mary Rice. NARRATOR: The fact that Mary Rice wrote to Billy Boyette
while he was in prison could tell us more about the dynamic of their relationship.
There's a number of reasons why women choose to write to male inmates. And one of them, the most common,
is what's called the manipulator, which is someone who is writing to a person in prison
and basically wants to control them. The other category of women who write to male prisoners
are what are sometimes referred to as neurotic or anxious. And the one that Mary Rice fits into
is neurotic, which means that she perhaps sees herself as bad and she's looking for someone else to see her as caring,
and as loving, and as considerate because she doesn't see herself that way. NARRATOR: Police had no idea whether she was
being held against her will. SCOTT JONES: That's her getting out of the car right now.
Boyette is pulling off. He's going to go park in a spot. And here she comes into the store unaccompanied.
Mary Rice is in the store for a long time, walking up and down the aisles. She's purchasing camping supplies,
survival items and ammunition. Here we see Mary Rice entering the sporting goods section of Walmart.
She proceeds to purchase over 100 rounds of .38 caliber ammunition. NARRATOR: It was clear both her and Billy
were now armed and dangerous. They also seemed to be preparing to slip off the radar.
This isn't just to buy some supplies to make it to a road trip to another place.
They're looking to hide. NARRATOR: They needed to catch them before they went off grid.
BOB JOHNSON: A manhunt for us consists of every hand on deck, pretty much. You know, everybody drops what they're doing
and tries to find this individual and stop them as soon as possible. Because in the manner of which these two women were killed,
we knew it was just a matter of time before he did it again. NARRATOR: Then just three days after the double homicide
at the Emerald Sands Inn, a woman was killed 40 miles away in Lillian, Alabama. Peggy Broz was located in the front yard of her home,
shot in the face and her car was missing. POLICE OFFICER 2: He is armed and very dangerous.
He may use violence again to carjack a vehicle. NARRATOR: 52-year-old Peggy Broz was a respiratory therapist.
She was returning from a night shift at the hospital when she was killed. Gina Herrington is Peggy's sister.
Peggy and I are a year and a half apart in age. She was older than me. I'm younger than her.
We went to school together. After she graduated junior college, she got her education to become a respiratory therapist
at the hospital at Pensacola. Peggy and I talked. She would call me every evening and we
would talk on her way to work. She would tell me what's going on. She'd be like, I'll be glad when I retire.
I like my job, but I'll be glad when I retire. So I can be home with my family. NARRATOR: Peggy had two children.
Her daughter Hannah, is the youngest. I always remember my mom being there, even though she worked the graveyard shift.
She was very active in my schooling when I was a kid. She was just always the one there taking pictures.
NARRATOR: A strong mother in the wrong place at the wrong time. A random victim of an opportunistic killer.
GINA HERRINGTON: Peggy was coming home from work. She was shot right in the bridge of her nose
and the bullet lodged into her temple. Just for a car. We were told she died instantly because her brain didn't
have time to register to shut her eyes. So her eyes were open. HANNAH BROZ: When I initially got there
and I saw that the road was taped off, I was like, this is serious. But I just couldn't understand that my mom was dead.
NARRATOR: Witnesses saw a man driving Peggy's car, followed by a woman driving the black Ford
Edge they were looking for. Police managed to track down surveillance footage to support
what the witnesses said. This is surveillance footage from a car dealership near the scene of Peggy Broz's murder.
Here we see Peggy Broz's vehicle coming by and we see the vehicle that Billy Boyette was in,
the black Ford Edge coming right behind it. Mary Rice is driving this vehicle. NARRATOR: Three minutes later, they're caught on camera
again in a parking lot. You'll see Billy Boyette get out of the driver's seat of that vehicle and you see Mary Rice get out of the driver's
seat of the black Ford Edge. They then proceed to take items from the Ford Edge and put them into Peggy Broz's car,
leaving the Ford Edge abandoned in the parking lot. This surveillance footage shows that Mary Rice is helping.
It's also critical evidence in the murder of Peggy Broz because she was murdered just moments before.
Here we have the prime suspect driving her vehicle. NARRATOR: Peggy Broz's family were
advised that Billy Boyette was the prime suspect for Peggy's murder. HANNAH BROZ: My dad just had this guttural animal-like
reaction and my brother had to hold him down while the police told us about the two other women that
were killed a few days prior. SCOTT JONES: She was an innocent victim. We believe that Billy Boyette just followed her to her home
and killed her for the sole purpose of taking her vehicle. He got what he wanted but killed
anyways, which tells you what a human piece of trash this guy was. This is just so cold blooded to get what you want,
you ask them for something, you know they're defenseless and you kill them anyways.
GINA HERRINGTON: I know, Peggy. Peggy would have said, dude, you can have the car,
you can have everything in it. And hey, I'll be glad to go in the house and fix you something to eat, too.
That's the kind of person Peggy was. NARRATOR: The death toll was three victims in just three days.
Billy Boyette and Mary Rice were still on the loose. We didn't know what was going to happen.
They hadn't been caught. Nobody knew where they were. The streets was silent. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
SCOTT JONES: This is just an all out manhunt. At this point, we've got three murder victims in two states
and the media is all over it. And the citizens are concerned, rightfully so. It's everyone's worst nightmare.
There's no rhyme or reason to the victims he chooses other than they're helpless females.
NARRATOR: Sheriff Bob Johnson used the media to send a clear message. I'm speaking directly to Billy Boyette or anyone
who can get him a message. Mr. Boyette, there are two places you can end up-- prison or a cemetery.
The choice is yours. The people coming for you are not the unarmed, defenseless victims like you have been preying on.
They're professional law enforcement officers that will take you off the streets.
How it happens is totally up to you. NARRATOR: Two days later, a man spotted Peggy Broz's
car dumped in Escambia County. Peggy Broz's vehicle was discovered abandoned and broken down near the intersection of Nine
Mile Road and Interstate 10. NARRATOR: Police tried to find any cameras nearby that might have captured Billy Boyette and Mary Rice.
The breakthrough came from a device usually deployed to track down animals. SCOTT JONES: We located surveillance footage
in the Beulah area from trail cameras. It showed Billy Boyette and Mary Rice walking through the area.
NARRATOR: Caught in the cross-hairs of a motion-sensitive camera. BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN: Billy had a firearm.
Mary had a sleeping bag. And it just showed that they were together and that they were walking through the woods,
probably looking for their next opportunity. NARRATOR: But when they emerged from the woods,
the cameras captured her and Billy Boyette digitally. But it was the police who actually had to catch them.
BOB JOHNSON: By the time we would get those videos and figure out where exactly it occurred at, we'd get there
and they would be gone. It's just it was very frustrating. They were one step ahead of us pretty much the whole way.
Our fear all along was that Billy Boyette was killing people at random. NARRATOR: Without a car, police felt
it was only a matter of time before Billy would strike again. On the morning of Monday, February 6, 911 dispatchers
received an alarming call. NARRATOR: 28-year-old Kayla Crocker lived in Beulah. She had two children.
Kayla Crocker was getting ready for work that morning with her small child in his crib.
NARRATOR: But Kayla didn't show up for work that morning. SCOTT JONES: Her mother was aware of everything
going on with Billy Boyette, who had been located in the area. So at this point, her mother goes over to check on her.
Kayla had been tied up and shot in the head. Her hair pulled out in clumps. Her car had been stolen.
Police suspected for the first time that Mary Rice was directly involved with restraining
Kayla prior to her death. We believe Billy and Mary came upon Kayla's house with the car running, went inside, tied Kayla up, shot her
in the head, stole some of the food and goods from her home, and then took her car.
NARRATOR: Later in hospital, Kayla died from her horrific injuries. Killing someone or committing a crime in order
to, say, get a car or to have access to something, that's what we refer to as an instrumental crime.
It's not about killing the person. It's about getting the car. In this case, I think that's not what happened.
You don't tie somebody up and then shoot them in this way. If all you want is access to their car, you just shoot them.
SCOTT JONES: At this point. Billy Boyette is all over. The media is going crazy.
Social media is going crazy. We're getting probably 100 tips a day about sightings.
So when this murder happened, it really intensified. NEWS PRESENTER 2: The Sheriff believes
Boyette has stayed in the area, spending time in the woods. We immediately put out the vehicle description
of Kayla Crocker's vehicle. We don't want Billy to abandon that vehicle and kill someone else in cold blood.
NARRATOR: After the fourth murder, the wanted poster was circulated across the states
of Florida and Alabama. When there's already a search out for you and people know that you've committed your previous crimes,
I think at that point you also have way less to lose. And so the idea that, OK, well, we've
already committed a murder. Oh, we've committed another one. People know that this has happened.
They're already after us. They're looking for us. And you're going to resort to more extreme measures
to try and get out of that situation because you've just raised the stakes from a normal life
to a life in prison or potentially the death penalty. And so what you're running away from makes total sense
because you're not escaping normality, you're escaping death by committing more crimes.
And that is a very different calculation to be making. NARRATOR: As suspects in four murders,
Rice and Boyette were still on the loose. The police needed to work out if Mary was his hostage or accomplice.
The footage captured after Kayla's murder was key to working this out. This footage was consistent with the trail camera footage
of her walking through the woods with Billy Boyette carrying many supplies. This shows that she was in the store
alone, unaccompanied by Boyette, and she could have clearly called for help or gotten away from Boyette if she truly wanted to.
NARRATOR: Billy and Mary were caught on camera again at Hardee's drive-thru buying breakfast.
And four hours later, Mary Rice was captured on camera at Dollar General. Her change of appearance was of interest.
Her hair color is different, indicating that she's dyed her hair in an attempt to disguise herself.
At no point during the time that she's in here shopping alone did she ask any of the employees for help
or ask anyone to call the police on her behalf. Again, this indicates that she was acting
through her own fruition to help and assist Billy Boyette with his crimes. NARRATOR: As the cameras tracked their movements,
time was running out. I used to tell people all the time, people say that saying, you can run, but you can't hide.
I'm like, no, people can run and they can hide, just not forever. NARRATOR: The police finally got the breakthrough
they needed over 200 miles north in Troup County, Georgia. We received a call from an alert citizen
that Kayla Crocker's stolen vehicle had been located at a motel in Georgia. At that point, law enforcement responds.
And obviously, because of who the suspect is, the fact that they've loaded up on ammunition,
law enforcement is prepared that Billy Boyette may try to shoot it out with them.
We just basically removed people from the motel, keep the area safe, and started knocking on the door and saying,
hey, we're here. We're not going anywhere. Come out peacefully or we're coming in.
There is some conversation back and forth. I'm not coming out. We're not coming out.
So there's realizing this is going to be maybe a barricade situation. They get in the armored vehicle, assault rifles, heavy artillery.
At this point, we're just going to come in and start taking the door down. And at this point, Mary Rice walked outside.
We made her safe. And then that next point, we're going in. And as we were going in to do that,
that's when he shot himself. SCOTT JONES: The manhunt is finally over. I don't think he was man enough ever
to stand in front of somebody, and look them in the eye, and apologize. I don't think he had it in him.
NARRATOR: With Billy Boyette dead, the police focused their attention on Mary Rice
and her role in the killings. NARRATOR: In her interview with police, Mary told them she was taken by Billy and held hostage.
She claimed to law enforcement that she had been held against her will and that basically she had been kidnapped and was
a victim of Billy Boyette's. During the course of this interview, Mary tries to claim that she was forced to do these things,
that she was scared of Billy Boyette and that she was not a willing participant.
However, during the interview, she made several statements that were contrary to that narrative.
NARRATOR: Mary claimed there was another person acting with Billy when Peggy Broz was killed.
NARRATOR: But Mary's story didn't stack up. SCOTT JONES: Obviously, the goal in any interrogation
is we either want a confession or we want a provable lie. In this case, we had several provable lies.
NARRATOR: The video footage was also crucial for disproving Mary's claims. The video surveillance clearly contradicts the statements
that she's making during the interview. The video surveillance that shows that she's clearly walking
into Walmart, she's walking around by herself, and she's not asking anyone for help,
and then the video surveillance from the trail camera, which shows her carrying all of their camping and living
supplies, clearly indicated that it's not what she portrayed in the interview. One video is helpful, but when you have multiple videos that
show multiple times she was in stores unaccompanied and on alone, it builds a very convincing case that she was
acting in her own free will. NARRATOR: In jail, Mary continued to protest her innocence.
I ain't doing a thing. Yeah, [BLEEP] man. He [BLEEP] me up, man. He [BLEEP] me, like, almost every day.
If she was the victim of domestic violence, then maybe she was worried that he would kill her.
And she might not even know herself exactly why she went along with it. What we do see is that for co-offending behavior, where
women are perpetrating with men, men are controlling the situation almost always.
Women are going along with it. And that question comes up every single time-- why did she do it?
Why did she go along with it. And the answers are the same as for lots of human behavior,
because of love, because of coercion, because of pressure, because of other reasons.
And in this case, the thing you're doing is just a heinous crime, but the motivations are often
the same fundamental human motivations that encourage people to do anything else with their partner.
SCOTT JONES: It's not a crime to be a victim. But if you're an accomplice, you're now
an accessory to four murders. So, yeah, you're looking at a pretty significant prison
sentence when you're an accomplice. Mary Rice was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Kayla Crocker, and she was also
sentenced to 30 years in state prison for being an accessory after the fact to the murders of Jacqueline
Moore and Alicia Greer. SCOTT JONES: It felt good to finally get that conviction.
At the same time, you know, you mourn for the victims. There was four innocent women who were murdered senselessly.
NARRATOR: Mary Rice still hasn't been tried for the murder of Peggy Broz. HANNAH BROZ: This is going to sound bad,
but there is a, sort of, comfort knowing that Mary Rice will never leave prison.
She'll live the rest of her days stuck behind a jail cell. It's good to know that there's no one else that she could hurt.
And I guess that's closure enough. NARRATOR: But Billy Boyette will never have to answer for his crimes.
BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN: I don't believe the victims got justice. He basically took that from them by taking his own life.
And we didn't have the opportunity to prosecute him for all the heinous things that he did
to all the different victims. [MELANCHOLIC MUSIC] HANNAH BROZ: When I do something that I'm really proud of,
I hate that she's not there. It's hard not to focus on everything that they're going to miss.
PEGGY BROZ: Hannah, what you doing? Huh, what you doing big old girl? Things like not being able to see me get married,
or have kids or graduate with a bachelor's degree, stuff like that, or see where I go in life.
I just miss having my mom there. That's the most-- that's the thing that I miss the most, being able to talk to her,
have conversations that a mother and daughter would have. I mean, I think about her every day
and sometimes I'll listen to one of the few voicemails that I have of her just to hear her voice call my name.
PEGGY BROZ: Hanner! Hey, Hannah, give mama call, OK? Your title came in today. OK, love you.
Having the voicemails is almost like a saving grace, to be honest. Because it's not that I would forget her voice,
but I'm glad that I can still listen to it. I'm glad that I saved them, even though I didn't
know that I'd need them later. [MELANCHOLIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: Billy Boyette was a spree killer.
But how do you distinguish between a spree killer and a serial killer? These are incredibly unusual events.
And ultimately, it often comes down to how long someone is killing for. So is someone going out and killing, sort of,
rapid sequence back to back? That is more likely to be called a spree killing because it's
one continuous event. Whereas, a serial killer might be killing once every couple
of months over years or even decades. Spree killing is more likely to come out of an intense emotion.
Whereas, serial killing is more likely to be planned and targeted with specific individuals.
NARRATOR: Billy Boyette carried out his killing spree with the nation's most prolific murder weapon.
JULIA SHAW: Almost all perpetrators of murder in the United States use a handgun.
Using a knife is actually relatively rare. This is US specific. So this is really important because it
comes down to access to guns. But in places like the United Kingdom or other places where guns are harder to get, that proportion
changes dramatically and way more people are killed with knives. NARRATOR: In our next case, a knife was key.
In the UK, in North East England, the city of Newcastle, home to two universities and nearly 50,000 students,
including Jason Brockbanks. LUCY EDWARDS: Jason was a 24-year-old from Whitehaven.
He moved to Newcastle to study at Northumbria University. He was a person that cared a lot about people and just an
all around, kind-hearted lad. NARRATOR: Jason had grown up in a small coastal town in Cumbria.
JULIA SHAW: Homosexual people who grew up in small communities often flock to the city.
There's a real draw into what are perceived to be more liberal, more queer friendly spaces,
and that there's a clustering that happens where you find a new community. And so it can be a very freeing experience for someone to leave
a smaller community, to go to a bigger community where they find more LGBT people.
NARRATOR: But on September 24, 2022, Jason stopped replying to messages from friends and family.
LUCY EDWARDS: An accommodation manager got a phone call from Jason's parents. They were just concerned for his welfare.
They hadn't heard from him in three days. She used a master key to gain entry to his room.
The room was in a bit of disarray. The bed covers were off the bed. The TV was on.
When she went into the en suite bathroom, she saw blood on the walls and Jason very visibly dead in the shower cubicle.
[OMINOUS MUSIC] NARRATOR: The police launched a murder investigation. Student residence was cordoned off.
Lucy Edwards covered the case. For police, it's about getting crime scene teams in,
it's about DNA, it's about digital forensics and seeing what kind of picture they can
build about what's happened. NARRATOR: Jason's body was sent for an autopsy. The pathologist found sharp force injuries, one of which
was horizontal on his right flank, which they did believe was the main wound that caused him to bleed out.
In addition to the fatal stab wound, they found two additional stab wounds between Jason's shoulder
blades. NARRATOR: The police needed to find out who had killed Jason. They searched his room for evidence.
LUCY EDWARDS: The room the police walk into is in disarray. They find Jason's phone tangled in his bedding.
Obviously, the police will take the phone away for evidence. And they discovered messages on Grindr, which
is a gay dating app, which obviously opens the floor of multiple different people
who he might have been speaking to who could be suspects. NARRATOR: Police analysts examined
Jason's online dating matches. And they started to look through CCTV footage from the university.
They spotted Jason in a patterned shirt arriving at his student accommodation the day
he went missing. Police needed to work out who was with Jason. Ray Evans is a forensic image analyst who regularly
works with the police. The footage is a little bit blurry, but we can make out general details.
We can see he's wearing dark-tone trousers, dark-tone shoes and a pale top with some interesting stripes.
You can see the shape of his nose, and the hairline and actually the rest of the head.
The police would use this kind of footage to track his facial features and the clothing worn by the person.
That's quite useful to us. NARRATOR: Newcastle has a booming nightlife and there's nothing inherently abnormal
that would raise the alarm. And yet forensic psychologist Coral Dando sees added layers
to the human interaction. In order to access university accommodation, they've got to use a swipe card, a magnetic swipe card,
but it hasn't been able to access it. This other man searches it quite briskly, I think.
What you notice there is that Jason stands back, closes his arms. He steps quite far back from him.
I think it makes him look quite vulnerable. NARRATOR: The footage helped the police
to retrace Jason's last steps and try to build a profile of the person he was with.
Using the time stamp on the footage, the police tracked Jason and the unknown man
as they moved through the building. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] CORAL DANDO: This other man tries to access the door.
Jason, at this point, puts his hand on his hip and puts his arm out to take his card back.
I don't actually think he gives the card to Jason. The way he's opened that door, he's flung
that door open quite hard. That's quite an aggressive action. The important aspects about this piece of CCTV footage,
it's short, but it gives us a really good idea of who the person was that last saw Jason alive.
NARRATOR: 30 minutes later, a person matching the same description is caught on camera
leaving Jason's residence. We can see now he has got an overcoat on so that obscures the clothing beneath.
But we can still see he's got a pale top underneath. We can see, again, the shape of the hairline.
We can see the shape of the face. And were we to compare those, then we'd be able to fairly confidently include
that person as being the same. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] CORAL DANDO: He entered and he was quite cross, quite
brusque, quite firm with Jason. And he's left very calm. NARRATOR: The police also obtained video from the parking
lot behind Jason's building. RAYMOND EVANS: The footage is useful for tracking because we're able to say, well, the person goes into the lift,
20 seconds later, they come out of the building. Jason went in with a certain person.
The person was dressed in a certain way. That person then came back out. Apparently, they were the last person to be seen with Jason.
So we can be fairly sure that there was something going on there. NARRATOR: Jason was never seen leaving his residence.
Detectives had to find the unknown man in white. RAYMOND EVANS: The opportunity for this person to be
the killer is absolutely there. There's no further footage showing anybody else in the vicinity.
So logically, he would be the prime suspect. NARRATOR: The man in the footage matched someone in Jason's phone
who also appeared in the dating app he used. His name Aaron Ray. LUCY EDWARDS: Jason and Aaron's relationship
was around three months long. It's not really known if they were fully official,
if they were absolutely an exclusive couple or if it was a bit more casual, as is the nature
of being in university. NARRATOR: Police became aware of a video on social media posted by Aaron that night
while Jason was asleep. It has since been deleted. A video has been posted to social media of Aaron
scrolling through Jason's contacts, his messages. Aaron is recording himself, looking
through these messages in Jason's bathroom in his university accommodation. Aaron has found messages on Jason's phone
that are of a sexual nature, and that's sparked some fury in him. He's getting quite riled up by this.
He's under the impression that him and Jason are exclusive. NARRATOR: When the police looked into Aaron's history,
they discovered a disturbing incident which had made local headlines years earlier.
When he was a teenager, he killed his parrot by slitting its neck. He was found guilty of abusing an animal.
That type of behavior toward animals is a big red flag when we come to understand an individual
and their propensity to move forward to commit more serious and more violent crimes.
NARRATOR: The police moved in to arrest Aaron in the early hours of September 29.
LUCY EDWARDS: It's all captured on body cam footage. It's in a very normal and unassuming home.
It's almost like it's a massive inconvenience that he's been called out of his bedroom in his dressing gown.
He's not being verbally aggressive. He's not being physically aggressive in the way that I think we saw him in the earlier CCTV
when he was going with Jason to the student accommodation. He was quite snatchy.
He was quite bolshy. He was quite, you know, in charge. We don't see that here. The fact that he's not looking the police officer in the eye,
he's not asking any questions, this is the, sort of, behavior that we often see from people when they are arrested.
It doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of understanding guilt or innocence. But I think it's quite interesting that he doesn't
ask any questions at all. NARRATOR: Aaron was taken into custody and questioned by police.
Aaron immediately starts defending himself by placing blame on Jason. And he starts to say that there was
a bit of a violent altercation between him and Jason over the accusation of cheating.
NARRATOR: Aaron claimed he'd stabbed Jason in self-defense and didn't know that he had died from his injuries.
The prosecution used the CCTV footage from the early hours of September 24 to undermine Aaron's self-defense argument.
The fact that he's just wandered out, doesn't look upset, doesn't look stressed,
looks, if anything, less cross, less anxious, less annoyed now than he did when he tried to get
into the accommodation when Jason was still alive, we could suggest that it's been a cathartic exercise, a
violent but cathartic exercise. And that he now feels that he's, you know, done what he needed to do in order to satisfy himself.
NARRATOR: This calm demeanor, after his alleged need to defend himself didn't help his case.
This footage has been fundamental, I think, in undermining that defense. It seems incredulous that he's had a violent fight with someone
that's necessitated him to attack them with a knife in order to defend himself. He's got no defense wounds by the looks of it.
Aaron did not call for help at all. He must have absolutely been aware that he had potentially
fatally injured Jason. What he's done is he's put his coat on, put his rucksack on, put his headphones on
and he's just left. NARRATOR: In court, one of Aaron's ex partners said he had to take legal steps to stop Aaron
from contacting him after Aaron was violent and threatened to kill him. Having someone who is more hyper masculine,
who identifies with, sort of, these traits of masculinity like strength, and someone who is maybe more feminine or maybe who
doesn't identify as much with those gender-normative characteristics, what you can find is that the person who is
most likely to be victimized is the person who is less masculine by the person who is hyper masculine.
So you see a, sort of, playing out of gender norms, but within a homosexual context, in a, sort of, different way.
CORAL DANDO: He experienced intense feelings of possession, wanting to be the most important person
in that individual's life. That type of jealous, controlling behavior is very problematic in a relationship.
NARRATOR: Jason was attacked while he was sleeping. He woke up and staggered to the shower
where he collapsed and died. In the days after he'd killed Jason, Aaron searched the question, can schizophrenics be murderers?
The fact that he has googled, can schizophrenics being murderers, just shows that he is outright lying in court,
that he is aware that he has killed Jason. NARRATOR: The jury took just two hours to find
Aaron guilty of Jason's murder. Aaron Ray was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years.
It doesn't end there. For Jason's family, they have to go on in life knowing that Aaron took Jason away
as such a young, bright person. It's something that no parent, no person, no friend ever wants to imagine is going to happen to somebody.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

In the US, police are on the hunt for spree killer Billy Boyette Jr. and his accomplice Mary Rice. With four victims in their wake, police are desperately searching for the violent pair to put an end to their reign of terror.

And in the UK, a young student is found stabbed to death in his university accommodation after a night out.

===============

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=============== Like, comment and subscribe if you’re ready for more true crime. Your favorite shows like World’s Most Evil Killers, Meet Marry Murder, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, Murdered At First Sight and Bloodline Detectives are all available to stream 24/7 for free via the FilmRise Streaming Network. You can access The FilmRise Streaming Network through most free App Platforms and Smart TV portals such as Amazon Fire TV, The Roku Channel, Android, iOS and many more.

Brief Summary

A manhunt for spree killer Billy Boyette leads to multiple murders and the investigation of Jason Brockbanks' death by Aaron Ray.

Key points

Alicia and Jacqueline's Tragic Fate. Two mothers are found murdered in a hotel room, raising alarms about a violent ex-partner.
A Spree Killer on the Loose. A massive manhunt begins for a violent offender linked to multiple murders.
The Death Toll Rises. In just three days, three women are murdered by the same suspect, escalating the urgency.
Mary Rice's Complicity. Surveillance footage raises questions about Mary Rice's role in the crimes alongside Billy Boyette.
The Manhunt Ends in Tragedy. Billy Boyette takes his own life as law enforcement closes in, leaving questions about Mary Rice.
Mary Rice's Sentencing. Mary Rice was sentenced to life in prison for her role in multiple murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The camera doesn't lie.

MAN 3 comments on the evidence against the suspect.

1:07WatchJun 21, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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