Tyler Deaton on 48 Hours

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Did you catch 48 Hours this weekend? It’s a mystery as to what actually happened to Bethany Deaton. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered?

Bethany was found in her van with a bag over her head. She had inhaled the bag into her mouth, according to reports, and died with her eyes open, which according to investigators, was unusual.

Bethany was married to Tyler Deaton, and their relationship involved a lot of twists and turns with stories of Tyler running a cult to ultimately identifying himself as gay. He claims to have never consummated his marriage to Bethany, and yet with these weird circumstances calls himself “charismatic” oddly.

One thing is clear:  Tyler was able to get people to follow him through the guise of religion and he got people to do what he wanted. I am not sure “charismatic” is the term for that, but it seems to be Tyler’s word.

Tyler demonstrates in his interview with 48 Hours that he is very comfortable bending the truth when it suits him.

“You manipulated several men into having sex with you. Is that right?”  Troy Roberts, on 48 Hours, asked Deaton.

“[Laughs] No. That’s not correct,” Tyler replied.

“Well, correct me,” said Troy Roberts.

“I’ve never had sex with anybody,” said Tyler.

And yet Boze Herrington, one of his cult followers, said, “He told us that he had been … practicing for his honeymoon with another guy but not in a sexual, just a physical way.”

You can clearly see the manipulation here.

He later admitted to having oral sex with a guy, but not “sex”.  Yeah, right.

So what happened to Bethany?

I do not believe that Bethany committed suicide.

And I can say this:  I do not trust Tyler one iota. His reactions to what happened to Bethany make absolutely no sense, if he is uninvolved as he wants us to believe. What level of involvement he has, I would need to see more interviews.

I am happy to hear the police are continuing to investigate this case.

My Thoughts on Ann Bender (48 Hours)

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When I watched Ann Bender on 48 Hours, several things troubled me, and I have admit, I do not trust her.  We have a lot of pieces that when added up paint a picture and I don’t believe that picture is what Ann is telling us.

The first thing I notice with Ann is a lack of oblique eyebrows indicating true sadness. This really stood out to me throughout the entire story.  The second thing I noticed was that she said her husband wanted to die, he was suicidal, but oddly she had no concern when he brought a gun to bed.

She said, “It was the last thing I expected him to be doing, even though I knew that he was suicidal.”

What?

If your loved one was suicidal and brought a gun to bed, would you be able to drift off to sleep?  I don’t think so.  Ann’s statement doesn’t make any sense.

Ann says, “I opened my eyes and I saw the outline of the trigger of the gun … and he had it pointed at his head … at himself…”

What troubles me about this statement according to the forensics is that if John was shot in the back of the head behind his right ear, how could she see the gun shadow if she was laying behind him in bed, and he was in bed with his head on his pillow?   Her eyes wouldn’t have likely been underneath the gun to see through it.  It’s possible, but highly unlikely. In the re-enactment, they had John sleeping with three pillows in a very unnatural position.

I am also troubled by the ear plugs, the pillow with the gunshot tear, and the spent cartridge being 15 feet away.

Who wears ear plugs when they are going to kill themselves?  You would actually want to be alert, I would think, to hear what your loved one is doing so they don’t stop you, if you are intent on getting the job done!

I am also troubled with what Ann says.

The first account Ann says:

“I got up on my knees and reared towards him and I tried to grab the gun.”

[“Were you able to get it?”]

“No. I was able to get my hands around his and the gun slipped and it went off,” she replied.

This troubles me.  The gun just went off?  I’m not buying it.

The next time she says:

“I lunged forward towards him with my hands. I fell towards the center of the bed … and the gun went off.”

This time she doesn’t even reach John’s hands, ironically.

And another time she says:

“That evening I had no indication of what was going to happen…after the shot, I don’t remember exactly what happened.”

And now another time she doesn’t remember?

Nonsense!

I don’t think Ann killed John for money, but I do think he was very determined and headstrong, and he was taking her down in his spiraling depression with him. And Ann knew it and didn’t know how to get away from him, or perhaps she didn’t want to give up their “dream” of the sanctuary. I think she knew she was going to die with him if something didn’t change and John wasn’t open to do anything.  I suspect Ann didn’t know how to get away because he’d seek her out, too, and around him she knew she wasn’t as strong as he was. She was the weaker of the two.  I suspect Ann couldn’t take it anymore and felt this was her only way out.  She wanted to survive and this is what she believed she had to do to get away.

But just because Ann was weaker than John in standing up against him, do not assume that I believe Ann is a weak or meek person.  I do not think that. She is actually quite strong. She isn’t letting her time in prison deter her. She is on a mission to get out, and she isn’t going to give up any time soon, if you ask me.

48 Hours: John and Ann Bender

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Did you catch the intriguing mystery on 48 Hours this week? It’s the story of genius John Bender and his wife, Ann, who moved to the rain forests of Costa Rica to live an eccentric life perched in a 50,000 square foot wall-and-window-free home on top a mountain.

It tragically didn’t end well. John allegedly committed suicide.

What do you think happened? Share your vote.

I will share my opinion later this week.

48 Hours: David Camm (re-run)

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Eight months ago, I wrote about David Camm’s 3rd trial and him being set free. You can read about it here.

I do not believe David Camm and here are some of the reasons:

1. David Camm has not shown any genuine and real negative emotions about losing his wife and family to murder from day one in all the video I have seen of him over the years. He is as cold and blank as can be…

2. YET when David Camm is accused of sexual molesting his daughter, we see real emotion for the first time. THIS upsets David. We see stress in his forehead for the first time. I find that shocking. What’s weird about David Camm is that this seems to upset him more than the killing of his family. This is a “wow” moment for me.

4. We see very real emotions in David Camm when he gets set free, too–he seems to feel way more emotions for himself than he ever showed for his wife and family.

5. At the end of the show when David Camm said he didn’t want to share any memories of his wife because they are all he had left, I felt that was a cold and callous response. If he loved his wife, he would want to share how beautiful and special she was with the world because she was taken away way too early and so were his children, but he couldn’t do it. It was notable to me. Almost bitter. I cannot reconcile this.

Now imagine you are wrongly accused of murdering your family and of molesting your daughter. Which one would upset you most?

I think all people would feel more violated about being accused of killing three people versus and unsubstantiated sexual abuse claim, but not David Camm.

Read this excerpt from 48 Hours:

With Boney convicted, Camm was feeling better about his second trial, especially because the judge threw out the conspiracy charge. But he had to worry when he heard prosecutor Keith Henderson tell the jury about those unproven suspicions that Jill was molested.

Asked what it was like to hear those allegations, Camm told Schlesinger, “Now that — makes my blood boil,” he replied in 2013. “…that’s the one thing that really infuriates me, more than a lot of things.”

“Because?” Schlesinger asked.

“Because it’s not true and because it is so inflammatory,” Camm replied.

Wasn’t everything not true, if he was innocent??? Or was it only the molestation charge?

Camm sure makes you wonder, doesn’t he?

48 Hours: Radley Horwitz

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(Originally posted December 2013)
Radley was the son of Lanny and Donna Horwitz. They were a blessed family with lots of money to live the good life, but life wasn’t good for Lanny and Donna. The two separated and divorced multiple times and upon the last reconciling, things were still tainted between them as another woman was in the scene.

So when Lanny ended up dead, the mystery was who did it? The case is long and involved, but eventually a court of law determined that it was Lanny’s first love, Donna, to whom he was married previously and had recently reconciled with who did it. They believed she had motive…the motive of jealousy because of the other woman. But the case was all circumstantial.

When 48 Hours aired this story a week ago, one person dropped a boat load of red flags and I can tell you unequivocally, I didn’t believe him whatsoever. That person is Lanny’s son, Radley. While I cannot conclusively rule out Donna as being involved, Radley was hotter than a potato out of the oven. I have little doubt he knows exactly what happened and could have easily been the killer — protected by his mother after the fact as she knows he is young and has his whole life ahead of him and a daughter to raise.

Radley is egotistical and arrogant, and quite frankly a chip off the old block. They say people who are alike either love each other or hate each other. With Radley and Lanny, it turned to hate.

Radley’s “stories” were over-the-top and his behaviors were unnatural at every turn. He had me crawling up the walls that he was never looked at as a suspect.

I do not trust one word Radley said to 48 Hours or on the stand.