Episode 455: The Amato Family Murders

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Elena.

And this is morbid.

This is just morbid, it just is. it is. it's just morbid. Why'd you say that?

I don't know. I was trying to think of something else to say, and that's all that came up. I was also trying to think of something to say in the intro, like, and this is. And then I was just like, morbid, just going with it.

It's just morbid. Oh no, I don't know. We're tired. it's a gloomy day here.

Yeah, I had a yucky tummy yesterday, it still feels yucky. Which what's up with everyone's GI issues? Suddenly everyone's just dealing with living in a land of GI issues.

I mean, welcome to my actual life, but I was going strong on my IBS journey. For a minute there, I was like living regular life and it was fine. Sorry, my phone just didn't I turned it off, I swear.

You would think five years into this, I would have figured that out by now, but here we are. It's just like, Oh my gosh, where's the ding? I don't know. No, yeah.

Your your journey was going pretty solid there. I know, I think it, I think I got like a little tummy bug. I don't think it's my bus, my IBs, your IBs.

Yeah, everybody's got weird. I was that, um, TikToker, beach gym, my girlie, my girl, our pediatric emergency room doctor who everybody should go follow because she's awesome, fantastic, amazing.

Um, world renowned. I'm just going to keep giving you TikTok recommendations, you're good at it, I find some good ones.

You absolutely do. But um, she was saying that it's like GI bugs this year are like everywhere, and also like, weird, like there's like a million different ones. It's not just straight up neurovirus now, which like, fuck that shit, but these things are like different, like they're all like the little branches off of neurovirus.

Yeah, so I think it's just like, maybe I think the pandemic, like everyone's immune system's got a little fucked during that. Yeah, so I think we're just going to see some weird viruses for a little while, but hopefully it'll, it'll settle down, yeah.

It was just like, run down and run into the banyo, into the banyo. I was, I was going, girl, I'm sorry for that, I'm sorry for your ass.

Now that you know all my my GI business, my Gi biz nasty. if you will biz nasty. do we have any biz nasty? You do, we do?

Oh, there's a couple of things. We did a collab with red handed and it was so much fun. They're so awesome and their accents are the best, like, so soothing.

Yeah, guys, Hannah's name is not Hannah, it's Hannah, it's Hannah, and and I will fight anyone who calls her Hannah.

Hannah, Hannah, and it's so fun to say it is Hannah.

And Saruti? Oh, they're just really sweet and they're hilarious. Two of the kindest girlies. I would do collabs with them all day, every day up the wazoo.

You know, but you just got one, so don't worry, we're not going to bombard you. But it was a lot of. It was a lot of fun. We're glad we did it. Check it out because we did kind of like a handoff.

So there's one on their feed, one on our feed, and they're really cool, like old-timey, fun stories.

But other than that, go buy your pre-order of the paperback version of The Butcher and The Wren, because you know why? There is a sneak peek at the sequel. And I read it and I said, Oh my motherfucking gosh, that's what she said, I did.

So you can get a little sneaky peeky at the sequel so you can know what's going to be. What you're in for. Or, if you're like me, you're currently reading along, as she writes.

But yeah, go get your pre-orders, you can go pre-order them anywhere they're on, like, you know, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, anywhere you want to check it out. I don't think it is Tinyurl.com, Slash the Butcher and the Wren anymore. So it will be, I think at one point, it'll be with the new book.

Oh, okay, because I'm excited, don't worry, we'll give you another one of those. Yeah, please.

Please give me that, but yeah, go do that, it'll be great. And paperbacks are fun, and you can just throw them in your bag, or you can, you know, bend them around if you need to.

I love doing that. And then the spine gets all crazy and shit, yeah, the spine gets all like like cracks, like your spine does when you go to, like a chiropractor. Yeah, that, yeah.

That's what it is, so go check that out. Oh, I'm excited to see it. Yay, yay. Books and reading, and literature and literacy.

And literacy, you're, you're. I was going to say, you're illiterate, but it sounded like you're illiterate, and you're like, Wow, you're like the most illiterate. Thank you, yeah.

Some would argue that, but you know, fuck them, we don't listen to those, they're not true. Sorry, I really had to readjust my seat there.

You hear the squeaky, squeaky squeakies. Oh, it's like secrets.

What's that from? That's from Sabrina, the teenage witch. For later years, I can do it now too, the later years, the later years.

Do you guys remember that? Don't worry, we're going to get into the case. No, we're not. Sometimes you take it old school and we just need to, like, talk at you for a little while.

Yeah, just like, get into it, you know? And it's funny because there's we still. There still is very divided camps on whether they want to hear us speak about being human beings or not. And that's funny to me, but that bite my tongue.

Does anyone remember the later years of Sabrina, the teenage witch? I bet you you wish you didn't, but that no. I thought they were good, like later high school ones were good, and like, maybe the beginning of college, but after that.

What do you mean? I know I'll watch it, like, Hi, I'm here, I'll watch it.

It's not my favorite, those last couple ones. It's almost like the last season of Gilmore Girls or the last couple of seasons of The Office. Yeah, you lost me there.

Where you just whoop. I'll watch it because I'm here, I'm here for this ride. But like, I'm not enjoying myself. I know I love I love Roxy, though in the later years, yeah, she's a great one.

I think it's when Sabrina starts working at a newspaper that it gets. That gets boring. Well, she starts dating a guy that I'm very confused by to this day. The Josh Nope.

Josh I understood it was this other random. I don't remember his name, I don't remember either. That's how much he matters.

Maybe I didn't see the last season. Yeah, I think it's the one she's going to marry until, oh, no, no, no, no.

Okay, yeah, which like, thank goodness with the heart, yeah.

I love that, but you know what, that was Sabrina for today, and now we're going to talk about something not as fun at all. Nope, nope.

Not at all, but this is like a pretty well-known true crime case. And I know you guys like to hear, like, some more current ones, so I figured I'd hand this on over to you. This is the Amato family murders. It's a really sad case and at the center of it is a man named Grant Grant. Tiernan. Amato was born on May 20th, 1989, in Chuliota, Florida. And if you look at that, you would never think that it said Chuliota. But guess what I did.

I went to pronouncednames.

Com. And she told me how to say it, and I said, Thank you, I love that. But anyway, Chuliota. He was the youngest son of Chad and Margaret, a pharmacist and an operations manager, respectively. I really love saying, respectively after a sentence.

I don't know about you respectively, respectively now. Margaret brought a son, Jason, to the marriage from her previous marriage, and actually, Chad wouldn't end up adopting Jason down the road, which I thought was really sweet. But then the couple went on to have Cody, the middle son, and then finally Grant, the youngest son.

Okay, now. Margaret and Chad raised their family. Like I said, in Chuliota, Florida, it's like a semi-small, rural town in the Seminole county of Florida. It's about a half hour outside of Orlando, which I'm going to be there soon, and I'm like, ooh, spooky, not in Chuliota, that is in Orlando.

Orlando. But by all accounts, the family dynamic was a good one Chad and Margaret both were able to maintain stable, really well-paying jobs. They could provide a good life for their children, and they could also pursue their own passions and their own hobbies outside of work. And for Margaret, I just think this is so sweet.

That hobby for her was her love of horses, and she particularly loved this one horse named Lady Lady Lady. What a cute name for a horse, right?

Lady was actually a former race horse that Margaret adopted in the late 2000s, and she'd been boarding lady at the Miracle Lane stables, not too far from their house. Okay, now, according to people that knew Margaret. Her relationship with Lady, who was a rather stubborn horse, was really reflective of how she was so committed to the people that she loved, especially her husband and her children. Yeah, she had an unwavering commitment to those people.

Cute now. While their household was generally loving and supportive, Jason would later tell a jury that his father could be strict and had very high expectations for his children. And this was occasionally a source of tension, especially as the boys started entering their teenage years. Grant and Cody, though they were inseparable while growing up, they had a bond like no other.

They were really close in age, there was just two years between them and they had a ton in common. By the time they were in high school, they went to Timber Creek High, if you're from the area, they were doing almost everything together. They were both on the school's weightlifting team in high school.

And even beyond high school, they still maintained a super close relationship. After graduation, they both enrolled in nursing programs at the University of Central Florida, and once they finished those nursing programs, they wanted to continue their education. So they each decided to study anesthesiology. Oh, wow.

Which like, like, all right, you know, and now, according to Grant, their long-term plan included buying matching BMWs and living in their parents house together after Chad and Margaret moved to a smaller retirement home in Tennessee. That they actually purchased a few years before their deaths. So part of the plan was buying matching BMWs. Yes, okay.

No comment. Yep, it's giving stepbrothers, yeah, right?

Like, let's get matching BMWs and live in mom and dad's house when they move to Tennessee, and we'll both be nurses. It's giving Menendez brothers as well. See, I actually don't know a lot about that case. Yeah, that's, that's a. that's an interesting one. We'll cover that one eventually.

Yeah, that that's a you case, for sure. It's giving Menendez brothers in, like, one respect, not in both respects. One of these people is fantastic, the other not so much. Ah, yes.

Yes, now, while their commitment for each other went both ways, Cody definitely was the more responsible of the two. And usually got Grant out of a lot of shit and would like clean up his messes, solve his problems. Yeah, you know, because from the outside, Grant seemed like he was, you know, successful and responsible and all that. But things really took a turn in the mid 2000,.

I never know how to say that. 2010s, 2010s, 2010s. Yeah, yeah.

There you go, I don't know, it's weird, it's not like the 70s, the 2010s.

Because that was when Grant was kicked out of his graduate nursing program and instead found a nursing job with Advent Health, a large hospital system in Central Florida. Okay, it's sort of unclear why he was kicked out of the anesthesiology program at the University of Central Florida. But that definitely is the event that marked the beginning of a very downward spiral that would eventually lead to murder. Awesome. So, on June 21st, 2018, staff at Advent Health actually realized that. Eight bottles of propofol, which is a powerful sedative, that they usually give people before surgery.

Sedative? Oh my god idiot, why can't Ash talk? I couldn't let that go.

No, you shouldn't have let that go because it just sounded so cute. Sedative, sedative, I'm reading.

Maybe that is one way to say it, who knows? I hope not, I never know. I like sedative better.

Sedative that they give people before surgery. They realized eight bottles had gone missing from the locked cabinet where they usually kept it now. The empty bottles were found a short time later in two rooms that were being overseen by Grant. As far as anybody could tell, the medication hadn't been ordered, and security records showed that it was Grant who checked the medication out. When he was confronted about this whole thing, he swore up and down, No, I wasn't stealing it to sell it because they probably thought that that's what was happening there.

But instead, he told them quote, he administered the drug to patients who were not being adequately relaxed. Oh, okay, all right. Slightly understandable, but you can't just take that out for no reason and not tell anyone. The hospital had no proof of any wrongdoing. But they also believed that this was not the first time propofol, in particular, had gone missing under Grant's watch, so he was fired immediately.

Yeah, I can kind of see that now. What made the entire ordeal worse was that during the confrontation over the missing medication, Grant made a ton of comments about relating to self-harm and suicidal ideation. So they had to call the police and he had to be taken into custody as like a protective measure. Yeah, now. At the time, Advent Health administrators seemed to be intent on pressing charges for the theft of the medication. So now, Grant was unemployed and he was waiting to hear whether he was going to face charges for grand larceny. So he started spending a lot of time online, uh-oh.

Because, like, I guess that's what you do. It's not great. And he wasn't like, that never leads to good things. No, he wasn't on, like Ziprecruiter.com looking for a job? Sponsor us? Because that was just a little drop there.

There you go. But he was frequently visiting porn sites, and he really loved to use Twitch for watching lives and gaming. So he was just gaming and doing stuff in his room. Yeah, you know, you know. He actually told his parents, though not long after he was fired, that he really wanted to build a career for himself as a live streamer on Twitch. Which, you know, I'm like, I'm sure you could probably make good money doing that at this point in time. But I think back then that was a relatively new platform. So that might have been a little worrisome to his parents.

I can see that, I'm sure. Like the YouTube thing in the beginning, too. When somebody's like, when it first came out and people were like, I'm going to be a YouTube star? People were probably like, Yeah, yeah, like, that's never going to happen. But now look.

It really can now look so at the same time, though, because they were starting to get worried about Grant because at the same time, Chad and Margaret had been noticing large amounts of money missing from their bank accounts and multiple credit card charges from websites that they'd never heard of. So when they confronted Grant about this missing money, he actually spilled the beans. He admitted everything and said he had taken the money and he had used it to promote himself on Twitch, which wasn't necessarily true.

That's not great, No, either way, that's not great. Well, don't steal money, exactly.

It's like, you can't use people's money to do those things. No, you got to use your own money. Yeah, now. Or you could ask for a loan because that's also an option.

There you go, if you do want to use other people's money, you just ask first, precisely now. What Chad and Margaret didn't know, but they were about to find out, was that Grant hadn't taken the money to help build his career. He really was spending it on private shows and conversations with a cam girl named Silvia Silvi Venceslavova, hopefully.

Oh, okay, now. Grant had been spending a lot of time on Silvi's site. In particular, her site, operated by Like. Users would buy tokens that they could use to pay for performances. Her performances cost 90 tokens per minute, which, like, that's some coin.

Damn damn girl now. Tokens could also be used for tipping and, like any kind of other transaction on the site. I don't really know how it works. But Grant was probably Silvi's most generous customer, and he would purchase 5,000 tokens a night for $600. And he was spending about four hours every single night on this website, he was developing an addiction that's becoming a problem.

Yeah, and as his addiction to the website got worse and worse, he started sending Silvi quote clothes and sex toys, which she would model for viewers. But he's not spending like he's spending his parents money on these things to send to this girl, that's the thing. It's like, this is not okay.

No, it's one thing. If you're sending it like with your own money, like, have at it with your life. Yeah, like, do you whatever you're? I don't care.

Into. But like, you're taking your parents money for that, yeah, you can't take other people's money and do these things. And also, like, you don't feel yucca yucca about using your parents money for this, yeah.

Like, I would, I would feel Yucca, Yucca about that. Yeah, that's just me, I don't know.

There's I don't need, that's just me. Yeah, we don't have to go into it, but anyways, I don't need it. I was like, I'm about to go into it.

And then I was like, you know what? nevermind, you know?

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So over time, Grant's relationship with Sylvie came to include chat sessions. They were texting and like other communications, like the performances and stuff like that. It did give the illusion of a personal relationship, because that's the point. But in reality, Sylvie was just promoting herself and obviously encouraging Grant to spend more money because that's her job. Of course, girls gotta eat.

Yeah, on Grant's end of things, though, the constant contact and the emotional high was enough to convince him that he was deeply in love with Sylvie. Oh, no, and for that reason, he kept stealing money in order to keep in close contact with her. Oh, this is really stressful.

It's really sad. It's so sad. That's the thing. It's like, very stressful and sad, yeah.

So the more money he had to spend, the closer he felt to her now. The illusion of a romantic connection between Grant and Sylvie was mostly fueled by the performances, the texts, the chats. Like, I was just saying. But it was also kind of fostered by this online community on the Camgirl site, because Grant wasn't only chatting with Sylvie, but he actually made friends on this site. And he was catfishing all of these people, leading them to believe that he was this super successful gamer. Guy who drove a BMW and owned this beautiful house, when, in reality, none of that was true, he did live in a beautiful house, but it was his parents home. Yeah, exactly.

In a letter he wrote to five or six friends about a month before his whole family was murdered. He vented about his family, calling them controlling and complaining that they, quote, did not understand how I could care for someone as much as I cared for Sylvie. Oh, this really is sad. It is now by the fall of 2018, so remember, this started in, like the 2010s, now it's 2018. This has been going a while.

Grant had retreated even further into this fantasy world. He was stealing more money from his parents, now he was stealing from his brother Cody to continue this relationship. And when he wasn't able to get hands on their cash, he would steal their belongings. Cody had some guns that Grant ended up stealing and selling for cash.

Oh, this is like, very real addiction. oh, it's super, super real. like, very deep and very real addiction. super real, yeah.

And around the same time, he also managed to take out a $65,000 loan, using his parents house as collateral. Holy shit, isn't that bonkers? What? Like there is? This is so intense.

It's so deep rooted. Oh my goodness. So the family finally reached their breaking point in late November. At that point, Grant had stolen around $150,000 from his parents and $60,000 from Cody, his brother. Holy shit.

Mm-hmm. So they sat down and confronted him. They were like, we need to figure this out. Like this isn't okay and this is so unhinged that it's like, that must've been really scary. To sit him down and be like, this can't happen.

Because you're like, what is he going to do? It's gotten to a point where clearly he'll do anything. Something is, yeah, like, he's got no boundaries here, so I'd be scared, yeah.

So when they confronted him, he admitted that no. He wasn't just promoting himself on Twitch. He really was stealing money to send to Sylvie, the Bulgarian model that he was in love with, he said. So the family tried to be supportive because they realized what this was. He was struggling with addiction. Mm-hmm. And with their support, he actually started to get serious about getting his life together. And, you know, like, getting healthier.

Yeah, so things really started to improve. In early December, AdventHealth actually dropped the charges against Grant for the stolen medication. Wow.

So now he wasn't facing those charges anymore, that's lucky for him, really lucky. And he and Cody had been planning this trip for a long time to go to Japan, they had planned it like before.

He lost his job, and Cody was like, let's still go, like, let's still go on the trip, we'll figure it out. Wow, so they went on the trip together.

Wow, so he had, like, a very supportive unit around him, way more supportive than a lot of families would be. Abso-fucking-lutely, like he had these people had his back, yeah.

And especially his brother, and that's very rare, mm-hmm. But unfortunately, by the time they got back home, Grant seemed to be slipping into old habits just days after they got back from their trip to Japan. Grant and his dad got into another argument about the stolen money. And the fact that Grant was saying he was going to get a new job, but not making any moves to do so.

Oh, because I think his dad was like, Dude, you just got home from this trip that you probably shouldn't have even gone on in the first place. And now you're just like lounging around my house all day. Yeah, it's time to get a job, it's time to start paying back the money you took.

Because he's like, 30.

Yeah, come on man, get it together, get it together.

Yeah, in the regard of like, look for a job, yeah, like, be an adult, exactly.

So Grant would later say of his father quote With him, it was every single day, hours a day, he'd come home from work. And then he just talked to me about the same exact thing. Over and over, and over and over again, like, Yeah, probably because they wanted you to better your life.

And as your father, he's concerned. And when you're making no move to better your life, they're going to keep saying the same thing, hoping that sometime it clicks right, because you're just doing the same thing. Over and over, and over and over, they feel like they're banging their heads against the wall.

They're all in the same boat. Yeah, yeah, now. A few days later, on December 19th, the tension caused yet another fight between Chad and Grant. And this time Grant stormed out of the house and didn't say where he was going.

Now, in the weeks leading up to this latest fight, the family had actually started going to family therapy together. Oh, wow. And Grant was said to express during these meetings quote strong feelings of worthlessness, and at one point, he quote, broke down emotionally and admitted to being severely depressed. Okay.

And he hadn't said anything about wanting to harm himself, but because he was clearly in this heightened emotional state. When he left the house after the fight with his dad, Cody and Margaret were really worried. I see that, especially when he still didn't come home the next day. They were like, I don't know, yeah, I would have been worried.

I just have a weird feeling about this. Yeah, they were like, he's in a low place, he left in the middle of a fight. We're very worried.

And he's been very unpredictable, he's very much not himself, very erratic, exactly a lot of like, very, you know, he's being very impulsive for a while now.

So it's like I would be worried. And we love him, you know, like, that's the brother in the son, they're a supportive family, it sounds like.

They are, so. They decided the best course of action would be to file a missing persons report just to find out where he was, according to the missing person report. Cody and Margaret told officers that Grant had been in contact via text since they reported him missing and that he told them. He was, quote, really tired of dealing with everything and he is just going to handle it his own way, which worried them even more. Yeah, because given the stress that he'd been under and the fact that he had easy access to firearms, excuse me. In the family home, Cody and Margaret were at this point, quote, a hundred percent convinced that Grant would try to harm himself.

Oh, no, so. The day after the missing persons report was filed, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office got a call from an officer in Apopka. I believe, is how you say it. Florida, saying that Grant actually had been located. Luckily, and when officers responded to the call about a suspicious car, they found that it was registered to Grant. Amato Ah, so that's how they found him.

When they spoke to them, he said he came to Apopka to visit family and then told them that he needed a break from his mom. And he had no intentions of hurting himself. He was like, you have nothing to worry about, I just needed to get out of here for a while. Yeah, so the interviewing officer asked the standard questions about safety and self-harm and was able to determine that Grant didn't need any kind of psych Eval, like he was all right.

And it turned out, though, that after the fight with his father, Grant had gone to his aunt Donna's home, and she would later tell police. He showed up quote skinny and lost looking, and that he slept all day since he arrived. And she was worried about him now. While she originally thought that he probably had come to her in a time of need, he was really just scamming her. Yeah, I could have seen that. A few days after Grant had shown up at the door, Donna noticed strange and unfamiliar charges to her credit card in large, large sums of money.

And this poor lady is just trying to, you know, just trying to be a good family member, and she's an aunt by marriage, too. Oh so she didn't even like she had no like, you know, her obligations were pretty small here, right? And she really took damn, this guy sucks.

He really does, oh my God, like this is so mean it is to do to people who care about you.

To fuck over your family like this, yeah, like it's just like this lady is taking you into her home, like that's really shitty, exactly.

Now, knowing that the situation was getting touchier and touchier by the day. Donna decided that it would be better to speak with Cody, Grant's brother, than confront Grant head on. So she called Cody and told him everything that had happened, and he was so apologetic, so embarrassed. And also begged his aunt not to press charges and actually told her he would pay back his aunt whatever Grant had charged. Are you kidding me? Like? He was like, If you don't press charges, I will pay this back to you, like, please.

Like, we're trying to get him straight, like we're trying to make this work. It's a precarious time, it's a very precarious time. Chad also begged his sister-in-law not to press charges. And he actually broke down, crying over the entire situation.

Oh, that kills me. And it was, quote, the first time Donna said she had heard him cry in the 27 years she knew him. Oh my God, that breaks my heart, just like so stressed.

Yeah, and he explained to her the full extent of Grant's problems. And he confided in Donna. That he and Margaret actually had to remortgage their home in order to cover the $150,000 that had been stolen from them. I can't imagine what this poor family was going through, it must have just been hell and it was years of this.

Like, just hell, and ups and downs, like, ugh, yeah, exactly. And it was like, just when they thought he was getting better, he goes and fucks over.

Like, it's one, and I'm sure it's one thing for him to fuck them over. Like, you're angry about that, but then you're like, Oh my God, you're my child and you're capable of doing this. To extended family. Yeah, you're taking it into the extended, exactly like the embarrassment and the shame and the shock.

Like, that's awful, I can't imagine now. According to Donna, Chad told her 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.

Oh my god, yeah, I don't even know what to say. Mm-hmm. It was clear that the stress was taking a considerable toll on everybody, but especially Chad.

At that point, he had to take on a second job just to cover Grant's debts so that his son wouldn't go to jail. That breaks my heart and I'm looking at pictures of this family and I'm just like, Ugh, right, and that's like, love.

Yeah, like the love that he had for his son, like, that's the thing. It's like, that's straight up just loving your kid unconditionally, just wanting to. And I know they're like, probably shielding a lot, and it's like, but you just want to.

You want to shield them from any harm, even if they're the ones doing harm, you want to shield them. I mean, we've even seen it in our own family with certain people, and I've seen it in other people's families, like it's family. So sad, you know?

And he was the youngest, too, so I feel like that plays such a role, like it's your, it's actually your baby, that's definitely part of it and that's the thing. As far as everybody could tell, the Amato family was going to incredible lengths. And, in some people's opinions, maybe even too far to shield Grant from the consequences of his actions.

But at the same time, they were also trying to create and enforce boundaries. But as we know, it's impossible in a situation like this, there's no way of knowing how to deal with this kind of situation. No, because there's no right or wrong way.

There's no handbook on it. Everybody reacts different in these kind of situations. He's so incredibly addicted to this that it's like it could be any reaction under the sun. Exactly that could happen, and there's no way to predict it.

Exactly, you know, like, you might come at him nicely and that might piss him off, right? You might come at him aggressively and that's the thing that calms him down.

You have no idea. It's just like raising kids, like how you have to like, treat each kid so differently. Yeah, you have to tailor how you react to each one exactly. But so that they were going to these incredible lengths that create all these boundaries. But stealing from the extended family from Donna and Troy Amato was the last straw for Margaret and Chad.

Yeah, and on December. Or excuse me, no, don't excuse me. I was saying the right thing, but excuse her anyways, just excuse me, just excuse me.

I don't know why that was funny. But on December 22nd, the entire family surprised Grant with an intervention in Donna's driveway. Among other things, they insisted that he take responsibility for the mistakes that he'd made and they demanded him. They were like, it's come to the point where you need to check yourself into rehab. Yeah, like, we've got to figure this out.

Absolutely so. He ultimately agreed to checking himself into a clinic in South Florida, and he was going to be addressing his addiction to sex and pornography. Okay, so? Grant returned home from rehab on January 5th, 2019 after less than two weeks of treatment. And in addition to the more than $200,000 at this point that he'd stolen from his parents and brother. He racked up several more debts that he had no means of paying.

On top of the $10,000 he paid so that the two could take the trip to Japan. Cody agreed to cover $8,000 in accrued attorney's fees and the $15,000 bill for the stay at the South Florida rehab. His brother sat there and took all of that on for him. And when you? I keep looking at the pictures and I'm like, he does have, like, Cody has such a kind face. I mean, he was like a nurse and that's the thing.

Like, he's just like a good person, absolutely a good person. Oh, that like, rips my heart out. Everything that he was willing to do to keep his brother, who didn't give a shit. Yeah, exactly.

Like, ugh.

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So similarly, Chad father had allowed the fraudulent $65,000 on the house to go through uncontested. Oh, come on, quote. So it wouldn't be reported because they figured this would give Grant a clean slate to start over. But there was going to be changes in expectations if that was going to be the case. But at the same time, it's like, maybe if you would let some of this go through and he had gotten in real trouble, like, maybe that's sometimes. That's what people need.

I'm not saying it would have stopped anything, I'm just saying, sometimes you gotta let some tough love slip through there, especially to a 30-year-old. I think he needed that, but I can. But it's easy to say that from over here. If that's your own kid, no fucking way, totally.

You know what I mean, but like, looking at it from the outside, you're like, just let him get in trouble, you know? I've seen it in families where the person doing this, or the person you know struggling with addiction is like 50, 60. And their parents will still do anything, that's, no matter what, that's their baby.

And so many families have this happening in various forms and various degrees. Yep, I feel like more families do have this going on than do not, and that's so sad, yeah.

It really is, it's so sad. And you never think that as a parent, that you're going to be, you know, 70. Or, like, moving into retirement age. And this is what you're going to be dealing with, because that's the thing, no way to prepare.

Like I had said, like they were preparing to retire in Tennessee, they bought a home that they wanted to retire in, and then they had to take on a second job. And you've done your the hardest part of your job, you know? Raise them.

Exactly, but this is where it got even harder. It hurts my heart. So Grant comes home from rehab early, like, did not get the treatment that he should have. And the family decides that they're going to have dinner at a California pizza kitchen, which, like, great fucking decision.

I love California pizza kitchen, I do, too. Actually, I haven't had that in a long time, me either. Me and Drew used to go on dates there all the time when I worked in Boston because there was one like right there.

Fucking good, wow, but this one probably wasn't that great. So the evening after he returned home, they head over to California Pizza Kitchen, probably thinking like, a public place will be a better place to have this discussion. And Chad laid out a series of rules and expectations that he had written up for his son.

It was like two pages on a yellow legal pad. Among other things, Grant was expected to get a job during the day. How terrible. I was just going to say, already, fuck it right. Discontinue his use of the internet past midnight, which like, You're in my fucking house.

Well, and you have proven that you can't be trusted with it, so we do have to give you a boundary and it's for your own good. That's the thing he needed to begin paying for his own cell phone bill. This is such basic shit.

He needed to develop a plan to pay back the money he's stolen from his family members. Very rational. Go to regular therapy, apologize and make right with the people he'd stolen from. All great so far. And, most importantly, he needed to sever his relationship quote unquote with Sylvie immediately.

It's like, all of that, you can see that negotiating. That last one, I'm sure, was the non-negotiable one. Totally yeah. So the document. It also highlighted the reasons for the new set of rules. It stated that quote Grant, through his past transgressions, has relied on knowledge the family would not report him and cover him.

And it accused him of, quote family relationship abuse beyond tolerance. That's 100 how to describe it, too family relationship abuse beyond tolerance. Because it is knowing that they will not do anything and using that to your own advantage, absolutely.

And it hinted at the hurt that he'd caused the family around him. Yeah, Chad's document pointed out. Quote You chose a stranger, physically non-existent over your entire family. That's the part that's like, and the way that that's said is really hits you hard, because it's true, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's a girl on a website, There's really no other way to describe that, but it's it's so fucked. Because, like to us, we're sitting here, we're like, it's a girl on a website. But to him.

But his mind was in such an altered state because of the addiction that he, oh yeah, he formed, you know? Yeah, that's why it must be so wild.

Like, for them to be sitting there, it's probably so frustrating for them. Because it's very clear and logical that statement, right? But to him, it's like, But to him, Sylvie was his girlfriend in his mind.

Like, as far as he's concerned, you're severing a the most important relationship in his life, exactly which it's like. That's why, that's why therapists and psychiatrists and mental health facilities exist, because they know how to deal with that kind of thinking, right?

Like, normal people are not supposed to like everyday people, I mean, like your family, right? Are not supposed to know how to deal with. Like, I don't know how to deal with that way of thinking, and that's why I think, honestly, that's the thing.

That's why they were going to family therapy, exactly because they were getting tools, because they were even making the effort to try to understand exactly.

And that's what, like, therapy is for. it's like, you really, but he needed some intensive therapy. I feel like this family is like the like the poster children of, like, what you should do? I know, because it seems like they were doing everything they could, like they were trying to keep him out of trouble so that they could handle it as a family.

They were going to therapy, they were going to therapy, they sent him to rehab, they paid for the rehab. They laid out what he needed to do and then laid out why he needed to do it when they had no need to do that.

No, it was pretty clear why he needed to do all those things, but they took the extra step to be like. This is why we are asking this of you. That's huge and I feel like, and that even shows like all the work that they did with behavioral specialists. Because I was going to say, that does seem like very much a tool that you would get through, like, you know, therapy or treatment.

Exactly, it's like, you need to explain why you are requiring these things of this person. It's like a small child, it's like a form of respect. I'm asking you to do this.

You should know why, right? You know? And it's like kids, it's like when you're teaching them like, you can't do this because this will happen.

Because this is the reason I'm not just asking you to do this, right, you know? But it would be. It was made clear to Grant during the meeting that if he broke any of the rules or any of those expectations, he would be kicked out of the house immediately.

Like this was, this was the final. Yeah, we've reached the end game here. Exactly so.

He agreed to the terms during the meeting. But it's pretty unlikely that he ever had any intention of following through with that promise to change his behavior. In a letter sent to his friends from the Camgirl website, he referred to his father as controlling and abusive and claimed that his mother was quote simply around for security. Oh God, which I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about, that's ridiculous.

And the letter also hinted at desperation and discouragement that he felt over the ultimatum. He told his friends I hate myself for what I did, and I hate the thought of never getting to be with her again. Meaning Sylvie. After everything that I gave and everything that I tried to do with her, I just can't comprehend being without her. Seeing her, be able to be so happy without me in her life is something I guys hope, is something I hope you guys never have to live through. Wow.

This is so deep, it's so deep, it really is so. It's unknown whether the letter raised any red flags in Grant's online porn community. But if it did, nobody took the alarming tone or the obvious desperation seriously enough to contact anybody, which happens a lot.

Of course, yeah, that's why online is just not safe. No, it's really not. But at the same time, nobody ever could have expected that his frustration would manifest into what it did.

A very short time later, just after nine o'clock on the morning of January 25th, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office got a call from Craig Sisko, an administrator. Actually at Advent Health. He was one of the multiple employees who were really concerned after Cody had failed to show up for work that morning. Because, remember, they worked together before Grant got fired. Cody also wasn't responding to any of the calls placed to him by co-workers.

It was entirely unlike him, and, according to Sisko, Cody quote had never missed a day of work. Oh, no, now, because it was so out of character. His co-workers were requesting a well-being check. So, the deputies arrived at the Amato host on Sultan Circle just shortly after taking the call. And they found Cody's car parked in the driveway, as well as Chad and Margaret's cars parked in the garage.

They continuously knocked on the door, but nobody was coming to answer, so when their knocks on the door failed to get anybody's attention. Officers called the cell phones of the three people inside believed to be home, and actually even blasted air horns in an attempt to get their attention, but nothing so as far as they could tell. The windows and the doors were locked, so one deputy ended up having to use a knife to disengage the deadbolt on the back door. And the officers went into the home to conduct the wellness check. Now, when you can't get in like that, you must. I wonder what those like investigators were thinking, because when you can't get in like that, you have to be like. We are not coming into something good.

Exactly, you know, and they were not. As soon as they walked in the house, deputies immediately discovered the body of Chad Amato. This is really brutal, just so you guys know.

The discovery of these bodies is rough. Okay, he was lying on his back in the kitchen. It was clear that there was no signs of life. He'd been shot twice in the head and it was lying in a large pool of his own blood.

There was actually a holster around his waist when he was discovered with a handgun tucked inside. But it didn't look like he'd tried to retrieve it before he was shot. Oh man, so they moved throughout the house and they found Cody's body next. This is horrible. He was curled into a fetal position in the storage room off of the garage, and he had been shot in the face and was covered in blood.

He was still wearing his nursing scrubs, indicating that he'd just got back from work. Oh my god. And like his father, a handgun was discovered on the floor, just a few feet from his body. Then the officers found Margaret last.

She was lying face down at her computer in the family's office. She had been shot in the back of the head and there was blood covering her entire face. So to the responding officers, the house seemed neat and orderly. Other than what they had just found, there were a lot of valuable items easily visible throughout the house, but nothing seemed to be missing. So they were pretty much able to rule robbery out right off the bat. And investigators obviously suspected that the motivation was execution because the evidence at the scene pretty much showed that.

Yeah, so. Crime scene technicians noted that Cody had barely made it into the garage when he'd been shot. Meaning that the killer did not hesitate to pull the trigger as soon as he got the opportunity to. And evidence that's chilling, it's so chilling. Evidence collected from the kitchen seemed to indicate that Chad had been shot while standing. But the second shot was delivered quote execution style, while he was on the kitchen floor near the Center Island.

And Margaret had been taken out similarly because she was also shot in the back of the head execution style. So the picture to investigators was becoming clear. Whoever killed this family had come to the house with that exact purpose and no other purpose whatsoever. So the deputies had been dispatched to the home actually less than a month earlier. So they knew that there was another occupant of this house, but when they arrived, that person wasn't home. Grant, and neither was his car.

So a Bolo alert, Be on the lookout was immediately issued for Grant, even though at the time it was unclear whether he was a suspect, a victim or neither. And investigators also started pulling toll records for his toll transponder, which showed him driving eastbound in the morning, then westbound in the afternoon. But other than that, they were unable to locate him. So you know what's going on? Mm-hmm.

So his absence in the house became even more suspicious. When the investigators spoke to Cody's girlfriend, Sloan, she told them all about the issues that had been going on between Grant and the rest of the family. And, according to Sloan, Cody had become concerned about Grant's unstable behavior. In the weeks leading up to the murders, she said he, quote, was afraid that Grant would kill everyone, like he was literally worried about it.

That that was even a thought, I think, because he was getting more and more unhinged. As, like, the days and weeks went on. Wow, can you imagine having that be an actual fear of yours? Absolutely not.

About your own flesh and blood, like being like, I am legitimately scared that they are going to kill everyone in this family. I can't even imagine, like, whew, I can't even imagine.

It must have gotten to such a point. And she also told the officers that she had been at work with Cody on January 24th, the day before the family was discovered. He got a call from his father a little after nine, and Chad said to Cody, like, You need to come home, like, something's wrong, yeah.

And when Sloan asked Cody what was going on, all he said was stupid, fucking bullshit. And then he left work. He's probably so sick of it. So absolutely, you know, like.

It was probably just like, Daily, Oh, it had to have been so. He's probably like Jesus. And when you're not the one creating all the issues and you're like, but you get yanked into it every time.

Exactly, I can't imagine he must have just been so frustrated. But a half hour after that, she texted Cody to check in and she was like, Hey, like, is everything okay? and he said, All okay, you didn't need to worry, which like, so sad.

And that was the last time they spoke. So when he didn't show up for work the next morning, that was when she and Chris Sisco got concerned and requested the well-being check. Oh man, so. While a team of officers interviewed friends and associates of the Amato's detective, James Galena and Lilliam Agrinsoni. I believe spoke with Jason Amato and let him know, and that's the oldest brother, let him know that quote. Three unidentified bodies had been discovered in his home or in the Amato home. He didn't live there. So Jason explained to the investigators that while he was Cody's emergency contact on most forms, he really didn't speak much with their family or engage with them very much.

He said the only person that he talked to regularly was his mother, and they spoke every week. Okay, he confirmed what Sloan had told police about Grant's theft and destructive behavior. He knew all about that, and when they asked whether he could think of anybody who might want to harm the family. Jason told them about Grant's relationship with Sylvie. And he mentioned, You know, Grant gets mail from her sometimes, so she has our address, like, or she has their address.

Yeah, so that became like, oh, like another layer to the story, like, Oh, is it her? Like, are they together? Like, Yeah, they have to think of all these things. So. The next morning, Grant's car was located by the Orange County Sheriff's deputies in the parking lot of a Doubletree hotel in Orlando. According to hotel staff, he had checked in the day before, which was January 25th.

He checked in just after 2.

30 in the afternoon, and he only registered himself for one day. He was scheduled to check out the next afternoon. So quick, quick, quick, yeah. Now. As officers were speaking with the front desk staff, he actually came out of his room and was confronted by the deputies.

Wow, crazy, wow, wow. So. He eventually agreed to return to the sheriff's office for a formal interview.

Wow, bonkers. I mean, they would have got him anyway, but the fact that he just came out of his room, crazy, yeah. During their interview, he confirmed that he had met Sylvie six months earlier. And since then he'd been talking to her regularly and sending her tons and tons of money.

He told detectives that he initially agreed to the ultimatum that he got from his dad when he had gotten back from rehab. But then he felt that the rules were very unfair quote because he believed Sylvie was his girlfriend and they had a relationship. It's like, very unfair. Yeah, you know, what I think is unfair.

The fact that your parents had to remortgage their home because you stole that much money from them, I'd say that's pretty unfair. I would say so.

Now, according to Grant, his dad found out that he was still speaking with Sylvie. And on the evening of the 24th, they got into an explosive fight over the relationship. Grant said his dad grabbed him by the shirt and demanded that he get out of the house. So he was able to scoop up some of his belongings. And then he said he got out of there. He said he was driving down the street and he met Cody, and Cody told him. Like, Oh, I'll go straighten things out with mom and dad and like, come back later, like, I'll figure it out for you. But he said that was the last time he saw or spoke to any of his family members. So the detectives were like, Okay, yeah, like, cool, cool, cool. Like. One problem with your story, though, Cody was working that night so you didn't run into each other.

Oof, Yeah, didn't think of that. Did you like you didn't run into each other by chance on the side of the road, like you claimed? No.

So Grant was like, Oh sorry, I was lying. Oh yeah, oops. but I'm going to thank you for reminding me that I was lying. I'm going to tell you the truth.

Yeah, like, I'm sorry about that. I actually didn't leave home right away. I waited for Cody to get back home, you know, like my dad just let that happen after we got in this explosive fight. And then he got home and I told him everything, and that's when he said he would talk to our parents. And I left. And no, of course, I haven't been back yet, no, and he said,...

He's like, Oh, I got that wrong.

He told them he was home, it was the side of the road. Yeah, totally, they look the same. It's crazy, yeah. He told them it was around midnight that he left and that he spent the night in his car in the parking lot of a Publix grocery store.

So he then told them that he had every intention to return home the next morning. And he actually started heading that way and he got to his neighborhood. But at the last second, he changed his mind and he decided, you know what, I'm not ready to go back home yet. No, no, but he did get to the neighborhood. So the detectives were like, oh, like, did you see anything out of the ordinary, like the morning? because that could have been when it happened, like, did you see anything crazy? yeah.

And he was like, No, nothing Sus at all. But, of course, the detectives knew that. Had he actually returned to the neighborhood that morning, he would have seen several police cruisers and news vans parked outside of the house. Which would certainly qualify as out of the ordinary, or at the very least memorable to me. I was just going to say, I think that would be something that I would mention. Like, hey, there was this crazy thing that I saw. So they pushed back with that. They were like, that's weird that you didn't see all the news vans and the police presence.

That's wild that you didn't see that. And he was like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I just keep lying. I'm going to tell you the truth again, though, sorry about that. I did see those cop cars and the news vans, and that's why I left. Oh, okay.

He's like, thank you for reminding me of that as well. I totally forgot that I saw those, but I did, and then I was like, Hmm, I did so. The detectives were like, you saw all that. Most innocent people stumbling upon a scene like that on their front lawn would want to make sure everyone in their house was safe and unhurt like you didn't.

Yeah, and Grant was just like, I don't know, I don't know what to say. He's like, You know what, I don't have an answer for that.

He just told them once he left the area, he went to a local fast food restaurant to use their wi-fi. And when he did, he checked a local news site, and that's how he learned there was a shooting in his neighborhood. Wow, a shooting. And when asked again why he didn't feel compelled to check on the family, he told the officers I just didn't want to know.

Wow, like, you're, you're something. You are. The worst liar I have ever heard in my entire life. Truly, yeah.

So he was interviewed like this for hours and hours and hours by the Seminole County Sheriff's detectives, and throughout most of their interview. All wow. I just got really bossed from there. I was just going to say, Damn, you got real bossed. That was wild. Yeah, yeah.

All Grant did was make himself look more suspicious, and after more than three hours of the conversation, Grant still hadn't asked detectives what had happened to his family. Are you kidding me three hours? And they're like, they're like, Yeah, news fans like, Do you have any curiosity? Heavy police presence.

No shooting like you want to know what happened? No? And he still didn't seem too alarmed by the situation at all.

Wow, okay. So Detective Moltari was getting more and more convinced that this is their guy. Clearly, yeah, and he was really hoping to get a confession, though, because of course, that's what you need.

Yeah, so she placed, or sorry, I had said he. Earlier, she placed multiple crime scene photos of Cody's body in front of Grant and directly asked Quote Did you leave the house with your brother Cody looking like that? holy shit? And Grant covered his face but gave no response. So Moltari then produced crime scenes of Chad and Margaret and said, Or did you leave the house with your father looking like that?

Or your mother, Holy shit, is that how you left your family? Damn. And Grant glanced at the photos before covering his face again, saying, No, I didn't do any of this.

Wow, like, looked back at them and was like, Oof. Initially, he suggested it could have been a murder-suicide, and he tried to blame Cody. Are you kidding me? The person that was there for him through everything.

Oh, that pisses me off. Through wrestling, through nursing school, through work, through their trip to Japan, through the fucking craziness with Aunt Donna there, through rehab, through all of it. The best brother you could literally ever ask for, or even dream up, to be quite honest, must have been Cody, and then he must have just turned the gun on himself.

Oh my god, what an actual piece of human fucking shit. Like, that's where I'm like, fuck you, yeah, like, obviously you're a fucking murderer, like, go fuck yourself, exactly. And you had to twist it at the end.

There you really had to do that, and it's like, dude. Cody was found in the fetal position, barely in the house, and evidence showed that doesn't even make sense. Evidence showed you didn't even hesitate before you shot your brother in the face.

What a piece of shit, your own flesh and blood. What a piece of shit. Shot him in the face, like, Wow, you're disgusting.

Because it's one thing to steal money from people. When you're going through addiction, like, that's not okay, but I understand you're suffering. It's a very different thing to shoot people in the face. Oh, yeah, I would say, so that's holy shit.

On another level, yeah, piece of shit. So the detectives were like, Yeah, no, like, straight up monster, No, that doesn't work like that.

So then he admitted, You know, I know I have all the motives, I have all the means to carry out this murder. But I didn't do it like, I know it looks that way, but I didn't do it. So the detectives were like, if it's not you, then who would have done this? And he said, Remember that it's not you too, right?

He said I don't know. I've been getting blamed for the last half a year for everything and I've been trying to move forward in a positive direction. And then every day I'm reminded of all the trouble I caused. And then I keep being told the same thing over and over again, that there's nothing I can do to change it is. How old is he again? Like 30.?

Okay, so he's not six? No, okay, no, just checking.

He's not because, like, really, really, like. Every day I keep hearing the same stuff because I steal money from them.

It's like, what the? It's like, Yeah, okay, cool, people are pissed now. You're talking about your dead family, by the way, like, if you really, and blaming it on your brother who did everything for you. That is so the fact that he was so willing to turn around and be like, probably Cody.

It's like, it's so crazy to me. It's like, Holy shit, dude, you are like bottom of the barrel, piece of shit, legit, like you couldn't even say.

Some stranger came in there. You blamed Cody, right? What the fuck like that is fought?

What a coward on another level. But at the same time, detectives felt like they were super close to getting a confession. Because they're poking, they're poking, and they're like, we're going to get there.

So what they did was they ended up contacting his older brother, Jason, and they were like, why don't we get the two of you in a room together and you confront him? I know, so. Jason goes in the room and immediately asked Grant whether he had anything to do with it, and Grant said, No, I have nothing to do with it. And Grant told him I want or excuse me. Jason told him, I want to believe you, Grant. But you're the last person I could put in that house. And I know what happened over the last six months.

I can understand that trouble that you've been going through, but it's hard for me to think you would break to this point. Yeah, so they had a 15-minute conversation as detectives watched, and they could tell it was clear that Jason didn't believe Grant's denial either. No.

And it became particularly evident when he wondered out loud what would have happened had he been in the house at the time of the murders. He said I may not have been able to stop you, you probably may have hurt me too, but at least I would have known what happened. And he kept going, just trying to get Grant to confess, he said. They didn't deserve it.

No matter what feelings were felt by anybody, they were good people. Yeah, and just when they thought Grant was going to budge, he said, I know, and they showed it by protecting me.

Wow, it's like, So now you were home? Wow, and they protected you and you're the sole survivor, like, what the fuck?

What? And it's like, Are you talking? is he talking about that, or is he talking about protected him throughout this whole ordeal? I don't even know. Either way, it's like, Wow, you're a fucking monster that you're acknowledging that, right?

Like, Wow, wow, exactly, holy shit. So, while all of that was going on down at the sheriff's office, crime scene technicians began a thorough search of the house. Grant's car and the hotel room that he'd been staying at in Orlando at the Doubletree.

Now in the search of his car. Crime scene analyst Eric Brothers found a handwritten letter that detailed all the issues that had been going on in the family for the last six months. And it included a quote saying I said, I'd take care of all your problems at the house and I have no one will bother you again regarding this. Just please come home. What the hell was that?

So back in the interview room, detectives heard about this and they asked Grant about the letter. Okay, and he said he was the one that had written it. He was like, Yeah, that's mine. And the quote was something Cody said to him the night that he was kicked out of the house.

And they were like, why would you write a letter in first person as Cody? And he said he was just trying to document their conversation. But like, if I was just trying to document that conversation, I'd be like. And then Elena said, Da da, da, da da, no like.

That doesn't make any sense, that doesn't make sense. So. Meanwhile, analysts combing through the evidence at the Doubletree found several credit cards. After he murdered his family, he stole their credit cards. They found multiple belonging to Cody and Chad.

That checks a lot. And a later search of the Amato house would turn up even more. Credit cards. And also images showing the credit card information that Grant had stolen from his aunt and uncle. Based on the quote totality of the investigation, an arrest warrant was issued and Grant was officially taken into custody. He was charged with three counts of first degree premeditated murder for the deaths of Cody, Chad and Margaret Wow.

So, on March 27th, 2019, there was a bond hearing to determine whether he should be eligible for bond, which is wild. His lawyer, Jeff Dowdy, argued that there was no physical evidence tying Grant to the murders because he lives in the house. I was going to say, like, of course not.

And he should be allowed bond in order to prepare for the trial. But during the hearing, the prosecutor played the 16 minute conversation between Jason and Grant during his initial interview. And that was followed up by testimony from Jason, who was able to detail all the issues that had been going on in the home. And in his closing arguments, the prosecutor, Stuart Stone, said Everything points to the defendant in this case and no one else. No one else had any issues or problems with the victims.

And even though there was a lack of forensic evidence linking Grant to the crime scene, but that's because he lived there. Like, it's hard to say what's evidence and what's not, because forensic evidence linking anyone to the crime scene. Exactly that's the problem here.

Exactly, yeah, but because, or excuse me, even though there was that, the judge actually denied the request for bond. Oh, okay, and Grant was returned back to his cell.

Bye, bitch, bye. But the issue of bond was revisited again in late April, and the defense attorney pointed again to the lack of forensic evidence. Blah, blah, blah. And the judge actually ended up siding with him. Because still, at this point, there was a lack of proof coming from the prosecution side. So he granted a $750,000 bail, which grant would need to pay 10 of.

Yeah, he's not gonna, No. And it came, of course, with additional requirements. Grant, if he was to be out on bond, would have to wear a GPS ankle monitor. Avoid contact with any witnesses in the case and avoid the internet altogether, which we all know would not have happened.

No, so, even though he was in jail and strictly forbidden from using the internet, meaning he had no way of keeping in contact with Sylvie. He was committed to his belief that she was in fact his girlfriend. In a handwritten letter to the girlfriend of his cellmate, Grant explained that he and his cellmate had bonded over their shared interests and work histories. He said to the woman I know the pain of being separated from the woman you love. Oh, my God.

You've always been separated from the woman you love, literally always. And then he went on to tell her that he and Sylvie had plans to take a cruise. Quote Once all this jail stuff is behind us, once all this jail stuff is behind us.

BB You murdered your entire family, and even if you're still claiming innocence that you didn't, your entire family was murdered. Thank you. That was going to be my next thing. It's like, even if you're going to keep claiming that you had nothing to do with this, that's not something you're going to put behind you.

You're not sad at all that your whole family was brutally slain in their house, in the house that you planned to live in with your brother. That was curled up in the fetal position, in the garage or in the storage room next to the garage. None of this is bothering you at all. No, he was just going to go on a cruise with Sylvie Cool.

Very cool. Also. Did Sylvie know that? Yeah, did Sylvie know that you guys were going on a cruise? Because I don't think so.

What does Sylvie know? She knew that he became obsessed with her, and she was just like, it wasn't that. For me, it was work, yeah.

There was no relationship. No, he was just under the impression. My god how scary. he was just under the impression.

I think she must've been terrified. So it's honestly unclear why Grant was writing long, detailed letters to his cellmate's girlfriend. Yeah, I was going to ask that next. Yeah, I don't really know, but most of his other correspondence made sense.

Under the circumstances, he was clearly unable to come up with the $75,000 bond, so he tried to access the payout from his parents life insurance policies. Fuck that, are you kidding me? But, you know? He was informed that his indictment for their murder happened to make him ineligible for that money.

So like, there's this little thing standing in your way, tiny rule of like, if you're the one on trial for the murder, you actually don't get the money, you actually don't get that. It's crazy, I know it's wild.

Sorry, very unfair. sorry about that. speaking of unfair, yeah.

Yeah, you know all about that grant, for sure. But anyway, the conditions of his bail made it so that he couldn't use any funds from his parents estate anyway to make bond. So instead, he began reaching out to news outlets, offering quote trade exclusive interviews to reporters in exchange for getting money to bond out of jail.

Wow, so he's like, Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to you about my parents money so I can get out of here. In an email to a reporter in New York, he complained about his inability to come up with the money. Saying It seems to be my half-brother's mission to make my life that much harder. By not believing me, communicating me, or even helping me. Even after I was blessed with a very high bond, Wow, like you think it's fucking Jason's responsibility to bond you out of here?

You murdered his mother, his adoptive father and his half-brother. He's so delusional he is. His other message to journalists were very similar in tone, and they usually contained a list of repetitive complaints about everything. From his experiences in jail, he would write about his interest in Japanese culture. And then he would start complaining again about the lack of support outside of jail and his quote-unquote elitist neighbors back home.

He called them elitist. What I'm like, I don't think they're judging you because, like, you don't have money, I think they're judging you. Because you murdered your whole family in cold blood, you murdered their neighbor. So I think that's part of the judgment.

I don't think it's elitist. No, I wouldn't say it was now. Despite his quote-unquote efforts, Grant was never able to come up with the money and he remained in jail awaiting trial. But as he was trying his hardest, the Seminole County investigators continued collecting and analyzing a seemingly endless amount of evidence. Actually coming from the car and from the house.

The more prominent evidence included hundreds and hundreds of images and screenshots of Sylvie. There were text conversations between the two, and there were screenshots of the bank transactions showing proof of his countless purchases of those tokens that he could use on the Camp Girl website. So his trial for the murder of his parents and his brother finally began on July 15th in the Seminole County Circuit Court, Stuart Stone was arguing for the prosecution, and again, Jeff Dowdy was leading Grant's defense team. So, in his opening statement, Stone laid out the prosecution's theory that Grant had been faced with the ultimatum of giving up his fantasy relationship with Sylvie or losing the support of his family.

So he chose to continue that relationship with Sylvie and also chose to murder his parents and brother. Thinking that with them out of the way, he would be free to continue on in his relationship and live off of their money now. The prosecution pointed to the fact that just a few hours after killing his family. Grant logged on to the wi-fi at Publix and tried to connect with Sylvie a few hours. This is so beyond obsession. Yeah, I can't imagine.

So the prosecution told the jury quote. His parents and brother's bodies aren't even cold, and he's already reestablishing or trying to reestablish contact with Sylvie. He was just waiting for her to say, I love you too, come to Bulgaria, come see me. But that didn't happen.

Oh my God, because this is her job, it's not, she's not in love with you, she's not in love with, that's the thing.

No, like, this is literally her job, right? That's it. So, throughout the trial, it went on for two weeks. The jury was presented with the by then well-known story of Grant's full blown obsession with Sylvie. His theft of more than at that point, $200,000 from his family, and the incredibly tense relationship that had developed between him, and specifically his father, as a result.

But the more damning evidence actually came from the murder weapon, it was in. I hope I got this right. IWI Jericho 941 pistol that belonged to his best friend, Blake Turpin Wow, so. Turpin was called to testify. And he told the jury that he realized his gun was missing from his home about a month or two earlier, and remembered leaving Grant in his bedroom, where the gun was kept quote for about 10 minutes, two weeks prior to the killings. Oh, damn.

So he not only stole a shit ton of money from his family, stole their belongings, but he stole from his best friend to kill his family. I was going to say, and then use that thing to murder his entire family so that it would be traced back to his best friend. Wild and was willing to say that it was Cody who did everything. Yep.

Like, he will throw anybody under the bus, anybody. So, on July 31st, 2019, after more than eight hours of deliberation, which I truly can't even believe it took that long, the jury unanimously delivered a guilty verdict. Good, guilty, guilty, guilty.

Bye in all three charges of first degree premeditated murder. Yep, and the penalty phase of the trial took place on August 12th. And it was particularly important because actually, Grant was potentially facing the death penalty for these murders. Oh, damn.

But during that part of the trial, Jason Amato testified and told the judge. It's so hard to go through the grieving process when there are multiple losses and uncertainty in the future. I can't fathom that. Through all this, though, I'm a proud Amato and I will rise up smarter and stronger than before. And ultimately, the judge sentenced Grant Amato to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bye Grant.

The end?

Bye Grant, fucking wild. wow, wow, I am like without words.

But that's it, wild. I didn't know that story, I can't believe it. I'm very surprised about that.

I've never heard that story. I actually, I have to tell you, and I have to give credit where credit is due. I actually learned of this case from Bailey. Sarian Oh shit. It was one of the first videos I ever watched of hers. Oh, I love that.

Yeah, like years ago. Oh, that's crazy. Oh, I love Bailey. I love Bailey so much, like the sweetest human.

Like, truly? So, if you want any more information on this case, I would definitely suggest going to Bailey's channel and watching that. Oh man, you know what it is, if the name sounded familiar?

Yeah, but I did not know this. yeah, I did not know this, and crazy that it really wasn't that long ago.

It's so sad, I know it's such a sad case like that. At the end, you're like, Bye, Grant.

See you later, but then you're like, Fuck oh. But like, everyone is gone and it's like, I feel so bad for Jason. Like, having, like, what? He said, going through the grieving process, with this as part of it, you can't even. You're grieving your entire family and grieving the loss of your brother, too, your remaining brother who did all of this.

Of course, it's so upsetting and I can't imagine I would just never trust anybody ever again, no?

Honestly, you shouldn't. No, I mean, I don't anyways, but wow, what a story.

So sad, well told. Thank you shout out to Dave for helping me with the research, David.

The most beautiful, beautiful being the majestic unicorn, him. So yeah, guys, we thank you for listening, and we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that any of this, yeah.

None of it, none of it, not even one part of it, except, like, shop at Publix, because I heard it's a great grocery store. Definitely do that.

All right, love you bye.

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