- 20 hours ago
48 Hours - Season 38 Episode 1 -
The Boy Who Killed His Twin
The Boy Who Killed His Twin
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FunTranscript
00:00What's the location of your emergency?
00:11I just killed my sister.
00:14Oh my God.
00:17Tell me what your name is.
00:18Benjamin Elliott.
00:23Okay, tell me exactly what happened.
00:26I thought it was a dream.
00:27I, I kicked my wife and I stabbed her.
00:34I don't want her to buy her.
00:38How old is she?
00:4017, we're twins.
00:43Is she awake?
00:44Yes, she's like barely alive.
00:47Is there anyone else there in the house with you?
00:49There is, it's my parents, but they're asleep.
00:51Okay, I need you to go wake them up.
00:54Mom!
00:54We're going to have to start CPR right now.
00:58One, two, three, four.
01:00One, two, keep rubbing her chest just like that, okay?
01:04Where's your son?
01:05Where's your son?
01:05Okay, okay, we got EMS is coming.
01:11Okay, slow down a little bit.
01:13One, two, three, four.
01:15One, two, three, four.
01:18Can we take over?
01:19Can you stand out?
01:21What happened, son?
01:22It was a dream.
01:23He said it was a dream, honey.
01:26What the ?
01:27I don't know what, I don't know what I'll do with Sheila.
01:33It was just a dream and then it wasn't.
01:35I'm going to do a search of you real quick
01:37and then I'm going to put you in the backseat
01:38and I'll just rain, okay?
01:39What was your first reaction when you heard about the case?
01:45I was skeptical.
01:46Why does he have a knife next to his bed at night?
01:49This is the first study that we did on Ben.
01:52I'm Dr. Gerald Simmons.
01:53I'm a neurologist, sleep disorder specialist.
01:55See, these are rapid eye movements.
01:57I was asked to review the case of Benjamin Elliott.
02:01The claim was that he was sleepwalking and stabbed his sister.
02:05We have a video of him right here.
02:07Oh, there he is?
02:09Yeah, okay.
02:09You are convinced this was a sleepwalking incident?
02:14Yes.
02:14Are you saying then that he did kill his sister,
02:18but he didn't intend to kill his sister?
02:22I wouldn't say that it's impossible
02:24for someone to commit a crime while sleepwalking.
02:28I just don't think that was the case with Benjamin Elliott.
02:30Were you able to find any evidence
02:32that there was a problem with these twins?
02:36No, we definitely looked into it and tried.
02:39The biggest thing that they're hanging their hat on
02:42is the lack of motive.
02:44My name is Megan Long.
02:45I'm one of the prosecutors on the case.
02:52This is really hard, isn't it, Mike?
02:55I hate this.
02:57I hate that she's gone.
02:58This was not Benjamin's fault.
03:03I've never thought of him as somebody responsible for this.
03:06What makes you so sure that you stabbed your sister
03:09while you were sleepwalking?
03:10I would never have done that.
03:12I loved her.
03:14She was my best and closest friend.
03:16I love her.
03:44On the morning of September 29, 2021,
04:1217-year-old Benjamin Elliott was in a Harris County Sheriff's
04:17interrogation room in Houston, Texas.
04:21So what happened, Benjamin?
04:23Do you ever have, like, a really realistic nightmare,
04:28where, like, just everything feels real,
04:32but also off at the same time?
04:36Benjamin told Detective Frederick Munoz
04:39that he stabbed his twin sister once with this knife
04:44but had little memory of what had happened.
04:47So you go to sleep.
04:48What's the next thing you remember?
04:50The next thing I remember is, like, the feeling of stabbing something.
05:00I was in her room, and I turned on the light, and I was panicking,
05:05and I tried to stop bleeding with the pillow.
05:09So I run in my room, and I unplug my phone, and I dial 911.
05:14911, what's the location of your emergency?
05:16I stabbed my sister.
05:18How many times did you stab her?
05:21Just once.
05:22I heard the 911 call, and I screamed.
05:25What's going on?
05:26I was just wondering.
05:28You what?
05:29And I went to go move into the bedroom.
05:30As I moved, I saw Megan, and she was, uh...
05:40She was, uh, gray, you know?
05:43Michael Elliott remembers calling out to his wife, Kathy.
05:47I heard Michael yell.
05:49Oh, my God!
05:50I was trying to figure out what was going on,
05:52and Michael said, the police are here.
05:54Where's the brother at?
05:55And I just...
06:00Arriving paramedics took over CPR.
06:03They took Benjamin out of the house.
06:05He was shocked.
06:06He said it was a dream.
06:08What the f...
06:09What did you make of that?
06:10I don't... I mean, I just...
06:11I couldn't believe it.
06:12I mean, I couldn't...
06:13Not the Ben you knew, so it would have to have been that he was.
06:16Something would have had to happen.
06:18Benjamin, his parents say, sat handcuffed in a police car for three hours
06:23while police, confronted with an apparent homicide,
06:27took control of the crime scene.
06:30I just need to see her.
06:31We can't...
06:32I need to see her.
06:33Nobody would tell us if Megan was okay, what's going on.
06:36Take a picture for me.
06:37Let me see something.
06:38Can we see something?
06:39No, sir.
06:40The Elliott say they felt isolated by the police
06:43and eventually called a longtime friend,
06:46who is also an attorney.
06:48He went and got some information,
06:50and he told us that Megan had died.
06:52It was news police didn't share with Benjamin.
06:58Is she okay?
06:59Benjamin asked Detective Munoz several times
07:03if his sister was all right.
07:04She is okay.
07:05But the detective withheld the truth.
07:08Yeah, last time I know about, she was being checked out by EMS.
07:12Authorities say this is a textbook police technique
07:16to keep the suspect talking, and they wanted Benjamin talking
07:21about his feelings for his sister.
07:23How's your relationship with Megan?
07:25Good.
07:26She's my twin sister.
07:27I'd do anything for her.
07:29No rivalry there?
07:30No.
07:31You guys have any recent fights or anything like that?
07:33No.
07:34We're pretty close for siblings.
07:36Benjamin, who spoke to police without a lawyer,
07:39said he loved his sister,
07:41and described what he says he remembered before the stabbing.
07:45Phone records show he was scrolling the web,
07:48and Benjamin says he thinks he fell asleep
07:51somewhere around 2.30 or 3.30 in the morning.
07:55Where would the phone be at right now?
07:57Somewhere at the crime scene.
08:00Benjamin provided Munoz with his iPhone password
08:04and permission to search his phone.
08:07Have you ever been diagnosed with an email until illness is?
08:10No.
08:11Benjamin said there were no problems at home,
08:14and said that he was looking forward to college.
08:17I'm thinking about mechanical engineering.
08:20I'm taking the SAT, I think, Friday?
08:24No.
08:25Saturday.
08:26Let me ask you, the knife that you had in your hands,
08:28where did you get it from?
08:30From my dad.
08:31He had given it to me that day.
08:34It was like an Air Force survival knife.
08:37I was really enamored with it.
08:40Benjamin and Megan's parents had a big collection
08:43of knives and gear.
08:45The family is big into camping.
08:47Kathy is senior manager with the Girl Scouts of America.
08:51Michael is a stay-at-home dad.
08:54I know that if I had not given him that knife,
08:56this would not have happened.
08:58And I, um...
09:00After two hours in that interrogation room,
09:11at 11 a.m., Munoz finally revealed that Megan was dead.
09:17I'm sorry if you didn't care about you.
09:19Megan did not make him.
09:27He and Megan are so close,
09:28you could never picture anything bad happening between them.
09:31Longtime friend Drew Whitaker was stunned to learn Benjamin was in police custody.
09:37He was very protective of her.
09:40She says her family and the Elliotts have been closed since 2005.
09:45Ben was very engineering-focused.
09:48Whitaker, herself an engineer,
09:50described Benjamin as soft-spoken, smart, funny, and a bit nerdy,
09:55while Megan was sensitive, wrote poetry, and loved to draw.
10:00As a teenager, Megan had been diagnosed with autism.
10:04And how did she feel about Ben?
10:06She loved him.
10:07She looked up to him.
10:09You would see her walk up next to him when she would feel uncomfortable
10:14and just kind of stand by him.
10:16Did he ever get tired of having to take care of Noah?
10:18I think he was proud of it.
10:19He liked being a protector.
10:21The Elliotts say the twins seemed happy in the weeks before the stabbing.
10:26With their eldest child, Elizabeth, already off at college,
10:30the twins toured separate universities.
10:33Megan, at this point, had started coming out of Michelle as well.
10:36Yeah.
10:37She was finding her voice.
10:38Yeah.
10:39And she had found friends online, and she had a YouTube channel
10:41where she was doing art.
10:43The night before Megan's death, father and son spent hours playing popular video games,
10:50such as Survive the Nights.
10:53It was in that video game that Benjamin noticed a military-style knife
10:58that his father said resembled one that he owned.
11:02Michael offered to give it to Benjamin.
11:04Unfortunately, I went and got the knife out.
11:06The Elliotts remember heading off to bed.
11:09Was there any, you know, any problem at all between the twins?
11:15The Elliotts, like police, couldn't make sense of why Benjamin stabbed Megan.
11:23But police had the teenager's confession, the bloody knife he used,
11:29along with a disturbing detail discovered at autopsy.
11:33Megan hadn't been stabbed just once.
11:37She had two stab wounds.
11:41Benjamin Elliot was charged with the murder of his twin sister.
11:46After several days on suicide watch, 17-year-old Benjamin Elliot was released on bail.
12:05His parents were there waiting for him.
12:17I saw them put him out, and he just kind of stood there on the sidewalk.
12:20And I went...
12:21Sorry.
12:22It's okay.
12:23I went up to him, and he seemed...
12:26I told him, I said, Ben!
12:27You know, and he seemed like he didn't see me.
12:29He was surprised to see me.
12:35We started driving, and we were asking him if he was okay.
12:39And we were getting very...
12:41Very quiet.
12:42Sort of quiet, like, you know, single-word answers.
12:46So, Michael pulls the car over, and stops, and...
12:51And he gets up, comes around, and takes his face in his hands.
12:56And he says, like, hi.
12:57Just, yeah.
12:58Hi.
12:59We love you.
13:00Hi.
13:01And he just...
13:02Yeah.
13:03And so I'm kind of...
13:05I'm sort of weak.
13:07And then he just hugged us.
13:14Yeah.
13:15The Elliotts knew they could never sleep in their home again, and had already moved in
13:22with Kathy's mother.
13:24Ben was worried that he might walk around, and he was worried that he might do something,
13:28and he wanted to make sure everybody was safe.
13:30The Elliotts were worried, too.
13:32The first two nights I slept in a chair in front of the door.
13:35The couple even installed an alarm on Benjamin's door.
13:40Because his attorneys had asked them not to speak with their son about the night Megan
13:44was killed, they couldn't ask him the burning question, why?
13:49There's never been anything wrong with him at all.
13:51Where my mind went was a mental health... something.
13:55Kathy's father was schizophrenic.
13:58She now feared her son might be.
14:00So did Benjamin's lawyers, Wes Rucker and Carrie Hart.
14:04So we had a psychiatrist sit down with him.
14:07I fully expected her to come back and say he's got schizophrenia, or he's severely bipolar.
14:13When she calls me up, she said, Wes, he's fine.
14:16It blew my mind.
14:18They came to suspect that Benjamin experienced something else entirely.
14:23He was actually sleepwalking when he killed his sister.
14:27Had either one of you ever had a case quite like this?
14:31Never.
14:32No.
14:33You have a twin causing the death of the other.
14:36And the last thing you think of, is this a sleepwalking case?
14:40But Benjamin had told police the night he stabbed his sister.
14:45It felt like a dream.
14:47And his lawyers say that sleepwalking defenses have been used successfully in the past.
14:53In 1987, Canadian Kenneth Parks drove his car 14 miles to his mother-in-law's home, beat her to death with a tire iron, and stabbed her.
15:05He claimed he was asleep the whole time, and a jury believed him.
15:11And in North Carolina, in 2010, Joseph Mitchell strangled his four-year-old son and attacked two of his other children, all while sleepwalking.
15:23A jury also found him not guilty.
15:26The big question here is just whether Ben Elliott, in fact, killed his sister while he was sleepwalking.
15:32Correct.
15:33So Benjamin's lawyers reached out to Dr. Gerald Simmons, a neurologist and a sleep disorder expert.
15:46When I first was approached, I was very skeptical.
15:49The next question is, did I even want to deal with this?
15:52My first reaction to this is, you know, well, who else are they going to go to?
15:58I mean, within the field of sleep medicine, this is what I do.
16:01Simmons wanted to do a sleep study with Benjamin to test if it's possible Benjamin could experience something called a parasomnia.
16:11In general, think of a parasomnia as an abnormal behavior that occurs during sleep.
16:16Like sleepwalking.
16:18Sleepwalking would be a parasomnia.
16:20Simmons asked if Benjamin had a history of sleepwalking, and his lawyers say he did.
16:26When he was about 10 years old, Benjamin's older sister Elizabeth found him sleepwalking by her bedroom door.
16:35There was also a sleepover with childhood friends the night this photo was taken.
16:41When Benjamin was found asleep on a couch eating a donut, when they woke him, he seemed surprised and confused.
16:49Simmons also learned that there were other members of the Elliott family who sleepwalked.
16:55The likelihood, genetically, is higher to have parasomnia, specifically non-run parasomnia, if there are other family members that have had that.
17:04My uncle apparently used to sleepwalk when he was a teenager.
17:08He would go out into the garage and, you know, with the tools, and apparently he walked in on my mom one time when she was in the shower.
17:14Kathy also had an aunt who once walked out of her house while she was asleep.
17:19Ran out into the woods in the middle of the night and, you know.
17:22He was waking up in the middle of a thunderstorm outside.
17:25You know, here's a video of him right here.
17:27Simmons conducted two sleep studies with Benjamin in his sleep lab six weeks apart.
17:33In each, Benjamin was hooked up to machines that monitored just about everything his body did as he slept.
17:42This is brainwave activity here.
17:44So we did the sleep study.
17:45I saw that he had obstructive sleep apnea.
17:48Obstructive sleep apnea, says Simmons, is where the airway becomes partially blocked, creating a disturbance in the sleep pattern.
17:57So he's sleeping, struggling a bit to get breath.
18:02Right, yes.
18:03Then that could be the trigger.
18:04Yes, yes.
18:05A trigger that Simmons says could cause a sleepwalking episode, particularly when Benjamin's brainwaves enter what is known as a non-REM slow-wave sleep.
18:17Now he's in slow-wave sleep.
18:19This is slow-wave sleep.
18:21Sleepwalking will typically occur in non-REM slow-wave sleep.
18:25During the sleep studies, Benjamin did not sleepwalk, but Simmons observed how quickly Benjamin entered that non-REM slow-wave sleep.
18:34So it was 11 minutes from the time we turned off the lights until he was in slow-wave sleep.
18:41This is important because on the night Benjamin stabbed Megan, his phone activity stopped at 417 AM.
18:49It was just 24 minutes later that he was on his phone calling 911.
18:56I just killed my sister.
18:58Watch your location.
18:59Simmons says the fact that Benjamin is able to reach slow-wave sleep so quickly means it's possible Benjamin was sleepwalking during that period of time his phone was inactive.
19:12Do you believe Ben killed his sister without even realizing he was doing it in his sleep?
19:24Yes.
19:26Ben definitely killed his sister.
19:29He did it.
19:31There's no question.
19:32He's the one that had the knife and stabbed her.
19:34But I believe it was part of a parasomnia.
19:37He didn't do this voluntarily.
19:39There was no motivation.
19:41Dr. Simmons' findings took Benjamin's parents by surprise.
19:46It's scary as hell.
19:48If that can happen to us, then that could happen to anybody with a sleep problem.
19:54He realized he was sinking the knife into something or someone and then woke up and realized it was his sister.
20:17After sleep expert Dr. Gerald Simmons made his assessment that Benjamin was sleepwalking when he killed his twin sister, the Elliott's were hopeful prosecutors might drop the case.
20:30At that point, we thought it might not go to trial.
20:35But in April 2023, a year and a half after Megan's death, a grand jury indicted Benjamin Elliott, then 19 years of age, a first degree murder.
20:47We just didn't think that what we saw was sleepwalking.
20:52Megan Long and Maroon Khutani would handle the prosecution.
20:56It wasn't Long's first sleepwalking case.
20:59In 2019, she successfully convicted a man who claimed he was sleepwalking when he shot and killed his wife.
21:09And Long told us she herself was a sleepwalker, as were her children.
21:14Still, Long disputes the Elliott's claim of a family history since she says neither of Benjamin's parents have been sleepwalkers.
21:24From our conversations with our sleep expert, family history of sleepwalking is a factor.
21:30It's more prevalent when it's like first-degree family members, so your parents.
21:35The prosecutors hired their own sleep consultant, psychologist Dr. Mark Pressman, who concluded Benjamin was not sleepwalking when he stabbed Megan.
21:46He says sleepwalkers become aggressive only when someone physically interferes with them.
21:53And they respond by hitting or kicking or throwing furniture.
21:57But that's like a reflex, you know, an instinctive reflex to protect themselves.
22:04And he points out that Benjamin would have had to have unsheathed the knife before he used it in the stabbing,
22:11which Pressman believes is a complex, conscious action, not an unconscious one.
22:18The next thing I remember is the feeling of stabbing something.
22:24He also says it's unusual for a sleepwalker to recall details the way Benjamin did to authorities after he stabbed Megan.
22:33He remembered the feeling of the knife going into the neck.
22:38Okay, so that's a memory.
22:40Okay, shouldn't be able to have that memory.
22:42Aren't there sometimes pockets of memory?
22:44Not in these cases, no.
22:46Dr. Simmons disagrees.
22:48He says Benjamin told police what he could recall.
22:52If he was trying to fabricate this or just use this as an alibi, it would have been just as easy for him to say I don't remember anything.
22:59Instead, he's, I interpret it as he's trying to be as honest as he can.
23:04But Pressman felt he had enough information to make his determination.
23:09You didn't think you needed to talk to Ben?
23:12No.
23:13Prosecutor Long knew she needed more than an expert's assessment to convict Benjamin, especially because she couldn't identify a motive for murder.
23:24No one had witnessed any problems between the twins.
23:28Is there no motive because he was sleepwalking or is there no motive just because no one's willing to come forward and tell us?
23:35And they think they could convince a jury that Benjamin's actions were intentional that night, stabbing Megan twice.
23:43One wound was four inches deep and severed her carotid artery and jugular vein.
23:50So he's saying that he stabbed her in the neck, removed the knife with where she was stabbed.
23:56Blood would be coming out of her neck.
23:58You should see some sort of blood spatter on the walls.
24:01And there isn't any of that.
24:03Benjamin had told police he used a pillow to stop the bleeding.
24:07And I tried to stop bleeding with the pillow.
24:10And that was behind her.
24:11I like to do that.
24:13Long doesn't believe that.
24:15I think he wanted to cover her face.
24:18I think maybe even muffle if she were to scream or anything like that.
24:22The only way for there not to be that blood spatter is it had to be there when he took the knife out.
24:26It wasn't there for life-saving measures.
24:28But he's calling 911.
24:30So he's not trying to hide what he had done, right?
24:33I think at that point, when he's making that 911 call, he realizes, I can't hide what I've just done.
24:40What's your name?
24:42I just killed my sister.
24:46Khutani claims Benjamin is whispering on the 911 call.
24:51It's not good.
24:54And is suspicious why he's not yelling to his parents for help.
24:58I think he's whispering because he doesn't want his parents to come to the same reality that he's now living in.
25:08That he took his sister's life.
25:10I think that that's why he doesn't awake them before calling 911.
25:14I think that's why he doesn't scream in the house when he realizes what he's done.
25:19And they argue Megan was already dead by the time Benjamin called 911.
25:26Okay, sir, can we take over?
25:28By the time EMS got there, she wasn't breathing on her own.
25:32She had no heartbeat.
25:34Our medical examiner said that with the wound that she suffered from, she would have been dead within minutes.
25:42Benjamin's interrogation raised even more questions, they say, especially when Benjamin described his house as a crime scene.
25:52Benjamin Elliott is asked by Deputy Munoz, where's your phone?
25:55Benjamin Elliott responds with, it's at the crime scene.
25:59And to us, that was significant.
26:01Not many 17-year-olds would respond with, at the crime scene.
26:05Most people would say, at my house, in my room.
26:09And there is more, says Khutani.
26:11His demeanor and his behavior is very calm.
26:14Certainly not the type of behavior you would expect from somebody who comes to with a knife in their hand and their sister dead in the sleep of her own bedroom.
26:24Could he be in shock?
26:26I mean, realizing what he had done?
26:29Isn't that possible?
26:31I think based on his response to Deputy Munoz in a couple portions of the interview,
26:36we can tell that he's not necessarily in shock with what the consequences of his actions were.
26:42During the interview, Benjamin told police that his sister had struggled with her mental health.
26:48My sister had a pretty severe depression for a while.
26:54Megan.
26:55To prosecutors, that suggested maybe everything wasn't so perfect in the Elliott family.
27:02A contention that Benjamin's lawyers find ridiculous.
27:08They say investigators made virtually no effort to learn about the Elliots or Benjamin.
27:15They don't have a clue about this kid.
27:18They weren't even curious.
27:20He would know what was going to happen to him if he killed his sister.
27:23There was nothing for him to gain.
27:25There was everything for him to lose.
27:27There's just no reason why he would have done that.
27:31Before trial, prosecutors offered Benjamin a 30-year plea deal.
27:37He turned it down.
27:39The tragedy is now the family lost their daughter, but they're now losing their son.
27:45He's on trial for his life.
27:58He's a victim.
28:00He went to sleep.
28:01He woke up and he found out he had killed his sister.
28:05After struggling with Megan's loss, the Elliots now face the possibility they could lose Benjamin, too.
28:13It's a nightmare that happened to all of us.
28:16Benjamin's first-degree murder trial began on February 18, 2025.
28:23You tell your colleagues, I have a client who killed his twin sister and we believe he was sleepwalking, then they think you're crazy.
28:30But with no evidence of any problems between the twins, Benjamin's lawyers hoped they could convince a jury that sleepwalking is the only explanation.
28:41Even prosecutors knew the lack of motive could be a problem.
28:45I think our biggest hurdle going into this trial was the why.
28:49So you made sure you had jurors who at least be open to the idea they may never know why Megan Elliott was stabbed.
28:57Right.
28:58In his opening remarks, Maroon Katani made it clear that while there was no motive, they had their murderer.
29:06He calls 911 at 441.
29:10Hello?
29:12Hello?
29:13I just killed my sister.
29:16I stabbed her with a knife.
29:18He's whispering.
29:20Prosecutors told jurors about Benjamin's behavior during that interrogation.
29:26And you'll see his demeanor in the interview.
29:29Pointing to Benjamin's reaction when the detective tells him Megan is dead.
29:34Sorry to tell you this, but Megan has succumbed to her injuries.
29:39And the defendant says...
29:40Hmm.
29:41Hmm.
29:42Hmm.
29:43Witnesses offered details about her wounds, the lack of blood spatter, and the prosecution's
29:49theory that Benjamin covered Megan's head with a pillow while he stabbed her.
29:56And Benjamin's father was surprised to learn that prosecutors would ask him to identify Megan's body for the record.
30:04This is a photo taken from an autopsy.
30:06Sorry.
30:07Yeah.
30:08That's Megan.
30:09No further question, John.
30:10After the prosecution rested, defense attorneys Carrie Hart and Wes Rucker took over.
30:26Good morning.
30:27Making their case about sleepwalking.
30:29And this is not a ruse.
30:31This is not some defense to get in off of a tragic, tragic set of circumstances.
30:37This is a real phenomenon.
30:39And that call Benjamin made to 911?
30:42The defense says that's evidence he was desperate to save Megan.
30:47He's saying things like, oh, my God.
30:48I thought it was a dream.
30:49I thought it was a dream.
30:50I thought it was a dream.
30:51I don't want her to die.
30:52I don't want her to die.
30:53I don't want her to die.
30:54He's trying to do CPR.
30:56One, two, three, four.
30:59Family friend Drew Whitaker told the jury about Benjamin's devotion to Megan.
31:05Ever noticed that the sweet kid or the tender kid changed into somebody else?
31:10Absolutely not.
31:12Hearing by Zoom, childhood friend Anand Singh told the jury about that sleepover when he found Benjamin asleep and eating a donut.
31:22Just the sheer confusion on his face, like he genuinely seemed baffled as to how that happened.
31:28Benjamin's great aunt, Martha Knight Oakley, a psychologist, told the jury about her own sleepwalking history, including finding herself in the woods one night.
31:39All I know is I came to, in the bushes, clutching my dog.
31:45But the defense team's star witness was Dr. Gerald Simmons.
31:51He testified for four hours, detailing the science and sleep studies that convinced him of Benjamin's innocence.
32:00It totally fits in line with a process we call sleepwalking violent behaviors.
32:06On rebuttal, prosecutors called their own sleepwalking expert, Dr. Mark Pressman.
32:12I concluded he was not in a sleepwalking state.
32:16How did you come to that conclusion?
32:18He had memory.
32:19He is said to have come out of the state much faster than any sleepwalker could ever do.
32:25In closing arguments, prosecutors described a deliberate murder.
32:31Benjamin Elliott walked into his sister's room with this very knife and he stabbed her in the neck twice.
32:37There's no blood spraying in the room.
32:39You know why?
32:40The only thing soaked in blood is the pillow that he muffled her screams with.
32:45Benjamin's defense attorneys pushed back.
32:48If you're trying to cover something up, you're not calling 911.
32:52You're not begging for someone to help your sister.
32:55And they appealed for justice.
32:57You do not convict a young man, a 17-year-old, because of how he looks or because how he answers interrogation questions.
33:05But prosecutor Megan Long had the final word, and she suggested the family was involved in a cover-up that began with calling the friend who is a lawyer.
33:16Look, I'm a mother.
33:18I understand wanting to protect your children.
33:21I get it.
33:22But you can't let them get away with it.
33:25They have been protecting him from the get-go.
33:28Long didn't leave it there.
33:30They want to say that this family life was perfect, but we don't necessarily know what happens behind closed doors.
33:37And what she said next stunned the courtroom, filled with the Elliott family and friends.
33:43I want you to look in this courtroom.
33:45There are so many people here for Benjamin.
33:48There is not one person here for Megan.
33:51But the judge let the prosecution continue.
33:57You have to be her hero.
34:00He knew exactly what he was doing.
34:02There's been no remorse shown here in this courtroom by him.
34:08After four days of testimony, the case went to the jury.
34:12We took a vote immediately.
34:14Jurors were divided.
34:16It was split seven to five.
34:19Could they reach a verdict?
34:27I was a sleepwalker.
34:36And one of my own children used to sleepwalk too.
34:39Several of the jurors who decided Benjamin's fate knew a lot about sleepwalking.
34:44You know someone who was a sleepwalker?
34:46Absolutely.
34:47Yes.
34:48Had a family member.
34:49Yes.
34:50On my mom's side, my grandfather.
34:51But even with their experience, they were deeply conflicted about Benjamin.
34:56We spent a lot of time with the interview by the detective.
34:59I'm taking the SAT, I think, Friday.
35:04He talked about how he was going to go take the SAT.
35:08He just seemed to not have a lot of remorse.
35:15It didn't take them long to come to a unanimous decision.
35:19My understanding is that y'all have a verdict.
35:24Is that correct?
35:25Yes.
35:26After four hours of deliberations.
35:28We, the jury, find the defendant Benjamin David Elliott guilty of murder as charged in
35:32the indictment signed by the foreman of the jury, printed by the foreman of the jury.
35:38I remember hearing guilty and I was completely shocked.
35:45Benjamin Elliott, who did not testify at trial, later spoke to 48 Hours inside the county jail.
35:51I feel like this has been a, I don't know, a miscarriage of justice, I guess.
36:00I am not guilty of murder for my sister, Megan Elliott.
36:07Benjamin, now 21 years old, said he and his family were appalled by the way prosecutor
36:13Megan Long ended her closing argument.
36:16There are so many people here for Benjamin.
36:19There is not one person here for Megan.
36:24That was crazy to me.
36:27What do you mean?
36:29Everyone in that courtroom was there for Megan.
36:32I understand wanting to protect your children.
36:35And his parents were outraged by the statements made by prosecutors hinting to problems within
36:42the family.
36:43We don't necessarily know what happens behind closed doors.
36:46They were lying.
36:47Yeah, it was horrible.
36:48They waited until the closing when they knew that nothing could be said afterwards to
36:53pull out these outlandish implications about you don't know what happens behind closed doors.
36:58Yeah.
36:59She knows damn well there's not a shred of evidence that anything untoward was happening in
37:02our house, in our family.
37:13Benjamin and his parents had little time to let the guilty verdict sink in.
37:17Is he having to say hug?
37:18Yes.
37:19Yes.
37:20They were back in court for sentencing the following day.
37:24And he is the one that went into her room that night and snuffed the life out of her.
37:32Prosecutors asked for 40 years.
37:34But a member of the jury asked the judge for leniency because he worried about Benjamin's
37:39family.
37:40Stand up, Mr. Elliott.
37:41Judge Danilo Lacayo told the court he wanted a sentence that he could live with.
37:47I sentence you to 15 years in prison.
37:50This time you will go with the...
37:52The request for leniency, says Benjamin, makes him wonder if a few jurors had more doubts
37:58than they wanted to admit.
38:00If you believe that I crept into my sister's bedroom and murdered her while she was asleep, why would
38:09you possibly want leniency for that person?
38:13That person is horrible.
38:16Are you that person?
38:17No.
38:18I'm not.
38:19I'm not that person.
38:21I mean, I'm...
38:24I try to be genuine.
38:26I try to be honest.
38:28I'm...
38:29I'd like to think of myself as a good person.
38:31Benjamin says authorities misconstrued everything he did, started with that 911 call.
38:41The prosecutors say you were whispering on the phone.
38:44Were you?
38:45No.
38:46That's ridiculous.
38:47I wasn't whispering.
38:48I was panicked.
38:52I wasn't screaming into the phone.
38:54Cause I'm just not a...
38:56I don't really yell.
38:58And Benjamin insists that as soon as he realized what he had done, he was trying to help Megan.
39:04Using the pillow to try to stop the bleeding.
39:07The state says that you didn't use the pillow to try to stop the bleeding.
39:12You did it to keep her from screaming.
39:15Yeah.
39:16What do you say to that?
39:18That's crazy to me.
39:20And there's absolutely, absolutely zero forensic evidence for that at all.
39:27And what about his seemingly calm demeanor throughout the police interview?
39:31The plan is I'm taking the SAT.
39:34You're talking to a deputy.
39:36And you're talking about SATs and colleges.
39:40I'm trying to get my mind off of things.
39:43I've got some issues with school stuff sometimes where...
39:46I think you can see it in the conversation.
39:48I keep pretty much steering the conversation away from what happened.
39:53I don't want to think about it.
39:56As for learning Megan had died, Benjamin says he just shut down.
40:01And that he was desperately hoping she'd be okay.
40:05Do you feel you're guilty of anything?
40:07No.
40:08You don't?
40:09No.
40:10No.
40:11I don't think this is my fault at all.
40:14I used to blame myself for it because it's like...
40:17I mean, I...
40:18I was the one holding the knife.
40:21Right?
40:22But...
40:23I mean, I've come to realize that I'm not...
40:25You know, I couldn't have done anything any different than what I had done.
40:29And Benjamin says he misses his twin.
40:41It's really hard that she's not here.
40:48Isn't it hard to know that it's because of you she's not here?
40:52Yeah.
40:53Yeah, it's really hard.
40:58We did everything together.
40:59Like, we were very, very close.
41:04And she was a wonderful person.
41:07She was an artist.
41:09The way she looked at the world, she looked at it with like a creative mind.
41:14So she would just see just beautiful things everywhere.
41:22New CBS next Saturday.
41:37This is the parking garage right here.
41:39A man is found murdered in his car.
41:41I saw a body, a person sitting in the driver's seat.
41:43How do investigators catch the masked killer?
41:45Look at him just coming around the corner like that.
41:48Who painted cameras to hide the crime?
41:5048 Hours is all new.
41:51Next Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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