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American Monster - Season 13 Episode 9 -
Draw a Picture
Draw a Picture
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00:00I just woke up and I was just like, you know what, I'm just going to the beach.
00:09Elena experienced a lot of heartbreak.
00:12She wanted a family unit, she wanted a husband or a partner.
00:18Brandon definitely appeared to have fallen for Elena.
00:23Hello Brandon.
00:24Hi Elena, how are you?
00:26I noticed my mom becoming increasingly isolated from everybody else.
00:33He was very good at putting up an act.
00:37Elena was walking on eggshells.
00:39Anything ticked him off.
00:42Brandon made that decision with her kids in the next room.
00:45Where's she at?
00:48The interviewer asked him to draw pictures of what he saw.
00:56It's just a really beautiful day outside today, I feel really great.
01:01I'm really happy with my life and where it's going.
01:05Me too!
01:09It's just a really beautiful day outside today, I feel really great.
01:15I'm really happy with my life and where it's going.
01:20Me too!
01:22It's great, dude.
01:24Hey, what's up everybody?
01:26Who's watching right now? I gotta get in my mouth.
01:31I don't know, I can't see.
01:34It's 2018 and 32-year-old Elena Wysong and her husband Brandon spend the day at Virginia Beach.
01:44My mom was very kind and loving.
01:47She had had her fair share of bad relationships.
01:51So I think that when she did find Brandon, she definitely thought that, you know, this was the guy that she was going to be with for the rest of her life.
02:00That's daddy's little girl.
02:02Say hi, daddy!
02:04Two years old!
02:06Two!
02:07Elena was born October 22nd, 1985.
02:11She was a very, very, very healthy, happy baby.
02:16Elena had two older brothers.
02:29My oldest son was Robert and my youngest son was Darren.
02:35I'm kind of thrilled when she joined the family.
02:42She was like a doll to them.
02:45Up, up, up.
02:46Two years later, the family get another addition.
02:50Cheers!
02:55We lived in Staten Island, New York.
02:58Elena was actually somebody I considered like a hero at the time.
03:03Somebody I could look up to.
03:05And I admired her greatly.
03:07You looking at me?
03:08Mm-mm.
03:09And to me, love boy.
03:12Tomorrow!
03:14Ah!
03:15Ah!
03:16Ah!
03:17Ah!
03:18Ah!
03:19Ah!
03:20In August 2000, when Elena is 14, the Arena family moved to Chesapeake, Virginia.
03:26When Elena's hormones kicked in, I think they kicked in full blast.
03:31Elena fell in love and she got pregnant when she was 17.
03:41On October 9, 2003, just 13 days before her 18th birthday, Elena gives birth to a baby girl she names Natalie.
03:50It meant the world to Elena just being a mom and just trying to be the best mom that she could be.
03:57But the relationship with Natalie's father doesn't last.
04:01They were just too young.
04:03Elena was upset.
04:05She wanted a family unit.
04:07She wanted a husband or a partner.
04:11Elena.
04:12In 2005, Elena starts dating someone new.
04:16A year after they started dating, Elena got pregnant and Angel was born on August 22, 2007.
04:26But when Angel is just two years old, Elena and her father split.
04:31It affected Elena pretty badly.
04:34She really wanted to end up keeping the whole family unit together.
04:37And I know she tried her hardest to make it work.
04:40In 2013, Elena and her daughters, now 10 and 6, moved to an apartment in Virginia Beach.
04:48Things started looking up for my mom.
04:50She became vegan.
04:51She became very spiritual.
04:53It was a very happy time.
04:55In August that year, 27-year-old Elena meets 24-year-old Brandon Wysong through mutual friends.
05:03Here's Brandon.
05:04Hey, what's up, everybody?
05:06At the time, Brandon was a construction worker.
05:11Hello, Brandon.
05:12Mommy.
05:13Hi, Elena. How are you?
05:14My mom definitely seemed to fall very quickly in love with him.
05:19He was extremely attentive with her and very loving.
05:23Within three months of meeting, Elena and Brandon are engaged and living together.
05:29Brandon had a son around the same age as Angel.
05:33I was pretty excited.
05:35He had a kid of his own and my mom had two kids and we were very excited just to be one big family.
05:43I don't think I had seen my mom this happy in a while.
05:48He seemed to be very good for her.
05:50My sister liked him a lot.
05:52My mom's friends seemed to like him a lot.
05:54My grandma liked him a lot.
05:56So I was, I was hopeful for it.
06:07In the fall of 2013, Elena attends a Buddhist ceremony.
06:12My mom was very involved in Buddhism and she practiced it daily.
06:17Brandon definitely did seem like this very supportive man for my mom.
06:26He was very invested in her religion and her spiritual journey.
06:32It seems like he was going to be this super awesome, great stepdad.
06:44Brandon would take us to the beach a lot.
06:46He'd buy us, you know, ice cream on the boardwalk and pizza for dinner while my mom was at work.
06:52Brandon was a really big part of Angel's life.
07:01A very big father figure for her.
07:04He'd do just about anything for her.
07:06At the end of 2013, just four months into their relationship, Elena discovers she is pregnant.
07:16Elena was extremely excited.
07:19She was all ready to have another little one back in the house.
07:24My mom was very much a family person.
07:27And I think that them having a baby together kind of just brought the families together.
07:31Elena and Brandon tie the knot in a courthouse in Virginia Beach.
07:39A few months after my mom and Brandon got married, Brandon had a accident at work that completely crushed his leg.
07:48He was not able to work anymore.
07:53My mom was very stressed out.
07:56She was freaking out trying to figure out how they were going to get money now.
07:59How they're going to make rent and, you know, how they're going to put food on the table.
08:05The family are forced to move into a cheaper home.
08:08And in August 2014, Elena gives birth to a son named Bobby.
08:13He's the most beautiful baby in the world.
08:15Yes, yes.
08:17I love you, Robert Anthony.
08:19I love you.
08:20When Bobby was born, me, Angel, Brandon's son, Brandon, and my mom were all living in the house.
08:31Everything was pretty good when we brought Bobby back home from the hospital.
08:37Everybody seemed to be in good spirits.
08:39If I can beat you up, as a matter of fact, I think I'm in it.
08:42I'm in it.
08:48Brandon was really excited, especially to have another son.
08:56Bobby was three months old when Elena fell pregnant again.
08:59I think she was in shock.
09:03It was going to be a lot of work to have like a one-year-old and then a newborn.
09:09Shortly after, Natalie shares some news with her mom.
09:14When I was about 12 or 13, I came out to my mom as trans.
09:19My mom was very supportive and she had picked out the name Nathan Andrew Nagle.
09:27And that's just kind of what stuck.
09:32I noticed that Brandon had started to change a few weeks after Bobby was born.
09:37Brandon had had surgery on his leg and he was kind of a little more mad than usual.
09:44He just seemed very irritated, even at the smallest things.
09:47Laura was born on September 28th, 2015.
09:53Good morning.
09:57At this point, Elena and Brandon had just been together for about two years.
10:02And now they had two children who were very close in age.
10:06My baby.
10:09Oh, you love that bubba?
10:11Me?
10:12Papa?
10:13Me?
10:14Papa?
10:15Oh.
10:18Brandon seemed to be a lot more agitated, more on edge.
10:25A lot of the smaller things seemed to bother him a lot more than they usually did.
10:30When Elora was about a month old, my mom and Brandon had gone into an argument in front of all of us.
10:38And he had thrown a chair.
10:41That chair had hit Elora's bassinet.
10:44That was the first time I had seen him get aggressive.
10:50That was the start.
10:54Elora, what are you doing on daddy's wallet?
11:02Elora, what's that in your hand?
11:07Elora, what's that in your hand?
11:08Elora, what's that in your hand?
11:11My cat!
11:13Yay!
11:15Brandon was under the impression that because of the accident, he was going to make a huge amount of a settlement.
11:23That did not happen.
11:26Bitcoin.
11:27I know, but whose Bitcoin is that?
11:29It's Bitcoin.
11:31Is it?
11:32Show the camera.
11:34Elora, tada.
11:36He would sell business classes to people on how to make a bunch of money through Bitcoin.
11:43He'd find like images off of Google of like money spreads on the table and he'd post it and be like,
11:49look how much money I'm making, like you can make this money too.
11:53When Brandon's new business venture isn't delivering, Elena steps in to try and help.
11:59My mom and Brandon were arguing frequently about sales and how much money they were making.
12:06He was very irritable at times.
12:09Please stand there.
12:11What?
12:12Please stand there.
12:14Elora, I told you I can't get to the store.
12:17There was a lot of things going on that he just kind of dumped on Elena.
12:22And I think things started to unravel even faster between the two of them.
12:29Brandon's temper escalates and by the summer of 2017, Elena becomes deeply depressed.
12:35When I was about 14, I noticed my mom becoming increasingly isolated from everybody else.
12:46It was kind of hard for her to do a lot of stuff around the house.
12:52We didn't really go out anywhere.
12:54Elena was walking on eggshells because anything ticked him off.
13:00She would do anything just to keep him, you know, happy so he would not start with her.
13:07Elena was desperately trying to keep the family together even though Brandon was really making it fall apart.
13:14Okay, there he is.
13:18On social media, Elena portrays Brandon to be a perfect husband and father.
13:23Are you ready?
13:25Are you ready?
13:26One, two, three!
13:27Why or how the universe blessed me with such a great little boy, a big brother, a big nurturer and a protector to these two.
13:40I do think that she just did ignore a lot of the abuse because, you know, for the most part, he was very good at putting up an act.
13:48I think she was ashamed to let anybody know what was really going on and how hard she was struggling just to keep her family together.
13:55Despite the issues in her marriage, Elena makes time for her children whenever she can.
14:02This is when my mom took me to my first Pride.
14:09We had walked around for a bit and my mom had bought me my first Pride flag.
14:15She had danced around with me and Elora.
14:18And I remember that at the end of the day, me, her and Elora had all sat down on the grass and it was just happy.
14:29There was no stress. There was no Brandon ruining the moment.
14:34It was just me, my mom and Elora and it felt great.
14:43In the summer of 2018, Linda invites Elena and her family to Florida.
14:49When they arrived, the kids got ready and they went to the pool.
14:58And some type of an incident happened at the pool where Brandon struck Bobby.
15:03And the children were very upset.
15:07The kids came back and they told their mother and of course, she was very upset.
15:14She was telling him off, you know, why are you hitting him?
15:18Why are you putting your hands on him?
15:20Brandon was angry.
15:22He went outside.
15:23He called someone on the phone screaming and yelling.
15:29I was extremely concerned.
15:32I said, Elena, this is a bad situation.
15:35You need to get out of this situation.
15:40I told her that I would get her an apartment.
15:44She just couldn't tell him where she lived.
15:46If he wanted to see the children, it would have to be at my house.
15:49And she wanted to do it.
15:51And then she was afraid.
15:53She said, you know, I don't want the kids to grow up without a father.
15:58She wanted them to be together.
16:00She was trying to make it better, even as it was falling apart.
16:06Six months later, Elena calls her mom.
16:10Brandon had actually smashed the window of the family car and slashed the tires.
16:15So I volunteered to go over there.
16:20And the police were already there when we arrived.
16:23The officers were telling her that they couldn't remove Brandon out of the house.
16:28The only way they would be able to do that is if she got a restraining order against him.
16:32Elena was devastated.
16:35I was going to keep an eye on the kids, and my sister was going to take the car to go get the restraining order.
16:41So my sister left shortly after the police.
16:45Brandon continued to get more irate, started grabbing the toys and smashing them into pieces on the ground.
16:51And then he went to the back porch area and grabbed the machete.
16:55I went downstairs and stood in the hallway so he couldn't get upstairs where the children were.
17:05He held the machete in his hand.
17:08I put him in a bear hug, and he headbutted me.
17:12I hear yelling and screaming coming from downstairs.
17:18My siblings are now crying because this is happening literally on the other side of the door.
17:25I'm freaking out because I don't know what to do.
17:29I don't know what's happening downstairs, and I'm scared if I don't call 911, it'll be too late.
17:34So Nathan called the police, and then I had said to Brandon, this is assault with a deadly weapon.
17:42There's something to get him to snap out of it because I was terrified.
17:46I was completely terrified, but I couldn't afford to be terrified because there were children involved.
17:52Something I must have said must have snapped in his brain because he took off with the machete and fled.
17:58So I call 911, and I am crying through the phone call telling them that my stepfather is hurting my aunt, and I tell them my address.
18:21And my mom came back into the house, and she said, they're going to take Brandon away and he's going to go to jail.
18:27You need to hang up right now.
18:31And then the police arrived.
18:36Alina had asked if I would just not say anything because she didn't want the kids to lose their father.
18:42And she didn't want to lose her kids to CPS because she wasn't there for the incident.
18:48No matter how many times I try to tell her, I'm like, no, this is a good thing.
18:52We can get him away.
18:53She didn't want to hear it.
18:55She just thought that CPS was going to take her kids away.
18:58So I chose to remain silent to try to protect my sister.
19:02I hated him.
19:06I absolutely hated him.
19:09And I saw how dangerous and how violent he could end up being.
19:13And I tried to warn my family.
19:15If we don't let me press charges, he's going to kill her.
19:19He is going to kill her.
19:20I'm the killer.
19:28Alina is granted a 72-hour emergency protective order.
19:33I hated Brandon.
19:36I was just hoping that he just wouldn't come back.
19:40But just three days later, Brandon is back in the home.
19:44I was very concerned for Alina.
19:48I begged her to move in with me.
19:50And she would say yes.
19:52And then I guess he would talk to her, tell her things were going to get better.
19:56And then she would say, no, things are working out.
19:59I'm going to stay here.
20:01It was like a cycle.
20:02One night I was spending a night at home and my mom and Brandon had gotten into a pretty big argument.
20:12My mom said, I'm going to take the kids to a hotel for a night.
20:17So we all get into our car and she drives us out to the oceanfront.
20:23Laura.
20:25That's pretty crazy.
20:27You're really crazy.
20:28And I remember it was like one of the first times in a long time that I had even seen my mom take a deep breath.
20:42So the following day, she gets a phone call and it's from Brandon.
20:47He's just basically saying, you can't take my kids away from me.
20:52I'm going to get you arrested.
20:54You need to come back home.
20:55She went back to him the very next day.
20:59And I remember talking to her just, you know, it's okay to start new.
21:05And, you know, mom will help you.
21:07You know, we'll do anything to end up helping you to get away from this.
21:10But she didn't want to take the kids away from their dad.
21:14Unable to cope with Brandon's violent temper, Nathan spends most of his time at a friend's home.
21:19I went to the magistrate and press charges against him, but my sister had second thoughts.
21:29I was torn because I had one daughter screaming and carrying on.
21:36She did not want her husband in jail.
21:37And then I had another daughter who said, he needs to go to jail. He's dangerous.
21:46It caused a lot of family issues.
21:48My sister was by his side.
21:53And I remember outside of the courtroom, Elena tried to come up to me to try to talk to me.
22:00I actually walked away from them.
22:04You're willing to go ahead and back him and not your sister, who has been there with you through everything.
22:20I was completely devastated.
22:22Once everything was going to the second trial date, I tried to stick it out.
22:30But in the end, it cost me so much mentally and emotionally.
22:35I couldn't do it.
22:36And I dropped the charges.
22:40Six months later, Linda receives a Facebook message from Elena.
22:45She told me first that she tripped.
22:51And then I told her, Elena, I don't believe you.
22:56I said, he must be hitting you.
22:58And then, you know, she finally told me, oh, well, he got mad, but he didn't mean it.
23:04He was sorry.
23:06But she always had an excuse for him.
23:09On November 4th, 2019, I got home to my mom and Brandon's house.
23:20And I walk in, and the entire place is trashed.
23:2710, 15 minutes after my mom pulled up in front of the house,
23:31it was her, Brandon, all of my siblings.
23:35And it looked like my mom and Brandon were arguing outside of their car.
23:44And she said, just get in the car.
23:46I'll take you to your friend's house.
23:48We pulled into the parking garage of my friend's apartment complex.
24:01And she told me that she'd see me tomorrow.
24:03And then she loves me.
24:04And I told her I love her, too.
24:11Two hours later, Nathan receives news about a disturbance at home.
24:15So I called my sister.
24:20And as soon as I answer the phone,
24:24all I hear is screaming.
24:32On November 4th, 2019, around 6.34 p.m.,
24:39we got a call from dispatch letting us know that we had a gunshot wound.
24:46The victim was a female.
24:49And the suspect was not on scene.
24:58Where's she at?
25:01So immediately as I arrived on scene,
25:04I saw three younger children running towards me, screaming.
25:09She's back there. She's back there.
25:10You need to help her.
25:11You need to help her.
25:15I started going towards the house.
25:17My partner, Officer Wadsworth, was in the back laundry room of the house with the victim and was attempting CPR.
25:26It looked like somebody had purposefully upturned, uprooted everything in the house onto the floor.
25:38And when I got to the door of the laundry room, I could see the victim laying down in a pool of blood with my partner conducting the CPR.
25:49Hey!
25:50Right here.
25:51Hey, what happened?
25:52So when I went back outside, that's when I made contact with the eldest child, Angel.
26:03And I learned that the victim was their mother, Elena Wysong.
26:07Do you know who did this?
26:11Yes.
26:12What's his name?
26:13Brandon Wysong?
26:14Yes.
26:15Do you know what he's wearing?
26:16Long brown hair.
26:17Long brown hair.
26:18He's also walking with a lip because he just had knee surgery.
26:21Subject's name is Brandon Wysong.
26:23White male, long brown hair.
26:26Get more further information.
26:29Do you know what direction he went?
26:30I don't know, sir.
26:31I saw him running that way, down that alleyway.
26:34Okay.
26:36Did you see what happened in there or you just heard it?
26:39She heard them arguing.
26:40He saw her grab on her, headbutted her, and then shot her.
26:43We tried to go there, but she was blocking the door.
26:46But she seemed more responsible.
26:48He's armed and dangerous.
26:50So it was important for us to locate and apprehend him.
26:53My friend and his mom, we pull up to the house.
27:02There's like four cop cars and my siblings are, all three of them are in the back of a cop car.
27:10And Angel is covered in blood.
27:14She's freaking out and she's crying.
27:16And Laura and Bobby are crying.
27:18They don't have any clothes on.
27:23I could still not grasp what was going on.
27:29And I, it all felt like a dream.
27:36Elena Wysong is pronounced dead at 6.48 p.m.
27:42When we have a possibly unendangerous suspect who's fled the scene,
27:46it's imperative for us to start tracking that guy down.
27:48If they were just able to commit this horrendous act, who knows what they'll do.
27:53At 6.52 p.m., Officer Butler arrives on scene with his canine Nemo.
27:58Most of the search occurred in the residential area.
28:01So just after 7 p.m., a man arrives on scene and identifies himself as Brandon's stepfather.
28:06So Brandon's stepfather tells the officer that Brandon wants to turn himself in and he wants to lead the officers to Brandon himself.
28:20So K-9 immediately heads to the area and the dog picks up a scent.
28:24Brandon pops up out of the wood line with his hands up.
28:37Yeah, I don't know.
28:38He's in custody.
28:39I'm just here.
28:41Attentional unit.
28:42Suspect in custody.
28:44Q-12, I copy that.
28:46Suspect in custody.
28:48Okay, no more units needed over here with the suspect.
28:5110-4, copy.
28:53All right, cool.
29:00I got a gun.
29:03Whenever we arrest someone, we do an immediate search of that person in the waste area and Brandon didn't have a weapon on him.
29:11Now, the first thing that goes in my head is, where's this weapon at?
29:18The forensic team arrive on scene at 8.35 p.m. and start collecting evidence.
29:24In the laundry room, they find a box of ammunition, a 380 pistol magazine, two deformed bullets, which I believe were found behind the dryer and by the dryer duct.
29:39And then three shell casings, which indicate that three shots had been fired.
29:44In the home, there was also three cell phones recovered.
29:47The evidence that the police have at that time all point to Brandon having a firearm, a 380 pistol.
29:58I had gotten off of work, and I got a phone call from one of my family members, and they told me that you were right. He killed her.
30:10I was completely devastated.
30:12I got a phone call from Angel's other grandmother, and she said to me, Elaine has been shot.
30:23And I knew, I knew she was gone. I knew it.
30:28Yeah, they wouldn't let me in the house. They wouldn't let me see her.
30:32The kids were in the police car, and Angel was screaming, and the little ones were crying, and the police took us all to the station house.
30:49Angel tells Detective Ho saying that earlier in that evening that there was a fight between her mother and Brandon.
30:58And that because of that argument, Elena packed up her and her children and left to go to her mother's house.
31:07They ultimately ended up turning around and going back home because Angel wanted to get her pregnant cat.
31:14That is when Elena discovers that Brandon had destroyed the house.
31:21Elena is then head-butted in the face in front of the children by Brandon.
31:27At that point, she walks into the laundry room.
31:30Brandon Wysong follows her into the laundry room, slams the door.
31:36The children hear three gunshots and see Brandon run out of the back of the house.
31:42Angel was able to break through the laundry room and crawl through the hole in the door.
31:51She then grabs some towels and tries to use them to put pressure on her mom's head to stop the bleeding.
31:59It was at that point she used her mother's phone to call 911.
32:03Bobby was five years old at the time and the interviewer asked him to draw pictures of what he saw and what he drew was very disturbing.
32:19Bobby drew several photos.
32:23One of them was his mother lying in a pool of blood.
32:29Brandon with a firearm.
32:32There was also another photo that he described as his mother, which was a photo of someone with a gunshot wound to the head.
32:39At 10.28 p.m., Detective Andre Jerry and Detective Jakemiak interview Brandon Wysong.
32:52I had no doubt in my mind that he'd done it just from the totality of all the circumstances.
33:07I failed her as a husband.
33:12So during the interview, Brandon was just hot and cold.
33:16I viewed her as my queen, but it's my job to protect her.
33:20But then, a lot of the times in the interview, he would put the blame on her.
33:24He would say things like, she made me do it, and I told her this was coming, it's her fault.
33:29To the extent that she went to sabotage my character, to lie about me, mind-blowing.
33:39At one point in time, he said, I did it, there's no question.
33:42I headbutt her.
33:44And she walked out the door by the laundry room, wherever I closed the door.
33:50Door to wipe.
33:51The laundry room.
33:54And I pulled the slide back.
33:59And I shot her three times.
34:05Going into this interview, there was two major goals.
34:08One was to find out why he did what he did.
34:11And the second one was to find out where the murder weapon was.
34:15Where's it at?
34:18I'm asking you for a couple of reasons.
34:21That's a house full of kids, and there's kids all over there.
34:24There's no building in the house.
34:25Not in the house.
34:27You're gonna have to talk with the commonwealth's attorney.
34:32And I'll have to work out some deal with me if you want me to tell you what a gun is.
34:37I mean, I've already made the admission.
34:40I agree.
34:42You already got the conviction.
34:43You could tell he was just thinking about himself.
34:46He was trying to cut a deal.
34:49I told him that if you show us where the weapon is, they're willing to work with you.
34:53Can you tell them where the gun's at?
34:55Yes.
34:56You would have to take me there.
35:07Brandon believes that he is making this deal.
35:11And in exchange, he says he will lead them to the murder weapon.
35:15So on the way to find the murder weapon, he just acted like he didn't have a care in the world.
35:21There was no remorse.
35:23You could tell he was just thinking about himself.
35:26I mean, to be able to shoot and kill your wife, and then not have a care in the world, especially when you got kids with that person.
35:33It just, I mean, he had no soul, no conscience.
35:40So Brandon leads us to the wooden area, maybe 20 feet from where he surrendered.
35:46We find a black Ruger 380, which matched the cell casings that we found on scene and the box of ammo that was in the house.
35:57Once the gun is found, we turn over forensics, they'll dust it for print, and then it gets run through our Nibin, where they'll do a test fire, and they'll match the casing, and that's where they're able to tell it's a direct match.
36:16Brandon is charged with the second-degree murder of Elena Wysong and transported to Virginia Beach City Jail.
36:22The next day, an autopsy of Elena was performed at the office of the chief medical examiner in Norfolk, and the medical examiner determined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
36:37When we receive our case file, we received a cell phone dump of Brandon's phone, and what I found on the phone was disturbing.
36:49There were text messages that showed the abuse that was occurring.
37:00He had photos saved of Elena's black eyes and bruises.
37:05There were some very, very disturbing things in that phone.
37:11When determining whether we should take something to trial, there are so many different considerations that go into play, and one of the main ones in this case was saving Angel from having to testify.
37:23Because I truly believe I would have been re-victimizing Angel to put her on a stand in front of 14 strangers she doesn't know to explain in excruciating detail the worst day of her life.
37:39After speaking with Elena's family, we ultimately came to the decision to offer the defendant a plea agreement.
37:49Under the plea agreement, the maximum active time Brandon could get to serve was 30 years.
37:55After Brandon accepts the plea for 30 years, I start pulling up jail calls, and I do that because a lot of times people are more willing to talk after they know that they have a plea agreement and their case is not going to trial.
38:16Was she screaming when you shot her in the arm and in the back?
38:19No, no, no.
38:21What was she doing?
38:25She was in the corner cowering, like huddled up in the corner with her hands behind her head.
38:31All right, now what happened? How did you do it, man? How did you shoot her?
38:36Execution style in the back of the head, man.
38:38I can't say that I've ever heard anything like that, and he made that decision at that moment to shoot her execution style with her kids in the next room was shocking.
38:54Four years after Elena's murder, her family attend Brandon's sentencing hearing.
39:00I remember me and Angel were holding onto each other.
39:05I don't think I've ever had held her hand that tightly before.
39:09And I remember both of us were shaking.
39:13We were waiting for him to step out from behind that door and look at us both in the face.
39:21At the sentencing hearing, we put on a lot of evidence.
39:25Because we wanted to convince the judge that he should sentence Brandon to the maximum amount of time allowable under the plea agreement and sentence him to 30 years.
39:37I also offered into evidence to the jail calls where he describes in excruciating detail how he execution style shot Elena in the back of her head as she's towering in the corner.
39:48The judge sentences Brandon Wysong to serve the full 30 years under the plea agreement for the second-degree murder of Elena Wysong.
40:00I would have loved it if he had gotten a life sentence because that's what I think he deserves.
40:05I miss her laugh. I miss her phone calls. I miss her coming over and we just laugh and talk. I miss going out with her to do things with the kids.
40:18She wasn't there for a lot of the big things in my life. When I first got my license, when I got my name legally changed, when I graduated high school, when I took my first testosterone shot.
40:32So how are you doing today?
40:35There's no substitution for that loss. The hole is always there.
40:42Sometimes you just have to say, screw it all. Just go do something fun.
40:48Come here, Rose.
40:51Donnell was a problem solver. Her little brother, Donnell, was a character as sweet as Roy could be.
41:14This was also that side of him.
41:17I thought he had a gun.
41:18He looked at us and he said, you're going to have to kill me.
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