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00:09What'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!
00:55We're going to have to start CPR right now.
00:58One, two, three, four.
01:00One, two, keep helping her chest just like that, okay?
01:04Where's your son?
01:05Where's your son?
01:06Okay, 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 come out?
01:19I don't know if it's going to be a hero tomorrow.
01:21It was a dream.
01:23He said it was a dream, honey.
01:26What the ?
01:28I don't know what, I don't know what I'll do with Sheila.
01:32It was just a dream and then it wasn't.
01:35I'm going to do a search of you real quick and then I'm going to put you in the backseat
01:38out of this rain, okay?
01:41What 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?
02:13Yes.
02:14Are you saying then that he did kill his sister, but he didn't intend to kill his sister?
02:23I wouldn't say that it's impossible for someone to commit a crime while sleepwalking.
02:27I just don't think that was the case with Benjamin Elliott.
02:30Were you able to find any evidence that 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 is the lack of motive.
02:43My 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.
02:56I hate that she's gone.
03:01This 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 while you were sleepwalking?
03:10I would never have done that.
03:12I loved her.
03:13She was my best and closest friend.
03:17She was my best and closest friend.
04:07On the morning of September 29, 2021, 17-year-old Benjamin Elliott
04:14was in a Harris County Sheriff's Interrogation Room in Houston, Texas.
04:20So 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?
04:35Benjamin told Detective Fredder Munoz that he stabbed his twin sister once with this knife
04:43but 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
05:04and I tried to stop bleeding with the pillow.
05:10So I run in my room and I unplugged my phone and I dialed 911.
05:14911, what's the location of your emergency?
05:16I stabbed my sister.
05:19How many times did you stab her?
05:21Just once.
05:23I heard the 911 call and I screamed.
05:25What's going on?
05:26What's going on?
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!
05:51I 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.
06:04He was shocked.
06:06He said it was a dream.
06:07What the...
06:08What did you make of that?
06:10I don't...
06:10I mean, I just...
06:11I couldn't believe it.
06:12I mean, I couldn't...
06:12Not the Ben you knew, so it would have to have been that he was.
06:16Something would have had to happen.
06:17Benjamin, his parents say, sat handcuffed in a police car for three hours
06:22while police, confronted with an apparent homicide, took control of the crime scene.
06:29I just need to see her.
06:30Sorry, sorry, 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.
06:38Yeah, can we see something?
06:39No, sir.
06:39The Alliots say they felt isolated by the police
06:43and eventually called a longtime friend, who is also an attorney.
06:48He went and got some information, and he told us that Megan had died.
06:55It was news police didn't share with Benjamin.
06:59Is she okay?
06:59Benjamin asked Detective Munoz several times if 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 the EMS.
07:13Authorities say this is a textbook police technique to keep a suspect talking,
07:18and they wanted Benjamin talking about 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, said he loved his sister and described what
07:42he says he remembered before the stabbing.
07:45Phone records show he was scrolling the web, and Benjamin says he thinks he fell asleep somewhere
07:51around 2.30 or 3.30 in the morning.
07:54Where would that phone be at right now?
07:57Somewhere at the crime scene.
08:00Benjamin provided Munoz with his iPhone password and permission to search his phone.
08:07Have you ever been diagnosed with an email to illness?
08:09No.
08:10Benjamin said there were no problems at home, and said that he was looking forward to college.
08:39Benjamin and Megan's parents had a big collection of knives and gear.
08:44The 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, this would not have happened.
09:07After two hours in that interrogation room, at 11 a.m., Munoz finally revealed that Megan was dead.
09:16I'm sorry to be the bearer of value.
09:19Megan did not make him.
09:26He and Megan are so close, you could never picture anything bad happening between them.
09:32Longtime friend Drew Whitaker was stunned to learn Benjamin was in police custody.
09:37He was very protective of her.
09:39She says her family and the Elliots have been closed since 2005.
09:45Ben was very engineering-focused.
09:48Whitaker, herself an engineer, described 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.
10:03And how did she feel about Ben?
10:05Megan, she loved him.
10:07She looked up to him.
10:09You would see her walk up next to him when she would feel uncomfortable and just kind of stand by
10:15him.
10:15Did he ever get tired of having to take care of Megan?
10:18I think he was proud of it.
10:19He liked being a protector.
10:21The Elliots say the twins seemed happy in the weeks before the stabbing.
10:26With their eldest child, Elizabeth, already off at college, the twins toured separate universities.
10:33Megan, at this point, had started coming out of Michelle as well.
10:36She was finding her voice.
10:38Yeah.
10:38And she had found friends online.
10:39And she had a YouTube channel where she was doing art.
10:43The night before Megan's death, father and son spent hours playing popular video games, such as Survive the Nights.
10:52It was in that video game that Benjamin noticed a military-style knife that his father said resembled one that
11:00he owned.
11:01Michael offered to give it to Benjamin.
11:04Unfortunately, I went and got the knife out.
11:06The Elliots remember heading off to bed.
11:09Was there any, you know, any problem at all between the twins?
11:16The Elliots, like police, couldn't make sense of why Benjamin stabbed Megan.
11:23But police had the teenager's confession, the bloody knife he used, along with a disturbing detail discovered at autopsy.
11:33Megan hadn't been stabbed just once.
11:36She had two stab wounds.
11:40Benjamin Elliott was charged with the murder of his twin sister.
12:01After several days on suicide watch,
12:0617-year-old Benjamin Elliott was released on bail.
12:14His 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...
12:22Sorry.
12:22It's okay.
12:23I went up to him and he seemed...
12:26I told him, I said, hey, Ben.
12:27You know, and he seemed like he didn't see me.
12:30He was surprised to see me.
12:34We started driving and we were asking him if he was okay.
12:39And we were getting very...
12:42Very quiet.
12:43Sort of quiet, like, you know, single word answers.
12:48So Michael pulls the car over and stops and gets out and comes around and takes his face in his
12:55hands.
12:56And he says, he's like, hi.
12:57Hi.
12:58We love you.
12:59Hi.
13:00And he just...
13:01Yeah.
13:03And I saw him kind of...
13:05I'm sort of weak.
13:12And then he just hugged us.
13:14Yeah.
13:17The Elliott's knew they could never sleep in their home again and had already moved in with Kathy's mother.
13:24Ben was worried that he might walk around.
13:26He was worried that he might do something.
13:28He wanted to make sure everybody was safe.
13:29The Elliott's 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.
13:39Because his attorneys had asked them not to speak with their son about the night Megan was killed, they couldn't
13:46ask him the burning question, why?
13:49There's never been anything wrong with him at all.
13:50Where my bandwidth was a mental health... something.
13:55Kathy's father was schizophrenic.
13:57She 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.
14:28Had 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 just a sleepwalking case.
14:40But Benjamin had told police the night he stabbed his sister, it felt like a dream.
14:46And 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
15:02with a tire iron, and stabbed her.
15:05He claimed he was asleep the whole time, and a jury believed him.
15:10And in North Carolina, in 2010, Joseph Mitchell strangled his four-year-old son and attacked two of his other
15:19children, all while sleepwalking.
15:22A 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.
15:38So Benjamin's lawyers reached out to Dr. Gerald Simmons, a neurologist and a sleep disorder expert.
15:45When I first was approached, I was very skeptical.
15:49The next question is, did I even want to deal with this?
15:51My 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
16:09parasomnia.
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 parasomnias, specifically non-rem parasomnias, if there are other family members that have
17:03had 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.
17:11And 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's waking up in the middle of a thunderstorm outside.
17:25You know, and 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.
17:41This 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.
18:02And that could be the trigger.
18:04Yes.
18:04A trigger that Simmons says could cause a sleepwalking episode, particularly when Benjamin's brainwaves enter what is known as a
18:14non-REM slow-wave sleep.
18:17Now we've been slow-wave sleep.
18:18This is slow-wave sleep.
18:20Sleepwalking will typically occur in non-REM slow-wave sleep.
18:24During the sleep studies, Benjamin did not sleepwalk, but Simmons observed how quickly Benjamin entered that non-REM slow-wave
18:34sleep.
18:34So it was 11 minutes from the time we turned off the lights until he was in slow-wave sleep.
18:40This is important because on the night Benjamin stabbed Megan, his phone activity stopped at 4.17 a.m.
18:48It was just 24 minutes later that he was on his phone calling 9-1-1.
18:56I just killed my sister.
18:58What's your location?
18:59Simmons says the fact that Benjamin is able to reach slow-wave sleep so quickly means it's possible Benjamin was
19:07sleepwalking during that period of time his phone was inactive.
19:12I thought it was a dream.
19:16Do 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.
19:30There's no question.
19:32He's the one that had the knife and he stabbed her.
19:33But 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.
20:08He realized he was sinking the knife into something or someone and then woke up and realized it was his
20:16sister.
20:19After sleep expert Dr. Gerald Simmons made his assessment that Benjamin was sleepwalking when he killed his twin sister, the
20:27Elliotts 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
20:44years of age, a first-degree murder.
20:48We 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.
21:00In 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 Elliotts' 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,
21:41who 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
22:10stabbing,
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
22:32Megan.
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.
22:49He says Benjamin told police what he could recall.
22:53If he was trying to fabricate this or just use this as an alibi,
22:56it 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,
23:19especially because she couldn't identify a motive for murder.
23:23No 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
23:33forward and tell us?
23:34And they think they could convince a jury that Benjamin's actions were intentional that night,
23:41stabbing Megan twice.
23:43One wound was four inches deep and severed her carotid artery and jugular vein.
23:49So 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.
24:00And there isn't any of that.
24:02Benjamin 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
24:25the 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.
24:42What's your name?
24:42I can't hide what I've just done with my sister.
24:46Khutani claims Benjamin is whispering on the 911 call.
24:51I just found you.
24:53And is suspicious why he's not yelling to his parents for help.
24:58I'm sorry.
24:59I don't want to get by him.
25:00I'm sorry.
25:02I think he's whispering because he doesn't want his parents to come to the same reality that he's now living
25:08in.
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.
25:25Okay, sir, can we take over?
25:28By the time EMS got there, she wasn't breathing on her own.
25:32She had no heartbeat.
25:33Our 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.
25:51Benjamin 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.
26:08And there is more, says Kutani.
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
26:20and their sister dead in the sleep of her own bedroom.
26:25Could he be in shock?
26:26I mean, realizing what he had done?
26:30Isn'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.
26:41During the interview, Benjamin told police that his sister had struggled with her mental health.
26:47My sister had a pretty severe depression for a while.
26:53Megan.
26:54To prosecutors, that suggested maybe everything wasn't so perfect in the Elliott family.
27:02A contention that Benjamin's lawyers find ridiculous.
27:07They say investigators made virtually no effort to learn about the Elliots or Benjamin.
27:15They don't have a clue about this kid.
27:17They weren't even curious.
27:19He 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.
27:59He went to sleep.
28:01He woke up and he found out he had killed his sister.
28:05After struggling with Megan's loss,
28:07the Elliots now face the possibility they could lose Benjamin too.
28:13It's a nightmare that happened to all of us.
28:16All right for the jury.
28:17Benjamin's first-degree murder trial began on February 18, 2025.
28:23You tell your colleagues,
28:25I have a client who killed his twin sister and we believe he was sleepwalking,
28:29and they think you're crazy.
28:30But with no evidence of any problems between the twins,
28:34Benjamin's lawyers hoped they could convince a jury
28:36that sleepwalking is the only explanation.
28:41Even prosecutors knew the lack of motive could be a problem.
28:44I think our biggest hurdle going into this trial was the why.
28:48So you made sure you had jurors who at least be open to the idea
28:52they may never know why Megan Elliott was stabbed.
28:57Right.
28:58In his opening remarks,
29:00Maroon Katani made it clear that while there was no motive,
29:04they had their murderer.
29:06He calls 9-1-1 at 441.
29:11Hello?
29:12Hello?
29:14I just killed my sister.
29:16I stabbed her with a knife.
29:18Oh my God.
29:19He's whispering.
29:21Prosecutors 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.
29:38And the defendant says,
29:40Hmm.
29:42Hmm.
29:44Witnesses offered details about her wounds,
29:47the lack of blood spatter,
29:49and the prosecution's theory that Benjamin covered Megan's head with a pillow
29:54while he stabbed her.
29:55And Benjamin's father was surprised to learn that prosecutors would ask him
30:00to identify Megan's body for the record.
30:04This is a photo taken from an autopsy.
30:07Sorry.
30:14Yeah, that's Megan.
30:17Enough of the question, John.
30:19After the prosecution rested,
30:22defense attorneys Carrie Hart and Wes Rucker took over.
30:26Good morning.
30:26Making 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,
30:48Oh my God.
30:49I thought it was a dream.
30:51I thought it was a dream.
30:52I don't want her to die.
30:53I don't want her to die.
30:55He's trying to do CPR.
30:57One, 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.
31:11Appearing by Zoom, childhood friend Anand Singh told the jury about that sleepover
31:17when he found Benjamin asleep and eating a donut.
31:21Just the sheer confusion on his face.
31:24Like, 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
31:34sleepwalking history, including finding herself in the woods one night.
31:39All I know is I came to, in the bushes, clutching my dog.
31:44But 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
31:58of 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?
32:17He had memory.
32:20He 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
32:36the 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.
32:54And 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
33:02answers
33:03interrogation questions.
33:04But prosecutor Megan Long had the final word, and she suggested the family was involved in
33:11a cover-up that began with calling the friend who is a lawyer.
33:15Look, I'm a mother.
33:17I understand wanting to protect your children.
33:21I get it.
33:22But you can't let them get away with it.
33:24They 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
33:35happens 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.
33:49There is not one person here for Megan.
33:52I'm going to have a joke about this.
33:54But 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.
34:07After 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?
34:35I was a sleepwalker, and 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, yes.
34:48Had a family member, yes.
34:49On 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.
35:14It didn't take them long to come to a unanimous decision.
35:19All right.
35:22My understanding is that y'all have a verdict.
35:23Is that correct?
35:25After four hours of deliberations.
35:28We, the jury, find the defendant Benjamin David Elliott guilty of murder as charged in the indictment
35:32signed by the foreman of the jury, printed by the foreman of the jury.
35:38I remember hearing guilty.
35:41And I was completely shocked.
35:44Benjamin 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.
36:06Benjamin, now 21 years old, said he and his family were appalled by the way Prosecutor Megan Long ended her
36:14closing argument.
36:16There are so many people here for Benjamin.
36:19There is not one person here for Megan.
36:23That 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 the family.
36:43We don't necessarily know what happens behind closed doors.
36:46Of course, they were lying.
36:47Yeah, it was horrible.
36:48They waited until the closing when they knew that nothing could be said afterwards to pull out these outlandish implications
36:56about you don't know what happens behind closed doors.
36:58Yeah, she knows damn well there's not a shred of evidence that anything untoward was happening in our house, in
37:03our family.
37:12Benjamin and his parents had little time to let the guilty verdict sink in.
37:17Does he have to say the husband?
37:19Yes.
37:20They were back in court for sentencing the following day.
37:25And he is the one that went into her room that night and snuffed the life out of her.
37:32Prosecutors asked for 40 years, but a member of the jury asked the judge for leniency because he worried about
37:39Benjamin's family.
37:40Stand up, Mr. Elliott.
37:42Judge Danilo Licayo 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 have more doubts than they wanted to
37:59admit.
37:59If you believe that I crept into my sister's bedroom and murdered her while she was asleep,
38:08why would you 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.
38:22I mean, I'm...
38:24I try to be genuine.
38:26I try to be honest.
38:28I'd like to think of myself as a good person.
38:31Benjamin says authorities misconstrued everything he did.
38:36I stopped you.
38:38Started with that 911 call.
38:41The prosecutors say you were whispering on the phone.
38:44Were you?
38:45No.
38:45That's ridiculous.
38:46I wasn't whispering.
38:47I was panicked.
38:51I wasn't screaming into the phone.
38:54Because I'm just not a...
38:56I don't really yell.
38:57And Benjamin insists that as soon as he realized what he had done,
39:01he was trying to help Megan.
39:03Using the pillow to try to stop the bleeding.
39:06The state says that you didn't use the pillow to try to stop the bleeding.
39:11You did it to keep her from screaming.
39:15John.
39:15What do you say to that?
39:17That's crazy.
39:19And there's absolutely, absolutely zero forensic evidence for that at all.
39:26And 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.
39:42I've got some issues with school stuff sometimes.
39:46I think you can see it in the conversation.
39:48I keep pretty much steering the conversation away from what happened.
39:52And I don't want to think about it.
39:55As for learning Megan had died, Benjamin says he just shut down.
40:00And that he was desperately hoping she'd be okay.
40:04Do you feel you're guilty of anything?
40:07No.
40:07You don't?
40:08No.
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, I mean, I was the one holding the knife.
40:21Right?
40:21But, I 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.
40:34And Benjamin says he misses his twin.
40:41It's really hard that she's not here.
40:47Isn't it hard to know that it's because of you she's not here?
40:52Yeah.
40:53Yeah, it's really hard.
40:57We did everything together.
40:59Like, we were very, very close.
41:04She was a wonderful person.
41:06She 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.
41:35New CBS next Saturday.
41:37This is the parking garage right here.
41:38A man is found murdered in his car.
41:40I 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.
41:47Who painted cameras to hide the crime.
41:4948 Hours is all new.
41:51Next Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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