- 2 days ago
Evil Lives Here- My Child the Killer S01E01
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00:07This was like his third or fourth birthday, and he was very happy here.
00:19If I was always stressed out, he'd come hug me and tell me he loves me and things like that.
00:25It's just sad how his life turned out, how at that moment you didn't think anything was
00:31going to turn out the way it did, and how you'd give anything in the world to get that
00:36back, and you're never going to get it back.
00:55DEPUTIES SAY THIS PASCO COUNTY MAN IS IN JAIL FOR PURPOSELY RUNNING OVER A 75-YEAR-OLD VETERAN TO SHERIFF
01:01CALLING
01:01HIM PURE EVIL.
01:08I used to go to the roadside where he was murdered all the time and sit there and cry to
01:13him
01:13and say, I'm so sorry.
01:21Many, many nights I've sat on that roadside wishing it was me.
01:46Everybody just blamed me for raising him to be a murderer.
01:51Everybody said he was a monster.
01:55He was never a monster.
01:59He's not a monster.
02:03I can just love him because I wasn't able to fix him.
02:16He's not a monster.
02:28THE END
02:51When I'm alone, I think about this.
02:54I get very, very sad.
02:55I think about the could've, would've, should'ves.
02:59But I don't know what I could've done different.
03:02I don't know how I could've stopped him
03:05if I knew I would've stopped him,
03:07found a way to stop him.
03:09I get very sad.
03:10I get sad that I don't get to see his future.
03:12I don't get to see his wedding, his kids.
03:16And now I get to hear about his mile,
03:18whatever milestones you go through in prison.
03:25I'm very ashamed,
03:26because that's not ever what I would've imagined him to do.
03:32Very ashamed.
03:38I feel like I still don't know a lot about,
03:43about what happened.
03:44That's kind of something I'm trying to learn.
04:04There's nothing that I would find out that my son did
04:08that would ever stop me from loving him,
04:10and that would ever stop me from being there for him,
04:12because that's my promise as a mom,
04:14is that I'm going to be there for my kids no matter what.
04:22911, what is the address of the emergency?
04:26I'm down by Old Dixie behind Sea Pine.
04:29I just killed someone.
04:30How did that happen?
04:32I just hit him.
04:34Hit him with what?
04:35My car.
04:37Was he walking down the road?
04:39You just accidentally hit him?
04:40No, I intentionally hit him.
04:41You intentionally hit him?
04:43Yes, sir.
04:44I don't know what's wrong with me.
04:57He sounded strangely calm.
05:01I don't know why he sounded so calm.
05:04I didn't know he sounded like that.
05:33I was still only 19 then, so yeah.
05:36I was very young.
05:39What do you remember about that day?
05:42How blessed, how happy I was.
05:45I felt like my world was complete.
05:50Seeing him for the first time,
05:52oh my God, he's perfect.
05:55That is a deep love that I've never felt before.
05:58It's just a lifelong connection.
06:02I felt like I was doing something right for a change
06:04by bringing him into the world.
06:24I knew things were off with him.
06:25I'd hate to say around the time he had started school.
06:29He started what we called them night terrors.
06:35He would wander the house at night.
06:38Sometimes you could hear him walking around.
06:42One night, we were in bed, sound asleep.
06:46I'd wake up with him right in my face.
06:48We didn't know he was in there.
06:49He'd just be sitting there staring at us,
06:51which is terrifying.
06:54And I'd try to talk to him, and he wouldn't say anything.
06:59I had to wake my husband up, because I was scared.
07:02You know, I didn't know what he was thinking
07:03or what he was doing.
07:06That's like, you see that in horror videos.
07:09It was scary, very scary.
07:12But then after a minute, he, like, just would snap out of it.
07:15And, like, I'm OK.
07:17Yeah, I'm awake.
07:17And he'd talk to me and then go back to bed.
07:22But it was so creepy.
07:23It was so crazy to me.
07:34Justin's freak-outs would be very stressful,
07:37especially when you have three kids all together.
07:42He'd get very stressed out and very angst
07:45and very angry all the time,
07:48because he couldn't just communicate
07:49what he wanted to say and things.
07:52We would play games with him all the time.
07:55But if things weren't going his way
07:57or if he wasn't winning, he would just get angry.
08:00He'd just flip the board and stomp off and scream,
08:02and I'd go and talk to him,
08:03and he'd just argue and scream at me.
08:07He'd just have complete meltdowns.
08:11I remember one specific time I had to come pick him up
08:13from school because he got so frustrated
08:16that he bit somebody on the arm.
08:20So it was very hard, very stressful.
08:43It was real early in the morning,
08:45and I was just, like, ripping him apart.
08:48What were you thinking?
08:49What were your plans?
08:50Like, how long did you think you were going to get away with it?
08:53And when I said that, he was like,
08:55well, I was going to get away with it
08:56because my plan was I was going to kill all of you guys.
09:00He was going to slit all our throats
09:02because he didn't want us running after him.
09:06My heart just dropped.
09:11My heart dropped, and I said,
09:13well, do you just not love us?
09:14Do you not care about us?
09:15And he goes, no, but that's why I wanted to do it.
09:17I wanted to kill you guys so that you wouldn't hurt.
09:22If I just killed you all,
09:24then no one would have to feel anything anymore.
09:28I felt scared.
09:29I felt anger.
09:30I felt hurt.
09:31He felt hurt.
09:32So then I felt even more hurt because he was hurt.
09:37And I told him that it would have caused so much pain
09:40for so many other people.
09:43And I needed you to understand that.
09:45I need you to see it like that.
09:48He says, yeah, I see that, and I understand that now,
09:52but I didn't care at the time.
09:57A big part of me just wanted to put it in the back of my head.
10:01I didn't want to see it that way.
10:03I didn't want no one to see it that way.
10:07That's what I would tell myself.
10:09He was never going to do that.
10:10He said it, but he didn't mean it.
10:11It was just, it's Justin.
10:14He would never do that.
10:27Almost 24 hours after a driver hit and killed a pedestrian,
10:31deputies are now calling the case a homicide.
10:33The suspect, his name is Justin Pinnell, 21-year-old male.
10:37And he absolutely admits to our deputies and our detectives
10:41that he had the intention to kill somebody.
10:43This is one of those things that when you talk to society
10:46how evil things are, this man is absolutely evil.
10:49It's almost, for him, pleasurable.
11:03After Justin did what he did, our house was on the news.
11:08So, every day it was kind of scary.
11:11There were people saying that they're going to drive by our house
11:15and send bullets through our windows.
11:18We just wanted to get away and start over and start different.
11:24So, we kind of left Florida, up and left Florida.
11:28Back in Florida, it kind of felt like I had a light shining down on me
11:31and everybody knew.
11:44The TV is his.
11:46There's a dresser over there.
11:49Yeah, that little lamp right there is his.
11:53I don't know why I hang on to it.
11:55It's just, it's so many memories.
11:56There's memories everywhere.
11:59I just keep things like that.
12:03I have Justin's baby book.
12:13His ultrasound pictures.
12:15His little fingers.
12:19A little head, face.
12:21His bracelet that he wore at the hospital.
12:28Um, what I looked like then.
12:34Pictures of him.
12:35More pictures.
12:35Like, his first holidays.
12:36His Halloween.
12:38His Christmas.
12:42Growing up, it was just us against the world, no matter what.
12:45He was my person.
12:46And that was his person.
12:47Mm-hmm.
12:52And there's, you know, things I wrote to him.
12:56Up here, it says,
12:57Justin, always remember, no matter what, mommy will always be there for you.
13:02She may not like some of the things you're going to do, but I'll always stand behind you 100%.
13:10He had a trunk full of clothes and stuff like that, and I'll go through his clothes and hug him
13:15and be sad, because it's just like, I lost him.
13:19I don't have him here no more.
13:20And I won't get rid of his stuff, probably because he'll never even see it again or even use it
13:25again, but that's just all I have left of him.
13:27It still smells like him.
13:28It still feels like him sometimes, and I won't get rid of his stuff, ever.
13:46So Justin was, like, 15 years old when we lost my nephew, his cousin.
13:50He was, like, another one of my kids.
13:53He got hit by a car.
13:55I think I was telling my daughter, and she started to cry, and Justin started to laugh.
14:03And I asked him, what was he laughing about?
14:05And he's, like, it's not that it happened to him, but I'm just picturing it happening in my head, almost
14:10like a cartoon, and that's what makes me laugh.
14:14Were you surprised that he started to laugh?
14:19I, honestly, by that time, I wasn't, because it seems to be, like, his reaction.
14:25Towards everything that hurt people, honestly.
14:29He would just always find a way to laugh about it and think it was funny.
14:35There was a time we watched somebody get hit by a car.
14:39I think Justin might have been, like, 10 or 11.
14:45And, unfortunately, like, she flew in the air.
14:49And he laughed about it.
14:51And he, I would just be like, what is going on?
14:56Was it clear that a woman was dead?
14:59Absolutely.
15:00Absolutely.
15:01I mean, for the longest time, that's all I kept seeing over and over and over again.
15:06That just hit me.
15:07So sorry.
15:08You guys, just give me a minute.
15:09That just hit me.
15:12That, that, he saw that accident, and that's what he did.
15:22It's like, you don't think all the little moments that you go through in life could possibly be, though,
15:30lead up to maybe the things that he did or went through himself.
15:34And I don't know.
15:48I was sitting watching TV probably around the time Justin was coming home from school.
15:53I think it was, like, a show I was watching about kids killing animals and things like that.
15:59And I was like, I have never seen or heard of you doing anything like that, Justin.
16:03So you're good.
16:04You know, you're on the, you know.
16:05And it was, like, a lighthearted, you know, thing.
16:07And then he told me the story about the duck.
16:20So my dad was watching him.
16:22And he, there's, like, a little lake down by where my dad was living.
16:26And he would walk down there.
16:27He said that he was sitting there on the log.
16:30And the ducks come up.
16:31And they were just loud and, and noisy.
16:34And, and it, it was just too much.
16:36Like, he felt like it was so much.
16:39And he just picked it up and slammed it into a log.
16:44He just kept doing it.
16:46He said he just kept, kept doing it.
16:47And then he stopped and was like, what was I doing?
16:51Why did I do that?
16:54Like, I don't understand.
16:55Like, he just said, like, something switched in his brain.
16:59Yeah.
17:00It created a red flag in the back of my brain that he might be a psychopath.
17:04Like, something, something is not right with him.
17:09Something's not right in his head.
17:32I need Justin to call me every day.
17:36Because I need to feel that comfort.
17:37I need to hear his voice.
17:38I need to know he's okay.
17:42Every day I told him to call around a certain time of day so that what my husband would think
17:45he wasn't calling every day.
17:48Because it would cause fights.
17:54My husband, he doesn't think it needs to be done every day.
17:57He doesn't like that I spent any money to talk to him.
18:02It's very hard.
18:03It's very hard to try and get my husband to understand why I can't just shut that door on him.
18:11Why I can't just, okay, this is what you did.
18:13Here you go.
18:13And just, like, close that chapter.
18:17It's very hard to explain that to my husband when he doesn't know how a maternal bond is.
18:22Or the feeling of, you know, of being a mom.
18:29But we have many, many talks as much as many of us had arguments.
18:33And we've come a long, long ways.
18:36And he, you know, he's more understanding of it.
18:40Because I've been very vocal with him about it.
18:43Because I don't want to lose my husband.
18:45And I don't want to lose my son.
18:48I feel like the last five years has just been me having to explain why I feel the way I
18:56feel all the time with everybody.
19:02But I'm never going to stop loving my kids.
19:05I'm never going to stop not trying to be there for them the best that I can.
19:10That's my baby boy.
19:11He will always be my baby boy.
19:28I would make it a point to talk to him almost every other day.
19:31Check in with him.
19:31How you feeling?
19:32Like, but tell me how you're really feeling deep down and things like that.
19:37He would tell me,
19:39I haven't been able to sleep in days because I keep hearing these voices.
19:42And I'm like, voices like, how?
19:44What do you mean?
19:45Well, they're just telling me to do things.
19:47They're telling me to hurt others.
19:49And recently, they've been more telling me to hurt you.
19:55It's scaring me.
19:55And I don't know what to think.
19:57And I don't know how to feel about it.
19:58But I feel like I could do it.
20:00I feel like I could follow through with it.
20:02And I told him I was scared.
20:05And to be honest, I'm here, Justin.
20:06I'm going to be open and honest with you.
20:07Now I'm scared.
20:08I'm scared of you.
20:12He was scared and you could see it.
20:15I felt sad.
20:18I felt sad for him.
20:21Because he didn't know what he was feeling.
20:28My husband was terrified.
20:31I'm terrified.
20:32My husband didn't trust him.
20:34My husband didn't trust anything.
20:37He was scared.
20:38He was scared that Justin was going to come in and kill the both of us.
20:41Every night when we'd go to bed, he'd lock that door.
20:55It's scary because you've got to go in and face these doctors
20:58that have never seen you a day in their life.
21:02And your son's saying these things.
21:06I was scared for my son because he was scared.
21:10I've never seen him so scared.
21:14So they put him on medication to help him sleep because he wasn't sleeping.
21:21But the doctors weren't concerned.
21:23The doctors didn't perceive him as a threat.
21:25No, they did not perceive him as a threat.
21:27They weren't concerned.
21:29They told me that my daughters would be safe, that we'd be safe,
21:32that it was nothing to be afraid of.
21:47This is Justin in his JROTC uniform.
21:51He made Cadet of the Month that year.
21:57They had to wear a uniform every Tuesday or Thursday.
22:01It seems like he lived for that kind of structure.
22:05Yeah.
22:06He was hoping to go into the military, and he was meeting with recruiters.
22:10My husband said, I think that you really want to do it
22:13because it's basically giving you a license to kill.
22:16And Justin told him, well, when you put it that way, yeah, maybe that is a thought somewhere in my
22:24head
22:24where it has come across as a thought.
22:31And Justin said, I don't see why there would be anything wrong with it.
22:35I mean, if they're giving me a license, basically, and a gun to do it,
22:40I would do it with no problem, you know, if that's what they needed me to do.
23:04He started talking to me about his thoughts one day.
23:10I was sitting at home, and he'd come in, and I'd just ask him how his day was.
23:14And he would tell me how he had a thought of one day he would sneak into somebody's house
23:19and kill the whole family.
23:24My reaction was smacking him across the side of the head
23:27and asking him, first of all, why would you say that?
23:30Second of all, why would you think it?
23:31Like, who thinks that?
23:32Like, I don't even understand what even gets your mind to that thought
23:37or what's going on in your head that you have that thought.
23:40We'd fight about it, and then he would leave.
23:47I used to always worry about him when he was gone.
23:50Every night, he'd either go for a bike ride, go work out, or go jog.
23:55He was really into working out.
23:58And there'd be times where he wouldn't respond to my phone calls and text messages.
24:04So then I'd worry that maybe he's doing it.
24:08Maybe he's actually, like, following through with his thoughts or something.
24:12I was worried that I might find him on the news.
24:19My husband and I both tried like hell to get help.
24:22We reached out to the police stations.
24:24We reached out to counseling lines.
24:25We ended it.
24:28The police station even said,
24:31I'm so sorry, but there's really nothing we can do until he actually commits a crime.
24:36And I remember breaking down and flipping out on him.
24:38I'm like, so it's going to take that?
24:40It's going to take that?
24:41What if the crime's going to be so bad that you can't come back from it?
24:45And then it was.
24:56Reports show Pennell called 911 not to call for help,
24:59but because he had hit an electric pole and couldn't go anywhere.
25:04Detectives say that's when he admitted to dispatch that he purposely ran over a man
25:08and could see the terror in the pedestrian's eyes.
25:14The news on, there's been some kind of accident.
25:18And so they found a body on the side of the road.
25:22I think my daughter was the one that found a picture of my son's car and sent it to me.
25:28And we drove to the road.
25:29And before we could even get very far on the road at the entrance,
25:33there was, you know, police everywhere that were stopping people.
25:40Then I ran up to a cop and I was like,
25:42hey, I think that's my son's car.
25:45I think, you know, something's going on with my son.
25:46I need to know what's going on.
25:48And they asked me who my son was and I told them.
25:51And they're like, well, just wait right here.
25:54A detective came up and told me they weren't exactly clear of the details yet
25:58or what was going on, but they believe my son hit and killed somebody.
26:04And they believe he hit and killed him on purpose.
26:09I don't know how to describe it.
26:11I couldn't make sense of my thoughts.
26:13I couldn't make sense of anything.
26:16Just one horrible dream.
26:17It's a nightmare.
26:18And none of this is true.
26:19And I didn't want to wake up from it.
26:36Hello, you have a call at no expense to you from
26:40Joseph, an inmate at Lando Lake Detention Center.
26:45To accept this call, press 5.
26:47To refuse this call, hang out now.
26:50Hi, Bobby.
26:52Hey, Mom.
26:53How you doing?
26:54Good, are you?
26:55I'm doing good.
26:56I just wanted to let you know I'm here with everybody now
26:59and we are being filmed now and you're okay with that, correct?
27:12So is there anything that you're worried about her seeing?
27:24I do feel guilty about that at times.
27:26I don't know how she might perceive that.
27:29There's no justification or excuse.
27:33Sorry, that was in very control of myself at the time.
27:37Sorry that you had to go out and spare this.
27:43I mean, I know you think better of me, but...
27:50You're a better mom than I am, that's fine.
28:03I love you, Justin.
28:05I love you too, Mom.
28:06I miss you.
28:09I miss you too, Mom.
28:21I'm on scene.
28:23There's no one 10-12 with the vehicle.
28:26I got him.
28:26He's going to be walking up to you.
28:27He's coming out of the woods.
28:30Marine 2, I got him.
28:3110-12, 10-12.
28:37Hey, bro, come on.
28:37All right, sir.
28:39You get a unit to meet that female?
28:42Yeah, I got you, bro.
28:43I got you.
28:46I still haven't lost faith in my son, but he did do it.
28:51He did, not me, but he did kill someone.
28:54He did hurt someone.
28:57And I still have not lost that faith in him,
29:01and I can't explain it.
29:06I just, deep down inside, feel that that wasn't him.
29:09That's not him.
29:10That's not the Justin I know.
29:11That's not him.
29:34I want to know his exact thoughts.
29:36I want to know his exact thoughts leading up to it.
29:38What was he thinking sitting in the car?
29:40What came through his brain when he saw Mr. Pratt
29:42on the side of the road?
29:43I want to know those thoughts.
29:48Of course I'm scared I'm going to find something out
29:51that I don't know, or something about him
29:52that I don't know.
30:07Were you in route to somewhere specific today?
30:12No, I'm sorry.
30:13I don't want to say I don't hear voices.
30:15It's just, it just kept sounding I should kill someone.
30:18I should kill someone.
30:20Maybe it might make me feel better.
30:21Maybe it might make me happier.
30:25And so recently I've been driving around these roads that I know that people occasionally walk
30:30on and looking for people I could hit while avoiding witnesses.
30:35I don't know why I want to do this.
30:37I just, I also just wanted to calm down.
30:40You know, I ended up going down here, Pico.
30:43That's why I saw the old guy with the cane.
30:45And then I made a U-turn.
30:46He was going into the grass.
30:48He was trying to avoid me because he saw me going for him.
30:50But I just went for him.
30:58All I've got for you is what the ****.
31:01That's pretty painful to hear, yeah?
31:03Yeah, yep.
31:06He made a U-turn to hit a man, an old man with a cane.
31:11Yeah.
31:14And sped up and aimed right for him.
31:19That's what he said he did.
31:23What the **** was going through your head while doing it?
31:26And you, it's just, you could have just swerved the other way and not have done it.
31:32You know, something in your mind had that pull so tight, so strong that you just followed
31:41through with it.
31:42I don't, I don't understand that.
31:44I don't, I could never put myself in that frame of mind because I could never do that.
31:51So, I got no words.
32:01The guy called and said he hit him on purpose.
32:04You hear that?
32:04Okay.
32:05Yeah.
32:06All right, well, let's get a sheet.
32:08All right, we'll mark it off.
32:14Did you hear him say anything?
32:17No, I only saw his reaction.
32:19What was that?
32:20You know, that, oh, **** moment?
32:23What were your thoughts like when that, were ready that moment?
32:26Do you remember?
32:28I just smiled and laughed.
32:32Let's just say I answered one question I was wanting to answer, which was, oh, I felt
32:37I could kill someone and how does it feel?
32:42I mean, when I did it, I, I was laughing.
32:46I mean, I enjoyed it, but afterwards, after I calmed down a bit, I wouldn't say I felt
32:55regretful.
32:57I mean, to be perfectly honest, I was more ashamed that I broke the car the way I did
33:01when I killed the person.
33:11I don't know, I don't, I don't, I really can't think right now.
33:13My, my mind is just fricking.
33:24I mean, are you more angry or worse, Dad?
33:30Equal amounts of both, honestly.
33:33Like, I don't, like, I don't know, this is where I feel like my, my, my, my brain is
33:44just trying to shut down to process it.
33:49And I'm trying to be, you know, open and honest, but I don't have it right now because
33:54I still have to process it.
33:59Because the mom in me still is feeling the hurt he's feeling.
34:03Like, he's not sounding like he hurts.
34:05He's not, you know, probably showing like he hurts, but I feel like he's hurting.
34:11It's just the mom in me that's always going to want to fight for him no matter what.
34:15Because I can fix him.
34:17I can fix him and I can make him better somehow, some way.
34:19I can fix him and make him better.
34:23Can you go?
34:24No.
34:26I can just love him because I wasn't able to fix him.
34:37Is there anything when, when we go talk to your mom that you want us to like relay for
34:41you?
34:41I know you haven't had a chance to talk with her.
34:43I would recommend keeping details of the case private simply because she might get emotional
34:48and that might make your investigation get hard.
34:50It's not a matter of like, I want to tell her myself it's just a matter of these things
34:59are a bit sensitive to her and well, yeah.
35:03I mean, it might make things a bit complicated.
35:11Now you're ready.
35:15You had mentioned that you had thoughts of doing this, you wanted to do this.
35:20Is this the only way you imagined doing it or had you imagined doing it in other methods?
35:26Like some other way.
35:29I mean, I had, I'm really fond with knives.
35:32It's, I was thinking about slicing people up and cutting them open, dissecting them essentially.
35:38Yeah.
35:39But you've never done that before?
35:41No.
35:56That's, um, that's hard to hear.
35:59Yeah.
36:01Yeah, especially since it was kind of a brought up in a conversation between my husband and
36:05I yesterday because I asked him what made that thing click in his brain that he was, that
36:12made him super scared or just made him start locking the doors because I never really fully
36:16understood it.
36:18It was because Justin was starting to collect knives and he was sharpening them every day
36:22and he had no reason to, but now hearing this is just insane, mind blowing and I feel so bad
36:33for my husband and all this.
37:21What the f***?
37:24What the f***?
37:25It literally looked like a murder kit.
37:30Like, there's so much more to him that I didn't see.
37:38There's so much more to him that I didn't know.
37:49How does that happen?
37:50Like, that's my boy.
37:58That was my life.
38:22Oh, my soul is crushed right now.
38:52You talked to Justin last night.
38:54What was your conversation like?
38:55What did you say to him?
38:56What the f***?
38:57You pretty much said and did everything a psychopath would do.
39:02Like, you even mentioned it without saying to yourself, you were a psychopath, Justin.
39:07And so, so I don't understand.
39:13He said he doesn't remember saying those things.
39:18He doesn't know why he would do that or be like that.
39:20He doesn't know why he did any of the stuff that he did.
39:25Do you believe him?
39:55He doesn't know why he did any of the things that he did.
39:55He doesn't know why he did any of the things that he did.
40:12He doesn't know why he did any of the things that he did.
40:18Do or go through or feel and think and I'm still trying to process my thoughts and feelings right now.
40:34Well, no parent ever looks at their little kid and thinks that he's going to be a murderer someday, period.
40:40Being the parent of a murderer is, it's not easy.
40:45It can be lonely as well because people just don't understand.
40:48You think you killed somebody?
40:50No, I know I did.
40:51Up until that point, it never felt wrong to love either one of my children.
40:59I use my hands to suffocate my kids.
41:02Who did you use the belt on?
41:04Babies.
41:05Well, I tell you right now, if there is a God and they do forgive him, then send me to
41:08hell.
41:09Because I don't want to be there with him.
41:11I was banging on the window and I was telling him, you're going to fry .
41:14You're going to fry for this.
41:16And I pray to God my son never sees this.
41:19But I was going to shoot him in the back of the head.
41:21I swear to God, and it's so hard to make anyone believe, but I was looking at a devil.
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