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Homicide Hunter- American Detective (2021) Season 6 Episode 4
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00:09there are people in this world whose life is filled with loneliness over like the last six
00:15months i have been bummed out just because like i've been out of work and they will go to any
00:20length to fix that i've been talking to this woman online she lives in bulgaria she is in
00:27love with him and he is in love with her there was like that emotional connection a virtual girlfriend
00:34i guess you could say wife is grand the problem is none of us true not even remotely true who
00:41did
00:41this to your family i don't know are there overseas connections do they know where the money was going
00:49or is this something more bizarre he was fixated what will he do to prevent his fantasy world
00:57from being destroyed he was going to take care of it for me uh-oh
01:07i spent my career closing murder cases
01:11but i'm not the only one who answered the call
01:16it takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable
01:20to catch a ruthless killer to find justice for the dead
01:27that's what it takes to be an american detective
01:56he hasn't missed a day in five years so people become alarmed when they totally
02:02reliable cody amato is not where he's supposed to be
02:09deputies from the seminole county sheriff's department arrive at the family home
02:16deputy sheriff doesn't get any response after making numerous attempts to try to alert
02:21anybody who's inside the house knocked on every window every door we gotta go around back this way
02:30they've jimmy to open the french doors with a pocket knife
02:353513 ruby clearing the residence sheriff's office
02:39when they entered the home the police they found a pretty grisly scene
02:43with blood everywhere and a dead body in the kitchen
02:49and another body in another room
02:53and a third dead body
02:57we need backup we need homicide detectives we need crime scene people we need everything
03:05my name is eva marie malteri and i was an investigator at the seminole county sheriff's office
03:11right out of high school i became a nurse of nine years and then i had an opportunity to switch
03:16careers and go into law enforcement i always had a lifelong dream of that
03:20i really enjoyed the adrenaline and just being there for the families
03:28i received the call from the road that we have three bodies and
03:32it's all hands on deck
03:34it definitely is a shock for the area chuliotta is not a place that we go for homicides
03:41primary activities out there are horseback riding
03:44folks have target shooting in their backyard it's very country
03:52detective maltari arrives and is briefed by officers first on the scene
03:57three members of this family are dead in this house
04:00a common police expression for such a crime is a family wipeout
04:07when you first enter a crime scene that magnitude with three bodies you're observing everything
04:14crime scenes will speak to you if you listen
04:18the difficulty is crime scenes only whisper so you have to pay strict attention to what you're observing
04:26in the kitchen maltari finds the body of the father chad amato age 59
04:35i observed the male lying on his back there was a lot of blood around him he had two gunshot
04:41wounds to the head
04:44he also had a gun holster on his hip that certainly stood out
04:50it is unusual for someone to carry a weapon in their own home
04:54however they're obviously a gun enthusiast family
04:59there were a number of firearms located shotgun rifles a number of pistols the amatos were avid gun folks
05:07we noticed the gun on his hip didn't look like it he attempted to take it out
05:12the fact that it was not drawn indicates that chad amato didn't know that was coming
05:20whoever shot him did so from behind him there's evidence of him having fallen at the sink
05:27there was blood all over the kitchen blood was smeared on the ground it appeared he was crawling away
05:33but then he was shot in the back of the head a second time it's an execution
05:42there was a lunch box around him it appeared he had just come home from work
05:47maltari notices chicken breasts on the kitchen counter that have been thawing
05:52so we're getting ready for dinner when nobody's in any condition to eat
05:58maltari goes into the home office area
06:03and finds the body of margaret age 61
06:07the mother of cody and the wife of chad
06:12she was sitting at her desk and she was slumped over
06:15she had blood around her face and head that we could see
06:18she was shot once in the back of the head execution stall
06:23there's an expended casing on the floor and it's a nine millimeter
06:28it appeared that margaret was working at her desk and the position that she was in would make us
06:34believe that she had no idea that she was going to be shot
06:44she is playing a computer game and having a glass of wine
06:51when somebody decides to blow her brains up
06:56if she heard someone walking up to her from behind she wouldn't be fearful
07:03no one anticipates being murdered in their own home
07:09margaret never knew what hit her never knew
07:15finally maltari turns her attention toward cody the 31 year old nurse anesthetist that the
07:22co-workers initially called about
07:25they found cody in the uh entryway between the garage and the gym area
07:31he was lying in a fetal position wearing scrubs as if he was coming back home from work
07:36he was shot once in the face and an exit through the back of his head
07:40there are no signs of a defensive position no signs of a struggle
07:46we noticed right near cody's body was a nine millimeter pistol
07:50cody amato was known to carry a firearm so it's not necessarily unusual for a firearm to be
07:54next to his body it is possible that cody amato had a gun in his hand to fend off the
08:01attacker
08:02and dropped it when he was killed so we have three members of the amato family shot to death
08:08with a nine millimeter what we don't find is any reason why they all needed to die
08:14we don't know if chad is involved because he has a handgun on him
08:17we don't know if cody's involved because he has a gun near him he's like how did this all happen
08:23once we saw the three bodies obviously our first thing is to see if there was any forced entry to
08:28see if anybody that the family did not know came in there were no signs of forced entry all the
08:33windows were closed the doors were locked there was nothing that appeared to be taken either this
08:38perpetrator is houdini or he was in the house with their permission so that's when we determined it
08:45had to have been someone they knew who is that someone we don't know the uniformed officers
08:52contact military and explain that there is a woman present cody's girlfriend it is likely that she's
08:58going to know a great deal about what's going on with this family it's time to question her right away
09:05cody's girlfriend was very concerned but she did not know that cody was dead we eventually had to
09:12tell her she was very upset she started telling us about cody and that they met in nurse anesthetist
09:21school cody amato was a very very bright young man very gregarious kind funny outgoing everyone
09:28really liked coding he was uh he was a very positive influence chad amato was a pharmacist he was successful
09:35worked long hours a family man was always there for his boys margaret was also in the medical field
09:44she loved horses she loved the outdoors she was a loving mother to her three kids military learns
09:53there are two other sons in this family a 29 year old son named grant and a 36 year old
10:00son named jason
10:03military asked the obvious question is there anything going on in cody's life that's causing
10:08him to be upset or frightened or angry the girlfriend she said oh yeah he has told me that there
10:16are many
10:16arguments going on in the household and it stresses him out the girlfriend told me that cody received a
10:24call the night before saying that there was a problem at the home and that he needed to leave work
10:29and come home and fix it he said he had to go deal with some stupid bullshit with his family
10:36in a very
10:36angry tongue he storms off in an obvious state of distress and that was the last time she saw
10:46so what can that tell you well
10:51after determining that there was no forced entry it did cross our mind that cody killed his parents
10:57and then turned the gun on himself could it be their own son
11:04yeah good
11:08detective maltari is trying to determine what happened to this family shot to death in their own home
11:14looking at the wound in his face is it possible that cody amato became so distressed with his parents
11:22he killed them and then turned the gun on himself
11:25we were trying to establish if it was a murder suicide but the injuries were not matching up to
11:31that cody's gunshot was to his upper cheek area normally when we see suicide by gun it's to the temple
11:41now it's unlikely that cody has a plastic arm how does he turn a four inch barreled handgun
11:47perpendicular to his face and pull the trigger it's not going to happen it can't happen
11:55and also what happens with a very close fired pistol is you'll get um burn marks from the gunpowder
12:03he didn't have that this is not a self-inflicted wound when cody comes home
12:10he opens that door and now he's dead manner of death homicide
12:19once we determined that it was probably not a murder suicide one thing that was suspicious to us
12:25there was a gun on chad amato's waist the holster is cross draw it's on backwards requiring the gun to
12:33be pulled with the left hand chad amato was right-handed and the way the gun was positioned it was
12:39opposite to
12:39how you would draw a pistol and that just didn't make any sense further this body it's produced a
12:47massive amount of blood but there is no blood on the holster this gun is put there after the fact
12:56it appeared that the crime scene had been staged whoever shot chad puts a gun holstered on his belt
13:04in an attempt to make it look like he was armed and was unable to draw this gun in defense
13:10of himself
13:12and then the gun was placed next to cody to make it look as if he shot himself to create
13:17an atmosphere
13:19of murder suicide and doing the absolutely impossibly worse job of it you think well who is the stupid son
13:26of a bitch who did this so the next step is multari is going to go speak to the coroner
13:36to determine the
13:37outcome of the autopsis but the coroner notices something interesting about chad amato's body that
13:42multari did not notice at the scene all of his fingers were covered in blood except for one and that
13:49would have been the right index finger that was very very clean and the vision of the coroner if someone
13:55had taken that dead hand and carefully cleaned the right index finger that was very odd what would
14:04be the purpose of that the ballistics people and the police laboratory examined the handguns found near
14:12the bodies none of the firearms that were found in the house were a match a different firearm was used
14:18for the homicides so we never found the murder weapon on scene the killer is still armed which makes
14:27him exceedingly dangerous at this point we were still trying to rule out who could have did this we
14:35needed to talk to the other family members that are still around cody said this was all about the
14:41bullshit with his family but there are two other members of this family that so far are unaccounted
14:47for the two other members are grant amato and jason amato grant did live in the home with the family
14:56we don't know what happened to grant if he was a victim and escaped saw something jason amato is
15:03margaret's son from a previous relationship raised as a child by the father even though not a natural child
15:10still a part of the family jason was more of an outsider it appeared he was one that just stuck
15:16to
15:16his own life stepchildren are often the source of difficulty in families so we'll begin with him
15:26they find jason where he lives they make contact they inform him what's happened investigators pay close
15:33attention to his reactions he was completely shocked he was devastated those kinds of emotions are very
15:43difficult to fake as an explanation for his whereabouts of prior evening that is iron clad jason didn't do
15:50this further they inquire with jason what can you tell us about grant cody and grant were very close
16:00from all accounts grant looked up to cody quite a bit emulated him hung out with him all the time
16:06grant was going to follow in cody's footsteps he became a nurse he went to a good school
16:12he got along just fine but then things around him were kind of collapsing jason amato shared with
16:20the sheriff's office that there was in fact a family strife with regard to grant
16:33he was working in 2018 for a local hospital here as a nurse and and had gotten trouble for
16:41essentially overdosing his patients he has apparently been administering propofol which is
16:48what killed michael jackson he's been giving those to patients it sounds like yeah the non-prescribed
16:53when he spoke to the orlando police department he had indicated that he didn't agree with the
16:59doctors prescribed amounts and was taking it upon himself to give these patients relief from their
17:05ailments grant was someone who is right all the time knows more than other people and is smarter than
17:12other people in the state of florida when you are giving an excessive amount of medication to a patient
17:19it's considered theft and also medical negligence orange candy dropped those charges but he lost his job as a result
17:30after grant had the legal troubles he started to spiral downward he was very depressed and he would
17:38find himself at home just in his bedroom gaming a lot on the computer he was alone he was lonely
17:46he had no
17:46onu. he didn't thấy so
17:51to go to childke
17:51a lot of police cars
17:52actually we talked about how to manage the legal is
17:52to go to jail andPs in the local bank increasing him road
17:57and certainly found artists that are up to them in this election of the scene but that happened in this
18:10someone will stand up with him there's been a lot of points to the public
18:10who live on the order now has been sitting there 5500うん um
18:12this celebrity ball is personality a woman as a buyer he was
18:17It's all hands on deck to try and find him to talk to him.
18:21We were looking at his easy pass to see his way of travel, his digital footprint from a cell phone.
18:27And so we knew kind of an area where he was at.
18:31They knew the car that he was in.
18:33They knew the plate number.
18:35So obviously that was put out.
18:40Some very good sheriff's office deputies found that particular car.
18:48He was at a hotel in Orange County, 10 miles away from his home.
18:54The police show up to the hotel, like, armed to the teeth, looking for Grant.
18:59All right, the car is clearly not in the car.
19:02We need to lock everything down.
19:03Yeah, we need to get in this hotel and start releasing people out.
19:06Yeah.
19:06The police believe that Grant could be involved in this.
19:09If they're right, he's got a gun.
19:13And he's deranged, definitely.
19:16It makes him pretty dangerous.
19:17So they're going to take precautions when they approach him.
19:21First here, 23, we're going to shut down the hallway.
19:25Yeah, both ends.
19:26The first thing you hear is a bunch of snaps being unsnapped, which is everybody's holsters.
19:34Are you doing a favor?
19:36Call the other rooms, not that room.
19:38Make sure no one calls their room.
19:40And start saying, hey, you need to come out of the room and come downstairs.
19:43Drywall doesn't stop bullets.
19:47You quietly move some people away from him and isolate him in a box.
19:54We got to go down.
19:57We got to go down.
19:57Okay.
19:58We have everyone out of here.
20:00Then you make an attempt at contact and see what happens.
20:05You plan for the worst and you hope for the best.
20:11Want to come out and play, Grant?
20:13Because we'd like to play with you.
20:20To knock on a door and wonder if it's going to end up in gunfire is an activity that focuses
20:26the mind.
20:27Let's go.
20:29The world slows down.
20:31Hold this door.
20:33Noise around you stops.
20:36And you can feel your heartbeat in your fingertips.
20:40It's quite a moment.
20:44Get down!
20:52The door opens and it's not Godzilla.
20:54It's not even a Mothra.
20:56It's a little skinny kid.
20:58It looks like he's scared to death.
21:01Well, you must be Grant.
21:02He's in his nursing uniform and unarmed.
21:06He's completely compliant with them.
21:08I mean, I have my, like, duffel bag and whatnot in there.
21:11You guys want to check that?
21:15We search the room.
21:16We find no gun.
21:17No anything.
21:19You're being cooperative, sir.
21:20We appreciate that.
21:21Some Seminole County detectives want to talk to you.
21:24When Grant is apprehended at the hotel, he is not charged.
21:28I tell him that his family's dead and he voluntarily went to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.
21:36The forensic team has stayed behind to search the car while Detective Miltari and her partner sit down with Grant.
21:44Hi, I'm Eva.
21:45Hi.
21:46How are you?
21:47I'm here.
21:48So we just want to talk to you a little bit and we'll get this in and out.
21:51Be on our way.
21:52Okay.
21:53They both know that there's no concrete evidence that ties him to this offense.
21:57They need something from him.
22:00What do you like to do?
22:02What do I like to do?
22:03I like to watch anime.
22:04Me and my brother kind of started doing that back five years ago.
22:08In the beginning, we're just trying to build a rapport with him.
22:11Do you speak Japanese?
22:12I was going to say, do you understand?
22:13I don't.
22:14I understand a few words.
22:15Grant was not shy to answer any questions.
22:18We actually just got like a virtual reality headset thingy for like the computer.
22:24That was kind of fun.
22:25This isn't normal for knowing that your family's dead, that you're talking to us this calmly and telling us about
22:31the things you're interested in.
22:32A number of years ago, like me and my brother were actually like gun enthusiasts.
22:37We would go like play shooting.
22:38We just kept running with it, hoping that he would open up to us.
22:42Over like the last six months, I had been bummed out just because like I've been out of work.
22:47My dad would like make me feel guilty to that.
22:50Grant said he was close with his mother, but him and his father had a lot of tension.
22:54My dad, the Leo type A, definitely very overbearing, but he would always rationalize that he's just trying to like
23:00secure our future.
23:01When was the last time that you and your dad did have, you know, a heated conversation?
23:06Uh, it would be Thurston.
23:10Grant explains the night of the murders, he got in a horrible screaming match with his father.
23:15He was yelling at me to pack my up and just get out of the house.
23:19Grant says he left, drove around for most of the night and wound up sleeping in his car.
23:27When you left your house, everybody was fine.
23:31Yeah, everything was fine.
23:34He explains to the investigators that the next morning he drives back to his house.
23:41I saw like a news van and then there, there might've been like a cop car there.
23:50So I left.
23:52He decides to turn around and go the other way, which is just very odd.
23:59A normal person would drive there, talk to the cops, do whatever you can to get down to the bottom
24:04of what happened at your home.
24:22Grant says that he becomes frightened by this and decides to get a hotel room.
24:28What?
24:29Grant is telling these detectives a story that would insult a three-year-old.
24:34So what do you think happened?
24:36I don't know what happened.
24:39He's obviously lying and he's getting more agitated now that we keep questioning him about it.
24:45So they ask him, do you say you had a heated argument with your father?
24:51Why did he say you needed to go?
24:52What was his reason?
24:54Over the past four months or something like that, I've been talking to this woman online.
25:01Grant indicates that him and his father get into an argument about his girlfriend.
25:05Grant says, but he completely disapproves of my girlfriend, Sylvie.
25:09And where's she at?
25:11She lives in Bulgaria.
25:13Where?
25:13Bulgaria.
25:14Bulgaria, you say?
25:16That's not exactly next door to Orlando, Florida.
25:21Who is she?
25:22Uh, she's...
25:23As embarrassing as it is, she's a...
25:26She's a cam model.
25:27A what?
25:27A cam model.
25:31It's like a virtual girlfriend, I guess you could say.
25:34And goes on to explain, I buy time to chat with her and have her do things for me.
25:40Some of it, uh, sexual, some of it not sexual.
25:43Because there was like that emotional connection, I guess you could say, uh, between her and me,
25:47like I, I like, you know, it felt like, like, like a relationship.
25:53So, how are you?
25:57He was telling us that it was his girlfriend, and that he was in love with her, and she was
26:01in love with him.
26:02I mean, how true can that be?
26:04You're paying her for your time.
26:06That's not a true relationship.
26:08But that's what he believed.
26:10Don't say to me, I can't possibly love this girl, because I do.
26:15He is holding on to sanity by a thread.
26:19What happens if somebody cuts the thread?
26:27Detectives have learned that the girlfriend of Grant is nothing less than a camera girl
26:33who's making a living taking her clothes off for clients who pay her to do so.
26:38All right, Sylvia, I'm asking you, if you can please, pretty please, send me one of your videos.
26:48So how much do you think you spent?
26:49Um, probably close to, like, $200,000.
26:55$200,000?
26:57Yeah.
26:58Wow.
26:59Grant, you are a major problem.
27:03To spend that much money on someone you don't even know, I was completely shocked.
27:10It never met her in person, but he was giving her thousands of dollars per day.
27:16He was buying her a variety of gifts, lingerie and sex toys and all kinds of things.
27:21He's told Sylvie that he's very wealthy, he drives a BMW, that he's a very successful Twitch gamer.
27:31Nice.
27:32And just has a great life.
27:34Grant is living in a fantasy world.
27:38In reality, he's a little jerk that lives with his parents and is unemployed.
27:43And where did the money come from?
27:44Money came from me, my brother, and then my dad.
27:49Did they know where the money was going then?
27:50They didn't know that it was going to a cam model.
27:53These suspicious charges kept popping up.
27:55And for a while, Grant was explaining that it was part of his Twitch gaming profile.
28:00And then the amounts just were out of control.
28:03That's kind of how they figured out something was going on.
28:06He was stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his father and Cody.
28:10Instead of involving the police, the Amatos, because they love their son, decided to try
28:16to handle it as a family unit.
28:21My father chose to admit me to a depression or an addiction clinic or something like that
28:28in Fort Lauderdale.
28:29They decide that they're going to take him away from social media, computers, and they
28:34take away his cell phone and take away it all.
28:36Now, the problem there is that this was a unique type of addiction that required unique
28:41care.
28:42That rehab facility was not tailored to that specific type of addiction.
28:46So their final diagnosis of you was what?
28:49That I was fine.
28:50He's supposed to be there for six to eight weeks.
28:53And the second week, his mother shows up and takes him out.
29:00And when I came back, my dad, he had this list of all the rules.
29:06And his dad drafts up this two-page agreement of the things he's supposed to do, like get
29:12a job, stay off the computer, pay back the money you stole from everyone.
29:17And one of the stipulations was that if you speak to this woman again, you're out of the
29:22house.
29:22I'm kicking you out.
29:23Grant doesn't take that very well.
29:29He disregards the agreement.
29:32Because there was like that emotional connection, I didn't want to just stop cold turkey on it.
29:36He was addicted to Sylvie.
29:37He loved being on that high.
29:39And that's why he would continue stealing the money to keep in touch with her.
29:43On Thursday, he had apparently found out that I was speaking to her again.
29:50Dad gets very upset, tells him to pack his s*** and get the hell out.
29:55So according to Grant, he was out of there by nine.
29:57He had threatened me that if I stuff put back on his property, that he would kill me.
30:01And like he had...
30:02He said those specific words.
30:03Yeah.
30:04According to Grant, he'd been thrown out of the house.
30:07And that's why he wasn't there for the murders.
30:11He's trying to give himself an alibi.
30:13What he's done instead is to give them a motive.
30:16He's a little worse at coming up with alibis than he was at staging crime scenes.
30:22Miltari is questioning him when the forensic team that had been searching the car opens the door to the room
30:28and says,
30:28excuse me, we have something you need to see right away.
30:33There was a note in the car that was written that stated...
30:37I said to take care of all of your problems at the house, and I have.
30:41No one will bother you again regarding this.
30:44Just please come home.
30:47So, what is that?
30:49Grant.
30:50He told us that he wrote it so he could remember what Cody had said to him.
30:54After I got kicked out, I had met with my brother before he came home, just like in the neighborhood
31:00area.
31:00I basically brought him up to speed, and he had told me that he was going to take care of
31:05it for me.
31:06And that's all that I know.
31:08So they ask him, what do you think this means, Grant?
31:10Well, I think it means that Cody is the one who killed our parents.
31:17And why would you think that?
31:19To protect me, or to help me, or to do something with me.
31:23We knew he was full of shit.
31:25We knew it wasn't a murder-suicide.
31:27It's all lies.
31:29You've painted this picture of how close you are with your brother, and now you're trying to point fingers at
31:33him that he did this.
31:34That was a trigger for us to know that he's guilty as hell.
31:38So you're telling me you did not shoot Cody?
31:41No.
31:41Your father or your mother?
31:42No.
31:43He still was adamant that he was not responsible for these deaths.
31:47So after several hours of hearing bullshit, lies, I wanted to see his reaction when I showed him the crime
31:54scene photos.
31:56Did you leave the house with your brother Cody looking like that?
32:02Or did you leave the house with your father looking like that?
32:05Or your mother?
32:07Is that how you left your family?
32:11No.
32:11He's completely detached.
32:13There's no emotion.
32:15And then when there is emotion, it's a fake cry.
32:19I didn't do any of this.
32:21You could see right through him.
32:23If you were the one that's been depressed, you were the one that owes money, you were the one that
32:26got into a confrontation with your father.
32:28Who did this to your family?
32:30I mean, I don't know, like, what more I can say.
32:32He is a sociopath, eyes like a shark, nothing, no feelings, no anything.
32:42Detectives try one last tactic.
32:46To send Jason in alone and speak to his baby brother.
32:55We were hoping Jason would get through to him to give us some type of answer.
32:59I just, I'm going to ask you plain out.
33:02You are not part of it anyway.
33:03No.
33:05Things are adding up.
33:07I'm really confused, Grant.
33:09Jason, he's very emotional.
33:11He doesn't know what to think.
33:12He doesn't understand how it led up to this point.
33:15I made you to be honest with me, man.
33:18He was just trying to be consoling and being a loving brother.
33:23Just, again, to try to build that rapport for Grant to open up to him.
33:27I don't know.
33:27I don't have the answers.
33:30And he never did.
33:32You already made a decision on whether or not they can live or not.
33:36That's by your job.
33:39I remember.
33:41I do love you, though.
33:43Just remember that.
33:45Just like Mom, Cody, and Dad loved you.
33:48I was frustrated.
33:50I knew he wasn't going to break.
33:56It's an attempt, and a reasonable one that might work, except it didn't.
34:02Do you have anything else you need to talk about before we let you go?
34:06Because now's your time.
34:06You know that.
34:07I know.
34:08You can live with yourself knowing that you're not going to tell us the truth.
34:11I said what I can say.
34:14I said what I can say.
34:15That's his last words to me.
34:17Nothing to try and convince us that he was not the one who committed these crimes.
34:22Grant Amato is as guilty as the day is long.
34:26But they are forced to say the dreaded words,
34:29Thank you for coming in.
34:30You're free to go.
34:33It's the last thing you want to do.
34:35Because you never know if he's going to find a way to make himself disappear.
34:44You never want to be the one that has to say, you're free to go.
34:47You're the one that wants to say, stand up and turn around, you're under arrest.
34:52So we take Grant to a hotel room and several deputies were placed at the hotel to watch him because
34:59we needed time to gather enough for an arrest warrant.
35:03Because the sheriff's office knew that Grant was tied to the digital world, they turned their investigation to focus on
35:14the digital forensics.
35:15So they noticed that the night of the murders, according to Grant's telephone records, he spent $599 to join Sylvie's
35:25private video session.
35:28Where is he getting this money? Grant is broke.
35:33We were able to piece together a minute-by-minute account of Chad Amato's cell phone.
35:39They noticed that the cell phone goes silent at 5.52 p.m.
35:44So that puts Chad's time of death around 6.
35:47But then his fingerprint was used to unlock his banking app on his phone to try and move money around
35:52around 11 o'clock at night, way after death.
35:57Moultari thinks back to the autopsy and recalls that the right index finger of the victim was cleaned and wiped
36:05of blood.
36:06Light bulb goes off.
36:08Grant Amato must have cleaned his father's finger off, placed it on the phone, and unlocked the phone.
36:12Bingo.
36:14So within hours of murdering his family, our hero Grant is spending more of his father's money to engage again
36:22with Sylvie, his dearest love.
36:26There is the final nail in Grant's coffin.
36:31We went out to the hotel room, and Grant Amato was placed under arrest for the three homicides.
36:37He is charged with three counts of first-degree premeditated murder.
36:42Again, no emotion.
36:44He just went with it, turned around, put his hands behind his back, and he was brought down to the
36:49sheriff's office.
36:52So now we were trying to determine the woman he was speaking to, Sylvie, in Bulgaria, if she had any
36:57role in this as well.
36:59We reached out to the Bulgarian consulate, and the sheriff's office realized that the Bulgarian girl had nothing to do
37:07with this at all, other than being the object of his affection.
37:10So Sylvie is out.
37:12But Grant is all the way in.
37:18Without a statement from Grant Amato, they really don't know what happened in that house.
37:24But the evidence would suggest the spark that started this event was the absolute nature of the cutoff.
37:34He was losing everything, so I think his only way out was to just get rid of them and try
37:40and salvage what he could.
37:42He needed money to feed his fantasy world.
37:45His parents had it, and they wouldn't give it to him.
37:48So he's going to take it.
37:54Grant comes in to where his mother is playing a game at a computer, and executes her without comment, first
38:02to die.
38:04Grant lived there, so he knows all their habits.
38:06He positioned himself in the living room, across from the kitchen, and waited for his father to come home.
38:18The bullet goes in the back of Chad Amato's head.
38:21He falls to the ground.
38:23He's crawling on the floor.
38:26Grant walks over top of him.
38:29Puts the second bullet in the back of his head.
38:33Then Grant puts a gun holstered on his belt in an attempt to make it look like he was armed
38:39and was unable to draw this gun in defense of himself.
38:47Grant makes a phone call to his brother Cody to lure him home.
38:56Cody walks into the doorway to the interior of the home and is immediately shot in the face with a
39:069mm.
39:08Our hero throws a gun on the floor to make it look as if Cody killed everybody and killed himself.
39:15He is thinking he's being very clever, but he puts the wrong gun on the floor.
39:21It's not the murder weapon.
39:22He is an idiot.
39:25I think Grant thought he had the plan to figure it out perfectly, and it clearly didn't work out that
39:30way.
39:37Just a few months after the murders on July 15th of 2019, Grant Amato's trial begins.
39:45Grant's emotion in the courtroom was very distant, very cold.
39:51He just pretty much sat there.
39:56The only time he elicited any kind of response was when we were publishing photographs of Sylvie for the jury.
40:10He perked up, was transfixed, and hyper-focused on her.
40:14Grant Amato, you've been found guilty for killing both your mother, your father, and your brother.
40:21I would sentence you to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole.
40:25God have mercy on your soul.
40:27When I learned that he was found guilty, that's when I knew me and my team did a good job.
40:32The reaction for Grant was no real reaction, just same old, flatline Grant Amato.
40:42You can't understand people like this.
40:45There is no understanding.
40:46They do what they do.
40:48Grant focused on imaginary love and the imaginary life because he couldn't face reality.
40:55Because there was no woman in this country that was going to love him except his own mother.
41:00And he put a bullet in her head.
41:04You give life, and sometimes that life takes yours.
41:10On the next American Detective.
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