- 6 hari yang lalu
- #truecrime
- #bodycam
- #trialfootage
The Dumbest Killer In West Virginia #Truecrime #Bodycam #Trialfootage
Kategori
🎈
KesenanganTranskrip
00:00On a warm summer day in West Virginia, 30-year-old Rita Hendershot and 33-year-old Matt Hendershot
00:05were putting their guns back into storage after cleaning them.
00:08When suddenly...
00:12911, when is the address of your emergency?
00:15The neighbor of Lizzie just said her husband, her boyfriend, just accidentally shot him.
00:19Where is the wound at?
00:21Where did he get shot?
00:23Oh, what is it?
00:24And he's cheap. And he's cheap.
00:26After realizing that one of the guns went off and a bullet went straight into Matt's head,
00:31Rita immediately ran to the neighbor's house and told them to call 911.
00:34When officers arrived on the scene, Rita was inconsolable.
00:38None of my family. Can I please go down to them? Please!
00:41I want to sit over here, Rita.
00:42I can't hear you, too!
00:45Please, somebody, please let me go to Matt. Please let me go to his body.
00:49Please, please, please!
00:51Never been handcuffed in my life.
00:53Have a seat on that chair for me, Rita.
00:54I'm going to be myself because I'm in love with him.
00:58But you understand how f***ed up I am?
01:00Not only was Rita visibly intoxicated, but she was also too emotional to answer any questions.
01:06I can't live without him.
01:09I can't live without him.
01:12Please help me.
01:15Rita?
01:17I can't live without him!
01:19Rita, I need you to take a deep breath, Rita.
01:21I can't do this!
01:22No!
01:23Please, please, please, buddy, please help me!
01:27He's the kindest person that I've ever met in my life.
01:31Eventually, she was able to regain some composure and explain to the cops what actually happened.
01:37We were just moving our guns.
01:38He was like, babe, let's move our guns.
01:40And he had the gun in his hand.
01:42I took it and it pulled him.
01:43I didn't realize.
01:45We just loved it.
01:45She told the lead detective the same story, that this terrible accident happened while storing their guns in another location.
01:52We're about where you want to talk to him.
01:54I was coming in the kitchen.
01:56We were moving guns and he was holding it.
01:58He was in the kitchen with me.
01:59We were both in the kitchen.
02:00We were just moving them.
02:02Just hiding them under our bed.
02:03And you said there wasn't a clip inside of it?
02:05He put the clip inside of it, not me.
02:08He put the clip inside?
02:09Yeah, we were just moving guns.
02:10It was just like our regular routine.
02:12We were just cleaning the house.
02:14I didn't realize he put the clip in the 1911.
02:16Strangely, Matt was bleeding out on the stairs behind their residence when first responders arrived.
02:22Since Rita said that Matt was shot inside the home, that meant that after being shot, he ran outside in
02:27a panic before collapsing on the stairs.
02:30This story raised some red flags, so the investigators went inside the home and attempted to confirm everything she had
02:36told them.
02:37In the kitchen, several firearms were laid out on the counters, including the Ed Brown 1911 9mm handgun that Matt
02:44was shot with.
02:45This aligned with Rita's story.
02:47However, the investigators did notice some other things that they couldn't quite explain.
02:51For example, in Matt's bedroom, his TV was still on and his Xbox console had gone idle.
02:57This seemed to indicate that Matt had abruptly ended his gaming session without turning off his Xbox.
03:02Additionally, several drops of blood were found at the front entrance of the home, but the rest of the house
03:08was spotless.
03:09So the investigators were unable to confirm where exactly the gun had been fired.
03:14Since things weren't adding up, the detectives decided to have Rita physically walk them through what happened.
03:19So he was in the living room with me.
03:23We were moving all the contents.
03:25We were going to put everything up here.
03:28Over here.
03:30Right.
03:30In that cabinet.
03:33And that's when it happened.
03:35It was just a complete freak accident.
03:37I didn't realize that it was loaded.
03:40And I didn't realize that it was just sitting at the bottom.
03:43I didn't realize that because I was just moving stuff so fast.
03:46I was just like, boom, and it went off and he was sitting right there.
03:50And I was like, oh my God, it happened like right here somewhere.
03:54I didn't even know what happened until he went outside and he held his hand and I was like, wait
03:58a minute, that didn't sound right.
04:00So that's when I went to his aid and I ran to the neighbor's house and I was like, oh
04:03my God, somebody call 911.
04:05My phone was dead.
04:07I did not know he put the clip in the 1911.
04:10He was seated.
04:11He sat down.
04:12Was he seated on this stool?
04:14He sat on his bed.
04:15On his bed.
04:16So he was sitting on the bed when it happened.
04:18You were standing.
04:19I came in to like, what's going on?
04:21And then hold it.
04:22Although the investigators had been giving Rita the benefit of the doubt up until this point,
04:26this walkthrough solidified their suspicions about her.
04:30Throughout the investigation, Rita had constantly been changing her story.
04:36The very first person who she told about the shooting was her neighbor who called 911.
04:41911, when is the address of your emergency?
04:52To clarify, Rita told the neighbor that Matt was cleaning the gun when it accidentally discharged,
04:57hitting him in the face.
04:59But as we showed you earlier, when the police arrived on the scene,
05:02Rita told the officers that the gun went off in her hands.
05:05We were just moving our guns.
05:07He was like, babe, let's move our guns.
05:09Yeah.
05:10And he had the gun in his hand.
05:11I took it and it pulled him.
05:13I didn't realize.
05:14It was loaded.
05:15This wasn't the only inconsistency in Rita's statements.
05:18She had initially said that the gun went off while they were storing their firearms under Matt's bed.
05:24We were just moving them.
05:25Just hiding them under our bed.
05:26But during the walkthrough, she said that they were storing them in the cabinet above the closet.
05:31We were going to put everything up here, in that cabinet.
05:35And that's when it happened.
05:37She also initially said Matt was shot in the kitchen.
05:40We're about where you want to talk to him.
05:43I was coming in the kitchen.
05:44We were in the kitchen with me.
05:45We were both in the kitchen.
05:47But she was now saying that Matt was sitting in his room when the gun went off.
05:51But he was seated.
05:52He sat down.
05:54Was he seated on this stool?
05:55He sat on his bed.
05:56On his bed.
05:57So he was sitting on the bed when it happened.
05:59You were standing.
06:00I came in to like, what's going on?
06:03And then bullet.
06:03This was the most believable story.
06:05Because the investigators found a single 1911 bullet casing on Matt's bed.
06:10It seemed that Rita had made up some of the details she told the police.
06:14And was now backtracking because her statements didn't align with the evidence.
06:18Rita's inconsistent storytelling wasn't the only red flag.
06:21The investigators saw her erratic behavior as over the top.
06:27Not only that, but the timing of her outbursts was also extremely suspicious.
06:32Anytime the officers were talking to other witnesses,
06:35she would suddenly cut off the conversation with her screams of anguish.
06:42It seemed like Rita was intentionally disrupting the investigation.
06:46All of these red flags made Rita suspect number one.
06:49But they now needed to answer the question, did Rita have a motive to harm Matt?
06:53The answer to this question became clear when they looked into her and Matt's history.
06:58Rita and Matt met at a bar in 2012.
07:00And they immediately hit it off.
07:02The two dated for a few months and fell madly in love.
07:06But after officially tying the knot, Rita's behavior suddenly began to change.
07:10She moved in with Matt and his grandma Matilda.
07:13But Rita and Matilda would constantly fight.
07:15And Rita began belittling her on social media.
07:19For example, one of her Facebook posts said,
07:21I didn't sign up for this.
07:23I didn't get married to take care of an old b****.
07:26It was around this time that Matt became distant from his friends and family.
07:30Rita seemed convinced that everybody was out to get her.
07:33She would constantly play the victim in her social media posts.
07:36And call anybody who she didn't agree with.
07:38Her haters.
07:39Then, in 2017, Grandma Matilda passed away.
07:43So Rita and Matt were living together alone.
07:46They began fighting more than ever.
07:47According to Matt's family, Rita would constantly gaslight Matt into thinking he was always in the wrong.
07:53Eventually, Matt couldn't take it anymore.
07:55And he divorced Rita.
07:57In the summer of 2018, within a few months of their divorce being finalized,
08:01Rita was already engaged to one of Matt's friends.
08:04This was when Rita found a striking new hobby.
08:07Guns.
08:08She would frequently post videos of herself at the shooting range.
08:11And memes about how much she loved guns.
08:14Then, on March 30th, 2020, tragedy struck.
08:17Rita's fiancé got into a terrible motorcycle crash and lost his life.
08:22A motorcyclist is killed in a single vehicle crash in Frederick.
08:25State police say the motorcyclist was going eastbound when the driver went into a ditch off the shoulder and was
08:31thrown from the bike.
08:32The investigation into the crash is ongoing.
08:34The Frederick County Sheriff's Office investigated his death and learned that he and Rita were at a party that night
08:40and an argument broke out.
08:42Her fiancé stormed out, hopped on his motorcycle, and left for home.
08:46Rita immediately hopped into her car and followed directly behind him.
08:50Apparently, as they got close to their house, Rita's fiancé hit a pothole and crashed into a fence, killing him
08:56instantly.
08:56The investigators concluded that his manner of death was an accident.
09:00Shortly after this incident, Rita reached out to Matt and asked if she could stay with him for a bit.
09:05Matt agreed to take her in for a few months so she could save up some money and find her
09:10own apartment.
09:11This is when things began to spiral.
09:13Although she found a new boyfriend during this time, Rita's stay at Matt's house dragged on for months longer than
09:18expected.
09:19And her behavior became more and more concerning.
09:22She began drinking heavily and would frequently have violent outbursts.
09:26During these outbursts, she would abuse Matt, hitting him, scratching him, and threatening him by pulling out an assortment of
09:32weapons during their arguments.
09:34Not only did Rita attack Matt with a fork, but after looking through all of Matt's text messages,
09:39detectives located four documented instances of Rita's abuse throughout their time living together.
09:44The fork attack we just mentioned was number one.
09:47The second was a fight that escalated so badly that Rita pulled an AR-15 out from storage and pointed
09:53it directly in Matt's face.
09:55The third was regarding an argument where Matt locked Rita out of his room, so Rita stabbed his door with
10:00a knife several times.
10:02And the fourth incident was when Rita waved a full-size machete in Matt's face to taunt him while he
10:08was trying to play beer pong.
10:10Eventually, Matt put his foot down and told Rita that she had a week to leave,
10:13or he was going to have the authorities escort her off the property.
10:17However, before Matt could call the police on Rita, he was shot dead.
10:21This ugly history between Matt and Rita made her statements at the crime scene seem completely performative.
10:27But you understand how f***ed up I am going to be myself because I'm in love with him?
10:33He's the kindest person I've ever met in my life.
10:37She wasn't even in a relationship with Matt at the time of the shooting.
10:40As we mentioned earlier, she had found a new boyfriend who had actually showed up at the crime scene to
10:45support her.
10:46Did she live here with Matthew?
10:48How did that situation work?
10:50He took her in before I dated her.
10:52Okay.
10:53You know what I mean?
10:54I was a good friend with her.
10:55I've talked to Matt.
10:56I've been friends with Dosher.
10:57Matt's who I've never had any comments with him.
10:59Okay.
10:59Of course, Rita began having another meltdown before the officer could get through this conversation.
11:05I can't do this!
11:07Rita, I need you to take a deep breath, Rita.
11:08I can't do this!
11:10The investigators were confident that Rita had shot Matt in cold blood.
11:13However, they didn't want to charge her with murder until they got the forensic test results from the crime lab.
11:19So, Rita was initially arrested and charged with negligence with a firearm and wanton endangerment.
11:25She immediately posted bail and was free to go.
11:28Then, just two days after Matt's death, Rita posted photos on social media of her and her new boyfriend kayaking
11:34and fishing in a lake.
11:36After three weeks of forensic testing, the crime lab concluded that Rita's story, that the gun went off accidentally, was
11:42impossible.
11:43Mainly because of the grip safety, which is located on the back of the handle of the 1911.
11:48This safety mechanism meant that the handle of the gun needed to be firmly squeezed in order to be fired.
11:54So, Rita was arrested yet again, this time for first-degree murder.
11:58She pled not guilty.
12:14Her trial took place in February of 2023, and her defense stuck to her story that this was a freak
12:21accident.
12:21However, due to Rita's behavior at the crime scene, the inconsistencies in her stories, her history of abuse against Matt,
12:28and the grip safety on the back of the gun, the defense failed to convince the jury.
12:33After a six-day trial, Rita was found guilty.
12:36However, the jury believed that the prosecution failed to prove premeditation, which is required for a first-degree murder charge.
12:43So, they chose to convict her of second-degree murder instead.
12:47She was also found guilty for the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
12:51Rita was sentenced to 40 years for the murder conviction and a consecutive 10-year term for the firearm charge.
12:57The defense immediately appealed these convictions, saying that Rita had an unfair trial, and the case was brought before the
13:04West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
13:06The defense was claiming that all of Matt's text conversations where he detailed Rita's abuse were hearsay, because the state
13:12never presented any evidence to prove Matt's claims.
13:16The lower court didn't require any evidence to be produced at the pretrial to allow these bad acts evidence to
13:21come in in front of the jury, and even allowed the state to just merely read into the record text
13:26messages in a proper.
13:28It would be improper, according to our position, to just allow this evidentiary burden to be met merely by reading
13:33a text into the record.
13:35The defense then dissected each incident one by one, arguing that these allegations of abuse were nothing but he said,
13:41she said.
13:42Looking at them individually, the text message surrounding the fork incident, by the decedent's own admission, he had grabbed my
13:49client so hard that she was bleeding whenever she grabbed the fork to get away from him.
13:53Regarding the allegation that in December my client pointed an AR-15 at him, there was no evidence admitted outside
14:01of a text message to prove that it actually occurred by a preponderance of the evidence.
14:04The same would be applicable to the allegation that she bashed doors in in the house.
14:10And then regarding the one where Mr. Savage testified that my client had waved a machete at them while intoxicated
14:18while they were playing beer pong approximately two months prior to the fatal shooting.
14:22In that case, he was asked directly and responded that she didn't threaten Mr. Hendershot with machete and that he
14:30didn't swing it and that she was trying to make them lose their beer pong game by distracting them.
14:36I don't believe that that would qualify any standard that any of those are domestic violence.
14:40The state found all of these arguments absurd and claimed that there was more than enough evidence to corroborate Matt's
14:46text messages, which justified showing them to a jury.
14:49The biggest complaint that I heard in my colleagues' responses was that they were unproven.
14:57That's just simply not true.
14:58This wasn't just someone standing up and saying, well, this happened and the state merely reading in text messages.
15:05This was proven by forensic evidence.
15:07This was proven by photographs.
15:09This was proven by live testimony.
15:11I also want to give a little clarity to the court on the fork incident because Petitioner has attempted to
15:17portray this as,
15:19a self-defense.
15:21That's simply not true if you read the actual text messages.
15:24He notes to Ms. Hendershot herself that you came at me and hit me in the face twice and knocked
15:31me off the couch and I restrained you.
15:34When that happened, she grabbed a fork and stabbed him.
15:37This was not merely a self-defense unless we're speaking about the self-defense of Mr. Hendershot because she was
15:43attacking him.
15:43They also pointed out that if these incidents didn't really happen, the only reason Matt would send these messages would
15:49be to set Rita up.
15:51To believe that this is not trustworthy would be to believe that Mr. Hendershot, before he died, was somehow attempting
15:59to set up Mrs. Hendershot for this eventual murder.
16:03That simply is just not believable.
16:05The defense shot back, saying that a frame job wasn't the only reason Matt would lie about Rita's abuse.
16:11The state argued that he had no reason to text regarding the error incident other than try to do an
16:20eventual setup for murder.
16:22If you look at the record in this case, he was trying to get her out of the house.
16:25Trying to turn friends and family against her would make it easier to get him out of the house, so
16:29that's not the only explanation for that.
16:31My client did not get a fair trial.
16:32It's improper.
16:33It's against West Virginia law.
16:35So, at the very least, we would ask for a remand for a new trial where the lower court does
16:39not admit that evidence in front of a jury.
16:41Thank you, counsel.
16:42Despite this effort from the defense, on June 2nd, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld Rita's conviction.
16:48Court records state that Rita's acts of domestic violence were intertwined with the lethal outcome of her abusive relationship.
16:55Therefore, they determined that the text message evidence was properly admitted and relevant to the case.
17:00So, Rita continues to serve her sentence in the Lakin Correctional Center in West Columbia, West Virginia.
17:07Her next parole eligibility hearing is in 2033.
17:10If she is denied parole, her projected release date is in the year 2046, as long as she stays on
17:17her best behavior.
17:18Based on her most recent mugshot, it appears that Rita is enjoying her time behind bars.
17:24To this day, Matt's family still struggles to understand why he was taken from them so soon.
17:29In a 2024 interview with Matt's mother, Tammy Reese, she said that when Matt loved someone, he loved them with
17:35his entire heart and soul.
17:37Not just his romantic relationships either.
17:39The reason he initially moved in with his grandma Matilda was because she had just lost her husband, and Matt
17:45wanted to make sure that she was taken care of.
17:47Sadly, Rita knew how caring Matt really was and took advantage of this.
17:52She weaseled her way back into his home, abused him, and when Matt told her to leave, she killed him.
17:59Thankfully, Matt's family was able to get some sort of justice.
18:02But to this day, Rita stands behind her story that this was all a terrible accident.
18:12Merry Christmas!
18:14Yep.
18:16And what do we have here?
18:18Here!
18:21Trash dog and basketball for your bedroom.
18:24That is awesome.
18:26Thanks, John.
18:27That is awesome.
18:28I found this random person in the pool.
18:33There it is.
18:50We're grateful.
18:51Beautiful.
19:01Perfect.
19:01That is awesome.
Komentar