Speaker A
Bada bing, bada boom. In Berlin, there is a very fancy department store, and I'm going to butcher the name, and I'm never going to be able to face a German person with dignity, so I'm just going to call it
Rotten Mango covers the Berlin department store heist, where DNA from identical twins couldn't identify the guilty brother, then the Cart twins case in Ohio, a murder where identical twin suspects mak
Key Takeaways
- Identical twins share nearly identical DNA, making forensic attribution between them extremely difficult with standard testing.
- Advanced whole-genome sequencing can detect subtle differences but is expensive, slow, and often challenged in court.
- DNA evidence alone can fail to convict either twin, so corroborating evidence is critical.
- Both the Berlin heist and the Cart case show how twin DNA can create reasonable doubt and stall justice.
What the video covers
- Opens with a $6.5 million jewelry and watch heist at a Berlin department store, where three masked men entered via the skylight.
- A single glove left at the scene yielded DNA linking to two 27-year-old identical twin brothers with criminal records for theft and fraud.
- Prosecutors could not determine which twin, or whether both, were involved, so both were released before trial.
- The episode explains that identical twins share nearly identical DNA, differing by only about eight typos across the 3 billion base genome.
- Standard forensic DNA tests scan about 20 markers and cannot distinguish identical twins; full genome sequencing is costly and rarely admissible.
- The episode transitions to the Cart twins case in Ohio: a woman was raped and murdered in her bed, and DNA traced to 13-year-old identical twins Hunter and Levi Cart.
- Both twins' DNA matched the scene, so investigators had to rely on other evidence such as scratches, body cam footage, and statements.
- Levi's scratches and inconsistent explanations, including the family cat Marshmallow, draw scrutiny from investigators.
- A notebook with threatening messages naming Levi, and text messages about the family, are discussed as further evidence.
- The host frames the case around the question of which twin is guilty and how investigators can tell them apart.
Chapters
- 00:00Berlin Department Store Heist
- 05:33Twin DNA and Forensic Limits
- 11:30Identical Twin Genetics Explained
- 15:30Introduction to the Cart Twins Case
- 28:00Neighborhood Response and Initial Investigation
- 44:00Scratches, Statements, and Inconsistencies
- 68:00Notebook Evidence and Text Messages
- 81:40Family Dynamics and Final Analysis
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Berlin's Barney, Berlin's Sachs. You walk in, and most [music] things are going to be in the cases, the locked glass cabinets. The lighting is always pristine, so everything looks so sparkly in there. It's like the trademark of every expensive jewelry store or
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department store. The lighting is so good. You can make a plastic candy wrapper look like some naturally mined yellow diamond just sparkling in the light. That's this type of department store. And they don't just carry jewelry. They have very expensive
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watches. The ones where they say, "Oh, sorry. That's only for exhibition." And then you have to buy like 10 other things before they let you buy the one watch that you wanted in the first place. There's a lot of money sitting in
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those cases. So much so that the store employs motion detectors. They have an extensive security system for the entire place, which is the premise of every good heist movie, every good heist TV show. The plan is simple. Get in, grab
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the best stuff, get out, and don't get caught. Plot detail that must be included is the doors are all censored, impenetrable. However, there will be a skylight. You can just unscrew the nails, remove the skylight, throw in a
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rope, slide down it just like the three masked men in Berlin will slide down the rope to partake in a shop after midnight special where they get the entire store to themselves. It sounds like a movie.
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This is very much real life. They take $6.5 million worth of fine jewelry and watches. Instead of leaving behind a credit card to finance their very rush transaction, if you will, or their Afterpay details, [music] they leave behind a singular glove. And inside that
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glove is a singular bead of sweat. DNA evidence. Authorities run the DNA. They get a hit. It's too easy. Of course, it is. Right. It links back to someone with a criminal record for theft and fraud.
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Times two. What do you mean times two? Two counts of fraud. Two counts of theft. What do you mean? No. The DNA links back to two people with criminal records for theft and fraud. [music] So, what did they just change gloves in
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between and they both sweat into it? How's that possible? It's DNA. Two people don't have the same DNA. Unless you're an identical twin.
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Two 27year-old brothers, H and A, are arrested based off of the fact that the DNA in the glove links back to them. So, here's what we know. Three mass men, one glove with DNA belonging to one of the
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brothers. Only one of the twins could be involved or both of the twins could be involved. Neither of them are willing to talk or cooperate, which means it really could be either or. [music] And that's all the evidence they have. Nothing
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else. This is a real heist. Yeah. In Berlin. So like what do you do?
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You How do we know it's three people? They saw three mass men on the camera.
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Yeah. But only DNA for one person was left behind. And they don't know which twin. They don't know if both the twins are involved. if maybe the two twins are two of the three people or if only one
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of the brothers was involved. So what do you do? Do you throw both in jail just in case? You can't.
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Wait, so DNA cannot identify which twin? No never. You can now, but it takes sometimes a million dollars.
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Wow. And there's only a handful of companies in the world that can handle that. Both brothers, the twins, even though at least one of them was most likely involved in the heist, both of them have to be released because prosecutors
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cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt which twin or both were involved in this case. Within the week, both twins are released before the case can even go to trial. And the court writes in a statement, "From the evidence we have,
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we can deduce that at least one of the brothers took part in the crime, but it has not been possible to determine which one." [music] And the diamond heist in Berlin goes unsolved. Identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg. So
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that splits into two embryos. So they essentially share the same nuclear DNA. And while it's not exactly the same, it might as well be. Okay. A normal DNA test done in the event of a crime usually scans about 20 fixed markers.
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Mhm. Because that's how different everyone's DNA is. And that still takes multiple days. 20 spots in the DNA and compare.
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If you're trying to find the difference between identical twins, because they do have differences, you would have to sequence the entire 3 billion base genome at ultra high depth. One sequencing expert describes it like this. Imagine the human genome consists
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of a 3 billion letter code. If the body is growing or an embryo is developing, then all three billion letters have to be copied. But during the copying process in the body, there are typos happening. Identical twins have the same
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DNA except sometimes [music] maybe about eight typos or a few cells will split and evolve differently here and there. But again, it's on average about eight differences across the whole 3 billion genome.
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So on paper, 3 billion should be identical except the eight typos. Yes, there's only a handful of labs that are capable of running this level of a test. And even if it's done, it costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of
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dollars, maybe up to the 7 figure mark. And a lot of the time, it can't even be really used in court because of how novel it is. It's very easy for defense attorneys to get it thrown out or for
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them to confuse the jury with it. Is it going to get easier in the future?
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Probably. Is it going to get cheaper in the future? Probably. But right now, is it a problem? I think so. Especially when in the United States you have a case in Ohio of a woman who lives alone getting essayed and murdered in her own
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room in her own bed. And the DNA left at the scene [music] it traces back to a set of identical twins. Two 13-year-old boys are the main suspects of a rape and murder. But which twin is the guilty
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one? And how are investigators going to figure out which one is the killer? This is the case of the cart twins.
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We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the Joyful Heart Foundation who are working to transform society's response to SADVCA and support Survivors Healing with resources like education, advocacy, and policy change.
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This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mingo's team of dedicated researchers.
Speaker A
We'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenopodcast.com.
Speaker A
There is a brief mention of suspected essay and some quotes or statements may have been condensed for brevity. Let's get into it. Becca and Kyle are no longer together, which is probably for the best. Okay. By all accounts, it
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appears the two are much healthier when they're focused on co-parenting their [music] twin sons. You've got Hunter Cart, who is 2 minutes older than Levi Cart. They're identical twins, but they look kind of more like fraternal twins than anything, which is just an
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observation. It's not like all identical twins have to dress the same or look the same, but it's just an observation.
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Hunter and Levi clearly have their own styles, their own personalities, their own interests. They're two completely different people. Hunter has longer hair, almost down to his shoulders. And he seems, at least from the initial body cam footage, he seems to have a much
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more softer demeanor. Just based off of that, he seems like the type of student who would sit next to you if you're alone during lunch period. Meanwhile, Levi, who often goes by Lewis these days, has more of the skater kid look.
Speaker A
He looks a little bit scrawnier. He does have long hair, but not in the way that Hunter does. It looks like a skater kid.
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Why does Levi go by Lewis? He just decided he wanted to go by Lewis one day. So, everyone's been calling him Lewis. So, if you hear Lewis and Levi interchangeably in the body cam footage, it's because they're talking about Levi,
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but it's not legally changed, right? No, no, not at all. Now, he's got long hair, sharper jawline. He also appears to have a soft, quiet demeanor, but in a different way from Hunter. It He seems like the type that maybe he wouldn't sit
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next to you if you're sitting alone in the lunchroom because he too is probably sitting alone is the energy that you get. Could I be wrong? Probably. Okay, we don't know that much about them yet other than a match to their DNA was
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found in a woman's bed, Denise's bed, where she was killed. But Becca and Kyle, the cart twins parents, they don't know that. Becca and Kyle are just concerned about how this ongoing police investigation in their neighborhood is going to impact their twin sons. Kyle
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texts Becca, "I was telling Levi not to assume the worst, but I knew it was a bad sign when there's just that many cops with no lights on all standing around. usually means they found a body and they're holding the site down until
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forensics and investigators arrive. Was she killed at the house? They're talking about one of the neighbors on the street who was just killed in her house. And as much as the parents want to try and shield the teenage twins away from
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everything going on on the street, it's very hard to do that when you live what 50 ft away and the police are knocking at your door trying to get answers.
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They're knocking on everyone's door. The police investigation into what happened to 64year-old Denise has been both very straightforward and complicated all at the same time. Denise's brother, Daryl, is the one that finds Denise. It's Sunday morning. They had lunch plans.
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She's not picking up. 11:11 a.m. Daryl is messaging her. Are you skipping lunch? Daryl doesn't know it yet, but she's already gone. Within the hour, he comes to her house. He walks up to the front door and he goes to knock on the
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door and it just gets pushed open when he knocks. The front door is unlocked.
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He walks inside and he sees his sister inside laying on her bed. Her pajamas are ripped exposing her chest. Her pajama pants are ripped. She has blood in between her legs. The blankets are covering her face. And on top of the
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blanket, there's like a porcelain figurine. Like you know those collectibles that you see at those antique shops that have almost like a vintage feel to it, but it's an angel figurine and it's placed on top of the blanket on top of her head. So her face
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is covered with this blanket and there's this angel figurine on top of the blanket and Denise is not moving. The crime scene is just really odd. Even when the police are walking in for the first time with their body cameras on,
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they're really confused by the scene because yes, of course, the angel figurine is confusing. But there's also other things like they asked if maybe the brother Daryl had covered her up because he didn't want the police to see
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her like this, but they're like, "No, dispatch said he was he found her like this." There's also a bunch of cleaning chemicals, like bottles of cleaning chemicals and Pepto-Bismol. They noticed like this pink liquid all over her and
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it's just someone poured Pepto-Bismol on her or maybe she drank it. They're contemplating. The investigators are like, "Well, maybe she drank it. We don't know." Pepto-Bismol is for um acid reflex typically. So, you've got bottles of cleaning solutions.
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Pepto-Bismol, cleaning chemicals dumped on her body. And just what? Like, are they trying to get rid of biological evidence? There's also blood splatter on the walls. The blood leads all the way out of her bedroom. On the floor,
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there's a trail of blood to the back door. And then from the back door to the very back gate of the backyard fence, there's blood there, too. Whoever did this though didn't leave any fingerprints. So, they're wearing gloves. Police start scouting the
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neighborhood. They're going to door to door. They're asking residents, "Can you take your shirt off because they found blood, hair, and DNA under Denise's nails?" And they're like, "We just want to see if you have some scratch marks."
Speaker A
So, you just see body cam of neighbors taking their shirt offs and showing them getting DNA swabbed. And of course, while investigators are checking for scratch marks or anything suspicious, residents are also sharing what they think happened. Okay. One neighbor
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reports it might be Dave. Dave, you know. Okay, so it's around midnight. She'd been sitting out on her porch, one of the neighbors. She's with a friend.
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And they're chitchatting. And they see this balding white man with blonde hair, medium build, Dave. Okay. His name is Dave. And he's drunk. He's drunk and walking around the neighborhood near Denise's property. That was Saturday night.
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Is he a neighbor? Yeah, he lives in the neighborhood. They go investigate Dave. They don't think it's Dave. One neighbor asked the officers, "You guys think it's random?" The officer asks him what he's heard.
Speaker A
Well, from what I heard, you know, a guy uh down in that new house over there, a couple others. I was out here having my cigarette and I hear uh I think the brother did it and they're going to
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arrest him in a couple days, like 3 days. I'm like, "What?" So, they think the brother did it. Any reason why you would think that?
Speaker A
The brother of the victim? Yeah, Daryl. I don't know. That's just the speculation right now. So, he's just saying he's smoking a cigarette. He overheard neighbor saying the brother did it. The police do get sidetracked into a mini investigation into Daryl,
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the brother. He's the one that called 911. He's the one that found his sister's body. He's relatively calm on the 911 call, but not in a particularly suspicious way.
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She's got her head covered with a pillow, her legs exposed, and she's been stripped naked, and it might be some blood.
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To me, it just sounds like he's trying to relay information as quickly as possible. But something that's very interesting to officers is that when the police originally walked in, they don't rule out the possibility of self-exit.
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The Pepto-Bismol, the cleaning supplies, they find some prescription medication in her house. I mean, it could be possible that she self-exited trying to ingest these chemicals. The blood could have been hers because she could have been throwing up blood from the
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chemicals. They don't know yet. The investigators, they have no clue. There's a bit of blood splatter, but again, maybe it's hers. Furthermore, one of the first things Daryl tells the officers is that he believes his sister was essayed. How can he be so sure? They
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didn't think that when they first walked in. Also, Daryl never performed any sort of life-saving measure to try and save his sister. He says he walked in and quote, "Well, she was laying on the bed with her legs spread and it looked like
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there was blood and you know on her head and stuff on top looked like someone tried to smother her and she looked like they ripped her thing open." And I yelled at her and I didn't see no movement from her whatsoever. I just
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turned around and I walked out and I'm like, I I I can't. He doesn't try CPR. He doesn't try to save her. Not that I think it would have made a difference, but for those reasons, the police do investigate
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Daryl. And it doesn't help that when they reach Daryl's home, it's a bit of a hoarder situation. And he explains to the officers almost in an embarrassed way that his mom had recently passed and his sister had passed, so his home had
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gotten a little worse from the stress. They check his body for scratches and they check his DNA and he is very quickly ruled out as a suspect, but it doesn't stop the neighbors from whispering on their porches and pointing
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their fingers. One neighbor particularly does not care who did it. They just want the police to make sure they get vengeance. And they quote say, "Find that fool and he needs to die." Find that fool and he needs to die.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um the police are like this is a intense neighborhood. They go to the next store and this time they're right across the street from Denise's residence. So, they've actually knocked on this door prior, but nobody was home. So, they're
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coming back around after they've done their little, you know, and a woman with bright pink hair opens the door. Becca, she's the mother of twin boys, Hunter and Levi Cart. She talks with the investigators outside and she mentions
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the day that they found Denise was actually like a really busy day. So, it's been like a week since that. and she's just saying, "Oh my god, like that day was really intense for us." She explains that when all the ambulances
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had come onto the street Sunday morning, they weren't even home. Actually, Sunday morning at like 6:00 a.m. we had to run to the ER because my son, the cat, I guess, was sleeping on his face and they startled each other in the dark and it
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scratched him. And so we were worried that it could be bad or infected. It wasn't a big deal, but it was just like traumatizing. And I was like, "Everybody get in the car." Cat scratches. Okay, that's very interesting.
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So, the the police immediately alarms going off, right? Cat scratches in the middle of the night. The investigators want to talk to Hunter and Levi Cart just to just ask them if they've seen anything weird or strange outside. And Becca is a bit
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hesitant. She's just worried about how the news is going to be delivered to them. She doesn't she doesn't want them super traumatized. They're only 13. She was thinking about ways to break the news to them, but they seemed really
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stressed out this week and just there's been a lot going on in the house. She mentions multiple times to investigators she would rather not use the M word murder if we could.
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We both have kids and we both know. Okay. Like the M word is scary.
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We're not going to give them any details like that. Especially if you don't want to.
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Do they have to talk to you? Is that like a No, we just figured this would be cooperative. I just No, not at all.
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You know, she's worried about how it's going to impact them. They're just in the seventh grade. They've been homeschooled, but also they're we're about to move out of state, so there's just a lot going on. The investigators quickly find out that the twins, they
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are 13 and they are very young, but they both do like watching true crime documentaries, but that doesn't make them somehow better candidates to finding out that a particularly cruel and random crime just took place across the street. So, they decide that they're
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going to be a little sensitive with it. The twins, maybe it's shock or just their outwardly reactions, they take it pretty well. I mean, I guess as well as you would hope two 13-year-olds take it.
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Levi Cart is just listening to the news of what happened to Denise, their neighbor. He nods his head up and down.
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He's got his arms crossed. He's more in shock and how it relates to him. He's [music] like, you know, this random day we had to wake up trying to do photos and then it's this.
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What does that mean? Do photos. Yeah. What does that mean? Right. So, the Cart family explains, okay, so we're actually like a week or two of moving out of state to Long Beach, California.
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And so we actually had an appointment that day, Sunday, for the real estate agent to come and take photos of the house so that we could put it up on the market. So we've been really busy like all weekend trying to make the house
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super clean and just get ready for the move. And that's the day that Denise has found. So it it was chaotic. Meanwhile, Hunter has more true crime investigative approach. Hunter responds, "I don't know how many case details you can put out,
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but like what do you guys suspect or what do you guys know about what happened?" He's asking questions. The investigators aren't about to debrief a 13-year-old kid about their investigation. They just respond, "Well, I can tell you this. It shouldn't have
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happened, and we need to figure out why it happened so that hopefully we can keep it from happening again because we hate to miss on some evidence and if you've watched enough TV, you know, we don't want to be those cops that forgot
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to do this or look into that." Hunter's like, "I've watched plenty TV." because we'd hate to miss some evidence. And if you've watched any TV, we don't want to be those cops that forgot to do this or look into that.
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We have watched plenty. You know what I mean? They love watching the true crimes.
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Becca mentions, you know, like they're both really into true crime. And Levi shakes his head. No. But Hunter interjects. Me and my brother, especially my brother, know a lot. I would say definitely my brother knows a lot about just the police in general.
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Me and my brother, especially my brother know a lot. Definitely. My brother knows a lot about um just the police in general. Um he wants to go into the Marines.
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Levi just looks over at Hunter, kind of looking at him like, "What do you say?
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What What do you say?" And their mother informs the investigators. Levi wants to go into the Marines when he gets older.
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Oh, nice. Nice. Well, recruitment is always here, so the police are just going along with it.
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But they are very suspicious. Yes, because of the cat scratches. I do not believe there's in any world where Becca has any sort of inkling or belief that one of her twins has anything to do with what happened to Denise across the
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street. So my next question is completely unrelated and hypothetical for parents out there. If you have more than one kid and you get a call from jail, does your brain immediately jump to one kid over the other where it's
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like, "Oh, it's probably my second kid because they're a little bit more wild or it's probably my first kid because they've had runins with the law before." Like, do you immediately think of one child before you hear the voice on the
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phone? When the investigators talked to the cart twins, it's been about a week since Denise's murder. And the investigators, they start asking him about the past weekend, the weekend that Denise is killed. What were you doing?
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Do you remember anything? Investigators asked the twins separately. So, they're still in the cart house. They haven't gone to the police station or anything.
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They're just standing in the living room. And Hunter is like, "Well, that weekend was a blur because um so Hunter was really sick." Hunter is explaining like, "I was throwing up for a few days straight. I couldn't even leave the
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bathroom." And Levi had to go to the ER because the cat scratched his face pretty badly.
Speaker A
Interesting. And he says, "Yeah, that whole weekend was a blur." They asked Levi the same question. And this is again separately. And he more or less the same thing. And he says, "That weekend was a blur." That whole day was just kind of a blur
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for everybody. I don't know. A lot of it's a blur. It's an interesting word choice. like not one that I would often use to describe my weekends, but like maybe that's just me. The investigators are a little puzzled by it. I think they get
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the twins together. Now they're both sitting on the living room couch while the investigators are telling them about what happened across the street. And maybe in an attempt to reassure the investigators they can handle this type of tense
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information, Hunter mentions that the two of them are much more mature than the other kids their age, especially Levi.
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Me and Louis have both agreed that him [clears throat] especially is a lot more mature than most kids our age, which I would think normally seems like a compliment, but Levi looks a little confused where this is all coming from,
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why Hunter keeps yapping. Hunter even brings up Levi's injuries. He has other scars on his back from another surgery that he did, and now he has the new one on his nose from the cat to add to it.
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And Hunter asks Levi in front of the officers, "How does it feel to have three scars?" And Levi is just staring at his twin brother dead pan in the face for a long time, not really answering.
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Eventually, the investigators want to leave, but not before collecting both of the twins DNA cheek swabs for DNA testing. And it comes back a match for both. But that doesn't mean that they're both guilty. But because they're identical twins, they share the same STR
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markers, like I said, which means the police now need to find out if one or both of the twins are guilty. So when it came back a match, do we see how they reacted to that or we don't have that
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information. We're going to see. Oh, we do. Okay. Yeah. So the investigators, they go back to the house, but they don't immediately say any of this. Their whole objective is to get the twins and Becca to the police station where they can separate
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the twins, record their reactions, and start interrogating them. Okay. So they've got like a very tricky balancing game that they have to do of trying to get them there without officially detaining them because they can't. So it's this weird
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back and forth of like let's it's just you have to Okay, so the DNA could point to both the twins. You can't just arrest both preemptively because it's one or the other. All of this is very tricky and it's even trickier because they're
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both minors. So they come up with this profoundly dumb plan. the investigators. We're just going to go to the house and see if they'll come back to the police station. I don't even think they had a plan. They go back to the heart house
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and the family, Becca, Hunter, and Levi, are walking back in with a bag of canes, raising canes, and their drinks. They're just about to sit and eat when the police ask them, "Why don't you guys come to the police station? Like, do you
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mind coming with me to talk about what happened across the street?" And Becca's like, "Sure." But then as she's getting ready to go, Becca's like, "Wait, wait.
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Why do we have to go to the police station? like last time you guys just came to the house and you were talking to us like why do we have to go to the police station and she even asked do we
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need to be getting lawyers or something? I'm feeling nervous about this. You're welcome to call an attorney.
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Do we need to be getting lawyers or something? I'm feeling what's nervous about this. I don't You're welcome to call an attorney.
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One of the twins, Levi, seemingly agrees with his mom and he's asking also, do we have to go? Like is this a right now thing or is it like a we would like you?
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You don't have to do anything. I suppose like do we have to go? Is this like a right now thing or We would like to.
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It would make Yeah, you don't have to do anything. I suppose the whole energy is so tense in the house. [music] You don't have to go, but also like I'm just going to stand here as a police officer and not leave. So now it feels
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like you kind of have to go, doesn't it? Becca points out, "Okay, I don't know.
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Oh, I I feel uncomfortable. And even in my dumbest days, [music] I would not think this is a smart plan for the cops. But they say, "How about we get out of here and we kind of explain what's going on?"
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I don't know. I feel uncomfortable. I'm How about we we get there, we can explain kind of what's going on, give you some more info. You can always, you know. [music] Okay.
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So, they're like, "Let's get out of the house so I can explain what's going on.
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Can you explain what's going on before we head out of here? Do you mind if we do that outside?" The investigators get the entire family onto the front lawn and they're all awkwardly standing there still holding their raising canes food
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and their drinks. Like Hunter is holding two red like soda cups and they're just outside and it's weird and it's confusing and the officer Yeah. The officer tells them, "Well, let's go to the police station so we don't have to
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like stand in the rain and talk about it." So you went from inside the house and say, "Let's go outside and talk about it. Now it's raining outside. It's drizzling." And then he's like, "Well, why stand out in the rain when we can go
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to the police station?" So, they were playing by the air. No plan. No plan.
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Just let me just move them one inch at a time. Yes. Exactly. I mean, again, I'm not saying the police aren't doing their jobs, but was this really the best that they could come up with? It's just a
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little odd. He says that he has some pictures he wants to show them and talk to them about certain things. Becca's like, "Are we under suspicion or something? We just want to talk to you.
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I think you guys could help us clear a lot of things up around here." [music] Eventually, Becca agrees. She gets placed in one car, the twins in the back of another squad car. And of course, the cameras are rolling. Perhaps the
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authorities were hoping for some kind of Isabelle Valdez Lois Libert situation where they just start yapping in the cop car about how they committed a crime.
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But they do not get that. But the energy with the twins is weird. They're in the back of the police car still holding their food and Hunter says, "I mean, it's probably more questions." So, I mean, there's nothing we can't talk
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about. Levi's like, "Yeah, I don't know what's going on." Neither do I. Levi mentions this is all very very unexpected. I mean, but there's nothing that we cannot talk about.
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Yeah, I don't know what's going on. Neither do I. It's all very, very unexpected.
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His voice doesn't sound surprised though, or like he was not expecting it. It just sounds like just weird. Hunter has a slightly more normal response and he mentions my anxiety levels are through the roof. Yeah, I don't know why
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there's so many police vehicles either. Yeah, that's definitely what scared me seeing all those cops immediately pull up. Like one person's there, you know, didn't see that other cop pulled up, right? Yeah. I was just like, what's the
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reason for that? I don't know. Maybe it's an intimidation tactic, I guess, but why would they need to intimidate us, right? I don't know why there's so many like police vehicles either.
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Yeah, that's definitely what scared me. Seeing all the cops immediately pull up. Like one person's there, didn't see that other cop got pull up and then I was just like, [clears throat] why are they What's the reason?
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I don't know. Maybe it's an intimidation tactic, I guess. But what I don't know why they try intimidate us intimidate us, right?
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Levi saying that. Yeah. It's just a weird interaction because I feel like either you're not talking about the case or maybe you're like, "God, I was hungry and I just wanted to eat. Like, what's wrong with the cops or you're just quiet or you're
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talking about something else?" Mhm. When they get to the police station, the twins are separated from Becca. They come in through a completely separate entrance, which seems to be a bold and deliberate choice by the investigators, which I think is kind of questionable.
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Becca can sense what they're doing, and she does not like it one bit. So, she was hesitant at the house. She was a little bit agreeable on the front lawn, but still hesitant. Once she gets to the police station, they bring her into a
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separate room and she's like, "Oh, no." Okay, they're trying to distract her. They keep trying to get her to eat her raising canes. And she's like, "I don't want food. I want to get us our lawyer because she's like, I did not
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think that I was going to come to this police station and not see my kids. I'm supposed to be with my kids. They're 13 years old. Why are you talking to my kids without me?
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I don't want food. I want to go ahead get also our lawyer and have my children stop being questioned without a lawyer present immediately.
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What are they telling her exactly? She's like, oh, we just want to talk to you guys. We just want to talk to everyone.
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And she's like, where are my kids? Yeah. She's like, well, you can't talk to them without me there because I'm their mother and they're minors.
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Yeah. She's like, I want to get us our lawyer and have my children stop being questioned without the lawyer being present immediately. So, let's make that happen. I think she is rightfully protecting her underage sons. Like none of this is
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out of the norm. Like this is actually what a good mom should do. Now the police, however, they try to stall and their stalling methods are beyond me.
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One of the officers compliments Becca's slippers saying, "They look so comfy. Where'd you buy them?" And Becca's like, "Yeah, they are comfy." And she's like, "Really? I know you're being friendly, but I need to know that my children are
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not being questioned and that they have a lawyer. You didn't let us know that we were being detained.
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Those are so comfy. They are comfy. Amazon. Not. Uh, yeah. Are they Amazon? Yeah.
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I find the best things on Amazon. People are so against it. Really? I know you're being friendly. I need to know that my children are not being questioned and that they have a lawyer because this is You're not being detained. You're free
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to go. You didn't let us know that you were detaining my children. They're free to leave.
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right now. They're allowed to leave right now. Let's go right now. Right now. You said they're allowed to leave.
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Yes or no? You cannot take them. You didn't let us know that we were being detained.
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You're not being detained. You're free to go. No, you didn't let us know that you were detaining my children.
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They're free to leave. You did not. Right now. They're allowed to leave right now.
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Let's go right now. Right now. You said they're allowed to leave. Yes or no? You cannot take them.
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Okay. I I don't know what the police are saying at this point. They also take Becca's phone so she can't even contact her lawyer, which all of this really the investigators are working hard to create a migraine inducing headache for
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prosecutors later. Like the DA's office is not going to like any of this. And technically, I do believe in Ohio there's no absolute rule requiring a parent or lawyer to be present before police question a minor. But the way
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that they're handling this, I would imagine could invite some legal murkiness to say the least. They have Becca in that one room of the police station. Hunter and Levi are separated in different rooms and they are now going to start questioning the boys
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separately simultaneously to get their stories. Levi is obviously going to be the main focus mainly because of his curiously timed cat scratches on his face.
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mango. And Levi is sitting there in this small interview room. He has like that slouched, relaxed body language of a 13-year-old, even though this is a very, very serious day for him. He's wearing a hoodie and he somehow looks like he just
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woke up. He has his raising canes styrofoam container in front of him, a red soda cup with a straw in.
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So they're just holding this bag and not eating at all the whole time. Yeah. So they separate like Levi is the one holding the bag. So they're getting him to open check which one is his because some people got the cola, some
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people got the fries. They bring the styrofoam containers to the other two. So everyone has their food in front of them. And the investigators keep encouraging all three of them, eat, eat.
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And they're just like, why am I here? Why am I not eating at home? Is any of them eating?
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Levi is eating a little bit in the beginning, but yeah, they all stop cuz they're like, I don't know. I also think that they just start eating because the police keep telling them to eat, but Becca is not eating. She's like,
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where the are my kids? Levi says in the interview that there's a bit of context to the whole thing with the cat scratches. Okay, so the family is moving to Long Beach, California in about a week, which means they're
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packing, they're boxing everything up, right? quote, "You know, cats get weird if you know that when you're trying to move and we had just moved his playset so that you know he was he probably thought like, oh, something's happening." The
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officers want to know more about the cat incident and Levi explains, "Well, okay, so the cat Marshmallow sleeps with my mom. Sometimes my brother, not really with me, so he woke up, you know, and Marshmallow is laying on Levi's chest
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and I woke up and I was like, "What's going on?" on. I was freaked out because I like felt something on me and I had had sleep paralysis before. So, I was kind of like freaky. And then I tried to
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touch him and he got obviously scared. He was like, "What's going on?" Probably. So, he started scratching at me. Started scratching my face and he Well, he first started scratching at my arms because um I was like trying to get
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him off of me because I didn't know what was going on. So, like he scratched my face. You couldn't really see it. You can't see it anymore, but yeah, he like scratched my face here. And then uh he
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scratched me with his biggest claw, which we've been knowing we needed to cut for a while now, for a long time.
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Like he scratched me on the nose like right here really really hard because we both like extremely spooked each other.
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Just like a lot of scratching going on. But now that he thinks about it, Levi questions maybe the cat heard something outside cuz that was the night that Denise was killed across the street. So like maybe the cat was like extra
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spooked cuz animals can sense stuff. Like that's kind of what he's hinting at. What does the scratch look like on his face though? Now it he had stitches. He had five stitches on his nose in the hospital. It's been about a week since
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then and the scratch has healed pretty well. But he's saying there were other scratches and they seem to be primarily gone. Like it seems mostly gone.
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Okay. So the face like doesn't look very it's like a like a scar on the nose, but it's not wow. Oh my gosh, you got messed up by the cat. It's just like a nose now. Maybe even he woke up or he was up
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and he got freaked out because of he heard a sound. Uh that none of us did and then he went and got on me. I mean he sleeps with my mom sometimes or my brother, not really with me,
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right? Um so yeah, he just like he woke me up. Felt like he was like right here. Well, you the gist. Um, so I was like, you know, I woke up and I was like, what's going on? I was freaked out because I
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felt something on me. Uh, and I I have had sleep paralysis before. Uh, so it was kind of freaky.
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Uh, and then I like tried to touch him and he like he got obviously scared. He was like, "What's going on?" Probably.
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Uh, so he started scratching at me. Uh, he started scratching my face and he well first he started scratching like my arms cuz I was like trying to like get him off of me cuz I didn't know what was
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going on. Um, so he like scratched my face. You can't couldn't really see it. You can't see it anymore. But yeah, he like scratched my face. Uh, you can see this here. And then he scr I think the his
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biggest claw which [music] we've been knowing we needed to cut them for a while, a long time. Uh he like scratched me on my nose like right here really really [music] hard because we both extremely spooked each other.
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And so maybe Marshmallow heard what was going on across the street, got freaked out, and scratched Levi. They're like, "That's a pretty deep cut for a cat named Marshmallow." I mean, to be fair though, Levi's mom does explain that she
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felt really bad about her son getting scratched by Marshmallow because they all knew that they had to cut Marshmallow's nails for a while, but they hadn't gotten around to it. And investigators, they need to make sure that they're not so distracted by Levi's
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cat scratches that they miss other details that might be important, like the fact that Levi has a twin brother, Hunter, whose DNA was also technically found at the scene because they share the same DNA. Levi is an overexplainer.
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He likes to go ind depth explaining everything that's happened to him with the cat. But Hunter in his own way is also a talker. He's sitting in the interview room with the two officers.
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He's eating his raising canes just telling the police about his life story. He's talking about how they're about to turn 14 next month. And he mentions when it was mom's birthday, me and Levi were playfighting and I pushed him and he
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ended up breaking his hip. Okay, interesting. At some point, he realizes that the questions are starting to feel a bit more serious and he asks, "Can I stop eating?" because they keep telling him to eat. So, I feel like he was he
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felt obligated to eat and he's like, "Can I just stop eating, please?" Yeah. He doesn't feel comfortable. He also reiterates that he doesn't feel pressured to answer any questions. And he says, "I mean, of course, I feel a
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little pressure, but I don't feel like I have to sign these papers. I just know more suspicion is put on me if I don't answer any questions." Just so you know, I don't feel pressured doing this. I feel a little pressured.
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Uh but I don't feel like I have to sign those. Okay. I just know it's more suspicion is put on me if I don't answer any questions. So, he immediately starts the interview saying, "Can I say something? I want I
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want to say I want to let you guys know. I know this is more so about me, but just letting you know my brother um every time I talk about it with him because I somewhat have a I wouldn't say
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morbid curiosity, but I went online and looked up the news for it after you guys came in." So, they're like, "Oh, interesting. You looked on Google what happened across the street?" You know, which in his defense, wouldn't everybody
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look on Google, right? But it's important exactly what he looked up. It's one thing to Google murder on Blank Street. It's another thing to Google, how do police find DNA at the scene?
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Composite sketch of killer on Blank Street. Right? So, the investigators ask him, can you show me what you looked up?
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Do you have your phone on you? No, I don't have my phone on me. And even if I did, literally the day a few hours after they came in, um, or actually, I don't remember if it was the day before or
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what, but my charger broke in my phone and it stopped working. And then we were able to get the piece of the charger that was broken in out. And now it's charging fine, but the battery is basically fried. So unless I have it
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plugged in 24/7, it's going to turn off. And if I try to enter my passcode or turn on the lock screen or anything like that, it's going to turn off. How'd that happen? I'm not sure. Um, for a while my
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phone has had a crack in it because I used to have some anger issues. Um, for a while now my phone has had a crack in it because I used to have some anger issues. Um, honestly, it this kind of sucks cuz it really
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seems like obviously uh I looked into it, I thought about it, my mom thought about it, and Louis thought about it.
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That day he got scratches on his face because of that day. He had to go to the hospital and then he decided to go to dad's house. So then he wasn't at the in the neighborhood. It all seemed like a
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very wide coincidence, you know, cuz of course his cat was face his [music] fat his face was scratched by a cat. So, he's almost like working through his thoughts out loud, which is like the last thing you want to do in front of
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the police, but he's like, "No, my phone broke." And but like I also know that now that makes everything suspicious because I thought about it. Clearly, my mom was thinking about it. Levi was thinking about it. And then I know that
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like I don't think my brother would do it, but like I know that he has the scratches on his face which are kind of weird. He also mentions that his brother Levi calls himself a narcissist, but Hunter is like but I I don't really ever
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think so. But it's interesting that Hunter mentions that he calls himself a narcissist. not necessar there's a lot of words I don't know and stuff but he I don't think he could do something like that but at the
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same time there's so much evidence stacked up upon him so there's also evidence that's stacked stacked up against him that's so when they talk about Hunter's phone he says the phone is cracked if you open the case it's like cracked because the
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glass is cracked because like I said I threw it when I had some anger issues before I used to get mad about games, like losing games, and then I would just throw stuff because I was just getting like really really stressed out. He says
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that because of his anger issues, he also broke his computer. Okay, interesting. The police are like, "Well, what were you doing Sunday morning? Was he also recovering from some scratches?
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Did the cat attack everybody?" They ask him about the morning that Denise's body was found, the same morning that Levi was in the ER for getting stitches for the cat scratches. and Hunter says, "So, I went to bed and then I woke up at like
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8:30, 8:50, I don't know, and my mom and Levi were gone and I kind of freaked out for a second and I checked my phone because this was before my phone broke and she was like, "Levi got the cat
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scratched, so I had to go." So, we had to go to the hospital and then I think they I think I just sat for a while before they got home and then my mom got home and then that morning wait. Yeah.
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No. So, we went to bed. I woke up and got those text messages and then I think I waited a while because I don't remember if it was just mom or it was mom and Louis that came back
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home. So he's just like I don't really remember. Investigators ask Hunter. Has Marshmallow ever scratched anyone before? Like is that why it's so crazy?
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No, he's never done anything like that. Does he usually sleep with Levi? No, not usually. That's why I thought maybe he heard something outside and wanted to protect Levi. So Levi sleeps in the living room. So they thought, you know,
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maybe he the cat heard something, freaked out, went to the living room, and then attacks Levi. But Hunter gets sick around this time. So after Levi gets back from the ER from getting those stitches, Levi actually asked to go to
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his dad's house. And mom and Hunter think that's actually a good plan because Hunter's throwing up non-stop.
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He's like so sick. He's having explosive diarrhea. He's vomiting at the same time. And that lasts multiple days. And whatever Hunter has is probably contagious. And with the commotion across the street, it's just a lot going on. Hunter remembers when he was in the
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bathroom, he does recall seeing some blood on the sink. There was like blood in the bathroom from where he had fallen or anything like that.
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Oh yeah. Um there was like uh blood on the sink and stuff. Okay. But um like mom tried to clean it up, but there was still a little bit blood after. So, we just saw blood after because I started puking and then we
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spent a long time in the bathroom and then she was like, "Oh my god, Louis got blood everywhere. I I forgot to clean up some of this." I was like, "Okay." So, and then it's I think it's gone now.
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Okay. Um, was it like a lot of blood or a little bit of blood?
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Little bit of blood. It's interesting because the overexlaining can come off suspicious for both parties, but I do feel like it's understandable when you realize they're both true crime documentary watchers. And this is actually something that I thought about
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in a lot more recent cases because I had this like run-in with a police officer recently. Like nothing was happening.
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There was no like case or anything. But I just remember I was like looking for where the body cam was on his body while I was talking to him about something completely unrelated because it's just interesting now that I watch so much
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body cam footage. Now I feel like I'm looking for body cam cameras because it's something that I think about and maybe the same thing is happening to Hunter and Levi because Hunter even states to the police like also me
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stuttering has nothing to do with like you guys being here just so you know.
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He's trying to explain that he just stutters. So now he's like going into this overexlaining territory of like no no but like I'm trying to be open with you but then even saying I'm trying to be open with you seems like I'm not
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trying to be open. Like it's he's overexlaining selfizing already. He even admits to the police that he watches a lot of body cam videos. Also, he goes back to explain, you know, like the whole thing of like Levi calling himself
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a narcissist. So, he mentions it and he's like, "Well, I don't think so." And he he explains, he's like, "Levi is just the one who always says that he, you know, he's always saying that he's this thing when he hasn't been diagnosed with
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anything like it." Like saying he's probably slightly manipulative, like stuff like that just because his trauma has made him feel this type of way.
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Honestly, it's really upsetting for me. like he knows all the um I don't know I don't want to call it disorders because I don't think that's what it is like but sociopath it's obviously a very wide range of things but from sociopaths to
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narcissist personality disorders to stuff like that basically he knows a lot about them and like what they mean I think it's because he does a lot of research into it because he thinks or he knows that he's slightly manipulative
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because he's you know he has trauma and he's very much so expressive and we talk about all of our feelings and I don't know like we're all going through a lot of therapy.
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He's always saying that he's this thing when he hasn't been diagnosed with anything like it. He's probably slightly manipulative, stuff like that. Um, from sociopaths to narcissistic personality disorder, we're all going through a lot of a lot of therapy.
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So, it's almost like now he's just like preemptively telling police things. He's just talking a lot.
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Mhm. He continues later to say he's like Levi is very very open to us about how he's feeling, the way he feels. Like I don't want to go in depth about it because I don't know. Um I think I'm probably
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using the wrong word, but I guess I don't know if it's like I'm [music] incriminating him. I think I'm definitely using the wrong word, but like talking about how he has all this trauma, especially abusive trauma when he was a kid. He certainly has certainly
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has a lot of potential to make somebody who has the mind to do something like that. And I know that because he's talked about all these things.
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Well, what is happening right now? Yeah. Now the investigators are like, "What do you mean all these things?" I mean, I know from him because he's told me because he's done research about it on the internet, like his knowledge
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about what the difference between sociopath and the other ones and knowing how, you know, many to kill in order to be a serial killer [music] and you have to kill people and stuff like that.
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I think it's just like he just so happens to have a am I allowed to ask you guys anything? Sure. Do you guys have any suspicions? Do you guys think he's a suspect possibly, or am I crazy?
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Like, is he not a suspect at all? Is this just normal questioning to try and help solve some stuff? And I just seem like a crazy person right now.
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Do you guys have any suspicions? [music] Do you guys think he's a suspect? Am I crazy? Is he not a suspect at all? Is Is this just normal questioning to try to sell help solves some stuff? And I just
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seem like a crazy person right now. Is he feeling connecting the dot in that moment?
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It seems like from the beginning he's just like yapping yapping and he's an oversharer and then as he's yapping he's like explaining well my brother would never do this. I know he has some traumatic incidents in his childhood
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which also watching true crime documentaries I know that that can make someone more like capable of doing something like this. So it's almost like he's like analyzing.
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So, you know how people will be like, "Oh, the three trademarks of a serial killer, the dark triad of the personality, right?" Like, it's almost like he studied that. And as he's explaining Levi and why Levi could never
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do something, because I think he walked in there thinking the police suspect Levi because of the cat scratches and it seems like he's trying to clear his brother's name.
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But as he's talking, he's almost getting more and more going down the rabbit hole.
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What's his Levi's childhood trauma? Did they explain or not really? Yes. So, he explained that his grandfather on his mother's side is in jail for heavy abuse. I believe his mom was a victim of her own father and maybe
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other family members were victims. Wow. But it seems to be related to childhood trauma in um probably the worst way possible. Please just reassure him. You don't seem like a crazy person. some of the stuff that you said makes sense. And
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I don't know, maybe this is a way for them to just keep him talking. And Hunter clarifies, am I sitting here because he has those scratches on his face and because it looks like he's a potential suspect, or am I just here to
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like clear some things like like it has nothing to do with him possibly being the person who did that thing? I would say there's inconsistencies with what we know versus what you guys said yesterday, and we're going to get more
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information hopefully. And it's interesting to watch because it appears that Hunter goes through weird stages.
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So the first stage is just explaining and almost like the true crime explaining of like, I watched the body cam footage. I know that we look suspicious, but I'm going to tell you why we're not suspicious. And like now
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me overexlaining feels suspicious. Like now I'm stuttering and you think that's suspicious. And then it goes to him being like, I know my brother has all the things that could make him possible, but like and then he's like, wait, am I
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doing too much? Like am I what? I don't even know why I'm here. Why are you guys Why are we talking?
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Like he lost the plot, right? So he's like, "What? Do you guys suspect him or not?" Right.
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Yeah. And they say this vague language of like, "Well, we're just trying to get more information." And that's when Hunter starts defending his twin. And he's like, "Well, his cat scratches seem like cat scratches." And the cat has
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been acting weird. Yeah, the cat was acting weird. He's been acting weird the past few days because we've been moving stuff around.
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So, it's completely understandable that he'd freak out. is just like a very very very needy cat. And Coco, our other cat, was a kitten when we got her. So, she was just born for like a few weeks. But
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Marshmallow was a year old. So, it's possible he had some trauma. And that's why he's very, very needy. And just now he's somewhat gotten used to us after, I don't know, like a year or two, and then all of a sudden, we start moving stuff
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around. So, it's completely understandable that he would freak out. But to me, it's completely understandable that the cat attacked him because he freaked out because he was sleeping next to him and he woke up. And he tells the investigators because it's
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clear the investigators feel like his twin brother had something to do with it. Hunter tells them I don't think he did it because like I feel he's told me many times like he's a very open person.
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He doesn't have the capacity to do something like that. Doesn't have the capacity to do something like that. I don't feel he has the capacity to do something like that.
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And if he did and he did impulsively he would not be acting so oh I don't care afterwards. Most kids, if they killed somebody, they would tell their parents, unless they just didn't think it mattered at all.
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Now, interesting information to sit on. Investigators who are also in Levi's room have a very different approach from Hunters. It could just be that Hunter appears to be a bit more talkative and open to give out information without
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being asked. Whereas Levi seems to give out a lot of information, but only when he's pressed on it. Once the officer is done reading Levi his Miranda rights, he needs to clarify and make sure 13-year-old Levi gets it. With these in
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mind, do you want to have a conversation with me? With these in mind, do you want to have a conversation with me?
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Um, well, I guess it states that I can quit having a conversation with you. I'm not sure what this is like necessarily about.
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Do you know what we're investigating? I mean, I know something happened on the on the street across the street. across the street in front of me, right? A woman was murdered, right? So, we're trying to find out what happened. Okay,
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so that's what we're investigating. The investigators ask him to walk them through Saturday night and like the wording is weird. Levi says they all went to sleep. Quote, "So, we all went to sleep and then honestly it seemed
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pretty normal. None of us really like woke up for a couple hours. Both of neither of them did." How does Exactly.
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Yeah. Why would you speak for your Yeah. And then I think I think at like 2:30, maybe 2:30 in the morning or 2, I'm not sure in that time area, my cat had randomly woke me up with all the
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lights off, like sitting on my neck. He says that Marshmallow is sitting on his neck and he decides that he's going to freak out on Levi. Levi says that he gets scratched by the family cat Marshmallow. He starts cleaning himself
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up. He goes to the bathroom. Quote, "There was a lot of scratches on me." Uh, and then I spent like 3 hours maybe or a long time trying to like fix myself up.
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3 hours. Yeah. And to give some context, like fixing myself up or the reason why I didn't like ask my mom or my brother or wake them up is because we were literally about to do photos that day,
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like family photos for the house cuz they're going to sell the house. He explains, "I don't want to be this kid that's constantly waking people up or being like an annoyance when they're trying to sleep. So, I just try to clean
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myself up the best I could. I tried to like clean up my face. He also scratched my neck." Then, I decided to take a shower because I was like, "That's probably the best thing I'm going to do." So, I took a shower and I spent
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like, yeah, I guess like 30 minutes in there, a long time, and tried to see what was going on. And like, how do I explain it? The shower sprayer, so like the handheld shower sprayer is kind of reflective. So, I was trying to see what
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was going on, and I was like, "Okay, well, holy this is really bad." He states he's in the bathroom for 3 hours.
Speaker A
He's showering for like 30 minutes. All of this seems like an awfully lengthy amount of time, but maybe it's just late at night. He doesn't really know how long it was. Maybe it wasn't 3 hours.
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Maybe it was 30 minutes. It just felt like 3 hours. The officers ask him what he wears to bed cuz that should also have some cat scratches.
Speaker A
M I don't wear anything to bed. Nude. He sleeps in the living room couch. Nude.
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He sleeps in the living room. Yeah, he's been sleeping in the living room recently, so he's just sleeping in the living room nude. He says he has some sheets and there was some blood on his t-shirt that he uses under his
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pillow. So he uses like a t-shirt as a pillow and he has some blood on there from when the cat scratched him. This is all very weird. Now, back to the shower.
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So, he's in the shower and he explains because of my disability as well, I used like a shower chair.
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Usually, because of my disability as well, I used like a like a shower chair.
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I didn't use the shower chair cuz I didn't want to make a bunch of noise and make anybody up.
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Uh, so I ended up literally falling, fell, and like hit my head on the on the shower hose. He says this shower chair is outside the bathroom and he didn't bring it in himself because I'm also not like really strong enough to do that. So
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I never do that. Is it heavy? Yeah, it's pretty heavy. Well, not that heavy. Just like I know it's too heavy for me to have enough strength to pick it up. The police are a little confused because like why not just tell your mom at this
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point? He keeps mentioning the house photos and the detectives are like, "Well, you're not in the house photos." I know, but I didn't want to have to like wake her up and have her tired or have her be annoyed that I was getting
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her up super early and it was like 2:00 2:30. Now, by all means, it seems like Becca is not the type of mom to be upset. So, the bleeding kind of stops and Levi decides to just try and eat and
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watch some YouTube, but he says, "I was doing that and as I was watching YouTube, I was super exhausted." Super exhausted. Feeling like honestly like cuz I barely got any sleep. I was just like, "I don't know what to do.
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I know I can't, you know, go to sleep in this state. Uh, and so I started crying honestly kind of loud.
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He says he starts crying so loudly. That's what wakes his mom up. And it's just interesting like his body language to watch in there. Like he has these he'll yawn in the middle of a sentence and it's not a pause. It's not like he's
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pausing and getting bored and yawning, which would already be alarming in a police interrogation, but he'll just be talking about how he wanted to eat and watch some TV after he cleaned himself up. So, he's like, "I'm just going to
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sit down and eat and watch some TV and then [sighs and gasps] and then I ate." It could be the stress of the interrogation. Not that he's guilty. It's just a stressful thing to be in a crowded room with two
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investigators as a 13-year-old having no idea where the lawyer is or where your mom is. But it's weird. At this point, it's like 5:30 a.m. He says thankfully once he started crying, his mom came down the stairs and was like, "Are you
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okay?" He says, "No, not really." And I was still crying and she told me not to cry because that would make it worse.
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And then something to make this situation more funny, quote unquote, as soon as she went in the kitchen, she opened the cabinet and got the band-aids. So this entire time that I looked for band-aids for like 30 minutes, it was right there in the
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kitchen. But when he gets back to the house after going to the ER, he says that he was super emotionally triggered.
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He says the cat had scratched him. He starts seeing investigators outside, ambulances outside across the street, and he just wanted to go to his dad's for a few days, even though that was never part of the original schedule.
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But you didn't know what was wrong with Denise. Yeah. I just thought that it's just crazy to It was crazy in my mind and I started assuming, you know, like what had happened.
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What did you think happened? I don't know. I just thought You thought it was a coincidence? I didn't think it was a coincidence. I was just jumping to conclusions. Mom was like, "She probably just had an accident or she fell over."
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And I was like, "Hopefully." I was like, "Yeah." And even this right now is honestly starting to make me feel kind of emotionally triggered. When you get triggered, does it ever make you angry?
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No. Just makes me sad. Sad. Or like hyper emotional. So, it made me feel like really gross that something else had happened and I was already in an emotionally triggered state. So, I kind of felt like really sick to my stomach
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and I felt really gross having to think about what if something happened to somebody right next to me or the house right in front of me and it made me feel really sad and I started crying even worse. Hunter didn't even know what to
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do. So, I decided to go upstairs so I could try and stop thinking about it.
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But, you know, I didn't like having to think about something else was happening so I didn't have to feel worse. It's just weird. So he asks his dad to pick him up so that he doesn't have to think
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about something else happening to somebody while something had happened to him and there's just a lot of cop cars and he stays there for probably a week trying to feel better until he comes back. Have you ever been in Denise's
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house? Levi responds, "Neither my mom, my brother, or me have ever been in that house or even close other than, I guess, walking distance." But he does mention that Hunter, his brother, would mow lawns over the summer. But Levi isn't
Speaker A
sure whose lawns he mowed. At some point, he mentions, "I heard my mom and my brother. My brother loves true crime." Or something. He's very investigative. He tried to search up the audio. I didn't hear it. Or I guess they
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said that there was like a 911 call. I guess they um or my mom said that maybe she had been raped or that somebody said that um it looked like she had been raped, which in my mind doesn't really
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feel like self-defense. if it was doesn't feel like self-defense. Who what doesn't feel like self-defense?
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So, the investigators are like, "Well, we don't really know what happened to Denise. Maybe someone went in there and Denise attacked them." Like, maybe it was self-defense.
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He's like, "Well, if she was raped, it wasn't self-defense." And it's just a lot of weird conversations happening. And at some point, the investigator says he's just trying to wrap his brain around this.
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Like, the investigator is like, "I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this entire case. I don't know how it happened. There's two people there, but I don't know how it happened. And I'm just trying to figure it out. Levi
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responds, "Could have been three people. I don't know." There's two people there, but I don't know how it happened. And I'm just trying to figure it out.
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Could have been three people. I don't know. I mean, there could have been more people there, was there?
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I don't know. That's a crazy response. Well, I mean, yeah, there could have been more people. You know, they can't rule out the possibilities, but investigators believe that there was only one person involved, and they need to know which person it was. And so far,
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it's looking like Levi is the one they're most suspicious of, especially with the cat scratches, until they find out that there could be a chance that he's not capable of being the killer.
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Investigators find out that Levi has cerebral palsy, which is a group of movement and posture disorders. Cerebral being the brain, and palsy being weakness or problems with movement. So, usually this um um this forms from an injury in parts of the brain that
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control the muscles. So, it's not from the muscles themselves, but it's from the brain that controls the muscles.
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Now, investigators have to figure out if Levi's CP would make it so that it would be impossible for him to carry out an essay and murder. And there's just a lot of people that live with CP that live
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completely normal lives where they play intense sports where they it's actually encouraged to play sports for a lot of people living with that condition and they live you wouldn't even know that they have CP. But then on the other side
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you do have people where it greatly impacts everything that they do and it does make it very difficult for them to do things that an able-bodied person would be able to do easily. So, they found out during this interrogation or
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Yes. And they don't know where on that scale Levi is. Hunter and Levi's mom, Becca, is in the waiting area of the police station. So, she's been brought out from the room where they kept like telling her to eat the raisin canes.
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They bring her out and the twins dad, Kyle, has since joined and they're both just wanting answers. Why can't they get the twins? Why can't the twins come out?
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Why can't they get the twins a lawyer? What the hell are the investigators talking to them about without them or the lawyers present? When there is a situation where identical twin DNA is involved, the best thing investigators can do is look for evidence that's not
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DNA related. And they find it under Denise's body. The investigators come out to talk to Becca and Kyle and they tell them it's not that they randomly targeted the twins. It's that quote, "I don't know what in the world happened.
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We're not talking to him anymore. I mean, he doesn't want to really talk anymore. I don't know what happened. We have a lot of other evidence, too.
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Okay. I'm I don't know what in the world happened. I mean, I can presume.
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I'm trying. We He's We're not talking to him anymore. I mean, he doesn't want to really talk anymore.
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Um I don't know what happened. You can keep talking. Well, we have a lot of other evidence, too.
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She says, "I I don't know." They tell her it's not just the DNA. There's some certain things we're going to tell you that we have that are bad. Okay. That watch that we showed you that belongs to one of the twins was under her body.
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All right. That watch that we showed you was under her body. What? Becca starts freaking out. She starts sobbing, alternating between putting her head in her hands to holding her chest.
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She's pacing the area. She seems like she can't sit still. She doesn't really even know what to do with this information, it appears. Eventually, she asks, "What happens now? He's only 13.
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Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god." Eventually, she's on the floor and she even apologizes to the investigators for being rude earlier. Out of all the suspects and perpetrators parents, Becca seems like maybe one of the few that
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really tried her best. If you get the full FOIA file like we did, there is a lot of unredacted information that I didn't include because I don't know how relevant it is, but Hunter talks to investigators of how much their family
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has gone through. And it does appear that Becca has really tried to shield her sons from anything that could have happened. The fact that she regularly puts them in therapy, encourages them to talk about their feelings. They even
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found her journal where she writes about how she's trying to parent. And by all accounts, it seems like she genuinely is a good parent. The fact that she's been trying to be helpful this entire investigation, the fact that she is
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apologizing to being rude to the investigators, which in reality, I honestly think that she was still just protecting her children. There's really nothing to apologize for. She never behaved in a way that made it feel like she was enabling her kids or shielding
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them from consequences or not participating in the investigation. But when she's told it's her son's DNA, his watch, [music] and they found a piece of a green nitro glove at the scene and a box of the same green nitro gloves in
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his closet. They've also found a pair of bloody LLBAN boots located in his room with visible staining. And now one of the twin brothers is going to find out that his brother is guilty as well. The officers leave Levi's interview room
Speaker A
about an hour in to let him finish his food and really like sit with his thoughts. And when they come back in, the first question they ask him is, "Hey, do you think sometimes people do something that they regret that is out
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of character for themselves? Like, do you think they do something and they kind of get scared and they don't want to talk to or tell anyone about it?" They ask him how his DNA ended up at Denise's house. Levi asks, "Well, how is
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my blood?" That's what we're trying to figure out. So, we're trying to figure out, and I want you to help me explain this, okay? Why your blood would be in Denise's house?
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I don't know. Like, how is it my blood? I That's what we're trying to find out.
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They tell him that they took his DNA swabs and they compared it to the DNA in the house and Denise's house. And it's not only Denise's blood, but his blood is mixed in with it. He doesn't seem wild. He just asks, "Well, how does that
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work?" Well, everybody's DNA is unique. Everybody has different DNA. Everybody, it's like fingerprints. Nobody has the same fingerprints in the whole world.
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Even brothers. Even brothers. Everybody has different DNA. Everybody. It's unique to one person. Everybody's unique.
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That's like fingerprints. Every Nobody has the same fingerprints in the whole world. Even brothers.
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Even brothers. Now, the match to the DNA was to both of them. But it's interesting that that's his response. And I think that's just what the investigators are trying to get at when DNA is brought up again. He
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says, "I guess everybody's is unique. I just mean like my brother is literally well my twin. I don't know how that would happen to begin with. How my blood would be at her house.
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I guess everybody's is unique. I just mean like because my brother is literally well my twin. I I just don't know how that would happen to begin with. How my blood would be in her house.
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If Levi says it's not his blood, then whose blood is it? And there's one interesting thing that Levi says. The investigators do the whole, "Well, we think whatever happened here is not malicious. We think it's a stupid mistake and that everyone needs to be
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honest so that we can talk about it." But when they say that, Levi responds, "I don't think that murder is stupid, though.
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I don't think that murder is stupid, so I don't." Which is like an interesting response.
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Mhm. It's kind of odd. Back at the house, there's a search warrant being executed.
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And investigators find Marshmallow sitting very calmly just hanging out. What stops investigators though is not just that Marshmallow is incredibly calm and the demeanor of Marshmallow is very approachable, which Marshmallow doesn't seem that stressed out about this move,
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even that the fact that officers are in there just flipping up the house looking for evidence. When officers approach, he flops over so they can pet his tummy.
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And that is when they notice that his claws are too small to make the injuries on the vice face. Even if Marshmallow were pissed off, what does that mean? Like his like the scratch mark on his nose to get
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five stitches. They're saying like his claws specifically are too small. Interesting. Okay, which that's what they say. They find in the drawer of the left nightstand of a bed, confessions of a serial killer, the book, and a brown leather journal that
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just reads on the first page. Okay, so on the very first page, it has Levi's name on there. And the second page reads, I will kill you. K Killer and in big chunky blocky letters. The last page of that notebook has a
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handwritten instruction page on how to balance on one leg. It reads, "Stand with both feet planted firmly on the ground. Next, slowly raise one of your feet and stand with all your body weight on the opposite leg. You should be
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balanced on one leg. Reach your raised foot forward, which points to it being Levi cuz he was working on his mobility." M I see.
Speaker A
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Speaker A
But it's not just the journal. It's what's on Levi's phone versus what's on Hunter's phone. On his devices, he's talking to someone on TikTok and Levi messages them. I have very low empathy, which has been confirmed. Also, my plan,
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I'm on track. Found my MMO. He takes screenshots of serial killer's emos. There are psychological analysis, equipment used for transport, body disposal, naming, possible planning, execution methods, body dump sites, clothing, appearances. There are several photos of Levi of himself that he's
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taken, like selfies where he's choking himself in taking a photo, which uh okay, I looked into it and it seems like sometimes people with very morbid interest who want to see what someone would look like dead will sometimes
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Google pictures, but then maybe it's not good enough. So then they'll like In other messages to unknown Tik Tok users, he's messaging about how he has a severe lack of empathy. He likes hurting animals in his childhood. And I guess
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this person tells him that he could never hurt a fly. Like, I don't think you could ever hurt a fly. Levi responds, "I've killed animals before on my own with a knife." You're right. I probably couldn't hurt a fly though
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because they're too fast for me. He states that he doesn't kill while he hunts. He says, "I don't go hunting." And he's talking about killing. He says, "Cats, dogs, some squirrels." Then he sends a message that reads, "Trying to
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understand my own problems. Are you sadistic at all? I'm fairly curious." Not too long after, he Googles causes of being sadistic. Then he takes screenshots of information of how serial killers subdue their victims before killing them, as well as how to strangle
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someone and how long that process takes, which Denise was found smothered to death. And the night of the murder, authorities are able to track Becca, Hunter, and Levi's phones. 12:53 a.m., Hunter plugs in his phone into the charger and locks his phone screen. 2:12
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a.m., Levi locks his phone. 2:19 a.m., Hunter locks his phone. Then from 2:30 to 2:52 a.m., Levi's on his phone using his camera, but we don't get any other information from that.
Speaker A
Wait, what's happening? So, at 2:00ish, both brothers lock their phone. Yeah, like as in like it just shows that they turned off their like, you know, they can track when you unlock your phone, lock your phone.
Speaker A
So, they were both awake around Yes. that time. Okay. And Levi turned on the camera for how long?
Speaker A
2:30 to 2:52 a.m. 20 minutes. 5:21 a.m. he unlocks his phone again and starts searching up Fairfax, Ohio Police Department.
Speaker A
Fairfax, Ohio. Fairfax, Ohio Police Department photos. Then later, when Levi goes to his dad's house, he starts googling again Fairfax, Ohio photos.
Speaker A
Fairfax, Ohio Police Department photos. Fairfax, Ohio Police Department. Does Ohio have restrictions on using familial DNA searches? What was Ted Bundy's diagnosis? What was Ted Bundy's kill?
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Fairfax, Ohio woman found dead. Fairfax, Ohio woman found dead. What was Ted Bundy Killkit?
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Why do you think he's searching about Kill Kit? I don't know after the fact. [music] Maybe. Well, maybe there's more curiosity.
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Yeah. Then he sends a message to someone on TikTok a few days after the murder.
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I'm probably going to get caught and then deletes that message. Then there's more searches on Google. Saliva drug test, saliva swabs, juvenile detention center, Cincinnati, Hamilton County Youth Center. Ways cops mess with you in the interview. ways cops mess with you
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in the interview room. 2 hours later after that search, Hunter and Levi are called in for police interviews.
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Meanwhile, on Hunter's phone, they find messages between Hunter and Becca. They do a full search of Hunter's phone.
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Becca is texting him that she's in the ER with Levi. Be careful around Marshmallow. Why? He's being feisty about the house moving around. Okay, he's trying to hug me right now. Lol.
Speaker A
Part of the reason we're in the ER is because Marshmallow was sleeping on Levi's face and [music] then startled each other and he got scratched on his face. He took a shower and slipped and hid his face on the tile. Oh, yikes. If
Speaker A
he gets moody, just get up and walk away from him and keep him away from your face. It seems like all of the digital evidence Hunter like his phone did break. He was sick in the bathroom.
Speaker A
There's no messages. There's no weird Google searches. His phone was off during the time of the crime.
Speaker A
Whereas Levi is googling a lot of the Fairfax, Ohio. So Hunter, it seems he did look up the case, but in the very normal way of like what's going on, like local news reporting.
Speaker A
Yeah. And with Hunter, it seems like at first investigators wanted to know if they were both involved, but primarily they suspected Levi in the beginning. But after seeing Hunter's reaction to everything, it just didn't strike them that he would be involved. But more
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importantly, aside from DNA matching, because he and Levi are the same DNA, there's really zero evidence tying him to being involved at all. I mean, there's nothing in his phone, his journals, [music] there's nothing in his room, there's nothing on his face or
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body to indicate any scratches. And he also doesn't believe that his brother is involved. Hunter tells the investigators, I'm sure from your head and the other investigators, you guys were probably thinking about like, of course, he has scratches [music] on his
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face. He left the house. He had to go to the hospital. All that stuff that we told you, you know, is very much so corresponding to what happened. And I just want you guys to know that I have
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no faith that my brother would be able to do something like that. Like, I don't know if you guys know. I don't I don't know if this is spreading too much information but our family have gone through some very very traumatic things.
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Our family have gone through some very very very traumatic things. Also having a very traumatic childhood could make somebody be able to do something like that. So again that's another thing that's I feel is just a coincidence. Way
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too many coincidences like his face being scratched and him being going through traumatic experiences. So, it's completely possible that I don't know.
Speaker A
And there's just so many times Hunter looks like he's seeing the coincidences that are forming, but he stops himself and he continues. I don't know like in a different universe, he did that, right?
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But personally, I believe I thought about it. I imagined it because I'm a very imaginative person. I imagined that what if Levi made up this story of scratching his face and then like what actually happened?
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What actually happened was like always snuck out at night and and did that horrible thing. But that was just like I didn't actually believe that that's something you could do. Like after after I imagined that I was like no.
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All three of us are very very very we express our feelings very much. So I know that he has a lot of trauma. He's basically saying I know Levi has a lot of trauma but we all talk about our
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feelings. Like we're very open. We we're all in therapy. Like that's not how we do it.
Speaker A
Mhm. He even says the day after Levi got back from the hospital. Remember he went to go stay with his dad. Hunter says that the reason was because he was triggered.
Speaker A
And I know that sounds suspicious, but he and it seems like Hunter has another moment and then he stops talking. He says that Levi told him he just wanted to leave the house because I [music] don't know if he's just upset
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about getting the cat scratched in the face, but he's just like this just this house. [music] He was crying and he was like just this house just was makes me feel like traumatized. I don't know like that traumatized feeling or not feeling
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traumatized. That's the words he used. I don't know. I'm just going to keep saying this, but this makes me feel really upset because a lot of evidence is piled up against him. But I mean, I don't know if you guys suspect him of
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anything, but I truly don't believe that he could do anything like that. Even though he has all these things, he's never talked about anything like that with you about hurting somebody when he gets triggered. No, no, he he doesn't
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like he doesn't behave weirdly when triggered. He just doesn't he's just quiet. He's It's upsetting for him. He started crying when we got back to the house because he said he never gave us an explanation to why he was triggered.
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I'm sure you guys can't tell me whether or not you have you're suspecting him.
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I'm just going to tell you right now. I don't I don't believe that it's not possible.
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No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying no. I'm saying it's not possible he's he would be able to do something like that.
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Hunter says it doesn't make sense because even after the investigators came and took their DNA, he says I mean we joked about it. I like how does it feel having your DNA in the system now?
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because he would say he's told me that he doesn't think he would be a serial killer when he's older because it just doesn't make sense to me because that's just stupid. He also says that he has immense capacity for empathy for us.
Speaker A
It's just slightly less than for other people. What? So Hunter is saying like he has empathy for his family. There's no way that he could be a killer. Hunter mentions Levi would talk about how he feels like hurting people sometimes. He feels empty
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and he feels violent. He's never acted on any of that. He hasn't had any impulses to kill somebody. I don't know for how long. I just know that for the last year it's been brought up to me. I
Speaker A
don't know how long he and mom have been talking about it. I mean, I've been like for my whole life a very very happy child because I think me and Levi process our trauma very differently, you know, while growing our brains. I don't
Speaker A
know how differently. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how differently. I don't know if Hunter says that he feels like what if he's being crazy, which means nothing is happening. But Levi will know that Hunter suspected him almost. Which means
Speaker A
that Levi would never talk to him again because if that were Hunter, he would never talk to his twin brother because the betrayal of suspecting your brother of being a killer would be too much. But also, if he did do it, then they need to
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know. And Hunter says he said multiple times he's not stupid enough to do that.
Speaker A
So, it's not like he's been acting erratically these past few days after he got scratched by the cat. He's been acting pretty much normal. He just only acts slightly weird whenever I bring up the thing, which makes sense. the thing
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that happened across the street. Yeah, he's disabled. He's very transparent to us and his therapist about the way he feels. Also, the doctors would have realized it and said something like, "They don't look like cat scratches if they weren't cat scratches." Like, I I
Speaker A
don't remember what it's called, but they said like a plastic surgeon came down and stitched his nose to make it look better. Wouldn't the nurses or doctors have had suspicions? Because surely you'd be able to realize that something was a human's nail or a cat
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scratch. He later leans back and he's almost like looking off to the side as if he's replaying the last few days in his head. There's just no way.
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There's just no way. Obviously, there's no way he wouldn't tell me or tell somebody if he did do that. Like, he just goes on with his day. Like, I know murderers can do that, but like him, I don't believe it.
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I don't know why the investigators decide that they want to be the ones to break it down for Hunter. Like, maybe they want to see his reaction. Maybe they want to see if he's going to tell them something else to confirm whose
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belongings these are. I don't know. But they show him like a very zoomed up picture of Levi's watch. And they It's on a tablet. It's clearly a crime scene photo, but it's so zoomed in that you wouldn't know.
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Mhm. What do you think about that? What What do I think about What do I think about that? He's just looking at the picture of the watch. He's like, "What do you want me to think about? It's just my
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brother's watch." Here, let me widen it out. They zoom out. What do you think that's the picture of? He starts like I guess hyperventilating. You don't hear it on the body cam, but the officer tells him to take a deep breath and he says, "We
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don't have any of those blankets." Right. That's not your house. Try to take some deep breaths.
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We don't have any of those blankets. Right. It's not your house. How does the watch in the struggle was it? It was broken.
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No, I I remember him saying that he lost his watch. And when did he say that?
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After he got home from the ER. I don't remember him talking about it. And then when he left, he came back and he said he doesn't know where he put his watch.
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But Hunter is still defending his brother. The way he sounded, I don't know. Like I don't feel a person would say that. A person would say it that way knowing that, you know, they were their watchmen if they did that.
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They show Hunter a picture of a knife that he's never seen before. And he tries to tell investigators that's not the knife that they have inside their house. There's just no way he did it.
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like someone had to have planted his watch or something like planted like only proof that you could give me is if you find his sperm DNA and if I'm right about her apparently being raped cuz it was on the news only thing I can believe
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like I'll tell you this right now that's not a possibility the way he acted after that happened after he saw the ambulance he was like why is the ambulance outside there's no way that he could fake all of
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that so correspondingly to the point where I could see none of it like I didn't see any of the cracks none of it he faked all of his emotions Hunter later tries to say maybe that's not even his watch he says There's no way that my
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brother like there's no way someone in my family even though like all I'm going to say is I don't believe it. I'm going to say that I think there needs to be more evidence. I think there needs to be
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more evidence to convict him. I think there needs to be more evidence. I know you probably haven't shown me all the evidence, but that can't be enough evidence. Like I know there's all these coincidences just stacked up against
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him, but there's no way. I mean, my brain really goes off topic. I just thought, what if he lost his watch at dad's and this is all just some sort of misunderstanding and dad finds it or like he really did just miss his watch?
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Like he really did just accidentally forget where his watch is and I made a mishap and I said that's his watch even though that's not his watch and you guys show him that photo and he'll probably say like no that's not my watch. Like do
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you guys think that's his watch? Yes. Do you guys think that he did this? Yeah.
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You're fully convinced? Yeah. We haven't gotten into everything but that's why we're here. and he starts breaking down.
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Do you guys think that's his wash? Yes. Yes. Do you guys think that he did this?
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Yes. Yeah. You're fully convinced? Yes. We We haven't gotten into to everything, but that's why we're here. [music] And he screams, "No, no, it's not possible." And he starts frantically asking like, "Are you saying he purposefully hurt?" And then he goes
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back to, "There's no way he would do that." Like, even if he did kill her, there's no way he's the one who raped her. like he's not that type of person.
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On top of that, I don't believe for a second I I think what's happening is there there was a really really really meticulously planned smart person who planted that watch there and I've been planning this for a while and it just so happens that
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Louis has a lot of traumatic experiences and he grabbed our knife and he took our watch and he and they did that. He also tries to reason with the investigators because he read on the news that whoever did this, they referred to him as a man.
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And he's like, "And Levi's not a man. Fox 19 said that he was a man." He says the chances that this is his twin brother's doing is slim to none. I have no belief that Levi Levi doesn't have
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the capacity to rape and kill somebody purposefully willingly harmfully having the person fight back. And also, how would mom not find out about it? And if she did find about it, why the would she hide it? He's not the type of
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person to hide it, which I I do agree with. He's There's no way he's stupid enough to leave his own watch. On top of that, use our knives. He's a very smart and calculated person. He knows what he's doing. He's not stupid enough. I
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mean, maybe on drastic circumstances, he was very, very impulsive. He really felt like killing someone. He, you know, he had no other weapons. He could have just gone into her house and stole one of her knives. Like, why would is he faking his
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empathy for us? Does he not actually care about any of us? Is that the reality we're facing here? is the reality that I'm facing here is that my loving brother for my whole life, my brother that I've cared for and cared
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for me and my mom has cared for and spent and dedicated her life to helping this person live. And then he asks if his brother is going to jail and what the chances are that he won't. And he
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puts his head down and he cries, "There's no way. It's not possible. There has to be someone who bloodied the evidence. There has to be some misunderstanding." and he keeps asking, [music] "Are you being 100% with me? This is true. This
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is true. This is true." They tell him that his brother's DNA was at the scene and his head falls onto the table. When Levi is confronted with the fact that his watch and DNA were found in Denise's home, they try to tell him, "You just
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seem like a kind of just a young man. I mean, I'm a young boy. I'm barely a teenager.
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You just seem like a kind of just a young man. I mean, I'm a I'm a young boy.
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I know. So, I'm just trying and sometimes young boys make mistakes. So, they're trying to get him to confess. And there's just a lot of odd moments throughout his interviews, like when they ask why he went to stay at his
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dad's house. He says that it was triggering. And then there's moments where he like, okay, back and forth.
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This whole interview is like an hour and a half. Well, the whole body cam footage is like 2 hours long, right? It's this weird back and forth of him trying to appear dumber than he is or at least
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that's what my take of it and then him appearing way smarter than he is or trying to appear smart. It's like this weird back and forth. So he talks about how he was doing his math homework at his dad's house, right? What kind of
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math? I don't know how to describe it. It's like trying to measure things like how long this would be, you know, geometry, I guess. So yeah, right. What kind of math is it? Um I don't know how to describe it. It's
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like using trying to measure things like how long this would be at this geometry I guess. So yeah, he like weirdly doesn't know the name of basic things. Okay. But he also says that he doesn't know if he went to the
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hospital to get the stitches. He just knows somewhere where there's doctors. Okay. And then he says and then she was telling me that we're going to urgent care. And I was like so this is that urgent. I can tell it feels like he
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mentioned he doesn't know where he's going somewhere with doctors like trying to appear dumb and then he mentions that his mom said we're going to urgent care and then he is like oh so I was like oh this is urgent.
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It's just weird. I can't tell if he's trying to cover up for the fact that he just said he didn't know where they went but then said urgent care or if he really doesn't know what urgent care is.
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It feels more like the former. He reiterates again like I didn't know this thing was that urgent.
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You I mean thing was that urgent. It's like a weird thing to say. It's just a lot to cover up for the fact that I feel like he knew it was urgent care, but that's just my feeling, right?
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But then later he will talk about how he slipped in the shower again and he says, "Yeah, I slipped and I hit like the shower sprayer." Beautiful.
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Just naming things differently. Yes. But then when the investigators look a little skeptical, he'll expand on that and he'll say, "I guess let me articulate it better." I was holding the shower sprayer, I guess, whatever it's called, like I usually do because I was
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only holding it. I slipped and I fell like this and I guess I hit it and I guess it hit the wall. He does start like cracking his knuckles immediately after. And then he further explains like I don't know how to make it make sense
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but yeah that's what happens when I fell and well because I'm disabled I was more likely to fall. I don't know if you're aware of that. I've told you I'm aware of your illness. It's not an illness.
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It's a disability. Disability right? That's fair. Y I am aware of your illness. Um it's not an illness. It's a disability.
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Disability. All right. It's fair. It's so interesting like this. And then he goes back and forth between again trying to appear dumb and then trying to appear smart. For example, like I said, he doesn't know geometry. He doesn't
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know urgent care. But then suddenly when he's asked about why his blood is at Denise's house, he starts saying, "I don't know what explanation I could give you or even come up with that would be equivalent to how that would happen."
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Well, I guess it would make sense if there was like a blood transfusion, but that wouldn't make any sense because I haven't had any blood transfusions. And maybe I'm just reeling from the literacy crisis, but like how do you not know the
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word geometry when you're taking a geometry course for school, but you know what a blood transfusion is? And like technically, I mean, I guess it could maybe apply technically in this case if he were to donate blood and Denise had
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gotten a blood transfusion and coincidentally happened to be from the kid across the street, Levi's blood. But standard transfusions are packed with red blood cells, which don't actually contain DNA. So like this is like random food for thought. Okay.
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Really? Yeah. So standard blood transfusions are mainly red blood cells. They don't contain the DNA. But if some donor white cells slip in, it's super small in a quantity. So like when you spill blood or like blood drips out of you and the
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DNA is collected, there's going to be such white donor blood cells that it's highly unlikely that anybody else's DNA is going to come up even if you've had a blood transfusion recently. And white blood cells are typically cleared by the
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body's immune system within days to weeks. So, it's a very short window. Now, there are certain people who get white blood cell transfers, but those are really rare and like just really rare. The only other time that this
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could maybe happen where Levi's DNA would be there, even though he had no blood transfusion, but let's say he did, is if Denise had a lot of blood transferred into her system, right?
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Maybe then donor DNA could be detectable in the recipient. But again, if you had that much blood, like that massive of a transfusion, you're talking like major trauma surgery, you're going to be in the hospital for days until that clears
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and that DNA is no. Anyway, no, it doesn't apply. But the fact that he doesn't know geometry, but he's wondering about blood transfusions is kind of odd to me.
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Mhm. Also, there I think you could maybe find donor DNA in like a bone marrow stem cell transplant. What are we doing here?
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Like that's not the point. The point is, why are we taking a journey down the lane of hypotheticals when you don't know what geometry is?
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Mhm. It's also very odd that he acts like he's too young and uninformed that he doesn't know geometry, but he offers up all of these other explanations. And the officer straight up tells him, "Well, it's not a blood transfusion." He says,
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"I think you know. I don't think I know. I think you know. I know you know.
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I don't think I know." Could you not remember? I mean, everybody does remember things.
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I don't remember my childhood. Well, that's what I'm asking you. Could you have done something and not remember it?
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I think everybody can. Like even something that would happen a couple weeks ago. Possible.
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Maybe. Possible. Anything's possible. I know. I'm just trying to explain it, man. That's all.
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And so the investigator's like, "I just need some answers." And he says, "Well, thank you for explaining it to me. I'm trying to give you the best explanation that I can and come up with ways how we can figure this out. I don't understand
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it just as much as, well, you probably understand it more than me." Then he offers up the solution of, "Well, if it's not from a blood transfusion, then could it be from," quote, "Did somebody put my blood in that house
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for a reason?" I don't know. Would you tell me? Would they? I didn't put your blood.
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I don't have any enemies. I mean, I'm only 13. I don't know why anybody would put my blood in a house. But is there any more questions you have for me or like what do you have any more questions for me or
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like Well, I want I want to get past this and we're not getting past it. You don't know. I don't know. Oh, so we're just not resolving anything. Well, I'm not sure if we can resolve it if I don't
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know and you don't know. This is like a lot. I don't ever recall being able to speak like this when I was 13.
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Like Hunter in the idea that I can see where a lot of his overexlaining comes from because he just seems really nervous and then he watched too many body cam videos. Whereas Levi, it's very like Yeah.
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He also over and underexplains. like he'll overexlain about the cat scratching him. But then when he's asked where he hid his head in the shower, he just like palms his face and says like around here, just like a big surface
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area. Then he's asked if he knows Denise well, which is a simple either yes or no or maybe even not really kind of question. Maybe like one sentence of context, but he goes to explain in depth.
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I just know she's our neighbor. Uh we waved a couple times. thought she had a dog, but I guess when the special agents came over, they told us that the the dog had died like 6 months ago.
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So, yeah, I didn't really know her that well. I don't know. I just thought that she just like had a job like I don't know any normal person. I didn't think I mean like like I didn't know her a lot.
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I just thought like this is this person. Yeah. And then he has like moments where he it's almost like a contrarian is trying to slip out of him which like if you've ever had interactions with someone who must disagree with
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absolutely everything you say it's incredibly frustrating and they cannot help it I guess even in police interviews. So one detective who has been largely quiet throughout the entire interview turns to Levi and says listen I wholeheartedly believe that there are
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two types of people in this world. You've got monsters. You've got people who make mistakes. M I think I disagree with that personally. What do you disagree with about that statement? I just think that there's a lot of
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different types of people in the world. There's not monsters and people who commit mistakes. The officer says, "Well, I'm just simplifying it for the context of this murder. There's only two types of people that would commit a murder. You know, monsters and people
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who make mistakes." And Levi responds, "Well, if it's a murder, then it would be a monster, right?" If it's a murder, then it would be a monster right?
Speaker A
Not Not necessarily. You don't think so? No. No, I've been pretty weird. No, I don't. I think murders can happen many different ways.
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Well, I think if it's murder, it would either be self-defense or manslaughter or something like that. Again, you don't know geometry, but you know, manslaughter.
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He even sits like a contrarian. Like, he's more intrigued at the idea of like a moral dilemma in a debate than he is like getting away with something. The investigator is saying, "That's why I'm trying to find an explanation. I can't
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put words in your mouth." Levi responds, "I can't put words in my mouth either. I mean, I can." But I can't put words in your mouth.
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I can't put words in my mouth either. No, I just want I mean, I can.
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So weird. Later, Levi brings up again that maybe there were three people in Denise's house instead of two. And the investigator asks him, "Was it?" I don't know. I've already told you that. I'm just saying possibilities. Possibilities are possibilities. Nothing's impossible,
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as I've repeated multiple times. And it's interesting at the very end, Levi almost tries to bring his brother down with him. Or at least that's how I get a read of his intention because he says, "I don't know why I would lie. I don't
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know why I would be outside after dark. I don't know why I would even do something like this." He says, "I just know I don't see a scenario where me alone or me myself would ever do that.
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I don't see a scenario where me alone or me myself would ever do that." which is like really weird. He's saying I would never do this but also if I did I would never do it alone which I have a theory
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and this is just a theory and speculation that if like I know that both of them were into true crime but that's I mean I do think that a lot of people watch true crime documentaries but it seems that Levi's interest was a
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lot more in-depth. I think the way that Hunter was into it he's like watching body cam footage on YouTube probably and he's just like oh that's interesting. Oh look at how this person reacts. But the fact that he Levi is looking up all of
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these um the psychology of killers, it seems a little bit darker. It seems a little bit more indepth, his curiosity.
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And I wouldn't be surprised if he did come across cases where identical twin DNA did set killers free because it has happened before. There have actually been multiple cases where there was like a serial essayer and the two twins were
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brought in and they wouldn't turn each other in. The investigators had hoped that at least one of them would say, "Oh, well, you know what? I don't want my brother to go down for it. It was me.
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But they didn't. They even put them in the same room together to see if they would talk about it, but they just made small talk and then they were freed.
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Yeah. I think that case is going to go to trial. I think they're trying to use the novel DNA of the sequencing of like the genome like full.
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Mhm. So, it's it's interesting that Yeah. Yeah, it's just like very I wouldn't be surprised if he heard of cases like that and thought that if he kept bringing up his brother, it would end up a situation where nobody would go to jail.
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The investigator asks, "How about you with somebody else?" I was. Could you have been present when something happened?
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Maybe. Again, if I I just mean I always I always say anything is possible. I just mean I could you bet in the wrong place at the wrong time Sunday morning on in February.
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I don't think so. Again, I don't see how that correlates. I just mean like I don't I just mean I don't see how I would do that and I don't see why I would do that. That's all I
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Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. Mhm. Why you would do it? Why that would happen in Yeah, that's what we're trying to figure out. Could you have been there with somebody?
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I don't think so. Well, the I don't think so really bothers me. I don't like the I guess. I mean, well, I guess you either were or you weren't there.
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See, I don't like the I guess. You either were there or you weren't. But we know that you were there. Well, I mean, you can I don't know. You can think about my full sentence and say or you
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know my full wording and say he said no. I'm just saying I guess as that is what I think. I don't have a definitive answer for me to give and that's why I'm saying I guess or I'm not. I don't know.
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But I'm not sure it's possible because I don't have a definitive answer. If I'm going to say no, then in my mind I'm going to say no, I guess because I don't have an answer. I don't have a real
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answer. The investigator straight up tells him, I think you created this version of events and you want it so badly to be the truth, but it's not the truth. I don't think I would want it to be the truth if I wasn't telling you
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that it was the truth. Like, why would I tell a story if I wanted it to be true?
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I've never done that. Your version is not the truth. Well, if that's what you think, that's what you think. I've explained to you everything I know in my version of events that I know is correct or that is in my memory. I don't know
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why you would think I'm lying or why you don't believe me. I mean, my brother's pretty chatty. Pretty what? Chatty. Was your brother with you during that night that you got cut?
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I mean, my brother's pretty chatty. He's pretty what? Uh, chatty. Was your brother with you up at all during that night you got cut?
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Eventually, they don't get a confession, but November 10th of 2025, Levi Cart pleads guilty to aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, and strangulation.
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He receives the maximum sentence allowed under juvenile law. He will remain in the juvenile detention facility until he turns 21.
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He is expected to be released in 2033. Wow. Yeah. One neighbor told the police during the investigation that whoever did this to Denise needs to receive capital punishment because quote, you know, if he gets out, he's going to do
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it again. You can't cure that. Other nizens have kind of sounded off online saying like that's actually a really dangerous age to release somebody. And I do think I mean watching his interrogation video, it seems like if he's that equipped at responding to the
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police the way he did at 13, I can't imagine how much more fine-tuned that's going to get in a cutthroat environment such as a juvenile detention center. I imagine your capacity to learn how to adjust and survive in situations like
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that will make you only that much more cunning and evasive. I mean, it was such a strange case to see. I think it's interesting that the investigators handled the case the way that they did. I almost suspect that
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maybe they plead guilty because I don't know. I just feel like the investigators really shot their own foot with this investigation. I think had it gone to trial, I think the defense would have had a good time finding a lot of legal
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murkiness with the way that the investigators approached all of this. And I think maybe that is what resulted in this plea deal. But that's just my speculation. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and I will see
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you in the next one. Be safe.
Topics:Rotten Mangoidentical twinsDNA evidencetrue crimeBerlin heistCart twinsforensic geneticsmurder investigationcriminal justicepodcast
