From Popular to Prison: Teen Girls Who Threw Their Lives Away

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:02]Cara Bordon.

[00:00:05]On a quiet Sunday morning in November 2005, a 14-year-old girl from a deeply religious Lancaster County family watched both of her parents fall inside their own home. The boy standing in the doorway with the gun was someone they had forbidden her from ever seeing again. and what happened next. A 600-mile chase across state lines, a high-speed crash in Indiana, and a question that still lingers to this day, would divide an entire community over something that sounds simple but isn't.

[00:00:42]Was she a victim or was she something else entirely?

[00:00:47]Cara Beth Bordon was the middle child of five in a Plymouth Brethren household in Leight, Pennsylvania. Her father, Michael, worked for a printing company and served as an elder at the family's chapel. It was the kind of home where internet access could be revoked for stepping out of line and where the rules were clear, even when the reasons behind them weren't. Cara had been seeing 18-year-old David Ludvig in secret. They met through a homeschooling support group, and her parents saw the 4-year age gap as a problem from the start. On the night of November 12th, 2005, Cara told her parents she was going to a sleepover.

[00:01:29]Instead, she spent the night at Ludvig's house. He dropped her home around 5:30 the next morning. She was caught sneaking back in.

[00:01:40]Cara called Ludvig. Her parents wanted to speak with him. He drove over, but what he brought with him said everything about what he was prepared to do. a Glock 40 caliber pistol, several other weapons, a hunting knife. For roughly 30 to 45 minutes, there was a conversation, heated words, and then Michael Bordon told Ludvig plainly that he was never to see Carara again.

[00:02:10]As Michael turned toward the front door, Ludvig fired a round into the back of his head. Catherine Bordon rose from a chair. He struck her from about 6 ft away.

[00:02:22]Carara's 13-year-old sister witnessed the first shot and locked herself in a bathroom. Their 9-year-old brother ran to a neighbor who called 911.

[00:02:33]Then Cara walked outside. She was not dragged. She was not carried.

[00:02:40]She climbed into Ludvig's red Volkswagen Jetta and the two of them drove west 600 m across state lines until Indiana State Police caught up with them near Belleville the following day. Ludvig crashed into a tree during a high-speed pursuit. Officers later recovered 54 firearms from his home. So where does the law draw the line between a girl swept into someone else's violence and someone who set the stage for it?

[00:03:09]Lancaster County District Attorney Donald Tataro spent weeks examining that question. On December 16th, 2005, he announced that no charges would be filed against Cara Bordon.

[00:03:23]Ludwig's own statements, Totaro explained, had effectively cleared her of any plot or agreement to bring harm to her parents.

[00:03:32]The only plan the couple had discussed beforehand was running away if they were caught together.

[00:03:39]Court filings noted that Cara left the house willingly and told Ludvig she wanted to get as far away as possible, start a new life, and get married. But wanting to run away is not the same as wanting someone to pull a trigger.

[00:03:54]David Ludwig pleaded guilty on June 14th, 2006 before Judge David Ashworth.

[00:04:02]two counts of firstdegree murder, reckless endangerment, charges related to the nature of his relationship with Cara, given her age, and a firearms violation.

[00:04:13]He received two consecutive life sentences, plus an additional 9 and a half to 19 years. He will never be eligible for parole.

[00:04:24]The district attorney had originally been pursuing the death penalty. Ludwig later tried to invoke the 2012 Supreme Court ruling in Miller versus Alabama, arguing his sentence was unconstitutional.

[00:04:38]His petition was rejected as untimely and without legal merit.

[00:04:43]Ka was reunited with her four surviving siblings and placed under the care of relatives and church members. A legal guardian was appointed.

[00:04:54]A trust fund was established for the Bordon children.

[00:04:58]She was never publicly charged and she has stayed out of the media entirely.

[00:05:04]As of 2026, Cara Bordon is in her mid30s and has lived privately ever since. Several articles online claim to describe her current life, but none have been verified by credible outlets.

[00:05:19]What is known is that the legal system treated her as a victim.

[00:05:24]Whether that label fits perfectly or just closely enough is a question only she can answer.

[00:05:32]But Cara Bordon at least had the defense of being swept up in someone else's violence. Not every case offers that kind of ambiguity.

[00:05:42]Sometimes the person behind the act is 14 years old doing exactly what the one person she trusted most in the world told her to do. Cinnamon Brown.

[00:05:54]On the night of March 19th, 1985, a 14-year-old girl in Garden Grove, California, picked up a gun, walked into a bedroom, and took the life of her own stepmother while the woman slept.

[00:06:10]Hours later, police found the girl curled up in the backyard doghouse, barely conscious, clutching a note that read, "Like a confession," and a suicide attempt rolled into one.

[00:06:22]It would take years for anyone to understand that the real architect of that night was never in the doghouse at all. He was in the house collecting the insurance money. Cinnamon Darlene Brown was 14, the daughter of David Arnold Brown, a man who ran a profitable computer data recovery business and who controlled every corner of his household.

[00:06:48]Also living in the home were Cinnamon's infant halfsister Crystal and Linda's younger sister, Patty Bailey, who had been part of the Brown household since childhood.

[00:06:59]David had been subjecting Patty to abuse for years, a pattern of harm that went undetected because David controlled the information, the money, and the people around him.

[00:07:12]In the months and years before Linda's passing, David had taken out four life insurance policies on her worth more than $1 million combined.

[00:07:22]The eventual payout came to $842,793.

[00:07:29]He had also spent nearly 2 years telling Cinnamon and Patty that Linda and her brother were secretly plotting to have him harmed.

[00:07:38]None of it was true, but Cinnamon was 14 and believed every word her father said.

[00:07:45]On the night it happened, David woke the girls and told them it had to be done that night. He handed Cinnamon the weapon, gave her a handful of pills meant to be fatal, coached her to write a note asking God for forgiveness, and then drove to a convenience store to build himself an alibi.

[00:08:04]Cinnamon fired twice. Linda Bailey Brown was pronounced dead at Fountain Valley Hospital.

[00:08:12]Police found Cinnamon in the doghouse, alive only because she had vomited up most of the pills. Could a 14-year-old raised under that kind of control truly be held responsible for following the instructions of the only authority figure she had ever known?

[00:08:30]The court said yes. Cinnamon confessed, entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and was tried in juvenile court.

[00:08:40]The judge found her guilty and sane, sentencing her to 27 years to life.

[00:08:47]Because of her age, she was committed to the California Youth Authority rather than an adult prison with the possibility of release by age 25 on good behavior.

[00:08:58]But Orange County Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Robinson and Garden Grove detectives Fred Mlan and Jay Newell never stopped watching David Brown.

[00:09:09]After he collected the insurance payout, David married Patty Bailey, his fifth wife. The detectives suspicion only deepened.

[00:09:19]In 1988, with Cinnamon now legally an adult, investigators approached her inside the youth authority. They asked for her help. She agreed. On a monitored visit, Cinnamon wore a wire and David Brown walked directly into the trap, implicating himself in the orchestration of Linda's death. When confronted, he tried to shift the blame onto Patty.

[00:09:45]Patty then came forward with her own account, confirming that David had designed the entire plan and manipulated both of them into carrying it out.

[00:09:55]In June of 1990, David Arnold Brown was convicted of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of financial gain along with conspiracy.

[00:10:07]He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. His appeal was rejected in 1992.

[00:10:15]He spent the rest of his life behind bars at New Folsam Prison where he passed away of natural causes in March 2014 at the age of 61.

[00:10:26]Patty Bailey, tried as a juvenile, was released from custody in 1993.

[00:10:33]Cinnamon Brown was parrolled in February of 1992 after roughly 7 years, during which she earned her high school diploma and an associate of arts degree.

[00:10:45]The deputy district attorney who had prosecuted her called her a 14-year-old who had been completely manipulated and said she had paid her debt to society.

[00:10:55]Author Anne Rule chronicled the case in the 1991 bestseller If You Really Loved Me, which was adapted into the NBC miniseries Love, Lies, and Murder that same year. As of 2026, both Cinnamon and Patty have reportedly married, had children, and built lives far from the shadow of David Brown. They have remained private and out of the public eye. Cinnamon Brown was a teenager following orders she did not fully understand.

[00:11:28]But the next case is different.

[00:11:31]There was no manipulative father pulling the strings. No instructions whispered in the dark. Just a 16-year-old girl, a rifle, and a reason that still disturbs people nearly 5 decades later. Brenda Anne Spencer.

[00:11:47]On the morning of Monday, January 29th, 1979, a 16-year-old girl sat in the front room of her San Carlos home in San Diego, California, aimed a rifle across the street at an elementary school, and opened fire on children as they waited for the gates to open.

[00:12:07]When a reporter later reached her by phone during the standoff that followed, she offered an explanation that became one of the most chilling lines in American criminal history.

[00:12:18]She said she did not like Mondays and that this livvened up the day.

[00:12:24]Brenda Anne Spencer grew up in conditions of severe neglect. Her home was described as squalid, strewn with empty bottles, a place where structure and care were largely absent. She would later tell parole boards about a childhood defined by dysfunction, and a father who failed to provide even the most basic stability. For Christmas 1978, her father gave her a Ruger 1022 semi-automatic 22 caliber rifle fitted with a telescopic sight along with 500 rounds of ammunition.

[00:13:01]Spencer later said she had not wanted the gift.

[00:13:04]That Monday morning, just after 8:30, Spencer positioned herself and fired 36 rounds across the street at Grover Cleveland Elementary School.

[00:13:16]Principal Burton Rag, 53 years old, was struck while trying to shield students from the gunfire.

[00:13:24]Custodian Michael Suture, 56, fell while pulling a child to safety. Both men lost their lives. Eight children were wounded.

[00:13:35]San Diego police officer Robert Rob, 28, took a round to the neck while responding.

[00:13:42]Spencer barricaded herself inside the house for more than 6 hours. A SWAT team surrounded the property.

[00:13:50]During the standoff, she spoke with a journalist by phone. That exchange produced the line that would define her forever.

[00:13:59]Bob Gelof, the Irish musician, read the Wire Service Report in Atlanta and wrote the Boomtown Rats 1979 number one single named after her words.

[00:14:11]How does a society respond to something it has never quite seen before? A child turning a firearm on other children in broad daylight for no reason that anyone can process. Spencer was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to two counts of firstdegree murder along with assault with a deadly weapon. On April 4th, 1980, the day after her 18th birthday, she was sentenced to two concurrent terms of 25 years to life. She became eligible for parole in 1993.

[00:14:45]She has never been released. The California Parole Board has denied her in 1993, 2001, 2005, 2009, and again in 2022.

[00:14:59]Each hearing has followed the same pattern. Spencer offers an explanation, the board weighs it, and the San Diego District Attorney's Office arrives with a detailed opposition, arguing that she remains a danger to public safety.

[00:15:14]In the 2022 hearing, Spencer agreed to a three-year denial, effectively waving her right to a full review.

[00:15:24]Reports indicate she was denied once more in early 2025.

[00:15:30]Throughout the decades, Spencer has offered shifting accounts of what happened that morning at various times claiming she had consumed whiskey and PCP and had been hallucinating during the shooting.

[00:15:43]Investigators found no evidence to support any of those claims. The story has changed, but the outcome has not. As of 2026, Brenda Anne Spencer is 63 years old and remains incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Chino. She has now spent more than 46 years behind bars. Her next scheduled parole hearing is in 2028.

[00:16:11]She is widely recognized as one of the first modern American school shooters. A grim distinction that San Diego District Attorney Summer Stefen has said Spencer had so much to do with creating.

[00:16:24]The original Cleveland Elementary School was closed in 1983 and demolished in 2018.

[00:16:32]A plaque relocated near the site now memorializes Burton Rag and Michael Suture. The two men who gave their lives that morning trying to protect the children in their care. Spencer acted alone, without provocation, without a target she even knew. But violence does not always come from nowhere. Sometimes it grows out of a relationship that warps everything it touches, and the person who pays the price is the one standing in the way. Nicole Kasinskus.

[00:17:05]In the summer of 2003, a 16-year-old girl in Nshwa, New Hampshire, decided that the only obstacle between her and the life she wanted was her own mother. Her mother, John Dominico, had refused to let her move to Connecticut to be with her boyfriend. So, Nicole Kasinskus and 18-year-old William Sullivan Jr. did not argue further. They did not wait it out.

[00:17:33]They tried poison first, then fire, then an attempt to blow up the house. And when none of those worked, they settled on something more direct.

[00:17:45]Nicole Kasinskus was a teenager deep in an intense online relationship with Sullivan, who lived in Willilamantic, Connecticut.

[00:17:53]Jean Dominico, 43, was a mother doing what mothers do. She said no. She did not approve of the relationship, did not want her daughter moving across state lines, and held firm. For most teenagers, that would have been the end of it.

[00:18:12]For Nicole, it was the beginning of something far worse.

[00:18:17]The failed attempts came first. The couple tried to poison Dominico. When that did not work, they tried to set her bed on fire. Then they discussed blowing up the house entirely. Each plan failed or was abandoned, but they did not stop.

[00:18:36]They simply escalated.

[00:18:38]On August 6th, 2003, Sullivan went to the Dominico home on Domain Avenue. He struck up a conversation with Jean in the living room. Then he attacked her with a baseball bat and a series of knives.

[00:18:53]Jean Dominico sustained more than 40 stab wounds from three different blades.

[00:18:59]Nicole was not inside the house when it happened. She waited at a nearby convenience store, but when it was over, she walked back in, stepped over her mother's body, retrieved a cloth, and helped Sullivan clean up the evidence.

[00:19:15]Was this a teenager who had been drawn into something beyond her control, or someone who had helped design the ending from the very beginning?

[00:19:24]Kasinskus was certified to stand trial as an adult and initially faced first-degree murder charges.

[00:19:31]On March 28th, 2005, she accepted a plea deal, pleading guilty to secondderee murder and conspiracy to commit firstdegree murder. In exchange, she agreed to testify against Sullivan. Her testimony proved decisive.

[00:19:49]Sullivan took the stand with an insanity defense, but the jury rejected it after deliberation. He was found guilty of first-degree murder in July 2005 and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. At Nicole's sentencing in September 2005, Judge William Grath did not offer sympathy. He told her she was every bit as responsible as Sullivan and imposed a sentence of 35 years to life.

[00:20:19]John Dominico's fianceé, Christopher McGawan, stood before the court and described the devastation her passing had caused.

[00:20:28]Dominico's halfsister, Ambeth Kasinskus, delivered her own statement. The courtroom heard what the family had lost, and the judge made clear that Nicole's role as the architect of the plan weighed as heavily as Sullivan's role as the one who carried it out.

[00:20:45]Nicole served her time at a New Hampshire correctional facility where she earned her high school diploma and an associates degree and became a mentor to other inmates.

[00:20:56]In 2020, her attorneys petitioned the New Hampshire Executive Council for a commuted sentence.

[00:21:04]The council rejected it 4:1.

[00:21:07]The case appeared closed, but in March 2025, Hillsboro County Superior Court Judge Charles Temple took the unusual step of suspending the remaining 15 and 1/2 years of her sentence after 22 years served.

[00:21:25]The judge cited her educational accomplishments, her conduct record, and her mentorship work behind bars. The adult parole board then approved her release and Nicole Kasinskus walked out of prison on or after October 7th, 2025 under an approved housing plan. As of 2026, Nicole Kasinskus is 38 years old and living under community correction supervision.

[00:21:54]William Sullivan Jr. remains behind bars serving life without parole.

[00:22:00]Gene Dominico's family has not publicly commented on the release. What is known is that a mother said no to protect her daughter and it cost her everything. The Kasinska's case turned on a teenage relationship that spiraled beyond reason.

[00:22:17]But no case in this era blurred the line between teenage obsession and tabloid spectacle quite like what happened on a quiet street in Masipiqua Long Island in the spring of 1992.

[00:22:30]Amy Fiser.

[00:22:33]On the morning of May 19th, 1992, a 17-year-old girl rang the doorbell of a modest house in Masipiqua, New York, introduced herself under a false name and made a claim about an affair. When the woman at the door turned to go back inside, the teenager pulled a 25 caliber handgun and fired a single round into the side of her head.

[00:22:59]The woman survived and within weeks, the case became the most talked about tabloid story in America, spawning three competing television movies in a single season and a nickname that would follow the shooter for the rest of her life.

[00:23:17]Amy Elizabeth Fiser grew up in Merik, Long Island. She later disclosed that she had endured abuse during childhood, including mistreatment by individuals who should have been trusted figures in her life. By the time she was 16, she had already been failed by the adults around her in ways that would shape everything that followed. In December of 1990, Fischer met 35-year-old Joseph Budafoko when her father brought a car into Budapoko's auto body shop in Masipiqua.

[00:23:51]A relationship developed the following summer. Fischer was 16. Buddhapokco was more than twice her age. The nature of that relationship, given Fischer's age, would later become a criminal matter of its own. On that May morning, Fiser showed up at the Buddhafooco home. Mary Joe Buafokco, 37, answered the door.

[00:24:16]Fischer, using the name Anm Marie, told her that a relative was involved with her husband, producing a shop t-shirt as proof. When Mary Joe turned away, Fiser drew the weapon.

[00:24:29]The bullet struck Mary Joe in the right side of her head. She collapsed on the front steps.

[00:24:35]Fiser fled with her getaway driver, a Brooklyn auto supply salesman named Peter Guagenti.

[00:24:42]Mary Joe Budafokco survived emergency surgery, but the damage was permanent.

[00:24:49]She lost hearing in one ear. She was left with partial facial paralysis. The bullet remained lodged in her skull. Was a 17-year-old truly capable of arriving at that doorstep on her own? Or had a much older man set something irreversible into motion? Joey Buddhafoko was the one who pointed police toward Fiser as a suspect. Mary Joe identified her from a photograph after regaining consciousness.

[00:25:19]Fiser was arrested and charged with attempted murder with bail set at $2 million, partly funded by selling her story for $80,000.

[00:25:30]In September 1992, she accepted a plea to first-degree aggravated assault.

[00:25:37]On December 1st, 1992, Judge Marvin Goldstein sentenced her to 5 to 15 years and she was transferred to Albian Correctional Facility.

[00:25:49]Joey Buddokco initially denied any relationship with Fiser, but when motel receipts surfaced, the denial collapsed.

[00:25:58]In October 1993, he pleaded guilty to charges related to the unlawful nature of his relationship with Fiser given her age, and he served 4 months of a six-month sentence. The case consumed tabloid media. Fiser was labeled the Long Island Lolita.

[00:26:18]Three television networks produced competing movies about the case within a single week. But behind the spectacle, something shifted that no one expected.

[00:26:29]Mary Joe Bafokco, the woman Fischer had shot in the head, began corresponding with Fischer's mother, and in an act that still surprises people decades later. Mary Joe supported Amy Fischer's early release.

[00:26:44]Fischer's original 1992 plea was vacated by Nassau County Court Judge Ira Wexner.

[00:26:51]On May 11th, 1999, after nearly 7 years behind bars, Amy Fischer walked out of Albian, a free woman. She married Louis Bolera in 2003 and had three children before the couple divorced in 2015.

[00:27:09]She wrote a column for the Long Island Press, published a 2004 New York Times bestseller titled If I Knew Then, and later worked in adult entertainment.

[00:27:21]She reportedly returned to Long Island after a period in Florida where she said her children were being ostracized because of her name. Mary Joe Butterfoko divorced Joey in 2003.

[00:27:34]A Lifetime biopic titled I Am Mary Joe Butterfoko starring Khloe Laneir and Maddie Hillis as Fiser aired in 2026.

[00:27:46]As of 2026, Amy Fiser is 51 years old.

[00:27:51]She has remained out of serious legal trouble since her release. Joey Buddhapokco has largely faded from public life. and Mary Joe Bafokco, the woman who survived a bullet to the head and then advocated for the release of the person who put it there, remains one of the most quietly remarkable figures in this entire story. Fischer's case played out under the white heat of tabloid cameras, but some of the most disturbing acts unfold in silence between people who smile at each other every day and never let on what they have done. If you're liking this video and you're not subscribed yet, now's the time. We drop new cases every day.

[00:28:36]Subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Rachel Schae and Sheilia Eddie Skyler Niece climbed out of her bedroom window just after midnight, got into her best friend's car, and was never seen alive again. For the next 6 months, the two girls responsible for her disappearance stood beside Skylar's parents at vigils, posted tributes on social media, and played the part of grieving friends so convincingly that no one suspected a thing.

[00:29:08]It was not detective work that solved the case. It was a nervous breakdown.

[00:29:15]Skyler Annette Nie was a 16-year-old honor student at University High School in Morgantown, West Virginia. She worked weekends at Wendy's and told people she wanted to become a criminal defense attorney.

[00:29:29]Her two closest friends were Shaylia Eddie and Rachel Schae. Eddie and Nie had known each other since they were 8 years old. Schae joined the group when she enrolled at the high school as a freshman. What Skylar did not know was that Eddie and Chauffe were in a secret romantic relationship and that they had decided she was in the way. The planning was not impulsive. Eddie packed her car with bleach, cleaning rags, wet wipes, a shovel, and a change of clothes.

[00:30:02]Just past midnight on July 6th, 2012, Skyler climbed out of her ground floor window at her family's home in Star City and got into Eddie's sedan. They drove about 30 m west across the Pennsylvania state line to a wooded area near the town of Brave. And there, on a pre-arranged count of three, Eddie and Schae turned on their closest friend with kitchen knives.

[00:30:29]Skyler fought. She managed to wrestle one knife away and wounded Chauffe above the ankle, but she was outnumbered.

[00:30:39]The attack left more than 50 wounds.

[00:30:42]Unable to dig into the hard ground, they covered her with brush and branches, drove back to West Virginia, and went on with their lives.

[00:30:51]For 6 months, the story held.

[00:30:55]Skyler's parents, Dave and Mary niece, reported her missing.

[00:30:59]Police initially classified her as a runaway. Surveillance footage captured her getting into a light colored car.

[00:31:07]Investigators traced it to Eddie, who lied about where they had gone and when she had dropped Skyler off.

[00:31:15]And while detectives followed leads that went nowhere, Eddie sat in the niece family's living room offering comfort to the parents of the girl she had helped take from the world.

[00:31:26]What does it take for someone to look into a grieving mother's eyes, offer words of comfort, and know the entire time exactly where her daughter's body is lying? In January 2013, Schae suffered what was described as a nervous breakdown. She confessed to her attorney, then to police. On January 16th, she led investigators to the remains in Wayne Township, Green County, Pennsylvania.

[00:31:55]She briefly wore a recording device in an attempt to capture Eddie making incriminating statements. Schae pleaded guilty to secondderee murder on May 1st, 2013.

[00:32:08]On February 26th, 2014, Judge Russell Cloggus sentenced her to 30 years with the possibility of parole after 10 years.

[00:32:19]Prosecutor Marcia Ashdown told the court that Schae had explained to police that Skyler had simply been in the way of her friendship with Eddie.

[00:32:29]At sentencing, Dave Nice addressed Schae directly, telling her he hoped she would get help and that he hoped she would live a rotten life.

[00:32:40]Eddie's case resolved differently.

[00:32:43]On the morning her trial was set to begin, January 24th, 2014, she changed course and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life with mercy, which under West Virginia law means eligibility for parole after 15 years.

[00:33:03]As of 2026, both women remain at Lake Correctional Center in West Columbia, West Virginia.

[00:33:10]Schae was denied parole in May 2023 and again in July 2024.

[00:33:18]She waved a 2025 hearing and is next eligible in June 2026.

[00:33:24]Eddie will first be eligible in 2028.

[00:33:28]Hulu's three-part docue series, Friends Like These premiered in March 2026, bringing renewed public attention to the case.

[00:33:39]Some online sources have claimed Schae was released in 2024, but reliable West Virginia news outlets confirm she remains behind bars.

[00:33:50]Schae and Eddie turned on a friend. But in the small market town of Spalding, England, the violence did not come from outside a family. It came from within it, carried out by a 14-year-old girl who believed her own mother loved her less than her sister, Kim Edwards.

[00:34:09]On a Wednesday night in April 2016, a 14-year-old girl in Spalding, Lincolnshire opened a bathroom window and let her boyfriend inside.

[00:34:20]He was carrying four kitchen knives wrapped in a black t-shirt.

[00:34:24]By morning, two members of her own family had lost their lives in their beds, and then the couple bathed together, ate ice cream, and watched four Twilight films while the bodies lay in the next room.

[00:34:37]Kim Edwards was a teenager who had become convinced that her mother, Elizabeth Edwards, 49, favored her younger sister over her. Elizabeth worked as a dinner lady at a local school. She had tried on several occasions to end Kim's relationship with 14-year-old Lucas Markham. Kim saw this not as protection, but as proof of what she already believed, that her mother cared less about her than she did about her sister. That resentment became the lens through which she interpreted everything.

[00:35:12]Edwards and Markham did not act on impulse.

[00:35:16]On the night of April 13th, 2016, Markhamm walked to the Edward's home on Dawson Avenue carrying the knives.

[00:35:25]Kim let him in through the bathroom window.

[00:35:28]He went into Elizabeth's bedroom first.

[00:35:31]He used a knife on her neck and then smothered her with a pillow.

[00:35:36]Then he went to the younger sister's room and carried out the same act.

[00:35:41]Markham later said he went after the younger girl because he feared she would call the police if left alive.

[00:35:47]Afterward, the two of them bathed. They had sex. They helped themselves to ice cream from the kitchen, and they sat down and watched four films from the Twilight franchise, one after the other, in the living room of the house where two people had just been taken.

[00:36:05]The bodies were not discovered on April 13th. They lay in the house for 2 days.

[00:36:11]It was not until April 15th that authorities were contacted. And only then, because the couple themselves made the call, the British tabloids would eventually label them the Twilight Killers.

[00:36:24]How does a 14-year-old sit in a house with the bodies of her own family and calmly ceue up a movie? At Nottingham Crown Court in the autumn of 2016, Markham pleaded guilty. Edwards denied the charges, arguing diminished responsibility, claiming she was not in full control of her mental faculties at the time.

[00:36:46]The jury rejected her defense on November 10th, 2016.

[00:36:51]The following day, Justice Haden Cave sentenced both to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years. He described the planning as remarkable in its detail and the acts themselves as brutal in the form of executions.

[00:37:07]The judge made clear that the level of premeditation and the behavior that followed placed this among the most chilling cases the court had encountered. In May 2017, the court of appeal heard arguments from defense council Simon Meerson and Sam Green on behalf of both defendants.

[00:37:27]The court reduced both minimum terms from 20 years to 17 1/2 years. A reduction of 2 and 1/2 years that reflected their extreme youth at the time of the offenses. A reporting restriction that had protected their identities throughout the trial was then lifted in June 2017 and the British public learned their names for the first time. Edwards and Markham became two of the youngest double life offenders in British history. As of 2026, both are in their early 20s and remain incarcerated in His Majesty's prison system. Given the 17 1/2 year minimum beginning from their detention in 2016, they would become eligible to be considered for release by the parole board around 2033 or 2034.

[00:38:18]Parole eligibility does not guarantee release. A parole board must separately determine that it is safe to do so. No public reporting indicates any reconsideration of their cases to date.

[00:38:32]Edwards and Markham were children when they committed acts so cold that even veteran judges struggled to describe them. But halfway around the world in a small Argentine city, a 19-year-old law student would commit an act just as sudden. and the case that followed would consume an entire country. Nahir Galarza.

[00:38:55]Shortly before dawn on December 29th, 2017, a 19-year-old law student in a small Argentine city climbed onto the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle, rode through the quiet streets of their neighborhood, and then fired two rounds from her father's service pistol into his body.

[00:39:15]One shot struck him in the back. The second, after he had already fallen to the pavement, was fired into his chest from less than 2 ft away.

[00:39:26]She was a police officer's daughter. He was the young man she had spent 2 years beside, and the case that followed would make her the youngest woman in Argentine history to receive a life sentence.

[00:39:39]Nahir Mariana Galarsza was born in Gualeu, a city in the province of Entre Rios in September 1998.

[00:39:49]She was studying law at the Universad de Conception del Uruguay.

[00:39:55]Her father Marcelo Galartza was a provincial police officer.

[00:40:00]Fernando Gabrielle Pastorso born in January 1997 was her boyfriend of roughly 2 years.

[00:40:08]What the relationship looked like from the inside and who was responsible for its worst moments would become a matter of intense public debate.

[00:40:18]The events of that morning were reconstructed through phone records, witness statements, and Galarza's own eventual admission.

[00:40:27]Pastors was riding his motorcycle through the Tomas Damora neighborhood with Galarsa as his passenger.

[00:40:35]She fired the first shot into his back at close range. He fell from the motorcycle. Then she stood over him and fired a second round into his chest from approximately 50 cm away.

[00:40:48]A neighbor found Pastoro on the ground.

[00:40:51]He was transported to hospital Jose Deoritza where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

[00:40:58]Galarsa initially denied involvement. At different points, she suggested her father might bear responsibility, a claim her family later walked back, but the evidence left little room for doubt.

[00:41:13]Phone records placed her with pastoro.

[00:41:16]Witnesses had seen her on the motorcycle, a ballistic expert testified that while the first shot could theoretically have been accidental, a second shot fired downward into a person lying on the ground could not. How does a law student raised in a law enforcement household come to the conclusion that a 9mm pistol is the answer to whatever was happening in that relationship?

[00:41:42]On July 3rd, 2018, the three judge panel of the tribunal Dewitio Appalachion of Guagu, judges Mauricio Derudi, Aruro Don, and Alicia Viviian unanimously convicted Galarsa of homicidio Kaulificado Porlinkulo.

[00:42:02]Aggravated homicide based on the nature of the couple's relationship. She was sentenced to prison perpetua, life imprisonment.

[00:42:11]At 19 years, 7 months, and 21 days old, she became the youngest woman in Argentine history to receive a life sentence.

[00:42:22]The appeals that followed stretched across 6 years and reached the highest levels of the Argentine judiciary.

[00:42:30]In August 2019, the regional appellet court upheld the sentence. In March 2020, the Superior Court of Entre Rios affirmed it again.

[00:42:42]Argentina's Supreme Court definitively upheld the life sentence on July 2nd, 2024, and rejected a final remaining petition on November 27th, 2024.

[00:42:55]Every legal avenue has now been exhausted. As of 2026, Nah Galarza is 27 years old and remains at Unidad Penal number six in Piranha, the only women's prison in Entre Rios province.

[00:43:11]Prison officials report she has completed approximately 15 training courses and is studying social psychology.

[00:43:19]In 2025, she petitioned a judge for access to a cell phone and social media, a request that drew widespread public criticism.

[00:43:30]She was briefly granted a guarded furlow to visit her terminally ill grandmother.

[00:43:36]Under Argentine law, she may apply for release after approximately 35 years around the year 2052.

[00:43:45]The prime video feature film Nah starring Valentina Zener and the documentary Nahir Elsto Deon Kreman both released in 2024 have kept her case in the national conversation. Galarsa became a symbol of how a single act can define a life in Argentina's public consciousness.

[00:44:08]But she was not, as many believe, the first young woman in that country to receive a life sentence.

[00:44:16]That distinction belongs to a case from 3 years earlier, committed barely 200 km away in the same province by a girl who took the life of the person who should have been safest of all, Paula Araceli Benites. In the early hours of April 18th, 2015, an 18-year-old girl in Cologne, Entree Rios walked into her mother's bedroom while the woman slept, struck her five times in the head with a rolling pin, and then strangled her with an electrical cord to make sure it was finished.

[00:44:54]The motive was not rage. It was not self-defense.

[00:44:59]It was roughly 80,000 pesos in cash that the family had been saving. Money that did not even belong to her mother. Then she set the house on fire and walked away.

[00:45:13]Paula Araceli Bonites was 18 years old.

[00:45:17]Her mother, Lena Zenetti, was 38. The money in the house belonged to Zenetti's own mother and was being held for a car purchase by Paula's father, who was working an overnight shift at a bakery.

[00:45:30]Also in the home was Zenetti's young son, asleep in another room. Paula had a boyfriend, 17 years old, who helped her plan the act and was with her that night. The violence itself was direct.

[00:45:46]Paula entered the bedroom and struck Zenetti five times in the head with a rolling pin. When that alone was not enough, she used an electrical cable to strangle her. The cord was still around Zenetti's neck when investigators arrived. The couple then set fire to the house to destroy evidence, took the cash, a 44 caliber firearm, and family identity documents, and fled on foot.

[00:46:14]They did not get far. A neighbor saw them leaving as smoke poured from the windows. The pair walked several kilometers along country roads to the nearby town of San Jose, then hired a taxi to Concordia.

[00:46:29]The driver, suspicious of their nervous demeanor, reported them. Police apprehended them near the Concordia bus terminal that same morning. They had been about to board a coach to Rosario.

[00:46:42]If the money in that house had not existed, would Lorena Zenetti still be alive? Or was the money simply the excuse for something that had already taken root?

[00:46:53]Bonitez was tried before the tribunal deitio eapalacles of Conception del Uruguay with judges Alberto, Ruben Shaya, and Mariela de Ptoro presiding.

[00:47:07]On September 2nd, 2016, she was convicted of aggravated homicide on multiple grounds, including the familial relationship, treachery, and commission in furtherance of another crime along with simple robbery. She was sentenced to prison perpetua.

[00:47:26]At 19 years, 8 months, and one day old at the time of her conviction, she was the youngest woman in Argentina to receive a life sentence, a record she held until Nahir Galarsa's sentencing 2 years later. The defense, led by attorney Ernesto Rubin Figun, had sought a conviction for simple homicide, which carries a maximum of 25 years. But the court found multiple aggravating factors that pushed the sentence to life. Her defense attorney Jose Palufo filed an appeal with the Kamar de Cassaceion de Piranha.

[00:48:04]Judges Hugo Peroi, Marcela David, and Marcela Badano upheld the conviction and sentence in 2017, rejecting all grounds for review. Every legal argument the defense had put forward was considered and dismissed.

[00:48:20]Her boyfriend, tried separately in the juvenile system because he was 17 at the time of the act, was sentenced by Judge Andres Torres to 10 years in prison, with nearly 2 years of pre-trial house arrest credited toward his term. The disparity between their sentences reflects the difference between the adult and juvenile systems, not the difference in their involvement. As of 2026, Paula Araceli Bonitez is serving her life sentence at Unidad Panel 6 in Piranha, the same facility where Nah Galarsa is housed. Under Argentine law, she may apply for release after approximately 35 years, which would place her eligibility around the age of 54.

[00:49:09]Despite circumstances that mirror Galarza's case in striking ways, Bonitez has received considerably less media attention. Her name rarely appears in the national press. Her story has not been turned into a film or a documentary.

[00:49:25]Galarsa's face is on streaming platforms and magazine covers.

[00:49:30]Bonitez serves her time in the same building under the same sentence in relative silence.

[00:49:37]The difference is not in what they did.

[00:49:40]It is in who the cameras decided to follow.

[00:49:43]There is a specific kind of darkness in cases where the victim is apparent. But not all of these stories fit neatly into categories of greed or resentment. In Auckland, New Zealand, the youngest case in this account began with a childhood so fractured that by the time the violence arrived, almost no one was surprised. Natalie Fenton.

[00:50:08]She had just turned 15 two weeks earlier when she led an attack so violent that the judge who sentenced her struggled to find a precedent for someone so young.

[00:50:19]The victim was a 59year-old man. Three young women were involved, and the girl at the center of it all had been failed so many times by so many people that by the time she picked up a knife, the system had already lost her. Natalie Roslin Fenton grew up in circumstances defined by abuse, neglect, and institutional failure.

[00:50:44]She later told a psychiatrist that she had endured mistreatment during her early childhood at the hands of adults who were trusted by her family.

[00:50:54]After her father passed away in 1993, she dropped out of primary school.

[00:51:01]By her early teens, she was caught in cycles of exploitation and substance use. She had convictions for aggravated assault, theft, and car theft, and had ties to the Crips gang.

[00:51:15]She was, by every measure that matters, a child the system had already abandoned.

[00:51:23]Raymond Mullins, 59, was an acquaintance of the Fenton family. There was a history between Mullins and Natalie that involved exploitation during her childhood. On April 1st, 1999, Natalie along with her older sister Katrina Fenton, 19, and their cousin Daniela Bowman, 17, went to Mullins's home on Plunkett Avenue in Papatoito, South Auckland. They came looking for $500 New Zealand dollars for a 21st birthday party. When Mullins refused to hand over the money, Natalie attacked him with one of his own kitchen knives.

[00:52:03]She stabbed repeatedly until the blade bent, then retrieved a second knife.

[00:52:09]Katrina held him down and struck him with a hammer.

[00:52:12]Bowman joined in with a cooking pot, an ashtray, and a table leg. Mullins sustained 19 stab wounds, hammer blows, and a deep wound across his neck. The letter W or N was carved into his chest.

[00:52:29]The three bound him, wrapped him in a sheet, dragged him downstairs, and placed him in the boot of his car. They splashed paint around the scene and scrolled gang tags on the walls in an attempt to frame a rival group. Police arrested all three within 5 days. At the twoe high court trial in Auckland, with Justice Chambers presiding, prosecutors identified Natalie as the ring leader.

[00:52:57]A psychiatrist testified that she was suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder and described a dissociative state she experienced during the attack. All three were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

[00:53:12]Natalie's parole eligibility was set for April 7th, 2009.

[00:53:18]Could any court sentence adequately account for both the severity of what happened to Mullins and the severity of what had happened to Natalie before she ever walked through his door?

[00:53:29]The years that followed told a story of a woman caught between the world she grew up in and a world she had never learned to navigate.

[00:53:39]Katrina Fenton was parrolled in 2012.

[00:53:43]Daniela Bowman was parrolled in February 2014, recalled for drinking and curfew violations, and later re-released.

[00:53:52]Natalie was denied parole multiple times, including in June 2015.

[00:53:59]On January 19th, 2016, the parole board approved her release, citing successful therapy, supervised workplacements, and a solid reintegration plan. She walked out on April 4th, 2016 under 10 special conditions for a period of 5 years, including bans from certain parts of Auckland and Roarua and no contact with co-offenders or the victim's family.

[00:54:28]The release lasted less than 2 months.

[00:54:31]By May of 2016, the board issued an interim recall order. Natalie had breached her curfew, but not in the way anyone expected.

[00:54:42]She had deliberately violated conditions in order to be returned to prison, telling officials she had a complete inability to cope with modern life. She had spent more than half her life behind bars. The outside world was the foreign territory. She was eventually released on parole again.

[00:55:03]In April 2022, she appeared in Hamilton District Court before Judge Glenn Marshall, admitting she had breached her curfew by returning home late, describing herself as a product of the system for 23 years. She was sentenced to 6 weeks in custody. As of 2026, Natalie Fenton is 42 years old. She remains subject to lifelong standard parole conditions. No credible reporting indicates any further serious reaffending.

[00:55:37]She is in many ways still learning how to live in a world that never taught her how. Every case in this video started the same way with someone young enough that the world still expected them to change. Some did, some did not.

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