Within the early morning hours of Sept. 29, 2021, Benjamin Elliott, then 17 years outdated, walked into his twin sister Meghan’s bed room. It was one thing he had completed a whole lot of instances. However on this morning, he had a knife in his hand and stabbed her within the neck whereas she was asleep. He would later say he was sleepwalking. When he realized what he had completed, he instantly referred to as 911.
“I just killed my sister,” Benjamin informed the emergency operator. “Oh my God … I thought it was a dream.”
Benjamin’s dad and mom Kathy and Michael Elliott confronted a heartbreaking and unimaginable actuality: their beloved daughter, Meghan, was useless, and her adoring twin brother — their son — was accused of deliberately murdering her. They might not think about why, and neither might investigators. Correspondent Erin Moriarty investigates the extraordinary case of “The Boy Who Killed His Twin,” for the thirty eighth season premiere of “48 Hours,” airing Saturday, Sept. 27 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
“What makes you so sure that you stabbed your sister while you were sleepwalking?” Moriarty requested Benjamin Elliott in a jailhouse interview earlier this 12 months.
“I would never have done that,” he replied. “I loved her. … She was my best and closest friend.”
Twins Benjamin, left, and Meghan Elliott.
Kathy Elliott
Benjamin’s household, kinfolk and closest associates agreed. “He and Meghan are so close, you could never picture anything bad happening between them,” Drue Whittecar, a longtime household good friend of the Elliotts, informed Moriarty.
“And how did she feel about Ben?” Moriarty requested.
“She loved him,” Whittecar replied. “She looked up to him. … You would see her walk up next to him when she would feel uncomfortable and just kinda stand by him.”
Moriarty additionally interviewed the prosecutors, Megan Lengthy and Maroun Koutani.
“Were you able to find any evidence that there was a problem with … these twins?” Moriarty requested. “No,” Lengthy replied. “We definitely looked into it and tried.”
So how might such a seemingly loving relationship between the twins finish in an unfathomable tragedy?
That’s what Benjamin’s dad and mom — Kathy, a senior supervisor with the Lady Scouts of America, and Michael, a stay-at-home dad — and their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, needed to know.
The Elliotts initially feared {that a} psychological well being disaster was the trigger. However it turned out that Benjamin, and a few shut kinfolk of the Elliotts, had a historical past of sleepwalking. In actual fact, a boyhood good friend of the Elliott twins informed their dad and mom a few slumber get together years earlier, after they discovered Benjamin consuming a donut on a sofa — whereas he was asleep.
Benjamin’s protection attorneys, Cary Hart and Wes Rucker, requested Dr. Jerald Simmons, a neurologist and sleep problem professional, to look at Benjamin. Simmons was initially skeptical. However after interviewing Benjamin, and listening to about his and his household’s historical past of sleepwalking, Simmons performed two sleep research on him, with {the teenager} hooked as much as gadgets that monitored his each motion. Simmons went from skeptic to believer.
He decided that Benjamin fell rapidly into what is called slow-wave sleep, or when folks can sleepwalk. That’s necessary as a result of on the evening Meghan was killed, Benjamin spent hours scrolling the online on his cellular phone, apart from a 24-minute interval when his cellphone was inactive. Simmons believes that Benjamin was sleepwalking throughout that interval, and unintentionally stabbed Meghan to dying.
“Do you believe Ben killed his sister without even realizing he was doing it in his sleep?” Moriarty requested Simmons.
“Yes,” he replied. “Ben definitely killed his sister. He did it, there’s no question, he’s the one that had the knife and he stabbed her. But … he didn’t do this voluntarily. There was no motivation.”
Surprisingly, sleepwalking has proved to be a profitable — albeit uncommon — felony protection. For instance, a Canadian man, Kenneth Parks, was accused of driving 14 miles to his mother-in-law’s residence, the place he killed her. He claimed he was sleepwalking the whole time and was acquitted. And North Carolina father Joseph Mitchell, accused of strangling one in all his youngsters, stated he was sleepwalking through the killing. He was additionally discovered not responsible.
The Elliotts had been relieved, and frightened, at lastly having a proof. “It’s scary as hell,” Kathy Elliott stated, including, “if that can happen to us, then that could happen to anybody with a sleep problem.”
They hoped Simmons’ findings would finish the investigation into Benjamin. In any case, prosecutors admitted they might discover no purpose for the deadly stabbing.
However prosecutors had been nonetheless not satisfied. They questioned Benjamin’s account of that evening, his demeanor throughout an interrogation with a murder detective and that he stated he stabbed his sister as soon as. That was necessary as a result of the medical expert decided Meghan had two wounds to her neck — and one was 4 inches deep and severed key arteries, which prosecutors believed ought to have left blood spatter on the scene.
Regardless of receiving Simmons’ findings, prosecutors charged Benjamin with deliberately murdering his twin, and earlier this 12 months, Benjamin stood trial.
The Elliotts had misplaced their daughter. Nobody knew why. Now, they confronted dropping their son.
Extra from CBS Information
