a mother father and three of their children are shot in Cold Blood and detectives say the couple's 15-year-old son is to blame for the heinous crime I have the disturbing details out of Washington state and how the teen's sister escaped the horror welcome to Crime fix I'm manette Levy a 15-year-old boy is in jail in King County Washington facing charges for the premeditated murder of his parents and three younger siblings his 11-year-old sister survived and I'm going to tell you how very short this crime has shocked the community in Fall City Washington outside of Seattle
documents charging the 15-year-old with the murder say on Monday October 21st he called 911 with a cover story blaming his 13-year-old brother Benjamin for the murders and affidavit says humiston sounded out of breath and stated he just shot my whole family and committed suicide too during the ensuing conversation with the 911 operator humiston stated that his brother BD H had killed their family and taken himself out and that he humiston was currently hiding in the bathroom on the main floor of the house humiston stated that a possible motive for Benjamin humiston killing everyone is that
he had been caught looking at pornography the night before and that he was about to get into a lot of trouble at the same time the teenager's 11-year-old sister had run to a neighbor's home she told the neighbor that her brother had shot her and her family members and that she played dead by by holding her breath and then escaped through a window the girl told investigators that her brother had recently gotten into a lot of trouble for feeling some tests at school she described her father as keeping a Glock pistol in a small lock
box which he would sometimes put by the front door so he could bring it to work the sister told interviewers that of all the children her brother was the only one who knew the combination to the Glock lock box investigators noted in the affidavit that the 13-year-old brother Benjamin humis that's the younger brother the 15-year-old accused Shooter had blamed in the 911 call had died of multiple gunshot wounds but they found Benjamin with a gun in his hand the affidavit said a black Glock handgun was in his left hand that was lying on his chest
no apparent blood spatter was observed on Benjamin humiston left hand or the Glock in the master bedroom I saw a large amount of Blood on the carpet to the right of the bed the blood continued into the onite bathroom the door frame of the bathroom was splintered as if it had been locked then forced open from the bedroom side on the back of the bathroom door were several areas of blood that appeared to be handprints Jennifer humiston the mother of the children was found dead in the bathroom and died from two gunshot wounds her husband
Mark the father of the children had been shot four times Joshua who was nine and Catherine who was seven had also been shot neighbors told local media that the children were homeschooled and that the family was active in the community and they seemed perfect Mark humiston worked for an engineering firm in Seattle the company released a statement to the AP saying we are blindsided and saddened by the tragic events that have led to the loss of a respected colleague mentor and friend as well as the loss of immediate family members Mark's leadership and vision were
integral within our firm and he will be greatly missed as the community and family members mourn the loss of the humiston and try to care for the surviving daughter it's not clear whether the teen will be tried as an adult although that's what prosecutors want a status conference for the teen's case is set for January and the process to determine whether the teens case will be moved to adult Court could take up to a year Philip dubet works as courta appointed counsel in California Phillip of this case the allegations are absolutely awful we have a
15-year-old boy accused of murdering slaughtering his entire family except with for a sister who played dead I mean and he's accused of doing this in a very cold and premeditated fashion oh yeah I and I'll be honest with you Anette I've seen a lot of homicides in my career but this one is up in the top five as uh taking the cake uh this is uh five deaths the parents three siblings and a fourth sibling uh through the grace of God survived we don't see these very often now granted we do see plenty of child
deaths where the leading cause is by firearm in fact I think just this year alone we're not even at the end of the year there have been 1,00 child deaths because of firearms and I believe there's been over 450 mass shootings so the real question is uh why is this happening and by the way that data is for uh for the uh Center for uh Disease Control and prevention they keep statistics on this and I think it's through the hospitals across the country uh but but the real question is why is it happening is it
that uh kids are running a mck uh mental illness are parents uh failing to keep their firearms locked up in this particular case Dad kept the uh lock box away uh from the reach of the kids but this one particular kid had the combination was able to open it up and of course committed the deed so it's just a horrific tragedy the only question that really remains is where is this child going will he remain in the juvenile jurisdiction or will he go upstairs to adult Court where he could face 25 to life in prison
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I've been told for him to for them to determine whether the case will go to adult Court could take up to a year um which seems like a really long time to me but I guess they have all of these hearings they have to go through it's a process so nothing is going to be released about this case no 911 calls nothing um until it's determined whether he will be tried as an adult as long as it stays in juvenile court all of that stuff stays secret the judge has even ordered that this teen's name
not be released um even though we know his name so uh there's a lot going on with this case still um what's laid out in these documents though Phillip is so uh cold and calculated they say that he basically this teenager 15-year-old boy tried to frame his younger brother for the crime tried to basically say my younger brother did this put they're saying he put the gun in his younger brother's hand younger brother was shot multiple times he's trying to say my brother killed everybody and took his own life that takes a lot of calculation
and thought what is going on with this 15-year-old kid you've been defending people for years and years I mean what is going on here well it's precisely what has to be developed while they're still under the juvenile jurisdiction uh within 14 days of the filing of the charging document the prosecution uh must do what's called a declination hearing or a decline hearing sometimes in other states we call it a transfer hearing during that time the Court decides who will retain jurisdiction over the kid will they decline juvenile jurisdiction over the minor or send him upstairs
to adult Court and uh the court has to engage in a balancing test the court has to find by a preponderance of the evidence that it would be either in the juvenile's best interest or the Public's best interest to transfer him upstairs so what does that mean well in the state of Washington they have a host of factors and I think they're called the Kent factors which comes from I believe a state supreme court case where they look to the sophistication of the crime they look at the seriousness of the the crime they look at
the Minor's home environment they look to see if he has any mental health deficiencies was he in special education what was going on in this kid's life does he even have familiarity with the justice system and by all accounts this was a good kid you know he did uh uh fishing bicycling uh hung out with his siblings I believe mom homeschooled the kids I I have a feeling that that a defense Council for this child is going to do a full psychosocial workup on this kid and they're going to find out that he had a
host of special needs that likely went unaddressed during homeschooling and we have at the public school level and even the private school level in the United States we have What's called the No Child Left Behind legislation where schools and districts are required to test kids and provide them with all the services that they need if they are special needs so that they not uh left behind so they do not fail and they could Advance like other kids throughout the process and it sounds like Mom was not equipped to take that on of course we won't
know until special testing is done on this kid and that uh and until he's seen by a psychiatrist or a forensic psychologist but you can bet there is going to be some type of diagnosis and my hunch is it's going to be on the autism spectrum something to do with ADHD or um uh a attention hyperactive disorder where uh something took hold of his uh judgment processes and an ability to control himself and that this was clearly an impulsive act perhaps had he had been properly medicated properly diagnosed this could have been avoided uh the
only legal uh advantage that this kid has is that because he was only 15 at the time he cannot ever ever face life without Parole in the adult system the worst case scenario is 25 to life which is still bad because in theory he might not ever get out but at least he has a shot at a parole hearing if he is in fact tried as an adult yeah I I want to talk about the 11-year-old who played dead I mean that is just so harrowing to me she had the wherewithal she was wounded but
she was able to hold her breath and play dead and then escape and go to the neighbor's house while her brother was calling 911 there's another 911 call where she's relaying information to the neighbor I can't imagine what this girl I mean is going to have to go through the rest of her life I mean she's the only living witness it's horrific and if you really think about it is it even a credibility call as to who did this shooting I mean in theory uh the boy can insists that his brother did this and then
he would be pointing the finger at his sister that she's protecting the other brother who died so the question is going to be what kind of evidence did they collect so for example did they have gunshot residue on the boy's hands did she have any gunshot residue is there any touch DNA on the firearm that was used uh but in answer to your question at any age I don't care if you're 10 11 or 20 we all have a primal Instinct uh for self-preservation and when you sense that your life is on the line even
at that age you play posum if need be you climb out a window you scream for help you do what you can and this child had the presence of mind to preserve her own life get out that window and run to neighbors I think that standing alone is telling that she did not have a hand in this you know uh but it's going to take years for her to get over this because in essence this child is orphaned you know her parents are gone her siblings are gone and let's face it the brother's probably never
going to get out and if he does he's going to be an age-old Man by then you know so it's going to take a while it's going to be uh daunting and trying for her to have to take the stand they're going to have to get her a support person to stand next to her in open court uh to help allay her concerns and uh the nerve-wracking experience but she'll get through it I don't know that she'll get over it but she will get through it it is absolutely horrific um awful awful and I just
can't even imagine Philip dubet thank you so much appreciate your time and that's it for this episode of crime fix I'm Anette Levy thanks so much for being with me I'll see you back here next time
