Original subtitles

David scares me.

And I know he likes the fact that he scares me.

When I think of David, I think of hate,

and he definitely hated me, and there's nobody that ever

convinced me differently.

I will always be scared of David as long as he's alive.

I can tell you that I've never met a child as evil as David.

What went wrong in this guy's head?

Why is my brother sitting in jail right now

for effectively the rest of his life?

When I look back at David's life now,

David strikes me as just somebody who

was just born into this world angry.

When I first told people that there's something

seriously wrong with him, and he needs help,

he's gonna end up killing somebody someday,

some people thought I was crazy.

I feel that I can shed some light on

what David's about.

That is Del in his uniform taken at

the Alliance Police Department.

From the looks of it,

I would say it's probably...

in the '90s.

The first time I met him,

it was the first week of March in 1978,

and I was starting to work at the court clerk's office.

He was extremely charming,

okay, very personable,

had a great smile,

and I just found him very attractive.

And then, as I got to know him,

he was a very big romantic.

Since we worked in the same building,

he would show up with gifts and flowers frequently.

After we've been going out for probably a month,

he asked me if I wanted to meet his children.

At that time in my life, I was 30 years old.

I had recently been divorced, and I had two small children.

He had been divorced for a couple of years.

His wife had left him and the three kids with him.

Everyone! Come say hello!

We went in, and he introduced me to all of them.

- This is Deborah. - Hello.

Here's a little girl with her hair

all, you know, like, crazy,

like she hadn't combed it in six weeks

and a smile on her face.

- It's very nice to meet you. - Aw.

I definitely felt, oh, poor thing,

she needs a mother.

And this is my eldest, Thom.

The first time I met Debbie,

there was just something different about her.

She took a deep interest in myself and my brother

and sister.

She was fun, funny,

and Debbie did not appear to be one

of these other women that my dad had dated.

Debbie was... and is... A very intelligent woman.

And you must be David.

It's really nice to meet you.

David was the next one. He's the middle child.

David.

Deborah is talking to you.

Hello.

The first time I met them, I thought they were very cute,

you know, and they were very friendly,

and they made a good impression on me.

But David Shafer, he is

unlike anybody I've ever met.

I've called him a sociopath for many years.

Something is wrong with him.

We dated probably a year before I moved in.

I noticed that David wasn't like the rest of the kids.

The thing that really stuck out to me

with David was you couldn't believe anything he said.

When Debbie moved in, now you have to follow rules.

You come home from school, you do your chores,

you do your homework, you study for an hour.

And David did not take to that very well.

There were problems.

David, what are you doing?

Watching TV.

If you ask him, "Did you do your homework?"

He would say, "I did it already."

"Oh, really?

Yeah, okay. Bring it to me."

"Well, I'll do that after dinner."

I said, "No, you can do it right now."

Go get it. I want to see it.

And he brought it down, and obviously no homework,

and he lied to me.

He never even touched it.

What is this?

He would stare at me like he didn't even see me there.

He was just looking straight through me,

and it made me feel uncomfortable.

You told me this was finished.

It was almost an eerie feeling.

Sometimes goosebumps

like I'm having right now, just talking about it.

To me, it looked like he was, in his mind, was saying,

"I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think.

I'm gonna do what I want."

Well, you're just gonna have to finish it now.

Nah.

And I said, "Well, you go to your room and finish it."

So he walked outside and went out to play.

David, you know the rules.

I said, "No."

He would do anything

but what he was told to do, period.

I had to take into consideration that their mother

had left them, and I thought

David might be projecting his anger towards his mother,

who had left, onto me.

But these other two kids went through

the same thing he did, and they're not doing it.

It was obviously a sign that something was wrong.

David was going to do what he wanted to do.

He wasn't gonna let some new woman

just stroll in there and start giving orders.

He wasn't gonna have it.

He was a loner and a troublemaker.

Seemed like the only time he was happy was

when he was tormenting somebody

or lying or manipulating.

Take, for instance, we had a pet pig.

When he got big enough, we were gonna butcher it.

One of the kids loved the pig.

So we didn't tell her... We told her Mr. Pig went away.

One night, we sat down, and we're having pork chops.

When he was thinking something to do to hurt somebody,

you could tell in the eyes, they almost have a sparkle in them.

She went to take a bite of this pork chop.

He smiled.

I thought, "Oh, no."

And then he blurted it out before I could say anything.

You want to know what you're really eating?

He just looked at her and laughed and said,

"You're eating Mr. Piggy."

And she said, "No, I'm not."

That's not true!

He said, "Oh, yes, you are."

And, of course, Del and I couldn't deny it.

David.

She was maybe seven years old at the time,

and she was devastated that this pig got butchered.

She left the table crying,

and he thought that was so funny.

What is the matter with you?

Why would you say something like that?

He just sat there at the table and just laughed.

He absolutely enjoyed that moment.

He enjoyed anything that would upset somebody.

I would say most of David's happiness

came from making anybody miserable that he could.

And the older he got, and the more this stuff happened,

the more serious I thought the problem was.

If the other children had misbehaved, and they got

punished, say take the television away,

the phone away, phone privileges,

or they get grounded, it worked with them,

but it did not work with David.

We sought the counseling from a pastor.

He suggested that maybe a smack on the...

On the butt would bring him around.

And so he made a little paddle for him and said,

"This is particularly for David."

But David, I don't think anything worked.

I don't even think spanking helped.

Of course I'm sure... I always keep it right here.

And you really think it was David?

If I'd get extra money,

I would hide this money inside a sock.

Well, one day, I was gonna go shopping,

and I go in, and no money there.

Everybody, get in here!

When I found out the money was missing and I told.

Del, he lined up his kids and asked where the money was.

Does anybody want to tell me what

happened to the money in Debbie's drawer?

No?

- No one? - And they all said no.

They didn't know anything about it.

And then finally, somebody broken, and it was David,

said he... he took it.

I think you and I both know who it was.

Yeah, it was me. So what?

David got a beating that day.

It didn't even faze him.

He was like, "Oh, well," you know, it didn't matter.

He didn't cry, he didn't... He didn't do anything.

It was like a defiant look in his face and just saying,

"Go ahead and beat me. I'm not gonna react."

And the more it went on,

the more intense it got, and the more intimidating it got.

He just looks right through you.

It was shocking to me, because I never

saw anybody look at me that way before.

Especially a child.

When David was disciplined, it just

seemed like he just got more angry.

David was really defiant towards Debbie.

I never did understand his level of defiance

towards the simplest things.

It was intimidating,

but I didn't think of him as a violent person at that time.

That came later.

Later on, I realized he was a sociopath.

I just never, never imagined it.

Now I'm getting emotional. I don't know why.

I don't know.

I guess he does terrify me.

Okay, this picture, right after our wedding.

Everybody else just smiling nice,

but he has to make a face.

That was the way David was.

If some stranger was looking at this picture,

they'd just think that David was being a clown.

I see orneriness and his defiance.

Everybody told him to smile, and he didn't smile.

I did not think at that point that he would be

like he was, that he would be a killer

or even that he would be as devious

and manipulative as he came to be.

But after the wedding, I noticed

a shift in David's behavior, and especially towards me.

After Del and I got married,

David seemed to instigate arguments or fights between us.

One day, it was winter,

and Del starts screaming at me, and I'm like,

what in the world are you upset about?

What the hell is wrong with you?

What are you talking about?

Why would you do that to him? He's just a child.

And then he starts to tell me this story

that David told him.

He told his dad that I locked him out of the house

in freezing weather with no coat

and wouldn't let him in, and he was out there for like

three hours after school.

Well, that's not true.

I don't know why he said that to you,

but he's lying, Del.

Oh, so now my son's a liar, huh?

I had no idea what he's talking about.

No idea. I said there was no way

that I locked him out of the house.

Del was angry with me because he believed David.

He almost always believed David.

He actually got physical with me.

It's freezing out there, Deborah!

How dare you?

When Del would lose his temper with me,

he would have pull my hair or grab me or shove me up

against the wall and just,

you know, yell in my face.

You know, you've had it for him since the second you

- got here. - That is not true!

Del, let go of me!

Then why did I find him outside, shivering in the cold?

I don't know, Del, but I'm telling you,

I would never do that.

And David was just sitting there, grinning.

He wanted me gone.

Because I was the intruder. I was the threat.

He loved the chaos between my dad and Debbie.

He just seemed to thrive on it.

He wanted to hear them fighting.

And so I just asked him, I said, "Why are you doing

all this?

And his response was, "I do it because I can do it."

Why would you tell dad she did that?

Because I hate her, and I want her gone.

"I want mother back.

"I don't like this bitch, Debbie.

I'm getting her out of here."

He was going to make sure, one way or another,

that they weren't gonna stay married.

I felt vulnerable every day

that David was in my home.

I would worry about what is he gonna do next?

You know, what is the next story gonna be?

You know, and is Del believe me,

or is he gonna believe him?

But I wasn't giving up. I was not giving up.

He manipulated his father into fighting

with me every chance he got.

One day, I had just gotten home from work,

and the next thing I hear, Del's yelling at me.

- Deb? Deb, is that you? - Yeah, Del, I'm home.

I said, "What is your problem?"

And he said, "How dare you?"

And I said, "What are you talking about?"

And he says, "You kicked David down the basement stairs,

"and then you went down and kicked him in the gut

and his back while he was on the ground."

David told me what you did to him.

I'm like, unbelievable!

I realized David was lying to him immediately.

And I told him that. He's lying to you again.

Not this again.

You don't really believe him, do you?

Then how do you explain this?

He says, "Well, how come he's got a bruise?"

And I said, "I have no clue.

But I did not touch him."

He could have fallen, hit himself, you know,

fell down on the playground. Who knows?

Or maybe he did this to himself.

Did you ever think about that?

Del blamed it all on me.

And, of course, I got slapped around that day.

Del!

You never should have touched him!

David enjoyed the fact that his dad physically abused me.

This was about the time that I told Del, there's...

There's something seriously wrong with him, and he's gonna

end up killing somebody someday.

Del was a very, very good detective.

He was 24 years on the police department.

He could see through other people and the criminals,

but he could not, for anything,

see... even see clearly, his own son.

One day, out of the blue, David's mother called Del

and asked if David could come live with her.

It was one of the happiest days of

my life, and I know that sounds horrible,

but it was just, like, the hugest relief off my shoulders.

Del told me what was going on with David.

But other than that, I did not keep in touch with David.

He was gone. That's all I cared about.

He was gone.

We were both in our early 20s when we reconnected.

I moved out to Pennsylvania in the late '80s, and the first

person I called was David.

For a while, when he moved with my mom, he was doing well.

He was in construction.

He did roofing.

He built, um, he built decks.

I thought at the time he could absolutely get it together.

But there was an occasion back in, uh, 1991

where my mother and I were in the kitchen,

we got a phone call.

Hello?

It was the police, looking for my stepfather.

It's the police. Get on the other phone.

They wanted to know if he owned this

particular firearm, and he proceeded to tell us,

yeah, David had a loaded gun.

He did what?

He got into a disagreement with somebody,

and he went and took one of my stepfather's guns

and threatened the guy

and was arrested.

No, that's... that's impossible.

He knows better than that.

When I heard that David had done all this,

my first thought was, "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

To take a loaded firearm and go after somebody?

That, to me, is... Is just insane.

My father, being a police officer, raised us

to use guns properly.

It was a huge red flag for me.

But I didn't look at it as, you know,

any kind of pattern of behavior developing.

I just thought, here's my idiot brother

doing something stupid.

He spent a couple of months in jail over that incident.

I had hoped that David spending some time in

jail would...

Would put him back on the right path.

It did not turn out that way.

No, his life ended up a lot worse.

This is a picture of my brother,

myself, and Debbie's son.

It's an open house at

the police department where my father worked.

It was taken when David was probably 13.

I never really looked at it a lot

until he was sentenced.

When I look at this, I see a happy kid.

I don't see somebody who would eventually kill.

It's kind of ironic now, because here

he is in a jail cell, make believe.

Dad would say, "If you don't behave,

this is where you'll end up."

But David didn't behave, and that's where he ended up.

This is his life for real.

He's in the front of this picture smiling,

but I don't think he's got that expression any longer.

After the gun incident, he had nowhere else to go,

so he ends up at my place.

He didn't go to work. He didn't look for a job.

He mooched money off my dad.

Ever think about finding a job, man?

Don't need to... Dad just sent me some money.

And David expressed this view to me

of wanting my father's belongings.

Once he's gone, I'll get what I'm owed.

On numerous occasions

over the years, he would say to me, "When dad dies,

I want this firearm and this."

"I feel dad owes me a fishing boat.

"Dad owes me hunting gear, because he allowed Debbie to

"come in, and he allowed her

to make all these changes in our lives."

He won't be around forever.

And I would kind of be like, what do you mean when he dies?

"Well, you know, everybody's gotta go sometime."

And it just would make me wonder, like,

why would you even talk about that, you know?

Who sits there and says... And thinks about

when their parents are gonna be dead

and what they're gonna gain from it.

He doesn't get the concept of family.

He schemed. He plotted.

He looked around and saw what my dad had

and thought, "This should all be mine.

How do I get it?"

As David got older, he hated me more.

Del and I got divorced.

I stayed at the house, and after the divorce,

I hoped I never had to deal with David again.

But he started calling me in the middle of the night,

threatening me.

A couple of years after Del and I divorced,

I was woken in the middle of the night by the phone call.

Hello?

The voice I heard on the other end was David's, and he said to

me that he was going to slit my horse's throat and then

come for me next.

David, is that you?

When I first heard it, I thought,

did I hear that right?

There was no real emotion to his voice.

It was just the same monotone voice that

he always used, and the words were frightening.

So I hung up.

Now mind you, I'm out in the country,

20 minutes out of town, living by myself, and there's not

a house close to me... Terrified,

I got up, I got my gun, and, uh, the phone rang again.

This time, he didn't threaten me.

He just made funny noises.

Don't call here again, David. This isn't funny.

I didn't know where he was calling from.

He could have been calling me from down the street.

The heart starts pounding. You know, you're nervous.

Actually, I got up and started pacing and looking out windows,

you know, making sure all the doors are locked.

He must have called 15 times that night.

I called the Sheriff's department,

and they said, "We can't do anything."

I did not sleep for a few nights.

I was here all alone,

and it was... it was very scary.

I didn't know what he was capable of at that point.

David was arrested for burglary charges.

He was breaking into homes in the middle of

the night and stealing whatever he could get

his hands on.

He was sentenced to state prison for 6 and 1/2 to 33 years.

It's sad, but I also looked at it like

maybe this is exactly what he needs to get his

stuff together.

I was told by Thom that he was charged

and convicted on 13 burglaries and 13 receiving

stolen property.

I felt very relieved that he was in jail

and not... not going to bother me.

I really enjoyed the fact when he's incarcerated,

'cause I know he's not gonna come after me.

He's not gonna call me.

He's not gonna drive by my house or anything like that.

He was paroled after 6 and 1/2 years,

and he went to live with my father.

Instead of allowing him to go to a halfway house,

my dad stepped in and said, "No,

come home to dad. I'm gonna take care of you."

When I heard that David was out on parole,

and he was living in Del's house, that I was

apprehensive about.

Uh, that meant he was close by.

I think Del's house is maybe half an hour from mine,

40 minutes at the most.

I was worried about the fact I know Del's got guns.

I know he's got tons of ammo,

and, you know, there's David.

I was afraid he was going to carry out his threats.

After we were divorced, Del remarried.

It was on Sunday, the 14th of January of 2018.

It was about, I don't know, 10, 11 o'clock in the morning.

I received a text from the 3rd wife,

and all the text said was, "He's gone,"

with an exclamation point, and I got the worst feeling.

The message said, "He's gone!"

And I wrote back, "What?" She sent another one.

She said, "Del is dead."

He was found dead in bed. He wouldn't wake up.

I said, "Who found him?"

And she said, "David."

I was told that David called 911.

Del was actually taken to a funeral home.

They thought it was natural causes.

Everybody thought it was a natural death.

I just wrote back, "David did it.

"I don't care what anybody says.

David killed him."

And she says, "How do you know that?"

I said, "Because I know David. He killed him."

This whole thing was a ruse.

"Poor me, come help me.

"Poor me, my dad's dead.

Poor me, I had to find my dad."

What a joke he is.

I mean, it's pathetic, the way he tried

to sound like he was sympathetic.

But you notice the one thing that caught my eye,

"How old is your dad?"

He was 71... in his mind,

he's gone, let's get him out of here.

That's the way I hear it when I hear that... that phone call.

It was a Sunday morning.

This is how I found out my dad died.

Hello?

She said, "Well, I just wanted to check up on you."

It made me raise an eyebrow,

and I said, "What's going on?"

She said, "You didn't hear?" And I said, "Hear what?"

What are you talking about?

And she said, "Your dad was found dead this morning."

His cause of death, as far as I knew,

was, um, he died in his sleep of a heart attack.

I was devastated. I just started crying.

But I really didn't have

any reason to suspect

that it was anything other than natural causes.

It's my first time hearing it.

That doesn't sound right at all.

He doesn't sound panicked.

He doesn't sound like... there doesn't sound like there's

any sense of urgency

or anything like that in his voice.

Sounds staged. That's what it sounds like.

He could be describing

a bad meal is what it sounds like,

rather than being... Being somebody

who's just found their father deceased.

Yeah, I don't buy it at all.

When I called David,

and I said, "Hey, it's Thom, how are you?

How are you holding up?"

Hey, just checking in.

And his words to me, and I... And I quote, were,

"I suppose you're calling to see how much money

you're getting."

And I said, "No.

I'm calling to see what the hell happened to our father."

And he said, "Well, I don't know what happened to him.

"I went, and I tried to wake him up.

"He wouldn't wake up.

"But anyway, back to the money, the will is

"in my name.

I'm the executor, and it is non-contestable."

I was thrown to the floor by that.

David, I don't care about the will.

Why would you come right out and say that to me?

Very first thing.

So that there raised some suspicions.

I know something's not... Something's not right.

The will stated for everything that he owned to go to David.

His beloved son, David.

Never heard Del say that about David.

He may have favored him in some areas,

but never "beloved."

The other kids weren't even mentioned.

He would never leave everything to David,

because I know how he felt about the other kids.

And I know he had a will

before that, because I had it made with me.

So I can understand him getting

a new will after we got divorced,

but this will was just made a few months

before he passed away.

Alarm bells went off.

I just don't imagine any way that Delbert would have signed

this new will without somebody forcing him to do it.

Well, the next thing I know, I have a detective on

my doorstep.

The detective that came to visit me said,

"I understand you think David did it, and we do, too."

What we do know for certain is that.

Delbert's death was not from natural causes.

David apparently had told

the funeral home to cremate the body.

And then when the mortician goes to prepare the body says,

"Wait a minute. This is not a natural death.

This man's been beaten."

According to our ME's report,

it was a very violent death.

And that's when he called the coroner.

The coroner came and said, "It's a homicide."

Then the police got involved.

They said he suffered greatly.

No less than six strikes to the face.

Two strikes to the back of his head.

He had six broken ribs.

He had a fractured sternum.

After he beat him,

he put him on this couch, and then he waited until he died,

which was hours, I guess.

When he was finally dead, he went to the ATM

and took $500 out of

his dad's account and then called the EMTs.

It was like somebody hit me with a brick.

I told the detective that came to

visit me that... please find justice for Del.

I received a copy of my father's death certificate in

the mail.

After reading that, I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach,

and then at the very bottom, it says cause of death,

and I can... homicide.

And I... I lost it.

David was the only one there.

The only one.

That little son of bitch killed my dad.

I confronted him over the phone.

When I asked him point blank, "What did you do to our father?"

He told me to shut the F up and never bring it up again.

I was greeted with a responsive,

"Don't you ever effing talk to me about that again.

"That is a forbidden subject.

Don't you ever call or talk to me again."

Now, an innocent man says, "I didn't do anything to my dad.

I don't know what happened to dad, Thom."

A guilty man says, "Don't you ever bring that up again."

Then I knew he did it.

It was clear as day.

The little son of a bitch killed my dad.

I wanted him to feel what my father felt.

Yeah, I wanted him to know what it was like.

I want to find him, and I want

to just choke the life out of him.

I had my keys, and I wanted to get out of the apartment,

and my girlfriend said, "No, because if you do something

"to him, you're no better than him.

Let the courts handle it."

And that's all I could do.

This is David's mug shot from prison.

This is after he was convicted and sentenced.

When I look at this photo, I see the evil in his eyes.

This picture reminds me of his stare

that he stares at me mostly.

This time he's not smirking, because he's on his way

to prison.

I don't ever want to see him look at me again,

and I don't ever want to see him again.

This is a guy that I'm ashamed to say I'm related to.

I see a guy

who was sorry that he got caught,

and I think he's angry at that.

I don't think he's angry about killing my dad.

I think he's angry that he's gonna have to

spend the rest of his life in a jail cell.

He still calls

what happened to my dad an awful, tragic accident.

This guy beat my father to death.

That's the cold, awful reality.

The amount of time he received for

this crime doesn't sit well with me.

The sentence that I thought would have been

appropriate for him would have been life in prison.

If David ever got out of prison, I...

I think Debbie should have her head on a swivel.

When it comes to Debbie,

I don't think David has ever forgiven her for

anything that he perceives was done wrong to him.

I will always be scared of David as long as he's alive.

I don't know why he's got it out for me.

The only thing I can think of is because I tried to bring

structure and discipline to his life, and he's never

forgiven me for that.

You know, I said David would be a killer,

but I never dreamed it would be his dad.