Original subtitles

So, Grant, you told me Silviya just

recently wrote you a letter?

Right.

I'm surprised.

Did Silviya really reach out to you?

You know, yes, Silvie did reach out to me.

Do you think she's happy?

Yeah, I think Silvie is happy with how her life is.

My life was easy.

He was obsessed with her.

It's a heinous crime.

I didn't do any of this.

Jurors are hearing closing arguments,

and they will soon have to recommend

if Grant Amato will face the death penalty

or die in prison.

They've been deliberating for much of the afternoon

on into the evening.

And a judge says that they will allow

them to continue to deliberate for as long as they need to.

I was expecting the jury to deliberate a little bit

longer than they had.

They broke one afternoon.

And then that evening they came back with a verdict.

I'm told that the jury has reached a verdict.

Could you please hand it to the deputy?

The courtroom was very emotional in the moments

before the verdict was read.

On one side, you had surviving members of the Amatos.

And it really seemed like they didn't know what could happen.

The prosecution provided a decently compelling case.

But Grant's defense did a very excellent

job at defending their client.

So, at that moment, it was sort of a mystery of what would

be read in that courtroom.

It's a heinous crime.

But my number-one focus is always to make sure

that I save my client's life.

Mr. Amato, if you could please stand.

"We the jury unanimously find

"that the state has established beyond a reasonable doubt

"that the first-degree murder

"was committed in a cold, calculated, and

"premeditated manner.

"Yes.

"We the jury unanimously find that Grant Amato

"should be sentenced to death.

No."

Based upon this case, 2019 CF 337 CFA,

the State of Florida versus Grant Amato,

you've been found guilty for killing your mother,

your father, and your brother.

I would sentence you to life imprisonment

without any possibility of parole.

And otherwise, sir, just God have mercy on your soul.

Nothing further at this point.

I didn't really see any emotion on Grant's face

when that verdict was read.

From his family, it seemed like there was a sigh of relief.

Did you ever entertain the possibility

that Grant was innocent?

Completely innocent?

Not seriously.

If not Grant, who?

I'm at peace with it.

You know, we did our best. We saved his life.

In my heart, I didn't believe

he was going to get away with this.

We had enough circumstantial evidence placing

him at the crime scene

his digital footprint, his motive.

It wasn't, like, devastating when they came back guilty,

but I will say there are so many aspects of the case

that are unexplainable.

The blow-by-blow of what occurred,

that picture has still never been painted for me.

And I don't know that it's knowable.

And it's fascinating that it's not knowable.

Hello, true crimers.

Hi, guys. How are you today?

My name is Bailey Sarian.

And today is Murder, Mystery, and Makeup Monday.

You're not going to believe this shit.

OK, this one looks good.

29-year-old Grant Amato had lost his job,

gotten kicked out of school, and was living

at home with his parents.

This is precisely how every bad story starts, OK?

He was spending all of his time

on a live streaming porn site called Cam Girls,

communicating with a Bulgarian woman who he would claim

was his girlfriend.

You idiot!

I think he thought he loved her.

So it turns into sort of a twisted Shakespeare play.

And in Grant's mind, Silviya is still his wife.

Are you fuckin' kidding me, dude?

This is, like, what happens if Twitch streamers go wrong.

On January 25, 2019, police discovered the bodies of Chad,

Margaret, and Cody Amato.

Each of them were shot execution-style

inside their home.

What the fuck, dude?

Sound pretty popular, Grant.

Yep, that's me.

I really do hope you get help.

Seems like you have serious issues.

Grant, you need to get out of your fantasy world.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the greatest show on Earth.

Hello, true crimers.

This is the case of Grant Amato.

Grant Amato was one of three sons

of Chad and Margaret Amato.

Chad.

Everything was in its place, straight and tucked in.

I first learned about Grant from watching a lot

of true crime YouTube videos.

Grant Amato loved anime.

He had this crazy anime collection.

And he just had all these boxes.

According to Grant, he spent most of his time

in his room playing video games.

Since Grant didn't have a job at the time,

his parents paid for all of his expenses.

He thought he was in love with her.

- Obsession. - So obsessed.

Silvie doesn't love you. It's a full-on addiction.

Grant, wake up.

It's virtual.

She's not real. She doesn't love you.

You're paying for it. Wake up.

And you know, Grant, there's so much

that is hard to make sense of in this story,

but it does seem like Silvie was

the one person that you felt comfortable opening up to.

What do you think we're missing by not having her voice?

Without her involvement, nothing

can really get cleared up.

This is after everything had been revealed, after you'd

been accused of murdering your family,

that you had stolen all this money.

Did Silvie really reach out to you after all that?

You know, not to not directly answer your question,

but I feel like...

Oh, God. So sorry.

Lost it there.

I mean, I really wish that Silvie would be more

open to contributing to this project, just talking to you,

even if it was, like, off the record.

You know, as you know, we're planning

to go try to find Silvie,

to speak to her, to get her end of this story.

Hopefully we can find her and convince her

to sit down and talk with us.

Hey, Dora, where are we right now?

So this is the Druzba neighborhood.

It's on the outskirts of Sofia.

These blocks around here are quite typical for the older

neighborhoods of Sofia.

They were built, like, 50, 60 years ago, let's say,

and they all look the same.

And as far as I understand,

we sort of had an incomplete address for Silviya.

Is this right?

So we have a building but not an apartment number.

Is that right? - That's right.

So there's no way to tell exactly

which apartment she lives in.

I mean, this is what's so curious to me is seeing just

how radically different this environment is

from this, like, lush, green suburbia of Florida,

where Grant lived.

These people lived in such different universes,

and yet they're joined together by this camming relationship

and now this terrible crime.

I wonder if they really had any conception of what

each other's lives were like.

I would say it's probably kind of...

Silvie's day-to-day life looked quite

different from what you were describing over there

in Florida.

I keep scanning everyone's face,

waiting to see her walking down the street.

OK, so we have a building, we have a block,

but not an address and certainly not a Silvie.

So where does this leave us?

So I've had a few clues to look through.

So, basically, what I realized is that it's almost

like there is two different people...

- Mm. - That I've been looking for.

So we have this first person, Ady Sweet.

And then there is the other person that is a lot more

private, and that's Silviya. - Mm-hmm.

Online, there is not that much about her.

I couldn't find a social media profile.

There is nothing that's related to the real world,

if you see what I mean. - Right.

But because Silviya sent post and postcards

and she sent small presents to Grant,

there is the strangest thing that she

sent that I was looking at.

Yeah, what is this? I don't remember seeing this.

This looks like a blood test

that you would go and do in a lab,

all sorts of, like, glucose.

I mean, we have to assume this is hers.

I don't know why else she would...

- Yeah. - You know, Grant...

Grant is a nurse.

He was almost a certified nurse anesthetist.

He would have known exactly how to read this.

He would have known exactly what all of this meant.

So she must have been sharing her blood test with him to see

what he thought, to see if...

OK, yeah, maybe she just sent it to consult

with him about something.

I mean, I don't know.

In a way, it's something that you

would send to someone you kind of really trust, which is...

Someone you really trust.

But then there was one other thing I saw in the folder.

There is a Viber account with a number.

What is Viber?

It's a messaging app and a free calls app.

It's like WhatsApp and Messenger.

I tried calling. - Mm-hmm.

I also send a message, but I haven't got a response.

But I can keep trying.

I mean, this is a four-year-old number

at this point.

I'm sure after the crime, she disconnected it.

Yeah, we'll see.

Maybe we'll keep trying or something.

- Yeah, exactly. - Yeah. Who knows?

So the investigation continues.

We're not done yet. - Yeah.

So we, I think, told you that through our reporting,

we've come up with a couple of new details.

We want to play an excerpt from a conversation

I had with Grant recently.

We're going to give you a phone.

And then you're going to hit play.

And we just want to see your reaction.

Cameras, let us know when you're set.

Are we rolling, everybody? - Yep.

OK.

All right, go ahead and hit play.

That's it.

Well, that solves the mystery.

- So what do you think? - Oh, it's fascinating.

Yeah.

It leaves me a little bit of closure

that I know that he wasn't wrongly convicted.

So the fascinating part to me is, like,

"I did those murders."

It's not, like, I shot and killed my dad.

I shot and killed my mom.

And I shot and killed my brother.

It's just interesting the way he says it.

Are you surprised that he decided to confess?

No, I'm not surprised he decided to confess.

I think this may be his way to finally

get it out in the open, kind of a weight off his shoulders.

So, on one hand, my reaction to that

is that he could have saved his remaining family

a whole lot of grief by saying that and pleading guilty.

And he chose not to do that.

And it's the continuation of the selfishness

that we've always seen from him.

Maybe it was gnawing at him, so he felt like he

had to get it off his chest.

But he didn't show any remorse for what he did.

Mr. Turpin, raise your right hand.

Be ready to be sworn, please.

Do you know an individual named Grant Amato?

I do.

How long have you known Grant Amato?

I've known Grant since we were in high school,

about 15 years.

All right, the car is clearly not in the...

When would that have happened?

If he shoots them and kills them with that gun,

he then drives to Blake Turpin's house

and messes around in his backyard?

There was digital imprints that he was

at the Publix at 3 o'clock.

By 9:30, he was under surveillance.

So somehow he must have done it between 3:00 and 5:00 AM.

Isn't there going to be some kind of leftover evidence

of some kind of digging?

I mean, it's not exactly, like, the best way to dump something.

But then again, who am I to say?

They didn't find it.

Six inches, silver.

Right. No, over.

No. No.

It's kind of just unimaginable

what this man did after committing these homicides.

And now we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight sheriffs back here on a scavenger hunt

that Grant sent us all on.

I just don't know.

I don't know what's real anymore.

Is he lying? Are they just not finding it?

Oh, my God. You didn't find anything?

No.

They definitely look like they're losing confidence.

Nobody knows what's real anymore.

Grub.

- There's no doubt he's a liar. - Yeah.

He lied to us, lied to his family, lied to his friends...

- Yeah. - Lied to her.

Yeah, it's a very strange case.

- It is, a very sad case. - Yeah.

I know we did everything we could have done,

exhausted everything we had available to us.

Well, I think you guys...

But the right person is in jail, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Grant, we just went down to Florida

to Blake Turpin's house and tried to dig up the gun.

- OK. - We were in touch

with the Seminole County sheriffs.

They spent about four hours digging up his yard,

and they did not find a gun.

Crazy.

So what's going on?

I mean, that is very surprising

only because

the only thing that I can think of is,

there's, obviously, been, like, lawn work done, maybe even

excavation type work to get rid of the huge tree stumps

and whatnot for the couple of trees that he had back there.

Because that's very strange that

that it's not there anymore.

Well, Grant, you know, I feel really conflicted, you know?

I put myself on a limb.

To go out there, I had to give a sworn statement.

And then the gun wasn't there.

I think you can imagine how that makes me look,

how that makes my team look.

You know, are you being truthful with me, Grant?

That is crazy.

You know, I know that this is a professional question,

but it's very irritating to always have to defend myself

when I'm trying to do something, like, altruistic.

You know, I'm trying to do something

here where this has absolutely zero benefit for me.

But

yes, once again, I am being truthful.

Everybody believes

that I murdered my family

for Silvie.

Everybody believes that the reason why Grant Amato

murdered his family was because they would not

let him be with this woman.

That is not true.

It wasn't some act of passion

or anything like that.

Well, Grant, what's the right answer?

What went wrong?

Every single day was the same exact two-,

three-hour-long conversation just about the same shit

over and over and over again.

I was completely disconnected from Cody,

who was my literal lifeline my whole life.

My mom was isolated in her own world

and dealing with all of the ramifications of my dad.

It was just a constant reminder every day of the failure

that I had become and how much I just let down everybody.

You know?

And, Grant, did they try to help you figure out

what you were going through?

You know, you had made mistakes.

Did they try to help you examine them?

My mother and my father had actually been

going to a family therapist.

And I went to one.

I went to one family-therapy session.

And I can't put it into enough words

how embarrassing it was,

especially when my brother Cody started talking,

because everything that he said was right.

And I knew that this therapist was thinking, wow,

this dude's got it together.

Like, he's so logical.

He's successful.

He's trying to help out.

Look at all the money he spent for his brother.

And, man, he's like Jesus Christ reincarnated.

Then it comes to me.

I'm going. I'm going. I'm going.

Nice job, Grant.

And you

are going to be good.

And they're just asking, you know,

why I ventured into this alternate lifestyle.

Thank you, Grant, for everything tonight,

everything that I'm wearing tonight.

And I see it as a problem.

Grant, thank you so much.

All that anybody was talking about was these six months.

And it's like, 27 years before this didn't exist.

So the end result was that I was

to improve my self-image

because apparently that's what my issue was.

I perceived myself as less than

less than my father,

less than my brother,

the male figures in my family.

And once again, you're telling this

to a person who has a very dominant,

pompous personality.

And instead of just fucking giving me a plane ticket

and letting me disappear into the world on my own,

which is all that I said that I wanted to do...

I wanted to get away from everybody.

That's kind of a red flag that you all are not helping me.

So I was very unreceptive to therapy

when it, like, wasn't going in the direction

that I thought that it should be going.

And the day after we had this therapy session was when they

tell me, hey, we're going to be admitting

you to a private rehab facility because you have a problem.

You're not open to any form of family therapy.

And I was just completely taken aback.

I just felt so betrayed.

I just did what my normal defense mechanism was,

and I closed off.

I shut down.

Being told that I'm not going to be able to have

my cell phone or any electronic device for 60 days,

being detached from the online world

was just all the more traumatic.

You know?

My one outlet that had brought me joy,

this alternate lifestyle that I had developed,

was gone.

So now this life that I was left with was pointless.

And so that was when I started thinking about killing

my family members.

It definitely takes a toll on you,

working these crime scenes.

You feel for the families.

I mean, you think about your own family.

God forbid something like this could happen.

And this just goes to show, you can put someone

in a perfect circumstance and still

have a kid that is a major, major problem

that you could not solve, even with your best efforts.

And this family seemed like they

put in their absolute best efforts

to try to fix his issues.

I believe that people perceive

me to be a monstrous, psychopathic,

simple human being.

You know?

And it's so polar to who I actually am.

You know, I can't think of...

I don't really know.

I can't think of, like, a better way

to commit those crimes because nobody saw me.

Nobody knew what was about to happen.

You know, and I did that on purpose because I didn't want

that final thought to be, wow, I can't believe

you're about to do this to me.

You know?

So the fact that I had that compassion,

that's the way that I am, you know.

It's like, even in the process of doing something terrible,

I'm trying to be as compassionate as possible.

Grant, you must know that people are going

to have a lot of difficulty saying

that you committed these homicides

in a compassionate way.

You must know how that's going to sound to people.

I might say that I don't care about people, that, you know,

I just want to be left alone.

But, honestly, you know, whatever

capacities I have to help people, I do, unquestioned.

There are definitely some cases

where you can feel some sort of sympathy

for Grant, for his struggles, for what he was going through.

But you put them all together, you realize that he

came from a loving home.

You realize that he had a mother

who loved him dearly, who would do anything to protect him.

You realize that he had a brother who did the same.

You realize he had a father who was kind of a hard-ass

but still made all these efforts to protect his son.

And he made this selfish decision

to take their lives.

Grant Amato put himself in this downward spiral.

Grant Amato refused to accept the second chances,

refused to accept the help that he was offered.

Did you leave the house...

Grant Amato...

With your brother Cody looking like that?

Refused to admit what everybody pretty

much knew at this point.

- Who did this to your family? - He killed his entire family.

I didn't do any of this.

Part of me is wondering if it's this desperate sense

of wanting attention.

No.

He knew that he would get attention by going on trial.

As to the reasonable-doubt instruction, objection, state?

No objection.

- Any objection, defense? - No.

He knew that none of this would be happening

had he pleaded guilty.

And he still chose to put his surviving brother

through the hell of seeing his parents'

and his brother's body blown up on a courtroom,

the hell of publicizing of this.

This is just a horrific experience for everybody.

Three dead, two men and one woman

in her 50s, from apparent gunshot wounds.

Grant Amato destroyed so many lives,

people he claimed that he cared about.

And what I would have to say to him is,

you know, was it really worth it?

It's a story of a very selfish, manipulative man

kind of getting what he wants in the attention.

You know, Grant, we're discussing

the homicide of your family, you killing your family.

You know, sometimes a smile will come across your face.

And... - It's just so weird.

I know it's so weird, Grant, but I have to ask,

are you remorseful?

Are you sorry you did this?

Yes, I am remorseful. I wish I had never done this.

I wish I could go back in time and have my family back.