♪
Downloaded from YTS.MX
WOMAN: It doesn't make any sense.
Randy was a mellow, mellow kid.
I've never even heard him raise his voice.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
MAN: Something was off about this case.
MAN 2: Modern sleep science says that you can kill in your sleep.
It is real. [echoing]
MAN 3: This is not sleepwalking.
It had a sexual overtone to it. [echoing]
MAN 4: She came in my room.
Next thing I remember, I'm covered in blood.
WOMAN 2: It was clear cut.
He even admitted, "I did it."
MAN 4: I know it was me.
But I don't remember anything that had just happened.
♪
[beep]
OPERATOR: [over phone] 911 emergency.
MAN: [over phone] Yeah. There's‐‐
You need to send police.
OPERATOR: Okay. And what's going on there?
MAN: Someone's been murdered.
OPERATOR: Okay. Someone has been murdered. Okay. In what way?
Do you know if they're breathing, or they've definitely passed away?
MAN: I don't know. OPERATOR: You don't know?
Okay, well, what did you see, sir?
MAN: I'm at Haverhill Park.
Just send the police.
It was me.
I'm sorry.
[line disconnects]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
OFFICER 1: We didn't get anything out of him.
[indistinct chatter]
OFFICER 2: One person? Male or female?
Girlfriend?
OFFICER 1: Stick him in the car.
♪
NEWSREADER: Now, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office
investigating the death of a woman in suburban West Palm Beach...
NEWSREADER 2: They found the woman dead and took that man
who had called 911 in for questioning.
NEWSREADER 3: Randy Herman is in jail
charged with the stabbing death of 21‐year‐old Brooke Preston.
NEWSREADER 4: We'll keep you updated as we learn anything else
in this investigation.
Reporting live in...
WOMAN: Hold your hands out for me.
[camera shutter clicks]
And hold them upside down.
JOE WALSH: I met Randy in the jail.
I went out to see him the day that he was arrested.
And then I was assigned to handle his case.
Uh, you know, I'd be the lead counsel from that point on.
My first impression was just that he wasn't a very big guy.
OFFICER: You can turn around, Randy.
WALSH: Just a very meek person, physically.
He definitely seemed different than,
you know, a lot of the people I represent.
OFFICER: What I'm gonna do is just gonna switch out your clothes, alright?
WALSH: He seemed very well‐mannered,
very respectful.
OFFICER: You know what size you are?
[Randy mumbling]
OFFICER: Uh? RANDY: Medium.
OFFICER: Medium? Okay.
‐ But something was a little bit off about, uh, this case.
OFFICER: You know what size jeans you wear?
RANDY: 30: OFFICER: Thirty‐two, 30?
WALSH: So he committed the crime.
[camera shutter clicks]
But he couldn't remember what happened.
[Randy sobbing]
WALSH: And then of course there was certainly a lack of motive
because of how close, uh, you know, Brooke was with him.
♪
[message notification chimes]
OFFICER: And you have another roommate, Brooke's sister, right? Jordie?
RANDY: Does she know what happened?
OFFICER: No. Nobody knows what happened.
We don't even know what happened.
That's why we're sitting here trying to, trying to get it from you.
RANDY: I don't know.
‐ To me, it seemed like a genuine lack of recollection.
OFFICER: Was it an argument? Was it‐‐
RANDY: I don't know, sir, I don't know.
OFFICER: Okay. [Randy sniffs]
What do you remember?
RANDY: Blood.
OFFICER: Okay. [Randy cries]
WALSH: Yes, Randy does tell the police
"I murdered" this person,
because you're standing over them holding a knife.
RANDY: She came to say goodbye. OFFICER: Okay.
RANDY: She said goodbye, and I just don't remember anything.
I just‐‐
OFFICER: When did, when did she‐‐
[Randy mumbling]
I don't know what happened. OFFICER: Okay.
RANDY: I just don't remember‐‐
OFFICER: Okay, not a problem. Let me‐‐
Let me ask you‐‐ [Randy crying]
OFFICER: Were you guys ever romantically involved?
No? RANDY: They're like my sisters.
OFFICER: Okay. RANDY: I don't know what I did.
OFFICER: Okay. [Randy crying]
WALSH: But to wake up
over someone who you consider your sister
stabbed a number of times with a knife in your hand
covered in blood and not know what happened,
I could imagine it being a very scary proposition
for a guy like Randy.
♪
CORBIN BURGER: Brooke's smile was gorgeous.
Just the personality.
And she was really
just always happy.
She was beautiful, inspiring, and going places.
She had a sense of drive to be better.
And she worked hard.
MICHAEL MAJCHROWICZ: People who knew Brooke
in her high school days said
Brooke was very much someone who was
the life of the party.
Brooke was this explosive ball of energy.
She was lively.
She was bubbly.
She was athletic.
And, you know, she had a lot of close friends.
BURGER: And she was always cool.
We'd all hang out, go swimming.
We'd play games.
Go bowling.
[girl laughs]
BURGER: It was always having fun.
[squeals]
[laughter]
BURGER: We grew up on Instagram, Snapchat.
She was always on Facebook.
And Brooke taught me how to use Tinder.
That's for real, dawg. Like, that‐‐ like, like‐‐
I was like, "Brooke, how do I do Tinder?"
And Brooke was like, "Nah, let me pick the pictures for you."
They were always laughing, playing, having fun.
Brooke, Randy, and Jordan.
They were like family. Brother and sister.
They were two of his best friends that he grew up with.
Moved down here in Florida with them to start a new life.
♪
REPORTER: Officers found 21‐year‐old Brooke Preston dead on the floor
stabbed multiple times.
Meanwhile, he remains behind bars without bond.
The question here tonight remains why?
Because even he says he can't remember.
♪
AUTOMATED VOICE: Hello, this is prepaid collect call
from an inmate at Palm Beach Everglades Detention Center.
This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
KATHI ADAMS: Hello.
RANDY: Hello. How are you?
ADAMS: Oh, okay, How are you?
RANDY: Doing alright, you know. Hope you're okay.
Did you talk to the lawyer?
ADAMS: He called me. But it still don't make sense.
RANDY: Why? What's the matter?
ADAMS: Uh‐‐ RANDY: Why?
ADAMS: Well, because
they didn't really tell me why or what made you do it.
RANDY: I don't even know the reason, you know.
ADAMS: Yeah, I know.
RANDY: I just wish I'd know how I did it.
♪
I was just confused.
I didn't know what was happening, you know, I‐‐
That's why I called 911.
If I wanted to, I could have ran.
But that wasn't what was on my mind.
I didn't do this intentionally,
and this was a person I cared about.
This was a close friend so, I mean, my mind was just‐‐
I was just in shock.
‐ The one thing that was definitely clear
in kind of discussing it with colleagues is
none of us could figure out what happened.
I definitely felt that Randy was being truthful with me
and that he had profound amnesia for the event.
And so, then the challenge upfront was how to defend him.
So we called a psychologist that specializes in trauma
to try to explain why maybe Randy had that amnesia.
‐ I was trying to find out what happened just as much as he was.
From the very beginning, I cooperated with Dr. Ewing.
DR. CHARLES EWING: I've looked high and low
why he did what he did.
I was truly puzzled.
Because there didn't seem to be any logical basis
for this crime.
RANDY: We went through hours of interviews of him just asking me
question after question after question.
DR. EWING: Basically, what I was looking for was
did he have a mental illness.
Do you hear voices? See things?
Are you paranoid?
‐ We went through everything he could think of.
DR. EWING: Did he have, uh, background of oppression
or other abuse?
RANDY: But nothing fits.
Nothing made sense.
DR. EWING: Nothing.
And so I focused in
on questions I consider to be neurologically related.
Have you ever had a head injury?
Have you ever had seizures?
Sometimes, people with seizure disorders
can act out violently.
But again, his answers were no.
‐ I mean, we didn't really know where to go.
Uh, he was just as confused as I was.
DR. EWING: I would have walked away saying
there's nothing
had I not asked that last question
just as a matter of thoroughness:
"Have you ever sleepwalked?"
RANDY: When Dr. Ewing first said sleepwalking,
he really, you know, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Sleepwalking to me at the time was,
you know, going out to the, to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
But it was a big jump to stabbing somebody 20 times.
♪
‐ As a sleep specialist, and I understand.
I've seen, you know, hundreds of cases of sleepwalking.
So I know sleepwalking is involuntary.
You're not consciously aware of what you're doing.
[indistinct singing]
But public ideas about sleepwalking, generally not accurate.
Until 1964,
the general idea was that the sleepwalkers were acting out
their dreams.
I mean, literally getting up and acting out their dreams.
This idea that the sleepwalker is out of bed, got his arms out
like Frankenstein.
We still see it,
if you watch something like The Simpsons.
But the reality is
sleepwalking is a set of related behaviors
that comes out of sleep,
most often following partial arousal out of deep sleep.
[man screams]
DR. PRESSMAN: And it usually occurs in a state
that's not really awake or asleep.
There's no difference between people who sleepwalk at home every night
and people who commit sleepwalking violence,
known as violent parasomnia.
Sleepwalkers are not consciously aware of what they're doing.
And these days, it is understood that someone can kill somebody in their sleep
under the right circumstances.
REPORTER: We're here on Sarazen Drive off of Belvedere Road.
Deputies have been out here all day blocking off the street.
Deputies tell us they got a 911 call this morning
from a man who told them a woman was dead
inside her home here on Sarazen.
ANNA COX: As a bloodstain analyst,
one of the things I'm attempting to do is
try to figure out where the actual crime happened
within the scene.
In this case, I'm analyzing and interpreting throughout the residence
the bloodstains and the movements of Brooke
and its incredible sensory overload.
The smells,
the blood just dripping down the walls.
I've been doing this for 21 years.
I've probably seen
more incidents than any human being should.
This was one of the more vicious crime scenes
that I had to document.
I still admit that this case really bothers me.
ALEATHEA McROBERTS: This was totally violent.
Brooke was stabbed 25 times.
We know that after she is dead and down,
he gets a quilt to‐to wrap her.
There are psychological experts
that say sometimes if a person is known to you,
they're want to cover them to conceal their face from you
to preserve her dignity.
But it might be actually to assist him in dragging her out.
People don't realize how heavy a, a dead‐weight body is.
REID SCOTT: You know, we have a beautiful young woman
who is absolutely brutally murdered.
I mean, this was a prolonged attack that most likely took a couple of minutes.
You think about doing this 25 times. [striking palm]
It's a brutal, violent struggle that's taking place.
The murder weapon is still in the bathroom
covered in Randy's fingerprints
depressed in the blood.
At the time of the crime, nobody else was in the house.
‐ It was clear cut.
He even admitted that she's been murdered and I did it.
On the face of it, there was not really a viable defense.
OFFICER: Can I get you guys anything as far as water or anything like that?
[indistinct chatter]
OFFICER: Give me one second to just make this phone call,
and I'll be right back.
‐ This is not good.
Because it says Homicide.
‐ What? ‐ It says Homicide.
That means somebody killed her.
How did she die?
OFFICER: I can tell you that for right now
it appears that she was stabbed.
BROOKE'S MOTHER: [crying] Oh my god, no!
[sniffles]
I've known Randy since he was, like, ten.
He was a mellow, mellow kid.
I've never even heard him raise his voice.
I mean, god, the kid was at my house.
He's been to pool parties.
I mean...
he's always quiet.
Everybody always liked him.
Nice guy, always a nice guy.
‐ Doesn't make sense.
BROOKE'S MOTHER: It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense.
Never in a million years.
♪
ADAMS: What are you doing? Come here.
You can come.
You a good boy.
I have pictures of Randy.
Lot of pictures of Randy, 'cause I like surrounding myself
with... the kids and family.
And that's all the different Randys growing up.
Him and his sister were always close.
And my mom gets upset once in a while,
and Randy would always make her smile.
He was the only one that could make her smile.
When Randy was little,
if I wanted him to do something, I just pretended I was crying,
and he'd do it just so I didn't cry.
And even when he got older enough to know
that I was pretending and I was faking,
he'd still do it because he didn't want to see me sad.
"Alright, fine, just get that look off your face and I'll do it."
BOY: Hey, mom.
ADAMS: He's always been a very good kid, very supportive,
very respectful.
‐ He's very kind, friendly.
Growing up, we really just rode bikes,
hiking,
exploring the woods.
WOMAN: Push hard.
♪
ADAMS: I remember he went down the creek the one time with his friends.
Randy's like, look at the flowers. Aren't they pretty?
And they laughed at him.
Men don't do that, you know. You're not supposed to notice flowers.
Must act like a man.
But it was from being with me and his sister,
and we loved nature and stuff.
But it would bother Randy.
DR. PAULA BRUCE: I haven't met him.
But as a clinical and forensic psychologist,
I find the case of Randy Herman
is fascinating.
This dynamic of Randy growing up with the two women in his life
and not experiencing traditional masculinity.
And so his relationship with women is really tied up
with a lot of emotionality.
And there may be something about the present dynamic
with Brooke and Jordan
that was somewhat emotionally similar
to what he had with his mother and his sister.
OFFICER: Jordan?
Okay.
Uh, first off, I'm very sorry, okay.
There's nothing I can say that would ever
help you at all,
but, um... I just kind of want to start from the beginning.
I guess you were out of town.
‐ Yeah, I flew out Thursday night.
‐ Okay. Did you talk to your sister on Friday?
‐ Yeah, I talked to her every day.
‐ Okay.
‐ She's my sister, but she's like my best friend too.
‐ Brooke Preston was about two years younger
than her older sister Jordan Preston.
But they were always together.
‐ Brooke and Jordan were childhood best friends
surrounded by really supportive parents.
‐ Brooke spent a lot of time on social media.
She posted a lot,
especially about her family.
McROBERTS: Brooke was close with her family
and, you know, family that close, they did things together,
WOMAN: Okay.
‐ It's time to take you down to the dirty dungeon
so that nobody'll ever find you.
MAJCHROWICZ: Once a week or so, Prestons had these family dinners
to just hang out and bond with their daughters.
McROBERTS: With Brooke's strong family relationships,
it's not surprising that she was well‐liked by everybody.
‐ Between Brooke and Randy, was there ever any issues with them?
‐ Never. ‐ Never at all?
‐ I've never even seen him violent.
I don't understand.
We've lived together since the day he came down here,
'cause we were really good friends in Pennsylvania
since as long as I can remember.
‐ Was there ever any sort of relationship between them other than friends?
Did it ever seem like he tried to express anything more than that?
‐ Not to me.
‐ I was just making sure there is not like some underlying
weird relationship thing that I'm missing
or anything that anybody was‐‐
‐ I wish there was some explanation.
ADAMS: I know my son.
I know that he's not capable of doing something like that.
The only possible way he could have done it was sleepwalking
where he wasn't conscious, he didn't know what was going on.
When he was younger, one night,
me and Amanda were up and he had already gone to bed
and we were in the kitchen, and he came out
and climbed on the counter.
He has that look, like a dazed look.
And Amanda asks him, "What are you doing?"
He'd just look at you,
and he wouldn't say anything.
He was getting a drink,
and he gets pancake mix out of the cupboard.
By then, we realized he was sleepwalking.
I'd guide him back to bed, and he'd go right with me
and he'd lay right down and he was out like a light.
‐ When we were younger, we had plastic on the windows
to keep the heat in in the wintertime.
He would get up in the middle of the night sleepwalking
and just start scratching at the windows,
and he would say he was trying to get out.
ADAMS: My Randy was around ten.
I was working at the bar right next door.
One night, it was light and I had one customer,
and I was closing up
when Randy rode his bike to the bar.
And he just walked up to the bar, he laid his head on it.
I asked him, what are you doing out this late?
And he turned around and walked back out the door.
And he got on his bike
and rode home.
We knew he was sleepwalking because he didn't speak to me.
Because it was just across the street, he'd ride to the bar every day.
So he was very familiar with the road.
He could ride over there with his eyes closed.
‐ Sleepwalking is complex.
It's more likely to occur in adults
who had a history of sleepwalking as a child.
Certainly there are sleepwalkers who seem to do
very coordinated, scary things.
Something like driving a car.
[engine starts]
Often automatic.
It's a behavior which is over‐learned.
[engine starts]
Something done dozens, hundreds of times.
[engine starts]
It's one of these, "I did it so many times, I could do it in my sleep."
♪
NEWSREADER 1: Breaking story today,
a killer's unusual defense of sleepwalking.
NEWSREADER 2: Randy Herman, now 26, is charged with the first‐degree murder
in Preston's stabbing death.
NEWSREADER 3: Herman told him about his sleepwalking history
corroborated by family.
NEWSREADER 4: Meantime, Randy Herman will remain
behind bars at the Palm Beach County Jail.
‐ Mr. Walsh told me that he was going to ask for a continuance
because he had discovered that there was a legitimate potential defense
that he wanted to explore.
It was the sleepwalking defense.
I was very much taken aback
because in all my years, I'd never seen it.
WALSH: When Dr. Ewing first brought up sleepwalking,
it seemed logical.
But there's really not a defense for that here in Florida.
In other states, sleepwalking would seem
to kind of fold into diminished capacity.
But we don't have a diminished capacity defense here in Florida.
So we had to find some way to defend Randy's case.
The DSM is like an encyclopedia for psychologists.
And the DSM recognizes sleepwalking
as a mental disease or infirmity.
So the DSM became the basis for our case.
OFFICER: Things happen, alright.
Sometimes things happen, Randy.
And we just need to figure it out.
WALSH: When the police questioned Randy,
he was clearly remorseful about what had happened.
[Randy crying]
RANDY: Is she okay?
Please tell me.
‐ We like to follow our common sense and follow the evidence,
and‐and this appeared to be simply, you know, an act of rage,
an act of hatred, an act of, you know, lover scorned,
you know, whatever happened.
On its face, that's what it appeared to be.
But then, you know, you just know that what you're going to have to explain
is, well, where's the motive?
Randy said he had no sexual interest in Brooke Preston
and that there was no infatuation between the two of them.
OFFICER: Randy, it seems like
that you had some feelings for Brooke.
You hadn't been boyfriend‐girlfriend with her, right?
RANDY: No, she was like my sister.
OFFICER: Okay. RANDY: Sister.
‐ But when you looked at the dynamic of the three of them,
he's a, he's a young man, he wasn't terribly attractive,
kind of smaller, little bit heavier,
and living in a home with these two very attractive ladies.
The vibe that I got was just like, okay, Randy was in love with Brooke Preston.
McROBERTS: Maybe he attempted something sexual.
And she may have rebuffed him, she may have been cruel about it.
You know, some people react violently
when they're rebuffed.
Or laughed at.
And that's maybe what set him off.
‐ I feel like Randy really liked Brooke.
I do feel like Brooke liked Randy as well.
Yeah. INTERVIEWER: In a romantic way?
‐ In every way.
♪
Then Brooke started getting serious with this other guy, I guess.
And if Randy started getting feelings for, for Brooke‐‐
Love kills.
♪
OFFICER: Were you ever aware of them maybe having any kind of relationship?
BROOKE'S MOTHER: Randy‐‐ OFFICER: Brooke and Randy.
BROOKE'S MOTHER: No. No, Brooke has a guy that she's been with
on and off for three or four years.
Bryan.
MAJCHROWICZ: Brooke was in a really committed
and very public relationship at the time.
She posted stuff online
and talked about it all the time.
Her boyfriend gets, like, a promising job opportunity,
um, up north.
And so, they're pretty serious.
Brooke had recently disclosed to her mother
that her and this guy were, were the real deal.
OFFICER: Is that the guy who's in New York?
BROOKE'S MOTHER: Yes, they're together now.
They're very happy,
talking about getting engaged.
In fact, she was only here to pick up her car
to drive back to Buffalo.
She's starting a new‐‐
[crying]
No!
‐ Are you friendly with Randy or were you friendly?
‐ I was‐‐ Yes, I was friendly with Randy.
OFFICER: Okay. ‐ I mean,
you know, I didn't go out of my way to hang out with him,
but anytime I was hanging out with Jordan and Brooke,
you know, he was always there, so we would always hang out.
This is as much of a shock to me as it is to everybody else.
Randy never, to me, showed anything weird
except for Friday night.
SCOTT: The day before she was killed,
Brooke and Randy had been drinking all day.
And that night, Randy exhibited very odd behaviors
that made her feel uncomfortable.
And she communicated that to her friend Kyle McGregor.
‐ Brooke had sent me a text.
She said, "Please pick me up and take me somewhere."
[message notification chimes]
And I said why, and she said, "He's being belligerent and stumbling.
Pissing me off."
Right when she texted me that, I was right around the corner
about to turn into the neighborhood.
I knocked on the door, he was just stumbling around, uh, you know.
Basically, he looked like he was drunk to me.
McROBERTS: Kyle went to the kitchen to get something to drink
and didn't remember seeing where Randy went.
And then all of a sudden, Brooke came busting out of the bedroom
very upset.
And told Kyle that Randy just was in my bedroom closet naked.
‐ She said Randy was butt‐ass naked doing this to me.
OFFICER: Totally naked?
‐ Totally naked. That's what she said.
And that, obviously that freaked her out.
I mean, I'd be freaked out if there was a naked man in my closet.
She grabbed me by the arm and she said, "We gotta go, you know.
Can we leave now? He's freaking me out."
SCOTT: Really, really scared her.
And it just reeks of some sort of sexual interest.
And there's other key pieces of evidence that suggested that this was
sexually motivated.
For example, he had a pair of fuzzy handcuffs
next to his bed
as well as the murder weapon, a knife.
‐ He claimed that women liked to be tied down,
and they actually enjoyed it when he's done it before.
‐ Our theory in the case was that Randy Herman was absolutely in love
with Brooke Preston.
Him being nude in the closet
and some of his behaviors that night
maybe he saw as a way to win her over,
to show her how much he loved her.
Ultimately, she was not interested.
He was sort of in the friend zone.
And given that this case had a sexual overtone to it,
I just said to myself, this is not sleepwalking.
♪
DR. PRESSMAN: If Randy Herman was in a state of sleepwalking
at the time he stabbed,
uh, the victim,
then I believe this is an explanation,
an excuse for what he did.
And we know that modern brain science says
that there are reptilian instincts,
certain primitive behaviors
that, uh, served our predecessors.
Eat, sleep, hunting,
sex,
protection.
And they were still in there somewhere.
When you're awake, all these primitive instincts
are inhibited by the part of the brain
that developed to stop us
from acting out, you know, these behaviors.
♪
But when you're sleeping,
the part of the brain that controls these primitive behaviors
is turned off.
So sleepwalkers are acting out of primitive instinct.
It's not that the sleepwalker gets up
and goes hunting
or goes looking for a victim.
This person is just a potential danger
who is approaching them.
And they would not know who that person was.
[man moaning]
DR. PRESSMAN: They are reacting
to a trigger.
Something that could cause a brief arousal in your sleep.
That could be a sound,
touch.
They wouldn't stab someone once and say, "Oh, you're dead."
They would just keep going until at some level
they're satisfied there's no longer a risk in front of them.
And it's usually triggered by the victim.
So in the case of Randy and his roommate,
we should be asking, on that morning,
did he perform those violent behaviors
while he was in a state of sleepwalking?
ADAMS: When Randy was a little kid,
I didn't take him to the doctor for sleepwalking.
Because it's a normal thing, you know.
I sleepwalked, my daughter sleepwalked. We grew out of it.
I didn't know it was a medical thing.
I never heard that.
And anyways, you have to pay, like, a lot of money
if you actually want to take them to the doctor for sleepwalking.
AMANDA CONA: Growing up, we didn't have a lot of money.
It was kind of rough.
My mom, she was always working all the time,
and me and my brother
were always at babysitters.
ADAMS: It was when they were younger that
their father and I split up.
CONA: Growing up, I thought my dad, like, lived so far away.
And then, as I got older, I'm like, you know, it was only 40 minutes away,
an hour away.
But he always said that he‐‐ it was too far for him to come drive.
ADAMS: And he never really tried to take the kids,
except for when Amanda got older,
like, old enough to, like, clean
and, you know, take care of herself.
He told her she could come live with him.
That hurt Randy's feelings.
And Randy just totally devastated
thinking Dad didn't love him.
RANDY: Growing up, my father wasn't really in the picture,
and we kind of got more and more separate.
The weekends together would get longer and longer apart.
MAN: Ah! [Randy yelps]
[indistinct chatter]
CONA: Uh, my dad has always drank a lot.
Uh... he drank all the time.
Before my dad and mom split up,
they used to get into pretty big fights.
I remember one time my dad was drunk and he locked us outside the house,
and I ended up peeing my pants.
I was only like five, I think.
And then finally when he let us in,
my mom and him got in a huge fight.
[Adams laughs]
ADAMS: That was a bad argument.
He was drinking.
He opened the door
and pulled me in by my hair.
Ow!
He kept pushing your head when you argued the push.
And he kept doing that and I didn't like it,
so I turned around and I punched him in the face.
Well, then he hit me back.
♪
So...
♪
‐ Toxic masculinity is a relatively new term.
But it's really a term that's describing an old idea.
‐ You're going to the moon!
‐ Dink, say goodbye to Felix.
‐ Hmm? ‐ Uh, man talk.
[slaps]
‐ And it's a way of exploiting male privilege
in a way to create dominance and power.
Randy is a small guy living in a situation with two women
who are by all accounts probably in a stronger position than he is.
They've got financial security.
And I think there is something to be said
about the pressures of our current time.
That we live in a society
where everything is open
for public consumption.
And so, people's envies can be easily served
because instead of comparing themselves to the two or three kids in their class,
they've got, like, 40,000
on the internet that they're measuring themselves against.
And for those that have a history of trauma, neglect,
a history of feeling insufficient in some way,
they are more vulnerable to being impacted
by those feelings of envy and longing,
and they end up driving sometimes some of their behaviors,
some of their choices.
♪
NEWSREADER: Now at 3, shocking new details
in the murder of a 21‐year‐old woman whose body was found stabbed
more than a dozen times inside a West Palm Beach home.
Here's the big twist in all of this.
A TV station in Pennsylvania now reporting
that Randy Herman Sr., the father of the suspected killer,
he too was charged with murder, accused of killing his girlfriend
in February 2015.
Now, this case was later dropped against him
because he committed suicide.
‐ The woman had been murdered, and they were looking
for, uh, my dad.
I think there was some kind of argument or fight.
And, um, he killed her.
And then he shot himself.
RANDY: When I found out my father shot and killed
his girlfriend at the time,
I was definitely conflicted.
I mean, obviously, this was a person that wasn't really in my life.
And part of me felt like I shouldn't really care.
But another part of me also felt like, you know, this is still my father.
‐ I think that Randy Sr.'s homicide and later suicide
must have had a significant impact on Randy Jr.
Throughout his life, he has been searching for this
loving father, father he can connect with.
And it's a father he never really finds.
And when he next hears about his father,
it's in this devastating, ugly, shameful kind of experience
that reflects on him.
They have the same name.
Right? He can't get away from it.
And that for a young guy like him
who's already struggling with his identity,
that would have been quite impactful.
CONA: My brother had to go and clean out my dad's house.
And at the time, I was,
I was so upset, I was the one crying,
and he had to go in there and clean up the mess from the shooting.
So he had to clean up the carpets
and the walls.
And I think that probably wasn't good for him.
That probably did some damage.
McROBERTS: When I learned that his dad had killed his own girlfriend,
I thought they would run with that
as some kind of an explanation for some mental defense.
You know, like father like son.
RANDY: After my father had passed away,
I moved back in with my mother,
and I was working at a meat processing plant
in the head room.
I used a air knife, and my job was removing meat
from a jawbone.
I just stand in a stationary position
and just take meat off a jawbone
and put it on a conveyor belt, and that was it.
It really was a dead‐end job.
CONA: I was worried.
I think he was struggling with Dad's death.
I just think it all just got to him.
RANDY: Things just weren't going well.
I wasn't really going anywhere.
I was just doing the same thing every day.
Take meat off a jawbone,
put it on a conveyor belt.
You know, I just felt kind of stuck.
I realized how much I had taken for granted
and how many chances I was given.
And, you know, I really went into a depressed cycle.
♪
‐ Hey, Jordan.
RANDY: And at the time, my close friend Jordan,
she had got a job opportunity in West Palm Beach.
She was moving down there,
and we'd make jokes about me moving down there with her.
The more we talked about me moving down there with them,
the more it kinda became serious.
[message notification chimes]
Eventually, over time, I thought that,
you know, maybe this would be a good idea.
To get out of this, you know, dead‐end cycle that I'm in
and to move to West Palm Beach and start fresh
and get a career
and really, you know, help my life get back on the right track.
ADAMS: He's got lots of money because he had his father's inheritance.
I didn't blame him for wanting to go to Florida.
I figured, um, what are you gonna do, you know.
It's like, he has his reasons.
He wanted to go down and make something of himself.
He used to always tell me that he was gonna make lots of money
and buy me a house down there.
So he went to West Palm Beach with his friends.
♪
‐ Jordan and me and Brooke decided to ultimately look for a house together.
We were looking around at different places,
and we found the house at Sarazen Drive.
It was a nice three‐bedroom house just west of, uh, West Palm Beach.
That would be the house we would move into.
It was exciting.
It was positive, you know.
It was three young adults moving down.
BURGER: We first met Brooke, Randy, and Jordan,
they were always joking around with each other.
Me and Randy... [snaps fingers] we clicked instantly.
It clicked even better when we found out that we both just moved to Florida
from small little country states.
He's a country boy. Like, he's country.
I mean, the dude kept a buck knife next to his bed.
I don't know how much more country you can get than that.
Like, it was there every single day.
But we were making good money.
We were making good money at the business we were doing,
selling internet and cable at Walmart.
That's what we did.
‐ [chuckles] So the day is finally over,
and I get my beer.
RANDY: I'm working, we're having a good time.
It's obviously a fun environment.
It's a party lifestyle.
Drinking a lot of times, having friends over a lot.
BURGER: And Randy was the life of the party.
Because when he walks into a room, it's crazy.
He just brings this smile and this energy and this everything.
‐ This thing is so slow.
RANDY: I mean, I was surrounded by close friends.
We get along great.
It was just a good time.
♪
[wind whooshing]
DR. BRUCE: Consistent with their generation,
Randy and Brooke both seemed to be actively engaged
in social media.
And the reward system that one gets in social media.
Posting. Getting recognition.
And Randy is posting at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning
obviously having, um, not slept.
We know that sleep is really important for a lot of things,
including consolidation of memory,
cognition,
learning,
and mood regulation,
affect regulation, emotional regulation.
♪
CONA: I was reading about Randy's case online,
and there was a whole bunch of comments about my brother being a monster
and he deserves way worse than life in prison.
♪
It's upsetting
because I know he's not a monster.
But it's a small town.
Everybody judges everybody.
♪
I know my mom was worried about seeing people
from around here.
It took a toll on her.
NEWSREADER: A stabbing in Florida involved two people from Wyalusing,
one is now dead, and the other is behind bars.
‐ I mean, just knowing the family,
it's heartbreaking.
‐ It was two years before the trial even started.
Two very long years.
Around Wyalusing where the Prestons were from,
they know who I am.
I'm afraid I'm gonna run into the father, Mr. Preston,
who is a very nice man.
And I don't want to. I‐‐
You know, what do you say?
There's nothing to say. I don't know what to say.
But there's two sides to every story.
‐ Everybody knew that it was BS from the beginning.
You take someone's life like that,
I think you should lose yours too.
SCOTT: Randy claims he didn't remember what happened at the moment.
For a case like this,
when the defendant says "I don't remember,"
my mind immediately goes to, okay, what are the facts.
What does Randy remember? What led up to this?
♪
Randy Herman, Brooke Preston,
and her older sister, Jordan Preston, were living together
in a single‐family residence on Sarazen Drive.
But Jordan had left for a couple of days
to spend some time with her boyfriend in Colorado.
McROBERTS: Meanwhile, Brooke had made the decision
to move to live with her longtime boyfriend up in New York.
So she had come to that house to pack up her things
and drive north
and say goodbye to Randy.
RANDY: Thursday morning, I woke up at 3:00
and picked her up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport.
We drove back to the house. I ended up dropping her off.
It was still fairly early, so at that time I went to the beach.
And I was able to catch the sunrise.
Later that morning, we decided to go out to the beach.
‐ Brooke had spent the whole day at the beach with Randy.
They'd been drinking quite a bit at the time.
Later, that afternoon,
they went back to the house
where they continued drinking.
‐ From then on, I was just heavily intoxicated.
Me and Brooke drinking on the back porch was, you know, my last clear memory.
‐ Randy continued to drink.
That's when Brooke texted Kyle,
you know, Randy's acting strange.
McROBERTS: So we know that Kyle came to the house.
And then, uh, the naked‐in‐the‐closet event had happened.
She was very shaken.
Brooke said to Kyle,
"Get me out of here, I can't stay here tonight.
I need to stay over at your house."
And she did.
RANDY: Waking up the next morning,
I was half hungover.
I was really dehydrated, thirsty.
I went to get some water.
That's when I ran into Brooke.
She had come back and was kind of gathering
the last of her belongings.
I decided to go back to bed.
‐ Meanwhile, Kyle and Brooke go to breakfast.
A few minutes later, Randy texted her
to see where she is.
And she says, hey, we're gonna go to breakfast
if you wanna go.
He said no, he was in bed asleep.
But he had something for her.
I remembered I had a T‐shirt I wanted to give to Brooke
to take to her boyfriend Bryan Brown.
I wanted to give that to Brooke before she left.
‐ She said she would stop by as soon as they had breakfast.
♪
RANDY: The next thing I remember is her calling my name.
I had sat up in bed. She came in my room.
I told her where the T‐shirt was.
She picked up the T‐shirt.
She was smiling, saying thank you.
She came over, gave me a hug, and said goodbye.
She shut the door.
And I laid back down.
‐ We know that 8:49 in the morning,
a gentleman in the neighborhood by the name of Mr. Childers
walks by the house and claims to have heard screams.
So the attack likely occurred somewhere within those 10 minutes.
‐ I was able to place Brooke in certain places and positions
when she received some of her stab wounds.
It began at the end of the hall where the bedrooms were located.
It then proceeded
down the hallway
and into the living room by the fireplace.
There was some activity at the fireplace.
And then I believe ultimately she was dragged back into the hallway.
I can tell you that she was still alive
when she was in her final resting position.
Because as she laid in the position that we found her in,
she was expirating blood from her nose and her mouth
until she finally just succumbed.
RANDY: And then I come to standing over top of her
covered in blood,
and I'm holding a knife in my hand.
‐ We know that we see Randy get into his car.
That's when he leaves and calls 911.
[beep]
OPERATOR: [over phone] 911, emergency.
RANDY: [over phone] You need to send police.
Someone's been murdered.
I'm at Haverhill Park. Just send the police. It was me.
I'm sorry.
[line disconnects]
McROBERTS: She was stabbed 25 times.
She had defensive wounds.
It was clear from the scene that she had struggled desperately.
We know that it's not easy to stab a human body.
And then to do it repeatedly when somebody's fighting back,
they're resisting, and they're screaming
and they're scratching and trying to get away.
And from what we know about Brooke, she was feisty.
When you look at the degree to which she fought back,
it‐it wasn't over in an instant.
His hands were injured pretty badly.
Those are all stimuli that would awaken a person who's sleepwalking.
That all goes to show that clear intent
of wanting to kill somebody.
DR. PRESSMAN: Sleepwalkers are well known to have
a very high threshold for pain
and for arousal.
It's very difficult to wake up a sleepwalker.
WALSH: The research we did about the sleepwalking showed
there are people that will sleepwalk
and walk out of, like, a second story window,
and they're not gonna wake up immediately after they hit the ground
even though they're going to be injured, right?
So the cut to Randy's hand
wouldn't have been something that would have necessarily startled him
out of his sleepwalking episode,
nor would have the physical nature of the attack.
HANNAH WINSTON: As a journalist with the Palm Beach Post newspaper,
I primarily focus on criminal justice
and courts coverage.
When I first heard about the Randy Herman trial,
I was speaking directly to another journalist,
and it was very much one of those, like,
"You'll never believe what I'm, you know, covering today,
what's happening."
Covering courts for so long and for just being in the news industry,
you think you've heard everything.
But the sleepwalking defense is one of those things that doesn't happen a lot.
So my immediate thought was like,
okay, well, let me go find the documents, see if, you know, this is legit.
How many other times has this happened before?
There were a couple more famous sleepwalking cases.
There was one with a 4‐year‐old boy who the father killed.
And another one where a man ended up killing his wife.
And both of them, they were found not guilty.
WALSH: I do know that sleepwalking has been used
in other states as a defense.
But this was the first case in Florida.
It's a big hurdle to jump when you have a burden to prove that something happened.
You're basically telling the jury,
yeah, this happened, but it's because, you know, Randy sleepwalks.
And when you go back to kind of the empathy
that people may feel for Brooke and her family and the situation,
that also is another big hurdle to, to jump.
RANDY: [over phone] Did you talk to the lawyer?
Did he tell you how much time I could be looking at?
ADAMS: [over phone] Well, he's not sure.
RANDY: Hopefully, you know, within the next couple weeks,
I'll hear something.
I don't know.
‐ In cases like this where the evidence is overwhelming,
we fully expected that there would be, you know, an attempt to negotiate
a resolution that everybody could live with.
WALSH: Most cases obviously end up in a plea bargain.
Usually, the plea offers are also pretty high.
They mentioned a plea of 50 years.
But it was just really too high for us.
If you're 20 years old or if you're 60 years old,
you'll spend the rest of your life in prison.
McROBERTS: The defense was unwilling to negotiate it
to anything that would be acceptable
in light of what had happened.
And so we were sort of at an impasse.
RANDY: [over phone] Fifty. Fifty years. Five‐zero.
ADAMS: [over phone] Is that what he told you?
RANDY: Yeah, I mean, there's no way, you know.
What do they have as evidence of premeditation?
You know, it's outrageous.
ADAMS: I know.
RANDY: In my eyes, I figure if I take it to trial,
there's no way I'm going to get convicted of first‐degree premeditated murder.
If I got second‐degree murder,
I'd probably be taking somewhere around 50 anyway,
so why not take my chances at trial.
ADAMS: I love you, honey.
MAJCHROWICZ: You know, when I sat down with Randy,
at some point in the interview,
you know, I said, "Tell me a little bit about yourself."
You know, he indicated he had never read the Harry Potter books before,
and so he was making this way through the series.
And he described parallels in the Harry Potter books.
You know, anyone who is sentenced to Azkaban,
they're basically forced to relive
their life's worst moments.
You have Randy standing over Brooke's body,
both of them covered in blood,
and he described his time in prison
to be his own Azkaban.
ADAMS: I wanted to get him the best lawyer I could.
You're talking about thousands of dollars, and there's no way we‐‐
we don't have it.
We knew we had no choice but to go with a public defender.
I trusted Joe Walsh and his investigator.
‐ Before the trial, I was nervous, but I was hopeful
because I felt that, uh, they would see Randy
for who he is.
‐ Randy Herman's trial was actually my first trial
that I ever sat on.
And I was sitting in the selection of it.
They were asking questions,
and people were raising their hands saying, "Hey, I can't be in this."
But I ended up making it through the whole process.
JUROR 2: When you're on a jury,
you see stuff that you normally would see on crime shows.
And then to see it in real life, it is different.
It's not the same.
TV is gonna have actors. This is real life.
MAN: If however, there is no reasonable doubt...
‐ And the person sitting there, you're deciding their fate.
‐ You're faced with a grave responsibility.
Thank you, gentlemen.
JUROR 2: And that's a big responsibility.
You have their family there
and if you get it wrong, now you might have somebody
who's... holding you responsible for not letting them go free.
Something very unusual was the fact that he did admit it.
He knew. The police knew. He did murder her.
RANDY: [over phone] Just send the police.
It was me.
JUROR 1: I think everyone's heard of sleepwalking, right?
But as to murdering somebody?
I mean, you always hear about sleepwalking,
somebody doing something silly,
and then they would just get pushed back to their bedroom
and say, "Okay, go back to sleep."
Did he have the intention of killing her
or did he kill her on accident?
That's what we were trying to get at between the two.
JUROR 2: I remember thinking I'm just going to keep my mind open
and listen to all the facts.
I wasn't making a judgment either way.
It was for them to give us the facts
and let us decide whether or not we believed that it could be sleepwalking.
DR. BRUCE: There seemed to be really three possibilities.
One, that Randy is lying.
He did this, he remembers everything, and he's lying about it.
The second possibility is the possibility posed by his defense,
which is that he experienced a parasomnia,
and the result of that was that he had no consciousness
of what he was doing
and has no conscious recollection of having done it.
And then of course there's the third possibility,
that he may have done this
in an act of rage
triggered by the traumatic experience of rejection.
And so, he has either dissociated from it
or can't allow himself to own
what he does actually remember about it.
♪
NEWSREADER: In court, Randy Herman, now 26, is on trial
charged with a first‐degree murder
in Preston's stabbing death.
[crowd chattering]
[gavel banging]
JUDGE: Ladies and gentlemen of our jury,
I'm now going to turn to the people of the state of Florida
to make opening statements.
Ms. McRoberts, you may proceed when you're ready.
McROBERTS: The date as you know was March 25th of 2017
where this defendant in the early morning hours
ended the life of a young woman
who had done nothing to deserve it.
McROBERTS: Our initial intent is to show to the jury
that despite what the psychological experts will say
and his history of his potential sleepwalking,
Randy had developed an unnatural liking to Brooke.
She did rebuff him. She was over him.
And she was done with his behavior.
It wasn't more complex than that.
‐ We knew the state's contention really was to exploit
a sexual angle in the case.
We know the night before this happened,
Randy apparently was in the room naked
and, uh, in the closet,
and that was something that Brooke was not comfortable with.
[message notification chimes]
So we just kind of decided to focus on the dynamics
of the relationship between Randy and Brooke.
COURTNEY WILSON: Okay, Ms. Preston, are you Brooke's sister?
‐ Yes.
‐ When Brooke's sister Jordan took the stand for the defense,
it was kind of a surprise,
'cause normally you don't have the family of the deceased
speaking in the defense's case.
‐ When did you meet Randy?
JORDAN: I was probably around 15 years old.
‐ And was that down here or somewhere else?
JORDAN: In Pennsylvania.
‐ How did you meet?
‐ Uh, through mutual friends.
‐ She was very quiet.
Like she was hurt and afraid.
I mean, how could you not be?
WILSON: At this point, you've known Mr. Herman for a few years.
‐ Yeah.
‐ Had he ever exhibited
any sort of romantic or sexual interest in you?
‐ No.
WILSON: Any romantic or sexual interest in your sister Brooke?
‐ No.
‐ And living together in the house,
you all were pretty close and comfortable with each other,
is that accurate to say?
JORDAN: Yeah. ‐ Okay.
I'm going to publish, if I may, what was printed in the evidence as‐‐
JUDGE: You may. ‐ Defense exhibit three.
Um...
do you recognize this picture?
JORDAN: I don't remember it.
WILSON: Okay. Are you in this picture?
JORDAN: Yes. WILSON: Okay.
And who's the other person in the picture?
JORDAN: Randy.
WILSON: When you lived with the one bathroom, were there times
when sometimes you all would have to share
the bathroom like this,
maybe someone in the shower, someone brushing their teeth,
things like that? ‐ Yes.
WILSON: Was that pretty commonplace?
JORDAN: Yeah, with courtesy to the other.
Like, knock and ask if you can come in.
‐ Absolutely. And were there any incidents where that courtesy wasn't respected?
JORDAN: No.
‐ The photograph really just showed the dynamics of living in a home,
two young women, one young man, one bathroom.
It just showed how comfortable they were
in different levels of dress.
They weren't like, you know, strangers to each other.
They were all familiar with each other.
‐ And now I'm going to turn to Mr. Walsh
to call his next witness on behalf of Mr. Herman.
WALSH: I call Randy Herman.
‐ Alright, Mr. Herman, why don't you come forward, sir.
WINSTON: During a homicide trial, it is very rare
for a defendant to take the stand.
So when his attorneys announced that he would be testifying,
it's definitely one of those turning moments that juries hope for.
WALSH: I wanted the jury to see Randy stand up
as, you know, small as he is, tiny as he is,
walk up to the jury box, and testify.
‐ My name is Randy Herman Jr.
My last name is spelled H‐E‐R‐M‐A‐N.
WALSH: Thank you.
How do you feel this afternoon, Randy?
‐ I'm okay.
WINSTON: You see this man,
who looks like he could still be in high school.
You look at him in this suit that's too big for him
and you're like, okay, this is completely jarring.
'Cause you have other cases where, you know, someone looks like
a stereotypical, you know, bad guy.
SCOTT: He was a little heavier set at the time of the crime.
But he had lost weight.
He had a very boyish face.
Very small. So with that type of defendant,
his attorney would want him to get up there and speak to the jury
and‐and‐and sort of pull at the, at the sympathy.
WALSH: You called 911.
Did you tell them everything you needed to tell them?
‐ Yes. Yeah.
‐ How do you feel about the fact
that Brooke Preston died that morning?
RANDY: Terrible.
I don't know.
I don't know how to describe it.
That's all the questions I have.
JUDGE: Alright, Mr. Scott. Cross‐examination.
SCOTT: Thank you, Judge.
Me as a prosecutor, I have to be very careful
as to not be too authoritarian.
Because then it's going to appear as if I'm, you know,
beating up on this little boy.
But Randy Herman had some difficult questions to answer.
You came to South Florida from the city of Pennsylvania
because your life was spiraling out of control.
Isn't that correct? ‐ That's correct.
‐ When you came to West Palm Beach from late 2016
through March, uh, 2017, the time of the murder,
you were still struggling with addiction, correct?
RANDY: That's correct.
‐ Your life was still spiraling out of control?
RANDY: It was.
CONA: When Randy was in Florida,
he would call every couple weeks or so.
He said he was happy.
He had a good job. He loved it down there.
He was doing better for himself.
But then I found out later that he was just trying
to make it sound good for me and Mom
because he didn't want to let us down.
MAJCHROWICZ: So, without that stabilizing presence
of his mother and sister,
you know, Randy, effectively was, you know, left to his own devices.
RANDY: Four months into my job,
I realized I wasn't really making the pay I needed.
I was using a lot of my inheritance
to kind of supplement my lifestyle.
So the day is finally over.
And I get my beer.
RANDY: I decided to take some time off from work.
‐ I got to go back tomorrow.
‐ And that's when really my drinking started to pick up.
‐ In terms of Randy's personal and professional trajectory,
this is sort of where the train fell off the tracks, so to speak.
RANDY: And I tended to take it to the next level.
I was going out to bars nightly,
spending ridiculous sums of money,
and slowly my inheritance started slipping away.
I got to the point where I'm partying all night and sleeping all day.
‐ He told me, well, you know, I'm straightening out now, Mom,
I'm going to get a job.
You know, I'll quit drinking.
I'm gonna, you know, get a job.
Okay, that's great.
So I let it go. I didn't push it.
RANDY: It got to the point where I wanted to stop
and I wanted to quit,
but I was kind of in this, just like this cycle
where I was starting to get depressed because of my drinking
and drug use
but at the same time, I was drinking and using drugs
to kind of curb that depression.
SCOTT: After you awake and you were talking to her,
she walked out of your room,
that's when you stabbed her and killed her, right?
‐ I guess. I... I don't recall.
WALSH: In murder cases like Randy's,
experts are very important,
because of the fact that it was an insanity claim.
‐ Alright, Dr. Ewing, please come forward, sir.
Hi, how are you?
‐ Good afternoon, Judge.
WALSH: So, we hired Dr. Ewing.
Dr. Ewing, are you familiar with what's known
as the Bonkalo Criteria?
‐ Yes. Uh, a psychiatrist named Bonkalo
had done studies and reviews
of these sleepwalking cases
that eventuated in serious, usually homicidal violence.
Dr. Bonkalo looked at the characteristics
of those cases
and he came up with 13, uh, criteria.
‐ The focus on the Bonkalo was the most important thing
because it's the one scientifically studied, objective thing
that we could get across to the jury
that would prove that Randy was sleepwalking.
DR. EWING: The first criteria
is that the attack occurred following an arousal
soon after sleep onset.
RANDY: I went back to sleep.
Next thing I remember is, you know, I'm standing over top of her
covered in blood,
and I'm holding a knife in my hand.
[camera shutter clicking]
McROBERTS: She was stabbed over and over again.
In the face, in the neck, in the stomach, in the back.
BURGER: They were like family.
‐ Hey, Jordan.
BURGER: They were like brother and sister.
DR. PRESSMAN: The victim was not recognized at the time.
We know that sleepwalkers don't recognize faces.
RANDY: I don't remember getting dressed, I don't remember grabbing my keys.
You know, everything was really hazy.
WALSH: He had profound amnesia for the event.
RANDY: I just don't remember anything. I just‐‐
CONA: When we were younger,
I remember him getting up in the middle of the night.
ADAMS: He has that look, like a dazed look.
CONA: I think he was sleepwalking.
DR. EWING: The defendant actually called the police.
RANDY: [over phone] Just send the police. It was me. I'm sorry.
DR. EWING: And reported not only that there had been a homicide
but that he did it.
No sexual motive.
No financial motive that I could discern.
RANDY: Is she okay?
Please tell me.
RANDY: Things were going downhill.
I would drink, you know, almost nightly
to the point of, you know, blacking out.
[engine revving]
WALSH: The night before this happened, he had not gotten any sleep,
stayed up to watch the sunrise.
BROOKE'S MOTHER: He was a mellow, mellow kid.
Never in a million years would think he would be violent, no.
WALSH: We knew that he had been using alcohol.
But what we learned was the alcohol actually was something
that would put you in a deeper sleep faster
so that you would be more apt to sleepwalk
and do something like this.
‐ No question that he was drinking heavily in the two days leading up to it.
JUROR 1: It sat with me for a while.
I mean, I absolutely believed it.
This Bonkalo Criteria nailed it down
right to the T of basically what he did,
you know, and the defense did a great job
of showing that.
McROBERTS: We on the prosecution side had one important thing
we wanted to talk about.
And that was the timeline.
SCOTT: I want to narrow down my timeframe
from when she walked in to when he leaves and calls 911.
We know that Brooke Preston arrived at the home
based on the surveillance video from across the street
at approximately 8:35 a. m.
We know that we see Randy get into his car
at approximately 8:57, and he drives away.
So based on that timeframe, we know that Brooke was in the house
for approximately 22 minutes.
We knew that he remembered her coming in
at approximately 8:35 a. m.
[clock ticking]
He said the shirt is over in the drawer.
She got the shirt,
and they had a brief back‐and‐forth discussion
that most likely took a couple of minutes.
McROBERTS: They hugged.
And she turned to leave.
And he said that's the last thing he remembers.
SCOTT: We know from a gentleman in the neighborhood who heard screams
that the attack takes place approximately 8:49.
So sort of using that 22 minutes,
we just filtered back and filtered back and filtered back.
He only had about five minutes to go back to sleep.
So it seemed impossible to me
that he fell asleep in five minutes
and started sleepwalking.
McROBERTS: The State will call Dr. Wade Myers.
SCOTT: In this case, we need an expert
to help us explain to the jury
why the facts did not support any type of sleepwalking defense.
They supported first‐degree murder.
‐ So you lay in bed and then you fall asleep,
and then you go into typically stage one.
Your brainwaves show a certain wavelength called alpha waves.
And then you go into stage two sleep,
which is a little bit deeper.
‐ Dr. Myers basically educated the jury
on the different stages of sleep.
‐ It's about an hour or two after you go to bed
is when you go into deep sleep.
McROBERTS: And with regard to the defendant's limited window of time,
could that have happened, scientifically speaking?
‐ He's, uh, wide awake
minutes before the crime.
And you can't go from wide awake to sleepwalking in,
in a matter of minutes.
McROBERTS: We know that Randy admitted being awake
when Brooke got there.
He admitted speaking to her, showing her where the shirt was
and giving her the hug.
So, if there's no minutes left to get to sleep,
then he wasn't sleepwalking.
‐ Obviously the state is going to use his statement
that he was awake at the time when she arrived at the house
and they could say, "Well, it would have been unlikely
that he had fallen into a deep enough sleep to sleepwalk."
‐ Sleepwalking generally occurs in the deeper stages.
DR. EWING: I don't know if I would agree with that.
I see where you're getting at, but it can occur,
um, in early stages as well.
‐ In other words, not in the first minute or two
or ten minutes, fifteen minutes?
DR. EWING: It could be. That's what I'm saying.
WALSH: And when Randy said that he had this interaction with Brooke,
we really didn't even know whether that was something
that actually had happened
or whether he kind of had dreamed that.
‐ It's not clear to me
whether he was asleep at that point.
It's possible that he could have been awake,
and then he went back to sleep immediately.
Uh, that's the way he recalls it.
It's possible though that he never awoke.
‐ In my experience, it's fairly common for defendants
to try and fill in the blanks about what happened.
And they often fill in things from just before or just after
or add things that seem reasonable to them.
So, if Randy Herman is remembering that she arrived
and that he told her where the shirt was,
then the question is, is this what he actually remembers
or is this what he thinks makes sense to him?
WALSH: Dreaming that interaction with Brooke
would mean that he was still sleeping when the incident happened.
And if you believe that Randy was sleepwalking,
then certainly you wouldn't believe that he intended to do anything,
then how could you put somebody in prison for the rest of their life.
‐ Folks, each side has made, um, an argument
on what they believe the facts showed in this case
and as officers of the court, I'm sure that everyone has done that in good faith.
However, it's up to our jury to decide what the facts of this case are.
‐ Sleepwalking is a very tough pill for a lot of people, I think, to swallow,
and it's very tough, I think, to have 12 people agree to that.
‐ Folks, in just a few moments, you'll be taken
to the jury room by the courtroom deputy
for your deliberations.
Even if you do not like the laws that must be applied,
you must use them.
And on behalf of both the state of Florida
and on behalf of Mr. Herman, I want to thank you
for those efforts.
‐ By the time that the trial ended,
we got back into the deliberation room,
we sat down,
it was almost just a, not a sigh of relief
but a sigh of, wow, let's get this information out
and start talking about this right now
because we've all been holding it in and we want to let it out.
So, we started blaring words out.
‐ Some of the men jurors were very vocal
the minute we went back to the room
and were saying things like, "Well,
if that was my daughter, I would have killed him."
[all clamoring]
JUROR 1: It seemed like it was split,
so then that's when we started going through evidence.
So the hunting knife by his bed,
something like that
is not out of the norm here in Florida.
JUROR 2: There were toy handcuffs,
but we didn't give it any weight.
The prosecution was trying to tie it in to
that he had romantic feelings towards her.
And there was the incident where he was in the closet.
[message notification chimes]
I know that spooked her.
But they had been drinking all day.
It was a stretch for them to try to say that there was some sexual feeling
between Randy and Brooke.
‐ We're five hours into this thing.
But there were still a few jurors
on the fence about the sleepwalking.
We had multiple people saying,
"How long was it for him to get in this deep sleep?"
So that's why we went through the timeline
of when Randy Herman texted her
to the time when she pulled up to the house
to the time that we thought she got murdered.
RANDY: At the time, I'm waiting in a cell underneath the courthouse.
Just waiting, just watching the clock
till they come up with what the verdict's going to be.
It felt like a lifetime.
‐ When we get the call from the bailiff
the jury has a verdict,
that moment it really starts.
You get the nervous. You get the butterflies.
So, when the verdict is read,
the courtroom is just silent.
[gavel bangs]
‐ I'm going to have Mr. Herman please rise
to receive our jury's verdict.
JUROR 3: We, the jury, find as follows:
as to count one, we find the defendant
guilty of first‐degree murder as charged in the indictment.
So say we all this eighth day of May 2019
in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida,
signed jury foreperson.
‐ That timeline that we drew up, and we drew it,
we had all the text messages.
We had time when she pulled in,
when he pulled out.
And after that timeline, everyone was on the same page.
Wasn't enough time for him to be in this, this deep sleep
to cause sleepwalking.
‐ Alright.
[sighs]
Randy Allen Herman, Jr.,
a jury of your peers, having found you guilty of first‐degree murder,
I sentence you to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
♪
REPORTER: Tears and hugs among the victim's family
as the jury found Randy Herman guilty
of first‐degree murder in the stabbing death
of 21‐year‐old roommate Brooke Preston.
Brooke's father, John Preston, after the verdict.
‐ There's no winners in this whole situation.
Everybody's losers.
ADAMS: I feel bad for him, the father.
'Cause I know he's grieving.
I don't know what to say about Randy.
But I'll stand by him till the day I die.
DR. PRESSMAN: Sleepwalking occurs anywhere from one to four percent.
One percent of 300 million people, that's still a lot of people.
And potentially anyone can be a sleepwalker.
‐ There is, I think, a growing concern
about the impact of sleep disruption.
As we move into a society
riddled with interrupted sleep,
we're going to see more and more of these kinds of problems emerge.
♪
[buzzer sounds]
‐ You know, I've‐‐ since I've been in, in jail
I've tried to sit down numerous times
with a pen and piece of paper
to, to try to reach out,
to try to tell them how sorry I am.
But it's just,
you know, it's difficult.
You can't really write out in words.
You can't tell someone you're sorry for, for something like that.
It just seems like those words just don't‐‐
they're just not enough.
You can't say‐‐ you say sorry if you make a mistake.
This is something far more.
So, you know, I've tried to reach out but I don't know
how to quite put that into words.
♪
McROBERTS: Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, we don't get to know
so much about the victims,
because they are silent now.
But the entire Preston family,
friends, extended family,
so many people reacted.
It was quite moving.
♪