How would you describe a person who intentionally, I emphasize, intentionally killed a 6-month-old baby? Was it a man or a woman? Young or old? Sane or insane? The evening of July 17th, 2018, in a small town Natchitoches, Louisiana, turned out to be unexpectedly hectic and rich in shocking events. Around 10:20 p.m.
, a passing motorist on Breazeale Avenue noticed flames flickering near the railroad tracks. Concerned, he immediately dialed 911 to report the fire. Firefighters arrived very quickly. Although a small fire in the nearby railroad pavement was of little concern, firefighters immediately deployed. Lieutenant Swisher was the first person who approached the fire and witnessed the horrific find.
In spite of its small size, the lieutenant immediately realized that this was not a doll. A small, tiny baby was lying face down and moving weakly. All around, the flames were raging and the stench of gasoline was strong. My dear friends, it is truly touching to see our community of caring people grow every day.
Please leave your city in the comments. I’d love to know where you’re watching from. Thank you for the incredible support of my channel. Don’t forget to subscribe and consider becoming a channel sponsor to help continue raising awareness about these important issues. Let’s go back to the investigation. Hannah Barker was a typical girl from a small American town.
She graduated from high school well and was a strong softball player. She failed to build a sports career, but she had a dream of becoming a sports medicine coach. Unfortunately, an addiction to illegal substances increasingly dragged her down and gradually her desire to build her life and career took a backseat. One day in beginning of 2017, because of her use of illegal substances, she ended up in court.
Her misdemeanor was not serious, so she got into a specialized court program designed to help individuals charged with such offenses by offering an alternative to traditional criminal justice processing. Instead of incarceration, participants are given the opportunity to enter a rehabilitation program with a focus on treatment, education, and support to help them overcome substance abuse.
Among the participants of the program was Billy Ellerbe Jr. Any relations other than friendly communication between the participants of the program were forbidden, but Hannah and Billy started dating. The judge pointed out to Hannah that she had broken the rules, and the girl claimed that she and Billy had only friendly hugs and kisses, which sounded strange considering that the regular medical examination required of the participant confirmed Hannah’s pregnancy.
The judge then expressed his displeasure with Hannah’s behavior, which he viewed as an attempt to mock the court. She was kicked out of the program and sent to a 90-day treatment program for illegal substances. Billy and Hannah soon broke up. Hannah decided to keep the baby and raise it on her own, while Billy was willing to share custody.
Billy turned out to be a father of many children. In his young age, he already had three daughters. Pregnancy has been good for Hannah. She fulfilled all the conditions of the program, took a lot of walks, and ate well. She even started to study again, hoping to apply for admission to Northwestern State University’s sports medicine program for the next school year.
It seemed Hannah had made a lot of progress in her life. On December 20th, Le Wyie and was immediately welcomed with love by both families. Le Wyie had grandparents, great grandparents, and numerous aunts and uncles were happy to spend time with him. His father was happy to have a son and was already making plans for their common manhood when Le Wyie grew up.
The older sisters also loved playing with the cheerful baby. It is known that babies with whom people communicate develop faster. Le Wyie was just such a baby. Louisiana’s mild climate, as well as living in Mayberry Mobile Park, where all the neighbors lived literally at arm’s length, contributed to Le Wyie spending most of his day outdoors.
His mother and grandmothers enjoyed taking him in the stroller, showing him plants, birds, and bugs. He sat up early and pulled everything he could reach into his mouth, including the ears of Rex, their dog. He laughed a lot, liked to listen to music, and watch TV. In the evening, Le Wyie watched his favorite PJ Masks show.
Although he didn’t understand the plot, the bright colors and cheerful music mesmerized him. So did the video games his uncle Jay played. Le Wyie spent the summer of 2018 mostly outside crawling on a spread plaid under a sprawling tree. But once he learned to stand in a walker, it became his favorite thing to do, and he was unstoppable in his desire to explore the world around him.
Though Le Wyie was only 6 months old, his life was already filled with an abundance of love, laughter, and adventure. He was a happy baby. His smile a constant reminder of the joy he brought to everyone around him. Hannah went back to work at IHOP. Natasha Jones, a neighbor, also worked at IHOP.
Sometimes their weekends would overlap and they would go on picnics with the children. But lately their shifts had been different and Hannah was increasingly working with another co-worker, Felicia Smith. On the night of July 17th, 2018 at approximately 9:10 p.m., Natchitoches Police Department received a 911 call from Hannah Barker. An agitated woman reported an attack and the disappearance of a 6-month old baby from her trailer home in Mayberry Mobile Park.
When police arrived on the scene, Hannah said two men approached her trailer, started banging on the door and soon broke in. She said they sprayed her in the face with chemical spray, but she managed to fled the home. When she returned, men were gone and had taken her son Le’Vye Ellerb away. Natchitoches Police began searching for Le’Vye and also called police from three other cities.
Hannah was unable to give the police any other information about the suspects or what they were supposed to look like. That evening, Le’Vye’s grandmother, Kathy Le’Vye, was at home when Hannah called her and then hung up. Kathy tried to call Hannah back, but she didn’t pick up the phone several times. Finally, Hannah called Katie again and informed her that Le’Vye was missing.
She said he had been kidnapped, but didn’t say anything else. In a panic, Katie got in her car and immediately drove to Hannah’s house. When Katie arrived at Hannah’s house, Hannah was sitting in the back seat of the ambulance and when Katie tried to talk to her, she kept yelling that they were going to kill Le’Vye and that he was going to die.
Around 10:20 that night, a passerby noticed a fire near the railroad tracks on Breaux Bridge Avenue and called 911. It was a few blocks from Hannah’s home, about 3 miles away. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they found not only a fire in a ditch along the railroad tracks, but also a baby, which turned out to be little Levi.
He was lying face down on the ground. He reeked of gasoline and was badly burned. Miraculously, Levi was alive. Although there were second and third-degree burns all over his little body. First responders rushed Levi to a local medical center, and from there he was immediately airlifted to University Health in Shreveport.
Life in Natchitoches came to a standstill. The terrible tragedy was spoken of in whispers for fear of scaring away hope. But there was no miracle. Levi was too small, his skin too delicate, his life too fragile. But the criminal’s hand did not waver, condemning the baby to an agonizing death. The terrible news came on July 18th, when little Levi Ellerbe died in the hospital.
He had more than 90% of his body burned. The public was outraged. Who did this to a 6-month-old boy and why? What could be the motive behind this savage act? But unfortunately, they did not get any answers, at least not yet, as the police did not release any information. Mourning their loss, community members set up a small memorial at the spot where Levi was found.
A small cross was placed there, and people kept bringing flowers and toys. Investigators, after reviewing Levi’s case, began to suspect that the crime scene in Hannah’s trailer looked rather staged. The back window of the trailer was broken, but not completely. In addition, the bar in the middle of the window was bent, but it remained in place.
There was also doubt that Hannah had actually been pepper sprayed in the face as she had no redness around her eyes or irritation when police arrived and as documented by a medical report. Investigators were also unable to locate pepper spray anywhere in the trailer. Hannah’s behavior reinforced suspicions.
She was questioned three times after Leeway’s death and each time she changed her story. After the investigator gave her some new details, Hannah would change her story to make it fit the new information. It was obvious to the experienced investigators that Hannah was hiding something. But they also realized that there was at least one other person directly involved in the kidnapping and murder.
At one point, Hannah tried to claim that perhaps Leeway’s father, Billy Ellerby Jr. was involved in his son’s death. But she soon gave up on that theory when she realized that he had already talked to the police and had an alibi. To top it all off, fingerprints and blood were found on the rear window of the trailer.
Hannah’s behavior was odd in many ways. Investigators also noted that Hannah did not cry at the crime scene or during the police interview. Among other things, Hannah showed virtually no emotion at the hospital on the day of Leeway’s death. She was later described by Billy’s mother as rather flat. When Leeway’s father asked if Leeway could be buried in the Ellerby family plot in Winn Parish, Hannah simply told him that he could do whatever he wanted with their son’s body.
Hannah’s friends, family, and acquaintances also condemned her saying she didn’t seem broken enough after her son’s death. But Billy’s mother, Kathy, tried to be sympathetic to her grandson’s mother. She didn’t think Hannah could have had anything to do with the affair. Leeway’s funeral was held on July 20, 2018 at Southern Funeral Home.
He was then buried in Old Union Cemetery in Joyce, Louisiana. The event brought together numerous Leeway’s relatives, family friends, and just people who cared. And the next day, July 21st, the big news spread throughout the city. The police had arrested a suspect in Leeway’s murder. And while the arrest itself was eagerly anticipated, the identity of the criminal was shocking.
Felicia Smith, Hannah Barker’s co-worker at IHOP, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The public had no idea who Felicia was or why she was arrested due to the gag order that was on the case. But it was soon revealed that Felicia and Hannah had a romantic and sexual relationship.
In fact, they had both been seen around town with baby Leeway. And then they broke up a few days before the incident in the trailer. Felicia wasn’t happy about the breakup. Then she remembered a conversation she’d had earlier during one of her and Hannah’s shifts at IHOP. Hannah had said that if Felicia really loved her, she would do anything for her, even go to jail.
And then directly asked Felicia if she would kill her son Leeway. At first, Felicia refused to even discuss the possibility of such a crime. But later the breakup, which was more painful for her than for Hannah, stimulated her to return to this conversation. On July 17th, Felicia arrived at Hannah’s house and there was a gun in the trailer.
She decided she was going to shoot Leeway. But the gun jammed because someone had put the bullets in the gun backwards. Hannah then allegedly advised her to burn little Leeway until he turned into bones because that way she would get rid of the evidence. For some reason, Felicia decided it was a good idea and took Leeway from the mobile home park.
She walked quite a distance with him, crossed the railroad tracks, and ended up on Breeda Avenue. In a ditch between the railroad tracks and a thicket, Felicia laid little Leeway on the ground. She then doused him with gasoline and set the body on fire. The gasoline she apparently took with her from Hannah’s trailer.
Felicia’s testimony led to the prosecution of Hannah as well. Hannah Barker was arrested 4 days after Felicia on July 25, and she was charged with being principal to a first-degree murder, as well as conspiracy to commit murder on a child younger than 12. Prosecutors would later upgrade Hannah’s charge of principal to first-degree murder to just first-degree murder.
Hannah told police that she only used her ex-girlfriend, Felicia, for money and attention. She also said that Felicia was much more into the relationship than she had ever been. In September, there was a hearing, and in court, Hannah’s attorney argued that the only person who had a motive was Felicia.
He said that her motive was that she was angry because Hannah had recently broken up with her. The attorney also said that Felicia claimed that Hannah was involved in Leeway’s murder. However, there was no physical evidence of this. According to him, the only reason Felicia is accusing his client is to get a better deal. It’s true, there was no direct evidence against Hannah.
The prosecution had to gather a lot of information to clarify her identity for the court. It was known that Hannah had a prior conviction for use of a illegal substance and failed her probation. And police had also spoken to a few people who called Hannah a compulsive liar, and a few people also said that they wouldn’t have been surprised if she was involved with Leeway’s death.
There were a few people who had heard Hannah recently saying how difficult it had been to be a single mother. But of course, the most significant was the police’s claim that the events in the trailer were staged and the way Hannah kept changing her story to fit new facts. Hannah Barker did not look to the other side of the courtroom where Leeway’s biological father, Billy Ellerbee Jr.
, sat with other family members. When the judge ruled that Barker would remain in jail, a woman from the Ellerbee family whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.” A community gathered at the riverfront in downtown Natchitoches for a prayer vigil and balloon release in memory of 6-month-old Leeway Cole Ellerbee. Natasha Jones, Hannah and Felicia’s co-worker, was at the prayer vigil.
“This is the most devastating thing this town has ever seen,” Natasha said. “I’ve held this baby before, and I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.” In July of 2021, Felicia Smith, who was then 28 years old, entered into a plea to avoid a capital murder trial, which could have resulted in her receiving the death penalty.
Instead, Felicia Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and cruelty to a juvenile. And instead of the death penalty, she received 80 years in prison. And in this plea agreement, she had to testify against Hannah Barker in court. In 2022, Hannah Barker, who was then 26, pleaded guilty to a count of manslaughter of a child under 10 years old with a 10-year sentence and a count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder of a child under 12 years old with a 30-year sentence.
Barker will serve both sentences concurrently for a total of 30 years. Barker plead guilty under the Alford plea, which essentially means she maintains innocence but accepted the plea out of her own best interest. Unfortunately, the prosecution had to take this deal. Otherwise, Barker could have avoided conviction on the original charge.
Our deepest condolences to Le’Asia’s Cole Ellerby family. Rest in peace, little angel Le’Asia. Yes, they’re here. WHERE’S YOUR DAUGHTER? WHERE’S THE KNIFE AT? I don’t even know where she is. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Come here. Come here. I’M SO SORRY. I’M SO SORRY. I’M JUST GOING TO PUT HANDCUFFS on just for now. I’m sorry.
Just need to flip. Where is your daughter at? DAD, I’M SORRY. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I’M SO [ __ ] SORRY. I’M SORRY. PLEASE. I’M SO SORRY. A 12-year-old girl, whose identity has not been publicly revealed, was taken into custody only moments after she fatally stabbed her younger brother. Every aspect of this case is alarming from the body camera recordings captured right after the killing to the devastating discoveries about the girl’s household.
Let us delve into the complete story of the Tulsa homicide that happened in January 2023. However, before we proceed, I must caution you that this material includes discussions of severe drug misuse, cruelty toward animals, self-inflicted harm, and homicide. Tulsa itself is a bustling city situated along the Arkansas River.
It boasts stunning art deco architecture and cutting-edge museums. But at the same time, it holds the troubling distinction of being among the most hazardous metropolitan regions in the United States, showing a murder rate of 9.3 killings for every 100,000 residents compared to the national average of 6.5. It’s unnerving to note that within the span of just 48 hours, four murders were reported inside Tulsa’s boundaries.
So, when Tulsa’s emergency responders got a call on January 5th, 2023, regarding a homicide, they believed themselves ready for almost anything. Almost anything is key here. The police didn’t anticipate coming upon a frenzied 12-year-old crying and saying how sorry she was for ending the life of her 9-year-old brother, Xander.
In retelling this narrative, we’ll refer to the girl as Olivia. Olivia, I’m so sorry. Come here. Come here. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Okay. We’re just going to put handcuffs on just for now. Just prior to that, Olivia had entered Xander’s bedroom brandishing a knife. She stabbed him repeatedly.
Their mother, April, heard the bloodcurdling cries from a different part of the home. The moment she rushed into her son’s room, the damage was already done. Olivia had dashed into her own room and tossed the knife out of the window. Inside Xander’s room, April spotted her boy on his bed, still losing blood. It was as though every corner of the space was streaked with his blood.
Olivia did not attempt to flee. She was already in tears, seemingly in shock at what she had carried out. Her mother dialed 911, and the authorities detained Olivia in under an hour. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. How old are you? I’m 12 years old. Where’s the knife? I was up there kitchen my room and I threw it out the window.
And it fell into the apartment right here. You threw it where? I threw it out my window upstairs. Not Not right there. It’s the room This is the other room. It’s right behind the apartment. This apartment right here. So, where would the knife be on that side? Behind. Right behind. Yeah. Where’s the knife? I’m so [ __ ] sorry, mama. I’m so sorry.
I don’t know what happened. IT’S SOMETHING AUTOMATIC. I’M SORRY. WHAT’S YOUR MOM’S NAME? WHAT’S YOUR mom’s name? What? What’s your mom’s name? Devastated and reeling, April strove to grasp the fact that her own daughter had done something so horrifying, all while the police were right there. I don’t want to go with him.
I’m so sorry. I don’t know what the [ __ ] happened. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened. Come over here so we’re out of the paramedics’ way. I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry. Hey, what’s your name? Sit for me. Sit crisscross on the ground. That’s okay. Okay. Just sit there for a second.
You don’t have the knife on you, right? No, I swear I don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t. I don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. Is there anybody else inside the house? No, it’s just me, my mom, and my brother. I’m dying. Hey, how would I get to the knife? Is there a the back side? I can show you. Okay. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
I really didn’t want this to happen like this. This sucks. I’m so sorry. I’m probably going to go to jail. That single statement probably conveys how numerous killers eventually collapse emotionally once they understand the aftermath of their decisions. In short, they end up in prison. Yet Olivia seemed to shatter at the precise moment she absorbed that she might have killed her younger brother, as though she suffered a mental break and had zero control over her behavior.
One officer gathered the knife as evidence while another asked Olivia if she herself was hurt. At this juncture, a potentially revealing clue surfaced. Stick your hands out like this for me. Do you have any cuts on you? I do. Where at? Which Which arm? Both of them. But my left arm has a small cut.
Did you cut yourself? Yes. Actually, not my right arm. It just has a small cut. But my left one has I’m sorry. I don’t know what the [ __ ] These were not cuts that occurred during the assault on Xander. Based on the officer’s perspective, this indicated that Olivia possessed some kind of personal history necessitating careful investigation.
Meanwhile, April traveled in the ambulance beside the medical team and her wounded son. Miraculously, paramedics noted that Xander still had a pulse. During the journey to the hospital, April held on to hope and urged him not to stop fighting. Even in this grim scenario, she continued to show protective instincts toward her daughter.
What’s happening with her? I’m so sorry. What’s going to happen with her? I need to go to the hospital. know yet. You don’t know yet. You go to the hospital, we’ll come and talk to you, okay? Whatever happens, just be calm, okay? I I don’t know what happened tonight. I’m so sorry. We’ll figure it out.
I have to go be with your brother. Make sure he’s okay. Okay. I you know what the [ __ ] I did. I’m so sorry. I love you. Inside the patrol vehicle, Olivia stayed in a near hysterical state about the notion of going to prison, prompting the officers to soothe her as best they could. Will I be in jail? Right now, let’s just you know, really calm down, okay? I don’t know what we’re going to do right now, all right? Right now, we’re investigating.
Okay. Take a deep breath, okay? I know there’s a lot of things going on right now. Just take a breath. I don’t know why I did it. Just take a breath. Let’s not think about it. Shortly after that, she started muttering about her math teacher. When I first came to school, our math teacher, he he had a cancer. So, he wasn’t at school for a really long time.
Yesterday was his first day back in school. Ooh. And However, Olivia still couldn’t fully comprehend the gravity of what she had done. Are the handcuffs necessary? I’m a good child. I know you’re a good child, but that’s just what we have to do, policy, especially if you’re sitting in my car, you know. Ugh, got to itch my eye.
Yeah, I know. Roughly 30 minutes later, Olivia was taken for formal questioning at the Children’s Hospital, where April was also located. Well, we’re going to talk to your mom first, and then we’ll talk to both of you at the same time, okay? Okay. When the interrogation with April began, Xander was still alive.
Okay, so right now, he’s breathing. They’re doing everything they can, uh but it’s I just talked to the doctor, and she was saying it’s all good things right now. Oh, thank god. Okay. April maintained that her daughter had never shown the slightest form of violence toward her brother, nor did Xander act hostile in return.
But I said, I cannot imagine what you’re going through right now. She’s never been like aggressive or anything. Yeah. It’s not like her. Like it’s like they bully each other like brother and sisters, but it’s never they never like fist fight or do anything like that. So this is completely He was in bed. He was downstairs trying to sleep.
I don’t know why she even went down there. Like what the hell was she I don’t understand any of it. All I know is I heard him screaming. The worst scream ever. And I thought maybe he was having a nightmare, so I started try to wake him up and there’s blood everywhere. According to April, her children had different fathers.
Olivia’s father is her first husband, Dustin, whereas Xander’s father is her second ex-husband, Levi. She initially left out any mention of their shockingly extensive criminal records. April also was reluctant to allow the authorities to conduct a thorough search of the family’s residence. So real quick, I know that I’m the probably last person you want to talk to right now.
But so what we need is to get is a search waiver for the apartment, so we can go through have our crime scene detectives go through and do a thorough investigation of this. Um so you don’t have to authorize us to do this, but uh I mean it would really aid in our investigation of trying to figure out everything that’s going on.
what happened. My daughter said she got a knife and stabbed him three times. That’s not how criminal investigations work. Also, notice how April’s tone shifted. In an instant, the trembling in her voice faded. She grew very firm about keeping the police away from her home. At last, upon receiving assurances that they wouldn’t specifically look for illegal substances or let her two cats escape, she signed the waiver.
Right then, Xander’s father, Levi, arrived with his mother, causing April to break down once again. Xander died at the hospital not long afterward. While Olivia’s recorded interrogation wasn’t broadcast publicly, deeply unsettling revelations surfaced in the following days, painting a sharper picture of her childhood and mental condition at the time of the killing.
First, detectives unearthed that April wrestled with a crippling dependency on some of the most dangerous narcotics available, methamphetamine and heroin among them. When she was a teenager, she and Olivia’s father, Dustin, would inject substances multiple times a day. However, once April discovered she was pregnant, she asserts she quit for good.
But the men she drew into her life proved more problematic than the drugs themselves. First in line was Dustin James Cunningham. Officers needed only to run his name in their database to see he was behind bars. It turned out that he had well-established ties to a white supremacist group known as the Universal Aryan Brotherhood.
Dustin first encountered April during their teenage years, beginning a relationship fueled by substance abuse until April’s pregnancy with Olivia. Olivia’s father, Dustin, had 16 police records, was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, and distributed meth. When he was apprehended during a chase which started because of a faulty flashlight, they found drugs in his car and he didn’t have a license.
He never paid a dime in child support, though he was legally obligated to pay dollar 300 a month. April’s second husband, Levi, revealed himself to be an alcoholic shortly after the wedding. He was later convicted of brutally killing a cat, and in prison he beat another inmate to a pulp. He also assaulted his own father and ambulance personnel.
Despite this, April believes that the violent environment has not affected Olivia. She is convinced that her daughter’s prescription medication was to blame. I know you got a little one at home and you’re trying to figure out how to help your 12-year-old. What have you been able to make sense of in terms of how this happened? Um from what we found, it it looks like it was a medication issue, not anything else.
It’s just like a manic episode of some kind. Nonetheless, psychiatrist Angela Arnold has said that Olivia was not on ADHD medication when the killing happened. So, there is no conceivable way it could have impacted her judgment at that time. But she was not on the medication when this when this incident occurred in which she killed her brother.
She wasn’t on the medication at the time that this occurred. It’s what they’re describing could be a brief psychotic episode. She could have had a brief psychotic episode in which she her she went outside of herself and went in and she didn’t know what she was doing and she killed her brother. But it But you can’t link that to a medication that she was not on.
It cannot be linked to a medication that she was not on. It could be linked to a very stressful life event if something stressful had happened in the home. That is the biggest cause of a brief psychotic event, okay? So, it seems much likelier that a traumatic event had befallen Olivia in the lead up to the killing.
Then there’s the looming issue of substance use. Psychological or behavioral disorders combined with drugs can provoke impulsive rage or psychotic breaks. It can also be linked to illicit drugs, cocaine, LSD, those and PCP, those things can all cause a brief psychotic event. Just to clarify, this is still only supposition.
However, we do know that April was an avid user of serious narcotics when she first became pregnant with Olivia. On a darker note, the CDC says the number of babies born in withdrawal, a dependency inherited from a mother battling addiction, has risen fivefold over the last dozen years. In 2013 alone, more than 27,000 babies were born addicted to opioids like heroin or prescription painkillers.
Indeed, if a pregnant woman takes harmful substances, the unborn child might inherit that dependency. No one can say for certain how far along April was when she realized she was pregnant and chose to quit. And there’s always the possibility she was not entirely truthful about giving up the habit in 2010. It begs the question, why did she resist so strongly when the police wanted a warrant to search her home? Could it be she was still abusing drugs at the time Olivia was taken into custody? Given her pattern of being with substance-abusing partners, it’s quite
plausible that Olivia had contact with serious narcotics starting from a very tender age. Should she have ever begun using herself, it is entirely possible that drugs triggered a psychotic outburst. Nonetheless, April clings stubbornly to the idea that Olivia’s prescribed medication is to blame. Um How How help me understand.
ADHD How help me understand. So, she was on an ADHD uh attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, very common for parents out there, they’ll hear about it. Um they always they come with indications, but there’s usually guidance about well, you may start seeing things. Was this part of a downturn or a spiral? Was there any other behavior that gave you any indication that the kid was unstable? No.
She was fine. She wasn’t unstable until she was put back on the medication. So she was on the medication. It hurt her. What happened to take her off it? She cut her arms within a month of being back on it. So I immediately took her off after speaking to the school and her doctor and herself. We had a long conversation.
She said that she felt like she was really irritated, irritable, angry for no reason on the medication. So of course I took her off of it. Unfortunately, it was too late. The damage was done. Stuff like this can can happen months or even years after being off of a medication like this. According to Dr.
Angela Arnold, that assertion is baseless. I do not believe that the mother can assume that months off of a medication it can trigger behavior in someone like this. Okay? The medicine is out of her system. The medicine does not last for a long time in her system. And the mother is assuming that the medica- that a medication went in and did harm to this little girl’s brain.
However, the mother had was also saying that the little girl’s behavior up to this point was fine. She was not exhibiting any any bad behavior and she’s not exhibiting any bad behavior in prison. So why would You cannot say that this behavior comes and goes off of the medication. You would have more signs and symptoms of that.
So I do not believe that the medication that she was off of caused damage to her brain. In other words, made her psychotic which then made her kill her brother. Hence, it strongly appears that April might be defending her own interests. By attributing Olivia’s actions to the medication, April avoids disclosing anything she may have done to her daughter.
It’s entirely possible she harbors guilt for bringing men like Dustin and Levi into Olivia’s life. Or maybe she committed something even more ominous toward her own daughter. The actual motive for Xander’s killing may not emerge until Olivia stands trial. It’s very probable that prosecutors will investigate whether Olivia recognized the moral weight of her deed and whether she was in the midst of a genuine psychotic episode or if she plotted the murder ahead of time.
From Dr. Arnold’s perspective, the initial apology Olivia offered to police suggests an awareness of what she had done. She knew what she did, didn’t she? It It certainly appears so. So, what do you make of that? I have You know, I have to wonder why the mother is talking so profusely about her good behavior.
I wonder what that’s covering up. So, does that mean that she’s had bad behavior in the past? And does this little girl have a different diagnosis? Is she Is she bipolar? Sometimes bipolar disorder is confused with ADHD, particularly in very young children. Nobody wants to have their child diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but she could have a completely different diagnosis than ADHD, and that could also be why the medication was affecting her so poorly.
Individuals with bipolar disorder experience intense emotional highs and lows, spanning mania and periods of deep depression. If Olivia did indeed have bipolar disorder, she might have killed Xander in an extreme manic state. However, bipolar disorder by itself is rarely an impetus to commit murder. Unraveling the full truth about Olivia’s childhood will eventually fall to Olivia herself.
Right now, she is locked up in the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice, maintained under strict supervision. She will undergo multiple psychological evaluations before any legal proceedings begin. As a 12-year-old, you know, you’re at different places in your mental growth and your mental well-being and and and and your mental health.
So, they are trained different as opposed to interviewing a 35-year-old, for instance. This is such an extreme point of atypical behavior that we see. You know, last year we had nearly 70 homicides. Not a single one of them was perpetrated by a 12-year-old. Olivia’s act is unimaginably brutal, and in such alarming scenarios, there’s a tendency for minors to be prosecuted in adult court.
Nevertheless, Olivia’s age, only 12, may prove a key factor in preventing that from happening. She could be released within a handful of years. However, the emotional damage done to her family is likely to be permanent. In a general sense, they’re they’re losing, you know, two children. You know, one is now deceased, and one is now the suspect.
Court proceedings for minors differ from adult trials, so Olivia might plead guilty to avoid a trial. If it does proceed, she could attempt an insanity defense or blame her ADHD medication, though attorney Carter Jennings doubts such a defense would succeed, noting she tried to discard the weapon. In any case, she’s unlikely to face more than a few years in juvenile detention.
Meanwhile, April and the family carry a devastating emotional burden that will never fully heal. Thank you for watching. How do you feel about this shocking incident? In your view, what punishment should Olivia face for taking her little brother’s life? And what do you believe drove her to that extreme? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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