The Broken Arrow Murders

This week Keith and Lauren discuss the Bever family murders.Sources: 

• Killer Siblings: Bevers S1 E4
• Tulsa’s News Pulse: Graphic evidence related to Bever family murders released after Michael Bever's conviction by Jessica Remer
• Wikipedia: The Broken Arrow Murders

Speaker 1: Hi, Worriers, Welcome to Aren't You Worried? I'm your host

Lauren Perry, and joining me this week is my dad. Dad.

Welcome back to Aren't You Worried?

Speaker 2: Thank you. This might be my first one on this podcast,

maybe my second.

Speaker 1: I think it's the second. But now I can't think

of what I would have told you. Oh, I was

going to tell you about that football player that turned

out into a serial killer, and then I still haven't

written that script. So there has been one.

Speaker 2: Now, which football player was that you remember?

Speaker 1: Aaron Hernandez, No, it's Randall Woodall. I think his name is.

Oh yeah, Woodfield Woodall something matter.

Speaker 2: I know who you mean. Yeah, so well, football player,

But I.

Speaker 1: Actually don't even know if he made it off the

practice squad if I'm being totally honest. But I should

just tell the Liststeners. We are in a little bit

of a different setup right now. We are recording for

the first time in your kitchen, and these chairs are

a lot louder than I intentionally, and.

Speaker 2: My neighbor's mowing.

Speaker 1: Well, you know, we we might get twenty minutes into

this and realize that we can hear it really well,

so then we just but you know, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 2: He's got a really great lawn.

Speaker 1: He does have a really great lawn. How how are you?

How are things good?

Speaker 2: Things are good? Good?

Speaker 1: Yep, you just celebrated your mother's ninety fifth she celebrated, well,

we celebrated y Yeah, celebrated it.

Speaker 2: Yes, and my lovely wife and sister in law did

a wonderful job. Yes, it would very a very special occasion.

Speaker 1: Yes, it was very nice to be able to see everybody.

Speaker 2: And ninety five years old.

Speaker 1: Ninety five is up there for sure.

Speaker 2: She's definitely old. So we'll leave it at that in

case any other old listeners are out there. If you're

a ninety five year old, you know what. That's fair head,

Let's get into this. Let's go, okay, Cleaver.

Speaker 1: So, July twenty second, twenty fifteen, at eleven thirty four

pm in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, that's where we're starting. Nine

one one, Broken Arrow nine one one caller help nine

on one, Hello, caller help nine on one. Hi, where

are you at? Caller? Seven oh nine Magnolia Court nine

one one seven Oh Okay, are you the only one there? Caller? No,

my brother is attacking my family. Nine one one. Your

dad is attacking your family caller no, my brother help.

Two police officers were the first to show up at

the scene after the nine one one call. They originally

thought it was a domestic in progress. When the officers arrived,

they saw blood all over the sidewalk and the front

step of the home. When Detective Brett Burton arrived on

the scene, he saw the two officers standing at the

front door. Since they didn't know if anyone was still

in the home. The protocol was to wait for other

officers to arrive, but then they heard a faint call

for help from inside the door. Detective Burton knew that

they didn't have time to wait for additional officers, so

he and the other officers entered the home, and what

they saw was a horrible scene. Laying in front of them,

just off the entryway was a thirteen year old girl

laying on the floor begging for help.

Speaker 2: Thirteen thirteen.

Speaker 1: By the way that she was talking, Detective Burton could

immediately tell that there had been some kind of injury

to her throat by the way that she was speaking

in a type of almost like she.

Speaker 2: Was choking, and perhaps the blood.

Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, but so she was laying on her stomach,

so they hadn't seen that any injury was to her

neck yet, Okay, but she was able to make out

that she had been stabbed by her two older brothers.

Broken Arrow, Oklahoma is a very family oriented city. They

have some of the best public schools in Oklahoma. It

was one of those small quaint those small quaint towns

that had a church on just about every corner. It

was an extremely safe community. So this horrific crime scene

was something that shocked the whole community.

Speaker 2: So how did it get the name Broken Arrow? I'm

just curious.

Speaker 1: Oh that I don't know.

Speaker 2: I was just curious. I should have googled it.

Speaker 1: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma gets its name from a historic Muskogee

Native American settlement.

Speaker 2: So you were right, Well, I guess on a roll.

Speaker 1: So the Bever family lived in a huge home in

Broken Arrow. David Bever, the father, was a computer programmer

and analyst. April Bever, the mother, worked a lot of

odd jobs, like kind of it sounded like she just

picked up kind of some stuff here and there, but

for the most part she was a stay at home mother.

Speaker 2: Sounds like she had kids to meet, but.

Speaker 1: She did the Bever family had seven children. Oh there

you go, raging from ages eighteen to eighteen years old

to two years old. The Bever children were homeschooled and

they were taught by April. The Bevers were a very

quiet family. They stayed to themselves, and it was maybe

believed that David and April kind of thought that they

could protect their children from the dangers of the outside world,

and that was kind of how they lived their life.

Broken Arrow was a pretty tight knit community. No one

knew their neighbor, but the Bevers kept more to themselves,

and some people described them as even a little standoffish.

It appeared that they were Christians and they were very

into their faith. They were the kind of family that

just did everything together.

Speaker 2: I thought I read somewhere where the neighbors didn't know

how many kids they had until after whatever we're going

through right now, sure, and they're like, had seven kids,

we didn't know that they interviewed.

Speaker 1: I watched a snippit of a TV show that I'll

say at the end, and one of the neighbors was

interviewed and he said, you know, they didn't bother me.

I didn't bother them, And that was kind of how

I liked it, and that was basically all the information

I got.

Speaker 2: Which is how Oklahoma people had.

Speaker 1: Oh I've lived in my home for eight years and

I don't know my neighbors.

Speaker 2: That's on you, honey.

Speaker 1: That is one. Okay, I should say my kitty corner

across the street, neighbor, I really like her, don't know

her name.

Speaker 2: Do you want me to tell you what I've already

done today with my neighbors? Cut it out?

Speaker 1: But yes, no, I know that. Okay, but that's different.

You guys, for the most part, are all retired, So

you guys all kind of like hang out now.

Speaker 2: So we're old.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, isn't retiring age sixty five?

Speaker 2: So well, when you're old, I guess you don't talk

to you You can talk to your neighbors when you're old,

but you can't when you're young. Think about it.

Speaker 1: I mean, I have talked to my neighbor, the other

kitty corner. She's retired. I've talked to her before. Don't

know her name though.

Speaker 2: So when you go on vacation, who watches your house?

Speaker 1: My in laws?

Speaker 2: Yeah? Who live how.

Speaker 1: Far away farther than across the street?

Speaker 2: I have like eight people that will watch our house.

Speaker 1: In all fairness, if I ask my kitty corner neighbor,

she probably would okay, and I would do it for

her as well. But we just never had the conversation

because I've never had to.

Speaker 2: Okay, get back on track. People are getting bored now.

Oh sorry with the podcast.

Speaker 1: So the oldest, eighteen year old Robert Bever, appeared to

be your typical teenager on the outside, but in reality,

his inner thoughts and ideas were extremely dark. Michael Beverer

is the second oldest, at sixteen years old. His interests

were very similar to his older brothers. He seemed to

be a follower of Robert. He really looked up to

his big brother, and it appears he really wanted to

make his brother happy. They spent all of their time together.

They shared a bunch of their thoughts together. They bounced

ideas off of each other. I believe they also shared

a bedroom, so I was kind of like they were

always in a kind of communication.

Speaker 2: And nothing was school. I mean, there's no sports, there's

no band, there's no yep. Because they know nobody else

but their own family.

Speaker 1: Correct, they would stay up late at night talking to

each other about their plans, what they wanted to do

with their future, that kind of stuff. So although it

seemed that David and April Bever wanted to protect their

children from the outside world, that all ended with the

ves of the Internet. They let the outside world come

into their home. Through the Internet, the kids were able

to watch whatever they wanted. They had total access to

iPads and phones. They had access. I mean, they were

on YouTube a lot.

Speaker 2: So I'm sorry the guy was in it, right, yea

or okay, yeah, oh I got it now? Yeah cool,

I didn't.

Speaker 1: Yep, so yeah, their father's in it. So once, you know,

once the kids were able to get a hold of

the Internet, it didn't sound like I mean, I was

twenty fifteen, so maybe I'm wrong, but like it didn't

sound like parental controls are what they are now.

Speaker 2: So they got like spectrum or whatever, and yeah, yep,

yeah cool. Their internet works better than mine. Oh you

can cut that.

Speaker 1: There wasn't as much oversight to what they were involved

in online. Both the brothers were drawn to school shootings

and the notoriety of those kill and the notoriety that

those killers had received. They had become obsessed with anything

they had to do with killing. They searched, you know,

rampages and killing spreeese, and they talked about how they

wanted to be famous. So these kids were isolated from

most of the regular world, and then they get a

window into the world. But the window just happened to

direct them to their direct their obsession with killings. They

looked up mass shootings like Columbine, they idolized people like

Richard Ramirez.

Speaker 2: Wow. Again nothing but.

Speaker 1: And then it became easy for them to continue to

graduate gravitate towards those kinds of things. And then it

started to become normal and they started to fantasize about

this type of behavior. It was the perfect melting pot

for dark thoughts and devious activities with the degree of

isolation that was happening in this home.

Speaker 2: Wow, so if there was a brain eating omeiba in

their heads, it would have starved, right, Yeah, I mean,

come on, that's just so dark. I normal like people.

But here's what's normal. I don't even know what's normal anymore.

Speaker 1: Right, that's true.

Speaker 2: I haven't researched just but how much of the fifteen

seconds of fame do people really care about? Is this

part of that?

Speaker 1: Yeah? It really is. Yeah, I don't get that, man.

Speaker 2: So catch a fall ball at the Yankees game, I

give it to a kid. Boom, You're done. You know.

Speaker 1: Then Robert found his new fixation. It was a movie

called Rampage from nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 2: Oh honey, I don't know that one.

Speaker 1: But I tried to look it up. I don't really

get it.

Speaker 2: Okay, but what was in it doesn't matter. I don't care.

Speaker 1: I don't know. Like again, I looked it up, but

I don't really understand. I mean, I understand it, but

I don't really understand it. So I'll just I'll just

read my script. So this movie became kind of his

mantra to get rid of an overpopulated world, people who

weren't contributing to society. That was kind of the whole

basis of the movie. Hey all, this is Lauren from

the editing booth. I must have looked up the wrong

Rampage movie when I was doing this research, and I'm

just gonna blame that on the day quill. So, the

movie Rampage that Robert Beverer was so obsessed with is

from nineteen eighty seven, and this is basically the synopsis.

Alex is an outwardly normal man who goes on killing

and mutilating spreeze. When he's finally captured and brought to trial,

the district attorney is torn between his own liberal ideals,

ideals on guilds, and the heinous crimes the cues is

being tried. So don't really know what I looked up before.

Not sure if we're leaving it intercut it, but uh,

that was the movie that Robert Beffer was that turned

into Robert Beffer's mantra. Robert's fascination grew and grew to

the point that he himself had to step into those shoes,

and he himself wanted to become a killer. So I'd

like to take you back to the summer of twenty

fourteen for just a minute. Robert had a job at

a religious call center. It was a place that if

you needed to pray with someone, you would call and

someone would pray with you. So he was praying with

people every day, multiple times a day. At that job,

Robert was able to make enough money that he was

able to purchase heavy duty body armor and not just

like the kevlar vess, but shields for your arms and

your legs, that kind of thing like full on body.

Speaker 2: Arm on the internet.

Speaker 1: Yep, Awesome was also able to buy tons and tons

of knives on the internet.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that I get. The body armor is a

little tougher for me to understand, but I get the knives. Sure,

you get the Ginzu knives you get you know, I

mean this goes back a long time. You'd get some

really cool knives.

Speaker 1: And I say this with a little bit of judgment.

But my husband has like a knife collection that I

don't think is weird. But in this instance, I don't

like it.

Speaker 2: All my knives were free. I mean, you apply for

running a race, you get a knife.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I suppose, like if you go to.

Speaker 2: All the time you're up north in northern Wisconsin. Sure

I'm going to run a marathon. Oh here's a knife.

Speaker 1: You know, you don't get it, but I don't get it.

Speaker 2: But again, like you can got deer with him and stuff.

Speaker 1: But also I we did a case not that long

ago where another kid had a collection of knives, but

his dad owned an auto parts store, so they were

like promotional knives, which of course you can get for

opening boxes for parts. Like that'll make sense, I tell you.

Speaker 2: If we go on the garage right now, you're gonna

find fifty knives. And I didn't pay for one of them.

And guess what, they're not that cool. They're not Genzu.

Speaker 1: Is that a Oh?

Speaker 2: Ginzu was a commercial back in like the seventies. Okay,

Ginzu knife. It can slice, slice, and dice one hundred tomatoes.

Speaker 1: In like, oh, it's like a cookie knife. It's not

like a but.

Speaker 2: They're very sharp. Sure, well, of course, and you could

get them. Yeah, so knives are easy to get.

Speaker 1: All right, Well, then I guess I'll stop being so judgy.

Speaker 2: Oh no, you can be.

Speaker 1: So.

Speaker 2: Uh.

Speaker 1: He had a ton of knives, and after he was

able to get his hands on some other things, the

plan was starting to get set into motion. His ultimate

goal was to kill over five hundred people.

Speaker 2: Five hundred, five hundred.

Speaker 1: Okay, I'll get into it a little bit. But like

their goal was like to go to a gas station

and kill all those people, and then they'd go somewhere

else and then you know, go to the grocery store kill

all those people. And they just kind of assumed that

that was how they were going to make.

Speaker 2: Their way, Okay, not going to get an airplane and

go into a No, they.

Speaker 1: Were going to drive the family car, good.

Speaker 2: Lore five hundred and after kids go for it.

Speaker 1: After he kind of you know, sat alone with his

thoughts for a little bit, he decided that he wasn't

gonna be able to do it by himself, so he

introduced his ideas to his brother Michael. Because the Bever

children were so isolated, they didn't present the same kind

of warning signs as maybe other people normally would. They

weren't out stealing or breaking into cars, they weren't having

They were just having these conversations between the two of

them inside the.

Speaker 2: Home, killing cats, killing dogs.

Speaker 1: Nope, they were just talking. There was Robert did make

some YouTube videos and I only saw like little clips

of them, but just it wasn't even really anything scary,

but just there was nothing behind his eyes like that

was scary, Just like him talking looking in the camera.

I was just but what he was talking about really wasn't.

I think he was talking about a video game that

he was playing.

Speaker 2: But you can tell, oh yeah, the oh yeah.

Speaker 1: They were very dark and very empty. And then their sister,

their thirteen year old sister, heard her two older brothers

talking about this plan. She was extremely concerned and alarmed

that her brothers were collecting knives and talking about going

on this rampage, and she actually brought it up to

her parents and expressed her concern to them about what

she had overheard.

Speaker 2: Where do you hide the body armor? I'm just sorry,

you know, well, big house, yep, yeahwhere And I think

that like I gotta quit in a run.

Speaker 1: No, it's fine, but I do believe in now, I

wish I would have written it down, and maybe it's later.

I think they had like a trunk, like just your

regular old trunk for blankets and whatever that all of

a sudden was just kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, something

that was just kind of something that their parents got them.

Speaker 2: Yep, that we're just going to put body armor and

what I means, so I should have checked your room

more when you yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, if you think about it, they're

sixteen and eighteen and they have no outside two year old,

a five year old, a seven year old, a thirteen

year old, a nine year old. Sixteen and eighteen, so

I mean April has other has smaller kids that she's

probably keeping.

Speaker 2: Currently no outside contact, no, not really.

Speaker 1: It's unclear how the parents reacted to the thirteen year

old telling them this, but it kind of sounded like

it came to the well, boys will be boys. But

I can't confirm that. I just saw that in one source.

Speaker 2: Didn't they have like an eight year gap between the

husband and the wife, which is kind of weird, not weird,

I shouldn't even say weird. It's very normal. But weren't

they didn't he like Mary, they're.

Speaker 1: Four years apart. Okay, he was fifty two and she

was forty eight when they died.

Speaker 2: Well, that's not that bad, so never mind.

Speaker 1: Let's see they have an eighteen year old, of sixteen

year old, a thirteen year old, a twelve year old,

a seven year old, a five year old, and a

two year old.

Speaker 2: So they had their first one at what age? This

might be important?

Speaker 1: Let's see here I wrote it down.

Speaker 2: I should know this.

Speaker 1: So what's forty eight minus eighteen? Is that thirty?

Speaker 2: What do you think it is?

Speaker 1: Is that thirty? I was gonna say thirty, but I.

Speaker 2: That's go at thirty?

Speaker 1: Is it wrong? No, that's right, Okay, I was gonna

say that just seems late for them.

Speaker 2: To be this certainly does yep to.

Speaker 1: Be this Christian. But so she was thirty he was

thirty four. Wow, okay, and I didn't find maybe they

had trouble having kids, you know. Oh and maybe and

I don't know when they got married either. So so

the brother's ultimate plan was for them to be the

most infamous serial killers and have as and get as

much notoriety as possible. So back to July twenty second,

twenty fifteen, at eleven thirty nine pm, the police were

responding to the child's nine one one call at the

Bever family home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. So those two

officers showed up first because they were the first to

respond to the nine one one call and they weren't

totally sure what was going on yet they knew something

bad had happened because they saw the blood on the

front step and they could hear a voice coming from

inside the house, and that was when they forced entry

into the home. They saw the thirteen year old girl

lying in the entryway. They told her she was going

to be okay and that they were going to get

her help. At that time, they picked her up and

brought her outside to the ambulance so that she could

be properly cared for by twelve oh seven am. More

detectives had been notified that they needed to come to

the scene due to the magnitude of this crime. It

was an all hands on deck situation, which I think

is pretty standard, but they made sure to point it

out in this episode. Oh, it was an episode of

Killer Siblings. That's what I watched.

Speaker 2: But we're in Oklahoma now, so you don't know what

goes on down there? Yeah, a little backcountry. Well, anyway,

I'm not ripping on the line.

Speaker 1: I don't know how many police officers were involved. There's

at least three detectives that go to the scene.

Speaker 2: It's just funny when they say all hands on deck.

That could be like four people.

Speaker 1: That's true, that's very true. I know that there was

at least four people there. Does that help? There was

at least four people there. So as more officers and

detectives got to the scene, they all started doing a

more methodical search of the residence. Whoever had done this

to the thirteen year old could still obviously be inside

the residence, so they started to sweep each room one

by one.

Speaker 2: All four of them. Never mind go ahead.

Speaker 1: As Detective Burton was making his way through the home,

he remembers turning the corner and there was just blood

smeared all over the walls. Forty eight year old April

Bever and twelve year old Daniel Beverer were found downstairs.

They were stabbed so many times and at that point

unsure if they were alive or not. They were removed

from the home and they were Once they were out,

the EMTs whoever was in the ambulance was immediately able

to pronounce them dead at the scene. April had been

stabbed over forty times and Daniel had been stabbed nine times.

Speaker 2: You gotta be kidding me, whoa go?

Speaker 1: Daniel had also been the nine one one caller. The

next family member to be found was their father, fifty

two year old David Bever. It was clear to detectives

at the time that he was also deceased. He had

been stabbed over twenty five times. Next, they went into

the hallway and they noticed that the bathroom door was closed.

The detectives kind of assumed that if the door was locked,

it was probably a good indication that the people inside

of the room were the killers. So the detectives barged

into the bathroom and instead of finding the suspects. They

found seven year old Christopher and five year old Victoria Bever.

Christopher had been stabbed over five times and Victoria had

been stabbed over ten times.

Speaker 2: Good life, we're up to like sixty five now.

Speaker 1: Yeah. They went upstairs to the second floor to see

if they could find the suspects upstairs. They continued to

find blood throughout the entire home, and then they walked

into one final room and they found another survivor. They

were able to locate the two year old that was

in her crib and she was completely unharmed. She had

slept through the whole thing.

Speaker 2: Sorry, but that's kind of cool. Yeah, well not cool,

but what kind of life is she going to have now?

Speaker 1: So this was the smallest silver lining that this baby

was unharmed. But they knew the reality of the situation.

They had five deceased family members in a home and

they knew that they were missing an eighteen year old

and a sixteen year old, so they were following a

safety protocols in the home. But due to this so

they were still following safe protocols in the home due

to the suspects still being on the loose. Detectives then

noticed that the back door of the home was open,

so they contact. They contacted a canine officer and dog,

and they knew that they were going to go on

a little man hunt. The officers went out the back

door and started tracking through the woods behind the residents's home.

Behind the residents, behind the home, doesn't matter they.

Speaker 2: Were behind there's always woods. Yeah, all these the woods

behind where they live.

Speaker 1: Like this house is beautiful, but it was like it

was almost like a farm property. They had kind of

close neighbors, but not that close.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's how I envisioned.

Speaker 1: Go yep, and it goes right. I mean they had

like enough of a backyard, but then yeah, just a

wooded area behind them. As they make their way through

the woods, they start coming across pieces of body armor

that had been discarded, and within within about less than

ten a call came over the radio that they had

two suspects being held at gunpoint. Police immediately started giving

them commands, show me your hands, show me your hands.

It was Michael and Robert Bever. Wow, Robert had body

armor on still with a T shirt over it, and

that kind of made them nervous seeing him in that

body armor. After what they had just witnessed in.

Speaker 2: The home, thinking bomb probably.

Speaker 1: Yeah, or more guns, more whatever. Yep. Robert immediately responded

to the command, so he listened, but it appeared that

Michael was still moving and not really listening. So at

that point they released the canines on the sixteen year olds.

Speaker 2: Let the dog do their job.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And after the dog grabbed him by the shoulder,

he complied.

Speaker 2: They should have body armor on the puppers. Yeah, don't

you think pupper should have buddy arm?

Speaker 1: I agree, but don't don't you think that if the

sniffing out, Oh, they're probably specific bomb dogs versus well,

they're tracking dogs.

Speaker 2: But how do you know, I mean, body armor, how

do you know that's not I don't know. I mean

I think they should have shot them on the shoulder,

just to see if they were to explode. But whatever,

But that's just me.

Speaker 1: So once the two were placed in handcuffs, they walked

to them the distance out of the woods, and as

they were walking them out, neither of the boys seemed

upset or even remorseful.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: In fact, it was almost the opposite. They were acting

a little cocky, and one of the brothers said Detective

Burton it wasn't like on TV. It wasn't just one

cut and they died once out of the woods. Both

brothers were photographed for evidence purposes, and both were covered

in dirt and blood, and they both have these smirks

on their faces, and these photographs like, I will post

the pictures on the social media and Dad, I'll show

you them as well.

Speaker 2: I can imagine stabbing. Now there's two of them. But

you're talking like one hundred stebs. This is going to

sound bad, but you gotta get tired.

Speaker 1: I mean, come on, I agree, no, no, I agree

that easy.

Speaker 2: And then they must have cut the crap out of

their hands, unless they had a really good noise, which

apparently they might have.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So, after the photographs were done and the brothers

were taken into custody, they were put in separate vehicles,

and as that was happening, Robert looked over at Michael

and said, it has been a pleasure. I'm proud of

what I've done.

Speaker 2: Who is the oldest, Robert?

Speaker 1: Okay, so the eighteen year old said it to the

sixteen year old. So the brothers are then in custody

and they're placed in separate interrogation rooms. When Detective Eric

Bentz and Detective Rihanna Russell were going to be in

charge of the brothers interrogations. In this episode of Killer Siblings,

they show a lot of the sixteen year old Michael's interrogation,

so Michael takes it from the top. He told detectives

that about two months ago the planning had started. Michael

said that since Robert was eighteen years old, he was

able to buy guns online and he was able to

buy over one thousand rounds of ammunition. The ammunition was

going to be shipped to their home and then he

was going to pick up the gun the guns from

a shop that they were being delivered to. He then said,

originally the plan was to obviously kill everyone in their

home first, wait for the packages to show up the

following weekend, and then they were going to take the

family Yukon and they were going to start driving with

the guns and start a killing rampage. Okay, so Robert

got had gone online and ordered a bunch of ammunition

and it was ordered to his house and was going

to be delivered the next day.

Speaker 2: Isn't that in general scary.

Speaker 1: Very very scary? I guess, I app I don't know

if the word appreciates, correct, I guess, yeah, maybe appreciate

the fact that the guns had to be picked up

from a store where they were id'd and weren't shipped

to their home.

Speaker 2: Oh boy, but there we go. But like, so that

was the the gun shop gets a little cut in

the action.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, which is fine.

Speaker 2: I'm sure they're legal and right. I bet all this

was legal by.

Speaker 1: Just our just yeah just yeah. But I mean.

Speaker 2: Nobody did anything wrong, no, but think about it. Ye.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So then the brothers kind of realized that it

was going to be a problem. When their mother and

father saw a huge pile of ammunition show up they

could get, you know, the body armor past their parents wried. Yeah,

So that was when they decided that they needed to

speed up their timeline, and they decided to kill everyone

that night.

Speaker 2: Because the ammunitions coming.

Speaker 1: Yep, the ammunition was coming in the following days they

had to.

Speaker 2: Get don't want to get caught with that ammunition.

Speaker 1: Correct, Mom and dad might start asking questions. So the

plan was to use all or most of their knives

on the family because the guns and ammunition weren't in

their possession yet. So all of this is by stabbing.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: They also noticed that the guns would be too loud

in their in the residence for their neighborhood. They didn't

want anyone to hear them and catch them that early on.

Speaker 2: Boy, these boys are just brilliant.

Speaker 1: Are the element of surprise is going to be the

thing that played most in their favor. So they planned

on going through the house quietly and one by one,

killing each family member by stabbing them.

Speaker 2: Once they turned the guests, dove on and walk out

and let everybody die peacefully. They have to make people suffer.

Speaker 1: Because because that could be proceived as an accident. Yeah,

all then and then and then it wouldn't be NOTARIZD.

Speaker 2: Would count their body total yep to be Yeah, wow, yep.

You are much more warped than I am. Honey.

Speaker 1: I've been doing this for a very long time.

Speaker 2: I think of that one, but now I'm getting warped. Yeah, okay, sorry,

I'm ready. Yep.

Speaker 1: Then the plan was to after they had killed everyone

in their home, they were just going to hang out

until the AMO showed up, and then after the AMMO

showed up, they were going to go pick up their

guns that they had ordered to the store, and then

they were just going to leave, So they were going

to have about twenty four to forty eight hours in

the home with their dead family members.

Speaker 2: Brilliant, Yep, what a great plan.

Speaker 1: So they guessed, according to their plan that they would

kill about five people at a time between restaurants and

gas stations. They would just keep going, and the confession

kept going. The detectives kept waiting for why why had

they done this?

Speaker 2: I can't wait, Please tell me why this is?

Speaker 1: This is I mean, the whole thing is morbid, but

this is kind of morbid. The detectives were, you know,

surely not hoping, but they assumed that the kids were

being abused or molested, or that there was mental health issues.

They just kept waiting for that to be the excuse. Yep,

but nothing ever came me too, by the way, yeah,

nothing ever came out.

Speaker 2: Mom and dad were fine.

Speaker 1: And then Michael said that the reason that they were

going to kill their family is because they were in

the way. They then said that their goal was to

become famous and set records for the most kills. So

that was that was it. Their family was just going

to be in the way. And then he said, my

favorite thing Michael Bever said that when it all came

down to it, he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill

any of them. He said that Robert stabbed them, and

he didn't kill any of them. Actually, he just stood there.

Speaker 2: Did they film this? So who filmed? And who killed? No?

Speaker 1: No, sorry, no it's not filmed. The interrogation was filmed.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Oh I thought I read somewhere where they

were filming the killings.

Speaker 1: No, they maybe have film talking about it, but I've

never I never.

Speaker 2: Saw they wanted. They wanted two films, one where they

showed the actual killing and one where they could somehow

remove that, so it's like the body's not there, Oh

because dad's I ts. Yeah, these kids know stuff. And

then they were going to post that one on the internet.

Speaker 1: Oh god.

Speaker 2: The killing of the bodies was supposed to be only for.

Speaker 1: For their viewing pleasure.

Speaker 2: And there and prosecutors and their defense attorney.

Speaker 1: Oh god.

Speaker 2: They knew they were going to get caught.

Speaker 1: Right, They just didn't think they were going to get

caught this early.

Speaker 2: Oh god. They weren't going to get caught for like

fifty years, right, Yeah, from what I read.

Speaker 1: And again I took a lot of this from the

Killer Siblings episode.

Speaker 2: But well, and I just googled it and I'm like,

oh my god, okay, sorry, just freaking idiots. So they'll

swearing yet, by the way, thank you, honey.

Speaker 1: I'm trying to get better, right there, I am trying

to get.

Speaker 2: Better bomb and we're going to take a quick break.

Speaker 1: We are, so according to Michael, he was never able

to go through with it. He didn't kill anyone. He

just stood by and watched Robert. The detectives knew that

that wasn't true, though, but at this point of this story,

this is what Michael was sticking to. So they left

that interview and went over to start speaking with Robert.

They said, Okay, we think we've gotten about enough information

at this point. Let's take a little break. Let's go

talk to Robert. According to detective Eric Bentce, Robert wanted

to tell his whole story. He wanted to brag about

stabbing his family, he wanted to talk about his plan

to kill hundreds of people, and he wanted to talk

about being a well known serial killer. But then a

caption comes on the screen in the episode of Killer

Siblings that says this the videotaped confession with Robert Bever

are sealed under court order and are unavailable to the public. So,

of course, you know, Eric Bence or Detective Eric Bence

just kind of like, this is what he told us,

but we can't we can't verify that that's just what yep.

So it's unknown exactly what he said. And I'm not

saying I don't believe this, Detective. I do. I just

wasn't able to see for myself what he actually took

credit for. But the next thing they show after the

caption on the screen is that Detective Bence returns back

to the interrogation room with Michael and he said, you know, Michael,

Robert gave us a quick rundown and how you were involved,

and I gave you one chance to tell us the truth.

You didn't do that. And then Michael said, I don't

know what he might have said, because like he's going

to do it no matter what he said. If I

don't do it with him, he's going to kill me too.

Speaker 2: Robert said that to Michael.

Speaker 1: Okay, after speaking with Robert Bever detectives, Detectives confront Michael

Bever with new information. Robert said that you stabbed more

than one person, so who did you stab? Michael? And

then Michael admitted that he stabbed his mom. And after

that pretty quickly, Michael was able to tell them the

events of what had happened the night before. So this

is according to Michael. Robert and Michael had been in

their bedroom that they shared. They decided that this was

the night that they were going to kill their family,

and they were really excited about it. Robert wrote in

his journal, my only fear is that I can't hold

the knife steady enough. They went downstairs, where they knew

that their mother and their thirteen year old sister were

going to be in the living room watching TV. So

Michael went and grabbed his sister and asked her to

come to their room so he could show her something

on the computer as she was distracted. The plan was

for Robert to go up behind her, grab her, kill

her quietly before moving on to the rest of the

family members, but their plan failed. Immediately their thirteen year

old sister started fighting back and screaming, and then next

April showed up in the doorway after hearing the commotion.

So then Robert turned around and started attacking his mother

and as she was trying to get away, Michael went

behind her and slit her throat.

Speaker 2: Sorry.

Speaker 1: As they were attacking their mother, the thirteen year old

sister was able to begin to flee. She got to

the front door and collapsed in the front yard, which

is why there was blood outside.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 1: Next to come out of the room was their twelve

year old brother was their twelve year old brother, Daniel.

He was the next to come out after hearing the commotion.

So he came out and saw Robert standing there with

a knife, and Robert leaned over and slashed Daniel's arm open.

And that was when Daniel ran back into his room

and locked the door, and he was able to find

a cell phone and call nine one one.

Speaker 2: That's who called nine one one. Okay, I thought it

was a girl. It was Daniel.

Speaker 1: It was Daniel, yep.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 1: Michael then tricked Daniel to let him into his room.

Michael told Daniel that Robert was trying to kill him too,

and he begged Daniel to open the door and let him.

Speaker 2: In so we can lock the door and you can

save me too.

Speaker 1: So Daniel opened the door and Michael and Robert took

the phone from Daniel and proceeded to stop and proceeded

to stop Daniel and hung up the nine on one

call that wasn't process at that point. Too. Of the

youngest Victoria and Christopher were hiding in a locked bathroom,

and Michael went up to that door and did the

same thing that he did to Daniel. He begged them

to open the door. He said that Robert was also

trying to kill him, so he begged them to let

him in. As they opened the door, they were killed immediately.

During all of this, the dad was still upstairs sleeping.

This is like this was a big house. The dad

really did not hear them, so it took him a

while to hear anything, and then he came downstairs. Eventually,

Michael and Robert hear their dad coming and almost immediately

lee Robert charges at their father, and that first stab

must have been at the right place at the right time,

because the dad did not put up much of a fight.

It seems like he had collapsed almost immediately. Immediately after

Robert Michael killed their father, they realized that their thirteen

year old sister had made it outside and had collapsed

in the front yard. Robert then decided he needed to

go outside and get her. He went out and grabbed

her and dragged her back inside and held his mouth

and held his hand over her mouth in an attempt

to suffocate her, and he thought he had succeeded. At

that point, it seems that they went upstairs to kill

their last family member, their two year old sister, but

due to the universe working in wonderful ways, before they

were able to do any kind of harm to their

two year old sister, there was a knock at the

front door. It was the police, and Michael and Robert

knew that they had to flee the scene, so they

grabbed as much stuff as they could carry and they

ran out the back door, and about ten to fifteen

minutes later they were located behind the house in the

woods and they were arrested.

Speaker 2: Didn't they like hide under a bush?

Speaker 1: They were in It seemed like almost like a hedge

of bushes. That's kind of what it seemed like, and

just based on because it's body cam footage, but it's

of them like kind of running, so it's kind of

hard to tell. It looks like they kind of got stuck,

but I don't know that for sure. That's just kind

of what it looked like.

Speaker 2: Those cane anes are pretty good. Oh yeah, definite assholes.

Oh yeah, Oh can I say assholes? You do not things.

Speaker 1: So fast forward to February twenty third of twenty sixteen,

preliminary hearings began to determine the charges for the brothers's crime.

The district attorney charged the brothers with five counts of

murder in the first degree and an additional count of

assault and battery with intent to kill for what they

did to their thirteen year old sister. When Robert committed

these crimes, he was eighteen years old and in the

state of Oklahoma, he was eligible for the death penalty.

Michael Bever was charged as an adult, which was allowed

in the state of Oklahoma even though he was only

sixteen years old. One of the biggest things the DA

needed to consider was how to try and prosecute these

cases where the thirteen year old sister wouldn't have to

go to court and do all of that, relive it,

confront her attackers. Would she be able to take the

stand and tell the jury what happened to her at

that kind of fragile state. What they decided is that

they were going to try and make this as minimal

and minimally invasive as possible. So they decided not to

pursue the death penalty as long as Robert would serve

life in prison.

Speaker 2: So the taxpayer is going to pay like a billion

zillion dollars to keep him alive and he's never going

to see the light of day. When not saying I

agree or disagree with the death penalty could have saved

a lot.

Speaker 1: Of money, right, but I'm pretty sure that it costs

more money for people to be on death row because

they have to be separated from the public. Yeah, so

keeping him in prison for life is essentially cheaper than

putting him on the death penalty than giving him the

death penalty.

Speaker 2: But if you just.

Speaker 1: That, but you have to yet you get it automatic appeals.

Speaker 2: It goes yeah, episodes about that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't get to unfortunately, well not you know

what I mean. You don't get to kill them in the.

Speaker 2: First months, either one of them ever come up for

parole or they're no parole.

Speaker 1: I'll get there.

Speaker 2: Oh I'm not done. Oh sorry.

Speaker 1: So they offered Robert Bever a plea deal of five

sentences of life in prison with the possibility of Pearl

and Robert pled guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. Honestly,

it was a relief to the investigators and for the attorneys,

and for the thirteen year old sister. She wasn't going

to have to testify and give any details of the

horrible crimes that happened against her and the rest of

the family. But then something unusual happened with Michael Bever's case.

Michael's attorney decided not to give a guilty plea and

he was not just going to walk away from this easily.

So Michael Beverer's attorney decided to seek an insanity defense.

They tried to get his confession thrown out. They tried

to get his charges dropped down like he was a

juvenile instead of an adult. Michael was going to fight this.

He was going to trial. Almost a year and almost

a year after Robert Bever pled guilty, the case went

to trial for Michael Beverer. They spent almost six weeks

in trial. During the six weeks, Robert Bever took the

stand and Robert testified that Michael was just was just

an innocent bystander. Now he wasn't involved. It was me

I did all the killings, not my brother, which was

much different to the confession that he had given that

night they were taken into custody. He said that Michael

never stabbed anyone, and it was very clear to everyone

that Robert was just trying to protect his brother during

this trial, and of course, the one thing that no

one wanted to happen happened. The surviving sister also had

to take the scend at Michael's.

Speaker 2: Trial, so she went like fourteen, now fifteen.

Speaker 1: I think she's fifteen.

Speaker 2: Oh, good lord kid.

Speaker 1: I don't have any specifics on the trial, but the

jurors cried during the trial. That was noted. Some of

the correspondents cried during the trial. It was really tough

on anyone and everyone involved.

Speaker 2: On this episodee No, On the episode.

Speaker 1: Of Killer Sibling, they sit down with the detectives and

the ones that were immediately on the scene and they

all us. They all cry during it. They all take

a step back. Yeah, they said that this is the

worst thing that they've ever seen in their tenure. Well

hopefully ever, well yes, I'm just saying like they're only

talking about Yeah. So, after six weeks, the case was

given to the jury and when they came back to

give their verdict, they were all crying. So finally, on

May ninth, twenty eighteen, Michael Bever was found guilty of

five counts of first degree murder and one count of

assault and battery with intent to kill. He was sentenced

to five consecutive life sentences. The district attorney, the investigators,

basically everyone involved or anyone who was following this case

was relieved by the sentencing. This chapter for them was

able to be closed. The family's home in sight of

the killings seven My seven oh nine Magnolia Court in

Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, sat vacant since the crime scene investigators

and cleaners finished the forensic investigation of the murders. People

would come in and vandalize it. They tried to make

a spectacle out of it. But on March eighteenth, twenty seventeen,

the house was completely destroyed in a fire. A fire, yeah,

some say it was arson.

Speaker 2: Mysterious fire yeah, basically god yeah.

Speaker 1: But no one was ever charged.

Speaker 2: Because Gareth a bulldozer probably was told don't probably yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So on March twenty seventh, twenty nineteen, Reflection Park

was dedicated in the official ceremony a path meanders through

the knoll of grass where the bever house once stood.

So yeah, they Reflection Park is dedicated to this family

and it's like it has a nice walking path around

it and I think there's like a little memorial plaque

and cool. Yep, they turned it into it looks really nice.

Speaker 2: I mean, what are you doing do us something like that? Yeah?

That whoreror.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is the story of the Broken Arrow murders.

Speaker 2: You want to final comments? I do these boys, Yeah,

we're very trouble. Yeah, not from homeschooling, no, although I

try to blame that. Not from being raised in Oklahoma,

which doesn't help. But it's just sick. Yeah, you know,

and when you know, and most of the time, these

assholes for no better, they take their own life. These

guys didn't give a shit. Now they're still living and

I mean, perhaps not the best life, but I'm sure

they're getting three squares a day in a bed. They

sure are not allowed of justice. And that poor well

thirteen and two year old. Yeah, God, I hope that

two year old phone at home. If not, she could

come here take care of her.

Speaker 1: I the thirteen year old was named but since she's

a victim. I always choose not to name them. I

know the name, you know, like it says in official reports.

But I do believe they were both adopted into the

same family, and I believe it was a family member.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: But like they don't. I don't believe they live in

Oklahoma anymore. They went somewhere else, doesn't matter, who would.

Speaker 2: Want to But anyway, Yeah, move somewhere else. Nebraska sound

a good stadium.

Speaker 1: But yeah, I just yeah, but so just.

Speaker 2: So many sick people, honey, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for being here. Dad, Sorry this one sucked.

But they also know they do.

Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, And I just it amazes me how many

whack jobs are out there and we might be living

next door to one. I mean, hopefully I'm not, because

I know my neighbors. Honey, you should learn your neighbors

to make make sure you're not living next door to

a job.

Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Neighbors on both sides of me.

We've never once had an altercation, and I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2: Do you know their names?

Speaker 1: Uh, the neighbor on the left and the neighbor on

the right.

Speaker 2: That's how they're named. Good job.

Speaker 1: One of them has three residents and a dog, and

the other one has one resident doesn't like me. I

don't really think likes anyone, which is fine. Well, okay,

when their common enemy is a squirrel because they're the

same size, I'd be pissed too, you know what I mean.

I would be very mad as well.

Speaker 2: I love it all right, you wrap up. Thank you

for letting me join.

Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for doing it again. Yes, absolutely so.

Sources for this week I watch an episode of Killer

Siblings which was called the Bevers, which is season one,

episode four. I looked at their Wikipedia page. A full

list of my sources will be in my show notes.

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