Sarah Grace Patrick: Teen Accused of Killing Parents // 579

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Teeve. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. I hope you're doing well today. We have a pretty controversial case today. I feel like people are kind of divided on this one. It happened only a year ago. The trial is happening this year. Very recent, yes. And it's a very disturbing story. So please let us know what you think at the end of this. Please follow us on socials. Don't forget we are on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We're on Facebook, we're on TikTok. So give us a follow. Yes, and we also got to give a big thanks to Ali, who recommended today's case. Thank you so much, Ali. Yes, thank you, Ali. And also wanted to remind you guys that as of this Friday, February 6th, our merch is finally coming out. We're going to have a couple sweatshirts, some sweatpants, two T-shirts, and we posted photos of those as well if you guys want to go see. Yes, and all of those merch items are super high quality and they're very comfy, so check it out. All right, guys, without further ado, this is episode 579 of Going West. So let's get into it. In February of 2025, in a quiet Georgia neighborhood, a routine night ended in unthinkable violence for one family. When authorities arrived at the house, they discovered two parents dead from gunshot wounds, leaving another family member at the center of the investigation. As detectives began piecing together what led to the brutal act, they watched as their main suspect uploaded videos about the case on TikTok, even asking true crime content creators to cover the story. But did she really commit the motives? These are the killings of Kristen and Jamie Brock and the story of Sarah Grace Patrick. Sarah Grace Patrick was born in 2008 to parents Kristen and Daniel Patrick, but they separated the parents dead before Sarah was 10 years old, officially divorcing in 2019, though they did maintain a mostly cordial relationship for the sake of their daughter. The year prior to her divorce, Kristen began dating James or Jamie Brock and they got married shortly afterwards. So I just wanna say, Kristen, Jamie and Sarah are our main players today. Now between Sarah's two sets of parents and her half and step siblings, she became one of nine children in this blended family. And though the adults involved attempted to prioritize the needs of the kids, there was some contention when it came to the custody battle. Like at one point, Kristen was arrested and served jail time so then Daniel was awarded full custody. But here's the thing, he didn't have steady enough income or a comfortable enough home to support his two kids. So according to Daniel, Sarah actually chose to move back in with Kristen and Jamie, though she reportedly preferred living with her dad who was far more lenient at home than her mom and stepdad were. So with her mom and stepdad, when this story takes place, Sarah lived in a modest home in Carroll, in Georgia, which is about an hour west of Atlanta, situated near the border of Alabama. Kristen, who was 41 at the time of her death and Jamie, who was 45, had a pretty tumultuous relationship, one which Kristen often aired out on social media and we will get into that later. Now though they had broken up and gone no contact at some point, with Kristen even publicly accusing Jamie of being physically abusive, Kristen and Jamie moved back in together. Now a little more on the house, so at the time of their murders, they shared a four bedroom house in southwestern Carrollton with Sarah and their youngest daughter who was five years old. I wanna say some reports say that she was six, that is very often reported, but even the family confirmed that she was five when this happened. And the house is on a very rural country road, it's surrounded by woods, so it's not like a suburban neighborhood, but we will post photos. Yeah, it's only about a 12 minute drive to downtown, so basically on the outskirts of town. Yeah, not isolated, but it's rural, it's surrounded by woods and trees, just to give you a visual, because it will be relevant since the crime takes place in the home. So Sarah lived right there in Carrollton with them full time, but sometimes she would spend, like the occasional weekend with her dad. Well, on the morning of Thursday, February 20th, 2025, so just last year, 16 year old Sarah was awoken by her younger sister, telling her that something was wrong with their parents. Now by her account to the police, Sarah was horrified to find that both Kristen and Jamie had been shot to death in bed, and that her five year old sister had been the one to find them. Both victims were shot multiple times, and both had been shot in the head at least once. So unsure of what to do, Sarah's five year old sister grabbed Sarah for help, and then Sarah called the police. Now the scene was a very strange one, with no sign of a struggle or forced entry into the home. Detectives canvas the neighborhood, looking for any indication of where the assailant had fled, but the rural area offered no security cameras or eyewitness sightings of anything out of the ordinary. So, Luanne Bruce, Kristen's mom, assumed custody of Sarah's younger sister, and then Sarah moved in with her dad. Now as you guys can imagine, this very small community was stunned, and they were reeling from this very mysterious news, as investigators offered up a reward and attempted to scrape together any leads that they could muster up. The family held a joint funeral for the couple on March 8th, 2025, and Sarah herself gave a very tearful speech. Now in the months following the murders, Sarah celebrated multiple milestones without her mom and stepdad, including her 17th birthday, and also graduating high school. And according to her dad, she was as well adjusted as she could be in the aftermath of the murders, and that there were quotes no red flags. But almost immediately, rumors and suspicions swirled in the small community, because many of them, as well as Jamie's family, were pretty critical of Sarah's story from the jump. Now Jamie's parents apparently took issue with Sarah's emotional speech at the memorial, which she concluded by telling her parents that she was sorry, which on its head, you're like, well, what are you sorry about? She also shared that she was quote, happy that she got to make a speech, and thanked Jamie for being quote, the best bonus dad ever. But said to Kristen quote, everything we went through does not define what kind of person or what kind of mother you were. So it kind of seemed like it might have been a little bit harsh. And that could be indicative of some kind of tension between the two, but Kristen's side of the family says that she and her daughter were, she and her daughter, meaning Kristen and her daughter were extremely close and remained on good terms. So some of the family was like, what is she talking about? But is it possible that some of the family just really wasn't in the loop? Yeah, well, we're going to talk about that a lot today too, because it seems like nobody really understood the true nature of Sarah's relationship with her mother and her stepdad. Well, let's actually play a clip from that eulogy. Yes, you guys can hear exactly what people were suspicious of. I just wanted to say goodbye to my mom and Jane since we never got the chance to. I was so used to you guys always making a dream that I never once thought she would have to go not be near. And to have a signal, I'm claiming how much I needed to until now. For James, thank you for all the life lessons who taught me and for being the best bonus dad ever. Your heart will finally be healed and heaven and neither of you will be in any pain anymore. Although that gives me so much comfort, your life is not supposed to end there. Yet for my mother, everything we made there is not defined in kind of personal what kind of mother you were. You were a beautiful kind of soul with so much gratitude and so gosh, James, you're all... And you taught me so many life lessons and so many just recently taught me with your reliable set of James in 2018. When I first started as a mother, I cried and I got show-of-bugs. But every single time I read it, it puts me to a lot of peace. So I thought I'd share it. May 23rd, 2008, June 1st, 2005, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. You're all alone with my true peace and leaving me with pieces with my point of 100 pieces and each of these. So yeah, I mean, she's a teenager, but a lot of people are saying that it almost sounds like an award show speech. Like everyone's like, she's thinking people like it's the Oscars, like it's an acceptance speech. Time to throw some roses on the stage or something, you know? And actually, many funeral attendees reportedly kind of felt uneasy after she finished, alleging that it felt too contrived and scripted and not in the way like she did write the speech because many people do that. You know, a lot of people can't kind of go off the cuff. I wouldn't be able to do that either. But rather that the contents were scripted. Like it felt like she was saying things. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I know exactly what you mean. And to be fair, like some people don't really know how to give speeches in front of an audience. And some people kind of choke or they stall or maybe they say things that they didn't really mean to say. But yeah, I mean, just given the fact that the audience felt uneasy, kind of goes to show you what this whole situation felt like. Yeah, and I think it's interesting, especially as you guys can hear, she was crying during the eulogy. You can see in the video she just looks like a young teenage girl who lost her mom and her stepdad. So the fact that people saw what you would usually look at and feel absolutely devastated for, the fact that people had the opposite reaction is kind of like, hmm, like it's a little telling. It's telling, yes. But I also wonder if people are only saying that because of where this story goes, because you can hear people crying along with her in the video. So I don't know, I wonder. Well, as the kind of more strange details left behind at the crime scene emerged, more credence was given to the theory that Sarah knew more than she was willing to share. Like Heath said, there were no signs of forced entry in the home, except for one door that had been left slightly ajar. According to Don Yol, there was a mark on the door frame that appeared as if it had been forcibly wrenched open by a crowbar or like a similar weapon. So remember that. But that door also led almost directly from the back of the house into their bedroom. So that would be a really interesting entry point. Don Yol told the press that the couple rarely locked their doors even at night, which of course would make their home an easy target. So that's interesting as well, that the doors were not locked, but then that one door was almost forced open. So then it makes you wonder if this was an outsider. Did they end up locking that particular door and this person didn't check the other one or was this an attempt by somebody to make it look like a break it? Exactly, because it is pretty weird that the other door was unlocked. So then that exactly is where a lot of people's heads go. But I do want to mention this is a relatively safe and again, pretty rural area. And they never locked their doors because of that. Now Sarah speculated that the killer or killers must have known their victims, her parents of course, given that they knew the layout of the house. According to Sarah, the only indication she heard that something may have gone wrong with the alarm for her stepdad Jamie's heart pump, which would sound if his heart rate spiked or dropped. She says that she heard it chirping as she was getting ready for bed, but she didn't really think anything of it until it was too late. She also alleged that her TV was on and the TV in her parents room was on too, so all that background noise kind of obscured the commotion of the night. Sarah maintained that she had not heard the gunshots, but interestingly, her five year old sister said that she had. And I think most of us can agree, especially in just like a modest one story house, even with the TV on, you would hear something like two gunshots. Absolutely, yeah, I mean, even in a larger house than that, you would probably hear a couple gunshots depending on what kind of gun you use of course. But yeah, I mean, I mean, you got shots are fucking loud. Being loud, yeah, like I was just thinking sometimes in our neighborhood, because we have like the ring app and the citizen app and all those neighborhood apps. And we'll hear something like, we'll hear a bang somewhere, and then we'll see on ring or citizen, like gunshot, question mark, question mark, and then people were like, oh, there was a firework. You know what it's like? Yeah. That shit travels, it really does. So it certainly would travel across a house. And I think I said too, but we're not sure exactly how many shots were fired, but it was at least too. It was multiple shots. Yeah, we know it was multiple. Well, I want to mention that in probably one of the strangest details of this case, Sarah took to social media to lead a campaign to solve her parents murder. And this might be pretty familiar to some of you guys, because this was really big. It was circulating a lot on social media, because not only was she posting frequently about her trauma and the loss that she had suffered on her own personal page, but she sought the help of multiple true crime TikTokers, claiming that she wanted to get the word out in hopes of solving their case. Under the username S-Grace04282, Sarah posted frequently in the aftermath of the crime, and was very open about her raw emotions while doing so. Her profile has, of course, since been taken down, but her many posts in the aftermath of the murders are still visible from numerous other sources. Yeah, we will post those. Yeah, like in one video, she posted herself crying and captioned it, quote, what do you mean I can't call my mom? And another one, she wrote candidly, quote, I can't help but hate myself, because I didn't wake up to find them before my five year old sister had to find her parents like that. Yes, so very like comment, baby. Yes, yes. Well, one true crime TikToker named Janice, who goes by the handle allegedly reportedly, later shared screenshots of her conversation with Sarah, and which Sarah started by saying, quote, search up Brock case. So confused by this, allegedly reportedly responded, quote, Brock Turner, Brock Who. To which Sarah wrote back, quote, Kristen and James Brock, they're my parents, and out of nowhere, a random Thursday night in February, somebody came to my house with me in my five year old sister, and shot my parents brutally for me and my sister to wake up to. Well, technically it was a Wednesday night, because I found them Thursday morning on February 20th, 2025. Then allegedly reportedly responded, quote, I am so sorry, I cannot imagine. I will absolutely research and cover their case. Please take care of you always. So Sarah thanked her and said that she felt that it was important to shine a light on unsolved cases. She continued on to say, quote, I think it would be a really big hit because the person who posted about it made it as the first image that you see when you Google their names. Plus I can give you intel, just I can't give you anything that could break the case. Sarah then clarified, quote, that's what the cops told me. So ironically, Sarah's kind of making herself look, you know, more guilty than if she didn't do this, simply by her presence on TikTok in the months after her parents murders. Which there are a lot of people who go to TikTok and try to get attention for their loved ones cases. So of course we see this all the time. Yeah, it's not an unusual thing to do, but it was just the way she was doing it. People were like, and the fact that she said, love big hits. Yeah, it would be a big hit because this and it's like, what? Yeah, I don't know, they're not not a great approach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like her candor just appeared a bit careless and it seemed like she was trying to use this tragedy to get attention. So she received a lot of criticism for those, though others argue that she's just a teenager and is acting like one. But most of the negative comments came after a shocking development came in the case that made people look at her actions in a very different light. Yeah, cause what at first, absolutely too many could have looked like a grieving young teenage girl started to instead look like somebody who is trying to deflect attention away from herself as far as culpability goes. Because on July 8th, 2025, Sarah Grace Patrick was arrested for the murders of her mom and stepped out. And by that time she was 17. When Ashley Holsey, the communications director for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office broke the news of the arrest, she added that more charges may be filed and more arrests could be made. Either someone who aided in the murders or who had knowledge that they were gonna happen. Ashley also explained that due to the sensitive nature of the crime itself, the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations so the GBI had become involved as well as the local police. In her press conference Ashley admitted that they weren't entirely yet sure of Sarah's motive for the crime. Saying quote, we don't know what goes through the mind of a child who wants to harm their parents. It is a very horrific and sad case. Now while many celebrated being one step closer to justice for Kristen and Jamie, Sarah's father, Daniel, felt that his daughter had been swindled into her arrest. Like he didn't believe that she was guilty but he also felt like police had tricked them. Because basically, he says that he brought Sarah to the police station for questioning under the guise of delivering what they were told was a victim impact statement as well as to receive property that had been taken from the home as evidence. But by her dad's account, they ambushed her with a surprise interrogation that lasted four hours. Daniel says that she complied and answered all of their questions. But according to Daniel, she became very upset when they began showing her pictures of her parents after they were deceased. So at that point, he stepped in and put a stop to the interview because it just felt too inappropriate and too graphic, you know, understandably. If she was being considered innocent at this time and she's 17 and she already had to see her mom and her stepdad murdered when she found them with her sister, she shouldn't have to look at that again. But it seems like police did this to test her reaction because after Sarah and Daniel were allowed to leave the station, Daniel then received a call from the authorities informing him that Sarah had to turn herself in by 10 a.m. the next morning or they would be forced to send the US marshals after her. And I definitely understand why they did this because if they already had some suspicion, they kind of needed to get her into a room and question her about these things. And that was the goal, you know, was to kind of put some pressure on her a little bit of pressure and see if she might crack. And of course, Daniel doesn't want his daughter to be interviewed. He thinks she's innocent. So this is going to be upsetting to him no matter what. While the following day, Daniel brought Sarah to the station so that she could turn herself in. And thus, she was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and murder. Though they were shown some of the incriminating evidence against her, Daniel maintained that quote, the evidence that they did show us did not add up at all. Daniel continued quote, I know 100% of my heart that Sarah's innocent. She's a typical 17 year old who looks like a teenager. She would never do this. This has been one of the most hurtful things in my life. Daniel also claimed that he didn't know about anything negative or violent taking place in the home such as verbal or physical abuse. So this is him, you know, just trying to figure out what they assume her motive would even be. Daniel said with certainty, quote, somebody assassinated them and it was not my daughter. Sarah's grandfather, Dennis Nolan, whose Kristen's father had a similar reaction to the news and claimed that he had never once entertained Sarah as a suspect in these murders during the five months between the killings and the arrest. And he actually maintains her innocence to this day as does Sarah herself, which is interesting because his daughter is the victim. Yeah, well, Dennis explained in an interview, quote, it's all speculative stuff. Nothing puts the gun in her hand. They don't have the gun. He also recalled a very harrowing first phone call with his granddaughter from behind bars and which she implored him, quote, what are they doing to me? Why are they doing this to me? I didn't do anything. He maintained that his daughter, Kristen and granddaughter, Sarah had a very close in loving relationship, even going so far as to call Sarah an ideal child and adding that quote, if they had something concrete, they would have arrested her a whole lot sooner. When asked if anybody had a possible motive to harm Kristen and Jamie, he said that he didn't think so and that the pair were trying to straighten their lives out for the sake of their children after moving back in together. Cause remember, their relationship was described as kind of volatile, saying, quote, I didn't know of any problems. I know that they were very happy. They were just baptized again. They loved that church. They were very active in it at the time. But on the flip side of this, Dennis instead pointed towards Jamie's criminal history, musing that perhaps someone not Sarah had a score to settle. The presence of social media in this case has it unfolds. The presence of social media in this case has it unfolds, earned Sarah the nickname, The TikTok Teen Murderer. Factiaclava.com The presence of social media in this case has it unfolds, earned Sarah the nickname The TikTok Teen Murderer. Factiaclava.com The TikTok Teen Murderer. Factiaclava were forming and even now, despite many more developments in the case, there are definitely people who believe Sarah to be innocent and that all the TikTok stuff is just being looked at from an incorrect light. And like Keith said, you know, people are judging a teenage girl for her posts and that teenagers often post cringy things that they eventually regret as they mature. Now a few of these people even claim that there had been a break in at the Brock Home in the days prior to the murder and that the angle that the murder was an unknown intruder may not have been pursued enough. After over a month in custody, Sarah's grand jury indictment and first bond hearing took place on the same day, August 19th, 2025. And to her dismay, she was actually indicted by the grand jury and her bond was denied. Her public defense team and her advocates, namely her father and her grandparents, push for a bond hearing for a second time. Meanwhile, as this case plays out in the court of public opinion and on social media, her defense team announced ahead of Sarah's murder trial that they wanted to prevent the inclusion of, quote, all comments relating to the defendant, quote, texting or having sex with other guys, unquote, or any reference to the defendant's alleged sexual behavior or promiscuity, all videos, posts or pictures depicting or alluding to the sexual behavior of the defendant, all comments relating to the defendant's illicit drug use or hiding of drugs or drug paraphernalia. And there's the final end, quote. So unfortunately, we don't know exactly what this means or what the details are, like what they mean by having sex with other guys, alleged sexual behavior, videos of sexual behavior. Yeah, or everything else is that right? Drug paraphernalia, drug use. Yeah, but this may indicate that Sarah had been at odds with her parents about her personal life or maybe they had tried to reign in her social activities or dictate her love life and she lost her temper. So it seems like those could be part of the motivation for the backstory of this case. Yeah, I think they're trying to, the prosecution is trying to find a motive here and the defense is saying, well, we need to exclude all of those things. But yeah, we've definitely seen this in cases before where teenagers, they're angsty, they don't get their way, maybe their parents don't want them to date a specific person and they're just not gonna have it, they're not gonna take no for an answer. But it's interesting that if that was motive or if any of what I said was related to the case, then I feel like then they couldn't have it removed as evidence. So it feels like, Well, it's interesting because they're almost kind of hinting to those things being a possibility or even happening. Or I wonder if they're worried that people will judge her more harshly if they know about the other things that she was doing like if she was a 16 year old girl having sex and doing drugs and it's not relevant to the case. And if the media picked that up, they would just pick her apart. Yeah, and so would the jury if they're using these potentially irrelevant details about her separate life and using that as reason for her to have committed a crime when those things have nothing to do with it. Like that's, I feel like that would make more sense. Well, it's interesting because you definitely have to try and find a motive as to why these two individuals were murdered. And so excluding those things, I think is kind of like saying, well, we're just gonna throw away the motive and they're basically saying, we're just trying to focus on the murders and the murders itself. Well, that was the defense. So maybe they're just like, we don't want you to use that stuff against her and maybe that isn't the motive to them. You know what I mean? Sure. I'm not really sure, but we will find out. But the drug angle is particularly interesting because of her parents alleged history of drug use. And also her ex boyfriend, Jackson Spradlin, was arrested just three days prior to Sarah on assault and gun charges unrelated to this case. And according to online speculation, Sarah was still fixated on him despite them having broken up. So then people will kind of merge his criminal behaviors with her potential murderous actions. You know, oh, well, she had a criminal boyfriend. So maybe he inspired her, maybe he helped her. Right, right. Well, the question of why Sarah murdered her parents obviously remains, especially when the defense is trying their hardest to keep as much incriminating evidence out of the courtroom as possible. Many of Sarah's online supporters have alleged that she suffered abuse at the hands of her mom and stepdad and that the murders were perhaps in self-defense. But there has not been any evidence released to support this claim as of yet. And I mean, at this point, this is still all conjecture, but many can't fathom that this act was not carried out in self-defense or without any sort of justification if Sarah is guilty. Like for many, if she is guilty, they think that she'd only do it because she was defending herself from abuse. Though like we said, her family hasn't reported any abuse that they know of. Like according to her dad, quote, there was actually no problems in the home that I know of at all. However, he did admit that both Kristen and Jamie had been drug users in the past. Since Sarah's arrest, screenshots of past posts from Kristen's Facebook have circulated online, including one from Kristen that read, quote, please pray for us in our safety. Please let me know if you see James Brock, so you can warn me, he's trying to kill me, has been to get the house and child. Man, wasted tears, now huge fears. And this post was made on September 30th of 2022, less than three years before her murder. And remember at that point, they would have been estranged. So this kind of shows that their relationship could have been quite violent if what Kristen said was true. But as we know, they did eventually reconcile. Well, in another post, Kristen accused Daniel of abuse and Sarah herself came to her father's defense, saying, quote, the only one that beat us was the ex-step-dad that you got with and had no time to realize it because you were out dealing. I think that kind of says a lot that Sarah would comment that publicly on her mom's Facebook post and it shows how she felt about her stepdad and maybe even how she resented her mother for being with Jamie and for doing drugs. I think that's definitely a curtain pull. I mean, of course, assuming that Sarah was referencing Jamie because she didn't actually mention him by name. Yeah, we don't know of any other stepdad in her life, though, which is why I say that it probably was Jamie, but... Yeah, I think it probably was. Well, Sarah also told Kristen that these interactions made her hesitant to move back in with them. So yeah, seems like it was Jamie. Yeah. So clearly there were problems, but was it bad enough that Sarah would murder because of it? And how much of this was exaggeration for social media or perhaps on Kristen's behalf, paranoia induced by drug use? Well, prosecutors claim that members of Sarah's family who believe that she's innocent have been exceedingly difficult to work with. Referencing Luanne Bruce and Dennis Nolan who remember our Kristen's parents and also Sarah's grandparents, the prosecutor said, quote, we've tried very hard to have a good relationship with them. They've turned their back because they do not believe that we are prosecuting the right person for their case. That was something that I told them from the very beginning. I'm gonna be as open and inviting as I can be, but we are not going to agree on that fact. Maintaining Sarah's innocence or grandparents began refusing to speak with investigators altogether. So yeah, I mean, this just makes the investigation much harder if you're not going to work with the detectives here. But that's how much they disagree. They're like, this is our daughter's murder and you have the wrong person. And then of course they're like, you don't know what we have and we feel like you're just in denial, but it's hard. Nobody wants to believe that a person that they love and care about could be capable of doing something horrific, but that's just not always the case. Well, Jamie's parents however held the opposite sentiment, which would make sense. They don't have loyalty to Sarah. This is their step-granddaughter. So as Sarah sat with eyebrows raised and a look of complete disbelief on her face, the prosecutor read this statement from the Bronx, quote, the seriousness of the charges before this court cannot be overstated. The accused is being held and charged with the malice murder of two people. These were intentional, violent acts that permanently destroyed our family. Granting bond in a case of this magnitude will undermine the gravity of these crimes and the devastating harm that she has already inflicted. As the state was pleading its case, claiming that 17-year-old Sarah was a flight risk and that she would likely flee of given the opportunity, Sarah could be seen rolling her eyes, snickering and side-eyeing others in the courtroom. One of Sarah's friends from school who showed up to court sporting a shirt that read, I stand with Sarah, remembered not being permitted to go over to Sarah's mom's house and made a point of saying this as if, to maybe point to issues in the house. Other friends assured the court that Sarah, quote, just doesn't have this in her and that she is, quote, not the evil person the Brock family is making her out to be. Multiple friends of the family also showed up in I stand with Sarah T shirts and her family passed her testified on her behalf as well. However, her stepfather's side of the family have begged for her to remain in captivity and seem assured of her guilt. Sarah wiped tears from her eyes, next door defense attorneys as the judge announced her fate. She would not be granted the possibility of bail. She then broke down into full sobs as a family friend Kelly Brown, read a statement from Jamie's 12 year old son. So Sarah's stepbrother, it said, quote, I miss him every day, my dad was my hero and the person I looked up to the most. We did everything together. He helped me with school and he always made me laugh and we joked around a lot. Since he died, everything has changed. I feel sad and confused. It's hard to sleep, it's hard to focus and it's even hard to smile sometimes. I still wait to hear his voice or see him walk through the door but I know that will never happen again. What makes me more sad is I trusted Sarah and I loved her like a sister. Why would she do this to me and why would she hurt everyone like this? I don't understand why someone would do this but I know it is not right. My dad and Kristen didn't deserve this. No one does and I don't think someone who could do something like this should be allowed to go free right now. I wouldn't feel safe and I would be so scared. Please think about what my family is going through. I hope you make a decision that protects us and remembers who my dad was. A good man, a loving dad who didn't deserve to die. Sarah's next bond hearing took place in January of this year, 2026. As of January 27th, 2026, just a week before this episode releases, she was denied bond for a second time. Judge Dustin Hightower addressed the courtroom as Sarah cried silently, saying quote, based on evidence that was given to me at the prior hearing, I believe any time that I make a ruling that takes into consideration the statements that were made at prior rulings, I have to place that on the record. So I am placing that on the record. That part of this ruling is based upon the testimony that was given to me at the prior bond hearing, the statements that I heard then. And I'm not giving more weight to one side or the other. That's just not the case. What I am doing is properly weighing this to the best of my ability against the law. And that's what I have to do with these factors. Based on doing that, I'm going to stand with the original order that I gave. Bond will continue to be denied. I do not find a significant material change in circumstances or facts that would allow or require me to make a change in that prior ruling. So due to Sarah's age, she's being kept separate from her fellow inmates and spends a large portion of her days in solitary confinement. According to Ashley Holsey's press conference on the morning of the arrest, they have quote, mountains of evidence stacked against Sarah, though they have been fairly tight-lipped about what that means. Ashley also indicated that it was possible that some of her friends and family were clued in to what was happening and were covering for her. However, she did say that she was thankful to the family regardless of what they believed about Sarah's guilt because they've all been cooperative thus far. The mountains of evidence that has been concealed from the public and the press likely includes an unbelievable amount of digital evidence. Given the fact that so much of this case has played out on phones as well as social media, and then also forensic evidence from the crime scene. Sarah's grandpa, Dennis, complained quote, to me, that's not enough to put a 17-year-old girl in jail. However, in an interview, Dennis also claimed that the digital forensic evidence supposedly includes many searches of planning that Sarah had done to orchestrate the killing of her parents. Plus, they supposedly found gunshot residue on a glove in Sarah's room. But that's all that we know until the trial. Very interesting. While as far as the public is aware as well, the investigators do not yet have a murder weapon. Daniel has said that he doesn't think that Sarah would even know how to handle a gun on her own, though he admitted that she had shot guns with her family in the past. When Dennis was asked if Sarah knew how to fire one of the family's guns, he said quote, I'm sure she did. But still, no one is quite sure yet how she would have obtained a gun or what she did with it because I don't really know what they mean by family's guns because as far as our research showed, there were not guns in the house. So... Yeah, and also they don't have a murder weapon currently. Exactly, and I'm sure if the family was known to have a 22-calibre gun and they were shot with 22-calibre bullets and then that gun was missing from the home like, you know what I mean, I'm sure... They'd be able to piece that together. Yeah, it would be a little bit more obvious, but as far as we know that is not the case. But again, we surely will find out. In another recent update, Sarah's defense team announced that she will be evaluated by a neuropsychologist, likely to determine whether she was struggling with her mental health and what use that may be to the defense if it's true. Latoya Williams, one of Sarah's attorneys, in all fairness to them, I think that they should be able to review the report and decide if they agree with it or have some challenges to it and be able to in their own discretion hire their own expert to combat what we are going to put forward. There have been unsubstantiated reports from peers and friends of Sarah that she did a few stints in mental hospitals, so there may have been a history of mental instability there, which could play into this if that's true, but luckily she is being evaluated. Dennis, however, her grandfather said he didn't believe that Sarah had ever struggled with her mental health. Her case was supposed to commence in trial on January 5th of this year, 2026, but prosecutors requested a continuance, which was granted. So currently, her court date is set for August 3rd, 2026. And due to the severity of the crime, Sarah will be tried as an adult. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and thank you again to Ali for requesting this one. I know that this was really making its rounds on social media because of the TikToks and stuff like this. I'm really interested to see where the trial is gonna go and we will definitely keep you guys updated in August of 2026. I mean, as you guys can tell, there was really no evidence that we could discuss today because it hasn't been released. So if they say they have a mountain of evidence, we imagine that there is a lot more that will come out. So we'll definitely do like a whole kind of redo episode as we do when the trial happens. And like we said in the beginning of this episode, make sure you go give us a follow on our social media's where on Instagram, at Going West Podcast, we're also on TikTok and Facebook. And also one more mention on February 6th, our merch comes out, make sure you go and pick up a piece yourself. Yes, thank you guys and we'll see you on Friday. 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