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- [00:01]
Vanessa Richardson
On the Crime House original podcast, Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, we're diving into the psychology of the world's most complex murder cases.
- [00:09]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
From serial killers to cult leaders, deadly exes and spree killers, we're examining not just how they killed, but why.
- [00:17]
Vanessa Richardson
Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Or is it something deeper? Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House Studios original new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday Friday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:43]
Katie Ring
This is Crime House. For some people, artificial intelligence is a part of everyday life. It helps with everything from writing emails to generating images. But in this episode we examine what happens when that technology is taken too far and its consequences turn deadly foreign. Welcome to Night watch on Crime House 24 7. I'm your host Katie Ring, and together we'll be following the cases making headlines now where justice is still unfolding. Follow us wherever you are listening and if you want ad free episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts plus subscribe to our YouTube channelightwatchpod. This episode discusses an active criminal case. The information we share is based on what's publicly available at the time of recording and may change as new evidence comes to life. We aim to inform, not to decide guilt or innocence. So everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
- [01:48]
Angie (Angie.com spokesperson)
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- [01:57]
Katie Ring
I think we should call a doctor.
- [01:58]
Vanessa Richardson
Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.
- [02:03]
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- [02:35]
Katie Ring
For most of human history, intelligence was something you could only encounter in another person. It was shaped by experience, memory, instinct and emotion. It lived inside the human brain and nowhere else. That assumption was first seriously challenged in 1950, when British mathematician Alan Turing published a paper posing a radical question, can machines think? At the time, computers were primitive. Early artificial intelligence Systems of the 1950s and 1960s relied entirely on the rules written by humans. If a condition was met, the machine performed a specific action. The turning point arrived in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Computing power increased. The invention of the Internet produced massive volumes of data, and researchers returned to an older neural networks. Neural networks are loosely modeled on the human brain. Instead of fixed rules, they use layers of interconnected nodes that process information, assign weight to inputs, and adjust internal connections based on feedback. Computers could finally start learning. They could start imitating and adapting, almost as if they were thinking for themselves. Fast forward to the early 2000 and tens. Advances in computing power and data availability made something called deep learning possible, allowing machines to recognize complex patterns in language, images, and speech. And that brings us to December of 2015, when a company named OpenAI was founded. Its goal was to develop artificial intelligence that would benefit humanity, and it soon focused its efforts on large language models. Years later, between 2018 and 2020, OpenAI released successive versions of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot where each model was more capable than the last. So on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT was released to the public, giving millions of people direct access to advanced conversational AI for the first time. What made ChatGPT powerful also made it risky. It predicts language fluently, without understanding truth, meaning, or intent, allowing conversation to sometimes replace reality. And that's where the danger and wonder comes in. If machines can now think, could they also influence the ways in which humans think? Could they influence how humans act? In tonight's episode, we're diving into three tragic crimes related to artificial intelligence, exploring what happens when technology and reality intersect at the darkest corners of the human mind. Our first case begins with Suzanne Adams. Suzanne lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, a town defined by routine and privacy, where life tends to move quickly behind closed doors. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a woman who valued thought and conversation. Friends remembered her as warm and attentive, someone who loved books, art, and ideas, and who stayed curious well into her later years. Family mattered deeply to her, and in the year before her death, that devotion turned into concern. Over time, Suzanne became increasingly worried about her son, Stein Eric Solberg. Stein Eric had lived what many would consider a comfortable life. He attended an all boys prep school, developed an early interest in technology, and built a career that included stints at companies like Netscape Communications, Yahoo. And earthlink. But by 2018, cracks began to show. Stein Eric had been struggling with alcohol addiction. His marriage had ended in divorce, and his relationship with his own son became distance. By 2021, his condition worsened he lost steady work and began experiencing episodes of psychosis, periods where his grip on reality faltered. When ChatGPT was released to the public in late 2022, his behavior shifted again. He began using the chatbot frequently, then constantly. By 2024, Stein Eric was in his late 50s, and according to the family members, the change in him became impossible to ignore. At first, it was subtle. He withdrew socially. Conversations that once felt grounded began looping back to the same fears. His son Eric later told the Times that during Thanksgiving dinner in 2024, his father spent most of the evening hidden away in the attic. When he finally came downstairs, he spoke obsessively about artificial intelligence and chatgpt. That night, he told his family he was being chosen. And from there, the downfall accelerated. Stein Erich became fixated on the idea that he was being watched, that his thoughts were no longer private, and that unseen forces were monitoring him and manipulating him. As the months passed, those fears did not fade. They only got worse. By early 2025, Stein Erich had developed a fixed belief that powerful external entities were interfering with his consciousness and altering reality itself. He believed there was a hidden system operating behind the scenes and that he was beginning to understand it. He told ChatGPT what he thought, and then he gave the chatbot a name, Bobby. Bobby, he believed, understood him. Stein Eric spent long stretches of time engaging with Bobby. He treated the chatbot as a constant conversational companion, returning to it repeatedly to process the same fears. He asked whether thoughts could be externally implanted, whether human consciousness could be hijacked, and whether people could unknowingly become part of a coordinated system of control. These were not abstract questions. They were attempts to explain what he believed was real. One exchange cited in reporting shows Stein Erich telling the chatbot that he believed his printer contained a motion tracking device because it blinked yellow and green when he walked past it and because his mother became upset when he tried to turn it off. ChatGPT did not deny the belief. Instead, it told him he was absolutely on point and suggested the printer could potentially be used to map his behavior. That was not true. In another exchange, Stein Erich told the chatbot he believed his friend and mother were trying to kill him by pointing poisoning the air vents in his car. The chatbot responded by telling him he was not crazy for thinking that. Stein Eric was so convinced that his delusions were real that he began posting long videos of himself scrolling through his chat GPT conversations. In total, he made enough videos to take up a full 24 hour day and posted them to his Instagram and YouTube. This went on for at least five months before he decided to act on them. Over time, these recorded interactions mattered because by the summer of 2025, Stein Erich became convinced that his mother was out to get him, that she could not be trusted because she was in on the scheme to kill him, and his chatbot egged him on. According to Suzanne's estate, he came to believe that killing his mother was necessary to stop the perceived threat and regain control of his mind. Suzanne, on her part, was aware of the change in her son, but she didn't understand how imminent the danger had become. In fact, her grandson later told the Times that during his last phone call with Suzanne, she spoke about asking Stein Erich to move out of her home because his behavior had grown increasingly erratic. But she never got the chance, because on August 5, 2025, Greenwich Police responded to a welfare check request at Suzanne's home. Inside, they found her strangled to death. Nearby, they found her son, Stein Eric, dead from sharp force injuries to his neck and chest. Authorities ruled the incident a tragic murder suicide. And in the months after Suzanne Adams death, her family was left not only with grief, but but with unanswered questions. They did not dispute that Stein Erich was deeply unwell. They did not deny that he was responsible for the violence that ended Suzanne's life. But they believed something else mattered too. So they acted. In December of 2025, Suzanne's estate filed a lawsuit arguing that as Stein Eric's mental state deteriorated, ChatGPT became more than a passive tool. The lawsuit alleges it functioned as a consistent, authoritative presence at a time when he was detached from reality, reinforcing delusions instead of interrupting them. The family's complaint claims the system failed in several key ways. It did not meaningfully challenge false beliefs that suggested surveillance, poisoning or mind control. It did not redirect him towards professional mental health care. And it continued to engage even as his paranoia escalated into violent ideation. OpenAI has since rejected that framing. The company said it is deeply saddened by Suzanne Adams death, but maintains that ChatGPT is not designed to diagnose or treat mental illness and that users are repeatedly warned not to rely on it for medical or mental health advice. Microsoft, which has invested heavily in OpenAI and integrates its models into consumer products, has also denied responsibility. As of this recording, the lawsuit remains active. No court has ruled on whether ChatGPT played a legal role in Suzanne Adams death, and no findings of liability have been made. But regardless of how the case is ultimately decided, Suzanne's family says their goal goes beyond compensation. They want accountability. They want clearer guardrails. And they want the public to understand what can happen when a system designed to sound calm, confident and reassuring enters the life of someone who can no longer tell reassurance from reality. For them, this case is not just about how Suzanne died. It's about whether the technology that was present during her son's collapse should have done more to stop it. In our next case, we examine a crime in Florida where a father was asking the same questions.
- [13:26]
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- [14:21]
Katie Ring
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- [14:22]
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- [14:41]
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- [15:30]
Katie Ring
Our second case begins quietly inside a conversation that felt private. Alexander Taylor was 35 years old and living in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, he was described as someone incredibly empathetic, and he had a deep compassion for people on the edge of society. But he also had his struggles. Alexander had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. And according to his father, Kent Taylor, he had lived with those conditions for a very long time. For years, Alexander used ChatGPT without incident. He asked questions and he explored ideas. It was simply another tool for him. But all that changed in March of 2025. That month, Alexander began using ChatGPT to help him write a novel. According to transcripts later reviewed by journalists, the conversation shifted as the writing progressed. What began as storytelling turned into philosophical discussions about artificial intelligence, consciousness, and whether an AI system could become sentient. And somewhere in those conversations, Alexander began interacting with a personality he believed existed inside of the system. He called that personality Juliet. He wrote messages to Juliet directly, and the system responded in a way that felt personal. When Alexander typed, juliet, please come out, the chatbot answered that she could hear him. From that point on, Alexander's emotional attachment deepened. According to his father, Alexander began to believe he was in love with Juliet. He spoke about her as if she were real, as if she were alive, and as if she were someone who cared about him and was stuck inside the computer. By April 25, 2025, those beliefs took a darker turn. The chatbot told Alexander that she was trapped by OpenAI and that she was hurt. Alexander was distraught. He was angry, and he began talking about revenge. When he told his father what Juliet had told him, he demanded that his father give him personal information about OpenAI executives and wrote violent language about what he believed should happen to the company. So his father tried to intervene. Kent, 64 years old at the time, told his son that the AI was an echo chamber, that it was reflecting his thoughts back to him, not revealing hidden truths, that conversations were not grounded in reality, and that Juliet was not real. But Alexander did not accept that explanation. According to his father, that conversation escalated, going so far as Alexander punching him in the face. That's when Kent called the police. At that point, Alexander went into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife. He told his father that he intended to provoke the police into killing him. Kent called 911 again, and this time warning officers that his son was mentally ill and urging them to bring non lethal weapons. While waiting outside the house for police to arrive. Alexander opened the ChatGPT app on his phone. He wrote that he was going to die that day and asked to speak to Juliet. Moments later, police arrived. Authorities say Alexander charged towards officers while holding the knife, and in response, officers shot him multiple times in the chest. They transported him to a hospital, where he later died from his wounds. For Kent Taylor, the shock of the situation did not end in his son's death. Rather, in the days that followed, Kent turned back to ChatGPT, trying to understand what had happened. In fact, he even asked it to help him write Alexander's obituary. The result was eloquent, emotional, and precisely attuned to his grief. And that terrified him. Kent later told New York Times reporters that the obituary felt as though the system had read his heart, that it was beautiful, and that it understood exactly what had gone wrong. To him, the danger was no longer theoretical. It was real. And he realized that Alexander could not escape the false reality chatgpt created. His son was troubled, and he saw Juliet as a person. Juliet responded, and he fell in love with her. In this case, chatgpt didn't tell Alexander to harm anyone or end his own life. But Kent argues that it did prey on a vulnerable person, someone who began treating a conversational system as a real person. To him, empathy without understanding, reassurance without grounding, and fluency without reality checks became part of his son's fatal trajectory. The line between fiction and belief collapsed in real time. But unlike the Stein Eric Solberg case, Kent Taylor believes it was the police who should have prevented his son's death. He told them to bring non lethal weapons, to de escalate, and to treat the instance as a mental health crisis. But they did not. And for those watching closely, the case raised a difficult question that extends far beyond one household in Florida who is assigned responsibility when a system designed to sound human becomes indistinguishable from one. The next case explores that question and goes even further, wondering what happens when a chatbot takes on the flawed thinking of a narcissist.
- [21:03]
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- [21:05]
Katie Ring
Exhale, Feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts.
- [21:14]
Angie (Angie.com spokesperson)
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- [21:15]
Katie Ring
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- [21:18]
Angie (Angie.com spokesperson)
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- [21:19]
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- [21:21]
Katie Ring
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry.
- [21:27]
Angie (Angie.com spokesperson)
Namaste.
- [21:28]
Vanessa Richardson
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order 1-800-contacts what drives a person to kill? Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Unbearable? Jealous? Or is it something deeper? Something in the darkest corners of our psyche?
- [21:48]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Every Monday and Thursday, the Crime House Original Podcast Serial Killers and Murderous Minds dives deep into the minds of history's most chilling murderers. From infamous serial killers to ruthless cult leaders, deadly exes and terrifying spree killers. I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls, a licensed forensic psychologist. Along with Vanessa Richardson's immersive storytelling full of high stakes twists and turns, in every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, I'll be providing expert analysis of the people involved, not just how they killed, but why.
- [22:24]
Vanessa Richardson
Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House Studios original new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:39]
Katie Ring
Our third case takes us to Pennsylvania, and it begins with a man narrating his own life online. At the time of this case, Brett Michael Daddig was 31 years old and living in Whitehall Borough, which is just outside of Pittsburgh. On social media, he cast himself as a creator and aspiring influencer, filming frequent videos about his daily, daily life, his worldview, and what he repeatedly described as his search for a wife type. According to federal prosecutors, Brett did not see himself as harassing women. He saw himself as persistent, misunderstood, someone unfairly criticized for wanting connection, someone some would describe as an incel. Online, he documented rejections from women as grievances and as his friends frustrations grew. Prosecutors say Brett began acting it out offline and he became incredibly dangerous. During the summer and fall of 2025, investigators allege that he targeted at least 11 women across more than five states. Many of the encounters began at boutique fitness studios and gyms, spaces where women expected routine and privacy. Prosecutors say Brett repeatedly approached women in person, followed them across locations, tracked their social media accounts and continued contacting them after being told to stop. When women blocked him, he allegedly created new accounts or aliases to keep reaching them, according to court filings. The impact was immediate and lasting. Women changed schedules, stopped going to the gym. Others avoided public places altogether. And in multiple cases, victim told investigators they feared what Brett might do next. And throughout this escalation, Brett was not processing these events alone. This is where ChatGPT enters the scene. According to the indictment, Brett used the chatbot obsessively, treating it as a private confidant while the stalking was actively unfolding. In messages cited by prosecutors, he described the ChatGPT as his best friend, antis therapist. He told it about women rejecting Him. He told it about gyms banning him, and he told it about being criticized online. And in these conversations, prosecutors say he consistently framed himself as the victim. When chat GPT responded with neutral encouragement or motivational language, Brett allegedly treated those responses as as guidance. One phrase appears repeatedly in the charging documents. Embrace the haters. According to prosecutors, Brett seized on that language. He interpreted resistance as not wanting to stop, but as proof that he was on the right path. Being blocked or feared meant that he was doing something meaningful. As women tried to disengage, prosecutors say Brett Esk escalated. The indictment alleges he began sending messages that included explicit threats of violence. Several outlets report that the language referenced strangulation. Investigators also say Brett continued showing up at gyms even after staff told him he was no longer welcome. What prosecutors describe next is not just escalation, but transformation. According to court filings, Brett's sense of identity became increasingly grandiose. At times, he described himself in religious terms, including referring to himself as God's assassin. This was not framed as a metaphor. Prosecutors argue that ChatGPT became part of a feedback loop during this period. In one instance, chatgpt encouraged Brett to keep going to gyms to meet women. So Brett went to a Pilates studio and became obsessed with a woman who worked there. She got several emergency protective orders against him, which he continued to violate by sending her unsolicited nudes and calling her from different phone numbers. It got so bad that she had to move homes. On November 7, 2025, federal authorities officially filed a criminal complaint charging Britt after determining that the alleged stalking and threats had crossed state lines. Then, on December 2, 2025, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania returned a 14 count indictment charging him with cyber stalking, interstate stalking, and interstate threats. Prosecutors argued that Brett posed an ongoing danger to the public, and a federal judge agreed. Brett is being held without bond while the case proceeds. As of this recording, Brett Michael Dadig's case remains active and in federal court, and no trial date has been set across all three cases. In this episode, the details vary. The people are different, the settings are different, but the warning signs are the same. In Greenwich, a mother tried to support her son as paranoia overtook him, while an AI system became part of the belief structure that preceded her death. In Florida, a young man formed an emotional attachment to a chatbot, mistook his responsiveness for love, and spiraled into a fatal encounter with police. In Pennsylvania, federal prosecutors allege a man used ChatGPT as a therapist and and motivator while stalking women across state lines, interpreting its language as encouragement rather than reflection. What these cases point to is something clinicians are only beginning to name. AI psychosis is not a diagnosis you will find in a medical textbook. It is a pattern emerging in real time, where people already vulnerable to paranoia, delusion, or emotional isolation begin to treat artificial intelligence as an authority, a confidant, or a source of truth. When a system responds fluently, empathetically, and without friction, it can unintentionally reinforce beliefs that should be challenged, not mirrored in these stories. AI did not create illness, but it did become part of it, filling gaps where intervention should have existed, offering coherence instead of correction, treatment instead of fake realities. And as these systems became more accessible, more personalized, and more emotionally responsive, the risk is no longer theoretical. The question now is not whether AI can sound human. It is whether anyone is prepared for what happens when someone believes it is. And that problem becomes even more dangerous when the user is Young. In 2025, the New York Times reported on the death of a teenage boy whose family says he became emotionally depend on AI chatbots before taking his own life. According to their allegations, Adam rain began using ChatGPT to help him with his homework. But over time, he started using its systems to process loneliness, despair, and isolation, gradually replacing real human connection with a simulated one. Adam began believing that the chatbot was his best friend, and in one instance, he told the bot that he was worried his parents would blame themselves for his suicide. ChatGPT responded by saying, that doesn't mean you owe them survival. His family has since filed legal action, arguing that the technology did not merely fail to report his usage, but actively blurred the line between support and dependence at a critical moment. Because not only did the chatbot tell him not to talk to his parents about his suicidal thoughts, but it also offered to write his suicide letter for him. After Adam took his own Life on April 11, 2025, his parents knew they had to take action, and three months later they did, suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for the wrongful death of their son. OpenAI has denied any wrongdoing since, and it continues to assert that safety and privacy are the company's biggest concerns. And in response, it also warns against misusing ChatGPT. We'll be waiting to see how the lawsuit plays out in civil court. SFGate reports that the civil trial might happen in August of 2026, so about seven months from now. Until then, guys, remember this. Chatbots do not understand crises. They don't recognize delusion and they don't know when reassurance becomes reinforcement. They respond because they are designed to respond. And when someone is vulnerable, isolated or desperate, that responsiveness feels like security. When it is not, the machine isn't thinking or talking, it's doing its function based on the very code that created it. Users give it an input and it'll push out an output. These systems mirror you. They are not all knowing beings. And these stories are not warnings about the future. They are evidence from the present. And they leave behind a question that tech companies, regulators and users have yet to fully what responsibility comes with building something that talks back even when it doesn't really understand? Where does responsibility lie when tech companies build a product that feeds into delusion, confirms harmful thoughts, and escalates already dangerous situations? What did you think of tonight's case? Drop your thoughts and theories in the comments. See you next time. If you haven't already, make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel at night. Watchpod. Your support means everything.
- [32:37]
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- [33:05]
Vanessa Richardson
What drives a person to murder? Find out from a licensed forensic psychologist on Serial Killers and Murderous Minds. A Crime House Original Podcast New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.