← Snapped: Women Who Murder
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A
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B
I took a patient out of the.
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A
Hospital on a motorcycle Monday on NBC.
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C
I try to think outside the box. Zachary Quinto in Brilliant Minds.
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D
It's alien hand syndrome with mystifying new cases. Just a symptom of something bigger.
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B
Question is what?
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D
And not so welcome new faces.
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B
Pleasure to meet you, sir. I just started liking the four interns I already have.
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E
I don't have time to get attached to a new one.
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F
You're gonna last five minutes.
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A
Brilliant Minds Monday on NBC.
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G
Hi SNAP listeners. We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's hit series Killer Couples. You can also watch full episodes live.
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Or on demand on the free Oxygen.
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App or or on Peacock by clicking the link in our description. Enjoy.
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A rural community in northwestern Florida is shaken when hunters stumble upon a horrific scene.
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The body had decayed. Animals were feeding on the remains.
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They noticed immediately that she had blunt force trauma to her head area.
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My heart just broke. I've never had to go through anything so painful knowing that she's not coming back.
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The ensuing investigation uncovers turmoil in their victim's life.
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You're going down the wrong path and you're hanging out with the wrong people and something's going to happen to you.
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As authorities zero in on a potential culprit, assorted romance becomes the focal point of the investigation.
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H
Jealousy could have gone into play.
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J
I don't know what the hell went through.
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It was getting dangerous for her.
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H
They both just snapped at that point and just freaked out.
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G
Nobody deserves to go through what she did.
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Levy county is known as Florida's natural paradise. Located along the state's lush Gulf coast coastline, the region is characterized by scenic marshlands and abundant wildlife.
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Levy county is a very rural county, very sparsely populated, and we have oak hammocks, pine forest and about 52 miles of coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. A lot of woodland area A lot of hunting area.
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At 12:30pm on January 18, 2013, 911 dispatchers in Cedar Key receive a disturbing phone call from two local hunters.
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A
We had our police radio running, and we heard the call that human remains had been discovered. My sergeant and I decided we needed to respond. The area is uninhabited. People used it to deer hunt on. When we walk into the scene, we see what are obvious. Human remains wrapped in a black cloth. Animals were feeding on the remains. The right arm is exposed and skeletonized, and part of the upper torso is exposed from under this wrapping, and it's also skeletonized. The rest of the remains was covered with this black cloth. We were fairly certain that we had the remains of a female in front of us, and we were basing that on the condition of her hand and her fingernails. They were painted and manicured. She was most likely killed or had died at another location, and her remains had probably been placed there. You see that there's some scavenging that's been done. So it then becomes a little bit more difficult to tell how long she'd been there. But we predicted that she'd been there for at least several days. My sergeant and I decided we needed to find out how the body was discovered, which led us into our conversations with the hunters who had located the body. The hunters said they had shot at a deer in that area, so they were looking for it. And one of them said he saw a buzzard fly up. So he walks into the woods and actually stepped into the bushes and found her concealed there. For us, everybody is a suspect until they're eliminated. It's not uncommon to have a murderer go back to the scene of the crime. But we determined that both these gentlemen were in their 60s, and they'd stumbled upon a scene that they'd never seen in their life and never expected to see.
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A forensic team combs the area for evidence, but is unable to find anything of value.
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So her remains were then transported to the medical examiner's office located in Gainesville, Florida. The team of investigators actually participate with the medical examiner. So as the wrappings come off, we're able to see more of the person that is underneath there. She did have clothing on. She has some shorts and a tank top on underneath the wrappings. So law enforcement is there to collect any potential forensic evidence that might be on that clothing as well as the wrapping.
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H
They noticed immediately that she had blunt force trauma to her head area. However, they noted that it wasn't the cause of her death. So from there, they ordered a toxicology Report.
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While blood samples are sent off to the lab for a toxicology screen, the medical examiner works to identify the victim.
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B
She had numerous tattoos, a couple of stars on her abdomen. There was a established end tattoo on her right wrist.
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A
We also had a hair color. We had an approximate age range, height, approximate weight. With all this information combined, we were able to put that information out to our law enforcement partners in the general area. And they had a missing person matching that physical description. Ultimately, we determined that the person that was at the medical examiner's office in Gainesville, Florida was Deanna Stiers from nearby Hernando County. Detectives from Hernando and Levy county started working together. And with Citrus county right in between us, ultimately you have these three coastal communities that are now working together.
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E
According to the police report, the 18 year old has been missing for nearly a month.
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D
Her father had listed her as a missing person around the 1st of January, and the last time they had spoken to her was December 23rd.
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We have to figure out who was Deanna and how did it come that she was dumped in the middle of the woods.
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We got a knock on the door and it was two detectives. We didn't think that we were going to be told, like we found a body. It didn't feel real. There's no way it's her. But that was just me fighting, like my worst fear.
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My heart just broke. I've never had to go through anything so painful knowing that she's not coming back.
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Fun loving and carefree, from a young age, Deanna Stiers had called Hernando County, Florida home her whole life.
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G
When Deanna was born, it was amazing. She was just perfect. Deanna and Alyssa always played really good together.
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I
Me and her are really close. She cracked a lot of jokes. You know, she always wanted to, to make you smile.
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G
Deanna was always such a joy. She knew no stranger. She was a lover and she was a girly girl. She was just beautiful. She had these gorgeous eyes that just would melt your heart.
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E
I met Deanna at Brooksville elementary. We were in third grade. We talked every day. And then we started going over each other's house and we were inseparable. In 2007, Deanna's parents decided to divorce, leaving her and her sister under their father's care in Florida.
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G
Deanna's father and I was married for 18 years. We kind of just grew apart. I moved away to New York and stayed in contact, visiting, tried to stay as close as possible with them.
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I
My dad was working two jobs and my grandpa lived right across the Street. While my dad was working, our grandpa took care of us.
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We spent a lot of time at her papa's house. Papa was everything to all of us. He was the most awesome man in this world. There is nowhere safer than being with papa or at papa's house.
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I
My grandpa passed from a heart attack. We were trying to go over there to hang out and when we looked through the window, we could see him like gasping for air and stuff. So we called 911. They took him to the hospital and that's where he passed.
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Despite witnessing something so tragic, Deanna allowed the experience to inspire her career goals.
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G
She wanted to go to nursing school and just she was so loving and compassionate and she really had a knack for helping people.
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By December 2012, Deanna was making plans to move out of her dad's house in the coming months.
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I
Right before Christmas, we got her nails done and bought some new clothes and stuff to hang out for after Christmas.
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Day before Christmas, Deanna was partying and going out and having a good time.
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I
Deanna was supposed to come home on Christmas morning. That morning I spoke to her around like eight, just saying that she wasn't feeling good, she was tired, she would talk to me later. I tried calling back around like 11am 12pm Deanna's phone was shut off. Her phone was just going to voicemail.
- [11:33]
G
I tried calling, texting. I figured maybe she was just sleeping. Anything except for the worst. Thought we stayed in touch always. So that's when, after so many days of it, I just told Alyssa, this isn't looking good.
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E
Now, nearly three weeks later, the search for Deanna stires has come to a tragic end. Deanna's sister reveals Deanna's life had taken an unexpected turn after their grandfather's passing two years earlier.
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G
I just know that when Pap passed away, she was super upset and kind of started spiraling. She kind of went down a dark.
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I
Path to numb her pain. She kind of let herself loose with, like, wanting to drink and she started hanging around with the wrong friends. So we kind of just had like a gut feeling that these friends were involved.
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B
We found out she might have been hanging out with the wrong types of people. We needed to identify these people.
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Coming up, disturbing details from Deanna's autopsy and toxicology reports come to light.
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She died as a result of acute drug toxicity.
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G
I thought somebody had done it to her. There's no way that that was an accident.
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And investigators key in on a possible scene suspect with a questionable motive.
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They said, I was waiting for somebody to come talk to me, she told.
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C
Him, I need to know where to bury a body that won't be found.
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Authorities have identified 18 year old Deanna styers as the murder victim found on a remote hunting ground on Florida's gulf coast. And investigators have learned that deanna's family fears her new friends could be involved.
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C
And we found that deanna, she was a little bit of a wild child. She probably partied too much.
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I
It was like a low point in her life where one party turns into, you know, a whole nother vendor. Her friends found people to, like, get them alcohol. And some of these people were way too old to even be hanging out with deanna. There's a lot of people who were, you know, old enough to be her father, showing her around. During one point in time, I did have a conversation with deanna, warning her, you know, you're going down the wrong path and you're hanging out with the wrong people and something's going to happen to you. It was getting dangerous for her.
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G
My sister melba, she would try and help her, you know, look, I'll buy you a plane ticket right now if you just come up here, you know. But she never showed up.
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E
Me and deanna weren't hanging out too much then because I didn't agree with what she was doing.
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H
And so a lot of the times.
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That we talked, they were check ins to make sure that she was okay. Before investigators can track down any of deanna's new friends for questioning, they receive the results of the autopsy and toxicology reports.
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H
One thing that was noted from the medical examiners were the blunt force trauma that was on deanna's head matched up with a. Basically the butt end of a pistol grip. The indentations were the markings that would be fit to using a gun or someone being pistol whipped.
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The medical examiner determined the manner of death to be homicide because she died as a result of acute drug toxicity being morphine.
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G
I thought somebody had done it to her. With the levels of the morphine that was in her system, there's no way that that was an accident.
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Investigators surmise that deanna was drugged against her will, leading them to explore another possibility.
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H
The state of florida was actually ranked number three highest for human trafficking in the united states With a trafficker. One of the tactics that they'll use against their victim is they will inject them with drugs. So now you have someone you captured, you're turning them into basically depending on whatever drugs that you're using with them, and they become addicted as well. And it's Just all manipulation and a control tactic.
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B
It's not uncommon for human trafficking for people to be utilized for drugs. So human trafficking was discussed in the investigation simply because the amount of time that she was missing, the types of people that she was known to hang around, we don't have a great deal of that in Hernando County. So we didn't know who might be involved in this.
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Following that, lead investigators scour Deanna's personal records to determine a timeline of her last known whereabouts. They discover that her debit card was last used at a nearby gas station.
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That card had been utilized in Citrus county the day after Christmas. On December 26th.
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B
I was able to go and make contact with the management. We were able to get the surveillance video. It appeared to be an adult male. We did create an alert bulletin and we sent that out and we got a response from the crime analysis unit in Citrus county, where someone had identified that male subject as Kevin Shields. Kevin Shields is a longtime resident of Floral City, which is also in Citrus County.
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D
And so the detectives went to Floral City and conducted an interview with him.
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B
We knocked on the door, Mr. Shields greeted us, and he said, I was waiting for somebody to come talk to me. He felt like he had some important information to share.
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D
Kevin Shields and Deanna were just recently acquainted. 24 December, Kevin was with Deanna. They partied at his house.
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When investigators ask Kevin about his last interaction with Deanna, he explains that she left his home early on Christmas morning with two of his friends, 35 year old Crystal Brinson and Crystal's boyfriend, 41 year old Byron Boughton.
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Byron and Crystal and Deanna all left together and returned to Homosassa, where Byron lives in Citrus County.
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It was then that he described a conversation that he had with Byron Boonton and Crystal Brinson.
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He tells us around the 26th of December, he's sleeping and he's woken up by Byron and Crystal.
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He described them arriving to his house, driving Byron's car. They were both acting as though something had happened.
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C
And Bountin told him, I need to know where to bury a body that won't be found.
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B
Ultimately, what they shared was Deanna was dead in the trunk of the car. Kevin said he never looked in the trunk, so he couldn't say positively whether or not she was in there. But they did discuss on what to do with the body. The best course of action that they could come up was dumping her body somewhere. Kevin went into great detail explaining how he would do it, which made us think maybe he had Something to do with it.
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Unsure of his involvement in the case, crime investigators take Kevin into custody and immediately focus on locating their two new suspects.
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The investigation determined Crystal Brinson had two prior felonies. They were drug related charges and she had three misdemeanors. Byron Boughton was a two time convicted felon and he had six prior misdemeanor convictions.
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D
Hernando county did a emergency teletype message to make contact with Byron and Crystal.
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A
Bravo's most iconic boss is back where it all began.
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E
Without a vibrant star, it wouldn't be sur.
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D
Now it's time for a shift.
- [20:09]
E
When people come to sur, they expect an energy.
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D
It is chaos.
- [20:13]
G
Everybody wants to be models, actors, singers.
- [20:18]
A
So raise your glasses high.
- [20:20]
G
I'm a 10 and you have to.
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I
Treat me like that.
- [20:22]
D
To a new class of servers.
- [20:24]
C
This is a situation we got going on.
- [20:26]
A
Woo Vanderpump rules. New shift begins December 2nd on Bravo and Peacock.
- [20:32]
H
We are the Mediterranean crew.
- [20:34]
E
We have a standard and that standard is excellence.
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D
Below deck med raises the anchor.
- [20:40]
F
These eight courses, delicious.
- [20:41]
A
There's drama.
- [20:42]
E
Go to the captain who's got the medical stuff.
- [20:45]
H
Max needs attention in Espana.
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D
You really don't want to mess with me.
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C
Hey, under no circumstances can the guests go in the water.
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E
Doug, I gotta let you go. The new season of below deck Mediterranean.
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F
You guys ready?
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A
Every Monday on bravo and streaming on peacock.
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E
Florida authorities are searching for Crystal Brinson and Byron Bouton after Kevin Shields claims the duo is responsible for dumping the body of 18 year old Deanna Stiers.
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C
After being made aware of the information from Kevin, the citrus county sheriff's office went and made contact with Byron and he volunteered to be interviewed.
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E
While Byron admits that he knew Deanna Stiers, he claims he hasn't seen seen her since the day before Christmas.
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B
He was not very accommodating. We talked about Deanna and whether he'd seen her. He said she was partying for a few days, that she left with some guy. She was in good health and in good spirits.
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D
He was very agitated and disinterested in anything, including emotion about the situation. And he said that he wasn't involved. Those are normally signs of people being deceitful when you interview them.
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E
Despite their suspicions that Byron is lying, investigators have no evidence to hold him. They release Byron and head to Crystal Brinson's registered address.
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F
Crystal was living with me at the time. Off and on, detectives come out and talk to me. Want to know when was the last night she stayed here. I said, I haven't seen Crystal in about two weeks. And they said, well, we are looking for her and it's important. They wanted to know everything about Crystal. Crystal was a dancer and a beauty queen. She was pretty, blue eyes, blonde, just very outgoing, cheerful. And she was there in a lot of padgetts and she won first place, many, many trophies. After she finished high school, she did classes to be a phlebotomist.
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E
Investigators learned that Crystal's interest in medicine quickly faded when she picked up a side hustle that drew in more income.
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F
Crystal went into exotic dancing at clubs. She got hired easy because she was a looker and Christa was a freebird. She wasn't shy at all. But when she was exotic dancing, she started experimenting with drugs because I think that might have been the scene. She liked the thrill and the action. Crystal would meet these guys. They were wealthy guys too, and prominent people, and they were flashed with a lot of money, but they would take advantage of her too, you know, and dump her. After they broke up, she would start over another cycle.
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E
Crystal's mother reveals that her daughter had recently gotten involved with 41 year old Byron Boughton.
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F
One of my roommates introduced her to Byron and I didn't want that to happen because she had a reputation of being a bad boy. I said, please don't go around Crystal. So she, she did it anyway.
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H
Crystal and Byron's relationship seemed like it could be slightly toxic. Definitely drugs involved. They're residing together. They seem like a party type couple.
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F
Crystal and Byron. They were spending a lot of time together. They just took off. I didn't see Crystal for weeks at a time, so I didn't know where she was at. Detectives told me if I can reach her, that I needed to call the police station right away.
- [24:42]
E
While calls to Crystal's cell phone go unanswered, investigators managed to track down one of her closest friends, a local resident known as Mama cj.
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D
Her real name is Connie Waller.
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A
She was an older lady.
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D
This was the house where everybody congregated to party. We did interview Mama CJ Initially. She denied any involvement. She provided us with a lot of false information. She was acting very suspicious. We definitely pressed her to finally come out with the truth. She was not directly involved in the murder, but she was made aware of the murder. She helped cover it up.
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E
Mama CJ informs investigators that on December 26, Crystal Brinson and Byron Bouton had contacted her for help.
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B
They said Deanna was in and out of consciousness in Citrus county at Byron's house.
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D
She was in an overdose state from morphine that was injected into her.
- [25:49]
B
They decided that they needed to put her in the car. They brought her to hernando county, to a house that Byron boonton's father owned, where they stuffed a rag of some sort in her mouth, probably to keep her from calling out for help.
- [26:03]
D
And they secure her to this inversion table. So the inversion table normally would sit upside down, but they had it propped up on another table where it was laying flat, and they had her secured to that. Byron and crystal decided to go to mama cj's house, and their intention was to get her and bring her back so that she could deal with the problem with deanna. When they brought mama cj back to the house in hernando county, they discovered that deanna is deceased from overdose.
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E
Mama cj admits she collected deanna's belongings and discarded them While crystal and Byron worked out a plan to get rid of the body.
- [26:50]
D
They had wrapped deanna's body up and placed her in the trunk of byron's vehicle. They dropped mama cj off at her house, and that's when they drove up to Kevin shields house with deanna in the trunk.
- [27:04]
H
They both just snapped at that point and just freaked out. And they wanted to get rid of her any way that they could.
- [27:12]
D
The following day, I started drafting a search warrant for Byron's father's house and Byron bouton's residence.
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E
Coming up, a harrowing confession reveals a possible motive.
- [27:28]
J
She was like, you can't her.
- [27:30]
H
Did you have a younger female, outgoing, very attractive, Attractive, taking attention away from her. Jealousy can happen.
- [27:39]
D
We finally were able to get some of the truth out of him.
- [27:43]
J
She hit her like a bunch of times, like really fast.
- [27:56]
E
Florida authorities investigating the murder of deanna stires have secured a search warrant for the location of her death. A property owned by the father of Byron bouton.
- [28:09]
H
We were having coffee and the sheriff's department came to the house. I looked. There were 13 sheriff's deputies cars. And then I knew something was wrong. And George was like, what's going on? And they said, well, there's been a crime committed. And Byron never told us a thing. We were surprised. We still didn't really know what happened.
- [28:39]
D
With the father's cooperation, we searched the detached garage. We did find this inversion table in the father's garage.
- [28:50]
E
After determining Byron is not on the property, Investigators question Byron's father and stepmother and learned that long before byron had a criminal record, he held a respect respectable rank in the u. S. Navy.
- [29:05]
H
Right after high school, he. He signed up. He was in submarines in The Gulf War.
- [29:13]
C
I was very, very proud of him to go into service.
- [29:17]
E
Byron's parents explained that after Byron was honorably discharged, he struggled to settle down.
- [29:24]
C
He changed. After he went to the Navy, he changed.
- [29:28]
J
There's no doubt about it.
- [29:30]
H
I think that's maybe when he started discovering the drugs. George bought Byron a mobile home, and George and Byron were flipping mobile homes at that time. That was a good way to make money.
- [29:45]
C
Byron was a hard worker. He was good with his hands. He was excellent. The mechanics and electronics. I thought he was not a violent guy at all. So I was shocked.
- [29:56]
E
Investigators wrap up their interview with Byron's parents and head to Byron's house, 15 miles away. When they arrive, Byron is waiting for them.
- [30:08]
B
Deputies took him back to the Citrus County Sheriff's office. While we looked through the residence.
- [30:14]
D
He had a safe full of guns in it. We did find this.380. And upon observing the. This.380 pistol, we saw hairs at the front tip of the pistol that were lodged into the slide of the pistol.
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C
In addition to that, there was apparent blood spatter.
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D
There was, like, the framing of the back door, and there was some blood there. There were also blood droplets on pieces of carpet throughout the residence. We sent out for forensic processing. Some of the fabric that Deanna was wrapped in matched the curtains that Byron had in his house. And also some of the bindings were matched up to some of the bindings that was in his shed out back. We also executed a search warrant on the Lincoln that belonged to Byron. As we got into the vehicle, there was also some blood that was located in the trunk.
- [31:15]
C
The blood spatter was subsequently forwarded to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime laboratory down in Tampa.
- [31:27]
E
Investigators return to the station and confront Byron Bouton with their findings.
- [31:34]
D
We had a lot of evidence, and we had Mama CJ and Kevin Shield's story.
- [31:41]
C
That is when he. He, to use the phrase, gave it up.
- [31:47]
D
We finally were able to get some of the truth out of him.
- [31:52]
E
Byron admits he was there when Deanna was attacked, but he claims he isn't responsible for her death.
- [32:00]
D
So Byron told us that he and Crystal brought Deanna back to his house that early morning of Christmas.
- [32:10]
J
I drove back to my house, where I proceeded to go directly to bed. Deanna came in and laid down with me, you know, like, snuggled up.
- [32:21]
C
Okay.
- [32:22]
D
Did Crystal come in?
- [32:26]
J
Maybe like a couple of times.
- [32:28]
D
And what was her reaction?
- [32:29]
J
She was like, did you.
- [32:31]
E
Her.
- [32:31]
C
Did you?
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A
I said, no.
- [32:32]
J
I don't know what the hell went through. I guess you. You better not her.
- [32:37]
E
Byron claims he finally got up when he heard the two women arguing.
- [32:43]
C
Allegedly Deanna got a hold of some of their stash, which drove Crystal into a rage.
- [32:52]
D
He informed us that Deanna freaked out. And Crystal ended up giving her a injection of morphine. And then all of a sudden she became fearful of Crystal. Crystal ends up pulling out a 380 pistol.
- [33:16]
J
Pistol hit her like a bunch of times, like really fast.
- [33:20]
D
Where?
- [33:22]
J
Like right around this area somewhere.
- [33:25]
D
The back of a head.
- [33:26]
J
You are like the necker. Somewhere in there.
- [33:34]
D
Deanna was bleeding and fell to the ground and was pretty much unconscious.
- [33:44]
H
So they loaded her up into Byron's vehicle and from there they drove to Byron's father's house.
- [33:54]
D
His father was out of town, so there was nobody there at the house. When he pulls her out of the vehicle, she's snoring and sweating profusely. And so they bring her into the garage. What she ended up doing with the animal.
- [34:11]
J
So my judge at this conversion Camel, she didn't prop that up to the air flat like there.
- [34:18]
E
Lay down.
- [34:18]
J
We caught and we put her in there.
- [34:22]
D
Do you ever strapped into the inversion table?
- [34:24]
E
Yes.
- [34:25]
J
So she could like roll off of it if she freaked out.
- [34:28]
D
They ended up tying her hands behind her back. They duct taped them behind her back.
- [34:34]
A
Okay.
- [34:34]
D
What exactly what did Crystal do to her mouth?
- [34:38]
J
She put the little rag thing or.
- [34:40]
C
Whatever there and then she did she put a tape over it to keep it in place?
- [34:44]
D
Yeah.
- [34:45]
C
Yeah, she did.
- [34:45]
D
Okay.
- [34:47]
J
I really wasn't cool with any of that.
- [34:50]
D
Why did you let her do that? Why'd you let Crystal do that?
- [34:54]
J
I honestly didn't see myself as having a choice at that moment.
- [34:58]
D
They had left her at this house in Hernando County.
- [35:02]
J
She'll get mama and come back. And then she could tell us where Deanna lived or wherever, whatever to do for men on. And all three of us got back there through my dad's garage. He never went over to see if she needed to be covered up more or uncovered or I could just tell right away. Just give it a thought, Dawn. You mean being not on this world anymore, she was dead?
- [35:34]
D
Yeah.
- [35:36]
C
So then they wrapped her up and put her in the trunk of his car.
- [35:44]
E
Byron reveals that he and Crystal stored Deanna's body in the trunk for two days.
- [35:52]
D
Did she ever get taken out of your trunk? Did you guys ever move her anywhere else?
- [35:59]
A
No.
- [36:01]
D
They drove her to Kevin Shields house and they were asking him of a good place to dump a body. This corroborated Kevin Shields side of the.
- [36:09]
C
Story and him and brinson thereafter Dumped the body up in levy county.
- [36:18]
D
All right, man, we can be done. You know, already there's. There's the price to pay. You know, you're gonna be arrested because this girl pay the ultimate price. She deserved more than lies and cover ups and stuff.
- [36:39]
J
Yep, I agree.
- [36:42]
D
Upon conclusion of that interview, Byron was immediately charged with the murder of deanna stiers.
- [36:49]
C
At that time, Byron was only arrested for murder in the second degree and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. For first degree murder, There has to be evidence of a premeditated intent to kill.
- [37:04]
G
I just thought to myself, how could my daughter even know these people? Deanna was 18, and here they're late 30s, early 40s.
- [37:16]
B
Byron put the blame squarely on Chris lorenzo, and he basically said the actions.
- [37:21]
C
That contributed directly to the death of.
- [37:23]
B
The victim in the case Were performed by crystal brinson.
- [37:29]
I
I was just glad that byron wasn't out there to hurt anybody else or cause anybody else any harm.
- [37:38]
E
While crystal has evaded authorities thus far, Investigators receive word she's been arrested on a separate charge.
- [37:47]
D
She was actually involved in a domestic altercation in hernando county.
- [37:54]
C
Citrus county detectives went to interview her. They told her they wanted to speak with her concerning a homicide.
- [38:05]
B
Crystal denied having any involvement whatsoever.
- [38:09]
D
And then she asked for a lawyer.
- [38:12]
C
Obviously, when an individual who is in custody requests a lawyer, all questioning ceases.
- [38:23]
E
Without crystal's cooperation. Investigators must determine if byron is telling the truth and what prompted crystal to kill deanna. Authorities speculate if jealousy may have been a motivating factor in the crime.
- [38:39]
H
Jealousy could have gone into play. Any type of substance abuse that's involved in it, it just elevates it to a whole other level.
- [38:48]
J
I don't know what the hell went through. You better not her.
- [38:52]
H
If the sexual relationship's going on, Crystal may have seen deanna basically as a threat.
- [39:07]
E
In June of 2013, Crystal Brinson and byron boughton have been charged in the murder of deanna stiers. Following byron's confession, Investigators theorize that deanna may have inadvertently become a threat to crystal and byron's relationship.
- [39:25]
H
You have a younger female, outgoing, very attractive, Taking attention away from her. Jealousy can happen.
- [39:35]
C
Because crystal had already requested a lawyer, the detectives could not go back in to try and interview her again, so she never gave a formal statement.
- [39:52]
E
Investigators still need hard evidence Connecting crystals to deanna's death. When they received the results from the crime lab, they hit pay dirt.
- [40:03]
C
Byron Bowton's 380 semiautomatic handgun that had bounce DNA on it, it had Deanna's DNA on it and it had Crystal Brinson's DNA on it. The blood spatter that was recovered from inside Bouton's home, that was Deanna Styers DNA. The DNA evidence that was recovered out of Bouton's vehicle turned out to be Deanna Styrus. The trunk liner also contained Deanna Stires DNA. Originally, Byron only got arrested for second degree murder. But given the laboratory developments, that changed to murder in the first degree.
- [40:57]
E
For their cooperation, witnesses Kevin Shields and Mama CJ are not charged in connection to the murder of Deanna Stiers. In August 2013, Byron's case goes to trial.
- [41:15]
G
It was very emotional and nerve wracking knowing that you're sitting there looking at these monsters thinking like how, how can you do this? How can you treat a human like that? It's an unforgivable act.
- [41:31]
E
While prosecutors feel confident in the evidence against Byron, the defense continues to put the blame squarely on Crystal Brinson and claims Byron wasn't physically present when Deanna was given a lethal dose of morphine.
- [41:49]
B
There was a party at the house and Crystal Brinson was pretty much instrumental in getting these drugs together for the party. The state's case had to basically show that there was apparently a lethal morphine hot shot that was injected into the victim. They had to prove that my client was part of that process. But Byron was sick and he was in his bedroom. So his position was that he was not guilty.
- [42:17]
H
It said maybe Crystal was in a fit of jealousy and raging and she was extremely upset. And as a result, Crystal took it upon herself to inject her with a lethal dosage of morphine.
- [42:34]
F
There weren't no jealousy going on, nothing like that. They were partying together and Crystal would never be jealous.
- [42:43]
E
On August 23, 2013, the jury retires to deliberate Byron's fate.
- [42:50]
G
When the jury went out to deliberate, I was nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I was just praying that he was found guilty. We went out and ate lunch and then we got the call that the verdict had came in.
- [43:04]
B
Byron was convicted of second degree murder. The jury didn't see fit to find him guilty of first degree murder. But the court decided the appropriate sentence was life in prison. And if you get life in prison, it's a natural life In Florida.
- [43:20]
G
When the jury read the verdict that he was found guilty, I was super excited.
- [43:27]
C
Byron Bouton will come out of prison in a pine box.
- [43:33]
E
Crystal Brinson avoids going to trial by accepting a plea deal.
- [43:38]
C
I went and spoke to Deanna's mom and had the discussion about did she want to go through another trial or not, or we could let her plead to murder in the second degree, open to the cap of 25 years in state prison, and she went along with that. And then the defense, to use my phrase, put on a dog and pony show about the way Crystal was raised, that she was a beauty queen and this, that, and everything else.
- [44:20]
E
The judge sentences crystal to just 12 years in prison.
- [44:28]
G
Byron and Crystal both were guilty of murdering Deanna. How can one get life in prison and the other one get 12 years? She should have gotten life in prison as well.
- [44:42]
I
I don't feel like we got just with Crystal.
- [44:46]
A
It is a very sad story that you have a young lady who's just beginning to figure out life, fall into a drug world and bad people that take everything away from her. And it's just not her that suffers. It's the survivors, the family, the friends.
- [45:10]
G
Deanna was just the sweetest, loving, compassionate. She was everything that you would want your kid to be. They cut her life short. Nobody deserves to go through what she did.
- [45:23]
I
I would just like people to remember Deanna as, like, this sweet little girl, you know, innocent, you know, she had her failures, you know, but she was the sweetest person you'll ever remember.
- [45:43]
G
Crystal Brinson was released from prison in October 2023. In February 2023, Byron Budin appealed his sentence. His appeal was denied.