A Deadly Attraction

If your appliances can't handle the holiday hosting heat, December deal drops at Lowe's makes upgrading easy.

Get up to 35% off, select major appliances and rewards members save an additional $40 on the Whirlpool Electric Range and the Over-the-Range microwave.

Plus, get up to 60% off select ladders so you can deck all the halls. Lowe's, we help, you save.
Valent through 1210. While supplies last, selection varies by location.

Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. See Lowe's.com/slash terms for details.

Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day.
You know? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 55 gigabytes of networks busy.

Taxes and fees extra. See Mintmobile.com.
mobile.com.

The most horrible thing you could ever imagine. Woman's asleep in her own room, in her own bed, and she's awakened to being stabbed.
She's laying right here, and whoever it was starts stabbing her.

Joanne Witt lived alone in the home with her 14-year-old daughter, Tyler Witt.

Joanne had 20 stab wounds over her entire body, some of the most horrific wounds I've ever seen.

It was very brutal. It didn't appear that there was a robbery involved.
There was nothing else missing from the home. And then the next question was,

where's the daughter? And then, wait a minute, where's the daughter's boyfriend? Where are they?

It was a very devastating experience. My daughter is murdered and we don't don't know what happened.
The next thing we know, they're telling us that our granddaughter and her boyfriend did it.

The relationship she had with Stephen Culver, she worshipped him. She would have done anything for him.

She was turning into more of a rebellious teenager. She was testing the limits.
She'd been getting into trouble.

You've been arrested for murder. What?

Who did I murder? Your

What?

Whoever inflicted those wounds was very strong.

And I just don't believe a 100-pound Tyler Witt could have inflicted those wounds. It's not true.

She's dead.

The victim's daughter is a very smart, manipulative 14-year-old. There's no way that she came anywhere near her mother.

I don't believe it could have happened. I think the evidence was overwhelming that Tyler was not the one that did the killing.

You want an attorney and what you got.

How dare you?

The whole thing is crazy.

I'm Richard Schlesinger. Tonight on 48 Hours,

a Fatal Attraction.

Norb and Judy Witt Witt worked hard and planned well to live it up in retirement, traveling whenever they wanted in their luxury RV.

In 2009, they spent two months traveling the country, came home to El Dorado Hills, California, and days later got the phone call.

It was their daughter, Joanne's boss, wondering if they knew where she was. He says, well, she didn't show up for work on Friday and she didn't show up today.

And we're worried that something

might be wrong. Joanne Witt was 47, a single mother, raising her teenage daughter, Tyler.
She was an engineer for the county. The thing was, Joanne always, always

called when she was not coming to work.

When you heard that she hadn't been at work, the previous Friday or that Monday, did that strike you as odd? Oh, yeah.

Well, like your boss said, she's never missed work without calling. Neub says we're only two miles away.
We'll go check on her. But Joanne's boss was one step ahead of them.

He says I've already called the sheriffs. And he says Joanne had confided that she and Tyler had been having some problems

and he says we were concerned.

I got in a car and got over to her so fast I think I was in a daze by the time I got there.

There was two sheriff's cars and two deputies out there walking around the house and I said, well,

I think I can get you in the house. Norb unlocked the house but the sheriff's deputies ordered him to stay outside while they searched it.

Before long they told him Joanne was upstairs in her bedroom and she was dead. They never said killed or murdered.
They just said deceased.

So we didn't know what was going on. But when the CSI van came in and we had probably 20 detectives wandering around the place, we knew that she had been killed.

Joanne had been stabbed about 20 times.

It was a very, very, very gruesome scene. Lisette's suitor is the prosecutor on this case.
There was a wound that almost decapitated her. Very violent.

Two or three days before this, you'd been on vacation, having the time of your life. Oh, yeah.
And, you know, like that,

everything changed. Yeah.

The news got even worse. Their 14-year-old granddaughter, Tyler, was nowhere to be found.
We didn't know if Tyler had been kidnapped or... We knew nothing.
Can you remember what you were feeling?

I mean, what?

Shock. Just shock.
Just shock. Total, total.
Shock and concern about our granddaughter. Yeah.

But it didn't take detectives very long to conclude that Tyler was not a victim.

Just weeks before, Joanne had complained to authorities about her daughter's relationship with a 19-year-old boyfriend, Stephen Culver, and now detectives wanted to talk to both of them.

Culver and Tyler met at a coffee shop soon after she started ninth grade and he had started college. Norbwitt says it wasn't long before Stephen started influencing Tyler, and not in a good way.

He had a 14-year-old that looked at him as God.

I mean, he had total control over her. We knew that drugs were involved.
We knew that a lot of drugs were involved. They were into marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine.

What does that do to someone's mind?

Just weeks after they met, Stephen and Tyler convinced her mother to let Stephen rent a room in their home. Joanne thought the two were just friends.

They told her he was gay, and Joanne told skeptical friends Stephen could help Tyler with her homework and help her pay the mortgage.

No one, every friend she had, everyone in the family did not want him in there, but Joanne was very strong-willed.

So she let Stephen move in.

But within a month, Joanne had become suspicious.

She came home one day and was shocked when she went to Stephen's room. This is the room where it all began.
The prosecutor took us through the house.

Joanne walked in and caught them in a compromising position. They had just, or were about to, engage in a sexual relationship.
Tyler was naked. Right, she was actually

inside this

closet,

crouched down, covering herself.

but naked. Joanne did what any parent would do.
She ordered Stephen to leave, and she called in two of her male co-workers to help throw him out.

She said she was going to kick Stephen out, and she didn't want to be there alone. Vinny Catapano was one of Joanne's friends.
He helped move Culver's things to the sidewalk and then confronted him.

The first thing I said to him is, if it was me, you'd be in jail right now. Joanne believed Culver had committed a crime, statutory rape, by having sex with Tyler, who was a minor.

Joanne warned Culver she'd call the sheriff if he didn't immediately stop seeing Tyler. Vinny took a more direct approach.

I said, if you make contact with Tyler again, either by phone or in person, I'm going to hurt you, and I'm going to hurt you East Coast style, not West Coast style. What does that mean?

I was trying to intimidate him. Did he seem intimidated? Absolutely not.
And that, again, annoyed me more. Culver was also apparently not deterred by Vinny or Joanne.
He snuck over the house 20 times.

They continued their affair during the day when Joanne was at work

and late at night when she was asleep. When Joanne found out, she made good on her threat and called authorities, who opened an investigation.

She wanted him away from her daughter, but they couldn't stand the thought of not being together.

And so that's when the plotting began.

Within days, Norb Witt unlocked the house and sheriff's deputies discovered the results of that alleged plot. Norb and his wife Judy now faced a terrible choice.

Getting justice for the murder of their daughter meant turning their backs on their granddaughter.

If

she hadn't done whatever she did, her mother would still be alive today, today, probably.

And prosecutors say Tyler and Stephen apparently didn't intend to stop with Joanne. They had more killing in mind.

I'm Brett Podolsky, co-founder of The Farmer's Dog. We make fresh, real food for dogs.
It sounds so simple, and it is.

But for decades, pet food companies have spent billions of dollars advertising that ultra-processed pellets are what we should be feeding our dogs every single day.

My experience with my own dog, Jada, made me realize that there was another way. For years, Jada had constant issues.

Can I talk about poops on the radio? I tried everything until a veterinarian recommended I feed her fresh food. It was a complete turnaround.
That's why we started the Farmer's Dog.

So every dog could experience the benefits of a truly healthy diet. It's not fancy.
It's just fresh, whole food, delivered right to your door, pre-portioned for your dog's unique needs.

It's better for them and easier for you. Get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com slash trial50.
That's thefarmersdog.com slash trial50.

That? That's the sound of extremely processed dog food, which is the norm at most pet food companies. But at the farmer's dog, we do things differently.

We gently cook our food without ultra-processing.

It's developed by our team of board-certified nutritionists, made to human-grade safety standards and portioned for your dog, then delivered right to your door. How does that sound to you?

Get 50% off your first box, available only at thefarmersdog.com.

It was less than a month before her murder and Joanne Witt had had enough. She went to the sheriff to to complain about Stephen Culver's sexual relationship with her underage daughter.

That's when Culver got this call.

Have you ever had sex with her? Have you ever had sex with Tyler? No.

It was from a detective. Okay.

And what's your relationship with her? She's like a sister to me. I understand she's 14.
I understand all this. I'm very, very scared at the moment.

You gotta be honest because it'll look a lot better if you just come out clean.

But things were just getting worse for Tyler and Stephen. Joanne discovered Tyler's diary and Prosecutor Lisette Souter says it could not be more incriminating.
It depicted very explicit

writings of

different sexual positions, different encounters, things that made it very clear that in fact they had had a sexual relationship.

Joanne turned the diary over to the detectives and broke the news to her very angry daughter. She felt betrayed by her mother, Tyler's attorney, Mark Ralphs.

And she was devastated and she was very much afraid that he was going to go to prison. Culver thought he would face serious prison time once detectives read that diary that Joanne gave them.

In his mind, up to 20 years in prison for what Joanne had just done to him. And Souter believes that's when Stephen and Tyler decided they had to kill Joanne.

Even though Joanne had already turned over the diary. They both made the decision that, yes, this is what we're going to do.

Authorities believe the murder occurred late at night on Thursday, June 11th, 2009, after Joanne went to bed. Her daughter let in Stephen Culver.

After they had made sure she was asleep, Stephen got out a knife. The knife was never recovered, but investigators believe it looked something like this, a 10-inch long chef's knife.

Souter believes it was Culver alone who stabbed Joanne in a particularly violent attack. She's laying right here.
He starts stabbing her. Wow.

Very brutal.

She tries to fight back. She puts her hands up.
There's a struggle. The sheets are messed up.
Things go flying. And

there's how she's found with her legs over the bed.

A bloody outline of the knife was left on the bed. And ironically, in the nightstand next to the bed where she died, there was a book, How to Parent Your How to Control Teenager.

After the murder, Souter says Tyler and Stephen covered Joanne's body with a blanket, turned down the air conditioning to help preserve the body, locked up the house, and left.

I think how they acted afterwards is very shocking that they were hanging out with their friends. They were kissing and holding hands along the street.
They were living their life without Joanne.

But they didn't plan to live very long. Using logic only a teenager might understand, Stephen and Tyler allegedly killed Joanne so they could run off and kill themselves.

They both believed Stephen was about to be arrested for having sex with Tyler. That's when it led to how are we going to be together?

Well, we're going to be together forever and eternally by killing ourselves. How much thought did they put into this?

Well, it's a great deal.

Obviously, I don't follow their logic. But Stephen and Tyler were following their plan.

They went to San Francisco, rented this hotel room, and ate a bizarre concoction of fruit loops, cake, and rat poison.

It didn't work. And two days after Joanne's body was found, with police hot on their trail, the teens were discovered by local officers changing their clothes behind a dumpster at a mall.

They were both charged with murder. You've been arrested for murder.

It's not true.

It wasn't long before Tyler ended the interrogation. I want an attorney and what you gone.

How dare you? You want an attorney and you want me going.

Okay.

That we can do.

And unfortunately, we can't talk to you again. Good luck.

Detectives had a lot of questions for Tyler and Culver. And so did Stephen's mother.
Jan Culver is convinced her son is innocent. I remember

when I looked at the autopsy photos, and I just remember gasping at the horrific nature of them. Stephen isn't capable of that.

But Stephen and Tyler both left incriminating suicide notes, and Stephen told two of his close friends that he murdered Joanne.

He went so far as to get into the trunk of his car and show the bloody knife.

So he showed what you believe is the murder weapon. Correct.
It was Stephen's own words that helped convince prosecutors he actually stabbed Joanne Witt to death while Tyler stood by.

When somebody says, I did it, here's the knife I did it with. Indeed.
That's a problem for a defense attorney. Very much so.
Dane Weiner is Stephen's attorney.

He says Culver told his friends he killed Joanne to protect the real killer. the love of his life, Tyler Witt.

He's planning on being dead in several days, so he's not concerned about the consequences for him. His goal is to prevent her from being labeled as a mother killer.

He would care about others before himself, to his detriment. Stephen is the kind of guy who would drive off a cliff or jump in front of a bullet or run into a burning home for a friend.

Even when he was interrogated shortly after his arrest, Culver was asking about Tyler. He spoke with Ty.

How is she?

Better now.

She's really gone through a lot.

I'm just worried about her.

But he probably should have been worried about himself. His mother believes Stephen has crippled his defense, and she told him so right after his arrest.

Why on earth would you have ever said that you did this? We were both crying, and he said, He said, I was in a different frame of mind. He goes, I'm so sorry, mom.

And I said, you do realize that your words will probably convict you.

Stephen's not violent. He's not aggressive.

Tyler wrote in her diary about how she wished her mother would die in a horrible car crash.

Dane Weiner, who's defending Tyler Witt's boyfriend Stephen Culver, says, while Culver had a clean record, there is plenty of evidence that shows Tyler was violent and more than capable of stabbing her mother.

Every friend she had virtually, she told that she hated her mother.

She said, if my mother doesn't let me see Stephen, I swear to God, I will kill her.

For Tyler's grandparents, it is almost impossible to believe.

That's cute.

Tyler was a beautiful baby when she was born. Tyler's birth.
As soon as she was born, they let me in with the cameras, and I've got, you know, the pictures.

Tyler was Norb and Judy Witt's third grandchild. Happier times.
Oh, yeah.

Tyler's birthday.

I love you.

Oh, she loves her papa.

Now, times are very different.

When you look at those pictures, given all that's gone on, what happens in your heart? It was hard. It really was.

She was a wonderful mother.

Just the affection, the care.

Her whole life centered around her daughter.

No father involved at all.

He was never in the scene. Joanne took Tyler everywhere.
Very, very close.

Everything changed, though, when Tyler was just five. According to Joanne's best friend, Roxanna Yorgite, Joanne lost control just for a moment.

It happened when she was taking Tyler home from daycare. They were on their way home and they were driving.

Tyler was screaming and Jo was having trouble concentrating on driving and being safe driver. And

she turned around and hit Tyler.

Later, when daycare workers noticed a red mark in the shape of Joanne's hand on Tyler's face, they reported it to the state CPS, Child Protective Services, and Tyler was taken away from Joanne.

She went to foster care for about a month until Norb and Judy could get temporary custody. She lived with us for about six months where Joanne had to take classes.
What kind of classes?

Anger management and parenting. When Joanne got Tyler back, things were very different in her house.
No, after that, Joanne was afraid afraid even to discipline her that strongly

because she was afraid that Tyler would report her to CPS.

So that cloud was always there, mommy. You know, I want to go out tonight with the boys or something like that, and I'm going.
And that was always the threat. Yeah.
Hi, Ty.

What? Ty, wait, wait, wait a minute. What's wrong?

Tyler got into this behavior that she could do whatever she wanted.

And there's no consequence.

She watched as Tyler started getting into trouble at school. And she ran away from home several times.

She was sweet when she was growing up. She was sweet.

But

I don't know her now, and I don't want to know her now. Roxanna says Joanne finally started trying to discipline Tyler more in the months before she was killed.
And that led to fights.

Violent ones. What are you doing?

Nothing.

Yeah.

Things were starting to get physical between them.

The authorities, including Child Protective Services, got involved several times. Tyler told them her mother frequently got drunk and beat her.
But Tyler was never taken from the house.

There was no abuse. She wasn't an alcoholic.
She didn't get violent.

And the authorities seem to agree. Prosecutor Lizette Souter says there is no evidence to support Tyler's accusations.

If Tyler were truly beaten to the extent that is sort of assumed from the way Tyler speaks, there were never marks, there were never bruises, there were people around a lot, and it never happened when any of those people are around.

So was it something that happened just behind closed doors? I don't know.

But less than a month before the murder, Joanne and her daughter had a fight focusing this time on Tyler's sexual relationship with Culver. Did she ever actually attack her mother? She did.

She threw some things at her mom. It was the day that she learned that her mother had reported the relationship to the police.

Actually, Tyler called the police pretending to be her mother, saying, My daughter's out of control. Come get my daughter.
It has to be one of the more bizarre 911 911 calls ever made.

911. Excuse me.
My daughter, Tyler Witt, has secretly assaulted me, and she's vandalizing my home. That's Tyler impersonating her mother.
She's trying to get herself taken away by the sheriff.

Do you feel safe being on the phone with me? No, I do not. She would not go back into her room.
I tried to push her back into her room, and we finally get into a fight, and I'm bleeding.

It is chilling evidence of a deeply troubled mother-daughter relationship. Joanne finally comes to the phone and she really is injured.
The angry voice in the background is Tyler. Hello? Yes?

That was my daughter. Joanna, please do report.
Send me to jail. Is your name Joanne?

Okay, are you injured at all? Yeah, I'm injured.

We have deputies on their way.

Why would Tyler try to arrange her own arrest? I have asked Tyler that question, and she said she wanted to be anywhere but home. She would rather have been in juvenile hall than at home that day.

Mom ended up with, I believe, a cut on her chin

and some bruises on her arm.

Joanne didn't need to go to a hospital, but Tyler was taken to juvenile hall. When Joanne refused to press charges, Tyler was released within hours and sent back home.

Weiner questions why, with Tyler's history of fighting with her mother,

Stephen is the one prosecutors say stabbed Joanne. He has never

hurt anybody or tried to hurt anybody or

threatened to hurt anybody, as contrasted with Tyler, who has a very specific history with her mother and has literally threatened to kill her, to stab her, the very method by which she was ultimately killed.

Joanne's parents, Tyler's grandparents, weren't sure what to believe, who did what to whom, but Norb was convinced that Tyler was involved in Joanne's murder somehow.

She's not my granddaughter anymore.

Your husband's written her off. I mean, is that...
pretty much.

Have you?

A little harder for a grandmother. Yeah, Yeah, I think

she'll always be in my heart, but

it's not the Tyler that we know today. It was the Tyler that I knew before.

I mean, you're writing off

a girl, now a young lady, who you've known since she was born. Yep, but she's gone.

I've accepted it.

This episode is brought to you by Cars.com. On Cars.com, you can shop over 2 million cars.

That means over 2 million new car possibilities, like making space for your growing family, becoming the type of person who takes spontaneous weekend camping trips, or upgrading your commute.

Wherever life takes you next, or whoever you're looking to be, there's a car for that on Cars.com. Visit Cars.com to discover your next possibility.

Shopify's point-of-sale system helps you sell at every stage of your business. Need a fast and secure way to take payments in person?

We've got you covered. How about card readers you can rely on anywhere you sell? Thanks.
Have a good one. Yep, that too.
Want one place to manage all your online and in-person sales?

That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell, businesses that grow grow with Shopify.
Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com/slash Spotify. Shopify.com/slash Spotify.

It's just very, very emotional to say the least.

For two long years after Tyler's arrest, her grandparents would not have anything to do with her.

But on this day, Norb and Judy Witt are at the El Dorado, California Juvenile Hall, where Judy finally plans to visit her granddaughter alone.

I had no expectations, I guess.

It was tough to know what to say to their granddaughter, accused along with her boyfriend, of killing their daughter.

I said something about the horrendous act, and we didn't know if you had done it or not, or how much you were involved. And she's...

Got the shock looked on her face and she says, do you really think I could have done that? You believed her. I believed her.
her.

Norb will wait a little longer to see Tyler. The two of them planned and killed our daughter.

That's the bottom line.

We will never know the full story.

But Stephen Culver's lawyer, Dane Weiner, has a tangled story to tell. He says Stephen was actually suicidal, not homicidal.

He argues that Culver believed he was about to be arrested for statutory rape, and his solution was to commit suicide along with Tyler.

From Stephen's perspective, the plan was to pick her up, leave, go spend a few days down in San Francisco, and end their lives together. There was no discussion about killing mom.

Weiner says Tyler stabbed her mother, that Stephen didn't know anything about it until Tyler called him to the house, where he saw her with the bloody knife.

Stephen comes over, he comes in the house, that's when he sees her at the door with the knife.

He said the knife was bloody. Why can that not be true? He says that there's blood dripping everywhere.
There was no other blood found in the kitchen area or where he was saying this was happening.

There's no blood on the carpet or on the floor

leading up to the door? None.

Wouldn't you think there'd be some evidence of

blood? somewhere besides that room? And there may have been. They were focused on the bedroom.
They didn't go through the house looking for blood drops.

There's no physical evidence, there's no logical evidence to support Stephen Culver's claim of what happened. And prosecutors are counting on Tyler to help them prove that.

There is one problem, though. Tyler is a liar.
She lied several times to detectives, most importantly, to those who interrogated her right after she was arrested. Who did I murder?

Who did I murder?

Your mother.

What?

We don't need to play this. We already know that you know that your mother's dead.

Over time, Tyler gave up the act and, according to the prosecutor, admitted she helped plan her mother's murder. But she said Stephen did the actual stabbing.

And with that, prosecutors struck a deal. If Tyler testified truthfully against Culver, she'd get a reduced sentence.

You asked why I ultimately believed her. All the other evidence in the case that we have independently supports what she says.

But 48 Hours found a witness who raises questions about Tyler's role in the murder. One of her neighbors.
who never was interviewed by authorities.

Well, I was walking my little girl to go to the park, and I noticed that there was a young girl, young teen, sitting on the swings, and she was just looking straight down.

The neighbor asked that we not use her name. Only after the murder, she says, did she realize she had been talking to Tyler Witt just months before the killing.
I saw a lot of sadness.

She seemed angry to me. She seemed very cold to me.
She just seemed very lost.

The neighbor got into a conversation with the young girl who complained that her mother drank a lot, and the two got into fights.

I said to her, What are you going to do to try to fix this problem, you know, if this happens again? And she said, There is not going to be a next time.

Next time, it's either going to be her or it's going to be me.

That statement alone ran chills through me. When she heard there had been a murder in the neighborhood, she went to the crime scene and was seen on news footage talking to an officer.

And I said, sir, can you please tell me, did a young girl murder her mother?

And he just looked at me and he said, it's a crime scene. Did you know that this was Tyler's house? I had no idea because I never come to that conclusion.

I never let go of the conversation that we had at the park. It weighed very heavy on me.

And now, as Stephen Culver's murder trial gets underway, roughly two years after Joanne Witt's killing, he will be together again with the one person his lawyer says he wanted to protect, Tyler Witt.

But this time, the one-time lovers will point fingers at each other in court.

If you used Babel, you would. Babel's conversation-based techniques teach you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babel today.

Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now at babel.com/slash Spotify. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com/slash Spotify.
Rules and restrictions may apply.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Well, with the name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.
Not available in all states.

As Stephen Culver's murder trial finally gets underway, his attorney, Dane Weiner, is ready and eager to argue that the wrong person is on trial. He doesn't have a violent bone in his body.

But Tyler Witt, Culver's former lover and self-confessed accomplice in the planning of her mother's murder, tells prosecutors a different story. She outlines her gruesome version of the killing.

She says she let Stephen into the house and that he was armed with a chef's knife. Tyler went to the kitchen, got got out her own knife, and the two walked quietly up the stairs.

It was late at night, and Joanne was asleep. They turn into Joanne's room.
He walks ahead, and just as he enters in, Tyler sees him making practicing motions as he's headed towards the bed.

At that point,

Tyler fell to the fetal position, was right there at the opening of the door, covered her ears.

He began to stab Joanne.

Prosecutors believe Tyler's testimony, saying it's corroborated by other evidence. Her lawyer, Mark Ralphs, also says she passed a polygraph test, helping to prove she did not stab her mother.

Who decided that Joanne Witt had to die? Tyler indicated she could not remember whether it was initially her idea or whether it was Stephen's idea. idea.
She couldn't remember.

How do you not remember whose idea it is to kill your mother? I don't know. It had been more than two years.
But, Counselor, it's the murder of her mother. I understand.

But Tyler has other credibility problems. One psychologist called her sociopathic, and on the stand, she testified she has two superbeings living inside her.

An angel named Alex and a demon named Toby. The demon, she says, takes control of her in times of stress.
I think that has great significance.

It gives a whole other personality, an aggressive, violent personality, inside Tyler.

It had nothing to do with the murder, so it's simply a defense attorney asking questions, trying to show flaws in Tyler's character.

And if jurors have trouble with Tyler, prosecutors have DNA evidence to offer. It was found on Joanne's body and under her fingernails.

When there is DNA underneath the fingernails with the defensive wounds, it is very likely that that DNA comes from Joanne trying to fight her attacker.

There was not enough DNA to identify anyone, but there was enough to prove it came from a male. It really narrows it.
Stephen Culver is a male. There's only one male that we're looking at.

Stephen Culver's trial lasted four weeks, but it took jurors less than four hours to reach a verdict.

Hello?

Yes.

We have a verdict?

What does it mean that it went so quickly? This is good news. It depends whose side you're on.
I think that's not a good sign. Stephen Culver's lawyer, Dane Weiner.

I've always been of the opinion that the longer they take, the better. Weiner believes his young client is moments away from becoming a convicted murderer.
You braced your client for that?

We discussed it. Has the jury reached a verdict? We have.
It's a tense moment. Tense moment.
We, the jury, and find the defendant Stephen Paul Culver guilty of the crime of murder of Joanne M. Witt.

Culver is understandably shaken. He will end up in prison for the rest of his life.
For reasons they would not discuss, prosecutors decided not to ask for the death penalty.

I just felt the air leave my lungs. His mother, Jan, is still convinced he's innocent.
I just wanted somebody to wake me up from the nightmare.

For a crime this brutal, the judge has no other choice. The defendant shall be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Tyler Witt, the girl Culver planned to spend eternity with, gets her reward for testifying against him. She's allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
Are you doing it freely and voluntarily?

Because it's what you want to do. Yes, fair.
And gets 15 years to life.

This was a brutal murder. The court had seen no emotion or even remorse for the loss of your mother.
And I'm sorry for you, Mrs.

Witt, because the person who loved you most in this world and without any reservation is gone. The thoughts lie here.

There is enough heartbreak in this case to go around.

And the last great tragedy is it all started because of a stupid miscalculation.

Lisette's suitor says Tyler and Stephen murdered Joanne Witt because they feared he would be in prison for a long time for committing statutory rape.

It would have been a misdemeanor and the maximum that he could have received was a year in the county jail. Reality is he probably wouldn't have gotten any jail time.
Really?

So these kids thought it was the end of the world?

And it really wasn't.

But it is now the end of the free world for Culver.

It's the outcome Norb and Judy Witt hoped for, but of course there's no satisfaction, no sense of victory for two people who lost a daughter and a granddaughter.

I really do wonder how we've gotten through it. I really, really do.

You just know that you can give up or you keep going. What's your choice? You miss your daughter, of course.
Absolutely. Every day.

Think about her every day. Oh, yeah.
First thing in the morning, last thing at night.

Life has gone on for the Wits, and Norb, who once turned his back on Tyler, has now started to turn around, to soften on the subject of his now 17-year-old granddaughter.

You look at this little girl and then you look at the person that she is now. Do you wonder what happened to this little girl who used to bounce around on your knee?

Yes, all the time. For years, Norb could not bring himself to see Tyler, but finally, after the trial, he did.

You heard the clanking of metal doors, and then the door opened, and she came in.

very meekly and said, hi, Papa. She came over and hugged me and started sobbing.

Did you cry?

I don't really remember, but I held her pretty tight. And we just talked.
And I see some remorse.

It is not easy to reconnect. And Norb isn't sure, after everything that's happened, how close he can be to his granddaughter, who helped murder his daughter.

Have you forgiven her?

I haven't forgiven her at this point. Do you want to? I don't know.
Oh, yeah, probably deep inside I do, but I don't know if it's possible.

I don't know. I really don't know.
And I don't think Judy does either.

In August 2022, Tyler Witt was granted parole and released from prison.

Everything you've done has come to this. The biggest and wildest mission yet is now streaming.
I need you to trust me. One last time.
Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning.

Raider BG13, now streaming on Parana Plus. Streaming December 11th.
It's the new limited series, Little Disasters. Happy families, perfect marriage.
What happened?

Social services have been called in.

I've known you for 10 years! How could you make that call? These rich families concealing things seems to come naturally. Starring Diane Krueger.
You can't take out children! And Joe Joyner.

Parents can do some terrible things in moments of frustration. Little Disasters, all episodes streaming December 11th on Pyramount Plus.