BONUS: Crystal Brinson & Byron Boutin (Snapped: Killer Couples)

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Speaker 8 Hi, Snap listeners. We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's hit series Killer Couples.

Speaker 8 You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free Oxygen app or on Peacock by clicking the link in our description. Enjoy.

Speaker 10 A rural community in northwestern Florida is shaken when hunters stumble upon a horrific scene.

Speaker 1 The body had decayed and the animals were feeding on the remains.

Speaker 11 They noticed immediately that she had blunt force trauma to her head area.

Speaker 1 My heart just broke. I've never had to go through anything so painful.

Speaker 9 Knowing that she's not coming back.

Speaker 10 The ensuing investigation uncovers turmoil in their victim's life.

Speaker 12 You're going down the wrong path and you're hanging out with the wrong people, and something's gonna happen to you.

Speaker 10 As authorities zero in on a potential culprit, a sordid romance becomes the focal point of the investigation.

Speaker 11 Jealousy could have gone into play.

Speaker 5 I don't know what the hell I drag.

Speaker 12 It was getting dangerous for her.

Speaker 11 They both just snapped at that point and just freaked out.

Speaker 9 Nobody deserves to go through what she did.

Speaker 10 Levy County is known as Florida's natural paradise. Located along the state's lush Gulf coastline, the region is characterized by scenic marshlands and abundant wildlife.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 A lot of woodland area, a lot of hunting area.

Speaker 10 At 12.30 p.m. on January 18th, 2013, 911 dispatchers in Cedar Key receive a disturbing phone call from two local hunters.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 When we walk into the scene, we see what are obvious human remains wrapped in a black cloth. Animals were feeding on the remains.

Speaker 1 The right arm is exposed and it's 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 She was most likely killed or had died at another location. And her remains had probably been placed there.

Speaker 1 You see that there's some scavenging that's been done. So it then becomes a little bit more difficult to tell.

Speaker 1 how long she'd been there, but we predicted that she'd been there for at least several days.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So he walks into the woods and actually stepped into the bushes and found her concealed there.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But we determined that both these gentlemen were in their 60s and they'd stumbled upon a scene that they'd never seen before in their life and never expected to see.

Speaker 10 A forensic team combs the area for evidence, but is unable to find anything of value.

Speaker 1 So her remains were then transported to the medical examiner's office located in Gainesville, Florida.

Speaker 1 The team of investigators actually participate with the medical examiner.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So law enforcement is there to collect any potential of forensic evidence that might be on that clothing. as well as the wrapping.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 10 While blood samples are sent off to the lab for a toxicology screen, the medical examiner works to identify the victim.

Speaker 13 She had numerous tattoos,

Speaker 14 a couple of stars.

Speaker 1 on her abdomen.

Speaker 13 There was an established N tattoo on her right wrist.

Speaker 1 We also had a hair color. We had an approximate age range, a height, approximate weight.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Ultimately, we determined that the person that was at the medical examiner's office in Gainesville, Florida was Deanna Stiers from nearby Hernando County.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 10 According to the police report, the 18-year-old has been missing for nearly a month.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We have to figure out who was Deanna and how did it come that she was dumped in the middle of the woods.

Speaker 1 We got a knock on the door, and it was two detectives.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 My heart just broke.

Speaker 1 I've never had to go through anything so painful

Speaker 9 knowing that she's not coming back.

Speaker 10 Fun-loving and carefree from a young age, Deanna Stiers had called Hernando County, Florida, home her whole life.

Speaker 7 When Deanna was born, it was amazing. She was just perfect.

Speaker 7 Deanna and Alyssa always played really good together.

Speaker 12 Me and her are really close. She cracked a lot of jokes.
You know, she always wanted to make you smile.

Speaker 12 Deanna was always such a joy. She knew no stranger.
She was a lover, and she was a girly girl. Like, she was just beautiful.
She had these gorgeous eyes, like, that just would melt your heart.

Speaker 16 I met Deanna at Brooksville Elementary. We were in third grade.

Speaker 16 We talked talked every day and then we started going over each other's house and we were inseparable.

Speaker 10 In 2007, Deanna's parents decided to divorce, leaving her and her sister under their father's care in Florida.

Speaker 7 Deanna's father and I was married for 18 years. We kind of just grew apart.

Speaker 7 I moved away to New York. and stayed in contact visiting, tried to stay as close as possible with them.

Speaker 12 My dad was working two jobs and my grandpa lived right across the street.

Speaker 12 While my dad was working, our grandpa took care of us.

Speaker 16 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 her papa's house.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 They took him to the hospital, and that's where he passed.

Speaker 10 Despite witnessing something so tragic, Deanna allowed the experience to inspire her career goals.

Speaker 7 She wanted to go to nursing school, and

Speaker 7 just she was so loving and compassionate, and she really had a knack for helping people.

Speaker 10 By December 2012, Deanna was making plans to move out of her dad's house in the coming months.

Speaker 12 Right before Christmas, we got our nails done and bought some new clothes and stuff to hang out for after Christmas.

Speaker 16 Day before Christmas, Deanna goes partying and going out and having a good time.

Speaker 12 Deanna was supposed to come home on Christmas morning.

Speaker 12 That morning, I spoke to her around like 8, just saying that she wasn't feeling good. She was tired.
She would talk to me later. And I tried calling back around like 11 a.m., 12 p.m.

Speaker 12 Deanna's phone was shut off. Her phone was just going to voicemail.

Speaker 9 I tried calling,

Speaker 9 texting.

Speaker 7 I figured maybe she was just sleeping.

Speaker 12 Anything, except for the worst thought.

Speaker 7 We stayed in touch always.

Speaker 7 So that's when,

Speaker 7 after so many days of it, I just told Alyssa, this isn't looking good.

Speaker 10 Now, nearly three weeks later, the search for Deanna Stiers has come to a tragic end.

Speaker 10 Deanna's sister reveals Deanna's life had taken an unexpected turn after their grandfather's passing two years earlier.

Speaker 7 I just know that when Papa passed away, she was super upset and kind of started spiraling.

Speaker 7 She kind of went down a dark path to numb her pain.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 13 We found out she might have been hanging out with the wrong types of people. We needed to identify these people.

Speaker 10 Coming up, disturbing details from Deanna's autopsy and toxicology reports come to light.

Speaker 14 She died as a result of acute drug toxicity.

Speaker 7 I thought somebody had done it to her. There's no way that that was an accident.

Speaker 10 And investigators key in on a possible suspect with a questionable motive.

Speaker 13 They said I was waiting for somebody to come talk to me.

Speaker 14 She told him, I need to know where to bury a body that won't be found.

Speaker 10 Authorities have identified 18-year-old Deanna Stiers as the murder victim found on a remote hunting ground on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Speaker 10 And investigators have learned that Deanna's family fears her new friends could be involved.

Speaker 17 And we found that Deanna, she was a little bit of a wild child.

Speaker 17 She probably partied too much.

Speaker 12 It was was like a low point in her life where one party turns into,

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 There's a lot of people who were, you know, old enough to be her father,

Speaker 12 showing her around.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 It was getting dangerous for her.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 16 Me and Deanna weren't hanging out too much then because I didn't agree with what she was doing. And so a lot of the times that we talked, they were check-ins to make sure that she was okay.

Speaker 10 Before investigators can track down any of Deanna's new friends for questioning, they receive the results of the autopsy and toxicology reports.

Speaker 11 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 button of a pistol grip.

Speaker 11 The indentations were the markings that would be fit to using a gun or someone being pistol whipped.

Speaker 14 The medical examiner determined the manner of death to be homicide because she died as a result of acute drug toxicity being morphine.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 10 Investigators surmise that Deanna was drugged against her will. leading them to explore another possibility.

Speaker 11 The state of Florida was actually ranked number three

Speaker 11 highest for human trafficking in the United States

Speaker 11 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

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 13 It's not uncommon for human trafficking for people to be utilized for drugs.

Speaker 13 So human trafficking was discussed from the investigation simply because the amount of time that she was missing, the types of people that she was known to hang around.

Speaker 13 We don't have a great deal of that in Hernando County, so we didn't know who might be involved in this.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 14 That card had been utilized in Citrus County the day after Christmas on December 26th.

Speaker 13 I was able to go and make contact with the management. We were able to get the surveillance video.

Speaker 1 It appeared to be an adult male.

Speaker 13 We did create an alert bulletin and we sent that out. Then we got a response from the crime analysis unit in Citrus County where someone had identified that male subject as Kevin Shields.

Speaker 13 Kevin Shields is a longtime resident of Floral City, which is also in Citrus County.

Speaker 1 And so the detectives went to Floral City and conducted an interview with him.

Speaker 13 We knocked on the door. Mr.
Shields greeted us and he said I was waiting for somebody to come talk to me.

Speaker 13 He felt like he had some important information to share.

Speaker 1 Kevin Shields and Deanna were just recently acquainted. The 24th of December, Kevin was with

Speaker 1 Deanna.

Speaker 1 They partied at his house.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 1 Byron and Crystal and Deanna all left together and returned to Homasassa, where Byron lives. In Citrus County.

Speaker 13 It was then that he described a conversation that he had with Byron Bouton and Crystal Brinson.

Speaker 1 He tells us around the 26th of December, he's sleeping and he's woken up by Byron and Crystal.

Speaker 13 He described them arriving to his house, driving Byron's car. They were both acting as though something had happened.

Speaker 14 And Bounton told him,

Speaker 14 I need to know where to bury a body that won't be found.

Speaker 13 Ultimately, what they shared was Deanna was dead in the trunk of the car.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 10 Unsure of his involvement in the crime, investigators take Kevin into custody and immediately focus on locating their two new suspects.

Speaker 14 The investigation determined Crystal Brinson had two prior felonies. They were drug-related charges, and she had three misdemeanors.

Speaker 14 Byron Boughton was a two-time convicted felon, and he had six prior misdemeanor convictions.

Speaker 1 Hernando County did an emergency teletype message to make contact with Byron and Crystal.

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Speaker 13 I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection.

Speaker 3 You don't understand. It was just the five of us.
So this was all planned.

Speaker 1 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 18 I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.

Speaker 3 I honestly didn't see this card. These nice people

Speaker 3 killing each other.

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Speaker 10 Florida authorities are searching for Crystal Brinson and Byron Boughton after Kevin Shields claims the duo is responsible for dumping the body of 18-year-old Deanna Stiers.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 10 While Byron admits that he knew Deanna Stiers, he claims he hasn't seen her since the day before Christmas.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 1 He was very agitated and disinterested in

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 15 Crystal was living with me at the time, off and on. Detectives come out and talk to me,

Speaker 15 wanting to know when was the last night she stayed here. I said, I haven't seen Crystal in about two weeks.

Speaker 15 And they said, well, we are looking for her and it's important.

Speaker 15 They want to know everything about Crystal.

Speaker 18 Crystal was a dancer and a beauty queen. She was

Speaker 18 pretty blue eyes, blonde, just very outgoing, cheerful, and she was a lot of pageants. And she won first place many, many trophies.

Speaker 15 After she finished high school, she did classes to be a homonymist.

Speaker 10 Investigators learned that Crystal's interest in medicine quickly faded. when she picked up a side hustle that drew in more income.

Speaker 18 Crystal went into exotic dancing at clubs.

Speaker 18 She got hired easy because she was a looker. And Krista was a free bird.
She wasn't shy at all.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 Crystal would meet these guys. They were wealthy guys too and prominent people.
And they were flashed worth a lot of money. But they would take advantage of her too, you know, and dump her.

Speaker 18 After they broke up, she would start over another cycle.

Speaker 10 Crystal's mother reveals that her daughter had recently gotten involved with 41-year-old Byron Bowden.

Speaker 15 One of my roommates introduced her to Byron.

Speaker 15 And I didn't want that to happen because he had a reputation of being a bad boy. I said, please don't go around Crystal.

Speaker 15 So she did it anyway.

Speaker 11 Crystal and Byron's relationship seemed like it could be slightly toxic.

Speaker 11 Definitely drugs involved. They're residing together.
They seem like a party type couple.

Speaker 15 Crystal and Byron, they were spending a lot of time together.

Speaker 18 They just took off.

Speaker 15 I didn't see Crystal for weeks at a time.

Speaker 15 So I didn't even know where she was at.

Speaker 15 Detectives told me that if I can reach her, that I needed to call the police station right away.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 1 Her real name is Connie Waller. She was an older lady.
This was the house where everybody congregated to party.

Speaker 1 We did interview Mama CJ.

Speaker 1 Initially, she denied

Speaker 1 any involvement. She provided us with a lot of false information.
She was acting very suspicious.

Speaker 1 We definitely pressed her to finally come out with the truth. She was not directly involved in

Speaker 1 the murder, but she was made aware of the murder. She helped cover it up.

Speaker 10 Mama CJ informs investigators that on December 26th, Crystal Brinson and Byron Fouton had contacted her for help.

Speaker 13 They were Sethiana was in and out of consciousness in Citrus County at Byron's house.

Speaker 1 She was in an overdose state from morphine that was injected into her.

Speaker 13 They decided that they needed to put her in the car.

Speaker 13 They brought her to Hernando County, to a house that Byron Bootin's father owned, where they stuffed a rag of some sort in her mouth, probably to keep her from calling out for help.

Speaker 1 And they secure her to this inversion table. So the inversion table normally would sit upside down.

Speaker 1 but they had it propped up on another table where it was laying flat and they had her secured to that.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 When they brought Mama CJ back to the house in Hernando County, they discovered that Deanna is deceased from an overdose.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 11 They both just snapped at that point and just freaked out, and they wanted to get rid of her any way that they could.

Speaker 1 The following day, I started drafting a search warrant for Byron's father's house and Byron Boughton's residence.

Speaker 10 Coming up, a harrowing confession reveals a possible motive.

Speaker 5 She was like, here,

Speaker 5 her daddy.

Speaker 11 Jelly, younger female, outgoing, very attractive, taking attention away from her. Jealousy could happen.

Speaker 1 And we finally were able to get some of the truth out of him.

Speaker 5 She hit her like a bunch of times, like, really fast.

Speaker 10 Florida authorities investigating the murder of Deanna Stiers have secured a search warrant for the location of her death. A property owned by the father of Byron Boughton.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 20 And George is like, what's going on?

Speaker 20 And they said, well, there's been a crime committed.

Speaker 20 And Byron never told us a thing.

Speaker 20 We were surprised. We still didn't really know what happened.

Speaker 1 With the father's cooperation, we searched the detached garage.

Speaker 1 We did find this inversion table in father's garage.

Speaker 10 After determining Byron is not on the property, investigators questioned Byron's father and stepmother and learned that long before Byron had a criminal record, he held a respectable rank in the U.S.

Speaker 10 Navy.

Speaker 20 Right after high school, he signed up. He was in submarines in the Gulf War.

Speaker 1 I was very, very proud of him to go into service.

Speaker 10 Byron's parents explained that after Byron was honorably discharged, he struggled to settle down.

Speaker 17 He changed after he went to the Navy.

Speaker 1 He changed.

Speaker 17 There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 1 Byron was a hard worker. He was good with his hands.
He was excellent in the mechanics and electronics. I thought he was not a violent guy at all, so I was shocked.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 13 Deputies took him back to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office while we looked through the residence.

Speaker 1 He had a safe full of guns in it. We did find this 380 and upon observing this 380 pistol, we saw hairs at the front tip of the pistol that were lodged into the slide of the pistol.

Speaker 14 In addition to that, there was apparent blood spatter.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 were in his shed out back.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 14 The blood spatter was subsequently forwarded to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Crime Laboratory down in Tampa.

Speaker 10 Investigators returned to the station and confront Byron Bouton with their findings.

Speaker 1 We had a lot of evidence,

Speaker 1 and we had Mama CJ and Kevin Shields' story.

Speaker 14 That is when he, to use the phrase,

Speaker 1 gave it up.

Speaker 1 And we finally were able to get some of the truth out of him.

Speaker 10 Byron admits he was there when Deanna was attacked, but he claims he isn't responsible for her death.

Speaker 1 So Byron told us that he and Crystal brought Deanna back to his house that early morning of Christmas.

Speaker 5 I drove back to my house where

Speaker 5 I received to go directly to bed.

Speaker 5 Deanna came in and laid down with me.

Speaker 5 You know, like, snuggled up. Okay.

Speaker 1 Did

Speaker 9 Crystal come in?

Speaker 5 Maybe like a couple of times. And what was her like action? She was like,

Speaker 5 he didn't f her, did you? I said, no. I don't know what the hell went through her.
I guess she said, you better not.

Speaker 10 Byron claims he finally got up when he heard the two women arguing.

Speaker 17 Allegedly, Deanna got a hold of some of their stash, which drove Crystal into a rage.

Speaker 1 He informed us that Deanna freaked out

Speaker 1 and Crystal ended up giving her a injection of morphine.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 all of a sudden she

Speaker 1 became fearful of Crystal.

Speaker 6 Crystal ends up pulling out a 380 pistol.

Speaker 5 Crystal

Speaker 5 hit her like a bunch of times, like really fast.

Speaker 1 Where?

Speaker 5 Like right around this area, somewhere.

Speaker 4 In the back of the head.

Speaker 5 You are like the necker. Somewhere right there.

Speaker 1 Deanna was bleeding and fell to the ground and was pretty much unconscious.

Speaker 11 So they loaded her up into Byron's vehicle and from there they drove to Byron's father's house.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 5 What did you end up doing with the animals?

Speaker 5 So I'm a judge of this emergent cable.

Speaker 5 So they prop that up to her flat like a lay down on me taught.

Speaker 5 And we put her in there. Do you ever strapped into the inversion table? Yes, so she could like roll off of it if she freaked out.

Speaker 1 They ended up tying her hands behind her back. They duct tape them behind her back.

Speaker 21 Okay, what exactly did a crystal do? Turn it off.

Speaker 5 Um, she put the little rag thing or whatever there.

Speaker 21 And then she did she put a tape over it to keep it in place? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, she did. Okay.

Speaker 5 Trying to tell tell you, I really wasn't cool with any of that. Why did you let her do that?

Speaker 5 Why'd you let Crystal do that?

Speaker 5 I honestly didn't see myself as having a choice at that moment.

Speaker 1 They had left her at this house in Hernando County.

Speaker 5 Wait, here's go get mama and come back. And then she could tell us where Deanna lived or wherever.
Whatever to do for him.

Speaker 5 Yeah, all three of us got back there through my dad's garage.

Speaker 5 And I went over to to see if she needed to be covered up more or uncovered or...

Speaker 5 I could just tell right away that's just going to talk.

Speaker 14 You don't mean

Speaker 5 not in this world anymore.

Speaker 21 She was dead? Yeah.

Speaker 14 So then they wrapped her up and put her in the trunk.

Speaker 1 of his car.

Speaker 10 Byron reveals that he and Crystal stored Deanna's body in the trunk for two days.

Speaker 5 Did she ever get taken out of your trunk?

Speaker 5 Did you guys ever move her anywhere else?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 1 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 story.

Speaker 14 And him and Brunson thereafter

Speaker 14 dumped the body up in Levy County.

Speaker 5 All right, man. Nothing can be done.

Speaker 5 You know already there's the price to pay. You know, you're going to be arrested because this girl

Speaker 5 paid the ultimate price.

Speaker 5 She deserved more than

Speaker 5 lies and cover-ups and stuff.

Speaker 5 Yep, I agree.

Speaker 1 Upon conclusion of that interview, Byron was immediately charged with the murder of Deanna Stiers.

Speaker 14 At that time, Byron was only arrested for murder in the second degree and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Speaker 14 For first-degree murder, there has to be evidence of a premeditated intent to kill.

Speaker 7 I just thought to myself, how could my daughter even know these people?

Speaker 7 Deanna was 18 and here, they're late 30s, early 40s.

Speaker 22 Byron put the blame squarely on Crystal Brinson. And he basically said the actions that contributed directly to the death of the victim in the case were performed by Crystal Brinson.

Speaker 12 I was just glad that Byron wasn't out there to hurt anybody else or cause anybody else any harm.

Speaker 10 While Crystal has evaded authorities thus far, Investigators receive word she's been arrested on a separate charge.

Speaker 1 She was actually involved in a domestic altercation in Hernando County.

Speaker 14 Citrus County detectives went to interview her.

Speaker 14 They told her they wanted to speak with her concerning a homicide.

Speaker 13 Crystal denied having any involvement whatsoever.

Speaker 1 And then she asked for a lawyer.

Speaker 14 Obviously, when an individual who is in custody requests a lawyer, all questioning ceases.

Speaker 10 Without Crystal's cooperation, investigators must determine if Byron is telling the truth and what prompted Crystal to kill Deanna.

Speaker 10 Authorities speculate if jealousy may have been a motivating factor in the crime.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 5 I don't know what the hell I'm trying to act. You better not.

Speaker 11 If the sexual relationship's going on, Crystal may have seen Deanna basically as a threat.

Speaker 10 In June of 2013, Crystal Brinson and Byron Boughton have been charged in the murder of Deanna Stiers.

Speaker 10 Following Byron's confession, investigators theorize that Deanna may have inadvertently become a threat to Crystal and Byron's relationship.

Speaker 11 You have a younger female, outgoing, very attractive, taking attention away from her. Jealousy could happen.

Speaker 14 Because Crystal had already

Speaker 14 requested a lawyer, the detectives could not go back in

Speaker 14 to try and interview her again. So she never gave a formal statement.

Speaker 10 Investigators still need hard evidence connecting Crystal to Deanna's death. When they received the results from the crime lab, they hit pay dirt.

Speaker 14 Byron Boughton's 380 semi-automatic handgun that had Boughton's DNA on it. It had Deanna's DNA on it, and it had Crystal Brimson's DNA on it.

Speaker 14 The blood spatter that was recovered from inside Boughton's home, that was Deanistier's DNA.

Speaker 14 The DNA evidence that was recovered out of Boughton's vehicle turned out to be Deanistires. The trunk liner also contained Deanistiers' DNA.

Speaker 14 Originally, Byron only got arrested for second-degree murder, but given the laboratory developments, that changed to murder in the first degree.

Speaker 10 For their cooperation, witnesses Kevin Shields and Mama CJ are not charged in connection to the murder of Deanna Stiers.

Speaker 10 In August 2013, Byron's case goes to trial.

Speaker 12 It was very emotional and nerve-wracking knowing that you're sitting there looking at these monsters, thinking,

Speaker 12 How can you do this? How can you

Speaker 12 treat a human like that? It's an unforgivable act.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 22 There was a party at the house, and Crystal Brinson was pretty much instrumental in getting these drugs together for the party.

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 22 But Byron was sick and he was in his bedroom. So his position was that he was not guilty.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 18 There weren't no jealousy going on, nothing like that. They were partying together and Crystal would never be jealous.

Speaker 10 On August 23rd, 2013, the jury retires retires to deliberate Byron's fate.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 We went out and ate lunch, and then we got the call that the verdict had came in.

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 22 And if you get life in prison, it's a natural life in Florida.

Speaker 7 When the jury read the verdict that he was found guilty, I was super excited.

Speaker 14 Byron Boughton will come out of prison in a pine box.

Speaker 10 Crystal Brinson avoids going to trial by accepting a plea deal.

Speaker 14 I went and spoke to Deanna's mom

Speaker 14 and had the discussion about

Speaker 14 did she want to go through another trial or not?

Speaker 14 Or

Speaker 14 we could let her plead to murder in the second degree, open to the cap of 25 years in state prison.

Speaker 14 And she went along with that. And then the defense,

Speaker 14 to use my phrase, put on a dog and pony show about the way Crystal was raised, that she was a beauty queen and and this, that, and everything else.

Speaker 10 The judge sentences Crystal to just 12 years in prison.

Speaker 7 Byron and Crystal both were guilty of murdering Deanna.

Speaker 7 How can one get life in prison and the other one get 12 years?

Speaker 7 She should have gotten life in prison as well.

Speaker 12 I don't feel like we got justice with Crystal.

Speaker 1 It is a very sad story that you have a young lady who's just beginning to figure out life fall in to a drug world and bad people that

Speaker 1 take everything away from her. And it's just not her that suffers.
It's the survivors, the family, the friends.

Speaker 7 Deanna was just the sweetest, loving, compassionate.

Speaker 7 She was everything that you would want your kid to be.

Speaker 1 And they cut her life short.

Speaker 9 Nobody deserves to go through what she did.

Speaker 12 I would just like people to remember Deanna as like this sweet little girl, you know, in a set.

Speaker 12 You know, she had her failures, you know, but she is the sweetest person I'll ever meet.

Speaker 8 Crystal Brinson was released from prison in October 2023. In February 2023, Byron Budin appealed his sentence.
His appeal was denied.