Episode 325

Speaker 1 Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 If I would have known she was getting stabbed tonight, I would have let myself got stabbed before her.

Speaker 4 At just 20 years old, Brianna Berrazzini could pass for a teenager. But today, in the courtroom, she looks even younger.
Her blonde hair falls straight down her back, framing a face drained of color.

Speaker 4 She stands motionless before an Ohio judge, a shadow of fear flickering behind her solemn eyes. The room is silent, bracing for the words she's about to speak.
Words that seal her fate.

Speaker 4 Brianna is here to plead guilty to killing her former friend, Halia Colbertson.

Speaker 5 You're now pleading guilty or admitting that you've committed this crime. When you plead guilty, you waive or give up constitutional rights.
Do you understand each and every right?

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 5 Are you waiving those rights and are you pleading guilty knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily?

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 4 Only a year has passed since Halia was killed. It all happened so quickly on that March evening of 2023.

Speaker 4 It's been a year of legal battles, bond hearings, and fear on both sides. But today, Brianna is admitting to what she did, and she will face consequences for Halia's death.

Speaker 5 Prosecution's going to push for prison. Your lawyer is asking for probation.
I indicated I would likely send you to prison with the ability maybe to get out early.

Speaker 5 Is that your understanding of the discussions? Yes, sir. All right.
But I've made no commitment. I get to review the pre-sentence investigation.
I'm going to do that. I'll listen to both sides.

Speaker 5 But I'm inclined to do what I've told you, and you understand that.

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 4 On the benches behind Brianna and her lawyer, the split is as old as the feud itself. Halia's family is on one side, and Brianna's is on the other.

Speaker 4 The bad blood didn't start with Halia's death, but it's curdled into something much colder now. Each side sits stiff, waiting for what comes next.

Speaker 5 When you plead guilty, it is a complete admission you're guilty. You're going to be convicted today, and you're going to be sentenced on July the 11th.

Speaker 5 It'll be on your record. It's a non-expungible offense.
It carries up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Speaker 5 Do you understand the nature of the charge to which you're pleading guilty and what the maximum penalties are?

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 4 That is it.

Speaker 4 A maximum sentence of maybe three years and thousand dollars for Halia Culbertson's life.

Speaker 5 You have any questions for me about anything that we've gone over? Because if you do, now is the time to ask me.

Speaker 4 No, Your Honor.

Speaker 5 Are you pleading guilty to this crime I've outlined for you because you did, in fact, commit that crime? Yes, Your Honor. All right, have a seat.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 Brianna has no questions. This plea deal is the best outcome she could have hoped for because Brianna killed Halia Culbertson.
That is a fact.

Speaker 4 But what that fact leaves out is everything that led up to it. What was said, what was seen, what was feared.

Speaker 4 And whether what Brianna did that night was premeditated or panicked intent.

Speaker 4 Brianna stole Halia's life, but now she gets to wait for her sentence from the comfort of her family's home in Westerville, Ohio.

Speaker 4 For the next month, Brianna will sleep in her own bed, eat her favorite meals, meals, scroll through her phone, and take long hot showers.

Speaker 4 She's free, for now.

Speaker 4 Halia, on the other hand, is dead, and her family lives inside a grief that has no end.

Speaker 4 Even if Brianna gets the maximum sentence, she could be out by the age of 23.

Speaker 4 She will step into a future where most people will never know. She's a murderer.
She'll carry on with the very life she stole. No one in the courtroom is satisfied.

Speaker 4 No one truly understands how it came to this. If Brianna had stayed at home that night, maybe Halia would still be alive.

Speaker 4 Whatever happened between those two girls, it didn't start that night, but it did end in murder. Now, let's rewind to about a year before Brianna stood in the courtroom, March 26th, 2023,

Speaker 4 the evening Halia died.

Speaker 8 Oh,

Speaker 8 I got his club this year.

Speaker 8 He said,

Speaker 8 Okay, calm down. He said, 1PT1.

Speaker 8 Carry out, slow stop. I'm also going to.

Speaker 4 It was almost midnight in Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 4 Such a beautiful place, Ohio is. I always say.
In the desolate parking lot of a strip mall, Halia Culbertson's best friend, Kenzie Adrian, called 911 desperate for help.

Speaker 4 Halia was sitting in the front seat of a Jeep that belonged to their other friend, Daylen Barrich.

Speaker 4 Halia took labored breaths as blood spilled down her neck and onto her orange tank top and pants.

Speaker 8 I know who stopped it. I know who stopped it.
Who was it that did this?

Speaker 8 Brie, Bergie. Brianna, here, Bergie.

Speaker 8 Brianna, okay.

Speaker 8 Wait, Brian. Mergie.
She watched it in a third year with Sean, and I don't know if you guys got it, but they watched a smoked stop.

Speaker 4 Kenzie couldn't get the information out faster. She needed it to be known.
Brianna Barrozzini stabbed Halia.

Speaker 4 They all witnessed it.

Speaker 4 Dalen wrapped his shirt around Halia's neck, pressing hard to stop the bleeding. Kenzie clutched her hand, whispering to Halia.

Speaker 4 They waited, their ears straining for sirens, hearts pounding.

Speaker 4 Kenzie and Daylin were paralyzed by the helplessness of it all.

Speaker 4 Then the police swarmed in.

Speaker 9 Get back, boss. Just get back.
I know, you're up.

Speaker 10 I know. I know.
I need you to stay back, alright? You gotta let them do their work, okay?

Speaker 10 Come on, guys, let's get back.

Speaker 11 Let's get back. Come on.

Speaker 11 Come on.

Speaker 12 I understand. Let's get back.

Speaker 10 Okay, I'm gonna get your information.

Speaker 11 Did you see it? Yes, we did.

Speaker 10 Who saw it happen? Me, him.

Speaker 12 Okay. Red hoodie.

Speaker 9 Okay, in the red hoodie? Yes.

Speaker 10 All right, I need you to get in the cruiser for me, okay? I'm gonna have to get you off your phone, alright?

Speaker 10 I understand that, but I need you.

Speaker 4 The parking lot was utter chaos.

Speaker 4 As police quickly assessed the situation amongst these crying, red-faced teenagers, the paramedics scooped up Palia into a stretcher and whisked her to the nearest hospital.

Speaker 4 Daylen and Kenzie were left in the parking lot, shaking from adrenaline and terror. The police officer guided Kenzie to his squad car, instructing her to hang up her cell phone and sit down.

Speaker 11 Have a seat.

Speaker 10 Is that you said that's your friend?

Speaker 13 Yes, it's my best friend.

Speaker 11 Okay, what's her name?

Speaker 14 Halia, H-A-L-I-A.

Speaker 4 Hold on, one sec, one sec. I know it's hard.
I can write now.

Speaker 4 Kenzie sat looking up at the cop, her eyes wide and teary. She stroked the end of her long ponytail like a child with a security blanket.

Speaker 15 Do you know where she lives?

Speaker 11 Yes. Okay, where does she live?

Speaker 12 She lives in Sudbury, Ohio, but I don't know exactly. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 16 Actually, I need you here. We need to have a...

Speaker 9 I need you.

Speaker 10 Get that guy in the red hoodie. He saw it.

Speaker 12 And this guy, too. I know.
I'm here. I know.
Okay.

Speaker 12 Just sit down.

Speaker 12 We have to tell them what happened.

Speaker 16 I need to separate you guys.

Speaker 17 Okay, that's fine. Just for the integrity of the story.

Speaker 17 I got you. I'm over here.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 4 The parking lot pulsed with streetlights and the flashing blue of cop cars. Daylon stormed towards Kenzie, begging to sit with his sister, but an officer blocked him.

Speaker 4 No one knew exactly what had happened yet, and right now they needed calm. Not a shirtless, panicked Dalen tearing through the scene.

Speaker 18 All right, what happened?

Speaker 11 Brie Berezini stabbed her.

Speaker 13 They were getting into a fight. I was sitting in the Jeep because I cannot be around Bri Berezini because her baby dad, her brothers, my baby dad, and me and her have issues.

Speaker 14 Do you know how to spell Berizzini?

Speaker 12 B-A-R-O-R-R-Z-Z-I-N-I.

Speaker 9 Z-I-N-I.

Speaker 11 Okay. She'll be a 31 a day.

Speaker 3 Pine Oak Court, Westerville, Ohio is where she lives.

Speaker 11 I did that on my car. Okay.

Speaker 15 She lives in Westerville, you think?

Speaker 13 I know she lives in Westerville.

Speaker 14 She lives in Western Europe.

Speaker 13 They got in a fight. Go ahead.
They got into a fight.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 13 as Halia walked to the front door of the Jeep, I saw she had a gash on her. She got in the car and she goes, I'm getting lause.
I hopped out the car.

Speaker 13 I called my mom because I didn't see the fucking fight. I was sitting in the Jeep looking away.

Speaker 4 Kenzie was in shock, scrambling with her words, but what she knew was that Brianna Berezzini had stabbed Halia.

Speaker 4 Kenzie had issues with Brianna from the past, so she stayed away from the fights between the girls. The next thing she knew, Halia was bleeding from the neck.

Speaker 13 You didn't see the actual fight. No, but I know who Bri Berezini is.

Speaker 11 I know her mother, and I know her address.

Speaker 12 Okay, okay.

Speaker 9 All right, hang out for me, okay?

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 4 As Kenzie nervously puffed on her nicotine vape, the officer marched towards another kid who had witnessed the fight.

Speaker 3 I kind of saw the mama, but I didn't see

Speaker 12 It just looked like they were throwing punches.

Speaker 15 Do you know either of them?

Speaker 11 I know her, that was it.

Speaker 7 Who?

Speaker 16 Halia, the one that got stabbed. That was it.

Speaker 9 You know her, but you don't know. I barely, like, I know him.

Speaker 13 I worked with Dalyn for a little bit and I was hanging out with him tonight.

Speaker 9 I need

Speaker 14 you. Where did it happen at?

Speaker 3 Yeah, here, take that person.

Speaker 11 It's right here in the front.

Speaker 9 Like, in the front of the smoke shop?

Speaker 10 Yes, sir.

Speaker 21 Okay.

Speaker 4 The officer officer continued collecting pieces of the story and fragments from the teenagers.

Speaker 4 The fight had happened in the strip mall outside of a smoke shop that sold vapes, snacks, drinks, you know, all the things that keep teenagers alive.

Speaker 4 Next, the officer headed to the store, kicking oblivious customers off the property as he made his way inside.

Speaker 10 Hey guys, I have to shut this off. Somebody just got stabbed, and I need to basically close your doors.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry.

Speaker 9 Okay, even better.

Speaker 10 Just don't let anybody come out this way, okay? Go out the back.

Speaker 4 The officer closed the smoke shop, and patrolmen started taping off the entire parking lot.

Speaker 4 Outside another police vehicle, a few yards away from where Kenzie sat waiting, Daylon was pacing towards another officer.

Speaker 14 You were standing right there?

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 12 Is that the case?

Speaker 7 Okay, alright, come on.

Speaker 4 Is your sister that got cut?

Speaker 16 No, she's not blood related, but I'm not her since she was fucking 12.

Speaker 14 It's a good friend of yours.

Speaker 7 Yeah, man. What's your first name?

Speaker 4 Dalen's bare chest was covered in Halia's blood. He cried as he walked with the officer.
giving him all the information without question.

Speaker 4 He kept calling Halia his sister, even though they weren't actually related. It's the kind of thing that made sense in his world, where closeness didn't need blood to feel real.

Speaker 4 They'd been friends for half his life, which for some, like Dalen, felt like forever. Long enough for him to believe he had a duty to protect her.

Speaker 4 Daylon stood up and pulled out his cell phone, holding up the screen for the officer to see. He had the entire fight on video, every brutal second.
He even posted it on Snapchat.

Speaker 4 Daylon, her self-proclaimed brother, thought he was protecting her, but what he didn't realize was that he may have helped to get her killed.

Speaker 4 Because buried in the footage, beneath the shouting and the blood, was something that no one had noticed.

Speaker 4 Something

Speaker 4 that changed everything.

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Speaker 4 Outside of a smoke shop in a strip mall in Columbus, Ohio, an opening that clearly tells you nothing good's coming.

Speaker 4 18-year-old Brianna Berezzini had stabbed 17-year-old Halia Culbertson during a fight.

Speaker 4 When police arrived on the scene, they found a group of distraught teenagers who had witnessed the brawl, and one boy, Dalen Barich, had filmed the entire thing on his phone.

Speaker 4 Brianna had fled the scene after the fight, and as another troop of officers headed to her house to track her down, the ones on the scene continued talking to the witnesses, Halia's best friends, Daylin and Kenzie.

Speaker 4 After all, Daylon had the whole fight on his cell phone. Through tears, he passed his phone over and started playing.
In the clip, you see Halia.

Speaker 4 She towers over Brianna by about a foot. Halia is walking towards Brianna with her arms out, shouting,

Speaker 23 Hey, get off my sister, bro.

Speaker 4 Halia charges towards Brianna, yelling, who's obsessed? Over and over. Brianna backs up.
She's got two canned drinks in her hand, and her boyfriend is beside her.

Speaker 4 He holds her arms and tries to guard her, being cautious not to touch Halia at all. In the background, Dalen starts to tell him to get off his sister.

Speaker 24 Hey, if you touch my sister again, I'm going to have to put my phone down, bro.

Speaker 23 Halia, crunch her ass and get it over with, bro. Crunch your ass and get it over with, Halia.

Speaker 4 Oh, great. More thug culture.
Halia keeps charging forward, screaming in Brianna's face as Dalen keeps yelling. That's when some say Brianna pulls out a knife from her pocket.

Speaker 4 Others insist it was already in her hand. Halia keeps thundering towards her.
That's when Halia's open hand slaps Brianna across the face. The fight ignites.

Speaker 23 Yeah, crunch your ass, Halia! Crunch your ass, Halia!

Speaker 23 Crunch your

Speaker 12 You just leaked her ass.

Speaker 4 The motion is lightning fast, but that's when Brianna swings the knife up and slashes Halia across the throat. But Halia doesn't stop.
She keeps yelling.

Speaker 4 She keeps swinging her fists and throwing her body towards Brianna as blood spills and canned drinks go flying onto the pavement and explode. Which raises a chilling possibility.

Speaker 4 Did Brianna even realize the knife connected? Did anyone?

Speaker 4 For a moment, it seemed like no one had been hurt at all. The fight breaks up, and Brianna's boyfriend pulls her away.
Halia stumbles towards Daylen, and the video cuts out.

Speaker 4 The fight is crystal clear, despite how short and frenzied the whole ordeal was. But

Speaker 4 what isn't clear is why it all started.

Speaker 4 But for that information, the officers first turn to Dayling.

Speaker 11 What did all start over?

Speaker 15 So, alright, so Kenzie, Kenzie's baby dad is Bree's older brother,

Speaker 4 right? Who's Kenzie?

Speaker 15 The one in that right here.

Speaker 16 Yeah, the blonde.

Speaker 9 The blonde. Okay, the black.

Speaker 11 Who called. Right.

Speaker 16 So her brother.

Speaker 15 Her baby dad is her brother.

Speaker 2 And her dad.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 16 Kenzie's baby dad?

Speaker 15 Yes, Kenzie's baby dad.

Speaker 9 Okay, so the girl here,

Speaker 16 she has a baby dad, and the baby dad is Brie's older brother. Older brother, got it.

Speaker 15 They've had beef for the

Speaker 20 child's going to get four years old, so they've had beef for almost five years type shit.

Speaker 11 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 Brianna's older brother is the father of Kenzie's child. This relationship went very sour.

Speaker 4 Halia, being Kenzie's best friend, sided with her and developed a hatred for the entire Berezini family, as did Daylon. After all, Halia and Kenzie were his so-called sisters.

Speaker 4 Daylin was a classic Latchkeetine,

Speaker 4 untethered, looking for something to hold on to. After his own mother kicked him out, he found a sense of belonging in Kenzie's world.

Speaker 4 Her Her family became his anchor, and he clung to that feeling of home with everything he had.

Speaker 4 Fiercely loyal but emotionally adrift, Dalen absorbed every ripple of drama between Kenzie, Halia, and the Berezini family.

Speaker 4 To most adults, it would have seemed like none of his business, but to Dalen, it was everything.

Speaker 4 He didn't just insert himself, he dug in. rooted himself in the chaos, convinced it was where he was meant to be.
Dalen wasn't just going along for the ride that night. He was steering the ship.

Speaker 4 And when the fight broke out, he didn't step back. He stepped in.
He stepped up, I guess you would say, with his cell phone in one hand and vicarious vengeance in his heart.

Speaker 3 But, like, that's my little sister, and I've always been protective over her.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 3 Bray Berezini,

Speaker 15 the girl who did this shit, she just always runs. She just sits there and she talks shit.

Speaker 3 She talks shit. And

Speaker 3 I saw the knife fucking drop, but I didn't think it got used, bro. Brie and Halia were supposed to be fighting while they were in the Columbus.

Speaker 9 This was like a plan thing or what?

Speaker 3 No, it was random as fuck.

Speaker 9 She came in while we came in.

Speaker 4 The whole fight was spur of the moment. Halia and Brianna had known beef for months.

Speaker 4 According to Kenzie, it was just a normal evening at the smoke shop, joking around with the store's owner that they all knew. Then Brianna and her boyfriend walked in.

Speaker 25 Brie walks in with her friend Ead, Ead

Speaker 25 and I didn't notice until Halia goes, that's Brie fucking Berezini.

Speaker 18 I said, oh god.

Speaker 25 I turned around and I saw her. She looked at me.
I looked at her. I turned around.

Speaker 18 How do you guys know her?

Speaker 25 I know Brie because she's my baby dad's sister.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 25 And I've known Brie since middle school. And I'm not allowed legally I don't go around her or her brother or her family.
Why not? I was 15 and her brother was 19 when I got pregnant. Okay.

Speaker 4 When Kenzie had a relationship with Brianna's older brother, she was a minor and he was legally an adult, which made the situation

Speaker 4 a problem.

Speaker 4 A big one.

Speaker 25 Yeah, because I didn't know he was 19. He told me he was 17, figured out he was turning 18.
And then he turned, he was already 18, and then he turned 19.

Speaker 25 I got pregnant when I was 15, in April when he was 19 that year. So I was like, oh, that's great.

Speaker 4 When Kenzie's family found out Brianna's brother was 19, they filed criminal charges against him. This caused a major rift between the two families.

Speaker 4 Still, Kenzie allowed Brianna and her parents to visit the child on one condition. The child's father was not allowed to visit.

Speaker 4 Everything was going all right until they disrespected the rule and allowed Brianna's brother to sneak a visit.

Speaker 25 Because before then, they would be like, yeah, and they'd come over and I'd see her or they would drop stuff off.

Speaker 25 But they just obeyed everything and I caught them in a lie and I they saw them out in public with him and I picked up my daughter and I said,

Speaker 25 you are all fucked in line.

Speaker 25 And they were like, you can't tell me what to do. I said, this 19-year-old's going to tell your 35-year-old ass what I can do.
Put my daughter in my car and I left.

Speaker 4 That's when Kenzie banned anyone from the Berezini family from seeing the child, including Brianna.

Speaker 4 Resentment grew between the two girls.

Speaker 25 She doesn't like me because I don't let her or her family see my daughter.

Speaker 25 Because her brother's not a good person.

Speaker 25 I have a restraining order on him. He's legally not allowed to be around me or my family.

Speaker 4 This battle of custody, restraining orders, and accusations had been going on for years.

Speaker 4 So when Kenzie saw Brianna enter the smokeshop on that March evening, she immediately wanted to get as far away from her as possible. But Halia had other plans.

Speaker 25 Her and Brie start going at it because Brie gets behind us in line.

Speaker 25 And Halia goes you obsessed or what because Brie posts take talk tick tocks about Halia all the time Just saying like they were friends at one point.

Speaker 18 I don't really know what happened then do they go to school together? Mm-mm.

Speaker 25 I don't know what issues they have but they have like like they hate each other.

Speaker 25 They got something Bries called Halia cokehead Halia called Bria cokehead and was talking about her abusive brother and was talking about her family being shitty and then Bri was talking about Halia's mom and then Helio was like well I'll catch you outside then come outside and Bri was all right bet I'll be outside then so I

Speaker 25 got into the jeep in the front seat and I was looking forward because I'm not part of this fight

Speaker 18 so that all happened in the store yeah where they were where Brie was like come on outside and Helia was like I'll be outside Brie said she'll be outside Helio told her to come outside I'll catch you outside All right, bet.

Speaker 4 Why do kids sound like retards these days? We've already got a language. You don't have to make up new definitions for existing words just to make yourself feel special.

Speaker 4 You're already plenty, plenty special, trust me. Anyway, according to Kenzie, it was that simple.
Brianna and Halia started arguing, and the store then agreed to continue things outside.

Speaker 4 Kenzie said that Brianna had posted nasty things to TikTok about Halia.

Speaker 4 that their feud may have been fueled by Halia's loyalty to Kenzie and her situation, but that they had their own fight independent of her problems with Brianna's family.

Speaker 4 This wasn't a premeditated showdown, it was a chance encounter that spiraled fast. But even in spontaneous fights, there's a history, and this one had years of it simmering just below the surface.

Speaker 4 No one's saying Halia deserved what happened, but this wasn't a clean-cut case of victim and villain. Both girls carried grudges, and when the the moment came, they each brought their rage with them.

Speaker 4 Helia and her friends waited outside in the dark while Kenzie sat in the Jeep to distance herself from Brianna.

Speaker 25 They were outside of the Jeep, and I was like, I'm not part of this shit, guys. I'm going fucking car.
You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I'm not part of this shit.

Speaker 18 And then

Speaker 25 all I heard was them fighting.

Speaker 25 I didn't really see anything.

Speaker 25 I didn't see anything at all until

Speaker 25 Helia was walking up to the front door, like to the driver door of the car, and all I can see is that she's bleeding.

Speaker 25 I'm holding her wrist, and I'm trying to check for a pulse, and she peed her pants, and her eyes,

Speaker 25 she was non-responsive.

Speaker 5 Did you see Helia with any weapons?

Speaker 25 No, she didn't have anything. Okay.

Speaker 25 I had all of her stuff. I had her pepper spray.
I had her keys. I had it all.
She didn't have anything on her except hands.

Speaker 4 Kenzie and Dalen told the same story. The fight wasn't planned.
It started in the smoke shop, just another chance encounter that got out of hand.

Speaker 4 Brianna agreed to meet Halia outside to finish what they had started. Brianna had a hidden knife.
Halia had nothing but her two hands.

Speaker 4 She looked like a victim of an unfair fight, but looks can lie.

Speaker 4 Because at the same moment, another group of officers were at Brianna's door. They had found her and her boyfriend inside.
Brianna had showered, and her bloody clothes were in the wash.

Speaker 4 The knife was hidden upstairs. At the station, Brianna's boyfriend sat down with the police to talk.

Speaker 28 Or just start, like, how did you get up there?

Speaker 27 Who were you with?

Speaker 21 So, I was with Bri

Speaker 21 and we headed there just right after a car meet.

Speaker 21 We were there, we got there around 11:30, 11:40.

Speaker 21 As soon as we got in, we noticed Alia

Speaker 21 and

Speaker 21 a girl named Kenzie and some guy I don't never seen before. We tried to move out the way because there's always been issues between us ever since November.

Speaker 27 Between who specifically?

Speaker 21 So it's always been issues between me, Bri, and Halia.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 21 Kenzie has had some long-term issues with

Speaker 5 Bri and her family, yeah.

Speaker 21 Halia said something, Brie called her obsessed, and then it started an argument.

Speaker 21 The guy over

Speaker 21 the counter,

Speaker 21 Ben, he said he doesn't want anything to do with this, so he got Halia, Kenzie, and her friend outside. And then Halia was yelling a lot, and then

Speaker 21 Bri the whole time was just

Speaker 21 trying to say, I don't want to fight you.

Speaker 4 Brianna's boyfriend had a feeling there would be trouble when he saw Halia, Kenzie, and Daylin.

Speaker 4 So they tried their best to avoid them. But Halia started shouting at Brianna, instigating a loud and vicious confrontation.
The cashier kicked Halia, Kenzie, and Daylin out of the store.

Speaker 4 When police spoke with him, he confirmed this. The cashier told police that when the altercation in the store heated up, he knew he had to take action and remove Halia and her friends.

Speaker 29 So I told my co-worker, like, I'm going to defuse this.

Speaker 30 So I stepped outside and was talking to her.

Speaker 29 She

Speaker 29 got stabbed.

Speaker 32 The one that got sad, you were talking to her.

Speaker 29 I was trying to tell her, like, I got

Speaker 31 this business, but I'll just go.

Speaker 4 But they didn't go.

Speaker 4 Dalen started egging Halia on, riling her anger into a frenzy. He pulled out his phone and started filming.

Speaker 29 He's standing right there and he's recording everything. And so she's getting upset thinking

Speaker 29 the two telling me to go out there to stop her when really is

Speaker 29 don't want no incident to happen here period period blank.

Speaker 32 The one I was recording was he with the girl that got stabbed?

Speaker 31 Yes. He was with her.
Okay.

Speaker 29 So he instigated it when I just calmed everything down even though she was still upset. Yeah.

Speaker 29 Really?

Speaker 29 Yeah. And recording everything.

Speaker 29 So

Speaker 4 footage of the smokeshop's outdoor camera showed showed Halia, Dalen, and Kenzie being escorted out of the store. They disappeared into the parking lot.

Speaker 4 Then, about two minutes later, you see Halia come back to the front of the store. She's pacing like a bull, yelling and waving her arms, taunting Brianna from outside.

Speaker 4 In the corner, you could see Daylen following her around with a cell phone, filming. Here's that recording.

Speaker 17 Where's she at, bro? Where's she at, bro?

Speaker 17 She's scared, bro.

Speaker 17 She's scared. Helio should drag her out the store, buds.

Speaker 17 No, we waited right here until you get your ones.

Speaker 4 I've been waiting to see her ass get beat for a minute, bro.

Speaker 4 You should get arrested just for that laugh. That's when the cashier came outside again, telling Halia and Daylen to go home.

Speaker 32 So he wasn't helping the situation at all.

Speaker 33 Nobody was helping nobody. No one.

Speaker 29 Like,

Speaker 29 it was a dead silence. The two girls was talking to me.
The other two were shopping.

Speaker 29 And once they had their words exchanged, nobody was trying to say, chill, calm down, nothing. I'm the only one telling them, like, just go, chill out, go ahead, go leave the store.

Speaker 4 According to the smokeshop cashier, it was Dalen who took the situation from bad to worse.

Speaker 4 The boy who was so hell-bent on protecting his so-called sister was the one who egged on the needless fight that ended in murder. Brianna's boyfriend said the same thing.

Speaker 21 The male who was with her just kept instigating, just trying to make them fight. I try to push away Bernie and Halia

Speaker 21 because I'm sort of like, I don't personally like Halia, but I don't have the biggest problem with her.

Speaker 21 I just try to basically end things without, you know, getting anybody hurt.

Speaker 4 You've heard the video. Anytime that Brianna's boyfriend tried to pull the two girls apart, Dalen inserted himself and threatened violence.

Speaker 24 If you touch my sister, girl, I'm going to have to put my phone down, bro.

Speaker 23 Halia, crunch her ass and get it over with, bro. Crunch your ass and get it over with, Halia.

Speaker 27 But he's basically saying don't don't touch her

Speaker 21 yeah and the whole time I don't know if the video shows this but I was trying to back them up

Speaker 21 from from each other. Uh it was polite like back uh back of the hand uh

Speaker 5 so obviously he didn't like it.

Speaker 11 So I tried playing with Brian and that's when everything escalated.

Speaker 21 Basically if that if he didn't instigate Halia to

Speaker 21 start the fight,

Speaker 21 none of this would have happened.

Speaker 4 Brianna's boyfriend said that the stabbing happened so fast he barely realized it until he noticed a sticky liquid on his own body. Still, the police needed to know why Brianna brandished that knife.

Speaker 4 Why was she even carrying one in the first place?

Speaker 5 When did you know that Bri had a knife?

Speaker 21 She's been carrying knives.

Speaker 30 She always carries knives.

Speaker 21 She always carries knives because

Speaker 21 just a lot of people try to, you know, attack her or just try to come up to her because

Speaker 21 the issues with Halia and Bri has always been a thing since November. What happened in November? Halia was just using me and

Speaker 21 Bri

Speaker 21 you know saying she has a kid, she doesn't have a kid,

Speaker 21 basically using that as an excuse to get money or

Speaker 21 anything really to just get as much money as she can.

Speaker 21 saying she needs to pay for gas and she doesn't even drive. It just became a whole mess.
We just left it at that.

Speaker 21 And every once in a while, like either Halia would call me.

Speaker 21 I would typically ignore.

Speaker 21 Or she would just message Bri on Instagram.

Speaker 21 Just talking crap.

Speaker 11 It just happens every couple of months.

Speaker 21 Just randomly starts calling again.

Speaker 4 No one could really explain what had gone down between Brianna and Halia to make their friendship curdle into hatred and violence. But it was all petty, silly teenage stuff.

Speaker 4 Lies, manipulation, Instagram DMs, and TikTok gossip.

Speaker 4 Bullshit.

Speaker 28 Did Halia have any weapons or anything? Did she have a knife out or anything?

Speaker 21 I don't recall if she had a knife out, but I know she does carry, typically, typically carries a knife, and then she always talks about

Speaker 21 carrying guns and all that. That's why we take her threats very seriously because she always talks about either having guns, hanging out with people that have guns,

Speaker 21 saying that she can kill us. It's just been a whole mess.

Speaker 4 Halia may have used big, bad threats about knowing friends with guns and saying she was going to kill Brianna.

Speaker 4 But Brianna was the one who brandished the blade and sliced it across Halia's neck. But Brianna's boyfriend said there were many reasons why Brianna always carried a knife.

Speaker 21 Another reason is that her ex-boyfriend is abusive, always pulls up around 161,

Speaker 21 and just that 161 is not the best area to be in.

Speaker 21 Because,

Speaker 21 first of all, she's small, she can't really protect herself in any other way.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 the way most of these people fight now,

Speaker 21 they fight to kill.

Speaker 4 After the fight was over, Brianna and her boyfriend left the scene. They drove back to Brianna's house where her brother was waiting, the one who fathered Kenzie's child.

Speaker 4 Brianna's boyfriend said that he washed the knife and gave it to her brother.

Speaker 21 So I took it to the bathroom because it was still dripping blood, clinging as much as possible.

Speaker 21 And then I gave to Cameron in the living room.

Speaker 21 You gave the knife to Cameron? Yeah.

Speaker 5 So you actually cleaned it up some?

Speaker 21 He had cleaned it up some because just it just kept dripping off the actual knife and they're gonna go on and get it all over the place.

Speaker 4 Brianna's boyfriend and brother had hidden a murder weapon. But no one knew Halia was dying.
After the stab, she kept swinging and screaming. She didn't stop or surrender.

Speaker 4 Not until Brianna was gone and she sank into Dalen's car did her friends realize how deep the damage went. Dalen's phone marked the fight at 11:48 p.m.

Speaker 4 By 12:24 a.m., Halia was pronounced dead at the hospital. According to the autopsy, the knife struck a critical zone in Halia's clavicle, damaging a major artery.

Speaker 4 Over half a gallon of blood poured into her chest.

Speaker 4 She didn't stand a chance.

Speaker 4 Still, Brianna insisted her violence was all a panicked reaction to Halia's confrontation. It was all just a blur.

Speaker 4 She premeditated nothing.

Speaker 34 And they're screaming at me, and then

Speaker 34 the dude tells Halia to run up on me.

Speaker 34 And she's walking up, and I keep telling her, I'm not fighting you, back up. I said, you're not worth it.

Speaker 34 I keep telling her to back up, and I get my knife out in my hand, and I'm holding it and I said, back up.

Speaker 2 And she attacks me.

Speaker 34 She first slapped me. She was pushing me.

Speaker 34 Well before that he had was trying to like push her away from me, but the other guy said was yelling at him to not touch her or else he was gonna do something to him.

Speaker 34 I don't know what exactly happened, but I went like this

Speaker 34 and then she dragged me by my hair on the ground and like there was just blood in my eyes. I couldn't see anything.

Speaker 23 Crunch her ass, Aaliyah!

Speaker 12 Fuck her up!

Speaker 20 What's up, bitch?

Speaker 24 You better get your girl for she get fucked up even more!

Speaker 34 I don't think I hit her or anything, because I was on the ground getting blood out of my eyes.

Speaker 34 I had no idea what was going on. I was just in shock at that point.

Speaker 4 It's chilling how clear it is on video. Halia charges at Brianna, who retreats, murmuring that she doesn't want to fight.
But Halia keeps coming.

Speaker 4 Dalen records it all, his voice rising with every shout.

Speaker 4 Not warning them, not breaking it up, just feeding the fire. Dalen wasn't a bystander, he was the catalyst.
But then Brianna flashes the knife.

Speaker 4 Halia slaps her, Brianna swings, and blood splatters all over the pavement.

Speaker 4 Still, Halia yanks her to the ground and unleashes brutal blows, dragging her like a ragdoll. Had she survived, there's no question Halia would have won that fight.

Speaker 4 She kicked Brianna's ass, even with a hole in her neck. Now I'm turning ghetto.

Speaker 15 So during

Speaker 15 the fire, when she was hitting you,

Speaker 34 what happened with the knife during that time? It had dropped on the ground. Okay.
It was no longer in my hand.

Speaker 15 Did you know she had been cut at that point?

Speaker 34 I didn't know if it was me or her, because they were yelling, saying that they were laughing, saying that she made me bleed. So I was like, maybe there's a cut on me.

Speaker 34 But then I was looking all over myself when we got in the car. I was like,

Speaker 34 I don't think it's me. what does this all stem from like what's the animosity

Speaker 34 uh Halia used to be a really good friend of mine

Speaker 34 and then I found out a lot that like she's just a really bad person so I stopped being friends with her my friend Iad stopped talking to her and then after that she pretty much just went crazy like saying she was gonna kill us and slash his tires and do all these things and like she does to most people.

Speaker 4 To her friends, Halia was fearless, the kind of girl who would never back down. To Brianna, she was dangerous and unhinged.

Speaker 4 Two versions of the same Halia,

Speaker 4 told by people who loved her and people who feared her. Was Brianna the victim of Halia's rabid aggression? Was this simply self-defense?

Speaker 4 But there was one thing no one had seen yet. Not even the police.

Speaker 4 It was something buried in the digital noise from two weeks before the fight. A text message from Brianna to her friend, tossed off like a joke, maybe even forgotten.

Speaker 4 After a long rant with her friend about Halia's behavior, Brianna signed off with this message: I would sooner slice Halia's throat if she comes near me again.

Speaker 4 Just words, just teenage anger, but now, with Halia dead from a single stab to the neck, these didn't feel like just words anymore.

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Speaker 4 17-year-old Halia Culbertson had died from a single stab wound to the neck during an impromptu street fight with her former friend, 18-year-old Brianna Berenzini.

Speaker 4 The two girls had been feuding for months, each claiming the other was just a bad person. But Halia's friend Kenzie also had big problems with her and her family.

Speaker 4 Kenzie had become pregnant when she was 15 with Brianna's older brother, who lied to her and told her he was a minor too, when he was not.

Speaker 4 Drama ran through that friend group like a river, a big river, and on the night of Halia's murder, it finally overflowed. Brianna was arrested on March 27th for the murder of Halia.

Speaker 4 She was taken to the county jail immediately following her police interview. The Berenzini family quickly took action and obtained a lawyer named Bob Crapants.

Speaker 1 For the last 20 years, I've been a criminal defense attorney practicing out of Columbus, Ohio, trying cases in state court, federal court, and representing people charged with really everything from speeding tickets to aggravated death penalty murder.

Speaker 4 Brianna's bond was set at $750,000, but she only spent two days in jail. Her family bonded her out as fast as they could and she went home under strict conditions from the court.

Speaker 4 That's when Bob stepped into the picture and got to know her side of the story.

Speaker 1 When the family came in and then Breon had a chance to explain what happened

Speaker 1 from her viewpoint, you know, there's a lot of thoughts that kind of go through your head.

Speaker 1 First one being, you know, how accurate is this account and what other evidence is there going to be out there?

Speaker 1 I never really believe, I think that a client comes in and tells me 100% of the truth accurately, not because they're lying, but they remember it a certain way.

Speaker 1 But my initial thought was, wow, this sounds to me like it was self-defense and more of an accident and unintentional, but also just a tragedy. Just a young girl sitting in front of me, very,

Speaker 1 very young.

Speaker 1 another young woman dead. So it was just, I hate to say senseless, but even at the first moment, I thought, this is just tragic.

Speaker 4 It was tragic. The fight that never should have happened.

Speaker 4 Brianna may have been fortunate enough to have been bonded out, but when she met her lawyer the first time, the prospect of going to prison for the rest of her life weighed on her heavily.

Speaker 1 My memories, it was a Saturday morning in my office, and she was there with her family, very quiet, very timid.

Speaker 1 You know, she didn't just gush out with the account. I had to kind of, you know, ask specific questions questions and she would get to it, but

Speaker 1 very quiet, very scared, very concerned, very, you know,

Speaker 1 overwhelmed. I mean, she had just been released from the jail, I suspect, within a day of coming to my office.
And her whole family, just supportive, but scared and appreciative of just

Speaker 1 how serious this was.

Speaker 4 And what about that text message? The one where Brianna said she would slice Halia's throat if she came after her.

Speaker 4 Previous texts showed that Brianna was upset because Halia had allegedly been driving past her house and making threats against her.

Speaker 4 Bob argues that the text had nothing to do with what happened that night.

Speaker 1 I would argue to the jury that's irrelevant to what happened that night. It would be relevant if my client went looking for her.

Speaker 1 It would be relevant if my client said, there she is, I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do in that text. But she didn't go looking for her.
They ran into each other purely by accident,

Speaker 1 bad luck, just by chance.

Speaker 1 So despite the text, those words, her actions that night spoke louder. She backed up.
She said, I didn't want to fight. She tried to avoid it.

Speaker 4 Brianna may have been backing away as Halia charged, screaming. But according to lead detective Timothy Pribe, Brianna made one move that raised questions.
She had a weapon. Halia didn't.

Speaker 4 And what Brianna did with that weapon gave the police pause when it came to her innocence.

Speaker 36 Halia was unarmed. She was clearly unarmed.
She did assault Brianna one time, open-handed smack, and then she turned and she walked away.

Speaker 36 I believe it was Brianna pulled out her knife 10 to 15 seconds prior. to the smack.

Speaker 36 So there's more of an intent to harm on her part.

Speaker 36 And if she's pulling out a knife with an intent to do harm, that's a felonious assault. And then that harm causes a death, that's a murder.

Speaker 4 Detective Pribe says that when they watched that video of the fight relentlessly, and not just their investigative team, but Pribe's boss and his boss's boss, analyzing every millisecond to make sure they weren't seeing things the wrong way, He says that Brianna pulled the knife out prior to being slapped by Halia.

Speaker 4 She holds it close to the side of her thigh, and the blade is out of the switch. That made all the difference in his eyes.

Speaker 36 Well, she keeps it concealed down at her leg.

Speaker 36 She pulls it out in a very comfortable manner and

Speaker 36 holds it down.

Speaker 36 And then

Speaker 36 after

Speaker 36 she's slapped and Halia is walking away, that's when she charges her. The key portion of this incident or this altercation is that after Halia slaps her, she turns and starts to walk away.

Speaker 36 And that's when Brianna then,

Speaker 36 you know, starts to swing her knife and she swings and misses. And then

Speaker 36 you see her come over the top and, you know, hit her right. you know, right at the top of the chest.

Speaker 4 Detective Pribe says that it wasn't the the fact that she had a knife that showed intent, but the manner in which Brianna used it.

Speaker 36 She doesn't want people to see that she has a weapon out and ready to go. That's how I'm looking at it, because she's not threatening her with it.
She's not trying to back her off with it.

Speaker 36 You know, she's not protecting herself with it.

Speaker 36 She's initiating the assault with a weapon.

Speaker 4 You can watch the whole video in our bonus content, and we encourage you to. The footage of Halia's death is haunting, but it also brought clarity.

Speaker 4 Every second of the raw, unfiltered truth was captured for both sides to examine.

Speaker 4 The state indicted Brianna on three charges: murder, murder committed during a felonious assault, and voluntary manslaughter.

Speaker 4 She was looking at 15 years to life for the murder charges and another 3 to 11 years for the manslaughter.

Speaker 4 As the media grabbed hold of this sensational girl fight and did what they always do, Bob worked on his defense, preparing for an intense and very public trial.

Speaker 1 When I first look at it, I say this is

Speaker 1 pretty classic self-defense. Now, Ohio law

Speaker 1 changed somewhat recently. It used to be that to claim self-defense, the defense would then have the burden of proving

Speaker 1 that the person was in

Speaker 1 fear of imminent, serious bodily harm or death, and that

Speaker 1 they did not use disproportional force to repel the attack. And

Speaker 1 that was the burden of the defense. That changed back in 2019.

Speaker 1 There was a House bill that passed and signed by the governor. And as a result of that, the prosecution now has the burden of proving that it is not self-defense.

Speaker 4 Ohio was the 37th state to pass this law, switching the burden of proof in a self-defense claim from the defense to the prosecution.

Speaker 4 To compound matters legally, Ohio passed another law in 2021 concerning self-defense cases.

Speaker 1 And that was

Speaker 1 a change in the law regarding your duty to retreat.

Speaker 1 It used to be that if you had a duty, you had a duty to retreat, unless, of course, you're in your home or your vehicle, then you did not have a duty.

Speaker 1 But otherwise, you had the responsibility if you could safely get away from the situation you had to get away from the situation and if a jury determined that yes you were in fear of imminent serious bodily harm or death yes you used reasonable force to repel the attack yes you did not cause the situation that gave rise to the affray but you had an out you could have left out the back door of the bar you were in or you could have run across the street from the field you were in If they found that you had the opportunity and ability to escape without exposing yourself to more harm, you could not claim self-defense.

Speaker 1 Between those two changes, again, fairly recently, you know,

Speaker 1 it changes the dynamic a little bit about how you look at self-defense cases because now a jury is going to be instructed, they are not even to consider whether or not the person could have escaped, could have left, could have fled the situation.

Speaker 1 It's nothing for them to consider. They don't get to determine, well, geez, that didn't have to happen.
She could have left. Nope.
She doesn't have a duty anymore.

Speaker 4 These changes to Ohio law were a clear win for the defense.

Speaker 4 Now it was the state's burden to prove that Brianna wasn't acting in legal self-defense, and the jury couldn't fault her. for staying in the parking lot before Halia struck first.

Speaker 4 With the video of the fight and the cascade of witnesses who all told the same story, it was looking like Brianna had a solid self-defense case.

Speaker 4 Tensions were high as Bob worked on his defense and the prosecution prepared their arguments. Halia may have started the fight, but she didn't walk into it expecting to die.
No one ever does, I guess.

Speaker 4 She didn't think Brianna would swing a knife.

Speaker 4 Who knows what was running through her mind when she slapped Brianna across the face, but I bet the last thing she imagined was dying in a hospital less than an hour later.

Speaker 4 Because, like Brianna's boyfriend told the detective, a fight isn't just a fight anymore. Not these days, that is.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 the way most of these people fight now, they fight to kill.

Speaker 4 Halia's family was grief-stricken, giving very few interviews to the media. Kenzie posted videos on TikTok about how much she missed her her best friend.
The guilt must have weighed so heavily on her.

Speaker 4 Could she have done something to stop this? Maybe if she'd been the only friend with Halia that night, none of this would have happened. As for Dalen, he was quiet all of a sudden.

Speaker 4 But Brianna's lawyer Bob was zeroing in on him.

Speaker 4 Because Bob had reviewed the case inside and out, and according to him, Dalen held as much responsibility in Halia's death as Brianna did.

Speaker 1 But I recognized right away that this Dalen kid who was recording this and encouraging it,

Speaker 1 it may not have happened had he not been doing what he was doing. People don't act the same

Speaker 1 when they know they're being videoed. They perform.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And, you know, this young man was the oldest of anybody there.

Speaker 1 And he could have stopped this so easily, but he egged it on while they were waiting for Breonna to leave the store. He egged it on while it was happening.

Speaker 1 This process of events, all of these little decisions that were made in the span of, call it 10 minutes that evening, at any given point, one different decision, and this doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 Halia's alive today.

Speaker 4 If Halia had been alone in the store that night, she might have just flipped Brianna off and gone home to rant about it on social media.

Speaker 4 But she wasn't alone. She had Daylin, her self-proclaimed brother, her

Speaker 4 hype man,

Speaker 4 her fierce defender, her peanut gallery. I could go on and on.

Speaker 4 And with him by her side, everything changed. Dalen, with his tears and loyalty, his dramatic storytelling and ride-or-die energy, he was the one who hit record.

Speaker 4 Halia wasn't just showing off for Daylen and his phone. She was performing for the entire internet.
That's a lot of people. She knew this clip would hit social media.

Speaker 4 She knew this would be on sorting scale. Now she didn't, but you get my drift.
She wasn't just in a fight. She was on a stage with an invisible crowd ready to judge her, mock her, and meme her.

Speaker 4 Y'all motherfuckers are vicious.

Speaker 4 That kind of pressure warps everything and anything.

Speaker 4 Maybe that's why she didn't back down, even when a knife was flashed inches from her face.

Speaker 4 Maybe that's why she kept threatening Brianna, acting harder than she felt, because fear in a viral video looks like weakness.

Speaker 4 And nobody wants to be weak.

Speaker 4 And Brianna?

Speaker 4 Maybe she didn't pull that knife out to win the fight. Maybe she pulled it out because she knew losing would be captured, replayed, and ridiculed endlessly.
Maybe the blade wasn't about fear of Halia.

Speaker 4 Maybe it was about fear of becoming a joke on the internet. The girl who got wrecked and went viral for all the wrong reasons, that sort of thing.

Speaker 4 And it still happened anyway. But by hitting record,

Speaker 4 Daylon changed the entire course of these girls'

Speaker 4 lives.

Speaker 1 All it takes is for a friend to say, hey, you know what?

Speaker 1 Let her go. Let's get in the car.

Speaker 1 Or I'm going to put my phone away. I'm not going to do this.
Or, you you know what, Halia,

Speaker 1 let's go. You know, whatever.

Speaker 4 She's not worth it.

Speaker 1 One person says that, and maybe it derails the whole thing. Maybe the decision by my client, Brianna, stay in the store longer.
Now, I don't know if she even knew Halia was waiting for her.

Speaker 1 Or when she did see her, maybe retreat back into the store.

Speaker 1 Or don't pull the knife out of my pocket. Or don't open the knife.

Speaker 1 Okay, I mean, there's many, many decisions that were made by multiple people and any one of them, a different decision, I think this thing goes a different direction.

Speaker 36 Look at Brianna's boyfriend. I mean, yeah, he was standing next to her the whole time and he was kind of, sort of trying to stop it.

Speaker 36 But if he was the biggest dude out there, I mean, if he could have just walked her to the car and put her in the car, that was always an option, you know, but they stood out there.

Speaker 36 And I get it. It's a situation that you can't, you know, you necessarily don't know what you're going to do when you're in that situation, but so many things that

Speaker 36 people could have just made decisions to step in and de-escalate it.

Speaker 4 Many people could have stepped in, but they didn't. It really came down to Halia, Daylen, and Brianna, who each played a part in how this night unraveled.

Speaker 4 They all had choices, and they all made the wrong ones. feeding off of each other's fear, ego, and adrenaline.
Idiots, wilding on TikTok.

Speaker 4 Someone should really do a study on how much harm and literal death social media has inadvertently caused. The results are probably terrifying, which is why we'll never get one.

Speaker 4 That and the fact that morons love to change the meaning of words, kind of like these kids, often to suit their own narrative. So, harm?

Speaker 4 What harm? What do you mean by harm? Never heard of it. What's your definition of harm? That sort of thing.

Speaker 4 Utter bullshit. The whole mess was a chain reaction.
Halia paid with her life. Brianna faced prison.
And Dalen, well,

Speaker 4 that innocent, doe-eyed stoner boy with a magical cackle that resonates throughout the vape store, strip mall parking lot and a heart of gold? Well, he walked away scot-free like just another witness.

Speaker 4 When Bob said he was so much more.

Speaker 1 So when I look at who's responsible or who played a part in this death, I look at him and say, you know what?

Speaker 1 You had such a role in this thing. And it was so unnecessary.
And it was so childish. And it was so dangerous.

Speaker 1 And it's just so maddening that right away I'm thinking, you know, I can understand Halia. I can understand Brianna.
I can't understand Dalen.

Speaker 4 We looked up Dalen's record, of course. By 21, he'd racked up nine arrests, drunk driving, assault, and firearm charges.
You know, like a gangsta.

Speaker 4 Half came before Halia's death, and the other half came after, like clockwork. Dalen was astray, cut loose by his own family, absorbed into Kenzie and Halia's orbit like a ticking time bomb.

Speaker 4 Maybe he knew what he did. Maybe the arrests, the violence, the reckless spiral.
They weren't just all accidents.

Speaker 4 They were confessions written in chaos.

Speaker 1 I'll be honest, when I first met the prosecutor, my first suggestion was to charge that guy.

Speaker 1 But they felt that after interviewing all the other witnesses, they felt that Halia was going to do what Halia was going to do, and they didn't really spill the blame over to Dalen.

Speaker 4 I see it differently, but

Speaker 1 that's not unusual. To me, there's some responsibility that should have been placed at his feet.

Speaker 4 But that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 4 Still, Brianna was the killer, not Dalen.

Speaker 4 She was on trial for murder. And Bob had a big task ahead of him, despite the law changes that swayed in his direction.
Brianna made the choice to pull out that knife and swing it. She killed Halia.

Speaker 4 End of story.

Speaker 1 You know, I thought we had a problem with the weapon, and I also thought that we had a problem or difficulty with just the sadness of the thing.

Speaker 1 There is a family who is grieving, and rightfully so.

Speaker 1 There's a girl there who is young and dead, and it's horrible. And

Speaker 1 juries feel that they see sympathy and

Speaker 1 it's normal as humans. We want somebody to answer for this tragedy.
We want somebody to be responsible for this tragedy. And the only person on

Speaker 4 trial is Brianna.

Speaker 1 My whole approach was my client didn't want to fight. She wanted to back up.
She kept backing up. She wanted to get out of there.

Speaker 1 And that, you know, at some point, I would have argued to the jury that, you know, the most timid of animals, when you corner it, it has no choice but to lunge forward, to do something, to try to get out of that situation.

Speaker 4 But the trial would never come because in early June of 2024, just before Brianna's murder trial was set to start, the prosecution suddenly dropped the charges and offered Brianna the chance to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Speaker 4 That was the plea you heard her accepting in the beginning of this episode. The evidence was too strong for the defense to argue that this was intentional murder.

Speaker 4 It was very clear that no one went to the smokeshop that evening with the intent of Halia losing her life.

Speaker 4 When that fateful sentencing day came, Halia's family huddled on one side of the courtroom while the Berenzinis were on the other.

Speaker 4 Brianna stood stood in front of the judge and accepted her guilt for Halia's death. Before the judge relayed her punishment, Halia's family had a chance to speak.

Speaker 4 Kenzie stood up first, barely able to get her words out between sobs.

Speaker 4 After describing what a tough yet sensitive girl Halia was, she got into how this had all changed her life.

Speaker 19 I'd rather be standing at her wedding and giving a speech or her graduation.

Speaker 12 But I'm here, and I know Jalia,

Speaker 19 and I know her killer.

Speaker 23 The past six years of my life, I've dealt with her killer, her family.

Speaker 19 And when I finally thought I was getting

Speaker 19 away from these people,

Speaker 19 and I finally got my family away from these people,

Speaker 19 Halia's killer

Speaker 19 did this to the most important person in my life. That night I felt I felt like part of my soul, more like all of it, left when Halia left.

Speaker 19 I hope that her killer gets the maximum sentence.

Speaker 19 I hope you realize or understand somewhat who Halia was really was in this world. A daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend, a student, a co-worker, a granddaughter, a niece, an aunt.

Speaker 19 She was someone's child that got taken too soon, and she is now forever 17 years old.

Speaker 4 The blame that Halia and her supporters placed on the entire Berenzini family was palpable, especially when Halia's mother got up to speak.

Speaker 37 In most scenarios, bringing a knife to a fistfight is considered unethical, illegal, dangerous.

Speaker 37 It's crucial to approach conflicts with a mindset of de-escalation and consider the potential consequences of introducing a weapon into a physical altercation.

Speaker 37 The right course of action usually involves seeking a non-violent resolution to ensure your safety through legal and ethical means.

Speaker 37 Here we have a smart, college-educated, 4.0 student with so many recommendations from friends and family for the pre-sentencing investigation.

Speaker 37 That sounds like someone that should know the difference between right and wrong. Maybe she's just smart enough to play us all.

Speaker 4 Like Bob said, in a senseless tragedy like this, everyone is searching for someone to blame. Halia's family blamed Brianna, and Brianna's family blamed Halia.

Speaker 4 But both girls bore some responsibility for the way that that night transpired. That didn't make it fair, but it was the cold, harsh truth.

Speaker 4 Before the judge relayed his decision, the prosecution made one last plea to the courtroom, arguing that Brianna reacted with disproportionate rage and intent, not fear.

Speaker 28 It is reasonable that those actions would anger Brianna Berezzini.

Speaker 30 However, none of those actions justify Brianna Berezzini taking a knife and plunging it into Halia's clavicle. Rather, that is an act of unjustifiable rage.

Speaker 30 A stabbing is a disproportionate response to a slap.

Speaker 4 The prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence. Brianna stood up and apologized for what she did, saying that she she will live with the guilt for the rest of her life.

Speaker 4 Then the judge reminded the court that she was facing three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Speaker 4 That was the maximum. Then he gave it to her, reminding her to stay out of trouble behind bars.
Brianna was taken away to prison.

Speaker 36 When it comes down to it, it all in reality should have been, was just a fight. Just, you know, a fist fight of some sorts.
And then the guys would have stepped in, hopefully, and just broke it up.

Speaker 36 And they would have yelled at each other. They would have gone on their way.
You know, and there, you know, nobody would have lost their life out of it.

Speaker 36 Cops probably wouldn't have even have been called for it. But, you know, Brianna chose to bring out a weapon and then to use that weapon in the course of that assault.

Speaker 36 So she escalated it. And that's, that's how I look at it.

Speaker 4 The video Daylin captured still haunts Halia's family. These were her final moments, and they were nothing like the Halia they knew and loved.

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 she was gone. Brianna currently sits in jail.
She filed a motion of early release, and it's been granted this August, which means she will have only served one year for the death of Halia Culbertson.

Speaker 4 One

Speaker 4 year.

Speaker 4 Detective Pribe knows that what happened that night was a series of bad choices by every person in that parking lot. But he believes Brianna got away with murder.

Speaker 36 She's the one who brought a weapon into the fight. She brought a knife into a fistfight.
And I think that there should have been more consequences for that.

Speaker 4 There were a lot of bad decisions made that night. Halia made one when she escalated the argument with a slap.
Brianna made one when she pulled out a knife in the middle of the fistfight. And Dalen?

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 Dalen made his when he chose to hype a Palia and film the fight instead of stopping it. Because Daylin is an asshole.
Once that camera comes out, everything changes. This wasn't just a fight anymore.

Speaker 4 It was a show. And all three of them knew it.
They weren't just teenagers in a parking lot, finally forced to face their internet fights in the real world.

Speaker 4 Now they were performers playing to an invisible audience on social media. A bunch of bored assholes that that are taken as shit.

Speaker 4 That's what raised the stakes.

Speaker 4 Social media didn't kill Halia.

Speaker 4 That's not what I'm saying. But it created the environment for her to die.
It changed behavior. It added pressure.
It made everything feel dramatic and impossible to walk away from.

Speaker 4 A modern teenager's world is already so insular. impulsive and emotional.
Trapped behind a screen where reality is half-baked.

Speaker 4 But when performance becomes instinct and every reaction is subconsciously shaped for an audience, even real danger can feel like just another scene to play out.

Speaker 4 And in the end, Halia died. Brianna went to prison, and Dalen walked away with no charges whatsoever.

Speaker 4 Just a ghost in the margins of a murder, he helped set into motion.

Speaker 4 No one wins in a story like this because the truth is, it didn't have to happen.

Speaker 4 But when teenagers are raised in a world where everything is filmed, where attention is currency, and where the pressure to show off never shuts off, even a fist fight can turn into a performance.

Speaker 4 This time, that performance ended in death.

Speaker 4 It's not just tragic. That's the cost of a culture that values footage more than the fallout.

Speaker 4 Speaking of footage, we got a lot of it. Sword and scale television available at swordandscale.com.
I know you want it, you cheap fuck.

Speaker 4 Go get it. It's only 20 bucks and you can get 20 episodes right now.
They're an hour long each. That's a lot of true crime.

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