Transcription
[ominous music] This was a crime scene that was incredibly troubling. It was way out of character for that neighborhood. This was a homicide done for a purpose.
Very quiet, kept to his-self. He was the sweetest kid you ever wanna meet. It seems like they had a great life. Something broke in him some place. Strip him, gag him, and blindfold him. He had the taste. He had the drive. He had the want to kill.
NARRATOR: Kids look to their parents for moral guidance. And parents are often blamed when the kid turns bad. Can loving and successful parents create a killer? Why does one kid out of many healthy siblings turn evil? Is there such a thing as a bad seed?
The Browning's live in the wealthy community of Cockeysville, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. They're are typical family raising three sons. The father was an attorney, worked for a local law firm in Towson and had a good reputation.
KEITH TRUFFER (VOICEOVER): John Browning was a wonderful man. He was smart. He was hardworking, fair, generous to his partners, and enjoyed life. He was very committed to his family, loved his wife and his children.
JOHN KENNEALLY (VOICEOVER): The mom was a cool mom. She was bright, articulate.
KEITH TRUFFER (VOICEOVER): Tammy was a very exuberant, loving mother. She was much like John. She loved life, was very outgoing, just a terrific person.
They lived in the big house that John had helped design. The area where the Browning's lived, the Cockeysville area, would be an upper class area, very good schools, very stable neighborhood, all single-family homes. Even within that neighborhood, I would consider the Browning's to be kinda at the upper echelon of that socioeconomic group. They had a place at a lake that they spent a lot of time. They did a lot of things as a family. They were at all the sporting events. They were very big supporters of their children. So they-- they were a great family.
NARRATOR: The Browning kids are known as good boys and well-liked by their friends and neighbors. Greg is a happy 14-year-old boy and a top student at Cockeysville Middle School. Greg was the middle brother. He was the goofball, always wanted everyone laughing and having a good time.
JOHN KENNEALLY (VOICEOVER): Greg had a different personality. Greg was an absolute pleaser. He was the sweetest kid you ever wanna to meet. You told Greg Browning to jump and he'll just ask you, "how high do you want me to go" or "where do you want me to go?" He always had a smile on his face, was always there to please, wanted everybody to be happy.
NARRATOR: Benjamin is 11 years old and one of the most popular kids in school. Greg and Ben were both very popular children. And-- and as well as Nick Browning was also very popular.
NARRATOR: The oldest of the Browning boys is 15-year-old Nicholas. He is a star high school lacrosse player, a great student, and a proud Eagle Scout.
JOHN KENNEALLY (VOICEOVER): Nick Browning was a-- a good kid. And he always said "please." And he always said "thank you."
JULIE KORROW (VOICEOVER): Nick was just really smart. He would joke around and-- but he was usually more serious than the younger brothers. They were the little goofballs that wanted to run around and go crazy before bed. And Nick was the one who always went up to bed whenever I told him to. It seemed like they had a great life.
NARRATOR: On a quiet winter night, while the Brownings are fast asleep, an intruder enters their home and shoots four of the family members to death. The next morning, Nick returns home and finds his family murdered. Police are called to the Browning residence.
I found out that it was the Brownings. And we-- I didn't know specifics of who was hurt, who, you know, wasn't. The place was such that the Baltimore County police that went in came out and said that they'd never seen anything like this. This is a tragedy of epic proportions. I mean, and entire family was wiped out.
NARRATOR: When police enter the house, they discover the blood soaked body of John Browning, lying dead on the couch. His wife and two kids have been shot to death in their own beds. The Brownings were one of the wealthiest families in town. And their home had recently been burglarized. Were the Brownings murdered for their money?
This was a crime scene that was incredibly troubling. There was a little bit of ransacking. So that, at that point, the police are thinking in terms of some stranger, some third party entering this house, a burglary or a robbery gone terribly wrong, and then the intruder turning to murder by eliminating all the witnesses.
NARRATOR: The police questioned friends and neighbors, as well as Nick Browning, the only surviving family member. He had spent the night at a friend's house.
I was over at a friend's house. One of the things that they needed to do was get Nick back to the homicide unit to see what kind of clues they could get for what really happened.
NARRATOR: The police continue to search the Browning house and conclude the murder was not the result of a robbery.
A typical burglar is somebody who wants to get into your house, get things of value, and get out. And so when you get to a crime scene and there's very little disturbed in the house and it doesn't look like anything's taken, that is not a typical crime scene committed by a regular burglar or a robber.
NARRATOR: The police scour the Browning household and find a puzzling clue. Could this be the break the police need to uncover who killed the Browning family?
The entire Browning family is slaughtered in their sleep, leaving older son, 15-year-old Nick, the only survivor. The police find the clue in the Browning house, which they hope will shed light on what happened that frightful night. Nick is brought to police headquarters, where they try to make sense out of why his family was murdered.
The homicide detective, Detective Walsh, very experienced detective, has a very mild and-- and calm demeanor. He made sure that Nick got food. He made sure that Nick was comfortable while they investigated the crime, from a purely factual point of view, hoping he could shed light on what was going on in his parents' and his brothers' life for the last 24 hours. Nick Browning was not incredibly upset. He seemed inappropriately the wrong emotion. Some of the experienced homicide detectives weren't sure if this was shock or weren't sure what this could've been. Problem is a police interrogation is not a normal environment. It might be shock, but if somebody was innocent and their whole family would be wiped out, they would be grieving, in shock.
KEITH TRUFFER (VOICEOVER): It was-- it was terribly difficult. This was-- one, it was the suddenness of it, the extent of it, the brutality of it. That shocks anybody.
NARRATOR: To get a better picture of what happened, police asked Nick what he was doing on the night of the murder. And as they started to go through the story, the story started to unravel a little bit more and a little bit more, how Nick wasn't telling the truth at the beginning about some of the things Nick had done recently.
When the police did their search of the house, they found a key to a gun safe under Nick Browning's mattress in his bedroom. And so the question you have to ask, and we asked him, and that was, you know, "what is this key doing under your mattress?" Mr. Browning was a very responsible gun owner. He kept his weapons, normally, in a gun safe. It just so happens that that particular evening, the 9 millimeter was out, had been cleaned, and was sitting on a workbench. And so when you get to a crime scene and there's very little disturbed in the house and it doesn't look like anything's taken, it was very much a belief, when we confronted Nick Browning, that he wasn't exactly the kind of person that they thought he was.
NARRATOR: Since Nick has a key to his dad's gun safe, police suspect that he planned on removing the gun. But does having the key mean Nick wanted to kill his parents? Why else would he have secreted the gun lock key if he had not been planning to do this for a period of time?
NARRATOR: Detective Walsh makes it clear that robbery is not the motive for the murder. He challenges Nick as to whether he might have a motive to kill. He was aware of how wealthy his parents were, both how much the house was worth and the fact that his father had outside real estate holdings.
KEITH TRUFFER (VOICEOVER): Nick Browning had everything going for him in life. He was successful as a student. He was successful in sports. He was in the band. He was an Eagle Scout. He was in a comfortable family home with loving parents. He had everything going for him.
NARRATOR: Detective Walsh remains suspicious of Nick's lack of emotion and places a family portrait in front of him.
When I hear that somebody is emotionless on a formal taped police statement, that doesn't necessarily mean to me that they are psychopathic or whether or not they have remorse or not. In the first hours after a murder, after hours of interrogation, I-- whether people are disassociated and shell sh-- it could be one or the other.
NARRATOR: The Browning family is brutally murdered and the police bring Nick Browning, the only surviving family member, in for questioning. Detective Walsh zeros in on Nick's lack of emotion.
Kids can't endure a lengthy interrogation process anyway. So eventually, through lack of strength or will to continue, would break down. Eventually, after a great deal of conversation, Detective Walsh pulled up close to him and Nick Browning eventually confessed to killing his father, his mother, and his two brothers.
NARRATOR: Based on Nick's confession and the crime scene evidence, police determined that the killings were premeditated.
A couple other factors went into the fact that we felt that this was a cold-blooded, planned, premeditated murder, he put gloves on. So he went to the trouble of putting gloves on, so that when he handled the gun, if it was ever found, later on, his fingerprints wouldn't be on there. He took along an extra clip, so that he would have enough ammunition to make sure he completed the deed that he wanted to do, which was killing his entire family. All that evening, he was attempting to solidify an alibi by saying he was at his friend's house, spending the night. He had called his brother earlier in the evening and asked him to leave the basement door open. Nick, after he completed his murders, tried to make it look like a robbery.
NARRATOR: There is still no clear reason why Nick killed his family.
The why came to be this-- this concept that he was angry at his father for being hard on him. He felt like his mother was a participant in that, because she was hard on him also.
NARRATOR: Nick says he did it because of his father.
You get a kid who is self-centered and narcissistic and then dad comes along and says, "hey, you can't do this." You know, he sets a limit. Well, the kid's not used to getting limits. The kid's used to thinking only of himself. So the kid might react to that and-- and might actually lash out aggressively or violently, the target being the person who set the limit. It's possible for a family that outwardly appears very normal with good parents to produce a child that is capable of extreme acts of violence.
NARRATOR: Nick claims he killed his father, because he was hard on him. But why couldn't Nick stop killing?
The fact that Nick killed his brother sort of solidifies, in my mind, that this was an instrumental homicide. This was a homicide done for a purpose. And it sounds like the purpose was financial gain. If your motivation are that your parents are-- are riding you kinda hard and giving you a bit of trouble, OK, maybe you, in a fit of rage, you shoot your father. Not sure why you go upstairs and you shoot mom. But I sure know you don't have to go down the hallway and kill your brothers, because there's no indication that those boys did anything to him ever. I believe his brothers were standing in the way of collecting a full inheritance. And I believe that's why the two brothers are gone.
NARRATOR: Nicholas Browning pleads guilty to four counts of first degree murder. His living relatives came to me and begged us to give Nick Browning some hope, some time in the future. And the one thing that-- that I honestly sat down and thought about was, what if Nick Browning got out in 40 years and lived across the street from one of my family members? Would I feel comfortable? And the answer to that question in my mind was, "no." An individual is psychopathic and they have committed a homicide. Chances are that they are likely to reoffend again in the future. And if they've already shown a propensity for violence, I would say that that propensity will always be there. We were seeking, and the court imposed, two life sentences. And it was thoroughly our position that Nick Browning should never be released again. Because, in fact, we think he's a great danger to society.
NARRATOR: The judge sentences Nick Browning to two life sentences, to be served back to back. He had two life sentences and I think he should've had four. Nick Browning was a bad seed. Something broke in him, some place, that made him react in this way. And who knows where, why, or how? Clearly, Nick Browning is-- is a cold-blooded, calculating murderer.
Psychologists feel that stamping a young child or an adolescent with the label of psychopath, really, is almost like a death sentence, in the sense that it's something that they really can't recover from. It's something they're labeled with for life. The problem with trying to label young people with different kinds of psychological disorders is, number one, the psychiatrist tell us we-- we're really not supposed to label people until after they're 18. He certainly displayed some tendencies towards antisocial behavior. Certainly there are many who believe that if you walk into your house and blow away your entire family and then go back to your friend's house and go to sleep, there could be no better basis to call you an antisocial individual.
NARRATOR: Did Nick kill for an inheritance? Did Nick kill because his father was hard on him? Or was Nick Browning simply a born killer?
SCOTT SHELLENBERGER (VOICEOVER): This crime really was unpreventable. You know, this was an individual who was smart. He was used to getting his own way. He was used to manipulating people. And I really don't think anybody could've done anything to stop him once he made his mind up that this was what he's gonna do.
NARRATOR: Nicholas Browning is sent to prison at just 15 years old. He will not be eligible for parole until 2031, when he will be nearly 50 years old. Is there ever a good explanation for why a kid becomes a killer? Maybe they are just born that way. And in some cases, maybe they simply enjoy it.
Two-year-old Jerry Lee Alley is placed in the care of his grandparents, after his father is sentenced to prison. His grandparents adopt and take care of Jerry Lee as their own son.
When the HRS first placed Jerry with us, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was start over and raise a family again. But God had other plans for me. And I'm glad I had him.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): He was my grandson. And-- and even though I wasn't his real dad, he treated me like his dad. And I tried my best to treat him like a regular son, you know, not adopted or anything else, you know? I've seen a lot of kids that, when they were adopted, they feel different or something, you know? But that didn't bother him.
NARRATOR: Jerry and his grandparents, Anne and Marvin Alley, live in Interlachen, Florida, a quiet little town of only 1,500 people.
We chose the area, because it was a safe place for the boys to ride their bicycles. There were several small lakes in the area. That's what Interlachen means, "between the lakes." My husband would take the kids fishing.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): A lot of dirt roads. And me and the kids would go out and mess around in the woods. It was just a nice little quiet place.
NARRATOR: Jerry Lee loves to play outside and ride his bike. He's a happy kid who's always polite and respectful to others.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): I called him older than his years. He noticed everything around him. If he saw somebody sitting alone, he always went over to befriend them. If he saw somebody that looked sad, he always tried to make them laugh.
NARRATOR: But like many little boys, Jerry is sensitive and not very tough. Other kids sometimes pick on him.
ANNE ALLEY (VOICEOVER): He was always afraid of the dark, always slept with a nightlight in his room. Kids would poke fun at him on the bus. He probably didn't have a lot of strong relationships with his peers. A child in this situation wants that more than ever. They just don't have the skills or the ability to get it.
NARRATOR: But Jerry isn't completely alone. And he makes a few good friends. One of these friends is his 15-year-old neighbor, John Silva.
John was the type person that really stuck to his-self. He was a-- kind of a recluse, stayed in his bedroom a lot, watched a lot of TV.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): John Silva, he was quiet and shy and standoffish. He had an air about him that made you kind of wonder like what was going on in his mind.
NARRATOR: John and Jerry Lee become best friends and hang out after school, playing games.
ANNE ALLEY (VOICEOVER): He had an older brother that had just gone to prison, dying grandmother was living in his living room.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): John didn't have a good home life. He was poor, you know? And that just naturally drawed Jerry. He cared about people. See if I can help him some way, you know? And he'd wanna go somewhere. And he'd say, "papa, can we take John somewhere?"
On Thursday, Jerry came home from school and asked his papa if he could go bike riding. And he went riding. Probably about 4:30, he came home and he asked his papa if he could go to John Silva's house.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): And I says, "no. That's too far." We had a limit to how far he could go on his bike, you know? And so Jerry dropped the matter and that was all that was sad.
When Jerry came home from school on Friday, May 26th, he put his backpack in his room and got his Pokemon backpack and asked his papa if he could go bike riding.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): And he says, "I wanna go riding on my bike." And I says, "OK, but we're gonna leave to go to Melbourne. So don't be-- don't stay gone very long. You know, come on back like you normally do."
NARRATOR: As it gets late, Jerry rides off.
I got home at 5:30 and this was a Memorial Day holiday. And we had made big plans to go to Melbourne. And I started doing laundry and getting everything ready, so we could leave in the morning. It got to about quarter of six and Jerry wasn't home yet.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): Where's Jerry? Oh, he hasn't come home yet. Something hit me. I says, "you know, that's not right." So my husband got in the truck and started driving around looking for him.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): Every place I could think he had ever been looking for him, you know, and see if anybody had seen him. By that time, we're basically in denial. We know something's happened to him, because he was so responsible and he had that little alarm clock set on his watch, that he was always coming home. By about quarter of nine and he still hadn't got home and it was starting to get dark, then we called the sheriff's department.
NARRATOR: Police organized the largest search in the area's history. They used helicopters and bloodhounds, trying to find the missing boy, while volunteers stopped cars along the road, checking every person going in and out of town.
The weekend progressed and there was no sign, since 3:30 that afternoon, where he was at. Nobody-- nobody's seen him. The-- it kinda got-- it started getting everybody, that, you know, there's-- something could be wrong here. We could be dealing with a abduction. We could be dealing with a kid that, you know-- let's hope that he's fallen off his bicycle and he's been hurt or he's just-- something's going on, he's decided not to come home. That's what we're hoping for.
NARRATOR: After two days, the search doesn't produce any clues. And the police run out of leads.
It appeared that he had just simply vanished.
NARRATOR: Dawn Marie Bachman, a local psychic, informs the police about a strange dream she had. In her dream, Dawn sees Jerry Lee's body hidden Inside a septic tank, which is buried in an abandoned lot. At first the police don't pay any attention to the bizarre claim.
She kind of let it go. And then, that evening, she was on her way back from the store, seen the volunteer firemen with the abandoned vehicle, and says, "you know, I'm gonna stop and say something." This lady said that she, quote-- said that she was a psychic and she had dreamed that Jerry was on this particular lot at a certain place. So we went down there. It's a vacant lot. It was used for illegal dumping of trash. On this particular lot, there was-- used to be a house there that burned long time ago. And there was a homemade septic tank there. This is the area that I see in the dream. Wait here. I-- I'll go look.
NARRATOR: The psychic's dream leads the firefighter to a shocking discovery.
Jerry Lee Alley goes missing from his small town. His grandparents and police organize the biggest search in town history, with no results. A psychic has a dream and leads volunteer firefighter Thomas Pellicer to an abandoned lot.
THOMAS PELLICER (VOICEOVER): When I pulled back that sheet of plywood, I was able to make out a human body. Man came here and told me my s-- 12-year-old son had been murdered. It was just a horrific scene. Any of the officers that worked the crime scene, from talking to them, always have told me how hard that was for them to-- you know, to actually look at. It wasn't that he was just laid in the septic tank. He's bound. Part of his clothes are off.
GARRY WOOD (VOICEOVER): Next to the body was a note that was titled on the top line. It said "List to Prepare Jerry." And it was a how to do list on the killing of Jerry Alley. Strip him. Cover him in a towel. Gag him and blindfold him.
GARRY WOOD (VOICEOVER): Everything that matched what the detectives were seeing at the crime scene were on this list. His pants had been pulled down below his buttocks. Didn't know if there had been some sexual molestation or some issue there. And so that prompted the police to believe that perhaps this was a sexually-motivated type of case. There was quite a few sexual offenders and predators around the Jerry Alley residence. And the sheriff's department went to all of the registered sex offenders and checked them out first. We also had followed up, too, with checking the clothing and the underwear for DNA, semen, that sort of thing. Nothing was ever found. So there was never any physical evidence or DNA evidence indicating that this was any kind of a sexual-related crime. This was some adult predator, sexual predator, who attacked a child. If you think about the idea of stripping, it's more than just sexual. It's humiliating. He's blindfolded. He's gagged. He's made totally helpless. I think that the-- the humiliation aspect is probably more salient than the sexual aspect.
NARRATOR: Jerry Lee's lifeless body has been found bound, gagged, and stripped to his underwear. But the police department's massive search has turned up no strong leads.
A break that happened in the case was a girl by the name of Stephanie Taylor had come forward to the police and reported seeing Jerry Alley come by the Silva house and had left on his bicycle. Also at the time, she recalls seeing John Silva leaving the house with a plastic bag. She didn't know what was in the plastic bag. But she recalls that, when he came back, he didn't have the plastic bag anymore.
JOHN MERCHANT (VOICEOVER): She described him as sweaty and very dirty. When she said, "where were you at?" he got real mean with her and said "none of your business" and went straight to his bedroom and kind of isolated his-self in the bedroom.
NARRATOR: Since John Silva has been seen with Jerry Lee on the day of the murder, acting suspiciously, police bring him in for questioning. But why would John Silva want to kill his best friend?
Up until this happened, they were trading Pokemon cards and hanging out with each other.
ANNE ALLEY (VOICEOVER): People said he was on the shy side. He never was in any trouble at school. We had no reports of any prior criminal activity. Wasn't a troublemaker, very quiet, kept to his-self. He had just been in no trouble whatsoever. All we had is some contradicting stories and stuff that just was not adding up. It's time to interview him.
When we started interviewing John, in the very initial portions of the interview, he has story after story after story about what he thinks could've happened to Jerry. And he's trying to offer, "you need to check the local pedophiles. You know, it could be somebody with a car." And then, as the investigation continued, when John Silva was interviewed later that evening he said, "oh, yeah. He was here, I seen him leaving."
NARRATOR: John tells detectives contradicting stories about whether or not he was with Jerry Lee that day, while a girl named Stephanie Taylor says she saw Silva with Jerry Lee that same day.
She was there at the-- John Silva's house, when Marvin Alley had come by looking for his grandson Jerry. According to Stephanie, as soon as Mr. Alley leaves the house, Stephanie here's John Silva say words to the effect "that's a terrible way to die."
NARRATOR: At this time, the body had not yet been found. Nobody knows Jerry's dead, except for John Silva himself.
We're really getting close to getting it out of him. And he's really getting ready to tell the truth about what happened. He actually slides out of the chair and we're actually down on the ground, underneath the table. He's sobbing, crying. John wanted to get it off his chest. It was bothering him. And I think that's one of the reasons why he wanted to give it up.
NARRATOR: Even though Silva admits to being responsible for Jerry's death, he claims it's an accident, which doesn't add up.
He made a lot of statements that just weren't true. It-- psychopaths lie and sometimes they tell dumb lies, which is, oftentimes, how we get them. I don't know why John Silva would ever have thought that the police were stupid enough to believe his story, when the physical evidence was so much different.
NARRATOR: At age 15, Jonathan Silva is convicted to life without parole for killing his friend Jerry Lee Alley.
GARRY WOOD (VOICEOVER): We knew John Silva did the killing. We knew how it happened, in great detail. We didn't know the motive behind it, until six years later, when we get this letter.
NARRATOR: Six years later, a horrific letter reveals the unforseen truth behind the murder. At age 15, Jonathan Silva is convicted to life without parole for killing his friend Jerry Lee Alley. But the motive and details of the murder remain a dark mystery.
In a way, that's the hardest part about the whole thing, is like, why would he do this to my son? I can't tell you what motivated John Silva to kill Jerry Alley the way he did. I was obviously the one who interviewed him. And-- and I hear him offering these excuses during the interview.
GARRY WOOD (VOICEOVER): We knew John Silva did the killing. We knew how it happened, in great detail. We didn't know the motive behind it, until six years later, when we get this letter.
NARRATOR: Silva's letter is sent to a female pen pal and is turned over to the police. In the letter, Silva reveals, in terrifying detail, how and why he murdered Jerry Lee Alley.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "It all started about a week before I did my crime. Thought about what it would be like to kill someone. I just thought it was one of those stupid things you think about. But as the week went on, I just kept thinking about it more and more."
If you read the early part of the letter, he talks about, "well, I wonder what it'd would be like to kill somebody." Almost like you or I might wonder, "I wonder what it might be like to drink a certain flavor soda." I mean, he talks about it in almost that casual manner.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "The bus stopped to pick up Jerry Lee Alley. And I just knew it had to be him. All this time, I was thinking, 'I can't do this.' But I just couldn't stop myself."
A person like John walks into a room with 50 people, in about 5 minutes, he can pick out person most likely to be victimized and manipulated in that room. And looking at what's happened in this case, I think that's probably what happened with Jerry. This was a kid who came in and saw that this boy can be manipulated in a way that others couldn't be.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "I told Jerry that there was a girl that liked him and wanted to talk to him before she revealed herself to him. I told him 'she wanted to meet around 3:30 today.' He said 'sure.'"
He tells Jerry that, you know, a girl wants to meet him. Well, think about a kid in Jerry's position. He's made fun of by his peers. He doesn't have, probably, much social contact with people in general and probably certainly girls. Silva knows that. And what does Silva use as the bait? A girl who wants to meet you. And he says in there, at one point, that Jerry says he would do anything for that. And he does.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "I told him that there was a few things that she wanted done first. He said he would do almost anything. I pulled out a note that said 'List to Prepare Jerry.'"
At the trial, his own mother said that she had seen that note in his room a week or two weeks before it actually happened. And she asked John what that note meant. And he told her it was just a joke. And she didn't think anything of it. When he gets there, he actually gives Jerry Alley the note. And basically, the note says, "the way I'm gonna kill you."
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "I waited a minute, then blindfolded and gagged him. We sat there for a minute. Then, I took an extension cord and made a slip knot noose."
I think for John Silva, his motivation was really one of fantasy. 99.9999% of the world doesn't fantasize about killing a human being to get that kind of high or that rush or the euphoric feeling that serial killers will tell you that they have when they're killing somebody. For the psychopath, the goal is the domination and complete control of their victims, physically and emotionally. This was somebody who did a very personal type of killing. He strangled him. For John Silva, now, we're getting to the good part. Now, we're seeing our victim humiliated and frightened. And if you read his-- his letter, that image is indelibly marked with him, not in horror as it would be to you or I. I mean, just sitting-- can you imagine what that poor child's face must have looked like? I mean, we almost become broken-hearted, not for John Silva.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "I wanted to stop, but I couldn't make myself. If he tried to say anything else, I'm not sure, because sound left me. I stopped choking him, because he wasn't moving anymore."
So now, he has just described, in four or five pages, a brutal, heinous, ritualistic killing of a young boy. And he ends it almost as if we were sending a letter to somebody about summer camp.
JOHNATHAN SILVA (VOICEOVER): "Well, that's all for now. Next, I'll start to write about the first few days after the crime. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask."
MICHAEL HERKOV (VOICEOVER): For Silva, it's as if he just came back from the park playing baseball. That's the mark of a psychopath, to be able to engage in that heinous behavior and then act as if nothing ever happened.
JOHN MERCHANT (VOICEOVER): He was a serial killer in the making. If he would've got away with this one, we would've had another one, and many more. It was a very interesting case. It's one that, obviously, us in law enforcement here in Putnam County will never forget. It's one that we wish would've had a better turnout. But ultimately, this killer's off the streets. He's where he needs to be. And we'll do everything we can to keep him there.
GARRY WOOD (VOICEOVER): John Silva is a killer who, if given the opportunity, would kill again.
NARRATOR: On June 25th, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that a child cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The US Supreme Court has said that it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence juveniles, someone under the age of 18, on a homicide case to life without the possibility of parole. The court must consider their age and their juvenile history before they pass sentence.
What distinguishes John Silva from all those considerations is somebody who, by his own words, had-- had said, you do the crime, you do the time, that juveniles should be sentenced as adults if they commit a crime. He was aware of that at age 15, because he wrote that in his own handwriting in school. This is someone who had planned out what he was gonna do, put a list of things to do, to a particular victim that he had targeted for a period of time and fantasized about, who, six years after the crime, is still thinking about the high that he got from committing this crime.
NARRATOR: Jonathan Silva is currently serving life without the possibility of parole at Columbia Annex Prison in Florida. But the recent Supreme Court ruling means he'll have the opportunity to dispute his sentence and beg for leniency. He is currently 28 years old. Hopefully, when his case ever comes back for review, all these other things that we've been talking about, about the planning and the fact that he understood what it was like to be punished as an adult, all these other factors, hopefully, will come into play to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.
NARRATOR: Even though their grandchild was brutally murdered by John Silva, Anne and Marvin Alley console Silva's mother at the close of the trial.
A lot of people don't understand that I lost my son and she lost her son, at the same time. To be able to go over and to hug the mother of the child that killed your grandson, because you understand her pain, that's the empathy that John Silva just doesn't have.
MARVIN ALLEY (VOICEOVER): Jerry's death affected my memories. For a long time, that's all I could think of. You know, could I have done something or maybe I could've picked up something, you know? But my mind don't work like it used to, because of it.
ANNE ALLEY (VOICEOVER): Jerry's death was senseless. It was useless. But Jerry only lived 12 years, but he had an impact on a lot of people. There were a lot of young people in the community, even some of the ones that teased him and tried to bully him, that had a big turnaround in their life and their lives were changed because of what happened. I loved him while I had him and I'm glad for it.