55: A Party To Die For | The Disturbing Case Of Tyler Hadley

In 2011, 17-year-old Tyler Hadley threw a massive party at his house, with everyone drinking, laughing, and having a good time. But when Tyler’s friend went upstairs and made a horrifying discovery, his life would be changed forever. Now, 13 years later, Tyler is finally telling his side of the story.. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.⭐SponsorsBeam Dream: Go to http://shopbeam.com/10TOLIFE, use code 10TOLIFE, and get up to 42% off during Beam’s Cyber Sale. SoFi: Head to http://SoFi.com/10tolife to learn more..👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources ABC News | Court TV | People | WPBF 25 News••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 2:00Speaker 03

  It's a story making national headlines.

• 2:02Speaker 04

  Mom was killed first, then dad.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  A 17-year-old who killed his parents with a hammer.

• 2:12Speaker 05

  I saw bloody sheets piled everywhere. I saw Birkin pictures with blood on them.

• 2:20Speaker 06

  He fell close to his hands, but if I, if I him, he used the back of a hammer.

• 2:26Speaker 07

  That dude, they're not gonna believe me. No one will believe me. I freaking killed somebody.

• 2:33Annie Elise?

  17-year-old Michael Mandell loved to have a good time. And on the night of July 16th, 2011, that's exactly what he was doing. He was at a party that was being hosted by his best friend Tyler Hadley. And this was a killer party. I mean, there were people everywhere, music blasting all throughout the house, people talking, people drinking, people dancing. And Michael was right there, smack in the middle of all of it. He had already had a few drinks. He was talking with friends, just enjoying the night like everyone else there. But at some point, Michael decided to step away from the crowd for a little bit. He left the packed rooms and all of the noise behind him and headed somewhere quieter, probably just looking for, you know, a little break from all of the noise for a minute.

• 3:14Annie Elise?

  So he made his way down the hallway looking for a specific room, the master bedroom. And when he finally found it, he reached for the doorknob, turned it, and pushed forward, expecting the door to fully swing open. However, the door only opened a few inches, a little crack, before coming to a complete stop. It felt like something was wedged behind the door, physically preventing it from opening all the way. But what Michael didn't know in that moment is that what he was about to uncover would not only change the entire course of the party and the night, but it was something that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Because lying on the floor behind this door, there was a pair of human legs blocking this door from opening any further. And the legs belonged to his best friend Tyler's dad Blake.

• 3:59Annie Elise?

  And next to Tyler's dad was Tyler's mom, Mary Jo. Both of them were just there, lying on the ground, motionless. The even more disturbing part is that they were both covered in blood. They had been violently attacked. But the question that he was left with, and everyone at the party was left with, is who did this? Who violently attacked this teenager's parents? How did these teens go from partying and having what they thought was just this normal night to unknowingly being in the same space as two people who had been murdered in the other room? Now, I first covered this case back in 2022, but since then, there have been new updates. I've changed my perspective on things a little bit, and so I wanted to reopen the case with you today.

• 4:43Annie Elise?

  And if you're new to reopen cases, you'll basically be hearing from me, current Annie, and also past Annie. The audio might jump around a little bit because I've changed my equipment over years, but I string all of it together to make sure that you have the full story, nuts and bolts of it, the new updates, the new perspectives, things that I've changed my mind on possibly here and there. And so you have everything in one place. I'll be jumping on present tense Annie periodically throughout the episode, too, just kind of having those hindsight moments and dropping in the new updates. But you'll hear from both, both of us, I guess it's an us, both of us. So you know the drill. I'm Annie Elise, and today we are reopening the case of Tyler Hadley. Let's jump right in.

• 5:35Annie Elise?

  On Saturday, July 16th, 2011, 17-year-old Tyler Hadley signed into his Facebook account to make an announcement. At around noon, he wrote, "Party at my crib tonight..." ...dot, dot, dot, maybe. Several teens started commenting on the post to inquire about the uncertain invitation. Was this party real, was it not? Because anyone who knew Tyler knew that his parents were very strict. Plus, he had gotten into some trouble recently and was technically grounded. So how was he going to get away with throwing a party? Was he waiting for his parents to go out of town? Or did they have a sudden change of heart and give permission to have people over? One of his friends sent him a message and asked what would happen if his parents came

• 6:20Annie Elise?

  home. And somehow Tyler was positive that this would not be a problem. Only having a few close friends, he was really eager to impress the kids in his town, and there was no way that his parents would wreck his party. So he confidently typed and sent his reply to his friend, saying, "Don't worry, they won't." Blake and Mary Jo Hadley were a happy, fun, and loving couple. They moved to Florida in the 1980s, where Blake worked as an engineer at a local power plant, and Mary Jo was an elementary school teacher. Blake had been referred to as a giant teddy bear, and Mary Jo was the kind of person who never gave up on people, especially people that she loved. Their relationship had been described as the model marriage, and the only thing they

• 7:05Annie Elise?

  loved more than each other were their two sons. Their first son, Ryan, was born in 1987, and their son Tyler completed their family in 1993. Ryan was an easy baby, but Tyler had some struggles literally right out of the womb. Tyler was born premature and spent the first month of his little life in an incubator. Now, this rough start caused Blake and Mary Jo to be pretty lenient and even indulgent with their boys, wanting to mitigate as many more hardships that they could for Tyler. While everything always seemed to go smoothly and happened easily for Ryan, as Tyler grew up, he encountered more and more medical issues. One of these issues was a thyroid abnormality.

• 7:49Annie Elise?

  The thyroid plays a major role in a child's growth and development, and Tyler became insecure of his short stature as a child. Unsurprisingly, worrying constantly for their little boy caused Blake to develop some anxiety, and Mary Jo was also diagnosed with mild clinical depression during this time. Mary Jo wanted to do everything she could to protect Tyler from low self-esteem. So to boost his confidence, she asked the doctor to place him on a growth hormone so that he could catch up physically to his peers. However, by kindergarten, Tyler was already beginning to display behaviors that caused his parents to worry, that he may have inherited some mental struggles as well.

• 8:31Annie Elise?

  Now, a doctor diagnosed Tyler with depression at the young age of six years old. By 10 years old, Tyler was placed on the antidepressant Lexapro, which is extremely rare for children his age because it is a very potent and strong drug. Typically, a child will only be placed on a medication like that after a very recent traumatic event, or as a last resort from counseling and therapy not helping. But Tyler's doctor and his parents felt like it was the right thing for him at that time. Even through these difficulties, Tyler was said to be very quiet in class, very respectful, and although he wasn't considered popular, he was well-liked by his peers. As he entered his early teens, like most kids, Tyler started pushing boundaries and

• 9:16Annie Elise?

  becoming a little moody and defiant towards his parents. At 15 years old, his mom took him back to the doctor, and he was switched to the medication Prozac from Lexapro. Shortly after, Tyler started to lose his quiet and shy demeanor, and he started causing all sorts of disruptions in class. So back to the doctor he went, where he was then diagnosed with ADHD and placed on Adderall. Pretty much all boys go through the awkward chubby phase. Let me just start by saying that, guys. No shame, no blame in that. But Tyler, already feeling different from having so many medical problems, going through this phase really lowered his self-esteem, which is something that Mary Jo had worked so hard to avoid.

• 9:58Annie Elise?

  So she pushed to keep him on those growth hormones, hoping that it would make him taller and raise his confidence. As you can see, Mary Jo loved her son so much that she wanted to do everything she felt was right to make her son a happy kid. Tyler and his mom were said to be very close, and whenever they would get into arguments, he always felt extremely guilty. Even though teens mouthing off to their parents is, you know, fairly normal, during one argument, he told his mom to shut up, but then immediately apologized right after. He even told his best friend how sorry he felt for talking to his mom that way, and said he couldn't believe that he had done that. So like I mentioned earlier, Tyler was a really quiet kid up until high school, and

• 10:40Annie Elise?

  he didn't have many friends at all besides his best childhood friend Michael and a few kids that were in his neighborhood. People weren't mean to him, but he really wanted to get a larger group of true, close friends. So Tyler and Michael both started trying to fit in by hanging around kids who wouldn't really be considered good influences. Port St. Lucie is a small town on the Treasure Coast of Florida, located smack in the middle of Orlando and Miami. It's been referred to as Florida's ecological jewel because of the lush nature preserves and aquatic sanctuaries that are home to native alligators and manatees. It's a boat lover's dream and a golfer's playground with some of the best courses in the state.

• 11:25Annie Elise?

  It sounds like a place that any adult would love to live, own a vacation home, or even settle into for retirement. However, there wasn't much for teenagers to do there, especially back in 2011. If high school aged kids weren't involved in sports or preoccupied with a job, they tended to get into mischief just out of pure boredom. Tyler was no different, and not ever really being the jock type, he had to find other ways to have fun. It was really common for teenagers in the area to party, to drink, to dabble in drugs, and even steal or vandalize. Mary Jo and Blake, being concerned with their son's safety and future, did their best to rein him in, but that only pushed him further away. And that's kind of how it goes when you try to have too much control, whether it's a,

• 12:10Annie Elise?

  you know, parenthood, relationship, friendship, people start to get resistant and they start to push away and pull back and, you know, you kind of have this struggle where you're hitting heads. So the group that Tyler was trying hard to fit in with got him involved in marijuana and with drinking alcohol, which may have temporarily taken his mind off his anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, so to him, it looked great. But in an attempt to impress the group, one day Tyler went with the kids to an area in one of the nature preserves where he helped set a couch on fire. To an immature teenager, this may have just seemed like no big deal and just a harmless, you know, pyro prank. However, the fire got so big and so out of control that they could no longer contain

• 12:55Annie Elise?

  it themselves. The fire department had to come to prevent it from spreading into the nature preserve, which federally protects animals that live there and their environment. The kids didn't consider how much trouble this could have gotten them into, but Tyler, along with some of the others, got off easy with just a simple warning from the county judge. Although the judge was easy on Tyler, his parents were not. And they were pissed and they started to realize that coddling him and allowing him to get away with so much as a child due to these medical conditions was starting to come back now, and it was starting to bite them in the, you know, the you-know-what. So right away, they got Tyler back into counseling and started doing home drug tests.

• 13:39Annie Elise?

  His parents were a little strict, possibly a little smothery and a little overprotective, but they cared deeply for their son. However, due to his immaturity, Tyler was unable to view his parents' actions as signs of love, but rather viewed them as attempts to control him. They were now in a power struggle with a rebellious teen who was once their quiet, respectful, and emotionally fragile little boy who apologized after arguments, who loved them. Tyler went through yet another medication change because his mother felt as though his depression may have been contributing to these new behaviors. So while most of us can remember times where we wished our parents would just let us do whatever we wanted and stay out of our business, at the end of the day, we knew it was because they wanted what was best for us.

• 14:24Annie Elise?

  We especially know that if we're parents ourselves now, you know, and doing this with our own children. Guilty. So some of us may have slammed doors in our parents' faces, or threatened to run away, or stomped up the stairs yelling, "I hate you." But that was pretty much the extent of it for a lot of us. But for some reason, Tyler had feelings of rage towards his parents, and it only grew as their grip on him got tighter. Tyler started to make comments to his friends that he wished he could just kill them. His friends awkwardly would chuckle and, you know, shrug it off, thinking he was obviously joking and was just upset for getting busted or grounded, but Tyler wasn't laughing when he would say these things. By age 17, if Mary Jo and Blake eased up at all, Tyler was back to drinking and doing

• 15:09Annie Elise?

  drugs. So one day Tyler and one of his so-called friends got into a fight, and he was actually arrested on charges of assault and battery. Once again, Tyler was given a slap on the wrist and served less than a week in the county jail and two weeks' house arrest. It seemed like he was slipping further and further down this path of destruction and just of not caring about anyone or anything. Assaulting someone he considered a friend showed his callousness towards people that he had relationships with. Tyler's brother Ryan recalled visiting his family and their mother worriedly waiting up all night for Tyler to come home. One night Tyler's parents caught him sneaking into his room through a window, clearly intoxicated.

• 15:52Annie Elise?

  So feeling helpless and not knowing what else to do, they took away his phone, his car, and made him start an outpatient substance abuse therapy program. Tyler was having to attend this program daily, and he felt like he was suffocating under his parents' control. He would have text conversations with friends where he expressed just how much he hated going to these therapy sessions. Instead of the program improving Tyler's mental health, it seemed it was declining internally, and he even made comments on several occasions that he wished he could just take his own life. One day when talking to his best friend, Michael, he made the statement, "I want to kill my parents and then throw a party afterwards." It would be so cool because no one has ever done that before.

• 16:36Annie Elise?

  Um, I'm sorry, first of all, there's nothing cool about that, and there's a reason that nobody has done it before, because it is psychotic. Psychotic. But this statement, when I first heard about this case, rang true in so many ways because so many kids these days, it feels like, are committing crimes because of the notoriety they believe it will carry. They think it'll give them social media fame, that they'll be noticed, that nobody's ever done it before, and so that's why they do these crimes, and it is just such a scary time in which we live. But I'm sorry, I digress, let me get back to the case. So even though that remark was oddly specific, Michael still thought Tyler was just joking around.

• 17:19Annie Elise?

  He had known the kid for years, and even though this was a rough patch for the Hadley family, Michael could never fathom his best friend actually hurting his parents for real. Since Tyler was basically grounded for life after he was caught sneaking in the house drunk, his social life he worked so hard to build was evaporating and really just diminished down to Facebook messages on the family desktop computer. His friends recall thinking that their conversations were pretty typical and that they couldn't have known that inside Tyler's brain, anger, resentment, and compulsive thoughts were growing more and more intense. During his mental downward spiral, he decided to hide a kitchen knife in his bedroom, just

• 18:01Annie Elise?

  in case he ever had the guts to do something about his parents constantly trying to control him. In July of 2011, the Hadley family made a trip to Georgia to visit some family. Some of his aunts and uncles recall Tyler acting a little odd, and one of his aunts recalls worrying that he was showing signs of an eating disorder. Tyler had always struggled with body image issues and was terrified of looking overweight, so when she saw vomit off the side of the porch after dinner, she knew that it was his. His uncle said that during his visit, Tyler would pace around and say things like, "None of you love me, none of you love me." And even though everyone considered the visit to be pleasant, none of them knew that that

• 18:45Annie Elise?

  would be the last time they saw Blake and Mary Jo. The weeks after the family arrived home, Tyler seemed to be acting a little nicer towards his parents. He was being cooperative about going to his therapy meetings, and Mary Jo felt like things may be on the up and up, finally, after such long battles and so many years. She even had a text message exchange with some of her friends where she wrote that she felt Tyler was finally over the hurdle, and that she was so happy that he was back to his old self, just so, you know, a breath of fresh air, she finally has the weight lifted off her shoulders, like, "My old loving son is back." That next Saturday, on July 16th, 2011, Tyler made that Facebook post on his wall that said, "Party at my house, maybe."

• 19:29Annie Elise?

  Were Mary Jo and Blake letting Tyler throw a party now that his behavior seemed to be turning around? Tyler's friends highly doubted it and questioned him on the post, but he was determined to prove to them that he was going to have a party and that none of them would ever forget it.

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  Leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra games. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Somehow, he had to get through to his parents that he was having this party. And so to hype himself up to do so, he listened to the song Feel Lucky by Lil Boosie. Shortly before 5:00 PM, Mary Jo hopped on the computer to do some reading for church the next day. She was going to read a Bible verse at Sunday Mass and needed to brush up on the words. The verse Mary Jo was set to read was 1 Corinthians 13:4.

• 21:40Annie Elise?

  And you've all heard it, whether you've seen the movie Wedding Crashers, whether you've been to any single wedding, whether you've seen any sort of rom-com movie. But it reads, "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away." And she was reading perhaps the most famous verse from the Bible about love.

• 22:22Annie Elise?

  Mary Jo's love for her son had been patient, it had been kind, and even though he had done so many things, she was doing her best to not keep record of the wrongs. She studied these words, preparing to deliver them to the congregation of her church, probably hoping that they would resonate with them and help them through tough times like they had helped her. Little did she know, while she was sitting at her computer, the son she loved so much was standing behind her. Tyler had actually been standing behind her office chair for more than five minutes. He had just popped three X pills and was wearing boots, a jacket, and gloves, and had a claw hammer in his hand.

• 23:05Annie Elise?

  He stood there silently, staring at the back of his mom's head, trying to get the courage for what he had set out to do. The X pills kicked in, and he was starting to feel jittery, energized, and like his mind was racing a mile a minute. Thoughts of his mom grounding him, taking away his phone, taking away his car, trying to control every single aspect of his life, trying to control everything since he was a little kid, always wanting him to be perfect like his brother Ryan, always making him go to the doctors, go to the therapist, go to counselors, treatment centers, all of it was flooding back into his mind. So he raised the heavy hammer and let it come down on the back of his mother's head.

• 23:48Annie Elise?

  Mary Jo turned around screaming in agony and asked her son why. Tyler hit her again and again until she fell out of the chair and continued over and over until she was no longer screaming. Blake, who had been taking a nap, busted out of the master bedroom to see what was happening to his wife. His son Tyler, standing over his bloody wife, was the last thing that he expected to see. He and Tyler locked eyes, and there was a very long pause. Blake asked Tyler the same question, "Why? Why are you doing this?" And Tyler must have looked like a crazed rabid animal with so much adrenaline just pumping through him from what he had just done and from the drugs,

• 24:33Annie Elise?

  and he just answered by screaming at the top of his lungs, "Why the F not?" From there, he lunged toward his father, and Blake turned and ran in an attempt to get behind their bedroom door and call for help. Little did he know, just a few hours earlier, their son took and hid all their cell phones so that there would be no chance at calling for help. Tyler caught up to Blake and started wailing on his father with the hammer, just like he had done to his mom moments before. Blake fell on the bed and then down to the floor while trying to defend himself. But he was overpowered during Tyler's rampage and succumbed to the injuries inflicted by his son. And after Tyler caught his breath, whether it be another act of disrespect

• 25:18Annie Elise?

  or disgust in himself for what he had done, he wrapped his parents' bloody heads with towels. He dragged his lifeless mother down the hall, dropped her next to her husband, and threw the hammer that he had just blunged into them with. And he threw that hammer down between their bodies, almost like, "All right, drag you back here, hmm, I'm done, I'm done." Now that the first task on his psychotically contrived list was complete, the next important thing was for him to make the house look presentable, presentable enough for a party, without the signs of a heinous double murder being obvious.

• 26:01Annie Elise?

  So Tyler recalled that there was much more blood than he expected, and it took him over three hours to get the majority of it off the floors, walls, and furniture. He then scurried around the house, stripping the walls of the Hadley family photos and gathering any other items of sentiment and chucking them into the master bedroom on top of his parents' bodies. Can you imagine? He took furniture like dining room chairs, small tables, the photos, trash, towels that he used to clean up, and anything else that made the Hadleys' house a home. And he threw it in their master bedroom, creating a huge pile on top of his parents.

• 26:42Annie Elise?

  When he felt like he had done the best he could, he went to the bathroom to then clean himself up. Tyler has said that he stood in front of the mirror and stared at himself manically for several minutes. He said he almost didn't recognize himself because his face looked distorted from his jaw muscles being pushed further back than normal, forming a sort of terrifying smile.

• 27:04Speaker 07

  I remember looking at myself in the mirror and laughing and just looking at myself.

• 27:11Speaker 07

  And I remember being like bloody and like I had like just that.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  He couldn't recall why he did that, but he recalled a grotesque image in that mirror.

• 27:20Speaker 07

  It's where my face muscles were like pulled back and I was like, you know, just, I can't even make that face right now.

• 27:25Annie Elise?

  He looked at his reflection with the blood spattered all over him, and instead of crying, he began to laugh. So to calm himself down from the frenzy that he was in, he took a hot shower and then went and put on clean clothes to get ready for the night ahead. Tyler went and got a debit card out of his mother's wallet and drove to an ATM where he withdrew nearly $4,000. When he arrived back home, he sat down at the computer where his mother had been sitting just hours earlier and signed into Facebook to let everyone know that the party was definitely on. On Saturday night in July, teens in the area were desperate to find something fun to do. So the thought of a party at a different person's house than usual sounded like a cool change,

• 28:09Annie Elise?

  a change of pace, and slowly but surely, high school and college-aged kids started trickling in to Tyler's house. Soon, 20, 40, 60, and by midnight, almost 100 people were partying in the Hadley home. Kids were drinking, doing shots, playing beer pongs throughout the night. Several people asked Tyler where his parents were, to which he gave all sorts of different answers. He answered by saying that they were in Georgia, they were on vacation in West Palm Beach, and even told some of them that he was the owner of this house and that his parents lived out of state. At first, for some reason, he was concerned about people smoking in the house. He yelled at them to take the cigarettes outside, possibly subconsciously maybe feeling guilty for tainting his parents' home.

• 28:53Annie Elise?

  But then he realized that a bunch of people outside would call more attention to his house party, and he told them that he could smoke inside so that the cops wouldn't be called. The party guests took this as a go-ahead to completely just desecrate this house. They were ashing on the floor, putting cigarettes out on the carpet, on all the couches, ransacking the fridge, the cabinets for food, throwing beer cans and trash all over the place, flipping furniture and making the Hadley home look like a disgusting frat house after Hell Week. I mean, just a mess, disgusting. And Tyler was letting the success of his party take his mind off what was in the bedroom, down the hall. He told people to stay out of the hallway and the master bedroom, and surprisingly, nobody really tried to venture back there,

• 29:37Annie Elise?

  which surprises me because at these big parties, people are usually looking for secret areas to either hook up, to do drugs, but they were listening to Tyler. His best friend Michael was also there, and they played dozens of games of beer pong until eventually all of the beer was gone. Tyler asked one of his friend's older brother's Mark, who is 21, if he would take him to the gas station to get more beer. Mark agreed, and the two, along with Mark's girlfriend, rode to a nearby gas station. Tyler handed Mark a wad of $20 bills, and when he went inside to get the beer, Tyler said to Mark's girlfriend that his parents were dead. She figured he meant that they'd passed away a long time ago, but this is one of the first signs that Tyler was having a hard time holding in the secret about what he had done.

• 30:21Annie Elise?

  Now, was it because he was feeling guilty, or was it because he was trying to show off to her? So when Tyler, Mark, and his girlfriend arrived back at the house, the party looked like it was literally the inspiration for the movie Project X. And if you haven't seen that movie, it is just wild. But kids were texting their friends from surrounding towns to come because it was one of the biggest parties ever. This party was like an epic go-down-in-history-type party to these kids. Tyler looked around and realized that he only knew a few of the people at his own party, but everyone seemed to be having a great time, and that's all that mattered to him, at the expense of his house, at the expense of his parents, at the expense of everything. When he was asked about any house rules, he said, "Just do whatever you want."

• 31:04Annie Elise?

  Some people that Tyler did know noticed he was starting to act a little bit strange, seemed kind of down, and maybe even getting paranoid because he kept peeking out the front blinds. There must have been dozens of cars on the block, and he was probably nervous about the cops getting called for a noise complaint, for too many people, for trespassing, for loitering, you name it. A couple of people who spoke to Tyler that night mentioned that he said he wanted to take his own life soon, which you'd think would be more alarming than they made it seem, since that's not a typical statement or small talk that you would make at a party, especially not one of these parties. At around midnight, when Mark was getting ready to leave, Tyler asked if he could talk to him outside. When they got outside, Tyler said, "Dude, I know you're not going to believe me, but I did some things.

• 31:49Annie Elise?

  I might go to prison for life. I don't know. I'm freaking out." Mark asked Tyler what he was talking about, and he said, "I killed somebody." Mark replied, "You killing someone is your own business. Don't be telling me that. Don't be telling me that sort of thing. I don't need to know." Which I have a real, I have a real issue with this, Mark, because if somebody's confiding in you that they just killed somebody, well, sure, it may not directly be your business. Now it is your business, and it's your business to find out who it is they killed so that you can alert the authorities. It is your business. It's not, "Oh, you killed someone. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Do whatever you want to do." Like, I take real issue here with that. So when good old, good old boy Mark left,

• 32:33Annie Elise?

  Tyler went back inside and he talked to a few people and told them that he wanted to do something cool before he left. When they asked where he was going, he said he was going to take his life because he did something bad. I doubt Tyler was actually saying this because he was feeling guilty. I definitely think it was more so that he wanted attention or because he wanted people to ask what the bad thing was that he did, as if a party with a hundred people wasn't enough attention for him. He, he needed more. He was itching for something more. At around 1:00 AM, Tyler found his best friend, Michael, and since he didn't get the response that he was looking for from Mark, he asked Michael if they could talk outside in private. So Michael walked with his childhood best friend down to the stop sign at the end of the street, confused as to what Tyler needed to tell him

• 33:17Annie Elise?

  that was just so secretive that they needed to get that far away from the house. So Tyler turned and stared at Michael and said, "I killed my parents." Michael, obviously, thinking that Tyler was joking, just kind of rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, okay, yeah, right." But Tyler was very serious, and he very seriously replied, "I'm being real. I'm not lying. If you look close enough, you'll see the signs." Ugh, gives me, gives me the creeps. So even though Blake and Mary Jo's cars were still in the driveway, nothing in Michael made him believe that Tyler was serious. He was drunk, on drugs, probably playing just a stupid prank.

• 33:56Speaker 05

  After he told me, I didn't believe him because he's been my best friend forever. I would never suspect anything like this. And I was looking around. He told me if I looked it enough, I could see signs. I looked on the floor. I could see signs of blood. And that's when I went around back and looked in his parents' bedroom. I saw bloody sheets piled everywhere. I saw Birkin pictures with blood on them, and I looked down and I saw his dad's leg.

• 34:17Annie Elise?

  After Michael saw all of the evidence, including Tyler's father's leg sticking out from beneath the pile of his possessions, he ran out of the room. One partygoer said that when Michael slammed the bedroom door, he looked terrified and even a little deranged. He needed Tyler to tell him what happened. So Tyler explained everything, how he was angry at his parents, how he had been planning this for weeks and even considered different weapons before he settled on the claw hammer. He told him about how he stood behind his mother until he had the guts to hit her and how his dad came running out, asking him why, before he then killed him too. He told him about his reflection in the mirror and laughing after he did his best to just clean everything up before the party.

• 35:01Annie Elise?

  Michael was in utter shock at what his best friend just told him. Running away and yelling for help didn't even cross his mind. This was Tyler, his best friend. He saw the evidence, but he still just could not believe it. In his daze, he slowly started to come to terms with the fact that this would probably be the last time he ever saw his best friend. Michael stayed at the party a little while longer, allowing his mind to adjust to the realization that everything was going to change for the both of them. He asked Tyler to take a selfie with him, hoping to preserve the last moments he'd ever spent with his best friend. Now, I've got issue with this too, because if my, I'm sorry, I've never been in that position, granted, but if my best friend just told me that, like, she killed her two parents

• 35:44Annie Elise?

  and they were in the other room as we've all been partying for hours, the last thing I would do is be like, "Hey, girl, girl, come on over here. Selfie, selfie." Like, what? And although it wasn't a happy picture, because the picture, unlike any that they had ever taken before, showed both of their faces with an indescribable mixture of sadness, fear, and pain, it still was just such an odd, odd move, at least to me. It just feels weird. So soon after, Michael decided to leave the party. A few minutes later, Tyler called to ask where he went, and Michael told him that he was tired and wanted to go home to go to sleep. Tyler told him he was going to have another party the next day and wanted to know if he would come.

• 36:29Annie Elise?

  Michael told him he'd be there and hung up the phone, still trying to wrap his head around what he had to do next. At around 2:00 AM, one of the teenagers announced that there was another party going on nearby. So the majority of the kids at Tyler's house had no loyalty towards him, and they decided that they wanted to go check out this other party to determine which one was better. There was a mass exit of dozens of kids drunkenly piling into cars, screaming with their heads out the windows and peeling out down the street. So Tyler stood in his yard and yelled, "Where is everybody going?" And as the majority of the people left, he felt alone, possibly questioning if all of this was even worth it. The commotion caused a neighbor on the block to call the police, but when they showed up, less than 20 people were left at Tyler's house.

• 37:15Annie Elise?

  They knocked and stood outside the front door and simply asked Tyler to keep it down before getting back into their cruisers and driving away, not at all knowing that there was a crime scene right on the other side of that door. When the kids got to the location of the supposed other house party, they realized there wasn't actually anything going on there, and the majority of them turned right back around and headed back to Tyler's. But when they got back, Tyler seemed different. He was agitated, pacing around, turning off the lights, and making food for himself in the dark kitchen. At 4:40 AM, Tyler made another post on Facebook that said, "Party at my house again. Hit me up." His house party might have just continued on into the next night if Michael hadn't made the decision to call the police on his best friend.

• 38:00Annie Elise?

  Michael called the service Crime Stoppers, and in no time at all, the cops were back on Tyler's front doorstep.

• 38:05Speaker 06

  We're getting an anonymous hit from a crime line in Orlando. The anonymous tip advised that he killed both of his parents last night. If I see him, he used the back of a hammer, and that they can be found in bed at this location.

• 38:18Annie Elise?

  The officers could see a shadow through the window of someone pacing back and forth, and when one peeked in for a closer look, they described Tyler as having a very disturbing look on his face, with wide eyes that never seemed to blink. They looked in through the window and witnessed Tyler begin taking stack after stack of books off the shelves in the living room, going to the back bedroom and throwing them in there. And to me, I just feel like by getting rid of the photos, the furniture, the books, it's almost like he didn't want any reminder of his family in the home. He didn't want to see anything that would remind him of his parents.

• 38:54Annie Elise?

  When the police knocked on the door, the remaining lights inside the home turned off. They thought they were going to have to force their way in, but suddenly Tyler opened the door and stood with one hand hidden behind his back. One of the officers demanded that he put his hands up and come out of the house. Tyler complied and got on the ground and was handcuffed. The officer described his demeanor as frantic and almost incoherent when they asked him if any adults were home. With Tyler shackled in the driveway, officers pushed into the front door and viewed a completely destroyed home that looked as though it had been vandalized and partied in for weeks. As they made their way through the house, in addition to the party trash, they noticed blood on the walls and blood on the computer desk

• 39:37Annie Elise?

  where kids had unknowingly bounced their beer pong balls off of. They made their way all the way to that back bedroom, and Tyler started screaming from outside for them not to go in there. "You can't go in there. You can't go in there," he yelled over and over and over again. Inside, under the huge mountain of family photos, of furniture, trash, and clothes, they found Blake and Mary Jo Hadley. And for Tyler, the party was officially over. Later that afternoon, a victim's family advocate called Ryan Hadley to tell him the news about his family. Wanting to ease him into the details, the advocate initially told him that Tyler had killed their parents while they were asleep, as if that somehow would make it easier to comprehend.

• 40:22Annie Elise?

  Blake and Mary Jo's sibling came to provide support and tried to make sense of the most unimaginable horror happening to their loved ones.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  How can I go see him? How could I, how could I do that? You know, it breaks my heart. It really does. I'd love to get, you know?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  But, but he took away my best friend, my confidant, my, my brother, and, um...

• 40:50Speaker 03

  How can you, how, how can you sit down and have a, a normal conversation with somebody that have robbed you something so precious?

• 40:59Annie Elise?

  Michael and Mark, as well as other partygoers, gave statements to the police. Now, in 2011, it was unclear how juveniles should be charged and prosecuted for crimes such as this, but ultimately, the judge decided to charge him with two counts of first-degree murder without the possibility of parole. Initially, Tyler pled not guilty, but changed his plea to no contest, accepting conviction but not admitting guilt. And he did that only one week before the trial was set to begin. Sentencing was a brutal experience for the jury, and especially for the Hadley family, who had to hear the details of Blake and Mary Jo's death, see the autopsy photos, and hear about Tyler not only planning to kill them,

• 41:39Annie Elise?

  but throwing a massive celebration afterwards with them still lying lifeless in the home.

• 41:47Speaker 06

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• 42:08Speaker 06

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• 42:16Speaker 06

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• 42:46Annie Elise?

  Friends of Tyler's took the stand and recounted their experience at the party and things that he had told them leading up to what happened. The prosecution painted a picture of Tyler being a vengeful, controlling teenager that was never going to allow his parents to control his life. They said that his motive for killing his parents was pure selfishness of wanting to throw a party to impress his friends or gain new friends. And the defense argued that Tyler's brain wasn't functioning properly due to a lifetime of medical and medical conditions made worse by dangerous medications, immaturity, and impulse control as a result of his ADHD. The psychologist called to testify explained that mixing drugs and alcohol with his prescription medication would exacerbate his obsessions of wanting

• 43:30Annie Elise?

  to kill his parents because he viewed them as an obstacle in reaching his goals.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Told the court, many professionals had found that Tyler Hadley had significant mental illness over the years, beginning at around age 10. He argued Tyler's premature birth and his small head circumference are risks for a whole host of problems later in life, and that when he first met Hadley, he had major depression with what was called psychotic features. He added, "Severe mental illness is why a young man with good parents went and killed them."

• 44:01Speaker 05

  At least in the month or so before he was arrested, he had developed a delusional thought that became very obsessional and very much a rumination of that he needed to kill his parents and he needed to die.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Dr. Myers also said Tyler Hadley's use of alcohol and drugs, including cough syrup, was, quote, "him taking whatever he could get to get out of the state of mind he was in when he was not high."

• 44:28Annie Elise?

  During the medical examiner's testimony, everyone in the courtroom had to view photos from Mary Jo and Blake's autopsy, and he explained that they had over 60 wounds combined from the claw hammer. He tragically explained that Mary Jo and Blake would have felt every single blow and been aware that their son was the one inflicting this horror on them. Both of their wounds were consistent with that of people actively fighting for their life. In a letter to his best friend, Michael, Tyler explains that he felt like he was being controlled by the devil and that the devil was talking to him. Tyler was diagnosed by a psychologist in jail with major depressive disorder with psychotic tendencies, which could result in hearing some voices but not having an exchange with these voices like

• 45:12Annie Elise?

  a person with schizophrenia would have. So even though the defense claimed that Tyler did express remorse for what he did to his parents, this was refuted by the prosecution, who had evidence of Tyler signing autographs in jail, referring to himself as Bam Bam, Hammer Boy, and writing, "It's Hammer Time." I mean, oh my God. Just once again, trying to impress others with some kind of, you know, misplaced sense of humor and some tough guy persona. It's sick. His cellmate also had stated that Tyler told him, "The party was great. You should have been there." Not only did Tyler's actions affect his family emotionally, but it divided them as well due to disagreements about what they felt would

• 45:54Annie Elise?

  be the correct punishment. Ryan, Tyler's brother, testified that even though he still loved his brother, he felt that he deserved the highest possible penalty for what he did to their parents. While the defense argued for a lighter sentence than life without parole, Blake's brother pointed out that Tyler already got a lighter sentence. He gets to live. So due to this, he should have to live his entire life in prison with no chance of ever getting out. However, Mary Jo's mother, Tyler's grandmother, felt that Mary Jo would want her son to be given another chance. She felt like even though he committed a horrible, atrocious crime, his life was worth saving, and he could be rehabilitated and one day be a productive member of society. Ugh, I don't know about that, Grandma.

• 46:37Speaker 06

  Testimony from Tyler Hadley's grandmother. Her grandson killed his parents in Port St. Lucie. He was just 17 years old at the time. She told the judge that she hoped he could see the light of day again, even if she won't be around when he's out. She said he's a loving person. He said, "People think I don't think about this or that I don't." He said, "I've heard somebody say, 'Do I ever cry?' He said, "Yes, Grandma, I cry. I put my, when I go to bed, I put the sheet over my head and I cry." I think he always thought he never had a friend. He never could, for whatever reason. But he, he, he just, just felt like he was never good enough. He played soccer.

• 47:20Speaker 06

  He wasn't good enough. He, he played a, he played a trombone. He wasn't good enough. He played the drums. He wasn't good enough. He just always felt like he was like a step below everybody else.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  She says Hadley was on all kinds of medications before high school, growth hormones, thyroid medicine, Accutane for his acne, and antidepressants. Divertorio fought back tears, as she talked about the day before Hadley killed his mother and father. They all went out to eat for dinner. Divertorio says Hadley complained of a headache on the way home.

• 47:54Speaker 06

  And he turned to me, gave me a hug. "I love you, Grandma." He sat up and turned to Sam, said, "I love you, Grandma." And then he laid back down. When I got out of the car, I was laying back down on the console. "That's the last time I saw you and Blake and Mary Jo."

• 48:15Annie Elise?

  Ultimately, while sentencing was announced, Tyler was given two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Now, the majority of his family felt relieved, but they knew that a life sentence meant appeals and that it would be a long time before true healing could take place. Now get this. In 2018, Tyler's conviction ended up being overturned due to changes made to national guidelines on how to charge and convict juveniles. It was also argued that the judge in his case did not consider that Tyler was never convicted of a capital offense prior to his parents' murder.

• 48:51Speaker 07

  Updating out on a story that broke just before this newscast started, an appeals court overturning the double life prison terms for Tyler Hadley, the man convicted of bludgeoning his parents to death in their Port St. Lucie home back in 2011. Now, here's what this means. There's a couple of bullet points I need to tell you about this, that he will have a resentencing date. This does not mean that he will get out of prison. Taking a look at video of his trial that we covered extensively, in this appeals ruling, the original trial court, according to the appeals court, saying that trial court had said that Hadley had previously committed a capital felony, a very serious crime, prior to the murders. That turned out not to be true. Also, the judge in the appeals court said he didn't set an

• 49:32Speaker 07

  alternative to a life sentence, that original trial judge. This full story, if you want to read much more about it, and there are a lot of details in it, go to our website, wptv.com.

• 49:42Annie Elise?

  The Hadley family felt like old wounds were just being ripped open with salt being dumped in, when all they wanted to do was to be able to move on and live their lives. Now they had to sit in court and rehash the gruesome details of Blake and Mary Jo's murder. Tyler's defense argued that he had time to reflect, to grow up, and that his brain has fully matured, which has allowed him to understand the magnitude of his actions that he had committed when he was still a child. During the time between his original sentencing, Tyler received his GED and was a born-again Christian, who attended regular ministries and had aspirations to become a pastor one day. Tyler took the stand too and made an apology to his family, which some felt lacked the conviction of someone who truly felt remorseful.

• 50:27Speaker 07

  I know it's hard to understand, and you can't begin to explain, you know, what happened. And you can't apologize for, you can't apologize or make amends for the horrible acts I've done, I've committed. Not a single day goes by that I don't think about my parents.

• 50:47Annie Elise?

  Even though it did appear that Tyler had matured during his time behind bars, the judge wasn't convinced that he didn't understand right from wrong, even with his mental conditions when he murdered his parents back in 2011. The original sentence was upheld, and Tyler was yet again given two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

• 51:07Speaker 07

  Steve turned to me as the judge was pronouncing his sentence, and he said, "Today, the hammer of justice falls upon Tyler Hadley." And I think that sums it up. I will tell you that in 27 years of practicing law, I've never heard a judge more precisely and more succinctly summarize the facts and circumstances of a case. That order is simply bulletproof. If this order's subject to appeal and reversal, then I can't imagine anything other withstanding, ever withstanding appellate scrutiny again. I've said this for the last eight years. If Tyler Hadley doesn't deserve life in prison, then no one does. So we're extremely pleased.

• 51:48Speaker 07

  I pray to God that the Hadley family finds some peace, although I doubt that's ever likely to occur. But there has to be finality. This has to be it. We cannot tolerate another resentencing of this nature. It's simply unfair to the victims, and they've been left behind in this.

• 52:08Annie Elise?

  Process for eight years. So let's put this thing to bed. His family stated that there needed to be a finite ending to this situation. And they hoped that this would be the end of appeal so that they could finally heal.

• 52:18Speaker 07

  We would just like to say that we're very happy to have this over with. We feel like this is the third funeral we've gone through.

• 52:28Speaker 07

  Even though we we love our nephew Tyler, we know he's done a terrible thing.

• 52:35Speaker 07

  But we sat in this courtroom for the last week and we listened to a bunch of various brilliant Yale, Brown, Harvard law professors that gave us a good education on the adolescent development of maturity with the brain.

• 52:53Speaker 07

  However, Tyler Hadley knew the price that he was gonna have to pay to have a party like no other. He knew the price. He was mature enough to understand that price. He even mentioned to his friends that he was gonna go away for a long time, the rest of his life. He knew the price.

• 53:19Speaker 07

  He even went as far as planning, premeditating. He even rehearsed the killings of his parents the night before. And he decided that that wasn't the right weapon to use. I've gotta find a different weapon.

• 53:39Speaker 07

  So he chooses a carpenter hammer. And I'm sure he tried to figure out which end of that hammer should I use on my parents? So he used the claw end of it. Now, we believe in forgiveness. We believe in all that. But we can't forget, we'll never forget, we'll live with this for the rest of our life.

• 54:00Speaker 07

  He gave us a life sentence. Blake and Mary Jo didn't get that chance to live. He took that away from us.

• 54:10Speaker 07

  And now we sit here discussing in a court whether or not we should let him loose in 18 years with a resentencing.

• 54:20Speaker 07

  I just think when you're sane, as a society, we have to know what, when do we call it, call it an end, call it quits? And somebody can do something so horrific, such a horrible attack like that. Yes, he wasn't, he wasn't a baby. We proved that in court with these professors. He was a mature young man going through, going through the stages from 14 to 25 of the brain development and all that. His brain was fully developed. How could it not have been to miraculously and methodically plan and then carry out an attack of such a gruesome consequences?

• 55:00Speaker 07

  And then at the end of it all, laugh about it and throw it and celebrate and throw a party. We're gonna go on, we're gonna go on and live our lives and, and put the pieces together. But I just hope to God, this is it. I hope we don't have to do this anymore. Thank you.

• 55:18Annie Elise?

  Besides the obvious victims in this tragedy, Blake and Mary Jo, their son Ryan was left alone, losing pretty much his entire family. He would go on to write an emotional and inspiring book called A Thousand Fireflies that told the story of his parents, the dark roads he went down during the grieving process, getting help and discovering the light at the end of an extremely long, painful and exhausting tunnel. Another not so obvious victim of Tyler's actions was his best friend, Michael. At the party, Michael's outlook on life and his close relationships were changed. And the moment he saw the body of Tyler's dad under the rubble in that bedroom, he struggled ever since with anxiety, trusting people, having nightmares, and would end up getting into trouble with the law.

• 56:02Annie Elise?

  Even though Michael has survived all of these hardships, he was never the same after what happened. Michael would later say that he truly believes that being the one who found the bodies ruined his life. Not only because of the psychological weight that he had to deal with in the aftermath, but because of the way that people look at him now as well. He claimed that for years, he wasn't just Michael anymore. But instead, he was the best friend of a murderer, or he was known as the guy who found the bodies. It was an association that he couldn't escape from. And obviously, nobody wants that. Now, even though that's technically where Tyler's story ends, it wouldn't be the last time that we heard from him. Because in November of 2024, Tyler actually sat down with Court TV for an interview.

• 56:45Annie Elise?

  By that point, he was 30 years old and 13 years had passed since he brutally murdered his parents. And for the first time since his arrest and his trial, Tyler opened up about what happened that night. And what he revealed, it may kind of change how you look at this entire case.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  Tyler, we're here today because we're trying to understand the mindset and motivations behind your, your actions. The adolescent mind, if you will, is notoriously unpredictable, especially for boys.

• 57:16Speaker 07

  So they say.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Unpredictable, impulsive. At 30, what does your 30-year-old brain think about your adolescent brain? What's he thinking? What's he doing?

• 57:30Speaker 07

  All he was trying to do was con and manipulate. There was really no need for any of that. Being an adolescent, okay, yeah, I understand you're immature and all that, okay, but it's just,

• 57:45Speaker 07

  I can't even explain it.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Still a mystery to you?

• 57:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't know. I just, I can't even sit here and begin to explain that.

• 57:55Annie Elise?

  One of the very first things that Tyler was asked about was his childhood and how he viewed it, looking back on it. Which I thought that that was a really interesting question because throughout this case, we've heard all kinds of details about Tyler's upbringing. We've also looked at court records, witness statements, interviews, reports. But when you really think about it, almost all of that information came from other people, third parties, right? So, I mean, I personally was more than intrigued to hear what he had to say.

• 58:28Speaker 05

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• 58:55Speaker 01

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• 59:25Speaker 03

  There have been many accounts of your childhood, but, but none from you yourself. So tell me, how would you describe your childhood?

• 59:35Speaker 07

  It was whatever, what any kid would ever imagine would be an ideal childhood.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Two loving parents who both had careers. You had one sibling, right? Older brother. It seems, it sounds like you guys were close.

• 59:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  You had grandparents nearby, aunts, uncles, cousins. You had a lot more love in your life than, than many people start out with. But it looks like you had mental health struggles.

• 1:00:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  And I'm just pulling all of this out of the, the case record and the public record. One doctor noted, hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness. Is that how you felt?

• 1:00:22Speaker 07

  I did feel that way, yeah. I felt like I wasn't really going anywhere, you know?

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  Were you having that dialogue, the internal dialogue, that I'm worthless, I hate myself?

• 1:00:33Speaker 07

  I think it was embedded in my mind ever since I was a little kid with that.

• 1:00:39Speaker 07

  Of your own creation, like nobody put it on you.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  I don't even know where that came from. That started when I was like third grade, second grade.

• 1:00:48Annie Elise?

  From his very own account, Tyler admits that this wasn't one of those cases where a family appears to be perfect on the outside, but behind closed doors, there's constant abuse, trauma, or some sort of hidden double life. He said that their family was pretty much exactly what it appeared to be from the outside. One big happy family.

• 1:01:07Speaker 07

  How would you describe your parents?

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  Saints.

• 1:01:10Speaker 07

  Saints?

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Speaker 07

  Really? Why do you say that?

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Because they were. There ain't no other word for them.

• 1:01:19Speaker 07

  Always there for you?

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Even when I was acting a fool, acting out, being an idiot. At the time, I didn't appreciate it.

• 1:01:28Annie Elise?

  According to Tyler, these feelings of worthlessness, they started at a very young age. But he was clear about one thing. They weren't coming from his parents, his brothers, or the people around him. These feelings were all coming from his own mind. And as we know, Tyler was also struggling with significant mental health challenges. And for the first time, Tyler addressed his struggles head on.

• 1:01:50Speaker 07

  Oppressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, disruptive disorder.

• 1:01:56Annie Elise?

  Now, what's interesting about this interview is that Tyler spends a significant amount of time, in my opinion, talking about how he sees things differently now. He talks about knowing better, understanding things that he didn't back then, even appreciating his parents for everything that they did for him. But at the same time, he still seems to defend himself and a lot of the choices that he made leading up to the murders. Take one of these texts that he sent to a friend prior to the murder, for example.

• 1:02:23Speaker 07

  I see seven references to statements you made to friends about killing your parents. They were brutal statements.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was. It was just...

• 1:02:33Speaker 07

  He would say things like, "If you kill my mom, I'll give you my Lincoln."

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. I said that on a Facebook chat.

• 1:02:40Speaker 07

  She took your phone away once. You said, "I might kill her."

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  That was a year before.

• 1:02:45Speaker 07

  Who talks like that, even to your friends, even joking?

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  I mean, what kind of kid doesn't call their mom... I mean, with their friends, like, "Oh, my mom grounded me, you know, she's being a... I said she's being a... She took my phone."

• 1:02:56Annie Elise?

  To me, it really seemed like Tyler was trying to make the point that he hadn't been sitting around for years actively planning to kill his parents, you know, as in, it wasn't premeditated. But that's the thing that he claims, that it was a joke, and that he was angry at them for whatever they had done that specific week to piss him off. But according to Tyler, there came a point where it stopped being a joke. And the idea of killing his parents, it became something that he started taking seriously.

• 1:03:23Speaker 07

  Hadley says the idea to kill his parents started as dark banter with his friends, and then took root in his mind. They thought it was a joke.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  I thought it was a joke too, and so I just started thinking.

• 1:03:35Speaker 07

  Do you remember the first time you had that thought?

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  Sitting at my friend Marky's house, drinking a bunch of beer and smoking weed.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  And, yeah, that's the first time I ever had it. That was when I first started having that thing about the joke. That was when we first started joking about it.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  And then privately, I would sit there and think about it.

• 1:03:57Speaker 07

  Is it possible that it became the sort of symbol of all that was wrong in your life, in your mind?

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I latched on to it.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  I just didn't let go of it.

• 1:04:11Annie Elise?

  Now, something I didn't mention back in 2022, when I first covered this case, is that the day that Tyler killed his parents wasn't the first time he had decided he was going to do it. Not long before the murders, after a completely normal evening with his family, Tyler stood over Blake and Mary Jo as they slept, and he held a pair of garden shears in his hand. Which, can you imagine that? And imagine if they had woken up and seen their teenage son standing over them with gardening shears. Now, even though he hesitated that evening, Tyler was clear that the objective remained unchanged. In his mind, it had shifted away from being a question of if he would actually do it, and instead, became a dark countdown of exactly when he would do it.

• 1:04:54Speaker 07

  July 15th, you're out for a family dinner. Sounds like it went well. You make a point of telling your grandma, your grandpa, you love them before you leave that night. And that night, you stood over your parents with the garden shears?

• 1:05:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 07

  Right?

• 1:05:15Speaker 07

  What's in your mind then?

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  The same thing that was in my mind the whole other, the rest of the month, just get it out of my head, and if I relieve myself of it, then I'll be done.

• 1:05:27Speaker 07

  Get rid of them?

• 1:05:29Speaker 07

  And with them, the pressure?

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  I was just...

• 1:05:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was just losing it. It was going to get out of my head. I couldn't stop.

• 1:05:37Speaker 07

  Did you change your mind, or just the plan?

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  I don't know. Yeah, I mean, the thought didn't go away.

• 1:05:45Speaker 07

  It was that night that you told your friend your parents might be going out of town?

• 1:05:54Speaker 07

  Is that the moment that the plan took shape?

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  I believe so.

• 1:05:59Speaker 07

  This was two days before?

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  I think it was in the back of my mind.

• 1:06:05Annie Elise?

  I think that the creepiest part about that clip is the very eerie smile on Tyler's face while they're recounting the moment he almost kills his parents. He's smiling almost as if it's like a fond childhood memory. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't going into this interview really, you know, expecting a redemption arc of sorts, but when I saw him smiling like that, I knew that nothing else he said in this interview was going to matter. He didn't really regret what he did to his dad Blake and mom Mary Jo. Even years later, he doesn't care, and he saw the pain that he caused his own family. Now, fast forward to the day of the murders. Tyler originally had reported that he stood behind Mary Jo for about five minutes before he then ultimately attacked her.

• 1:06:48Annie Elise?

  But his account has changed, and now Tyler is claiming something different.

• 1:06:53Speaker 07

  July 16th, you, by your own account, you stood behind your mother for five minutes? That's what you told somebody?

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  I did tell them, but I think it was more 20 seconds.

• 1:07:03Speaker 07

  Felt like five minutes?

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  Might have felt like five minutes.

• 1:07:06Speaker 07

  With the hammer?

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 07

  And you struck her from behind?

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 07

  She asked you why. You remember that?

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 07

  Did she face you at that point?

• 1:07:26Speaker 03

  I don't remember. I don't think, I don't know.

• 1:07:30Speaker 03

  I don't know if she was facing me, or she looked back, or what.

• 1:07:34Speaker 07

  But you remember asking you why, Tyler?

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Speaker 07

  You kept swinging?

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:41Speaker 07

  She's screaming?

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:07:44Speaker 07

  You remember blood everywhere?

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:07:46Speaker 07

  Do you remember what adolescent Tyler was thinking at that moment?

• 1:07:54Speaker 07

  Is he just in the red zone?

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  I felt my face contracting this way.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  In a maniacal rage. I can't even contort my muscles like that and just attempt it. I can't even sit here and try to do that. And I felt my mouth this way.

• 1:08:16Speaker 07

  So, your mom took 36, 37 blows?

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 1:08:22Speaker 07

  What else do you remember?

• 1:08:27Speaker 03

  I remember my dad running out.

• 1:08:30Speaker 07

  In the commotion, your dad came out?

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Speaker 07

  You described a stare down.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  Maybe for a couple of seconds.

• 1:08:38Speaker 07

  Couple of seconds?

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  Maybe a second.

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  And I must have ran really fast because I got right to him.

• 1:08:45Speaker 07

  What's in your mind at that point?

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  The same thing that was already in my mind, do it.

• 1:08:54Speaker 07

  Do it?

• 1:08:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 07

  You hit him. He also asked, "Why are you doing this?"

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  And I said, "Why not?"

• 1:09:03Speaker 07

  You said, "Why not?"

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  And then I said, "Why not?" And I just kept going.

• 1:09:09Speaker 07

  Kept swinging?

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:09:11Annie Elise?

  Something that gets talked about a lot in this case is what happened right after the murders. Because when Tyler goes into the bathroom, he sees himself covered in blood and starts laughing in the mirror. However, when he was asked about it, Tyler conveniently couldn't remember a whole lot about it. Or at least, he couldn't remember the exact why behind it.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  And then I looked in the mirror and I laughed.

• 1:09:35Speaker 07

  Tell me about that.

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  I went in my bathroom mirror and I was covered in blood. Everywhere, my whole...

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Everything. There was blood all over the place. And I laughed at myself in the mirror.

• 1:09:50Speaker 07

  Why?

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:09:57Speaker 07

  It's hard to imagine you thought it was funny.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  I don't think it was a funny laugh. It was more of a deranged laugh, more of a, I guess it is a little bit. Well, I guess it's a little bit deranged, yeah.

• 1:10:10Annie Elise?

  Another detail that gets discussed pretty heavily in this case is Blake and Mary Jo's bedroom. Tyler had completely trashed it, filling it up with all sorts of different things from the house that had reminded him of his parents and their life before the murders. Photos, documents, whatever it may be, almost as if he was trying to disassociate and distance himself from his parents and from the crime. But when Tyler was confronted with why he did that, he didn't have a single, solid, confident answer.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  Everything I piled up in that one room.

• 1:10:40Speaker 07

  Why?

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  I don't know. I was just ashamed. I couldn't look at anything. I couldn't bear to look at it.

• 1:10:47Speaker 07

  You felt shame at that point?

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  I felt a little shame, yeah. I, I, in the back of my mind, yes. It was starting to come. I mean, yeah, of course I felt shame, but I was keeping it down.

• 1:10:58Speaker 07

  I see.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  And I was terrified. I was petrified. I felt a, a petrifying angst, dread within the pit of my stomach, knowing that what lurks beyond that door.

• 1:11:10Speaker 07

  What you did.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 03

  And I just suppressed it. And I threw everything in there.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  And I went about my business of just having a party.

• 1:11:22Annie Elise?

  Now, potentially, the biggest thing that Tyler gave from this interview was his actual plan, like, in full, because apparently he never planned on killing his parents and trying to get away with it.

• 1:11:35Speaker 07

  I think it's hard for people to understand the level of, of forethought and planning, what in legal terms, yes, is considered premeditation, but also the celebration. The fact that you partied that night. Can you account for that?

• 1:11:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:11:51Speaker 07

  What do you think young Tyler was thinking?

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  I think he wanted one last blowout before he ends it.

• 1:11:59Speaker 07

  Before he ends his own life?

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:12:02Speaker 07

  Was suicide part of the plan?

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:04Speaker 07

  It was?

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  I was gonna back and carve in the garage and kill myself by carbon monoxide poisoning.

• 1:12:10Annie Elise?

  Blake and Mary Jo's deaths were never part of some plan to create a better life for Tyler. He didn't believe that he was going to get away with it and then just move on and live freely without his parents watching over him. And while Blake and Mary Jo experienced every single painful moment from their own son and ultimately died, grieving the child that they thought they knew and loved, Tyler's intention was different for himself. In his mind, he was going to have a peaceful death. He was going to sit in the car and eventually just fall asleep and doze off forever. And even though he would later go on to tell multiple people at the party about what had happened earlier that day, Tyler genuinely believed that he was going to get away with

• 1:12:52Annie Elise?

  it long enough for everyone to leave. And then, once they did, he would carry on with his plan to end his life.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  I mean, I remember talking to somebody, calling me, right? I was telling them directions. I'm covered in blood. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, come on, you know, it's gonna, you know, you know, I'm just sounding normal. And I'm...

• 1:13:11Speaker 07

  And nothing could snap you out of...

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  It was already over with.

• 1:13:15Speaker 07

  What did you think was gonna happen next?

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  I had no thought that I would get arrested.

• 1:13:24Speaker 07

  Really?

• 1:13:24Speaker 03

  Not at all. I, I had no thought that Michael would report me, none, nothing.

• 1:13:30Annie Elise?

  Even after Tyler was caught and arrested, he admitted that while he allegedly did feel some remorse, his main concern was actually about making his own life and his own future as peaceful as possible. So he started changing his story and lying so that his legal team could plead insanity in all of this.

• 1:13:48Speaker 07

  There's a, a long record of you trying to manipulate the forensic doctors, right?

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 07

  You, for example, um, told doctors you were hearing, you heard voices, saw apparitions, right? Was that the lingering?

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  Hell, yes. Yeah, of course it is. And at the time, I mean, I shouldn't have done that, but I didn't know what else to do at the time.

• 1:14:10Speaker 07

  What was the point of it?

• 1:14:11Speaker 03

  I mean, I was 17 years old. I was in a whole load of trouble. The only thing conceivable to me was, well, try to get an insanity defense and try to, you know, try to make it a little less hurtful on yourself.

• 1:14:24Speaker 07

  It wasn't about atoning or remorse or, or any of that. Your mind goes to, how do I lessen the consequence?

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  I still felt remorse, though.

• 1:14:34Speaker 07

  You did?

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  Of course I did. Not just for myself. I don't, I didn't just sit there and just be like, oh, you know, I'm so, you know, of course I felt bad for it. Of course I didn't...

• 1:14:47Speaker 07

  But do you see that it's hard to see that past all the conniving?

• 1:14:53Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:14:54Speaker 07

  All the lies and the lingering?

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  Believe what I expect. I don't expect nothing. I don't expect them to believe me anyways. They're not going to, no matter what I say.

• 1:15:02Annie Elise?

  Now, towards the end of this interview, Tyler actually shares his own perspective on his case, also on the crimes that he committed and how he all sees it now. And what he had to say, it might shock you.

• 1:15:14Speaker 07

  The conviction and the sentence came down to whether Tyler is sick and treatable or irredeemably mad and/or bad.

• 1:15:26Speaker 03

  He was irredeemably corrupted.

• 1:15:28Speaker 07

  Which do you think you are?

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  I think I am treatable, but not worthy of the redemption of the opportunity.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm treatable, you know, but I don't think I deserve it. I don't deserve the, uh...

• 1:15:47Speaker 07

  The opportunity, the chance?

• 1:15:48Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:15:49Speaker 07

  The second chance?

• 1:15:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:15:53Annie Elise?

  Despite everything that happened in this case and all the mental health diagnoses that Tyler has received, he does believe that he's treatable. But according to him, he doesn't deserve a second chance, which is something he says he fully understands and genuinely believes about himself. Now, to close out that interview, Tyler shared that if he could have three wishes today, this is what they would be.

• 1:16:16Speaker 07

  When you were young, your three wishes were, one, to get out of jail, two, have this whole thing go away and have your parents back, and three, have a lot of money, in that order.

• 1:16:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, uh, that was 17-year-old Tyler saying that.

• 1:16:32Speaker 07

  What are your three wishes now?

• 1:16:37Speaker 03

  Got one wish.

• 1:16:39Speaker 07

  You got one wish?

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  Got one wish.

• 1:16:41Speaker 07

  What's that?

• 1:16:43Speaker 03

  I wish I can go back in time and just not do all this harm.

• 1:16:48Annie Elise?

  It's all very interesting, right? I think that part of the reason why people get so invested in true crime cases is because as humans, we want and need to know the why behind things, why people are evil, why people feel compelled to do the things that they do. But in this most recent interview, it just proves that most of the time, there isn't a clear-cut answer. Today, Tyler is still sitting in prison. Now, whether he's sitting in there actually feeling remorseful or not, I mean, I don't know. But in 2039, Tyler will be eligible for a sentencing review. And I don't know, personally, I think that's too soon. Curious to know what you think. I feel like if you murder your parents in cold blood, then go on to party after the fact and laugh at yourself in the mirror when you're covered in their blood, maybe

• 1:17:33Annie Elise?

  it's life without parole, right? Like, maybe that's the answer. But I know that there's an argument to be had, too, about people's frontal lobe, their full development, if they're truly evil, if they're just underdeveloped and they're young and they don't understand the severity of their actions. I don't know. But that's where I'm at. I feel like 2039 still feels too early to me. But tell me what you think. I know this one was a twisted one and a wild one, but you know what? Here's my question for you. What would you do if you were at that party? How scary would that have been, not only to make that discovery, but just to even know that you were a partygoer and drinking and raging all while with someone who just murdered their parents in cold blood? That is so eerie to think about. Thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of 10 to Life with me, Annie Elise.

• 1:18:18Annie Elise?

  I will be back with you next week with an all-new case, so make sure you're subscribed or that you're following if you're listening to this on your podcast app so that you don't miss it. And until the next one, stay safe. Bye.

• 1:18:38Speaker 05

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