140. The Thanksgiving Family Murders
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I hope you guys all had such a good Thanksgiving. I know we did. And if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you just had a good last week. Okay, this is your official reminder about our virtual live show that is coming up. It is so soon, December 11th. Make sure you get your tickets. We are covering a Christmas themed murder

It was one I had actually never heard of until I started researching it. So I'm really excited for you all to hear it. It's so cool to have everyone there live while we are literally recording live right in front of you guys. It is always so different and I feel like everyone just has a good time together. All right, Gare, that leads us right over into your 10 seconds. You know, for my 10 seconds today, it might get a little controversial, but I am not a big fan of turkey.

I don't know if you are. I just I just I feel like I had to throw this out there with Thanksgiving happened last week. And if you don't celebrate it, then you know what? Be happy because turkey is a little overrated in my opinion. But you know what? It is good ham. I do like a good like golden brown sugar ham. But turkey is average. It's overrated. And I might get a lot of pushback from this.

I just I had to throw that out there if you have maybe I'm not eating the right turkey Sorry family. Maybe you guys need to step up your turkey game a little bit, but I can I can confidently say that over the 28 years that I've been alive. I don't think I've ever had a turkey or I'm like, oh my gosh. This is amazing. I

And this is going a little long, but I compare it to like a steak. Like when I eat a good steak, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. When I eat a good turkey, I'm like, oh, turkey. Ham on the other hand is pretty good. So let me know your guys' thoughts. Maybe I just need to eat a better turkey. What would you say is the superior food item at a Thanksgiving dinner? I would say that I really like stuffing. No, you can only pick one. Okay.

Superior, top rated, best ever. I think just classic mashed potatoes. Like you cannot go wrong with like some mashed potatoes. You put some gravy on it. You put some pepper. You put some salt. And then you just scarf those things up. So you're mashed potatoes. I'm a mash. I mean, if you can only pick one thing, yes, mashed potatoes. I'm the can of olives.

That's my favorite part about Thanksgiving dinner. But you can get those. Okay. You can't use those because you can get those anytime. So you got to come up with something else. I can use those because those are my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. But you can eat those anytime. I don't even like a dessert. I guess you can eat mashed potatoes. I actually hate all Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, pumpkin pie. I take back my mashed potatoes. I throw in pumpkin pie and pumpkin pie is superior to all foods. So pumpkin pie is your number one on your roster. Number one on the roster. Yeah.

Mine's my can of olives. Pumpkin pie with some can of olives. And on that note, let's hop into this week's episode. All right, let's jump into the case. Our case sources are thesun.com, tampabay.com, palmbeachpost.com, nbcmiami.com, wptv.com, mirrormind on YouTube, and then newspaper.com. Each of the major holidays carries different meanings for different individuals. So like

Christmas is important if you're a Christian, but if you're not, Christmas may not even register for you. It's a day like any other. For some people, Halloween is a day to let your hair down, dress up and have fun, but for other people it's satanic and evil. But one thing that's kind of ironic is that the most widely celebrated holiday in America is one we're almost sharply divided on. And that holiday, if you haven't guessed it, given that it was just a couple of days ago,

is Thanksgiving. And what Thanksgiving means to you likely depends entirely on your family. So if you're someone who's blessed with a warm, close-knit, loving family, you probably look forward every year to spending time with them on Thanksgiving. But

if your family is a unit where it might be dysfunctional or you guys differ on opinions, you might dread Thanksgiving. And today's story is about a kind of family that looked forward to Thanksgiving every year, every year that was until 2009, which for this family is the year that Thanksgiving would change forever.

And I really should shift tone now because this is not a lighthearted story that I'm about to tell you. I know our stories aren't typically lighthearted because our theme is murder. But today, like any Thanksgiving meal, it is especially heavy. And I say this instead of giving a trigger warning, but just keep it in mind.

All right, so let's get into it. If you go to Google Images and type the words Florida and house in the search bar, the results you'll get will be a gallery of very similar images. Clay tile roofs, salmon colored stucco exteriors, brick driveways, lush green grass, and palm trees.

And that's exactly the kind of home that the Sitton family bought when they put a down payment on a three bedroom house in Jupiter, Florida, back in 2005. Now Jupiter is at the north end of Palm Beach County, and it's one of the wealthier towns in Florida. Many celebrities have called Jupiter home at one time or another. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Burt Reynolds, Celine Dion, and Kid Rock have all had houses there.

And the Sittons, the family we're talking about, bought a newly constructed home in the Paseos, which was a modern upscale development with multiple connected communities.

And the Sittons were doing pretty well at this time in their life. Jim Sitton, the father, had worked as a videographer for WPTV, the local NBC affiliate, for close to two decades. And his wife, Muriel, was a former producer for the same news station. So mom and dad both worked together at the news station. Both

Jim and Muriel had won Emmys for their work there. But by 2009, Muriel had taken a step back from producing since the birth of their daughter, Michaela, who at this time was six years old. And the absolute life of The Sittin's Lives, it was an

only child for Jim and Muriel, and they were both in their forties when she was born. So as you know, having a child over 40 can be pretty challenging. So they really pampered her with love and care and attention. The WPTV news crew considered Mikayla to be practically a member of their team with how Jim sit and talked about her all of the time and always had pictures of her on the computers that everyone was using.

She was a joyful, radiant little girl, bright and full of talent. She loved to write, to tell stories, and she wanted to grow up to be an author.

But she was also a performer. She couldn't get enough singing and dancing. She played piano and loved ballet. In fact, she was cast in a holiday production of The Nutcracker, and the premiere was set for the night after Thanksgiving this year. So 2009 had shaped into an eventful holiday season for the Sitton family. All the more because they were the ones hosting Thanksgiving this year.

16 members of their extended family would be coming to their house for Thanksgiving. Oh my gosh, that is a lot of people. A ton. And of course, their house, large and roomy as it was, we've talked about that it's in a very nice area in Florida, was ideal for hosting that many people. They could definitely house 16 people. Their expected guests included Muriel's parents, Raymond and Antoine Joseph, as well as their cousin Clifford.

They also invited Muriel's cousin, Carol Marrage, her husband, Michael, and their grown twin daughters, Carla Marrage and Lisa Knight. So these are just some of the people that are coming over for Thanksgiving. Not going to remember all these people, but there's a lot of people. I'll re-clarify as we're going. Not all of them are pertinent to the story. So Thanksgiving Day 2009 arrives in Florida. And as the sun began to set, the Sittons family members trickled in until all 16 of them were there.

Muriel was in the kitchen brewing the coffee and preparing the meal, and Jim was making the rounds, chatting up his guests, his family. And then in the middle of this chaotic family Thanksgiving, Muriel's cousin, Michael Marich's cell phone rang.

He saw that it was his son Paul calling, so he picked up the call while at this Thanksgiving dinner and let Paul know that he was at the Sittons' house for this holiday. Now, 35-year-old Paul knew about the family gathering, but he hadn't been specifically invited.

Paul had struggled for a long time with mental health issues and he drifted away from much of his family, becoming kind of like a black sheep in the family. So he usually didn't show up to family functions.

and because of this Jim Sitton the Thanksgiving host didn't even know Paul very well like when Michael marriage gets this call from his adult son they're kind of like oh yeah we barely met him but when Michael got off the phone he announced to everyone that he'd just given Paul the black sheep of the family directions and he was on his way to Thanksgiving dinner with the family okay now the Sitton's

were uneasy with this, but they decided not to protest. After all, Paul was family. They may not know him very well, but he probably wanted to be here with the family. And family dynamics are so weird. I feel like there's just always something. I know. It's always drama. There's always something going on. It's just, it's, it's so funny.

Well, Paul's mental health issues and behavior were such that the other family members who'd hosted the previous Thanksgiving gatherings in years before had told the marriages that they wouldn't be invited if Paul, their adult son was attending. So this was a pretty big deal in the family. Like for Paul to call his dad and his dad, Michael marriage say, yeah, here's directions. Come on over to the Sitton's home. The,

This was a pretty big deal, but the Sittons knew that Paul, who was 35 and had long been dependent on his parents, was now living on his own, and they assumed that he was doing better. He had finally moved out of his parents' house. Maybe he was closer to conquering the mental health struggles that had been haunting him since he was in college.

But what are these mental health struggles, you might ask? Who is Paul and really why isn't he getting invited to Thanksgivings? Like why is he the only family member that doesn't get to come? To everyone's surprise, it hadn't always been this way with Paul. And I'll tell you all about it right now.

Up to that point, when Paul Marich began college, he had been your average, well-adjusted kid. He was the first of his parents' three children, born in September 1974, a year after his parents wed. And two years later, his mother gave birth to the two twin daughters, Lisa and Carla, who were invited to Thanksgiving and showed up.

They grew up in Miami-Dade County in Florida, and all three of the marriage children attended private schools. Their parents were both successful realtors, and all three excelled academically. Lisa and Carla, the twins, went to Catholic school, where they were known to sing duets in elementary school talent shows, and Paul attended the prestigious Gulliver Preparatory Academy. All throughout school, even at elementary grade school levels, Paul was a star athlete in multiple sports.

When he was 11, he was one of 16 South Florida Little League baseball players to fly to Japan to compete in the International Boys Baseball Association Championships. In his senior year of high school, he played soccer and he played on the football team, notably kicking a winning 45-year-old

Oh, he kicked the 45-year-old? You're kidding me, babe. A winning 45-year-old. Notably kicking a winning 45-yard field goal. You gotta say it again. You almost said year old. I did it almost again.

notably kicking a winning 45-yard field goal and beating the rival team. And because of his talent, Paul won multiple scholarships. He was well-liked, handsome, thoughtful, and driven. And he planned to attend the University of Miami and become a doctor. Wow.

He was a top scholar and graduated from Gulliver Prep third in his class with a 5.16 grade point average. Oh my gosh. Okay, so what went wrong? Right. Well, in his senior yearbook, Paul Marich dedicated a whole page to his parents and sisters. I mean, he's basically the golden boy at this point. He thanks his parents for the values and the morals that they passed along to him. And to his sisters, Carla and Lisa, he wrote, quote,

I have been so lucky to be blessed with having twin sisters and being your protective older brother. We may fight a lot, but that is only because we love each other so much and would not trade it for the world. He thanked his grandparents, his aunt and uncles, his cousins for their support, noting, quote, all 32 of us in the family. 32? And this is...

Okay, so it's a very large family. And needless to say, at this point in his life, Paul is kind of their shining jewel. Like he's their golden boy. He's getting scholarships. Yep.

But you already know I started this story saying that he hasn't been invited to family Thanksgiving in so long. So where did things go wrong? Well, it wasn't immediately after high school. Just like he'd planned, Paul got accepted to University of Miami, where in his freshman year, he became a member of the school's Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society. Something I have never been a part of.

It looked like Paul was on track to become the leader that his mentors at Gulliver knew he would be. But then something happened. At 19 years old, a year into college, trying to become a doctor,

Paul suffered a mental breakdown. Severe depression and obsessive compulsive behaviors took over his life and his personality. And to everyone who knew him, it was as though Paul had become a totally different person. - Was he doing drugs or was it something that just triggered?

Just snapped. Just triggered. By the age of 20, Paul dropped out of school and was unable to take care of even his own basic needs. Jeez, okay. And that led to him becoming completely dependent on his family for financial support. So it sounds like this downward slide happened suddenly and very rapidly. Do they know what maybe triggered it? Was he at a party? Like, was he just... They have no idea? They have no idea, but I do... He is diagnosed with OCD, and I do...

know that OCD can happen like this, like just in a split second, you don't have it one day, you have it the next. And this is so sad to see someone just change so completely virtually overnight where the person that you knew and loved just seems to disappear.

Paul was formally diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and he had a severe case of it. And he had a particular obsession with cleanliness, which is common, but is not the only type of OCD. Paul would shower and shave over and over again, several times a day among many other life disrupting behaviors. And after,

being evaluated, he was deemed to be legally disabled. This is how bad this mental illness had taken over him. Interesting. Okay. So for the next 12 years, Paul lived with his family and this became a turbulent time as he became increasingly volatile and aggressive to people. He had problems making decisions for himself and he couldn't hold down a job or socialize very well. So he had very few friends. He became obese, his hair fell out and he often couldn't sleep at night.

He wouldn't always take his meds and he would often threaten suicide. He even made several suicide attempts and in one of them he shot himself and later threatened his parents with the same gun.

Paul would go on to be committed to a psychiatric hospital three separate times over the next decade. And his once solid relationship with his family was deteriorating throughout this time, especially with his twin sisters, whose lives continued on these average trajectories while his fell apart completely. Paul envied his sisters, and he also blamed them for the state of his own life. He had once been them.

And now he felt like he had this lack of success. His behavior toward them grew ugly and he began making threats towards them. So the relationship between Paul and his sisters was becoming very unhealthy. Paul accused his sister Carla of domestic violence in 1996.

when he was about 21 or 22. He told the courts that Carla had broken down his bedroom door and wrestled him to the floor, saying to him that if she had a chance to kill him and get away with it, she would. Now, I'm not saying it's not true, but...

I feel like it's not true. It is hard because this does seem like a common theme throughout the story that Paul consistently plays the victim and maybe exaggerates things that happen in order to continue to be the victim. But again, he's obviously mentally unstable at this point in his life, just to give some back context.

After accusing his sister, he also accused his family members of wanting him to get worse and not better. And he took this to court, but the court dismissed the case. And over the next decade, Paul would routinely threaten to kill his sisters, threatening to cut Carla's throat, just very violent things.

Then, in May of 2006, the tables turned, and Carla accused Paul of domestic violence, and she filed a protective order. She was reporting that Paul was threatening to kill her on a regular basis, and she wanted the court's help to prevent further incidents of violence and harassment.

But after taking some time to think about it, and despite her fear of her brother, Carla marriage voluntarily withdrew her request for a restraining order just three weeks after filing it. But by this time, and I say this knowing very well that mental health struggles are real, but also affect a lot of people, everyone in Paul's family was exhausted. I mean,

The legal system has gotten involved. He's still living with his parents. He's threatening to kill family members. So now you understand why he's not being invited to Thanksgiving dinners. At this point, his parents decide that it's time that he move out. It was...

They wanted to help him as much as they could, but also it was becoming dangerous for everyone who lived in the home. So they bought him a condo in Coral Gables. That's where University of Miami is located. So he could live on his own apart from the family, try to maintain a life of his own. How old is he at this point? He's in his early 30s at this point. And his family also hired a housekeeper to look after the apartment as well as after Paul a little bit to make sure that he took his meds.

So Paul moves out and now the marriage house was quiet for a change. Did they ever deem him like a danger to society or anything like that? I mean, I guess if he was in the psychiatric hospitals a couple of times, then yes. Yeah, three separate times. But then they deemed him safe after he was in there or how does that? Yes, you get released, but also it's their son. It's their family member. So of course it would be hard to be like...

Just put him away. You know what I mean? You want him to get better. You want. He's ill. So you want to take care of him. But they had just reached a point that it had become too much. So they decide to move him out, pay for everything, and pay for someone to watch and make sure he's taking his meds. And when this happens, the marriage house...

becomes quiet and the family was finally able to breathe a little. It had been a really rough decade for this family. At this point, it's 2007 and Paul was approaching his mid-30s, unable to hold down a job of any kind or really function as an adult, while his sisters were both engaged and both had full-time jobs on top of all the volunteering work that they did.

Now, Carla, who's a bit younger than Paul, was working for the County of Miami-Dade as an advocate for troubled youth. Her twin sister, Linda, was also working for the county at this time. She worked at the courthouse. And that holiday season, the two sisters volunteered at the juvenile detention center where they sang a duet for the female inmates.

And like I said, this wasn't a rare occurrence. Carla and Lisa actually sing frequently and all over the country together since they were little. They sing at their church, at courthouse holiday parties, and at weddings, funerals, other functions like that.

And these two twin sisters were so close that many described them as inseparable, as is often the case with twins. They spoke on the phone multiple times a day. They went on joint family vacations and they were foundational support for each other. Whatever had gone wrong with their once promising brother, Paul, it didn't show up in them. And everyone the sisters knew adored them.

That year in 2007, they continued on with life together in one direction as Paul stayed moving the other way. Lisa married a litigation attorney named Patrick Knight, who was also a motivational speaker. And she left her courthouse job to work as a realtor like her parents. But that same year, Carla's fiance died suddenly from an aneurysm, leaving Carla devastated. Lisa's heart broke for her twin sister and she was there for Carla every step of the way.

Two years after her fiance's death in 2009, Carla was still recovering emotionally and was only then finally getting back to singing again with the emotional support of Lisa, who was now pregnant with her first child. And Carla was finding plenty to distract herself with over the 2009 holiday season.

And on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, Carla was working overtime well into the evening to make sure that a Thanksgiving charity donation from the mayor reached the dozens of needy families it was intended for in time for the holiday. I only say this so you understand just who these twins were. So that's sort of what was going on in the years and then eventually the weeks leading up to this Thanksgiving dinner we started the story off with. But the one thing that's different this year is

was Paul marriage was expressing an interest in joining the family for Thanksgiving. I wonder what the twins were thinking about this. Cause we know what the Sittons were obviously thinking, but I wonder what the twins were thinking. Right. Well, I think everyone was kind of like, Oh geez. Okay. Here comes the, here we go. You know, and maybe we all have that type of person in the family where on Thanksgiving dinner, you're like, Oh shoot. Those people, that person's coming over. It's kind of hard because Peyton's that person, but just kidding. Keep going.

So Paul asked his parents several times what that year's holiday plans were. And they let him know that dinner that year was being hosted by his cousin, Muriel Sitton and her husband, Jim at their house in Jupiter, Florida.

This is about 90 miles north of Coral Gables, which is a bit of a trek for Paul, but also for the rest of the marriages who lived in the same area. So family had traveled far to come. On Thanksgiving evening, everyone was at the Sitton house. Like I said, coffee was being brewed, dinner was being prepared. And then Paul called his father, Michael, asking to attend and clarifying directions to the house.

also asking several times, in fact, what time the party began and how long everyone expected to be there. Now, after the call, Paul's mother, Carol, turned to Lisa, this is her daughter, one of the twins, and said,

and remarked, quote, I hope he doesn't come and kill us all tonight. Oh my gosh. Lisa told her mom that the same thought had crossed her mind when she found out that Paul was calling to come. So this is why I asked my question earlier, because they obviously somewhat think he is a danger to society. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Like, I know they probably would never be like, oh, he's going to go murder a bunch of people. But in the back of their minds, they were

- A joke still has truth. - 100%. I think a joke always has, except the one I just made about you, a joke always has a little bit of truth. - Right. - Depending on the situation. - Right.

But Lisa then added after she agreed with her mom, she said, but don't say that to dad because he'll get upset that we even had such ideas. That thought even crossed our head. Again, going back to the struggle when this is your own blood, you know, you love them. And it sounded like maybe they were saying this half in jest or in a joking way, which I'm sure they were. But beneath the surface, there was obviously a legitimate fear. You know, like you just said, Michael then had to inform everyone at the 16 person family Thanksgiving that,

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dot com code husband cbdistillery.com code husband everyone including the sittens and the extended family members who were there were sort of caught off guard by this news the news that paul would be arriving soon jim sit and viewed paul as being quote on the fringe of the family and had only met him once or twice before he hadn't even seen paul in over a decade that's how distant paul was from the family

He knew about Paul's mental health issues, but like I was saying earlier, he was under the impression that they were improving. I mean, if Paul's showing interest in coming for family Thanksgiving, he must be getting better. Yeah, that's a good point. Everyone went back to their conversations, and then the attention turned to little Michaela, the sit-in six-year-old girl who began making out Thanksgiving cards for everyone. She wrote how thankful she was for each member of their family, and then they hung the cards on a clothesline. This is the fun part about Thanksgiving, right? It's like...

being grateful for each other, these fun little traditions. The night continued and Muriel and Jim began getting dinner ready to be served. And that's when Paul marriage finally showed up an hour and a half after everyone had arrived and the last of the 17 guests to come to this dinner.

But nothing seemed especially out of the ordinary. Muriel led him over to the rest of the family to say hello to his relatives. And then she introduced him to six-year-old Michaela. And the normally friendly and outgoing little girl suddenly stiffened and grew quiet. And everyone noticed. Like maybe she sensed something dark or off putting about Paul, but the whole family noticed that she froze up, was acting shy. And this wasn't really like her.

But anyway, the turkey was now fully cooked and it was time for everyone to sit down and eat Thanksgiving.

So that's what they did. Everyone sat down and began digging in. Paul sat along with his family near them and he didn't say anything during the meal and he didn't seem hungry. He didn't even eat. He just sat at the table. Which I'm sure they probably thought wasn't that weird considering his mental state. Well, and also you're walking on eggshells here. Yeah. Like you're like, well, we want him to feel welcome. We're not going to poke, you know, it's just...

Pleasantries, right? He sat quietly while everyone ate, and as the conversation swelled around him and the members of his extended family shared stories. Eventually, after some time passed and the meal had begun to settle in everyone's stomachs, dessert was served.

Carla then sat down at the piano and Lisa, her twin sister, joined her and Paul's two sisters sang Christmas carols for everyone. After this, it was time for a performance from the star of the evening, little Michaela, who sang songs at the piano and then in her feature act presented for her own family in impromptu dress rehearsal, showing everyone the dance that she was going to perform in the following night's presentation of the Nutcracker.

Very like caboose child energy here. Like I am the star of the show. Let me perform. Let me do something super cute. Okay. So after doing her dance, Michaela recited Psalm 100 for everyone. And then it was bedtime. Mom Muriel walked Michaela down the hall, brushed her teeth and put her into her PJs and tucked her into bed.

And then she returned to the party, which was now kind of winding down as it was getting late and everyone had been at the couple's home for nearly five hours. And you know how it is when you reach that time of night where the battery has drained and it's time to decompress. That kind of collective draining of energy that's like an unspoken cue that it's time to call it a night. Everyone just kind of starts getting quiet. But it was at this point, while everyone was slowly starting to say their goodbyes, no one noticed Paul Marich excuse himself through the front door.

20 minutes would then pass as everyone's just like kind of getting ready. I'm so nervous. And as people are now standing and preparing to leave, Paul walks back into the Sittons' house through the back door and suddenly, without a word, gunshots. Okay. Jim Sitton looks toward the kitchen and sees Paul Marich standing by the refrigerator with a handgun. He had just shot his 76-year-old aunt. Oh, my God.

Oh my gosh.

Paul then turns the gun towards his sister, Carla, and shoots her. And then he pointed at Lisa and shoots her too. Both twin sisters dropped to the floor. Now, unbeknownst to the now panicking family, Paul had gone out to his car and collected four

which he now had on him at this time. Okay. And his reign of terror had just begun. As Lisa's husband, Patrick, bends over to tend to her and try to stop her bleeding, Paul blasts a bullet through him as well. Oh my gosh. This is...

- This is ridiculous. - He fires again and a bullet grazes his cousin Clifford. Antoine Joseph is on the floor trying to perform CPR on his 76 year old wife, Raymond. Paul then aims the gun at his uncle Antoine directly at his head. And Antoine calls out in French, don't do this. But Paul pulls the trigger anyways, twice. And the gun jams both times.

So everyone begins running for cover at this point. I mean, there are four people who have been shot. Five people have been shot. And Jim Sutton bolts through the rear door into the backyard where he dials 911 from his cell phone. So he gets out of the house and begins calling 911. I think I always am like the gun jam, like someone tackle him. But I mean, when you're in the moment, it's like you can't say what one you would do. It's just...

You can't ever criticize someone because you have no idea what's going on. Right. And while Jim is behind the house, his house, dialing 911, he hears another series of shots, three of them. And these shots come from inside the bedroom of his six-year-old daughter, Michaela.

Inside the house, Paul Marrage begins to exit Michaela's bedroom, but then he turns back around and fires two more shots. That's five bullets that he shot into six-year-old Michaela. Okay. He then exits and walks back down the hallway past the shell-shocked survivors and towards the front door. He opens the door as his extended family cowers in fear in the Sitton's home.

Just before he leaves, Paul hesitates, turns around and says, I've been waiting 20 years to do this. He then gets into his car and speeds away from Thanksgiving dinner. Inside Michaela's bedroom, her parents find the little girl motionless in her bed with five bullet wounds. By this time, multiple calls had already flooded into 911 from family members and from neighbors who heard the shots from the house.

First responders race to the sit-in stucco home, but they're too late to save twin sisters, Lisa Knight and Carla Marich. - Oh, they both died. - They both died, his twin sisters. - Okay, that's horrible. - And 76 year old aunt, Raymond Joseph died as well. Patrick Knight, Lisa's husband is still alive and is rushed to the hospital. He was shot, but he is still alive.

and little Michaela Sitton is airlifted to the hospital by helicopter, but she's pronounced dead upon arrival. - No, okay. - Search helicopters swarm the area of the Sitton's house looking for any trace of Paul or his blue Toyota Camry.

The Sittons then had to explain to authorities what their family Thanksgiving party had turned into. Their daughter had spent the night writing notes to each family member about what she loved about them, only to be brutally murdered in her bed. And it was all at the hands of 35-year-old Paul Marriage, a kid who had everything going for him but was overcome by mental illness.

He had spent the night with his family, watching them eat and be merry, only to annihilate them. What? I don't really know what to say, but like what an absolute pure evil thing to do. All his family members.

has done and tried to do was help him and he killed, he killed them. - Yeah. - And then, and he killed a, not that it makes it any different than anyone else dying, but he killed a six year old girl. - Who he had just met that night. - Who he had just met. And he made it a point to kill her. - He walked back to her bedroom. - It's absolutely horrendous.

By the end of the night and throughout the week that followed, Americans ate their Thanksgiving leftovers, took down Thanksgiving decor, and began setting up their Christmas lights. But over at the sit-in home, it would be yellow crime scene tape adorning the house instead of holiday decorations. And a massive manhunt begins for Paul Marich, who had murdered four family members at Thanksgiving dinner and then somehow vanished.

Patrick Knight, who up to that Thanksgiving night was an expectant father, was now a widower who would spend the next three months in a medically induced coma. It would be touch and go and doctors did not believe he would survive because you have to remember his wife was pregnant. Yeah, I forgot about that. Family and friends of the marriages were in shock. Quote, we are devastated. One family member wrote in an email, the pain is too much to bear. Why, why, why? Where is God?

A neighbor of the marriages, not the Sittons, who talked to the press described them as, quote, wonderful people. The fact is they have lost all three of their children all at the same time. And I can't imagine how painful that must be for them. The fact that the twin sisters came into life together and then died on the same day, too.

That was a quote from someone. Meanwhile, police were fearing that Paul marriage had fled the state or even possibly the country. They knew Paul had ties to both Michigan through a doctor who had treated him as well as Haiti. That's where his mother's side of the family is from.

Police put out a $100,000 reward for any information leading to Paul Marridge's capture, and America's Most Wanted began working on a segment profiling him. But devastating to family and investigators, everyone would soon learn that Paul...

had been planning this massacre for weeks, if not months. He dropped $2,000 on guns and ammunition from a local firearm store where he told the salesman that he was going hunting. And in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Paul Marich withdrew at least $12,000 in cash from a savings account that his parents had set up for him. He was using this as getaway money. And he'd had his clothing all packed and ready to go because when police found his place,

it was cleared out of essentials when they searched it. So he had packed a bag, got his getaway money, got his getaway car,

went to this Thanksgiving dinner, murdered four of his family members, shooting five, attempting to shoot six, and then drove away and disappeared. Now on December 2nd, as everyone back home was grieving, a heavyset man with a shaved head checked into the Edgewater Lodge on Long Key, which was in the middle of the Florida Keys, halfway between Miami and Key West.

The man said his name was John Baca and that he was from the city of Homestead on the far southern end of Miami-Dade County. The motel's owner, Paul Pfaff, recognized John Baca as he stopped by the Edgewater Lodge only a few days earlier, asking Pfaff if he'd had any vacancies.

And Faf certainly had vacancies. In fact, much of the 16-unit, two-story motel was vacant, as tourists didn't exactly flock to this town early in, like in the early weeks of December. The guest calling himself John Baca was checked into room 14 on the second floor of the building, the front of which faced the ocean, while the back overlooked US 1, the highway that connected the keys.

Now, John Baca paid for his room weekly in cash and refused maid service, telling the Fafs that he'd look after the room himself. His only requirement was reliable internet service. Otherwise, this pleasant low-key guest kept completely to himself. He kept to himself so completely that after not seeing him for a number of days, owner Paul Faf grew concerned about the man's welfare and knocked on the door of his room to check.

When John Baca came to the door, Pfaff asked him, are you alive? Yes, I'm just resting, John Baca replied. On January 2nd, 2010, five weeks after John Baca checked into that motel, Paul Pfaff, the owner, was watching college football on Fox when during a commercial break, there was a promo for that night's episode of America's Most Wanted, which was going to profile Paul's marriage and the Thanksgiving massacre he had done weeks earlier.

When Marriage's face popped up on the screen, Pfaff immediately recognized him. It was his guest, John Baca, the man who'd been staying in room 14 since December. Now, though Marriage didn't have a completely shaven head like Baca did, it was clearly the same guy.

America's Most Wanted is my room guest for my room 14 guest. So Faf went to his wife who co-owned the motel with him and he said Melinda that was his wife's name. Melinda I'm freaking out. The guy who killed his family on Thanksgiving he's in room 14. Oh call 911. Next to Megan.

Megan was the Faf's grown daughter who lived at the motel in the room, right next to where it was now believed marriage was staying. So Paul Faf pulled up the America's Most Wanted website and Melinda, his wife, took one look at Paul Marriage's photo and her hair stood up. They'd been unknowingly harboring a fugitive at their motel. Hola. Como esta? Hola, como estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain, and live there for the rest of your...

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So the Fafs were now terrified that they were in close proximity to this mass murderer who was thought to be armed and dangerous. Melinda phoned their daughter, Megan, and told her, get your purse, close your curtain, and lock your door, and come to the office immediately. Melinda then quietly evacuated the remaining few guests at the motel, and the Fafs returned to their house.

I can't imagine being in this position and realizing this. Like that would be so terrifying. Once they were home and in a safe place, the faffs then called the America's Most Wanted hotline. The hotline operator asked Melinda on a scale of one to 10, how sure they were that it was Paul marriage. And the faffs were practically screaming 10, 10,

- It's a 10, like it's a 10. Like we know for sure it's him. They were absolutely certain it was Paul staying in their motel. When they provided the tag number on the vehicle. - I think that's kind of funny. Are you like a hundred percent sure? Like, do you know for sure? Like, yes, come over right now. - Right now, please. - He's literally staying here. - Yeah. When they run his tag number on the vehicle, it did not connect back to the Toyota Camry in the parking lot, but rather to a 1991 Lexus that,

Paul marriage had owned a few years before. So essentially he had just swapped out the license plate with an old one. Again, pointing to the fact that this was a hundred percent first degree murder planned out. You know, for someone who's had to have, I guess, their family support and couldn't live on his quote unquote own, he sure figured out how to do all this somehow. Yeah. Which I don't know. Took a lot of planning. Yeah.

So after the call finished, unmarked police cars began quietly swarming the motel. The U.S. Marshals showed up along with police from Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties and slowly moved in on the motel. A camera crew for America's Most Wanted was also at the scene, of course, and at around 10 p.m. that night, the police shattered the sliding glass door to room 14 and ambushed Paul Marich, leaving him too stunned to do anything other than surrender without resistance.

Well, also they did like taste him. So he was quite literally stunned. Like he probably couldn't do anything. Then they put handcuffs on him and led him out into the parking lot where America's most wanted held a microphone to his face. No way. And with his eyes to the ground, he shook his head and told them of how he'd been tormented for years with chronic medical and mental problems. It's been a nightmare. He said, I didn't even know what I was doing.

Okay, but police already knew that he'd been plotting this for a long time. You can't really say that when you spent weeks plotting. And that's why I said what I said earlier. He obviously knew what he was doing. Right. Whatever his mental health issues, he'd known exactly what he was doing. And one person who believed Paul Marich was a cold calculating killer was his uncle, Antoine Joseph, whose wife was among the four dead that night. This was the uncle who the two bullets had jammed.

Antoine was a physician and he'd once treated Paul Marrage and later came to the conclusion that Paul was dangerous and disturbed. And he actually banned Paul from attending his own Thanksgiving gathering the year before because he was like, this guy's a threat to society. He's dangerous. According to Antoine Joseph, Paul Marrage was quote, "a faker, a spoiled rich kid who harassed his twin sisters."

Paul was smart, Antoine said. He looked up diseases, then displayed the symptoms. One day it was OCD, then it was chronic fatigue syndrome. Back at the Edgewater Lodge, the police cornered off room 14 where Paul had stayed and searched it thoroughly. So they're saying, he's saying he faked, he's been faking everything. So his uncle, yeah, his uncle who had treated him in the past before the murders, had been faking everything.

had said he is sadistic, he's dangerous, he's going to hurt someone. I think that he's mentally ill, but I also think that he's doing research to learn about certain illnesses to be the victim. He's putting himself, he's playing on it, all of this stuff. While police were searching his hotel room, they found receipts from Kmart where he'd spent close to $500 on what appeared to be

A suicide kit? It was like a mask, duct tape, helium kits, a paddle leash, and tie downs, along with a book on assisted suicide called Final Exit. Oh, okay. His Kmart bounty also included pudding snacks, canned bush baked beans, and medicine. So it seemed he wasn't planning on that Final Exit

right away. Like he was still going to be alive for a while. They also found jars of peanut butter, bread, Snickers wrappers, Fig Newtons, canned fruit, bottled water, and the room's amenities included a kitchenette. So Paul was basically able to hunker down in his room, cook for himself and hide out. Like this was all part of the plan. He'd also been exchanging emails with someone named Dr. J who was urging him to turn himself in advice. He obviously didn't take.

Throughout his stay, Paul Marrage had his car parked in the motel's parking lot behind some hedges so it couldn't be seen from the road, and he kept it covered with a silver tarp. So who knows what his plan was or if he even had one, but he clearly did not want to get caught.

In total, he was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. And after a year of delays, in February 2011, he pleaded not guilty to all charges. But that changed after prosecutors offered him a plea deal, which Paul Marich accepted, then changing his plea to guilty that October. Did they try to say he was mentally unstable or crazy at all? His defense did, but they deemed him competent. Because he knew what he was doing. He planned it. Okay. And also...

there was the death penalty on the table. They offered to take it off the table if he pled guilty, which is why he changed his plea. But Jim and Muriel sit and wanted Paul to face the death penalty. Jim sit and told reporters, if there's anyone who deserves the death penalty, it is someone who would execute my six-year-old daughter while she was asleep in her bed. The

The Sittons were blindsided by this plea deal and lobbied for the case to go to trial, which was publicly supported by America's Most Wanted host, John Walsh, who himself had lost his six-year-old son to murder. However, Patrick Knight, who had come out of his coma and was recovering, felt that going to trial would be like reliving the night all over again, so he was against it. After Paul Marich pled guilty, he was sentenced to seven consecutive life terms in prison. But the nightmare didn't all end there, unfortunately.

Paul marriage had truly succeeded in tearing apart this family, which may have been his goal. Honestly, he obviously hated all of them. The Sittons together with surviving victim, Patrick Knight sued Paul's parents, Michael and Carol marriage, alleging criminal negligence. They,

They claimed that the marriages knew their son Paul was dangerous, but nonetheless invited them to Thanksgiving anyways, without consulting anyone. They just said, "Hey, Paul's coming. We already gave him directions." Jim Sitton had especially harsh words to say about Michael and Carol marriage.

Mike created the monster, he said to the press. I was comparing the other day the way we were raising Michaela and the way Paul was raised. We were character training her. You don't, you know, don't like cheat, etc. But Paul was me, me, me. He was a two-year-old. He was a loser, a parasite who never worked a day in his life. This isn't my words. This is the words of the people involved in the story. The Sittons lawsuit against the marriages was eventually dismissed.

But then the marriages turned around and sued the Sittons, placing the blame on them because they allowed Paul into their home once he arrived in spite of knowing he was unstable. The marriages said the Sittons knew about Paul's history and pointed to Dr. Antoine Joseph's warning about Paul and his own boycott against Paul attending his gathering in 2008. So the marriages were now claiming in their countersuit that the rampage never would have happened if the Sittons simply wouldn't have opened the door.

The suit was also dismissed and neither family has spoken about this since. And I only included this piece of information not to further exploit everything that happened, but to show once again how many victims become impacted by one person's decisions. Quite literally, he tore his family apart. The only way they knew how to heal was...

was to try to turn around and blame someone. And I'm not going to, I don't think I'm going to say anything on the situation because I wasn't in the situation and I...

I don't think I can fathom what happened. Right. It's hard not to feel like enormous sympathy for both sides. They each suffered such tremendous loss. The Sittons lost not only their daughter, but Muriel Sitton also lost her mother. And then the marriages lost their two twin daughters and their son, pretty much. Like their son's now in prison for life. Which I could be totally wrong, but I'm sure they were probably more upset about the twins than...

their son but i mean who knows who knows michaela would now have been 19 years old and in her second year of college jim sitton had said at the time god packed a lot of sweetness into that body she's just our life i don't know how we were ever going to recover he and his wife launched a foundation in michaela's name to help provide music and dance lessons to kids they also had one of michaela's stories published by the children's book illustrator tyler hollis

The Sittons still live in the same house and Paul Marrage is currently serving out his sentence at the Lake Correctional Institute in Claremont, Florida. Now, one thing that I think is essential for me to add here before we finish the case is that so many people struggle with mental health. It's important that we not stigmatize people with these issues. Someone like Paul Marrage is not representative of people with mental illness.

And it's just as likely that marriage had an untreated personality disorder, like Jim Sitton had suggested, some fundamental deficits at the character level. The crimes he carried out were cold, calculated, and methodical. And he used mental illness almost as a crutch, even until the end, as a way to possibly get out of facing more serious consequences for his actions. Which is extremely messed up. Because now... It just hurts everyone else that does struggle with mental illness.

Right. You're putting this stigma on them that isn't true. But it's such a horrible thing that he did. It's so outside the reach of what most of us can imagine that it's tempting to pin it on some other state of mind, some disorder. And Paul Marich knew that. He knew that he could use his mental illness struggles as a crutch. But anyway, I mean, this story was so heartbreaking and terrible. But if there's anything remotely close to a happy ending in all of this, it's this. Really?

Really more of a happy epilogue as there can't really be a happy ending to stories like this. But in 2012, Muriel Sitton became pregnant again at the age of 50 after losing her six-year-old daughter. And the Sittons had another daughter, a true miracle baby. Wow.

And two years later, another daughter joined their household. And so that void that was left by Michaela's senseless death, I'm sure it's still there, but there's less of an emptiness in their lives because they again have the gift and privilege of being parents. And that's something for them to be grateful for. And that is the story of the bloody Thanksgiving. That is, that was too much.

That was a lot. It's such a sad story. It's extremely sad and horrific and traumatizing. Well, and it just goes to show that, you know, the whole time I was researching, I was torn between

Yo, I think he really did struggle with mental illness. But you don't get to use it as a crush like that. You don't get a plan and you don't get to do it. And that's the hard part, right? Is you have sympathy because you understand mental illness and you understand that struggle. But then when you see what he's done, there's no sympathy to be had. No, he...

a mass murder. Yeah. A mass execution, literally, is what he planned. And so many people at that Thanksgiving dinner knew. Knew it was coming. He had chances to stop. He had multiple chances to stop. He did not care. And I think...

the part that like really digs it in the grave is that right after he killed Michaela and he turned to walk out he had to pause stop turn around and tell all of his family who is now going through the worst thing that will ever happen in their whole life yes I've been wanting to do this for 20 years horrible that that just like is the nail in the coffin for me all right you guys that was our episode for this week I love it and I hate it goodbye