Dead Asleep (2021) - full transcript

It doesn't make any sense.

Randy was a mellow, mellow kid.

I've never even heard him raise his voice.

Something was off about this case.

Modern sleep science says that

you can kill in your sleep.

It is real.

This is not sleepwalking.

It had a sexual overtone to it.

She came in my room.

Next thing I remember,

I'm covered in blood.

It was clear cut.

He even admitted, "I did it."

I know it was me.

But I don't remember anything

that had just happened.

911 emergency.

Yeah. There's...

You need to send police.

Okay. And what's going on there?

Someone's been murdered.

Okay. Someone has been murdered.

Okay. In what way?

Do you know if they're breathing,

or they've definitely passed away?

- I don't know.

- You don't know?

Okay, well, what did you see, sir?

I'm at Haverhill Park.

Just send the police.

It was me.

I'm sorry.

We didn't get anything out of him.

One person? Male or female?

Girlfriend?

Stick him in the car.

Now,

the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office

investigating the death of a woman

in suburban West Palm Beach...

They found the woman dead

and took that man

who had called 911

in for questioning.

Randy Herman is in jail

charged with the stabbing death

of 21‐year‐old Brooke Preston.

We'll keep you updated

as we learn anything else

in this investigation.

Reporting live in...

Hold your hands out for me.

And hold them upside down.

I met Randy in the jail.

I went out to see him

the day that he was arrested.

And then I was assigned

to handle his case.

Uh, you know, I'd be

the lead counsel from that point on.

My first impression was just that

he wasn't a very big guy.

You can turn around, Randy.

Just a very meek person, physically.

He definitely seemed different than,

you know, a lot of

the people I represent.

What I'm gonna do is just gonna

switch out your clothes, alright?

He seemed very well‐mannered,

very respectful.

You know what size you are?

- Uh?

- Medium.

Medium? Okay.

‐ But something was a little bit off

about, uh, this case.

You know what size jeans you wear?

Thirty‐two, 30?

So he committed the crime.

But he couldn't remember

what happened.

And then of course

there was certainly a lack of motive

because of how close, uh,

you know, Brooke was with him.

And you have another roommate,

Brooke's sister, right? Jordie?

Does she know what happened?

No. Nobody knows what happened.

We don't even know

what happened.

That's why we're sitting here

trying to, trying to get it from you.

I don't know.

‐ To me, it seemed like

a genuine lack of recollection.

Was it an argument? Was it...

I don't know, sir, I don't know.

Okay.

What do you remember?

Blood.

Okay.

Yes, Randy does tell the police

"I murdered" this person,

because you're standing over them

holding a knife.

- She came to say goodbye.

- Okay.

She said goodbye,

and I just don't remember anything.

I just...

When did, when did she...

- I don't know what happened.

- Okay.

I just don't remember...

Okay, not a problem. Let me...

Let me ask you...

Were you guys

ever romantically involved?

- No?

- They're like my sisters.

- Okay.

- I don't know what I did.

Okay.

But to wake up

over someone who you consider

your sister

stabbed a number of times

with a knife in your hand

covered in blood

and not know what happened,

I could imagine it being

a very scary proposition

for a guy like Randy.

Brooke's smile was gorgeous.

Just the personality.

And she was really

just always happy.

She was beautiful, inspiring,

and going places.

She had a sense of drive

to be better.

And she worked hard.

People who knew Brooke

in her high school days said

Brooke was very much someone who was

the life of the party.

Brooke was this explosive ball of energy.

She was lively.

She was bubbly.

She was athletic.

And, you know, she had

a lot of close friends.

And she was always cool.

We'd all hang out, go swimming.

We'd play games.

Go bowling.

It was always having fun.

We grew up on Instagram, Snapchat.

She was always on Facebook.

And Brooke taught me

how to use Tinder.

That's for real, dawg.

Like, that... like, like...

I was like,

"Brooke, how do I do Tinder?"

And Brooke was like, "Nah,

let me pick the pictures for you."

They were always laughing,

playing, having fun.

Brooke, Randy, and Jordan.

They were like family.

Brother and sister.

They were two of his best friends

that he grew up with.

Moved down here in Florida with them

to start a new life.

Officers found 21‐year‐old

Brooke Preston dead on the floor

stabbed multiple times.

Meanwhile, he remains

behind bars without bond.

The question here tonight remains why?

Because even he says

he can't remember.

Hello, this is prepaid collect call

from an inmate at Palm Beach

Everglades Detention Center.

This call is subject

to recording and monitoring.

Hello.

Hello. How are you?

Oh, okay, How are you?

Doing alright, you know.

Hope you're okay.

Did you talk to the lawyer?

He called me.

But it still don't make sense.

Why? What's the matter?

- Uh...

- Why?

Well, because

they didn't really tell me why

or what made you do it.

I don't even know

the reason, you know.

Yeah, I know.

I just wish

I'd know how I did it.

I was just confused.

I didn't know what was happening,

you know, I...

That's why I called 911.

If I wanted to, I could have ran.

But that wasn't what was

on my mind.

I didn't do this intentionally,

and this was a person

I cared about.

This was a close friend

so, I mean, my mind was just...

I was just in shock.

‐ The one thing

that was definitely clear

in kind of discussing it

with colleagues is

none of us could figure out

what happened.

I definitely felt that Randy

was being truthful with me

and that he had profound amnesia

for the event.

And so, then the challenge upfront was

how to defend him.

So we called a psychologist

that specializes in trauma

to try to explain why maybe Randy

had that amnesia.

‐ I was trying to find out what happened

just as much as he was.

From the very beginning,

I cooperated with Dr. Ewing.

I've looked high and low

why he did what he did.

I was truly puzzled.

Because there didn't seem to be

any logical basis

for this crime.

We went through hours

of interviews of him just asking me

question after question after question.

Basically, what I was looking for was

did he have a mental illness.

Do you hear voices?

See things?

Are you paranoid?

‐ We went through everything

he could think of.

Did he have,

uh, background of oppression

or other abuse?

But nothing fits.

Nothing made sense.

Nothing.

And so I focused in

on questions I consider to be

neurologically related.

Have you ever had

a head injury?

Have you ever had seizures?

Sometimes,

people with seizure disorders

can act out violently.

But again,

his answers were no.

‐ I mean, we didn't really know

where to go.

Uh, he was just as confused as I was.

I would have walked away saying

there's nothing

had I not asked

that last question

just as a matter of thoroughness:

"Have you ever sleepwalked?"

When Dr. Ewing

first said sleepwalking,

he really, you know, made the hair

stand up on the back of my neck.

Sleepwalking to me

at the time was,

you know, going out to the,

to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

But it was a big jump

to stabbing somebody 20 times.

‐ As a sleep specialist,

and I understand.

I've seen, you know,

hundreds of cases of sleepwalking.

So I know sleepwalking is involuntary.

You're not consciously aware

of what you're doing.

But public ideas about sleepwalking,

generally not accurate.

Until 1964,

the general idea was that

the sleepwalkers were acting out

their dreams.

I mean, literally getting up

and acting out their dreams.

This idea that the sleepwalker is

out of bed, got his arms out

like Frankenstein.

We still see it,

if you watch something like

The Simpsons.

But the reality is

sleepwalking is a set

of related behaviors

that comes out of sleep,

most often following partial arousal

out of deep sleep.

And it usually occurs in a state

that's not really awake or asleep.

There's no difference between people

who sleepwalk at home every night

and people who commit

sleepwalking violence,

known as violent parasomnia.

Sleepwalkers are not consciously aware

of what they're doing.

And these days, it is understood that

someone can kill somebody in their sleep

under the right circumstances.

We're here on Sarazen Drive

off of Belvedere Road.

Deputies have been out here all day

blocking off the street.

Deputies tell us they got

a 911 call this morning

from a man who told them

a woman was dead

inside her home here on Sarazen.

As a bloodstain analyst,

one of the things

I'm attempting to do is

try to figure out where

the actual crime happened

within the scene.

In this case, I'm analyzing

and interpreting throughout the residence

the bloodstains

and the movements of Brooke

and its incredible sensory overload.

The smells,

the blood just dripping down the walls.

I've been doing this

for 21 years.

I've probably seen

more incidents

than any human being should.

This was one of

the more vicious crime scenes

that I had to document.

I still admit that this case

really bothers me.

This was totally violent.

Brooke was stabbed 25 times.

We know that

after she is dead and down,

he gets a quilt to‐to wrap her.

There are psychological experts

that say sometimes if a person

is known to you,

they're want to cover them

to conceal their face from you

to preserve her dignity.

But it might be actually to assist him

in dragging her out.

People don't realize how heavy

a, a dead‐weight body is.

You know,

we have a beautiful young woman

who is absolutely brutally murdered.

I mean, this was a prolonged attack

that most likely took a couple of minutes.

You think about doing this 25 times.

It's a brutal, violent struggle

that's taking place.

The murder weapon is still

in the bathroom

covered in Randy's fingerprints

depressed in the blood.

At the time of the crime,

nobody else was in the house.

‐ It was clear cut.

He even admitted that she's been murdered

and I did it.

On the face of it,

there was not really a viable defense.

Can I get you guys anything

as far as water or anything like that?

Give me one second

to just make this phone call,

and I'll be right back.

‐ This is not good.

Because it says Homicide.

‐ What?

‐ It says Homicide.

That means somebody killed her.

How did she die?

I can tell you that for right now

it appears that she was stabbed.

Oh my god, no!

I've known Randy

since he was, like, ten.

He was a mellow, mellow kid.

I've never even heard him raise his voice.

I mean, god,

the kid was at my house.

He's been to pool parties.

I mean...

he's always quiet.

Everybody always liked him.

Nice guy,

always a nice guy.

‐ Doesn't make sense.

It doesn't,

it doesn't make any sense.

Never in a million years.

What are you doing? Come here.

You can come.

You a good boy.

I have pictures of Randy.

Lot of pictures of Randy,

'cause I like surrounding myself

with... the kids and family.

And that's all the different Randys

growing up.

Him and his sister

were always close.

And my mom

gets upset once in a while,

and Randy would always make her smile.

He was the only one

that could make her smile.

When Randy was little,

if I wanted him to do something,

I just pretended I was crying,

and he'd do it

just so I didn't cry.

And even when he got

older enough to know

that I was pretending

and I was faking,

he'd still do it

because he didn't want to see me sad.

"Alright, fine, just get that look

off your face and I'll do it."

Hey, mom.

He's always been

a very good kid, very supportive,

very respectful.

‐ He's very kind, friendly.

Growing up,

we really just rode bikes,

hiking,

exploring the woods.

Push hard.

I remember he went down the creek

the one time with his friends.

Randy's like, look at the flowers.

Aren't they pretty?

And they laughed at him.

Men don't do that, you know.

You're not supposed to notice flowers.

Must act like a man.

But it was from being

with me and his sister,

and we loved nature and stuff.

But it would bother Randy.

I haven't met him.

But as a clinical

and forensic psychologist,

I find the case of Randy Herman

is fascinating.

This dynamic of Randy growing up

with the two women in his life

and not experiencing

traditional masculinity.

And so his relationship with women

is really tied up

with a lot of emotionality.

And there may be something about

the present dynamic

with Brooke and Jordan

that was somewhat emotionally similar

to what he had

with his mother and his sister.

Jordan?

Okay.

Uh, first off,

I'm very sorry, okay.

There's nothing I can say

that would ever

help you at all,

but, um... I just kind of want

to start from the beginning.

I guess you were out of town.

‐ Yeah, I flew out Thursday night.

‐ Okay. Did you talk

to your sister on Friday?

‐ Yeah, I talked to her every day.

‐ Okay.

‐ She's my sister,

but she's like my best friend too.

‐ Brooke Preston was about

two years younger

than her older sister Jordan Preston.

But they were always together.

‐ Brooke and Jordan

were childhood best friends

surrounded by really supportive parents.

‐ Brooke spent a lot of time

on social media.

She posted a lot,

especially about her family.

Brooke was close with her family

and, you know, family that close,

they did things together,

Okay.

‐ It's time to take you down

to the dirty dungeon

so that nobody'll ever find you.

Once a week or so,

Prestons had these family dinners

to just hang out

and bond with their daughters.

With Brooke's strong family relationships,

it's not surprising

that she was well‐liked by everybody.

‐ Between Brooke and Randy,

was there ever any issues with them?

‐ Never.

‐ Never at all?

‐ I've never even seen him violent.

I don't understand.

We've lived together

since the day he came down here,

'cause we were really good friends

in Pennsylvania

since as long as I can remember.

‐ Was there ever any sort of relationship

between them other than friends?

Did it ever seem like he tried

to express anything more than that?

‐ Not to me.

‐ I was just making sure

there is not like some underlying

weird relationship thing that I'm missing

or anything that anybody was...

‐ I wish there was

some explanation.

I know my son.

I know that he's not capable

of doing something like that.

The only possible way

he could have done it was sleepwalking

where he wasn't conscious,

he didn't know what was going on.

When he was younger,

one night,

me and Amanda were up

and he had already gone to bed

and we were in the kitchen,

and he came out

and climbed on the counter.

He has that look,

like a dazed look.

And Amanda asks him,

"What are you doing?"

He'd just look at you,

and he wouldn't say anything.

He was getting a drink,

and he gets pancake mix

out of the cupboard.

By then, we realized

he was sleepwalking.

I'd guide him back to bed,

and he'd go right with me

and he'd lay right down

and he was out like a light.

‐ When we were younger,

we had plastic on the windows

to keep the heat in

in the wintertime.

He would get up

in the middle of the night sleepwalking

and just start scratching

at the windows,

and he would say

he was trying to get out.

My Randy was around ten.

I was working at the bar

right next door.

One night, it was light

and I had one customer,

and I was closing up

when Randy rode his bike

to the bar.

And he just walked up to the bar,

he laid his head on it.

I asked him, what are you

doing out this late?

And he turned around

and walked back out the door.

And he got on his bike

and rode home.

We knew he was sleepwalking

because he didn't speak to me.

Because it was just across the street,

he'd ride to the bar every day.

So he was very familiar

with the road.

He could ride over there

with his eyes closed.

‐ Sleepwalking is complex.

It's more likely to occur in adults

who had a history of sleepwalking

as a child.

Certainly there are sleepwalkers

who seem to do

very coordinated, scary things.

Something like driving a car.

Often automatic.

It's a behavior which is over‐learned.

Something done dozens,

hundreds of times.

It's one of these, "I did it so many

times, I could do it in my sleep."

Breaking story today,

a killer's unusual defense

of sleepwalking.

Randy Herman, now 26,

is charged with the first‐degree murder

in Preston's stabbing death.

Herman told him

about his sleepwalking history

corroborated by family.

Meantime, Randy Herman will remain

behind bars

at the Palm Beach County Jail.

‐ Mr. Walsh told me that he was going

to ask for a continuance

because he had discovered that there was

a legitimate potential defense

that he wanted to explore.

It was the sleepwalking defense.

I was very much taken aback

because in all my years,

I'd never seen it.

When Dr. Ewing

first brought up sleepwalking,

it seemed logical.

But there's really not a defense

for that here in Florida.

In other states,

sleepwalking would seem

to kind of fold

into diminished capacity.

But we don't have a diminished capacity

defense here in Florida.

So we had to find some way

to defend Randy's case.

The DSM is like an encyclopedia

for psychologists.

And the DSM recognizes sleepwalking

as a mental disease or infirmity.

So the DSM became

the basis for our case.

Things happen, alright.

Sometimes things happen, Randy.

And we just need to figure it out.

When the police questioned Randy,

he was clearly remorseful

about what had happened.

Is she okay?

Please tell me.

Please tell me.

‐ We like to follow our common sense

and follow the evidence,

and‐and this appeared to be simply,

you know, an act of rage,

an act of hatred,

an act of, you know, lover scorned,

you know, whatever happened.

On its face,

that's what it appeared to be.

But then, you know, you just know

that what you're going to have to explain

is, well, where's the motive?

Randy said he had no sexual interest

in Brooke Preston

and that there was no infatuation

between the two of them.

Randy, it seems like

that you had some feelings

for Brooke.

You hadn't been boyfriend‐girlfriend

with her, right?

No, she was like my sister.

- Okay.

- Sister.

‐ But when you looked

at the dynamic of the three of them,

he's a, he's a young man,

he wasn't terribly attractive,

kind of smaller,

little bit heavier,

and living in a home with

these two very attractive ladies.

The vibe that I got was just like, okay,

Randy was in love with Brooke Preston.

Maybe he attempted something sexual.

And she may have rebuffed him,

she may have been cruel about it.

You know,

some people react violently

when they're rebuffed.

Or laughed at.

And that's maybe what set him off.

‐ I feel like Randy really liked Brooke.

I do feel like

Brooke liked Randy as well.

- Yeah.

- In a romantic way?

‐ In every way.

Then Brooke started getting serious

with this other guy, I guess.

And if Randy started getting feelings

for, for Brooke...

Love kills.

Were you ever aware of them

maybe having any kind of relationship?

- Randy...

- Brooke and Randy.

No. No,

Brooke has a guy that she's been with

on and off for three or four years.

Bryan.

Brooke was in a really committed

and very public relationship

at the time.

She posted stuff online

and talked about it all the time.

Her boyfriend gets, like,

a promising job opportunity,

um, up north.

And so, they're pretty serious.

Brooke had recently

disclosed to her mother

that her and this guy were,

were the real deal.

Is that the guy who's in New York?

Yes, they're together now.

They're very happy,

talking about getting engaged.

In fact, she was only here

to pick up her car

to drive back to Buffalo.

She's starting a new...

No!

‐ Are you friendly with Randy

or were you friendly?

‐ I was... Yes,

I was friendly with Randy.

‐ Okay.

‐ I mean,

you know, I didn't go out of my way

to hang out with him,

but anytime I was hanging out

with Jordan and Brooke,

you know, he was always there,

so we would always hang out.

This is as much of a shock to me

as it is to everybody else.

Randy never, to me,

showed anything weird

except for Friday night.

The day before she was killed,

Brooke and Randy

had been drinking all day.

And that night, Randy exhibited

very odd behaviors

that made her feel uncomfortable.

And she communicated that

to her friend Kyle McGregor.

‐ Brooke had sent me a text.

She said, "Please pick me up

and take me somewhere."

And I said why, and she said,

"He's being belligerent and stumbling.

Pissing me off."

Right when she texted me that,

I was right around the corner

about to turn into the neighborhood.

I knocked on the door, he was just

stumbling around, uh, you know.

Basically, he looked like

he was drunk to me.

Kyle went to the kitchen

to get something to drink

and didn't remember seeing

where Randy went.

And then all of a sudden,

Brooke came busting out of the bedroom

very upset.

And told Kyle that Randy just was

in my bedroom closet naked.

‐ She said Randy was butt‐ass naked

doing this to me.

Totally naked?

‐ Totally naked.

That's what she said.

And that,

obviously that freaked her out.

I mean, I'd be freaked out

if there was a naked man in my closet.

She grabbed me by the arm

and she said, "We gotta go, you know.

Can we leave now?

He's freaking me out."

Really, really scared her.

And it just reeks

of some sort of sexual interest.

And there's other key pieces of evidence

that suggested that this was

sexually motivated.

For example,

he had a pair of fuzzy handcuffs

next to his bed

as well as the murder weapon,

a knife.

‐ He claimed that women liked

to be tied down,

and they actually enjoyed it

when he's done it before.

‐ Our theory in the case was that

Randy Herman was absolutely in love

with Brooke Preston.

Him being nude in the closet

and some of his behaviors that night

maybe he saw

as a way to win her over,

to show her how much he loved her.

Ultimately, she was not interested.

He was sort of in the friend zone.

And given that this case had

a sexual overtone to it,

I just said to myself,

this is not sleepwalking.

If Randy Herman

was in a state of sleepwalking

at the time he stabbed,

uh, the victim,

then I believe this is an explanation,

an excuse for what he did.

And we know that

modern brain science says

that there are reptilian instincts,

certain primitive behaviors

that, uh, served our predecessors.

Eat, sleep, hunting,

sex,

protection.

And they were still

in there somewhere.

When you're awake,

all these primitive instincts

are inhibited

by the part of the brain

that developed to stop us

from acting out,

you know, these behaviors.

But when you're sleeping,

the part of the brain that controls

these primitive behaviors

is turned off.

So sleepwalkers are acting

out of primitive instinct.

It's not that the sleepwalker gets up

and goes hunting

or goes looking for a victim.

This person is just

a potential danger

who is approaching them.

And they would not know

who that person was.

They are reacting

to a trigger.

Something that could cause

a brief arousal in your sleep.

That could be a sound,

touch.

They wouldn't stab someone once

and say, "Oh, you're dead."

They would just keep going

until at some level

they're satisfied there's no longer

a risk in front of them.

And it's usually triggered

by the victim.

So in the case of Randy

and his roommate,

we should be asking,

on that morning,

did he perform

those violent behaviors

while he was in a state

of sleepwalking?

When Randy was a little kid,

I didn't take him to the doctor

for sleepwalking.

Because it's a normal thing, you know.

I sleepwalked, my daughter sleepwalked.

We grew out of it.

I didn't know it was a medical thing.

I never heard that.

And anyways, you have to pay,

like, a lot of money

if you actually want to take them

to the doctor for sleepwalking.

Growing up,

we didn't have a lot of money.

It was kind of rough.

My mom, she was always working

all the time,

and me and my brother

were always at babysitters.

It was when they were younger that

their father and I split up.

Growing up, I thought my dad,

like, lived so far away.

And then, as I got older, I'm like,

you know, it was only 40 minutes away,

an hour away.

But he always said that he...

it was too far for him to come drive.

And he never really tried

to take the kids,

except for when Amanda got older,

like, old enough to, like, clean

and, you know,

take care of herself.

He told her

she could come live with him.

That hurt Randy's feelings.

And Randy just totally devastated

thinking Dad didn't love him.

Growing up,

my father wasn't really in the picture,

and we kind of got

more and more separate.

The weekends together would get

longer and longer apart.

Ah!

Uh, my dad has always drank a lot.

Uh... he drank all the time.

Before my dad and mom split up,

they used to get

into pretty big fights.

I remember one time my dad was drunk

and he locked us outside the house,

and I ended up peeing my pants.

I was only like five, I think.

And then finally

when he let us in,

my mom and him got

in a huge fight.

That was a bad argument.

He was drinking.

He opened the door

and pulled me in by my hair.

Ow!

He kept pushing your head

when you argued the push.

And he kept doing that

and I didn't like it,

so I turned around

and I punched him in the face.

Well, then he hit me back.

So...

‐ Toxic masculinity

is a relatively new term.

But it's really a term

that's describing an old idea.

‐ You're going to the moon!

‐ Dink, say goodbye to Felix.

‐ Hmm?

‐ Uh, man talk.

‐ And it's a way of exploiting

male privilege

in a way to create dominance

and power.

Randy is a small guy

living in a situation with two women

who are by all accounts probably

in a stronger position than he is.

They've got financial security.

And I think there is something

to be said

about the pressures

of our current time.

That we live in a society

where everything is open

for public consumption.

And so, people's envies

can be easily served

because instead of comparing themselves

to the two or three kids in their class,

they've got, like, 40,000

on the internet that

they're measuring themselves against.

And for those that have a history

of trauma, neglect,

a history of feeling insufficient

in some way,

they are more vulnerable

to being impacted

by those feelings

of envy and longing,

and they end up driving sometimes

some of their behaviors,

some of their choices.

Now at 3, shocking new details

in the murder of a 21‐year‐old woman

whose body was found stabbed

more than a dozen times

inside a West Palm Beach home.

Here's the big twist in all of this.

A TV station in Pennsylvania

now reporting

that Randy Herman Sr.,

the father of the suspected killer,

he too was charged with murder,

accused of killing his girlfriend

in February 2015.

Now, this case was later dropped

against him

because he committed suicide.

‐ The woman had been murdered,

and they were looking

for, uh, my dad.

I think there was some

kind of argument or fight.

And, um, he killed her.

And then he shot himself.

When I found out

my father shot and killed

his girlfriend at the time,

I was definitely conflicted.

I mean, obviously, this was a person

that wasn't really in my life.

And part of me felt like

I shouldn't really care.

But another part of me also felt like,

you know, this is still my father.

‐ I think that Randy Sr.'s homicide

and later suicide

must have had a significant impact

on Randy Jr.

Throughout his life,

he has been searching for this

loving father,

father he can connect with.

And it's a father

he never really finds.

And when he next hears

about his father,

it's in this devastating, ugly,

shameful kind of experience

that reflects on him.

They have the same name.

Right? He can't get away from it.

And that for a young guy like him

who's already struggling

with his identity,

that would have been

quite impactful.

My brother had to go

and clean out my dad's house.

And at the time, I was,

I was so upset,

I was the one crying,

and he had to go in there and clean up

the mess from the shooting.

So he had to clean up the carpets

and the walls.

And I think that probably

wasn't good for him.

That probably did some damage.

When I learned that his dad

had killed his own girlfriend,

I thought they would run with that

as some kind of an explanation

for some mental defense.

You know, like father like son.

After my father had passed away,

I moved back in with my mother,

and I was working

at a meat processing plant

in the head room.

I used a air knife,

and my job was removing meat

from a jawbone.

I just stand

in a stationary position

and just take meat off a jawbone

and put it on a conveyor belt,

and that was it.

It really was a dead‐end job.

I was worried.

I think he was struggling

with Dad's death.

I just think it all just got to him.

Things just weren't going well.

I wasn't really going anywhere.

I was just doing

the same thing every day.

Take meat off a jawbone,

put it on a conveyor belt.

You know, I just felt kind of stuck.

I realized how much

I had taken for granted

and how many chances I was given.

And, you know, I really went into

a depressed cycle.

‐ Hey, Jordan.

And at the time,

my close friend Jordan,

she had got a job opportunity

in West Palm Beach.

She was moving down there,

and we'd make jokes about me

moving down there with her.

The more we talked about

me moving down there with them,

the more it kinda became serious.

Eventually, over time, I thought that,

you know, maybe this

would be a good idea.

To get out of this, you know,

dead‐end cycle that I'm in

and to move to West Palm Beach

and start fresh

and get a career

and really, you know,

help my life get back on the right track.

He's got lots of money

because he had his father's inheritance.

I didn't blame him for wanting

to go to Florida.

I figured, um,

what are you gonna do, you know.

It's like, he has his reasons.

He wanted to go down

and make something of himself.

He used to always tell me

that he was gonna make lots of money

and buy me a house down there.

So he went

to West Palm Beach with his friends.

‐ Jordan and me and Brooke decided

to ultimately look for a house together.

We were looking around

at different places,

and we found the house

at Sarazen Drive.

It was a nice three‐bedroom house

just west of, uh, West Palm Beach.

That would be the house

we would move into.

It was exciting.

It was positive, you know.

It was three young adults

moving down.

We first met Brooke,

Randy, and Jordan,

they were always joking around

with each other.

Me and Randy...

we clicked instantly.

It clicked even better when we found out

that we both just moved to Florida

from small little country states.

He's a country boy.

Like, he's country.

I mean, the dude kept

a buck knife next to his bed.

I don't know how much more country

you can get than that.

Like, it was there

every single day.

But we were making good money.

We were making good money

at the business we were doing,

selling internet and cable at Walmart.

That's what we did.

So the day is finally over,

and I get my beer.

I'm working,

we're having a good time.

It's obviously a fun environment.

It's a party lifestyle.

Drinking a lot of times,

having friends over a lot.

And Randy was the life of the party.

Because when he walks

into a room, it's crazy.

He just brings this smile and this energy

and this everything.

‐ This thing is so slow.

I mean,

I was surrounded by close friends.

We get along great.

It was just a good time.

Consistent with their generation,

Randy and Brooke both seemed

to be actively engaged

in social media.

And the reward system

that one gets in social media.

Posting. Getting recognition.

And Randy is posting

at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning

obviously having, um, not slept.

We know that sleep is really important

for a lot of things,

including consolidation of memory,

cognition,

learning,

and mood regulation,

affect regulation,

emotional regulation.

I was reading

about Randy's case online,

and there was a whole bunch of comments

about my brother being a monster

and he deserves way worse

than life in prison.

It's upsetting

because I know

he's not a monster.

But it's a small town.

Everybody judges everybody.

I know my mom was worried

about seeing people

from around here.

It took a toll on her.

A stabbing in Florida

involved two people from Wyalusing,

one is now dead,

and the other is behind bars.

‐ I mean,

just knowing the family,

it's heartbreaking.

‐ It was two years

before the trial even started.

Two very long years.

Around Wyalusing

where the Prestons were from,

they know who I am.

I'm afraid I'm gonna run

into the father, Mr. Preston,

who is a very nice man.

And I don't want to. I...

You know, what do you say?

There's nothing to say.

I don't know what to say.

But there's two sides

to every story.

‐ Everybody knew that it was BS

from the beginning.

You take someone's life like that,

I think you should lose yours too.

Randy claims he didn't remember

what happened at the moment.

For a case like this,

when the defendant says

"I don't remember,"

my mind immediately goes to,

okay, what are the facts.

What does Randy remember?

What led up to this?

Randy Herman, Brooke Preston,

and her older sister, Jordan Preston,

were living together

in a single‐family residence

on Sarazen Drive.

But Jordan had left

for a couple of days

to spend some time

with her boyfriend in Colorado.

Meanwhile, Brooke had made the decision

to move to live with her

longtime boyfriend up in New York.

So she had come to that house

to pack up her things

and drive north

and say goodbye to Randy.

Thursday morning, I woke up at 3:00

and picked her up

at the Fort Lauderdale Airport.

We drove back to the house.

I ended up dropping her off.

It was still fairly early,

so at that time I went to the beach.

And I was able to catch the sunrise.

Later that morning, we decided

to go out to the beach.

‐ Brooke had spent the whole day

at the beach with Randy.

They'd been drinking

quite a bit at the time.

Later, that afternoon,

they went back to the house

where they continued drinking.

‐ From then on,

I was just heavily intoxicated.

Me and Brooke drinking on the back porch

was, you know, my last clear memory.

‐ Randy continued to drink.

That's when Brooke texted Kyle,

you know, Randy's acting strange.

So we know that Kyle came to the house.

And then, uh, the naked‐in‐the‐closet

event had happened.

She was very shaken.

Brooke said to Kyle,

"Get me out of here,

I can't stay here tonight.

I need to stay over at your house."

And she did.

Waking up the next morning,

I was half hungover.

I was really dehydrated, thirsty.

I went to get some water.

That's when I ran into Brooke.

She had come back

and was kind of gathering

the last of her belongings.

I decided to go back to bed.

‐ Meanwhile, Kyle and Brooke

go to breakfast.

A few minutes later,

Randy texted her

to see where she is.

And she says, hey,

we're gonna go to breakfast

if you wanna go.

He said no,

he was in bed asleep.

But he had something for her.

I remembered I had a T‐shirt

I wanted to give to Brooke

to take to her boyfriend

Bryan Brown.

I wanted to give that to Brooke

before she left.

‐ She said she would stop by

as soon as they had breakfast.

The next thing I remember

is her calling my name.

I had sat up in bed.

She came in my room.

I told her where the T‐shirt was.

She picked up the T‐shirt.

She was smiling,

saying thank you.

She came over, gave me a hug,

and said goodbye.

She shut the door.

And I laid back down.

We know that 8:49 in the morning,

a gentleman in the neighborhood

by the name of Mr. Childers

walks by the house

and claims to have heard screams.

So the attack likely occurred

somewhere within those 10 minutes.

‐ I was able to place Brooke

in certain places and positions

when she received

some of her stab wounds.

It began at the end of the hall

where the bedrooms were located.

It then proceeded

down the hallway

and into the living room

by the fireplace.

There was some activity

at the fireplace.

And then I believe ultimately

she was dragged back into the hallway.

I can tell you

that she was still alive

when she was

in her final resting position.

Because as she laid in the position

that we found her in,

she was expirating blood

from her nose and her mouth

until she finally just succumbed.

And then I come

to standing over top of her

covered in blood,

and I'm holding a knife in my hand.

‐ We know that we see Randy

get into his car.

That's when he leaves

and calls 911.

911, emergency.

You need to send police.

Someone's been murdered.

I'm at Haverhill Park.

Just send the police. It was me.

I'm sorry.

She was stabbed 25 times.

She had defensive wounds.

It was clear from the scene

that she had struggled desperately.

We know that it's not easy

to stab a human body.

And then to do it repeatedly

when somebody's fighting back,

they're resisting,

and they're screaming

and they're scratching

and trying to get away.

And from what we know about Brooke,

she was feisty.

When you look at the degree

to which she fought back,

it‐it wasn't over in an instant.

His hands were injured pretty badly.

Those are all stimuli that would awaken

a person who's sleepwalking.

That all goes to show that clear intent

of wanting to kill somebody.

Sleepwalkers are well known to have

a very high threshold for pain

and for arousal.

It's very difficult

to wake up a sleepwalker.

The research we did

about the sleepwalking showed

there are people that will sleepwalk

and walk out of, like,

a second story window,

and they're not gonna wake up

immediately after they hit the ground

even though they're going

to be injured, right?

So the cut to Randy's hand

wouldn't have been something

that would have necessarily startled him

out of his sleepwalking episode,

nor would have the physical nature

of the attack.

As a journalist

with the Palm Beach Post newspaper,

I primarily focus

on criminal justice

and courts coverage.

When I first heard

about the Randy Herman trial,

I was speaking directly

to another journalist,

and it was very much

one of those, like,

"You'll never believe what I'm,

you know, covering today,

what's happening."

Covering courts for so long

and for just being in the news industry,

you think you've heard everything.

But the sleepwalking defense is one

of those things that doesn't happen a lot.

So my immediate thought was like,

okay, well, let me go find the documents,

see if, you know, this is legit.

How many other times

has this happened before?

There were a couple more

famous sleepwalking cases.

There was one with a 4‐year‐old boy

who the father killed.

And another one where a man

ended up killing his wife.

And both of them,

they were found not guilty.

I do know

that sleepwalking has been used

in other states as a defense.

But this was the first case in Florida.

It's a big hurdle to jump when you have

a burden to prove that something happened.

You're basically telling the jury,

yeah, this happened, but it's because,

you know, Randy sleepwalks.

And when you go back

to kind of the empathy

that people may feel for Brooke

and her family and the situation,

that also is another big hurdle

to, to jump.

Did you talk to the lawyer?

Did he tell you how much time

I could be looking at?

Well, he's not sure.

Hopefully, you know,

within the next couple weeks,

I'll hear something.

I don't know.

‐ In cases like this

where the evidence is overwhelming,

we fully expected that there would be,

you know, an attempt to negotiate

a resolution

that everybody could live with.

Most cases obviously

end up in a plea bargain.

Usually, the plea offers

are also pretty high.

They mentioned

a plea of 50 years.

But it was just really

too high for us.

If you're 20 years old

or if you're 60 years old,

you'll spend the rest

of your life in prison.

The defense was unwilling to negotiate it

to anything that would be acceptable

in light of what had happened.

And so we were

sort of at an impasse.

Fifty. Fifty years. Five‐zero.

Is that what he told you?

Yeah, I mean,

there's no way, you know.

What do they have

as evidence of premeditation?

You know, it's outrageous.

I know.

In my eyes,

I figure if I take it to trial,

there's no way I'm going to get convicted

of first‐degree premeditated murder.

If I got second‐degree murder,

I'd probably be taking

somewhere around 50 anyway,

so why not take my chances at trial.

I love you, honey.

You know, when I sat down with Randy,

at some point in the interview,

you know, I said,

"Tell me a little bit about yourself."

You know, he indicated he had never read

the Harry Potter books before,

and so he was making this way

through the series.

And he described parallels

in the Harry Potter books.

You know, anyone who is sentenced

to Azkaban,

they're basically forced to relive

their life's worst moments.

You have Randy standing

over Brooke's body,

both of them covered in blood,

and he described his time in prison

to be his own Azkaban.

I wanted to get him

the best lawyer I could.

You're talking about thousands of dollars,

and there's no way we...

we don't have it.

We knew we had no choice

but to go with a public defender.

I trusted Joe Walsh

and his investigator.

‐ Before the trial,

I was nervous, but I was hopeful

because I felt that, uh,

they would see Randy

for who he is.

‐ Randy Herman's trial was actually

my first trial

that I ever sat on.

And I was sitting in the selection of it.

They were asking questions,

and people were raising their hands

saying, "Hey, I can't be in this."

But I ended up making it

through the whole process.

When you're on a jury,

you see stuff that you

normally would see on crime shows.

And then to see it in real life,

it is different.

It's not the same.

TV is gonna have actors.

This is real life.

If however,

there is no reasonable doubt...

‐ And the person sitting there,

you're deciding their fate.

‐ You're faced

with a grave responsibility.

Thank you, gentlemen.

And that's a big responsibility.

You have their family there

and if you get it wrong,

now you might have somebody

who's... holding you responsible

for not letting them go free.

Something very unusual was the fact

that he did admit it.

He knew. The police knew.

He did murder her.

Just send the police.

It was me.

I think everyone's heard

of sleepwalking, right?

But as to murdering somebody?

I mean, you always hear

about sleepwalking,

somebody doing something silly,

and then they would just get

pushed back to their bedroom

and say, "Okay, go back to sleep."

Did he have

the intention of killing her

or did he kill her on accident?

That's what we were trying

to get at between the two.

I remember thinking

I'm just going to keep my mind open

and listen to all the facts.

I wasn't making

a judgment either way.

It was for them

to give us the facts

and let us decide whether or not

we believed that it could be sleepwalking.

There seemed

to be really three possibilities.

One, that Randy is lying.

He did this, he remembers everything,

and he's lying about it.

The second possibility is

the possibility posed by his defense,

which is that he experienced

a parasomnia,

and the result of that

was that he had no consciousness

of what he was doing

and has no conscious recollection

of having done it.

And then of course

there's the third possibility,

that he may have done this

in an act of rage

triggered by the traumatic experience

of rejection.

And so, he has either

dissociated from it

or can't allow himself to own

what he does actually remember

about it.

In court,

Randy Herman, now 26, is on trial

charged with

a first‐degree murder

in Preston's stabbing death.

Ladies and gentlemen of our jury,

I'm now going to turn

to the people of the state of Florida

to make opening statements.

Ms. McRoberts, you may proceed

when you're ready.

The date as you know

was March 25th of 2017

where this defendant

in the early morning hours

ended the life of a young woman

who had done nothing

to deserve it.

Our initial intent

is to show to the jury

that despite what

the psychological experts will say

and his history

of his potential sleepwalking,

Randy had developed

an unnatural liking to Brooke.

She did rebuff him.

She was over him.

And she was done

with his behavior.

It wasn't more complex than that.

‐ We knew the state's contention

really was to exploit

a sexual angle in the case.

We know the night

before this happened,

Randy apparently was

in the room naked

and, uh, in the closet,

and that was something

that Brooke was not comfortable with.

So we just kind of decided

to focus on the dynamics

of the relationship

between Randy and Brooke.

Okay, Ms. Preston,

are you Brooke's sister?

‐ Yes.

‐ When Brooke's sister Jordan

took the stand for the defense,

it was kind of a surprise,

'cause normally you don't have

the family of the deceased

speaking in the defense's case.

‐ When did you meet Randy?

I was probably

around 15 years old.

‐ And was that down here

or somewhere else?

In Pennsylvania.

‐ How did you meet?

‐ Uh, through mutual friends.

‐ She was very quiet.

Like she was hurt and afraid.

I mean, how could you not be?

At this point, you've

known Mr. Herman for a few years.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Had he ever exhibited

any sort of romantic

or sexual interest in you?

‐ No.

Any romantic or sexual interest

in your sister Brooke?

‐ No.

‐ And living together in the house,

you all were pretty close

and comfortable with each other,

is that accurate to say?

‐ Yeah.

‐ Okay.

I'm going to publish, if I may,

what was printed in the evidence as...

‐ You may.

‐ Defense exhibit three.

Um...

do you recognize this picture?

I don't remember it.

Okay. Are you in this picture?

- Yes.

- Okay.

And who's the other person

in the picture?

Randy.

When you lived

with the one bathroom, were there times

when sometimes

you all would have to share

the bathroom like this,

maybe someone in the shower,

someone brushing their teeth,

things like that?

‐ Yes.

Was that pretty commonplace?

Yeah, with courtesy to the other.

Like, knock and ask

if you can come in.

‐ Absolutely. And were there any incidents

where that courtesy wasn't respected?

No.

‐ The photograph really just showed

the dynamics of living in a home,

two young women,

one young man, one bathroom.

It just showed

how comfortable they were

in different levels of dress.

They weren't like, you know,

strangers to each other.

They were all familiar

with each other.

‐ And now I'm going to turn

to Mr. Walsh

to call his next witness

on behalf of Mr. Herman.

I call Randy Herman.

‐ Alright, Mr. Herman,

why don't you come forward, sir.

During a homicide trial, it is very rare

for a defendant to take the stand.

So when his attorneys announced

that he would be testifying,

it's definitely one of those

turning moments that juries hope for.

I wanted the jury

to see Randy stand up

as, you know, small as he is,

tiny as he is,

walk up to the jury box,

and testify.

‐ My name is Randy Herman Jr.

My last name is spelled

H‐E‐R‐M‐A‐N.

Thank you.

How do you feel

this afternoon, Randy?

‐ I'm okay.

You see this man,

who looks like

he could still be in high school.

You look at him in this suit

that's too big for him

and you're like, okay,

this is completely jarring.

'Cause you have other cases

where, you know, someone looks like

a stereotypical, you know, bad guy.

He was a little heavier set

at the time of the crime.

But he had lost weight.

He had a very boyish face.

Very small.

So with that type of defendant,

his attorney would want him

to get up there and speak to the jury

and‐and‐and sort of pull at the,

at the sympathy.

You called 911.

Did you tell them everything

you needed to tell them?

‐ Yes. Yeah.

‐ How do you feel about the fact

that Brooke Preston died that morning?

Terrible.

I don't know.

I don't know how to describe it.

That's all the questions I have.

Alright, Mr. Scott.

Cross‐examination.

Thank you, Judge.

Me as a prosecutor,

I have to be very careful

as to not be too authoritarian.

Because then it's going to appear

as if I'm, you know,

beating up on this little boy.

But Randy Herman had

some difficult questions to answer.

You came to South Florida

from the city of Pennsylvania

because your life was

spiraling out of control.

Isn't that correct?

‐ That's correct.

‐ When you came to West Palm Beach

from late 2016

through March, uh, 2017,

the time of the murder,

you were still struggling

with addiction, correct?

That's correct.

‐ Your life was still

spiraling out of control?

It was.

When Randy was in Florida,

he would call

every couple weeks or so.

He said he was happy.

He had a good job.

He loved it down there.

He was doing better

for himself.

But then I found out later

that he was just trying

to make it sound good

for me and Mom

because he didn't want

to let us down.

So, without that stabilizing presence

of his mother and sister,

you know, Randy, effectively was,

you know, left to his own devices.

Four months into my job,

I realized I wasn't really making

the pay I needed.

I was using a lot

of my inheritance

to kind of supplement my lifestyle.

So the day is finally over.

And I get my beer.

I decided to take

some time off from work.

‐ I got to go back tomorrow.

‐ And that's when really

my drinking started to pick up.

‐ In terms of Randy's personal

and professional trajectory,

this is sort of where the train fell off

the tracks, so to speak.

And I tended to take it

to the next level.

I was going out to bars nightly,

spending ridiculous sums of money,

and slowly my inheritance

started slipping away.

I got to the point where I'm partying

all night and sleeping all day.

‐ He told me, well, you know,

I'm straightening out now, Mom,

I'm going to get a job.

You know, I'll quit drinking.

I'm gonna, you know, get a job.

Okay, that's great.

So I let it go.

I didn't push it.

It got to the point

where I wanted to stop

and I wanted to quit,

but I was kind of in this,

just like this cycle

where I was starting to get depressed

because of my drinking

and drug use

but at the same time,

I was drinking and using drugs

to kind of curb that depression.

After you awake

and you were talking to her,

she walked out of your room,

that's when you stabbed her

and killed her, right?

‐ I guess. I... I don't recall.

In murder cases like Randy's,

experts are very important,

because of the fact that it was

an insanity claim.

‐ Alright, Dr. Ewing,

please come forward, sir.

Hi, how are you?

‐ Good afternoon, Judge.

So, we hired Dr. Ewing.

Dr. Ewing, are you familiar

with what's known

as the Bonkalo Criteria?

‐ Yes. Uh,

a psychiatrist named Bonkalo

had done studies and reviews

of these sleepwalking cases

that eventuated in serious,

usually homicidal violence.

Dr. Bonkalo looked

at the characteristics

of those cases

and he came up

with 13, uh, criteria.

‐ The focus on the Bonkalo

was the most important thing

because it's the one

scientifically studied, objective thing

that we could get across

to the jury

that would prove

that Randy was sleepwalking.

The first criteria

is that the attack occurred

following an arousal

soon after sleep onset.

I went back to sleep.

Next thing I remember is, you know,

I'm standing over top of her

covered in blood,

and I'm holding a knife in my hand.

She was stabbed over and over again.

In the face, in the neck,

in the stomach, in the back.

They were like family.

‐ Hey, Jordan.

They were like brother and sister.

The victim was not recognized at the time.

We know that sleepwalkers

don't recognize faces.

I don't remember getting dressed,

I don't remember grabbing my keys.

You know,

everything was really hazy.

He had profound amnesia for the event.

I just don't remember anything. I just...

When we were younger,

I remember him getting up

in the middle of the night.

He has that look,

like a dazed look.

I think he was sleepwalking.

The defendant actually called the police.

Just send the police.

It was me. I'm sorry.

And reported not only

that there had been a homicide

but that he did it.

No sexual motive.

No financial motive

that I could discern.

Is she okay?

Please tell me.

Things were going downhill.

I would drink, you know,

almost nightly

to the point of, you know,

blacking out.

The night before this happened,

he had not gotten any sleep,

stayed up to watch the sunrise.

He was a mellow, mellow kid.

Never in a million years would think

he would be violent, no.

We knew that

he had been using alcohol.

But what we learned was

the alcohol actually was something

that would put you

in a deeper sleep faster

so that you would be

more apt to sleepwalk

and do something like this.

‐ No question that he was drinking heavily

in the two days leading up to it.

It sat with me for a while.

I mean, I absolutely believed it.

This Bonkalo Criteria nailed it down

right to the T

of basically what he did,

you know, and the defense

did a great job

of showing that.

We on the prosecution side

had one important thing

we wanted to talk about.

And that was the timeline.

I want to narrow down my timeframe

from when she walked in

to when he leaves and calls 911.

We know that Brooke Preston

arrived at the home

based on the surveillance video

from across the street

at approximately 8:35 a. m.

We know that we see Randy

get into his car

at approximately 8:57,

and he drives away.

So based on that timeframe,

we know that Brooke was in the house

for approximately 22 minutes.

We knew that

he remembered her coming in

at approximately 8:35 a. m.

He said the shirt is over

in the drawer.

She got the shirt,

and they had a brief

back‐and‐forth discussion

that most likely took

a couple of minutes.

They hugged.

And she turned to leave.

And he said that's the last thing

he remembers.

We know from a gentleman

in the neighborhood who heard screams

that the attack takes place

approximately 8:49.

So sort of using that 22 minutes,

we just filtered back

and filtered back and filtered back.

He only had about five minutes

to go back to sleep.

So it seemed impossible to me

that he fell asleep in five minutes

and started sleepwalking.

The State will call Dr. Wade Myers.

In this case, we need an expert

to help us explain to the jury

why the facts did not support

any type of sleepwalking defense.

They supported first‐degree murder.

‐ So you lay in bed

and then you fall asleep,

and then you go

into typically stage one.

Your brainwaves show a certain wavelength

called alpha waves.

And then you go

into stage two sleep,

which is a little bit deeper.

‐ Dr. Myers basically educated the jury

on the different stages of sleep.

‐ It's about an hour or two

after you go to bed

is when you go into deep sleep.

And with regard to

the defendant's limited window of time,

could that have happened,

scientifically speaking?

‐ He's, uh, wide awake

minutes before the crime.

And you can't go from wide awake

to sleepwalking in,

in a matter of minutes.

We know

that Randy admitted being awake

when Brooke got there.

He admitted speaking to her,

showing her where the shirt was

and giving her the hug.

So, if there's no minutes left

to get to sleep,

then he wasn't sleepwalking.

‐ Obviously the state is going

to use his statement

that he was awake at the time

when she arrived at the house

and they could say,

"Well, it would have been unlikely

that he had fallen into

a deep enough sleep to sleepwalk."

‐ Sleepwalking generally occurs

in the deeper stages.

I don't know if I would agree with that.

I see where you're getting at,

but it can occur,

um, in early stages as well.

‐ In other words,

not in the first minute or two

or ten minutes, fifteen minutes?

It could be. That's what I'm saying.

And when Randy said that

he had this interaction with Brooke,

we really didn't even know

whether that was something

that actually had happened

or whether he kind of

had dreamed that.

‐ It's not clear to me

whether he was asleep

at that point.

It's possible that

he could have been awake,

and then he went back

to sleep immediately.

Uh, that's the way he recalls it.

It's possible though

that he never awoke.

‐ In my experience,

it's fairly common for defendants

to try and fill in the blanks

about what happened.

And they often fill in things

from just before or just after

or add things

that seem reasonable to them.

So, if Randy Herman is remembering

that she arrived

and that he told her

where the shirt was,

then the question is,

is this what he actually remembers

or is this what he thinks

makes sense to him?

Dreaming that interaction with Brooke

would mean that he was still sleeping

when the incident happened.

And if you believe

that Randy was sleepwalking,

then certainly you wouldn't believe

that he intended to do anything,

then how could you put somebody

in prison for the rest of their life.

‐ Folks, each side has made,

um, an argument

on what they believe

the facts showed in this case

and as officers of the court, I'm sure

that everyone has done that in good faith.

However, it's up to our jury to decide

what the facts of this case are.

‐ Sleepwalking is a very tough pill

for a lot of people, I think, to swallow,

and it's very tough, I think,

to have 12 people agree to that.

‐ Folks, in just a few moments,

you'll be taken

to the jury room

by the courtroom deputy

for your deliberations.

Even if you do not like the laws

that must be applied,

you must use them.

And on behalf of both

the state of Florida

and on behalf of Mr. Herman,

I want to thank you

for those efforts.

‐ By the time

that the trial ended,

we got back

into the deliberation room,

we sat down,

it was almost just a,

not a sigh of relief

but a sigh of, wow,

let's get this information out

and start talking

about this right now

because we've all been holding it in

and we want to let it out.

So, we started blaring words out.

‐ Some of the men jurors

were very vocal

the minute we went back

to the room

and were saying things like, "Well,

if that was my daughter,

I would have killed him."

It seemed like it was split,

so then that's when we started

going through evidence.

So the hunting knife

by his bed,

something like that

is not out of the norm

here in Florida.

There were toy handcuffs,

but we didn't give it any weight.

The prosecution

was trying to tie it in to

that he had romantic feelings

towards her.

And there was the incident

where he was in the closet.

I know that spooked her.

But they had been drinking all day.

It was a stretch for them to try to say

that there was some sexual feeling

between Randy and Brooke.

‐ We're five hours into this thing.

But there were still a few jurors

on the fence

about the sleepwalking.

We had multiple people saying,

"How long was it for him

to get in this deep sleep?"

So that's why we went

through the timeline

of when Randy Herman texted her

to the time when she pulled up

to the house

to the time that we thought

she got murdered.

At the time, I'm waiting in a cell

underneath the courthouse.

Just waiting,

just watching the clock

till they come up with

what the verdict's going to be.

It felt like a lifetime.

‐ When we get the call

from the bailiff

the jury has a verdict,

that moment it really starts.

You get the nervous.

You get the butterflies.

So, when the verdict is read,

the courtroom is just silent.

‐ I'm going to have

Mr. Herman please rise

to receive our jury's verdict.

We, the jury, find as follows:

as to count one,

we find the defendant

guilty of first‐degree murder

as charged in the indictment.

So say we all

this eighth day of May 2019

in West Palm Beach,

Palm Beach County, Florida,

signed jury foreperson.

‐ That timeline that we drew up,

and we drew it,

we had all the text messages.

We had time

when she pulled in,

when he pulled out.

And after that timeline,

everyone was on the same page.

Wasn't enough time for him to be

in this, this deep sleep

to cause sleepwalking.

‐ Alright.

Randy Allen Herman, Jr.,

a jury of your peers, having found you

guilty of first‐degree murder,

I sentence you to life imprisonment

without the possibility of parole.

Tears and hugs among the victim's family

as the jury found

Randy Herman guilty

of first‐degree murder

in the stabbing death

of 21‐year‐old roommate

Brooke Preston.

Brooke's father, John Preston,

after the verdict.

‐ There's no winners

in this whole situation.

Everybody's losers.

I feel bad for him, the father.

'Cause I know he's grieving.

I don't know

what to say about Randy.

But I'll stand by him till the day I die.

Sleepwalking occurs

anywhere from one to four percent.

One percent of 300 million people,

that's still a lot of people.

And potentially anyone

can be a sleepwalker.

‐ There is, I think,

a growing concern

about the impact

of sleep disruption.

As we move into a society

riddled with interrupted sleep,

we're going to see more and more

of these kinds of problems emerge.

‐ You know, I've...

since I've been in, in jail

I've tried to sit down

numerous times

with a pen and piece of paper

to, to try to reach out,

to try to tell them how sorry I am.

But it's just,

you know, it's difficult.

You can't really write out in words.

You can't tell someone you're sorry

for, for something like that.

It just seems like

those words just don't...

they're just not enough.

You can't say... you say sorry

if you make a mistake.

This is something far more.

So, you know, I've tried to reach out

but I don't know

how to quite put that into words.

Unfortunately,

in a lot of cases, we don't get to know

so much about the victims,

because they are silent now.

But the entire Preston family,

friends, extended family,

so many people reacted.

It was quite moving.