Family Annihilation. The case of Robert and Michael Bever

0:01 SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody and welcome back to Unthinkable, a True Crime Podcast. Thank you for joining me. My name's Lisa. I hope you are well. So today's case, it's absolutely unbelievable. It's so tragic and it's just really, really sad. I'm covering a case of attempted family annihilation. And I say attempted because two of the family members survived. Although it's rare, we do hear of these cases. We have the very famous Chris Watts one who killed his wife and his two children so he could be with his lover.

0:37 SPEAKER_00: And we have the Anthony Tote, who killed his wife, his four-year-old daughter, and two sons while they were on holiday at Disneyland for Christmas. Now, roughly 95% of cases, the perpetrator is male and is the father slash husband. It's very rare to have a female family annihilator, and 60% of perpetrators commit or attempt to commit suicide immediately after the killings. So motives can be family breakdown, so relationship breakdown. This is the most common motive, but also financial distress, debt.

1:16 SPEAKER_00: But this case today, well, it isn't triggered by any common motive, and it's not carried out by the father or husband. The case of family annihilation is carried out by two teenage brothers who kill five members of their own family, including their parents and three younger siblings, the youngest being just five. This is the unbelievable case of the Baver family murders. Let's meet the Baver family. So we have April Sharp and David Baver. The couple married in January in 1987 in Grayson County in Texas.

2:00 SPEAKER_00: April was actually 15 years old when she married David. So in America in the 1980s, it was legal for 15-year-olds and sometimes younger to get married if they have parental consent or a judge grants a marriage license. And it wasn't until late 2010 that the US began passing strict bans on child marriage. The couple go on to have seven children. So Robert was the firstborn, followed by Michael, then Daniel, Christopher, Victoria, Crystal, and finally Baby Autumn. The family moved to Broken Arrow in Oklahoma.

2:42 SPEAKER_00: Now the family they are quite reclusive. Neighbours say that even though they would see the children in their back garden and sometimes outside in the street, but they never played with anyone else other than their siblings, and they didn't interact with anyone else ever. They didn't attend school, so they were homeschooled by their mother, April. Now Robert later said his parents decided to homeschool the children because he was molested in preschool. Robert also said rather than any schooling actually going on, he had to help his mother take care of his siblings.

3:19 SPEAKER_00: He described himself as a third parent of the house. And when children are homeschooled, there's a lack of social interaction. So parents usually find other ways to socialize the children. But the Baver family children didn't have this. So they never socialized with anybody. Now Robert's parents were paranoid of strangers. They didn't like letting the children out of the house. And when they did, they were told not to talk, interact or make eye contact with anybody that approaches them. And when the parents and the children went out together, which was rare, they were under strict instructions again not to interact or make eye contact with anybody.

4:02 SPEAKER_00: And if they did, they would be punished. So punishment in the home would be physical. David was quite violent, particularly towards the two eldest boys, Robert and Michael. Robert describes how he would pick him up and throw him across the room. And Crystal, she later confirms this, she's one of the surviving sisters. She later confirms in court that her dad was quite violent towards the boys. So the family, although pretty much confined to the house, they did have full access to the internet. And April, the mum, she very contradictively found something of a community on social website Reddit.

4:43 SPEAKER_00: And on here, she gushed about her children. She wrote, I would never give up any of my seven children. They are all amazing people and the world will benefit from having them in it. She said that it was always her dream to have lots of children and that she feels fulfilled. She defends her marriage on there, we get getting married so young, and she gives advice and support to families who are struggling. So the children, they also had full access to the internet, and Robert and Michael they shared a room so they would search the internet together for hours at a time.

5:18 SPEAKER_00: And they quickly realized they both shared an interest in mass murder. And this interest developed into an obsession. The pair became increasingly obsessed with the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. And they stated that they wanted to be more famous than James Holmes, the Aurora movie theatre shooting. And from here, they started to think about, well, we could do this. We could do our own mass killing spree. They said they wanted to have their own Wikipedia page about the killings, and they decide that they want to achieve a body count of up to 500.

5:55 SPEAKER_00: They planned to go from Oklahoma to Washington, killing as they go. Now Robert kept a journal, and this journal he wrote about his desire to become an infamous killer. He wrote that he hated people and found society to be worthless. The boys started to plan their attack and what they would need to go through with it. And it's around this point that Robert confesses to Michael that he wants to kill his family. Michael later stated that he agreed to help Robert murder his family because if he didn't, Robert would kill him.

6:34 SPEAKER_00: Robert denies this, and to be honest, if you're agreeing to do a mass killing of innocent people because you want to be famous, you're not going to draw the line at murdering your family, are you? So Robert admits that he's been thinking about killing his family for three years. So the pair start to put their plan in place. Robert being the eldest, he pleads with his father to let him leave the house, and surprisingly, David reluctantly agrees. And Robert goes, and he actually goes out and gets a job.

7:08 SPEAKER_00: This is when he's 17 and he starts working at a call centre in Oklahoma. Robert later stated that he used his urnins to buy body armour and weapons to use in the upcoming killing spree. Now there's an interview on YouTube the day after the killings. It's called Robert Baver's interrogation interview. This is with Broken Arrow Police. Robert's describing to the police things about the armour and the weapons he purchased. And it's really unnerving because he kind of giggles and he seems to get excited when he talks about having like a sleeve.

7:48 SPEAKER_00: And it stopped his siblings from biting him when they were trying to defend themselves. So he says his sleeve, actually, I think it was his mum. He said, so his sleeve stopped his mum from taking a chunk out of his arm when he was trying to stab her. So she's fighting, she's trying to get him off her, and she's trying to bite his arm. Um, but it's just how he's laughing and the way he's talking very casually, like he's very nonchalant, you know. It's oh it's yeah, it's very unnerving. But I will talk about um the interview a bit later.

8:19 SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he starts to buy the butt the body armor, so he gets a chest plate, a helmet, um, those arm sleeves, a faceplate, leg armor. Robert believes that they need this armour because when they start the attack on his family, if the family start fighting back, they could both get injured or killed. So they need to protect themselves. So Robert bought uh Kevlar gloves with hard knuckles. Unbelievably, he purchased knives online, an 11-inch hunting knife, a 15-inch hunting knife, a hatchet, and the pair think they're gonna kill their family with knives, and then they're gonna go on their killing spree and sort of drive into people and use their knives.

9:06 SPEAKER_00: But then they discover that they can actually buy guns online, and he says he found a real nice Moskberg 598, and he just clicked it, and then the gun was on its way. It's it's crazy, isn't it? You can just buy guns online. And he said that you had to verify that you were over the age of 21, and he just said they clicked it to say, Yes, I am, and that was it. The gun was on its way. So so what they decide now is they're gonna so the ammunition is turning up to the house, but they obviously don't want the family to know.

9:43 SPEAKER_00: So what they decide to do is kill the family first, and then the next day, when the um ammunition arrives, then they'll go off and do their killing spree with the ammunition. So Robert buys three guns in total. They bought the ammunition, but with the delay in shipping, and in Robert's interview, he laughs with the officers about the gun that the ammunition is coming today. It's so weird. So the plan was to stab and kill the family, cut up their bodies, hide them in the house, then they would steal the family car and drive to from Oklahoma to Washington.

10:24 SPEAKER_00: Now, Robert and Michael's sister Crystal, she sees the body armor in her brother's room and she sees the knives, and she even overhears them talking about plotting about killing the family. So she goes to her mother and she says, What's going on? And April kind of laughs and she says, Oh, boys will be boys. Because you wouldn't think in your wildest dreams that your sons were planning to kill you, would you? I mean, I have two boys. They are older now, they're 17 and 20. I mean, if I saw them collecting knives, I would definitely take them off them, but I wouldn't be thinking they got them because they wanted to kill me.

11:04 SPEAKER_00: I take them away because in the UK you aren't allowed to carry knives. You're not allowed to carry any weapons in the UK. Anyway, so the boys have their weapons, they've got their plan, and so it gets to the evening of the 22nd of July, this is 2015. Robert and Michael are in their bedroom and Crystal comes in. She says their mum has asked if the two of them could help with the dishes. Crystal leans forward to look at something on Michael's laptop. Now Robert comes up behind her, he puts his glove over her mouth and he slits her throat.

11:42 SPEAKER_00: Now in the interview, Robert says she didn't die, she just started screaming, and that's when he realized killing someone is not as easy as he thought. And then he just started stabbing her. And he said she made a huge bloody mess all over his room. She was supposed to die quietly so that they could drag her into the closet and move on to their next victim, their mother. But with all the chaos and noise that was coming from their room, their mother actually bursts through to find out what was going on, and Robert just starts stabbing her.

12:17 SPEAKER_00: Now, April, she shouts for someone to call 911, and Crystal is shouting for the other siblings to hide. Now, can you imagine this wildly chaotic, blood-soaked scene? Now, April is fighting, she tries to wrestle the knife off Robert, she's biting his arm, like I said earlier, she's doing everything she can, and Robert's just repeatingly stabbing her in a frenzy in her stomach, in her neck, in her jaw. April, she finally falls to the ground. She's not dead yet, but Robert just throws the knife and he left her to bleed out.

12:53 SPEAKER_00: Now the other siblings, so it's so sad. So Christopher, who is just six, and his terrified younger sister Victoria, just five, now they've locked themselves in the family bathroom. And you can imagine, can't you? They're so young, it would have been absolutely petrifying for them. And they can't put up a fight, they're tiny. Now, Michael steps in and he bang on the door and he starts saying, Help, help, Robert's trying to kill me. And those poor little innocent children, they let him in. Like they probably think he'll protect them from Robert.

13:31 SPEAKER_00: But as soon as they let him in, he just starts stabbing them. And they're screaming and they're crying, and then Robert he just joins in and starts stabbing them as well. Like, how could you do this? Like, how do you look in the face of a terrified young child and just stab them to death? It's it's awful. They're so young, they're oh, it's just horrible. So now Daniel, now he's age 12, he has locked himself in his father's office, and this little boy, he actually calls 911, and I've heard the phone call, and it's just harrowing.

14:12 SPEAKER_00: So the call handler answers the call and says 911, and Daniel, you can hear him, he's whispering, help, help, like trying to be quiet so they don't hear him. But the call handler, she can't hear him, so he speaks up a little bit and he goes, help, and then he gives the address and he says that his brother brothers are attacking the family, and the call handler's saying who's attacking the family, and then you hear like a commotion behind them, and then you hear uh Daniel say, Michael, no, please.

14:49 SPEAKER_00: And then Michael comes on the phone, he says hello, and then he cuts the call. And um, the call handler she tried to ring back, but she couldn't get through. So it turns out Michael had played the same trick on Daniel as he did on Victoria and Christopher. Uh so he called for Daniel to let him in. Please let me in. Robert's trying to kill me. So Daniel he opens the door and tells his brother to come inside quickly, but Michael stands in the doorway, and then he turns as Robert appears, and then he says, He's all yours.

15:21 SPEAKER_00: And Robert grabs him and stabs him. But Daniel he had managed to alert the police before he died. Now all of a sudden the house alarm goes off. Someone's gone outside. Michael quickly disables the alarm, but to his shock, he spots Crystal, the sister who was attacked first. She's outside. So Crystal, despite her horrific injuries, she's managed to get out of the house and she's on the front lawn screaming for help. Robert runs out and he tries to get her back in the house, but she's screaming and kicking, so Robert drops her down on the floor and he starts strangling her.

15:59 SPEAKER_00: She's a real fighter, Crystal, isn't she? She's 13 years old, she's been horrifically injured, and she's still fighting. Robert said that she made like a gurgling noise, and he thought, well, this has got to be it, she's got to be dead now. And then from inside the house, Robert hears his dad voice his dad's voice. Now, unbelievably, Robert's dad David had been asleep while all this was going on. Asleep! David is shouting Robert's name and yelling, What the hell is going on? And he's storming towards Robert and Michael's bedroom.

16:32 SPEAKER_00: The boys were they hid in their room, and when their father entered, they jumped on him, stabbing him in the neck, chest, stomach, and Robert said his father was the easiest one to kill. He said he thinks he stabbed him in his lung or his heart or something, because they only stabbed him a couple of times and he fell to the floor dead. Now at this point, sirens can be heard in the background, and the boys realise they're out of time. They have to get out of the house, and their plan was to steal their parents' car, but they can't find the keys.

17:05 SPEAKER_00: And Michael says to Robert, they're in mum's purse, so they're frantically looking around for their mum's purse, but they can't find it. So the sirens are getting closer and closer, and then someone starts banging on the door, and the boys flee. They go out the back door over a wall that leads onto some woods at the back of the house and they run. Now, officers that arrived described the scene as the bloodiest scene they've ever been to. There was a pool of blood on the porch with drag marks. He saw Crystal.

17:38 SPEAKER_00: She was completely covered in blood, but she was alive, but gravely injured. And she managed to tell the officers that it was her brothers, Robert and Michael, that had done this. They then find April Baver. She had managed to drag herself into the living room before she died. She was covered in blood. They then find brave twelve-year-old Daniel, who made the 911 call. He's lying on his side in his dad's office in a pool of blood. Daniel could not be saved. They find David's body in Robert and Michael's room, and then they go to the bathroom, but the bathroom door is locked.

18:18 SPEAKER_00: And initially they're hopeful. They think there could be survivors inside, so they get the door open, but they are met with yet another horrific bloody scene where they find Victoria and little Christopher. But there is one tiny miracle in all this horrendousness. Baby Autumn. Remember her? She's 23 months old. Autumn was discovered sound asleep in her cot, completely unharmed. But Robert later he stated that he'd simply forgotten in all the chaos that was going on, he'd forgotten she was there.

18:56 SPEAKER_00: And he also admitted that the plan was to decapitate her with his axe. And this again, when he says it in the interview, um, the officers asking him about his younger sibling, and he says, Oh yeah, no, I was gonna kill her, I was just gonna, you know, chop her head off. And it and you see the the the officer kind of reacts, he kind of like wiped his face and tries to sort of stay calm, but what's a baby? Like, God, just awful. So, so yeah, so luckily, like thank goodness, little autumn was completely unscathed, and it looked like she'd slept through the whole thing.

19:36 SPEAKER_00: So, Crystal, now she's critically injured, she's had her throat slit, she's had multiple stab wounds, and she was urgently transported to hospital where she went under emergency surgery. And although she was critical, she was stable and she was really helpful with the police. And following a long physical recovery, both Crystal and her two-year-old sister Autumn were placed under state custody. And given the trauma and public nature of the crime, details about their lives have been kept private.

20:08 SPEAKER_00: The sisters are obviously receiving counsel in to help cope with the trauma and loss. It's just unimaginable, isn't it? How do you carry on when your entire family has been so brutally killed? And it was your own brothers that did it. Your own brothers tried to kill you. And baby Autumn, it's likely she went to bed happy and safe, only to wake up and never see her mum and dad again. It's just awful, isn't it? Now Autumn and Crystal, they have new identities, allowing them a chance of a normal life as much as possible.

20:43 SPEAKER_00: And let's hope they are happy. I can't imagine how you ever come to terms with what happened. And remember, Crystal was only thirteen at the time. Right, so back at the house, so Robert and Michael are fleeing in the woods and they get tired. Killing their family hadn't gone as smoothly as they hoped, and they are exhausted. Now they start taking off their body armor and just throwing it in the wood because it's becoming too heavy. So they keep going, they keep going, and they come to a stream and they decide that they've created enough distance and they lay down on the grass by the stream.

21:18 SPEAKER_00: Then a few minutes later, Robert remembers seeing like flashlights coming through the trees, and then there's a dog, and it comes running towards them, and it starts attacking Michael. It actually bit his shoulder. Now the boys hear shouting, and then officers appear, and they shout to the boys to lay on the floor, face down, hands behind your back, and they completely comply. The pair are both arrested, and Michael received medical treatment for his dogbite. The brothers are charged with five counts of first degree murder and one count of aggravated assaults on Crystal.

21:55 SPEAKER_00: They both plead not guilty.

21:58 unknown: Really?

22:00 SPEAKER_00: However, eventually they pled guilty. Robert received five life sentences without the possibility of parole and an extra life sentence for the assault on Crystal. Now, Robert, he actually tried to hang himself a year later and he was placed on suicide watch. Now, Michael, he received five life sentences, but with the possibility of parole. However, the terms are he has to serve 85% of his sentence before he'll be considered for parole. But 85% of his sentence is just over 200 years. So he won't be getting out, really.

22:42 SPEAKER_00: Now, police released this interview with the brothers the day after the murders. You can find it on YouTube, and it's just bizarre. Robert, in particular, he's very relaxed and calm, and he goes into massive detail about the plan, what happened, and what they had planned to do after. So he says the plan was to kill every family member quietly by slitting their throats, and then he was going to chop up the bodies and put them into containers, and then he was going to make a video where the brothers stand in front of the containers holding their bloody weapons, and they tell the audience, you know what I like more than bloody weapons?

23:24 SPEAKER_00: I like these four tubs I've got here to store my dead family members in. And then he would do a thumbs up to the video. He said that they wanted to put it on YouTube and they wanted it to go viral. He describes how after the murders they planned to drive to different locations, killing at least ten people at each location. Robert freely admits it didn't go to plan at all. He didn't realise how hard it was to actually kill someone and how much blood there would be. So why did they do this? Well, it looks like they wanted notoriety and fame.

24:02 SPEAKER_00: Robert said if it had all gone to plan, then they would be murder superstars. They wanted to outdo the Columbine High School Massacre and the Aurora theatre shooting. And in one part of the interview, it's really strange, but Robert he kind of compares himself to becoming God. But Robert he also talks about how he hates people in society and he says, you know, if I kill a hundred people, it's likely that I'll kill someone in there that doesn't contribute to society. And he does seem to have a real hatred towards people.

24:37 SPEAKER_00: And he says things like, People think they're special, but they're not, and if I killed a hundred people, who would really miss them? And then he even says, What's so wrong with murder? Now it seems like the children had quite a tough childhood being stopped from interacting. And David, their father, was abusive, especially toward the boys, but none of this comes close to any kind of motive towards such a brutal attack. This is a folie adur, which means madness of two, where two psychopaths meet.

25:14 SPEAKER_00: So think of Fred and Rose West, Ian Brady and Myra Hinley. Robert and Michael were two stone-called psychopaths who wanted to be extremely famous serial killers. And now they are known for the worst case of feminicide in Oklahoma's history. And they have their Wikipedia page. Gosh, well, there you have it. So let me know what you think of this case. And do have a look at the interviews with the brothers. It's it's just it's just, I don't know, I don't even know what the word is. Um I don't know.

25:51 SPEAKER_00: I almost in my head I have it that like serial killers and psychopaths and things, I almost have it in my head that they will look a certain way or sound a certain way or act a certain way. But they are all around us, you know, they look like normal people, they act like normal people. And in the way they're talking in the interviews, it's just so blasé. It's so like they could be talking about anything, you know, and they're talking about mass murder of their family, they're talking about stabbing their little brothers and sisters.

26:22 SPEAKER_00: It's just it's so fascinating, it just boggles the mind. Um, but yeah, let me know what you think. So I have an Instagram page now at Unthinkable TrueCrime. Please leave me a review if you enjoyed listening to this case. And as ever, I like to end by saying, in a world where you can be anything, be kind. Thank you for joining me today. Take care.