Episode 325

28:19So that all happened in the store? Yeah. Where Bree was like, come on outside and Halea was like, I'll be outside. Bree said she'll be outside. Halea told her to come outside. I'll catch you outside. All right, bet. Why do kids sound like retards these days? We've already got a language. You don't have to make up new definitions for existing words just to make yourself feel special. You're already plenty, plenty special, trust me. Anyway, according to Kenzie, it was that simple. Brianna and Halea started arguing, and the store then agreed to continue things outside. Kenzie said that Brianna had posted nasty things to TikTok about Halea, that their feud may have been fueled by Halea's loyalty to Kenzie and her situation, but that they had their own fight independent of her problems with Brianna's family.

29:11This wasn't a premeditated showdown. It was a chance encounter that spiraled fast. But even in spontaneous fights, there's a history. And this one had years of it simmering just below the surface. No one's saying Halea deserved what happened, but this wasn't a clean-cut case of victim and villain. Both girls carried grudges. And when the moment came, they each brought their rage with them. So Halea and her friends waited outside in the dark while Kenzie sat in the Jeep to distance herself from Brianna. They were outside of the Jeep and I was like, I'm not part of this shit, guys. I'm going fucking car.

29:52You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I'm not part of this shit. And then I all I heard was I'm fighting. I didn't really see anything. I didn't see anything at all until Halea was walking up to the front door, like to the driver door of the car. and all I can see is that she's bleeding. I'm holding her wrist and I'm trying to check for a pulse and she peed her pants and her eyes. She was not responsive. Did you see Hellia with any weapons? No, she didn't have anything. Okay. I had all of her stuff. I had her pepper sprayer, I had her keys, I had it all. She didn't have anything on her except hands.

30:33Kenzie and Dalen told the same story. The fight wasn't planned. It started in the smoke shop. Just another chance encounter that got out of hand. Brianna agreed to meet Halea outside to finish what they had started. Brianna had a hidden knife. Halea had nothing but her two hands. She looked like a victim of an unfair fight, but looks can lie. Because at the same moment, another group of officers were at Brianna's door. They had found her and her boyfriend inside. Brianna had showered, and her bloody clothes were in the wash. The knife was hidden upstairs. At the station, Brianna's boyfriend sat down with the police to talk.

31:18Just start, like, how did you get up there? Who were you with? So I was with Bri, and we headed there just right after a car meet. We got there around 11.30, 11.40. As soon as we got in, we noticed Halea and a girl named Kenzie and some guy I've never seen before. We tried to move out the way because there's always been issues between us ever since November. Between who specifically? So it's always been issues between me, Brie, and Halea. Okay. Kenzie has had some, you know, long-term issues with Brie's family. Yeah. Halea said something, Brie called her obsessed, and then it started an argument.

32:09The guy over the counter, Ben, he said he doesn't want anything to do with this, so he got Halea, Kenzie, and her friend outside, and then Halea was yelling a lot, and then Brie the whole time was just trying to say, I don't want to fight you. Brianna's boyfriend had a feeling there would be trouble when he saw Halea, Kenzie, and Daylin. So they tried their best to avoid them. But Halea started shouting at Brianna, instigating a loud and vicious confrontation. The cashier kicked Halea, Kenzie, and Daylin out of the store. When police spoke with him, he confirmed this. The cashier told police that when the altercation in the store heated up, he knew he had to take action and remove Halea and her friends.

32:59So I told my co-worker, like, I'm going to defuse this. So I stepped outside and was talking to her. She... He was her, dear. Which one? The one that got stabbed. The one that got stabbed? You were talking to her? I was trying to tell her, like, I got this business, but I just go. But they didn't go. Dalen started egging Haleah on, riling her anger into a frenzy. He pulled out his phone and started filming. He's standing right there and he's recording everything. And so she's getting upset, thinking the two telling me to go out there to stop her. One really is don't want no incident to happen here, period, kind of blank.

33:44The one I was recording, was he with the girl that got stabbed? Yes. He was with her? Okay. So he instigated it when I just calmed everything down, even though she was still upset. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And recording everything, so... Footage of the smoke shop's outdoor camera showed Halia, Dalen, and Kenzie being escorted out of the store. They disappeared into the parking lot. Then, about two minutes later, you see Halia come back to the front of the store. She's pacing like a bull, yelling and waving her arms, taunting Brianna from outside. In the corner, you could see Dalen following her around with a cell phone, filming.

34:30Here's that recording. Halea, what you about to do, bro? Get the fuck out of this door! Come outside the door, bitch! Where's she at, bro? Where's she at, bro? Right, right, get me here, bitch! Come outside! She's scared, bro! She's scared Halea should drag her out the store, Buzz. I'm outside. Like what, bitch? No, we waiting right here until you get your ones. I've been waiting to see her ass get beat for a minute, bro. You're talking about cocaine. Who's sitting there doing cocaine? You should get arrested just for that laugh. That's when the cashier came outside again, telling Halea and Dalen to go home.

35:14So he wasn't helping the situation at all? Nobody was helping nothing. No one? Like, it was a dead silence. The two girls was talking to me. The other two were shopping. And once they had their words exchanged, nobody was trying to say, chill, calm down, nothing. I'm the only one telling them, like, just go, chill out, go ahead, go leave the store. According to the smoke shop cashier, it was Dalen who took the situation from bad to worse. The boy who was so hell-bent on protecting his so-called sister was the one who egged on the needless fight that ended in murder. Breonna's boyfriend said the same thing.

35:56The male who was with her just kept instigating, just trying to make them fight. I try to push away Bernie and Halea because I'm sort of like, I don't personally like Halea, but I don't have the biggest problem with her. just trying to basically end things without, you know, getting anybody hurt. You've heard the video. Anytime that Brianna's boyfriend tried to pull the two girls apart, Dalen inserted himself and threatened violence. If you touch my sister, girl, I'm going to have to put my phone down, bro.

36:31Halea, crunch your ass and get it over with, bro. Crunch your ass and get it over with, Halea. But he's basically saying don't touch her. Yeah, and the whole time, I don't know if the video shows this, but I was trying to back them up from each other. It was polite, like back of the hand. So obviously he didn't like it. So I tried playing Breida and that's when everything escalated. Basically, if he didn't instigate Halea to start the fight, none of this would have happened. Breonna's boyfriend said that the stabbing happened so fast he barely realized it until he noticed a sticky liquid on his own body.

37:13Still, the police needed to know why Breonna brandished that knife. Why was she even carrying one in the first place? When did you know that Bre had a knife? She's been carrying knives. She always carries knives? She always carries knives because just a lot of people try to, you know, attack her or just try to come up to her because the issues with Haleah and Brie has always been a thing since November. What happened in November? Haleah was just using me and Brie, you know, saying she has a kid, she doesn't have a kid, basically using that as an excuse to get money or anything really to just get as much money as she can, saying she needs to pay for gas when she doesn't even drive.

38:04It just became a whole mess. We just left it at that. And every once in a while, like, either Haleed would call me. I would typically ignore, or she would just message Bree on Instagram, just talking crap. It just happens, like, every couple of months. Just randomly starts calling again. No one could really explain what had gone down between Brianna and Halea to make their friendship curdle into hatred and violence. But it was all petty, silly teenage stuff. Lies, manipulation, Instagram DMs, and TikTok gossip. Bullshit. Did Halea have any weapons or anything? Did she have a knife out or anything?

38:50I don't recall if she had a knife out, but I know she does carry, typically, typically carries a knife. And then she always talks about carrying guns and all that. That's why we take her threats very seriously, because she always talks about either having guns, hanging out with people that have guns, saying that she can kill us. It's just been a whole mess. Halia may have used big, bad threats about knowing friends with guns and saying she was going to kill Brianna. But Brianna was the one who brandished the blade and sliced it across Halia's neck. But Brianna's boyfriend said there were many reasons why Brianna always carried a knife.

39:35Another reason is that her ex-boyfriend is abusive, always pulls up around 161. and just that 161 is not the best area to be in. So she always carries a knife because, first of all, she's small. She can't really protect herself in any other way. And the way most of these people fight now, they fight to kill. After the fight was over, Brianna and her boyfriend left the scene. They drove back to Brianna's house where her brother was waiting. the one who fathered Kenzie's child. Breonna's boyfriend said that he washed the knife and gave it to her brother. So I took it to the bathroom because it was still dripping blood, cleaning it as much as possible, and then I gave it to Cameron in the living room.

40:30You gave the knife to Cameron? Yeah. So you actually cleaned it up some? Yeah, cleaned it up some because it just kind of dripped it off, the actual knife and we didn't want to get it all over the place. Brianna's boyfriend and brother had hidden a murder weapon. But no one knew Halea was dying. After the stab, she kept swinging and screaming. She didn't stop or surrender. Not until Brianna was gone and she sank into Dalen's car did her friends realize how deep the damage went. Daylin's phone marked the fight at 11.48 p.m. By 12.24 a.m., Aaliyah was pronounced dead at the hospital. According to the autopsy, the knife struck a critical zone in Aaliyah's clavicle, damaging a major artery.

41:21Over half a gallon of blood poured into her chest. She didn't stand a chance. Still, Brianna insisted her violence was all a panicked reaction to Halea's confrontation. It was all just a blur. She premeditated nothing. And they're screaming at me. And then the dude tells Halea to run up on me. And she's walking up and I keep telling her, I'm not fighting you, back up. I said you're not worth it. I keep telling her to back up. And I get my knife out in my hand. And I'm holding an asset back up. And she attacks me. She first slapped me. She was pushing me. Well, before that, yeah, I was trying to, like, push her away from me.

42:08But the other guy said it was yelling at him to have to touch her or else he was going to do something to him. I don't know what exactly happened, but I went like this. And then she dragged me by my hair on the ground. And, like, there was just blood in my eyes. I couldn't see anything. Crunch her ass, Haleah! Fuck her up! What's up, bitch? You better get your girl before she gets fucked up even more. Or her! I don't think I hit her or anything, because I was on the ground getting blood out of my eyes. I had no idea what was going on. I was just in shock at that point. It's chilling how clear it is on video.

42:49Haleah charges at Brianna, who retreats, murmuring that she doesn't want to fight. But Halea keeps coming. Dalen records it all, his voice rising with every shout. Not warning them, not breaking it up, just feeding the fire. Dalen wasn't a bystander, he was the catalyst. But then Brianna flashes the knife. Halea slaps her, Brianna swings, and blood splatters all over the paper. Still, Halea yanks her to the ground and unleashes brutal blows, dragging her like a ragdoll. Had she survived, there's no question Halea would have won that fight. She kicked Brianna's ass, even with a hole in her neck.

43:34Now I'm turning ghetto. So during the fire when she was hitting you, what happened with the knife during that time? It had dropped on the ground. It was no longer in my hand. Did you know she had been cut at that point? I didn't know if it was me or her because they were yelling, saying that, they were laughing, saying that she made me bleed. So I was like, maybe there's a cut on me. But then I was looking all over myself when we got in the car. I was like, I don't think it's me. What does this all stem from? What's the animosity? Haleah used to be a really good friend of mine. And then I found out a lot that she's just a really bad person.

44:20So I stopped being friends with her. My friend Ead stopped talking to her. And then after that, she pretty much just went crazy, like saying she was going to kill us and slash his tires and do all these things like she does to most people. To her friends, Halea was fearless, the kind of girl who would never back down. To Brianna, she was dangerous and unhinged. Two versions of the same Halea, told by people who loved her and people who feared her. Was Brianna the victim of Halea's rabid aggression? Was this simply self-defense? But there was one thing no one had seen yet, not even the police. it was something buried in the digital noise from two weeks before the fight a text message from brianna to her friend tossed off like a joke maybe even forgotten after a long rant with her friend about halia's behavior brianna signed off with this message i would sooner slice halia's throat if she comes near me again just words just teenage anger but now with halia dead from a single stab to the neck, these didn't feel like just words anymore.

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48:0217-year-old Halia Culbertson had died from a single stab wound to the neck during an impromptu street fight with her former friend. 18-year-old Brianna Baranzini. The two girls had been feuding for months, each claiming the other was just a bad person. But Halea's friend Kenzie also had big problems with her and her family. Kenzie had become pregnant when she was 15 with Brianna's older brother, who lied to her and told her he was a minor too, when he was not. Drama ran through that friend group like a river, a big river. And on the night of Halia's murder, it finally overflowed. Brianna was arrested on March 27th for the murder of Halia.

48:51She was taken to the county jail immediately following her police interview. The Baranzini family quickly took action and obtained a lawyer named Bob Craypants. For the last 20 years, I've been a criminal defense attorney practicing out of Columbus, Ohio, trying cases in state court, federal court, and representing people charged with really everything from speeding tickets to aggravated death penalty murder. Breonna's bond was set at$750 ,000, but she only spent two days in jail. Her family bonded her out as fast as they could, and she went home under strict conditions from the court. That's when Bob stepped into the picture and got to know her side of the story.

49:38When the family came in and then Breonna had a chance to explain what happened from her viewpoint, you know, there's a lot of thoughts that kind of go through your head. First one being, you know, how accurate is this account and what other evidence is going to be out there? I never really believe. I think that a client comes in and tells me 100 % of the truth accurately, not because they're lying, but they remember it a certain way. But my initial thought was, wow, this sounds to me like it was self-defense and more of an accident and unintentional, but also just a tragedy. Just a young girl sitting in front of me, very, very young, and another young woman dead.

50:24So it was just, I hate to say senseless, but even at the first moment, I thought, this is just tragic. It was tragic. The fight that never should have happened. Breonna may have been fortunate enough to have been bonded out, but when she met her lawyer the first time, the prospect of going to prison for the rest of her life weighed on her heavily. My memory is it was a Saturday morning in my office, and she was there with her family, very quiet, very timid. You know, she didn't just gush out with the account. I had to kind of, you know, ask specific questions, and she would get to it, but very quiet, very scared, very concerned, very, you know, overwhelmed.

51:09I mean, she had just been released from the jail, I suspect, within a day of coming to my office. And her whole family, just supportive, but scared and appreciative of just how serious this was. And what about that text message? The one where Brianna said she would slice Halia's throat if she came after her. Previous texts showed that Brianna was upset because Halia had allegedly been driving past her house and making threats against her. Bob argues that the text had nothing to do with what happened that night. I would argue to the jury that's irrelevant to what happened that night. It would be relevant if my client went looking for her.

51:49It would be relevant if my client said, there she is, I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do in that text, but she didn't go looking for it. They ran into each other purely by accident, bad luck, just by chance. So despite the text, those words, her actions that night spoke louder. She backed up. She said, I didn't want to fight. She tried to avoid it. Brianna may have been backing away as Halia charged, screaming. But according to lead Detective Timothy Prybe, Brianna made one move that raised questions. She had a weapon. Aliyah didn't. And what Brianna did with that weapon gave the police pause when it came to her innocence.

52:34Aliyah was unarmed. She was clearly unarmed. She did assault Brianna one time, open-handed smack, and then she turned and she walked away. I believe it was Brianna pulled out her knife 10 to 15 seconds prior to the smack. So there's more of an intent to harm on her part. And if she's pulling out a knife with an intent to do harm, that's a felonious assault. And then that harm causes a death, that's a murder. Detective Prybe says that when they watched that video of the fight relentlessly, and not just their investigative team, but Prybe's boss and his boss's boss, analyzing every millisecond to make sure they weren't seeing things the wrong way, he says that Brianna pulled the knife out prior to being slapped by Halea.

53:29She holds it close to the side of her thigh and the blade is out of the switch. That made all the difference in his eyes. Well, she keeps it concealed down at her leg. She pulls it out in a very comfortable manner and holds it down. And then after she's slapped and Halea is walking away, that's when she charges her. The key portion of this incident or this altercation is that after Halea slaps her, she turns and starts to walk away. And that's when Brianna then, you know, starts to swing her knife and she swings and misses. And then you see her come over the top and, you know, hit her right, you know, right at the top of the chest.

54:26Detective Prybe says that it wasn't the fact that she had a knife that showed intent, but the manner in which Brianna used it. She doesn't want people to see that she has a weapon out and ready to go. That's how I'm looking at it, because she's not threatening her with it. She's not trying to back her off with it. You know, she's not protecting herself with it. She's initiating the assault with a weapon. You can watch the whole video in our bonus content, and we encourage you to. The footage of Halia's death is haunting, but it also brought clarity. Every second of the raw, unfiltered truth was captured for both sides to examine.

55:09The state indicted Brianna on three charges, murder, murder committed during a felonious assault, and voluntary manslaughter. She was looking at 15 years to life for the murder charges and another 3 to 11 years for the manslaughter. As the media grabbed hold of this sensational girl fight and did what they always do, Bob worked on his defense, preparing for an intense and very public trial. When I first look at it, I say this is, you know, pretty classic self-defense. Now, Ohio law changed somewhat recently. It used to be that to claim self-defense, the defense would then have the burden of proving that the person was in fear of imminent serious bodily harm or death and that they did not use disproportional force to repel the attack.

56:09That was the burden of the defense. That changed back in 2019. There was a House bill that passed and signed by the governor, and as a result of that, the prosecution now has the burden of proving that it is not self-defense. Ohio was the 37th state to pass this law, switching the burden of proof in a self-defense claim from the defense to the prosecution. To compound matters legally, Ohio passed another law in 2021 concerning self-defense cases. And that was a change in the law regarding your duty to retreat. It used to be that if you had a duty, you had a duty to retreat, unless of course you're in your home or your vehicle, then you did not have a duty.

56:58But otherwise, you had the responsibility. If you could safely get away from the situation, you had to get away from the situation. And if a jury determined that, yes, you were in fear of imminent serious bodily harm or death. Yes, you used reasonable force to repel the attack. Yes, you did not cause the situation that gave rise to the fray, but you had an out. You could have left out the back door of the bar you were in, or you could have run across the street from the field you were in. If they found that you had the opportunity and ability to escape without exposing yourself to more harm, you could not claim self-defense.

57:38Between those two changes, again, fairly recently, you know, it changes the dynamic a little bit about how you look at self-defense cases, because now a jury is going to be instructed. They are not even to consider whether or not the person could have escaped, could have left, could have fled the situation. It's nothing for them to consider. They don't get to determine, well, geez, that didn't have to happen. She could have left. Nope. She doesn't have a duty anymore. These changes to Ohio law were a clear win for the defense. Now, it was the state's burden to prove that Breonna wasn't acting in legal self-defense, and the jury couldn't fault her for staying in the parking lot before Halea struck first.

58:27With the video of the fight and the cascade of witnesses who all told the same story, it was looking like Breonna had a solid self-defense case. Tensions were high as Bob worked on his defense and the prosecution prepared their arguments. Aliyah may have started the fight, but she didn't walk into it expecting to die. No one ever does, I guess. She didn't think Brianna would swing a knife. Who knows what was running through her mind when she slapped Brianna across the face. But I'd bet the last thing she imagined was dying in a hospital less than an hour later. because, like Brianna's boyfriend told the detective, a fight isn't just a fight anymore.

59:11Not these days, that is. And the way most of these people fight now, they fight to kill. Halea's family was grief-stricken, giving very few interviews to the media. Kenzie posted videos on TikTok about how much she missed her best friend. The guilt must have weighed so heavily on her. Could she have done something to stop this? Maybe if she'd been the only friend with Halia that night, none of this would have happened. As for Dalen, he was quiet all of a sudden. But Brianna's lawyer Bob was zeroing in on him. Because Bob had reviewed the case inside and out, and according to him, Dalen held as much responsibility in Halia's death as Brianna did.

1:00:00But I recognized right away that this Dalen kid, who was recording this and encouraging it, it may not have happened had he not been doing what he was doing. People don't act the same when they know they're being videoed. They perform, okay? And, you know, this young man was the oldest of anybody there, and he could have stopped us so easily, but he egged it on while they were waiting for Breonna to leave the store. He egged it on while it was happening. This process of events, all of these little decisions that were made in the span of, call it 10 minutes that evening, at any given point, one different decision and this doesn't happen.

1:00:46Halia's alive today. If Halia had been alone in the store that night, she might have just flipped Brianna off and gone home to rant about it on social media. But she wasn't alone. She had Dalen, her self-proclaimed brother her hype man her fierce defender her peanut gallery I could go on and on and with him by her side everything changed Dalen with his tears and loyalty his dramatic storytelling and ride or die energy he was the one who hit record Halia wasn't just showing off for Dalen and his phone, she was performing for the entire internet. That's a lot of people. She knew this clip would hit social media.

1:01:35She knew this would be on a certain scale. Now she didn't, but you get my drift. She wasn't just in a fight, she was on a stage with an invisible crowd ready to judge her, mock her, and meme her. Y 'all motherfuckers are vicious. That kind of pressure warps everything and anything. Maybe that's why she didn't back down, even when a knife was flashed inches from her face. Maybe that's why she kept threatening Brianna, acting harder than she felt, because fear in a viral video looks like weakness. And nobody wants to be weak. And Brianna? Maybe she didn't pull that knife out to win the fight. Maybe she pulled it out because she knew losing would be captured, replayed, and ridiculed endlessly.

1:02:27Maybe The Blade wasn't about fear of Halea. Maybe it was about fear of becoming a joke on the internet. The girl who got wrecked and went viral for all the wrong reasons. That sort of thing. And it still happened anyway. But by hitting record, Dalen changed the entire course of these girls' lives. All it takes is for a friend to say, hey, you know what, let her go, let's get in the car. Or, I'm going to put my phone away, I'm not going to do this. Or, you know what, Halia, let's go. You know, whatever. She's not worth it. One person says that, and maybe it derails the whole thing. Maybe the decision by my client, Brianna, is to stay in the store longer.

1:03:12Now, I don't know if she even knew Halia was waiting for her. Or, when she did see her, maybe retreat back into the store. Or, don't pull the knife out of my pocket. Or, don't open the knife. Okay? I mean, there's many, many decisions that were made by multiple people, and any one of them, a different decision, I think this thing goes a different direction. Look at Brianna's boyfriend. I mean, yeah, he was standing next to her the whole time, and he was kind of, sort of trying to stop it, but he was the biggest dude out there. I mean, if he could have just walked her to the car and put her in the car, that was always an option, you know, but they stood out there.

1:03:53And I get it. It's a situation that you can't, you know, you necessarily don't know what you're going to do when you're in that situation. But so many things that people could have just made decisions to step in and de-escalate it. Many people could have stepped in, but they didn't. It really came down to Halea, Dalen, and Brianna, who each played a part in how this night unraveled. They all had choices, and they all made the wrong ones, feeding off of each other's fear, ego, and adrenaline. Idiots! Wildin! On TikTok. Someone should really do a study on how much harm and literal death social media has inadvertently caused.

1:04:37The results are probably terrifying, which is why we'll never get one. That and the fact that morons love to change the meaning of words, kind of like these kids, often to suit their own narrative. So, harm? What harm? What do you mean by harm? Never heard of it. What's your definition of harm? That sort of thing. Utter bullshit. The whole mess was a chain reaction. Halea paid with her life. Brianna faced prison, and Dalen, well, that innocent, doe-eyed stoner boy with a magical cackle that resonates throughout the vape store, strip mall parking lot, and a heart of gold? well, he walked away scot-free like just another witness when Bob said he was so much more.

1:05:26So when I look at who's responsible or who played a part in this death, I look at him and say, you know what, you had such a role in this thing, and it was so unnecessary, and it was so childish, and it was so dangerous, and it's just so maddening that right away I'm thinking, I can understand Halea. I can understand Brianna. I can't understand Dalen. We looked up Dalen's record, of course. By 21, he'd racked up nine arrests. Drunk driving, assault, and firearm charges. You know, like a gangster. Half came before Halea's death, and the other half came after, like clockwork. Dalen was a stray, cut loose by his own family.

1:06:11absorbed into Kenzie and Halea's orbit like a ticking time bomb. Maybe he knew what he did. Maybe the arrests, the violence, the reckless spiral, they weren't just all accidents. They were confessions written in chaos. I'll be honest, when I first met the prosecutor, my first suggestion was to charge that guy. But they felt that, you know, after interviewing all the other witnesses, they felt that, you know, Halea was going to do what Halea was going to do. and it didn't really spill the blame over to Dalen. I see it differently, but, you know, that's not unusual. To me, there's some responsibility that should have been placed at his feet.

1:06:54But that wasn't going to happen. Still, Brianna was the killer, not Dalen. She was on trial for murder. And Bob had a big task ahead of him, despite the law changes that swayed in his direction. Brianna made the choice to pull out that knife and swing it. She killed Halea. End of story. I thought we had a problem with the weapon, and I also thought that we had a problem or difficulty with just the sadness of the thing. There is a family who is grieving, and rightfully so. There's a girl there who is young and dead, and it's horrible. and juries feel that. They see sympathy and it's normal as humans.

1:07:44We want somebody to answer for this tragedy. We want somebody to be responsible for this tragedy and the only person on trial is Brianna. My whole approach was my client didn't want to fight. She wanted to back up. She kept backing up. She wanted to get out of there and that at some point I would have argued to the jury that, you know, the most timid of animals, when you corner it, it has no choice but to lunge forward, to do something, to try to get out of that situation. But the trial would never come, because in early June of 2024, just before Brianna's murder trial was set to start, the prosecution suddenly dropped the charges and offered Brianna the chance to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

1:08:32That was the plea you heard her accepting in the beginning of this episode. The evidence was too strong for the defense to argue that this was intentional murder. It was very clear that no one went to the smoke shop that evening with the intent of Halea losing her life. When that fateful sentencing day came, Halea's family huddled on one side of the courtroom while the Berenzinis were on the other. Brianna stood in front of the judge and accepted her guilt for Halia's death. Before the judge relayed her punishment, Halia's family had a chance to speak. Kenzie stood up first, barely able to get her words out between sobs.

1:09:14After describing what a tough yet sensitive girl Halia was, she got into how this had all changed her life. I'd rather be standing at her wedding and giving a speech or her graduation. but I'm here and I know Halia and I know her killer the past six years of my life I've dealt with her killer her family and when I finally thought I was getting away from these people and I finally got my family away from these people Halia's killer did this to the most important person in my life. That night, I felt like part of my soul, more like all of it left when Halea left. I hope that her killer gets the maximum sentence.

1:10:08I hope you realize or understand somewhat who Halea really was in this world. A daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend, a student, a co-worker, a granddaughter, a niece, an aunt. She was someone's child that got taken too soon, and she is now forever 17 years old. The blame that Halia and her supporters placed on the entire Baranzini family was palpable, especially when Halia's mother got up to speak. In most scenarios, bringing a knife to a fistfight is considered unethical, illegal, dangerous. It's crucial to approach conflicts with a mindset of de-escalation and consider the potential consequences of introducing a weapon into a physical altercation.

1:10:56The right course of action usually involves seeking a nonviolent resolution to ensure your safety through legal and ethical means. Here we have a smart, college-educated, 4.0 student with so many recommendations from friends and family for the pre-sentencing investigation. That sounds like someone that should know the difference between right and wrong. Maybe she's just smart enough to play us all. Like Bob said, in a senseless tragedy like this, everyone is searching for someone to blame. Halea's family blamed Brianna, and Brianna's family blamed Halea. But both girls bore some responsibility for the way that that night transpired.

1:11:40That didn't make it fair, but it was the cold, harsh truth. Before the judge relayed his decision, the prosecution made one last plea to the courtroom, arguing that Brianna reacted with disproportionate rage and intent, not fear. It is reasonable that those actions would anger Brianna Barrazzini. However, none of those actions justify Brianna Barrazzini taking a knife and plunging it into Halea's clavicle. Rather, that is an act of unjustifiable rage. A stabbing is a disproportionate response to a slap. The prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence. Brianna stood up and apologized for what she did, saying that she will live with the guilt for the rest of her life.

1:12:32Then the judge reminded the court that she was facing three years in prison and a$10 ,000 fine. That was the maximum. Then he gave it to her, reminding her to stay out of trouble behind bars. Brianna was taken away to prison. When it comes down to it, all in reality should have been was just a fight. Just, you know, a fist fight of some sorts. And then the guys would have stepped in, hopefully, and just broke it up. And they would have yelled at each other. They would have went on their way. You know, nobody would have lost their life out of it. Cops probably wouldn't even have been called for it.

1:13:10But, you know, Brianna chose to bring out a weapon and then to use that weapon in the course of that assault. So she escalated it. And that's how I look at it. The video Dalen captured still haunts Halea's family. These were her final moments and they were nothing like the Halea they knew and loved. And then she was gone. Brianna currently sits in jail. She filed a motion of early release and it's been granted this August, which means she will have only served one year for the death of Haleah Culbertson. One year. Detective Prybe knows that what happened that night was a series of bad choices by every person in that parking lot.

1:14:02But he believes Brianna got away with murder. She's the one who brought a weapon into the fight. She brought a knife into a fistfight. and I think that there should have been more consequences for that. There were a lot of bad decisions made that night. Halea made one when she escalated the argument with a slap. Brianna made one when she pulled out a knife in the middle of a fist fight. And Dalen? Well, Dalen made his when he chose to hype up Halea and film the fight instead of stopping it. Because Dalen is an asshole. Once that camera comes out, everything changes. This wasn't just a fight anymore.

1:14:42It was a show. And all three of them knew it. They weren't just teenagers in a parking lot, finally forced to face their internet fights in the real world. Now they were performers playing to an invisible audience on social media. A bunch of bored assholes that are taking a shit. That's what raised the stakes. Social media didn't kill Halea, that's not what I'm saying, but it created the environment for her to die. It changed behavior, it added pressure, it made everything feel dramatic and impossible to walk away from. A modern teenager's world is already so insular, impulsive, and emotional.

1:15:26Trapped behind a screen where reality is half-baked. But when performance becomes instinct and every reaction is subconsciously shaped for an audience, even real danger can feel like just another scene to play out. And in the end, Halea died. Brianna went to prison and Dalen walked away with no charges whatsoever. Just a ghost in the margins of a murder he helped set into motion. No one wins in a story like this because the truth is it didn't have to happen. But when teenagers are raised in a world where everything is filmed, where attention is currency, and where the pressure to show off never shuts off, even a fistfight can turn into a performance.

1:16:17This time that performance ended in death. It's not just tragic That's the cost of a culture that values footage More than the fallout

1:16:47Speaking of footage, we got a lot of it. Sword and Scale Television, available at swordscale.com. I know you want it, you cheap fuck. Go get it. It's only 20 bucks and you can get 20 episodes right now. They're an hour long each. That's a lot of true crime.

1:17:28Thank you.