what so did you kill those four people do you have anything to say right now why did you take tristan is this all a big misunderstanding i don't have anything to say right now why'd you do this i don't have anything to say what about are you what about your son what are your concerns about him right now i love my son and i hope that he's safe right now why did you take it he's my son what what happened what happened with the family i don't have anything to say right now where were you trying to go no you didn't kill them who did i don't know why were you running away i don't how did you end up there were you worried about your son did you think something would happen to him if you weren't there what were you trying to do excuse me are you glad that your son's safe now do you know who killed those people [Music] everybody's talking to me i don't hear what they're saying only the echoes of my mind i'm going where the sun keeps shining through the pouring rain going where the weather suits my clothes backing off of the northeast wind sailing all summer breeze skipping over the ocean like a stone walk [Music] greg and margaret brown were an honest hard-working couple who had recently celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary they were in search of the quiet life after having worked hard breeding dogs and horses as owners and operators of the hidden hills farm in lehigh valley pennsylvania just four years earlier margaret's parents moved to florida to build a retirement home so the browns decided to follow them they knew someone who owned a vacant two-story single-family residence in hudson and they arranged to rent it out plans were now in place they would sell the farm and rent a home in florida while their dream home was being built moving along with the browns would be their youngest child 27 year old daughter megan and her four-year-old son tristan megan was a standout track and field athlete at northwestern lehigh high school she excelled at the triple jump for which she won a silver medal at the piaa track and field championships in her senior year she was kind smart and beautiful and was also looking forward to a change of scenery there was just one issue her son's father adam matos had custodial rights and would have to approve of any out-of-state move [Music] 28 year old adam matos was born in philadelphia pennsylvania he was raised in a single-parent household and had what was portrayed as a difficult upbringing his family bounced from home to home before relocating to new york city according to his mother's testimony he did not speak well and was a slow learner who struggled in school he had a basic level of education and no stable record of employment court records in pennsylvania show matos had been arrested numerous times for harassment theft burglary trespassing assault and driving under the influence he pleaded guilty to some of the charges and others appear to have been dismissed he had been looking for work as a disc jockey and male model when he and megan met in their late teens and began an on-again off-again romantic relationship they eventually had a son together who was born in 2010 and for the sake of the child he and megan reunited and matos was welcomed into the brown family home matos was depicted as very quiet and withdrawn a caring father but prone to angry outbursts megan and matos had significant differences in how they wanted to raise their special needs son megan was patient and protective while matos was quick to physically punish these differences led to volatility in the relationship and frequent arguments the arguments were to the extent that mr burnown often had to intervene to break them up eventually the couple broke up but adam remained in the household megan's step-grandmother linda seemed to have a fair relationship with matos and suggested to him he attend parenting classes to which he appeared open she also advised that perhaps he should find work to help boost his struggling self-esteem despite a deteriorating relationship between matos the browns and daughter megan and in order to ensure there would be no family law complications the browns decided to extend matos and offer to relocate with them to florida matos accepted in a deposition megan's step-grandmother referred to matos's presence in florida as quote a necessary evil for the browns end quote on july 2nd 2014 the browns along with adam matos moved from their residence in pennsylvania to a rented home in hudson florida they were assisted in their move by brown family relatives who often stayed overnight in the home during the transition period according to the relatives megan and matos slept in separate bedrooms when possible however on occasion when a relative was staying over megan and matos shared a bedroom with their son but slept separately megan was able to find work as a bartender at a local pub called the fisherman's shack mantos found a job working in a kitchen but was terminated after a brief stint the browns had discussed with matos his requirement to be self-sufficient to work and help pay rent and living expenses so the termination caused problems in the household according to court records it was very difficult for the browns to get to know matos as he spent the majority of his time isolated in his bedroom playing video games he was asked more than once to find work and pay rent which he did not and at one point there was a confrontation with mr brown about this meanwhile megan was off to a fast start at work she was well liked by staff made friends easily and caught the eye of a regular patron named nicholas nick leonard a carpenter and landscaper by trade megan and nick struck up a friendship and would often talk about their dreams and aspirations he thought brown's home situation was strange but didn't appear to be concerned about matos at the time megan and nick had agreed to keep their budding romance quiet until matos moved out of the house a neighbor who was interviewed by a local newspaper said of nick he came over to do some work for me one day he told me he found the girl of his dreams and he showed me her picture nick was smitten with megan back at the brown residence the arguments between megan and matos were increasing in frequency the relationship between the elder browns and matos was also in decline and by the end of july there was serious tension in the household mr brown felt that matos was unwilling or unable to find work megan felt that he was too much of a disciplinarian with their special needs child and matos was jealous that she had made a new set of friends with whom she had gone out while he stayed at home to care for tristan matos felt like a stranger in a strange land with no support system of his own and struggling with the loss of dignity that comes with having to rely on the financial and material support of others 7719 hatteras drive appeared to be a powder keg in search of a spark on wednesday august 27th megan reported to work at the fisherman's shack for her regular shift and went out to unwind after work with co-worker tanya carlson and romantic interest nick they would stay out until the early morning hours while at home babysitting matos repeatedly tried to contact megan after midnight but could not reach her megan would arrive home sometime between 5 to 5 30 am to find matos lurking he was seething with anger and appeared to have been drinking moments later a call to 9-1-1 is made [Music] h-e-t-t-e-r-a-s drive clinton florida okay that's 71.99 and it's gonna be okay seven one one [Music] [Music] you know [Music] know exactly what happened [Applause] [Music] where is he [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] what do you yes you want to play do you want to play okay so give me a um [Music] [Music] hold on okay what is his name [Music] it's okay don't apologize do not apologize [Music] what was going on [Music] in response deputies from the pasco county sheriff's office were dispatched to 7719 hatteras drive they arrived to find a hysterical megan with a bloody laceration to her left thumb margaret brown was on the scene as well megan informed police that when she arrived home she was confronted by an irate mattos who asked her where she'd been and with whom there is a belief by some that this is when her relationship with nick was first revealed and enraged motto's held the knife to her throat and shouted i will eff and kill you police investigate for an hour and a half they found the knife took some photos and attempted to locate matos but he was long gone once the police were done one of the first calls megan made was to her friend and co-worker tanya she told tanya that she had never seen matos behave this way and that she was in fear for her life she also stated she was afraid to go to work out of fear that matos might take her son sometime shortly after 9 a.m nick after having been told of the incident called 9-1-1 to report the attack on megan and a deputy responded to the house once again under the false impression there was a new ongoing attack when the deputy appeared this time all the browns were present to speak with him about the aggravated assault accusations against matos a complaint form was filed and added to the original form from earlier that morning later in the afternoon margaret brown left the house for her 3pm shift at wawa a chain of convenience stores and gas stations located along the east coast shortly after 3 pm megan texted her boss to explain why she did not show up for her 3 p.m shift at the pub she sent him the following messages jerry some serious [ __ ] hang on my son's dad tried to kill me with a knife and threatened to finish me off she told him matos fled the scene that police were looking for him and her next message was i'm afraid they won't find him in time and he's going to come back and finish me off her boss would be the last person to ever communicate with her as the sun sets all appears to have settled in the neighborhood at 11 pm margaret leaves her job at wawa and heads home she has a 15 minute commute however at roughly 11 45 pm a man out for a stroll through the neighborhood reports hearing something unusual then shortly after midnight a neighbor sees mottos at the brown residence he appeared to be out of breath and sweaty as the neighbor was unaware of the morning incident he thought nothing more of it at roughly 2 p.m that friday some people approached the brown residence looking for matos he had placed an ad on craigslist offering to sell some of the brown's property as well as their purebred puppies these buyers were interested in the family tv but left after matos refused to let them into the home to inspect it one hour later at 3 p.m both megan and margaret failed to show up for their respective shifts between 4 15 and 4 30 five of margaret brown's dogs were purchased for 50 each from craigslist buyers between 5 and 7 pm matos has pizza delivered to the brown residence at 11 48 pm matos drives the family van to walmart and buys a shovel the weekend goes by and on monday september 1st labor day matos asks the neighbor for a ride to the grocery store to go shopping he claims he cannot use the van because it has a flat when asked where the browns are he tells the neighbor the brown family flew to west virginia to take a vacation they took a cab to the airport and left him alone to watch the house later in the evening matos orders another pizza to the brown residence the delivery driver detects an awful smell around the house and observes a small child with mottos on thursday september 4th one full week after the morning assault on megan megan's step-grandmother reached out to the pasco county sheriff's office to request a welfare check as she had not heard from megan since the 28th police responded and found a horrific murder scene there were copious amounts of blood in the home in the single car garage and in the family van the van was full of maggots as well they found the spent shell casing and the foul stench of decomposition all of the victims vehicles were still at the location the four-year-old however was nowhere to be found matos was in the home when police arrived but was able to escape through the back entrance he steered a canoe through the canal to the opposite end where he and his son then got into a cab the crime scene unit was notified and the scene underwent forensic processing dive teams entered the canal behind the house and recovered a rifle a hammer and a caltech firearm a short while later as police were searching along old dixie highway about one mile north of the murder scene one of the sergeants smelled something horrible and saw birds circulating that's when sheriff chris nacco noticed there appeared to be several bodies over a hill they approached and discovered four human bodies piled one on top of the other and badly decomposed one of the female victims was found wearing a red wawa employee apron her hands were tied and she had a bag over her head she was identified as margaret brown the other bodies were those of gregory brown megan brown and nicholas leonard a massive manhunt was launched for adam matos since they had not found the four-year-old boy an amber alert was created as well it worked a cab driver called police and reported he had driven a man and a small boy to the greyhound bus terminal in downtown tampa there witnesses said they'd seen matos at the bus station around midnight asking about fares to miami the next available ticket wasn't until six am so he headed to a nearby hotel but which one their first stop was the floridan palace also the shortest distance from the terminal there they caught a break matos had checked in under his own name and called the front desk at least once asking how to connect to the internet staff notified police and the swat team gathered in the lobby the swat team realized he was with a small boy so they tricked matos into coming outside and apprehended him without incident they arranged for an investigator who specializes in talking to autistic children to interview the boy as they were not sure whether he might have witnessed the killings the boy was unharmed and he was returned to family at the police station detectives used a clever ploy to get matos's reaction to the brown family's whereabouts keep in mind at this point they are aware the bodies had been found but mattos is not i don't know if you're aware or not that there was a warrant cut out for your arrest for something that happened between you and i guess she's your ex-girlfriend megan um like last week okay um i don't know if you were aware that deputies were even called out to the house but uh we needed to come here and talk to you about some of the stuff that took place with that and that's basically why we're here why we wanted to come talk to you okay so your son is ishmael right ishmael tristan and now ishmael's mother that's megan what's your last name bro brown okay and what's your mom's name margaret margaret okay and is margaret married yes who is she married to great bro greg okay did you did you know that she called the police no i didn't know okay um do you remember that incident where you guys got to an argument for her going out with a friend or something possibly yeah do you know if she was seeing anybody else wouldn't know okay um what happened with that that night i guess there was an argument or something uh you talked about what happened and i got an argument and uh she told me to leave would you what do you mean you talk about laughing her coming home later yeah you know she came home late now we just talked about it we had an argument and uh during the argument did either one of you guys get physical with each other any kind of physical um did she threaten you in any way did anybody in the family ever threaten you here's what we know a little bit about that argument okay she's alleging that you you threaten her threatening to even kill her and threaten her with a knife that's not true that's not true okay stir any way you can make sure that my son goes with my mom or my brother they can't make any promises right now we have to say okay they're fed to me they have rules with that you know um obviously you know we would like to him to go back to megan do you know if that's going to be possible okay i tell would go on to tell police he left the brown home around 6 a.m on august 28th and never returned however witnesses placed matos at the brown residence every day between august 28th and september 3rd one neighbor said he spoke to matos twice and matos claimed the family flew to west virginia and that matzos was home alone detectives also learned matos used margaret brown's credit card to buy a shovel on august 29 and pizzas on september 1st and 2nd which he had delivered to the bronx's home presented with this information matos asked for an attorney and the interrogation was over matos was not immediately charged for the murders but was held in the pasco county jail on a separate aggravated assault charge with bail initially set at two hundred thousand dollars four days later matos granted a jailhouse interview to a local newspaper the tampa bay times to get out his side of the story domestic violence because you know she said that you put a knife on her back into the corner of the room i mean what's yours out of that that's not what happened we just had a disagreement about something and uh pretty much told me to leave and i left over you guys i i can't remember you know but uh something something you know and that was the last time you saw her uh yeah that was the last time i talked to her i was shocked to see the uh the swats in there [Music] did they tell you yeah they told me they told me later that day what did they tell you how did they tell you they were just telling me that you know all this stuff happened and i didn't know what to think how to react to this you know this is all new when you were with your son and you were away from the mom i mean weren't you concerned about whether she was going to be concerned where he was or man how did that how did that shake out i don't know i just can't remember do you remember the last time your son saw his mom uh can't remember maybe maybe august 28th thank to be a threat to your family out there um there was a woman that kept calling [Music] and showing up around the house i don't know what her name is or who she is but were there was like threats being made from this lady and like letters being sent like back and forth i guess she was she left letters or something like that at megan's job and i guess the lady called her job accusing her of different things like taking drugs and stuff like that so i don't know who this lady is or what her intentions are but uh i know she was she was pretty much stalking me [Music] no no well i'm a nice guy you know anybody that that knows me i'm easy easily to get along with i don't start fights you know i'm pretty much you know a cool person to get along with and everybody's looking at me like you know i did it you know something i could say to change anybody's mind you know i could say i'm innocent and i could say i didn't do it or is anybody really gonna believe me you know all the fingers point to me so it's nothing i can really say or do to try to change anybody's beliefs on september 15 2014 matos was formally indicted on four counts of first-degree capital murder he would plead not guilty based on evidence police records and witness accounts including the testimony of matos's four-year-old son detectives were able to piece together what occurred at the brown residence on the night of august 28th following the knife attack that occurred earlier that morning megan called her new boyfriend nick and told him what happened nick grabbed his kel-tec firearm and immediately went over to the house to help protect the browns little did they know that adam was nearby keeping his eye on what was happening at the home at some point late in the evening adam snuck into the residence and armed with a hammer headed upstairs towards the bedroom he once shared with megan upon entering the bedroom he encountered megan inside with nick leonard nick was caught off guard as matos repeatedly pummeled him in the head with a hammer a stunned and dazed nick reached for his firearm but matos was able to grab it first he would continue to batter nick in the head 21 times in total until nick was neutralized nick's forehead was bashed in pieces of leonard's skull were missing by that time megan had taken her son to the master bedroom to seek help from her father greg greg was a hunter and had a collection of rifles when he realized what was happening he grabbed a rifle from the closet and was able to load one but it was too late matos had burst in and fired first he hit greg with two shots one in the back another in the abdomen and gregory brown was dead only megan and son tristan remained matos quickly approached megan and shot her once at point-blank range in the left eye killing her instantly at the tender age of four years old tristan had become a witness to his mother's murder at the hands of his own father when maggie arrived home from her shift adam waited for her to get out of the van then started furiously beating her about the head with the hammer she would be struck in the head nine times he then tied her up and placed a plastic bag over her head likely to make sure she was dead he threw the weapons into the canal and shortly thereafter was seen in the house by a neighbor on the morning of august 28 2014 this defendant adam mattos threatened to kill the mother of his child megan brown and then later that day he made good on his threat came back and killed her her parents greg and margaret and her new boyfriend nicholas leonard good morning ladies and gentlemen i introduced myself some of you i think i introduced myself to twice in the past few days but my name is brian serabi and together with chris laruzzo and joseph longhorn we are going to prove to you beyond reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of murdering megan brown margaret brown greg brown and nicholas leonard now opening statement is my opportunity to give you sort of a table of contents of what we expect the evidence is going to show in this case and if this case was a book the title of the book would be i almost got away with it and after you hear from all the witnesses and see all the evidence in the form of pictures and videos audios we're going to ask you to find this defendant guilty murder in the first degree good morning ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen this case is not the case of revenge that the state portrayed in its opening statement this case is about self-defense adam matos met megan brown about 13 years ago in the state of pennsylvania when he was 19 and she was 18. they had an on-again off-again relationship in 2009 she became pregnant adam was thrilled he planned to be the father he never had as the birth of the baby junior however megan told him that he was not the baby's father and she broke up without him but as time went on the baby looked exactly like adam a paternity test determined that adam was the father adam dearly loved and loves his son and wanted to be a part of his life be that as it may this conflicted with plans that the browns had made they were going to leave pennsylvania and moved to florida with their daughter and grandson they couldn't take tristan out of pennsylvania without adam's permission they decided to invite him to move to florida with them megan reconciled her relationship with adam they were going to be a family adam believed that he helped with the moving greg brown had a bad back adam helped unload all the boxes and furniture and contributed to the unpacking and cleaning of the new home adam began to feel like he was a part of the brown family however once they moved in the browns attitude toward adam changed he had to immediately get a job and pay 740 a month toward rent and other expenses if not he would have to move up he found a job at denny's about four miles from this house from the house a kind neighbor gave him money to buy a bike for the commute he planned to make this work within weeks though they can begin a relationship with nicholas leonard laying the foundations of a very unstable triangle fast forward to august to wednesday august 27 2014 megan stayed out all night adam days earlier found out that megan had been involved with nicholas leonard adam was upset and he did call megan several times that night actually adam also talked with nicholas letter on this night nicholas texted him and they talked on the phone two to three times for about 45 minutes adam adam was upset because megan had been telling him that she was not in a romantic relationship with anyone she had been playing constant games with him they were broken up and they weren't broken up during the last week she would sleep in tristan's room but as recent as two days prior she slept with adam this is what was going through adam's sleepless mind at 5 30 am when megan came home this is what led to the argument that morning prior to her calling 9-1-1 he wanted to know where he stood adam had left his family and friends and all that he knew in pennsylvania to move 1 000 miles to florida and all he wanted to know was where he stood after adam left the house in the morning of august 28 megan eventually reached out to nicholas leonard the opportunity arose to eliminate the third wheel the prosecution argued that adam matos killed four people out of a fit of jealous rage when he discovered megan had a new love interest prosecutors added that if convicted the state wants matos executed the defense claims that adam matos killed four people in self-defense as it was the new love interest followed by each family member who wanted him dead and attacked first adam matos was convicted on november 16 2017 on four counts of first-degree murder and will serve the remainder of his life in prison without the possibility of parole the jury could not come to unanimous agreement on the death penalty as one lone juror dissented pinellas pasco circuit judge mary hansel had a few choice words for the convicted murderer adam matos that means one person on that jury felt enough sympathy mercy for you that they decided that you did not deserve the death penalty so for that i don't have to make that decision it's not something that i ever wanted to do or wish to do but if there was ever a case that i've ever heard that 12 people would have decided that death was appropriate this is probably it but that's their decision i believe wholeheartedly in the judicial system and i believe that those 12 people made up their mind and that sentence will be imposed on you but i also agree with the victims in this case this was the most selfish self-centered evil thing that i've ever heard you will never ever be released from prison you