Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: If I weer nlessues do the sounds, and I would
Speaker 3: have let myself go stad before her.
Speaker 1: At just twenty years old, Brianna Berozini could pass for
Speaker 1: a teenager, but today in the courtroom, she looks even younger.
Speaker 1: Her blonde hair falls straight down her back, framing a
Speaker 1: face strained of color. She stands motionless before an Ohio judge,
Speaker 1: a shadow of fear flickering behind her solemn eyes. The
Speaker 1: room is silent, racing for the words she's about to speak,
Speaker 1: words that seal her fate. Brianna is here to plead
Speaker 1: guilty to killing her former friend Aliah Culbertson.
Speaker 4: You're now pleading guilty, or admitting that you committed this crime.
Speaker 4: When you plead guilty, you waive or give.
Speaker 5: Up constitutional rights. Do you understand each and every right?
Speaker 6: Yes? Sure?
Speaker 5: Are you waiving those rights?
Speaker 4: And are you pleading guilty knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily?
Speaker 6: Yes? Sure.
Speaker 1: Only a year has passed since Heliah was killed. It
Speaker 1: all happened so quickly on that March evening of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. It's been a year of legal battles, spawn hearings,
Speaker 1: and fear on both sides. But today Brianna is admitting
Speaker 1: to what she did and she will face consequences for
Speaker 1: Helia's death.
Speaker 4: Prosecution's going to push for prison. Your lawyers asking for probation.
Speaker 4: I indicated I would likely send you to prison with
Speaker 4: the ability maybe to get out early.
Speaker 5: Is that your understanding of the discussions?
Speaker 7: Yes, sure, a right, but.
Speaker 4: I've made no commitment. I get to review the pre
Speaker 4: sentence investigation.
Speaker 5: I'm going to do that.
Speaker 4: I'll listen to both sides, but I'm inclined to do
Speaker 4: what I've told you, and you understand that.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 1: On the benches behind Brianna and her lawyer, the split
Speaker 1: is as old as the feud itself. Helia's family is
Speaker 1: on one side and Brianna is on the other. The
Speaker 1: bad blood didn't start with Helia's death, but it's curdled
Speaker 1: into something much colder now. Each side sits stiff waiting
Speaker 1: for what comes next.
Speaker 5: When you plead guilty, it is a complete admission. You're guilty.
Speaker 4: You're going to be convicted today, and you're going to
Speaker 4: be sentenced on July the eleventh, it'll be on your record.
Speaker 5: It's a nonexpungable offense.
Speaker 4: It carries up to three years in prison and a
Speaker 4: fine of up to ten thousand dollars. Do you understand
Speaker 4: the nature of the charge to which you're pleading guilty
Speaker 4: and what the maximum penalties are?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 1: That is it a maximum sentence of maybe three years
Speaker 1: and ten thousand dollars for Jeliah Culbertson's life.
Speaker 4: You have any questions for me about anything that we've
Speaker 4: gone over, because if you do, now is the time
Speaker 4: to ask me. Are you pleading guilty to this crime
Speaker 4: I've outlined for you because you did, in fact commit
Speaker 4: that crime.
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: Sure, all right, have a seat, thank you.
Speaker 1: Brianna has no questions. This plea deal is the best
Speaker 1: outcome she could have hoped for. Because Brianna killed Heliah Culbertson.
Speaker 1: That is a fact. But what that fact leaves out
Speaker 1: is everything that led up to it, what was said,
Speaker 1: what was seen, what was feared, and whether what Brianna
Speaker 1: did that night was premeditated or panicked intent. Brianna stole
Speaker 1: Helia's life, but now she gets to wait for her
Speaker 1: sentence from the comfort of her family's home in Westerville, Ohio.
Speaker 1: For the next month, Brianna will sleep in her own bed,
Speaker 1: eat her favorite meal, scroll through her phone, and take
Speaker 1: long hot showers. She's free for now. Helia, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, is dead and her family lives inside a
Speaker 1: grief that has no end. Even if Brianna gets the
Speaker 1: maximum sense she could be out by the age of
Speaker 1: twenty three. She will step into a future where most
Speaker 1: people will never know she's a murderer. So carry on
Speaker 1: with the very life she stole. No one in the
Speaker 1: courtroom is satisfied. No one truly understands how it came
Speaker 1: to this. If Brianna had stayed at home that night,
Speaker 1: maybe Helia would still be alive. Whatever happened between those
Speaker 1: two girls, it didn't start that night, but it did
Speaker 1: end in murder. Now, let's rewind to about a year
Speaker 1: before Brianna stood in the courtroom, March twenty sixth of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the evening Helia died.
Speaker 6: From her unc I'm going on, what's going on?
Speaker 9: My friend sat down at once to two one c
Speaker 9: stop carry out.
Speaker 5: So one one that's the tree once one carry out? Stop?
Speaker 5: Oh stop, okay, calm down.
Speaker 10: So one one.
Speaker 5: Carry out blow stop.
Speaker 8: I'm a.
Speaker 1: Night. It was almost midnight in Columbus, Ohio. Such a
Speaker 1: beautiful place, Ohio, is, I always say? In the desolate
Speaker 1: parking lot of a strip mall, Heliah Culbertson's best friend,
Speaker 1: Kenzie Adrian called nine one one, desperate for help. Helia
Speaker 1: was sitting in the front seat of a jeep that
Speaker 1: belonged to their other friend, Dalon Barritte. Heliah took labored
Speaker 1: breaths as blood spilled down her neck and onto her
Speaker 1: orange tank top and pants.
Speaker 11: Sure I know who stabbed it.
Speaker 12: I know, free of your.
Speaker 11: Ergie, Brianna okay waiting.
Speaker 8: She watched and I don't know if he had, but
Speaker 8: the closed.
Speaker 1: Up Kenzie couldn't get the information out faster. She needed
Speaker 1: it to be known. Brianna Barrowzini stabbed Heliah. They all
Speaker 1: witnessed it.
Speaker 5: Okay, this memory with me.
Speaker 13: We're gonna get you well throughout and health you guys.
Speaker 1: Dalen wrapped his shirt around Heliah's neck, pressing hard to
Speaker 1: stop the bleeding. Kenzie clutched her hand, whispering to Haliah.
Speaker 1: They waited, their ears straining for sirens, hearts pounding. Kenzie
Speaker 1: and Dalen were paralyzed by the helplessness of it all.
Speaker 1: Then the police swarmed it.
Speaker 12: Get back, boss, get back, I know, I know, I
Speaker 12: need you to stay back.
Speaker 10: All right.
Speaker 11: Hey, you gotta let them do their work. Okay, come on, guys,
Speaker 11: let's get back back.
Speaker 14: Let's get back.
Speaker 11: Come on, come on, I understand.
Speaker 8: Let's get back here.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna get your information.
Speaker 15: Did you see it?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 5: Who saw it?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 11: Okay in the red hoodie?
Speaker 10: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: I need you to get in the cruiser for me.
Speaker 16: Okay, I'm gonna have to get you off your phone.
Speaker 3: All right, I.
Speaker 12: Understand that, but I need you Okay, I need you
Speaker 12: to get in the cruiser.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm to the phone. The parking lot was utter
Speaker 1: chaos as police quickly assessed the situation amongst these crying,
Speaker 1: red faced teenagers. The paramedics scooped up Palia into a
Speaker 1: stretcher and whispered to the nearest hospital. Dalen and Kenzie
Speaker 1: were left in the parking lot, shaking from adrenaline and terror.
Speaker 1: The police officer guided Kenzie to his squad car, instructing
Speaker 1: her to hang up her cell phone and sit down.
Speaker 11: I have a seat. Is that you said, that's your friend.
Speaker 8: Yes, that's my best friend.
Speaker 11: Okay, what's her name?
Speaker 5: Jelia?
Speaker 7: H A l I ah, I know it's hard.
Speaker 1: Kenzie sat looking up at the cop her eyes wide
Speaker 1: and teary. She stroked the end of her long ponytail
Speaker 1: like a child with a security blanket.
Speaker 11: Do you know where she lives?
Speaker 17: Yes?
Speaker 10: Okay, very Ohio, but I don't know exactly.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, Actually, I need you here.
Speaker 12: We need to have I need you get that guy
Speaker 12: in the red hoodie he saw it, and.
Speaker 11: That's not I'm here.
Speaker 5: I'm here, just sitting down.
Speaker 1: We had to tell them what happened.
Speaker 12: I need to separate you guys like that's fine, just
Speaker 12: for integrity of the story.
Speaker 1: The parking lot pulsed with street lights and the flashing
Speaker 1: blue of cop cars. Dyalen storm towards Kenzie, begging to
Speaker 1: sit with his sister, but an officer blo locked him.
Speaker 1: No one knew exactly what had happened yet, and right
Speaker 1: now they needed call not a shirtless panic Dayalen tearing
Speaker 1: through the scene.
Speaker 11: All right, what happened?
Speaker 16: Brie Barzini stabbed her. They were getting into a fight,
Speaker 16: and I was sitting in the jeep because I cannot
Speaker 16: be around brie bar Zini, because her baby, her brothers
Speaker 16: and my baby, dad and me and her at issues.
Speaker 8: I don't know b a r z z I n.
Speaker 16: I I am I okay Pine Oak or at Western
Speaker 16: Ohiots where she lives. She lives in West you think, wes,
Speaker 16: I know she lives. Into a fight and Jelia walked
Speaker 16: to the front door of the jeep. I saw she
Speaker 16: had a gash on her. She got in the car
Speaker 16: and she goes, I'm getting aschers. I hopped out the car.
Speaker 16: I called hermong much because I didn't see the fucking fight.
Speaker 16: I was sitting in the jeep looking away.
Speaker 1: Kenzie was in shock, scrambling with her words. But what
Speaker 1: she knew was that Brianna Berezini that stabbed Heliah. Kenzie
Speaker 1: had issues with Brianna from the past, so she stayed
Speaker 1: away from the fights between the girls. The next thing
Speaker 1: she knew, Alia was bleeding from the neck.
Speaker 11: You didn't see the actual fight, No, but I.
Speaker 6: Know who Briberzini is.
Speaker 8: I know her mother, and I know her address.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right, hang out for me, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: As Kenzie nervously puffed on her nicotine vape. The officer
Speaker 1: marched towards another kid who had witnessed the fight.
Speaker 5: I kind of fault.
Speaker 12: I didn't see if her gets stabbed at all.
Speaker 11: Okay, it just looked like they were throwing punches.
Speaker 5: Do you know either of them?
Speaker 12: I know her, that was a who.
Speaker 11: Jaliah the one that got stabbed. You know her, But
Speaker 11: you don't know I barely, Like I know.
Speaker 15: I worked with Danielen for a little bit and I
Speaker 15: was hanging out with them.
Speaker 5: Deny it, I need, I need you. Where did it
Speaker 5: happen at?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 11: You take that right here in the front.
Speaker 12: Like in the front of the smoke shop, Yes, sir, okay.
Speaker 1: The off are continued collecting pieces of the story in
Speaker 1: fragments from the teenagers. The fight had happened in the
Speaker 1: strip mall, outside of a smoke shop that sold vapes, snacks, drinks,
Speaker 1: you know, all the things that keep teenagers alive. Next,
Speaker 1: the officer headed to the store, kicking oblivious customers off
Speaker 1: the property as he made his way inside.
Speaker 5: Hey, guys, I have to shut this off.
Speaker 12: Somebody just got stabbed and I need to basically close
Speaker 12: your doors.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Okay, even better, just don't let anybody come out this way.
Speaker 11: Okay, go out the bag.
Speaker 1: The officer closed the smoke shop and patrolman started taping
Speaker 1: off the entire parking lot. Outside another police vehicle a
Speaker 1: few yards away from where Kenzie sat waiting, Dylan was
Speaker 1: pacing towards another officer.
Speaker 5: You're staying it right there, All right, okay, all right?
Speaker 5: This is your sister they got.
Speaker 11: Is not blood related, but I'm not. He was fucking twelve.
Speaker 5: It's a good friend of yours. Yeah, what's your first name?
Speaker 1: Dalen's bare chest was covered in Helia's blood. He cried
Speaker 1: as he walked with the officer giving him all the
Speaker 1: information without question. He kept calling Haliah his sister, even
Speaker 1: though they weren't actually related. It's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that made sense in his world, where closeness didn't need
Speaker 1: blood to feel real. They'd been friends for half his life,
Speaker 1: which for some like Dalen felt like forever, long enough
Speaker 1: for him to believe he had a duty to protect her.
Speaker 5: Right, What did you see what happened?
Speaker 11: On video?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: Dalen stood up and pulled out his cell phone, holding
Speaker 1: up the screen for the officer to see. He had
Speaker 1: the entire fight on video. Every brutal second. He even
Speaker 1: posted it on Snapchat. Dylan, her self proclaimed brother, thought
Speaker 1: he was protecting her, but what he didn't realize was
Speaker 1: that he may have helped to get her killed, because
Speaker 1: buried in the footage, beneath the shouting and the blood
Speaker 1: was something that no one had noticed, something that changed everything.
Speaker 1: Outside of a smoke shop in a strip mall in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: on opening that clearly tells you nothing goods coming, eighteen
Speaker 1: year old Brianna Berezini had stabbed seventeen year old Haliah
Speaker 1: Culbertson during a fight. When police arrived on the scene,
Speaker 1: they found a group of distraught teenagers who had witnessed
Speaker 1: the brawl, and one boy, Dalon Barritge, had filmed the
Speaker 1: entire thing on his phone. Brianna had fled the scene
Speaker 1: after the fight, and as another troop of officers headed
Speaker 1: to her house to track her down, the ones on
Speaker 1: the scene continued talking to the witnesses, Alia's best friends,
Speaker 1: Daylon and Kenzie. After all, Dalen had the whole fight
Speaker 1: on his cell phone. Through tears, he passed his phone
Speaker 1: over and started playing. In the clip, you see Heliah,
Speaker 1: she towers over Brianna by about a foot. Aliya is
Speaker 1: walking towards Brianna with her arms out, shouting, you wake
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 3: My sister.
Speaker 7: Bro.
Speaker 1: Alia charges towards brin on a yelling who's obsessed? Over
Speaker 1: and over. Brianna backs up. She's got two canned drinks
Speaker 1: in her hand, and her boyfriend is beside her. He
Speaker 1: holds her arms and tries to guard her, being cautious
Speaker 1: not to touch Haliah at all. In the background, Dalon
Speaker 1: starts to tell him to get off his sister.
Speaker 15: Yay, if you touch my sister and I'll have to put.
Speaker 5: My phone down.
Speaker 15: Bro Heliah cuntra ass to get it over way, Bro
Speaker 15: contra ass to get it overway, Helia.
Speaker 1: Oh great more thug culture. Helia keeps charging forward, screaming
Speaker 1: in Brianna's face as Dalen keeps yelling. That's when some
Speaker 1: say Brianna pulls out a knife from her pocket. Others
Speaker 1: insist it was already in her hand. Heliah keeps thundering
Speaker 1: towards her. That's when Heliah's open hand slaps Brianna across
Speaker 1: the face. The fight ignites.
Speaker 15: Yeah, countra ass, Helia cuncherr ass, Helia, dress you better
Speaker 15: get your girl before she gets fucked up even more as.
Speaker 1: The motion is lightning fast. But that's when Brianna swings
Speaker 1: the knife up and slashes Helia across the throat. But
Speaker 1: Heliah doesn't stop. She keeps yelling, She keeps swinging her
Speaker 1: fists and throwing her body towards Brianna as blood spills
Speaker 1: and can drinks go flying out of the pavement and explode,
Speaker 1: which raises a chilling possibility. Did Brianna even realize the
Speaker 1: knife connected? Did anyone? For a moment it seemed like
Speaker 1: no one had been hurt at all. The fight breaks
Speaker 1: up and Brianna's boyfriend pulls her away. Helia stumbles towards
Speaker 1: Dalan and the video cuts out. The fight is crystal clear,
Speaker 1: despite how short and frenzied the whole ordeal was. But
Speaker 1: what isn't clear is why it all started. But for
Speaker 1: that information and the officer's first turn to Dayalen.
Speaker 5: What did all start over?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 11: All right?
Speaker 12: So Kenzie, Kenzie's baby dad is Breeze older brother.
Speaker 11: Right, who's Kenzie the one in that.
Speaker 5: All right here? The blonde? The blonde?
Speaker 12: So her brother, her baby dad is her brother and
Speaker 12: her Okay, Kenzie's baby dad. Yes, Kenzie's baby dads here
Speaker 12: and she has a baby dad. And baby dad is
Speaker 12: Bree's older brother, older brother. Got they've had beef for
Speaker 12: the The child's going to four years old, so they've
Speaker 12: had beat for almost five years.
Speaker 1: Type shit, you know what I'm saying, Like Brianna's older
Speaker 1: brother is the father of Kenzie's child. This relationship went
Speaker 1: very sour. Helia, being Kenzie's best friend, sided with her
Speaker 1: and developed a hatred for the entire Berazini family, as
Speaker 1: did Dalen. After all, Heliah and Kenzie were his so
Speaker 1: called sisters.
Speaker 12: I look at Kenzie's mother adopted me, like, not legally,
Speaker 12: but my mom teaching me out from the ages of
Speaker 12: fourteen to seventeen, and Kenzie's family took me the fuck
Speaker 12: in Okay, So I'm very protective over Kenzie and whoever
Speaker 12: Kensey affiliates with.
Speaker 1: Dalen was a classic latch key teen, untethered looking for
Speaker 1: something to hold on to after his own mother kicked
Speaker 1: him out. He found a sense of belonging in Kenzie's world.
Speaker 1: Her family became his anchor, and he clung to that
Speaker 1: feeling of home with everything he had fiercely loyal but
Speaker 1: emotionally adrift, Dalen absorbed every ripple of drama between Kenzie
Speaker 1: Aliyah and the Berezini family. To most adults, it would
Speaker 1: have seemed like none of his business, but to Dalen,
Speaker 1: it was everything. He didn't just insert himself. He dug in,
Speaker 1: rooted himself in the chaos, convinced that was where he
Speaker 1: was meant to be and wasn't just going along for
Speaker 1: the ride. That night, he was steering the ship and
Speaker 1: when the fight broke out, he didn't step back. He
Speaker 1: stepped in. He stepped up, I guess you would say,
Speaker 1: with his cell phone in one hand and vicarious vengeance
Speaker 1: in his heart.
Speaker 12: But like, that's my little sister and I've I've always
Speaker 12: been protective over her and ray bear Zini. She she
Speaker 12: the girl who did this hit. She just always runs.
Speaker 12: She's assists here and she talks shit, She talks and
Speaker 12: I saw, I saw the knife fucking drop, but I
Speaker 12: didn't did she not used bro Brie and Healia were
Speaker 12: supposed to be fighting while they were in the Columbus
Speaker 12: thing or what.
Speaker 11: No, it was random as fucks. He came in while
Speaker 11: we came in.
Speaker 1: The whole fight was spur of the moment. Aliah and
Speaker 1: Brianna had known beef for months. According to Kenzie, it
Speaker 1: was just a normal evening at the smoke shop, joking
Speaker 1: around with the store's owner that they all knew. Then
Speaker 1: Brianna and her boyfriend walked in.
Speaker 10: Three walks in with her friend, and I didn't notice
Speaker 10: until Julia goes, that's brief, fucking Barrizini. I said, oh God.
Speaker 6: I turned around, my saw her. She looked at me.
Speaker 6: I looked at her. I turned around.
Speaker 10: I know Brie because she's my baby dad's sister. Okay,
Speaker 10: and I've known Brie since middle school, and I'm not
Speaker 10: allowed legally. I don't go around her or her brother
Speaker 10: or her family. I was fifteen and her brother was
Speaker 10: nineteen when I got pregnant.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: When Kenzie had a relationship with Brianna's older brother, she
Speaker 1: was a minor and he was legally an adult, which
Speaker 1: made the situation a problem, A big one.
Speaker 10: Yeah, because I didn't know he was nineteen. He told
Speaker 10: me he was seventeen to figure out he was turning eighteen,
Speaker 10: and then he turned he was already eighteen. Then he
Speaker 10: turned nineteen, and I got pregnant when I was fifteen
Speaker 10: in April when he was nineteen that year, so I
Speaker 10: was like.
Speaker 6: Oh, this is great.
Speaker 1: When Kenzie's family found out Brianna's brother was nineteen, they
Speaker 1: filed criminal charges against him. This caused a major rift
Speaker 1: between the two families. Still, Kenzie allowed Brianna and her
Speaker 1: parents to visit the child on one condition. The child's
Speaker 1: father was not allowed to visit. Everything was going all
Speaker 1: right until they disrespected the rule and allowed Brianna's brother
Speaker 1: to sneak a visit.
Speaker 10: Because before noon they would be like yeah, and they'd
Speaker 10: come over and I'd see her, or they would drop
Speaker 10: stuff off.
Speaker 6: But they just obeyed everything.
Speaker 10: And I caught them in a line and they saw
Speaker 10: them out in public with him, and I picked up
Speaker 10: my daughter and I said, you are all fucked in mind,
Speaker 10: and they.
Speaker 6: Were like, you can't tell me what to do.
Speaker 10: I said, this nineteen year old is going to tell
Speaker 10: your thirty five year old asked what I can do?
Speaker 6: Put my daughter in my corn.
Speaker 7: I left.
Speaker 1: That's when Kenzie banned anyone from the Berezini family from
Speaker 1: seeing the child, including Brianna. Resentment grew between the two girls.
Speaker 10: She isn't like because I don't let her, her family
Speaker 10: see my daughter. I guess her brother's not a good person.
Speaker 10: I have a restraining order on him.
Speaker 6: He's legally not allowed to be around me or my family.
Speaker 1: This battle of custody, restraining orders, and accusations had been
Speaker 1: going on for years. So when Kenzie saw Brianna enter
Speaker 1: the smoke shop on that March evening, she immediately wanted
Speaker 1: to get as far away from her as possible, but
Speaker 1: Helia had other plans.
Speaker 10: Her and Brief start going at it because Brie gets
Speaker 10: behind us in line and Julia goes, you're obsessed or what?
Speaker 10: Because breposts tiktoks about Alio all the time. I'm just
Speaker 10: saying like they were friends at one point. I don't
Speaker 10: really know what happened there together. I don't know what
Speaker 10: issues they have, but they have like like they hate
Speaker 10: each other. Something Priest called Julia cocaid. Julia called Bria
Speaker 10: cocade and was talking about her abusive brother and was
Speaker 10: talking about her family being city, and then bri was
Speaker 10: talking about Julia's mom and then Helia was like, well,
Speaker 10: I'll catch you outside then come outside, and is all right, bet,
Speaker 10: I'll be outside then. So I got into the cheap
Speaker 10: in the front seat, and I was looking forward because
Speaker 10: I'm not part of this fight.
Speaker 18: So that all happened in the store, yeah, where they
Speaker 18: were where Brief was like, come.
Speaker 6: On outside, and Hellia was like, I'll be outside.
Speaker 10: Brie said, she'll be outside. Julia to her to come outside.
Speaker 1: I'll catch you outside, all right, bet? Why do kids
Speaker 1: sound like retards these days? We've already got a language.
Speaker 1: You don't have to make up new definitions for existing
Speaker 1: words just to make yourself feel special. You're already plenty
Speaker 1: plenty special. Trust me. Anyway, According to Kenzie, it was
Speaker 1: that simple. Brianna and Helia started arguing, and the store
Speaker 1: then agreed to continue things outside. Kenzie said that Brianna
Speaker 1: had posted nasty things to TikTok about Heliah, that their
Speaker 1: feud may have been fueled by Helia's loyalty to Kenzie
Speaker 1: and her situation, but that they had their own fight
Speaker 1: independent of her problems with Brianna's family. This wasn't a
Speaker 1: premeditated showdown. It was a chance encounter that spiraled fast.
Speaker 1: But even in spontaneous fights, there's a history, and this
Speaker 1: one had years of its simmering just below the surface.
Speaker 1: No one's saying Helia deserved what happened, but this wasn't
Speaker 1: a clean cut case of victim and villain. Both girls
Speaker 1: carried grudges and when the moment came, they each brought
Speaker 1: their rage with them. Helia and her friends waited outside
Speaker 1: in the dark, while Kenzie sat in the jeep to
Speaker 1: distance herself from Brianna.
Speaker 10: They were outside of the cheap and I was like,
Speaker 10: I'm not part of this shit because I'm going fucking car.
Speaker 10: May can do another fuck you one, but I'm not
Speaker 10: part of this shit. And then all I heard wasn't fighting.
Speaker 10: I didn't really see anything. I didn't see anything at all.
Speaker 10: On te Kelly was walking up to the front door,
Speaker 10: thank to the driver door of the car, and all
Speaker 10: I can see is that she's bleeding. I'm holding her
Speaker 10: wrists and I'm trying to check for a pulse and
Speaker 10: she peed her pants in her eyes.
Speaker 6: She was non responsive. Did you see Hellia with any weapons?
Speaker 10: No, she didn't have anything. I had all of her stuff.
Speaker 10: I had her pepper sprare, I had her keys, I
Speaker 10: had it all. She didn't have anything on her except hands.
Speaker 1: Kenzie and Dalen told the same story. The fight wasn't planned.
Speaker 1: It started in the smoke shop, just another chance encounter
Speaker 1: that got out of hand. Brianna agreed to meet Helia
Speaker 1: outside to finish what they had started. Brianna had a
Speaker 1: hidden knife, Helia had nothing but her two hands. She
Speaker 1: looked like a victim of an unfair fight. But looks
Speaker 1: can lie because at the same moment, another group of
Speaker 1: officers were at Brianna's door. They had found her and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend inside. Brianna had showered and her bloody clothes
Speaker 1: were in the wash. The knife was hidden upstairs at
Speaker 1: the station. Brianna his boyfriend sat down with the police
Speaker 1: to talk.
Speaker 11: Or just started like, how did you get up there?
Speaker 11: Who were you with?
Speaker 13: So?
Speaker 18: I was with Brite and we headed there just right
Speaker 18: after a car meet.
Speaker 11: We were there.
Speaker 18: We got there around eleven thirty eleven forty.
Speaker 11: Since we got in, we noticed.
Speaker 18: Heliah and a girl named Kenzie and some guy that'll
Speaker 18: never seen before.
Speaker 11: We tried to move out the way.
Speaker 18: Because there's always been issues between us ever since.
Speaker 11: November, between who specifically.
Speaker 18: So it's always been issues between me, Brite and Helia.
Speaker 11: Okay, Kenzie has had some you know, long term issues
Speaker 11: with with family.
Speaker 18: Have Yeah, Haliah said something pretty called or obsessed, and
Speaker 18: then it started an argument. The guy over over the
Speaker 18: counter Ben He said he doesn't want anything to do
Speaker 18: with this, so he got Haliah Kenzie and her friend.
Speaker 11: Outside, and then Halia was yelling a lot and then breathe.
Speaker 11: The whole time was just you know, just trying to say,
Speaker 11: I don't want to fight you, Brianna.
Speaker 1: His boyfriend had a feeling there would be trouble when
Speaker 1: he saw Heliah Kenzie and Dalon, so they tried their
Speaker 1: best to avoid them, but Heliah started shouting at Brianna,
Speaker 1: instigating a loud and vicious confrontation. The cashier kicked Heliah,
Speaker 1: Kenzie and Dalon out of the store. When police spoke
Speaker 1: with him, he confirmed this. The cashier told police that
Speaker 1: when the altercation in the store heated up, he knew
Speaker 1: he had to take action and remove Jalia and her friends.
Speaker 5: So I told my coworker like, I'm going to defuse this.
Speaker 11: So I stepped outside and was talk from to her.
Speaker 12: She which.
Speaker 11: And when I got sagged the one that got sad.
Speaker 11: You were talking to her.
Speaker 19: I was trying to tell her like I got got
Speaker 19: his business, but just go.
Speaker 1: But they didn't go. Dylan started egging Haliah on, riling
Speaker 1: her anger into a frenzy. He pulled out his phone
Speaker 1: and started filming.
Speaker 19: He's standing right there and he's recording everything. And so
Speaker 19: she's getting upset thinking the two telling me to.
Speaker 11: Go out there to stop her.
Speaker 19: One really is I don't want no incident to have
Speaker 19: her here, period.
Speaker 5: Carly Blanking was recording.
Speaker 6: Was he with the girl that got staffed?
Speaker 7: Yes, he was with her, Okay.
Speaker 19: So he instigated it when I just calmed everything down.
Speaker 11: Even though she was still upset.
Speaker 19: Yeah, really yeah, and recording everything.
Speaker 1: So footage of the Smoke Shops outdoor camera showed Heliah, Dalon,
Speaker 1: and Kenzie being escorted out of the store. They disappeared
Speaker 1: into the parking lot. Then about two minutes later, you
Speaker 1: see Heliah come back to the front of the store.
Speaker 1: She's pacing like a bull, yelling and waving her arms,
Speaker 1: taunting Brianna. From outside. In the corner, you could see
Speaker 1: Dalen following her around with a cell phone filming. Here's
Speaker 1: that recording, Halia, what you want to do?
Speaker 5: Bro?
Speaker 1: Where's she at?
Speaker 3: Bro?
Speaker 7: Where's she up?
Speaker 11: Bro?
Speaker 3: She's scared, Bro, She's scared. Alias should drag her at
Speaker 3: the store. Buzz, No, we waiting right here till you
Speaker 3: get your ones.
Speaker 5: I've been waiting to see her.
Speaker 1: Ask a beeper a minute, Bro, you should get arrested
Speaker 1: just for that laugh. That's when the cashier came outside again,
Speaker 1: telling Heliah and Dalen to go home.
Speaker 11: So he wasn't helping the situation.
Speaker 19: Nobody was hoping, No one like it was a dead silence.
Speaker 19: The two girls was talking to me, the other two
Speaker 19: was shopping, and once they had their words exchanged, nobody
Speaker 19: was trying to say, chill, calm down, no nothing. I'm
Speaker 19: the only one telling nobody just just go chill out.
Speaker 19: Go ahead, go leave a store.
Speaker 1: According to the smoke shop cashier, it was Dalon who
Speaker 1: took the situation from bad to worse. The boy who
Speaker 1: was so hell bent on protecting his soul called sister
Speaker 1: was the one who egged on the needless fight that
Speaker 1: ended in murder. Breon his boyfriend said the same thing.
Speaker 18: The male who was with her just kept instigating, just
Speaker 18: trying to make them fight.
Speaker 11: I try to push.
Speaker 18: Away Bertie and Julia because I'm sort of like, I
Speaker 18: don't have a person like Kalia, but I don't have
Speaker 18: the biggest problem with her. Yeah, just trying to basically
Speaker 18: end things without you know, getting anybody hurt.
Speaker 1: You've heard the video anytime that Brianna's boyfriend tried to
Speaker 1: pull the two girls apart, Dalen inserted himself and threatened violence.
Speaker 1: If you touched my sister, gonna have to put my
Speaker 1: phone down.
Speaker 15: Bro Heliah Contra asked to get it over waight, bro
Speaker 15: Contra has to get it over with Heliah.
Speaker 11: But he's basically saying don't don't touch her or yeah, and.
Speaker 18: The whole time, I don't know if the video shows this,
Speaker 18: that I was trying to back.
Speaker 11: Them up, yeah, from each other.
Speaker 18: It was polite, like the back of the hand, so
Speaker 18: obviously you didn't like it. So I tried to plumb
Speaker 18: breathe enough and everything escalated. Basically that if he didn't
Speaker 18: instigate Helia start to fight, none.
Speaker 11: Of this would have happened.
Speaker 1: Brian, his boyfriend, said that the state happened so fast
Speaker 1: he barely realized it until he noticed a sticky liquid
Speaker 1: on his own body. Still, the police needed to know
Speaker 1: why Brianna brandished that knife, Why was she even carrying
Speaker 1: one in the first place?
Speaker 11: When did you know that Brie had a knife. She's
Speaker 11: been carrying knives she always carries. She always carries knives because.
Speaker 18: Just a lot of people try to, you know, attack
Speaker 18: her or just try to.
Speaker 11: Come up to her. Because the issues with.
Speaker 18: Heliah and Brie has always been a thing since November.
Speaker 18: What happened in November, Haliah was just using me and brite,
Speaker 18: you know, saying she has a kid, she doesn't have
Speaker 18: a kid, basically using that as it excuse to get
Speaker 18: money or anything, really to just get as much money
Speaker 18: as she can. Uh, saying she needs to pay for
Speaker 18: gas and she doesn't even drive.
Speaker 11: It just became a whole mess. We just loved it
Speaker 11: that and every.
Speaker 18: Once in a while, either Helle would call me I
Speaker 18: would typically ignore, or she would just message Brie on Instagram.
Speaker 11: Just talking crap.
Speaker 18: It just happens like every couple of months, just randomly
Speaker 18: starts calling it again.
Speaker 1: No one could really explain what had gone down between
Speaker 1: Brianna and Heliah to make their friendship curdle into hatred
Speaker 1: and violence. But it was all petty, silly teenage stuff, lies, manipulation,
Speaker 1: Instagram dms and TikTok gossip, bullshit.
Speaker 17: Did Hell have any any weapons or anything, Does she
Speaker 17: have a knife out or anything.
Speaker 18: I don't recall she had a knife out, but I
Speaker 18: know she does carry typically typically carries a knife. And
Speaker 18: then she always talks about carrying guns and all that.
Speaker 11: That's why we take.
Speaker 18: Her threats to very seriously because she always talks about
Speaker 18: either how having guns, hanging out with people that have guns,
Speaker 18: saying that she can kill us.
Speaker 11: Is it's been a home best.
Speaker 1: Pelia may have used big, bad threats about knowing friends
Speaker 1: with guns and saying she was going to kill Brianna,
Speaker 1: but Brianna was the one who brandished the blade and
Speaker 1: sliced it across Hillia's neck. But Brianna's boyfriend said there
Speaker 1: were many reasons why Brianna always carried a knife.
Speaker 18: Another reason is that her ex boyfriend is abusive, always
Speaker 18: pulls up her own what's sixty one and just that
Speaker 18: what sixty one is not the best area to be in.
Speaker 18: So she always carries in her knife because first of all,
Speaker 18: she's small shoes and can't really protect herself in any
Speaker 18: other way. And the way most of these people fight now,
Speaker 18: they fight to kill.
Speaker 1: After the fight was over and her boyfriend left the scene,
Speaker 1: they drove back to brionn his house where her brother
Speaker 1: was waiting, the one who fathered Kenzie's child. Brion, his boyfriend,
Speaker 1: said that he washed the knife and gave it to
Speaker 1: her brother.
Speaker 18: So I took to the bathroom because it was still
Speaker 18: dripping blood, cleaning as much as possible.
Speaker 11: Uh, and then I gave to Cameron in the living room.
Speaker 11: He gave the knife to Cameron. Uh, so you mean
Speaker 11: actually cleaned it up.
Speaker 18: So, yeah, cleaned it up some because it just kind
Speaker 18: of dripping off the acteley knife and they were godn't
Speaker 18: want to get it all over the place.
Speaker 1: Brion, his boyfriend and brother had hidden a murder weapon,
Speaker 1: but no one knew Heliah was dying. After the stab,
Speaker 1: she kept swinging and screaming. She didn't stop or surrender.
Speaker 1: Not until Brianna was gone and she sank into Dalon's
Speaker 1: car did her friends realize how deep the damage went.
Speaker 1: Dalan's phone marked the fight at eleven forty eight pm.
Speaker 1: By twelve twenty four, am Aliah was pronounced dead at
Speaker 1: the hospital. According to the autopsy, the knife struck a
Speaker 1: critical zone and Heliah's clavigal, damaging a major artery, over
Speaker 1: half a gallon of blood poured into her chest. She
Speaker 1: didn't stand a chance. Still, Brianna insisted her violence was
Speaker 1: all a panicked reaction to Heliah's confrontation. It was all
Speaker 1: just a blur. She premeditated nothing.
Speaker 7: And they're screaming at me.
Speaker 2: And then the dude tells Helia to run up on me,
Speaker 2: and she's walking up and I keep telling her, I'm
Speaker 2: not fighting you back up, so you're not worth it.
Speaker 2: Keep telling her to back up, and I get my
Speaker 2: knife out in my hand and I'm holding and I
Speaker 2: said back up, and she attacks me. She first slapped me.
Speaker 2: She was pushing me well before that.
Speaker 15: Ye.
Speaker 7: I was trying to push her away from me.
Speaker 2: But the other guy said was stealing to end up
Speaker 2: to touch her orse he was going to do something
Speaker 2: to him. I don't know what exactly had happened, but
Speaker 2: I went like this and.
Speaker 7: Then she dragged me by my hair on the ground
Speaker 7: and like there was just blood in my eyes. I
Speaker 7: couldn't see anything.
Speaker 15: Contrast, Aeliah, fuck her up. You better get your girlfore
Speaker 15: she gets fucked up even more.
Speaker 2: H I don't think I hit her or anything, because
Speaker 2: I was on the ground getting blood out of my eyes.
Speaker 7: I had no idea what was going on. I was
Speaker 7: just in shock at that point.
Speaker 1: It's chilling how clear it is on video. Heliah charges
Speaker 1: at Brianna, who retreats, murmuring that she doesn't want to fight,
Speaker 1: but Helia keeps coming. Dalen records it all, his voice
Speaker 1: rising with every shout, not warning them, not breaking it up,
Speaker 1: just feeding the fire. Dylan wasn't a bystander, he was
Speaker 1: the catalyst. But then Brianna flashes the knife. Helia slaps her.
Speaker 1: Brianna swings and blood splatters all over the paper. Still,
Speaker 1: Heliah yanks her to the ground and Unlicia's brutal blows,
Speaker 1: dragging her like a rag doll. Had she survived, there's
Speaker 1: no question Helia would have won that fight. She kicked
Speaker 1: Brionna's ass, even with a hole in her neck. Now
Speaker 1: I'm turning, Ghettu.
Speaker 7: So during the.
Speaker 11: Fire, when she was hitting you, what happened with a knife?
Speaker 11: During that time?
Speaker 2: It had dropped on the ground. Okay, it wasn't no
Speaker 2: longer in my hand.
Speaker 5: Did you know she had been cut?
Speaker 13: At that point, I didn't know if it was many
Speaker 13: or heard because they were yelling, saying that, they were laughing,
Speaker 13: saying that she maybe bleed, so I was like, maybe
Speaker 13: there's a cut on me, But then I was looking
Speaker 13: all over myself when we got in the car, it
Speaker 13: was like, it's I don't think it's me.
Speaker 5: What is this?
Speaker 7: All stuffs animosity? Heliah used to.
Speaker 2: Be a really good friend of mine, and then I
Speaker 2: found out a lot that she's just a really bad person.
Speaker 2: So I stopped being friends with her, and my friend
Speaker 2: Yed stopped talking with and then after that she pretty
Speaker 2: much just went crazy, like saying she was going to
Speaker 2: kill us and slash his tires and do all these things.
Speaker 1: And like she does to most people, to her friends,
Speaker 1: Heliah was fearless, the kind of girl who would never
Speaker 1: back down. To Brianna, she was dangerous and unhinged, two
Speaker 1: versions of the same Helia told by people who loved
Speaker 1: her and people who feared her. Was Brianna the victim
Speaker 1: of Heliah's rabid aggression. Was this simply self defense? But
Speaker 1: there was one thing no one had seen yet, not
Speaker 1: even the police. It was something buried in the digital
Speaker 1: noise from two weeks before the fight. A text message
Speaker 1: from Brianna to her friend tossed off like a joke,
Speaker 1: maybe even forgotten After a long rant with her friend
Speaker 1: about Halia's behavior, Brianna signed off with this message, I
Speaker 1: would sooner slice Halia's throat if he comes near me again.
Speaker 1: Just words, just teenage anger. But now with Haliah dead
Speaker 1: from a single stab to the neck, these didn't feel
Speaker 1: like just words anymore. Seventeen year old Heliah Culbertson had
Speaker 1: died from his single stab wound to the neck during
Speaker 1: an impromptu street fight with her former friend, eighteen year
Speaker 1: old Brianna Brenzini. The two girls had been feuding for months,
Speaker 1: each claiming the other was just a bad person, but
Speaker 1: Helia's friend Kenzie also had big problems with her and
Speaker 1: her family. Kenzie had become pregnant when she was fifteen
Speaker 1: with Brianna's older brother, who lied to her and told
Speaker 1: her he was a miner two when he was not.
Speaker 1: Drama ran through that friend group like a river, a
Speaker 1: big river, and on the night of Helia's murder, it
Speaker 1: finally overflowed. Brianna was arrested on March twenty seventh for
Speaker 1: the murder of Helia. She was taken to the county
Speaker 1: jail immediately following her police interview. The Baronzini family quickly
Speaker 1: took action and obtained a lawyer named Craypants.
Speaker 20: For the last twenty years, I bet at criminal defense attorney,
Speaker 20: practicing out of Columbus, Ohio, trying cases in state court,
Speaker 20: federal court, and representing people charged with really everything from
Speaker 20: speeding tickets to aggravated death penalty murder.
Speaker 1: Brionna's bond was set at seven hundred and fifty grand,
Speaker 1: but she only spent two days in jail. Her family
Speaker 1: bonded her out as fast as they could, and she
Speaker 1: went home under strict conditions from the court. That's when
Speaker 1: Bob stepped into the picture and got to know her
Speaker 1: side of the story.
Speaker 20: When the family came in and then Brionn had a
Speaker 20: chance to explain what happened in her from her viewpoint.
Speaker 20: You know, there's a lot of thoughts to kind of
Speaker 20: go through your head, first one being you know, how
Speaker 20: accurate is this account and what other evidence is he
Speaker 20: going to be out there. I never really believe I
Speaker 20: think that a client comes in and tells me one
Speaker 20: hundred percent of the accurately, not because they're lied, but
Speaker 20: they remember it a certain way. But my initial thought was, Wow,
Speaker 20: this sounds to me like it was a self defense
Speaker 20: and more of an accident and unintentional, but also just
Speaker 20: a tragedy. Just a young girl sitting in front of me,
Speaker 20: very very young, and another young woman dead. So it
Speaker 20: was just I hate to say senseless, but even at
Speaker 20: the first moment, I thought, this is just tragic.
Speaker 1: It was tragic the fight that never should have happened.
Speaker 1: Brianna may have been fortunate enough to have been bonded out,
Speaker 1: but when she met her lawyer the first time, the
Speaker 1: prospect of going to prison for the rest of her
Speaker 1: life wait on her heavily.
Speaker 20: My memories, it was a Saturday morning in my office
Speaker 20: and she was there with her family, very quiet, very timid.
Speaker 20: You know, she didn't just gush out with the account.
Speaker 20: I had to kind of, you know, ask specific questions
Speaker 20: and she would get to it, but very quiet, very scared,
Speaker 20: very concerned, very you know, overwhelmed. I mean, she had
Speaker 20: just been released from the jail I suspect within a
Speaker 20: day of coming to my office, and her whole family
Speaker 20: just supportive, was scared and appreciative of just how serious
Speaker 20: this was.
Speaker 1: And what about that text message, the one where Brianna
Speaker 1: said she would slice Helia's throat if she came after
Speaker 1: her previous tests showed that Brianna was upset because Helia
Speaker 1: had allegedly been driving past her house and making threats
Speaker 1: against her. Bob argues that the text had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with what happened that.
Speaker 20: Night, and would argue to the jury that's irrelevant to
Speaker 20: what happened that night. It would be relevant if my
Speaker 20: client went looking for It would be relevant if my
Speaker 20: client said, there she is, I'm going to do what
Speaker 20: I said I'm going to do in that text, But
Speaker 20: she didn't.
Speaker 11: Go looking for.
Speaker 20: They ran into each other purely by accident, bad luck,
Speaker 20: just by answer. So despite the text, those words, her
Speaker 20: actions that I spoke louder, she backed up, She said
Speaker 20: I didn't want to fight.
Speaker 11: She tried to avoid it.
Speaker 1: Brianna may have been backing away as Helia charged, screaming,
Speaker 1: but according to Lee Detective Timothy Pribe, Brianna made one
Speaker 1: move that raised questions. She had a weapon. Aliah didn't,
Speaker 1: and what Brianna did with that weapon gave the police
Speaker 1: pause when it came to her innocence.
Speaker 17: Haliah was unarmed. She was clearly unarmed. She did assault
Speaker 17: Brianna one time open handed smack, and then she turned
Speaker 17: and she walked away. I believe it was Brianna pulled
Speaker 17: out her knife ten to fifteen seconds prior to the smack,
Speaker 17: so there's there's more of an intent to harm on
Speaker 17: her part. And if she's pulling out a knife with
Speaker 17: an intent to do harm, that's a felonious assault, and
Speaker 17: then that harm causes a death, that's a murder.
Speaker 1: Detective Pribe says that when they watched that video of
Speaker 1: the fight relentlessly, and not just their investigative team, but
Speaker 1: Pribe's boss and his boss's boss analyzing every millisecond to
Speaker 1: make sure they weren't seeing things the wrong way. He
Speaker 1: says that Brianna pulled the knife out prior to being
Speaker 1: slapped by Heliah. She holds it close to the side
Speaker 1: of her thigh and the blade is out of the switch.
Speaker 1: That made all the difference in his eyes.
Speaker 17: Well, she keeps it concealed down at her leg mostly,
Speaker 17: she pulls it out in a very comfortable manner and
Speaker 17: holds it down, and then after she slapped and Heliah
Speaker 17: is walking away, that's when.
Speaker 11: She charges her.
Speaker 17: The key portion of this incident or this altercation, is
Speaker 17: that Afterjlia slaps her, she turns and starts to walk away,
Speaker 17: and that's when Brianna then you know, starts to swing
Speaker 17: her knife, and she swings and misses, and then then
Speaker 17: you see her come over the top and you know
Speaker 17: hit her right, you know, right at the top of
Speaker 17: the chest.
Speaker 1: Detective Pride says that it wasn't the fact that she
Speaker 1: had a knife that showed intent, but the manner in
Speaker 1: which Brianna used it.
Speaker 17: She doesn't want people to see that she has a
Speaker 17: weapon out and ready to go. That's how I'm looking
Speaker 17: at it, because she's not threatening her with it. She's
Speaker 17: not trying to back her off with it. You know,
Speaker 17: she's not protecting herself with it. She's initiating the assault
Speaker 17: with a weapon.
Speaker 1: You can watch the whole video in our bonus content,
Speaker 1: and we encourage it to. The footage of Helia's death
Speaker 1: is hunting, but it also brought clarity. Every second of
Speaker 1: the raw, unfiltered truth was captured for both sides to examine.
Speaker 1: The state indicted Brianna on three charges murder, murder committed
Speaker 1: during a felonious assault, in voluntary manslaughter. She was looking
Speaker 1: at fifteen years to life for the murder charges and
Speaker 1: another three to eleven years for the manslaughter. As the
Speaker 1: media grabbed hold of this sensational girl fight and did
Speaker 1: what they always do, Bob worked on his defense, preparing
Speaker 1: for an intense and very public trial.
Speaker 20: When I first look at it, I say, this is
Speaker 20: pretty classic self defense. Now, Ohio law changed somewhat recently.
Speaker 20: It used to be that to claim self defense, the
Speaker 20: defense would then have the burden of proving that the
Speaker 20: person was in fear of imminent serious, farbly harm or
Speaker 20: death and that you know, they did not use disproportional
Speaker 20: force to repel the attack, and that was the burden
Speaker 20: of the defense. That changed Back in twenty and nineteen
Speaker 20: there was a hospital that passed and signed by the governor,
Speaker 20: and as a result of that, the prosecution now has
Speaker 20: the burden of proving that it is not self defense.
Speaker 1: Ohio was the thirty seventh state to pass this law,
Speaker 1: switching the burden of proof in a self defense claim
Speaker 1: from the defense to the prosecution. To compound matters legally,
Speaker 1: Ohio passed another law in twenty twenty one concerning self
Speaker 1: defense cases.
Speaker 20: And that was a change in the law regarding your
Speaker 20: duty to retreat. It used to be that if you
Speaker 20: had at you had a duty to retreat, unless, of course,
Speaker 20: you're in your home or your vehicle, then you did
Speaker 20: not have a duty. But otherwise you had the responsible
Speaker 20: if you could safely get away from the situation, you
Speaker 20: had to get away from the situation. And if a
Speaker 20: jury determined that, yes, you were in fear of imminent
Speaker 20: serious bodily harm or death, yes you used reasonable force
Speaker 20: to repel the attack. Yes, you did not cause the
Speaker 20: situation that gave rise to the affray, but you had
Speaker 20: an out. You could have left out the back door
Speaker 20: of the bar you were in, or you could have
Speaker 20: run across the street from the field you were in.
Speaker 20: If they found that you had the opportunity and ability
Speaker 20: to escape without exposing yourself to more harm, you could
Speaker 20: not claim self defense. Between those two changes again fairly recently,
Speaker 20: you know, it's a It changes the dynamic a little
Speaker 20: bit about how you look at self defense cases because
Speaker 20: now a jury is going to be instructed they are
Speaker 20: not even to consider whether or not the person could
Speaker 20: have escaped, could could have left, could have fled the situation.
Speaker 20: It's nothing for them to consider. They don't get to determine. Well,
Speaker 20: cheese that didn't have to happen. She could have left. Nope,
Speaker 20: she doesn't have a duty anymore.
Speaker 1: These changes to Ohio law were a clear win for
Speaker 1: the defense. Now it was the state's burden to prove
Speaker 1: that Brianna wasn't acting in legal self defense, and the
Speaker 1: jury couldn't fault her for staying in the parking lot
Speaker 1: before Helia struck first. With the video of the fight
Speaker 1: and the cascade of witnesses who all told the same story,
Speaker 1: it was looking like Brianna had a solid self defense case.
Speaker 1: Tensions were high as Bob worked on his defense and
Speaker 1: the prosecution prepared their arguments. Aliah may have started the fight,
Speaker 1: but she didn't walk into it expecting to die. No
Speaker 1: one ever does. I guess she didn't think Brianna would
Speaker 1: swing a knife. Who knows what was running through her
Speaker 1: mind when she slapped Brianna across the face, but I'd
Speaker 1: bet the last thing she imagined was dying in a
Speaker 1: hospital less than an hour later, Because, like Brianna's boyfriend
Speaker 1: told the detective, a fight isn't just a fight anymore,
Speaker 1: not these days, that is, And.
Speaker 18: The way most of these people fight now, they fight
Speaker 18: to kill.
Speaker 1: Helia's family was grief stricken, giving very few interviews to
Speaker 1: the media. Kenzie posted videos on TikTok about how much
Speaker 1: she missed her best friend. The guilt must have weighed
Speaker 1: so heavily on her. Could she have done something to
Speaker 1: stop this? Maybe if she'd been the only friend with
Speaker 1: Helia that night, none of this would have happened. As
Speaker 1: for Dalen, he was quiet all of a sudden, but
Speaker 1: Brianna's lawyer, Bob was zeroing in on him because Bob
Speaker 1: had reviewed the case inside and out, and according to him,
Speaker 1: Dalen held as much responsibility in Helia's death as Brianna did.
Speaker 20: But I recognize right away that this dayling kid who's
Speaker 20: recording this and encouraging it, it may not have happened
Speaker 20: had he not been doing what he was doing. People
Speaker 20: don't act the same when they know they're being videoed.
Speaker 20: They perform okay. And you know, this young man was
Speaker 20: the oldest of anybody there, and he could have stopped
Speaker 20: us so easily, But he egged it on while they
Speaker 20: were waiting for Breonn to leave the store. He egged
Speaker 20: it on while it was happening. This process of events,
Speaker 20: all of these little decisions that were made in the
Speaker 20: span of call it ten minutes that evening. At any
Speaker 20: given point, one different decision, and this doesn't happen. Aliah
Speaker 20: is alive today.
Speaker 1: If Aleah had been alone in the store that night,
Speaker 1: she might have just flipped Brianna off and gone home
Speaker 1: the rant about it on social media. But she wasn't alone.
Speaker 1: She had Dayalen, self proclaimed brother, her hype man, her
Speaker 1: fierce defender, her peanut gallery. I could go on and on,
Speaker 1: and with him by her side, everything changed. Dalen, with
Speaker 1: his tears and loyalty, his dramatic storytelling and ride er
Speaker 1: Die energy. He was the one who hit record. Heleia
Speaker 1: wasn't just showing off for Dalen and his phone. She
Speaker 1: was performing for the entire internet. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: She knew this clip would hit social media. She knew
Speaker 1: this would be on sortain scale. Now she didn't, but
Speaker 1: you get my draft. She wasn't just in a fight.
Speaker 1: She was on a stage with an invisible crowd ready
Speaker 1: to judge her, mock her, and meme her. Y'all motherfuckers
Speaker 1: are vicious. That kind of pressure warps everything in anything.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why she didn't back down, even when knife
Speaker 1: was flashed inches from her face. Maybe that's why she
Speaker 1: kept threatening Brianna, acting harder than she felt, because fear
Speaker 1: in a viral video looks like weakness, and nobody wants
Speaker 1: to be weak. And Brianna, maybe you shouldn't pull that
Speaker 1: knife out to win the fight. Maybe she pulled it
Speaker 1: out because she knew losing would be captured, replayed, and
Speaker 1: ridiculed endlessly. Maybe the blade wasn't about fear of Helia.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was about fear of becoming a joke on
Speaker 1: the internet, the girl who got wrecked and went viral
Speaker 1: for all the wrong reasons, that sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: it still happened anyway. But by hitting record, Dalen changed
Speaker 1: the entire course of these girls' lives.
Speaker 20: All it takes is for a friend to say, hey,
Speaker 20: you know what, let her go, let's get in the car,
Speaker 20: or I'm gonna put my phone away, I'm not gonna
Speaker 20: do this, or you know what, Halih, let's go. You
Speaker 20: know whatever, She's not worth it. One person says that,
Speaker 20: and maybe it derails the whole thing. Maybe the decision
Speaker 20: by mind client preant to stay in this store longer.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 20: I don't know if she even knew Hilia was waiting
Speaker 20: for or when she did see her, maybe retreat back
Speaker 20: into the store, or don't pull the knife out of
Speaker 20: my pocket, or don't open the knife. Okay, I mean
Speaker 20: there's many, many decisions that were made by multiple people,
Speaker 20: and any one of them a different decision. I think
Speaker 20: this thing goes a different direction.
Speaker 11: Look at the Brian, his boyfriend.
Speaker 17: I mean, yeah, he was standing next to her the
Speaker 17: whole time, and he was kind of sort of trying
Speaker 17: to stop it. But if he was the biggest dude
Speaker 17: out there, I mean, if he could have just walked
Speaker 17: her to the car and put her in the car,
Speaker 17: that was always an option, you know, But they stood
Speaker 17: out there, and I get it. It's it's a situation
Speaker 17: that you can't you know, you necessarily don't know what
Speaker 17: you're going to do when you're in that situation. But
Speaker 17: so many things that people could have just made decisions
Speaker 17: to step in and de escalate it.
Speaker 1: Many people could have stepped in, but they didn't. It
Speaker 1: really came down to Haliah, Dalen, and Brianna, who each
Speaker 1: played a part in how this night unraveled. They all
Speaker 1: had choices, and they all made the wrong ones, feeding
Speaker 1: off of each other's fear, ego and adrenaline idiots wilden
Speaker 1: on TikTok so much. Should really do a study on
Speaker 1: how much harm and literal death social media has inadvertently caused.
Speaker 1: The results are probably terrifying, which is why we'll never
Speaker 1: get one. That and the fact that morons love to
Speaker 1: change the meaning of words, kind of like these kids
Speaker 1: often to suit their own narrative. So harm, what harm?
Speaker 1: What do you mean by harm? Never heard of it?
Speaker 1: What's your definition of harm? That sort of thing? Utter bullshit.
Speaker 1: The whole mess was a chain reaction. Aliah paid with
Speaker 1: her life, Brianna faced prison, and Dalen Well, that innocent,
Speaker 1: doe eyed stoner boy with a magical cackle that resonates
Speaker 1: throughout the vape store, strip mall parking lot and a
Speaker 1: heart of gold. Well he walked away scott free, like
Speaker 1: just another witness. When Bob said, he was so much more.
Speaker 20: So when I look at who's responsible or who played
Speaker 20: a part in his death, I look at him and say,
Speaker 20: you know what you had? You had such a role
Speaker 20: in this thing, and it was so unnecessary, and it
Speaker 20: was so childish, and it's so dangerous, and it's just
Speaker 20: so maddening that right away I'm thinking you know. I
Speaker 20: can understand Alia, I can understand Brianna. I can't understand Dalen.
Speaker 1: We looked up Dalen's record. Of course, by twenty one,
Speaker 1: he'd racked up nine arrests drunk driving, assault and firearm charges.
Speaker 1: You know, like a gangster. Half came before Helia's death
Speaker 1: and the other half came after, like clockwork. Dalen was astray,
Speaker 1: cut loose by his own family, absorbed into Kenzie and
Speaker 1: Helia's orbit like a ticking time bomb. Maybe he knew
Speaker 1: what he did. Maybe the arrests, the violence, the reckless spiral,
Speaker 1: they weren't just all accidents. They were confessions written and chaos.
Speaker 20: I'll be honest. When I first met with the prosecutor,
Speaker 20: my first suggestion was to charge that guy. But they
Speaker 20: felt that, Yeah, after interviewing all the other windowses, they
Speaker 20: felt that, you know, Halia was going to do what
Speaker 20: Halia was going to do, and he did really spill
Speaker 20: the blame over to Dalen. I see it differently, but
Speaker 20: you know, that's that's not unusual to me. There's some responsibility.
Speaker 20: This should have been placed at his feet, but.
Speaker 1: That wasn't going to happen. Still, Brianna was the killer,
Speaker 1: not Dylan. She was on trial for murder, and Bob
Speaker 1: had a big task ahead of him. Despite the law
Speaker 1: changes that swayed in his direction, Brianna made the choice
Speaker 1: to pull out that knife and swing it. She killed Aliyah.
Speaker 1: End of story.
Speaker 20: You know, I thought we had a problem with the weapon,
Speaker 20: and I also thought that we had a problem or
Speaker 20: difficulty with just the sadness of the thing. There is
Speaker 20: a there is a family who is grieving, and rightfully so.
Speaker 20: There's a girl there who is young and dead, and
Speaker 20: it's it's horrible, and juris feel that they see sympathy,
Speaker 20: and it's it's normal as humans, we want somebody to
Speaker 20: answer for this tragedy. We want somebody to be responsible
Speaker 20: for this tragedy, and the only person on trial is Brionna.
Speaker 20: My whole approach was my client didn't want to fight,
Speaker 20: She wanted to back up.
Speaker 11: She kept backing up.
Speaker 20: She wanted to get out of there, and that you know,
Speaker 20: at some point I would have argued to the jury
Speaker 20: that you know, the most timid of animals, when you
Speaker 20: corner it, it has no choice what to lunch forward,
Speaker 20: to do something to try to get out of that situation.
Speaker 1: But the trial would never come because in early June
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, just before Brionna's murder trial was
Speaker 1: set to start, the prosecution suddenly dropped the charges and
Speaker 1: offered Brianna the chance to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 1: That was the plea you heard her accepting in the
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode. The evidence was too strong for
Speaker 1: the defense to argue that this was intentional murder. It
Speaker 1: was very clear that no one went to the smoke
Speaker 1: shop that evening with the intent of Helia losing her life.
Speaker 1: When that fateful sentencing day came, Helia's family huddled on
Speaker 1: one side of the courtroom while the baron Zenies were
Speaker 1: on the other. Brianna stood in front of the judge
Speaker 1: and accepted her guilt for Helia's death. Before the judge
Speaker 1: relayed her punishment, Helia's family had a chance to speak.
Speaker 1: Kenzie stood up first, barely able to get her words
Speaker 1: out between sobs. After describing what a tough yet sensitive
Speaker 1: girl Heliah was, she got into how this had all
Speaker 1: changed her life.
Speaker 8: I'd rather be standing at her wedding and giving a
Speaker 8: speech or her graduation, but I'm here and I know Julia,
Speaker 8: and I know her killer. The best six years of
Speaker 8: my life, I've dealt with her killer, her family. And
Speaker 8: when I finally thought I was getting away away from
Speaker 8: these people, and I finally got my family away from
Speaker 8: these people, Helia's killer did this to the most important
Speaker 8: person in my life. That night, I felt a part
Speaker 8: of my soul, more like all of it left when
Speaker 8: Helia left. I hope that her killer gets the maximum sentence.
Speaker 8: I hope you realize or understand somewhat.
Speaker 6: Who Helia what was really was in this world.
Speaker 8: A daughter or sister, a cousin, a friend, a student,
Speaker 8: a coworker, a granddaughter and niece aunt. She was someone's
Speaker 8: child that got taken too soon, and she's now forever
Speaker 8: seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: The blame that Heleia and her supporters placed on the
Speaker 1: entire Baronzini family was palpable, especially when Helia's mother got
Speaker 1: up to speak.
Speaker 9: In most scenarios, bringing a knife to a fistfight is
Speaker 9: considered unethical, illegal, dangerous. It's crucial to approach conflicts with
Speaker 9: a mindset of de escalation and consider the potential consequences
Speaker 9: of introducing a weapon into a physical altercation. The right
Speaker 9: course of action usually involved seeking a nonviolent resolution to
Speaker 9: ensure your safety through legal and ethical means. Here we
Speaker 9: have a smart, college educated four point zero student with
Speaker 9: so many recommendations from friends and family for the pre
Speaker 9: sentencing investigation. That sounds like someone that should know the
Speaker 9: difference between right and wrong. Maybe she's just smart enough
Speaker 9: to play us all.
Speaker 1: Like Bob said, in a senseless tragedy like this, everyone
Speaker 1: is searching for someone to blame. Eliah's family blamed Brianna,
Speaker 1: and Brianna's family blamed he Leah, but both girls for
Speaker 1: some responsibility for the way that that night transpired. That
Speaker 1: didn't make it fair, but it was the cold, harsh truth.
Speaker 1: Before the judge relayed his decision, the prosecution made one
Speaker 1: last plea to the courtroom, arguing that Brianna reacted with
Speaker 1: disproportionate rage and intent not fear.
Speaker 14: It is reasonable that those actions would anger Brianna Barzini. However,
Speaker 14: none of those actions justified Brianna Barzee taking a knife
Speaker 14: and plunging it into Holi as clavigal. Rather, that is
Speaker 14: an act of unjustifiable rage, as stabbing is a disproportionate
Speaker 14: response to a slap.
Speaker 1: The prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence. Brianna stood up
Speaker 1: and apologized for what she did, saying that she will
Speaker 1: live with the guilt for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: Then the judge reminded the court that she was facing
Speaker 1: three years in prison and a ten thousand dollars fine.
Speaker 1: That was the maximum. Then he gave it to her,
Speaker 1: reminding her to stay out of trouble. Behind bars. Brianna
Speaker 1: was taken away to prison.
Speaker 17: When it comes down to it, all in reality should
Speaker 17: have been was just a fight, just you know, if
Speaker 17: his fight of some sorts, and then the guys would
Speaker 17: have stepped in, hopefully and just broke it up, and
Speaker 17: they would have yelled each other, they would have went
Speaker 17: on their way, you know, and there you know, nobody
Speaker 17: would have lost their life out of it. Cops probably
Speaker 17: wouldn't even have been called for it. But you know,
Speaker 17: Brianna chose to bring out a weapon and then to
Speaker 17: use that weapon in the course of that assault, so
Speaker 17: she escalated it, and that's that's how I look at it.
Speaker 1: The video Dalen captured still haunts Holiah's family. These were
Speaker 1: her final moments and they were nothing like the Heliah
Speaker 1: they knew and loved. And then she was gone. Brianna
Speaker 1: currently sits in jail. She filed a motion of early
Speaker 1: release and it's been granted this August, which means she
Speaker 1: will have only served one year for the death of
Speaker 1: Heliah Culbertson one year. Detective Pride knows that what happened
Speaker 1: that night was a series of bad choices by every
Speaker 1: person in that parking lot, but he believes Brianna got
Speaker 1: away with murder.
Speaker 17: She's the one who brought a weapon into the fight.
Speaker 17: She brought a knife into a fistfight, and I think
Speaker 17: that there should have been more consequences for that.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of bad decisions made that night.
Speaker 1: Aliah made one when she escalated the argument with a slap,
Speaker 1: Brianna made one when she pulled out a knife in
Speaker 1: the middle of a fist fight. And Dalen, well, Dalen
Speaker 1: made his when he chose to hype up Palia and
Speaker 1: film the fight instead of stopping it. Because Dalen is
Speaker 1: an asshole. Once that camera comes out, everything changes. This
Speaker 1: wasn't just a fight anymore. It was a show, and
Speaker 1: all three of them knew it. They weren't just teenagers
Speaker 1: in a parking lot, finally forced to face their internet
Speaker 1: fights in the real world. Now they were performers playing
Speaker 1: to an invisible audience on social media, a bunch of
Speaker 1: board assholes that are taking a shit. That's what raised
Speaker 1: the stakes. Social Media didn't kill Heliah, That's not what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But it created the environment for her to die,
Speaker 1: a changed behavior. It added pressure, It made everything feel
Speaker 1: dramatic and impossible to walk away from. A modern teenager's
Speaker 1: world is already so insular, impulsive, and emotional, trapped behind
Speaker 1: a screen where reality is half baked. But when performance
Speaker 1: becomes instinct, and every reaction is subconsciously shaped for an audience,
Speaker 1: even real danger can feel like just another scene to
Speaker 1: play out. And in the end, Helia died, Brianna went
Speaker 1: to prison, and Dalen walked away with no charges whatsoever,
Speaker 1: just a ghost in the margins of a murder. He
Speaker 1: helped set an emotion. No one wins in a story
Speaker 1: like this, because the truth is it didn't have to happen.
Speaker 1: But when teenagers are raised in a world where everything
Speaker 1: is filmed, where attention is currency, and where the pressure
Speaker 1: to show off never shuts off, even a fistfight can
Speaker 1: turn into a performance. This time that performance ended in death.
Speaker 1: It's not just tragic. That's the cost of a culture
Speaker 1: that values footage more than the fallout. Speaking of footage,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of it. Sword and Scale Television
Speaker 1: available at swordscale dot com.
Speaker 5: I know you want it, you cheap fuck go get it.
Speaker 1: It's only twenty bucks and you can get twenty episodes
Speaker 1: right now. They're an hour long each. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of true cry