The Broken Arrow Massacre

The Bever family lived on a quiet street in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, outside Tulsa. The children were homeschooled and seldom seen outdoors. For about a year the two oldest sons, Robert, 18, and Michael, 16, had been ordering knives, body armor, guns and ammunition, and they had written out a plan on a flash drive: kill the family, film it, then drive across the country shooting strangers.

On the night of July 22, 2015, they carried it out with blades. Their father David, 52, their mother April, 44, and their siblings Daniel, 12, Christopher, 7, and Victoria, 5, were killed. Daniel reached a phone and whispered to a 911 dispatcher that his brother was attacking the family before the line went quiet. Thirteen-year-old Crystal survived a cut throat and multiple stab wounds, and a two-year-old sister was found unhurt upstairs. Officers arrived within minutes, and a police dog located the brothers hiding in brush behind the house shortly after midnight.

Robert pleaded guilty on September 7, 2016, and received six consecutive life terms without parole. Michael went to trial, was convicted on May 9, 2018, and on August 9 was sentenced to five consecutive life terms with parole possible, plus 28 years for the attack on Crystal. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his convictions and consecutive sentences on June 25, 2020.