Paris Bennett Finally Reveals The Motive Behind His Actions

Paris Bennett was different. He didn't spend his time the way other kids his age did. Instead of playing video games, going to the movies, and hanging out with friends, he sat in a cement box with bars, imprisoned.

It wasn't always like that, of course. When he was young, he was a well-behaved kid who excelled in school. He was close with his mother, Charity, and when his younger sister came into their lives, he seemed even happier.

Ella was an adorable young child who immediately clicked with her older brother. Whenever they went out, Paris was always at her side to help with whatever she needed. Charity admired how well the two got along.

The siblings only grew closer as they got older. Their home in Abilene, Texas, finally felt complete, and Charity looked forward to Paris looking out for Ella as she got older. Unfortunately, trouble was on the horizon.

One night in 2007, Charity left for work at a local bar, and she left 13-year-old Paris and four-year-old Ella in the hands of a babysitter. Just a few hours after she left for her shift, however, horror struck.

According to police reports, Paris instructed the babysitter to leave, and soon after, he murdered his younger sister. He eventually called the cops, but they weren't fully prepared for the scene they walked into.

Donna Kleman, one of the officers working for the Abilene Police Department who arrived on the scene shortly after Paris made the call, vividly remembers the atrocity. She's haunted by her memory of Charity discovering her dead daughter.

Four-year-old Ella was gone. Police arrested Paris immediately. When asked what prompted the murder, he said something about a vivid hallucination causing him to see his sister as a demon. However, this story would change.

Charity, like any parent naturally would be, was in a state of shock. Did this really just happen to her family? It was impossible to process her teenage son killing his sister.

Eventually Paris admitted he lied about the hallucinations. He woke up that morning with a clear head, and he had every intention of taking Ella's life. The sheer coldness of the crime caught the attention of a prominent reporter.

Piers Morgan has made a career out of big stories, and when he learned about Paris Bennett, he wanted to talk first-hand with him. So, he interviewed him for a series called Psychopath with Piers Morgan.

The prison considered Paris — who at this point was 25 years old — so dangerous Morgan couldn't sit next to him without some kind of barrier to prevent a potential attack. The things Paris admitted were shockingly blunt.

Even though the murder was beyond horrifying, Paris claimed he wasn't the monster everyone thought him to be. While he didn't show much remorse in his expressions or voice, he did say the murder was a mistake.

At one point, after Paris said he loved Ella, Morgan asked if he was actually capable of feeling love. "It’s not simple. I can’t just point at something and say, ‘Okay, that’s love.’”

During the interview, Charity sat in another room with a recording device to listen to everything her son was saying. She wanted to hear from his mouth what exactly went down that tragic evening.

She could barely keep it together while Paris spoke so frankly about killing Ella. As the interview progressed, Paris began specifically talking about how he killed his sister to get back at Charity.

Apparently, Charity had a problem with heroin before any of her children were born. However, when Paris was 12, she relapsed with cocaine, and her son wanted to punish her for failing to stay clean.

In order to hit Charity where it hurt most, he destroyed the family by stripping her of both children — one deceased and one in prison. She put drugs before her family and, in his eyes, she had to pay the price.

The interview brought so much attention to the crime that a documentary called The Family I Had came out in 2017. It focused on the how Charity dealt with the loss of Ella and the realization she had a psychotic son.

Charity gave birth to another child, Phoenix, after Paris' arrest. Paris will be released in 2047 assuming nothing happens, and Charity needs to do whatever she can to protect herself and Phoenix. It's anyone's guess what plans Paris has in store.

One expert on the case could very well be Amanda Chelekis of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Like Charity, she thought she had it all: a house, a career, a Prince Charming of a husband, and two children. But her world was about to be remade.

The kindhearted nurse was living what she thought was the American dream, but this so-called dream would eventually play out to be a living nightmare.

Amanda's husband, James Philip Chelekis, worked as a middle school math teacher in Kentwood. Amanda was so grateful that she married a good man. But time has a way of changing — or perhaps revealing — people.

When June of 2017 rolled around, the pedestal Amanda placed James atop of collapsed into a million pieces. She discovered an unexpected horror that lives within the worried subconscious of every spouse: James had cheated on her.

The broken wife felt as though she had no choice but to confront the unfaithful James head-on. The two spent an entire night discussing the event that threatened to break their previously blissful marriage, but Amanda was not entirely fulfilled by James' fuzzy explanation.

While Amanda's whole body ached from the betrayal, she thought of her children and of the life they built together. So, she was going to give the schmuck a second chance. They mutually agreed to attend couples counseling. One thing still bothered her, however...

James had confessed many of the details regarding his affair to Amanda, such as when it started, and how many times they'd met up; but for some reason, he continually refused to disclose the identity of his devious mistress. So, who was she?

The couple's overwhelming discussions fizzled out to nothing. Amanda, obviously frustrated by the thought of the unknown, requested some space from James' presence for the night. She was desperate for alone time.

Although James complied, at precisely 5:00 a.m. on June 27th, he would give his solemn wife the surprise of her life... and it wasn't going to be a pleasant one.

At daybreak, whilst Amanda was sitting upright in a chair, her tired eyes gently shut, James then slithered out from inside the closet behind her and did the unimaginable.

“Standing behind me, he kissed my forehead and slit my throat from one side to the other,” Amanda had said of the disturbing incident, which forced her to rethink everything she had previously known about James Chelekis.

In sheer panic, Amanda used her hands to attempt to move the blade away from her tender neck, which only led to gnarly wounds on her palms to accompany the deep slit on the base of her throat. Things weren't looking good.

What's almost more creepy is the fact that James had started reading Bible verses aloud as poor Amanda was bleeding out on the floor, begging him to call 911. By this point, there seemed to be no hope for the fading mother of two.

As Amanda continued to struggle on the ground, life slipping away from her, James laid next to her bloody body and eerily whispered: "this is the end." This awful moment made Amanda certain that she was done for.

Miraculously, Amanda's occupation came in handy at this very life-or-death instance. Using her incredible nurse practitioner knowledge, she positioned herself in such a way to open her airways as much as possible, battling the flooding neck wound — and winning.

James was confused and furious to witness his wife cheating death but had a change of heart (if he even had one) when Amanda warned him that he'd regret it for the rest of his life if she passed away. In an anxious move, James finally grabbed the phone, but 911 wasn't the number he dialed...

Believe it or not, a frantic James called one of his 14-year-old female students from Crestwood Middle School... the one with whom he was having the affair. “He went from being a good person in a good marriage to attempting to murder me to cover this relationship with the student up,” Amanda said bitterly.

Thankfully, 55 long minutes after the assault, the brainy teenager convinced her violent math teacher to phone the police. An ambulance quickly arrived and dashed Amanda to a hospital, while James was taken into custody for attempted murder.

After investigating, police learned about the sexual nature of his relationship with his 14-year-old student in the concrete form of text message "receipts." The illegal relationship between the teacher and student had been going on for a year and a half. He was in deep.

He was charged with attempted murder and two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct against a minor. When said minor's mother was notified of the blasphemous relationship, astonishment soon melted into realization; it all clicked.

"Somehow James managed to manipulate her to where he was the only one she trusted, which resulted in total isolation from activities and friends and an inappropriate relationship with him. He robbed our daughter of her innocence and childhood," the teen victim's mother had regretfully disclosed in court.

When James' lawyer tried to blame untreated mental illness for his heinous behavior, Kent County Circuit Court Judge Paul Sullivan didn't buy it. He then sentenced James to 15 to 40 years for the sexual assaults and 30 to 60 years for the attempted murder, as James cried like a newborn baby in the court room.

Making absolutely no difference to the horrific situation, James relayed that he was "truly sorry." Meanwhile, an alive Amanda, who proved to be a true warrior, made a heartbreaking statement.

“Someday when it is developmentally appropriate, I have to tell my children their father is not with us because he tried to kill me,” she said. It's a conversation no mother wants to have, but it happens more often than you'd think.

Just a few years prior to Amanda's incident, Cheryl Treadway realized her boyfriend had lost his mind. The realization hit her when, after arguing all morning long, Ethan Nickerson pulled a large knife on her.

The couple's three young children were at school when the 26-year-old grabbed the blade and confiscated his long-time girlfriend's cellphone. He kept Cheryl locked up tight — so she started thinking of ways to escape.

Without her cellphone, she couldn't call the police, and screaming for help, she knew, would likely not have the results she wanted. So she appealed to Ethan's sense of fatherhood: she had to pick the kids up from school.

Ethan agreed. But, he insisted, she couldn't go alone, which was why he accompanied her to the elementary school to pick the kids up. They all rode home, probably in silence, the kids in the backseat unaware their father had just pulled a knife on mom.

Back at home, Cheryl was in an even worse place than she started. Not only was she stuck with knife-wielding Ethan, but now her three kids were, too. She couldn't pick them up and run — but what could she do?

Cheryl thought hard, knowing the costs of a misstep. And then an idea hit her. She found Ethan and, once again, appealed to his fatherhood. "The kids are hungry," she said. "Let's order a pizza. Let's get them some food."

Ethan considered this for a moment. Maybe he felt a rumble in his own stomach, but he agreed. The kids were hungry. Pizza would do the trick. He relented and let Cheryl use her cellphone — but only to order a pizza through the Pizza Hut app.

Cheryl had her phone back, but she couldn't call the police. What if he heard her talking? What if he checked her call history? Would he snap and use the knife he kept on his person? She had to be clever. So she was.

See, when you ordered a pizza through Pizza Hut's phone app, there was a comment section to include special instructions — you could ask for extra pepperoni or leave a door code for your apartment. Cheryl used this to her advantage.

Along with an order of a large pepperoni pizza, Cheryl included a note to employees in the comments section. It read, "Please help. Get 911 to me. 911hostage help!" She placed her order, closed her eyes, and waited. That was all she could do.

Meanwhile, employees at the local Pizza Hut gathered around the computer aggregating online and app orders, all fixated on Cheryl's message: Please help. In 28 years on the job, restaurant manager Candy Hamilton had never seen anything like it.

Inside her home, meanwhile, Cheryl waited by the window, watching. She didn't know if her message was well-received at the Pizza Hut. The feeling of dread must've been palpable. What if they thought her call was a joke? A prank?

But because Cheryl frequently ordered from that Pizza Hut, the employees recognized her name. They knew this was no joke. "We didn't even question it," Candy, below, said. "We immediately called 9-1-1."

The call reached the Highlands County Sheriff's Office, which dispatched Lieutenant Curtis Ludden and his deputies to the home of Cheryl Treadway and Ethan Nickerson. They parked their cruisers out front.

The relief Cheryl felt as the police arrived must've been euphoric. But still, she had three children to escort from the home before Ethan noticed the police. If he did, would he put that knife to use? Salvation was so close, but only if she played this smart.

With her youngest child in her arms, Cheryl wrenched open the front doors, running for the police. Before she could catch her breath, she told Lt. Ludden, below, that her other two kids were stuck in the house with a knife-wielding Ethan.

Though she didn't know it at the time, Cheryl was incredibly lucky. You see, Lt. Ludden happened to be the lead negotiator on the crisis team. He'd talked down any number of people in his career. Ethan, he knew, would be another tally mark.

The deputies escorted Cheryl to safety, and Lt. Ludden went to work on Ethan. After 20 minutes, the lieutenant convinced him to drop his knife and surrender. Officers recovered the other two children unharmed. Cheryl and her kids were finally safe.

Afterward, Lt. Ludden celebrated Cheryl's smarts. "I don't know if I ever would have thought of it," he said. "I mean it's just something that she did so naturally. The boyfriend never knew about it until he saw us coming around the corner."

Candy — the manager of the Pizza Hut — praised the mother, too. She's "the hero in this situation," Candy said. "She just thought outside the box...I think that's amazing." Incredibly, pizza saved another life just a short time after.