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Teen Brothers Wanted To Become Famous Killers — And They Started By Butchering Their Family
Robert and Michael Bever thought they would kill their family quickly, like ninjas, before embarking on a cross-country murder spree.
For the teenaged Bever brothers, the goal was notoriety. They wanted to have articles written about them. They wanted to be feared. They wanted to kill 500 people, believing the act would make them like gods.
Unfortunately for the family of Robert, 18, and Michael, 16, the brothers kicked off their plan at home. On the night of July 22, 2015, they broke out knives they had been stashing, and set about trying to kill each of the seven other members of their household in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
They planned to cut their family down like ninjas, with swift and silent killing blows — all while awaiting a shipment of ammunition, according to authorities on “Killer Siblings” on Oxygen. A bloody, messy reality set in quickly, however, when the boys went after their first victim, 13-year-old Crystal.
As one of the Bever boys would later tell police, “It wasn’t like it was on the TV — you cut them once and they die.”
After Michael lured his sister into a bedroom under the pretense of showing her something on a computer, Robert grabbed her from behind and slashed her throat. Crystal fought back, and he plunged his knife into her abdomen and arms.
The boys’ mother, April, 44, heard the commotion and came upstairs. She was met by Robert, who unleashed a frenzy of at least 48 knife strikes that resulted in “more wounds than I’ve ever seen in any body, ever,” according to one investigator. All the while, somehow, Crystal crawled away to try to protect her younger siblings.
The brothers then moved on, room by room.
Father David Bever, 52, was stabbed 28 times, and suffered blunt force injuries all over his body, Tulsa World reported. Michael later told police that Robert stabbed their dad with “the biggest knife he had,” according to “Killer Siblings.”
Their 7-year-old brother, Christopher, was stabbed six times. When they overtook their younger sister Victoria, 18, they stabbed her 18 times in both sides of her neck, chest, back and upper arm.
Daniel, 12, managed to lock himself in a room, where he called 911. Michael managed to convinced his younger brother to open the door by feigning that he was also being attacked by Robert. The brothers came in and stabbed the boy nine times in the back, shoulder and chest.
Robert then returned his attention to Crystal, who was bleeding from her neck, arm and abdominal wounds, and tried to finish her off by suffocation. The older brother also planned to cut off his 2-year-old sister, Autumn’s, head, according to local outlet Oklahoma News on 6. At that moment, however, police began banging on the front door.
Detective Brett Burton of the Broken Arrow Police Department told producers that when he responded to the call, he could see blood on the sidewalk and the front step, and he heard a faint “help me” coming from inside. It was Crystal.
The 13-year-old clung to life, telling police that her brothers had attacked her family. Autumn remained sleeping upstairs, unharmed, throughout the whole ordeal.
The brothers escaped out the back of the home, but they were quickly tracked down by a police K-9 in a wooded area. In police photos featured on “Killer Siblings,” Robert and Michael Bever are covered in mud and blood; their clothes are torn and even appear to have bits of flesh on them.
“They weren’t upset. They weren’t distraught,” Burton said. “It’s almost like they had a sense of cockiness.”
“It looked to me like [one of the boys] had a smirk on his face,” Corporal Leon Calhoun told local ABC affiliate KTUL.
The Bever brothers were interrogated separately by authorities trying desperately to understand why they unleased such violence on their family, and the best path forward to bringing the teens to trial.
Tulsa-based Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Jason Beaman evaluated Michael Bever in the weeks that followed the murders, but said that the interviews “left me with more questions than answers.”
“You don’t always have a diagnosis; you don’t always have an answer,” he told “Killer Siblings.”
Crystal Bever survived her injuries and would eventually testify against one of the brothers — who declined to take a plea agreement, according to “Killer Siblings.”
For the whole disturbing story of the Bever brothers’ planned rampage, including actual police footage of Michael’s chilling interrogation, don’t miss “Killer Siblings,” airing Sundays at 8/7c on Oxygen.
