Number 6 Danielle Redlick In January of 2019, Michael Redlick,
an executive for the University of Central Florida, was found dead at his Winter Park
home. The emergency services were called by the man’s stepdaughter-turned-wife, Danielle. The
woman told officers that he’d likely succumbed to a heart attack but they noted that the scene
was suspicious, with blood-soaked towels, mops soaked in blood and a five-gallon bucket filled
with pinkish water. There was also blood in a bedroom shower that was later confirmed as
Michael’s by DNA testing. The man had been married to Danielle’s mother, Cathy, but those familiar
with the circumstances reported that the marriage was more of a financial arrangement. The woman was
dying of cancer and he wanted her to have better medical coverage. Cathy passed away in 1999 and,
in the aftermath, Danielle and Michael, who was 20 years older than her, began a relationship.
They were married for roughly 15 years and had two children together. Danielle was charged with
second-degree murder as well as tampering with evidence in connection to her husband’s death.
She admitted in court to fatally stabbing him but claimed to have done so in self-defense. As
per her version of events, he’d seen flirtatious texts she’d exchanged with another man and became
enraged. Michael pinned her against a kitchen island and started smothering her. Fearing for her
life, Danielle stabbed him. The prosecution argued that she’d killed her spouse in cold blood because
she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him. Whatever the case might’ve been,
after the stabbing, Danielle waited 11 hours before calling 911. A jury eventually cleared her
of murder but found her guilty of tampering with evidence. She was sentenced to 364 days in jail
and 12 months of probation, in addition to being ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Number 5 Terra Newell “In just 32 seconds,
my life changed forever” is how Terra Newell described the killing of her stepfather,
John Meehan, for People magazine. Terra’s mother, Debra, had met the man on an Internet dating site,
in October of 2014. Within roughly a month, they moved into a house in Newport Beach, California.
In spite of ongoing tension between the man and Debra’s daughters, Terra and Jacquelyn, the couple
got married in Las Vegas, after only two months of dating. Unbeknownst to Debra, Meehan had a
long history of conning, abusing, stalking and manipulating women. His first wife, Tonia Sells,
had helped put him through nursing school and only found out after ten years of marriage that he’d
lied about his birthday, full name and previous drug charges. Debra was blinded by her newfound
love but her family began to suspect that Meehan, who was also a hardcore drug user, was hiding
something. They hired a private detective who found out about his criminal past and
the restraining orders against him from multiple women. In light of the information, Debra tried
to walk away from the relationship but Meehan convinced her to take him back as he “always had a
story” to prove he hadn’t been in the wrong. They moved into an apartment in Irvine but, in March of
2016, Debra decided to cut him out of her life and moved to have the marriage annulled. The decision
resulted in the man demanding money and sending her threatening messages with promises to ruin
her life. He was caught on surveillance footage stealing Debra’s Jaguar from outside her office,
in Irvine. The vehicle was found a block away, covered in gasoline and with mild fire damage.
Then, on August the 20th of 2016, Meehan attacked 24-year-old Terra on the rooftop parking lot of
her Newport Beach apartment building. The much larger man approached her from behind,
with a knife, and tried to force her into his car. Terra fought back relentlessly and,
after they’d wrestled on the ground, got hold of the knife. She stabbed Meehan 13 times, including
once through the eye. In the immediate aftermath, Terra called her mother to say “I’m really,
really sorry. I think I killed your husband.” The 57-year-old man did, indeed, succumb to his
injuries four days later but, given his campaign of abuse against the Newell family and beyond,
the law and public opinion were unanimously on Terra’s side. The case of “Dirty John”, as the
man had been nicknamed since college, became the subject of a true crime podcast and a Bravo series
starring Eric Bana in the titular role. Number 4 Sabrina Zunich
When she was in her early teens and attending Wickliffe High School, in Ohio, Sabrina Zunich
displayed a propensity for violence, often getting in fist fights. Zunich had been mainly raised by
her paternal grandmother, as her parents were often in legal trouble and struggled
with substance abuse. She was eventually sent to the Emma Caley Receiving Home,
a “behavior modification” center in Painesville. After bouncing from one foster family to another,
Zunich was placed with Kevin and Lisa Knoefel at their home in Willoughby Hills, in the early
2010s. Lisa was a social worker in the abuse department of the Cuyahoga County Department
of Children and Family Services while her husband worked as a truck driver. The couple already had
several daughters between them and expected Zunich to easily fit in. However, not long
after the troubled teen was placed in their home, she and 42-year-old Kevin secretly began having
intimate relations. Lisa became suspicious of them and expressed an intention of sending Zunich away,
so they planned to murder her. On the night of November the 16th of 2012, while wearing a
ski mask, Zunich attacked her foster mother in her bed. The 41-year-old woman fought back and
one of her other teenage daughters, who’d heard the commotion, tried to intervene,
but Zunich couldn’t be stopped. She stabbed and cut Lisa more than 150 times with a 10-inch
serrated knife. The police arrived at the home to find her drenched in blood, claiming she couldn’t
remember anything. Six months after the killing, partly because she’d felt abandoned by Kevin,
Zunich told the authorities that they’d been sleeping together and revealed the full extent
of the murder plot. She claimed that the man had manipulated her into killing his wife by
threatening to take his own life. He’d also told the teen they’d build a future together using the
$750,000 from Lisa’s life insurance and raise the man’s young daughter. Kevin had also given
the teenager instructions on how to carry out the killing and told her to feign memory loss
upon its discovery. Zunich pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, in August of 2014, and was
sentenced to life with parole after 30 years. She testified against Kevin at his trial and he
was given the same sentence after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.
Number 3 Julie Ann Banda In early April of 2022, a San Antonio woman
was arrested in connection to the fatal shooting of her stepfather, outside of his West Side home.
Local police found 49-year-old Carlos Chavez suffering from gunshot injuries on the sidewalk,
near the front gate of his residence, on April the 21st of 2020. According to an affidavit, the
man had been in front of the house when a silver car pulled up close to him. A passenger inside the
vehicle shot Chavez multiple times and he later passed away in a local hospital. Investigators
subsequently examined location data and text exchanges from the cellphone of Julie Ann Banda,
the victim’s stepdaughter. Messages between them revealed that Chavez was waiting for her outside
while her phone was on location in the timeframe that the crime was committed. Additionally,
the owner of the silver car told the police that she’d loaned the vehicle to Banda and
another man on the day of the shooting. Two years after the murder, the 28-year-old face-tattooed
stepdaughter was arrested and charged but a reason for the shooting wasn’t disclosed.
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Number 2 Ashlee Martinson
Teenager Ashlee Martinson gunned down her stepfather and shot her mother at the home
they shared in Piehl, Wisconsin, on March the 7th of 2015. Thomas
Ayers, aged 37, had a history of being verbally and physically abusive towards his wife, Jennifer,
and Martinson. His aggressive behavior in the household reportedly extended to Martinson’s
two stepsisters and half-sister, who were younger. Thomas had past convictions for assault,
kidnapping and domestic abuse. He was forbidden from owning firearms but possessed several which
he kept loaded and accessible in the house. On the night of March the 6th, a heated argument erupted
between Jennifer, Thomas and Martinson when they found out that she’d been dating a 22-year-old man
named Ryan Sisco. The following day, 17-year-old Martinson fatally shot Thomas with a shotgun and
then stabbed Jennifer to death. She subsequently locked her younger siblings in the closet,
with a supply of food and drink, before fleeing with Sisco to meet his relatives in Tennessee.
Police were called to the scene, on March the 8th, by Martinson’s eldest stepsister. The teen
immediately became a suspect, based on eyewitness reports from her step siblings and the fact that
she’d fled the scene. She and Sisco were captured in Boone County, Indiana. The man was only charged
with a parole violation but Martinson was arrested on two counts of first degree intentional homicide
and false imprisonment. The teen initially told investigators that her mother had killed Thomas
and that she’d knifed her in self-defense but then changed her story. She claimed to have taken one
of her stepfather’s guns to her room, with the intention of ending her life. When Martinson
heard him knock on the door, she decided to kill him, as she felt “he deserved to die more”. She
began firing, hitting him in the neck and then shot him in the head, before stabbing Jennifer,
who’d been alerted by the gunshots. Martinson initially tried the insanity plea before
accepting a plea deal of second-degree murder that saw her sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Number 1 JT On July the 23rd of 2015,
a woman was stabbed to death by her preteen stepdaughter at her apartment in Elkhart,
Indiana. The killer, only identified as JT, set fire to the home before knifing 50-year-old Maria
Torres, who died at the scene. After she was taken into custody, JT revealed that she’d acted at the
direction of a fictional clown called Laughing Jack, a character found on the CreepyPasta
website. Internet lore describes Laughing Jack as a character that befriends young people as their
imaginary friend before killing them or forcing them to kill. Months before stabbing Torres,
JT reported hearing voices, had developed an alter ego and begged her father for help. She was found
unfit to stand trial after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative
identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. As of the latest updates,
she was held at the Juvenile Detention Center in Goshen, where she wasn’t allowed to have any
sharp objects near her or in her reach, after being labeled a danger to herself and others.
As noted by her public defender, Holly Curtis, JT had been “failed by everyone” as 16 psychiatric
facilities and the state had refused to take her. Thanks for watching! Would you rather be adopted
by Kanye West or the Kardashians? Let us know in the comments section below!