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JOLI: Welcome listeners to another spine-chilling episode of Beyond the Unknown. I’m your host Joli, and I’m Quinn, and today, we’re covering a handful of cases that all have one unusual thing in common. This unusual thing is something that could happen to anyone of us at random, and some listening might have even done this last night. So stay tuned to find out!
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Random question, how many hours a night do you need of sleep?
I need like a solid 8 but more would be great. I just have a tough time falling asleep. But it’s not so bad that I need to take prescription medications or anything. But as I learn more about sleep health, I definitely get spooked by my sleep hygiene since it could be improved.
I’m assuming you know this but I’ll say it for our listeners, most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep, and women typically need more than men, like hours more not minutes. And good sleep isn’t just about the length of time, but also the quality. Getting enough sleep each night helps prevent illness, it’s easier to maintain a healthy weight, lowers your risk of diabetes and heart disease, reduces stress, and a ton of other benefits.
But, like many of us in the modern age, you can have difficulties with sleeping due to use of electronics, stress, or even sleep disorders like insomnia. So, what do you do in this case? You go see a doctor, who might prescribe sleeping pills like Ambien. According to the CDC, in 2020 around 8.4% of adults took sleep medication on a regular basis (either every day or most days) to help them fall asleep or stay asleep. And the use of sleeping aids increase with age and time.
Have you ever heard of the wild Ambien stories? It’s essentially where someone takes more than the recommended dose, mixes it with alcohol, or are just unlucky enough that their body didn’t react well to the medication, and, well…. they say or do some wild stuff. I’ve heard of these stories from standup comedians like Amy Schumer but what I didn’t realize is that people can do these wild things without medication too, just from sleep walking. Sleepwalking, although random, can be triggered by the same things that cause poor sleep, but it can also run in families, so like if your dad was a sleep walker, you have a higher chance of being one.
Anywho, remember that for later, because it’ll become relevant.
Ok, so our first story is from 1987, about a man named Kenneth Parks. Kenneth was a 23-year-old man living in Ontario, Canada, who lived with his wife Karen Woods. Just a side note but these last names were meant to be: Parks and Woods? Come on.
Kenneth was described as a loving husband and a kind man, but behind closed doors, he was struggling with a gambling addiction and his financial troubles were causing issues with his sleep, resulting in an instance of sleepwalking.
Parks, who had no prior criminal record, drove around 20 kilometers, from Pickering Ontario to Scarborough, while in a sleepwalking state to the home of his in-laws in the early hours of the morning.
He entered the home using his key, walked into the bedroom of his in-laws Barbara and Dennis Woods and started to attack them with a tire iron and a knife, fatally injuring Barbara and severely injuring Dennis. Kenneth then drove himself to the police station and confessed to the crime, claiming to have no memory of the events that occurred that night other than waking up to the face of his mother in law covered in blood.
Parks' defense team argued that he was sleepwalking at the time of the attack. They presented evidence suggesting that Parks had a history of sleepwalking and that he was under extreme stress at the time of the incident due to financial difficulties and marital problems.
The trial was highly publicized and as you can imagine, it sparked debate over the legitimacy of the sleepwalking defense. In a landmark decision, Parks was acquitted of the charges of murder and attempted murder by reason of insanity. The judge accepted the defense's argument that Parks was not conscious of his actions at the time of the attack due to his sleepwalking condition.
Following his acquittal, Parks underwent extensive psychiatric treatment and therapy. He expressed deep remorse for his actions and maintained that he had no intention of harming his in-laws.
Kenneth Park’s story isn’t an anomaly like you’d think. Cases like his have been popping up more and more since his incident in 1987.
In April of 2009, a man named Andrew McClay remembers waking up in the back of a police car. He knew something was wrong but didn't know what, so he asked the officer if his friend was ok.
The officer asked who he was talking about and he said Nichole Burns.
Unfortunately, Nichole was not ok. She was lying dead on the floor of McClays apartment. The cause of death was bludgeoning by a hammer. So what happened to these platonic friends that were soon to be roommates? Andrew apparently took five ambien pills, which is well above the recommended dose of maximum ONE pill every 24hrs. He mixed that with whiskey and 15 Aleve pills which are like an anti-inflammatory. It’s unknown why he took 15 Aleve pills but regardless, he had just mixed himself a deadly cocktail.
What caused alarm was the email his aunt received which said “I’m sorry, I love you, come get my fish.” She thought the messaged seemed suicidal like he was saying goodbye so her husband asked the police to do a welfare check. When they unlocked his door, they found the body of Nichole burns on the floor and Andrew McClay in a towel in the bathroom. Despite trying to use the Ambien defence, McClay was sentenced to 48 years for first degree murder.
Also in 2009, the same year as Andrew McClay’s crimes, there was another incident in the UK, with 59-year old Brian Thomas. Brian was a loving father of two, and husband, married for 40-years to his wife Christine. Brian had been a sleep walker his entire life and even suffered from night terrors. Him and his wife would sleep in separate bedrooms because his sleep disorders were so disruptive. But when they would go camping, they’d have to share a bed in their camper van.
One weekend, Brian and Christine wanted to go camping for a quick little getaway. So they drove to a seaside town in west Wales called Aberporth and set up camp. But the pair didn’t get much rest when they were awoken at 11:30pm by “boy racers” doing donuts and other obnoxious driving stints in the same parking lot where they were. So they moved their camper van to another lot near the Ship Inn, in the same town of Aberporth.
Later that night, Brian in a panic called 999 (the UKs version of 911) because he just realized he murdered his wife. On the phone he is recorded saying Oh ym god, what have I done. I thought someone broke in, I was fighting with those boys but it was actually Christine.
It’s so sad. And the police investigated their relationship and even his claims of night terrors for 10 months. Brian slept in and out of prison to be monitored and they concluded that he really did suffer from this. And nobody had anything bad to say about him or their relationship. Until this moment, he was a great husband.
Given the circumstances, he was actually not charged for the crimes but put under psychiatric watch, outside of a hospital. The judge said this was a freak accident and no justice would be served by locking him up as long as he received long-term treatment.
As a side note, apparently it’s really common for those who suffer night terrors to attack their partners in bed because they’re close in proximity.
The next story is about a man named Trent Swick, from Jefferson County, Missouri, who was a father of three and executive at an insurance company who lost it all in October 2019, just like a bad dream. Trent was struggling with falling asleep and after a visit to his family doctors, was prescribed Ambien. He took the medication for nine years and occasionally he would be recorded by his wife for saying funny things like one time he said that he saw a groundhog with a frog on it’s back and it’s holding a spatula with their curtains. Unlike his previous silly incidents in the home, one night, Trent left in an ambient induced state and when he woke up, he was being handcuffed by police and being accused of shooting at two vehicles 30 miles from his home.
Apparently he was driving along Highway 21, shooting at 2 vehicles, and eventually colliding with one of them. Luckily no one was struck by the bullets fired by Swick. In the police’s report, Swick told the officers at the time of his arrest that he was being chased by men in go-karts, in fur coats and invisible fur coats. Clearly he was in some sort of state at the time of his arrest, which his attorney says was the result of Ambien. When tested, his toxicology report showed that only Ambien was in his system, so this couldn’t be attributed to mixing it with alcohol or another substance, which is what authorities originally suspected. Although nobody was killed, he still shot at 5 people, so he was sentenced to 7 years in prison with parole after 120 days.
And these stories don’t stop.
In Melbourne, Australia, on December of 2013, 53-year old Brian Browning was having difficulties sleeping due to his financial and marital issues. His is wife Catherine stated she wanted a divorce. So, one night he took 4 sleeping pills along with an alcoholic beverage before bed and when he woke up, he was standing at the top of the stairs, and police were at the bottom with their guns drawn. According to the neighbours, they woke up to a woman making noise and when they looked outside they saw their neighbour Catherine Browning on the ground next to her pool. Originally, they thought she was drunk, which seemed out of character but they didn’t think they needed to get involved. That is, until they saw her husband repeatedly stab her, push her body into the water, and hold her down. They immediately called the police. Brian was taken to the hospital and questioned by police. He told them he was seeing spiders and ants crawling up the walls and that he just had to kill. Browning’s defence tried to use the Ambien defence but the judge believed this was more of an act of domestic violence that stemmed from gambling and substance abuse rather than an involuntary act caused by the sleeping aid.
So in a few of these cases, the Ambien defence has come up. And this is a real thing, at least in the U.S. I’ve seen it on many law firm websites and they say that it’s a legal defense used by people who typically have been charged with a DUI, but claim that they took the sleep medication Ambien and unknowingly drove while under the influence. So clearly Ambien induced driving is a real problem, so much so, that there’s a defence style for it that it commonly used in DUI cases. Isn’t that scary!?
Not everyone can use this obviously but the defense can be effective if the defendant can prove that they took Ambien as prescribed, did not realize they were driving, and had no intention of breaking the law.
We’re so used to cases where a crime was committed because the killer had a motive. But in these stories, well at least most, the crimes were committed unknowingly by the killer simply from a lack of sleep, or an ambien induced state. So the next time you take a sleeping pill, ask yourself, could I be next?
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QUINN: Thank you for joining us for another episode of "Beyond the Unknown." If you have a story you’d like to share, please email us at moody.mediaprod@gmail.com. You can reach out on our website, and who knows, your story might be featured in our next episode.
JOLI: All of our sources for this episode can be found on our website: beyondtheunknownpod.com.
And don’t forget, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review.
QUINN: Until next time, listeners. Stay curious and remember that the unknown is always just beyond the shadows.
BOTH: BYEEEE
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