Grant Amato | |
|---|---|
 Mug shot of Amato | |
| Born | Grant Tiernan Amato May 20, 1989 Chuluota, Florida, U.S. |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Motive | To spend family finances on a webcam model |
| Conviction(s) | Premeditated first-degree murder (3 counts) |
| Criminal penalty | Life in prison without the possibility of parole |
| Details | |
| Victims | 3 |
| Date | January 24, 2019 |
| Location(s) | Seminole County, Florida |
Date apprehended | January 26, 2019 |
Grant Tiernan Amato[1] (born May 20, 1989) is an American murderer who was convicted of a familicide that occurred on the evening of January 24, 2019. Amato shot his father, mother, and brother Cody in the head at their home in Seminole County, Florida, while attempting to stage it as a murder-suicide committed by his brother before fleeing the residence. He was captured after a 24-hour manhunt, put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Before the murders occurred, Amato had developed an infatuation with Bulgarian model and cam girl Silviya Ventsislavova (Bulgarian: Силвия Венциславова), who went by the alias "Silvie" online. Amato used some of his father's and brother's money that amounted to $200,000 to pay to attend her webcam sessions. His family attempted to provide therapy and treatment by forcing him to a rehabilitation center. After a week of treatment, he returned home, where he argued with his father over continuing to contact Ventsislavova. This argument was revealed to be the deciding motive for the murders a month later.
Grant Amato was born on May 20, 1989, in Chuluota, Florida,[2] to Chad Robert and Margaret Anne (née Wade) Amato,[3] the former a clinical pharmacist[4] and the latter a senior operations manager.[2] He was raised in Chuluota along with his brother Cody, with whom he was close.[5] His elder half-brother Jason lived elsewhere.[5][6] He went to Timber Creek High School, along with Cody, and they both joined the weightlifting team together after getting interested in health.[7] Both Cody and Grant attended the University of Central Florida, where they attended nursing school together and then proceeded to pursue further studies to become nurse anesthetists.[8] Cody graduated from his nurse anesthetist program while Grant dropped out, though Grant was able to find work at AdventHealth Orlando as a nurse.[9]
Grant was suspended from his job in June 2018 under suspicion of stealing and improperly administering medication to patients and for suicidal thoughts.[10] Although officers denied the allegations that he was suicidal, saying he did not meet the criteria to be a danger to himself or others around him, they concluded there was evidence to the claim of improper medicine administration.[10] Hospital staff had found eight empty vials of the sedative propofol, which had not been ordered by any doctors, in two rooms that Grant had been overseeing. When questioned during his suspension, he said that he had "administered the drug to patients who were not being adequately relaxed".[11] The hospital then fired him and police officers subsequently arrested him for grand larceny after the investigation concluded, but the charges were later dropped.[12]
Due to his inability to find work following the charges, he attempted to become a streamer on Twitch, mostly by playing video games and live streaming. After the family paid for equipment and streaming setup, Grant Amato only pretended to become a Twitch streamer,[8] when he was actually visiting pornographic websites, including the site MyFreeCams, which is where Amato met a cam model named Silviya Ventsislavova, who went by the alias "Silvie" online.[13] He would pay tokens by the minute for her virtual company. He would spend up to four hours a night on the website, buying up to 5,000 tokens at a time costing over $600.[7] Silvie's shows would cost 90 tokens a minute. Grant assumed a façade as a rich and successful gamer, sending her various lingerie and sex toys, as well as paying an exorbitant amount for her time.[14] He would steal credit cards from his family, claiming they were for starting up his Twitch career.[5] Within a few months, Grant had spent $200,000 of his family's money on Silvie.[15]
His family sent Grant to a rehabilitation facility for porn and internet addiction, which cost them $15,000. He was allowed to return home after a couple of weeks but was given a zero-tolerance ultimatum, and Grant had to get a job and was prohibited from having any contact with Silvie.[16] However, he was able to convince his mother to let him use her phone to make contact with the webcam model. Upon learning this, Chad ordered Grant to pack up his things and leave the house.[17]
On January 24, 2019, while his mother was on the computer, Grant shot her in the back of the head[18] with an IWI Jericho 941 pistol.[19] After, he waited for his father to arrive. Once he walked into the kitchen, Grant shot him twice. To convince Cody to come home after his nursing shift, he sent him a phone message using his father's number. Upon entering the door, Grant shot him dead, where he lay in a fetal position.[20] Before leaving the residence, Grant attempted to stage the crime as a murder-suicide, placing the gun by his brother's body.[21]
The next day, when Cody failed to come in for work, his coworkers became concerned and called the police to request a wellness check. Police arrived at the murder scene at 9:17 a.m., entering the house after receiving no response from occupants and finding all the entrances locked.[22] Chad was found on his back on the kitchen floor, Cody curled on the floor in a storage room, and Margaret sprawled over the desk in their home office. Amato was tracked down at a DoubleTree Hotel at approximately 7:45 a.m. on January 26 in Orange County, Florida, after his 1996 Honda Accord was identified.[23]
Grant was subsequently taken in for questioning.[24] At the end of the interrogation, his brother Jason tried to talk to him, asking him to confess to what had happened, but Grant was unwavering in his claims of innocence. When being interrogated, he offered differing stories, one of which said he'd seen police and news vans outside his house following the murders, but instead of going home he went to a local Panera Bread and searched for "top news stories."[25] He was subsequently arrested on charges of first-degree murder.[26] His bond was set at $750,000 on April 25, 2019, after his public defender argued, and the prosecutor agreed, that he could not be held without bond.[27] If he could post the bond, a number of conditions were set including no access to electronic devices with internet.[28] Grant did not post the bond and remained in custody.[27]
Amato's trial began on July 15, 2019.[29] Before people testified, crime scene analysts on behalf of the prosecution attempted to show things that were out of place, but Amato's attorney questioned when they realized he was the main suspect and if that could have affected the examination.[30] On August 9, individuals were asked to testify as part of the penalty phase, with three people testifying on each side's behalf. Grant's brother Jason testified against him.[31] The state of Florida told the sitting judge that they intended to seek the death penalty, but the 12 jurors did not unanimously agree on giving Amato the death penalty. This translated to an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.[32] On August 12, Amato was found guilty of all three counts of first-degree murder, receiving a life sentence for each.[33] When asked if he felt remorse, Amato responded with, "My family has been blaming me for months for ruining their lives, stealing, and not following the rules of the home, so I might as well be blamed for this too."[34]