Monster in the House

Episode # 20

When Schinara Bernoudy married Marvin Patterson in May 2019, she thought she’d met “the one”. Marvin seemed to have a good relationship with her children, and they ended up having a baby together. Things seemed good until they weren't.

It's inconceivable what Marvin was accused of and how the story ended for Schinara and her children less than 5 years later. No one loved them more than Schinara’s sister Michaela or Kaylaa as she’s known to her social media followers and her friends. 

This week we talk not only about the victims of a horrible tragedy but also about the loving family they leave behind, the survivors.

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

Today’s episode is unfortunately another story of a family annihilation right here in Las Vegas. A few months ago, we covered the similar murder of Phukeo Dej’Oudom and her 3 children by their father. 

One of the things we want to talk about later in the episode is the idea of how these can potentially be prevented, and what we can all look for in people’s words and actions that could tip us off that violence is a possibility. It’s unthinkable that someone we know could be capable of this, but there are always people who know the men well who carry out these horrible crimes.

They have friends and family, at least, who know them and can be on the lookout for warning signs.

[John]

We would never imply someone is to blame for the incident though. That blame lies squarely with the unhinged murderer, but if we know what to look for, maybe we can act and prevent more of these from occurring. 

Intervening with a friend or family member you’re worried about may or may not prevent a tragedy, but ignoring it certainly won't.

Another thing it’s important to understand is the inciting incident. In the case of Phukeo’s family, she was at the point where she finally decided to leave her husband Jason when he went on his murderous rampage. There’s always a tipping point in these tragedies that drives the perpetrator over the edge. 

We also need to look at the risk factors. Later in the episode, we’ll talk about what we see as the risk profile. That's not an exact science, but looking at the data we can see what factors make these horrible tragedies more likely.

As Shaun reminds me, not everyone who fits the risk factors will resort to murder, but many of the people who have resorted to murder have these risk factors.

Do you want to start by talking about Schinara and her kids?

[Shaun]

Of course. 

As we do, we’ll be focusing primarily on the victims in the story and the survivors, the family, and friends who are left behind rather than the murderer. 

When examining the perpetrator of a crime like this we believe the most important part is understanding what drove him to it, whether those causes were inside his head, or things that happened to him. 

Schinara Bernoudy, who we’re just going to call Nara because that’s what people generally call her, was born on December 10th, 1989. She has a sister named Michaela (Kaylaa), who we’ll also talk a fair bit about - who she was extremely close with. 

Kaylaa loved her sister and her kids so much, and it comes across in all of her social media.

They are from Long Beach, California, but both moved here to Las Vegas. 

[John]

Nara had three children. 

• The youngest was Zi’Myra Patterson, born on September 12th, 2017. Her aunt Kaylaa called her Doodie. 
• The middle child was Derrick Cox, who went by “DJ” for “Derrick Junior” since his dad’s name is also Derrick. He was born on December 6th, 2012. 
• Her oldest was Ki’Ziah Cone, who was born on October 6th, 2009. She went by Ziah. There are so many photos out there of these adorable kids, and we’ll be sure to share those.

Kaylaa has shared so much about her nieces and nephew and they were the sweetest kids imaginable. There are videos of them showing how carefree and goofy they are and how much they loved their aunt Kaylaa.

[Shaun]

Marvin Ray Patterson was 8 years older than Nara. They were married on May 11th, 2019 in a lovely and traditional ceremony in which Nara’s now late father gave her away. To all outward appearances, the couple seemed very happy, and Marvin assumed the role of stepfather to Ziah and DJ, and of course Marvin and Nara had one child together, the youngest, Doodie.

A side note here, when searching for court records on Patterson, we found something interesting. We found a divorce decree that was finalized in April 2019, just a month before his marriage to Nara. He had two children from that marriage, and we have found no mention of them anywhere in all of the coverage of this case, but we found that interesting.

There are no court records or accounts that indicate there was any previous domestic violence in their relationship, and their social media shows them having fun together and going about their lives. From the outside, there was no reason to suspect anything at all was amiss with the family or Marvin.

One thing you'll notice about Nara is that she was so talented and creative. She was a cosmetologist (as her sister is too) and had a serious talent for hair braiding which she often showed off on social media. 

She was also a very hard worker. She had a business that she was growing called “Onpointe Customs” where she created clever custom clothing, and (favors and snacks) for parties. 

We saw photos and videos of some of the amazing and clever party favors she created for her own kid’s birthdays including for a Barbie-themed 6th birthday for Doodie.

[John]

They were serious about the business, having created an LLC together which is an important step to grow a business.

It seemed like her business was growing, that she had a serious social media following building up, and she was on a great career trajectory when something shocking happened. Marvin was arrested in October of 2022 on child sex crime charges.

Court records show he was jailed and charged with 5 Counts of Lewdness with a child under the age of 14, 5 Counts of Lewdness with a child under the age of 16, and 2 Counts of Sexual assault with a minor under 16, all of which are felonies. 

His bail was initially set at $100,000, which he could not post. Because of that, he sat in jail for two months awaiting his trial. His preliminary hearing was held on March 23rd, 2023.

According to court records the charges occurred over nearly a decade starting between June 1, 2014, and August 31, 2014, with one charge then of lewdness with a child under the age of 16, all the way up to June 2022, long after he was married to Nara. There was also a charge 2018 of sexual assault with a minor under 16 years. 

The victims in the court documents are kept private and we won't speculate on who they are, out of respect for their privacy

The important point here is that according to the charging documents, this man has a long history of sexually assaulting minors under 16, and under 14 years old, and he was arrested and charged with these crimes after Nara was already married to him.

[Shaun]

If you listened to our episode about what happened to Phoukeo Dej’Oudom and her children, you'll remember that one of the turning points was the court’s failure to provide Phoukeo with a restraining order or any degree of protection against Jason. 

While no one can claim that a retraining order would have changed the horrific outcome in that case, you can't help but wonder if it might have.

Initially, for these horrific alleged sex crimes against children, as John said, Marvin was given a bail of $100,000 by Judge Jessica Green who was performing the role of substitute judge on the case initially, given the severity of the crimes and her assertion that he was a flight risk. The conditions for the bail make these facts apparent. 

The conditions for the bail included

• No contact with anyone under 18 years old (because he is accused of sex crimes against minors)
• Surrendering his passport (indicating that the court considers him a flight risk)
• No contact with the alleged victims
• High-level electronic monitoring (AKA ankle bracelet)

Notably, and horrifyingly, there was no restriction on his ownership or access to firearms. We’ll talk a bit more about that when we get to the topic of risk factors later.

[John]

I mentioned before that he was arrested and jailed in October of 2022 and that he spent two months in jail. You might have been saying to yourself.. Wait a minute. That only brings us to December of 2022… what happened after that?

Well, Bret Whipple from the Justice Law Center filed a REQUEST FOR ORDER SETTING REASONABLE BAIL AND REASONABLE RELEASE UPON CONDITIONS on December 12th, 2022. 

Essentially, this was an effort by the accused and his legal representation to reduce the bail to allow Marvin out while awaiting trial, in April of 2024.

That might strike people as odd given the nature of the crimes, but to be clear, Bret Whipple was doing his job and required duty as an officer of the court, giving Patterston a “vigorous defense”

In the opening of the court-filed document, Whipple offers the following skewed personal history of Patterson 

Mr. Patterson was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has a wife and three

children. He is a video engineer who also is co-owner of a company, On Point Industries

LLC. He has a patent pending for a “special type of domino”. His wife is a hairdresser

they have a good relationship and share responsibilities for the children. He is the

primary breadwinner for the household.

[Shaun]

The document also gives a skewed and contradictory version of his offenses, attempting to paint them in a less horrific light, choosing instead to mention that he has several character witnesses like his brother, his wife, his ex-girlfriend, and his son. 

The description downplays his crimes by seeming to imply that the minor victims had some sort of agency in their situation, which flies in the face of the nature of the charges, all in an effort to get his bail reduced from $100,000 to $10,000

He claimed that Patterson wasn't a flight risk because he “self-surrendered” his passport which seems pretty questionable as an argument since we can see in court documents that the court demanded his passport.

Finally, he asserts that the bail should be lowered because Marvin doesn't have the financial means to pay that bail. 

They make no effort to alter the conditions of the bail, but he goes on to make a compelling argument for reasonable bail.

[John]

The argument he makes in the document, as a legal matter, speaking as someone who isn't a lawyer seems like it's built on precedent and looks to be a solid argument just from a purely legal perspective (despite the incredibly skewed and subjective description of Marvin), and as Shaun mentioned to me when we were researching it there wasn't an effort to remove the restrictions. 

This seemed only to be an effort to get him out of jail pending trial.

Unfortunately, there isn't a great way to enforce those restrictions, especially arguably the most important one for him to have “no contact with anyone under 18 years of age”

In the end, Judge Diana Sullivan ruled that the bail would be reduced to $10,000, but left all of the restrictions in place. Marvin was released from Jail in December of 2022 and placed under house arrest with an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts. 

That meant that he had to live apart from Nara and the children because he was restricted from being anywhere near anyone under 18. One thing to note here is that since they had to live apart now the family had to pay two rents at a time when rents in Las Vegas were very expensive which had to be a financial burden on the family, a common stressor 

[Shaun]

Almost exactly a year later, on December 11th, 2023, just one day after Nara’s 34th birthday, Las Vegas Metro got a panicked call from Marvin’s brother, Jason. 

Marvin had sent Jason some text messages that had him worried, so he stopped by to check in on Marvin. Marvin had allegedly told him that he was about to be evicted, and his car repossessed.

When Jason arrived, he made a horrible discovery. He found Nara, Ziah, Doodie, and DJ had all been shot at close range along with his Brother, and only DJ seemed to be alive. He immediately called 911 and asked for an ambulance to be sent to try and save his nephew and anyone else they could. 

The EMTs were able to keep DJ alive and rush him to UMC (University Medical Center) where he thankfully survived but with horrific injuries. UMC is the only Level 1 Trauma center in the Las Vegas area so it makes sense he was transported there.

DJ was the only one who survived.

[John]

We don't know why Nara and the kids were there that night, but we do know that in November she and the kids were evicted from their home. There is a lot of speculation and victim blaming that has gone on in this case from people who weren't there and don't know the circumstances. Of course, we’re not going to speculate and feed into that.

At one of the vigil events held for the family, Nara’s mother made it clear that she thinks Marvin should never have been let out of jail, and that her daughter and grandkids would be alive if they’d kept him in, and that seems about right to us as well.

It’s another example of the system failing the most vulnerable, allowing a man the opportunity to harm and murder his family. The guidelines for bail and the criteria for lowering bail have to be changed in NV to protect families so that no other family has to go through what Nara’s family and friends have had to go through.

[Shaun]

There have been several vigils recently for Nara’s family. At Doodie’s school, her classmates gathered around her desk and took turns listing things they liked about her. Kaylaa, Nara’s sister has worked tirelessly to make sure her beloved sister, nieces, and nephew are remembered. She also did an amazing job documenting the vigils they have had for them.

They had a candlelight vigil with a balloon release and organized a beautiful funeral ceremony. She recorded it and you can watch it on TikTok. It's very moving and we’ll share the link to that. They also had a fundraiser for the family involving the “Trap Wingz” food truck where the proceeds were donated to the family

As for DJ, his dad is documenting his recovery on TikTok and he’s making progress, and we hope that he makes a full recovery. We’ll share the link to his TikTok as well so you can see how he’s doing.

We talked a little about Nara’s work as a cosmetologist and how she was building her business, but her sister Kaylaa has her own cosmetology brand as well. She’s on Instagram as “TruthBeauty_HairKollection” and we encourage everyone to check it out. Just like her sister, she’s working hard and has a great and vibrant social media presence and needs the community’s support.

[John]

It's too late to save Nara and her children, unfortunately, so the next question we have to ask is how can we prevent this from ever happening again.

[Shaun]

Yes, this is a good time to talk about what the research tells us about family annihilations.  I am going to talk about a couple of studies here, but based on what I was able to learn, I am not confident about how much data from Vegas has been captured in these studies. I think that’s likely because of how perhaps the police are recording the information. 

Family annihilation is the most severe form of domestic violence, and thankfully, it’s not very common. From 2020 to 2023, there were 227 mass murders that were labeled as being a family annihilation. Research has shown that for crimes like these - where a spouse or former partner kills their partner and at least one of their children:

94-95% of the time a man is the perpetrator

That man is White, non-hispanic & between 30-50 years old

86% of the time, he uses a gun

87% of the time - he will attempt to kill himself or succeed in killing himself

In almost every case, the crime is premeditated. 

The most common risk factor for a family annihilation is a history of domestic violence. According to Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell - a well-known researcher and writer on domestic violence, 

70% of the time, there is some prior domestic violence within the family.  However, only 25% of the time has there been a prior arrest. The evidence of domestic violence in the family is discovered after the murders in interviews with people who knew the families closely. 

Other studies have indicated that in 44% of cases, the couple was in the process of separating or already separated, & 18% of the murderers expressed severe jealousy. 

Other risk factors of note include – there a stepchild at home.

These murderers don't usually have a criminal record at all – only about 10% of the time, and the same for substance abuse disorders, they are only identified in about 10% of the cases. 

[John]

Those 5 risk factors are interesting to me and I want to just repeat them, reminding people that the presence of the risk factors doesn't ALWAYS mean there will be a violent family homicide, but in cases where violent family homicides happen, these risk factors are often found to be present.

1. There’s a gun present in the house
2. There are one or more stepchildren present (like.. The perpetrator is the stepfather)
3. More often than not there is no criminal history or drug use (only 10% of the time)
4. There is some form of estrangement
5. Most often there is some form of domestic violence

So domestic violence + the presence of guns + stepchildren = some degree of risk for family annihilation. It makes sense to at least be aware of that if you know someone with any of these risk factors.

[Shaun]

Not only does there seem to be a lack of a criminal record or history of violence in these cases; but the majority of the time there is no evidence of anything at all being amiss in the man’s life or with his relationships. 

Most of these murderers are known for being good fathers to the point where sometimes that is even included in their obituaries.  Their devotion to their families or community is noted, in spite of the horrific reality of the crimes they committed.

Some folks might recall Michael Haight because his obituary was shared widely on social media. 

In January 2023, Michael Haight, from Enoch, Utah, shot and killed his wife Tausha, their 5 children - 17-year-old Macie; 12-year-old Briley; their 7-year-old twins, Ammon and Sienna; and 4-year old Gavin, as well as Tausha’s mother Gail Earl. 

His obituary went viral for stating: “Michael made it a point to spend quality time with each and every one of his children. Michael enjoyed making memories with the family.”

One thing I didn’t mention earlier — 20% of the time, these mass family murders occur in the month of August. 

In 2014, there was a British research study on family annihilations published in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice. The authors looked at newspaper articles over multiple decades from 1980-2012 to gather details and information about these horrific murders to develop a profile of family annihilators – and they came up with 4 main profiles for men who commit these crimes.

The author of the study noted that these four characteristics are all closely related to a man's ideas about gender roles and his place within the family. These murderers tend to view their family as property, and therefore they have the right to end their lives. 

They see themselves as the primary person responsible for meeting their family's needs

which has a lot to do with society, gender roles, and ideas about masculinity. 

The first profile type they identified is called Self-righteous. Self-righteous killers hold the mother responsible for the breakdown of the family and will often call her before to explain what he is about to do. 

This is the most common category with 32% of the killers fitting this profile. 

These murderers are also narcissists; these are the men who are trying to regain control over their lives by focusing on eliminating the family that they see as a threat to their success. 

They are controlling, and they view their family and their sole ability to support them as the very definition of their masculinity. 

The common motive in murders by self-righteous killers is family separation; custody disputes; jealousy, and affairs, all of which are motives we have noted or discussed in cases before. 

These murderers are often described as being "histrionic and dramatic", choosing significant dates -- such as Father's Day -- to commit their crimes.

[John]

Worth noting here that Marvin Patterson chose the day after Nara’s birthday to commit the crime.

[Shaun]

The second profile type is Disappointed. Disappointed killers believe their family has let them down, they are not achieving some standard he has set in his mind for them. Maybe the children are not living up to religious standards or following religious customs, or perhaps their child is suffering from an illness. 

The motives for these murders include financial stress or separation or custody disputes. 

The third profile is what the researchers refer to as an Anomic killer. Anomic individuals 

see the family as a symbol of their own economic success,  if they suffer some kind of economic failure or a general disruption of their life -- bankruptcy, for example -- the family no longer serves this function for them.  

Primarily the motives in these murders is financial distress, and it’s not just because they are now broke that they do this – it’s that their identity is so wrapped up in their bottom line, their profession, that losing a job or a house disrupts their whole worldview. 

Often they don’t really perceive any boundaries between themselves and their families; they see them as a possession or something to be controlled … and they can’t bear the pain of leaving them so they take them with them. 

The last group they identified is Paranoid. These killers are often motivated by a desire to protect their family from a perceived threat, such as having children taken away by social services.

Half of the time in these cases the motive is a need to protect their family - one case of note involved a father who killed his wife and his disabled children as he had grown too old to care for them. 

Sometimes this has included concealment, a desire to conceal crimes they have committed; and one case in their research involving sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. 

Financial difficulties played a factor in half of these cases as well. 

In 2020 there was a similar study published on American cases of familicide from 2009-2019; 

And from this study, the research developed two additional “profiles”. 

Self Preserving:

This is the other side of the coin from Paranoid – these men kill their families to protect themselves, with complete disregard for their family members. 60% of these offenders were motivated primarily by their public appearance, and 40% were motivated by family breakdown. Multiple offenders had a history of domestic violence, separation from their significant other, or had been accused of a serious crime. In only 60% of these cases, the father killed himself – the rest denied their guilt, and fled or evaded being caught. 

I want to pause here and ask you if this profile reminds you of a case that was covered heavily in the media recently.

[John]

The Murdaugh case comes to mind for sure here. He seems to fit perfectly into the self-preserving category.

[Shaun]

Yep. The final category they identified is Mental Illness: These are men who murder their families and there is no evidence of any outside trigger or factor other than mental illness and every one of these cases studied, the father took his own life. 

Of note, these are individuals who were struggling with serious psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and personality disorders. 

I’m sure as all of you were listening to this, you can hear that there are some fuzzy lines here, and a lot of these categories might overlap at times. The purpose of this overview was to give us all some context to answer the questions about WHY – why do these things happen and what are the warning signs so we can try to prevent tragedies like this from happening. 

I want to give credit to writers Katie Collins, Tracy Collins Ortlieb, and Jill Filipovic who covered the topic of familicides - Katie Collins for Wired, Tracy for Parents magazine, and Jill for Ms. Magazine. – as this is not only a hard topic to wrap your head around and an emotional one to read and write about. But there is a lot of research out there and they synthesized a lot of different studies together

 & that was my foundation for a lot of what I talked about here. All the links will be in our show notes. 

[John]

In addition to Phoukeo’s story that we shared in our second episode. The Vegas community was stunned and heartbroken over a tragic familicide that happened on July 10, 2017. 

John Henry Lunetta shot and killed his live-in girlfriend Karen Michelle Jackson, and their infant son, John Dylan Jackson, aka “Johnny” who was just 2 days shy of his 1st birthday. 

He then shot and killed the family’s Goldendoodle, Noodleton, and fatally shot himself. He was 40 years old. 

Karen was born July 15, 1982, in Winter Haven, FL to John McMullen and Patricia McMullen. She has a sister, Dawn, and 2 brothers, John Jr, and Garret. 

[Shaun]

She served in the Air Force and obtained the rank of Senior Airman. She later studied to become a Family Nurse Practitioner at the University of Cincinnati. And, on July 5, 2017, she took and passed her Nurse Practitioner Board exam - just 5 days before the murders. 

[John] 

She is yet another woman whose star was on the rise, just like Debbie Florez, Gwen Amisrala, Lesly Palacio, and so many others.

[Shaun]

Karen also had an older daughter from a previous marriage who was around 11 years old at the time, but thankfully she was not home and was physically unharmed. 

The police reported there were no prior calls for domestic violence at the home; they had been called out for a nonviolent custody matter in December 2016, but that was it.

A friend of John’s did say she had received a call from him a few days prior, but she had not had a chance to return the call. 

John didn’t have a criminal record and he was a doctor who worked as a medical director for the American Red Cross Blood Services in Las Vegas. A friend of his reported to the Las Vegas Review Journal that he had also served as a doctor in the army.

According to Patricia, Karen’s mom, Karen was preparing to break up with John and was in the process of moving out. Neighbors had reported seeing a moving truck at the house the weekend right before they were killed. 

Patricia said  “My daughter was a wonderful human being, she was a go-getter. She had dreams in her life and she accomplished her dreams.”

[John]

So I think the big takeaways from all of this, are 

1) listen to your friends and family when they are expressing despair or stress. For both John Lunetta and Marvin Patterson, there was some evidence of them reaching out to someone to talk about what was going on. 

If you can see that your friend or family member is also experiencing some of these other stressors – such as a breakup, custody dispute, or discovering an affair, you can try to have them call 988 to talk to someone, or any other telehealth provider, or even a domestic violence hotline to talk to someone to get help with their struggles. 

If you know your friend has experienced some kind of trauma or might have PTSD, reassure them there’s no shame in seeking support. You can contact 988 or a domestic violence hotline yourself to talk to an advocate who can help guide you in talking with your friend or provide access to other resources that can help. 

No one can guarantee that doing these things will prevent a tragedy, but we can be certain that doing nothing WON’T help. 

2) Lastly, if you, yourself, see these patterns in your own life or in your relationships, remember there is no shame in getting help. 

[Shaun]

As we always do we’ll continue posting resources along with every episode. We encourage everyone listening to recognize the warning signs and not to be afraid to act. It's far better to act and end up overreacting than to ignore a situation and have it end in tragedy.

It doesn't matter where you are, because as we always remind you, what happens here, happens everywhere.