Thanksgiving Day Killer
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Thanksgiving is a holiday where family and friends get together over turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Families eat together, drink together, and just enjoy each other's company.

But for one family from Florida, Thanksgiving was a day served with a side of murder. And not just one murder. On Thanksgiving Day 2009, four members of the same family were shot and killed just moments after clearing their dinner plates. Who was responsible for killing members of their very own family and becoming known as the Thanksgiving Day Killer?

This is Forensic Tales, episode number 47, The Thanksgiving Day Killer. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that discusses real, bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved. Others have become cold cases.

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Hi everyone. I can't believe that it's already the week of Thanksgiving. I think I've mentioned before that this is definitely my favorite time of the entire year. I love Thanksgiving. I love Christmas, New Year's. For me, it is give me all the holiday food.

And with a year like 2020, I feel even more excited about this time of year. I think we all need as much joy as we can get in our lives. And even though this year the holidays look a little bit different, I'm still so excited to celebrate.

And I thought, what better case to cover on the show this week than one involving multiple murders within the same family that happened on Thanksgiving Day? The story goes back to Thanksgiving Day 2009 in the city of Jupiter, Florida. So Jupiter is a town on the southeastern coast of the state within Palm Beach County.

And Jupiter is a really nice place to live. It's a resort town. It has many well-known golf courses. It's known for its water sports. And the people in Jupiter definitely live an elevated lifestyle. And one of the families who settled into the town of Jupiter was the Sitton family.

Muriel Sitton and her husband Jim made plans back in 2009 to host Thanksgiving dinner at their house that year. Muriel and Jim were excited to have their extended family over at their place to celebrate Thanksgiving, to spend time together, and just enjoy each other's company. The things that most American families look forward to on Thanksgiving.

The Sitton family's home, where they planned to have family over, was a really nice property. The house was situated in a gated community just about 55 miles or so north of Miami. So on Thanksgiving, Jim and Muriel, along with their six-year-old daughter, Michaela, planned to have over about 16 family members.

Muriel's cousins were going to be there, nieces and nephews. It was supposed to be a really nice celebration. One person who showed up to the Sittons' house wasn't exactly expected to be there. Everyone was surprised when 35-year-old Paul Michael Merhage showed up to the house. Paul was the son of Muriel Sittons' cousin.

And when he showed up at their door just before dinner, she was a little surprised he was there. But he was family. So with open arms, she invited him inside where he became the 17th guest. Now, Paul really hadn't been present at many family gatherings before. In fact, Muriel and Jim hadn't even seen Paul in over a decade.

So when Paul's father called Muriel to give them the heads up that he was planning to come over for Thanksgiving dinner, this was a surprise. But again, he's family. They made plenty of food that day. So what was the big deal with having one more place set at the table? In the early evening, the entire family sat down together to eat Thanksgiving, just like what we all do.

During dinner, everything seemed to be completely normal. Everyone ate together, drank together. The entire family was having a really good time. The Sitton's daughter, Michaela, had even written on little cards about how thankful she was for her family, and she hung the cards around the entire dining room.

After everybody cleared their plates, the guests headed into the Sitton's living room where the family played the piano and sang Christmas songs together. This was especially fun for Muriel and Jim's six-year-old daughter, Michaela. That's because Michaela had a performance the following day in her school's performance of The Nutcracker. So as the family gathered around together, it basically became this impromptu dress rehearsal for Michaela.

And even though it was getting late that night, Michaela loved to sing. So she begged her parents to stay up just a little bit longer. After the family sang together, Muriel took Michaela up to the bedroom and tucked her in for the night. It was already way past her bedtime and it was a deal. After they sang and played the piano, it was time for her to go to bed.

After Muriel put her daughter to bed, she headed back downstairs to rejoin the party. Still, everything seemed completely normal. And that's what made what happened next so shocking. Sometime while the family sat around the piano singing Christmas songs, Paul Merhage left the house and headed back to his parents' house where he was living.

And when he returned to the Sitton's house where the party was at, he pulled out a handgun and started shooting. Paul first shot and killed his very own twin sisters, Carla Merhage and Lisa Knight. Carla worked as a real estate agent and Lisa, at the time, was pregnant with her second child. Both sisters were just 33 years old at the time.

He walked up to his next victim and said, quote, I've been waiting 20 years to do this. After shooting and killing both of his sisters, Paul then took the gun and pointed it at his 76-year-old aunt, Raymond Joseph. His aunt never even had a chance to get out of the way.

Next, Paul shot Patrick Knight, his brother-in-law, and Clifford Cabrera, both who would be lucky enough to survive the shootings, but not without serious injuries.

Patrick Knight would later be rushed to the emergency room with some very serious injuries. In fact, the bullet had ripped through his stomach. He would spend the next three months in a medically induced coma where many people, including his own doctors, didn't know that he would even survive. And Clifford Cabrera, the other person who was shot, he was actually lucky enough to only be grazed by a bullet.

So while the entire family was sent into a complete and utter chaos following the shootings, Paul made his way, gun in hand, upstairs to six-year-old Michaela's bedroom. Once he got inside the bedroom, he shot and killed Michaela as she lay in her bed. Michaela was just a few days shy of turning seven years old.

After shooting Michaela in her bedroom, his final victim of the night, Paul ran out and fled from the Sittons' home. Behind him, he left four members of his very own family dead and had seriously injured two more. Within moments of the shootings, a statewide manhunt began for Paul.

And authorities quickly issued a bolo for his blue 2007 Toyota Camry. This was the car that they believed he would be driving. And during the initial part of the investigation, it was really important for investigators to find out who exactly was Paul Merhidge. They needed to know what kind of person.

What kind of monster would gun down four people of his very own family on Thanksgiving? So who is 35-year-old Paul Michael Merhage? Well, authorities learned from other family members that Paul lived with his parents and

As a teenager, he was an honor roll student in high school. He was even a varsity athlete at a very prominent Miami prep school. After he graduated from high school, he went on to attend college at the University of Miami.

So everything in Paul's life through college seemed completely normal, at least on the outside looking in. By all accounts, through his college years, Paul was a completely normal guy. Nothing really out of the ordinary or anything to let people believe that he was capable of something like what happened on Thanksgiving Day.

But after Paul graduated from the University of Miami, things in his life started to take a different turn. Police obtained court records that reported back in 1998, Paul had been arrested by the Miami-Dade Police Department on a misdemeanor charge for disorderly conduct.

Now, the exact details of that arrest aren't made public, at least not what I could find. But a friend of Paul's at the time described him as, quote, mentally troubled. After college graduation, Paul never really seemed to be able to hold down a job. He lived with both of his parents, who by all accounts supported him at least financially.

He never really seemed to express interest in finding a job or starting a career on his own. And that's when more reports about his mental state at the time really started to emerge. According to Paul's mother, as a young adult, she thought that her son suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and chronic depression. He also had a history of violence.

He had once shot himself in a suicide attempt. And on another occasion, he allegedly threatened to cut the throat of one of his sisters, who would ultimately go to court herself and request a restraining order be placed against him. And with Paul now on the run after shooting and killing four members of his very own family,

Police started to put the pieces together about what happened in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Police learned that just a few weeks before, Paul had spent a little over $2,000 on at least four different firearms and several rounds of ammunition. And he purchased these at two different gun shops in Broward County.

At one of these gun shops, he allegedly asked the owner if there was a way to attach a scope to the Remington 700 rifle that he was purchasing. And according to the gun shop owner, the reason why Paul had asked about putting this optional scope on the gun was because he intended to use the gun for hunting.

Besides purchasing the guns, he also reclaimed his passport from his parents. He took out $12,000 from his bank account, and he purchased a cover that would go over his blue 2007 Toyota, which made many people speculate that this car cover was supposed to be used to basically hide his vehicle after the shootings.

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Paul asked his parents about what their plans were for the holiday. He specifically asked them about the Thanksgiving dinner that was happening at Mural and Jim Sitton's house. And even though he never committed to going, he did express interest about what time it was happening and who would be there.

Paul's parents reportedly never really alerted Muriel and Jim that Paul may show up that night, which will become a key issue later on in the case. On the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, Paul called to announce that he was planning to go to the Sittons with the rest of his family for dinner.

After finding out her son was planning to be there, Carol Merhage, Paul's mother, remembered telling her daughter, Lisa Knight, who would become one of his victims, that, quote, she hopes he doesn't come and kill us all, end quote. Lisa Knight, Paul's sister, reportedly told her mother that the same thing crossed her mind when she found out that Paul was going to be there. But

They shouldn't bring it up to their dad because he would be upset that they even had these thoughts or ideas about Paul. It seemed as though everybody in the family knew what might be coming. Following the shootings, Paul became a fugitive. He was now wanted for shooting and murdering four members of his very own family, including his sisters, his aunt, and even six-year-old Michaela in cold blood.

And many feared that this was just the start of his rampage. With Paul on the run, everyone wondered who was his next target. By Saturday, so just two days after the shootings, prosecutors in Florida issued an arrest warrant for Paul.

The arrest warrant accused him of four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder for shooting Patrick Knight and Clifford Cabrera, who were both shot but not killed in the incident. Police also offered up a $10,000 reward for any information regarding Paul's whereabouts.

The sense of urgency to find him grew after each and every passing day. We know this person is possibly mentally unstable. We know that he purchased at least four firearms and a handful of ammunition. And we know this person just showed up to Thanksgiving dinner and shot four members of his very own family.

If there was a priority within this part of Florida, this case was at the top of the list. Everywhere from Miami-Dade County to St. Lucia County was littered with flyers about the case. In fact, over 15,000 flyers that showed six-year-old Michaela's face, picturing her wrapped in a pink sheet holding two dolls,

Right below that, a picture of Palmer Hidge right below her had been plastered everywhere. And the flyers read, help us find him. And during this time, hundreds of volunteers, family and friends all walked together in order to get the word out about this case. And these volunteers walked into every business throughout the area asking if they could hang up their flyers.

just to get Paul's face out there in the community. And if anyone saw him, they were urging people to call 911. These flyers were taped to businesses, their front doors. They were put up in break rooms. They hung from practically every stoplight in the area.

People wanted to put as much exposure as they could to help find and arrest Paul as quickly as possible. After a few weeks go by, without any really solid leads into where Paul might be, desperation began to grow. People were worried that he was able to flee the country. People worried he had more people he wanted to shoot and kill.

The entire community knew that if this man was capable of shooting his own family members, he would probably be capable of much more. So when a few weeks go by and Paul is still very much at large, the family decided to reach out to the television show America's Most Wanted for help.

Muriel and Jim Sitton, the parents of murdered Michaela, had a lot in common with the show's host, John Walsh. Probably most of us know the story of John Walsh's son, Adam, who several years ago was kidnapped inside of a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida, and was later found murdered.

Adam's death inspired his father to become not only an advocate for victims of violent crimes, but really inspired his decision to go on and host America's Most Wanted for so many years since then. So when Muriel and Jim Sutton approached John Walsh and the television show to feature their story and to show Paul's face on there,

There wasn't a question or a doubt that they would help this family. So the Sittons sat down with John Walsh on the show. They showed America picture after picture of their daughter. They showed home videos of Michaela.

It was impossible to watch this episode and just not have your heart break into tiny little pieces for this family. It's really hard to comprehend a little six-year-old girl being murdered in her bedroom, in her bed, on Thanksgiving. So during this episode of America's Most Wanted, they shared that they thought Paul may have already left the country.

And that authorities at least had some sort of evidence to believe that at the very least, he's left the state of Florida. And the reward for his capture was now up to $100,000. And because they believed that Paul had crossed over state lines and he was a suspect of a quadruple homicide, the U.S. Marshal Service had taken lead in the case.

And they were also working with the FBI, as well as the head detectives from the Jupiter Police Department. It was really an all hands on deck type of case that brought in some of the best of the best to help and locate and hopefully apprehend Paul. But when the America's Most Wanted episode didn't initially generate any leads into Paul's whereabouts,

Authorities reached out to a forensic psychologist about what could possibly be going on inside of Paul's head. I was so excited to look into this part of the case because my master's degree is in forensic psychology, and this stuff is really, really fascinating. When these horrible, horrible crimes are committed, like what we see in this case, and

We wonder how and why someone could do something so evil and so terrible. How do these normal people turn into monsters, often without any warning signs at all? So trying to understand what could be going on in Paul's head and why he did this is what makes forensic psychology just so fascinating.

So forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Brannan told reporters and authorities that Paul Merhage's case was really unique. Typically in domestic violence killings, which is what we have in this case, it typically ends in the killer either hurting themselves or killing themselves in the end. But we don't see that here.

After the shooting, Paul didn't kill or hurt himself. He fled. He ran away. And in cases of family murder, the killer is usually very, very emotional at the time. The act is usually spontaneous. And again, usually the perpetrator will turn the gun on themselves.

But it appears here that Paul made a pretty elaborate plan that accounted for his getaway. The evidence here doesn't suggest that he did in fact have plans of killing or hurting himself afterwards. The evidence actually suggests that he was always planning to run.

And the forensic psychologist also pointed to the fact that Paul's behavior in the days leading up to Thanksgiving suggests that there might be another motive behind the killings. Remember, at the time the shooting was happening, Paul allegedly told his family that this was something that he has waited 20 years to do. That this wasn't spontaneous like other domestic violence killings.

This had been planned. This had been rehearsed in his head for quite some time. And from a forensic psychology standpoint, this behavior could fit the mold of someone with a psychopathic personality, someone that would take pleasure out of killing members of his own family, that this wasn't your typical family killing or your typical domestic violence killing.

Someone with a psychopathic personality will show signs of persistent antisocial personality. We see this with Paul, who basically became a recluse. He lived at home with his parents after college graduation, and he really didn't express interest in doing much outside of that. These people may be incapable of feeling love. They may totally lack any sense of remorse for their actions.

Some may even be impulsive and show signs of grandiose sense of worth. And taking a step back and looking at Paul's behavior, Dr. Brannon's theory that Paul was displaying signs of psychopathy certainly fits with what we know from the crime. And it also makes it really difficult to try and predict what exactly is going on in his head,

or to try and figure out what his next move is. So over the next couple weeks, after the America's Most Wanted episode, the Jupiter Police Department said that they received well over 100 tips regarding Paul's whereabouts. Some people called in and said that they saw him here or there. Some people called saying that they saw someone on the street who looked like him.

And even the Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers organization said that their office received over 30 anonymous tips regarding where Paul might be. But so far, nothing really seemed to tip the scale either way in the investigation. Paul remained on the run from authorities for the next five weeks until January 2nd, 2010.

After five weeks of searching and following up on every tip, police finally received the phone call that they had been waiting for. On the night of Saturday, January 2nd, a tip came in from one of the owners of the Edgewater Resort in the Florida Keys. The caller said that they believed that Paul was staying in one of their rooms.

They said that they had seen his face on the local news and that they recognized him when he checked in and reserved a room a few weeks earlier. The hotel also told police that he had checked in on December 2nd under the name of John Baca. So authorities didn't waste any time.

Because by all accounts, Paul was considered an extremely violent person who was still very much armed and dangerous. So around 10 o'clock p.m. that night, police arrived at the hotel, busted open the door and arrested Paul. According to the police reports, he was pretty much taken into custody without incident.

He probably didn't even suspect that police knew where he was, and it appeared as though that he had been hiding out there since the murders. Once he was placed under arrest, he arrived at the Jupiter Police Department around 1.30 in the morning, and then he was ultimately transported to the Palm Beach County Jail.

Prosecutors in the case were charging him with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. Now, in Florida and the same as in many other states, this is a really, really serious case. So, not surprisingly, the judge assigned to the case decided that Paul was just too dangerous and

that the crimes were so heinous that he issued no bail. He wasn't going to be released until at the end of the trial or at least to the very end where the case was resolved. So about a month after Paul was arrested, the prosecution announced that they would be seeking the death penalty against him. Under Florida law, if you commit what is considered a capital felony,

then you are eligible to receive the death penalty. And certainly Paul's case, shooting and killing four people, made his case a capital felony. And the remaining members of Paul's family, particularly the victim's family, were all in support of the death penalty.

The Sittons in particular, the parents of six-year-old Michaela, were very open about wanting to see him executed, even if he was family to them. But before the case moved to trial, many people speculated about what kind of defense Paul was going to have. We know that he had a history of mental illness, at least according to what his parents have said. But if they were going to take an insanity defense or something like that,

We've got a lot of problems with that, mostly because the steps that he took to plan this out. It wasn't spontaneous, in the heat of the moment type of shooting. No, he had planned this for at least a couple weeks before. We know based on his actions and his movements before Thanksgiving.

And when an offender takes steps towards their plan days or weeks before, it's really hard to establish some sort of insanity defense here, or at the very least, that his mental illness was solely the cause of the shootings. And I think Paul and his defense team also realized that. Because in October 2011, almost two years to the day after the shootings, the

Paul decided to take a plea deal from the prosecution. He decided he wouldn't take his case to trial. And in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table, Paul agreed to plead guilty to all four murders and two attempted first-degree murders. And in exchange for his guilty plea, he would receive seven consecutive life sentences.

And at the time of the plea deal, the judge, Judge Marks, looked at Paul and asked him. The judge said, you do know you'll never get out of jail. You do understand that, right? And Paul stood up and said, yes, he understood.

He said he had been taking antidepressants and antipsychotic medicine while in jail and that he understood his actions. So he may have avoided the death penalty, but Palmer Hidge will absolutely spend the rest of his life in prison. But now that Paul accepted the plea deal and was going to serve out his seven consecutive life sentences, he

This didn't end the family's legal battles. And that's because also in 2011, Muriel and Jim Sitton filed a lawsuit against Paul's parents, Michael and Carol Merhage. I know this whole family tree gets a little complicated here, but the Sittons are cousins to Michael and Carol, Paul's parents. This is all one family.

But the Sittons, the couple who hosted that Thanksgiving dinner, sued their cousins because they believed they should be held responsible for their daughter's murder. Muriel and Jim Sitton knew that Michael and Carol Merhage also lost two daughters that day. Paul had murdered his own twin sisters, Michael and Carol's daughters.

But the Sittons also believed that their own cousins brought murder to their doorstep that Thanksgiving. They argued that the parents knew their son Paul was dangerous and that he was unstable at the time. And they said that they should be warned beforehand that Paul was planning to come over for dinner.

The lawsuit even went as far to say that the Sittons believed the Merhages secretly invited their son over and that they intentionally didn't tell them. Jim Sitton described it like this, that if someone brought a pit bull or a rattlesnake to your house without your permission and that pit bull started attacking and killing people,

Wouldn't you hold that person responsible? And in this case, Paul Merhidge is that pit bull. They believe his parents knew just how dangerous their son really was and that it was their fault that they allowed him to come to Thanksgiving dinner and didn't warn them. And as a result, four people ended up shot and killed.

So in the end, the Sittons were requesting damages for a little over $15,000, which doesn't exactly seem like an insane amount, especially given the fact that their six-year-old was one of Paul's victims that day. But the lawsuit against the parents was ultimately dismissed by a Florida court in

because the court didn't agree with the sentence that Paul's parents could be held responsible for their son's actions. Even though they knew that their son had some sort of mental illness, the court ruled that they couldn't be held liable, especially given the fact that Paul was a grown adult. He was being held responsible for his own actions.

And the Sittons appealed the court's dismissal of the lawsuit. But once again, when it went up to the Court of Appeal, the Court of Appeal also denied their case. So it doesn't appear that the parents of Paul Merhage will ever have to pay any sort of damages for the murders. Following the murders, Paul Merhage became known as the Thanksgiving Day Killer.

The shootings of his twin sisters, Lisa Knight and Carla Merhage, his aunt, Raymond Joseph, and his cousin's daughter, six-year-old Michaela Sitton, is one of the worst cases of murders to occur on Thanksgiving Day. And it's a tragedy that possibly could have been prevented. Okay, you guys, thank you so much for joining me this week.

I hope you guys all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. And please, stay safe and stay healthy.

Thank you.

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