He Did It For The Devil

September 30th, 1995. It's 1.30 in the morning, and 16-year-old Ryan Brooks is hanging out at his

friend Eric's house playing video games. It's getting kind of late, so the teenager calls his

parents to tell them that he's going to spend the night, but it's not his mom or dad that answers

it's his older brother Nathan. He tells Ryan that their parents want him home now, but instead of

doing what he says, the teenager disobeys and stays for another hour. And this small act of

defiance may have saved his life, as he later learns that his older brother Nathan had lied to

him. He was actually trying to lure his younger brother home so he could kill him in the name of

Satan, something he had done to their parents just moments before answering the phone

This is the story of Nathan Brooks and why he did it for the devil

April 23rd, 1978. Nathan is the middle child of three boys born to Terry and Marilyn Brooks

The family lives in a small town of 4,100 people in Bel Air, Ohio

Now, you could call Bel Air your classic church town, considering they have 19 of them in just 1.7 square miles

Terry Brooks works as a mailman, and Marilyn has a nice office job

The family of five lives on a small house on Margie Avenue, and on the outside looking in, they appear to have a fun, loving dynamic

But behind closed doors, the home is filled with anger and abuse

See, Terry is an alcoholic, and when he drinks, he takes out his anger on his wife and sometimes his son Nathan

Even when the kid is just three years old, there are stories of his dad trying to toughen him up by hitting him repeatedly and calling him names

And if Nathan would dare to shed a tear, things would get much worse

Many will later testify in court that Nathan was a happy child, but as the mistreatment and abuse continues, he becomes more and more reclusive

And although Marilyn has a special relationship with her middle son she never does anything to put an end to the situation She fears that others will find out and in turn ruin her marriage and change her life forever

As Nathan gets older, he spends more time at church, and even tells the monsieur there that when he grows up, he wants to be a priest

something that he's not used to hearing kids that age say. He then starts becoming intrigued by other religions, and not only is reading the Bible, but also the Quran

It isn't until he gets into his early teens where Nathan realizes that he's not like other kids

He loses two of his close friends, one from a brain tumor and the other takes his life

and while at their funerals everyone else is mourning, but Nathan can't stop thinking about what happens after they die

He doesn't feel a sense of sadness and is solely interested in the afterlife that he'd been reading about in his countless books

At around this time, a babysitter introduces him to Satanism, and it takes no time for Nathan to become obsessed and switch over from Christianity

He reads about the occult, sets up an altar in his bedroom, and starts listening to sinister music

His preferred reading list changes from scripture to books about satanic rituals, Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack the Ripper

By the time he's 16 years old, Nathan is doing drugs, committing minor crimes like trespassing and vandalism, and is consumed by all things death

He does all of this in the name of Satan, and even writes in his school textbook, Satan is my BFF, and Nathan Brooks, Master of Death

A school counselor contacts Nathan's mom to try and help the boy out, but instead of taking him to a therapist, she simply shrugs it off and calls it a phase

Unfortunately, she won't live long enough to see her son outgrow it

Even Nathan's older brother Jamie is concerned, especially after they spend the summer together

in the city of Columbus. He discovers Nathan bone collection and finds that he been torturing and killing animals He had even stolen a lamb from a college agricultural department before slaughtering it and keeping its skull as a souvenir

But like his mom, Nathan agrees that he is just going through a phase

and tells his brother Jamie that he has nothing to worry about. September 30th, 1995

It's exactly one month before Halloween, a holiday that will change forever in the town of Bel Air

The youngest of the Brooks brothers, Ryan, comes home at around 2.30 in the morning and stumbles into a scene straight out of a horror film

There is blood all over the house. It saturates the floor, walls, even the ceiling. He takes a

step into the living room and spots the head of his father sitting in a punch bowl that is on top

of a wooden chair. Terry's headless body is laid out on his bed and Marilyn is found dead underneath

the comforter. There is a long knife deep in her right side, just above her waist, and the 52-year-old

woman, like her husband, has been chopped with an axe nearly a dozen times. When investigators

arrive, they're unable to locate Nathan, but they do find several disturbing items in the boy's room

There's a rifle, an axe, and multiple large knives, along with literature about devil worship

and on his wall it appears that he scribbled a bunch of satanic symbols

The 17-year-old's found a few hours later, parked in the family car at a cemetery with his hands still caked in red

Nathan is immediately arrested, and while in custody he confesses to shooting his 53-year-old father three times point-blank

before taking a hacksaw and decapitating him. He tells investigators that he had planned to use his dad's head

as a sacrificial offering to the devil. Nathan Brooks is charged with two counts of aggravated murder

and details of his crime spread like wildfire throughout Bel Air. There are rumors of a so kill list that had been found in the boy bedroom At first law enforcement denies the existence of such a list but the idea that there could be one sends the town into a frenzy

Many people start wondering who could be next. Nathan Brooks might be in jail

but is it possible that he was working with other Satan worshippers? People are genuinely scared for

their safety, so the town ends up canceling Halloween, putting a halt on any trick-or-treating

There will be no costumes, no candy, because parents fear that something evil could happen to their kids

In fall 1996, the rumors of a supposed kill list are actually made true when it's announced during Nathan's trial

The list contains 16 names. First is Ryan Brooks, Nathan's little brother, and next to it the words dismember and decapitate

Mother and father are listed second and third on the roster, and eviscerate and crucify are next to his mom's name

Nathan had originally planned to nail her up to a wall, but he tells detectives that she was simply too heavy to lift

Thirteen more names are inked on the notebook paper. All first names, only eight of which are legible

Amber, Lisa, Justin, Jason, Dave, Ryan, Corey, Jill, Mike, and Ashley

Some he planned to kill individually, others in groups, with the words

molest, skin, dismember, next to each of them. On October 1996, Nathan Brooks is found guilty on two counts of murder and is given two life sentences

He'll be eligible for parole in 2038 when he is 60 years old

To this day, the case of the boy who did it for the devil has lingering effects on Bel-Air and how they celebrate Halloween

They've implemented a yearly tradition called Boo at the Park, where kids gather in one place and are closely monitored to keep them safe from the unknown