JAMES: This cabin was burned all the way to the ground.
WES: I got a scent of kind of a sweet smell.
The smell was actually burnt flesh.
KASSIE: Investigators discovered a skull of a child.
We came to the shocking realization that
what we were dealing with was the murder
of an entire family.
SIMON: We asked about issues with neighbors.
There was a neighbor who was growing marijuana
partially on their property.
SUSIE: He said, "When I get back next weekend,
I want it gone.
Otherwise, there's gonna be trouble."
KASSIE: His father was in debt with his business.
JOHN: Some of the employees didn't have
such a great relationship with them.
VERN: Someone's finances is one of the biggest drivers
of bad human behavior.
KASSIE: It was shocking to think that someone
could be so evil.
[dramatic music playing]
KASSIE: El Dorado County in California
is a pretty safe community.
It's very rural, lots of trees and forestry.
WES: We live in an area that we call the Divide
comprised of the towns of Garden Valley, Kelsey,
Greenwood, Georgetown.
The town of Greenwood has a population
of approximately a thousand people.
We're a very tight-knit community.
KASSIE: A lot of the homes up here actually
use these vacation homes for people down south
or in the Bay Area.
September 13th, 2015,
911 dispatchers received a call regarding
a possible vegetation fire in Greenwood, California.
WES: Our engine arrived at scene,
flames themselves were a couple hundred feet long,
but we got pretty lucky because this particular fire
was in a creek drainage,
which helped keep the fire from growing even larger.
We contained it to just over three acres,
but we're talking about three football fields
worth of burnt area.
We came across a small structure,
approximately 600 square feet,
that had been completely burned to the ground.
At that point, I got a scent of kind of a sweet smell
and I just couldn't place exactly what it was.
As I came around, at a different angle,
it just kind of clicked.
The smell was actually flesh, burnt flesh.
It was evident that I was looking at a skull
and a partial chest cavity.
Anytime you find human remains,
there's a shock that goes along with that.
We know that we have a fatality of some kind.
The area was immediately cordoned off
and the sheriff's department notified.
JAMES: When we initially get out there,
I was just trying to kind of make sense
of what we had, what was going on.
The one main structure at the crime scene
looked to be like a vacation property,
it's like a cabin.
This structure was completely burned.
It was just a smoldering heap of ashes,
but it was still extremely hot.
When you got near it, you could feel the heat
coming off of it.
WES: After we had sectioned it off
and kind of looked further,
we found what we thought might be a second set of bones,
but we couldn't confirm it
without walking into the structure.
JAMES: We have 20 acres of property.
We have a burned-up structure.
We have what we believe to be two sets
of potential human remains
and literally no other information.
I had requested our CSI personnel
to respond to the scene.
I had our guys essentially start working
from the outside of the property
and then the physical structure being the last place
that we were going to start to process.
There were several vehicles that were on the property.
At the top of the driveway,
at the cabin, was a two-axle trailer
and an old Dodge work truck.
JAMES: Using the registration information on those vehicles,
we were able to identify that they belonged
to Buchanan Construction, as well as Adam Buchanan,
who had an address out of Benicia, California.
SIMON: Benicia California is about a three-hour drive.
People who live in the Bay Area,
which Benicia is part of the greater Bay Area,
like to come up into El Dorado County
to get away on the weekends often.
About 5:00 PM,
I reached out to Benicia Police Department,
and I asked if they could send somebody
by the Buchanan family house to see if anybody
was at their residence that could maybe shed some light
on who would have been at this cabin.
Initially, Benicia PD called me back,
they went to the house.
In the driveway was a white F-150 truck.
So tried to make contact at the door.
SIMON: Sixteen-year-old Nolen Buchanan answered.
Nolen told the police that his dad, Adam,
his dad's girlfriend Molly, and his eight-year-old brother
were at the cabin and that he stayed behind.
Nolen said he was home alone.
He was expecting his parents and his brother Gavin
to come home Sunday night.
JAMES: So we do have information that we potentially know
who was in the structure,
but we can't jump to any conclusions.
The fire was still too hot for us to be able
to actually process that scene and ID the remains.
But we do know that we have what I believe to be two sets of--
of human remains in this burned-up structure,
and we have information that three people
were supposed to be at that cabin
and that they never returned.
SIMON: Detective Conley and I drove down to Benicia
to try and contact Nolen
and the other family members to learn more.
Our goal at this point is to contact anyone we could
to help give us some information as to who was at that cabin.
On the three-hour drive down to Benicia,
Detective Conley and I tried to learn everything
we could about Adam Buchanan.
We contacted his business, Buchanan Construction.
The secretary confirmed phone numbers for Adam
and his girlfriend Molly,
which we pinged to try and find their location.
We had no connection on those phones
within the last couple of days.
Detective Conley and I arrived at Buchanan Construction
just before 5:00 PM on that Monday.
In the driveway, we contacted Howard Buchanan,
who's Adam's father,
and Susan Buchanan, Adam's mother.
JOHN: Obviously, they were very shocked.
Unfortunately, I had very little detail for them,
other than we knew there was remains
in a burned-out structure.
They obviously were concerned.
We tried to get a background on the cabin,
kind of the layout.
He told us that it was under construction.
And they were basically remodeling it
or renovating it as a vacation home.
SIMON: We wanted to know who slept where in the cabin,
was the cabin connected to power sources, generators,
anything that could cause an accidental fire.
One of the other options is maybe someone
burned the house down.
We still didn't know if the fire
was started by someone who was in the cabin still,
or by someone who left the cabin.
JAMES: When we're in a situation where we really don't know
the details of what we're investigating,
we have to treat everything
that is there as potential evidence.
Back at the scene, we begin documenting with photographs,
walking the property.
Down this hillside,
we located some trash in the fire pit.
When we're collecting them, we don't necessarily know
if it will have any significance down the road.
On the third day of the investigation,
the structure is essentially extinguished
and we can immediately dive into the entire structure.
As we took a closer look,
we discovered a third set of remains that we suspect
it could potentially be human as well.
This piece of evidence really changed
the direction of the entire case.
Roughly a 5x5 centimeter piece of skull.
Right through the center portion was a small,
almost perfectly circular hole,
which, even to the untrained eye,
appeared to be consistent with a bullet hole.
JOHN: At that point,
I think all of us kind of realized
that this was in fact a homicide
and it was no longer an accidental fire
or other means of a fire that burned out the cabin.
SIMON: The second we saw this hole,
it was the first real indicator
that foul play was involved
and it changed everything.
KASSIE: At that point, the investigation turned
to try and figure out was it a home invasion?
Did somebody follow these people home
and then murdered them?
We came to the shocking realization
that what we were dealing with was potentially
RACHEL: I don't know when it started,
but Molly and Adam would fight all the time.
SUSIE: There were times when I--I worried that--
that they would kill each other for heaven's sakes.
VERN: Nolen told us that the business
was struggling at that time.
RACHEL: Adam was very hardheaded.
This is how his company was going to be run.
SIMON: If Adam fired some of their employees,
KASSIE: Once investigators determined that there was
a bullet hole in a piece of skull in this cabin
that had been burned to almost nothing,
it was immediately apparent that there was foul play.
JAMES: The remains were collected
and those were sent with the forensic pathologist
for their work to begin.
KASSIE: During the autopsy,
it was discovered that
for the first set of remains,
there was a bullet lodged within the hips
and also fragments of bullet lodged within the vertebrae.
The second set of remains had been burned
to almost nothing, like, there were
several shell casings located around the body.
And the third set of remains,
that person had died of a gunshot wound to the head.
The pathologist was able to almost immediately determine
that that was the skull of a child.
We got confirmation from the Department of Justice crime lab
that the identities in the remains
were Adam Buchanan, Molly McAfee,
and Gavin Buchanan.
We contacted both sides of the family.
SUSIE: My phone rang and it was a detective
from El Dorado County Sheriff's Office.
He told me that he had something to tell me
and he wanted to know if it was okay
that he notified me over the phone.
And I said, "Yes, you can." I said, "You're gonna tell me
that you have confirmed identities
and it's actually them."
And he said, "Yes, it's them."
And I was still just--
I remember my head was thrown back and I was--
I was crying because the realization
was happening and it was all, like, instantaneous,
my heart broke.
HOWARD: Like any parent who's ever lost a child,
I just went into kind of shock,
loss of a part of our family
that we'll never have back.
SUSIE: I actually had Molly a week
after I graduated high school.
We kind of grew up together.
You know, it was Molly and me against the world.
Molly was rebellious starting at a very young age
and she wanted nothing more than to be loved unconditionally.
HOWARD: My son, Adam, was always full of life,
always smiling.
Was the type of boy
that wanted to know how things work.
Adam married young.
He and his wife had Nolen.
Not too long afterwards and things
just didn't quite work out for them,
so they split.
Adam remained with custody of Nolen.
Nolen didn't have the same mechanical aptitude
as Adam had.
And that was a little I'd say frustrating to Adam,
because he wouldn't pick up on things
as quickly as Adam had.
But he loved Nolen.
He was hoping that he was going to follow in his footsteps,
become the same type of individual
and eventually take over the family business.
SUSIE: Molly went on an online dating site
and she met Adam at a Starbucks
and they had coffee and ended up
going to a gun range to shoot guns at a gun range.
That was their first date.
HOWARD: She had a-- an office manager background
in the construction business
so it was kind of like two peas in a pod.
And they struck it off very well.
RACHEL: They had a whirlwind relationship.
She immediately fell head over heels with him,
almost immediately moved in with him
into his brand new home in Benicia
and that's where she stayed for 10 years.
Molly always wanted to be a mom.
She had a lot of miscarriages.
She finally did end up getting pregnant
and she was able to have Gavin.
She had Gavin two weeks early
and that baby was almost 10 pounds.
Gavin was an old soul. He was a gentle giant.
He towered over my son
who was seven months older than him.
Very imaginative.
Everything he did was "imagine if."
Molly and Adam were happy in this perfect relationship,
or so we would see on the outside.
I don't know when it started
but Molly and Adam would fight all the time.
SUSIE: There were times when Molly and Adam
didn't speak to each other but the love was still there.
That got progressively worse over the years.
When it was good, it was really, really good
and when it was bad, it was bad.
There was lots of fighting.
When she was done, she'd move home.
And, uh, you know, sometimes she would bring Gavin
and sometimes she wasn't allowed to bring him.
There were times when I-- I worried that--
that they would kill each other for heaven's sakes.
When Molly and Adam started getting into hunting,
you know, I-- I would think, "Oh, my gosh,
these two are going up into the mountains,
and they're hunting, and they have guns,
and what if they start fighting, you know,
what could happen?"
Molly had some hard times.
And when the detective asked me, you know,
"Would any one of them commit suicide?"
She had attempted suicide.
It's so hard to think about...
[suspenseful music playing]
If it was in fact a murder-suicide,
we would find the murder weapon in or around
the burnt out structure next to one
of the deceased individuals.
JAMES: As we're processing the scene,
we're obviously looking for any firearm
that could be associated with that gunshot wound.
VERN: We discussed how important it is
to find even the slightest bit of fragment of a firearm,
because when you find a firearm, the probability of it
being a murder-suicide goes up quite a bit
and the absence of a firearm means
that there was somebody else that had been at--
at the cabin and killed three people.
eful music playing] KASSIE: It was confirmed that we have the remains
of an entire family.
The question was, could this have been a murder-suicide?
JAMES: We have to keep well of our options open
as to what potentially this case
could be dealing with.
Over the course of five days,
we processed the entirety of the scene from, uh,
keeping mass of ash and debris down completely to the floor
and dirt below that foundation.
I can confidently say that there was no firearm
located anywhere on that entire property.
SIMON: At this point in the investigation,
we know that someone killed the people in that cabin.
JOHN: We needed to figure out more into their--
their personal life and see if they had, you know, enemies.
SIMON: After speaking with Adam's parents,
Howard and Susan, Detective Conley and I
asked if we could talk to Adam's 16-year old son, Nolen,
to get some baseline information.
JAMES: At that point, Nolen was staying
with his grandfather and grandmother.
JOHN: He was kind of just matter of fact about things
that he didn't show a lot of emotion,
uh, but he had also told us that he was trying to be brave
and didn't wanna breakdown,
that he was trying to stay strong.
SIMON: During this interview, Nolen told us
that he stayed behind that weekend
because he had some stuff to do around the house.
Nolen said that the family had gone up.
Meaning Adam, Molly, and Gavin.
And they were driving the Dodge work truck
that we had seen at the cabin.
Nolen said that they had brought up some rock
to work on the outside of the cabin.
We asked him about issues with neighbors.
Nolen tells us that there was a neighbor
who was growing marijuana partially on their property.
VERN: If you have a large marijuana operation,
a large grow, everybody is on.
People protecting it,
the people's trying to steal it.
SIMON: In our area, violent crime associated
with marijuana grows is not unheard ff.
KASSIE: Over the years, we have had several homicides
related to such marijuana grows,
so that was of course an avenue that we looked into.
JOHN: And we asked Nolen if they had any enemies
over at the business.
Nolen told us that the business
was struggling at that time.
SIMON: He even told us that the family business
only had five employees which is the least
they had ever had.
KASSIE: And he talked about the fact that he knew
that his father...
was in debt with his business.
SIMON: We had a couple of different possibilities
to investigate further.
SUSIE: The detective from El Dorado County called me.
He started asking me about the neighbors
that had the pot farm.
When my husband and I visited the cabin
for the first time in October of 2014,
um, Molly and Adam both told us that when they got there,
Adam had walked the property
and he came upon a pot farm.
Adam was very much against any kind of drugs.
The next thing, you know, he's at the neighbors.
He knocked on the door.
SUSIE: And then the mom came to the door and Adam said,
"Look, I will be back next weekend
and when I get back next weekend,
I want it gone."
Otherwise, there's gonna be trouble.
He's gonna call the cops.
SIMON: So the chances of a neighbor retaliating,
killing the family, and burning the house down,
was definitely not out of the question.
JOHN: We weren't sure that that was maybe
what this was related to.
SIMON: Deputies knocked on some of these houses' doors
near the cabin to try and figure out
who knew anything about the pot farm.
JOHN: A short time later, they called me and said
one of the neighbors told him what he knew about somebody
that was trying to grow marijuana
that Adam had told them they weren't gonna grow there
and-- and that was kind of the end of it.
Adam ran the guy off and that was kind
of the last he had ever heard of them.
SIMON: We still had to investigate further.
We also wanted to learn as much as we could
about the family business based on what Nolen told us.
JOHN: Later that same day,
we talked to most of his employees.
SIMON: We learned that the business was failing.
They were at least $30,000 in debt
and it laid off some of their employees.
JOHN: A couple of the other workers from the business
said that Adam and Molly were-- were friendly,
but some of the employees didn't have
such great relationship with Adam.
RACHEL: From what I understand,
Adam was very particular, very hard-headed.
This is how his company was going to be run.
SIMON: If Adam fired some of their employees,
it's not unheard of to have laid off workers retaliate.
VERN: Someone's finances is one of the biggest drivers
of bad human behavior.
JOHN: We needed to obtain a search warrant
for the business in Benicia
to obtain anything that would lend to them
having somebody that was it their enemy or,
you know, if they were having problems with business
or whatever the case may be.
KASSIE: In the weekend following the murders of Molly,
Adam, and Gavin,
a coastal cleanup was done by a local high school
on Reservoir Road,
approximately .7 miles away from Buchanan Construction.
While participating in the cleanup,
one of the students discovered a purse
hidden in a bush and nearby the purse
was a 22 caliber rifle.
Finding the gun and the purse in that rural area of Benicia
was a huge break in the case.
SIMON: At that point, Detective Conley and I
went down immediately.
[suspenseful music playing]
SIMON: We looked at the rifle and looked inside the purse.
Inside the purse, we saw ID card for Adam Buchanan.
We suspected that whoever murdered
the three at the cabin took that weapon with them
with Adam and Molly's information and their wallets
into that purse and brought it all the way back to Benicia
seven-tenths of a mile away
from the family business...
and hid it.
JOHN: Based on the location where it was,
clearly the evidence, one-- one of the other workers
from the business and so now we knew
we had to put the pieces of this puzzle together,
so that we can get justice for the family.
eful music playing] SIMON: Finding the rifle hidden on the side
of Reservoir Road was a huge break in this case.
With the likely murder weapon, Molly's purse,
Adam's wallet hidden just seven-tenths of a mile
from the business.
It gave us evidence linking Buchanan Construction
to the murders.
So at that point, we really fixated
on the family business.
The rifle was preserved and booked as evidence
to be later analyzed.
Once the search warrant was off,
Detective Conley and I went to the family business.
As we looked through the financial records,
we were able to confirm that the business
was in debt and failing.
And then we eventually discovered something
that changed everything.
JOHN: There was a surveillance system
that recorded the outside of the business.
SIMON: We knew the family left on Friday for the cabin,
so we wanted to see what the video surveillance
showed in that parking lot on that Friday.
There was video pointed straight
at the center of the parking lot
as Adam and Nolen were there
loading pallets of rock onto that two axle-trailer.
The trailer was actually hooked up
to the F-150 at that time,
not the Dodge Pickup that-- that Nolen had told us about.
SIMON: Having a video show the F-150
directly conflicted with what Nolen's story was to us,
that they used the Dodge work truck
pull the trailer up there.
And the same white F-150
pulled that trailer to the cabin,
then someone drove it back and parked it
in Nolen's driveway.
We definitely found that a little bit suspicious,
so we had to find something in this case
that was hard evidence to help identify
who was at the cabin and then back in Benicia again.
JAMES: Then we get a call from Susie Slankard.
She said, "Rachel and the family got together
for a lunch with Nolen."
They just described Nolen's behavior as somewhat bizarre.
KASSIE: He sat at lunch and we asked him questions
about why he wasn't at the cabin.
SUSIE: And he said to me, "I am no longer an heir.
I am an owner.
My father put Buchanan Construction in mine
and my brother's and his names
and they're not here.
And so now I'm an owner."
KASSIE: Nolen was talking about how he was going
to get emancipated
because he was now the sole owner
of Buchanan and Sons Construction Company
with them gone.
I remember looking at Nolen's hands
and I saw he was wearing two huge gold rings.
I said, "Nolen, where did you get those rings?
Were those your dad's?"
Thinking maybe he's sad and wearing his dad's rings.
Says, "No, I just bought these."
He just kept saying,
"I am the sole owner."
He's going to have to liquidate assets
to keep his company afloat.
He's 16.
What 16-year-old talks about being emancipated
and liquidating assets?
What 16-year-old is cold-hearted
when his eight-year-old little brother is gone?
That's when I knew he had done something.
JAMES: Essentially the McAfee side of the family
had real strong feelings about his behavior
and his demeanor that kind of raised red flags for them.
SIMON: At this point, we have a lot of questions for Nolen
and we wanted to interview him a second time.
And so Detective Conley and I interviewed him.
We didn't confront Nolen with anything that we knew
was a lie, but we wanted to lock him in
to his statements.
JOHN: The first time we talked to him,
we didn't really get into the details
of where he spent the weekend.
However, that second interview,
he went into a little more detail,
told us he was home alone Saturday.
And then he started to kind of tell us
where he was on Sunday.
That he, uh, went to church with his girlfriend
and her family.
After church, he went to hung out with some friends.
They went to the mall.
And that evening, he took his girlfriend out on a date.
We started asking him,
"Well, how did you pay for the dates
and stuff like that?"
And he told us that, uh, Adam had left him
an ATM card at the house.
It was determined at that point
that we would obtain a search warrant
for the Benicia residence.
We went and searched the house.
We found the ATM card that Nolen had told us about.
It was on top of the safe.
In the driveway was the white F-150 truck.
The truck had some brown dirt on it,
which was consistent with the dirt
that would've been up in Greenwood.
SIMON: I know it had rained in the last week or two
and that dirt would've stayed on there
had the rain come through.
Because that dirt was on that truck,
I knew that it had been up at that house very recently.
We also knew that there was video surveillance
in the family business showing them loading
the pallets of rock on the F-150,
which showed that Nolen was lying
about which vehicle they took.
JOHN: At that point we seized the truck,
it was included in the search warrant,
we seized it to further process it
and gather any evidence we could out of there.
SIMON: Once knew that Nolen was lying
about which truck they took up,
SIMON: We had evidence that contradicted
all of Nolen's lies.
We finally had the chance to confront him with it.
We found out that Nolen was claiming
that his dad had been the actual killer.
RACHEL: I just remember feeling anger
and that he had killed all of them.
SIMON: Once we saw this Ford was covered in the same red dirt
that was on that road leading to the cabin,
we really fixated Nolen that might be involved.
JOHN: We needed to gather any evidence we could.
JAMES: It was really difficult to imagine
that a 16-year-old kid murdered his entire family
including his little baby brother.
But there was no concern about the fact
that he had just lost his entire family
and his only focus was this business.
The evidence against Nolen began to mount.
SIMON: Prints were recovered from that rifle
hidden near the family business, showing Nolen had used it.
Once we had this information, it totally eliminated any chance
that it was a random attack from the neighbors
or retaliation from laid off employees.
KASSIE: Finding the gun with Nolen's fingerprints on it
was a huge break in the case.
JAMES: But at that point, we still needed to prove
the fact that Nolen was at that Cabin.
SIMON: In modern investigations,
we rely heavily on financial records.
We looked at the bank accounts
that were held by Adam and Molly
and looked at the transactions in the days prior
and the days that the family would've been up at that cabin.
The first transaction on one debit account
showed Friday, September 11th,
the day that the family would've gone up to the cabin.
A transaction in Fairfield which is on the way
to the cabin for $36.80 at Taco Bell.
JOHN: We went back to that Taco Bell
and we're able to find a surveillance video
at that Taco Bell
of the F-150 in the drive-through,
not the dodge as Nolen had told us.
SIMON: By looking at the video,
we could see the F-150 was the same one
that was in the driveway.
We could also see the two-axle trailer
being pulled by the F-150 was the same one
we saw left behind at the cabin.
JAMES: By this point, we had learned that F-150
had a significant role in the case.
So we processed the truck for any potential evidence,
we located a Taco Bell receipt
that was dated on the Friday prior
to the discovery of the fire and the bodies.
SIMON: What was unique about this receipt,
is the Taco Bell receipt had four drinks.
If Nolen was telling the truth and stayed behind
and only three people went up to the cabin,
seeing a receipt for four drinks was very unusual.
JAMES: Between the trash that was in the truck
and the trash that we had recovered
at the campfire at the Buchanan property,
we were able to verify that all of those items
were there and accounted for, for what was on the receipt.
SIMON: We were sure that that truck
was at the cabin that weekend.
The next transaction was Saturday the 12th.
It was for $40 at a ATM
from the Valencia Club in Penryn.
The Valencia Club is a bar
and it's approximately 30 minutes away
from the Buchanan's cabin in Greenwood, California.
We actually sent investigators to that bar.
And they were able to locate surveillance images
and video of Molly and Adam inside the bar.
And also their vehicle in the parking lot.
We're able to identify the ATM they used at the bar,
that we could see Adam taking some cash out of the ATM,
you know, to pay for his drinks and stuff at the bar,
so that was a huge piece to us to know that that ATM card again
had been used by Adam hours before
this fire ravaged their cabin.
Once we reviewed the video from the Valencia Club,
we knew what time Adam and Molly left.
We also knew what route they would likely take
to the cabin and about how long it takes to get there.
Investigators drove that exact same route
and looked for any place
that might have video along the way.
One local restaurant called the Cork and Fork
had a camera facing the highway.
By looking at the video at 2:30 AM,
the morning of the fire,
the F-150 was seen driving towards the cabin.
We believe that it was driven by Adam and Molly
having just left the Valencia club.
At 3:30, the video shows
the F-150 leaving from the cabin,
likely driven by Nolen after the fire had been started.
Transactions were made in Benicia Sunday morning
at Starbucks, McDonald's, and a local gas station.
We traveled to McDonald's, we spoke to the manager,
they were able to pull up the corresponding receipt.
They gave a surveillance video of that transaction
and we were able to view Nolen in the family Ford Excursion
going to the drive-through of McDonald's
with nobody else in the car.
At that point, we were able to contact
Bank of America and they were able to tell us
that only one debit card having the last four
were issued for that account.
So we knew that that card had at least
went up to the cabin and now is back in Benicia.
SIMON: We had evidence that contradicted
all of Nolen's lies.
And we finally had the chance to confront him with it.
We interviewed him at his school.
In all the previous interviews,
Nolen had been consistent in saying
that the debit card on top the safe
was the one his dad allowed him to use.
We finally were able to tell Nolen
that we knew the truth.
We told Nolen this debit card was also used in the bar
in Penryn on Saturday night.
We showed Nolen a picture from the video surveillance
from the Taco Bell parking lot
where the F-150 was seen that night.
I asked Nolen what he thought that was in the photo.
Nolen just stared at it for about 10 seconds and said,
"I don't know what to say."
As the interview was concluded, Nolen stood up,
walked out of the room,
and outside, he was placed under arrest.
RACHEL: When we got the news that Nolen was arrested,
we were at home.
Detective Peterson called my mom and said,
you know, we just picked up Nolen
and they had arrested him.
I just remember feeling relief
and then anger.
Because we couldn't believe that he did it
and that he had...
killed all of them.
[dramatic music playing]
KASSIE: In November 2015, our office filed charges
for first-degree murder against Nolen Buchanan
for the murders of Molly, Adam,
and eight-year-old Gavin Buchanan
with special enhancements for the use of a firearm.
Prosecution filed a motion to have Nolen transferred
from juvenile court to adult court.
In 2017, the court granted the people's motion
and allowed the case to be transferred
to adult court.
At that hearing, we learned for the first time
that Nolen was now claiming self-defense.
Nolen was claiming that his dad had been the actual killer.
KASSIE: Nolen Buchanan did take the stand
and had to testify in order to put forth
his claim of self-defense.
Now, what Nolen said happened that evening
was that he was in bed asleep
in the alcove in the cabin.
That his brother was in the cot right next to him.
He described that he woke to screaming and to gunshots.
He then heard somebody yell "No".
And then saw the barrel of a rifle
point at his brother.
He said that the gun raised
and that his brother was laying in the bed
and was shot one time.
At that point, the person turned the gun
towards Nolen,
Nolen attempted to wrestle the gun away,
pushed the person back,
obtained the gun,
and he shot that person two times.
He determined that the person that he claims
to have shot was actually his father.
At that point, he then exited the cabin,
and he claimed that he went out to the truck
and he decided to grab some gasoline,
and lit everyone on fire.
In order to make it as if nothing had ever happened.
He then fled in the F-150 truck.
This was his version of events at trial.
However, we were able to forensically disprove
Nolen's claim of self-defense.
Dr. Nagao, the pathologist
from the Sacramento County Crime lab
testified on rebuttal that that circular hole
in Gavin's skull would've been consistent
with a perpendicular shot.
Dr. Nagao estimated that the shot that Adam had made
in the defense animation would've been more consistent
with a 45-degree angle.
If Adam had shot Gavin at a 45 degree angle,
the hole in the skull would've been beveled
and at an angle.
It would've been more of an oval shape.
The shot as described by Nolen
was simply not consistent with reality.
JAMES: Nolen likely killed Gavin
at the house when he was there home alone
while Molly and Adam are out at the bar,
not knowing what's going on.
Nolen waited until they came home.
And essentially ambushed them.
Based on where Adam's body was located,
he was most likely killed first.
Nolen collected the rifle, Molly's purse,
Adam's wallet, and brought them with him.
He set the cabin on fire, and then drove back to Benicia.
Then Nolen turned his phone on, called his girlfriend,
went out to breakfast at McDonald's,
went to church with her,
spent a day at the mall with his friends
and hung out as normal.
All weekend when Nolen claimed to be home,
not a single person saw him or heard from him,
it wasn't until he returned Sunday
that his activity spiked.
KASSIE: The jury deliberated for approximately two hours.
Nolen Buchanan was found guilty of three counts
of first-degree murder.
On July 13th, 2018,
Nolen Buchanan was sentenced 150 years to life
for the murders of Molly, Gavin, and Adam.
SIMON: I believe part of his motivation was greed.
He felt he was smarter than everyone around him
and probably felt like he could run the business
better than his dad.
RACHEL: Nolen just wanted everybody out of his way.
He thought it's Buchanan and Sons Construction,
he was gonna get emancipated,
he was gonna run that company on his own,
he was a man, he had watched his dad
do it for years.
And I think he thought he was gonna live his life of luxury.
SUSIE: What would make a 16-year-old kill
his entire family?
I believe that he is a narcissistic sociopath.
I believe that it was greed.
He thought he deserved everything
his father had built.
Everything was gonna go to him.
And he couldn't wait.
RACHEL: I don't have a nephew anymore,
he was my only nephew...
and that hurts.
I told Nolen that his crocodile tears
didn't fool me and that I had once loved him.
But I had no love for him anymore.
I'll never forgive him for what he did to my family.
HOWARD: And I just turned and looked to the back of Nolen.
I'm going, "Why?
What could've been in your mind
that you thought you could've done this,
gotten away with it.
Why?"
I still say why.
I'll always say why.
[dramatic music playing]
SUSIE: When Gavin was five years old,
he and his mom went into a pet store.
The pet store was doing a fundraiser
for law enforcement K9s.
He went home and he went into his piggybank.
He had about a hundred dollars in there.
Molly let him walk into the store
and he handed the clerk a hundred dollars and he said,
"I want that dog out there to get a vest."
He could've spent that money on anything he wanted,
but he wanted to help the dogs.
On October of 2015, we had created
Gavin Buchanan memorial foundation.
Our goal was to provide protective equipment
for law enforcement K9.
Every time we have one of these events,
I know he's with us.
We carry on Gavin's legacy.
We keep going with his passion.
[dramatic music playing]