In the case of the Bever family, the two eldest brothers carried out a familicide of shocking proportions. Termed the Broken Arrow Killings, Michael and Robert brutally murdered all but two members of their family in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, on July 22, 2015. Robert Bever, 18 years old at the time of the murders, and younger brother Michael Bever, 16 at the time, plotted to kill their entire family for years. The pair was obsessed with serial killers and wanted to gain fame and notoriety by carrying out a mass murder. Many familial murders go unsolved, but the brothers confessed everything to the police, mostly to receive publicity for their crimes. Based on the boys' behavior, the Bever family didn't have any idea what lay in store on the evening of July 22, 2015. Because it seemed like any other night at the Bever household, family members were susceptible to Michael and Robert's traps.
When their 13-year-old sister, Crystal, walked by their room, they told her they wanted to show her something on the computer. Crystal entered and went toward where Michael was sitting. Then, without warning, Robert grabbed her, covered her mouth, and cut her throat. She screamed and other family members came running into the room. Michael and Robert cut Crystal's throat in their bedroom. However, the cut wasn't fatal. Crystal screamed and ran to warn the rest of the family about the attack. The boys stabbed their mother, who came to help Crystal, over 40 times. Michael and Robert eventually killed her with blunt force trauma. The brothers then stabbed their father over 50 times, their 12-year-old brother nine times, their seven-year-old brother six times, and their five-year-old sister 18 times, mostly in the neck. In the end, they'd killed five family members and seriously injured another. Reports say Victoria was stabbed so brutally that some of her internal organs were spilled out on the bathroom floor.
Fortunately, their 12-year-old brother Daniel was able to call 911. He told the operator "my brother’s attacking my family," and reportedly said to someone, "Please don't murder me." A deeper male voice said, "Hello," and the operator heard screaming and crying before the line went dead. Despite how quickly and mercilessly the boys killed, there were two survivors. The first family member the boys attacked, Crystal Bever, lived. Although her brothers cut her throat, she managed to run outside where she passed out on the front lawn. Her brothers assumed she was dead and dragged her back inside so they could dismember her along with the rest of the family. She recalled hearing her younger siblings screaming inside the house. She played dead until she heard an officer break down the front door, and they then carried her to safety. She quickly identified her brothers as the perpetrators.
The other survivor was a two-year-old girl, their youngest sister. According to the boys, they intended to cut off the toddler's head with an ax, but they didn't have time before they had to flee. She was completely unharmed, and she stayed safe in a room upstairs. Once captured by law enforcement, the boys admitted they intended to dismember their family and put them in the attic. They would then grab their ammo and weapons and steal the family car. They planned to go on a mass shooting spree in as many locations as possible.
Robert and Michael planned to go to different cities outside of Oklahoma and kill people in each one. Their goal was to kill as many as 100 people. When police searched the Bever home after arresting the brothers, they discovered cameras Robert and Michael set up to record their murders. An affidavit confirmed the thumb drive had some form of live footage on it but was not specific about what it contained. Robert admitted that his plan was to create two videos: one would show the gory aftermath of the slaying, including the bodies, and the other would show only the crime scene without the bodies. He planned to post the latter online. Although the attack happened seemingly without warning, it was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Robert, 18 at the time of the murders, planned to kill his family since he was only 13 years old. It wasn't until years later that he discovered his younger brother, Michael, also had a preoccupation with murder. The pair openly talked about admiring mass murderers and about killing their family. Their sister Crystal, who survived the attack, said she reported the behavior to the siblings' mother, but she wrote it off as "boys being boys."