“It was like making a deal with the devil” 

At 3:30 am on February 21st 2008, Melissa Oxley frantically calls 911 from her bedroom. She’s just woken up next to the dead body of her husband, Ben, who’s been murdered with a shotgun in his sleep. She hides with her 6-year-old stepdaughter, Alyssa, pleading with dispatchers to hurry, since she can hear footsteps downstairs, but when police arrive, there’s no intruder found. As all clues point to Melissa, Ben’s daughter, 6-year-old Alyssa, breaks her silence: she was the only one awake in the house, and what she saw that night will take the investigation in a whole different direction.

Directing, writing & editing by Matthew Rice

Research by Tianyi Zhang

Produced by Alexandra Salois & Salim Sader

Voiceover by William Akana

Sources:

Documentary:

Dateline NBC - While They Were Sleeping 2019

Discovery Plus - Does murder sleep - S01E01 Deadly awakening

Oxygen - Killer Motive: S2E7 Waking nightmare

Apple TV - In Plain Sight : Family Nightmare

Interrogation Footage:

Law & Crime Network - She Woke Up Covered in Her Husband’s Blood