Tyler Hadley’s plan to kill his parents started with a joke. Dark banter with his friends. But the thought took root in the Florida teenager’s head and he just couldn’t shake it.
The troubled 17-year-old spent months thinking about his murderous plan. Then on July 16, 2011, he carried it out.
Hadley bludgeoned his parents Blake Hadley, 54, and Mary-Jo Hadley, 47, to death with a large claw hammer at their Port St. Lucie home. He was still covered in their blood when he began texting and calling his friends, telling them his parents were out of town, inviting them to come over for what turned into a raging house party.
While more than 60 people crammed into Hadley’s house for a night of drinking, smoking and partying, the bodies of his dead parents had been dragged into a closed-off bedroom. Three years later, Hadley was convicted of the murders and is spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Now, more than a decade after the slayings, Hadley is speaking out for the first time, revealing what it was like inside his head when he slaughtered his parents as a teenager. His interview will be featured on Court TV’s limited series, Interview with a Killer which airs on Sunday at 8 p.m.
In an exclusive clip of Sunday’s show provided to The Independent, Hadley tells investigative reporter David Scott that the idea to kill his parents started as dark humor while the teen and his friends were sitting around one night drinking beer and smoking weed.
“I would sit there and think about it,” he said. “And I think I latched onto it and didn’t let go of it.”
Hadley got to a point where the plan was no longer a joke.
“The thoughts didn’t go away,” he said. “If I could just relieve myself of the thoughts, then it would be done.”
On July 16, 2011, Hadley walked up behind his mother, who was sitting at her desk, and clobbered her with an oversized hammer. When his father walked in on his son’s murderous rage, Hadley turned the hammer on him.
Hadley said in the Court TV interview that he recalls hearing his parents screaming and pleading for their lives, but he kept swinging.
When his father asked him “Why?” Hadley said he remembers responding to his father, “Why the f— not?”
Hadley said he felt “detached” and in “this sort of psychotic state or trance” during the ordeal and when he realized he was covered in their blood, he said he felt some sort of “finality” and that in the moment, “it was over.”
“I went into my bathroom, and I was covered in blood, everywhere,” he recalled. “There was blood all over the place. And I laughed at myself in the mirror and then went about my business of having a party.”
Hadley dragged the bodies of his parents into the main bedroom, covered them with a random assortment of household items and then spent about three hours cleaning before the party.
Some partygoers would later tell investigators that they allegedly noticed an odd smell. Others noticed blood in different areas of the house.
At some point during the party, Hadley allegedly admitted to one of his friends what he had done and ended up showing him the bodies. The friend called the police and Hadley was arrested the next morning.
Defense attorneys for the troubled teen presented evidence that suggested mental health issues, including a receipt for a mental health center and a bottle of an antidepressant medication, according to authorities.
But when Judge Robert R. Makemson handed down the two life sentences, he called the crime brutal, heinous and premeditated, accusing Hadley of manipulating experts and lying about hearing voices.
While in prison, Hadley has been known to call himself “Hammer Boy” and sign autographs for other inmates, according to prosecutors.
In Sunday’s interview, when asked by Scott why he murdered his parents, Hadley, who is now 30 years old, said he still doesn’t have an answer.
“I think it was to stop all of our pain,” he said. “And other than that, I can’t answer that with any clarity. I can’t. It’s still not clear to me. It was just that one thought – that kept on going.”
Teenage Rage, which is the fifth episode in the limited series, Interview with a Killer, will air at 8 p.m. on Sunday, November 17, on Court TV.
