In 2017, Brooke Preston was 21 years old when Randy Herman, Jr., her roommate, fatally stabbed her. Herman said he was sleepwalking when he stabbed Brooke when he was questioned.
For a while, Brooke and Randy, who were childhood friends, lived together in a Florida house. Brooke went back to the Florida house to gather her stuff after moving out to live in Buffalo, New York, with her boyfriend.
It was the evening of March 25, 2017, when Randy attacked and brutally stabbed Brooke 25 times. Afterward, he hid Brooke’s lifeless body under a blanket.
“I Was Sleepwalking”
Herman admitted to stabbing Brooke when he phoned the police to report the incident. Later on, he revised his account, saying he had no memory of the incident and had stabbed Brooke while sleepwalking.
Brooke moved to Florida with her sister to attend the State College of Florida. She was originally from Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. The house already belonged to another friend. Around the same time, Herman Jr. relocated to West Palm Beach, and the friends shared a room. For several months, everything with the living arrangement went smoothly.
Following her Associate’s degree graduation, Brooke was hired in Buffalo. The day after her m*urder, she was going to move to New York with her boyfriend.
Brooke had discussed Herman’s strange behavior that day with her sister and the other roommate the night before she was mur*dered. She was so uncomfortable that she left the house. Herman k*illed her the next evening when she came back.
On the evening of the m*urder, Herman drove to a park close to the house at around nine o’clock and dialed 911. There has been a mu*rder, he sobbed as he told the operator, admitting to k(illing Brooke. Send the cops, please. I did it. I apologize.
A Bloody Scene
Under the blanket, police discovered Brooke’s body and a blood-covered Herman. She sustained multiple knife wounds to her back, throat, and abdomen in addition to protective wounds to her left hand. Herman faced a mur*der charge.
Herman informed the detectives that he had given Brooke a shirt, bid her farewell, and gone back to bed. Until he found himself standing over Brooke’s body, knife in hand, he said he had no memory of k*illing her. Since Brooke was the only person inside the house, he claimed to have called 911 and confessed to k*illing the man.
Herman’s attorneys argued that their client was not conscious of his actions when he stabbed Brooke because he was sleepwalking. They claimed that Herman’s insanity absolved him of guilt.
Experts in forensics testified that the mur*der had been motivated by sexual desire, referencing claims from Brooke’s friends that Herman had made her feel uneasy the night before by letting her jump out of a closet while nude.
Apart from this claim, authorities were at a loss for words regarding the homicide. Prior to this incident, there had never been any problems between the friends, and Herman had no history of violence.
Dr. Wade C. Myers, a forensic psychiatrist, stated in court that Herman was unable to sleepwalk through such a violent act. The prosecution claimed that Herman k*illed Brooke with knowledge and purpose.
Guilty Verdict
In the end, jurors did not buy the sleepwalking story. They found Herman guilty of first-degree m*urder in May 2019. He is serving life in prison at Hardee Correctional Facility in Bowling Green, Florida.
