"Seconds"

On May 29, 2023, 22-year-old Elijah McCulloch killed his grandfather, Allen, in the family home in Green Township, Ohio. When detectives asked how long the struggle lasted—how long Elijah held a belt around the old man's neck—he answered: "Seconds." They pressed him: if the struggling lasted only seconds, how long did he hold the belt tight? He couldn't say. But the man was dead.

This episode of True Crime Stories presents the raw police interrogation of Elijah, recorded shortly after his arrest. It is a quiet, unnerving document—a young man who has just killed a family member, sitting in an interview room with two detectives who are trying, patiently and methodically, to get him to answer one question: Why?

The Interrogation

The detectives, Mike and John from the Green Township Police Department, begin gently. They read Elijah his rights. He signs the form with an X. He is polite, soft-spoken, and cooperative. They ask about his life: he lives with his mother, Jean, and his grandfather in a house on Charlene Street. His father, Donald McCulloch, died recently—"fighting some demons," the detectives say. Elijah is not working. He was in tenth grade but never finished. He is working on getting his GED. He reads and writes okay. He drinks, smokes weed, and was supposed to be on medication but hasn't been taking it.