Zachary Davis bludgeoned his mother to death with a sledgehammer before torching the family home - hoping that his brother Josh would be killed in the blaze.
The then-15-year-old later claimed that his brother had been sexually assaulting him, and his mother’s decision to turn a blind eye to the abuse was his motive for his unspeakable crimes.
In reality, Zachary was suffering from psychotic delusions trigged by his untreated mental issues, and Josh later said that he had no idea that his brother had made these - totally untrue and unproven - accusations until his 2015 trial.
He called them "ridiculous" and told the court that until August 10th 2012, he believed that he had a normal, loving family - the night when Zachary killed their mum Melanie, and then tried to torch the family home in Henderson, Tennessee.
But false claims of rape were not the only shocking revelation Josh had to process.
Zachary sensationally denied killing his mum, and told the court that it was Josh and he had taken the blame.
Despite prosecutors pointing out that they had a written and oral confession from him, Zachary said: "I took the fall for my brother. I didn’t do it. He killed her with a sledgehammer. I didn’t kill her.”
There was zero proof of Zachary's claims that he had been assaulted by his older sibling, but he had written in his diary on the day of the murder that he had been raped when they moved to Tennessee.
The entry read:“I was raped by him that day, and I’ve been planning to kill him ever since.”
Following the murder, he wrote another which read: “I killed Melanie and left Josh alone to suffer. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel remorse. My only true regret was that I didn’t give her a faster death. I didn’t want her to suffer.”
Little is known about where Zachary Davis’ brother Josh is now.
