Thanks for joining us. We begin with a major update on a cold case that we’ve covered on True Crime News. The murder of Brian Herrera. In fact, it’s a story that I’ve traveled to Florida to investigate. Brian was gunned down while riding his bike to a friend’s house. And his parents have never given up trying to find out who killed him.
Now, there has finally been an arrest. And I spoke with Brian’s stepmom who gave me exclusive details on how the alleged monster was caught.
“The charges are first-degree murder and armed robbery with a firearm or deadly weapon.”
Adrien Grimes of Florida, also known as the alias Peanut and/or Nut, is the suspect named in the arrest warrant for the senseless killing of 16-year-old Brian Herrera.
Grimes is accused of murdering the teen while stealing his cell phone more than a decade ago.
“So, I will appoint the public defender’s office for you. Please do not discuss the facts of the case.”
This is the big break the family was praying for in their son’s cold case that sadly went nowhere for 12 years.
We first heard of Brian Herrera thanks to an email sent by his heartbroken stepmother, Annabelle.
“We are desperate and need help in solving this case,” she wrote. “Our family needs help bringing Brian the justice he deserves.”
“This is something completely devastating. It’s life-changing and it’s something you never get over.”
The murder happened just days before Christmas in broad daylight in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
The killer attacked Brian, who was riding his bike to a friend’s house to do homework. He never made it.
“He was shot. They told me they found him laying on the street. And I was like crazy. I didn’t know what to do to say. And that’s when I realized Brian was not with us anymore.”
For years, Brian’s family acted tirelessly as detectives, searching for answers.
“He was intercepted right here, running from this house. Most likely people tried to rob him.”
“You asked us to look into this story. What do you think we can do for you?”
“Well, I’m hoping that someone who saw what happened that day is willing to come forth and give information on what happened.”
But nothing came of it until now.
Sources say suspect Adrien Grimes was already in prison for a drug offense when a fellow inmate came forward with his attorney to share what he saw that day.
The inmate witness is identified only by their initials, Mr. WW.
As stated in the arrest warrant, Mr. WW saw the victim silently mouth the words, “I’m being robbed,” while simultaneously seeing the black male had a gun pointed at the victim. Mr. WW saw the victim attempt to get out of the black male’s grasp when Mr. WW heard a gunshot.
The witness says he left the scene because Grimes had a gun.
The judge in this case found enough probable cause and is holding Adrien Grimes behind bars.
“I’m going to hold you with no bond on count one, the murder charge, and count two, the armed robbery with a firearm charge.”
Grimes had an arraignment hearing, but he did not show up.
True Crime News reached out to the public defender’s office to see if they had a statement on behalf of Grimes. The statement was, “No comment.”
I recently had the chance to talk to Brian’s stepmom, Annabelle Herrera.
“Annabelle, I am without words finally that you have a break in this case.”
“Absolutely. Um, it’s very bittersweet. Um, it was a shock to us after 12 years finally someone came forward and gave the information that was needed for an arrest. Honestly, it just came out of heaven. Out of nowhere. Came out of heaven.”
“So, you were in court today, but the suspect decided he didn’t want to show up.”
“He just refused to come. He doesn’t want to face us. Coward.”
“Yeah. Is there something specific, Annabelle, that was the hardest to hear?”
“To hear the witness testimony saying that he encountered them, you know, them two together and that Brian whispered, ‘I’m being robbed,’ and how he then broke free and then that’s when he was shot. I mean that was really, really rough to hear knowing that he must have been so scared in those last moments and this guy just ended his life without a thought for nothing over a cheap cell phone because that’s all he took. Over a cheap cell phone. It’s horrible. Horrible.”
“Again, I’m so sorry. And there’s another development in your stepson’s case. The DA is asking for the death penalty.”
“They did. Um, but that’s another step. What they do is now it has to go before a committee and they see if it can be a death penalty case. It is something we want. The committee is the one who makes a decision if it follows within their guidelines.”
“This one is a really, really, really hard one. Good. For 12 years, you have been struggling and fighting to get answers and hold someone accountable for the murder of Brian. What advice can you share and give to other families who are suffering like you are?”
“To keep fighting. Keep fighting even though it seems, you know, time is going by and you’re losing that hope. Don’t lose that hope. Speak to the chief of police, talk to your detectives, whoever you have to speak to. We’ve even spoken to the mayor. I even wrote a letter to the president. So, you just do what you can. One day, you’ll pull some hard strings and something will happen.”
“We still don’t know exactly why this witness spoke out 12 years after, but we’re really grateful that he did.”
“And we’re grateful that you reached out to us and thank you for trusting us to tell your family’s tragic story and I am just so happy that there’s a break in this case.”
“Absolutely. We’re, like I said, it’s bittersweet, but we are happy that we’re finally on the road to justice.”
Johnny Carter and Larry Marowski were in the middle of a bitter divorce. And like many splits, there was a custody war over their 11-year-old daughter, Bethany.
That battle would turn to heartbreak when Bethany left for a weekend with her dad and her mother would never see her again.
A little girl from a broken family reluctantly packs her bags.
“She started getting real nervous.”
Her mom claims she’s nervous over her dad having custody for the weekend.
“What are you going to do if daddy doesn’t bring me home?”
And those fears were about to become real.
“And she said, ‘I’ll see you at 5:00, right, mama?’”
When 11-year-old Bethany Marowski disappears, forever haunting her distraught mother in Tennessee.
“She’s sweet and funny and has an attitude. She has a very good heart.”
It took nearly two decades before Bethany’s mother, Johnny, was even able to openly speak about her daughter, who vanished without a trace.
“After a while, you don’t remember what their laugh is like or what they smell like. I guess I miss her smile the most. She always had a big smile on her face.”
But memories Johnny says aren’t so wonderful of her ex-husband Larry Marcowski, Bethany’s father.
Johnny says the deception began when she got pregnant while they were dating.
“Well, he told me he was married, but he was separating from his wife. And the truth was he was still living with her. And on the weekends that I came, he was making her two kids walk down the street and spend the weekend with her sister. We even drove past this little boy and girl one time and they were waving and I waved at them and I said, ‘Oh, those kids are so cute.’ They were his kids. He never said a word.”
Despite that, they eventually married and Bethany was born. But Johnny claims Larry wasn’t always a doting father.
“Very controlling. Mhm. And very abusive. It started off as just kind of shoving and choking and slapping.”
At the time, Johnny filed a restraining order against Larry, which the court approved. And in divorce documents, the court referenced inappropriate marital conduct. Larry was never arrested or charged with physical abuse, but Johnny still claims she felt increasingly unsafe for both herself and Bethany.
“It was hard to leave, and not because I loved him. It was hard to leave because I was scared. I just couldn’t let Bethany go through that. So, I had to figure out a way to get out.”
And one morning after Larry went to work, Johnny seized her chance to escape.
“Walking out that door for the last time was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever did. I ran and got in the car and went to Bethany’s school. Soon as she saw me, she yelled across the parking lot, ‘Are we leaving Daddy?’ She had a big smile on her face.”
But with nowhere to live, Johnny and Bethany moved in with Johnny’s sister Lorie in Nashville.
“She seemed to be distracted except on the days when she had to talk to her dad. Things that he was saying an 11-year-old should have been having to hear or deal with.”
“He’d say, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, Bethany. You know, do you want to kill me?’”
After Johnny enrolled Bethany in a new school and kept the location secret, she claims Larry found out.
“Larry went into the back of the school, went into the room, grabbed Bethany and started dragging her out. He shoved the teacher out of the way. He was dragging Bethany down the hallway when some other teachers heard the screaming and hollering and jumped out and got Bethany away from him.”
This letter, allegedly written by Bethany’s teacher, states:
“He then took her by the arm and started quickly taking her from the room, pushing me aside.”
Johnny immediately requested a temporary restraining order against Larry. Although no contact was allowed between Bethany’s parents, Larry was awarded unsupervised visitation with Bethany on weekends.
“Bethany told me that according to Larry, when he picked her up Friday, he was going to take her to Gleason to where our house was and pick up a friend of hers and he was going to take them skating in Jackson.”
After the weekend of visitation, the plan included Larry dropping Bethany off with her aunt in Waverly at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.
“I talked to Bethany at 9:38 Sunday morning. And Bethany’s voice was shaken. And she was like, ‘Mama, daddy knows you have a boyfriend.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I could hear Larry in the background.”
“Tell her.”
“And you know, she’s hollering and stuff. And she said, ‘I will see you at 5:00.’”
Not an easy last conversation. Johnny remembers every detail because 5:00 would come and go forever.
Larry Marowski’s visitation privileges for the weekend were just about up. Because of a no-contact order with Bethany’s mom, he had agreed to drop off the 11-year-old with her aunt in Waverly at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, who would bring her back home.
But Bethany never made the 5:00 p.m. deadline.
When Aunt Lorie called Larry, he told her Bethany was missing.
When questioned by reporters and police, he claimed she went into the local Old Hickory Mall while he stayed behind in his car and fell asleep.
“We looked at all the security footage that they had. We found no one that saw Bethany Marcowski at the Old Hickory Mall. We were never able to corroborate what Larry said about Bethany being at the mall.”
Special Agent Kathy Ferguson from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began looking into the now decades-long cold case when she was a detective for the Jackson, Tennessee Police Department.
Investigators were stumped and no charges were brought against Larry Marcowski for Bethany’s disappearance.
“Until we find evidence to suggest otherwise, I’m going to believe that she’s alive somewhere.”
Could this woman hold the key? Police received a tip that led to this sketch of a woman reportedly seen with Bethany shortly after vanishing.
“It was a sketch of a, I think, a 40-some-year-old woman that tried to enroll her in a school.”
“It does look like a family member, a distant sister-in-law that I wasn’t real close with and only had met a few times. And whether that is her or not, I don’t know. It just looks familiar.”
The sketch is one clue citizen journalist Brandon Barnett investigated for his podcast Searching for Ghosts. He also interviewed a friend of Larry’s who claims Larry and Bethany were at his house in Little Rock the night before she disappeared.
“Larry wasn’t letting her out of his side. Looking back at it, it was kind of like he was afraid she was going to tell us something that he didn’t want us to know.”
But Larry did spark some eyebrow-raising with his own unsolicited comments.
According to Barnett:
“He said to me, ‘Well, why? I’m going to take my van down to the port of Mexico and leave it down there and you can have it. You just come get it. It’d be yours.’ And I said, ‘But the FBI would go right into Mexico and pick your butt up.’”
So, how did Larry explain everything to Special Agent Ferguson? She says he never has.
“In the 17 years I’ve worked this case, I have not spoken to Larry. He’s the only one that has that answer. He’s the only one and he’s not talking.”
But we wanted to hear Larry’s story and paid him a visit at his remote farmhouse in Tennessee looking for answers.
“They’ve got a podcast going saying that I’m a mean villain of a human being.”
Larry refutes accusations that he’s been uncooperative with the search for Bethany.
“I was going to go on the Montel Williams show. I was called right over to my brother’s house and TBI told me not to do it right after Bethany disappeared because he said it would jeopardize the case.”
And about his alleged plan to dump his van at the border:
“I’m a truck driver. I drove all 48 states, Canada. If I was going to go to Mexico, wouldn’t I not have left Little Rock and went to Mexico? And I dang sure wouldn’t have took my van down there and called my so-called buddy Harold to come and get the van. Nothing was ever said like that.”
“It’s a witch hunt and it’s a pack of lies is what they’re saying.”
Larry has never been arrested or charged with any crimes in connection with the disappearance of his daughter and maintains that he is as worried about his missing daughter as everyone else.
As for Larry’s theory about the woman in the police sketch:
“The woman looked like Johnny’s mother. If they don’t have her, then somebody took her. I don’t care how they smear me. All I care about is my daughter. I love my daughter with all my heart.”
No one has been charged in Bethany’s disappearance.
“Anybody could be a person of interest. We have no evidence to suggest that Johnny was involved in Bethany’s disappearance. With regard to Larry, there are investigative steps that we took early on in this investigation and continue to take to this day.”
“We’ve had hundreds of sightings, reported sightings of Bethany, and they were all vetted and none were her.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recently released this age progression photo of what Bethany might look like today.
She would be 35 years old if she’s still alive. Something her mother still desperately clings to with all her heart.
“It’s so hard for me to believe that it’s going to end like this. It’s not going to end like this. Bethany’s going to come home.”
