On 4th February 2007, Paris Bennett stabbed his sister, Ella, 17 times after convincing their babysitter to leave. He talked to a school friend for around 6 minutes on the phone before calling 911. Paris said he’d accidentally killed her sister because he thought she was a demon. 

Paris told the 911 operator that he was sure Ella had died; that CPR would be a waste of time. The killer pretended to perform CPR while on the line with the 911 dispatcher. 

Following his arrest, Paris insisted that he’d woken up and seen Ella laughing hysterically at him while covered in flames. Paris reiterated that he thought he was killing a demon when he stabbed Ella. Soon, however, the truth came out. 

Paris said he killed Ella to inflict suffering on his mother, Charity Lee

Charity Lee’s first brush with murder came when she was six: her mother was accused and acquitted of killing her father. She grew up in a wealthy home and prospered academically, but depression and drug addiction derailed her progress. Fed up, Charity’s mother kicked her out. 

Thankfully, Charity got clean. Months later, she gave birth to Paris Bennett, whom she raised as a single mother for eight years. In April 2002, Ella was born. Paris, who initially seemed unhappy about sharing his mother’s affection and attention with a sibling, warmed to Ella and established a close bond with her. 

It made Paris’ motive more challenging to decipher. Eventually, Paris confessed that he killed Ella to inflict as much suffering on Charity as possible. He said he’d thought about killing Charity before realizing he could cause her much more pain by murdering Ella. Paris told Piers Morgan:

“And one of the reasons why I chose to kill my sister and not someone else is because I knew that by doing that I could hurt my mother in the worst possible way, because I had always known, as a child, that the most devastating thing to my mother would be the loss of one of her children, and I found a way to take away both her children in one fell swoop.”

Paris said he harbored a ‘hot, flaming ball of wrath in the pit of my stomach and it was directed at my mother’. He added that he loved Ella, but his pain and dark desire for revenge superseded that affection. Charity said (per The New York Post]:

“He said the first reason he didn’t go ahead with it [killing Charity] was because it was a lot harder to kill someone than he thought. The second reason was the realization [that] if he’d killed me, I only would have suffered for five, 10, 15 minutes. But, if he left me alive [without Ella], I would suffer for the rest of my life.”

Charity alleges Paris sexually assaulted Ella and killed her to cover up the crime

Charity writes in her book, How Now, Butterfly?: A Memoir of Murder, Survival & Transformation, that Paris’ anger towards her stemmed from her relapse. “Paris was angry with me,” she writes. “He had every right to be. It was a really hard time for us both. So, did my relapse turn Paris into a murderer?”

Charity provides another possible motive via her book: Paris killed Ella to cover up a crime, specifically sexual assault. Authorities learned that Paris was watching violent porn and searching for snuff films in the hours before Ella’s murder. 

The police also found semen on Ella and her bed, Charity writes. She claims that Paris changed his story, claiming she killed Ella ‘so she wouldn’t tell on him’. “He sexually abused her that night, and he admitted the more violent he became, the more excited he became, ending in death for her and climax for him,” Charity journaled. 

In her book, Lee describes the stabbing in harrowing detail: “His stabs were slow and methodical, not frenzied, not an uncontrollable rage. Not all were deep. Most were shallow jabs and punctures. He told the detectives he stabbed her and pulled the knife out slowly; that it felt like stabbing a mattress or a marshmallow.”

Medical experts agree that Paris is a psychopath. He feels no embarrassment, shame, or guilt and hasn’t expressed remorse for killing her 4-year-old sister. An expert speaking to Piers Morgan said though Paris claims to have loved Ella, he has no idea what love is. 

“It’s like asking a color-blind person to describe the color red. They can’t do it,” Dr. Casey Jordan, a criminal behavior expert, said. “He can’t describe it because he can’t feel it.”

Charity claims she has forgiven Paris but is wary that he’ll hurt her or her son, Phoenix

Charity wrote in a journal entry dated 14th April 2007 that Paris nearly killed her in the visitor’s room in jail: “He slammed the table into me, pinning me against the concrete wall behind me. He cut off my air. I was in shock, paralyzed. I thought I was going to die there. Then he pulled the table back, I caught my breath, and he slammed it into me again.”

Despite his crimes and aggression, Charity forgave Paris; she visits him in prison regularly. “As a parent, I’ve always believed you give your children unconditional love,” Charity told Piers Morgan. “He obviously has a mental health issue – he’s a psychopath – but I don’t know how to stop loving my children.”

Charity writes in her book that she cannot give up on Paris as she loves him ‘with as much intensity as I have since the day I found out I was pregnant with him’. 

Nevertheless, Charity is wary that Paris will hurt her or her son, Phoenix, if he gets released from prison. “It’s possible to love him and forgive him and still be afraid of him,” Charity said. 

Paris told Piers Morgan that he’s incapable of committing such a crime again and would resort to harming himself if the dark thoughts threatened to manifest themselves outwardly. He explained:

“The only person I’m dangerous to is myself because the very moment I feel the chains slipping and the bars bending, the very moment I detect that dark part of myself coming back out again, I would remove myself from the equation.”

Phoenix knows about his brother and his crimes. He’s spoken to Paris on the phone but hasn’t met him in person. “I am setting an example for Phoenix,” Charity told The New York Post. “An example of how unconditional love and forgiveness look and behave.”

Charity acknowledges that she might one day have to choose between Phoenix and Paris. She said: “There will come a point in time where I will not be able to mother both of my children and when the time comes to make that choice, Phoenix will come first.”