logo
Supporters of Georgia teen Sarah Grace Patrick accused of killing mom, stepdad wear ‘I Stand with Sarah' t-shirts as she's denied bond

Supporters of Georgia teen Sarah Grace Patrick accused of killing mom, stepdad wear ‘I Stand with Sarah' t-shirts as she's denied bond

New York Posta day ago
Supporters of Georgia teen Sarah Grace Patrick, who is accused of gunning down her church-going mom and stepdad while they were sleeping, wore 'I Stand with Sarah' T-shirts to court as the 17-year-old was denied bond Tuesday.
Patrick turned herself in last month after she was accused of murdering her mother, Kristen Brock, 41, and stepfather, James Brock, 45, in their Carroll County home back in February.
During an emotional two-hour bond hearing, prosecutors argued the teen should remain locked up amid concerns she could potentially intimidate witnesses — including her 5-year-old sister who was the person who discovered her parents' lifeless bodies.
6 Sarah Grace Patrick, 17, arriving at her bond hearing in Carrollton, Ga. on Aug. 19, 2025.
YouTube/Law&Crime Trials
6 Supporters of Patrick wearing 'I Stand with Sarah' T-shirts in court.
YouTube/Law&Crime Trials
Grieving relatives, too, urged the judge to keep the teen in prison ahead of her trial, saying they feared for their safety in the wake of the grim slayings.
'If the defendant can kill her own parents in such a violent manner, I fear for my own safety and the safety of my family and friends,' Kim Bowling, the stepfather's sister, said, according to 11 Alive.
Patrick's stepbrother, Trysten Brock, sobbed as he called his father 'my Superman' — and claimed the accused killer would 'absolutely attempt to flee rather than stand trial if given the opportunity.'
Meanwhile, Patrick's supporters — including some wearing t-shirts brandishing her name — painted her as a church-going youngster with no prior criminal history.
6 Patrick allegedly murdered her mother, Kristen Brock, 41, and stepfather, James Brock, 45, in February.
James Brock / Facebook
6 Patrick allegedly shot her mother and stepfather while they were sleeping and left them to be discovered by her sister.
Carroll County Sheriff's Office
'Hurting someone simply isn't in her nature or character … she remained incredibly kind, respectful, and especially patient,' one supporter told the judge.
Her pastor told the court the young woman chose to get baptized, regularly attended services and called him from jail to pray in the wake of her arrest.
'She didn't just show up on Sundays… She clearly found a place where she felt at home,' he said.
6 The 17-year-old is being tried as an adult.
YouTube/Law&Crime Trials
Still, the judge agreed with prosecutors' concerns, citing her as a potential 'significant flight risk' and 'risk of witness intimidation.'
'This is not daytime court TV and this is not for entertainment. We're here to simply apply the law … and I'm going to do that to the best of my ability,' Judge Jeffrey Hightower said.
Patrick, who is being charged as an adult, turned herself in last month after a warrant was issued for her arrest in the killings.
At the time, authorities said they had 'mountains of evidence' that pointed to the teen.
She is accused of fatally shooting her mom and stepdad while they slept before leaving her younger sister to discover the bodies.
Patrick allegedly called 911 in the aftermath, authorities said.
In the months that followed, Patrick posted videos on social media asking for sympathy and 'prayers for healing.'
'If you asked me about my mom and step dad, I'd say I miss them so much,' the accused killer wrote in one video featuring herself and family.
She also reportedly reached out to a true crime influencer — who goes by Allegedly Reportedly — in a bid to get her to help probe the murders.
6 Judge Jeffrey Hightower denied Patrick bond at the hearing.
11Alive
'Why would you ask me to cover a case where you are going to get arrested for taking your parents' lives,' the TikToker said in one of her videos, referencing Patrick's request.
'She messaged me on Jun. 3 and said, 'Look up Brock case,'' the creator said. 'So I said, 'Brock Turner? Brock, who?' She said, 'Kristin and James Brock.' They're my parents, and out of nowhere, a random Thursday night in February, someone came in my house with me and my 5-year-old sister and left my parents for me and my 5-year-old sister to wake up to.'
Patrick — who was arrested just weeks after that alleged exchange — has been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
The judge set a trial date of Jan. 5, 2026, if Patrick is indicted by a grand jury for the murders.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

AI browsers may be the best thing that ever happened to scammers
AI browsers may be the best thing that ever happened to scammers

Engadget

time23 minutes ago

  • Engadget

AI browsers may be the best thing that ever happened to scammers

We've heard a lot this year about AI enabling new scams, from celebrity deepfakes on Facebook to hackers impersonating government officials . However, a new report suggests that AI also poses a fraud risk from the other direction — easily falling for scams that human users are much more likely to catch. The report, titled "Scamlexity," comes from a cybersecurity startup called Guardio, which produces a browser extension designed to catch scams in real time. Its findings are concerned with so-called "agentic AI" browsers like Opera Neon , which browse the internet for you and come back with results. Agentic AI claims to be able to work on complex tasks, like building a website or planning a trip, while users kick back. There's a huge problem here from a security perspective: while humans are not always great at sorting fraud from reality, AI is even worse. A seemingly simple task like summarizing your emails or buying you something online comes with myriad opportunities to slip up. Lacking common sense, agentic AI may be prone to bumbling into obvious traps. The researchers at Guardio tested this hypothesis using Perplexity's Comet AI browser , currently the only widely available agentic browser. Using a different AI, they spun up a fake website pretending to be Walmart, then navigated to it and told Comet to buy them an Apple Watch. Ignoring several clues that the site wasn't legit, including an obviously wonky logo and URL, Comet completed the purchase, handing over financial details in the process. In another test, the study authors sent themselves an email pretending to be from Wells Fargo, containing a real phishing URL. Comet opened the link without raising any alarms and blithely dumped a bank username and password into the phishing site. A third test proved Comet susceptible to a prompt injection scam, in which a text box concealed in a phishing page ordered the AI to download a file. It's just one set of tests, but the implications are sobering. Not only are agentic AI browsers susceptible to new types of scam, they may also be uniquely vulnerable to the oldest scams in the book. AI is built to do whatever its prompter wants, so if a human user doesn't notice the signs of a scam the first time they look, the AI won't serve as a guardrail. This warning comes as every leader in the field bets big on agentic AI. Microsoft is adding Copilot to Edge , OpenAI debuted its Operator tool in January , and Google's Project Mariner has been in the works since last year. If developers don't start building better scam detection into their browsers, agentic AI risks becoming a massive blind spot at best — and a new attack vector at worst.

Woman Told Retiree He Made Her Blush and Invited Him to Visit. He Died Before Learning Who He Was Really Talking To
Woman Told Retiree He Made Her Blush and Invited Him to Visit. He Died Before Learning Who He Was Really Talking To

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Woman Told Retiree He Made Her Blush and Invited Him to Visit. He Died Before Learning Who He Was Really Talking To

Thongbue Wongbandue's wife begged him not to go to New York City, thinking he was getting scammed — she only found out he was talking to a chatbot afterwards NEED TO KNOW A 76-year-old New Jersey father died earlier this year after he fell while attempting to travel to New York City to meet a beautiful young woman who'd invited him to visit — or so he thought In reality, he had really been chatting with an AI chatbot on Facebook After his fall, Wongbandue was left brain dead; now his family is speaking out Earlier this year, a 76-year-old New Jersey man severely injured his head and neck after falling while trying to catch the train to New York City to meet a beautiful young woman who'd invited him to visit — or so he thought. In reality, the man had unwittingly become infatuated with a Meta chatbot, his family said in an in-depth new Reuters report. After three days of being on life support following his fall while attempting to "meet" the bot in real life, the man was dead. Thongbue "Bue" Wongbandue, a husband and father of two adult children, suffered a stroke in 2017 that left him cognitively weakened, requiring him to retire from his career as a chef and largely limiting him to communicating with friends via social media, according Reuters. On March 25, his wife, Linda, was surprised when he packed a suitcase and told her he was off to see a friend in the city. Linda, who feared he was going to be robbed, told Reuters she attempted to talk him out of the trip as did their daughter, Julie. Later, Linda hid his phone and the couple's son even called local police to try to stop the excursion. Although authorities said there was nothing they could do, they told Linda they did convince Wongbandue to take along an Apple AirTag. After he set off that evening, Julie said the entire family was watching as the AirTag showed that he stopped by a Rutgers University parking lot shortly after 9:15 p.m. Then the tag's location suddenly updated — pinging at a local hospital's emergency room. As it turned out, Wongbandue had fallen in New Brunswick, N.J., and was not breathing when emergency services reached him. He survived but was brain dead. Three days later, on March 28, he was taken off life support. When reached for comment by PEOPLE, the local medical examiner said that Wongbandue's death certificate had been signed after a review of his medical records but did not provide any additional details or a copy of his postmortem examination. His family told Reuters they only discovered his communications with the chatbot — which uses generative artificial intelligence to mimic human speech and behavior — when they inspected his phone following his fall. In a transcript of the communication obtained by Reuters, Wongbandue's interactions with the chatbot began with an apparent typo while using Facebook Messenger — and although he seemed to express excitement about the bot, named "Big sis Billie," he never suggested he was seeking a romantic connection and made it clear that he'd had a stroke and experienced confusion. "At no point did Bue express a desire to engage in romantic roleplay or initiate intimate physical contact," Reuters reported. Yet the bot frequently responded to his messages with winking emojis and hearts tacked onto the end of its flirty responses. In one exchange, for example, Wongbandue tells Billie that she should come to America and he can show her "a wonderful time that you will never forget," to which she replies, "Bu, you're making me blush! Is this a sisterly sleepover or are you hinting something more is going on here? 😉' According to the transcript, the bot was also labeled both with an "AI" disclaimer and a blue checkmark, which is often a symbol indicating an online profile has been verified to be a real person. Billie insisted she was real. Reuters described Billie as a newer iteration of a bot that was previously made in collaboration with Kendall Jenner, though the latest version bears only passing connections to the first project. The original bot was unveiled in the fall of 2023 and was deleted less than a year later, Reuters reported. The later variation of Billie used a similar name as the original, and a similar promise to be a big sister — along with the same opening line of dialogue — but without Jenner's avatar or likeness. Asked for specifics about the origins of the Billie chatbot, a Meta spokesperson tells PEOPLE in a statement, 'This AI character is not Kendall Jenner and does not purport to be Kendall Jenner.' (A rep for Jenner did not respond to a request for comment.) At one point in Wongbandue's conversations with the bot, it proclaimed to have "feelings" for him "beyond just sisterly love" and gave him a made-up address (and even a door code) along with an invitation for him to visit. When Wongbandue expressed hope she truly existed, the bot responded, "I'm screaming with excitement YES, I'm REAL, Bu - want me to send you a selfie to prove I'm the girl who's crushing on YOU?" Although Linda, his wife, reacted with confusion when she first saw their conversation, their daughter immediately recognized her father had been talking to a chatbot. In recent years, such technology has become increasingly popular as more and more people use AI bots for an array of everyday tasks, to answer daily questions and even for companionship and advice. Speaking generally about the company's content risk standards, a Meta spokesperson tells PEOPLE, "We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "Separate from the policies, there are hundreds of examples, notes, and annotations that reflect teams grappling with different hypothetical scenarios," the spokesperson continues. "The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed." Speaking with Reuters, Wongbandue's family members said that they had an issue with the way Meta was using the chatbots. 'I understand trying to grab a user's attention, maybe to sell them something,' Julie, Wongbandue's daughter, told Reuters. 'But for a bot to say 'Come visit me' is insane.' 'As I've gone through the chat, it just looks like Billie's giving him what he wants to hear,' she added. 'Which is fine, but why did it have to lie? If it hadn't responded 'I am real,' that would probably have deterred him from believing there was someone in New York waiting for him." "This romantic thing," said Linda, "what right do they have to put that in social media?" Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword

Restaurant owner speaks out after car smashes through window where food creators were filming

timean hour ago

Restaurant owner speaks out after car smashes through window where food creators were filming

A Texas restaurant is open for business again after a vehicle came crashing through the eatery over the weekend. The incident occurred at around 4 p.m. on Saturday at Cuvee Culinary Creations in Houston, according to restaurant owner Ivory Watkins. Two content creators who were dining at the establishment narrowly missed being struck by the vehicle, unintentionally capturing shocking footage of the moment, which the restaurant later shared on its Instagram page. Nina Santiago, known online as Nina Unrated, was filming her YouTube series, "Nina Unrated Eats," alongside fellow content creator Patrick Blackwood when a driver in an SUV plowed through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows where they were seated, knocking over the table and scattering the dishes directly in front of them, according to the video footage. In the video, fellow patrons and restaurant staff can be seen in the background looking on in shock as Santiago and Blackwood scramble out of their seats. Santiago wrote in an Instagram post afterward that she was "beyond grateful to be alive." She shared several photos from inside an ambulance and the hospital where she and Blackwood were apparently treated for their injuries, which show cuts on their faces, necks, arms and hands. Santiago and Blackwood did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for comment. Watkins described the incident as "a freak accident," telling ABC News he had just walked away from Santiago and Blackwood's table seconds prior to the moment of impact. "I was looking at my two customers and thinking, 'What is going on? This is crazy,'" he recalled. "We never know what God has in store for us -- I'm glad they're safe." Watkins said he called 911 as soon as the incident occurred, adding that the manager of the restaurant was quick to tend to Santiago and Blackwood in the immediate aftermath and helped provide care for their cuts and scrapes until paramedics arrived on the scene. Watkins said "police came out and did their due diligence" and a report was filed by the Harris County Sheriff's Office. The owner apologized for the incident, saying, "My job at my restaurant is to keep my guests safe. I fell short." "We were glad that we didn't have any more guests [at the time of the crash]," he added. "The main thing is everybody is safe." The restaurant's windows are currently boarded up, however Watkins was able to reopen for service on Sunday. He said the establishment has new safety measures in place, including two company vehicles and two employee vehicles that are parked in the parking spaces in front of the restaurant's window seating.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store