Hulu’s newest true crime documentary, Dead Asleep, is about Randy Herman Jr.’s gruesome stabbing of a 21-year-old West Palm Beach girl. Its unsolved nature makes it fascinating. A murder confession was made to 911 workers in March 2017. Randy was Brooke’s childhood buddy and had no reason to murder her. He said he stabbed her while sleepwalking. Hulu will stream Dead Asleep on December 16, 2021. Skye Borgman directs, and Sky Crime produces Dead Asleep. Randy’s family, attorneys, journalists, forensics, and other experts discuss the case in the documentary.
Before watching ‘Dead Asleep,’ learn about Randy Herman Jr.
If you want to know more about the sleepwalking murder case of Randy Herman Jr. before seeing Dead Asleep, here’s a tiny bit of history.
What’s Randy Herman Jr.’s history?
Laceyville is Randy Herman Jr.’s hometown. He studied criminal justice while working as a corrections officer. He began drinking and doing drugs recreationally in college. He was arrested for drunk driving days later. He quit school and drank at home. His second DUI happened in 2014. He discovered his father had killed his live-in lover and committed suicide in Alabama while in prison. After being freed from prison, Randy and his childhood friend Brooke Preston moved to Florida.
How did he kill Brooke Preston?
Brooke and Jordan spent six months with Randy Herman Jr. in Florida. After four months, he quit work and drank his father’s fortune. In 2016, Brooke moved to Buffalo with her four-year boyfriend. Randy returned to Florida in 2017 as a broke, depressed alcoholic. Randy drank 30 beers with Brooke despite his pledge to stop drinking. After drinking, he grew hostile, and Brooke contacted another friend to take her up. Randy brought a t-shirt to Brooke the following day. He recalls Brooke hugging him and departing. After she departed, he said he slept, but 20 minutes later, he was standing over her brutalized corpse with a hunting knife. His cuts proved Brooke’s self-defense.
What exactly was the “sleepwalking” excuse for?
Randy was charged with first-degree murder after calling 911 to confess to Brooke’s murder. The 911 call, Brooke’s blood on his socks and hands, and the skin under her fingernails were proof. Randy’s mother, Kathi, said he couldn’t have murdered anybody and proposed sleepwalking. She recalled Randy unlocking drawers and riding a bike in his sleep as a toddler. Andy’s defense team hired a forensic psychologist to confirm parasomnia. His defense counsel pled not guilty because of insanity, not because he was mentally insane, but because a flaw caused the gruesome slaughter. In May 2019, the jury rejected Randy’s sleepwalking claim and sentenced him to life.
What evidence convicted Randy Herman Jr.?
For Randy’s defense, forensic psychologist Dr. Charles Ewing testified that deep sleep that causes sleepwalking takes time. He said that alcohol and sleep deprivation might cause a deep slumber instantly. Herman said he talked to Preston minutes before her death but only remembered stabbing her. The documentary Dead Asleep suggests Randy’s recollection of being awake minutes before the murder was a dream or imagined. When asked why they convicted him, jurors cited this recollection. Randy couldn’t have fallen asleep minutes after chatting to Preston. Thus, the timeframe influenced the jury to convict Randy Herman Jr.
Where is Randy Herman Jr.?
Randy Herman Jr. is imprisoned at Hardee. He asked the 15th Judicial Circuit to overturn his first-degree murder conviction in November. He claimed in his motion that the counsel failed to investigate sleepwalking, which should have been defended as unconscious rather than insanity.
Randy is heartbroken about Brooke Preston’s death, but he feels it was accidental. Dead Asleep, a documentary on Hulu, tries to get to the bottom of whether or not Randy killed Brooke and, if he did, whether or not he should spend the rest of his life in jail.
