True Crime with Rachel Shannon
SOLVED? The Tragic Murder of Amanda Blackburn // WAS IT REALLY HER HUSBAND?!
Fri, 21 Mar 2025
When Amanda Blackburn was brutally murdered in her own home, suspicion quickly turned toward those closest to her—including her husband. But as investigators dug deeper, the case took unexpected turns. Was this a random home invasion, or was there something more sinister at play? In this video, we break down the shocking details, the investigation, and whether the real truth has been uncovered. Watch till the end and let us know what you think—was justice truly served? Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications for more true crime cases.
Chapter 1: What happened to Amanda Blackburn?
So the case that I have for you all today is one that is technically solved but a lot of people think that there is more to this story than what we see at the surface. There is a lot to go over so I'm really looking forward to hearing what everybody's thoughts are on this case after hearing the details but with that being said let's just jump right into it.
Today we are going to be discussing the tragic murder of Amanda Blackburn. Amanda Blackburn was born on July 31st, 1987 in Muskegon, Michigan. She started schooling in Indianapolis, Indiana before she moved to Akur, Indiana in 1995 with her family.
She went on to graduate from Alkurt Christian Academy in 2006, then went on to Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, Florida, graduating with her associate's degree in 2008. Then Amanda went on to meet a man named Davey Blackburn. She actually met him on a blind date that was set up by a mutual friend where they went to go see a Christian band called Hawk Nelson.
And by August 1st, 2008, the couple got married. Before getting married, the two of them had been dating long distance for a few years, and they were really only able to spend time together for bouts of about three weeks at a time. They went to different colleges at the time, so they really only got to see one another on school breaks.
So, when they got married, of course they had some things that they needed to work through, such as how to communicate with one another. They did go to counseling for this, and things seemed to be going really great for them. Amanda was described as being an amazing person with a huge heart. She was someone who brought joy to her family. Her mother described that Amanda was a gift from day one.
She said that Amanda never gave her any trouble growing up or when she was an adult. Those who knew Davey said that Amanda was the piece of Davey that had been missing. She literally completed him. Amanda and Davey were absolutely devoted to their faith. After getting married, Devi and Amanda lived in South Carolina, where Devi worked as an assistant pastor at New Spring Church.
By 2012, they went on to move back to Indianapolis, where they opened the Resonant Church, which was a church tailored to young people. They talked a lot of relationship advice, conflict resolution, and things like that. Soon after getting married, the couple went on to have their first son, Weston. Amanda was described as being a doting, dedicated mother.
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Chapter 2: What were the details of Amanda's murder?
She was nurturing, loving, and she loved cuddling with her baby boy. Soon after that, when Weston was about nine months old, Amanda became pregnant with their second child. However, everything in their lives changed in the worst possible way on November 10th, 2015. According to Davey, he left the home that he shared with his wife at around 6 a.m.
that morning to go work out at the LA Fitness while Amanda stayed home and asleep. He said that when he left, he left the front door unlocked as he normally did when he left for the gym in the morning. He did his workout and then left the gym about an hour later at 7.10 a.m., As he was driving home, he said that he was talking on the phone with a friend.
When he got home at around 7.30 a.m., he was still on the phone with this friend. He sat in the driveway, so in his car in the driveway, talking on the phone, saying that he didn't want to go inside and wake Amanda and Weston up by talking, so he stayed in the car and talked on the phone. He finally entered his home at around 8.20 a.m. after the conversation was over.
However, when he walked through the front door, he saw that 28-year-old Amanda was laying face down on the living room floor. She was partially nude with her underwear next to her and her shirt pulled up over her head as if someone was trying to take it off of her. and she was lying in a pool of blood.
Of course, he immediately worried about the well-being of their 15-month-old son, Weston, so he ran upstairs to his room, and thankfully, Davey found Weston still in his crib, completely unharmed. Immediately, he called 911 to report that his wife had been harmed. When police arrived to the scene, Amanda was still alive, but barely.
They tried their resuscitation efforts and they took her to the hospital. Also, upon arriving to the scene, police noticed that Amanda's credit cards and wallet were on the floor. Her purse was on the kitchen counter, but they also found a Swisher Sweet cigar package on the counter as well.
David said that this was not something that should have been in the house because neither of them smoked and especially not cigars. They also noticed that a decorative lamp had also been knocked over in the living room right next to where Amanda was found. Again, like I said, Amanda was still alive when she was found. She was 12 weeks pregnant at this time.
And even though there was never an official test done, Davey said that they were so sure that the baby would have been a girl. They said that they were going to name her Everett or Evie for short. Either way, Amanda was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support to hopefully save the life of Amanda and her unborn baby.
However, that next day on November 11th, she was taken off life support and she died and so did her unborn child. When Davey initially called 911, he reported that she had a head wound because he actually thought that she had been struck in the head with something. However, upon autopsy examination, it was found that Amanda had been shot three times.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation unfold?
someone had used her card to withdraw money from an ATM. When investigators looked through her credit and debit cards in her wallet, they found that the Chase card was missing, indicating that it had been stolen. This raised a red flag for investigators because, as it turned out that morning, two other people in the same area that Amanda and Davey had lived in
called 911 to report burglaries that same morning. So, by 5.23 a.m. on November 10th, a neighbor called 911 to report a burglary at her apartment. In this report, the neighbor stated that she woke up at 4.30 a.m. to realize that her cell phone was missing from her bedroom.
When she got up, she saw that the sliding glass door to her apartment was open and all of the plants in her apartment were knocked over. She noticed that her Apple MacBook laptop was missing and so were her purse and her keys. Then she noticed that her car was missing from the apartment parking lot.
When police responded to the call, they looked at the surveillance camera from the apartment's interior of the building, which took still shots of someone entering the residence. They saw shots of three people entering the apartment.
Two of them were definitely seen entering while they think the third one may have stood outside of the door of the apartment or he may have entered but they just didn't see it on the still shot. They also found that the robbers made entry into the apartment by cutting the screen on the porch and then opening the sliding glass door.
Then, the robbers disabled the camera during the actual robbery itself. Then, by 8.17am on November 10th, another neighbor, now one who lived on the same street as Amanda and Davey, they called 911 to also report a burglary. This neighbor also had security camera footage, but the camera had been disabled at 5.36am.
This robber also made entry by cutting the screen on the porch and then somehow unlocking the deadbolt on the sliding glass door. And for this robbery, these robbers went ham. They took four televisions, a MacBook Pro, a Tiffany Pearl necklace, a pink woman's sweatshirt, a universal AT&T remote controller, a bag of oranges, and bedsheets. Don't know why they took all of those things.
But investigators also noted that it appeared that the robbers drank beer and wine in the house and left those empty bottles in the home. Then they exited the house through the front door. Now, I believe the woman in this situation was not home at the time of the robbery because it was said that when she returned home, she noticed that the front door was unlocked.
So I think that's why they were able to sort of spend so much time in the apartment and chill and drink beer and steal all of those things. This is a little bit off topic, but it always just gets me when robbers will just stay in one place for a long time to chill.
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Chapter 4: Who were the suspects in Amanda's case?
and then my wallet had clearly been opened and rifled through but again all my gift cards were pretty much empty so anything that they took they really didn't get much off of me but the thing that got me was that i found orange cracker crumbs all over my seat
so i always kept those orange peanut butter crackers in my car because i always wanted a snack i still do them the same way i always could use a snack but those were gone and the wrapper was still there and there were crumbs everywhere so the same dude who stole my mom's car also went in my car laid down went through my wallet and then ate my crackers while chilling in the car
Then they proceeded to take my mom's car. It's just a crazy story and it always just gets me when thieves and robbers just like, I'm gonna rob this place, but I'm also gonna chill. I'm gonna take my time, I'm gonna eat some snacks, I'm gonna drink some beer, drink some wine, and then I'll leave. It's just the audacity. But anyways, let's get back to the case.
After these 911 calls were made, the next emergency call was to report that Amanda had been seriously injured and was laying on the living room floor. So police went around the neighborhood to ask the different residents if they had seen any suspicious behavior that day, and they did find a few who had. So one neighbor reported that just before 7 a.m.
that morning, they saw a male dressed in all black with a hoodie over his head walking in front of her house.
another witness described saying the same thing seeing him walking down the street talking loudly on the phone but this witness said that he had a t-shirt pulled up over his face then by 7 10 a.m another witness saw a late model chrysler sebring drive up and stop next to the man the man then got into the car in the front passenger seat before the car backed into a driveway and drove away
This car and the man getting in were captured on this neighbor's surveillance camera. Then another witness came forward to the police to tell them that she was laying in bed that morning and sometime between 6.40 and 6.45 a.m. she heard what sounded like two shots and then a woman screaming.
Then the police did go to the local LA Fitness to confirm whether or not Davey was there when he said he was and they did confirm that his alibi checked out. By November 11th, police were alerted to reports of finding the stolen Chrysler Sebring. I actually don't remember if I mentioned it earlier, but the first neighbor who woke up and saw that her car was missing, it was this car.
It was the Chrysler Sebring. I believe that it was located on the side of the road nearby where the car was stolen from, about pretty close to where Amanda's home was. Police took the car and with the owner's permission, they went ahead and searched it.
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Chapter 5: What evidence led to the conviction?
Of course, the cell phone data pings all show where these men were at the times of the robberies and the murder, but the CI was able to tell investigators pretty much exactly how this whole thing went down and was able to say who at least claimed to have been the one who pulled the trigger.
So, Larry ended up being charged with 13 charges, including murder, burglary, criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon, and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury. Jalen faced 10 charges of murder, burglary, robbery resulting in serious bodily injury and auto theft. Deanna was also charged with burglary and theft and he was later charged with murder as well.
Then it came out that Larry was also allegedly involved with the shooting death of another man. The body of 27-year-old Rolando Gonzalez Hernandez was found next to his car at his apartment complex after he had been shot in the head. Witnesses told authorities that Larry admitted to them that he robbed and shot someone at the apartment complex where Rolando was later found.
He told the witnesses that he, quote, robbed and shot a Mexican and found $10 in his wallet. That took place on November 4th, a week before Amanda was murdered. Then he allegedly told another witness that he broke into the home of another woman and raped her at gunpoint. Now, with Amanda's murder, as we know, she was found half nude with her underwear next to her and her shirt pulled up.
However, according to investigators, they said that they couldn't find any conclusive evidence of her actually being raped or sexually assaulted, so they weren't able to charge him with anything relating to sexually assaulting Amanda. But after all of that, Jalen also faced charges for two murders now.
rape for the other woman who he admitted to, and the burglaries of the other homes on the morning of November 10th. The process of getting the plea deals, getting to the trial, all of that actually took quite a while. But after two years, two to three years, I believe, D'Anno and Jalen ended up taking plea deals in exchange for testifying against Larry at his bench trial.
And for that, the charges of murders were dropped for them. So Jalen was handed a sentence of 29 years in prison, while Deanna was sentenced to 30 years. Larry's first trial for Amanda's murder didn't take place until December of 2021.
During this trial, I guess his defense attorney successfully argued to not tell the jury about Amanda's unborn baby, which I really don't understand since a baby died because of his actions and initially he was charged for that death, but... I guess not. I guess it's not relevant. But either way, during that first trial, jurors actually found out that she was pregnant when she was killed.
So the judge ordered a mistrial, I guess because it would make the jury more sympathetic, which they should be. They should be because he took the life of a woman and a baby, but that's a whole nother conversation. The second trial took place in June of 2022.
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Chapter 6: Was there any controversy surrounding the case?
Now he has a podcast, book, website, and all different things with that name. So a lot of people question, how did he have the headspace? And in fact, why would he even have the headspace to start branding his wife's death literal hours after it happened? Then there's another blog post where he makes a statement about the morning that he found his wife murdered.
This post is dated April 14th, 2016, so just a few months after the murder. In part, it reads, quote, On November 10th, everything changed. It was a normal Tuesday morning. I woke up at around 4.30 a.m., read my Bible for a bit, grabbed my gym clothes, and headed out for a workout. When I returned home to shower, I walked into a reality I'd never wish on anyone.
My home had been broken into and Amanda was lying on the floor unconscious with three gunshot wounds, one to the head. I don't really know how anyone is expected to process a moment like that. I suppose I'll attempt to explain more one day on this blog, but for now, the only way I can describe it is everything seemed to be a slow motion blur as all my worst fears became reality.
I called 911 as soon as I could and the paramedics rushed Amanda to the hospital. The next 24 hours were a waiting game to see if the swelling in her brain would subside and give us any hope of her survival. Mid-morning on November 11th, the doctors informed me that there was no brain activity and that she would not recover.
I know it seems I'm writing all of this very matter-of-factly, as if it doesn't carry with it a slew of emotions. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'll spend future posts reflecting on those first 24 hours and the days thereafter.
All I can tell you now is from that moment, a countless number of people have wrapped their arms around Weston and me and have lovingly walked us through these past five months. You truly cannot go through a tragedy like this alone. A lot of people read that and feel that the way it's written sounds a bit narcissistic. The way it was written seems to be a little bit distant to some.
It seems like something someone would write if they were years and years and years away from the tragedy. but it is still a very fresh wound. The other thing people point to is that in his statement, he feels the need to explain why he went home after the gym. It's strange because there shouldn't be an explanation for why he came home. It's his home and he was done working out, so he came home.
Some people think that this is sort of a way to anticipate a question as to why he was home, so he had a reason rather than just trying to say that he came home.
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Chapter 7: What theories exist about Davey's involvement?
if he had some sort of involvement that would be his reason for coming home and wanting to conveniently find her instead he came up with the story that he needed to be home for the shower that he wasn't just coming home because he wanted to that there was a reason that he was in that place at that time was because he needed to shower whereas normally if you were totally innocent and you just happened to find your significant other dead on the floor
that you wouldn't really need an explanation for why you came home, just that you were there. Some also point out how he refers to his home as my home rather than our home. There is a distancing between himself and Amanda in that moment. With such a close relationship as marriage, there's a lot of us and we and basically everything. But to him, this is his home.
So, does that show that he had some sort of negative feelings towards Amanda when he found her? Does that mean that he felt that it was his home and that she was just living in it? Or is it just like an innocent sort of statement that he made? Then he also mentions nothing about his unborn child in this post.
He only talks about his concern for Amanda, but he does not show any concern for hoping that his unborn child will survive. A lot of people will criticize that, but out of everything that I am talking about with this post in specific, that is something that really stuck out to me. He didn't say, you know, the next 24 hours we're waiting to see if, you know, Amanda and our baby would survive.
It was just if Amanda would survive as if he didn't even pay any attention to the unborn child that was in her womb at the time. that does stand out a lot to me. Then some people point out the fact that he wrote, I called 911 as soon as I could. Some people argue that this is persuasive language, that he is trying to convince the reader that if there was a delay in him calling 911,
that it's something that he couldn't have prevented, that he called 911 as soon as he could. Some people think that it's not necessary to include that. They think that an innocent person would just mention that they called 911 without trying to persuade the reader that there may have been some justified delay.
When it comes to his involvement, we sort of picked apart the different things that could point towards that in terms of, you know, him possibly being narcissistic and making these strange statements. But there is a couple of other things. So, next. Only about a year after the murder, Davey decided to write a book about the situation called...
Nothing is wasted, the thing that he branded almost immediately after her death. He said that he is writing about his pain through the tragedy and the trials and the entire process. He said that he planned to release the book after the two-year anniversary date of Amanda's death.
some people just find it very suspicious that immediately after her death and literally within a year that he's already trying to profit so greatly off of his wife's murder then people question his story from that morning so those who knew the family say that on a normal day Davey actually always left for the gym at 5 30 a.m he said himself that morning that he woke up at 4 30 but on this day he didn't leave for the gym until six
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Chapter 8: What is the conclusion of Amanda's case?
The other aspect of this case is that the family actually has a dog. They have a boxer. So a boxer, the dog breed. The family said that the driveway to the house is actually pretty short. So you would have been able to hear a dog barking from where he was in his car.
If Amanda was murdered by a man who broke into their home, their dog would have been barking like crazy, just like any other dog would. Even if the intruder locked the dog in another room or something like that, it would still be barking its head off. But there's never any mention of the dog anywhere. Even the men that broke into the house, as far as I know, never mentioned the dog being inside.
So was the dog let out before he left for the gym? Conveniently so that, you know, the dog wouldn't alert Amanda. Why would the intruders choose a house with a dog anyways? When they broke in, you'd think that the dog would start barking and that they might either leave or maybe they did put the dog outside.
But in my opinion, a lot of people would be deterred from a dog being inside, especially because that would alert the owner right away. Why risk going into a house with a large dog that's barking at you just to steal some things when you could easily just leave and go to a different house that doesn't have a dog?
Then, like I just said, the other weird thing is that if he heard the dog barking, which according to those who knew the house and the layout, he should have heard the dog barking. How can he claim that he didn't hear it or did he just ignore the dog barking for that long while he was on the phone? Both of those situations look pretty bad for him and I don't really know how he could explain that.
Then at the trial, reporters who were live tweeting the trial stated that Jalen was changing his story. Like I said, he was testifying at the trial against Larry about him being the murderer. So when he was testifying, first he said that Larry killed Amanda to stop her from lunging at him.
But in another story, he said that Larry was trying to rape her and she was fighting him off, so he murdered her. The family thinks it's strange as well that if there was such a violent altercation with him trying to rape her, that there was no DNA on her body that matched Larry. they think that the reason for the changing stories might be because they're hiding something.
If they were hired to kill her, then obviously they would have to come up with some other reason for killing her. Some people even think that all of these other burglaries were sort of set up to make it look like this was just a random attack, when in reality, the entire thing was planned so that, you know, Devi would never be suspected. That, you know, oh, these people...
burglarized all of these other houses and then ended with amanda and murdered her so that's clearly how this entire thing happened but some people questioned why amanda was the only one harmed out of all of these different people that they burglarized again he is suspected of killing that other man and raping the other woman but those are not confirmed and he was never actually convicted for those charges so as far as we know amanda is the only person that he harmed while robbing them so why her
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