Friends of Sophia Sullivan say she was enjoying a rebirth of sorts, cherishing her time working as a teacher in the far West Texas town of Marfa and beginning an active social life. They watched the energetic 31-year-old make new friends and inspire high school kids in her role as an early college coordinator.
Still, Sophi—as everyone close to her called her—always seemed to be looking over her shoulder at the past, which meant figuring out what to do about her failing marriage. Sophi told friends that her husband, Danny Sullivan, was controlling and manipulative. He demanded access to her cellphone and questioned her whereabouts, her friends say, and became jealous of anyone spending time with her and their 7-year-old son. They all shared a modest home in Fort Davis, just 21 miles north of Sophi’s job in Marfa. But Danny, then 30, worked as an electrician in Odessa. To avoid a two-and-a-half-hour commute each way, he stayed in a trailer home on weekdays and returned to his family on weekends.
Sophi soon realized she needed a permanent break from Danny. “She talked about being at a place where she was personally ready to move forward with saving up money,” said her friend Emily Steriti, who met Sophi when they taught together in Marfa. “She was working on an online job that would help her to do that. And she talked about being afraid of hiding money from [Danny].”
A divorce seemed imminent. But Sophi never made her escape.
She talked about being afraid of hiding money from [Danny].
On March 16, 2018, she lay dying on the floor of her Fort Davis home. Some 40 stab wounds left her unable to move, and she eventually bled to death. Her 7-year-old son, unable to help, stayed by her side through the early hours of that Friday, then watched TV—too petrified to move or go anywhere because he feared his mom’s killer was still near, he later told police.
His father, Danny, claimed he did not come home Thursday night and instead arrived from Odessa around 6:50 p.m. Friday to find Sophi dead, then scooped the boy into his arms and ran to a neighbor’s house to have them call 911. But his son has testified to a very different story: Daddy was the masked man who killed his mother.
The last five years have been agonizing for Sophi’s friends and family, who watched the man they believe to be her killer go free after a mistrial.
Danny Sullivan said he is innocent.
But others blame a bungled investigation, officers who failed to look for key evidence and a new district attorney who has not yet set a retrial date for the case. (That DA serves Jeff Davis, a county with fewer than 2,000 residents, along with three other sparsely-populated counties, Brewster, Pecos and Presidio.) Unfortunately, a look at fatalities involving domestic violence that were reported in sparsley populated Texas counties from 2015 to 2019 (the five years prior to the pandemic) shows that many cases go unresolved or unprosecuted.
Sophi and Danny met at Manteno High School in a small town about an hour south of Chicago. They shared a crush, but at that point, Sophi had many friends and Danny was more withdrawn, had troubles at home, and was too shy to ask for a date.
After graduating in 2004, Sophi moved to Odessa, Texas, where her mother, Theresa Blain, lived on a ranch with Sophi’s stepfather, Gregg. Sophi met up with Danny again when she returned to Illinois in 2006. The feelings they had for each other in high school were still alive and, within a year, they moved to Texas together. Danny worked for Gregg Blain, learning the electrician trade, while Sophi did office work. After a long engagement, they wed in the Blains’ living room on Valentine’s Day 2009.
Sophi was soon expecting a child, and Tyler was born in May 2010. (The Texas Observer is not using their son’s real name to protect his privacy as a juvenile witness.) For five years, Danny and Sophi kept working at the family company. But then they decided to strike out on their own. With the Blains’ help, they moved to Fort Davis and purchased a house.
Danny initially worked electrician jobs in neighboring Alpine but by 2017 he’d taken a position in Odessa for better pay. Marfa ISD hired Sophi as a teachers’ aide and helped her obtain a teaching certification. Friends say that Sophi fit her new role perfectly: She enjoyed the kids and social camaraderie with co-workers.
But Sophi’s friends said the distance from his wife made Danny even more possessive. He remained a loner, spending work weeks at his trailer without forging close friendships or socializing with neighbors.
Sophi’s friend, Marfa teacher Emily Steriti, later testified that Sophi told her that Danny once exploded over an innocuous note she got from a colleague, which he found in her work bag. “Danny was very angry and she was worried that he was going to leave,” Steriti testified. “And I think she was beside herself. … She knew she hadn’t received any sort of love letter, and I think that’s how it was interpreted.”
Their relationship was strained further when Danny was arrested for felony possession of drugs with three other men while driving through Dimmit, Texas, on December 3, 2017, about three months before Sophi’s murder. Danny said that he an others went to Colorado to buy THC products and marijuana and were stopped for a missing license plate light. Worse, Danny had lied to Sophi and their son—who’d begged him to stay home that weekend—by claiming he had to work and instead going to Colorado, Britney Mann, an Odessa woman who considered herself Sophi’s best friend, said. “She felt lied to and betrayed and deceived. … And she told me that that was the moment that she realized she couldn’t use the excuse to stay with him because he was a good father, because a good father doesn’t do that to their child.”
She realized she couldn’t use the excuse to stay with him because he was a good father, because a good father doesn’t do that to their child.
On March 15, the day before her murder, Sophi spent most of the day with Steriti taking Tyler to a 4-H event in Marfa for spring break. The idyllic Thursday was darkened when Tyler started using rough, demanding language toward his mother. Steriti wondered if Sophi was facing verbal abuse that Tyler was mimicking. It was then that Sophi confided she had considered leaving Danny. “That was when we talked about [some] kind of a survival guide for domestic abuse,” Steriti said. “Where you, you know, try to save money away, cash if possible, so that it’s not anything someone can find. And she was worried that he would be upset if he found out. And I just said, ‘I think you would much rather have that when you need it if you need it, right?’”
Then Sophi told her Danny would be coming home a day early—Thursday evening—instead of his usual routine of arriving on Friday, Steriti told the Observer.
On Friday, Britney Mann, Sophi’s best friend from Odessa, began texting Sophi about plans to get together over the weekend, but got no answer. “And she was normally a pretty quick responder. And then I texted her the next morning about what time she wanted to meet up for coffee, and she never responded. So, then I started calling. I called all day and then. … I saw a CBS 7 headline that said a Marfa teacher was stabbed and killed. I immediately told my husband we had to go to Sophi’s house because I was really scared it was her. We went to her house, and it was a crime scene.”
In 2018, when Sophi was killed, 174 Texas women died in domestic violence incidents, all outlined in an annual “Honoring Texas Victims” report from the Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV). The nonprofit annually compiles statistics on “intimate partner homicides” and maintains data on each killing, with notes on the method of homicide, location, children of the victims, and numerous other details to draw attention to a major problem in Texas that increased during the pandemic.
By 2021, 204 Texans were victims of intimate partner homicide. This number includes 169 women and 35 men, including 12 LGBTQ+ victims. In many cases, the alleged killers were men who were immediately arrested or killed themselves. That year, authorities charged 112 men with capital murder, murder, or manslaughter in connection with the deaths of their partners, according to the nonprofit. Another 56 men died by suicide after killing their partners, two were killed by law enforcement, and two died by other means. Authorities charged 30 women who killed their partners with capital murder, murder, or manslaughter. Two women died by suicide.
Separation, the step that Sophi had planned, poses a significant risk for intimate partner homicide and injury. In 2021, of the homicides identified by TCFV, 45 percent of victims had taken steps to either end their relationships or seek interventions to enhance their safety. Thirty-eight percent of women killed had already separated or ended their relationships, and 33 percent of women had sought other help, such as reporting abuse to law enforcement, seeking alternative housing or protective orders.
In 2021, 45 percent of victims had taken steps to either end their relationships or seek interventions to enhance their safety.
When the Observer looked back at what happened to the men and women arrested for domestic violence deaths in low-population counties from 2015 to 2019, very few of those identified as the killers had been sent to prison. Only 17 of the 834 domestic violence homicides in Texas from 2015-2019 (as reported on by this nonprofit ) occurred in rural counties with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. Of those, arrests in 13 of 17 cases were reported by the nonprofit.
By 2023, only four people arrested for killing their partners in rural counties were serving time in state prisons. The prosecutor in Danny’s case, then-83rd District Attorney Sandy Wilson, said many rural areas lack the law enforcement expertise and resources needed for any kind of murder trial. Wilson, who served as DA from 2017 to 2020, said she had handled homicide cases before but nothing as complex. “It was such an overwhelming case that I had to try by myself. I made my share of mistakes, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. We worked day and night and weekends doing a lot of investigation because law enforcement had not done their job in the beginning.”
At this point, it’s unclear whether Danny will ever be retried for the alleged murder of his wife. He currently lives in another state and is seeking shared custody of his son, the prosecution’s key witness. “He was my best friend,” Danny said in an interview. “They took that, and they destroyed it.” It’s been almost five years since he’s seen his son, he said. “I don’t know what my son looks like. I don’t know what my son sounds like.” Shared custody remains a possibility. In a different recent Texas domestic violence murder case in Galveston, another father maintained visiting rights even after being convicted of killing his child’s mother.
Danny’s version of what happened on the night of his wife’s violent death is that he drove home from Odessa to Fort Davis on Friday March 16, 2018, to find the front door locked, though they never locked the doors in their rural, big-lot community on the outskirts of Fort Davis. When no one responded, he circled the house and found the back door unlocked. “Hey, I’m home,” he recalled shouting out on entering. Then he heard his son yell: “Mommy’s murdered! Mommy’s murdered!”
He said he found Sophi lying in their bedroom in a pool of blood. Tyler was sitting on his parents’ bed. “The first thing I did was just kind of get through to grab [my son], picked him up. I guess I must have leapt over her. … I got around her.” Danny took Tyler to call 911 at the home of neighbors, he said, because he knew they were ex-police officers from Houston.
When Jeff Davis County Sheriff Bill Kitts and other officers arrived at the scene, they found Danny rocking back and forth on the ground, unable to talk coherently. Deputies eventually led him to the sheriff’s office, where he spent several hours denying he killed his wife.
Investigators heard something else from the lone eyewitness—Tyler. One of the ex-police-officer neighbors—Jeanne Hughson—later testified that she brought Tyler into her home while deputies cleared the Sullivan house to ensure no perpetrators were inside. He began talking about how he had witnessed the attack on his mother. And when the two stepped outside, Tyler pointed to his father, saying he was the murderer.
The sheriff arrested Danny on a charge of first-degree murder.
But according to court transcripts and body-cam video played in court, Sheriff Kitts, Chief Deputy Jerry Walker, and Constable Clay Woods made a crucial error when they arrived around 7:10 p.m. that Friday: They surmised the killing must have happened recently because the blood looked fresh to them.
Misinterpreting the time of death would be the first of a string of mistakes that later left Sophi’s friends, family, and jurors wondering if the brutal slaying will remain forever without a conviction.
According to District Attorney Wilson, officers only pulled video footage from a nearby convenience store for the few hours preceding the discovery of Sophi’s body Friday. Later it would become clear that Sophi likely died about 15 hours prior. Any possible video evidence of Danny’s car driving to or from Odessa to home was lost. “Do you think they even bothered to get 24 hours before?” Wilson told the Observer. “That’s what I had to work with.”
While the Jeff Davis County Sheriff’s Department is a small force unaccustomed to investigating homicides, like all rural departments it could call on the Texas Rangers. Ranger Jeff Vajdos arrived in Fort Davis shortly after midnight to assess the situation. Vajdos had been with the Rangers for 12 years and had investigated other homicides.
Yet, both Vajdos and Kitts later admitted in court that they never pursued a search warrant for Danny’s trailer in Odessa—an obvious step considering that no weapon was found at the scene, Sophi’s phone was missing, and Danny was the lone suspect and might have brought evidence with blood back to his trailer. (Prosecutors eventually obtained a warrant months later, but by then the trailer had been sold to someone else.)
The investigators did send the clothing Danny was wearing Friday evening to the Department of Public Safety lab in El Paso; no blood evidence was found.
Investigators said Sophi’s phone continued to ping (connect to) cell-phone towers in the Fort Davis area into Saturday, but they never found her phone. Danny told the Observer that he had Sophi’s Apple password and claimed that if officers had asked, he could have used the Find Your iPhone app to locate it. Mann, Sophi’s Odessa friend, said she also told investigators that Danny had the password, but they didn’t seem to grasp how the technology worked. Mann twice asked prosecutors if they could subpoena Sophi’s Google account, which could have provided more precise locations of where her phone had been, but said the requests were not pursued. “It feels like there could be more processing done with both cell phones, with his and with hers,” she said.
Like all rural Texas counties, Jeff Davis lacks any medical examiner. Under Texas law, death investigations are often conducted by justices of the peace, who have minimal training. In this case, Fort Davis’ only JP was out of town and the body was shipped off for an autopsy. Observers later questioned why the Sullivan house wasn’t searched and photographed more thoroughly.
An autopsy report showed Sophi was missing a valuable ring she always wore—given to her by her grandmother with a peridot stone. Missing too from her corpse was another ring and a watch she usually wore.
Several months after his arrest, when Danny was free on bond, he was living in Sophi’s car, a black Lincoln MKX SUV. When Danny’s bond was revoked on February 14, 2019, his boss, Gregg Blain, took the car—since he was the legal owner—and brought it back to Odessa. Blain asked a law enforcement officer to help him inventory the car. Found amidst piles of trash and clothing was a small box carrying Sophi’s missing rings and watch.
Danny told the Observer that he has an explanation for that too.“I had that stuff because I was able to go back to my home after and retrieve stuff. I was trying to collect some family heirlooms since I didn’t know when I would have access to my home again.” Danny said he found the items in a jewelry box in the closet—an area not pictured in crime scene photos—although he thought one ring was on the vanity.
Had police established that jewelry was missing from the scene of the homicide—with a more thorough search of the home—they could have made a case that Danny took those items after killing his wife, possibly removing the peridot ring from her finger.
There were delays in interviewing witnesses too. Vajdos, the Texas Ranger, has admitted he first contacted key sources about nine months later (though trial witnesses and some of Sophi’s friends and family told the Observer that they weren’t interviewed for more than a year.) Nor did Vajdos ever watch the bodycam videos of the crime scene, according to Wilson. “You don’t know how many times I asked him to please review your video,” she said. “That’s the kind of nonsense I dealt with.”
The die was cast before the trial started. Wilson, the DA, would be working with a traumatized child’s testimony and precious little corroborating evidence, while the defense would send a clear message to the jury: If bumbling cops screwed up on every turn, how can you be sure they got the right guy?
By the time Danny’s trial started on October 23, 2019, in Fort Davis, prosecutors had learned more about the events surrounding Sophi’s slaying. Through interviews with her son, Tyler, they had placed the time of death sometime just before 4 a.m. on March 16, 2018.
Video interviews of Tyler played at the trial also showed the boy saying that the killer was wearing a mask, with a thin wisp of beard coming out the bottom. (The Observer was not allowed to view body camera or interview videos because authorities said they were evidence in an ongoing investigation for a possible new trial.)
An autopsy report prepared by a Lubbock medical examiner could not estimate a time of death closer than 12-24 hours before Sophi was found at 7 p.m. But that report showed Sophi had been stabbed at least 40 times in her head, chest, and back and later bled out after collapsing. Within a couple of days of his arrest on March 19, Danny’s family helped arrange to post his $130,000 bond. The conditions of release stipulated no contact with Tyler, who was staying with his maternal grandmother in Odessa.
Danny described a chaotic, rough life in the following year. He couldn’t return home, so he lived out of cars, in an El Paso apartment briefly before being evicted, and in temporary housing in Odessa provided by his pastor. Danny’s bond was revoked after he was accused of trying to communicate with his son through his pastor’s wife and of failing to call his probation supervisor. He also sent an admittedly aggressive email to Wilson complaining about her accusations of his conduct while on bond. He spent about nine months in jail awaiting trial.
Tyler continued to live with his maternal grandmother, attending Montessori school then transitioning to homeschooling. Blain said the boy was traumatized but began to recover even as he prepared to testify against his father. At trial, District Attorney Wilson set out to prove that Danny, upon hearing that his wife was leaving him, or upon finding texts from a male friend, launched into a jealous rage, stabbing Sophi repeatedly in anger.
Defense attorney Jim Darnell declined comment for this story, but jurors interviewed said it was clear he planned to portray investigators as incompetent, with “tunnel vision” on Danny as a suspect, and to emphasize that the only eyewitness was a traumatized child, who gave conflicting statements about his father’s involvement.
The vote to convict was 9-3, resulting in a mistrial.
The Observer interviewed six members of the 12-person jury. Some asked for anonymity out of fear of retribution in their small community for how they voted or comments made about mistakes by local law enforcement. Those who voted to convict worried about the lack of physical evidence but believed Tyler’s testimony, thought the circumstantial evidence was solid, and came to the conclusion: Who else could have done it but Danny?
What astonished all six was the admission by the police that they had never searched Danny’s trailer. Ranger Vajdos and Sheriff Kitts seemed to be almost arguing on the stand over who was to blame. “This was a joint venture,” Kitts told the court. “Initially, it would be myself, and then later it was turned over to Ranger Vajdos.” Regarding not searching the trailer, Chief Deputy Jerry Walker told the court, “To be perfectly honest, it was an oversight.” (Kitts did not return multiple calls for additional comment; Vajdos declined because he might have to testify in a possible new trial.)
One juror, Lisa Gandy, said police missteps made her decision to vote to convict extremely difficult. “Maybe I watch too much TV, but I would think that if you had done [this murder], you would have blood everywhere, and that’s why I was disgusted that the trailer … wasn’t immediately searched because I would think that there would be some evidence of blood somewhere.”
For his part, Danny said he would have welcomed a thorough search of his trailer and of his car, saying that would have bolstered his case for exoneration.
Several jurors said the prosecution spent too much time hashing out irrelevant phone records instead of emphasizing that the two last spoke at 5:35 p.m. on Thursday, which Danny had taken off as a sick day.
By Danny’s own admission, there was a narrow window of time in which he could have killed Sophi. Phone activity records show him in Odessa at 8:16 p.m. Thursday night. Testimony from Tyler (and rough estimates by a medical examiner) puts Sophi’s time of death at about 4 a.m. Friday morning. Given that it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Fort Davis to Odessa, Danny could have made the trip, stabbed Sophi, cleaned up and then reported to work, where records showed he arrived by 8:38 a.m. But to him, that timeline doesn’t make sense: “I would have to leave right then, then go to work the next day, be completely cool in composure, and work with people.”
At trial, officers testified that the family’s two dogs—a large Rottweiler and a medium-sized mutt—were present at the time the attacker stabbed Sophi and were barking ferociously at police, who asked Danny to escort them out. The prosecution was arguing that only Danny could have gotten in the house to murder Sophi without risking attack. Juror Cameron Pratt of Fort Davis, said that evidence almost convinced her to vote to convict. “If somebody came in that didn’t know the dogs, I think the dogs would’ve gone off barking,” she said.
All jurors said the key element was the only eyewitness: Tyler. Neighbor Jeanne Hughson told the court that while her husband dealt with Danny on the porch, she tried to comfort Tyler inside. “He began talking to me about what had happened. And he said that a man had come into the house and stabbed his mother and that he thought it was his father. But then he decided that it maybe wasn’t his dad because [his dad] had cried a little.”
Later when an officer arrived, Hughson went out to the porch with Tyler. “And when we got there, [Tyler] pointed over at Mr. Sullivan, who was standing near a tree … and he looked me in the eyes and he says, ‘There is the murderer. Is he going to murder me?’”
Those close to Tyler at the time of his mother’s violent death described him as a unique boy who seemed socially awkward. He struggled with some simple tasks while also displaying immense creativity and a knack for memorization, like identifying countries on a world map.
Tyler said the man confronted him and asked “Who am I?” And Tyler responded, “My daddy.”
Tyler was ushered into the courtroom on the sixth day of the trial. He explained that he woke up and realized the bathroom light—which he always kept on—was off. “I wanted to go check what was going on. … So, when I got into the kitchen, I remember seeing the time is 3:36 a.m…. I see a man wrestling with my mommy.” Tyler said the man confronted him and asked “Who am I?” And Tyler responded, “My daddy.” When the man said, “No” and continued to ask Tyler who he was, the boy eventually responded, “The Golden State Killer.” He knew that name because of a documentary he’d watched on the serial killer.
One lingering impression that Sophi’s friends and family say they found frustrating was that they never heard testimony about what they saw as the true Danny—someone occasionally prone to violent outbursts, who admitted to buying illegal drugs, and who tried to isolate Sophi.
Introducing testimony about a pattern of emotional or physical abuse can be very important in proving the motive in a domestic violence case. But the DA, Wilson, lacked help from experts in domestic violence. Testimony from the victim’s parents about prior abusive or threatening incidents they wanted to share was blocked because Wilson hadn’t provided the information to the defense in advance, and the judge ruled it inadmissible.
When Theresa Blain was on the stand, she tried to describe her daughter’s troubled marriage but the judge shut her down. In an interview, Blain said Sophi told her that Danny cornered her one day and launched into an angry stream of obscenities. “He was yelling in her face, every name under the sun. He called her the ‘B word’ and the ‘C word.’ My daughter told me that he often called her a ‘whore’ or used that term to control her. He was always very suspicious and concerned that she was whoring around. She had to give the exact time she left my house to the exact time she made it to her house.”
Theresa’s father-in-law, James Blain, was unable to testify about how Danny once confronted him in an angry outburst that was so threatening Blain considered getting his gun. What resulted were depictions of Danny that made him out to be shy, aloof, a great father, and completely cooperative with investigators.
When the jury deadlocked, Judge Roy Ferguson thanked them for their efforts and time. Sophi’s mother was devastated.
After the trial, she filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Danny in Ector County civil court. She’d already won legal custody of Tyler after Danny’s arrest, and a court order stipulated that Danny could have no contact or communication with his son. But the lawsuit could further protect Tyler from future custody battles, and allowed for a civil determination that Danny was responsible for the death of his wife.
The lawsuit contained information not presented in the criminal trial. It alleged Danny had called a local State Farm Insurance agent within days of his wife’s violent death to request the $100,000 life insurance benefit for Sophi, and told the agent her manner of death was “undetermined.” Authorities alerted State Farm about the murder investigation to halt any disbursement of money.
Blain won her lawsuit on March 30 after Danny failed to file a response, resulting in a summary judgment against him. At a May 10 hearing, the judge awarded $7 million in damages. That ruling also means Blain will have access to the life insurance money, which will go to Tyler.
Danny told the Observer that he didn’t defend himself against the lawsuit because it wasn’t worth it. “I mean, I’m not going to fight her,” he said. “If she wants life insurance for [Tyler], then she can have it as long as it goes for [Tyler].”
Danny said he has dated several new women since his wife’s murder. “I’ve had three girlfriends … but everyone’s known. I’ve told everyone about it beforehand.” He said the first woman he dated left him after being harassed by Sophi’s friends.
Sophi’s father, Chuck Sabey, says he’s forced to think about Sophi’s slaying every day because he lives and works in Illinois near Danny. “I have to drive to and from work through their town and pass where Sophia’s buried. So, oh my God, it makes this something that comes to my mind nonstop and every day.” For three and half years, he’s pinned his hope for justice on a retrial.
But the prosecutor who tried the case—Sandy Wilson—lost her bid for reelection for district attorney. The current DA, Ori White, said in July 2022 that he hoped to conduct a new trial by early 2023 in a larger city, where it would be easier to find impartial jurors. By April 2023, he’d moved the date to “later this summer.” Sophi’s friends and family said they believe White will never retry Danny. Some hope yet another new district attorney will. Others feel, at this point, it would be better to just accept the wrongful death lawsuit ruling and move on so that Tyler never again has to testify.
In a May 7 phone interview, Danny said he’d heard no trial would be held in 2023. He said living without a new trial date has left him “lost.”
“I don’t know how to be a human. I don’t have any friends because I don’t want to lie to people. It’s my own cowardness of hating to be judged by people for these things, and it’s scary.” He still works as an electrician but often doesn’t see the point of his life.. “My only hope is one day, one day I’ll be able to see [Tyler] again. And I’m never going to do anything stupid because that’s the only thing that motivates me.”
Caroline Crawley, a juror who voted to convict Danny, said the case haunts her. “It does really bother people at their core. And I think it also bothers me as a woman to see this, this other woman who obviously tried to get help. I felt like she did the right things. She told people what was happening. She made plans to exit the marriage and leave with a little boy. And it still didn’t help her. It’s just really upsetting as another woman to see that happen and then just watch the guy not have to face the repercussions for that.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from the print version, which contained errors. Gregg Blain’s first name was spelled inconsistently. A witness unable to testify about an angry outburst was identified incorrectly; he was James Blain, Theresa Blain’s father-in-law. The story correctly described an account Theresa Blain gave about how her daughter was called the “B-word” and the “C-word” by her husband, but Blain clarified in a post-publication interview that Sophi related the incident to her and she did not overhear. Blain also said that though Sophi’s family listed a $150,000 life insurance policy in a civil lawsuit, the benefit was only $100,000.
