Grant Amato was arrested Monday in Florida for shooting and killing both parents and his brother in the family home because of an argument over a webcam girl. He is alleged to have stolen $200,000 from his family to spend it on this girl through an adult webcam site.

The young man lived with his parents in a well-maintained property in a rural Florida. Amato was going through a rough time in his life: he had lost his job as a nurse, had an online sex addiction, and still lived with his parents at the age of 29.

According to police, Amato funnelled all this money through his internet connection, where it landed in the Balkans, on the other side of the Atlantic. He had been communicating with a Bulgarian woman since last June, who has not been publicly identified. The two met on an adult streaming site, and within three months he had spent more than $200,000 to interact with the young woman.

His family knew he was seeing this girl online, stealing their money, and where the money was going. At his parents’ insistence, Amato agreed to attend rehab for porn addiction in December 2018. The family conflict was so intense that his brother Cody had confessed to his girlfriend that he feared his brother would “kill everyone”.

On Friday morning, after a report from Cody’s girlfriend (Amato’s brother), the police discovered that both parents had been shot in the head, and Amato’s brother was found dead in the garage storage area. Amato is now in custody and faces three counts of first-degree murder. The police claim that his obsession with the girl from across the Atlantic had driven Amato to be violent.

Amato’s problems began in June 2018 when he lost his job as a nurse due to being arrested for stealing bottles of Propofol, a powerful sedative, from the hospital where he worked. No complaints were lodged against him, but he lost his job and had to return to live with his parents, where he started to communicate obsessively with a webcam girl in Bulgaria.

One of his parents’ conditions for him to stay with them was to stop all communication with the Bulgarian woman. According to the arrest report, Amato reportedly told the police that he agreed but found it unfair because he believed that the Bulgarian woman was his girlfriend and that they had a relationship.

Shortly afterward, his father discovered that he was still communicating with this girl. The family again confronted Amato about these acts, telling him that he had to leave the house. The family tragedy occurred soon thereafter.