CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio — A father who methodically gunned down his three young sons in their own home told investigators he believed he was living in the Bible, that his children needed to be sent to heaven, and that he was already in hell, according to a chilling video transcript of his interrogation obtained by Crime Fix.
Chad Dorman, 32, is now serving three life sentences without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to the June 15, 2023, murders of his sons, Clayton, 7, Hunter, 4, and Chase, 3. The case, which prosecutors originally sought the death penalty for, has taken a new turn with the release of Dorman’s own words, revealing a man who described himself as trapped in a biblical nightmare.
“I had horrible thoughts thinking I was living in the Bible,” Dorman told detectives during a lengthy interview at the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office hours after the massacre. The transcript, obtained exclusively by Crime Fix, shows a rambling, detached Dorman who repeatedly claimed he was not in control of his actions.
“I’m in hell,” Dorman said when pressed about his motive. “Cuz it’s the end of the world.”
The interrogation, which the jury never saw, began with Dorman refusing to speak. “I don’t have anything to say,” he told Detective Mike Ross. But as the questioning continued, Dorman began to unravel a twisted narrative rooted in scripture and paranoia.
“We were living in hell,” Dorman said. “Like the world hell. So in the Bible, you shoot first, second, third.”
The murders unfolded in a matter of minutes on a sunny June afternoon. Dorman had come home early from his job at a local insulation company, telling his wife, Laura, that he had forgotten some tape. He played with the boys, ate lunch, and ominously remarked that it would be his “last good meal.”
Then, according to court records and witness statements, Dorman retrieved a rifle from a gun safe in the master bedroom. Laura Dorman, who was in the bed with her husband and one of the boys, told him he was scaring her. She planned to call his parents.
Dorman said he was “just playing around.”
He was not playing. He shot Hunter first. Then he chased down Clayton and Chase, shooting them as they ran through the yard.
Laura Dorman was shot in the thumb as she desperately tried to wrestle the rifle away from her husband. The couple’s teenage stepdaughter, Alexis, also tried to save her brothers.
Deputies arrived to a scene of unimaginable horror. Body camera footage captured the frantic moments as officers found Dorman walking in the yard, not following commands. “Show me your hands now.
Stand up and walk to me,” a deputy shouted. Dorman eventually complied, but the damage was done.
“I got three of them,” a deputy radioed. “I got three. The boys cannot be saved.”
In the back of a patrol car, Dorman was heard talking to himself, apparently addressing God. “I love that woman,” he said. “Now do it.”
He later tried to wrap a seatbelt around his own neck.
During the interrogation, Dorman claimed he had been asking for help for months. “I kept over and over. I said, I got bad thoughts.
I got bad thoughts. Help me out. Take me to the doctor,” he told detectives.
“I kept calling mom. I kept calling dad. Kept calling everybody.
I know my whole family to help me. Nobody would help me.”
Dorman said the thoughts of killing his children had been with him for more than six months. He said he was “sick to my stomach for forever” knowing what he had to do. He claimed his father had told him about scripture that discussed giving up a firstborn son, and that he had been “told the story in church.”
But Dorman’s father denied ever telling his son to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 anyone. In interviews with detectives, Dorman’s parents described a man under immense stress, working multiple jobs, and showing signs of paranoia and depression. “He was getting ready to have a nervous breakdown,” his mother said.
“He was paranoid, really paranoid.”
Dorman’s mother told investigators that her son had called her the day before the murders, saying he felt like he was going to die. “He said, ‘I feel like I’ve died when I had that car wreck. I felt like I should be dead,’” she recalled.
The interrogation revealed Dorman’s belief that the world was ending. “It’s the end of the world,” he said. “There’s out of order signs everywhere.
There’s everything. All the signs are there. I try to look past it.
Every time I look up, I see it all.”
When asked why he spared his wife and stepdaughter, Dorman said, “I don’t know. Somebody’s got to get it right. Somebody has to get it right, dude.”
He admitted he thought he had done it in the “wrong order,” suggesting he should have shot his wife first.
The judge later threw out much of Dorman’s statement, ruling that he had invoked his right to a lawyer. But the damage was done. The transcript provides a chilling window into the mind of a father who believed he was acting on divine instruction.
“I’m not a monster,” Dorman insisted during the interrogation. “I don’t want to be that kind of man.”
But the evidence tells a different story. Dorman’s DNA was the only DNA on the rifle. His wife and stepdaughter witnessed the entire attack.
Neighbors saw him running through the field with the rifle.
In a victim impact statement read in court, Laura Dorman described the devastation of losing her three sons. “My life was ripped away from me and destroyed,” she wrote. “I grieve the loss of Clayton, Hunter, and Chase every single day.
And I grieve the life that they did not get to live.”
She remembered them as “three little boys who loved fishing, go-karting, and swimming. Remember them as the little boys who were always at the baseball fields or running around outside. Remember them as the boys who loved to have fun and were inseparable from one another.”
The stepdaughter, Alexis, also spoke directly to Dorman. “Chad, I miss you and I miss the boys dearly and nothing will ever be the same again because of you,” she said. “Softball to me isn’t the same anymore because that was our sport and that was the boys sport.”
Dorman was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. He has been transferred to a prison outside of Ohio for his own protection.
The case has left a community in mourning and a family shattered. The question of why remains unanswered, buried in the rambling, delusional statements of a man who believed he was living in the Bible.
“I don’t know who I am,” Dorman told detectives. “I don’t know what happened.”
But the evidence is clear. Chad Dorman hunted down his three sons, shot them in cold blood, and then told investigators he was sending them to heaven because he was already in hell.
The boys are gone. Their mother and sister are left to pick up the pieces. And the chilling words of a father who murdered his own children will echo in the halls of justice for years to come.
“I’m in hell,” Dorman said. “Hell’s here. Hell’s coming.”
For the family of Clayton, Hunter, and Chase, the hell is already here. And it will never end.