On a May day five years ago, in the morning gloom just before daybreak, Ariel Poholek awoke in his small townhouse in the Florida Keys to find his oldest son, Daniel Weisberger, straddling him with a knife. As Poholek begged for his life, he told his 17-year-old son he needed to live to care for his younger son. Daniel said it was too late. He’d already killed his 14-year-old brother in the bedroom they shared, just down the hall.The tragic murder followed years of anguish for Daniel, whose struggle with mental health started when he was just five and worsened as he endured a decade-long custody battle between his parents.In this four-part podcast series, we take a look at mental illness and the criminal justice system through Daniel’s story, from Boy Scout and beloved older brother to savage killer. We rechart his troubled childhood, complicated family and downward spiral. We then head to trial, where Daniel’s high-powered Miami defense attorneys will try to convince a judge to find their client not guilty by reason of insanity in a Key West courtroom.This story started as a cautionary tale. But its end is far from expected.For photos, videos, documents and a timeline of the case, you can read the accompanying story, 'How a brother's murder in the Keys tested the limits of the criminal justice system.'
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On a May day five years ago, in the morning gloom just before daybreak, Ariel Poholek awoke in his small townhouse in the Florida Keys to find his oldest son, Daniel Weisberger, straddling him with a knife. As Poholek begged for his life, he told his 17-year-old son he needed to live to care for his younger son. Daniel said it was too late. He’d already killed his 14-year-old brother in the bedroom they shared, just down the hall.The tragic murder followed years of anguish for Daniel, whose struggle with mental health started when he was just five and worsened as he endured a decade-long custody battle between his parents.In this four-part podcast series, we take a look at mental illness and the criminal justice system through Daniel’s story, from Boy Scout and beloved older brother to savage killer. We rechart his troubled childhood, complicated family and downward spiral. We then head to trial, where Daniel’s high-powered Miami defense attorneys will try to convince a judge to find their client not guilty by reason of insanity in a Key West courtroom.This story started as a cautionary tale. But its end is far from expected.For photos, videos, documents and a timeline of the case, you can read the accompanying story, 'How a brother's murder in the Keys tested the limits of the criminal justice system.'
In this last episode, Judge Mark Jones becomes our Twelve Angry Men, who will decide Daniel’s fate. Will he spend his life behind bars, or at least well into his 50s, or will he be found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed for treatment? Attorneys, family and friends will have one last chance to persuade Jones, who must now balance the demands that a society be kept safe with justice for a grieving family.
On the first day of his trial, Daniel Weisberger arrived at the Key West courthouse dressed in a blue blazer, chinos and black-framed glasses. His short dreads had been cropped. At 21, he no longer looked like the 17-year-old teenager who murdered his little brother in the room they shared. Over the course of a two-week trial, investigators, witnesses, family and mental health experts retrace Daniel’s path to that bloody day.
Years before the murder, Daniel’s parents met in the Peace Corps in Central Africa, got married and started a life in the U.S. But a contentious divorce, followed by years of fighting over custody and allegations of abuse, created what attorneys and mental health experts describe as a pressure cooker that for Daniel, and his festering mental illness, would eventually, violently explode.
In the days after Pascal Weisberger’s murder, the tight-knit community in the Upper Florida Keys rallied around the grieving family. Between Boy Scouts and volunteer work at the local animal shelter, Pascal was well known. But the boys’ father needed the community to do something else: embrace Pascal’s killer.
Over his short life, Daniel Weisberger went from Boy Scout and beloved older brother to killer. To understand why, we headed to the Florida Keys, where Daniel’s world unraveled. Listen to the trailer for the new WLRN limited podcast series Keeper and Killer, dropping on Nov. 19, 2025.
On a May day five years ago, in the morning gloom just before daybreak, Ariel Poholek awoke in his small townhouse in the Florida Keys to find his oldest son, Daniel Weisberger, straddling him with a knife. As Poholek begged for his life, he told his 17-year-old son he needed to live to care for his younger son. Daniel said it was too late. He’d already killed his 14-year-old brother in the bedroom they shared, just down the hall.The tragic murder followed years of anguish for Daniel, whose struggle with mental health started when he was just five and worsened as he endured a decade-long custody battle between his parents.In this four-part podcast series, we take a look at mental illness and the criminal justice system through Daniel’s story, from Boy Scout and beloved older brother to savage killer. We rechart his troubled childhood, complicated family and downward spiral. We then head to trial, where Daniel’s high-powered Miami defense attorneys will try to convince a judge to find their client not guilty by reason of insanity in a Key West courtroom.This story started as a cautionary tale. But its end is far from expected.For photos, videos, documents and a timeline of the case, you can read the accompanying story, 'How a brother's murder in the Keys tested the limits of the criminal justice system.'
