The store manager’s silence was the first sign. Amber Belulin, usually the first one through the door, simply never showed up to open her shift. When head office couldn’t reach her and the store stayed dark, they sent a nearby employee named Giovani to check it out. He found the doors locked, the lights off, and nothing out of place.
He reported back, and hours passed with no word from Amber. Around noon, corporate asked him to check again. This time, someone was inside. Another coworker, Brandon, let him in, and the store was trashed.
Game boxes scattered across the floor, the register hanging open, cash tossed over the counter. It looked like a robbery. But Brandon acted like he hadn’t even noticed the mess. Giovani headed to the manager’s office to check the safe.
When he opened the door, he froze. A body lay on the floor, a plastic bag pulled tightly over the head. It was Amber. Investigators initially believed she’d died during a robbery.
The register was open, the safe cleaned out, and roughly fifty game discs, an Xbox, and several PlayStations were missing, totaling around six thousand dollars. Amber’s car was still in the lot, doors unlocked, her phone left on the seat. But the evidence didn’t add up. Through their investigation, police learned that Amber had arrived about an hour before opening, as she always did.
She would collect the cash and take it to the bank before starting her day. The medical examiner determined she died of asphyxiation, with duct tape residue on her hands, suggesting she had been bound before she was killed. The struggle, they estimated, lasted several minutes. Soon, other details started to nag at the detectives.
Amber’s car had been left unlocked, unusual for someone who usually kept things secure. Also, the back door opened into an alley with identical doors for all the neighboring businesses, making it clear the killer knew exactly which one led where. On top of that, she had opened the register and the safe, so there was no reason to use so much violence. Strangulation, detectives knew, often pointed to something deeply personal.
Police began to suspect the robbery was staged, and that the killer may have been someone she knew. A coworker. Their attention immediately fell on Brandon. He had been inside the store when Giovani arrived, standing in the dark with the door locked, seemingly unaware of the chaos around him.
He told police he’d shown up for his shift, let himself in, and assumed the mess was left from the night before. He claimed he never even saw Amber’s body. But there was a potential motive. Amber had repeatedly complained about her assistant, Brandon, saying he slacked off and didn’t take his job seriously.
She was so fed up that she’d finally filed an official complaint and asked for him to be fired. That complaint was due to be sent the very morning she was killed. Yet, when police searched Brandon’s car, his house, and his phone, they found nothing. No stolen games.
No consoles. And his phone records showed he was nowhere near the store that morning. His alibi, confirmed by his fiancée and her parents, was rock solid. Despite the red flags, they had no choice but to clear him.
Days stretched into weeks. The case grew cold. Amber’s parents held a press conference, begging for information, and a reward of $100,000 was offered. Tips came in, but each one led nowhere.
The trail went silent, and almost a year passed. Then, a man who wanted to remain anonymous called the police. He claimed to have information about Amber’s murder. When detectives finally met with him, his story sent a shock through the case.
The killer, he said, was Giovani. The witness said he’d been offered an easy robbery the day before the murder, but he turned it down. When he saw the news the next day, he knew it had to be his friend, Giovani, because he worked for the same store chain. He admitted to meeting Giovani the day after, who flat-out confessed to the murder.
The witness was terrified that if he went to the police, Giovani would come for him next. Police picked Giovani up for questioning, but he denied everything. With no physical evidence tying him to the crime, they couldn’t make the arrest stick. They collected a DNA sample, hoping it would rattle him, but he stayed calm.
The very next day, he packed up his wife and kids and moved to Laredo, right on the border with Mexico. A year and a half passed. It seemed Giovani would escape justice entirely. And then, in June 2008, a woman named Veronica called the police.
Giovani’s wife. Veronica told them she never believed her husband could do such a thing, until the day police came to collect his DNA. As soon as they left, he told her they needed to move. When she asked why, he said the cops suspected him of murder.
“Did you kill someone? ” she asked. “Yes,” he said, looking her in the eyes. She knew he meant Amber, but she stayed silent.
Veronica described years of abuse. Giovani was controlling, violent, and forced himself on her whenever he wanted, often with duct tape, even when their two children were asleep in the same room. She was terrified that going to the police would get her killed. But one day, she finally gathered the courage to ask him directly if he killed Amber.
He said yes, calling it a robbery. She begged him to turn himself in, but he refused. She told him she wanted a divorce and was taking the kids. Giovani said they should talk over coffee.
Instead of taking her to a café, he drove her out to a remote stretch of land, locked the car doors, and pulled out a gun. He preyed on her at gunpoint, then did something that surprised her completely. He handed her the gun and ordered her to shoot him. She refused.
Somehow, through her terror, she made him understand that if he died and she went to prison, their two children would lose both parents. He calmed down and drove her back home. The next day, he dropped her and the kids off at her mother’s house and took off. As soon as he was gone, Veronica called the police.
Once again, the question became: where was Giovani? By now, he was believed to have crossed into Mexico. The US Marshals added him to their most wanted list and coordinated with Mexican authorities. After a month and a half, they tracked him to a relative’s house, just a few miles across the border.
When they arrested him, he was playing one of the very video games he’d stolen from the store the day he killed Amber. Under the extradition agreement, prosecutors had to waive the death penalty to bring him back to Texas. Later, they offered him a plea deal. Giovani pleaded guilty to the murder in exchange for a life sentence with the possibility of parole after thirty years.
He claimed he never intended to kill Amber. He said he’d recently lost his job and only wanted to steal money. He claimed she did what he asked at first, but when she tried to call for help, he panicked and killed her. Detectives didn’t believe a word of it.
Giovani hadn’t lost his job. He was still employed at another store. And his plan didn’t make sense. Amber knew him.
Even if he’d gotten away with the robbery, she could have identified him instantly. He must have known that. He was sent to prison. The earliest he can be considered for parole is 2038.
As for Brandon, he never got the closure he deserved. For weeks, investigators treated him like a murderer, and everyone around him knew it. His family, his friends. They even pressured his fiancée, asking her how she could sleep with a killer.
But police never officially told him he was cleared. For years, he lived in fear of being arrested for something he didn’t do. In the end, though, Brandon rebuilt his life. He got married, started a family, and in 2018, was working as a truck driver when he spotted a thirteen-year-old girl being swept away in a raging drainage canal after a heavy storm.
He ran over, worked with others to get a ladder, and helped pull her to safety. She spent days in the hospital, but she survived. All because Brandon didn’t look away.
