Sword and Scale · Sword and Scale

Episode 325

October 29, 2025·1 hr 11 min·5 clips
Twenty-year-old Brianna Barozini pleads guilty to killing her former friend Aaliyah Culbertson and could be free by age 23.
Brianna Barozini stands before an Ohio judge. She is 20 and described as looking even younger as she pleads guilty to killing her former friend, Aaliyah Culbertson. The courtroom goes quiet. The judge goes through the rights she is giving up, and Brianna says she understands and is pleading voluntarily. Only a year has passed. The host backs up to a March evening in 2023, after legal battles, bond hearings, and fear on both sides. The trouble starts near the smoke shop. Brianna's boyfriend says he saw Haleah, Kenzie, and Dalen and tried to avoid a confrontation before it turned worse. Haleah keeps yelling. The cashier tells police he stepped outside because he had a business to protect and did not want an incident there. For a moment, he thought it was over. Then Dalen records, Haleah gets worked up again, and the argument has an audience. The episode uses courtroom audio, witness accounts, and surveillance context to build the scene. It feels procedural and messy, with people describing small choices that kept pushing the conflict forward. Then the camera matters. Outdoor smoke shop footage shows Haleah, Dalen, and Kenzie escorted out before Haleah returns to the front, pacing, yelling, and taunting Brianna. Two minutes is not much time, but here it is enough for a loud argument to turn deadly. The close is blunt: Brianna goes to prison, Dalen faces no charges, and the death is framed as attention winning out over judgment.

As heard by us

A tightly observed true-crime account centered on a guilty plea, store footage, and a deadly confrontation.

The episode tracks Brianna Barozini's guilty plea after the killing of her former friend, Aaliyah Culbertson, and keeps its footing in the March 2023 chain of events that led there.

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Why you'd press play

When a filmed argument turns fatal, every witness clip lands harder.

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