Katherine Hruby

UPDATE: Alan Hruby is Dana Ewell for the social media age

Hruby's victims - his own family

Hruby’s victims – his own family

UPDATE 2: In 2016, the state of Oklahoma threw as much of its book as it could at Hruby while still respecting the wishes of Hruby’s remaining family members, who requested that Alan not receive the death penalty. In exchange, Hruby confessed to the killings of his own mother, father, and sister, waived his right to appeal or be considered for parole, and has a no-contact order with surviving family members.

Hruby’s aunt, who wrote to the court as part of the victims’ impact statements, is a successful interior designer in California. Her letter described to the judge that Hruby “… destroyed her family.”

UPDATE: Alan’s poor father John Hruby has a $20,000 life insurance policy. John had named Alan and his late daughter Katherine as joint beneficiaries of the policy. The life insurance company doesn’t want to give Alan the $20K (good for them) and has petitioned the court to determine who should get the policy’s proceeds.

+++++++++++

Since Dana Ewell, the social media age has given us Alan Hruby, who in 2014 was a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. Like Ewell, Hruby suffered from an obsession with materialism, from cars to clothes to watches to shoes. Hruby went so far as open a credit card in his grandmother’s name and take out loans from loan sharks to fuel his shopping habit.

Duncan, Oklahoma police were called to the Hruby house in 2011 when Alan began choking his mother during an altercation.

But the money wasn’t coming in fast enough for Hruby. Law enforcement estimates that Alan spent a whopping $80,000 over the course of a year, and the Hrubys were enraged at their son’s shopping.

Hruby maintained Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, keeping a rather douchy-looking record of his material possessions.

So, like Ewell, he allegedly shot and killed both his parents and his sister for the inheritance he felt he would collect once they were all dead. Once he allegedly killed them, he spent the weekend partying in Dallas for the Texas/OU football weekend.

Hruby didn’t last nearly as long as Ewell did, however, and confessed to detectives after they realized he gave conflicting stories about where he was the night of the shootings.

Hruby is awaiting trial on three counts of first-degree murder in an Oklahoma correctional facility, which probably isn’t as cushy as the Dallas Ritz-Carlton.

In December, 2014, Hruby was sentenced to four years in prison for the credit card fraud involving his grandmother’s identity.

Oklahoma prosecutors are consulting with surviving family members about seeking the death penalty in Alan’s (I almost typed ‘Dana’s’) upcoming murder trial.