--- title: "Family Uses AI To Revive Dead Brother For Impact Statement in Killer’s Trial" description: "In Arizona, the family of a man killed during a road rage incident has used artificial intelligence to revive their dead loved one in court." date: "2025-05-07" modified: "2025-05-07" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/ai-dead-brother-impact-statement" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai revival" - "ai video" - "deepfake" - "digital clone" --- # Family Uses AI To Revive Dead Brother For Impact Statement in Killer’s Trial ![In Arizona, the family of a man killed during a road rage incident has used artificial intelligence to revive their dead loved one in court.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* In Arizona, the family of a man killed during a road rage incident has used artificial intelligence to revive their dead loved one in court — and the video is just as unsettling as you think. As [Phoenix's *ABC 15* reports](), an uncanny simulacrum of the late Christopher Pelkey, who died from a gunshot wound in 2021, played in a courtroom at the end of his now-convicted killer's trial. "In another life, we probably could have been friends," the AI version of Pelkey, who was 37 when he died, told his shooter, Gabriel Paul Horcasitas. "I believe in forgiveness." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMs-_8etNts Despite that moving missive, it doesn't seem that much forgiveness was in the cards for Horcasitas. After viewing the video — which was created by the deceased man's sister, Stacey Wales, using an "aged-up" photo Pelkey made when he was still alive — the judge presiding over the case ended up giving the man a 10-and-a-half year manslaughter sentence, which is a year more than what state prosecutors were asking for. In the caption on her video, Wales explained that she, her husband Tim, and their friend Scott Yenzer made the "digital AI likeness" of her brother using a script she'd written alongside images and audio files they had of him speaking in a "prerecorded interview" taken months before he died. "These digital assets and script were fed into multiple AI tools to help create a digital version of Chris," Wales wrote, "polished by hours of painstaking editing and manual refinement." In her interview with *ABC15*, Pelkey's sister insisted that everyone who knew her late brother "agreed this capture was a true representation of the spirit and soul of how Chris would have thought about his own sentencing as a murder victim." She added that creating the digital clone helped her and her family heal from his loss and left her with a sense of peace, though others felt differently. "Can’t put into words how disturbing I find this," [writer Eoin Higgins tweeted]() of the Pelkey clone. "The idea of hearing from my brother through this tech is grotesque. Using it in a courtroom even worse." Referencing both the Pelkey video and news that *NBC* is planning to use late sports narrator [Jim Fagan's voice to do new promos]() this coming NBA season, a [Bluesky user]() insisted that "no one better do this to me once I'm dead." "This AI necromancy bullshit is so creepy and wrong," that user put it — and we must say, it's hard to argue with that. **More on AI revivals**: [*NBC Using AI to Bring Beloved NBA Narrator Jim Fagan Back From the Grave*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()