Dead Road Rage Victim ‘Spoke’ to His Killer in Court Through AI

A woman used artificial intelligence to bring her dead brother back to life in a courtroom. Kind of.

Stacey Wales, whose brother Christopher Pelkey was murdered in a 2021 road rage incident, spent years preparing to speak at the sentencing hearing of his killer. But when the time came, she hit a wall. That’s when she decided to let her dead brother do the talking via AI.

Wales teamed up with her husband, Tim, and his business partner to create an AI-generated video of Pelkey speaking from beyond the grave. That’s when they ran into a bit of misfortune: there were no clean recordings of Chris’s voice.

And the only good photo of him had sunglasses on top of his head and a scruffy beard that the AI software did not know how to handle. They digitally shaved his beard, removed the sunglasses, and made him camera-ready for his day in the courtroom.

Chris Pelkey died in Nov. 2021 in a road rage shooting.

Recently, Chris’ family created an AI-generated video of him giving his own victim impact statement.

Here is a clip – watch the full story tonight ONLY on @FOX10Phoenix 📺 pic.twitter.com/JIz6bKuNfU

— Nicole Krasean (@NicoleK_Fox10) May 5, 2025

Man ‘Speaks to Killer’ From Beyond the Grave Through AI Video

The result is a four-and-a-half-minute virtual resurrection that addresses Pelkey’s killer, Gabriel Horcasitas, with disarming empathy. “In another life, we probably could have been friends,” AI Chris said, before signing off to go “fishing” in the afterlife.

The judge loved it. We don’t have to interpret that from a complex web of legal speak. The judge literally said, “I loved that AI” after watching the video. That’s a starkly different reaction than the one received by a living man who made an AI-generated court appearance, one that led to a vicious scolding from the judge.

While there is a precedent for AI in the courtroom, this may be the first time AI has been used to channel a victim’s voice during a U.S. court sentencing. Since the video wasn’t used as formal evidence and the trial was judge-only, legal experts aren’t freaking out. That said, everyone’s aware this tech can and almost inevitably will be used for much sketchier, morally reprehensible stuff down the line.

Divorced from the emotions of the AI statement, the video itself has an uncanny valley quality to it. Pelkey stands almost entirely motionless, save for his face, which seems to move independently from the rest of his body. There is a definite inhuman aspect to it all, but the effect, despite its flaws, is convincing enough to be an act of healing for Wales.

She got to feel her brother’s presence again, and her son got to hear her uncle say goodbye.