The story of Sonia Exelby is the sad story of a woman afflicted by severe depression who ended up in the trap of a sadistic man willing to kill to pay off a debt to the State. The body of the 32-year-old British woman was found on October 17, 2025 in a grave in Marion Oaks (Florida, United States). Only after intense investigations were investigators able to reconstruct all the horror that the young woman had suffered. The judicial truth will be written by the trial which will begin on November 16, 2026.
The family’s tribute
Exelby has been talked about again more recently because the US investigation has reached a point: the woman allegedly contacted her killer online and made arrangements with him to organize her murder. All for a fee of around 4 thousand dollars.
Upon hearing the news, the young woman’s family released a statement where they remember Exelby: “Sonia was one of those rare people who made you feel completely safe, free to be yourself. She was a truly beautiful person, inside and out. She had a kind soul, so sweet that she chose to become vegan because she couldn’t stand the idea of an animal suffering just so she could eat it.”
Sonia’s life
But let’s take a few steps back to understand who the victim was. Sonia Exelby was originally from Portsmouth (UK) and was the youngest of six children. Her childhood was very difficult: in the first months of her life she was looked after by her older sister because her mother was unable to take care of her. Then at one year old she was placed in foster care with another sister and was finally adopted by a public servant in Hampshire. As an adult she had managed to find her birth parents.
Over the years, however, he began to suffer from depression. Little by little she closed herself off more and more until she isolated herself from the world. He found solace only in video games and the web.
Online contacts
As reported by TheTelegraph and the New York Postonline Exelby had had his first contacts with a violent world. In 2023, it was reconstructed that he had created an account with the name “Already yours” on an extreme fetish pornography website. The address was closed by the Dutch authorities only in May 2026, but it is on this platform that the young woman allegedly found and collected evidence about a group of sadistic men who killed vulnerable women. Or at least that’s what he told one of his sisters. The woman also said she wanted to go to the United States to unmask this network.
The first blocked journey and the encounter with Alphasadist
The 32-year-old had already tried once to reach the United States in 2024, but her family had managed to block her. The sisters had alerted the police who then stopped the woman just in time and confiscated her electronic devices to prevent her from accessing the web. And above all to contact one of the sadists of that group.
But the authorities were unable to save her from Alphasadist, one of the nicknames by which 53-year-old Dwain Chadwick Hall called himself in online chats. The man, a former pizza deliveryman and mechanic, lives in Florida in precarious conditions: his wife is ill, his mother-in-law has a disability and he owes 10 thousand euros to the state. On the platforms he uses he professes to be a follower of Anubis, the Egyptian god of death. Exelby allegedly made arrangements with him to be tortured and then killed for payment.
The murder and the last messages
Sonia then boarded a flight in London to Gainesville, Florida on October 10, 2025. In the same hours, according to what has been reconstructed, Hall went into a local supermarket and bought gun cleaner, parachute cord and a shovel. Then he picked up the young woman at the airport and by car they reached an apartment in an isolated place.
This is where the weekend of torture took place, which investigators were able to reconstruct thanks to Exelby’s messages to a friend on Discord. “I’m sorry he keeps taking my phone, he doesn’t trust me,” we read in a chat, “He made it clear to me that there was no way out unless I shoot him. I was thinking about it last night, but I can’t kill anyone. He’s in the shower, but I’m locked up and there’s no signal in the middle of nowhere.” Then the last message: “I thought he would do it quickly. I’m trying to write fast, my time is up.”
Shortly before the murder, on October 11, Hall allegedly made his victim record a video in which he cleared him of the charges. The young woman, with abrasions all over her body, defined herself as “a horrible person who deserves to suffer”, declared that she had left to die and that “no one is forcing her”.
The complaint and investigations
On Oct. 11, Hall had transferred $1,200 from Exelby’s credit card to his account. The following day, the alleged killer also purchased a plastic sheet from a store in Ocala and drove to a secluded wooded area in Marion Oaks, where he remained for about an hour, according to cell phone records. Authorities believe he then tossed Exelby’s belongings into a used clothing dumpster in Gainesville, Florida.
Exelby’s family was reported missing on October 13. That same day Hall had also texted a friend, writing, “There might be a big storm coming for me.” Then he sent him a package to his home address. Inside the box, according to the police, were the bloody knife, its sheath and a bracelet with the victim’s DNA.
Also on October 13, Hall spontaneously presented himself to investigators, who had discovered the charge, and, bizarrely, claimed that the two had not met in person. On Oct. 27, Hall was arrested on charges of credit card fraud related to the victim’s bank account. He was formally charged with her murder and kidnapping in November 2025, and is being held without the possibility of bail.