Vincent Edward Brothers (born May 31, 1962) is an American

mass murderer Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

convicted of killing his wife, their three children and his mother-in-law. Brothers was the former vice principal of John C. Fremont Elementary School in

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

and holds a Master's degree in education from

California State University Bakersfield California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB, Cal State Bakersfield, or CSU Bakersfield) is a public university in Bakersfield, California. It was established in 1965 as Kern State College and officially in 1968 as California State College Bake ...

and a Bachelor's degree from

Norfolk State University Norfolk State University (NSU) is a public historically black university in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Virginia High-Tech Partnership. History The institution was founded on September 18, 1935 a ...

. Brothers, who had months earlier married his wife for the second time, was convicted of killing her, their new baby, two toddlers and his mother-in-law on July 6, 2003. He attempted to create an alibi by flying to

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

under the

pretext A pretext (adj: pretextual) is an excuse to do something or say something that is not accurate. Pretexts may be based on a half-truth or developed in the context of a misleading fabrication. Pretexts have been used to conceal the true purpose or rat ...

of visiting his brother. He drove his rental car to Bakersfield, murdered his family members, and returned to Ohio.

Forensic analysis Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

of the rental car showed insects native to states west of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

and odometer readings that supported the round-trip to California. Brothers was convicted of first-degree murders with special circumstance of multiple murder and was ultimately sentenced to death.

Murders

Brothers first gained national attention after the July 6, 2003 deaths of his wife, Joanie (née Harper), his sons, Marques (four) and Marshall (six weeks), his daughter, Lyndsey (two), and his mother-in-law, Earnestine Harper. Earnestine (70) was a mother of five children and civil rights activist. Joanie (39) worked for the Bakersfield school system and was a division one basketball official. Vincent and Joanie married in 2000, but had the marriage annulled in September 2001 due to Brothers' infidelity. They remarried in January 2003 when Joanie was pregnant with their third child. Vincent moved out of the house in April 2003. Joanie, her mother and the children were last seen at church on July 6, 2003, and their bodies were discovered on Tuesday, July 8 in what appeared to be a staged break-in. Brothers had turned himself in to authorities in North Carolina where he was visiting his mother, but was released after a few hours due to lack of evidence at that time. Brothers returned to Los Angeles on July 11, 2003. He did not attend the memorial service for his wife, children, and mother-in-law, but attended their funeral on Wednesday, July 16. Although considered the only suspect from the beginning, he was not arrested until April 2004.

Trial

During the trial in 2007, the "biggest criminal trial in Bakersfield in decades", prosecutors emphasized Brothers' past marriage difficulties. Joanie Harper previously divorced him in 2000, but the couple remarried in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

in 2003. Brothers was also known to have extramarital affairs, and further compromised his case by lying while on the witness stand. According to Lisa Green, a Kern County deputy district attorney, Brothers killed his family because they were a financial burden and he lied on the stand 41 or more times. Brothers had flown to Columbus, Ohio for a long July 4 holiday weekend, drove a rental car approximately 2,000 miles to Bakersfield to kill his family after they returned home from church on July 6, and drove back to Ohio and North Carolina. The trip was intended to be an alibi, but several hundred dead insects found on the rental car and odometer readings showed that Brothers had driven to Bakersfield. Although Brothers stated that he flew to Columbus to visit his brother and had not traveled to California from Ohio, expert witnesses from the

University of California-Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

Bohart Museum of Entomology The Bohart Museum of Entomology was founded in 1946 on the campus of the University of California, Davis. The museum is currently the seventh largest insect collection in North America with more than seven million specimens of terrestrial and f ...

stated that some insects found on the rental car's radiator and air filter were from states west of the

. Lynn Kimsey, a UC-Davis professor of entomology and museum director, stated that, "The insects we found were consistent with two major routes to get to California from the East," and court testimony showed that the round trip accounted for the 4,500 miles on the rental car. On May 15, 2007, Brothers was convicted of the first-degree murders of his five family members after jurors heard testimony from 137 witnesses. Brothers is believed to have used a .22-caliber gun and "a stabbing weapon". His conviction carried the special circumstance of multiple murder. On May 29, 2007, the jury returned a sentence of death. According to sheriff's department spokesman Sgt. Ed Komin, detention deputies found that Brothers had hid handmade handcuff keys in his hair and had placed his leg restraints on one leg, which rendered them ineffective. He was returned to Lerdo Jail under additional security measures.

Sentence

On September 27, 2007, the Superior Court Judge Michael Bush sentenced Brothers to death based upon the jury's verdict and ordered Brothers to pay

restitution The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to ''give up'' their gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court o ...

. He was later placed into the custody of the

California Department of Corrections The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the penal law enforcement agency of the government of California responsible for the operation of the California state prison and parole systems. Its headquarters are in Sacrame ...

and placed on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

Relationship history

Brothers had been married four times, was briefly incarcerated for

spousal abuse Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...

, and has a surviving daughter, Margaret Kern Brothers, who was the daughter of his girlfriend while attending California State University Bakersfield. In 1988, Brothers was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse. He received a six-day jail sentence and was put on probation. He married for a second time in 1992 and the following year his wife sued for divorce claiming that he threatened to kill her and was violent. In 1996, Brothers sexually harassed a woman who worked at the school where he worked as vice principal. She claims that during a visit to his home he hit her and was dissuaded by the police from filing a formal complaint against a man considered a "respected community leader". During an investigation by the school, Brothers denied the allegations and was warned of the effect of such behavior on his career, but he was not formally disciplined.

Wrongful death settlement

Harper family members received an undisclosed amount in a wrongful death suit to recoup the costs of funeral expenses and ensure that any monies of King Ross Brothers went to the only surviving child of Vincent Brothers and Joanie's stepdaughter. Margaret Kern Brothers disowned her father and changed her surname following the mass murder.

Notes

References

External links

Convicted Mass Murderer Receives Death PenaltyAll Related News Stories On Bakersfield.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brothers, Vincent 1962 births 2003 murders in the United States American people convicted of murder Living people Norfolk State University alumni Prisoners sentenced to death by California American prisoners sentenced to death Place of birth missing (living people) People convicted of murder by California People from Bellport, New York African-American academics American mass murderers Familicides American murderers of children 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people