Vincent Brothers

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.{{cite news | agency=Associated Press |title=Ex-vice principal gets death |newspaper=Oakland Tribune |publisher=Alameda Newspaper Group |date=May 30, 2007 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7447675.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133309/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7447675.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}} Earnestine (70) was a mother of five children and civil rights activist. Joanie (39) worked for the Bakersfield school system{{cite news | title=Jury: Death for Ex-Principal in Killings |newspaper= AP Online | publisher=Press Association, Inc. |date=May 30, 2007 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7447675.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133309/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7447675.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}} and was a division one basketball official.{{cite news | url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32086189 |title=The Mystery of the Lost Weekend |newspaper=Dateline, Crime Reports | publisher=NBC | date=July 24, 2009 | author=Keith Morrison | access-date = January 9, 2015 }} 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.{{cite news | url=http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x981807661/Whos-who-in-the-Vincent-Brothers-murder-trial | title=Who's who in the Vincent Brothers murder trial |date=February 7, 2007 | newspaper=The Bakersfield Californian | access-date=January 10, 2015 }}

Joanie, her mother and the children were last seen at church on July 6, 2003, and their bodies were discovered shot to death on Tuesday, July 8 in what appeared to be a staged break-in.{{cite book|author1=Virginia A. Lynch|author2=Janet Barber Duval|title=Forensic Nursing Science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nD6VAFvKGC0C&pg=PT326|date=2010|publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences|isbn=978-0-323-06638-9|page=326}} 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,{{cite news | author=Brian Skoloff, Associated Press Writer |title=Family Slay Suspect Arrives in California |newspaper=AP Online |publisher=Press Association, Inc. |date=July 12, 2003 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-75177127.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133313/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-75177127.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}} but attended their funeral on Wednesday, July 16.{{cite news | author=Brian Skoloff, Associated Press Writer |title= Suspect attends victims' funeral Vice principal, under constant police surveillance, sits near four white caskets at the Bakersfield Convention Center |newspaper=AP Online |publisher=Press Association, Inc. |date=July 17, 2003 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-6963335.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133316/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-6963335.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}} Although considered the only suspect from the beginning, he was not arrested until April 2004.

During the trial in 2007, the "biggest criminal trial in Bakersfield in decades",{{cite book|title=California Courts and Judges|date = 2018|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hD6DUucpFhcC&pg=PA210|publisher=James Publishing|isbn=978-0-938065-98-2|page=210}} prosecutors emphasized Brothers' past marriage difficulties. Joanie Harper previously divorced him in 2000, but the couple remarried in Las Vegas in 2003. Brothers was also known to have extramarital affairs, and further compromised his case by lying while on the witness stand.{{cite news | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-may-30-me-brothers30-story.html|title=Vice principal gets death in murders of 5 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times | author=Steve Chawkins, Staff Writer | date=September 27, 2007 | access-date=January 9, 2015 }} 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' Bohart Museum of Entomology stated that some insects found on the rental car's radiator and air filter were from states west of the Rocky Mountains. 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.{{cite journal | author=Kathy Keatley Garvey |title=CSI: Bakersfield.(Newsmaker) |journal=Pest Control |publisher=Questex Media Group, Inc. |date=July 1, 2007 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-167652205.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133314/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-167652205.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}}

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.{{Clarify|date=August 2022|reason=Whatever is described here is unclear, not introduced, and is not obviously connected to his trial.}}

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.{{cite news | title=Ex-Vice Principal Sentenced to Death |newspaper=AP Online | publisher=Press Association, Inc. |date=September 28, 2007 |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1Y1-110799334.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329133307/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1Y1-110799334.html|url-status = dead|archive-date=March 29, 2015}} He was later placed into the custody of the California Department of Corrections and placed on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Brothers had been married four times, was briefly incarcerated for spousal abuse, 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.{{cite news | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-aug-11-me-brothers11-story.html |title=Woman Says Officials Covered Up Abuse by Murder Suspect | date=August 11, 2004 | author=John Johnson |newspaper=Los Angeles Times | access-date=January 9, 2015 }}

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.{{ cite news | url=http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x1018064419/Wrongful-death-suit-against-Vincent-Brothers-ends-in-settlement |title=Wrongful death suit against Vincent King Ross ends in settlement | date=June 25, 2008 | newspaper=The Bakersfield Californian | access-date=January 9, 2015 |author=Steven Mayer, Staff Writer}}

• List of death row inmates in the United States

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• [http://www.turnto23.com/news/14218506/detail.html Convicted Mass Murderer Receives Death Penalty]
• [http://search.bakersfield.com/?s=news&q=vincent+brothers&o=10&f=1&d=a All Related News Stories On Bakersfield.com]

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Category:1962 births

Category:2003 murders in the United States

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