A jury decided Tuesday that Vincent Brothers should receive the death penalty for killing his three children, his wife and his mother in law.

The jury deliberated for 6 hours over three days.

They deliberated for about 30 minutes this morning.

The judge will  have to confirm the sentence.

Brothers was found guilty of the five murders on May 15.

The judge will review the jury's recommendation on Sept. 27.

The jury reached a verdict this morning in the penalty phase of the Vincent Brothers' case.

The verdict will be announced at about 10 a.m.

The jury deliberated for just a half an hour before the jurors announced they had reached a verdict.

They have deliberated for about six hours.

They started deliberating on Wednesday.

The jurors decided Brothers was guilty of killing his wife, three children and mother-in-law on May 15.

The jurors will be dismissed early Thursday in the Vincent Brothers trial.

The court is dark Friday.

Jurors will resume deliberation on Tuesday.

They have been deliberating for about five hours over two days.

Brothers has already been convicted of killing his wife, three children and mother-in-law.

The jury will now have to decide if Brothers should live the rest of his life in prison or if he should be executed.

The jury has begun deliberating in the penalty phase of the Vincent Brothers trial.

The jury has already convicted Brothers of killing his wife, three children and his mother-in-law.

The jury will now decide if Brothers should live or die.

“We would never be here in Nepoleonic France,” defense attorney Anthony Bryan said, digressing into a history lesson.

“There is always the hint from those that worship authority...and make it comfortable for folks like you in your situation...It’s a necessity argument. One of the greatest prime ministers of England was William Pitt,”

He goes on to quote Pitt.

“Necesity is the plea...it is the crea of slaves,”

“No one here proposes freedom for Vincent Brothers,”

“We’re asking you to allow him to spend the rest of his life in prison,”

“And you have the record of a long life before you,”

“At the very worst, you have found that there was a horrible weekend in his life of 41 years, if you have no lingering down, but all the rest of that 41 years was honorable discharges... excellent bachelor’s degree, credential, mater’s degree, this is not a wreckage of the past case. His years are in his favor.”

“What else would you have him do?” “Did he go to the wrong college, should he have gone to the Airforce, should he have gotten a Ph.D.”

“We know Joanie and her immediate family were religious, but so was Vincent’s,” Bryan said.

“Brothers was reading scripture to some athletes, that he separated some athletes from a fight,” Bryan said.

“Counsel suggests that was a different person, that is convenient. That is Vincent Brothers, the same person that is in this courtroom,”

“It is not only, not to be scorned, it is to be praised,” Bryan said.

Bryan apologizes if anything he said has aggrevated the jurors.

“Do not hold it against Vincent Brothers,”

“I want to remind you of one more thing you will see in the jury instructions,” Bryan said.

“You can vote for life if you wish,”

“There were some attempt to attack them, and belittle them,” Bryan said.

“In the last analysis, you can vote for life just because you want to vote for life,” Bryan said.

“We have a horrible crime and nothing I have said or done has been intended to minimize,” Bryan said.

“It’s been the most community effecting event since I lived in Bakersfield,” Bryan said. “I don’t in any way minimize it,”

“I think there is lingering doubt, as to whether they convicted the right person,”

“All things considered, I ask you to vote for life in prison,”

Bryan said the laceration to Kern’s face was “superficial.”

“The prosecutor suggested incorrectly that you can solve the problems of the world,” Bryan said.

“A civilized society, when a member or a group of members such as yourselves the jury have the opportunity to kill or not we generally like to think that we have rules and there are things that we will do and consider before we make such a momentous decision. That is what we are doing here. And everybody here agreed to listen...even though we all agreed we would never get to the penalty phase unless you agreed beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant killed his entire family...It’s horrible.”

“I guess there must be a law against moving across country...I don’t know of anybody who has ever been sentenced...because they have moved from the east coast to the west coast which do create communications problems.”

“There aren’t a lot of people who can produce the quantity and quality of friends from back east who were willing to come from back east,” Bryan said.

“Relatives who are teachers and ministers, but because he didn’t, he was a teacher he taught during the school year and he taught many summer schools, but you are being to asked why he did not go back and forth all the time. Look at the volume of pictures seized from his apartment.”

“You have heard from many hard working teachers who thought the world of Vincent,”

“And you are supposed to ignore what they say. I don’t know how that works out with the timeline people presented,”

“It isn’t a different human being that was Vincent Brothers,” Bryan said. “They described him exactly as the teachers described him,”

“On their side, superficial facial lacerations,” Bryan said.

“The entire presentation of the prosecutor was to try and create the burden of proof that does not exist. To make you think that you should start off with death in your mind and that I then have to move you somehow away from death and that is absolutely untrue. That is not my burden. There is no favorite. Death is not favorite. There is no assumption from death. I do not have to move you from death, hopefully, if you follow the law...It is your decision. It is sometimes subteranean me suggesting to you that you do not have to make this decision. And because this is sucha  horrible decision and such a horrible sent of facts it is comfortable to accept a theory of law that allows that permits us to avoid making that decision, but that is where we are. There is no presumption of death that I somehow have to superhumanyly have to move you away from. It is up to you. You have gotten some kind of rules that the prosecution has read to you...These are fairly concise and the judge did read them to you.”

“Let’s not forget the special arrangement he made in Marques’ school room,.. that is all stuff that can be considered mitigating.”

“If we are going to do a weighing process from the penalty phase...nothing I have said should be interpretted as anyone not recognizing the horrific nature of this crime,”

Bryan asked what the United States would be known for if archeologists studied us. “it isn’t art and it isn’t archetecture,”

“We are what we are because of things we are doing right now,” Bryan said. “That is what is so strange about this place. That is why more people try to get in here than any other place that ever existed. They don’t go to listen to Bethoven, they come here because of our system of our, because of our system of freedom,”

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan begins his closing arguments.

“Naturally I disagree with the verdict you reach. My opinion doesn’t mean anything,” Bryan said.

“There is anything thing that you can consider and that is lingering doubt,” Bryan said.

Bryan reminds the jurors that they all said they could consider life in prison even if Brothers were convicted of the murders.

Bryan, who is known for his loud arguments, is speaking so quietly that he can barely be heard.

“I think one of the things that shows the extreme weakness of the prosecution’s penalty phase case is, I want you to look at the hospital records,” Bryan said. “See if there is anything there that resembles the description as described by Ms. Kern,” Bryan said.

“We have another witness to that, Keith Powell,” Bryan said. “This is a department head at Cal State Bakersfield, he has no reason to lie.”

“There was quite a bit of contact with Margaret,” Bryan said. “It is not uncommon in this society that the contact with a child is limited by the fact that the parents no longer get along.”

“The prosecutor wants you to believe that the defendant should receive among other reasons, because of his contact with (Shann Kern),”

Bryan shows an article The Californian wrote about Brothers because of his participation in the community.

Bryan reminded the jurors that Brothers was an “outstanding” teacher and vice-principal.

“One of the defendant’s abilities is his ability to get along with others,” Bryan said.

“You do not complete high school and college and graduate school and a complete tour with the army and with the marines if you cannot get along well with others,”

“If Mr. Calloway saw Mr. Brothers that weekend at the house is it at all possible to believe that he had done what she says he did,” Bryan said.

“I know you’ve determined otherwise but I must argue lingering doubt, I think that is an enormous amount of doubt,” Bryan said.

“You have three inherintly incredible...clay of the worst sort,” Bryan said.

Bryan said that every time a bug was found, their ranges expanded.

The prosecution bug expert said bugs she would expect to see were not there, Bryan said, if the trip west were made.

“Dr. Kimsey said there should have been white butterflies, they weren’t there,” Bryan said.

“Try driving across the west in the middle of the summer without getting those things on your car and in the air intake system.

“Why was Vincent Brothers able to give the same kind of attention to his own daughter Margaret...why did Mr. brothers attend his niece Tanya’s eighth grade graduation and not his own daughter’s,” Green said.

“It was that they only know Vincent Brothers in a professional capacity, none of them, not one of them knew him. This man did not have any friends...If the truth be told nobody knew him. The co-workers testimony mirrored that of the women he slept with...he really had no friends,”

Green said this was the same as his childhood friends. “That he was studious, polite, shy, athletic, but not one of them had any contact with him in adulthood...they came here to stand up and testify from memory...the boy that these men described is not the same man you’ve seen and heard from in this courtroom the man who testified in this courtroom...They don’t want to believe he could have changed....but each and every one of you know better and you said so in your verdict.”

“Would you expect them to believe that someone they know and liked 25 years ago would would do something like this?” Green told the jurors. “Who would believe that someone they know is capable of what happened in this face, capable of killing their entire family.”

“They did not see him often and when they did there is no evidence their relationship is close,” Green said, speaking so quietly, her voice was at times inaudible from the audience.

“Is any of that enough to cause you to return a verdict of life...does any of what they said mitigate waht he did. Does anything they said make you think Brothers deserves to spend the rest of his life eating, drinking, laughing,”

“The boy who did that 30 years ago, that person does not exist any more, you know that,” Green said. “The man you see before you is the face of evil. There is no sugarcoating that. Is there anything about what the defendant’s 25 witnesses offered that cause you to say this is an extenuating circumstance that justifies voting for life,”

“My answer is no, never,” Green said.

“Vincent Brothers took an oath to tell the truth and he looked you in the eye and he lied” Green said. “He made up a story that he was in Columbus Ohio when he was in (California) killing his family.”

“When Mr. Bryan argues lingering doubt, you remember that he lied,”

Green said Brothers’ demeanor on the stand will erase any lingering doubt.

Green shows the jurors the video of the crime scene the day the Harper family was found.

The courtroom stood still as Green played the video that panned past the bodies and through the house.

“When Mr. Bryan gets up here....In a loving home often pictures are displayed on the wall...when Mr. Bryan brings up all these pictures the defendant had just remember the photos he had were not out, were not displayed...They were in a bin on the floor in that apartment.”

Green told the jurors that one juror said life in prison gives you time to take care of your soul.

“I think while that may be true as to some people...it is not true of Vincent Brothers...your conscience is a part of your soul and you can’t take care of your sould if you don’t have a conscience.

“When Vincent Brothers walked in that room with the intent of killing his entire family that is what he saw was three sleeping children,”

Green displays once again the photo montage of the family.

“In the space of an afternoon the lives of three children were brought to an end...the hopes and dreams of the people they would become were gone,”

“If you don’t believes these crimes impacted the community...you need only look at that photo and the testimony of Vincent Brothers who said more than 2,000 people attended that memorial,” Green said.

Bryan will ask you “to show Vincent brothers mercy and to allow him the rest of his life behind bars. I have heard it said that justice is getting what you deserve and mercy is getting what you don’t deserve. Vincent Brothers deserves as much mercy as he showed his victims and that is none,” Green said.

“If not the death penalty for this case than which case, if not the death penalty for these victims, for which victims, if not the death penalty for Vincent Brothers,”

“In the killing of these women and these children...I will not stand up here and talk about how many times they are shot because I know you know...Only the most soulless coward could commit crimes such as these. Are there any more innocent victims,”

Green said that if they don’t vote for the death penalty they will be sending a message to the community that this is tollerated.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green told the jurors that the only appropriate punishment is death.

“There is only one question,” Green said.

“What punishment does the defendant Vincent Brothers deserve?”

“I’m quite sure that none of you imagined that none of you thought that you would be in this position making this extremely difficult decision,” Green said.

“It is one of the most serious decisions you will ever make,”

“Always remember and always be guided by the knowledge that you are here, you are in this position because of what he did on July 6, 2003,”

“Remember you are here because of him because of what he did and because of choices he made,”

“His choice to brutally murder five people,”

“I do not have the burden of proof any longer,” Green said.

“One aggravating circumstances is enough,” Green said.

She said there are two aggravating factors.

“The primary factor is factor A,”

“The only appropriate sentence is a sentence of death,”

They can consider all of the evidence from the guilt and the death penalty phase.

“Now that you know how they were murdered, the planning that went into it, the calculated way the defendant killed a sleeping mother...the way the defendant shot a 4-year-old boy,”

The crime is “so brutal, so immoral,” that Brothers deserves the death penalty on this alone, Green said.

The jurors can consider the impact the deaths had on the Harper family and on the community.

“It helps you to access the enormity of the offense,” Green said.

Joanie was a good athlete, she was a loving mother, Green said.

Green quotes Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you said...but they won’t forget how you made them feel.”

“She was a strong woman in a day when being strong was not fashionable...she was a working mother in a day when maybe that was not fashionable,” Green said.

Her faith in God translated to her children, Green said.

“She tried at all times to better herself so she could better her family,” Green said.

“She bettered herself by going from a one-bed room apartment to buying a house,”

“She raised five wonderful children,” Green said.

“When you deliberate and you consider the harm..please consider that ()the children) will never see their mother again, their sister again, and their niece and nephews again,”

Green said the second factor the jurors should consider is the use of violence.

She said this involves the incident with Shann Kern from 1988 when Brothers punched her in the face repeatedly.

“You can only find this a factor in mitigation if you found that true beyond a reasonable doubt,” Green said.

The crime would be corporal injury on a co-habitant or a battery.

She remains the jurors that Keith Powell was remembering the incident from about 20 years ago and that it didn’t involve him.

“I’m not suggesting that he is lying, I’m just suggesting that his memory isn’t very clear and is inaccurate,” Green said.

His comment to Kern was “Why did you keep getting up, as if somehow it were her fault,” Green said.

She told the jurors that Kern was two months pregnant at the time.

Green said Brothers was not emotionally disturbed.

Green said there is no evidence he was acting under the influence of another.

Green said Brothers’ age is not a factor in mitigation because at the time he committed the crimes he was 41 years old.

Green said defense attorneys typically argue this when their client is young to suggest he did not know any better. “He was 41, you have found he committed these crimes in a premeditated and deliberate way and he did know better,” Green said.

“The only factor that any of the defense evidence falls under is K. That allows sympathy, pity for the defendant.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush has reviewed all of the jury instructions.

He will now instruct the jury on the law.

The attorneys will begin closing arguments this afternoon.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush reviewed the jury instructions which will guide the jurors on the law.

The judge said he will not read special instructions from the defense regarding reasonable doubt because he thinks this is covered with other instructions.

Bush said he will instruction the jurors that if they vote for the death penalty, Brothers will be executed.

The judge and attorneys are going through the evidence that will be admitted from the penalty phase of the trial.

The prosecution wants to allow in a medical record from Shann Kern’s trip to the hospital. Shann Kern is the mother of Brothers’ only living child. Kern testified during the penalty phase that Brothers punched her in the face several times while she was pregnant with their child.

Kern said she was living with Brothers at the time. But Brothers’ roommate at the time said Kern was not living at the apartment. Kern wrote Brothers’ address down as her address in the medical records. The judge said this portion of the records will be admitted.

But he said some of the record will be redacted.

The judge and attorneys later reviewed the family photos Brothers had at his apartment and other family photos.

The prosecutor agreed to allow a blown up article written about Brothers published in The Californian in 1996.

The defense said it is finished presenting witnesses. The prosecution said she is finished presenting witnesses as well. The judge said he must finish a few issues tomorrow morning and the jurors will return at 10:30 Wednesday for argument.

Defense Attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Brothers’ mother Margaret Brothers.

Vincent has two sisters and seven brothers.

Vincent was the first one born in New York.

She lived in Calverton or Bayton Hollow. Then they lived in Riverhead a couple years or more and then moved in Belport.

Bryan showed Margaret Brothers a series of photos.

She does not remember when she moved into the house in Belport. Donde is 40 and they moved to that house when he was a baby.

Thearl was still there. At some point there were 10 children living in the house. It had 3 bedrooms. The family went to church, not as regular as they should have, Margaret Brothers said.

She required the children to go to church at times.

“I noted he loved school and he loved reading and things like that,”

She would have Vincent help the other children with his homework.

Brothers would babysit for his sister “and clean too.”

“I didn’t like his cleaning,”

“I told him go where he thinks would be best for him,” Margaret Brothers said.

She knew of his sporting activities.

She does not remember about his scholarships.

He would return for holidays.

She remembers when he went to California.

He would stay in touch through the telephone and letters.

“I’m a person, I believe in doing a lot of writing,”

She met his first wife Angela. He was going to California and she took her home a couple of weeks before.

She found out they were divorced.

She knew of the marriage to Sharon.

She knew that was over.

She knew of her granddaughter Margaret who she talked to a few times on the phone.

She would mostly talk to her mother, Shann Kern.

She never met Joanie, but she spoke to her three or four times on the phone.

They spoke a little before the murders. She talked with Vincent and her on the phone before and after Joanie had the baby when Joanie was still in the hospital with Marshall.

Vincent told her about the birth of his two other babies, before and from the hospital.

She spokes to Marques and Lyndsey on the phone, Lyndsey didn’t talk that good, but Marques would say a few words. Vincent would arrange those calls.

“Sure I love my son, I love all my kids,”

She did not really work while the children were in school.

She bought their clothing at good will, but they did not know it.

Vincent Brothers is wiping his eyes.

She last saw her husband in July 1996. Vincent offered for her to fly out many times but she did not want to because she was afraid of flying.

She did not even want to go on Amtrak.

Vincent talked about bringing the family out around the Fourth of July of 2000 but she thought the baby was too young.

Vincent Brothers helped support her. She bought a new car and she was out of disability for 18 or 19 months. Vincent paid the car off for her in 1989. She bought a new Nissan Sentra. “He would send me extra money,”

“He would send me extra money every month,” “He would just send it.”

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Tanya Howard.

She is Brothers’ niece. Her mother is Thearl Bernard. She is 32.

“At 10 years old she went to his college graduation,”

“He would visit and give us money for good grades and teach us wrestling moves,”

“He always and still encourages me to go to school and learn foreign languages and travel and do better...he encouraged me to go outside Belport and New York and see other places and further my education,”

She is enrolled in college now.

She lives in Atlanta Georgia. She is a tax accountant.

“When I bought my house, my mother was busy a lot and he helped me get through the whole house buying process,”

He was in California and she was in Atlanta. That was in 2003 and 2004.

She had contact with Vincent while he was in California through e-mail, and telephone and they would send photos. He would never e-mail her, but he would call her.

There is a photo of her with her cousin and her uncle Vincent.

There is a picture of her eighth grade graduation and a cheerleading parade.

There are inscriptions on the backs of the photos from Tanya to her uncle.

These photos were taken out of a tub inside the defendant’s apartment.

She was 12 when she went to Brothers’ college graduation. He was in marine corp uniform.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the stand Jennie Yvette Combs. She is Brothers’ sister. She is the third down. She is 48.

She was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The family moved to Long Island.

She is an ordained minister and she is a teaching associate at a local school. Another teacher was also ordained as a minister. There is a photo of that.

There is a photo of Combs with Vincent and her daughter. There are other family photos.

She is three or four years older than Vincent.

“I always looked at him as being a very bright, a very quiet child, he was always a little different because he always kept to himself, you could see that he was going to be someone important,” Combs said.

“He was very involved with sports, he had quite a few good friends, I noticed that when he went to school he wore a shirt and a tie, he was a professional,”

“Yes I use to call him poindexter,” “He use to wear these big glasses, he was very smart, very intelligent, so we use to call him Poindexter.”

She is not sure of the school where he graduated from college. He visited the family including to her house in Mastic.

“I know he had graduated from college and he decided to move to California,”

Her daughter Tamika was born before Vincent moved to California. “When he called he would talk to the girls,”

On one ocassions, “he spent money through the mail to make sure those girls had gotten those sneakers,”

“He always when he came to visit he always encouraged the children to do positive things and to go to school,”

After Vincent went to California, he could visit the family periodically and everyone would visit with him.

She knew he had a daughter Margaret. She knew later he had Marques and Lyndsey.

She never met their mothers. She talked to Shann Kern when she came for the funeral services.

She saw Brothers at their fathers’ funeral 16 or 17 years ago.

She met Sharon Barniard and Angela RIchardson. He brought Angie home on a visit from school. Sharon came out to visit the family once alone and once with him after he came to California.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green asks about the last time she saw Vincent Brothers.

She does not remember the years of these visits.

She and the family went to church together. There are a number of ministers in the family

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan called to the stand Thearl Barnard.

She is a second grade teachers. She has taught for 10 years. She teaches at Center Morchies School. She is Vincent’s oldest sister.

“Vincent was born in New York,” she said.

He may have been the first of the children to be born in New York.

She was born in North Carolina and so were some of the other children.

Vincent is No. 5. Yvette is younger than her.

They first lived in Calverton and then in Baytown Hollow, then their parents purchased a home in Belport.

They always lived in a house. She does not remember what her father was doing for a living. Her father eventually became a father and worked at a mental health institute.

She was in eighth grade when the family moved to Belport.

Bryan showed Bernard a photo of their high school. Another photo of Brothers with family. Another photo with family.

She is eight or nine years older than Vincent.

She helped her mother with the family. “From time to time I took on a paternal roll”

“Vincent was a very studious brother, funny, energenic,...he was always very studious, helpful positive memories, those are my positive memories,”

“Vincent was always very engaged in school, with sports, he had a positive relationship with his peers, with his teachers, he was very studious,”

“He was always reading, he was interested in classical music,”

“He was always involved with sports,”

“Anything that was academically challenging or positive,” Thearl Bernard said.

“In comparison, they had boy energy and some of my brothers were involved in sports, some weren’t as academic as Vincent, they were doing well in school, but they were not the A plus students,”

“At one time he was the state championship,”

“He was the brothers that I wouldn’t have to say go get your homework, let’s do it together,”

Vincent Brothers was the only brother to complete college.

Brothers was community minded.

Brothers started working at age 14 with a community group.

“His friends were academically engaged.. they were gentlemently young boys, they had directions and goals for themselves,”

“Vincent was the brother that made good choices and decisions,”

“He made choices and decisions based on what was right,”

After Brothers went to college, at old Westbury, he was home frequently. When he went away to Norfolk, they went to the college twice. They maintained some letter writing and some phone calls.

She was away at Pace University.

Bryan shows her a photo of Brothers in the Marines. There is another picture of Vincent in his uniform.

“I maintained contact with Vincent,” Vincent visited her, she had her own apartment and stayed there. “I did a lot of letter writing, I maintained phone contact,” Before and after he came to California.

Bernard said Brothers moved to California within a year of graduating. She maintained contact through the telephone. She called him once when there was an earth quake.

Brothers returned at times to visit them.

She knew he had gotten married. His first wife’s name was Angie, whohe met at Norfolk State University. Vincent Brothers remaried. She knew he had a daughter named Margaret Kern, named after his mother.

“There was always contact via phone or letter,” His mother sent some pictures.

“I spoke with him two weeks prior” to the killings in June. Prior, they spoke to each other in May. He was born on the 31st.

They always talked on birthdays. Toward the end of the school year, they spoke.

Prior to that it was sporadic phone calls and prior to that they saw each other at their father’s funeral.

She does not remember speaking with Joanie on the phone. He knew they were married. He spoke with the children on the phone from time to time.

She thinks that happened four times over a couple of years.

She spoke with Margaret when she was younger and gave her an e-mail address and sent her a letter to come out and spend some time in the summer.

The last attempt she made, Margaret was 14. “It just never transpired,”

“Vincent is a very sociable person, he’s very positive, he gets along well with people,”

“He has always had a number of friends,”

“He has had long term relationships and short term,”

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Rodney Cooke.

He lieves in Belport New York. He moved back from Virginia four months ago. He has lived in Belport all together for 34 years.

He works maintenance and framing and anything he can find. He just moved back.

He is 44 years old. “Vincent is a good friend of mine. I have known his since the third grade.”

Their mothers “prayed plenty of nights with us.”

“While we were doing some of the things we aught not have been doing, he wasn’t doing those things,”

He wrestled with Vincent Brothers.

After one wrestling tournament, Vincent was reading the Bible to the team. “It really drew a lot of people. A lot of people not just from out team, but to other teams were flocking to listen to what he had to say.”

He broke up a fight between two wrestlers on the Belport team to break up the fight. “He was the type of person who would step in the middle of things,”

“He was an all together stand up type of guy,” Cooke said.

Cooke is married with two children.

He went to college at Tulane and wound up back in Belport and for the last seven years he was in Virginia.

He did not keep up with he. “We are and always will be good friends,”

When Brothers was in North Carolina he tried to go see him, but just missed him, in the summer of 2003 when the case first started.

“I believe in him and I know his character,”

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questioned Cooke.

“Well you don’t know his character do you...you haven’t seen the guy in 27 years,”

“You have no idea who Vincent Brothers is do you?”

“I do,” Cooke said.

“I know Vincent Brothers, I know his family, I know his values,” Cooke said.

Green asks if some of the brothers have been in jail.

“People chance, to a degree,” Cooke said.

He graduated in 1981.

He did not maintain contact with Brothers since he graduated in 1980.

“He didn’t drink,”

“That’s the type of job that shows his character, not money, looking after people, children,”

“The time that I spent with him...I would step up and give my life for him because of his character,”

“You are here to talk about his character in high school regardless of the evidence presented here,”

“From what I see, I don’t see any evidence...I don’t believe in all of my heart that he did these crimes,” Green said.

“Have you read the police reports...have you sat in here one day and listened to the evidence,”

Mr Bryan told the judge, “If we are going to retry this case, let’s go ahead and start right now.”

The judge asked the jurors to step outside.

The judge told Bryan that he does not want him to do speaking objections.


The witnesses are opening the door to an assault and battery conviction in 1980 and another in 1982.

Green said she has not challenged the witnesses, but she will when his “high school buddies” start talking about what a great guy she is. Green said Brothers is convicted of slaughtering his family.

The defense objects to retrying the case by asking this witness what he knows of the case.

The judge said he will allow a few questions along these lines.

The jurors are asked back in.

Cooke said he followed the case through the Internet. He has not followed the whole trial.

“You would agreed that any person who would kill two women and three men is not a stand up kind of guy,” Green asked.

“Yes, I don’t believe he is that person,” Cooke said.

Defense Attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Kevin Lee Bethia.

He lives in Dallas, Texas. He went to Belport High School and went to a college in upstate New York. He was comissioned as a second Lt. in the Army. He is still in the military for 21 years. He got back from reserve duty. He is a Lt. Colonel. He is an insurance manager.

He graduated in 1981. He knew Vincent Brothers. They played sports together in Belport, a small town. They wrestled together.

“Vincent had a big family like mine,” Bethia said. Their mothers were friends.

The group they grew up with wanted to better themselves. “We had to create our own sense of existence and livlihood...we motivated each other to go to college...we instilled in each other that we can make it.”

“Going to college was a way of getting out of town,”

During the summers they would motivate each other, Bethia said.

“Vincent was a well mannered guy who appeared to be just like the rest of us, that didn’t go overboard in trying to do anything that was wrong,”

Coach Nil was their coach.

“Vincent was one year ahead of me,”

“He was one of the stars at Belport High School,”

He had a unique wrestline style. “He took time to better himself,”

“Vincent’s social life was just, I would say Vincent was more of a nerd than anything else,”

“We wanted to ensure that we were trying to make our families proud,”

THe crash Brothers was involved with involved his family including his grandparents.

“I sprinted all the way down to the corner..I knew my mother had gone over to my grandmother’s house,”

His mother was injured in the back seat. His grandmother was pinned in. “My grandmother ended up dying from that incident,”

Vincent helped save his family.

“He was able to at least comfort my family,”

“It’s good to know that they were comforted,”

It happened at an uncontrolled intersection.

Brothers went to old Westbury on scholarships.

He had a scholarship to Fredonia.

At one point, he moved to California as an adult and reunited with Brothers. He was an assistant principal, he said.

“You would not expect anything less,”

“Teaching was one of those things that was a natural,”

“We both had people in our family who had issues and it was us that did not want to head down that road,” he said.

“It’s one thing about big families is that you ended up coming together,”

“Vincent and myself and probably about 10 or 12 others wanted to do something for ourselves,”

They all had summer jobs.

They went to a center where they would play ping-pong and pool.

They lost touch after a while, but continued to talk by telephone. He was in California for 15 years. He moved a lot.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questioned Bethia.

He lived in California in 1986 to 2003. He never saw Vincent Brothers in person. He first lived in Northridge. He did not have a vehicle at the time.

“It sounds like you were more interested in striking up a friendship than he was,”

Bethia said that was not true.

He got Brothers’ number through a friend. They spoke two times while he lived in California.

“What did he do that was wrong,”

“Vincent didn’t do anything that was wrong in the things that I observed in the time I have known him,”

He was in Northridge, Canoga Park in San Fernando Valley, Sylmar, Canoga Park and Simi Valley. He eventually bought a car. He never suggested getting together.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Donald Collier.

He lives in Elisabeth City, North Carolina. He was born there, but raised in Long Island New York.

Bryan shows Collier a picture of Belport High School where he graduated.

He and Cummings graduated together. He also knows Vincent Brothers “very well.” “I consider Vincent my brother, I know him very well.”

“I knew VIncent before we became friends,”

They were on the bus from football practice on freshman year,”

Vincent came up to him on the bus and asked what would you do if I smacked you and he said I would smack you back and they laughed and became friends.

“Vincent spent a lot of time with me, most Saturday nights he would spend the night at my house,”

They ran track together.

Vincent was on the wrestling team. “He was almost like the wrestling team,”

“He was very temperate, mild-mannered, humble,”

They kept in contact after high school. Brothers went to Westbury and he went to Albany. Brothers went to another school and they started to lose touch.

“He was there the day my son was born,” Collier said.

Vincent transferred to Norfolk State.

In 1979, he and Vincent were walking down the street and at an intersection, they witnessed a car crash and Collier was in a cast. Vincent ran over to help. “I was reluctant at the time,” They could smell gas leaking and the other car was in flames 10 feet away. It was a friend of their’s family in the car. “Vincent didn’t hesistate, he was tearing doors off the car,” Other people hesitated to help because of the gas, but that did not stop Vincent, Collier said.

“Vincent was courageous like that, he was not self centered,”

A couple of months before that they had been in a crash and had ran away from the vehicle. He turned off the key and got his glasses and ran to the high school a mile away to get help.

Collier’s sister’s loved Vincent. “His nieces and nephews were crazy about him...everybody I knew was crazy about Vincent especially kids,”

“To say Vincent is this cold individual is unheard of,”

Collier’s family wasn’t church goers, but he would go with “Aunt Margaret” and VIncent. “Vincent was always a God fearing individual,”

“If we would have stayed we wouldn’t have amounted to much...we were going to get out, we were going to make something happen for ourselves,”

“Our class was the first to send several black young men off to college with the hope that we were going to do something with our lives,”

“He would do anything he could for someone that was ill...He was a giving individvual, he was a caring individual, he still is,”

In their last year in school, his aunt was diagnosed with cancer. Vincent went with his family to North Carolina to spend time with his aunt. “He was the type of individual who could cheer anyone up and get a laugh out of them,”

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Anthony Cummings. He is an attorney from Long Island, New York.

He attended High School from 1976 through 1980. “Vincent is one of the guys I grew up with,” He was one of his 10 best friends.

They went to each others houses and played sports together. “Vincent always stood out to me because we had a lot of similarities....same height, thin, they both wore classes,”

They use to play soft ball and ride bicycles and as they went further along ins chool they all wanted to go to college.

“Vincent was one of the better students,”

“Vincent would dress very nice and the reason that we tried to distinguish outselves was for all the obvious reasons...we thought that if we presented outselves in a respectful way...it would be helpful for admissions,”

“Vincent was very active in a lot of things in school,”

“He participated in several sports, he earned varsity letters in two maybe three sports,”

“I believe wrestling was the activity he excelled most in,”

“I recall Vincent asking me, Do you think I should go to college,”

Belport is a typical working-class, middle-class type of community, Cummings said.

“It was out home, it was a great place for us,”

Coach Nil was a coach at the high school.

Coach Chavis was a coach on the track team, on which Cummings participated.

He was in the same class as Vincent.

“I would see Vincent from time to time in some of the advanced classes,”

“In order to excell...you needed to know what was important and we all did, you need to work hard in class and you need to be respectful,”

Vincent Brothers became an announcer at the football games.

He heard Brothers got a scholarship, but he did not keep up with Brothers.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questions Cummings.

He said he has three children and has been married 18 years.

He lost touch with Brothers at his graduation.

They graduated in 1980.

He was contacted in 2005 by investigators. He did not resume contact with Vincent Brothers.

“You had no idea the person that he had become,”

“I would assume he was the same man he was then,”

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan questions Victoria Ann Ellis. She was a kindergarten teacher at Fremont Elementary School.

Brothers was her Vice Principal.

“With the little ones, they were always running up to him and he would have them laughing and squealing and he would play fake magic tricks on them and they would always come up and he would give them some attention,”

“He associated with teachers very well.”

She did not socialize with Brothers’ outside of school.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Rose Williams-Browning.

She is employed at Emerson. She has known Brothers since 1988 through school. She was an office assistant.

“He seemed to love working with the students, playing basketball with them, he always encouraged them to try and make something out of themselves,”

The children were 13 or 14 in 7th or 8th grade.

She knew Joanie Harper when she was employed at Emerson Middle School. They were friends. “She was always hugging on me, she was always laughing and talking,” Williams-Browning said.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Barbara Williams.

She is retired from Bakersfield City School District as assistant superintendent of instruction. She has known Brothers for 12 to 15 years. “I had the honor of supervisit principals and vice principals and Vincent Brothers was one of them,”

A new principal, Don Gil, relied heavily on Brothers’ expertise and skill in working with the students and parents.

“He learned to speak Spanish on his own,” she said.

Brothers was in the outter office speaking Spanish. “They were so appreciative...it made them feel very comfortable coming to school,”

“Mr. Brothers believed students needed to be in school,” They had an in-school suspension program where class work continued to go on and they could focus.

“For three years Fremont School had zero suspensions,” The parents were very appreciative that Mr. Brothers took the time to design this program.

Brothers wanted her permission to go to McKinley to participate in his son Marques’ pre-K room. “He explained to me that Joanie his wife had always been the one to go and do the participation and he told me he wanted to share that responsibility and he wanted to spend more time with his son Marques and he needed a higher person to okay that,”

He was given permission and volunteered on a regular basis.

“Everytime I went to Fremont he was on the playground welcoming kids to school and parents and they would run up and hug him as if he were their father...he spent the time to show affections to them...to me he was an advocate to student,” Green said.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Junea Davis. She is a campus supervisor at Bakersfield City School District.

She went over to visit Joanie and Brothers after the baby was born, maybe a week prior to the Fourth of July weekend.

She told Joanie that the youngest one looked like her. Joanie and Vincent appeared to be happy, Davis said.

The prosecutor has no questions.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Mae Frances Booker.

She worked with him at Fremont for seven years. She was the cafeteria and playground supervisor.

In one incident, there was a bad dust storm and all the kids went into the cafeteria. One boy popped a milk carton. The boy’s mother became mad. Brothers asked officers to check up on her at her house to make sure she was safe.

“He played ball with them, he was professional when he had to be,”

He told the students that if he lost a game with the students, he could kiss a pig and he did.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Cherry Jensen.

She is a teacher at Fremont Elementary.

Brothers was her vice principal from 1996.

“He loved the kids. The kids loved him...The students were constantly around him. THey loved him. They wanted to hug on him. They wanted to play with him,”

“I had to train my first graders that when he comes in, you can’t jump up and go give him a hug, he wants to see you working,”

“Any time he was on the playground they wanted to talk with him,”

“He performed his duties well... He was always concerned about our safety,”

“I became quite ill in 2001, I was extremely dizzy...He saw to it that Mrs. Bry drove me home and made sure my vehicle made it home,”

She did not socialize with him after school hours.

She knew Joanie from school and through church- their church were related.

Vincent Brothers learned Spanish while he was there and could communicate with the students.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questions the witness.

She did not know that Marques was Brothers’ son.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand science teacher Amy Meadors.

She knew him from Fremont Elementary School.

He was her supervisor.

“He interacted a lot with the students more than any other supervisor who has been there since I have been there,”

“Whenever the students would be at recess and Brothers would be at yard duty 10 or 15 kids would be tagging after him,”

“If he didn’t have kids tagging after him he would be playing basketball with them on the basketball courts,”

When students had discipline problems, “Mr. Brothers was always very supportive,”

“He would keep them, he would not send them back to class...he would deal with parents on my behalf...he was always willing to help,”

She knew Joanie Harper from working with her at Fremont. She did not socialize with either Harper or Brothers outside of school.

During school assemblies, “when he entered the room the students immediately snapped to, they sat up straight and stopped talking...it was out of respect or fear of him not liking them,” 

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Michael Roberson.

He worked at Bakersfield City School District. He retired at McKinley.

He saw Brothers at functions through the school district.

His oldest son was attending a pre-school at McKinley.

Vincent Brothers asked him to mentor him to work on administrative skills and curriculum. He wanted one day to become principal.

Vincent would come over on his lunch hour with Marques. He would spend a half hour with his son.

“He really had a real knack in terms of interacting with students, they seemed to really enjoy him. He seemed to interact well with students and they seemed to gravitate towards him...He was always very professional, outgoing, jovial,”

“On two different occassions he applied for principalship for summer school. I was fairly impressed by his professionalism and his ability,”

Bryan shows Roberson a photo of Brothers playing basketball with some kids.

Roberson said he does not know if this was during a game.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan called to the witness stand Donald Vereen.

He is a pastor at Bakersfield Lighthouse Christian Ministries. He knows Brothers as a vice principal. They had an after school program in the city and a lot of his students attended and Brothers would drop in.

“He wanted to know what curiculum we were using and wanted to bring more curiculum in, he was interested in what his kids was doing,” Vereen said.

“When he came it was like an interview, he wanted to know the house, what he could do to help,”

He dropped in three or four times. They went to his school about twice.

“We helped them do their homework...until about 6 o’clock,”

“Whenevery they would come in, everybody would say Mr. Brothers, Mr. Porter, they were excited to see somebody with authority,”

It ran from 1998 to 2003.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green has no questions.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan called to the witness stand Robert Richardson.

He is a counselor at Walter Stern Middle School. He has worked for 14 years with the Bakersfield City School District. He has known Brothers over 20 years.

He was at Emerson with brothers from 1996 through 1999. Richardson was the school counselor and Brothers was the vice principal.

Anthony Bryan shows a blown up version of an article that ran in The Bakersfield Californian of Brothers as a vice principal.

Green said it is hearsay.

Bryan said hearsay is admissible in mitigation.

The jurors are excused.

Bush said there is evidence in the article that has not yet been admitted. He said the article can’t come in now, but maybe after that information is corroborated by family members.

Bryan said a young girl was shot at the school and there was a tree erected and there was a ceremony and Bryan has a photo of that.

Bryan wants to ask the witness when the article was put together.

The jurors are escorted back in.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Keith Powell.

He is the director of educational support services at CSUB. He knows Vincent Brothers. They are former roommates in late 1987 and 1988.

He testified he lived in the same apartment with Brothers during the time Shann Kern said she was living at that apartment. He said Shann Kern never actually lived there.

Shann came by the house to see if Vincent was there. Shann had gotten the door open to Vincent’s room and they argued.

Vincent was trying to leave and Shann tried to keep him from leaving.

“He was trying to get down the stairs,”

Shann was trying to restrain him, she threw some things at her, he said a shoe hit her in the face, Powell said.

He said Shann called the police. He said he is still friends with Vincent Brothers although they do not see each other on a regular basis.

He said Brothers was never interested in guns.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questions Keith Powell. He did not discuss this incident with investigators for 19 years.

“I believe she had a small mouse or something up under her eye,” Powell said.

“Did you see Vincent punching her repeatedly,” “No,” Powell said.

Vincent was arrested, he said.

He saw her again within days of the injuries.

Powell did not think Brothers was in the house.

“Vincent was grabbing her arms to stop her from hitting him and the shoe went back and hit him in the face,” Powell said.

“Do you think this is funny or amusing in any way,” Green asked Powell.

“No ma’am,” Powell said.

He was not sure if she was bleeding.

“Did you know that she was pregnant,”

“No ma’am,” Powell said.

Powell had a girlfriend on K Street and he would stay there once or twice a week.

Defense attorney Anthony Bryan calls to the witness stand Charles Pilley.

Pilley brought in photos he found in the Mercedes he now owns, which Brothers use to own. He was a principal at a local school where Brothers was the vice principal.

Bryan also showed Pilley a book. Pilley said it was a book called “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” which was among the things Brothers had.

There are two photos of activities at school involving Vincent Brothers.

He did not socialize with Brothers outside of school for the most part. He helped him landscape his house.

Bryan shows Pilley an evaluation of Vincent Brothers. He evaludated Brothers while he was the principal and Vincent was the vice principal. He met goals. He was his principal for five years.

“I did observe the students at Fremont,”

“I observed positive interactions with the students and with Vincent...Vincent handled all the dicipline, did a very outstanding job in that area,” Pilley said.

“He was familiar with the children, plus he was familiar with the parents,”

“Vincent was learning Spanish, he did an outstanding job communicating with the parents in Spanish,”

“He participated in things that were outside of the school duties,”

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questions Pilley.

A student at Emerson with a terminal disease would call Brothers and he and Pilley would go and visit her for 5 to 15 minutes.

She would always end her conversations by telling her children to stay faithful to the Lord.

Eddie Harper married and had a baby and lived with his mother briefly in Bakersfield at the T Street address. She kept him while he and his wife worked. “When he was a freshman in high school he wanted to come back and live with his grandmother here. We couldn’t allow that...He spent two summers with her in Bakersfield.”

Was Earnestine Harper strict?

“She was a very strict disciplinarian...if she said don’t leave the yard we didn’t leave the yard. A lot of it we didn’t understand then but I thank God for it now because it made a different in our lives.”

“She had given me money my friend and I,” They went to a slide through downtown Bakersfield close to Sam Lynn Ballpark. They met up with some other young men. They were in sixth or seventh grade. During the time Martin Luther King was assassinated. “I don’t think I understood all of it then.”

Two of the young men went across the street and accosted the child while wearing Eddie’s jacket. Police got word of it and picked him up. These men went into a store and stole some yoyos and they took him to the police station. “I wasn’t afraid of the police I was more afraid of Earnestine.”

“I had retrieved my red jacket and that was all he remembered was the red jacket, when he pointed me out I started crying...I was fortunate his brother who was with them told the truth.”

The young men confessed. He had one of the yoyos. “I didn’t get in trouble, but I remember by mother reprimanding me about being with these young men that would get me in trouble.”

Robert is married with five children.

He moved to Florida in January 1985. He would see his mom very often.

They would meet in Houston or Oklahoma to celebrate holidays. They went to church functions, Crusade for Christ.

He brought his family to Tusan and Earnestine and Joanie came and watched and they also came to see him speak in Vallejo. “She was very supportive,”

They came to visit in the summer. That was the second time they saw Marques, the first time they saw Marques and Lyndsey.

“That was the first time seeing both of the two children together,”

Linda Piggee was most effected. “Linda and my mother Earnestine had the closest relationship, they probably talked two or three times a week every week.”

“Just recently her husband had a very massive stroke and was literally on his death bed and at the hospital he was in they would let him waste away, but when Linda called my mother, my mother immediately went to Oklahoma city.”

The hospital did not want to release her husband, but they did release at Earnestine’s urging and he was able to recover and walk.

Linda was critical health wise and doctors did not know what was wrong. She had unbearable pain. “My mother told them to check for blood clots and had they not caught it in time she probably would not be here today.”

“She was elated, if I can say probably as excited for us, it was like an extensions of her. She loved telling people about Christ and about the church so for us to do that as a professions, she was putting herself in us, that we would fulfill that dream,”

“She would check to see if by bringing up certain scriptures if I knew what I was preaching was true...she always wanted to be sure that we were committed to this...she would always tell me too that if this is not what you want to do that you do not have to continue.”

Earnestine Harper went to their sporting events. Robert and Eddie always played baseball, football, track.

“She would never complain, you would never hear her say she was tired...when I would strike out, I don’t know if she knew how to play baseball, but she would tell me to look at the ball. She was always very instructive.”

She would do volunteer work for a center. “She was in her heart a missionary. She adopted families in Africa where she traveled on two occasions.”

“It didn’t matter who you were or what walk of life, she wanted to help you,”

When was the last time he saw her, March 2003. Eddie Harper got choked up.

She purchased a home for her grandson Eddie. He stayed there for two weeks, maybe more. “Her sitting, cooking for us, sitting on the bed, she was a great conversationalist and she enjoyed talked until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, never getting tired of talking. That was very special.”

He made the eulogy at the funeral. “At first I thought it might be difficult, but I have always relied on God to give us strength in anything.”

“The Lord gave us strength to get up and talk about them,”