Vincent Brothers

This case involves one of the more interesting perpetrators. It is probably safe to say that most murderers believe that they can get away with the crime in one form or another. Some will admit to committing the crime and argue self defense while others will attempt to blame someone else, real or imagined. Vincent Brothers falls into the latter category. I would gander to guess that those in this category at least believe they go to great lengths to “cover” their tracks but rarely succeeds, especially in this day and age of DNA evidence and the like. Some, dare I say most, perpetrators are “ignorant” in their belief that they can outsmart investigators. I recently did the case of Ann Anastasi in which her husband was murdered with a gun that she provided and a gun was left near his body. The problem was that it was not the same gun and that was quickly discovered. In the Vincent Brothers case the science of bugs helped unravel his story and then it appears that like Ann Anastasi he under estimated how easily his next story could be disproven.

On Tuesday July 8, 2003 the bodies of seventy year old Earnestine Harper, her thirty-nine year old daughter Joanie Brothers and three of Joanie's children were found in their Bakersfield California home. The children were four, two and six weeks old. I always try to be specific when it comes to the cause of death of victims but this case was difficult as information only states that they were all shot and stabbed. The family had last been seen on Sunday July 6^th at church. Joanie's estranged husband, Vincent, became an immediate suspect.

Reports say that Vincent was “the former vice principal” of a local elementary school in Bakersfield but to be fair I am unsure if that was true at the time of the murders, or only later when he was brought to trial. Joanie and Vincent had first gotten married in 2000. Due to his alleged infidelity the marriage was annulled in September of 2001. By then they already had two children, son, Marques and daughter, Lyndsey. In January of 2003 Joanie was once again pregnant by Vincent and the couple remarried. In April of that year, and before son, Marshall was born, it seems that Vincent had already moved out of the home the couple shared with their children and Joanie's mother, Earnestine Harper.

On Wednesday July 9^th Vincent was in North Carolina visiting with his mother when he was “notified” of the deaths in California. Knowing that he was the one and only suspect he turned himself into authorities but was released due to lack of evidence. He would return to California on July 11^th and would attend the memorial service for his mother in law, wife and their three children as the authorities kept an eye on him. Despite being the immediate suspect in the case Vincent Brothers would not be arrested until April 20, 2004. He would maintain his innocence claiming that he had flown out of California on July 2^nd when he went to Cleveland Ohio to visit two of his brothers. He would claim that he remained in Ohio until Tuesday, the day in which the bodies were found, when he and one of his brothers drove to North Carolina to visit their mother.

Authorities knew that Vincent had flown to Ohio, but they had to prove that he made his way back to California, murdered his family and returned. On the surface his alibi seemed to stick. His brother claimed he was with him. In fact, Vincent's credit card had been used in Ohio at a time that would have made it nearly impossible for him to be on his way to (or back) from California. First it seems that investigators looked into the rental car that Vincent had gotten while in Ohio. The distance between Columbus Ohio and Bakersfield California was about 2,000 miles. According to the rental company he had put 4,500 miles on the rental car. The car was taken in and examined and a forensic bug expert determined that some of the bugs found on the vehicle could have only come from west of the Rocky Mountains. Information was not clear but I can only assume that since he was the first and immediate suspect that the rental car company was contacted very early on before the vehicle had been cleaned, and/or it was determined that the vehicle had not had the opportunity to be in this region at any other point. Then there was the issue of his credit card being used in Ohio the night before the murders were said to have occurred. It is not clear as to whether this was resolved before or after Vincent was arrested but apparently his brother would later admit that Vincent had given him the card and told him to use it and that his brother had not physically seen him between late Thursday night/early Friday morning and late Monday night. Authorities believed that the murders had occurred just as the family returned from church on Sunday.

At his trial in 2007 the prosecutors brought up a lot of information from Vincent's past that showed his “womanizing” as well as some violence towards women. In 1988 he had been convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse. He served six days in jail and was given probation. This was apparently during his first marriage. In 1992 he had married again but in 1993 the woman filed for divorce claiming that he was violent and had threatened to kill her. A woman who worked with Vincent in 1996 claimed that he had sexually harassed her but that she had been dissuaded by the police in filing a report because it could have ruined his reputation and looked bad on the school. It is unclear as to whether the prosecution established a motive for the murders.

The defense, for their part, just flat out claimed he was not the guilty party. Since it appeared that his alibi of being in Ohio through the credit card usage and the rental car had been demolished they went on to claim that he had been in a car wreck in Ohio that had involved a boy on a bicycle on the day that the murders had occurred. The prosecution was able to prove that such an accident occurred but that Vincent Brothers was not the party involved and they produced the man who was involved. Reports were not exactly clear on exactly how the defense believed that they could prove this but in the end it made not just Vincent Brothers, but his defense team look inadequate and untruthful. The defense would also allege they had an alternative suspect.

Defense attorney's would attempt to imply that Joanie was a lesbian and was having an affair with a woman named Kelsey Spann. Spann had allegedly lived with the family for some time but had disputes with Joanie's mother, Earnestine. At some point though Vincent himself would even dispute this claim in a letter he wrote to a local newspaper but just when that occurred is unclear. Not only did Earnestine and Joanie's family dispute this claim they pointed out that it took nearly three years for it to even be mentioned to anyone, and when it was it was in court, not simply to authorities to investigate. They obviously gave no credence to this claim.

Apparently the jury did find the defense credible either. On May 15, 2007, after hearing from nearly 150 witnesses the jury returned with their verdict. They found Vincent Brothers guilty on five counts of first degree murder. On May 29^th the jury recommended that he receive the death penalty and on September 27^th the judge obliged. The problem is that this happened in California and the odds of Vincent Brothers seeing the inside of a death chamber is slim.

I found no appeals in this case or at least any that added anything to the story or resulted in any changes.