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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

2 Lubbock teens charged with murdering sex offender

Missing in news reports is, if the plan was to rob Brinson, what additional occurred to raise that to murder, assuming murder was not originally planned?
12-22-2010 Texas:

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - Two teens, including a juvenile, have been arrested on murder charges in the shooting death in Lubbock of a registered sexual offender.

Police say 52-year-old Brian James Brinson of Wilson was found dead in his car in downtown Lubbock before dawn Sunday. He had been shot at least once in the torso.

Police officials say 18-year-old Devante Lamar Jones and a 16-year-old boy were taken into custody Monday. Online jail records listed neither bond settings nor attorneys for the two.

Brinson's sexual offender registration shows that he had been convicted in Oregon in 2002 of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy. ..Source.. by ConnectAmirillo.com

Murder suspect: Plan was to rob Brinson because "he had touched me"

12-21-2010 Texas:

A 16-year-old murder suspect said he decided to beat up and rob Brian Brinson because the 52-year-old man touched him in November, according to court documents released Tuesday.

Zeven Devon Sanders, 16, admitted to being involved in the murder victim’s robbery late Saturday night, but claimed somebody named “Black” fatally shot Brinson, who was a registered sex offender, court documents revealed.

Lubbock Police arrested Sanders and Devante Lamar Jones, 18, late Monday afternoon on murder charges, but no other warrants had been issued.

Police on Tuesday couldn’t confirm if a third person named “Black” might have been involved, but Police Capt. Greg Stevens said they were checking into the claims. However, witnesses only reported seeing two people inside the victim’s car the night of the murder.

Sanders, who turns 17 on Sunday, wrote in his statement to police: “The plan was to beat up Bryan because the way he had touched me before. Devante and I decided since we were going to beat him we might as well take his money. I figured Bryan would have money on him and I needed sixty dollars to try and get back to Fort Worth so I could see my mom. I assumed because Bryan was a white guy he would have money. Devante and I did not want to kill anyone.”

Sanders said he was walking home from Monterey High School in November when a man approached him. He said the man, who he later learned was Brinson, asked him directions to a BBQ place, according to court documents. The teen told him about a place on the east side of town.

“I was tired so I sat in the guy’s car... I was talking with the guy and while we were talking he grabbed my leg, between my knee and thigh. This guy and I finished talking and then he touched my chest. I felt uncomfortable and told the guy my grandma was calling me,” according to his statement to police.

Brinson sent him numerous text messages over the next several weeks, asking him to meet up, Sanders told police.

It was unclear on Tuesday whether police had confirmed Sanders’ story about the text messages or about Brinson allegedly touching him in November. Stevens said they couldn’t comment on that since it was still an ongoing investigation.

But Brinson did have a history of sexually assaulting children.

He was convicted in 2002 in Oregon for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy, according to Oregon prison officials. Brinson also was convicted of manslaughter in 1989 in Oregon in connection with the beating death of an 8-year-old girl on the Ecclesia Athletic Association’s farm in Clackamas County. The Ecclesia Athletic Association has been described by some as a cult.

After multiple requests to meet up, Sanders said he finally agreed to meet Brinson the night of the murder with the intention of beating him up and robbing him, according to police reports. He told Brinson to meet him at 24th Street and Avenue L.

“Black” showed up at Sanders’ house just before Sanders and Jones planned to leave to meet Brinson and insisted on being involved, Sanders told police. “Black” brought along a gun.

While Sanders claimed he, Jones and “Black” were inside Brinson’s car, at least two witnesses said they only saw two people near and inside the car that night.

A neighbor called police at about 11:15 p.m. Saturday to report “shots fired.” The neighbor also reported the Mercedes at the corner of 24th Street and Avenue K. The caller said the vehicle’s lights were on and the doors open.

A patrol officer found Brinson slumped over in the Mercedes in the 1300 block of 24th Street at about 12:15 a.m. after another call from a different neighbor reporting the vehicle. The caller “knew it didn’t belong” and was scared, according to court documents.

The car was sitting in front of the duplex where Sanders lived with his grandmother and 10-year-old brother.

In his statement to police, Sanders said he, Jones and “Black” initially ran from the car after the gunshot, but then went back. “Black” drove the car and parked it in front of Sanders’ residence.

While Sanders claimed that “Black” brought the gun, at least one person told police that Jones had the gun Saturday night that he always carries with him, according to court documents.

The neighbor also overheard a conversation between the two teens on Saturday night less than an hour before the murder was believed to have taken place.

Sanders and Jones were talking about meeting up with a guy. At one point, Jones said to Sanders: “The guys going to take your booty.” Sanders replied: “Hell no.”

That statement was taken at 6:15 p.m. Sunday, according to court records.

Officers arrested both Sanders and Jones on Monday after they served a search warrant on Sanders’ residence in the morning. Police recovered an orange sweatshirt and pair of jeans which appeared to have blood stains, according to court documents. Sanders reportedly was wearing an orange sweatshirt the night of the murder, according to several witness statements.

Sanders was being held at the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center on Tuesday.

Jones, who was last arrested in August on a marijuana possession charge, was booked into the Lubbock County Jail.

The bond attached to Jones’ arrest warrant was $500,000. Bond information was not available for Sanders since he’s a juvenile.

Police didn’t know if either teen had retained an attorney. Public documents didn’t indicate attorney information for either suspect. ..Source.. by Robin Pyle

Lubbock murder victim had ties to Oregon cult-like group; convicted in child's death in 1989

12-20-2010 Texas:

Lubbock Police on Monday didn’t know if a murder victim’s connections with a cult-like group in Oregon or his criminal past that included the beating death of a young girl had anything to do with his shooting death over the weekend in a Central Lubbock neighborhood.

Local officials a day after the apparent homicide had few leads in the death of Brian James Brinson, 52, who was a registered sex offender in Midland for a 2002 conviction in Oregon for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy, according to the Texas Sex Offender Registry.

Brinson also spent 12 years in an Oregon prison after he was convicted in 1989 on manslaughter charges for the beating death of an 8-year-old girl on the Ecclesia Athletic Association’s farm in Clackamas County, Oreg., according to the Sheriff’s Office and Oregon news reports.

A patrol officer found Brinson’s body at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of 24th Place after a call reporting “shots fired.” He was found dead of a gunshot wound in his Mercedes sedan.

Police didn’t know what he was doing there or why he was in Lubbock.

Brinson was reportedly involved with the Ecclesia Athletic Association in the 1980s. The group was called a religious-based cult at the time. The association was connected with the severe beatings of more than 50 children on the farm, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

The children on the farm were taken into state custody after the death of Dayna Lorae Broussard, the 8-year-old daughter of Ecclesia founder Eldridge Broussard.

Brinson was one of four convicted in the child's death.

Young Dayna was taken to a fire station on Oct. 13, 1988, but paramedics were unable to revive her, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities later learned she had been beaten hundreds of times with a hose, a pipe and an electrical cord while other children watched. The child reportedly was beaten because she stole food after the group withheld food as punishment.

A total of 53 children, some with scars on their backs, were removed from the group’s Sandy farmhouse by the state Children’s Services Division.

Broussard formed the Ecclesia Athletic Association in 1982 to “shape group members through intense training and strict discipline so they could resist the temptations of crime and drugs in Watts,” according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

In 1990, a federal grand jury in Portland began investigating other Ecclesia leaders for possible civil rights violations. Officials arrested Eldridge Broussard and three of his followers in early 1991 on charges of holding Ecclesia children in slavery and conspiring to deny them their civil rights.

Broussard never made it to trial because he died in September, 1991 of complications related to his diabetes.

Brinson served prison time between June 1989 and April 2001 on the manslaughter charge, said Jeanine Hohn, Oregon State Corrections spokeswoman. He then was convicted in 2002 on the sexual abuse charge. State records show Brinson was released from the Oregon prison system on June 11, 2004.

Brinson registered in Midland as a sex offender in July 2009. He submitted a change of address notification in June, when he relocated to Wilson, according to Texas records.

Police ask anyone with information about Brinson’s death to call them at 775-2410 or 775-2745. Residents also may call Crime at 741-1000 and remain anonymous. ..Source.. by LubbdockOnline

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Cult member convicted in brutal child beatings at Sandy farm shot to death in Texas

A former Clackamas County cult member and sex offender was found shot to death Sunday in Lubbock, Texas.

Two teenage boys, one a juvenile, were arrested on murder charges in the shooting death of 52-year-old Brian James Brinson of Wilson, Texas. Brinson was found dead in his Mercedes, shot at least once in the torso.

A former member of the Ecclesia Athletic Association based in a Sandy farmhouse, Brinson was convicted along with three others in Oregon in 1989 in the beating death of 8-year-old Dayna Lorae Broussard, daughter of the cult's founder.

Police found 53 other children in the farmhouse had been systematically beaten, starved and forced to watch the girl being flogged to death with hoses.

The brutal case made national news in the New York Times, as well as Time Magazine.

After spending 12 years in prison on the manslaughter conviction, Brinson was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in a department store dressing room.

Lubbock police say 18-year-old Devante Lamar Jones and a 16-year-old boy were taken into custody Monday. ..Source.. by Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

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Last defendant pleads guilty to killing sex offender in Lubbock

1-17-2013:



Zeven Devon Sanders, the last of three defendants in the December 2010 murder of a sex offender from Oregon, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of robbery.

Sanders entered his plea before District Judge Brad Underwood.

He had originally been charged with capital murder because the killing took place during the commission of another felony. He would not have faced the death penalty, however because he was 16 years old when the crime was committed.

Sanders, now 19, initially intended to lure Brian Brinson to a location so he and a friend, Devante Lamar Jones, could beat him, apparently because Brinson had touched him inappropriately when he gave Sanders a ride in his car near Monterey High School.

As the plan developed, they decided to also rob Brinson because Sanders wanted money to visit his mother in Fort Worth.

Sanders wrote in his confession: “The plan was to beat up Bryan because the way he had touched me before. Devante and I decided since we were going to beat him we might as well take his money. I figured Bryan would have money on him and I needed sixty dollars to try and get back to Fort Worth so I could see my mom. I assumed because Bryan was a white guy he would have money. Devante and I did not want to kill anyone.”

Sanders told police he was walking home from Monterey High School about a month before the murder when Brinson asked him for directions to a barbeque restaurant. Sanders said he got into Brinson’s car. While they talked, he said, Brinson grabbed Sanders’ thigh and touched him on the chest.

In the written confession following his arrest, Sanders told police that Brinson frequently sent him text messages asking for a meeting.

The two planned to only beat and rob Brinson. But on the day they planned to ambush Brinson, a man initially identified to police by the nickname “Black” showed up and insisted on going along.

“Black,” who was later identified as Arenn Lamar Davis, brought a gun and shot Brinson in the torso, according to Sanders’ confession.

Police found Brinson slumped over the steering wheel of his Mercedes-Benz, which was parked in front of the duplex where Sanders lived.

Brinson, 52, had been convicted in Oregon of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy and of manslaughter in connection with the beating death of an 8-year-old girl. He served prison sentences for both crimes. ..Source.. by WALT NETT

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