Judge Sentences Former School Vice Principal To Death For Killing Family

Thursday, September 27th 2007, 8:19 pm

By: News On 6

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) _ A former elementary school vice principal was sentenced to death Thursday for the murders of his wife, their three small children and his mother-in-law.

Vincent Brothers, 45, was convicted in May of five counts of first-degree murder for the July 2003 deaths. A jury later recommended death, and Superior Court Judge Michael Bush handed down the sentence Thursday.

Bush denied a defense request for a new trial and instead scheduled a hearing to determine whether Brothers' attorneys should be held in contempt of court for ``impugning the court's integrity'' in court filings and asking a witness questions the judge had prohibited. Bush also ordered that Brothers pay certain restitution.

Brothers, who has an automatic appeal under California law, did not speak during the hearing. He arrived at San Quentin State Prison on Thursday afternoon, prison officials said.

He started out as a substitute teacher in Bakersfield schools in 1987 and by 1995 was vice principal of Fremont Elementary School, commanding respect from students and others in the community. Defense attorneys described him as a compassionate and patriotic and said he was innocent.

Brothers was arrested as the sole suspect in the murders in April 2004. He claimed he was in Ohio visiting his brother when his family was killed.

Prosecutors argued Brothers flew to the Midwest to establish an alibi, then drove more than 2,000 miles back to Bakersfield in a rental car to kill the five.

Police said they found the bodies of Brothers' estranged wife, Joanie Harper, and two of their children, Marques, 4, and Lyndsey, 2, on her bed, where they had been napping. In a hallway, they found Joanie Harper's mother, Earnestine.

Police later discovered 6-week-old Marshall under a pile of bedclothes in his mother's room, according to witnesses. All five had been shot and stabbed.

Margaret Kern Brothers, his only living daughter, said in court that she planned to stop using her father's last name.

``I am leaving my name with him. I don't have a father now,'' she said. ``He will never see me again, until it's time to die.''