it nearly caused a divorce then. his father bailed him out. about $100,000. the state tried to convince the jury that killing tammie had been his way out of a shaky marriage and his gambling debt. tammie had taken out a life insurance policy. 868,000 was the ultimate amount. who was the beneficiary of this? brett. she also posted $200,000 in a 401k, combined with the insurance, nearly 1.1 million all left to brett. what kind of man sets up his friend to take the fall for murdering his wife and then murders the friend and leaves him with the legacy of, that he murdered somebody. he wanted to perpetuate this lifestyle. he wanted to gamble and enjoy the girlfriends and she was a hindrance to him. he felt like this was the way out. in court, the ugly accusations seemed to get to brett as the medical examiner testified about tammie s fatal injuries, brett said he felt ill
would it take a genius to concoct that? brian was a desperate man with far motive for murder. a man at the end of his rope that had a desire for money and a plan for violence and the evidence in this case is going to prove it. still, the defense thought it had an uphill battle. he knew it didn t help his case that his client was an unfaithful husband and gambler. it showed he was a bad man because he gambled. he had an affair. they said that was another thing that showed he was a murder. it was just ludicrous. from the start, he and his co-counsel wanted the jury to know, okay, sure, brett a gambler himself was deep in debt but he was in debt to an old friend he had known since he was
only survivor of a tragedy that left two people dead had himself been charged was acold blooded killer who masterminded the whole plan. brett s family and friends believed he was a man wrongly accused. he just wanted us to know he was innocent. every time he said i did not do it. even tammie s close friend, former bandmate woody woodward had a hard time believing brett was guilty. you had no reason to doubt brett it sounds like. i believed him. they actually called me to be a character witness and i said i would be glad to because i did not see him doing this. when the trial began in may it was a courtroom divided. on one side, brett s family and friends including his and tammie s teenage daughter. on the other side, friends and family of tammie and brian sat together. they wore blue, tammie s favorite color as a show of
brett s resolvolver and in bria hand police found a .9 pistol used to kill tammie. near brian s body was his open gym bag with ammo and magazine clip clearly visible on top. to investigators it looked like brett parker fought for his life and fought a man in self-defense and had just lost his beautiful wife. the big question was why? why would such a good friend turn on them. one of the first questions i asked him was what was his relationship with this man and he said can i talk to you in private? on the side he had been a sports bookie for years. everybody knew that. did that concern you? every small town has a bookie. that s something i didn t even think about. he was not the sopranos break
she called up the sheriff s department to say she thought brett was lying. i reached out to them and wanted to make sure that they knew that there were people that had a different side of the story. brett continued to insist it was self-defense but within a week of the shooting, he had gotten a lawyer. the sheriff told us he thought it was a little odd that brett retained a defense attorney so quickly when he was saying he was the victim. anybody in a situation like that doesn t retain an attorney immediately needs psychiatric help. his attorney said brett was no killer. he was just defending himself after brian showed up to steel his money. he went over there specifically to rob the people. tammie was there and he shot her first and we assumed he was going to shoot brett and brett got the drop on him instead. what motive could he have to shoot her. the motive he would have to shoot her was getting the money