Brothers' Troubled Road

As Vincent Brothers spent his first full day in jail Saturday facing murder charges, his 15-year-old daughter wept over the graves of the five victims, three of them her half-siblings. For 10 minutes, Margaret Kern-Brothers wailed in the arms of her mother, Shann Kern, at Hillcrest Memorial Park.

This was a man whom Kern once loved enough to live with and carry his child. And he was a good dad too. But that has all fallen apart.

The bodies of Brothers' current wife, Joanie Harper, 39, their children, Marques, 4, Lyndsey, 2, and Marshall, 6 weeks, and Joanie's mother, Earnestine Harper, 70, were found early in the morning on July 8, 2003, shot in their home at the corner of Third and P streets.

On Friday morning Brothers, a vice principal at Fremont Elementary, was arrested as he walked to the community mailbox near his southwest Bakersfield home. By midday District Attorney Ed Jagels said he planned to seek the death penalty.

Brothers' life story is one of success, an up-by-the-bootstraps tale of a dirt-poor boy who made good. He was the one in his family who made it, who became a respected member of his chosen community and a leader.

But the adult life he made for himself here in Bakersfield was also one marred by troubled relationships, occasional hints at violent tendencies and a string of children whose lives he moved in and out of almost at will.

Brothers was a middle child, one of 10 siblings raised by a single mother on public assistance. The family shared an apartment with Brothers' aunt and her children in Long Island, New York.

It was so crowded Brothers ended up spending most weekends at the home of a close friend, Donald Collier, now an aircraft mechanic in Elizabeth City, N.C.

Brothers was often so happy as a teenager that people accused him of being a marijuana smoker. Collier said absolutely not.

"People would ask, 'are you high?' and he'd say, 'Yeah, I'm high off of sunshine.' That was his line," Collier said.

Collier, 41, described Brothers as a Christian believer and a good man he has known since he was 12. At about 17 years old he dragged a family out of a burning car while spectators stood in the distance fearful the car would explode.

So when Collier found out about the slayings while watching television news last July, the last person he suspected in the crime was Vincent Brothers. Collier called his wife, who told him a nationwide manhunt had been launched for his childhood friend, and that Brothers had turned himself in to police in Elizabeth City, where he had been visiting his mother.

"I said, 'No way. Vincent did not do that. That I will not believe,'" Collier recalled.

Brothers was arrested after he declined to talk to detectives who had flown in from Bakersfield. Hours later, he was released as police investigated a possible alibi. Collier and Brothers' family were waiting for him when he got out.

"We embraced each other and he just said 'I really appreciate it.' He said he owed me one," Collier said.

In the first months following the slayings Collier said he and Brothers would talk by phone two or three times per week. Collier said his old friend remained privately distraught over the loss of his family.

"I still support him. I definitely still do," Collier said Saturday night. "It took this long for them to figure out how many miles were on his car? I don't see it in Vincent's nature. I don't believe he committed the crime. It's totally out of character."

Brothers was one of the few success stories in his family. Some of his brothers got in trouble with the law for things like drugs, the Rev. Charles Holzhauser told The Californian after the slayings were discovered.

Among the parishioners at the Pentecostal church Holzhauser leads was Brothers' mother, Margaret Brothers. She'd been a member of the congregation for more than 10 years in the town of Mount Sinai in Long Island.

Brothers always had been a standout. He attended Norfolk State University in Virginia on a wrestling scholarship. He served in the Marine Corps Reserve and later as an Army reservist.

He became a teacher in Bakersfield in 1988 and later an administrator. He was earning $85,000 per year before being put on unpaid leave Friday by the Bakersfield City School District.

He was the one who made it out of the poor neighborhood and into higher society. He sent his mother money, and she didn't shy from giving testimonies in front of the church congregation about her favorite son.

Margaret Brothers responded with shock when a Californian reporter told her Friday that her son had been arrested on suspicion of five murders. She wouldn't believe it, she said.

"I cannot believe this. I am very, very upset," Margaret Brothers said. "He's a beautiful person. An excellent man."

Bakersfield police detectives had taken Brothers into custody Friday morning outside his southwest home on Barnes Drive. By midday, the district attorney had filed five first-degree counts against Brothers, alleging special circumstances that could lead to the death penalty. He was arraigned in court wearing a paper jail suit, a sign he was on suicide watch.

Shann Kern met Vincent Brothers in Bakersfield around 1986 or 1987. The two were students at Cal State Bakersfield. She remembers him writing an A-grade report for a Cal State Bakersfield graduate level college course. She said the professor wrote on the paper that it was sloppily written but intellectually stimulating.

"He's probably one of the few men in my life who I thought was highly intelligent. He is very book smart. He actually motivated me to do well in my book studies," Kern said.

Kern said she and Brothers were happy at first. Then the two began living together, in a Bernard Street apartment. He had been substitute teaching and was working at Circuit City. One night as the two sat on their bed, he told Kern his next paycheck was going toward an engagement ring.

But before that check came he was offered a full-time teaching job. Kern said he immediately began making a wish list of stuff he planned to buy: rims for his black Camaro, new shoes and nicer clothes. Soon he could fix the embarrassing gap in his teeth. Talk of marriage never came up again.

"I realized at that moment that things were going to change," Kern said. "A couple days after I found out I was pregnant. I almost didn't tell him. A friend convinced me to tell him. He accused me of trying to trap him because he was well on his way to making all this money. He became very distant."

In about the sixth or seventh month of Kern's pregnancy, she said Brothers beat her.

She wanted a ride to Palmdale to see family. He refused. She threw a slipper at him, she said, and he lost control.

"There was just rage on his face and he just started socking me with his fists like I was a man. Both my eyes were blackened," Kern said.

Kern called police. Brothers was arrested and convicted in 1988 of misdemeanor spousal abuse against Kern and spent six days in jail, according police reports filed with the court Friday.

Kern fled to a battered women's shelter and dropped out of Cal State just one quarter away from graduation.

In 1988 Brothers began dating an old girlfriend named Angela Denise Richardson and married her while Kern was still pregnant, Kern said. Brothers and Richardson would divorce by 1990.

Two years later, in January 1992, he married Sharon Berniard. She filed for divorce in May 1993, claiming in court papers that Brothers was "violent and has threatened to kill me."

Bakersfield police Sgt. Jeff Watts wrote in Friday's court filing that Joanie Harper told a friend two months before her death that Brothers "might try to get rid of me."

After Brothers was named as a suspect in his family's death, The Californian received tips that Brothers had been the subject of complaints at work. The newspaper asked the Bakersfield City School District to release the reports, but they refused.

The paper then sued for access to Brothers' complaint file, and in September a judge said there had been substantial complaints of violence, threats of violence and sexual misconduct in February 1996. He ordered the file released to the public as a public record, but the district appealed and the case now awaits an appeals court decision. The details of the incident are still not known.

At the time of the 1996 incident Brothers had made it even farther up the ladder, having been promoted to vice principal of Emerson Middle School in 1995.

The district said the complaints were never substantiated. But Brothers was transferred to Fremont school later that year.

Brothers was well respected at work for the most part. A role model for many youths in the inner city schools of Fremont and Emerson, many students and teachers lamented the fact that he appeared to be in trouble after he was named a suspect in the slayings. Many supported him.

The Californian made numerous attempts to interview Brothers in the weeks and months following the slayings, including knocking on his door, leaving him notes, contacting his lawyer and family members with interview requests and sending e-mails to his district address. He never gave an interview.

Brothers' family has also repeatedly declined to give anything but brief comments to reporters when called.

Kern and her daughter Margaret believe he has at least three more -- a set of twin girls and a boy named Noah.

Margaret said she met whom she believed to be her baby brother Noah when she was 7 years old, around Christmas in 1996. She said he was about 2 days old and she was told his mother's name was Linda and that she worked at the Pier 1 Imports store near the East Hills Mall.

Later in 2000, Margaret said when she was 12, her father called to tell her about the twins.

Kern said she wishes she knew more about these possible children so Margaret could have a relationship with her remaining siblings.

"We would really like to get in contact with them so these kids can know each other," Kern said.

Brothers claimed to have another child during a child support conference. Kern said he never provided any documents proving it though.

Brothers' third marriage was to Joanie Harper on Jan. 25, 2000. But they separated three weeks later and Brothers filed for divorce on Feb. 23, 2000. The divorce paper he signed listed their only child as "Marcus," which is not how the child's name is spelled.

Joanie Harper filed a separate family law case in December 2000, asking for an annulment based on fraud. At that time she listed their children as Marques and Lyndsey, who was born in August that year.

When Eddie Harper Sr. returned to his childhood home Bakersfield last July to mourn the slaying deaths of his mother, sister and two nephews and niece, he met his sister's widower for the first time -- the man suspected of the crime.

Harper is a Church of Christ minister in Winter Haven, Fla. He said neither he nor Brothers ever found the time to meet.

But Eddie Harper said he was told Brothers always paid child support to his sister Joanie. Soon before the second marriage, Eddie Harper talked to his mother, Earnestine Harper, and said he felt encouraged about Brothers.

"She told us when he was baptized. He was going to church and was really trying to turn his life around," Eddie Harper said. "That made us happy to hear that."

But in a police report filed in support of the murder charges against Brothers, a detective refers to Brothers as "estranged" from Joanie.

Eddie Harper said Saturday that the family is reserving judgment on Brothers but that they have full confidence in the Bakersfield police and their decision to arrest him.

"We believe that this is the proper and correct arrest. We don't believe that they would have arrested him if they did not believe he was the prime suspect," Harper said "If he is innocent it will come out as well. We believe he is innocent now, until he is proven guilty. We will not think any differently about him until it is proven."

He said the family has long had closure on the issue and trusted that God will bring the right person to justice.

"I would just hope that he is certainly looking to the Lord at this point and is of a sound mind," Eddie Harper said. "If he did it, we want him to know that we stand ready at any point to forgive him, if he does ask forgiveness."

-- Staff writers Steve E. Swenson and Danielle C. Belton contributed to this report.

"If he did it, we want him to know that we stand ready at any point to forgive him, if he does ask forgiveness."

Fair enough, as my dad used to say, and well said.

This is a very sad case. Is there any indication of motive? Or is it just the usual, too fast, too soon, too much?

2 posted on 05/02/2004 8:05:37 PM PDT by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)

He had a history of spousal abuse. He was estranged from his wife. His mother-in-law was living with his wife and his three kids. All of these people were killed.

A point of interest to me: As I have read, at the time of the murder he was living in an apartment. Recently, he has put a $300,000+ house on the market. If he made $80,000 a year, how did he purchase a house at that price?

Perhaps the guy had ideas bigger than himself?

3 posted on 05/02/2004 8:13:29 PM PDT by bannie (The government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.)

"Recently, he has put a $300,000+ house on the market. If he made $80,000 a year, how did he purchase a house at that price?"

Oh gosh, around here that's par for the course, if you've go a downpayment, of course. The average home around here is$250K at least!

4 posted on 05/02/2004 8:18:40 PM PDT by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)

I understand that houses aren't cheap; but how can a person who makes only $80.000 a year buy a house for that much??

5 posted on 05/02/2004 8:21:00 PM PDT by bannie (The government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.)

Well, think about it. I've heard the rule of thumb is 3yrs salary for a mortgage, so at that rate it would be $240 k for the mortgage and $60 grand down, which is 20%, which is standard. It's not out of line, dollar wise.

Its' just when I run these numbers I get depressed. But I am doin the the total money makeover Dave Ramsy thing, so I have some hope for now.

6 posted on 05/02/2004 8:37:09 PM PDT by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)

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