COLUMBIA, SC (AP) – The last thing the family of two sisters killed in a small South Carolina town heard about the man who admitted to killing them was that he was referred to a psychiatric hospital in 2012. . to be treated for schizophrenia so that he could later be tried for murder.
They didn’t hear anything for 10 years. Then, a few months ago, friends began calling the son of one of the women with the news that they had seen Joseph Jermaine Brand around Kingstreet, said family lawyer Lori Murray.
Darren Tisdale, the son of the other sister and mayor of a 3,100-strong town, then began searching for Brandt, spotting him just a few miles from where police said he admitted to shooting the two women in the head after broke into their home in October 2010. Tisdale called prosecutors but received no response.
“He executed two elderly women,” Murray said. “I can’t believe he’s not a danger to the whole city just by walking.
Murray and the families of 65-year-old Naomi Johnson and her 74-year-old sister, Thelma Haddock, provided the Associated Press with the scant court records they were able to find and other information ahead of a news conference. Then they asked reporters for help.
“We need to close. I don’t know about you, but there was a big hole in my heart yesterday when I didn’t have a mom on Mother’s Day, “said Darren Tisdale.
At the courtroom, an official said there was no evidence of Brand’s arrest or charges of two murders, armed robbery, first-degree burglary and a weapon charge. The records also could not be found online, although there were still some court records in the file where the arrest warrants were kept. Other public records show that the 43-year-old Brand registered to vote from a support home near Colombia in 2016. At one point, he also had a Facebook page.
This is the only tangible evidence of where Brand was until he reappeared in Kingstreet. No one has given the family any explanation as to why his accusations simply disappeared.
A 2012 court order says that if Brand’s mental competence is restored, he must be returned to Williamsburg County and detained without bail for his trial. Under the law, a prosecutor can ask for 30 years in prison for Brandt, with the possibility of a trial for the death penalty.
Prosecutors have vowed to reopen the charges and say they will ask the grand jury to prosecute Brand again later this month, Murray said. Attorney Chip Feeney did not return a phone message or email from the AP. Neither the assistant prosecutor who signed the withdrawal of the charges due to the issue of jurisdiction, nor Brand’s public defender at the time.
A woman in Kingstreet, who identifies as Brandt’s grandmother, shut down an AP reporter on Monday. No one responded to a message left on the phone number listed for Brand’s mother.
Members of the sisters’ family said they believed in the system, even when a call to Feeney to investigate the case in 2018 went unanswered. That was until Brandt was seen walking free.
“It was very difficult for the whole family to relive this event,” the family said in a statement issued through their lawyer. “We want justice for our mothers. We want closure for our families, we want Joseph Brand to pay for his crimes, and we want answers on how and why he was released without prosecution.
And Tisdale added Monday: “I hope Mr. Feeney does what is right.”
Brandt lived a few doors down from Johnson and Haddock in 2010. He had moved to Kingstree to live with his father after being in a Nevada jail on charges of robbery, drugs and gunfire from a vehicle, according to legal documents.
Brandt came to the sisters’ house and asked to spread pine straw for money. When they refused, Brand stormed the home, snatched a gun from one of the sisters and shot them several times, including in the head, Williamsburg County lawmakers said.
Brandt’s father found him wandering aimlessly in the sisters’ front yard, investigators said. The father saw that their door was open and shook his head to apologize. Then he found the bodies.
Brand confessed to the killings, according to arrest warrants. But records show that his mental health problems prevented him from helping his lawyer, prompting a judge to order a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist’s report states that Brand has schizophrenia and his thinking is completely disorganized. The report states that Brand refused to take his medicine and that if he did, his competence could be restored.
Asked about his age after his arrest, Brandt said: “Seventy-nine years in Islam.” He then said he was 34. One of the two psychiatrists who examined him corrected him by saying he was 33 in court records. “And a half!” Brandt shouted back, according to his mental health report.
Asked how he hoped his case would develop, Brandt, who once lived in Reno, Nevada, said he wanted to “return to the largest small town.”
“I want to come back to life as a rock star,” he said, according to the report.
Brand was initially sent to temporary psychiatric treatment, but remained incompetent to stand trial, according to District Judge Clifton Newman, who in November 2012 ordered his imprisonment until he improved.
This is where the trail of documents ends, other than the recording of his registration for voting from the Blythewood Relief House in 2016. No one knows exactly how Brand ended up back in Kingstree last year.
Murray said that although the lawyer had promised to take the case to a grand jury, she was worried about whether that would really happen, as it was unclear whether Brand had been declared mentally competent. She said she still could not get answers from Feeney’s office.
“The accusations are gone. The record has been deleted. “Mr. Brand is walking free like a jay,” Murray said.
State mental health officials said privacy laws prevented them from publishing any details about Brand’s treatment. But in a statement Monday, the Ministry of Mental Health said patients accused of crimes in need of long-term care were committed by an inheritance judge and that judges and prosecutors were informed when the patient no longer needed involuntary treatment.
Feeney’s office told the family that investigators had been keeping an eye on Brand since they learned he had returned to Kingstreet, but Murray said it was a small consolation. Now she is worried that he may run, as she knows that the grand jury will hear the case again at the end of the month.
“He’s still there,” Murray said. “And I think if there was no problem with the case, they could have brought it back.”
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