Bryan Freeman, upper left inset, then and now, and his brother David Freeman, lower right inset, then and now. (Earlier: AP Photos/Dale Atkins; Current mug shots from Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; crime scene screenshot from WFMZ-TV/YouTube)
Two brothers who ditched their devout Jehovah’s Witness upbringings for white supremacist ideals, complete with tattoos on their foreheads reading “Sieg Heil” and “Berserker,” are in court this week to fight for a shot at freedom after they were sentenced to life without parole for the slaughter of their family in 1995 in Pennsylvania.
Bryan and David Freeman were 16 and 17 when they pleaded guilty after being charged as adults to murdering their parents, Dennis Freeman, 54, and Brenda Freeman, 48, in a crime that also left their brother, Erik, 11, dead. They were in court this week based on a Supreme Court ruling rejecting automatic life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder.
Bryan Freeman’s lawyer, Karl Schwartz, told The Morning Call that his client is a model inmate and is remorseful.
“The commonwealth is going to say he’s making it all up, he’s a psycho, and if you give him a ray of hope that there’s a future, this could happen again,” Schwartz said.
First Assistant Lehigh County District Attorney Eric Dowdle is fighting to keep the brothers behind bars.
“They’re safe right where they are, and so are we,” he said, the Call reported.
“I can’t in any way, shape, or form, speak to what is in their hearts,” he added, WFMZ reported. “I only know what I saw in that video today, and I saw how serious everything was when it happened. It was a brutal, vicious crime.”
The Feb. 26, 1995, killing ended family strains over the brothers’ neo-Nazi lifestyles. The brothers and their cousin, Nelson “Ben” Birdwell III, then 18, attacked the family after Brenda Freeman asked Birdwell to leave that night.
Bryan Freeman used a steak knife to stab his mother. Dennis Freeman was beaten with a metal exercise bar and an aluminum baseball bat in his bed while he slept. Erik was hit with a pickax handle as he slept. Dennis Freeman’s sister found their bodies the next day. The culprits were arrested three days later at the home of a white supremacist in Michigan.
At the hearing this week, the court saw crime scene video that the brothers did not come out of the court holding area for, WFMZ reported.
Allen Stiles, a retired police chief and Vietnam War veteran, testified the murders traumatized him and investigators. He recalled seeing blood-spattered walls and bone fragments and smelling blood and decay, the Morning Call reported he testified this week.
“All that trauma at one time and in one place had a terrific impact on everyone,” he said.
Bryan Freeman told WFMZ on the 20th anniversary of the slayings, he wished he could take it all back.
“I don’t really like to think of it as an anniversary, per se, because there is definitely nothing good about it,” Freeman said. “It’s just sad, sad that so many people had to pay for something stupid, no matter how long it’s been. Even after 20 years, it still haunts me and haunts a lot of people. It’s sad.”
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