Brett Pearson was a seventeen year old from Oregon who would fatally shoot his mother. According to court documents Brett Pearson would fatally shoot his mother and shoot his father who thankfully survived the brutal attack. Brett Pearson would admit to the double shooting and attempted to blame the murder on his drug addiction. Regardless this teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for forty years
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Can not locate Brett Pearson in the Oregon Department Of Corrections. Due to his age he may be housed in a Juvenile Prison where results are not made public
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In an exclusive jailhouse interview with Fox 12, 17-year-old murder suspect Brett Pearson said he was on meth at the time of the shooting that killed his mother and injured his father.
“None of it was supposed to happen,” Pearson said from the Marion County Jail. “I should still be sitting at home with both my parents eating dinner. I should still wake up every morning in my bed going to school, getting my education. I should see my girlfriend tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock and spending the day with her, making her dinner.”
Pearson broke down crying repeatedly during the interview Friday.
Police found the body of his mother, Michelle Pearson, 44, at their home on Ventura Loop in Keizer at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. Her husband, 57-year-old Bill Pearson, was also suffering from serious gunshot injuries.
He remains hospitalized and is expected to survive. Police said the bullet that killed Michelle Pearson struck her neck and traveled down to her chest.
“Regardless of being under the influence, it’s still a decision I made,” Brett Pearson said Friday. “It’s still something I did. It’s still something that was very wrong and should never have happened.”
Video: Teen murder suspect says from jail, ‘none of it was supposed to happen’Raw Video: Full jailhouse interview with 17-year-old murder suspect Brett Pearson
Pearson admitted shooting at his father, but claimed his friend, Robert Miller II, 17, shot his mother. Miller was also arrested and is facing murder charges.
Police have not confirmed who fired the shots.
Pearson said he and Miller had planned out the shooting for some time, while they were on meth.
Pearson said he had a great relationship with his parents growing up, and said it was the drugs that made him do it.
“I want people to know that I am sorry for what I did, not because I got caught, not because I’m sitting here in this garment, not because you’re in front of me,” Pearson told Fox 12’s Andrew Padula. “But because I’m truly sorry that I let myself make the choices I made and that I got so far gone that I decided to try to take somebody’s life, including my own parents.”
Miller and Pearson will both be tried as adults. They made their first appearance in court Friday and are being held without bail.
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Brett Pearson is currently in the juvenile division of the Oregon Corrections
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Brett Pearson is serving a life sentence however is eligible for parole after 21 years
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A Keizer man convicted of murdering his mother and attempting to kill his father as a teenager filed a civil suit claiming his life sentence in prison is unconstitutional.
“My sentence is cruel and unusual,” Brett Pearson wrote in a post-conviction petition filed in Marion County.
He also claimed his attorney failed to argue that his sentence was unconstitutional. If he had, Pearson said, he would’ve been sentenced as a juvenile and might be serving a shorter sentence.
Pearson and his best friend Robert Daniel Miller II were both 17 when they conspired to kill Pearson’s parents.
According to court records, the friends were using methamphetamine and had been planning the murders for weeks.
Investigators said they were high on meth when Miller shot Wilfred “Bill” Pearson multiple times while he slept. Michelle Pearson was shot in her torso. Brett Pearson fired at least two more shots at his father and grabbed his mother’s purse before fleeing the home with Miller.
His father survived. His mother didn’t.
Keizer police arrested Pearson less than an hour after responding to a 911 call at the Pearsons’ Keizer home. Miller was later arrested at a Salem Motel 6.
Keizer men sentenced for mother’s murder
The pair had planned to sell possessions and move to Mexico. According to court records, Pearson promised to pay Miller in exchange for killing his parents.
Despite being minors, Pearson and Miller were charged with Measure 11 offenses, requiring them to be tried as adults.
Prosecutors described Pearson, then a student at the Downtown Learning Center in Salem, as a remorseless, master manipulator who convinced Miller to kill his parents because he thought his mother was a “bitch.”
Pearson’s and Miller’s families requested shorter sentences. Pearson’s sister said her brother was helpful and wholeheartedly empathetic. Since Pearson stopped doing methamphetamine, he’d shown more compassion, said his attorney John Storkel.
Both pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder in 2015 and were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.
They were placed in the custody of the Oregon Youth Authority, where they awaited transfer to adult prison once they were old enough.
Now 21 and imprisoned at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, Pearson petitioned the court to order a reversal of his conviction and sentences, expunge his record and release him from custody.
His previous attempts to overturn his conviction were unsuccessful. Pearson and his attorney filed a brief with the Oregon Court of Appeals claiming his sentence was unconstitutional because he was a juvenile at the time of his crime.
According to court records, it was his first time making such a claim. He argued for a shorter sentence during his criminal trial but did not suggest the 40-year term was unconstitutional.
In May, the Oregon Court of Appeals upheld his sentence. In its opinion, the appeals court stated that only mandatory life sentences without parole for those who committed their crimes while under the age of 18 were considered cruel and unusual.
Pearson filed his post-conviction petition on Thursday. A hearing date has not yet been scheduled.
Pearson will remain at the MacLaren until he is transferred to adult prison. He can remain in Oregon Youth Authority custody until he is 25.
