Killers in the Family

by Robert L. Snow

“Brian.”

  “Did you see that gun with Paul [Reese Sr.]?”

  “No.”

  “Did Brian carry a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?”

  “I mean all the time.”

  “On July 10, 2008,” Robinson continued, “when Brian opened the door and saw the police standing outside, did he know he was a homicide suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  At this point, once the judge had the jury leave the courtroom, defense attorney David Shircliff again asked for a mistrial because information about an unrelated homicide had been introduced. The judge once more denied the motion.

  The prosecution said it had no more questions of Lona Bishop and no more rebuttal witnesses to call. The judge then told the attorneys to prepare for closing arguments.

  Prosecutor Denise Robinson started first with the State’s closing argument. She carefully went through all of the evidence the State had presented, and how it showed that Brian Reese had intentionally tried to kill Officer Jason Fishburn. She finished her closing argument by saying, “Is it reasonable, is it credible, to believe that the defendant fires blindly at nothing and somehow Jason Fishburn runs around the corner and runs into those bullets? No. We ask you to find him guilty.”

  Shircliff handled the closing argument for the defense. “I’ve never asked you to like Brian Reese,” he told the jury. “I’ve never asked you to think the behavior he engaged in is something you’d want to behave like, or that you liked the behavior or that you condoned it or agreed with it. The life he lives is not one that you or I live.”

  He went on and didn’t deny that Brian Reese had fired the shots that struck Fishburn, but insisted that it was an unintentional act and that Brian should be found guilty of aggravated battery rather than attempt murder.

  “It’s not about intentional murder or intent to murder,” Shircliff said. “It’s about fleeing. It’s about Brian Reese making a bad decision. It’s about Brian Reese shooting his gun. Hold him responsible for what he’s done and that would be Aggravated Battery. Thank you.”

  In the State’s rebuttal closing argument, the prosecution told the jurors, “Hold him accountable. Tell him he’s not in control anymore. He’s guilty of Attempt Murder.”

  Following the closing arguments, the judge gave the jury their instructions as to how the law applied in this case. Once they had these, she sent them to the jury room to deliberate.

  The case took a little over a week and went to the jury on Tuesday, November 10, 2009. There is always some uncertainty while a jury is out, because no one knows how they viewed the evidence. What often appears as convincing to the prosecutor or defense attorney may not be that convincing to the jurors. And so both sides waited nervously for the verdicts to be read. But while it had taken a little over a week to try the case, it only took the jurors ninety minutes to find Brian Reese guilty on all counts, including attempt murder, resisting law enforcement, and carrying a handgun without a license.

  Shircliff asked for the jurors to be polled. Each one said that they agreed with the verdict. The jury then had to go back into deliberations to decide if Brian Reese should be found guilty of carrying a handgun without a license as a Class D felony or the higher and more serious Class C felony. The jurors were allowed to see his criminal record when they did this. They came back with a recommendation of the Class C felony.

  Naturally, the prosecution and the Fishburn family were elated at the verdict. “We were really relieved at the conviction,” said Tonya. “We felt we could put this behind us now and move on with our lives.”

  “We felt we had hit a home run and were really pleased with the verdict,” Dennis Fishburn added. “We finally had some closure.”

  When asked what he thought had tipped the case in their favor, prosecutor Carl Brizzi pointed to Brian’s own testimony. “I think the defendant taking the stand tipped it in our favor,” he told a reporter for the Indy Channel. “I don’t think he was credible. I think he came across as very rehearsed and couldn’t answer the tough questions.”

  Detective Sergeant Jeff Breedlove said he felt that Gary Rees’s testimony had made the difference. “Gary Rees really made the case as far as Brian Reese’s intent was concerned,” he said.

  Deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson felt that it was the totality of the evidence that had convicted Brian Reese. “The defense argued that Reese had recklessly and randomly fired at Officer Fishburn and that, therefore, there was no specific intent to kill,” she said. “By introducing evidence in a number of seemingly unrelated areas we were able to negate this argument and prove that the shooting was intentional. We introduced testimony on officer training—specifically training relating to the use of Tasers and of firearms—to show the jury that Officer Fishburn was pursuing a known homicide suspect and initially drew and used his Taser, and then, only when faced with deadly force, drew his Glock. We also introduced testimony as to ballistics, firearms trajectory, and the speed at which the bullets of the caliber fired by Reese travelled to show that the injuries sustained by Officer Fishburn had to have been the result of shots intentionally fired.”

  The jury apparently agreed with prosecutor Carl Brizzi and deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson’s assessment. Juror Jim Waters told an Indy Channel reporter, “It came up to us if we believed what [Brian Reese] said, because it was only two people that had saw what happened. Since [Jason Fishburn] couldn’t speak for himself, all we had to go by was the defendant and it just wasn’t believable.”

  On December 4, 2009, Judge Lisa Borges held the sentencing hearing for Brian Reese. At these hearings, victims and family members of victims can speak. Dennis Fishburn, Jason’s father, told the court, “No one wins in this devastating case, nobody wins. Now it’s time to pay the piper, Mr. Reese. They say that forgiveness is the key that unlocks the handcuffs of hate. I’ve lost that key. I can’t find it. Judge, it’s in your hands, but while the defense attorney might ask for leniency, I hope you will boldly say, ‘Not today.’”

  Jason Fishburn also addressed the court. He said, “I can’t draw anymore, no more running, no more hiking, no more everything. Brian, I forgive you, but at the same time justice must be served, and I just ask that the sentence is the fullest.”

  Family members and friends of the person convicted can also say a few words at the sentencing hearing. Amy Brackin, the mother of three of Brian’s children, told the court what an absolutely wonderful man Brian was. Richard Ward, a friend and fellow window washer, told the judge what a great, nonviolent person Brian was. Two of Brian’s daughters, Stephanie and Amanda, also testified and said what a wonderful, loving father Brian was, and how tough it would be on them if he was sent away for a long time.

  Following this testimony, Judge Borges sentenced Brian to the maximum sentence possible: fifty-nine years in prison. He received fifty years for attempt murder, one year for resisting law enforcement, and eight years for carrying a handgun without a license. The judge ordered the sentences to be served consecutively. She told Brian, “If you take a gun in your hand and you point it at a police officer and you pull the trigger, then you have cut down something that is the fabric of our lives.”

  Dennis Fishburn couldn’t have been happier with the sentence. “Being a police officer and a father, I definitely didn’t want to see anything other than guilty and the maximum sentence. And we got it.”

  —

  As often happens, Brian Reese eventually appealed his conviction in the Officer Jason Fishburn shooting. He based his appeal on what he believed were four mistakes made by the court.

  That the court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of uncharged bad acts in violation of Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b).

  That the court abused its discretion in instructing the jury.

  That there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for attempt murder.

 
; That he had been improperly sentenced.

  As for the first point of his appeal, Brian noted that a detective testifying at his trial had identified himself as a homicide detective. He also directed the appeals court’s attention to the testimony of another police officer who told the court that he had been dispatched at the request of Homicide. Brian claimed that the testimony of these two police officers had tainted the jury by letting them know that he was a murder suspect. Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b), he said, didn’t allow testimony about charges or convictions unrelated to the case at hand. The appeals court, however, didn’t agree. They pointed out that Lona Bishop had testified that Brian knew he was a murder suspect when he ran from the police. Along with this, the court said, Brian himself had opened the door to the testimony he objected to by telling the jury that he thought the police were chasing him because of a theft warrant he had out on him and “because I was running around with a gun in my hand.”

  Brian’s second point of appeal, about the faulty jury instruction, he based on his objection to the judge’s instruction: “The intent to kill may be inferred from the nature of the attack and the circumstances surrounding the crime.” Brian claimed that the word “attack” was prejudicial to him, that it made the incident appear to be an intentional act, rather than unintentional as he claimed. The appeals court again disagreed. They said that, at most, the court had made only a “harmless error” in using the word “attack” in the jury instruction, particularly in light of testimony that Brian had fired multiple shots at Officer Fishburn, two of them striking him with “deadly accuracy.”

  On the third point of Brian’s appeal, that there was insufficient evidence presented at his trial to convict him of attempt murder, the appeals court once more disagreed. They said, “The requisite intent to commit murder may be inferred from the intentional use of a deadly weapon in a manner likely to cause death” and that “discharging a weapon in the direction of a victim is substantial evidence from which a jury can infer intent to kill.” Additionally, the appeals court pointed out that Gary Rees had testified that Brian had claimed he’d ambushed the officer. The appeals court said they felt that the jury had sufficient evidence for their decision.

  On Brian’s claim that his sentence was too harsh, specifically that his four children (one with Lona Bishop and three with Amy Brackin) would no longer have his support, the appeals court continued to disagree. In their written opinion, they said that, according to case law: “A trial court is not required to find that a defendant’s incarceration would result in undue hardship upon his dependants” and “many persons convicted of serious crimes have one or more children and, absent special circumstances, trial courts are not required to find that imprisonment would result in an undue hardship.” But in addition to this, the appeals court also noted that Brian’s parental rights with Lona Bishop had already been terminated, and that the other three children had received only minimal support from Brian over the years. His imprisonment wouldn’t have that much financial impact on them.

  Brian also claimed that his sentence, which was the maximum possible, had been inappropriate for him. The appeals court noted, however, that Officer Fishburn had attempted to stop Brian with verbal commands and the use of his Taser, and that Brian had responded to this with deadly force, ambushing Fishburn and critically wounding him. Also, the court noted, Brian had a long criminal history as both a juvenile and an adult. In addition, he had previously violated his probation, was out on bond when he shot Officer Fishburn, and had a history of drug abuse. The appeals court stated, “In sum, there is nothing in the nature of the offenses or the character of the offender to persuade us that a maximum sentence is inappropriate.”

  The following year, on October 25, 2010, Brian Reese was scheduled to go to trial for the murder of Clifford Haddix, but he apparently realized the futility of it, and instead of going to trial, on October 22, 2010, Brian Reese pleaded guilty. The evidence against him in the case had been overwhelming. Homicide detectives had discovered that Lona Bishop, along with Paul Reese Sr., had accompanied Brian to Haddix’s house and that Paul Sr. had acted as a lookout, talking with Brian over a walkie-talkie.

  The police had arrested Lona, and eventually charged her with conspiracy to commit robbery. Since she had no criminal record at all, the police had believed that there was a good chance they could get her to testify against Brian and Paul Reese Sr. in order to keep from going to prison herself. Her attorney would tell a reporter for the Indy Channel that “Lona intends to fully cooperate with the Prosecutor’s Office.” She did, and eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. She received a twenty-year sentence, but because of her cooperation with the police, the judge (over the objection of deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson) suspended the sentence and placed her on probation.

  Brian’s father, Paul Reese Sr., also agreed to cooperate with the police. Although originally arrested for murder, robbery, burglary, and being a habitual criminal, Paul Sr. made a deal with the prosecutor to plead guilty to burglary in the Haddix case, and received a twenty-year sentence in exchange for his cooperation.

  And so, following his guilty plea in the Haddix case and the fact that his father and girlfriend had both become State’s Witnesses, Brian really had no choice but to also plead guilty to the murders of Demetrius Allen and Crystal Joy Jenkins, crimes he had been charged with on July 16, 2008. The gun he’d already been convicted of using in the Officer Jason Fishburn shooting had been used in Allen’s murder as well. On December 16, 2010, a judge sentenced Brian to 189 years in prison for the three murders. According to his Department of Corrections fact sheet, his earliest possible release date is July 6, 2132.

  Deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson added some final thoughts about the Brian Reese case. “As for Brian Reese, in addition to convicting him of shooting Officer Fishburn, he was also convicted of three homicides, and he will be in prison for the remainder of his life,” she said. “Jason Fishburn is a fine young man who wanted nothing more than to be a police officer and Brian Reese took that from him. Nothing I did can restore Jason’s life and career to him. In the end, all I could do was hold Brian Reese accountable.”

  It appeared that one member of the Reese family, at least, would never again be free to harm anyone.

  ELEVEN

  In the years following thirteen-year-old Dawn Marie Stuard’s murder in 1986, her father Ted Stuard tried his best to deal with what had happened in a way that allowed him to function on a day-to-day basis. “To maintain my sanity, I tried over the years to put a lot of it out of my mind,” he said. “I tried not to think about it, but if I did, I tried to remember the good things so that I could repress the bad things. I could still hear that goofy little girl laugh of hers,” he added with a sad smile. Unfortunately, he found that his method of trying to block it out didn’t work nearly as well as he would have liked it to. “But the bad times outweighed the good, and so I just tried not to remember too much.”

  For the first few years after Dawn’s murder, Ted went through a lot of despair and grief, a lot of simply not believing that it could have happened. A dark depression soon followed. “He said that he grieved most for the lost opportunity of watching his daughter grow up and for all the opportunities she would never have,” said WXIN reporter Russ McQuaid. Small things—like hearing a certain song, or the sound of a little girl laughing, or seeing a character in a movie—would remind him of Dawn, and then all the feelings of despair and grief would rush back.

  Ted’s wife, Sandy, didn’t fare any better after Dawn’s murder, and eventually their marriage broke up, a not uncommon result in such circumstances. Eventually, both of them got remarried to other people, but even moving on to a new marriage couldn’t reduce the anguish Ted felt. He found that the only method that worked for him was to simply close off that portion of his life, to try not to think about it. And so, he tried to blank out his mind about everything that had happened and to ju
st get through each day without dwelling on it. He became numb.

  He didn’t even share it with his new wife, Linda, for almost seven years after they were married. “Linda didn’t even know about Dawn for a long time,” Ted said. “She didn’t know that I’d had a daughter murdered. She didn’t know anything because I didn’t talk about it.”

  Linda, however, could tell that Ted had something traumatic in his past, something that haunted him, something he kept all bottled up inside. She could tell that he was hurting but didn’t want to push him into talking about it. She decided to just let it come out naturally when he felt it was time to talk.

  “For the first seven years we were married,” said Linda Stuard, “he didn’t say anything about Dawn.” She wasn’t completely in the dark, though. “His family would tell me things. But I didn’t push the subject because I knew that when he was ready to talk about it he would.”

  And yet, even though Ted Stuard fought desperately to keep his sanity by not thinking about what had happened to his little girl, he couldn’t help but think of Dawn every year on her birthday. And every time St. Patrick’s Day rolled around, he felt sick all over, as if his chest cavity had suddenly filled with dark, icy water, because he couldn’t help but think of what had happened to his daughter on that day in 1986.

  “St. Patrick’s Day became a very dreaded holiday for me,” said Ted Stuard. “Whenever it got close to the anniversary of Dawn’s death, of course she would come to mind.”

  In addition to the depression, Ted Stuard also had to deal with the anger. A man had murdered his daughter yet walked around free. A man who everyone knew was a criminal had choked his daughter to death, after sexually assaulting her, yet it seemed that nothing could be done about it. Paul Reese Sr. was still a free man, out in the world hurting who knew how many more people. Ted would become consumed by the unfairness of the situation. It just wasn’t right: an evil man getting away with killing an innocent little girl.