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Thread: Brian Everett Day Sentenced to LWOP in 2017 TX Slaying of Thomas and Jenita Holland

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    Brian Everett Day Sentenced to LWOP in 2017 TX Slaying of Thomas and Jenita Holland


    Jenita and Thomas Holland





    February 11, 2018

    Man charged with capital murder in couple’s slaying


    By Felicia Frazier
    The Sequin Gazette


    The Seguin man accused of slaying a couple just days before Christmas was officially charged with capital murder this month.

    On Feb. 1, the Guadalupe County Grand Jury indicted 40-year-old Brian Everett Day on a charge of capital murder of multiple persons in the shooting death of his neighbors, 29-year-old Thomas Holland and wife, 27-year-old
    Jenita Holland on Dec. 21, 2017 in the 2100 block of Vivroux Ranch Road.

    http://seguingazette.com/news/articl...e2b276176.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Edited:

    Seguin man accused of double murder may face the death penalty

    By Dalondo Moultrie
    The Sequin Gazette

    A Seguin man accused of killing two people may be the first to face the death penalty in Guadalupe County.

    Guadalupe County Attorney David Willborn filed paperwork this week indicating he intends to seek the death penalty for Brian Everett Day, 42.

    http://herald-zeitung.com/news/artic...de068d05d.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Death penalty withdrawn from capital murder case

    By Felicia Frazar
    The Seguin Gazette

    A man who stands accused of killing a couple on Dec. 21, 2017, heads to trial on Monday; however, he no longer faces the death penalty as an option for punishment if he is found guilty.

    On Jan. 31, Guadalupe County Attorney David Willborn filed a notice that the state would not seek the death penalty in the capital murder case against Brian Everett Day, 44, of Seguin, according to court records obtained by the Seguin Gazette.

    https://seguingazette.com/news/artic...797e1c8d3.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Medical examiner testifies woman shot more than 30 times, beaten

    By Felicia Frazar
    The Seguin Gazette

    Jenita Holland was shot more than 30 times — with at least six of those shots striking her head — a medical examiner told a Guadalupe County jury on Thursday in the capital murder trial of man accused of killing Jenita and her husband.

    Prosecutors will continue presenting their case against 44-year-old Brian Everett Day next week after Judge William D. Old III sent jurors home Thursday afternoon, giving them Friday off and telling them to return Monday.

    Much of the testimony and evidence presented Thursday revolved around science.

    Guadalupe County Attorney David Willborn and Special Assistant County Attorney Heather McMinn called witnesses including a medical examiner, a forensic weapons expert, and others.

    Tarrant County’s chief medical examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns was deputy chief medical examiner in Travis County in 2017 when he performed autopsies on Thomas and Jenita Holland, shot and killed just days before Christmas 2017. Both victims suffered the same cause and manner of death, Crowns said.

    “It’s multiple gunshot wounds,” he said of the cause before adding the manner of each death. “Homicide.”

    Thomas Holland received several gunshot wounds, but his wife took the brunt of the assault that killed them, according the Crown’s testimony. Jenita suffered at least 30 gunshot wounds with no fewer than six to her head and 24 to her torso area, he said.

    “The majority of them would’ve caused her death,” Crown’s said.

    Two of the shots came from a firearm being placed against her skin before the assailant pulled the trigger, he said.

    Both of the Hollands were also bludgeoned around the time of their death, Crowns said. Again, Jenita took the worse of the assault. Thomas had about a handful of blunt-force injuries to his head, arms and torso, he said. Crowns said he counted no fewer than 29 blunt-force injuries all over Jenita’s body.

    It was his opinion that the 29 injuries came from about 21 separate strikes with a blunt object, Crowns said.

    Day, who pleaded not guilty in the trial, told investigators that he fired his AR-15-style rifle at someone who came onto his property and fired at him first. He said he unleashed at least 66 rounds in the direction of the shot fired at him and later learned that it was his neighbors who were wounded.

    He is represented by Converse-based defense attorney Wendellyn “Wende” Rush and San Antonio-based Cornelius Cox. Rush on cross examination of Crowns asked whether the medical examiner checked Thomas Holland’s hand to see if rigor mortis set it in position of someone firing a weapon, which could add credence to Day’s contention that someone shot at him.

    Crowns said he did not check for such a thing but that a person’s finger could be locked in such a position upon death if it were held in that position when they were killed.

    Rush and Cox are expected next week to get a chance to offer the defense’s side of what happened Dec. 21, 2017, at the properties on Vivroux Ranch Road.

    https://seguingazette.com/alert/arti...9a23d8332.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Jury convicts man of capital murder in 2017 slaying

    Brian Day sentenced to life in prison without parole for shooting, killing Thomas and Jenita Holland

    By Felicia Frazar
    The Seguin Gazette

    Jurors took less than a half hour Thursday to convict a Guadalupe County man in the 2017 Christmas-season slaying of his next-door neighbors in a hail of more than five dozen gunshots on his property.

    The panel of 12 seemed to believe the deceased neighbors’ son who told an emergency dispatcher and testified in court that he watched as Brian Everett Day, 42, shot and killed the 11-year-old boy’s father and mother in cold blood.

    Only 7 at the time of the murders on Dec. 21, 2017, the boy relayed in a 911 call that Day said something to Thomas Holland, who approached Day only to be shot down. Jenita Holland screamed her husband’s name as he fell to the ground only seconds before Day pumped more than 30 gunshots into her body, according to court testimony.

    “He shot them in their heads. He shot them in their hearts. He shot them in their livers,” Guadalupe County Attorney David Willborn told the jury during closing arguments in the trial. “But that’s not all he did. He unloaded 66 rounds into these people.”

    Day was convicted Thursday morning of capital murder-multiple persons. A day earlier, both sides rested their cases, and they presented closing arguments Thursday morning in the case that lasted about eight days.

    Evidence was stacked against Day, Willborn said in closing. The court had heard Day in a video recorded interview he gave to sheriff’s deputies investigating the Hollands’ murders that he pulled the trigger repeatedly on his next door neighbors.

    The defendant told deputies that he was justified in shooting the couple because, Day said, they trespassed on his property. He told law enforcement personnel and others that he was allowed to kill anyone on his property because he had no trespassing signs on his land and had fence posts painted purple.

    Purple-painted fence posts somehow cleared him of any wrongdoing in gunning down anyone on his property, Day said in recorded interactions with police and his former fiancée testified at trial.

    “This lunatic … believes his whole life if he had a post painted purple and people came onto his property, he can shoot them,” Willborn said. “That man has claimed he had the right to kill people. But that’s not the case.”

    Day’s defense team of Converse-based Wendellyn “Wende” Rush and San Antonio-based Cornelius Cox used their closing arguments to caution the jury to pay attention to not only evidence prosecutors presented but also what they failed to show. Investigators didn’t search for evidence that the Hollands fired upon Day, the defense said.

    Their client said he saw a flash of light, believed it was from gunfire and responded by firing his own weapon. Investigators saw the crime scene and made up in their own minds who was guilty and only sought to prove their theories, Rush said.

    “He was in fear,” she said of Day. “He was frightened. Going through his mind was protecting himself so he would not be killed.”

    It was up to the jury to determine whether prosecutors proved their case, not whether the defense disproved the prosecution’s theories, Rush said.

    Jurors spent about 25 minutes in chambers before quickly returning to deliver the verdict.

    Upon 25th Judicial District Judge William D. Old III reading the unanimous verdict in open court, the packed courtroom remained completely still. Jenita Holland’s father could be seen giving an approving nod.

    Following that verdict and after dismissing the jury, Old imposed the only sentence available in the trial.

    “Because there is only one sentence the court can reach at this time, there’s no reason to keep the jury in the courtroom at this time,” he said before giving Day a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
    Day told Old that he plans to appeal the verdict.

    Jenita’s family couldn’t be reached for comment as members of Willborn’s office quickly ushered them out of the courtroom. Standing outside the courtroom briefly, Thomas’ parents both declined to speak on the nearly-two-week trial or its verdict.

    Cox and Rush said they accept the jury’s decision even if it was reached quickly.

    “As lawyers, we always respect the jury’s verdict,” Cox said. “We may disagree with it but in terms of this case, it took almost two weeks to have them return a verdict in less than an hour… we accept it.”

    Jurors obviously accepted the prosecution’s version of what happened, Rush said. That version could have been skewed because of some early assumptions in the case, Cox said.

    “Our position or part of it was there was a rush to judgment,” he said. “Did police officers, everybody involved and investigators, make a determination that he’s guilty and only follow the trail to his guilt?”

    No other version is plausible, said Heather McMinn, the special assistant county prosecutor who helped try Day. Day lured the unarmed couple to his property and slaughtered them as they crossed through a gate separating the two homesteads, McMinn said in closing arguments.

    He killed Jenita and Thomas in a violent attack that took away their two children’s parents, she said.

    “(Those children) are never going to get their parents back,” McMinn said. “They will never have another Christmas where they don’t remember the slaying of their mother and father.”

    https://seguingazette.com/article_087f82de-eea3-11ec-815c-6b62190d27ea.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    No. 5. Jury convicts man of capital murder in 2017 slaying

    After almost two weeks of testimony, jurors took less than a half hour June 16 to convict Brian Everett Day, 42, in the 2017 Christmas-season slaying of his next-door neighbors in a hail of more than five dozen gunshots on his property.

    The county attorney originally sought the death penalty. However in the interest of justice and at the family’s request, the county waived the death penalty as possible punishment, and Day was given the only other available sentence of life without parole.

    The panel of 12 seemed to believe the deceased neighbors’ son who told an emergency dispatcher and testified in court that he watched as Day shot and kill the 11-year-old boy’s father and mother in cold blood.

    Only 7 at the time of the murders on Dec. 21, 2017, the boy relayed in a 911 call that Day said something to Thomas Holland, who approached Day only to be shot down. Jenita Holland screamed her husband’s name as he fell to the ground only seconds before Day pumped more than 30 gunshots into her body, according to court testimony.

    “He shot them in their heads. He shot them in their hearts. He shot them in their livers,” Guadalupe County Attorney David Willborn told the jury during closing arguments in the trial. “But that’s not all he did. He unloaded 66 rounds into these people.”

    Day was convicted Thursday morning of capital murder-multiple persons.

    The court had heard Day in a video recorded interview he gave to sheriff’s deputies investigating the Hollands’ murders that he pulled the trigger repeatedly on his next door neighbors.

    The defendant told deputies that he was justified in shooting the couple because, Day said, they trespassed on his property. He told law enforcement personnel and others that he was allowed to kill anyone on his property because he had no trespassing signs on his land and had fence posts painted purple.

    Purple-painted fence posts somehow cleared him of any wrongdoing in gunning down anyone on his property, Day said in recorded interactions with police and his former fiancée testified at trial.

    Day’s defense team of Converse-based Wendellyn “Wende” Rush and San Antonio-based Cornelius Cox used their closing arguments to caution the jury to pay attention to not only evidence prosecutors presented but also what they failed to show. Investigators didn’t search for evidence that the Hollands fired upon Day, the defense said.

    Their client said he saw a flash of light, believed it was from gunfire and responded by firing his own weapon. Investigators saw the crime scene and made up in their own minds who was guilty and only sought to prove their theories, Rush said.

    https://seguingazette.com/alert/no-5...cd07642da.html
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