Financial woes added to burden of man who killed family
jan_49
Financial woes added to burden of man who killed family
Saturday, March 23, 2002
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
McMINNVILLE, Ore. -- Already troubled by expulsion from his church and a
recent bankruptcy, Robert Bryant, who killed himself and his family last
month, was under growing financial pressure after making a new start in
Oregon.
His landscaping business looked prosperous at a glance, but expenses were
heavy and Bryant was running out of money, the McMinnville News-Register
reported.
On Feb. 23 Bryant killed his wife Janet and four children with a shotgun,
then killed himself. The bodies were found March 14.
The family had filed for bankruptcy in California in January 2000 after his
business there faltered, an apparent result of being expelled from the
Jehovah's Witness church over doctrinal differences.
They moved to Oregon last summer.
They bought land and set about to find and finance a house. They found a
basic model but Robert Bryant's plan was eventually to build a nice home on
his own, something he had done before.
At first, things looked good. Bryant was hard-working and personable. And he
knew landscape maintenance, having spent more than two decades in the
business.
He arrived in Yamhill County in June 2001, and quickly found work.
When he went to Homes America to buy the house, he listed business income of
more than $7,000 a month.
"I can't emphasize enough: that was verified," said Vern Skoog, Homes
America's general manager in McMinnville. The finance company wanted to see
check stubs, receipts and bank statements, he said, and Bryant provided it
all.
That might not have painted a full picture.
Local landscapers expressed doubts that someone could so quickly break into
a business in which so many property owners are under long-term contracts.
"I just started my fourth year, and I'm not making half that," said Ken
Bales of McMinnville's All Seasons Lawn Maintenance.
In California, Bryant also told the bankruptcy court he was making about
$7,000 a month.
He came from an area where landscapers work year-round. But in the rainy
Willamette Valley, the work declines in the fall and winter.
Bryant first visited the area in the winter of 2000-01. The winter was
abnormally warm and dry. Many lawns needed mowing all year, keeping
landscapers active.
That didn't happen in the wet winter just passed. Janet Bryant's sister,
Sharon Roe, fears the winter before may have given her brother-in-law an
incorrect picture.
While the loan was being processed, more financial records were requested.
Skoog said Bryant provided them and they continued to demonstrate strong
income.
"Of course, when we were doing that, we were talking September and October,
and we had the weather to maintain that kind of business," Skoog said.
In addition he had sold his business in Shingle Springs, in northern
California, but customers he had under contract there continued to pay him,
Roe said.
He turned over that money to the new owner, but it may have artificially
inflated the size of his bank account, she said.
The bankruptcy erased the family's debt but did little to help its
underlying financial situation, said Michael Burkart, a bankruptcy trustee.
Burkart retained copies of the bankruptcy records, which are public
documents, and reviewed them at the request of the News-Register.
At the time of the filing, Bryant reported $7,049 in monthly income and
$4,068 in monthly expenses.
Add in house payments of $1,325, plus house insurance, health insurance and
car payments, and the monthly expenses even after leaving bankruptcy would
have run $8,055.
"You do the simple arithmetic, and they're under water by $1,000 a month,"
he said.
None of the Bryant's expenses seemed unreasonable, he said.
After the bankruptcy, most of the expenses other than credit card debt
remained. The house payments, car payments and other necessities continued
to total more that Bryant was making.
When the Bryants moved to Oregon, they sold their house in California for
$269,000. They owed only $153,000 on it, so it should have netted them a
substantial sum.
As expenses mounted, the amount dwindled.
First came the $16,000 down on the property. Then Homes America's mortgage
lender expressed concern about how much debt they had, so they paid off
their vehicles to remove those payments from their monthly finances.
Setting up the new home was expensive as well. Skoog estimated the site work
costs at $30,000 or more.
"I can tell you this, he forked out a lot of money on his own," Skoog said.
"His cash reserves had to be dwindling."
By December, with little income and savings depleting, a distressed Bryant
told his wife that they'd be out of money in two months, Roe said.
She learned that directly from her sister, she said.
It was two months after that that Bryant loaded two Mossberg shotguns,
killed his four children and his wife of 17 years, then knelt in the living
room and took his own life with a final blast.
--
Jan
Atheist #2028 -and- University of Oregon alum ...
***** GO DUCKS !! *****
Linda Mundy
Even with all of the obsessing over the Yates case (who, me?...), I'm
surprised no one else has mentioned the similarities of this case and
the Longo case: financial problems, expulsion from the Jehovah's
Witnesses, and going to Oregon to get a new start -- and then murdering
their families. Of course there the similarities end -- Christian Longo
appears to be a murderous sociopath, who went to work afterward, and
when he ran, he ended up partying down in Cancun; whereas this guy
at least killed himself too (I was going to say "had the decency" to kill
himself, but no, that doesn't seem right either).
--Linda M
--
"You can’t say civilization don’t advance,
for in every war they kill you a new way."
--Will Rogers
d~
<lmu...@webtraders.com> wrote:
{snip}
>Even with all of the obsessing over the Yates case (who, me?...), I'm
>surprised no one else has mentioned the similarities of this case and
>the Longo case: financial problems, expulsion from the Jehovah's
>Witnesses, and going to Oregon to get a new start -- and then murdering
>their families.
Not to toot my own horn, but: I DID!! :-)
d~ (Long time lurker, recently started posting)