FL: Husband Of Murdered Family Talks About Being Cleared From The Crime...

[Slimpickins]

Husband no longer suspect in 3
slayings

By LEANORA MINAI

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 16,
1999

A week after the murders, Albert
"Dewey" Brannon Jr., dressed in a
business suit, quivered and choked
back tears as he told reporters he did
not kill his wife and two daughters.

When Manatee County Sheriff Charlie
Wells publicly refused to clear him a month later, a
furious and red-faced Brannon, wearing shorts and
T-shirt, stormed into Wells' office as TV cameras
rolled.

"Arrest me now or clear my name!" he shouted.

After three months of scrutiny, Wells said
Wednesday that Brannon no longer is a suspect in
the Sept. 16 killings of his wife, Sherry Brannon,
and daughters Shelby, 7, and Cassidy, 4.

"It is a relief, but it
still doesn't change
the outcome of this,"
said Brannon, 35. "I
still have to wake up
every morning and
know there's a man
in jail that killed my
wife and children.

"It gets to the point
where you know
you're innocent, but
it doesn't matter
anymore. Sherry and
Shelby and Cassidy
aren't coming back."

Detectives "checked out every conceivable
theory," including murder-for-hire, but the physical
evidence links only Larry James Parks to the
Bradenton slayings, Wells said.

Parks, a 45-year-old landscaper, is being held in
the Manatee County Jail on three counts of
first-degree murder. Prosecutors will seek the
death penalty.

"The evidence that we have does not implicate
Dewey Brannon," Wells said. "But you don't
know that originally, and you can't afford to
overlook any possibility during the investigation."

Mrs. Brannon's father, Robert Meyer, is
convinced Parks had help, and he blames Brannon
for not being at home to protect his family.

"I feel like there's other people involved in this
thing," said Meyer, who lives in St. Petersburg.
"I'll go to my grave believing that."

Brannon's friends are relieved he can focus on
grieving, not clearing his name.

"I just knew him well enough to believe in him,"
said former neighbor Jack Marshall, 78, of Largo.
"But there's always that little haunting, anxious
feeling you have when they keep wanting to say
he may have had something to do with it. I'm very
happy to find out he had nothing to do with it."

From the beginning, a cloud of suspicion hovered
over Brannon.

On Father's Day this year, he left his wife of 16
years, a nurse at St. Anthony's Hospital, and
daughters to live with another woman.

Mrs. Brannon, who died on her 35th birthday,
filed for divorce in August. She offered her
estranged husband "frequent and liberal visitation"
but asked to be the primary residential custodian.
She also wanted to keep the $350,000
custom-built home in Bradenton and asked
Brannon to pay for the girls' education.

"There were things throughout the case that
bothered us, and it started with the fact that he had
an argument with his estranged wife the night
before the murders," said Dave Bristow,
spokesman for the Manatee County Sheriff's
Office.

Investigators also looked closely at Brannon
because he discovered the bodies of his wife and
daughters, who suffered multiple stab wounds.
Their throats also were cut.

"In cases like this, when you have a scene like we
had, about 50 percent of the time the person who's
arrested is a family member," Bristow said.

Brannon was questioned for six hours, then his
divorce lawyer took over, answering queries from
detectives and the media. Brannon, authorities say,
remained under suspicion because they didn't have
access to him.

"It became complicated when he hired the
lawyer," Wells said. "I know the lawyer said he
was cooperating, but that's not entirely true. When
you can't answer every question that's asked, it
becomes very difficult to sort out the pieces."

The sheriff's task force investigated all leads in the
Brannon slayings, Wells said. Authorities also
examined whether Brannon might have ordered his
wife killed.

Wells refused to cite specific evidence that
eliminated Brannon as a suspect.

"We've received our lab results back. We've run
down all of our tips and leads and all of the
physical evidence points to Parks," Wells said.

Meyer, Mrs. Brannon's father, said Wednesday
that Parks announced after his arrest that he had
an accomplice.

Wells declined to discuss Parks. But in October,
Wells said that Parks made statements to others
about the case and that detectives would look at
whether he was assisted.

"I believed from Day 1 that Dewey did not have
anything to do with the murder of his children,"
Meyer said. "Now, he could have had something
to do with the death of my daughter.

"But even if he had absolutely nothing to do with
this, we still hold him responsible for the deaths of
my daughter and grandchildren because mainly he
took them down there, built that home and then
abandoned them. If he would have been home that
night, this wouldn't have happened."

Brannon, a United Parcel Service supervisor, is
living with his sister in New Orleans. He is on
medical leave from his UPS job and may transfer
out of the Tampa Bay area, said his divorce
lawyer, Julian Finley Broome Jr.

Brannon may testify as a prosecution witness,
Broome said.

"He'd like to see Larry Parks in the electric chair,"
Broome said.

-- Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this
report, and information from the Bradenton Herald
was used.

Back to Tampa Bay area news

© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights
reserved.

http://www.sptimes.com/News/121699/TampaBay/Husband_no_longer_sus.shtml