for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
Psychiatrist Susan Rushing says repeated sexual abuse that went untreated was detrimental to Bryan Freeman's development.
According to records shared in court, in 1992, Brenda Freeman told a rehab counselor the abuse happened when Bryan was 6 years old, and that Dennis Freeman did not want to pursue treatment.
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
Testimony has wrapped in the re-sentencing hearing for two brothers who have been in prison for 29 years for the killing of their parents and younger brother.
All week, attorneys for Bryan and David Freeman have presented evidence as to why the brothers should get a reduced sentence with the possibility of release.
The Lehigh District Attorney's office has also provided evidence to try to keep the Freeman brothers behind bars.
Those witnesses include mental health experts, law enforcement officials, members of the Jehovah's Witness faith, correctional officials, friends of the Freemans, and some of their family members.
The Freemans' aunt Valerie, who found the bodies of Dennis, Brenda, and 11-year-old Erik Freeman on February 2, 1995, described their rage as teens.
As she spoke, Bryan and David hung their heads and cried. Valerie also wept as she talked about finding Eric in his bed. Valerie is Dennis Freeman's sister.
She testified she used to live with the family until she had an argument with David over the way he was treating Erik. She says afterward, Dennis told her she should move out because he was afraid for her life. Valerie says Erik was also afraid of his older brothers.
She says one hot summer day she came over and found Erik in the garage tied to a chair.
When asked about the possibility of the brothers spending the rest of their lives in jail, Valerie Freeman said, "I don't know how they could do it, so no it doesn't bother me."
Their aunt Sandra Lettich says it took eight years for her to be able to forgive Bryan and David. She says in 2003 Bryan asked the family to help him return to the Jehovah's Witness faith. Lettich says the family started visiting Bryan, helping him with Bible study.
She says during one of many visits, Bryan told her he was sorry for what he did, and he wished he could change it. Lettich says soon afterward she started writing to David.
She says he also expressed deep remorse and a desire for his family's forgiveness. Lettich testified that over the years she has seen a remarkable change in both men.
Lettich's sister Linda Solivan also testified about the Freemans' personal growth and return to faith, saying they deserve redemption.
During cross examination, First Assistant District Attorney Erik Dowdle questioned the Freemans' return to faith, remarking that no one knows scripture better than the devil.
Mental health experts who evaluated the brothers shortly after the crime until just recently were divided on the brothers' rehabilitation.
Psychiatrist John O'Brien testified he evaluated Bryan Freeman several times since the murder.
O'Brien says in 1995, Bryan showed little empathy for his parents and deflected responsibility. O'Brien testified that in a 2018 evaluation he felt Bryan minimized documented threats on his parents' lives and his responsibility in the killings.
O'Brien opined that Bryan regretted the murders because of the negative impact they had on him.
Bryan's attorney Karl Schwartz pushed back against that appraisal, saying Bryan has been on record with several mental health experts taking full responsibility for his actions, saying that if he had not stabbed his mother, the other killings may not have happened.
O'Brien also testified about David Freeman, commenting that during a 2018 evaluation David became angry. O'Brien testified David still harbors a significant amount of anger and that both brothers have neglected to take advantage of individual counseling, instead choosing group therapy.
Psychologist Frank Datillio says when he first met David Freeman, he had a budding anti-social disorder. But then in 2009, Dattilio says David started to change.
"He really started to reflect on his life," said Dattilio. "He didn't want to be a hateful person."
Dattilio says David went from a primitive "block of ice" to someone with introspection. Dattilio said that during one evaluation, David broke down when talking about his parents, saying, "My parents were good people.'"
By 2018, Dattilio says he "was awestruck by the contrast" from 1995.
Psychiatrist Susan Rushing says repeated sexual abuse that went untreated was detrimental to Bryan Freeman's development.
According to records shared in court, in 1992, Brenda Freeman told a rehab counselor the abuse happened when Bryan was 6 years old, and that Dennis Freeman did not want to pursue treatment.
Brenda Freeman also reported Bryan became suicidal at 8 years old and started using alcohol shortly afterward.
The court heard testimony that in the years that followed, Bryan and David were admitted to numerous rehab facilities for substance abuse and violence.
Rushing testified that, shortly before the murders, Bryan was involuntarily committed and was medicated with an anti-psychotic called Navane, used to chemically restrain people who are not schizophrenic.
She says when he was released, he was taken off it and sent back to an environment where he was able to resume taking drugs and alcohol, and hanging around violent influences.
Dr. James Garbarino testified the juvenile mind isn't fully formed until the age of 25. Garbarino suggested juvenile killers should spend at least 20 years in jail, 10 years for their minds to mature and 10 to rehabilitate.
Garbarino said Bryan is an upper echelon candidate for release.
Retired Detective Joseph Vasquez was the lead investigator on the 1995 murder case. He showed the court pictures of the crime scene.
Earlier when the crime scene video was shown, the Freemans chose to leave the courtroom.
As Vasquez went through each picture, describing the grisly details, the Freemans hung their heads and cried.
Vasquez says of the two brothers, David was more truthful and cooperative in the initial investigation. Vasquez says Bryan's story was inconsistent and said of the two brothers, David is likely more deserving of clemency.
But the court also heard from those who believe Bryan has redeemed himself.
Erik Stracco, a prison counselor, described how Bryan helps inmates with special needs.
Prison pastor Aaron Duncan told the court the Bryan he knows has respect for his fellow inmates, and Unit Manager Jill Erin Fisher talked about Bryan's patience and care in a dog training program.
Several members of the Jehovah's Witness faith also spoke on Bryan's behalf.
Martin Francken testified he met Bryan through another member who was ministering to him in prison. Franken says he remembered being horrified when he heard about the murders.
He says it was compounded when he learned the teens were Jehovah Witnesses who turned to Nazism.
"Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted by the Nazis and put in camps," said Francken.
Francken says he didn't dwell on Bryan's crime, instead choosing to focus on the Bible. He says he has grown to become friends with Bryan, corresponding with him frequently. Francken is hopeful about Bryan being released.
"I hope that it happens for him some day," said Francken. "I would like to see how he would grow and contribute."
Witness William Connelly echoed Francken's words, saying Bryan proved his faith and became the first person to be baptized in his Bible group. Connelly says Bryan has spoken about seeing his family again in heaven.
Toward the end of the week-long hearing there was a technical glitch with the computer system, forcing a brief break. Judge Doug Reichley took the opportunity to come down from the bench and speak individually with David and Bryan.
Reichley asked David about his hobbies in prison, with David replying that he likes to read.
The judge followed up with a question about prison food. David expressed his preference for the food at SCI Mahanoy over the Lehigh County Jail.
Bryan wore a tan suit for most of the hearings. Reichley jokingly asked him if he was going to get it dry cleaned or hand wash it for the re-sentencing hearing next week.
Bryan's answer couldn't be heard by others in the courtroom, but he responded with a laugh and a smile.
Montclaire University did a study of 269 Philadelphia juvenile lifers impacted by the Supreme Court ruling for re-sentencing hearings just like those the Freemans are going through now.
The study says 174 of them were released, with a recidivism rate of roughly 1%.
First Assistant District Attorney Erik Dowdle says even one death due to a release is too much, saying society would be safer if the Freemans remain in prison.
The Freemans will learn their fate Wednesday morning.
Bryan's attorney says Bryan will speak on his behalf. David submitted a letter to the court.
Only one of them was released.'
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does anyone remember dennis and brenda freeman?.
it was in 1967 when i met dennis.
my job in the bethel factory allowed me to move around and work with many different people.
A psychiatrist on Thursday spent nearly five hours on the witness stand in Lehigh County Court recounting his 2018 evaluation of Bryan Freeman — an assessment that led him to believe the man who helped slaughter his parents and little brother 29 years ago isn’t ready to be freed.
Dr. John O’Brien has served as an expert witness for the prosecution in this week’s resentencing hearing for Freeman and his brother David, who were sentenced to life in prison without parole after the Feb. 26, 1995, massacre in their Salisbury Township home.
Along with their cousin, Nelson “Ben” Birdwell III, the brothers stabbed and beat to death their mother and father, Brenda and Dennis, and 11-year-old brother Erik. They fled to Michigan, where they were captured three days later at the home of man they knew through the neo-Nazi skinhead movement they had embraced.
The brothers were juveniles at the time of the crime — Bryan was 17 and David 16 — so they became eligible for resentencing in the wake of federal and state court rulings holding it unconstitutional to impose a life-without-parole sentence on minors.
Birdwell was 18 at the time, so his life-without-parole sentence stands.
Judge Douglas Reichley is presiding at the hearing. The decision whether to reduce the sentences or leave them in place is solely his to make, based on his sense of whether the brothers have been reformed, as their lawyers claim, or still harbor a potential for the kind of violence they unleashed in their home.
O’Brien testified Monday about his evaluation of David Freeman, and some of the concerns he raised then he also applied to Bryan. He said both brothers have tended to minimize their culpability for the killings by omitting facts or shifting blame.
Bryan, he said, “talks the remorse talk, but when you question him specifically, he continues to distance himself.” He claimed not to remember making well-documented threats against his family and said the massacre could have been prevented had he and his brother been allowed to move out of the house and had avoided Birdwell.
He also claimed a morbid scrapbook called the “Manson notebook” — dozens of newspaper clippings about family murders, including cases of children murdering their parents — belonged to David, though it was found in Bryan’s room.
While acknowledging Bryan has clearly made progress, “I don’t find credibility to his representation that he is fully rehabilitated,” O’Brien said.
In March Bryan, who is incarcerated at the state prison in Coaldale, was subject to a disciplinary action after authorities discovered he was padding the accounts of a prison charity he helped to run.
He told officials he could “fix it and make it right,” O’Brien said, suggesting he wanted to keep the incident off the record so it wouldn’t affect his resentencing bid.
“It’s indicative of a tendency to minimize and avoid responsibility,” O’Brien said. “That’s a concern regarding parole and release from custody.”
Bryan’s lawyer, Karl Schwartz, noted that the disciplinary action was the first taken against his client in 22 years. In virtually all aspects of prison life, Bryan has been exemplary, Schwartz said.
Character witness Eric Stracco, the commutation and clemency supervisor for the Department of Corrections, spent years at Coaldale as director of its library program and as a corrections counselor.
In the first role, he employed Bryan for about two years. In the second, he counseled him for at least three years.
“He was an exceptional worker,” Stracco said. “He seemed to have an innate work ethic that was present without being told what to do.”
He also had a gentle demeanor as he worked with other inmates, helping them navigate the library system.
“I never saw him lose his temper,” Stracco said. “I can’t recollect him ever using profanity. In state prison, profanity is how everyone talks.”
Schwartz asked Stracco if he would have any concerns about Bryan regaining his freedom.
“I would not. I believe he has changed,” Stracco said. “He exemplified evidence of change from the time he entered prison until now, and that exemplification warrants consideration for his eventual release under supervision.”
Against these assurances that Bryan is a changed man, First Assistant District Attorney Eric Dowdle and assistant prosecutor Gregory Englert sought to remind the court of the sheer savagery of the crimes.
They called former state police criminal investigator Joseph Vazquez to the stand — he was one of the primary investigators of the case — and had him graphically describe a series of crime scene photos depicting the victims.
On Monday the brothers chose to stay in their holding cells when a video of the crime scene was played in the courtroom. During Vazquez’s gruesome recitation, however, they remained at the defense tables, lowering their heads.
Bryan wept and, with his chin on his folded hands, appeared to be praying.
Vazquez recounted how investigators constructed a timeline of the killings through interviews with Bryan and David, who were prompted to talk after Birdwell spoke to media in Michigan and blamed everything on the brothers.
Vazquez said he believed David to be far more honest about the events than Bryan.
“I’m torn,” he said. “Maybe give David a break, but not Bryan.”
The hearing continues Friday.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or [email protected].'
https://enewspaper.mcall.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=18218200-87fc-47ec-a13b-2bedb96f7fa6
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
Clinical psychologist Frank M. Dattilio, evaluating David Freeman two months after the Salisbury Township teen participated in the murders of his parents and younger brother, found himself confronted by what he described in court Wednesday as “a block of ice” — cold, remorseless, emotionless.
“He was very primitive in many ways,” Dattilio said Wednesday, the second day of a resentencing hearing in Lehigh County Court for Freeman and his brother, Bryan — one-time neo-Nazi skinheads who, with cousin Nelson Birdwell III, killed Dennis and Brenda Freeman and 11-year-old Erik Freeman on Feb. 26, 1995.
At the time, Bryan was 17 and David, 16. They received life sentences without parole when, to avoid the death penalty, they pleaded guilty to killing Brenda and Dennis, respectively.
Birdwell was charged in all three murders and convicted of Dennis’s murder. No one was convicted of Erik’s death, but prosecutors maintain Birdwell was the culprit.
Since then, a series of federal and state court rulings have held it unconstitutional to impose mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles, so the Freeman brothers became eligible for resentencing. Birdwell turned 18 shortly before the crimes, so his sentence of life without parole stands.
Whether the Freemans continue as lifers or have a chance at freedom will be determined by Lehigh County Judge Douglas Reichley, who must weigh the gravity of the crimes against the idea that the brothers have been rehabilitated and will never commit another offense.
Dattilio, an Allentown psychologist, was retained by David Freeman’s attorney, Matthew Rapa, to build the same kind of case — a portrait of the reformed man his client has ostensibly become in the course of nearly 30 years behind bars.
Dattilio has evaluated some 6,000 offenders over 44 years and is well-known in the Lehigh Valley as an expert witness, both for prosecutors and defense lawyers.
Dattilio conducted follow-up evaluations of Freeman in 2018 and 2022. The passage of decades has seen the sullen, angry teen with the “Sieg Heil” tattoo across his forehead transform into a personable man who acknowledges his guilt and weeps with remorse, he said.
“I was just dumbfounded at the difference in his personality,” Dattilio said. “He was very engaging and forthcoming. … I thought, ‘There’s a human being in there.’ He showed spontaneous emotion, not contrived emotion.”
In 1995, by contrast, “he didn’t break a bead of sweat or one tear when I asked him about what he did. It was haunting to me.”
The Freeman brothers were raised in a strict household and resented the strictures placed on them by their parents, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. That resentment eventually metastasized into a dangerous rage and rebellion reflected in their adoption of neo-Nazism.
David especially resented what he considered his parents’ hypocrisy. His father, for example, preached the importance of clean living in keeping with his faith, but was a frequent drinker.
David himself had his first drink at age 6, Dattilio said.
“Was that surprising to you?” Rapa asked.
“What was more surprising is that his father gave it to him,” Dattilio said.
David became a heavy drinker and marijuana user. A stint in rehab helped, but he relapsed soon after.
David was the first of the brothers to embrace skinhead culture, Dattilio said, but to what extent he bought into the ideology is questionable. He was more interested in demonstrating his disdain for society and authority, Dattilio said, and the swastika flags and Nazi tattoos were primarily meant to shock and repulse people.
“It was all designed to flip the middle finger, if you will, at society and authority,” he said.
On Monday, an expert witness for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist John O’Brien, testified about his own recent assessment, reporting that David at one point during an interview fell into a deep rage.
Dattilio said O’Brien probed no deeper into the cause of the episode.
“I would have wanted to know if that anger was about himself or would have been externalized,” he said.
O’Brien also suggested that David Freeman minimized many of his actions. Dattilio said he had the opposite impression — that David, who rejected neo-Nazism when he entered prison and hasn’t been subject to a disciplinary action in 22 years — has accepted responsibility in full. The anger Dattilio had discerned in David was self-directed, fueled by this acknowledgment.
While David has made great progress in virtually all areas of his life, he still has work to do, the psychologist said. Notably, he has resisted undergoing therapy, reluctant to revisit the horror of the crimes.
“I believe he needs to start treatment,” Dattilio said. “I think once he progresses, he is worthy of a [sentence] reduction.”
Sandra Lettich, Bryan and David’s maternal aunt, also testified Wednesday that she believed both of them would be OK should they be paroled one day.
Lettich told the judge about how she reconnected with them years after her sister’s killings. Her father, their grandfather, would see them in prison often.
On one occasion, he asked Lettich and her husband to join him in one of the visits. That was in 2003, and she has maintained contact with both of them since.
Bryan, she said, began to open up to her after she told him they had forgiven him. David had grown through becoming more connected with the Bible, she said. Both of them are remorseful for what they did, she said.
While they do not tend to speak with Lettich about it, she recalled one time, during a prison visit, Bryan broke down in tears and apologized to her. “I wish it hadn’t happened,” she recalled him saying. “They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
David, she said, found religion and wanted to be spiritually “free,” even if he could not be paroled. They have both expressed concern and care for their family in the time since, Lettich testified.
She said she would even have room for one of them at her apartment should they be paroled.
“I’ve seen major changes in both of them,” Lettich said.
Lettich’s sister, Linda Solivan, also reconnected with the brothers around the same time, and kept in contact with them through letters over the years, however she had not done it in many years. She, like her sister, believed both of them had changed for the better.
“He’s made a lot of changes,” Solivan said of Bryan. “He worked hard to do that.”
Solivan and Lettich both testified that, based on the interviews of Bryan and David at the time, they believe David went along with the killings because he feared he would be killed as well. Had Bryan not gone along with the killings, they said, David would not have, either.
The hearing is expected to continue through Friday but may go longer because the courthouse was closed by Tuesday’s storm.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or [email protected].'
https://www.mcall.com/2024/02/14/theres-a-human-being-in-there-psychologist-at-freeman-brothers-hearing-dumbfounded-by-change-in-david-freeman/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.mcall.com%2f2024%2f02%2f14%2ftheres-a-human-being-in-there-psychologist-at-freeman-brothers-hearing-dumbfounded-by-change-in-david-freeman%2f&utm_campaign=Dont-Miss&utm_content=alert
does anyone remember dennis and brenda freeman?.
it was in 1967 when i met dennis.
my job in the bethel factory allowed me to move around and work with many different people.
From Circuit Overseer to nothing. He was not an indifferent parent. But possibly not swift enough at removing himself from WT thinking to save his sons.2 brothers continue to make plea for leniency decades after murders of their parents, younger brother
Sandra Lettich says it took eight years for her to be able to forgive her nephews Bryan and David Freeman for the murder of her sister, brother-in-law, and younger nephew in Salisbury Township, Lehigh County in 1995.
She says in 2003 Bryan asked the family to help him return to the Jehovah's Witness faith.
Lettich says the family started visiting Bryan, helping him with Bible study.
She says during one of many visits, Bryan told her he was sorry for what he did, and he wished he could change it.
Lettich says soon afterward she started writing to David. She says he also expressed deep remorse and a desire for his family's forgiveness.
Lettich testified that over the years she has seen a remarkable change in both men. She says when they were teenagers she didn't want her kids to hang out with them. But now as adults, if they were ever released, they could come live with her.
Lettich's sister Linda Solivan also testified about the Freemans' personal growth and return to faith, saying they deserve redemption.
During cross examination, First Assistant District Attorney Erik Dowdle questioned the Freemans' return to faith, remarking that no one knows scripture better than the devil.'
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
3:31
shrink talked about, ' the tremendous rage these boys had'
'Karl Schwartz, attorney for Bryan Freeman, says it's about the juvenile system and murder, maturation, and rehabilitation.
Schwartz says Bryan Freeman has shown remarkable development and extreme remorse, and has been a model inmate for 23 years.'
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
'Assistant prosecutor Gregory Englert asked Stiles if the Freemans should remain imprisoned for life.
“I think that’s exactly what these two animals need,” Stiles said.'
'"Valerie Freeman said she isn’t troubled by the idea of the pair serving life terms.
“I don’t know where the violence came from, or why it went that far,” she said. “I don’t know how someone could take a life, period.”
In appearance, at least, the cold-eyed neo-Nazi skinheads who shocked the Lehigh Valley in 1995 by slaughtering their parents and younger brother are long gone.
Bryan and David Freeman have grown into middle-aged men who no longer shave their heads but are losing their hair to nature. Only the words tattooed on their foreheads — “Berzerker” for Bryan, “Sieg Heil” for David — are a concrete reminder of the days when they rejected their Jehovah’s Witness upbringing, embraced white supremacy and revolted against their parents’ strictures to the point of murder.
Both sat in the Lehigh County courtroom of Judge Douglas Reichley on Monday for the first day of what is expected to be a week-long hearing to determine if they will ever see freedom again.
Since then, a series of federal and state court rulings have held it unconstitutional to impose mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles, so the Freeman brothers became eligible for resentencing. Birdwell turned 18 shortly before the crimes, so his sentence of life without parole stands.
The Freemans’ attorneys hope to persuade Reichley that their clients have fundamentally changed during decades in prison and deserve at least a hope of tasting freedom again.Karl Schwartz, who is representing Bryan Freeman pro bono, said his client is remorseful — expressing “utter and desperate sorrow” over his crimes — and is a model inmate, often acting as a peacemaker among other prisoners.
“The commonwealth is going to say he’s making it all up, he’s a psycho, and if you give him a ray of hope that there’s a future, this could happen again,” Schwartz said.
Eric Dowdle, first assistant district attorney, said the prosecution’s task is, indeed, to make sure such crimes never happen again.
“They’re safe right where they are, and so are we,” he said.
The murders happened Feb. 26, 1995, but weren’t discovered until the next day, when Dennis Freeman’s sister stopped to visit.
What Valerie Freeman saw in the house that day, the courtroom audience saw Monday, in a grainy but harrowing crime scene video.
It shows Dennis Freeman in bed, his skull smashed, his face beaten beyond recognition and his throat cut nearly to the point of decapitation. Prosecutors said David Freeman and Birdwell carried out the attack with an aluminum baseball bat and metal exercise bar.
Erik, in his bedroom, is likewise in bed, his skull shattered by blows from a three-foot pickaxe handle allegedly wielded by Birdwell.
Brenda’s body is on the lower level of the house, pushed against a radiator. Prosecutors said Bryan grabbed his mother, stuffed a pair of shorts in her mouth and stabbed her repeatedly.
The brothers and Birdwell fled in Brenda Freeman’s car and were at large for three days before being arrested in Michigan at the home of a fellow skinhead the Freemans had met at a concert in New York.
Retired police Chief Allen Stiles, first to take the stand at the hearing, recalled that three-day period as a fraught time in the township.
“I received calls from parents, staff, requesting additional police at the [high school],” he recalled. “They were worried these individuals would come into the school and do something.”
Stiles recalled the deep trauma he and his officers experienced investigating the crime. The Army veteran likened the carnage to the kind he witnessed during his one-year tour in Vietnam, and said it exacerbated the post-traumatic stress disorder he carried home from the war.
“All that trauma at one time and in one place had a terrific impact on everyone,” he said.
Police were called to the Freeman home about five times in the months before the murders to intervene when the brothers threatened their parents. Stiles said the boys could have been taken into the juvenile system but their parents refused to press charges, preferring to seek help through counseling and other avenues.
Assistant prosecutor Gregory Englert asked Stiles if the Freemans should remain imprisoned for life.
“I think that’s exactly what these two animals need,” Stiles said.
The next witness was Valerie Freeman, who haltingly and tearfully recounted her discovery of the bodies. She had lived in the house for about 17 years but moved out because she felt threatened by the brothers as they dove deeper into the neo-Nazi culture.
Freeman spent the evening before the murders watching television with Erik — she was protective of him — and recalled his haunting last request as she left for home.
“He wanted me to take care of his dog in case anything happened to him,” she said.
It wasn’t the first time Erik had suggested he might come to harm. Once, Valerie Freeman arrived at the house to find Erik tied to a chair in the sweltering garage. His brothers had left him there.
“I went to see Erik as often as I could,” she said. “One time we went to Florida just to get away.”
Under questioning by David Freeman’s attorney, Matthew Rapa, Valerie Freeman said the brothers’ fascination with Nazism and decline into violent and antisocial behavior roughly coincided with the beginning of their relationship with Birdwell.
“I thought Nelson was a very bad influence on both brothers,” she said.
Throughout this testimony, Bryan Freeman hunched over the defense table, crying and hanging his head. David Freeman appeared impassive. Both had chosen to stay in the adjacent holding cell while the crime scene video played.
While some members of the Freeman family — including Brenda’s sister, Sandy Lettich — have forgiven the brothers and believe they have been rehabilitated, Valerie Freeman said she isn’t troubled by the idea of the pair serving life terms.
“I don’t know where the violence came from, or why it went that far,” she said. “I don’t know how someone could take a life, period.”
The hearing began with an unsuccessful attempt by the defense attorney to have Reichley recuse himself.
As a Lehigh County assistant district attorney in the 1990s, Reichley was involved in the prosecution of Jeffrey Howorth, a 17-year-old Lower Macungie Township boy who shot his parents to death the day after the Freemans and Birdwell were captured.
The case was widely portrayed as a copycat killing, based on a note Howorth left in his desk.
“Those kids in Salisbury, they were cool. They killed their parents,” wrote Howorth, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains institutionalized. “I would be rough [cool] if I did that.”
Reichley’s linking of the cases during Howorth’s trial suggests he couldn’t be impartial in evaluating the Freemans’ resentencing, the attorneys said.
Reichley rejected the argument, noting that he had no role in prosecuting the Freemans or Birdwell and instead was being asked to evaluate the nature of the sentence and not the culpability of the Freemans, which is a settled matter.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or [email protected].'
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
Bryan and David FreemanCourtesy of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
A pair of brothers who killed their parents 29 years ago in Salisbury Township will be resentenced this week in Lehigh County.
A weeklong hearing to resentence Bryan and David Freeman started Monday in Lehigh County, according to a spokeswoman from the Lehigh County district attorney’s office.
Bryan was 17 and David was 16 when they killed their parents Feb. 26, 1995, in their family home. Bryan admitted he killed his father with an aluminum baseball bat and David admitted he stabbed his mother to death. Each received a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a mandatory life sentence for a child is unconstitutional. Children ought to be treated differently than adult offenders, according to the appellate court.
After years of legal wrangling, the matter is now before Lehigh County Judge Douglas Reichley.
Court records say 46-year-old Bryan Freeman is represented by Philadelphia attorney Karl David Schwartz. David Freeman, 45, is represented by Lehighton attorney Matthew Jared Rapa. Neither attorney returned a message seeking comment Monday.
Nelson “Ben” Birdwell III admitted he participated in the murder of the Freemans’ father. Birdwell was 18 at the time. His life sentence stands. He is the cousin of Bryan and David Freeman.
The Freemans were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses but became neo-Nazis at the time they killed their parents.
Bryan and David FreemanUndated file photos
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for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, which is ten years old now.
the freeman brothers of allentown pennsylvania lashed out against their strict upbringing by killing their loyal jw parents and even their younger brother.. the story made national headlines because these two had tattoos on their foreheads.
"berzerker" and "sieg heil.".
So, were they bullied at school first, and then also at their Kingdom Hall?
'The evidence shows that the boys did not rebel against their parents until after they were bullied at school.
In the Oxygen article, it says, “Both parents had met in the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and brought their sons up in their faith, but the two older boys had begun rejecting it in junior high when they were bullied for their differences (my italics).” Then they turned to substance abuse and were sent to the rehab facility.
In the TV episode, Jaccii Farris, a journalist and filmmaker, was quoted as saying the following: “The kids at school would pick on them because they had to wear a suit and tie or because they couldn’t hang out with them. The taunts grew as they got older.”
In 1995, when the media covered this story, the only mention of bullying was what the boys did to others; nothing was said about the bullying that they experienced first.
The reader and the viewer were left—and still are—with the impression that religion is the real problem, not the role played by bigoted students who stigmatized them, making them outcasts.
Why does this matter? If school officials had been attentive to the bullying of the Freeman brothers, perhaps they would have intervened, and perhaps future events might have been different. We will never know.'
https://www.catholicleague.org/bullying-christian-students-goes-unnoticed/
LDH
The first signs of trouble were in 1991, when the boys were 13 and 11 years old; the boys refused to attend the Watchtower meetings. What seems to have happened is that the Freeman family developed problems that needed professional intervention .What they got instead were the local , untrained elders. When the boys refused to acceptably respond to this lay ‘treatment’, the boys were ‘marked’; shunned, isolated from the only family and friends they had ever known their whole lives.
**********************************************And the Freeman family war was on. If their parents and little brother (who at age 11 had no choice but to join in the shunning) didn’t want them, then there were other people who did.
Around this time Dennis was no longer an elder; no one has told the reason why. One night, 12-year-old David put animal parts in his Aunt Valerie’s bed.
Instead of mental health professionals, the local elders were called again. Later, David threatened to kill his high school football coach. Again the local elders were called.
*********************************************
Finally, the Freemans committed David to psychiatric care for a month in 1992. But by now it was too little too late.
A precious year had been wasted while the Freemans allowed untrained elders to practice psychiatry and psychology on their children.
David had been abusing alcohol and drugs for years, and needed professional help, not prayers; he needed hugs and medicine, not shunning and threats of everlasting destruction.'
"misinformation, disinformation, science, this antiscience, uh conspiracy theory, these are propaganda terms.".
'don't use them' he says.
@ 19:33. https://youtu.be/miauulndllq?t=1173.
Will Watchtower ever release all $ documentation for their not being neutral on Covid-19 Vaccines?
A long read:
Note: the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and human right’s law) sanctifies the importance of freedom of expression (e.g., speech) and opposes censorship or punishment for exercising that freedom. This contradiction in turn may be why the proposed amendments to the international health regulations deliberately removed the preservation of human rights and freedoms..
Let’s now look at what was in that report (per the Epoch Times):
The U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) outlined a series of “concrete measures which must be implemented by all stakeholders: governments, regulatory authorities, civil society, and the platforms themselves.” in a 59-page report released this month.
The approach includes the imposition of global policies, through institutions such as governments and businesses, that seek to stop the spread of various forms of speech while promoting objectives such as “cultural diversity” and “gender equality.”
In particular, the U.N. agency aims to create an “Internet of Trust” through a focus on what it calls “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and “conspiracy theories.”
Examples of expression flagged to be stopped or restricted include concerns about elections, public health measures, and advocacy that could constitute “incitement to discrimination…”
Note: the UN has previously admitted there is no agreed upon definition of misinformation.'
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-we-can-stop-the-whos-horrific?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=748806&post_id=141478511&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=gbjdu&utm_medium=email
