Details surface in trial of Modesto man accused of paying friend to kill parents
During opening arguments in the trial for a Modesto man charged with murdering his parents, the prosecution said he paid his friend to shoot them then burn their bodies, all for financial gain.
Brandon Pettit’s attorney said his client has autism, that because of that he trusted people he shouldn’t, and that his statements and demeanor before and after the murders were a result of his disability, not proof of guilt as the prosecution alleges.
Firefighters found the burned bodies of Janet and David “Scott” Pettit on their bed inside their north Modesto home when crews responded to a fire there in the early morning hours of Aug. 8, 2013.
The Pettits were a well-respected couple in the community. Janet Pettit was a neonatal nurse practitioner and clinical nurse at Doctors Medical Center who had just obtained her Ph.D. Scott Pettit owned a martial arts school in Riverbank, where he taught hundreds of children. He was Riverbank’s citizen of the year in 2007.
A week and a half after they were killed, Brandon Pettit and his friend Felix Valverde III were arrested and charged with two counts of murder, arson and burglary.
The court recently determined Valverde is not mentally competent to stand trial and is awaiting transfer to a state hospital to restore competency, said Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office Spokesman John Goold.
But the trial for Brandon Pettit, 32, started on Monday and is expected to last about a month.
The jury, spread throughout the courtroom, some in the jury box, but most in the audience to allow for social distancing, listened to Deputy District Attorney Rick Mury lay out the evidence witnesses will testify to over the next few weeks.
‘He paid someone $500 to do it.’
He talked about statements made by Pettit in the months leading up to his parents deaths.
“Statements that include, I wish my parents were dead. Statements that include, When my father dies and I get that Corvette we both owned ... Statements about, In a couple of months, I’m going to have a lot of money. I’m going to be wealthy,” Mury said. “You’ll hear a statement that he mentions to a friend that he hired someone to do it or he paid someone $500 to do it.”
He said they will hear evidence that Valverde entered the Pettits’ Divan Court home in the middle of the night, shot them both, then started a fire in the master bedroom.
As detectives worked through a list of Brandon Pettit’s friends, nearly all of them said one of his best friends was Valverde, but Mury said Pettit never mentioned him when police asked who he associated with.
Detectives searched Valverde’s Oakdale apartment and found both Scott and Janet Pettit’s wallets and keys to their home. They also found shell casings in a planter at the apartment complex one of Valverde’s neighbor’s saw him digging in the week before.
Mury said witnesses will say that Pettit went to Valverde’s apartment after the homicides and gave him $100.
When detectives questioned him about this he said he didn’t mention Valverde to detectives before because he was scared of him.
Mury said he told detectives, “Yes, I gave him a hundred dollars after I thought he was the one that murdered my parents, but he said he needed money for groceries. He was out of money. He paid all his bills and he needed money for groceries.”
The prosecutor said all of this adds up to proof of guilt but Pettit’s defense attorney said experts will testify that his client’s odd behavior and statements can be attributed to his form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome.
Autism made defendant seem ‘unfeeling’
“Now that doesn’t mean he’s crazy ... We’re not doing some kind of insanity defense. He didn’t do it, and that’s what the evidence will show,” said attorney Robert Winston. “What autism does mean, and what you will hear that it means, is that his behavior and reactions are not the same as most folks. They are just a little different.”
He said, “people who have Asperger’s are sometimes — seem to be unfeeling. They seem to be stoic. They don’t necessarily take information in the same way that we do ... It’s like talking to a wall sometimes. They are just not absorbing what we say to them.”
Winston said to the jury that statements Brandon Pettit made about wanting his parents to die are, “statements that sadly in some occasions maybe one or more of us may have said something similar in our childhood or young adulthood.”
He showed the jury a photo of the Pettit family, Scott and Janet Pettit, and their children Brandon and Lauren Pettit.
He said they were doing well in 2013, but they were not rich.
Scott Pettit had a few collector cars including the Corvette, which Winston said Scott purchased as a project for himself and Brandon, something they could bond over.
Winston said Brandon Pettit tried to be an independent adult but struggled because of his Asperger’s.
Winston said Brandon Pettit lived in Georgia for a while but eventually moved back in with his parents. He dreamed of becoming a firefighter and volunteered at a department for a while but it didn’t work out. He was working as a security guard out of town when his parents were killed.
Winston said Brandon Pettit sought connections with other people, wanted to form friendships but, “You could say he looked in all the wrong places.”
“There will be no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Brandon Pettit was responsible,” Winston said to the jury. “Watch for it. You won’t find it. It doesn’t exist.”
Friends, officers, pathologist testify
Witnesses who testified the first week of the trial included investigators who discussed evidence collected at Valverde’s home, Valverde’s neighbor who saw him digging in the bushes where the shell casings were found, and a friend of Valverde’s who also lives in the complex.
The friend testified that on the night of Aug. 8, hours after the Pettits were found dead, Valverde was very ill and pouring sweat.
“That night he was really sick, he wasn’t himself, he was throwing up,” the friend said. He attributed it to Valverde having kidney stones in the weeks prior.
Stanislaus County’s Forensic Pathologist Sung-Ook Baik testified that Scott Pettit had been shot five times including twice in the head. Janet Pettit was shot once in the head and once in the thigh. Eighty to ninety percent of their bodies were burned.
A Department of Justice criminologist testified that accelerant was found on both their clothing and furniture in their room.
Testimony in the case is scheduled to resume Tuesday.
