In the predawn hours of April 4, 1999, the life of 34-year-old Edward Mendoza 'Eddie' Payan Jr. was tragically cut short in a violent encounter within a Phoenix, Arizona apartment. The male victim was at the residence of Andrew Parks when a man named Brian Jeffrey Dann, the boyfriend of Andrew's sister, Shelly Parks, forced his way inside. Both Andrew and Shelly were also present in the apartment at the time.
The events of that fatal night were set in motion hours earlier.
Dann, claiming he needed protection after an alleged earlier altercation with Andrew Parks, borrowed a. 38 caliber revolver from a former girlfriend. He later expressed his intent to confront Andrew to a friend at a local bar. Despite attempts to talk him down, Dann proceeded to the apartment.
Once inside, Dann opened fire, shooting Andrew, Shelly, and Eddie. He would later confess that he shot Andrew and Shelly because they laughed at him. Eddie was shot and killed simply to eliminate a witness to the other two murders. In an attempt to cover his tracks, Dann returned to the scene of the crime and contacted the authorities, pretending to have discovered the bodies.
However, the investigation quickly unraveled his story. Ballistics analysis definitively linked the revolver he had borrowed to the killings. Brian Jeffrey Dann was arrested on April 7, 1999, just three days after the murders. He was subsequently convicted on multiple counts of first-degree murder and burglary for his actions that resulted in the deaths of Edward Payan, Andrew Parks, and Shelly Parks. On January 24, 2002, Dann was sentenced to death for the crimes.
