In the quiet town of Topsfield, Massachusetts, the winter of 1978 was shattered by a brutal act of violence that would forever alter the lives of the Brown family. On January 27th, Dorina Mariko Brown, a 20-year-old woman, was tragically killed in her own home. The person responsible for her death was not a stranger, but her own 15-year-old brother, Alfred Brown.
On that fateful day, Alfred used a. 22 caliber rifle, a Christmas gift from his parents, to carry out the horrific acts.
He first shot his mother, Yoshika, in the kitchen. When Dorina ran into the room, he turned the weapon on her, ending her life. He then waited for his father, Wilfred, to return home from work and murdered him as well. The motive behind this familial tragedy was reported to be Alfred's fear of his father's reaction to his failing grades in school.
Alfred Brown was subsequently arrested and, in 1979, sentenced to three concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, a later ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which deemed life sentences without parole for juveniles to be cruel, made him eligible for parole. In 2018, after 40 years of incarceration, he faced a parole hearing.
During the hearing, the chilling details of the murders were recounted. The prosecutor who originally convicted him expressed fears that he would kill again if released. A powerful voice of opposition came from his surviving sister, who was living in Hawaii at the time of the murders. In a letter read to the parole board, she pleaded for her brother to remain behind bars, stating that he had shown no remorse and believed his family deserved what they got. She revealed that he had told her he "did them a favor." She had changed her name and lived in hiding out of fear of what he might do if he were ever set free.
