Read Next Codebreakers Crack Zodiac Killer's Unsolved 340-Character Cipher. And that the court will decline to prosecute him on murder charges. Redefined by Charlie Le Mindu Posted on. 50 Years Later: Manson Murder House in Los Feliz Hits Market at $2M; Why the Upscale Suburb of Westfield, NJ, May Be the Scariest Place to Live in the U.S.
Born | Carl Brandt February 23, 1957 |
---|---|
Died | September 13, 2004 (aged 47) Orlando, Florida, U.S. |
Cause of death | Suicide by hanging[1] |
Details | |
Victims | 4–6+ |
January 3, 1971–September 13, 2004 | |
Country | United States |
State(s) | Indiana, Florida |
Carl 'Charlie' Brandt (February 23, 1957 – September 13, 2004) was an Americanserial killer. A former resident of Fort Wayne, Indiana and longtime resident of the Florida Keys, Brandt shot his parents on January 3, 1971 when he was 13, killing his pregnant mother. His father survived. He spent one year at a psychiatric hospital before being released, and was never criminally charged. 33 years later, on September 13, 2004, Brandt stabbed his wife and niece to death and then hanged himself in his niece's garage. This incident, Brandt's efficiency in killing his wife and niece, and his hidden obsession with human anatomy led investigators to look into the possibility that he had committed other murders since moving to Florida in 1973. The police have linked at least two homicides to Brandt.
Early life[edit]
Charlie Brandt was the second child of Herbert and Ilse Brandt, two German immigrants who originally settled in Texas before moving to Connecticut. Brandt's father worked as a laborer for a division of International Harvester, eventually working his way up to draftsman and project engineer. The family moved frequently and as a result Brandt and his older sister Angela attended several different schools.[2]
Brandt was regarded as a good student, but was shy and had difficulty adjusting to new surroundings. In September 1968, Herbert was transferred to International Harvester's plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The family frequently vacationed in Florida, where Brandt hunted small game with his father.[2]
1971 murder[edit]
On the evening of January 3, 1971, after their family had turned in for the night, Herbert Brandt was shaving in the parents' bathroom while Ilse, eight months pregnant, was taking a bath. Brandt, then aged 13, walked into the bathroom and shot both parents at point blank range with his father's handgun (which he stole from a dresser). His father survived, but his mother and the unborn child were killed instantly. Brandt then entered his sister Angela's room and attempted to shoot her, but his gun wouldn't fire.[3]
Charlie Murder Hack
After a physical struggle, Angela managed to calm her brother down by promising him that she would help him figure out what to do. Angela eventually convinced Brandt to go upstairs to retrieve blankets for their infant sisters, who were unharmed, before bolting from the house and seeking help from neighbors. After pursuing his terrified sister outside, Brandt knocked on a neighbor's door, telling her, 'I just shot my mom and dad.' Herbert later identified his son as his attacker.[3]
After the shooting, Brandt told Angela that he couldn't remember what he had done. Angela described her brother as being in a trance-like state, which broke during their struggle. Upon being interviewed by the police, Brandt attributed the shooting to 'a combination of things' related to school, stating that, 'Everything sort of snapped in my mind. I felt like I never felt before.' Brandt also alluded to an incident that took place a few days before the shooting, near the end of his family's annual Christmas vacation in Florida, in which Herbert shot and killed their dog while the two were hunting.
Three separate psychiatric evaluations failed to determine what triggered the shooting. One of Brandt's psychiatrists, Ronald Pancner, later recounted, 'Basically, I was looking for mental illness. And he wasn't showing the signs and symptoms of serious mental illness, which I thought was what the court wanted to know.'
Because he was too young to be tried for murder under Indiana law, Brandt spent one year at a psychiatric hospital before being released back into the custody of his family in June 1972.[4] The family never spoke of the incident again. Until 2004, Brandt's two younger sisters lived under the impression that their mother had been killed in a car accident.
Relocation to Florida[edit]
Shortly after Brandt's release, his family relocated to Ormond Beach, Florida. One year later, Brandt's father (who had remarried) and younger sisters moved back to Indiana, while Brandt and Angela stayed behind in the care of their grandparents. In 1984, Brandt received a degree in electronics and became a radar specialist for Ford Aerospace in Astor.
In 1986, he married his girlfriend Theresa 'Teri' Helfrich. No relatives were invited to their wedding. His sister Angela and her husband Jim had advised Brandt to tell Teri about the murder of his mother, but it is unclear whether or not he ever did. The couple settled in a beach house on Big Pine Key, Florida Keys, in 1989.
2004 murders[edit]
On September 2, 2004, Brandt and Teri evacuated from their home ahead of Hurricane Ivan. Their niece, Michelle Lynn Jones, invited them to stay at her residence near Orlando. Throughout the visit, Jones kept in regular contact with her mother, Mary Lou, as well as several friends. On the evening of September 13, one of Jones' friends, Lisa Emmons, was scheduled to visit her house. However, Jones discouraged her from coming, saying that the Brandts had had an argument after drinking.[5] After that night, Jones stopped answering telephone calls, which alarmed her acquaintances.[6][third-party source needed]
On September 15, another one of Jones' friends, Debbie Knight, went to her house to check on her while on the phone with Jones' mother. After finding the front door locked, Knight tried to enter the house through the garage, where she found Brandt's decomposing body hanging from the rafters. He had hanged himself using bedsheets.[7] Knight contacted the police, who entered the house and found the bodies of Brandt's wife and niece. Teri had been stabbed seven times in the chest while lying on a couch. Jones had been decapitated and disemboweled, with her heart and organs removed. Jones' head was also placed next to her body.[8] The weapons used in the crimes had been knives from Jones' kitchen.
Investigation[edit]
Charlie Murder Characters Unlock
A search of Brandt's residence on Big Pine Key revealed that he was a monthly subscriber to Victoria's Secret catalogs, had an extensive collection of surgery-themed books, posters, and clippings, and regularly searched online for autopsy photos and snuff film websites depicting violence against women.
Because Brandt's murder of Jones indicated past experience, and because he traveled often due to his job, police checked cold cases in Florida that matched his apparent modus operandi. They also launched requests for similar inquiries in the United States and abroad. Ultimately, the search linked Brandt to twenty-six unsolved murders in Florida dating back to 1973. Among those were:
- 1978, Carol Sullivan, 12. Sullivan was abducted from a school bus stop in Volusia County on September 20, 1978. Her skull was found in a bucket, leading authorities to presume she was murdered and decapitated. Brandt was 20 years old and lived in Volusia County at the time, but could not be tied to the crime in any other way.
- 1988, Lisa Saunders, 20. Saunders was beaten, stabbed, and dragged from her car in Big Pine Key in December 1988. Her heart was missing when she was found, but it is unclear if it was extracted by an attacker or eaten by vultures.
- 1989, Sherry Perisho, 38. Perisho's partially-clothed body was found on July 16, 1989, near the North Pine Channel Bridge at Big Pine Key, where Perisho, who was homeless, lived on a dinghy. Her throat had been slashed and her head had been nearly severed; like Jones, her body was extensively mutilated and her heart was removed. Perisho was found less than 1,000 feet from where Brandt lived, and Brandt matched a composite sketch of a man seen crossing U.S. Route 1 near where Perisho was discovered on the night she was murdered. Based on this evidence, Monroe County investigators determined that Brandt killed Perisho and officially closed the case on May 6, 2006. Teri further confided in her brother-in-law that she suspected Brandt in the Perisho killing.[9]
- 1995, Darlene Toler, 38. Toler was a sex worker from Miami whose body, missing her head and heart, was wrapped in plastic and discovered near a highway. Brandt used the same highway regularly and he kept a mileage record of his travels, which shows an entry for 100 miles – the driving distance between Big Pine Key and Miami – on the day of her murder.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Deadly Obsession, CBS News, 25 May 2006
- ^ abShawgo, Ron (29 January 2006). 'The Darkness in Charlie'. Journal Gazette. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
- ^ abDeadly Obsession Page 3, CBS News, 25 May 2006
- ^Deadly Obsession Page 4, CBS News, 25 May 2006
- ^Deadly Obsession Page 2, CBS News, 25 May 2006
- ^HistoryArchived 2013-10-21 at the Wayback Machine, Michelle Lynn Jones Foundation. Retrieved 2 June 2013
- ^DeLong, William (June 19, 2018). 'Charlie Brandt Killed His Mom At 13 — Then Walked Free To Butcher His Wife As An Adult'. All That is Interesting.
- ^7 News Investigations: Killer ConnectionArchived January 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, WSVN-TV, 15 May 2006.
- ^Taylor, Gary (May 6, 2006). 'Killer tied to '89 death -- wife suspected him all along'. The Orlando Sentinel.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charlie_Brandt&oldid=994133255'
No one could believe that mild-mannered Charlie Brandt had mutilated his wife and niece until they discovered his grisly past.
Charlie Brandt always seemed like a normal guy — until one bloody night in September 2004.
At the time, Hurricane Ivan was barreling toward the Florida Keys, where the 47-year-old Brandt lived with his wife, Teri (46). They evacuated their home on Big Pine Key on September 2 to stay with their niece, 37-year-old Michelle Jones, in Orlando.
![Charlie Charlie](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126544598/386629970.jpg)
Michelle was close to Teri, her maternal aunt, and was excited to welcome her and her husband as houseguests. Michelle was likewise close with her mother, Mary Lou, with whom she spoke on the phone almost every day.
When Michelle stopped answering her phone after the night of September 13, Mary Lou grew concerned and asked Michelle’s friend, Debbie Knight, to go to the house and check on things. When Knight arrived, the front door was locked and there was no answer, so she made her way to the garage.
“There was a garage door with almost all glass. So you could see in,” Knight recalled. “I was in shock.”
There inside the garage, Charlie Brandt was hanging from the rafters. But Charlie Brandt’s death was just one of the horrible deaths that had happened inside that house.
The Bloodbath
When authorities arrived at the house, they found a scene that looked like something out of a slasher movie.
Charlie Brandt had hung himself with a bedsheet. Teri’s body was on the couch inside, been stabbed seven times in the chest. Michelle’s body was in her bedroom. She had been decapitated, her head placed next to her body, and someone had removed her heart.
“It was just a nice home,” lead investigator Rob Hemmert recalled. “All of those nice decorations and the aroma of her home was masked by death. The smell of death.”
Yet, with all this bloodshed, there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry and the house was locked from the inside. Thus, with two people killed and one having killed himself, authorities quickly determined that Charlie Brandt had killed his wife and niece before committing suicide.
But no one seemed to expect anything like this from Charlie Brandt. Mary Lou said of her brother-in-law whom she’d known for 17 years, “When they described what had happened to Michelle, it was even beyond description.”
Likewise, Lisa Emmons, one of Michelle’s best friends, couldn’t believe it. “He was just very quiet and reserved,” she said of Charlie. “He would just sit back and observe. Michelle and I used to call him eccentric.”
Not only did everyone find Charlie Brandt nice and agreeable, they all felt like he and Teri had the perfect marriage. The inseparable pair did everything together, fishing and boating near their home, traveling, and so on.
Charlie Brandt’s Dark Secret
No one had any explanation for Charlie Brandt’s behavior.
Then, his older sister came forward. Angela Brandt was two years older than Charlie and she harbored a dark secret from their Indiana childhood that no one knew about until she told her story. In an interrogation with Rob Hemmert, Angela cried before steeling her nerves and telling her story:
“It was January 3, 1971… [at] 9 or 10 p.m,” Angela said. “We had just gotten a color TV. We were all sitting around watching The F.B.I. with Efram Zimbalist Jr. After [the TV show] was over, I went and got in bed to read my book like I always did before I went to sleep.”
Meanwhile, Angela and Charlie’s pregnant mom, Ilse, was drawing a bath and their dad, Herbert, was shaving. Then, Angela heard loud noises, so loud that she thought they were firecrackers.
“Then I heard my father yell, ‘Charlie don’t.’ or ‘Charlie stop.’ And my mom was just screaming. The last thing I heard my mom say was, ‘Angela call the police.'”
Charlie, 13 at the time, then came into Angela’s room holding a gun. He aimed the gun at her and pulled the trigger, but all they heard was a click. The gun was out of bullets.
Charlie and Angela then began to fight and he started to strangle his sister, which was when she noticed the glazed look in his eyes. That terrifying look disappeared after a moment, and Charlie, as if emerging from a trance, asked, “What am I doing?”
What he had just done was walk into parents’ bathroom, shoot his father once in the back and then shoot his mother several times, leaving him wounded and killing her.
Charlie Murder Characters
At the hospital in Fort Wayne just after the incident, Herbert said he had no idea why his son would do this.
The Aftermath
At the time he shot his parents, Charlie Brandt seemed like a normal kid. He did well in school and showed no signs of underlying psychological stress.
The courts — which couldn’t charge him with any criminal offense, given his age — ordered that he undergo many psychiatric evaluations and even spend more than a year in a psychiatric hospital (before his father secured his release). But none of the psychiatrists ever found any mental illness or any explanation at all as to why he’d shot his family.
The records were sealed because of Charlie’s young age and Herbert told his other children to keep things quiet and moved the family to Florida. They buried the incident and put it behind them.
Anyone who knew the secret never told and Charlie seemed fine afterward. But it seems he had been harboring dark urges all along.
After he killed his wife and niece in 2004, authorities investigated Charlie’s house on Big Pine Key. Inside, they found a medical poster displaying the female anatomy. There were also medical books and anatomy books, as well as a newspaper clipping that showed a human heart — all of which recalled some of the ways in which Charlie had mutilated Michelle’s body.
Searches of his internet history revealed websites focused on necrophilia and violence against women. They also found lots of Victoria’s Secret catalogues, which proved especially troubling after they learned that “Victoria’s Secret” is the nickname Charlie had given to Michelle.
“Knowing what he did to Michelle and then finding those things,” Hemmert said. “It all started to make sense.” Investigators believe that Charlie had become infatuated with Michelle and that his desires had taken a murderous turn.
Hemmert, for one, believes that Charlie Brandt had always had these kinds of deadly desires and that he was probably a serial killer — it’s just that his other crimes never came to light.
For example, authorities believe that he may have been responsible for at least two other murders, including one in 1989 and 1995. Both murders involved mutilations of women in a similar method to Michelle’s murder.
After this look at Charlie Brandt, read up on mother-slaying serial killer Ed Kemper. Then, discover some of the most haunting serial killer quotes of all time. Finally, read up on Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s plot to kill her own mother.