Latest news with #DavidBrom
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Yahoo
Man Who Murdered Parents, Siblings with Ax and then Mutilated Body as Teen Will Soon Go Free
NEED TO KNOW David Brom, convicted of killing his parents and two younger siblings in 1988 at age 16, will be released from custody on July 29, 2025, after more than 35 years in prison His release follows a 2023 Minnesota law allowing juvenile offenders serving life to be eligible for parole after 15 years Brom has expressed remorse and claimed personal transformationAfter spending more than three decades behind bars for brutally killing his parents and two younger siblings, David Brom will soon be released from Minnesota state custody. Brom, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1988 murders, is expected to be released on July 29, 2025, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections website. According to CBS News, KARE 11 and the Post Bulletin, authorities said Brom was 16 when he used an ax to kill his parents, 13-year-old sister, and 11-year-old brother in their Rochester, Minn., home. He was found guilty in 1989 of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. A motive has remained unclear. Brom became eligible for early monitored release after a state law passed in 2023 allowed juvenile offenders serving life to become eligible for parole after 15 years, the Post Bulletin reports. He will released to a halfway house in Twin Cities as part of a work release program, which the Minnesota DOC says is a "standard process when those serving a life sentence are transitioned from a correctional facility to a monitored community setting," KARE 11 reports. Per the Post Bulletin, Brom will be supervised by a case manager and monitored with a GPS tracking device. His next board appearance is scheduled for January 2026. Earlier this year, Brom told the state's supervised released board that he's a "good example of what a transformation can look like" behind bars and apologized to his victims' loved ones, KARE 11 reports. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. 'I can assure anyone now looking at this case, this office completely understood and appreciated the significance of trying Mr. Brom, 16 years old at the time of the offense, as an adult and seeking to sentence him to prison for most of the rest of his natural life. It was not a decision taken lightly,' former Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said in 2023, per KAAL-TV. Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson, who was called to the crime scene in 1988, shared his reaction to Brom's release in a video posted to Facebook on July 16. "I cannot stop what is already in motion, and I, we, as the public, must trust the parole board's decision and must hope Mr. Brom is ready for this transition in his life," the sheriff said. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Yahoo
Convicted ax killer David Brom says 'cloud of depression' impacted his thoughts in 1988
Jul. 18—ROCHESTER — David Brom said he felt like depression had been clouding his thoughts and emotions when he used an ax to kill his parents and two younger siblings in 1988. Members of the Minnesota Department of Corrections Supervised Release Board had to reconcile those acts carried out by Brom at age 16 with the 53-year-old man who appeared before them with a nearly spotless 37-year incarceration record. Brom had "changed everything about myself," he told the board in a January 2025 hearing reviewing his eligibility for release. Brom said he understood that the effects of his actions went beyond the lives he took and that his crimes affected the community and well as his family — "the family," as he referred to them. He said he understood his actions affected law enforcement, the community, people in the courts and the church his family attended. "I caused tremendous loss, incredible grief and pain left them with confusion and unanswered questions," Brom said. "I apologize for the ripple effects of losing an entire family in such a horrific way." "The gravity of this offense is enormous," said Paul Schnell, Minnesota Department of Corrections commissioner of corrections. However, Schnell and release board members noted that Brom has continued his education while incarcerated, and mentored other people in custody by working toward becoming an inmate chaplain. His only infraction in more than 37 years of custody was a single incident in which he had more people than permitted in his cell at one time. Schnell asked Brom to describe his crimes through the lens of his years of counseling, education and model inmate behavior. Brom said depression had "clouded his thoughts" and hampered his ability to process emotions when he carried out four brutal murders while he was a Lourdes High School student. "I had grown to a short sighted view that I thought these things were going to last forever," he said. "In the cloud of depression, I started to believe that other people were at fault for how I felt." Brom was convicted in 1989 of the four murders and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences — each carrying a minimum of 17 years in prison. Counting his time served in jail leading up to his trial, Brom was not eligible for release until 2037. However, a 2023 Minnesota law gives offenders convicted as juveniles a chance for review after they serve 15 or more years of a sentence. Although Brom had only started serving time for his third sentence at the beginning of 2022, he is eligible for parole or supervised release. Brom will be eligible for release July 29 to a supervised work release program at a Twin Cities halfway house. He will remain in state custody and be monitored by GPS, according to Aaron Swanum, Minnesota Department of Corrections media information officer. After six months, he will be reviewed for eligibility for parole. Complicating the decision to allow Brom to move toward release was the effect the decision would have on the community. Ultimately the board decided not to have Brom return to Olmsted County. In the January hearing, members suggested getting feedback about the decision. That's something Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson was more than willing to provide. As a deputy with the Olmsted County Sheriff's office in 1988, Torgerson was one of the first law enforcement officers on the scene of the murders . He responded to a call from Lourdes High School officials about a rumor Feb. 18, 1988, that Brom had hurt and possibly killed his father. Torgerson discovered the bodies of all four family members in the upstairs of the Brom home on the north outskirts of Rochester. "(I)t is still hard for me to accept and forget the sights and smells of what I saw that Thursday evening in 1988," Torgerson wrote in a statement Wednesday, July 16, 2025 responding to the SRB's decision to begin Brom's transition to parole. Togerson said he was asked in December prior to the hearing to provide written input about the decision to release Brom and that he spoke with one of the Department of Corrections commission members. In that written statement to the board that Torgerson later echoed in the public statement he made Wednesday, Torgerson said Brom has twice benefited from leniency. The first time was when his sentence for killing his youngest sister Diane was made concurrent with his sentence for killing his younger brother Ricky. "With the vicious severity and the needless nature of the killings of his little brother and sister it seemed he should have been expected to serve full sentences for both," Torgerson said. Brom's second break came with the 2023 legislation, Torgerson added. Torgerson said the sentencing decision disregarded community sentiment in 1989 and that the SRB's decision allowing Brom to move toward release at the end of the month likely does as well in 2025. Torgerson said he heard about Brom's new release date from local media. Although Torgerson said he feels his input didn't influence the SRB's decision, he said the decision has been made and that whatever happens next is up to Brom. "I hope and pray he has changed, can control his anger, and other emotions," Togerson said. "At this point we must trust he will."
CBS News
17-07-2025
- CBS News
David Brom, convicted of killing his family in 1988, to be released from prison at end of month
A Rochester, Minnesota, man convicted of killing four family members with an axe will soon be released from prison. David Brom is scheduled to be released to a Twin Cities halfway house on July 29. He served more than 35 years for the 1988 murders of his parents and two younger siblings. He was 16 at the time. Brom was sentenced to three life sentences, but became eligible for parole under a Minnesota law passed in 2023 that ended juvenile life without parole sentences. Current Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson was one of the first responders called to the scene more than 37 years ago. He released a message reacting to the news of Brom's release. "I cannot stop what is already in motion, and I, we, as the public, must trust the parole board's decision and must hope Mr. Brom is ready for this transition in his life," Togerson said. "I'm very pleased to hear that, but it is still hard for me to accept and forget the sights and smells of what I saw that Thursday evening in 1988." Brom will still be under supervision and be subject to GPS monitoring after his release. Twenty-eight states have banned juvenile life without parole sentences, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Yahoo
Convicted Rochester ax killer set for limited release at end of month
Jul. 16—ROCHESTER — A 53-year-old man who as a teen committed one of the most heinous crimes ever seen in Rochester will be transitioned from a state prison to a halfway house for work release later this month. David Brom, then a 16-year-old high school sophomore, took an ax in the middle of the night and killed his parents, his 13-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother. He will be released July 29, 2025, according to Minnesota Department of Corrections officials. The acts took more than 60 blows from an ax, officials said. Brom was convicted and sentenced to three life sentences in 1989. Under Minnesota guidelines put in place in 2023, Brom is now eligible for monitored release. Later this month, Brom will be moved to a Twin Cities halfway house where he will remain in state custody and be monitored. A case manager will supervise his release. It will include GPS monitoring, according to Aaron Swanum, Minnesota Department of Corrections media information officer. Brom's release date is listed as July 29 on the state DOC website. In most cases, people who are released from prison return to the county of their conviction. The DOC Release Board decided at Brom's most recent release hearing that Brom would not be released to Olmsted County for work release or any other future parole release, Swanum said. Despite a highly publicized trial and decades of speculation, what motivated Brom to take an ax and kill his family members at their home in the early hours of Feb. 18, 1988, remains a public mystery. Brom was convicted of the murders on Oct. 16, 1989, and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. At the time of his conviction, Minnesota law required anyone convicted of a life sentence to serve a minimum term of 17 years in confinement for each life sentence. He has been at Lino Lakes Correctional Facility since. Initially, Brom would have been in his 70s before being eligible for parole. However, a 2023 Minnesota law gives offenders convicted as juveniles a chance for review. The new law allows for parole or supervised release review for offenders who have served 15 or more years of a sentence after being convicted of crimes committed as juveniles. Olmsted County Sheriff's deputies discovered the bodies of the four Brom family members on Feb. 18, 1988, in the family's Cascade Township home, just north of Rochester's city limits at the time. Deputies went there after Lourdes High School administrators called the sheriff's office regarding rumors circulating in the school where Brom was a student. Deputies found the four family members had been dead for hours and immediately began an investigation and search for Brom. He was taken into custody the next day after he was spotted at a Rochester post office. As Brom headed to trial in 1989, it appeared he might have had a chance for freedom much sooner. In the lead-up to Brom's trial, on April 22, 1989, Judge Gerald Ring decided to try Brom in the juvenile system. That meant Brom would have been released from prison before his 19th birthday in October 1990. The decision to try Brom as a juvenile sparked public outrage and was reversed by the state appeals court and the reversal was upheld later by the state Supreme Court. Brom's next appearance before the Supervised Release Board is scheduled for January 2026.
