The scene at the chocolate-colored house on Ehrets Lane, outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, in Salisbury Township, was unthinkable for that quiet community. No one who knew the family would have believed that their growing troubles would have escalated to this kind of cold-blooded frenzy. True, the two older boys had been a handful, but everyone who saw the carnage on Monday, February 27, 1995, wondered what could have triggered such outright rage.
Dennis Freeman, 54, had been head custodian at a local high school, and his wife Brenda, 48, a homemaker. They’d been devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, raising their three boys to abide by the rules of their beliefs. That meant no birthdays, no celebration of national holidays, no voting or participation in the military. As their sons had grown into adolescents, and especially as Bryan developed an interest in a military career, they had noticed trouble. They had tried different programs to deal with his anger, but they weren’t able to stop its momentum. He’d warned them before that he was going to kill them, and it appeared that he’d made good on his threat.
In A&E’s documentary Blood Crimes, Fred Rosen reports that on February 27 Brenda’s sister, Valerie Freeman arrived at the home in the late afternoon. She found the front door locked, which seemed to her unusual. Then she noticed that Dennis’ truck was in the driveway, which meant that he had not gone to work that day or was home early. Either one was uncharacteristic for him. Curious, she went to the garage but found it locked as well. Then she tried the sliding glass doors at the side of the mud-colored house. This time, she managed to get in. Erik’s dog was there, waiting for her — the same dog that Erik had asked her to take because he feared it would get killed.
Inside the home, it was quiet and cold — too cold for people to be in there. Instinctively, she knew that something was wrong. She moved slowly, watching for someone to acknowledge her presence, but no one did. Her first stop was the bedroom of the youngest son, Erik. His door was closed. She opened it and looked inside. To her shock, the 11-year-old lay in his blood-spattered bed, obviously dead. Someone had bludgeoned him. Down the hall in the master bedroom, as she would later testify in court, she also saw that another blood-spattered body lay in bed. That was as far as Valerie was willing to go.
Leaving the home, she ran to a neighbor to call the police, and Officer Michael Pochran was the first to respond. Valerie gave him a key. He called for back-up, and the two officers entered the house. In the dining room, resting against a cabinet, they encountered a bloody aluminum bat. From there, they went to the master bedroom, where they discovered Dennis Freeman, his face and head smashed so hard that his brain was exposed. The Herald Sun indicates that his throat was slashed as well. The officers then proceeded into Erik’s room where they already knew they would find their second victim. He, too, lay on his bed, bloody and still. They looked for Brenda Freeman, but she was nowhere to be found until they entered the basement. (Some accounts say she was outside Erik’s bedroom, but this is clearly in error.) On the way down the stairs, they discovered a metal pipe covered with blood. Then they saw Brenda lying on her side, her nightgown pulled up to her thighs, with a knife lying next to her. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed. On a wall behind her body, someone — presumably her killer — had drawn two swastikas.
They called for a homicide detective, and Trooper Joseph Vazquez arrived on the scene. He delegated officers to interview people in the family and in the area. (One source indicates that two sisters were away from the home, but as they are never mentioned again, it’s likely that this information was in error.) It was clear to everyone that David, 15, and Bryan, 17, were missing. Given their history of aggression and their embrace of a white supremacist movement, as well as the disappearance of the family’s Sunbird, there seemed little doubt as to who the perpetrators of this triple homicide were. Yet it soon became clear that a third party may have been involved as well: their 18-year-old cousin (some sources say 19), Nelson “Benny” Birdwell III. The hunt was on to find them. People knew them as the “Three Musketeers.” They might have been “all for one,” but their acts were a far cry from those of the noble characters in the novel.
The local papers covered the story (which would soon be picked up by large city papers, Newsweek, and 20/20), seeking out people who knew the boys, and reporters identified the source of the violence as a long-standing resistance between the parents and the boys, especially Bryan. There was little doubt that religion had played a strong role. Dennis and Brenda were active members of their church and had imposed strict rules on their children. The older boys had resented it. But they were no ordinary kids. Both were large for their age, and full of rage.
As depicted in the Harrisburg Patriot, David, the youngest, was six-foot, three-inches and weighed a hulking 245 pounds, while Bryan stood six feet tall and weighed 215 pounds. David had tattooed “Sieg Heil” on his forehead and Bryan had “Berzerker” on his. Teachers, coaches, and classmates alike remembered them as imposing figures, even threatening, although many students also respected them.
The police talked with several of their schoolmates and learned about their association with Skinhead beliefs over the previous three years. Someone told them how the boys had bragged about decapitating a cat, according to Lorraine Adams writing for the Washington Post, and had reportedly worshipped its body. A photo of schoolmate Harry Liste was found in Bryan’s room, says Rosen, with a swastika drawn on the back, so investigators tracked him down to learn his association with them.
Liste reported that he’d heard Bryan state that he wanted to kill his parents. Bryan had also mentioned raising funds to leave home and go to Florida. Apparently he hated his younger brother as much as he hated his parents, because Erik had been devout rather than resistant to their parents’ teachings. Another boy, when questioned, said that skinheads had a reward system for killing people (which spokespeople later denied), and those who killed family members earned points. The three boys were going to form their own Neo-Nazi organization, calling it “Berzerker.” (Some sources spell it “Berserker.”)
Apparently, even from a young age the two brothers were distressing to their parents. David, the oldest, was drinking beer when he was six, possibly as a rebellion against their religion. He also disliked their restrictions on extracurricular activities in which his friends participated. In 1991, both brothers stopped attending church services, which only increased their father’s efforts to bring them back into the fold. When that exacerbated the problem, Dennis resigned his eldership (or was pressured to leave) to concentrate on his sons. But they continued to rebel. David joined the school football team, but was suspended for threatening the coach. Brenda sought help from Nick Palumbo, the student assistant program director for the Salisbury Township schools. He directed her toward several rehab centers, and over time they had been placed in several facilities.
David was committed in 1992 for substance abuse. Released, he became more belligerent, so he was committed to a hospital for a month-long stay. Those doctors recommended that he be admitted to a residential placement facility, so off he went to Reed Shelter Care. A psychiatric evaluation found him to be of above average intelligence but at risk for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.
Bryan was reportedly smarter than his younger brother, and more polite. He even made the school honor roll. Still, he experimented with drugs and was sent to a treatment facility. There he encountered another boy who persuaded him to join the skinheads. At the center, Bryan decorated his room with posters of hate rock groups, swastikas, and Hitler. Despite having an intact biological family, he seemed to have found a new home.
Neo-Nazi skinheads, who idolize Hitler’s ideas on racial purity, appeared in the United States during the mid-1980s. Rosen says that by 1993 their membership had grown to about 4,000 and their tendency toward racial violence was exhibited in the number and intensity of the hate crimes they committed, including murder. Many members come from middle class homes, often where tension is evident. They keep contact via networks, chapters, Web sites, and publications, and share values through music filled with messages of superiority and hatred.
Pennsylvania was then a hotbed for white supremacy groups, and they often hooked alienated adolescents by becoming their surrogate family. At this time in the early 1990s, 64 known white supremacist groups were operating around Pennsylvania. Adams writes about how, since 1990, there had been hundreds of incidents of violence from these groups, with people under the age of 20 responsible for the greater portion. Apparently, the ideology, combined with biblical phrases, offered something to kids rejecting traditional religion but not ready to give up on it entirely, and they were flocking to the teachings of prejudice and hate. White people, they learned, were the descendants of Abel, the good and noble son of Adam and Eve, slain by his brother, Cain. All the other races of the world fell into the category of “beasts of the field.”
Upon their return to the home, Bryan got David involved in the skinheads and after they went to several meetings they decided to form their own group with Benny Birdwell. They all shaved their heads, got tattoos, and proclaimed their loyalty to the white movement. That meant that they would view themselves as part of a superior race and would have no form of communication with other races, who were considered “the enemy.” Lehigh County District Attorney Robert L. Steinberg, who was to prosecute the case, commented for A&E, “I don’t believe the problem was David Freeman coming back into the household. I think the problem was David Freeman being in the household with his brother, and also with Ben Birdwell as a frequent visitor.”
Bryan had most of his body tattooed with skinhead art. He was angry that his parents had placed him in what he viewed as a “mental institution” and he was going to show them who was boss. Like the contagion effect portrayed in the film, American History X, David adopted the same attitudes and behavior. Together, they terrorized Erik, whom they considered a “mama’s boy,” and they were joined in this whenever cousin Benny came over. He, too, became a skinhead, and they located the local skinhead gang in Allentown. They were attracted to a group that met at Mark Thomas’ farm, a meeting place for his Christian Identity Group, which relied on scripture to prove its superiority.
As the brothers’ resentment toward their parents grew, they threatened to kill them. They had once threatened Brenda with a hatchet. She sought help from the Anti-Defamation League of the B’Nai Brith, supposed experts on cult behavior, especially hate groups. They sent her to an anti-prejudice coordinator, but she received little help. She had also tried Toughlove, a group for parents with difficult children, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. No one had answers. Having no legal grounds to remove the children to detention, they had to hope that the brothers would pass through this fad and grow up. Dennis reportedly kept a baseball bat by his bed for protection.
On February 4, 1995, Brenda sold her sons’ cars, and the next day they tattooed their foreheads. Brenda and Dennis then went through their rooms and removed clothing and paraphernalia that seemed to confirm and exacerbate the hate. They stripped down the Nazi posters and threw away pamphlets and books. Brenda kept a book that described killing one’s parents for one’s beliefs. These actions only made the brothers angry. They started to talk to friends about stealing a gun, killing a cop and going south. On Monday, February 20, David mentioned that he was going to kill his mother. On February 23, Bryan was suspended from school for five days. He’d had an altercation, which erupted into threats of violence, with the principal.
But young Erik sensed what was coming. When his aunt asked him around this time, according to the Morning Call, how he was getting along with his fearsome brothers, he said, “You never know when you’re going to die.”
While many people believed that the three fugitives were on their way to Florida, as they had mentioned, in fact they had taken a different route, going directly west on Interstate 78. A tip from a truck driver who had heard about the murders on the radio gave the police their best lead. He pointed them toward Truck World Motor Inn in Hubbard, Ohio, just over the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, where he had seen three young men who fit that description. They were hard to miss, as large as they were and all with bald heads and tattoos. A videotape from a nearby grocery had caught the image of three boys inside the store. The tape was sent back to Allentown, where outraged relatives gave positive identifications. Some of them, fearing that the boys might come after them as well, were relieved to know they had fled the state, although their grandfather believed that Birdwell had to have been coerced into the brutal incident.
Phone calls made from the motor lodge to a home in Hope, Michigan, 30 miles northwest of Saginaw, pinpointed their likely location. They had fled more than 600 miles away to the home of a skinhead associate, Frank Hesse, whom Bryan had once met at a concert in Detroit. He had welcomed them and they’d kept mum about the murders. They’d gone ice fishing on the day they arrived and when they returned just after 6:00 p.m., they were caught. The FBI had gotten involved, and the Michigan State Police had sent a S. W. A. T. to surround the house. The young men came outside, as commanded, were immediately placed in custody, although Frank was quickly released. He claimed to know nothing about what the others had done. Special Agent John Narvaez told reporters that Bryan and David Freeman, along with Ben Birdwell, had been apprehended.
The Freeman brothers wrongly believed that they would be tried as juveniles, so they had made a plan ahead of time, in the event they were captured, to take the heat for the murders, rather than let Birdwell, an adult, face the death penalty. David, considered a juvenile in Michigan, waived his right to an attorney and quickly offered a statement.
David reported that he and Bryan were home on February 26 at approximately 3 p.m. They discussed going to a Wendy’s restaurant and then to a movie. They called Ben, who came over and picked them up. They stayed at Wendy’s on Tilghman Street until around 8 p.m. and then went to the AMC 8 movie theater. David went to Murder in the First, while the other two saw “Boys on the Side.” They returned home around 10:30 p.m. Dennis and Erik were asleep, but Brenda had waited up for them. She had imposed a strict curfew of 11:00 p.m., and they chafed at her rules. Rather than face her, they sneaked in through a basement window and went into the family room. Their plan was to call some friends and go out drinking. For that, they needed Ben and his car.
But Brenda heard the ruckus downstairs. She came down and told the boys to go to sleep. They continued to talk, which prompted her to come back down. This time she saw her nephew, Benny, and asked him to leave. He obeyed, but then crawled back in through the window. She heard the boys continue to talk and laugh, so she came down a third time, told Ben to go home again, and again he crawled back in through the window. The boys were in David’s room when Brenda came down again. (Some sources indicate that she came down only three times, and it was the third time that led to the trouble.)
Brenda and Bryan began to yell at each other, but David said he had remained in his room and had not actually witnessed much of what happened. His story grew vague, but he clearly implicated his older brother in his mother’s murder. Bryan then told the others they had better not “puss out” or they would get stabbed, too. He ordered David and Ben to go upstairs and get Dennis and Erik. David said that he had killed them both and that Ben had gone from room to room, but had not participated in the actual slaughter. He had only taken money from their father’s room. They had placed the knives they’d used in the kitchen sink and the bat in the dining room, and then changed clothes before leaving. Investigators listened to David’s tale, believing that he was honest and sincere, but they had no way of knowing that his story was full of holes. It would not be long before he’d offer another one, triggered by Birdwell’s rendition of the events on that fateful night.
Benny Birdwell’s parents, who were separated, drove to Michigan to be with him. He had a juvenile record for theft, but otherwise had not been in serious trouble, and they could not believe that he’d taken part in the murders. He confirmed this when he told them that he’d been forced into the incident and subsequent flight. Yet the “Berzerker” tattoo on his forehead proved his firm association with them. He described to them the trip to Wendy’s and the theater, and told his mother how Brenda Freeman had ordered him several times to go home. Yet he’d always come back in.
Then Brenda and Bryan had gotten into a fight and Bryan ran into his room, obtained a steak knife, and came back out. Brenda tried to run, but Bryan caught her and he put his hand over her mouth and thrust the knife into her back. Brenda fell to the floor, but shortly after got back up, pulled the knife out of her back and advanced on her son. Bryan and Brenda struggled for the knife, but he regained control and stabbed her once more in the shoulder all the way up to the hilt. She tried to scream, but he stuffed a pair of shorts into her mouth so their father would not hear. Finally, she lay still.
When they had finished her off, they knew they had to kill Dennis and Erik as well. Birdwell said that he remained in the basement while the brothers did the dirty work. He said that Bryan told them that if they “pussed out” he was going to kill them next. Once Dennis and Erik had been killed, Bryan yelled for Benny to come upstairs, so he did. He saw that Bryan was covered in blood, but David bore little evidence of his involvement. Before they left, Bryan changed his clothes and David went into the backyard and vomited. Getting into the family car with around $200, stolen from Dennis’s billfold, they argued about where to go and then fled to their friend’s farm in Michigan. On the way, they discussed returning to make the whole thing look like it had been the work of an intruder, bent on robbery, but then they heard about the discovery of the murders the next day on the radio.
Donna Birdwell, Benny’s mother, was outraged that her son had been forced into this situation, so she told a reporter for the Midland Daily News what Benny had said. The Freeman brothers read the article that night and realized that Benny was throwing the entire blame on them. Angry, they decided to retaliate. Bryan had yet to say anything, and now he was ready. It was one thing to protect their cousin, and quite another to have him so outrageously exonerate himself. They asked for attorneys and offered to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Bryan required several conditions before they would make formal statements. He wanted the death penalty taken off the table, he and his brother would not give up their right to a trial, and they wanted to give an interview to a reporter of their choice. The deal was approved by Allentown prosecutor Robert Steinberg, although he was unhappy with the idea of more publicity. Still, they were offering him the means and motive, and as long as it was all done according to proper procedure, he was glad to have all the facts handed over.
On March 6, the same day on which Dennis, Brenda, and Erik were laid to rest in a cemetery in Allentown, David went first. He sat down with a tape recorder, writes Rosen, several police officers who had driven over from Pennsylvania, and an attorney, and told what he knew. He admitted that he’d lied at first to protect his cousin. He waived his rights and jumped in. Describing once again how they had spent the evening and how Bryan had stabbed Brenda, he added that he and Ben had gone upstairs together to Dennis’s room. Ben had a pickax handle with him and David had grabbed an aluminum bat out of the hallway closet. They had then argued quietly over who would strike the first blow. He said that Ben did it, and that Ben had cut Dennis’s throat as well. David admitted to hitting his father four times in the face. He also said that Ben was the one who had killed Erik, cracking his skull with just a few well-delivered blows. He stated that Ben had told them that Erik’s eye popped out of his head and hung there after he hit him. David had looked in Erik’s room before he went downstairs and saw blood everywhere. He then went into the dining room and threw up. While David and his brother had changed clothes there at the house, Ben had kept his clothing. They dropped off his girlfriend’s car, purchased gas and cigarettes, and then set off toward Ohio. They purchased a new pair of jeans for Ben and discarded his in Ohio, somewhere along route 80.
Bryan was next, going over some of the same territory as the other two, but closing up some holes, especially with his own involvement in his mother’s murder. He said that after he had killed his mother, Ben was still downstairs with him and had used the handle of a pick ax to hit her over the head. Then he went upstairs to help David.
At this point, Bryan began to cry, as if remorseful. He claimed that Ben had told him that he’d hit both Dennis and Erik in the face, and had stated that he’d shattered Erik’s skull. Bryan denied that he’d instructed the other two to go kill the rest of the family. He also denied that he’d ever threatened his parents. Taking the rap for Ben, he said, was Ben’s idea, because Bryan’s stint in a mental institution would help him mitigate the crime. Once his statement was done, he seemed satisfied.
Bryan, David, and Ben went before a Michigan judge to hear a formal reading of the charges against them. The brothers were charged with three counts of first-degree murder, while Ben was charged in hindering apprehension. They all agreed to extradition, but before they returned to Pennsylvania, the brothers drew a map for the police to indicate where they had tossed Birdwell’s bloody jeans. They wanted this evidence to back up their version of the story. The Ohio State Police went to the site but found nothing. Yet they did locate a clerk who recalled Birdwell purchasing a new pair of jeans, so she was reserved as a potential witness. And, more important, a technician noticed what appeared to be spots of blood on the blue T-shirt that Ben had worn. It was sent to a lab in Pennsylvania for DNA analysis.
In Allentown again, the three offenders were taken to Lehigh County jail, and Bryan and David went into the same cell. While PA law demands that any juvenile who commits homicide be tried as an adult, the possibility of being sent to a juvenile proceeding was available. No bail was granted for the brothers, but Birdwell was held on $250,000 bail. His parents hired attorney Richard Makoul to defend him, while Bryan was assigned Allentown public defenders Earl Supplee and Jim Netchin. They hoped that he might testify against his brother, thought to be the principal instigator, to avoid excessive jail time. Judge Lawrence Brenner assigned David’s case to Wally Worth and Brian Collins, who set to work to get him transferred to the juvenile court.
Yet even as all of this was happening, another incident was grabbing local headlines.
The Freeman family massacre had caught the interest of Jeffrey Howorth, 16 (Rosen erroneously spells it “Haworth”). In fact, it had completely captivated him, according to his older brother’s report later. He’d watched every news show about the brothers’ crime and capture, calling them “dumb” for getting caught. Yet, oddly, he had no affinity for their ideas or their method of aggression. He even deplored racism, and was a member of the swim team at Emmaus High School and an average student. He’d never been in any kind of trouble. In the Morning Call, Susan Todd described Howorth as shy, quite and “good natured,” but he clearly stewed in a dark side that few people saw — especially those most in danger. His mother recently had limited the hours she spent on the job because she sensed that her youngest son was having a difficult time. Tragically, she was right.
The Howorths lived about 10 miles from the scene of the Freeman carnage and Jeffrey, too, wished to kill his parents. He had said as much to his older brother, Steven, home during that period from Penn State. What the Freeman brothers had done had apparently encouraged him, and as he ruminated over it, he watched the reports. Although the fugitives were found and arrested by March 1, Howorth had already formed a plan and decided to carry it out. The Freeman brothers’ fate was no longer his concern. On the afternoon of March 2, 1995, he loaded a .22 caliber rifle and awaited his father’s entrance from the garage into the kitchen. Around 5:00 p.m., when George Howorth, 46, came in, Jeffrey shot him at point-blank range in the stomach, killing him. He then shot him four more times. One bullet hit him in the face, and three others were to the front of his head. The man lay where he fell, still wearing his overcoat and gloves.
When Susan Howorth, 48, came home 15 minutes later, according to Murder in the Family, she saw her husband lying prone and bleeding on the floor. She dropped her purse in shock, unable to comprehend the situation, and Jeffrey took the opportunity to shoot her in the face. Yet she did not die. She managed to absorb the impact and run. She made it to the garage door, but he caught up to her and grabbed her coat. Pulling her back into the dining room while she screamed for him to let her go, he finished her off. According to the pathology report completed by Lehigh Valley hospital pathologist Sarah Funke, Susan was shot nine times, three in the front and six in the back. (Some sources erroneously report that George took nine bullets and Susan five.)
He calmly washed his hands in the sink and then put his rifle, ammunition and camping equipment into his mother’s Chevy Lumina. He knew that his brother, Steve, would be coming home soon and he wanted to be gone from the scene. It was only minutes after he left that Steve arrived and discovered the prone bodies of his parents in the home. He also spotted Jeffrey’s scribbled note on a desk in his room: “I told you I would do it, Steve. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
An all-points bulletin was issued to try to apprehend the boy. Jeffrey had gotten into the family’s red Chevrolet Lumina and driven for two days until he ran out of gas, landing off Highway 70 in Callaway County, Missouri, just over an hour west of St. Louis. He had two dollars left, but he had brought over 500 rounds of ammunition, a .22-caliber rifle, and a 12-guage shotgun. After the police found his car, he walked out of the woods nearby and turned himself in. They arrested him and returned him to Allentown for trial. When they asked him how he was, according to Adams, he said simply, “I am bitter.”
Items in the home that indicated Jeffrey’s state of mind that day included jottings about his frustration with school, his anger over his parents’ desire that he attend college, and ideas about murder. One note revealed his affinity with the Freemans. “Those kids in Salisbury Township were cool… They killed their parents.” He hoped that a movie would be made about what he had done.
Lorraine Adams penned a long article for the Washington Post, comparing the two fatal incidents, the two families, and the murderers. She seemed a bit taken aback by the middleclass American-German homogeneity of the Lehigh Valley, where Allentown is situated with Bethlehem and Easton. To some extent, she found that to be a reason why a kid like Jeffrey, who seemed to blend right in, had failed to get anyone’s attention. “No one remembered Jeff being different that day,” she said. “No one remembered much about Jeff any day.” Because he was “normal,” and seemed just like everyone else in an area where people didn’t like to stand out, he was “invisible.” Thus, he did not achieve the status of notoriety for his crimes that the Freemans did. Now they stood out.
They were skinheads; he was just an average student. They were loud and aggressive; he was quiet. Their crime made the front pages of national magazines and newspapers; his made the local news. The other students spoke about the Freeman brothers with awe; no one seemed to know much about Jeff. In fact, his crime seemed sordid and uninteresting, while the brothers’ was considered bold and grand in some perverse manner. One high school senior that Adams quoted dismissed Howorth as having killed and then run away. “There’s no plot there.” No movie was going to be made about it, but some kids thought that one ought to be made about the Freeman incident. To their minds, that was high drama. Even cool. “They had something going on there.” Jeff seemed merely to have wanted to get his parents off his back after having brought in some low grades, while the Freemans had acted to gain their liberty from a supposedly oppressive religion. Some kids admired that.
Thus, four Allentown boys now faced an arduous legal ordeal, each with its own strategy, and all of them considering some form of mental illness defense.
Steinberg reviewed the statements the boys had made, and when he spotted several significant inconsistencies, he believed that the brothers had lied. His deal had been made on the condition that they told the truth, and they had violated it. He called the deal off and announced he would accept a plea of first-degree murder from any of the defendants, but if they chose to go to trial, he would recommend death. Steinberg was convinced that Ben had killed Erik, beaten Dennis, and traveled the house to make sure everyone was dead. But the DNA results were not yet in, so he could prove nothing about that as yet. He settled on playing up the coincidence that all instances of reported trouble in the Freeman household had involved Ben.
The defense attorneys for the Freeman brothers and for Birdwell sought ways to put the various confessions into doubt or get at least two of the cases transferred to juvenile court. In making such a decision, the judge could consider the degree of criminal sophistication, the maturity level of the offenders, and their amenability to treatment. Clearly, David had a better shot than Bryan. They looked into getting the charges against him reduced to third-degree murder.
The arraignment occurred in April 26 at the Lehigh County courthouse. The defendants, Bryan and David, sat on the left. With David was Wally Worth and Brian Collins, while Earl Supplee and Mike Brunnabend sat with Bryan. Ben Birdwell, says Rosen, sat in the jury box, to be arraigned at a separate time. Defense attorney Makoul was also in the courtroom.
Lehigh County Coroner Isidore Mihalakis was called first, and the Morning Call reported his testimony. He believed that Dennis had been struck first, approximately six times on the head and seven to the chest, fracturing the ribs and breastbone. He also had found a superficial cut along Dennis’s neck and fractures to his nose, eye sockets, and left jaw. The brain had come through a four-inch fracture of the forehead, and he’d been hit three to five times in the face with two different weapons. To his mind, that indicated two different attackers. Dennis had died from the extreme head injuries.
Mihalakis then reported that Brenda had died from deep stab wounds. There was a stab wound to the tip of her right shoulder that had gone at least five inches deep and a stab wound to her right scapula that went through her lung and into her heart, causing blood leakage into the chest. In addition, he’d counted eight blows to the head, one of which had been to the back. Worth asked the coroner how much blood Brenda had lost, and Mihalakis reported that it was about one-and-one-half liters. At the rate she was losing blood, it would not have taken her long to die.
Erik bore several blunt force injuries to his forehead, the left side of his face, his left arm, and the back of his hands. His brain, too, had protruded from one wound. There were injuries to the face and head, including bruises and lacerations. His hands were fractured and his left forearm bruised, indicating that he may have tried to defend himself from the blows. Erik died from front head injuries, caused by an aluminum bat.
Valerie Freeman and the responding officers each gave their accounts of the day the murders were discovered, and Valerie described the history of tension in the household. After several more witnesses, the judge ruled that the prosecution had made its case, and the brothers were going to trial. Steinberg reiterated his deal: If the boys pled guilty they would be charged with first-degree murder and serve life in prison. Neither accepted. Instead their attorneys continued with their plans to get the boys tried as juveniles. That hearing was set for sometime in the fall.
It was now time to strengthen the case. As Steinberg awaited the lab analysis on Birdwell’s shirt, he dispatched investigators out to learn whatever they could to make it airtight against all three defendants, but especially Ben Birdwell. They heard from people who knew the brothers about the death threats to the parents and the motive for killing Erik. Yet no one seemed to have heard Birdwell echo any of these threats.
About a month after the arraignment, Vazquez went to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia to meet with Ivan Smith, a man who had been incarcerated with Birdwell in the Lehigh County prison for two days. He said that Birdwell had confided in him some of the details of the crime. Birdwell had insisted that the brothers had committed the murders, and that he’d had nothing to do with them. He intimated that the murders had been planned for a long time, and that they had used knives, bats and clubs to kill the family. While recounting what he knew, Birdwell had described Brenda as screaming while she lay on the floor, a fact that contradicted the accounts given by the brothers. Birdwell also discussed his plan to say that he’d fled with the brothers because he’d been scared.
The notable part of this account was that the three of them apparently had discussed committing these murders while at Wendy’s that night. Birdwell had even said that the victims had deserved their fate. That made it a clear case of first-degree murder. He had also admitted to having driven the car to Ohio, which contradicted his going along with them out of fear for his life. Whatever he may or may not have done, he’d not just been a witness to a crime of opportunity. He’d known about it and had been present to it throughout, as well as helping fugitives to flee. But there was more to come.
In the meantime, Jeffrey Howorth went to trial, and its conclusion would surprise a lot of people.
Howorth’s trial started in July 1995. Defense attorney Dennis Charles decided to use the insanity defense, believing that something within him had caused Jeffrey to snap. But such a defense rarely worked, said the Morning Call, and had only worked once before in that county. The prosecution team, headed by ADA Douglas Reichley, used the notes left behind at the murder scene to argue that Jeffrey was looking for attention and hoped to become famous. His true heart, they said, was darker than people had realized, proven by his excitement over the Freeman brothers’ crimes. However, the boy appeared to the jurors to be a troubled youth, immobilized by his situation. He displayed nothing. A defense psychiatrist said that he could be mentally ill. He had a learning disability and a brother who set high standards.
“It’s not uncommon,” says Ewing on Murder in the Family, “in these kinds of cases to find a sibling rivalry that is implicated. The perpetrator of the parricide frequently being someone who can’t live up to the example of a sibling or the expectation of the parents.”
Dr. Timothy Michals, a psychiatrist, interviewed Howorth and learned that thoughts about parricide had first occurred to the boy when he was only five years old – the same age at which he had been diagnosed with a brain disorder that gave him learning disabilities. He had expected to wait until he was thirty and then use a knife or some other sharp implement to hack them to death. He had been inspired by the Freemans, but Jeffrey had no allegiance to skinheads or neo-Nazis. He even disliked racism. His father had been a Boy Scout leader and Sunday school teacher. His mother was a homemaker and reportedly a loving mother. The crime made little sense, apart from Jeffrey having an untreated mental illness that hindered his appreciation that what he had done was wrong.
The attorney played up the manic nature of Jeffrey’s condition. He had overreacted to comments only days before when his gums had bled from brushing his teeth, and had threatened to kill his brother. He’d also suffered some academic setbacks, having received a low SAT score, failed a Spanish test and received Fs in other classes. He believed, said the attorney, that his parents would be severely disappointed over his failures, although he could pinpoint no behavior that indicated they actually would. And he also showed no remorse for his crimes, which made the defense difficult.
Judge William Ford instructed the jury about the requirements for a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity, and they took four days to come up with that verdict. When he heard it, said the Associated Press, Howorth smiled and one of his defenders wept. He was sent to the Norristown State Hospital for a three-month evaluation. It was also noted in the paper that he was now eligible to inherit half of his parents’ estate.
While that trial was going on, Steinberg offered Ben a plea of murder one, with the death penalty off the table. Ben refused it, maintaining that he was innocent. Then on July 24, David’s lawyers claimed that David Freeman had been suffering from mental infirmity at the time of the crime and they were prepared to offer an insanity plea. In addition, the public defenders for both brothers filed papers regarding Steinberg’s failure to keep to the terms of the plea deal. They stated that when he offered a confession, Bryan had relied on the Michigan authorities to do things properly. In addition, David’s attorneys insisted that the death penalty for a 15-year-old was cruel and unusual punishment (and in 2005, the Supreme Court agreed). They also stated that David had been under the influence of narcotics when he’d confessed.
But then something happened to shift the case Steinberg’s way. Birdwell had claimed that he went along with that the Freeman brothers were doing in order to save his own life, because he was afraid that Bryan might kill him. But the brothers had contradicted him, and on July 27, the Pennsylvania State Crime Lab announced a finding that supported the brothers’ version of events. The blood spatter found on a T-shirt that Birdwell had worn that night that was a match to Dennis Freeman. The original story that Birdwell had told was clearly false. He had to have been in the room when Dennis was under attack, and standing close enough for blood to hit him. So much for his tale about hiding in the basement.
Steinberg grabbed this important bit of evidence and commended the scientists. He then charged Birdwell with three counts of first-degree murder. Along with Coroner Mihalakis’ belief that three weapons involved implicated three separate killers, he pieced together a scenario that made sense, based on the weapons and blood evidence: Bryan had stabbed his mother, while David and Ben had gone together to kill Dennis and Eric. He also believed that Ben had slammed Brenda with the same pickax handle that had been used on Erik: it bore traces of blood from both. While Erik’s blood was not found on anyone’s clothing, a hair consistent with his was picked off a jersey that Bryan had worn that night. In any event, there was good reason to believe that Birdwell, one of the “three musketeers,” had been every bit as involved in this triple homicide as the two brothers — and had possibly had a hand in all three. The judge told Birdwell that he could face the death penalty. He did not react.
Although Makoul quickly countered that being present in the room where Dennis was being killed, it did not prove that Birdwell had acted. Or it showed that he might have been trying to stop the murder of Dennis Freeman. But Birdwell’s obvious lies did not help matters for the defense; had he been trying to help the victims, he’d have said so. Steinberg announced that he intended to convict the boys separately, because he could use the statements each had given against any of the others.
Joe Vazquez continued to question everyone he could find who had known the defendants. He heard a number of stories about how much they’d hated their parents. He also met with Todd Reiss, who had been in Lehigh County Prison with Ben and who offered the information that Ben had said that he’d helped Bryan to kill Brenda. Ben had also allegedly admitted that the murders had been planned. And now his description of the crime had changed: in this version, he’d allegedly distracted Brenda so that Bryan could attack her from behind. He said that Dennis and Erik had been killed first (as the coroner had believed), and that Brenda had been the most difficult to kill. But Ben had added that he’d been scared of Bryan. Steinberg was not sure what to do with this statement, but he thought it might help at some point.
David’s juvenile certificate hearing took place on September 5, but he and his attorneys decided to withdraw it. In the end, the attorneys decided that his chances of being transferred were slim, and the downside was that they’d have to lay out their case. That meant that Steinberg would know their strategy, and if it went to trial in an adult court, they could be at a disadvantage. They decided against taking the gamble. Similarly, Bryan’s attorneys withdrew his juvenile certificate. But all four attorneys still believed they had a chance to reinstate the original plea deal.
On Nov. 14, they argued in court that Steinberg had reneged on his agreement. All the parties involved with the initial statements the boys made in Michigan told of their involvement. Judge Brenner urged Steinberg to make a deal, but he resisted. He thought he had a good case, and politically, it was better for him to take it all the way. But Michigan-based skinhead Frank Hesse was there to testify that David had been drunk and high on marijuana prior to his arrest and confession. That placed his competency into doubt. The judge took all of this into consideration and said that he would give his ruling at a later date. No one knew what to expect.
Then on Dec 7, Bryan surprised everyone by ending the proceedings: He admitted in court that he had murdered his mother. He received a life sentence and would not have to testify against his brother or cousin. David notified his lawyers that he wanted the same deal, and a week later, despite their cautions against it, he was in court for the same reason. He admitted that he had killed his father but said he did not know why. Both of brothers just wished to get it over with and had decided to sidestep the death penalty issue. Makoul said that these deals would not affect his client’s case.
Then it came out that David’s attorneys had not received the statement made by Todd Reiss in which he’d said that Ben had told him that David had not been the killer of Dennis Freeman. As shaky as the statement’s credibility was, with its inconsistencies, it still left room for doubt in David’s case. The attorneys were furious at this neglect. Had they known about it, they would have prevented David from taking the deal. They wanted to bring this to someone’s attention, but Benny’s trial was already in process. Who knew, given all these surprises, what it might reveal? Besides, getting David’s care re-opened also renewed the possibility of a trial with more serious consequences.
Judge James Diefenderfer presided over the murder trial for Nelson Benjamin Birdwell III, beginning with jury selection on March 25. He did not allow any testimony about Ben’s skinhead involvement, which took some of the wind out of Steinberg’s argument, but Steinberg also knew he had a death-qualified jury who might deliver a death sentence. Makoul’s defense strategy was to show that Ben had an IQ of 78, which made him borderline mentally retarded. In addition, after the murders he had suffered from acute anxiety disorder, which had fueled his decision to accompany his cousin to Michigan.
On April 9, the lawyers made their opening statements. Steinberg said that Ben had been an active participant in the murders, as indicated by the blood spatter on his shirt and by statements in the Freeman brothers’ confessions. Makoul pointed out that Ben was mentally retarded, a follower, and had happened to walk into the master bedroom when David had swung the weapon that had killed Dennis Freeman. He argued that Ben suffered from acute stress trauma from having witnessed this.
Steinberg had a number of telling circumstantial points: the clerk who saw Ben purchase a new pair of jeans in Ohio, consistent with the Freeman brothers’ tale, and another clerk from a Holiday Inn where Ben had the presence of mind to give a fake name. Inconsistencies in Ben’s statements to others about his involvement were also brought to light for the jury. And then there was the blood evidence.
The crime lab technician testified about the DNA procedure that had determined that Dennis Freeman’s blood was found on Ben’s T-shirt. She said the drops could not have traveled very far, so he had to have been close when the impact was made. To test this, Dr. Barbara Rouley had covered wood with a thin layer of horse blood and plastic. She hit the wood with a baseball bat and observed how far the blood spattered, and then analyzed patterns that appeared on poster boards and t-shirts that she’d set up. Makoul got her to admit that she probably didn’t hit the wood with as much force as the boys had used to hit the bodies, implying that the blood could have traveled farther than her experiment indicated. She also had not used the same type of weapon.
On April 17, Steinberg brought Ivan Smith to the stand. Smith told of his prison conversation with Ben about the murders, and described Ben’s lack of remorse. Makoul wondered why Ben would have told Smith anything at all, placing his testimony into doubt. It was also clear that Ben had never admitted to Smith that he’d killed any of the victims. So that seemed a wasted witness.
Dr. Isidore Mihalikis testified to the causes of death, and that there were three different weapons, and therefore three different people involved. David had given a statement that he’d used the baseball bat, so that left a pickax handle or a metal bar for another perpetrator to have used. The pickax handle was found to have the blood of Erik and Brenda, and possibly Dennis, on it. Clearly, from blood evidence, David had been part of Dennis’s murder. So was someone else. Or Bryan and Ben, only Ben had Dennis’s blood on his shirt.
After a few more witnesses, the prosecution rested. Makoul told the press that Steinberg had presented a case of “total confusion” that had proven nothing. Now it was his turn. But if he hoped his own experts would clarify things, he was mistaken.
As witnesses, Makoul called a number of people who had heard Bryan and David make threats against their parents, but under cross-examination, some said that Ben might have been the leader of their little hate group. Then Makoul had psychologist Peter Badgio and psychiatrist Peter Bloom testify about Ben’s mental state at the time of the crimes and directly afterward. Ben had developed acute stress disorder, they agreed, as a result of the murders and rather than call the police had fled with the brothers from fear that they would otherwise hurt him. The doctors also testified that IQ assessments showed that he was borderline mentally retarded.
Steinberg raised the issue that stress disorder tests must be performed shortly after the traumatic event, not a year later, so that made the results less than credible. Also, the prosecutor made certain the jury realized how silly one doctor’s explanation was when he said that that Ben’s use of a false name for the hotel registry was a symptom of stress. Clearly, he had done it to hide their whereabouts.
Another issue centered on Ben’s girlfriend’s car. The driver’s side seat cover had been changed, and Steinberg believed that on the night of the murders, when he’d brought the car back before fleeing to Michigan, he’d gotten blood on it from his jeans — the very jeans that the Freemans had said they’d tossed out the car window in Ohio. But Makoul had Carol Russell, Birdwell’s girlfriend, testify that she had not only thrown away the seat cover several weeks before the murder because it was dirty, but had also recognized the jeans that Birdwell wore as jeans she had washed before. She was wrong. He had indeed purchased a pair of jeans in Ohio. That did not look good for her testimony.
On April 24, for the defense, blood spatter pattern expert Neil Hoffman stated that the blood found on Ben’s shirt could have been exhaled across the room by Dennis, or it could have traveled that far from the blows — about eight to 11 feet. He also testified that Dr. Barbara Rowley’s blood splatter experiments were not reliable or replicable. Steinberg got Hoffman to admit, however, that he had not conducted his own experiments to prove this.
During the rebuttal of this mental illness testimony, a nurse at Lehigh County Prison testified that Ben was intelligent enough to have filled out a medical history sheet, and a school psychologist denied that he was mentally retarded. Dr. Robert Gordon, a clinical psychologist from the area and a renowned expert on the MMPI-2 personality assessment, said that Ben showed only normal signs of anxiety, nothing extreme, and, in fact, the test supported a diagnosis of a psychopathic personality. That meant Ben could probably deceive others with skill and would not be hindered by guilt or remorse. Rosen quotes Gordon as stating, “There are no signs he felt residual anxieties at the time of the crimes.”
Then it was time to wrap things up. On April 25, 1996, during closing arguments, Makoul stressed that there was clearly reasonable doubt in this case. He re-emphasized Ben’s low IQ and stress disorder. Steinberg argued that Ben had been a willing accomplice in three murders, but even if they believed it was only one, he was still a murderer. They sent this to the jury members, who listened to the judge’s instructions and then retired to deliberate. The following day, they were ready with a verdict.
Ben Birdwell was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Dennis Freeman, but was found not guilty in the murders of Brenda and Erik Freeman. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In the end, no one was convicted of killing Erik. Makoul stated that he would appeal Birdwell’s conviction.
Each year Jeffrey Howorth, the other boy who had murdered his parents, is re-evaluated to determine if he can bee freed, but at this writing, he remains in the high-security Norristown hospital. In 2004, Judge Ford indicated to the Morning Call that “Howorth continues to suffer from severe mental illness.” His psychiatrist at Norristown states that Howorth has made little progress in understanding the nature of his crime or what he must do to be released. “It’s like there’s a vacuousness there,” she had stated in 2001, “an emotional shell.” A therapist who works with him told reporters that Howorth suffers from “stunted growth” in his cognitive processing skills, especially at emotional levels. He’s been given some responsibilities, which he performs well, but he likes violent movies and still fails to understand what he did. He receives medications, group therapy, and intensive counseling in anger management skills, with the hope that one day he can be returned to society.
Adams, Lorraine. “Too Close for Comfort,” The Washington Post, April 2, 1995.
Durdock, Corrine. “Doctors ask that Howorth continue treatment,” East Penn Press, July 1998.
Ewing, Charles Patrick. Kids Who Kill. New York: Avon, 1990.
Garlicki, Debbie. “Howorth will Stay in State Hospital,” The Morning Call, Aug. 26, 2004.
Levin, Jack and Kack McDevvitt. “Hate Crimes,” The Encyclopedia of Peace, Violence, and Conflict. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1999.
Linder, Lee. “Freeman Brothers Returned,” Harrisburg Evening News, March 15, 1995.
Murder in the Family. A&E documentary, 1996.
Rosen, Fred. Blood Crimes: The Pennsylvania Skinhead Murders. New York: Kensington, 1996.
Russell, Heidi. “Skinhead Suspects nabbed in Deaths of Parents, Brother,” The Harrisburg Patriot, March 2, 1995.
Woolley, Wayne. “Two Parricides linked at Trial,” York Daily Record, Oct, 10, 1995.
Articles from The Morning Call, The Pittsburgh Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Easton Times-Express, The Harrisburg Patriot, and other area papers about both cases.
American History X, 1998.