Double-murderer gets life in prison
Twenty-year-old Spokane double-murderer Brandon West Martin may never again see the outside of a jail, except when he stands trial next month for another alleged murder.
Superior Court Judge Robert Austin summed up the situation when he passed sentence Friday on Martin: “Your life is basically ruined.”
It was a tragedy for Martin’s family as well as those of the two young men he gunned down at a teenage drug and drinking party in a Mead home on Oct. 4, 2003, Austin said.
The judge had no choice about most of the sentences he handed down: two lifetimes in prison without parole plus 272/3 years, all of it consecutive.
State law required Austin to sentence Martin to life without parole for the first-degree murders because the jury that convicted him last month found the crimes were aggravated by multiple deaths.
The rest of the sentence made little difference, but Austin gave Martin the standard maximum for the attempted first-degree murder of a third man and for second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll sought the maximum sentences. Spokane County Public Defender John Rodgers argued unsuccessfully that they didn’t all have to be consecutive.
Rodgers said Martin “senses his role in that tragedy and he deeply regrets it, and he would like all to know that.” Martin himself declined to say anything.
His mother, Karin Gonzales, pleaded for a sentence that would allow Martin to “give back to the community.” She said friends and relatives of the victims declared “we won” when her son was convicted, “but I don’t think anybody really won.”
Gonzales wondered why Spokane doesn’t “come together” to stop drug abuse.
“Putting somebody in prison for the rest of their life doesn’t stop the rest of the kids who were at the party, the rest of the kids who admitted doing drugs,” Gonzales said.
Sandy Corey, mother of murder victim Donald W. Corey, talked about the futures her son and his friend, Thomas N. Morris, lost.
They will never know the pleasures of moving into their own homes, falling in love, getting married and becoming fathers, Sandy Corey said. Nor will those who loved them share in those milestones.
“I miss Donny every minute of every day,” she said, remembering him as a smiling boy who loved practical jokes.
Martin was drunk and high on drugs when he became angry during a party at Ross G. Baulne’s home in the Mead Royale mobile home park, according to court documents. Martin thought someone stole his marijuana pipe, and stormed out about 2 a.m. He returned about a half-hour later with a .44-caliber, lever-action rifle and kicked in the front door.
As soon as the door was open, Martin shot Morris in the neck at close range. As other teenagers ran for cover, Martin chambered another round and pursued Corey to a basement bedroom. Corey tried to hold the bedroom door closed but Martin fired a round through it and quickly shot Corey in the neck.
Baulne, who had been hiding in a closet in the bedroom, rushed at Martin and wasn’t hit when Martin fired at him. Martin chambered another round, but was overpowered by Baulne and another young man.
While awaiting trial for those crimes, Martin allegedly helped kill a jail inmate on Oct. 2, 2004. He is charged with second-degree murder in the jailhouse strangling of inmate Christopher Lee Rentz, 21. Martin and co-defendant Michael Lee West Jr., 28, are to be tried together on July 25. West is charged with first-degree murder in Rentz’s death.