Robert Eugene Brashers

In the fall of 1985, Brashers was arrested in Port St. Lucie on charges of assaulting a 24-year-old woman named Michelle Wilkerson.[3] According to investigators, on November 22, Brashers met her in Fort Pierce and convinced her to accompany him to a bar. After spending their evening there, he took Wilkerson to a dark alleyway near a citrus grove, where, after drinking six Budweisers together, he attempted to make sexual advances on her.[4]

Wilkerson refused and attempted to leave his vehicle, after which a fight ensued between the pair, during which Brashers shot her twice in the neck and head.[3] Despite the severity of her injuries, Wilkerson remained conscious, managed to leave the car and hid in a culvert under the road. Having lost track of her, Brashers went to the beach and threw his gun into the sea.[4] He then attempted to leave, but his truck got stuck in the sand, causing him to start walking the streets in search of help. In the meantime, Wilkerson made her way to a nearby apartment building, where she received medical attention. Before she was driven to the Lawnwood Hospital, she described her assailant and his car in detail to police officers.[3]

A few minutes later, Brashers was apprehended while wandering the beach and charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and using a firearm during the commission of a crime. He was convicted in the following year and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, but was granted parole on May 4, 1989.[5]

After his release, Brashers moved between the states of South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, often changing his place of residence. On February 18, 1992, he was arrested in Cobb County, Georgia for grand theft auto, unlawful possession of a weapon and theft.[6] While searching his vehicle and apartment, policemen found a radio scanner, a police jacket, lock-picking tools and a fake Tennessee driver's license. Fearing another prison sentence, he made a plea deal with the prosecutors and pleaded guilty to the most serious of the charges, allowing for the rest to be dropped. As a result, he was sentenced to an additional five years imprisonment, which he served in full and was released in February 1997.[6] For the following two years, he moved between Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri.

On April 12, 1998, Brashers was arrested while attempting to break into the home of an unmarried woman in Paragould, Arkansas. Having been employed by her on a previous occasion, he had cut the wires leading to her home and was armed at the time of his arrest. In addition, a video camera and locksmithing tools were seized from him as well.[6] Brashers was taken into custody, but was later released after reaching a settlement with the victim, who stated that he had made amends with her.[6]

In February 2019, Brashers' 27-year-old daughter Deborah was interviewed by reporters to recount some details of her father's biography.[9] She said that she first saw her father in early 1997, after he had just been released from prison. According to her, for the next two years he lived with her, her mother and her half-sisters. During this time, she claimed that he was sometimes aggressive towards them; once fought her stepfather and caused him a head injury with a drill; and perhaps most disturbingly, he had made a tape recording of himself making small cuts on his neck and arm with a saw to see if he could withstand the pain.[9] Deborah was inclined to believe that her mother Dorothy, who died in December 2018 at the age of 53, knew about her father's past activities, telling them to call him by a different name and to keep him inside the house.[9]

In addition, she claimed that his mental health sharply deteriorated circa April 1998, and that his job at a construction firm led him to be absent from the house for weeks at a time.[10] During these periods, it is possible that he may have committed additional rapes and murders, but as of January 2023, no other crimes have been linked to him.