By Christine Byers
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
HILLSBORO, Mo.— A Jefferson County jury convicted former police officer Robert Brooks on Thursday of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Amanda Cates, who also was a police officer.
After further deliberations, the jury then recommended a sentence of life in prison for the murder and 75 years in prison for a second charge of armed criminal action. A judge will decide later whether to accept that recommendation.
Cates, who was a Normandy police officer, was found in a pool of blood in the early morning of Aug. 29, 2006. She was shot in the right cheek, and the bullet severed a main artery.
Cates, 26, was found on the bathroom floor in the home she shared with Brooks and his 14-year-old daughter, Chelsea, in Crystal City.
Brooks, 38, a former Calverton Park police officer, showed little emotion when the guilty verdict was returned late Thursday afternoon after the jury had deliberated for three hours.
Several members of his family ran out of the courtroom crying, while Cates’ family wept quietly and embraced.
Brooks’ family declined to comment, and Cates’ family appointed her former police chief to speak for them.
“It’s difficult for the family to find any peace, because the peace they had was in the daughter they lost,” said Normandy Police Chief Douglas Lebert. “The only thing they have now is justice, and justice was served.”
The trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court lasted four days.
In his own tearful testimony, Brooks told the jury that Cates was the one who pointed a gun at him and that as he attempted to disarm her, the gun fired accidentally.
On the night of the shooting, he told a 911 dispatcher that he accidentally shot Cates because he thought she was an intruder.
When his lawyer, Brad Kessler, asked Brooks why he had lied, Brooks responded, “I was too embarrassed and ashamed.”
Jefferson County assistant prosecutor Steve Jerrell said Cates had her hands raised and her face turned to the right in a defensive position at the time she was shot. Several witnesses said Brooks admitted on the night of the killing to firing the weapon.
But in his testimony Wednesday, he said he did not know whose finger was on the trigger.
Inconsistencies in Brooks’ testimony, along with a written statement given by his daughter, led the jury to its decision, said Eric Bibbes, the jury foreman.
“There was a preponderance of evidence, and there was no way he could explain away all of the evidence against him,” Bibbes said. “It was an uphill battle for him. He hung himself on his own words.”
What kept the jury from convicting Brooks of first-degree murder was jurors’ inability to decide his mind-set at the time of the killing, Bibbes said. “We couldn’t say he thought before he did it,” Bibbes said.
Before the jury gave its recommendation on a sentence, four of Brooks’ family members spoke on his behalf. Each called him a good person.
Carolyn Cates spoke to the jury on behalf of her daughter, Amanda. Brooks cried during her testimony.
“My sorrow for Mr. Brooks is that he chose not to value my daughter’s life,” Carolyn Cates said. “But he knows the truth, and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life, and even for him that can’t be easy.”
Brooks will be sentenced on Oct. 12.
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Dispatch