David Callihan has been charged with capital murder of 4-year-old Erin Brunett and the kidnapping of her 6-year-old sister, Jalie. He is also accused of killing the mother of Jalie and Erin Brunett, 35-year-old Callie Brunett, in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.
- The accused killer claims to have been sober at the time of his crimes and blamed his use of the anti-depressant, Lexapro, as the cause for why he committed them.
After being apprehended last week, accused killer David Callihan blamed an anti-depressant for his actions and told reporters at the Jackson Police Headquarters “for what I did, lethal injection is the easiest thing for me.”
Callihan has been charged with the capital murder of 4-year-old Erin Brunett and the kidnapping of her 6-year-old sister, Jalie. He is also accused of killing the mother of Jalie and Erin Brunett, 35-year-old Callie Brunett, in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.
Callihan’s expressed desire for lethal injection during what amounts to a taped confession may remind some older central Mississippi residents of the kidnapping and murder of Peggy Lowe in 1981. Lowe’s killer, Marion Albert Pruett, attempted to cast doubt as to his sanity to the media, referring to himself as the “mad dog killer.”
Pruett, who had murdered people in New Mexico, Colorado and Arkansas, was sentenced to death for the murder of Lowe. However, he was ultimately executed in Arkansas for the 1981 murder of Bobbie Jean Robertson, a Fort Smith, Arkansas convenience store clerk, in April of 1999.
The body of Erin Brunett was found in the woods off of Boozier Drive in South Jackson last Thursday. Her sister, Jalie, was found alive, but with injuries and taken to the hospital.
Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade told reporters Callihan was apprehended by the U.S. Marshal Service. Callihan had an alleged accomplice, 32-year-old Victoria Cox. She was arrested by JPD at the Oyo Hotel in Jackson and is also being charged with capital murder.
Neighbors of Callihan in Loranger, Louisiana, said the events that unfolded were tragic, but not surprising. They told reporters at WDSU in New Orleans that he had been terrorizing the area for months. Videos obtained of Callihan depict him naked, while holding a crossbow, and attempting to breaking into a neighbor’s property in Loranger.
Callihan also has an extensive criminal history, dating back for nearly 20 years. He has been arrested for simple assault several times, as well as for multiples burglaries. Callahan has never served significant prison time but did have his probation revoked on several occasions for violations.
The accused killer claims to have been sober at the time of his crimes and blamed his use of the anti-depressant, Lexapro, as the cause for why he committed them.
Reporters on scene at the time Callihan’s transport to the Rankin County Detention Center, where he is being held, questioned whether Callihan was attempted to lay the foundation for a claim of incompetency to stand trial or what’s called an M’Naughten insanity defense.
The M’Naughten rule states that an individual suffers from a “defect of reason,” which is caused by a “disease of the mind,” and, as a result, does not know the “nature and quality” of the act or that it was wrong.
It is doubtful that Callihan knows the M’Naughten rule, but one could assume that he has watched enough TV to see what it takes to set up a defense of insanity.
After the investigation is completed, and once Callihan is indicted, the next step in the
case is for Louisiana and Mississippi to decide the course of the prosecution.
States have what is called “concurrent jurisdiction,” which means they would still have jurisdiction over a crime that started in their State, but was actually completed in another State.
Callihan is alleged to have killed Callie Brunett and kidnapped Jalie and Erin Brunett in Louisiana. Police say he then transported the children to Mississippi and killed Erin in Jackson. In this situation, Louisiana would still have the ability to prosecute Callihan for the murder of Erin, even though it occurred in Mississippi.
It is likely that Louisiana will want to try him first, since they have two possible capital murder cases and two kidnapping charges. By contrast Hinds County prosecutors would not have jurisdiction to bring murder charges for the Louisiana killing of Callie Brunett.
I encountered a similar issue as a prosecutor
when I handled the death penalty case of James Cobb Hutto. Hutto murdered 81-
year-old Ethel Simpson in Clinton, Mississippi, in September of 2010. After murdering Simpson, he fled to Alabama in Ms. Simpson’s Mercedes. Once there, he murdered his elderly Aunt, Virginia Rardon, in Jefferson County, Alabama, and then drove down to Lee County, Alabama, where he attempted to kill another man, Mark Simpson.
We negotiated with prosecutors in Jefferson and Lee counties and were allowed to have our crack at Hutto first, since ours was the more heinous of his crimes. He eventually received the death penalty in May of 2013 by a jury in Hinds County Circuit Court.
While Mississippi and Louisiana could both eventually take Callihan to trial for capital
murder for the death of Erin Brunett, based on a principle called “Dual Sovereignty,” which
means that two states can prosecute a defendant for the same conduct without violating the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause, it is more than likely that Louisiana will end up handling the case for the reasons of practicality.
Shaun Yurtkuran
