By Julie Howle
Staff writer
The Greenville News
Greenville, SC
November 20, 2009
Roger Eugene Shephard was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday after being found guilty of murder in the shooting death of an Easley pawnshop owner, a verdict that brought tears and embraces from family members of the victim and defendant who sat across the aisle from each other throughout the trial.
People surrounded Betty Bruin, the wife of victim John Bruin, to hug her. Shephard's aunt left the courtroom in tears. She and Shephard's uncle, as well as many family and friends of the Bruins, were at the trial all week.
“I can't say enough about the strength and courage of Betty Bruin for being able to face this,” Assistant Solicitor Judy Munson of the 13th Circuit Solicitor's Office said after the trial.
The jury deliberated for almost an hour before returning verdicts in the case on the fourth day of the trial in Pickens County court.
Shephard also was found guilty of armed robbery, assault with intent to kill and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in connection with the incident in which 65-year-old Bruin was killed in his Action Pawn shop in Easley on June 15, 2006.
Jurors and others in the courtroom watched video surveillance from the Action Pawn shop earlier in the day that showed the shooter, dressed in a white, short-sleeved shirt, hold his gun out and fire at Bruin, who then grabbed his chest and fell to the ground.
The shooting came after more than an hour of the two talking and Bruin showing the shooter different guns in their case at the store.
Silence filled the room as footage showed Betty Bruin drop behind a counter and move out of the camera's view and the shooter hop over a counter, fill a black bag and then fire his gun again before leaving.
Betty Bruin and Shephard both sat motionless in the courtroom, eyes locked on the screen, for much of the video.
Munson told the judge before sentencing that Betty Bruin and the family wanted the court to know that all Shephard had to do was ask for the guns and they would have given them to him.
Instead, she said, Shephard shot at Bruin's husband and then fired at her.
“He inflicted harm on this family consecutively, and I would ask you to sentence him consecutively,” she said.
Defense attorney John DeJong asked the court to consider a sentence that would allow Shephard to “still have a little life” after having “paid for the tragedy that he has caused.”
He described Shephard as a young man who hasn't been married, doesn't have children, doesn't have a prior record and who was “basically reared” by his aunt and uncle, having not seen his mother since he was about 3 or 4 years old.
Circuit Judge Edward Welmaker sentenced Shephard to 30 years in the Department of Corrections on the armed robbery charge; 10 years on the assault charge to be served concurrently with the armed robbery sentence; and life in prison without parole on the murder charge to be served consecutively.