Confession stands in slaying

SANDPOINT — The Idaho Court of Appeals is upholding a lower court ruling which held that Keith Allan Brown’s confession to killing a Priest Lake man in 2007 was not coerced by investigators.

Keith Allen Brown and his former wife, Tyrah, were connected to the shooting death of Leslie Carlton Breaw, who was reported missing and later found dead in Coolin. The former couple fled Idaho and were apprehended in Fort Myers Beach., Fla.

Brown denied involvement when he was initially braced by investigators in Florida and Tyrah Brown confessed to shooting Breaw and hiding his body in the woods because he had raped her on a prior occasion. In a second interview the following day, investigators advised Keith Brown that his wife confessed to Breaw’s slaying.

Investigators also sympathized with Keith Brown if he killed Breaw because he was justifiably defending his wife from a rapist. Keith Brown subsequently confessed to killing Breaw, according to court documents.

Keith Brown was charged with first-degree murder, although the charge was amended to voluntary manslaughter after civil mediation was utilized to bring resolution to the criminal case. He entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Brown appealed his conviction, but the appeals court affirmed it 2013. However, it remanded the case back to 1st District Court for a new hearing to determine the voluntariness of his statements to the interrogating officer. District Judge Fred Gibler heard testimony from officer who questioned Brown, a psychologist who conducted a competency evaluation on Brown and Brown himself.

Gibler ultimately concluded that Brown’s confession was voluntary, noting that Brown was given Miranda warnings and that he wasn’t being deprived of sleep or food. Gibler further held that the officer was not threatening and that Brown’s intelligence and psychological characteristics weighed in favor of voluntariness.

Brown appealed Gibler’s ruling, arguing that the interrogating officer elicited an involuntary confession from him by manipulating Brown’s relationship with his wife and capitalized on Brown’s desire to protect her.

But appellate Judge Sergio Gutierrez ruled that Tyrah Brown’s confession was enough to warrant prosecution and at no time did the officer suggest that Brown could prevent his wife’s prosecution by confessing.

“Absent any other evidence of police coercion, Brown’s self-incriminating statements were not involuntary merely because they were motivated by his desire to protect his wife from prosecution,” Gutierrez wrote in a six-age opinion released on Wednesday.

Tyrah Brown pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was given a suspended prison term after serving five months in the Bonner County Jail. She subsequently divorced from Brown.

Chief Judge John Melanson and Judge David Gratton concurred.

Brown, 55, becomes eligible for parole on the manslaughter charge in 2022, according to the Idaho Department of Correction website.