Description
Francis "Patrick" Fleming
Location: Seattle, WA
Killers: Gilda Ramirez, Charles Jungbluth
Mastermind: Brenda Nicholas
Murder date: December 8, 2011
Arrest date: June 27 - July 2, 2012
Brenda Nicholas Trial Dates: November 2012
Charles Jungbluth Sentencing: May 2013
Brenda Nicholas Sentencing: August 2013
Brenda Nicholas was the “mastermind” who plotted to kill a 70-year-old Navy veteran and two-time Purple Heart recipient for months because she wanted to get her hands on his valuable coin and uncut bill collection, a crime she and two accomplices carried out with extreme brutality, King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Carla Carlstrom said Friday.
“The motive behind this murder was solely greed,” Carlstrom told Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle during Nicholas’ sentencing hearing for the December 2011 stabbing death of Francis “Patrick” Fleming inside his unit at the Four Freedoms senior apartments in Seattle’s Bitter Lake neighborhood.
In addition to orchestrating Fleming’s slaying, Nicholas attempted to kill and rob another elderly man on the same day Fleming was killed, Carlstrom said. She was also charged with more than 50 criminal counts for a variety of thefts, with most of the counts related to bilking a woman in her 80s out of $1 million. Nicholas also stole from at least three landlords she rented properties from, said Carlstrom.
Before she stood trial for Fleming’s murder, Nicholas pleaded guilty to first-degree identity theft and two counts of first-degree theft in a plea deal to resolve the other criminal counts against her. In March, a jury convicted her of first-degree murder. She was sentenced Friday for all of her crimes.
Several of Nicholas’ victims were in court on Friday. Two of them addressed the judge and spoke of the financial devastation and psychological havoc that was unleashed in their lives through their association with Nicholas.
Defense attorney Jonathan Newcomb blamed Nicholas’ Romani upbringing, saying she was “a product of her environment” who was “frankly, raised to steal, taught to steal.”
Nicholas, a mother of two teenage sons, can’t read and has been disowned by her extended family since the jury handed down its guilty verdict in March, Newcomb said.
He said Nicholas was the victim of domestic violence and had sent most of the money she stole to family members to pay her mother-in-law’s medical bills.
During trial, Nicholas tried to pin Fleming’s murder on her boyfriend, but “now she claims her upbringing, her Romani background, her hard life” is to blame for her slew of crimes, Carlstrom said.
Nicholas quietly cried through most of the hearing, and told the judge: “The boys are waiting for me, your honor” — a reference to her sons.
Doyle, however, seemed unimpressed by Nicholas’ tears. Noting that Nicholas is now 42, Doyle said it was appropriate that she wouldn’t be released until her 70s — “basically a life sentence,” she said.
“I think Ms. Nicholas is a danger to society,” the judge said, handing down the stiffest punishment she could — a little over 34 years in prison.
She said “the heartlessness, the cold bloodedness, and the inhumanity” of Fleming’s murder was both striking and disturbing.
