Sacramento jury says it’s deadlocked on DNA murder case; deliberations to continue
Update: The jury returned a guilty verdict in the case on Wednesday.
The jury deliberating the fate of the man accused of raping and stabbing to death a Sacramento woman nearly 42 years ago told the judge Tuesday that they have deadlocked on a verdict.
The jury was tasked with deciding whether Phillip Lee Wilson was responsible for the slaying of 20-year-old Robin Brooks after closing arguments were made last week.
On Tuesday, the public defender told Judge James E. McFetridge that nine of the 12 jurors were in favor of a not-guilty verdict. McFetridge instructed the jury to return Wednesday to continue deliberations. (Additional reporting on Wednesday showed that vote count given in court was incorrect — the count was six for “not guilty,” five for “guilty” and one undecided.)
Prosecutors on Thursday urged the jury to convict Wilson, her former neighbor, of murder, calling him a “predator” who had raped another woman three weeks earlier and got away with the crimes for decades.
“Phillip Wilson was and is a charismatic man,” Deputy District Attorney Timothy Carr told the jury in closing arguments in Sacramento Superior Court. “He is eloquent. He is a raconteur. He has friends.
“But he is also, as the evidence in this case shows, a man with a proclivity to commit monstrous acts. He is broken and has always been broken. He killed her in the most painful, grotesque way imaginable. He killed her likely both to fulfill a sick fantasy but also to get away with it, to eliminate the one witness who could have stood there and told what he did that night.”
Wilson’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Thomas Clinkenbeard, followed Carr’s argument with a simple one of his own: Wilson didn’t kill Brooks — another man who was dating Brooks’ sister did.
“Norbert Holston killed Robin Brooks,” Clinkenbeard told the jury, adding that a week before the slaying Maria Brooks and Holston had an argument and Holston threatened to kill both women and Maria Brooks’ dog.
Holston, who died before the case came to trial, was described at the time by Maria Brooks as a “wacko” who had confessed to breaking into Robin Brooks’ apartment at one point and admitted to wiping away his fingerprints, Clinkenbeard said.
Jury instructed to continue deliberations
Before the jury was called back into the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, the judge told the attorneys and the defendant that he wanted to give the jury further instructions and order them to continue deliberating.
McFetridge said it was appropriate to ask the jury to continue deliberations after two and a half days “given the magnitude of the evidence in this case.”
McFetridge said it was “unfortunate” the jury foreman gave the court a breakdown of the latest vote in a note advising the court the jury was deadlocked, even though the judge specifically instructed the jury not to do that.
Clinkenbeard asked the judge to declare a mistrial, saying to order them to continue deliberations could be “coercive,” but was the request was denied.
The jury foreman told the judge he didn’t know if, after two ballots, more deliberations would help them reach a verdict: “I think we’re getting close, we’re still discussing.”
The judge instructed the jury to reach a fair and impartial verdict based on the evidence and the facts and to avoid news reports until the morning: “I’m going to send you home early tonight. Relax and come back tomorrow.”
Wilson has been in custody since his April 2020 arrest; his 73rd birthday is Wednesday. The jury will return to deliberations at 9 a.m. Wednesday
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 4:48 PM.
