On July 6, 2003, Joanie Harper, 39, her three children and her mother, Ernestine Harper, were killed in Bakersfield, California. Their bodies were found July 8 by a friend who became concerned after the family missed church services. The scene was described as bloody, with all five victims shot at close range; Joanie was reportedly stabbed multiple times after death, a detail prosecutors later characterized as evidence of a crime of passion.

Investigators focused on Joanie’s husband, Vincent Brothers, who had divorced and then remarried Joanie in January 2003 while she was pregnant. Brothers initially provided an alibi that he had been in Ohio visiting his brother and produced credit card receipts that at first appeared to support that claim. Forensic work on a rental car used by Brothers — including insect evidence and odometer readings — later contradicted his alibi and led to his arrest in April 2004. Brothers was tried and convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances and was sentenced to death on September 27, 2007.

Anyone who knew Joanie, her family, or who has information about the Bakersfield case is asked to come forward.