On Easter Sunday morning, April 4, 1999, Shelly Parks was killed in a violent encounter inside her brother Andrew Parks’ apartment in Phoenix. Andrew and his friend Edward Mendoza Payan Jr., 34, were also fatally shot that night. The man charged in all three killings was Brian Jeffrey Dann, who had been Shelly’s boyfriend for two years.

The evening before the murders Dann borrowed a .38 caliber revolver from a former girlfriend, Tina Pace-Morrell, saying he needed it for protection after an earlier altercation with Andrew. Later he showed the gun to a friend and said he intended to straighten out the problem. Sometime after 2:00 a.m. Dann forced his way into the apartment. He later told Pace-Morrell he shot Andrew and Shelly because they laughed at him and then shot Edward Payan to eliminate a witness. Ballistics matched the revolver to the bullets recovered at the scene.

Dann was arrested April 7, 1999, charged with the killings, and was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to death on January 24, 2002. Did anyone who knew Shelly, Andrew, Eddie, or Brian notice signs of escalating conflict in the days before April 4, 1999?