John Brooks

Background

John Brooks was first arrested in February 1982, at age fifteen, for molesting an eight-year-old girl.

The offence

Within five years of his first arrest, homicide detectives named Brooks as "the largest one-man crime ring in recent New Orleans history."

Police said the solitary crime wave began with an armed robbery on June 14, 1986, when Brooks waited over a month before committing a second armed robbery on July 27.

In an attempted robbery on August 23, he rebounded the same afternoon by shooting Wilbert Johnson, age 50, who was left dead on the street.

More robberies followed on September 1 and 27 and on October 18 and 19.

In the predawn hours of November 1, 51-year-old James Williams was shot to death without apparent motive on a dark New Orleans street. Several witnesses saw the heavy-set assailant.

On November 27, taxi driver Artis Thompson was killed by a stranger who approached his cab, demanded money, and then shot Thompson several times before stealing a purse from Thompson’s passenger.

Another robbery on November 29 kept Brooks in spending money, but police said his thirst for blood had not been quenched.

Things heated up as the Christmas season approached, with another robbery on December 12.

Two days later, Zachary Turnell was parked on the street with a woman companion when Turnell was shot and killed by a stranger. Turnell’s pockets were rifled for cash. Turnell’s killer then kidnapped the woman and drove her to a downtown motel, where she was brutally raped.

On December 20, Terry Young was gunned down without motive while leaving a New Orleans tavern.

Brooks celebrated Christmas morning with another random shooting, killing Diane Gipson as she sat in her boyfriend’s car, on Lakeshore Drive. Gipson’s companion, Tyrone Wilkinson, was shot in the stomach but survived.

Three days later, 18-year-old Darren Mercadel was slain on the street while exchanging gifts with a female acquaintance.

Ballistics tests showed that the same gun was used to kill Young, Gipson, and Mercadel over a period of eight days.

Police said Brooks was finally identified after his fingerprints were matched with some recovered from Tyrone Wilkinson’s car.

Investigation and identification

Police said Brooks’s name was already familiar to homicide investigators because he had claimed to be a witness in an unsolved double murder: Thomas Morris and Cabrini Jareau, who were shot in a parked car on October 23, 1986.

Police charged Brooks in the murders of Johnson, Williams, Thompson, Young, Gipson and Mercadel. Police said he also remained a prime suspect in the slayings of Turnell, Morris and Jareau.

Arrest and charges

Brooks was arrested December 29, 1986, on two counts of murder. Within two weeks of that arrest, his rap sheet listed four more homicides, two counts of attempted murder, nine armed robberies, plus individual counts of kidnapping, rape, and attempted robbery.

Police said they remained convinced they had only glimpsed "the tip of the iceberg."

Trial and outcome

Brooks was convicted/condemned for six murders.

Sentencing

Brooks was sentenced to death in 1991.

His sentence was commuted to life in prison on December 5, 1997.

Other details

The case summary described Brooks’s motive as "CE-felony" and said the modus operandi involved victims being shot in street robberies.