Longview Man Gets Life Sentence for 2012 Capital Murder

LONGVIEW — 25-year-old Brendan Douglas was sentenced by Judge Alfonso Charles to life in prison without parole Friday after a Gregg County jury found him guilty of capital murder. KETK and the Longview News-Journal report the case involves the May 15, 2012, death of Douglas’s friend, 23-year-old DeAundray Rossum, at Signal Hill Apartments in Longview. Douglas was accused of plotting to kill and rob Rossum; brothers Torry and Deion Reed also are charged in Rossum’s death and are accused of firing the guns that — under Douglas’s orders — killed Rossum. The Reed brothers have not been to trial.

Douglas’s lead defense attorney, Kevin Settle, argued in his closing statement that the case was a drug deal gone wrong that resulted in Rossum’s death. Settle implored the jury to consider a lesser charge, such as felony murder — which would have carried a sentence of up to life in prison but with the possibility of parole. Assistant District Attorney Stacey Brownlee said in her closing statement the fact that Rossum was a drug dealer should have no bearing on the jury’s decision in a case related to him being murdered. Brownlee said Rossum lost his life at the hands of a plan behind which Douglas was the mastermind.