BRENTWOOD — The jury is out on Jesse Brooks.
Brooks, 32, is charged with conspiring with his father, multimillionaire John "Jay" Brooks, to hire three men to kill Jack Reid, a self-employed mover from Derry, in 2005.¬ His trial lasted more than three weeks, concluding with closing statements Wednesday.
The jury went into deliberation late Wednesday afternoon, and met all day yesterday.¬ Jurors are scheduled to resume deliberations at 8 a.m. today.
Prosecutors allege the younger Brooks conspired to kill Reid by recruiting two childhood friends to help with the killing, and supplying payoffs to the men who participated with his father in the murder.
The elder Brooks became convinced Reid was involved in the theft of a moving truck filled with family belongings in September 2003, and plotted to have him murdered for more than a year and a half.
He hired Robin Knight of North Hampton, Joseph Vrooman of Whitville, Tenn., and Michael Benton, a childhood friend of Jesse Brooks, to help carry out the slaying.¬ Reid was lured to a barn in Deerfield for a phony job, where Vrooman pushed him into a small room and Benton struck him in the head with a sledgehammer.¬ John Brooks later entered to deliver the final blows. They wrapped Reid's body in plastic and left it in the back of his dump truck in a parking lot in Saugus, Mass.
John Brooks was convicted in the fall of capital murder and is now serving a life sentence.¬ Knight was found guilty of murder. He, too, is serving a life sentence.¬ Vrooman and Benton both reached plea deals and became witnesses for the state, testifying against John Brooks, Knight and, most recently, Jesse Brooks.
The men testified that Jesse Brooks was involved in meetings where they discussed the murder, and made payoffs to them afterward.
Jesse Brooks' attorneys argued that Vrooman lied about receiving payoffs from their client as a way to avoid a life sentence in prison.¬ They also argued that Benton's testimony was refutable because he was heavily abusing drugs during the time leading up to the murder.
Members of the Brooks and Reid families waited for a verdict outside the courtroom doors at Rockingham County Superior Court in Brentwood yesterday.¬
The jury went home for the day just before 4:30 p.m.¬ They had been in deliberations for about seven hours.
Brooks faces 15 to 30 years in prison if convicted.
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