Originally posted Sat, 2009-03-07 01:46
Courtesy photos. Stephen G. Brady, 58, was found shot to death Sept. 22, 2008, a victim of suicide, but whether he suffocated his 56-year-old wife, Pamela Brady, with a plastic bag in their New Smyrna Beach home or whether she did it herself, remains a mystery. The deaths came after he abruptly resigned from his job as a lawyer with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement after a confrontation with the husband of a co-worker he was having an affair with turned violent. New Smyrna Beach police concluded their investigation in March.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The police investigation into the killings of a former Florida Department of Law Enforcement attorney and his school teacher-wife found dead Sept. 22, 2008, is now "complete" with evidence showing the husband died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and the wife as the result of suffocation with a plastic bag.
How Steven G. Brady, 58, died was determined early on by the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office. His hsndgun was found in his hand. But what remains unclear is whether the 56-year-old wife, Pamela Brady was murdered by the husband or if she killed herself in the married couple's home at 312 Cedar Ave.
The Medical Examiner determined she died as a result of suffocation, likely with a plastic bag. But the plastic bag was not on her face or near her body. Instead it was in a trash can elsewhere iin the family's home, according to a police report.xx
Among the police report findings after the killings:
# There were two plastic bags in the trash, one with a tear in it that tested positive for Pamela Brady's DNA, presumably from saliva.
# Lab technicians did not find fingerprints on either bag.
# Police discovered someone did a Google search for "suicide suffocation plastic bag" three days before the couple's bodies were found, but investigators could not determine who did that search.
# A further examination of the home computer revealed all information about Internet searches on the account used by the husband "had been wiped clean."
# A suicide note was left on the dining room table, but was not signed.
Even with Friday's developments, New Smyrna Beach police were no closer to announcing her her death as a homicide or suicide and may never be able to make the distinction.
"The New Smyrna Beach Police Department's investigation relating to the deaths of Steven G. Brady and Pamela P. Brady is complete," New Smyrna Beach police Sgt. Michael Brouillette said Friday. But questions persist.
This is what police said they do know: "The investigation and the autopsy findings provided by the Medical Examiner has revealed that Steven G. Brady's cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head; the manner of death is suicide," said Brouilette, the police department's spokesman. "Pamela Palmer Brady's cause of death was probable plastic bag suffocation; the manner of her death is undetermined."
The Brady's were found dead in their home at 9:35 a.m., after a "well-being" check, New Smyrna Beach police reported. Police at the time did not rule out the possibility of a murder-suicide, though they did say there is no reason to believe the public safety is at stake, meaning they didn't have evidence showing any outsiders were involved in the killings. Brady abruptly resigned after 23 years on the job after an FDLE investigation into an affair he was allegedly having with a co-worker, Vickie Canter, in the Orlando office.
According to the police report, three days before the bodies were found, while Pamela Brady was at school, the FDLE colleagues, met for drinks and Brady gave her $6,800. Cantner told police it was so she could leave her husband and get her own place."Ms. Canter stated they were in love and planned to be together in a couple of years, after Mr. Brady paid off his residence," an investigator wrote in the police report.
But just two hours after Brady and the other woman met for drinks, he and his wife went to the office of a New Smyrna Beach lawyer and signed new identical wills. The couple's home was to be given to an FDLE manager, who as a friend, and money and other personal items to other friends and relatives.
Things had gotten really ugly a month earlier. On Aug. 14, Douglas Canter and his son returned home from a trip and walked in on his wife and Brady in his Port Orange home.
The two were sitting on a couch and she was was only wearing a towel. The two husbands argued before Brady put Cantner into a chokehold until he lost consciousness, Cantner wrote in a police complaint and in an application the next day for a restraining order against the FDLE lawyer.
Canter also accused Brady of trying to strike "me with his vehicle and knocking me to the ground." The report also stated Canter reported Brady screamed nearly a half dozen times that he was going to kill him -- witnessed by Canter's son.
Canter wrote in his request for an order for protection injunction: "(Brady) is a law enforcement officer and carries multiple firearms and is fully capable of carrying out (the) threat." Brady was suspended with pay the next day by FDLE after Cantner's complaint was filed in circuit court in Daytona Beach. That's also when the agency launched its investigation before Brady resigned.
FDLE has not said whether Vicki Canter was being investigated. She could not be reached for comment.
Whether Pamela Brady knew her husband was going to leave her or if she had agreed to a suicide pact with her husband are questions that have gone unanswered and may never be known.
Pamela Brady's brother-in-law, Hal Roberts, told cops that relatives believed her husband had killed her, according to the police reoort. He could not be reached for comment late Friday.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Friends who saw the Bradys two nights before their bodies were found said the couple seemed relaxed and normal. Pamela Brady was grading papers from her students at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Lake Mary, Shelly Pestine, a longtime family friend, told the Orlando metro.
Just hours after the discovery of the bodies and before media reports of the lurid extra-maritl affair, FDLE released a stament, which read in part: "Steve was a respected professional who served FDLE with dedication and a willingness to be of assistance whenever needed. Steve was both well-known and widely-regarded, and was a friend to many within the law enforcement profession. He touched all he knew with his sense of humor. His FDLE family will miss him deeply.”
Brady spent 23 years at FDLE’s Orlando Regional Operations Center serving as the legal advisor on investigative matters and providing legal training. In addition to his years of criminal justice service, Brady was a Vietnam War veteran, "serving his country with valor," the FDLE statement noted.