BROWN

LISBON — Sentencing finally occurred Thursday for Terry Brown, the Wellsville area man who pleaded guilty to murdering Scottie Johnson and dismembering his body.

Brown, 48, Hillcrest Road, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison by Judge C. Ashley Pike for aggravated murder with a firearms specification, aggravated robbery, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. The sentencing came after Pike denied a motion by Brown’s defense attorneys, Charles Amato and Joseph Phillips, asking Pike to reconsider allowing Brown to withdraw his plea.

Brooke Gibson, the girlfriend of Johnson, spoke before Brown was sentenced, talking about the 2-year-old daughter she had with Johnson, a child who will grow up without ever knowing her father.

“My family has been torn apart,” Gibson said. “Since he went missing my life has not been the same. A man he trusted, who watched him play with his daughter from time to time again, to take his life, like you’re not a father yourself. It’s horrible.”

Through tears Gibson said for the past year she has woke up hating herself and the world, but has now decided she cannot go on hating Brown forever.

“I’ve got to move on, but you have to live for the rest of your life knowing his child will someday Google the horrible things that happened to her father,” she said. “Imagine how your kids would feel if they had to Google something like that because they never got a chance to know their father.”

She asked that Brown never be allowed to walk the streets again because he does not deserve it.

Before sentencing, Brown took the opportunity to address Gibson and two other family members of Johnson in the courtroom, apologizing for his actions.

“I know there’s no excuse for what has happened, but understand I was on a lot of drugs at the time,” Brown said. “Scottie was a very good kid. He treated me very well and I looked at Scottie as a friend. He didn’t deserve this. Your family didn’t deserve this.”

Brown said he understands the family and Johnson’s daughter will have to live with this for the rest of their lives, but assured them he also will live with it for the rest of his life.

Assistant County Prosecutor John Gamble went into some graphic details about what happened to Johnson in Brown’s home on March 8, 2017. He described how Brown and his girlfriend or friend, Alicia Rogenski, a co-defendant in the case, had together used a shotgun while Johnson was sleeping in an easy chair. Johnson was shot in the back of the head with a slug, the type of ammunition Gamble said are usually reserved for killing deer. Gamble described the scene, the physical evidence left behind when such a slug is used.

As if that were not bad enough, Gamble said, Brown dragged Johnson’s lifeless body down the basement stairs, leaving stains he later would attempt to hastily cover up with cheap paint. Gamble also described the basement, a place with human excrement all over the floor where officers had to put their feet into laundry baskets to walk around to take pictures and gather evidence.

“In that disgusting place, as if that was not bad enough what he had done to Scottie Johnson, he proceeded to dismember him,” Gamble said, describing that Brown cut Johnson’s arm off presumably to hide a tattoo. “Then he used garden shears and snipped off the ends of the young man’s fingers and tossed them over a bank like they were peanut shells at a ball game.”

Finally, Gamble said Brown wrapped Johnson’s body into a piece of vinyl flooring, placed it on a burn pile behind the house and attempted to light it on fire.

“This is a heinous offense, the worst form of the offense,” Gamble said, telling Pike if he saw the photos even he would be appalled. “How can a human being do this to another human being? There is no reasonable explanation for it.”

Besides sentencing Brown to 25 years to life in prison, Pike also took a turn expressing his feelings about the crime.

“Mr. Brown, I would like to think you’re sincere in what you said,” Pike said, “but the heinous nature of the crime is almost beyond belief. Only the most demented individual could be involved in such a horrible offense, using drugs or not … wrong, wrong, wrong.”

The sentencing of Brown had been a long time coming. Brown had pleaded guilty to the charges on Oct. 24. However, he then attempted to withdraw his plea twice, which delayed the sentencing.

Gamble and Assistant County Prosecutor Tammie Riley Jones had subpoenaed Brown’s former attorneys, Terry Grenga and Jennifer Gorby, to testify if the motion to reconsider his right to withdraw his plea had gone forward. Both Gorby and Grenga had hired their own attorneys to quash the request for them to testify.

When Pike overruled the motion to reconsider, he said that made the subpoenas and the motions to quash them moot.

Jones had argued that since Brown’s initial request to withdraw his plea was denied by Pike, the next step would be for him to be sentenced.

Appeals could then be filed in the Seventh District Court of Appeals if warranted.

djohnson@mojonews.com