Brandon Estle-Justin Hasty.jpg

Brandon Estle (inset) received a life prison sentence Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013, for the October 2012 murder of Justin Hasty, shown here in his Marine Corps dress uniform. (Brendan Kirby/bkirby@al.com)



MOBILE, Alabama – Convicted murderer Brandon Estle addressed a divided courtroom Tuesday, taking responsibility for his actions and telling Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Charles Graddick that he is responsible.

The judge agreed, sentencing Estle to life in prison for the October murder of the defendant’s onetime friend, Justin Hasty.

“The brutality of your actions are really unbelievable,” said Graddick, who called his sentencing decision one of the most difficult of his career.

Graddick picked up on the defendant’s allusion to the role drug abuse played in the Oct. 28 slaying.

“You were playing with Satan’s poison,” he said. “You chose a very dark path, Mr. Estle.”

Under Alabama law, Estle will have to serve at least 15 years before he can be considered for parole.

According to testimony at the trial in June, Estle and Hasty had attended school together and remained friends after graduation.

After Hasty disappeared in October, law enforcement investigators determined that Estle had gone to the victim’s home in Mobile and beaten him to death with a baseball bat. Then he stuffed Hasty’s lifeless body into a box and fired seven gunshots into it.

Estle left the body on his parents’ property in Grand Bay.

Defendant ‘ashamed’

Estle, 26, admitted his conduct during the trial but insisted he acted in self-defense and then panicked. On Tuesday, he turned directly to the packed courtroom – his family and supporters on one side, the victim’s family on the other – and asked for prayers for himself and the Hasty family.

“Every single one of you deserves my deepest apology,” he said. “I’m very ashamed and very sorry for what happened.”

Estle said he hopes the Hasty family one day could forgive him. He said he thinks about Hasty every day.

“I understand that forgiveness is no way near your heart,” he said. “It does haunt me. And it will continue to, probably forever.”

Moments earlier, Hasty’s relatives made it clear they were in no mood for forgiveness.

“You and your family’s apologies mean nothing to me, and I will never accept them,” said the victim’s sister, Alyson Hasty.

She told the judge that she gave birth on Oct. 19, a week before her brother went missing. She lamented all of the milestones that the baby’s uncle will miss.

“My family is broken and will never be fixed,” she said.

The victim’s mother, Sandra Hasty, fought back tears as she described her pride in her son’s service in the U.S. Marine Corps. She wore a T-shirt with, “LET’S GET IT!” emblazoned in black letters.

“Brandon Estle murdered my son, my 25-year-old son, my only son,” she said.

Hasty expressed her disgust with the defense tactics of attorney Jeff Deen, which she suggested amounted to character assassination of her son. She urged Graddick to impose the harshest punishment at his disposal.

“Please do not let him take anything else from us. We have given all we can,” she said.

Two fine families

The courtroom was a visible reflection of what are, by all accounts, two fine families. The victim’s father, Dwight Hasty, owns a construction contracting firm. The defendant’s father, Doug Estle, is a longtime principal in Mobile County. They and their families sat on opposite sides of the aisle running down the center of the eighth-floor courtroom.

Graddick said he had received hundreds of letters from supporters of both defendant and victim.

Defense witnesses pleaded for mercy, telling the judge that the Estles raised their son to be respectful, well-mannered and kind.

“This is the Brandon Estle that I know,” said Clem Richardson, the principal of Baker High School and a longtime family friend. “And it is the Brandon Estle that I have seen throughout this entire ordeal.”

Richardson said Estle has been a model prisoner during his incarceration at Mobile County Metro Jail, tutoring GED candidates.

Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich, who personally prosecuted the case, urged a life sentence. She noted that one of the letters Graddick received came from Benjamin Miree, the father of a midtown resident who died in one of the city’s most sensational murders of the past decade.

Christopher Kyser Miree, a young engineer at a Chevron Corp. refiner in Pasacgoula, died at the hands of a group of robbers who had followed his roommate home in 2010. She said the elder Miree sat with Hasty's parents during the trial because they had "joined a club that everyone in this room hopes we will never have to see new members join."

Quoting from Miree’s letter, Rich said Estle’s actions were “outside the bounds of what a civilized society demands.”

In his sentencing, Graddick included an order for the defendant to pay $22,000 to compensate the Hasty family for funeral costs, lost time at work, property damage and other expenses. The judge gave Deen 30 days to decide if he will challenge the amount.

Deen told the judge that his client will appeal the verdict.