'He's still my brother'

Sister has no anomosity towards her brother — the man who murdered their mother

It was supposed to be a new beginning for Brenda Francis and her children Amber and Brandon, but a disturbing act of violence left Amber with a brother in jail and a mother in the grave.

Amber Francis, 23, recalls the day she was told that her mother was bludgeoned to death with a hammer and that her brother Brandon Orr, 25, was arrested as a possible suspect.

"I was shocked. When they told me I was like 'No, it couldn't be Brandon,'" Francis said.

But it was, and it's something the siblings are going to have to live with the rest of their lives.

Last week, Orr pled guilty to mitigated deliberate homicide and now faces a life of constant supervision in a hospital facility that can treat him for mental health issues.

The plea agreement calls for Brandon to serve 50 years in a secure facility with the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Francis says it's a fair sentence, fearing that any amount of time in prison would only further damage her brother's already unstable condition.

"I know the prosecuting attorney was splitting hairs between serving a 40 year sentence and a 60 year sentence, and I told them that any amount of time in Deer Lodge would be too much," she said

Events outlined in court documents say that their mother Brenda was found lying in a pool of blood in an apartment that she shared with her son on Main Street in Polson. Brandon was arrested on July 29 after he implicated himself in the murder at the crime scene saying he was "tired of running from his problems and that he was responsible for what was inside the residence," court documents state.

He told investigators he hit his mother in the head with a hammer while she was sleeping and then cut her throat with a folding knife.

An evaluation from the Montana State Hospital and Dr. William Stratford, a specialist in forensic psychiatry, says the defendant suffered from a disease that rendered him "unable to appreciate the criminality of the defendant's behavior and to have conformed his behavior to the requirements of the law," according to court documents.

Francis doesn't know her father and neither does Brandon.

"He doesn't want to," she said.

But Brandon and his father are schizophrenics, said Francis. She knows her dad was institutionalized.

"There is a history of it in my family," she said. "We've all spent some time in a facility for something."

Growing up without a father and a mother who spent a majority of their childhood in rehab, Francis and Orr were ushered in and out of foster homes. Despite their constant relocating, they were never separated.

"We were always together, always," Francis said.

The siblings had minimal contact with their mother during this stage. Francis says she probably spent less than a third of her childhood with her mother, Brenda. She was six years old when her mother was first placed into rehab for alcoholism.

On one occasion, she was admitted into a rehab institution after she backed her car into a liquor store.

"She told them she thought it was a drive through," Francis said with a laugh.

Growing up together, Orr never displayed any signs of mental illness. It wouldn't be until later in life when his mental health would deteriorate. The catalyst was a drug habit he picked up in New Mexico, Francis explained.

But things began to turn around for this small family. After Brenda graduated from a rehab institution, she managed to stay sober for 10 years. The three reunited in Lake County where Orr graduated from Ronan High School in 2000 and found steady employment at Subway in Polson.

They had planned to "make up for lost time," said Francis. However, Orr slowly began to lose his grip on reality as severe paranoia began to take its toll.

"Brandon scared me," Amber said. "He would ask me things like 'Why are you hanging out with my enemies?' I was like 'Brandon, what are you talking about?' It was too much for me."

In Orr's mind, the world only turned to conspire against him, Francis said. Subway manager Betty Pierce said Orr put in a request to work in the afternoons, because working in the evenings scared him.

"He said bad people were watching him," Pierce said. "He honestly felt these people were out to kill him."

Brandon worked at Subway for two years and was a good worker, she said. She described him as "nice, polite and real quiet."

"He was a real nice boy, very different from what you see around here these days," she said.

By all accounts, Orr was a likable and intelligent young man with a good sense of humor. Though only an average student, his SAT test scores were "extraordinary," Francis said.

"When he finally started talking to you, you could tell he was very intelligent," said Francis' friend Kchena Bisson, who graduated from Ronan High School with Orr.

Brandon was accepted to Westwood in Colorado where he planned to study computer graphics to get a career in the video game industry.

Instead, his life took a drastic turn for the worse.

Pierce remembers how agitated Brandon was the day before the murder. She had a discussion with him and urged him to get help. She then let him have the day off.

"I told him 'You're in no condition to work this shift, so I sent him home," she said.

Subway was where Becky Gibbs met Brandon. The two dated briefly and remained friends after they broke up.

Gibbs recalls the day she heard about what had happened.

"I was furious," she said. "I was talking to Brandon not two weeks beforehand and he was talking about how he was going to kill himself."

These threats of suicide were more of a cry for help, said Francis, though help wasn't something Orr was about to accept. Always one to blame the world for his problems, he wasn't one to take advice, his sister said.

"He still doesn't want to hear anything you have to say," said Francis, who has visited him several times in Lake County Jail.

Specific events leading up to the murder of Brenda Francis are uncertain, though Amber Francis speculates that it may have had something to do with Brenda asking Brandon to move out. But even before then, Amber knew that her uncle Dennis, who also lives in the area, was concerned for his sister's safety.

"He was saying 'You know something is going happen. You should keep a lock on your door," Amber said. "But she never took any precautions."

"He knew that all his anger and hate and whatever these delusions were causing were directed at her because she was the closest to him," she added. "It was just common sense that he would go after somebody who was right there. It's not like this was unexpected, it's just that things have progressed so far."

The death of Brenda affected many in the community. Francis recalled the funeral service held at Grogan Funeral Home where there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Some friends could only take in the service by standing outside because there was no room to accomodate them.

Francis only got to spend five minutes with her mother the day before she was murdered.

"She was hard to get quality time with," she said, saying that her mother maintained a busy social schedule.

Though she picked up drinking again, Brenda managed to keep it under control, said Francis.

The death of Brenda was an outrage to her larger social circle.

"When everything first happened, everybody was pissed off. Everybody wanted to see harm done to Brandon, including me. I mean I was very upset about it," she said.

However, it was during the funeral service that Francis came to understand that her mother's death will help Orr finally get the treatment he needed but was reluctant to ask for.

By the time Orr is released from the custody of the DPHHS, he'll be 75 and it's his sister's hope that the pain, anger and delusions will finally have subsided so he can have some semblance of a life in his elder years.

"This is the only way Brandon could get some help is if she sacrificed herself," she said of her mother.

Francis stressed that she harbors no animosity toward Orr and that their bond as brother and sister still stands.

"I love him. He's still my brother. It doesn't change that," she said.

Sentencing for Orr is set for Jan. 24. He is currently in Lake County Jail. He declined to be interviewed for this article but gave his consent to have his picture taken.