A man convicted of mercilessly killing a Connecticut mother and her 8-year-old son has been released from prison after receiving clemency from former President Joe Biden.
49-year-old Adrian Peeler conspired with his brother Russell Peeler Jr. to shoot and kill 8-year-old Leroy “B.J.” Brown and his mother Karen Clarke back in 1999.
He was sentenced to a combined 60 years in state and federal prison, but after completing his state sentence in January 2022, Peeler was granted clemency by the outgoing Biden administration for his 35-year federal sentence on separate drug charges.
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This would have had him wearing prison stripes until at least 2033, NBC Connecticut reported.
The release came as a big surprise to state lawmakers, including liberal Democrat and Biden supporter Senator Richard Blumenthal, who was the then Connecticut’s attorney general.
“It seems to me that someone dropped the ball here to let this person get released,” Blumenthal said in a statement, the CT Post reported.
“This was a really vicious murder that changed our laws. It also highlights how we need to take a look at the pardon system to see how it can be improved,” the senator added.
According to the Hartford Courant, Clarke and her son were slated to testify against Peeler’s drug-dealing brother, who was on trial for killing Clarke’s boyfriend Rudolf Snead, a fellow drug dealer.
The little boy was reportedly ready to testify that he was in the car in 1997 when Russell Peeler Jr. shot Snead in a drive-by shooting.
However, before any of that could take place, the Peeler brothers ambushed the mother and son at their Bridgeport apartment and shot the boy to death at the top of the stairs while leaving his mother in a pool of blood in the bedroom where she tried to call for help.
Both Peelers were charged by the state with capital felony and murder, but despite Adrian Peeler being the alleged shooter, a jury convicted him only of murder conspiracy, NBC Connecticut reported.
The family of Clarke and BJ was furious when they heard of the release of the man who took two lives from them just because of clemency from former U.S. president Joe Biden.
“We’ve been blindsided. Where is the justice for my family?” said Oswald Clarke, Karen’s brother, to the CT Examiner.
“It’s like we are hearing of BJ and Karen’s deaths all over again — but this time their killer is going free.”
Many years ago, Peeler sought to have his sentence reduced under 2018’s First Step Act, yet was excoriated by a judge in 2021 for lacking remorse.
“I take full responsibility for all my actions that led me to be here today,” Peeler told Judge Janet Bond Arterton during a 2021 hearing.
“I sold drugs to the community… It is something I think of every day,” he said. Judge Arterton called out the convicted conspirator for failing to address the killings.
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“Shockingly missing was an expression of remorse or apology to the families of Miss Clarke and B.J.,” the judge said. “He didn’t turn around to face them and simply say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
