Married to a Stranger
Behind the vows and the smile, he was hiding a deadly secret.
Teri and Charlie Brandt
If you married your childhood sweetheart, then perhaps you already know everything about them, and their past. If you met your other half as an adult, then how can you ever really know all about them? What if they are hiding something terrible from their past?
In 2004, Charlie Brandt and his wife Teri were living in Big Pine Key in Florida. Having married in 1986, the couple had been together for 18 years, and to the outside world, it was a perfect marriage. They even made each other’s lunch every day, because they said: “it tasted better that way”.
In 2004, a hurricane was set to travel through their town, and so the couple boarded up their home and drove a few hours north to stay with their niece Michelle near Orlando. Shortly after arriving Michelle telephoned a friend who was supposed to be coming over and told her not to bother, telling her Charlie and Teri had been arguing.
Not much more is known about their trip, but when Mary Lou, Michelle’s mother, didn’t hear from her daughter for three days, she called Michelle’s friend, Debbie, and asked her to visit the house.
After looking around, and being unable to get into the house, Debbie saw through the garage window, that something was wrong, and called the police.
In the garage, Charlie’s body hung from the roof with a bedsheet.
When police arrived, what they found was to shock even the most hardened officers.
Teri was slumped over the couch with seven stab wounds to her chest, and as they made their way back further into the house, they found Michelle’s bedroom. Expecting to find something similar had happened to Michelle, they were shocked once again when they found something much, much worse.
The sight was so horrific that some officers had to run out of the house to vomit.
Michelle’s body was placed on her bed, and it was later determined the cause of death had been one fatal stab wound to the chest.
Sadly, Michelle’s suffering didn’t end there, as her body was badly desecrated following her death. She had been decapitated, and her head had been placed next to her body. Her breasts had been severed, and her body had been cut open, with her organs, including her heart, placed around her body. Her intestines had been put into the bin. Her underwear and bras were littered all over the room.
There was no clear motive for someone to hurt Teri or Michelle, or even Charlie, but the police quickly formed the view that it was a murder-suicide situation they were dealing with.
The family, however, didn’t think that this made any sense. Teri and Charlie had a perfect marriage, remember? And Teri and Michelle were close.
Charlie was viewed as just a normal guy, who had a perfect marriage of nearly 20 years. He had a good job, he’d spent time with Michelle before — it just didn’t make sense to them.
Due to the scene, and Charlie’s manner of death, it was clear to the police Charlie had killed Michelle and Teri, before taking his own life. The reason, however, was a mystery to everyone.
The police began to look into Charlie a little more but came up with nothing. He had a squeaky clean record, and there wasn’t anything on file to suggest he was dangerous, or violent, or that he’d ever spoken with police about anything. No arrests. No fingerprints. Nothing to make officers look at him twice.
But this wasn’t the whole story in relation to Charlie.
Michelle Jones (L) and Teri Brandt (R)
It seems no one really knew Charlie at all
Once his family was told about his death, Charlie’s older sister, Angela, came to speak with the police, and before they can even start their questioning, she stopped them in their tracks and told them she had something she needed to tell them.
The thing is, all families have secrets, or stories that they keep to themselves, but the Brandt family has been carrying a terrifying secret for DECADES.
Angela explained that she wasn’t as shocked as everyone else that Charlie has done this, because it wasn’t the first time he’d murdered somebody.
At first, the police thought she was making it up, they double-checked Charlie’s record, and it was clean. But Angela insisted, and carried on to tell them about what Charlie did when he was just thirteen years old.
She tells police that in 1971 when Angela was fifteen, and Charlie was thirteen they were living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with their siblings, and their dad, and their mother, who was around eight months pregnant.
The Brandts were your average family, and Charlie was seen as a typical teenage boy. He was doing well in school and kept himself to himself.
On January 3, 1971, the Brandt family had all sat together to watch tv, before going their separate ways to get ready for bed. Angela had gone to her room to read, the younger girls were already in bed, and their mother went to the bathroom to take a bath before bed. Their father was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, with his wife in the same room.
While his father was standing looking in the mirror, he saw Charlie appear behind him, coming into the bathroom. Angela, who was in her bedroom, heard her father say, “Charlie, stop!”
Charlie held up a gun and fired once into his dad’s back, then went to the bathtub and fired five shots into his pregnant mother.
Angela, hearing the shots from her room, started to make her way out, but before she could make it to her door she was confronted by Charlie. He raised his hand, gun pointing at her, and pulled the trigger. There was a click, but the gun didn’t go off.
In shock, after thinking she was about to be shot, the next thing Angela remembers is her and Charlie wrestling to the ground. In the struggle, she managed to kick the gun away, but she took a few blows from Charlie.
All the time they were fighting, Angela was screaming at Charlie, asking him what he was doing, and telling him that she loved him. All of a sudden, she said that Charlie just stopped. The crazed look in his eyes disappeared, and he asked her, “What did I do?”
Angela tells him that she thinks he shot their parents, and she tells him to go get some blankets so she can get the younger girls, and she heads downstairs, telling him to stay upstairs. As she reaches the bottom of the stairs she opens the front door and belts it out of there.
She ran to one of the neighbor’s houses, and pounded on the door, desperate for them to answer, but before anyone could come to her aid, she saw Charlie racing after her, he was yelling at her, “you promised Angie, you promised!”.
Angela continued running to another neighbours house, and managed to get in there, telling them what had happened and to call the police and paramedics to the scene.
Charlie’s father survived the shooting, but sadly, his mother and the unborn baby did not.
Angela explained to the police that as Charlie was a minor at the time, his records were sealed, which was why they couldn’t find anything when they searched his name.
Charlie went through psychological evaluations. Each time the professionals assessing Charlie were looking for some sort of underlying illness that could explain why he’d done it. But the thing was, none of them could find anything.
Under the law at the time, Charlie was too young to go to prison, so he didn’t serve any time. Instead, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. He spent just one year there before his dad fought to get him released back into his care.
For the next three decades, it appeared that Charlie really was an example of how children shouldn’t necessarily be punished as adults because it appeared that Charlie had grown into a law-abiding citizen who was no longer a risk.
The police wondered if he really could have gone 30 years without any problems before suddenly snapping and carrying out such a horrific crime.
Michelle’s murder was a little too neat for their liking. Her mutilation had a precision that they would have expected to see with a killer who was more experienced. The police start to take a close look at Charlie’s life from his teens into his forties, and as they spoke to more and more people, they began to piece together a life that was far from normal.
Who was the real Charlie?
Angela told police that even though the family had forgiven him, and although deep down she did love her brother, she simply couldn’t let go of the fear she had. If he ever visited, she would sleep with her doors locked, she wouldn’t let him around her kids. It was clear that there was something about Charlie that she simply couldn’t get past.
The police also began to talk with Charlie’s co-workers, to get a broader picture of him. What they found out from his co-workers began to paint a disturbing picture of Charlie Brandt as an adult.
Charlie talked a lot about Michelle at work. However, he only ever referred to her as “Victoria’s secret”. This was interesting to police, as the underwear that Charlie had scattered all over Michelle’s bedroom had been Victoria’s Secret — Charlie was also a regular subscriber to their magazine.
People found the way he spoke about her uncomfortable, recognizing that it wasn’t an appropriate way to refer to your niece, and they felt like he had an obsession with Michelle. He commented on the men she dated and told co-workers they weren’t good enough for her.
When police searched Charlie’s house, in addition to the magazines, they also found a lot of anatomy-related books. His internet search history also gave police more insight into Charlie’s mind. Charlie spent a lot of time looking up autopsy photos, snuff films, and necrophilia sites.
Did Teri suspect something was wrong with Charlie?
Terri had confided in their mutual friend, Jim, that she was considering calling the police on Charlie. She told him she had come home early one day from work, and Charlie was in the fish cutting room, which was a small room on the side of their house.
Charlie was in there, covered from head to toe in blood, and the sink in the room was bright red, drowning in blood too. Jim had tried to calm Teri, saying it was normal for there to be blood in the fish cutting room.
But Teri wasn’t convinced, as there were no fish, and it was a lot of blood. Jim tried to just brush it off, but Teri told him she was worried there was a link to the girl who was murdered close to them. Her body had been found mutilated in a rowing boat.
Teri actually told Jim she was worried Charlie might have done it.
Jim talked her down. He told her she needed to understand that if she called the police then it would be the end of her marriage because Charlie wouldn’t forgive her for it, but then again, he says, maybe it’s worth a phone call.
What he failed to tell her, is that he knew all about Charlie’s violent past — something which it appears Teri did not.
Teri kept a journal, which police used to try and gain insight into her marriage. She wrote in it every day, and the police found notes which mentioned Charlie had stayed out all night, or not returned home until 3 am. Whether she believed he was a killer, or perhaps more likely, that he was having an affair, it was clear that things weren’t perfect.
Were there other murders?
When the bodies of Teri and Michelle were discovered, the police began a huge investigation into similar cases which they believed could be linked to Charlie.
They were specifically looking for cases of mutilation and decapitation, or organ removal, and found 26 possible cases.
Despite the extensive investigations by the police, we don’t have a definitive list of his victims, but they have said they believe he definitely had more.
There are two victims which he was conclusively linked to. Beyond that, however, there is no definite list.
Sherry Perisho and Darlene Toler
One of his victims was believed to be Sherry Perisho, who was found decapitated and with her heart removed. She is actually the one that Teri had heard about when she saw Charlie covered in the blood back in 1989.
A composite sketch had been drawn up by a witness who saw a man running from the area, and it does look a lot like Charlie.
Police also believe he was responsible for the 1985 murder of Darlene Toler too. Darlene was found in Miami, wrapped in a blanket and tarp. She was found with her head and heart missing. Neither of which were ever found.
The police linked Charlie to Darlene’s murder by identifying dog hairs in his car. Teri and Charlie didn’t have a dog, but Charlie had helped a friend by taking her dog to the vet, and DNA testing confirmed this dog’s hair matched the hair found on the victim. She had definitely been in Charlie’s car.
Charlie kept meticulous mile logs for his car, and he logged everything. Even tiny trips to the store would be written down. On the day Darlene went missing, he had an extra one hundred-mile trip that couldn’t be explained.
So that is the tragic life and crimes of Charlie Brandt. A killer, who I’m sure is responsible for more than we know about, and who knows how many families will never receive justice for the crimes he committed.
