A 37-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for fatally shooting three of his family members after he and his wife were kicked out of the house.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell announced July 24 that Brandon Lujan received three natural life sentences without the possibility of release for killing his parents and brother. He was convicted in June of three counts of first-degree murder.
According to the Phoenix Police Department, on the afternoon of Aug. 8, 2021, officers responded to a home to a report of people hurt inside. They tried knocking, but no one answered. Authorities forced entry and found three victims, 56-year-old Irene Lujan, 63-year-old Lewis Lujan, and 30-year-old Matthew Lujan, deceased. Investigators determined they had been dead for around three hours.
Police were also called to a local hospital after Brandon Lujan told staff he had killed his relatives the previous night.
Further investigation revealed Lujan and his wife, Raylien Loest, had reportedly been “kicked out of his parents’ residence.” According to KPNX-TV, Lujan wanted to discuss the situation, and his brother got involved in the dispute. A physical altercation between Lujan and his brother ensued. Lujan then reportedly pulled out a gun and shot his brother before entering the house and firing at his parents.
Prosecutors said Lujan shot at his mother and father “so many times, he had to stop the barrage to reload his gun.”
According to the attorney’s office, two of Lujan’s young daughters, who were inside his car that day, heard their father say, “I’m going to kill them [all].” They then heard gunshots and screaming coming from the residence following the statement.
Loest reportedly assisted her husband as the getaway driver, for which she was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.
In a statement, Mitchell said, “To murder your family in such a deliberate, callous manner and express no remorse shows a remarkable lack of humanity.”
Family members spoke during the sentencing hearing, including one who said, “There is a hole in our lives that will never be filled.”
I, too, believe the death penalty should be used. Texas still has it, but the criminal stays in prison for years before it is carried out. It should be swift. And the “wife” here should get more than three years. She should also be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
I really wish they would bring back the death penalty and get rid of scum like this. So he gets to spend his life in prison, where he gets to eat and breathe another day. Why I ask? Why do we pay taxes to keep someone alive, when they kill others? An eye for an eye, I say, An eye for an eye……
Man, I totally agree!!’
It is far more costly to house a prisoner who has been sentenced to death, because of all of the legal avenues that are available to him (ie., appeals, re-trials, etc.). It is much cheaper to house a prisoner for life. The life a prisoner leads is not the glorified life we all assume. They are treated like animals, fed food that we would not feed an animal, sleep on beds of steel, given a towel the size of a dish towel, and berated on a daily basis.
Why should the wife in this situation get more than three years? Her children will be put in foster care, and probably be abused there due to improper oversight of foster parents (most do it for the payments they get from the state, not out of love or concern for children.) Ours is truly a tragic system all the way around.
Why can’t we just make it more difficult for a person to walk in and shoot 3 family members in an instant? Let’s cut off the supply of weapons and those that shoot in a heated moment won’t be able to. The result will be less shootings and the murder rate will go down.
For a civilized society our way of handling crime is barbaric. Someone needs to figure out how to build a better mousetrap.