Level Plains man sentenced to life for mother’s murder

A Level Plains man received the maximum sentence in Dale County Court May 12 for the 2019 murder of his mother.

Chad Dewayne Brogden, 38, was sentenced to life in prison by Thirty-Third Judicial Circuit Judge Bill Filmore after a half-hour sentencing hearing at the Ozark Courthouse May 12.

Brogden had been found guilty of the murder and corpse abuse of his mother, Penny Newton of Level Plains, by a nine-men, three-women jury that deliberated for half an hour March 24. The jury heard four days of testimony in the case prosecuted by Thirty-third Judicial Circuit District Attorney Kirke Adams and Assistant District Attorney Jordan B. Davis.

Newton’s murder occurred during Mother’s Day weekend in 2019, according to testimony in court from family friends who said that was the last she had been heard from. Testimony during the trial, that began March 21, included the fact that on May 9, 2019, Brogden traveled to visit the mother of his child. On May 13, 2019, the mother of Brogden’s child attempted unsuccessfully to contact Newton. No one was ever able to contact Newton again, according to court testimony.

On May 14, 2019, Hartford police received a report of a burnt vehicle under the bridge on Highway 167 North next to the Choctawhatchee River. Law enforcers testified that inside the trunk of the vehicle, which was determined to be Newton’s vehicle, were a shovel, saw blade, three knives, a sharpening stone and axe blade. Also collected from the trunk were human bone fragments and fragments of bones from a small animal.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation forensic scientist told the court that the bone fragments he examined had tool markings that were the result “of a chopping, slicing or sawing motion.” A state fire marshal testified that a trail on the ground “like a fuse” of “a combustible material,” later determined to be gasoline, was found leading to the burned vehicle.

Investigators testified that Brogden killed his 58-year-old mother, put her remains in the freezer in the garage at the residence in Level Plains temporarily and ultimately put Newton’s body in the trunk of her vehicle before driving the 20 miles to the location where he set the vehicle on fire.

State forensic officers testified that DNA tests on blood found in the freezer were determined to be Newton’s. Rope found at the location of the burned car matched the rope found by investigators at Newton’s Level Plains residence.

On the same day the burned vehicle was found in 2019, Brogden appeared out of the woods at an elderly couple’s house where Brogden said he had been assaulted and was without his truck. Brogden had cuts and burn marks on his leg and hands when he was arrested. An Alabama Law Enforcement Agency State Bureau of Investigation officer told the court that Brogden told him that the cuts and burns “ain’t got nothing to do with this but you’re going to make it seem that way.”

At the sentencing hearing May 12 Newton’s sisters and a former neighbor asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence on Brogden. “Our whole world as we knew it changed in an instant,” said Newton’s former neighbor. “My 10-year-old son looked up to Chad and played with Chad’s son on weekends.

“It is just evil over there,” the neighbor said about the house that Newton was killed in. “What he did to her haunts my dreams.

“Penny would do anything in the world for you,” the visibly emotional neighbor said shaking her finger and pointing at Brogden. “You were her son and you didn’t shed one tear—I am absolutely disgusted by you and I hope you don’t get one moment of peace.”

One of Newton’s younger sister’s told the court that she remembered babysitting Brogden when he was younger. “What do you say when your sister has been murdered by your nephew and then cut up and burned?” she asked the judge. “You have a 10-year-old son who idolized you,” she told Brogden. “He is having a hard time in school because the other kids make fun of him. I love you but I hate you. You are scary.”

Newton’s older sister told the judge that Newton was “loving, happy and always had a smile on her face. “We have been left with a void that will never be filled,” she said. “Fly high with the angels, Penny.”

Holding a framed photograph of Newton, another younger sister said Newton had “a heart of gold and she never met a stranger.” She asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence. “My sister deserves justice,” she said.

Filmore sentenced Brogden to live in prison for the murder of Newton and 20 years in prison on the charge of abuse of a corpse. The sentences are to run consecutively.

“I am beyond thankful to the jury for holding him accountable,” said Adams following the verdict. “I am grateful that Penny’s sisters, brother and other friends and relatives could be there for the trial.

“The things Chad did to (Newton) were beyond imagination,” he added. “I hope this verdict gives them some closure and peace.”