No crime is more troubling than a parent breaking the sacred family bond and attempting to murder their children. It’s especially troubling when the children are toddlers can’t take care of themselves at all, and are just innocently along for a ride. That’s what happened to two twin toddlers when their father, Robert Brians, decided to perpetuate a murder-suicide by speeding off a cliff with his little daughters in his lap.
The moment that Brians sped off Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, California was captured by in grainy and disturbing surveillance camera footage from a nearby residence. In the video, the truck hits the curb extremely fast, flies into the air and lands completely in the water.
Brians, 51, was 47 years old when he decided to kill himself and his two daughters in an apparent move to upset his ex-wife. This didn’t come out of nowhere: the San Diego man had dealt with a run of bad luck before the incident. He owned a tile company but it wasn’t successful and he was forced to file for bankruptcy.
That would rattle anyone’s serenity but as a follow-up act his wife filed for divorce and he was arrested on charges of domestic battery. On June 13, 2020, he took his twin 2-year-old daughters from his parents’ house without his ex’s permission. He had just had a parental visit with the girls the night before, and he returned early in the morning to abduct them. When the ex-wife found out, she was frantic and tried to get in touch with Brians to find out what was going on.
The couple went back and forth through text and then the kids’ mom called 911. Brians told the mom numerous times that he had a plan: he was going to drive off a cliff with his girls by his side. One particular message said, “The girls are going to Heaven and I’m going to Hell to wait for you.”
Just three minutes before he made the fateful decision to complete his murder/suicide plan, he posted to Facebook: “Tonight, I’m sending my babies to Heaven.”
Realizing the seriousness of the situation, police scrambled to locate Brians before anything terrible happened. Authorities tracked his cellphone to the Sunset Cliffs area, even though he told his wife he was going to a different location.
Police spotted Brians’ truck in the area but before they could stop him he gunned it to the cliffs’ edge, hit the curb, went airborne and landed upside down in the water. Police gathered quickly. San Diego Police K-9 Officer Jonathan Wiese was on the scene within four minutes of the crash, and knew that if he didn’t act immediately, anyone who survived would surely perish in the waves. But how to get down there?
True heroes appear when the circumstances demand it, and that’s just what happened with Wiese. He would later say that his first thought was to jump right in after the truck, but he quickly realized he wouldn’t be much good to anyone if he hit something on his way down.
“Then, I remembered I have a 100-foot leash in my car that we use for SWAT missions, and I thought if that can hold my 95-pound dog, then maybe it could hold me.”
Things were especially frantic because officers then spotted Brians treading water with both of his daughters in his arms. This offered a little bit of relief to officers, but time was of the essence.
“They were getting pushed up against the cliff by the waves,” Wiese said. The officer quickly removed his uniform shirt, bulletproof vest and duty belt to lose some weight. He took the leash and “looped it under my armpits” and around his chest.”Some other officers had arrived so I threw the end of it to them and pretty much told them ‘hang on I’m gonna go over the edge,'” he said.
He bravely rappelled down the cliff in his makeshift climbing gear and swam to the father and his offspring. Wiese would later testify that when he reached Brians, one of his daughters was holding onto her father’s neck for dear life. The other girl was limp and lifeless. Here’s the account per the Carnegie Hero Fund foundation:
“Wiese removed the leash, entered the ocean, and swam to the man, who was much larger than him. Wiese then grasped the man, as he held the girls, and pushed them back to the rocks and pulled them out of the water. Wiese carried the unresponsive girl to the point where he descended the cliff and secured her to a backpack that officers lowered with the leash; officers hoisted her to safety. With help from a firefighter who had swum to the scene, officers similarly hoisted the second girl. A helicopter lifted the man to the top of the cliff.”
During the rescue, Brians spoke with Wiese about the crash, saying he couldn’t believe “we didn’t die” because he was trying very hard to kill everyone. He told Wiese that the girls were in his lap without seatbelts on when he drove over the cliff. “I couldn’t fathom how they survived,” the father told Weise. He also took the time to disparage his wife.
The more injured girl had serious injuries that included a brain bleed and compression fractures on her vertebrae. The other one was covered in scratches and bruises. They both thankfully survived. Brians was taken to the hospital and then booked in jail.
He was charged with 18 felony counts, including two counts of attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon enhancement; two counts of child abuse; two counts of kidnapping as well as burglary and domestic violence counts. In a plea deal with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, Brians pleaded guilty to eight of the 15 charges against him. He will be sentenced to 31 years in California state prison, per the district attorney’s office, on Sept. 20. He deserves every bit of time the judge will give him to think about his selfish and homicidal actions.
Published: Aug 13, 2024 08:03 am