The Massachusetts Parole Board has denied parole to Alfred Brown, the Topsfield man convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting his mother, father, and sister in their home on January 27, 1978, when he was 15. Brown, now 64 after 48 years incarcerated, will face another review in two years.
Brown had just finished Gerald Seymour’s 1976 thriller The Glory Boys—whose final chapter depicts the hero executed by a shot to the head—when he used a .22-caliber rifle to shoot his mother in the head as she prepared food in the kitchen. He then shot his 20-year-old sister multiple times as she tried to flee, and when his father returned, shot him six times, including three in the head. Brown later told police he shot his father because “he drove in when I was leaving.” He left a note on the refrigerator reading “I want to die,” packed a suitcase with clothes, tools, ammunition, cash, and other items, and fled in the family car before eventually admitting the shootings to officers.
The family had returned to Topsfield in 1977 after years in Japan. Brown, a sophomore at Masconomet Regional High School, used a rifle his parents gave him for Christmas. Factors noted in records included a failing grade in geometry, his mother’s comment to “try harder,” social isolation, and influence from spy novels. An insanity defense at his 1979 Essex Superior Court trial failed; he received three concurrent life sentences. He has been disciplinary-report free for roughly 26 years and has taken part in restorative justice programming.…