A troubled family

The next witness was Valerie Freeman, who haltingly and tearfully recounted her discovery of the bodies.

She had lived in the house for about 17 years but moved out because she felt threatened by the brothers as they dove deeper into the neo-Nazi culture.

Freeman spent the evening before the murders watching television with Erik — she was protective of him — and recalled his haunting last request as she left for home.

“He wanted me to take care of his dog in case anything happened to him,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time Erik had suggested he might come to harm. Once, Valerie Freeman arrived at the house to find Erik tied to a chair in the sweltering garage. His brothers had left him there.

“I went to see Erik as often as I could,” she said. “One time we went to Florida just to get away.”

Under questioning by David Freeman’s attorney, Matthew Rapa, Valerie Freeman said the brothers’ fascination with Nazism and decline into violent and antisocial behavior roughly coincided with the beginning of their relationship with Birdwell.

“I thought Nelson was a very bad influence on both brothers,” she said.

Throughout this testimony, Bryan Freeman hunched over the defense table, crying and hanging his head. David Freeman appeared impassive. Both had chosen to stay in the adjacent holding cell while the crime scene video played.

While some members of the Freeman family — including Brenda’s sister, Sandy Lettich — have forgiven the brothers and believe they have been rehabilitated, Valerie Freeman said she isn’t troubled by the idea of the pair serving life terms.

“I don’t know where the violence came from, or why it went that far,” she said. “I don’t know how someone could take a life, period.”

The hearing began with an unsuccessful attempt by the defense attorney to have Reichley recuse himself.

As a Lehigh County assistant district attorney in the 1990s, Reichley was involved in the prosecution of Jeffrey Howorth, a 17-year-old Lower Macungie Township boy who shot his parents to death the day after the Freemans and Birdwell were captured.

The case was widely portrayed as a copycat killing, based on a note Howorth left in his desk.

“Those kids in Salisbury, they were cool. They killed their parents,” wrote Howorth, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains institutionalized. “I would be rough [cool] if I did that.”

Reichley’s linking of the cases during Howorth’s trial suggests he couldn’t be impartial in evaluating the Freemans’ resentencing, the attorneys said.

Reichley rejected the argument, noting that he had no role in prosecuting the Freemans or Birdwell and instead was being asked to evaluate the nature of the sentence and not the culpability of the Freemans, which is a settled matter.