ABILENE, Texas -- Sixteen-year-old Brandon Lund wanted his father dead. So the teenager came up with a solution straight out of the "T.J. Hooker" reruns he loved to watch: He hired a hit man.
But when Brandon had a change of heart, the former Boy Scout learned that calling off a hit isn't like canceling a dentist appointment.On Monday, the alleged hit man, Billy Don Wilson, went on trial on murder charges for allegedly breaking into the Lund home with five other people and killing Brandon's father for his $5,000 gun collection in 1998. Brandon was also slashed with a knife but survived.
"When you set out to find cold-blooded, calculating people, the tables can turn on you in horrible ways that can't be predicted," said District Attorney James Eidson. "Apparently, the gun collection enticed Wilson so much that he didn't care about whether Brandon wanted his father dead or not. In fact, Brandon became a liability in a plan he initiated."
If convicted, Wilson, 23, will receive an automatic life sentence. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Brandon, now 17, was convicted in October and sentenced to two years in a juvenile prison. He and two members of Wilson's gang are expected to testify against Wilson. Three others are awaiting trial on lesser charges.
It's not clear why Brandon wanted someone to kill his father, 46-year-old Mark Lund. At Brandon's trial, prosecutor Dan Joiner argued that the teenager had no specific reason: "He just didn't like the way his father was running the household."
Brandon, who loved old cop shows, sought out a hired killer. Police say he fell in with a crowd of rough outcasts who robbed homes, stole cars and were willing to kill Brandon's father for a price -- the man's military gun collection.
The pack was deep into masterminding the killing when Wilson, its leader, received a phone call. It was Brandon, sounding scared and confused, but certain that he had changed his mind.
"Brandon's position has always been that whatever he said, he did everything in his power to stop what was going on," said Brandon's lawyer, Ed Paynter. "I've always maintained that whatever Brandon did didn't have a damn thing to do with those six hoodlums killing his dad."
Prosecutors say Wilson and his gang went ahead with their plan anyway and executed it with assassinlike efficiency.
Dressed in black, they cut the phone line and crept through a window. After ransacking the house, Wilson pushed Mark Lund onto a bed, shoved a pillow in his face and shot him in the head, prosecutors allege.
Then, a member of Wilson's gang scratched a cross on Brandon's face with her fingernail and slashed his throat with a knife, prosecutors say.
Wilson's attorney, Mike Fouts, said he will suggest that someone else in the gang was the gunman.