Experts: shell casings tied to Brake

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) - The three shell casings discovered at the scene of a quadruple murder in Wright Township matched a pair of shell casings found in Troy Brake's pole barn -- and all five were fired by a .40-caliber Glock seized by police from Brake's home, a state police weapons expert said.

"I identified that firearm as having fired all five of the cartridge cases," State Police Detective Lt. Jeff Crump testified Thursday at the trial of Troy Brake.

Brake is facing trial for the Sept. 29, 2008 slayings of Sharmaine Zimmer, 53, her sons, Jeremy, 20, and Tyler, 17, and Jeremy's girlfriend, Katherine Brown, 20. He is accused of shooting the Zimmers so he could rape Brown, and then burning down the home.

Crump, who is in charge of the firearms unit at the State police lab in Grand Rapids, said he test-fired the 40-caliber Glock seized from Brake's home, then used a microscope to examine the test-fired shell casings. The marks matched those found at the home.

The tests, he said, have a "very small error rate."

Ballistics is key to the case, allegedly linking Brake to the slaying scene. There is no other known physical evidence of his presence there -- such as DNA or fingerprints.

The defense says it plans a strong challenge to the ballistics testimony, saying that it is not an exact science.

Earlier Thursday during testimony, detectives said they tracked more than 250 tips -- some about drug sales and debts, one about a stalker and one about the Mexican Mafia.

"We investigated every one of them," lead Ottawa County Detective Thomas Knapp testified Thursday in the trial of Brake.

Detectives said none of the 250 tips they received mentioned Brake. Instead, detectives tracked down other leads that went nowhere, he said.

Authorities looked at "hits by the Mexican mafia." They tracked "a number of tips" that Sharmaine Zimmer and her boys were involved in drugs. In fact, Knapp said, police found a live marijuana plant at the home, as well as marijuana paraphernalia in Tyler Zimmer's basement bedroom, on his headboard.

Among the tips -- one of the surviving Zimmer brothers, Charlie, owed a drug debt and that the deaths were "trying to send him a message," Knapp said.
Another allegation is Jeremy was a "snitch" who led police to raid a drug house in Grand Rapids, and that he had been threatened just three weeks before the deaths.

West Michigan Enforcement Team members investigated the drug allegations but found no indication of a "large-scale" drug operation involving the Zimmers, and nothing to indicate the deaths were drug-related, he said.

Police also investigated another rumor: that Sharmaine Zimmer had stolen money from the tavern, where she worked, but owners of the bar said money was not missing.

They also received tips that a stalker had been calling Sharmaine Zimmer."You should know me. You served me at the bar," Knapp quoted the stalker as saying. But those calls had ended months before the deaths, he said.

Then, on Oct. 16, Troy Brake beat and raped a prostitute, leading Grand Rapids police to discover his .40-caliber Glock handgun in his car -- the same kind of weapon allegedly used in the Wright Township slayings, Knapp said. Searches of his home and property turned up shell casings that matched shell casings at the murder scene, police said.

Also Thursday, jurors viewed a video of the crime scene, taking them into the burned-out home where the bodies, bullets and shell casings were discovered.

Testimony is expected to continue through the end of next week.