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Brenda Evers Andrew is on death row in Oklahoma convicted of the murder of her husband, Robert Andrew. As in the plots of classic black films such as Double Indemnity ( Double Indemnity in Latin America, Perdition in Spain) and The Postman Always Rings Twice ( The postman always calls twice twice ), Brenda Andrew, the disenchanted wife with his marriage, and her lover murdered her husband in an attempt to collect on the life insurance policy.
Brenda Evers was born on December 16, 1963 into a seemingly harmonious home in Enid, Oklahoma. The Evers family were devout Christians who used to organize family gatherings, pray in groups and live a quiet life. Brenda was a good student who always got above average grades. Her friends remembered her as a shy and quiet girl who spent much of her spare time at church and helping others. In high school, Brenda attended local soccer games, but unlike her friends, once the games were over, she went straight to her house without participating in the aftermath.
Rob Andrew
Rob Andrew was studying at Oklahoma State University when he met Brenda, who was a high school senior at the time. He met her through her younger brother. The two began seeing each other and soon became engaged. After graduating high school, Brenda enrolled in college in Winfield, Kansas, but a year later she switched to OSU in Stillwater to be closer to Rob. The couple married on June 2, 1984, and lived in Oklahoma City until Rob accepted a position in Texas, where they moved.
After living in Texas for a few years, Rob wanted to move back to Oklahoma, but Brenda felt comfortable living in Texas. She had a job that she liked and she had made good friends. The couple’s relationship began to deteriorate when Rob accepted a job at an advertising agency in Oklahoma City. Rob returned to Oklahoma City but Brenda decided to stay in Texas. The couple remained separated for a few months but Brenda finally agreed to return to Oklahoma with Rob.
On December 23, 1990, the Andrew couple had their first child, Tricity, and Brenda became a mother and housewife, leaving her job and the friendships she had made in the workplace. Four years later, her second son, Parker, was born, but by this time Rob and Brenda’s marriage was already in bad shape. Rob began to tell his friends and the pastor about the failure of his marriage. Friends would later testify that Brenda was very verbally aggressive towards Rob, and she often told him that she hated him and that her marriage was a mistake.
Brenda’s change
In 1994 Brenda seemed to have undergone a transformation. The once shy and conservative Brenda traded in her usually shy outfit for a bolder outfit that was usually tight, short, and provocative, and she began having a series of affairs. In October 1997, Brenda began a relationship with Rick Nunley, the husband of a friend of hers, with whom she had worked at a bank in Oklahoma. According to Nunley, the relationship lasted until the following spring, although the two continued to keep in touch by phone.
Then, in 1999, Brenda met James Higgins, a married man who worked in a grocery store. James Higgins later testified that Brenda went to the store in low-cut tops and very short skirts, and that they flirted. One day Brenda handed James Higgins a hotel room key and told him to meet her there. The relationship continued until May 2001 when she told him that she was no longer having fun with her. They remained friends and James Higgins was hired to do some repair work at the Andrew family home.
James Pavatt
The Andrew family met James Pavatt, a life insurance salesman, when they attended North Pointe Baptist Church, where Brenda and James Pavatt taught Sunday school classes. Pavatt and Rob became friends, and James Pavatt began visiting the Andrew family home with some frequency.
In mid-2001 James Pavatt helped Rob take out an $800,000 life insurance policy naming Brenda as sole beneficiary. Around the same time Brenda and Pavatt began a relationship. By all accounts they did little to hide it, even in the church setting, where before long they were told their services as Sunday school teachers were no longer needed.
James Pavatt divorced his wife, Suk Hui, the following summer, and in October Brenda filed for divorce from Rob, who had already moved out of their home. Once the divorce papers were filed, Brenda was more open about her disdain for her soon-to-be ex-husband. She told her friends that she hated Rob and she wished he was dead.
On October 26, 2001 someone cut the brake cables on Rob’s car and the next morning James Pavatt and Brenda made up a fake emergency, ostensibly hoping that Rob would have a car accident. According to Janna Larson, the daughter of James Pavatt, her father persuaded her to call Rob from an untraceable phone and tell him that Brenda was in a hospital in Norman, Oklahoma, and that she needed him immediately. An unknown man phoned Rob that morning reporting the same situation. But the plan backfired: Rob discovered that the brake cables on his car had been severed before receiving the phone calls alerting him to Brenda’s fictional emergency. As a consequence of these facts,
life insurance
After the incident with his car’s brakes, Rob decided to remove Brenda as a beneficiary of his life insurance policy and transfer her to his brother. James Pavatt found out and told Rob that the transfer could not go through because Brenda owned it. It was later discovered that Brenda and James Pavatt had attempted to transfer ownership of the life insurance policy to Brenda without Rob’s knowledge, forging her signature back to March 2001.
Rob did not trust what James Pavatt told him and called his supervisor, who assured him that he was the owner of the policy. Rob told the supervisor that he thought James Pavatt and his wife were trying to kill him. When James Pavatt found out that Rob had spoken to his boss he was furious, warning Rob not to try to get him fired from his job.
the murder
On November 20, 2001 Rob went to pick up his children for Thanksgiving. It was his turn with the children. According to Brenda, she met Rob in the driveway and asked if she could come in through the garage and light the oven pilot. Investigators believe that as Rob leaned over to turn on the oven, James Pavatt shot him once, then handed Brenda the 16-gauge shotgun. She fired the second shot, killing 39-year-old Rob Andrew. James Pavatt then shot Brenda in the arm with a .22-caliber pistol as part of a cover-up strategy for the crime.
When the police arrived, Brenda told them that two masked gunmen dressed in black had attacked Rob in the garage and shot him, then shot her in the arm as they fled. Brenda was taken to a hospital and treated for what was described as a superficial wound.
Branda and Rob’s children were in a bedroom watching television with the volume very high. They had no idea what had happened. Investigators also noted that the children did not appear to be dressed and ready to spend the weekend with their father.
Investigators learned that Rob owned a 16-gauge shotgun but that Brenda wouldn’t let him take it with him when she moved; they searched the Andrew family home but did not find it. Inquiries at the Andrew family’s neighbor’s house revealed that someone had entered the attic through an opening in a bedroom closet. A 16-gauge shotgun shell was found on the bedroom floor, and several 22-gauge rounds were also found in the attic. There were no signs of forced entry.
The neighbors were not in town when the murder took place, but they left Brenda some keys to their house. A shotgun shell found in a neighbor’s house was the same make and caliber as the shell found in the Andrew family’s garage.
Another piece of incriminating evidence originated from James Pavatt’s daughter, Janna, who had lent her father her car on the day of the murder, after he had offered to repair it. When her father returned the car the next morning Janna realized that it had not been repaired, and she found a .22 caliber bullet on the floor of the car. The 22-caliber bullet Janna found in her car was the same brand as the three 22-caliber bullets found in the neighbors’ attic. James Pavatt told Janna to drop the bullet. Investigators later found out that James Pavatt had purchased a pistol the week before the murder.
Instead of attending Rob’s funeral, Brenda, her two children, and James Pavatt went to Mexico. James Pavatt repeatedly called Janna from Mexico asking her to send money, unaware that her daughter was cooperating with the FBI’s investigation into the murder. By the end of February 2002, Brenda and James Pavatt had run out of financial resources and returned to the United States; they were arrested in Hidalgo, Texas, and the following month they were extradited to Oklahoma City.
the trial
James Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were charged with first degree murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Both were found guilty in separate trials and sentenced to death. Brenda Andrew has never shown remorse for her part in the murder of her husband and she continues to claim that she is innocent.
The day Brenda Andrew received her death sentence, she looked squarely at Oklahoma County District Judge Susan Bragg and said that the verdict and sentence were an egregious miscarriage of justice, and that she was going to fight until she was vindicated. On June 21, 2007, Brenda’s appeal was denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in a vote of four to one. Judge Charles Chapel agreed with Andrew’s arguments that some of her testimony at her trial should have been found inadmissible.
The United States Supreme Court rejected Brenda Andrew’s April 15, 2008 appeal of the court decision upholding her conviction and sentence without comment. There have been no executions in the state since 2015, and Brenda Andrew remains on death row at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma.
Fountain
Juan Ignacio Blanco. Brenda Andrew. Murderpedia. Accessed December 2021.
