David Brom (born October 3, 1971) is an American mass murderer. He killed his parents, brother and sister with an axe in February 1988 in Cascade Township, Minnesota near Rochester, Minnesota. More info on the murder from the NYTimes.
A member of a Catholic family, the 16-year-old Brom had a fight with his father over the music he listened to immediately before the murders. He attended Rochester Lourdes High School at the time.
He was originally going to be tried in Family Court, and was sent to Texas for a psychiatric evaluation. In the summer of 1989 Brom returned to Olmsted County, Minnesota to be tried as an adult. He was sentenced to life in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until 2041.
See David's latest mugshot.
He still creeps me out a little. This awful quadruple axe-murder was all that people talked about for a while, and even after that, I remember it lingering. Not long after that, there was another murder in Rochester, which was rather unusual at the time.
There was a frenzy of hype and discussion and media coverage about "satan worship" and the occult going on in the communities and local media at the time. There were various places in Rochester, namely some old tunnels near Quarry Hill and a potter's field, where some "satanic" symbols had been seen and "evidence of satan worship and the occult" had been discovered. (Or created in repsonse to the media hype, methinks.) I went into those tunnels with a friend in 1991 and they were pretty much just a place where people partied. (The tunnels were a little eerie, however, and the potter's field near the entrance was sad and bare. I believe that the field is near the former location of the Olmsted County Hospital.)
Because the eldest son, who was no longer living at home, had an "alternative" appearance and so forth, the conclusion was drawn. It must have been the older brother and his devil worship that made David do it!
There's not a whole lot out there (online, anyway) about the murders, but I did find this post regarding a controversy related to the murders.
Also, from Wikipedia: When their 1987 album, Escape From Noise, proved to be more successful than they expected, Negativland, a sound collage band, canceled the tour they were expected to do and released a fake press release stating the band would be placed in house arrest until investigations concluded as to whether the track "Christianity Is Stupid" was implicated in Brom's murders. The resulting media craze, stemming from journalists neglecting to fact-check, is lampooned in the title track of their 1989 album, Helter Stupid, whose insert also includes background information behind the band's prank.
There is also a song by a band called Macabre, titled "David Brom Took An Axe" and the lyrics are available online.
Here are a couple of strange connections: I met my best friend (an exchange student at the time) in 1991 and he lived with a very wealthy French-Canadian family (headed by a doctor, natch) living on Pill Hill in Rochester. In the first article I linked to, it sort of mentions that he told a friend he had killed his family. In actuality, the day after the murders, he drove the family minivan over to this family's house, to visit his good friend, stay a few nights there due to "trouble at home" and confide in her, and this girl was one of my friend's host-"sisters." My friend and I didn't actually put it all together until years later. My poor friend's "bedroom" had been the same room that David hid out in. That must have been some tormented sleep. Creepy!
Also, because of other reasons, my friend changed host families and ended up staying with a family who lived literally a few doors down the street from where the other murder took place. I try not to call him the Murderer Magnet, for obvious reasons.
On another note: Thanks to all of you for all of your great stories and discussions, and for providing me with a safe space to finally come out of the closet as a lifelong Death Hag!
I have more stories to come, as I am a full-time volunteer and researcher with the Dodge county Historical Society. Among many many other things, we have a beautiful horse-drawn hearse in the basement, several child-sized coffins, and an interred resident. Her name is Sarah Anna, and she's just behind the limestone wall, under the robing room.