PANAMA CITY — The Fountain man accused of stabbing, shooting and bludgeoning his neighbor before robbing him took the stand Thursday against charges he premeditated the murder to gain riches.
Philip Dean Brock, 58, has been jailed since December 2012 after Bay County Sheriff’s Officers found 65-year-old Terry Brazil’s decaying body. Brazil’s throat was cut, he was shot in the stomach and beaten with a blunt object after apparently being bound with duct tape and hooded with a pillow case. Investigators found several items — including guns and coins — missing from Brazil’s home inside the home of Brock, but three different juries have failed to convict him on the charges.
Defense attorneys rested their case Thursday after Brock testified on his own behalf. While prosecutors have painted Brock as destitute and living in squalor, he took the stand to dispute the claim he desired more and enjoyed his living conditions.
“I had clean clothes, all the food I wanted, good company — everything I could ask God to give me,” Brock said. “I needed for nothing.”
Asked directly, Brock denied stabbing, shooting or beating Brazil to death.
“I never have done anything but good for Terry,” Brock said.
Brock lived a meager existence on the 1-acre lot off Joann Lane in Fountain. He had no electricity, no plumbing or running water. A sparse amount of electronics, like a radio and DVD player, were powered by a solar panel.
Brock regularly held yard sales at the nearby corner of U.S. 231 and County 167. As he stood before the court, he pictorially walked jurors through his property, explaining the value of several items in his possession, which appeared to be junk by other accounts.
“My dog drank bottled water from the dollar store,” he said.
A lifelong friend of Brock, Francis Bus, testified he would be “shocked” to find out Brock had thousands of dollars, but Brock’s counsel pointed out that was because Bus could not see why anyone with money would live like Brock.
“I think he just liked to be outdoors,” Bus said.
Among the items investigators found on Brock’s land — all of which Brock argued were at his house because he and Brazil participated together in yard sales — was a pool filter with numerous silver coins that prosecutors said belonged to Brazil.
Many of the murder weapons were never recovered. A bed post, found in the woods across from Brazil’s home, was the only item investigators could find that they believed was used in the murder. Prosecutor Larry Basford has tried to convince jurors the discovery of the coins directly connected Brock to Brazil’s murder via greed.
Basford has asked jurors to use “common sense” to piece together Brock’s actions before and after Brazil’s death to see he wasn’t an eccentric miser sitting on a stack of silver and gold coins. Brock was on food stamps and also used a government-provided cellphone. Basford highlighted that, before moving onto his land, Brock stayed rent-free with his brother and borrowed money from several people instead of cashing in coins he valued at about $45,000 — which no one knew about.
“And nobody had ever seen that but you,” Basford said.
Plans to install a well and septic system on the property showed Brock actually did have some aspirations and wants, Basford said.