by Dee DeQuattro, WPRO News
After pressure from the local community the Rhode Island Parole Board is backing off its previous decision to grant a man convicted of a “thrill” kill release from prison over a decade before his sentence is over.
WPRI-TV reports that the Board has decided to take a second look at the case of Alfred Brissette, a man convicted of brutally beating to death a random woman in 1999.
Brissette and his friend, Marc Girard of Woonsocket, were planning a thrill kill and in 1999 the men decided to execute their plan to kill a random woman and bury the body. According to court Documents, the men met Jeanette Descoteaux and offered her cocaine if she came with them. Descoteaux agreed and followed the men in the woods of Burrillville. In the woods the men brutally beat Descoteaux to death. Now, Brissette who pleaded no contest, will be released from prison in December, at least 6-years before serving his full sentence.
“This could have been anyone’s daughter,” Carolyn Medeiros of the Alliance for Safe Communities told the WPRO Morning News with Tara Granahan and Andrew Gobeil. “It was a horrific heinous crime, it was described as a thrill kill, they did it just for the experience and the thrill of the kill.”
Brissette was sentenced to 60 years with 35 to serve. In jail he earned over four years off his sentence in “good time” credit. The Parole Board has now agreed to release Brissette from prison on supervised released although he was not scheduled to be released from prison until 2028, even with the good time credit.
The Full Parole Board will now revisit Brissette's case on Dec. 17.
Initially, the Parole Board said the decision was made as a result of Brissette’s clean record while in prison for the past 14-years and because Brissette participated in programs and introduced a documented plan for change. The board also claimed that the Attorney General’s office and family members did not issue any letters of objection to Brissette’s release.
Medeiros said Descoteaux’s mother has passed away and that as a result there were no family members around to object during the parole hearing.
The crime is described as “brutal, barbaric, and utterly senseless thrill,” in court documents. After the men had lured Descoteaux into the woods Brissette demanded sex in exchange for drugs. After that Brissette whacked Descoteaux in the head with a lug wrench, the woman asked why he did that, and Brissette responded by striking her again.
He then instructed Girard to use the shovel they had brought and start digging a hole. The victim realized what was going on and began to run for her life naked through the woods. When the men caught her they beat her to death with the lug wrench and the shovel.
