Golden – Kenneth Edward Epperson shot his friend Brandon Lull in the head as they drove around Lakewood. For about 20 minutes, Lull begged Epperson to drop him at a hospital. Instead, he drove to a nearby park and dumped Lull in a parking lot, leaving him to bleed to death.
After the prosecutor’s description of events Tuesday, Epperson, a habitual criminal, was sentenced by District Judge Jane Tidball to life in prison without parole for Lull’s murder.
After the sentencing, family members and friends gathered at Bear Creek Lake Park and planted an Austrian pine near where Lull was left to die.
“I will live with this vision all my life, him dying there,” Gale Lull, Brandon’s father, told those gathered. “This tree will help take the pain away.”
Brandon Lull’s 13-year-old son, Corian, was among those who shoveled dirt around the tree’s roots.
Family members described Lull, 31, as a fun-loving sports enthusiast who fell in with a bad crowd.
They said he was striving to overcome a drug dependency when he was murdered.
Epperson, 43, shot Lull on April 9, 2004, over a truck rental billing dispute, Deputy District Attorney George Brauchler said. After dumping Lull in the parking lot, Epperson cleaned himself and his car and went to dinner with his wife.
Lull’s body was found by an off-duty FBI agent who was jogging.
On Tuesday, a shackled and handcuffed Epperson apologized. “I want everyone to know, I want the family to know, I am sorry. I really am,” he said.
Epperson’s defense attorney, Lindy Frohlich, said her client plans to appeal his conviction.
Epperson has been arrested 32 times in 24 years on a variety of charges.
During the sentencing, Tidball said she found numerous aggravating circumstances but no mitigating ones.
“This is an incredibly tragic case,” she said.
Lull has another son, Brendan, who will turn 1 in November and was born after his father’s death.
Brendan’s mother, Angela Barrett, told the court: “He will be the one to suffer the greatest loss.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-820-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
