It was late. Like, nearly midnight late on March 29, 1995. Sonoma County Deputy Frank Trejo spotted a green pickup truck sitting in the shadows of the Santa Rosa Saddlery. It looked wrong. Most people would have just driven by, but Trejo was a pro. He pulled in, not knowing that inside that truck were Robert Scully and Brenda K Moore.
He never made it home.
The story of Brenda K Moore and Robert Scully isn't just another true crime blip. Honestly, it’s a case that fundamentally changed how people viewed the danger of paroled gang members in California. Scully wasn't just some guy; he was a heavy hitter in the Aryan Brotherhood, fresh out of Pelican Bay State Prison. We're talking six days out. Six days.
The Confrontation at the Saddlery
When Trejo approached that truck, he was doing his job. Witnesses—because there actually were people who saw glimpses of this—described a scene that felt like a nightmare. Brenda Moore was in the driver's seat. Scully was the passenger.
Things went south fast.
Scully didn't just run. He got out with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun. He forced the 58-year-old deputy to his knees. Imagine that for a second. A veteran lawman, someone's father, kneeling in a parking lot while Brenda K Moore reportedly stripped him of his gun belt and radio.
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Then, the shot.
Scully later tried to tell a jury it was an accident. He claimed he fell into a ditch and the gun just... went off. Right. A "tragedy," he called it. But the forensics told a different story. The shot cup from the shell was found inside Trejo. The blast was from about nine or ten feet away. That’s not a "tripped and fell" distance. That’s an execution.
The Lloyd Avenue Hostage Crisis
After killing a cop, most people panic. Scully and Moore didn't just panic; they doubled down. They ditched the truck and broke into a house on Lloyd Avenue belonging to Frank Cooper and Yolanda King.
The family was asleep.
Suddenly, Frank Cooper is staring down the barrel of that same shotgun. For the next several hours, a family of six—including a toddler and an infant—were held captive. This is where the story gets weirdly human. Cooper, a retired merchant seaman, basically decided to "hostage-parent" his way out of death.
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He didn't scream. He didn't fight.
He offered them coffee. He talked to them like guests. It’s one of those survival stories that sounds fake until you read the court transcripts. While Moore was making phone calls to neighbors admitting "he killed a cop," Cooper was keeping his family calm by treating the killers with a bizarre kind of hospitality. It worked. By the next afternoon, after hours of negotiating with the police, Scully and Moore surrendered. No one else died that day.
The Legal Aftermath and the Aryan Brotherhood Link
The trials were a massive deal in Northern California. Because of the sheer weight of the evidence, they had separate juries.
- Robert Scully: He was convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances. The jury didn't buy the "accident" story. In 1997, he was sentenced to death.
- Brenda K Moore: Her defense was basically that she was terrified of Scully. She said she was at his mercy. Her jury deadlocked on the murder charge but nailed her on robbery, kidnapping, and assault. She got 14 years initially.
- The Gang Factor: This is the part people forget. Moore later got an extra seven years because of her continued involvement with the prison gang Scully belonged to.
Scully has spent decades on death row. In 2021, the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence again. Even with the moratorium on executions in California, he remains one of the state's most notorious inmates.
Why This Case Still Matters
Looking back, the Brenda K Moore and Robert Scully case is a textbook example of the "revolving door" criticisms of the 90s. Scully had a rap sheet a mile long—robbery, grand theft, assaulting inmates. He was a known violent entity.
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When people talk about this case today, they usually talk about Deputy Trejo. He’s the one with the memorial at the Sheriff's Office. But for true crime junkies, the fascination lies in the partnership. Was Moore a victim of Scully’s influence, or was she a willing participant who helped disarm a deputy while he was at gunpoint?
The evidence of her turning off the patrol car's lights and moving the spotlight suggests a level of composure that's hard to square with the "terrified girlfriend" defense.
What to take away from the history
If you're researching this case, don't just look at the headlines. Check out the 1999 Atlantic piece on Scully's background or the 2014 movie Supremacy, which is loosely based on these events (though it takes some creative liberties with the facts).
Practical steps for further research:
- Look up the California Supreme Court opinion (People v. Scully, 2021) for the most granular, evidence-based account of the night.
- Visit the Sonoma County Sheriff's "In Memoriam" page to see the impact on the local community.
- Research the Pelican Bay parole protocols of the mid-90s to understand how a high-security inmate ended up in a truck with a sawed-off shotgun less than a week after release.
The reality is that while the movie made it look like a Hollywood thriller, the real Brenda K Moore and Robert Scully story was much colder, much faster, and left a permanent scar on Santa Rosa.