Town asked to support ‘no parole’ for ’95 double murderer
Farragut residents Bob and Jeanne Dotts Brykalski lived through a nightmare almost 30 years ago.
That nightmare might take on new life if a convicted murderer of a Farragut couple is released on parole.
David Leon Scarbrough, one of the three men who were convicted of killing Jeanne’s parents — Les and Carol Dotts — Feb. 3, 1995, is up for parole.
The Brykalskis stood before Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen at its
Thursday, Oct. 10, meeting and, during Citizens Forum, pled with Board members to sign a petition to deny parole for Scarbrough.
“We are here tonight to ask our neighbors, our community, to please go to change.org and to sign and share the petition, ‘Justice for the Dotts, December parole,’” Jeanne said. “Please ask the Tennessee Parole Board to deny David Leon Scarbrough parole, to keep a double murderer in prison.”
Brykalski and her husband related the story of her parents’ deaths and the grief they’ve had to endure.
Scarbrough, Thomas Gagney Jr. and Harley Watts had been driving through Village Green subdivision, “getting high and ringing doorbells of houses to find one where no one was home to break into,” Jeanne related.
They found the home of Les and Carol and commenced to burglarize.
“When my mom and dad came home from going out to dinner, (the three men) opened a 9mm gun into my parents, including an almost point-blank shot to my mom’s head,” she said.
“I was the one who found their broken, bullet-ridden bodies, who had to call 911 and wait for the Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies and detectives to arrive and to take control of the horrible crime scene,” Bob recalled. “I was the one who had to tell my
wife that her parents, two of the people that she loved
most in the world, had been brutally murdered. I had to watch her as she went into shock and just kept repeating, ‘No, No, No.’
“Later that night, when the reality of what happened hit Jeanne full force, I held her while her grief took over every inch of her body and her heart, knowing there was nothing I could do to ‘make it better,’” he added.
Scarbrough currently is incarcerated in Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility, but Watts was paroled in 2001. Gagne died Nov. 1, 2023, following a long illness.
“Despite what Scarbrough keeps saying, this was not just a ‘mistake;’ it was not an accident,” said Jeanne, adding Scarbrough has never shown remorse nor accountability for his part in the murders.
