Marine Corps veteran admits to killing lover, dumping body
A Marine Corps veteran from Twentynine Palms admitted he killed his believed-to-be-pregnant lover, who was also the wife of another Marine.
Christopher Brandon Lee, 27, took the stand for cross-examination Tuesday, four days after initially making his shocking confession in the murder of Erin Corwin. It was heated at times inside the San Bernardino courtroom as prosecuting attorney Sean Daugherty, of the District Attorney’s Office, grilled Lee while he was on the stand.
“I made the decision to kill her,” Lee said.
He described the seconds before he killed Corwin and dumped her body down a desert mine shaft as “an instant and an eternity in the same moment.”
Daugherty: “At some point you released your hands?”
Lee: “Yes.”
Daugherty: “Okay, so at some point you decided to let go.”
Lee: “Yes.”
Daugherty: “And that’s when she stopped moving?”
Lee: “That’s when she fell to the ground.”
Daugherty: “What made you decide to let go?”
Lee: “The anger ebbed for a moment.”
Lee said he loved Corwin, but was consumed by the anger he felt after she allegedly admitted to molesting his young daughter, adding that the murder happened in the heat of the moment and that t was not an active decision, something that varied from his earlier testimony.
Lee: “It wasn’t an active decision.”
Daugherty: “Well, last Thursday it was an active decision, right?”
Lee: “Last Thursday I was trying to go step-by-step with you like you asked.”
Daugherty: “Last Thursday I asked you several times, ‘was it a decision,’ right?”
Lee: “Yes.”
However, the prosecution revealed there were no shoes found on Corwin’s body, or recovered from the well; a fact which could poke holes in Lee’s version of events.
Daugherty: “During all of this, what you say was this big, dramatic thing where you’re playing Russian roulette and she goes off into the mine shaft, she wasn’t wearing shoes?”
Lee: “I believe she was wearing shoes.”
Daugherty: “There’s no shoes on her feet there right?”
Lee: “No, there is not.”
Daugherty: “What happened to her shoes?
Lee: “I don’t know.”
Court was adjourned early today so the court could make preparations ahead of jury deliberations, which are expected to begin later this week.
