Joseph Brant, known as Joe Brant, admitted to the killings of four women in New Orleans, Louisiana, between 2007 and 2008. Jessica Hawk died on August 11, 2008, and Kirsten Brydum, aged 25, died later that year. Jody Johnson and a fourth woman who has not been identified were also among those he confessed to killing. He had already pleaded guilty in the killing of Jessica Hawk and was to serve a life sentence for it. His confession to the other deaths came in exchange for a promise that the death penalty would not be sought, and in a later Louisiana proceeding he pleaded guilty to the murder of Kirsten Brydum.
Brant was 48 years old in February 2018. He was described as a man who had lived in San Francisco, California. By 2018 he was in Texas serving a sentence on burglary charges, and it was from that custody that the New Orleans cases came to light.
The four deaths fell within an eleven-month span beginning more than a decade before the confession. Jessica Hawk died in New Orleans on August 11, 2008. Kirsten Brydum was 25 years old and was visiting New Orleans in 2008. Jody Johnson was the third woman named, and the fourth has not been identified. The Johnson death and that of the unidentified woman are dated only to 2007 and 2008.
For ten years the deaths were not connected to anyone. Brant's name entered the cases only after the 2018 confession.
In early 2018 Brant gave an interview to an investigator from the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, having waived his rights to silence and counsel. Prosecutors said he gave details of the killings that had not been made public and that could be known only to the person responsible. He confessed to the deaths of Hawk, Johnson and Brydum and to the death of a fourth woman who remains unidentified.
By the time of the confession he had already pleaded guilty in the killing of Jessica Hawk. That plea carried a life sentence, which was to begin after he finished serving his Texas sentence for burglary. On Thursday, February 8, 2018, an Orleans Parish grand jury indicted him on three further counts of first-degree murder. Under the agreement that accompanied his confession the death penalty would not be sought, and he faced life sentences in Louisiana.
Brant was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial, in a ruling in 2019 in the Orleans Parish criminal district court. The case moved forward again in February 2020 after he received mental health treatment. He then pleaded guilty in a Louisiana court to the 2008 murder of Kirsten Brydum, a plea that again avoided a death sentence. He was 51 years old at that time.
The deaths of Jody Johnson and of the unidentified woman are not matters of conviction. Brant confessed to them and was indicted on first-degree murder counts; no conviction on those counts has been reported. The 2018 indictment carried three counts, and the later plea covers Brydum alone.
2007 to 2008: Four women die in New Orleans.
August 11, 2008: Jessica Hawk dies.
2008: Kirsten Brydum, aged 25, dies.
Before February 2018: Brant pleads guilty in the killing of Jessica Hawk and receives a life sentence, to follow a Texas burglary sentence.
February 2018: Brant confesses to three further killings in an interview with a district attorney's investigator.
February 8, 2018: An Orleans Parish grand jury indicts him on three counts of first-degree murder; the death penalty is not to be sought.
2019: Brant is found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
February 2020: The case proceeds after mental health treatment.
After February 2020: Brant pleads guilty in a Louisiana court to the murder of Kirsten Brydum.