FORT PIERCE, Fla. -- Jacob Brighton's parents "deserved to be shot," a defense attorney told jurors in an opening statement of a trial for fatal shootings of Richard and Penny Brighton, killed Aug. 2, 2007, at the family home west of this community along Florida's Treasure Coast. Jacob Brighton faces two counts of first-degree murder. Defense attorney Marc Shiner said his client's parents "deserved to be shot; they deserved it, legally."
Shiner said Jacob Brighton, who was 16 at the time of the shootings, had been sexually abused by his father for several years and that his mother knew about the molestation but refused to do anything about it.
