A Montco man killed his mother and brother after years of ‘resentment and jealousy.’ He was sentenced to life in prison.

Aaron DeShong was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for shooting his older brother and mother in a cold, calculated killing that Montgomery County prosecutors said was “the product of resentment and jealousy years in the making.”

A jury convicted DeShong, 50, of two counts of first-degree murder in the September 2023 slayings after just two hours of deliberation. Montgomery County Court Judge William Carpenter then sentenced him to the mandatory term of life in prison.

DeShong shot his brother, Adam, twice in the kitchen of the Perkiomen Township home that he shared with his mother, Wanda, according to Deputy District Attorney Thomas McGoldrick. He said Aaron DeShong then turned the gun on the 74-year-old, who, in her final, terrified moments, raised her right hand to shield her face from the .38-caliber pistol her younger son was pointing at her head.

The bullet passed through her hand and struck her in the head, killing her instantly, prosecutors said.

Afterward, DeShong spent more than an hour on the phone with the FBI, saying his mother and brother had been harmed and urging them to send someone to collect evidence of a crime from his home. During the call, he refused to say whether his mother and brother were still alive.

“His voice is cold. There is no emotion in his voice,” McGoldrick said of the call, which he described as “creepy.”

“Murdering his brother and mother didn’t bother him,” the prosecutor added.

During DeShong’s three-day trial, prosecutors said he had had a strained relationship with his brother since the death of their father, Nelson, in 2021. McGoldrick said Wednesday that Nelson DeShong had suffered a stroke several years earlier and his health gradually deteriorated to the point that he was placed on life support.

Wanda and Adam DeShong decided to honor his will and take him off life support. Aaron DeShong, he said, disagreed with that decision and blamed them for his father’s death.

“That really poisoned his view of his mother and brother,” McGoldrick said. “This happened in 2021, and for those next two years, his resentment was at its peak.”

McGoldrick said Aaron DeShong made a series of deliberate, premeditated choices on the day of the murder, including retrieving his loaded gun from the locked closet where he stored it in the basement room where he slept.

DeShong’s attorney, Nicholas Reifsnyder, said in his closing argument Wednesday that McGoldrick had cobbled his case together with “worthless evidence,” including testimony from a forensics expert who said DeShong had gunshot residue on his hands when he was taken into custody.

He said his client made no effort to change the crime scene, hide the bodies, or dispose of the alleged murder weapon. That, he said, was not the behavior of someone who had planned a killing.

Instead, Reifsnyder suggested to the jury that Adam DeShong’s wife, Vicki, was the killer and had planned to pin the slayings on her husband’s brother, with whom he had a tense relationship.

“If she’s going to do it, what better place to do it than the house of the ‘creepy brother’ who’s been holding a grudge for two years?” Reifsnyder said.

McGoldrick called that theory of the case “laughable if it wasn’t so offensive.” Jurors seemingly agreed.

After the verdict, Reifsnyder said he planned to appeal the conviction, saying his client had not been able to properly review the evidence before the trial.

“He had hoped to present a stronger case to the judge,” Reifsnyder said. “It’s always disappointing when it’s a life sentence, but he is hopeful that through the appellate process he can redeem himself and hopefully be back in court someday soon.”