Testimony Paints Bloody Picture of Murder Scene

Testimony and crime scene photographs presented Wednesday in court painted the bloody scene that police say was contained in a bedroom inside 1005 Winder Drive in Bristol Township on March 31.

After the roughly hour-long preliminary hearing for 44-year-old Jazs Bronner, District Judge Joanne Kline forwarded charges of criminal homicide and possessing an instrument of crime to Doylestown for trial.

Officer Thomas Van Winkle testified that he was dispatched to Winder Drive around 11:50 a.m. for a medical call. He said he arrived to find Jazs Bronner and his mother in one of the home’s bedrooms. Just feet away, Jazs Bronner’s father, Orlando Bronner’s lifeless body laid there with a bloody head injury.

Jazs Bronner and his mother then left the room while the officer checked for vital signs and performed several minutes of last-ditch-effort CPR, Van Winkle testified.

Jazs Bronner and his mother, who was not living with 73-year-old Orlando Bronner at the time, stepped outside, according to testimony. Officer Kurt Leacock said Jazs Bronner was sitting outside the house in a chair when he arrived with medics.

Leacock said Jazs Bronnner asked if he was going to arrest him shortly after he arrived to the scene.

Inside the home, the police officers called for their on-duty commander and detectives, according to testimony.

Blood was splattered on the door and door jamb, while two pools of blood were near where Orlando Bronner laided, the officers testified in court.

A gold, blood-stained 10 pound dumbbell was found on the bedroom floor near Orland Bronner, police said.

Detective Douglas Slemmer testified that he arrived to the modest, well-kept home of Orlando Bronner to find Jazs Bronner sitting outside in an SUV. It would be several hours later before detectives questioned the 44-year-old.

Detectives Slemmer and Greg Beidler interviewed Jazs Bronner after the death, according to court papers. Jazs Bronner said the argument between the two started after the 44-year-old thought he heard his father call him. He then alleged Orlando Bronner then confronted his son and asked him if he was a “tough guy.” Jazs Bronner told detectives his father threw a “haymaker” at him with his right hand and he was able to duck. He then said he threw a left-handed punch back but was not sure if he hit his father. The two began tussling, Jazs Bronner said, and both fell to the bedroom floor like a “sack of potatoes” and his father became motionless and he said his father must have hit his head on the dumbbell, according to court papers.

Jazs next told police he panicked and tried to leave but the door was locked. He said he then went to the bedroom and rolled his father onto his back and looked for the key to the front door in the 73-year-old’s pant pockets. The key was eventually located on the bed and Jazs Bronner said he drove to Trenton to pick up his mother, court papers say. The two returned to the home and the mother called 9-1-1, according to testimony.

“The injuries did not appear to be consistent with falling on a dumbbell weight,” detectives noted in court papers.

An autopsy conducted in the days following the death revealed Orlando Bronner died from blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Forensic pathologist Dr. Ian Hood said the 73-year-old was bludgeoned at least four separate times and there was a metal or metallic paint transfer observed on skull bones, documents filed in court say. Slemmer testified in court that Orlando Bronner had pieces of the weight’s paint embedded in his head.

Jazs Bronner was a Navy medic with field training but told police he did not provide first aide to his father because he “panicked,” Slemmer said in court.

Police said Jazs Bronner told them he has been living  at his father’s Winder Drive home for about four months. One neighbor said Orlando Bronner did not want his son living with him.

Residents in the close-knit Winder Drive community told LevittownNow.com in April that Orlando Bronner a “great neighbor” and the “all-around sweetest guy you’d ever want to meet.”

Related:

• Cops: Son Bludgeoned Beloved Father to Death