Grisly details in murder, rape
Bother confess to brutal beating

ABOVE: Members of the Hopi dance group wait for their turn to perform during the Navajo Nation Fair Night Ceremony in Window Rock Saturday. BELOW: Lonnie Duboise (left), Ronnie Vega and Tyan Vega hang out while watching the Navajo Nation 4-H Fair Auction on Friday. Vega, who is from Fort Defiance, came to purchase animals on behalf of the business, Rio Grand Special Horse and Tack Sales.

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Philip Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — Milton and Larrison Bryant, who are charged with murder and rape, among other felonies, for a crime sequence that took place at 802 W. Maloney last, Wednesday, confessed to using a metal pipe and a firewood log to kill Dewayne Chavez, according to Gallup Police Detective Matt Wright. He said the Bryant brothers’ combined confessions, as well as testimony from the female victim, reveal grisly details of Chavez’s murder and the concurrent rape of the female victim.

He said one of the two brothers pummeled Chavez with the metal pipe, alternating with a log of firewood, while in a separate room the other Bryant forcibly penetrated the female victim, whose name is not being released in order to protect her privacy.

Then the brothers swapped places.

Chavez suffered severe injuries and was flown almost immediately to Phoenix, where he died in the Intensive Care Unit at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital about 36 hours later.

His death upped the aggravated battery charge against brothers Milton Bryant, 25, and Larrison Bryant, 22, both of Sheep Springs, to an open count of murder, which means a first-, second-, or third-degree murder charge may be filed by the district attorney’s office.

The Bryants are also charged with kidnapping, for holding Chavez’s girlfriend against her will; criminal sexual penetration, for raping her, and conspiracy.

Chavez, a resident of the Maloney address, was at home with his girlfriend, who is in her early to mid-20s, Wednesday Sept. 3. The couple were having a few drinks at home when the Bryant brothers came over, as friends, to join them. An argument arose between Chavez and the Bryant brothers, and that’s when police say the Bryant brothers battered Chavez and raped his girlfriend.