Alyssa Bradburn, 33, stood in Spokane County Superior Court on April 2 and heard Judge Julie McKay hand down a 340-month prison sentence for the premeditated killing of her father, Timothy Bradburn. She had already told the court exactly what she did, and smiled while doing it.
"I killed Tim Bradburn, and I am guilty," Bradburn told the court during trial, grinning as she spoke. "I'm not afraid anymore. I'm OK with going to prison for however long."
A jury had convicted her roughly a month earlier of first-degree murder with a firearm enhancement. The charge stemmed from the June 25, 2024, shooting of Timothy Bradburn inside their Northwest Spokane home, a killing prosecutors said she rehearsed, journaled about, and carried out with calculated precision.
Court documents and testimony cited by prosecutors laid out a grim sequence. Bradburn admitted she began planning her father's murder weeks before the shooting. She practiced with the firearm inside the home. She got help loading it at a gun range. She wrote about the plan in a journal in the days leading up to the killing.
Then she waited.
Timothy Bradburn had been in Hawaii. When he returned home on June 25, 2024, investigators say he was ambushed as he walked through the front door, still holding his suitcase and keys. His daughter opened fire.
Bradburn later told detectives she believed she shot him three times, twice in the chest, once in the head. An autopsy determined he had actually been shot four times.
She then called 911, told dispatchers his body was in the entryway, and said she would be waiting outside for police. The premeditation was not in dispute. The coldness of the execution was.
What set this case apart from other first-degree murder prosecutions was Bradburn's conduct in the courtroom. She was observed at times smiling while listening to testimony and proceedings, Fox 28 Spokane reported. She told the court she "enjoyed" the trial process.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Emily Sullivan did not mince words about the nature of the crime.
"The evidence... demonstrated an extreme and elaborate degree of planning."
Prosecutors asked the court for 320 months plus a 60-month firearm enhancement. Judge McKay went slightly higher on the base sentence, imposing 280 months on the murder count plus the 60-month enhancement, totaling 340 months, or roughly 28 years behind bars.
In addition to prison time, Bradburn will serve 36 months of community custody upon release, must pay restitution related to her father's death, and is permanently barred from contacting her brother, Trace Bradburn.
Trace Bradburn delivered a victim impact statement during sentencing that cut through whatever detachment his sister had tried to project. He described the weight of losing his father, and then watching the man's reputation dragged through the proceedings.
Bradburn's defense had raised claims of abuse. But Alyssa Bradburn initially claimed she acted in self-defense and later withdrew those accusations. Her brother pushed back directly.
"My father was everything to me. The false accusations made against him have deeply tarnished his memory. My dad was an amazing man, and he never did anything to hurt anyone."
Trace Bradburn also spoke to the daily toll of the loss. Cases like this one, and other family killings that have drawn national attention, leave survivors carrying a burden that no sentence fully addresses.
"I just have to live my life with that... and it just guts me every day."
Judge McKay, in imposing the sentence, acknowledged the devastation inflicted on the Bradburn family and offered a pointed observation about the defendant's record.
"Unfortunately, the crime Ms. Bradburn decided to start her criminal history with is the most significant and serious that we have."
That line lands hard. Bradburn had no prior criminal history. Her first entry into the system was the murder of her own father, planned for weeks, executed at the threshold of his own home, and then recounted in open court with a smile.
The defense raised mental health concerns during the proceedings, though the specific issues cited were not detailed publicly. Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney's Office for comment and did not immediately receive a response. Bradburn's defense attorney also declined to comment.
In an era when high-profile violent crimes routinely produce debates over sentencing, mental health frameworks, and whether accountability still means anything in American courtrooms, this case is notable for its clarity. There was no ambiguity about what happened. The defendant herself removed it.
She admitted the killing. She admitted the planning. She admitted the practice sessions. She journaled about it. And when the jury returned its verdict, she told the court she enjoyed the process.
Prosecutors in other ambush-style killing cases have faced the challenge of proving premeditation through circumstantial evidence. Here, the defendant handed them the narrative herself.
The self-defense claim, raised and then withdrawn, deserves scrutiny as a legal tactic. Bradburn's brother called the underlying abuse allegations false. The jury, presented with the full record, the journal, the gun-range preparation, the ambush at the front door, the 911 call, returned a first-degree murder conviction.
Domestic violence is real, and legitimate self-defense claims deserve serious treatment. But when a defendant plans a killing for weeks, practices with the weapon, writes about the plan, and then withdraws the very accusations meant to justify it, the system owes the victim, and the victim's family, a clear-eyed verdict. That is what the Spokane County jury delivered.
Violent crimes within families, including suspected domestic violence cases that have drawn national scrutiny, test the justice system's willingness to hold individuals accountable regardless of the relationships involved. In this case, the system held.
Timothy Bradburn came home from Hawaii with a suitcase in one hand and his keys in the other. He never made it past the entryway. His daughter made sure of that, and then told the world she was fine with it.
Twenty-eight years is a long sentence. For a man ambushed in his own doorway by the daughter he raised, no sentence restores what was taken.
