A father who deliberately threw his twin daughters off a cliff to “send them to heaven” has pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
Robert Duane Brians, 51, will be jailed for 31 years next month in a plea deal four years after he jumped from Sunset Cliffs in San Diego after Brians initially pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The significant change in statement comes after Brians and his daughters were saved by hero police officer Jonathan Wiese, who rappelled down the cliff and swam to the sinking car to pull them out of the water.
Brians kidnapped Hailey and Aubrey from their parents’ home during a planned visit and left with them on June 12, 2020.
His wife, Jenna Brians, called police around 4:30 a.m. on June 13 after receiving a series of text messages and calls from Brians “clearly stating that he might not see his children again.”
Robert Duane Brians, 51, will be jailed for 31 years next month in a plea deal
Hailey and Aubrey Brians narrowly escaped death when their father threw them from Sunset Cliffs in San Diego on July 13, 2020
“The girls go to heaven and I go to hell to wait for them,” said one.
Earlier, Brians made a post on Facebook saying, ‘Tonight, I’m sending my babies to heaven.’
Jenna thought her ex-husband was going to jump off the Coronado Bridge, but police spotted him driving near Sunset Cliffs around 5 a.m.
Suddenly, his truck veered off the road and over the edge as police following him watched in horror.
Brians had Hailey and Aubrey on his lap while driving, which saved their lives as they would have died if they had been in the backseat.
The car landed upside down in the water after Brians drove it off the cliff.
His wife, Jenna Brians, called police around 4:30 a.m. on June 13 after receiving a series of text messages and calls from Brians “clearly stating that he might not see his children again.”
Wiese, a K9 officer, used a 100-foot dog leash as a makeshift rope to climb down the cliff, while five other officers held the other end.
He then dove into the ocean to rescue them, finding Brians with the girls in his arms and Aubrey crying and clinging to his neck as if her life depended on it.
The girl Hailey was limp and looked like she was dead, and Brians was talking angrily about his ex-wife.
Brians told Wiese that “he was going to die and the girls would come with him.”
Other officers on the cliff lowered a backpack to load the girls into an ambulance, while Wiese pushed Brians toward the shore.
Jenna is a single mother of twins and is grateful to have closed this chapter.
Both girls suffered minor scrapes and cuts, but Hailey suffered a brain bleed and compression fractures in her vertebrae, and was unable to breathe on her own for a time.
They were admitted to intensive care, but within weeks they were happily playing on the beach and putting the ordeal behind them.
TO GoFundMe A fund has been set up for the twins’ future and has raised $18,260 of its $25,000 goal.
Brians and Jenna were married on November 6, 2017, and seemed to have a happy family life until a few months before the horrific crime.
“My little family is the best team I could ever have!” Jenna wrote alongside an Instagram photo on March 5, 2020, the last photo she appeared in.
Other photos showed them on family vacations, celebrating birthdays and holidays, and playing at the beach, parks and pools.
But everything went horribly wrong, and among the long list of charges Brians had filed was domestic battery against Jenna.
Wiese in 2020 described how he saw the van go over the cliff and how he rescued the twins and the father who tried to kill them.
“My heart literally sank. Please tell me the girls weren’t in the car,” Wiese said he thought to himself. San Diego Tribune.
“I could see him and he had one of the little girls in his arms, and I have a two-year-old daughter at home, so I figured, what if that was my wife and daughter down there? You’re not just going to stand there on the cliff and watch what happens,” Wiese told ABC10 as he prepared to rescue them.
Wiese tried to think of a way down the cliff and remembered that he had a 30-meter leash with him.
He handed one end of the rope to five other police officers who had arrived to help and jumped over the edge.
“I said, ‘Hey, wait, I’m leaving,'” Wiese told the Tribune.
The heroic Wiese has two children of his own and was named the San Diego Police Department’s Officer of the Year in 2019.
Wiese was eventually lowered onto the rocks and into the ocean. He then swam, still in his police uniform, to the father who was now holding the children in his arms.
The rescue was made even more difficult as waves continued to roll in, but Wiese seemed like the man for the job, having served in the Marine Corps.
“I was taught how to do water safety rescues and I had a little memory of ‘okay, grab him by the armpit and push him, so I swam over and held him out of the water and got him to shore,'” she said.
While they were downstairs, Wiese had time to talk to the father as they both waited for a rescue helicopter. She decided not to leave him alone in case he tried to end his life again.
Brians pleaded guilty to a dozen felony counts, including murder, kidnapping, robbery, child abuse and domestic violence, before having the others dismissed.
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