Drug dealer jailed for 60 years for his role in the killing of an 8-year-old murder trial witness and the boy's mother in 1999 could be free next year if he wins appeal to reduce sentence after serving just 25 years

Adrian Peeler (in an undated picture) was sentenced to 60 years in prison for drug dealing charges and his role in the murder of a woman and her eight-year-old son in 1999

A Connecticut man convicted of drug dealing and for a role in the killing of an eight-year-old murder trial witness and the boy's mother could go free next year after serving just 25 of the 60-year sentence he received.  

Adrian Peeler, now 44, was sentenced to a combined 60 years in state and federal prison for his roles in the 1999 killings of Karen Clarke, 30, and her son, Leroy 'B.J.' Brown, eight, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the city's cocaine trade.  

B.J. was expected to testify against Adrian's older brother, Russell Peeler, during the elder Peeler's trial for the 1998 killing of a rival drug dealer.  

Despite Adrian being Clarke and B.J.'s alleged shooter, a jury only convicted him of murder conspiracy and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge, plus five more years on additional charges. 

After Adrian's 25-year sentence for the slayings ends in January 2022, he is scheduled to be immediately transferred to federal prison to begin a 35-year sentence for a drug dealing conviction.  

But now, Adrian is asking a federal judge to reduce the federal sentence to time served in state prison and change it from consecutive to concurrent with the state sentence.

Adrian's request for a sentence reduction under a national criminal justice reform law is pending approval by a federal judge. It is not clear when the judge will rule.

If successful in his bid, he would be a free man in a year.   

Leroy 'BJ' Brown and his mother, Karen Clarke were fatally shot in their home in January 1999. Authorities said Adrian killed them at his brother's behest

State and federal authorities and the victims' relatives are stridently opposed to the sentence reduction. 

In a recent letter to Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, Bridgeport State's Attorney Joseph Corradino and prosecutor Susan Campbell cited Adrian's violent criminal history and said he should not qualify for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018.

Thousands of federal prisoners across the country have been granted sentence reductions under the First Step Act, which aimed to address concerns that too many Americans were imprisoned for nonviolent crimes as a result of the drug war.

'Simply put: the defendant is not a nonviolent drug offender for whom this legislation was intended,' the attorneys wrote of Adrian and his brother, Russell Peeler Jr. in their December 31 letter. 

'He and his brother terrorized the streets of Bridgeport, destroying the very community that raised him, disgracing the memory of their mother who was a Bridgeport police officer, and leaving drugs and bodies in their wake.'

Russell is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of release for ordering the deaths of the boy and his mother. He was originally sentenced to death, but was resentenced in 2016 when Connecticut abolished the death penalty. 

Russell was also sentenced to 105 years in prison for killing Clarke's boyfriend, Rudolph Snead, a rival drug dealer, in 1998.  

In his bid for the sentence reduction, Adrian argued in court documents that his federal sentence is only for dealing drugs and is exactly the kind of lengthy drug sentence targeted by the First Step Act. 

He also submitted letters of support from college professors and fellow inmates praising his efforts to educate himself and mentor other prisoners while behind bars.

BJ was expected to be a witness at Adrian's brother's Russell Peeler Jr's murder trial. Russell (pictured in 2016) was accused of killing BJ's mother's boyfriend, Rudolph Snead, in 1998

Authorities said that Adrian carried out BJ and Clarke's killings on Russell's order. At the time of their deaths, Russell was at home wearing an ankle monitor. Russell is shown in 1999

'I give no reasons for, nor do I make any excuses for the choices that I have made,' Adrian wrote in a letter to the federal judge considering the First Step Act arguments.

He added, 'The truth is that I no longer see the world at 43 in the same way that I saw it at 22. I realize, sadly, that I stole a lot from my community. Now I would just like the opportunity to give back in a more meaningful way.'

Adrian's federal public defender, James Maguire, and the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment for this story. A message seeking comment was left for Corradino, the state prosecutor.

Relatives of eight-year-old B.J. and his mother are joining prosecutors in opposition to Peeler's sentence reduction request.

'The evil of Adrian Peeler is senseless and I will never be able to understand how a grown man could heartlessly kill an eight year old,' Clarke's cousin, Janet Gordon, wrote in a letter to the judge. 

'A monster like that has no place in society, no type of rehabilitation can help him. Without Karen and B.J. in my life today, I can say with a one hundred percent certainty that my life will still never be the same.'

Prosecutors have said Adrian, at Russell's direction, gunned down B.J. and Clarke in their Bridgeport home on January 7, 1999. 

Authorities said the brothers wanted to eliminate B.J. as a witness against Russell in Snead's 1998 killing.

In 1997, B.J. had told police that Russell shot and wounded Snead in a drive-by attack that Snead survived. B.J. and another boy were in Snead's car at the time of the attack. 

B.J., who relatives said wanted to be the first black president, was expected to testify about the 1997 drive-by attack at Russell Peeler's trial for Snead's 1998 killing.

According to a 1999 South Coast Today report, Clarke had turned down police protection after Snead's murder and had also rejected the suggestion that she enter the witness relocation program. 

The state had asked for a protective order which would've allowed prosecutors to withhold witness names and addresses from the defense, but the request was denied.  

In January 1999, Clarke was found in her home, shot twice in the back, and B.J. was found shot once in the back of the head. It appeared that they were surprised by the gunman when they returned home from a grocery trip and had tried to run away. 

Electronic records indicated that Russell, who was wearing an ankle monitor after being bailed out of jail on the Snead's murder charges, was home at the time of the murders. 

In the days following the murder, police had asked for the public's help in finding  Adrian, who they considered a fugitive from justice, after he allegedly failed to return to a halfway house where he had been serving out a 30-month prison term for selling narcotics, reckless endangerment and risk of injury to minors. 

The Peeler brothers were ultimately charged with capital felony and murder and faced the possibility of the death penalty for the deaths of B.J. and his mother. 

Despite Adrian Peeler being the alleged shooter, a jury only convicted him of murder conspiracy and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge and five more years on other charges.

Russell was convicted and sentenced to death for ordering the killings.

The killings of B.J. and his mother led to a revamped state witness protection program named after them.