DARE COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) — On Wednesday, North Carolina prosecutors had the chance to question Mikel Brady about the deadly prison escape attempt.
Brady didn’t hold anything back.
“I’m up here to tell the truth,” Brady said. “You can ask me anything you want. I’m going to tell the truth whether it hurts me or it helps me. I don’t care about that.”
Previous coverage: Inmate convicted of murdering 4 Pasquotank corrections officers details past, botched escape attempt
Brady says he a hand in each of the four Pasquotank Correctional employees who were killed in 2017.
“Sir, you don’t believe you are crazy do you,” asked Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Pellini. “No, I don’t think I’m crazy,” Brady answered.
”You do know the difference between right in wrong,” she asked.
“Yes,” Brady said.
“So you know murder is wrong,” Pellini asked. “Murder is a different name for death, but yes,” he answered.
Brady told the jury about his plan to escape, and the fact that no one was going to stand in his way.
“At the end of the day, escape versus these peoples’ lives, you chose escape?” Pellini asked
“Yes,” Brady answered.
“Your freedom meant more than their lives,” Pellini asked.
“Yes,” Brady said.
Brady says he beat Geoffrey Howe to death with a hammer and helped stabbed Justin Smith. He also took out Wendy Shannon and Veronica Darden.
“I cared about Mrs. Darden,” Brady added. “She was a great woman and I’m not taking that away from her.”
Brady talked about this moment where he hit Officer George Midgett with a hammer.
“I hit him hard,” Brady said. “I don’t know if it was as hard as I could, but I did hit him hard. It was hard enough for him to go down with first hit.”
Midgett lived, but is permanently injured.
Brady compared himself to a hot water heater ready to blow at any minute.
“That’s how I am until some big event, whether it shooting a state trooper, whether trying to escape from prison, whether it is a serious fight, once that big event happens all the pressure is gone,” Brady added.
Brady told the court the escape plan was all his idea.
“Monday, Mr. Womble said it best,” Brady added. “He said you hunt as a pack you’re responsible for the kill. In this case you can pretty much call me pack leader.”
The 30-year-old says if he didn’t escape two years ago he wanted to be killed. Neither of them happened.
“I was trying to get every officer that responded to shoot me and none of them would,” Brady said.
The sentencing hearing could take several more days before the jury starts deliberating. The jury will decide if it is life in prison or the death penalty for Brady.