INDIANAPOLIS — On the night of March 5, 2023, Dorothy Brinker was out with friends whom she told she dreaded going home. This was because of the increasingly angry phone calls she was receiving from her husband David, who was with their infant daughter.When Dorothy returned to the family’s easts ide home, she argued with her husband, grabbed the keys to their pickup truck and attempted to drive away.In the early morning hours of March 6, Brinker followed his wife into the street armed with a gun in his hand, hung on to the moving truck, reached inside the cab to grab the car keys and, he said, accidentally fired his gun, killing his wife. David Brinker Brinker admitted what he had done to the first IMPD officers to arrive on the scene, and the Marion County Prosecutors Office didn’t think it could convince a jury that he set out to murder Dorothy. They instead charged him with Reckless Homicide, banking on a likely prison term and not gambling on a potential jury acquittal.Today, Brinker pleaded guilty to the Level 5 Felony, punishable by one to six years in prison.During sentencing, Marion Superior Judge Charles Miller said he was bound by the Plea Agreement to impose no more than three years behind bars for Brinker.Considering the forty days the admitted wife killer waited to make bond inside the Adult Detention Center and the credit he’s earned for adhering to pre-trial conditions, Brinker received a sentence of five years with two years suspended and two years probation. In total, he earned only an additional 101 days in prison for the non-intentional but avoidable fatal shooting.Brinker told the Court he was “deeply remorseful” about taking Dorothy’s life and that he would “never touch another gun” for the rest of his life, which may be a moot point. As a convicted felon, he is prohibited from having a firearm.Regarding the couple’s baby, who is now just past two years old, Brinker said, “One day I will have to tell her why her mommy’s not here,” a conversation he said that will likely haunt him the rest of his life.Dorothy’s friends and family don’t think the punishment is enough.”This city just said that if you shoot your wife in the middle of the street that you can get away with it pretty much,” said Terry Conway, married to Dorothy’s cousin. ”Your city just sent a really bad message. I don’t see how…I don’t get it. 100 days for killing your wife?”Conway and his wife have been caring for Dorothy’s daughter since the killing.”He pulled a gun in a situation there should never have been a gun pulled, and because of that, she’s dead and now her daughter has to be raised knowing that her dad is the one that done it.”Outside the courtroom, family members were angry with prosecutors who put only one witness on the stand, Dorothy’s brother, to testify about the impact the killing has had.”Dorothy was very much forgotten in there,” said Marie Garcia, the woman’s aunt. “Dorothy was made to be the bad person, a mother that went out with her friends was made to be literally made to be put as a bad person because she went out and had one night of fun with her friends.”She knew something was going on that day, and there was more to this story than what was being told.”Dorothy’s family wept in the courtroom and at first rejoiced at the sentencing, not fully comprehending the confinement credits Brinker would receive that would essentially reduce his term in prison to a handful of months.”I would like to say that she was beautiful,” said Conway. “Any person that came in contact with her was happy. She was like a light, she was like a physical light.”Brinker’s attorney told the judge that in the wake of the murder, there had been an investigation by Child Protective Services, which had determined that it was in the toddler’s best interest that she be reunited with her father once his prison sentence is completed.Conway said he doubted that there were any legal grounds to challenge the DCS decision that would force him and his wife to give up custody of the girl once Brinker is released from prison this summer.”That’s always their goal, reunification, no matter how horrible the crime is,” he said. “It's another broken system just like this one, just like this one showed today.” ...read more read less