Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina announced that an Edgewater Park man who admitted to killing his mother late last year inside their residence at the Courtyard Apartments, so he could sell her belongings and use the money to buy cocaine, was sentenced today to 25 years in New Jersey state prison.
Officials say, Brian K. Templeton, 54, who pled guilty in August to Aggravated Manslaughter (First Degree), must serve 85 percent of the term before becoming eligible for parole. The sentence, part of a negotiated plea with the Prosecutor’s Office, was handed down in Superior Court in Mount Holly by the Hon. Philip E. Haines, J.S.C.
Templeton fatally bludgeoned his mother, 77-year-old Doris Templeton, in October 2019 with a pan from the kitchen while she was sleeping in her bed.
He told Judge Haines that he was not in the right frame of mind at the time due to his addiction.
“I do feel remorse,” he said in court. “She was the only person that I really had.”
The investigation began on November 11, 2019, after an employee of the apartment complex asked police to conduct a wellness check because Doris Templeton had not been seen nor heard from in more than two weeks.
The investigation revealed that after Templeton killed his mother, he stuffed her body in a cedar chest and left it there for a few days.
He then loaded it into the back of his car and parked the vehicle at the pizza shop where he was employed. Her body was discovered by investigators approximately three weeks after she had been killed.
“This is a horrifying crime for several reasons,” Prosecutor Coffina said. “Brian Templeton’s father left their family when he was a toddler, and he was raised by his mother.
When this defendant looks back on her determination and dedication to be there for him, he will have to contrast memories of that commitment with the savage way he killed her, and the unimaginably callous treatment shown afterward to her remains.”
Templeton was prosecuted by BCPO Assistant Prosecutor Bob Van Gilst, supervisor of the BCPO Major Crimes Unit – Violent Crimes Section. The lead investigator was BCPO Detective Sergeant Brian Miller.