GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WZZM) – A Michigan teenager was sentenced to at least three years in prison for shooting his friend in the face during a game of Russian Roulette earlier this year. 18-year-old Richard Usher (pictured above) will serve two years for a felony firearm charge and then somewhere between one and fifteen additional years for manslaughter. The length of the additional sentence will be determined by a parole board.
Jannie Kuiper, the mother of the victim, 16-year-old Brandon Kuiper, asked the Ottawa County judge for the maximum sentence for what she called an act of “stupidity.”
“His last words to me as he walked out the door were, ‘See you mom’,” she told the Judge. “I will see him again one day but until then, his friends, family, and myself will have to live with Richard Usher’s violent stupidity.”
She went on to describe in disturbing detail what occurred in the hospital before her son’s death: “Two nurses were compressing towels on his face, the towels were lifted briefly for me to see his face, his face that was gushing blood as he was bleeding.”
Brandon’s brother similarly asked the judge to show no mercy through a letter read aloud by Jannie Kuiper: “I think Richard Usher should serve the maximum sentence for what he did , he’s an adult and he pointed the weapon pulled the trigger and took my brothers’ life.”
Usher did not ask for mercy. He apologized to Brandon’s mother: “I want to say to Ms. Kuiper that I’m truly sorry about what happened to Brandon, I think about him everyday, I wish I could go back and change the past. he was one of my brothers and he always will be in spirit.”
Investigators say drugs and alcohol were involved in the incident.
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