A home intruder killed her husband and attacked her. Now Karen Brian and her kids speak out.

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REXBURG — Ralph and Karen Brian should be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday.

The Rexburg couple would likely enjoy a nice meal, take a ride on Ralph’s Harley and spend the weekend away with each other.

Instead, Karen plans to visit Ralph’s gravesite and have dinner with their children.

“He’s always going to be with us, but it’s different,” Karen says of her husband. “Of the things about him, he was definitely very present wherever he was at. If he walked into a room, everybody knew he was there.”

Karen and Ralph were jolted awake early on Sept. 20, 2021, to find an intruder inside their home. Pierre Lake, who was 18 at the time, shot Ralph in the head and stabbed Karen multiple times.

Ralph died three weeks later, and Lake was charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. He pleaded guilty and last week, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

Karen sat down with EastIdahoNews.com this week in her first public interview since the attack to share memories of her husband. Two of their four children, Cody Brian and Amanda Grimmer, joined her, along with son-in-law Jared Grimmer and several of Ralph and Karen’s 12 grandchildren.

The ‘nightmare’ event

Karen and Ralph were living in a mobile home on North 12th West in Madison County and had plans to build a house on property a few miles away.

They had gone out of town and returned to Rexburg the night before the attack.

“There are a lot of things I do remember about it, but I try to remember him instead of remembering the event,” Karen says. “The event is the nightmare, so I just think about him, positive things, who he was and what he meant to our family. That’s what I have to do because I was living the event, and don’t need to dwell on it. It’s not going to do me any good.”

By all accounts, Lake’s attack on the Brians was random, and he has never explained his actions. Karen and her children choose not to focus on the reasons or they end up down a “rabbit hole” trying to make sense of the tragedy.

“I don’t feel like we’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on how or why it happened,” says Cody Brian. “We’ve just accepted the reality and are dealing with it.”

Cody’s sister, Amanda Grimmer, adds, “These are the cards that we’ve been dealt, and (we’re) just moving forward with how we can do it together.”

With her four kids surrounding her, Karen read a victim impact statement during Lake’s sentencing. She says she wasn’t scared or afraid to look him in the eyes but admits she was “kind of numb.”

RELATED | Man sentenced for home invasion that ended with murder of Rexburg father

“It was somewhat like being on the outside looking in. … I had to have help, (and) I still can’t process it. I don’t know if I’ll ever process it 100%,” Karen recalls.

Lake apologized during the hearing, but Cody says it fell flat.

“He said he was sorry and it felt like he was looking right at me when he said it. It just felt really empty and hollow,” Cody says. “I try not to think about him.”

Read the rest of the story here

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