Man gets life without parole for killing Bay Area pawnbroker and his dog

A Solano County man will never get out of prison for the 2016 fatal shooting of a Vallejo pawnbroker and store dog.

During a Monday morning proceeding in the Justice Building in Vallejo, Kashius Brazeal-Nelson, 27, heard Solano County Superior Court Judge Daniel Healy sentence him to life without the possibility of parole for the killings.

The sentence for Brazeal-Nelson, a state prison inmate, came after a two-week trial in July for the fatal shooting of Timothy Pult and a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Copper at the Pawn Advantage store on Springs Road in Vallejo.

Healy also sentenced Brazeal-Nelson for three counts of second-degree robbery and one count of cruelty to an animal, time which will be served concurrently with the murder sentence. The judge dismissed two charges: attempted murder and being a convicted person possessing a gun while under the age of 30.

Brazeal-Nelson, formerly of Fairfield, was arrested July 16, 2017, at the Imperial County prison, where he has been serving a sentence for a Yolo County robbery.

A check Tuesday of Solano County Jail records indicated Brazeal-Nelson was no longer in custody, but he was almost certainly awaiting transfer —  or had been transferred —  to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He was represented by Vallejo criminal defense attorney Dustin M. Gordon.

A co-defendant in the case, Amonie Azoun Andre Summerise, 30, also charged with murder and the wounding of a store employee, crimes caught on surveillance camera. On July 30, he pleaded no contest to the murder charge and two counts of second-degree robbery. In August, Healy sentenced him to 25 years to life in state prison.

Alternate Public Defender Robert Boyle represented Summerise.

Deputy District Attorney Eric Charm led the prosecution.