Teens leaving baseball practice are killed by drunk driver on parole, TX officials say

A Texas man accused of killing two teenagers in a drunk driving crash just hours after getting out of prison is going back behind bars, officials say.

Keith Aaron Brazier was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Dec. 15, a year after causing a fatal collision in Galveston, the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

On Sept. 2, 2022, Mason Nelson and Sam Mixon, both 14 years old, were leaving baseball practice at Ball High School when Brazier, 29, slammed into the SUV they were riding in, KHOU reported.

Just eight hours earlier, at 10:30 a.m., Brazier had gotten out of prison after serving time on a driving while intoxicated charge, the district attorney’s office said. A free man again, he headed straight for the bars on Galveston Island, visiting several throughout the day before being “removed” from a beer and pizza joint called Sharky’s Tavern, a witness told officials.

One hour later, Brazier blew through a red light at an intersection and crashed into a Jeep with four high school students inside, officials said.

One of the boys died at the scene, while the other died at a hospital days later, according to officials. A third teen “suffered severe head trauma” but survived.

Police tested Brazier’s blood, which showed his blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit after the crash, officials said.

In court, Brazier pleaded guilty to two charges of murder and a charge of intoxicated assault, according to the release.

The parents of the boys who died approved of the plea deal and gave testimony prior to Brazier’s sentencing, officials said.

“It allows the families to have one less thing to worry about, especially over the holidays, which is what we feel strongly about,” Mason’s father, Reid Nelson, told KTRK. “It does not make it … better, but it closes that chapter. We take the wins where we can get them.”

Mason, a freshman at Ball High School, “was thriving scholastically, athletically, and socially,” an obituary read. He had many friends and his closest were like siblings, the obituary read, “he loved them like family.”

Sam died two weeks after the crash, on Sept. 16, his obituary read. A “boisterous third child,” Sam “possessed a larger-than-life personality and a physical build to match,” it read. “Sam’s magnetic smile and genuine warmth lit up every room he entered.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Teens leaving baseball practice are killed by drunk driver on parole, TX officials say."