RALEIGH - There was no question about who killed Brenda Fox, just whether her ex-boyfriend had planned to beat her to death the day before she was to marry another man.

After spending seven hours deliberating Thursday and Friday, Wake County jurors decided that Charles Dickerson did premeditate when he killed Brenda Fox, 42, a mother of four and a life insurance saleswoman. They convicted him of first-degree murder, a crime that carries punishment of either life in prison or a death sentence.

Dickerson, 42, will be back in court Tuesday as the same jurors listen to more evidence to decide what his punishment should be.

Fox was severely beaten, wrapped in a blanket and left to die in the bedroom of Dickerson's Pettigrew Street home Feb. 10, 2006. Dickerson locked up his house and drove to Georgia in her car, then used her money to pay for several nights in a hotel, according to Wake prosecutors.

Her bruises and other injuries were so numerous it was impossible for the forensic pathologist to count them, said Wake Assistant District Attorney Frank Jackson.

Fox's death upended the lives of her four children -- Jason, Jenny, Jesse and Joyln -- who were in their teens and early 20s when she died.

The eldest, Jason Fox, now 25, said Friday he was happy with the jury's decision, although he opposes the death penalty.

"I didn't want him to die, but I didn't want him to get out," Fox said. "I don't believe in trading death for death."

A voluntary manslaughter conviction, which defense lawyers had argued for, could have meant as little as a 10-year prison sentence for Dickerson.

Insurance connection

The Fox family had moved from Iowa to Raleigh in 1997, and Fox had made a life for herself and her family here, working most recently as a life insurance saleswoman. Her work brought her into contact with Dickerson, who initially was a client, and the two began a relationship. So concerned was she about Dickerson's ability to care for his older son, Charlie, that Fox had taken the teen in so he could attend Sanderson High School.

Charlie Dickerson quickly grew to be a part of the Fox family, and the East Carolina University freshman still keeps in touch with the Fox siblings. Fox went to Charles Dickerson's home on Pettigrew Street the day she was killed to seek full custody of Charlie so that she could adopt him.

That, her marriage planned for the next day and an impending foreclosure on Dickerson's home sent him over the edge, his attorneys told jurors during Thursday's closing arguments. His younger son, Nathan Dickerson, now 16, is in a group home and was in the foster care system before his father's arrest, according to courtroom testimony. Dickerson, who his attorneys said was bipolar and extremely depressed, wasn't allowed to have custody of his younger son because he failed to comply with social services programs.

Family broken up

After Fox's death, her four children tried to hold on to the Raleigh home she left them. But a year later, they couldn't keep up with the mortgage, and the house went into foreclosure.

That sent the four in different directions, with Jesse in college at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro and the three other siblings finding places to live in the Raleigh area.

"We were basically separated," said Joyln Fox, now 20. "We had no choice."

The Fox children had also expected to be recipients of a life insurance police that Fox had kept. But the policy hadn't been updated, something Fox intended to do, and the $500,000 went to her ex-husband, the siblings' stepfather, Jenny Fox said.

Jason, Jenny and Joyln Fox all were in court this week to watch Dickerson's trial. Jesse is starting his third year at N.C. A&T. Joyln moved in a month ago with her her older sister at a Pinehurst home she shares with her fiance and two young children.

Battling depression

Joyln Fox planned to enroll at N.C. State University this fall but said she has struggled with depression since her mother's death and has been unable to.

Jenny Fox, 24, began crying when talking about how her 3-year-old son has no recollection of the grandmother who doted on him. He was 9 months old when she died.

"He doesn't even remember," she said.

Jenny Fox also took issue at the way her mother was portrayed by defense lawyers, who argued that Brenda Fox had consensual sex with Dickerson before the beating. Wake prosecutors theorized that Dickerson tried to have forced sexual contact with her.

Fox said her mother was a generous woman who didn't think twice about helping others, including Dickerson.

"She tried to help him, and this is how he repaid her," she said.

Dickerson is the second person for whom Wake prosecutors have sought the death penalty within the past two months.

The fate of the death penalty itself is still on hold in North Carolina after a de facto moratorium was put in place after a number of legal objections were raised about the way executions are carried out.

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