Fiancée of suspect charged in killing of daughter's boyfriend arrested; investigators say she participated in murder

Sep. 17—The fiancée of a man charged with killing their daughter's boyfriend in November 2020 was arrested Thursday after investigators said she participated in the crime.

Brenda Kross, 54, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Kross' fiancé, John Eisenman, 60, was arrested and charged with murder last year after the body of their daughter's boyfriend, Andrew Sorensen, was found in Kross' car parked near Franklin Park.

Kross confessed about participating in killing Sorensen to an HR employee at her job, who later went to police, according to court documents.

Sorensen, 20, went missing in November 2020, leaving his family terrified, his mother, Theresa Sorensen, told The Spokesman-Review last year.

"It's so evil, it's just shocking," Sorensen said after hearing new details about her son's last moments that emerged with Kross' arrest.

Kross told the employee they played a song about "crying, crying, crying," while killing Sorensen because he was crying and begging for his life, according to court documents.

"The way in which he was murdered was really disgusting and evil," Theresa Sorensen said. "I just can't believe the wickedness and evil of these people."

The Sorensens' pain of finding out their son was killed was made worse last fall by Eisenman's claim that Andrew Sorensen had sex-trafficked his daughter. Police said there's no evidence to support that claim.

"They made up the whole sex trafficking thing," Theresa Sorensen said, which led to people online cheering on Eisenman for killing her son.

Even after police indicated the claims were untrue, the Sorensens received hate mail, making the grieving process even more difficult, Theresa Sorensen said.

Following Kross' arrest, the family is "in shock," she said.

Her son hadn't had an easy childhood, but it was one filled with love, Theresa Sorensen said. He was adopted as a baby and suffered from cerebral palsy, then was later diagnosed with autism, which resulted in him feeling left out among his peers. As a teen, he began to have mental health issues and abuse drugs. He finally found friends in the homeless teens he met in downtown Spokane, his mother said.

Andrew Sorensen loved to share what he had, his mother said, and would frequently bring his new friends home, where his mother would make them food, help them get on food stamps, enroll in GED programs or get their Medicaid cards.

"It wasn't hard for me," she said, earlier this year. "It was what I was doing with my son and I loved them.

"Every single one of the kids that came here know that they were cared about, they were respected and they were encouraged."

One of those teens was Eisenman and Kross's daughter. The teens took a joyride to Seattle in late October 2020 that ended with their car stolen and family members of both teens rushing across the state to pick them up.

The next weekend, Sorensen disappeared.

His body was found in the trunk of Kross' car in October 2021. Eisenman was arrested weeks later. After his arrest, Eisenman confessed to killing Sorensen while high on methamphetamine, according to court documents.

Eisenman said Sorensen had sex-trafficked his daughter. Kross repeated those claims to the HR person, according to court documents. Investigators said they had no evidence to support the claim. While Eisenman and Kross's daughter did tell medical professionals at Providence Sacred Heart she was sex-trafficked, she said it was by an unknown man and not Sorensen, according to court documents and police records.

After Eisenman's arrest, Kross told KHQ she was proud of her husband for protecting their daughter. Around the same time, Kross began posting on Facebook about wanting to get into treatment for substance abuse. Her posts on social media became more erratic over the next year, bouncing from hopeful she could get treatment to sadness that no one cared about her.

Police arrested Kross Thursday after finding her confession to the HR employee was consistent with the facts of Sorensen's death.

In an interview after her arrest with KHQ, Kross did not address the crime but said she would do anything for her daughter. Kross also said she felt the HR employee misconstrued what she said.

Kross has one prior felony conviction. She remained in the Spokane County Jail on a $1 million bond Friday evening.