"Crying out for help all his life"

Take a bunch of Xanax. Combine it with anti-depressants and sleeping pills. Douse liberally with alcohol. Add a life of disappointment and crime, of fear and betrayal and repeated victimization.

That, says Larry Mullen, is what led his brother, Michael, to kill two men he didn't know, both registered sex offenders who had been living quietly in Bellingham. "He was just a sweet kid," Larry Mullen said. "I just wish I had an answer."

Yesterday, Whatcom County prosecutors charged Michael A. Mullen, 35, with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Prosecutors say he confessed to the crime, even after writing letters saying there were more vigilante killings to come.

The Mullen family is devastated, both for Michael Mullen and for the victims' families. But they insist that Michael Mullen is not what he seems.

Growing up in Whatcom County, the four Mullen kids had to sort of "fend for themselves," Larry Mullen recalled, because their parents worked so much running restaurants in Snohomish and Whatcom counties. Michael struggled, routinely wetting his bed.

"There were all the telltale signs" of sexual abuse, Larry said. It wasn't until years later that Michael revealed that he had been molested by a neighbor when he was in second or third grade. The molestation was never reported to authorities.

By eighth grade, he quit school and started drinking. He signed up for the Job Corps and got whisked off to Florida by one of the men there, only to be abandoned. Larry doesn't know exactly what happened in Florida, but he thinks Michael was victimized once again.

Standing 6-foot-5, bald and with prison tattoos, Michael Mullen hardly looks like a victim. But his brother says he has a good heart. "He's been crying out for help all his life," Larry Mullen said.

As an adult, Michael became a con man. In 1993, he was convicted of unlawful issuance of a bank check after he passed a bad check for 150 pounds of veal from an Everett meat purveyor. In 1997, he was convicted of theft in another scam.

His record contains drunken-driving charges and several more thefts, but nothing violent, until now.

Michael Mullen did two stints in Washington prisons. He married twice along the way and had two children, always struggling with alcohol. In recent months, he was taking prescription pills, Larry Mullen said.

A few years ago, he was living in California and purchased a car from friends on a payment schedule, Larry Mullen said.

He didn't keep up with payments and took off with the car, leading the friends to report it stolen. According to California prison records, he was convicted of vehicle theft in 2003 and spent about 18 months in California prisons, where Larry said gangs are rampant.

"Now he's thrown into a cluster of real bad people. He saw people murdered in there. He saw people being raped," Larry Mullen said.

When he was paroled, he asked to move out of state to live with family members. The parole board said no, according to Larry Mullen. Michael simply left, returning to Washington.

"Something happened to him inside that California prison," Larry Mullen said. Michael said if he went back, he thought he'd die.

Earlier this summer, Mullen was riveted to the news of Shasta and Dylan Groene, who were allegedly abducted in Idaho by convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III, who is charged with murder in the killing of their family. Dylan was also later killed.

"He was just mind-twisted over it," Larry Mullen said.

On July 13, according to prosecutors, Michael Mullen looked at a Web site listing Bellingham sex offenders and chose some to visit. Then he pulled a con.

Wearing an FBI cap, he had his girlfriend drop him off at a house on Northwest Avenue on Aug. 26, making up a story about a rental house he wanted to check out, court papers say. He told two men who lived in the home, Victor Vazquez and Hank Eisses, that there was a hit list naming Level 3 sex offenders, including them, and that he would help them so that they wouldn't be killed, court papers state.

He spent a couple hours talking to the two men, leaving once to buy a 12-pack of beer. Sometime that night, Mullen shot Vazquez, 68, and Eisses, 49, each once in the head, court papers state.

About a week later, prosecutors allege, Mullen sent letters to the media, saying there was a vigilante on the loose and he would kill again — and then called two family members to confess. On Monday, he then called police and turned himself in.

"He described himself as a thief and a 'con' whose life was wasted and implied that murdering sex offenders was giving his life value," Chief Deputy Prosecutor Mac Setter wrote in charging papers filed yesterday. In a rambling interview with police, Mullen also suggested he was motivated because of his own victimization, and also because of the Groene case.

"Murder is not a solution and what I did was also wrong," he wrote in a letter quoted in court papers. "I can only pray that God will see my intentions were good."

He is now in jail awaiting a decision from prosecutors in the next month on whether to seek the death penalty. During a court appearance earlier this week he announced his intention to plead guilty to the slayings.

Meanwhile, Larry Mullen and his wife are considering adopting his brother's two young children, who are living with his girlfriend.

"I'm thinking he thought he was protecting them," Larry Mullen said.

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com