Former Baseball Player Convicted of Beating His Father and 2 Other Men to Death with Bat

A former minor league baseball player has been convicted of killing his father and two other men using a baseball bat.

Brandon Willie Martin, 27, was found guilty on Wednesday for the deaths of his father Michael Martin, 64, his uncle Ricky Lee Anderson, 51, and Barry Swanson, 62, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday.

"The jury found Martin guilty of first-degree murder and found the special circumstance of multiple murders to be true," the DA's office said in a statement. The one-time MLB draft pick is eligible for the death penalty, which the DA is pushing for.

Martin killed his dad, who was disabled, his uncle and Swanson, an alarm installer, on September 17, 2015. The three men were murdered at the Martin home in Riverside, California, where Swanson was installing an ADT alarm system "because the family feared Brandon Martin."

After killing the men, Martin stole Swanson's pickup truck, which police later found in Corona. The athlete then led authorities in a car chase before he "ditched the truck and fled on foot."

"In his attempt to evade officers, he broke into a home where he jumped from a second-story window. Corona police sent a police canine to detain Martin. After fighting with the canine, Martin was arrested," the DA's office said.

Martin had reportedly been released from an emergency mental health facility just hours before the murders, ABC 7 News reported. He had been admitted to the facility after threatening his father.

Martin is currently being held at Riverside's Robert Presley Jail, according to the outlet.