To avoid a possible death sentence, a gay man who strangled another man and entombed his body inside a concrete egg decided to plead guilty on March 18 to first-degree murder.

It’s no plea bargain for parolee Thomas Jeffrey Brooks, 41, who faces a state prison term of 75 years to life. Brooks admitted killing Edward Andrews, 80, in 2008, and also pleaded guilty to 13 burglary counts involving theft of Andrews’ credit cards, which Brooks and an accomplice used at stores and for cash advances.

Sentencing was set for June 22 by San Diego Superior Court Judge David Gill. Brooks remains in the downtown central jail on $3 million bail.

Brooks’ attorney, Gary Gibson, told reporters after the plea that Brooks was motivated to plead guilty because he might face the death penalty if convicted at trial. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis had not yet made the decision to seek the death penalty, but Brooks had been charged with the special circumstance of murder for financial gain.

Deputy District Attorney Dino Paraskevopoulos said Brooks will have to serve a minimum 75-year term before he could be eligible for parole. He said Brooks put a personal ad in a gay magazine based in Palm Springs while Brooks was in a Florida prison.

Brooks described himself as French and 25 years old, and Andrews began writing to Brooks as a pen pal, said the prosecutor. When Brooks was paroled in 2007, he went to live with the elderly gay man in his mobile home in Hemet. Andrews disappeared around June 1, 2008.

“Elders, when they get lonely, they may let their guard down. This defendant was a mastermind criminal,” said Paraskevopoulos, who added that Brooks had a long criminal record that included arson, child abuse, possession of child pornography and many thefts.

Brooks wrote a neighbor to Andrews while claiming to be Andrews and said they were on a European vacation. It drew suspicion from the neighbor because the neighbor’s first name was misspelled throughout the letter. Brooks put Andrews’ body in a cement casing that he kept adding newspapers and other materials to it.

The bizarre structure was left as part of a rock garden in the back yard of a house in the 3400 block of Alabama Street in North Park. Andrews was found with a belt around his neck and duct tape was placed across his mouth. His legs were lifted up to his chest and the body was surrounded by chicken coop wire, and then covered with a purple blanket, plastic tarp, and concrete.

Brooks was a friend to Ben Mason, who rented his own condo to Brooks, whom he knew under an alias. Mason lived at the Alabama Street house with two other roommates. One roommate broke open a part of the cement orb and Mason testified he saw a “shriveled foot” accompanied by a foul odor on Sept. 5, 2008.

Mason testified the concrete egg was ugly, weighed about 300 pounds, and it looked like a paper mache rock. Mason said Brooks told him he wanted the orb to be “the centerpiece of the formation” of the rock garden, and that Brooks said he felt “peaceful and serene in the back yard.”

The roommates called San Diego Police upon seeing the foot, and they stayed up all night answering questions separately from officers as to why a body in such a structure was in their back yard. They were not charged with any wrongdoing.

On Feb. 11, Arlo Elizarraraz, 20, of Chula Vista, was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory to murder after the fact and 55 counts of fraud involving the victim’s bank account and credit cards.

Elizarraraz purchased the cement, chicken wire and a shovel at Home Depot, but said he did not know it was to be used to entomb a body. Brooks told police that Elizarraraz was not involved in the murder.

In sentencing Elizarraraz, Judge David Danielsen said his actions involved “disrespect (of) the remains” and “to participate in any way with what happened to the victim … is truly as black and criminal as much as doing the deed itself.”