00:00:04
[MUSIC PLAYING] REXANNA BROWNING: Ron was
a very generous husband. He would do anything
that I ask him to do,
00:00:19
go anywhere that I wanted to go. He was very loving. Two days before, my brother
and I went fishing and had,
00:00:32
as usual, a good time together. But then when I got the
call, I mean, it was just,
00:00:39
it was shocking to hear that
something that happened to him. As I arrived at the crime
scene, I would have to say,
00:00:48
I probably saw the most
gruesome scene that I have encountered in my career. It was in his home.
00:00:55
He was minding his own business,
and ultimately, the only thing that he did that
led to his death
00:01:02
was opened the
door to a stranger. There was no connection
which is probably what makes this the
scariest possible crime.
00:01:13
REXANNA BROWNING: I
did not know of anybody who did not like Ron. I don't think anybody
would have harmed him,
00:01:19
people just loved Ron. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ron was a very
kind, generous man. He would give you the
shirt off of his back.
00:01:54
He was very religious. The church meant a lot to Ron. He was the pastor of
it for many years.
00:02:03
On February the 7th, I kissed
him, and told him I loved him, and told him goodbye.
00:02:09
I was going to take my mom
out to her cousin's house. And I was gone all day. He stayed at home and was
going to study his Bible,
00:02:21
it was Saturday. On February 7, 2015, it
was just like any other day that we see typically
in a February.
00:02:29
It was pretty cold. It wasn't a lot of snow on the
ground, but it was chilled. It's what you would expect
in our area for that climate.
00:02:40
REXANNA BROWNING:
Was coming back, and I had told my mom that
it was strange that I hadn't
00:02:44
heard from Ron all day long. He always calls me two
or three times a day when I'm out like that,
and he didn't that day.
00:02:53
I pulled up into the
house, I did smell gas, and I went upstairs. On the porch, and
went into the house.
00:03:04
I went into the kitchen because
I had a cake in my hand, to put the cake
down on the table.
00:03:11
And I hollered for him, and ask
him what was going on because I had seen hair in the floor.
00:03:22
and I went to the hall,
and my dog came out, and she was shaking. And that's when I
turned around, and I
00:03:31
seen Ron laying in the floor. [RINGING] MORGAN BRAGG: The initial
responding officer, when he
00:04:38
arrived, he entered the home. He immediately recognized that
this was not, not an accident.
00:04:44
It was not a medical call. So what he chose to do
is he did what we would consider clearing the scene.
00:04:51
He went room by room
through the residence to make sure that there were
no assailants still on scene.
00:04:56
And what he noticed is a
copious amount of blood throughout the residence. He went to the
basement of the home,
00:05:06
and discovered that
gasoline had been poured around the basement area. At that point, he
exited, secured
00:05:13
the crime scene with
crime scene tape, and called for us to respond. I arrived at the scene at
about 6:00 PM that afternoon.
00:05:24
The victim's wife, Rexanna,
was noticeably distraught. I would say, almost in shock.
00:05:33
When we entered
the residence, we observed that the victim had
suffered some extreme trauma,
00:05:37
particularly what we would
consider to be blunt force trauma to his head and face.
00:05:42
There was an extreme amount of
blood in the living room areas. It appeared that there was quite
a struggle that had occurred,
00:05:48
and we noted that around
this victim's head, there was a large amount
of shards of glass,
00:05:55
and change, and various
items of that nature. We recognize that this
scene was expansive.
00:06:06
It was a lot of evidence
that needed collected. We chose to contact
the Western State
00:06:10
Police Crime Response Team. They have a lot of resources. The crime scene at
Ronald Browning's house
00:06:19
was probably one of the
bloodiest crime scenes in Raleigh County history. The extreme violence
that was used
00:06:27
left an absolutely
chaotic scene, and one that I won't soon forget. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06:44
Well, on February 7,
I was home with my wife, and we received a phone
call from Ronald's wife.
00:06:51
And she said that something
had happened at the house, and that he had been murdered.
00:06:58
And we couldn't understand
how you can come out, and say it just like that. But I guess she
was in shock, too.
00:07:10
And that's when we
decided that we were going to drive to his house. Well, when I talked to the
police officer at the scene,
00:07:18
I asked him what was going on. And he told me that
Ron had been murdered. And it was just unbelievable.
00:07:30
And they said that we
need to leave the area. So we did, we stayed
for just a few minutes,
00:07:35
and then we went back home,
and didn't do anything. When we see a victim with
that much severe trauma,
00:07:42
that's typically what we
would consider to be overkill. Typically somebody that's
perpetuated by somebody
00:07:47
that knows the victim. Overkill is when
there's more done to kill a person than is necessary.
00:07:55
So this is evidence of
aggression, violence, hatred. Typically things that are
very interpersonal in nature.
00:08:03
The other thing is it may be
sadistic, where somebody really gets pleasure out of
the torture and pain
00:08:09
that they're inflicting
on somebody else. But in all of these
circumstances, far more is done to a person
than is necessary to kill them.
00:08:21
In any investigation, there's
a component of victimology. Trying to decide
what type of victim
00:08:27
you're working with here,
what ties they may have had, individuals they may have
been associated with.
00:08:33
BENJAMIN HATFIELD:
Ronald Browning was an incredible person. He was a family man.
00:08:38
He had a wife and family
that loved him very much. He was a local
pastor of a church.
00:08:47
He volunteered at
a local hospital, and he had a lot of
people that loved him. MORGAN BRAGG: One
of the first steps
00:08:58
that we take in
investigation of this nature, is a canvass of
the area in hopes that someone saw a vehicle,
saw a person on the street.
00:09:07
Didn't glean a whole
lot of information from that canvass at that point. BENJAMIN HATFIELD:
At the commencement
00:09:14
of an investigation, one of the
things we look for is possible suspects. And in order to obtain that
list of possible suspects,
00:09:21
we explore motive. So this case was unique in
that, at this point in time, we didn't have a motive.
00:09:30
We didn't have a rationale,
and we didn't know if we needed to connect some dots, or
there was a connection
00:09:39
that we didn't know about. The original
FBI profilers used to say, what plus y
equals who in any type
00:09:47
of crime such as this. And so when you don't understand
why, trying to understand who
00:09:52
did it was even more difficult.
And in this case, when police had no understanding
of the motive,
00:09:58
and they had no idea why
this crime was committed, that meant that anybody
could be a suspect.
00:10:04
MORGAN BRAGG: There
were some information that we were able to
glean from the crime scene
00:10:07
itself pretty early on. One of the first things is
that we recognize that whoever
00:10:11
had done this to Mr.
Browning had clearly injured themselves in the process. And from the amount of
blood that we found strewn
00:10:19
throughout the residence,
we could tell that they were injured pretty severely. So one of the things that
we initiated early on
00:10:26
was checking the
hospitals to see if anybody had come in
with these severe injuries
00:10:30
that we would expect. KERRY DANES: Globally, 96%
of all killers are male. So the police would
be thinking that it's
00:10:45
more likely to be a
man who was inflicted this level of violence because
this is really very brutal.
00:10:52
But the crime scene is chaotic,
and the manner of death is incredibly chaotic, as well.
00:11:02
It's looking really
disorganized, and that is a clue to
who might be responsible.
00:11:08
They might be chaotic,
and they might be disorganized themselves. Hundreds of photographs
were taken at the scene.
00:11:17
It was such an extensive
scene that the processing took hour upon hour. I would say, in the range
of probably 12 hours
00:11:26
total, just, just processing the
scene and taking photographs. In this case, the
photos gave a glimpse
00:11:34
of the level of violence,
and the level of evil that was present in Ronald
Browning's house that night.
00:11:48
My brother was the kind of
guy that didn't bother anybody. And it should never
happen to him.
00:12:03
He'd do anything for
anybody to help to bring him to be killed this way. Just unbelievable.
00:12:23
REXANNA BROWNING: We are at
Cool Ridge Community Church. This is where Ron was pastor,
and this is also where we got
00:12:30
married on April the 19th, 2014. This is a picture
of our wedding cake which was made by my
niece that were cutting.
00:12:48
Me walking down the aisle with
my brothers which gave me away. We were all in pink and white.
00:13:01
This is where me and Ron
just had got married, and we're holding hands. He had married Rexanna
which was a good marriage
00:13:12
for both of them. They both needed somebody
in their life at that time. And they had a good marriage.
00:13:18
She went to church
with him all the time, and was very devoted as
far as being with him.
00:13:25
It was nice to reconnect
with Ron later in life. He was a joy to be around. He was my best friend.
00:13:36
I never expected to
find love like we had. MORGAN BRAGG: This is probably
the best photograph to show
00:13:47
what I saw when I arrived. The scene had been secured with
this yellow crime scene tape.
00:13:53
Rexanna Browning's car
was in the driveway. And at that time,
his wife Rexanna was seated in this
vehicle, the rear seat
00:14:00
of this vehicle awaiting
the detective's arrival. And this would be the door
that we believe the suspect
00:14:08
exited from the basement door. At about 8:45 that
evening, we had the opportunity to speak with
the victim's wife, Rexanna.
00:14:17
You know, in a general sense,
everybody was a suspect because we were
unable to determine
00:14:22
anybody that would logically
do this to the 69-year-old man. And due to the extent
of the assault,
00:14:30
we certainly felt that it was
somebody connected to him, or a family member,
right off the bat is
00:14:35
something that we would expect. So she was, I would say,
a person of interest is how we would describe her.
00:14:42
The fact that she was gone
during the day, the fact that she was rather
emotionless in that
00:14:50
shocked state at that point in
time was a little bit suspect. We certainly didn't think
that she was physically
00:14:57
capable of doing what
was done to Mr. Browning, but we wanted to make sure that
nothing else had played a role.
00:15:09
BRYANNA FOX: When police first
meet with Rexanna, the wife of the victim, there
are a lot of reasons
00:15:15
that they thought she was very
unlikely to have done this. Due to her size, stature.
00:15:20
But at the same time, given that
she was in his inner circle. And the statistics show people
that are closest to the victim
00:15:28
are most likely to have
committed the crime, police felt like
they really can't eliminate her as a
suspect until they
00:15:34
have hard evidence to do so. What we learned about
their relationship was that Mr. Browning and
Ms. Browning have been
00:15:41
married for about nine months. Had known each other
for 14 years prior to that, knew each other
through the hospital, I believe.
00:15:50
And, really, there was no
indication that they had ever had any sort of conflict,
or any kind of violence,
00:15:57
or anything of that nature
that would make us suspicious. Ms. Browning did advise
that she had an alibi.
00:16:03
We were able to verify that
through other people who had attended that
same family reunion.
00:16:09
She was cleared
as a suspect quite early in this investigation. In relation to the
crime scene itself,
00:16:20
we wanted to find out if there
was anything that Ms. Browning had noticed that stood out.
00:16:26
I did not notice
anything wrong right away. It was once I got into the house
and into the kitchen that I had
00:16:34
noticed that the milk
jug, and the hair in the floor, which
I picked up, and I laid it on his recliner chair.
00:16:46
The house was tore up, there was
blood everywhere in the house. Once I started noticing the
curtains in the living room
00:16:52
was tore off of
the wall, there was blood on the curtains
in the bathroom, there was blood in the
sink in the bathroom.
00:17:01
There was blood in the
toilet in the bathroom. The attic ladder
was pulled down,
00:17:09
and a white cabinet
had been knocked over. Throughout our conversation
with Ms. Browning,
00:17:15
obviously, one of the things
that we wanted to determine is, could she think of anyone
that would do this kind
00:17:20
of violence to her husband? No, I did not know of
anybody who did not like Ron. He was very happy,
people just loved Ron.
00:17:36
I don't think anybody would
have harmed, harmed him. We noticed the braided
hairpieces pretty quickly on.
00:17:48
And that was for a
number of reasons, but primarily because
they were so commingled
00:17:53
with the victim's blood. They were literally
underneath his body. There were-- the hair, braided
hair pieces were there.
00:18:00
So we knew that was significant. As the crime scene team
processed the scene, they indicated that it appeared
the murder weapon in this case
00:18:09
was going to be a large
glass jar full of change, just based on the scene itself.
00:18:16
It appeared that this
person that did this crime had entered the attic, they
had entered the basement.
00:18:21
They had gone through every
drawer that we could find, they had been at
the kitchen sink.
00:18:25
They had used the shower, they
had been in all the restrooms. This person spent a
good deal of time there,
00:18:31
and that was interesting
to us as well. And they indicated that
they had located things
00:18:37
such as a bloody gas
can in the basement, and it appeared
that a person had spread gasoline
around the residence
00:18:42
in, in an attempt
to set it ablaze. BRYANNA FOX: Based upon the
evidence found at the scene,
00:18:50
police were able to
determine that this was a very frenzied, haphazard,
and spontaneous scene.
00:18:56
The fact that the murder weapon
used to kill Browning was all taken from this house,
they're all objects
00:19:04
that were available, show
there was no premeditation. The person that
was the killer did
00:19:09
not bring a weapon with them. It just suggests that there
was something a little more
00:19:14
spontaneous that went
on, but at the same time there's a lot of passion
and anger involved in it.
00:19:25
At some point in
an investigation, there comes a time
when you almost have to get together and have
a little brainstorm session.
00:19:31
We mentioned that there were
braided hair pieces discovered amongst this, this
violent attack,
00:19:37
and underneath
the victim's body. A uniformed patrol
officer advised us that he had just recently
taken a missing persons report.
00:19:47
A worried mother had called
the police had advised them that her adult daughter was in
the process of having her hair
00:19:54
braided, the mother
had left the room for a short period of time. When she returned,
the daughter was gone.
00:20:01
She wandered from the room,
left her phone in the room, and was unable to be contacted
by anybody after that point.
00:20:12
Of the other things that we
discovered during this kind of putting our minds
together at the office,
00:20:19
some of the other officers had
overheard our conversation. And that we suspected the
person to be very injured,
00:20:25
the suspect in this case. An officer approached me, and
told me that he had been aware
00:20:30
that a female, a
19-year-old female, had been arrested in a
neighboring jurisdiction,
00:20:36
Mabscott, West Virginia. As we looked into the
investigation of the Mabscott Police Department, we
determined that the suspect
00:20:46
had actually forced herself
into two other homes. In the first one, she
approached a very elderly man.
00:20:53
And she subsequently went into
another residence of a family who was able to,
basically, dissuade
00:20:59
her long enough that they
could contact law enforcement. [RINGING] When we initially heard the
description of the individual
00:22:06
that Mabscott police had
arrested, to be honest, we were quite skeptical
that, that could
00:22:10
be our suspect just
because it's not what you would normally expect. The 19-year-old female would
not have matched the suspect
00:22:18
that we would intend
to expect to see in such a violent incident,
is what we encountered.
00:22:46
At the time of her arrest,
she had severe, very severe injuries to her hands. Particularly
lacerations and cuts,
00:22:53
which is exactly what we
expected our suspect to have. [MUSIC PLAYING] As soon as we determine
that Mabscott had arrested
00:23:08
that female, and her
physical description matched the hairstyle that
we were looking for,
00:23:13
we traveled to the hospital and
make contact with her there. And that's when we discovered
her name was Camille Brown.
00:23:20
One of the key pieces of
evidence from the crime scene was the braids that
was intermingled
00:23:25
in Ron Browning's blood. That's specifically significant
because Camille Brown was in the process of getting
her hair braided when she went
00:23:35
missing earlier in the day. I observed Camille sitting on
a gurney inside the hospital,
00:23:41
just acting erratic. I was shocked to see
a 19-year-old girl in that condition, but she
was basically incoherent.
00:23:49
She wasn't making
a lot of sense. We did not attempt to really
talk to her about our incident
00:23:54
at that time. At first, Camille
Brown was being treated at Raleigh General Hospital.
00:24:04
Ultimately, she was so combative
and violent at Raleigh General, they refused to treat her.
00:24:13
These are some photographs
from the hospital. We did have a
significant struggle
00:24:16
with her at the
hospital in attempts to take her into custody. She fought very violently
in that parking area.
00:24:26
And it was a unique
situation, in that, her family arrived at the hospital. So this was the first time they
had seen her since they had
00:24:35
filed a missing persons report,
which led to a very emotional, emotionally charged situation.
00:24:43
As we were trying
to restrain her, they were trying
to retrieve her. And it was a bad situation
all the way around.
00:24:52
Ultimately, the Beckley
City Police Department was left with no
choice but to take her
00:24:58
to Beckley Appalachian Regional
Hospital where she was treated. But she had to be physically
restrained in order to do so.
00:25:08
And this is a hospital
that specializes in restraining violent
individuals or mentally
00:25:15
unstable individuals. And they had to use sedatives
and physical restraints. And it took five or
six officers just
00:25:22
to hold her down long enough
to get her injuries treated. The jacket that
Camille Brown was
00:25:28
wearing when she was
arrested actually belong to Ronald Browning. The jacket was
his Chaplin jacket
00:25:36
from Raleigh General Hospital. That belonged to him. Ultimately, that was a
key piece of evidence.
00:25:43
The fact that she was wearing
it not very long in time after the commission
of the crime.
00:25:54
A lot of times when
there's a murder that they do suspect that it was
somebody in the family.
00:25:58
We were told that they had
already talked to Rexanna, and that she hadn't got there
till after he was murdered.
00:26:08
But they had
apprehended a young lady in the neighborhood who had
been to four different houses.
00:26:18
And that they had apprehended
her, and talked to her. As soon as she got in the
car, she made the comment
00:26:24
she had killed this old,
gray-haired, white man. We were unable to establish
a motive because we knew
00:26:31
that Ms. Browning,
the victim's wife, was unaware of Camille Brown. There was no connection there.
00:26:38
And we didn't know what her role
could have been at that point. We began to canvass the
area for security cameras.
00:26:47
We knew that Ms. Brown
lived near in the area. We knew that, the likely
way she would travel
00:26:55
to the victim's residence. We secured some
video footage that showed Ms. Brown
jogging down the street
00:26:59
prior to the homicide. In the process of
canvassing the area, we realized that
this trail existed.
00:27:06
And in that process is when we
discovered droplets of blood, and we believe that
this is the trail
00:27:11
that the suspect took after
she committed the homicide. We believe she walked
this trail to Mabscott
00:27:16
where she was later arrested. The police told me that a
girl had been into the house,
00:27:26
and had been into several
houses in the neighborhood. Just walked in and
terrorized people.
00:27:37
And I couldn't believe that
somebody had went in the house and did what they done.
00:27:45
In this particular
case, I feel like there was enough physical
evidence to arrest her
00:27:50
but we certainly didn't
want to leave it at that. So what we chose to do is to
attempt to interview Ms. Brown
00:27:56
so that we could find
out more information and see if she may
confess to this. She then told
investigators that she even
00:29:36
kicked the man in the chest area
because he just wasn't dying. After the commission
of the crime,
00:29:43
she told investigators that
she rummaged through the house, even looking at mail and
several other items that
00:29:50
were scattered about the home. She then later told the
police that she ultimately
00:29:57
sprayed gasoline through
the basement area because the plan, or her plan,
was to set the house on fire.
00:30:04
To try to hide evidence of
the commission of the crime. One of the things that
we noted pretty early on
00:30:34
is that there was no
connection between Camille Brown and Ron Browning. We found that to be kind of
surprising, to be honest,
00:30:42
because there was so
much violence here that we expected
our suspect to have a connection to the victim.
00:30:47
In this instance,
that wasn't the case. In my experience,
stranger murders, specifically, in
Southern West Virginia,
00:30:56
are a statistical improbability. You're far more likely to be
killed by someone you know.
00:31:02
And typically, the
statistics would indicate that those
individuals are likely male.
00:31:09
This is the least
likely suspect. First of all, of
course, she is a woman. So she's in that 4%
of women who kill.
00:31:19
And she's only a young woman. There's no connection between
Camille Brown and Pastor Ron.
00:31:27
Of course, there was a
wealth of forensic evidence that they could rely on
to prove that she was
00:31:32
the person responsible,
but I think that the whys and wherefores
of it, that was all
00:31:38
to do with her behavior. And her behavior was
very, very strange. The suspect in this
case is quite a paradox.
00:31:47
Is a 19-year-old girl, she has
an impeccable history as far as the community goes, she had
not been in any trouble, had
00:31:54
not had any previous arrests. But there again, she's
probably committed one of the most
gruesome, heinous crimes
00:32:01
that this city has ever seen. This girl had
knocked on the door and asked for a drink of water.
00:32:08
And when he opened the door,
evidently, she had more in mind than getting a drink of water,
that she had killed him.
00:32:16
[MUSIC PLAYING] The funeral
happened in Beckley. There were so many
people that the church
00:32:35
couldn't even begin
to hold the amount of people that showed up. There was a lot of
things said about Ron.
00:32:42
What a great guy he was,
and how giving he was, what a good preacher he was. It was hard being at
my brother's funeral.
00:33:00
We was always so close. [SOB] It feels like the big
part of me was lost. [SNIFFS]
00:33:15
Because he was so
important to me. [MUSIC PLAYING] After my brother
had been killed,
00:33:28
we had heard from
the news and on TV that this was a 19-year-old
girl, that was a good girl,
00:33:37
went to college. She had lived with
her mom and dad. And it was like,
hearing about her
00:33:47
and knowing what happened,
just didn't add up. There were some things that
were troubling about Camille's
00:33:56
lifestyle that we
discovered as we began the prosecution process. One of the things
that we discovered
00:34:02
is that she had kind of
been leading a double life. And what I mean by that is that,
she had gone away to school,
00:34:09
to West Virginia University. Unbeknownst to her
family, she had actually dropped out of
school shortly after arriving.
00:34:17
Began to work in a gentlemen's
club in that area, was not attending classes, was not
going to school in any fashion.
00:34:26
All she was doing
is, the family was continuing to send her money. And as a-- instead of
it going to the school,
00:34:32
it was going to
her personal life, and she was living a different
life than she was suggesting.
00:34:40
The kind of
character she showed was kind of what she
proved when she'd done what she'd done to my brother.
00:34:49
She showed that she
didn't have any morals, that it didn't matter to her as
long as it was all about her.
00:34:57
And that's what it
turned out to be. All about her. [SIREN WAILING] Obviously, there was some,
some suspicion that Ms. Brown
00:35:11
had been involved in some
sort of drug activity just by her very
erratic behavior.
00:35:16
We had nothing to support
that at that time, but through our
conversation with Ms. Brown,
00:35:20
she indicated that the
only illicit substances that she was involved in
during that period of time
00:35:26
was marijuana. She stated that she had
smoked a marijuana cigarette approximately 30 some hours
prior to this incident,
00:35:35
and that, that was the only
drug activity she had been involved in, in that period.
00:35:42
In the early
days of this case, I felt the case would
be primed for trial, and that we had a statement
from the defendant indicating
00:35:53
that she had
committed the crime. We had a litany of items
of physical evidence that pointed to her
committing the crime.
00:36:01
And I felt that this was
going to be pretty much sell through without a problem.
00:36:09
Due to the
diagnostic testing that was done by mental
health experts, there was conflicting ideas.
00:36:17
We knew there would
be an uphill battle to counteract these opinions
of some of the doctors.
00:36:26
There was two forensic
psychological evaluations done of Ms. Brown. And at the very
least, this was going
00:36:36
to present a
problem with a trial verdict on first degree murder. You know, we could
not get a competing
00:36:45
expert to go against what the
defense experts were saying. So ultimately, the reason a
plea was offered, to begin with,
00:36:53
is because they had
expert witnesses that were going to put
forth a mitigation defense for the defendant.
00:37:04
A mitigation
defense is essentially where somebody admits to
having committed a crime,
00:37:09
in this case, murder,
but says that there were some mitigating
reasons for why it occurred.
00:37:14
This could be things
like self defense, or that there was some
mind altering reason
00:37:20
for why they had done it. Essentially, that they did not
have the ability to either form
00:37:25
intent to commit
the crime the way, otherwise, well-adjusted
person would have. Or that they didn't
know the difference
00:37:32
between right and wrong
for a variety of reasons, typically, mental disorders
or other issues in their life.
00:37:39
Brown's case
didn't go to trial. She pled guilty to two counts
of burglary and second degree
00:37:46
murder in May of 2016. Camille Brown was in a
state of agitation, paranoia, and she was incredibly violent.
00:38:02
She is clearly somebody who
was in an extremely disturbed and disturbing dangerous state.
00:38:10
And yes, that can
happen with psychosis. It's not common,
but it can happen. And it's incredibly
frightening, isn't it,
00:38:18
to think that somebody can
go from literally zero to 100 in a very short space of time.
00:38:25
Because if you had met
her, maybe even just a day, or two days before
she killed Pastor Ron,
00:38:32
you would think,
what a lovely girl. There's nothing particularly
unusual about her.
00:38:37
People don't understand
how quickly people can switch when they've
been taking substances,
00:38:45
if they have psychosis. It can be, on rare
occasions, incredibly rapid, and incredibly,
incredibly dramatic.
00:38:54
And that was the case here. [MUSIC PLAYING] The sentencing was a pretty
emotional time for everybody.
00:39:15
The family was-- both
families were there. The family of the victim,
the family of Camille.
00:39:20
They were all present,
and they were both highly emotionally charged. Camille's family did
not want to see her
00:39:27
go away for any amount of time. And Mr. Browning's
family wanted to see what they would
feel would be just,
00:39:34
which would be a life sentence. It was hard to sit there
and watch her put on a show
00:39:43
that she put on knowing
that she killed my brother. How she acted like
nothing was wrong.
00:39:53
It's all about her. She never turned at
any time and look us. She spoke straight to the court.
00:40:04
She didn't look at her mom and
dad, and she did look at us. It was all like she rehearsed
what she was going to say,
00:40:12
and how she was going to say it. At sentencing in this matter,
Rexanna Browning spoke, which
00:40:19
was Ronald Browning's wife. Also, his brother Ralph spoke,
and it was very emotional,
00:40:26
very raw in the courtroom. And you could just tell how
much they loved Ronald Browning.
00:40:34
I was asked to
give a statement, and I told him, in my
opinion, that this girl should
00:40:40
never be let out of jail. To know so somebody that was as
good as he was that had to die
00:41:03
like that, it's just unreal. I mean, for somebody
to treat you like that. And she didn't know
him from anybody.
00:41:19
That he never harmed
anybody, ever. And he have to die like that. It was unreal.
00:41:26
[MUSIC PLAYING] In the end, Camille was
agreed to a 40-year sentence to first degree homicide.
00:41:41
And also to two
counts of burglary, which would have been one
to five sentences each.
00:41:48
The judge chose to reduce
that sentence on his own. He reduced the homicide
sentence to a 30-year sentence.
00:41:56
My hopes in obtaining justice
for Ronald Browning's family would have been life in prison.
00:42:05
I believe that
examining this case, some five years after it was
pled, in some seven years
00:42:15
after it happened,
the sentiment is that, within the
criminal justice system, the punishment was
insufficient for the crime
00:42:23
that was committed. And I believe the victim's
family feels that way. I believe certain members of
law enforcement feel that way.
00:42:32
Honestly, in this
particular case, I don't think we'll
ever know why Camille Brown killed Mr. Browning.
00:42:38
It's unfortunate,
and it's particularly frustrating for an investigator
because we typically
00:42:44
want to get the answers. We want to know why
something happened. At the end of the
day, I don't think
00:42:48
we're ever going to know why. This was a complete,
senseless loss of life. Ronald Browning was a
pastor, a volunteer,
00:42:58
a husband, a brother. And his life was taken
without motive or rationale. Ronald Browning's family has to
live with unanswered questions
00:43:11
for the rest of their lives. I think that's probably
the saddest part of this entire chronicle for me.
00:43:23
Camille Brown is an animal. She is cold, ruthless. My life changed
February the 7th, 2015.
00:43:38
Ron would have-- Ron would have
probably forgave her. He was just that type
of person, but I don't.
00:43:49
The time I spent with
Ron was too short. I think that we would
have accomplished
00:43:58
a lot more than what we
did if he was still alive. Well, I just like to say
that I love my brother.
00:44:09
And I would like to
be with him again. And I will. [SOB] We'll be in heaven together.
00:44:26
[SNIFFS] I'm 75 years old. So I don't live forever,
but I'll see you. I just want everybody to
know what kind of man he was.
00:44:45
He loved to help. He'd do anything for anybody. I go to his grave
site to remember Ron.
00:44:57
I remember Ron as being happy,
him singing in church with me. He was just a very happy person.
00:45:08
[MUSIC PLAYING]