60 ROUNDS AT MEMORIAL DRIVE DRIVERS, ATHENA BROWNFIELD CAREGIVER GETS LIFE & OHIO CULT SENTENCED

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher. This is Daily Crime Injustice. Today is Tuesday, May twenty sixth, twenty twenty six. Three cases on the docket today, three different states, and a recurring theme. The system got a chance to stop something, and the system didn't stop it. In Massachusetts, a man on probation walks into the middle of Memorial Drive in Cambridge with an assault style rifle and starts firing sixty rounds into traffic drivers diving under their cars. A weapon powerful enough, prosecutors say, to throw rounds across the Charles River. He was on probation because a judge five years ago looked at him in court and said, and one of the Boston stations has the audio, I do realize I'm taking a chance on you. Then she gave him half the sentence the prosecutors as for then.

1:01 Last Thursday, this same defendant pleaded not guilty to two counts of armed assault with intent to murder. Held without bond. In Oklahoma, a woman named Alicia Adams pleaded guilty last week to second degree murder and child neglect. The victim was four years old. Her name was Athena Brownfield. She died on Christmas Day twenty twenty two, when her body was eventually found in a backpack buried near a fence line. The autopsy weighed her at twenty three pounds. Adams was sentenced to life. Her husband, the man who, according to her own confession, actually beat the child, is still awaiting trial. In Toledo, Ohio, a twenty nine year old woman named Martina Escuada pleaded guilty to kidnapping and two counts of felonious assault for holding a man captive in a house for two years and torturing him with five other people.

1:52 The judge looked at her in court and said, quote, this case has really kind of sickened the court. Then the judge added, quote this in all ways was a cult. Twenty two year minimum sentence, thirty three year maximum. Three different states, three different kinds of evil, one common thread. Somebody was warned, somebody was watching, somebody had the chance to do something earlier, and nobody did. I'm Garrett Fisher. Let me walk you through this. This is daily crime and justice. Let's start in Massachusetts. May eleventh, twenty twenty six, Memorial Drive in Cambridge. If you don't know the road.

2:37 It runs along the Charles River between Boston and the water with Harvard on one side, busy at all hours, lined with joggers, cyclists, commuters, cutting through a perfectly ordinary stretch of suburban Massachusetts road. On a perfectly ordinary Monday, police get the call active shooter. A man is walking down the middle of Memorial Drive in traffic, carrying what investigators would describe as an assault style rifle. And he is firing not at one target, not at one specific person, at cars, random vehicles, whoever happens to be driving past. Middlesex County District Attorney Maryon Ryan said the defendant was quote actively firing in an erratic fashion at various vehicles along the road. She said the weapon was powerful enough to hit targets on the other side of the Charles River, the other side of the river. By the time it was over, the shooter had fired and estimated sixty rounds.

3:33 Drivers were jumping out of their cars and running, Some ended up hiding underneath their vehicles. Two people were hit by gunfire by a real piece of luck. Both of them have since been released from the hospital. The shooter himself was eventually taken down by a combination of a Massachusetts State trooper and an armed civilian, both of whom opened fire. They hit him multiple times in the arms and legs. He's been in a hospital bed ever since. Last Thursday, May twenty first, he appeared at his Dangerousness Hearing virtually from that hospital bed and pleaded not guilty to two counts of armed assault with intent to murder, along with a stack of weapons offenses. His name is Tyler Brown. He's forty six years old, and here is where this story turns from a horror story into an accountability story. Brown has a long criminal history across three states.

4:27 Assault and battery in Massachusetts, drug possession in New Hampshire, armed robbery, and escape from jail in Michigan going back to the nineteen nineties. And in twenty twenty, six years ago, he was convicted in Massachusetts of a shooting that involved police officers. That twenty twenty case was in front of Judge Janet Sanders. Prosecutors stood up in court and told the judge on the record in open court that this man was a danger to the community. They asked for somewhere around ten to twelve years in prison. Judge Sanders gave him five to six half of what the prosecutors asked for, and as she handed down that sentence, she said something out loud that one of the Boston television stations has the actual audio of quote. I do realize I'm taking a chance on you. When people stand up experience police officers and probation officers and they tell me this guy is a danger to the community. I hear that, and it gives me. You know, I can't look into a crystal ball and figure out what's gonna happen once you get out. But I do understand that I'm taking a risk here. End quote. Five to six years. He served his time, he came out on probation, and on May eleventh, twenty twenty six, while still on that probation, he walked into the middle of Memorial Drive with an assault style rifle and fired sixty rounds at random drivers in traffic. Look, I'm going to be honest with you.

5:49 I don't envy a sentencing judge. They have hard, real complicated decisions to make. The defendant in front of them is a person, not a statistic. Rehabilitation is a real goal. Mass incarceration is a real problem. None of this is simple, and I'm not pretending it is. But when experienced police officers and probation officers, the people who actually know this defendant stand up in your courtroom and tell you he is a danger to the community, and the prosecutors ask for a ten to twelve year sentence, and you cut that in half, and you say out loud on the record, I'm taking a chance. That's not a mistake, that's a choice. And six years later, when the chance you took is somebody firing sixty rounds at strangers on a Massachusetts road, that choice is part of the record. Brown is being held without bond. Even his own defense attorney did not contest the hold. His probable cause hearing is scheduled for June twenty second. Both of the shooting victims have thankfully been released from the hospital. They are going to spend the rest of their lives knowing they could have died driving home from work in the middle of the afternoon commercial break. An Oklahoma woman gets life in prison for the Christmas Day beating death of a four year old.

7:04 The body was found in a backpack. The autopsy says she weighed twenty three pounds and in Toledo. A judge calls herself sickened as she hands down a twenty two year minimum on a woman a court has now formally called a cult leader. Welcome back to Daily Crime Injustice. I'm Garrett Fisher. Anadarko, Oklahoma, small town about an hour southwest of Oklahoma City, population around six thousand. January tenth, twenty twenty three, A male carrier on his usual route notices a small child wandering outside a house, a little girl five years old. He stops. He calls the police.

7:53 When officers arrive and start talking to her, she tells them something I'm going to read directly from the affidavit quote. She had been home alone and she is tired of being alone. Officers go into the house. The five year old's four year old sister is not there. Her name is Athena Brownfield. The question becomes where is Athena? The story comes out in pieces about a year and a half to two years before the biological mother of these two little girls had handed them off to be raised by another couple, Alicia Adams thirty four and her husband Ivan Adams thirty nine. In every meaningful sense, the Adams were the only parents these two children had in the entire time they had been caring for these girls, somewhere between eighteen months and two years. Alicia would later admit to investigators that they had never once taken either child to a doctor, never enrolled either child in school, never anything.

8:50 Two small children, completely off the radar of every public facing system this country has built to notice a child being harmed. No pediatrician, no teacher, no school nurse, nobody. Christmas Day, twenty twenty two, According to the affidavit Elisia signed when she eventually confessed to investigators, Ivan Adams beat four year old Athena. He held her up by her arms and beat her and then, I'm quoting from the affidavit quote she was not moving and her eyes were barely open. He then laid her on the ground and punched her at least three more times in her chest. She never moved after that end quote. Christmas Day. The next morning, Alicia told police even left the house with the body of the child. He came back without her.

9:38 He told his wife he had buried the child near a fence line at the previous property where the couple had lived. When investigators went to search that area, they found her remains in a shallow grave inside a backpack. The autopsy report said she weighed twenty three pounds. For reference, the average four year old American girl weighs around thirty six pounds. Athena weighed twenty three. The official cause of death on the autopsy was quote acute pneumonia complicating malnutrition. She was starving, she had pneumonia, she had been beaten. She died last Wednesday, May twentieth. Alicia Adams stood up in court and pleaded guilty second degree murder, child neglect, obstructing an officer, sentenced to life in prison. In her statement to the court, she said, quote, I'm sorry for my actions and I am taking responsibility for them. I regret my decisions. I have grown closer to God, which is helping me become a better person. I hope the family can forgive me one day end quote. Forgiveness is not on the table today. The adoptive father of Athena's now eight year old sister, the little girl who told that mail carrier on January tenth that she was tired of being alone, that man stood up at the hearing.

10:56 He told the court that his daughter, now eight years old, is on suicide watch. Quote. She's on suicide watch at eight years old. End quote. That is what was done to that little girl by being made to live in that house. That is the lasting damage of what happened to her younger sister eight years old, and the people responsible for keeping her safe are dead or in prison for life or awaiting trial, and what's left is a child on suicide watch. Ivan Adams, the man who actually beat Athena to death by his own wife's account, has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder and child neglect. His arraignment is scheduled for June seventeenth. We'll be back on that one when it happens. Athena Brownfield was four years old, twenty three pounds buried in a backpack on Christmas morning. Someone has to say your name, Athena. We just did. Toledo, Ohio, Lucas County Common Police Court, May first, twenty twenty six, Judge Laurie Olander is preparing to sentence a twenty nine year old woman named Martina Esquada. Olander opens by saying something most judges don't put on the record, quote, this case is really kind of sick. In the court here's what the judge is reacting to. March twenty twenty five, Toledo police arrest Eskata along with five men she'd been living with. The men are Aaron Bradshaw, Austin Bradshaw, David Cesna,

12:28 Michael Eskata, and Chance Johnson. Michael Eskata is Martina's husband. The other four, according to the court record, were all in romantic relationships with her at the same time. All six adults shared a house, and inside that house for two years, they had been holding another man captive. The victim is identified in court records only as Am. He arrived at the home one day, according to the affidavit, and was not permitted to leave for the next two years. He was beaten with this and with a base ball bat. He suffered fractured ribs, a broken sternum, a broken fibula. He was not allowed to eat regularly, not allowed to use the bathroom. The judge described the conditions inside the house as and this is her word, disgusting. In a statement read on his behalf in court, Am said, quote, I endured abuse from every one of these individuals for the entire two years I was held there. Martina is a deceitful, manipulative, and cruel woman who enjoyed hurting me and watching others hurt me. He added, quote the torture I endured was unthinkable and barbaric. You didn't treat me like a human being. End quote. He eventually escaped and he got to police. That's why this case exists. He got out. Five of the six co defendants, including Martina Escada, now have pleaded guilty to similar charges. Judge a Lender, while delivering the sentence, said this, and I'm quoting her exactly.

14:01 Quote this in all ways was a cult, not a giant cult, but it was a small cult. Seems like people came in, but you weren't allowed to leave. End quote. Twenty two year minimum, thirty three year maximum. Now here's the part of the story that's harder. Escada's defense attorney, Morgan Eisenberg, stood up at sentencing and told the court about her client's childhood. According to defense counsel, Martina Escuada was sexually abused starting at the age of three months by her stepfather. At age nine, she was sent to live with her biological father, who, according to the defense attorney quote, passed her off as a hooker and gave her a way to people for money. The defense attorney's exact words to the court were, she did not understand love because she never felt it. I'm gonna be honest with you about how I think about that. Both things can be true, and in this case, I think both things are true. The childhood that defense attorney described, if it's accurate, is one of the worst childhoods a human being can have. It does not stop being terrible because of what she did later, and it also does not erase what she did later. Am spent two years being beaten with a baseball bat by six adults in a house he was not allowed to leave, and at the center of that house was Martina Escada. Both things. Eskuator herself read a statement at sentencing. Quote I deserve to sit and think about my behavior and actions. I also want to admit I was a monster and I'm sorry.

15:32 End quote. She'll have at least twenty two years to sit with it. Am is somewhere out there trying to put a life back together. Whatever that looks like. That's daily crime. Injustice for Tuesday, May twenty sixth, twenty twenty six, Tyler Brown is held without bond in Massachusetts after allegedly firing sixty rounds from an assault style rifle at random drivers on Memorial Drive in Cambridge while still on probation from a twenty twenty case. The sentencing judge said she was taking a chance on probable cause. Hearing June twenty second, Alicia Adams sentenced to life in prison in Oklahoma after pleading guilty in the Christmas twenty twenty two death of four year old Athena Brownfield. Her husband, Ivan Adams, charged with first degree murder, has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.

16:25 Athena's eight year old sister is on suicide watch. Martina Escuida sentenced to twenty two to thirty three years in Ohio for what the judge called a small cult six adults, one victim, two years of torture in a Toledo house. Three different states, three different cases, the same lesson. Somebody was warned, somebody knew, somebody had a chance. Athena Brownfield was four years old. Someone has to say her name. I'm Garrett Fisher. Pause do better. This is Daily Crime and Justice. Disclaimer. All charges discussed in this episode are allegations, unless a guilty plea or conviction is specifically noted. Tyler Brown has pleaded not guilty to the Cambridge charges. Ivan Adams has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder in the Athena Brownfield case. Details of the Christmas twenty twenty two beating are drawn from court documents and Elisia Adams's own confession as filed in the affidavit. Athena Brownfield's official autopsy lists cause of death as acute pneumonia complicating malnutrition.

17:31 Allegations regarding Martina Esquaida's childhood, sexual abuse from infancy and trafficking by her father were presented by defense counsel at sentencing and are not independently verified by this program. Sources include Court, TV, KSWO, KWTV, Slash News nine kfor NBC Boston, Slash WBTS, and WCVB. Daily Crime and Justice is a production of calarogas sh Yark mediahm