KILLER: Tina Brown Part 01 | Pensacola, Florida 2010

WEBVTT

00:00.031 --> 00:08.699
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, released with this episode is going to be a free fireside chat and I'm going to release one next episode as well.

00:09.059 --> 00:17.547
[SPEAKER_02]: Just to give you guys a taste of what you're missing on the Patreon that just isn't black label because there's other stuff that gets released there too.

00:18.007 --> 00:27.456
[SPEAKER_02]: If you'd like to hear more, head to patreon.com so I should obscure a crime podcast.

00:28.229 --> 00:35.480
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, the story of Tina Brown is not begin with a crime scene or a siren piercing the night.

00:36.141 --> 00:42.271
[SPEAKER_02]: It begins with a child learning far too early that safety is something other people have.

00:42.912 --> 00:47.780
[SPEAKER_02]: And that home can be a place where the shadows linger all after sunrise.

00:48.461 --> 00:55.131
[SPEAKER_02]: In North Chicago, in the summer of 1970, Tina entered the world to teenage parents.

00:55.111 --> 01:00.857
[SPEAKER_02]: who were already slipping into a rhythm of clubs, drugs, and nights lost to alcohol.

01:01.397 --> 01:06.762
[SPEAKER_02]: What she received from them was not a childhood, but a walnut-printed ship in survival.

01:07.103 --> 01:14.450
[SPEAKER_02]: While other children learned to read and write their bikes, Tina Brown was learning how to keep her younger brother fed and clean.

01:14.970 --> 01:22.958
[SPEAKER_02]: She was learning how to walk him to school while she carried the weight of two small

01:22.938 --> 01:27.043
[SPEAKER_02]: What followed were the kinds of moments that stain a wife permanently.

01:27.083 --> 01:31.007
[SPEAKER_02]: Moments that breed silence, fear, and anger.

01:31.408 --> 01:47.106
[SPEAKER_02]: When a father begins to confuse his role, when a grandmother rejects the truth of her granddaughter suffering, when a household is so steeped in drugs and violence, that the children wonder the streets, because the world outside feels safer than the walls inside.

01:47.086 --> 01:48.830
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina Brown did not grow up.

01:49.331 --> 01:49.972
[SPEAKER_02]: She endured.

01:50.012 --> 01:52.698
[SPEAKER_02]: Every year added a new layer of damage.

01:53.199 --> 02:01.195
[SPEAKER_02]: Every betrayal became another lesson that the adults responsible for her were incapable of protecting anyone, least of all her.

02:02.037 --> 02:07.288
[SPEAKER_02]: By the time she fled that home at 15, she was a child with no child and left.

02:07.268 --> 02:12.453
[SPEAKER_02]: She drifted between relatives who either could not, or would not help her find stability.

02:12.994 --> 02:14.796
[SPEAKER_02]: School became a revolving door.

02:15.356 --> 02:20.382
[SPEAKER_02]: Rules felt like chains, love felt inconsistent, sharp and temporary.

02:20.922 --> 02:27.609
[SPEAKER_02]: And in every stop along the way, drugs breathe down her neck like an old companion, waiting for the collapse.

02:28.170 --> 02:33.495
[SPEAKER_02]: She found men who mirrored her past, partners who dragged her deeper into addiction,

02:33.661 --> 02:38.868
[SPEAKER_02]: The world where a newborn child could come into the world already carrying cocaine in its bloodstream.

02:39.328 --> 02:48.099
[SPEAKER_02]: A world where she traded her body for substances that briefly quieted the memory she could not outrun her life a cycle of relapse recovery.

02:48.680 --> 02:55.088
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, disappointment in the constant search for a version of herself that had never been given a chance to exist.

02:55.469 --> 03:01.997
[SPEAKER_02]: For brief moments, she found stability she worked, she loved, she cared for her daughter.

03:01.977 --> 03:08.723
[SPEAKER_02]: She tried, but every step forward seemed to come with an equal force dragging her back into the undertow.

03:09.164 --> 03:12.567
[SPEAKER_02]: Heartbreak shredded what little resilience she had managed to rebuild.

03:13.148 --> 03:17.231
[SPEAKER_02]: The loss of yet another relationship set her spiraling once more.

03:17.772 --> 03:22.476
[SPEAKER_02]: And the life she had struggled for slipped out from under her like wet pavement and the rain.

03:23.157 --> 03:28.322
[SPEAKER_02]: By 2009, Tina Brown was nearing the end of a long road paved with trauma.

03:28.302 --> 03:34.716
[SPEAKER_02]: addiction, desperation, ghosts of every night she had wandered the streets as a forgotten child.

03:35.076 --> 03:40.929
[SPEAKER_02]: She moved to Florida and search of a fresh start, but the past followed her like a shadow that refused to fade.

03:41.269 --> 03:43.735
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a life unraveling thread by thread.

03:44.055 --> 03:49.146
[SPEAKER_02]: You see, in true crime, we often look for the moment when someone crosses a line.

03:49.126 --> 04:06.621
[SPEAKER_02]: The moment when a person shifts from trouble to dangerous, from victim to perpetrator, from wounded to lethal, a Latina Brown, that moment cannot be separated from the decades that shaped her, the violent she later committed, and not appear from nowhere.

04:07.162 --> 04:11.445
[SPEAKER_02]: It grew slowly, painfully, in the gaps where love should have been.

04:11.465 --> 04:18.171
[SPEAKER_02]: In the places where safety never left,

04:18.151 --> 04:24.740
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the story of how a girl born into chaos became a woman capable of creating her own.

04:25.241 --> 04:34.994
[SPEAKER_02]: A story carved from neglect shaped by violence, enthused by the kind of desperation that can make night and nightmare feel indistinguishable.

04:35.495 --> 04:45.188
[SPEAKER_02]: Before the crime comes the wife, Intina Brown's life is a map of every dark turn that led her to the moment that the world would finally learn her name.

04:45.168 --> 04:46.071
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome, listener.

04:46.954 --> 04:47.877
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you're here.

04:48.920 --> 04:49.442
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a seat.

04:50.244 --> 04:51.027
[SPEAKER_01]: Next to the fire.

04:54.638 --> 04:58.671
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Obscura where we shine a light on the dark.

05:24.233 --> 05:26.937
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Tina, you know, can I call you Tina?

05:26.957 --> 05:30.482
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, obviously no, something's up.

05:30.502 --> 05:30.602
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

05:30.622 --> 05:34.287
[SPEAKER_04]: So tell me what happened and I can.

05:34.367 --> 05:38.733
[SPEAKER_08]: Nothing happened and I don't know, I've haven't just said that somebody's trying to get beat up real bad.

05:39.534 --> 05:39.634
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

05:39.654 --> 05:40.736
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't know anything about that?

05:41.076 --> 05:41.296
[SPEAKER_08]: No.

05:41.797 --> 05:43.239
[SPEAKER_04]: See arms and hands if I could.

05:44.481 --> 05:44.581
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay?

05:44.681 --> 05:46.063
[SPEAKER_04]: Can I see the top sides?

05:46.844 --> 05:46.944
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

05:47.325 --> 05:48.606
[SPEAKER_04]: Those old scars on there?

05:48.847 --> 05:49.768
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, have a puppy.

05:49.934 --> 05:51.115
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, and what's this right here?

05:52.016 --> 05:52.897
[SPEAKER_04]: That little scratch there?

05:53.217 --> 05:53.437
[SPEAKER_08]: This?

05:53.638 --> 05:53.838
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

05:54.258 --> 05:54.979
[SPEAKER_08]: I have a puppy.

05:55.199 --> 05:56.601
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, and your puppy calls that?

05:56.621 --> 05:58.583
[SPEAKER_08]: Look, I'm going to... Got you, June?

05:59.123 --> 05:59.343
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

06:00.505 --> 06:01.185
[SPEAKER_08]: Nothing in there.

06:01.205 --> 06:02.046
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.

06:02.086 --> 06:03.868
[SPEAKER_04]: So, where were you tonight?

06:03.888 --> 06:04.348
[SPEAKER_08]: At Heather's?

06:04.609 --> 06:05.249
[SPEAKER_04]: At Heather's house?

06:05.530 --> 06:06.390
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, I was at home.

06:06.671 --> 06:10.895
[SPEAKER_08]: My daughter's bright in my hair, so I was at home, but it started hurting.

06:10.915 --> 06:15.700
[SPEAKER_08]: And her little friend started coming by, so Heather said she was going to cook, so I went down there.

06:15.740 --> 06:18.102
[SPEAKER_08]: She was cooking up fish.

06:18.655 --> 06:38.925
[SPEAKER_04]: and french fries and then we just started watching movies okay and um did you go anywhere from there you were there all mine till the cops came up there what time did you go over there have you just started doing that okay so about about sunset

06:39.985 --> 06:46.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Willy Coleman's senior, and Lily, were barely out of childhood when they made the decision to marry.

06:46.996 --> 06:57.893
[SPEAKER_02]: It is easy to imagine two teenagers swept up in something they believed was love, carrying more hope than understanding, unaware that the years ahead would demand a kind of steadiness.

06:57.873 --> 06:59.375
[SPEAKER_02]: Neither one yet possessed.

06:59.915 --> 07:08.305
[SPEAKER_02]: In North Chicago, on July 19th, 1970, Lily gave birth to her first child, a baby girl, named Tina.

07:08.825 --> 07:13.751
[SPEAKER_02]: The world she entered was already unstable, already drifting towards the margins.

07:13.771 --> 07:20.599
[SPEAKER_02]: 11 months later, Lily gave birth again, this time to a son, named Willie Coleman Jr.

07:21.099 --> 07:23.442
[SPEAKER_02]: In the small family grew in size.

07:23.422 --> 07:38.055
[SPEAKER_02]: Even as its foundation weakened beneath them, people who watched the young couple from the outside tried to make sense of them, some insisted that Willie senior and Lily were hard workers that they showed signs of trying to build a life.

07:38.536 --> 07:41.198
[SPEAKER_02]: Others described them in far-harsher terms.

07:41.719 --> 07:53.209
[SPEAKER_02]: They remembered them as partiers, as people more devoted to the nightlife than

07:53.189 --> 08:02.262
[SPEAKER_02]: Nights blurred into mornings and weekends dissolved into stretches of intoxication, leaving little time or energy for the children, waited at home.

08:02.883 --> 08:07.429
[SPEAKER_02]: In this environment, Tina Brown and her brother did not simply grow up.

08:08.030 --> 08:15.400
[SPEAKER_04]: They endured what has been going on between you and Adriana this week.

08:15.717 --> 08:20.704
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, oh, I just actually it's running with me and Adrian and we're together today.

08:21.165 --> 08:21.445
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

08:21.585 --> 08:22.346
[SPEAKER_04]: Where were you at?

08:22.366 --> 08:22.707
[SPEAKER_04]: My house.

08:23.067 --> 08:23.969
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

08:23.989 --> 08:24.710
[SPEAKER_04]: What was going on there?

08:25.271 --> 08:28.175
[SPEAKER_08]: We were just sitting there watching movies trying to get my computer.

08:29.056 --> 08:33.622
[SPEAKER_08]: The man next door has a computer put up by with some of my computer.

08:34.103 --> 08:38.690
[SPEAKER_08]: So my daughter is the only one who knows I had a pull it up where I can get iTunes and watch movies.

08:39.291 --> 08:43.176
[SPEAKER_08]: So Adrian, it was over there and she was asked the Adrian and another,

08:43.983 --> 08:49.910
[SPEAKER_08]: like I named James, and we're trying to pull the iTunes up on my computer.

08:52.252 --> 08:58.579
[SPEAKER_08]: And she had one and got some three neck and movies from my house to ask him, did you want to buy him?

09:01.202 --> 09:01.423
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

09:01.443 --> 09:02.384
[SPEAKER_04]: Have you all heard any problems?

09:03.024 --> 09:04.326
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh yeah, we've had problems.

09:04.866 --> 09:07.509
[SPEAKER_08]: The first three trailers we've had problems for a long time.

09:07.549 --> 09:09.872
[SPEAKER_08]: What's the problems?

09:10.477 --> 09:17.687
[SPEAKER_08]: will lately the new problem is she thinks that I'm the one who had her boyfriend locked up in jail.

09:18.247 --> 09:22.013
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so she's mad at you thinking her boyfriend has locked up because of you.

09:22.453 --> 09:24.376
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, but we talked about it earlier today.

09:26.819 --> 09:28.561
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, but you all getting along today, no problems.

09:28.621 --> 09:29.042
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

09:29.917 --> 09:34.063
[SPEAKER_02]: because their parents followed this pattern, peanut brown and Willie Jr.

09:34.664 --> 09:36.928
[SPEAKER_02]: Learn early what it meant to be left behind.

09:36.968 --> 09:42.356
[SPEAKER_02]: The children were often left alone or dropped off at homes of relatives for days at a time.

09:42.796 --> 09:46.862
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they found themselves at their uncle's house from Friday evening into Sunday night.

09:47.363 --> 09:54.574
[SPEAKER_02]: Two small figures waiting for the moment their father decided to return in these fragmented arrangements.

09:54.554 --> 09:59.041
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina stepped almost immediately into a role no child should have to fill.

09:59.461 --> 10:00.703
[SPEAKER_02]: She became the caretaker.

10:01.164 --> 10:02.886
[SPEAKER_02]: She made meals for a younger brother.

10:03.267 --> 10:04.729
[SPEAKER_02]: She dressed him for school.

10:05.170 --> 10:12.681
[SPEAKER_02]: She walked him through the neighborhood, watching over him with a protective instinct of someone who would already learn that the world could be dangerous.

10:12.661 --> 10:17.589
[SPEAKER_02]: She checked his homework, held his hand, and did her best to give him the sense of structure.

10:18.070 --> 10:20.214
[SPEAKER_02]: She never received from their parents.

10:20.234 --> 10:25.903
[SPEAKER_02]: Willie Junior spent 90% of his time with Tina, and people later said she essentially raised him.

10:26.324 --> 10:32.354
[SPEAKER_02]: What should have been a sisterly bond became something born out of necessity and self-sacrifice.

10:33.857 --> 10:37.082
[SPEAKER_08]: This morning, Ella's trying to make some phone calls.

10:37.366 --> 10:45.157
[SPEAKER_08]: And I wanted to heat up some chicken, so I asked her where she put the church's chicken in her microwave and she heated up for me and brought it to my house.

10:45.177 --> 10:46.959
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, do you know what happened to Adriana tonight?

10:47.320 --> 10:50.064
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I don't, Heather just says she got beat up, but that's all I know.

10:50.084 --> 10:50.925
[SPEAKER_04]: A little bit more than that.

10:51.386 --> 10:52.888
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not sure if she gonna make it or not.

10:53.429 --> 10:54.069
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I don't.

10:54.089 --> 10:57.995
[SPEAKER_04]: But she taught to us, or as she taught to the people that came over to help her.

10:58.015 --> 11:00.278
[SPEAKER_04]: And she told them something.

11:00.318 --> 11:01.480
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, she told them.

11:01.500 --> 11:02.882
[SPEAKER_08]: I couldn't imagine what that.

11:03.342 --> 11:07.288
[SPEAKER_04]: She said that you and Heather did this to her.

11:08.770 --> 11:28.585
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why we're talking to you too.

11:28.565 --> 11:35.478
[SPEAKER_02]: Soon after the marriage ended in divorce between Lily and Willy, that night had scared Lily and Tina too much.

11:36.139 --> 11:38.404
[SPEAKER_02]: The beating he gave both of them so severe.

11:38.985 --> 11:42.972
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of finding solace, Tina was confronted with more upheaval.

11:43.534 --> 11:45.898
[SPEAKER_02]: Lily was charged with child abandonment.

11:45.878 --> 12:02.966
[SPEAKER_02]: After the two had ran away for their own safety, but her mother fell into drugs, leaving Tina alone defend for herself, and in a devastating turn, that placed custody of Tina and Willie Jr. into the hands of the man who was already using and selling drugs from his home.

12:03.467 --> 12:11.160
[SPEAKER_02]: And after Willie Weft, the abuse inside that house changed form, but did not end, not only grew darker, listen her.

12:11.140 --> 12:14.866
[SPEAKER_02]: With the mother gone, Tina's father began to sexually abuse her.

12:14.906 --> 12:18.692
[SPEAKER_02]: It is impossible to calculate what happens inside a child.

12:19.333 --> 12:26.705
[SPEAKER_02]: When the person meant to protect her, instead inflicts the deepest kind of violation, Tina carried the fear in her body.

12:27.326 --> 12:28.828
[SPEAKER_02]: Others began to notice.

12:28.808 --> 12:31.611
[SPEAKER_02]: Her uncle suspected something was terribly wrong.

12:32.072 --> 12:38.640
[SPEAKER_02]: He saw that Tina recoiled around Willie Sr., and he witnessed the unsettling dynamic between father and daughter.

12:39.260 --> 12:46.809
[SPEAKER_02]: According to him, Willie Sr. behaved towards Tina, as if she were not his child, but someone he claimed instead.

12:47.450 --> 12:55.660
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina eventually attempted to confide in her paternal grandmother, probably claimed to some fate, hope, that some adult out there.

12:55.825 --> 13:04.036
[SPEAKER_02]: My helper, instead she was met with denial and rage, her grandmother refused to believe that her son could commit such an act.

13:04.557 --> 13:08.563
[SPEAKER_02]: She hurled Tina out of the household, commanding her never to return.

13:08.603 --> 13:11.487
[SPEAKER_02]: The rejection sealed another door in her life.

13:11.968 --> 13:14.071
[SPEAKER_02]: A life already filled with locked rooms.

13:14.771 --> 13:17.375
[SPEAKER_08]: For she said I call, she's been saying a lot of stuff.

13:17.676 --> 13:22.622
[SPEAKER_08]: Because she said I call them, because this is all stuff that we talked about today at my house.

13:22.883 --> 13:24.465
[SPEAKER_08]: OK.

13:25.593 --> 13:32.259
[SPEAKER_08]: Somebody's supposed to have, somebody's supposed to have called crime stoppers or about our kids, and I told her I didn't do it.

13:32.640 --> 13:33.741
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, I would never do what you said.

13:33.761 --> 13:37.744
[SPEAKER_08]: People in my trailer park have been telling her to have.

13:38.645 --> 13:42.789
[SPEAKER_08]: And my target was stabbed, and I asked her to do what she said.

13:42.889 --> 13:44.390
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I mean, I couldn't prove she did it.

13:44.410 --> 13:46.853
[SPEAKER_08]: So I didn't argue about it, but I said about it or nothing.

13:47.093 --> 13:48.054
[SPEAKER_04]: But you thought she did it?

13:49.075 --> 13:54.840
[SPEAKER_08]: Just because what people say it, but... Do you hear about her window getting busted out?

13:55.478 --> 13:58.541
[SPEAKER_04]: Adrian was one to get busted out a few days ago.

13:59.442 --> 14:00.503
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you hear about it?

14:00.523 --> 14:01.784
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I can't.

14:01.804 --> 14:07.109
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the police came out there last week to talk to her about the problem she had in her neighborhood.

14:08.451 --> 14:09.572
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they talked to me too.

14:09.712 --> 14:10.573
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

14:10.593 --> 14:11.193
[SPEAKER_04]: So you were there.

14:11.994 --> 14:13.896
[SPEAKER_08]: What was the problem?

14:13.916 --> 14:19.622
[SPEAKER_08]: Her and my, oh, another girl come out there to fight Adrian.

14:19.702 --> 14:25.047
[SPEAKER_08]: Because Adrian was both had got smart with her on the phone.

14:25.330 --> 14:30.421
[SPEAKER_08]: Boyfriend was there, Andre Smith, and he sent Andre, and he was on the in the house.

14:31.744 --> 14:44.993
[SPEAKER_08]: No, he came outside the house, and he was saying that I was in the middle of that, which I didn't even know the white girl, and he said, oh, he cost all the kids out, and read that was outside.

14:46.120 --> 14:51.105
[SPEAKER_08]: and he told Adriana to go in the house and get that thing and whatever.

14:51.966 --> 14:53.948
[SPEAKER_08]: She came back outside on the porch.

14:54.970 --> 14:56.131
[SPEAKER_08]: She's on the porch cousin.

14:56.511 --> 15:00.195
[SPEAKER_08]: She came out and walked away, and she tried to tell you some of my daughter.

15:01.136 --> 15:02.338
[SPEAKER_04]: She could be trying to tell you your daughter.

15:02.558 --> 15:03.058
[SPEAKER_08]: I'd rather not.

15:03.479 --> 15:04.160
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd rather not.

15:04.180 --> 15:05.241
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd rather not.

15:05.261 --> 15:07.203
[SPEAKER_04]: Who can't tell you?

15:07.243 --> 15:08.845
[SPEAKER_08]: I just think it was a black one.

15:09.285 --> 15:10.346
[SPEAKER_04]: A black one.

15:10.366 --> 15:12.569
[SPEAKER_08]: She said that, um... You seen it?

15:13.229 --> 15:14.811
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, everybody knows how to call it.

15:15.449 --> 15:18.780
[SPEAKER_08]: I just know it's black, when they made a loud noise.

15:20.506 --> 15:21.550
[SPEAKER_08]: Everybody else just saw it.

15:22.794 --> 15:22.894
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

15:23.127 --> 15:31.258
[SPEAKER_02]: The sexual abuse ceased only when Willie Sr. began a relationship with a woman named Melinda, who soon became his second wife.

15:31.659 --> 15:34.423
[SPEAKER_02]: The end of that particular nightmare did not bring safety.

15:35.044 --> 15:41.833
[SPEAKER_02]: Once Melinda entered the household the environment grew even more chaotic, family members urged Willie Sr. to leave her.

15:42.274 --> 15:46.620
[SPEAKER_02]: They described Melinda as sexually promiscuous, physically aggressive.

15:46.600 --> 15:52.227
[SPEAKER_02]: heavily depended on alcohol, in a frequent abuser of drugs, their warnings went unheard.

15:52.727 --> 15:58.274
[SPEAKER_02]: On many nights, Willie Sr. and Melinda mocked themselves in the bedroom for hours with alcohol and drugs.

15:58.894 --> 16:04.120
[SPEAKER_02]: Moltena Brown and her brother, wandered through a neighborhood, known for gangs and violence.

16:04.701 --> 16:09.106
[SPEAKER_02]: These children walked the streets aimlessly, because there was nowhere else to go.

16:09.567 --> 16:10.928
[SPEAKER_02]: Home was not a refuge.

16:11.529 --> 16:14.953
[SPEAKER_02]: It was merely a place where danger wore familiar faces.

16:14.933 --> 16:16.294
[SPEAKER_02]: Melinda drank every day.

16:16.314 --> 16:18.476
[SPEAKER_02]: Alcohol sharpened her temper.

16:19.017 --> 16:22.420
[SPEAKER_02]: Turning her into someone verbally abusive and unpredictable.

16:22.901 --> 16:30.188
[SPEAKER_02]: Although Tina and Melinda initially shared a brief period of companionship, their relationship decayed with startling speed.

16:30.668 --> 16:38.856
[SPEAKER_02]: Melinda introduced Tina to drugs and later forced her to engage in sexual intercourse with men and exchange for money to fund those drugs.

16:39.336 --> 16:43.000
[SPEAKER_02]: Why was she saying that you and Heather did this too?

16:44.515 --> 16:48.098
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, from what Heather telling me that, Adriana is jealous.

16:50.821 --> 17:04.813
[SPEAKER_08]: Adriana told me that the stuff that's supposed to have been going that she heard from Heather that I was the one who called children, the DCFS people, or her.

17:05.554 --> 17:08.857
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, certainly, I could see some animosity going on there.

17:08.897 --> 17:10.819
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, you think that she's dead or tired.

17:11.219 --> 17:14.522
[SPEAKER_04]: But the problem I see here is she may not live

17:14.840 --> 17:17.744
[SPEAKER_04]: and she is saying that you and Heather did this to her.

17:17.804 --> 17:22.010
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's pretty important at this point.

17:22.491 --> 17:24.153
[SPEAKER_08]: I've been talking to an officer.

17:24.233 --> 17:34.869
[SPEAKER_08]: Every time there's an accusation being said about me or anything being said in their trailer park, I talk to an officer morale over at the work release place.

17:35.269 --> 17:39.856
[SPEAKER_08]: That's what I've been talking to about here in the county because first they were saying that they were coming to get me in my daughter.

17:40.256 --> 17:42.720
[SPEAKER_08]: That I'm not adrunner but,

17:43.628 --> 17:46.392
[SPEAKER_08]: The bus she was going with was sending people after me and my daughter.

17:46.733 --> 17:54.225
[SPEAKER_08]: And Gianna was saying that I was the one who sent the jail, which I did do it, because he had to write in my daughter.

17:54.425 --> 17:54.746
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

17:54.766 --> 17:55.026
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

17:56.008 --> 17:57.891
[SPEAKER_04]: You seem kind of like today's the cool about this.

17:57.971 --> 18:01.416
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm telling you that this woman is probably going to die.

18:02.698 --> 18:05.122
[SPEAKER_04]: And as named you is the person that's harmed her.

18:05.763 --> 18:11.172
[SPEAKER_04]: It kind of, you know, doesn't sit easy with me that you're just so nice to learn about this.

18:11.287 --> 18:29.591
[SPEAKER_02]: their father added another layer of terror, when high he sometimes beat the children, not because they disobeyed, but because he seemed entertained by the pain, he would grab belts or clothes hangers, and lashed them without warning, these assaults arrived suddenly, as if violence had become his past time.

18:29.972 --> 18:34.037
[SPEAKER_02]: By 15, Tina Brown could no longer survive in her father's home.

18:34.017 --> 18:43.209
[SPEAKER_02]: And it all become too much, she was too afraid, she left stepping into a world that offered its own dangers, but at least spared her the cruelty inside those walls.

18:43.670 --> 18:54.404
[SPEAKER_02]: After she left, the house continued to function as a hub, and a gang related drug operation, with Willie Sr. serving as an enforcer, eventually the FBI investigated him.

18:54.725 --> 18:57.088
[SPEAKER_02]: He was arrested and served a year in prison.

18:57.068 --> 19:06.704
[SPEAKER_02]: Yet even this consequence did little to repair the damage already done, for a short time, Tina tried to live with her mother again, but they clashed constantly.

19:07.125 --> 19:16.360
[SPEAKER_02]: Their relationship had become so fractured that they behaved more like siblings than a parent in child, fighting into the situation became unattannable.

19:16.340 --> 19:19.744
[SPEAKER_02]: Her mother forced her out, and Tina moved to her aunts home.

19:20.145 --> 19:22.287
[SPEAKER_02]: These years were marked by instability.

19:22.688 --> 19:25.351
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina attended four different schools in four years.

19:25.892 --> 19:32.520
[SPEAKER_02]: She left high school for a year, a drift in the turbulence of her life, but eventually returned and earned her diploma.

19:32.980 --> 19:36.104
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a rare accomplishment and a period filled with turmoil.

19:36.725 --> 19:42.752
[SPEAKER_02]: After drifting between relatives and temporary places to stay, Tina moved into a drug house.

19:42.732 --> 19:47.198
[SPEAKER_02]: It was here that she met Greg Miller, the man who would father her three children.

19:47.639 --> 19:51.805
[SPEAKER_02]: Their relationship was steeped in drugs, alcohol, violence.

19:52.366 --> 19:55.971
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina later reported that domestic abuse occurred during their time together.

19:56.451 --> 20:02.580
[SPEAKER_02]: Her first child was born cocaine positive, a tragic culmination of addiction and desperation.

20:02.560 --> 20:13.270
[SPEAKER_02]: After her second child arrived, she became pregnant again, and during the third pregnancy, Tina ended her relationship with Greg Miller, entered a substance abuse treatment facility.

20:13.711 --> 20:17.775
[SPEAKER_02]: Her third child, Riny Miller, was born inside that facility.

20:18.195 --> 20:22.519
[SPEAKER_02]: As part of her treatment agreement, she allowed her mother to adopt her two sons.

20:22.960 --> 20:31.588
[SPEAKER_02]: It was another painful separation in a life, already filled with them, handing way two of her sons to the woman

20:32.851 --> 20:37.457
[SPEAKER_08]: I just talked to her today and I told her I never called these CFS on what he is.

20:37.477 --> 20:38.058
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

20:38.078 --> 20:42.103
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, she's probably going to die, is the word we're getting and we're concerned over that.

20:42.423 --> 20:46.268
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the last person that she said that did this to her is you and Heather.

20:46.629 --> 20:46.949
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

20:48.411 --> 20:49.393
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to go out there.

20:49.433 --> 20:50.574
[SPEAKER_04]: We know what happened out there.

20:51.916 --> 20:54.299
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just going to be a matter of getting fingerprints and evidence back.

20:54.499 --> 20:54.840
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

20:55.480 --> 20:55.861
[SPEAKER_08]: Out where?

20:55.901 --> 20:57.043
[SPEAKER_08]: Happen at her house?

20:57.603 --> 21:00.567
[SPEAKER_04]: We didn't.

21:00.787 --> 21:02.790
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't.

21:03.412 --> 21:05.354
[SPEAKER_03]: and then it went somewhere else.

21:08.579 --> 21:09.620
[SPEAKER_08]: What started her house?

21:10.321 --> 21:12.844
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the reason we're here.

21:13.325 --> 21:19.372
[SPEAKER_04]: Basically, what she told the fireman was that you two came and grabbed her.

21:19.392 --> 21:20.834
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

21:20.854 --> 21:21.595
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, say what now?

21:22.256 --> 21:32.389
[SPEAKER_04]: What she told the fireman was that you two came over and grabbed her, pulled her out of that house, beat her, and harmed her.

21:32.791 --> 21:35.600
[SPEAKER_08]: And nobody out there to kids or nobody saw none of this.

21:36.664 --> 21:37.326
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody saw it.

21:37.546 --> 21:40.516
[SPEAKER_08]: We talked to everybody and then there was kids always outside.

21:40.616 --> 21:42.322
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked to everybody and then they were hit.

21:42.342 --> 21:43.105
[SPEAKER_04]: You saw mine out there.

21:43.125 --> 21:43.606
[SPEAKER_07]: You're nothing.

21:44.008 --> 21:44.168
[SPEAKER_04]: Nope.

21:46.122 --> 21:48.127
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's saying that y'all did it.

21:48.147 --> 21:50.011
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, she said, I called DCFS on her.

21:50.031 --> 21:51.154
[SPEAKER_07]: She said, I put her husband.

21:51.234 --> 21:52.457
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I'm going for it in jail.

21:52.477 --> 21:53.940
[SPEAKER_04]: Apparently she was right about that.

21:54.462 --> 21:57.950
[SPEAKER_07]: Only one, that put her husband in jail, but I didn't call DCFS over.

21:58.632 --> 22:03.102
[SPEAKER_07]: Because most of the time that we was together, we was getting a hug together.

22:04.128 --> 22:30.692
[SPEAKER_04]: well we got some issues okay and we're gonna get to the bottom of the one one another okay so we're sitting here talking to you and then I I didn't certainly appreciate it on their time we appreciate that you're talking to us but we got to the bottom of this and we got to know what happened the truth and you know there's two two choices here either you're going to tell us or have those going to tell us so

22:32.326 --> 22:33.168
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's going to be?

22:34.049 --> 22:38.278
[SPEAKER_02]: After leaving Tremen, Tina managed to remain drug-free for four years.

22:38.879 --> 22:43.168
[SPEAKER_02]: She spent those years raising Brittany, attempting to carve out stability.

22:43.729 --> 22:48.799
[SPEAKER_02]: She met another man and married him, but their wife together unraveled quickly.

22:48.779 --> 22:59.175
[SPEAKER_02]: When he was convicted of selling drugs, Tina found work as a bartender, and eventually met another man, her third significant relationship, someone who also dealt drugs.

22:59.756 --> 23:05.524
[SPEAKER_02]: Their two-year relationship was stained by domestic violence, even though Tina remained sober through.

23:06.065 --> 23:10.652
[SPEAKER_02]: Stability seemed to hover just out of reach for her, close enough to imagine.

23:10.632 --> 23:12.114
[SPEAKER_02]: never close enough to hold.

23:12.555 --> 23:18.825
[SPEAKER_02]: When this boyfriend was arrested for selling drugs, Tina's fragile financial situation totally collapsed.

23:19.325 --> 23:22.650
[SPEAKER_02]: She accumulated multiple speeding tickets she could not afford to pay.

23:22.711 --> 23:24.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Her driver's license was suspended.

23:25.415 --> 23:28.860
[SPEAKER_02]: She was criminally charged with writing worthless checks.

23:28.840 --> 23:33.712
[SPEAKER_02]: faced with mounting bills and dwindling options, she began stripping to survive.

23:34.294 --> 23:37.863
[SPEAKER_02]: Under the weight of all these pressures, Tina relapsed on cocaine.

23:38.364 --> 23:39.327
[SPEAKER_02]: She needed something.

23:39.748 --> 23:40.911
[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't want to strip.

23:41.272 --> 23:43.237
[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't like the prime eyes of other men.

23:43.698 --> 23:45.803
[SPEAKER_02]: She saw her dad in that audience.

23:45.783 --> 23:56.340
[SPEAKER_02]: This relapse became a long descent that lasted nearly 9 years, 9 years that burnt out something inside her, the held on for a time, but eventually had to let go.

23:56.380 --> 24:03.792
[SPEAKER_02]: And during that time she was mostly homeless, broke, surviving through sex work in order to fund her addictions.

24:03.772 --> 24:10.362
[SPEAKER_02]: Life became a cycle of desperation, a series of choices shaped by survival, rather than desire.

24:10.802 --> 24:15.549
[SPEAKER_02]: She wrote more worthless checks and was ordered into another court-mandated treatment program.

24:15.950 --> 24:18.634
[SPEAKER_02]: She completed the program around the age of 30.

24:19.095 --> 24:22.219
[SPEAKER_02]: Remarkably, she found employment that offered her stability.

24:22.820 --> 24:25.564
[SPEAKER_02]: She worked away up the ranks until she became a manager.

24:26.265 --> 24:30.792
[SPEAKER_02]: For four years, she lived a life that resembled some level of normalcy.

24:30.772 --> 24:35.897
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, some could say she was doing pretty well, and her son's visited her regularly.

24:36.457 --> 24:39.640
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a flicker of light, and otherwise bleakly and scape.

24:40.521 --> 24:41.742
[SPEAKER_07]: I didn't do anything to her.

24:42.262 --> 24:43.183
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, well, what's the...

24:43.203 --> 24:44.264
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew you were home all night.

24:45.025 --> 24:46.086
[SPEAKER_07]: What's the other's house?

24:46.346 --> 24:47.907
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, you were at Hethers all night.

24:48.548 --> 24:49.188
[SPEAKER_04]: Never left there.

24:49.809 --> 24:51.731
[SPEAKER_04]: Is Brittany have any problems with Adriana?

24:52.511 --> 24:52.952
[SPEAKER_04]: Not that.

24:52.972 --> 24:54.713
[SPEAKER_04]: No, we were all in my house.

24:54.874 --> 24:59.918
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, the rumor going around the neighborhood is that Brittany busted out Adriana's window.

25:00.455 --> 25:01.476
[SPEAKER_04]: a couple of days ago.

25:02.097 --> 25:03.639
[SPEAKER_04]: The one bus now, they heard traffic.

25:04.100 --> 25:05.522
[SPEAKER_04]: The one right there in the middle of the room.

25:07.064 --> 25:07.825
[SPEAKER_08]: In the living room.

25:08.226 --> 25:08.786
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah.

25:08.846 --> 25:10.809
[SPEAKER_08]: Adrian, no, no.

25:10.829 --> 25:12.552
[SPEAKER_08]: Not that one.

25:12.592 --> 25:13.773
[SPEAKER_08]: No wonder was broke.

25:13.893 --> 25:15.395
[SPEAKER_08]: Adrian has hurs been broke.

25:15.456 --> 25:16.156
[SPEAKER_08]: That window out.

25:16.257 --> 25:17.198
[SPEAKER_08]: Adrian was that.

25:17.719 --> 25:17.999
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

25:19.261 --> 25:20.202
[SPEAKER_08]: How'd they go?

25:20.671 --> 25:26.658
[SPEAKER_08]: Adriana was at my, you know, Adriana her husband was at my, you know, me and Adriana's husband was at my house first.

25:26.838 --> 25:27.739
[SPEAKER_08]: We were smoking crack.

25:28.019 --> 25:28.700
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

25:28.720 --> 25:30.382
[SPEAKER_08]: Then Adriana came over there.

25:31.023 --> 25:32.925
[SPEAKER_08]: And we were smoking crack.

25:32.945 --> 25:34.847
[SPEAKER_08]: But he didn't want Adriana to have none.

25:34.987 --> 25:36.409
[SPEAKER_08]: So I said that he had to go.

25:36.729 --> 25:37.289
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

25:37.310 --> 25:39.252
[SPEAKER_08]: When he left, he cost Adriana.

25:39.452 --> 25:43.516
[SPEAKER_08]: Adriana was at my house that night because he was talking about he was going to do some tour.

25:43.536 --> 25:44.798
[SPEAKER_08]: So he said he was going to put a rock.

25:44.858 --> 25:47.100
[SPEAKER_08]: So I said what Adriana and the kids could come to my house.

25:47.120 --> 25:47.621
[SPEAKER_08]: They could stay there.

25:47.641 --> 25:48.742
[SPEAKER_08]: They're not going to be homeless.

25:49.043 --> 25:49.463
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

25:49.443 --> 25:51.185
[SPEAKER_08]: So she was over there for a long time.

25:51.225 --> 25:53.428
[SPEAKER_08]: He kept coming knocking on my door, knocking on my door.

25:53.469 --> 25:53.889
[SPEAKER_08]: Knockin' on my door.

25:53.909 --> 25:54.770
[SPEAKER_08]: I said, you got to stop doin' that.

25:54.790 --> 25:59.016
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, I kept acting like I was calling the police, but Adriana knew I wasn't calling the police, okay?

25:59.337 --> 26:01.019
[SPEAKER_08]: He kept coming over there knocking on my door.

26:01.079 --> 26:01.780
[SPEAKER_08]: Knockin' on my door.

26:01.820 --> 26:07.428
[SPEAKER_08]: Then he was standing outside on that back porch, and he was yelling at Adriana, I get your mother fucking ass over here.

26:08.109 --> 26:12.154
[SPEAKER_08]: Adriana kept going out to the porch, talking to him, kept going out to the porch, talking to him.

26:12.174 --> 26:14.978
[SPEAKER_08]: The last time he came over and knocked on my door,

26:14.958 --> 26:18.241
[SPEAKER_08]: Adrian, I said, Adrian, you and the kids got to go, okay?

26:18.302 --> 26:24.448
[SPEAKER_08]: She went to the house, and I guess they got to argue and find in the living room, he broke that window out.

26:24.488 --> 26:26.710
[SPEAKER_08]: That window's been broke for a long time, sir.

26:26.971 --> 26:28.152
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

26:28.172 --> 26:29.413
[SPEAKER_04]: What about the window?

26:29.473 --> 26:31.335
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe I don't, maybe I don't, maybe I don't, maybe I don't.

26:31.355 --> 26:31.836
[SPEAKER_04]: What about her?

26:31.876 --> 26:34.799
[SPEAKER_04]: They're telling me he heard Brittany broke out of the window this week.

26:34.979 --> 26:35.700
[SPEAKER_04]: You didn't hear about that?

26:35.920 --> 26:36.420
[SPEAKER_04]: No!

26:36.781 --> 26:37.602
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

26:37.622 --> 26:39.263
[SPEAKER_04]: I want you to tell the police that there.

26:39.304 --> 26:39.784
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't know.

26:40.709 --> 26:43.392
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you yourself don't tell the police much.

26:43.572 --> 26:45.153
[SPEAKER_04]: Brittany didn't break out that window.

26:45.614 --> 26:45.914
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

26:47.296 --> 26:47.556
[SPEAKER_04]: Why?

26:47.576 --> 26:50.459
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, she was just telling us today why she didn't tell me.

26:50.819 --> 26:55.104
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is Adriana saying you and Heather did this to her?

26:55.124 --> 26:55.744
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know.

26:56.425 --> 26:57.226
[SPEAKER_04]: It's serious business.

26:58.387 --> 26:59.588
[SPEAKER_08]: I've been blamed for a lot.

26:59.608 --> 27:02.511
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, it's a cycle over there.

27:02.531 --> 27:04.833
[SPEAKER_08]: It goes to train the one train, the two train itself.

27:04.853 --> 27:06.115
[SPEAKER_04]: She didn't do it to herself.

27:06.175 --> 27:07.476
[SPEAKER_04]: Somebody did it to her.

27:07.709 --> 27:10.872
[SPEAKER_08]: It's gonna be right in that bike all day today, okay?

27:11.192 --> 27:12.654
[SPEAKER_04]: But somebody did it to her.

27:12.674 --> 27:13.054
[SPEAKER_08]: I did.

27:13.435 --> 27:13.695
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

27:13.715 --> 27:14.296
[SPEAKER_04]: That's where I go.

27:14.316 --> 27:15.557
[SPEAKER_04]: But as she said, you did it.

27:15.857 --> 27:16.258
[SPEAKER_04]: I did.

27:17.158 --> 27:18.480
[SPEAKER_08]: It's gonna be saying I did it.

27:18.580 --> 27:20.642
[SPEAKER_04]: It made me the last thing she tells somebody.

27:22.283 --> 27:22.604
[SPEAKER_04]: You know?

27:26.588 --> 27:29.451
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe the last word she said, we call that die declaration.

27:29.591 --> 27:30.932
[SPEAKER_08]: I called on Dre.

27:31.693 --> 27:33.635
[SPEAKER_08]: I didn't call DCFS on her kids.

27:34.115 --> 27:35.877
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not gonna take the blame for this.

27:36.177 --> 27:37.801
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the light dimmed again.

27:37.841 --> 27:43.654
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina discovered that her boyfriend was cheating on her with her brothers, girlfriend.

27:44.115 --> 27:46.801
[SPEAKER_02]: The revelation cracked something inside her.

27:47.282 --> 27:48.805
[SPEAKER_02]: Something broke internally.

27:48.845 --> 27:53.275
[SPEAKER_02]: The emotional trauma was immediately overwhelming.

27:53.255 --> 28:02.086
[SPEAKER_02]: Dredging up years of buried betrayal and pain, she left her job, wrote more worthless checks and slipped back into another relapse.

28:02.446 --> 28:06.671
[SPEAKER_02]: This relapse was brief, lasting about a month, but it disrupts something.

28:07.152 --> 28:09.294
[SPEAKER_02]: Every little something that happened to her.

28:09.755 --> 28:14.080
[SPEAKER_02]: Every betrayal took something else away, and something changed in her here.

28:14.480 --> 28:21.709
[SPEAKER_02]: Something that her family members and friends

28:21.689 --> 28:28.096
[SPEAKER_02]: Whenever a remained of it seemingly faded, and Tina became an entirely different person.

28:28.676 --> 28:32.921
[SPEAKER_02]: In the summer of 2009, Tina tried once again to rebuild a life.

28:33.482 --> 28:35.724
[SPEAKER_02]: She enrolled in an online college classes.

28:36.184 --> 28:38.387
[SPEAKER_02]: She was tired, but she was trying.

28:40.129 --> 28:50.920
[SPEAKER_03]: If you know any things, and you with home, you want to be first one on board.

28:51.507 --> 28:59.278
[SPEAKER_03]: to get everybody to, you know, get everybody to, you know, get everybody just, there's not going to be the second chances.

28:59.639 --> 29:00.260
[SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.

29:00.280 --> 29:08.572
[SPEAKER_03]: And like I said, if she, if she doesn't make it, she's trying to be sleeping with a lot of girls.

29:08.592 --> 29:09.994
[SPEAKER_07]: A lot of guys around there.

29:10.234 --> 29:10.995
[SPEAKER_03]: I realized that.

29:11.175 --> 29:12.277
[SPEAKER_03]: What I could have did.

29:12.297 --> 29:19.287
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, what you don't understand, that's the last statement she said before she went out.

29:20.785 --> 29:24.231
[SPEAKER_03]: Wait, I don't want it!

29:24.251 --> 29:24.711
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry.

29:24.731 --> 29:25.352
[SPEAKER_03]: We know where.

29:26.154 --> 29:26.915
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not conscious.

29:26.935 --> 29:30.240
[SPEAKER_07]: I didn't mean to do what I promised to come.

29:31.302 --> 29:36.871
[SPEAKER_03]: If you were to start coming up, something, you know, some bad thing.

29:36.931 --> 29:37.693
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I think I know it.

29:39.035 --> 29:40.177
[SPEAKER_03]: Today is the first day.

29:40.197 --> 29:42.761
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I just want to talk to the long time.

29:43.422 --> 29:45.966
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm thinking that the only reason that we did talk to that

29:46.756 --> 29:52.883
[SPEAKER_07]: And around in the beginning, the thing like she cannot get rocks in her jaws would have to come around.

29:57.649 --> 30:03.757
[SPEAKER_07]: Like I was telling, I don't think I'd be veg when I was there on my tire.

30:04.418 --> 30:08.022
[SPEAKER_07]: I hate proving, but I will use somebody more.

30:13.520 --> 30:16.705
[SPEAKER_07]: I see only that like that was get around one person.

30:21.652 --> 30:25.458
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's the one who's been putting away a gym between us.

30:25.498 --> 30:38.397
[SPEAKER_07]: These are the don't have no family here.

30:39.828 --> 30:44.456
[SPEAKER_02]: She moved to Pensacola, Florida, hoping the distance would give her a fresh start.

30:44.797 --> 30:49.205
[SPEAKER_02]: Pensacola, Florida, often presents itself with a kind of gentle brightness.

30:49.626 --> 30:52.331
[SPEAKER_02]: The shoreline glows beneath soft morning light.

30:52.691 --> 30:57.600
[SPEAKER_02]: The water moves with an easy rhythm that calms even the most unsettled of minds.

30:57.580 --> 31:09.312
[SPEAKER_02]: The air carries the scent of salt and warm sand, reminding visitors that this place once drew people in search of rest, neighborhoods near the coast feel peaceful enough to suggest possibility.

31:09.733 --> 31:11.875
[SPEAKER_02]: On good days, the city seems almost tender.

31:12.335 --> 31:16.800
[SPEAKER_02]: A place where someone might try to start again, someone broken, wanting to be fixed.

31:17.161 --> 31:19.623
[SPEAKER_02]: Pensacola can feel like a quiet promise.

31:19.984 --> 31:22.386
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, listener, promises can be deceiving.

31:22.786 --> 31:26.170
[SPEAKER_02]: Behind the postcard surface lies a different version

31:26.150 --> 31:30.456
[SPEAKER_02]: A version of the city left for those that can't live near the coast.

31:30.476 --> 31:36.684
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you move away from the sunlight on the water, you find neighborhoods where poverty clings to the walls of old houses.

31:37.244 --> 31:46.977
[SPEAKER_02]: The streets carry the weight of lives stretched thin, addiction gathers and corners behind convenient stores, violence flickers through certain blocks after dark.

31:46.957 --> 31:52.023
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people who wander with slack desperation of those who have run out of places to go.

31:52.063 --> 31:59.171
[SPEAKER_02]: The heat presses down in a way that feels less like warmth, and more like a reminder that escape is not guaranteed.

31:59.231 --> 32:03.255
[SPEAKER_02]: Pensacola is a place where beauty indicates sits side-by-side.

32:03.275 --> 32:08.982
[SPEAKER_02]: A place where the beach suggests renewal while the inner city whispers a quieter truth.

32:09.422 --> 32:10.083
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't win.

32:10.123 --> 32:11.765
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't be fixed.

32:12.225 --> 32:13.827
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no turning back the clock.

32:14.308 --> 32:15.529
[SPEAKER_02]: It's too late for you.

32:15.509 --> 32:20.797
[SPEAKER_02]: Many who come there looking for a new beginning eventually collide with the same pressures they hoped outrun.

32:21.257 --> 32:23.560
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a city shaped by contradiction.

32:23.941 --> 32:26.545
[SPEAKER_02]: It nourishes dreams while quietly eroding them.

32:26.925 --> 32:32.413
[SPEAKER_02]: It holds both hope and a slow pull of despair, waiting to see which one a person will answer to.

32:33.174 --> 32:35.197
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked to you earlier by the taser.

32:36.559 --> 32:37.921
[SPEAKER_08]: I told you about taser.

32:37.941 --> 32:38.101
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.

32:38.261 --> 32:39.543
[SPEAKER_04]: What did you tell me about that taser?

32:40.044 --> 32:44.250
[SPEAKER_08]: That, um, Brittany and the day that, um,

32:45.597 --> 32:48.180
[SPEAKER_08]: a white girl came over to fight Adriana.

32:48.481 --> 32:48.761
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

32:49.082 --> 32:58.254
[SPEAKER_08]: That, uh, Dre, uh, Adriana told Adriana to go get that thing and she went in the house and got Taser.

32:58.654 --> 32:59.155
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

32:59.175 --> 32:59.756
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

32:59.876 --> 33:00.096
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.

33:01.939 --> 33:03.821
[SPEAKER_04]: What about the Taser that was over at your house today?

33:05.683 --> 33:06.605
[SPEAKER_08]: Taser at my house?

33:06.785 --> 33:09.549
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

33:09.569 --> 33:10.169
[SPEAKER_08]: I got by her.

33:10.209 --> 33:11.551
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't know about Taser at your house?

33:11.912 --> 33:12.172
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.

33:12.192 --> 33:13.714
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been told about Taser at your house.

33:14.825 --> 33:15.847
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if it was there.

33:16.508 --> 33:17.871
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't know anything about that, huh?

33:17.891 --> 33:18.311
[SPEAKER_06]: No, sir.

33:18.552 --> 33:26.106
[SPEAKER_04]: And you stayed over at Heather's house from when she started cooking until the cops came.

33:27.388 --> 33:27.509
[SPEAKER_08]: Hmm.

33:27.949 --> 33:29.592
[SPEAKER_08]: She was already cooking when I got there.

33:29.773 --> 33:30.113
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

33:30.133 --> 33:30.995
[SPEAKER_08]: She was flying.

33:31.015 --> 33:32.358
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was about what time?

33:33.159 --> 33:34.842
[SPEAKER_08]: About when the sun started going down.

33:34.862 --> 33:35.564
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

33:35.584 --> 33:36.505
[SPEAKER_04]: And you didn't go anywhere.

33:36.525 --> 33:37.407
[SPEAKER_04]: You just stayed over there.

33:39.445 --> 33:42.808
[SPEAKER_08]: I didn't go nowhere, so Brittany showed me her hand where we were on the porch.

33:42.828 --> 33:43.909
[SPEAKER_08]: I didn't never go nowhere.

33:44.029 --> 33:45.371
[SPEAKER_04]: You were at the porch at Heather's house?

33:45.531 --> 33:45.891
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.

33:46.172 --> 33:46.512
[SPEAKER_04]: OK.

33:46.532 --> 33:47.413
[SPEAKER_08]: I didn't go nowhere.

33:47.773 --> 33:49.375
[SPEAKER_04]: OK. Because that ain't when I'm told.

33:50.195 --> 33:51.216
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, was I supposed to go?

33:51.637 --> 33:52.978
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, apparently, you went back to your house.

33:52.998 --> 33:54.520
[SPEAKER_04]: You were going for half an hour to an hour.

33:54.580 --> 33:58.644
[SPEAKER_04]: You come back right before the cops say, hey, the cops drive side don't answer the door.

34:00.706 --> 34:01.847
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I didn't.

34:02.447 --> 34:04.730
[SPEAKER_08]: OK. Who was I supposed to have told that to, though?

34:06.271 --> 34:06.571
[SPEAKER_04]: Heather.

34:07.072 --> 34:08.153
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what Heather's telling me.

34:08.487 --> 34:10.489
[SPEAKER_08]: And I thought she said, me and Heather was together.

34:11.470 --> 34:13.953
[SPEAKER_04]: Now according to Heather, that's what Jess told me.

34:14.013 --> 34:16.536
[SPEAKER_08]: You told me that me and Heather was together.

34:16.636 --> 34:18.498
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you told me you and Heather were together.

34:18.518 --> 34:21.802
[SPEAKER_08]: You said that Edron said, me and Heather did this turn.

34:21.822 --> 34:22.323
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, yeah.

34:22.483 --> 34:22.944
[SPEAKER_04]: Definitely.

34:22.984 --> 34:24.185
[SPEAKER_04]: That's exactly what she said.

34:24.485 --> 34:27.489
[SPEAKER_04]: OK. Yeah, that's exactly what she said.

34:27.609 --> 34:35.378
[SPEAKER_08]: So how then am I going to be able to run and tell Heather don't open a door to police outside of me and Heather were together as well as people.

34:35.398 --> 34:38.241
[SPEAKER_04]: No, that's what Heather told me.

34:38.812 --> 34:41.055
[SPEAKER_04]: you left her house for half an hour to an hour.

34:41.676 --> 34:45.041
[SPEAKER_04]: You come back and say, hey, the cops are outside, don't they, so the door?

34:45.742 --> 34:47.504
[SPEAKER_08]: And you saw a change for me.

34:48.185 --> 34:49.507
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't see you on one shoulder.

34:49.527 --> 34:51.930
[SPEAKER_08]: I think that's what that's what the police put a saw me there, right?

34:52.531 --> 34:55.355
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe, I don't know if they would have seen you sneaking into the front door.

34:55.415 --> 34:55.916
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

34:55.996 --> 34:57.418
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I got a white shirt only.

34:57.478 --> 34:58.059
[SPEAKER_08]: Why would I?

34:58.319 --> 34:58.920
[SPEAKER_08]: I could have put it here.

34:59.020 --> 35:01.343
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe then they're seriously saw you.

35:01.559 --> 35:07.888
[SPEAKER_04]: Cosmos plenty of people run around, but the problem I have is not Heather any back in your story.

35:07.908 --> 35:09.811
[SPEAKER_04]: She's saying you're gone for half an hour to an hour.

35:09.851 --> 35:10.392
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, for an hour.

35:10.412 --> 35:11.013
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I did.

35:11.113 --> 35:13.697
[SPEAKER_08]: I was on her porch, but I was just looking at my daughter's hand.

35:13.897 --> 35:15.519
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, what's wrong with you, daughter's hand?

35:16.120 --> 35:19.385
[SPEAKER_08]: She said her hand was wrong, says she thinks she had broken her hand.

35:19.705 --> 35:24.292
[SPEAKER_04]: Dear Heather's telling me that she always has to protect Adriana from you and your daughter.

35:25.514 --> 35:27.837
[SPEAKER_04]: You and your daughter chasing around all other places.

35:28.698 --> 35:29.980
[SPEAKER_04]: Your daughter has a taser.

35:30.500 --> 35:32.864
[SPEAKER_04]: She's all the taser over your house today.

35:33.505 --> 35:35.108
[SPEAKER_08]: Not baby, don't have a taser.

35:35.148 --> 35:35.949
[SPEAKER_08]: We never had a taser.

35:35.969 --> 35:37.231
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that's what she's telling me.

35:37.271 --> 35:38.153
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is she telling me that?

35:38.273 --> 35:38.914
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know.

35:38.954 --> 35:40.577
[SPEAKER_08]: We never had a taser, sir.

35:41.719 --> 35:42.901
[SPEAKER_08]: Hey, Joanna had a taser.

35:42.941 --> 35:44.944
[SPEAKER_08]: We never had a taser.

35:44.984 --> 35:46.026
[SPEAKER_08]: My baby was taser.

35:46.226 --> 35:48.390
[SPEAKER_04]: Y'all stories are getting paid for them for their part.

35:49.231 --> 35:56.179
[SPEAKER_08]: Like I said, if you're on the try to taste Brittany with the taste of, I'm the Brittany has a scratch across her chest right here.

35:57.040 --> 36:01.285
[SPEAKER_08]: That I was grabbing Brittany from off the porch so that they wouldn't fight, okay?

36:02.066 --> 36:03.107
[SPEAKER_08]: We never had a chance.

36:03.128 --> 36:05.290
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back to Brittany's hand, okay?

36:06.211 --> 36:09.996
[SPEAKER_04]: So Brittany comes up and says her hands hurt and she's gonna go to the emergency room.

36:10.096 --> 36:13.159
[SPEAKER_08]: Actually, my mom will do take me to the emergency room and I said for what Brittany.

36:14.081 --> 36:14.841
[SPEAKER_08]: She showed me your hands.

36:14.861 --> 36:15.983
[SPEAKER_08]: She said, look at my hand, mom.

36:16.103 --> 36:17.044
[SPEAKER_04]: And what did you say?

36:17.581 --> 36:19.544
[SPEAKER_08]: I said, yes, well, let what did you do to it?

36:20.545 --> 36:23.609
[SPEAKER_08]: She said, you're going to take me to the right of the room, I said, no, you can go.

36:24.931 --> 36:25.932
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you say how to happen?

36:26.893 --> 36:28.455
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I did, but I don't remember what she said.

36:28.475 --> 36:31.660
[SPEAKER_08]: I thought she said she could have wall or something.

36:31.680 --> 36:32.461
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm never staking.

36:33.282 --> 36:35.545
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, who's saying you're going for half an hour to an hour?

36:35.585 --> 36:37.768
[SPEAKER_08]: It was not gone for no afternoon.

36:37.788 --> 36:39.270
[SPEAKER_08]: After an hour to an hour.

36:39.350 --> 36:41.453
[SPEAKER_04]: You come back right before the cops are over there.

36:41.893 --> 36:43.335
[SPEAKER_04]: Cops are over there around 10 o'clock.

36:43.836 --> 36:46.339
[SPEAKER_04]: So from nine to 10, I got you on account of four.

36:48.260 --> 36:53.768
[SPEAKER_04]: I asked Heather if you were over at her house and she said, yes, she came over around in a time.

36:53.788 --> 37:07.568
[SPEAKER_04]: And then she said, you left for half an hour to an hour and then when you come back, when you come back, you come in in a hurry, nervous, send the cops her outside, don't answer the door.

37:09.185 --> 37:21.678
[SPEAKER_08]: Why are you telling me this you tell me if me and Heather were together doing this then how is Heather going to be already in the house and I'm not in the house Don't I If she lying on YouTube.

37:21.698 --> 37:35.192
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean you said that that Miss Adriana said that me and Heather did Right well she said you and your daughter and the Heather she didn't have a last name for Heather though So maybe there's another Heather out there

37:35.813 --> 37:36.634
[SPEAKER_04]: She knew your name.

37:36.974 --> 37:38.876
[SPEAKER_04]: She knew your first and last name.

37:38.896 --> 37:41.899
[SPEAKER_08]: I told you we were best friends in that trailer park.

37:42.499 --> 37:43.140
[SPEAKER_08]: And they'll begin.

37:43.160 --> 37:43.741
[SPEAKER_08]: That's funny.

37:43.981 --> 38:03.880
[SPEAKER_04]: Because Heather says that her and a designer are best friends and that you and Adriana don't get along and that you and Adriana are constantly having problems and that you and your daughter have been chasing Adriana around this trailer park trying to hurt her and that you have a taser in your house.

38:04.130 --> 38:09.199
[SPEAKER_04]: and that that tazer was Britney's tazer and the Britney had changed.

38:09.220 --> 38:11.372
[SPEAKER_04]: It isn't when the police came out there.

38:11.723 --> 38:17.111
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina took a job at Womphelhouse, yet by Thanksgiving, another collapse had begun.

38:17.732 --> 38:19.594
[SPEAKER_02]: Financial strain tightened around her.

38:20.356 --> 38:22.659
[SPEAKER_02]: She relapsed again and left her job.

38:23.220 --> 38:28.147
[SPEAKER_02]: Inter desperation, Tina began sex work again to afford her addiction to drugs.

38:28.648 --> 38:37.140
[SPEAKER_02]: Eventually sleeping with a woman named Heather Lee's husband, it was a return to a survival strategy she had used during the darkest periods of her life.

38:37.120 --> 38:43.970
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, when the time finally came to examine Tina Brown's mind, it was not done with the urgency of saving her.

38:44.510 --> 38:51.640
[SPEAKER_02]: It was done after her wife had already spiraled into crime so horrifying that the state of Florida would speak her name with a shutter.

38:52.041 --> 38:54.324
[SPEAKER_02]: The analysis that followed was not a rescue.

38:54.985 --> 39:01.474
[SPEAKER_02]: It was an autopsy of a dark psyche, a slow uncovering of wounds that had been festering for decades.

39:01.454 --> 39:07.479
[SPEAKER_02]: To understand Tina Brown, investigators and experts had to trace the long shadow that stretched behind her.

39:07.900 --> 39:11.003
[SPEAKER_02]: They spoke with the people who had watched her grow in the margins.

39:11.523 --> 39:20.211
[SPEAKER_02]: They interviewed her mother, her aunt, her two uncles, her brother, and the two sons who carried pieces of her story and their memories.

39:20.951 --> 39:23.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Each voice added another layer to a tragic portrait.

39:24.374 --> 39:27.117
[SPEAKER_02]: They did not speak of one trauma, but of many.

39:27.537 --> 39:30.600
[SPEAKER_02]: They spoke of a childhood riddled with neglect.

39:30.580 --> 39:36.966
[SPEAKER_02]: of night spent in danger, of a father who crossed the lines no parent should ever approach.

39:37.807 --> 39:47.617
[SPEAKER_02]: And of a home where fear became a routine, records filled in for them what words cannot, medical finals documented physical harm in the fallout of addiction.

39:48.198 --> 39:52.963
[SPEAKER_02]: Academic reports showed a girl who moved through schools like a ghost passing through home ways.

39:53.503 --> 39:56.166
[SPEAKER_02]: She never stayed long enough to truly occupy.

39:56.281 --> 40:11.657
[SPEAKER_02]: Legal documents showed the paper trail of spirals, relapses, survival decisions that carried heavy consequences, time spent in and out of jail, sometimes prison, and psychological tests revealed the fractures beneath the surface.

40:11.637 --> 40:15.403
[SPEAKER_02]: The places were a mine had learned a bend under pressure instead of breaking.

40:15.984 --> 40:21.392
[SPEAKER_02]: Taken together, these pieces formed a grim understanding of Tina Brown's internal world.

40:21.893 --> 40:31.548
[SPEAKER_02]: She'd grown up in an environment so steeped in violence and instability, that her brain adapted in ways meant to protect her, but that would later betray her.

40:31.988 --> 40:34.472
[SPEAKER_02]: She lived with post-traumatic stress disorder.

40:34.452 --> 40:45.383
[SPEAKER_02]: Born from repeated violations, and constant danger, she carried with her repressed memories and depression that settled into her bones, heaviness that no amount of willpower could shake.

40:45.904 --> 40:49.474
[SPEAKER_02]: Anxiety threaded through her daily life like a taught wire.

40:49.454 --> 41:04.593
[SPEAKER_02]: pulling her tight and beneath it all, rage smoldered, a natural consequence of years spent powerless unheard and unprotected, her parents had given her an upbringing that barely deserved the name, neglect was the air she breathed.

41:05.113 --> 41:14.685
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no stable foundation, no safety net here, nothing to prevent her from falling again and again into the same cycles that defined her youth.

41:14.665 --> 41:18.253
[SPEAKER_02]: The damage inflicted during her early years did not fade with time.

41:18.954 --> 41:31.341
[SPEAKER_02]: It grew with her, stretching through analysts and synodonthood, but the roots of a tree that had not been poisoned, but uprooted entirely, shaping something withered, twisted, cruel.

41:31.321 --> 41:33.225
[SPEAKER_02]: never having a chance to grow straight.

41:33.866 --> 41:37.011
[SPEAKER_02]: If we're all this darkness, there was something unsettling in the findings.

41:37.593 --> 41:39.556
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina Brown was not consumed by madness.

41:40.318 --> 41:44.125
[SPEAKER_02]: She'd not drift through life unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.

41:44.746 --> 41:46.870
[SPEAKER_02]: She thought clearly, not darkly.

41:47.371 --> 41:48.372
[SPEAKER_02]: She behaved logically.

41:48.933 --> 41:53.582
[SPEAKER_02]: She understood the world around her and she responded to it with rational awareness.

41:53.562 --> 42:01.432
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no indication of bipolar disorder, no signs of schizophrenia, no grand mood disorder to blame for what she would eventually do.

42:01.933 --> 42:04.396
[SPEAKER_02]: She was scarred, but not lost to delusion.

42:04.736 --> 42:13.427
[SPEAKER_02]: Her primary diagnosis in the end was dependence on crack cocaine, it dependency muted only because incarceration had removed the drug from a reach.

42:13.407 --> 42:17.878
[SPEAKER_02]: But beneath that dependency lingered something deeper, something harder to place.

42:18.400 --> 42:20.545
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't necessarily carry a diagnosis.

42:21.026 --> 42:28.345
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a lifetime of unhealed wounds, and a mind shaped by damage rather than any disorder with an academic name.

42:28.493 --> 42:31.798
[SPEAKER_02]: A heart that had been forced to operate under siege for too long.

42:32.358 --> 42:42.893
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, sometimes a person is not driven to violence by madness, but by the accumulated weight of a wife that has taught them pain more thoroughly than it ever taught them peace or love.

42:43.294 --> 42:46.158
[SPEAKER_02]: Tina Brown did not stumble into darkness by accident.

42:46.579 --> 42:53.168
[SPEAKER_02]: She walked there along the path, carved for her by trauma, sorrow, addiction, pain.

42:53.148 --> 42:59.421
[SPEAKER_02]: and when she finally committed the crime that would bind her name to horror, it was not the act of someone who did not understand.

43:00.042 --> 43:06.516
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the terrible conclusion of a wife spent navigating a world that never gave her a chance to be anything else.

43:07.627 --> 43:13.413
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, there comes a point in stories like this when the past begins to feel heavy ribbon the present.

43:14.054 --> 43:28.829
[SPEAKER_02]: When the listener starts to sense that a wife formed in fire rarely cools without consequence, peanut browns childhood is not a prelude, it is a slow construction of an inner world shaped by fear, where she was at home with cruelty.

43:29.429 --> 43:37.077
[SPEAKER_02]: It is tempting to look away from the debris left behind.

43:37.057 --> 43:41.509
[SPEAKER_02]: They show us how a person can spend decades trying to outrun the inevitable.

43:42.190 --> 43:48.366
[SPEAKER_02]: As we followed Tina through the chaos of her early years, through the violations she endured in the betrayal that hardened her.

43:49.028 --> 43:50.011
[SPEAKER_02]: Something became clear.

43:50.572 --> 43:52.838
[SPEAKER_02]: Survival became her only map.

43:53.020 --> 43:58.108
[SPEAKER_02]: Every choice made in adulthood was layered over the broken foundation of a childhood.

43:58.749 --> 44:04.457
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope flickered through a wife at uneven intervals, but never stayed long enough to become a guide.

44:05.138 --> 44:09.585
[SPEAKER_02]: Each moment of stability snapped under the weight of her history, and the cycle began again.

44:09.645 --> 44:12.730
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a kind of tragedy in this pattern, listener.

44:13.311 --> 44:15.955
[SPEAKER_02]: A rhythm of collapse that seems almost inevitable.

44:16.576 --> 44:18.859
[SPEAKER_02]: When the first lesson a child learns,

44:18.839 --> 44:19.340
[SPEAKER_02]: is hate.

44:19.942 --> 44:22.568
[SPEAKER_02]: Yet, inevitability is not the same thing as fate.

44:23.129 --> 44:24.472
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to dismiss what she did.

44:24.533 --> 44:28.141
[SPEAKER_02]: People reach crossroads, they choose, they fall.

44:28.522 --> 44:31.549
[SPEAKER_02]: They return to the same dark corners they once tried to escape.

44:32.070 --> 44:36.561
[SPEAKER_02]: Peanut Brown's life reminds us that suffering can both shield and be a weapon.

44:36.541 --> 44:43.994
[SPEAKER_02]: and a person can be shaped by brutality until they no longer recognize the line between harm suffered and harm afflicted.

44:44.315 --> 44:51.086
[SPEAKER_02]: When the past remains unresolved, it does not stay behind, it travels with you, listener, and mutates at whispers.

44:51.407 --> 44:53.971
[SPEAKER_02]: It becomes a companion that refuses silence.

44:54.432 --> 44:56.876
[SPEAKER_02]: This is only part one of a two-part series.

44:57.497 --> 45:00.743
[SPEAKER_02]: In the next episode, I will not be so generous to

45:00.723 --> 45:05.330
[SPEAKER_02]: We will step into the moment when Tina Brown's long history of trauma, addiction, rage.

45:05.831 --> 45:06.352
[SPEAKER_02]: You've heard it.

45:07.013 --> 45:12.001
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally erupts into an act of violence so severe, at the detail of strain belief.

45:12.402 --> 45:17.530
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a reason why she sits on Florida's death row, which is not common for women prisoners.

45:18.010 --> 45:20.875
[SPEAKER_02]: The crime she committed is almost unimaginable.

45:20.956 --> 45:26.942
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the culmination of decades of darkness converging into a single catastrophic act.

45:27.443 --> 45:36.733
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the point where the pain she carried stopped turning inward, and instead broke outward in a sudden flood, leaving devastation in its path.

45:37.133 --> 45:39.275
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we move on, I want you to remember this.

45:39.856 --> 45:43.340
[SPEAKER_02]: True crime often tempts us to isolate the event from the life.

45:43.820 --> 45:48.465
[SPEAKER_02]: It invites us to focus on the shock, the brutality, the aftermath.

45:48.445 --> 45:53.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Behind every horrific act is a chronology of wounds that began long before the crime itself.

45:54.435 --> 45:57.941
[SPEAKER_02]: Thina Brown's story forces us to confront that uncomfortable truth.

45:58.522 --> 46:03.871
[SPEAKER_02]: It forces us to see how a lifetime of harm can build towards something and much, much worse.

46:04.432 --> 46:06.174
[SPEAKER_02]: In part two, we will enter that moment.

46:06.615 --> 46:09.019
[SPEAKER_02]: We will examine the night when everything fractured.

46:09.420 --> 46:10.562
[SPEAKER_02]: But we will not be easy to hear.

46:10.602 --> 46:14.368
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a story soaked in despair and violence.

46:14.348 --> 46:17.015
[SPEAKER_02]: but it is also a story that demands to be understood.

46:17.075 --> 46:20.784
[SPEAKER_02]: Not because it offers comfort, but because it refuses it.

46:20.825 --> 46:24.173
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening, and keep the fire burning.

46:27.477 --> 46:31.645
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my earliest memories of my father is being told he was dead.

46:31.685 --> 46:34.230
[SPEAKER_02]: I asked my mother, where daddy was?

46:34.290 --> 46:37.355
[SPEAKER_02]: She told me he died in a car accident.

46:37.876 --> 46:39.580
[SPEAKER_02]: I must have been four or five years old.

46:40.481 --> 46:46.292
[SPEAKER_02]: One morning I woke up, opened the front door of the apartment, and found a package addressed to me.

46:47.154 --> 46:51.021
[SPEAKER_02]: From dad, there was four Disney VHS.

46:51.001 --> 46:56.249
[SPEAKER_02]: The little mermaid, the rescuers, the great mouse detective, Fantasia.

46:57.030 --> 47:01.977
[SPEAKER_02]: I was told that day that my dad wasn't in fact alive, but that I would never see him again.

47:02.037 --> 47:04.320
[SPEAKER_02]: They went through a bad split.

47:04.841 --> 47:12.172
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom told me that when she found out he was cheating, she went for a drive, and sprayed at every one of his clones out of the car window.

47:12.192 --> 47:19.422
[SPEAKER_02]: For years, the only memory I had of my father were those VHS,

47:19.402 --> 47:22.472
[SPEAKER_02]: I spoke to him for the first time when I was 20 years old.

47:22.512 --> 47:28.652
[SPEAKER_02]: We spent days catching up on the phone, and I found out that we were a lot alike.

47:29.307 --> 47:31.630
[SPEAKER_02]: We both were gifted readers from a young age.

47:32.351 --> 47:36.596
[SPEAKER_02]: Both had severe flat feet, struggled with the pressure and anxiety.

47:37.357 --> 47:38.879
[SPEAKER_02]: Both of us were in the basketball.

47:39.600 --> 47:41.662
[SPEAKER_02]: We even shared a lot of the same worldviews.

47:42.183 --> 47:43.885
[SPEAKER_02]: It all sounds corny now, I'm sure.

47:43.925 --> 47:45.687
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was exciting for me.

47:46.208 --> 47:48.190
[SPEAKER_02]: We talked every day on the phone for weeks.

47:48.811 --> 47:52.636
[SPEAKER_02]: Then one day, he stopped answering the phone, stopped returning my calls.

47:53.377 --> 47:57.762
[SPEAKER_02]: It took me around a week to realize that I've been abandoned by him again.

47:57.893 --> 48:00.512
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have it in me to be too disappointed.

48:00.728 --> 48:06.353
[SPEAKER_02]: Hillard had told me who he was, all those years ago, when I was just a little kid asking my mom.

48:06.974 --> 48:07.734
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did he go?

48:08.475 --> 48:11.177
[SPEAKER_02]: It was me who didn't get the message the first time.

48:11.718 --> 48:17.443
[SPEAKER_02]: Something about true crime that interests me is the honesty of the medium, voyeuristic by nature.

48:18.024 --> 48:20.005
[SPEAKER_02]: The message is often nowhere to be found.

48:20.966 --> 48:30.735
[SPEAKER_02]: As a storyteller, I can recount to you the various schoolish crimes committed by evil men and women.

48:30.715 --> 48:36.745
[SPEAKER_02]: In agreement that you, listener, are left to unpack the wreckage of what you just heard.

48:37.125 --> 48:42.614
[SPEAKER_02]: True crime feels like a room with the lights off, and the door locked from the outside.

48:43.015 --> 48:48.063
[SPEAKER_02]: You sit in the dark long enough in your eyes adjust, but nothing becomes clear.

48:48.844 --> 48:54.293
[SPEAKER_02]: Shape stay warped, corner stay crowded with things you do not want to name.

48:54.391 --> 48:58.857
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, I think about how often the dead are reduced to fragments.

48:59.578 --> 49:04.665
[SPEAKER_02]: A smile in a yearbook, a grainy photograph, a last-known phone call.

49:05.466 --> 49:13.738
[SPEAKER_02]: They are all flattened into evidence, an archive grief, pinned down so we can trace the outline, and feel like we understand something.

49:14.559 --> 49:20.888
[SPEAKER_02]: Something about the pain that haunts the memories, those left to remember, and there is a comfort in the pattern of it.

49:21.003 --> 49:37.611
[SPEAKER_02]: The way the story usually moves, childhood, escalation, a breaking point, the act, the after math, it feels clean and structure, even when it's grimy and detail, a predictable architecture built from unpredictable damage.

49:37.591 --> 49:40.737
[SPEAKER_02]: It reminds me of how people talk about serial killers.

49:41.498 --> 49:46.146
[SPEAKER_02]: They speak about them like they fell from the sky, alien and unrecognizable.

49:46.747 --> 49:53.760
[SPEAKER_02]: But most of the time, they were just people who woke up, brushed their teeth, and blended into grocery store aisles.

49:54.348 --> 49:58.514
[SPEAKER_02]: Normality is not a disguise, it is the natural habitat.

49:59.235 --> 50:03.441
[SPEAKER_02]: Writing these stories feels less like fear, more like recognition.

50:04.322 --> 50:09.590
[SPEAKER_02]: The kind you did not admit to, the quiet thought that says that it is not foreign.

50:10.391 --> 50:11.493
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not distant.

50:12.294 --> 50:18.803
[SPEAKER_02]: This is close enough for you to touch, close enough to breathe it in, then maybe listener.

50:18.901 --> 50:29.587
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were I at a rougher childhood, just to tad more unkempt, unclean, we'd be the subject of a true crime podcast episode, ourselves.

50:30.289 --> 50:36.825
[SPEAKER_02]: Victims are always described by what they were before the worst thing that ever happened to them, and did their story.

50:37.244 --> 50:42.812
[SPEAKER_02]: Loving daughter, aspiring artist, quiet neighbor, they lit up the room.

50:42.832 --> 50:52.086
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like building a shrine on a magic tiff, hoping language can retroactively give them a softer ending, and never works out.

50:52.867 --> 50:58.856
[SPEAKER_02]: The ending is always louder than the wife they left behind, and there is no catharsis found in it.

50:59.617 --> 51:06.407
[SPEAKER_02]: Only a low grade ache that settles in your chest, and the recesses of your mind, and never

51:07.045 --> 51:11.558
[SPEAKER_02]: Justice feels like a word people say, because they are afraid of silence.

51:12.501 --> 51:15.891
[SPEAKER_02]: Prison sentences do not make time behave differently.

51:16.175 --> 51:17.797
[SPEAKER_02]: years do not reverse anything.

51:18.558 --> 51:20.801
[SPEAKER_02]: They just accumulate dust.

51:20.821 --> 51:35.379
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I think the genre survives because it reassures us that suffering can be organized, filed, narrated, turned into episodes and chapters and series, gives us the illusion that horror can be contained by runtime.

51:35.419 --> 51:36.741
[SPEAKER_02]: They cannot.

51:37.582 --> 51:40.246
[SPEAKER_02]: It just waits politely for the next play button.

51:41.387 --> 51:44.511
[SPEAKER_02]: I hear my own voice

51:44.626 --> 51:47.831
[SPEAKER_02]: They can sound attached, like it belongs to someone else.

51:48.973 --> 51:50.856
[SPEAKER_02]: The words come out measured and even.

51:51.817 --> 51:54.381
[SPEAKER_02]: I describe blood, fear, regret.

51:54.962 --> 51:55.984
[SPEAKER_02]: They land softly.

51:56.645 --> 51:57.526
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's the point.

51:58.367 --> 52:01.933
[SPEAKER_02]: To drain the color from it until it looks like something saved to study.

52:02.654 --> 52:05.318
[SPEAKER_02]: So that it appears clearly and not darkly.

52:06.243 --> 52:09.589
[SPEAKER_02]: In the end, true crime offers no less in a no warning.

52:10.370 --> 52:12.955
[SPEAKER_02]: It just reflects the same dull truth back at us.

52:13.796 --> 52:17.823
[SPEAKER_02]: People break, people disappear, love fails.

52:18.564 --> 52:23.112
[SPEAKER_02]: The world continues with our hesitation indifferent to who it lost and why.

52:24.074 --> 52:26.057
[SPEAKER_02]: That brings me back to my father.

52:26.493 --> 52:32.419
[SPEAKER_02]: At he stayed with my mom, I would have avoided this severe abuse piled on to me from age 4 to 13.

52:32.999 --> 52:37.043
[SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps at 13, I wouldn't have attempted to murder my first stepfather.

52:37.663 --> 52:42.208
[SPEAKER_02]: He left grasping his throat, face purple, and desperately sucking in air.

52:42.928 --> 52:46.412
[SPEAKER_02]: After I had come seconds away from separating him from his life.

52:47.292 --> 52:55.420
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, dad to then, maybe I wouldn't

52:55.518 --> 53:00.666
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I wouldn't have a podcast full of listeners that have shown me so much love through the years.

53:01.607 --> 53:07.776
[SPEAKER_02]: Listener, I do not like to admit that the darkest parts of me also built the safest parts of my life.

53:08.437 --> 53:12.944
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels wrong to say that violence and absence carved out space for tenderness later.

53:13.725 --> 53:16.930
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like giving credit to the things that only ever took for me.

53:17.711 --> 53:24.681
[SPEAKER_02]: But I cannot deny that I am still here that my family is here.

53:24.931 --> 53:34.688
[SPEAKER_02]: There are nights when I watch my daughter sleeping and think about how fragile the world really is, how thin the line is between breaking someone, and protecting them.

53:35.830 --> 53:42.000
[SPEAKER_02]: How easy it would be to let the past repeat itself if I'd been made weaker or more tired.

53:43.082 --> 53:47.850
[SPEAKER_02]: And still, I easily wake up every morning, choose to be gentle.

53:48.016 --> 53:51.081
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that is the quiet truth the genre never touches.

53:51.802 --> 53:54.246
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the gore, not the motive, not the trial.

53:54.747 --> 53:59.355
[SPEAKER_02]: The truth is that most of us live our lives balanced on the edge of our worst instincts.

54:00.096 --> 54:03.882
[SPEAKER_02]: And most of us choose to step back instead of forward.

54:04.402 --> 54:08.227
[SPEAKER_02]: That is not dramatic, it does not sell, but it is real.

54:09.188 --> 54:14.575
[SPEAKER_02]: When I speak into a microphone now, I imagine a room that is no longer locked from the outside.

54:14.635 --> 54:19.021
[SPEAKER_02]: The lights are still low, but there is a hand on the door knob.

54:19.662 --> 54:21.804
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a small promise that it can be opened.

54:22.505 --> 54:27.692
[SPEAKER_02]: That someone else is in here with me, breathing, listening, surviving.

54:27.790 --> 54:34.318
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to think honesty was only found in the ugliest details, and the blood in the fear and the broken endings.

54:35.199 --> 54:38.043
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I think honesty also lives in the quiet spaces.

54:38.864 --> 54:41.567
[SPEAKER_02]: My father has still ghost in the background of my life.

54:42.308 --> 54:43.109
[SPEAKER_02]: He always will be.

54:43.149 --> 54:44.751
[SPEAKER_02]: He was absence.

54:45.192 --> 54:45.973
[SPEAKER_02]: He was silence.

54:46.754 --> 54:48.877
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a cautionary shape in a dark room.

54:48.897 --> 54:52.621
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I have a child who smiles when she sees me.

54:53.522 --> 54:56.346
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a wife who trusts me with her secrets.

54:56.478 --> 55:00.770
[SPEAKER_02]: I've strangers who hear my voice, and may find something of themselves in it.

55:00.830 --> 55:02.976
[SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps even Ken's ship.

55:04.039 --> 55:05.624
[SPEAKER_02]: That does not erase what happened.

55:05.644 --> 55:11.179
[SPEAKER_02]: It does not fix the past, but it builds something real in the present.

55:12.037 --> 55:12.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's enough.

55:13.819 --> 55:16.102
[SPEAKER_02]: Not redemption, not justice.

55:16.803 --> 55:17.984
[SPEAKER_02]: Just continuation.

55:18.745 --> 55:20.687
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a steady hand on a small back.

55:21.508 --> 55:28.376
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a promise, kept quietly, day after day, that the story does not have to end where it began.

55:28.997 --> 55:31.881
[SPEAKER_02]: What matters is in the here and now.

55:32.601 --> 55:34.804
[SPEAKER_02]: In the rest, it's just a femoral.