Aleisha Brown was only 15 years old when her father beat her mother to death. Aleisha and her two siblings were confined to a bedroom for 24 hours as Joshua Brown brutally attacked Shawntae Brown inside the family’s Oklahoma City home on September 30, 2020. More than five years later, a court sentenced Joshua Brown to four life sentences without the possibility of parole. Although the punishment might fit the crime, it will not bring Shawntae Brown back.
Aleisha Brown told People she remembers traveling with her mother and two younger siblings to Texas to watch Joshua Brown graduate from basic training. She was only 8 years old at the time, but the memory remains vivid. The couple surprised their kids by getting married. Aleisha Brown said her mom looked so happy. But then something strange happened.
“It was so weird because she told me this specifically by myself, she said: ‘Even if, for whatever reason, even though me and your dad love each other very much, if we don’t stay married or something happens, I will always love you guys and always choose you guys first,'” Aleisha Brown recalled.
Life changed after Joshua Brown returned from his deployment in Afghanistan in 2016. Aleisha Brown said her father was never abusive before, but that changed drastically.
“He was definitely more aggressive, he was definitely more irritable, angry. And after that is when the abuse started getting bad, because I mean, it was never abuse before then,” she told People. “It would always be verbal arguments up until about 2016, when the abuse started with my mom.”
Joshua Brown became a paranoid husband and father who installed surveillance cameras in the home. He monitored his family’s every move. If anyone stepped out of line, he punished them.
Aleisha Brown said her father had episodes where something “clicked,” and it was like he was gone. He turned into another person, and the night her mother died was truly horrible.
“That night was just especially hard because it was so bad. It was definitely the worst one we’d heard. It was definitely the worst one we’d been through,” Aleisha Brown said.
Joshua Brown ordered his daughter to clean up her mom and all the blood in the bathroom after the beating, as the 34-year-old woman drifted in and out of consciousness. He ultimately realized he’d gone too far and told his daughter to call 911 but not to tell the truth about what happened to her mother.
As Shawntae Brown lay dying in her daughter’s arms, she made sure she knew how she felt. “She told me she loved me,” Aleisha Brown said.
After a court handed down her father’s sentence, Aleisha Brown said she believes Shawntae Brown helped spare her husband from the death penalty.
“I hate to say this, but I think it is what my mother would have wanted, and I do think that she had her hand in this somehow,” Aleisha Brown told the magazine. “I know at the end of the day, she would still love him and give him another chance at life, and I really do think that is why I think this happened.”
A mother’s love is eternal. Even in death, she found a way to protect her children.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of domestic abuse, you can find help and support at DVIS.org, the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or by contacting your local women’s shelter (domesticshelters.org).
