For two unbearable days, three children listened as their father beat their mother while she begged for her life. Before she died, she whispered her final words to her teenage daughter, who held her close as she took her last breath.
When Aleisha Brown was 8, her mother, Shawntae, took her and her siblings to Texas to watch their father, Joshua Brown, graduate from military training. That day, the couple announced they were getting married. Shawntae later told Aleisha privately, “No matter what happens between your dad and me, I will always love you and choose you first.”
Years later, that promise would haunt her daughter. After Joshua returned from Afghanistan in 2016, he became angry and paranoid. He installed cameras throughout their home, constantly watching and controlling the family.
By September 2020, his violence had escalated. For nearly two days, the children heard him attack Shawntae. Aleisha recalled that he had completely “shut off — it was no longer my dad.” When Shawntae died, Joshua forced the kids to clean up the blood and lie to police.
Deputies later found Shawntae’s body covered in bruises, with evidence showing Joshua had beaten and strangled her using a shoe, belt, weapon, and flagpole — acts captured on his own cameras.
Before dying, Shawntae told her daughter, “I love you.”
In October 2025, Joshua Brown pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received four consecutive life sentences, avoiding the death penalty.