Man set to be executed for killing four including pregnant mother
A man in Texas is scheduled to be executed for a drug-related murder that left four people dead, including a pregnant 19-year-old woman.
Arthur Brown Jr, 52, is set to be executed in Texas for his role in the 1992 killings that became known as the Brownstone Lane Murders.
Brown was one of three men who were convicted of robbing and shooting six people during a drug deal gone wrong in Houston. His co-conspirators were Marion Butler Dudley and Antonio Lamone Dunson.
Four of the victims were killed in the shootings: Jose Tovar, 32, Audrey Brown, 21, Jessica Quinones, 19, and Frank Farias, 17,
Tovar sold drugs with his wife, Rachel Tovar. Farias was Rachel’s son with another father, and Quinones was the pregnant girlfriend of another son.
Rachel Tovar and another victim, Nicolas Cortez, survived the ordeal after medical care. Both were shot in the head.
According to investigators, Brown and the other men had a deal set up to purchase three kilograms of cocaine from the Tovars in June 1992. Instead of going through with the deal, they instead decided to rob them of both their drugs and money.
The trio then fled Texas, evading capture for months. Brown was eventually captured by police in Northport, Alabama in October 1992.
All three of the co-conspirators were eventually convicted. Dunson received life in prison, and Dudley was executed in 2006. Brown has spent over 30 years on death row.
Brown has maintained his innocence since the original trial in 1993. The surviving victims both named him as their assailant, but defense attorneys have questioned their ability to recall his identity.
Brown’s attorneys have filed multiple appeals to stay his execution in the past. They have argued that he is intellectually disabled, and also asked for more time to conduct trace DNA testing on knives and sheets collected for evidence.
Higher courts have consistently denied Brown’s requests. Prosecutors argued that the technology to review trace DNA has existed since 2016, and Brown has had plenty of time to request further testing.
‘My daughter Jessica got justice,’ her mother Graciela Quinones told ABC13 on Tuesday, after a judge ruled against further DNA testing for Brown.
‘I feel a little bit sad still, but I’m happy. I’m happy because God helped me go through all of this.’
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