‘I don't know what he's capable of doing,' victim of murder-suicide tells judge in January

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — “He has said, several times, that he would find somebody to kill me,” Chericia Brown said in a tremulous voice, followed by a nervous laugh. “I thought he was joking.”

When Brown told a judge in January that she was afraid of her husband, Henry Ramone Brown, she was awarded a 1-year injunction barring him from any contact with her.

That injunction, though, did not stop Henry Brown from stabbing his estranged wife and then running her over with a car Sunday night outside a Lake Mary Chili’s, investigators said.

Brown then picked up the pair’s two young children, got into a shootout with police in a busy emergency room and ultimately killed the boy and girl, and then himself.

During the January hearing, though, Henry Brown was mostly cool and collected as he argued his case against the judge making a temporary injunction against him permanent.

Chericia Brown told the judge that her husband had never hit her, but for years he had been mentally and emotionally abusive.

Henry Brown had an affair and everything came to a head in December, when the two got into a physical altercation that left Chericia Brown locked in a closet with a sock in her mouth.

“I think to muffle my screams,” she told the judge.

She was worried for her safety, but told the judge she didn't think Henry Brown would ever hurt the 1- and 4-year-old children they had together.

Early in the hearing, as the husband and wife sat at two separate tables in the courtroom, the judge took a moment to ask Henry Brown to move and take a seat farther away from Chericia.

He admitted that he violated the temporary injunction by leaving a voicemail on his wife’s phone, something the judge pointed out could be criminal, but did not sanction him for.

The air between the two was amiable, but tense, as they both told the judge about their marriage and the incident that set up the injunction.

“It wasn’t like, full-out punches being thrown or anything like that,” Henry Brown said. “It was just a lot of shoving, grabbing of phones.”

He was quick to deflect some of the blame onto Chericia.

“We both were in the wrong,” he said. “We should have never touched each other.”

“As she said, I did have an affair, which kind of messed up my family and relationship with her,” Henry Brown continued. “I know she’s mad. She’s very upset about the affair, and this is one way I know she’s going to get back at me, by leaving.

“I do want my family. I do want her in my life.”

Most of the talking during the hearing was done by Henry Brown, who repeatedly apologized to his wife.

“I understand my wife, she’s not wanting to put the family back together at this point, in order to put the marriage back together,” he said. “About all I can do is go on feeding my kids and move on at this point.

“She’s my best friend, and honestly, I’d like to say that I really feel bad for what I did, and so forth. I’m not just losing a wife, I’m losing a friend.”

The judge wasn’t buying it, though.

“I am convinced by the actions that took place,” she told Henry Brown. “I’m especially concerned about the fact that she is locked in the closed with a sock shoved in her mouth.”

As the judge set the injunction to be in place for a year, Henry Brown exclaimed suddenly.

“For one year?” he asked. “Chericia, please?”

When Chericia Brown brought up the possibility of moving back to her home state of New Mexico and taking the children with her, Henry Brown reacted quickly.

“That’s possible?” he asked. “Where the kids can go to a whole different state?”

He clasped his hands together and dropped his head to the table at the thought.

“I don’t know what he’s capable of,” Chericia Brown had said, early in the hearing.

Three months later, Henry and Chericia Brown, and their two children, were dead.

Cox Media Group