Tina Lasonya Brown is a woman from Florida who was sentenced to death for the murder of a young woman
Tina Lasonya Brown and her daughter Britnee Miller were involved in an argument with a young woman that would lead to murder
The young woman would be kidnapped, brought to a remote location where she was tortured and set on fire. The woman would actually be rescued however would die of her injuries two weeks later in hospital
Tina Lasonya Brown would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Britnee Miller who was sixteen at the time would be sentenced to life in prison
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Where is Tina Brown Now
Tina Lasonya Brown is currently incarcerated at Lowell Annex in Florida
Tina Brown Appeal Denied
A Pensacola woman on death row for the fatal assault, kidnapping and burning of her neighbor had her most recent appeal denied last week.
Tina Lasonya Brown, 48, was one of three people who in 2010 ambushed 19-year-old Audreanna Zimmerman, attacked her repeatedly with a stun gun, gagged her, stuffed her in the trunk of a car, drove her into the woods, beat her with a crowbar, doused her with gasoline, set her on fire and left her to die.
In 2017, Tina Lasonya Brown filed a motion for post-conviction relief that raised numerous arguments for vacating her conviction and sentence. Among them were claims that her attorneys were ineffective, that multiple jurors should have been dismissed from the trial because of their biases and that “new evidence” implicated one of her co-defendants was more culpable in the murder than jurors were led to believe.
In a 110-page order filed Friday, Circuit Judge Gary L. Bergosh reviewed all of Tina Lasonya Brown’s arguments and found them insufficient. In most instances, the accusations failed to provide supporting evidence or demonstrate how they had impacted the outcome of the trial.
Tina Lasonya Brown was the only one of the three co-defendants who received the death penalty in the case. Tina Lasonya Brown’s daughter Britnee Miller, who was 16 when she participated in the vicious attack, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the murder.
Heather Lee, a friend and neighbor of Tina Lasonya Brown and Miller, was the third accomplice in the killing, and she was sentenced to 25 years in prison after making a plea agreement with the state.
Much of Tina Lasonya Brown’s appeal was dedicated to a claim that Lee had actually been the party most responsible for Zimmerman’s killing.
The appeal claimed Lee wanted revenge against Zimmerman because she had an affair with Lee’s husband. It said all the weapons used in the attack — the stun gun, crowbar and gas can — came from Lee’s house, and that Lee later admitted to associates she had been the one to set Zimmerman on fire.
Tina Lasonya Brown’s appeal said multiple witnesses could have testified to these facts, but Bergosh noted that none of that testimony would have affected the case against Brown. He said there was evidence Brown had been the one to use the stun gun against Zimmerman, to kidnap her and to beat her with the crowbar.
“The evidence is simply too strong against (Tina Lasonya Brown) that she played a substantial role in the victim’s murder,” the judge wrote. “… Regardless of whether (Brown) actually poured the gasoline and lit the victim on fire, the evidence at trial shows (Brown) was not being dominated or under extreme duress when she launched the fatal attack against the victim.”
Brown was sentenced to death because of the brutality of Zimmerman’s murder, and she is currently one of only three Florida women on death row.
