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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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.
Tina Lasonya Brown News
Tina Brown, a Pensacola woman sentenced to death in 2012 for a brutal murder, is the only woman in Florida currently on death row.
Brown, 54, was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder after she, her daughter and a neighbor 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.
Zimmerman lived long enough to tell law enforcement that Brown, Brown’s then 16-year-old daughter Britnee Miller, and neighbor Heather Lee were the people who attacked her. Zimmerman died approximately two weeks after the attack
Here’s what you need to know about Tina Brown:
Why did Tina Brown kill Audreanna Zimmerman?
In March 2010, Tina Lasonya Brown, Brown’s 16-year-old daughter Britnee Miller, Heather Lee and Audreanna Zimmerman all lived in neighboring trailers in a Detroit Avenue mobile home park in Pensacola, Florida, according to court records.
“The four women were initially good friends, but their relationships – particularly between Miller, Brown, and Zimmerman – were volatile and often escalated to violence. Brown had previously accused Zimmerman of slashing her tires. Zimmerman had accused Brown of shattering a window in her car, having her boyfriend arrested, and reporting to the Florida Department of Children and Families that she was providing inadequate care to her children,” a Florida Supreme Court opinion stated.
“Lee testified that she had intervened on multiple occasions to stop physical altercations between Miller and Zimmerman. On one occasion, Miller, who had recently discovered that Zimmerman was sexually involved with her boyfriend, attempted to strike Zimmerman. Zimmerman, however, defended herself by attempting to disable Miller with a stun gun. Later that day, Lee informed Brown that Zimmerman had used a stun gun on Brown’s daughter, to which Brown responded that she was ‘going to get’ Zimmerman.”
Several days later, on March 24, 2010, Brown invited Zimmerman to her home under the guise of rekindling their friendship. Instead the trio ambushed Zimmerman, reportedly using a stun gun on her repeatedly and stuffing a sock into her mouth to stifle her screams for help.
The women forced Zimmerman into the trunk of Brown’s car, drove her to a wooded area, removed her from the trunk and then continued beating her with fists and blunt objects and attacking her with the stun gun. They then doused the still conscious woman with gasoline and lit her on fire
In court, Lee testified that she was standing beside Miller, “who exuberantly jumped up and down and screamed, ‘Burn, bitch! Burn!’”
After a few minutes, the women returned to their car and drove away.
Zimmerman somehow survived the brutal attack and walked approximately a third of a mile to a residence seeking help.
An EMT who arrived estimated that over 90% of Zimmerman’s body was burned, noting that her skin was charred and falling off, she had severe head trauma and what appeared to be a broken or dislocated jaw.
However, she remained conscious and alert and told paramedics that Brown, Miller and Lee had been the ones who attacked her.
She reportedly said she “thought they had made up” and asked the EMT to protect her children.
Zimmerman was ultimately stabilized at a local hospital and then transferred to the Burn Center at the University of South Alabama Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. She died 16 days later without ever coming out of a medically induced coma.
Based of Zimmerman’s statements and other evidence – including a bloodied crowbar and stun gun, a pair of shoes and a piece of hair weave recovered from the site of the burning, as well blood matching Zimmerman’s DNA profile found in Brown’s car – Brown, Miller and Lee were all arrested and charged with Zimmerman’s murder.
On June 21, 2012, a jury convicted Brown of the first-degree murder of Zimmerman. Prosecutors sought to impose the death penalty on Brown, who was painted by witness testimony and evidence as “the instigator and primary aggressor” in the attack.
During the penalty phase of the trial, in which the trial court reviewed aggravating and mitigating factors in the crime and in Brown’s life and upbringing, Brown’s attorneys highlighted her troubled childhood, noting as a child she had grown up in a home plagued by violence, crime and poverty, that she had been a victim of sexual abuse and neglect, and that she had substance dependence issues that plagued her into adulthood. They noted she had no prior history of criminal violence.
While the court gave “some weight” to those factors, the trial court concluded that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and noted that “this case, particularly because of the heinous, atrocious, [or] cruel nature of the murder of Audreanna Zimmerman, falls into the class of murders for which the death penalty is reserved.”
Brown has raised several appeals to her conviction and sentence, arguing among other things that she had ineffective counsel and that new testimony from people incarcerated with Lee allegedly revealed that Lee had admitted to having a much larger role in the killing than was presented at Brown’s trial.
None of the arguments have swayed courts, and Brown remains on death row. She is housed at the Lowell Correctional Institution Annex in Gainesville, Florida, according to Florida Department of Correction records.
If her death sentence is carried out, she would be only the third woman in Florida history to be executed.
What happened to Britnee Miller and Heather Lee?
Britnee Miller, who was 16 when she participated in the vicious attack, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the murder. Miller, now 31, has also made multiple attempts to overturn her conviction and sentence, all of which have been unsuccessful.
She is currently in custody at the Lowell Correctional Institution Annex in Gainesville, Florida, according to Florida Department of Correction records.
Heather Lee was sentenced to 25 years in prison after making a plea agreement with the state. She is serving her sentence for second-degree murder at the Gadsden Correctional Facility in Quincy, Florida, with a scheduled released date of Aug. 23, 2031.
