Dec. 9, 2022 12:15p; Updated 1:30
Update: A jury spent less than 20 minutes before returning 'guilty-as-charged' verdicts.
(WGTD)---Ranon Brownlee had a “murderous obsession” to extract a false confession from his estranged girlfriend right up until the time she took her last breaths. That’s how Prosecutor Michael Graveley termed it in his closing argument Friday morning in Brownlee’s murder trial.
Brownlee is accused of stabbing 26-year-old Charniese Brown numerous times because he believed she was seeing somebody else.
The case against Brownlee went to the jury at 11:30.
Brown suffered several dozen stab wounds in the March 2021 killing at the couple’s home in Kenosha. In addition, she was shot in the shoulder.
In text messages read to the jury yesterday, Brownlee repeatedly accused Brown of infidelity, something she vehemently denied.
Audio of the violent confrontation was played for the jury at the start of the trial and again during closing arguments. The recording was that of a 9-1-1 call made by Brown as she was being stabbed. Several members of the victim’s family had to leave the courtroom as the recording was played, and at least a couple of jurors were visibly upset.
While Brownlee himself did not testify at the trial, interviews he did with investigators were referenced during the trial. Brownlee told several different versions of what happened, including saying that Brown was the one who approached him with a knife and a shotgun.
Graveley said the assertions did not match the physical evidence. That evidence included three knives—including two broken ones that Brownlee allegedly used and then discarded before picking up a stronger knife to finish the job.
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Dec. 8, 2022 9p
(WGTD)---The trial for the Kenosha man who’s accused of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged girlfriend is winding down without the defendant himself testifying.
52-year-old Ranon Brownlee is on trial for the death of 26-year-old Charniese Brown at her home in Kenosha's Lincoln Park neighborhood a year-and-a-half ago. She’d been trying to break up with him. The murder unfolded on an open phone line to the Public Safety Building as Brown begged for help.
The defense rested its case Thursday afternoon without calling Brownlee or any other witness to the stand. In a colloquy with Judge Jason Rossell, Brownlee made clear it was his choice not to testify.
Much of Thursday was taken up by the lead detective in the case reading some of the hundreds of text messages that the defendant and victim exchanged in the days before her death.
A frustrated Brown repeatedly said that she wanted to end the couple’s relationship, saying it had run its course. "I don't want to be with you," she said. "Just leave me alone."
Over and over, Brownlee accused her of cheating on him. In response, Brown said: "There is no 'him'. I just want to be by myself."
The weekend before she died, Brown celebrated her birthday with family members at a hotel in Milwaukee. During her stay, somebody who’d been given permission to drive her truck crashed it, leaving Brown to wonder how she’d be able to get her four kids to school, much less get back to Kenosha.
Brownlee’s offers of help were interspersed with new accusations of infidelity, and at one point he accused her of lying about the accident.
Other text messages from Brownlee hinted at what was to come, writing things like "Life is over for me" and telling her to "have fun tonight like it's your last."
Brown died of multiple stab wounds and a shotgun blast.
Judge Rossell allowed testimony Thursday indicating that a pattern of violence existed in the relationship. Two of Brown's sisters said Brown admitted in separate conversations to them in 2019 that Brownlee had punched her in the eye.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday morning.
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