Death At The Door: The Murder of Pastor Ron Browning | Murdered at First Sight | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] REXANNA BROWNING: Ron was a very generous husband. He would do anything that I ask him to do,
go anywhere that I wanted to go. He was very loving. Two days before, my brother and I went fishing and had,
as usual, a good time together. But then when I got the call, I mean, it was just,
it was shocking to hear that something that happened to him. As I arrived at the crime scene, I would have to say,
I probably saw the most gruesome scene that I have encountered in my career. It was in his home.
He was minding his own business, and ultimately, the only thing that he did that led to his death
was opened the door to a stranger. There was no connection which is probably what makes this the scariest possible crime.
REXANNA BROWNING: I did not know of anybody who did not like Ron. I don't think anybody would have harmed him,
people just loved Ron. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ron was a very kind, generous man. He would give you the shirt off of his back.
He was very religious. The church meant a lot to Ron. He was the pastor of it for many years.
On February the 7th, I kissed him, and told him I loved him, and told him goodbye.
I was going to take my mom out to her cousin's house. And I was gone all day. He stayed at home and was going to study his Bible,
it was Saturday. On February 7, 2015, it was just like any other day that we see typically in a February.
It was pretty cold. It wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, but it was chilled. It's what you would expect in our area for that climate.
REXANNA BROWNING: Was coming back, and I had told my mom that it was strange that I hadn't
heard from Ron all day long. He always calls me two or three times a day when I'm out like that, and he didn't that day.
I pulled up into the house, I did smell gas, and I went upstairs. On the porch, and went into the house.
I went into the kitchen because I had a cake in my hand, to put the cake down on the table.
And I hollered for him, and ask him what was going on because I had seen hair in the floor.
and I went to the hall, and my dog came out, and she was shaking. And that's when I turned around, and I
seen Ron laying in the floor. [RINGING] MORGAN BRAGG: The initial responding officer, when he
arrived, he entered the home. He immediately recognized that this was not, not an accident.
It was not a medical call. So what he chose to do is he did what we would consider clearing the scene.
He went room by room through the residence to make sure that there were no assailants still on scene.
And what he noticed is a copious amount of blood throughout the residence. He went to the basement of the home,
and discovered that gasoline had been poured around the basement area. At that point, he exited, secured
the crime scene with crime scene tape, and called for us to respond. I arrived at the scene at about 6:00 PM that afternoon.
The victim's wife, Rexanna, was noticeably distraught. I would say, almost in shock.
When we entered the residence, we observed that the victim had suffered some extreme trauma,
particularly what we would consider to be blunt force trauma to his head and face.
There was an extreme amount of blood in the living room areas. It appeared that there was quite a struggle that had occurred,
and we noted that around this victim's head, there was a large amount of shards of glass,
and change, and various items of that nature. We recognize that this scene was expansive.
It was a lot of evidence that needed collected. We chose to contact the Western State
Police Crime Response Team. They have a lot of resources. The crime scene at Ronald Browning's house
was probably one of the bloodiest crime scenes in Raleigh County history. The extreme violence that was used
left an absolutely chaotic scene, and one that I won't soon forget. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Well, on February 7, I was home with my wife, and we received a phone call from Ronald's wife.
And she said that something had happened at the house, and that he had been murdered.
And we couldn't understand how you can come out, and say it just like that. But I guess she was in shock, too.
And that's when we decided that we were going to drive to his house. Well, when I talked to the police officer at the scene,
I asked him what was going on. And he told me that Ron had been murdered. And it was just unbelievable.
And they said that we need to leave the area. So we did, we stayed for just a few minutes,
and then we went back home, and didn't do anything. When we see a victim with that much severe trauma,
that's typically what we would consider to be overkill. Typically somebody that's perpetuated by somebody
that knows the victim. Overkill is when there's more done to kill a person than is necessary.
So this is evidence of aggression, violence, hatred. Typically things that are very interpersonal in nature.
The other thing is it may be sadistic, where somebody really gets pleasure out of the torture and pain
that they're inflicting on somebody else. But in all of these circumstances, far more is done to a person than is necessary to kill them.
In any investigation, there's a component of victimology. Trying to decide what type of victim
you're working with here, what ties they may have had, individuals they may have been associated with.
BENJAMIN HATFIELD: Ronald Browning was an incredible person. He was a family man.
He had a wife and family that loved him very much. He was a local pastor of a church.
He volunteered at a local hospital, and he had a lot of people that loved him. MORGAN BRAGG: One of the first steps
that we take in investigation of this nature, is a canvass of the area in hopes that someone saw a vehicle, saw a person on the street.
Didn't glean a whole lot of information from that canvass at that point. BENJAMIN HATFIELD: At the commencement
of an investigation, one of the things we look for is possible suspects. And in order to obtain that list of possible suspects,
we explore motive. So this case was unique in that, at this point in time, we didn't have a motive.
We didn't have a rationale, and we didn't know if we needed to connect some dots, or there was a connection
that we didn't know about. The original FBI profilers used to say, what plus y equals who in any type
of crime such as this. And so when you don't understand why, trying to understand who
did it was even more difficult. And in this case, when police had no understanding of the motive,
and they had no idea why this crime was committed, that meant that anybody could be a suspect.
MORGAN BRAGG: There were some information that we were able to glean from the crime scene
itself pretty early on. One of the first things is that we recognize that whoever
had done this to Mr. Browning had clearly injured themselves in the process. And from the amount of blood that we found strewn
throughout the residence, we could tell that they were injured pretty severely. So one of the things that we initiated early on
was checking the hospitals to see if anybody had come in with these severe injuries
that we would expect. KERRY DANES: Globally, 96% of all killers are male. So the police would be thinking that it's
more likely to be a man who was inflicted this level of violence because this is really very brutal.
But the crime scene is chaotic, and the manner of death is incredibly chaotic, as well.
It's looking really disorganized, and that is a clue to who might be responsible.
They might be chaotic, and they might be disorganized themselves. Hundreds of photographs were taken at the scene.
It was such an extensive scene that the processing took hour upon hour. I would say, in the range of probably 12 hours
total, just, just processing the scene and taking photographs. In this case, the photos gave a glimpse
of the level of violence, and the level of evil that was present in Ronald Browning's house that night.
My brother was the kind of guy that didn't bother anybody. And it should never happen to him.
He'd do anything for anybody to help to bring him to be killed this way. Just unbelievable.
REXANNA BROWNING: We are at Cool Ridge Community Church. This is where Ron was pastor, and this is also where we got
married on April the 19th, 2014. This is a picture of our wedding cake which was made by my niece that were cutting.
Me walking down the aisle with my brothers which gave me away. We were all in pink and white.
This is where me and Ron just had got married, and we're holding hands. He had married Rexanna which was a good marriage
for both of them. They both needed somebody in their life at that time. And they had a good marriage.
She went to church with him all the time, and was very devoted as far as being with him.
It was nice to reconnect with Ron later in life. He was a joy to be around. He was my best friend.
I never expected to find love like we had. MORGAN BRAGG: This is probably the best photograph to show
what I saw when I arrived. The scene had been secured with this yellow crime scene tape.
Rexanna Browning's car was in the driveway. And at that time, his wife Rexanna was seated in this vehicle, the rear seat
of this vehicle awaiting the detective's arrival. And this would be the door that we believe the suspect
exited from the basement door. At about 8:45 that evening, we had the opportunity to speak with the victim's wife, Rexanna.
You know, in a general sense, everybody was a suspect because we were unable to determine
anybody that would logically do this to the 69-year-old man. And due to the extent of the assault,
we certainly felt that it was somebody connected to him, or a family member, right off the bat is
something that we would expect. So she was, I would say, a person of interest is how we would describe her.
The fact that she was gone during the day, the fact that she was rather emotionless in that
shocked state at that point in time was a little bit suspect. We certainly didn't think that she was physically
capable of doing what was done to Mr. Browning, but we wanted to make sure that nothing else had played a role.
BRYANNA FOX: When police first meet with Rexanna, the wife of the victim, there are a lot of reasons
that they thought she was very unlikely to have done this. Due to her size, stature.
But at the same time, given that she was in his inner circle. And the statistics show people that are closest to the victim
are most likely to have committed the crime, police felt like they really can't eliminate her as a suspect until they
have hard evidence to do so. What we learned about their relationship was that Mr. Browning and Ms. Browning have been
married for about nine months. Had known each other for 14 years prior to that, knew each other through the hospital, I believe.
And, really, there was no indication that they had ever had any sort of conflict, or any kind of violence,
or anything of that nature that would make us suspicious. Ms. Browning did advise that she had an alibi.
We were able to verify that through other people who had attended that same family reunion.
She was cleared as a suspect quite early in this investigation. In relation to the crime scene itself,
we wanted to find out if there was anything that Ms. Browning had noticed that stood out.
I did not notice anything wrong right away. It was once I got into the house and into the kitchen that I had
noticed that the milk jug, and the hair in the floor, which I picked up, and I laid it on his recliner chair.
The house was tore up, there was blood everywhere in the house. Once I started noticing the curtains in the living room
was tore off of the wall, there was blood on the curtains in the bathroom, there was blood in the sink in the bathroom.
There was blood in the toilet in the bathroom. The attic ladder was pulled down,
and a white cabinet had been knocked over. Throughout our conversation with Ms. Browning,
obviously, one of the things that we wanted to determine is, could she think of anyone that would do this kind
of violence to her husband? No, I did not know of anybody who did not like Ron. He was very happy, people just loved Ron.
I don't think anybody would have harmed, harmed him. We noticed the braided hairpieces pretty quickly on.
And that was for a number of reasons, but primarily because they were so commingled
with the victim's blood. They were literally underneath his body. There were-- the hair, braided hair pieces were there.
So we knew that was significant. As the crime scene team processed the scene, they indicated that it appeared the murder weapon in this case
was going to be a large glass jar full of change, just based on the scene itself.
It appeared that this person that did this crime had entered the attic, they had entered the basement.
They had gone through every drawer that we could find, they had been at the kitchen sink.
They had used the shower, they had been in all the restrooms. This person spent a good deal of time there,
and that was interesting to us as well. And they indicated that they had located things
such as a bloody gas can in the basement, and it appeared that a person had spread gasoline around the residence
in, in an attempt to set it ablaze. BRYANNA FOX: Based upon the evidence found at the scene,
police were able to determine that this was a very frenzied, haphazard, and spontaneous scene.
The fact that the murder weapon used to kill Browning was all taken from this house, they're all objects
that were available, show there was no premeditation. The person that was the killer did
not bring a weapon with them. It just suggests that there was something a little more
spontaneous that went on, but at the same time there's a lot of passion and anger involved in it.
At some point in an investigation, there comes a time when you almost have to get together and have a little brainstorm session.
We mentioned that there were braided hair pieces discovered amongst this, this violent attack,
and underneath the victim's body. A uniformed patrol officer advised us that he had just recently taken a missing persons report.
A worried mother had called the police had advised them that her adult daughter was in the process of having her hair
braided, the mother had left the room for a short period of time. When she returned, the daughter was gone.
She wandered from the room, left her phone in the room, and was unable to be contacted by anybody after that point.
Of the other things that we discovered during this kind of putting our minds together at the office,
some of the other officers had overheard our conversation. And that we suspected the person to be very injured,
the suspect in this case. An officer approached me, and told me that he had been aware
that a female, a 19-year-old female, had been arrested in a neighboring jurisdiction,
Mabscott, West Virginia. As we looked into the investigation of the Mabscott Police Department, we determined that the suspect
had actually forced herself into two other homes. In the first one, she approached a very elderly man.
And she subsequently went into another residence of a family who was able to, basically, dissuade
her long enough that they could contact law enforcement. [RINGING] When we initially heard the description of the individual
that Mabscott police had arrested, to be honest, we were quite skeptical that, that could
be our suspect just because it's not what you would normally expect. The 19-year-old female would not have matched the suspect
that we would intend to expect to see in such a violent incident, is what we encountered.
At the time of her arrest, she had severe, very severe injuries to her hands. Particularly lacerations and cuts,
which is exactly what we expected our suspect to have. [MUSIC PLAYING] As soon as we determine that Mabscott had arrested
that female, and her physical description matched the hairstyle that we were looking for,
we traveled to the hospital and make contact with her there. And that's when we discovered her name was Camille Brown.
One of the key pieces of evidence from the crime scene was the braids that was intermingled
in Ron Browning's blood. That's specifically significant because Camille Brown was in the process of getting her hair braided when she went
missing earlier in the day. I observed Camille sitting on a gurney inside the hospital,
just acting erratic. I was shocked to see a 19-year-old girl in that condition, but she was basically incoherent.
She wasn't making a lot of sense. We did not attempt to really talk to her about our incident
at that time. At first, Camille Brown was being treated at Raleigh General Hospital.
Ultimately, she was so combative and violent at Raleigh General, they refused to treat her.
These are some photographs from the hospital. We did have a significant struggle
with her at the hospital in attempts to take her into custody. She fought very violently in that parking area.
And it was a unique situation, in that, her family arrived at the hospital. So this was the first time they had seen her since they had
filed a missing persons report, which led to a very emotional, emotionally charged situation.
As we were trying to restrain her, they were trying to retrieve her. And it was a bad situation all the way around.
Ultimately, the Beckley City Police Department was left with no choice but to take her
to Beckley Appalachian Regional Hospital where she was treated. But she had to be physically restrained in order to do so.
And this is a hospital that specializes in restraining violent individuals or mentally
unstable individuals. And they had to use sedatives and physical restraints. And it took five or six officers just
to hold her down long enough to get her injuries treated. The jacket that Camille Brown was
wearing when she was arrested actually belong to Ronald Browning. The jacket was his Chaplin jacket
from Raleigh General Hospital. That belonged to him. Ultimately, that was a key piece of evidence.
The fact that she was wearing it not very long in time after the commission of the crime.
A lot of times when there's a murder that they do suspect that it was somebody in the family.
We were told that they had already talked to Rexanna, and that she hadn't got there till after he was murdered.
But they had apprehended a young lady in the neighborhood who had been to four different houses.
And that they had apprehended her, and talked to her. As soon as she got in the car, she made the comment
she had killed this old, gray-haired, white man. We were unable to establish a motive because we knew
that Ms. Browning, the victim's wife, was unaware of Camille Brown. There was no connection there.
And we didn't know what her role could have been at that point. We began to canvass the area for security cameras.
We knew that Ms. Brown lived near in the area. We knew that, the likely way she would travel
to the victim's residence. We secured some video footage that showed Ms. Brown jogging down the street
prior to the homicide. In the process of canvassing the area, we realized that this trail existed.
And in that process is when we discovered droplets of blood, and we believe that this is the trail
that the suspect took after she committed the homicide. We believe she walked this trail to Mabscott
where she was later arrested. The police told me that a girl had been into the house,
and had been into several houses in the neighborhood. Just walked in and terrorized people.
And I couldn't believe that somebody had went in the house and did what they done.
In this particular case, I feel like there was enough physical evidence to arrest her
but we certainly didn't want to leave it at that. So what we chose to do is to attempt to interview Ms. Brown
so that we could find out more information and see if she may confess to this. She then told investigators that she even
kicked the man in the chest area because he just wasn't dying. After the commission of the crime,
she told investigators that she rummaged through the house, even looking at mail and several other items that
were scattered about the home. She then later told the police that she ultimately
sprayed gasoline through the basement area because the plan, or her plan, was to set the house on fire.
To try to hide evidence of the commission of the crime. One of the things that we noted pretty early on
is that there was no connection between Camille Brown and Ron Browning. We found that to be kind of surprising, to be honest,
because there was so much violence here that we expected our suspect to have a connection to the victim.
In this instance, that wasn't the case. In my experience, stranger murders, specifically, in Southern West Virginia,
are a statistical improbability. You're far more likely to be killed by someone you know.
And typically, the statistics would indicate that those individuals are likely male.
This is the least likely suspect. First of all, of course, she is a woman. So she's in that 4% of women who kill.
And she's only a young woman. There's no connection between Camille Brown and Pastor Ron.
Of course, there was a wealth of forensic evidence that they could rely on to prove that she was
the person responsible, but I think that the whys and wherefores of it, that was all
to do with her behavior. And her behavior was very, very strange. The suspect in this case is quite a paradox.
Is a 19-year-old girl, she has an impeccable history as far as the community goes, she had not been in any trouble, had
not had any previous arrests. But there again, she's probably committed one of the most gruesome, heinous crimes
that this city has ever seen. This girl had knocked on the door and asked for a drink of water.
And when he opened the door, evidently, she had more in mind than getting a drink of water, that she had killed him.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The funeral happened in Beckley. There were so many people that the church
couldn't even begin to hold the amount of people that showed up. There was a lot of things said about Ron.
What a great guy he was, and how giving he was, what a good preacher he was. It was hard being at my brother's funeral.
We was always so close. [SOB] It feels like the big part of me was lost. [SNIFFS]
Because he was so important to me. [MUSIC PLAYING] After my brother had been killed,
we had heard from the news and on TV that this was a 19-year-old girl, that was a good girl,
went to college. She had lived with her mom and dad. And it was like, hearing about her
and knowing what happened, just didn't add up. There were some things that were troubling about Camille's
lifestyle that we discovered as we began the prosecution process. One of the things that we discovered
is that she had kind of been leading a double life. And what I mean by that is that, she had gone away to school,
to West Virginia University. Unbeknownst to her family, she had actually dropped out of school shortly after arriving.
Began to work in a gentlemen's club in that area, was not attending classes, was not going to school in any fashion.
All she was doing is, the family was continuing to send her money. And as a-- instead of it going to the school,
it was going to her personal life, and she was living a different life than she was suggesting.
The kind of character she showed was kind of what she proved when she'd done what she'd done to my brother.
She showed that she didn't have any morals, that it didn't matter to her as long as it was all about her.
And that's what it turned out to be. All about her. [SIREN WAILING] Obviously, there was some, some suspicion that Ms. Brown
had been involved in some sort of drug activity just by her very erratic behavior.
We had nothing to support that at that time, but through our conversation with Ms. Brown,
she indicated that the only illicit substances that she was involved in during that period of time
was marijuana. She stated that she had smoked a marijuana cigarette approximately 30 some hours prior to this incident,
and that, that was the only drug activity she had been involved in, in that period.
In the early days of this case, I felt the case would be primed for trial, and that we had a statement from the defendant indicating
that she had committed the crime. We had a litany of items of physical evidence that pointed to her committing the crime.
And I felt that this was going to be pretty much sell through without a problem.
Due to the diagnostic testing that was done by mental health experts, there was conflicting ideas.
We knew there would be an uphill battle to counteract these opinions of some of the doctors.
There was two forensic psychological evaluations done of Ms. Brown. And at the very least, this was going
to present a problem with a trial verdict on first degree murder. You know, we could not get a competing
expert to go against what the defense experts were saying. So ultimately, the reason a plea was offered, to begin with,
is because they had expert witnesses that were going to put forth a mitigation defense for the defendant.
A mitigation defense is essentially where somebody admits to having committed a crime,
in this case, murder, but says that there were some mitigating reasons for why it occurred.
This could be things like self defense, or that there was some mind altering reason
for why they had done it. Essentially, that they did not have the ability to either form
intent to commit the crime the way, otherwise, well-adjusted person would have. Or that they didn't know the difference
between right and wrong for a variety of reasons, typically, mental disorders or other issues in their life.
Brown's case didn't go to trial. She pled guilty to two counts of burglary and second degree
murder in May of 2016. Camille Brown was in a state of agitation, paranoia, and she was incredibly violent.
She is clearly somebody who was in an extremely disturbed and disturbing dangerous state.
And yes, that can happen with psychosis. It's not common, but it can happen. And it's incredibly frightening, isn't it,
to think that somebody can go from literally zero to 100 in a very short space of time.
Because if you had met her, maybe even just a day, or two days before she killed Pastor Ron,
you would think, what a lovely girl. There's nothing particularly unusual about her.
People don't understand how quickly people can switch when they've been taking substances,
if they have psychosis. It can be, on rare occasions, incredibly rapid, and incredibly, incredibly dramatic.
And that was the case here. [MUSIC PLAYING] The sentencing was a pretty emotional time for everybody.
The family was-- both families were there. The family of the victim, the family of Camille.
They were all present, and they were both highly emotionally charged. Camille's family did not want to see her
go away for any amount of time. And Mr. Browning's family wanted to see what they would feel would be just,
which would be a life sentence. It was hard to sit there and watch her put on a show
that she put on knowing that she killed my brother. How she acted like nothing was wrong.
It's all about her. She never turned at any time and look us. She spoke straight to the court.
She didn't look at her mom and dad, and she did look at us. It was all like she rehearsed what she was going to say,
and how she was going to say it. At sentencing in this matter, Rexanna Browning spoke, which
was Ronald Browning's wife. Also, his brother Ralph spoke, and it was very emotional,
very raw in the courtroom. And you could just tell how much they loved Ronald Browning.
I was asked to give a statement, and I told him, in my opinion, that this girl should
never be let out of jail. To know so somebody that was as good as he was that had to die
like that, it's just unreal. I mean, for somebody to treat you like that. And she didn't know him from anybody.
That he never harmed anybody, ever. And he have to die like that. It was unreal.
[MUSIC PLAYING] In the end, Camille was agreed to a 40-year sentence to first degree homicide.
And also to two counts of burglary, which would have been one to five sentences each.
The judge chose to reduce that sentence on his own. He reduced the homicide sentence to a 30-year sentence.
My hopes in obtaining justice for Ronald Browning's family would have been life in prison.
I believe that examining this case, some five years after it was pled, in some seven years
after it happened, the sentiment is that, within the criminal justice system, the punishment was insufficient for the crime
that was committed. And I believe the victim's family feels that way. I believe certain members of law enforcement feel that way.
Honestly, in this particular case, I don't think we'll ever know why Camille Brown killed Mr. Browning.
It's unfortunate, and it's particularly frustrating for an investigator because we typically
want to get the answers. We want to know why something happened. At the end of the day, I don't think
we're ever going to know why. This was a complete, senseless loss of life. Ronald Browning was a pastor, a volunteer,
a husband, a brother. And his life was taken without motive or rationale. Ronald Browning's family has to live with unanswered questions
for the rest of their lives. I think that's probably the saddest part of this entire chronicle for me.
Camille Brown is an animal. She is cold, ruthless. My life changed February the 7th, 2015.
Ron would have-- Ron would have probably forgave her. He was just that type of person, but I don't.
The time I spent with Ron was too short. I think that we would have accomplished
a lot more than what we did if he was still alive. Well, I just like to say that I love my brother.
And I would like to be with him again. And I will. [SOB] We'll be in heaven together.
[SNIFFS] I'm 75 years old. So I don't live forever, but I'll see you. I just want everybody to know what kind of man he was.
He loved to help. He'd do anything for anybody. I go to his grave site to remember Ron.
I remember Ron as being happy, him singing in church with me. He was just a very happy person.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

EPISODE 7 – PASTOR RON BROWNING

Pastor Ron Browning is home alone in Beckley, West Virginia, when he answers his front door to a stranger asking for water, completely unaware he has just met the person who will change the course of his life, forever. What transpires is a shocking, unprovoked crime that rocks the Beckley community. If this episode resonated with you, comment below and be sure to like and subscribe for more episodes. Murdered At First Sight is a true crime documentary series that tells the first-hand stories of the most complex and hard-to-solve homicide cases: murders committed by strangers.

Brief Summary

Ronald Browning was murdered by Camille Brown, a 19-year-old with no known connection to him, leading to a shocking investigation and trial.

Key points

The Shocking News. Rexanna Browning recalls the moment she learned of her husband's murder, a moment that changed her life forever.
A Gruesome Crime Scene. Investigators describe the horrific scene they encountered at Ron Browning's home, revealing the extreme violence involved.
The Investigation Begins. Police begin their investigation into Ron Browning's murder, facing the challenge of a lack of motive or suspects.
A Disturbing Connection. Evidence leads police to a 19-year-old female suspect, Camille Brown, who had severe injuries consistent with the crime.
The Trail of Blood. Police discover a trail of blood leading from the crime scene, suggesting the suspect's escape route after the murder.
Camille Brown's Confession. Camille Brown confessed to kicking the victim and planning to burn his house down.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Ron was a very kind, generous man.

Rexanna Browning speaks about her husband.

1:47WatchNov 17, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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