Article by:
Naiomi Pitre
After being tried and convicted for the first degree murder of the child predator that solicited her for sex when she was sixteen years old, Cyntoia Brown would spend the next decade and a half in prison. Next Wednesday, on August 7, 2019, she is finally set to be released from prison and walk away with her freedom.
Cyntoia Brown was born in 1988 to an alcoholic teenaged mother who failed to stop drinking, even after she discovered that she was pregnant with her baby girl. This may have caused fetal alcohol syndrome disorder in her unborn child, which could also have been a factor in the developmental delays and behavioral issues that Cyntoia suffered throughout her difficult childhood. At the age of only eight months, her mother would find a new habit – smoking crack cocaine – and would later give her daughter up to her best friend, Ellenette Brown. When Cyntoia’s mother first showed up on Ellenette’s doorstep with her infant daughter, she gave the impression that the favor she was asking for would only be for a few days, while she got her life together. Those days turned into weeks, which later turned into months. As a result, Ellenette filed for legal guardianship over the baby.
Ellenette’s husband was a Vietnam veteran that had suffered serious injuries during his service in the military, including having a metal plate implanted in his skull. He was a moody alcoholic and had a terrible temper. Choosing to take his frustrations out on the girl, he would tell Cyntoia that she would inevitably become a harlot and an addict just like her good-for-nothing mother. Ellenette tried to stop him from drinking, and one day he decided he’d had enough, throwing a lamp at her and tried to choke her out. At just nine years old, Cyntoia would have to phone 911, when after the attack, her adopted brother began strangling his stepfather in front of her, enraged at what he had done to his mother. The police arrived to find the young child frozen in fear, holding a knife, trying to decide whether she should stab her brother to stop him from killing her father.
Years later, Cyntoia would begin drinking alcohol, being rebellious, and would soon be placed in an alternative school for at-risk students. A psychological examiner determined that Cyntoia was completely out of touch with reality and prescribed her Thorazine, an intense anti-psychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and manic-depression. Cyntoia accused her father of mentally, physically, and sexually abusing her. When Ellenette heard of these accusations, she immediately divorced her husband. Cyntoia’s behavior grew even worse.
After a host of behavioral violations, including assaulting a teacher and pulling a fire alarm, Ellenette had no choice but to commit Cyntoia to a long-term juvenile facility at the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. There, Cyntoia was prescribed anti-depressants and anxiety medicine, and she would often mix these with alcohol. She was in a downward spiral, having lost faith in every one in her life. At the age of sixteen, she ran away.
A 24-year-old pimp, drug dealer, and armed robber who went by the name of “Kut-Throat” took her into his apartment home. He would get Cyntoia hooked on cocaine, drugging her up and allowing several men to rape and abuse her. Then, to turn even more profit, he would send her out to the red-light district in Nashville to turn tricks and bring him home any money she would earn.
On that ill-fated night of August 6th, 2004, Cyntoia got picked up at a Sonic restaurant in East Nashville. Forty-three-year-old Johnny Mitchell Allen, a White real estate agent, would solicit the sixteen-year-old Black girl for sex, take her back to his home, and sexually assault her. Having seen a large gun cabinet in his room, Cyntoia became afraid for her life when Mitchell moved to reach under his bed. She quickly retrieved a .40-caliber handgun from her own purse and shot him fatally in the back of his head. Grabbing his pants (which contained his wallet) and several of his guns, she escaped in his car and returned back to the home she shared with Kut-Throat.
Police would end up finding her, and she would then be prosecuted for murder and tried as an adult. Prosecutors charged that Cyntoia purposefully targeted the man, going back to his home with the intention of killing him and subsequently robbing him. She was convicted of 1st degree murder, 1st degree felony murder, and aggravated robbery. The teenager was given concurrent life sentences and an additional eight years, with no possibility of parole until she had served fifty-one years, despite her insistence that she had acted in self-defense.
The judge and prosecution would take no regard of the fact that Cyntoia Brown was a minor and was lured and forced into the sex industry, stating the importance of ensuring that dangerous and violent people are imprisoned, regardless of the circumstances that may have arisen to make them violent. During her time at the Tennessee Prison for Women, she has had no records of punishment, nor formal records of infraction. She also had no history of previous violent crime.
While incarcerated, Cyntoia has earned her GED, and acquired her associate degree from Lipscomb University. She recently achieved completing her bachelor’s degree just this past May. She maintained a 4.0 GPA in the Lipscomb LIFE Program (Lipscomb Initiative for Education), which gives traditional students an opportunity to learn alongside the inmates at the Tennessee Prison for Women. She has mentored other inmates and encouraged them to take college courses, and she is currently working on a non-profit organization in collaboration with the Tennessee Juvenile Justice System to help counsel at-risk youth.
In a PBS documentary film produced in 2011, Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story, Cyntoia Brown states, “I learned that my life was – and is – not over. I can create opportunities where I can actually help people.”
Another PBS production, the series entitled, Sentencing Children, featured Cyntoia’s story in 2017. Many A-List celebrities caught wind to the young girl’s plight (after she had already served thirteen years for her crimes). Singer Rihanna used her social media platform on Instagram to call attention to the injustice she felt was evident in the case. Influencer Kim Kardashian West took to Twitter to express her own outrage and to inform the public that she would have her own celebrity attorney, Shawn Holley, see what he could do for Cyntoia Brown. (Shawn Holley was a part of the dream team that successfully got O.J. Simpson acquitted in 1995.) Atlanta rapper, T.I., NBA Star Lebron James, model Cara Delevigne, and rap icon Snoop Dogg were amongst the many other celebrities calling for the release of Cyntoia Brown using the hashtag, #freecyntoiabrown.
As a result to the public outcry, the 49th Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam granted Brown clemency and commuted her sentence in January of 2019. He went on record, stating that Cyntoia Brown’s life sentence was “too harsh.” Cyntoia is scheduled to be released on August 7, 2019, and she will remain on parole for ten years. Her parole will have conditions, such as not violating state or federal law and adhering to her release plan which includes employment, education, counseling, and community engagement requirements.
Cyntoia Brown contributed an opinion article for The Tennessean daily newspaper in January of this year which was also reposted in the USA Today. In it, she concludes, “In the weeks and years ahead, when you think of me, I hope you will celebrate not only me and my journey, but America and the beauty of a justice system that has the power to listen and understand redemption, forgiveness, mercy and compassion.”