LR man charged in wife’s homicide

Little Rock police Monday charged Danny Maurice Brown, Jr., 37, with capital murder in connection to the March slaying of his wife, Edwina Brown.

Police identified Brown as the lead suspect after they found his wife shot to death in their home at 4704 Fairlee Drive on the evening of March 27.

U.S. marshals arrested Brown on Monday morning in Dallas.

“He was taken into custody, and we’re expecting him to be extradited here in the next day or so,” said Mark Edwards, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department.

Additional details in the events leading to the 36-yearold woman’s death are not available.

Brown’s arrest comes nearly 11 years after he is suspected of hiring two gunmen to kill Brown and her boyfriend in 2012.

According to police, she survived the initial ambush with one gunshot to the chest and another in the hip.

Her boyfriend, Daniel Hill, 22, did not survive — dying on the scene from a gunshot wound to the head.

Prior to the 2012 attack, she had broken things off with Brown just months before.

The couple had dated for “several years” before the split.

Police said she married Brown just two weeks after the attack and murder of Hill, her boyfriend.

Family members of the woman described her relationship with Brown as “rough.” They also described him as “controlling and physically abusive.”

Police said Brown denied any involvement in the ambush just over a decade ago, claiming he was “eating pizza with his kids when police called to tell him that [Edwina] had been shot.”

An anonymous tip led police to the two gunmen, who later revealed Brown’s involvement in the shooting.

One of the attackers told police that Brown had put him up to the ambush a month earlier, according to police.

Brown allegedly told the hit men to “hit both of them,” “blow the bitch’s head off,” and that he didn’t care how it was done. Brown’s only other instruction was not to hurt the children, the attacker told police.

Despite guilty verdicts against both of the attackers, all charges against Brown were dropped by August of 2012, due to the victim becoming “increasingly antagonistic” against prosecuting Brown.

The couple was already known by the Little Rock police in connection to previous incidents as well.

Brown was charged as an adult in an incident from when he was 17 and accepted a five-year prison sentence according to previous records.

By the time of her death, Edwina Brown was also known by the department after she was indicted last November on federal child pornography and extortion charges.

Police suggested her death followed an argument between the couple, but details beyond that are still being investigated.