Charges against mother detailed in infant’s death
Rochelle Brown woke her sister when she entered her bedroom early Tuesday morning, screaming nonsense and holding her infant son. The sister pleaded with Brown to give her the 2-month-old boy and to get some rest.
But the situation became tense when the sister’s request for calmness enraged the young mother, a Harris County prosecutor said Wednesday, and led to the death of the little boy, Levi Thornton-Smith.
In that bedroom in the Longboat Key Apartments, Brown stabbed her son several times, the prosecutor told a magistrate judge hearing details of an incident that led to the capital murder charge filed against the 28-year-old mother.
Brown’s other two kids, who are about 8 and 5, were in the apartment on Windmill Lakes Boulevard in southeast Houston at the time.
It was about 2:30 a.m. when Brown came into her sister’s bedroom, waking her. Brown was angry and wasn’t making sense, the sister said in her testimony, and was holding the infant “in an improper manner.”
The sister’s demand that she take the baby angered Brown even further, the prosecutor said. Still holding Levi, Brown began assaulting her sister.
When the sister threatened to call police, Brown “dropped” her son onto the bed and left the bedroom in the apartment, the prosecutor said. Brown returned to the room but was armed with a knife and began to wave it. As the two struggled, the knife broke and fell to the ground, the prosecutor said.
By that point, the sister was on the bed, crying with her infant nephew. Brown then “pulled” her sister around the apartment before returning to the room where her son still lie on the bed — but not before grabbing another knife, the prosecutor said.
The sister tried to summon a friend to call police, then saw Brown start stabbing the little boy. She tried to stop the attack, but Brown was too strong, the prosecutor said. At some point, Brown closed and locked the bedroom door.
The sister popped open the lock with a knife she got from the kitchen, and when she opened the door, Brown was stabbing the boy, the prosecutor said. Unable to deter the violence, the sister ran for help from neighbors and called the police.
She returned to find her sister covered in blood and stating, “I need Jesus,” according to the prosecutor.
Brown was taken to Ben Taub Hospital for evaluation. She was later released to police custody and is currently in jail without bail.