Man sentenced 26-52 years in pregnant woman’s death

Tara Evans said her family has been fractured since her daughter, Katara Bray, was murdered in February 2021.

There are no family get-togethers, no parties or celebrations. Siblings, she wrote in her victim impact statement to Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani, no longer speak; they only fight.

“Our family isn’t broken,” she wrote. “When you [break] something it can be mended back together. We are damaged with you not here.

“We all are lost now,” she wrote.

Bray, 22, was killed Feb. 8, 2021, when Jason Brown — the father of one of her three children —

shot her as she drove him through Lawrenceville. He jumped out and took off. Police found Bray shot to death inside her car after it crashed on Davison Street.

Inside the car, they found paperwork belonging to Brown, then 24, along with his cellphone. Multiple witnesses confirmed that they had been with Bray that day and she left with Brown.

Earlier that day, Bray confided to a friend that she believed she was pregnant. She said she hoped it wasn’t Brown’s child. He wasn’t a good role model, she said.

Judge Mariani found Brown guilty of third-degree murder after a non-jury trial in August.

Ms. Evans said in the courtroom Wednesday her granddaughter Ava, Bray’s daughter with Brown, often wakes up crying. She said she recently asked why the adults in her family act like children.

“My grandkids will never hug you,” Ms. Evans said in her letter, addressing Bray. “You will never see them go to school dances [or] help Ava get ready for her prom night. [We] will never hold the little baby you were carrying.”

Brown declined his opportunity to make a statement.

His defense attorney, Katie Simmers, asked the judge to take Brown’s age into consideration: he was 24 when he was arrested. Now, at 26, she said, he still has a chance to be rehabilitated and have a life after prison.

Assistant District Attorney Chase Stelzer called Brown irredeemable.

“Mr. Brown decided that day to effectively orphan his daughter and seal his own fate,” Mr. Stelzer said.

Judge Mariani said he normally takes youth into consideration when handing down sentences but noted that Brown’s criminal history began in his preteen years. He was on parole in multiple cases at the time of Bray’s killing.

“Nothing seems to affect his criminal decision-making,” the judge said.

He sentenced Brown to 26 to 52 years in prison: 20 to 40 for the murder, 2.5 to 5 years for illegally possessing a gun, and 3.5 to 7 years for carrying a firearm without a license.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever issued three maximum consecutive sentences,” Judge Mariani mused.

As a sheriff’s deputy led Brown from the room, his mother told him, “I love you, son.” In the hallway outside the courtroom, she wept.

Judge Mariani said he wasn’t trying to make an example of Brown but noted that something must be done stop gun violence in the city. Maybe it will end up an example anyway, he said.

“We have to stop this,” he said. “We have to make a statement that the community cannot tolerate this.”