When 5 teen girls allegedly beat her son to death, she kept his casket open

[mahatmakanejeeves]

LOCAL CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY

When 5 teen girls allegedly beat her son to death, she kept his casket open

As the trial in the 2023 beating death of Reginald “Reggie” Brown begins, his 90-year-old mother, Annie Mae Brown Mouton, seeks “justice.”


Annie Mae Brown Mouton, 90, holds a photo of her son Reginald “Reggie” Brown, who was beaten to death last year in the 6200 block of Georgia Avenue NW. He was 64 at the time. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)

By Keith L. Alexander
September 2, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

When Reginald “Reggie” Brown didn’t return to his sister’s home in upper Northwest Washington after a late-night walk, his mother and siblings assumed his weakened body had finally failed him.

At 64, Brown had battled lupus since he was a teen. He had recently recovered from covid-19. And he was undergoing treatment for cancer. … But when the body of Annie Mae Brown Mouton’s youngest child was released to the family, the funeral director, stunned at Brown’s condition, advised against an open casket.

Police would ultimately arrest five girls ages 12 to 15 in a brutal, unprovoked beating of Brown last year. During the attack, cellphone video and nearby security cameras captured the girls kicking and stomping Brown’s head into the pavement, pulling his pants down around his ankles, and removing his belt and beating him with it, shouting in jubilation as he begins to bleed. … The attack stunned the nation’s capital for its cruelty and for what it appeared to signal about the state of young people in a year that saw a generational spike in violence, with victims and perpetrators, officials said, seeming to grow ever younger.

Brown Mouton, now 90, instructed the mortician to do the best he could to reconstruct her son’s face. But no matter the result, she was resolved to do as Mamie Till had for her son, Emmett, whose brutal 1955 murder galvanized the civil rights movement — leave the casket open for the world to witness. … “I wanted everyone to see what happened to him,” she recalled.

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Reginald Brown in an undated photo. He had suffered health problems since he was young, his family said, and was undergoing treatment for cancer. (Family photo)

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By Keith L. Alexander
Keith L. Alexander covers crime and courts, specifically D.C. Superior Court cases, for The Washington Post. Alexander was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that investigated fatal police shootings across the nation in 2015. Follow for updates @keithlalexander Twitter

[hlthe2b]

1. OMG I hope these girls are tried as adults...

I would so love to say "unbelievable," but sadly we know it is.

Hate and more hate. And while TSF has nothing to do with this directly (as far as I know), his racism and hate have spread.

May there be a realm of peace and light for poor Reginald. You deserved so much better.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. They are being tried as juveniles.

[Lonestarblue]

6. It isn't only hate and racism he spreads. It's also his frequent calls for violence and normalizing it as okay.

Trump says violence is a necessary response to people who disagree with him, or do not vote for him. While some blame can be laid at Trump’s feet, he shares that blame with many others—among them a gun culture that values having guns everywhere over public safety, violent films and interactive games, constant news of police violence, social media where users encourage violence against others, and the deliberate political stoking of racial hatred.

There are days I feel as though this country has become the United States of Hatred. This sad story makes me wonder how we end this era of division and hate.

[TommieMommy]

2. OMG how horrible. My heart goes out to the family. 🙏

[2naSalit]

3. Hope those girls...

Spend a lot of time in the corrections system.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. .

If convicted, the four girls awaiting trial face a maximum sentence of commitment to DYRS until they turn 21.

[aeromanKC]

7. Hopefully DOJ gets involved and charges hate crimes for the devils spawn

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. 2 teenage girls to appear in court nearly a year after a DC man was beaten to death

2 teenage girls to appear in court nearly a year after a DC man was beaten to death

Ciara Wells | [e-mail]
September 3, 2024, 6:54 AM

Two of the five girls, ages 13 and 15, who are charged with first- and second-degree murder in the killing of Reginald “Reggie” Brown are scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning.

While walking home on Oct. 17, 2023, Brown, 64, was attacked by five girls, ranging in age from 12 to 15, in the 6200 block of Georgia Avenue Northwest.

The girls, who were caught on surveillance camera footage, were seen kicking, beating and hitting Brown with his own belt. He was later found by police, unresponsive, and was pronounced dead minutes after he was found.

A 13-year-old suspect, who was 12 at the time of the unprovoked attack on Brown, sustained a gunshot wound in an unrelated incident inside her home in March 2024. It is unknown if she will appear in court Tuesday. ... One of the five girls accepted a plea deal in August and the last two girls are due before a judge in November, according to The Washington Post.

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Ciara Wells
Ciara Wells is the Evening Digital Editor at WTOP. She is a graduate of American University where she studied journalism and Spanish. Before joining WTOP, she was the opinion team editor at a student publication and a content specialist at an HBCU in Detroit.
[e-mail]