On this episode of Our American Stories, in 2018, the hashtag #FreeCyntoiaBrown went viral, making her one of the most well-known inmates in the world. Here's Cyntoia with her story of trauma, incarceration, and redemption.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
And our favorite stories to tell are just ordinary American
redemption stories, second chances, even third chances that this country
allows people to have and to pursue. It's a beautiful
part of our nature. Saintoya Brown served fifteen years of
(00:33):
a life sentence for killing a forty three year old
real estate agent when she was sixteen years old after
being forced into prostitution by a man called Cutthroat. The
now married Brown long has never denied her crime, but
alleges she acted out of self defense. Here's Centoya to
(00:53):
share her story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So. I was born for Campbell, Kentucky, which is a
military base right on the line Kentucky, Tennessee. And I
was raised Darre in Clarksville by my adopted parents. Uh.
My father was military and my mother, she was a teacher.
I was really my dad's sidekick. When I was younger.
(01:17):
I considered psydekic. I guess he would consider it apprentice
because anytime he would build something, I always had to
go fetching the tools. I guess it was pretty convenient form.
But those were one of my favorite fast times with
my dad is helping him build stuff, helping him fix
stuff around the house, and my mother. It was the
same whenever my father retired from the military, he actually
(01:40):
started driving Chuck, so he would be gone for long
periods of time, so it would just be my mom
and me.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
And she was really into gardening.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I wasn't, but I did enjoy kind of just hanging
outside with her watching her plant.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So up until the point that I turned sixteen.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I thought school was the worst possible thing to have
ever happened to me.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
In my life.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I should have been really great in school. I was smart,
I was always getting good grades, but for some reason,
I was always founding myself in the principal's office. Whether
that was because I didn't want the teacher to help
me with work, I just wanted to figure it out
for myself, whether I had a smart remark for the teacher,
just any little thing would get me sent to the
(02:25):
principal's office and found myself getting suspended. I believe I
was eleven when I was first expelled from school. I
had brought a bottle of Nodos to class, which is
caffeine pills. I had found them in my sister's husband's truck.
He had left the truck there whenever he was deployed,
(02:46):
and they went to Hawaii, and I was just playing
around one day and found these caffeine pills. Took him
to school for show and tell, and next thing I know,
I was expelled for zero tolerance drug policies. I didn't
consider them to be a drug, didn't know they were
a drug, but that didn't matter. I was kicked out
of school and couldn't return to public school. It seemed
(03:09):
like they were just really looking for an excuse, so
part of me wasn't necessarily surprised, and it really just
added to that feeling that, you know, I just wasn't
wanted there, and it wasn't a place for me.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I never really fit. I was kind of an outcast.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Like I said, When I was growing up, my dad
would always tell me all the stories about him, you know,
in war, and what he did when Charlie was coming
at three o'clock and and how they did. And so
I thought, Okay, well, this is a game that I
wanna play with my friends, and so my neighbor, my
friend from down the street, and some other kids in
the neighborhood we were all together playing random games, you know, Bubblegum,
(03:50):
bubble Gum in a dish and any Mini Miny Moe,
and I said, well, how about this new game, Let's
play war And they were like, well what is that.
I said, well, we're all gonna get some wrong. You
stand on that side of the street, We're gonna stand
on this side of the street, and we're just gonna
throw them at each other and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And that's what we did.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And I ended up picking up the biggest rock that
I could that I found. Why, I don't know, but
I threw it and it hit my neighbors square in
the forehead and that was the moment that I knew
I'm about.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
To get in trouble, like this has going horribly wrong.
And she just started.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Bleeding and screaming, and then everybody was like, this is
all your fault, and I was like, wait a minute,
and you all wanted to play.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I thought we were having fun.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So after that, nobody's parents really wanted their kids playing
with me, and of course.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I got in trouble.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
My dad he kind of understood, but it was just
I think that was that was like one of the
turning points when I kind of lost a lot of friends.
So going to alternative school was a completely different experience.
These kids had had been involved in the justice system already.
Most of them were on probation of some kind. Many
(05:06):
of them had already been to facilities, and they returned
back from the facilities to go to this school. They
smoked freely, some of them did drugs freely. I had
never been around that because I was raised in a
military community. A lot of the kids that I was
around were kids of military families.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They just you just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And what was different from me being in this alternaty
school around these kids is these kids didn't judge me.
They didn't make me feel like an outcast. They didn't
make me feel like I wasn't wanted or I had
to be this or be that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
To fit in with them.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And so I really found that, oh, this is kind
of where I fit, like, this is a place for me.
So we all decided to skip school. And sometimes when
we skipped school, we would just ride the city bus
around town, walk around downtown, and just see whatever we
could get into. But this day, Samantha says, you know,
(06:09):
my mom, she's not home. We can go to my
house and we could just hang out and we're like, okay, cool.
And when we get there, she's like, oh man, I
forgot my key.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And she's like, no worries, no worries.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
My bedroom window was open, so she opens the window
and I'm the smallest one there, so they pushed me
through the window and I unlocked the door.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
It is her.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
House, but when her mother come home, she didn't feel
that we were supposed to be in the house. She
was very upset some things she claimed were missing from
the house that were stolen. And I mean, I don't
know if anybody stole it or not. I can't be
accountable for the other people that was with me, but
we all ended up being charged not only for breaking
(06:53):
and entering, but for theft of property.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And you're listening to Sentoya Brown, and she's the author
of Free Centoia, My Search for Redemption in the American
prison System. When we come back, more of this remarkable
story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love
(07:32):
the great American stories we tell and love America like
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(07:53):
button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with Centoya Brown's story. Let's pick
(08:14):
up where we last left off with Centoya being charged
with breaking and entering and theft of property after skipping
school with friends and then going to one of her
girlfriend's homes where her mother would end up filing charges.
Here's Centoya.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So after I was charged with my other three code defendants.
That's bad when you say code defendants when you're talking
about a twelve year old. But I actually had to
go to juvenile court, and this was my first time
ever in a courtroom. My father he had to pay
for an attorney to represent me. So I spent some
(08:52):
time in juvenile detention and the attorney ended up getting
a deal where I got out and I was on probation.
So whenever I went to the court, one of the
first things they do is they send you for a
mental evaluation, and so they're in this facility, which I
definitely didn't feel like I fit in because this was
like a real deal mental facility. You had people who
(09:15):
were struggling with autism, you had people who had down syndrome,
you had people with schizophrenia. It was kind of scary
to be in there, and again, couldn't be around my parents,
couldn't contact my parents. And what I found comforted me.
There was there was this woman who was teaching some
(09:36):
of the girls there how to crochet, and I started
learning and that was something that would call me. So
I just brought my crochet stuff to class and I
would sit there and crochet whenever I finished with my work. Well,
one day I went to lunch and I remember that
I forgot my purse, and so I went back into
the classroom to get my purse and I saw that
(09:59):
the teacher I had been in my purse and she
was actually going through it and she was pulling out
the yard saying, you're not supposed to be doing this.
And I said, well, you're not supposed to be in
my stuff. And I said give me that, and I
took it out of her hand, and all of a
sudden she started screaming and hollering, calling for the sro.
Next thing I know, he's coming in and she's saying
(10:21):
I've assaulted her and I said I didn't assault her.
I took my stuff out of her hand. They said,
well did you snatch it? I said, well, yes, it's mine.
They said, well that's as salt, and so I ended
up getting charged with assault. I had my probation violated
and I was returned back to the facility, but this
time I was putting state custody, So two months after
(10:44):
I had turned thirteen, and in state custody you can
have an indeterminate sentence or a determined incidence. I was indeterminate,
meaning whenever they felt like they wanted to let me
go back home to.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
My parents' is when I would go.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So I ked up spending a year and a half
in state custody. And to be honest with you, the
only reason I got out is because my mother had
got fed up and she had threatened to actually follow
suit against the state whenever they had allowed for my
news my picture to be placed in a newspaper. So
(11:20):
I was fifteen when I finally got a state custody,
and it was on the ride home back from Nashville
to Clarksville that my mom tells me that they had
been divorced. And the whole time she had been telling me,
you know, he's gone to the store, he's at his
friend's house, he's in the backyard working on the pool.
(11:41):
It was all I like, he had been gone that
whole entire time. But she didn't want it to affect
my progress in the program. She didn't want it to
overwhelm me or distract me from doing what I needed
to do to come home. So that was that was
a pretty big bomb that was dropped on me.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
First thing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Then all of a sudden, here's this man that I
know absolutely nothing about, who apparently they had been friends
from when she used to live in New York, and
now they were talking on the phone for hours and
hours and hours, and he came to visit there at
the house. And when he came to visit, it's not
like he was being a visitor. He was telling me
(12:24):
what I needed to do and trying to order me around,
and I was just like, hold up, wait a minute,
wait a minute. And so I said, well, you know,
what that fine, I'll just go back and hang out
with my friends that I met when I was on
the run from State Cus City. And that's when I
ran away. So I caught up some friends that I
(12:44):
had met while I was on the run in Nashville.
And when I say friends, these are older women. These
women are in their mid twenties and I was just
fifteen years old.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
And they came and they got me, they.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Welcomed me back, and there I was back living the
life that I had lived.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
On the run before.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And that meant having sex with adult men and that
being normalized, that being permitted and even encouraged by the
adults that I was around, which is something completely completely
different from what I had been raised with. But I
mean it had become the norm for me. That also
(13:28):
meant that I was getting high every day. I was
smoking weed every single day. And that was the time
that I had actually met my trafficker. Is during that
time when I was sixteen years old. So I met
Cut at a gas station here in Nashville, and I
(13:49):
actually met him. I was riding with friends who were
looking for another man who had just raped me, and
they were gonna, you know, take out some revent him
and confront him about what he'd done. And we stopped
at the gas station and I wanted some newports, and
(14:09):
so we walked up.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I walked up to this guy and was like, do
you have a Newport?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And he was like no, And he offered to give
me five dollars to get a pack if I would
give him my number, so I did. After that, you know,
we started talking on the phone. He started coming to
pick me up and hang out with me, and I
just pretty much just fell head over hills within a
(14:34):
matter of days for this stranger, this older guy, who
did not have good intentions for me at all. But
all that I saw when I was with him was
that he listened to me. You know, my mind at
that time, it was like wow, like he's really interested
in me. No one really pays me this level of attention.
(14:56):
No one really cares about, you know, my life story,
my thoughts, that's my feelings, what I'm into. But here
he's just like completely absorbed into it. And now I
understand that he was looking, you know, for things that
he could manipulate, he was looking for things that he
could exploit. He was listening because he needed to find
(15:17):
out how he could really get into my head and
play me. So when you're on the run, you know
you can't.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Necessarily just go get a job.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I didn't have an idea or a license or anything
like that. I didn't have my birth certificate, couldn't really
make money by any kind of legal means.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
But one of the women.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That I was staying with, her boyfriend was actually a
drug dealer, And so there I was selling drugs in
this project in North Nashville the age of sixteen. But
really just dove headfirst into it. So whenever I would
go out when cut with send me out to go
(16:01):
get money, he'd always sent me with his gun. I
had never shot a gun, didn't really anticipate ever having
to use it. It was just something where you know
I had it. I knew I had it. It was
just a safety measure, but he always had it. The
safety was off, there was a bullet in the chamber.
(16:22):
He said, if something ever happens, just squeeze the trigger.
So that time this guy had picked me up in
this little white truck. He had got me something to eat.
While we were sitting there waiting on the food to come.
That's when he had asked me. You know, it was
I up for any action. So I ended up going
back to his house with him. And while we was there,
(16:45):
you know, I kept trying to like stall because he
started acting weird, like he started showing me guns. On
the drive there, he was telling me how he used
to be a sharp shooter in the military. And it's like,
why is why does he feel the need to tell
me all.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Of these things?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And you're listening to Sintoya Brown's story and one bad
choice after another, and just some really bad choices by
the system too, and by authorities, and bad rulemaking and
enforcement that almost makes no sense. And you combine all
that with a girl who finds out dad's gone, and
(17:21):
then she's gone, and then income the predators and one
name cut short for cutthroat. And she loved that he
listened to her. But of course he was listening for
a reason. He was getting into her mind. He was
looking for things he could manipulate, things he could exploit.
That's why he listened, said Centoya. When we come back,
(17:42):
more of this story, a remarkable redemption story, Cintoya Brown's
story here on our American stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories, and Centoya Brown's story. Let's pick up
when we last left off with sixteen year old Centoya
at the home of a man who had picked her
up for as he called it, action. She said he
was acting weird and showing her his guns and talking
about how he was a sharpshooter.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Here's Centoya, why does he feel the need to tell
me all these things? He tried to tell me that
he wrote the song by Lee Greenwood Proud to Be
an American, which obviously I knew it was a lie.
Like it was really strange. It was really uncomfortable, and
like with him talking about this gun. Then when we
got to the house, you know, showing me this gun,
(18:50):
It's like I felt that, I felt that he was
trying to intimidate me, and at that point, I just
wanted to leave, so I kept trying to stall. So
I said, well, you know what, I'm just gonna go
up and I'm just gonna pretend like I'm sleep. I'm
gonna ask him if I can have a nap real quick.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And so that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And while I was laying there pretending like I was sleep,
he kept getting up and going into the next room
then coming back just like staring at me, like looking
over at me, going into the bathroom, going to the
next room, and like this whole time, like I'm just
freaking out. I'm like, what is he doing? Like what's
(19:31):
really going on? There was a moment like when he
had got into the bed and he had reached over
and grabbed me, and I was like ah, and I
was you know, it was a little bit more emphatic
than just like you know, somebody who was really sleeping
that may just kind of shrug away. And I'm like, oh,
he knows I'm pretending now now he's he's gonna be
(19:53):
pissed off.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And he rolls over.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And I'm thinking he's reaching for something, and all this
is happening, like all these thoughts are happening like within
the space of like two seconds. And that's just just
a small fraction of the thoughts.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Like I can't even explain.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Like how my mom was just racing at that time,
and just panic was just really setting in. And he
goes and I see his body turn and that's when
I had grabbed the gun out of the night stand,
out of uh, the purse that was on the nightstand,
and I shot him. It was like this pop, and
then it was like quiet. So I went back to
(20:33):
the hotel room and Cut was there of the room
and I came in and I was like, I think
I just killed somebody, and he was like what, like
he thought I was playing.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I was like, I'm I'm so serious. I just shot someone, and.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Like he didn't believe me, but he just told me
to go wipe down the car, wipe down the truck,
and park it in the wal Mart parking lot. And
so that's what I did. So we were laying down
and the cops knock on the door and so they
come in with these shotguns and like these big old
guns pointed at me, like cocking these guns. So I
(21:12):
was tried there on the juvenile court. They had a
transfer hearing about November. So I actually sat there and
you know, told the judge everything that had happened, you know,
in the hopes that she would see, Okay, well, this
isn't like, this wasn't a malicious situation, this isn't something
that she should be prosecuted for murder for. I'll just
(21:34):
keep her in the juvenile system and treat her. But
then you have the district attorney who was saying no
like she's encourageable. There's there's nothing else.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
That that you can do for her.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
She needs to be tried as an adult. And as
a matter of fact, I believe all of this was premeditated.
Two weeks after the hearing, I was called down to
the visitation area and I was told by my public
defender that I was tried as an adult, that I
was going to be transferred.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And I felt like the world.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Just like fell from beneath me, because now I went
from Okay, maybe I'll spend three years in a treatment
facility here going through DCS again, to know I may
end up spending the rest of my life in prison.
So I was taken to the adult jail to CCA.
I had to be housed in segregation, just basically stuck
(22:31):
in a box until my triald and my child didn't
happen until two years after I first went to the
adult jail. Very difficult because you can't like talk to
people on a regular basis, you can't have visitation with
your family, phone calls, anything like that. So the child
(22:55):
lasted several days and I think it was like six
hours hours they took to deliberate and then came back
in I started looking like looking at them each and
everyone as they came in, cause I'm like, I need
any kind of sign. I need you to know what
are they about to tell me?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
And like none of them will look at me.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And this one guy, the the only black guy who
was on the jury, like he just like kind of
just shook his head and hung his head.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And that's when I knew. I was like, yep, yep,
it's not good.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And they convicted me a first degree murder and sentenced
me to life in prison on the spot, automatic life sentence.
I didn't cry, I didn't hold my head down or anything.
And then when I got into my cell, I just
broke down. It was night time by that time, and
I just remember crying and praying and I said, God,
if you get me out of here, I'll tell the
(23:53):
world about you, like, you know, just let him know.
I'll do anything if you just get me out of here.
Please don't let me spend the rest of my life
in prison. And so there was about two weeks between
the time that I was convicted and sentenced until I
was actually transported to the prison. And during that time,
some of the women who had already been to prison
(24:13):
and who were back in the county. They were trying
to coach me and tell me, well, this is how
you need to carry yourself, and you need to walk
around like this when you walk on the compound, and
make sure your head's held high, and let me show
you how to throw a punch. And so they were
going through all this and I'm thinking, oh, man, like
it's gonna be rough. Like I'm thinking visions of you know,
the show OZ and every prison movie that I've ever watched.
(24:35):
It's like, man, like this this is no joke. And
you know, I start stuffing my face with pop tarts
and prettel pieces, thinking I got to buff up because
you know, I'm headed to the big house. And I
get there and it's like a college campus, like you know,
and I'm like, well, this is not what I expected.
(24:56):
I mean, it was more psychological or and psychological oppression,
more psychological attacks than there was like the physical attacks.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
But I actually found that like that was worse.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
So you know, my attorney had told me before I
had ever got to the prison. He was like, you know,
you can go in there. You can start acting all crazy,
and I mean, you can do that life sentence or
you can go in there, you can take every program
that they accept you into, you can act like you
have some sense, and you can have a chance at
getting out of prison someday. And by the grace of God,
(25:34):
I ended up getting into the college course came out
of prison with not one, but two degrees. So missus
Seabrooks was the principal there at the prison. But what
I will always appreciate most about miss Sebrooks is that
she was the person, the first person that told me
(25:54):
God's not gonna let you out of here until you
come to Him. You will not be free until you
can to Christ. And at that time I had just
like fallen into this state where I didn't even believe anymore.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
At least I said I didn't believe.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Really, I was just angry because I felt that, you know,
I did what I was told in Sunday School and
God he didn't hold up his end of the bargain
and so I just can't be true. But really I
was just upset, and at the time I just brushed
it off. I was like, Nah, miss Sebrooks, that's not
how the law works. I'll get it out with my
attorneys argue before the appellate court, and the appellate court
(26:33):
overturns my sentence.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And she said, all right, I'm telling you what I know.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you're listening to Sentoya Brown talking about her sentence,
the mindset that she had to adopt, and some people
who started to care about her. He talked about the
psychological attacks, which, as she put it, were worse than
any potential physical attacks. And this one lady, Miss Sebrooks,
who kept telling her that God had the answers for her.
(27:02):
She was putting her faith in law and lawyers. When
we return more of Centoya Brown's remarkable life story, a
great redemption story here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue here with our American stories and with Centoya Brown's story.
Let's pick up where we last left off. It's two
thousand and six and Centoya Brown has just been convicted
of aggravated robbery and first degree murder for killing forty
three year old real estate agent Johnny Allen. While in
president she began going to college. We had just heard
(27:58):
her principle once told Cinoya that she needed to know
Christ if she ever expected to leave. But Centoya put
her faith in the law and the process. Here's Centoya
with the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So when I was first arrested, all over the news,
I was painted as this horrible person, like the news
just vilified me. I was this dangerous individual. The streets
are safer without me. But my attorney had actually met
a documentary filmmaker through one of her other cases and
had invited him to come in and start filming my
(28:35):
process to the court system and interviewing me. And he
took all those interviews and he created a documentary, and
you know a lot of people like started writing me
from that and just like being really supportive. And I
started noticing like even within the media, like kind of
like that tide was changing, there was some support for me.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
All of a sudden, I get this letter from a
man Texas. So I read the letter.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I opened it up, and immediately the thing that stood
out was that the edges of the letter was burnt.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
And okay, that was the second thing I know this.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
The first thing I noticed is that he was really fine,
cause he had sent these two pictures of himself, And
so I ended up writing him cause something was like
i'm'a write it back.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I need to write him back.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
And from that one letter, we started writing several letters.
We started talking on the phone. He started telling me
about Christ, which you have to know that everyone else
who would try to tell me about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I brushed it off. I dismissed it. I didn't wanna
hear it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But there was something about when Jamie was talking to
me about him, So we continued writing. Not long after that,
I won him over.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
HM and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
We just decided that no matter what happened, no matter
what the court said, God said, I was gonna get
out and we were gonna walk in that faith and
we were gonna trust in that. And we weren't going
to focus on the appeals because my very last appeal
had been denied. We weren't going to focus on what
the lawyer said. We were just going to focus on
the Lord. We were going to focus on building a
relationship with him. And when we kept our focus there,
(30:22):
all of a sudden, things started picking up on the outside.
Things started picking up with the appeal, the appeal that
was closed in the federal court. It all of a
sudden opened back up. Six months after he first wrote
me and told me what he said. I look on
the news and it's a trending topic. I look on
(30:43):
the news and people all over the world from all
walks of life are now talking about free Centoia. And
Jamie said, are you surprised? And I'm like, well yeah,
and he said, what did I tell you about my God?
I was like, well, I know what you said, and
I believe it, but it's like it's happening. He said,
(31:04):
I told you what he said, like he doesn't lie,
and it's like it just it just gave me goosebumps.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And that was just that was just one thing.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Months after that, Jamie and our pastor, Minister Tim McGee,
he said that I was gonna get a date in March.
He said he didn't know what kind of date it was.
He didn't know if it was an outdate or what date,
but it was something that was gonna lead to me
getting out, something that was necessary to me getting out.
(31:37):
And we said, okay, so March comes by first week,
goes by second week, till March goes by.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Nothing, no word, no anything.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And then in that third week of March, Jamie had
an encounter with the Holy Spirit and I remember calling
him and he just said, you're coming home and he
started crying, and my husband like he doesn't cry, like
he's a man's man, like you know, jiu jitsu champion,
like he he's not sitting here crying on the phone
with no one. But he just broke down. He said,
(32:11):
God is bringing my wife home. I was like, okay,
did the lawyer call you?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
He's like no. I said, oh, did you see something
on news? He said no.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I said, well, okay, yeah, baby, I'm coming home. He says, no,
You're coming home. God told me. I heard it clear
as day. The next week comes, it's the last week
of March, getting down to the wire, and all of
a sudden, March thirtieth, my attorneys called Jamie and say
(32:44):
we got a date for a hearing. And the hearing
that they're talking about is one of the less than
one percent of people get for clemency petitions. It's it's
next to impossible to get a hearing with the pro board.
And I got one, and we got that date March.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
There.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
At the conclusion of the hearing, I ended up getting
four votes for me to be granted clemency and then
two votes for me not to be granted clemency. So
at this time, the governor of Tennessee was Bill Haslam,
and so it was up to him to make the decision,
and you know, I thank God that I had Jamie.
(33:22):
There was like, you need to remember that he is
not the one making the decision. God has made the
decision and he's already said what's gonna happen, and you
need to make sure that your faith is in Him,
not in the process, in not in what anybody else
down here on this earth is doing.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
They're saying, you need to.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Trust what God has said, and I said, you're right,
and when I'll tell you like that is so much
easier said than done. So it was a struggle. It
was a struggle for Jamie as well. It was a
true test of faith. At one point, you know, Jamie
was like, there has to be something, like something more,
(34:04):
you know that we need to be doing, you know,
with our faith, there's something more with our relationship, you know,
with Christ that we're not doing because like, why is it?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
There's nothing? Why is it?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
W We're going through this wilderness period And so Jamie
decided I've got to step out on faith. He sold
everything that he owned in Texas and when I tell
you everything, I mean everything, all in the space of
one day. He had gotten rid of his Mercedes, he
(34:37):
had gotten rid of his Bentley, which was his dream car.
He had gotten rid of every stitch of furniture in
his condo. And I remember just boohoo and crime. I said,
you don't have a bed to sleep on.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What are you gonna sleep on?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
He said, you don't get it. He said, you don't understand.
He said, I am going to get my I'm going
to move to Tennessee and get my wife because God
says you're coming out, and I believe him, so I'm
gonna act accordingly.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
So he sold.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Everything and he moved up to Tennessee. And a couple
weeks after that is when my attorney's got the call
from the Governor's office from the Lieutenant governor that the
governor wanted to meet with him, and he met with him.
He let them know that he was gonna grant me clemency.
(35:29):
So one of the things that I've learned, you know,
even from me sitting in prison, seeing people come back
and forth, back and forth in and out of those doors,
is the thing that made the people who stayed out
different from the people who came back and forth in
is was these are the people who understood, like what
really went in to that action, what really went into
(35:53):
that night that ended up with me getting charged? What
are the real impacts of what I've done? And and
you know, by going through that thought process, you really
understand like how your actions affect other people. And until
you understand that your actions do affect other people, until
you understand you know, we live in community with one another.
(36:16):
We have to be accountable, not just for all own actions,
but we have to be accountable to each other. Like
you're not gonna learn how to live in the free world.
You're not going to learn how to be successful as
a citizen. You're not going to be successful as a person,
Like how can you have any healthy relationships? How can
you have any kind of healthy dealings, whether it be personal,
(36:40):
business or otherwise if you don't get that basic concept.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So we actually got married while I was still incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Unbeknownst to me, he had already picked out a ring
with my mom. My mom had went to Texas. He
flew out to Texas for a Cowboys versus this Texans game.
They you know, him and her, like they had already
had this planned out where Tim was going to pick
me up in the van with Jamie and then Tim
was going to do the ceremony right there on the spot,
(37:13):
all this, that and the other. But when you know,
they came with the news to say that I was
getting out of prison. That's when he told me all
about that. And I was like, oh, how sweet. We
don't have to wait. So he was like, what do
you mean we don't have to wait? I said, oh,
we don't have to wait. We can do this now.
(37:34):
He said, how are we going to do it now?
I said, not to worry, don't worry. I'll take care
of it.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And what a laugh. And that is Centoya Brown telling
her story, and what a love story, folks. Yet just
you can't imagine someone doing that kind of thing for you.
Free Centoya is the book My Search for Redemption in
the American prison System. I urge you to get it.
And if you have anybody in your family struggling with
the law, struggling with drugs, struggling with life elf, this
(38:00):
is a book worth reading. Satoya Brown's story Here on
our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
And our favorite stories to tell are just ordinary American
redemption stories, second chances, even third chances that this country
allows people to have and to pursue. It's a beautiful
part of our nature. Saintoya Brown served fifteen years of
(00:33):
a life sentence for killing a forty three year old
real estate agent when she was sixteen years old after
being forced into prostitution by a man called Cutthroat. The
now married Brown long has never denied her crime, but
alleges she acted out of self defense. Here's Centoya to
(00:53):
share her story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So. I was born for Campbell, Kentucky, which is a
military base right on the line Kentucky, Tennessee. And I
was raised Darre in Clarksville by my adopted parents. Uh.
My father was military and my mother, she was a teacher.
I was really my dad's sidekick. When I was younger.
(01:17):
I considered psydekic. I guess he would consider it apprentice
because anytime he would build something, I always had to
go fetching the tools. I guess it was pretty convenient form.
But those were one of my favorite fast times with
my dad is helping him build stuff, helping him fix
stuff around the house, and my mother. It was the
same whenever my father retired from the military, he actually
(01:40):
started driving Chuck, so he would be gone for long
periods of time, so it would just be my mom
and me.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
And she was really into gardening.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I wasn't, but I did enjoy kind of just hanging
outside with her watching her plant.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So up until the point that I turned sixteen.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I thought school was the worst possible thing to have
ever happened to me.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
In my life.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I should have been really great in school. I was smart,
I was always getting good grades, but for some reason,
I was always founding myself in the principal's office. Whether
that was because I didn't want the teacher to help
me with work, I just wanted to figure it out
for myself, whether I had a smart remark for the teacher,
just any little thing would get me sent to the
(02:25):
principal's office and found myself getting suspended. I believe I
was eleven when I was first expelled from school. I
had brought a bottle of Nodos to class, which is
caffeine pills. I had found them in my sister's husband's truck.
He had left the truck there whenever he was deployed,
(02:46):
and they went to Hawaii, and I was just playing
around one day and found these caffeine pills. Took him
to school for show and tell, and next thing I know,
I was expelled for zero tolerance drug policies. I didn't
consider them to be a drug, didn't know they were
a drug, but that didn't matter. I was kicked out
of school and couldn't return to public school. It seemed
(03:09):
like they were just really looking for an excuse, so
part of me wasn't necessarily surprised, and it really just
added to that feeling that, you know, I just wasn't
wanted there, and it wasn't a place for me.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I never really fit. I was kind of an outcast.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Like I said, When I was growing up, my dad
would always tell me all the stories about him, you know,
in war, and what he did when Charlie was coming
at three o'clock and and how they did. And so
I thought, Okay, well, this is a game that I
wanna play with my friends, and so my neighbor, my
friend from down the street, and some other kids in
the neighborhood we were all together playing random games, you know, Bubblegum,
(03:50):
bubble Gum in a dish and any Mini Miny Moe,
and I said, well, how about this new game, Let's
play war And they were like, well what is that.
I said, well, we're all gonna get some wrong. You
stand on that side of the street, We're gonna stand
on this side of the street, and we're just gonna
throw them at each other and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And that's what we did.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And I ended up picking up the biggest rock that
I could that I found. Why, I don't know, but
I threw it and it hit my neighbors square in
the forehead and that was the moment that I knew
I'm about.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
To get in trouble, like this has going horribly wrong.
And she just started.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Bleeding and screaming, and then everybody was like, this is
all your fault, and I was like, wait a minute,
and you all wanted to play.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I thought we were having fun.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So after that, nobody's parents really wanted their kids playing
with me, and of course.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I got in trouble.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
My dad he kind of understood, but it was just
I think that was that was like one of the
turning points when I kind of lost a lot of friends.
So going to alternative school was a completely different experience.
These kids had had been involved in the justice system already.
Most of them were on probation of some kind. Many
(05:06):
of them had already been to facilities, and they returned
back from the facilities to go to this school. They
smoked freely, some of them did drugs freely. I had
never been around that because I was raised in a
military community. A lot of the kids that I was
around were kids of military families.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They just you just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And what was different from me being in this alternaty
school around these kids is these kids didn't judge me.
They didn't make me feel like an outcast. They didn't
make me feel like I wasn't wanted or I had
to be this or be that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
To fit in with them.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And so I really found that, oh, this is kind
of where I fit, like, this is a place for me.
So we all decided to skip school. And sometimes when
we skipped school, we would just ride the city bus
around town, walk around downtown, and just see whatever we
could get into. But this day, Samantha says, you know,
(06:09):
my mom, she's not home. We can go to my
house and we could just hang out and we're like, okay, cool.
And when we get there, she's like, oh man, I
forgot my key.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And she's like, no worries, no worries.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
My bedroom window was open, so she opens the window
and I'm the smallest one there, so they pushed me
through the window and I unlocked the door.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
It is her.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
House, but when her mother come home, she didn't feel
that we were supposed to be in the house. She
was very upset some things she claimed were missing from
the house that were stolen. And I mean, I don't
know if anybody stole it or not. I can't be
accountable for the other people that was with me, but
we all ended up being charged not only for breaking
(06:53):
and entering, but for theft of property.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And you're listening to Sentoya Brown, and she's the author
of Free Centoia, My Search for Redemption in the American
prison System. When we come back, more of this remarkable
story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love
(07:32):
the great American stories we tell and love America like
we do, we're asking you to become a part of
the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America
is a good and great country. Please make a donation.
A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents
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our Americanstories dot Com now and go to the donate
(07:53):
button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with Centoya Brown's story. Let's pick
(08:14):
up where we last left off with Centoya being charged
with breaking and entering and theft of property after skipping
school with friends and then going to one of her
girlfriend's homes where her mother would end up filing charges.
Here's Centoya.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So after I was charged with my other three code defendants.
That's bad when you say code defendants when you're talking
about a twelve year old. But I actually had to
go to juvenile court, and this was my first time
ever in a courtroom. My father he had to pay
for an attorney to represent me. So I spent some
(08:52):
time in juvenile detention and the attorney ended up getting
a deal where I got out and I was on probation.
So whenever I went to the court, one of the
first things they do is they send you for a
mental evaluation, and so they're in this facility, which I
definitely didn't feel like I fit in because this was
like a real deal mental facility. You had people who
(09:15):
were struggling with autism, you had people who had down syndrome,
you had people with schizophrenia. It was kind of scary
to be in there, and again, couldn't be around my parents,
couldn't contact my parents. And what I found comforted me.
There was there was this woman who was teaching some
(09:36):
of the girls there how to crochet, and I started
learning and that was something that would call me. So
I just brought my crochet stuff to class and I
would sit there and crochet whenever I finished with my work. Well,
one day I went to lunch and I remember that
I forgot my purse, and so I went back into
the classroom to get my purse and I saw that
(09:59):
the teacher I had been in my purse and she
was actually going through it and she was pulling out
the yard saying, you're not supposed to be doing this.
And I said, well, you're not supposed to be in
my stuff. And I said give me that, and I
took it out of her hand, and all of a
sudden she started screaming and hollering, calling for the sro.
Next thing I know, he's coming in and she's saying
(10:21):
I've assaulted her and I said I didn't assault her.
I took my stuff out of her hand. They said,
well did you snatch it? I said, well, yes, it's mine.
They said, well that's as salt, and so I ended
up getting charged with assault. I had my probation violated
and I was returned back to the facility, but this
time I was putting state custody, So two months after
(10:44):
I had turned thirteen, and in state custody you can
have an indeterminate sentence or a determined incidence. I was indeterminate,
meaning whenever they felt like they wanted to let me
go back home to.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
My parents' is when I would go.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So I ked up spending a year and a half
in state custody. And to be honest with you, the
only reason I got out is because my mother had
got fed up and she had threatened to actually follow
suit against the state whenever they had allowed for my
news my picture to be placed in a newspaper. So
(11:20):
I was fifteen when I finally got a state custody,
and it was on the ride home back from Nashville
to Clarksville that my mom tells me that they had
been divorced. And the whole time she had been telling me,
you know, he's gone to the store, he's at his
friend's house, he's in the backyard working on the pool.
(11:41):
It was all I like, he had been gone that
whole entire time. But she didn't want it to affect
my progress in the program. She didn't want it to
overwhelm me or distract me from doing what I needed
to do to come home. So that was that was
a pretty big bomb that was dropped on me.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
First thing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Then all of a sudden, here's this man that I
know absolutely nothing about, who apparently they had been friends
from when she used to live in New York, and
now they were talking on the phone for hours and
hours and hours, and he came to visit there at
the house. And when he came to visit, it's not
like he was being a visitor. He was telling me
(12:24):
what I needed to do and trying to order me around,
and I was just like, hold up, wait a minute,
wait a minute. And so I said, well, you know,
what that fine, I'll just go back and hang out
with my friends that I met when I was on
the run from State Cus City. And that's when I
ran away. So I caught up some friends that I
(12:44):
had met while I was on the run in Nashville.
And when I say friends, these are older women. These
women are in their mid twenties and I was just
fifteen years old.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
And they came and they got me, they.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Welcomed me back, and there I was back living the
life that I had lived.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
On the run before.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And that meant having sex with adult men and that
being normalized, that being permitted and even encouraged by the
adults that I was around, which is something completely completely
different from what I had been raised with. But I
mean it had become the norm for me. That also
(13:28):
meant that I was getting high every day. I was
smoking weed every single day. And that was the time
that I had actually met my trafficker. Is during that
time when I was sixteen years old. So I met
Cut at a gas station here in Nashville, and I
(13:49):
actually met him. I was riding with friends who were
looking for another man who had just raped me, and
they were gonna, you know, take out some revent him
and confront him about what he'd done. And we stopped
at the gas station and I wanted some newports, and
(14:09):
so we walked up.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I walked up to this guy and was like, do
you have a Newport?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And he was like no, And he offered to give
me five dollars to get a pack if I would
give him my number, so I did. After that, you know,
we started talking on the phone. He started coming to
pick me up and hang out with me, and I
just pretty much just fell head over hills within a
(14:34):
matter of days for this stranger, this older guy, who
did not have good intentions for me at all. But
all that I saw when I was with him was
that he listened to me. You know, my mind at
that time, it was like wow, like he's really interested
in me. No one really pays me this level of attention.
(14:56):
No one really cares about, you know, my life story,
my thoughts, that's my feelings, what I'm into. But here
he's just like completely absorbed into it. And now I
understand that he was looking, you know, for things that
he could manipulate, he was looking for things that he
could exploit. He was listening because he needed to find
(15:17):
out how he could really get into my head and
play me. So when you're on the run, you know
you can't.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Necessarily just go get a job.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I didn't have an idea or a license or anything
like that. I didn't have my birth certificate, couldn't really
make money by any kind of legal means.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
But one of the women.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That I was staying with, her boyfriend was actually a
drug dealer, And so there I was selling drugs in
this project in North Nashville the age of sixteen. But
really just dove headfirst into it. So whenever I would
go out when cut with send me out to go
(16:01):
get money, he'd always sent me with his gun. I
had never shot a gun, didn't really anticipate ever having
to use it. It was just something where you know
I had it. I knew I had it. It was
just a safety measure, but he always had it. The
safety was off, there was a bullet in the chamber.
(16:22):
He said, if something ever happens, just squeeze the trigger.
So that time this guy had picked me up in
this little white truck. He had got me something to eat.
While we were sitting there waiting on the food to come.
That's when he had asked me. You know, it was
I up for any action. So I ended up going
back to his house with him. And while we was there,
(16:45):
you know, I kept trying to like stall because he
started acting weird, like he started showing me guns. On
the drive there, he was telling me how he used
to be a sharp shooter in the military. And it's like,
why is why does he feel the need to tell
me all.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Of these things?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And you're listening to Sintoya Brown's story and one bad
choice after another, and just some really bad choices by
the system too, and by authorities, and bad rulemaking and
enforcement that almost makes no sense. And you combine all
that with a girl who finds out dad's gone, and
(17:21):
then she's gone, and then income the predators and one
name cut short for cutthroat. And she loved that he
listened to her. But of course he was listening for
a reason. He was getting into her mind. He was
looking for things he could manipulate, things he could exploit.
That's why he listened, said Centoya. When we come back,
(17:42):
more of this story, a remarkable redemption story, Cintoya Brown's
story here on our American stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories, and Centoya Brown's story. Let's pick up
when we last left off with sixteen year old Centoya
at the home of a man who had picked her
up for as he called it, action. She said he
was acting weird and showing her his guns and talking
about how he was a sharpshooter.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Here's Centoya, why does he feel the need to tell
me all these things? He tried to tell me that
he wrote the song by Lee Greenwood Proud to Be
an American, which obviously I knew it was a lie.
Like it was really strange. It was really uncomfortable, and
like with him talking about this gun. Then when we
got to the house, you know, showing me this gun,
(18:50):
It's like I felt that, I felt that he was
trying to intimidate me, and at that point, I just
wanted to leave, so I kept trying to stall. So
I said, well, you know what, I'm just gonna go
up and I'm just gonna pretend like I'm sleep. I'm
gonna ask him if I can have a nap real quick.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And so that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And while I was laying there pretending like I was sleep,
he kept getting up and going into the next room
then coming back just like staring at me, like looking
over at me, going into the bathroom, going to the
next room, and like this whole time, like I'm just
freaking out. I'm like, what is he doing? Like what's
(19:31):
really going on? There was a moment like when he
had got into the bed and he had reached over
and grabbed me, and I was like ah, and I
was you know, it was a little bit more emphatic
than just like you know, somebody who was really sleeping
that may just kind of shrug away. And I'm like, oh,
he knows I'm pretending now now he's he's gonna be
(19:53):
pissed off.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And he rolls over.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And I'm thinking he's reaching for something, and all this
is happening, like all these thoughts are happening like within
the space of like two seconds. And that's just just
a small fraction of the thoughts.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Like I can't even explain.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Like how my mom was just racing at that time,
and just panic was just really setting in. And he
goes and I see his body turn and that's when
I had grabbed the gun out of the night stand,
out of uh, the purse that was on the nightstand,
and I shot him. It was like this pop, and
then it was like quiet. So I went back to
(20:33):
the hotel room and Cut was there of the room
and I came in and I was like, I think
I just killed somebody, and he was like what, like
he thought I was playing.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I was like, I'm I'm so serious. I just shot someone, and.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Like he didn't believe me, but he just told me
to go wipe down the car, wipe down the truck,
and park it in the wal Mart parking lot. And
so that's what I did. So we were laying down
and the cops knock on the door and so they
come in with these shotguns and like these big old
guns pointed at me, like cocking these guns. So I
(21:12):
was tried there on the juvenile court. They had a
transfer hearing about November. So I actually sat there and
you know, told the judge everything that had happened, you know,
in the hopes that she would see, Okay, well, this
isn't like, this wasn't a malicious situation, this isn't something
that she should be prosecuted for murder for. I'll just
(21:34):
keep her in the juvenile system and treat her. But
then you have the district attorney who was saying no
like she's encourageable. There's there's nothing else.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
That that you can do for her.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
She needs to be tried as an adult. And as
a matter of fact, I believe all of this was premeditated.
Two weeks after the hearing, I was called down to
the visitation area and I was told by my public
defender that I was tried as an adult, that I
was going to be transferred.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And I felt like the world.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Just like fell from beneath me, because now I went
from Okay, maybe I'll spend three years in a treatment
facility here going through DCS again, to know I may
end up spending the rest of my life in prison.
So I was taken to the adult jail to CCA.
I had to be housed in segregation, just basically stuck
(22:31):
in a box until my triald and my child didn't
happen until two years after I first went to the
adult jail. Very difficult because you can't like talk to
people on a regular basis, you can't have visitation with
your family, phone calls, anything like that. So the child
(22:55):
lasted several days and I think it was like six
hours hours they took to deliberate and then came back
in I started looking like looking at them each and
everyone as they came in, cause I'm like, I need
any kind of sign. I need you to know what
are they about to tell me?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
And like none of them will look at me.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And this one guy, the the only black guy who
was on the jury, like he just like kind of
just shook his head and hung his head.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And that's when I knew. I was like, yep, yep,
it's not good.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And they convicted me a first degree murder and sentenced
me to life in prison on the spot, automatic life sentence.
I didn't cry, I didn't hold my head down or anything.
And then when I got into my cell, I just
broke down. It was night time by that time, and
I just remember crying and praying and I said, God,
if you get me out of here, I'll tell the
(23:53):
world about you, like, you know, just let him know.
I'll do anything if you just get me out of here.
Please don't let me spend the rest of my life
in prison. And so there was about two weeks between
the time that I was convicted and sentenced until I
was actually transported to the prison. And during that time,
some of the women who had already been to prison
(24:13):
and who were back in the county. They were trying
to coach me and tell me, well, this is how
you need to carry yourself, and you need to walk
around like this when you walk on the compound, and
make sure your head's held high, and let me show
you how to throw a punch. And so they were
going through all this and I'm thinking, oh, man, like
it's gonna be rough. Like I'm thinking visions of you know,
the show OZ and every prison movie that I've ever watched.
(24:35):
It's like, man, like this this is no joke. And
you know, I start stuffing my face with pop tarts
and prettel pieces, thinking I got to buff up because
you know, I'm headed to the big house. And I
get there and it's like a college campus, like you know,
and I'm like, well, this is not what I expected.
(24:56):
I mean, it was more psychological or and psychological oppression,
more psychological attacks than there was like the physical attacks.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
But I actually found that like that was worse.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
So you know, my attorney had told me before I
had ever got to the prison. He was like, you know,
you can go in there. You can start acting all crazy,
and I mean, you can do that life sentence or
you can go in there, you can take every program
that they accept you into, you can act like you
have some sense, and you can have a chance at
getting out of prison someday. And by the grace of God,
(25:34):
I ended up getting into the college course came out
of prison with not one, but two degrees. So missus
Seabrooks was the principal there at the prison. But what
I will always appreciate most about miss Sebrooks is that
she was the person, the first person that told me
(25:54):
God's not gonna let you out of here until you
come to Him. You will not be free until you
can to Christ. And at that time I had just
like fallen into this state where I didn't even believe anymore.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
At least I said I didn't believe.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Really, I was just angry because I felt that, you know,
I did what I was told in Sunday School and
God he didn't hold up his end of the bargain
and so I just can't be true. But really I
was just upset, and at the time I just brushed
it off. I was like, Nah, miss Sebrooks, that's not
how the law works. I'll get it out with my
attorneys argue before the appellate court, and the appellate court
(26:33):
overturns my sentence.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And she said, all right, I'm telling you what I know.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you're listening to Sentoya Brown talking about her sentence,
the mindset that she had to adopt, and some people
who started to care about her. He talked about the
psychological attacks, which, as she put it, were worse than
any potential physical attacks. And this one lady, Miss Sebrooks,
who kept telling her that God had the answers for her.
(27:02):
She was putting her faith in law and lawyers. When
we return more of Centoya Brown's remarkable life story, a
great redemption story here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue here with our American stories and with Centoya Brown's story.
Let's pick up where we last left off. It's two
thousand and six and Centoya Brown has just been convicted
of aggravated robbery and first degree murder for killing forty
three year old real estate agent Johnny Allen. While in
president she began going to college. We had just heard
(27:58):
her principle once told Cinoya that she needed to know
Christ if she ever expected to leave. But Centoya put
her faith in the law and the process. Here's Centoya
with the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So when I was first arrested, all over the news,
I was painted as this horrible person, like the news
just vilified me. I was this dangerous individual. The streets
are safer without me. But my attorney had actually met
a documentary filmmaker through one of her other cases and
had invited him to come in and start filming my
(28:35):
process to the court system and interviewing me. And he
took all those interviews and he created a documentary, and
you know a lot of people like started writing me
from that and just like being really supportive. And I
started noticing like even within the media, like kind of
like that tide was changing, there was some support for me.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
All of a sudden, I get this letter from a
man Texas. So I read the letter.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I opened it up, and immediately the thing that stood
out was that the edges of the letter was burnt.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
And okay, that was the second thing I know this.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
The first thing I noticed is that he was really fine,
cause he had sent these two pictures of himself, And
so I ended up writing him cause something was like
i'm'a write it back.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I need to write him back.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
And from that one letter, we started writing several letters.
We started talking on the phone. He started telling me
about Christ, which you have to know that everyone else
who would try to tell me about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I brushed it off. I dismissed it. I didn't wanna
hear it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But there was something about when Jamie was talking to
me about him, So we continued writing. Not long after that,
I won him over.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
HM and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
We just decided that no matter what happened, no matter
what the court said, God said, I was gonna get
out and we were gonna walk in that faith and
we were gonna trust in that. And we weren't going
to focus on the appeals because my very last appeal
had been denied. We weren't going to focus on what
the lawyer said. We were just going to focus on
the Lord. We were going to focus on building a
relationship with him. And when we kept our focus there,
(30:22):
all of a sudden, things started picking up on the outside.
Things started picking up with the appeal, the appeal that
was closed in the federal court. It all of a
sudden opened back up. Six months after he first wrote
me and told me what he said. I look on
the news and it's a trending topic. I look on
(30:43):
the news and people all over the world from all
walks of life are now talking about free Centoia. And
Jamie said, are you surprised? And I'm like, well yeah,
and he said, what did I tell you about my God?
I was like, well, I know what you said, and
I believe it, but it's like it's happening. He said,
(31:04):
I told you what he said, like he doesn't lie,
and it's like it just it just gave me goosebumps.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And that was just that was just one thing.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Months after that, Jamie and our pastor, Minister Tim McGee,
he said that I was gonna get a date in March.
He said he didn't know what kind of date it was.
He didn't know if it was an outdate or what date,
but it was something that was gonna lead to me
getting out, something that was necessary to me getting out.
(31:37):
And we said, okay, so March comes by first week,
goes by second week, till March goes by.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Nothing, no word, no anything.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And then in that third week of March, Jamie had
an encounter with the Holy Spirit and I remember calling
him and he just said, you're coming home and he
started crying, and my husband like he doesn't cry, like
he's a man's man, like you know, jiu jitsu champion,
like he he's not sitting here crying on the phone
with no one. But he just broke down. He said,
(32:11):
God is bringing my wife home. I was like, okay,
did the lawyer call you?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
He's like no. I said, oh, did you see something
on news? He said no.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I said, well, okay, yeah, baby, I'm coming home. He says, no,
You're coming home. God told me. I heard it clear
as day. The next week comes, it's the last week
of March, getting down to the wire, and all of
a sudden, March thirtieth, my attorneys called Jamie and say
(32:44):
we got a date for a hearing. And the hearing
that they're talking about is one of the less than
one percent of people get for clemency petitions. It's it's
next to impossible to get a hearing with the pro board.
And I got one, and we got that date March.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
There.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
At the conclusion of the hearing, I ended up getting
four votes for me to be granted clemency and then
two votes for me not to be granted clemency. So
at this time, the governor of Tennessee was Bill Haslam,
and so it was up to him to make the decision,
and you know, I thank God that I had Jamie.
(33:22):
There was like, you need to remember that he is
not the one making the decision. God has made the
decision and he's already said what's gonna happen, and you
need to make sure that your faith is in Him,
not in the process, in not in what anybody else
down here on this earth is doing.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
They're saying, you need to.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Trust what God has said, and I said, you're right,
and when I'll tell you like that is so much
easier said than done. So it was a struggle. It
was a struggle for Jamie as well. It was a
true test of faith. At one point, you know, Jamie
was like, there has to be something, like something more,
(34:04):
you know that we need to be doing, you know,
with our faith, there's something more with our relationship, you know,
with Christ that we're not doing because like, why is it?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
There's nothing? Why is it?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
W We're going through this wilderness period And so Jamie
decided I've got to step out on faith. He sold
everything that he owned in Texas and when I tell
you everything, I mean everything, all in the space of
one day. He had gotten rid of his Mercedes, he
(34:37):
had gotten rid of his Bentley, which was his dream car.
He had gotten rid of every stitch of furniture in
his condo. And I remember just boohoo and crime. I said,
you don't have a bed to sleep on.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What are you gonna sleep on?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
He said, you don't get it. He said, you don't understand.
He said, I am going to get my I'm going
to move to Tennessee and get my wife because God
says you're coming out, and I believe him, so I'm
gonna act accordingly.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
So he sold.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Everything and he moved up to Tennessee. And a couple
weeks after that is when my attorney's got the call
from the Governor's office from the Lieutenant governor that the
governor wanted to meet with him, and he met with him.
He let them know that he was gonna grant me clemency.
(35:29):
So one of the things that I've learned, you know,
even from me sitting in prison, seeing people come back
and forth, back and forth in and out of those doors,
is the thing that made the people who stayed out
different from the people who came back and forth in
is was these are the people who understood, like what
really went in to that action, what really went into
(35:53):
that night that ended up with me getting charged? What
are the real impacts of what I've done? And and
you know, by going through that thought process, you really
understand like how your actions affect other people. And until
you understand that your actions do affect other people, until
you understand you know, we live in community with one another.
(36:16):
We have to be accountable, not just for all own actions,
but we have to be accountable to each other. Like
you're not gonna learn how to live in the free world.
You're not going to learn how to be successful as
a citizen. You're not going to be successful as a person,
Like how can you have any healthy relationships? How can
you have any kind of healthy dealings, whether it be personal,
(36:40):
business or otherwise if you don't get that basic concept.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So we actually got married while I was still incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Unbeknownst to me, he had already picked out a ring
with my mom. My mom had went to Texas. He
flew out to Texas for a Cowboys versus this Texans game.
They you know, him and her, like they had already
had this planned out where Tim was going to pick
me up in the van with Jamie and then Tim
was going to do the ceremony right there on the spot,
(37:13):
all this, that and the other. But when you know,
they came with the news to say that I was
getting out of prison. That's when he told me all
about that. And I was like, oh, how sweet. We
don't have to wait. So he was like, what do
you mean we don't have to wait? I said, oh,
we don't have to wait. We can do this now.
(37:34):
He said, how are we going to do it now?
I said, not to worry, don't worry. I'll take care
of it.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And what a laugh. And that is Centoya Brown telling
her story, and what a love story, folks. Yet just
you can't imagine someone doing that kind of thing for you.
Free Centoya is the book My Search for Redemption in
the American prison System. I urge you to get it.
And if you have anybody in your family struggling with
the law, struggling with drugs, struggling with life elf, this
(38:00):
is a book worth reading. Satoya Brown's story Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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