The Killer Boy Scout

WEBVTT

1
00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:19.280
Welcome to ten minute Murder, Brief
and Bingeible True Crime. I am Joe,

2
00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:23.280
I'm the host. Thank you for
joining today, And if you're like

3
00:00:23.399 --> 00:00:28.079
me, the allergy season is really
getting ramped up, and your sinus cavity

4
00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:31.679
is being held together with thoughts and
prayers. So we're just doing the best

5
00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:35.240
we can at this point. How
does it feel if you don't have allergy

6
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:39.200
problems? How does it feel to
be God's favorites? That's what I'd like

7
00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:42.399
to know. I don't know what
I've done to deserve this in my life,

8
00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:46.560
but i'd like to apologize for it
by some miracle. I sound okay

9
00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:50.960
right now, But a little while
ago, I didn't like in the worst

10
00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.520
way. It was to the point
where I thought, I'm just gonna skip

11
00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:57.079
this episode because I can't talk right. You can understand what I'm saying,

12
00:00:57.159 --> 00:01:00.479
but it sounds like, you know, like you just you shouldn't be saying

13
00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.599
things to people. That's the way
I sounded in a lot of sniffles and

14
00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:06.920
you know, the whole nine yards. But I sound I sound fine now,

15
00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:10.359
I feel great, sound fine,
And it's going to go downhill after

16
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.640
this. So, like I said, thoughts and prayers for my sinuses.

17
00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:18.079
If this is your first time listening
to ten Minute Murder, please subscribe now

18
00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:21.280
so that you can catch up on
all the back episodes and never miss any

19
00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:25.640
new ones. Connect with me on
social media see the visuals that go along

20
00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:29.319
with what we're talking about in the
podcast, And if you like this episode,

21
00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:33.319
please leave a rating and review on
Apple or any place that's possible.

22
00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:38.560
Your positive feedback is appreciated and very
helpful. Go to ten minute Murder dot

23
00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:53.079
com for all things ten minute Murder. Now to today's story. In many

24
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:59.400
family annihilation cases, the perpetrator is
the parent, often the father. Potential

25
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:05.000
motives from a discovered affair to a
vicious custody battle or threat of divorce.

26
00:02:05.599 --> 00:02:10.000
These cases often end with the tragic
deaths of everybody involved, including the suicide

27
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:15.439
of the perpetrator. For every rule, there is an exception, and the

28
00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:20.479
Browning family murders didn't follow any of
these patterns. To begin with. The

29
00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:23.199
Browning family didn't seem to have any
of the turmoil that can lead to a

30
00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:29.560
family annihilation. John W. Browning, the family's father, was a successful

31
00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:34.080
attorney who had been happily married to
his wife, Tamara for years. They

32
00:02:34.120 --> 00:02:38.759
had their first child, Nicholas,
in February nineteen ninety two, and later

33
00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:43.599
had two more sons, Benjamin and
Gregory. Despite his job, Key became

34
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:46.280
busy. John made an effort to
stay involved in both of his son's lives

35
00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:50.879
and the local community as well.
He was committed to his role as a

36
00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:55.120
leader in the local church and volunteered
as a Scout master, hosting Boy Scout's

37
00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:00.840
family meetings and helping to lead outdoor
expeditions for the truth. John and Tamara

38
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:06.719
were rightfully proud of their sons.
They had raised intelligent, kind boys who

39
00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:10.000
were involved in sports and had a
wide circle of friends and did well in

40
00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:15.240
schools. Nicholas, their oldest,
was a Boy Scout, but he was

41
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:19.639
working toward his gold of becoming an
Eagle Scout. He was an honor student

42
00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.159
at his high school, a well
rounded, trustworthy kid. It was one

43
00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:29.159
week before Nicholas's sixteenth birthday. He'd
made plans to stay over to friend's house

44
00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:32.560
that night, but he suddenly decided
to leave the sleepover and returned to his

45
00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:37.520
family home in the middle of the
night. It was late in the evening

46
00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:40.400
of February first, two thousand and
eight, and the rest of Nicholas's family

47
00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:46.479
were already asleep. Nicholas crept through
the house and found what he was looking

48
00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:52.159
for, one of John's handguns.
Armed with this weapon, Nicholas located each

49
00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:57.400
of the members of his family.
Without hesitation, he shot them one by

50
00:03:57.479 --> 00:04:00.840
one. There were no signs of
a struggle. In fact, his parents

51
00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:05.639
and brothers likely had no idea that
they were even attacked. Even if they

52
00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:11.319
had woken up and tried to run, there was no escape. Once he

53
00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:15.639
was satisfied that his family had been
executed, Nicholas left the house. He

54
00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:19.800
disposed of the gun by throwing it
into some nearby bushes, hiding it from

55
00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:25.839
view. Then the fifteen year old
returned to his friend's house and resumed his

56
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:30.519
sleepover as if nothing was wrong.
The next day, Nicholas was dropped back

57
00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:34.160
home by one of his friends.
Even though he knew that the four dead

58
00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:39.680
bodies waited for him inside, he
kept up this act, pretending that everything

59
00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:43.959
was fine. Nicholas knew that he
had to stage a scene where he discovered

60
00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:48.519
the bodies for the first time so
that nobody would become suspicious. He'd rehearsed

61
00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:53.920
exactly what he was going to do, he'd walk inside the house, pretend

62
00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:58.439
to discover his father's body, the
only corpse, which was downstairs, and

63
00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:02.319
then called the police. The plan
went off without a hitch, and Nicholas

64
00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:06.040
placed his nine one one call,
telling the operator that he found his father

65
00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:11.040
lying motionless on the couch, not
breathing, with blood coming out of his

66
00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:15.600
nose. He said nothing about the
bodies that were upstairs, and the responders

67
00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:17.959
sent to the scene believed that they
were arriving at the scene of some tragic

68
00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:24.079
cardiac arrest with no idea about the
horrors that waited for them inside the rest

69
00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:29.600
of the house. Emergency responders rushed
to the Browning house and discovered the extent

70
00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:32.040
of the violence, as well as
the body of forty five year old John

71
00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:38.319
Browning on the downstairs couch, the
bedrooms upstairs containing the bodies of forty four

72
00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:43.199
year old Tamar Browning, thirteen year
old Gregory, and eleven year old Benjamin.

73
00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:47.240
Searching the property, police located the
discarded handgun and the bushes outside.

74
00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:53.480
On Sunday evening, one day after
the murders, a candlelight vigil was held

75
00:05:53.519 --> 00:05:58.800
outside of the Browning family home.
The community was scared and also in shock.

76
00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.560
Frances Daily, the pastor of the
local church, expressed his disbelief,

77
00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:06.079
saying, quote, I'm told this
is not the kind of family this could

78
00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:11.759
happen too, And he was right. John and Tamra adored each other and

79
00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:15.920
had a stable marriage. The whole
family was involved in the boy Scouts and

80
00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:18.839
spent a lot of time exploring the
outdoors together. But they had all been

81
00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:25.920
murdered in their beds except for one. Immediately, investigator suspicion turned to the

82
00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:30.639
one surviving member of the Browning family. Nicholas's story would never have held up

83
00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:35.920
under scrutiny. The evidence was everywhere, despite his attempts to hide the gun

84
00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:40.399
and pretend that he'd been at his
friend's house when the family was killed.

85
00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:46.319
It was sloppily planned and poorly executed. In other words, exactly the kind

86
00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:48.759
of murder that a fifteen year old
boy could be expected to carry out.

87
00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:53.040
As it turned out, there was
no need to pick at the holes in

88
00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:57.319
the story to coax a confession out
of Nicholas. In the early hours of

89
00:06:57.319 --> 00:07:00.160
that Sunday morning, less than twelve
hours after the bodies of his family were

90
00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:05.920
discovered, Nicholas Browning confessed to all
four murders. The resulting news release did

91
00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:11.240
not provide many answers for the grieving
community, who were left wondering why the

92
00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:15.360
teenage boy they considered to be a
friend and neighbor had violently ended the lives

93
00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:19.879
of his entire family. In fact, the news release left locals with more

94
00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:25.680
questions than answers. It simply stated
that no signs of a confrontation had been

95
00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:30.079
found at the Browning family home and
revealed that Nicholas and John had been in

96
00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:34.120
conflict recently. The cause of the
conflict, how serious it was, was

97
00:07:34.199 --> 00:07:40.040
left up to speculation. Liz las
Laubach, a seventeen year old schoolmate of

98
00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:45.040
Nicholas's, remembered hearing him complain about
arguing with his dad. However, she

99
00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:48.319
was certain that the fight had not
been serious, and Nicholas had certainly never

100
00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:54.240
implied that any kind of violent altercation
had taken place. Like the rest of

101
00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:59.439
Nicholas, Gregory and Benjamin's classmates,
Liz was devastated. They'd lost two of

102
00:07:59.480 --> 00:08:01.920
their peers in a matter of hours, and a kid their own age had

103
00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:05.600
been the killer. It was a
kind of trauma that must have been almost

104
00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:11.680
impossible to process. Nicholas was held
at the juvenile detention of the Baltimore County

105
00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:16.279
Detention Center after being arrested for the
murders and denied bail. Nobody quite knew

106
00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:20.680
what to do with him, This
tall, gangly teenage boy who had committed

107
00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:26.800
such a horrific crime and naively believed
that he could somehow get away with it.

108
00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:31.320
Thinking that he could escape prosecution was
just the beginning of Nicholas's naivety.

109
00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:37.399
Nicholas might have mistakenly believed that his
young age would provide some type of leniency

110
00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:41.840
in his sentencing for single murder.
Maybe it would have, but this was

111
00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:46.360
a child who had deliberately annihilated an
entire family, including two children, his

112
00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:50.600
siblings. It was a unique case, and it required a unique approach from

113
00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:56.080
prosecutors. It came as a shock
to many, and possibly to Nicholas himself,

114
00:08:56.320 --> 00:09:00.360
when the charges were revealed. Despite
his young age, he was going

115
00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:03.679
to be charged as an adult for
all four counts of murder. His age

116
00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:09.360
only provided one advantage. He could
not be given the death penalty. The

117
00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:13.559
motive for the killings remains hazy.
Nicholas insisted that he had killed his father

118
00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:18.720
due to the abuse he suffered at
John's hands. However, even if this

119
00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:22.720
argument was true, it didn't provide
any explanation about the murders of Tamara,

120
00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:26.559
Gregory, and Benjamin. The prosecution
believed that there was no truth to this

121
00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.279
version of events. Instead, prosecutors
alleged that Nicholas had killed his parents in

122
00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:37.039
a fit of rage because he resented
being told what to do. The murders

123
00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:41.919
of his brothers had been sort of
an insurance policy, guaranteeing that the inheritance

124
00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:46.799
money would go all to Nicholas.
How Nicholas expected to get away with such

125
00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:50.320
a sloppily planned murder in order to
collect the inheritance in the first place is

126
00:09:50.360 --> 00:09:54.679
also a mystery. In January of
two thousand and nine, Nicholas Browning reached

127
00:09:54.679 --> 00:10:00.480
a plea agreement with the prosecutors,
pleading guilty to all four counts of degree

128
00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:05.519
murder. He received his sentence four
life terms in prison, with the first

129
00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:09.080
two of these terms being served consecutively. Currently, Nicholas is imprisoned at the

130
00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:15.720
Western Correctional Institution. His request for
reduced sentence was denied in twenty fourteen,

131
00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:20.639
but his release might be quicker than
a four life term sentence suggests if his

132
00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:26.639
good behavior continues in prison, Nicholas
will be eligible for parole in two thousand

133
00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:31.320
and thirty one, only twenty three
years into his sentence. That's less than

134
00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:33.120
six years total jail time for each
murder.