Over two unbearable days, three children listened as their father beat their mother while she begged for her life. And before her kids were ordered to clean up the blood-soaked home, the mom whispered her final words to her teenage daughter, who held her close as she died.

When Aleisha Brown was 8 years old, her mother, Shawntae, loaded her, her 7-year-old brother, and their newborn baby sister into the car for a road trip from Oklahoma City to Texas.

They were headed to watch Joshua Brown – the children’s father – graduate from military basic training. It was a big moment for the family, and one Aleisha would never forget.

During the trip, the high school sweethearts surprised their kids by announcing were getting married.

“He was in his [military uniform] and I just remember her being so happy,” Aleisha told People of her mother that day.

But before the celebration ended, Shawntae pulled her daughter aside to say something that would later echo painfully in her daughter’s memory.

“It was so weird because she told me this specifically by myself, she said: ‘Even if, for whatever reason, even though me and your dad love each other very much, if we don’t stay married or something happens, I will always love you guys and always choose you guys first.’” Aleisha remembered.

That simple promise – one of a mother’s unconditional love – would take on new meaning seven years later.

‘More angry, irritable’ after deployment

Over the years, happiness had given way to violence and fear. Joshua – who had returned home from deployment in Afghanistan in 2016 – had changed.

“He was definitely more aggressive, he was definitely more irritable, angry. And after that is when the abuse started getting bad, because I mean, it was never abuse before then,” Aleisha told People. “It would always be verbal arguments up until about 2016, when the abuse started with my mom.”

Although Aleisha says her father never physically abused her or her siblings, life inside their home was far from safe or normal.

“It was literally walking on eggshells. A constant hostile environment,” she told People, describing a household ruled by fear and control.

He also “started getting more paranoid,” Aleisha explained – paranoia that soon spiraled into full-blown surveillance.

“That’s when he installed cameras in the house, so we were constantly under surveillance. He was listening to our conversations, watching us do everything.”

And while Aleisha doesn’t know the full extent of what her mother endured behind closed doors, she has no doubt it was even worse: “I imagine the punishment was far worse for her.”

And it was far worse for Shawntae.

‘No longer my dad’

In late September 2020 – for almost two days – the kids – then 15, 14 and 7 – could hear the sounds of their father attacking their mother, who kept crying out, “no!”

“He would have these, these episodes, and this was an episode,” Aleisha, now 20, told People.

According to Aleisha something always seemed to set him off. That day, the trigger was a curtain hanging in her brother’s room – combined with Joshua’s paranoid and baseless belief that his wife had appeared in pornographic videos.

“That’s when it clicked and he shut off completely, it’s no longer my dad,” Aleisha said.

Ordered kids clean blood

After Shawntae was still after a days-long beating, Joshua allegedly demanded the children to clean up the blood.

He then instructed his daughter call 911, insisting she lie about what had happened.

“He told me to lie and tell them that she overdosed and took too many pills and came home and got f***ed up coming home. Not that he did it, not anything like that. Nothing to do with him having done anything,” Aleisha said, per People.

Home cameras showed beating

Just before 2 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2020, Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) received a call from the Oklahoma City home where Aleisha and her younger siblings lived with their mom and dad.

When deputies and paramedics arrived, they found blood smeared across floors and rugs, holes punched in the walls, and Shawntae’s lifeless body on the ground. The 34-year-old mom had been dead for several hours, People reports.

According to a OCSO news release, “there was enough evidence inside the home to take Mr. Brown into custody on complaints of 1st Degree Murder, and Domestic Violence.”

Investigators later wrote that “the victim’s body was covered in bruises, contusions, and lacerations consistent with a severe beating.”

According to the affidavit, Joshua used a shoe, a belt, a semiautomatic weapon, and even a flagpole to assault Shawntae.

Fox 24 reports that video from inside the home – recorded by the cameras set up by Joshua – showed the man repeatedly beating and strangling his wife “over the course of two days.”

Shawntae’s last words

In the hours before help arrived, Aleisha held her mother tightly as she took her last breath.

“I kind of feel selfish that I feel this way, but I’m glad that she died in my arms. It’s somewhat comforting to me,” Aleisha says.

And right before she died, Shawntae managed to whisper something to her oldest child – the same love she had promised years earlier at that Texas wedding.

“She told me she loved me,” Aleisha said.

On Oct. 29, 2025, WKRC reports that Joshua pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as part of a plea deal that spared him the death penalty. He was sentenced to four consecutive life terms and, under the terms of the agreement, waived his right to appeal.

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