Kenyel Brown, Suspect in Six Detroit-Area Killings, Dies After Shooting Himself
Charged with two River Rouge murders and linked by police to four more, the former federal informant died four days after shooting himself as officers closed in.
Published
Kenyel Brown died on Friday, February 28, 2020, four days after he put a gun to his own head in an Oak Park backyard with police closing in. Detroit police announced the death. He was 40, and he never stood trial. Earlier that evening, FOX 2 Detroit reported, he had been declared brain dead and his organs were being prepared for possible donation.
He had been the target of a manhunt since early February. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged him on February 4 with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to murder over a February 2 triple shooting in River Rouge. The two people killed were Dorian Patterson, 48, and Kimberly Green, 52. The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said both died of multiple gunshot wounds. A third person was wounded.
Police believed the River Rouge shooting was one stop on a much longer road. By their account the killing began on January 8, when a man was shot dead in River Rouge, and moved on to Highland Park on February 18, where another man was killed. Three days after that, police said, Brown shot a 41-year-old man on Detroit's east side and carjacked two vehicles within 19 minutes. The next day, they said, a 36-year-old man was killed in an argument over drugs. Police tied him to six deaths in all. He was charged with two. The others were allegations that would never be tested in court.
The search for him began on February 6, and the U.S. Marshals offered a reward for information leading to his arrest. It ended on the afternoon of Monday, February 24. Police said a bookstore clerk spotted him around 1:30 p.m. By the time officers arrived he had gone, heading toward Eight Mile Road in Oak Park. A K-9 search found him. He ran, jumped a fence into the yard of a home, and shot himself as officers closed in. Medics who worked on him lost his pulse several times and brought him back each time. He never recovered.
In the days between the shooting and his death, the case turned into something else. Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Brown had been a confidential informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. At a press conference on Wednesday, February 26, Craig said Brown had also signed up as an informant with a Detroit police and Drug Enforcement Administration task force, which paid him $150 once for a tip about a southwest Detroit gang. The tip went nowhere, Craig said, and the task force never used him again.
Brown was on federal probation at the time over a 2014 gun arrest, and he had violated it more than once. A federal court spokesman told The Detroit News that he had been allowed to remain free at the request of an unnamed federal law enforcement agency. U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider pushed back the next day. "So far, I have seen no evidence of that," he said in a statement.
What the record does show is a hearing on October 29, 2019. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman was told about Brown's dangerousness, acknowledged that "he's had a hard time following the law and the rules," and decided not to send him back to prison. About three months later, police say, the shootings began.
His criminal history went back to the late 1990s, FOX 2 reported, and earlier cases, including a second-degree homicide charge and weapons charges, had ended in plea deals and dismissals. The charges over the deaths of Dorian Patterson and Kimberly Green died with him.
Brown was charged with two murders and was never tried or convicted. The four other killings in this story are attributed to him by police and were never charged. Reports at the time gave differing dates for parts of the timeline; the dates used here are those The Detroit News attributed to police.
Sources
- Crime spree murder suspect Kenyel Brown dies, The Detroit News
- Suspect in 6 murders Kenyel Brown has died, FOX 2 Detroit