Angel Brown

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Speaker 2 A father's life is cut short on a desolate highway.

Speaker 4 You've got a dark horse running at you. You're not going to see anything until it is right in front of you.

Speaker 5 He was killed instantly.

Speaker 2 What seemed like just a tragic accident would open the door for jealousy, greed, and a twisted attempt at murder.

Speaker 6 I'm taking my rhymes, right? I'm thinking if I don't do it, she's going to have somebody to do it.

Speaker 7 It's human nature to say, wait a minute, this person has a criminal record. Is he really trustworthy?

Speaker 8 But listen, you want him to find the body or you don't want him to disappear?

Speaker 2 Disappear, father.

Speaker 4 She wants this done and she wants it done now.

Speaker 2 To avoid further bloodshed, detectives must fight a potent thirst for vengeance.

Speaker 10 I've always hated her. He hated her.
We've always hated her.

Speaker 7 The motive was, this woman is about to take everything from me, wants to take everything from me, and I'm going to kill her.

Speaker 11 So I don't think that you can hire someone to commit murder in a small town and not become notorious for it.

Speaker 2 November 18th, 2011, Ash Dabula County, Ohio.

Speaker 2 It's just after 10 p.m. and 45-year-old Daniel Posey Brown is traveling down remote State Route 193 in northern Ohio.

Speaker 7 Route 193 runs pretty much the full length of the county, which means it runs about 35 miles or so. It's a two-lane road.

Speaker 11 On either side, you would have pastures and cornfields, barns with silos and farmhouses, and the occasional convenience store.

Speaker 12 It's not unusual to be the only car on the road.

Speaker 11 Daniel Brown is driving home. He's on his way home from work through rural Ashtabila County.

Speaker 2 In the seat beside Daniel is a present for his seven-year-old son, D'Artagnan.

Speaker 11 His son had just gotten an A on a spelling test and he was excited to go home and give D'Artagnan this gift.

Speaker 2 As Daniel continues his drive, his wife Angel calls him. They speak briefly before she hands the phone off to their young son.

Speaker 2 Moments later, the quiet dark highway erupts in chaos.

Speaker 11 Out of nowhere, a chestnut-colored horse runs out into the middle of the road.

Speaker 11 Daniel's car hits the horse and the horse is killed instantly. Daniel's car drives off the side of the road, flips, and hits a guardrail.

Speaker 2 Within minutes, Ohio state troopers are notified of the accident and race to the scene hoping to save Daniel Brown.

Speaker 11 Bystanders dialed 911, got the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and troopers are immediately dispatched to the crash. The scene would be chaos.
Absolute chaos.

Speaker 2 Several miles away, Daniel's young son has no way of knowing what just happened.

Speaker 14 The phone just went blank.

Speaker 14 As soon as I said the phone went blank, my mom took the phone back from me.

Speaker 14 And said he probably just hung up. I went to start crying and she told told me not to cry, that it's fine

Speaker 14 and not to worry about it.

Speaker 2 As the rescuers scramble to save Daniel's life, no one could know a series of dark events would begin to develop in the distance.

Speaker 7 It all just took off from there. So there's many, many questions, and the job now is to get them answered.

Speaker 2 Born in 1965, Daniel Posey grew up in northern Ohio.

Speaker 4 We just really always had a very close relationship. Danny could always talk to me, and he always did.

Speaker 4 Dan and his mom, Colleen, were always close. He was a mama's boy for sure.

Speaker 4 He loved the dirt bikes and motorcycles.

Speaker 4 He played the drums through school. He was a character.
He just had a charisma about him. You know, he just had this way.

Speaker 2 For 17-year-old Lisa Guthrie, 21-year-old Daniel seemed like the total package and they began dating.

Speaker 2 Two years later, Daniel learned Lisa was pregnant with their first son.

Speaker 4 They ended up getting married and then he got a job and worked for his dad at Madison Muffler. His dad was an excellent mechanic and he picked that up from his dad.

Speaker 4 Then later on, in roughly 1994, him and I

Speaker 4 started up our own business, which was a tanning salon. And we started that from scratch and built that into a nice business.

Speaker 2 In the years that followed, the couple welcomed two more children into the world.

Speaker 4 I have three children,

Speaker 4 two boys and a girl, and they are the love of my life. Dan was an amazing father.

Speaker 4 In

Speaker 4 the whole time that we were married,

Speaker 4 never once did he not put his kids first above everything.

Speaker 2 Juggling a full-time job as a mechanic and running the tanning salon, their growing family proved to be too stressful for the couple.

Speaker 2 By 1996, after a decade together, Daniel and Lisa had drifted apart.

Speaker 4 I told him that I wanted a divorce. That time in my life was somewhat of a blur because of the stress that I was under.

Speaker 2 Later that year, at a venue called the Queen of Hearts, Daniel found a new queen of his own, bathed in neon.

Speaker 11 Angel Brown was a dancer at a local club, and she and Daniel met while she was performing.

Speaker 16 She was 19 years old at the time, and it was at that point that she met Daniel, who was 12 years her senior.

Speaker 4 She's got a good personality. She's real bubbly and outgoing.

Speaker 2 Over the next few months, Daniel started spending more hours at the club and less time with his kids. Angel quickly had a hold on Daniel's heart.

Speaker 2 Born in 1977, Angel's relationship with her family didn't exactly mirror Daniel's.

Speaker 4 She told me that when she was little, that her mother would get mad at her often.

Speaker 16 She had kind of a rough...

Speaker 7 upbringing.

Speaker 2 Angel wanted a better life. With little money or education to propel her forward, Angel made the most of what she did have, a ferocious fighting spirit.

Speaker 7 She had this desire to become a boxer, so she took some boxing lessons.

Speaker 4 She had a couple of bouts trying to turn professional.

Speaker 2 After a year in the ring and a losing record, her boxing career was down for the count. At 19, Angel was at a crossroads.

Speaker 2 Until she met 31-year-old Daniel Posey, and everything changed in a heartbeat.

Speaker 4 He loved her dearly. He would write her letters and tell her how much he loved her.
She just had a hold on him.

Speaker 2 Daniel put his divorce from Lisa on the fast track. Just a few months after the papers were finalized, he and Angel drove off into the sunset.

Speaker 4 They just took off. They got in their car and left for Las Vegas and never looked back.

Speaker 2 After three years, the glittering lights of Vegas grew dim. The couple moved back to Ohio, where they married in 2003.
And just a year later, Angel gave birth to their son, D'Artagnan.

Speaker 17 Dan and Angel, when Dar was born, were wonderful parents. Their goal was just to love him, take care of him, and be excellent parents.

Speaker 2 With their family complete, Angel asked Daniel for a unique show of his devotion.

Speaker 17 Angel wanted Dan to change his last name to her last name. That's what Dan had did.

Speaker 2 With her days in the ring and nights at the club behind her, Angel worked to reinvent her image.

Speaker 17 Angel was very much into caring and taking care of her son D'Artagnan. She enjoyed being a mother.

Speaker 7 She belonged to the PTA and did things like that for her son. She was a stay-at-home mom.

Speaker 17 Angel and Dan seemed to be very happy planning their life and their future.

Speaker 14 I knew my dad as a guy that would do anything he could for his family.

Speaker 14 And any time he could get,

Speaker 14 he would like spend it with me. I know he was trying to give me the best life he could.

Speaker 2 But on the night of November 18th, 2011, seven-year-old D'Artagnan's last memory of his father is a phone call that falls silent.

Speaker 11 Daniel's driving home when a horse runs out into the middle of the road and he hits it dead on.

Speaker 2 When highway patrolmen peer into the wreckage of the vehicle, it's obvious there's nothing they can do.

Speaker 7 He was killed instantly.

Speaker 11 Hitting a horse head-on in a car is like hitting a wall. Daniel probably never saw it coming.
He died of trauma to the head, neck, and trunk.

Speaker 2 While the scene appears to simply be a tragic accident, it would create a chain reaction that would rip two families apart.

Speaker 11 A man crashes into a horse and dies. End of story, right? If you look at all of this, it's all about Daniel, but it's never really about Daniel.
It's really all about Angel Brown.

Speaker 2 Coming up, the aftermath of the accident contains a blueprint for murder.

Speaker 4 This is unique. This isn't something that somebody walks into a sheriff's department, tells people every day.

Speaker 4 I didn't know how far she was going to take it or what she was going to do.

Speaker 2 And an unexpected phone call reveals a hatred that had been gruing for years.

Speaker 18 He had been contacted by a acquaintance of his and asked to kill an individual.

Speaker 2 On November 18th, 2011, after colliding with a horse in the middle of a dark highway, 45-year-old Daniel Brown is pronounced dead on the scene.

Speaker 11 They try to help Daniel, but but there's nothing that can be done. They start

Speaker 11 recovering, you know, the body, trying to help and getting people off the roadways.

Speaker 2 Police get word that the horse belongs to a member of an Amish community just up the road.

Speaker 11 A Amish

Speaker 11 party is happening at the Dorset Community Center. And the horses are generally tied up.
outside the community center as the party is happening inside. A horse, a chestnut-colored horse, breaks loose.

Speaker 7 The horse broke loose and started galloping down the road.

Speaker 19 So the people that owned the horse were trying to chase it, follow it, try and corral it back to where it was supposed to go or corral it off the road.

Speaker 2 Sadly, the horse made its way onto the highway just as Daniel Brown was approaching.

Speaker 4 This saw probably happened within 30 to 60 seconds. He's probably going 65 miles an hour down 193.
It's pitch black. You've got a dark horse running at you.

Speaker 4 I mean, you're not going to see anything until it is right in front of you.

Speaker 17 It was a complete freak accident.

Speaker 2 As state patrolmen wrap up their investigation, they face the grim task of notifying the victims' families.

Speaker 2 They find Daniel's wife, Angel, at the couple's home with their seven-year-old son D'Artagnan.

Speaker 14 A cop pulled in and when she went and answered the door

Speaker 14 and I was standing right there, he said

Speaker 14 that my dad had died

Speaker 14 and she told me that and I started crying.

Speaker 2 Angel notifies Daniel's mother.

Speaker 4 I was in bed.

Speaker 4 It was 11 o'clock at night and I had to work next morning and she called and Angel said, Dan's dead.

Speaker 4 And I said, what?

Speaker 4 I was shaken. I was shaking and I was crying.
It just hurt.

Speaker 4 I just love Danny dearly. I had a special love for him.

Speaker 2 In the days that follow, news of the horrific crash grips Ashtabula County. Reporter Margie Netzel interviews Angel for a story in the Ashtabula Star Beacon.

Speaker 11 Angel talks about her grief. She talks about losing her husband.
She talks about their relationship and how devoted they are to each other, how devoted Daniel is to D'Artagnan.

Speaker 2 Weeks pass, and eventually the headlines fade as Angel and D'Artagnan try to move on.

Speaker 17 Tried talking to her to see if Angel needed anything. She said she was fine.

Speaker 11 She was just trying to piece things together and figure out things on her own what's really interesting about this story we thought it was over that should be the end of the story but the angel brown story never seemed to end

Speaker 2 on january 11th 2012 two months after daniel brown's death A man arrives at the Astabula County Sheriff's Office claiming to have information about a potential murder for hire.

Speaker 18 An individual named James Hawley came into the Ashtabila County Sheriff's Office and asked to speak with investigators about a situation that he had become involved in.

Speaker 2 Detectives know James all too well.

Speaker 18 Mr. Hawley also goes by the name Hawk.

Speaker 18 That was his name when he was a boxer. He was a professional boxer for a period of time.

Speaker 18 Had several pro fights and then after he stopped fighting, he ran a gym a boxing gym in Astrabula where he taught boxing to people for a period of time

Speaker 2 for local law enforcement James Hawk Hawley had a reputation and a rap sheet

Speaker 18 mr. Hawley has a conviction for arson several years prior to this he was convicted for setting a fireworks factory on fire.

Speaker 16 James Hawley did go to prison for about 15 years.

Speaker 18 When Mr. Hawley pled guilty to this charge of arson for setting this fireworks factory on fire, he was not cooperative with authorities.

Speaker 18 He would not detail why he set this building on fire or at whose request he set this building on fire.

Speaker 2 While detectives are well aware of James' nefarious past, he tells detectives he has information he wants to share about a different crime.

Speaker 18 Mr. Hawley said that he had been contacted by a acquaintance of his that he had a relationship with a long time ago in his life, and that that acquaintance of his had asked him to kill an individual.

Speaker 18 James Hawley said that the individual had asked him to kill Lisa Luke.

Speaker 4 This is unique. This isn't something that somebody walks into a sheriff's sheriff's department or a police department and tells people every day.

Speaker 2 James says the woman offered him $4,000 to kill Lisa, and he admits to accepting the money.

Speaker 16 James Hawley took his $4,000 and went to a casino in Erie, Pennsylvania, and basically had spent the four grand.

Speaker 16 He had no problem taking $4,000 from somebody and being on his way, but at no time did he want to get involved in a homicide.

Speaker 7 She supposedly hired him to commit a murder, and he was afraid that if he didn't do it, that she would find somebody else to do it, and there would, in fact, be a murder and a death.

Speaker 7 And had he not said anything, so he felt, you know, I better come in and at least blow the whistle on this

Speaker 5 supposed plot.

Speaker 12 She's serious. You see what I'm saying? That's what bothered me.

Speaker 16 It was a girl that he used to have as an amateur boxer, and he stated he hadn't talked to her probably in over 15 years.

Speaker 2 Investigators ask James the identity of his former pupil.

Speaker 18 The person that had approached Mr. Hawley was Angel Brown.

Speaker 2 Investigators know the name Angel Brown, but in their eyes, Angel is a grieving widow, not a cold-blooded killer. Is this new information somehow connected to Daniel Brown's tragic death?

Speaker 18 Mr. Hawley said that Angel Brown told him that she was having some problems with her deceased husband's ex-wife.
There was an issue with his estate. In order to remedy this, she wanted Lisa Luke gone.

Speaker 18 She wanted Lisa Luke killed.

Speaker 2 Coming up, detectives reach out to Angel Brown's alleged target.

Speaker 4 I started shaking uncontrollably.

Speaker 4 I was just in serious shock.

Speaker 2 And authorities launch a covert operation to uncover the strange truth.

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Speaker 2 On January 11th, 2012, the Ashtabula County Sheriff's Office receives a visit from a man claiming local widow Angel Brown tried to hire him as a hitman.

Speaker 16 James was claiming that he had been hired to kill her husband's ex-wife, Lisa Luke.

Speaker 2 Investigators consider the possibility the ex-con may have ulterior motives.

Speaker 7 It's human nature to say, wait a minute, this person has a criminal record. He obviously committed a crime in the past.
Is he really trustworthy with what he's telling you now?

Speaker 2 James admits he took the money, but says he never intended to murder anyone. But ultimately, a guilty conscience led him into the sheriff's office.

Speaker 6 Meka, I'm just gonna take the money and run.

Speaker 6 I'm thinking if I don't do it, she's gonna have somebody to do it.

Speaker 2 As they continue the interview, James tells investigators he's just received a text from Angel.

Speaker 7 James Holly gets a text saying, forget about that thing. Keep a thousand for your trouble.

Speaker 2 Investigators try to make sense of Angel's text.

Speaker 18 Maybe she wanted to end her association with James Holly and she wanted to find somebody else to kill Lisa Luke. Or did she even want to kill Lisa Luke herself?

Speaker 2 In an effort to find out what Angel is really thinking, investigators ask James to call her.

Speaker 12 The hit her up and give her a call. Tell her the money's spent, you ain't getting it back, and make sure that she's, she

Speaker 12 does not want to do anything with it.

Speaker 5 Y'all kill me.

Speaker 5 Y'all killed me.

Speaker 4 A conversation is arranged between James, Polly, and Angel Brown where James says, I already spent the money. You're not going to get the money back.

Speaker 18 Are you sure?

Speaker 8 You want the done is done i mean you just let me know and i gotta make sure me and you're on the same damn page man because i can't afford to get jammed up oh i know that's what i'm saying okay i can't you know

Speaker 12 eventually during the course of that angel brown says go ahead and do it go ahead and finish out all right all right all right i'm gonna hit you up as soon as it's done okay all right bye

Speaker 18 After this first phone call ends, we know that Angel Brown actually wants Lisa Luke dead.

Speaker 2 While the question of why Angel wants Lisa dead remains elusive, detectives' more pressing concern is capturing Angel on camera.

Speaker 7 If it was possible to get Angel Brown on video agreeing that James Holly should go forth with the murder and indicating that she, in fact, had paid him some money, this would be sort of the icing on the cake with regard to the evidence.

Speaker 7 Pictures worth a thousand words.

Speaker 22 We're going to get you wired up and be thinking in your head about how you can have another conversation with her as far as how this would go to talk to her or report a conversation with her like a face-to-face conversation.

Speaker 2 Two hours later, James is outfitted with a camera and microphone.

Speaker 2 With an undercover officer by his side, he drives to Angel's home.

Speaker 7 There was a detective in the car with James Holly. He just slumped down where she couldn't see him.

Speaker 16 James meets with Angel Brown at the front door of her residence. Angel comes out.
She's got concern about being caught for this crime.

Speaker 21 And if anybody gets busted, nobody's coming back on me either.

Speaker 16 She says she'd watched a crime show and it made her really scared about getting caught.

Speaker 9 I want to know why.

Speaker 16 We weren't too concerned because it was pretty good equipment, so we weren't worried about her finding anything.

Speaker 16 Once she did that, she became a little bit more confident and having conversation with her.

Speaker 4 In order to ensure that Angel Brown wanted to go forward, there were a couple different times where James Holly said to her, are you sure about this? Are you sure this is what you want done?

Speaker 4 And each time, Angel Brown said, yes.

Speaker 8 Are you wanting to leave it alone?

Speaker 21 Well, not if I'm not going to get in trouble.

Speaker 4 She wants this done and she wants it done now. You can see it all over her face and her body language.
She was not kidding around.

Speaker 6 10 o'clock. This should be done.

Speaker 22 All right.

Speaker 9 You good? Yep. All right.

Speaker 2 With that, James gets back in the car and leaves.

Speaker 2 Investigators are certain that Angel is determined to see Lisa Luke dead.

Speaker 2 But why she wants her husband's ex-wife murdered remains a complete mystery.

Speaker 16 I wanted to have a meeting with Lisa Luke. We had to let Lisa know that she was in fact a target of a homicide.

Speaker 2 Detectives bring Lisa in for an interview where they fill her in on Angel's plot.

Speaker 4 I started shaking uncontrollably.

Speaker 4 I was just in serious shock and I'm just trying to get myself like, you know, under control and calm down.

Speaker 2 Lisa explains that during her eight-year marriage to Daniel, he was devoted to their family until Angel drove a wedge between them while their child was fighting a life-threatening illness.

Speaker 4 Then we found out that my

Speaker 4 son had leukemia, and that's when everything

Speaker 4 changed in our relationship. That was to me the start of it.

Speaker 4 He came to the hospital one night and he was all dressed up, like the dressed up when him and I are going out somewhere nice.

Speaker 4 And so I decided to follow him from the hospital and I followed him to the strip club where Angel Brown worked.

Speaker 4 And that was the first that I truly knew that anything was going on.

Speaker 2 By November 1996, Daniel and Lisa were divorced. For the first few months, Daniel attempted to stay in contact with his kids.

Speaker 19 We would talk on the phone, but after that, after those phone calls ended, he really just kind of disappeared.

Speaker 7 Lisa Luke certainly wanted, and rightfully so, Daniel to pay child support for the kids, which apparently he didn't.

Speaker 2 From then on, whenever Lisa contacted Daniel about his child child support obligations, she was only allowed to talk to Angel.

Speaker 4 She literally told me on the phone, you are not going to take one bite of food out of my child's mouth for your children. That's how she viewed it.
I was taking money from her child

Speaker 4 by Dan Payne Child Support.

Speaker 18 There was some

Speaker 18 contention between the two families. Before Daniel's death, he was over $30,000 behind in child support.

Speaker 2 According to Lisa Luke, Angel's behavior was becoming more dangerous.

Speaker 4 Angel would periodically throughout the years call me

Speaker 4 and harass me, threaten me, tell me to drop the child support.

Speaker 4 That's what led to me deciding to drop everything that had to do with child support because I felt that she was becoming more more of a danger.

Speaker 4 I didn't know how far she was going to take it or what she was going to do.

Speaker 2 When Daniel died, Lisa learned that her kids, now in their late teens and early 20s, might have a chance to recoup some of the money that was owed to them.

Speaker 4 Dan had a life insurance policy through his work for $15,000 that was given to Angel after his death.

Speaker 4 And then she she had taken out a life insurance policy of her own for $240,000.

Speaker 2 Those benefits were payable to Daniel's estate upon his death.

Speaker 2 But when Lisa checked on the status of Daniel's probate case to execute his will, she discovered Angel had made a bold and unexpected move.

Speaker 4 As the executor of the estate, she legally has to list all of his next of kin, and she chose not not to. She left two of my kids off of it.

Speaker 4 So it only leaves one motive, and that motive is money.

Speaker 2 Coming up, Angel and Lisa's feud goes one more round.

Speaker 4 I believe that that's what put her over the edge. That was the same day, literally the same dates around the documents, that she contacted James.

Speaker 2 And Angel has her say.

Speaker 10 I was just talking and then he flustrated and made a joke out of it.

Speaker 2 On January 11, 2012, Ashtabula Sheriff's Department investigators capture 34-year-old widow Angel Brown, appearing to sign off on the murder of her deceased husband's ex-wife.

Speaker 6 You want to leave it alone?

Speaker 21 Well, not if I'm not going to get in trouble.

Speaker 2 According to Angel's intended victim, Lisa Luke, Angel was trying to prevent two of Lisa's children from inheriting their share of Daniel's estate.

Speaker 4 That's when I hired my attorney, took him birth certificates, everything that was required. He then contacted her attorney and said, you got to change the estate.
These kids got to be on there.

Speaker 2 Lisa's attorney also discovered that Daniel's life insurance wasn't the only money her kids were missing out on.

Speaker 18 After Daniel's death, there was a wrongful death civil lawsuit filed against the owner of the horse that had caused the crash.

Speaker 18 There was a settlement in that lawsuit for which Daniel's estate received around $200,000.

Speaker 2 According to Lisa, on January 9th, her attorney contacted Angel and told her that she was going to have to share both the insurance and the settlement money.

Speaker 4 I believe that that's what put her over the edge. That was the same day, literally the same dates around the documents, that she contacted James.

Speaker 2 Investigators believe they have just zeroed in on Angel's motive.

Speaker 16 Maybe she felt that if she killed Lisa, that there would be nobody there to further the fight for the children to get any part of the settlement.

Speaker 4 Greediness. She hated me and my kids enough that she didn't want us to have one dime.

Speaker 2 Detectives have enough to place Angel under arrest. But before they do, they make one final move to tighten up their case.

Speaker 16 We want to make one more phone call and have James Hawley tell Angel Brown, hey, Lisa Luke's dead.

Speaker 16 And we want to see what kind of response that she has and basically what she wants done at that point. So James Hawley makes the phone call.

Speaker 9 Hello? Hey, baby, hey, she's dead.

Speaker 8 Listen, you want them to find the body, or you don't want to disappear?

Speaker 21 Disappeared, probably.

Speaker 21 Like I said,

Speaker 21 you know, I just don't want nothing to come back on me.

Speaker 2 Mere hours after James Hawley first showed up at the sheriff's office, investigators head to Angel's home armed with an arrest warrant.

Speaker 14 Me and my mom were sitting in the living room. The cops pulled in, knocked on the door and said, Angel Brown, you're under arrest.

Speaker 18 When we placed Angel Brown in the handcuffs, she was surprised to say the least. She started crying uncontrollably.
And at one point in time, she started screaming.

Speaker 18 She was going to take everything from me. She was going to take everything from me.

Speaker 2 Investigators transport Angel to the Ashtabula Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 16 When Angel Brown was being booked, detectives recovered a receipt in her back pocket for a withdrawal of $20,000.

Speaker 16 The date was more important, and that date was January 10th. And January 10th was the same day that she went and met with James Hawley and paid him $4,000.

Speaker 2 When investigators sit down with Angel, she explains that in the months after the death of her husband, James Holly had become her rock.

Speaker 2 Angel claims that when she talked to James about Lisa, she was just unloading on a friend.

Speaker 18 This is your opportunity to explain your actions.

Speaker 25 I did!

Speaker 24 I told you why I was mad, but I was just talking and then you're frustrated.

Speaker 18 She started to say that she was joking, that this was all fun and games, that her and James joked around like this all the time. Like, wouldn't it be funny if somebody killed Lisa Luke?

Speaker 18 This was all just a big joke.

Speaker 24 I thought it was a joke.

Speaker 24 Like, I'm gonna really sit there and think that wasn't a joke.

Speaker 24 I thought it was a joke. No.

Speaker 18 Nobody thinks this is a joke.

Speaker 2 Realizing that a confession isn't coming, investigators confront Angel with her final phone call with James.

Speaker 16 As words were, she's dead.

Speaker 18 Do you want her to be found or do you want her to disappear? I did.

Speaker 25 And I thought he was joking. I didn't think that he was telling the truth.
I thought he'd start all right back.

Speaker 14 On the video, there's no...

Speaker 18 There is

Speaker 18 you patting him down for a wire.

Speaker 18 How is that thinking that he's joking?

Speaker 5 Play that in a courtroom and...

Speaker 21 I wasn't patting him down for a wire. Okay.

Speaker 2 in a last-ditch effort to get angel to come clean investigators ask about the large sum of cash she withdrew from the bank the day before

Speaker 2 the same day james holly claims she gave him four thousand dollars

Speaker 16 she had told us that she made a ten thousand dollar withdrawal from her bank account but that was for christmas presents and to pay some bills that withdrawal receipt of twenty thousand dollars didn't match the fact that she had, during the whole interrogation, kept telling us it was $10,000 that she withdrew when, in fact, it was double that.

Speaker 2 Angel admits that the evidence looks incriminating, but continues to maintain her innocence. I know it looks so bad.

Speaker 18 There's all kinds of motivation.

Speaker 12 I mean, there's evidence on phone conversations.

Speaker 10 It looks really bad. I know how bad it looks.

Speaker 2 The only thing Angel doesn't deny is the bad blood between her and Lisa Luke.

Speaker 9 I've always hated her. He hated her.
We've always hated her.

Speaker 10 She hates us. You know, why couldn't have been her instead of my husband?

Speaker 2 Following the interview, Angel is charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

Speaker 2 News of her arrest provides relief to Lisa, but her sense of security is only temporary.

Speaker 16 Angel Brown was given the opportunity to make bail. And with our Constitution, you do have a right to make bail.

Speaker 4 I find out that they let her out on bail. And I'm like, wait, what?

Speaker 4 Okay, how is she out on bail?

Speaker 4 I couldn't believe it. She hires a hitman to kill me.

Speaker 4 I was absolutely livid at this point because I'm helpless. There's nothing I could do about it.

Speaker 2 Coming up, Lisa's fears come to fruition when detectives make an ominous discovery.

Speaker 16 It has a newspaper article with Lisa Luke's picture has written above it, dead.

Speaker 2 And a family still searches for answers.

Speaker 4 What did I do to you to make you hate me that bad that you want me dead?

Speaker 2 After being arrested in a foiled murder-for-hire plot that targeted the first wife of her deceased husband, 34-year-old Angel Brown is out on bond awaiting trial.

Speaker 2 For would-be victim Lisa Luke, it's like living in a nightmare.

Speaker 4 We lived in fear all the time because we never knew who was outside our house, who was still watching.

Speaker 4 Nothing like that. There was just no sense of security whatsoever.
I just was constantly watching what I was doing.

Speaker 2 As Lisa and her family remain on edge, authorities in Ashtabula, Ohio prepare for trial. Among the items in their possession is a box that Angel's son grabbed at the time of her arrest.

Speaker 14 They said go grab a couple of things.

Speaker 14 That's when I went in and grabbed her box of stuff because I remember Angel always saying that if anything happened, that was the one thing that was the most important. We had to make sure we got it.

Speaker 14 So I went and grabbed it and when they looked inside of it, they immediately took it away.

Speaker 16 I didn't include some drug paraphernalia and some drugs.

Speaker 2 But there's more.

Speaker 16 It has a newspaper article and with Lisa Luke's picture that has written above it, dead.

Speaker 16 That obviously shows a huge, huge amount of hatred that Angel Brown has towards Lisa Luke. and obviously shows some motive that she wanted her dead.

Speaker 2 In August of 2013, 36-year-old Angel's trial gets underway.

Speaker 16 During the trial, James stated that Angel Brown had a long history of dealing with Lisa Luke. She hated Lisa Luke to the core.

Speaker 16 She did not care for the fact that Lisa Luke was always involved in her life because of the fact that Daniel was behind on child support.

Speaker 16 She felt that Lisa Luke was harassing her at times and she had gotten to the point where she just wanted her out of her life.

Speaker 2 James Holly isn't the only powerful witness to take the stand.

Speaker 4 I went up on the stand and I told my story and

Speaker 4 She made sure to keep, Angel made sure to keep her head down. She never tried to look me in the eye.

Speaker 7 She laid the foundation. The motive was greed.
The motive was hatred. The motive was this woman is about to take everything from me, wants to take everything from me, and I'm going to kill her.

Speaker 2 When it comes time for the defense, Angel takes the stand. Her testimony hits a familiar note.

Speaker 7 She's trying to convince the jury that this was all a joke. I didn't mean it.

Speaker 7 You know, it was all a joke.

Speaker 2 The jury convenes.

Speaker 2 Just two hours later, they announce they have reached a verdict.

Speaker 4 When they came back guilty on both counts, it was a huge relief, not just for us, but for Lisa.

Speaker 4 When the verdict was read, I

Speaker 4 was so happy.

Speaker 4 The judge at sentencing gave Angel Brown nine years.

Speaker 4 It wasn't the maximum, but under Ohio law, it was probably as close as he could get to the maximum.

Speaker 2 Following Angel's conviction, D'Artagnan goes to live with his cousin Linda and her husband.

Speaker 17 We are so proud of Dar and who he is and the man that he's become. We tell him he can be anything and achieve anything he wants in life.

Speaker 14 My life now with Linda and Lee is really good. When mom sends cards and stuff,

Speaker 14 I write, refuse, return the sender on them.

Speaker 14 And I written a letter to the magistrate, I wrote a letter to the prison for her to stop writing me, but she still keeps writing me. I'm not afraid of her.

Speaker 14 I don't care that when she gets released, as long as she stays away from me,

Speaker 2 as for James Holly, Lisa Luke believes she owes him a debt of gratitude.

Speaker 4 My thoughts about James Hawley are that essentially he quite possibly saved my life.

Speaker 4 He did the right thing.

Speaker 4 There's always a passion at the bottom of a murder. And in this case, that passion was hate.

Speaker 4 What did I do to you to make you hate me that bad that you want me dead? I didn't steal your husband.

Speaker 4 You rode along, come on in, and took mine. And that comes from her place of insecurity.

Speaker 13 That

Speaker 4 comes from her own mind.

Speaker 1 Angel Brown served her nine-year sentence in the Ohio Department of Corrections.

Speaker 4 She was released on supervision in 2022 at the age of 45.

Speaker 3 On Boxing Day 2018, 20-year-old Joy Morgan was last seen at her church, Israel United in Christ, or IUIC. I just went on my Snapchat and I just see her face plastered everywhere.

Speaker 3 This is the missing sister, the true story of a woman betrayed by those she trusted most.

Speaker 23 IUIC is my family and like the best family that I've ever had.

Speaker 3 But IUIC isn't like most churches.

Speaker 2 This is a devilish cult. You know, when you get that feeling where you're just, I don't want to be here, I want to get out.
It's like that feeling of like, I want to go hang out.

Speaker 3 I'm Charlie Brent Coast Cuff, and after years of investigating Joy's case, I need to know what really happened to Joy.

Speaker 3 Binge all episodes of The Missing Sister exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

Speaker 3 Start your free trial of Wondery Plus on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or in the Wondery app.