COVINGTON - Moments after learning that Donnell Brown had been killed inside a Greenup Street apartment, the 56-year-old’s family said they knew who was to blame.
Hours later, Covington Police agreed.
Early Friday police arrested three people and charged them with killing, decapitating and dismembering Brown inside the green brick apartment at Greenup and Pleasant streets.
About 2:45 p.m. Thursday a man doing work on an apartment inside a green brick house at Greenup and Pleasant streets found the body and called police, said Lt. Col. Spike Jones, Covington Police spokesman.
Tiffany Herrera, 27, and Austin Eash, 21, were being held in the Kenton County Detention Center on Friday without bail.
A 17-year-old boy was also arrested and is being held in the Campbell County Juvenile Detention Center, said Lt. Col. Spike Jones, Covington Police spokesman.
All three are charged with murder, abuse of corpse, tampering with evidence and theft.
An autopsy was performed Friday but police did not release the cause of death. Brown’s estranged wife Sharon Brown said her husband’s head was cut off and that this legs were severed. Jones would only say that the body had been mutilated.
It’s possible that the suspects were in the process of trying to conceal the body, but detectives are still investigating what took place in the apartment, Jones said.
Brown’s body was discovered about 2:45 p.m. Thursday afternoon when a man came to work on the front apartment in the Greenup Street house.
When police arrived, Herrera and Eash were inside their apartment in same building.
They were taken into custody less than an hour later and charged just after midnight.
Brown’s family members said Thursday that they suspected that the woman named Tiffany that Brown had been seeing and her boyfriend had something to do with his death.
Donnell Brown had been living in Covington since August when he and Sharon Brown became estranged, Sharon Brown said.
Brown lived with his son Denny and his wife. But detectives say he had been spending time in the apartment where his body was found, said Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders.
“He was seen at that location a good deal,” Sanders said.
Eash and Herrera lived in an apartment around the side of the house.
Denny Brown said his father had been seeing Herrera for a about a year. He and his siblings did not approve of their father’s relationship with Herrera and warned him to stay away from her.
Donnell Brown left his son’s house early Monday without taking his cell phone charger or heart medication.
On Wednesday, the same day that Sharon Brown reported him missing, Denny Brown’s wife Melissa went to the Greenup Street apartment with another of Brown’s son looking for him.
Herrera answered the door but would not let them in, Melissa Brown said Thursday afternoon.
“She said ‘I don’t know I haven’t talked to him,’” Melissa Brown said. Herrera then changed her story and told Melissa Brown that she had talked to Brown.
According to Melissa Brown, Herrera said that Donnell Brown told her to tell his sons he loved them and the he wanted to be with his mother who is dead.
Denny Brown said he now believes Herrera wanted the family to think that Brown killed himself.
Neighbors in the area said they recalled Eash walking around with a large knife in recent days.
Eash has been convicted of possession of marijuana three times in the last three years, court records show. His only other arrests were for traffic violations.
Herrera has been convicted of theft three times. In June, she served four days in the Kenton County jail on a theft charge, according to court records. In 2008, she was ordered to stay out of Walmart for two years after being convicted of shoplifting.
Donnell Brown also had a criminal record; in August 2006, Brown was convicted of first-degree trafficking a controlled substance in Boone County, according to the Kentucky Department of Corrections.
He was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after less than six months on shock probation, a program under which first-time offenders can gain release because a judge believes that the shock of incarceration will prevent them from committing another crime.
Herrera and Eash are scheduled to appear in Kenton District Court on Tuesday.
Sanders said he plans to try the juvenile in adult court.
The teen is the fourth juvenile charged with murder this year in Covington.
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