Cyntoia Brown

A documentary entitled Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story was released on Netflix on April 29, 2020.

In a letter asking Governor Haslam to deny clemency, the lead detective in the case of Allen's murder wrote that on August 7, Brown had a neighbor drive her to the Walmart where she had left Allen's truck. The detective says that Brown asked the neighbor to drive her back to Allen's house so that she could steal more items but he refused. The neighbor reportedly told the detective that Brown told him that she “shot somebody in the head for fifty thousand dollars and some guns” and that she "shot somebody in the head last night and blew his brains out." The detective further asserted that Brown told the neighbor that the killing was a "fat lick" (robbery) and that she had been "waiting on a lick like that all week." According to the detective, after the neighbor told his roommate about the incident Brown called him on the phone and threatened him, saying “you better stop running your fucking mouth about my business or I’ll get to you too.”

On August 14, Brown was taken to the Western Mental Health Institute for an evaluation. According to court documents, Brown allegedly attacked and threatened a nurse at the Mental Health Institute after the nurse did not allow her to call her adoptive mother. The nurse claimed that Brown jumped over her desk, grabbed her hair and face, and hit her, giving her several bruises and abrasions. During the attack, Brown allegedly told the nurse "I shot that man in the back of the head one time, bitch, I’m gonna shoot you in the back of the head three times. I’d love to hear your blood splatter on the wall." The nurse, along with another Western Mental Health Institute employee who witnessed the incident, testified at trial.

During the trial, Brown presented several witnesses on her behalf. One witness had previously dated Allen. During one alleged incident, Allen invited her into his home and began kissing her. The witness testified that she told Allen she did not want to have sex. She claimed that Allen then proceeded to rape her. There was another witness, a 17-year-old girl who worked at a restaurant, who the judge did not allow the jury to hear, labeling her testimony "irrelevant." According to this witness, Allen handed her his business card and wrote a personal message on the back saying, “You’re gorgeous. I’d love to take you out sometime, so let me know.” The witness further testified that other teens who worked at the restaurant felt uncomfortable serving Allen because of his flirtatious behavior with them.

On January 7, 2019, Haslam commuted Brown's sentence of life in prison to 15 years plus 10 years of supervised parole. Brown was released from prison on August 7. Haslam said his decision came "after careful consideration of what is a tragic and complex case" and further stated that "imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh." Friends and family of Allen did not approve of Governor Haslam's decision, writing on the Friends of Johnny Allen Facebook page "Our hearts are broken today as the Governor has decided to grant Johnny's murderer clemency. The activist mob with their repetition of Cyntoia's lies and slander managed to prevail against justice."

A memoir of Brown's 15 years in prison titled Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System was published by Atria Books on October 15, 2019.

Three jail inmates claim Brown spoke to them about the crime and confessed to killing Allen "just to see how it felt to kill somebody." One inmate later gave police a note Brown had allegedly given her which said: “everything is the truth, I swear it on my life except for ‘I thought he was getting a gun’ and the feeling of nervousness.” At trial, a forensic document examiner testified that, in his opinion, the note was written by Brown. The cellmate whom Brown had given the note to and spoken with also testified at trial.

On December 6, 2018, the Tennessee Supreme Court answered a question of law in conjunction with Brown's federal habeas corpus appeal, stating that she would be eligible for parole after serving 51 years. In response to the Tennessee Supreme Court's ruling, a wave of support resurged that encouraged Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to Grant Brown clemency. Letters and phone calls flooded the Governor's office and social media. Detective Charles Robinson wrote a seven-page letter urging Governor Haslam not to give Brown clemency. He wrote that "Cyntoia Brown did not commit this murder because she was a child sex slave as her advocates would like you to believe. Cyntoia Brown's motive for murdering Johnny Allen in his sleep was robbery." He also wrote "At the beginning of this investigation, I considered the possibility that Cyntoia Brown was justified in killing Johnny Allen. At the conclusion of this investigation, my findings were that she was not justified in killing Mr. Allen and her only motivation for the murder was robbery."

On November 21, 2017, Brown's case went viral following several high-profile celebrity social media posts expressing outrage over her sentence. Celebrities that posted include Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, T.I., Snoop Dogg, and LeBron James. In March 2018, it was announced that the Tennessee Board of Parole would hold a hearing on Brown's clemency petition, a move that only 2% of Tennessee clemency applicants see. The public hearing was held on May 28, 2018 at the Tennessee Prison for Women. At the hearing, several witnesses that knew Brown from prison testified on her behalf, including Lipscomb University faculty, her former prosecutor Preston Shipp, prison employees, local victim rights advocates, and a local nonprofit leader who ran a mentoring group for at risk teens with Brown. Allen's friend testified against clemency. Charles Robinson, a Nashville police detective who served as the lead detective in Allen's murder investigation, also testified against clemency for Brown. He told the board that he didn't believe there was any evidence to support the claim that Brown had been trafficked since she was 12 and that Allen's killing was unjustified. The parole board was divided, with two voting to Grant Brown clemency with her having already served 15 years, two voting that Brown's sentence should be reduced from 51 to 25 years, and two voting to deny clemency.

The producer of Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story, Dan Birman, continued to follow Brown's case and other instances of juveniles sentenced to long terms in a seven-part online video series in 2016–2017, "Sentencing Children," done in collaboration with the PBS series Independent Lens and reporter Anita Wadhwani at The Tennessean newspaper. Unused footage from these projects was repurposed into a Netflix Original documentary titled, "Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story."

Brown served her sentence at the Tennessee Prison for Women, a maximum security detention facility in Nashville, Tennessee. Under her original sentence, she would have been eligible for parole at age 67. In prison, Brown earned her GED with a score of 656 in March 2005, an associate degree in Liberal Arts with a 4.0 GPA in December 2015 from Lipscomb University, and a Bachelors of Professional Studies in Organizational Leadership with a 4.0 GPA in May 2019 from Lipscomb University.

Brown's former pimp, Garion L. McGlothen, also known as Gary McGlothen and Kut-Throat, died on March 30, 2005, at the age of 24, having been shot and killed by Quartez Hines. His story was featured in the 2011 documentary, Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story.

On the night of August 6, 2004, 16-year-old Brown met 43-year-old Johnny Michael Allen in the parking lot of a Sonic Drive-In on Murfreesboro Road in Nashville, Tennessee. Allen was a real estate agent. He also was a youth pastor and a Sunday school teacher and had started a homeless ministry at a local Baptist church. According to a detective on the case, Allen asked her if she was hungry and if she was "up for any action." The detective asserted that Brown answered yes to both questions and accepted Allen's offer to take her to his house. Brown and Allen ordered dinner and Allen drove the pair to his home. At a later hearing, Brown testified that she agreed to have sex with Allen for $150, but claimed that they never actually engaged in sexual intercourse. Allen's friends and family denied that he had tried to solicit Brown for sex, instead claiming that he was trying to help her. However, the lead prosecutor in the case, Jeff Burks stipulated that Allen picked Brown up to pay her for sex, stating, “That was a fact from start to finish.”

Brown was arrested and charged with homicide, aggravated robbery, handgun possession, and criminal impersonation. Despite being under 16 at the time of the killing, she was tried as an adult. This decision came from Metro Juvenile Court Judge Betty Adams Green on November 14, 2004, who argued that it was too much of a risk to the community to keep the 16-year-old in the Juvenile Court System.

Although raised in a loving home, Brown began to have encounters with the juvenile court system. She spent time with the state's Department of Children's Services between April 2001 and September 2003 after committing "crimes against a person, and crimes against property," according to spokeswoman Carla Aaron. While in custody of the DCS, Brown spent two years in DCS facilities, including a year at Woodland Hills Youth Development Center in Nashville. She fled these facilities several times, eventually ending up as a runaway on the streets of Nashville in August 2004. While a runaway, Brown met Garion L. McGlothen (also known by the street name Kut-Throat, often abbreviated to Kut or Cut), who began trafficking Brown. During this time, she lived at an InTown Suites hotel. Brown supported McGlothen and herself via involuntary prostitution. According to Brown, McGlothen threatened, beat, and raped her on multiple occasions.

Cyntoia Brown Long (born January 29, 1988) is an American woman who was convicted of the murder and robbery of Johnny Michael Allen. Brown, who was 16 years old at the time of the murder, claimed that Allen had paid her $150 to have sex with him, and that she feared for her life during their encounter, leading her to shoot him. Prosecutors argued that Brown killed Allen while he was sleeping in order to rob him. Brown was found guilty of robbing and murdering Allen and sentenced to life imprisonment. She would have been eligible for parole at the age of 67. After renewed interest in her case in 2017, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam commuted her original sentence to 15 years, and Brown was released on August 7, 2019. Her story is detailed in the 2011 documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story and in her memoir, Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System.

Cyntoia Brown Long was born at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on January 29, 1988. Her father is unknown. Her biological mother drank alcohol during her pregnancy. Brown's defense attorneys would later claim that this caused her to develop fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Following Brown's birth, her biological mother Georgina Mitchell began to use crack cocaine. Unable to care for her infant daughter, Mitchell placed the child up for adoption.