26 January 2021 :
Death sentence of Charles Brownlow commuted to life without parole. A Kaufman County court ruled that the state will not put to death a man responsible for Kaufman County history’s biggest mass murder. A judge had condemned Charles Brownlow for killing five people in October of 2013. Based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest guidance, the Kaufman County District Attorney says Brownlow does not meet the legal threshold to qualify for execution based on his mental capacity. The court automatically commuted his sentence to life without parole. On 20/05/2016 (see HoC) a Kaufman County jury sentenced Brownlow, then 39, Black, to death. He was convicted of capital murder in the Oct. 28, 2013, slaying of store clerk Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo. Brownlow is also accused of 4 other murders, all on the night of Oct. 28, 2013. Brownlow was 36 when he murdered his mother, 61-year-old Mary Brownlow at her Madison home and set her body on fire; his 55-year-old aunt, Belinda Young Walker, Kelleye Lynette Pratt Sluder, 30, and Jason Michael Wooden.
Marc Moffitt, an Assistant District Attorney in the Kaufman County office, says they talked to Brownlow’s family members as well as the families of the other victims and explained the reasons. He says they all were supportive of the decision.