Nick Browning Has One Hell of A Tantrum, Kills 4
February 3, 2008 by impqueen
Update 10/28/2008 – Nick pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of no more than two consecutive life terms in prison. If the judge accepts this deal, Nick will serve about 30 years before he is eligible for a parole hearing. Check the Baltimore Sun for full details and video.
Baltimore, MD - Nicholas Waggoner Browning, 15, had a very busy weekend. On Friday evening, Nick got pissed at his dad and decided to do something about it. FridayFriday reviews
night, Nick took his father’s handgun and shot his father, then his mother and two younger brothers. Then he went to hang out with friends overnight and all day SaturdaySaturday reviews
. On Saturday evening about 5:00, Nick went home, “discovered” his father dead, called police and acted upset for awhile. Early Sunday morning, Nick was charged as an adult with four counts of first degree murder in the killings of his father, John Browning, 45; his mother TamaraTamara reviews, 44; and his brothers Gregory, 13, and Benjamin, 11.
Nick’s Facebook profile picture shows a smiling young man in a tie, hair blondish brown and wavy. He looks casually overindulged. And obviously Nick thought he was pretty smart. Go out, come home to find the whole family slaughtered, inherit, go to prom: sounds like a good plan, right? Except Nick threw his dad’s gun away in the bushes right next to the house.
Motive is still sketchy. Police say that Nick and his father weren’t getting along well; police say the catalyst was an argument between father and son. John Browning was a successful attorney, partner in a well-regarded law firm. Nick Browning played golf and was in the gifted and talented program at Dulaney High. But something darker was obviously swirling around in Nick’s brain.
Police were called about 4:50 p.m. Saturday to the home for a report of “cardiac arrest”. Nicholas Browning called 911 and said his father was lying on the couch with blood coming out of his nose and was not breathing. Officers found John Browning lying on a couch in a ground-floor room, then found the bodies of Tamara, Greg and Ben upstairs. All had been shot in the upper body. There was no sign of a confrontation or break-in.
John Browning was active at the family’s church and with his sons’ Scouting endeavors, serving as scoutmaster. Tamara Browning was a stay-at-home mom who did part-time property management work, while Gregory and Benjamin were students at Cockeysville Middle School. Greg played lacrosse; his team has a memorial group for the family at FacebookFacebook. The family liked to go to their vacation home on a nearby lake and go boating; family friends say that they were unfailingly polite and normal.
Nick Browning was described by friends as a class clown who took advanced placement classes. Just recently, he completed a prayer garden at a local Methodist Church for a scouting project. His uncle Lee Browning says that Nick was “a good kid. There were no issues with him whatsoever.”
Nicholas Waggoner Browning is being held without bail at District Court in Towson. He is currently at the Baltimore County Detention Center in the juvenile section for entitled preppy homicidal brats. Even if he’s convicted of all four murder charges, he can’t face the death penalty in Maryland due to his age.
John W. Browning:
9:06 pm on February 3rd, 2008
Talk about a spoiled brat, I can’t believe he went to hang out with his friends after killing his family, how callous. Maybe he was playing a role like in the movie Havoc (where the privileged kids want to be ghetto). Was he expecting life insurance? Sick fucker! He’s hardcore now, hello jail, goodbye Abercrombie.
9:26 pm on February 3rd, 2008
Because a lot of the preppy kids do Facebook now rather than Myspace, it’s harder to get good pictures – Facebook profile shots are little! So if anyone happens across pics of the family or a better shot of Nick, hit an imp with a link, willya?
9:40 pm on February 3rd, 2008
Is it just me or do kids seem more cold hearted these days? I’m not talking about all of them of course, but it seems to me that kids are desensitised now.
11:37 pm on February 3rd, 2008
It seems to me that they are. More and more you are hearing about these kind of tragedies. It appears Little Lord Fauntleroy had a nice home and family, along with a nasty temper. It is a shame. I bet his parents gave him the world and this is how he repaid them. Bah…
1:09 am on February 4th, 2008
Maybe it’s because kids nowadays spend hours playing games that show killing people as entertainment. It’s not like when kids used to get a twig and jump out from behind a tree, shouting, “Bang!” Some of these games show people bursting into bloodbags. Maybe that entertainment “training” helps them when it comes time to kill real people. They don’t seem to freak out and stop after the first murder, they just keep going and that means to me that they are comfortable with seeing people die, even if it’s just in their game world. Or am I a fuddyduddy?
1:42 am on February 4th, 2008
Your a fuddyuddy.
No link has ever been shown that violence in media causes kids to kill. And even if they did, it would be the parents fault for letting the kids play them.
Personally, in cases like this, I feel you are dealing with a sociopath.
Speaking of, we did get a picture emailed to us, but it is not 100 percent verified it is him.
1:50 am on February 4th, 2008
I didn’t say it caused them to kill. I said it made the process easier once they decided to get started killing. Some people are going to be more likely to kill anyway and this helps them out indirectly. Practice, practice, practice, and then you’ll react automatically when the emergency arrives, as safety training says.
I find it astounding that people kill with so little research. Anyone who’s read any true crime knows that killing your family and then “finding” them dead just isn’t going to fly. Too many have tried it. It sounds like Imp’s headline is right. He just had a tantrum during which he killed Dad, and then quickly decided he had to kill the whole family to make it look as if it was a home invasion.
5:39 am on February 4th, 2008
didnt they determine that some of the songs cause kids to commit suicide, that was back early ninties or so when they forced ratings on CD’s. I do think the violent movies videos and games make it seem more normal for this type of behavior.
His dad is a partner in a law firm i see a slap on the wrist for this one.
not too long ago, a boy 16 beat his brother 17 with a ball bat and killed him (11 days before his high school graduation). His mom worked for the prosecutors office – even tho one of their boys were dead they showed they loved him and he had 4 lawyers on his team of defense got to go to some upscale hospital. http://www.wlwt.com/news/4654350/detail.html
haha he was a normal kid that skipped school that day… ran up the street to wash his hands in the fountain and told the firemen there was someone dead at his house.
http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=4255838 (sentence) oddly nothing was mentioned about him being schizophrenia – they used that as an excuse for the sentence they gave out
9:25 am on February 4th, 2008
Um… no. You kill a lawyer, other lawyers will kill you back. It just takes a lot longer.
9:26 am on February 4th, 2008
They who?
9:41 am on February 4th, 2008
No, they never did and that is not why there is ratings on CD’s. People can think that violent media make it seem normal to be violent, but you would be thinking wrong. There are enough studies out there to debunk that myth.
10:03 am on February 4th, 2008
I don’t think music, movies, or video games are to blame. The morals instilled by parents and the example they set, lay down the ground blocks for a child’s behavior, that’s my opinion. A mentally unstable person may be swayed by violent media, a normal person can see it as purely entertainment. A normal person understands violence is wrong, it’s a crime, and once done there is no turning back. I doubt this little bastard thought twice about the consequences, I’m sure he was delusional enough to think he was gonna get away with it.
10:10 am on February 4th, 2008
In the late 80’s two teenage Judas Priest fans shot themselves, one died, the other fucked up.
Priest was actually taken to court and sued for subliminal suicide meassages by the moral majority or some entity of that nature.
The case was thrwon out of court. A real win for rock. Link to story:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
sec=health&res=9C0CE0D71E30F934A25754C0A966958260
10:24 am on February 4th, 2008
oh i thought it was fact listening to songs like such warped a kids way of thinking and can make them attempt sucide / kill / try drugs / fuck (do what the words say) … that is why they are kids, their brain is not fully developed.
http://www.trustedhands.com/content/id349.html
10:31 am on February 4th, 2008
yes thats the one judas priest thanks michelle
10:38 am on February 4th, 2008
Maybe we should censor cartoons cause that crazy shit scares me.
11:00 am on February 4th, 2008
Dayum. I just typed the longest response to this thread, and the post died mid-post. I am having the worst run of luck on DD. Perhaps I need to take a break…
11:05 am on February 4th, 2008
Completely against censorship personally. I control what my kids see. Who, what, when, where, and actually am VERY open to talk about anything with them.
I don’t always like whats out there but really isn’t alot of it just a matter of taste?
Love heavy metal, like disco too, hell some classical music was written about orgies and such.
11:07 am on February 4th, 2008
In the Judas Priest case (as in most cases), you don’t have to look very far to find the reasons these two men (they were 18 and 20) might have wanted to commit suicide. Both of them came from long, long histories of dysfunctional families, lack of education, poverty, heavy drug and alcohol abuse, abuse from stepfathers (surprise, surprise), and mentally troubled childhoods–one was torturing animals as a kid, the other tried to choke his mother to death at the age of 8. The sister of one of the boys (who did not listen to heavy metal) tried to commit suicide twice when her brother was younger. Neither one of the two men finished high school, could hold down a job, or could manage a healthy relationship. (Although the one who lived for several years after shooting off half his face still managed to find a girlfriend and father a child before he died several years later from a suspicious OD.) They both came from a long, long line of “Never had anything, never gonna have anything, never gonna have the prospect of having anything, never gonna have a chance in hell of anyone in my family ever getting out of this white trash hellhole downward spiral.” Just a horrible, horrible Darwin Awards stew of every possible uneducated trash factor that you find in 99% of the cases here. It’s not surprising that they wanted to commit suicide–what’s surprising is that they chose to off themselves instead of taking out someone else, like we usually see here.
During the case, one of the parents actually said, “I’m only the parent, I can’t expect to be responsible for my own child.” That kind of upbringing and attitude will warp a kid’s mind much, much more than any number of lyrics and video games. When you have a case where someone was brought up by people like that, and had to interact with and be shaped by them every single day of his pathetic life, you don’t need to look to a couple of months of listening to music recorded by strangers for an answer.
If anyone’s interested, you can view a grainy copy of the documentary on the case here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5636910946432086857
[Warning: The interview portions with Half-a-Face Guy are graphic and, um, pretty disturbing.]
(Sorry to go on about this–I was a big metalhead back in the day, and I remember this case vividly. Plus, it was a popular topic for freshman comp essays for several years.)
11:19 am on February 4th, 2008
We are experiencing hiccups for some reason. Nexcess is look into it. I suggest that if it is a long post, do it in Notepad then paste it here. Sucks, but better than losing some of your pearls of wisdom, Ruby, which I do look forward to.
Seriously.
11:38 am on February 4th, 2008
Ruby darlin’, it’s happened to me on posting articles a few times this weekend too, so it’s not just you. We’re just having some growing pains, i think.
And man, i am starting to think that Nick Browning just has a blurry head.
11:38 am on February 4th, 2008
Yeah, yeah. You like all the girlios from FUBAR with their girly drama better. I can tell.
11:41 am on February 4th, 2008
‘twould explain a lot, would it not??
12:03 pm on February 4th, 2008
At the very least for not teaching their children the difference between fantasy and reality.
12:58 pm on February 4th, 2008
Thanks, LEEMOUSE. I was gonna post a long screed about that case, but you covered all the bases.
The reason we have stickers on albums in the US is that the PMRC got their asses kicked and had to settle for the consolation prize. They were originally trying to get “offensive” albums banned entirely… and what they saw as “offensive” was generally no more than juvenile double-entendre- no comparison to the wonderful filth that we have nowadays. Fortunately Congress sent them all back home with nothing more than a handful of warning stickers, which, if anything, boost album sales.
1:31 pm on February 4th, 2008
Which ones? I looked at plenty of social science research studies when getting my degree and they are pretty much all bad. The number-crunching ones are too narrow in their scope to have relation to reality.
I agree the answer is for parents to control their kid’s access. But I’m not going to agree that the media does not affect behavior. We watch more and more tv hours all the time and it only affects us in positive ways?
1:00 am on February 5th, 2008
Hey, this guy doesn’t live in Baltimore, but in a town named “Cockeysville.” How appropriate is that?
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-te.md.browning04feb04,0,4152139.story
“Nicholas Browning, who will turn 16 on Saturday, was described as a class clown who took upper-level classes and had recently completed a prayer garden at Epworth United Methodist Church – a service project that put him one step away from becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in Scouting.”
Geez, another blow for the Boy Scouts and prayer gardens!
1:07 am on February 5th, 2008
I live near there, and one crazy thing is that the phone extensions in that area are 666. Crazy hunh?
1:19 am on February 5th, 2008
Cockeysville 666 — sounds like a great title for a song.
1:57 am on February 5th, 2008
Maybe he freaked cos he wasn’t going to get that Porsche for his 16th birthday.
12:49 pm on February 6th, 2008
“Shootings highlight questions about kids who kill relatives with little warning”
http://xml.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-browninganalysis0206,0,1664177.story
Also, “Gun death hit family before”
http://xml.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-md.co.browning06feb06,0,2583873.story
What gets me about the second story is that on the second page, it is reported that at the funeral people got lectured about how to feel. “”Even in the midst of our pain and sorrow is an opportunity to remember and celebrate together a family whose lives have made an incredible difference,” the Rev. William Brown of Epworth United Methodist Church said to the crowd. “I challenge you to hold one another up at this time.”
And, “Ravens kicker Matt Stover, who lives in the area, also spoke to the crowd. “I’m going to challenge everybody here tonight to forgive Nick,” he said. “I don’t know why Nick did that. It just puts chills up my spine.”
I suppose it’s a minister’s job to be annoying and try to lift everyone up when they are bewildered by grief, though “celebrate, incredible, and challenge” are such cliche words that I cringed to read them. But I wonder why Americans seem to be so emotionally in everyone’s face nowadays. Telling them how to feel, “challenging” them to feel the way the speaker wants them to feel, making everything into a self-improvement project.
Well, fuck you Rev. Brown and Kicker Stover. I don’t even know these people, yet I choose to process my reactions to this murder at my own pace and in my own way.
(WryBread gets down off soapbox and goes for a cup of coffee and some Chinese food for lunch.)
1:04 pm on February 6th, 2008
I read the first article today also. The last paragraph really got me, about wealthy abusive families are able to hide their secrets better than poor ones….just something to think about.
7:15 pm on February 6th, 2008
I feel better now that I’ve had MY tantrum. Just want to point out what a fake, forced smile the oldest boy has in this picture. Don’t know what to make of that, if anything.
10:24 pm on February 7th, 2008
The teen’s lawyers are saying that he was questioned for hours and may have confessed because of the trauma of finding his family dead.
http://www.examiner.com/a-1201088~Murder_suspect__traumatized__by_slaying__lawyer_says.html?cid=rss-Baltimore
Baltimore must be quite the place. I am following the Andrea Kreager bus beating story to see how the situation resolves itself, and every time I make a search, I discover all sorts of horrible crime stories in and around Baltimore.
6:04 pm on February 9th, 2008
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=ae0ce5cb-2395-47f3-8eff-6c40c538f997
6:09 pm on February 9th, 2008
He told police that he had been angry with his father, who had been stern with him, sometimes embarrassing him at Boy Scout events and forcing him to go to a Scout camp in Western Maryland.
Also, the source said, after a recent argument, John Browning told Nick as a punishment he could not use a Ford Expedition for one week after he turned 16. The car was to have been a present. His birthday, along with his family’s memorial service, is today.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-te.to.browning09feb09,0,2958716.story?page=2
8:42 pm on February 9th, 2008
Now he’ll never drive that car.
7:42 pm on February 11th, 2008
I wonder why that honor student couldn’t see the consequences of terminating his own family.
9:00 pm on February 11th, 2008
I hope we get updates on this case. The boy’s sterling record as near-Eagle Scout, prayer garden digger, and so forth — and his frozen smile in the photo above — makes me wonder what was really going on.
10:55 pm on February 11th, 2008
This child definitely suffered some deep mental maladies. Holy shit, it really is very scary.
9:53 pm on February 13th, 2008
Lil Nicky is on “special watch” status. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-md.co.browning12feb12,0,1338683.story
10:24 pm on February 13th, 2008
Look at this photo, too. They have him in the circle, but he’s the only one who hasn’t lost control of his face. They are all happy, he is trying to go along.
10:41 pm on February 13th, 2008
A voice out of a nicer, more privileged world than most who end up here:
“If he didn’t want to go skiing, if he already had plans, he’d get pissed,” Cox, 17, said. “He would even say swears about his dad.”
1:04 am on August 2nd, 2008
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=598&sid=1450366
Nicholas W. Browning who is accused of shooting his father, mother and two younger brothers will be tried as an adult.
2:47 pm on October 27th, 2008
Md. teen pleads guilty to murder in family’s death
TOWSON – A Maryland teen pleaded guilty Monday to shooting his father, mother and two younger brothers to death as they slept, then going back to a friend’s house to play video games.
Nicholas Browning, 16, of Cockeysville pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the February slayings of John W. Browning, 45; Tamara, 44; Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11.
Browning wept in court as prosecutors described the crime. A sheriff’s deputy brought him a box of tissues, and Browning wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
In exchange for the plea, prosecutors will not seek a sentence of life without parole. Instead, they will seek a maximum of two consecutive and two concurrent life sentences, meaning Browning could eventually be released on parole.
Offenders serving life sentences become eligible for parole consideration after serving 15 or 25 years, depending on the circumstances of the conviction, according to the Maryland Parole Commission. Under that formula, Browning could serve as many as 50 years before getting a parole hearing.
Browning was a week shy of his 16th birthday at the time of the slayings, too young under state law to face the death penalty.
Full article at http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=8911&type=UTTM
3:05 pm on October 27th, 2008
I don’t like the idea of him ever getting out on parole at all.
10:21 am on October 28th, 2008
No, it is the fact the people don’t think kids brains af fully developed even when they commit heinous crimes that stuff like this case keeps happening. I was weaned on horror/violent film…..I am fine, have no sociopathic urges and would never kill. My earliest memories of movies is the horror kind. No music, movies, etc. warp or make people or kids do things. Morbid is right, there is something wrong with them to begin with.
10:27 am on October 28th, 2008
And that link …from what I gathered a type of self help and not even scientific?
“Life Empowerment’s MISSION is to Empower the lives of individuals by providing the safest, longest lasting, most effective chiropractic care, and by educating them on God’s principles of health and well-being.”
Ummmm…yeah, the sure know why kids murder…..
Irregardless, if they are smart enough to murder they are smart enough to do the time, I don’t care about the age. You KNOW killing is wrong…period. I did. and WAY before my teen years too.
5:19 pm on October 29th, 2008
Absolutely horrific. An entire family shot in a most heinous way by no less a member of that very family. I do believe children have engaged with far more serious crimes than I remember ever reading. I do believe it starts at home. The values and morals or lack there of is really the culprit.
My child just turned 5 and since he was 3 and started to play-act with his friend with toy swords, guns bow-n-arrows and such, we have always said, these aren’t real but they can still hurt like the real ones. Always, always creating a division between make-believe and reality and more importantly the consequences to ones actions is so very important…and you got to start really early.
Respect for life is taught and the example how we treat one another in family life speaks volumes to a child.
Browning family rest in peace. My heart goes out to you.
1:11 am on January 27th, 2009
for anyone who cares…this is MY neighborhood. Never saw it coming. My child told me that he and his friends are in to some things that could have altered his judgement. Children around here are privleged and they expect the world to be handed to them no questions asked or work needed. When it doesn’t happen they melt down. Children see being told NO as an abuse! Overall it is just like any where, you have to keep your kids close and know what they are in to. So sad to say most are handed a cell phone and run their own lives and a lot of times their parent’s life also.
Nick got 4 life sentences, 2 consecutive, 2 concurrent. Parole is possible in 30yrs. w/Governor’s Consent.
The world is in a sad state. It’s not just Baltimore. People have stopped seeing the signs in front of their face. Too Many people have stopped looking out for the welfare of others, Not my child, Not my problem! They take everything for granted and feel they are entitled. They cut you off in traffic, because what they are doing is far more important than what you are doing! If you look at quality of living conditions for us compared to others in other countries we are blessed. Yet we still complain and feel we should have more. Even our poor live better, and that is why so many people are trying to come here. We take our freedom for granted and forget it is not free. Our children do not know the hardship or work that has went in to making their lives so easy. They are educated and take that for granted as well.
I see some of these traits in previous posts. Thank you Silvahalo! It’s not too late. Things can be changed in ourselves and our children!
DO whatever makes you happy, as long as you are not feeding off others pain to get there! It’s easy to poke fun, but look around you. What’s in your back yard??? Is there one little thing you can do to make a change?? Maybe to stop a Nick from happening, or a man that goes in to an Amish school and kills children, a mother that kills her child by abuse, or just ’cause she is so busy she forgets the baby is in the car seat??? The REAL question is do you care enough to take that minute to make that change??
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