HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — A Huntsville woman was found guilty of murder for the 2019 shooting death of another woman following an argument on social media.
Shanique Patreace Brown was arrested on July 27, 2019, for the murder of 20-year-old Jasmine Moore.
A Madison County jury found Brown guilty after an hour and a half of deliberation. The jury consisted of six men and six women, with two women alternates.
Madison County Chief Trial Attorney Tim Douthit said Brown claimed she didn’t do it for six years until she testified on Tuesday, when she claimed self-defense.
“This is not a hard case,” he said.
The state’s closing argument hinged on showing how testimony from upstairs neighbors differed from both the victim’s and the defendants’ sisters’ versions of events. The state argued that the neighbors had no reason to lie in their telling of what happened, but the sisters on both sides had reason to give biased accounts, even though the sisters claimed they were impartial and didn’t have a dog in the fight.
In his closing argument, Chad Morgan, Brown’s attorney, also claimed that she acted in self-defense.
“There’s always two sides to a story, there’s their side, there’s our side, and there’s the side you believe,” Morgan told the jury before deliberations.
Before sending the jury to deliberate, Judge Karen Hall explained to jurors that there’s a difference between defending oneself and engaging in a fight, and they had to consider that when considering self-defense as a ruling.
Moore’s family filled a large portion of the courtroom on Wednesday.
The Huntsville Police Department said authorities responded to the apartment complex on Hood Road just after 1 p.m. on July 26, 2019, and began a homicide investigation.
Huntsville Police Department said they believe it started over a social media post.
“This far in the investigation, we can say this was ignited over a social media argument. That’s something we have seen in other homicides and in this case that’s exactly what happened,” said then-Lieutenant Michael Johnson.
A sentencing date for Brown will be set later.
The post Huntsville woman found guilty of murder in social-media fueled 2019 shooting appeared first on WHNT.
