Kyle Brown
SALINE CO.—The disappearance and eventual discovery of the body of a young Harrisburg man in mid-April has brought to light some strange information as it pertains to his mother.
The matter is made all the more strange by her refusal to talk about any of it, particularly after months of standing in the spotlight in an effort to draw attention to the boy’s disappearance and attempts to find him.
Tina Brown is the mother of Kyle Brown, 19, whose body was found April 17 submerged in One Horse Gap Lake in the vehicle he was last seen driving back in December.
In a situation reminiscent of another missing person in the area, Chrissy Williams, who was also found in a submerged vehicle (last March 2014 in the Ohio River at Rosiclare), Brown is now, like Williams’ sister Tammy Jackson, refusing to speak about anything having to do with the case involving her son.
The grief is understandable; however, the backstory is odd, and has prompted many questions from the public, none of which Brown was apparently asked when the ordeal was ongoing, and now that it’s over, none of which she’s apparently inclined to answer.
Kyle Brown was reported missing on December 28, 2014.
His mother reported that she last saw him as he was saying his good-nights on the night before; and that she suspected he had taken off in her black 2001 Honda CRV, an SUV-type vehicle. A few hours later, she was up and checking on him in his room, but he wasn’t there.
Reported troubled
The young man was widely reported by his mother to have been troubled after the death of his father in a car accident when Kyle was about 5.
Over the years, his mother explained, he had developed issues related to his father’s death, and those had lead to mental health problems.
In a recent event a few days before his disappearance, Tina Brown had tried to trick her son into checking in for mental health treatment at Harrisburg by having him come up to the hospital on a ruse: that his grandmother had suffered a heart attack.
However, due to his age, Kyle was allowed to refuse help and he left.
Tina Brown told media that this attempt at mental health care had been precipitated by an incident in Pope County, where Kyle’s father was buried, that followed a visit to the man’s grave. Pope County sheriff’s officials had found Kyle at his father’s grave on Dec. 14; then later, he was found wandering the woods about ten miles from the cemetery.
So the lead-up to his disappearance seemed foreboding.
Still, it was quite the shock when the CRV was located in One Horse Gap Lake late on the evening of April 17, due largely to the previous case about a year earlier in which Chrissy Williams, of Gallatin County, was found in the Ohio River in a submerged SUV by the same group that found Kyle: Team Watters, a sonar expert dive team based in Moro, Illinois on the southwestern side of the state. They had begun searching bodies of water in early April and came upon what they believed to be the CRV at One Horse Gap Lake, a popular recreational spot in Pope County, that Friday evening.
When the vehicle was pulled from the water, searchers found a body that they believed to be Kyle’s.
Positive identification was made on April 19, and the matter for all intents and purposes seemed to be over.
Saline County criminal case
However, in Saline County circuit court, Tina Brown’s matter was not.
That was where, in December of 2003, she was charged by Saline County authorities with Theft for taking control of an amount greater than $10,000 but less than $100,000 from Kyle’s trust account, set up for him after his father’s death; the charge was a Class 2 felony.
Court documents don’t show how Tina Brown took the money, under what guise she obtained it, nor what she did with it once she had control of it.
However, the courts were very clear that the money was stolen, and a criminal report was filed over the matter.
In April of 2004, court officials entered into an agreement with Tina Brown that prompted only a misdemeanor Theft count (less than $300) to appear on her record, and she was sentenced to a 24-month Conditional Discharge period wherein she was to pay restitution to the account of $113,167.11 and other fines and fees, bringing a total restitution/payment amount to $113,715.91. Her bail bond of $500 had been applied to that and total fines, fees and restitution were laid out to be $113,215.91.
Court documents show that in the ensuing years, direct deposits were made into Kyle Brown’s Money Market Account, over which a guardian was appointed, Joseph B. Harrison. Annual statements were submitted to the court showing deposits, which appeared to have come from Tina Brown’s social security-death benefit payments from her late husband.
Other financial troubles
But in the meantime, Tina Brown was having considerable financial troubles.
Multiple complaints to file foreclosure of mortgage were made, these in 2008, 2009 and 2011.
It appears that the mortgage was refinanced until the final filing, at which time a sheriff’s sale was made on the property she’d mortgaged at 625 S. Granger in Harrisburg, bid out at $31,268 in August of 2012.
Court documents show that in March of 2013, her address had changed to one on South Webster.
As well, Tina Brown faced a number of Small Claims filings between 2007 and 2009, the majority having to do with payday cash loans.
Where all the money was going remains unindicated in court documents.
Whatever was happening, on August 20, 2013, Harrison was removed from the matter as guardian, since Kyle Brown had reached the age of 18.
A modification order for where the restitution payments were to be going was entered into Saline County circuit court on November 7, 2014. The new restitution payments were to be made directly to Kyle Brown.
All of this was done under the criminal case.
A little over a month later, Kyle Brown was missing.
A little less than four months later, Kyle Brown was dead.
Court documents show that at the end of April, payments were still being made to the criminal case, but whether the restitution to the account of Kyle Brown was continuing to be made appears unclear.
There is no probate case filed in Saline County on Kyle Brown. His cause and manner of death have not been made public; however, law enforcement has advised that no foul play is suspected.
Friends of Kyle Brown say that his “mental health issues” are only recent, and that up until shortly before his disappearance, he had not experienced any kind of marked “trouble” that would have caused him to commit suicide, especially the kind that would take an action of driving a vehicle into a body of water.
Disclosure attempted to speak with Tina Brown about the progress of the criminal case and the restitution.
Disclosure staff messaged Tina Brown, stating that they had “material in hand that I need to ask you about,” and that she could message or give a call a$t a number issued to her.
Brown responded with “I don’t know what you could possibly want to question me about.”
Disclosure’s staffer answered, “There have been a lot of questions arising about the criminal conviction/felony theft.”
There was no response from Tina Brown at that, this message left on May 21, and there had been no response as of press time, May 25.