Mother finds daughter slashed to death in Brooklyn apartment - runaway sought for questioning
Wednesday, October 1st 2008, 7:20 AM
Marilyn Braithwaite, aunt of slain Shannon Braithwaite (below), wails as teen's body is taken out of apartment. 
A bright 16-year-old high school student who loved to dance was found dead with her throat slashed in her Brooklyn apartment Tuesday.Shannon Braithwaite's devastated mom, Marva, pinned the slaying on a 15-year-old runaway girl she had taken in just a week ago.
Cops were seeking the teen Tuesday night.
"The one day I left them alone, I came home to find my daughter stabbed up in a pool of blood," said Marva Braithwaite, 35.
"My little girl was a loving, God-fearing child who never was a problem to me."
Braithwaite made the gruesome discovery of her daughter's body when she returned to her Empire Blvd. home in Crown Heights about 4:30p.m.
Shannon, a sophomore at Vanguard High School on the upper East Side, was on the floor in the foyer, bloodied by knife wounds to her hands, face and neck.
The knife was recovered in the home, a police source said.
There did not appear to be signs of forced entry at the apartment, another source said.
"She worked with kids at the [Brooklyn] Children's Museum and at our church," Braithwaite said. "She was a great role model and I'm very proud to have been her mother."
Fighting back tears, she added, "I have to be strong for my family. I can't break down now."
She said the runaway girl she had tried to help out was a cousin of Shannon's.
With a day off from school Tuesday because of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, Shannon had been waiting for her mom to return home from a shopping excursion so they could cash the teen's final paycheck from her summer stint working at the museum.
"She's not a child who runs around," said her aunt Marilyn Braithwaite, 49, who works with developmentally challenged children.
"Everywhere her mother goes, she goes with her."
As paramedics wheeled the girl's body from her home, the aunt and a grandmother leaped onto the gurney, screaming hysterically.
"I can't believe it," shrieked the girl's grandmother Doreen Braithwaite, 72. "I can't believe I saw my granddaughter laying down, dead. I can't believe it."
Neighbors said they heard loud cries after Shannon's mother returned home Tuesday.
"I heard her screaming," said neighbor Donna Lyons, 47. "[Shannon] was laying on her side. Her hands and face were cut. Her throat was slashed."
"She was a good child," Marilyn Braithwaite said of her niece. "She loved to dance."
Cousin, 15, arrested in knifing murder of Brooklyn teen Shannon Braithwaite
Updated Wednesday, October 1st 2008, 11:05 PM
Heartbroken Marva Braithwaite speaks outside 71st Precinct stationhouse in Brooklyn after brutal knife slaying of her daughter Shannon.As a good Christian woman, Marva Braithwaite opened her home without hesitation to a prodigal cousin - only to find her kindness repaid in blood-soaked cruelty.
Troubled runaway Tiana Browne, 15, brutally stabbed and slashed Braithwaite's teen daughter to death just two days after finding refuge in the family's Brooklyn apartment, police said Wednesday.
The remorseless killer then ripped the dying victim's sneakers off her feet, ignoring the blood spreading across the foyer of the flat in Crown Heights, a police source said.
Browne was wearing the stolen sneakers when she was arrested Wednesday, the victim's mother said. Police also recovered other stolen property belonging to the slain girl, including birthday and Christmas gifts.
"I knew [Tiana] was a problem child. I knew she was a runaway," Marva Braithwaite told the Daily News. "But I never knew [she was] planning on killing my daughter.
"I never knew she had that much rage in her."
The mother collapsed weeping on her hands and knees outside the medical examiner's office in Brooklyn after identifying 16-year-old Shannon Braithwaite.
An autopsy showed the teen was stabbed at least 18 times. Police said her throat was slashed with a kitchen knife recovered at the scene.
Marva Braithwaite charged the attack was premeditated and motivated by Tiana's jealousy toward her daughter: "She was a young lady who had so much going for her, [and] that was taken away for material possessions."
At a vigil for Shannon outside her apartment building, her mother urged a gathering of more than 70 friends, neighbors and community leaders to do all they can to help their troubled kids "or you will be standing where I am today."
"When a child is messed up, the whole community is messed up," she said. "If a child has problems, you help that child."
In a Family Court complaint last year, the accused killer's mother charged that Tiana was mentally ill, a truant and a chronic runaway, a law enforcement source said.
After the girl bolted in June 2007, mother Jennifer Browne went to Family Court for help, but the Brownes ignored a Jan. 3 court date, and the case was dismissed.
Browne - who was charged with second-degree murder - ran away from home yet again on Aug. 25, authorities said.
Jennifer Browne turned to her first cousin Marva after the latest disappearance, and the good Samaritan agreed to let the girl move in Sunday.
Browne was unrepentant when she was arrested. Police found a cell phone, camera and MP3 player belonging to the slain honor student, the source said.
Browne fled the Braithwaite apartment and went to a friend's house to slip out of her bloody clothes, police said.
"She acted as if nothing was wrong, as if she hadn't just killed someone," the police source said.
The stolen phone was a Christmas present, while the camera was a present for Shannon's 16th birthday, her mother said.
Shannon was a quiet, churchgoing girl one month into her sophomore year at Vanguard High School, where she kept an A average.
Her mother was a devout Christian who hoped to turn Tiana's life around, Shannon's grandmother Doreen said between tears and loud wails of grief.
"God says forgive," the grandmother added. "But you can't forget."
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