Joyce Brown Rodriguez, left, and Kahlill Saleem Brown, right, appear in mugshots; their victim, Christopher M. Wilson, appears in a photograph inset. (Bucks County District Attorney’s Office)
A Pennsylvania woman was sentenced to spend the next several decades in prison for her role in a murder conspiracy that targeted her ex-boyfriend and in which she enlisted her son as the triggerman.
Joyce Brown Rodriguez, 56, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the third degree, criminal conspiracy, and other minor-but-related charges last December over the December 2020 shooting death of Christopher Wilson, 52, who she had dated for two years before the violence, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
In July, Rodriguez testified against her son, Khalill Saleem Brown, 34, who was convicted of murder in the first degree – on the strength of his mother’s words against him. He faces a sentence of in prison.
For her testimony and as part of her plea deal, Rodriguez will spend a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 40 years behind bars, the prosecutor’s office announced in a Monday press release. She was sentenced by Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey L. Finley.
Pennsylvania is one of only three U.S. jurisdictions with a third-degree murder statute still on the books. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is 40 years in state prison.
Finley termed Wilson’s death a “callous murder,” but the victim’s family had particularly harsh words for the condemned woman because of what she did in the aftermath of orchestrating the hit.
“You had the audacity to walk up and hug me when you had your son murder my father,” Chynea Wilson, the dead man’s father, said in a victim impact statement reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. “You were shameless, like a demonic person, acting like nothing had happened. For that, you deserve everything coming to you.”
The judge suggested he was mystified by the killer’s motive.
“It makes no sense that anything that occurred here, in any way, should have led to you taking the life of Mr. Wilson,” Finley said in comments reported by the Inquirer. “Your actions not only took his life but had a significant impact on the people who were there that day.”
Read Related Also: Secret Australian coin scam is finally unravelled by police in Sydney
Wilson was gunned down by Brown in the parking lot of Kuusakoski Inc., the recycling facility where he worked in Middletown Township. The dead man and the murderess had begun dating in 2018, but Wilson eventually called it quits. Upset, Rodriguez repeatedly called and texted her former beau on Dec. 9, 2020.
The next day he was dead.
Wilson was shot several times by Brown – who continued to unload his weapon even after the victim hit the ground. The killer had been driven to the location by his mother. After the murder, Rodriguez, who had parked in a far corner of the parking lot, drove a short distance to pick up her son. The two went back to West Philadelphia together.
Brown is slated to be sentenced by Finley next month.
A father of nine, five of Wilson’s daughters gave testimony during Rodriguez’s sentencing hearing, the prosecutor’s office said.
“The day I got that phone call is a day I will never forget,” one daughter testified. “Hearing those words crushed me.”
During grand jury testimony, Rodriguez claimed she only wanted her son to talk to Wilson on her behalf. Law enforcement, however, provided the grand jury evidence that Rodriguez had been looking for a gun herself in the days leading up to the killing.
“Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?” Britney Wilson, another daughter of the deceased, asked out loud during the sentencing, according to the Inquirer. “Why couldn’t she just walk away?”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
