Debra Brown: The 1984 Rampage, Convictions, and Current Status

Debra Brown’s 1984 crime spree was a 53-day rampage she carried out with Alton Coleman across six midwestern states, killing at least eight people, raping seven, kidnapping three, and committing 14 armed robberies before the pair were arrested in Evanston, Illinois, on July 20, 1984. Brown was convicted of murder in both Indiana and Ohio and originally sentenced to death in each state. Both death sentences were later removed on the basis of her intellectual disability, and she is now serving life without parole at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

Who Debra Brown Was Before 1984

Brown had no criminal or violent history before she met Coleman. School records from age 12 showed an IQ of 59, and later testing placed her IQ between 74 and 75. Clinicians diagnosed her with borderline intellectual functioning, depression, and a dependent personality disorder.¹

In 1984, at age 21, she broke off an engagement and left her family to move in with Coleman, who was 28. Former Ohio Governor Richard Celeste later described the relationship as a “master-slave” dynamic, and FBI materials generated during the investigation characterized Brown as “completely under the control of Coleman” and “docile” during interviews. The Indiana trial court found she was “a young woman with borderline intellectual functioning with a dependent personality disorder” who reached her decisions “with limited intellectual tools.”¹

The 53-Day Rampage

The killings began in late May 1984 in Wisconsin and moved through Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. The victims included children, teenagers, and adults, and most were strangled.

Vernita Wheat, age 9, was abducted by Coleman in Kenosha, Wisconsin on May 29, 1984. Her body was found in Waukegan, Illinois on June 19.²
Tamika Turks, age 7, and her nine-year-old niece Annie were attacked in Gary, Indiana on June 18, 1984 as they walked home from a candy store. Tamika was strangled with an elastic strip of bedsheet. Annie survived after being sexually assaulted.³⁴
Donna Williams, 25, was abducted in Gary, Indiana on June 19, 1984. Her strangled body was found in an abandoned building in Detroit on July 11.⁵
Virginia Temple and her nine-year-old daughter Rachelle were strangled to death in a home invasion in Toledo, Ohio on July 5, 1984.⁶
Tonnie Storey, 15, was last seen leaving her Cincinnati home for a computer class on July 11, 1984. Her bound and partially decomposed body was found eight days later. She had been strangled.²
Marlene Walters, 44, was beaten to death in Norwood, Ohio on July 13, 1984. Coleman and Brown had arrived at the family’s home by bicycle, posing as buyers interested in the family’s camping trailer. Her husband Harry survived but was left permanently disabled after a sliver of bone was driven into his brain. The pair stole the family’s car, jewelry, money, and shoes.⁷²

After the Walters murder, the two drove to Kentucky, where they kidnapped college professor Oline Carmical and locked him in the trunk of his car before continuing to Dayton, Ohio. The spree passed through Indianapolis, where another person was killed, and ended when local officers arrested Coleman and Brown at Mason Park in Evanston, Illinois on July 20, 1984. Brown gave her name to police as “Denise Johnson.”²

The Convictions

Brown was prosecuted in two states and in federal court.

Indiana

Brown stood trial in Lake Superior Court before Judge Richard W. Maroc for the murder of Tamika Turks. On June 23, 1986, the judge sentenced her to death after her conviction on murder, attempted murder, and child molesting charges. The court found two aggravating circumstances: the child molesting conviction and two prior murder convictions from Ohio. Mitigating factors included her borderline intellectual functioning, substantial domination by Coleman, dependent personality, childhood head trauma, and her age of 21. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in 1991.⁴⁸

Ohio

Hamilton County prosecutors tried Brown in two separate cases. For the murder of Marlene Walters, she was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and attempted aggravated murder, and sentenced to life with parole eligibility after 20 years plus three consecutive 10-to-25-year terms.⁹ For the murder of Tonnie Storey, she was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death.²

During the Walters trial, Brown reportedly sent the sentencing judge a note that read: “I killed the bitch and I don’t give a damn. I had fun out of it.”¹⁰

Federal

On January 7, 1985, U.S. District Judge Walter Rice sentenced both Coleman and Brown to 20 years in federal prison for the kidnapping of Oline Carmical. Both had pleaded guilty the previous November.¹¹

Why Brown Is No Longer on Death Row

Both of Brown’s death sentences were removed, decades apart, on grounds tied to her intellectual functioning.

On January 10, 1991, just days before leaving office, Ohio Governor Richard Celeste commuted the death sentences of eight prisoners, including all four women then on Ohio’s death row. Brown was among them. Celeste, who opposed capital punishment, said a prisoner’s mental health was the “leading criterion” for his decisions and cited staff reports describing Brown as “retarded,” suffering from “childlike emotional development,” and involved in a “master-slave relationship” with Coleman.¹² Her Ohio death sentence became life without parole.

Indiana’s death sentence stood for nearly three more decades. In late 2018, the Lake County prosecutor and the Indiana Attorney General’s Office signed an agreement to withdraw the demand for her execution, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, which held that the Eighth Amendment forbids executing individuals with intellectual disabilities. Under the agreement, Brown conceded the validity of all her convictions, dismissed all pending appeals, and waived any future challenges to her Indiana convictions, including a federal habeas corpus petition pending since 1999. Because life without parole was not an available Indiana sentence in 1984, she was resentenced to 140 years, the maximum available short of death, to run consecutively after her Ohio life sentences. The family of Tamika Turks was notified of the agreement on Thanksgiving 2018.¹³

Where Debra Brown Is Now

Brown remains at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, where she was first admitted to the Ohio prison system on January 14, 1991.⁹ Her aggregate sentence is life without parole in Ohio, followed by a consecutive 140-year term in Indiana. Indiana has never formally requested her extradition.¹⁴ Several killings attributed to Coleman and Brown, including those of Virginia and Rachelle Temple in Toledo, were likely never prosecuted.² She will not be released.

1
Findlaw. Brown v. State, No. 45S00-9212-PD-939
2
Clark County Prosecutor. Alton Coleman Case Summary
3
Chicago Tribune. Debra Brown No Longer Facing Execution
4
Clark County Prosecutor. Debra Denise Brown
5
UPI. Mother Identifies Possible Coleman Victim
6
NWI Times. The Murder Spree of Alton Coleman and Debra Brown
7
Herald-Times. Alton Coleman Executed in Ohio
8
Findlaw. Brown v. State, 577 N.E.2d 221
9
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Offender Search, W025932
10
Cincinnati Enquirer. Execution Abandoned for Killer of Marlene Walters and Tonnie Storey
11
UPI. Coleman and Brown Sentenced for Kidnapping
12
New York Times. Ohio Governor Commutes Death Sentences for Eight
13
IndyStar. Debra Denise Brown No Longer to Be Executed
14
Columbus Dispatch. Indiana Drops Execution Bid