Edmonds Tennent Brown: Stalking, Murder, and Mary Lynn’s Law

Mary Lynn Witherspoon, a 53-year-old French teacher in Charleston, South Carolina, was raped and strangled in her Tradd Street home on November 14, 2003. Her killer was Edmonds Tennent Brown IV, a man who had stalked her for fifteen years and had been released from jail just four days earlier after South Carolina’s victim notification system failed to warn her. He pleaded guilty and is serving life without the possibility of parole. The murder of Mary Lynn Witherspoon led to the 2005 passage of Mary Lynn’s Law and a civil suit against the agencies her family blamed for the failures that preceded her death.

Who Mary Lynn Witherspoon Was

Witherspoon was a Charleston native, one of four sisters, a class valedictorian, and a regular at the French Huguenot Church. She taught French at Charlestowne Academy and lived in the city’s South of Broad neighborhood, where friends described her as bright, kind, and intensely private.¹² She had one daughter, Jane Whelchel.

In 1981 she began dating Edmonds Tennent Brown III. He proposed repeatedly over eight years, but she ended the relationship in 1988, in part because of friction between the two families’ children and troubling behavior from his son, Tennent Brown.¹

Fifteen Years of Stalking

After the breakup, Tennent Brown began appearing at Witherspoon’s home, lingering in the backyard, on the porch, and in the driveway. He followed her when she temporarily moved to Mount Pleasant. In 1989 he broke into a home and stole a suitcase containing her clothes and makeup.¹

The behavior escalated sharply in 2003. That April, Brown stole all of Witherspoon’s underwear from her dryer. In July, he was spotted outside her window holding a pillowcase filled with her clothing, taunting her. That incident finally prompted Witherspoon to press charges, and Brown was arrested for burglary.¹

She took her own precautions too. She installed a sophisticated alarm system, carried mace, and kept a stack of roughly twenty business cards from local police officers so she could reach someone quickly in an emergency. She also registered with the state’s Victim Information and Notification Everyday system, known as VINE, which was supposed to alert her by phone if Brown was released.¹

Why He Was Free That Day

During a 2002 incarceration, Brown had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After his July 2003 arrest for burglarizing Witherspoon’s home, a judge assigned his case to Charleston County’s mental health court, which ordered treatment as a condition of the program.³¹

On November 10, 2003, Brown was transferred from jail to an outpatient mental health center. During intake he gave the counselor Witherspoon’s Tradd Street address as his own residence. The counselor had no access to his prior records and did not flag the discrepancy. He was told to return for a follow-up appointment on November 12 and never did. No alarm was raised, and no one went looking for him.¹

The VINE system compounded the problem. Instead of telling Witherspoon that Brown had been released, it sent an automated notification stating he had been transferred to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, which implied he was still locked up. A follow-up letter repeating the same incorrect information arrived at her home the day after she was killed. When her family members called authorities about Brown after her body was found, they were told, incorrectly, that he was still in custody.¹

The Murder and Crime Scene

On November 14, 2003, staff at Charlestowne Academy grew concerned when Witherspoon did not show up for work. Colleagues went to her home, and police were called. Officers found the house in disarray, with drawers and closets rifled through. Witherspoon was in her second-floor bathroom, naked, bound with tape, and strangled. She had also been raped. Her body was left in a bathtub filled with water.¹²

Inside the house, police also found a purse belonging to a neighbor, Elizabeth Bracket, which initially raised fears of a serial intruder. Witherspoon’s car was missing, along with her keys and the panic button for her alarm system.

Arrest and Evidence

Suspecting the killer would return, police set up a stakeout at the Tradd Street home. Within twenty minutes, Brown walked down the street and was stopped. He was wearing Witherspoon’s underwear and a pair of her slacks, and he had her house keys and alarm panic button on him.¹

Investigators discovered that Brown had obtained a new driver’s license the afternoon after the murder listing Witherspoon’s address as his own. Her stolen car, when recovered, contained a handwritten manifesto titled “Ice, MLW” that detailed plans to kill her, numerous pages of practice signatures for a planned mortgage fraud, and a FedEx package Brown had ordered on Witherspoon’s credit card. The package held a wig matching her hair color, breast forms, and makeup. DNA evidence conclusively tied Brown to the crime.¹

Guilty Plea and Sentence

Brown was charged with murder, first-degree burglary, third-degree burglary, and possession of a stolen vehicle in Charleston County.⁴ Prosecutors signaled they would seek the death penalty. Witherspoon’s family chose to accept a plea deal to avoid a public trial, in part because they did not want graphic crime scene photographs displayed in open court.¹

Brown pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He also received a concurrent life sentence for first-degree burglary, ten years for third-degree burglary, and five years for possession of the stolen vehicle. His sentences began on November 15, 2003, and he was formally admitted to the South Carolina Department of Corrections on July 13, 2004. He is currently housed at Allendale Correctional Institution and is not eligible for parole or supervised reentry.⁴ Brown has since sought a new trial, arguing that the public defender provided inadequate representation.¹

Mary Lynn’s Law

Witherspoon’s sister, Jackie Olsen, worked with state legislators, including Rep. Murrell Smith, to draft a bill addressing the failures that had left her sister unprotected.¹ The resulting legislation, known as Mary Lynn’s Law (2005 Act No. 106), passed the South Carolina House in April 2005, was signed by Governor Mark Sanford on May 26, 2005, and took effect on January 1, 2006.⁵

The law created a new offense of aggravated stalking punishable by up to ten years in prison. It required that if an automated notification system failed to reach a stalking victim after three attempts, law enforcement had to make personal visits to the victim. It required “every reasonable effort” to conduct psychiatric evaluations on accused stalkers within ten days of arrest.⁶ Police were also required to provide judges with incident reports on stalking cases before bail could be set, and judges gained authority to order mental health examinations for stalking suspects.²

The Family’s Civil Lawsuit

Witherspoon’s family filed a civil suit against the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, and the South Carolina Department of Corrections. The complaint alleged that the Sheriff’s Office automated victim alert system was “unsuccessful in reaching her by phone,” that the follow-up letter contained false information about Brown’s status, and that the mental health center failed to notify authorities or Witherspoon when Brown missed his November 12 appointment. The family sought unspecified damages.²

1
NBC News. The Murder of Mary Lynn Witherspoon
2
Rosen Hagood. Lawsuit Blames Many for Killing
3
GoUpstate. Two Killings Stir Concerns About Mental Health Court
4
South Carolina Department of Corrections. Inmate Details – Edmonds Tennet Brown
5
Justia. South Carolina Code Section 16-3-1700
6
GoUpstate. Anti-Stalking Bill Gains House Approval