Ali Muhammad Brown

Ali Muhammad Brown (born 1985) is a convicted murderer in a 2014 murder spree. Brown has confessed and pleaded guilty to killing Ahmed Said, Dwone Anderson-Young, and Leroy Henderson in Seattle and 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin in West Orange, New Jersey, between April and June 2014. Brown was previously convicted of bank fraud and "communication with a minor for immoral purposes".

After his arrest, Brown told investigators that he is guided strictly by his faith, and that the killings were "just" because they were in retaliation for actions by the U.S. government in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Timeline

Brown was born in the United States, and he has family in New Jersey.

In March 2012, Brown pleaded guilty to "communication with a minor for immoral purposes" and served a year in prison.

On April 27, 2014, Leroy Henderson was walking home from a store in the Seattle suburb of Skyway when he was shot 10 times and killed by a man later identified as Brown in a drive-by shooting in his girlfriend's Dodge Durango.

On June 25, 2014, 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin was returning from a friend's house in a Jeep Liberty to his home when he was approached by three men at an intersection in West Orange, New Jersey. While Eric Williams, 18, stayed in his car, Brown and Jeremy Villagran, 19, surrounded Tevlin's car as Brown opened fire into the closed passenger window 10 times and striking Tevlin eight times. Brown pushed the body onto the passenger seat floor and drove to an apartment complex about a mile away, and stole some personal items.

Four days later, Brown is believed to have tried to steal a car from a man at gunpoint, but did not know how to drive a stick shift, so he fled. At a nearby convenience store, he changed clothes, and is seen with his head and face on a security video covered by a checkered keffiyeh head scarf. On July 18, the fugitive was arrested in New Jersey, found camping in the woods in a lean-to shelter. With him was a notebook on how to carry on warfare and evade authorities. Brown and 3 others pleaded not guilty to the murders of Tevlin and recent high school graduate and cheerleader Cheyanne Bond in Newark on August 6. Brown was later cleared of the murder of Bond, who was murdered in an unrelated armed robbery.

By August 20, 2014, Brown had been charged with three counts of aggravated murder in the 1st degree, each of which occurred in the Seattle metropolitan area, including a slaying in Skyway. Brown also committed a fourth murder in West Orange (Essex County), New Jersey, on June 14, 2014. A murder indictment on the New Jersey count was expected sometime in April or May, 2015. As of July 2015, Brown was charged with terrorism.

In November 2016 he was convicted of armed robbery and weapons charges and was sentenced to years in prison.

On March 6, 2018, Brown was convicted in Essex County Court on many charges. He was sentenced to life without parole for his crimes.

In 2022 Brown was extradited to Washington state and for his crimes there. On September 9, 2023, he was sentenced to 93 years in prison.

Motive Brown is a convert to Islam and a jihadi who defended his actions as being "just kills", or justified shootings, of adult men in retaliation for actions by the U.S. government in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. As he stated to authorities: "All those lives are taken every single day by America, by this government. So a life for a life."