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Vernithea McCrary, James Brown: Michigan Backpage.com Escorts Murder Case On TV One’s ‘Justice By Any Means’

By Traciy Reyes
Published on: 12:23 PST, Apr 17, 2017

Vernithea McCrary’s death story will be highlighted on TV One’s Justice By Any Means tonight. Vernithea McCrary was found dead in the back of a burned out car in Detroit, Michigan, six years ago. The bodies of three other women–were also found. Authorities say that their killer, James Brown (James Cornelius Brown), murdered at least three of the women after they answered a sex ad on the internet site Backpage.com.

Tonight’s Justice By Any Means will be told from the point of view of Bridgett Tabb, another woman who narrowly escaped death by choosing not to go out with the man that night. Detroit law enforcement detectives and family members are also expected to give commentary on the highly-covered case.

Backpage.com Escorts Found Dead In Car Trunks, Police Deaths Connected To One Man

In late December of 2011, most families in Michigan were preparing to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. But four families were preparing to bury their loved ones after they went missing and were later found dead.

Detectives were called to the scene at 14499 Promenade Street, where the bodies of two women were found dead in the trunk of a car. The badly burned bodies were later identified as 23-year-old Renisha Landers and 24-year-old Demesha Hunt. The car belonged to Renisha Landers.

Days later, on December 25, the bodies of 29-year-old Vernithea McCrary and 29-year-old Natasha Curtis were also found in a car. Their bodies, like the first two victims, had been badly burned. An autopsy report found no evidence of stabbing or gunshot wounds. All four victims died from asphyxiation, leading detectives to believe that the killer sat on top of his victims, which would have cut off oxygen to the brain.

Police say that two sets of women had planned to party before they were killed. Vernithea McCrary and Natasha Curtis were prepared to go out and celebrate Natasha Curtis’ birthday. Days apart, Renisha Landers and Demesha Hunt planned to do the same. Landers tried to get one of her friends, Kortney Myers, to accompany her that night. According to Macomb Daily, Myers was too tired and fell asleep. When she awakened, her friend had vanished.

Family members of all four victims were left breathless as they heard news of their fate. On Justice By Any Means, you’ll learn about James Cornelius Brown, a mama’s boy who still lived at home in the family basement. Brown’s mother told detectives that she never heard any fights, screams, or sounds of a scuffle at the home. Detectives believe that James Brown killed the girls at his home while his mother was upstairs cooking holiday dinner, The Source reported.

If he sat on top of the victims, it would account for why the killer’s mother didn’t hear a sound. Prosecutors believe that he dumped the bodies after his mother fell asleep. Apparently, the scratch on James Brown’s face and his broken eyeglasses didn’t send a red flag to his family members that something was deadly wrong.

They Didn’t Deserve Death

During the trial, prosecutors wanted to make the stories of the victims come alive. They didn’t want these women to be known only as prostitutes who answered a sex ad. They wanted the jury to know that they were real people with real lives and that their families were hurting over their grisly murders.

It was also brought out that Brown killed these women because he wanted to do it. The seemingly deranged killer liked the violence and the gore associated with their deaths. He enjoyed frightening them. To him, this was all entertainment.

James Brown was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole, a sentence that some believe was light compared to what he actually deserved.

Find out how DNA evidence connected James Brown to the murders by tuning into Justice By Any Means at 9/8 p.m. on TV One.

[Featured Image by Michigan Department of Corrections]

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