Robbinsdale man guilty of killing mother-of-two in north Minneapolis
A jury found a 30-year-old Robbinsdale man guilty of murdering his girlfriend last spring.
Jordan L. Jefferson was charged last year with second-degree murder for the killing of 28-year-old Ochea Brown in north Minneapolis. He was found guilty of running Brown over with his vehicle and continuing to drive with Brown's body trapped under the vehicle.
Brown was the mother of two girls, who were ages 7 and 5 at the time of her death, according to an online fundraising campaign that has raised over $17,000.
Warning: This story contains upsetting details.
According to charging documents, Jefferson, Brown, and a witness were in the same vehicle in the early hours of May 29, with Brown in the front passenger seat and Jefferson driving.
They got into a "verbal argument" that saw Jefferson ultimately begin punching Brown in the face. The witness in the back seat, a woman, tried to intervene but Jefferson kept attacking, then demanded Brown get out of the car.
She did so and began walking away on the sidewalk, at which point Jefferson "accelerated at a high rate of speed and drove the vehicle directly at" Brown, the criminal complaint stated.
Brown was struck, and became trapped under the car, with Jefferson dragging her into the yard of a nearby residence before smashing into the property's front porch. He then got out and "began slapping" Brown, trying to get her to respond, but she was unresponsive.
He placed her body in the backseat of the vehicle and drove from the scene. While fleeing, he crashed the car again, with Jefferson and the witness walking away from the scene, calling another woman to come and pick them up.
That woman drove the three of them back to the scene where they checked Brown's pulse. They couldn't find a pulse and also suspected her neck was broken.
Jefferson instructed the two witnesses to leave the scene, with Jefferson then taking a shower and disposing of his clothes. He told the witness who was in the car that they "had to come up with a story" and demanded they take the truth about Brown's death "to her grave."
The witness who picked Jefferson up later told police that when she picked him up "he was acting frantic" and the other witness "was crying."
Investigators found tire tracks in the street, the sidewalk, and the front lawn of the residence on Dupont Avenue North, also finding blood in the front yard and the sidewalk.
Jefferson was also found guilty of two counts of felony domestic assault. He will be sentenced on March 3.