'Cold Justice' television show comes to Abilene; two cold case murders examined

In an age where crime documentaries rule all, it seems that the television show "Cold Justice" might put Abilene on the map- the cold case map. Two of Abilene's most controversial cold case murders have called former prosecutor, Kelly Siegler, to our city as she aided local law enforcement in solving these cold-blooded murders.

Cold Justice will be covering the double homicide case of the 1982 alleged murder of Susanna Flores Brown and her eight-year-old daughter, Franchesca Antoinette Martinez. That episode will air on March 2, 2024.

When Reporter-News asked Detective Jeff Cowan, lead investigator of the APD Cold Case unit, about working with Cold Justice, he said he couldn't speak highly enough of them. "The team from Cold Justice worked as a consulting agency with APD," Cowan said, and provided resources for them, in a literal and financial sense.

Cowan reports that their help allowed his team at APD to complete in one week what could have taken months. Cowan also emphasized the hard work and dedication of the officers who were previously involved in these cases before the cold case unit began working these cases.

Additionally, Cowan described Detective Shawn Montgomery as "extremely instrumental in this investigation," along with APD's forensic unit, the entire Person unit, and the DPS crime lab in Lubbock, who worked hard to solve this case.

Stepfather to blame?

On March 9, 1982, police officers were called to a residence in south Abilene. Responding officers found Susanna Flores Brown and her 8-year-old daughter Francisca Antoinette Martinez allegedly strangled to death.

Billye Brown, Flores Brown's common law husband, had returned home from work and found both bodies. Responding police officers noted, however, that there were no signs of forced entry into the home, and no sign of a struggle at the scene.

The medical examiner declared Flores Brown's cause of death to be "asphyxia caused by manual strangulation," and Martinez's cause of death to be "asphyxia by strangulation from the phone cord." For an in-depth look at the case, see Reporter-News coverage here.

According to court documents at the time, Brown “did not appear to be overly upset about the murder of his wife and her daughter.” He even went on to make casual jokes with officers at the scene about "a good bottle of whiskey."

Brown was apparently very controlling and abusive during his three-year relationship with Flores Brown. Both victims had said in previous encounters that they were afraid of him, and the Abilene Police Department had also responded to multiple disturbance calls at their shared home.

In Abilene Reporter News' previous coverage from 1983, a year after the murders, the headline read "Police have murder suspects, lack proof." At the time, Lt. Jack Dieken said that "we strongly suspect that sexual assault was the motive."

According to that article, however, police also believed that "Ms. Flores probably knew her killer," because there were no signs of forced entry. The article also noted that there was a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence, but "nothing that will positively implicate the suspect." The case therefore remained cold until 2023.

Advances in DNA technology

The Flores Brown and Martinez double homicide remained unsolved until Abilene Police Department's cold case unit took it up for a third time in early 2023.

On January 17, 2023, the Department of Public Safety's laboratory was able to partially identify the male DNA found on Flores Brown's body at the original scene of the crime. Laboratory staff discovered that the DNA was more than 22,000 times more likely to have come from Billye Brown than any other individual.

As a result, the cold case unit from APD served Brown a search warrant for his DNA. Court records state that after the collection of his DNA, Brown remarked “I think I just signed my death warrant.”

This decades-long saga came to a partial end with the arrest of Billye Brown, then common-law husband of Flores Brown, on October 27, 2023.

He made bail the next day, however, and remains a free man until this case comes to a resolution hopefully later this year.

Justice on the horizon?

According to court records, proceedings are on the horizon in this case and Assistant District Attorney Erin Stamey will be the lead prosecutor. When Cowan spoke of the District Attorney's Office and Stamey's involvement in the case, he emphasized the hard work they did hand-in-hand to get the job done.

It remains to be seen if he will plead guilty at that time and accept a plea bargain from the District Attorney's office.

The Abilene episode of "Cold Justice," will air on March 2, 2024, and features this alleged double homicide case from 1982.

All suspects are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: 'Cold Justice' television show comes to Abilene