'I promise y'all I'm innocent': Escambia jury convicts Pensacola man of 2021 double murder

Two families, the defendant and even members of the jury began to cry as 20-year-old Nathan Brown found out he would spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering two people in Escambia County during a drug deal robbery in 2021.

The families of David Purchase and Natalie Greenough began to weep as the clerk read the jury's conviction of Brown on two counts of first-degree felony murder. Likewise, Brown's family in attendance began to cry as they heard their relative's fate.

However, it wasn't until Brown himself turned red in the face, turned around to look at his family and began to cry that a few members of the jury had to wipe tears from their eyes while Circuit Judge Linda Nobles began to release the jury from their service.

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Moments after the jury left the courtroom for the final time, Nobles levied the only sentence she could legally give Brown - life in a Florida state prison without the possibility of parole.

"You sat through the trial, Judge, and it was an unnecessary killing of two people," Assistant State Attorney Trey Myers said just before Nobles announced Brown's sentence. "There are two victims in the case, and the court has to issue two sentences. The state would respectively ask they're consecutive, because there were two lives that have been effected."

Despite Brown's attorney, Marci McCoy, asking for his two life sentences to run concurrent with one another, Nobles ordered they run consecutive since she "values each individual life."

When the victims' families were given the opportunity to speak, Greenough's mother, Mary Lynn, took the opportunity to address the court to outline what losing her daughter meant in both her and her family's lives.

"I go to sleep only after hours of tossing and turning. I wake up screaming her name," Mary Lynn Greenough said. "I feel like there's this magnet outside my chest that keeps ripping my heart out.

"I will never be able to hold my baby again," she added. "I will never be able to kiss her again or tell her how much I love her. I'll never be able to hear her say, 'I love you, mom.'"

Nobles gave Brown the opportunity to speak, and even though McCoy said her client did not wish to speak he quickly said, 'Judge, I'm innocent. I didn't do what they said I did." Brown then turned to the victim's family and, with tears in his eyes and his voice trembling, said, "I promise y'all I'm innocent."

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Why did a jury convict Nathan Brown?

Ultimately, the jury found Myers proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Brown, who was 18 years old, killed Greenough and Purchase while trying to rob them during a marijuana drug deal at the intersection of Waycross and Stonewall avenues on Nov. 9, 2021.

Brown and his alleged co-conspirator, then-15-year-old Hunter Carroll, met Purchase and Greenough and within seconds began firing shots into the vehicle. An autopsy showed Purchase was shot in the heart and lungs, and both victims had bullets lodged in their spinal cords.

Both Purchase and Greenough sat in the vehicle deceased for hours until a passerby found the vehicle and called law enforcement.

In a recorded interview with Escambia County Sheriff's Office investigators played during the murder trial, Brown admitted he robbed and killed the pair.

Brown told investigators that Purchase, Greenough and an unidentified man in the back seat of Purchase's vehicle began shooting at them, which led to him and Carroll shooting Purchase and Greenough.

Testimony from the first day of trial on Tuesday revealed that responding deputies only found one firearm in the vehicle, and it was sitting in Purchase's lap. Investigators also said they only found two types of shell casings, which fit the firearms that Brown and Carroll allegedly had during the robbery.

When asked, Brown could not give an answer as to how three people shot a firearm when only one gun was located in the vehicle. Investigators also believe Purchase and Greenough were the only people in the vehicle.

What happens next with Hunter Carroll?

Carroll, who is now 16, remains in Escambia County Jail and is also charged with two counts of first-degree felony murder for the death of Purchase and Greenough. He additionally is charged with robbery with a firearm.

His next court date is scheduled for Oct. 4.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola man convicted of killing Natalie Greenough and David Purchase