Monica Delk testifying in court
Monica Sharell Delk, 35, testified Thursday she stabbed Charles Brown IV, 27, out of fear for her and her children’s lives, but she did not mean to kill him.
Brown died on Jan. 5, 2014 from internal bleeding after being stabbed in the heart by his girlfriend Ms. Delk in her apartment on Grove Street.
The day after the stabbing Ms. Delk sent a text message from her son’s phone to her ex-father-in-law. When he came over she used his phone to call the police. The officers who responded to the scene found the victim dead on the kitchen floor. Ms. Delk was there when police arrived. She said she stabbed Brown during an argument.
After being arrested for criminal homicide, Ms. Delk pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
During Thursday’s hearing before Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman, she gave her side of the story.
She said she met Brown in August 2013 on the bus. He asked for her name and left her his number. The two started dating, but Ms. Delk told Brown he could not move in with her. Her two young sons lived with her at that time.
“In the beginning he was real nice. We talked for hours. He would play gospel music,” Ms. Delk said.
But from May to October Brown’s attitude allegedly began to change. Ms. Delk said he started talking negatively about his job at the chicken plant. He became increasingly belligerent and “drama-filled.”
“I like to be drama free,” Ms. Delk said. “I didn’t really want to hear about no n***** stuff all the time.”
By this time Brown was living with Ms. Delk. As their relationship progressed Ms. Delk said he started grabbing and shoving her. On Dec. 6, Brown allegedly accused Ms. Delk of stealing his pressure gun. When she said she did not know what he was talking about, Brown hit her in the face with a cereal bar and threatened to hit her with an AC unit, the defendant said.
“He grabbed me and slammed me into the wall.”
Ms. Delk said Brown took her sons’ phones away but she managed to call the police. Brown left but came back the next day, entering the apartment with the key Ms. Delk had given him. She said, though he was “very apologetic,” she told him to go back home to his family.
“This is my home,” Brown allegedly said to Ms. Delk. He continued to stay with her.
After that, the victim started to exhibit other strange behavior. Ms. Delk said she would wake up to him standing over her bed. A few times he splashed water on her while she was in a deep sleep. He also began to put a chair up against Ms. Delk’s bedroom door to keep her sons locked out, she said.
Ms. Delk said he started to act out towards her boys.
“If I leave, someone’s going to die,” Brown allegedly said when Ms. Delk asked him to get out of her apartment.
She said he went from being upset some of the time to all the time, and it made her “nervous.” Through tears she testified, “It just would’ve been nice to be able to pick up the phone and call one of his relatives to come get him.”
According to Doris Hart, grandmother of Brown who testified prior to Ms. Delk, she raised Brown because his mother died when he was seven and his father was always in jail. Ms. Hart said he was a happy child but a slow learner who did not finish Brainerd High School. He continued to live with her until he was 27. Then Ms. Hart urged him to go out on his own. He had been living with Ms. Delk and at a hotel for a few months before his death, she said.
Ms. Delk testified she progressively became frightened of Brown. She was going to Virginia College at the time and was out on winter break. On New Years Eve, Brown reportedly wanted to sell marijuana in her house, but she would not allow it. Brown, who by now had lost his job, became angry and slapped her three times, saying it was her fault he was unemployed.
She said after that incident he did not want her or her sons going out of the house or looking out the windows. Brown would make advances at her, but she rejected him, Ms. Delk said.
She did not have access to a phone because Brown had allegedly taken her sons’ phones. Ms. Delk said she kept telling him to go home, but he would not leave.
On the day she killed him, Brown had been “ranting and raving all night.”
“And once again, I had really no sleep at all,” Ms. Delk said.
She said, “He was really acting out of character.” She did not know if he was on drugs or not, but he was acting “very, very controlling” and “very, very hateful” towards the defendant and her boys.
At dinnertime, he wanted everyone to come in the kitchen one person at a time to eat. Ms. Delk had a bad feeling. She said she has food allergies and was not feeling well that day, so ate peach yogurt for dinner.
“You ungrateful b****,” Brown reportedly said.
Ms. Delk said he became extremely angry later that night and started throwing garbage on the floor. She said he was mad because he thought her sons had eaten the peach yogurt, even though he had watched her eat it.
“He was really, really angry.”
Brown allegedly became physical with her youngest son. Then he grabbed Ms. Delk and she stabbed him, stating she was in fear for her and her sons’ lives.
She said she did not want him to die, and that she was sorry he did.
According to Dr. Steven Cogswell of the medical examiner's office, the victim could have possibly been saved if he received immediate medical help. But because he had been stabbed in the heart, Dr. Cogswell said it did not take him long to die from internal bleeding.
Brown also had a stab wound in the back, plus another superficial stab wound and a number of abrasions and contusions around his face and neck as if he had been in a struggle.
He had chemical burns on his back that could have been caused by lying on a fabric that was soaked with cleaning agents. According to police, Ms. Delk cleaned up the crime scene.
The defendant testified after she stabbed Brown he continued to fight. She did not think it was that serious. But then he went down, falling on his back.
“I couldn’t believe what was going on.”
Ms. Delk expected him to get back up. She said she stabbed him around nine or 10 at night but did not call the police until the next day.
“My mind was somewhere else…I was real tired and didn’t feel like doing anything…I couldn’t even think straight,” she said.
She cleaned up the blood with bleach. When she “finally” got herself together, she began to look for the phone. Once she found it she had her son show her how to send a text message to her ex-father-in-law. When he came over he told Ms. Delk she needed to “call somebody now.”
Ms. Delk said she was not planning to hide the body or run. She said she did not hate Brown; she “just wanted him to go back home.”
According to Ms. Hart, Brown called her every night, including the night before his death. He would tell her, "I need help."
Ms. Hart said she thinks about "him lying there bleeding, and she wouldn't help him."
That testimony caused two women in the courtroom to cry.
Ms. Delk said not a day went by where she did not wish to have Brown come back to his family. She said, “Not a day that don’t go by that I don’t pray for his family.”
“I just want to rewind,” she said, “and go our separate ways.”