LANSING (WWJ) - A 30-year-old man from the Lansing area was sentenced to 70 to 100 years in prison on Thursday morning for fatally beating two women to death with a hammer in 2019.
According to Ingham County court records obtained via Mlive, Kiernan Brown from Delta Township, west of Lansing, pleaded guilty, but mentally ill to second-degree murder in the deaths of Kaylee Ann Brock, 26, of Holt and Julie Ann Mooney, 32, of Williamston.
Law enforcement said they arrested Brown in May 2019 after he showed Ingham County sheriff’s deputies photos of the badly beaten bodies on his cellphone.
He was later charged with two counts of open murder and armed robbery in connection with the deaths. As reported by Mlive, Brown told the court Wednesday he beat to death both Brock and Mooney with a hammer.
Police took Brown into custody after receiving a 911 call at 2:41 a.m., May 10, 2019, from a woman who said the 30-year-old man was attempting to gain entry to her home despite her having a personal protection order against him.
According to Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth, Brown had texted the woman an ominous message, stating “he loved her and spared her,” adding she would understand at a later time what he meant in saying that.
It was during his arrest that police were showed the photos of the dead bodies of Brock and Mooney that Brown had saved on his phone, Wriggelsworth said.
The Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, along with the Eaton County Sheriff’s Office and Meridian Township Police Department, later discovered the two women beat to death in their homes during a joint investigation.
Wriggelsworth said Brown appeared to imply that he wanted to kill two other women who remained unharmed, Mlive reported.
Brown was previously known to law enforcement on convictions of assault by strangulation and theft from a motor vehicle
As documented in Michigan Department of Corrections records, Brown absconded while on parole in 2019, a little more than a week before he murdered the two women.