A teenage boy, numbed by what he described as emotional and physical abuse by his parents, was walking home one winter night from a friend's house when he began fantasizing about a life without them.
Finding a loaded handgun at his house, the 15-year-old "floated" up the stairs and, one by one, pointed the gun at the heads of his mother, father and two younger brothers. Although he does not recall pulling the trigger, he told a forensic psychiatrist that he remembered hearing muffled bangs with each shot.
The chilling account - offered by Nicholas W. Browning to a doctor examining him to determine whether he should be tried for murder in the juvenile system or remain in adult court - cannot be used by prosecutors at trial to convict him of the four killings.
But it will likely play a pivotal role as the teenager's attorneys craft a defense that focuses on his mental state, either in an attempt to prove he might be guilty but not criminally responsible for the deaths or to argue that the shootings did not amount to first-degree murder, defense lawyers and legal experts said.
"Maybe they can mitigate it down to second-degree [murder] or manslaughter," said Brian Murphy, a criminal defense attorney and former Baltimore City prosecutor. "Although it sounds, on its surface, as premeditated as you can get. He walks back, gets the gun, loads it, cocks it, shoots one, walks to next room, shoots another and goes on like that. It's not quite a self-defense argument - because that would be crazy - but maybe it mitigates the premeditation. Kind of like a delayed provocation."
The Dulaney Valley High School sophomore, now 16, lost his bid last week to avoid being tried in adult court, where prosecutors have filed notice of their intention to seek four sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is accused of fatally shooting his parents, John and Tamara Browning, and his brothers, Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11, in the early-morning hours of Feb. 2 as they slept in their Cockeysville home. He had walked the three miles there from a friend's home.
Police said Browning later admitted that he had killed all four members of his family.
That confession will likely be challenged by the defense team at a pretrial motions hearing. Prosecutors cannot use against Browning at trial what he told the psychiatrists who evaluated him for last week's hearing because, according to state law, information gathered to determine whether a case will be heard in juvenile court cannot be used later to convict someone.
