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Convicted Killer Blames Lover for Boyfriend's Murder: "I Hated Him After That"
Cristina Rodriguez was caught in a love triangle with two men and lied about her pregnancy to both, sparking a murder, according to police. Now she and her co-conspirator Braylon Ellis are speaking from behind bars.
When Fort Worth Texas police found 51-year-old Tommy Brown dead on his bathroom floor, beaten with a ceramic toilet tank lid, and a bag taped around his head and shoelaces around his neck, they called it one of the worst crimes they’d ever seen.
“Been in homicide close to 15 years now and I have never had another offense or murder where the toilet lid was used as a weapon,” said Det. Thomas O’Brien with the Fort Worth police department on Snapped: Behind Bars, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “And so that was pretty unique to this case.”
Brown’s murder on Sept. 7, 2013 was first featured on Snapped Season 29, in an episode that aired on June 20, 2021. Two people are currently serving life sentences for his slaying: Eunice "Cristina" Rodriguez and Braylon Ellis. More than a decade after the crime, each is giving their side of the story on Snapped: Behind Bars. Each blames the other for what happened to Tommy Brown.
“When you’re consistently lying to a person, to the point where an innocent man gets murdered, no, that’s not love right there, that’s being manipulative,” said Braylon Ellis on Snapped: Behind Bars. “Cristina used me.”
But Rodriguez claimed Ellis lied during her trial.
“I know everybody thinks I’m the mastermind because that’s what they’re saying in court but that is not true,” Rodriguez said on Snapped: Behind Bars. “I did not convince Braylon to do anything. He’s a monster now to me.”
Cristina Rodriguez and Tommy Brown's Relationship
Rodriguez met Tommy Brown through a friend and wrote to him while she was incarcerated for robbery.
“The Tommy that I knew, he was a good man,” Rodriguez said. “He would come visit me faithfully. He’d put money on my commissary. He was an awesome man. We stayed in contact through the whole ten years that I was incarcerated.”
Rodriguez was released in 2011 and said she and Brown had talked about starting a romantic relationship when she left prison. She began visiting him at a home he still shared with the woman Rodriguez believed to be his ex.
“He would tell me that he wasn’t with her anymore, that they were through, but yet Connie was still living at his house…because he didn’t want her in the streets and he still cared for her,” Rodriguez said. “I was in love with him. And I was naive.”
Five months before his murder, Brown’s sister told police that her brother confided in her Rodriguez had agreed to have a baby for Brown and Connie — but Rodriguez said that wasn’t the case.
“I was not trying to be nobody’s surrogate. No. The baby I was going to have was Tommy’s baby with me,” Rodriguez said. “Connie can have her own babies. She had kids of her own. She just didn’t have kids with Tommy.”
Connie eventually moved out of Brown’s home, but Brown and Rodriguez's relationship became complicated and volatile.
“Cristina and Tommy’s relationship was all over the place. There was a number of times — number of reports — that showed she had stolen from him,” O’Brien said. “Taken his wallet. TVs. Playstations. Things like that. And for some reason, he would let her back.”
Braylon Ellis calls Cristina Rodriguez a "manipulator"
Cristina Rodriguez and Braylon Ellis met while riding a Greyhound bus.
“I was seeing her at that time. I liked what I saw,” Braylon Ellis said during an exclusive interview on Snapped: Behind Bars. “I was a single parent. I was working. And I was looking for a woman to be there to raise my son with me.”
The two ended up living together, and eventually, Rodriguez told Ellis she was pregnant with his child. The 25-year-old also claimed she told him stories about her relationship with Tommy Brown.
“Cristina told me that he [Brown] had a history of beating her,” Ellis said. “And at that time, I thought she was pregnant with my child. So, I was real mad at that.”
Rodriguez admitted from behind bars she was pitting the men against each other.
“Around the same time I was with Braylon, I had told Tommy, ‘Well, since you’re not gonna leave Connie alone, I’m not gonna leave Braylon alone,’” she said.
The love triangle between Cristina Rodriguez, Braylon Ellis, and Tommy Brown ended with Brown’s brutal beating on Sept. 7, 2013.
“She was just a manipulator,” O’Brien said. “Clearly, she didn’t seem to care about either one of these individuals because if not for her, one wouldn’t be dead and one wouldn’t be in prison for the rest of his life.”
RELATED: Woman Convicted of Father's Murder Details Role in His Killing: "Yet to Forgive Myself"
Braylon Ellis claims Tommy Brown was alive when he last saw him
After Braylon Ellis was arrested for Tommy Brown’s murder, he was confused as to why.
“To be honest, I really didn’t even know we were on the run,” Ellis said. “Last time I seen Mr. Brown, he was alive. He was messed up, but he was still alive.”
Eventually, Ellis discovered that the 37-year-old Rodriguez was never pregnant, and after that betrayal, he decided to confess to police.
“I was made to believe that Mr. Brown had harmed Cristina…so it was my idea to fight him,” Ellis said. “So I was protecting her and my child.”
Ellis told police that Rodriguez snuck him into Brown’s house the day of the murder with a spare key. He admitted to using the toilet tank lid to beat him.
“I didn’t stop. I just snapped. As I looked to my right, I see Cristina standing there holding like a pot,” Ellis said. “So I take the pot out of her hands and I start just beating him with the pot.”
From behind bars, Rodriguez said Ellis is lying.
“That’s not true. To lie in the courtroom and say that I gave him a pot to hit him with it. That just threw me off,” she said.
Ellis claimed that after beating Brown, he left the house without Rodriguez, and Brown was still alive.
“That’s not true. He had put a bag over his head so that he wouldn’t breathe,” Rodriguez said. “When I heard Braylon’s testimony, I hated him after that.”
In March 2016, a jury found Ellis guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, and will be eligible for parole in 2043 at the age of 55. In January 2017, Rodriguez was also found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, and will be eligible for parole in 2043 at the age of 67.
Catch up on Season 2 of Snapped: Behind Bars streaming on Peacock.
