Woman Hires A Hitman To Murder Her Dead Husband's Ex-Wife — Why Would She Do It?

Angel Brown didn’t give up easily. When she couldn’t make it as a boxer, she turned to stripping. When she met the man of her dreams, it didn’t matter that he was married. And when she thought someone was trying to take her money, she plotted their murder.  

Angel M. Brown was born in 1977 and had a rough upbringing. “She told me that when she was little, her mother would get real mad at her often,” mother-in-law Colleen Posey told “Snapped,” airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. 

Despite the disadvantages of her birth, Brown was determined to make something of herself. She trained to be a boxer but after a year of matches had a losing record. 

With her good looks and athletic skills, Brown turned to stripping to make ends meet. While dancing at the Queen of Hearts in Ashtabula, Ohio, she met the man who would change the course of her life. His name was Daniel R. Posey and he was a married father of three. 

Angel Brown

Posey was born in 1965 and grew up in northeastern Ohio. He was “a mama’s boy,” according to his ex-wife, Lisa Luke, but also enjoyed riding dirt bikes and playing the drums. 

Posey and Luke started dating when she was 17 and he was 21. After two years, she became pregnant with their first son and they were married. In 1994, Posey and Luke opened up a tanning salon. The couple soon welcomed another son and a daughter. 

“Dan was an amazing father,” Luke told “Snapped.” “In the whole time we were married, never once did he not put his kids first above everything.”

The stresses of life and work, however, take their toll on the Poseys' marriage. When one of their boys was diagnosed with leukemia, everything fell apart. 

“He came to the hospital one night and he was all dressed up,” Luke told "Snapped." “I decided to follow him from the hospital and I followed him to the strip club where Angel Brown worked.” 

The Poseys divorced in November 1996. Mere months later, Posey and Brown split for Las Vegas, where they stayed for three years. 

Posey and Brown moved back to Ohio and married in 2003. As a sign of devotion, she asked him to take her last name. He became Daniel Posey-Brown. Their son, Dartanian, was born a year later. 

The days of stripping were now a thing of the past for Brown. She became a stay-at-home mom and was an active member of the PTA.

On the night of Nov. 18, 2011, Posey was driving home on rural State Route 193. Out of nowhere, a runaway horse from a nearby event ran into the road and collided with his truck. The 46-year-old died instantly, local newspaper the Star Beacon reported at the time.

The news of Posey's death hit his loved ones hard. Brown gave an interview to the Star Beacon where she talked about her grief and the loss of her husband. 

In January 2012, James Holley entered the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office with a story to tell. Holley was a boxer and trainer in Ashtabula and well known to local law enforcement. 

“Mr. Holley has a conviction for arson. Several years prior to this he was convicted for setting a fireworks factory on fire,” Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Detective Taylor Cleveland said. 

Holley told investigators that Brown had given him $4,000 to murder Lisa Luke, according to court documents.  He knew her from her stripping days, had trained her as a boxer, and they reconnected after his release from prison. 

“Mr. Holley said that Angel Brown was telling him she was having some problems with her husband’s ex-wife. There was an issue with his estate and in order to remedy this she wanted Lisa Luke gone. She wanted Lisa Luke killed,” Cleveland explained.

After receiving the money, Holley went to a casino in Erie, Pennsylvania, and gambled the money away. Holley claimed he had no intentions of carrying out the murder but worried that Brown would recruit another killer. 

During his interview with police, Holley received a text message from Brown. She called off the murder but told him to keep $1,000 for his trouble, according to court documents. 

“Maybe she wanted to end her association with James Holley and she wanted to find somebody else to kill Lisa Luke, or did she even want to kill Lisa Luke herself?” Cleveland theorized.

Detective Cleveland told Holley to call Brown back and tell her he had spent the money so she wasn’t getting it back. 

“You want it done, it’s done. I mean, you just let me know,” Holley tells Brown in his videotaped interview with police, which was obtained by “Snapped.”

“Eventually, during the course of that, Angel Brown says, ‘Go ahead and do it,'" prosecutor Cecilia Cooper told “Snapped.”

Holley was outfitted with a wire and a hidden camera and sent to Brown’s home. On her front porch, she expressed her concern about getting caught, even patting Holley down to see if he was wearing a wire.  

“And if anybody gets busted, nobody’s coming back on me?" Brown asks Holley on the surveillance video, obtained by “Snapped.” “No,” Holley responds. 

Holley subsequently contacted Brown and falsely claimed to have murdered Luke. He asked her what to do with the body and she told him to make it "disappear," according to court documents. 

Police informed Luke about the murder plot against her. She explained how after the end of their marriage, Posey had fallen behind on his child support payments for their three children.    

“There was some contention between the two families. Before Daniel’s death he was over $30,000 behind in child support,” Cleveland said. 

When Luke would call to inquire about the money, Posey would put Brown on the phone. 

“She literally told me on the phone, ‘You are not going to take one bite of food out of my child’s mouth for your children,'” Luke recounted.

Posey had a $15,000 life insurance policy through his work and Brown had another policy she had taken out for $240,000. Upon his death, Luke tried to collect what she was owed for child support and discovered that Brown hadn’t listed two of his children as his next of kin. 

Posey's estate also received around $200,000 as part of a wrongful death settlement. Luke’s lawyers told Brown she would have to share the money with the children from his first marriage. Later that day, Brown reached out to Holley and asked him to kill Luke.

“I believe that’s what put her over the edge. That was the same day, literally, the same dates are on the documents, that she contacted James,” Luke said.

Angel M. Brown was indicted on two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder on January 19, 2012, according to court documents. 

It only took two hours of deliberation for a jury to find Angel Brown guilty on all counts in August 2013. That October, she was sentenced to nine years in prison, according to Fox 8 in Cleveland.  Brown will be released from prison in 2022 when she will be 45 years old. 

For more on this case and others like it, watch "Snapped," airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen, or stream episodes here.