Two teenage girls were found guilty Monday of beating a man to death in Northwest D.C. last year.
The two girls, 13 and 14 years old, were convicted of second-degree murder and assault in the fatal beating of 64-year-old Reggie Brown in October 2023.
Three other girls involved in Brown’s killing have also pleaded guilty.
NBC Washington reporter Paul Wagner was at the D.C. court when the verdict was read and joined WTOP’s Shawn Anderson and Anne Kramer to talk more about the case and convictions.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Paul Wagner: It was back on Oct. 17 of last year. Reggie Brown was out for a late-night walk, like he often does, according to his sisters, and he was accosted by a man police have called “Blue Coat,” because they’ve never been able to identify him. But there’s surveillance video showing that this man, Blue Coat, dragged Reggie across Georgia Avenue, and then these five girls, who have admitted that they were out looking for someone to beat up that night, walked up to Blue Coat and asked if they could join in. And they did.
And they took Reggie into an alley, and they beat him to death. They kicked him. They stomped him. There was a cellphone video of this attack — I’ve seen it. It’s one of the most brutal (videos) I’ve ever seen. And this was the culmination of the trial for two of the girls, two out of the five, were both found guilty.
Shawn Anderson: Walk us through what happened in the courtroom as the verdict came down.
Paul Wagner: So it’s a juvenile matter. It was a judge who rendered her verdict from the bench, Judge Kendra Briggs, and she said that these girls had chased a frail, 64-year-old man down an alley, kicking him in the head while bleeding, pulling down his pants, beat him with a belt. And then, in this 55-second video, the judge said you can hear the girls calling Reggie a “loser” and that they had just “killed an n-word.”
And as you probably know, if you’ve been following this case, that one of the girls who actually testified in this case — she pled guilty to assault and she testified against the two that were found guilty of second-degree murder (Monday) — she had testified that they were bored and that they were out looking for someone to beat up that night. And this is the culmination of it.
Now, all five have been adjudicated, as we learned. It was a surprise in the courtroom. We learned that the last girl has pleaded guilty. So three have pled guilty, and then two were found guilty (Monday) of second-degree murder, assault and conspiracy.
Anne Kramer: Were the teenage girls, did they say anything in court? Did they offer any kind of apology?
Paul Wagner: No, they have not spoken at all, other than to give their ages and names. And I looked up and I didn’t see any reaction from them at all. The judge did say that one of the girls — the youngest of them, she was 12 at the time, she’s now 13 — has been in considerable trouble at the juvenile facility in the last few months, and that she has been involved in seven different incidents there at the facility. The judge said she’s not in compliance and that she’s been in a lot of trouble. But no, no reaction from the girls.
And the girls’ families were in there, and no reaction from them either. But the sisters of Reggie Brown were in the courtroom, and they did come outside and speak, and they said they were satisfied with what they had seen and heard. But they said they won’t give up until police have identified this guy, Blue Coat.
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