Excerpts of a journal kept by Chericia Brown are shedding more light on why she asked the courts for help in the months before she and her two children were slain in an April murder-suicide.

  • Sheriff's Office releases excerpts of Chericia Brown's journal
  • Chericia Brown, 2 children were slain in murder-suicide in April
  • Deputies say her estranged husband killed her and kids, then killed himself

In the redacted journal excerpts, released Wednesday by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, Brown writes that her estranged husband, Henry Brown, threatened to kill her.

On Dec. 14, 2015, she wrote:

"(He) said the only way I would get a divorce is if I signed over all rights of children to him."

Then, three days later, she wrote notes in the left-hand margin:

"Told me he would find someone to kill me."
"Told me he would kill me himself."

Investigators say that over several hours starting late in the evening April 17, 2016, Henry Brown stabbed his estranged wife, Chericia, 15 times outside of a Chili's restaurant on Lake Mary Boulevard, ran over her and two bystanders who jumped in to help the woman, fired several shots at law enforcement inside the lobby of a hospital where his wife was taken and then fatally shot their two children, ages 1 and 4.

According to court records, Chericia Brown told authorities that she thought her husband was capable of killing and had even threatened to harm her and her children. On Dec. 18, 2015, Chericia Brown told an Altamonte Springs Police officer that Henry Brown threatened to kill her and their two small children, Aleah and Henry.

In January, a judge signed off on an injunction to keep Henry Brown from going near his wife, citing an “immediate and present danger of domestic violence.”

Excerpts of Chericia Brown's journal

SOURCE: Seminole County Sheriff's Office