5 Men Face Trial In Hamtramck Double Kidnapping, Murder Case
HAMTRAMCK (WWJ/AP) - A Hamtramck judge ruled Friday that five suspects in the kidnapping and murder of two women will stand trial.
Police said the victims, close friends 22-year-old Ashley Conaway and 18-year-old Abreeya Brown, were forced into a car trunk at gunpoint on Feb. 28 after being abducted from their home on Andrus Street. Their bodies were found almost a month later in shallow graves in a wooded area near 6 Mile Road and Telegraph in Detroit.
A Wayne County Medical Examiner testified that the women were bound with duct tape and shot in the head at close-range.
The five men — 26-year-old Brandon Cain, 24-year-old Miguel Rodriguez, 24-year-old Reginald Brown, 19-year-old Jeremy Brown and 25-year-old Brian Lee — are each charged with two counts of premeditated first degree murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of torture and two counts of unlawful imprisonment. Cain and Reginald Brown face additional gun charges.
Lee's attorney Arnold Reed spoke with reporters outside the courthouse.
"Everybody sitting in that courtroom -- spectators...everybody alike --- knew there was no evidence on my client whatsoever," Reed seai. "We're just very disappointed by a ruling that did not have a logical analysis to it as it related to Brian Lee."
An ex-boyfriend of Conaway is among those that will stand trial. All five face murder, torture and unlawful imprisonment charges.
Authorities say Conaway may have been targeted for telling police that two of the suspects shot at her nearly three weeks before the abduction.
If convicted as charged, the five men face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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