UPDATE: Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020
VELDA CITY, Mo. — A man was found dead inside a Velda City home Tuesday night after an hourslong standoff with police, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
When the standoff began, Velda City police said the man inside the home in the 7100 block of Edison Avenue was Timothy Brown, a man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and her daughter on Christmas Day.
Sgt. Benjamin Granda, spokesperson for St. Louis County police, said he could not confirm the identity of the dead person until police notify his family. Granda did confirm that the person found dead was the only one inside the home.
The man likely shot himself, Granda said.
The incident began about 4:30 p.m. when police knocked on the door of the home on Edison Avenue, and a woman answered. While they were talking with the woman, police say someone inside the home fired shots at police.
Police then took the woman away and began negotiating with Brown.
Police had the house surrounded for hours, and St. Louis County police repeatedly shouted for Brown to “come to the front door with nothing in your hands.” An armored vehicle arrived on the scene just before 6 p.m.
Police discovered the man inside the home was dead when they sent a robot inside. It was unclear when the person died, Post-Dispatch reported.
Granda said police did not use force of any kind. He also said it was unclear what connection Brown had to the house where he was barricaded.
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Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A Missouri double-homicide suspect whom police describe as being armed and dangerous remains on the run Tuesday as chilling new details are surfacing surrounding the Christmas Day killings of his ex-girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter.
Timothy Brown, a 30-year-old from Spanish Lake, is facing two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action in the deaths of Charese Garvin, 28, and Alayah Butler, Fox2Now reported.
Police say the body of the woman and her toddler were found at a home in Spanish Lake — just outside of St. Louis — on Christmas after officers were called there to conduct a welfare check. Following conversations with witnesses, investigators believe the pair were shot.
Charging documents viewed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, also citing witnesses, stated that Brown and his car had been spotted at the crime scene and he had allegedly threatened Garvin, telling her if he couldn’t have her, “no one could.”
Garvin’s sister-in-law, Kristin Thorps, told the newspaper that Garvin was a caring mother of three who was pregnant with her fourth child at the time of her death, Fox reported.
Charese Garvin and her daughter Alayah Butler. (Photo courtesy of Kristin Thorps)
Two of her children – ages 4 and 6 – were fathered by Brown, and Garvin previously had called the police on him over domestic violence concerns, according to Thorps.
Garvin worked as a teaching assistant and her job and children “were her everything,” Thorps added.
Suspect Timothy Brown has been charged in relation to a double homicide in the North County Precinct on Christmas. He is…
Posted by St. Louis County Police Department on Monday, December 28, 2020
“To receive news that the mother of my child and my youngest daughter were violently slain on Christmas day is unimaginable and unfathomable,” the father of Alayah, Andrew Butler, also said in a statement obtained Monday by the St. Louis Post Dispatch. “To know I will never see my child smile or hear her contagious laugh or demanding call for ‘Da-Da’ is heart-wrenching.”
According to the Post-Dispatch, Brown was out on parole last week after being sentenced to five years in prison following a guilty plea on first-degree burglary charge last year.
Police are planning to implement a $1 million cash-only bond when Brown is taken into custody in the double-murder case.
