EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
About two weeks before police say Kristen Ann Brown’s husband killed her and their 7-year-old daughter at her home daycare in Hopkins, she notified daycare parents that she would be closing the business due to relationship issues with her husband, according to a Thursday court filing.
Police also suspect Nathan Matthew Brown, 41, of killing a 78-year-old female relative in Burnsville on Wednesday.
Officers were dispatched at 9:06 a.m. Wednesday to Brown Bear Childcare on Tyler Avenue, between Lake and Second streets, in Hopkins on a report of a stabbing.
A man dropping children off at the daycare reported he could hearing children screaming as he approached, according to an affidavit for a search warrant for the home filed by Hopkins police. He went inside and saw Nathan Brown on top of Kristen Brown, 41.
He reported “it initially looked like Nathan was giving Kristen CPR,” but “he then noted Nathan had a screwdriver in his hand and was actively stabbing Kristen,” the affidavit said. He also saw Nathan Brown stabbing the couple’s daughter, who he knew as Evie.
The man gathered his two children and two additional children who were inside the daycare, and they fled outside. He called 911.
Police found the mother and daughter dead together, and Nathan Brown dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
All six other children who were at the daycare were not physically harmed, authorities said.
Opened daycare after having her own child
Kristen Brown came from a small town in rural South Dakota, she wrote in 2019 on the Brown Bear Childcare Facebook page, the year the daycare became licensed by the state.
“I realized early on that I loved working with children,” Brown wrote. “It is a truly rewarding experience to watch them learn and grow. I started babysitting when I was 10 years old, which progressed to a regular, every other weekend position that I held until I was 14.”
She started working at her mother’s childcare center when she turned 12, later worked at large centers and had her own home daycare in South Dakota.
Kristen Brown graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 2010. Before starting Brown Bear, she worked as a certified optometric vision therapist.
“In October 2018, I had my own child,” Brown wrote. “As much as I loved my previous positions, I believe that it is time to return to child care so that I can be home with her. I plan to take all the skills that I have learned in my journey and use them help my daughter and those children (who will hopefully become life-long friends) blossom into happy, intelligent, caring individuals.”
The man who called 911 Wednesday later told police about the newsletter that Kristen Brown had sent parents about the upcoming daycare closure, according to the search warrant affidavit.
“Our hearts go out to the many people whose loved ones were taken from them (Wednesday), and to the children, family members, and witnesses to such violence,” Violence Free Minnesota wrote on social media of the homicides. “… Since 1989, we have lost at least 886 lives to intimate partner violence and domestic violence in Minnesota. Please remember these lives were not statistics or numbers on a page. They were beautiful, brilliant souls.”
Domestic violence “is a public health issue, a public safety issue, and a social justice issue,” Violence Free Minnesota also wrote.
Investigation remains underway
At 12:23 p.m. Wednesday, Burnsville police were called to a home in the area of Maple Island Road and Joplin Avenue on a report of a stabbing.
They found a 78-year-old woman dead, and investigators believe the Burnsville and Hopkins homicides are linked. Nathan Brown had been living at the Burnsville home, according to police.
Hopkins police said Thursday their investigation remains underway.
Minnesota court records show no cases other than two petty misdemeanors for Nathan Brown — operating a snowmobile on a state trail without a permit in 2011 and fishing without a license in 2015.