October 14, 2008
The search for 'why'
Many questions remain in tragedy involving 'picture-perfect' family
The Browning family is shown at Deep Creek Lake, where they had a vacation home, around June 2006. Nicholas (top right) is accused of killing his parents, Tamara and John, and his two brothers, Benjamin (bottom left) and Gregory. (Handout photo / February 8, 2008)
Minutes before services started, the Rev. Bill Brown still didn't know what on earth he would say.
There has been a tragedy, he finally told the 100 or so people in the pews of Epworth United Methodist Church. And the victims were church members - John and Tammy Browning and their two youngest boys, all found dead in their Cockeysville home.
At this news, the congregation collectively gasped.
Brown made no mention of 15-year-old Nicholas, the Brownings' oldest son and a Sunday school regular, who had confessed to the killings. The teenager told the police, a source said, that one by one he had executed members of his family with his father's handgun while they slept and then returned to a friend's home to play Xbox.
The minister went on to preach about why such horrors happen, a question that hung in the air. Why this family? Why this community?
First, though, the congregation stood to sing Hymn 314.
It was called "In the Garden":
I'd stay in the garden with Him
'Tho the night around me be falling
Not far away, on the edge of the church property, was the prayer garden that Nick Browning had created in the fall as his Eagle Scout project. Nothing blooms there, though. The earth is covered with gravel. The cross - built into the ground - is made of concrete.
It was there Tuesday night, when families from Cockeysville and beyond gathered at County Home Park for a candlelight vigil. Sweatshirt hoods pulled over their heads, some of the children looked like monks praying on the muddy athletic field. Several boys brought their own candles - thick, stumpy ones that might well have been swiped from the dining room table. These stayed lit long after the slender white tapers supplied by organizers burned out.
Everyone wanted to know why Nick may have shot his family early last Saturday morning with John Browning's 9 mm Smith and Wesson, ditched the gun in the woods and then staged the discovery of the bodies that evening, in front of his friends. Parents and kids alike are still sifting through theories for something that makes sense.
The ease of text messages and Facebook chats have made the stories fly all the faster. Often, parents aren't aware of all that their kids are talking about, which only feeds the fears these killings have summoned. If a son can commit such a spectacular act of violence, can parents ever really know their children?
To many, Nick Browning appeared to be a well-adjusted boy. Tall and athletic, he was on his high school's varsity golf team, a leader of Boy Scout Troop 328 and an honors student who played the cello.
"In our class he was the biggest kid and the nicest kid at the same time," said Brent Burton, who went to middle school with Nick and still kept tabs on him through Facebook. "He was pretty funny, too."
Nick was playing video games at a friend's house late last Friday night and into Saturday morning when he told the other kids he had to leave - something to do with his car, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.
In his confession, Nick told the police he walked nearly three miles back to his parent's large Colonial-style home, where his father was sleeping on the couch. Nick said he retrieved his father's gun, and shot him in the head, the source said. Then he went upstairs where his mother, Tamara, and two younger brothers, 14-year-old Gregory and 11-year-old Benjamin, were sleeping, and allegedly shot them all.
Nick tried to mask the scene as a botched burglary, the source said. When the police arrived, they found Tamara Browning's jewelry box on the floor and the family's video game console and other electronics stacked near the door.
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