Jeanine Brown said she used to talk to her daughter Amanda all the time.

Amanda Brown Photo courtesy Jeanine Brown

The one day that she didn’t hear from her: June 15, 2021.

The memory brought tears as she testified in Cumberland County Superior Court on Thursday during the second day of a murder trial in her daughter’s death.

On that summer day more than three years ago, Jeanine Brown said her daughter’s boss called to say Amanda hadn’t shown up for work. Her daughter’s boyfriend said she was just sick, but he wouldn’t put her on the phone. Eventually, Jeanine Brown said, he stopped answering her texts.

When she drove to her daughter’s house in Standish the next morning, a sheriff’s deputy stopped her at the end of the road. She would learn later that police had just found her daughter’s body.

She was the first witness called to testify in the jury trial against Amanda’s then-boyfriend, Brandon Libby, who is charged with murder in her death. Prosecutors say Libby, 37, shot Amanda Brown in the stomach after an argument on the night of June 14, 2021. She was 30 years old.

Brandon Libby leaves court after opening statements of his trial in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland on Wednesday. Libby is charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend Amanda Brown in 2021. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

Libby never called for help. He didn’t speak with police until two days later, when they say he barricaded himself inside a Waterboro home for several hours.

Libby’s lawyers, Matthew Crockett and Daniel Wentworth, have denied that their client shot Brown. She was the one aiming the gun at him, Wentworth said in opening statements Wednesday; the gun went off after Libby tried swatting it from her grasp, he argued.

Prosecutors plan to call on one detective who attempted to reconstruct the shooting, using the autopsy report, an analysis of the gun that was used and evidence from the crime scene.

The defense lawyers have said that Libby didn’t call for help because he was in shock. On Thursday, they repeatedly pointed out that none of the state’s witnesses – including the couple’s day care provider, a neighbor and several investigating officers – observed the shooting.

MOTHER SAYS RELATIONSHIP WAS ‘VOLATILE’

Jeanine Brown spoke briefly on Thursday about her daughter, who was a children’s case manager helping low-income families navigate public resources. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese showed the jury pictures of Amanda Brown, including one from when she was pregnant with one of the two children she shared with Libby.

The kids were roughly 4 and 2 at the time of her death. Prosecutors say they were home at the time of the shooting.

Jeanine Brown said her daughter’s relationship with Libby was “very volatile.”

“She was mad most of the time at him,” she said. “He was very unhelpful, self-centered. … They fought often on the phone when I was present.”

Libby’s attorneys didn’t cross-examine Jeanine Brown, who after testifying sat with her family as others took the stand.

Libby’s ex-fiancée, Natasha Carruthers, testified about how after the shooting he came to her home in Waterboro, where he later got in a standoff with police.

Carruthers and Libby also share two children. They had been in a relationship several years earlier, and were engaged before breaking it off in 2012. She had full custody of their two sons in 2021, Carruthers said, but Libby visited regularly.

She testified that Libby came to her house twice after police believe he shot Brown the night of June 14, 2021. But she said she didn’t know until the morning of June 16 that Brown was dead.

Libby told her that he had been in a bad fight with Brown, Carruthers said, and that the gun went off after he tried knocking it from Brown’s hands.

“He was a wreck,” she said. “He was crying, hysterical.”

CRISIS TEAM CALLED 

When police finally confronted Libby two days after the shooting, Carruthers had just called 911 after Libby fell from her couch that morning. She suspected that he might have attempted to overdose after sending her several troubling texts that morning. 

“Things aren’t good,” he wrote at one point. “At all. … I’m done.”

Sheriff’s deputy John Cross testified that Libby’s brother had called 911 earlier that day and reported having to take Libby’s gun away from him. According to the deputy’s testimony, Libby had driven to his brother’s house first, seemingly in crisis.

Carruthers said she spent most that day crouched behind a police cruiser while officers, including Sgt. Jessica Shorey, tried coaxing Libby out of her home.

Shorey, a crisis negotiator for state police, said that she was on the phone with Libby for two hours.

“He was not willing to come out of the residence and cooperate,” she testified.

His attorneys pointed out that Libby told Shorey he was afraid of the guns pointed at him and the barking dogs, although it’s unclear whether he was hearing police K-9s or neighborhood dogs.

A K-9 ultimately bit Libby once he was out of the home. He had to seek medical treatment at a hospital immediately afterward.

Sgt. George “GJ” Neagle, one of the K-9 handlers, said Libby hadn’t complied with “multiple” orders not to move. The dog was doing what he was trained to do, Neagle said, out of concern that Libby could have had a weapon or was planning to go back inside. (Libby had told police he wasn’t armed.)

HOW TO GET HELP

IF YOU or someone you know is in a mental health crisis, call or text 888-568-1112. To call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org.

FOR OTHER support or referrals, call the NAMI Maine Help Line at 800-464-5767 or email helpline@namimaine.org.

OTHER MAINE resources for mental health, substance use disorder and other issues can be found by calling 211.