Cyntoia Brown apologizes to family of man she shot dead after he paid $150 to have sex with her when she was 16
Cyntoia Brown, who was granted clemency this August 15 years into her 50-year sentence for fatally shooting a man when she was 16 years old, has apologized to the family of her victim on Tuesday. Johnny Allen had reportedly paid $150 to have sex with the then-16-year-old Brown, who then shot him dead. Brown has always maintained that she shot him in self-defense when he was reaching out for his own gun.
Brown, now 31, spent her teenage years being raped by multiple men and after being sexually trafficked by a pimp called 'Kut Throat'. She made headlines years after her sentencing when celebrities like Kim Kardashian West appealed for her early release. She was eventually granted clemency in August this year by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam after serving 15 years in prison.
Brown has now released a book on her life titled 'Free Cyntoia,' and when she appeared on Today on Tuesday to promote it, she offered an apology to Allen's family, who had said they were disheartened by her early release. Allen's family claims that Brown was attempting to rob him when she pulled the trigger.
"I'm here by the grace of God."
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 15, 2019
Watch Cyntoia Brown-Long's full interview with @craigmelvin about her time in prison and what her life has been like now as a free woman. pic.twitter.com/wLLgsEGA8e
Brown had met Allen in a parking lot. He offered to buy her snacks and then said he'd pay her $150 to have sex with her. She agreed to it and they went to his home where she shot him in the back of the head. She then fled with his wallet and two of his guns and was later arrested.
"I would let them know that number one the way they feel is completely understandable," Brown said about Allen's family. "I don't think that we can tell someone how to feel when they've been through something like that and I completely understand. They've lost a loved one. I took that person from them. I would tell them that I apologize if they would ever want an opportunity to speak with me - I'd be more than happy to. I would (talk to them)."
The 31-year-old said that writing her book in prison helped her, and that everything that happened to her in the course of 15 years behind bars, made her understand things differently.
"Everything that's happened over the course of 15 years, I'd come to a point where I'd healed from this, understood things differently, then when I put it on paper it had to take me back to those moments and I was like, 'wow I really didn't know I was still dealing with this,'" Brown said.