A 14-year-old girl, Bresha Meadows, has been arrested and jailed in the
Trumbull County Family Court in Ohio. Bresha is facing aggravated murder
charges for killing her own father, 41 year old Jonathan Meadows, but
her family says she did it to protect her mother and her family. Bresha
Meadows has been accused of shooting her father with his own gun in
their Warren home at 4 am on July 28.
Her mother called 911 right after the shooting took place
The girl’s mother Brandi Meadows said:
โShe is my hero; I wasnโt strong enough to get out and she helped me,โ.
With tears streaming down her face, Brandi Meadows said that her husband
abused her for years but that she had endured it and was afraid to
leave.
She said she had filed for a protective order five years ago against her husband but later dismissed it.
She said:
โI am so sorry she had to go through this,โ Brandi said Thursday. โShe
is my hero. She helped me; she helped all of us so we could have a
better life.โ
The Breshaโs attorney, Ian Friedman, said Bresha is a child that faced
years of abuse at the hands of her father, and that she witnessed her
mother being abused severely by her father.
โShe wanted to protect her Mom,โ โUsing that gun around the house, to intimidate everyone in the home was terrifying.โ
Friedman said.
Bresha allegedly used her fatherโs gun to shoot him. Family members say
the father often threatened them with that very gun she killed him with.
Ian Friedman, attorney for the Meadows family, said Bresha was born into
an abusive home and often witnessed her mother being abused at the
hands of her father.
He said that the father would often drink, and used the firearm to keep those living in the house afraid of him.
Martina Latessa, Breshaโs aunt, who is a Cleveland police officer, said the 15 year old had no history of violence.
โFrom day one she was born into a nightmare,โ Latessa said.
She said her brother-in-law was very controlling and would not let her
visit other family members. She said that at the end of May Bresha ran
away from home and came to her house.
โShe was begging me for help.โ โShe was very, very scared for her mother
and sisters.โ Latessa said, she said she took the teen to Warren police
and talked to an officer. She said she also contacted Trumbull County
Department of Job and Family Services but the authorities insisted they
could not act against Johnathan.
Juvenile prosecutor Stanley Elkins said:
โWe want to get at the truth and see that justice is served,โ Elkins
said. โAnybody who has any information or reports should contact Warren
Police.โ
Jonathan Meadows’ family members gathered to bid farewell the father on
Friday, and rejected claims that he was violent towards his family.
‘This had nothing to do with abuse,’ his brother, James Blount, said.
‘No. He drank a little bit, he had the way he did things, but my brother wouldn’t.’
Other family members said they want to know what happened inside the home.
‘That’s what’s so disheartening… this was cold and calculated, my brother was murdered,’
Jonathan’s sister Lena Cooper, said:
‘He was murdered in his sleep, there were no signs of abuse or anything else in that house.’
Bresha Meadows is due back in court at the end of August.
The mother’s family has started a Go Fund Me page to help pay for Bresha’s defense.
Source: Fox 8
