Daughter of Noxapater mother tragically killed speaks for the first time

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Carol Burnside’s daughter said January 2018 changed her life forever.

Although no one has been charged in the case, Brown said she won’t give up until her mother gets justice.

“The person I had been with all of my life, just me and her, was gone and I didn’t know how I would do it from that point on, but I’m here.”

A’leaka Brown’s life changed in a blink of an eye back in January of 2018.

Brown’s mom, Carol Burnside, wanted her to come home the night her life tragically ended.

The then Alcorn State senior told her mom she would be there that following Saturday morning when she got off of work.

Like she promised she called her mom that morning, but her mom never answered.

“My aunt said she went to the bedroom, she didn’t see her. She went to the living room, everything is laid out, her medicine is laid out, everything. She goes to my room, normally I have the door closed and it was just like it was, the door was closed. When she opened it, she found her.”

She got the news while she was at work.

“And I looked and I read my manager’s mouth and she said, ‘They just found her mom dead.’ So I knew right then from that point, I felt like I lost a whole half me.”

One of the last conversations they ever had on the phone was about senseless violence.

“She was like, ‘I can’t believe this. The shooting and this gun violence is getting outrageous.’ This was Friday morning. I talked to her Friday night, when she asked me to come home and that we would all meet up at the same time and be there and then, you know, she was gone later on that night.”

Brown said it didn’t take her long to figure out who could have been responsible for taking away the person she loved the most.

She says it was her stepdad, Darrell Burnside.

“She told me, ‘Y’all will make it home at the same time.’ That’s the reason why she wanted me to come on home and then when I talked to him, ‘I am still in Louisiana.’ Something doesn’t add up because I talked to her and she said you were on the way home.’ So, there is no doubt in my mind who done it.”

Brown said her mom always had a smile on her face and never met a stranger.

A month after her mother’s murder, Brown found out she was expecting.

“I don’t know how I am doing it, but I honestly believe that it is her because he is her up and down. His laugh, his chubby cheeks, he is her completely.”

This picture is one of the last the mom and daughter took together, just two months before she was killed.

Pictures she said she’ll cherish forever, because the two never got to take college graduation pictures together like they had been planning to do.

“I was about to graduate. We were getting ready for pictures. That’s all she talked about. Leaka, we’ve finally made it, it finally paid off and before I can even walk the line, he took her away from me.”