David Browning
As an 11 year old child David felt “abandoned” by his family.
His father was in the military and had to move to Australia. David’s mother and 2 younger siblings went with his dad, but they left David in a boarding school.
There he witnessed sexual abuse and apparently, he became a victim at the age of “19 or 20”.
30 or so years later, 51 year old David Browning had been Nicknamed Spock by his wife.
He’d got the nickname from the Star Trek character, because of his methodical manner in which he did things.
By 2018, he’d been married to his wife Deborah for 24 years. Together they had a 21 year old son and a 18 year old daughter.
He first met Deborah at the University of Brighton, they worked in the same department, and they got together “a couple of years” later.
Prior to his dad’s death, David was really amiable, easy going, friendly, funny and kind. But then on 1st of November 2016, his dad died unexpected as a result of falling off a ladder.
David seemed to be coping really well at first but after sorting out his dad’s coroner’s report, he began to suffer from depression.
But we’re getting ahead of our selves, so let’s step back just for a second.
27 years before his dads death, in 1989, David Browning started working at the University of Brighton’s payroll department.
Jillian Howell
Then after 26 years, In 2015 Jillian Howell took over the department becoming Davids boss.
46 year old Jillian had been employed by the university to improve the unproductive department.
She’s been described as beautiful, gentle, kind, loving and selfless. She was a Samaritans volunteer and had herself suffered depression in the wake of her own father’s death, just a few years before.
At the time of this case she lived alone in her terraced home on Sandgate Road, Fiveways.
She had close bonds with her family and she was a dedicated Seagulls football club supporter.
“Jill was a gentle and kind soul; she had an aura of calm and peace with a warm heart and an infectious smile. She was a fun person to be around and was always cheerful and laughing. She was hard-working, had tremendous honesty and integrity and had such a positive impact on all who knew her. Jill was generous with her time and loved to help people, always putting others before herself. Much of her spare time was spent volunteering as a listening volunteer at the Samaritans and we are so proud of the support and kindness she gave so readily to callers at a time in their lives when they needed it most.”
Part of Family Statement
Over the time that Jillian worked in the universities payroll department, she told friends she was frustrated by David, and another male colleague, because they were resistant to the changes that she tried to bring in.
Other Staff said Jillian had picked on David.
She shouted at him and ‘belittled’ him in front of colleagues. But they confirmed that she had also offered to help him, because he was suffering from stress and anxiety following the death of his dad.
One of the seven employees in the payroll unit, said if David and Jillian disagreed there could be fireworks.
‘If they did not agree she would not take that very well and shout, intimidate or be very rude. It was in front of the whole finance office. It happened quite often, every week, every other week.’
But as I’ve just mentioned Jillian was also mindful of David suffering from depression.
Having been there herself and being Samaritans volunteer she thought she could help. I suppose she felt if she offered help and understanding it might ease work tensions.
So I think what’s going on here, from what I’ve read, is she comes in as the new boss of the department, and as quite often is the case, some of the staff were abit resistant to her because she was new to the department. And maybe even because she was female.
Bringing new leaders into a team can be a very turbulent time in any work force.
So In response to their resistance against her, I think she probably got a little, resentful, so she wasn’t treating them quite right or maybe she was. But their constant resistance lead to her being frustrated with them… basically I think it worked itself into a bit of a “both sides are as bad as each other” situation.
But I also think she was keen to resolve the issues and perhaps thought if she could help David out with his personal issues it would resolve their work tensions.
It was on the 13th of May 2017, that David showed the first signs of wanting to obtain a shotgun, as he Googled “shotgun cabinets”.
Jillian & David’s First Drinks
On the 6th of June Jillian invited David out for drinks after work.
Together they went to the Signalman pub in Ditchling Rise, in Brighton.
After that, he text her to say, ‘I adore you personally and professionally. I am there for you anytime Dave x.’
But over the coming weeks his condition worsened and he confessed to Jillian about having suicidal thoughts.
On the 18th of June Jillian told a friend, who she knows through her work for the Samaritans, about her concerns for a colleague at work. She told them “David is suicidal and struggling”.
On the 9th of July, 2 months after the google search, David applied for a shotgun licence.
Jillian and David were supposed to be going for drinks on the 13th of July but Jillian cancelled.
On the 30th of July David was granted a five year firearms licence. He was now legally allowed to own and keep a shotgun.
On the 2nd of August he text Jillian to say “what a wonderful lady you are”.
Crossing The Line
The day after on 3rd of Aug Jillian invited David over for dinner.
She was Concerned about him, and she’d even told friends that she was going to invite him round to her house for a meal, to ‘cheer him up.’
A close friend, was concerned by the idea, she felt that Jillian might be overstepping her professional role as his boss.
But in line with Jillian’s caring nature, The invitation went ahead.
David turned up to her house with wine and flowers and Jillian cooked a curry.
After cooking and the pair shared the chicken curry and the wine, and then talked for a bit afterwards.
The following day, david who let’s not forget is married, texted jillian to say:
‘Thank you for tonight. Can I just say now we’re not full of red wine. I think you realise what you mean to me as a person and a friend. I will continue to be inappropriate at times to make you smile.’
Another 5 days on, on the 8th of August Jillian contacted the university’s occupational health department, to seek help for David.
Obviously at this point David and jillian are getting really close, at least in david’s perspective.
on the 20th of August, Jillian told that Samaritans friend, that we mentioned earlier, that David had told her, ‘You must never leave the university or get a boyfriend because I need you’.
And it was about this time, that David began to suspect Jillian was in a relationship with another man.
This other man was Sean McDonald, the former mayor of Worthing and former detective.
However, that was far from the truth Jillian and Sean were just close friends. Not that it had anything to do with David.
In an Attempt to put some distance between her and David, Jilian recommended he should see a counsellor from the university’s occupational health team.
He was hesitant at first but he eventually agreed.
However after the counselling session he felt worse and he told Jillian, ‘The problem is I’m not okay. I feel doomed.’
He told the counsellor he had suicidal thoughts and wanted to die, but at no stage did the university inform the police or his GP about his deteriorating mental health.
On the 16th of September, a month and half after he’d gotten his firearms license, David paid a deposit for a second-hand 12 gauge shotgun.
He also bought 50 shotgun cartridges and a lock knife. All together paying around £1000 in cash.
It’s also at about this time that Jillian told her Samaritans friend, that David told her, he had a plan or taking his own life.
She also told her nephew about a man at work, who was suicidal but she thought a lot of him.
On the 24th October David hired a rental van from Choices.
He later told psychiatrists that he wanted the van to conceal his shotgun.
David Had A Plan
In the run-up to the murder, David had come up with a plan to implicate Sean McDonald in the killing.
In an elaborate ruse, he submitted a form to the university pension department, requesting a change of beneficiary on Jill Howell’s pension, to make her friend Sean McDonald, the sole benefactor.
However the pensions department became suspicious, the signature did not resemble Jillian’s signature.
David’s last appointment with the counsellor was on the 24th of October.
In Jillian’s diary, there was an entry on the 25th of October, marked “Dave dinner”.
She’d invited him around to hers for dinner. This was the second time that he would go to her house for dinner.
At 7:25 that evening David text Jillian, to say he is on the way to her home on Sandgate Road Fiveways, Brighton.
He had arrived at her house with a curry, flowers and a bottle of wine.
At around 10.30 she told him he ought to think about leaving and going home.
But he responded and in his words. “I said: ‘I can’t go home.’, She said: ‘Why?’, I said: ‘Because I’ve posted my suicide notes'”.
Jillian told him she was going to take him to hospital. She went to get her trainers and jacket but as she bent down to tie her shoelaces he stabbed her.
“I was behind her. I felt this whoosh feeling come over. I pulled the knife out and stabbed her in the back. She fell towards the sofa and as I stabbed her in the throat once she grabbed knife with her hand and screamed ‘You b*****d’. I said: ‘Sorry Jill this is what mental health does to you'”.
David’s Account
David Browning knifed Jillian Howell a total of 15 times.
8 times in the neck, 6 in the chest and once in the back.
As she laid in a pool of blood on the lounge floor, David scrawled ‘bully’ across her forehead in marker pen.
He also wrote messages on the walls of her home in spray paint, including one that blamed the murder on Sean McDonald.
In the early hours at 4.25, David Googled “suicide with shotgun” then posted a poster on facebook that reads “stand up to bullies – then kill them”.
He then spent more than a hour on the phone to the Samaritans.
He told the operator he’d done something really bad. He’d stabbed somebody. His boss. A woman.
he was still in the house, but he didn’t want to look at her and “hadn’t gone with the intention of stabbing her”.
During the call, he was very coherent, very engaging and he sounded quite shocked.
At the end of the phone call he told the operator: “I’m going to decide now whether to shoot myself or hand myself in”.
He’d stayed in Jillian’s house for about 6 hours after killing her and then he went to John Street police station in Brighton.
At 6.08am, he called 999. He told the operator that he was outside the police station but couldn’t get in and that he needs to be sectioned.
The operator informs him that if he needs to be sectioned, he needs the ambulance service, not the police. At that point he add that he has a shotgun with him.
When officers met him outside he appeared “calm, coherent and collected”.
He told them “I wanted to kill myself, but I’ve killed somebody else instead”.
He held out his shotgun, guiding officers to the murder weapon, which was the lock-knife he’d previously bought. It was located in his jacket pocket.
When asked what happened, he said: “In a nutshell, I have killed my boss”.
He told police they should go to Jill’s home on Sandgate Road, where they would find the front door on the latch, for easy access.
At 6.30am Officers arrived at Jillian’s house and found Jillian’s body in the lounge and there was a note on the table, from David to police.
While David was in custody, police began the painstaking forensic work, which included house-to-house enquiries, mobile phone analysis, conversations with colleagues and media appeals, to try to piece together exactly what had happened.
It turned out, in the run up to the murder, as part of his preparation, David also deleted a lot of messages, data on his phone and took a change of clothes to the crime scene.
Further evidence of his intentions to kill Jill, was found in several suicide notes that he had written and posted to relatives and work colleagues.
To his wife he’d written, “I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this. I was waking into tension every day. I know what I’ve done is wrong… I was fed up of being belittled.”
One addressed to his mother and two others said, “I did the right thing and rid the world of a horrid person.”
Another addressed to colleagues said, “Of course this was the wrong thing to do… I was fed up of working as her slave.”
But as I said David had implicated Sean McDonald. So the police also investigated him.
Sean McDonald said he had never met or even heard of David Browning, until a police officer knocked on his door on 26th October, the day David was arrested.
I mean just imagine, Not only did this police officer have devastating news – that his soulmate had been stabbed to death in her home, but also that clues at the crime scene indicated he had been involved.
Sean who’d served as a Police officer for 30 years, was told that not only did the graffiti inside the house implicate him, as well as the forged will, but the letter that David had left for the police, indicated he had been complicit in the crime.
David had done his research on Sean. He had stored his number in his phone just days before the murder and even found his home address, although he never contacted him.
David had even asked a friend to send a ‘vitriolic’ letter to Sean, two months after the murder to try to further implicate him.
Sean’s emails and phone records were searched by police but nothing were found.
And David later admitted being behind the entire thing because he wanted to set up Sean to be the ‘scapegoat’.
Sean later told the media about despite having never talked to David, he tried to set him up.
‘He also painted Jill to be this demon and a bully at work. But no-one has a bad word to say about her. In the end he had to admit that he wrote ‘bully’ on her forehead but she wasn’t one. She was not like that, she was an absolutely lovely person, and I was not in anyway involved.’
David Browning admitted to killing Jillian Howell but denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
So it went to trial.
And During the two-week trial at Hove Crown Court, the Defence said ‘It is a fact that he was diagnosed as suffering from a depressive condition. It was clearly triggered by his father’s tragic death. It does not excuse what he did.’
In cross-examination the prosecution said to him, “This is all about your problems, your needs.” “You have taken her life away because of your problems. Is that not a selfish act?”
David replied, “Yes, of course it is. I had lots of problems. I could not cope with my problems. What I wanted was to get the old Dave Browning back, not the shell of the person I was becoming.”
David also told the court that he first thought of killing Jillian about two weeks before the stabbing.
It took the jury only 2 hours and 20 minutes of deliberation to find David Browning guilty of murder.
The victim’s friends and family gasped and shouted ‘Yes’ as the jury rejected his claims of diminished responsibility.
He sat with a pile of papers and took notes while listening intently to the mitigation but stared at the floor when he was handed his sentence.
He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 28 years.
Meaning he will not be eligible for parole until he is in his 70s.
The Brighton and Hove Albion’s players, (aka the seagulls) led a minute’s applause in Jillians memory, at their first match after her death.
Mrs Browning knew about her husband meeting Ms Howell on occasions where they went for drinks, but did not know he went to her home.
