Before The Razor Wire: Who Was Karen Brown?
For more than four decades, Karen Brown has been known publicly through the worst event of her life. She was found guilty of complicity to murder and sentenced to Life with the Possibility of Parole after 25 years. In 2021, the Kentucky Parole Board gave her a “serve-out”, which in essence re-sentenced her to death by incarceration. The crime was a tragic event that occurred when she was only 21 years old. But Karen’s life didn’t begin with a crime, and her identity can’t be contained within a case file, a sentence, or even behind the razor wires that have confined her since 1986.
Before the razor wire, Karen was a daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend, honor student and gifted athlete. She had dreams, goals, relationships, opportunities, struggles, and a life that at one time seemed headed in an entirely different direction.
I knew Karen before prison. Our paths crossed when we were young, as little more than acquaintances, shortly before one decision and one tragic event sent our futures down dramatically different paths. Today, I advocate for the commutation of her sentence and 2nd Look Laws. That history gives this interview a deep personal dimension, but it also allows us to sit down simply as two people talking honestly about who she was, what shaped her and what the public has never had the opportunity to understand.
In this three-part interview series, we will move beyond legal labels and headlines to meet the woman, the human being behind them. We will begin with Karen’s childhood, family, school years, athletic accomplishments, and hopes for her future. From there, we will explore the choices and circumstances that changed her life, and eventually the woman she has worked to become during the more than 40 years behind the razor wire.
This series is not to excuse harm or soften hard truths. Accountability will not be ignored. It’s meant to provide a wider lens to create context. Karen had a childhood, fears, dreams, goals, turning points and pressures before prison became part of her story.
This isn’t an attempt to erase the crime; excuse the choices she made or in any way diminish the harm that occurred. It’s simply an invitation to consider a more complete truth; no life begins or ends with its worst chapter.
So, before we talk about the prison years, the transformation, or the fight for a meaningful second look, I want to begin somewhere much simpler.
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Cheryl: Karen, when people hear that you have served more than 40 years, what do you wish they would ask before forming an opinion?
Karen: Well…to not judge me on my worst mistake, or those two months and six days knowing codefendant. Ask me who I was…I was lost back then. Ask me who I am today at 62. My morals were evident but certainly lost in those short months. I just ask people not to judge me on what they may see or hear on those ‘Snapped’ shows or things that were printed that just were not true. Listen to my voice, you can research my record here of over 40 years, I’m not the monster that I get portrayed and sensationalized as for that worst mistake.
Cheryl: So, let’s go back before the razor wire. Let’s go back to the summer of ’85. The first summer for both of us living in what seemed like the big city-Lexington, Kentucky. We kept crossing paths. I think the first time I met you, was when you and Dee Cain stopped by Hightide Waterbed on your way home from working out at the gym. My impression of you then was that you were very confident, really had it all together and one of the only others I met who was my age. What do you remember about yourself from that time? Who was Karen Brown at 21?
Karen: …what do I remember? Lexington was a big city! That’s what I remember. I grew up in a town of 400! Centre College only 800 and 12 minutes from my home.
I was not that confident person at all….well unless I was playing sports. I guess I did hide it well. I held all my emotions in cause I felt alone inside. I was just so desperate for friends back then that I just went along with everyone else, just joined in with the drug use and eventually started selling a little. That gave me a fake and wrong kind of confidence. My very first girlfriend introduced me to cocaine. I had no idea who I was as an adult because I was lost in pleasing others and just feeling ashamed.
Cheryl: Going back to your school days in Lincoln County, and even your time at Centre College, what did basketball and education mean to you back then? What other activities were you involved in during your school years?
Karen: Back then, sports and education were saviors to me…in high school, it was where I felt I meant something, I felt worthy in both….I was active in youth groups and church. I was also in the chess club, Spanish club, sports, National Honor Society, Beta Club, Student Council, Class President and so on.
I did well at Centre under a great (basketball) coach, but she left my junior year…someone else took over. It was someone else that I knew from the summer softball league…I knew her secrets and so I wasn’t welcome on her team. At Centre I was also around ‘rich’, out of state and even from out of the country students….I began to feel alone. One morning I just couldn’t take it anymore and at 4am I just left!
Cheryl: I remember us talking about that before, and unfortunately that sort of thing back then was not an isolated incident, particularly in the smaller towns. Even years later, running into my old college friends from nearby towns down there…they were still in the closet. It was an existence I was thankful not me and had a hard time wrapping my head around.
Cheryl: Now we’ve had some talks about what it was like growing up…what did it mean to grow up feeling responsible for protecting the people around you? How did that role affect the way you respond to conflict, fear, and danger later in life? And when did you begin to recognize that what helped you or you help others survive, as a child, might have also shaped your decisions as an adult?
Karen: I did feel like I grew up having to be the one to protect others…I learned that lesson at a very early age. I remember being 7 years old, the first time I had to pull my dad off my mom. I developed patterns back then that I had no idea would affect or damage me this way. I felt responsible and that I was a protector. I’ve carried that protector role for a long time.
In high school I was able to do it, that protecting, in a more positive way…..like I would drive people home who were drunk, help a teammate change a flat tire, those sorts of things. I was that people pleaser, trying to fit in, find my place in the world. It got to where I was stepping up for people even if it was self-destructing. I found myself starting to sell and use some drugs. I don’t know what I thought. I couldn’t talk about my home life, I couldn’t talk about my sexuality…..so I just got lost in others.
Cheryl: So Karen, what were some of your favorite memories growing up as a child in Hustonville, Kentucky?
Karen: My fondest memories were at the lake….because other friends there. I loved to ski, swim, the campfires, just all of that…it didn’t cost much at all. My minibike was a huge thing!!! I would also mow yards to feel like I helped also…others had their Honda reds or yellows but I was just so proud to have my little Sears minibike! I also loved doing things with my maternal grandfather like riding horses, the trail rides, setting tobacco, rolling pennies. One really great memory was winning a couple grade school tournaments. I remember playing shortstop in our little league softball, a line drive was hit right at third baseman, ricocheting right off her glove and I was able to catch it before it hit the ground! We were champs that year. The other was basketball…I almost didn’t get to play because I had a fever but my dad shook down the thermometer so I’d be able to play! I’ll just never forget how great those times felt.
Cheryl: We were more acquaintances back then, but we were in familiar settings together, like each other’s apartments. There was so much that was talked about in the news back then that I knew was not true…it was almost as if you could see the trainwreck that was coming. No one seemed to care what your truth was, and people just seemed to scramble and do what they felt they needed to do to save themselves. You certainly weren’t the hardcore drug-dealing jealous lover!
Cheryl: I think we both found ourselves in Lexington under similar circumstances back then. What do you think is different today as far as support for young people that we didn’t have? Do you think it’s any better today?
Karen: It was literally a crime back then to be gay in Kentucky…not a crime now. No one really fears their life like back then as we sometimes thought. People now, talking openly bout lifestyles….where I grew up feeling dirty and condemned. There is help and resources now.
Cheryl: What do people misunderstand about the young woman you were? What do you wish people understood about the person you were back then?
Karen: The media and prosecutor called me a lesbian so many times I think that is all people saw….believing it was some sordid affair. It was not. I believed the lies I was told; she told me about abuse….looking back, with what I’d learned as a child growing up, it led me into a tragedy. I had absolutely no idea of what was being planned right under my nose until too late, because I made the decision to use drugs. I was the person who gave a bed to a friend, a roof over his head, fed people…I made a tragic mistake in judgements. I was not a cruel or violent person.
Cheryl: What did you believe about your future before prison became part of your life? Do you think there were any warning signs in your life that you didn’t recognize at the time?
Karen: I worked at a factory and at the parks and recreation which I absolutely loved! I loved being able to referee softball and basketball games. After the good factory job shutdown, my life went downhill, then I ended up at the car dealership. I still played softball and on a basketball league on Sunday nights. What did I believe about my future…back then? I thought I would meet someone, make a life….then that tragic night. I missed those warning signs from co-defendants…I was getting too messed up with drugs. It didn’t allow me to see what was right under my nose! Now in hindsight… yeah, I can certainly see my own mistakes and accountability.
Cheryl: What did you need back then that you didn’t know how to ask for? When you look back now, do you feel compassion for your younger self? How have you taken responsibility for your part?
Karen: What did I need back then? Real advice, that’s what I needed, real advice from someone like the older me now...“Christians” to step up and try to reach me…or at least reach out to me. I needed someone who had experience in the world of sports, the bars, performing…to just sit me down and share what those consequences of that path I was on might look like down the road if I kept that up.
I think that’s why it’s really important to me to be able to work with young people and let them know where these choices can lead them…it’s not even worth experimenting. I was able to work with Books Behind Bars here, with troubled 7th and 8th graders through honest conversations about accountability, consequences and hope, challenging them to look at things a little differently. I really enjoyed being able to be there for that…being the person now that I needed back then.
I accept responsibility in two ways. One, I don’t let my worst mistake define me as who I am. Two, I do let it define my years of choices the past 40+ years. Accepting responsibility drives me to give back…keep moral goals, ignore peer pressure, not be afraid to sacrifice for what is right, and help others to improve their path. I do feel some compassion for the younger me now but I’m also still so disappointed.
The good young man that lost his life shouldn’t be remembered by bitterness, revenge and hate. I’ve done my very best to make sure his life saves many others.
I was living a prodigal life on a faith level as well as human dignity level when this tragedy came. I was feeling like a failure in so many ways…I chose so many wrong paths. Today, after years of theology classes, master’s in Christian counseling, psychology, sociology, and more, I live the path I had given up on and I just pray I get a second chance outside this prison to not only fulfill my purpose but to help others get back on track to fulfilling theirs.
Cheryl: I must say you’ve done some incredible things under some of the direst of circumstances. Your resilience, strength, commitment to following your path no matter what kind of bombs or chaos that was going on around you.
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Listening to Karen, I find myself thinking back to the summer of ’85 in Lexington. I remember a young woman who seemed confident, athletic, outgoing and comfortable in her own skin….at least, that’s what I thought I saw. I had no idea how much loneliness, shame, and uncertainty she was carrying beneath that confidence.
I suppose what strikes me most today is how much we had in common without really knowing it. We were two young women trying to find our place in a world where being different often meant feeling like we didn’t belong. We were searching for acceptance, friendship and just some sense of who we were becoming. Neither of us could’ve imagined how dramatically our lives would change.
Our paths took very different directions, yet more than 40 years later, I find myself learning things about Karen, and perhaps even about myself, that I couldn’t have understood back then. Some lessons take years, sometimes decades, before we fully recognize their meaning.
None of this changes the tragedy that occurred or diminishes the life that was lost. Understanding the circumstances that shaped someone’s choices is not the same as excusing those choices. But neither should those choices erase everything that came before them….or everything that has followed.
The Karen I thought I knew in Lexington was more complicated than I realized. And the woman speaking to us today is more than the person the public came to know through headlines, courtroom proceedings and sensationalized accounts.
Perhaps that’s where any meaningful conversation about rehabilitation must begin: with a willingness to see the whole person, not simply the worst chapter of their life.
In Part Two, Becoming More Than Your Worst Decision, we move beyond the young woman Karen was and into the more than four decades that followed. We’ll explore the difficult work of confronting her past, accepting responsibility, finding purpose and continuing to grow in a place where rehabilitation does not necessarily come with the promise of release.
Because understanding who Karen was before the razor wire is only the beginning. The next question is equally important: Who has she become?
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