A man who took a chance in representing himself on a murder charge failed to convince jurors that he did not shoot the 60-year-old woman to whom he owed $20,000.
Ann Witherspoon was found dead in February 2019, days after she traveled from Mount Pleasant to Myrtle Beach to meet with Norman Phillip Browne, the 49-year-old defendant, in an attempt to recoup the thousands she invested in his company. She initially believed she would turn a profit but later began to feel uneasy about their deal.
She died in her Old Village home, shot in the head by a gun her father gave her for protection. At first glance, the scene may have looked like a suicide.
But DNA, photo, video and other evidence presented during the week-and-a-half-long trial in Charleston County Circuit Court convinced jurors that Browne murdered her and staged the scene to look like a suicide in a faulty attempt to cover up his tracks.
It took the jury about an hour to decide Browne was guilty. He will serve a life sentence.
‘Smooth talker’
Witherspoon, a lifelong Mount Pleasant resident, was known for her kindness and devotion to her friends.
The retired physical therapist enjoyed music, playing the guitar, admiring cars and riding her two motorcycles. She was extremely independent and lived alone on Seminole Street in Old Village, a historic Mount Pleasant neighborhood. She never married or had children.
“She enjoyed getting to know people and doing nice things for her friends,” Chief Deputy Solicitor Jennifer Shealy told the jury during opening statements on April 15.
When she met Browne at an area Honest-1 Auto Care, the two struck up a conversation about cars. Browne shared with her his dream of owning a Matco Tool Truck franchise.
A “smooth talker,” he convinced her to give him a $20,000 loan to start the franchise, promising he would pay her back at a high interest rate, Shealy said.
Witherspoon thought it would be a learning opportunity and profitable, according to Shealy. But she never asked for official paperwork documenting the loan.
Little did she know that Browne’s girlfriend had already given him the money for his franchise, according to Shealy. Witherspoon’s money went to something else entirely, she alleged.
Browne began “ghosting” Witherspoon after the deal. She started worrying she wouldn’t get her initial investment back, let alone any promised interest.
“She really wanted to get that money back,” Mary Webb, a friend of Witherspoon’s, said. “It was a substantial amount of money.”
Witherspoon agreed to meet Browne in Myrtle Beach on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, to discuss the loan. (Browne lived in a West Ashley home with his girlfriend but rented a Myrtle Beach apartment near his MetCo trucking route.)
She chose to drive her ailing 90-year-old father’s Cadillac up the coast to put some highway miles on it. Taking care of her father was one of her primary responsibilities. It was rare for her to travel far from him. His house was less than a mile down the street from hers.
She had agreed to spend the night in Myrtle Beach and head back south on Feb. 7. Webb said Browne and Witherspoon were not romantically involved.
Witherspoon and Browne ate chipped steak, peas and carrots at Browne’s Myrtle Beach apartment, according to court records. He would later tell detectives he brought her to a storage facility nearby where he stored his Matco truck.
But she allegedly got injured, walking out of the truck holding her head, Browne said, and he decided to drive her back to Mount Pleasant that night in her father’s vehicle.
The injury allegedly caused a “significant amount of bleeding,” but no blood was found in her father’s car or on or near Browne’s truck, according to court testimony.
Browne said he drove himself back home in her father’s car later that night.
Cover-up
By Thursday night, Witherspoon’s friends began to worry why they hadn’t heard back from her.
Webb stopped by Witherspoon’s home on her way to work Friday morning. The shades were drawn and her doors were locked, which was not unusual.
But Webb’s unease didn’t lessen throughout the day. She returned that afternoon with another close friend, Mary Dallas Moore.
When they noticed both the Thursday and Friday newspapers were still stuffed into her mailbox, they knew something was horribly wrong. Witherspoon was an avid reader and never missed grabbing the paper, they testified.
“I got a very bad feeling,” Webb said.
She found Browne’s number online on one of his MatCo advertisements and called him that afternoon. He relayed the story of driving her home Wednesday night, saying they had met up in Wilmington, N.C., Thursday evening so she could get her father’s car back.
A large, “long-haired man” was with Witherspoon, Browne told Witherspoon’s friend.
But camera footage recovered from Front Street in Wilmington showed otherwise.
Neither Witherspoon, nor another man, were spotted. But Browne could be seen stashing the Cadillac in a parking lot near Cape Fear Community College and walking back to a nearby restaurant to hail a cab.
He drove to Wilmington alone, parked the car illegally in a college student lot and took an expensive cab ride 74 miles home, Shealy said and court testimony corroborated.
That he met Witherspoon in Wilmington is a “bologna” lie, according to Shealy.
“Witherspoon was dead the night he left her house,” Shealy said. “She didn’t go to Wilmington."
Police agreed. Witherspoon’s friends reported her missing on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019. When firefighters broke down one of her doors and entered the house, they found her dead on her bed under layers of sheets and blankets. Shealy described the scene as “haunting” in court.
The coroner estimated she had been dead for more than two days.
She had been struck in the head with an unknown object and shot in the back of her head. The revolver was laying near her head, but she was a lefty, and the gun was positioned in her right hand, according to court testimony.
“How many people shoot themselves with their nondominant hand?” Shealy asked the jury. “He killed her, he murdered her.”
Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O'Neal planted further doubt in the minds of the jurors, testifying she had never seen a person shoot themselves in the back of their head.
Browne’s foot tapped rapidly as Shealy worked through crime scene photos and images during O'Neal's testimony, causing his body and chair to vibrate.
“Find me guilty, I’ll hold no ill will’
Through the course of the seven-day trial, Shealy painted a picture of a man who worked hard, was a great mechanic and wore many faces.
He always wanted more, and his sense of ownership extended to the people around him and what he could get from them, she said during a four-hour closing argument on April 24.
“He had that feeling, that itching to live larger than he was living previously,” she said.
He was calculating, and he used his “gift of gab” to manipulate relationships, Shealy said. In her search to recover her money, Witherspoon threatened to undo everything he built, she said.
“His masculinity had been challenged,” she said.
A video presented at trial showed Browne disparaging Witherspoon as a “druggie” and making other negative remarks about her to police.
He told jurors in his closing argument that he isn’t a perfect person and that Witherspoon was his friend. It was Browne’s first time speaking directly to the group after choosing to waive his right to an opening statement.
He said he knows he can be short with people and explode on them when he is stressed and anxious. He described himself as a detail-oriented person who has obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Have I made mistakes? Yes,” he said.
But he argued the coroner didn’t follow her own policies and procedures in taking the victim’s temperature to determine the time of death. A key piece of his case to the jury was the lack of what Browne believed to be an accurate time of death. That could have proven he was not present when Witherspoon died, he contended.
“What you have is a simple math problem,” Browne said in his closing argument. “Nowhere in evidence did they find a time machine.”
Shealy called Browne’s reliance on time of death something straight out of a movie. Evidence from the coroner and pathologist, security cameras, Witherspoon’s unanswered texts and the growing pile of newspapers at her home did not support his claims, according to Shealy.
“He is a totally self-absorbed man who has done the unthinkable,” she said.
Throughout Browne’s 30-minute closing argument, Shealy lodged upward of 18 objections that Judge Deadra L. Jefferson upheld when Browne tried to introduce new facts as the trial wound down.
He ended by telling the jurors they only needed a little doubt to acquit him. He said he would respect their decision if they thought Shealy did her job.
“Find me guilty, I’ll hold no ill will,” he said.
Witherspoon’s father didn’t live long enough to see the jury avenge his daughter’s death. He died two years after she was killed.
“It preyed on his brain the whole time until his passing,” Witherspoon’s sister-in-law, Teddy Witherspoon, previously told The Post and Courier. “He’d always ask, ‘Well, anything about Ann? Anything about her murder?’”
And Witherspoon’s brother didn’t have a chance to attend the trial either. He was in the hospital. So her friends bore the burden of telling the jury about the woman they lost too soon.
“I loved her dearly,” Webb said, choking up on the stand. “We had a close relationship that lasted many years.”
Unless he's paroled or his conviction is overturned on appeal, Browne will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
