Woman found stabbed to death near abandoned Gulfgate-area tire business identified by family

Daniela Hurtado Image
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Family of woman found stabbed in Gulfgate says she feared for her life
The family of Eugenia Brown said she was always smiling and laughing but found herself struggling after losing her father in January and felt she was in trouble.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A brutal stabbing death has left a family wondering who would do this to their loved one.

We now know the identity of the woman found stabbed to death at an abandoned business on Telephone Road in the Gulfgate area last Tuesday.

The family and medical examiner's office identified her as Eugenia Brown, known as Jeannie. The ME's office lists her manner of death as a homicide and her cause of death as multiple sharp-force injuries.

RELATED: Woman found stabbed to death outside burned down tire business in Gulfgate area, police say

Investigators at the police department are working to figure out who did this to her. They tell ABC13 they have not made an arrest.

Jeannie was a mother, a grandmother, and a woman her family describes as giving and always laughing.

"They messed her up so badly, we can't have an open casket. Her face had so many lacerations. I don't know why somebody would do stuff like that," Jeannie's mother, Nancy King, said.

Police say her body was found in the parking lot of what used to be a tire shop. Investigators said the business burned down in 2022 and is no longer open.

"The way that they told us my mother went. That's rage and anger. That's no self-defense. It was brutal, they said. They had to tow a vehicle there because there was crime scene evidence all over it," Jeannie's son, Lorenzo Gonzalez, said.

Jeannie's family says they hadn't seen her in several months.

Her son tells ABC13 the man who owns the property where she was found told them she had been sleeping around the abandoned business. It's the same place where a memorial in her honor now sits.

"She said Jeannie gave her my number, which was only a few days before it happened, and told her, 'If anything happens to me, call my mom,'" King said.

King said she last heard from her daughter a few days before her death.

"She probably felt in fear for her life. Maybe she got into it with the wrong person. I can't say," Gonzalez said.

King says her daughter was in a bad place and mourning her father's loss in January.

She said that she believed her daughter was scared of where she was but would turn down help to get home to Orange, Texas, after she said someone stole her car and all her belongings.

Jeannie's family said they only care about getting justice and for the person or people responsible arrested.

"Sometimes the people who commit the crimes, they talk too much too and end up telling on themselves, so I'm hoping this will be that case," Gonzalez said.

Anyone with any information is urged to call the HPD Homicide Division or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-521-TIPS (4600).

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