A ‘master manipulator’ who faked a pregnancy to arrange a murder reveals new details from prison

A fraudster who tricked two men into thinking they were expecting a baby, and the man who helped kill her, sheds new light on the brutal 2013 murder in an upcoming episode of the series Snapped: Behind bars.

Eunice “Cristina” Rodriguez, 48, of El Paso, Texas, is serving a life sentence for the brutal beating of her former lover, 51-year-old Tommy Brown, a case featured in Season 29, Episode 12 atf Cracked, now available to watch on Peacock. ON Snapped: Behind barsRodriguez will detail “her experience of watching her then-lover beat her boyfriend to death” with a porcelain toilet bowl lid.

The “then lover” is Braylon Ellis, whose damning testimony in the case against Rodriguez helped law enforcement piece together a story built on lies and greed.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Who was murder victim Tommy Brown?

Tommy Brown of Fort Worth, Texas, worked as a janitor after taking over his father’s cleaning business in 2004, as previously reported Oxygen.com. Through his work, he met Connie Moreno, with whom he was in a committed relationship for over a decade.

However, that didn’t stop Brown from dating another woman. As described on snapped, According to Brown, Brown was also associated with Rodriguez, who had been serving a 10-year prison sentence since 2002 for aggravated robbery. “Dallas Morning News.”

Prosecutor Bill Vasser said Rodriguez was a “master manipulator” who posed as a home health care worker when she responded to an ad posted by an 82-year-old man. Vasser said that on Rodriguez’s first day on the job, she tied up an elderly patient with a telephone cord, attacked him and ransacked his home, Vasser said in a 2021 report. Snapped episode.

According to Brown’s sister, Andrea Brown, Rodriguez was released from prison in 2011 and was a part of Brown and Moreno’s lives.

According to reports, in 2013, things were already good between Brown and Moreno and the two decided it was time to have a baby. That spring, the couple hired Rodriguez to serve as a surrogate for their future child, and according to Brown’s loved ones, Rodriguez claimed she was pregnant in April.

“(Brown) said they came together once for the sole purpose of having a child,” Andrea Brown said Snapped.

Brown and Moreno separated again, and a year later Brown was dead.

Tommy Brown. Photo: Oxygen

How did Tommy Brown die?

According to reports: On September 7, 2013, Andrea Brown found her brother dead in her East Forth Worth home, face down in the hallway just outside the bathroom. Fort Worth Star Telegram. His hands were tied behind his back with a shoelace and his head was covered with a white bag. It was determined – partly based on when neighbors last saw the victim – that he had been dead for two days.

Authorities said Snapped that the killer or killers brutally beat him with a porcelain toilet bowl cover.

“He had bruises and contusions all over his body,” Vasser said Snapped producers. “Part of his head was cut open. I mean, his face looked like he got into a fight with Mike Tyson. It was one of the most brutal beatings I have ever seen.”

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner listed the cause of death as strangulation and blunt force trauma. Star-Telegram./em/p p. A television set and a wallet containing an ID card and bank cards were missing from Brown’s home. At the crime scene, investigators discovered two sets of shoe prints “with distinctly different tread patterns,” pointing to the possibility of two killers, lawyers pointed out in 2018 court records filed on behalf of Rodriguez in the Texas Second Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by strongemOxygen.com/ em/strong./p Brown’s Toyota pickup was nowhere to be found, but it turned out to have been impounded from the time of Brown’s death until police arrived at the scene./p p Inside the confiscated vehicle, investigators found a bus ticket in Rodriguez’s name and a trash can filled with bloody items, including part of the lid used to beat the victim, as described on emSnapped/em./p after September 6 and 7, Brown used bank cards at several locations between Texas and Mississippi to buy gas and drugs./p On September 10, police found Brown’s missing phone. Braylon Ellis’s mother’s home in Snelville, Georgia, and Rodriquez and Ellis were arrested on murder charges./p /div /div pstronga href=” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”RELATED: Brother of Woman Convicted of Ex’s Murder Takes blame himself for the crime: “I couldn’t take it anymore”/a/strong/p div data-embed-button =”media” data-entity-embed-display=”view_mode:media.embed” data-entity-embed- display-settings=”()” data-entity-type=”media” data-entity-uuid=”6741f1c7 -549d-428c-9b66-09c31d4fdad0″ data-langcode=”en” class=”embedded-entity”div class =”media__image” style=”max-width:862px” div class=”media__image-wrapper” div div img loading=”lazy” decoding=”async” fetchpriority=”low” src=” width=”862″ height=” 575″ alt=”Eunice Rodriguez stars in Snapped Behind Bars, Season 3, Episode 6″ typeof=”foaf:Image” / div /div /div div class=”media__metadata” div class=”media__metadata-wrapper” span class=” media__caption” Eunice Rodriguez. /span span class=”media__credit”Photo: Oxygen /span /div /div /div /div div class=”blog-post__faq” div class=”faq–question” h2How was Braylon Ellis involved?/h2 /div div class =”faq–answer” pBraylon Ellis, 12 years younger than Rodriquez, “fell head over heels in love” with Rodriguez after the pair met in early 2013 on a Greyhound bus in El Paso, said Ellis’ defense attorney Tim Moore , by do emStar-Telegram/em./pp “If they hadn’t met on the Greyhound bus, it probably never would have happened,” Moore said of Brown’s murder./p pOn the night of September 5, 2013 — the day there was a murder — Rodriguez not only told Ellis that she was carrying his unborn child, but also that Brown had been physically abusive to her, as Ellis described during Rodriguez’s trial. Together, they hatched a plan for Ellis to “beat up (Brown)” while Rodriguez stole items from the home, court records said./p pRodriguez used a spare key to gain entry to Brown’s property while he was not home./ pEllis was unarmed – which his defense attorneys used as evidence he had no intention of killing Brown – and was lying in wait for Brown to return./pp “If you want to kill a guy, take a gun or a knife or a gun,” Moore argued on behalf of his client, according to emStar -Telegram./em “I don’t get into a fistfight. And he certainly shouldn’t be tied up while he’s still hanging around.”/p pRodriguez watched as Ellis waited for the victim to come down the hall and initiate a surprise attack. She even handed Ellis a pot to deliver a few punches before Ellis wrapped Brown’s head in a bag as he lay dying./p pTurns out Rodriguez was never pregnant by either man./p /div /div pstronga href=” target =” _blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener” RELATED: Woman Convicted of Father’s Murder Details Role in His Murder: ‘I Haven’t Forgave Myself Yet’ /a/strong/p div data-embed-button=”media” data-entity-embed -display =”view_mode:media.embed” data-entity-embed-display-settings=”()” data-entity-type=”media” data-entity-uuid=”89835afe-1d2d-4488-b3be-48906e0089f2″ data- langcode=”pl” class=”embedded-entity” div class=”media__image” style=”max-width:862px” div class=”media__image-wrapper” div div img loading=”lazy” decoding=”async” fetchpriority= “low” src=” width=”862″ height=”575″ alt=”Braylon Ellis appears in Snapped Behind Bars, Season 3, Episode 6″ typeof=”foaf:Image” /div /div /div div class =”media__metadata” div class=”media__metadata-wrapper” span class=”media__caption” Braylon Ellis. /span span class=”media__credit”Photo: Oxygen /span /div /div /div /div div class=”blog-post__faq” div class=”faq–question” h2Where are Braylon Ellis and Eunice “Cristina” Rodriguez now? /h2 /div div class=”faq–answer” pA mountain of evidence, including Ellis’ DNA on the cracked toilet tank lid, helped the jury find Ellis guilty of murder. According to Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prison records, he is serving a life sentence in Abilene, Texas, and will be eligible for parole in 2043./p pMeanwhile, Rodriguez, also convicted on murder charges, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Dr. Lane Murray’s TDCJ in Gatesville, about 120 miles south of Fort Worth and 100 miles north of Austin./p /div /div pspanspan Both convicted killers are expected to share more in their exclusive hearings with/ span/ spanspanspania href=” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”Snapped: Behind Bars/a, /iairing on Sundays at 7/6c on bOxygen/b./span/span/p