Kristen Brown had told families her Hopkins child-care business would close as relationship problems unfolded before four relatives died.
HOPKINS, Minn. — Weeks before Brown Bear Childcare became the scene of a fatal family attack, owner Kristen Ann Brown had begun telling parents that the home daycare she built after her daughter’s birth was coming to an end. The notice, according to investigators, referred to relationship problems with her husband but gave no warning of the violence that would follow.
On Aug. 12, police say Kristen Brown, 41, and her 7-year-old daughter, Evie Ann Brown, were killed inside the Hopkins residence where Brown Bear operated. Authorities identified Kristen’s husband and Evie’s father, Nathan Matthew Brown, 41, as the person responsible. Nathan then died by suicide inside the home, police said. Investigators later connected him to a fourth death about 15 miles away: the killing of his mother, 78-year-old Alice Anne Brown, at the Burnsville residence where he had recently been living.
The approaching closure of Brown Bear emerged publicly through a Hennepin County search warrant filed after the deaths. A daycare parent told investigators that Kristen had sent families information roughly two weeks earlier saying the program would close because of relationship issues involving Nathan, according to the warrant. Friends and relatives later described the couple as separated, with Nathan staying at his mother’s Burnsville home. Police have not said that those relationship problems caused the killings, and authorities have not announced a confirmed motive.
The planned closure would already have represented a major change for families who had come to depend on Brown Bear. Kristen had been licensed as a family child-care provider since 2019, according to state records cited in reporting after her death. The program could care for as many as 10 children and operated from the lower level of the family home. Kristen’s descriptions of the daycare presented it as an educational environment that included music, cooking, outings and activities built around children’s development rather than only basic supervision.
Brown Bear was also closely connected to Evie’s childhood. Kristen opened the daycare after her daughter was born, allowing her to continue working with young children while spending more time with Evie. As a result, Evie grew up alongside the business. Families later said she became an important presence for the younger children who attended, turning the arrangement into something closer to an extended household than a conventional child-care center. Several families said they regarded Kristen and Evie as part of their own lives after years of daily contact.
The daycare was still operating on the morning of Aug. 12 when that familiar routine was broken. Shortly after 9 a.m., a father arrived to drop off two children and approached the rear entrance normally used by families. According to a search warrant, he heard children screaming. He entered the residence and encountered Nathan Brown attacking Kristen and then Evie, investigators said. The father gathered his own children and two others, took them outside and called 911. Police later removed the remaining daycare children from the home.
Six children other than Evie were at Brown Bear during the attack, according to Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson. None was reported physically injured. Officers reunited the children with their families, who later asked for privacy while focusing on their emotional well-being. The children’s names have not been publicly released. Officials have limited public discussion of their experiences because they are minors and witnesses to an exceptionally traumatic event.
Inside the house, officers found Kristen and Evie dead. Nathan was found dead elsewhere in the residence from what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A search warrant said investigators recovered a screwdriver associated with the killings. Authorities have not released extensive forensic details and have generally described the attack in restrained terms. Hopkins police said there had not been previous calls for service at the home that publicly indicated such violence was about to occur.
The investigation expanded later that day when Burnsville police were called to a home near Maple Island Road and Joplin Avenue. Officers responding at about 12:23 p.m. found Alice Brown dead. Burnsville authorities initially said the victim was a close relative of the Hopkins suspect and that he had been staying at the residence. Alice was later identified as Nathan’s mother. Investigators concluded that she had been killed before the Hopkins attack, making the Burnsville residence the first known location in the sequence even though her death was discovered later.
Police have not released a complete account of what Nathan did between leaving the Burnsville home and appearing at the Hopkins residence. The known circumstances have prompted attention to the family’s recent separation and Kristen’s planned daycare closure, but investigators have stopped short of presenting those circumstances as an explanation. No public finding has established what Nathan was thinking, what specific event may have preceded the violence or whether he communicated a motive before the deaths.
For the families who knew Kristen mainly through Brown Bear, the details contained in police records contrasted sharply with their experience of the daycare. In a statement shared after the killings, parents described her as a patient and attentive caregiver whose warmth had led them to select Brown Bear for their children. They said the daycare had become a second home. That description carried added meaning because many young children spend much of each weekday with their child-care provider, creating relationships that extend beyond routine business arrangements.
Parents similarly described Evie as part of Brown Bear’s identity. She had been present since the daycare’s beginning and developed friendships with children who came through the program. Families remembered her as playful and affectionate. Kristen’s sister, Amanda Paulson, separately described Evie as an energetic child who enjoyed dress-up and jewelry. Paulson remembered Kristen as a loving sister and someone inclined to keep peace around her, while also urging people to remember Alice as another victim of the same sequence of violence.
Alice’s death widened the circle of grief from Hopkins to Burnsville. Relatives said Nathan had been staying with his mother after separating from Kristen. Alice’s obituary described her as creative and known for work that included floral arrangements and decorations. Because the Hopkins scene involved a daycare and several young witnesses, it drew intense attention, but family members repeatedly included Alice when speaking about those who were lost.
The daycare families also singled out the parent who entered the home during the attack and removed four children. Paulson publicly thanked him for acting under circumstances he could not have expected when he arrived for drop-off. His actions became one of the few points of immediate intervention in a case in which police say three homicide victims had already been attacked before officers could arrive. Two additional daycare children were later brought out safely by responding authorities.
The deaths led to a public vigil in Hopkins where relatives, former daycare families and community members remembered Kristen, Evie and Alice. Speakers focused on Kristen’s work with children and Evie’s role in the daycare community rather than dwelling on the circumstances of their deaths. For Brown Bear families, the gathering also marked the end of a place that had already been scheduled to close but instead disappeared abruptly, leaving parents to arrange new child care while helping their children cope with what had happened.
Nathan Brown’s death means no criminal prosecution will provide a fuller public account. There will be no charging document laying out a prosecutor’s theory of motive and no trial at which witnesses are questioned about the evidence. Police and medical examiner findings, search warrants, witness statements and official briefings therefore form the central public record. Authorities have continued reviewing material from the two homes, but they have not announced a definitive motive for the killings.
Brown Bear Childcare had been headed toward an ordinary ending before Aug. 12. Kristen had told families that relationship problems meant the program would close, and parents were preparing for their children to move elsewhere. Instead, the daycare ended with Kristen and Evie’s deaths, six young children surviving an attack inside a place their families had trusted, and investigators tracing the violence back to Alice Brown’s home in Burnsville. The planned closure is now part of the investigation’s background, but police have left one crucial distinction intact: it documents turmoil before the killings without establishing why they happened.
Author note: Last updated September 22, 2026.