Talecka Brown sought to derail the investigation after shooting her teenage daughter, Prince George’s County prosecutors said.
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — From jail, Talecka C. Brown left a message suggesting that the attempted-murder case against her could go away if her wounded daughter did not speak to police or appear in court. A jury rejected the effort to shift responsibility, and Brown has now been sentenced to 50 years in prison.
The message became one of the most striking parts of a prosecution that covered more than the moment a gun was fired. Authorities said Brown shot her 13-year-old daughter in the back of the neck during a September 2024 argument, encouraged the girl to blame an intruder and later tried to discourage her cooperation. Brown, 33, was eventually convicted of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree child abuse, first-degree assault and using a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Prosecutors said Brown called the teenager’s father after her arrest and left a voicemail about the pending case. In it, she argued that the prosecution would fall apart if the child did not talk to investigators or attend court. Brown also objected to the attempted first-degree murder charge, according to reports describing the recording. The call did not erase the case. Instead, it gave prosecutors evidence of what they characterized as an attempt to influence the victim and avoid accountability after the shooting.
The pressure on the teenager had started before Brown was jailed, according to police and court accounts. Brown initially told officers that a homeless person had shot the girl. She also instructed her daughter to say that someone had broken into their Seat Pleasant home and fired the shot, authorities said. The teenager gave investigators a different account: She said her mother shot her while she was heading down the stairs. Evidence collected during the investigation undermined the claim that a stranger had entered the house and attacked her.
Those conflicting accounts became important because there was no dispute that the girl had suffered a dangerous wound. Seat Pleasant police responded shortly before 5 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2024, to the 500 block of 69th Place. Officers found the child with a gunshot injury to her upper body, and she was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Reports based on medical records said the bullet struck the area around her upper spine and left fragments near her shoulder and abdomen. She underwent emergency surgery and needed a chest tube to assist her breathing.
Investigators reconstructed the confrontation that led to the injury. Brown and her daughter had argued after the girl came home from school, according to WTOP and other local reports. The dispute became physical. As the teenager moved away and toward a staircase, Brown fired once into the back of her neck. The girl fell at the bottom of the stairs and was unable to move. The location of the wound and the child’s position as she moved away became part of the prosecution’s account that Brown had acted intentionally rather than accidentally.
The state also presented Brown’s response to her daughter’s suffering as evidence of her state of mind. Officials said the girl was in extreme pain but Brown did not show concern for her condition. Brown did call 911, but the account she gave placed responsibility on someone outside the family. Prosecutors tied that first story to the instruction that the teenager blame a supposed break-in and to the later jail message about avoiding police and court. Together, those events allowed the state to describe a continuing effort to distance Brown from the shooting.
The case moved from accusation to conviction in October 2025. A Prince George’s County jury found Brown guilty of four felony counts. Jurors did not reach verdicts on attempted second-degree murder, second-degree child abuse, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment, court records showed. The split result meant the jury accepted the prosecution’s proof on the leading charges while leaving several alternate or additional counts unresolved. Brown nevertheless faced up to life in prison because of the attempted first-degree murder conviction.
The sentence announced June 18 stopped short of a life term but will keep Brown incarcerated for decades. The State’s Attorney’s Office said she received 50 years, without releasing a count-by-count explanation in its public statement. The available reports did not state whether the firearm sentence was consecutive to the punishment for the other offenses, how much credit Brown would receive for time already spent in custody or when she might become eligible for any form of release. Those details cannot be determined from the sentencing announcement alone.
State’s Attorney Tara H. Jackson framed the punishment around the betrayal of a parent’s responsibility. She said the teenager should have received love, safety and care from her mother. Jackson described the conduct as unimaginable and said no child should have to experience such pain, fear and trauma. Her statement also thanked the prosecution team, law enforcement officers and the jury. The office did not release a statement from the teenager or her relatives, and no public account reviewed for this report described what was said by the defense during sentencing.
The prosecution’s public description of the case also shows why the attempted cover story mattered beyond whether Brown’s first account was true. The alleged instructions placed the injured child in the position of being asked to protect the person prosecutors said had shot her. The later jail call extended that pressure into the legal process by connecting the girl’s silence or absence to the possible collapse of the case. The jury’s verdict ultimately rested on all evidence admitted at trial, not on any single statement, and the public reports do not provide a full trial transcript.
Brown’s sentencing had originally been scheduled for Feb. 19, 2026, after the October verdict. The punishment was instead announced in June. Officials did not publicly explain why sentencing occurred later than first expected. Reports also did not identify the judge who imposed the term, describe any mitigating evidence offered for Brown or state whether she plans to challenge the convictions. The absence of those details leaves the official sentencing announcement as the clearest public account of the outcome.
The teenager’s name has not been released, consistent with the protection commonly given to a minor victim. Authorities have disclosed only limited information about her recovery. FOX 5 reported that she survived but faced an extended healing process because of the severity of the wound. No more recent medical update was included in the prosecutor’s sentencing statement, and there has been no public indication that the family wants additional details about her condition disclosed.
For now, Brown will serve the sentence in state prison unless a later court ruling changes the judgment. As of July 19, no appeal decision or sentence revision had been reported. The case that Brown allegedly hoped would disappear instead concluded in the trial court with four felony convictions and a 50-year punishment, while the daughter she urged not to cooperate remained publicly unnamed.
Author note: Last updated July 19, 2026.