18-year-old Brianna Dutcher will go on trial in Ohio along with her boyfriend and his boyfriend for orchestrating the murder of her mother. As the New York Post (NYP) reports, citing court documents, the girl may have ordered 55-year-old Tamela Dutcher after an argument about cleaning the house.
According to investigators, 20-year-old Christian Evans and 21-year-old Dajameus Payne broke into the Dutcher home on the night of August 14 and killed Brianna's mother with one shot in the face. When the husband of the murdered woman responded to the noise in the living room, they also shot at him, but missed.
The police initially charged Brianna Dutcher only with interfering with the investigation, since during interrogation she stated that her mother could have been killed by certain friends who owed her money. Authorities subsequently established that the daughter of the murdered woman secretly met with Evans because she was afraid that her parents would not support her choice in favor of a black young man.
Immediately before the murder, she gave him information about where her parents were, and before that she complained to Evans about her conflict with her mother over cleaning. He replied that he would “kill her” if he were Dutcher Jr. and advised her to also buy a gun.
Cleaning argument leads to Delaware County mother's killing, according to court documents >>https://t.co/T5UQWfnZSU pic.twitter.com/kmQ3mHTVVV
— WSYX ABC 6 (@wsyx6) August 18, 2026
All three were eventually charged with aggravated murder. Prosecutors are convinced that the actions were planned in advance by all three defendants. Evans and Payne were traced by gloves and a pistol thrown into a trash can near the Dutchers' house. As Evans' father told investigators, he also received a message from him that he had “screwed up,” containing a geolocation near the victim's home.
NYP notes that Dutcher Sr. was a former medical researcher and co-wrote an article about youth murderers. A paper published in 2002 in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health had an almost prophetic conclusion.
“The vast majority of youth arrested for murder are young men. However, the small number of female killers are more likely to kill members of their own families,” Dutcher and co-author Daniel Davis noted.
As ABC 6 notes, none of those arrested had a criminal history. All three had their bail set at $3 million, despite protests from their lawyers. The defendants face life imprisonment, but the law also provides for the death penalty. They are currently subject to a moratorium by current Governor Mike DeWine.
