She Lost Her Mom and Her Dad in One Night. Then the Family She’d Never Met Stepped In to Save Her (Exclusive) By Chris Spargo

“I honestly was thinking I was going to have to get a job and take care of my siblings.”

So recalls Aleisha Brown, now 20, about the aftermath of her mother’s murder on Sept. 30, 2020, when Aleisha was 15.

Her mother, Shawntae Brown, was killed by her husband and high school sweetheart, Joshua Brown, who beat her to death over the course of 24 hours in their home in Spencer, Okla.

In an interview with PEOPLE, Aleisha recounts being a teenager, saying that when her parents began to argue that day, her focus was on distracting her two younger siblings, then 14 and 7.

The argument kept escalating, and Joshua grew violent. At that point, Aleisha realized she wasn’t just shielding her siblings anymore — she was fighting to save her mom.

Aleisha ultimately lost her mother that night, and her father later went to prison. But out of the tragedy, she met the family she credits with saving her and her siblings.

‘He Would Have These Episodes’

Aleisha says that the relationship between her parents changed in 2016, after her father returned from being deployed in Afghanistan.

“He got paranoid, and he would have these episodes. I mean, and what this was was an episode. He got triggered by something and he thought he was right,” Aleisha explains.

As the fight between Shawntae and Joshua intensified and Joshua became ever more violent, Aleisha made her siblings her focus, primarily her youngest sister.

“The whole time I’m taking care of her. She’s in the room and [my brother and I] are keeping her away from this. This is obviously so traumatic to her. So I’m trying to do everything I can to distract her from everything about this, whether it’s putting on a movie, playing the game with her,” Aleisha recalls.

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Despite her efforts to keep her little sister calm, Aleisha says the child was still “hysterical” as they heard their mother repeatedly trying to soothe her husband — who only grew more agitated and violent.

“At that point he’s no longer my dad,” Aleisha explains.

After 24 hours, Aleisha says that her father instructed her to give Shawntae a bath.

Joshua continued yelling at his wife, even as Shawntae drifted in and out of consciousness after being beaten.

Aleisha soon realized that her mother needed much more than a bath, and pulled her out of the tub to start performing life-saving measures.

“I’m trying to take care of her. I’m trying to do the best I can and put her on the floor because she’s not breathing at this point. She’s not even here,” Aleisha recalls.

She then started to perform CPR on her mother, something she taught herself by watching videos on YouTube just in case she might be required to use it in an emergency.

Aleisha says that her father continued to berate her mother until she started performing chest compressions on the dying woman.

“And then it switches as soon as he realizes she’s not okay and he’s done something messed up, and now it’s too far,” she says.

Aleisha says that her father told her to call 911, and then told her to lie.

“He told me to lie and tell them that she overdosed and took too many pills,” Aleisha says.

The emergency responders arrived on the scene almost immediately, says Aleisha, but it was still too late for Shawntae.

She was declared dead at the scene, having drawn her final breaths while her daughter held her in her arms.

Police arrested Joshua, and suddenly Aleisha realized that she and her siblings no longer had parents.

A Family She Barely Knew

This situation was further complicated by the fact that the family had been estranged from relatives for years, leading Aleisha to think she might have to step in as a parental figure to her siblings.

Aleisha explains that her parents both experienced significant trauma growing up, and as a result, had chosen to estrange themselves from certain family members. Additionally, there were relationships that had been fractured at her father’s insistence, says Aleisha.

She points to the relationship between her mother and aunts as one example of this — recalling a time her two aunts unexpectedly visited the family.

“They didn’t even know that she had [given birth to] our younger sister,” Aleisha says.

She adds: “Most of our mom’s side of the family didn’t even know about [my younger sister], sadly, until that incident, when my aunts came.”

Her younger sister was 5 at the time, says Aleisha.

“I didn’t know much of my mom’s side of the family until this incident happened. I only got to know them through pictures or stories of my mom telling me about them, because we lived in a really isolated household,” Aleisha explains.

In the end, the family members Aleisha and her siblings had barely met are the people she credits with saving them after their mother’s murder.

The three children managed to avoid ever having to enter into the foster system because they were taken in that same day by their aunt, and later adopted by a cousin, Candice, who Shawntae had appointed as their godmother, as well as Candice’s husband Joe, says Aleisha.

“We ended up living with them up until the point where I moved out about a year ago, and my brother just moved out a little bit ago,” Aleisha says.

Their younger sister is still living with Candice and Joe and has even taken their last name, Aleisha says.

“That’s the biggest blessing that I can’t stress enough,” Aleisha explains. “My family is my biggest support, and the only reason I’m here today.”

Aleisha says the new family has helped her and her siblings find strength and stability as they continue to heal from the tragedy.

“Something that is so memorable in your life like this, it really can make or break you. And I feel like, for us, we’re not trying to let it break us, and our family’s definitely not going to let it break us,” Aleisha says. “I mean, we have so many, not only family members, just family friends, people that went to high school with [our mother], people that went to school with our dad that, I mean, they don’t talk to him anymore but they still talk to us. They’re still cool with us.”

She continues: “I can’t stress enough that the greatest thing to come out of this situation is my family and these friends that we gained from it. Even my dad’s side [of the family]. And we didn’t get to know all of them, didn’t get to fully know them fully and be around them until now. As much as this situation could have torn us apart, it really brought us so much closer together.”

Fulfilling Her Mom’s Dream

Aleisha says that since her mom’s murder, she has poured herself into work and school.

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She is currently majoring in mass communications at Rose State College in Oklahoma.

“Going to college is always something my mom wanted for me, getting an education,” Aleisha says.

The one person she has not been in contact with is her father — and she admits she struggles with her feelings about him.

She says she doesn’t have any ill-will towards him, saying, “My mother wouldn’t want me to be angry, and that’s the thing, she wouldn’t. She’s 100% why I’m so forgiving and loving,” Aleisha says.

She is also clear about not wanting to be seen as a victim, which is why she is reluctant to talk about her past when meeting new people.

In her mind, Aleisha feels that she is one of the lucky ones.

“I’m not an only child. My siblings are still in good health. My brother’s going back to school. My sister’s doing great in school and she’s always helping her class,” Aleisha says.

“I’m just beyond grateful and blessed for everything that has come out of the situation.”