Local

Firefighter ID'd as victim run over by car while trying to help woman killed by husband

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — When Ronnie Mitchell saw Henry Ramone Brown stab a woman outside a Lake Mary Chili’s, he took chase but couldn’t catch the man before he jumped into a car at the rear of the building.

Moments later, Brown, 30, sped around the restaurant and ran over the stabbing victim, his estranged wife, Chericia Brown, and two people tending to her wounds. %

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“It’s like the kind of stuff you see in movies,” Mitchell said of the scene Sunday night.

One of two good Samaritans who was run over while trying to help Chericia Brown was an Orange City firefighter, authorities said.

Caroline Dorton, a firefighter since 2009, is in the Intensive Care Unit in serious condition, and she has suffered multiple broken bones. %

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The firefighter is a mother of two daughters, and had been eating at the Chili’s when the attack happened.

Orange City Fire Chief Ronnie Long said said Norton is active in the community and her family has been by her side. He said he and his department are rallying around Norton.

Later that night, investigators said Henry Brown also killed his two children and then himself as part of a triple-murder, suicide.

Mitchell said he was having a good time with his friends and bandmates before the night turned into a tragedy.

“I went outside and everybody was running from the bushes, saying this lady got stabbed, and as they were running from the bushes, the guy that stabbed her ran past me, and I think the guy who she was with ran and said, ‘Don’t let him get away, don’t let him get away,”” said Mitchell.

Mitchell chased Brown and when he saw Brown hop inside a car, he tried to get the attention of a police officer who had just showed up at the scene, but it was too late.

“He (Brown) just wedged right in front of the cop, literally 15 feet, and rams over the victim and the nurse that was helping. I think he hit the paramedic, the male that was there helping, as well. He backed out, hopped the median was gone,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said when Brown drove over the woman and the good Samaritans helping her, it sounded like gunshots as the car hit the bushes and trees.

“When he ran them over, it sounded like gunshots, just snapping, and it was horrific. It was horrible,” Mitchell said.

After Henry Brown left the restaurant, investigators said he went to Altamonte Springs and picked up his two children from a babysitter.

Lauren Cooper said when Brown came back to pick up the children, she had no idea what had happened at the Chili’s, but thought something was off.

“I didn’t know, but I had that feeling that he did something. That something was not right. That’s why I called the non-emergency to ask what was going on with the helicopters above,” she said.

Brown had taken the children to in his pickup truck to Central Florida Regional Medical Center, where he got into a shootout when confronted by law enforcement officers, investigators said.

A short time later, deputies found the truck with Brown and his two children dead inside.

Deputies believe he killed them and then himself.

Chericia Brown, 31, died at the hospital.

The two people hit while trying to help her were injured, but were expected to recover, deputies said. The nurse was released from the hospital.