True crime: Kentucky’s Browning family included two strange deaths

Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history — some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.

In 1991, a landlord’s intuition about a woman said to be visiting her sister in Lexington led to the gruesome discovery of Susan Browning’s body in a metal locker.

In Sept. 1991, Covington police knocked on Ann Hamilton’s door looking for her mother, Susan Browning.

Browning had moved to Covington from Lexington, but no one had seen her for years. Hamilton’s landlord, Jim Feldman, suspected something had happened to her.

According to Feldman, the mother and daughter had lived in the apartment on West Seventh Street in Covington for about 10 years. They paid the rent on time with Browning’s social security check and stayed mostly to themselves. The only complaint from neighbors was about Hamilton’s numerous cats.

But Browning hadn’t been seen by neighbors in several years. Every time someone asked about her, Hamilton said she was in Lexington visiting her sister, Mandy Browning.

When an attorney from Lexington showed up in Covington looking for Susan Browning, the lawyer told Feldman that Mandy had died.

Over the next few weeks, Susan Browning reappeared. But things were not as they seemed.

Other tenants said “Browning” was actually Hamilton, dressed up wearing her mother’s clothes and glasses, with her hair dyed to match.

Feldman called the social security office with his suspicions — Hamilton was using Susan Browning’s social security benefits and food stamps, but Browning was no longer living.

Andy Chavez, an employee with the Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources, thought the same thing. He told Covington Police Hamilton was using her mother’s identification to apply for benefits.

Feldman and Chavez were right. Susan Browning was dead, and had been for some time.

When police arrived at the apartment, Hamilton told them her mother had died four and a half years prior. She’d been storing her body wrapped in draperies and in a metal cabinet in their living room. An autopsy later showed she had died of natural causes.

Hamilton was charged with abuse of a corpse and failure to report a death. At her trial, she claimed that Susan Browning was a Blackfoot Native American and had told Hamilton she didn’t want to be buried.

“I disposed of a body without notifying the coroner,” Hamilton said at her trial. “But my mother requested it. I did everything she’s ever asked me.”

Hamilton also alleged her mother was emotionally and verbally abusive and had sold her into prostitution as a child.

Hamilton was sentenced to a year of probation. Kenton County Judge James Godsey said putting her in jail would be a disservice. Since being taken into custody, Hamilton, he said, was learning skills she had never been taught before.

“She needs the counseling because of the deprivation she suffered throughout her life, apparently at the hands of her mother,” he said. “The only victim, as it were, in this case, in my opinion, is Miss Hamilton herself.”

Susan Browning’s life and family

Susan Browning came to Lexington after living with her family in poverty in Bullitt County. She, her brothers and her mother fled their home after a group of prominent citizens tried to kill them by burning down the shack they lived as they slept inside.

Lou Browning, her sister Kate, and her children — Susan, Mandy and three boys, Jerry, Peachie and Bennie — lived in Browningtown, a town named after their ancestors.

In the 1920s, Lou Browning and her family lived off of the kindness of neighbors, stealing the occasional chicken and making ends meet as much as they could.

Elsewhere in the county, some farmers had turned to moonshining to make ends meet. In some cases, even the most prominent citizens in a town were moonshiners.

One day, Sheriff Frank Monroe and Browningtown farmer Clarence Crenshaw were investigating another matter when they found the Brownings huddled around a small stove in an abandoned barn. Monroe consulted with county officials, including magistrate John Bolton, and opted to take Mandy’s children away to the Kentucky Children’s Home.

Lou Browning and her sister did what they could to get the children back but were unsuccessful. Within days, Lou Browning and Kate Browning had determined Crenshaw and Bolton were to blame. They planned to exact their revenge.

Lou Browning walked 14 miles to Bardstown and reported Crenshaw and Bolton’s moonshine still to U.S. Treasury agents.

She went to bed around 11:30 p.m. that night. Not long after, she woke up to noises outside and within minutes, she realized the shack was on fire.

Waking her sister and children, she hurried them to the door to escape the flames, only to find it was locked from the outside. Bennie grabbed a nearby axe to tear down the door. As he made a hole in the door and tried to make his way out, shots rang out. From the dark, the bullet of a gun pierced his arm.

Kate Browning declared it was better to be shot than to burn alive. Grabbing the axe, she made a way through the door for the family. One by one they ran out of the burning building and into a wall of bullets. The family scattered and headed to neighbors’ houses.

But 60-year-old Kate Browning had been hit. She made it to a nearby thicket before she fell, unable to go on. Lou Browning and the girls ran on to safety. The boys headed in separate directions.

In the morning, the family returned to the burned-out ruins of their shack. Kate Browning was in a nearby bush, covered in blood and barely breathing. Lou Browning left to get help, but Kate Browning died not long after she had left.

Within days, investigators had arrested 10 men, including Bolton and Crenshaw, in connection with the attack and Kate Browning’s death. Prosecutors said the men had gone after the family because they’d told authorities about the still.

The defense said the Browning family couldn’t be trusted, weren’t of good moral character and that Kate Browning’s death was a domestic matter.

After a lengthy trial, the men were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Even after their appeals were denied, friends of the men, who had been prominent members of Bullitt County, begged Gov. Ruby Laffoon to pardon them.

Laffoon, and later Gov. A.B. “Happy” Chandler, eventually pardoned and commuted the sentences of all the men.

By 1935, the Browning family had moved to Lexington. Lou, Jerry, Mandy and Mandy’s son Elmer still lived together as they had in Bullitt County.

The family’s troubles continued.

Jerry was arrested for fighting at least once. Mandy was committed to Eastern State Hospital for psychiatric care. Peachie and Bennie were for a time committed to the Frankfort State Hospital and School. Later, Bennie was arrested multiple times until his death in 1947 from uremia, a result of his heavy drinking. Lou died in 1962 after a long illness at the age of 71.

Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com.