On Sept. 26, 2023, Tamika Brown, a clerk at Christiana Hospital’s emergency room, found herself at the ER despite being off duty. In the early morning hours, Brown discovered the body of her 23-year-old daughter on the side of the road in their New Castle County neighborhood.
Jada Symone Brown-Howard was a nursing student who aspired to work in labor and delivery, according to her mother. Brown said her daughter was six points away from completing her nursing program. Describing what happened that night, Brown said Brown-Howard went for a walk around their Wilton neighborhood complex, near New Castle, sometime during the 10 p.m. hour to “decompress.” She recalled feeling uneasy about her daughter’s late-night departure. “Although she’s an adult, I’m a mother, and I didn’t necessarily agree with the time frame in which she was leaving,” Brown said.
When Brown-Howard hadn’t returned home, her mother went searching for her. Brown said she drove around the neighborhood for hours, not realizing she had been passing her daughter’s body. Brown said it wasn’t until around 2 a.m. that she took a closer look at the figure on the ground near Wilton Boulevard and Edinburgh Drive. The mother of four said she picked her daughter up and placed her in her vehicle for the less than 10-minute drive to the hospital.