TOPEKA (KSNT) – A Topeka family is finding comfort in each other after the tragic killing of a local mom whose son was abducted and taken to Illinois.
27 News talked to Jennifer Amyx, aunt of 29-year-old Ashley Brown, on Thursday, July 31 about the recent double-homicide involving her niece. Amyx said Brown was a devoted mother and a “force of nature” to her two-year-old son Zabe Mendez.
“He [Zabe Mendez] has lost so much already in his young life because he has just lost his mom, his grandpa, and earlier this year a grandma, so we want to be able to provide for him whatever he needs as navigates these next few years and we want to be able to have the opportunity to support his closest family that’s going to be at home with him during these really pivotal years,” Amyx said.
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Mendez lost both his mother and grandfather, 55-year-old Sean Thornton, in a double-homicide incident that rocked the Topeka community on July 22. Family members of the homicide victims are now taking action by launching a fundraiser to help Mendez with everything from daycare to education costs.
“I have so many,” Amyx said when asked what her favorite memory of Brown is. “I am instantly flooded. My niece was so beautiful, so warm, so loving, just a real gift to the world. One of her favorite sayings that she took with her throughout her life is just when the caterpillar thought the world was about to end, she became a butterfly and Ashley was a beautiful butterfly in this world. So, I’d like people to remember her community service, her love of animals, and what a great mom she was to her boy, and an amazing big sister to everyone in her family.”
Brown’s family is set to hold a celebration of life ceremony for her in August. You can find a link to Mendez’s GoFundMe by clicking here.
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Past reporting
Topeka police were called around 9:50 a.m. on July 22 to a house in the 500 block of Northeast Wabash Avenue to conduct a welfare check on the residents living there. Officers at the house found two people, a man and woman, dead and a child belonging to the household missing.
The Topeka Police Department worked with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) to issue an AMBER Alert to help locate the missing two-year-old child. Law enforcement in Mattoon, Illinois recovered the child, later identified as Zabe Mendez, safely around 12:25 p.m. on July 22 and arrested 32-year-old Christopher Barnshaw for his alleged part in the abduction and double-homicide in Topeka.
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