Gaines’s daughter would dial 911 for the second time in an hour — this time, records show, to report a theft that would end with her mother being pronounced dead at a different hospital, four miles away.
On Tuesday, her family came to D.C. Superior Court to witness the arraignment of the stranger whom police charged with unarmed carjacking in Gaines’s case: Kayla Kenisha Brown, 22, who records show had been taken to MedStar to be evaluated for erratic behavior that day after police were summoned to her home.
“We want justice,” Gaines’s sister, Erica Gaines, said after a hearing in which Magistrate Judge Heide L. Herrmann ruled that there was enough evidence to hold Brown in jail until her next hearing Friday. After the hearing, the sobs of Gaines’s family members reached the courthouse lobby, echoing off the marble walls.
Erica Gaines said that her sister had multiple sclerosis but that she refused to let her struggle define her. “She would always say, ‘I have MS. But MS doesn’t have me,’” she said. “She was a loving sister. She was a fighter. She loved everyone and would give you anything you asked for.”
Police alleged that in the span of about 20 minutes, Brown hopped into the white Mazda and careened toward downtown, crashing into a concrete barrier outside the U.S. attorney’s office at Sixth and D streets NW — nearly three miles south of the hospital.
Then she tried to run, according to a police account, still clutching the car keys and in the brown sweatsuit she was wearing when she arrived at MedStar.
Police said they charged her with felony murder, kidnapping and unarmed carjacking, though prosecutors filed only a carjacking charge in court. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office said the case — as well as other possible charges — remains under investigation. To charge felony murder, prosecutors need evidence to prove Gaines died as a result of the carjacking.
Brown’s attorney, Sylvia Smith with the Public Defender Service, argued that there was no evidence of a carjacking because the driver was inside the hospital and not with the vehicle when it was driven away. Smith said the charge should be unauthorized use of a vehicle, a far less serious crime.
Smith also argued that there were no witnesses connecting Brown to stealing the vehicle and that her client should not face felony murder charges because it was not clear whether Gaines had died in the vehicle before her client entered the car.
Assistant U. S. Attorney Jamie Carter said surveillance video captured Brown and her “distinctive” Crocs getting into the vehicle, and he argued that Brown was wearing the same shoes when she was arrested after the crash. A photo in an arrest affidavit filed in court shows Brown wearing yellow Crocs when she was taken to the hospital earlier Monday.
Gaines has become one of the latest victims of a carjacking in D.C., a category of crime that surged last year but is down significantly in the first half of 2024. She is at least the third person killed in connection with a carjacking in the region this year. In January, Michael Gill, a 56-year-old trade association executive, and Alberto Vasquez Jr., a 35-year-old who loved reading to his young daughters, were fatally shot in what police say were separate carjackings committed by the same man during a crime rampage across the District and its suburbs.
Prosecutors in court Tuesday did not detail potential motives for what transpired Monday. Brown’s trip to MedStar was set in motion by a 911 call made at 11:46 a.m., according to the arrest affidavit. Authorities said a female caller screamed for help and then hung up, drawing police and emergency medical technicians paramedics to a residence on South Capitol Street in Southeast Washington.
Police said in the affidavit that Brown “stared at the officers and did not respond to their questions using words.” The affidavit says her father told them that she had been “acting crazy for about three days” and may have gotten ahold of drugs from a man she met on Instagram. A person who answered the phone of a relative reached Tuesday declined to comment.
The affidavit says Brown had high blood pressure and a high heart rate, and was taken by ambulance to MedStar Washington Hospital Center for observation. A police officer rode with her in the ambulance, arriving at 12:40 p.m. The officer left the hospital after determining Brown was not suspected in a crime.
Police said that after the SUV with Gaines pulled up to the hospital’s emergency entrance, security cameras captured a woman resembling Brown approach the driver’s side, the affidavit says, but the cameras did not capture an image of the person driving the vehicle away.
Her daughter did not immediately notice the vehicle missing as she waited inside for help with a wheelchair. After speaking with a security guard, she called police.
At 1:27 p.m., a police captain spotted the speeding white SUV. The affidavit says he heard screeching tires and, through a side mirror, saw the vehicle crash into the barrier at the northwest corner of Sixth and D streets NW, apparently as its driver lost control turning left while headed north on Sixth Street.
The affidavit says that after the captain detained Brown, he found Gaines unconscious in the SUV. The affidavit says she was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital at 2:38 p.m. A cause of death is pending, according to the affidavit, which says Gaines had “severe coronary artery disease.”