Household shocks with unbelievable act of empathy for son’s assassin

When Jessica Brown noticed the information report detailing two separate stabbing occasions, one among which had occurred in her brother Edan’s neighborhood, her fast thought was for the households concerned.

“I just thought to myself: oh, those poor families,” she remembers on this week’s episode of Gary Jubelin’s “I Catch Killers” podcast.

Little did Brown notice that a number of brief hours afterwards, she’d obtain the worst telephone name of her life.

“I got in my car and plugged my phone in and it just went absolutely ballistic,” she continues, including that her telephone had gone flat in a single day.

“I had to pull over because I thought, oh gosh, my phone’s malfunctioning.”

That’s when she acquired the information.

It was May 2010, and her brother Edan had been the one stabbed. He was useless, and his pal Anthony Jones was the suspect.

“I don’t remember, but apparently I called my best friend screaming my head off,” she tells Jubelin.

“I probably shouldn’t have been driving in that state, but I got to mom and dad’s safely.”

The trauma of a drawn-out trial

While Anthony Jones was ultimately arrested for her brother’s homicide, he initially pleaded not responsible, a transfer that pissed off and distressed Brown’s household.

Jones himself admitted to information.com.au that he “got up on the stand and made up a story” through the preliminary trial, which “really messed him up.”

After the primary trial, which took two years to eventuate, resulted in a hung jury, Brown and her household heard the devastating information that they must endure a second trial.

“We thought it would be over on day dot because the opening line was the triple O call and like we were like, we know who did it, so why do we need to go through six weeks of court? And then we ended up having to do another trial after that.”

Brown reveals that prosecutors had spoken to her dad and mom about the potential for attempting for a manslaughter conviction as a substitute, due to the chance Jones is probably not convicted of homicide.

“They were pulled aside and told, he could get away with murder or we could go for manslaughter. And my mom just went, ‘Heck no, we’re going to go for murder,’ even with the risk that he might get off.”

When, within the subsequent trial, Jones unexpectedly pleaded responsible, the sensation of reduction was palpable.

“Nothing was going to bring my brother back, but [we were] relieved that we had an ending,” she stated.

An act of empathy, not vengeance

Despite the reduction the Browns felt that justice had been served in Edan’s homicide, it was their response 15 years later, when Jones was launched on parole, that lends their story such a rare high quality.

In 2025, after serving 14 years, the Browns acquired the information that Jones – who had undergone vital reform whereas incarcerated, finishing a Bachelor of Ministry – was leaving jail.

Amazingly, their response was one among empathy and hope for Jones’ future.

“I actually went to the bail hearing in Parramatta; we were informed every step of the way. We had heard that he had reformed himself, so I don’t think we had any qualms with him getting out. It was just more that he was gonna stay on track for us,” Brown stated.

“Mom and dad were happy for him to be out if he had reformed himself.”

Jubelin goes on to reference Jones’ personal look on “I Catch Killers.”

“Before I got him on the podcast – and this is how we started to get in touch – I didn’t feel comfortable getting him on the podcast to talk about his life unless I spoke to the family, Edan’s family, and that led me to you,” he begins.

“We talked about it and I thought you were very generous in what you had to say, and the feelings that you had about Anthony potentially turning his life around.”

“We’re really grateful that he has turned his life around, there are a lot of families who don’t have that,” Brown replied.

“Whilst we’ve been very unlucky by losing my brother, we’ve been lucky in the sense that [Jones] has made something of himself and he has a plan to give back to the community and to turn his life into purpose now rather than just being an angry man, which is what he described in the podcast that he did.”