On February 1, 2008, 44-year-old Tamara Browning was shot and killed while sleeping in her Cockeysville, Maryland home. Her husband John, 45, and their two younger sons, 14-year-old Gregory and 11-year-old Benjamin, were also found shot dead that same night. The family’s eldest son, 15-year-old Nicholas Waggoner Browning, had been staying at a friend’s house and reported discovering the bodies the next day.

Police soon focused on Nicholas. After questioning he confessed to leaving his friend’s home in the middle of the night, using his father’s handgun to shoot his parents and brothers, disposing of the weapon, and then returning to create an alibi. He was arrested on February 3, 2008, and charged as an adult with four counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors said the killings were motivated by a desire to be free of parental rules and to inherit the estate; defense attorneys argued Nicholas had endured years of physical and emotional abuse by his father. In October 2008 he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and in January 2009 received four life terms, with two consecutive; a 2014 request to modify the sentence was denied.

Did anyone in the Cockeysville area know the Brownings well enough to shed light on family life before that night?