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When Jessica Brown saw the news report detailing two separate stabbing events, one of which had occurred in her brother Edan’s neighborhood, her immediate thought was for the families involved.
“I just thought to myself: oh, those poor families,” she recalls on this week’s episode of Gary Jubelin’s “I Catch Killers” podcast.
Little did Brown realize that a few short hours afterwards, she’d receive the worst phone call of her life.
“I got in my car and plugged my phone in and it just went absolutely ballistic,” she continues, adding that her phone had gone flat overnight.
“I had to pull over because I thought, oh gosh, my phone’s malfunctioning.”
That’s when she got the news.
It was May 2010, and her brother Edan had been the one stabbed. He was dead, and his friend 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 eventually arrested for her brother’s murder, he initially pleaded not guilty, a move that frustrated and distressed Brown’s family.
Jones himself admitted to news.com.au that he “got up on the stand and made up a story” during the initial trial, which “really messed him up.”
After the first trial, which took two years to eventuate, resulted in a hung jury, Brown and her family heard the devastating news that they would have to 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 parents about the possibility of trying for a manslaughter conviction instead, because of the possibility Jones may not be convicted of murder.
“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, in the next trial, Jones unexpectedly pleaded guilty, the feeling of relief was palpable.
“Nothing was going to bring my brother back, but [we were] relieved that we had an ending,” she said.
An act of empathy, not vengeance
Despite the relief the Browns felt that justice had been served in Edan’s murder, it was their response 15 years later, when Jones was released on parole, that lends their story such an extraordinary quality.
In 2025, after serving 14 years, the Browns got the news that Jones – who had undergone significant reform while incarcerated, completing a Bachelor of Ministry – was leaving prison.
Amazingly, their response was one of 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 said.
“Mom and dad were happy for him to be out if he had reformed himself.”
Jubelin goes on to reference Jones’ own appearance 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.”
