‘This is movie stuff’ | How a Dallas mom says leaders of a nonprofit tried to take her baby

DeAmber Brown say she was promised safety at shelter for trafficking survivors. Instead she says she was jailed while her baby was in custody with ministry’s founder

DALLAS — Editor’s note: WFAA repeatedly reached out to the leaders of Reflection Ministries, including traveling to Midland to try to talk to them. Both declined to answer questions.

On a recent day inside a Dallas courtroom, there were baby gifts, balloons and a small celebration.

For DeAmber Brown, it was a moment she wasn’t sure she’d ever see — holding her baby again after months of separation, court fights and weeks in jail.

“I’m just happy to have my baby back,” Brown said.

But Brown also said her ordeal is far from over.

What started as a search for shelter while she was pregnant turned into a fight for her freedom and her child that stretched from Dallas to Midland.

Brown, a human trafficking survivor, says the leaders of a West Texas ministry that promised to help her instead tried to take and keep her baby.

“To hear what I have to say is unbelievable,” Brown told WFAA.

Help in West Texas

Brown’s story began in November 2025.

“I was at the end of my pregnancy,” she said. “I’d just quit both my jobs, too big to work,” she said.

Homeless and in need of help, Brown says a Dallas shelter referred her to Reflection Ministries, a Midland-based nonprofit that works with trafficking survivors.

On Nov. 21, Brown arrived at the group’s housing complex outside Midland, known as “The Village.”

“I really thought it’d be a place where I could start over, bring my other kids, have a life, a new life,” she said.

Ten days later, Brown underwent an emergency C-section at Midland Memorial Hospital.

“They were like, you’re going to have this baby tonight,” Brown said.

Strange comments

Brown says while she was in the hospital, Elizabeth Walker, the chief operating officer of Reflection Ministries, began making strange comments.

“’She’s just having a baby for me. She’s just the surrogate,’” Brown recalled Walker saying.

“And I really thought she was joking. I was laughing and never in a million years did I think it was real,” Brown said.

Reflection Ministries’ founder, Lisa Bownds, would later produce paperwork – which has since been filed in court and obtained by WFAA – claiming Brown signed over temporary guardianship of her newborn to her.

But Brown says she has no memory of signing anything.

“I came out so dosed up, so sedated,” she said. “I couldn’t have signed anything like that.”

Court records show hospital staff later told investigators Brown would not have signed any guardianship paperwork without a social worker and Midland Memorial’s legal department being involved.

WFAA tried to interview both Walker and Bownds, but both declined to answer our questions.

Back to the Village

Nearly a week later, Brown returned to The Village.

She says she was still recovering and in severe pain.

When Walker offered to keep the baby overnight so Brown could rest, Brown agreed.

“She promised me that she would just spend the night with her …just so I could get rest,” Brown said.

Brown says Walker wouldn’t give the baby back.

At the time, Brown was on probation in Dallas County for shooting a man in the leg in 2024. Brown says Walker had promised to get her probation transferred to Midland, but that never happened.

Brown says when she told a staff member that she wanted to leave with her baby, she was warned.

“She told me that she talked to Lisa and Elizabeth and Elizabeth had told her the only way I’m leaving is in handcuffs,” Brown said. “Two days later, I was arrested.”

Court records show Walker escorted state troopers into “The Village” to arrest Brown for allegedly violating her probation.

Behind bars

Brown spent five days in the Midland County jail before being transferred to Dallas County.

Her baby stayed behind in Midland.

She spent Christmas in jail.

Her case landed in the courtroom of Dallas County District Judge Rocky Jones, who was tasked with deciding whether Brown violated probation by leaving Dallas County without permission.

Jones says she quickly became alarmed when she learned Brown’s baby was still with Bownds.

The judge also recalled earlier this year when Bownds came to her courtroom and spoke to her directly in a meeting with the prosecutor, Brown’s defense attorney and probation officials.

“She starts telling me why Miss Brown was terminated from the program and telling me how she believed that she was an unfit mother,” Jones said.

Brown’s court-appointed attorney, Jacob Zachariah, said he believed the child was the goal all along.

“I genuinely believe they were going to steal that baby,” Zachariah said.

Judge Jones said Bownds and Walker wanted Brown to permanently sign away her parental rights.

“And their mission was to make sure that this young lady got prosecuted and that her probation was revoked,” Jones said.

In a Nov. 26 email to probation, Walker wrote that revoking Brown’s probation would protect “Ms. Brown, her unborn child and other survivors in the program.”

“Unfortunately, incarceration is sometimes necessary for an individual to pause, reflect and take accountability,” the email said. “Ms. Brown has been allowed to avoid consequences in the past, and her current behavior reflects patterns that require intervention. There is also a safe plan in place for the infant that has been reviewed with the attorney handling this matter.”

She later testified in a Feb. 10 hearing in Jones’ court that Brown’s probation should be violated. Jones said she denied the motion to revoke Brown’s probation because the allegations against her “did not pass the smell test” and appeared tied to an effort to keep Brown separated from her newborn.

Free from jail

Brown was released from jail in early February. But it would be months before she got her daughter back.

In January, Bownds filed for permanent guardianship with a judge in Midland. Two months later, in March, Bownds and her husband filed for permanent custody, seeking sole legal custody of the child.

In court filings, they accused Brown of having a “history of … child abuse and neglect” and asked that she be denied access to the child. They also sought child support from Brown while the case was pending.

Attorney Anthony Reed represented Brown in that custody fight.

“When she told me her story, red flags were all over the place,” Reed said. “It stunk to high heaven.”

A reunion – but still afraid

After almost five months apart, in late April, a Midland judge ordered Lisa Bownds to return Brown’s daughter to her.

Back in Dallas, in May, Judge Jones marked the moment with a baby shower inside her courtroom.

After the shower, Brown told WFAA that even with her child back, she’s still afraid. “They’re obsessed with trying to get my baby back still,” she said.

What no one at the shower knew at the time was that two days after the event, according to court records, a phone call was placed setting plans in motion to again separate mother and child.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of WFAA’s investigation “The Village.”