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<\/p>\n
DALLAS \u2014 Editor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
On a recent day inside a Dallas courtroom, there were baby gifts, balloons and a small celebration.<\/p>\n
For DeAmber Brown, it was a moment she wasn\u2019t sure she\u2019d ever see \u2014 holding her baby again after months of separation, court fights and weeks in jail.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just happy to have my baby back,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
But Brown also said her ordeal is far from over.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo hear what I have to say is unbelievable,\u201d Brown told WFAA.<\/p>\n
\nHelp in West Texas <\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s story began in November 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at the end of my pregnancy,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d just quit both my jobs, too big to work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 21, Brown arrived at the group\u2019s housing complex outside Midland, known as \u201cThe Village.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI really thought it’d be a place where I could start over, bring my other kids, have a life, a new life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ten days later, Brown underwent an emergency C-section at Midland Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like, you’re going to have this baby tonight,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\nStrange comments <\/p>\n
Brown says while she was in the hospital, Elizabeth Walker, the chief operating officer of Reflection Ministries, began making strange comments.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019She’s just having a baby for me. She’s just the surrogate,\u2019\u201d Brown recalled Walker saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I really thought she was joking. I was laughing and never in a million years did I think it was real,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Reflection Ministries\u2019 founder, Lisa Bownds, would later produce paperwork \u2013 which has since been filed in court and obtained by WFAA \u2013 claiming Brown signed over temporary guardianship of her newborn to her.<\/p>\n
But Brown says she has no memory of signing anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came out so dosed up, so sedated,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn’t have signed anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Court records show hospital staff later told investigators Brown would not have signed any guardianship paperwork without a social worker and Midland Memorial\u2019s legal department being involved.<\/p>\n
WFAA tried to interview both Walker and Bownds, but both declined to answer our questions.<\/p>\n
\nBack to the Village <\/p>\n
Nearly a week later, Brown returned to The Village.<\/p>\n
She says she was still recovering and in severe pain.<\/p>\n
When Walker offered to keep the baby overnight so Brown could rest, Brown agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe promised me that she would just spend the night with her \u2026just so I could get rest,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Brown says Walker wouldn\u2019t give the baby back.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Brown says when she told a staff member that she wanted to leave with her baby, she was warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me that she talked to Lisa and Elizabeth and Elizabeth had told her the only way I’m leaving is in handcuffs,\u201d Brown said. \u201cTwo days later, I was arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n
Court records show Walker escorted state troopers into \u201cThe Village\u201d to arrest Brown for allegedly violating her probation.<\/p>\n
\nBehind bars <\/p>\n
Brown spent five days in the Midland County jail before being transferred to Dallas County.<\/p>\n
Her baby stayed behind in Midland.<\/p>\n
She spent Christmas in jail.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Jones says she quickly became alarmed when she learned Brown\u2019s baby was still with Bownds.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s defense attorney and probation officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe starts telling me why Miss Brown was terminated from the program and telling me how she believed that she was an unfit mother,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s court-appointed attorney, Jacob Zachariah, said he believed the child was the goal all along.<\/p>\n
\u201cI genuinely believe they were going to steal that baby,\u201d Zachariah said.<\/p>\n
Judge Jones said Bownds and Walker wanted Brown to permanently sign away her parental rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd their mission was to make sure that this young lady got prosecuted and that her probation was revoked,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
In a Nov. 26 email to probation, Walker wrote that revoking Brown\u2019s probation would protect \u201cMs. Brown, her unborn child and other survivors in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, incarceration is sometimes necessary for an individual to pause, reflect and take accountability,\u201d the email said. \u201cMs. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
She later testified in a Feb. 10 hearing in Jones\u2019 court that Brown\u2019s probation should be violated. Jones said she denied the motion to revoke Brown\u2019s probation because the allegations against her \u201cdid not pass the smell test\u201d and appeared tied to an effort to keep Brown separated from her newborn.<\/p>\n
\nFree from jail <\/p>\n
Brown was released from jail in early February. But it would be months before she got her daughter back.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In court filings, they accused Brown of having a \u201chistory of … child abuse and neglect\u201d and asked that she be denied access to the child. They also sought child support from Brown while the case was pending.<\/p>\n
Attorney Anthony Reed represented Brown in that custody fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she told me her story, red flags were all over the place,\u201d Reed said. \u201cIt stunk to high heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA reunion \u2013 but still afraid <\/p>\n
After almost five months apart, in late April, a Midland judge ordered Lisa Bownds to return Brown\u2019s daughter to her.<\/p>\n
Back in Dallas, in May, Judge Jones marked the moment with a baby shower inside her courtroom.<\/p>\n
After the shower, Brown told WFAA that even with her child back, she\u2019s still afraid. \u201cThey\u2019re obsessed with trying to get my baby back still,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of WFAA\u2019s investigation \u201cThe Village.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DeAmber Brown say she was promised safety at shelter for trafficking survivors. Instead she says she was jailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-384568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}