WALDORF, Md. — 22-year-old Bryce Caleb Brown has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the second-degree murder of 73-year-old Gloristine Pinkney in a Home Depot forklift attack.
In addition, Brown will be on supervised probation for a period of five years upon release.
On July 2, 2023, officers from the Charles County Sheriff's Office arrived at a Lowe's store in Waldorf after a burglary was reported.
According to authorities, employees working the overnight shift told officers they had heard loud banging noises. The police then saw that the store’s roll-up doors and security gates were damaged.
Police then arrived at a Home Depot close by in response to employees saying they heard a loud scream.
There, they found the body of Gloristine Pinkney, who was pronounced dead.
The 73-year-old's body was partially pinned beneath a forklift.
Authorities would later discover Brown, who was working at Lowe's at the time, stole a forklift from a fenced lot behind the store and rammed it through the business’s rear gates and roll-up door.
He then drove the forklift out of Lowe’s and into the parking lot of Home Depot, where he rammed it into Pinkney's parked car. Brown didn't know she was asleep in the car. Pinkney got out of the car and tried to run away.
Brown followed her, hit her with the forklift, and ran her over.
Homicide detectives are investigating a homicide in the parking lot of a home improvement store on Jefferson Farm Place in Waldorf that occurred in the early morning hours and are searching for the victim's vehicle which was stolen: https://t.co/BN8s9gIizb pic.twitter.com/9nhYazY4IQ
— Charles Co Sheriff (@CCSOMD) July 2, 2023
Brown would later leave the parking lot in Pinkey's car. He used her credit card to buy gas, driving to Washington, D.C., and Virginia before going back to his home in Waldorf, where he was arrested.
At sentencing, Assistant State’s Attorney Jonathan Beattie, asking for a 50-year sentence, stated that what happened was “a tragic loss of life in the most horrendous way possible.”
Before sentencing him to 40 years in prison, the Honorable Judge Greer told Brown, “This is a terrible situation; it affects your family and Ms. Pinkney’s family. Your family will get to see you and talk to you, but Ms. Pinkney’s family will not. It’s sad all the way around.” He furthered, “It’s clear there was a mental health issue, but it’s not clear that what happened was a result of that. I can’t overlook how horrendous that action was.”
