Justice For Tracey Lynn Brown
Donation protected
Hi everyone,
The women in the photo is my mother, Tracey Lynn Brown.
We are raising money to help fight a legal case related to her death (legal fees, translation of Turkish documents to English, etc.)
This is a long and honestly, traumatic story, but I hope you will read it and not only contribute but learn something about traveling solo in a foriegn country.
I’ve struggled with how to say this. Write this. To put it out into the world for everyone who isn’t a member of my immediate and intimate family circle to know. But alas, for the sake of healing, I must.
April 2013 I’ve had the most significant heart break I think my lil ol’ heart could take. My mom passed away. She was traveling home from Tashkent and had a very long layover in Turkey. She called me in the middle of the night and we spoke, she told me she was going to write in her journal and do some reading to pass the time during her layover. We exchanged “I love yous” and I told her I would be at the airport to pick her up the next day.
When I went to pick her up the next day she wasn’t there. The flight wasn’t delayed (I had the flight tracker open on my phone) and the plan had already landed. I asked my cousin to check for her as he worked at the airport and knew the landscape better than I. No luck.
I go back home and start thinking. By this time it is the middle of night, I am beyond afraid and worried. The last place I know she was for sure was in the airport in Turkey. So I file a missing person’s report with the Turkish Embassy, say several prayers and go to sleep. A few hours later I get a call from the Turkish consulate. My mother is in the hospital in Ankara. There was an “incident” at the airport and she is barely holding on to her life. My presence was requested immediately, ultimately is was to say goodbye.
Before I could think, jump to action, do anything…I had to weep. Just cry because I was so afraid and didn’t know what in the hell to do. While we look alike and may have the same name, I wouldn’t even dream of doing half of the crazy antics my mom did. My mother was the adventurer, world traveler, and the one who seemingly wasn’t afraid of anything, NOT ME!
But, I had to suck it up and go see my mommy. At that time I didn’t know it was to give her one final kiss and tell her “See you later”. At the time I was living with my cousin, he didn’t know it but I spent all of our rent money and then some to pay for the flight, hotel, and fees associated with getting a new passport to get over there. While afraid, I was DETERMINED. Our village of friends, family, Hampton Alumni, First Baptist family, Bates family and so many others helped close the gap to get me there. And I am beyond thankful for all of you.
I took cards, pictures and the poems I knew she liked because I thought, she will wake up once she hears my voice and everything will be “okay”.
I’ve never been the fainting type. Never, not even once. But when I finally saw my mom, my beautiful mommy beaten and bruised covered in lacerations I just felt like the weight of the entire situation rested on me and I couldn’t stand it, literally. My cousin Tony, who made the trip with me, had to pick me up off the floor. I didn’t see my mother, sure her body was there, but she looked so…just not like my mom.
My visit was short. In my heart I already knew, without having the Turkish doctors tell me, that she was about to make her transition. However, the consulate told me shortly after returning to the hotel that there was nothing more the medical team could do. Our family had to make a decision, leave her in this foreign country alone OR pull the plug. The decision was not my own to make. So I went home the next day and consulted with my family. Well, mom had her own plan and passed about three days later with no never mind of what we had to say about it. I feel like she didn’t want to have us burdened with such a heavy decision.
Flash forward to September 4, 2015. I get a call from a Turkish reporter asking if I would like to make a comment about my mother. I was doing homework , completely caught off guard. I asked, “Why would I?” I had already hired a lawyer, pathologist and knew that something wasn’t sweet in the sauce surrounding her death.
You see, first I was told she had a heart attack, then I was told “she took something” and had a bad reaction to it, the stories never added up and everything seemed so out of character for my mom. Thus, my brother and I lawyer-ed up. And rightfully so, someone was trying to cover up what happened to my mom, and for the past two years they had been successful. However, thanks to, what I am told is a human rights group in Turkey, the surveillance of what happened finally surfaced. After two years of not knowing a real cause of death (because when they shipped her remains back several of her internal organs were missing and out of place…I’ll spare you all the details) and having to tell people “there was an incident” at the airport. Now we know.
Now we can begin to heal.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/video-provides-clues-in-mysterious-death-of-detroit-woman-in-turkey/36718408
The women in the photo is my mother, Tracey Lynn Brown.
We are raising money to help fight a legal case related to her death (legal fees, translation of Turkish documents to English, etc.)
This is a long and honestly, traumatic story, but I hope you will read it and not only contribute but learn something about traveling solo in a foriegn country.
I’ve struggled with how to say this. Write this. To put it out into the world for everyone who isn’t a member of my immediate and intimate family circle to know. But alas, for the sake of healing, I must.
April 2013 I’ve had the most significant heart break I think my lil ol’ heart could take. My mom passed away. She was traveling home from Tashkent and had a very long layover in Turkey. She called me in the middle of the night and we spoke, she told me she was going to write in her journal and do some reading to pass the time during her layover. We exchanged “I love yous” and I told her I would be at the airport to pick her up the next day.
When I went to pick her up the next day she wasn’t there. The flight wasn’t delayed (I had the flight tracker open on my phone) and the plan had already landed. I asked my cousin to check for her as he worked at the airport and knew the landscape better than I. No luck.
I go back home and start thinking. By this time it is the middle of night, I am beyond afraid and worried. The last place I know she was for sure was in the airport in Turkey. So I file a missing person’s report with the Turkish Embassy, say several prayers and go to sleep. A few hours later I get a call from the Turkish consulate. My mother is in the hospital in Ankara. There was an “incident” at the airport and she is barely holding on to her life. My presence was requested immediately, ultimately is was to say goodbye.
Before I could think, jump to action, do anything…I had to weep. Just cry because I was so afraid and didn’t know what in the hell to do. While we look alike and may have the same name, I wouldn’t even dream of doing half of the crazy antics my mom did. My mother was the adventurer, world traveler, and the one who seemingly wasn’t afraid of anything, NOT ME!
But, I had to suck it up and go see my mommy. At that time I didn’t know it was to give her one final kiss and tell her “See you later”. At the time I was living with my cousin, he didn’t know it but I spent all of our rent money and then some to pay for the flight, hotel, and fees associated with getting a new passport to get over there. While afraid, I was DETERMINED. Our village of friends, family, Hampton Alumni, First Baptist family, Bates family and so many others helped close the gap to get me there. And I am beyond thankful for all of you.
I took cards, pictures and the poems I knew she liked because I thought, she will wake up once she hears my voice and everything will be “okay”.
I’ve never been the fainting type. Never, not even once. But when I finally saw my mom, my beautiful mommy beaten and bruised covered in lacerations I just felt like the weight of the entire situation rested on me and I couldn’t stand it, literally. My cousin Tony, who made the trip with me, had to pick me up off the floor. I didn’t see my mother, sure her body was there, but she looked so…just not like my mom.
My visit was short. In my heart I already knew, without having the Turkish doctors tell me, that she was about to make her transition. However, the consulate told me shortly after returning to the hotel that there was nothing more the medical team could do. Our family had to make a decision, leave her in this foreign country alone OR pull the plug. The decision was not my own to make. So I went home the next day and consulted with my family. Well, mom had her own plan and passed about three days later with no never mind of what we had to say about it. I feel like she didn’t want to have us burdened with such a heavy decision.
Flash forward to September 4, 2015. I get a call from a Turkish reporter asking if I would like to make a comment about my mother. I was doing homework , completely caught off guard. I asked, “Why would I?” I had already hired a lawyer, pathologist and knew that something wasn’t sweet in the sauce surrounding her death.
You see, first I was told she had a heart attack, then I was told “she took something” and had a bad reaction to it, the stories never added up and everything seemed so out of character for my mom. Thus, my brother and I lawyer-ed up. And rightfully so, someone was trying to cover up what happened to my mom, and for the past two years they had been successful. However, thanks to, what I am told is a human rights group in Turkey, the surveillance of what happened finally surfaced. After two years of not knowing a real cause of death (because when they shipped her remains back several of her internal organs were missing and out of place…I’ll spare you all the details) and having to tell people “there was an incident” at the airport. Now we know.
Now we can begin to heal.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/video-provides-clues-in-mysterious-death-of-detroit-woman-in-turkey/36718408
Organizer
Tracey L. Shavers Jr.
Organizer
Dearborn, MI