MS Coast man heads to prison after 11-year-old ‘faced his dad’s killer and told the truth’

A Mississippi Coast man will spend life in prison after a Jackson County jury convicted him this week of killing the father of his girlfriend’s child three years ago.

The jury found Christopher Jerome Brown, 32, guilty after a three-day trial, the District Attorney’s office said Thursday in a news release.

Circuit Court Judge Kathy King Jackson sentenced Brown to life in prison for possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and first-degree murder of Nicholas Darnell Pittman on July 24, 2021, in the Virginia City community, north of Ocean Springs.

Pittman, 36, had gone to a home on Theriot Avenue to pick up his 11-year-old son after learning Brown, who was dating the child’s mother, “was calling him names,” the news release said.

Pittman argued with the child’s mother in front of the house when he arrived, according to the release. Brown soon went outside with a gun. He shot Pittman three times, twice in the chest and once in the back, then fled, the news release said.

Authorities said Pittman’s son was outside when Brown fired and witnessed the shooting.

Sheriff’s deputies found Pittman on the ground outside the home. Brown turned himself in and was arrested several days later.

In a statement, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said the case was “about a dad who wanted to protect his son from being bullied by mom’s boyfriend.”

“The real hero in all of this is the kid who faced his dad’s killer and told the truth,” McIlrath said.

Pittman, a 2004 graduate of Harrison Central High School, played football, basketball and worked many jobs but most enjoyed work in security, “protecting those that he loved,” according to his obituary .

“Nicholas was a loving and caring person,” his obituary says. “He loved and protected his family.”

Brown maintained at the trial that the killing was self-defense and that he “had no alternative to shooting Pittman,” the news release said. Brown was also convicted in January 2013 of possession of a controlled substance in Pike County, according to the District Attorney’s office.

Assistant District Attorneys Carolyn Lewis and Bobby Knochel prosecuted the case.

Brown “could not flee from accountability,” McIlrath said in the news release. “Despite his best efforts to conceal the truth, the jury saw through it and delivered justice. Our community is safer as a result.”