Cold Case: Killing of Dayton Police Officer Kevin Brame still a mystery

The case was back in the news this week as Brame’s mother, Rosemary Brame, spoke during a Thursday afternoon joint news briefing held by the Dayton Police Department and FBI.

The FBI is offering a reward for up to $15,000 for information leading to the arrest of a suspect or suspects involved in Brame’s homicide, and the local reward fund is up to $100,000 already is in place.

Who was Kevin Brame?

Brame graduated from Colonel White High School in 1986.

During his high school years he played soccer and was on the swim team, the yearbook staff, played in the band, helped manage the girls’ softball team, was a member of the Cougar Pep Squad and was a member of the Junior Council on World Affairs.

Brame joined the Air Force Reserves after graduating from Colonel White.

On June 17, 1993, he became a member of the Dayton police department.

Brame had recently moved into a bungalow in the Corpus Christi neighborhood. The weekend before his death, Brame and his mother had purchased used furniture to furnish the house. Every room was furnished but his bedroom, but Brame planned to sleep on the couch until he could borrow a bedroom set from his brother, his mother, Rosemary said.

“He told me that the last thing he needed to do was put a hoop on the garage so that he and the boys could play basketball,” she said. “He was on top of the world because his plan was for the boys to spend the first weekend, that next weekend, with him in that home. It never happened. He was murdered that Monday.”

The day of the killing

Brame, 31, was shot in the neck Nov. 1, 1999, outside of 624 Cherry Drive, the home of his estranged wife, Carla Brame. Off duty at the time, he dropped off their two children and was returning to his car when he was attacked.

Brame had a job-related court appointment, after working a late shift the night before. That’s when he received a call from Carla. She told him that his two sons, Antonio, 8, and Dominique, 5, wanted to see him.

Rosemary Brame, Kevin’s mother, said that “Kevin would never want to miss an opportunity to spend time with (his kids).”

“I had said to come around the house for dinner, but the boys wanted to go to Roosters, their favorite restaurant,” Rosemary said, “So they came to the house around 7 or 7:30 p.m.”

It was a school night, so Kevin had to return the boys to their mother’s house by 8:30 p.m. However, Rosemary, her ex-husband Gerry, their daughter Karen Brame, Kevin and his boys, were all gathered to celebrate Gerry’s birthday, and the boys did not end up leaving the party until shortly after 8:30 p.m.

The next thing that Rosemary knew, she was receiving a call from Carla at 8:59 p.m., who said Kevin had been shot in her yard.

He had just dropped the kids off and was walking back to his car, when he was shot with a shotgun. Brame died in the driveway next to his Chevrolet Tracker.

The investigation

The Brame case has been through several detectives during the years, but Dayton police have never publicly identified any suspects.

Carla Brame moved to Texas after the slaying and has refused to cooperate with police or answer questions from reporters.

In 2007 police detective Dan Hill said there was no indication the killer may have been someone Brame had once arrested. Police also said they believed that there were at least two people involved in the crime.

“We do not think it was a spontaneous crime,” Hill said.

Police said they believed the killer waited, hiding behind bushes.

“For someone to plot a scheme this devious, these people are not good people, to put it mildly,” his mother Rosemary said in 2013. “They need to be held responsible for what they did.”

“Kevin was a good man and he put his life on the line for this city for six years. Our struggle gets harder and harder each year that goes by with no justice for Kevin,” she said.