6-year-old called 911 after Wake County custody fight left Apex grandmother dead
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- An Apex grandmother was allegedly run over during a custody exchange.
- Court records show years-long custody fight, thousands of angry texts and alleged abuse.
- The child’s father was arrested and faces a charge of second-degree murder.
Minutes before 72-year-old Fukuyo Bryant was allegedly run over by her grandson’s father, her daughter sent her one final text.
“Hope he doesn’t come to your house,” she wrote. “Please be Careful.”
Twenty minutes later, Bryant lay dead in the street of her Apex neighborhood after police say 36-year-old Bradford Brown struck her with his Mazda sedan.
Court records indicate Bryant’s killing followed a bitter custody battle, thousands of angry text messages and allegations of racism and kidnapping.
By the end of 2025, his sister, too, was charged in the case, accused of cyberstalking and harassing the mother of Brown’s son.
Here’s what we know.
‘His dad was being mean to his grandma’
Multiple 911 calls came in to the Apex Police Department just after 10 p.m. April 4 from the Shepherds Vineyard neighborhood. The callers reported hearing yelling in the street and seeing a woman crumpled in the road near a parked car, according to search warrants.
One of the 911 callers was the woman’s 6-year-old grandson.
“[The child] told Apex Communications that his dad was being mean to his grandma, his grandma was trying to get him out of the car, his dad drove, his grandma fell out of the car and is laying in the roadway bleeding, his grandmother is not moving, and his father ran over her,” the search warrant states.
Paramedics declared Fukuyo Bryant dead at 10:11 p.m., according to a report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Brown, the 6-year-old’s father, was arrested less than a mile from the scene, according to court documents. He was charged with voluntary manslaughter and felony hit/run resulting in death, but the manslaughter charge was upgraded to second-degree murder in an April 22 indictment.
Search warrants and interviews quickly painted a picture of a vicious custody battle gone wrong. Text messages showed Brown was at Bryant’s home that evening to pick up his son as part of a court-ordered custody exchange, according to search warrants. Bryant had offered to facilitate the exchange after her daughter and Bryant had “a series of vulgar and argumentative communication[s]” that day; the grandmother told her daughter to leave in the hopes a swap at her hands would go more smoothly.
Brown arrived at the Apex home at 9:51 p.m., according to court documents. A witness in Brown’s car said he remained in the vehicle while Brown got out and walked up the driveway.
“[The witness] then heard an argument and could hear Bradford talking to an elderly female, saying, ‘You do not need to come to my car, you do not need to see who is in my car,’” search warrants state.
As Brown put his son in the back seat, Bryant apparently became upset that he didn’t have a car seat for the child. North Carolina law requires children under 80 pounds or 8 years old to have an appropriate car seat; the 6-year-old was 43 pounds, according to search warrants.
When Bryant tried to remove her grandson from the car, Brown’s passenger reported Brown turned around, telling Bryant “to get out and to close the door” and attempting to “‘scoot’ the car backwards,” search warrants state.
As Brown continued to look back at Bryant, he allegedly said, “I am going to take my son,” and kept reversing slowly, according to search warrants. But when one of the tires hit a curb, the car couldn’t reverse anymore — and that’s when Brown allegedly made a fatal decision.
“With the rear passenger side door open and Bryant somewhat in the vehicle, Brown placed the vehicle in reverse, from the park position and stepped on the gas pedal causing the vehicle to rapidly accelerate,” an investigator wrote. “This rapid acceleration caused Bryant to be struck by the open door and subsequently be dragged under Brown’s vehicle and ... run over by the vehicle.”
Brown reportedly admitted to arguing with Bryant, telling investigators he feared the car seat issue would be used against him in an upcoming court date in the custody battle, court documents state.
“The front passenger … described Bradford’s anger level during this incident as an 8 on a scale [of] 10,” a search warrant said.
As Bryant’s body lay in the road, Brown allegedly took his son into the house, telling Bryant’s husband, “I did something bad and I made a mistake,” according to search warrants. Brown and his passenger then allegedly fled on foot, police said.
Investigators would later discover the 2014 Mazda sedan hadn’t passed a North Carolina safety inspection since 2019, court records show.
“Bradford knew the vehicle to be in poor condition and refers [to] it as dangerous, which would not normally be a word to describe a Mazda sedan,” a detective wrote in search warrants.
A custody battle and thousands of texts
But that fatal day in April wasn’t the first sign of Brown’s alleged anger toward his child’s mother and her family. Police would discover hundreds of text between Bryant and Brown, which “painted a picture of a tumultuous relationship,” search warrants state.
“It was clear that Brown was frustrated that [his child’s mother] at times would block him,” one search warrant says. “Because of Brown’s frustration he would [refer] to [her] as ‘Satan’ and stated multiple times that he hated [her].”
Detectives discovered texts describing Bryant as a “baby stealer,” detailing how Brown allegedly hated his child’s mother’s new boyfriend and claiming the child’s mother was evil, according to court documents.
The day before the killing, Brown texted Bryant multiple times, writing, “I honestly hate you a little bit for having love for me but not standing up for me” and “You have known me for 10 years and I know you have never seen me anywhere near this level of negative hopeless[ness],” search warrants state.
From August 2023 to April 4, 2025, Brown allegedly sent his child’s mother at least 19,000 text messages, “mostly about child custody disputes” with “hateful, disparaging, and vulgar language,” according to the warrants.
“Please do not involve yourself more than necessary bapa [a nickname for Bryant] for a while,” Brown allegedly wrote to Bryant on Dec. 30, 2024. “Im not mr. Nice brad right now.”
Less than a month before the fatal exchange, on March 26, Brown allegedly texted Bryant, “What kind of grandma keeps a child from their father. You will be relieved of your duties soon.”
Brown also reportedly made numerous Facebook posts directed at the Bryant family, according to search warrants. Fukuyo Bryant reported ongoing issues with Brown to her doctor in February 2025, her autopsy report notes.
The mother of Brown’s child, whom The News & Observer is not naming to protect her privacy, told investigators they’d known each other for a decade and had dated on and off. She described Brown as a methamphetamine user in police interviews and in a custody complaint filed in May 2024.
The couple apparently separated in June 2020, with the child’s mother and her son moving into Bryant’s home in Apex, court documents show. When she filed for sole custody in 2024, she alleged Brown had been emotionally and physically abusive to her and her son.
“[O]n one occasion, while Defendant was driving with the Plaintiff and the minor child in the vehicle, Defendant floored it and threatened to ‘kill us all,’” the custody complaint states. “During one incident, Defendant grabbed the minor child and was holding him down on the ground. Plaintiff, in fear for the minor child’s safety, tried to stop Defendant to which he then grabbed Plaintiff by the throat and pushed her against the wall.”
The mother also alleged Brown failed to take their son to school on time and wouldn’t bathe him, take him to the doctor or give him medicine, according to the complaint. Brown reportedly hadn’t paid any child support for at least three years.
In spite of those claims, then-District Court Judge Anna Worley signed a temporary order in August 2024 giving Brown and the child’s mother joint custody, allowing Brown to have the first, second and fourth weekends of each month. Brown was also entitled to a weekly dinner visit, according to the order.
A hearing on a permanent custody order was set for Jan. 27, 2025, but that was continued after Brown, who was representing himself, allegedly failed to provide the mother’s attorney with his financial information.
Fukuyo Bryant would be dead less than three months later.
Charges of cyberstalking
As Brown remained in a Wake County jail and Bryant’s family grieved, the case took another turn in August when Brown’s sister was charged with stalking her nephew’s mother.
Beginning three days after Bryant’s death, her daughter began to receive text messages from a number with a Ghana country code, accusing her of being responsible for her mother’s killing and accusing her of racism against Brown, search warrants state.
“You will be exposed. You should have gone to court but you let your mom fight your battles. You should feel like [expletive],” one message read.
Phone records and social media posts tied the messages to Adrienne Marie Brown-Long, 52, of Durham, Brown’s sister who was in Ghana at the time, according to court documents. She was arrested Nov. 13 and released on a written promise to appear and an order to not contact Bryant’s daughter.
As Brown’s court case continues, with his next hearing set for the end of April, so does the pain for those who loved Bryant.
“My hands have finally stopped shaking, and I have been able to laugh more,” her daughter wrote in a November Facebook post. “I feel more hope that I can overcome this hell I’ve been living in. I guess one day at a time…”
