A woman was fatally run over in Raleigh. The suspects say she started it.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Brianna Poole posted a $75,000 secured bond Monday after nearly 2 years in jail.
- Poole and Kiara Brown are charged with murder in the Nov. 1, 2024, death of Tara Dunn.
- Poole’s lawyer said Dunn was accidentally run over as the pair tried to defend themselves.
Nearly two years after an altercation led to a woman being run over in downtown Raleigh, one of the two people charged in her death has been released from jail.
Brianna Poole, 28, posted a $75,000 secured bail bond Monday, three days after Superior Court Judge Keith O. Gregory approved a bond motion submitted by Poole’s defense attorney.
Poole and Kiara Brown, 27, are charged with murder in the Nov. 1, 2024, killing of 39-year-old Tara Dunn, The News & Observer previously reported.
Dunn was fatally injured about 11:30 a.m. in the Haywood Street area when police say Brown struck Dunn with a car. But search warrants and court documents indicate the case may not be that simple.
Dunn had allegedly come to Poole’s mother’s Davie Street home the day before and gotten into a fight “which resulted in her breaking the windows of a car,” an investigative report by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner states. A search warrant executed by Raleigh police later identified Poole’s mother as the owner of the damaged car.
Dunn then returned to the house the next morning with a rock, prompting Brown and Poole to get involved, the report states.
After a physical altercation, Dunn walked around the block to East Martin Street, according to a search warrant in the case. The two women allegedly got into Poole’s car, with Brown driving, and followed Dunn, with Brown and Dunn exchanging punches and scratches, according to the report. At some point, Dunn allegedly jumped onto the hood of the car, then fell off and was run over by the vehicle.
When Poole and Brown spoke to police, they claimed Dunn had warned them in advance she was coming to Poole’s mother’s house to fight, according to search warrants.
“Brown and Poole’s statements differed on the account of how Dunn was struck with the vehicle, but both indicated that it was not an intentional act,” a detective wrote.
Both women, who are not related but saw themselves as sisters, said they viewed Dunn like family, calling her their “aunt,” search warrants show.
“Brown and Poole both made statements that they and Dunn fought like family and that the arguments and physical fighting were how they solved family disputes,” one warrant states.
Video footage from the neighborhood allegedly portrayed Poole as the aggressor; police wrote in search warrants that “Dunn was actively trying to evade Poole during the encounter.”
But in a letter to the court supporting Poole’s motion for bond, her mother shared a different version of events.
“That night before Tara passed away she was high off of cigarettes dipped in embalming fluid,” Poole’s mother wrote. “That night when she came over she was high and in a rage. … She was throwing knives at me.”
“I was telling her to stop and calm down,” Poole’s mother continued. “I called the police and the police came but she was nowhere to be found.”
Poole’s mother said she’d known Dunn since Dunn was 12 years old, and Dunn had known her daughter since infancy.
“Im [sic] so hurt behind [sic] this because Kiara Brown ruined everyone’s life,” Poole’s mother wrote. “Brianna Poole has never been in any trouble and never been locked up … She don’t [sic] deserve to be in there.”
Poole was reportedly sleeping at her mother’s home before the fatal altercation, according to the bond motion by her defense attorney, who claimed Dunn had “terrorized the family home over the course of an evening and returned to resume her attack” the next day.
“The incident eventually escalated to the woman — deceased in this case — stealing a pet and going out into the neighborhood, and another individual grabbing the keys to Ms. Poole’s car to follow,” Poole’s defense attorney wrote.
Poole’s attorney also alleged the automatic braking system on her car failed while Brown was fighting Dunn at the driver’s side window, “resulting in the car jumping a curb and hitting the deceased.” The incident was a “tragic accident,” she wrote.
In approving Poole’s request for bond, Gregory also ruled she must be on house arrest, stay at her mother’s home and avoid contact with Brown and Dunn’s family. Should she violate those terms, she will be returned to jail without bail, he wrote.
Brown, meanwhile, remained jailed without bail as of Tuesday afternoon.
