Arthur Brown Jr. was born on August 14, 1970, in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in a difficult environment. Little information is available about his family and early upbringing. By the early 1990s, Brown was part of a criminal circle that was engaged in drug trafficking and robbery alongside two close associates: Marion Butler Dudley and Antonia “Tony” Lamone Dunson.

On June 20, 1992, Arthur Brown Jr., Marion Dudley, and Tony Dunson were involved in a violent crime in Houston, Texas. They went to the home of Jose and Rachel Tovar to buy cocaine. Instead of completing the purchase, they decided to rob the Tovars. During the robbery, they tied up six people inside the home. The trio then shot all of them execution-style.

By the time the police arrived, three victims were dead, including Jose Tovar and Jessica Quiñones, who was seven months pregnant. A fourth victim, Frank Farias, was also killed. Among the survivors, one, named Audrey Brown, later died in the hospital. This brought the total number of murder victims to four.

After committing the murders, the three men fled the scene. They learned that they were being pursued by the police. To evade capture, they left town in a Jeep Cherokee, which they had bought. They convinced two women to drive them from Birmingham, Alabama, to Louisville, Kentucky. In Louisville, they bought plane tickets to Ohio under false names and traveled north.

On July 8, 1992, Dudley and Dunson were captured in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Brown was apprehended later on October 23, 1992, in Northport, Alabama. The three men faced charges of capital murder.

As their trials progressed, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Brown and Dudley but not for Dunson. In November 1993, Brown was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He was the first of the three men to be convicted. Dudley followed, also convicted of capital murder, and received a death sentence on January 23, 1995. Dunson was convicted but received a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

Dudley was executed by lethal injection on January 25, 2006. He protested his innocence until the end. Brown continued to appeal his conviction for many years. He lost various appeals and faced ongoing legal battles concerning his execution.

On March 9, 2023, Brown was executed, making his final statement a claim of innocence, stating that the state was killing an innocent man.