Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Plastic Surgeon’s Wife Dies During Husband’s Procedure

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

In November 2023, Hillary Brown, a mother of three young children, died as the result of complications she suffered during a plastic surgery performed at the clinic where she worked. Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office detectives say the doctor performing multiple procedures all at one time was Brown's husband, Dr. Ben Brown. Ben Brown is charged with manslaughter in Hillary's death. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through video of the police response the day 911 was called and the allegations being made against Dr. Brown in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CRIMEFIX at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/crimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Tim Jansen https://www.instagram.com/courtroomchefProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I guess a plastic surgeon was working on his wife, and then we were told she went into cardiac arrest, but I'm not sure she actually did. A mother of three, she's getting some work done, and her heart stops during the procedure. then her plastic surgeon husband comes under suspicion in her death. I look into the death of Hillary Brown and what happened to Dr. Ben Brown as a result. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Annette Levy. You know, it's really not uncommon to hear about some women going to a plastic surgeon for maybe some Botox,

maybe a little nip in a tuck, or even a facelift. It's big business, a special. down in Florida. But what you don't hear about so often is a woman dying during a procedure. Prosecutors in Gulf Breeze, Florida, say that happened in the case of Hillary Ellington Brown, a 33-year-old mom to three kids. And if Hillary Brown's death wasn't shocking and sad enough, it was her own husband, Dr. Ben Brown, who was doing the work on her when she started seizing. This entire sad story started back on November 21st of 2023. Dr. Brown, and his staff at Restore Plastic Surgery and Gulf Breeze were performing a procedure on Hillary

when she apparently started having a seizure. Hilary actually worked there, a staff member called 911. I have an ambulance. I have an emergency. Who do you need? Police fire ambulance. Ambulance. We have an unstable patient. Okay. Tell me the address. Hello. Hello. Ma'am, what's your address? Okay, are you there with the patient now? Yes. Okay, we do have help on the way. What exactly happened?

She was having surgery. This is a plastic surgery office. She's unstable, she's having seizures, I think. Okay. And what kind of procedure was she being operated on for? There was multiple ones. Okay, can you tell me? you tell me what they were.

Addominal lipo, fat transfer, different things. I don't know them off the top of my head right now. Okay, sweetie. We have help on the way. They're from an emergency response, okay? If they'll just make sure that they have the AED attached to the patient and have it ready to go as well and tell them to keep up with the chest compressions, okay?

Okay. All right. If anything changes, call us back. It helps on the way. Thank you. Bye-bye. We'll hear more about what was going on in the body-worn camera footage, but Hillary was apparently undergoing different procedures to transfer fat from one

part of her body to another. Moments after that first 911 call, a staff member places another call desperate for help. Hold on, stop. I need one person to talk to me. That's one. What's a good callback number for you? Okay. Listen to me. I've got help. I've got help on the way. What's your name? All right. How old is the patient? He has 32. Okay. Is he breathing? No, we're reforming CPR right now. Okay. All right. And you're doing, you said you got CPR going?

We're doing mouth and mouse going right now, yes, sir. Okay. Is there medical staff on scene? Yeah, the doctor is on seeing right now, but we need an end doing it to transport. Okay, yep. They're coming just as fast as they can, okay. Just continue doing your cardiac arrest. I understand that.

They're coming as fast as they can. They're coming with license sign around. Okay. All right, they're coming as quick as they can. Just continue doing CPR until help gets over. CPR until help gets over. I'm going to stay on the phone that way. If anything changes, we can update them right away, okay? Okay.

Okay. So just let me know, just continue that CPR and just let me know if anything changes. I'm going to help me. Was he having a procedure or anything? Sorry, did we say what you said? Was he having a procedure or anything? Yes, she was having a cosmetic procedure. Okay.

Was a male or female? a female, female patient. Correct, John. That's going to be a female, y'all. And they're coming just as fast as they can. Fire Department's not far away. They're ALS, so they'll have all the equipment, and then EMS isn't far behind them, okay? Now, a few times throughout this call, you can hear a man shouting in the background. Where's that?

I know it seems like a long time just keep, y'all just keep doing that CPR, okay? Yep, okay. Look all over in the office, on how to the shop, it's all over around that page. They should be pulling up shortly, okay? That fire department's pulling up, okay? Just let me know when they're in there with you, okay? Okay. I cover a lot of really scary crime cases here on crime fix.

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So if you care about your online safety and you really, really should take your personal data back with Incogni, use code crime fix below on the screen and get 60% off an annual plan. Now, these are real-time reactions caught on audio. In any case, that information is valuable. Several things really strike me about these 911 calls. First, how distress the staff seems over the phone. The fact that they place an additional call just minutes after the first, it looks like that just proves how urgent the situation really was. Off the bat, it seems like, it seems like, something really, really is not right, and this is not something that they encounter on a typical day. Second, it's hard to make out exactly what the male in the background is screaming,

but based on what we know, it's very likely that it's Dr. Brown. By the sound of it, his screams sound more like demands rather than a leader conducting life-saving measures on his dying wife. Another thing I caught was the nurse who mentioned a few different procedures, which sounds really complicated and personally, it sounds really risky to me. Let's look at the bodyworn camera footage. She said, she's in numerous things under her eyes or face or stomach. So this isn't our first rodeo as far as we've taken, getting this done.

That's what's scary. So when Santa Rosa County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene at Restore Plastic Surgery, they expected a medical emergency. As I was the fuck with you right now, we did another third rhythm check, and that's when we got some Brady P. That's good. They got a bullshit. But after speaking to some of the nurses, one deputy can't shake the feeling that something's definitely off. Listen to him as he describes what happened to his supervisor.

Just let me inform you, I guess. I don't see reason for more now, but basically we got a med call, had a doctor's office here in Navarre, where I guess a plastic surgeon was working on his wife, and then we were told she went into cardiac arrest. But I'm not sure she actually did. It sounds like there were other people present in doing this surgery, and it sounds like she went into several seizures. but I guess they were saying

it really didn't look very good as to her she wasn't doing very well when she left, but they did transport and everything and I would say I would be a lot more like uh-oh if it was just him and her in the room but there were some nurses

that were present as well so I'll just have him document it if that's cool with you if you talk to Lance just let him know unless you think more should be done. Now, we don't hear the supervisor's side of the call, but the deputy's concern speaks for itself. Right.

It just is weird that it's the doctor and his wife. You know what I mean? But like I said, he wasn't alone with her anyway. During the procedure, there were other people assisting. So I guess Seville is going to just get all their names and do a quick info on it just in case something comes back where, you know, somebody says, oh, he was trying to kill her. you know if it had just been the doctor and his wife in there i would think we're going to have to

do an investigation that's a little too i would think you know just for if she did die just for justice for her we at least need to investigate and make sure everything's on the up and up but if there are witnesses in the room that changes it a little bit you know well i i i guess so and there was like there was several parts to it so she has undergone similar surgeries and been sedated so she was fully sedated they did something with a scar in her abdomen and then she came out of it was walking around and they were going to do like injections in her face and she even mixed up whatever was going into her face like some fat and i don't totally understand it but when they started to do the injections they did like over one eye and then the other eye and

And then she went to these seizures. She had like four pretty good seizures before EMS got here. And then, you know, we were told she was cardiac arrest. So have not confirmed that with EMS, but they did say he didn't look good. So I was like, hmm. But yeah. Now, during the time the deputy was on that call, EMTs had loaded Hillary into the ambulance and raced her to the hospital. They're going to sick at heart.

Then the deputy heads back to the group to lay out the rest of the plan. So where's the husband now? He's with you. Okay. He went with an ambulance. Okay. Good. Was there cardiac arrest or no when you all got here?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, they were doing CPR when we got in there. The doctor was. Wow. Okay. Is he like coming or? Ryan says probably not, but he wanted to call the captain.

Couldn't get a hold of Lance. So he wanted to just run it by him. This is kind of new ground. Right now, I'm told everyone was going front, just hang on, and we'll let the know. Yeah, I can tell you right now. Yeah, no, I'll do it. Okay. The doctor, he's a post-cisturgeon.

Husband. The husband. The procedure on his wife, it's called a scar evasion. There's a scar here, and they're doing two things around her eyes, too. He said they gave her a local anesthesia, and that's when she started going into seizures. She's done this many times before. They don't think that she's, you know, so once you want to see one, nothing like that. Right.

So it was like, like I said, it's just, it's, they did get a heartbeat. She's back, and they were heading toward Sacred Heart. Let's go. You just let Lance go and see if you watch them. All right. How many people were present in the room and all this was going down? Who else was in the room other than to Dr. She, ma'am? She was short leave.

Okay. So it wasn't just doctor-in-wife. No. A nurse assisting in the procedure comes outside to explain what happened inside that office. I was in there. We had finished the scar-free vision on her abdomen. That was done. Yeah, that was done.

She was up walking around, perfectly fine. She was even mixing her own fat to transfer wherever she was doing it. We started to inject her glyphs with a numbing medication, which is typically lytocane, ecti, and sodium bicarb. He injected there, injected her right, her left eye. She was talking about some blurriness, but her eye was swollen, so of course she couldn't see. Injected the right eye, and that's when she started seizing shortly after, so right injecting started. Okay. And did she go into cardiac arrest? She seized for a few minutes.

Okay. Would stop, seize again. H. Caesar procedure probably lasting three to four minutes. Okay. Not grand mal, but pretty close. Yeah. What come out of it, she probably had a total four or five. Okay.

Before anyone could get working on her. Yeah, I mean, we were in blood pressure. I had a great heart rate the whole time, everything like that. Okay. During the procedure, was there anything that? So an investigation, it's underway while those deputies are on the scene. Come on, is this hers, my chance? They're both in sync car.

All right, all right. They just take me to get some permission. You know where they're going? Oh, I know. Not yet, okay. Senator 1874, 104 checks. 104. 142, 104 checks.

With so many unanswered questions, the deputy places another call this time, not to ensure they're following protocol, but to ensure they're making the right moves. So, EMS did transport, and basically my question was, do I need to treat this as a potential homicide, or should we just, you know, do a little info report and let it go as an accidental medical procedure? So I, and captain and counsel pretty much like, you know, little info report should be fine. So, you know, cool with that. Yeah, oh yeah. And, and I, yeah. Yeah. And I just asked the witnesses, I said, well, you know, did they have like a, a lot of animosity in their marriage?

And they were like, no, it's normal. I mean, they're, you know, it's a normal marriage. I said, okay. and they didn't suspect anything today at all. But I'll at least have Seville. He's going to go ahead and document it and put pictures in there. That way, if she dies and her family calls in and says, you know, oh, he killed her, we at least have documentation that, no,

there was no indications of that whatsoever. No. So. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. It looks like her last medical procedure. and it was a total fix of scar and put some fat in her face that's crazy not worth it yeah yeah and i

think like i said it would be good because all of a sudden if she does die her family calls in he hated her he killed her well then we have something to say well no there was no indications of that today um sounds like they didn't have a perfect marriage though so if somebody didn't call in that wouldn't be families do that man like someone in their family will come commit suicide and they'll say they didn't commit suicide. Somebody killed him because they just won't believe that they, you know, exactly. He thought, I was like, what do you think? I asked that. Hillary died a week after being placed on life support at the hospital. Detectives interviewed employees from restore plastic surgery. In an arrest warrant, detectives wrote, this employee began by stating she had only worked for the business for a few days before this occurred. In that short time, she expressed there was a lot of negligence in the office that led to Hillary's cardiac arrest. She stated prior to the surgery, the victim took a plethora of pills. However, she was unaware of what they were. She stated the victim had prepared her own IV bags, which were supposed to contain diluted xylacane,

which was being used as a local anesthetic. During the surgery, the IV bags ran out at which time Brown poured two containers into a bowl. He didn't dilute them or anything and began to inject her arms and later her face. When he did this, Hillary began to say that her vision was blurry. She said her face was really puffy, but Brown continued. She stated she thought that was a sign that she was overdosing, and this is when she began convulsing. The detectives wrote that one employee told them that Hillary Brown was convulsing for 10 to 15 minutes before 911 was called, and that Ben Brown wanted to take care of Hillary himself. The employee, also reported to detectives that Hillary had taken a number of medications in the hour before the

procedure started, including Valium and Gabapentin. In conclusion, witness interviews all corroborated that when the victim began to show signs of overdose, Brown continued injecting unknown amounts of lytocaine and did not stop until the victim went into a seizure and cardiac arrest. When this occurred, Brown delayed the reporting of the incident to 911 and used his status as a doctor to do so when it is required by law. Brown showed a history of allowing unsafe practice to occur and took no precautions for the well-being of human life, even after an incident where he could not wake the victim during a procedure in January of 2023. So after an arrest warrant was signed by the judge, the plastic surgeon, Dr. Ben Brown turned himself into the Santa Rosa County

Sheriff's Office. Brown faces one count of manslaughter by culpable negligence and is Licensed to practice medicine has an emergency restriction on it by the State's Department of Health. So to discuss this case, I want to bring in Tim Jansen. He's a defense attorney in Tallahassee. Tim, I find this case to be just, I mean, it makes me wonder, oh my God, is this happening a lot where a husband who is a plastic surgeon is performing procedures in his office on his wife? His wife works there. She's filling up her own IV bags. I mean, this just sounds like when I read the affidavit for the warrant in this case, it sounds like a recipe for disaster.

You know what? I think it is. And I think the laws really don't put limits on whether you can operate on your spouse. And then you get too comfortable. Like I say in criminal cases, you know, you always get in trouble when you try to help a friend or a family member? Well, when a doctor tries to perform surgery on his wife and decides, I want to do this, I'm going to do that. And the wife may work there, but doesn't realize the complications. And the husband just thinks he can fix everything. You get a disaster. And that's what

this sounds like. It does sound like a total disaster. And he is not charged. Dr. Ben Brown is not charged with, you know, an intentional murder. He is charged with manslaughter. So, So he's accused of being negligent. The things that his employees allegedly told investigators, I mean, it just sounds like a mess in there. These employees say, you know, they wanted to call 911 and he was like, no, no, I'll take care of it. I mean, she's apparently convulsing at one point and no, you mean, they're trying to help her. There was no crash cart present according to the documents and there should have been. I find this to be unbelievable.

And then you're saying, you know, there may not be any law about treating your wife or doing surgery or a procedure on your wife. I mean, to me, ethically speaking, it just seems like there should be like a separation there. You know, you think there would be. And I hear about this all the time where a spouse does the surgery or write prescriptions for their spouse and stuff. there should be but there's no rules now they're going the florida medical association is going after i believe his license and finding that he was medically negligent and it may not be one thing by itself that leads up to manslaughter but when you add nine different things that occurred when you have other health professionals telling him she is convulsing she she's in medical need and you don't

take steps immediate and you don't have things available, then you are negligent. And if someone dies when you're negligent, that's manslaughter. I've had lytocaine before. This is what's freaking me out. I've had lytocaine before that will numb areas. Like, I remember one time I had a sore throat and they gave me like a lytocaine wash. You know, that's like a common thing to numb pain. But this was being injected, you know, into her directly. And, you know, the doctors, according to the documents said at the hospital when they were treating Hillary Brown that they thought she had suffered from lytocaine toxicity and that she would likely not recover. And sadly, she did not recover. And they're saying the detective is that this, they found out this was not

the first incident where Brown had overmedicated Hillary for surgery and had difficulty waking her up. Oh my God. I just am like, whoa. it sounds really bad. I know he's innocent until proven guilty, but this does not sound good. None of this sounds good for Dr. Brown. And it could get very complicated at trial. Well, it will get complicated because you have a professional who has money. He's got resources. He's not the evil defendant when you read the charges. Some jurors are going to look at him like a victim because he lost his spouse. There's no evidence that he purposely did it or benefited from it. He's going to have a really good lawyer. He's going to rely on medical expertise. And it's not going to be,

but this is a very conservative community, very conservative. If I say Republican, I say 100%, maybe 90% Republican, conservative. It's over there on the military basis. It's in a different time zone. They're the last ones to vote. You know, when they count the Florida vote, sometimes they call the election. They forget that that area is on a different time zone. And I've Tribe cases over there, very conservative. That might bode well for him for a medical doctor professional. So. Well, this sounds really, I mean, it's just to me, I mean, just reading all of this sounds awful.

And even the state medical board found a lot of red flags with him, according to what's in this, you know, affidavit for the warrant, that he just kept injecting. Lidicane into Hillary's face in that she just, I guess she became unresponsive and began to have a seizure. And, you know, it causes changes to your behavior, your movement. We all kind of know what they're talking about when they say a seizure. But she goes into, you know, a state where she is not going to come back. And, you know, 911 wasn't called. It doesn't sound quickly enough. And that to me is really bad.

Like a doctor being kind of two tunnel vision potentially and not recognizing the seriousness of the situation. Like you kind of got to like put your ego aside at some point and realize my God, my wife is like seizing up. Like we got to fix this. Well, you got three professionals. I think at least two or three other nurses in there helping him, disclosing to him what they're seeing. She's saying she's having eye problems before she was non-responsive.

there was no crash cart in there to help in case of an emergency and he's popping these drugs in her i'd love to see all the drugs she's been injected in the past and how often she's been had he's done surgery on her in the past and did i guess he he didn't even comply with the weights you know you get these drugs and they do it by weight a lot of times these these drugs that knock you out you it doesn't sound like he did any of that he was let her her fill out that then he would go, he was going into the, I guess, the sink and not even mixing the drugs before he put it in her during this emergency time. And he should have seen that she was having a problem with her eyes, which is a thing that they have. Usually if they have a problem with her eyes,

there's something to some toxicity. So the emergency doctors knew right away she wasn't going to recover. They could look and see what was in her system and said, there's no way her organs are going to recover. And she didn't. So, When it's that clear from the emergency room, that means she was completely overdrubbed, overdrubbed. Yeah, just a really sad, horrible case. And Hillary Brown, she had three children from another relationship. And, you know, her family is grieving. It's just an awful case.

One thing I wanted to ask you about, Tim, that I find to be really interesting. You know, Ben Brown is charged with manslaughter. And he's a medical doctor. He still has that training, the whole nine yards. Restore plastic surgery, of course, is permanently closed. But he is, his attorney, Mark O'Meara, who I've reached out to for comment, is asking that he be allowed to participate in the depositions in this case. Is that common?

I mean, Mark O'Meara is saying, look, this is a medical doctor. And he can assist counsel in these depositions because in Florida, that's what they do. they do depositions where each side gets to depose the other side's witnesses, kind of like a fact-finding kind of thing. So is that common in a criminal proceeding that the defendant would be present for the deposition? It is not common. It's very rare. And it would only be used when the defendant has a certain expertise or can help the lawyer cross-examine the state's witnesses. In this case, you're going to see the state's probably going to have the medical examiner. They're going to have any other doctors or people there that are going to be witnesses.

And he would be able to assist. A lawyer doesn't know medicine. We learn a lot of expertise from our clients or from experts we hire. There's no better expert on this case than a man who was in the room training and perform the. So I think the court would probably allow it. If I was the prosecutor, I would ask the judge to sit in on the deposition. to control it because if say these nurses are in there and they're being deposed and it's in use depositions are using a small room where the doctor can overlook him and really make them look

bad and make them feel nervous but if you put it in a full courtroom with a judge and then they won't he won't be able to have the control over these witnesses yeah they might feel intimidated too by sitting there with their former boss 100% intimidated and I think if the court is going to allow him to sit in the depots. It should be done. They can get a magistrate. These courts have magistrate people who can sit over it, make sure there's nothing done in properly, and there's no badger or intimidation. That's probably the middle ground to allow him to help his lawyer. I think that's fair. We'll see if the prosecution asks for that. It's just a really, really sad case, Tim, and this should never have happened. Just awful,

awful. We'll keep an eye on it and see what comes of it. Tim Jansen, thank you so much. much. Thanks to having me. So where does the case stand right now? Well, Ben Brown is free on a $50,000 bond as he awaits trial in this case and he has pleaded not guilty to that manslaughter charge. I have reached out to his lawyer at the time of this recording. I have not yet heard back. So that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.