Co-worker of Chester County fatal beating victim: ‘Something didn’t feel right’

WEST CHESTER — A co-worker of Annabel Rose Meenan told the Common Pleas Court jury in the homicide trial of her boyfriend, Leroy “Lee” Brahm III, on Thursday of the changes she noticed in the victim’s emotional makeup in the months and weeks leading up to her death.

Eileen Lange, the office manager at Rothman Orthopedics in East Whiteland, said Meenan did not seem to be as cheerful and lacked her normal self-esteem. There were text messages that “didn’t sound like her” asking for time off from her position as a receptionist.

“It made me uncomfortable,” Lange said under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Nichole Morley, one of the two prosecutors in the case against Brahm, of East Vincent. “Something didn’t feel right.”

It wasn’t. And the jurors hearing the case were able to see why.

In a string of clips from surveillance video footage taken from the Buttonwood Drive mobile home trailer where Brahm and Meenan lived together until her death and his arrest, he is seen berating her, throwing kitchen items at her as she cowers, and finally punching her repeatedly on the bed they shared and jumping on top of her as she lay prone.

Meenan is also seen limping around their bedroom after a violent encounter with Brahm on Nov. 15, 2021, the aftermath of which Lange testified.

Brahm, 33, is on trial in Judge Alito Rovito’s courtroom at the Chester County Justice Center on charges of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and recklessly endangering another person. If convicted of first-degree murder, Brahm faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole in prison, while a conviction, for third-degree murder would see him face a maximum sentence of 20-to-40 years in state prison.

Brahm, through his defense attorney, Scott McIntosh of Royersford, has conceded that he is guilty of assault. He has contended, however, that Meenan did not die from the injuries she suffered at his hands, but rather from a cardiac arrest brought on by the use of alcohol and cocaine the night she died.

The trial had been expected to last five days this week after the jurors were selected last Friday. But the pace of the evidence has been slow, and Rovito expressed frustration that the case would have to spill over into the weekend, a rarity in trials in the county.

“We told them five days,” Rovito remarked as Deputy District Attorney Kate Wright and McIntosh sparred over whether certain evidence could be introduced. “Now, I’m going to have to tell them we’re bringing them back on Saturday.”

Lange said that she had worked with Meenan since 2019 and that she had grown friendly with her both professionally and personally. So she became concerned when Meenan began missing work in the fall — first on vacation, then for COVID, and then mysteriously a day after returning.

When she arrived at work on Nov. 15, 2021, she was limping and told Lange that a woman she knew had kicked her in the shin at a bar.  But she was in obvious discomfort, and Lange had her take an X-ray at the facility where they worked. That X-ray showed a clean break of her left leg.

Then on Nov. 30, as the Rothman staff was decorating for the coming holidays, Lange spotted a bruise on Meenan’s chin. When asked about what had happened, Meenan said nothing was wrong.

But a video taken from the home by Chester County Detective Christine Bleiler, the lead investigator in the case, showed that on Nov. 23, 2021, in the early morning hours, Meenan and Brahm were in a heated encounter, with Brahm gesturing wildly at her and Meenan holding up a pepper spray can at him.

Then in a clip at 3:01 a.m. that day, Meenan was seen running into their bedroom followed by a naked Brahm, who punches her again and again, pounding her while she lies on the bed. The video, in gray and white, held the jurors’ attention raptly.

Lange said that on Dec. 3, 2021, Meenan came to work late and was upset, sobbing deeply.  Later, however, a delivery came of a bouquet of roses and a luncheon of Chick-fil-A sandwiches. She said it was an “apology” from her boyfriend, Brahm.

“I told her that roses and Chick-fil-A don’t solve problems,” Lange said. “I told her that that if there was anything wrong, she could come and stay with me for the night and we would make everything better.”

“Did she come and stay with you?” Norley asked.

“She did not,” Lange answered.

On Dec. 4, after another beating at Brahm’s hands, Meenan was pronounced dead. Just before lunch, the jurors watched a video of that morning on video.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.