The family of Zytina Mason-Brown, a 14-year-old teenager from Washington, D.C., got a new reason to wait for justice after authorities arrested a 17-year-old in connection with her death, which occurred in May 2025.
For months, Mason-Brown's relatives insisted that the teenager had not been killed, despite Washington Metropolitan Police initially believing it was an accidental shooting.
Authorities now claim that the teenager was inside the apartment when Mason-Brown was shot and killed.
The suspect’s identity and details about his upcoming appearance before a court were not disclosed due to laws protecting the privacy of minors.
For the Mason-Brown family, the arrest represents a major turnaround after more than a year of uncertainty.
“I’m sorry — I don’t mean happy because it’s not an occasion for joy, I just wish we didn’t have to go through this — but I’m pleased that the DC Police has made it. He was arrested,” Michelle Brown, the girl’s grandmother, told FOX5 DC.
“And they did their job this time,” he added.
Mason-Brown, an eighth-grade student, died on 21 May 2025 inside an apartment in the Benning Courts Pentacle complex, located on Benning Road 1700 square Northeast, in front of the Hechinger Mall.
At first, the police described the incident as an accident.
The initial hypothesis pointed out that the teenager apparently shot herself while recording a video for social media.
However, his relatives rejected that explanation from the outset andined that Mason-Brown had not taken his life.
According to her family, she dreamed of becoming a stylist and real estate agent.
Months after his death, the investigation took a different direction. In August 2025, the Columbia District Chief Forensic Doctor's Office officially determined that Mason-Brown's death had been a murder.
The new conclusion confirmed the suspicion her relatives had expressed from the outset: the teenager had not died as a result of an accidental self-inflicted shot.
The change in the classification of the death and the subsequent arrest of the suspect represent for the family an advance towards the clarification of the case.
“We knew Zytina hadn’t committed suicide,” her aunt, Dawna Cooke, told FOX5 DC.
Cooke thanked Washington Metropolitan Police for continuing to investigate the case to identify and arrest a suspect.
“I really want to thank the Metropolitan Police Department for fighting so hard to come to the conclusion and get the suspect arrested,” he said.
The detainee is 17 years old, so the authorities have not made public his identity or disclosed information about the upcoming judicial actions.
Privacy laws applicable to minors limit the information that may be disclosed about the process.
For now, authorities have not publicly disclosed any additional details about the exact circumstances of the shooting or what led the investigators to establish the teenager’s involvement.
The arrest, however, constitutes the most significant advance in the case since Mason-Brown died in May 2025.
The teenager, who studied eighth grade and had plans to become a stylist and real estate agent, left behind relatives who now hope that the judicial process will allow to establish what happened inside that apartment and who was responsible for her death.
