DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A mother says the man accused of attacking and holding her daughter in his apartment for days has spent the last two decades terrorizing women.
Sharon Williams told Channel 2’s Tom Jones it sickens her when she looks at the extensive criminal history of Bryant L. Brookins.
Williams says if he hadn’t been given break after break after break, her 37-year-old daughter wouldn’t have gone through the torture she’s gone through.
“The beating was so bad. So bad,” she told Jones.
Williams is still shaken by the attack, and says her daughter has a long road ahead, both physically and mentally. And it pained her even more when she looked up Brookins criminal history.
She found he had been arrested over and over and released back onto the streets.
“He should have been locked up a long time ago. And the key thrown away,” she said.
Her daughter says Brookins held her in his DeKalb County apartment, where he attacked her for four days.
“He was gonna keep her or kill her,” the mother said.
Williams says her daughter escaped Nov. 1 to a store on Candler Road.
“She’s blessed to be alive. God had his hands in this,” Williams said.
Williams says a higher power also may have led Rhonda Doucette to the store.
“If Ms. Rhonda wouldn’t have went over there, I probably wouldn’t have never heard about this,” she said.
Doucette began recording when she noticed police at the store and people huddled around a woman. “It was personal because I know her,” she said.
Doucette’s organization, A Labor of Love, works to get women struggling with drugs and mental issues off the street. She had counseled the victim before.
But on this day: “She was so badly beaten until I didn’t recognize her,” she said.
Police arrested Brookins. He now faces charges of rape, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, battery and obstruction of law enforcement.
Williams said she Googled his name and was disturbed by what she found. She found mugshot after mugshot of Brookins.
“It just sickens me,” she said.
We found a dozen mugshots of Brookins dating back more than two decades, mugshots from DeKalb and Fulton counties.
Records show Brookins has been arrested or convicted on false imprisonment, sex offenses and assault several times since 1999.
“It’s very shocking because he’s just got a slap on the wrist. Every time,” Williams said.
Records show Brookins was convicted for false imprisonment during a rape trial in Fulton in 2001. That same year in the same county, he pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, sexual battery and aggravated assault.
He was sentenced to 10 years but only two years behind bars, with the rest on probation for both cases.
An officer tried to revoke his probation in 2007 for failing to attend sex offender counseling, calling Brookins a danger to the community.
But he was still released back out on the streets.
Brookins was arrested in another case where he was charged with false imprisonment and assault in 2007. But the victim changed her mind and said she did not want to prosecute.
In Dekalb County in 2012, Brookins was arrested on false imprisonment, aggravated assault, probation violation and terroristic threats. He was sentenced to five years to serve one only on terroristic threats.
Williams says Brookins should have been locked up for a long time with that extensive criminal history.
“Do you feel like the criminal justice system let you down?” Jones asked.
“Yes I do,” Williams responded.
Doucette says someone needs to answer for how Brookins was able to prey on women for so long.
“I want someone to be held accountable because this could have caused this victim her life,” she said.
Jones reached out to the District Attorneys in both DeKalb and Fulton to find out why Brookins managed to avoid serious prison time.
The DeKalb D.A.’s office said it couldn’t comment on the 2025 case. It said the more serious charges in the 2012 case were Nolle Prossed, or not prosecuted, and Brookins was sentenced on two counts of terroristic threats.
The office didn’t say why the more serious charges weren’t pursued.
The Fulton D.A.’s office said they would research the cases since they were so old and get back to Jones. But so far he hasn’t received a response.
Jones also asked Brookins’ public defender to comment on his criminal history. He did not hear back from the person in the DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office who handles media calls.
Brookins is now being held in the DeKalb County jail without bond.
His public defender filed a motion for bond saying he was not a threat to any person or the community. Channel 2 filed paperwork to have our camera in court when the judge heard the motion.
After we filed that paperwork, the judge’s office called and said Brookins’ public defender had rescinded the motion.
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