Marian Cobb

Indy family suffers 2 violent deaths within 3 days

December 27, 2008 by Francesca Jarosz | Star staff

Daisy Brown and her family gathered for Christmas, but the mood was hardly celebratory.The 18-year-old, along with her mom, her 1-year-old baby and her boyfriend’s father, gathered to offer one another comfort as they mourned the deaths of two family members and the arrest of another within a three-day span.

On Monday, Brown’s boyfriend, 18-year-old Broque Lumbreras, died at Methodist Hospital after being shot early Sunday. As the family confronted that tragedy, Lumbreras’ great-grandmother and a family matriarch, Marian Cobb, was fatally stabbed early Wednesday in her Near-Northside home. Cobb’s great-grandson Bryan Torrence, a friend and cousin of Lumbreras’ who had been staying with Cobb for a few weeks, was arrested in connection with the stabbing.

Brown said she is devastated by the loss of not only her child’s father but the woman who was holding her relatives together through his death and helping plan the funeral for Lumbreras.“It’s very, very hard,” Brown said, recalling the two early-morning phone calls she got this week, both bringing bad news. “Now every time the phone rings, I’m afraid to answer.”

Lumbreras’ death remains under investigation. According to a police report, he was in the passenger seat of a van in the 3400 block of North Capitol Avenue just before 5 a.m. when he was shot. Brown said Lumbreras told her he had gone out with friends that night and would return to her mother’s house, where he often stayed, but he never came back.

Lumbreras was working to get his GED while helping his father, Antonio Lumbreras, with his carpentry business. Relatives said the younger Lumbreras, who had no record of serious crimes, was a good person who occasionally hung out with the wrong people. Broque wanted to go to college, Antonio Lumbreras said, and in a high school paper, he wrote about hopes of owning a landscaping business, getting married and buying his wife a flower shop. Brown, a senior at Franklin Central High School, met Lumbreras two years ago, and they had spent every day together since, she said. The couple had a son together and were talking about marriage. She described him as a loving father who watched the baby on school nights and took her to doctor’s appointments.“Most guys, when you get pregnant, they leave,” she said. “He was there for everything.”

Lumbreras visited Cobb every week, Brown said, and they talked on the phone often. Lumbreras and Torrence, the man accused of killing Cobb, also were close, and Lumbreras’ death took a toll on him. He was too upset to go to the hospital after Lumbreras was shot.The night after Lumbreras’ death, Brown gathered with Cobb, Torrence and Antonio Lumbreras for comfort and grieving at Cobb’s home. A few hours later, police said, Torrence called 911 to report that he had stabbed Cobb. She died at Methodist Hospital.

Relatives say many of the same qualities will be remembered about Cobb and Lumbreras. Both were outgoing and funny, the type of people who attract friends easily. Both were known for helping others.“If they (are) going to heaven, they’d be walking together,” Antonio Lumbreras said. “I think of that: He’s not walking alone; he’s walking with his grandmother.”