Man who stabbed, killed UT student Harrison Brown in 2017 has hearing this week

AUSTIN, Texas - A man who stabbed a UT student to death in 2017 may soon be back out in the community. 

Kendrex White has a hearing on Thursday.  

What they're saying:

The mother of his victim spoke with FOX 7 Austin's CrimeWatch reporter Meredith Aldis about when she found out.

"The fact that I could someday become face to face on the street with the person who murdered my 19-year-old son is very frightening, very frightening," Harrison Brown’s mother, Lori Brown, said.

It was a warning she received in a recent phone call she didn’t expect.

"My phone rang and I thought, oh, this is not gonna be good and there I am in this state where I'm like, oh, what's happening, what are they saying?" Brown said.

It has been eight years since Lori Brown last hung up the phone with her son.

"He was in between playing basketball inside Gregory Gym with some friends before his two o'clock class and he said, 'Mom, I love you, I love you and we'll talk again'," Brown said.

Not 10 minutes later, she received another call.

"There was a strange voice, a girl at the end of the phone and I could tell something had happened immediately. Her voice was shaking, and she asked me, are you Harrison Brown's mother? and I said, yes and she said, there is blood profusely coming out of his chest, he's been stabbed," Brown said.

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Harrison and three other UT students were randomly stabbed by UT Junior Kendrex White. Harrison didn’t make it.

"I just fell to the floor and it was so devastating," Brown said. "Harrison Brown was such a beautiful soul."

Brown held onto a piece of paper that was found in Harrison’s backpack on the day of the stabbing. It revealed what he had planned for the future.

"It was quite the ride after that," Brown said.

The court proceedings began, and Lori saw her son’s killer in person for the first time.

"I am starting to shake thinking about it and I don't know if he saw me, but I saw him and I just couldn't believe my eyes. You know, I want to, why, yell and scream. I didn't, but I remember sobbing uncontrollably. I could not stop," Brown said.

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In 2018, FOX 7 asked Lori if she felt she got justice for her loss: "I don't know if I can answer that question right now."

Aldis asked Brown that same question in July 2025: "I still can't answer it. I feel exactly the same way today as I felt in 2018."

Brown was told White may soon be released.

"What has changed? How can he no longer be a threat to himself or society? It's such a scary realization," Brown said. "They did tell me that every day he has to report to this facility to make sure he's taking his medication. I mean, there's mental patients out there, God bless them, so many that do not take their medication and feel they're fine, and until it's too late," Brown said.

Brown said she doesn’t want what happened to Harrison to ever happen again, so she picked up the phone and has been making calls.

"We're gonna fight for Harrison and I'm gonna call everybody and I want everybody to know that this is about to happen and if this is, what it's going to mean. you should not be okay with it. Nobody should be okay with it except the killer," Brown said.

What's next:

White’s hearing is on July 17.

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