Anaheim Man Arrested in ’85 Death : Girl Jailed in Slaying Says Father Made Her Confess

An Orange County businessman faced charges Friday that he masterminded the murder of his wife three years ago to collect her life insurance--a crime for which his 14-year-old daughter went to prison.

David Arnold Brown--owner of Data Recovery, a computer data-retrieval firm he runs from his Anaheim Hills home--was arrested Thursday after his still-incarcerated daughter recently told investigators that her father persuaded her to confess to the murder of her stepmother, according to the prosecutor in the case.

The daughter, Cinnamon Brown, now 18, said her father had told her that she would spend little or no time in jail because of her age, the prosecutor said.

“His daughter, after sitting in prison for (nearly) four years, realized that her father had taken advantage of her,” Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey Robinson said. He added that she had gone to prison out of “love and loyalty . . . and realized she wasn’t getting the same from him.”

Arrested with Brown, 35, was Patricia Ann Bailey, 20, the younger sister of Brown’s dead wife. The two have been living together in a large Anaheim Hills home that Brown recently purchased with cash, authorities said. Bailey had been living with her sister, Brown and his daughter in Garden Grove when the shooting occurred. According to the criminal complaint filed against Brown, there is evidence that Brown and Bailey were romantically involved at the time of the murder.

The complaint filed by the district attorney’s office alleges that Brown recruited his daughter to help in the 1985 murder of her stepmother, Linda Marie Brown, by telling her that his wife planned to kill him. After he began planning his wife’s murder, however, Brown took out two additional life insurance policies on her, the document stated.

“He (Brown) had orchestrated the entire thing between himself, Patti (Bailey) and Cinnamon, and convinced them to go along with the plan for his wife to be murdered. . . . He had planned this whole thing out for many months, maybe longer than a year,” Garden Grove Police Detective Fred McLean said Friday.

Cinnamon Brown later was sentenced to 27 years to life in state prison in connection with the murder of her stepmother. But because of her age, she was sent to a California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo. She would be eligible for release at age 25 or earlier, for good behavior.

Robinson said that Cinnamon was not promised any reduction in her sentence for her cooperation with authorities, which reportedly led to the arrest of her father.

“It is her belief that she will serve out her sentence,” Robinson said. It is likely, however, that her cooperation could be acknowledged at a parole hearing, he said.

“She just finally decided that if she is going to do punishment, she felt, in justice, the others should too,” he said.

Brown’s arraignment Friday was postponed until Monday to allow him to hire an attorney. The disheveled, mustachioed Brown, dressed in a gold, jail-issued jumpsuit Friday, told Santa Ana Municipal Court Judge Dennis S. Choate that he has funds to hire his own attorney. He is being held without bail.

Patricia Ann Bailey also is being held in Orange County Jail, but she will be arraigned through the juvenile courts because she was a minor when the crime occurred, Robinson said. But prosecutors will argue that she should be tried as an adult, he added.

Brown and Bailey have been charged with murder and conspiracy to murder. In addition, a special allegation was filed against Brown, charging that he committed the murder for financial gain, a special circumstance that could lead to the death penalty if he is convicted. The special allegation was not filed against Bailey because of her juvenile status, Robinson said.

Brown, according to Robinson, collected $800,000 to $900,000 in life insurance from Linda Brown’s death.

Linda Marie Brown was 23 when she was shot twice in the abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. on March 19, 1985, as she lay in bed at her Ocean Breeze Drive home in Garden Grove. According to initial police accounts, Brown had left the house because his wife and daughter were bickering, then returned to find his wife shot.

Police found Cinnamon Brown huddled in a back-yard doghouse, passed out from a drug overdose and clutching a note begging forgiveness.

Although she confessed to the murder, authorities’ suspicions that others were involved “started the night the crime occurred,” Robinson said.

“When Cinnamon was charged and convicted, there were items of evidence” that tended to exonerate her, he said. But the evidence by itself was not enough to disprove her confession. That evidence now makes sense, Robinson said.

Discrepancies in the case bothered authorities from the beginning. While Brown said his wife and daughter constantly bickered, relatives said they got along well. In addition, gunshot-residue tests showed that only Brown or Bailey--not Cinnamon--could have handled the gun. But the tests came back too late to disprove the confession, Detective McLean said.

Because of authorities’ suspicions, Robinson said, district attorney’s investigator Jay Newell stayed in touch with Cinnamon while she was at Ventura School, a California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo. In August, authorities taped an incriminating conversation between Brown and his daughter during Brown’s visit to the detention facility, he said.

According to the complaint, Brown discussed murdering his wife with Bailey and recruited his daughter’s help during the year preceding the murder.

Then within a week before the murder, Brown “tells Cinnamon Brown to take the blame for (the) contemplated murder. He further tells Cinnamon Brown that because of her age, she will spend little or no time in jail,” the complaint continued.

Brown also allegedly instructed Cinnamon to practice writing suicide notes so that the shooting would appear to be a murder-suicide, it states. He also prepared a mixture of drugs for Cinnamon to ingest, the complaint said.

Just before the murder, according to the complaint, Brown awakened Cinnamon and Bailey, gave them final instructions and then left the house.

Robinson said authorities believe that Brown was not in the house when his wife was killed, and they also do not believe that Cinnamon pulled the trigger. Robinson would not say who he believes shot Linda Brown, but he pointed out there was no one in the house except Cinnamon, Bailey and Linda Brown.

Robinson said it is not clear whether the overdose of prescription drugs ingested by Cinnamon was enough to kill her.

“We just couldn’t believe that a 14-year-old girl who is not a drug abuser, who is not an alcohol abuser, would do this,” McLean said. “Her motive was to protect her father from death. She thought somebody was going to kill her father.”

Brown had told Cinnamon that her stepmother was involved in a Mafia plot to kill him and Linda Brown’s brothers, Alan and Larry Bailey, the detective said, adding that there is no evidence to support that story.

“Cinnamon has grown a lot in the last three years since this happened. She’s a very mature young woman and she understands a lot now that most 18-year-olds don’t. She sees now that she was used and betrayed,” McLean said.

In addition to the insurance money, another possible motive for the crime involves Brown’s business, McLean said.

Data Recovery retrieves lost data from damaged computer systems, and McLean said that Brown claims to have one of the top records in the industry for success in such work. However, efforts to confirm Brown’s business reputation among local computer firms and trade organizations were unsuccessful Friday.

“We do have some reason to believe . . . that he did business with some very large firms and with the U.S. and state governments,” McLean said, adding that Brown, who was secretive about the operation of his business, has claimed that he has a top-level security clearance with the federal government.

“I haven’t been able to prove it or disprove it yet,” the police officer said. “We have some feelers out trying to find out.”

McLean said Brown appears to have conducted his business largely in cash, including a $300,000 payment for the new house.

Another possible motive being investigated, he said, is that Brown feared that Linda Brown could have “gotten a good chunk of his business or set up on her own as a competitor” if they were to divorce.

At the time of the murder, “We all had the same feeling then, that this was a suspicious case,” said Garden Grove Police Sgt. Steve Sanders, who worked on the original murder investigation. Several things about the case “didn’t make too much sense,” he explained. “I don’t think any of us were satisfied (with Cinnamon’s conviction), and the investigation continued with our office and the (district attorney’s) office.”

Of Cinnamon’s conviction, however, Sanders said: “We wouldn’t have convicted her if we didn’t think she was responsible. She was convicted of being a participant.”

Robinson agreed that Cinnamon did play a role in the conspiracy. “We’re not saying she should not have done any time . . . but she was 14 years old at the time, and he (Brown) had quite a hold over her.”

Since her incarceration, Cinnamon has finished high school and has taken some college-level courses at Ventura School, according to Julio Calderon, a California Youth Authority spokesman.

During Cinnamon’s time in prison, Brown remained in contact with her and “attempted to placate her,” Robinson said.

According to McLean, Brown’s visits with his daughter began to taper off before August, which may have influenced her to talk to authorities. In addition, she turned 18 and became a legal adult, he said. Brown’s visits increased after Cinnamon told her father that authorities at the detention center were pressuring her to try to remember what happened the night of the murder, McLean said.

Cinnamon Brown’s mother, Brenda Sands of Anaheim, “was elated” when officials with the district attorney’s office told her about the break in the case Thursday, according to her husband. But he said she did not want to discuss the case with reporters.

“Cinnamon is a nice girl, and we never believed that she was as involved, or involved at all, in this,” said the husband, who asked not to be identified. “We’re still sorting this all out. (The original trial) all happened so fast it was hard to know what was going on. But we always knew she couldn’t have done it. Something was wrong.”

The husband said he was not aware of Cinnamon ever admitting to the family that she had covered up her father’s role, or why she had remained silent for so long. “That’s what puzzled everybody. If I had an answer to that, this would certainly have been over a long time ago,” he said.

Cinnamon Brown declined requests to speak with the news media, according to officials at Ventura School.

Supt. Sylvester Carraway said that Cinnamon “has probably been an above-average ward here” and is in a special work program through the school.

“She’s an airline-booking agent and takes reservations over the phone,” Carraway added.