Excerpts From Brown Prison Taping

While she was being held at the California Youth Facility in Camarillo on a 27-year-to-life sentence for the murder of her stepmother, 18-year-old Cinnamon Brown was visited by her father, Anaheim businessman David A. Brown, 36. Unknown to David, Cinnamon had agreed to aid investigators in their probe of his role in the killing and their conversation was wired. Cinnamon and prosecutors now claim that Brown set up his daughter to kill Linda Brown--his wife and Cinnamon’s stepmother--and then to take the blame for the crime. Here is an excerpt from the conversation, according to a tape obtained by The Times. At this point in the conversation, Cinnamon has said she is confused about why she is in the youth facility: Cinnamon Brown: What am I going to do about (the facility parole) board? Daddy, they keep on saying: “You’re not goin’ home until you tell the truth.” I’ve been telling them so many goddam lies, I don’t know--

David Brown: I don’t know what you’ve been telling them.

Cinnamon: I’ve been making up--telling them lies, telling them what you told me to tell them.

David: Why don’t you tell them that the, the truth was that. . . . Remember Linda wanted you out of the house and I didn’t?

Cinnamon: Linda didn’t want me out of the house; there wasn’t enough room in the house.

David: Her thing was--and I was fighting with her about--she wanted you to move out. And you ended up moving to the trailer (by their Garden Grove home). Then she wanted you out of the trailer and back with your Mom. And your Mom didn’t want you. I told her I’d waited too many years for you to be with me. We’d had too much fun. Linda wanted you out of the house, you and Patty both.

(Patricia Bailey, then 17, was the victim’s sister, with whom David Brown was allegedly having an affair. Now married to David Brown, Bailey is also charged with murder.)

Cinnamon: Linda never told me she wanted me out of the house.

David: I’d swear she did, but she made sure I knew. I thought she told you. I thought that’s why you got in a fight with her once and moved out to the trailer.

Cinnamon (almost crying): I didn’t get in a fight with her and move out to the trailer! David: Then how did you move out to the trailer, because you wanted to?

Cinnamon: Mainly because me and Patty don’t get along. I hate being in the same room with her. David: Well, Patty said if worse comes to worse she’ll confess to it, but you’ll have to get your stories straight. She’ll take your place.

Cinnamon: Why can’t she just tell the truth? Why do we have to keep--I’m so (expletive) confused. I don’t even--

David: I’ll tell you why. You can tell the truth, if you don’t tell the whole truth, because if there was knowledge--if me, grandma, grandpa, Patty, everyone--had knowledge in advance of what was going to happen, then we’d all go to jail, eveyone. . . . And that doesn’t make any sense, because we didn’t do anything wrong. As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t do anything wrong.

Cinnamon: As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t do anything wrong, either.