Defense Rests in Brown Murder Trial

Lawyers for Anaheim Hills murder defendant David Arnold Brown, accused of orchestrating his wife’s 1985 killing and setting up his daughter to take the fall for the crime, closed their case Tuesday without putting Brown on the witness stand.

“What’s the need?” defense attorney Gary Pohlson said when asked about the decision not to have the 38-year-old defendant testify. “I think we’ve already explained everything.”

During the course of the five-week trial, prosecutors painted Brown as a cunning manipulator who talked his then-14-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, into shooting to death her stepmother in their Garden Grove home.

After his wife’s death, Brown collected $835,000 in insurance and then married the victim’s sister, 17-year-old Patti Bailey, who already has pleaded guilty to murder charges for her role in the killing.

Pohlson, putting on two days of defense, hoped to show the Orange County Superior Court jury that the prosecution’s case was built on lies by both Cinnamon Brown and Patti Bailey.

Because of scheduling difficulties, attorneys will not give their closing arguments in the case until Tuesday. The jury will then consider whether Brown should be found guilty of murder and thus face life in prison without the possibility of parole.