Brown Guilty in Bizarre Murder of Wife

A millionaire computer entrepreneur, accused of persuading his 14-year-old daughter to kill his wife and then take sole responsibility for it, was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder for financial gain.

David A. Brown, whose deadly plot to collect his wife’s life insurance has already spawned a motion picture and book deal, was convicted of persuading his daughter, Cinnamon, to kill her stepmother, 24-year-old Linda Marie Brown, in the belief that as a juvenile she would probably not go to jail.

The daughter served nearly four years in custody before telling authorities that her father, the 37-year-old owner of Anaheim-based Data Recovery, had put her up to the 1985 crime.

Since then, the case--described by a prosecutor as nearly “the perfect murder”--has taken a series of incredible turns.

The victim’s sister, Patti Bailey--who said she was molested by Brown at age 11 and then became his wife after the murder--confessed that she also took part in the plot.

And a series of tape-recorded conversations proved that Brown, from his Orange County Jail cell, tried to hire a hitman to murder not only Bailey, for turning on him, but also the prosecutor and the chief investigator in the case.

“Amazingly bizarre,” juror David Miller of Garden Grove said after the verdict. “I sat there, and I just couldn’t believe all that I was hearing.”

Cinnamon Brown served more than three years in custody before confessing to a persistent Orange County district attorney investigator that it was her father who planned the murder along with her and Patti Bailey.

Brown had convinced them that his wife was plotting to kill him and take over his company. Both young women, who came from deeply troubled childhoods, have since testified that they agreed to his murder plan for fear that Brown’s wife would destroy their family.

“The preoccupation was not killing Linda but protecting David,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. Robinson told jurors.

Bailey was supposed to kill her sister, according to prosecution evidence. But when she backed out at the last second, Brown said it was better that Cinnamon do the job. Both women testified that Brown told them that Cinnamon would probably just be sent for psychiatric treatment and not be imprisoned.

Cinnamon Brown testified that her father told her: “If you really loved me, you will do this for me.”

“If You Really Loved Me” is the title of the book planned by Ann Rule of Seattle, Wash., whose last two true-crime books, “Small Sacrifices” and “Stranger Beside Me,” were bestsellers.

Rule said after Friday’s verdict, “This is a tale of human nature beyond anything that I have ever chronicled.”

The police found Linda Brown shot to death in the master bedroom of the family’s home in Garden Grove in the early-morning hours of March 19, 1985. They found Cinnamon curled up in a back-yard doghouse in her own vomit with a crumpled suicide note nearby. It said she was sorry that she had killed her stepmother.

Cinnamon Brown has since testified that her father gave her a drug concoction to take so that she could fake suicide. But when she took the dose--later shown to have been lethal--she threw up.

But prosecutor Robinson told jurors that Brown had found a way to tie up the loose ends: Cinnamon’s death would end police speculation that someone else was involved.

At her trial a short time later, Cinnamon was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. But because she was a juvenile, she was sent to the California Youth Authority, where she is scheduled to remain until she is freed at age 25.

For the next three years, Brown’s business grew along with his wealth. What Brown did not know was that district attorney investigator Jay Newell was watching with interest--particularly when Brown collected $835,000 from his wife’s life insurance policy.

Newell also kept in touch with Cinnamon Brown’s progress at the Youth Authority, and after she turned 18, he was free to talk to her as an adult.

She eventually confessed her father’s role and agreed to help the authorities secretly tape record conversations between her and Brown.

On Aug. 13, 1988, David Brown told his daughter that if she ever told the truth, “We’d all go to prison.”

Brown and Bailey were arrested the next month. Bailey eventually pleaded guilty, was sentenced to the Youth Authority and became a star prosecution witness.

The Brown tale turned more bizarre when prosecutors learned that in February of last year, Brown tried to get another inmate at the Orange County Jail to kill Robinson, Newell and Bailey.

The authorities gathered so many covert tape recordings of these jailhouse conversations that Brown’s lawyers admitted at his trial he had planned the deaths. But they claimed that it was a desperate move by an innocent man who felt trapped.

The jurors deliberated just seven hours, an unusually short time in a murder trial. But during five weeks of testimony, they had listened for several days to the secretly taped conversations. Jurors said the tapes were the most damaging evidence.

“They key evidence against David Brown was not his daughter, or his (current) wife, but his own words,” prosecutor Robinson said.

The jurors’ finding that Brown ordered Linda’s death to gain the life insurance money automatically elevates his sentence from 25 years to life--the standard for first-degree murder--to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin set formal sentencing for Aug. 22.

Brown, in a dress shirt and tie but without a jacket, showed no reaction as the verdict was read in court. When the proceedings ended, he took a drink of water and walked swiftly under escort to an waiting cell.

His attorney, Gary M. Pohlson, said that he and co-counsel Richard Schwartzberg had told Brown that he would probably be found guilty.

“We were faced with three days of tapes we had no defense to,” Pohlson said.

Although prosecutors say that neither Cinnamon Brown nor Patti Bailey got “a deal” in exchange for their testimony, Pohlson predicted that both be out of prison “within minutes after this is all over.”

The victim’s twin brother, Alan Bailey, gritted his teeth to control his excitement after the verdict.

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” he shouted to a sister-in-law, who had arrived late.

Later, Alan Bailey described Brown as “evil to the core. Look at the lives he has destroyed.”

One Bailey family member is keeping the 2-year-old daughter of Brown and Patti Bailey. Brown’s parents are keeping the 6-year-old daughter he had with Linda.

After the verdict, Robinson was profuse in praising investigator Newell for cracking the case.

“Had it not been for Jay Newell, we wouldn’t be here,” Robinson said. “It was a case already closed, but this guy never gave up.”

Laura Michaelis contributed to this report.