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"Jay Newell helped me the most while I've been in Ventura. He gave me strength, and he believes in me. Jeoff has helped too and so has Fred. I appreciate them for all they've done."
Cinnamon realizes and accepts that she will probably never see her father again. Even today, however, she is ambivalent. The little girl who trusted her daddy cannot quite let him go.
"My dad was a challenge," she remembers. "Especially as I grew, things became more complicated. I had to struggle to show him I loved him. I was very dependent on him. I needed his approval on everything. He was tops then—I had full trust in him. . . .
"1 feel sorry for my father. He's done very bad things to people, and I feel sorry for him because it doesn't matter to him. I love him still. But I will not forgive him for the awful mistakes I've made because of him. It bothers me knowing he's most likely not going to change himself. He'll feel at home in prison. He can have people tend to his needs. He'll never be alone and he'll have people to manipulate. Prison will be comfortable for him. He'll get the attention he needs. I regret having to turn him in, because now my little sister will not know her dad or ever know her mom. I feel totally responsible. 1 pray my father changes. I love our memories and fun. I'll not agree with the things my father does, but I'll always have that love there. I'll never see him again and I can live with that."
After his conviction, Cinnamon sent her father the Lord's Prayer and the Catholic confession prayer. Her note read:
DADDY,
I sure hope you will read these and remember who they're from. I took time to do this for you 'cause I love you. And I think they will bring some hope into your life.
LOVE ALWAYS, CINNY 1990
Cinnamon, finally able to participate in counseling now that she has no secrets, knows that she has to let her father go, to forgive him for what he did to her. If she harbors resentment, she knows it will only destroy her. Cinnamon refers to her mother, Brenda, as "my backbone—she believes in me and she shares herself with me ... we communicate fine now and I love her with all my being."
Cinnamon and Patti are not close even though they are locked in the same prison. "She wants me to act like nothing ever happened and start over," Cinnamon says. "I can't. I can't just not remember the hurt and pain. Here in Ventura, she goes out of her way to be where I am. I need space from her. She acts like she needs my approval, but talks bad about me to someone else. I don't understand why she plays games with my emotions—talking about her baby, Heather, and her and my dad's marriage or about letters she gets from my dad. She hurts me but smiles in my face, saying she loves me. I'm fine by myself. . . I'm moving on with my life."
Cinnamon has learned not to expect too much. Even so, she cannot repress that bubbly of hope that maybe her next parole hearing will set her free after six years in jail and prison. Although she might be expected to be bitter, she is not. She struggles still with the regret her father cannot feel, but she wants so much to return to the world outside one
day.
"I miss my family. I miss seeing my two younger sisters grow. I also miss the beach and being around people who are happy. I miss riding my bike. I miss having people there for me. I miss food. I really miss having a dog. Maybe another Chihuahua—they're faithful dogs. I miss being creative; we're limited to what we can do here—such as making crafts.
"When I go home, I want to go to Disneyland—the happiest place on earth—Sea World, the zoo in San Diego. I love animals. I really want to learn how to drive and buy a car. I've always felt insecure about driving. I thought I'd ■never have a chance.
"I want to find a job and start living within the community, learn about environmental problems around me so I can be aware and help the community. I would eventually like finding the things my father has that are mine. All those memories in pictures and personal items. I truly want my personal property.
"After quite some time and I feel comfortable, I would like to get in contact with Krystal, my little sister. ... My dad's side of the family disowned me after my father was arrested. So I no longer exist to them, which really hurts."
Even as Cinnamon strives to be free, she is frightened of the world outside Ventura School. At twenty, she has never been allowed any contact with boys beyond holding hands. The world has moved on without her for six years.
"I'm comfortable here," she explains. "Sometimes I get so caught up here, I forget there's out there. I worry about my safety from my dad. I worry about not learning how to drive. I worry I won't have a chance to catch up on the things I haven't got to do yet. Like I'll only have a while to catch up—before something awful happens. I wonder if I'll live longer in here than out there, because of my father. So many changes since I've been here; I'm nervous that I'll be lost out there.
"I'll be different than the others. I grew up in jail. How will people see me? Will they treat me like a criminal? Will they trust me?
"I haven't let Ventura change me in any negative ways. I observed everything. I'm still very young at heart. I love to laugh and make people laugh. I'm mature, but I kept my innocence—meaning Ventura didn't harden me because I wouldn't let it. So will people stereotype me and judge me? Or will I be given another chance totally? Will I seem like a threat to people because I shamefully killed Linda?"
David Brown continues to saddle his oldest daughter with fear and pain, even though he never writes to her. How lamentable that Cinnamon must walk with the specter of "something awful" cutting off her life.
Her dreams are modest. "I want a comfortable, normal job, and I want to someday marry and have children. I want a family and maybe a job as a travel agent or in social services or in education. I want to earn my AA [associate degree] and attend some courses on travel.
"I want a simple life; I want to focus on myself and bringing happiness to myself. [In Ventura,] I learned how to be assertive. I learned to appreciate others' values. I learned patience. I basically learned people skills. I learned how to adjust with many different personalities.
"I learned not to give up hope."
Last of all, Cinnamon Brown at twenty vows never to forget Linda. It might be better for her if she could let go just a little, but she cannot.
"It's important to me that people know I feel very ashamed of what I did to Linda. It's very painful knowing I took her life and she'll never have a chance again. I took the law into my own hands, and I think constantly of what I've done to Linda. I cry and pray for her often, because I loved her.
"That's what hurts more than anything. I loved her, and still believed my father's lies . . . and I killed her! None of it was true. Linda wasn't the person my father made her out to be. I think it's okay for me to love her and miss her. If there was one wish given to me, and it could be anything, I'd wish Linda her life back. Not because of the consequences but because I hate living with the pain of Linda being dead because of me. She trusted me and loved me, and I was selfish and took her life. I'll never forget those emotions at all. I'll never forget Linda. She'll always be there to remind me of what I've done.
"I never want the pain to go away. I deserve to live with the painful truth. . . .
"I've learned to appreciate all that we're given—good or bad. I picked the positive things and kept them and formed an understanding of the bad. I couldn't change them, so I learned to accept them and not forget them.
"It took a while for me to trust again. But it was well worth it. Not everyone is a bad seed.
"Unfortunately, my father was. . . ."
On January 15, 1991, Cinnamon Brown faced the California Youthful Offender Parole Board for the sixth time. She had already been incarcerated longer than the five-and-a-half-year average sentence served by convicted juvenile murderers in California. Even high-profile teenage killers whose crimes had been totally reprehensible had been released. But not Cinnamon. Her mother and grandmother and Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell had reason to be optimistic that she was, at last, close to freedom. Indeed, they were more hopeful than Cinnamon herself, who
had long since grown used to disappointment.
Robinson and Newell asked for a chance to speak to the parole board before Cinnamon was ushered in. They explained that Cinnamon had declined to talk to the board alone since late 1988 at their express request, that it had been vital that she remain silent until her father was convicted. Robinson asserted that she had been given this directive after her father's defense attorneys got hold of a private psychological report that they used to attack her character.
Cinnamon Brown had been truly between a rock and a hard place; she had to place her faith in someone, and she had trusted Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson. She had ached to tell the whole story to the parole board but she'd kept quiet, even though she had known it would prolong her time in prison into late 1990 or early 1991, at the very least. Knowing the risk she was taking, Cinnamon had kept all the promises she'd made.
The Orange County district attorneys had, in return, made her no promises. They could not. But Jeoff Robinson had told the David Brown jury that he believed Cinnamon should now be free. Many of the jurors felt the same way, and they had written letters to the parole board on her behalf.
For two agonizing hours, Cinnamon answered the board's questions, and listened to their characterizations of her. Victor Weishart, chairman of the parole board, was clearly not impressed with Cinnamon's prior refusal to open up to the board. He had encountered Cinnamon at parole hearings before and apparently did not find that she had grown in any way.
The three-member board issued a statement after the closed hearing. They had ruled that Cinnamon's "testimony against her father should not be considered in determining Cinnamon's parole readiness." By a two-to-one vote, the panel chose not to change the date she would be eligible for parole. Her current parole date was now set for March 1992. The dissenting board member, Fred Bautista, favored a CYA staff recommendation that one month be cut from her sentence, "time off for good behavior," which would allow her to be released in February 1992.
"[Cinnamon Brown] still needs to make much more progress in addressing the reasons why she became involved in this calculated crime," the board concluded. "[She] is manipulative and [her psychologist] describes her as customarily flippant in therapy." Comparing her to David Brown, the board stressed that being "manipulative" was "a trait employed to perfection by her father."
Cinnamon, who had endured prison for a half-dozen years while her father and Patti Bailey lived in luxury, and then while they fought conviction, was given little hope that she would get out before she was 25 years old. Although she had been brought into the killing plot years after her father and Patti began discussing it, Cinnamon had apparently come to be seen as the prime instigator in the board's mind. She had kept silent first to protect her father, and later to protect the State's case.
She was not angry; she was crushed. Jeoff Robinson said she had not really expected to get out, but the board's refusal to give her even 30 days of good time negated everything she had done to try to improve herself, "She did not expect to be paroled," Robinson told Christopher Pummer of the Los Angeles Times, "but it upset her to be labeled a manipulative, cold-blooded, murderess. . . . She has acknowledged her culpability, she has admitted pulling the trigger and she has expressed remorse. . . ."
Robinson and Jay Newell were convinced that Cinnamon had long ago broken free of her father's hold over her, although the board apparently did not agree with that view. "At this point in her life," Robinson commented, "I think she has broken free. She loves her father, but she is not under the influence of David Brown."
Both Robinson and Newell were stunned by the parole board's assessment of Cinnamon Brown. Newell said little, but his jaw tightened with the strain of not speaking. Robinson told Jeff Collins of the Orange County Register, "As an observer and not an advocate, I don't believe that Cinnamon was treated completely fairly. . .. They were very harsh and very myopic, in my view."
The two Orange County DA's men had gone to CYA because they believed the board labored under false assumptions. "At least one member of the board thought she had done this for insurance money," Robinson said. "We wanted to explain that this wasn't the case. We offered no specific recommendations for shortening Cinnamon's sentence."
Newell's and Robinson's presence and information made-no difference at all. The girl who had gone into prison at fifteen, and who was now close to twenty-one, returned to her cell with little hope. Ironically, Patti Bailey will probably be released from prison before Cinnamon. If each is held until her twenty-fifth birthday—as the law allows—Patti will be eligible for release in 1993, while Cinnamon will not be twenty-five until 1995. The parole board, of course, has it within its power to schedule a parole hearing at any time.
In the meantime, Cinnamon continues to work and study inside prison. Although Patti's company brings back excruciatingly painful memories, Patti was moved first into Cinnamon's cottage, and then into the room right next door to her.
Cinnamon does not write to her father or hear from him. Patti receives daily mail from David Brown.
There are never neat, clean endings to murder cases. There are certainly never happy endings, but there is, in the best of cases, a certain justice.
For Cinnamon Brown, justice has proved to be as hard to grasp as a bit of dandelion fluff in the wind. She holds on to her faith in God, and to the few friends who continue to support her.
Her story is far from over.
Acknowledgments
ore than most authors, true crime writers are dependent upon the memories, perceptions, insights, and knowledge of those who have lived through the real story. More than most authors, true crime writers also seem to need buffering and kind words while we are immersed in the black intricacies of the sociopathic mind. I am grateful for those who knew the truth and shared it with me, and for those who helped me deal with those realities. My appreciation goes to the scores of Orange County, California, residents who graciously gave me their time and shared their personal impressions. And as always, I thank my own motley support system, which saw me through the unraveling of a tragic and shocking story. Thank you to:
Garden Grove Police Department: Chief John Robertson, Detective Fred McLean, Detective William Morrissey, Detective Ron Shave, Forensic Specialist Marsha MacWillie.
Orange County deputy coroner Bernice Mazuca.
Orange County District Attorney's Office: District Attorney Michael Capizzi, Deputy District Attorney Jeoffrey Robinson, Senior Attorney's Investigator Jay Newell, Deputy District Attorney Tom Borris (now in private practice), Chief, District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation, Loren "Duke" DuChesne, Assistant Chief, District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation, Vince Vasil and his wife, Lou Vasil, Supervising Attorney's Investigator Jim Aumond, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jim Enright, Assistant District Attorney Ed Freeman, Technical Service Adviser Greg Gulen. Support staff: Annabelle Roberts, Anne Leonard,
Debbie Jackson, Karen Keyes, LaVonne Campbell, Edna Selleck, and Roxanne McDonald.
Orange County Superior Court, Department 30: Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, Court Clerk Gail Carpenter, Court Reporter Sandra Wingerd, Bailiff "Mitch" Miller, Deputy Marshal Glenn "Hoop" Hoopingarner.
Defense attorneys: Gary M. Pohlson, Richard Schwartzberg.
Eric Lichtblau and Jerry Hicks, Los Angeles Times; Jeff Collins, Orange County Register; Dave Lopez, CBS-Channel 2, Los Angeles; Barney Morris, ABC, Channel 7, Los Angeles.
With special thanks to: Brenda Sands, Doris Smith, Janell Wheeler, Anita Sands, Gary Miller, Otis and Cecil Fox, Betty Jo Newell, Rita and Mark Robinson, Sr., Derek Johnson, Sandy and Gene Walsh, Katie, Brad, Torrie and Chrissie Walsh, Cheryl Goodman, Teri Blanchard, Rita Nugent, Fred Land, Don Lasseter, Courtney Michelle, Jan E. Elinsky, Larry T. Nakashima, Meghann Shane, Deborah Duke, Virginia Newell, Beatrice Munoz, Ebba "Sunny" Cole, Joey Moscatiello and all the family at Pepino's Restaurant in El Toro, Jimmy Buffett, Stephen M. Lopez, Rick Watkins, Pamela Starns, David Miller, Donna Nichol, Mary Baile
y, Rick Bailey, Alan Bailey, Valerie Bailey, Ethel Bailey, Child Help of Orange County.
My reconstruction of the ambiance, detail, and testimony in the long trial in Department 30 was helped immeasurably by the efforts of my trial assistants, Donna Anders and Leslie Rule. Leslie also served as my photographer and took several hundred photographs, both during the trial and around Orange County.
Northwest support included: Marlene Price, Mike Rule, Jennifer A. Giadwell, Cheri Luxa, Gerry Brittingham, Mike Prezbindowski, Tina Abeel, Laura Harris, Becca Harris, Brian Halquist, David Coughlan, Luke and Nancy Fiorante, Mildred Yoacham, Eilene Schultz, Lars and Debb Larson, Maureen and Bill Woodcock, Ruth and Vernon Cornelius, Dr. Peter J. Modde, Austin and Charlotte Seth, Dr. Carl
Beraer and staff, Andy Rule, S. Bruce Sherles, Forrest Schultz, Anne and Chris Jaeger, and Ms. Haleigh Jean Jaeger, who was born the day this book was finished.
Thank you to my mother, Sophie Hansen Stackhouse, who always let me explore and "research" and never clipped my wings. And to the rest of the clan of Michigan Danes who helped to shape my life: the late Montcalm County, Michigan, sheriff Chris Hansen; the late Anna Hansen; the late Amelia Hansen Mills; the late Montcalm County, Michigan, sheriff Elton Sampson; Emma Hansen McKenney; Montcalm County coroner Dr. Carl M. Hansen; Freda Hansen Sampson Grunwald; Donna Hansen Basom; Montcalm County prosecuting attorney Bruce Basom; Jan Basom Schubert; Calhoun County, Michigan, judicial clerk Sara Jane Plushnik; Chris L. McKenney; Karen Hudson; Jim Sampson; Christa Hansen; Terry Hansen. The love of the law, and most of all, the search for justice, courses through all our veins.
