Cinnamon Brown was no gang member. She was a convicted juvenile homicide offender. Why couldn't Newell just let go of her case? It was a question with no answer, only a gnawing gut instinct. Newell's curiosity about her father was an itch that demanded scratching.
After the murder of Linda Brown, David Arnold Brown told anyone who would listen that he was a man torn, caught between his grief over the loss of his wife, pity for his motherless baby, and concern for his firstborn child. Cinnamon was criminally responsible for making Krystal a half-orphan, he said forlornly, and that fact would fill him with wrenching ambivalence for the rest of his life. Seeing Cinnamon reminded Brown of the tragedy and of her participation. But he couldn't just walk away from his daughter. She needed him now more than she ever had. He vowed to visit her as often as his health permitted.
Brown had always called Cinnamon "Cinny" and stressed to police that there was an extremely strong bond between them, even during those times she was living with her mother. He bemoaned the fact that she had stubbornly resisted when he tried to get her into counseling. He blamed himself, he said, for not trying harder to get help for Cinnamon. But he accepted the fact that his fourteen-year-old daughter had murdered his beloved, perfect wife.
When he could take the time from other investigations, Jay Newell began to dig beneath the surface of David
Brown's life, locating any number of people who were quite willing to fill in a chink here and a missing space in time there. He discovered that David Brown was something of a ladies' man. Linda had been his fifth wife. Newell also located a dozen or more women Brown had been involved with between marriages. He was neither tall nor handsome, but it hadn't seemed to hurt him with women. As one of Linda and Patti's relatives said graphically, "He always got the beauties. None of David's women were dog meat."
Newell found that David's existence had been marked by soaring peaks and desolate valleys. Still, all things considered, he had been quite successful—until Linda's murder. He bragged that he had a talent for survival, along with an innate intelligence and acquired skill. The numerous statues and sketches of birds in the Ocean Breeze Drive house were David's. Family members told Newell that David identified with the phoenix, the mythic bird rising from the ashes of disaster to soar again. He even wore a symbolic pendant. His personal jeweler had created the image of a phoenix just as Brown ordered it, with its wings down—not spread—as it rose with ease from "flames" formed of yellow and orange topaz. The custom piece cost $ 1,500.
David Brown liked to say that in the end, like the phoenix, he always won.
No one could argue that David was not a high achiever, a middle child who had struggled to break out of the pack of many children in a family with limited income. Perhaps that was why prestige and wealth mattered so much to him. And why he detested authority figures. Perhaps it was his mother's control over him when he was a child that made David so resistant to anyone's telling him what to do.
Well, he had weathered the latest storm. Cinny was safely behind bars where she could hurt no one. He would visit her, of course, but Brown had his business, his clients and his employees, along with the total care of Krystal. His parents were upset, naturally, and Linda's family was devastated. They looked to him for decisions.
Apparently everyone in both families had come to depend on David Brown for jobs, and in a pinch, for money. He had succeeded in the business world far beyond what any of them had accomplished. David liked to think of himself as the kind of guy who could walk in and do what needed to be done. It was true he could be self-important, and as one of Linda and Patti's brothers said, "a pain in the butt" about it. He was not averse to strutting a little bit, letting his wife's family know that he was in charge.
But success had cost David Arnold Brown. He was the first to admit that the stresses in his life had exacted a toll. At thirty-two, he was invariably taken for much older. In his computer data retrieval business that wasn't necessarily a bad thing; the corporations and government agencies he dealt with seemed more secure believing they were dealing with an older man.
Despite his accomplishments in the corporate world and with women, David's health was not good. He had been treated for high blood pressure, heart trouble, headaches, asthma, allergies, insomnia, stomach problems, ulcerative colitis, liver problems, kidney problems, depression, and "nerves." His roster of prescription medicines equaled that of most senior citizens. He worried aloud, voicing his belief he would die young, and his family worried with him.
Beyond his illnesses, David had been in a number of automobile accidents: seventeen, in fact. He was either an abysmal driver, or unlucky. Nevertheless, insurance claims had enabled him to replace—even upgrade—his damaged vehicles.
The effect on his already debilitated health was harder to assess. His calendar was blocked out with appointments with his physician and his chiropractor. Just to keep going, he explained, he had to have frequent spinal adjustments. His lifestyle didn't help; David smoked three or more packs of cigarettes a day, ate junk food almost exclusively, and his only exercise was the walk from his house to his car—unless his self-avowed rigorous sex life counted as exercise. Close-mouthed about many areas of his life, he spoke freely of his sexual prowess.
Digging even deeper, bit by bit Jay Newell began to piece together an intriguing biography of his inscrutable subject —without knowing where it would lead or what it might prove.
David Brown was born in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 16, 1952, near the end of the Korean War. He was the sixth of eight children. His father, Kansas-born Arthur Quentin Brown, thirty-two when David was bora, was an auto mechanic who usually worked two jobs to support his family.
His mother, Manuela Estrada Brown, was born in El Paso, Texas, and married young. The babies came along soon, and with regularity. Manuela was only twenty-seven when she bore her sixth child—David. Arthur junior was first, then Bob, Shirley, Linda Sue, Susan, and David. After David, came Tom and the baby, Steven. Linda Sue died as an infant, and the Browns lost their firstborn, Arthur junior, in an automobile accident when he was eighteen.
At eight, David Arnold Brown was a winsome-looking child who resembled Beaver Cleaver—his hair, home crew-cut, his shirt wrinkled and missing a button. His eyes were large and clear, his front teeth too big for his mouth and slightly protruding. He was a little boy who looked as if he needed a hug.
David resembled his mother physically and grew to look even more like her as he matured. They were both brunettes (although Manuela hennaed her hair to a maroon shade.) Manuela's heritage was Hispanic, but as he matured, David played down his Hispanic roots, distancing himself from that culture. He often voiced prejudice against Hispanics, as well as most other minorities.
Bitter in-laws later described Manuela as so overweight that four chairs collapsed beneath her. She was not that heavy; she was only a compact, stocky woman. Both mother and son had the same amorphous body structure, short in stature, with chubby arms and small star-shaped hands.
As much as he looked like his mother, he pulled away from her early in his life. He seemed to feel far more affinity for his father, whom he found positive and caring. A slight man, tentative about his role in life, Arthur Brown always tried to do the right thing. But he had little power, and he had spent his life trying to appease those around him. How strange that David had chosen to call his father before he called the police the night Linda was murdered. His father seemed the last person to turn to for quick, decisive answers in a moment of crisis.
On the other hand, his mother was a vocal woman with definite opinions. He denied that he ever loved her and described her as selfish, controlling, greedy, and violent. When he was older, he teased and tormented her with sadistic jokes until she got angry or broke into tears. (His daughter Cinnamon, while fond of her grandpa, unwittingly spoke of Manuela in a deprecating manner, as if she were not quite bright—echoing her father.) Yet, Manuela visited often and sometimes lived in David's many adult homes. And David had
taken Manuela's side in an argument with Linda only hours before his young wife died.
In truth, David Brown probably felt ambivalent about his mother. Even though he didn't like her, perhaps he always needed her to take up the slack in his often untidy personal life. In times of trouble, Manuela Brown was the decisive voice, while Arthur fluttered ineffectively, uncertain of what to do.
The Brown family remained in Phoenix until about 1960, then, when David was eight, moved to Needles, California. Needles, just at the eastern boundary of California, is often listed on weather charts as having the highest temperature in America, a town surrounded by desert. After that the family moved around, following jobs for Arthur, and lived over the next thirteen years in Bakersfield and various towns in Los Angeles County. Arthur eventually went to work for Arco. Manuela never worked outside the family home.
David told contradictory stories of his childhood. When talking to a counselor, he recalled that he enjoyed a "wonderful relationship" with each of his family members. But the childhood that he described to others was horrific. Bizarre, violent episodes burst forth unbidden from his memory. Beyond his alleged early hatred for his mother, David told of a number of traumatic assaults. He recalled being beaten up by a gang of Indian youths. He spoke of being sexually molested by an old man in a park. He witnessed a close relative's suicide attempt when he was only ten and was rendered immobile with terror as he watched the knife stabbing repeatedly into wrist arteries, and the cascade of blood that followed. Although the attempt was not successful, the moment stayed frozen in his mind.
As hard as Arthur worked, his combined salaries covered only the basic living expenses of his large family. David spoke with pride about his own resourcefulness. "If we wanted anything for school—binders, rulers, school supplies—we had to earn it. I pulled weeds, trimmed trees, mowed lawns, from the time I was eleven. I was washing dishes in a cafe after school too when I was eleven," David recalled. "When I was still only eleven or twelve, I ran a gas station all by myself—up to sixteen hours a day. I loved it. It was way out in Mettler, a little crossroads about twenty-five miles south of Bakersfield. I was pretty tired when school came around, but it was the only way I could have real nice clothes."
Arthur and David's older brothers worked in the cafiS too, but David was the only one deemed competent enough to be in charge of the gas station.
The family moved on—to a yellow stucco house on M Street in Wilmington near Long Beach. And it was well nigh impossible to track accurately David's various recollections of his early teens. His memory was spotty, like a radio signal in stormy weather. His most consistent story was that he was physically punished at home to the point of abuse—and that his only recourse was to run away from home at the age of fourteen.
His formal schooling ended in Los Angeles's Banning High School where he completed the eighth grade. He was, according to his summing up of his life, on the road and on his own when most kids were still in junior high school. Given David's inventive, innovative mind and his talent for survival, it was not surprising that he maintained himself quite well, despite his age.
At fifteen, David had a steady girlfriend. He met Brenda Kurges through his sister Susan. "Brenda taught me about sex," he insisted. Brenda was also fifteen, a small attractive girl with chiseled features, olive skin, compelling brown eyes, and long, straight, almost black hair.
She was fathered by her mother's first husband, who left when she was small. She would look for him for most of her life before she located the stranger who was her father. No man could have lived up to her idealized picture, and of course, her real father did not. Brenda's life was bleak. Her half-siblings came along with regularity, and she was a little ashamed that most of them had different fathers. She had virtually no clothes and far too much responsibility for a fifteen-year-old.
She was desperately unhappy at home. "I was the oldest of eleven kids, and I was the 'mother.' I ran away twice. The first time I ran was with David's sister Susan, and we went to Lawndale and got caught. We got caught the next time too."
David was well aware of Brenda's home situation, and of her desperation to be free of it. He was attracted to the petite brunette, partially, he believed, because she too was living in an "abusive" home. "She was very lonely... . Her mother was worse than mine."
Ideally for his needs, David had found someone dependent, suggestible, and trapped in the cage of her life, her prettiness dulled by poverty. He recalled that Brenda dressed in "rags." He saw himself in the role of her rescuer.
Indeed, he was.
Brenda had a boyfriend, Andy, who was also a friend of David's. "Andy was just a nice boy. He wasn't mean or demanding. No sex or nothing like that," she remembered. "Andy took me to the first movie I ever saw. It was The Yellow Submarine." David asked Andy if he could take Brenda out—just once. "Andy said okay, and we went out," Brenda said. "That was just kind of it. From then on, I was with David. He said, 'You're going to stay with me.' So I did."
It was not so much David's physical appearance that appealed to Brenda, but rather the fact that he was the first person in her whole life who seemed to want to protect her. She had learned to expect nothing, and suddenly there was someone who cared for her. She was vulnerable, innocent, and artless. "He was kind of 'puffy' then too—not like later—but a little overweight," Brenda recalled, sounding puzzled that she was once married to David Brown. "He had acne—but it wasn't too bad, and then he started to pick at it, and it bled."
David lost weight when he started seeing Brenda—to the point that his jaw was lean and hard, and in some pictures taken during that time in the midsixties, he had a Presleyesque look. Many girls might have been drawn to that David. In fact, there was a profound sexual attraction between pretty little Brenda and the boy whose voice and words were so persuasive, although she could not—and cannot—explain it. He sent her original poems written just for her. His poetry was amateurish and cloying, but his thoughts and feelings seemed so loving.
Brenda saw David's deep depressions early on. One day, she went to the yellow house on M Street after school and found him on the patio. "He was just staring at his feet, and he was so down. He said, 'Nobody loves me. I have no friends. No one cares,' and I told him, 'I care about you.'"
David was jealously possessive of Brenda from the start. He even made her wait outside men's rest rooms while he was inside. "Like he thought someone was going to come along and pick me up!" Brenda said. "One time, the police picked us up in Redondo 'cause I was waiting by the men's bathroom and they didn't believe I was waiting for David."
Brenda was jealous of David, too. During the early years of their relationship, she loved him completely. "He told me he knew I was going to run away again, and that I couldn't take care of myself—so he was going to go with me and take care of me."
And so he did.
When he was barely sixteen, they ran away together—first to Brenda's grandfather, who lived in a hotel in Wilmington. "He tried to talk me out of it and told me I should go back to school, but I'd made up my mind to stay with David." They got a job at her grandfather's hotel—painting the stairways —to pay for their room, then moved on when that work ran out. They lived by their wits, finding work for a few days or a week.
David was adept at taking care of them. "We worked at odd jobs—waiting tables, doing yard work, or in service stations, fast-food places. We paid our own way," he remembered. And then they were hired by a place called Aunt Sally's Guesthouse* in Lawndale. Elderly people lived there in a cluster of cottages. Brenda cooked and served breakfast and ironed. David did maintenance work.
At first, their situation was idyllic. They had their own room, warm and private and hidden from the world. The work wasn't nearly as hard as Brenda's duties at home. She was wonderfully in love with David, and so grateful to him that he had rescued her. Sexually, then, they were perfectly matched, and their escape from home had brought them to floating, dreamy days, a honeymoon where only the two of them
existed.
"The guy who ran Aunt Sally's was really generous," Brenda recalled. "He only had one hand, and he needed help—so he didn't even check our ages or anything. We didn't have to pay rent, and we had plenty to eat. I didn't get to eat like that at home! We could have ice cream or whatever we wanted! We had clothes and we had movie money. We were teenagers just having a good time."
Twenty years later, there was awe in Brenda Kurges Brown Sands's voice as she spoke of having enough of anything she wanted to eat. And clothes . . . and movies . . . And someone to love her and take care of her. David sang along to Neil Diamond songs, and because she loved him, Brenda thought he was romantic, "but really, he couldn't sing that well."
David was funny too. He would tease Brenda when she was trying to discuss something seriously, saying, "Well, let's go ask Maynard."
"Maynard wasn't anybody but a joke David made up."
But even in that paradise of Aunt Sally's Guesthouse, there was a rude awakening. David discovered an odd little switchboard behind the bread box in the kitchen and soon deduced that anyone could listen in to activity in the different rooms and cottages by flipping a toggle switch. The system was designed to check on the welfare of the elderly guests, but David explained to Brenda that they were being spied on. Someone had been listening to them when they thought they were alone. The tone of his voice, the fear he conveyed to her, had a profound effect.
"We were scared," Brenda said, a shiver in her voice. "We began to think that the place was evil, that people had been listening to us and maybe watching us when we were in our room. One night, we were holding hands and walking to the store to buy some Ripple wine, and we could just feel hidden eyes looking at us."