"Was that before or after you first spoke to Jay Newell?"
"After."
Pohlson chipped away at Cinnamon's lies. Yes, she lied to Jay Newell about who did the shooting. No, she wasn't trying to implicate Patti; she just could not say out loud that she was the shooter.
Pohlson's tone was only a shade mocking. He would lead Cinnamon again through her life with her father and Linda. She thought of Linda, she said, as a mother. She was not jealous of Linda. Linda was her father's wife.
The day wound down to an end. Tomorrow, Cinnamon would face three more hours of cross-examination. . . .
On the second day, Cinnamon seemed a bit more at ease. She wore a royal-blue dress with a tiny peplum, the skirt shorter than Robinson would have liked. Pohlson wanted to unmask a wicked stepdaughter, and such creatures traditionally wear too much makeup and dress too seductively. Cinnamon's voice was so tiny that it made up for her dress.
"Did you prepare to testify . . . read your transcript from the preliminary hearing . . . listen to any videotapes?"
She answered yes. Of course she prepared. Anyone would. It was a favorite ploy of defense attorneys to make preparation by witnesses appear suspect.
Pohlson's aggression built as the morning progressed. "Were you ashamed in 1985 of having killed Linda?" "When I first did it, no—but it was a couple of years ago when ^realized I'd taken somebody's life—"
"You thought you'd get off?"
Pohlson got rough, but Cinnamon dug in. She admitted every lie. If she didn't remember, she said so.
"You loved Linda Brown?"
"Yes."
"But you wanted to kill her?" Pohlson was full of disbelief.
"I was more loyal to my dad than I was to her."
"... The night of the murder—how many different versions have you given? Let's go through the different versions, Cinnamon. We can count them, or we can do a summation."
Cinnamon counted. "One, I did it myself; two, I don't remember, three, I lied when I said I was outside. I guess that's three."
Pohlson came up with seven—Cinnamon's stories to Fred McLean, Pam French, Dr. Seawright Anderson, Kim Hicks, different versions to Jay Newell. She did not argue with him.
The defense attorney's intent was obvious. He wanted to solidify the murder plans and discussions in the jurors' minds. The most damning testimony for the prosecution came when Pohlson asked Cinnamon to be specific about times and methods of murder.
It began gradually, Cinnamon recalled. The first time in the living room, the second on the way to the chiropractor. "I wasn't quite sure it was a serious plan... . Another time, we were in the van. I think Patti said that Linda was going to kill my father and what were we going to do about it... it was sometime in the seven months before the murder. . . . Most of the time, we said 'get rid of'—that means kill."
Yes, Cinnamon admitted suggesting ways to kill Linda.
"What?" Pohlson pounced. "What ways?"
"Electrocuting her ... in the bathtub, throwing an appliance in. We were laughing and joking around, and we said, 'No, she only takes showers—'"
"You laughed? About killing her?"
"No—we laughed about getting Linda into the bathtub."
"I mean," Pohlson breathed, "it's kind of a big deal, isn't it—killing someone?"
The words hung in the courtroom; they were headline words. "Daughter Jokes About Murder Plot."
There was no sound in the courtroom. Pohlson whirled suddenly and asked, "Who's Maynard? Who's Oscar?" He spat out the names as if he expected them to trigger some intense reaction from Cinnamon. The gallery perked up, fascinated. But Cinnamon visibly relaxed.
For the first—and only—time, Cinnamon smiled, remembering better days. "Me and my dad joked about it. If I was clumsy, or if I dropped something, we'd say, 'Maynard did it.' It was just teasing."
Robinson questioned Cinnamon once more, briefly.
"Do you have imaginary friends?" he asked.
"No. We were just joking about Maynard and Oscar."
When it was finally over, despite all the ugliness that Cinnamon spoke of in her soft childlike voice, one thing shone through: she had told the unflinching, unvarnished truth. "I didn't want to lose my dad," she cried, sobbing. "Killing my stepmother showed that I loved him."
For the first time, Cinnamon deliberately turned her head toward her father and talked of her discovery of the insurance payoff, and of her father's secret marriage to Patti. "I was mad and angry because they didn't tell me. And I felt hurt that they just left me there. And it seemed like I was not important to them anymore. They were just as involved as I was. ... They killed Linda just as much as I did!"
At seven minutes to three on Thursday afternoon, May 10, Cinnamon Brown was finally allowed to step down.
Jay Newell took the stand the next morning—to introduce the first of the tapes made in the summer of 1988. Robinson submitted the surveillance photographs taken of Cinnamon and her unsuspecting father on August 13 as they sat on the lawn at the CYA prison.
David Brown's own words came back to haunt him, as they woyld frequently during the trial. The jury followed the long tape with transcripts. David's voice, deep and rumbly, counterpointed Cinnamon's high, light voice. She had an atonal emphasis that made her questions end in a whine. He sounded so confident on the tape as he worked to damn up the leaks that had suddenly threatened his safe jetty.
"You can tell the truth if you don't tell the whole truth," the taped David told his daughter. "If there was knowledge ... in advance of what was going to happen, then we'll all go to jail. . . . Do you see any reason for five people's lives to be ruined ... for all of us to go to jail because we knew what was going to happen beforehand? / can't survive in jail. ... I would kill myself before I'd let myself die a slow and painful death in a cell."
It was hard to know what the jurors thought of the tapes. Their eyes were locked tight on their transcripts as they tried to follow each word. David Brown used profanity often, and a woman juror suppressed a nervous giggle at words she had never said.
On Monday, May 14, 1990, Cinnamon had returned to prison, and Patti Bailey would take her place on the stand. Like Cinnamon, she was escorted in by Fred McLean and Jay Newell.
She looked so much like her dead sister. Pretty because she was young and wide-eyed. Patti wore an almost matronly wine-and-white-patterned dress. She was full breasted and had a tiny waist. Her husband had once described her weight to his "hired killer" as "about a hundred pounds." She weighed 143 pounds. Her blond hair was long and wavy, and she had a pouf of curly bangs. Her overall impression was sweet and modest.
She was very nervous. She trembled constantly, a subtle vibration as if she might break and fly apart in pieces at any moment. Some of her sisters were in the gallery, but the defense wanted them out. Robinson asked that only Mary Bailey, who was caring for Patti's child and who offered
Patti emotional support, be allowed to stay, but all the Baileys were banned to the hallway, and Patti was left, alone, to testify.
Robinson elicited the story of Patti's short, sad life.
"At home, we were poor. We were lucky if we had food on the table.... I had trouble with my brothers 'trying things' in my room at night. My mom is an alcoholic. I don't know my father. I thought David was great. I loved the idea of moving in with David and Linda."
Patti told the courtroom of her initiation into sex with David Brown. At eleven, she was "physically contacted" and engaged in touching and fondling, and soon in oral sex with her sister's husband/boyfriend.
"Where did these things take place?"
"... On the way to the restaurant, in the car. I wanted his attention. I cared about David."
The sexual contacts continued after Patti moved from her mother's home. At fifteen, she began having sexual intercourse with David.
Patti's voice was husky as she relived her adolescence. "I loved living there. I got everything I wanted. I didn't have to worry where food was coming fro
m."
David had promised he would marry her one day. "At first, when he talked about getting married, I thought he was kidding. ... I loved him. He was everything to me. He was my life support system. ..."
"Patti," Robinson asked, "are you still in love with David?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled—you may answer."
"Yes."
It was impossible to doubt Patti Bailey, or to ignore the chilling similarity to Brenda Sands's memory of her early life with David. She too had depended on David Brown utterly. She too talked of the miracle of having enough to eat. She was the oldest of eleven children of a single mother, Patti was the youngest. David's money was very important to Patti. She had never had any.
But she loved him too. "I cared about him. He was warm and loving and sensitive when I needed somebody. ... I was confused about it [sex]." Because there had been molestation in her mother's house, and then with David, Patti said she believed "that was the way a house went."
Patti seemed old, and very weary. There was a bitter acceptance about her. She did not smile.
"How many houses did you live in with David?"
"Five or six."
"Where?"
"Two in Anaheim, Brea, Yorba Linda, Yucca Valley—I can't remember them all."
"Did your life with David progress?"
"There was more physical contact. I was around him more."
"How was your relationship with Linda?"
"It was good. She was like a mother to me. She was like my best friend. You could confide in her about anything."
It was obvious that Patti could not see the dichotomy here; she meant what she was saying. Robinson asked her how she felt, then, about having sexual relations with her sister's husband.
"Guilty. I knew it was Linda and David—it wasn't supposed to be me . . . and I wanted David."
Robinson asked how the lovemaking was managed when they all lived in the same house. ^
"Linda would go to the store, or we'd get up in the middle of the night."
And then, in 1983, David had begun his constant drumming about Linda's moods, about how she had changed. About how "scared" he was of his wife. Patti too thought Linda seemed distant, not the same "as she used to be."
"Were you looking for changes?"
"Yes ... I was looking for anything I could. . . ."
"How long before Linda's death did Cinnamon know of the 'plot to kill David'?"
"Three to six months."
Patti Bailey slipped her glasses on and instantly became a plain, stolid, blank woman who was not in the least pretty. The glasses were so scratched that she could barely see out of them.
"Did you ever actually hear Linda plot?"
"No."
Patti recalled David's continual warnings that the family would break up if something happened to him. "I wouldn't have a place to go. I never had a family. David was my family. He was everything to me. ... It was always, 'She's going to break up the family,' if we didn't do something first."
"Did you help?"
"Yes."
"Did you want her dead?"
". . . Yes . . ."
"Did you love your sister?"
"Yes—but I loved David more. He gave me love .. . material things . .. everything."
"Between the two—if you could only have one—who wins?"
"David."
Why had Cinnamon become involved? Patti explained that she herself couldn't kill Linda, and Cinnamon would probably only get a few months.
"Six months prior to Linda's death, were there active suggestions?"
"Yes, several. . . ."
"What were they?"
"Stabbing, suffocating, putting cyanide in her Coca-Cola. David would say what would be a 'good' or a 'bad' idea."
"Did you talk about paralyzing Linda?"
"That was my idea. Have David work on a car—up on the rack—and have Linda get under. ... He said it wouldn't stop her from wanting him dead. He asked me to be the one."
"Why you?"
"He couldn't take to see it. He couldn't stand to see it. He didn't want to see it."
Robinson's questions continued, each one leading to the next. David Brown sat slightly forward, watching his wife with steady eyes, his lips slightly parted. He looked like a lizard sitting on a rock, waiting for a bug to come into his line of sight. Patti never glanced at him. Without her glasses, she could not see him across the courtroom. With her glasses, she could barely see through the scratched lenses.
"Did you ever compete with Cinnamon to prove your love?"
"Yes—"
"Objection!"
"Sustained," McCartin said. "The answer is stricken."
Robinson rephrased the question and Patti was allowed to answer. "We'd try to outdo each other, to see who could come up with the best idea that David would approve of."
"Did you have to prove yourself?"
"Yes."
"Before Linda's actual death, were you awakened at night?"
"Yes. David woke me up about a month before that and said Linda had to be taken care of. We went down the hall to the bedroom. I took a pillow from the end of the bed. He gave me the gun. He told me to use the pillow to muffle the noise so the neighbors wouldn't hear it. I had no warning when I went to bed. He kept saying that I had to kill her before she killed him. It was after midnight—Linda was sleeping when I went in her room. I put the gun to her back and stood there for a few minutes. I couldn't do it."
"What did he say?"
"He wasn't mad—he said, 'It's okay.'"
One blazing truth became increasingly apparent as Patti Bailey testified. Although she had had no opportunity to talk with Cinnamon Brown alone in more than five years, her memory absolutely corroborated Cinnamon's.
After midnight on that cold March night, David had awakened both of them and told them it had to be done. He had given Cinnamon some "medicine. ... He left about five minutes later. He said. 'It doesn't have to be done, but if you girls love me, you'll do it.'"
"Did he ever say, 'Don't do it'?" Robinson asked.
"No____"
Just as Cinnamon had done, Patti began to choke up with tears as the questions focused in on the actual murder. Again, her recall was the same as Cinnamon's.
"Did you murder your sister?" Robinson asked quietly.
"In my mind, I did." Patti Bailey wiped her eyes.
Jeoff Robinson held out a picture of a smiling Linda Brown and asked if this was Patti's sister.
She was sobbing. "Yes . .."
Patti explained that she dealt with the murder for several years simply by putting it out of her mind. But the memory bubbled up to the surface. She had tried to kill herself three times.
"How?"
"... By slicing my wrists, taking sleeping pills—'cause I couldn't live with what I did."
"Did you lie?"
"Yes."
Patti talked of the moment David returned from his "drive" to the beach. He was gone for an hour and forty-five minutes. "I told him Cinnamon had shot Linda. I told him not to go back to her room, and he said, 'Oh, my God.' He seemed kind of surprised, but relieved to have it over with. He didn't cry. He was calm. He told me to check the trailer for Cinnamon.... I was scared and upset, and I didn't understand why he sent me to look in the trailer when I knew she was supposed to be in the doghouse."
Patti explained that David was very concerned that the police suspected him. He instructed her, if they were arrested too, that she was to take the blame and keep him out of it.
"He would have to go to jail. In the first thirty days, he was always afraid he was being followed, that someone was around.... He was afraid to go to Cinnamon's trial. He was afraid that Cinnamon would tell on both of us during the trial." ,
"Did you lie at Cinnamon's trial?"
"He told me to say that Cinnamon was crazy, and to give short answers. He said Linda and Cinnamon had reasons for not getting along, and to make up stories of arguments and say Cinnamon was de
pressed. I was told to make Cinnamon sound 'a little bad and half-crazy.' I was to report to David during the trial and get instructions."
David had apparently told Patti to imply that Cinnamon had tried to shoot her, too. Robinson questioned Patti vigorously about lying. She had lied at Cinnamon's trial. Was she lying now?
"No."
With Cinnamon safely in prison, David forbade Patti to see her family, checked on her with a beeper system, and moved his parents in. He had married her, finally, "because he said he was dying and Krystal needed a legal stepmother."
After Cinnamon summoned David to the Ventura School twice in the summer of 1988, David had panicked. "[At home] we talked about getting arrested. ... David said for me to take the blame. He'd get a lawyer for me, take care of Heather, and make sure I had everything I needed or wanted while I was in jail or prison. We were afraid. ... David thought the house was bugged."
In the squad car on the way to the Orange County Courthouse on the morning of their arrest, Patti testified that David pointed at the floor and mouthed that they were bugged. "He said untrue things. He asked me, 'Who is the father of the baby?' I told him that he was."
In the courthouse, Patti had waited for hours while David was being interviewed by Jay Newell and Fred McLean. "When I was interviewed, I tried to cover up again."
"At some point, did you hear the tape of David's interview that day?"
"Yes."
"Were you upset?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I couldn't believe the things he said about me."
Patti Bailey responded to questions about where she thought she was going after she pleaded guilty, and how long she thought her sentence would be.
"I thought I was going to the women's prison in Frontera, but I went to CYA instead."
It was apparent that Patti was still confused. She seemed to think she was serving life in prison, that she would be moved from Ventura to Frontera when she was twenty-five.
Robinson found himself between a rock and a hard place. His witness was nonverbal, terrified, and depressed. She was not forthcoming, but she answered honestly. Even more than Cinnamon, Patti was a difficult witness. She needed the questions to help her focus. When Robinson tried to explain, McCartin, seemingly furious because Robinson was asking leading questions, excused the jury.