After three hours, I was beginning to hear David Brown's explanations for the second time. Obviously, he believed that he had won me over with his arguments. He urged me to begin work at once as an investigator for him and suggested that I start with his parents. "They will tell you what kind of person I am... . I've never hurt anybody. I'm not violent. ... I divorce women. I don't kill them."
I had already spent twenty months investigating the death of Linda Brown, and the crimes for which David Brown was convicted. Nothing he said had convinced me of his innocence.
But I had wanted to give him a chance to speak. And so once again, I had looked into the chillingly blank eyes of a sociopath—the antisocial personality. Empty eyes, reflecting nothing, even as the brain that controlled them skittered frantically around for new excuses, new plans, new plots. I had hoped that David Brown might offer me some definitive key to unlock the reasons behind his conscienceless life. I was disappointed. Perhaps he didn't know himself why he was the way he was.
David Brown had thought he could manipulate me, as he had always tried to manipulate others. But I had been to school. And suddenly, I could not get away fast enough— out of the airless cubicle, down the blank hall and into the waiting room whose Barbie chairs were now filled with a whole different platoon of visitors.
Afterword
The hardest concept for most laymen to understand is that criminals such as David Brown are quite sane. When we encounter or read about individuals who commit heinous and ugly crimes, it is easier to write them off as "crazy." Deliberate cruelty is hard to accept so we tend to say, "You'd have to be crazy to do that."
No.
Sociopathy may be the most intriguing of all mental aberrations. To greater and lesser degrees, the vast majority of human beings empathize with each other. Even two-year-olds understand that other creatures feel pain and cry. "If it hurts me, then it must hurt you too." The sociopath (or antisocial personality or psychopath; the terms are interchangeable) understands the concept of empathy only intellectually. Indeed, he uses it to further his own aims. But he does not, apparently cannot, understand it emotionally. He cannot put himself in another human's shoes; the concept is utterly foreign to him. As Jeoff Robinson said in his closing arguments, David Brown "wants, wants, wants."
David Brown wanted sex and money and respect and things. He betrayed women, his brother, his parents, his children, all of his wives, to get what he wanted. After midnight on March 19, 1985, he drove away in the night, knowing that his sleeping wife would be dead when he returned. He let his daughter take the rap for it. He married Patti Bailey, impregnated her, and blithely offered her up as the next sacrifice. I have no doubt that, as Robinson suggested, David Brown would renounce Krystal to stay free.
He will offer up anyone to benefit himself. And as he does so, he will feel completely within his rights.
"I'm worth it."
Whether he truly believes he is "worth it," or whether he is only trying to pad an almost nonexistent sense of self-esteem, is an absorbing question.
In talking to psychiatrists and psychologists, David had given, I suspect, a "safe" version of his early life. He claimed sexual molestation by "an old man in the park." I have no doubt he was molested; the molester is far more likely to have been someone quite familiar to him. Child molestation is a cyclical crime, running through families like an incurable virus.
Still a child, David Brown viewed suicide attempts of a close relative. Still a child, he worked all alone through the night in a gas station. He speaks proudly of his accomplishment, but how lonely it must have been at four A.M. on a dark desert morning for an eleven-year-old.
David Brown had an aggressive mother and a meek father. He had no money for clothes or school supplies. A school picture of the young David—perhaps eight years old—looks like Beaver Cleaver. He needs braces, the buttons on his shirt don't match, his pocket is torn—but his eyes seem clear and trusting. It is well nigh impossible to connect this child of 1960 to the overweight manipulator of 1990.
And yet the seeds would have been there.
Even then.
David Brown, the poor teenager, the welfare recipient, sought sex and wealth to cover up his inadequacies, and he used sex and wealth to control others. He hit puberty obsessed with sex. Throughout his life, he vacillated between periods of inhibited sexual desire and intense sexual activity. He freely voices his preferred sexual activity— fellatio—to fellow prisoners, detectives, and the young women he attempts to seduce.
They are all young women—girls, really. Brenda Kurges
Brown Sands is unarguably the personification of David's ideal female. Or at least she was once. When she was fourteen or fifteen, poor, dependent, trusting, and adoring, he rescued her. When she became even slightly independent, the relationship began to erode.
Lori, his second wife, was sweet, kind, and trusting. But she was nineteen when David married her. Too old.
Linda, who was both his third and fifth wife, was perfect. So like Brenda when the teenage David chose her. But Linda too grew up. Like Brenda, she bore David's child, and he was no longer her only love.
Patti shared Linda's abysmal background. Like Brenda and Linda, she was running from an unhappy home when David "saved" her. From eleven to twenty-one, Patti remained David's perfect sex slave. But she too grew up and became a mother, and in doing so, she lost the only man she had ever loved.
With Patti, his wife, down the hall, Betsy Stubbs shared David's bed the week he was arrested. Betsy was a plain girl who used too much makeup and wore her skirts too short. She was a "little slow" and had no self-confidence at all. She engaged in oral sex with David, she told Jay Newell, because she thought no one else would want her.
All of them were David's kind of women. They allowed him to maintain absolute control. David was in charge. Cindy, his fourth wife, was the only aberration. She had two children when he married her, and she was older. That marriage, of course, lasted only six months.
Had David Brown not been arrested and convicted, this man who was married six times by the time he was thirty-three would surely have continued his search for "Brenda." The young Brenda. He might have grown old, but his women would have continued to be teenagers. In truth, I suspect David Brown detests women. He teased his mother sadistically, and he characterizes women by their body parts—never by their minds or souls.
Jeoff Robinson gave two primary motives for Linda
Bailey Brown's murder: lust and greed. Those are the concepts, the goals, that shaped David Brown's life.
He is the complete sociopath.
He is also narcissistic and a hypochondriac. The person who suffers from the narcissistic personality disorder feels a sense of entitlement; he believes that he deserves everything he wants—because he is special. The hypochondriac revels m the attention he gets for all his imaginary illnesses. David has convinced others he is dying of colon cancer for twenty years!
Even the most brilliant forensic psychiatrists do not know what factors cause sociopathy. Every sadistic sociopathic killer I have ever written about suffered abuse in early childhood—under the age of five. Abandonment, physical abuse, sexual abuse, humiliation, rejection. The developing conscience, which should have blossomed around two or three, was smothered aborning. These children fought to survive; they had neither time nor energy to grow a conscience. They learned, instead, to look out for number one, for if they did not, who would? Therapists cannot go back a dozen or more years later and insert a conscience; it is far too late.
But every child who is abused, abandoned, rejected, humiliated, under the age of five does not grow up to be antisocial. What makes the difference? After two decades of examining the sociopathic killer, I have come to believe that there are genetic, predisposing factors that come into play. The very intelligent, very sensitive child—abused—seems most likely to adjust, to survive at all costs. And the cost is the complete loss of ability to empathize and to feel regret and guilt.
A growing school among psychiatrists espouses the "bad seed" theory. Some experts believe that a certain percentage of infants are born evil, and that no amount of nurturing can overcome a bad seed's natural tendencies.
Others cite physiological causes. We share with animals the limbic system in the brain. The limbic system tells us what we want. Animals take what they want and have no control system. Human beings have the prefrontal lobe that gives us feelings and reasoning power. That, in essence, gives us brakes. One school of thought suggests that some infants are born with a breakdown in the pathways between the prefrontal lobe and the limbic system and lack the ability to control their desires. Like animals, they simply take what they want—congenitally crippled villains.
I reject the bad seed and the limbic breakdown theories— possibly because I don't want to believe that any child is born with his fate already sealed. Rather, I think genetic predisposition combines with the way a child is raised to shape what he will become. The search for a definitive answer to the cause of sociopathy continues.
Something over three percent of all males in America fall within the parameters of the antisocial personality. One percent of females fit that mold. They are, fortunately, not all murderers. These are the people all of us interact with at some point in our lives, usually to our regret. These are the people who cheat in business, who steal from us, who break our hearts and move on without looking back—and without remorse.
These are the politicians who ignore the rules, get caught, and appear on television to explain why the rules the rest of us live by were not meant for them. And if we do not believe them, they are genuinely shocked.
These are the "preachers" who solicit money in the name of God and spend it on themselves. Who break the commandments, while telling us not to. Caught, they cry real tears and beg for forgiveness. Forgiven, they do not change.
And then there are the David Browns. The antisocial personalities who easily cross over the boundary lines that separate cheaters, con artists, and predators of the lonely hearts from murderers.
The antisocial personality has no conscience. This is a concept as foreign to most of us—and as difficult to understand—as truly visualizing infinity. Our minds shut down. We cannot imagine what it must be like to distance ourselves totally from another creature's pain.
Those without the baggage of conscience can step into new rooms in their lives and close the door of the past tightly behind them so that no wisp of odor or sound penetrates. No guilt. No bad dreams. No looking back at all. For them, yesterday never really happened. For most of us, the future is the only unknown; we remember the past, and it often haunts us. The sociopath lets the past die behind a series of locked mental doors.
The sadistic sociopaths, the killers, seem to have, however, a curious sense of ritual for the dead. It does not matter that a sociopath has caused the death in question; he—or she—will go to great lengths to tie up loose ends neatly.
A lovely funeral service. A red rose in a coffin. A poem of remembrance. An engraved statue or headstone or plaque. The symbolic gesture seems to make it easier to close the doors.
Yes, I killed you—it was necessary—but I gave you a great funeral.
Yes, I killed you—but I engraved your name so no one will forget you.
Yes, I killed you—but I always carry your picture in my wallet.
After David's conviction, Jay Newell went to the cemetery where Linda Brown's ashes were interred, curious about what her niche plaque actually said. Linda was in a fountain, as David described. David had given her two niche plaques. The upper plaque read simply, "Linda Marie Brown," and beneath that, "1961-1985," the dates separated by a dove. The lower plaque bore the words David had forgotten:
"Your love, kindness, caring, and beauty will shine forever. Love, Krystal and David."
Because antisocial personalities are missing something as vital as true feelings of concern, they often substitute symbolism. They need touchstones to help bridge the gap between themselves and humans who can feel. They may identify with astrology or mysticism or unicorns or—as in David Brown's case—the phoenix.
The day after Linda was shot, David asked Officer Alan Day to bring him his cross, but I suspect it was his phoenix pendant that he clung to. The dove dies but the phoenix lives forever.
David Brown is the ultimate survivor, indeed a phoenix, always gathering shape and energy in the ashes of his failures. He accepts no blame and therefore cannot change. He truly can see no reason to change. All guilt detaches and slips away from him like ice in a warm rain. He has no bad dreams. He plans only for the future. Even now, if his captors are not vigilant, he will fly free, victorious once again.
On November 28, 1990, David was moved from the prison facility at Chino, California—where he was undergoing tests and evaluation—to New Folsom Prison in Sacramento. Now, and for the rest of his life, he will be known as prisoner E-70756. New Folsom has the most modern security devices in the California penal system. He has been segregated for his own protection.
Data Recovery is still in business. A Chicago office answers phone calls, and apparently David Brown still receives profits.
Patti Bailey remains a prisoner at the Ventura facility in Camarillo. She will probably be there until she is twenty-five years old. The daughter she bore David lives with Mary and Rick Bailey.
David has begun to write to Patti again, clever, beguiling letters—designed to draw her back to him. No one can predict what Patti's future holds. Her only model has been David; her ethics, her education, her sexual orientation, her morality. He caught her in a box with invisible walls for more than a decade. Whether she can ever truly escape him is questionable.
Richard Steinhart and his wife, Pat, have placed their faith in God. Richard now goes by the name of Liberty. He has undergone a near-miraculous remission from AIDS and works on a crisis line at Melody Lane Center in Anaheim fielding calls from those whose lives have been blighted by drugs. He also speaks frequently to high school and youth groups in his campaign to save them from the mistakes he once made. He gives them Bibles, which he pays for himself or with donations. Liberty is a dynamic speaker, full of bluster and humor—and love.
Eighteen months after "Goldie" Steinhart plotted with David Brown to get rid of Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell, Newell's wife—Betty Jo—went with me to meet Liberty. When we asked for Richard Steinhart at Melody Lane, we got blank looks. They knew only "Liberty."
After talking with Liberty for an hour or so, Betty Jo felt comfortable enough to ask, "You weren't really going to shoot my husband, were you?"
"The way I was then?" he answered. "Yes . .. right in the back of the head."
It was a searing moment. In the telephone room of a drug clinic, Jay Newell's wife and I joined hands with Liberty and said a prayer of thanks for a tragedy that didn't happen.
Liberty has no illusions about David Brown. "He'll always be dangerous—he'll always be able to get somebody to do what he wants if he has money—or if he can convince some con he has money."
Jeoff Robinson has several more felony trials behind him now, but he will remember the David Brown case as the most memorable of many memorable murder cases. Someday—but not quite yet—Robinson may accept his father and brother's invitation to join their law firm. He loves his family devotedly, but he eats, sleeps, and breathes the prosecution of felons.
With Jay Newell, Robinson joined the Brown jury for a reunion after David Brown's sentencing. They chose Bennigan's—the restaurant whose parking lot was the site of the payoffs made by Tom Brown, the payoffs that David Brown believed would result in Robinson's and Newell's executions.
Jay Newell still heads the Narcotics Enforcement Team for the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He and his wife contribute to the Orange County chapter of Child Help U.S.A., an organization open to ail kids in trouble—no questions asked.
Fred McLean is training for a hundred-mile marathon. He and his wife, Bernie, have a grandson no
w, but that hasn't slowed Fred—or Bernie—down. After the trial, it was Fred McLean who noticed Patti Bailey's scratched glasses, took her prescription, and bought her a pair that she could see out of.
Cinnamon Brown is still in prison as this is written. She has been moved to "M.C.," an adult cottage, and shares her room with another girl. She sleeps in the top bunk. "I appreciated having my own room over the years—but I can manage having a roommate."
"Wards" are offered a chance to learn dog grooming and that tempted Cinnamon, but she chose to continue to work for TWA on the reservations lines instead. She is one of their five top-rated employees at Ventura.
She has earned twenty-four hours in college credits and maintains a 3.33 GPA (B+). She is currently studying cultural anthropology, American democracy, and art appreciation. She is very busy working, going to college, and with therapy groups.
Still, Cinnamon is always aware that she is locked up. Although she has "free movement" to the TWA offices (inside the CYA campus), it is easy to receive a behavior report. There are so many rules to remember.
Cinnamon has both dreams and fears for her future. She has many regrets about the past. She thinks she is, in many ways, more mature at twenty than she would be had she never been locked up. She gained a great deal of self-respect when she told the truth in 1988, and she shows concern for the younger wards at Ventura School.
"My friend came to me in confidence once and explained that our counselor was molesting her. I told her to tell someone in authority, and she said we would have no way to prove what was going on. So I gave her my tape recorder and told her to record it. So she taped it to her body and got it recorded. I got this idea from Jay recording my father and me. I knew the counselor would have no idea it was there and continue on. It worked. I'm proud that I was able to help her out of that awful situation.