[soft music]
- You know, back in the '80s,
Garden Grove was mostly well-established families,
middle-income families.
It was a very calm and wonderful place to live.
- I was born in Garden Grove in Orange County.
It's a pretty wonderful city.
Good people live there.
Very decent, honest, and hardworking.
- With its palm tree-lined streets
and tight-knit neighborhoods, Garden Grove has long been
quintessential American suburbia.
[static crackles]
But beneath its manicured façade,
dark secrets are lurking.
[dramatic music]
- He told the cops
she just flipped out and shot her stepmom.
[gunshot]
- But I told myself,
there's more to this than meets the eye.
- She defied the prototype of a person that would kill.
- When my mom was killed,
nothing was the same after that.
- I'm thinking, maybe she had been
brainwashed and manipulated.
- I started throwing out these photographs
of them being taped.
- An innocent person would not say,
"We're all gonna go to jail if you tell the truth."
- Maybe she wasn't the one that actually pulled that trigger.
[gunshot]
[intense music]
* *
[dramatic music]
* *
- My name is Jay Newell.
In 1985, I was an investigator
for the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Around 3:00, 3:30 in the morning
on March 19, 1985, Garden Grove Police got a call.
A man said, "I think my wife Linda has been shot."
Garden Grove Police immediately dispatched
a patrol officer.
The man answering the door was panicked
and said he was David Brown.
And there was a young woman there holding an infant.
- My name is Dave Lopez.
I worked for KCBS
as the Orange County correspondent.
David Brown told the cops his daughter,
14-year-old Cinnamon, somehow got ahold of a gun
and shot her stepmother while she was asleep in bed
and then took off.
- My name is Jeoff Robinson, and in 1985,
I was an Orange County deputy district attorney.
Cinnamon was nowhere to be found inside the house.
David was scared.
- At that point, we sent a team out to search for her
anywhere within that neighborhood.
And immediately, officers went back to that bedroom.
In the bed, a woman is laying face up
with two wounds in her upper torso
and a large amount of blood.
But there were still signs of life,
so they got the paramedics
and transport her to the hospital.
[sirens wailing]
- Shootings in this quiet corner
of Orange County are rare,
so the piercing sound of an ambulance siren
cuts through the evening stillness like a knife.
While EMTs race to save Linda's life,
detectives survey the room where she was shot.
- There was a .38-caliber
Smith & Wesson revolver on the floor.
[camera shutter clicks]
And they dusted the revolver for fingerprints.
Didn't find any blood spatter outside of the bed.
And there was no evidence of a struggle
or any movement on her part.
At that point, the CSI team bagged the gun
and took blood samples from the bed
and processed any other evidence
all over the bedroom where Linda was shot.
- While the CSI unit continues to process the scene,
investigators talk to David
and the young woman with the baby.
- The young woman identified herself as Patti Bailey,
Linda's younger sister.
And the baby, Krystal, was Linda's infant child.
Patti was very, very upset.
She was crying hysterically,
but she was able to tell the officer
she lived in the house.
She was a 17-year-old young woman,
and she said she came to live with David and Linda
when she was 11 years old.
- Patti tells investigators that David was out,
and that she, Linda, Cinnamon, and Krystal
were home by themselves when the shooting occurred.
- Patti remembered that she had been asleep.
Then all of a sudden, she saw Cinnamon in her room,
and a shot rang out inside Patti's bedroom.
[gunshot]
And she panicked and got under the covers
and heard two more shots that she thought
came from Linda's bedroom.
And then Patti saw Cinnamon running out the back door.
Patti looked in Linda's room and realized
her sister was shot, and shortly after,
David arrived home and called 911.
- Investigators then turn to David
to find out his version of the evening's events.
- David seemed forthcoming, and he explained
that the revolver belonged to him,
and he always kept it loaded in the dresser
next to him at night.
David tells the investigators that he wasn't at the scene
when his wife was shot, that he wanted
to clear his head earlier that evening
and go to the beach.
On the way, he bought some comic books
at a convenience store.
When David returned to the house,
he was met at the door by Patti Bailey
telling David that she thought
that Linda had been shot in her bed.
When Patti told him Linda's been shot,
he was so upset that he, you know,
couldn't go in and see her.
He said he had several medical problems,
and he thought he might faint.
David appeared to be frail and not a well man.
- When investigators asked David and Patti
what led Cinnamon to shoot her stepmom,
they paint the picture of a typical teen rebellion.
- Patti described a situation
where there was a strained relationship
between Linda and Cinnamon.
- Cinnamon was the only child from David's first marriage.
She had moved to David's house a few months earlier,
and she felt that Linda was being too controlling.
But David was shocked that she shot her
because David thought she was
just a normal 14-year-old kid.
- Hearing that Cinnamon also took a shot at Patti,
investigators direct the CSI unit to expand their search,
starting with Patti's room.
[camera shutter clicks]
- Over Patti's bed was a bullet hole,
where they found a .38-caliber bullet
that matched the weapon found in the room
where Linda was shot.
We were thinking, was Patti also going to be a victim?
Crime scene investigators check every room in the house.
[camera shutter clicking]
Inside the laundry room, one of the officers found
some medicine bottles on top of the washer,
almost completely empty.
Not a place that you would store medicine.
- My name is Larry Welborn, and in the 1980s,
I covered the Linda Brown case
for the "Orange County Register."
Detectives find three vials
prescribed to David Arnold Brown.
One is an anxiety pill, one is a pain pill,
and one is an antidiuretic, a combination of which
can be devastating, lethal perhaps.
- As the CSI techs search the rest of the house,
investigators get word from the hospital
that Linda Bailey has died from her injuries.
The news comes down hard on David and Patti.
- David was obviously upset
and was smoking cigarettes one after another.
Patti was extremely upset and crying.
- At 23, Linda's life had been snuffed out
before it even began, and her daughter would be left
without a mother.
- My name is Krystal Hinton and Linda Brown is my mother,
and my dad is David Brown.
I was eight months old when my mom was killed.
Based on what my family told me,
she grew up in a fairly big family
outside Orange County.
They were a poor family with just a single mom.
My mom was going to high school
when she met my dad,
and they eventually fell for each other.
And him being older, he had the means
to take care of her in ways that her mother couldn't.
When he married my mother, they moved into a new house
in Garden Grove.
My dad really made a name for himself
when he figured out a way to help people recover data.
- David Brown was an intelligent guy.
He was in the computer business,
which at the time was, you know, just growing.
- They were really close and worked
side by side as partners.
I mean, to my dad, she was a wonderful woman,
whenever he brought her up.
When my mom was killed,
nothing was the same after that.
It couldn't be the same.
- As David and Patti grieve the loss of Linda,
investigators have an urgent task at hand.
- I don't have all the story.
The only way we're gonna get answers is to find Cinnamon.
* *
- There was vomit all over her,
and there were pills on the ground.
- Wanted to understand was, why would a normal
14-year-old kid do something like this?
- If you wrote this in a script and gave it
to a Hollywood producer, nobody'd believe it.
- Then, in that moment, I realized she could die.
[dramatic music]
* *
[waves crashing]
- Hours after 23-year-old Linda Brown was shot to death,
police at the scene are on the hunt
for their sole murder suspect,
Linda's 14-year-old stepdaughter, Cinnamon Brown.
- Patti saw Cinnamon running away.
But Cinnamon had not been found,
and they were expending every effort
to find out where she was.
Since Cinnamon was the only child
from David's first marriage to a woman named Brenda,
they called Brenda to see if she had heard from Cinnamon.
The officers also did a very thorough search
around the house and in the back of the house
and around the neighborhood.
We didn't know where she was.
- While police continue to search
for the missing teen, detectives try to learn
everything they can about Cinnamon
to begin making sense
of the evening's tragic events.
- David and Brenda were divorced.
When Cinnamon was 12, she went back and forth
between her mother Brenda's house
and David's house.
Cinnamon's relationship with her dad
was very, very close.
David said that from the time she was born,
Cinnamon was daddy's girl.
- According to David, he and Cinnamon spent
a lot of time together even after he remarried
in 1979.
- Early in 1985,
Cinnamon moved to David's house
in Garden Grove because she wanted
to live with her dad.
- Living in the house were David and Linda
and Linda's younger sister Patti.
- The city itself of Garden Grove
was a very calm area in the Orange County.
And they all felt very comfortable there
and protected in that house with David.
- But according to David, the good times didn't last.
- David told the cops
that Linda and Cinnamon were always at each other,
you know, arguing and yelling.
- By March 1985, the relationship with Linda
was so strained that Cinnamon was made to move
outside into a trailer
before she ultimately shot her stepmother.
- By the time investigators finish talking to David,
it's been three hours since Linda's slaying.
And with no sign of Cinnamon, one of the detectives
takes one last look around the backyard.
- The detective wanted
to double-check everything outside,
and as he's walking through the backyard,
he sees a dog kennel.
So he shined a light inside the opening.
He saw a young girl was curled up inside.
- She was very disheveled.
And there was vomit all over her,
and there were pills on the ground.
- And that girl was Cinnamon Brown.
- Alarmed by her condition, the detective instructs
a nearby officer to call 911.
- They needed to have the paramedics check her out
to see if she was all right.
She had obviously thrown up
what appeared to be capsules of pills
and was lethargic from the medication
that she had taken in the laundry room.
As she came out, he noticed that she had
a rolled-up piece of paper,
and it said, "Dear God, please forgive me.
I didn't mean to hurt her."
Immediately, he saw the note and thought,
"Well, this little girl is confessing
"to doing something terrible.
She's potentially confessing to shooting her stepmother."
* *
So after she was checked out by the paramedics
to make sure she was all right,
we determined that she was coherent enough
to give me the exact details about the murder that night.
- As Cinnamon becomes more alert,
she is given the all clear by paramedics.
Detectives carefully monitor Cinnamon
as they escort her to the station.
Once there, Cinnamon appears clearheaded
and begins to quietly unravel the events of the day before.
- Cinnamon was a very nice young girl.
So the detective was kind of shocked
when Cinnamon just as a matter of fact says,
"Yes, I shot my stepmother Linda."
[gunshot]
She admitted shooting her twice.
Cinnamon said Linda and her were
not getting along,
that Linda was being too controlling.
Cinnamon thought the only solution was to shoot Linda.
Then she felt remorse, so she--
so she wrote the note and she took
the pills in the laundry room.
- Before investigators can probe any deeper
to get a more detailed account of what happened,
the interview takes a dark and potentially dire turn.
- Cinnamon then started slurring her words,
and the detective could see she was obviously not
in her right state of mind.
I was thinking that she had thrown up
a great deal of those drugs that she had taken,
but there was enough in her system
that she was appearing to be lethargic.
So they immediately got the paramedics
and ambulance there to transport her
to the hospital.
In that moment, I realized she could die.
[dramatic music]
* *
[waves crashing]
- The morning after Linda Brown's murder,
detectives learn that their prime suspect,
Linda's 14-year-old stepdaughter Cinnamon,
has slipped into a coma, and they fear she could die
before they get to the bottom of what happened that night.
- The doctor said Cinnamon had ingested
over 200 pill capsules
out of remorse after shooting Linda,
and she had to be treated for those drugs immediately.
As an investigator, wanted to understand was,
why would a normal 14-year-old kid
do something like this?
- Unable to speak to Cinnamon herself,
investigators interview her mother Brenda,
and they're surprised by what she tells them.
- She had been very upset
and said how sweet Cinnamon was,
that Cinnamon had a pretty good relationship with Linda.
She said Cinnamon wouldn't do something like this.
- After hearing Brenda's strong claims,
detectives begin to question whether or not there are
other scenarios to consider.
- From the very beginning, David not going in to see
if his wife is still alive,
that just sat in the back of my mind and never left.
Why would somebody do that?
So Garden Grove investigators checked David's alibi
by going to the convenience store
and confirming with the employee
that David, in fact, was there and not in the house
when Linda was killed.
- David's alibi checks out.
And when they get the autopsy and the forensics report
from the crime scene, the results seem to match
some of the details in Cinnamon's confession.
[camera shutter clicking]
- She admitted shooting Linda twice.
Linda's autopsy showed that she died of acute hemorrhage
after two gunshot wounds.
And the coroner found two .38-caliber bullets
in Linda's chest that matched the weapon found in the room,
that Cinnamon said she used to shoot Linda.
We found latent prints on the revolver,
and none of them were clear enough
for comparison to Cinnamon.
But there was no question
that Cinnamon had written the suicide note,
because it matched her handwriting.
Any other writings in the house by David or Patti
weren't even close.
And she admitted that she had taken pills out of remorse,
tried to commit suicide.
All of this was strong evidence that Cinnamon was
the sole perpetrator of this crime.
- Three days after the murder,
Cinnamon awakens from her coma.
Detectives and the family are relieved,
but their respite is short-lived.
- At that point, Cinnamon was arrested for this murder.
And I think it was very straightforward.
The authorities had a dead body,
they had a motive,
and they had a confession.
- As the Brown family grapples with Cinnamon's arrest,
they finally lay their loved one to rest.
- After Cinnamon was arrested,
they just did the memorial for my mom.
My dad was really sad, 'cause he loved her that much.
She loved living in Orange County.
And my mom's memorial site is a really beautiful spot
that my dad picked overlooking the ocean.
And it's the closest I'll ever be to her,
besides the things that I have of hers that she left behind.
[somber music]
[tense music]
- August of '85, Cinnamon was tried in juvenile court.
- The main witnesses were the police department
to set up the scene and the physical evidence.
Patti Bailey testified about hearing the shots,
seeing what she thought was Cinnamon
coming into her room, the problems
that Cinnamon was having with Linda.
- But there's one person who's strangely absent
during the trial.
- In Cinnamon's trial, David was never around.
I thought, it's just so bizarre.
But then finally his attorney brought in a note
from a doctor saying his health was too bad.
He couldn't attend the trial.
And then within two weeks, on August the 12th, 1985,
there was a sentencing hearing.
I noticed that David was there,
sitting directly behind Cinnamon's mother,
who was at the trial from the beginning.
- Investigators are surprised to see him
after his absence at the trial.
But even more surprising is his behavior in the courtroom.
- David's demeanor was bizarre.
He didn't really focus on Cinnamon.
He focused more on his ex-wife in front of him
and acting like a teenager--
a teenager tormenting a girl, pulling at her hair,
things that were just inappropriate
for what was going on in front of him.
- David's antics appear even more glaring
when the judge announces Cinnamon's sentence.
- Cinnamon was sentenced to 27 years to life that day.
But David appeared to have no feeling at all
for what was happening.
His behavior was so inappropriate.
And as I'm watching David and the way he was acting,
I literally told myself,
"There's more to this than meets the eye."
[dramatic music]
* *
- Five months after the murder of Linda Brown,
her 14-year-old stepdaughter Cinnamon is sentenced
to 27 years to life in prison.
But inside the courthouse that day,
investigator Jay Newell notices her father,
David Brown, acting like a rowdy teenager,
and it sets off
the investigator's sixth sense.
[static crackling]
- David appeared to have no feeling at all
for his daughter or his dead wife.
And his behavior was so inappropriate,
even though nothing at all pointed to David,
I thought maybe he was in fact involved in the murder.
- As far as the Orange County DA's office was concerned,
the case was over.
But Jay decided to keep periodic observation
of David Brown in his business and his personal life.
- I could see David's lifestyle changed considerably
after Linda's death.
Before the murder, it was very comfortable.
But after the murder, his lifestyle increased
quite a bit.
- David Brown is buying new cars with cash.
- Several months after the sentencing hearing,
I checked the county recorder and I noticed that David moved
from the rental house to a property
in a very exclusive neighborhood in Anaheim Hills.
And he paid over 300,000 in cash.
- That kind of money, in those days, was big money.
So Jay knew something was fishy.
- So I went up to the house up in Anaheim Hills
and noticed it was a very lavish, beautiful home.
And I see Patti and him come out on the porch,
and I saw him kiss her before he left.
And I was shocked.
- Finding Patti and David playing house
in David's posh new home
just months after Linda's murder
strikes Detective Newell as suspicious.
Was their secret relationship a motive for murder?
And how is Cinnamon involved?
- After that, I discovered that David had obtained
five different life insurance policies
on Linda shortly before she was killed.
They added up to well over $800,000.
* *
And then, through public records,
I discovered
that David and Patti had actually been married
in September of 1986,
18 months after Linda's death.
- He was living off of the fat of the land
while his daughter was languishing away
in youth prison.
And to me, it's all beginning to make perfect sense.
- David was in his early 30s, and I was thinking
maybe he was attracted to the younger women
that needed his help and put him on a pedestal.
He had known Linda since she was 17.
But now Linda was in her 20s.
She was maturing, and she really doesn't
need him to have a good life.
I think David could see that,
and maybe David just gets rid of Linda
to collect the insurance policy
and start his relationship with Patti, who was 17.
- But if David was involved,
why did Cinnamon take the fall?
- I suspected that Cinnamon was not acting alone
when she did what she did.
And we knew we would need to get Cinnamon
to, you know, tell the truth about what happened that night.
But, personally, I felt till she turned 18,
I didn't even want to talk to her
because I could see a lot of repercussions
from an attorney saying, "Oh," you know,
"why are you doing this to a juvenile?"
- Then, in 1988, more than three years
since Linda's murder, Cinnamon Brown turns 18
and investigator Newell discovers something unnerving.
- All of a sudden in 1988, in following David around,
I found out that Patti had became pregnant.
- We were thinking for Cinnamon
to learn that he's having a baby
with Linda's younger sister,
that might be the coup de grace.
Because over the days and the months,
he's not coming around as much.
- I wanted Cinnamon to know that her dad was living
the big life without her.
He's living with Patti.
You are being forgotten.
- And when Cinnamon learns about the pregnancy,
it changes everything.
- In July 1988, I received a call at my office.
It was Cinnamon.
And she said she was now ready to tell
really what happened with Linda's death that night.
I was silently elated.
So Jeoff and I drove up to the facility in Ventura.
- When I first met Cinnamon, she defied the prototype
of a problematic, angry person that would kill.
- And on this day, Cinnamon finally reveals
that there's more to the story.
- David told Cinnamon and Patti,
Linda is gonna take over David's business.
"We think she wants to kill me.
So we need to do something to protect me."
- And even when Cinnamon suggested,
"Why don't you just divorce her?"
David said, "That won't work
because Linda is tied to the Mob."
- It's a jaw-dropping confession
and the answer investigators have long been searching for
as to why a seemingly normal 14-year-old girl
would be willing to kill her stepmother
and why Patti would go along
with a plot to kill her own sister.
- David was the center of Patti's universe,
just like Cinnamon's.
So if Linda was gonna kill David,
they would lose their whole life,
and they accepted what David said.
They were talking about ways of getting rid of Linda
for months and months.
Finally, we narrowed it down to the night of the murder.
David was gonna leave, and then Cinnamon said
he poured out a bunch of pills in her hand.
He said, "Take these pills so you can say
"you didn't know what you were doing.
You were all messed up."
And she took the pills as he instructed.
The next thing she knows,
she's, you know, in the doghouse.
She really didn't have any details
about how the murder took place
or, you know, who pulled the trigger.
[camera shutter clicks]
In that moment, it crossed through my mind,
from what she was telling me,
maybe Patti could have been the one
that actually pulled that trigger.
[dramatic music]
* *
- Four years after confessing to shooting and killing
her stepmother, Linda Brown,
18-year-old Cinnamon Brown admits to investigators
that her father masterminded the murder.
According to Cinnamon, David manipulated her
and Linda's sister Patti
into going along with his plan.
- But now Cinnamon said that she doesn't remember
exactly, you know, who it was that shot Linda.
So it crossed my mind
that maybe Patti actually pulled the trigger.
But we knew we needed to get some more details
from David and Patti about the murder of Linda.
- On August 27, 1988,
Cinnamon invited her father and Patti
to come up to her prison.
David showed up, but Patti didn't.
- Cinnamon was wired,
and Jeoff Robinson and I were listening
and taping in a adjacent room.
- But we watched her with her dad,
and things were not going as we would have hoped.
She was asking her dad, "Well, Dad,
why did we have to kill Linda?"
And David kept claiming he didn't know
what she was talking about.
- And he said, "Oh, Cinnamon, you were all loaded with drugs.
You hated Linda."
And he said that it was all her idea to do it
and it was all done by her herself.
And I could see she was upset with David.
Cinnamon was telling David,
"Hey, I am not going to get out of here
"until I address this crime.
I want to be considered for parole."
- Cinnamon said to David,
"Why can't I just tell the truth?"
To which David ultimately answered,
"Because all of us could wind up in jail."
An innocent person would not say,
"We're all gonna go to jail if you tell the truth."
- In that moment, I basically told myself,
"OK, we got you now."
That admission is enough to charge him
with the conspiracy of the murder.
By September 22, 1988, we had the arrest warrants
for David and Patti.
We brought them both to the DA's office.
David was the first one that I interviewed.
Several hours after David went through his spiel
of denying any involvement, saying everything was wonderful
with Linda,
I reach down in my notebook, and I go, "Well, David,
Cinnamon has a different story."
And I started throwing out these photographs
of them being taped.
- David, of course, did not take blame himself
but tried to point the blame
at Cinnamon, at Patti,
and even some mythical mob people.
I don't believe David Brown had empathy, true empathy,
for anyone outside himself.
- But after four grueling hours,
David finally breaks down.
- Eventually, David admitted that he was in fact involved.
And David goes,
"Patti is the one that pulled the trigger.
"You know, it had to be Patti
'cause Cinny wouldn't do something like that."
These statements by David corroborated Cinnamon's story.
- But when we tried to interview Patti,
she was much more streetwise and tougher than David.
- Patti would evade every question.
Even after showing a portion of the tape
that David said that Patti was really the one
that shot Linda, she completely went cold.
"I'm not talking."
At that point, David and Patti were charged
with the murder of Linda.
- But to make a strong case against them,
prosecutors need a key piece of information.
- I still didn't have the actual shooter
and exactly how that happened.
Without the exact details,
our case could have fallen apart.
Any good defense attorney could come up
with their own scenario.
So I sat Cinnamon down, and I told Cinnamon,
"I need to know the exact truth
of what happened that night."
She slumped in her chair and said, "OK.
"I'm the one that pulled the trigger.
I'm ready to tell you exactly how I did that."
She took me through the night.
Around midnight, David and Patti told Cinnamon,
"We've got to shoot her tonight.
Do you want to save my life?"
And Cinnamon says, "Daddy, I'll save your life."
And at that point, David showed Cinnamon
how to put a pillow in front of the gun
to shoot Linda
so no one would hear the sound.
David had her practice notes over several weeks.
So he said, "OK, here's the note you wrote,
"and after you do it,
"you go out in the doghouse and hide.
But first, here. Take these pills."
David left.
Cinnamon went into Linda's bedroom
and fired one shot into Linda's chest.
The gun hammer stuck in the pillow.
Cinnamon ran back into Patti's room.
By then, Patti had picked up Krystal and the gun
and inadvertently pulled the trigger.
The next round went right past Krystal
into a tapestry over Patti's bed.
So Cinnamon took the gun and went back in,
shot Linda one more time,
and just dropped the gun and got into the doghouse.
* *
Once Cinnamon told the absolute truth,
step by step, all the pieces fell into place.
Jeoff and I, we were hoping that we would
get a conviction on this case.
[dramatic music]
* *
- By the fall of 1989, Deputy DA Robinson
and investigator Newell receive a trial date
in the second Linda Brown murder trial for summer 1990.
And as the trial approaches,
the case rapidly becomes a huge story.
- If you wrote this in a script
and gave it to a Hollywood producer,
nobody'd believe it, you know?
- I think this is why it elevates it
to one of the most notorious cases
in Orange County history.
Here's this guy.
He's frumpy, he's sweating,
his hair is a mess, he's pockmarked.
And yet, he convinced not only his daughter
to commit a murder,
but he also convinces his wife's sister.
- It was our belief that Cinnamon and Patti had been
brainwashed and manipulated by David,
and they were used to kind of going along
with whatever he told them.
- We had to show that David is not only
at the center of this crime.
It was his thought and his organization.
When Cinnamon goes in and pulls that trigger,
it's like he's actually pulling the trigger himself.
[gunshot]
We had very strong evidence against David.
Cinnamon's testimony was very credible.
She did not hold back with anything.
- It was a very dramatic moment.
And I just kept saying to myself,
how you could take this sweet little innocent girl
and mold her and do what he did?
- And after Cinnamon's dramatic testimony,
Patti can see the writing on the wall
and decides to finally turn her back on David.
- Patti was being tried as adult initially.
But after Cinnamon's testimony,
Patti agreed to plead guilty to murder as a juvenile,
because she was 17 the night of the murder.
And she was sentenced to 25 years to life,
but she could be released when she was 25 years old.
And she decided to testify against David as well.
We had the five insurance policies on Linda's life,
then David on tape finally admitting
that he was part of this conspiracy to kill Linda.
- By June 15, 1990, the jury returns a verdict
in the trial of David Brown.
Every eye and ear in Orange County
tunes in to see how his saga will end.
- The jury found him guilty of first degree murder.
* *
- Jeoff and I go, "Good. We did our job right.
The jury came to the right conclusion."
- And then on September 17, 1990,
David Brown was sentenced to life without parole.
[somber music]
- For David and Linda's daughter Krystal,
the case will impact her forever.
* *
- Since growing up, I was told
that my mom died in a car accident.
I thought my dad was just put in jail for something
I couldn't understand,
and nobody ever told me what he actually did.
I was 15 or 16, living with my grandmother,
when I found out the truth.
I read it in a book about my mom's murder.
* *
I realized it was my dad that killed my mother...
And more or less manipulated Patti and Cinnamon
and forced them to do it with him.
So I came to forgive Patti and Cinnamon.
But even all these years later,
I don't know if I could
forgive my dad for what he did.
He died in prison several years ago.
I have his ashes.
I took care of everything when he died.
And even when I found out he died,
I couldn't cry because I didn't feel
any sympathy for someone that could
do something so horrible.
The only one I hold accountable is my dad.