Joseph and Lorraine had met sometime after he rejoined the secular community. They fell in love, married, and adopted two children. Jannie was seven years old in June of 1981; her brother, Max,* was six months younger. The Reillys lived in a pleasant white frame house in the Magnolia Bluff section of Seattle. They had a dog and plenty of neighbor children for Jannie and Max to play with. The children's bedroom was in the basement, close to Lorraine's sewing room, conveniently near the door that opened into the big backyard. The Reillys slept upstairs.
Joseph Reilly was educated by the Jesuits, the scholars of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and he made a solid, comfortable living working for a furnace company. Lorraine was involved in the community, devoted to her adopted children and her extended family in Oregon. She had a warm and forgiving heart, but she was, perhaps, naive. She believed in giving people endless second chances and she felt that love and ac ceptance could cure most of the ills of the mind and spirit.
Despite the serenity of the Reilly home, something unspeakable happened there during the night of June 18. One of their neighbors awakened sometime that night. She would be the first person outside the Reilly home to sense that something horrible had happened.
Just before the summer solstice in Seattle, it stays light until 10:00 P.M. and the sun rises again a little after 4:00 A.M. The Reillys' neighbor was unsure of the time she woke, but she was positive it was full dark when she heard voices outside. She pulled back the curtain next to her bed and saw two figures walking on the street, but she thought little of it; the neighborhood was close to Discovery Park, a sprawling greensward that ended abruptly at a dizzyingly high bluff overlooking Puget Sound. There were people in the park at all hours of the day and night.
The Reillys' restless neighbor finally fell back to sleep, but something woke her again near dawn. She looked at her bedside clock, noting that it was 4:00 A.M. She heard a car door slam shut, or perhaps it was a house door. Peering out at the street again, she saw Lorraine Reilly's brother, who was visiting from Oregon. Lorraine had told her that her brother, Arnold, was twenty-four, but somehow he seemed much younger. Now he was standing anxiously at the curb, apparently waiting for someone. As she watched, she heard the wail of a siren and saw a fire department aid unit pull up next door. It was followed almost immediately by a Medic One rig. The neighbor's first thought was "heart attack." The Reillys were barely middle-aged, but such things did sometimes happen.
She could not have imagined what had occurred inside the protective walls of the house next door. Even the paramedics, who are used to tragedy, were shocked when they saw their patient. A small girl lay on the living room couch, her body covered with a blanket. Her face was suffused with a deep cherry-red flush, something they knew was characteristic in cases of suffocation or carbon monoxide poisoning.
Jannie Reilly was unresponsive to stimuli, and the paramedics could detect no heartbeat or pulse. Still, they tried to resuscitate her. They lifted her to the carpet and cut away the red, white, and blue shirt she was wearing over a pair of red panties. They attached leads from their Life-Pak to her chest to monitor any sign of heart activity and then began CPR.
Nothing.
They started a peripheral I.V. and slid an endotracheal tube down her throat to force oxygen into her lungs.
Nothing.
With permission from a supervising M.D. at Harborview Hospital, they attempted to start her heart with an injection directly into the heart itself. It was too late. In truth, they had known it was too late going in, but it was so hard to believe that a child so young was beyond help, even when they saw that her pupils were fixed and dilated. And she had not been dead long; her flesh was still warm.
While her agonized parents and her uncle stood by, the paramedics stopped their efforts and marked the time of death at 4:14 A.M.
Seattle Police Patrol Officers Ty Kane, Jon Mattox, Garry McLenaghen, and J. G. Burchfield had been dispatched moments after the call for help came from the Reilly home. Now the paramedics beckoned them over and pointed out the angry scarlet crease on the child's neck. It was an obvious ligature mark. Jannie Reilly had not died of natural causes.
Unlike the Ramsey investigation in Boulder, Colorado, this crime scene was immediately sealed to all but the police. The patrol officers cordoned off the home and yard with yellow crime-scene tape and sent for a homicide team.
While a police radio operator was alerting the on-call sergeant, Don Cameron, the officers inspected the exterior doors and windows of the home. There was no sign of forced entry, and Joseph Reilly assured them that the doors and windows had been locked when the family went to bed the night before. He had double-checked them himself.
Understandably, the Reillys were nearly overwhelmed with shock and grief, and their priest hurried over to give what comfort he could to the family who were now confined to the kitchen while the police began their investigation. Lorraine Reilly's brother, Arnold Brown, crouched on his heels next to the refrigerator, his large brown eyes fixed on the opposite wall. Antsy and tense, he made several trips to the bathroom to wash his hands.
Nobody was acting normal— but it was a far from normal situation. Only Jannie's little brother, Max, slept on, unaware that his world had changed forever.
It was 4:36 A.M. when Don Cameron called his crew— Danny Melton and John Nordlund— at home. Then he left for the crime scene. The three detectives arrived at the Reilly home shortly after 5:00 A.M. and tried to make some sense of what had happened. The house was warm and homey, but the Reillys were obviously not at all wealthy. Why would someone choose their home to invade?
Cameron asked the Reillys what they remembered of the previous night. Had they heard or seen anything out of the ordinary? Shaking his head as if waking from a nightmare, Joseph Reilly said that everything had been completely routine the night before— until Arnold woke him in the wee hours of the morning. "He said he had walked past Jannie's room and she wasn't there," Reilly recalled. "We immediately began to search for her."
He and Arnold had hurried to the backyard, accompanied by the family dog. "Our dog immediately went to the right with his tail wagging, and then he went to the corner of the fence," Reilly said. "I looked over the fence, and that's when I saw Jannie over on the other side of the fence, lying on the ground."
Reilly said he scaled the fence and ran to his daughter, who was lying on her side in a fetal position. He lifted her and carried her in his arms, while Arnold wrenched a section of the fence out with his bare hands so that Reilly could bring Jannie through. She felt warm and soft, like herself, and he thought she had only been walking in her sleep. But he couldn't figure out how she had gotten over the fence.
He tried to fight down the panic that kept bubbling up. Jannie's body was very still, and she wasn't making a sound. The horrified father called out to his wife as he ran toward the house, shouting for her to call 911. They laid Jannie on the couch and covered her with a blanket while Arnold ran out to watch for the paramedics.
Arnold Brown explained to the trio of detectives that he was not a regular member of the Reilly household; he had arrived only three days earlier and was visiting from Eugene, Oregon, where he lived with his parents and his other sisters. "I'm only going to stay and visit about ten days," he said.
Arnold said that he'd spent the previous evening at the Reillys' house, except for a short stroll from 10:30 to 11:00, when he took their dog for a walk. After that, he stayed up late watching television while the Reillys went to bed.
"How was it that you noticed Jannie was missing?" Don Cameron asked.
"Well, I watched TV upstairs until about two-thirty and then I went down to my room to watch on my set there," he answered. "I got thirsty and started upstairs to get a glass of water, and I noticed that Jannie wasn't in her bed, but Max was there. That's when I went and woke up my sister and brother-in-law and we started to look for her. I helped Joseph over the fence, and then went to where I thought there was a gate, but there wasn't any, so
I just pulled the fence apart."
Dr. John Eisele, assistant King County medical examiner, arrived to examine the victim's body at 7:15 A.M. He agreed with the investigators that the reddish purple mark on her neck indicated that some kind of ligature had been tightened around her throat with terrific force.
There was very little in the way of physical evidence. Eisele found a few single hairs inside the victim's red panties. They appeared to be pubic hairs and they were much darker than her blond hair. John Nordlund bagged these into evidence.
The detectives took hair samples from members of the household. Arnold Brown was asked to supply samples from his head and pubic area and he did so without argument.
They noted what appeared to be blood spatters on the wall of Brown's room, which was located directly across the hall from the children's bedroom on the ground floor. Both rooms were close to the back door that led out to the yard. The detectives photographed the spatters before they carefully lifted blood samples from the wall with swabs moistened with a sterile water solution.
Something about Arnold Brown niggled at them; they sensed that he was experiencing something more than grief. He was nervous, but that was to be expected. He looked young for twenty-four. He still had that gawky, unfinished look that teenagers have. He was medium-tall, medium-built, brown-haired. He had just lost his niece, a child he said he was very fond of, but his reactions were slightly off, and his demeanor was flat. Still, people deal with grief and shock differently. Maybe they were looking at Arnold so closely because he was the one new element in the household's composition; he had been visiting for only three days.
When they questioned him more closely, Arnold Brown grudgingly revealed that he was in Washington State on a travel permit from the Oregon State Department of Corrections. "I'm on probation," he said quietly.
"For what?" Nordlund asked.
Arnold said he had a conviction for first-degree burglary because he'd been found inside a roller rink after it was closed.
Nordlund knew that it took more than that to be convicted of first-degree burglary, but he said nothing. "Anything else?" Nordlund asked.
Arnold admitted that he also had a juvenile record because of an assault, but he declined to be more specific. Nordlund didn't press him— they would check on his record later.
Arnold's hands were scratched and they had curious red pressure marks on them, creases that were not quite bruises.
"Where did you get those?" Danny Melton asked.
He stared at his hands and said finally, "I must have gotten those from the blackberry bushes."
John Nordlund took pictures of Arnold's hands; they would be part of a growing photographic record of the scene where Jannie Reilly had lived and died. Among the photos were shots of the house, the yard, and the body of the victim.
Asked what clothes he wore the evening before, Arnold said he had on his Movin' On jeans when he walked the dog, but had changed into the cutoffs he wore now. He readily agreed to turn over his cutoffs and jeans to the detectives so they could be tested in the crime lab. He couldn't find his jeans in his room, but then he finally dug down into his backpack and pulled them from the bottom. "If they have blood on them, it would be Jannie's from her getting hurt at the playground today," he said.
They knew that Jannie Reilly's body had no cuts or abrasions on it— nothing beyond the mark on her neck. Arnold was protesting too much.
The homicide detectives had yet to find the weapon of death— some cord or rope that might have caused the deep groove in Jannie's neck. They searched the backyard in the gray light of early morning, scanning it for anything that looked out of place. Eventually, they found a wire cord near the fence. They thought it might match the cruel indentation on the small victim's neck. But Dr. Eisele looked at it and shook his head. No match.
It seemed more and more unlikely that someone could have crept into the Reillys' house during the night. The windows were either locked or had screens firmly in place, with enough dust and spiderwebs to show they hadn't been removed and then replaced. The doors were locked with dead bolts. The killer almost certainly had known where Jannie and Max slept. In most homes, the children's bedrooms are upstairs rather than in the basement, so someone had to know the layout of the Reillys' home.
The early suspicions of Don Cameron's crew only grew stronger as they worked the crime scene. It was too coincidental that Arnold Brown just happened to go upstairs for a glass of water during the night and discover that Jannie was missing. In the dark of the children's room, how could he have seen that? Further, if a stranger had entered the home during the night, why hadn't the Reillys' dog barked?
The focus of the investigation kept swinging back to Arnold Brown. His manner was oddly wooden as they questioned him. Even when he was asked to accompany detectives to the homicide offices for more questioning, he displayed little emotion. And he went along willingly.
Sergeant Cameron and Detective John Nordlund talked with Arnold Brown in one of the interview rooms at headquarters. They asked him to remember everything he could about the night before. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., he agreed to give them a statement. He recalled that his sister had gone out to a meeting the evening before. The children were eating supper with a neighbor's family, and Joseph left a little before 8:00 P.M. to pick up Lorraine.
"He told me to have the kids get into their pajamas when they got home from the neighbors' and get them to bed," Brown related. "The kids came home about fifteen minutes after Joseph left and they got ready for bed."
Arnold said he watched some musical on pay television with his brother-in-law until about 10:00 P.M., then he walked the family dog. "I like dogs," he said, his eyes fixed on the wall of the interview room. "I have my own dog, Queenie, in Eugene, and I miss her."
He repeated that he watched television alone upstairs until about 2:30 A.M. and then he went downstairs and noticed that Jannie was missing when he walked by her room. He stressed that he had hurried to tell his brother-in-law so they could look for her.
Asked bluntly if he had anything to do with the death of his niece, Brown said he didn't want to talk anymore. "I had nothing to do with Jannie's death," he finally said. "This is a true statement."
While Cameron and Nordlund talked with Arnold Brown, Detective John Boatman placed a call to Lane County, Oregon, to see what background information on the suspect he might find. He learned that Arnold Brown was very familiar to Oregon authorities, and they gave Boatman a chilling criminal history of the meek-looking man in the interview room.
* * *
Arnold Brown was the slow child in a family of high achievers. Tested at age sixteen, he was found to have the mental capabilities of a fifth grader. His IQ was about 77. Normal IQ is 90 to 110; and 77 would place Brown in the "dull-normal" range.
Arnold had a great deal of trouble learning to read, and he was easily frustrated. Early on, he had problems with anger, and he reacted with violence when he felt frustrated. He could not keep up with his high school classes and dropped out of school so he could apply for admission to the Job Corps program. On June 6, 1973, he learned that he would not be admitted to the current Job Corps' class; he would have to wait until there was space. He had looked forward to learning a trade, something where he could use his hands. Always easily frustrated, he could not cope with the delay.
Arnold Brown had been very angry on that summer day years earlier. Convinced that the odds were against him and that he would never get to do what he wanted, he headed toward the bank of the Willamette River. He carried with him a hunting knife with a ten-inch blade.
In Seattle, John Boatman scribbled notes rapidly as a Lane County, Oregon, detective went on with Arnold's criminal history. Thirteen-year-old Maria Coleman and her eight-year-old brother Jimmy were also at the river's edge that long-ago day. They were looking for crawfish and tadpoles and they scarcely glanced up when Arnold approached. They did nothing at all to provoke him, but in a sudden spate of horror, Arnold stabbed bot
h Maria and Jimmy in the chest. He plunged his hunting knife into their helpless bodies again and again. Miraculously, the youngsters survived, but the Oregon investigator described the knife as being "bent like a corkscrew" afterward.
Arnold Brown was arrested, and a juvenile hearing was held. Detectives James Wolcott and Martin Deforest testified that Arnold admitted stabbing the Brown children "because I wondered what it would feel like to knife someone."
A psychiatrist testified that Brown told him he only remembered walking near the Willamette River and passing two young children. He explained that he had a blank space in his memory until he recalled running from the area. He could not remember stabbing anyone. The psychiatrist hadn't believed him; he diagnosed Arnold Brown as having an antisocial personality. "He feels no guilt at all, no responsibility."
As they always had, Arnold's family defended him vehemently, claiming that the detectives had misled him by promising him that he could still join the Job Corps even if he was found guilty of stabbing the two children. The Oregon investigators were adamant that they had made no such promises.