"I'm comfortable here," she explains. "Sometimes I get so caught up here, I forget there's out there. I worry about my safety from my dad. I worry about not learning how to drive. I worry I won't have a chance to catch up on the things I haven't got to do yet. Like I'll only have a while to catch up—before something awful happens. I wonder if I'll live longer in here than out there, because of my father. So many changes since I've been here; I'm nervous that'll be lost out there.
"I'll be different than the others. I grew up in jail. How will people see me? Will they treat me like a criminal? Will they trust me?
"I haven't let Ventura change me in any negative ways. I observed everything. I'm still very young at heart. I love to laugh and make people laugh. I'm mature, but I kept my innocence—meaning Ventura didn't harden me because I wouldn't let it So will people stereotype me and judge me? Or will I be given another chance totally? Will I seem like a threat to people because I shamefully killed Linda?"
David Brown continues to saddle his oldest daughter with fear and pain, even though he never writes to her. How lamentable that Cinnamon must walk with the specter of "something awful" cutting off her life.
Her dreams are modest. "I want a comfortable, normal job, and I want to someday marry and have children, I want a family and maybe a job as a travel agent or in social services or in education. I want to earn my A A [associate degree] and attend some courses on travel.
"I want a simple life; I want to focus on myself and bringing happiness to myself. [In Ventura,] I learned how to be assertive. I learned to appreciate others' values. I learned patience. I basically learned people skills. I learned how to adjust with many different personalities.
"I learned not to give up hope."
Last of all, Cinnamon Brown at twenty vows never to forget Linda. It might be better for her if she could let go just a little, but she cannot.
"It's important to me that people know I feel very ashamed of what I did to Linda. It's very painful knowing I took her life and she'll never have a chance again. I took the law into my own hands, and I think constantly of what I've done to Linda. I cry and pray for her often, because I loved her.
"That's what hurts more than anything. I loved her, and still believed my father's lies . . . and I killed her! None of it was true. Linda wasn't the person my father made her out to be. I think it's okay for me to love her and miss her. If there was one wish given to me, and it could be anything, I'd wish Linda her life back. Not because of the consequences but because I hate living with the pain of Linda being dead because of me. She trusted me and loved me, and I was selfish and took her life. I'll never forget those emotions at all. I'll never forget Linda. She'll always be there to remind me of what I've done.
"I never want the pain to go away. I deserve to live with the painful truth. . . .
"I've learned to appreciate all that we're given—good or bad. I picked the positive things and kept them and formed an understanding of the bad. I couldn't change them, so I learned to accept them and not forget them.
"It took a while for me to trust again. But it was well worth it. Not everyone is a bad seed.
"Unfortunately, my father was. . . ."
On January 15, 1991, Cinnamon Brown faced the California Youthful Offender Parole Board for the sixth time. She had already been incarcerated longer than the fìve-and-a-half-year average sentence served by convicted juvenile murderers in California. Even high-profile teenage killers whose crimes had been totally reprehensible had been released. But not Cinnamon. Her mother and grandmother and Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell had reason to be optimistic that she was, at last, close to freedom. Indeed, they were more hopeful than Cinnamon herself, who had long since grown used to disappointment.
Robinson and Newell asked for a chance to speak to the parole board before Cinnamon was ushered in. They explained that Cinnamon had declined to talk to the board alone since late 1988 at their express request, that it had been vital that she remain silent until her father was convicted. Robinson asserted that she had been given this directive after her father's defense attorneys got hold of a private psychological report that they used to attack her character.
Cinnamon Brown had been truly between a rock and a hard place; she had to place her faith in someone, and she had trusted Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson. She had ached to tell the whole story to the parole board but she'd kept quiet, even though she had known it would prolong her time in prison into late 1990 or early 1991, at the very least. Knowing the risk she was taking, Cinnamon had kept all the promises she's made.
The Orange County district attorneys had, in return, made her no promises. They could not. But Jeoff Robinson had told the David Brown jury that he believed Cinnamon should now be free. Many of the jurors felt the same way, and they had written letters to the parole board on her behalf.
For two agonizing hours, Cinnamon answered the board's questions, and listened to their characterizations of her. Victor Weishart, chairman of the parole board, was clearly not impressed with Cinnamon's prior refusal to open up to the board. He had encountered Cinnamon at parole hearings before and apparently did not find that she had grown in any way.
The three-member board issued a statement after the closed hearing. They had ruled that Cinnamon's "testimony against her father should not be considered in determining Cinnamon's parole readiness." By a two-to-one vote, the panel chose not to change the date she would be eligible for parole. Her current parole date was now set for March 1992. The dissenting board member, Fred Bautista, favored a CYA staff recommendation that one month be cut from her sentence, "time off for good behavior," which would allow her to be released in February 1992.
"[Cinnamon Brown] still needs to make much more progress in addressing the reasons why she became involved in this calculated crime," the board concluded. "[She] is manipulative and [her psychologist] describes her as customarily flippant in therapy." Comparing her to David Brown, the board stressed that being "manipulative" was "a trait employed to perfection by her father."
Cinnamon, who had endured prison for a half-dozen years while her father and Patti Bailey lived in luxury, and then while they fought conviction, was given little hope that she would get out before she was twenty-five years old. Although she had been brought into the killing plot years after her father and Patti began discussing it, Cinnamon had apparently come to be seen as the prime instigator in the board's mind. She had kept silent first to protect her father, and later to protect the State's case.
She was not angry; she was crushed. Jeoff Robinson said she had not really expected to get out, but the board's refusal to give her even thirty days of good time negated everything she had done to try to improve herself. "She did not expect to be paroled," Robinson told Christopher Pummer of the Los Angeles Times, "but it upset her to be labeled a manipulative, cold-blooded, murderess. . . . She has acknowledged her culpability, she has admitted pulling the trigger and she has expressed remorse. . . ."
Robinson and Jay Newell were convinced that Cinnamon had long ago broken free of her father's hold over her, although the board apparently did not agree with that view. "At this point in her life," Robinson commented, "I think she has broken free. She loves her father, but she is not under the influence of David Brown."
Both Robinson and Newell were stunned by the parole board's assessment of Cinnamon Brown. Newell said little, but his jaw tightened with the strain of not speaking. Robinson told Jeoff Collins of the Orange County Register, "As an observer and not an advocate, I don't believe that Cinnamon was treated completely fairly. .. . They were very harsh and very myopic, in my view."
The two Orange County DA's men had gone to CYA because they believed the board labored under false assumptions. "At least one member of the board thought she had done this for insurance money," Robinson said. "We wanted to explain that this wasn't the case. We offered no specific recommendations for shortening Cinnamon's sentence."
Newell's and Robinson's presence and information made no
difference at all. The girl who had gone into prison at fifteen, and who was now close to twenty-one, returned to her cell with little hope. Ironically, Patti Bailey will probably be released from prison before Cinnamon. If each is held until her twenty-fifth birthday—as the law allows—Patti will be eligible for release in 1993, while Cinnamon will not be twenty-five until 1995. The parole board, of course, has it within its power to schedule a parole hearing at any time.
In the meantime, Cinnamon continues to work and study inside prison. Although Patti's company brings back excruciatingly painful memories, Patti was moved first into Cinnamon's cottage, and then into the room right next door to her.
Cinnamon does not write to her father or hear from him.
Patti receives daily mail from David Brown.
There are never neat, clean endings to murder cases. There are certainly never happy endings, but there is, in the best of cases, a certain justice.
For Cinnamon Brown, justice has proved to be as hard to grasp as a bit of dandelion fluff in the wind. She holds on to her faith in God, and to the few friends who continue to support her.
Her story is far from over.
Epilogue
Cinnamon stayed in prison for all 1991. She finished her college work and obtained her Associate degree. She answered the deluge of mail she received after the first edition of this book was published. And she waited.
Back home the world went on. Cinnamon's mother, Brenda, divorced and remarried—and bore her third child. Jeoff Robinson went into private practice in 1992, joining his family's law firm. Jay Newell continued to direct the DA's teams in drug raids. Richard "Liberty" Steinhart opened his own drug rehab "ranch" on donated—if hardscrabble—land near Perris, California, taking on the most intransigent hardcore drug users—and often winning. He was thinner and gaunter, now, giving ground to AIDS. Jay and Betty Jo Newell helped him round up furniture for the ranch, and they showed up often with a pickup truck loaded with food.
For a long time, the only thing unchanged was the tiny Christmas tree the Newells had set up to celebrate Cinnamon's hoped-for release in 1990. And then in 1991. Her presents waited, unopened.
Another Christmas passed; Cinnamon remained in Ventura. She began to believe she would be there until her twenty-fifth birthday, in 1995.
On February 22, 1992, Cinnamon Brown again stood before a three-man parole board. This was the seventh time. Again she faced Victor Weishart, her nemesis of the past. He seemed no more impressed with her progress than before. Frowning, he suggested that she spend another six months—at least—behind bars. He wanted her to admit that she had shot Linda "for the insurance."
But Cinnamon had never known about the four insurance policies David held on Linda's life.
Resigned, Cinnamon waited to hear "parole denied" for the seventh time. But there was a new parole authority in the room, a man sent down from the state capitol in Sacramento. He had listened carefully to Cinnamon, and reviewed her progress at Ventura.
His vote was for Cinnamon. It took her a minute to realize that she was free! She had been locked up for six years and eleven months; she had been fourteen and now she was almost twenty-two.
And, at last, she was free.
Down in Orange County, Jay Newell's office phone rang. He knew this was the day, but he and Jeoff Robinson had deliberately stayed away—to be sure their presence at the parole hearing did not work against Cinnamon.
"I'm free! I'm free!" Her voice was full of joy and disbelief. "Jay, they let me go. Can you come and get me?"
"I'm on my way."
Cinnamon was going to live with a family in Orange County, someone to help her through the profound changes in her life. But first there was a celebration at the Newells'. When Jay, Betty Jo, and Cinnamon drove up, Jeoff Robinson was waiting. It was Christmas in February. Cinnamon opened all her presents—at last.
The world that Cinnamon remembered had changed so much in the seven years she was imprisoned. She had been a child, and now she was a woman. She lived with a foster family for the first six months after she was paroled. At first, she could not believe that she could walk outside—alone—without a pass. She acclimated to freedom rapidly, began working as a "temp'' secretary, and got a driver's license. She began to date.
Cinnamon was married in 1994, and works in the travel industry. On July 3, 1995, she was honorably discharged from parole. She has become a truly beautiful woman who wants only to live her life out of the spotlight. She has refused dozens of offers from the media for interviews.
Patti Bailey was released from prison a year after Cinnamon—when Patti turned twenty-five. She changed her name, married a law-abiding man, and after a short court battle regained custody of her daughter Heather. In 1994, Patti gave birth to twin boys. Somehow Patti, too, has been able to start over again. She would like to be reunited with Cinnamon, but Cinnamon is not yet ready.
Fred and Bernie McLean retired from their careers as detective and deputy medical examiner respectively. They plan to buy a spread of land far from Orange County. Jay Newell still works for the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He is now a Senior Attorney's Investigator in the Gang Unit.
Victor Weishart is no longer on the parole board.
"Liberty" Steinhart finally lost his battle with AIDS in June 1993. Although he had lost a shocking amount of weight and was in great pain, he never lost his firm belief in Jesus. His former biker buddies gave him a funeral procession many blocks long. He would have liked that.
David Brown remains in prison.
In the five years since Brown was convicted of murder, the ugly emotional scars he left behind have healed over. Only those individuals directly involved think much about what happened on Ocean Breeze Drive on March 19, 1985.
Afterword 2002
Of the twenty books I have written, I think I have had more questions from readers about the characters in If You Really Loved Me than any other. Although David Arnold Brown did, indeed, receive long-delayed justice, the original book, published in 1991, didn't have a truly happy ending: Cinnamon Brown and Patti Bailey were still locked behind bars for their participation in the death of Linda Bailey Brown, caught up in a plot that stemmed from the bizarre convolutions of David's brain. It seemed that Cinnamon, particularly, was going to be in prison for many more years.
Now, it is a decade later and almost all the news is better. Ten years can bring sea changes in most lives, and that is certainly true of the people who lived this story.
Twenty-three-year-old Linda Bailey Brown was killed as she slept in her own bedroom on March 19, 1985. It's shocking to realize that she would be almost forty as I write this.
David Brown will be forty-nine years old in November 2001. He remains in New Folsom Prison and continues to serve his sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. According to many people who write to me, David has carried on an active "pen-pal" romance with at least one woman on the outside, a woman who never knew him before he went to prison. "She is really in love with David Brown," a woman who wrote to me reported. Apparently, David has not lost his ability to write love poems and romantic letters.
Cinnamon, who spent most of her teenage years at the Ventura School of the California Youth Authority was finally released in 1992. She was a beautiful young woman who had never had the chance to go to a prom, a football game, a summer camp, or even to learn to drive. She had been in a virtual time capsule for seven years. It wasn't surprising that she was still overwhelmed by the changes in the outside world.
I have seen it demonstrated before—and since: the true kindness and compassion that detectives and prosecutors feel for the innocents who are influenced by the machinations of a sociopath. Jay Newell, his wife, Betty Jo, and their two daughters took Cinnamon under their wings and saw to it that she was safe until she was ready to deal with a world so different from the one she remembered. From the time Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson set out to find the real story of what happened that night in March seve
n years earlier, they tried to protect Cinnamon. The Newells bought Christmas presents for her in the hope she would be out in time to open them. When she finally did walk free, she had many years' worth of presents, still brightly wrapped, waiting for her.
Jeoff Robinson was there at the parties and barbecues the Newells planned to make up for all those good times Cinnamon had missed. They all helped her learn to drive and buy her first car. It's hard enough to begin college, but for Cinnamon the choices were intimidating. She had help all the way. It was almost as if she was starting her life over, and, really she was.
Cinnamon learned a great deal when she worked booking flights for airlines, her job while she was still at the Ventura School. She soon found a job with a travel agency in Orange County and was a valued employee.
Despite the dozens of letters and e-mails I've received over the years from young men who want to write to Cinnamon or meet her, she's not available. I would not have given out her address to strangers anyway. I remember when I got a phone call from a very excited Cinnamon. I realized I was probably her second or third choice to hear her good news, but Jay and Betty Jo were in Hawaii celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and she couldn't find Jeoff.
"I just have to tell someone!" Cinnamon said with so much joy in her voice. "We went to Nevada and got married!"
I knew that Jay had introduced Cinnamon to a young man he had known for a long time, and his instincts as Cupid were right on target. A few years later, Cinnamon gave birth to their son.
Today, Cinnamon has a very responsible job for a major corporation. After all the headlines about the case against her father and her appearance on the Oprah show in conjunction with this book, she was more than ready to be a very private citizen. Cinnamon's current last name and her employment must remain a secret. She isn't a teenager any longer; Cinnamon is thirty years old, a wife and a mother. She survived so many bad times before she got to the happiness she knows today.