Cinnamon Brown, the Girl in the Doghouse

On March 18, 1958, around 2 AM, Patti jolted awake to a gunshot in her room. Next to her was her niece, Cinnamon, with a gun in her hand. She fled the room before Patti could react. Somewhere in the house, the second shot was fired and quickly followed by the third.

Patti was confused and scared. But, she was able to pick up her courage to pick up her little niece, Krystal, from her crib and ran back into the safety of her own room and barricaded it by putting her back against the door. When her sister’s husband, David Brown, returned home, she blurted out everything to him.

He checked all of the rooms, except for the master room. He was too scared to do it, even though he knew the possibility of his wife behind that door. He even called his father before calling the emergency service.

A grown-up man not daring to check on his wife who quite likely was hurt or worse?

Regardless, Officer Halligan, who responded to the call, went in alone to check. Indeed, 23-year-old Linda was lying in a pool of blood. It was as if she was alive, gurgling her blood. But, when he checked for a pulse, there weren’t any signs of life.

When he spoke to David, David was in shock and tears. He seemed to trust his sister-in-law’s word and was pretty convinced that Cinnamon killed his wife. It helped the case since Cinnamon was missing.

Cinnamon Brown is David’s daughter from his previous marriage. He painted her as a troubled kid that refused to go for counseling. The relationship between Cinnamon and her stepmother, Linda, was strained to the point Linda ‘kicked’ Cinnamon out to live in a nearby trailer. But, Cinnamon was free to return for her daily meals and to watch television.

Earlier that day, she showed Patti a gun, claiming she only got it for emergencies. Patti was concerned, but guns weren’t unfamiliar items to the family as they would occasionally head out to the desert to fire a few rounds.

When officers checked the family’s backyard, they noticed a horrid stench coming from the doghouse. There lied Cinnamon for hours in her own vomit and urine, clutching a pink cardboard in her right hand,

“Dear God, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

When Cinnamon regained consciousness, one of her first questions was,

“Is my dad alright?”

During questioning, Cinnamon was still groggy and nauseous from the overdose she had. Still, she seemed taken aback when she was informed that she would be taken into custody even though she openly admitted to being the shooter. As for the motive, it was wrapped up as an act of self-defense where Linda hated her presence, and she was going to kill her if Cinnamon didn’t disappear from the house.

Close friends of Cinnamon were shocked and believed that Cinnamon would never pull the trigger on someone unless she was left with no choice. Cinnamon had no priors, no drugs, nor alcoholic background.

Cinnamon’s friends, however, were wary of David, as they recalled the time when David attempted to tempt the kids to drink with him. They refused, fearing that they would be taken advantage of if they ended up drunk.

Even though David got Cinnamon an attorney and tried to use the insanity plea, she was found sane and guilty. She was sentenced to 27 years to life term in California Youth Authority (CYA).

It was a tragic case involving such a young girl, but nonetheless, she confessed to her crime. It was supposed to be a closed case. But, investigator Jay Newell was doubtful about this young girl with great behavior in jail committing such a crime.

What struck him as suspicious was the husband and father, David Brown. For one, he collected a large lump sum of money worth $835,000 from Linda’s life insurance and lived in luxury with his new wife, Linda’s younger sister, Patti.

That marriage choice itself was frowned upon, but the number of teen wives he married was even more concerning. Patti was his 5th wife.

The Revelation

In 1988, investigators approached Cinnamon, who was no longer a minor, and investigators did not need to inform her guardian about their visit. Investigators revealed David’s luxurious life financed by his late wife’s death with his new wife, Patti, while Cinnamon was trapped alone in CYA with David visiting her less and less.

Finally, after three years, she decided to reveal the truth.

Two years before Linda’s death, David began his murderous plot by convincing Patti and Cinnamon that Linda and her brother were planning to kill him to take over his successful business. When Cinnamon brought up divorce, David convinced her that it would end up as a complicated case with fights on the alimony.

David pushed Cinnamon to be the one to kill Linda as she was younger than Patti, which meant the consequences would be less severe.

David would have done it himself, but he was too weak to do it as he had a history of suspicious ailments that he gotten and recovered over the years. He manipulated her,

“If you loved me, you would do this for me.”

This twisted manipulation gets worse. David assured Cinnamon that she would not be jailed; instead, she was likely only to get mandatory therapy.

But, it was clear that David wanted Cinnamon, a loose end, gone after the murder. In the beginning, David instructed Cinnamon to shoot herself. Not to kill, but just a knick or a graze, but reports stated it is extremely difficult for an amateur shooter to just aim at oneself and have a shot so precise that it only grazed her/his head.

When Cinnamon refused to shoot herself, David then gave her a lethal dosage of pills. If her body did not reject it and made her vomit it out, she would have surely overdosed, and her death would have been masked as a ‘suicide.’

Cinnamon assisted authorities by allowing them to tape-record her conversation with David that implicated him as the mastermind of the murder plot. When he was charged, he immediately pushed the blame to Patti.

Patti then decided to tell her side of the story. She revealed that she moved into Brown’s family as she was molested back at home. She and Linda came from a poor family, and Patti was jealous of Linda’s outward stability that she had gotten from David. David was financially stable, and he was caring towards both of them.

She was not even 11 years old when David touched her, and by 15, they were having regular sex. She believed that it was normal, something to be expected in a typical household. David made her feel special and well-taken care of with the promise that he would marry her.

Like Cinnamon, she was also manipulated into giving what David wanted. Or, he, the guardian angel in Patti’s eyes, would disappear.

For Patti’s betrayal, David had the audacity of getting an inmate to hire a hitman not only on Patti but also, Cinnamon, the prosecutor, and the chief investigator.

With the tip from the inmate, investigators were able to set up and tape-recorded David hiring a hitman who, in truth, was a undercover police. When he was informed that the prosecutor and chief investigator were shot, David replied, “Alright.” Within the hour, the inmate received $11,000.

As Patti was just 17 years old during Linda’s murder and Patti’s decision to testify against David, she was sentenced to a reformatory. David Brown was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in prison due to natural causes in 2014. Cinnamon Brown was finally released from CYA after serving 7 years.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. S. Robinson said,

“the real story is the courage of this kid [Cinnamon Brown] who was abandoned by her family; a 14-year-old-kid who was completely brainwashed for a number of years by her father; who herself has been the victim of terrible crimes and has now paid her debt to society, maybe even more of a debt than she should have. Yet her battle will be a very, very tough one, because her case is of such a high profile, a girl who has been earmarked as killer for the rest of her life.”

*Source notes are available here.

Thank you for reading! This story was originally published on Medium by the author, Emmalina.