Regina Brown was a 35-year-old African-American woman living in Newtown, Connecticut. She was a flight attendant for American Airlines and was married to a pilot, 52-year-old Willis Brown. Willis also owned The Moped Man, a moped rental business on Block Island, Rhode Island.
The couple had three children: Nicholas (4), Reina (3), and Ashley (2).
Regina and Willis had a complicated five year marriage. Willis was accused of domestic violence several times and was even arrested after strangling Regina during one of their fights.
A judge issued a restraining order against Willis; he was not allowed near Regina, their children, or the family’s home. He moved into an apartment in Queens, New York. On occasion, Regina allowed him to visit their children.
During the marriage, Willis had accused Regina of abusing drugs and being unfaithful. He even claimed their children were not biologically his. Six paternity tests were done, all proving he was the father.
On March 21, 1987, Regina put Nicholas and Reina on an airplane for Liberty, Texas, to live with her parents. Willis had threatened to kill her and their children.
On March 26, Regina drove Ashley and their live-in babysitter Sharon Ryan to the LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City. They were also going to Texas. Regina’s plan was to go home, get her belongings together, and join her children in the coming days.
On her way back home from the airport, she called her close friend Hope Lambert. Regina told her to be alarmed if her parents hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days. If she was not at her parents’ house by then, she said: “Willis will have done to me what he promised to do to me”.
In the early hours of March 27, one of Regina’s neighbors tried to call their house because their 9-month-old puppy, Sport, was barking nonstop. No one answered so they called the police, worried something was wrong. For an unknown reason, an officer was not sent to check on the situation.
Regina was a reliable flight attendant, however, she did not show up for flights on March 30 and April 3. American Airlines contacted her parents and they asked Regina’s best friend, Linda Van Horn, to pass by the house.
Linda opened Regina’s garage door and found Sport anxiously waiting for attention. Despite the floor being covered in feces, they were okay because someone had left a bowl of water and a big bag of dog food. Linda noticed that the dog food had been bought from a store Regina refused to shop at after an employee made a racist remark.
Regina’s belongings were all at the house, including her scarf, airline identification badge, and an uncashed check for $1,000 in her purse. Her make-up bag, which she always carried with her, was under the bathroom sink.
A week after Regina had last been seen leaving the airport, she was reported missing by Linda. Willis also filed a missing persons report on the same day.
Regina’s house was searched but no sign of a struggle or any sort of crime was found. It is believed she did not make it home after dropping off her daughter and babysitter at the airport.
Naturally, Willis was considered a person of interest. He said he had been in Newtown on March 26 for a dentist appointment and admitted to buying the dog food. Other than that, he claimed he couldn’t remember what he had done for the rest of the day.
He suggested the police should look for Regina’s car in Manhattan, New York City, in an area known for drugs. His suggestion ended up being correct, the car was found in front of a building in Manhattan on April 6. There were two child safety seats in the back, the keys were in the ignition, and there were parking tickets on the windshield. Unfortunately, the car did not provide any clues as to Regina’s whereabouts.
Interestingly, Willis began to tell people that Regina had been spotted in random places around the world. He told one of Regina’s neighbors that she was with “some guy” on an island in the Pacific.
A few months after Regina’s disappearance, Willis bought an old Cadillac and drove to Texas. He forcibly took his children from Regina’s brother and brought them back to Connecticut. Three weeks later, a judge ordered him to return the children to their mother’s family.
In September, Willis went to court as he wanted a divorce from Regina and their children’s custody. The judge concluded he had been abusive towards his wife, stating he had “reduced her existence to a living nightmare”. Authorities found no evidence of Regina ever using drugs or being unfaithful.
Willis was granted a divorce and Regina’s parents were given full custody of the children.
It did not go unnoticed at the time that Regina’s disappearance was very similar to the vanishing of another Newtown woman.
Helle Crafts, also a flight attendant, had been married to a pilot, Richard Crafts, and had three kids. She vanished in November of 1986 and just a couple of months before Regina went missing, Helle’s husband was convicted of her murder — the first murder conviction without a body in Connecticut. He was accused of trying to cover up his wife’s murder by dismembering her body with a chainsaw and putting the pieces through a woodchipper.
Regina had been following the Helle Crafts case, even keeping newspaper clippings in her kitchen drawer.
A few months into the investigation of Regina’s disappearance, Willis stopped cooperating and refused to take a polygraph test that he had previously agreed to. His reasoning, “it didn’t do Richard Crafts any good”. (Richard had passed a lie detector test despite being found guilty.)
In 1988, Willis’ stepmother, Margaret Brown, died by suicide in Albany, New York. About a year later, her son was going through her belongings when he found a hand-drawn map titled “Block Island”. Written on it was, “Regina o God”.
Authorities theorized it indicated where Regina was buried. A search with cadaver dogs was conducted on Block Island but nothing was found.
Around the time Regina went missing, Willis owned a private plane. He kept it in a small airport in Connecticut and often flew it to Block Island. Authorities were not able to find the aircraft until 2008 and are not sure if it was used when Regina vanished — before 9/11, it was not mandatory to keep consistent records.
A television station in Massachusetts aired a documentary about Regina’s disappearance in 1990. Willis sued them for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress because they had implied he was responsible for killing her. The claims were later dismissed. He is now in his 80s and has houses in Block Island and Texas.
Regina Brown has been missing for 32 years. None of her friends or family believe she would have left her kids voluntarily. She was declared legally dead in 1995.
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