If You Really Loved Me (63 page)

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

C
innamon 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

O
f 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 seven 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.

Patti Bailey has hit rougher patches than Cinnamon. I have not heard anything about her for some time.

Jeoff Robinson gave up his bachelor status several years ago and is happily married and a father. He resigned from the Orange County District Attorney's Office and joined his brother's law firm in 1993. Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson of Newport and San Diego, California, is one of the top product liability and automotive safety firms in America. Jeoff, who had a 98 percent conviction rate for the felonies he tried in Orange County—including thirty-five murder cases— is just as successful as a civil attorney. He specializes in major personal injury cases, product liability and representing victims of crime.

When he retired from Orange County a few years ago, Jay Newell was honored for thirty years distinguished service in law enforcement. He and Jeoff Robinson worked together so well that Jay now works as an investigator for Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson.

Fred McLean is also retired—from the Garden Grove Police Department. But he is not retired from running and he continues to start his days with a long run in the southwest community he has moved to since leaving Santa Ana. Sadly, he and Bernie are divorced.

Richard "Liberty" Steinhart enjoyed doing publicity and signing books with me and the team of detectives and prosecutors he was once "hired to kill." It was always interesting to spend time with Liberty in his typical biker clothes, his tattoos, and his long black pony tails. We went to fancy restaurants and to the green rooms of television shows and he was a happy man. When elevators opened and well-dressed matrons caught a glimpse of Liberty, they never failed to step back and make excuses about why they weren't ready to get on. He took their timidity with good grace, Had they only known that he was one of the gentlest men they might ever encounter . . .

Although Liberty was ill with full-blown AIDS, his belief in God never faltered in the last years of his life.

The disease robbed Liberty of his muscular build and his booming voice, but he never lost his faith and he knew where he was going. Liberty would have been pleased, and I think he would be pleased to know how many readers still ask about him.

When I went to the house on Ocean Breeze Drive to take photographs for the book, I found a very pleasant street marred only a little by the burned-out home across from the house where David, Linda, Patti and Cinnamon once lived.

What was oddly disturbing were the prints that I received from the photo lab the next day. The home where Linda died was then occupied by an Asian family, all with jet black hair. But in my photographs, there was a blonde woman looking out the front window. Even that could probably be explained. But I realized that the Venetian blinds that kept the sun from blazing into the front room were only about three inches from the glass. The woman looking out the window was standing
between
the blinds and the window, and that wasn't possible.

I was so puzzled that I went back to the house and tried standing in a dozen different positions in front of the house to see if there was some glare from passing cars or shadows from trees or bushes that created the same illusion I had in my photos. But there was nothing.

That photograph is in the photo section of this book, and the "shadow" still stands there, seeming to wear a dark jumper and a white long-sleeved blouse as she crosses her arms in front of her, and appears to be gazing down the street. Patti and David always said the house was haunted after Linda's murder and they moved out as soon as they could. I almost believe them.

All of the major players in
If You Really Loved Me
are leading vastly different lives than they did in 1990.

I may be the only one attending that long trial of 1990 who is still doing the same thing—still writing true-crime books.

—ANN RULE
January 2002