Did Cameron Brown Toss His Daughter Off a Cliff?
September 18, 2009
Cameron Brown, 47, formerly an airline baggage handler at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), is on trial for allegedly tossing his 4-year-old girl, Lauren Sarene Key, off California's Inspiration Point near Rancho Palos Verdes in November 2000. Brown's murder trial three years ago ended in a mistrial when the jurors could not agree on the severity of the crime. At that time two of the jurors had voted in favor of convicting him of first-degree murder, two favored involuntary manslaughter, and eight had wanted to convict him of second-degree murder. This time around Brown has pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder, but with special circumstances attached to the charge—lying in wait and financial gain. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.
Brown, described as an avid outdoorsman, is purported to have told police and prosecutors three different versions of how Lauren had come to fall off the cliff, but has been consistent in his insistence that it had been the sandy-haired little girl that had led him on a 2-mile hike from a play area at Abalone Cove to Inspiration Point, according to the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum. In reality, Hum said, Brown had taken the lead in the hike to Inspiration Point—which had no fences or guard rails—and had been seen by witnesses walking four to five feet ahead of the girl at various points along the way. Hum also said that Brown claimed to have had trouble keeping up with the girl along the trail, and countered the claim by asking the jurors if it was reasonable to believe that an avid outdoorsman such as Brown would have trouble keeping up with the four-year-old girl.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we know in our hearts, every single one of us knows, that there is absolutely no way that things would have happened the way the defendant claims," Hum said in his closing arguments. "There is no way that Lauren would have led the defendant out there, and that's his story. No way—she was four."
Instead, Hum alleged that Cameron threw his daughter over the cliff because he did not want to pay $1,000 a month in child support, and was seeking a form of revenge against the girl's mother whom he despised her and never married. He was also against his wife's intention of seeking custody of the girl.
"Nasty, vindictive and spiteful," Hum said about the defendant. Hum repeatedly called Brown a liar.
Hum pointed out that there were no child's footprints found near the edge of the cliff, only prints made by an adult-sized foot. Hum recounted statements from people who had described the girl as always careful and cautious.
"She didn't fall off," Hum said in urging the jury to find Brown guilty of first-degree murder. "She was thrown….There is no way that the defendant's story is true….It brings us to one horrifying, inescapable conclusion—this man threw his 4-year-old daughter off a cliff to her death."
Hum also alleged that Brown had failed to act appropriately after his daughter's death, and that he had been detached and unemotional according to reports from investigators. He also reiterated testimony from prosecution witnesses who testified that due to the lack of scratches and abrasions on the girl's body that, when combined with trajectory tests and analysis of the head injury she had received, the only conclusion that could be reached was that she had ended up at the bottom of the cliff by having been thrown over it—by her father.
Brown's attorney, Pat Harris, criticized the prosecutor by alleging that Hum had spun the evidence to support his theory by omitting information that could be viewed as favorable to Brown's defense, and had dehumanized the defendant in front of the jury. He asked the jurors to think carefully about what Hum was asking them to do, and that is to find that Brown had committed an "incredible act" by throwing his own child off of a cliff. Harris said that it would be "absurd" to kill his daughter and not think to act hysterical or show any emotion afterward if he had truly been trying to cover up such a criminal act.
"It makes no sense," Harris said. "It's doing the bank robbery and not having a getaway car."
Harris also countered the prosecutor's claim that Brown wanted to get rid of his daughter because she was costing him too much money in child support by arguing that Brown was actually attempting to spend more time with the girl, and had been thinking about the future with her.
Harris also argued against the prosecution's contention that Lauren's injuries were consistent with having been thrown over the cliff, and showed photos of the girl's injuries to the jury that included a number of bruises on her body and a large red spot on her back that the medical examiner had said was from the blood pooling after death, or postmortem lividity.
"They just ignore those and they ignore the thing on the back," Harris said.
The jury is currently deliberating Brown's case.
Related Links:
Investigation Discovery: Forensics You Decide
Investigation Discovery: Interactives: Trace Evidence
Investigation Discovery: Quiz Central: Evidence Admissibility
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Brad Graverson, POOL
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pleasse tell me you did not do this
Posted by: Daniel Parks | September 25, 2009 at 02:49 PM