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If You Really Loved Me:
David Brown (1991)

Ann Rule

If You Really Loved Me is a true story of David Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, who confessed to killing her twenty-three-year-old stepmother. The California courts sentenced her to twenty-four years to life. Did her sociopathic father brainwash her into committing murder...if she really loved him?

David Brown was a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. His fifth wife, Linda, was a 23 year-old girl from a poor background. When she married David Brown, she had hoped she would be rescued from her poverty-stricken life. Linda and David have a child of their own, Krystal. Cinnamon, David's 14 year-old daughter from his first marriage, was living with them. In 1985, they were living with Linda's younger sister, Patti Bailey who was the step-aunt to Cinnamon. Cinnamon and Patti were nearly the same age and they even attended the same high school.

One night in March 1985, Linda Brown was brutally murdered. During the investigation that followed David Brown pointed the finger at his own daughter, Cinnamon. David claimed that he had run out to the store for something the night Linda was killed and that when he came home, he found that Cinnamon had shot and killed his young wife. Why would she shoot and kill her stepmother who wasn't much older than herself?

When the police went to pickup Cinnamon, she was hiding out in the dog house. She had swallowed several bottle of aspirin and other drugs and was questioned by the police in near drug overdose state. David Brown and Patti Bailey tried very hard to pin the crime on Cinnamon. However, in time, it would become obvious that David Brown's role was far more sinister and less innocent than he tried to portray. Life in the Brown household had become quite bizarre with sexual abuse, greed, lust, and unbelievable mind games. David Brown was behind all of it.

Cinnamon Brown was sent to Ventura School, a juvenile prison. The prosecuting attorney found the testimonials of Cinnamon vague and could not understand the motive behind the murder. She had confessed to the murder before the magistrate, but this never convinced the judges.

Veteran investigators, Fred McLean and Jay Newell for years threw up their hands in frustration at not being able to solve this case. From the start, something was missing with the facts where David Brown was concerned. It just seemed to convenient that he had left the home for a few minutes at the time of the murder. The two investigators wanted some basic questions answered. Who actually pulled the trigger of the gun that killed Linda Brown, and who had wanted her dead and why? Cinnamon didn't seem to have any particular animosity towards her step-mother since Linda had agreed to allow the teenager to live with her and David.

The investigators found the answers to their questions. The seemingly bland David Brown was a stone-cold killer who convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him. David Brown wanted his wife dead so he could collect $800,000 in insurance money.

In 1990, after months of hearings, the truth finally came out and David Brown and Patti Bailey were indicted and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.  David is currently serving a life sentence at the New Folsom Prison in California. Patti has reportedly served her sentence and is out of prison.

Cinnamon Brown was released from prison on her 25th birthday.

Ann Rule's Full Length Bestsellers
with Case Background
 

• Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal(2007) - Tells the story of a Georgia dentist named Bart Corbin, and how two women, a beautiful dentistry student named Dolly Hearn, and Bart's wife, Jennifer Barber Corbin, found themselves fatally involved with Corbin over the course of two decades.

• Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer-America's Deadliest Serial Murderer (2004) - This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen -- a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.

• Heart Full of Lies: A True Story of Desire and Death (2003) - An idyllic Hawaiian wedding held the promise of a wonderful future for handsome, athletic Chris Northon, an airline pilot, a confirmed bachelor-turned-devoted family man; and Liysa, an acclaimed surf photographer, loving mother, and aspiring Hollywood screenwriter. But few, including Chris, had seen Liysa's other side -- her controlling behavior and dark moods, her insatiable hunger for money and property. And no one anticipated the fatal outcome of a family camping trip in an Oregon forest. Liysa soon revealed herself as a victim of domestic abuse that culminated at the campsite, where she shot Chris in self-defense. But crime scene evidence led detectives to wonder if Liysa was a killer, not a victim.

• Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder (2001) - Although happily settled securely in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer -- and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge. Shelia had said, "If anything ever happens to me... find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story."

• And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer (1999) - On a June evening in 1996, 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, secretary to the governor of Delaware, vanished without a trace following a restaurant rendezvous with her secret lover of more than two years: Thomas Capano. One of Wilmington's most prominent and respected figures, a millionaire attorney and former state prosecutor, "Tommy" was a charming, soft spoken family man. But in the weeks and months that followed Fahey's disappearance, investigators would gradually uncover the shocking truth: Capano was a steely manipulator driven by power and greed -- and capable of brutal murder.

• Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, A Mother's Sacrifice (1998) - Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion.

• Dead By Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (1995) - When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare....

• Everything She Ever Wanted: A True Story of Obsessive Love, Murder, and Betrayal (1992) - For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett.  Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his mother and father. Pat's only brother had died in a puzzling suicide, her grandparents-in-law were poisoned with arsenic, and no one -- from her wealthy employers to her own children -- was safe when Pat Allanson didn't get her way. It took Georgia lawmen more than two decades to stop her for good -- if indeed they have.

• If You Really Loved Me: A True Story of Desire and Murder (1991) - David Brown was a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown unfolded revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. Did David Brown convince his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him?

• Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (1987) - A shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

• The Want-Ad Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death--using want ads to lure his young female victims.

• The I-5 Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1984) - As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all--a star athlete, good looks, and an award-winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name.

• Possession - A Novel (1983) - Joanne Lindstrom's camping trip to Washington's Cascade mountains goes terribly awry, leaving her husband dead and Joanne's only hope for survival in the hands of a twisted stranger. (This is Ann Rule's only novel. Based on a real Northwest Case.)  

• Lust Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - To his neighbors, Jerry Brudos was a gentle man whose mild manner contrasted with his awesome physical strength. To his employers, Jerry was a fine worker. To his wife, he was a good husband. And to the Oregon police, Jerry Brudos was the most hideously twisted killer they had ever unmasked.

• The Stranger Beside Me - Ted Bundy: The Classic Story of Seduction & Murder (1980) - Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.

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