Justice for Lauren Key: Cameron Brown convicted

Lauren ki loves singing playing with dolls and dancing she was a typical four-year-old girly girl I'd always liked the name Lauren so when she was born I liked into her baby blue eyes and just just knew the name was perfect for her described her and her personality it was just contagious she was very happy but Sarah kemar Lauren's mother says there was something that tortured her smiling daughter every day Lauren was the highly coveted centerpiece in a nasty tug of war between her mother and father who is her father Cameron Brown Cameron Brown a rugged outdoorsman who liked to ski surf and run marathons he was often seen tooling around ritzy Newport Beach California in a souped-up army truck similar to this one so hajimete Cameron we met a new puppy to the jazz bar and he started a relationship from there yes Brown was an airport baggage handler his job hurling 50-pound pieces of luggage on and off airplanes and before long he'd also swept the British Rose off her feet whisking Sarah away on vacations but just a few months later their whirlwind romance comes to a crashing stop when Sarah finds out she's pregnant did he have any interest in the baby he chose not to be part of the pregnancy did he want you to keep the baby he'd expressed that he did not Brown finally appears to embrace his impending fatherhood but then something inside him snaps and what happened he started pressuring her to have an abortion when she refused to do that he threatened to have her deported deputy district attorney Craig hum says Brown even tries to have Sarah fired from her job when she refuses to end the pregnancy when that didn't work he just cut off all contact with her and had absolutely no contact with her at all by the time little Lauryn is born Brown is completely out of the picture but the first few years of her life he wasn't part of her life but that was his choice did he ever ask to meet her no he did not it's not like he lived that far away from his daughter that he couldn't have seen her if he wanted to Sarah wanted there to be some kind of a relationship so there was nothing preventing him from having a relationship with Lauren Sarah's raising Lauren on her own but eventually the financial toll overwhelms the single mom Sarah was just having difficulty making ends meet and so what she did was she filed a petition for child support and he was ordered to pay child support what are Brown's co-workers at the airport says the absentee dad constantly complained about the hefty payments he was paying $1,000 a month in child support which was about forty to fifty percent of his income and that's when Brown reportedly comes up with a devious plan he told one of his friends I heard that in order to get your child support reduced you have to request visitation and so that's what I'm going to do his initial request was for 33 percent custody and joint legal custody and he'd never even met Lauren Wow Sara says she was nervous but Lauren now three years old couldn't wait to finally spend time with her dad I think initially Lauren was excited to meet her father the first few visits went okay they were supervised by Sara but pretty quickly friction started to develop and there were issues Sara tells me the happy-go-lucky little girl suddenly becomes troubled and withdrawn I would detect anxiety and tantrums that increased as the visits went along she became very fearful and scared of things that she hadn't been before did Laura never verbalized to you no I don't want to see daddy I don't like daddy she had said that she did not want to go she would hide under the bed but the court order said that she had to go and it broke my heart to have to let her go a few weeks before Thanksgiving Brown arranges an afternoon visit with Lauren Sara says she's still haunted by what happened early that morning I had dropped her off at her preschool and as I hugged her goodbye I told her that her father was collecting her she immediately started to cry and hold on to me it was hard to separate the teacher had to come out and pry her from me I assured her everything would be fine she was going to have a great afternoon the last words I said to her was I love you and the last words she said back to me also were the same throughout the morning Sarah can't stop thinking about Lauren she called the school a couple of times to see how Lauren was doing and the teachers told her that she was still upset that she was doing okay in fact the teacher tells her Lauren was too upset to eat her favorite lunch a peanut butter and jelly sandwich Sarah was so distraught about the impact that this visit was having on Lauren that she made the decision that even with a court order ordering visitation she was just not gonna let it happen that day so Sarah heads out to pick up Lauren at school but it's too late Browns already there the teachers reported that she didn't want to go with her father she was crying and he had to physically pick her up and carry her out of the preschool Braun drives Lauren to Palos Verdes the seaside town just south of Los Angeles where he lived he's planned a hiking trip with the four year old up to a remote cliff in a secluded area called inspiration point is this the kind of place that you would take a child no parent nobody would take a four-year-old child out there they make the nearly 1 mile trek to the cliff and end up sitting on this rocky ledge overlooking the ocean while Lauren tosses rocks into the raging Pacific Ocean below Brown says he looks away for a split second and when he turns back his little girl is gone he just saw her feet as she went over the cliff headfirst something terrible has happened to precious little Lauren Keith Lauren had slipped and fallen deputy da Craig hum says during a court-ordered visitation Laurens father Cameron Brown takes the four-year-old hiking nearly a mile up to Inspiration Point high above the Pacific Ocean in Southern California the cliff wasn't just a straight drop into the ocean there was a slope and there were projections of rock out from the top of the cliff Brown says Lauren ran the entire way to this rocky ledge the father says he glanced away for a split second and when he looked back all he saw were Lauren's little feet going over the edge a terrifying 120 feet drop straight down to the ocean he said he didn't see her when he looked over the edge of the cliff what did the father do do you call for help he ran down to a beach that was on the other side of the cliff and he borrowed a cell phone to call 911 [Applause] what AM innit the father hasn't even checked on his little girl rather than going to her body or to try and rescue her he spent about four and a half minutes talking to the 911 operator you'd think there would be panic or at least heartbreak in his voice not this dad as one witness described it it was like he was ordering a pizza there was no emotion and all the while his daughter is floating facedown in the ocean and he's chatting on a cell phone and joking with the people at the beach Browne eventually makes his way down the shoreline in search of little Lauren it's been nearly 15 minutes since she slipped and fell he spots her lifeless body floating facedown in the water her beautiful body was broken and battered and it wasn't anything that any parent should ever have to see or any parent would ever in their worst nightmare ever see so the initial investigation or the initial call came in as an accident yes Los Angeles County homicide detectives Danny Smith and Jeffrey Leslie don't usually respond to accidents but something about Browns 9-1-1 call in the location of Laurens fall was troubling there's no way that that kid should be out on that cliff I've been out on that cliff on a hunch the detectives had to Inspiration Point to speak to Cameron Brown I want to introduce myself to mr. Brown and I remember coming back to Danny and saying I I don't like this I don't like it he was so disconnected it it just didn't feel right I looked over him I said that's the dad and someone said yeah that's him and I was struck by the absolute pokerface lack of emotion and very nonchalant was he upset was he distraught his child is dead no he was more concerned about his surfboard on top of his car an hour away from inspiration point Sara kemar and her new husband are worried their little Loren is late coming home we decided to drive up to where our father lived and we were on the phone to the police trying to find out if there's any accidents and we were directed to go to the nearest place in the station when the police told you to go to the police station is that all you knew as you were driving over there that's all we knew so when we got there we were met by a detective it was all quite a blur to me they mentioned the word cliff and there had been a death and involved Loren but I couldn't piece everything together and I remember becoming hysterical I was just cascading into this emotional pain I just remember wailing heaving no words were coming out and as the police described it your reaction and the father's reaction could not have been more different on that day I feel my reaction was what any parent how they would react if they just heard the worst news of their life but Cameron Browns behavior is getting more bizarre by the minute he showed no interest in what had happened instead he wanted to know who had won the presidential election maybe Braun was just in shock but there was something the detectives who were both fathers to kids Lauren's age couldn't explain away why a father would take his four-year-old to such a dangerous place when you saw the cliff what did you think interestingly Jeff and I are both afraid of heights he would only go so far and not only go a little bit further and we were still at least 30 feet from where Cameron said that he took his daughter and sat on the edge of this cliff so you as a dad do you look at this and you're saying there's no way my four-year-olds gonna walk this willingly no we finally did we called our SCB special enforcement Bureau and said you know we need some people up here with rigged up and rappelling gear so wait a minute you need did you or you needed a team with rappelling gear to get to where he says you they were sitting yes because you couldn't walk out there we wouldn't walk out there you know perspective is everything here's how it all happened Cameron parked on the other side of that point then he walked up to the point went around this entire horseshoe and came up to this cliff with a four year old who he said was leading the way by this point what are you suspecting I honestly didn't know I'm just thinking it doesn't make sense did you believe cameras version of what happened on that cliff it was very difficult to comprehend what he was saying is what happened it was just such a bizarre death when the detectives finally get a glimpse at a little Laurens body it's like a punch in the stomach she didn't have the injuries to support a slip and a fall she would have had scrape marks on her hands on her arms on her face I and she showed none of those injuries so what happened a little Lorne on that cliff she had to be propelled Cameron Brown says his sweet little daughter Lauren slipped from this cliff and accidentally fell to her death the Los Angeles County sheriff's detective Jeff Leslie just can't let it go there's certain things that he says it just couldn't have happened that they and his partner detective Danny Smith was equally suspicious Cameron was just it's just a very odd guy but odd doesn't make you a killer it does not make you a killer but we just really didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the guy either neither did the DA who believed Cameron Brown murdered his innocent four-year-old daughter in the cruelest way imaginable you think he just pushed her do you think he dropped her based on the nature of her injuries and based on the force with which she would have had two have been thrown had it even sunk in what had happened that she died at the hands of her and father was incomprehensible no one especially Lauren's mom Sarah wanted to believe a dad would or could throw his own child to her death but the evidence seemed to be overwhelming what was the forensic evidence had they examined the edge of the cliff they examined the dirt the brush the weeds and there was just no scuff marks there was no evidence of slipping or sliding or any disturbance along the edge the County Coroner agreed releasing a disturbing 32 page report ruling Lauren's death a homicide what were the injuries on her body that indicated to you that this was not an accident if Lauren had accidentally fallen and slipped she would show significant sliding injuries significant abrasion because the cliff wasn't just a straight drop into the ocean she showed none of those injuries just one sudden impact which was consistent with her being thrown clear of the edge of the cliff and landing on a single projection about a hundred feet down before bouncing off the cliff and then going into the water but detectives Jeff Leslie and Danny Smith want to prove their theory beyond a reasonable doubt so they bring in a team of experts in biomechanics to reenact the incident they fill a box with 40 pounds of weights about what four-year-old Lauren weighed at the time of her death and go back to inspiration point they hurl the Box about ten feet the distance they estimate Cameron Brown could toss his 40-pound daughter remember he was an airport baggage handler who tossed 50-pound suitcases for a living the results are chilling how do you suggest he threw her the defendant actually placed one hand near the top of Laurens back and literally threw her off of the cliff so that she cleared the edge of the cliff rotated from a head up to head down position and struck the rock face first with her back away from the cliff and her face into the cliff the big question still needing an answer motive why would a dad kill his own flesh and blood the defendant and Lauren's mother Sarah Kumar didn't get along at all their child custody battle was was very contentious and cops say that's one of the saddest parts of this story Brown killed his own daughter just so he wouldn't have to pay a few hundred bucks a week in child support can you imagine that would be the reason as detectives are putting the final pieces of the puzzle together they keep a close eye on Cameron Brown I think Jeff and I both were like this is kind of that mentality of a guy like a Unabomber light Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber Brown had lived off the grid in a remote cabin in Colorado detectives knew if Brown ran they may never find him so they put a surveillance team on him and lo and behold their detective intuition was right he's either the day before Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day and our surveillance team called me and said I think this guy's going to get he's going to get on and he's gonna take off take off and I said arrest me that was that he went to jail based on the box test and the autopsy on little Lorne Brown is charged with first-degree murder and lying in wait everybody thought the case would be a slam dunk there's not anyone in my opinion who is reasonable that would take his story and say yeah I could see that happening but jurors are skeptical jurors just don't want to believe that that a man would murder his daughter period and certainly not by throwing her off of a cliff into the ocean Cameron Brown may be the most hated father in the country accused of throwing his four-year-old little girl Loren off the side of a cliff just so he wouldn't have to pay a few hundred bucks a week in child support you know the innocence of the victim makes the crime that much more hideous and possibly the most sickening part after Brown murdered his daughter detectives say he went back and ate his daughter's leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of her lunchbox I mean to me appertaining the the category of social paths Brown maintains the only thing he is guilty of is not being able to save Loren when she accidentally fell but who would the jury side with the verdict comes in and the prosecution is floored the jury is deadlocked what happened in the first trial that caused a hung jury there were a couple of reasons the jurors had trouble convicting the defendant of murder when there were no eyewitnesses to say I saw him throw her over the cliff but I think the bigger problem with the case was just the unwillingness of some jurors to believe that a man would do this to his daughter and in such a horrible way I just couldn't make sense of it it was a huge disappointment at the time what do you say to Sarah think I just said we weren't done we're not done and we'll keep fighting until we are done Los Angeles County sheriff's detective Jeff Leslie wasn't about to give up he and his partner detective Danny Smith were determined to get justice for little Lauren we kept working on Lauren's case and we never gave up on it and prosecutors say the dogged detectives tireless work on the case lands a new lead but after the first trial he located additional witnesses who proved to be significant witnesses as well nearly three years later the district attorney decides to try Brown's case again it's a completely different jury but the outcome shockingly the same it's like well where is this jury pool I mean what are they thinking and you just I couldn't believe it I really wanted to have that closure in my life but it obviously wasn't the time that that was going to happen so I just had to wait did you think that there would be a third trial I don't think any of us was sure of that detective Danny Smith decides to hang up his badge and retires but desperate to find justice for little Lauren detective Leslie goes back to the DA and asks what will it take to get a guilty verdict they said you need more we need more Wow so we just kept banging away at it he knew that if there was anything else out there if there was any other information he could get that he was gonna go out there and dig again and there in one of the dozens of binders detective Leslie had filled with notes he spots a name it's a baggage handler who worked with Braun and he was never interviewed he was able to locate a witness who recalled back shortly before Lauryn was murdered how the defendant would complain about the child support payments I think the comment was something to the effect of wouldn't it be nice if we could just kill him and get rid of them with that witness they headed back to trial for a third time but would that one witness be enough to tip the jury as you're there for the third trial and the jury goes out what's going through your head obviously I hoped for justice and wanted us to win you must have been really nervous everyone was on edge this time it takes the jury just over 36 hours to reach a verdict and what's the verdict guilty on all counts even jury members rejoiced for all the pains she has been going through I'm sorry of your baby but justice has finally been served could you believe it no after three tries he finally got guilty and finally got it guilty I think that I heard Sarah sobbing in the audience I looked at the detective who was sitting next to me and there was just an overwhelming sense of relief that justice had finally been done the prosecutor says that when it came to sentencing is when you became visibly emotional yeah in court what was going on I think it finally said and sorry I guess it still does I remember when tired turned over my shoulder and looked directly at Sarah who's sitting here right now we just kind of made eye contact like we did it the more time it was a long emotional 15-year fight for justice for Lauren yeah I told you dude I think I told you that from the game and just when he thought he could rest detective Leslie found himself in another battle this one for his life against an aggressive form of blood cancer and how are you doing I'm doing okay I have good days and bad days been through a lot of treatment a lot of chemotherapy had a bone marrow transplant my son was my donor and I think although my death but a couple of times he's probably the toughest guy mentally and physically I've ever known in my life there's no quit in him Laurens case shows you that I'm yeah there's no quit there he's not gonna give in to this thing I would like to thank Detective Leslie from the bottom of my heart for his loyalty his hard work and dedication because without this there would be no justice for Lauren

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 1,331,365

Keywords: Lauren Key, Cameron Brown, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily

Id: RKVJ1AmZoCU

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019