OPRAH WINFREY: In the dark hours before dawn, on March 19th, 1985,
in a suburban house, on a quiet street, in Garden Grove, California,
23-year-old Linda Brown died, a most unquiet death. She's blond, and pretty.
She was the wife of a millionaire computer genius, and
the mother of an infant daughter.
WINFREY: Someone fired two bullets between Linda Brown's breast
as she peacefully slept in her own bed,
unaware of the danger around her.
Today, for the very first time since Linda Brown was murdered,
the woman who pulled that trigger will tell her side of
the story to us, in our exclusive interview.
That's coming up.
But first, I want you to take a look at how this chilling story unfolded.
WINFREY: Hollywood dubbed this case, Love, Lies And Murder.
The real story is even more bizarre than the movie we watched on TV.
David Arnold Brown, masterminded a twisted plot to have
his 14-year-old daughter,
Cinnamon, kill his wife, Linda, to collect
almost a million dollars in life insurance on his wife.
WINFREY: Hours after fatally shooting her step-mother,
Cinnamon was found, near comatose, lying in her own vomit,
in the back yard dog house, clutching this suicide note that
read, Dear God, please forgive me.
I didn't mean to hurt her.
JEOFF ROBINSON: It looked at that point in time as if it was the
14- year-old step daughter that had killed her
step mother because she didn't get along with her.
WINFREY: She confessed to the murder and
was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison.
She stood by her confession and remained silently loyal
to her father for three years.
Until she was persuaded to reveal the whole story.
During a visit from her dad, Cinnamon wore a wire,
and police recorded this conversation,
that helped put David Brown away.
CINNAMON BROWN: Why can't you just tell the truth?
DAVID BROWN: You could tell them the truth,
if you don't tell the whole truth, okay.
Because then we all go to jail.
WINFREY: Brown was later arrested and charged with murder.
But he hatched another murderous plot in the effort
to avoid going to jail.
This time, he enlisted the help of this biker,
to kill the prosecutor, Jeoff Robinson.
But that plan was thwarted when the hired hit man went to
authorities instead of carrying out the contract murder.
WINFREY: These photographs of the payoff for the planned hit,
and a telephone conversation where David Brown
was duped into believing the hit had been completed,
helped to make the case against him.
RICHARD "LIBERTY" STEINHART: Hey, man, how'd we do, huh?
DAVID: Wonderful. You're a good man.
Mr. STEINHART: Wonderful, is that all? We got them both, man.
DAVID: You're fantastic.
Mr. STEINHART: I got them [beep] both.
WINFREY: During David Brown's trial, the whole bizarre story came out.
CINNAMON: He said that one of us girls would have to do it.
MALE ONE: And did he say why one of you girls would have to do it?
CINNAMON: Said he didn't have the stomach to do it.
WINFREY: He had convinced his 14-year-old daughter,
Cinnamon, to kill his wife, so he could
then marry the dead woman's 17-year-old sister, Patti.
WINFREY: Well Cinnamon Brown is still incarcerated by
the California Youth Authority.
She has been in jail now since she was 14-years-old.
And you're now what, 20, Cinnamon?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: Yeah. And she joins us, uh, to tell her side of the story.
Also joining us to help unravel this tale of greed
and manipulation is True Crime writer Ann Rule, who's written
the best selling book Small Sacrifices.
And her latest book is really,
Cinnamon's story, the story of t his whole bizarre deal.
It's called If You Really Loved me.
It tells the Cinnamon Brown story.
We're glad to have you join us, Ann.
ANN RULE: It's nice to be back.
WINFREY: And, uh, Cinnamon, as I understand, one of
the reasons Ann called, uh, this new book If You Really Loved Me,
because that is what your dad would always say when he was
trying to convince you to do whatever. Is that true?
CINNAMON: That is true, Oprah.
WINFREY: So, can you take us back to the night?
Uh, I mean, I know it's not a pleasant memory for you.
But, can you take us back to the night of the murder?
CINNAMON: What is it you specifically want to know?
WINFREY: I want to know what, what happened.
First of all, let's go back to how he started to talk
you into committing this crime.
CINNAMON: He used, um, persuasion.
He'd talk about things over again.
Like, if you love me, you'll do this for me.
If you care about me, a daughter would do this.
He, he manipulated.
Ms. RULE: I think one of the things that Cinnamon,
uh, isn't telling you is that he had convinced her that if she
did not go along with this plan, that he would die.
He would either die, or he'd have to leave the
family because he said that Linda was trying to kill him.
WINFREY: Did you believe that, Cinnamon?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: You believed that Linda was trying to kill him?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: And so the thought of
your father leaving was, what, scary, frightening?
CINNAMON: I was afraid of being abandoned.
WINFREY: Mm hmm.
And wasn't there a time when you asked him,
why not just divorce her?
CINNAMON: Yes, I did.
WINFREY: And what did he say?
CINNAMON: He said no, absolutely not.
She would still find a way to kill him.
WINFREY: So I can imagine, really, I say I can imagine,
I don't know if I really can, though,
if any of us really can, um, having such great love
for your father. Uh, being convinced that you're gonna lose
your father over a period of time.
And then being put in the position of having to pull the trigger.
Were you scared?
CINNAMON: Yes. Very scared.
WINFREY: So what happened?
Your father had left and said, uh, this is the night,
this is the night you're going to do it,
and, left you with a gun, or Patti with the gun? Or?
CINNAMON: He left me and Patti there at the house.
And he made sure that we knew
that he expected it to be done by the time he came home.
WINFREY: And how did he do that?
Make sure that you knew?
CINNAMON: He just sort of made us feel guilty.
WINFREY: Uh huh.
Ms. RULE: Didn't he say, you don't have to do it,
you don't have to do it.
But if you really love me, you'll do it for me, as he left.
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: And so, there you are in the house.
You have the gun. Had you ever pulled a trigger before?
CINNAMON: We had went shooting before, up in the mountains.
But I've never used a handgun like that.
WINFREY: And so, did you ever think, you know, that you
couldn't go through with it?
Or that you wouldn't be able
to go through with it?
Or, about the consequences? I'm asking about...
CINNAMON: [overlapping] Well my dad had...
WINFREY: Yeah, go ahead.
CINNAMON: My dad had warned me that the, considering my age
and because of the circumstances of why I was doing it,
then it would be okay and accepted.
They would send me to a psychiatrist,
and then I'd be home with the family.
WINFREY: And you believed that?
CINNAMON: Yes.
Ms. RULE: Cinnamon, uh, tell Oprah where you got the gun
and who loaded the gun.
Um, were you the one that, that located that gun that night?
CINNAMON: No.
My dad told me that I was to shoot her.
But I didn't have the gun at the time.
Patti had it in her room.
Ms. RULE: And what did she say to you?
CINNAMON: She was loading the gun, at the time.
And she said that we need to take care of her.
We need to do it.
WINFREY: So Patti had known about this for a long time.
Is that true, Cinnamon?
CINNAMON: I'm not sure.
WINFREY: Okay. When we come back, David Brown still
proclaims his innocence,
and says that he was set up.
WINFREY: I know many of you became aware of this
story a few months ago, when NBC presented its version of the
Linda Brown murder in the TV miniseries, Love, Lies And Murder.
Take a look.
DAVID: I love you, Cinny.
Remember, two shots and I expect it done when I get back.
If you don't, I am a dead man.
I love you.
WINFREY: We're talking to Cinnamon Brown, in her first interview,
ever, since being incarcerated since she was 14 years old.
Cinnamon, did you watch that movie?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: You did. And what did you think of it?
CINNAMON: I felt they sensationalized what happened.
WINFREY: In what way?
CINNAMON: I don't think what happened to Linda should
have been made into a movie,
the way that it was.
WINFREY: Do you feel badly about what you did?
CINNAMON: To Linda?
WINFREY: Yes.
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: When, uh, we were going out of the break,
I don't know if you heard, um, the tape of your father saying he
doesn't believe that he has done anything wrong.
And that he is an innocent man. Could you hear that?
CINNAMON: Yes, I did.
WINFREY: And when you hear that, what do you feel, or think?
CINNAMON: Sorry for him.
WINFREY: Hmm.
Ms. RULE: I think this is remarkable, when you realize that before
he left the house, on that night of March 19th, he had Cinnamon,
he forced her to take 80 [unintelligible] tablets.
I don't know how many dollars I'd have,
it's a medical miracle that she's even here.
Because he gave her enough to kill her many times over.
And then he told her after the shooting,
she was to go out to the doghouse and stay there.
Ms. RULE: And if Cinnamon hadn't thrown up,
Cinnamon would have been dead.
And as it was, he knew she was there all night long, while he was
pointing his finger at her to the police, and saying where she might be.
He never once said check the back yard.
A detective, Fred McClain, found her at 7:00 the next morning.
And thank God she had thrown up.
But it was touch and go for three days.
WINFREY: Let me, I wanted to read something from
Ann's book here, Cinnamon.
She says, her father had told her to take what might have been
a lethal dose of pills and shoot herself.
Had he talked to you about shooting yourself?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: Shooting yourself.
And he had described, can you describe for us how your
father had, had asked you to shoot yourself.
CINNAMON: He said that I would just knick myself in the head.
WINFREY: With a bullet?
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: And you, you luckily elected not to do it.
It's hard to knick yourself with a bullet.
CINNAMON: Well I was frightened, because I wasn't sure exactly
how it worked.
So I said no, I'd rather do it another way.
WINFREY: So that's why you took the pills?
CINNAMON: Yeah.
WINFREY: Now continuing here in Ann's book, she says,
talking of you, she still believed he had wanted it
to look like she had tried to commit suicide.
Because you practiced writing the suicide note,
did you not?
CINNAMON: Yes, I did.
WINFREY: Clearly her death was, her death was an intragal part of his plan.
And yet, while Cinnamon could now shoulder the blame
for what she had done, she seemed unable to face the
possibility that her father had intended for her to die.
It would be a long time before she could face that.
And I wanted to ask you, when were you able to face that?
CINNAMON: I believe it was when I was going through trial with my dad.
And they told me what his intentions were.
And that really hurt. And I felt betrayed.
WINFREY: So that was the first time you realized that, that the
amount of pills that your father had given you were
enough pills to kill you three times over.
CINNAMON: Yes.
WINFREY: So up until that time, were you still willing,
did you still feel a sense of love for your father?
CINNAMON: At which time are you referring to?
WINFREY: The time on the witness stand when you realized
that he had intended to kill you.
CINNAMON: I still love him regardless. He's still gonna be my father.
No matter what he did, he's always gonna be my father,
and I love him. But I don't agree on the things that he's done.
Or that he continues to do.
WINFREY: Do you, um, still communicate with him at all?
Have any communications?
CINNAMON: No.
WINFREY: What made you decide, Cinnamon, to tell the truth?
About your father? Was it because you'd been in jail so long?
Was it because you finally realized that perhaps your father was lying to you?
How long, you had been in jail, what two years or three years?
And he was still promising that, that you were gonna get out?
Ms. RULE: Three and a half I think it was, yeah.
CINNAMON: Well he said he was working on it.
Working on getting me out. But he wasn't.
And I had to find out from other family members that he wasn't
really sick like he told me he was, when I'd call.
he'd be out shopping or something. Um, I realized that Patti had a baby
and that it was his, and they didn't tell me.
They didn't tell me they were married.
After finding this out, I felt like I was being lied to.
Maybe all this that my dad was telling me wasn't true.
WINFREY: So, was Patti like a sister to you, at first?
Living in your house?
CINNAMON: Yes. We were sisters.