This Is What Disturbs Me About This Case (Part II)

Even Sarah's own hand-written notes said that the visits were going along smoothly at the time. It was brought out in court that all of Sarah's written accounts were not contemporaneous to the events. Sarah had been asked by the investigators to rewrite her contemporaneous notes and expound upon them at a later date, after Lauren died. So rather than reflect what she actually thought at the time, her notes were rewritten in a manner that reflected anything that might somehow support a murder. They were, in other words, hindsight revisions based on a new view being pieced together by the detectives.

Days into the investigation the detectives, according to witness testimony, referred to Cameron Brown in derogatory terms when speaking with witnesses. The investigators obtained a search warrant that was acted upon TWO MONTHS after the event. But during the GJ testimony it was reported that it was days later. During this search they confiscated Cameron's telephone book and made a list of his friend's telephone numbers. At the top of that list, Danny Smith, the lead investigator (who did not testify at any time under oath) headed it "telephone assholes"! Assholes? And there was no preconceived notion here? Friends of Cam later reported that they were hounded by the investigators; and they were told things about Cameron that they found difficult to believe so that they might begin to doubt Cam and turn on him. There was no search for the truth here. The detectives were trying to create their own version of the truth.

Experts were asked to support the theory of the detectives. An email was produced during testimony in which Detective Smith said, "We believe it was a homicide, not an accident as he reports. I guess what we are wondering or hoping is that you would be able to determine, by tests, or calculations or magic or whatever if the child was propelled or projected." So detective Danny Smith directed the expert to use whatever science or "magic" or whatever he could to help them prove that Lauren was thrown from the cliff. That particular expert declined stating that you can not prove what happened with certainty.

The Crime Lab Investigator would not support the idea that the impressions taken from the scene were footprints. He testified for the defense that there were specific characteristics missing in the photographs of the indentations which would be present if the indentation had been made by shoes. Cameron had offered the detectives his shirt and shoes. He cooperated to help exonerate himself. The detectives declined to accept the articles even though Cam told them he was going to throw them away when he got home. They then complained when they went back two months later and the shoes Cam had been wearing had been discarded.

The accident occurred around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Cameron Brown was not brought into the interrogation room until midnight. Yet the detectives want us to believe that none of his interrogation was taped because they were not equipped to do so? They had state of the art equipment yet failed to pull it together in 9 hours? The detective's excuse was once he discovered the equipment was not working in the interrogation room, he did not have time to go out to his car to retrieve an alternative recording device. We are talking about what they believed to be a murder investigation, and he didn't have time to go get a recording device? What's wrong with this picture? This isn't some podunk little town. These are seasoned Los Angeles investigators, supposedly. Even the medical examiner taped his findings.

Among the people the investigators had interviewed was a man who ran to the top of Inspiration Point and heard Cameron yelling from below in agony. A woman reported that she actually spoke with Lauren while she played on the playground. She reported Lauren seemed happy to be with her father. Another witness spoke of seeing Cameron and Lauren immediately before they went to the end of Inspiration Point. He stated that Lauren was happily running ahead of Cam throwing rocks; and that Lauren had run off the path and over near the edge, but when Cam called to her and motioned her back to the path she did as Cam told her to do. Yet, the detectives worked to contrive another set of events that had Lauren dragging behind him exhausted from the ordeal and afraid of her father. One witness stated he had seen Lauren behind Cam on direct testimony. During cross examination he was reminded that his initial statement to detectives was that Lauren was ahead of Cam. Reminded of that, he agreed that Lauren had indeed been ahead of Cam.

There were two other witnesses who said Cam was ahead of Lauren. They did so after they made a deal with the prosecutors to testify in exchange for special consideration in dealing with their own arrests on other unrelated charges. The jury did not hear about that. The judge viewed it as irrelevant. Witnesses who supported Cam's version of events were not pursued by the detectives for testimony during trial. The detectives were only interested in witnesses who were willing to recall events in the way the detectives wanted them to. A perfect example is the witness who at first told the investigators that Lauren ran ahead of Cam; but 5 years after the fact he initially agreed with the prosecutor that Lauren was behind Cam, only to concede that Lauren was ahead of Cam after he was reminded of his initial statements to the investigators.

By the end of November 2000 the investigators had interviewed all the witnesses. They did not have enough to get an arrest warrant. Then in January of 2001 they searched the Brown residence with search warrant. They still did not have enough to get an arrest warrant. Then in May 2001 they convinced the medical examiner to label the manner of death as homicide. They still did not have enough to get an arrest warrant. It wasn't until three years later in the fall of 2003 when the prosecutor hired Wilson Hayes to write his very questionable expert's report that they finally succeeded in getting an arrest warrant. The prosecutor hired Hayes. The investigators were unable to put this case together so the prosecutor stepped in and made it happen.