On the morning of March 19, 1985, 14-year-old Cinnamon Brown quietly entered the room where her stepmother Linda Brown was sleeping in their home in Orange County. Standing by the bed, she fired a single bullet into her stepmother's abdomen - then shortly after, fired a second, fatal shot.

When Linda Brown was found dead later that day, Cinnamon, convinced by her father David Brown that he would protect her from prison time due to her young age, confessed to the murder. Meanwhile, the seemingly distraught David Brown claimed he had left the house that night to escape the constant arguments between his wife and daughter.

Cinnamon Brown was convicted of killing her stepmother Linda Brown, wiping away tears during her testimony.

Faced with all the evidence against her, Cinnamon Brown was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the murder of her stepmother.

However, Cinnamon was unaware that her father and his secret lover, Linda Brown's younger sister Patti, were cashing in on her deceased husband's life insurance policy and living a good life.

Over time, Cinnamon Brown would reveal the truth to the world: that her father was the one who planned her wife's murder and forced Cinnamon to carry it out and take the fall for it.

The Manipulation of Cinnamon Brown

In 1985, the Brown family in Garden Grove, Orange County, appeared to be a normal California family.

The father of the family, 36-year-old David Brown, was running a profitable computer data recovery business, according to The New York Times. Together with his 23-year-old wife Linda, they had a baby named Krystal.

Cinnamon, the 14-year-old daughter from David's previous marriage, had come to live with her father, and Linda's 11-year-old younger sister Patti Bailey had joined the Browns family at the age of 11.

However, the family's apparent happiness was an illusion.

FacebookThe Brown family before the tragedy struck. From left to right: David, Patti Bailey, Linda, Krystal, and Cinnamon Brown.

For two years, David Brown tried to incite Cinnamon and Patti against his wife. He falsely told them that Linda Brown and her sister were planning to kill him and that they needed to kill Linda first to take over his business.

David claimed he did not have the courage to commit the murder himself. And Cinnamon seemed to be the best candidate to do it in his place.

“If you love me, you have to do this for me,” he repeatedly told Cinnamon, promising that her young age would protect her from prison time and that she would only receive psychiatric treatment and return home.

17-year-old Patti Bailey also had her own reasons for wanting her sister to die. Linda was the obstacle to her marrying David.

Patti had a difficult childhood, raised by an alcoholic mother and sexually abused by her own brother. When she moved in with her sister's ideal family at the age of 11, she thought she had escaped her hard life. However, she fell into the clutches of David Brown.

Shortly after moving in with the Browns, David began to sexually abuse her. Thinking this behavior was normal, Patti soon began to love the man who “gave her everything.”

“I just thought that was how it was in a normal home,” she later said while testifying to The Los Angeles Times.

Before long, Patti and Cinnamon Brown began to plan to kill Linda with David.

Meanwhile, David had taken out several life insurance policies on his 23-year-old wife, including two policies taken out just two months before her death. According to court documents, these totaled $842,793.

The Night of Linda Brown's Murder

On March 19, 1985, shortly after midnight, Cinnamon Brown and Patti Bailey were abruptly awakened by David Brown.

“Girls, it has to be done tonight,” he told them, according to Greensboro News and Record. Months of planning were set in motion, and Cinnamon was given a gun.

FacebookLinda Brown, months before her murder, holding baby Krystal while David Brown smiles behind her.

David also provided the mixture of drugs that Cinnamon would later take to mimic a suicide. He had previously taught Cinnamon how to write suicide notes, convincing her that this would help her receive a lighter sentence.

David then left the house and went to a local grocery store, ensuring the cashier noticed him to create an alibi. Later, when police arrived at the scene, he told them he had left the house earlier that night, overwhelmed by the constant arguments between his wife and daughter.

Meanwhile, while Patti held baby Krystal, Cinnamon stood over her sleeping stepmother, using a pillow to muffle the shots, and fired a single bullet into her abdomen. The gun's trigger mechanism got caught in the pillow, and Linda Brown's moans mingled with her baby's cries. Cinnamon fired again. The second shot was fatal.

According to The Orange County Register, when murder detectives arrived later that day, they checked the family's backyard and found Cinnamon Brown lying in the doghouse, covered in her own vomit and urine, holding a note that read, "Dear God, please forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt her."

Cinnamon had suffered from an overdose of prescription drugs. Detectives believed that if Cinnamon had not vomited, she would have died and provided her father with a suitable scapegoat.

The motivation for Linda Brown's murder seemed to stem from the ongoing friction between Cinnamon and her stepmother. And although she quickly confessed to killing Linda, Cinnamon Brown was shocked when she was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 1986, despite her father's promises that he would easily get her off.

Still, case investigators suspected that something worse was at play. And they would soon uncover the horrifying truth.

The Unraveling of Her Father's Crimes

After his wife's death, David Brown received enough life insurance payouts to buy himself a beautiful home in Anaheim Hills and several new cars. With Linda gone, he also had the freedom to be with 17-year-old sister-in-law Patti. The two secretly married in 1986 and had a daughter a year later, creating a fake name for the father.

Patti Bailey in court.

Meanwhile, Cinnamon Brown, who was incarcerated in the California Youth Authority, began to grow increasingly frustrated with her father and his lies. The lack of visits constantly disappointed her, and Cinnamon's parole requests were denied because she continued to claim she did not remember the murder, as David had told her.

Later, she learned about the life insurance policies and soon discovered her father's relationship with Patti. Furious, Cinnamon concluded that both her father and Patti were equally guilty in her stepmother's murder. She began to work with district attorney investigators to uncover the truth.

In August 1988, Cinnamon began secretly planting listening devices during her visits with her father. David quickly incriminated himself by admitting that Cinnamon had mixed the drug concoction on the night of the murder. He told her that he could not tell the truth about that night because he would not survive in prison, but he promised to convince Patti to confess to the murder so that he could take Cinnamon's place.

When David and Patti were arrested a few weeks later, David denied everything. However, when he learned that his conversations with Cinnamon had been recorded, he completely changed his story, admitting to some elements of Cinnamon's narrative while still placing the blame on Cinnamon and Patti.

Patti cooperated with the prosecution and testified against her new husband.

Cinnamon Brown Finally Exonerated

David Brown, held in Orange County jail before his trial, continued to plot. He offered up to half a million dollars to a soon-to-be-released inmate, Richard Steinhart, to kill Patti, believing this would delay his trial and give him an advantage.

Instead, Steinhart agreed to record his conversations with David while speaking to the prosecution. He falsely told David that he had committed the murders.

“Great! You’re a good man,” David Brown said, according to Los Angeles Times.

David Brown in Orange County jail.

During the trial in 1990, both Cinnamon and Patti testified that David Brown was the mastermind behind Linda Brown's murder and was sentenced to life in prison. He died in prison in 2014.

Patti's case was heard in juvenile court because she had cooperated with the prosecution and was 17 at the time of her sister's murder. She was sent to a juvenile facility.

Cinnamon Brown served seven years of her sentence and was paroled in 1992 after earning a high school diploma and completing an associate degree in arts.

At her father's trial, she stated that her loyalty to him was what led her to kill Linda Brown.

“I loved him,” she said, according to Greensboro News and Record. “I didn’t want to lose my dad... Why would he tell me to do something wrong?”