Father Gets Life for Throwing Daughter, 4, from Cliff

By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH

A former airport baggage handler was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole for throwing his 4-year- old daughter over a 120-foot cliff to her death in Rancho Palos Verdes nearly 15 years ago.

Cameron John Brown has insisted the girl accidentally tumbled down the cliff on Nov. 8, 2000.

Brown, who will turn 54 on Monday, stared straight ahead and did not speak during his sentencing hearing before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli, who presided over the defendant’s third trial for the death of Lauren Sarene Key.

A six-man, six-woman jury deliberated about 1 1/2 days before convicting Brown of first-degree murder on May 13, and also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and lying in wait.

Two previous panels had deadlocked, with all 24 of those jurors indicating they believed he was guilty but unable to come to a consensus on whether he should be convicted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.

The first jury to hear the case deadlocked in Torrance in August 2006, with eight panelists favoring a second-degree murder conviction and two each lobbying for first-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

In 2009, six jurors in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom voted in favor of convicting Brown of second-degree murder, while the other six favored involuntary manslaughter.

Brown -- who has been jailed without bail for nearly 12 years -- is expected to appeal his conviction.

Outside court, his wife of 16 years, Patricia, handed out copies of a letter from her husband to the head of the district attorney’s newly formed Conviction Review Unit, in which the defendant wrote that he is “factually innocent” and was “wrongfully convicted.”

She told reporters, “I still don’t believe this is the final outcome by any means ... There’s no way that this is final.”

Patricia Brown told the victim’s mother, Sarah Key-Marer, outside court that it “wasn’t a homicide.”

“You don’t have to listen to this crap if you don’t want to,” Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum told Key-Marer. Hum -- who was the prosecutor on each of Brown’s three trials -- told jurors that the little girl was picked up and thrown off the isolated tip of Inspiration Point as a result of Brown’s hatred for her mother and a “desire for revenge.”

The prosecutor said Brown showed no interest in meeting his daughter until she was over 3 years old, and that he was advised that he needed to request visitation if he wanted a reduction in the monthly child support payments of about $1,000 he had been ordered to pay.

The prosecutor told jurors that Brown unsuccessfully tried to convince the girl’s mother to get an abortion when he first learned she was pregnant and subsequently tried to have her deported.

Hum questioned Brown’s statement to investigators that he “could barely keep up with this 4-year-old little girl” on their walk to Inspiration Point, which is unfenced and has steep 120-foot-high cliffs.

Defense attorney Aron Laub told jurors that two tragedies unfolded -- “the death of a 4-year-old” and “the prosecution of Cameron Brown” -- and denied that his client had any hatred for the girl’s mother.

After the sentencing, Key-Marer told reporters, “It didn’t need to end this way for her or for us. It would have been so simple just to make changes.”

She said her heart had been ‘broken” by losing her daughter, whom she said “surely would have made a difference in this world.”

She said she had tried to believe Brown’s account of what had happened that day. “It took this time for me to understand the truth ... I have some peace knowing that I’m free from the years of court proceedings,” she said, adding that she wished Brown would “take responsibility for his actions.”

She repeatedly referred to the defendant as “Mr. Brown” and told him, “Mr. Brown, you’ll never take her memory from us.”

The girl’s stepbrother, Josh Marer, recalled trying to reassure the tot that everything was going to be O.K. the night before she was killed and said the girl told him, “I think I’m going to die tomorrow.”

Hum thanked Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives “for never giving up on this case” when it would have been easier to accept Brown’s claim that the girl died accidentally. “She was 4 years old. She would be 19 ...,” the prosecutor said. “Justice will never bring back this little 4-year-old girl, but justice is all we have in this courtroom ... Finally it’s time for justice to be served.”

City News Service