Cameron John Brown was so mad that his girlfriend didn’t have an abortion of their baby, years later he threw her daughter off a cliff and killed her.
During Brown’s trial, prosecutors said Brown threw his 4-year-old daughter off a 120-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes nearly 15 years ago. Brown’s attorney said Lauren Sarene Key’s death was an accident.
Brown had unsuccessfully tried to convince the girl’s mother to have an abortion and subsequently showed no interest in his daughter for “most of her life’’ until after her mother sought child support, prosecutors told the jury of six men and six women.
“In November of 1999, when Lauren is over 3 years old, the defendant finally gets around to meeting her,’’ Hum said, telling jurors that Brown 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.
“Murdering Lauren was the ultimate payback to this woman he despised,’’ Hum said of Brown’s contentious child support dispute with the girl’s mother.
The prosecutor said Brown had “spent a total of about two weeks’’ with his daughter, saying, “there was no relationship, none at all.’’
Now, Brown has been convicted of first-degree murder, according to news reports:
The Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated about 1 1/2 days before returning its verdict against Cameron John Brown, a 53-year-old former airport baggage handler, who has been in jail for nearly 12 years in connection with the Nov. 8, 2000, death of Lauren Sarene Key.
The six-man, six-woman jury — which was the third panel to hear the case against Brown — also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait, which carry a mandatory life prison term without the possibility of parole.
Brown is set to be sentenced June 19 by Judge George G. Lomeli.
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Speaking directly to the girl’s mother, another juror, Sheila Janis, said, “I’m sorry for your death of your baby, but justice has finally been served. All the evidence was there.”
The girl’s mother, Sarah Key-Marer, cried after the verdict was announced.
Shortly afterward, she told reporters that she was in shock and wanted to thank the jurors and the witnesses.
“All I ever wanted was that he would take responsibility for what happened that day so I’m thankful for God for carrying me and my family and my friends through this time,” she said. “Lauren was our gift from God, the best thing that ever happened to us.”
