Vernon Brown (murderer)

Vernon Brown was born on October 1, 1953, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the oldest of five children born to different fathers.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42085904/vernon-brownsuspect/|title=Two Brothers Waging Wars A World Apart|author=Tim Poor|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=February 2, 1991|via=Newspapers.com}} His mother was 15 at the time of his birth and the identity of Brown's father has never been established, with some speculating that he might have been the product of an incestuous relationship between his mother and his grandfather.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42151513/vernon-brown-from-b1/|title=Girl's killer faces death after Blunt decision|author=Robert Patrick|newspaper=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=18 May 2005 |publisher=May 18, 2005|page=B003|via=Newspapers.com}} Brown was reportedly physically and sexually abused in his youth, and supposedly suffered a head injury that caused him to have memory lapses. As a child, he was considered aloof, but was protective of his younger siblings and friends whenever they got into trouble.

Brown dropped out of high school at age 16 and attempted to enlist in the Army two years later, but was rejected for unclear reasons. In 1973, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in Indianapolis and served 4 years of a 5-year prison sentence.{{Cite web |title=State v. Brown |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/1995/71264-0.html |access-date=2022-04-25 |website=Justia Law |language=en}} After his release, he drifted around the country and worked odd jobs until he eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where he married a homeless woman. A few years later, while still married to his first wife, Brown married yet again to another woman under the alias Thomas "Tommy" Turner. To support himself, he worked as a maintenance man at 4000 Enright Avenue, an area that was marred with crime and frequented by prostitutes and drug users. At around this time, Brown himself started using a variety of drugs, most notably PCP.

On March 7, 1985, the body of 18-year-old Synetta Ford was found in her apartment on 3500 Washington Boulevard, having been stabbed in the throat with a butcher knife and thereafter strangled. Upon interviewing her roommate, police learned that Ford had been frightened by the maintenance man working on the building, whom she knew as Tommy Turner, but in actuality was Brown.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38703506/alphin-arrests-vernon-brown/|title=The System Fails; A Little Girl Dies|author=Bill McClellan|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 29, 1986|via=Newspapers.com}} When questioned, Brown claimed that on the night of the murder he had seen a Cuban man quickly leaving the area, but as this statement sounded dubious, he was ordered to undergo a polygraph test which he subsequently failed.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42086450/vernon-brown/|title=A Long, Painful Wait For Justice To Prevail|author=Bill McClellan|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=November 23, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}} Now considered a suspect, the police questioned his wife, who revealed that Brown had confessed the killing to her, providing intricate details that only the real killer would {{nowrap|know{{px2}}{{mdash}}{{px2}}}}for example, he said that she had been strangled with an electrical cord, which was not mentioned in the media. Because of this, an arrest warrant was issued for him, but the charges had to be dropped due to a statute in Missouri law that prevented a spouse's testimony in court, even if the testimony was given willingly.

After his release, Brown moved in with 31-year-old Kathy Moore, a single mother who lived on Enright Avenue together with her three sons: 11-year-old Tommy Johnson, 9-year-old Christopher, and 7-year-old Jason Moore. After he moved in with them he continued using drugs and would frequently rape each of his stepsons by making them perform anal and oral sex. On the afternoon of October 24, 1986, Brown was sitting on the front porch when he spotted 9-year-old Janet Perkins, who was on her way home from school, and called her to come visit him. When she entered, he ordered his stepsons to go to their rooms and lock the doors while he lured the girl to the basement, where he subsequently strangled her with a rope.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42151696/vernon-browns-stepsons-testify/|title=3 Boys Tell Of Hearing Girl, 9, Being Strangled|author=Lisha Gayle|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 26, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}} Brown then wrapped Perkins' body in trash bags and dumped them inside a container in an alley behind his house, where they were subsequently found by a passerby.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42179995/vernon-brown-testimony-janet-perkins/|title=Jurors View Videotape In Murder Trial|author=Lisha Gayle|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 27, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}}

Soon after Perkins' body was found, police started combing the area and questioning everybody living in the neighborhood, until a witness came forward and claimed that they had last seen the girl entering Brown's house.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42295509/vernon-brownsuspect-in-janets-death/|title=Police Have Suspect In 9-Year-Old's Death|author=Phyllis Brasch Librach and Bill Bryan|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 28, 1986|via=Newspapers.com}} They then went and questioned Brown, who surprisingly admitted to the crime, claiming that he had smoked cigarettes laced with PCP and then blacked out during the killing. Furthermore, police discovered that he was actually on the run from police in Indiana, where he had been charged with robbery and six counts of child molestation relating to attacks on a 7-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.

After the arrest of a suspect was announced in the media, an outcry of support poured out from across the city, with the leader of a student support group even organizing a march to protest the violence that had been going on in the area.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42289164/group-marches-for-kidsvernon-brown/|title=Group's Founder Plans March Over Safety For Children|author=Victor Volland|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=February 9, 1987|via=Newspapers.com}} In due time, it was also revealed that Brown had previously been arrested for a similar violent murder just the year prior, leading to the FBI submitting a special report into ViCAP in an attempt to possibly link him to any further crimes.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65856283/jane-doe-1983/|title=Police Probe Brown's Past|author=Bill Bryan|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 30, 1986|via=Newspapers.com}} This further investigation led to Brown being charged with the rape-murder of 9-year-old Kimberly K. Campbell, whose nude and battered body was found in a vacant house in Indianapolis on August 27, 1980.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97419484/brown-possible-killer-doe-83/|title=Jailed Man To Be Charged With Murder Of Indiana Girl|author=Bill Bryan|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=April 23, 1987|via=Newspapers.com}} In addition, he was considered a possible suspect in further murders in both states, but the most well-known of these was the murder of the St. Louis Jane Doe, a yet-unidentified young girl who had been found raped, strangled and decapitated in St. Louis on February 28, 1983.

Brown was initially also suspected of the rape-slaying of 15-year-old Tracey Poindexter in 1985. However, in 2001, DNA evidence linked another man named Sterling Riggs to the crime. Riggs was convicted of murder and sentenced to 115 years in prison.{{Cite news |date=2001-11-29 |title=Sterling Riggs |pages=21 |work=The Indianapolis Star |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100461718/sterling-riggs/ |access-date=2022-04-25}} On appeal, he won a new trial and eventually had his sentence reduced to 50 years.{{Cite web |title=Sterling Riggs v. State of Indiana |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/indiana/supreme-court/2004/06030401-trb.html |access-date=2022-04-25 |website=Justia Law |language=en}} Riggs was released from prison in 2021.{{Cite web |title=Indiana Offender Database Search |url=https://www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/ofs/ofs?previous_page=1&detail=860358 |access-date=2022-04-25 |website=www.in.gov}}

Brown was first put on trial for the murder of Perkins, which began in October 1988. At said trial, his three stepsons were called in and retold what their stepfather had told them to do on the night of the murder, and not long after, they heard Janet's screams through a bedroom vent. Brown himself admitted to the crime in a videotaped statement, which was played to the jurors at his {{nowrap|trial{{px2}}{{mdash}}{{px2}}}}however, he notably omitted the fact that he had told his stepsons to lock themselves up and continued to claim that he had blacked out during the crime. After only two hours of deliberation, the jurors returned a guilty verdict on first degree murder, in spite of Brown's lawyer attempting to convince them to hand down a lesser charge of second degree murder. Upon hearing the verdict, Brown simply stood with his hands behind his back and looked with a blank expression on his face.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42292191/vernon-brownlawyer-dialogue/|title=Man Guilty In Murder Of Girl, 9|author=Lisha Gayle|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 28, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}} A few days later, after taking into account various aggravating factors in the case, the jury recommended the death sentence, which was subsequently handed down to Brown.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42087843/vernon-brown/|title=Death Penalty Urged In Killing Of Girl, 9|author=Virginia Hick|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=November 1, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}}

Following the conclusion of his first trial, Brown was charged with the murder of Ford. While he admitted to killing her, this time he claimed that Ford had supposedly attacked him with a knife in an unprovoked attack, forcing him to grab a nearby cord and wrap it around her neck. In the ensuing struggle, he claimed that she was trying to stab him so frantically that she accidentally stabbed herself in the chest, before inflicting another fatal stab to the throat.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42150624/vernon-brown-dialogue/|title=Woman Stabbed Self, Murder Suspect Said|author=Lisha Gayle|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=October 29, 1988|via=Newspapers.com}} His explanations were not believed, and he was thereafter found guilty of her killing as well.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42293547/vernon-brown/|title=Jurors Weigh Death Penalty For Killer|author=Tim Poor|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=January 24, 1991|via=Newspapers.com}}

During the penalty phase, prosecutors brought one of Brown's stepsons to testify against him, all while Brown sat silently and listened.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42179172/vernon-brownverdict/|title=Before Deciding Murderer's Fate|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=January 25, 1991|via=Newspapers.com}} In the closing arguments, Assistant Attorney Robert L. Garrison urged the jurors to give the death penalty, calling Brown a "destroyer of children" who posed a danger to society. In the end, jurors concurred that the case warranted capital punishment and recommended a second death sentence, which was subsequently handed down.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42149881/vernon-brown/|title=2nd Death Sentence Is Given Murderer|author=Tim Poor|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=January 26, 1991|via=Newspapers.com}} This decision was criticized by Brown's public defender, Karen Kraft, who claimed that she had been prevented from presenting a letter from Brown's brother, a platoon sergeant stationed in Saudi Arabia, which she believed could have convinced the jury to be more lenient with the sentencing.

On September 19, 2003, Brown's second death sentence was overturned by a federal appeals court in a 2–1 decision, with the justices ruling that the judge at the original trial had acted improperly by blocking Kraft's decision to present the letter from Brown's brother. This did not affect his death sentence in the Perkins case, which remained in place.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42179403/vernon-brown-death-penalty-appealed/|title=Court throws out death penalty in 1985 murder case|author=Peter Shinkle|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=September 20, 2003|via=Newspapers.com}} He continued to appeal his death sentence, but his final appeals were denied by both the Supreme Court and Governor Matt Blunt, with the latter saying in a written statement that the death penalty was justified in this case.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42151324/vernon-brown/|title=Girl's killer faces death after Blunt decision|author=Robert Patrick|newspaper=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=18 May 2005 |publisher=May 18, 2005|page=B001|via=Newspapers.com}}

On May 18, 2005, the day of his execution, Tom Carroll, a detective from St. Louis, attempted to talk Brown into confessing to killing the St. Louis Jane Doe after the latter was finished with watching the entirety of Platoon. To Carroll's disappointment, Brown claimed that he had nothing to say to him, and when Carroll attempted to plead with him to bring closure to the girl's family, Brown said he did not care about them. He was then transported to the execution chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, where he was subsequently put to death via lethal injection.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42086865/vernon-brown-hoping-for-death-bed/|title=Killer refuses to help police|author=Bill Bryan and Robert Patrick|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|date=May 19, 2005|page=B003|via=Newspapers.com}} Brown's last meal consisted of shrimp, salad, and cake, and his final words were "You'll see me again. To all my friends, don't think of me as being gone, but there with you. And to Jazz, who has my heart and love. Peace, love. Vernon Brown."

As of January 2025, no further murders have been linked to Brown. He was never prosecuted for the Campbell murder and remains a suspect in the St. Louis Jane Doe case, with both of them officially remaining unsolved.

• Capital punishment in Missouri
• List of people executed in Missouri
• List of people executed by lethal injection
• List of people executed in the United States in 2005

{{reflist}}

• [https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/1995/71264-0.html State v. Brown (1995)]
• [https://caselaw.findlaw.com/mo-supreme-court/1163398.html State v. Brown (1999)]

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Category:1953 births

Category:2005 deaths

Category:20th-century American criminals

Category:21st-century executions by Missouri

Category:American male criminals

Category:American murderers of children

Category:American people convicted of child sexual abuse

Category:American people executed for murder

Category:21st-century executions of American people

Category:Executed people from Indiana

Category:People convicted of murder by Missouri

Category:People executed by Missouri by lethal injection

Category:People from Indianapolis

Category:Executed suspected serial killers

Category:Violence against women in Missouri