http://**/news/ci_12927034
2nd murder trial begins in 4-year-old's cliff deathBy Denise Nix Staff Writer
Posted: 07/29/2009 07:26:19 AM PDT
The rocky relationship between Cameron Brown and the woman who bore his child unfolded again Monday at Brown's retrial in the Rancho Palos Verdes cliff death of his 4-year-old daughter.
Cameron Brown, accused of killing his daughter along the cliffs of Palos Verdes in Nov. 2000, as his retrial opens on Monday. (Brad Graverson/Staff Photographer)
The rocky relationship between Cameron Brown and the woman who bore his child unfolded again Monday at Brown's retrial in the Rancho Palos Verdes cliff death of his 4-year-old daughter.
Nearly nine years after Lauren Sarene Key fell to her death, her mother took the witness stand in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom to explain how difficult Brown was - before and after Lauren was born.
Brown is accused of murdering Lauren on Nov. 8, 2000, because, prosecutors contend, he no longer wanted to pay child support for the daughter he seemingly didn't want. During his first trial in 2006, jurors could not agree on whether Brown had committed murder or manslaughter.
Through a series of anecdotes, Sarah Key-Marer, 40, told a new jury of 10 men and two women her version of events - beginning with meeting Brown at a bar in the fall of 1995.
Between meeting Brown and losing her daughter, Key-Marer described how an otherwise fun and normal dating relationship deteriorated after she accidentally became pregnant and Brown seemed to want nothing to do with a baby.
They went on dinners, weekend getaways and hikes along the beach where, in one ironic conversation, she became upset when Brown, 47, told her how two kids had died at about the same spot where they were walking.
"It was a lovely day. Then he told me this story and it just turned my stomach," Key-Marer recalled. "Then, he just carried on."
Their relationship came to a halt in early 1996 after Brown avoided discussions
Prosecuting Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum makes a point during opening remarks during retrial of Cameron Brown. Brown is accused of murdering his daughter along the cliffs of Palos Verdes in Nov. 2000. (Brad Graverson/Staff Photographer)
about the pregnancy and they fought over money, she said.
Key-Marer said she reached out to Brown again in April 1996 after learning she was carrying a baby girl, but he responded by telling her he called immigration to report that she was in the country illegally and would be deported, said Key-Marer, an English native who moved to the United States in 1993.
"I couldn't believe he would say such a horrible thing and I was afraid of what he was capable of," Key-Marer said.
When Lauren was 8 months old, Key-Marer sought child support from Brown through the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
About a year later, she received notification that Brown wanted a DNA test to see if he was Lauren's father. After his paternity was established, he was ordered to pay about $1,000 a month in child support.
In July 1999 - still not having asked to see or meet Lauren - Brown filed for joint legal custody and a reduction in child support.
Slowly, with the help of a mediator, meetings were arranged between Lauren and Brown. They went well at first, Key-Marer said.
But then, Kay-Marer said Brown's irresponsible and dangerous actions around Lauren, coupled with the girl's stress and anxiety around every visitation, started to cause concern.
She described some incidents in which she felt Brown didn't know what was safe or appropriate for a toddler - like the time he told her to sit in the front seat of the car or another when he threw her in a swimming pool even though she didn't know how to swim.
In the meantime, a heated custody and child support dispute was continuing between Brown and Key-Marer.
Brown accused the girl's mother of abusing Lauren and told her after one hearing to never speak to him again - forcing them to communicate with notes and through a mediator, she said.
The day Lauren died, she cried and clung to her mother at school after being told Brown was picking her up that day for a court-ordered visit.
"She barely could talk," Key-Marer said in describing how frantic her normally happy, easy-going child was at news of the visit.
Key-Marer said she looked back at Lauren and the girl told her she loved her.
"Was that the last time you ever saw Lauren?" Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum asked.
"Yes," Key-Marer whispered.
That afternoon, during the visit, Lauren died after going over a 120-foot cliff at Inspiration Point to the Pacific Ocean below. Brown maintains she slipped and fell while throwing rocks.
Through tears, Key-Marer testified that she learned from a police officer that her daughter had died.
"I remember how she told us. I remember hearing the words `cliff,' `Lauren was dead,"' Key-Marer said. "I couldn't believe it."
Earlier in the day, Hum told the jury during opening statements that Brown, who was a baggage handler at Los Angeles International Airport, would do "what he needs to do" to get out of the child support payments.
"The evidence will show that Lauren did not slip and fall" Hum said. "Rather, this man hurled the child he never wanted over the edge of the cliff and into the ocean below."
While Hum and Brown's attorney, Pat Harris, both mentioned evidence about the terrain, the physics of the plunge and autopsy findings, they focused mostly on the emotional roller coaster that was the disjointed family's interactions.
Harris told the jury that the prosecution is basically a mouthpiece for Lauren's grieving mother, and has picked evidence meant to sully his client and make him look like a monster.
While Brown, an avid outdoorsman, may have had some things to learn about parenting, Harris acknowledged, he was a loving father - once he learned for sure that he was, in fact, Lauren's father.
"There's enough blame in this bad relationship to go both ways," Harris said, calling their quarrels a "two-way street."
During Brown's first trial, a Torrance Superior Court jury deadlocked between first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter - with no juror voting for acquittal.
Brown also is charged with the special circumstance of killing for financial gain. His trial is expected to last six weeks. If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Last week, before the trial began, Key-Marer said in an interview that it's been difficult not having all the answers for all these years, but that she put her faith in God.
"I've been waiting so long to have any kind of closure or any kind of peace," she said.
