CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
Teen Tragedy in Tioga: The Connie Yvette Smith Story
What if a seemingly peaceful small town could harbor a story so chilling, it would captivate the nation? Our latest episode uncovers the haunting 1983 murder of Connie Yvette Smith, a promising 17-year-old whose life was cut short just before her high school graduation. We begin with exciting updates about surpassing 3,000 downloads and share fascinating fan mail insights, along with our plans for future mini-episodes to keep you engaged weekly.
Journey with us through the intricate tapestry of Connie's case, beginning with the harrowing aftermath of her tragic death. We'll walk you through the relentless investigation that led to the arrest of her neighbor, Bryan L. Brown—a man with a concealed criminal past. Unravel the intense courtroom drama and media frenzy that ensued, shaking the core of the quiet Tioga community and sparking a national debate about the right to privacy versus freedom of the press.
But the story doesn't end there. Prepare for a dramatic twist as we detail Brown's daring escape from Rapides Parish Jail alongside eight other inmates, leading to a multi-state manhunt. Track the gripping pursuit culminating in Brown's capture in California and his fervent pleas of innocence. Despite his attempts to evade justice, Brown's return to Alexandria marked a crucial turn in the case, highlighting the relentless pursuit of truth and the emotional toll on everyone involved. This episode is an intense exploration of a case that remains a poignant chapter in Tioga's history.
Sources:
Newspapers.com
Appeal to Supreme Court - Decision
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On May 14th 1983, connie Yvette Smith, who had turned 17 just a little bit earlier that year, decided that she was going to go to a graduation party for her pending ceremony that would be next week. She made it home in the early hours of the am that morning and what followed after that was nearly unbelievable. The family that resided in the home with her heard her screams and rushed her to the hospital, but to no avail. She passed away that morning after being stabbed, and what followed was a circus of legal proceedings, prison escapes, manhunts and a resolution that not everybody agreed on. Come with me now as we dive into this case on today's episode of SIN. Hey guys, and welcome back to the SIN Law Podcast, where true crime meets the legal system.
Speaker 1:I'm Kelly and before we get too far into anything today, I want to just do a real quick housekeeping type thing where I, you know, just kind of mention some of the stuff that's been going on with the podcast itself. However, if you're not interested at all in listening to any of that jibber jabber, you can skip ahead to about seven minutes and that's where the actual episode will begin. I won't be upset. Go ahead, jump For everyone else. I wanted to update everybody on the fact that we have got over 3,000 all-time downloads. Thank you guys. You're awesome, but we knew that already and the fan mail that I've mentioned, I think on a couple episodes, and at the top of every show notes is a little link where you can send me a text message. It comes directly to my phone and the only thing that I didn't realize was it doesn't let me write you guys back. So if you send me fan mail through that link, unless you leave me some way to contact you back, I have no way of even letting you know that I received it. So just real quick, I want to read a couple here. One was on June 27th from Clarksville was on June 27th from Clarksville, georgia. This is in reference to the James Clayton Rogers Miss Evelyn Lopo, I believe is actually how you're supposed to say it. I was pronouncing it wrong the entire episode, so please forgive me for that. But in reference to that episode, this person wrote I knew James Clayton Rogers Jr. He was my niece's father. I also knew Dan Martin and his brothers, and she goes on to talk about, or they go on to talk about about what their beliefs were of that episode and they apparently believe that Dan did kill Miss Lopo as my brother, uncle Sawyer, the uncle of the unsolved, he also believed that it was very much little Danny Martin. So not alone in that one, sawyer, good for you.
Speaker 1:On July 22nd we got a fan mail message from Shreveport, louisiana that said, loving your podcast, that this person lives in Shreveport and that we should do an episode on Dr Lewis Graham from the 80s. He lived in the Southern Hills area of Shreveport, apparently where this writer grew up, and he was a professor at LSU Medical School and apparently he killed his wife with a pickaxe. There was a book written about it and it's an incredibly interesting case. So thank you very much. Shreveport Louisiana bandmail writer. I will absolutely look into that. I think I had one other request for that episode prior to this one, so I think it's already on the list. But I will make doubly sure and make sure you get credit for that when it happens. But anybody who does any kind of fan mail messaging in the future, please, if you just want to have a response from me in any way, just leave me an email address Then that way I can shoot you back and let you know or ask further questions about you, know details or to inquire about anything that's being written, because I've got a couple of others that I would really like to ask you know for follow up information. That way I can better either solve the problem or address an issue, as it were. So thank you guys very much for that and I appreciate all the feedback, even though you know it may not be very much right now. But I will always be open to any kind of constructive criticism or just downright criticism. I'm okay with it, like my feelings are not going to be hurt too much.
Speaker 1:I take a lot of pride in what I do, which is why it takes forever for me to get these episodes out, because I get so lost in the rabbit holes of research. So I'm trying to do better, and that also brings me to another point. I'm going to try to do kind of like mini episodes on the off weeks where I'm only doing one episode. Every two weeks I'll do a main episode, which it'll be kind of bulky, as most of mine usually are, but in the off week do like a 25, 35 minute episode. You know that's kind of condensed, but also give you guys something every week instead of making you wait every two weeks. So that's just a thought. Give me some feedback on that. If you guys think that's a good idea or if that's be something you'd be interested in listening to, just let me know. And I think that's about it for the moment and we will go ahead and jump right into our main episode or our main case and get back down to business.
Speaker 1:So this one is a trip, you guys, an absolute journey. We're going all the way back to years before I was born in 1983. And, as you heard in the opening, this is about a 17-year-old girl who lost her life tragically less than a week before her senior graduation. And what follows literally I can't. You can't make this stuff up. It is absolutely wild.
Speaker 1:And before we get into it I know I keep saying that, but this is coming from another listener suggestion. He knows who he is. You guys know who he is. I've done many episodes already that he has suggested and he wrote me this one way back. I think it was his first email he ever wrote me, because he included like three or four suggestions and I think this is the last one from the very first email. So I think I've got that one completely done and can put it in the we're done with this one list. But the man behind the curtain, I think, is what I referred to, him as before. But I just wanted to say thank you so much. Keep them coming. I haven't forgotten about any of the requests or suggestions, so they're always there. I even have their own little special tab in my email inbox to make sure I keep all of them noticeable and in the forefront, that way I don't lose them and that way they're always going to be there. And then when I get done with whichever recommendation or suggestion, I remove the tag, so that way I don't have to, you know, wade through a whole big, long list. So they are there, I will get to them, I promise. So thank you so much, mr Mann, and let's go ahead and jump on in.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, our story today takes us back to 1983, to a little town called Tioga, and that's going to be in Rapides, parish and I'm calling it Central Louisiana. If you were to look at a map and see the roundabout that is a little bit in southern Alexandria, if you went straight up from that roundabout about 23 miles then you'd find Tioga and, more specifically, you would be in the specific neighborhood called Timber Trails and that is where our victim lived at the time of her death. She was gorgeous Miss Connie Yvette Smith, and, like again, I do every episode. I try to have pictures and articles and things accompanying our stories on our website, sinlawpodcastcom, and you can go there and see. She's a beautiful, beautiful girl.
Speaker 1:She lived in a three-story house with her family of, I believe, three brothers and her parents, and they had moved there, I believe, from Texas. I want to say it was somewhere in Fort Worth, somewhere around there. They had lived in the Three Story House and Timber Trails subdivision since 1974. She had, like I said, the three brothers, uh, one older brother, bradley. He was 18 at the time of her death and then she had, uh, oh, I'm sorry, four brothers total, three younger, one older. So it was Spencer, joel, robert Jr, and then her older brother, bradley, and her mother and father, robert and Ramona. They all lived together, like said, in this subdivision in Tioga, and when you do a quick Google search of Tioga you don't get much. And that's not me being ugly, that's just me telling you guys that, being that close to Alexandria, tioga is not known for much. Pretty much everything that I found that was quote unquote interesting to do in Tioga was mainly either in Gina or Ellic or somewhere nearby, not so much in Tioga itself, like the Gone Wild Safari Park. I've been there with my daughter. It's really fun. It's a drive through basically a zoo, but you can feed the animals from your car, and I'll put a couple of those fun pictures up on the website too. That way it's not just all doom and gloom.
Speaker 1:However, at this point in 1983, connie was coming home from a graduation party Because, like I said in in the opening, she was graduating that next week and she came home at about I don't know 3 am 3, 30 and her brother was still around or still awake, and his room was on the first floor. Connie's was on the third. She came in, she talked to her brother for a little bit and then she went upstairs to go to her room. Very shortly after she left her brother Bradley's presence, he heard a scream, as did Connie's father, and they both took off running. Connie's parents bedroom, from what I understand, was on the second floor, so he ran straight up to Connie's room.
Speaker 1:When Bradley ran out of his room to go upstairs to check on his sister. He ran into an intruder and, not knowing exactly what was happening, he started to chase this intruder and he chased him all the way outside the house and down, um down the street a ways not too far, but under like a light um on the street and the intruder, instead of continuing to run away, turned around, slashed him one time on the arm and then took off after that. Now, when I heard this detail, it made me suspicious, but I can go ahead and clear that up for everybody right now. It was not the brother. The brother did not kill her. So he runs back in the house to see his parents holding his sister, trying to get her downstairs into the car and she's got blood all over her and they're all just panicking and trying to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. They make it to the hospital but she's pronounced dead on arrival and then the whole bottom just falls out. Everybody is completely blown away. How can this happen in this neighborhood, in this area? This is unheard of, just unbelievable, especially to someone like Connie Smith.
Speaker 1:She was 17 years old. Especially to someone like Connie Smith. She was 17 years old. Her family practiced the religion of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was actually in a club at her high school, tioga High School, and she was also a cheerleader. She had been on the honor roll for three years. She was in the Future Homemakers of America Association. She was in the Beta Club. She did beauty pageants. She actually won the most. I think it was like most glamorous or something along those lines. The school voted and she was the most beautiful in her senior class and that was voted on by the student body and she won that. She was also a very accomplished pianist and everything that I read about her it was just, she was the most amazing, helpful, kind person and I believe her dad was quoted as saying she was the kind of daughter that made you glad to be a father and being that this was their only daughter, I'm sure this created just an absolute nightmare of of upset and and remorse and grief in that household. I can't even imagine. So. This was may 14th, at about 4 am, that this had occurred. She was supposed to graduate May 16th or, I'm sorry, may 20th, so six days after this happened she was supposed to graduate. It was, oh my gosh, just heartbreaking and you can't, I can't imagine what kind of solemn atmosphere that was having to graduate so soon after losing someone, a part of your senior class that was that well-known and that prominent. I mean especially, like I said, her student body voted for her as the most beautiful person in their class. So I mean, obviously's that's gonna hit hard for everyone.
Speaker 1:Um, come to find out after the autopsy was done. She was stabbed at least once. They think she might have been slashed one other time and the defensive wound on her arm. She had one major slash across her arm and then the only major wound to her body was the upper left chest and it severed her aorta. So her dad, when he was recalling the situation later and the entire event, he said that he heard her scream, ran up to to her. She never really said any words but she kind of stumbled, stutter, stepped towards him and then collapsed, which follows with that kind of wound, because within two to three minutes of your aorta being severed because that's the main artery that runs to your heart that you're going to be but you're going to bleed out within two to three minutes tops, and that I remember reading. He said that she died in his arms and there was nothing he could do, and that, to me, is beyond all other things that are heartbreaking. I can't even begin to imagine things that are heartbreaking, I can't even begin to imagine. So come to find out that same morning of May 14th they later in the morning, so this happened at about 4 am.
Speaker 1:Later that morning, at about 7, they actually already had a suspect in custody and charged with murder and attempted murder Because, remember, I told you that he attacked the brother that had chased him out into the street. He slashed him on the arm and they both actually ended up seeking treatment at the hospital. The brother was fine, he didn't have any life-threatening injury, but you know Connie had passed away. You know Connie had passed away, and so the suspect that they had in custody was actually a young man by the name of Brian L Brown. He was two years older than Connie, so that would have made him 19 at the time.
Speaker 1:He lived a couple houses down in the same subdivision as Connie's family and they found him that morning sleeping in his room at his house, after they had gotten some information from a few people in the area and basically just went and knocked on doors if anybody had heard anything or seen anything, and they um, they found him that morning asleep at his home and when they took him into the police station to book him he still had on blood-stained jeans, he still had blood on his hands and he had, yeah, pieces of clothing on at the time that he was arrested that still had blood on them. I remember we're in 1983, so genetic DNA testing, not so much a thing but, you know, still pretty, pretty damning. And they also found a picture which you don't find out if you're looking back through these chronologically of these newspaper articles, if you're looking back through these chronologically of these newspaper articles, nobody knew that they had found a picture of Connie in his pocket the day he was arrested, that morning he was arrested, nobody knew that, but on his person when he was taken in he had a picture of Connie that was actually taken from her room that morning in his pants pocket. So all of these things, like I said, I can pretty much quash that brother idea from the very get go, because the way that it read it was so suspicious like nobody else saw the intruder, he was the only one that saw the intruder and he had this non life threatening injury and usually, you know, that can mean a couple things, but in this, in this case, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:It's not him so, but Brian L Brown. He was known in the community but he was not popular as most of these guys are not. He lived, like I said, a couple houses up and this guy was already out on bond for committing other crimes, three other crimes actually, at the time that Ms Connie was murdered. So Brown had been arrested sometime in December of 82 for robbery, theft or attempted armed robbery, theft and burglary, and those were different events. So it was like three different things that he had been arrested for. And he was actually supposed to be in court that next week to have a sanity hearing. So they were trying to decide if he was competent to stand trial or not. And in the interim they had let him out on bond.
Speaker 1:So out on bond for an alleged armed robbery and when I looked into that situation he had actually held a lawyer at gunpoint and threatened him to get his wallet, but then he took off before he ever even got the wallet, which was another reason I was kind of like doubting this whole, like randomly stabbing someone in their home thing, because it just didn't make sense. He seemed like kind of a coward. Why would he turn around after he was already getting away from the brother and slashed at him if he was already like able to escape? It just didn't follow. But it ends up, you know, definitely winning the brother.
Speaker 1:So all of this comes in pieces over the next little while. So May 14th, he is arrested. The same morning, less than four hours from the time Connie is attacked to the time he gets booked. And on the 16th, two days later, he's actually put before a judge for a bond setting and the judge orders no bond. And again, like I said, he was out already for a simple robbery, attempted armed robbery and theft from the year before, and he had a hearing on that on the 20th or the 25th somewhere in there and the doctors who had done their evaluation found him competent for the other charges. Now they couldn't like lump all of this together because they were two completely separate things, and the reason that the other ones were kind of lumped together is because they'd already gone through a bunch of hearings and processes and decided to put those together. But they were completely separate from the murder and attempted murder charges that he was now being held on.
Speaker 1:And when I say the newspapers had a freaking failed day with this. Now you have to imagine like nothing like this really has ever happened in Tioga. This is big, big news. She is a beautiful, beautiful, young 17 year old who was murdered in her home, supposedly by someone who lived in the neighborhood a couple houses down. It was just a news sensation and, not to mention, it wasn't the only one happening at the time. Many of her articles and the articles dealing with Brown's legal journey were also tied in with another murder case of a I believe it was a 16 year old girl and that one was. She was found mostly naked in the woods, hung up by her neck, and there was a young man that was being charged with that murder and his name was Prestridge P-R-E-S-T-R-I-D-G-E, and these were both first-degree murder cases that you know were involving young men with even younger victims, and these were both in the headlines around the same time, which becomes important later. So he had actually Prestridge had been arrested and charged maybe a month before Brown had been arrested and charged in the murder of Connie Smith. So both, you know, sensational, both very, very talked about, very much publicized, and it seemed like the investigator in the Brown case just enjoyed the spotlight, basically because by the time a lawyer got appointed and assigned to Brown's case, he was already asking for a gag order on the police on the corner.
Speaker 1:And now this brings the first legal. I don't even know what to call it. It's very interesting is what I'll call it, because used to, apparently, back in the day, they had these things called a coroner's inquest and they still have them, but they were completely different back in the day, and what I mean by that is any of the coroner's inquest, which is basically a coroner's request for more information in regards to a specific case where they're doing and their their autopsy findings. They need more information to be able to better understand and better make a decision, or educational guess or whatever it is. You know what I mean their determination for their findings, right. So a lot and good coroners will do this. They'll either go to be present at the scene where the body is found and be a part of that as they're there, so they can have that information and knowledge going into an autopsy. Now they have to kind of measure and weigh which is why they're professionals what is important and what they can use as part of their decision making process, because you can have it.
Speaker 1:It can be a natural death, a suicide, a homicide or undetermined it. It can be a natural death, a suicide, a homicide or undetermined. So in making these decisions, they could also request, through the court, more information. Well, back in 83, it was still something that was done publicly. So the coroner, their inquest, they would come into the courtroom and any member of the public could just walk in and listen to all of the information that they're discussing, which we know as true crime fans.
Speaker 1:We understand how that can be very dangerous, because not only are you polluting the pool of potential juries in case of a trial, but you're also allowing if, in a situation where you didn't already have a suspect or someone in custody even if you did, you might not have the right person. So you're letting whoever Tom Dick and Harry know what information that you have and, even more so, detailed information that the coroner might need that is on a level that is not needed to be released to the general public, because that's going to, especially in these cases where you've got all the publicity that is already being given to the general public, you have to have some things close to the vest because you don't want to give too much one way or the other because you don't want everyone to think, oh he's guilty, oh well he's innocent. You have to have some kind of level playing field, otherwise, as you will see coming up here shortly, it can be a problem later on down the line. So we have the attorney which was a public defender for Brown. He is requesting a gag order be put on all of these people involved in the investigation and the coroner itself, and he is asking for a dismissal or a discontinue the coroner's public inquest or the public request for information. And it actually works for a little while.
Speaker 1:And this is where the beginning of these ungodly amount of time-consuming and delay tactics and it's not even tactics, all of them are pretty well justified in this case that happen, that start here on. You know almost within a week of anything happening, but within that same week you've had the investigator, you've had the coroner and you've had two or three members of the police force that have actually talked to the public, whether it was the newspaper, one guy was on TV, I mean, it was a lot that probably borderline. You shouldn't be doing this. You're ruining any chance that you're. You know this person, even though if they are a murderer, even then, they still have rights that are protected by the Constitution to have a fair trial. And what you're doing is polluting any possibility of that happening in this jurisdiction because you are making sure that everyone out there knows, believes and sees that he's done something wrong, which also brings us to the part where they are now lumping all of his prior crimes in with this new murder case, which is supposedly, we're supposed to be, presumed innocent until proven guilty. But by saying this and putting that out there, that he's oh, he's already got all these other three charges, that can also be a pollution of a possible jury in case of a trial, because you're making it look like, oh, he's a repeat criminal.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why attorneys are not allowed to bring up a prior record of someone while they're on trial. Those are part of the court rules and trial rules. You can't bring up something in the past, and you can only, generally, the only time that you can, bring up any kind of prior convictions. You can't and technically you can't even bring up prior arrests unless they are convictions, but you can't even bring those up until the sentencing phase. If that is a part of your trial, you're not allowed to talk about it because you're only supposed to be judged or you know the verdict is only supposed to be made based on the information that is relevant to the specific crime that you're being tried for, not your past, not your history, not what you've done before, but what you're what you are alleged to have done this time, right now, on this charge.
Speaker 1:So all of these things that they're printing in the paper are just that negative cloud that is being put over all of everybody's idea, or general idea of Brian Brown. So when you come, we go through it and I'm telling you it starts from the day that she died, on May 14th. The 25th is when he does the gag order, which technically he didn't order a gag order. They basically just re-went over what the article is called Court Rule Number of you know, the proper code of evidence and releasing evidence and information to the general public, and that fine line of where some is it's too much or not enough, and so you have like what information can be released, and they just kind of basically went back over the same rules again to make sure that the officers and the attorneys and the district attorney's office and everybody were on the same page as to what information could be released and what information shouldn't be released and to what extent they can talk to the media, and that also brought up a whole you know.
Speaker 1:Basically you know, freedom of the press, freedom of information. We need to know things, but at what cost? And who gets the benefit of the doubt? Does the public or does the person who is now being charged and their rights? Who has the more right? Basically so, does the criminal or the possible criminal who's being alleged to have done something wrong? Does he have more rights to his privacy and his possible indictment and conviction? Because without telling the public, then maybe he has a better shot by not having such a negative connotation on his name? Or does the public at large have more of a right to freedom of their information because we have the freedom of press and yada, yada, yada. So it was a battle of rights and you know it's a very fine line and they just kind of reiterated that during the gag order hearing.
Speaker 1:So that was on the 25th of may and you go to june 23rd when he's actually indicted by a grand jury for first degree murder and attempted first degree murder, and at this point he and his attorneys he goes through I think it was like seven, six or seven different attorneys. One of them left because some other attorney in his law firm left and he could no longer do the public defender cases and I mean like it was just a whole litany all the way through this. He ends up switching, like I said, between six and seven lawyers he has during this entire time and one eventually at the end of June or in mid-July-ish they actually do another sanity request for these new charges. So they do that Come July 29th he pleads officially, pleads not guilty at his quote unquote arraignment and they set the court date for November 14th 1983 to start the trial. Well, again, they're waiting on the sanity stuff, they're putting things off. The date gets backed up even more. So we roll over into 1984.
Speaker 1:And in February of 1984, on the 17th, mr Brian Brown and eight other inmates escape the jail in Rapides Parish. You heard me. Eight plus Mr Brown, so nine inmates escape in February of 1984. Yes, so the weird, crazy part about it was they didn't even realize that they had any escapees until one of the escapees actually got caught trying to break into a safe at a nearby bank. That was when they realized that this gentleman was supposed to be in jail, they called the jail. The jail says and then they go to check and they realize they have eight others that are also not in jail, that are supposed to be there. So they start looking for these guys and how serendipitous that it ends up being Brian Brown. That is the very last one still on the lam 201 days later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he escaped in February 17th of 1984. He did not get captured or he got arrested, actually in Palo Alto, california. You heard me, he was in Cali and he was arrested in September of 84, around I think. It was something about. It was some kind of a robbery, I believe. I'm not sure. And when they arrested him he didn't want to tell them who he was and they were like were you that guy who escaped prison? He was like no, not me, but like who would admit that Really, really. So anyway, they do all the confirmations and everything and he refused extradition. So they had to do all of the fingerprinting and go before a judge and that took even longer. So eventually, about a month and a half later, he was returned to Alexandria to the Rapides Parish Jail, which he actually ended up being housed at the parish correctional facility. I believe they put him in a different spot rather than putting him back in the jail that he had escaped from.
Speaker 1:They eventually did recapture all nine inmates who had escaped, but Brown was the actual last, very, very last one. But he, brown, was the actual last, very, very last one and he begged and pleaded with the people, with the officers in California, to not send him back. He didn't do it, he didn't kill that girl, and so on and so forth. So eventually he was returned to Alexandria and that was in October, mid to late October of 1984. By the end of that month, his new attorney who had been assigned to the case. He requested a change of 1984. By the end of that month, his new attorney who had been assigned to the case. He requested a change of venue. And that was mostly due to the fact that the gentleman I spoke of earlier who was also going on trial for the murder of a young girl, prestridge. They were sharing the headlines again, but Prestridge was going to trial first and there was a bunch of negativity around this. And what the craziest part of all of this was he. Because of all of the publicity and because they wanted to make sure that the voir dire of the jury, of the people that were coming to possibly sit on the jury, was so thorough and done correctly that way that they didn't have to change venue, that the jury picking for prestridge took over a freaking month. It was so long. They picked like one every week maybe it was ungodly unread just five weeks, five solid weeks to pick the 12 plus two jury members with the two alternates. They spent over $40,000. This is 84, guys, $40,000 with inflation and everything. That means that 40,000 in 1984 is the equivalent of $121,000. $121,000. Okay, and this is not a big town. Rapides, paris, that's not the trend-setting high-class. We got lots of money to blow on this crap and he was found guilty, but he was not sentenced to death. They gave him life without parole and every single person in the parish was pissed off. They were, they were irate. They wrote letters to the papers, they were on like anybody that would listen to him. They were bitching about this. Why would we this much money and then this guy gets to live on our money for the rest of the time? Oh my gosh, they were mad. So much anger. And then guess what happened immediately following within a month and a half of that happening. Now they're going to start a trial for Brown. Yeah. However, the judge did say you know, we're not going to change venue, but we'll go through a rigorous jury selection. And starting on August 19th, they started, but they did it a little bit different than they did the Prestridge trial because, like I said, that was ungodly and ridiculous. They brought in people like two by two and just didn't. It didn't freaking work. What they did for this selection was they brought in like a group of 12 at a time and then they would do their voir dire of each 12 individuals at a time, and that it cut the time down quite a bit. So, on the 19th of August of 1984 or 85, I'm sorry, this was 85, we have done, moved on, I apologize. We have now moved forward because the press fridge trial started and that went all the way until June of 1985. And now, august, again 19th, they start the selection, even though they had multiple bomb threats to the building. I'm telling you, this thing is so filled with so much stuff. It was like one after the other, after the other, like are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me and then after all the motions for change of venue, all of those things, including one of Brown's first lawyers. He actually ended up in jail because he refused to say anything about client attorney privilege, because they were trying to get him to say whether or not a knife that may or may not have been used in the murder of Connie was ever given to him and he refused to say it and they put him in jail. Now the Supreme Court actually bonded this lawyer out and was like look, just forgive him. He's under a lot of pressure, under a lot of stress. But I just thought that was absolutely batshit. Like this judge was trying to force him to break that privilege, which is one of the most sacred things that a lawyer has. And you know they can literally lose all everything and never get to be a lawyer again, barely probably be able to do anything in their life again, because that trust has to be there. So they start jury selection on the 19th, they get an eight female, three male panel for the jury seating and then on the 22nd. So it only took three days for them to get the whole jury set and that trial started, and the trial itself actually took less time than the jury selection and on Friday, august 23rd, after about 40 minutes. The jury that took three days to select took 40 minutes to decide that Brown was guilty. The defense put on no witnesses. The prosecution actually put the parents, the brother. There was a neighbor who said he saw two individuals out under the streetlight tussling early that morning. They actually put Brian's mom on the stand. They had a private investigator that worked for the attorney that got put in jail on the stand. They put him on there. There was also a cellmate that was a cellmate of Brian Brown's who testified to him hearing or Brian telling him that you know he had killed him and that you know he had done it with a knife from the kitchen, and those ones are always iffy. You always have to be careful about when you put a cellmate or a jailhouse snitch on the stand because it can be beneficial but at the same time if their credibility is lacking and depending on what they're in there for and if they're just looking for a deal, which you know his lawyer did do diligence and made it very apparent that you know like this is what we're dealing with but at the same time like how can you believe this guy he's. You know, he did his best, he did his best to do everything that he could to poke all the holes and they tried their hardest and to kind of like downplay everything. And actually the defense, from what I understand, wasn't't oh, he didn't kill her. It was oh, he didn't mean to. He got scared, accidentally killed her because he was just trying to get out of there, because he got real nervous and lashed out and didn't mean for her to die, which basically this, this attorney at this point is just trying to damage control as best that he can to keep his client from getting the death sentence. And so, after they found him guilty, they had to go into the sentencing phase, which has to start. By law, it has to start at least 24 to 48 hours after they found him guilty. So they did that and this time, because of everything and all the shenanigans that happened with Prestridge, this time he was sentenced to death. And that's not the end of the story, folks, because where would you know, why would I say this is crazy madness, circus if that's how this ended and you know, they put him on death row and that was the end of it and they killed him and whatever. That didn't happen. That did not happen Because they go to the Supreme Court. And this is where our man behind the curtain sent me the appeal that was sent to the Supreme Court, appeal that was sent to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana overturned the sentencing and conviction of Brian L Brown based on the fact that the judge absolutely should have granted the request to change venue and because of that it got remanded back down into the district courts to start all the way over again. You heard me. So in August of 1985, he was found guilty, sentenced to death, to death October 20th, a week exactly before what would have been Connie's 20th birthday. A week before that, on October 20th 1986, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction and sent it back down. They said that there were too many articles and too much public influence, that there was no way that he was ever going to get a fair trial anywhere near that parish and that it absolutely should have been granted by the district judge. So he sent it back. They sent it back. And here we go through all of the shenanigans all over again. So we get to June of 1987, when they're going to start June 1st. They're going to start June 1st. They're going to start this retrial, they start jury selection and by June 7th, a week later, they're done with jury selection. However, they offer because they're worried about the potential jurors and because they're worried about the selection of people that they've had on the jury and I'm talking about the prosecution, the district attorney's office, the pro they are worried about their chances going into this and they make an offer, and that offer includes taking the death penalty off the table if brown will admit and accept the plea deal which would offer him. He had to plead guilty to first degree murder and three other felonies for the stabbing death of connie evette sm. And that guaranteed that he would not be sentenced to death and he would spend life in prison. And he had to also plead guilty to the aggravated attempted rape, aggravated burglary and aggravated battery, and he also had to stand in court and admit on the record that he did it. Now the quote that I have from the newspaper is this quote I went to the Smith home and murdered Connie Smith. I had intended to rape her During the time I was in her room. She woke up and I stabbed her. When I was leaving the room I was chased by Brad Smith and I turned and stabbed him unquote and the article goes on to say that he was wiping tears from his eyes and told the court that you know he was sorry and he definitely had remorse over what had happened and the family was just glad that it was over. On top of all the other things, and to finally get that kind of closure of him admitting it, because up to that point he had denied that he had done it, that he denied that it was anything um other than it was. It was somebody else, basically um. And come to find out after, finally, after all of this is well and done, they finally get the more information out as to why and according to other sources and according to the testimony that came out in the first trial, after it was all released because they didn didn't release it until after everything had come back through with the second trial and then the subsequent plead, he come to find out that he had been obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with Connie. He had followed her for months and was watching her through her window and of course this is the 1980s. Nobody locked their doors. He literally just walked right in the back sliding glass door of their home and it was never really made clear if he had waited on her, if he had come in right behind her and just saw her walk in and decided tonight was the night he was going to go try. But he realized in the time that he had the decision and said that he was going to go do something and realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep this situation under his control. He panicked and ended up stabbing her and she ended up dying because of that. Now I didn't even mention the missing nightgown that was thrown a fit about. But I'm telling you this case had more side venture, sideways going information between the eight different different lawyers, between the gag orders, between telling too much the press, between not granting this, between the overturning of the entirety of the first case or the entirety of the first trial by the supreme court. Coming back, we went almost four freaking years for him to end up just pleading, taking a plea deal and getting life in prison. Now one other shocker Brown, mr Brian L Brown, is still alive and is still currently being housed in Angola. I tried to reach out to him by J-Pay and sending him a letter through there. I did not get a response back. I had meant to do this one as kind of like the little first go-round mini episode, but then I realized how big this was, how long it was actually going to take, just because of the twisty tourney. But because of that I waited the extra week until, you know, this week to release it, just to make sure that that wasn't going to change. But yeah, so I said it didn't get a response back. If I do ever get a response back I will absolutely let you guys know. But as of right now, that's where this one stands. He admitted to it, he did it and unfortunately this poor beautiful girl lost her life because of a very I don't know I don't want to call him maladjusted, I guess is the best way to put that Like he just wasn't very socially inclined and because of that and because of you know his tendency, because his life wasn't great as far as I could tell, but I don't have a lot of information on that either there wasn't a whole lot of information given by the family or anything else, it just didn't. It didn't come out in the articles and all of the research that I did. I couldn't find much of anything. The closest I got was learning that his mom's name was Frankie. I don't even know what his dad's name was. I don't know much else about any of it. I just couldn't find that information. There was too many other crazy things happening during all this that I just couldn't get. That information wasn't there. So that's where that went in. Guys, he's still in jail, he's still alive and actually I think he is. What would that be? 61? 61 years old? This year, on November 2nd of this year he'd be 61. So just bonkers, absolutely bonkers, and he escaped. He was out on the lam, he made it to California. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy, really, really crazy. So I really want to thank my mystery man behind the curtain that sent this in via email as a suggestion. I appreciate it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started doing the research on this one, but I loved it. It was great because it was one of those things that I could. I got my teeth into it and it was just new thing after that, wasn't that? You know, basic cookie cutter like this is what happened. This is what they did. They went to trial and no, no, not even close. So I really appreciate it and I appreciate you guys so much for coming back every time I release an episode, even if it's really late or just at a whack schedule somewhere. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being consistent and appreciating and downloading and telling people. Thanks for all of the support from everybody all the way across the board. Oh, and I want to say hey, what's up? To one of our listeners from Australia. I didn't see this until here recently, but we have someone in New South Wales down there listening from down under. So we have officially landed on all the continents that have people on it that have internet. So thank you so much for being awesome and stay that way. And if you have any questions or if you want to look at the pictures and things that I found in these articles, I have pictures of Brown. I have pictures of Prestridge. I have pictures of Connie and her brother and the family. I have all of that will be on the website, at sinlawpodcastcom. I usually throw out a couple of TikToks per episode. You can check that out. Our handle on that is at sinlawpod or at SinlawPodcast. I also have my stuff on Twitter. That is generally just the copying and pasting or you can listen to any of these episodes and see any of the TikToks. All of that is available on the YouTube at SinlawPodcast. And all of these different places also have links to all of the other places, so get to one. You get to all of them. Thank you, guys, so much. I love you. You're the best. I'll see you later. Stay safe out there.
