“I don’t think anything bothers investigators as much as an unsolved case.”
“And so we were just pounding our heads in the wall. And then the letters started coming.”
“In the murky flaccid depths beneath the cool, caressing me lies seven sacred virgins and tombs side by side. Those less worthy are scattered wide.”
“That was the first indication that we did have a serial killer on our hands.”
“It is right around here somewhere. It’s probably the remnants of an old Indian burial ground.”
“In a mountainous ravine high above Colorado Springs, a state trooper follows up on a report by a homeless man.”
“The transient told me that he was up on Rampart Range Road and he found what appeared to be human remains and it turned out to be a human skull.”
“Dental records prove the skull is the remains of 13-year-old Heather Church.”
“We had a good coroner who was able to determine from the skull that she died of blunt force trauma to the head. So, we definitely had a homicide case.”
“For two long years, investigators from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office could not solve the mystery of what happened to Heather.”
“I don’t think anything bothers investigators as much as an unsolved case. An unsolved case can destroy a family. Uh it’s the not knowing what happened to their loved one that really destroys people over time.”
“Heather Church was a 13-year-old girl that lived here in the northeast part of El Paso County in the area known as Black Forest. And she disappeared from her home one evening. It was a high-profile case, and I think most people had seen pictures of the missing person’s flyer that had her portrait on it.”
“It all begins on a dark autumn night.”
“Hey, Mom. Can I stay here tonight with Chuck? Please, I guess.”
“Okay. Thank you. Let’s roll.”
“Heather stayed home with her 5-year-old brother while her mother took the other two boys to their Boy Scout meeting.”
“Do you watch TV?”
“Diane called home about 8:00 that evening to talk to Heather and see if everything was okay.”
“Hello.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Hey,”
“what’s going on?”
“We’re just watching TV. It’s really funny.”
“So, you’re good?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we should be home in like three minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too. Thank you.”
“An hour and a half later, Diane and her boys return home.”
“Heather, we’re home. All right, listen. One show and then we’re going to bed. Deal.”
“Yep. All right. We were watching.”
“Her youngest son is sound asleep. when Diane checks on Heather.”
“Heather,”
“the bed is empty.”
“All right, boys. I can’t find Heather. Come on. Help me find her right now. Hello.”
“I got a call about 10:00 at night. Diane said, ‘Have you heard from Heather?’ And I said, ‘No.'”
“And she says, ‘I can’t find her.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean you can’t find her?'”
“Heather’s gone. How can Heather be gone? You’re sure she didn’t go someplace?”
“It was just not reasonable for Heather not to be there. And Diane had panic in her voice.”
“Be there just a minute. All right. Heather’s missing. What’s wrong?”
“Heather’s missing. Diane needs us to come and look for her.”
“How long has she been missing?”
“I don’t know. She said like four years.”
“My husband and I jumped in the truck and ran out to Dian’s.”
“Diane also calls Heather’s father.”
“Heather’s father immediately started speeding out to their home, feeling like this is a really bad thing that’s happened here. He had immediate feelings that something really bad had happened to his daughter.”
“Heather, where are you, honey?”
“Come on. I can’t find Heather. I don’t know. I don’t know. Just take this. Take this.”
“I can’t find her.”
“My husband and I and Diane, we were all outside calling her name. We probably drove around for 20 minutes through the fields with our lights on doing a search around the property.”
“Heather.”
“Heather.”
“Heather.”
“We had no idea that this was going to turn into be a nightmare. We figured that it would be solved, that Heather would come home safely.”
“Having been a parent, you you can’t say you know what they’re going through, but you can imagine it’s worse than anything you could possibly imagine.”
“Diane and Mike Church had four children and Heather Church was their oldest daughter. About a year after they moved to their new house, Diane and Mike separated. And Diane stayed in the house with the four children.”
“In the early part of the investigation, there was a lot of speculation that maybe she was a runaway, maybe she was alive someplace.”
“The morning after Heather disappears, the search and rescue teams arrive about dawn and they fan out across the prairie and then they also start canvasing the neighborhood.”
“They find no sign of Heather.”
“Just not sure, you know.”
“This causes investigators to suspect she’s been forcibly taken from her home.”
“Diane wanted to busy herself. She picked up the vacuum cleaner and started vacuuming. Sheriff’s deputy came running out.”
“You could be destroying evidence.”
“And that was the first Diane realized that their house was being treated as a crime scene.”
“I have to show you something. Okay. So, I don’t know if it’s important or not, but I saw like the screen was a little weird. I I wasn’t sure.”
“This is how you found the window.”
“Yeah. So, I really just saw this screen. I wasn’t sure.”
“Could you get CSI in here?”
“The investigators immediately realized that the window screen has been removed from the window and then put back but not seated correctly in the track. This is really the first clue that someone has actually come into the house.”
“The prints are submitted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation database and there are no hits.”
“The case affected all of us on a personal level. A crime like that had not occurred in this community where a girl was abducted from the safety of her own home.”
“Heather’s disappearance received a lot of publicity, and hundreds of people called with tips, claiming to have seen her at the mall, at a restaurant, on a bus.”
“From the beginning, investigators pursue every lead, but none result in any possible suspect.”
“It became just a part of life that this was ongoing. It was a mystery that needed to be solved.”
“The discovery of Heather Church’s skull 2 years after her mysterious disappearance devastates Heather’s mother, Diane.”
“Being told that she was dead. Um, set it in stone in such a way that then it really hurt. She had spent two years hoping so hard that she never really wanted to consider that that was how it was going to end.”
“The finding of Heather’s skull confirms she met a violent fate, but no new leads surface.”
“As far as discovering information that led to the identity of the suspect from the body recovery site, it was very minimal.”
“After two more years on the hunt for her murderer, investigators are no closer to catching Heather’s killer. But now there’s a new sheriff in town.”
“Yes. Yes. Go ahead and send him up.”
“Hey Lou. Hey.”
“It’s good to see you again. It’s been good. How’s the family?”
“Good. Good. How about you? Have a seat. Have a seat. I’m really glad that you could come and uh join me on this case.”
“As the newly elected sheriff, one of my goals was to put together the investigation in the team that would solve the kidnap murder of Heather Church. And I was very fortunate that I was able to convince my former homicide partner, L. Smith, to come to the sheriff’s office and lead the investigation as my captain of detectives.”
“I’m going to introduce you to Diane. Diane Lou.”
“Hi.”
“How you doing? I’m Lou. Smith.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“By the time Heather Church’s skull was found, L. Smith had built quite a reputation regionally and even nationally for his investigative efforts.”
“My biggest concern was, is the suspect still in our community? It was a case that I think all of us wanted to see solved.”
“The one very critical piece of physical evidence was the latent fingerprint. What made that so significant is that it had not yet been identified. The former investigators had checked the state system in Colorado and did not find a match. That’s where a lot of people would have stopped. But with Lou, that’s where he started.”
“He said, ‘How many different automated fingerprint systems are there in existence?’ And between the United States and Canada, there were 92.”
“Detective Smith’s first course of action is to make sure all 92 fingerprint databases in North America are searched for comparisons. The answer to this four-year mystery comes 10 days later.”
“John Smith”
“Lou had called me early on a Sunday morning about 1:30 2 in the morning and woke me up and said, ‘John, I know who killed Heather and he told me the name that Leighton fingerprint was in two states systems and it identified the suspect as a Robert Brown.'”
“Brown, a career criminal, has a record for burglary and autotheft in California and Louisiana.”
“As we talked about the two states, Louisiana and California, Colorado Springs was almost in a direct line between the two. You had a convicted felon passing through. Then where was he on the night of the murder? To answer their new questions, investigators don’t have to look very far.”
“Robert Brown lives just a half a mile from the church home. He was in effect Heather’s closest neighbor.”
“You could literally stand at Robert Brown’s home and see line of sight the church home to include the driveway where the mother’s car would have parked.”
“We began to watch the house closely, determine what car he drove, what his patterns were. We suspected he may have weapons in the house. We wanted to try to avoid a barricaded hostage situation. And ideally, we wanted to separate him from the residence where there could be physical evidence so he wouldn’t destroy the evidence or arm himself. That as we watched the house that morning, the suspect ended up leaving.”
“The sheriff’s investigators follow Robert Brown to an art supply store in downtown Colorado Springs. They wait for him to come out of the store, then they stop him and they arrest him.”
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Heather Church.”
“Relax, Robert. Relax.”
“I didn’t murder nobody.”
“You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say Shannon will be used to get you to court.”
“You have the right to have an attorney present during any question.”
“To her house down there?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But I recall. I can’t think of any reason I would have been there.”
“When Robert Brown lied about being at the church residence, which we thought he would, it was a significant milestone in the investigation. We knew that we’d overcome a hurdle. He had no reason to be there. That was going to be very difficult for him in court to explain why his laten fingerprint was at the scene, let alone at the point of entry.”
“We came with a warrant for your arrest. So, we had a reason for that. We have your fingerprints from inside that house.”
“I don’t believe you have any fingerprints down there. I mean, it’s not possible. You may have somebody that are similar to mine, but you don’t have mine. I wish you’d take mine again and compare them.”
“We’ve compared them several times. We got your fingerprints from the Louisiana State Police. You know, I’m telling you, they are yours.”
“silver bracelet.”
“Some of it looks real, some looks like costume.”
“Costume.”
“As investigators are questioning Brown at the sheriff’s office, detectives are searching his trailer. They find a lot of guns, pornographic videos, children’s clothing.”
“We found a substantial amount of stolen property. We later found most of it taken from homes in the Black Forest area.”
“The evidence suggests Brown has been burglarizing his neighbors homes for some time, but nothing to imply he had a motive for murder.”
“Next, we began devising our investigative approach to go to court. Part of that was to look for other indications of bad acts or related acts that we might be able to bring forward in the prosecution.”
“Investigators suspect there is more to Brown than they know. A detective from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office heads to Kashada, Louisiana to dig into his past. Robert Brown is the youngest of nine children. His father was a deputy sheriff in Cashetta and his brother was a former Louisiana state trooper. He was married five times.”
“Did he do it all the time?”
“Yeah. Started the week after we got married.”
“He’s crazy.”
“Real bad temper.”
“All of his wives were terrified of him and some after only a short period of time of marriage. Some of those marriages didn’t last but a couple of months. One, he put a gun to her head and pulled a trigger.”
“Scared the crap out of me. Then he asked me to kill him.”
“They all described him as not being able to control his temper. He would explode at the least little thing.”
“He beat the hell out of me because I forgot to put a spoon in a gravy bowl.”
“He’s the devil’s right-hand man. That’s what he is. Call me when you throw the switch. I want to see him fry.”
“Detectives learned that brutality surrounds Robert Brown and has for a long, long time.”
“Early in the investigation, we felt there was a strong likelihood that this was a very, very violent violent man.”
“One woman who lived next door to Brown disappeared and has never been found.”
“She’s a 27year-old waitress, Tammy Dumar. Another woman who also lived next door to Brown in Casha, Louisiana, was murdered in her bed.”
“Brenda Lynn, aged 21, is stabbed dozens of times with a screwdriver. Her murder is never solved.”
“And it was the first indication that perhaps we did have a serial killer on our hands.”
“The chilling details uncovered in Louisiana confirm investigators worst fears. Brown is a first class predator.”
“Detective Lou Smith gives Diane Church the news of his arrest.”
“We found a person who murdered your daughter.”
“It’s a guy by the name of Robert Brown. The good news is he’s locked up. He’s not going to hurt anyone else. He’s going to be locked up for a long, long time.”
“She was such a good girl. She didn’t deserve this. It’s not fair. What did she do? What did she do? Tell me. I hate that man. Why did he have to take my baby?”
“Diane was so angry that this man had done this to her daughter. And there are still flashes of that anger that come across Diane’s face when we get together and we talk about these things.”
“As Brown sits behind bars awaiting trial, investigators can’t help wonder if Heather’s murder and the grizzly slaughter in Louisiana are just the tip of the iceberg. And will Brown’s fingerprints be enough to lock him away for good?”
“Lou felt certain that he was a serial killer and there were other bodies.”
“He beat the hell out of me because I forgot to put a spoon in a gravy bowl.”
“That man put a gun to my head. Pulled the trigger.”
“He’s the devil’s right-hand man. I want to see him fry. Fry.”
“Based on the reports of Robert Brown’s ex-wives, the mysterious deaths of his neighbors, and his fingerprints at 13-year-old murder victim Heather Church’s house, detectives are certain they’ve got a monster in custody.”
“Clearly, the most critical piece of physical evidence against Brown was the fingerprint. It clearly helped that he was a twice convicted felon, that he lived in such a close proximity to the victim the night of the murder, and we really felt the case was worthy of a death penalty.”
“Before investigators questioned Brown about any additional murders he may have committed, they want to secure a conviction in the Heather Church case.”
“The defense attorney came forward with the offer of a plea agreement.”
“You’re going to take the death penalty off the table?”
“Yes. Death would be too quick.”
“My client will plead guilty to the murder of Heather Dawn Church if you take the death penalty off the table.”
“That agreed.”
“That’s right. I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I want him to rot. I want him to pay for what he did to my baby girl.”
“Heather’s parents were not in favor of a death penalty. So, having that offer uh in hand with the parents strongly encouraging us to accept it, we decided to do that.”
“Can you make that happen?”
“We will do our best.”
“So, we agreed. Thank you. Thank you both. You’re welcome.”
“Brown was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the family. When something like that happens, that’s when the healing can begin. There’s a degree of closure, but a terrible tragedy like this never goes away.”
“Heather’s remains are laid to rest. But for Sheriff John Anderson, the case is far from resolved. Without the death penalty, Robert Brown could one day walk free.”
“talked several times about how important it would be to get a second murder conviction on Brown in case there was an appeal and we somehow lost the first case so that we knew that this violent killer would never get on the street again.”
“The sheriff forms a cold case squad to look more closely into the life and deaths surrounding Robert Brown. The members of John Anderson’s cold case squad are Scott Fischer who is a recently retired newspaper publisher, L. Smith, who is the recently retired homicide investigator who solved the Heather Church case, and Charlie Hess, who’s had several careers, but most notably as an FBI agent and as a CIA agent.”
“Scott asked Lou, ‘Have any of the cases that you’ve worked on, did you think any of them were serial killers?’ And Lou responded immediately. He said, ‘Of course.’ He said, ‘Robert Charles Brown.'”
“The decision to go after Brown is twofold. To bring closure to the families of unsolved murders and to make sure Robert Brown never walks free again.”
“Is it something you think we can work with?”
“Meeting regularly at a Colorado Springs cafe, the investigators review Brown’s file and find he’s written some cryptic letters to the DA hinting about other victims.”
“Brown’s first letter to the district attorney reads,”
“‘To whom it may concern, in the murky placid depths beneath the cool caressing me lies seven golden opportunities, missed opportunities.’ And then of all things, he signs it lovingly. Robert Brown.”
“Investigators are desperate to find out what they can about Brown’s so-called golden opportunities.”
“Charlie wrote a letter to Brown. And he responded. I’m not too sure any of us believed he would.”
“Seven sacred virgins and tombs side by side. Those less worthy are scattered wide. The score is you one, the other team 48.”
“He also encloses with this letter a crudely drawn map of several states in which he’s written numbers. Although police refuse to release Brown’s map, it is known to include numbers that imply a body count of 48 victims across nine states.”
“Brown’s claiming that he had murdered 48 people. That was shocking and way beyond what we had considered a possibility in this case. Uh but of course it it intrigued us.”
“If Brown is telling the truth, the cold case investigators believe he could be one of the most prolific serial killers in US history.”
“From his jail cell, convicted murderer Robert Brown sends cryptic letters to Colorado’s El Paso County District Attorney. in them. He hints at having murdered four dozen people.”
“The investigators didn’t know whether Brown was just playing with them or whether he really had information to divulge.”
“I need to really get inside his head.”
“When the letters started coming from Brown, it uh it was a period of excitement.”
“Brown writes a letter to cold case investigators inviting them on a hypothetical death tour.”
“In the case of one woman, he says only the name of a town. He says Flatonia, Icepic, and Ether. Sure enough, there’s been a woman killed and dumped outside of Flatonia. He tells them in another case, a body in pieces near Houston. They find out, yes, a woman who’d been cut up and pieces of her body are dumped.”
“Brown eventually confesses to killing his neighbor and stabbing her to death in Louisiana, his hometown, and he claims to kill a young teenager.”
“One of the haunting things is that he claims he strangled her. Many of the bodies we could not tie to him, but probably 25, 26, 27 he gave us some detail on and at least nine we were sure in our own mind he did do.”
“None of the cases have the physical evidence needed to convict Brown for the crimes. Even though he’s locked up for life for Heather Church’s murder, the cold case investigators want concrete evidence to tie Brown to another. This way, he will never be freed.”
“Charlie knew how to get into someone’s mind, make them relax, and think of them as a longlost friend. He was exceptional at doing that.”
“They find their opportunity in one of his many enigmatic letters.”
“If you were to drive to the end zone in a white grand dam, the score could be 9 to 48. That would complete your home court sphere. Sincerely, Robert Brown. PS. December or January 1987 or 1988? White Grand Dam, Colorado Springs.”
“The Grand Dam is a specific lead the investigators can follow.”
“that he’s he’s trying to get”
“it was a Colorado Springs case and the city could not produce anything from their files and so we were just pounding our heads in the wall.”
“He nicknamed the one in Colorado Springs the Grand Dam Lady. Scott Lou and I were discussing. We need to put this together so we can really identify who the lady is because Robert never discussed names.”
“Solving an unknown cold case in Colorado Springs involving a so-called Grand Anne lady proved nearly impossible. After Charlie sent what I called a come to Jesus uh letter to him saying put up or shut up, we got a response back that Brown said that uh young soldier’s wife is missing. And he added one thing to the bottom. The sanitation department is very efficient.”
“He would in bits and pieces release small clues.”
“Charlie Hess is desperate to confront Brown face to face.”
“You know who I am?”
“I’m the guy you’ve been writing to all this time.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Usually people come in here on our world meeting. A lot of people think I’m kind of crazy for coming in to talking to you, but I think you’re pretty interesting and I know what you want.”
“Would you mind if I ask you some questions about some of the things you mentioned in your letters?”
“On this visit, Brown does not answer Charlie’s questions.”
“After a period of time of my visiting Robert, one of the detectives was checking out all of the stolen cars. He noticed that one VIN number didn’t jive with the normal sequence.”
“If we could figure out about this grand who it belongs to,”
“it holds the pieces of this puzzle.”
“You got anybody you can call or”
“he’s got the bin. He can call somebody.”
“that Ben’s going to come back to something.”
“Yeah.”
“Finally, they tracked it down to the owner in Florida and they called him and they said, ‘Did you ever have a White Grand Dam?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Was this White Grand Dam ever stolen?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Did you ever have a wife or a girlfriend who went missing?’ And he began to cry. He said, ‘Yes, my wife.'”
“I got a victim. We’re going to get”
“and they knew they had found who they were looking for.”
“With a new murder charge for the slaying of the Grand Am lady, investigators hope to keep Robert Brown behind bars for keeps.”
“We were very excited about it because it looked to us like this was a murder that no one even knew about.”
“The Grand Dam Lady was a young mother. She was only 15 years old, a very pretty Latina girl. She was married to a a soldier who was stationed at Fort Carson. And he had taken their baby to his parents’ home out of state and they were going to end up getting a divorce.”
“The husband took the child and flew to Miami. never knowing that that would be the last time he would see his wife. He called her once and was able to speak to her. He was heading back for reconciliation but would never see her again. She was supposed to pick him up at the airport and didn’t show. When he got back to their apartment, the victim’s husband discovered that she was nowhere to be seen, but all of her clothing was there. He found the apartment in some disarray. Television set missing. Went to his car to drive around to try to find her. Car was missing.”
“He called the police to report her missing. They initially looked at him as a possible suspect in her disappearance.”
“Police, let me see your hand.”
“His life really was destroyed by this.”
“Charlie Hess and Scott Fischer meet with convicted killer Robert Brown to tell him they’ve learned the identity of the Grand Am lady.”
“We know a little bit about it, but I’m sure there’s something more you want to tell me. What would you like to tell me about that?”
“Brown could put a shiver down your back. He was a very intimidating person. Uh, I know about this lady’s husband uh draw to him. So, you got anything to add to this?”
“Grand damn girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Brown agrees to tell them how he kills her.”
“Talked to her husband, huh? All right. She came by the store flirting with me.”
“Hey, how are you doing?”
“Hey. Hello. How are you doing? Long time no see. You got any plans tonight?”
“Mom, nothing.”
“Come on.”
“She told him that she and her husband were going to be divorced, that he had left town. Indicated more or less that she was interested in Brown.”
“I tell you what, come back in 15, 20 minutes. I’ll be wrapped up and we can go have some fun.”
“Yes. Cool.”
“She was going to bring the new Grand Dam and pick Robert up and they went to a movie.”
“See you.”
“Great.”
“It’s a decision the young lady won’t live to regret.”
“The 1991 murder of Heather Church has put Colorado case investigators on the trail of Robert Brown, possibly America’s worst serial killer. To prevent Brown from ever getting out of prison, authorities need to nail him for a second murder charge, the slaying of the so-called Grand Dam Lady.”
“We now have a victim. We have a name. And Charlie is able to finally present to Brown that we pretty much solved the case with the exception of the missing body.”
“Yeah, I remember her husband was out of town from talking to her. So, I talked her into going out on a date. We went to see a movie.”
“After the movie, they uh had a bite to eat. Uh after that, Robert took her to his apartment and they had sex. after some relations. Um, I strangled her She was in his apartment dead all night that first night and he went to bed just like it was an ordinary evening. Um, let’s see. Next morning, I dragged her over to the bathtub, cut her up, and put her in some little bags, carried her out to the dumpster, and well, that sanitation department’s pretty dependable.”
“He knew that the uh garbage truck was coming the next day to empty the dumpster. Obviously, she ended up in a dump somewhere. After Robert had killed her, he continued to use that Grand Dam for several days himself.”
“I knew when he’d be back, so I drove the car around a couple days, so I parked the car where I knew he’d find it.”
“The husband sees his grand. He goes to the convenience store where Robert Brown is working to use the pay phone to call the police to report that he’s found his stolen car.”
“But the grand mand is right around the corner from the apartment building.”
“Little does he know that the man who murdered his wife is standing behind the counter.”
“Correct.”
“I heard him call you guys all hysterical talking about he found the car.”
“What else happened after that? That’s it.”
“Robert Brown was providing details that only a killer would know. He couldn’t possibly be making up the details regarding uh our victim in Colorado Springs. So, yes, we were convinced that he was telling the truth. And it was terrifying.”
“Now, investigators have enough to ensure Brown will never get out of prison.”
“On July 27, 2006, Robert Brown pleads guilty to the murder of the Grand Am lady. Outside the courthouse, the victim’s husband reunites with his daughter”
“for 18 years. The daughter had believed that her father had murdered her mother. That was a very emotional time because those two made the four or five years we invested in this case very worthwhile.”
“Brown had done so many evils to so many families that I was just glad that Heather’s case could be the last and that he wasn’t going to be free anymore.”
“Robert Brown never showed any feelings about the murders he had committed. uh is there more that you can tell me about it?”
“He provided ultimately information about 22 or 23 murders and um that was before we stopped communications. That’s all he would give.”
“Many of the murder cases reported by Robert Brown are still open and under investigation.”
“Seven sacred virgins and tombs side by side. Those less worthy are scattered wide.”
