A truly heartless deadbeat dad who threw his 4-year-old daughter off a cliff in California just to avoid child support payments got the book thrown at him this week.
In a long overdue verdict, a jury pronounced Cameron Brown, 53, guilty as sin for pushing his toddler, Lauren Sarene Key, to her death in 2000.
It was actually Brown’s third trial for the intentional homicide, in a diehard quest by Lauren’s heartbroken mother, Sarah Key-Marer, to find justice for the slain girl -- two previous trials had resulted in hung juries over the question of murder versus manslaughter.
In 2000, Brown and Key-Marer had been locked in a bitter separation and custody battle, and the defendant, an airlines baggage handler at the time, was balking at his $1000 per month support payments.
Brown’s attorney routinely argued that the little girl’s fatal and rather convenient fall that same year, which succinctly freed Brown from his “costly” parenting obligations, was just a “tragic accident.”
But this time around jurors weren’t boondoggled into a deadlock and, instead, delivered a unanimous guilty verdict for first-degree murder.
Now, devious deadbeat dad and baby killer Cameron Brown faces the possibility that he’ll be spending the rest of his years in jail. He’s scheduled to return to court later in June for sentencing.
