Day in court brings fresh wave of pain

Eight years ago, Willie Crain abducted and killed 7-year-old Amanda Brown. He appeared in court again Friday, but the sight brought no closure for Amanda's father.

By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer

Published September 9, 2006

[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]

Roy Brown and his wife, Sylvia, embrace outside the Hillsborough County Courthouse Annex after sitting through a hearing for Willie Crain.

	Amanda Brown
	Willie Crane

TAMPA - Roy Brown wanted Willie Seth Crain Jr. to die for killing his 7-year-old daughter Amanda in 1998. But he also wanted an answer.

Ten, maybe 15, times Brown tried to write the letter. Only anger and insults spilled from his pen.

Then, days ago, Brown got word that the death row inmate would return to court Friday. Brown couldn't sleep. He had to write.

Mr. Crain, he began, choosing his words carefully with the help of a retired sheriff's deputy friend.

Our innocent little girl placed her trust in you as a friend, and as a result of that trust, lost her life. ... Every day not knowing where she is, not having laid her to rest, it is torture for all of us, especially my family. If that is your goal, then it is working.

On Sept. 11, 1998, Roy Brown's ex-wife awoke to find Amanda missing from her Seffner home. Crain, who had spent the night hours after meeting the mother and daughter, was gone too.

Hillsborough sheriff's officials and volunteers eventually found drops of Amanda's blood on the convicted child molester's toilet and underwear. They didn't find Amanda.

The mystery haunted Brown, 55. Seared in his memory was the way Crain had looked at Brown and his current wife after a judge announced the death sentence.

"He grinned at me and Sylvia," Brown recalled this week, "and told me he wasn't going to die."

In recent years, Brown has been a quiet fixture at the scenes of missing children.

Last week, the Amanda Brown Foundation became an official nonprofit organization. Brown wants to give financial and emotional support to families of abducted children and educate parents about sexual predators.

Still, Brown kept bottled inside the words he needed one man to hear.

"I want Amanda," he said.

For so long, he had worried about what might happen if he finished the letter. He knew name-calling and bitterness wouldn't achieve anything. He thought a rambling diatribe would dilute the effect.

"I was told all through the court process just don't look at him, don't talk to him, don't show no emotions or nothing," Brown said. "You're just scared to death that if you say anything ... he'll get an appeal."

Two years ago, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Crain's conviction and death sentence. The appellate process is in its early stages, to Brown's dismay.

"He already outlived my daughter, and there's something wrong with that," Brown said.

But Brown wondered this week if time might be his friend. Maybe Crain was ready to reveal Amanda's whereabouts.

Brown decided he would give Crain, now 60, the letter at the hearing. Wednesday night, through tears, he started yet another draft. He added the last touches the next morning, then gave it to his wife to type on foundation letterhead.

We can only pray to God that he helps us through each day and one day will enter into your life and guide you to do the right thing. Let us know where we can find Amanda. Let us bring her home where she belongs today. Sincerely, Roy Brown, Amanda's father

Feeling "a relief and a half" about having finally written the letter, Brown carried it to court Friday morning - only to learn that he would not be permitted to hand it to Crain.

He could do nothing, except strain to control his anger at the sight of Crain and listen to perfunctory talk about appellate motions and Crain's relationship with his attorneys. Like others in the courtroom, Brown learned Crain has colon cancer.

The hearing ended, and Brown still had the letter. But he had taken the first step toward peace.

This weekend, he'll take another. On their way to Tallahassee for a memorial service honoring Florida's missing children Monday, Brown and his wife will stop at the prison for death row inmates in Starke.

They can't deliver the letter to Crain in person, but they can leave it at his front door.

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 813 226-3337 or ">cjenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified September 9, 2006, 00:31:59]

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November 20, 1999

National News Briefs; Man Sentenced to Death In Slaying of 7-Year-Old

A convicted child molester was sentenced to death today for killing a 7-year-old girl who disappeared from her mother's bed on Sept. 11, 1998, and has never been found.

The molester, Willie Crain, 53, was convicted in September in the kidnapping and death of the girl, Amanda Brown.

Mr. Crain met Amanda's mother, Kathy Hartman, in 1998. Prosecutors said he had visited Ms. Hartman at her home, given her a tranquilizer and then crawled into bed with her and Amanda. Mr. Crain and Amanda were gone when the mother woke up.

The police said they believed that Mr. Crain, a crab fisherman, had disposed of the girl's body, perhaps in Old Tampa Bay.

An 11-day search did not turn up a body, but bloodstains on Mr. Crain's clothes and toilet were matched to the girl.

Mr. Crain was convicted in the 1980's of child molesting.

#####################

11-19-99

FLORIDA:

A Florida crab fisherman was sentenced on Friday to die for the
murder of a 7-year-old girl whose body was never found.

Willie Crain, 53, was convicted in September of killing Amanda Brown
a year earlier. She disappeared on Sept. 11, 1998, after Crain spent
the night with her and her mother at their Tampa home.

Amanda's mother, Kathy Hartman, testified Crain and Amanda were missing
when she woke up the next morning. Police found traces of Amanda's blood
in Crain's home and on his clothing, identifying the blood through DNA
testing.

Crain denied killing Amanda. He said the girl was asleep in her mother's
bed when he left their house to go fishing. He said the blood could have
came from a loose tooth.

Hillsborough County Circuit Court Judge Barbara Fleischer accepted the
jury's unanimous recommendation that Crain be sentenced to die.

"This court agrees with the jury that death is the sentence that must be
imposed," Fleischer told Crain at a sentencing hearing. She could have
sentenced him to life in prison.

During the penalty phase of the trial, the jury was told that Crain was
convicted of sexually molesting 6 young girls in 1985 and served 6
years of a 20 year sentence.

Police think Crain, who trapped crabs for a living, might have disposed
of Amanda's body in Tampa Bay.

All executions in Florida are currently on hold until the U.S. Supreme
Court rules on whether the state's use of the electric chair violates the
U.S. constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. State
lawmakers are to meet in January to consider lethal injection as an
alternate means of execution.

(source: Reuters)

##############

The Bell Curve was much in the news around Tampa, specifically the Left Tail of the Curve, which is the home of people like Willie Crain Jr., and his brother Linwood, both recent incarcerates.

Willie is suspected of killing a 7-year-old girl, but a massive search for evidence has turned up little except traces of blood now being DNA'd.

Then, his brother Linwood "Loco" Crain was picked up on bad-check and firearm charges. (Oh, he also killed a woman in 1983 and served 6 years.)

Now, if Willie killed the girl, it will be his first known murder. However, he's done time for raping little girls, and two new accusers just came forward, saying they recognized him from incidents 30 years ago, which would be quite a feat, for to describe the face of either Crain as "grizzled" would be gentle.

Willie's lawyer understands the Bell Curve very well: "I don't think Willie Crain is smart enough to hide a body where nobody could find it."

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Legal State Update

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Aug. 22, 2006, 1:03AM
Trial of boy in his father's death adds to legal battles in the case
Two years after the child, now 12, allegedly shot dad, wrongful-death, custody suits go on

By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

It's been almost two years since physician Rick Lohstroh was shot to death as he sat in his sport utility vehicle outside his ex-wife's home. Since then, the couple's older son has spent two Christmases and two birthdays in custody while awaiting trial.

In that time, the boy, now 12, has been away from school, his friends, his brother and the grandparents who moved here from out of state in an effort to restore some sense of normalcy to his and his brother's lives.

His turbulent home life, marred by his parents' poisonous divorce, is now just a memory. Instead, he has moved from a juvenile lockup to the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center's psychiatric facility, where he is one of 14 youths under the watch of doctors.

This week, he will face another emotional hurdle when he stands trial in a juvenile court on a murder charge.

Jurors will hear that the boy was only 10 years old when he was accused of shooting his father five times in the back and left arm. The shooting took place outside the Katy home of the boy's mother on Aug. 27, 2004, after the couple's acrimonious breakup and child custody fight.

The boy's mother, Deborah Geisler, has acknowledged in a deposition that the semiautomatic pistol that killed her ex-husband had come from a zippered case kept in her bedroom closet. A 47-year-old nurse at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Geisler has not been charged.

State District Judge Michael Schneider has ordered the trial closed to the public to protect the boy's interests. Having started last week with an unusually large panel of 300 candidates, attorneys were still choosing a jury on Monday. There was no word on whether testimony might begin today.

Nationwide publicity

Rick Lohstroh, a 41-year-old physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, was killed as he picked up his sons for a weeklong visit. Investigators said he was sitting in his Toyota 4-Runner when his older son got into the seat behind him and fired through the back of the driver's seat. The younger boy, then 8, was still in the house.

The tragedy drew nationwide publicity and sparked multiple court cases. The one that's likely to draw the greatest interest, however, is the son's trial, which is expected to last two to six weeks.

The flurry of court battles also includes the fight for custody of the two brothers. There also is a wrongful-death lawsuit claiming negligence by Geisler and her present husband, Matthew Swanson, as well as by several pharmaceutical companies, since the accused son had been taking Prozac and its generic equivalent at the time of the shooting; and there is an unresolved battle over the slain doctor's life insurance proceeds.

Lohstroh and Geisler divorced in May 2003 after more than a decade of marriage, but their animosity continued. At different times during the marriage, both were arrested on family violence charges.

Public records show that Lohstroh pleaded no contest to an assault charge in Galveston County in 1997 and was granted deferred adjudication, a form of probation. Although details were not available Monday, he reportedly dropped the charge against Geisler.

After their marriage collapsed, Geisler reported to police in Webster, and later Friendswood, that her older son, then 8, told her his father had molested him. Officers investigated, but the district attorneys' offices in Harris and Galveston counties refused to accept charges.

Those who knew Lohstroh say he was devastated by the allegations, but didn't let them hurt his relationship with his sons. Neighbors on the Friendswood cul-de-sac where he lived said after his death that they never believed the accusations.

Child Protective Services never took the children away from Lohstroh, and the parents eventually were granted joint custody. The boys remained in Friendswood schools while shuttling between their father's home and their mother's new home in Katy.

After the shooting, a Galveston County judge awarded temporary custody of both boys to Lohstroh's mother and stepfather, Joanne and Richard Greene, who moved to Friendswood from Columbia, S.C., to fight for them.

In court papers filed last month, one of their attorneys said the Greenes' legal fees total more than $79,000 and they have "exhausted their life savings."

Wrongful-death lawsuit

The Greenes filed a wrongful-death lawsuit last year, accusing Geisler and Swanson of failing to keep the pistol out of the boys' reach, properly supervise them and teach them handgun safety. The case is set for trial in December.

In that complaint, the Greenes also sued the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Co. and Mallinckrodt Inc., alleging that the older boy's use of the antidepressant fluoxetine, more commonly known as Prozac, created a state of "agitation, depersonalization, hostility and mania leading to violence. ... "

The couple said the companies failed to adequately warn that the drug was "not safe" for a 10-year-old and did not give proper notice of its possible risks. Court records show the older boy began taking the drug under his mother's supervision a little more than two weeks before the shooting.

Geisler said in a deposition that she gave her son the medication exactly as his doctor had prescribed and that she believed it would help him.

"She followed the physician's instructions on what to do with the Prozac and completely denies that she failed to fulfill any parental responsibility," said Geisler and Swanson's attorney, Roger Oppenheim.

Life insurance dispute

Asked to describe something that made him scared or uncomfortable, he wrote, "When I was eight my DAD died ... I was scared! My mom told my brother to shot [sic] my DAD but my grandparents came to help me," according to papers filed last month by James V. Pianelli, an attorney for the Greenes in the insurance fight.

Oppenheim said Geisler had nothing to do with the shooting.

Geisler could not be reached for comment, and the Greenes could not comment, according to one of their attorneys, because of gag orders in the criminal case and the custody battle. The Lake Jackson attorney representing Geisler in the custody fight, Sheelah Wooten, did not return calls seeking comment.

In the dispute over the slain doctor's life insurance proceeds, his brother, William J. "Bill" Greene, argues in a lawsuit that he was the primary beneficiary but had received only half of the $1.4 million. Geisler originally was named as beneficiary of the remaining half, but could not collect because of the divorce.

The grandparents — who were not named as beneficiaries — filed a counterclaim saying Bill Greene, their son, had made no effort to care for the boys and deserves none of the money.

peggy.ohare@chron.com

WHERE HE'D GO

The TYC would retain jurisdiction until he turns 21, however, so he also could remain in a TYC facility until that age and then go to adult prison.

Even if he receives a lengthy sentence, he might serve only three years before becoming eligible for parole, according to juvenile law. A child who has no disciplinary problems in juvenile lockup and completes any specialized treatment ordered by the courts within the first three years has a better chance of going home.

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Cody Posy

'Fighting Injustice'