Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Tom Brown: A Teenage Secret

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

On the night before Thanksgiving 2016, eighteen-year-old Tom Brown left his home in Canadian, Texas to go cruising with friends. But he never came home. When his red Dodge Durango turned up the next morning at a sewage treatment plant on the edge of town, there was a bullet casing on the floor and a drop of his blood on the door handle, but no sign of Tom. What followed was two years of strange discoveries: his backpack found miles away across the Canadian River, his phone resurfacing in near-perfect condition, and security footage of someone driving his car around that tiny town for hours while people were out looking for him. When a deputy finally stumbled across some of Tom's remains in 2019, the bones gave up nothing. No cause of death. No answers. The case was shelved, and Tom wasn't buried until nearly nine years after he vanished. Somebody knows what happened that night in Canadian. They just haven't said.For more, follow The Final Hours wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1872821250Join Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get ad-free and early released episodes across the Crime House lineup.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi listeners, exciting news. Crime House Plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four-part limited series on the Crimes That Built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow Murder True Crime Stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th. Or you can listen to all of them right now with Crime House Plus. To join, go to Crimehouseplus.com, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of this show's page. This is Crime House. It's Thanksgiving 2016. You're on the outskirts of a small city called Canadian Texas.

A dirt road leads to a water treatment plant. The stench of sewage fills the air. Across from the plant, parked between trees with autumn leaves, sits a lonely red Dodge Durango. The car is covered in chalk paint spelling go-cats next to a paw print. It belongs to 18-year-old Tom Brown, a high school football player who recently quit the team. On the ground next to the driver's door, there's one faint shoe print. It also looks like someone may have urinated there. The doors are unlocked.

Inside the car is messy, but what you'd expect from a high school boy, empty bottles of soda and other trash. A pillow in the back seat, towels, jumper cables, two pairs of football cleats, and a clown costume. But none of it explains how his car ended up in this location. What's even more alarming is the single 25 caliber bullet casing on the passenger side floor, but there's no gunpowder residue in the car, or any other evidence that a weapon has been fired inside.

There is a tiny, almost undistinguishable bloodstain next to the interior door handle, but that's it. Tom's wallet is missing, along with his cell phone, keys, and Tom himself. Over the next year, other important items of Tom's will surface, and the question of why they weren't found sooner is definitely a big part of this case, and it may have to do with what really happened to Tom Brown. Every year, over half a million people go missing, and that's just in the United States alone.

Most of those stories barely get a headline. Some don't even get a flyer or a tip line. And when cases do get media attention, we usually only get the broad strokes. But for those of us who have lived these true crime cases, we know the devil's in the details. This is the final hours, a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. Every Monday, Sarah and I will be looking at the final hours of someone's disappearance,

the small, seemingly mundane moments to see if there was anything hiding in plain sight. Looking back at those last conversations, connections, and choices is critical, and it could be the key to unlocking it all. Each episode all offer insight on what those close to the victim might have been going through, and Courtney will use her expertise to give more context into the crime scene, the red flags, and the investigation itself. Crimehouse exists because of listeners like you. Want even more?

Join Crimehouse Plus and get every episode of the final hours and the rest of the crime house lineup ad-free and early. plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the final hour show page. As always, this show is made and recorded by humans, not AI. This time, we're discussing the disappearance of Tom Brown. On November 23, 2016, 18-year-old Tom went driving around with his friends.

They talked, listened to music, ate at a local deli, and went for a walk. Afterwards, everyone split into separate cars to head home, except Tom, whose ride ended somewhere, completely unexpected. Tom Brown was a good kid who struggled with self-judgment. Known for being charming, polite, and funny, Tom was adored by most. He also had a secret, one he didn't share with just anyone. He seemed to be working through it and was looking forward to a bright future, until the day he disappeared.

Suddenly, that secret became a driving force in the investigation. and it left people wondering, had it completely overwhelmed Tom, or had someone taken advantage of this private information. But before we discuss what Tom went through, let's talk about who he was. It's 2016. 18-year-old Thomas Kelly Brown was living in a tiny Texas panhandle city called Canadian with his mom Penny and his brother Tucker. Penny divorced their dad when Tom was about eight years old

and remarried a man named Chris Meek when he was about 14. Growing up, Tom had a big imagination. He would make up plays, then perform all the characters for his family. He also loved the arts, books like the Great Gatsby, and films like a clockwork orange. But he also devoured everything wrestling and WWE. Since Tom was 6'1 and 180 pounds, he half-joked that he might go to wrestling school one day. The job would be a perfect mash-up for his skills in performance and athletics. Even though Tom was a little quirky, he was one of the most popular kids in town.

He was a big, lovable teddy bear, outgoing, lighthearted, and funny. He was also a respectful teenager, who always said, yes, sir, and no, ma'am when he spoke to adults. And when his classmates threw parties out near Lake Marvin, a 60-acre reservoir east of town, Tom hardly drank, especially if he was the designated driver. Tom also never skipped class or caused trouble. But toward the end of his sophomore year, he did have a run-in with the police. Deputy Nathan Lewis saw Tom and his friends downtown and accused them of trying to break into a Main Street theater. But one of their friends actually just lived in the apartment above it.

The deputy singled Tom out and ordered him into a squad car while swearing at him profusely. He questioned Tom, who said he was just on his way home. Eventually, Deputy Lewis let him go. Tom told his family what happened that night. And afterwards, Penny went to the sheriff's department and filed to the sheriff's department and filed to complaint against the deputy. She didn't like her son being falsely accused of anything. As she shouldn't. But aside from that unfriendly mix-up, everything was going well for Tom, including his love life. Reporter Skip Hollinsworth did a deep dive into this case for Texas

Monthly and learned a lot about Tom, which really helped with our story. Skip found that in Tom's junior year, Tom started dating a senior named Sage Pennington from theater class, and Tom had plenty of things to be proud of in his life. About half of the boys in Tomstown grew up wanting to play for Canadian's high school football team, the Wildcats, including Tom, who started young with flag football. According to Skip Hollinsworth, he made his way onto the high school team where they won two Class A Division I state championships. In his senior year, Tom was a starter on the offensive line. He was also elected president of his 71 member senior class. But in October, about halfway through the football season, Tom was demoted to second string after a new player

joined the team. The coach felt like he could rely on him more than Tom, and Tom was devastated. He didn't want to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the season, so he quit. The first week or so was hard, but leaving the team gave him time to refocus on his other passion, drama. He joined the high school's fall theater production of the history of Tom Jones. Tom loved the classics, and was excited to play one of the leading roles. So between the play, student council, a full course load, and filling out college applications, Tom was distracted and busy. I just want to say, I feel like it is so refreshing to see a young boy like this who is really rooted in football and sports and all that.

Have this, like, creative side to him where he really loves art and, like, reading. The fact that he loves, you know, theater and the books like the Great Gatsby, I just feel like those details are so really cute. Like you just don't see that a lot with young boys. Yeah, I totally agree. I don't think I've encountered a lot of high school football players who really want to play on the team but also read the Great Gatsby. He seems like a very well-rounded young man.

With that being said, though, football was super important to him. And so, I don't know, when he kind of like got demoted, I do feel like that could have taken a toll on him. In a town like Canadian, I just feel like there's a lot of pressure, especially for young boys to be on the football team and be great at it. Oh, absolutely. I mean, nobody likes being cut from the team

or demoted, if you will. So I totally get it. That definitely didn't feel good. Unfortunately, there were still more bumps in the road for Tom. In November, he broke up with his girlfriend, Sage. She was a year ahead of him in school, now a freshman majoring in education at West Texas A&M University in Canyon,

two hours away. Tom found it hard to juggle a long distance relationship. Besides, he planned on attending Oklahoma State next year, which would spread them even further apart. They promised to stay close friends, though, and there were no hard feelings. Sage even wrote Tom a sweet goodbye letter. On Tuesday, November 22nd, she was back in town for Thanksgiving break. They both attended the Canadian High basketball game but sat on opposite sides of the gym. They didn't talk, but Tom texted her later that night that he was sad and felt like a loser. She replied and said that she missed him a lot,

but assured him that he wasn't a loser. Now it's Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016. Tom's older brother Tucker is also back from college for the holiday. That night, they planned to watch a movie together. But Tom tells him he needs a little social time out of the house. He borrows his mom's debit card to fill his tank up later. And at 6.04 p.m., Tom leaves to go hang out with some friends. As he walks out the door, Tucker says to Tom, I'll see you later.

But he won't. Tom drives to the parking lot of Canadian Middle School, where he meets two friends, Caleb King and Michael Castleton. They hop into his car for one of their usual activities, cruising around and listening to music. Tom has a route he likes to take, which his friends call Tom's Loop. They drive north through the city and turn around at the Canadian River Wagon Bridge, then drive south through the city and turn around at the Wildcats football stadium. Rents repeat.

On the drive tonight, they stop for a quick dinner at Almond. a convenience store slash deli. At 8 p.m., the trio arrives back at the middle school parking lot. They meet up with Tom's friend, a young woman named Christian Webb. This is the first time she's been home since starting her freshman year in college, so Tom's excited to see her. But Michael calls it a night. He heads home in his car as Tom and Caleb climb into Christian Silver Dodge Charger.

At one point, Tom asked Christian if he can put on the Avat brothers. He plays two melancholy songs. live and die, and no hard feelings. But according to Christian and Caleb, it's a normal night. Tom is telling jokes, and his friends notice that his sense of humor is better than it's been in a while. What they don't know is that at 9-11 p.m., while Tom is with them, he uses his iPhone to search for the suicide hotline,

and at some point during the night, Sage texts him, but he never replies. Later, they stop at an old wagon bridge just outside of town. It's a part of a hiking and biking trail, but locals call it the walking bridge. The weather's cold outside, in the upper 30s, and Tom's not exactly dressed for it. He's wearing a thin black sweater, a black Canadian Wildcats tea, faded jeans, and sneakers. They park, get out, and mosey down to the bridge. Christian takes a picture of Tom smiling. Around 11.15 p.m., Christian drives Tom and Caleb back to the middle school parking lot.

Caleb head straight home, but Christian and Tom stay and make plans to play pool at her house the next day. They also talk about him visiting her at Oklahoma State where she's studying on scholarship. They tell each other how good it is to hang out. Thinking she'll see Tom tomorrow, Christian watches Tom drive away in his red Dodge Durango.

On his way home between 1128 and 1136 p.m., he stops to fill his tank, Frank's, oil, and gas, less than half a mile from his house. He has more than enough time to make it home, by his curfew at midnight, which he always does until tonight. It's midnight on Thursday, November 24th, 2016. Thanksgiving Day. With Tom still not home, his mom Penny texts him.

He doesn't reply. So his brother Tucker calls, but it goes straight to voicemail. Penny texts again, and this time she realizes it's not delivered. His phone seems to be dead. So Tucker heads out in his Toyota Forerunner to look for his brother. He checks the places he thinks Tom might have gone cruising, worried maybe he had a car accident. According to Skip Hollinsworth, that's when Penny wakes her husband, Chris, and says she's going out to look for Tom too. She takes her Chevy Suburban to check around town. When 1 a.m. rolls

around and there's still no sign of Tom, Penny calls Caleb. She calls Christian and Michael, but nobody's heard from Tom. They're all shocked he didn't make it home. Christian, Michael, and Caleb then get into their own separate cars and join the search. They checked downtown the football stadium, the rodeo arena, and Lake Marvin, the reservoir east of town with campsites and picnic tables. Around 2.30 a.m., Penny calls the Hemp Hill County Sheriff's Department. Deputy Pine Gregory drives around town looking for Tom's Durango, but Tom's brother Tucker can't just stand by and wait to hear what happens. At 3.33 a.m., Tucker calls the Sheriff's Department and asks her ride along. He wants to show the deputy some of the places Tom hung out and where he thinks they might find his brother.

Deputy Gregory picks him up around 3.45 a.m. and they drive around for two hours, but nothing. A 6 a.m., Deputy Gregory drops Tucker off at home. He's going off duty, but the sheriff will be on soon. Meanwhile, his friends keep searching. Christian and her dad are pilots, and he owns his own helicopter sales and service company. So that Thanksgiving morning, they fly one of the company helicopters over the county and hover low to look for Tom. Around 8.30 a.m., they spot something from the air. It's Tom's Red Dodge Durango. Sheriff Lewis and his team respond immediately.

The car is easy to identify since it still says, go cats in chalk paint. The Durango is parked under a cluster of trees across from a water treatment plant. The nearby sewage ponds stink so badly. Nobody would go there to hang out. In fact, Christian doubts Tom even knew. about this place. And while they find his car, Tom is not there. So the sheriff puts out a bolow. Be on the lookout. As word spread, community members start to abandon their Thanksgiving

meals and gather for the search. Skip Hollinsworth says locals brought in horses and four-wheelers. Christian's brother joins his sister and father in the air with a second helicopter. Hemphill County Sheriff Nathan Lewis leads the search. The young officer has only held the title Sheriff for two months. When he was a deputy before that, he was the one who stopped Tom outside the movie theater, the one Penny filed a complaint about. But he seems to be committed to this investigation, for now. Next to the driver's side door, he finds one light shoe print on the ground, but the dirt is so packed that it's nearly impossible to distinguish.

It also looks like somebody urinated near the same door. With the car unlocked, they get inside easily. There are some empty soda bottles, towels, jumper cables, two pairs of football cleats, a pillow, and a clown costume from a school play. Tom's wallet, keys, cell phone, and the debit card he borrowed from Penny are all missing. However, his friend Michael Castleton's debit card is on the floor near the center console, which is easily explained because he was in Tom's car the night before. What can't be explained is the small smear of blood on the interior handle of the driver's side door,

which later is confirmed to be Tom's, or the 25-caliber bullet. casing on the floor. There's nothing to say the gunshot went off inside. There's no blood spatter or gunpowder residue in or on the car. And even though guns are common in Texas, Tom doesn't like them, and he sure as heck doesn't own one. At about 5 p.m. that day, the sheriff brings Tom's car home. He says it's already been processed and they're done with it. But Tom's mom and brother are shocked they didn't impound it. What if they need it later? So Tucker gives it his own inspection. which leads to a realization. Tom usually keeps his backpack in the car, and it isn't there.

The next day, Friday, November 25th, 2016, Sheriff Lewis has a feeling he turned the car back over too soon. He wants to examine the vehicle again, so he tows it back to the sheriff's department. I don't know, I feel like every case is different, but I feel like Sheriff Lewis's decision not to keep Tom's car is, I don't know, why not just impound it to save for later? for deeper inspection because you never know what you're going to find.

Yeah, I don't like this, Courtney. This is not a good start to this case. Like, just keep it, make sure it's processed, especially over like a holiday weekend like this. Like, what are we doing? I know. I mean, like, I guess I'm glad that his brother, you know, Tucker got to inspect it himself

and find out that his backpack wasn't in there, which is typical for him. And, you know, maybe that could lead to an additional surge. But I just feel like that should be the police's job and not the loved one of a missing person. Right. Well, and what concerns me, too, is they took the car, and they released it to the family, and then they took it back, which means in that time period that the family had it, it could have been compromised. And somebody can make that argument in court. It wasn't handled properly. It was not kept in police custody for the entire time, which unfortunately could invalidate any evidence they find in there. I know, especially considering the bullet casing and that small smear of blood, like, I feel like that alone is alarming.

So I don't know just based on that piece of evidence why it wasn't kept in police custody. Well, by now, the whole community is struggling to digest this loss. The night of Friday, November 25th, 2016, the crowd of the Canadian football game is somber. Tom's former teammates and cheerleaders, his friends, go out onto the field and try to give it their best in his honor. But everybody's having a hard time.

After Tom is missing for a couple of days, Sheriff Lewis ramps up the search. He calls on a pack of veteran bloodhounds from the state prison in Amarillo. They followed Tom's scent beginning where his car was found. They continue on for three quarter miles northeast through the trees,

but it dissipates when the ground starts to get marshy near the Canadian River. Lewis also gets neighboring Randall County to send a posse on horseback, but they don't find anything either. Neither does the grid search. The sheriff's department finally makes a little progress when they review footage from security cameras around town.

Here's what they see. At 1.10 a.m. on Thursday, November 24th, 2016, just an hour after penny texted Tom, the camera at a downtown convenience store recorded his car driving towards his house. Then the same camera recorded it driving back the other direction one minute later at 11.m. At 5.28 a.m., another camera captured the red Dodge Durango

driving toward Tom's home. But again, two minutes later, later at 5.30 a.m., it drives back the other direction. At 5.56 a.m., a third camera caught the car driving down the dirt road leading to the water treatment plant. It passed through an open gate and parked across from the plant. The video didn't show anyone getting in or out of the car, though. And in none of those videos, can he make out the driver? Skip Hollinsworth says no one knows if it's Tom or someone else entirely. I don't know, Courtney. I don't know about this one. What do you think? His car ending up at that water treatment plant, which, I mean, first of all, stinks really badly.

Like, no kid is going to go there to, like, hang out. But second of all, is in like a place that Tom really wouldn't know to go. That's really, really weird to me. And then, like I mentioned earlier, paired with a bullet casing in the small smear of blood. Like, I don't know, red flags are just flying for me. Oh, yeah. I mean, that feels like a dumping site, if I've ever seen one, right? Somewhere that people don't go, somewhere that is unpleasant at a thousand percent.

And I just don't know what to make of this timeline of the car driving back and forth. I know, the car driving back and forth, but at the same time, while seven different people were out looking for him, like, that is what's wild to me. And adding on to that, his car was, like, very noticeable given, like, the color, but then also the paint, the chalk paint on his car saying go cats. I don't know how, like, this wasn't seen. Yeah, I mean, you make a great point. And it feels like if someone was trying to be more hidden. they might wash off that chalk paint. Yeah, at this point, I really don't know what to believe.

And that timeline, it just doesn't make sense. And the location where his car was found, I don't even know what to say about that. Yeah, I agree. Nothing is adding up. I just want to shout out his friends. I feel like all of his friends, all being so young, came together and, like, really put in the most effort in trying to find Tom. Like, his friend Christian, you know, her dad owned a helicopter company, like, took out helicopters.

Like that is amazing. And honestly, I don't think I've ever seen another case where something like this has happened. And I just want to shout them out. Oh, yeah, a thousand percent. I mean, they jumped up and they sprung into action right away. On the afternoon of Saturday, November 26th, a deputy interviews Penny. He asked her what she thinks happened to Tom. The deputy said Penny told him she suspected he died by suicide.

Her father struggled with depression. 18 years earlier in 1998, he died. died by suicidal gunshot. Her logic is that it runs in her family. And Tom has a lot of stressors right now, deciding where to go to college, quitting the football team, and breaking up with his girlfriend.

But Penny tells people that she never mentioned the suicide theory. Instead, that actually came from Sheriff Lewis and that he brought it up in a very insensitive way to her. Penny's mom was a teacher at Canadian high school and Sheriff Lewis was a student when her dad died by suicide,

so he might have known about her. it. But it's confusing because the case file documented her bringing up the theory first. Suicide was not something she was considering. After that conversation with Lewis, she tells everyone who will listen that she's completely lost trust in him. She thinks he's too young, too inexperienced, and he's resentful because she filed a complaint against him for yelling at her son when he was a deputy. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it. I think that's a really scary situation to have to put so much trust in the hands of any officer that you feel might feel slighted by you. Yeah, especially if you kind of like already have bad blood between you two. Like you want to trust them and you want to

believe that they're doing everything in their power to like find your loved one. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know what to think. It's really he said she said. And when there's so much contention between the two parties, what do you do? I don't know, but have you ever had an experience budding heads with an official? Yes. I have had to file an official complaint. with the department against one of my sister's detectives. And that was terrifying. It was so terrifying. But it's hard because you're stuck between this place of like, if you don't make an official record, nothing may happen later down the line if these actions continue. And really taking a chance that you might upset them to the point that it impacts the case. It was like one of the worst, most terrifying things I'd ever done. Like you mentioned, it's really, really scary. But I think reporting it is probably the best route to go.

down because you don't want those behaviors to continue. At the end of the day, like, the only goal is to find your missing loved one. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you, in my own situation, with every family I've ever worked with, like, nobody wants a bad relationship with law enforcement. It's not good for anybody. But sometimes these things happen, unfortunately. Well, at this point, Sheriff Lewis is the last person Penny wants investigating Tom's disappearance, which is why she starts asking around about private investigators. A friend gives her the name of Philip Klein, who specializes in missing children. Philip comes to town a week after Tom's disappearance,

and immediately decides that Sheriff Lewis is too much of a rookie to be handling this. Meanwhile, Sheriff Lewis thinks that Philip is way too cocky, but he lets him see the case file anyway. That's actually really interesting because did you guys know that in most cases, a sheriff's department is not really legally obligated to share all of the information with a private investigator. So as much as like Sheriff Lewis is kind of like rubbing me the wrong way, I am glad that he decided to let this PI have the case files.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know what his motivations are, right? I do think it's a really smart way to cover your behind. You know, I think it's a really bad look to say, no, your PI can't look at the file. But I mean, who knows? It also seems like Sheriff Lewis kind of has a problem with many different people at this point. I think the main goal is to find Tom and find him alive and okay. But it seems like he's just having so many issues.

You know, here comes Philip, just trying to investigate the case. It doesn't hurt having an extra set of eyes. Then you have Sheriff Lewis thinking that he's just too cocky. And then you have Philip thinking, you know, Sheriff Lewis is too much of a rookie. So of course, you want every party involved to be focused and have their head straight just to investigate the case and that's it. But it sounds like they're just budding heads, which is not good. So no, Philip and Sheriff Lewis are not hitting it off. But Lewis is willing to accept the extra help.

help. He even calls in the FBI and Texas Rangers. They come to a Canadian to give a second opinion on the case. They look through the statements and hone in on one in particular, one that Tom's high school friend, Macy Patterson, gave to a deputy. Skip said she claimed to have a conversation with Tom about how easy it would be to disappear from Canadian, as long as a person didn't use a cell phone, credit cards, or anything else traceable. The officers start to wonder if that's exactly what Tom did. It does offer an alternative theory. His friends admit he could get melancholy and make jokes about suicide, but like his mother, they don't believe he died that way.

So in January 2017, two months after Tom's disappearance, Sheriff Lewis shares this new theory on public radio. Tom hitchhiked out of town that night and walked away from his life, but they say they're still going to do everything they can to find him and bring him home. Betmgm is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and is everything for the action on and off the ice. Hockey fans in Canada can place live bets, create same game parlays,

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are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four-part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow murder true crime stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th, or you can binge all of them right now, add free with Crimehouse Plus. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com,

or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of this show's page. On Friday, January 27, 2017, a local power company worker walks through an area off Lake Marvin Road. He's checking some electric lines when he sees something unusual. Behind a barbed wire fence under a patch of trees is a black and red backpack sitting in a perfectly upright position. It's a little damn. Inside are some school papers, books, and a laptop. The sheriff's department sends it out to a forensics lab and they confirm it's Tom's. They don't find anything out of the ordinary on the laptop, just the schoolwork that he used it for. The big question is, how did the backpack, get where it was.

Well, Sheriff Lewis thinks Tom put it there himself, but Penny disagrees. The backpack was found five to six miles from Tom's Durango, over rugged terrain across the Canadian River. Tom disappeared on a cold night and isn't the outdoorsy type. Besides, if he parked his car at 6 a.m., as surveillance footage implied, there was no way he could have made it back there on foot before the search team started looking for him.

His family doesn't think he had the cash to take a cab. and he never used the debit card after the gas station. Around October 2017, about nine months after finding the backpack, Philip says he received a tip. Tom's body is near the same road where the backpack was found. He says the tip came from a, quote, very fine young person, end quote, who's related to a key witness.

But that's all he says. It's enough for Philip to organize a 12-mile search along the road. On Saturday, October 14th, 11 months after Tom's decision, appearance, 150 volunteers search around Lake Marvin Road hoping to find his body. Just six minutes in, a woman finds a rose gold iPhone. It looks brand new, so new that Philip thinks it must belong to someone in the search party, but it's photographed, tagged, bagged, and given to a deputy who sends it to the forensics lab at Quantico. The FBI determines it is Tom's phone. A phone in such pristine condition could not have been sitting outside for a year of rainstorms, ice storms, and state

lawnmowers. So even more rumors start to fly. Was Tom's phone kept indoors and placed outside before the search? If so, by who? And why? Sheriff Lewis thinks Philip put it there himself. But Penny thinks someone from the sheriff's department had the phone and may have manipulated the data. Then they put it outside before the search so it would be found and put into evidence. This phone being found in pristine condition, that screams that it was not out there that entire time, 11 months. One rainstorm, you would be able to tell that it was sitting outside. So for 11 months, no, that does not seem right to me. No, absolutely not.

Anybody who has an iPhone can tell you how easily they get scratched up on the back. And so quickly, too, right? I just don't see this phone sitting out for this long and not having a scratch. on it. That's crazy. I know. I don't have any theories on who put it out there. In my personal opinion, someone outside of Tom did put it out there. And it wasn't out there for that entire 11 months. But why put it out there at all? Like, why would you want people to find it? That's what I don't get. While the conversation about the iPhone brings another piece of information to light, After Tom disappeared, Penny reached out to another mom to see if any of Tom's friends knew the passcode to his phone.

This raised some suspicion since the phone was missing at the time along with Tom. Why would she need the password unless they had the phone? Well, Penny says it was because the sheriff's department asked her for it as soon as Tom disappeared. Which is why Philip started to think it was all a part of a cover-up. Sheriff Lewis and Philip both go on local radio stations to point fingers at one another. For a while, it gets ugly. When the phone is analyzed, investigators see that Tom searched for the suicide hotline number at 9.11 p.m. the night he disappeared. But it doesn't offer much information outside of that, especially since it died at 1223 a.m. after he missed curfew.

In the meantime, Penny uses her Moms for Tom Facebook page to circulate a petition. She wants the state attorney general's office to take over Tom's case. She's also convinced there's some sort of cover-up. So in February 2018, 15 months after Tom disappeared, the Texas Attorney General's office responds. They send sergeants Rachel Cating and Chris Smith to investigate Tom's case. Their main focus is figuring out who placed Tom's phone outside before Phillips search. They also determined that nobody from the sheriff's department asked Penny for the code to Tom's phone. In March 2018, they decide to use a polygraph, and the first person they test is Penny.

Penny answers several questions, including ones about Tom's phone and his disappearance. The polygraph indicates she's being deceptive. Sergeant Cating and Smith develop a new theory, and they confront Penny with it. They suggest that after losing her father to suicide, Penny was unable to cope with losing her son the same way. So when she found Tom that night, wherever his life ended, she hid his remains. Penn tried to make it look like something more than it was. but for the record, Penny fiercely denies this. She points out that she's only 5'4.

She couldn't have picked up her 6'1 son when he was alive. That's when they suggest her husband Chris or son Tucker helped her. These accusations understandably infuriate Penny. But she sticks to her story. She hasn't seen Tom since he left home alive that night. Sheriff Lewis is also asked about his involvement with Tom's disappearance. The polygraph registers deception from him too. As we know, Sarah, lie detector tests aren't even admissible as evidence in court, though.

So we have to take them with a grain of salt. In January 2019, more than two years since Tom was last seen, we finally start to see some answers. That day, Deputy Pine Gregory is on duty. He takes a break to go for a walk near the entrance to Lake Marvin, when he spots something under a dead cottonwood tree. It's a human skull. A team of officer searched the area. They find a femur, several smaller bones, a pair of tennis shoes, remnants of blue jeans, and part of a Texas driver's license that's been chewed on by an animal.

It belongs to Thomas Kelly Brown. Later that day, investigators show up at Penny's house to let her know that they think her son's been found. The remains are sent to the lab and confirmed to be Tom's. But his bones don't reveal his cause or manner of death. They do, however, show blunt force trauma. Seven months later in August 2019, the Attorney General's Office meets with the Hemp Hill County Sheriff's Department. They've concluded that Sheriff Lewis had nothing to do with Tom's disappearance,

death, or the placement of his remains, but he's still encouraged to resign. The Attorney General's Office admits they have multiple leads but won't share what they are. They don't even think they have enough to take this case before a grand jury, at least not as of this recording. In 2025, Tom's family finally got his remains back from state custody. In May of that year, they got to lay him to rest in a private ceremony. Penny's theory is that Tom was murdered.

She suspects the sheriff was covering up for himself or someone else. But a lot of people in town suspect she knows more than she's letting on. That alone makes me so sad for her. I mean, I feel like it's a lot of people like to point fingers or like really examine the people closest to, you know, the victim. But in this case, I feel like that's just so unfair. Like, I feel horrible for Penny. Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I think putting so much emphasis on her father dying by suicide just isn't fair and just like not right in terms of the investigation. It's just a heartbreaking situation. I feel like everyone is pointing fingers at each other. It's just really sad for Penny. She doesn't need to be dealing with that. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. And my thing is, if they think that Penny had the phone and she was trying to access it,

like surely they could get that data from the phone, right? Oh, for sure. And also, the FBI was brought in and they said that they were able to conclude that nobody at the police department asked Penny for the code. But my question is, how exactly do they know for sure, like 100% that nobody at the police station asked her that? I feel like that's really hard to track down. Yeah, I feel like they can't prove that anybody said that, that it wasn't like in any type of written communication.

Because, I mean, as a family member in true crime, I can tell you that a lot of these in-person meetings with law enforcement, what's said face-to-face, never makes it to a police report. What I see is a grieving mother searching for answers. Someone who's not going to stop until the truth is revealed. And a brother, Tucker, who misses the closeness and understanding he had with his brother. And the people of Canadian who probably trust each other a little less. ever since the day Tom went missing.

What we do know is Tom had a lot of friends and was well loved in his community. He was the senior class president, had a leading role in the school play, and planned to enroll in Oklahoma State the next year. He had so much going for him. In November 2016, his brother, his best friend, and ex-girlfriend were all in town for Thanksgiving.

He was excited to spend time with them. On November 23rd, around 6 p.m., he met his friends Caleb and his friend's, Michael in the middle school parking lot. They hopped into his car and went cruising. They had a route he liked to drive. They talked, listened to music, and ate dinner at a local deli. At 8 p.m. Tom dropped Michael back off, and he and Caleb got into Christian's car, one of his best friends who was home from college. He put on a couple of sad songs in the car. Unbeknownst to his friends, he ignored a text from his ex and searched his iPhone for the suicide hotline. But then they went for a walk

on a local landmark bridge. Christian took pictures and made him smile. At 11.15 p.m., they returned to the middle school parking lot to part ways. But first, Tom made plans with Christian to go to her house the next day and play pool. They enjoyed their time together and wanted more of it. After they said goodbye, Tom left with time to fill his gas tank and make it home before curfew. But he didn't. Tom never made it home.

To this day, we don't know what happened to him. but somebody does. Maybe it's the person who held on to his phone. If you have any information about Tom Brown, you can submit a tip on the Texas Attorney General's website at www.w.com.combe.com slash cold case tips. If you're struggling right now, please remember that you are not alone and you matter.

You can call or text the suicide and crisis lifeline any time at 988. Thank you for listening to the final hours. If you have any other details about Tom Brown's case, please share it with us on social media. We want to hear from you. Your thoughts, condolences, and feedback are what make this community so special.

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Try Free at the top of the Final Hour's show page. The Final Hours is hosted by Sarah Turney and me, Courtney Nicole, and is a Crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios. This episode is brought to life by the Final Hours team. Max Culler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Lori Maranelli, Natalie Pritzofsky, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Dana Brazil Solovee, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.