The Misery Machine - The Tragic Case of Amanda Victoria Brown

Starting point is 00:00:03 Amanda Victoria Brown was born on March 13, 1991. She lived with her mother, Kathy, in a trailer off of Old Hillsborough Avenue in Sefner, Florida. Her father, Roy, lived in the Tampa area with his wife, Sylvia. Kathy worked the early morning shift at a convenience store near the trailer. Amanda dressed herself her school most mornings and caught the bus to Lopez Elementary School right around the time her mother was coming through the door.

Starting point is 00:00:30 At the time of the events of today's story, Amanda was in the second grade. Amanda liked stickers and Barbie dolls and her favorite color was purple. She talked to imaginary friends. She wanted to be a ballerina, but she hadn't had a chance to take lessons yet. Her favorite movies were Titanic and Men in Black.

Starting point is 00:00:50 Penny Bliss lived next door and babysat Amanda while Kathy worked. According to Penny, she's a very, very good kid. She always tells people where she's going, what she's doing. She'll tell you her life story, story if you let her.

Starting point is 00:01:04 In September of 1998, things were not going well for Kathy. Her longtime boyfriend had gone to jail a few weeks earlier, charged with trying to attack her while standing on the hood of her car. She also had a 12-year addiction to pain pills. And he said the last few months had been difficult for both mother and daughter. About a mile away in the Oak Grove Mobile Home Park off Williams Road lived a 52-year-old commercial fisherman named Willie Seth Crane Jr. Willie ran blue crab traps out of a 17-foot skiff in Old Tampa Bay for a living, and he had done it for most of his life.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Willie had a criminal record, though. January of 1985, he pled guilty to five counts of sexual battery and one count of aggravated CA. The victims were five girls under the age of 11. He had threatened them with a gun and told one of the girls that he would cut her into crab bait if she said anything to anyone. He was sentenced to 20 years and was released back into the public after six and a half years. Now, you would think essaying young girls at gunpoint wouldn't leave you paroled after barely serving a quarter of your sentence. But apparently a parole board in Florida felt otherwise. His probation ended in 1997.

Starting point is 00:02:21 Wednesday, September 9th, 1998, Kathy went to Arts Lounge where Willie's daughter, Cynthia was a bartender. She decided to introduce Kathy to her father. When Kathy, Cynthia, said, he's a really nice fellow. He needs a good woman. Kathy said he did seem nice, and they danced and talked until about two in the morning. Then Willie followed Kathy back to her trailer in his white pickup truck and stayed for about 30 minutes. Amanda wasn't there as she was spending the night with her father. For Willie left, Kathy made it clear that she wanted to see him again.

Starting point is 00:02:55 Next afternoon, September 10th, Willie came back around 2.30 right as Amanda was getting home from school. Kathy said he smelled of alcohol and was carrying a cup with yellow liquid in it. He started talking to Amanda about her homework and took out his wallet and offered her a dollar if she got the homework right. They sat at the kitchen table, worked through it together and played games. By the end, he handed her $2. At some point, he noticed Amanda had a loose tooth. He wiggled it and offered her $5 to let him pull it out.

Starting point is 00:03:25 She said no, and Kathy told him the tooth was not ready to. to come out yet. Willie stayed for about an hour, and before he left, Kathy invited him back for dinner. He returned a little after seven, still smelling of alcohol and still carrying the cup. He had spaghetti, and afterwards, Kathy and Willie played games with Amanda. Visit BetMDMDM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you.

Starting point is 00:03:59 Peace contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. At some point, he mentioned that he had a huge collection of VHS tapes at his place, and so he invited them over to watch a movie. Manda asked if he had Titanic. She told him it was her favorite movie. He said he did, and she begged her mother to let them go. Kathy didn't love this idea because it was a school night, but she said yes, and Willie drove them both to his trailer.

Starting point is 00:04:32 They started watching the movie in the living room, and then Willie's sister called. Willie said he didn't get along well with his sister and asked Kathy to take the phone for him, certainly an odd request for someone you just started dating. She was on that call for 20 to 25 minutes, and she hung up, the living room was empty. Kathy opened a closed door at the back of the trailer and found Amanda and Willie on a bed with Titanic. on. Willie had his legs stretched out with Amanda sitting between them, her back to his chest, and his arms were around her. Kathy said he appeared to be showing Amanda how to work the remote control. She said she wasn't overly concerned by what she saw, but she picked Amanda up and sat her

Starting point is 00:05:12 down beside her on the bed, and the three of them watched the rest of the movie together. Willie said later that they were in the bedroom because it was the only air-conditioned room in the trailer. Kathy asked Willie if he had any pain meds. He offered her Ellaville, Valia, and weed. He told her the Ellaville would really knock the pain out and would make her sleep for a long time. This is an antidepressant for those that don't know, but it's sometimes used for nerve pain. She took the Valium instead. Five tablets. Willie took one as well. Eventually, Kathy said it was time to go when Willie drove them home and came inside with them. Amanda took a shower and Kathy helped her dry off and get ready for bed. Willie told Kathy that Amanda should not go to sleep with wet hair so he blow

Starting point is 00:05:54 dried it for her. Manda went to sleep in Kathy's bed at around 2.15 in the morning. So 15 minutes later, Kathy told Willie, who seemed drunk, that he could lie down and sober up, but that she was going to bed. Manda was in her nightgown lying between the two of them. Kathy said she didn't invite him into the bed, but she didn't ask him to leave either. Neighbor Penny Prope saw White Truck Park right behind Kathy's car in the driveway around midnight. In the early morning hours, she saw it parked at the right side of the trailer with its lights on the engine running. And after about five minutes, she heard it drive away.

Starting point is 00:06:30 Michelle Rogers, another neighbor, saw a truck behind Kathy's car at around 10.30 that night and beside the trailer at 10.45. She left around 11 and when she got back at 2.30 in the morning, the truck was still there with its lights on. Penny Bliss, Amanda's babysitter, said Willie was still there when she went to bed at 2.30. When her husband came out on the porch at 4.30 to drink his coffee, the truck was was no longer there. Meanwhile, Kathy slept through the night and woke up alone at about 6.12 a.m. Amanda wasn't in the room and she wasn't even in the house. The back doors kept locked and it had

Starting point is 00:07:07 stayed locked. Nothing of value was missing and none of Amanda's clothes or toys were gone. Amanda, who was scared of the dark, wouldn't have wandered off alone. Willie, meanwhile, was at the boat ramp loading his boat. Kathy called his cell phone and asked him, do you have my daughter? He said no and said he was about to go crabbing. Told her he would call her back, but he never did. Kathy then called the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office a little before 7 a.m. Around 6.15 that morning, another fisherman named Albert Darlington watched Willie tow his boat into the loading area. Albert said Willie was wearing what looked like a two-tone maroon shirt and dark slacks, and he was carrying what looked like a rolled-up piece of clothing. Albert also said that over the

Starting point is 00:07:51 previous 18 months, on two separate occasions. Willie had told him he had the ability to get rid of a body where nobody else could find it. Both times that came up while they were arguing about other crabbers stealing Willie's traps. Around 8.30 a.m., Detective Mike Hurley found Willie out in Upper Tampa Bay in his boat. He was wearing rubber overalls, blue t-shirt, and loafers. Detective Hurley rode back to the ramp with him and on the way he noticed a small scratch on Willie's upper arm. At the ramp, Willie took the overalls off, and underneath he was wearing jeans with the zipper down. Detective Hurley asked him to go in for questioning. Willie was cooperative,

Starting point is 00:08:31 and he denied having anything to do with Amanda's disappearance. The station, Detective Al Brackett interviewed him. Willie said he left Kathy's house alone at around 1.30 in the morning, went home and accidentally spilled bleach in his bathroom. He said he didn't like the smell of bleach, so he spent four hours cleaning. Later in that same interview, he said something. different. He said he cleaned the bathroom with bleach the way he always did, and cleaned the rest of the house until 5.30, and then left to go crabbing. Detective Brackett also noticed that Willie had multiple scratches on his arms and asked him where they came from. He said he got them crabbing. But when Detective Brackett asked him to demonstrate exactly how he got them, Willie got defensive and wouldn't do it.

Starting point is 00:09:12 Photographs of Willie's body were taken that morning. Medical examiner who reviewed them said the scratches had probably happened within a few hours to a day prior. He said all but two of them were more likely caused by the fingernails of a child than by anything else. There was also a cluster of small gouges on Willie's arm. He said those were more likely made by the small, grasping hand of a child. Detective Search Willie's trailer. Detective Brackett walked into a strong smell of bleach and recovered an empty bleach bottle. The sink, however, hadn't been cleaned the way the rest of the bathroom had.

Starting point is 00:09:45 There was still dirt built up around the edges. The blue rug that fit around the base of the toilet was sitting in the dryer. Another detective sprayed the bathroom with luminal, and the floor of the bathtub and the walls lit up. Lillinol glows when it reacts with blood, but it also glows when it reacts with bleach. Detective Brackett pulled two pieces of toilet tissue from inside the rim of the toilet, and he saw what looked like a small blood stain on the toilet seat. All of it went to the lab, along with the boxers Willie had on that morning. Forensic scientists with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found two blood stains on the toilet seat,

Starting point is 00:10:20 one on a piece of tissue, and one on the boxers. Stain on the boxers and one of the stains on the seat had DNA consistent with Amanda's. DNA on the other seat stain and on the tissue was consistent with a mixture of Amanda and Willie. All of these stains were very small. The one on the tissue was not visible to the human eye. Within hours of Kathy's call, deputies were combing the Sephner name, neighborhood with dogs and helicopters searching the mobile homes around her. They searched the mangroves near where Willie had launched his boat in the woods around Oak Grove. Deputies scanned the

Starting point is 00:10:56 surface of Old Tampa Bay and police divers went down into the water where Willie had ran lines to search as crab traps. Detective Hurley supervised a search that ran two weeks and covered the bay, the land around the bay, and the land around both Kathy and Willie's trailers. According to detectives, Willie had put Amanda's body into the bay and may have waded down with one of his traps. Amanda was never found. And the maroon shirt and the dark pants Albert Darlington saw were never recovered either. That Friday, on his way out of the sheriff's office after questioning, Willie stopped and talked to a reporter.

Starting point is 00:11:34 He said, yes, they think I did it. My right hand to God, I didn't. Late that afternoon, his son, Willie III, watched detectives rope off and search his father's trailer. He lived directly across the street and he told reporters, he's got something in his past, but that's irrelevant. I've got a four-year-old daughter and she's with him all the time. If anything was wrong with him, I wouldn't have named my son after him.

Starting point is 00:11:59 About a week after Amanda vanished, two sisters contacted detectives. They said they had seen Willie on the news and that they recognized him as the man who essayed them when they were children. One said that he essayed her in 1970 when she was 10 years old. The other said he essayed her repeatedly, starting in the mid-1960s when she was eight. Willie was arrested on sexual battery charges and held without bail. His attorney, Daniel Hernandez, went after those allegations at a bond hearing. The two sisters were related to a man named Gary Tucker, who had stabbed Willie's sister-in-law to death in 1981. Gary Tucker was convicted and sent to prison for life and died at age 32 in a prison workshop accident in 1987.

Starting point is 00:12:43 The Tuckers and the Cranes had been at odds with each other ever since. According to attorney Hernandez, it shows bias and raises serious questions about the credibility of these women. In any other situation, uncorroborated allegations this old would be laughed at. But in this case, authorities are using bogus charges to hold Mr. Crane while they continue to investigate him. Thankfully, the judge still kept Willie locked up without bail. September 24th, Willie's brother was arrested as well. Linwood Crane had been wanted since 1991 on two charges of passing bad checks in Seminole County, and detectives turned up the warrants while investigating Willie.

Starting point is 00:13:24 When they arrested him at the Crab Hut, where he worked nights, they found an unloaded shotgun in his room, which he was not allowed to have, because in 1984 he had been convicted of second-degree murder of a 16-year-old girl. Yes, you heard that correctly. for whatever reason, a man can be convicted of second-degree murder of a 16-year-old girl and be out in less than 14 years. Linwood was subsequently held on $7,700 bail. On October 1st, 1998, Hillsborough County charged Willie with the first-degree murder and kidnapping of Amanda Brown, plus possession of weed for a small amount found in the search of his home. Chief Deputy Tom DePaulis of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office announced it and said,

Starting point is 00:14:10 many murder charges throughout history are proven and convictions upheld without a body. We're confident we have the kind of physical evidence to make this stick. Kathy had been holding on to the idea that Amanda was alive somewhere. That night she said, this can't be true, not my daughter, not my precious baby. Why would anybody want to hurt her? Why would that man hurt my little baby? Well, his daughter Cynthia said something very different. She said, the cops are trying to set my daddy up because of his record.

Starting point is 00:14:38 I talked to him till I was blue in the face, and he swore to me he didn't do it. I believe him. Willie's trial opened on September 7, 1999 in front of Hillsborough Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer. Because of how much coverage the case had gotten, it took attorneys' days to seat a jury. The 12-day seated included somebody who installed satellite dishes, somebody who used to cut hair, an assistant manager for an auto parts store, and a man who ran the cart barn at a golf club. Willie showed up looking nothing like the crabber in the news footage. He had short haircut, dark suit, and a pair of studious looking glasses.

Starting point is 00:15:18 Attorney's Jay Pruner and Christopher Moody prosecuted the case, while attorneys Daniel Hernandez and Charles Traina defended. Now, it should be noted that there was no crime scene to photograph and no autopsy because there was no body. Nobody could tell the jury how Amanda died. So how do you prove a murder without? a body. But what the jury got instead were family snapshots of a little girl in a circumstantial case built one piece at a time. Prosecutors had to prove Amanda was dead before they could prove

Starting point is 00:15:50 anything else. To do this, they put an assistant principal from Lopez Elementary School on the stand, who told the jury that no other school anywhere in the country had asked for a transfer of Amanda's records. They also had to explain why hundreds of searchers had turned up nothing. Prosecutors questioned detectives about ocean currents that could have carried a body out to sea, and about mangroves thick enough to hide one. Detective Hurley told the jury about an airboat that capsized in a storm during the search of the northern part of Tampa Bay, and he said they never recovered that boat either. Two women told the jury that Willie said he was responsible.

Starting point is 00:16:28 Marianne Lee and Linda Miller were neighbors of his daughter Cynthia, and they had paid a visit on the first Saturday after Amanda disappeared. Willie was there and he was upset about being a suspect. Linda said to him, don't worry, you don't have anything to worry about. Just remember, you didn't do anything. You didn't hurt that little girl. According to both women, Willie answered, yes, I did do it. Yes, you're right.

Starting point is 00:16:50 I didn't hurt her. I didn't do anything. Cynthia took the stand and told the jury that they had misheard of her father. She said Willie stutters when he gets agitated. According to Cynthia, he was very upset about Amanda's death. Attorney Hernandez went after her. both women on cross-examination, asked whether Willie had slurred because he was drunk, found inconsistencies between their accounts, and asked Linda whether she had really gone over

Starting point is 00:17:14 there because she wanted her 15 minutes of fame. Then there was Frank Stem. Frank's daughter was married to Willie's son. About a month before Amanda disappeared, Frank had helped Willie lay crab traps in a spot Willie called Special. Willie told him other crabbers would steal them if they knew where it was. After Amanda disappeared, during a conversation about competing crabbers finding those traps, Willie told Frank that if he revealed the location, it could bury him. Frank tried to take detectives to the spot afterwards and couldn't find it. And cross-examination, attorney Hernandez suggested that Willie might have meant that other crabbers would move in and destroy his business. And Frank said, yes, sir, it's possible. DNA expert Martin Tracy

Starting point is 00:17:56 told the jury the odds of the blood on Willie's boxers came from someone other than Amanda was 1,388 million. He also said he couldn't tell how or when it got there. The defense then set their sights on Kathy, a mother who they said didn't keep an eye on her daughter who let several different men into her home in the months before and who may have taken too many prescription drugs. Tony Hernandez had already questioned her at length on the first day of testimony, and he put her back on the stand for a second round.

Starting point is 00:18:28 she stayed calm and answered everything, with what one reporter in the room described as an almost vacant expression on her face. Well, he testified in his own defense. He denied everything. He said the last time he saw Amanda, she was asleep in her mother's bed. On September 13, 1999,

Starting point is 00:18:47 the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and kidnapping. Three days later, the penalty phase opened and the jury finally heard the very thing they hadn't been allowed to hear. what Willie went to prison for in 1985 from the voices of his victims. The first woman was crying before she even got to the stand. She broke down when Attorney Moody asked her to point Willie out. She said he essayed her several times when she was just eight years old.

Starting point is 00:19:16 The second woman said it was two to three times a week for two years, that he beat her when she wouldn't do what he wanted and that he threatened to put her in the crab traps with a fish to eat. The third woman met Willie when she was nine when he was dating her mother. She said the three of them lived together and that he made her sleep in his bed every night and put a wedding band on her finger. She said he had her bring her friends home and that when they refused him, he beat her. This went on for five years and that it happened, as she said, as often as he wanted to. Then Amanda's father got up with a prepared statement.

Starting point is 00:19:54 He got a few sentences in and couldn't go on. attorney pruner finished reading it for him. Roy had written about riding the bus with his daughter to local car shows, where out of everything on the lot, she always liked the purple ones the best. He wrote that since she disappeared, he hadn't been able to concentrate at work, and that he had lost his job along with most of his will to live. The last line read was this, and I quote, All I have now are a few pictures, a lot of memories in no future.

Starting point is 00:20:26 The defense followed up with a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Berland, who told the jury Willie was psychotic. He said tests showed an IQ around 85 and brain injuries. He said Willie made a real effort to cover the illness up, but that it came through anyways. And that across five interviews, Willie described hallucinations and delusions populated by a recurring cast, God, Jesus, and the devil. According to Dr. Berlin, records showed Willie had persistently tried to get help, and that tree. He said, he suffers from extreme mental and emotional disturbance. Something isn't working well in his head. He also discussed Willie's childhood.

Starting point is 00:21:06 According to Dr. Berland, Willie was kidnapped twice as a young boy during a custody dispute, and an aunt beat him and locked him in the attic after a teacher gave him a birthday party at school. Dr. Berlin told the jury that Willie's mother essayed him, that a mugging attempt may have left him with head trauma. Willie had watched most of the trial closely. He picked at his fingers and kept his eyes down, away from Dr. Berland, and away from his own family sitting a few feet behind him. At one point, he covered his eyes with his hand. For trial, Willie's lawyers had filed the motion asking the court to bar the state from bringing in testimony about Willie essaying his own children.

Starting point is 00:21:44 None of the children testified in the penalty phase. The jury took less than two hours and came back 12 to zero to find Willie Crane Jr. guilty. they recommended the death penalty. Hours later, Willie gave a jailhouse interview. He said, I knew they weren't going to believe me from the day I was arrested. When they started telling people what I went to prison for, who's going to believe me? I know I'm innocent. According to Willie, he actually hoped Judge Fleischer would send him to death row because it would

Starting point is 00:22:13 get him access to the law library so he could work towards his freedom. He thought condemned inmates waited too long to die and said that if you had been sentenced to die, then they should do it within 60 to 90. days and save the taxpayers some money. Amanda, he said, was a child starving for someone's attention. He hoped and prayed she would be found alive. He told the reporter it was the only thing that could set him free. Asked about his own childhood. He refused to discuss it. At a hearing on October 11th, Willie suggested that Amanda's own parents might be responsible for what happened to her and told them they should go looking for the person who really was responsible if they were innocent themselves.

Starting point is 00:22:53 Well, he also turned on the system and his own lawyers. He said, I've been sold down the river. I'm going to the electric chair, but I'm not going before the truth comes out. I'm innocent of this murder in kidnapping. A few minutes later, he told the judge to send him to death row and be done with it, saying,

Starting point is 00:23:14 just give them what they want. God will take care of me. If they call this justice, I don't need no part of this world. Outside the courthouse, Roy Brown said that if Willie got the death sentence, he would probably spend about 14 years on death row, which is twice as long as his daughter got to live. He said, he cannot talk to me about fair. He ought to just die. Judge Fleischer sentenced him on November 19, 1999. She gave great weight to three aggravating factors. His prior violent felonies, the fact that the murder happened during a kidnapping in Amanda's age. On the other side, she found eight things counting in Willie's favor.

Starting point is 00:23:53 And she gave every one of them less weight than the aggravating factors. Until health problems with drugs and alcohol making those problems worse, an unstable home life and being deprived of an education, a record of hard, productive work, a good record in prison, the capacity to form loving relationships, and the fact that he was, this is her words, an uncured petto. Then she said the following, and I quote, Unfortunately, this court is convinced that he was functioning all too well.

Starting point is 00:24:24 He worked the mother to get to the child. He gave the mother drugs, lent her money, complimented her, and made sexual advances towards her. Then he worked the child. Helped her with her homework, gave her money, and played games with her. Then he took the child. Finally, he murdered the child. In August of 2000, prosecutors dropped the charges involving the two sisters. Willie pled guilty to the weed charge and took a 364-day sentence, which cleared the last of his open cases.

Starting point is 00:24:54 Pam Bondi, yes, the Pam Bondi that you know. Before reaching U.S. Attorney General, she was a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office. She said it appeared to be a waste of money and time to go forward when he was already convicted on the murder charge. Willie called it vindication. He said, I want the world to know I'm innocent. They railroaded me in the media. I'm coming back on appeal and beating it because I'm innocent. Willie was sent to the Union Correctional Institution on September 14th, 2000.

Starting point is 00:25:24 October 28th, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Willie's conviction and his death sentence. At a hearing in Hillsborough County on September 8, 2006, everybody in the courtroom learned that Willie had colon cancer. Two years later, he told a television reporter that he also had two other spots on his lungs. That same interview he laid out his case for why he shouldn't be on death row, most of which were complete nonsense. While all of that moved through the courts, Roy Brown was turning up at other people's crime scenes. During the original search, he camped out for weeks just north of the Courtney Campbell Parkway

Starting point is 00:26:01 while the divers and boaters worked the bay. Strangers took care of him the entire time that he was out there. When it stopped, he said, the worst for me was when the media left. They told me the search was over, and I was the last to believe it. Roy walked beaches hoping for hurricanes on the theory that a big enough storm

Starting point is 00:26:23 might turn the water over and give her back. According to his wife, showing up those scenes helped him keep his sanity, and she said she would worry if he didn't. After that, every time a child went missing in Florida, Roy showed up. This included nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford, whose case we've discussed previously. In fact, when asked about his meeting with Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford,

Starting point is 00:26:50 Roy said that when he looked at him, he saw, and I quote, me six years ago. Days before Willie's September 2006 hearing, the Amanda Brown Foundation became an official nonprofit. According to Roy, he wanted to give financial and emotional support to families of abducted children and to educate parents about child predators. The organization said its mission was to help prevent any child from becoming a victim when one did give the family resources, information, and comfort to get them through it. I also said it wanted to lobby for laws that protect children. Website was illustrated in purple. That same week, Roy finally wrote a letter to Willie. He wrote,

Starting point is 00:27:30 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, is torture for all of us, especially my family. If that is your goal, then it is working. He finished the letter through tears on a Wednesday night, added the last touches the next morning and gave it to Sylvia to type on foundation letterhead. It ended, 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.

Starting point is 00:28:13 He said getting it written at last was a relief and a half. Carried it into court that Friday morning and found out that he wouldn't be allowed to hand it over himself. On their way to Tallahassee that weekend for a memorial service honoring Florida's missing children, he and Sylvia stopped at the prison in Stark. They were denied the option to give it to Willie in person, which is what they wanted to do. The night Willie was sentenced to death, Kathy said she couldn't even put up a memorial to Amanda, because she wouldn't know where to put it. Roy said he felt the same way.

Starting point is 00:28:43 He said, it's over, but there's still no closure. You have a car wreck. You grieve. You have a funeral, and you go on. This here, I've got no place to go. I don't know where Amanda is. And yes, this is somewhat of an older case that took place in the 90s. Usually by now, somebody's on death.

Starting point is 00:29:03 row, they were either put to death or they passed away in prison. But Willie is still alive as of the date of this recording. He is 80 years old. He is out of appeals and he will most certainly die in prison. On March 13th, 2009, Amanda would have turned 18. That evening, Roy and Sylvia drove out to the boat ramp on the north side of the Courtney Campbell Causeway. The ramp where Willie launched his boat on the morning of September 11th, 1998. Every September, the state holds a ceremony for its missing children. In September of 2021, a reporter found Roy there and asked him what makes him keep coming back. For two decades, he has been placing a yellow rose next to his daughter's picture. He said, for my daughter, you know, I am friends with all these families. The foundation Roy built in Amanda's

Starting point is 00:29:59 name introduced her to the people who came looking, and this is how it did so. Amanda Victoria Brown, born March 13, 1991, pure of heart, innocent in mind, entered onto this earth, bringing joy to everyone she touched, with sparkling eyes and an angelic smile, truly a face of innocence. Amanda was enjoying life, chasing butterflies, and doing all those things that a seven-year-old enjoys. Thank you.

The Misery Machine - The Tragic Case of Amanda Victoria Brown

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