Empty Promises

swinging back to Arnold Brown. His manner was oddly wooden as they questioned him. Even when he was asked to accompany detectives to the homicide offices for more questioning, he displayed little emotion. And he went along willingly.
    Sergeant Cameron and Detective John Nordlund talked with Arnold Brown in one of the interview rooms at headquarters. They asked him to remember everything he could about the night before. Shortly after 9:00 A.M. , he agreed to give them a statement. He recalled that his sister had gone out to a meeting the evening before. The children were eating supper with a neighbor’s family, and Joseph left a little before 8:00 P.M. to pick up Lorraine.
    “He told me to have the kids get into their pajamas when they got home from the neighbors’ and get them to bed,” Brown related. “The kids came home about fifteen minutes after Joseph left and they got ready for bed.”
    Arnold said he watched some musical on pay television with his brother-in-law until about 10:00 P.M. , then he walked the family dog. “I like dogs,” he said, his eyes fixed on the wall of the interview room. “I have my own dog, Queenie, in Eugene, and I miss her.”
    He repeated that he watched television alone upstairs until about 2:30 A.M. and then he went downstairs and noticed that Jannie was missing when he walked by her room. He stressed that he had hurried to tell his brother-in-law so they could look for her.
    Asked bluntly if he had anything to do with the death of his niece, Brown said he didn’t want to talk anymore. “I had nothing to do with Jannie’s death,” he finally said. “This is a true statement.”
    While Cameron and Nordlund talked with Arnold Brown, Detective John Boatman placed a call to Lane County, Oregon, to see what background information on the suspect he might find. He learned that Arnold Brown was very familiar to Oregon authorities, and they gave Boatman a chilling criminal history of the meek-looking man in the interview room.

    Arnold Brown was the slow child in a family of high achievers. Tested at age sixteen, he was found to have the mental capabilities of a fifth grader. His IQ was about 77. Normal IQ is 90 to 110; and 77 would place Brown in the “dull-normal” range.
    Arnold had a great deal of trouble learning to read, and he was easily frustrated. Early on, he had problems with anger, and he reacted with violence when he felt frustrated. He could not keep up with his high school classes and dropped out of school so he could apply for admission to the Job Corps program. On June 6, 1973, he learned that he would not be admitted to the current Job Corps’ class; he would have to wait until there was space. He had looked forward to learning a trade, something where he could use his hands. Always easily frustrated, he could not cope with the delay.
    Arnold Brown had been very angry on that summer day years earlier. Convinced that the odds were against him and that he would never get to do what he wanted, he headed toward the bank of the Willamette River. He carried with him a hunting knife with a ten-inch blade.
    In Seattle, John Boatman scribbled notes rapidly as a Lane County, Oregon, detective went on with Arnold’s criminal history. Thirteen-year-old Maria Coleman and her eight-year-old brother Jimmy were also at the river’s edge that long-ago day. They were looking for crawfish and tadpoles and they scarcely glanced up when Arnold approached. They did nothing at all to provoke him, but in a sudden spate of horror, Arnold stabbed both Maria and Jimmy in the chest. He plunged his hunting knife into their helpless bodies again and again. Miraculously, the youngsters survived, but the Oregon investigator described the knife as being “bent like a corkscrew” afterward.
    Arnold Brown was arrested, and a juvenile hearing was held. Detectives James Wolcott and Martin Deforest testified that Arnold admitted stabbing the Brown children “because I wondered what it would feel like to knife someone.”
    A psychiatrist testified that Brown told him he only remembered walking near the Willamette River and passing two young children. He explained that he had a blank space in his memory until he recalled running from the area. He could not remember stabbing anyone. The psychiatrist hadn’t believed him; he diagnosed Arnold Brown as having an antisocial personality. “He feels no guilt at all, no responsibility.”
    As they always had, Arnold’s family defended him