What I am about to share with all of you is a true story. Many days since these events have taken place, I have wished that this was all just a bad dream, but sadly what happened was not a dream, it was hard cold reality. My father, John Wallace Brown, at the age of 71, was found dead on Monday, 20 November 2006. His body was found floating in water in a landfill (dump) area. His vehicle had been found at approximately 4:30 p.m. that Monday afternoon after an anonymous tip from a "neighbor" that there was an abandoned vehicle parked on a deserted back road. The "neighbor", according to the investigating detective, had spotted the vehicle "sometime" on Sunday, 19 November 2006, and when it was still there on Monday, 20 November 2006, they decided to call it in. The newspaper report states that a subsequent search of the area led to the discovery of my father's body. I would later get out of the investigating detective that the body was only about 30 feet from the vehicle. With that being the case, my question is why did it take until 6:30 p.m. (2 hours after "finding" the vehicle) to report to the family that my father had been found dead. My father's vehicle was not impounded. Instead, the police called the wife and asked her what she wanted to do with the vehicle and she said tow it home, so they did. Another interesting fact, is that we later found out that our father's wallet and all of his identification had conveniently been left at home on his dresser.

Here is how those chilling events unfolded. My father had spoken with family members on Thursday evening, 16 November 2006. He even spoke with his only grandson, my 9 year old nephew, on Saturday, 18 November 2006 and had asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He was not able to speak to the older of my two sisters as she was asleep, but he told my brother-in-law to let her rest, and he also told him to take care of his family. My father was looking forward to all of us coming home for Thanksgiving dinner. His wife wanted him to go away to her family for Thanksgiving, but during his conversation with my aunt on Thursday (16 November) evening, he stated that he did not want to go.

On Monday afternoon, 20 November 2006, I received a telephone call from the older of my two sisters informing me that my father was missing. My younger sister had called her and told her that when she returned home from work on Monday morning at about 7:30 a.m., she was approached by my father's second wife and asked if she had seen my father as he had not been home and had not slept in his bed that night. My younger sister replied that she had not seen or heard from him to which the wife replied that she was going to go file a missing person's report with the Sherriff's office. Prior to my sister arriving home that morning, the wife had already contacted several family members including my aunt and as my aunt recalls, the wife made the following comments: "I guess John has gone out there to commit suicide" and "I guess I need to tell them to start dragging the river for his body." How bizarre. And why did she feel the need to make such comments?

The wife left the house according to my younger sister at approximately 8:00 a.m. My father's house is only about 10-15 minutes from the Sherriff's Office. The wife did not file the report until 10:00 a.m. that morning. In the interim, she kept calling my younger sister and asking if my father had come home yet. In the missing person's report, the wife stated that no one had seen or heard from my father since 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, 19 November 2006.

My younger sister recounts that my father had received a telephone call earlier that Sunday morning. After receiving the telephone call he left but returned home around 9:45 a.m. She says that she remembers asking him if he were going to church and he told her no because there was something that he needed to take care of. My younger sister was at home with him until about 10:35 a.m. that Sunday morning when she left for church herself and left him sitting at the kitchen table. She recalls that he looked worried, confused, and even scared. She had no way of knowing that this would be the final time that she would see our father alive.

When my younger sister returned home earlier in the evening (around 7:30 p.m.) on Sunday, 19 November 2006, she noticed that my father's truck was not there but didn't give it much thought. She honestly thought that he had gone to an evening service at church or something. She went in and laid down to get some rest prior to going to work that evening. When she left for work at about 10:30 p.m. that evening, my father's truck still was not there, but again she gave it no thought thinking that maybe he was out and had not gotten home yet.

We do not know all of the events that led up to this, but we do know that the wife was supposedly planning to leave in the first week of December. She already had an apartment that she had furnished with $5,000 worth of new furniture. We also know that our father refinanced the house twice in the almost 2 1/2 years that they were married. My mother passed away from breast cancer on 12 June 1997. She and my father were married on 5 July 1957. My father remarried on 9 July 2004, which also happened to be the 52nd birthday of the wife. My father was 69 years of age at the time. We also know that my father signed for a loan in the amount of $126,000.00, 6 months prior to his demise. His house only has a market value of $50,000. The wife to this day will not discuss where the $126,000.00 came from or where the money is now.

As we were preparing for my father's funeral services, the wife was busy packing boxes and doing everything that she could to get out of the house as quickly as possible. Before my father was laid to rest, she had gotten rid of all of his personal belongings (clothing, jewelry, etc), important papers, and all of his bedroom furniture. She had also stated that my father did not have enough money to pay the funeral expenses. We found out that this was a lie, as the funeral director is our cousin, and while we were at the funeral home he took out the paper work, threw it on the table, and said "Here is the paerwork Mrs. Brown and this is how much you are getting back. I don't have anything to hide, do you?" He also had her sign for two insurance policies which she claimed were lost. The wife had talked my father into paying for his own coffin and being buried in the military cemetary in Hurlock Maryland instead of in the burial plot that my mother had bought and paid for so that they could be buried side by side. The wife even had the odacity to announce that she was going to be buried next to our mother and wanted to know if we had a problem with that. Can you imagine? The wife did not even want our dear mother's name mentioned in our father's obituary. She also did not want the fact mentioned that my father owned his own lawn care business. She stated that she had her "reasons".

A couple of weeks after my father's funeral we returned for the reading of the will which the wife stated that she helped him write. On the day of the reading, the wife walks in with Kinko copies of the will and passed them out like candy. The only person that my father left anything to was his only grandson in the amount of $5,000.00. To date, the wife has only paid $2,000.00 of that amount to my sister and brother-in-law. The will also stated that we were entitled to anything that we felt was of sentimental value to us. The wife made sure that this did not happen by cleaning out the entire house to include furniture, family china, and even the carpets off the floors. All she left was the junk from the attic that she and her family did not want and that was thrown out on the living room floor. My younger sister was given 60 days to move out according to the will. The wife speeded up the process and got her out as quickly as possible.

The whole matter smells rotten. It appears that there was something being covered up, but what? And why? The police have been of no help. They never provided the family with any useful information about the investigation or anything. I did get a copy of the "official" autopsy report but even it is shaky at best. There is not even a date or time of death on the report. The local city coronor's office of Salisbury Maryland washed the case as an accidental death and the investigating officer's only comment was "It is what it is!" No one on my father or mother's side of the family is buying the story that it was an accidental death.

I have tried to leave this alone and move on with my life. Is that what I should do? Or should I try to find out the truth and finally bring some closure to all of this for myself and my family? I do plan to do the Temple work for my parents in the very near future. I know that I may never know or fully understand what happened to my father, but the fact remains that God was there. He saw it all and He knows all about it. At least in that I find solace. Thanks for listening. I appreciate any and all responses.

As a side note, my father's funeral was held on Saturday, 25 November 2006. On Sunday, 26 November 2006, I gave a Sacrament talk in my Ward (Annapolis Maryland Ward) on Thanks Giving. The talk was entitled A Season Of Gratitude

Tags: Family Fathers Mothers Home

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