Where's the Rock?

As the Cameron Brown trial was winding down in early August of 2006, the jury was taken out to the site where the accident occurred.  Along with the jury, and other members of the court, were also several members of the press, who went along to observe and [presumably] report on their observations. Among them was reporter Nick Green of the Torrance Daily Breeze.  Writing about the site visit in the next day's edition of the Daily Breeze, Nick Green wrote:

This account is found on Page A13 of the August 3^rd, 2006 edition of the Daily Breeze, in column 2 of the continuation of the article, which begins on Page A1 (the front page) of the Breeze.

Notice that the article says that the jury “had been told” that Cameron Brown had sat on a flat rock out at the end of Inspiration Point, where the accident happened. “Had been told” by whom?  Certainly not by Cameron, because he did not testify in the trial (nor to the Grand Jury). No, this information came from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Sergeant Jessica Brothers, answering questions about her Grand Jury testimony while testifying at the trial.

At the time of the accident, Deputy Brothers was one of the first law enforcement personnel to arrive at the scene. At the time, she was not a sergeant, and she was new to the streets.  Her job that afternoon was simply to remain with Cameron, and to watch him until experienced personnel more qualified to question him, and to conduct an investigation, could arrive.

Click HERE for an excerpt of Deputy Brothers’ Grand Jury Testimony

At the bottom of page 66 of the transcript of her Grand Jury testimony, Deputy Brothers asserts that Cameron told her that he was seated on a large rock—a claim that Cameron vehemently denies to us.  But further on, in the first half of page 67, Deputy Brothers claims to have gone to the end of Inspiration Point and then goes on to describe this phantom rock—a rock that does not exist! Is this not an example of blatant perjury?

Below are some pictures of the end of Inspiration Point:

The above picture is a view looking toward the southeast end of Inspiration Point.

In the above view, we are looking straight down to the end of Inspiration point.  Note that the cloud that is seen on the right side of the sky in the first photo is now at the left side.  There is some overlap here.

In this final view above, we are looking to the southwest end of Inspiration point.  Again, there is overlap here, as the bush that is at the right of the previous photo is now just to the left of center here.  But please notice that there is no rock visible in any of these photos—just as there was no rock seen on the day of the site visit.

Now if some might be inclined to suggest that perhaps there was such a rock present in November of 2000, but is now gone for whatever reason, I would have to say that such persons are misguided. At the trial there were pictures presented of the site that were taken within days of the accident, as well as a DVD that was played of a video of the area taken from a Sheriff's helicopter that circled the area at close range. In none of these photographs, nor in the video taken from the helicopter, is there any rock such as described by Deputy Brothers visible.

Indeed, testimony about the exact location where Lauren went off the cliff centered around several “impressions” in the dirt close to the edge of the cliff, which some investigators suggested “might have been” footprints—but which a qualified crime lab investigator testified in the trial that, in his professional opinion, such impressions were definitely not footprints. Indeed, the entire top surface of the end of Inspiration Point is pockmarked with gopher holes—as is clearly seen in the photos above.  As these gopher holes become filled in, they leave such impressions; to select just a few of these impressions and declare them categorically to be “footprints” is utterly ludicrous.

There appears to be only one conclusion that we can come to here—that Deputy Jessica Brothers lied to the Grand Jury, thereby committing perjury.  And if this is so, then Cameron Brown’s civil rights have been violated, and he has been wrongfully incarcerated for over three years.