Dad Throws 4-Year-Old Daughter Off Cliff To Avoid Child Support Payments

A dad, Cameron Brown, 53, has been convicted of throwing his 4-year-old daughter off a cliff in 2000 to avoid paying $1,000 in monthly child support in California.

He sat still and silent in a Los Angeles courtroom as he heard the first-degree murder verdict that came after nearly 15 years and three trials.

Meanwhile, the mother of the child simply sobbed after Brown was brought to justice.

Brown, a former airline baggage handler, was stuck in a bitter battle over child support and custody when, in November 2000, he hurled his child, Lauren Sarene Key, off a 120-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes, a posh L.A. suburb.

He told police at the time his baby girl was running around the cliff’s edge and tripped.

Jurors in a 2006 trial and another trial in 2009 had already decided Lauren’s death was a crime, but they could not agree on a charge, with some calling it murder while others believed it was manslaughter.

But after hearing six weeks of evidence and visiting the scene of the shocking death, jurors this time only took one day to unanimously decide Brown’s fate.

This trial covered most of the same ground as the other two, but now had a new witness who said Brown had talked about how it would be “nice to get rid of Lauren” to skip on child support and to spite the girl’s mother, Sarah Key-Marer, who is a British citizen.

Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum told jurors Brown hated the mother of his child, tried talking her into an abortion and even attempted to have her deported.

Jurors also had a hard time believing the 4-year-old was running around the edge of a cliff by choice, foreman Greg Apodaca said.

Even after the verdict, Brown insisted to the judge that he is innocent.

He will be sentenced in June and faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.

Source: nydailynews