If You Really Loved Me: A True Story of Desire and Murder

Summary

In 1985, thirty-two-year-old David Brown seemed to have it all. A computer genius with a million-dollar business, married for the fifth time—most recently to a twenty-three-year-old beauty, Linda, the mother of his newborn baby—he was the living embodiment of a rich playboy. But the signs of the dream life’s dark underside were already emerging—especially in Brown’s penchant for divorcing his young wives as soon as they matured to full womanhood.

The darkness came into full, violent bloom the night Linda was found shot to death in her own bed. Shockingly, Brown’s fourteen-year-old stepdaughter Cinnamon confessed, earning a prison sentence for the murder in a case that rocked California’s Orange County community. But even after the verdict was in, officials in the District Attorney’s office suspected that all the facts were yet to be revealed. What their further investigations uncovered was a trail of lechery, deceit, and betrayal—a trail that began and ended with David Brown.

Filled with horrifying findings from the author’s exclusive access to the details of the investigation, If You Really Loved Me is Ann Rule’s most compelling work yet—a chilling true crime masterpiece!