Man Sentenced For Murder Of Ex-Girlfriend

Mark Jeffrey Brown To Serve 25 Years To Life In Prison

POSTED: 12:57 pm PDT May 15, 2009

UPDATED: 4:33 pm PDT May 15, 2009

SAN DIEGO -- A man with a long history of violence toward women was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend after she broke off their eight-year relationship.

Mark Jeffrey Brown, 50, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the February 2003 death of 40-year-old Faye Williams, who was suffocated or strangled. Authorities could not definitively say how she died because of the condition of the body.

Jurors acquitted Brown of killing another woman, Charmaine Cannon, in 1995.The defendant had "an unbroken pattern of relationship violence," Judge David Gill said during the sentencing hearing, noting that a number of Brown's former girlfriends testified that he became violent with them.

"The kind of murder we have here is more selfish and more cowardly than other types of murder, because he murdered the person he loved," Deputy District Attorney Tracy Prior told the judge. "The best thing that ever happened to Mark Brown was Faye Williams."

According to trial testimony, Brown and Williams lived together, but she became involved with another man. Around the time she told the defendant their relationship was over, he spent two days in jail for a driver's license violation, returning home to find a table filled with flowers, chocolate and a card from the new lover.

Family members described to the judge how they traveled to San Diego every weekend to look for Williams after they realized she was missing. Her body was found May 3 of that year by an illegal immigrant who was walking through a riverbed in Otay Valley.

"I did not kill Faye Williams," Brown said when it was his turn to speak. "I love Faye more than anyone. I never laid a hand on her."

Brown claimed prosecutors were withholding physical evidence that pointed to someone else.

After the hearing, Williams' older sister, LaWonda Peoples, said the defendant's statement certainly was not for her family's benefit.

"He needed to say what he said for himself," Peoples said.

Wearing a button with a photograph of her sister, Peoples said Williams was the "life of the party," and her loss "left a huge hole in our family," one that includes about 50 first cousins.

Cannon, 37, was discovered dead in her apartment on June 28, 1995, when sheriff's deputies served an eviction notice -- about a week after Brown moved out.

Defense attorney Don Levine told jurors that she was a drug addict who likely died of an overdose.

But Prior said DNA technology unavailable 14 years ago tied Brown to Cannon's death.

In the Williams case, investigators found her blood on the defendant's boots, socks and shorts, and some of her clothes were found in a canyon behind their City Heights apartment, Prior said.

The prosecutor also said Brown's car had "the smell of death" coming from it.

The judge rejected defense motions for a new trial and to reduce the conviction to voluntary manslaughter.

He said Brown had a "disturbing pattern of criminality over an extended period of time" and a "disrespect of basic humanity" and rules of society.

Co-defense attorney Christopher Plourd said the case will be appealed.