In the summer of 1987, 10-year-old Sheila Smoke was living with her mother, Linda LeMonte, and her six-year-old brother, Aaron, in a quiet home in Montgomery, Alabama. Their lives were tragically intertwined with a man Linda had trusted, a man who had recently moved in with the family. That man was Raymond Eugene Brown, a serial killer with a violent past that was deceptively hidden behind the facade of an upstanding citizen.
The night of August 9, 1987, turned their home into a scene of
unimaginable horror. Brown, then 41, launched a brutal attack on Linda and her young daughter. The following morning, after Linda failed to show up for work, her mother, Beverly Evans, went to the house to check on them. When no one answered the door, she knocked on Aaron's bedroom window. The little boy, who had hidden under his bed and was physically unharmed, opened the front door for his grandmother, revealing a horrific scene. Linda LeMonte was found dead in the living room, and Sheila was discovered in her bedroom.
The investigation revealed the true depravity of the crime. Sheila, a 10-year-old girl, had been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times in the chest, throat, and abdomen. The murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was left embedded in her body. Her mother, Linda, had also been viciously stabbed, and her throat was cut. The killer had staged the scene in a bizarre ritual, scattering playing cards and leaving a piece of paper with the victims' names and the word "me" written on it. He also took a Polaroid photograph of Linda’s body and left it on the television set; a thumbprint on the photo would later identify Brown as the killer.
Raymond Eugene Brown, who earned the nickname "Blade" in prison, was no stranger to violence. His criminal history was extensive and shocking, beginning when he was just 14 years old. In October 1960, he murdered three of his own relatives: his aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother, stabbing one of them 123 times. For these crimes, he was convicted of first-degree murder and received three life sentences, but was shockingly paroled in 1973. He violated that parole in 1980 by raping and attempting to strangle his apartment manager, for which he was sent back to prison. Inexplicably, he was paroled again in June 1986, less than two years before he would murder Sheila and her mother.
Following a manhunt, Brown was arrested on August 12, 1987, after he emerged from hiding to buy a soda. During his trial in 1988, he pleaded not guilty, claiming amnesia. A psychiatric evaluation found he had an "organic personality disorder" but was otherwise sane. The evidence against him was overwhelming, and he was found guilty on four counts of capital murder, including the murder of two or more persons, murder while under a sentence of life imprisonment, and murder during a sexual assault.
The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty, and the judge concurred, sentencing Brown to death in May 1988. His conviction and sentence were followed by a long and complex series of appeals that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite these legal challenges, his conviction and death sentence were ultimately upheld. Raymond Eugene Brown was never executed for his crimes; he died of natural causes on death row in 2008 at the age of 61 or 62. His death brought an end to a life marked by extreme violence and a justice system's repeated failures that allowed a known killer to be freed, leading to the senseless and tragic death of a little girl named Sheila Smoke.
