The Story
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The following is a transcript from the United Access Radio program, The Story.
911 OPERATOR
9-1-1, how may I direct your call
AARON
Oh my God, she’s dead.
911 OPERATOR
Who’s calling?
AARON
My name is Aaron Brown. Dana, she’s dead. I killed her.
911 OPERATOR
You killed her?
AARON
I murdered her. With my knife. I...she’s dead.
911 OPERATOR
That’s, um, ok. Wow.
MEGAN
On Saturday, April 11, 2015, 24 year old Dana Stevens was murdered in the small, insignificant town of Danning, Missouri. Police arrested Aaron Brown, a married man some 30 years older than Dana who had shown a great deal of interest in her. It seemed like an open and shut case. But, should it have been? Well, that’s.....The Story.
The Story is produced by United Access Radio, and we are really proud of ourselves for it. I am Megan Straither.
THEME SONG OUT
PAUL
Dana wasn’t a bad kid. She really wasn’t. She just hung around a lot of bad people. Well that’s not fair. It was really just Aaron. He was a terrible, terrible man.
MEGAN
Paul Stevens - Dana’s father - remembers his daughter’s all too short life.
PAUL
When she was little, Dana was really involved. She was in 4H, she was a Miss Teen Danning. Her talent was playing a piccolo. I think she played the A-Team theme song. It was good. It was really good.
MEGAN
But things got hard after high school, like they do for people who live in small towns that aren’t major media centers. Like Danning. A town that is much a character as any actual people in this story.
Dana fell in love and in 2009, she got married at the tender age of
18. Sharon Huntley, Mike Miller’s aunt and local barfly, remembers her nephew.
SHARON
Mike was a good guy. He was captain of the football team in high school. Go fightin’ Billy Goats!
After school, he started working down at Miller Mills. It was the family business. They’ve made bucket handles for three generations. The buckets themselves are made down in St. Louis by some foreigners. She and Mike were pretty happy until the accident.
MEGAN
The accident Sharon mentioned happened in 2011. Dana and Mike already had one child, a girl named Anne Marie, and another one was on the way. But Mike would never see his second child. Because his head got crushed in the handle press at the mill.
DOC JONES
The merciful part of the whole thing was that it was quick. Mike couldn’t have felt a thing. I don’t know why Mike’s head was in the press. I figure he was trying to be funny. I don’t get it, but that’s Mike for you. Then someone pushed the button, and wham! His head was pressed all thin and curvy and what not. Just like a bucket handle.
Only, you know, it was made out of Mike’s head. Not metal.
MEGAN
That was Doctor Ellis Jones. Danning is just big enough for a smalll hospital. Basically one doctor and a couple of nurses on duty at any given time. But certainly no one there was equipped to deal with Mike’s injuries. Which is okay, really, because he died on the spot. That would have probably been the result even in New York.
With Mike out of the picture, and no income coming in, Dana needed help. And that is how her life collided with Aaron Brown, a man thirty three years older with her. And a man who would eventually be arrested for her murder. We’ll have more on that when we return to The Story.
NARRATOR
Funding for American Access Radio and the story is provided by a generous grant from the Hobart Group. The Hobart Group...no one knows what they do, but the checks clear, and that’s what matters.
Additional funding comes from Danny Pickles and Associates. Danny Pickles and Associates. We are accountants. We don’t make Pickles. And now back to The Story.
MEGAN
Aaron Brown was 53 years old when he first met Dana. Well, that’s not really true. In a town like Danning, Missouri, everyone has probably met everyone else within a month of being in town. That’s how small and quaint and oddly southern Danning is. So, let’s say he was 53 when he first spent any real time with her.
DONNA
I work with, well worked with, I guess now, what with the murder and all that, Aaron down at the bank since 1980. Long time. Long time.
MEGAN
That’s Donna Howard. She’s a Vice- President at the Bank....that’s The name of it....just The Bank. The same bank where Aaron Brown worked his entire adult life. This isn’t the kind of bank you’re used to seeing if you live in a city. It’s laid back. No suits. No ties. But, it has a vault, safety deposit boxes, and chairs. So you can tell it’s a bank. Just not one that’s, I don’t know, citified. That’s just one of the many charms of Danning, a real Southern Gothic town.
DONNA
After Mike Miller died, his widow came in with her little girl in tow. She was crying, but still pretty as can be. The bank held the mortgage to her house, and she needed some help. Of course, Mike’s family was going to help her out.
They’re decent Christian folks and it was their mill that had killed him and all. Plus, he had left a little life insurance, so she didn’t need money so much as she just needed to sort through it all. And that’s when she talked to Aaron. If I had known then what I know now, I’d have stopped them from talking. Because, you know, the stabbing.
MEGAN
Aaron Brown was a teller at the bank.
DONNA
Well, all the tellers, that’s me and Aaron, also handled loans and mortgages and and what not. Also calendars. We give them out free. This years it’s got a bunch of funny bears. They crack me up.
Anyway, Dana and Aaron talked about how to handle the insurance money. He suggested she put it in the bank. Which is pretty much the best financial advice we have here. A lot of people just want to put cash in jars or mattresses. And that’s just not smart. It can be stolen by thieves and bears and so on.
Anyway, they just got to talking, and Dana went from crying to laughing. I didn’t think much of it, til I saw her again. And again. It was weird, you know. He was so much older than her, and married to Denise to boot. It wasn’t right.
But, I guess that’s none of my business.
MEGAN
To say Aaron and Dana were dating was probably not true. By all accounts Dana was glad to have a friendly ear. But Aaron wanted more.
DONNA
Dana was glad to have a friendly ear. But Aaron wanted more.
MEGAN
See?...Increasingly Aaron found reasons to talk with Dana. Advising her about money and giving her gifts for her children...both the one that was already born, and the one that would eventually be born, but never see her dad. Because he had died tragically. Remember that? Just checking. People started to notice that Aaron’s interest in Dana may not have been strictly banking business.
GARY
We all saw it. Aaron was after more than getting that girl’s account.
You know what I mean? Yeah you do.
MEGAN
That’s Gary Whistler. He’s a local businessman and a former mayor of Danning. It’s kind of the norm in these small towns. A man owns a tractor business one day, the next he owns the town. And the tractor business never does better. It’s the circle of life wrought Southern style.
GARY
It’s not my business, of course. But we all noticed it. Thing is, I’m not sure Dana did. I think she just thought he was being nice.
Which he was. But we all knew his being nice was part of a bigger plan. You know what I mean? Yeah you do.
MEGAN
So, word around Danning was that Aaron Brown had designs on Dana Stevens. Romantic or just sexual, we don’t know. But definitely more than platonic. Which was weird, and not just because of the age difference. He was 53 at the time. She was 20. And, really, who are we to judge? Adults are adults, and this age difference is very European, or at least out of a Woody Allen movie. I’m thinking Manhatten. But, I digress. No, it wasn’t just the age difference.
There was also the marital status difference. Aaron Brown was married, and had been for longer than Dana had been alive.
DENISE
I’m not going to talk about that son of a b....that no good snake. If he wasn’t cheating on me, he sure as hell was acting like it. Son of a biscuit. Sorry.
MEGAN
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that is Denise Brown, Aaron’s wife.
DENISE
The way he acted after he met that girl was re-damn-diculous. Like he was a teenager with a crush. He thought I didn’t notice. But it was hard to ignore. He kept making excuses to see her. He needed to help her set up financial plans. He needed to be there for her when her second kid was born. Said it was standard customer service. But I knew he was lying. Especially after that night about a week before she died. The night he was a’screaming out the window. “If I can’t have you, no one will. I will kill you, Dana. I mean that for real.” Those were his exact words.
MEGAN
Shocking, yeah. But, you know, under the circumstances, she may have reason to lie, right?
DENISE
And I ain’t lying. I taped it on my phone. Listen up.
AARON (ON RECORDING)
If I can’t have you, no one will. I will kill you, Dana. I mean that paulfor real.
DENISE
Told you.
MEGAN
Sounds bad, right? Well, we’ll learn more when we return to the story.
NARRATOR
Funding for the Story is made possible in part by listeners like you, yes you. Specifically you. Pay up now and now one gets hurt. We also rely on grants from the Wendigo Foundation. When major companies need services of a vague nature, they rely on the Wendigo Foundation. Funding also comes from Mabel Dunbar. That lady is crazy loaded and she loves hearing her name. Thank you, Mabel. And now, we return to the Story.
MEGAN
About a month before she died, Dana told Aaron Brown that she had met someone new. About a week before she died, she told him it was serious. The person was Larry Yunt, a friend of her husband’s. Which seems creepy to me. But the night Dana told Aaron it was serious, is the night he allegedly yelled at her that he would kill her. Which Denise, Aaron’s wife, somehow managed to record on her phone. A week later, the 911 call came in, Dana was dead, and Aaron found himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare that makes you wonder how they can call it a justice system. It’s a system, but the justice, I don’t know. I spoke to Lt.Nip Callahan with the Danning Police Department. The Department is bigger than the one we all saw on the Andy Griffith Show. Maybe 8 full time officers and a holding cell. But no town drunks that let themselves come and go as they please. That time in America is gone. I’m not sure it was ever real. It’s nice to think it may have been.
CALLAHAN
I was on patrol down by the Starbucks, yes we have a Starbucks, don’t look so surprised. Anyway, the Starbucks is near to the home of the victim, Dana.
So I was there within a few minutes, and there, standing over the victim was Aaron Brown. He was holding a knife, covered in blood. Him and the knife, and he kept saying ‘Oh my God, I did it. I can’t believe I did it.’ So, I took him into custody, read him his Miranda rights, and took him down to the station.
MEGAN
And just like that, the system had its man. Aaron Brown may as well have been convicted then and there. It was as if the police didn’t care who killed Dana as long as someone....anyone...paid for it.
Here’s a tape of the unnerving interview Lt. Callahan conducted at the station.
CALLAHAN
Can I get you anything? Something to drink?
AARON
Can you just get me a towel to wipe off Dana’s blood? I got it all over me.
CALLAHAN
Do you want a lawyer?
AARON
No. No. No reason to pay a lawyer when I know what happened and I need to pay the price.
CALLAHAN
What do you mean, Aaron?
AARON
I mean I murdered Dana because she was getting too serious about that boy.
CALLAHAN
You sure you don’t want a lawyer.
AARON
What’s the point? I’m guilty. I can be guilty for free, you know? Can I have something to eat?
CALLAHAN
Sure. What do you want? I’ll run and get you something down the street.
MEGAN
Outrageous, right? One could argue that police starved Aaron and then relied on this coerced confession and the circumstantial evidence from the scene of the crime to launch a witch hunt. I’m not taking a position on Aaron’s guilt or innocence. That would be unprofessional. I’m just saying it seems...I don’t know....like a rush to judgment. Aaron was charged with Dana’s murder. In their haste to solve the case, the police did nothing. Nothing other than arrest and charge Aaron Brown, who had committed the sin of being different. And being middle aged.
Why didn’t they question Dana’s boyfriend or Aaron’s wife, instead of just railroading Aaron Brown from minute one.
CALLAHAN
Even after Aaron confessed, which he did about eight times, we talked to Larry Yount, Dana’s boyfriend. He was at the Mud Hole for karaokee night. At the time Dana was being stabbed, he was singing in front of about 20 witnesses. He was singing Wind Beneath My Wings, and kept dedicating it to Dana.
MEGAN
Well, why wasn’t Dana with him?
CALLAHAN
She was supposed to meet him that night. She had taken the kids to spend the night with Mike’s parents, and had come back home to get dressed to go out and meet Larry, when she was delayed by Aaron. He’d broken into her house and confronted her. Then he murdered her.
MEGAN
Allegedly...
CALLAHAN
That’s a negative, ma’am. There’s no alleged to it.
MEGAN
But, what about Denise Brown? She had reason to, if not kill Dana, to at least frame Aaron, didn’t she?
CALLAHAN
Denise had left Aaron the day before, and was staying with her parents down in Tennessee.
MEGAN
But how can we know that for sure?
CALLAHAN
Three minutes before the murder she posted a selfie on Facebook with her mom that said “I love my mom!” And it was from her parents’ house. In Tennessee. There was even a possum in the background. Not relevant, just a neat thing you don’t see in pictures too often.
MEGAN
So the police had what they wanted to call an open and shut case. But was it as airtight as they wanted to act like it was? When we return, you’ll hear what Aaron Brown has to say about that....on the Story.
NARRATOR
Major funding for The Story comes from Decaron and Medavoy. Decaron and Medavoy, experts in sea bass related litigation since 1938.
Decaron and Medavoy, class action sea bass specialists, because that’s an actual thing. And now we turn to the end of the story.
MEGAN
I spoke with Jenny Lindt, an attorney from the Constitutional Defense Society in St. Louis. At our request, the group looked at Aaron’s case.
It was the exact kind of last minute calvary ride towards truth that makes these stories so great.
JENNY
So, what exactly is it you want us to look at?
MEGAN
Well, I don’t know. I’m not saying Aaron didn’t do it. I just don’t know if he did, and that’s the point, isn’t it?
JENNY
But he clearly did do it.
MEGAN
Well, even if that’s true, and I’m not saying it is, hasn’t the state crossed the line. Crossed into unconstitutional territory?
JENNY
How?
MEGAN
The coerced confession, for starters.
JENNY
Do you know what that word means?
MEGAN
There was no forensic work to rule out other suspects.
JENNY
Forensic work? Like what?
MEGAN
No DNA testing. No fingerprint analysis.
JENNY
Except on the knife. Which had Mr. Brown’s fingerprints on it. And which he was holding.
MEGAN
But did they test the knife to see if it matched the stab wounds?
JENNY
No. Because it was covered in blood, and he admitted to the crime.
MEGAN
So, they didn’t test to match the knife to the wounds?
JENNY
No. They didn’t test like that.
MEGAN
So the legal experts agree the case was handled shoddily. Maybe even illegally. Southern justice is not necessarily the same as normal justice. Bucolic though it may be. But the real interesting turn came after I finally got a chance to take to Aaron Brown.
AARON
Why are you talking to me?
MEGAN
Aaron at first said he didn’t want to talk to me. He was a day away from entering a guilty plea. And probably life behind bars, no parole.
AARON
I don’t have anything to say.
DANNY
That’s right!
MEGAN
That was Danny, Aaron’s cousin. He was hanging around at the jail the day I interviewed him. Because they let you do that in small towns.
It’s part of the fabric that makes those towns, in a way, more real than Manhatten or L.A.
AARON
Seriously, what do you want?
DANNY
Who wants what. A-yup!
MEGAN
I guess I just wanted to give you a chance to tell your side of this.
Without the police or angry spouses or whatever. A chance to present the unvarnished truth on a podcast where dozens of people can here it.
AARON
Here’s the truth. I went to Dana’s house. I broke in.
DANNY
Breaking and entering!
AARON
I took a knife from the drawer. I waited for Dana to come in. I yelled at her. And then I stabbed her. Over and over. On purpose.
DANNY
He done kilt her!
AARON
I did. I stabbed her. To death. On purpose.
MEGAN
But the police, they coerced you to confess. Right?
AARON
No. Nip, I’ve known Nip since high school. Good guy. He was nice as could be. Everyone’s been really nice.
DANNY
They was nice as can be!
AARON
Considering I had just murdered Dana, they were just plain cordial.
DANNY
And pro-fessional.
MEGAN
So, you’re saying...
AARON
I’m saying I am guilty of first degree murder. I stabbed Dana to death. With a knife. End of story.
DANNY
End of story!
MEGAN
But, is the story over? There’s still some obvious doubt as to who killed Dana Miller. And we don’t know why she was killed. What we do know is that small towns have secrets. And sometimes those secrets have a way of diverting truth. We may never know who killed Dana...
DANNY
It was Aaron, A-yup!
MEGAN
And we may never learn why the police did all they could to convict Aaron while ignoring the mountain of evidence against other suspects. We also may never know for sure how mad a radio network can be when you chase down a story for too long with no dramatic hook or ambiguity. But that’s another day. And another story.
An audio version of this was produced on The Howling Monkey Radio Network.
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