Man wants to meet with daughter’s killer
TAMPA (AP) – The father of a murdered girl wants to meet with his daughter’s convicted killer behind bars in an attempt to locate her body – but corrections officials won’t allow the meeting.
Standing in front of the Hillsborough County Courthouse on Wednesday, Roy Brown said he wants to talk to Willie Seth Crain, who was convicted of murdering 7-year-old Amanda Brown in 1998 and is on death row.
Amanda’s body was never found, and her father wants answers.
“If I could find my daughter, I could have peace in my heart,” said Brown, with tears welling in his eyes.
Brown said he first wrote to Crain in 2006, delivering the letter personally to the prison where Crain was locked up, and finally received two letters in reply about a month ago.
In his responses, Crain said he is not responsible for Amanda’s death – but added that he would be willing to talk to Brown and that the two could work together to get him released from prison.
“I’m not the person who took your daughter,” Crain wrote on Nov. 11.
Brown, who is 59, maintains that if he could just visit Crain and “look him in the eyes,” then he might get some answers.
But the Department of Corrections has nixed that idea.
Gretl Plessinger, spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Corrections, said the meeting was not approved because of “security concerns.”
“We can control what comes inside our prisons,” she told the Associated Press Wednesday. “But we can’t control emotions. And obviously, this is an emotionally charged situation. We don’t believe this visit would be in the best interest of anyone, including Mr. Brown.”
Plessinger added that law enforcement and the state attorney’s office have the authority to review facts in the case.
Crain’s death penalty case is currently on appeal.
Crain met Amanda’s mother in a bar in 1998. Prosecutors said he visited the woman at her home, gave her Valium and crawled into bed with her and the little girl. Crain and Amanda were gone when the woman awakened.
Police thought Crain, a crab fisherman, ditched the girl’s body, perhaps in Old Tampa Bay, where he used to set his crab traps. An 11-day search on land and sea failed to turn up her body, but bloodstains on Crain’s clothes and toilet were matched to the girl.