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We’ve got a theme! …. A weird, totally accidental theme! This week, we’re talking about wrongfully convicted people who also happen to have the last name Brown. 

Brandi starts us off with the story of Sabina Kulakowski, a social worker who was discovered dead near her home. Her home had been set on fire and Sabina had been stabbed, bitten and strangled. Investigators had another suspect in their sights, but eventually locked in on Roy Brown. Roy was a decent enough suspect – he’d been recently released from jail when Sabina was murdered. He also had a history of threatening social workers. 

Then Kristin tells us about a robbery at a Dallas furrier. May 6, 1980, was supposed to be a typical day at Fine Furs by Rubin. Then two women walked in. One had a gun. The other held empty trash bags. One of the women shot and killed the store owner, Rubin Danziger, as the other filled the bags with valuable furs. The women fled, leaving behind Ala Danziger as an eyewitness to their crime. It didn’t take long for investigators to locate the women’s getaway car. It had been abandoned, with rental paperwork in the front seat. The paperwork indicated that it had been rented by a woman named Joyce Ann Brown.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

The “Joyce Ann Brown” episodes of Vindicated

“Joyce Ann Brown, shackled by her name to another’s crime, dies at 68,” by Margalit Fox for the New York Times

“Joyce Ann Brown,” entry on The National Registry of Exonerations

“Joyce Ann Brown, exonerated after nearly a decade in prison, dies at 68,” by Emily Langer for the Washington Post

“Joyce Ann Brown, exoneree who championed justice, dies at 68,” the Dallas Morning News

“Wrongful conviction charges haunt Dallas prosecutors,” by Paul Weingarten for the Chicago Tribune

“Joyce Ann Brown,” entry on Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Center on Wrongful Convictions

“Freedom Fighter” episode Forensic Files

“Quest for Freedom: The True Story of Roy Brown” by David Lohr, The Crime Library

“With DNA From Exhumed Body, Man Finally Wins Freedom” by Fernanda Santos, The New York Times

“Roy Brown, who spent 15 years in prison for murder he did not commit, dies at 58” by Sarah Moses Buckshot, syracuse.com

“Roy Brown” innocenceproject.org

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