Willie Seth Crain Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 23, 1946 Florida, U.S. |
| Convictions |
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| Criminal penalty |
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| Details | |
| Victims | 1 murder victim, 8+ rape victims |
| Date | 1960s – 1998 |
| Location | Tampa, Florida |
| Imprisoned at | Union Correctional Institution [1] |
Willie Seth Crain Jr. (born April 23, 1946) [1] is an American convicted child murderer and child sex offender currently on death row in Florida. In September 1998, Crain, who was convicted of sexually abusing five girls in 1985, had kidnapped and murdered seven-year-old Amanda Victoria Brown, whose body was never found despite extensive searches and investigations. Crain was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and murder of Brown, and found guilty of first-degree murder on September 13, 1999. Crain was sentenced to death on November 19, 1999, upon the jury's unanimous recommendation for capital punishment, and he is currently on death row awaiting execution.
Willie Seth Crain Jr. was born on April 23, 1946, and grew up in Tampa, Florida, where his father, Willie Sr., made a living as a crab fisherman. Crain's family background was said to be dysfunctional: Willie Sr. reportedly fathered Crain and 20 more children with three different wives, while Crain's biological mother often spent time in bars and got married nine times before she died in 1983. Crain was also a victim of child abuse and molestation, and he dropped out of school at the second grade to help his father out in crab fishing. Crain was married twice in his adulthood; his first wife left him merely three days after their wedding, while his second wife divorced him, only to later marry one of Crain's older brothers. At one point, in 1980, Crain would operate a highly-successful raw seafood store in McKay Bay. [2]
Between the mid-1960s and 1980s, Crain was involved in several rapes and sexual assaults of young girls. Crain's presumed first victim, who was eight years old at the time of the first rape, testified that Crain had repeatedly raped her in the mid-1960s, while another victim, who was ten back in 1970, was forced to have sex with Crain. [3] Presumably around 1978, Crain began to rape his then girlfriend's nine-year-old daughter and the sexual abuse lasted for five years until the girl was 14. [2] [4] Between July 1982 and May 1984, Crain also sexually assaulted another five young girls. [5]
Crain was arrested in 1984 for raping five of his victims, and for five charges of child molestation, Crain was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. After serving 6+1⁄2 years out of his jail term, Crain was released on probation, which was expected to last until 2053, but in May 1997, the probation was terminated early. [2]
Crain's family was also entangled in a history of violent crimes; one of Crain's sister-in-laws, Florence, was found murdered in 1981 with her body naked and throat slit. [2] One of Crain's brothers, Linwood, was convicted of second-degree murder for strangling a 16-year-old girl in the 1980s, and after his release from prison, Linwood was convicted of unlawful firearm possession (in part due to his murder conviction) under federal law in 1999. [6] [7]
On September 11, 1998, seven-year-old Amanda Victoria Brown (March 13, 1991 – September 11, 1998) disappeared from her house in Tampa, Florida, and it was assumed she was killed by Willie Crain based on the evidence acquired.
Two days before the murder, Brown's sister introduced her mother to Crain at a local bar. A few hours after they first met, Crain and Brown's mother went to the latter's trailer to spend more time with each other before leaving. The next afternoon, on September 10, 1998 (the eve of Brown's murder), Crain returned to the trailer, where Brown was present with her mother, after the girl spent the night before with her father. Brown and Crain played some games (like tic-tac-toe) and also worked on Brown's homework. Afterwards, Crain left the trailer and was absent for the rest of the afternoon, until he came back for dinner with Brown and her mother. [8] [9]
After dinner, Crain, Brown and her mother were inside a bedroom watching the 1997 movie Titanic . While watching the movie, Crain gave Brown's mother five sleeping pills, as medication for her body pain, while he himself took one. Brown's mother fell asleep for several hours before she woke up, only to find her daughter and Crain missing. It was the prosecution's contention that based on circumstantial evidence pieced together, Crain had abducted Brown and killed her under unspecified circumstances, and later abandoned her body at possibly the water areas where he set up his crab traps. According to a fisherman Albert Darlington, during the 18 months before Brown went missing and presumably killed, Crain had told him twice that he could get rid of a body in a place that could never be found. Two women similarly testified that Crain had admitted to killing Brown. when they came to visit Crain's grandchildren. Till today, Brown's body was never found. [8] [10]
After the disappearance of Brown, her mother reported her missing, and the police subsequently questioned Crain pertaining to the case, in part due to his 1984 conviction for child sex offences, but he was not yet a suspect at that point, and later released from police custody. [11]
On October 2, 1998, Crain was arrested and charged as a prime suspect for the disappearance and murder of Brown. In fact, two weeks prior to his arrest for murder, Crain was already detained in prison for two charges of raping young girls back in 1969 and 1971. The police revealed that they found bloodstains containing Brown's DNA on the underwear of Crain, and more bloodstains with Brown's DNA were found on the toilet seat in Crain's bathroom and on a piece of toilet paper in the toilet bowl. Furthermore, it was revealed in the arrest warrant that on the date of Brown's disappearance, Crain was seen having long, fresh scratches on his arms. [12] [13] According to DNA expert Martin Tracey, the odds of identifying someone else apart from Brown as the owner of the bloodstain was one in 388 million. [14]
On September 6, 1999, Willie Crain's murder trial began before a Hillsborough County jury. [15]
On September 13, 1999, the jury found Crain guilty of the first-degree murder of Brown. [16] As the trial moved on to the sentencing phase, three of the victims who were previously raped by Crain came to court to testify against him. [17]
On September 18, 1999, the jury unanimously voted 12–0 to recommend the death penalty for Crain, whose defence of a troubled childhood wad rejected as a mitigating factor by the jury. Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer, the trial judge, was tentatively set to formally sentence Crain on October 11, 1999. [18] During a jailhouse interview after the jury's verdict, Crain continued to insist on his innocence and claimed he was not afraid to die. [19]
On October 11, 1999, during a court hearing before formal sentencing, Crain criticized the judicial system in general, and even criticized his lawyers aside from the prosecution, and stated he was being "sold down the river" and sent to death row by the system. Crain went as far as to accuse the parents of Brown as the real killers, insisting he was innocent and never killed Brown. [20]
On November 19, 1999, Crain was officially sentenced to death by Judge Fleischer, who followed the jury's decision and cited Crain's previous antecedents for sex offences and the aggravating factors behind Brown's murder. [21] [22]
A 2019 news report revealed that Crain was one of 105 death row prisoners convicted for murders committed within Central Florida. [23] As of May 2019, Crain was listed as one of Florida's 19 inmates condemned to death row for murders that took place within Hillsborough County. [24]
As of 2025, Crain remains on death row at the Union Correctional Institution. [1]
On October 29, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court denied Crain's appeal and upheld his death sentence. [25] [26]
On October 13, 2011, the Florida Supreme Court rejected Crain's post-conviction appeal. [8]
On April 5, 2018, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed Crain's third appeal. [27]
On March 22, 2019, Crain's federal appeal was denied by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. [28]
On October 10, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Crain's final appeal against his death sentence. [29]
In August 2000, less than a year after he was condemned to death row, Crain's rape charges for the 1960s and 1970s cases were all withdrawn by the prosecution, in part due to his death sentence and conviction for murder, and the prosecution decided it was unnecessary to subject Crain to another trial. On top of that, Crain was handed a 364-day sentence after he pleaded guilty to one count of marijuana possession. [3]
In 2005, the fathers of both Brown and another murdered girl, Jessica Lunsford, joined in the search for a missing girl named Sarah Lunde, [30] [31] who was later found to be murdered by a registered sex offender named David Lee Onstott, who confessed to the murder. Onstott was later convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. [32]
In 2009, it was reported that Brown's biological father first wrote letters to Crain back in 2006, hoping that he would reveal the location of his daughter's body, and Crain responded after three years and was willing to help, despite maintaining he was innocent for the murder. However, the Florida Department of Corrections refused the request for Crain and Brown's father to meet each other, citing security concerns. [33] [34]
In December 1998, the disappearance and murder of Amanda Brown was listed as one of Florida's most high-profile cases of murdered or missing children to happen in that year itself. [35]
The case of Willie Crain was one of the most notable cases prosecuted by Jay Pruner, who served 35 years as a prosecutor and retired in 2021. [36]
By 2023, in light of the indictment of Tomasz Kosowski for allegedly killing a lawyer in the absence of a body, the case of Willie Crain was recalled as one of Florida's most high-profile cases of murder convictions without a body. [37]