UPDATE, JAN. 10, 9:56 A.M.: Third-strike parolee Ean Keith Brown is scheduled to be arraigned in Santa Ana this morning for the strangulation murder of Dolores “Arias” Arias Dolores Fagan, who was visiting relatives who live in the same Huntington Beach neighborhood as the defendant when she went missing and later turned up dead in his RV.
The 38-year-old could get 85 years to life in state prison if he is convicted of the charges filed against him.
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Fagan was last seen leaving the family home at 5 p.m. Friday. Brown, who was recently released from state prison and is on parole for burglary, was living in the RV parked in the driveway of his parent's home on Danbury Circle. He is accused of strangling Fagan, wrapping her dead body in a blanket and leaving her in the RV before leading a police chase that ended at the Nevada border Sunday afternoon.
His parents actually provided the tip that led to their son's arrest. They became suspicious about what had happened inside the RV and asked Huntington Beach Police to investigate. Upon discovering Fagan's body, a manhunt was launched for Brown, who California Highway Patrol officers stopped on Interstate 15.
He is now charged with one felony count of murder and sentencing enhancements for two prior strike convictions and serious felony priors for second degree robbery in 1995 and burglary in 2008. Senior Deputy District Attorney Sonia Balleste of the Homicide Unit will ask that Brown's bail be set at $1 million at this morning's arraignment.
ORIGINAL POST, JAN. 9, 6:49 P.M.: A 38-year-old man who was recently released from prison was stopped after a police chase on the 15 freeway that ended just short of the Nevada border Sunday afternoon and arrested on murder charges related to the body of a 21-year-old woman being found four hours earlier in a Huntington Beach recreational vehicle he had been living in.
Ean Keith Brown was booked on suspicion of murder and violation of his parole and held without bail in the Huntington Beach city jail.
Huntington Beach Police received a report about 12:10 p.m. Sunday of a possible dead body in an RV parked in the driveway of a home in the 8300 block of Danbury Circle. According to the department's Facebook page, the residents there confirmed a body was in the RV, that Brown was their son and that he had been living in the RV.
Brown had recently been released from prison and was on parole, note Huntington Beach Police, who began a manhunt that culminated with the California Highway Patrol and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department beginning a vehicle pursuit around 4 p.m. Sunday.
The CHP managed to stop the vehicle in the northbound lanes of the 15, and the driver was identified as Brown, who was then turned over to Huntington Beach Police detectives.
The name of the deceased, a Huntington Beach resident, is not being released pending notification of her next of kin. The manner in which she died has not been divulged due to the ongoing investigation. An autopsy was to be performed Monday. Police do say Brown and the victim knew one another.
Meanwhile, the Orange County Register reportedly cites court records that indicate a man with the same name and date of birth as Brown pleaded guilty: in 1995 to one felony count of second-degree attempted robbery; in 1999 to one felony count of unlawful taking of a vehicle and was sentenced to 16 months in state prison; in 2006 to one felony count of possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to three years probation and 270 days in jail; and in 2009 to one felony count of first-degree burglary and was sentenced to two years in state prison.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.