Marine Cpl Chris Randall Brown’s Daughter: Alabama to Oklahoma

Marine Corporal Chris Randall Brown’s daughter, Christy, was a toddler when he was stabbed to death in 1982, and the custody fight that followed pitted his parents in Alabama against his widow, who fled with the child to Oklahoma after an Alabama court awarded custody to the grandparents. Mary and Jack Brown eventually recovered Christy, but only after Mary mailed more than 1,300 fliers to shelters across the country and pushed through an interstate standoff in which Oklahoma courts refused to honor the Alabama order.¹

Who Christy Brown Is

Christy Brown, also known as Terrah Christine Brown, is the only child of Chris Randall Brown and Kathy Charlene “Dusty” Brown. Her father, a Marine stationed at Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station in Hawaii, was found stabbed to death in his on-base quarters on September 2, 1982. Investigators later determined that Dusty had conspired with her boyfriend, fellow Marine Ralph “Rocky” Jackson, to kill Chris so she could collect his military benefits.¹ Christy was still a toddler at the time.

The Alabama Custody Order and the Flight to Oklahoma

Chris Brown’s parents, Mary and Jack Brown of Gadsden, Alabama, sought and obtained custody of Christy through the Alabama courts. Dusty responded by taking the child and leaving the state with her boyfriend, moving to Oklahoma. Mary Brown described the move as a kidnapping of her granddaughter.¹

When the Browns tried to enforce their Alabama order in Oklahoma, Oklahoma courts refused to honor it. That left the family with no routine legal path to recover the child, even though an Alabama judge had already ruled in their favor.¹

The Nationwide Search

With the courts stalled, Mary Brown ran her own search. She printed and mailed more than 1,300 fliers carrying photographs and descriptions of Dusty and Christy, sending them to homeless shelters and battered-women’s shelters around the country on the theory that Dusty might surface in one. The effort worked. The Browns located Christy and brought her back.¹

Mary Brown’s reasoning was straightforward. “I could not sleep at night thinking that a woman that I felt very strongly had been involved in the death of my son would have custody of his only child,” she said.¹

Why the Mother Still Had the Child

The custody fight was shaped by the fact that Dusty Brown, a civilian, was not immediately charged with any crime. Jackson, as an active-duty Marine, was court-martialed and convicted of first-degree murder. With that conviction in hand, investigators initially treated the case as closed, and Dusty remained free and legally still Christy’s mother.²

Mary Brown spent years pressing congressmen, district attorneys, and private investigators to reopen the case against Dusty. In October 1984, the FBI arrested Dusty in Ada, Oklahoma, after a federal grand jury in Hawaii indicted her on charges of first-degree murder, perjury, and intent to distribute drugs. She was ordered held without bail by U.S. Magistrate Paul Lindsey.² She was ultimately convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, served prison time, and died of cancer shortly after her release.¹

Christy’s Life After

Christy grew up with her paternal grandparents in Alabama. By the time her family’s story reached television in late 1993, she was thirteen years old and attending Etowah Middle School. Mary Brown said she cooperated with the production in part so she could “continue being a grandmother and an ordinary person” rather than keep writing a book about the ordeal she had started and never finished.¹

The Story on Screen

The Brown family’s case was dramatized in A Matter of Justice, a four-hour NBC miniseries that aired November 7 and 8, 1993. Patty Duke played Mary Brown and Martin Sheen played Jack Brown, with Jason London as Chris and Alexandra Powers as Dusty.³ The film followed both halves of Mary Brown’s fight: the push to get Dusty charged, and the push to bring Christy home.⁴

1
Deseret News. TV Movie Recounts Battle for Justice
2
The Oklahoman. Death Penalty Sought
3
Los Angeles Times. A Matter of Justice
4
Variety. A Matter of Justice