He takes his life in Tampa as a grand jury in New York state looks into the 1997 murders.
By Associated Press
Published June 11, 2003
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. - A New York man found dead in his car in Tampa Monday was a suspect in the 1997 murders of his parents.
Harvey Brown, 37, was expecting to be indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury in the fatal bludgeonings of Ellen and Heywood Brown in their Lake Grove home in December 1997, according to a lawyer for the family.
Details on the suicide were not available Tuesday from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Brown's brother, Steven Brown, of Long Island, said Tuesday that his quest for justice ended when his brother, whom he suspected of the crime, took his own life in Tampa.
"I am not surprised by his suicide because it was always my view that when he had to face the consequences of murdering my parents, he would never allow himself to be incarcerated and instead he would choose the easy way out," Brown told reporters at his attorney's office.
The attorney, Howard Fensterman, said Harvey Brown died in Tampa of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday after running a hose from an exhaust pipe into his vehicle.
He said Brown expected to be indicted soon.
"When Harvey got wind of this through friends who had appeared before the grand jury ... he made the decision that rather than be in jail, that he would commit suicide," Fensterman said.
District Attorney Thomas Spota confirmed that a grand jury was empaneled in the Brown case. Spota said he sought the proceeding after concluding that "Harvey Brown was complicit in these homicides."
The motive, according to Steven Brown and his attorney, was jealousy and hatred.
Steven Brown and his father started a maintenance and cleaning business in 1989, but Harvey was left out.
"He felt he should have been in that business and he was not permitted to because of his relationship with his father, which was definitely one of hatred," Fensterman said.
