US MAN WANTED FOR MURDER ARRESTED WHILE RETURNING FROM JAMAICA

From the moment detectives saw Cecil Brown — a 73-year-old man beaten to death in the secluded back yard of his Takoma Park home last summer — an obvious question surfaced: How did the killer, or killers, get back here to do this?

A search of Brown’s wife’s belongings started yielding clues.

There was a folder labeled “Ali’s folder” that contained love notes from another man.

An electronic search of the woman’s phone — and the old Internet searches still stored on it — yielded more clues.

“What drinks cause heart failure.”

Cecil Brown was killed in August 2014 in Takoma Park, Md. (Courtesy of Takoma Park Police Department)
“Death by burning.”

“Shocked Tasered while sleeping.”

Those alleged discoveries, detailed in Montgomery County court records, helped Takoma Park police build a case against the wife, Larlane Brown, 68, and her alleged lover, Hussain Ali Zadeh, 49. The two were booked into the Montgomery jail Friday. They were being held without bond and were expected to make their first court appearances Monday.

Takoma Park police said they had long ago zeroed in on the pair and had spent recent months quietly shoring up records and documentation.

Police obtained murder warrants May 7, but by that time Zadeh had flown to Jamaica. So officers waited for him to return. He was arrested at ­Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport on Thursday after he came off a plane, Takoma Park Police Chief Alan Goldberg said.

Larlane Brown was picked up at the same time in a different part of the airport, where she had come to meet Zadeh.

Police said the victim was well liked by neighbors and the rest of his family. Cecil Brown worked in the construction business, constantly toiled on his front yard and doted on his grandchildren.

“He was just a decent, respected man, a hardworking guy,” Goldberg said. “It’s such a shame.”

Takoma Park officials did not say who they think assaulted Brown or whether they think both suspects assaulted him.

There is no indication either has retained a lawyer, and their response to the allegations was unavailable.

[Earlier: Victim Cecil Brown “worked hard and kept his nose clean.”]

Takoma Park, a Maryland city just outside of Washington, has long been better known for its left-leaning politics than its homicides. This is a community that famously declared itself a nuclear-free zone many years ago.

Colby Avenue is one of its many quiet, tree-lined streets. That Brown could be killed — outside, in the middle of the day — was shocking.

But new court documents in the case spell out how detectives determined early on that it did not appear to be a random crime.

They were called to the home about 12:30 p.m. Aug. 4. Brown clearly had been the victim of a violent assault. “It was brutal,” Goldberg said.

Police spoke to the victim’s wife, who said her husband had come home from work at 10 a.m. She later found him in the back unconscious, she said.

At some point, while speaking with Larlane Brown, a detective looked at her phone and noticed a call earlier in the day to a man named Ali. She became nervous, police allege, and said that Ali was a friend who worked at Enterprise Rent-A-Car and that she had called him about a detailing job for her car.

The same detective — Sgt. Richard Poole — later spoke to a relative of the Browns. He said that Larlane Brown was having an affair with a man named Ali who worked at Enterprise.

Poole went back to Larlane Brown, who said Ali was only a friend.

Detectives went to Enterprise, found a manager and learned Ali’s full name — Hussain Ali Zadeh. They found him, and he told them he didn’t know Larlane Brown well and didn’t know where she lived.

Detectives because suspicious of what he told them about his movements on the day Cecil Brown’s body was discovered.

Zadeh said he had taken the Metro to work and did not have a car. But according to court records, police learned that Larlane Brown had bought him a silver Jaguar, which he drove on the morning Cecil Brown was killed.

Back at the Brown’s house, detectives wrote in documents filed in court, they found more clues.

There was the Ali folder. Inside was a birthday card from him titled “You’re the one I love,” according to police.

Also found, detectives asserted: “Several hand-written notes listing several types of poisons that would cause death along with recipes for making them at home.”

Detectives learned that Larlane Brown had booked hotel rooms 30 times, mostly in the Takoma Park area, in the months before the killing. She never did so, according to court records, when Zadeh was in Jamaica.

Detectives obtained text messages shared between the suspects and data that tracked the movements of their phones on the day of the killing.

They had communicated several times from 5:54 a.m. to 6:40 a.m., police said.

At 9:50 a.m., cellphone tower data indicated that Zadeh’s phone was near the Brown home. A short time later, police said, Larlane Brown texted Zadeh:

“When I text you come outside.”

“OK, what door?” he responded.

“The bedroom,” Larlane wrote back.

At one point, detectives asked Larlane Brown what they might find among the text messages. She acknowledged that there was a text message from her to Zadeh on the morning of the killing.

“I’m tired of this old chair,” she told them she’d written. “I’m gonna leave it out back.”