A NOTE TO THE READER: This report is in no way intended to serve as a complete account of the 250-page investigative report released last week by the Office of Texas’ Attorney General, or of the 4-hour presentation made by Klein Investigations and Consulting in Canadian last Wednesday. It is an attempt to characterize the inherent conflict in two reports addressing the mystery of Thomas Brown’s disappearance five years ago, and the continuing impact of his death on the town of Canadian. Please turn to Page 2 to read the statements of two school officials in response to Klein’s accusations of corruption at CISD.

This Thanksgiving 2021 will mark the fifth anniversary of the still-unsolved disappearance and death of CHS senior Thomas Brown. Last week, two events shed new light on the case, and on the continuing dispute over what is fact, and what is simply conjecture or misdirection.

The first event occurred last Tuesday, Oct. 21, when the Office of Texas Attorney General’s Special Investigations Group—to whom the Brown case was turned over by the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office in January 2018—released a 250-page report shedding new light on several key issues in the case.

The AG investigators gleaned nothing of forensic value from several pieces of evidence collected in the case. Tom’s Dodge Durango was found early on Thanksgiving morning 2016 near the municipal waste treatment facility on the north edge of town. Samples taken from the soil near the vehicle yielded no results. A .25-caliber casing found on the floorboard of the front passenger side of the vehicle provided no latent prints and could not be tested further for DNA, according to the DPS lab. Tom’s school-issued laptop was found on January 27, 2017, on Lake Marvin Road, inside his backpack. Investigators found nothing of forensic value on the computer.

However, Tom’s missing iPhone was one of the first objects of interest recovered in an extensive, day-long search on Lake Marvin Road carried out on October 14, 2017, by Klein Investigations. “Records produced from Apple, Inc., indicated that Brown’s iCloud account did not contain data that is commonly backed up, such as iMessages and photos,” the AG’s report said, adding that the IP logs and data access logs were blank.

In addition, records from Facebook indicated that Brown’s Facebook page had been removed—something that cannot be done without the account owner’s password.

Tom’s mother, Penny Meek, made calls to one of his friends in January 2017, asking if they knew the password to what was then believed to be his missing iPhone. Eventually, the Sheriff’s Office was blamed for having asked for the password, leading to suspicion that they had the phone in their possession.

A redacted text string attached to the report shows a text message from Penny’s phone requesting that the recipient ask her son if he knew Tom’s four-digit password. The reply: “___ said he didn’t know it. Sorry!” In subsequent messages, Penny urged the mother to have her son ask other friends for the passcode, to which she responded, “I’m sorry they don’t know either.”

The episode eventually led to the young man’s interrogation by the Texas Rangers and FBI, who wondered why he was asking about Tom’s passcode. His mother had saved the text message from Penny, and provided it to the officers, revealing the source of the original inquiry.

The pristine condition of Tom’s iPhone when it was found during the search also led to several points of inquiry by the AG investigators.

“The phone was in almost perfect condition—no scratches, nicks, etc.,” their report said, adding that the FBI confirmed the moisture indicators had not been activated, despite the approximately 26 inches of rain that had fallen between the night of Tom’s disappearance and the search. In addition, the area along Lake Marvin Road had been mowed several times during the summer, but the phone appeared undamaged.

The phone was analyzed by the FBI, OAG Digital Forensics, and an independent digital forensics expert. They found that the phone did, in fact, contain Brown’s data, that the data could not be transferred from one phone to another, because it contains internal applications that are specifically connected to the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) of the device, and that the SIM (subscriber identification module) card had never been placed in another phone, according to Verizon Wireless.

The forensics specialists were also able to confirm that a search for a suicide hotline had occurred at 9:11 pm on Nov. 23, 2016, the night Tom disappeared.

Two other eye-opening findings: Tom’s iPhone had died at 12:23 am on Nov. 24, 2016. “It was not shut off,” the report revealed. In addition, the phone never had power again until the FBI received it following its recovery in October 2017.

The report’s most stunning revelation was that—despite extensive speculation about the charging case that Tom’s friends emphatically stated he was rarely without—digital forensic evidence indicated it was “more likely than not” that the battery case was on the phone the night of his disappearance.

“Phone records show a ‘plug in’/charging event earlier that evening while Brown was at his house,” the report said. “There is never an ‘unplug’ event the rest of the evening.”

That suggests that the “plug in” event resulted from the charging case still being attached to the phone, and not some other external charging source. In an Aug. 21, 2019, invitation-only closed door meeting held by the AG investigators with family and friends of Tom’s family, Kading was asked where the phone case was. She turned to Tom’s mother, saying, “I think you have the phone case, Penny,” to which she replied, “I always had it.”

The second event was a presentation here on Wednesday evening by Klein Investigations and Consulting, the firm hired by Brown’s mother, Penny Meek, four days after Tom’s disappearance.

Klein had promoted the meeting as an opportunity “to conduct a narrative of the case, timeline, and present photos of the investigation and issues that surround it.” He offered his assurance that the event would not be used as a chance to bash anyone—any law enforcement, or any government body. “This is a chance to present to you what we know, when we knew it, and how we obtained it.”

“The purpose of this event,” he said, on his Klein Investigations and Consulting Facebook page, “is to attempt to shed light on the truth of this case. Not innuendo and rumor. As well, to attempt to bring healing to the people of North Texas.”

Klein opened the evening with a preview of what the audience would hear. “It is very important that you guys listen to what I say tonight,” he said, adding that it would involve about 40 minutes of case presentation, broken down into two sections. “Number one, FACT. I want everybody to remember the first part of this presentation…is FACT.”

The second part, he explained, will be theory, or “what we think happened.” Following that, Klein said, “we’re going to get into what we call anomalies. Anomalies are something that is very, very important to this case…that has opened the door to what we think.”

Klein immediately launched an attack on the OAG’s report, released a day earlier. “I don’t know how to say it, other than it’s the most unprofessional report I’ve ever read,” he said, adding, “I think they were panicked as they knew we were going to release some information that’s never been released about the Tom Brown case today.”

Klein proceeded to dismiss as “theory” the allegation that Tom had committed suicide, and promised, “We’re going to tell you about the manner of death tonight,” he said. “That is not theory, folks, it’s FACT.”

Klein and his assistant, M.J. Holmes, presented a detailed timeline of the case which Klein said would be backed up by police records, radio transmissions, eyewitness statements, and camera views. The big revelation, though, came about an hour and 56 minutes into the meeting, and involved what Klein later said was “an integral part of the Tom Brown case,” a young man named Chris Jones.

Jones came from a troubled family and moved to Canadian from Childress, via Higgins, to live with a local family that had befriended him. He played football here during the 2016 season, but in mid-December, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault with bodily injury following a fight with Kyler Koch. Koch sustained trauma to the right eye, a fracture of the right orbital socket, and soft tissue gas in the right orbit and sinus.

Jones was given probation, but in August 2017, tested positive for cocaine and THC, and relocated from Canadian without the permission of his probation officer. He was arrested for probation violation and sentenced to 100 days in county jail, and subsequently returned to Childress to serve his sentence.

Jones is now serving time in prison. In a series of five recorded telephone interviews, he told Holmes he had been recruited to play football at Canadian High School, and during that time, was paid to throw certain games.

Jones identified then-Sheriff Nathan Lewis as the enforcer for a high-dollar gambling ring in Canadian that was betting on the outcome of Wildcat football games.

Due to the poor quality of the recording, Holmes recapped what Jones said. “So what he said was, number one, he would get paid to play football for Canadian,” she said. “Number two, he was told what games to forfeit, as in what games to throw or lose, or however you want to word it, and what games to win.”

Holmes continued, saying Jones was told that if he “pissed off” the wrong people, Lewis would take him to the walking bridge “down that ladder,” and kill him. During that time, Jones lived with Head Coach Chris Koetting, she said, “basically breaking UIL rules.”

Jones told Holmes that on Thanksgiving Day 2016, he got into Lewis’ patrol car and was “goggled” and driven for 25-30 minutes. When they arrived at the location, he was told to take the goggles off, and Lewis turned the headlights on. Jones recalled seeing Thomas Brown sitting in a chair, bound to it, with former Deputy Pyne Gregory holding a gun to his head.

“He was told that he was to … lose the football game the Friday after Thanksgiving,” she explained, “or they would both die.”

“That’s the last time he ever saw Thomas Brown.”

Klein took over. “I know two things that are FACT,” he said. “He said it, one. And two, he’s been interviewed five times, and the story hasn’t changed once.”

“Everything he told us, except for one little bit, has checked out,” Klein said. “Is it true there’s a gambling ring? I don’t know. Is it true they violated UIL rules from head to toe? That they could take away state championships? Yeah, probably, but I don’t care.”

“I want you to know what the hell happened to Thomas,” he said. “Again, you come up with your theory. I know what we think.”

When the floor was opened to questions from the press, Texas Monthly reporter Skip Hollandsworth reminded Klein of several offrecord conversations they have had, in which Klein shared his belief that Tom saw some cars at the football field, saw two boys there, and drove up to see what they were doing. They started goofing around and accidentally shot him in the back of the head.

The story is a familiar one. According to Klein’s theory, one of the young men called his dad for help, and the father contacted Sheriff Lewis, who helped him hide the body.

“Have you backed off that theory completely now?” Hollandsworth asked, “And are you going with the Chris Jones theory?”

“I will say this,” Klein responded. “In my opinion, Castletine is a person of interest. I will say at this time that Chris Jones is a person of interest. Ricky Ivey is a person of interest. I’ve got a shell casing in the car. I’ve got blood in the car. Do I have a video of somebody with a gun to his head? No. ”