ON SUNDAY, APRIL 10, Klein Investigations and Consulting posted a copy of a report from The Canadian Record, headlined, “HCSO, Rangers investigate home for clues to Brown case.”

Philip Klein is the private investigator hired by Penny Meek following the November 2016 disappearance and subsequent death of her son, Thomas Brown. He loves to talk about FACTS.

KIC offered the page as proof that the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Rangers had, in FACT, conducted a search of Thomas Brown’s home following his disappearance on Nov. 24, 2016. The image that was posted was blurry and difficult to read. The only thing legible was the headline, and the name under the photo of missing CHS senior Thomas Brown, as we believe Klein intended.

The report was first published in the July 20, 2017, edition of The Record, and is on file in our digital archives for anyone to read. A copy of that report is also published here: https://www.canadianrecord.com/sites/canadianrecord.etypegoogle7.com/files/2022-04/Distorting%20the%20Facts.pdf. The report has nothing to do with a search of the home of Brown’s mother and stepfather, Penny and Chris Meek following his disappearance. Rather, it involves the search—months later—of a then-vacant home on Summit Avenue, which was reported by an unidentified individual who found what they believed were signs of human blood in the carpet.

In FACT, this search’s only bearing on the Brown case is that the individual who discovered the “suspicious markings” believed they may offer some clue to Brown’s disappearance. That was only natural, given that in July 2017, most of Canadian’s residents—and probably most of those in the Texas Panhandle— were aware of Tom’s disappearance and spent a good part of every waking hour either thinking about, hearing about, speculating about, or talking about his disappearance.

When the “suspicious markings” were discovered, the Texas Rangers were alerted and brought in to conduct a series of forensics tests, collecting any evidence that might be linked to Brown’s disappearance. The test results proved negative for human blood, and the Rangers ruled it out as a crime scene.

The real question here is why in hell Philip Klein Investigations posted a blurry image of The Record report on their Facebook page, and then explained— somewhat incoherently—that the purpose of doing so was to “show you the public…that the theme was pushed that no law enforcement was in the Meek home the night of, or, the next day.”

“Obviously that was not true,” KIC continued, “as the Rangers, HCSO, and the Texas Department of Corrections officers and dog handlers came into the home, searched, got articles of Toms’ clothes and interviewed each family member.”

After pulling the unreadable image, KIC promised they would try and get a better copy of the article and post it. We have waited 10 days to see if KIC would post a better copy of The Record report. They have not...nor have they asked for one. Instead, they just let their Facebook followers believe the conclusions they had already drawn for them from an illegible copy of a very real and accurate report in The Record, whose content they completely misrepresented.

If, at any point, we had received any indication that such a thorough search and investigation had been conducted at the Meek home, we would have been happy to report it. Instead, we criticized then-Sheriff Nathan Lewis and his lead investigator, then-Chief Deputy Brent Clapp, for that failure, as we have for their other missteps in the earliest days of Brown’s disappearance.

But that doesn’t really matter. KIC’s FACTS had been planted and the conclusions drawn, and the subject abruptly changed to the usual praise for Klein’s unimpeachable character and devotion to FACTS.

We have refrained from participating in the ongoing mudslinging that has become commonplace on Klein’s page and on any number of other pages that have preyed on Thomas Brown’s disappearance. We have also refrained from rebutting the nasty attacks by Klein and others on both our character and our professional credibility. We even shrugged off Klein’s and his associate Jane Holmes’ repeated taunts that we had failed to follow up on a tip they had thrown our way, regarding a cellphone found on Lake Marvin Road by TxDOT contractors.

Nope. Not a FACT, at all…as you will see if you read the second copy of a report—this one published in the Oct. 19, 2017, edition of The Record—noting that an object found by contract workers on the edge of Lake Marvin Road, and identified by Klein as a broken cellphone, was instead clearly described as a tape recorder—1-1/2 inches wide by 5-6 inches long—with play, record, and rewind buttons, and a busted screen. That report followed a lengthy interview we conducted with the crew foreman and with his father, who had found the object and described it clearly in Spanish to the bilingual interpreter we had asked to assist with our communication that day.

It wasn’t much of a story, but we reported it. We also sent it to Holmes, though she never responded.

Why are we bothering our readers with all of this now? Because you depend on us for accurate and factual reporting, and because beyond the dollars you pitch into the collection plate each week to read this newspaper, about the only thing we have that’s worth much is our credibility.

Just because Philip Klein says he’s presenting FACTS, doesn’t mean he is. But it’s up to each of you to figure that out. Same with us, I guess, which is why we can’t just sit by and let Philip Klein lie about what we have reported, while using a fuzzy image of our newspaper to prove that it is FACT.

This is yet another example of Philip Klein’s efforts to misrepresent and distort the truth, and to use our credible reporting as a foundation for the lies he so frequently promotes.

NOTE: A downloadable copy of this editorial and full-size copies of the articles mentioned is available at https://www.canadianrecord.com/node/7411.