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ALPINE -- The father of The 5 Browns performing group is facing felony child sex abuse charges that were filed a few days before he and his wife were critically injured in a spectacular car crash Monday evening.
The charges
Keith Scott Brown, 55, was charged in 4th District Court on Feb. 10 with one count of sodomy on a child, a first degree felony, and two counts of sex abuse of a child, a second degree felony.
Police have been working on the case for several months, and the resulting charges are part of an agreement Brown was expected to plead to on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the investigation. That hearing has now been postponed as he and his wife, Lisa, remain hospitalized after being rescued from their car, which landed in Little Cottonwood Creek, hundreds of feet below the canyon highway.
The probable cause statement filed with the criminal charges includes no details about the victims. The sodomy charge stems from incidents that allegedly occurred between November 1990 and October 1992. One sexual abuse of a child charge has a date range between November 1990 and November 1992 while the other sexual abuse charge includes the time period from March 1997 to March 1998.
The Lone Peak Police Department investigated the criminal charges but did not respond to media calls Tuesday. The Utah County prosecutor who filed the charges did not return calls either.
The crash
Lisa Brown, 54, and Keith Brown, 55, were both hospitalized following an extremely technical rescue in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Keith Brown was in stable condition late Tuesday and Lisa Brown was in critical but stable condition, according to a family member.
They said they were in the water and the vehicle was filling with water.
–Batallian Chief Mike Ulibarri
Emergency dispatchers received a call about 10:40 p.m. of a Porsche that had gone off the road near the Seven Turns area. Keith Brown told rescuers he was knocked unconscious after the crash, had just come to and he and his passenger were "in the water."
"They said they were in the water and the vehicle was filling with water," said Unified Fire Authority Battalion Chief Mike Ulibarri.
Fire crews and paramedics had difficulty initially finding the wreck. They drove up and down the canyon, searching for debris, skid marks, disturbed snowbanks or anything that indicated where a car may have gone off the road. But there were no signs.
As rescuers talked to Keith Brown to try and pinpoint his location, he went in and out of consciousness, Ulibarri said.
"He could see lights coming and going," said Unified firefighter/paramedic Ryan Heiner.
Eventually, Ulibarri had all emergency vehicles except one turn off their lights and then had dispatchers ask the man where the lights were in relation to him. When they found out the vehicles with the emergency lights was close, rescuers looked over the edge and called out to him.
"We could actually hear one person return calls for help from our shouts," Ulibarri said.
Heiner said the man yelled back, "We're here!"
It took crews an estimated 40 minutes from the time 911 was called to the time they found the crashed vehicle. The car had gone 300 to 500 feet down the side of the canyon and could not be seen from the main road, Ulibarri said.
A triage team got down the steep mountainside within minutes of finding the couple. When Heiner reached the remains of the mangled Porsche, he was surprised to find anyone alive.
"The back end of the car was gone," he said.
About 25 firefighters were used to set up a very technical rescue to pull the two victims out of the car, get them back up to the main road and into medical helicopters. It took crews about two hours from the time they were initially called to get the couple out.
Heiner said both the driver and victim were suffering from the trauma of the crash and from hypothermia. They went in and out of consciousness as crews worked to get them on backboard, rescue baskets and set up a rope system to get them back up the mountain.
The couple were wearing their seat belts, which probably saved their lives, Heiner said. They suffered serious injuries, however, and were physically unable to move out of their car.
The cause of the crash remained under investigation Tuesday.
Family members share suspected cause of crash
One of the more puzzling points to rescuers was that the trees and scrub oak between the main road and the creek seemed to be undisturbed, at least from what they could tell in the dark, Heiner said. He said it was possible the car launched off the road and over the trees because of the steepness of the terrain.
A family member said the couple was returning from dinner when Keith Brown looked down for a brief moment, then looked back up and saw a large rock in the road. He tried to drive around the rock, but the turbo in the Porsche kicked in. "It overcorrected too much and he doesn't remember what happened after that until he woke up at the bottom of the cliff," the family member said.
When Keith Brown awoke, he couldn't find his cell phone but remembered his wife's phone was in his back pocket, the family member said. He and his wife called 911 and another relative for help and described what they were seeing in order to guide rescuers to their location.
Rescuers say the man was incredibly lucky that he not only was able to find a cell phone, but that he had reception.
Despite the amount of effort that went into rescuing the couple, Heiner said it was made easier by the training they had received.
Statement from The 5 Browns
The 5 Browns are a classical piano-playing group consisting of five siblings. They were the first group of five siblings to attend Juilliard.
A spokesman for the group had little to say Tuesday.
"We are aware that criminal charges have been filed by the Utah County Attorney's Office against Keith Brown. No further comment will be made regarding this pending criminal case by any of The 5 Browns or their spouses," said Kimball Thomson.
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Story written with contributions from Steve Fidel and Pat Reavy, with contributions from Sandra Yi and Paul Nelson.
