Beyond the Ashes: The Mysterious Disappearance of Ramona Brown

Beyond the Ashes: The Mysterious Disappearance of Ramona Brown

The date was March 6th, 1984, the night before Mardi Gras. Hailing from New Orleans, The Brown family, which included parents Johnnie Mae and Aubrey Brown and their 10 children, spent the evening getting ready to celebrate. Excitement was in the air in anticipation of the music, food and floats that they were going to be able to enjoy. The kids were put down to bed early that night so that they would be well-rested for the festivities the next day. And then, around 3 am when the house was quiet and still, tragedy struck. Flames ripped through the single-level family home, as Johnnie Mae attempted to get all of her babies out safely while her husband Aubrey Brown tried to throw buckets of water on the growing fire. 

As the family stood on the front lawn, watching firefighters attempt to put out the blaze, they noted that three of the children were unaccounted for. Tragically, once the flames were extinguished, the bodies of two-year-old Kevin and four-year-old Aubrey Junior would be recovered, but where was three-year-old sister Ramona? Firefighters would search the burned remains of the house looking for any signs of the toddler, but there were none. It was puzzling - but even more so when Ramona’s six-year-old sister told her parents a story almost too shocking to be true. Older sister, Simona, claimed that that Ramona had made it out of the house and she saw her get into a car with a couple who had stopped in the street to offer help. After sharing this story, Simona stopped talking for years. 

It wasn’t until 2018 when Simona reported what she had seen to the police and an active missing persons investigation began. 

Sources:

https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2024/after-the-fire-ramona-brown-mystery 

https://charleyproject.org/case/ramona-lynn-brown

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/investigations/katie-moore/the-search-for-ramona-brown-the-fire/289-437896478

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iga01FJPZTQ 

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/national/new-orleans-probes-year-old-disappearance-toddler-after-fatal-house-fire/h313VPPWjqLmkCdFw4Mk0K/

https://www.scribd.com/document/347742211/Supplemental-Police-Report-for-Ramona-Brown-investigation

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[00:01:06] The case featured in this episode has been researched using police records, court documents, witness statements, and the news.

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[00:01:23] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young and this is Serial Napper, the true crime podcast for naps.

[00:01:48] I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares. The date was March 6th,

[00:01:56] 1984, the night before Mardi Gras.

[00:01:59] Hailing from New Orleans, the Brown family, which included parents Johnny May and Aubrey Brown and their 10 children,

[00:02:05] they spent the night getting ready to celebrate.

[00:02:09] Excitement was in the air in anticipation of the music, food, and floats that they were going to be able to enjoy.

[00:02:14] The kids were put down to bed early that night so that they would be well rested for the festivities the next day.

[00:02:21] And then around 3 a.m. in the morning when the house was quiet and still,

[00:02:26] tragedy struck.

[00:02:28] Flames ripped through the single-level family home as Johnny May attempted to get all of her babies out safely

[00:02:34] while her husband Aubrey Brown tried to throw buckets of water on the growing fire. As

[00:02:40] the family stood on the front lawn watching firefighters attempting to put out the blaze,

[00:02:45] they noted that three of their children were unaccounted for.

[00:02:50] Tragically, once the flames were extinguished, the bodies of two-year-old Kevin and four-year-old Aubrey Jr. would be recovered.

[00:02:58] But where was three-year-old sister Ramona?

[00:03:02] Firefighters would search the burned remains of the house looking for any signs of the toddler, but there were none.

[00:03:08] It was puzzling, but even more so when Ramona's six-year-old sister told her parents a story

[00:03:15] almost too shocking to be true.

[00:03:18] Older sister Simona claims that Ramona had actually made it out of the house and

[00:03:24] she saw her get into a car with a couple who had stopped in the street to offer their help.

[00:03:30] After sharing this story,

[00:03:32] Simona stopped talking for years.

[00:03:35] She was completely traumatized and it wasn't until

[00:03:38] 2018 when Simona reported what she had seen to the police and an active missing persons investigation began.

[00:03:46] So dim the lights, put down your phone, and listen to the story of how three-year-old Ramona Brown went missing after a house fire

[00:03:53] and the details of the search to find this couple who may have abducted her off the lawn of her burning home.

[00:04:00] So let's jump right in.

[00:04:02] The Brown family lived in a single-level family home located on Memorial Drive in New Orleans.

[00:04:08] At the time, they were a large loving family of 12, including father Aubrey Brown, mother Johnny May, and then their 10

[00:04:17] children, ranging in age from teens to toddlers.

[00:04:21] As you can imagine, the living situation was described as chaotic at times,

[00:04:26] especially with 12 people sharing space in a three-bedroom home. But overall there was just a lot of love and happiness to go around.

[00:04:34] Sister Tansy would say, quote,

[00:04:36] We used to put mustard on each other's faces when we slept, have shoe fights, all kinds of stuff like that.

[00:04:42] It was a lot of fun, a lot of love. Our parents did a great job raising us all together.

[00:04:48] One of those fun things that the Brown family loved to do together was to celebrate Mardi Gras as most New Orleanians do.

[00:04:56] Which is exactly what they were getting ready to do on the evening of March 6,

[00:05:00] 1984. Mardi Gras was the next day and the whole house was just buzzing with excitement.

[00:05:06] It was going to be a long day full of celebrations,

[00:05:09] so the kids were put to bed a little earlier than what was typical. A

[00:05:13] few of the children fell asleep in the dining room, which was located next to the furnace.

[00:05:18] Two of the youngest little boys, Aubrey Jr. and Kevin, they slept on the couch in the living room,

[00:05:24] while Ramona and her big brother Joseph slept separately in two of the bedrooms.

[00:05:29] One has been described as the boys' room and one as the girls' room.

[00:05:33] No one had any idea of the devastation that was about to wreak havoc in their lives

[00:05:38] just a few hours after closing their eyes for the night. At around 3 a.m.,

[00:05:43] Aubrey Brown, Johnny May, and their 10 children woke up to smoke-filled air and flames ripping through their home.

[00:05:51] Eldest daughter Pamela ran to her parents room to alert them about the fire and

[00:05:56] luckily they were able to escape through the bedroom window before helping their son Joseph climb out through his bedroom window.

[00:06:03] Then Pamela went on to help all the other kids. Their daughter Tiffany recalled the horrifying events that happened during those early morning hours

[00:06:11] saying, quote,

[00:06:12] My mom was yelling that her babies were inside the house.

[00:06:15] My daddy was throwing water buckets at the house and the heat was pushing them back at us.

[00:06:21] The children who had been sleeping in the dining room moved quickly towards the exit. As they raced to escape the flames,

[00:06:29] they struggled with the chain lock that was on the side door.

[00:06:33] Finally getting it free, they ran out of the home and out onto the front yard as they watched the fire consume the house.

[00:06:41] Unfortunately, they were unable to get to the two little boys who had been sleeping in the living room.

[00:06:46] The other children would later recall how they heard their little brothers screaming for help,

[00:06:51] but there was just no way to get to them.

[00:06:54] This is quite literally one of my worst nightmares. Every night before I go to bed,

[00:06:59] I run around the house making sure that almost everything is unplugged.

[00:07:03] Especially those cheap little iPad chargers that most of us have nowadays because my kids are

[00:07:09] notorious for leaving their devices plugged into charge overnight.

[00:07:13] And I'm terrified that a fire will break out and that I won't be able to get to my kids in time.

[00:07:19] Especially because my eldest son's bedroom is all the way in the basement.

[00:07:23] I can't imagine how terrifying this situation must have been for the older kids and their parents who were helpless against the rising flames.

[00:07:33] Nearby neighbors who had heard the commotion and smelled the smoke were already standing outside,

[00:07:38] ready to help any way that they could. But there really wasn't anything to be done because the fire was too intense.

[00:07:47] One neighbor named Gary Olson was sleeping when he heard a frantic knock at his front door.

[00:07:52] It was Johnny May. Gary would say quote,

[00:07:55] The lady from next door was hollering and crying. I need help. I need help. My babies are inside.

[00:08:02] And I went out to look and by the time I went to the corner of the house, it was nothing.

[00:08:08] I couldn't get a hose or anything. So I ran back inside and called 911.

[00:08:14] When firefighters arrived on the scene,

[00:08:16] they were informed that three of the children were unaccounted for. The two boys who were sleeping on the living room sofa,

[00:08:23] four-year-old Aubrey Jr. and two-year-old Kevin, as well as three-year-old Ramona who was sleeping in the girls bedroom.

[00:08:31] It would take approximately half an hour to put the fire out and once the fire was extinguished,

[00:08:36] there was a massive search through the remnants of the home which had been completely destroyed to find the remains of the three children.

[00:08:45] The bodies of Aubrey Jr. and Kevin would be found in the living room where they had been sleeping.

[00:08:50] The way that they were positioned was particularly tragic.

[00:08:54] Aubrey had been holding on to his little brother as if he was trying to protect him from the fire.

[00:09:00] Then a third set of remains were located near the front door,

[00:09:04] but they were too badly burned to be identified so they needed to be sent to the coroner's office.

[00:09:09] It was assumed that these must be the remains of three-year-old Ramona Brown.

[00:09:15] Here's a short clip from Johnny May about what had happened that night.

[00:09:19] I thought I was dreaming, but I wasn't.

[00:09:22] And when I opened my eyes and saw blizzards under the bedroom door,

[00:09:28] and I ran around to the front of the house,

[00:09:33] and I heard the kids hollering,

[00:09:36] Mom and Daddy.

[00:09:39] But I couldn't get to them.

[00:09:41] You could see from the big window in the front of the house.

[00:09:45] It was dark, but I could vaguely see them running back and forth across the sofa.

[00:09:51] And the biggest one was trying to steal the littlest one.

[00:09:54] They were hugging.

[00:09:56] I tried to go get them.

[00:09:58] I ran up the steps to go into the door.

[00:10:02] And my husband came behind me and pulled me back from the back.

[00:10:07] My shirt was pulled me easy out.

[00:10:09] I wasn't going to be able to make it, but I was thinking to

[00:10:13] just run in and grab the both of them and jump out the window.

[00:10:22] It didn't happen.

[00:10:24] While the investigation continued, the surviving Brown children went to stay with their grandmother.

[00:10:30] The two eldest daughters were interviewed about what they saw because they were the first to wake up when the fire broke out.

[00:10:36] Pamela said that she was sleeping in the dining room when she woke up to the smell of smoke.

[00:10:42] She saw flames coming from the entrance of the girls' bedroom.

[00:10:47] She screamed fire and helped the other children in the living room to escape through the side door.

[00:10:52] Pamela's sister, Tiffany, who was also sleeping in the dining room, had the exact same story.

[00:10:58] She also saw the fire coming from the entrance of the girls' room.

[00:11:03] Neither Pamela nor Tiffany had any idea of what may have started the fire, especially because there was no working heater in the girls' bedroom.

[00:11:12] Officers responsible for determining how the fire started examined the scene.

[00:11:17] They agreed that the fire seemed to have started in the girls' bedroom, which was located on the west side of the home, and it spread all the way to the southeast corner of the home due to strong winds that night.

[00:11:30] It was unfortunately just perfect conditions to spread a fire all across the home.

[00:11:36] The fire had even jumped to a neighbor's home.

[00:11:39] They examined the electrical fuse panel in the home, but they didn't see any damage or tampering to it.

[00:11:46] In their final report, officers stated that they couldn't determine the cause of the fire without speculating.

[00:11:52] There weren't any clear indications of where the fire originated.

[00:11:57] They weren't able to rule out arson as a potential cause, but they generally believe that it may have been due to a malfunctioning gas heater, despite the fact that the gas heater was located in a bathroom two doors down from the girls' bedroom where the fire was seen.

[00:12:14] When the results of the autopsy on the third set of remains came back, the findings were shocking.

[00:12:20] The remains were not that of three-year-old Ramona, but an animal, meaning Ramona was still unaccounted for.

[00:12:28] Four more thorough searches of not only the burned out home, but the general neighborhood were conducted, but there was absolutely no sign of Ramona.

[00:12:37] They even looked at all of the neighboring homes, and there weren't that many, but some of them had like overgrown lots, lots of grass and fields and bushes.

[00:12:45] They thought that maybe she was afraid and hiding there, but no sign of her.

[00:12:50] So did the fire completely destroy the little girl's body?

[00:12:54] According to the experts, no, that wasn't possible.

[00:12:58] Officers investigating the fire reached out to Lloyd Huber from Hope Mausoleum.

[00:13:03] He had extensive experience with cremating bodies.

[00:13:07] According to Mr. Huber, the cremation of an average adult required temperatures of 1,800 to 2,800 degrees, and it would need to be in direct contact with flames for 2.5 hours in order to be cremated.

[00:13:21] However, even then, there would still be recognizable little bits of bone left behind.

[00:13:27] The house fire that destroyed the Browns family home, it was extinguished in less than 30 minutes.

[00:13:34] Certainly not enough time to completely disintegrate a body.

[00:13:38] Brant Thompson, who was deputy fire marshal for the state of Louisiana, would say, quote,

[00:13:43] It's really inconceivable to think that in a house fire, all that existed of a human being, even a child between the ages of three and four, would be completely consumed by that fire.

[00:13:56] Firefighters and investigators weren't the only ones who didn't believe little Ramona Brown had perished in the fire that night.

[00:14:03] Six-year-old Simona Brown told her mom and dad that she saw Ramona and she had made it out of the house safely.

[00:14:10] She had then observed her getting into a vehicle with an older biracial couple who had pulled up to the house to offer their help.

[00:14:18] They had actually offered to watch her, to keep an eye on her.

[00:14:21] And then they drove off.

[00:14:23] It was a strange story, one that at the time just didn't seem feasible.

[00:14:28] So her parents kind of ignored it, believing that she had likely made it up in her mind, maybe as a way of coping with the trauma.

[00:14:37] They weren't even really thinking about this story at the time because they were just consumed by trauma and grief.

[00:14:44] According to Sister Tiffany, quote,

[00:14:46] After that, Simona went into a shell.

[00:14:49] She wouldn't talk for a few years.

[00:14:52] This information wasn't shared with the police at the time, so unfortunately, there just wasn't a missing persons file generated or any type of investigation into a potential kidnapping.

[00:15:03] It was generally assumed that somehow, despite the evidence pointing to the contrary, she had died in the fire and her body had been completely destroyed.

[00:15:14] The Brown family would rebuild their home on the very same property and continue to live there.

[00:15:20] The hope was that if Ramona had somehow escaped the fire, perhaps she would make her way home to them someday.

[00:15:28] They carried on the best that they could, but things would never be the same.

[00:15:33] The loss of their children was insurmountable.

[00:15:37] The Brown family patriarch, Aubrey Brown, died in 2017, leaving another hole in the hearts of the surviving members of the family.

[00:15:45] A year later, Simona decided that she could no longer hold on to those memories of her sister surviving the fire.

[00:15:53] She had to come forward and tell someone.

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[00:17:57] Now back to our story.

[00:18:00] She had talked herself out of it for years,

[00:18:03] but she felt like her sister had to be alive out there somewhere and she needed answers now before it was too late.

[00:18:11] Simona called the New Orleans police and met with Detective Lamar Lewis who would say quote,

[00:18:17] I received the cold case in 2018.

[00:18:19] Simona is positive. She had Ramona's hand that night.

[00:18:23] She remembers everything. The car that pulled up and the description of the couple that offered to help the family watch Ramona.

[00:18:32] Simona, now 42 years old, recalled her memories from the fire still fresh in her mind.

[00:18:39] She was only six years old at the time it all happened, but she said she remembered the events vividly.

[00:18:45] Simona said she saw her sister Ramona standing outside of the home along with the other siblings while the fire raged on.

[00:18:53] They had gone for a short little walk just to get some fresh air.

[00:18:57] Then she claimed to have seen a bronze or a gold Cadillac pull up to the house.

[00:19:02] The vehicle had wings on the back.

[00:19:04] There was an older biracial couple in the front seat, a black man with short hair and a white woman with long hair.

[00:19:12] Both had a thin build.

[00:19:14] The lady opened the backseat door and Ramona allegedly got in before they drove off.

[00:19:20] No one else saw this happening, but as you can imagine it was a chaotic situation.

[00:19:26] And Simona wasn't the only one with a story that pointed to Ramona escaping the fire alive.

[00:19:32] Dorothy Nickerson, the children's maternal grandmother and Johnny Mays' mother, she had a story of her own.

[00:19:38] Something had happened shortly after the house fire that she had brushed off initially.

[00:19:43] But now with Simona coming forward with her claims, she felt like it was an important detail.

[00:19:50] Dorothy recalled how she received a strange phone call at her home where the children were staying with her.

[00:19:56] The phone call came a few days after the fire.

[00:19:59] When she answered the phone, there was a little girl on the other end of the line who identified herself as Al,

[00:20:05] which was Ramona's nickname.

[00:20:08] When Dorothy asked the little girl where she was, the line went dead.

[00:20:12] It was as if somebody had taken the phone from her and hung up.

[00:20:16] Dorothy told her daughter about the call at the time, but initially they both kind of brushed it off,

[00:20:21] believing it to be either the wrong number or maybe a prank call. But in truth,

[00:20:26] Johnny May Brown was just a mess over her deceased children.

[00:20:30] She didn't even have the capacity to give it a second thought.

[00:20:33] She kind of just talked herself out of the possibility that maybe Ramona was still alive.

[00:20:38] She was in a state of complete grief.

[00:20:41] However, now it is believed that the little girl on the phone could have been Ramona.

[00:20:46] Ramona was only three years old when she went missing, so she didn't know her grandmother's phone number by heart,

[00:20:53] but it's believed that whoever had taken her may have actually gotten the number from the local newspaper.

[00:20:59] Dorothy's phone number was published in the paper for three days so that the community could reach out to provide any help to the family.

[00:21:07] Although this couple had taken the little girl, perhaps they had wanted Ramona's family to know that she was alive and safe.

[00:21:15] Maybe they wanted to clear their conscience.

[00:21:17] Maybe they felt bad when they learned that two of the other children had perished in the fire.

[00:21:21] We don't know why they would do this.

[00:21:24] But with all of this new information, in 2018, there was a missing persons report filed for Ramona Brown,

[00:21:31] and a cold case investigation into her disappearance was launched.

[00:21:36] Tragically, Johnny May would die from cancer in 2019, never knowing what happened to her daughter,

[00:21:42] but her children had continued the work to find out the truth of it all.

[00:21:47] Ramona's story reminds me of another case that I covered a while back, maybe a couple years back.

[00:21:52] The case of Baby Delamar Vera.

[00:21:55] It was Christmas 1997 in Philadelphia.

[00:21:58] Her mother had just brought her baby girl home from the hospital

[00:22:01] a few days prior. She was only 10 days old.

[00:22:05] That night, she put her two sons down to bed and she put Baby Delamar down in her crib to go to sleep.

[00:22:11] A few hours later, she was downstairs and she heard a loud explosion from upstairs,

[00:22:16] so she ran up to see what had happened, and that's when she saw the fire,

[00:22:21] which was in front of the bedroom where Baby Delamar was sleeping.

[00:22:25] Even though the flames were growing, she fought through them to get to her baby,

[00:22:30] but when she looked into the crib, she was shocked to find it empty.

[00:22:35] She ran outside where the rest of her family, including her husband and two little boys, were safely standing on the front lawn,

[00:22:42] but nobody knew where the baby was.

[00:22:45] Delamar's mother was convinced that someone had taken her baby,

[00:22:49] but the police weren't so sure. And when the flames were finally put out,

[00:22:53] firefighters would say that the flames had likely burned so hot that there wouldn't be any remnants of a body left behind,

[00:23:00] especially a tiny newborn baby.

[00:23:02] And so she just kind of accepted it. She knew in her heart that she saw that crib empty,

[00:23:08] but there wasn't any proof that anyone had taken her.

[00:23:12] Fast forward six years later, the mother attended the birthday party for a cousin's child who was turning six years old,

[00:23:19] but she couldn't believe how much this child, this little girl,

[00:23:23] resembled herself and her two sons.

[00:23:26] She was convinced that this girl was her baby,

[00:23:30] so she told the little girl that she had bubblegum stuck in her hair,

[00:23:34] and she went and pretended to take it out while she grabbed a few strands of hair to test for DNA.

[00:23:40] She had this hair tested, and it was confirmed that this little girl was her daughter Delamar.

[00:23:46] According to the police reports,

[00:23:48] it's alleged that this woman, who was the cousin of Delamar's father,

[00:23:53] had started this fire in order to steal this newborn baby.

[00:23:57] It sounds almost too crazy to be true, but it happened.

[00:24:01] So you've got to wonder if this was a similar situation.

[00:24:05] If the couple had maybe seen the little girl playing in her yard and thought she was adorable and hatched a plan to abduct her after

[00:24:12] setting fire to her family home.

[00:24:14] If it was believed that she had actually perished in the fire, then there would be no active investigation launched to try to find her.

[00:24:22] They would have had a much easier time of getting away with it, just like Delamar's captor did.

[00:24:28] The only reason the person was caught in Delamar's case was because this woman was so brazen

[00:24:35] she invited the mother of the child to the birthday party.

[00:24:38] That is some next level evil shit, but thankfully she did,

[00:24:42] otherwise Delamar may have never been reunited with her mother.

[00:24:47] So is Ramona Brown out there somewhere alive, grown up, after being raised by this biracial couple who allegedly abducted her?

[00:24:55] It's absolutely possible because there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

[00:25:01] Investigators and firefighters, they were not able to determine the cause of the fire and they weren't able to rule out arson.

[00:25:09] The fire originated at the entrance of the little girl's bedroom where Ramona was sleeping,

[00:25:14] at least according to two of the eldest sisters who had witnessed it.

[00:25:18] But there wasn't a heater or anything in that room that would have been known to kind of catch fire.

[00:25:25] So was the fire intentionally set there?

[00:25:28] Did someone kind of break in and set the fire in front of the little girl's door so that

[00:25:32] it would look like Ramona had perished in the flames because she had been sleeping in there alone?

[00:25:37] We don't know.

[00:25:39] She was only three years old at the time, so it's not likely Ramona would have many memories of what had happened to her.

[00:25:47] However, anyone connected to this couple who abducted her might be able to provide information that could help identify her.

[00:25:55] Maybe someone knows a couple who suddenly adopted a toddler

[00:25:59] or someone has seen an adult who looks like the new age-progressed image that investigators have released.

[00:26:06] Angeline Hartman from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said,

[00:26:11] We know that our images can work. Even in missing cases like this when many decades have passed,

[00:26:18] we ask people to take just a moment and really look at this image.

[00:26:22] We just need the right person to see the image and make that call.

[00:26:26] You never know when you might be the person who can help investigators pull the missing pieces together.

[00:26:33] Whomever has her,

[00:26:36] and they know she doesn't belong to them, and they know that she have a family out here

[00:26:42] that loves her and that miss her, even if they're on their dying bed,

[00:26:46] let her know that her family is looking for her.

[00:26:49] If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Ramona Brown,

[00:26:53] you are asked to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at

[00:26:58] 1-800-843-5678.

[00:27:00] That's it for me tonight.

[00:27:03] If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper.

[00:27:07] I also have a Serial Napper true crime discussion group. It's called Serial Society.

[00:27:11] I'll have the link in my show notes or you can just search for it on Facebook and it should pop up.

[00:27:16] I'd love to chat with you about this case, all of the other cases that I cover, plus everything else going on in true crime.

[00:27:22] You can find my audio over on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:27:27] I also post all of my episodes in video format over on YouTube, so go check it out.

[00:27:32] And if you are watching on YouTube, I would love if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe.

[00:27:36] Every little bit helps.

[00:27:38] I'm over on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Serial underscore Napper, and I post things on TikTok, Serial Napper Nick, and that's all one word.

[00:27:46] Until next time,

[00:27:48] sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the comments.

[00:27:53] Bye.