JASON DEREK BROWN - THE TOP 10 FBI MOST WANTED LIST IN 2022

When you take a look at the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, one person sticks out—in more ways than one…a man named Jason Derek Brown.

With his casual Californian surfer look, highlighted blond hair, and mischievous smile, he does not seem like a hardened criminal.  

But looks are obviously deceiving.

The crime Jason committed back in 2004 doesn't necessarily sound like something that puts you up on the FBI’s Most Wanted List—he killed a man and stole $50,000 dollars (most are on the list for much more).

But the FBI had their reasons to investigate the case, and Jason was listed, not just because he was thought to be a threat to the public …but because of another reason: He seemed catchable.

The whole point of the FBI Most Wanted List is to enlist the public's help.

Since its inception, of the 500 fugitives named to the list, 470 have been apprehended or located, and almost 40% of those were thanks to the tips from the public. 

On top of that, nearly 60% of the so-called "tenners" are caught within a year after listing.

And yet, Jason Derek Brown has remained on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for fifteen years. (He also shared a spot with Osama Bin Laden at one time).

Jason Derek Brown was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 1, 1969, to a Mormon family. According to his sister Jami, Jason was a kind, loving, person.

She also said Jason was frequently beaten as a child by their con-man father—David John Brown Sr. 

Jami said: 

“My dad use to try and beat the bad out of him…because he knew he was just like my dad.”

David Sr. had had his own problems in the past. He was a thief and a grifter who was once expelled from Brigham Young University for stealing phonograph records and collectible stamps.

To cover his massive gambling debts, David continued to steal and even used his children as help during his mischievous deeds.

So, knowing what Jason did later in his life, you could say, the son learned from the father.

Jami said 

 …and then he ended up becoming my dad’s little minion, helping him with all his dirty work.”

David Sr. even used to leave stacks of $100 bills lying around the house, apparently trying to get back in favor of Jason, who he once abused.

However, despite the relatively troubled childhood, Jason managed to live through his early adulthood like any other law-abiding citizen. 

He attended Laguna Beach High School and spent two years as a missionary in France, where he learned to speak fluent French and Jason later earned a master's degree in International Business. During his mission, he’d even write to his grandparents from France talking about his experience.

(He wrote in January 1989, to Herb and Gwen Brown, his father’s parents.)

In January 1989 he wrote to them… (spelling and grammar errors and all) and said: 

 “There are days that are really really tough when no one wants to listen to us and you just wonder what's this all about. Then there are days that you have a baptism and your on top of the world wishing you never had to come down.”

His letters to his grandparents were said to have been mostly about wanting to follow the rules and be the best missionary possible while becoming closer to the heavenly father.

He also wanted to baptize more and converts and he even fantasized, about converting a Catholic priest “just for a good souvenir of wonderful France.”

During his time in France, Jason also met his future fiancée, who he married in 1991 but divorced four years later.

That same year, in 1995, Jason helped his father to disappear—most likely to hide from his dad’s many creditors.

Jason and his older brother, David Jr., had been instructed that if he wasn’t back in 24 hours ….to remove any signs of their father ever existing in the Brown home…..—and so they did.

It did seem like Jason had inherited his father's taste for money. According to his family and friends, while Jason saw himself as a fun-loving surfer with unmistakable instinct in business, he was more of a schemer. 

Jason boasted of a privileged lifestyle, filled with beautiful women, expensive cars and vacations at luxury resorts. He loved to be the life of the party.

But his life also included drugs, gambling and scam businesses—including a photo-modeling studio, a toy company and a golf import-export business.
Two of these businesses, Toys Unlimited and On The Doorstep Advertising, were run out of Jason’s home in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

But in reality, nobody ever saw him working, and everybody was wondering where he got all of his money from.

Of course, Jason was swindling like his old man had done to finance HIS lavish lifestyle.
On top of that, he got as many loans as he possibly could. 

And then he defaulted on them and kept defaulting on cars, boats, houses and rental agreements. Jason would go to a car dealership, sharply dressed and clean-shaven, and would buy a car using a false Social Security number and address.

Phoenix Police Detective Paul Dalton later commented on Jason's appearance:

He said:

"If you look at the guy and kind of imagine yourself as him approaching you, you wouldn't think in two seconds that he was a murderer, he's that type of person. When he does get arrested, you're going to sit back and say 'I never knew."

But in the end, the man who loved and lived for money was racking up tens of thousands o f dollars of debt. As FBI agent Lance Leising commented:

"He tried to look like he had a lot of money, but he never did." 

Jason's sister blames her brother's manic behavior on alcohol and GHB—a prescription narcolepsy treatment better known as a rave and date-rape drug—on which he overdosed twice. Apparently, GHB made Jason feel invincible, and he definitely got in over his head, financially. 

As a result, by 2004 and the age of 35, Jason Derek Brown was broke.
Those close to him noticed the change too.

In early November, Jason asked to crash for a weekend on the couch of his friend, Jared Lively, who was living in Phoenix.
Jared agreed but found it odd that Jason needed a place to stay….. normally if he’d "fork over a hundred bucks a night for a hotel wouldn't be a big issue" for him.

It is safe to say that to Jason, the situation he was in was unbearable for him.

According to Jami, her brother "was his toys and was what he had." Without them, Jason who would he be?—and so, he needed a plan. And desperate times called for desperate measures.

The Murder of Robert Keith Palomares - November 29, 2004

Records show that in early November of 2004, Jason bought a Glock semiautomatic 45-caliber pistol and took a firearms class at a place called Totally Awesome Guns & Range in Salt Lake City.

In the process, he passed a background check and submitted his fingerprints that were sent to state and federal authorities. 

Jason was not really trying to keep a low profile. His instructor—Clark Aposhian—described Jason as an "obnoxious student" and said he was clearly inexperienced with firearms.

Shortly after,  Jason checked in at a hotel  in Ahwatukee, Arizona, near an AMC movie theater at the outdoor mall in Phoenix. He was getting ready for the act that would eventually put him on the FBI Most Wanted list.

On the morning of November 29, 2004, a 24-year-old armored car guard, named Robert Keith Palomares arrived in front of the Arizona movie theater at the outdoor mall (4915 E. Ray Road).

He collected the weekend deposits—there was more money than usual due to some of the bigger movies being released that Thanksgiving weekend.

ROBERT KEITH PALOMARES

But just when Keith was walking back to his Dunbar armored car, at approximately 10 AM, a hooded gunman dressed in all black appeared out of nowhere.

Before Keith had any time to react, the man shot him six times with a .45-caliber semiautomatic Glock—five of those Corbon Pow'R Ball hollow-point bullets hit the guard in the head, and one shattered the window of a box office. 

While his victim lay on the ground dying, the gunman took the moneybag containing $56,000, …and ran into an alley and fled the scene—of all things—on a bicycle.
AMC employees tried to comfort Keith, who was then transported to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he, unfortunately, was declared deceased. 

Keith and his wife had been married just a little more than a year at this point. Even though he had been armed, Keith Palomares never stood a chance.

Witnesses initially described the shooter as being 25 to 30 years old and white or Hispanic. However, as the police followed the trail left by the killer—either through carelessness or cockiness—they soon found a bike in a drainage ditch on the east side of 50th Street. And on that bike, were fingerprints.

Those prints were found on record with a firearms instructor back in Utah named Clark Aposhian—the same person who had sold Jason Derek Brown a gun and ammo that now matched those used in the killing. 

A bike found in a drainage ditch on the east side of 50th Street

Note: The Casings  found at the scene were said to be -One of the highest-powered ammunitions you can buy for a 45 caliber handgun. It’s said they were Fairly unique, and fairly expensive. Even the choice in bullets had to be the best for Jason. 

Within just a few hours, the police already had the name of the main suspect. And since Jason had robbed an armored car—which is basically a bank on wheels—the FBI was immediately involved in the case as the agency is obliged to investigate all bank robberies.

The Investigation

Law enforcement officials then interviewed Clark, the gun ranger owner and he said he had run a background check, which Jason passed, and they asked for his fingerprints, which Jason gave.

But those were not the most exciting parts—Clark also said he had taken a picture of his client. As he then pulled up the photo on his computer, FBI agents almost knocked him out of his seat.

The very same picture agents saved to 1 1/4-inch floppy disk still appears on the FBI wanted poster—Jason grinning at the camera in a hoodie with his spiked blonde hair.

Clark Aposhian later said the FBI's visit was not the most jarring part of the whole ordeal—it was a phone call from Keith Palomares' mother, Lina Rodriguez:

He said:
"I remember a dread coming over me. What do I say to a woman who has just lost a son to a senseless act of violence? Mostly she wanted to tell me about Keith. I listened to her. That's all I did."

Meanwhile, a manhunt for his student was launched with charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, first-degree murder, and armed robbery.
Soon, witnesses came forward saying that they saw  a man fitting Jason's description scanning the Ahwatukee strip mall from a silver BMW. 

Most likely, he was studying the schedules of the money transport. In addition, on the day of the murder, another witness saw Jason "loitering" around the theater, but he was not alone. Allegedly Jason was accompanied by an unidentified male.

Jason was also seen at the Extended Stay America Hotel, where he checked in on Thanksgiving Day—four days before the murder. Jason was seen driving the silver BMW and unpacking a mountain bike, in addition to again having a conversation with another man.

To this day, another person's identity and possible involvement in the crime remains unknown.

Not long after Jason's name and face became public, Valley resident Max Newton contacted police and told them he had encountered Jason in the desert near the Fort McDowell Casino in late November. 

Reportedly, Jason had been practicing his shooting on paper plate targets and accidentally shot Max Newton's 1999 Ford F250 pickup. Jason was approached by Max and Jason had acted apologetic and promised he would compensate for all damage. Jason had then written his phone number on a paper plate.

Later, Max called that number several times and left a voice message about the estimated $1,300 in damages. This happened around the same time Keith Palomares was shot. The following day, Jason called back, said he "felt terrible," and promised to send a check right away. 

On December 6, A week after the shooting..

Max then saw Jason's face on TV and contacted the police.
To his surprise, the next day, Max found a $1,300 check, a gift certificate for Toys R Us for his son, and an apologetic note signed by Jason Derek Brown in the mail. Of course, the police took it all as evidence.

Soon enough, Jason's friends and family became aware of what had happened. By that time, the fugitive was actually hiding at his sister Jami’s home in California.

On December 6, David Jr. ..Jason’s brother…confronted Jason—apparently, he had received a voicemail from a Phoenix reporter trying to track down the suspected killer's relatives.

Jami said that afterward, 

"Jason got 'a little fear in his face' and told David Jr. that he needed to leave. Jason told David Jr. that he did not want to get him. 'involved in this.' Jason then left."

However, the FBI did see David Jr. as a possible accomplice. After all, he and Jason had talked on the phone 60 times the day of the murder. Furthermore, David Jr. denied Jason ever mentioning the murder or the robbery.

Instead, he said his brother had asked for directions to the 24 Hour Fitness Center in Tempe. Indeed, surveillance footage showed Jason at the fitness center with a duffel bag later that day.

Tracing his steps further, law enforcement believes Jason drove from Arizona to Henderson, Nevada, the day after the shooting, where he deposited $2,000 in cash into his bank account. Then Jason traveled to Las Vegas and swapped his BMW for a Cadillac Escalade before driving to David Jr.'s house in California.

Jami later told the police her brothers went golfing that day, and Jason showed up at her home later in the night. Five days later, the police and FBI were literally one hour away from catching him from Jami's house, but he was tipped off and fled.

Afterward, Jami and David Jr. were both closely looked into by the authorities.

On April 20, 2005, David Jr. was indicted for abetting his brother—he was accused of lying about storage lockers Jason had in Las Vegas and even driving there and wiping the silver BMW clean of evidence. David Jr. made a deal with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to a lesser count of lying to police—he was sentenced to three years under supervised probation.

Jami also lied to police, claiming Jason drove away with the BMW when in truth, he left with Escalade. She also told them that he drove in one direction when in fact it was the opposite. However, Jami admitted to the lies and was never charged.

She has recently written a book called "Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir" about the experience.

FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitive List - Jason Derek Brown

By December 8, 2007, Jason Derek Brown had been a fugitive for 1,104 days. That same day, he became the 489th fugitive to land on the FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitive list. A weird coincidence: the mother of Keith Palomares—Lina Rodriguez—passed away on the same day.

Phoenix Police Detective Paul Dalton suggested law enforcement is looking to Jason's past for clues, saying:

"This was not his first rodeo, I'm gonna be honest. How do you graduate from petty theft to cold-blooded murder?"

However, FBI Special Agent Manuel Johnson also once said that violent murder isn't typical for someone with Jason Brown's background.

We are talking about a person who in his past served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France but now appears on the same list as Osama bin Laden once did. 

But while Jason's life seemed to be great from an outsider's point of view with his master's degree and two businesses, in reality, he was a "$30,000 millionaire."

As FBI agent Lance Leising said: 

"His Salt Lake City businesses were store-front scams, and acquaintances said that he may have never worked a real job a day in his life."

FBI Agent Leising suspects that Jason was running check and bank fraud scams for years in order to finance his lifestyle. But when that did not work out anymore, Jason needed to come up with something else.

The last hard trace of Jason shortly after the robbery was his car—a black Cadillac Escalade—ditched in the Portland International Airport parking lot. It seemed very likely then that he'd gone overseas.

Investigators believe that, while in Portland, Jason mailed a package containing clothes and golf equipment to his brother in San Diego before he disappeared.

However, in August 2008, an old friend of Jason’s—someone who had gone to missionary training with him—said he spotted the fugitive at a stoplight near the Hogle Zoo in Utah.

According to the witness, after Jason realized he had been recognized, he accelerated through the stoplight and sped away. It is known that Jason has contacts in the Salt Lake City area and has lived there before, so he may have returned there. After that tip, there has not been much progress in the case.

In the past few years, officers and FBI agents have confronted at least six men on suspicion that they were Jason Derek Brown. But all have been look-alikes.

There was even an arrest made at one point when the police were tipped off about a person that looked a lot like Jason. The authorities were so confident that this man really was Jason they detained him. 

But in reality, the person was a body double for actor Sean Penn, and after officials realized the mistake, he was let go.

Jason also made several mistakes during his cold-blooded attack—he left his fingerprints behind and even tried to hide at his own sister's home. The authorities hope for another mistake to help them catch him. But so far, it's been a lot of dead ends.

And according to Detectives, it’s hard for a guy like Jason, who loved the limelight to jut hide out and it wouldn’t be that easy for him. 

Detective Dalton has said it is likely that Jason is living and hiding in a big city. Maybe in plain sight among the Mormon community, convincing people that he's someone else. Jason's ability to blend in is one reason Jason is on the Top 10 Most Wanted.

"He's that type of person where you wouldn't second-guess that he's not the person that you think he is."

The manhunt for Jason Derek Brown continues to this day. 
He is believed to be using aliases that include:

He is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 175 pounds. He has blond hair and green eyes.

The lead FBI agent on the case, Lance Leising, commented on how Jason's features have made the search for him that much more difficult:

"With the commonness of his name and how he looks, like a surfer dude in California, we've had more tips [about this] fugitive than any other on 'America's Most Wanted.' It's caused us to chase leads all around the world."

Photo taken in 2004

Age-enhanced photograph

Nevertheless, the FBI is offering a reward of up to $200,000 for information leading directly to the arrest. The Most Wanted list has produced results, time after time, even after years and decades.

For example, the FBI finally caught James "Whitey" Bulger—a former organized crime boss who used to share a spot on the list with Jason—after about 16 years in hiding after they received a tip from a woman who recognized his face on TV. The authorities are hoping that similar things will eventually happen with Jason Derek Brown.

Will Jason Be next?

Wherever he is, the former party-boy has most likely given up his former lifestyle—otherwise, perhaps he would have been already caught.

Jason will be 53  this July.

If you have any information concerning this person, please contact the FBI's Toll-Free Tipline at 1-800-CALL-FBI, your local FBI office, or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.