Sophie serves a similar purpose in the letters. Although nominally addressed to her, the missives read just as much like Brown writing to a younger version of himself, a manual he may have wished he had had when he first started to grapple with his condition.
In the letters, his daughter also serves as a proxy for Darlina, a woman whom Brown accused of failing in her wifely duties, of not always being sexually available.
By Mandy Oaklander
Seen leaving the courtroom during his latest trial, Dr. Michael Brown was acquitted of assaulting his latest wife.
By Mandy Oaklander
In a dramatic gesture after the trial, attorney Dick DeGuerin cut off Brown's ankle bracelet.
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FEATURE: The Good Doctor -- Michael Brown made it big in the hand clinic business. But as his wife discovered, there was a much darker side to this dynamic surgeon.
FESTURE: Taking His Medicine -- Troubled hand surgeon Michael Brown pursues custody of his two children
BLOG POSTS: Previous coverage of Dr. Michael Brown
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The videotape found in the safe, along with the letters, also illustrates Brown's tortured mind: He recorded himself putting a gun to his head, ranting to Darlina over a speaker-phone, and, in one chilling segment, he focuses on a pregnant Darlina, sitting on a couch in a dark room, looking like a woman wondering if she's attending her execution.
The letters vacillate between Brown praising Darlina's gifts as a mother and questioning her love for Sophie. "I am sorry for fucking your mother instead of someone else," he writes at one point. "...Sorry, she had a nice ass and I was hard."
He writes of feeling like a "battered wife," of suffering post-traumatic stress disorder because of all the times Darlina threatened to leave. Such threats devastated his fragile bipolar mind, making him want to commit suicide — therefore, "a threat of abandonment is a threat against my life."
"I'm acutely depressed," he writes after one argument with Darlina. "I have put a gun in my mouth 3 times in 24 hrs. & 9 times in 4 months."
Perhaps most disturbing, Brown spends a great deal of time instructing Sophie on sex. But if Sophie is viewed as a stand-in for Darlina, the advice reads as a window into Brown's own sexual dysfunction and the couple's problems in the bedroom.
"The man wants you to view him as the world's greatest lover, such that you feel honored when he asks for sex — say no and you crush a little bit of him," Brown writes. "....Sex doesn't always have to make you see stars. Typically, it's the man doing most of the work. You are wise, not weak, to simply give him his 10 minutes of pleasure. Act like your enjoying it and he'll only take 5 minutes [sic]. Then, don't forget to tell him wonderful he was."
And: "If after sex say 20 minutes later the conversation begins with your husband saying 'That was great!' rest assured he's not giving you a compliment (though he might want to) but rather he's trying to illicit a compliment from you. If you answer 'yes' he's gonna continue fishing and may say 'Did you enjoy it?' if you say 'I said yes, quit asking' then you are diminishing the value of the just finished love-making....During lovemaking, your partner's enjoyment should be your prime concern....not your own."
More than anything, the letters show just how much pain Brown lived with on a daily basis, pain he was reluctant to address, and pain that could have been addressed by those who should have known better.
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To a layman, a man who beats his pregnant wife with a bedpost, writes about how many times he's put a gun in his mouth in the last month and instructs his infant daughter on how often to fuck her future husband might come across a tad torqued.
But to a highly skilled professional trained in the nuances of mental illness, like Northwestern- and Yale-trained psychiatrist George Glass, Brown's problems weren't a significant threat to himself or others. And while in the letters Brown admitted to abusing drugs and alcohol, Glass saw no signs of addiction.
Following his assault of Darlina, Brown checked into a rehab facility called Sierra Tucson and wrote a letter to his "dream team" of Glass and his attorneys, including Steve "Rocket" Rosen.
Brown's take on his role in the assault was conflicted. Immediately following the words "There are no good excuses, for I am accountable," he wrote, "You should all know for legal reasons though that I have no doubt my drink was drugged. $2000 was stolen. My actions en route and in the home and loss of memory are all indicative of being under the influence of an hallucinogenic drug for which the police would not test me despite my repeated requests."
He was also concerned about getting out of rehab and getting back to business as soon as possible: "I think it would be extremely beneficial in all areas to have a letter from Dr. Scott or the executive director [both of Sierra Tucson] when I leave here....Perhaps Dr. Glass could effect this. Remember, Sierra Tucson is a business."
Brown then suggested to his attorneys, and Glass, what an "ideal" release letter should include: a statement that Brown was "not a threat to myself or anyone else" and that he "suffered from depression, codependency, PTSD, all successfully brought under control." It was also to include the fact that Brown had a "support system and plan" to prevent relapse, in the form of a "spiritual ritual" that consisted of copying Bible passages onto index cards, deep-breathing exercises and meditating on a "safe place."
