Child predators are described as the stuff of parents' nightmares. But no parent would dream of the acts federal authorities say stoked the imagination of Ronald William Brown.
Brown, 57, lived alone in the Whispering Pines mobile home park in Largo, a professional puppeteer with a soft, Southern-accented voice and thick eyeglasses. He often served pizza to kids in the neighborhood, then drove them to services at Gulf Coast Church, where he was an active congregant.
But there was another side to Brown, according to a 29-page criminal complaint filed July 20 in federal court in Tampa: The man who, as he was feeding pizza to teenagers, nursed fantasies of murdering and eating them. The one who acted out Bible stories with puppets at his church, while musing online about carving and cooking the body parts of a young parishioner for Easter.
"I imagine him wiggling and then going still," Brown told an associate in an Internet chat session, describing his plot to kill and cannibalize a boy at Gulf Coast Church, according to the criminal complaint.
On Friday, Brown was arrested on charges of conspiring to kidnap a child and possession of child pornography and booked into the Pinellas County Jail. U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents who searched his home found lewd images of children bound and gagged, a flier for a missing child and "images of children that appear to be deceased."
According to the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, Brown told agents that he and Kansas resident Michael Arnett, another alleged child cannibalism enthusiast, "did discuss killing, dismembering and eating" a specific boy at Gulf Coast Church. However, Brown said "it was just a fantasy and he could never and would never hurt anyone." Brown told agents that Arnett traveled to Florida and tried to meet with him, but he didn't respond because he didn't want to follow through on the acts they had discussed online.
Arnett was arrested in May and charged with two counts related to the production, distribution and possession of child pornography. Ross Feinstein, spokesman at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents continue to investigate claims Arnett made to Brown that he had cannibalized a child.
In 1998, a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy stopped Brown for a traffic violation and observed boy's underwear between his front seats. Brown said he used the underwear to dress his puppets.
In 2010, Largo police were called to Brown's house by a neighbor who had suspicions about his habit of driving boys around. No arrest resulted.
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