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Sex offender to stand trial in slaying

Sex offender to stand trial in slaying

In one of her final cell phone conversations, 14-year-old Lauren Deis of East Liberty told a friend she was going to a man's house to do some "filing work" for him, prosecutors said.

The man was Tushon Brown, 35, a convicted sex offender who on Friday was ordered to stand trial in Lauren's rape and stabbing death.

Police said Mr. Brown lured Lauren to his Sheraden home last month with the promise of money.

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Mr. Brown told detectives she agreed to have sex with him for $200, and he killed her in his bedroom after she lunged at him with a knife, statements that Deputy District Attorney Mark V. Tranquilli called into question after Mr. Brown's preliminary hearing.

"We have a 14-year-old girl who's trying to make a couple of bucks by doing filing," he told reporters who were gathered in Municipal Court. "It's important for people to reserve judgment until all the evidence is revealed."

After hearing testimony from a city homicide detective who recounted Mr. Brown's confession, District Judge Eugene Ricciardi held him for trial on charges of homicide, statutory sexual assault, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse and failing to comply with registration of sexual offenders.

Shackled and dressed in blue garb from State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh, where he is being held, Mr. Brown said nothing. A few of Lauren's friends stared at him from their seats in a front row of the courtroom, silent except for occasional whispers.

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Detective James R. Smith said Mr. Brown told him that on the morning of July 7, he left his house on Glen Mawr Street in Sheraden "looking for sex." While passing an alleyway, Lauren "caught his eye," the detective said. "He knew he wanted to have sex with her."

He watched her as she walked in and out of a market, then struck up a conversation with her. She said she was 18 or 19 and her name was Tammy, Mr. Brown told police.

When her cell phone rang, she told the person on the other end "she was going to her job," Detective Smith said. The two then walked to Mr. Brown's house, where Lauren's phone rang again.

In his bedroom, Mr. Brown said, he gave her $200, and the two had sex. When they were done, he said, he asked for his money back, at which point Lauren grabbed a knife that was on Mr. Brown's bed and started swinging it at him, Detective Smith said. Mr. Brown said he'd been cutting sausage earlier and had left the knife in his bedroom, where he had gone to answer a phone call.

There was a violent scuffle, Mr. Brown said, in which he tried to block Lauren's attempts to stab him by swinging a computer desk at her. He said she slashed his left wrist and chest during their struggle. Mr. Brown said they fought back and forth for the knife and he stabbed her in the stomach and then in the back. Lauren crawled on the bed, where Mr. Brown said she "came at him again," despite her wounds, prompting him to stab her in the throat.

"She was gurgling and gasping for air," Detective Smith said. "She went to the floor and became lifeless."

Mr. Brown checked her pulse to confirm she was dead and continued to desecrate the body, police said, while attempting to hide it in various places in the home he shared with his wife.

On July 13, Mr. Brown told the detective, he put Lauren's decomposing body into his wife's Chevy Malibu and dumped it at Pittsburgh Langley High School. Then, he said, he fled to Goldsboro, N.C., where his mother lives and where he was arrested on charges of violating his probation on an earlier rape conviction.

Before he left, Detective Smith said, he took steps to rid blood from his house, cleaning the carpets, washing the bedspread and bleaching the knife before returning it to the kitchen.

Mr. Tranquilli cast doubt on Mr. Brown's claims that Lauren was the aggressor, saying she likely cut him in attempts to save herself. An autopsy report showed she was stabbed at least 12 times -- mostly in the trunk, neck and face. She also bore cuts on her hands, which Mr. Tranquilli said were "defensive wounds."

"This young girl was desperately trying to ward off knife stabs," he said. "This child was basically a pin cushion."

First Published: August 7, 2010, 4:00 a.m.

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