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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In 2011, 39-year-old Lee Bradley Brown made a split-second decision that would change his life forever. He chose to visit Dubai, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire world.
Little did Lee know that this trip of a lifetime to this stunning city would become the final trip of his lifetime. What actually happened to Lee Bradley Brown? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 201, The Mysterious Death of Lee Bradley Brown. ♪
Thank you.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to the episode, we've got one new Patreon supporter to thank, and that is Alyssa V. Thanks so much, Alyssa, for supporting the show.
Now, let's get to this week's episode. Over the last few years, Dubai has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Some travel experts say that it's only getting busier each and every year. According to the Travel News website, Dubai recorded over 14 million international visitors in 2022.
People from all over the world have been visiting. It's become the second most popular destination right behind Paris, France on Euromonitor's top 100 city destinations. But why has Dubai become so popular?
Some say it's because it's a place that offers something for everyone. And it's also known for the largest, well, you name it. It has the world's largest indoor theme park. It's home to the world's tallest building. It has culture. It has good food and history. Plus, the city has always been famous for its wealth and luxury.
So if you're looking to travel in luxury and stay at some of the fanciest hotels in the world, Dubai is the place to go. When 39-year-old UK tourist Lee Bradley Brown wanted to go on vacation in 2011, the first place he thought of was Dubai. And after stopping in Dubai, he planned to go visit his girlfriend. Lee loved to travel, especially to exotic places like Thailand and Indonesia.
So he looked forward to checking Dubai off his travel list that spring. In April 2011, a self-employed maintenance worker, Lee Brown, boarded a plane in London, headed to Dubai, about a seven-hour flight.
It was a last-minute trip, and he only booked the flight a couple weeks earlier. But that was just the kind of person that Lee was. If the travel bug bit him and told him that he should book a last-minute flight to Dubai, that's exactly what he did. Plus, the trip meant that he got to see his girlfriend.
Once the plane touched down, he checked into his room at the Bourges Al Arab, a five-star ultra-luxury hotel that some people say should even be classified as a seven-star hotel, even though there's no such thing. A room at this particular hotel can vary depending on the time of year that you go. During the less popular months, rooms can cost around $1,200 a night. A real bargain, right?
but they can get even pricier during the busy summer months, which may cost around $2,500 U.S. dollars for a single night. But you get what you pay for, at least when it comes to luxury hotels like this one. This place has become one of the most sought-after hotels in the entire city, if not the entire world.
Almost 200 exclusive suites range from one to two to even three bedrooms. There are more than five world-class restaurants on the property, and there's even a butler service. So as you might imagine, as soon as his flight touched down, Lee was anxious to get checked in. Once Lee was assigned his suite, his Dubai vacation officially began.
Some reports say that he was there to visit his girlfriend, while other reports don't mention anything about a girlfriend, and he was just there for a solo vacation. Either way, Lee was excited about this trip. But not long into his stay, he found himself in trouble. Trouble that would ultimately cost him everything, including his life.
On April 4th, a woman claiming to be one of the hotel's housekeepers unexpectedly showed up at Lee's suite. She didn't knock or announce that she was coming inside to clean up. She simply opened the door with one of her employee keys and walked inside. Lee was scared at first because he didn't expect anyone to enter the room, and he didn't ask for housekeeping to stop by.
Plus, the maid wasn't wearing any official uniform or name tag. She wasn't wearing anything identifying her as an employee of the hotel. So Lee wasn't even sure who this woman was. The woman allegedly told Lee that she was one of the housekeepers and was there to tidy up the room.
Now, everything seemed really strange, but Lee eventually agreed and allowed the woman to start working on the room. Maybe that's just how they did things at this particular hotel. But sometime after Lee Brown let the woman inside, the strange situation got even stranger.
Exactly what happened inside that hotel room remains unclear. No one knows. Because the only two people there were Lee and this maid. And they both have starkly different versions of what happened. First, let's start with Lee Brown's story. According to Lee, not long after the woman was inside his room, he caught her trying to steal valuables like money or jewelry.
Lee said he confronted her and the two verbally argued. He said he told her that she needed to get out of his room or he'd call for security. But before he could really do anything, some of the hotel's staff and security heard the yelling and fighting. Some of them even went to Lee's suite to see if they could intervene and find out what was happening. But at some point, the hotel security decided they needed to call for an ambulance and the police.
When the cops showed up, they got Lee's story first, and he told them everything that I just told you. But when they spoke to the woman, she seemed to have a completely different story about what happened. It was like the both of them witnessed two entirely different events. According to her, she did work as a maid for the hotel. She just wasn't wearing her uniform that day.
She said she didn't knock or anything because she thought the room was empty. She didn't know that Lee was staying there. And when she let herself inside, she started cleaning. But that's when he started verbally and physically abusing her. She said that Lee tried to throw her off the balcony at one point and accused her of stealing, which she denied. She told the cops she never tried to steal anything.
She was so afraid that Lee would try to kill her by pushing her off the balcony that she started screaming until other hotel guests heard and called the police. She said that if the cops didn't show up, she would have been dead because Lee would have killed her.
So as you can see, this was a completely different story than what Lee told the cops happened. Simply put, he said she tried stealing from him while cleaning the room and she said he assaulted her for absolutely no reason and tried to throw her off the balcony. The police then spoke to several hotel guests staying on the same floor as Lee.
If Lee and this woman had two completely different stories, maybe a third party would actually have the truth about what happened and the real story would be somewhere in between. But the hotel staff seemed to support the maid's story. And they said that they heard screaming from the room and that they actually saw Lee trying to push her off the balcony. And that's when they decided to call for help.
So after the police took statements from everyone, including Lee, the maid, other guests, and the hotel staff, they decided to place Lee under arrest.
Not only did the woman have her story about him assaulting her and trying to throw her off the balcony, but she also had cuts and bruises all over her face and arms. So it was obvious, at least according to the police, that she had been in some type of fight. Whether Lee actually caused the marks is up for debate. He said he never laid a finger on her.
While Lee was being handcuffed, the police never asked her why she wasn't wearing a uniform or a name tag if she was there to clean up the room. And she never explained why Lee would randomly start assaulting her. She simply claimed that it happened. So Lee was the only one arrested. Once he was handcuffed for allegedly attacking the maid, Lee was taken to the Dubai police station.
Despite being heavily interrogated by the police, he maintained that he didn't do anything wrong. He denied attacking her. He denied trying to throw her off the balcony. And he said that he only asked her to leave after he caught her stealing from him. The cops didn't buy it. They believed the maid's story about what happened. Plus, she had the injuries on her body to prove it. So they ended up charging Lee with assault and using abusive language.
Now, in the official police report, they said when they showed up at the hotel, he was cursing at the police officers and resisting arrest, which both of these offenses are illegal in Dubai. So both of these charges meant that he would spend at least a couple of days in jail. But Lee didn't spend a few days in jail and then return back to his vacation.
Lee Bradley Brown was dead just six days later. Exactly what happened to Lee and how he died all depends on who you ask. If you ask the Dubai officials what happened, they have their own story. If you speak with Lee's fellow inmates at the jail, they say something different. And if you ask what experts in forensic science say, they will give you yet another story. So what happened?
Who was lying and who was the mysterious maid? The story continues to twist and turn, uncovering many secrets. Stay tuned for the rest of the story. Let's start with what the Dubai officials say happened because they were the first ones to actually make statements about Lee's death. Now, according to them, everything started when the cops arrived at the hotel and confronted Lee.
They said that once they got there, other guests staying at the hotel told them that they tried to break up the fight between Lee and the maid, but Lee simply wasn't giving up. And at some point, he even started attacking some of the other hotel guests. Then once he was inside the police vehicle and headed to the police station, he started banging his head against the window, causing massive bleeding and bruising.
According to the jail guards, once Lee was arrested, he was taken to a cell with other European prisoners, which included four other British tourists. They all seemed to get along just fine. Now, it's not uncommon for them to place fellow European prisoners all together in the same cell.
In the UAE, a person can be legally detained for up to 48 hours at a local jail or police station without seeing a judge first, something that's similar to what we do in the U.S. But in Dubai, once charges are filed, the accused is transferred to the public prosecution office, which handles criminal cases in Dubai.
Once they get there, they can be detained for another 24 hours before the official investigation begins. At that point, the public prosecution department can also extend the person's detention for an additional 14 days. The court can then extend for another 30 days.
So it's not uncommon for someone like Lee Brown, accused of committing a pretty violent crime, to spend at least a few days behind bars, if not a couple of weeks before anything is actually done in their case.
When it came to Lee's condition, the Dubai officials said that Lee was already injured when he arrived at the police station. Remember, they claimed that he banged his head against the window inside of the cop car at least once and was bleeding. A report stated that he also tried to jump off the balcony himself before the police could detain him and put him in handcuffs. So they were aware of his cuts and bruises on his body.
But they claimed that Lee did everything to himself. They didn't do anything to cause any of his injuries. According to jail officials, he was taken to the public prosecutor's office a few hours after he was arrested. This is where most criminal defendants will go after they are arrested because they are the agency in charge of the investigation.
It was at that point when Lee returned to the jail after visiting the prosecutor's office, he was covered in even more injuries. He was bleeding from multiple places on his head and neck, and he was covered in fresh bruises and welts like he had been badly beaten.
The Dubai officials said that another inmate physically assaulted him while he was coming back to the jail. And that's how he got all the other injuries. The injuries on top of the ones that he gave to himself earlier. Now, to support this claim, Dubai officials said that they have video evidence of this alleged assault. And they would turn it over to Lee's family and the UK officials.
But they never did. And to this day, no one has seen this alleged video of this alleged assault. After returning from the prosecutor's office, he was taken out of the cell with the other European inmates and transferred to solitary confinement, a part of the jail that is usually only reserved for the worst of the worst criminals, not someone who's being charged with simple assaults.
Dubai officials claimed Lee was transferred to solitary confinement basically for his own protection. They feared that he was going to be attacked again while in general population. He had already been assaulted once by another inmate, so he was moved out of the group cell to be alone. Then, just days later, Lee Brown died while in police custody on April 12, 2011.
So that's what officials in Dubai said. But Lee's fellow British cellmates seem to remember the events much differently. They agreed that Lee was pretty beat up after going to the prosecutor's office, but they didn't think it was another inmate who did this to him. They thought it was the prison officials themselves who hurt Lee. They were the ones who almost beat him to a pulp.
When Lee first got to jail, his cellmates said that he was in pretty good spirits. Despite being arrested while on vacation, he was fine.
But when he returned from the prosecutors, he was a completely different person. And some of his cellmates even told the prison guards that they should call an ambulance because Lee didn't look too good. He was covered in blood and bruises. He was throwing up nonstop. And his injuries seemed a lot worse than coming from another inmate who supposedly beat him up, as the guards said.
One of the inmates said that Lee had bruises on his face, shoulder, and arms, and Lee kept pleading with them for help. According to the inmate, Lee kept saying, please help me, help me, help me, please.
Another inmate said that Lee was sent back to the cell half-naked with both of his hands and legs in handcuffs. He didn't have a shirt or shoes on, and his shorts were below his waist, just barely hanging on to his body. More inmates said that they even saw police officers physically assault Lee several times. On one occasion, the officers threw him against a concrete wall, causing a head fracture.
Other inmates claimed the Dubai police starved Lee of food and water for six days. No other inmate who stayed with Lee ever recalled seeing him injure himself like the Dubai police claimed. Instead, what they saw seemed to suggest the exact opposite, that Lee was being beaten and abused by the cops, and that's what caused his injuries.
So this was a much different story than what was told by the Dubai jail officials who claimed that he was attacked by another inmate. The day after Lee was taken to jail, another British inmate called Lee's sister to tell her what they were doing to him. He somehow managed to use a cell phone after finding her number inside of Lee's passport, which he left in his cell.
After he got in touch with her, Lee's sister decided to call the authorities in the UK. And on April 7th, UK Foreign Service officials went to the jail to check on Lee. But when they got there, the jail officials in Dubai said that Lee didn't want to meet with them and that he was just fine and he was in good health. So the UK officials left the jail without ever laying eyes on him.
As soon as word spread that Lee died, not only did his family want answers, but so did the UK officials. Now, because Lee was from London and only visiting Dubai when he was arrested, the UK demanded answers on how he suddenly died while in their custody. Now, here's what officials in Dubai told the UK about his autopsy.
Initially, the police in Dubai said Lee died of natural causes and had hashish in his blood and urine, which is just a strong concentration of marijuana. They then revised their statements to say Lee died from choking on his own vomit. In the report, they said, quote, the death was caused by suffocation as a result of outflow of vomiting liquids into his respiratory tract, end quote.
They alleged that he had been throwing up all the time while in custody, but he never once asked for medical attention. So doctors were never called to his cell despite throwing up all the time. Later on, when the guards went to go check on Lee in his cell, they said he was already dead.
Dubai's attorney general said the autopsy report showed bruises on Lee's forehead, nose, under his chin and right eyebrow and inner right arm. There were also a few abrasions on the back of his hands and fingers. But the injuries, according to the Dubai autopsy, were at least four or five days old and were likely sustained from when Lee was arrested and struggling with the police officers.
The marks on his arms might have even come from the handcuffs. But Dubai's official statements seem to contradict what the UK uncovered. The UK decided to have Lee's body taken for a second autopsy. They didn't believe Dubai's statements, especially about hearing what his fellow inmates had to say. So one week after Dubai's autopsy, the UK did their own.
The first thing that contradicted Dubai's versions of events was the vomit. Dubai said Lee died from choking on his own vomit. However, according to the UK officials, Lee didn't have any vomit in his respiratory tract, so he couldn't have choked on it. They also didn't find any evidence that the amount of marijuana in his system had anything to do with his death.
So Dubai was essentially wrong in their assumption that drugs played any part. They were wrong about everything, especially what caused his death. Immediately following the UK's independent autopsy, British embassy staff interviewed the other prisoners at the same jail where Lee died.
Not only did they want to learn more about Lee's situation, but they were also concerned about the four British prisoners who all claimed that Dubai jail officials beat and abused Lee. They were worried the jail might do something to hurt them for speaking out about alleged allegations of prison guard abuse on inmates. These four British prisoners were essentially the whistleblowers.
But when they got there, the Dubai authorities assured them that everyone was safe and there wouldn't be any type of retaliation. But the UK and Lee's family weren't stopping there. They demanded to see the video footage of the alleged assault between Lee and another prisoner. The fight that Dubai said caused all of Lee's injuries. But after countless demands to see the videotape,
The Dubai officials revised their statement to say that Lee wasn't in a fight with another inmate, but instead caused all the injuries to himself by, quote, throwing himself on the ground, end quote. So why did they lie about the fight in the first place? Almost a year after Lee's death, the UK performed another autopsy on him. This was now the third one.
The third autopsy was performed by Dr. Benjamin Swift, a private pathologist hired by Lee's family. According to Dr. Swift, in 2012, he also thought the amount of marijuana in Lee's system was completely irrelevant to his death. But he also said he didn't think Lee's injuries, specifically his bruises, were fatal. The first autopsy conducted by the U.K.,
seemed to suggest there was significant bruising all over Lee's body. But Dr. Swift described the bruising as, quote, light. So did Lee's injuries have anything to do with his death? Despite the third autopsy's findings, little was done about Lee's case for the next several years. Everyone seemed to suspect that something was off and that there was more to the story, but not much was done.
And his family, especially his mother, fought to have his death investigated as a criminal case, or at least a case that involved police brutality, because Lee's family wholeheartedly believed that he was beaten to death by those Dubai jail guards. Over the next several years, Lee's family did everything possible to get the Dubai officials to turn over any evidence.
They wanted to see a video of Lee's arrest, but there wasn't one. They asked to see the video of the fight that he allegedly got into with another inmate. But again, now we know there is no video for that either. There didn't seem to be any type of evidence that supported Dubai's story about what happened.
So all Lee's family had was the story of the other inmates and what the two independent autopsies found, that Lee didn't choke on his own vomit, and he had other injuries on his body that might, and again, might have been caused by the jail guards. For the next decade, 10 long years, Lee's family fought to have an inquest done.
So for my fellow U.S. listeners, inquests in England are essentially investigations to try and figure out how someone died. Usually, it's because the circumstances surrounding the death are deemed suspicious. So an inquest is done to try and figure out the who, what, where, when, and why. In Lee's case, his family wanted the court to assist and try to figure out what happened.
They created an online petition that gained thousands of signatures urging the UK court system to launch the investigation. But in 2015, four years after Lee died, the high court squashed the first inquest because they didn't think there was enough usable evidence. So the court issued what is known as an open verdict. In other words, there's insufficient evidence in the case.
After the open verdict, Lee's family was once again searching for answers. Fast forward to 2022. The 2015 open verdict didn't stop Lee's family. They continued to ask and pressure the UK courts to open another investigation. And after years of persistence and challenging the original verdict, they won. A second inquest was finally carried out in eastern London in 2022.
When it finally got underway, the findings were almost as disturbing as Lee's death itself. Over the five-day hearing, the jury heard all about the three independent autopsies. The one conducted by Dubai, the one by the UK, and the independent one conducted a year later. They heard from some of Lee's fellow British cellmates, who said they witnessed the prison guards beating Lee and starving him of food and water.
They heard about other British inmates being abused in Dubai's jails before and after Lee's death. Over the course of five long days, they heard all the evidence in the case. After almost a week of listening to everything, the testimony, the forensic evidence, everything, they decided to record Lee's death as, quote, unanswered.
They found that he most likely died from a combination of beatings, lack of food and water, and lack of access to medical care. They also noted additional factors like a lack of access to lawyers, lack of clothing, and Dubai police neglect. And most importantly, the inquest disagreed with a Dubai forensic pathologist who said Lee died simply from choking on his own vomit.
Although officials in Dubai promised to turn over crucial evidence in the case, including video footage, to prove their innocence, they never did. Immediately following this announcement, Lee's mom, Doris Brown, issued a statement. I'll read it here. Quote,
And so I am incredibly relieved that the inquest has finally uncovered the precise circumstances in which my son lost his life. My son was a good person who loved both me and his dad very much. He died in the most awful of circumstances, being allowed to be beaten by other prisoners, and most shockingly, those who were supposed to look after him.
He was not given proper food or appropriate care. I cannot imagine how awful his last moments must have been. It makes me incredibly sad and angry. I can't believe that he died at the hands of savage monsters when he had done nothing wrong. They made up lies about him and took my life too. He was my life."
Lee Bradley Brown isn't the only case of foreign prisoners accusing the Dubai government of abuse in their jail system. There's been dozens of cases before Lee's and dozens of cases after his. Following Lee Brown's death, a British coroner has raised concerns the country's foreign office isn't doing enough to warn British citizens about the risks of traveling to Dubai.
He believes that future deaths are likely if they don't address the situation, establish protocols to respond, and reach detained British citizens in similar circumstances.
According to an article published by the London Evening Standard, the number of new cases of Britons reporting torture or mistreatment in Dubai to the foreign office has surged from 3% of the global total to 13% just in the last four years. The exact circumstances surrounding Lee's death while in police custody still remain unknown.
According to forensic experts from Dubai, Lee died on his own accord. He had drugs in his system and died from choking on his own vomit. At one point, they said they had the evidence to prove that he was beaten by other inmates, not the jail staff. That evidence has never surfaced. However, according to the UK forensic experts and the official inquest in 2022, the
Lee died because the jail officials didn't properly care for him while he was in their custody. Can forensics be wrong? Could Lee have died for different reasons? Most would say that the forensics never lie, but humans, well, we lie all the time, especially when it comes for our own gain or protection.
But the facts still remain, and that is that Lee Brown violently died while in police custody while visiting Dubai, something that should have never happened. So I ask you, what do you think happened to Lee Bradley Brown? To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.
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Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.