Watch a film about an unsolved 2004 killing at the Ahwatukee movie theater where it happened

In late November 2004, an armored car driver named Keith Palomares was shot and killed outside a movie theater in Ahwatukee.

The suspect in the killing, Jason Derek Brown, was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List until 2022, but has eluded capture over all these years.

A new documentary, called “The Coward” looks at the case. It’ll be screening at the AMC Theater in Ahwatukee where the shooting happened through next week. Charlie Minn is the film’s director, and he joined The Show to talk about it.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Charlie.

CHARLIE MINN: Thanks so much for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So what, like what interested you about this case? What spoke to you about it?

CHARLIE MINN: Well, it was so heinous. It was just so evil and unfair. And then when I started researching it, I discovered how it destroyed a family. When you kill one person, you’re always killing about 10. I’ve always said that, because family, friends, etc.

So I found out that Keith’s mom died of cancer three years later in 2007, no justice for her son. The dad died around COVID, and then there’s only one left, and that’s the brother who I interviewed for the documentary, very emotional. I mean, he’s devastated still by this to this day, and he went to Camelback High School here in Phoenix, and he will never step foot in Arizona again. He told me that.

MARK BRODIE: Because of this.

CHARLIE MINN: Because of the killing of his brother, yeah. I had to meet him in Blythe, California. I had to meet him at the midway point. He lives in Palm Springs now. I was in Phoenix, I offered to fly him in, all that. But he said, “Sorry, I can’t meet you there.” So I said, “Well, let’s meet in between in Blythe.” So at least we’re not in Arizona.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah. So the suspect in this case, Jason Derek Brown, like, you interviewed a lot of law enforcement folks in this documentary. And they, they seem to not really have any idea what happened to him.

CHARLIE MINN: That’s the big question mark. I mean, for over two decades he’s been a ghost. It’s really hard these days with modern technology. That’s why quite a few people believe he’s dead. But there would be no forensic evidence that would confirm that.

So the assumption is that he’s alive. He has connections all over the world. The FBI gets tips all over the world for this gutless criminal, the coward, and he needs to be brought down, and to get right to the point, he deserves the death penalty for what he did.

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MARK BRODIE: Is there any motive that that law enforcement has identified other than money?

CHARLIE MINN: I mean, that was the main thing. I think in the movie Lance Leising, the FBI agent, said greed. Apparently, the sister wrote a book about the Brown family, because the dad had disappeared 10 years before the son did, Jason. So like father, like son.

They were both con men, the father and the son. And apparently Jason was running low on money. He had been, he was depressed. So he made a desperate move. And did he have to kill an armored car guard over that? He probably could have just robbed it and not killed him. But so sad, and the fact that it’s unresolved makes it worse.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, did the law enforcement sources with whom you spoke have a sense of why it’s been so hard to to crack this case, to really to really close it?

CHARLIE MINN: Well, I’ll take a direct quote from the movie, the FBI agent said, “I wish he looked more distinctive.” He said he’s just an average looking white guy. That’s exactly his quote.

MARK BRODIE: Easier to blend in.

CHARLIE MINN: Easily, he could have went to the Diamondbacks game last week and nobody would have had a second thought. He’s 5-foot-10, 170 pounds at the at the time of his disappearance. So that blends in as well.

But some of the characteristics people should look out for is that he loves to play golf, he loves the gym. He’s he’s a clean freak, like he just doesn’t want anyone, anyone who goes into his house, no one can, everyone has to take off their shoes, sort of like a Korean thing. I’m Korean, that’s a Korean thing.

And he loves to party, he loves to be the center of attention. His sister wrote a book called “Center of Attention.” So he wants to be the life of the party. So all that’s described in the documentary, and for more information, people can go to thecowardfilm.com.

MARK BRODIE: What kind of response have you gotten? I would imagine there’s a lot of people who have seen it who remember the case and maybe, maybe it had slipped their mind or maybe they’re like, “Oh yeah, I remember that happening a couple decades ago.” What have you heard?

CHARLIE MINN: Yeah, I mean if you’re a true crime junkie, this is right up your alley. And we had our first screening last night, again, like you said, at AMC Ahwatukee, where the murder occurred, probably the first time in the history of movies where the movie opened at the location of the murder.

And I had a guy come up to me yesterday and said, “Yeah, I worked on that case.” So you’ll run into law enforcement, you’ll run into journalists who said they were there that morning. Again, senseless, evil. Where is this animal?

MARK BRODIE: Do you have a sense, like after doing all these interviews and all the research, like do you have a sense of what what happened, where he might be?

CHARLIE MINN: Could be in Montreal. He has Canadian connections. He’s fluent in French. He was a Mormon. He’s certainly shamed them. And like I said, he’s got connections everywhere, Mexico, all over the Southwest, he’s lived in Utah, Arizona. He’s from Southern California. He ran a modeling agency in Austin, Texas. He also did a mission in Paris. So he could be anywhere.

FBI

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MARK BRODIE: You mentioned that he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Am I right that he is no longer on the FBI’s Most Wanted list?

CHARLIE MINN: Correct. They took him off.

MARK BRODIE: So is there still an active effort to try to find him?

CHARLIE MINN: Absolutely. FBI, they tell me that they exhaust every lead. I even get leads. People hit up the website, thecowardfilm.com, and they send in leads. I look at them. We always return all the emails, Angie Silva, my brilliant producer, and I.

So we got another tip yesterday at the theater. So we encourage people to keep bringing those leads in, and I think the public eventually can help solve this thing because of social media. Let’s take advantage of social media and use it in the right way, and try to get this animal off the street.

MARK BRODIE: So it sounds like you you have faith that that this case will be closed at some point.

CHARLIE MINN: I think if it’s revived like a documentary, a documentary’s an excellent platform, Mark, to inform, educate and raise awareness. I think I’m doing the right thing by reviving this case. It’s really faded. Every case fades over time.

MARK BRODIE: This is two decades ago.

CHARLIE MINN: Exactly. I was home for 9/11, even that fades. Nancy Guthrie has faded, and that could be the topic of my next documentary. So we have to keep this case out in the open. We have age-enhanced photos of Brown in the documentary. He’d be in his late 50s.

He’s so brazen. I mean, this happened at 10 in the morning when he when he put five bullets into Keith Palomares’ head as he was coming out of a movie theater, takes his money bag, $56,000 in there, and escapes on a bicycle. I have never heard of anyone escaping on a bicycle before.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Charlie Minn, the director of the documentary called “The Coward.” It’ll be screening at the AMC theater in Ahwatukee through next week. Charlie, thanks so much.

CHARLIE MINN: Thanks so much for having me.