Florida’s Forgotten Madman

In 1949, Norman and Anne Browne were enjoying retirement in the peaceful beach town of Crystal Beach, Florida. Until one morning, a stranger returned to their home with a shotgun in his hand and secrets nobody saw coming.

In this episode, Tiffanie sits down with author Michael Gross, whose book MADMAN uncovers the twisted true story of John “Rastus” Russell—a charming man with movie star looks and a history of violent crime. What unfolded that day wasn’t just murder—it was part of a mystery involving robbery, lies, and a small town that never forgot.

✅ The horrifying home invasion that shocked Florida’s Gulf Coast
 ✅ Why the victims might not have been as innocent as they seemed
 ✅ Local interviews that revealed the real story behind the headlines
✅ A killer’s final words before he was gunned down
✅ How this story stayed hidden for 70+ years

🎧 This isn’t just a true crime case. It’s a movie-worthy moment in history that most people have never heard of—until now.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Florida's Forgotten Madman
• 1:24 The Haunting Case of Russell
• 2:11 The Grisly Crime Scene
• 4:52 Uncovering the Truth Behind the Browns
• 9:27 Russell's Violent History
• 19:05 The Final Confrontation and Capture
• 29:44 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

[00:00:00] Tiffanie: A man knocks on your door, says he wants to buy your home, and three hours later, he's holding a sold off shotgun. This is the true story of Florida's forgotten madman. Did you know when of Florida's most brutal crimes was buried in the sands of a sleepy beach town, ignored for decades. 1949, a retired couple opened their door to a stranger who said that he wanted to buy their home. What they got instead was pure terror. I'm Tiffanie host the True Crime Connections, and today I'm with author Michael Gross to unravel the Haunting Real life case behind his book MADMAN So Michael, I wanna thank you for joining.

[00:00:47] MF (Michael) Gross: Thank you. Glad to be here, Tiffanie.

[00:00:50] Tiffanie: This is a crazy case, and I don't know if you know my location, but I'm actually in Pinellas County, so this is not far from me.

[00:01:00] MF (Michael) Gross: I did not know that.

[00:01:03] Tiffanie: So reading this book was like, holy shit.

[00:01:09] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah, I can imagine. , I live in Pinellas County as well, and actually. , Lived only about a hundred yards from the murder site, which I did not know until I discovered this hidden story, and that was one of my main drivers for writing this. The curiosity that created.

[00:01:28] Tiffanie: I can only imagine a hundred [00:01:30] yards. , You could throw a rock that far, so , that's close to home.

[00:01:35] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah, it was. And, , , the house is no longer there, but. , The spots and a lot of the, the local landmarks around Pinellas County are still there, and it's when, you know what happened there. It's, it's a little spooky visiting those places.

[00:01:52] Tiffanie: Right. Did they tear down the home after that?

[00:01:55] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah. The home was torn down in the 1980s when they put up a new development, but no, they didn't tear it down right away. It, it sat abandoned in Crystal Beach for. Nearly 20 years, and it was kind of known by the local kids as the local haunted house, the place you're afraid to walk past when you're a kid.

[00:02:15] It sat way back in the woods by itself and , eventually somebody bought it and actually lived in it through the sixties and seventies and, and then it got demolished when they put in the new housing developments in the 1980s.

[00:02:31] Tiffanie: Very interesting. I know that you found a lot of people that actually lived there during this time, so that's how you were able to piece together a lot of what happened.

[00:02:42] MF (Michael) Gross: It did a, a lot of the newspaper archives and court records gave the official part of the story and. , Even the newspaper, some of the unofficial parts of the story, but what really filled in the blanks was interviewing a lot of the [00:03:00] local people that were alive then, most of them were children, but I was able to interview, , one person that actually lived with Raus Russell and knew him, and that was extremely insightful as well.

[00:03:16] Tiffanie: Uh, yeah. He seems like one hell of a character, and this is real life. So, I mean, yeah, like you said, like this is what crime shows and movies are made of.

[00:03:31] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah. What, what made this so intriguing, Tiffanie? Imagine there's this guy that, that he, he looks like a movie star. He's got. Rock saw of body looks like he, he works out, got charisma through the roof and yet he can flip a switch just like that and turn into this violent person. And that was what made him such an intriguing character is he wasn't like that all the time.

[00:04:03] This guy I just mentioned that lived with him and he was only. This, this gentleman I interviewed was 12 years old at the time, but Russell lived with his family in, in Palm Harbor, right off Curlew Road, and he sat around the house. Raus Russell was the nicest guy he'd ever want to be around. He said he helped, taught me how to swim.

[00:04:25] He said he, he was generous, helped around the house, [00:04:30] ate dinner, laughed with everybody, you know, he said, I never, you never would've expected him to be this person.

[00:04:36] Tiffanie: Well, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of personality.

[00:04:40] MF (Michael) Gross: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:04:45] Tiffanie: So what really drew you to actually write the book on this case? Was it kind of like to, , memorialize, , because since someone did die, it was Ann and Norman Brown who lived in that home. And thank God Anne lived. But unfortunately, Norman did not have the same fate.

[00:05:06] MF (Michael) Gross: Norman did not fare so well. No, and what drove me to wrote the book really. Was my own interest and fascination with it. As I mentioned, I, I lived about a hundred yards and I first discovered it when I, I picked up a book called Crystal Beach Shangrila, and it was, it was just a book that by locals that they all contributed stories of what it was like to grow up in Crystal Beach and how nice and idyllic it was, and the picnics and the playing on the water and everything.

[00:05:40] But I inside there, there was a story by a lady by the name of Linda Henry who told of this dark macabre murder that happened in 1949 and how it affected the whole community. And she said when she was only a little girl, she was six years old, but [00:06:00] it made this big impression on her because the day after the murder.

[00:06:05] She somehow a 6-year-old girl walked up to the house and looked in the windows and she saw blood everywhere. And she said that, I'll never forget that scene, and I'll never forget the smell. And that smell still comes to me when I walk back to that part of Crystal Beach, where that house used to be. And for that reason, I, I don't go back there anymore.

[00:06:27] And it just sounded so creepy and and scary. I had to start digging what that story was and that's the more I I uncovered, the deeper the story got. It's it, this is not a straight murder solved guy goes to jail story. It, it's got so many little rabbit holes and it, it just became so intriguing. It was like a movie and I said, oh, this, this gotta be a book.

[00:06:53] So I wrote the book for myself really to find out what happened, but, , everybody else can now find out too.

[00:06:59] Tiffanie: Right. I mean it's very interesting and can almost see like how his personality changes when you read it, because he was very nice to them. he was drinking tea and just having a conversation, like a normal person and like you said, just snap and all of a sudden he was like ready to attack them. you think that was his motive all along?

[00:07:23] MF (Michael) Gross: Well, here's the thing. The, the official story was they had a for sale sign up and he [00:07:30] stopped by to look at the house. The real story from what I uncovered was that that was not the case. They, they knew Russell, they had met him three months earlier at least. He'd been at their house at least one time before, and.

[00:07:52] A lot. A lot of the information I got from local interviews gave me the local gossip at the time, and the gossip was the Browns owed some type of debt and Russell was there to collect. Now, was that some type of arrangement they had with him? Was he there on behalf of somebody else? We uncover some of that in the book.

[00:08:19] We speculate on some of it, and that's, that's one of the things we cover in the book. But the Browns were not a random visit. They, they knew him, which is one reason why he sat at their kitchen table and talked for three and a half hours and having coffee before he pulled Mr. Brown's shotgun on him. So that in itself lends.

[00:08:47] Credibility to the argument that he was not a stranger.

[00:08:51] Tiffanie: Right, right. It does stay in the book that they knew of him. I don't know how close, but they did know of him, so it's [00:09:00] just scary. You never know who's sitting at your table with you.

[00:09:04] MF (Michael) Gross: Exactly. But, , you know, one thing I, I, I speculate on what the real story might be. I suspect, I think I know what it might be, but I can't prove that. What I do know is they knew each other and this was not a random visit.

[00:09:20] Tiffanie: Right. had a very long rap sheet like they knew of him in town. Oh.

[00:09:27] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah. This, this guy was a well-known local hoodlum. He was, you know, he had grown up here since he was 10 years old. He'd been in and out of mental institutions. He'd been in and out of prison. Mostly for things like car theft, breaking and entering assault. , But everybody in Palm Harbor was afraid of him.

[00:09:51] He was like the local hoodlum and people knew to stay away from him. They knew he was troubled. He, he could become violent to our knowledge. He never actually killed anybody, at least documented, although there's some speculation he may have. Prior to that, but nobody local police knew him. A lot of the locals knew him as just this kind of bad, rough guy that lived in town.

[00:10:25] Nobody suspected him of being this dark, violent murderer. But as it [00:10:30] turned out, he was.

[00:10:31] Tiffanie: He even chased another couple with his car and woman was holding a baby, so he did not, he had zero fucks.

[00:10:42] MF (Michael) Gross: No, , well, these people showed up. These were neighbors, the, the crumbs that showed up at their house while he was torturing Norman and Ann Brown. And actually Norman was already dead by the time they showed up. But, , they just walked into this unsuspectingly and. , He shot Mr. Crum in the gut with a shotgun and, and clubbed his wife over the head.

[00:11:07] She threw the baby, so they, they all, he tried to kill both of them and he left the baby actually, , from the injuries sustained, died at age six, which was Judy Rum, which is really, really sad. Yeah, she lived for six years, but those injuries eventually caused. The complications that she died from, it's one of the more tragic parts of the story.

[00:11:33] Tiffanie: Yeah, that's very sad and unfortunate. Yeah, 'cause that's right, they were gonna babysit for the crumbs and so they were there to go have a date night and that's not what happened.

[00:11:45] MF (Michael) Gross: , They were actually going swimming and, , when they showed up, rassis Russell was sitting on the front porch. He'd already killed Norman. He'd left his wife Ann there. They're both tied spread eagle to their respective [00:12:00] beds in the bedroom. You know, the, the, the crime scene's just this bloody gory Charles Manson type deal and Raus Russell's sitting on the porch.

[00:12:11] He's got a, saw enough shotgun in his lap bloody shirt, why he hasn't left yet. He's there for money. He thinks they have money there, and he keeps demanding money. And they're saying we don't have it. And so he's sitting there on the porch. Maybe he's plotting his next move, but while he is there, that's when the crumbs show up in that confrontation ensues.

[00:12:37] Tiffanie: Yeah, you would think you'd wanna get away from the scene, you're covered in blood. Maybe you'd wanna change your shirt or I don't know, something. But clearly I don't think he was thinking very logically.

[00:12:50] MF (Michael) Gross: , The, the person I interviewed that knew him, I said, you know, a lot of people think he was crazy. He was. In and outta these institutions, in and out of prison. But some people say he was crazy like a fox. He, he wasn't crazy, pretended to be crazy to, you know, get out of jail sentences and things.

[00:13:12] I mean, he was obviously a psychopath, but he wasn't h his thought process was clear when it came to evading police, evading crime. He was almost a criminal genius and. He may, you know, he's, [00:13:30] he's in an isolated corner of Crystal Beach. Nobody knows he is there and nobody else is around. Nobody can see him.

[00:13:35] So he might be taking his time figuring I'm gonna find that money before I leave here. And that's when this couple shows up. I,

[00:13:44] Tiffanie: You gotta wonder if he felt defeated when he realized they really didn't have the money.

[00:13:50] MF (Michael) Gross: well, he may have, he may have been frustrated or. The other possibility is they did have the money and they weren't giving it up. Although I would think if you're being tied to a bed and you're being stabbed to death until you tell her the money is, you would give it up. And one of the, my theories was maybe after he killed Norman, Ann Brown did give up the money and he left with it.

[00:14:24] It is hard to say. It's hard to say what was in his mind. Yeah.

[00:14:28] Tiffanie: It's just a crazy, crazy story, and you hear these all the time. People who do like home invasions and stuff, they're on a mission to find stuff, but how do you even know what you're looking for is in the house? , It blows my mind.

[00:14:42] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah. Well that's, that's one of the key parts of the story is. He was absolutely convinced there was money in this house. And the story I got from the gentleman that lived with him, [00:15:00] Russell lived with his family, that his father told him this, and his father's the one that knew Russell better than he did, rented him the room in his house.

[00:15:09] His father told him that the story was that the Browns had owned a jewelry store somewhere. Up north. They were from New York, so my guess it would've been somewhere in, in New York, or they were affiliated with a jewelry store or something, and they concocted a scheme where they were gonna have the jewelry store robbed.

[00:15:35] They were gonna collect the insurance money and then they would still get the jewels as well. So they would, they would then sell the jewels on the black market or wherever else they sell them. And keep the insurance money. And they hired Russell to, to, to go up and rob the store. Now this is the key point, Tiffanie, their first meeting was Ru with Russell was two months earlier.

[00:16:04] Russell then leaves the state for two months and nobody knows where he is. So he just, he had just gotten back about a week earlier from being gone. And this would match up perfectly with that theory, that that first meeting was to arrange the jewelry heist. Russell leaves the state, he does it, he comes back, he brings them the jewels, [00:16:30] or maybe he was back before and delivers them the jewels, and now he's waiting for his money.

[00:16:34] Okay, I did the job. Where's my cut? And they weren't giving him his cut. That's the story. That this gentleman's father told they they hadn't paid up and Russell's there to collect on his job, and that would explain why he's there for three, three and a half hours before he decides to rob them. If you're just going for a straight robbery, why do you sit around drinking coffee for three and a half hours?

[00:16:59] Why not just rob them as soon as you get there and leave? So. That leads speculation to the, that the first three and a half hour hours were actually a negotiation that went badly.

[00:17:14] Tiffanie: Ah, that puts it in a whole different perspective, like. The way you wrote the characters, they seem like such innocent, like mom and pop, so it's like these poor people, but you never know again what happens behind closed doors. So.

[00:17:33] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah, exactly. There was a lot of sympathy for them at the time. The newspaper articles at the time were, were very sympathetic towards the Browns, but when I talked to the locals, eh, there was a lot of rumors floating around that, that that may just not have been the, the full story. So that, that's where that part of this book comes from.

[00:17:55] Yeah.

[00:17:56] Tiffanie: , Don't get me wrong, they still do not deserve what happened to [00:18:00] them, but you could see why somebody might lose their temper and insist that, yes, what I'm looking for is here. 'cause I gave it to you.

[00:18:10] MF (Michael) Gross: Exactly, and, and all the circumstantial evidence points to that could, that story would make perfect sense. They were, they were obviously having financial troubles. They didn't even own a car. They put their house up for sale. Likely because they, they, they couldn't afford her. They needed the money.

[00:18:29] Whatever Ann Brown was looking at going back to work, and she's in her sixties, they're both retired. She's trying to get a job, so their, their people of limited means likely hurting for money. They had any types of ins with this type of jewelry scheme. It would make sense. They might have been desperate enough to try something like that.

[00:18:55] And Russell would've been the perfect guy to hire for just such a a deal.

[00:18:59] Tiffanie: Right, right. So I didn't make it to the very end, obviously, but I'm curious, , was justice served?

[00:19:09] MF (Michael) Gross: Tiffanie, how could you not read the end of this book?

[00:19:13] Tiffanie: I, I didn't get to it. It's still on my thing to finish, but I just, I have to know like, was justice done?

[00:19:26] MF (Michael) Gross: Well, if you like nice, [00:19:30] clean, gratifying endings, this delivers. This is a perfect Bonnie and Clyde type ending. , Russell is actually after the murder, he's captured, , in the Dunedin Flats. He goes to jail. Three weeks later, he escapes Pinellas County Jail, which at the time was in downtown Clearwater. He escapes the day right after a hurricane.

[00:19:54] The power's out. The phones are out, deputies are busy, and he know he has plotted this. He knows exactly what he is doing. There's only one jailer on duty that night. Normally there's at least two, and the guy on duty's a rookie. He'd only been there for a few weeks. He's still learning the job. Russell takes advantage.

[00:20:12] He escapes, he's on the run then for five days loose in Clearwater, Pinellas County, and the whole county is just terrified. And people, there's, there's posses out looking for 'em. People are out of their houses. There's, there's community. They're just combing the, the area, the streets, the horns groves, the national guards out.

[00:20:37] There's over a hundred police officers from around the state here looking for him. They eventually track him to Fanta Sasa, and that's where he grew up. He spent his first 10 years there. That's where his family is, his extended family. It's a very rural, isolated area at the time, and he thinks he's safe [00:21:00] there.

[00:21:00] And he's hiding out in an orange grove. He's stolen a car. He's robbed or burglarized a couple stores. So he has supplies, he has some money. All he really needs is to get some more gasoline and get a little more money, and he is gonna make a run for the state line. He figures once he can get out of the state, back then, if you could get outta the state you're wanted in, your chances of getting caught start falling dramatically because they don't have the interstate communication like they do now.

[00:21:30] And he's hiding there thinking he's safe. He's got a little camp set up. He's right by the lake where he grew up really familiar with the the terrain. And an orange grove worker just happens to be coming through, inspecting the storm damage. And he sees this suspicious car parked in the grove with way back in the grove, and he is got a clothes line set up and there's a fire pit and everything else, and.

[00:22:00] He said, this is strange. So he calls it into Hillsborough County deputies. They sent out a couple deputies to investigate, and when they see the car, they, they know immediately who it is because they know this car has been stolen. They suspect Russell's been driving this car, and when they find all the stolen goods in the back, they know it's hemp.

[00:22:21] So law enforcement swarms to this area again from all over central Florida. They start [00:22:30] tracking Russell through this orange grove. He knows they're tracking him. So he's, he's going through the groves. They have two, or I'm sorry, they just have one dog, which is a tracking dog that's on his trail. Deputy Bob Spooner of Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and Officer Frazier of the

[00:22:54] plant city police department are tracking him with the dog and they're on his trail. They finally track him to, , a swamp right outside the orange grove, and they see him behind his tree and Spooner's carrying a 12 gauge shotgun frazier's, carrying the 38 pistol. So they draw their point, their weapons at the tree, and Spooner says, come out, or we're gonna kill you.

[00:23:22] Russell steps out from behind a tree. He's smoking a cigarette and he, he doesn't do anything. He, he doesn't surrender, but he doesn't get aggressive either. He just stands there smoking a cigarette, so all the officers have orders to shoot to kill. So Frazier immediately when he doesn't surrender. Frayer Frazier immediately shoots him with his 38, hits him twice in the torso.

[00:23:50] And this just enrages Russell and he comes charging out from behind a tree. He has a switchblade knife in his hand. And , [00:24:00] Spooner's son told me that Spooner said he'd just come out of there like a wild man. And, and when he did, , Spooner levels his shotgun and fires three burst into him and pretty much cuts him in half.

[00:24:13] And Russell falls to the ground, flips over on his back, and when they run up to him. He says the words according to both officers, you fellas killed me and I'm glad you did. And then he dies like, right, it's Hollywood movie ending. And ,, there's a lot of speculation. Is that really the way it went down?

[00:24:34] But that's the way they told it. It's the way we have to go on, so we kinda have to believe it.

[00:24:39] Tiffanie: Right. crazy. Like obviously I'm glad he got captured, but at the same time, like I hate when they get the easy way out. You know what I mean? , I want you to sit in prison and think about what you did. Every day for the rest of your life.

[00:24:55] MF (Michael) Gross: That and a trial, we probably would've got the, the whole story of what really happened. , Because he said before when he was in Pinellas County Jail, they were getting him indicted. They were gonna have a trial and they let him talk to the media and he told the media. I, yes, I know the Browns. I knew the Browns I'm, there's a lot I could say about it, but I'm not gonna say anything until I get a lawyer.

[00:25:22] And unfortunately that was the last interview he had because he escaped shortly after that. And we may never know the absolute [00:25:30] story of what happened.

[00:25:33] Tiffanie: That's so many stories, right? always usually speculation, but it's such an interesting story and I think this is a great read and I promise I am gonna finish it. I got more than halfway, but then my life took a shit so.

[00:25:50] MF (Michael) Gross: Well, I, I'm glad you got over that and you're, I hope you enjoy the rest. The audio book will be out, , within the next two weeks as well, and I thought I had, it was professionally narrated by actor George Newburn. If you watch TV show Scandal, he, he. He is on that show, but I was so thrilled with the audio version because it really brought the story to life.

[00:26:14] And even I listened to it like I was hearing it for the first time. So it, it's, if you like audio books, it's, that's gonna be good.

[00:26:21] Tiffanie: Yeah, that's, and, but the paper back, , it's out already. Right.

[00:26:25] MF (Michael) Gross: Paperback and a hard copy as well. It's got a hard cover, , version and we have a paperback version that, , and ebook that are out now. You can get any of those formats.

[00:26:36] Tiffanie: Awesome. And I'm Amazon. Are you in Bardens and Noble?

[00:26:40] MF (Michael) Gross: Yes, all major retailers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera.

[00:26:45] Tiffanie: Great. What do you want the readers to take away from this book?

[00:26:53] MF (Michael) Gross: , A lot of people ask me that. I think it's just a great story. It reads like a [00:27:00] movie and. A lot of my reviewers and comments tell me that, and that's exactly what I thought when I heard the story the first time. So, , I think I just want them to read it and enjoy it as a just engrossing true crime story that really had all the aspects of everything you want in a true crime story.

[00:27:27] Tiffanie: And it's real life. So I mean, you got all of it.

[00:27:31] MF (Michael) Gross: You got all of it. And, and a lot of these locations are still around, like I said, still around the county going to visit them was haunting for me. And you know, there's a lot of pictures in the book, what these places look like today. So you can actually go and see them and say, wow, this looks a lot like it did back then.

[00:27:51] Tiffanie: I can do that. I live very close.

[00:27:54] MF (Michael) Gross: There you go.

[00:27:57] Tiffanie: Awesome. I'm gonna make sure that I put links to the books. , Do you want me to also send them to your website? If anyone wants to get ahold of you, maybe. , Somebody wants a movie in the works.

[00:28:10] MF (Michael) Gross: Yeah, actually, we've already drafted a screenplay and, ,, we're now exploring avenues for both an indie. Feature film and a documentary. So yes, anybody, , interested in that type of thing? We are, we're talking to a lot of different people now. So if that's something that might interest you, , you can email me [00:28:30] at author@mfgross.com.

[00:28:33] , My website is mf gross.com and the book title is madman by mf gross.com. My author name's mf. My name's Michael, but author name is MF Gross for, I have a separate business, so I wanna keep those things separate,

[00:28:51] Tiffanie: Gotcha.

[00:28:52] MF (Michael) Gross: right?

[00:28:53] Tiffanie: sure all links are in the show notes. So all they gotta do is click and go. I think you did an amazing job. It is very captivating. The book. It almost like you can play it as if it is like a movie in your head. It just, it was very well written, so you should be very proud of yourself.

[00:29:12] MF (Michael) Gross: Thank you, Tiffanie. I appreciate that.

[00:29:14] Tiffanie: Of course. Was there anything else you wanted to add?

[00:29:18] MF (Michael) Gross: The only thing I can add is if, if. You read the book, you will be surprised at how many twists and turns in local people get pulled into this thing.

[00:29:29] Tiffanie: I can only imagine, I can't wait to finish it.

[00:29:34] MF (Michael) Gross: Well, good. I hope you enjoy it.

[00:29:37] Tiffanie: Yes. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

[00:29:41] MF (Michael) Gross: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.