Happy Ending

In the early days of World War II, James Brit Brown, then 25, was a touching case to his draft board: he was an only son; his father had died two years before, leaving his mother alone and helpless on their 8,000-acre ranch near Portales. He was deferred.

Within a few months, his mother was found dead, murdered. Brown said she had been "nagging and fussing" at him to fix the windmill, admitted that he had "lost his head" and shot her. He was given a 40-to-55-year term in the State Penitentiary, but because he was a model prisoner, the governor three times reduced his sentence. Last week, while working on a garbage detail ten days before his release, Prisoner Brown got some news that would make his coming-out party a real success: he was about to become a rich man. The Magnolia Petroleum Co. had run a test well on Brown's New Mexico ranch, had struck oil--1,400 barrels a day. The royalties from the one well alone would bring him in close to $840 a month, and the company was still drilling.

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