DNA Evidence Frees 2 Men Imprisoned for 30 Years

Henry McCollum (left) with his lawyer Tuesday. A judge overturned his and his half brother Leon Brown's convictions.

Image: Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT via Getty Images

By The Associated Press2014-09-02 23:04:57 UTC

LUMBERTON, N.C. A North Carolina judge overturned the convictions Tuesday of two men who have served 30 years in prison for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl after another man's DNA was recently discovered on evidence in the case.

Superior Court Judge Douglass Sasser ordered the immediate release of Henry McCollum, 50, and Leon Brown, 46. The half brothers were convicted in the 1983 slaying of Sabrina Buie in Robeson County. Both are mentally disabled.

Lawyers for the men petitioned for their release after DNA evidence from a cigarette butt recovered at the crime scene pointed to another man. That man, who lived close to the soybean field where the dead girl's body was found, is already serving a life sentence for a similar rape and murder that happened less than a month later.

Family members for the men gasped and some sobbed as the judge announced his decision to the packed courtroom. Brown smiled and shook a defense lawyer's hand and McCollum looked spent and relieved.

"We waited years and years," said James McCollum, Henry's father. "We kept the faith."

It was not immediately clear how soon the men will walk free. Procedure requires that they return to the prisons where they have been serving time before they can be processed out.

McCollum has been housed for decades on North Carolina's death row at Central Prison in Raleigh. Brown is assigned to Maury Correctional Institution, a high security prison in Greene County.

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DNA Evidence Frees 2 Men Imprisoned for 30 Years