DNA testing clears brothers of 1983 killing in North Carolina

LUMBERTON, N.C., Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Two North Carolina half brothers who have spent their entire adult lives in prison are innocent of the gruesome 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, a judge said.

Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were ordered released at a hearing Tuesday. Prison officials kept them behind bars for one more night, saying they needed to be processed.

Supporters in the courtroom cheered and wept when Superior Court Judge Doug Sasser issued the order for release.

The brothers, both with mental disabilities, were convicted and sentenced to death after confessing to the murder of Sabrina Buie, whose body was found in a soybean field near Red Springs, her underpants stuffed down her throat. After new trials in the early 1990s, McCollum, 19 at the time of the killing, was sentenced to death again, while his brother, who was 15 in 1983, was sentenced to life in prison for rape.

Johnson Britt, the current district attorney in Robeson County, said the DNA of another man, found on a cigarette near Sabrina's body, effectively destroyed the case.

"Time and time again, confessions have proven to be insufficient and at times inaccurate," Britt said.

The case was reinvestigated by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, which linked the killing to Roscoe Artis. Artis was convicted of a similar crime in Red Springs a few weeks after Sabrina was killed.

Former District Attorney Joe Freeman Britt -- no relation to the current district attorney -- insisted the original verdict was correct. Britt was once cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's "deadliest prosecutor."

"It's a tragic day for justice in Robeson County," Britt said. "That case was fought with powerful arguments, but apparently the district attorney just threw up his hands and capitulated."

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DNA testing clears brothers of 1983 killing in North Carolina