Half-brothers, Leon Brown and Henry McCollum were locked up for over three decades after being convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1983 in North Carolina. They were released in 2014 after DNA evidence showed another man had committed the crime. Mike Papantonio discusses this story.
Transcript:
Finally tonight, two brothers are finally receiving their long-awaited justice.
Half-brothers, Leon Brown and Henry McCollum were locked up for over three decades after being convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1983 in North Carolina. They were released in 2014 after DNA evidence showed another man had committed the crime.
They received a full pardon and received $750,000 dollars each from the state for their troubles. But considering these innocent men lost three decades of their lives, this amount of money doesn’t come close to what they deserve. Brown now suffers from mental health issues, ranging from hallucinations to depression as a result of spending his entire adult life behind bars.
As such, the brothers have reached a civil settlement for an undisclosed sum with the investigators who put them in prison. Of course this settlement will never replace 30 years of freedom, but will hopefully grant Brown and McCollum a small degree of solace and ease some of their unimaginable suffering.
