paul skyers testified that derwin brown was assassinated to pave the way for sidney dorsey s comeback. the four co-conspirators, he said, were all promised promotions for killing brown. it was a very demented understanding and very irrational. but he believed that there would be a special election in which he could retake his office. full weight of the evidence against these two guys brought in the conspiracy that sid dorsey ordered it, brought in patrick cuffy, who was their star witness. and presented a case that i thought was a slam-dunk against these two guys. but it was not a slam-dunk to the jury. we, the jury, find the defendant, david isaiah ramsey, not guilty of felony murder. the jury found them not guilty of murder. the loss of the first case was a very vivid memory, that jury coming back. and they got off. they had to take my mom away in
911, i peeked through the blind, and between the two cars that were parked in my driveway, i saw two bags. i fully expected to find derwin crouched down either between the two cars or crouched down between the first car and the door. so she said, i got to go. and so she went out. and i came out behind her. and as soon as we stepped out the door, derwin was laying right there to the left of the door. i knelt down to derwin and i told him, just hold on. you know, just hold on. and that was when i really recognized that he was bleeding from both sides of his mouth and his eyes were open. and that inner part of me knew he was gone. the 46-year-old brown was dead. hit with 12 of the 16 bullets fired. coming up, one of the
newspapers called a wild west shootout in his suburban atlanta front yard. cuffy had be ex-sheriff dorsey s right-hand man and worked in dorsey s private security firm and he was one of the deputies that derwin brown planned to fire. police had been watching cuffy for months. cuffy was, himself, kind of like a mini cult leader within the sheriffs office. when the police were able to fixate on cuffy, that led to them being able to see if they could solve the derwin brown assassination by making cuffy uncomfortable. the bond between cuffy and dorsey was very, very, very strong. cuffy describes it as a father/son relationship and that they would do anything for him, including commit murder. cuffy steadfastly said, i didn t have anything to do with it. sid dorsey didn t have anything to do with it.
prosecutors said this was not double jeopardy because the federal charges were conspiracy to commit murder for hire under federal racketeering statutes. a political assassination is a crime that affects not only the family and the community but the very system that we all support and that supports us. again the brown family, with phyllis continuing to weaken, was present every day of the trial at the federal courthouse in atlanta. it was the third trial since derwin brown died. u.s. attorneys tried to show how dorsey and the four co-conspirators spent four months planning the murder and how they conducted surveillance on brown about 20 times before they killed him. you re going to see diagrams of where this horrible tragedy took place. it s just so upsetting. everything about it. in august 2005, nearly 5 years after the murder and 3 years after the acquittal in
with anyone. how dare they. how dare they. dorsey s team tried to blame it all on patrick cuffy. no evidence that sidney dorsey s involved and then telling a murderer, we know you re involved, but you ll walk out of here if you say the name sidney dorsey. the only person who had the motive to kill derwin brown is none other than sidney dorsey, himself. and through it all sat phyllis brown, the final witness. i m sorry. i looked to my left on the ground, and derwin was lying there. then j. tom morgan asked her one final question. did you ever hear from sidney dorsey expressing any condolences? no. after a three-week trial then two days of jury deliberation,