henry mccollum made a statement on camera. what happened? what happened? yeah. they raped and murdered. they what? they raped her and murdered. what did you do? i just hold her arms down, that s it. i just hold her arms, that was the way he phrased it. i hold her arms. henry mccollum and leon brown faced the death penalty. their case would be prosecuted by renowned district attorney joe freeman britt. joe freeman britt was a charismatic person, very authoritative. he had certain rules he expected prosecutors to follow, but the biggest rule was that you were there to prosecute criminals. you need to go after them and tear that jugular out. that s your job. that s what you re supposed to do. you re never going to be able to get at the truth by kissing an adverse witness on the cheek. the idea is that the courtroom
who delivered a lot of foul blows. and that was joe freeman britt. within the brass of every one of us burns a flame that constantly whispers in our ear, preserve human life at any cost. it is the prosecutor s job to extinguish that flame in the breast of every one of those jurors. joe freeman britt was never held accountable for his misconduct. he died in april of 2016. there had been at least eight cases in north carolina alone where people have been on death row and exonerated. and for me, for his attorney who was not sure he was innocent, for 20 years until 2014, it makes me realize how much we have to lose by continuing to risk killing innocent people. it was a sobering lesson for me. what are we willing to risk as a
introduce any new credible, verifiable evidence of innocence to be re-examined. stellato would immediately find holes in the state s case. there is no physical evidence that links henry mccollum and leon brown to this crime. the confessions were inconsistent. they did not match each other. they did not match the evidence located in the crime scene. leon never mentioned beer cans, never mentioned a cigarette, never mentioned a lot of the details of the crime scene that henry mentioned. a knife was used, and the victim had been stabbed. the victim didn t have any stab marks on her at all. henry said the body was dragged along the field. leon said the body was carried. henry mccollum had stated that her underwear was pink when actually her underwear was white. stellato also learned that legendary d.a., joe freeman britt, called the deadliest prosecutor in america, had hidden evidence from the defense.