DNA Evidence Finally Frees Brothers Falsely Imprisoned for 1983 Murder

By Terrell Jermaine Starr

September 3, 2014 | Two mentally disabled half brothers have have been cleared in the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl thirty years ago, the New York Times reports [3].

The case was always considered weak, but the brothers' confessions to the crime, which many believed were coerced, crumbled after DNA evidence implicated another man who lived just one block away from where the body was found. What was also overlooked was the fact that the same man admitted to a similar rape and murder around the same time.

Though DNA has, yet again, proven how powerful science is in prosecuting criminals and exonerating criminals, a lot of damage has already been done. Henry Lee McCollum, 50, spent three decades on death row, and Leon Brown, 46, was serving a life sentence before finally being exonerated.