2 men freed after wrongly convicted in North Carolina rape, murder

RALEIGH, N.C. (KABC) -- After spending three decades behind bars, two half-brothers walked out of North Carolina prisons Wednesday as free men.

Leon Brown and his half-brother Henry McCollum were serving time for the rape and murder of a young girl -- a crime they didn't commit.

The men were exonerated after they asked that their convictions be overturned based on DNA analysis of a cigarette butt found at the crime scene.

Brown's family and friends packed a courtroom after his conviction was overturned.

"I just give it to God, give Him the glory. I don't know how to come home," Brown, 46, said.

McCollum, 50, had been one of North Carolina's longest-serving death row inmates after spending 30 years behind bars.

McCollum hugged his mother and thanked God for his release.

"I feel wonderful," he said. "I want to thank God. I give all praise, glory and honor to Him."

The men were convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Buie was found dead in a rural soybean field. A short distance away, police found two bloody sticks and a cigarette butt.

Authorities said McCollum, who was 19 at the time, and Brown, who was 15, confessed to killing Buie. But attorneys said both men have low IQs, and their confessions were coerced after hours of questioning.

Then, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission discovered DNA evidence that exonerated them.

McCollum and his brother grew up in prison, and lost decades of their lives. But he's not bitter.

"There is no anger in my heart. I forgive those people and stuff," he said. "I don't like what they did to me and my brother, because they took 30 years away from me for no reason. But I don't hate them."

The DNA from the cigarette found near the murder scene was a match with 74-year-old Roscoe Artis. He is already behind bars, serving a life sentence for a similar rape and murder of an 18-year-old woman, one month after Brown and McCollum were arrested.