DNA Clears Two Men of Raping Child and Murder, after 31 yrs in jail
Henry Lee McCollum had barely slept in days, terrified that his dream of 31 years — being released from North Carolina’s death row — might not come true.
But finally on Wednesday morning, after one more night of delays, he was driven out of the concertina-wire gates of the central prison in Raleigh and to the waiting arms of his parents.
“I just thank God I’m out of this place,” Mr. McCollum, 50, said. “Now I want to eat, I want to sleep, and I want to wake up tomorrow and see that this is real.”
Despite a judge’s order on Tuesday overturning their conviction in the 1983 rape and murder of a child, Mr. McCollum and his half brother, Leon Brown, remained in custody overnight as officials processed the paperwork for their release. Mr. McCollum finally left the prison around 9:42 a.m. on Wednesday. Mr. Brown, 46, who was serving a life sentence, was released from prison around 1 p.m. He walked out of the prison gates in Maury, N.C., 80 miles east of Raleigh, and was embraced by family members. “God is good all the time,” he said.
When Mr. McCollum was finally released here, his father and stepmother, James and Priscilla McCollum, began to cry and shout for joy as the son they call Buddy stepped out in a houndstooth jacket, khaki pants and slate blue tie he had been given by the lawyers who helped secure his release. The legal team, from the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, began weeping and hugging as well. Standing a free man in fresh air for the first time in his adult life, Mr. McCollum swatted away gnats as he faced a phalanx of television cameras. He told the reporters that his faith in God had sustained him through years of fear that the legal system that had wrongly incarcerated him would also wrongly take his life.
Mr. McCollum also spoke of the 152 men still on death row in the state prison, whom he called his family.
“You’ve still got innocent people on North Carolina death row,” he said. “Also you’ve got some guys who should not have gotten the death penalty. That’s wrong. You got to do something about those guys.”
Finally free, Mr. McCollum, who like Mr. Brown is mentally disabled — Mr. Brown’s I.Q. in tests has registered as low as 51 — faces the challenge of his life: learning to live in a world he has not experienced since he was a teenager three decades ago. On death row, Mr. McCollum was never allowed to open a door, turn on the light switch or use a zipper. He never had a cellphone and until last week had not used the Internet. (He excitedly told his stepmother about his first use of Google Maps days ago, when he saw pictures of her house.)
When he got into the family car, a navy Dodge Journey, he sheepishly slipped the beige shoulder belt around his neck and let it hang, unsure of how to use it.
Mr. McCollum will also have to get used to life in a state he hardly knows. Though two-thirds of his life have been spent behind North Carolina plexiglass and bars, he grew up in Jersey City and had only been visiting his mother and relatives for a short time when he and his half brother were arrested in 1983. (The family is still spread out across North Carolina and New Jersey; several relatives came down from New Jersey to attend the hearing and be present when the men were released.) Far from the New York metropolitan area of his youth, Mr. McCollum will now be adjusting to life in a North Carolina town with a smaller population than the death row he just left behind. The lawyers with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation said that there was no formal compensation or assistance to help exonerated prisoners reintegrate into society.
“It’s not like being on probation or parole. It’s just — good luck,” said Gerda Stein, the center’s director of public information. She added that the legal team’s own social worker was coordinating with prison social workers and psychologists to help find services for the men in the towns they are returning to.
The lawyers are also considering asking for a “pardon of innocence” — a declaration affirming that a person was erroneously convicted and imprisoned — from Gov. Pat McCrory. If granted, it would allow both men to seek compensation from the state. The family, which had been focused on securing the men’s release, did not immediately have plans to seek redress from the government, Ms. Stein said.
Last December, Mr. McCrory granted a pardon of innocence to LaMonte Burton Armstrong of Chapel Hill after a newly examined palm print from the crime scene showed he had been wrongly convicted of the 1988 murder of a North Carolina A&T professor. Mr. Armstrong had been released from prison in March 2013 and requested the pardon that following June, according to the governor’s office.
For now Mr. McCollum’s father, James, said he wanted to get his son back home to the small town of Bolivia, near Cape Fear.
“We’re going to go home to Bolivia, take a shower,” he said. “Then I’m going to say: ‘Do you want to go fishing? I’m going to teach you how to fish.’ ” As he got into the driver’s seat to leave, James McCollum put on a hat that said “Jesus Is My Boss.”
New york Times
New york Times
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