Derwin Brown

This episode contains discussion of murder and violence.

DeKalb County Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown walked to his front porch clutching a bouquet of roses.

It was December 15th, 2000.

A cold rain fell in Georgia.

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

We're "The Murder Sheet."

And this is the murder of Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown, a conversation with former District Attorney J. Tom Morgan.

[upbeat music]

This was back in two thousand, DeKalb County, Georgia.

We have an elected sheriff by the name of Derwin Brown, and he was running against Sidney Dorsey.

And his claims against Sidney was Sidney's sheriff's department was corrupt, had all these problems.

And so he runs against this man, and he wins.

Several sheriffs had already been prosecuted for misdeeds, and the county had a history of corruption.

So Dorsey's election brought hope to the community that changes were coming.

And in two thousand, Dorsey ran for re-election against three other candidates, including one named Derwin Brown.

Now, Derwin Brown was approaching his thirties when he moved to Atlanta.

And Mr. Dorsey was overwhelmingly defeated in the runoff.

Then three days before the sheriff-elect, Derwin Brown, was to take office, on that cold, rainy night that I described, he had been to a victory party.

His wife left early 'cause she had his, uh, special uniform made for Derwin for that-

Oh

It is

... business.

And I'll never forget, I was trying a case one time as an assistant DA, and there was this detective, Derwin Brown, and during the motion to suppress, he actually admitted, he said, "You know, I, I have to admit that the affidavit that I used to get this search warrant is not what I thought it was." And the case had to be thrown out.

And I said, "Wow." You know, how many times-

And I picked up John Petrie, my chief assistant, Carol Ellis, my chief investigator.

And by that time, we knew that Durham had been shot, but I thought maybe it was an accident.

He's going to be okay.

I had no idea until I got there.