RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – After walking out of prison for the first time in three decades, former death row inmate Henry McCollum tried to climb into his father’s car but put his head through the loop of the seatbelt that is supposed to cross his chest. A TV cameraman showed him how it works.
The safety gear isn’t all that’s changed since the 50-year-old McCollum and his younger half brother were sent away for a 1983 rape and killing that new DNA evidence shows they likely did not commit.
McCollum has never accessed the Internet or owned a cellphone. And he looked ill at ease Wednesday in a tie and white dress shirt, the collar at least an inch too large, shedding the red jumpsuit he wore in his cell. His relief was obvious, though.
“Right now I want to go home and take a hot bath,” McCollum said. “I want to see how that tub feel. And eat. I want to eat. I want to go to sleep and wake up the next day and see all this is real.”
McCollum hugged his weeping parents at the gates of Central Prison in Raleigh, a day after a judge ordered his release, citing new DNA evidence in the 1983 slaying of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. His half brother, 46-year-old Leon Brown, was later freed from Maury Correctional Institution near Greenville, where he had been serving a life sentence.