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RALEIGH, N.C. — One of North Carolina's longest-serving death row inmates has been freed from prison, a day after a judge overturned his conviction because of new DNA evidence in the case.
Fifty-year-old Henry McCollum walked out of Central Prison in Raleigh on Wednesday. He hugged his mother and thanked God for his release. His half brother, 46-year-old Leon Brown, also had his conviction in a 1983 rape and murder overturned on Tuesday. Brown was freed just before 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
McCollum spoke briefly to reporters before getting into the passenger seat of his father's car, where a reporter had to show him how to buckle the seat belt. He had never used a seat belt of that design.