If you didn't know we have criminal merchandise available on our website, you can get T-shirts, tote bags and stickers and every now and then we've limited edition merchandise available to head did. This is criminal dotcom slash shop to get criminal merch now that this is criminal dotcom slash shop. Thanks very much for your support. Mr. Burrows was murdered brutally outside his home in Grundy County, Tennessee, and believe the testimony and the evidence shown that he was essentially bludgeoned to death.

By someone he knew, what were the circumstances of the attack that is still a mystery. This judge, just an angel. He's a circuit court judge in Tennessee's 12th District, according to trial testimony, shortly after nine o'clock at night on January 7th. In 2006, someone approached the home of Malcolm Burrows in Tracy City, Tennessee. Malcolm Burrows was a 60 year old white man. He was home with his sister, Rebecca Hill, and her 33 year old son, Kirk Braden, who was sleeping, according to Rebecca Hill.

The man at the door was a young white man with red hair. He said he was having car trouble and needed help. He said his car was just up the road. Malcolm Burrows in The Man drove away together in Rebecca Hill's car, and then the man returned to the house alone. Rebecca Hill said that when he came back, his facial expression was different. She said that his eyes, quote, didn't blink. They just stayed wide open.

He told her that he'd come back for starter fluid. Rebecca Hill was looking for the starter fluid under the kitchen sink when the man hit her on her head with an object she thought might have been a bat or rod. He hit her repeatedly. She yelled and woke up her son, Kirk Braden. According to Kirk Braden, he pulled the man off of his mother. They fought and Kirk Braden said he chased the man out of the house and then went next door to call 911.

Grundy County Sergeant Mike Brown received the call. He drove to Malcolm Burrows house and took statements from Rebecca Hill and Kirk Braden. They described their attacker and said he drove away in a gold car. Then Rebecca Hill was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Grundy County Sergeant Mike Brown had not seen a gold car, but he had seen a blue car on the side of the road not far from the house. He went to check it out.

So I walked around the car, didn't see anything, looked in the car. Then I noticed there was a path going up beside the car into the woods. So I walked back up the trail about 50, 75 yards, and there lay Malcolm Burrows or who I assumed was Malcolm Burrows, who was laying face down on the ground and. I figure, well, I better identify him. He had a big fat wallet in his back pocket, so I took the wild out and there was his driver's license and identified him as Malcolm Burrows, put the wallet back.

And at that point, I notified the sheriff and the TBI agent to come to the scene.

The TBI is the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

So probably an hour, hour and a half passed by before they arrived. And once they arrived, I turned it over to them. So I didn't there's not a whole lot of people in that county with red hair, so I went around all my snitches and asked, so anybody know anybody with red hair? Most of them didn't know anyone with red hair. So I come across this one person and they advised me that they used to sing in the choir down in Pelham.

With a boy with red hair, and that turned out to be. Adam Braziel. So the next morning when I saw the sheriff, when I came on shift, I told him, I says I got a possible, you know, subject with red hair is a ambrosial. There's an astill springs. We went to the house of his mother where he was living and knocked on the door. His mother answered the door and she says, Can I help you?

And I said, We're looking for Adam. Is he home? And I said, Is Pick-Ups out in the driveway? And she goes, No, he's not here. I said, Well, when's the last time you saw him? She goes, well, yesterday. So that put him away from home the night this occurred. I asked. I said, well, what's he driving? If his pickup service. She goes, well, he's driving a small gold car, my Honda.

I said, OK, I'm with some friends.

And I walk into my buddy's house and we found out his mom's telling me to call. And so I called home and found out my mom was, like, hysterical and freaking out that this guy, Malcolm, had been killed. But then right after that, she said that I think you said you had something to do with it.

In January of 2006, Adam Brazil was 22 years old, working for U.P.S. He'd grown up in Grundy County, but since moved to a neighboring part of the state. He was back for the weekend to ride four wheelers with friends. Adam remembers that his mother wanted him to stay where he was. She said she would come to him.

She doesn't want me to leave. She's afraid if I leave that the police will shoot me or something and say that I tried to escape for something crazy.

She was really worried about that. She got there. The officers followed her, and that's when it all began. We follow them to the police station, they asked me just a few questions, I give them my car, I give them my hair, my clothes, anything they ask for. Um, not only did I not do it, I didn't even know nothing about it. So I was definitely willing to help in any way I could. Basically, that not, you know, they let me go and then they called me one day I was at Wal-Mart and they said, you come in or we're coming to get you.

And so I you know, I have nothing to hide. I'm, you know, been Will and I've been working, you know, I work with them the whole time. So here I go. I go up there. Well, that's when they they arrested me. Well, when they arrested me, you know, that was a smack in the face. It wasn't kind of working out like I thought it was going to work out. You know, here I am getting arrested for this now, not just getting accused.

It was very scary. You know, I wanted to pretend I was kind of tough and so. Here, all this is going on and I'm thinking, man, this is crazy, is still hadn't registered, you know, the situation that I was in. Adam Brazill was charged with first degree murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and burglary. He told us I was still thinking everything was going to work out. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal.

Sergeant Mike Brown saw an article in the Grundy County Herald that Adam Brazill was going to trial just a few months after Malcolm Burrows murder, Sergeant Brown had retired. His wife passed away and he decided to get out of Tennessee altogether and moved to Florida. But he kept up with the news in Grundy County. And when he saw a newspaper story about the upcoming trial, he was surprised he hadn't been notified by the district attorney.

So he says he called the D.A. himself, says, I called the office and I said, do you need me up there for the trial? I said I was the first one on the scene, found the body. I said I'd come up with that in Brazil. And it was the receptionist, I guess, who the secretary in the office there. And she put me on hold and she got back on. She has no the D.A. says they got it handled.

You don't need to come up here. And I said, OK.

The trial began in November 2007. Here's Adam Braziel.

I'm actually excited to go to trial. I'm ready to get this over with. You know, no skeletons in my closet. So let's do this. And the truth is going to you know, it's you know, it's going to it's going to come out. Why would I have anything to worry about or we're doing with a justice system? I have nothing to hide.

So I'm excited because there's no physical evidence connecting you to the scene.

No DNA, no blood, no hair, nothing, absolutely nothing.

There is no physical evidence linking Adam Braziel to the crime, but there were two witnesses who identified him as their attacker, Malcolm Burrows sister Rebecca Hill, and her son, Kirk Braden.

They first identified Adam Braziel in photographs shown to them, and they also identified him in the courtroom. During the trial, Rebecca Hill pointed and said he's right there.

You'll never forget something like that if it happens to you. Is it humiliating to be sitting in that seat and being called a murderer and someone you know, to be pointing their finger at you? It's like someone sitting there spitting in your face and you can't do nothing about it.

One motive, as outlined by the state was robbery. A TBI agent testified that when he arrived at the scene where Malcolm Burrows body was found, there was no wallet.

This contradicted what Sergeant Mike Brown says he observed when he arrived on the scene and what he told us he documented in his police report.

But Sergeant Mike Brown had not been invited to testify even when he called the D.A. and volunteered. A different Sergeant Brown did testify, Sergeant Troy Brown from a different county.

When the prosecutor asked how much he knew about the case, Sergeant Troy Brown responded, quote, a little.

Apparently they got this Troy Brown and made it look like he was made Sergeant Mike Brown.

And he was that had to be from our county, was from the adjoining county, had nothing to do with this case whatsoever other than from what I can understand. He the TBI had him watch Adam's house down there to see when Adam came back. But he never had anything to do with the crime up there or investigating it. What did you think when when you were not invited to testify, did you think that this was odd? Was this different thing?

Yeah, but I thought it was very odd.

After deliberating for about three hours, the jury found Adam Braziel guilty.

He was convicted of first degree murder of Malcolm Burrows and aggravated assault against Kurt Braden and Rebecca Hill.

And what was the sentence?

He was essentially sentenced to life in prison, and he was I believe he was convicted at age 24, he would not be eligible for parole for 51 years.

By then, he'd be in his mid 70s.

Um, you don't know what to do necessarily. You know, what they're saying is not true.

And I had hope that that truth would come out. And it wasn't the case. Adam Braziel was taken immediately into custody and here I am in county jail for the first time ever, spending a night in jail on Tarloff. And that TV, that TV was on and there was a commercial for like a fast food restaurant. And when I watch that commercial, it clicked in my head that I wasn't able to just get in the car and drive and go get that food I knew at that time.

That everything had changed. I had no idea what we're going to do. How are we going to fix this? I just I was depressed. So unbelievably depressed. Adam Braziel appealed his conviction. He asked the appellate court to consider that there were no witnesses to the murder of Malcolm Burrows and no physical evidence. His appeal was denied. He asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to look at his case. They declined. But he had another option, he filed for what's called post conviction relief, arguing that he'd had ineffective assistance of counsel, unhelpful lawyers.

He had exhausted his appellate rights at that time. So it came back in front of the circuit court, which reside on a post conviction matter. And he was requesting a new trial based upon ineffective assistance of counsel and some other grounds. So I was able at that time to delve into the case and to really dissect it and to determine whether or not I believe Mr. Braziel received a fair and constitutional jury trial, which was my job. My job was never to determine guilt or innocence.

In this case. It was simply to make sure that the constitutional provisions set forth by our founding fathers was adhered to at Mr. Brazil's original trial.

Did you see problems with his first trial? I did. It's rare that we get to speak to a judge on this program when we approach them for interviews, they usually say no. Judge Angel remembers that he hadn't even heard the name Adam Brazill before the petition for post conviction relief came across his desk in 2015.

The only thing that tied Mr. Brazil to the case at all was the identification of him as a person who had red hair and a gold colored vehicle.

So looking at the case, I found that he had no criminal history. He had Mr. Brazil, I'm speaking of no history of violence, no connection to the deceased, no motive. He was found there was no DNA evidence found upon him or his clothing or his vehicle. There was never any confession. He had an alibi and he maintained his innocence throughout this entire process. So how did he get convicted? He was convicted upon the identifications of the two people inside the home, they were able to do a photo lineup or a photo array.

They were able to point out Mr. Brazil as the person who had attacked them. I found that there were some issues with that.

Grundy County Sheriff Brent Myers testified that he'd been at his desk cutting out potential mug shots to use to create a photo lineup. When Kirk Braiden came in unannounced and pointed at the picture of Adam Braziel, the sheriff said he couldn't remember how the photos had been arranged on the desk or how many were face up and how many were face down. Rebecca Hill initially testified that she'd identified Adam Braziel when police visited her a day or two after she'd been released from the hospital.

And then later, she said she'd been heavily medicated at that time. She later testified that she'd identified Adam Braziel in a photo lineup at the jail. The lineup she was shown contains photographs of eight men. Not everyone had red hair, one of them was Adam Braziel. I found that potentially the way in the manner in which the police presented those photo lineups were unconstitutional and that still was debated and also that at the trial, since that was the only thing that Todd, Mr.

Brazil potentially to the case, that the issue of identification should have been vetted out. And the criminal defense attorneys that Mr. Brazil had at the time, this is being an armchair quarterback, able to look at it through a different lens later.

But since that was the only issue that linked Mr. Brazil to the crime, I thought the identification aspect should have been highly sought out and brought up to the jury and explained thoroughly. And it simply was not at the jury trial. Did the prosecution have any other good evidence that Adam Brazeau had done this? And the issues to me require glaring and I delivered my opinion on Christmas Day of 2015, in that opinion, I did find that Mr. Brazil was denied his constitutional right to a fair trial.

I set aside his convictions and I ordered a new jury trial.

In January 2016, Adam Braziel was released from prison after more than eight years. He was free to go home and wait for a new trial. What was the first thing that you did when you got out of. I definitely hope my momma. That was the first thing that I did. And then later that night, we all came to the house and celebrated and.

Things were working out. That was some good days. To have this incredible judge come out of nowhere like a godsend. He saved my life. Ten months later, after Mr. Brazil is out of prison, the Court of Criminal Appeals released their opinion based upon my decision. The state had, of course, appealed my ruling. And at that time, the Court of Criminal Appeals essentially agreed with my findings but disagreed with my conclusions. But they acknowledge that there may have been some issues at the trial, but the standard for them on Revy was whether or not it would have made a difference at trial.

They made the decision that it would not have, and so they reversed my decision and ordered Mr. Brazil to be put back in prison to serve a sentence. I was going to was I was going to spend the day with my mom and. Going to take her to the doctor and go out to eat and the knock on the door look through the people and these this individual was dressed up like a bounty hunter.

And I thought, oh, don't know, was this open the door? And he said, Adam, we're going to have to come with me.

What a horrible thing to think that you're free and then to get a call one day saying, just a joke, you're going back. I can't even imagine Judge Angel had granted Adam Brazil's petition for post conviction relief, but the state appealed and the higher court sided with the state. They reversed Judge Angell's ruling. And in October of 2016, Adam Braziel was sent back to prison. From Florida now, retired Sergeant Mike Brown, the officer who was the first on the scene, was watching all of this in disbelief.

He knew he was the reason that Adam Braziel was ever considered during the investigation, and he knew that the state's claim that it was a botched robbery hinged on the absence of a wallet.

They said there was no wound on the body and one of the motive was robbery. But the wallet was there. It was on the body. When you first got to that crime scene, did you make a written record anywhere of the wallet? Oh, yes, I did, of course, but my record disappeared along with all the other records. When Malcolm Burrows was murdered in 2006, the sheriff of Grundy County was Brent Myers. Under his watch, all of the documents pertaining to the case allegedly disappeared.

Clint Schrum is the current sheriff and has been vocal about how strange he thinks it is that there are no records. When I took office in 2014, he said, all I found was a pencil. Where do you think the wallet went? I don't know, I wasn't involved in it other than that night and the next day, that was because I wasn't an investigator when the detective I was approached, Sergeant.

So do you think that the Grundy County, that the Grundy County Sheriff's Office fell down on the job or the TBI fell down on the G7, both on.

So it just totally got out of hand, I mean, the investigation stopped right there. They didn't look for anybody else. You know, he had red hair. He wasn't at home at the night this happened. It was just like, OK, we got our guy right here. That that's the end of it. Do you feel guilty about the whole thing? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's why I felt I owed him a heck of an apology. I mean, it just ruined his whole life just because you had red hair.

It's kind of rare to hear a police officer say what you're saying. Oh, yes, I mean. It's disgusting what happened here. Sergeant Mike Brown says he felt so guilty that he felt compelled to become more involved in Adam Brazil's legal effort. He was contacted by a blogger named Dave Sayle. He goes by the name Dekay Sayle. And Sergeant Brown agreed to come forward with what he knew and to make himself available to Adam, Brazil's lawyers. Dekay Sale had begun writing about the Malcolm Burrows case on his own website.

He blogged about the two Sergeant Browns and about the missing case files. Dekay Sale says it was common knowledge around Grundy County that Malcolm Burrows was a drug dealer who sold pain pills. Everyone knew about it. Malcolm Burrows had a 2003 felony conviction for selling prescription drugs. The Tennessean newspaper described Burrows as having, quote, no shortage of friends and enemies.

But Malcolm Burrows, criminal history was not brought up at trial as relevant, Adam, Brazils family was doing everything they could to get his case in front of a judge again, especially his sister, Christina Braziel. And then Adam and his family learned about a new piece of physical evidence, a fingerprint. They're able to take one fingerprint from Mr. Burrowes vehicle, the fingerprint was on the inside of a door handle and the as a passenger side of the vehicle at the time, the TBR was that's the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, they were unable to find a match for that fingerprint.

So that unidentified fingerprint sat in a file for years.

Then every so often, every couple of years, the TBI receives new computers, new software, new capabilities to search those prints and run them through new databases. At that time, a TBI agent happened to open this file, saw that there is an unidentified fingerprint, ran the fingerprint through their system, and finally they received a hit. They hit came back on somebody who was not Adam Brazil. The fingerprint matched a man by the name of Kermit Bryson and Kermit Brosnan lived in Grundy County, Kermit Brosnan had some sort of loose connection with the deceased current.

Bryson is now deceased himself because a few years after the trial, he allegedly murdered a sheriff's deputy and then went into the woods and took his own life. Mr. Kerberos had also had red hair and his girlfriend drove a gold colored vehicle at the time of Mr. Burrowes homicide, the TBI had actually matched the print more than a year before.

Adam, Brazil's attorney, Alex Little, told reporters that he didn't know why the D.A. didn't come forward with the results immediately. I can't tell you why they withheld this obvious key evidence from us, he said. Maybe some people who do this job feel they can't make mistakes.

In February of 2019, Adam, Brazil's legal team, filed a petition announcing they had new evidence, the fingerprint match, and also the fact that Malcolm Burrows wallet had been found on his body the night of the murder. A hearing was set for June 26, 2019, Judge Angel presided. The defense for Mr. Brazil were able to present that evidence, they were able to prove to the court that the wallet was found on Mr. Burrows deceased body and that the defense did not know about this and that that deputy was never called to the stand to testify about this, any proceeding in the case.

We also found out that the fingerprint did match Mr. Kermit Bryson. There was testimony of photographs that showed Mr. Bryson at the time of the homicide and a side by side comparison with Mr. Brazil. And they looked similar. They both were almost the same build, same skin tone. Both had the red hair and they matched each other.

Even a TBI agent who testified for the state testified that they looked alike, that Mr. Brazil and Mr. Brosnan did look alike. And there was also new evidence that was presented that after the homicide and before his suicide, Mr. Bryson confessed to a friend that he was the one that actually killed Malcolm Burrows. Three hours into the hearing, the D.A. asked for a 10 minute recess.

Ten minutes turned into hours of discussion between Adam, Brazil's defense team, and the district attorney.

And I received word that they'll need to take the bench. So I took the bench. At that time, it was announced to me that a deal, essentially a settlement had been reached.

And what was the settlement? Essentially, the state of Tennessee conceded the murder conviction and murder charge against Adam Brazil and dismissed it. They also dismissed one of the assault charges against Mr. Brazil. However, they asked Mr. Brazil to plead to an Alford plea, which is a best interest plea to one of the assault charges. In exchange for that, Mr. Brazil will be released from prison that day. By taking the Alford plea, Adam Braziel acknowledged that there was potentially enough evidence to convict him on a lesser charge of aggravated assault, and that seemed kind of wild.

That elford stuff, you know, so clear that this is just to save face or something. You know, doesn't it seem a little wild to you?

I can't critique the law and I can't critique the process, I take an oath to uphold the law and it's a provision that is applicable in our courts. Sometimes it's used properly and sometimes it isn't. Essentially, what it is, is you're accepting the fact that if the state were able to present their evidence at trial, it could result in a conviction. And you're conceding that without admitting any guilt. And that's what Mr. Virgil did in order to secure his freedom that day.

So were you the one who was able to say, Mr. Brazil, you're free to go?

Yes, after I accepted that affably, I was able to then order that he be released, that the shackles be removed from him and that he's declared a free man. What was the look on his face? Well, you could tell that. He was he didn't know what to think he was and he was happy, he was in shock, I think he was frustrated by the affably and having to do that in order to be released from prison that day.

But I believe he even said thank you for being a just judge. And that meant a lot to me.

You know, even though things worked out for Adam, in the end, he did serve an awful long time in prison. He lost a lot. He was put through the wringer when he was taken back to prison. I mean, I know you probably can't answer this, but we have all of these rules and regulations and laws in place, I wonder if a case like Adam Brazils makes you question the legal process a bit. Mr. Brazil span from age 24 to 36, incarcerated.

I think about all the things that I was able to experience and enjoy during that time frame of my life. And I was fast getting married and having a child and getting through law school, getting elected as a judge. Just all the things that I was able to experience during that time frame that he essentially was robbed of. And there are mistakes that were made. And I want to do everything I can to keep these types of mistakes from ever happening again anywhere, especially in my district and in the state of Tennessee.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, there have been 2000, 549 exonerations in the United States since 1989. And as they calculate these honorees have collectively lost more than 22000 years, they find that African-Americans are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white people and 12 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of drug possession, analyzing the factors that contribute to wrongful convictions. The National Registry of Exonerations finds that the leading factor is perjury or false accusation, followed by official misconduct.

Wrongful convictions are terrifying, I think everyone has nightmares about someone saying you've done something that you didn't and no one believing you as loud as you say, it's not me, it's not me. It must be a nightmare.

Don't you think that's a nightmare? I mean, for yourself, you're a judge, but you're a human being. To what what a nightmare situation.

It is a nightmare. It should be a nightmare for any judge, any prosecutor, any defense attorney, any person who's in law enforcement, any any innocent American citizen. If if the system is not safe for your neighbor and for your fellow man, it's not safe for you. Have you spoken with Adam Brazil since? I have so that. Decision and hearing where I released him was on our Friday, the following Monday, I was able to stop by his family's home in Pelham, Tennessee, and meet with him and essentially apologize to him.

He got out of the truck and he walked up. I shook my hand, we hugged. I asked him, I said, well, what do I call you, do I call your honor, are, you know, Judge Angel? And he called. He said, call me Justin. And we went over and sat down and. And he apologized. On behalf of the justice system. For what had been done to me and my family.

Because he knew nobody else was going to apologize. And I really respect him, my words will never be able to explain the gratitude that I have for this man and his decision.

Adam, Brazil has been out of prison for six months now. He spent a third of his life behind bars and he says sometimes he still can't believe that he's out.

And to be able to like the on the way over here, I was in a traffic jam and I was running a little light. I could have pain, I could have I could have found, uh. I could have felt anxiety and I did for a moment, but then I thought, I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to get stuck in a traffic jam when I get lost in Nashville, when I'm in Nashville, or I know it's the same perspective.

I lost my keys, is speaking to the car again. I lost my keys the other day and I was so thankful for the opportunity to have a car and to have the opportunity to lose my keys.

And it's just a unique perspective on life now that I have. Yeah.

And I'm having the best days of my life out here.

Well, I want to thank you very much for taking the time and sitting in traffic and coming to talk with us. Your story is really incredible. And we were so happy to speak with you and to speak with Judge Angel, and we're very happy to to put this all together. All right. Thank you so much. OK, bye bye.

Bye. Criminalist created by Lauren Spor and me Neede Wilson is our senior producer, Susanna Roberson is our system producer, audio mix by Rob Byers.

Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at this is Criminal Dotcom, where you can also subscribe to our newsletter, The Accomplice. We're on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio WNYC, where a proud member of Radio Topia from PUREX, a collection of the best podcasts around.

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. Radio talk show ex.