Settlement means another $1.475 million for Floyd Brown [The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)]

Anna Baucom, chairwoman of the Anson County Commissioners, said she had no idea that a settlement had been reached or its amount until contacted by a reporter.

"It's a sad situation all the way around," Baucom said. "Nobody wins in this case."

Anson County paid a $5,000 deductible in the case, according to Sean Perrin, the lawyer for the insurer. Insurance picked up the rest.

In addition to SBI Agent Isley, two Anson County deputies worked the case; Lt. Bud Hutchinson and Poplin. No other evidence connected Brown to the scene. None of the evidence tested at the SBI crime lab linked Brown to the crime scene. Subsequently, Anson sheriff's deputies lost virtually all of the physical evidence. According to evidence discovered during the lawsuits, neither Isley nor the deputies investigated alternative suspects, including men who had assaulted Lynch two years previously. And none of the deputies nor Isley developed evidence to corroborate Brown's alleged confession.

In 1998, Poplin and Hutchinson pled guilty to federal racketeering charges for soliciting and taking bribes from criminal suspects in return for dropping or reducing charges against the suspects.

Soon after his arrest, Brown was declared incompetent to stand trial by doctors at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh. Brown was jailed at Dix until 2007, when Durham County Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson freed him after determining that Brown had been unlawfully held and that the confession wasn't enough to prove he had committed murder. Brown was never brought to trial because he did not have the mental competency necessary to stand trial.

Brown is living fulltime with a caretaker, learning life skills at programs for the mentally disabled and dealing with health problems. In a recent interview, he said he would like to visit New York City and Washington, DC.

Neff: 919-829-4516

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