The Real Murders of Atlanta on ID: What happened to sheriff-elect Derwin Brown?

In December 2000, Derwin Brown, a few months after becoming the sheriff-elect of DeKalb County and a few days before starting office, was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Atlanta home. Reports state that he was shot 12 times. His wife Phyllis recounted the incident, claiming that it sounded like fireworks from inside the house.

Two years later, former sheriff Sidney Dorsey was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding Brown's killing. At the time of the murder, the latter had defeated Dorsey in re-election. It was alleged that the accused had the veteran law enforcement officer murdered before he could execute his campaign to clean up decades-long corruption in the office.

This week's episode of The Real Murders of Atlanta is scheduled to revisit Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown's case. The all-new episode titled Deadly Election will air on ID this Friday, March 24, at 9:00 pm ET.

The synopsis of the upcoming episode reads as:

"The newly elected Dekalb County sheriff is murdered just days before taking office; when the task force digs into who would kill such a decorated public figure, they uncover a chilling conspiracy that shakes Atlanta law enforcement to its core."

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Before being a Sheriff-elect, Derwin Brown served for 23 years in the DeKalb County Police Department

Born in 1954, Derwin Brown was a black police captain and the Sheriff-elect of DeKalb County, Georgia, in 2000. Having served in the DeKalb County Police Department for 23 years, Brown campaigned for sheriff on a platform of eradicating the corruption and bribery that had long plagued the office.

However, on December 15, 2000, three days before he was scheduled to start office, Brown, 46, was shot at least twelve times in front of his suburban Atlanta home. Reports state that someone shot him with a Tech-9 assault rifle as he was approaching his driveway. At the time, the only evidence detectives had were a few used 9-millimeter shell casings to work with.

Morgan, the county district attorney, along with FBI agents and state law enforcement officers, investigated numerous leads over the ensuing months but came up empty-handed and the case that made national news, went unsolved for nearly a year until a co-conspirator confessed to the crime. This led to the arrest of three individuals, including former DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey.

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Derwin Brown's predecessor and former DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey was charged with conspiracy and murder along with others

According to reports, a few months prior to the deadly shooting, Derwin Brown had unexpectedly defeated Sidney Dorsey, who made a name for becoming the first African American to serve as sheriff of DeKalb County, in a runoff election.

One of the individuals involved in the hit, Patrick Cuffy, became an informant and agreed to a plea bargain with the prosecution. He stated that while he was in the car, two shooters were hidden in the bushes and another man was present down the street.

Dorsey was found guilty of arranging Brown's murder and was handed a life sentence in 2002. According to CNN, he maintained his innocence, alleging that he does "not have Derwin Brown's blood on [his] hands."

Melvin Walker and David Ramsey, two other individuals involved in the hit, were convicted of conspiracy in 2005. Both men, one of whom was a deputy, were promised promotions and employment by Dorsey.

Finally, in 2007, Sidney Dorsey admitted to authorities that he had planned Derwin Brown's murder but maintained that he called it off days beforehand. It was revealed during the assassination trial that Dorsey had ordered the murder to thwart a proposed investigation into the corruption that took place while he served as sheriff.

The charges against Dorsey included using on-duty deputies to work for his private security company and letting inmates work on his wife's home-repair program.

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ID's The Real Murders of Atlanta will shed further light on Derwin Brown's brutal killing this Friday.