On the evening of May 18, 1992, 30-year-old Candace Brown, a female, was at her home in Birmingham, Alabama, with her two-year-old son. Just five days prior, her residence had been burglarized, creating a sense of unease. That evening, after her mother and brother helped ensure her home was secure, they departed around 9:00 p.m. The following morning, May 19, when Ms. Brown failed to show up for work, her landlord went to her house to check on her.
There, he discovered unsettling signs: a broken window near the back door, severed telephone lines, and the driver's side window of Ms. Brown's car smashed.
Responding police officers entered the home to find Ms. Brown's young son alone and physically unharmed. A crucial piece of evidence was found on a bulletin board inside the house: a note bearing the name and phone number of Michael Land, whose mother was a Birmingham police officer. This discovery immediately made Land a person of interest in Ms. Brown's disappearance.
Investigators located Michael Land at his job and brought him in for questioning. Initially, he denied any wrongdoing but eventually confessed to the earlier burglary on May 13, during which he had cut the phone lines. He then concocted a story about two other men, 'Tony' and 'Edward,' who he claimed paid him $20 to help with another burglary at Ms. Brown's home on the night she vanished. Land alleged that one of these men had struck Ms. Brown, and he fled in fear. The tragic truth was uncovered on May 20, when hikers found Candace Brown's body in a rock quarry on Ruffner Mountain. She had been fatally shot in the back of the head.
The evidence against Michael Land was substantial and damning. A shoe print found on a pane of glass at the crime scene was a match to his footwear. Furthermore, a. 45 caliber pistol found in his car was determined to be the murder weapon. The most conclusive evidence came from DNA analysis, which matched Land's DNA to a semen stain on Ms. Brown's blouse.
Michael Land was arrested and charged with the murder of Candace Brown. He was ultimately convicted on two counts of capital murder: one for murder during a burglary and another for murder during a kidnapping. The jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 11-1, a sentence the court imposed. After years of appeals, Michael Land was executed by lethal injection on August 12, 2010. Among the witnesses to the execution were Candace Brown's parents and her son, who was then 19 years old.
