On May 19, 1992, 30-year-old Candace Brown lost her life at the hands of Michael Jeffrey Land.
The tragic case shocked the people of Birmingham, Alabama, and still does for its randomness and brutality. The loss of young life is miserable in any shape and form, but Brown had a child whose mother culprit Michael Land snatched away brutally.
The case's particulars still haunt the public today, perhaps because everyone who knew Land defended him so vehemently even as the evidence was rising against him. What kind of man could arouse such loyalty when he was vicious?
The thought is frightening and precise because of the fear it aroused and still prompts that even now, more than a decade after it's all over, the specter of Michael Land looms large.
On the tragic night of May 19, 1992, Michael Land broke a window to Candace Brown's apartment and cut her telephone wires.
Later, when the police finally entered the scene, they found a puppy and Brown's two-year-old child thankfully unharmed, but Candace herself was missing. Strangely, there was a note on a bulletin board with Land's name and phone number on it, and upon closer inspection of the room, there was a shoe print with a distinctive tread spelling out "USA" on one of the windowpanes.
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Further investigation revealed that Brown and Land had met when she was a part of a prison ministry. She had also named him a suspect in a prior burglary of her home.
This discovery aroused suspicion amongst the police, and they promptly found Land. Land, however, stated that he hadn't seen Brown for a week and was quick to offer an alibi.
Still, the police took his shoes to match the tread; unsurprisingly, they fit. When Land's alibi did not corroborate his story, Land offered another one stating that he had met two men at a gas station asking for an easy mark for burglary, and Land had offered up Brown's home.
Not only had he offered up Brown's home, but he also stated that the men had paid him $20 to cut the window glass of her apartment. According to Land, the men knocked Born to the floor when she had come in to check the commotion and discovered the men, prompting Land to flee in fear.
Land's second alibi didn't fly for long as they found Brown's body in a nearby quarry the next day, shot in the back of her head by a .45 caliber automatic handgun. To no one's surprise, the cops found a .45 handgun in Land's car with bullets matching the bullet in Brown's head.
They also found glass fragments consistent with the glass of the window broken in Brown's house in Land's house. There was a semen stain on Brown's blouse, which turned out to be consistent with Land's blood sample.
Michael Jeffrey Land is dead.
The court convicted Land of Candace Brown's murder in December 1993. He was then sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Following his sentence, Land served 17 years on Alabama's Death Row at Holman Prison Atmore until he was put to death on August 12, 2010.
In the 17 years between his conviction and death, countless people, from his attorneys to friends and family to strangers, fought to stop Land's execution, citing his low I.Q. as a reason not to execute him.
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However, the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn't budge, and Land was executed as decided by the courts.
Land's last meal was a meatball sub sandwich, a double pork chop sandwich, and a Philly cheesesteak sandwich with an orange soda and orange juice.
Warden Tony Patterson asked Land if he had any final words, but Land only replied, "No, Thank you, though."
Despite the brutality of her case, Candace Brown nor her case have a Wikipedia.
However, her case gained new popularity when it became the centerpiece of the fourth episode of the third season of Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death, a spin-off of the American Docu-series, Evil Lives Here.
The docu-series shined a new light on her case, and it soon became the subject of various youtube videos and podcasts. However, it differs from most true crime stories because the law brought her murderer to justice.
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