paul skyers testified that derwin brown was assassinated to pave the way for sidney dorsey s comeback. the four co-conspirators, he said, were all promised promotions for killing brown. it was a very demented understanding and very irrational. but he believed that there would be a special election in which he could retake his office. full weight of the evidence against these two guys brought in the conspiracy that sid dorsey ordered it, brought in patrick cuffy, who was their star witness. and presented a case that i thought was a slam-dunk against these two guys. but it was not a slam-dunk to the jury. we, the jury, find the defendant, david isaiah ramsey, not guilty of felony murder. the jury found them not guilty of murder. the loss of the first case was a very vivid memory, that jury coming back. and they got off. they had to take my mom away in
death benefits. there was an almost seven-day gap where technically he was unemployed as an officer. so the family sued dekalb county for wrongful death. they used county vehicles and county time to assassinate my father. the georgia court of appeals found the county was not liable. because dorsey was acting outside the scope of his employment as sheriff when he had derwin assassinated, the citizens of dekalb county and the state of georgia are not liable for his criminal actions. one month before she died, the u.s. supreme court refused to hear phyllis brown s next appeal. and in a separate legal proceeding, another jury ordered sidney dorsey, patrick cuffy and paul skyers to pay the brown family $776 million in damages, the largest verdict in georgia history. but of course we ve never seen a cent of it. and lawyers freely
now, the irony of all of this is that there s a shootout at cuffy s house and cuffy is being prosecuted for something totally unrelated to the murder and that s when he wants to come talk to us. j. tom morgan went in the back room. cuffy went into the back room. cuffy s attorney went into the back room. and the hearing was delayed. and several hours later, cuffy flipped. prosecutors agreed not to charge cuffy and another former deputy sheriff, paul skyers, in return for their testimony against dorsey and two others. mr. dorsey, did you have anything to do with this? the day after cuffy flipped, former sheriff sidney dorsey was handcuffed and taken by officers armed with machine guns to this same jail he once ran. did you do it? did you do it? sidney dorsey was now charged with masterminding and directing four of his deputies to murder sheriff-elect, derwin brown. i m innocent. what to you say to the charges?
i don t know. i ve never been in this position before. corruption testimony ended. then came the case for murder. one of dorsey s friends testified dorsey told him that derwin brown would never assume the office of sheriff. he made the statement, words to the effect that derwin brown would never assume the office of sheriff, that there would be a special election. first there would be an interim sheriff appointed. there would be a special election. he would enter the race and he would win. co-conspirator paul skyers described the murder weapon which he said was dismantled and thrown in a drain. and patrick cuffy once again described being ordered by dorsey to strangle brown. he insisted on that method. it was not convenient for us because four of us had decided that we did not want to wrestle
outgoing sheriff sidney dorsey was arrested and charged with ordering the ambush and assassination of brown. the man that defeated dorsey in the sheriff s race and with promising promotions to four of his deputies in return for the killing. did you do it? did you do it? innocent. innocent. two of those deputies, melvin walker and david ramsey, were also arrested. unable to crack the case for nearly a year, prosecutors agreed not to charge the other two admitted co-conspirators, patrick cuffy and paul skyers, with any crime related to brown s murder in return for their agreement to tell the whole story. we needed their testimony. as much as i hated it. but this was the type of crime that had no one come forward we would have never solved it. d.a., j. tom morgan first asked brown s widow, phyllis, if she could live with cuffy going free. she said as long as he wasn t