Officials in Washington County have been unable to locate more than 100 pieces of DNA evidence tied to a rape and manslaughter appeal, despite a judge ordering them to do so in mid-September.
Instead, they say an assistant district attorney of Mississippi’s 4th Circuit Court District, which includes Greenville, was the last person to possess the evidence. Officials in the district attorney’s office say that’s not true.
Regardless of blame, the evidence is key to whether King Brown Jr., who was convicted in 2005, will remain incarcerated in the Marshall County Correctional Facility. He has been incarcerated for more than 20 years.
In affidavits filed Feb. 18 in Washington County Circuit Court, employees of the circuit clerk’s office described receiving verbal confirmation in September of some of the evidence being at the county district attorney’s office. In their affidavits, Washington County Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker and two deputies said an employee of the district attorney’s office previously acknowledged being the last to see and possess some of the evidence.
But an unsigned statement from the district attorney’s office sent Tuesday to Mississippi Today says no one at the district attorney’s office “has ever possessed, viewed or handled any of the exhibits and/or physical evidence” since the 2005 trial.
The DNA evidence, ranging from a sexual assault kit to finger nail scrapings, is tied to the 2002 killing of R.W., a 6 year-old girl in Greenville. She was found dead in a garbage bin that belonged to her grandmother’s neighbors — the family of King Brown Jr., who was convicted in 2005 of raping and killing R.W.
Jacob Howard and Adnan Sultan, Brown’s attorneys who are appealing his convictions, have argued that if the DNA evidence is lost, their client’s charges should be dismissed and his convictions vacated. Howard and Sultan declined to comment on the latest court filings.
H.T. Crosby Park in Greenville, at the intersection of Legion Drive and Dublin Street, on Nov. 21, 2025. Beneath the sign for the park is a memorial for a 6-year-old girl who was last seen at the park in 2002 before she was later found dead nearby. Credit: Leonardo Bevilacqua / Mississippi TodayOn Sept. 16, Circuit Judge Richard Smith ordered the circuit court employees to ship the evidence to Bode Technology for modern DNA testing.
Instead of DNA evidence, the prosecution’s case against Brown had hinged on microscopic hair comparison, which has since been discredited in FBI guidance for having “no scientific support” and low accuracy in identifying perpetrators.
In her recent affidavit, Esters-Parker wrote that on Sept. 19, a district attorney’s office employee named Carla confirmed by phone that Assistant District Attorney Austin Frye, the lead prosecutor on Brown’s case, had a box labeled “King Brown.” Esters-Parker and two deputies were aware of a box with evidence that had been stored in a black garbage can in the Youth Court Storage Room as recently as Aug. 29, 2023.
In a separate affidavit, Deputy Circuit Court Clerk Cynthia Lakes said Frye denied he had the box of evidence when she and another deputy clerk arrived to pick it up the following Monday. The box was open and contained documents, but none of the bags of evidence Carla had described, Lakes’ statement read.
Lakes also wrote about Frye and District Attorney Dewayne Richardson visiting the evidence overflow room in July, and that Richardson said one of her colleagues directed him to the evidence. Lakes wrote that Richardson later misidentified LaTonya Tucker as the deputy clerk who assisted him and then said he couldn’t remember the circuit court employee’s name.
The circuit clerk staff, with the help of maintenance workers, searched the youth court storage spaces two more times, but to no avail.
The statement to Mississippi Today from the district attorney’s office tells a different story: The circuit clerk’s office confirmed in writing that they had the evidence from Brown’s trial. Then, when Richardson stopped by alone, a deputy clerk confirmed that the office had the evidence, the statement read. According to the statement, neither Richardson nor any of his staff “viewed nor possessed nor handled” the evidence.
The district attorney’s office would welcome a hearing and investigation into the lost evidence, the statement notes. But as of Wednesday, neither the presiding judge nor the district attorney’s office has filed additional orders or motions.
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