Levon Brooks

The Crime 

Late at night on Sept. 15, 1990, three-year-old Courtney Smith was abducted from her Brooksville, Mississippi, home. The girl shared a bedroom with her two sisters, ages six and one. Her 26-year-old uncle was asleep in the next room when she disappeared. Her body was found two days later in a pond 80 yards from her house. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered.

The Investigation 

Levon Brooks became a suspect because he was an ex-boyfriend of the child’s mother.

Another man, Justin Albert Johnson, was also briefly a suspect in the case. His ex-wife and son lived next to the Smith residence and he had been inside the Smith house on the day of the abduction.

Dr. Steven Hayne, a Mississippi pathologist, performed an autopsy on the victim shortly after her body was found. He determined that she had been sexually assaulted. He also found possible bite marks on her wrist and referred the case to Dr. Michael West, a forensic dentist in Mississippi who had worked with Dr. Hayne on other cases in the past.

Dr. West determined that the marks on the victim’s body were indeed from human bites, and he took dental impression samples from 12 possible suspects — including Justin Albert Johnson but not including Mr. Brooks.

Ten days after the victim was killed, police interviews the victim’s six-year-old sister. The girl’s sister said she had seen the perpetrator abduct the victim and identified the perpetrator as Mr. Brooks, her mother’s ex- boyfriend. Based on the girl’s identification, Mr. Brooks was arrested.

On the same day, September 25, Dr. West took a sample of Mr. Brooks’ teeth at the local jail. Dr. West testified at Mr. Brooks’ trial that he compared Mr. Brooks’ sample to the marks on the victim’s body and found that two of Mr. Brooks’ teeth “matched” the marks on the victim’s body. He said Mr. Brooks made the marks with his two top front teeth. Mr. Brooks was charged with capital murder.

The Trial 

Mr. Brooks was tried before a jury in Noxubee County, Mississippi, in January 1992. The victim’s sister testified that she saw Mr. Brooks abduct her sister, although her testimony had several contradictions. In addition to the child’s unreliable testimony, the state’s case rested on the bite mark evidence presented by Dr. West, who testified that “it could be no one but Levon Brooks that bit this girl’s arm.”

Mr. Brooks’ defense attorneys presented an alibi defense, that he was working a club on the night of the murder and did not have an opportunity to commit the crime. The defense also challenged Dr. West’s credentials and findings. After deliberating for about nine hours, the jury convicted Mr. Brooks of capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Exoneration 

Just four months after Mr. Brooks was convicted, another young girl was abducted, raped and killed in Brooksville. The facts were startlingly similar, a three-year-old girl taken from her home at night and found in a creek. But the similarities between the cases did not end there. Police focused on Kennedy Brewer, the boyfriend of the victim’s mother. Dr. Hayne conducted the autopsy and said he found bite marks on the victim’s body. Dr. West was called to analyze the bite marks. He confirmed that the marks were from a human bite and determined that they came from Mr. Brewer. Based on this evidence, Mr. Brewer was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death.

The Innocence Project became involved in Mr. Brewer’s case in 2001, consulting with Mr. Brewer’s attorneys on DNA testing issues. DNA test results showed that semen from the victim’s body excluded Mr. Brewer as the perpetrator of the crime and his conviction was overturned. He remained behind bars for six more years, however, awaiting a new trial. Another round of testing matched the profile of Justin Albert Johnson, who had been a suspect during the initial investigations of both Mr. Brewer’s and Mr. Brooks’ cases. Mr. Johnson was interviewed by law enforcement officials and he admitted to committing both murders, but adamantly denied biting either victim. Following his confession, Mr. Brewer and Mr. Brooks were both freed on Feb. 15, 2008. Mr. Brooks was officially cleared on March 13.

Forensic Fallout 

In the wake of the exonerations of Mr. Brewer and Mr. Brooks, the Innocence Project and several other organizations and individuals began to call for investigations into the work of Dr. Hayne and Dr. West. For years, Dr. Hayne claimed to conduct 1,200 to 1,800 autopsies a year across the state of Mississippi (six times the professional standard), earning him more than $1 million a year.

Dr. Hayne had served as Mississippi’s chief medical examiner in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but couldn’t fill the position permanently because the state required the official to be properly board-certified, which he is not. In August 2008, just months after the Brewer and Brooks exonerations, the state announced that it was severing all ties with Dr. Hayne.

Death

In January 2018, Mr. Brooks passed away from cancer at the age of 58. Learn more.

Feature in the Netflix series The Innocence Files

Mr. Brooks and Mr. Brewer are two of eight people whose story is in the Innocence Project-inspired Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files, now available for streaming.