During McCollum's interrogation, Leon Brown arrived at the station with their mother and sister in tow. Brown's interrogation featured similar coercion; in a 2019 lawsuit, Brown accused Robeson County detective Joel Locklear of threatening Brown with death in North Carolina's gas chamber if he refused to sign away his Miranda rights. According to Brown, Detective Locklear then drafted a confession implicating Brown, McCollum, and the three other teenagers in the crime. The three others accused had airtight alibis or were otherwise proven to have not been connected to the crime, and one was out of state at the time of Buie's murder. As Brown was nearly illiterate, rather than leaving a signature on his confession, he wrote his name in block letters.
