The Derwin Brown Murder: How Former Sheriff Sidney Dorsey Orchestrated the Killing
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Derwin Brown was born in 1954 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and grew up on Long Island, New York. He worked as a youth counsellor for troubled teens in DeKalb County, Georgia, before eventually becoming a patrol officer. Brown also penned a column, Tell it like it is, in a local newspaper and had his own local segment on TV. He was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, an African American fraternity founded in the early 1900s at Howard University in Washington D.C. Brown was also a member of the Freemasons.
Brown had worked with the DeKalb County Department of Public Safety for over two decades, and had recently won against DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey in a runoff election on August 8, 2000.
During his campaign, Brown had promised to clean up corruption within the sheriff's department. Dorsey was facing allegations of corruption within his administration and was suspected of using employees from the department for private work. If Brown won, Dorsey would not only lose his position, but Brown planned to remove an additional 38 employees from the administration whom he believed had been involved in misconduct. Dorsey would also potentially face further investigation if Brown was sworn in.
On December 15, 2000, 46-year-old Derwin Brown was murdered in the front yard of his home in Decatur. He had just attended a family gathering and was returning home with roses to surprise his wife for her birthday, when he was ambushed and shot 11 times.
The firearm used in the attack was later identified as a TEC-9 handgun. Whoever was on the other end of it fled the scene with a getaway driver. All police found at the crime scene were 9mm shell casings and few clues that could lead them to a suspect. Hoping to find answers, they looked into the people Brown surrounded himself with in his personal life, as well as anyone connected to his new position as Sheriff.
Months passed before investigators found themselves focused on Patrick Cuffy, a prior acquaintance of Dorsey who had at one point worked alongside him at the department. Cuffy was also facing serious charges in another case.
By this point it was November 2001, and since Cuffy was already facing criminal charges, he decided to cooperate with police and informed them of his involvement with Brown's murder, alleging that he had received a note from Dorsey that read: "Kill Derwin Brown."
According to both Cuffy and later allegations from the prosecution, Dorsey recruited former DeKalb County Sheriff's deputy Melvin Walker, David Ramsey, Paul Skyers and Cuffy to plan and carry out the murder.
The lengthy investigation resulted in the arrest of three suspects: Sidney Dorsey, Melvin Walker, and David Ramsey, who were arrested on November 30, 2001.
Cuffy and Skyers were given immunity in exchange for their cooperation. They went on to testify at Dorsey's bond hearing in December 2001, and said Dorsey had orchestrated the killing.
Melvin Walker and David Ramsey went to trial in March 2002 and were both found not guilty, as the defense challenged Cuffy's credibility due to his criminal history and the deal he had struck with prosecutors.
According to J. Tom Morgan, who was the elected District Attorney at the time, Dorsey’s case gained so much publicity that it was moved from DeKalb to a courtroom in his hometown of Albany, Ga. Morgan later wrote about the case and his involvement in the investigation and trial in his book A Rainy Night in Georgia, where he revealed that he himself had ended up on Dorsey’s hitlist for his involvement in the case.
At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that former Sheriff's deputy Melvin Walker had been the one to shoot Brown to death, with the promise of a promotion. David Ramsey was involved in carrying out the murder and was promised a position as a detention officer, while Paul Skyers stayed with the car. Prosecutors argued that Dorsey had ordered the hit on Brown in order to circumvent a probe into corruption during his time as sheriff.
Dorsey pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of murder as well as racketeering and corruption in 2002, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.
Melvin Walker was later convicted in federal court of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. David Ramsey was also convicted in federal court of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. In exchange for their testimony, Patrick Cuffy, who was a lookout, and Paul Skyers, who was a driver, were granted full immunity. Cuffy provided the majority of the information that assisted investigators in creating the timeline of events and recovering the murder weapon.
Dorsey later confessed to his involvement in July 2007, although he claimed that he had attempted to call the assassination off beforehand. He remained in prison for the rest of his life and in March 2026 died from natural causes. He was 86 years old at the time of his death.
J. Tom Morgan’s book: A Rainy Night in Georgia can be found here.
Listen to the Generation Why Podcast episode on the case, here.: