On December 15, 2000, former sheriff's deputy Melvin Walker shot Brown twelve times with a TEC-9 handgun in front of his home in Decatur.

[4] At trial, prosecutors alleged that then-DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey – whom Brown had recently defeated in the election – had promised Walker a promotion to deputy sheriff if he killed Brown and that David Ramsey, the backup shooter and getaway driver, was promised a job as a detention officer.

[5] Details that came to light during the trial suggested that Dorsey ordered the killing to obstruct an expected probe into corruption during his tenure as sheriff.

After the verdict was rendered virtually uncollectable by the series of failed appeals, a bill was introduced into the Georgia House of Representatives seeking to compensate Brown's family in excess of $300 million.

[10] Brown's assassination was featured on Investigation Discovery's series Fatal Encounters, season 1, episode 9, “Who Shot the Sheriff?".