The search for a fugitive wanted for murder in Iredell County will be detailed in a television show that will air at 10 p.m. tonight.
The case of Marshall Lee Brown will be featured on the program "I (Almost) Got Away With It" on the Investigation Discovery channel.
Brown is now serving a 20-year term for a murder committed while he was on the run after escaping from a work release program in 1996.
The program concentrates on the lives of criminals on the run and how they managed to evade the law — at least for a while.
The program will feature interviews with Statesville Police Chief Tom Anderson, who was then a detective with the SPD, and with Brown as well as others involved in his case.
Anderson said he was interviewed for the program about two years ago.
"I took them to the crime scene on Railroad Avenue and we walked that location," he said.
Brown was convicted of murder in 1977 and sentenced to a term of 80 years.
But by 1996, Brown was part of a work release program and he walked off a job site.
On Dec. 29 of that year, he came upon a van with four people inside. One of those was Stephen Delaney Calhoun of Statesville.
At his plea hearing in March 2002, Brown said he went to the van to drink; the assistant district attorney said it was to collect a drug debt.
Either way, Calhoun, who was seated behind Brown, was shot and killed. Another back seat passenger, David Brown (no relation to Marshall Brown), struggled with Brown and was beaten.
Calhoun testified as a state's witness in Brown's 1977 trial for the murder of Horace Morrison of Taylorsville.
From December 1996 to July 1999, Brown remained on the run. Brown sightings turned him into a legend, Anderson said.
"There were more Marshall Brown sightings than Bigfoot sightings," he said. "We had to check out each one. We searched so many houses in areas he was known to frequent."
In reality, Brown left this area within a couple of days of Calhoun's death, Anderson said.
He was finally captured in Washington, D.C. in July 1999 by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The news that Brown was back in custody produced a feeling of relief, Anderson said.
"He is a very dangerous individual," he said.
Anderson said the case drew the interest of the show's producers because of the 1977 murder conviction, which was a contract killing for $50. Brown was 19 at the time.
Want to watch?
"I (Almost) Got Away With It" airs at 10 p.m. tonight on Investigation Discovery, which is channel 147 on Time-Warner Cable channels, 285 for DIRECTV customers and 192 for DISH Network viewers.
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