( CNN ) -- Henry McCollum and Leon Brown walked out of prison free men Wednesday after DNA evidence implicated someone else in the rape and murder of a North Carolina child some 30 years ago . McCollum , 50 , was 19 at the time of his arrest . He was sentenced to death in 1984 and was North Carolina 's longest-serving death row inmate . His half-brother , Brown , who is four years younger than McCollum , was initially sentenced to death as well but later had it reduced to life in prison . `` Ai n't no anger in my heart . I forgive those people , '' McCollum told reporters , CNN affiliate WRAL reported . `` I do n't like what they done to me and my brother because they took 30 years away from me for no reason , but I do n't hate them , '' he said . WRAL reported that McCollum left Central Prison , in Raleigh , while Brown left Maury Correctional Institution in Greene County , North Carolina . The siblings were just teenagers when they were arrested in 1983 and charged with the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie in Red Springs , about 30 miles southeast of Fayetteville in rural Robeson County . Buie 's body was found in an area of Red Springs known as something of a `` lovers ' lane , '' according to Joe Freeman Britt , the district attorney who prosecuted them in the '80s . The ground was littered with `` beer cans , condoms and cigarettes , '' Britt said . It was one of those cigarette butts that ultimately set the men free . DNA found on a cigarette `` matched another individual named Roscoe Artis , a convicted rapist and murderer who lived less than 100 yards from where the victim 's body was found , '' said a statement from McCollum 's and Brown 's attorneys . Artis is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison on a separate conviction . It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would bring charges against him for Buie 's murder . CNN 's Kevin Conlon and Suzanne Presto contributed to this report .
`` Ai n't no anger in my heart . I forgive those people , '' says Henry McCollum . DNA evidence frees both him and his half-brother , Leon Brown . The brothers had been convicted in the rape , murder of an 11-year-old child .