Missing photos and coerced witness led to Adam Braseel's false conviction, lawsuit says

Two former Grundy County deputies are backing new assertions by exonerated prisoner Adam Braseel that the sheriff's office intentionally destroyed, hid and created evidence to manufacture a conviction.

Gov. Bill Lee exonerated Braseel in 2021, and now he's suing the county over the investigation, conviction and prison sentence that cost him nearly 12 years of freedom.

The Feb. 13 filing makes new claims about how investigators handled evidence that could have showed Braseel didn't kill 60-year-old Malcolm Burrows. Not a single piece of physical evidence tied Braseel to the crime, and his conviction was based on problematic eyewitness identification. He was connected to the murder only after being identified in a photo lineup.

New information about the missing wallet

Investigators' originally suggested Braseel murdered Burrows to steal his wallet. When Braseel filed his lawsuit against Grundy County in 2022, his attorneys said Burrows' wallet was removed from the murder scene to make Braseel look guilty.

Now, Braseel's lawyer says not only was the wallet removed, but a report of the wallet and photographs of it from the crime scene were removed from Braseel’s criminal file. There were hundreds of dollars were in the wallet when it was found.

“We have learned that the report one of these deputies prepared and the photographs he took of Malcolm Burrows' wallet were actually removed from the sheriff’s department file and presumably suppressed or destroyed,” attorney Kathleen Zellner wrote in an email to Knox News. “This is a serious constitutional violation.”

Zellner is a Chicago-based attorney who specializes in exoneration lawsuits. She rose to fame by representing Steven Avery, whose trial was the focus of the hit Netflix series “Making a Murderer." Zellner told Knox News her team will be able to prove the new allegations in Braseel's lawsuit.

New information about a coerced witness

Burrows’ sister, Rebecca Hill, and her son were staying with Burrows at the time of his murder in 2006. On Jan 7, around 9 p.m., a man came to the door looking for help with his car, which he said had broken down along the road, according to the lawsuit. Burrows agreed to help and went with the man, who killed Burrows. The man then came back to the home and attacked Hill before being run off by her son.

Hill and her son identified Braseel in a photo lineup. Braseel now says Grundy County Sheriff Brent Myers (who died in 2020) coerced Hill into picking Braseel.

“Defendant Sheriff Myers stated to them words to the effect, ‘You are going to say this is the guy,’” the lawsuit says.

“We have also discovered, through another former deputy, that the identifications by the eyewitnesses of Adam Braseel were coerced and false, another egregious constitutional violation,” Zellner wrote to Knox News.

What the original lawsuit said

The lawsuit filed in 2022 says officers failed to interview more than one of Braseel’s alibi witnesses, failed to investigate fingerprints on the scene that would’ve cleared Braseel and intentionally failed to conduct a thorough investigation.

The lawsuit also says police were offered possible motives from other people, but the motives were never provided to Braseel’s attorneys during his first trial. It says police fabricated evidence, including altering reports, to make Braseel appear guilty.

The lawsuit says Kermit Eugene Bryson murdered Burrows, but no charges were ever brought against him. Bryson was a felon who died by suicide two years after the Burrows murder while on the run after he killed Grundy County Deputy Shane Tate.

In 2017, Bryson’s fingerprints were found on the passenger door handle of Burrows' car at the murder scene. Braseel and Bryson resembled each other, both with slight builds and red hair.

The path to exoneration

In 2015, 12th Judicial Circuit Judge Justin Angel threw out Braseel's guilty verdict and ordered a new trial, freeing Braseel for months before the state Court of Criminal Appeals overruled that decision and sent him back to prison.

He was granted a new trial two years later when fingerprints found on the passenger door handle of Burrows' car at the murder scene didn't belong to Braseel.

That retrial ended in 2019 when Braseel entered what’s known as an Alford plea — meaning he didn’t admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict — to aggravated assault. He had already served more time than that conviction would have allowed.

In 2020, the Tennessee Board of Parole unanimously recommended Braseel for exoneration, and a year later Lee followed through. An exoneration is the highest act of clemency under Tennessee law, and it means Lee does not believe Braseel committed the crime.

Lawsuit details

The suit is against Grundy County, the estate of former Grundy County Sheriff Brent Myers and former Deputy Chief Lonnie Cleek. Former Deputy Andrew West and former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officer Larry Davis were originally included but have been dropped from the amended lawsuit.

The hearing is scheduled for November.

Grundy County Mayor Michael Brady did not respond to a Knox News request for comment about the lawsuit.

Braseel has not said how much money he is seeking. Zellner told Knox News the amount will be determined before the trial as Zellner’s team gathers information from similar cases across the country. Braseel was awarded $1 million from the state in August 2023, which is the cap under state law. That award, minus attorney fees, will be paid out over 30 years, according to media reports.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tyler_whetstone.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Adam Braseel lawsuit over wrongful conviction has explosive allegations