Man police call confessed double murderer spotted walking around free in small South Carolina town

Columbia, S.C. — The last thing the family of two sisters slain in a tiny South Carolina town had heard about the man who confessed to killing them was that he was headed to a mental hospital in 2012 to be treated for schizophrenia so he could later be tried for murder.

For 10 years, they heard nothing. Then, a few months ago, friends started to call a son of one of the women with the news that they had seen Joseph Jermaine Brand around Kingstree, family attorney Lori Murray said.

Darren Tisdale, a son of the other sister and mayor of the town of 3,100, then began searching for Brand, spotting him just a couple of miles from where police said he confessed to shooting the two women in the head after breaking into their home in October 2010. Tisdale called prosecutors but got no answers.