LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Police in Georgia have arrested a man who was accidentally released from the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center Thursday.
Authorities took 25-year-old Stone Colburn into custody in Pooler, Georgia, outside of Savannah, late Friday night.
Loudoun County deputies arrested Colburn on July 3, 2021, after his brother's girlfriend, later identified as 25-year-old Natalie Crow, was found stabbed to death at the end of the driveway of their Roundhill home.
A court affidavit claims Crow was stabbed in front of her 9-month-old daughter before she was ultimately stuffed into a trash can.
After the incident, authorities transferred Colburn to be held at the Virginia Central State Hospital to undergo evaluation for competency to stand trial. Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney Buta Biberaj said the hospital ultimately decided Colburn's competence was "unrestorable".
Biberaj's office tried to have a second evaluation done of Colburn, but the General District Court judge ultimately denied that request.
According to a release from the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, Colburn was released from the Loudoun jail after the Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney stopped pursuing his murder charge in General District Court.
The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, which runs the jail, contends the charge placed against Colburn in that court, for allegedly concealing a dead body, was filed Friday.
"The information that we had indicated that this guy was free to go but we're still looking through all of our documents to see exactly what fell through the cracks," Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said. "We just want to make sure it doesn't happen again."
However, court records provided by Biberaj's office show the concealment charge was actually filed Thursday, before her office requested "nolle prosequi" on Colburn's murder charge in General District Court.
Biberaj said her office decided to stop pursuing the murder charge because it was concerned the judge may have ruled that Colburn was too incompetent to stand trial in court.
She added her office also believed Colburn would stay in custody due to the charge he was facing in Circuit Court.
“We filed the charges in Circuit Court to be able to get an order from the court that [Colburn] be picked up, served with them, and held pending that proceeding," Biberaj said.
She said her office worked ahead of time with personnel at the jail to make sure no mistakes like the one that happened would occur.
“We worked with the personnel over at the jail, as well as our lead detective, to let him know that what we were doing was trying to make sure that how we timed it, there would be no gap in [Colburn's] custody," Biberaj said.
The Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney also took issue with the way the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office publicly conveyed that her office decided to stop prosecuting Colburn's murder charge before the concealment charge was filed.
"Our office is greatly disappointed by the LCSO's recent press release that mischaracterizes the release of Colburn and their lack of accountability," she said. "It attempts to mislead the public and unfairly shift the blame to our office."
Both Biberaj and Chapman said before Colburn's arrest that they would further investigate how he was allowed to leave the jail.
Chapman told WUSA9, Friday afternoon, the release was, in part, due to miscommunication amongst several people during the court process.
Before Colburn's arrest, Chapman characterized him as a threat to the public.
"And, we're concerned about that," he said.
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