Darryl Hunt
Alleged Crime(s):
On the afternoon of August 10, 1984, authorities found the body of Deborah Sykes in downtown Winston-Salem. Sykes was a twenty-five year old copy editor for the Winston Salem Journal-Sentinel. She had been raped and stabbed multiple times. An anonymous 911 call, made by someone claiming to be local resident Sammy Mitchell, led police to Mitchell’s best friend Darryl Hunt, who, unlike Mitchell, vaguely fit the description of the man seen walking with Deborah Sykes on the night of her murder. The lead investigator, Jim Daulton, questioned the men several times before charging Hunt with the murder. The racially charged nature of the crime concerned many blacks in the still very segregated city. After finding out that hair and blood tests conducted on Hunt did not match samples found at the scene, several black leaders in Winston-Salem formed the Darryl Hunt Defense Fund. They were concerned that lynch mob mentalities had led police to find any black man to whom a murder charge would stick in order to appease citizens demanding swift justice. Arrest and Trial: In June 1985, A jury of eleven whites and one black found Hunt guilty after less than two hours of deliberation. However, though the prosecution sought the death penalty, the jury unanimously agreed to award Hunt a life sentence. The Darryl Hunt Defense fund sought a new investigation, citing shoddy work by both the police and Prosecutor Don Tisdale. They hired James Ferguson, a Charlotte lawyer to lead Hunt’s appeal. In 1986 The Winston-Salem city manager reprimanded the police for their shoddy investigation and even demoted two of the detectives who worked on the case. Appeal and Exoneration: In 1989 Hunt was awarded a new trial, and released on $50,000 bond. In response to mounting publicity, the trial was moved to Catawba County. Before the trial even began, Special prosecutor Dean Bowman offered Hunt time served if he agreed to plead guilty. Hunt refused against his own counsel’s advice, stating that he couldn’t plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit. In October 1990, an all-white jury once again convicted Hunt and sentenced him to life in prison. During this trial, the state brought even more witnesses than during the first trial, though the defense contended during and after the trial that those witnesses were either prison informants or had financial or other incentives to testify against Hunt. In October 1993, a DNA test conducted by the SBI excluded Hunt from the murder and on this basis Hunt’s lawyers sought a new trial. The state however, argued that two people might have been involved in the murder of Skyes, and therefore while DNA evidence may have excluded Hunt, the evidence was not conclusive enough to warrant a new trial. A judge upheld the veracity of the DNA tests, but agreed with the State that the results did not necessarily exclude Hunt from participation in Skyes murder. Hunt’s attorneys also lost their appeal to the state Supreme Court. It was not until after 2000, when a national DNA database was created, that Hunt’s attorneys were able to pursue another trial. In 2003, Phoebe Zerwick, a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal, did an eight-part series on Darryl Hunt’s conviction and subsequent legal battles. The series received national attention and revived local interest in the Darryl Hunt case, especially among white residents. In April of 2003 a judge ordered a DNA test that would compare Hunt’s DNA to samples in a national database. On December 19, 2003, a match was found. Willard E. Brown, originally thought to be in jail the night of the murder, was arrested less than a week later and confessed to the crime, apologizing to both Darryl Hunt and the Sykes family. On December 24, 2003, Hunt was released from prison pending a February 6, 2004 hearing. At that hearing, Hunt’s case was dismissed with prejudice, and he was free to leave with his wife, family, and supporters. Life After Exoneration: Darryl Hunt lives with his wife April and their three children in Winston-Salem. In 2006, HBO made a documentary about his conviction and exoneration. He received an estimated $2 million in restitution from the state and the city of Winston-Salem and now runs the Darryl Hunt Foundation, which helps wrongly convicted inmates work toward exoneration. Written by Katherine Demby |
Location: Forsyth County, North Carolina
Crime: Murder Victim(s): Deborah Sykes Date of Crime: 1984 Date of Conviction: 1985 Date of Exoneration: 2004 Sentence: Life Race: Black Gender: Male Age at Arrest: 19 Contributing Factors: Mistaken witness id, Perjury, Misconduct DNA Exoneration: Yes |