Sunday, December 21, 2003
The man who authorities say they believe raped Deborah Sykes has spent time in and out of jail and prison since he was a teen-ager.
Willard Elliott Brown is being held in the Forsyth County Jail, serving a 60-day sentence for a probation violation.
Brown, 43, has been convicted in Forsyth County of felony breaking and entering and larceny, injury to real property, resisting a public officer, trespassing and violating probation, according to court records.
Brown finished a six-month sentence on March 21 at the Forsyth Correctional Center, for a conviction on possession of a controlled substance, according to N.C. Department of Correction records. That prison is a minimum-security facility on Craft Drive.
His lawbreaking spans many years, according to records.
Police arrested Brown when he was 16 in connection with a string of store break-ins and auto thefts.
Brown pleaded guilty in Forsyth Superior Court to 16 charges, and was sentenced in March 1977 to 10 years in prison.
The convictions included nine counts of breaking and entering and larceny, and five counts of larceny of a vehicle.
At the sentencing hearing for that crime, the judge called Brown "a one-man crime wave."
Brown's co-defendant, Robert Alexander Howell, also was charged with armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting serious injury in connection with the shooting of a cashier at a bread shop.
Reached Saturday at his home in Winston-Salem, Howell said he has not spent any time with Brown since the two were convicted as teen-agers. But Howell, a painter, said he still sees Brown around the city.
"Once I got out, I don't mess with nobody who's going to get me in trouble again," Howell said. "I learned my lesson while I was in there. I don't plan on going back."
He said he and Brown grew up together, and he was not surprised to learn that Brown was a suspect in a murder.
"From the simple fact of the way he lived his life, it wouldn't surprise me at all," Howell said.
After the 1977 conviction, Brown was released on parole in Forsyth County on June 14, 1984, according to N.C. Department of Correction records. Sykes was raped and stabbed to death Aug. 10, 1984.
Brown once escaped from the Forsyth Correctional Center - in September 1988 - and was later charged with felony escape from a state prison, records said.
• Patrick Wilson can be reached at 727-7286 or at pwilson@wsjournal.com
• Phoebe Zerwick can be reached at 727-7291 or at pzerwick@wsjournal.com