Thursday, December 25, 2003
The Winston-Salem Police Department is letting the State Bureau of Investigation take over the investigation of the new suspect in the murder of Deborah Sykes.
In a statement released yesterday, Chief Linda Davis said that SBI Director Robin Pendergraft agreed to her request. The agency will assume the investigation into Willard E. Brown, who was charged Monday with murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping. Darryl Hunt, who has been imprisoned since 1985 for Sykes' murder, was released on bond yesterday.
Davis said that the department would assist the SBI as requested.
The decision to bring in the SBI capped a tumultuous few days for the police department that began when Brown was named as a suspect last week by Tom Keith, the Forsyth County district attorney.
Initial comments by Keith suggesting that Brown could be the third suspect in Sykes' murder, a theory long floated by police and prosecutors, set off anger among many Hunt supporters and others long suspicious of faulty police work in the case. A Winston-Salem Journal series last month showed how police used questionable witnesses and tactics to focus on Hunt as a suspect to the exclusion of others. The police investigated the Sykes killing twice, both times coming to the conclusion that Hunt was the prime suspect.
This week, Mayor Allen Joines and several Winston-Salem City Council members had called for the SBI to either take the lead role in the investigation or take it over completely.
SBI officials could not be reached yesterday for comment.
Brown, 43, was also a suspect in a February 1985 rape of a woman employee of the Integon Corp. (now GMAC Insurance) that had similarities to the attack on Sykes. The victim in that case declined to press charges, and prison records mistakenly showed Brown in custody at the time of the Sykes murder when he actually had been released in June 1984.
Davis' statement about Brown said that her department picked him up March 12, 1986, on unrelated outstanding warrants and interviewed him as a possible suspect in the Sykes case. She said that Brown at the time denied any involvement in the Sykes case or others.
Davis said that as part of the investigative process, the department would reopen any old case, as well as review unsolved or similar cases for potential connections. She asked that anyone with information on possible cases call Capt. Jim Tesh, 773-7716.
Davis said she could not comment on what Brown has told authorities because the investigation is continuing.
The judge's release order freeing Hunt indicated that Brown, while being booked after his DNA was matched to a semen sample taken from Sykes, confessed to acting alone in killing her. However, two witnesses reported seeing two black men with Sykes on the street before the attack, while other witnesses reported seeing one attacker.
• Jim Sparks can be reached at 727-7301 or at jsparks@wsjournal.com
• Journal reporter Jessica Guenzel contributed to this report.