Friday, April 28, 2006
More than 1,300 people packed the Stevens Center last night to watch a film about a murder and a wrongful conviction that have divided Winston-Salem for more than 20 years.
The near-capacity crowd laughed, applauded and cried during the first showing of The Trials of Darryl Hunt in Winston-Salem.
"Everything that happened to him all these years ... I really wanted to come and see it and be a part," said Darlene Hood, who has lived in Winston-Salem all her life and followed the case. "Over the years, I felt that he had been done an injustice, and he wasn't getting a fair deal here in Winston."
Afterward, people hugged Hunt and asked him to sign copies of their programs.
"I was truly thankful that the people of Winston-Salem came out to see this, because it shows that the community was trying to heal," Hunt said. "This is really awesome."
The screening was a fundraiser for the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice and was sponsored by the RiverRun International Film Festival. Hunt had said earlier that he hoped to set aside the money from yesterday's showing to help pay for a program to help inmates being released from jail.
The movie about Hunt chronicles the stabbing death of Deborah Sykes in August 1984 and the aftermath more than 20 years later.
Sykes was a newspaper copy editor who was raped and killed in a downtown attack. She was white. Hunt is black.
He was convicted for the killing twice, then exonerated in 2004 after DNA evidence linked the crime to Willard E. Brown, who confessed and pleaded guilty.
"This is an important night for our city," Mayor Allen Joines said before the screening, speaking from the stage. "It will probably be a difficult night for our city, but one nonetheless that we need to go through and experience."
The movie had its premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. People who saw the movie last night said that the film showed how the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks.
Bryant McCorkle, 36, grew up in Winston-Salem. He remembers being in elementary school and seeing Larry Little on the television news talking about the case. Little, a former city alderman, had taken up Hunt's cause.
"That stuck with me for 20 years, watching him on television crying," said McCorkle, who later studied under Little at Winston-Salem State University and became a friend of Little's.
McCorkle said that the film showed how the justice system worked unfairly against Hunt, specifically how prosecutors withheld evidence that could have helped Hunt. "You knew, but you couldn't pinpoint it until right now," he said.
"Just seeing it on film... it was emotional for me," said McCorkle's wife, Lisa.
The couple talked about a scene that showed Hunt in court to be exonerated. He turned to face Evelyn Jefferson, Sykes' mother, and told her that he didn't commit the murder, just moments after she told the court that she still believed that he was guilty.
Mickey Andrews, a lawyer in Winston-Salem, came to the movie with friends and his son, Michael, 18.
Andrews, who is white, said he was working with the NAACP when the killing happened and that he has believed in Hunt's innocence from the start. "The guy got railroaded, there was just no doubt about it. It was clear at the time," he said.
Michael Andrews said that the flaws of the prosecution cases were astonishing. "I think that people will be shocked at just all the facts, and just the way that everything was hidden," he said.
Judy Wilburn of Savannah, Ga., who grew up in Winston-Salem, said she was struck by how Hunt could unjustly serve 18 years in prison. "I can't think of any (movie) I've seen that was more powerful," she said.
Many lawyers, politicians and community leaders attended. Little was there, along with longtime supporters of Hunt from the religious community such as Imam Khalid Griggs, the Rev. Carlton Eversley and the Rev. John Mendez.
Police Chief Pat Norris attended, as did Assistant City Manager Lee Garrity and several police officers who are now working with the Deborah Sykes Citizens Administrative Review Committee, which is reviewing the methods police used to investigate the case.
District Attorney Tom Keith also went to the show. His office has handled the case since he took office in 1990, although he was not involved in the two prosecutions of Hunt.
Keith said he thought the movie reflected a bias on the part of the filmmakers, which he said he expected. A note at the end of the movie said that no one from the Winston-Salem Police Department would be interviewed for the movie.
He said the movie failed to show important work done by an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation and a police detective in linking DNA to Brown, but he said that the movie gave a good historical perspective on the case.
"I found it interesting. I was certainly glad I went. I learned a lot," Keith said.