Thursday, June 15, 2006
Willard Brown, the man who confessed 21/2 years ago to killing Deborah Sykes in downtown Winston-Salem in 1984, has refused an interview request from a committee reviewing how police investigated the case.
Brown is now serving a sentence of life plus 10 years at Central Prison in Raleigh. The wrong man, Darryl Hunt, was twice convicted in the case before DNA evidence pointed to Brown in late 2003.
Sykes, a newspaper copy editor, was raped and killed on Aug. 10, 1984, on her way to work at The Sentinel, the city's afternoon paper at the time.
The case proved highly divisive over the years, as Hunt's supporters said that police overlooked evidence that would have led to other suspects.
In light of Brown's confession and guilty plea in the case, the committee is reviewing how police did their work and how police procedures have changed.
"More than anybody else, he knows exactly what happened on that morning," said Don Nielsen, the chairman of the Deborah Sykes Administrative Review Committee, said, referring to Brown.
"If he was going to be truthful, it certainly would have given us more information and people to talk to," Nielsen said.
Public defender Pete Clary represented Brown in the Sykes case. Clary said in 2004 that Brown had acted alone.
Brown is the latest in a series of people involved in the case who have refused to speak to investigators assigned to the committee.
Many of the retired police officers involved in the Sykes case and other related cases have refused the committee's interview requests, including a detective who questioned Brown about Sykes' death.
In recent weeks, prison officials relayed the committee's request for an interview with Brown, who refused.
When investigators went to Raleigh to interview Sammy Mitchell, one of Hunt's friends who was charged in Sykes' killing but never tried, they asked Brown again.
Brown again refused, through prison officials, said Lee Garrity, an assistant city manager who oversees the committee.
Garrity and Nielsen said they did not know the details of questions investigators had for Brown.
Garrity declined to make an investigator available yesterday, saying he would not do so until the committee had been briefed about Brown's refusal at tonight's meeting.
"This is a very open and public review, and we will give you access. We're just trying to follow our normal practice," Garrity said.
"Willard Brown is key to many parts of this review, particularly the issues of the other rapes that appear to be related," he said.
A timeline prepared by committee member Jet Hollander shows that four similar rapes, including the one of Sykes, happened in the downtown area in 1984 and 1985.
In one of the cases, the victim said she thought that the rapist was Brown but could not be absolutely certain. No charges were filed in the case
In another case, two months before Sykes' rape and slaying, police destroyed the evidence while the case was still open, a week before Hunt's arrest.
Garrity said he did not know why the evidence was destroyed.
"That timing is unusual," he said.
At tonight's meeting at 6, Warren Sparrow will speak to the committee and answer questions. Sparrow was the district attorney who prosecuted the second trial of Hunt for the killing of Arthur Wilson in 1983. Hunt was acquitted.
The committee also has asked former Police Chief George Sweat to speak with investigators.
Sweat was chief from 1987 to 1999 and is now the secretary of the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He was out of the office yesterday.