November 19, 2007
District Attorney Don Tisdale didn't like much of anything about the case against Darryl Hunt, though he didn't say so publicly. Privately, he made it clear that the police had relied too heavily on unreliable witnesses to charge Hunt with the murder of Deborah Sykes.
The police hadn't even bothered to check on the background of their chief witness, Thomas Murphy. Had they done so, they would have discovered, as the defense had, that Murphy had briefly been a member of the Ku Klux Klan 10 years earlier. Murphy's near obsession with the case also troubled Tisdale. In a blistering, six-page memo to acting Police Chief Joe Masten on Oct. 19, 1984, Tisdale characterized Murphy as "an eyewitness who felt guilt because he did not stop and help Deborah Sykes."
Johnny Gray presented even more problems as a witness [Gray interview], beginning with the 911 call that he made using the name Sammy Mitchell.
Gray told police that he made the name up and didn't know Mitchell, but Tisdale didn't believe him. "It is imperative that we turn Mr. Gray and have him tell the truth," Tisdale wrote Masten. "It is as preposterous that Mr. Gray could pull Sammy Mitchell's name out of thin air without knowing him as Darryl Hunt could name the next police chief."
The police took some measures to check Gray's credibility. After he came forward, the police department's polygraph examiner tested him twice. The first time, he asked Gray whether he had seen a black man attack Sykes, whether he had reported the attack, and other questions intended to help police figure out whether Gray was being truthful. The second time, the examiner asked whether Gray had killed and raped Sykes and other questions aimed at figuring out whether he might have been involved in the crime himself. Gray passed both tests.
After Gray identified Hunt, police sent him to Charles Lynch, the polygraph examiner with the sheriff's department, for a third test.
Lynch asked Gray whether he told the truth when he identified Hunt as the attacker. Gray answered yes, and Lynch ruled that answer as truthful.
Then he asked Gray two more questions:
• Did you know Hunt before now?
• Did you know Sammy Mitchell before the day of the murder?
Gray answered "no'' to both. Lynch ruled those answers as lies.
"I doubt Darryl Hunt's defense team ever knew I had polygraphed Johnny Gray and that he failed," Lynch said. "What I had was sufficient to raise a red flag.… To this day it's always bothered me that the jury believed a man that I confirmed was lying."
This was an important point. Gray, Mitchell and Hunt all frequented the same drinking spots, and people who knew all three men said at the time that even if Gray didn't know Hunt's name he would have known him by reputation. And if Gray knew the two men, at least by sight, it is not clear why he didn't identify Hunt earlier. Nor is it clear why he mistakenly identified Terry Thomas the first time he came forward to police as a witness to Sykes' murder.
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