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No Show: Former detective ignores city's subpoena to testify
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Council Member Vivian Burke and Mayor Allen Joines check the time as they wait for Don Williams to arrive at the city council's committee room.
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Published: December 18, 2008
The Winston-Salem City Council decided yesterday to direct the citizens review committee investigating the Silk Plant Forest case to complete a report within 90 days, and it decided that the city attorney will ask a judge to force a retired police detective to obey a subpoena to testify about his work in the case.
The subpoena vote took place in a closed meeting, after Don Williams, a retired Winston-Salem police detective, ignored a subpoena to testify yesterday. Sources familiar with the subpoena discussions confirmed the decision to ask a judge to enforce it.
City officials and investigators met at 2 p.m. in the city council's committee room prepared to ask Williams questions but aware that he was unlikely to appear. Investigators for the citizens committee had tried to reach Williams several times in recent weeks, with no response. No attorney has contacted the committee on his behalf.
After 15 minutes of waiting and occasionally looking at his watch, Mayor Allen Joines marked Williams' absence for the record by asking if he was in the room.
"It does not appear that he is," Joines said.
Two police officers serving as the sergeants-at-arms looked for Williams in the council chamber and in nearby areas, in case he happened to have lost his way.
The Forsyth County district attorney, Tom Keith, has been in touch with Williams and said that Williams told him last week that he was going to see a lawyer about the subpoena.
Williams was the lead investigator in the case involving the beating of Jill Marker, who was attacked in 1995 at the Silk Plant Forest, a store off Silas Creek Parkway. Marker was pregnant and gave birth to a boy while in a coma. The attack has left her with permanent brain damage and injuries requiring 24-hour care.
The man who was convicted in 1997 of beating Marker, Kalvin Michael Smith, has said he is innocent, and a hearing on his request for a new trial has been set for Jan. 5.
His case has been taken on by the Innocence Project at Duke University Law School and was the subject of a 2004 series in the Winston-Salem Journal that raised questions about the conviction.
Williams has declined the citizens review committee's request for an interview, and last year he also declined an interview for an internal review of the case by Winston-Salem police.
The review committee told the city council that it needs to talk to Williams because of his key role in most decisions in the case, including which suspects to pursue and what information to note in reports.
In the Journal's series in 2004, Williams admitted that he intentionally did not document certain evidence in order to avoid having to give it to Smith's defense attorney.
The review committee does not have the power to subpoena anyone, which is why it turned to the city council to subpoena Williams. The next step for City Attorney Angela Carmon would be to ask a judge to order Williams to obey the subpoena. The judge would then have the power to call Williams to court and could hold him in contempt. That court fight could take several months.
After about an hour of closed discussions, Council Member Dan Besse made a motion to tell the citizens committee to provide a report within 90 days.
Joines said that the council will release a statement later this week outlining the reasons behind both the decision in closed session and Besse's motion.
Joines and Council Member Vivian Burke said after the meeting that the committee could issue an interim report, then add more to the report later. That would allow the committee to add to the report if Williams testifies.
Besse's motion also told the committee that its focus should be on whether police procedures were followed and whether there are changes needed at the police department. That marks a change from how the review committee had interpreted its mission. Committee Chairman Guy Blynn had said at a recent meeting that the committee's mission was broader than a police review and included comprehensive fact-finding.
Blynn said that his position was supported by how the city council had made changes to the mission in March in response to pressure from Smith's supporters. One of the committee's requests to test the paternity of Jill Marker's son had recently raised concerns among council members as outside the committee's mission.
Now the council's decision seems to have narrowed the scope of the committee's report.
"We're looking at them to tell us, ‘Can we have a better police department and what procedures should we be looking at?'" Council Member Robert Clark said, "Not, ‘Is Jill Marker's baby her husband's baby?'"
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
What happened
• Don Williams, a retired Winston-Salem police detective, ignored a subpoena from the Winston-Salem City Council to answer questions prepared by a citizens review committee looking into the Silk Plant Forest case.
• Council members decided in a closed session to ask a judge to order Williams to obey the subpoena.
• The council also told the committee to focus on police procedures and finish a report within 90 days using the information available; updates can be written if Williams testifies later.
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