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Reopening Marker-case probe not ruled out, chief says
He appears to reverse previous pronouncement on Silk Plant Forest report
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Derwin Montgomery (third from left), a candidate for the Winston-Salem City Council, listens to Police Chief Scott Cunningham.
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Published: August 29, 2009
Updated: 08/29/2009 01:30 am
Winston-Salem's police chief, Scott Cunningham, said yesterday that he has not ruled out the possibility that his department could reopen an investigation into the 1995 beating of a clerk at the Silk Plant Forest store.
Cunningham said he has reviewed only a fraction of a report generated by a citizens committee that reviewed the original police investigation into the beating and found numerous flaws in the investigation.
"We have just begun a review of it, and it is literally thousands of pages," he said. "I just don't have enough to say that we're going to reopen the case.… We're just not there yet."
Cunningham said he also has not been briefed by two detectives from the Winston-Salem Police Department who were assigned to help the citizens committee with its investigation.
His remarks yesterday differed from what he had said a day earlier, when he indicated that he had not seen enough new evidence in the committee's report to warrant reopening an investigation.
In their final report, committee members wrote that they had no faith in the police investigation that resulted in the conviction of Kalvin Michael Smith, the man imprisoned in the attack. Separately and earlier, the panel had voted 7-2 in favor of a statement saying that it had not found any credible evidence that Smith was at the scene on the night in question.
Cunningham's statements yesterday came during a news conference called by a student at Winston-Salem State University, Derwin Montgomery, who is running for the East Ward's seat on the Winston-Salem City Council.
Montgomery, a Democrat, called on the council to order a new police investigation into the beating, which left the clerk, Jill Marker, blind and with brain damage. Marker now lives in Ohio and needs 24-hour care. Marker was working as clerk at the Silk Plant Forest off Silas Creek Parkway when she was attacked.
The initial police investigation led to the arrest and conviction of Smith, who has maintained his innocence. Smith is serving 23 to 29 years in prison for the beating.
After a five-part series about the case in 2004 in the Winston-Salem Journal raised questions about the initial police investigation, the city council created the Silk Plant Forest Citizens Review Committee to look into that police work.
The committee spent 18 months examining the police investigation. The panel submitted a preliminary report to the city in March; it submitted a final report to the city council's public-safety committee on Aug. 10. The final report included, among other things, testimony from Don Williams, who was the lead detective in the case.
Williams had resisted testifying before the committee. He eventually testified in front of both the committee and the city council.
The city has not made the full final report public. Information contained in appendices to the report -- including Williams' testimony -- has been redacted because, city attorneys have said, the information is protected by state privacy laws. The city could petition a Superior Court judge to allow the appendices to be released.
Cunningham said yesterday that he wants to review the report in detail to understand the committee's opinions. If his review shows new information, he said, he would reopen the case.
"We don't want someone in jail that is not the right person," he said.
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
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