Darryl Hunt reflects on his life since he was released from prison

From the time he was released on Dec. 24, 2003, Darryl Hunt was surrounded. Media. Family. Friends. Supporters. And history.

Hunt served nearly 19 years in prison after being accused and twice convicted of one of Winston-Salem's most notorious crimes -- the 1984 rape and murder of newspaper copy editor Deborah Sykes. The case helped divide the city along racial lines, even though it turned out that the man who committed the crime, Williard Brown, was, like Hunt, black.

It had to do with how the case was attacked by the judicial system: the failure by police to pursue other possibilities once Hunt became a suspect, the refusal of prosecutors and judges through the years to consider the mountain of evidence pointing to innocence, including, in 1994, DNA results that showed Hunt was not the man who raped Sykes.

Today, Hunt, 43, has his family -- his wife, April, and his three stepchildren. And his work, the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, which operates out of an office building across from Forsyth Superior Court in downtown Winston-Salem, the heart of the very system that put his life on hold for so long.

He speaks in a slow drawl, and shows a comfort level not as evident when he was first released. The conversation is marked by frequent laughter, in a self-deprecating way, especially when talking about his family and his perception in the community.

One thing is clear during an hourlong interview in which he talks about his five years of freedom. Today, Darryl Hunt is surrounded by peace.

Q. Four years ago, after being free for a year, you mentioned that you were somewhat wary of intimacy. How are your fears, your wariness since?

A. They're still there. It's just an adjustment. But they have gotten better. There's more communication. I think I will always have some fear of closeness.

Q. You also said after being free for a year that your stepkids were somewhat embarrassed by the
attention so you try to downplay it. How are things today?

A. They're a lot better. I attended the kids' school, they love that. They understand now the significance of what I went through and how it impacts their lives. And they love the attention that they get when I show up.

Q. What kind of things do you show up for?

A. I've been to Parkland a couple of times to speak and they actually showed some of the kids the film (The Trials of Darryl Hunt, the award-winning HBO documentary) and I came in to talk about it. And then I go pick them up from school.

Q. One last thing about how you felt a year after release compared with today. In 2004, you mentioned that you craved solitude. Do you feel that you've been able to come out of your shell in the years since or is that just who you are?

A. That's basically who I am. I don't get much solitude now, but when I'm able to, I have at home, my wife and kids, give me back downstairs now … for solitude, meditating. I can get my thoughts together and then we're back to normal.

Q. What are some of your simple pleasures?

A. Being at home, just being at home and sitting around the house. I always picture my grandfather on the weekends when he would be there after working. He would put on his overalls, bib overalls, pitter patter around the house, outside, and so I kind of mimic that. I throw on a straw hat and bib overalls and I have a little dog follow me. And for me that's the joy. I don't have to go anywhere, just being at home and being able to just move around and be free.

Q. Has your wife accepted your mission and who you are?

A. It was difficult at first because the whole expectation was that we just wanted to be free and it was just supposed to be me and her and the kids, but now it's like she's sharing me with the world. And that was kind of hard at first to adjust to and she's come around a lot in that aspect. She understands that I go; she will travel with me sometimes, if I'm not flying too far.

Q. She doesn't like to fly in other words?

A. No, no, no. The furthest we were, we went to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I was numb from her squeezing me. And so on the way back I put her up on the side of her daddy so he would be numb.

Q. You chose to stay in Winston-Salem. Are there any pressures to living here?

A. Well there are some. I don't know if you call them pressures, but sometime you want to be just normal but you can't. It's a constant pull sometimes. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming. But other than that, I couldn't consider living nowhere else. I grew up here so it's a lot of good memories. I was at Salem (College) last week and things pop in your head that you didn't think about at the time. But I actually grew up going through Salem College walking as a kid, going up to the city pond when my grandfather worked at the city. And I'm standing there talking and all these things come back and I remember.

Q. How would you say the response is to your being in Winston-Salem today compared with the early months after being freed? Do you still get responses, positive, negative?

A. Yes. People come up to me every day. Some say they only see me on TV or in the newspaper and when they see me in person it's like "wow." Some people think I don't supposed to eat in places like Burger King or Bojangles. I don't know why, but if I show up in Church's Chicken or something, people are like, "I didn't think I'd meet you in here," and I'm like, "It's where we go."

Q. Do you ever get negative responses from people who still think you are guilty?

A. No. If they do, they don't do it directly to me.

Q. Obviously your life has played out in public … the work of the Darryl Hunt Project, the compensation, the civil settlement. How does that affect the way you interact with people?

A. You get the resentment that some people feel that, not that you didn't deserve it, but if you don't give it away, then you don't deserve it. It's a constant pull. It's hard because everybody assumes that you have this allotment of money that you got sitting in a bank account that you can just give away. And I'm pretty generous. I give a lot of money away, but at the same time I have a family, too, and so it sometimes makes it uncomfortable to make those kinds of decisions. When you say "no," it's like, "Well you got it, we know you got it," and I'm like, "No, I don't have it." That's the, if I can say one bad thing, that would be the one bad thing about having settled and having every dime of your money … everybody in town know exactly how much money you supposed to have.

Q. How and when did the decision come to start the Darryl Hunt Project?

A. When I was in prison I always thought if I was able to get out that I would do something to give back. I didn't know how, I didn't have an idea about the project or anything, but it was just giving back. When I got out, the Darryl Hunt defense committee was still formed and we didn't need it any more, so that gave me an idea to start transferring it over to the Darryl Hunt Project.… When I went to apply for a job and they told me I was missing 19 years on my resume, that made me look at the bigger issue, which was re-entry. I was applying for a job right here in Winston-Salem.

Q. So you actually applied for a job, and were told "What's this 19-year gap?" What kind of job was it?

A. It was actually in re-entry. It was a field that I thought I was well qualified for, and even my sixth-grade schoolteacher, Miss (JoAnn) Goetz, went with me to the interview and we thought we had a real shot, and there was this big gap. So I know if they treated me like this, I could imagine what they treated others who were less fortunate than myself. And so that made me look into studying re-entry problems.

Q. And others who aren't innocent, as you were?

A. Much harder. When you're convicted, you have this tremendous cloud over you that hangs there and it just continues to hang and people won't let that go. You can serve your time, you can be remorseful, whatever, but people will not let it go. They will continue to hold that conviction over you forever, and when you're in that circumstance, you have a problem because you can't find a job, nobody will hire you. I'm fortunate I had a community to support me, but so many people don't. They can't find housing, they can't even go stay with their mothers, grandmothers, so it becomes a big problem.

Q. How much of the project's work is focused on innocence issues and how much on re-entry?

A. I spend a lot of time doing re-entry because there's so many people. You got almost 100 people a month coming back to Winston from prison. So you try to do what you can, and a lot of it is just encouragement. You try to encourage people not to give up. I try not to dress in a suit and tie in my office because I don't want them to feel that I'm above them.

Q. Do some people think you can't understand their position when they get out because you were innocent and they were not?

A. No. People may think that, but the reality is when you're locked up, you locked up. And it doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty, you're still going through the same dynamic. You're treated the same, you're going through the same. The only consolation for myself was I knew I was innocent and that's a little bit harder to accept. … If you are guilty, you can say "Well I know I did this and this is the result of that." But when you can't do that, that's a little bit harder, and people understand that.

Q. So what's the proudest you've been of the project's work?

A. I have a lot of stuff. I'm gonna go just to the elections. Sykes. Lymon Sykes. Sixty-eight years old, first time he ever voted. The proudest moment was just seeing him, getting him a job, being able to check on him every day and know that he's doing great. He's at work (Church's Chicken) every day, he's there early. Even when the doctor told him that he needed to quit because of his back. First job he ever held in his life. And he's proud of it.

Q. How long do people come for the counseling the program offers and other support?

A. They come as long as this door's open. They're still part of the project. That's the thing we try to encourage, because it's about the holistic approach and it's not a one-year cure or a two-year cure. This is a problem that will go on as long as they have a record.

Q. Do you work with agencies to find employment?

A. We work with every agency in town. I go out begging for jobs everywhere. When I'm out, that's what I be doing. Riding around the town, going to talk to somebody. Or I'm going to check on somebody that we do have working. We have people at K&W, and I go eat, just to check on them. And they know I'm coming. Because it's easy to get a job and then everybody say, "OK, you OK," but that's not all of it. They have other issues. They gonna be behind from the beginning, so they trying to figure out how to catch up and we try to encourage them not to take it too fast. Just one step at a time.

Q. When you talk with different groups, what's the key thing you try to get across?

A. Basically it's about hope. It's about faith and it's about forgiveness. And to me that sums up my life. Because hope and faith, you know, you hope for the best, but you have faith in yourself, and if you have faith in yourself, then others will have faith in you. And if you forgive others for what they do to you, then you will be forgiven for whatever you do to others. That's basically it.

Q. It's 15, 20 years from now and you're still involved with this work. Williard Brown walks in the front door. Can you help him?

A. Yeah, yeah. We do what we have to do. You know, my mother was killed when I was 9 and the guy who killed my mother, was involved in getting my mom murdered, walked through the door. We helped him. So ... it's not about someone's feelings. It's about what we do. It's about helping. It's about forgiving. I don't hold no grudges against people. And you know I'm not God, I don't sit in judgment of people; that's God's job, that's not mine. I think mine is just to help.

Q. What's your perception of the state of things in Forsyth County today? From what you can see, how different are police and prosecutors today compared with 1984? Can a Darryl Hunt happen today in Winston-Salem?

A. Oh yeah. Yeah. I would never be that naïve to say that it couldn't happen. Because again we talking about human beings, and I would hope that it wouldn't happen, but it could still happen today. We have grown a lot and changed a lot, and a lot of things have gotten better, but there are still some things that remain in place for this to happen.

Q. Do you have any longer-term goals, hopes, dreams?

A. I hope that the project would be self sustaining and I can be home with my dogs in my overalls, just walking around. I haven't had a vacation since I've been home, so that would be something.

Q. Does it feel like five years have passed for you?

A. No. When Mark (Rabil, Hunt's longtime attorney) called me … I was like, it's five years? It's been five years? Where's it going? It seemed like it was yesterday.

■ Les Gura can be reached at 727-7234 or at lgura@wsjournal.com.

■ Gura was editor of the eight-part Journal series, Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, published in November 2003.

Darryl Hunt: Prison, Court and Compensation

Time in Prison

• September 1984-November 1989
• October 1990-Dec. 24, 2003
• Formally exonerated on Feb. 6, 2004

In the Courts

• Convicted in June 1985 of first-degree murder in stabbing death of Deborah Sykes and sentenced to life in prison.
• N.C. Supreme Court overturns conviction in May 1989, and Hunt is freed on bail in November.
• Convicted at second trial in October 1990.
• DNA testing in October 1994 shows Hunt was not the source of semen found on Sykes.
• Appeals of second conviction are rejected by Forsyth Superior Court, N.C. Supreme Court and 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
• Clemency petition to Gov. Jim Hunt in December 2000 was never acted upon by him or his successor, Gov. Mike Easley.
• Further DNA tests identify a new suspect in Sykes' murder, Williard Brown, who spontaneously confesses to the crime and to having acted alone. Brown pleads guilty to murder, rape and robbery charges in December 2004.