Deborah Sykes

In August 1984, a young woman named Deborah Sykes was brutally raped and murdered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The police suspected a man named Sammy Mitchell. In an early interview with Darryl Hunt, he claims the police offered him $15,000 to testify that Mitchell killed the girl. Hunt refused to take money to lie about another man and was subsequently arrested for the murder himself. During the trial, a 14-year old self-proclaimed prostitute, a member of the Ku-Klux-Klan and a petty thief were called upon by the prosecution to testify against Darryl Hunt. Despite a lack of evidence in the case, the mostly white jury found Hunt guilty of the murder. Hunt would receive an ally in Larry Little, who began a Darryl Hunt defense fund and raised money for his attorney�s fees. In a second trial, six years later, he was offered the opportunity to be released with time served if he admitted to the murder. He refused and, with an all white jury hearing testimony that simply pulled at their heart strings, found him guilty of murder once again.