Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt

by Phoebe Zerwick

Overview

A deeply reported, gripping narrative of injustice, exoneration, and the lifelong impact of incarceration, Beyond Innocence is the poignant saga of one remarkable life that sheds vitally important light on the failures of the American justice system at every level

In June 1985, a young Black man in Winston-Salem, N.C. named Darryl Hunt was falsely convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a white copyeditor at the local paper. Many in the community believed him innocent and crusaded for his release even as subsequent trials and appeals reinforced his sentence. Finally, in 2003, the tireless efforts of his attorney combined with an award-winning series of articles by Phoebe Zerwick in the Winston-Salem Journal led to the DNA evidence that exonerated Hunt. Three years later, the acclaimed documentary, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, made him known across the country and brought his story to audiences around the world.

But Hunt’s story was far from over. As Zerwick poignantly reveals, it is singularly significant in the annals of the miscarriage of justice and for the legacy Hunt ultimately bequeathed. Part true crime drama, part chronicle of a life cut short by systemic racism, Beyond Innocence powerfully illuminates the sustained catastrophe faced by an innocent person in prison and the civil death nearly everyone who has been incarcerated experiences attempting to restart their lives. Freed after nineteen years behind bars, Darryl Hunt became a national advocate for social justice, and his case inspired lasting reforms, among them a law that allows those on death row to appeal their sentence with evidence of racial bias. He was a beacon of hope for so many—until he could no longer bear the burden of what he had endured and took his own life.

Fluidly crafted by a master journalist, Beyond Innocence makes an urgent moral call for an American reckoning with the legacies of racism in the criminal justice system and the human toll of the carceral state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802159380
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	03/14/2023
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Phoebe Zerwick is an award-winning investigative journalist, narrative writer, and college teacher. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, National Geographic, The Nation, Winston-Salem Journal, and Glamour, among other publications. Her work has been recognized by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia University, and the North Carolina Press Association and featured in the HBO documentary The Trials of Darryl Hunt. She is the director of the journalism program at Wake Forest University.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Preface 1

Chapter 1 The First Lie 5

Chapter 2 The Blues Brothers 19

Chapter 3 Darker Than Blue 40

Chapter 4 She Trusted the Police 50

Chapter 5 A Decent Life 56

Chapter 6 A High-Stakes Game 71

Chapter 7 We Were Not Absolutely Sure 81

Chapter 8 A Chamber of Horrors 95

Chapter 9 What in the Fuck Is Going On? 111

Chapter 10 Larry, I Can't Do It 117

Chapter 11 Life's Blood Ran in the Grass 128

Chapter 12 We Will Not Give Up 140

Chapter 13 In This Life or Another 158

Chapter 14 A Closer Look 172

Chapter 15 Without Bitterness 189

Chapter 16 Time for Me to Speak 202

Chapter 17 A Public Face 218

Chapter 18 The Golden Egg 233

Chapter 19 Back in the Swamp 245

Chapter 20 I Worried People 255

Epilogue 271

Timeline 281

Notes 285

Acknowledgments 317

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Beyond Innocence:

Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize

“The story of how what seemed like Darryl Hunt’s happy ending turned out to be a chapter, not an ending, and a testament to how profoundly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can affect prisoners for years after they are released. In a larger and more important sense, it is another reminder of how the United States’ prison-industrial complex has ruined so many men in so many ways, especially Black men . . . Zerwick’s research is exemplary, and the story is a strong one.”—Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A painstaking reexamination of a miscarriage of justice and the devastating aftermath . . . Zerwick uses sharp prose alongside Hunt’s urgent journals to convey his thoughts and establish context . . . This moving, powerful book should lead to deeper research in that area. An engaging, heartbreaking read that cautions society and the justice system to handle exonerees with greater care.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Journalist Zerwick debuts with a moving account of a North Carolina man’s wrongful conviction and incarceration, eventual exoneration, and lingering postprison trauma . . . Richly detailed and lucidly written, this is a harrowing story of racial injustice and the lingering traumas of wrongful imprisonment.”—Publishers Weekly

“Zerwick tracks Hunt’s life as an exoneree and dedicated activist, whose advocacy helped lead to substantive reform for death row inmates until the burden of his trauma led tragically to his taking his own life. Zerwick’s portrait of Hunt humanizes all who are incarcerated, opening out into a well-researched, frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking look at profound issues of equality and justice and how racism and injustice destroy lives.”—Booklist

“The book’s reconstruction of Hunt’s last days is a powerful reminder of incarceration’s effects on the large numbers of Black Americans who have spent time behind bars. Zerwick’s portrait of Hunt is a reminder of the trauma caused by the American justice system and offers an essential narrative of the lasting impacts of incarceration.”—Library Journal

“Beyond Innocence is a powerful story that underscores the many injustices in our judicial system and the huge challenge all ex-prisoners face regaining their lives.”—Albert Woodfox, author of Solitary

“Phoebe Zerwick’s Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt exerts a grip on the reader equal to any true crime nonfiction, but it speaks far beyond that. I knew Darryl Hunt and many in these pages who championed his cause and his causes. I saw Darryl regularly for ten of the 32 years covered by this amazing book. I celebrated his freedom from 19 years of unjust incarceration, his nobility of soul, and his achievements for criminal justice reform. I wept in 2016 when I heard what I believed to be his full sorrow. But Zerwick’s masterful detective work, relentless research, brilliant storytelling, and, more than that, her insights into the dark night and fragile light of the human heart illuminate not only the essential facts but the deepest truths of this profound tragedy. Beyond Innocenceis anything but gooey polemic. But sometimes a single human story cracks open our once familiar worlds in ways that we cannot forget, and compels us either to admit that vicious, intentional injustice speaks for us, or to speak for ourselves in a call to higher ground. This story is an opportunity to rethink our lives that we cannot afford to ignore.”—Timothy B. Tyson, bestselling author of The Blood of Emmett Till and Blood Done Sign My Name

“In Beyond Innocence, Phoebe Zerwick provides a gripping account of the life and death of Darryl Hunt, and in the process explains how the trauma endured by those wrongfully convicted is fundamentally at odds with a happily-ever-after ending. Zerwick’s unflinching, intimate portrait of Hunt, exonerated but never truly free, leaves the reader with a story that is far more complicated and thought-provoking. This book will stay with you.”—Lara Bazelon, author of Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction and professor, University of San Francisco School of Law

“Beyond Innocence is beautifully written and also shocking and disturbing. Phoebe Zerwick has crafted a moving story of one man’s lifelong fight against racial injustice. She has also produced a lacerating indictment of a deeply flawed American justice system that systematically targets young black men.”—David Zucchino, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Wilmington’s Lie

From the Publisher

01/10/2022

Journalist Zerwick debuts with a moving account of a North Carolina man’s wrongful conviction and incarceration, eventual exoneration, and lingering postprison trauma. In 1984, newspaper editor Deborah Sykes, a white woman, was raped and murdered on her way to work at the Winston-Salem Sentinel. After an investigation that hit several dead ends, police charged a 19-year-old Black man, Darryl Hunt, with the crime based on tenuous evidence, including the testimony of a teenage prostitute who later recanted and witness identification by a man with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Though the only witness to the actual attack failed a polygraph and Hunt’s blood type didn’t match samples taken from the crime scene, the nearly all-white jury convicted him. Documenting an appeals process that dragged on for 19 years, Zerwick draws on excerpts from Hunt’s letters and diaries, and profiles activists, clergymen, and lawyers who advocated for his release, which happened in 2004, after DNA evidence implicated a man whom police had discounted as a suspect at the time of the investigation. Amid his own struggles to adjust to life after prison, Hunt began a project to help others with reentry into society, but the work may have exacerbated his own mental health struggles, according to Zerwick, and he committed suicide in 2016 at age 51. Richly detailed and lucidly written, this is a harrowing story of racial injustice and the lingering traumas of wrongful imprisonment. (Mar.) Religion

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2022

The Trials of Darryl Hunt (2006) is a documentary about the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of a Black man for a rape and murder in North Carolina. Hunt spent 20 years behind bars before DNA evidence exonerated him. Zerwick (journalism, Wake Forest Univ.) wrote an eight-part investigation on Hunt in the months before his exoneration in 2003. Here, she examines what happened to Hunt during and after his incarceration while connecting his story to the systematic racism that dominates America's carceral state. Most of the book is dedicated to recounting the crime, the conviction and Hunt's time in prison; throughout, Zerwick includes excerpts from Hunt's journals. The last section of the book focuses on Hunt's work as an advocate for social justice and the days leading up to his death by suicide in 2016. The book's reconstruction of Hunt's last days is a powerful reminder of incarceration's effects on the large numbers of Black Americans who have spent time behind bars. VERDICT Zerwick's portrait of Hunt is a reminder of the trauma caused by the American justice system and offers an essential narrative of the lasting impacts of incarceration.—John Rodzvilla

Library Journal

★ 2021-12-24
A painstaking reexamination of a miscarriage of justice and the devastating aftermath.

When the wrongly convicted walk free, headlines roar and justice seekers cheer, but what happens when the news crews depart? In her debut book, Zerwick, the director of the journalism program at Wake Forest, revisits a story she covered for the Winston-Salem Journal involving the life, arrest, trials, exoneration, and aftermath of Darryl Hunt. At 19, Hunt was a familiar face for local authorities due to a tough childhood and years of hard living. Despite having an alibi, Hunt was accused in the 1984 rape and murder of a White copy editor at the local paper. Despite the accusation, he maintained his innocence throughout. In portions of the retelling, Zerwick uses sharp prose alongside Hunt’s urgent journals to convey his thoughts and establish context. Hunt avoided the death penalty and spent the following two decades working with a devoted community and legal team to prove his innocence. His story garnered national attention in the mid-2000s after HBO released the documentary The Trials of Darryl Hunt. The film ends with Hunt being released and exonerated courtesy of DNA evidence, compensated nearly $2 million in restitution, and beginning his new life, which included the founding of the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice. However, as Zerwick deftly shows, Hunt, like many who have served prison sentences, struggled with reentry into society. Hunt’s untimely death in 2016 remains somewhat shrouded in mystery; hidden substance abuse may have been one culprit, but Zerwick posits that unacknowledged PTSD was a contributing factor. “It shouldn’t be surprising that years of wrongful imprisonment would leave those who suffer such injustice scarred,” she writes, “but the depth of these scars has only recently become a subject of research.” This moving, powerful book should lead to deeper research in that area.

An engaging, heartbreaking read that cautions society and the justice system to handle exonerees with greater care.

Kirkus Reviews