news-record.com

WINSTON-SALEM - City Manager Lee Garrity today announced that he is withdrawing the recently released administrative report concluding a former Winston-Salem detective did not deliberately ignore evidence in his investigation into the 1995 beating of Jill Marker.

"I have recently discovered that not all evidence and documents were audited and that there was an apparent misunderstanding regarding the scope of the review," Garrity said in a written statement. "The review was not as comprehensive as what the City Council and I had intended."

Garrity intends to recommend to the City Council's public safety committee that a new review of the investigation be conducted by the citizen police review board with the assistance from an outside independent investigator.

The report, filed Aug. 14, concluded retired police Detective D.R. Williams did not always follow proper procedures, but that he "did not deliberately ignore evidence or avenues of investigation."

Marker, who was pregnant at the time, was struck 20 times in the head with a blunt object while working at the Silk Plant Forest store in the Silas Creek Mall.

Although she eventually gave birth to a healthy boy, she was in a coma for months and suffered severe physical injuries and mental impairment.

Kalvin Smith is serving a minimum sentence of almost 23 years in prison for the near-fatal beating. He was convicted in 1997.

The city's report said, among other things, that Williams and another detective did not properly document the results and date of a polygraph test

The Duke Law School Innocence Project began reviewing the case in 2003. James Coleman, a faculty adviser with the project, has told city officials he has affidavits from witnesses who testified against Smith at trial that their statements were coerced.

Coleman shared the affidavits with Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith on July 3, according to the report.