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It began with a column in the News & Record by Lorraine Ahearn parroting without question fraudulent claims of "secret police" targeting black officers because of race. Those claims ballooned into a crisis that continues nearly four years later, leaving in its wake a more racially divided city, a devastated police department, careers ruined, lives and fortunes shattered, lawsuits filed.

But as stories of "black books" and surveillance of black community leaders slowly unraveled, as evidence showed investigations of black officers to be legitimate, and promises of major indictments of top police commanders dwindled to a flimsy charge of accessing a computer against a single detective, Scott Sanders, who would be acquitted, Ahearn was reduced last week to passing notes in the courtroom to Jim Coman, North Carolina's top prosecutor, in search of one last victim to support her collapsing reporting about the administration of former Police Chief David Wray.

Despite all of the racial allegations she had reported, Ahearn's lone last victim was a white woman in her 70s, with serious mental problems.

Her name is Peggy Barker. She was not a witness. Despite a search for her over nearly four years by the Greensboro Police Department and the SBI, with all their vast resources, they were unable to locate her.

What supposedly happened to her had nothing to do with the charge against Sanders, but Coman managed to get it into evidence anyway. Coman implied that she had been deprived of her rights by Sanders and compared Sanders to Nazis at the Nuremberg trials who said they only were following orders. In a column Sunday, Feb. 22, Ahearn reported that Barker had been put out of her apartment because of the actions of Sanders and had become homeless, "carrying her belongings in shopping bags."

And this all was due to David Wray's wishes.

This story actually began early in 2003, when Wray was looking for a quiet and peaceful place to live following a separation from his wife. He found a townhouse at King's Arms on Banking Street in northwest Greensboro, only a couple of miles from downtown.

He leased the townhouse from Vernon Powell, a businessman who would become a friend. Powell previously had lived there and kept the townhouse as an investment.

Wray was happy with his choice. His neighbors in the complex were older and friendly, and there were no disturbances. One of the apartments that adjoined his was occupied by a textile sales executive who frequently was gone. The other was vacant. Powell told him that the vacant townhouse was owned by a woman in Irving Park who was planning to move into it eventually, after selling her house.

Six months after moving into the townhouse, Wray was named police chief. Many of his neighbors were aware of it, and some offered congratulations. Wray had been chief for nearly a year when he came home one July day in 2004 and saw what he thought to be a late-model silver Volvo in the parking lot in front of the adjoining townhouse. He later saw lights in the apartment and thought perhaps the owner had moved in. He intended to go over and introduce himself, but he was busy and didn't get around to it.

Two weeks later, he was awakened about 3:30 in the morning by the ringing of his telephone. He thought it must be Watch Operations calling to inform him of a crisis that demanded his attention. Instead, he heard an unfamiliar woman's voice.

"She said she could hear what was going on and she had all the information," Wray recalled. "It was a strange conversation. I was trying to wake up, and she was saying she had all the information and she knew the FBI was there because she could hear them through the wall.

"I said, 'Who is this?'

"She said, 'I'm next door.'

"I said, 'Next door to where?'

"She said she was next door and she wanted to come over and give me the information. I said, 'No. You can't come over here. Ma'am, are you all right?' I couldn't tell whether she was or not. I couldn't make heads or tails of what she was saying. My thought was: Is this a disturbed woman? Is she under duress? Could this be a hostage situation? What's going on over there?"

Wray considered calling 911 to get uniformed officers to the scene, but didn't want to call the police on a neighbor he'd never met without knowing what was happening.

"I told her I would meet her in the courtyard. I said, 'You come out and show me you're OK.'"

Wray hurriedly dressed, put on his police pistol, clipped a badge onto his belt, and went into the courtyard with his radio and flashlight. The woman wasn't there. He waited three or four minutes until the door of the adjoining apartment opened and a woman stepped out. She appeared to be in her mid-60s and was wearing a white bathrobe. He'd never seen her before. In one hand she was carrying a manila envelope stuffed with papers.

"She said, 'I've got all the information right here.'

"I said, 'Ma'am, are you OK? Is there a problem? Is there anybody in the townhouse with you?'

"She just kept saying over and over, 'I've got all the information right here.'

"I said, 'Do you take medication? Is there anyone I can call for you, family, or a friend, because something doesn't seem right.'

"She said she was fine, but she had to get this information to the FBI. I said, 'Ma'am, what information?'

"She waved the envelope. She said, 'This.'"

She was holding it out to me.

"She said, 'It's about David Wray.'

"I said, 'Ma'am, I'm David Wray.'

"She said, 'Oh, my God!'

"She thought I was the FBI. She whirled around and walked purposely back into the house. I said, 'Are you OK?' She didn't respond. She slammed the door."

Wray returned to bed but was unable to sleep. He got up and went to his office early. When two of his assistant chiefs, Randall Brady and Craig Hartley, came in he told them they wouldn't believe what had happened a few hours earlier.

"Brady said, 'What are you going to do?' I said, 'Well, I don't know yet.'"

Not long after that Wray got a call from FBI agent Don Causey. Causey and Wray had grown up in the same area of southern Guilford County and had known each other since Little League days. Causey wanted to know if Wray could come to the FBI office on Stanley Road so they could talk. Wray thought it must be in regard to the Joint Terrorism Task Force and asked Brady to go with him. Brady didn't go into Causey's office. He waited to see if he was needed.

"Don shook his head," Wray recalled. "He said, 'I hate to tell you this but years ago we worked a case and a woman working for a business we were investigating became our informant. She is unstable and although we did use her in that case, she wanted us to use her in other cases and we didn't. She wanted to continue to play a role. She would surface, disappear and resurface over the years, typically indicating something of enormous value on somebody that we should look at.'

"He said, 'We would listen, look and there would be nothing to it.'

"He said, 'Unfortunately she has moved in beside you. I wanted you to know she's made some outrageous allegations about you.'"

Causey told him that the woman's name was Peggy Barker. That was the first time Wray had heard her name. One of her allegations was that Wray was having sex with eight to 10 women every night and she could hear it through the walls.

She had been contacting the FBI for about two weeks, Causey told Wray.

"Don said, 'We've got no interest in this, but we wanted you to know, because she's unstable, and she appears to be stalking you.'"

Causey gave Wray copies of scribbled notes Barker had provided to the FBI. They included Wray's departure and arrival times and license tag numbers taken from vehicles in the parking lot. One of the tag numbers was for Wray's daughter's car. Another was for the vehicle of a police lieutenant who had dropped off some papers one night. Much of the scribbling was indecipherable.

On the way back to headquarters, Wray told Brady what he had learned.

"Brady's thought was, what if she tries to set the place on fire or something," Wray recalled.

Brady remembered asking Wray if the woman had an irrational and unpredictable nature, and he replied that was what he had been told.

"Then we have to go with that," Brady recalled telling him. "We don't know what she will or won't do."

Brady said that Wray told him he would be responsible for this investigation, and it had to include Barker's allegations, wild though they were.

"He said, 'I can't look in any way like I'm influencing it or interfering in it,'" Brady recalled.

When they got back to headquarters, Wray told his secretary, Yvonne McGimpsey, what had happened. At the mention of Barker's name, he recalled, "Yvonne said, 'Oh, Lord have mercy. You know who that is, don't you? She's that lady that moved in beside the police couple and claimed the male was beating the female and she could hear it through the walls. We investigated it several times and never found anything to it.'"

Wray remembered McGimpsey telling him that the investigating officers said Barker had problems, and Internal Affairs had told her not to come back unless she had something more. Wray had a slight memory of the case but hadn't associated it with the name.

Wray also told his executive assistant about what had happened. Matt Lojko was a lieutenant at the time and soon would be promoted to captain. He had been police chief in Smithfield and Reidsville before returning to the Greensboro Police Department. In both towns where he had been chief he had experiences with deranged people who at first seemed reasonable. He knew the troubles they could cause. Lojko said he suggested that Wray go immediately to City Manager Ed Kitchen and tell him everything, so that he would be aware.

Not until later did Lojko realize that that this was the same woman with whom he, too, had an encounter late in 2003, or early in 2004. Barker had come in without an appointment wanting to see the chief. Lojko remembered that she was well dressed and neatly groomed. He offered to assist her to find out what she wanted. Later, he wouldn't remember what her purpose was but he recalled her referring to the FBI.

"As we talked," he wrote in a comment at Joe Guarino's blog, "I found her to be friendly, intelligent and articulate. However, only minutes into the conversation, her thinking became irrational and her demeanor became extremely argumentative and confrontational. She began making farfetched and wild accusations that I knew from my training and experience indicated probable symptoms of a mental disorder. After nearly an hour of speaking with her, I was unable to make any headway. Her disturbing behavior continued to escalate to the point I asked her to leave my office. When she refused to leave after numerous requests, I had to personally escort her from the building under threat of arrest for trespassing. After she left, I never heard from her again."

Later, Lojko and Wray learned that Barker's behavior was known to many in Greensboro. Rhino Times Editor John Hammer and News & Record Managing Editor Ned Cline had similar problems with her. Barker once left a dead houseplant at the front desk of the News & Record for Bob Burchette, an editor who declined to publish something she wanted to get into the paper. With it was a note saying the plant would put a curse on him.

Wray took Lojko's advice and went to see Ed Kitchen that same morning.

"I told Ed everything that had happened," Wray recalled. "He said, 'Sorry, David. Welcome to public life.'

"I told him, 'Here's what I intend to do. I'm going to turn this over to Brady and get intelligence to look into it. I'm going to remove myself from it. If they find any wrongdoing, they're to come to you with it.'"

Part of the mission of the Special Intelligence Division is to investigate threats or harassment against judges and city officials. For sensitive internal cases, Brady depended on Scott Sanders, who had joined Special Intelligence in 2001. The following year, Sanders had been assigned to investigate Lt. James Hinson's involvement with cocaine cartel leader Elton Turnbull. It was Hinson who made public the claim of secret police targeting black officers because of race after finding a tracker on his police vehicle in 2005.

Brady said he suggested that Wray probably shouldn't stay in his townhouse while the investigation was underway, and Wray agreed. Wray called his landlord to let him know what was going on.

"Vernon said, 'Peggy Barker. … go-o-olly.'"

Sanders learned that Barker had moved into the townhouse next to Wray's after being required to leave another apartment complex off Horse Pen Creek Road in northwest Greensboro. That was where she had made false claims about the police couple. According to Brady, Sanders interviewed residents of two apartments at Fountain Manor in north Greensboro where she had lived prior to that. A married couple lived at one of the Fountain Manor apartments, an elderly woman in the other. The three described problems Barker had created there.

Sanders also spoke with the property manager at King's Arms who provided the name of the owner of the apartment adjacent to Wray's where Barker was staying. Sanders spoke with one of owner's grown children who said that Barker was an acquaintance from volunteer work who asked to stay at the townhouse for a few days until she could find another place. Barker would have to leave because the mother was planning to move in shortly, Sanders was told. He never spoke to Barker.

Brady determined that there was no need for further investigation because the problem was going to solve itself. He considered the matter closed. Wray remembered that it was about two weeks before Barker finally left and he returned to the peace and quiet of his townhouse.

Neither Wray nor Brady thought any more about this situation until February 20, 2007, more than a year after City Manager Mitch Johnson locked Wray out of his office and forced his resignation. Brady had just won a federal lawsuit that required the city to pay his retirement.

Brady felt that Johnson retaliated by playing recordings at a City Council meeting that had been made by Sanders during the Barker investigation. He believed Johnson had done this to embarrass him, portray a false image and convince the council to appeal the judgment in his case. Brady had been unaware that Sanders had recorded their conversation when he was assigning him to the case. It was this conversation that Coman introduced into evidence at Sanders' trial.

In her column Sunday, which contained numerous factual errors and assumptions, Ahearn wrote this: "On the audiotape, then-deputy-chief Brady [he was assistant chief at the time] tells Sanders that Barker 'needs to be moved on' even if Sanders must 'make it look like she's done something.'"

Brady did say that. But Wray says that another factor has to be considered: the way that police officers talk to one another privately.

"It can sound bad," he said. "But with this kind of stuff you have to know the context and know the people. If you start taking to the bank every offhand remark, or every moment that a police officer vents about something, you will end up taking cheap shots at people. These same guys that sometimes make statements that sound outrageous are the very guys who do some of the best work, who handle things with great sensitivity and in many cases are doing a lot of very kind and sensitive things in the background.

"People who worked with Brady knew him. Brady is Brady. He speaks in funny ways. It's just Brady. He's talked like that, carried on, for all the years I've known him."

Brady said he was just "cutting up."

"Scott knew I had no serious intention," Brady said, "and I knew he would do the job in the proper way."

Sanders testified to that at the trial.

Johnson also played out-of-context snippets from Sanders' introductory remarks with Barker's former neighbors at Fountain Manor but played none of the interviews themselves about the troubles Barker had caused.

Ahearn wrote that Barker "had been put out of the condo, which she sublet, soon after Sanders paid a visit to the neighbors." Barker was not sub-letting and Sanders questioned none of Wray's neighbors. Ahearn made it appear that Barker became immediately homeless, walking the streets with shopping bags, although Barker left driving a Volvo.

Ahearn further reported that Barker kept a post office box but became fearful because police "frequently came looking for her at the post office" and by 2007 the box rental was unpaid and the mail was being returned. That was three years after the incident involving Wray, and if officers actually were coming frequently to look for her, they were sent under the command of Chief Tim Bellamy so that she could be a witness against Sanders.

Ahearn went on to write: "And even though Sanders repeated in an interview Friday after the trial that he took no action and never found Barker, it is clear from the second tape played at the City Council that he followed through and visited then-chief Wray's neighborhood." That is false. Sanders took no action to oust Barker and didn't visit Wray's neighbors.

At the end of her column, Ahearn asks if her readers are surprised "that this was the plan for dealing with the chief's emotionally disturbed neighbor? Did anyone ever hear of the Guilford Center? Sanctuary House? Did anyone see her wandering Lawndale Avenue? Or wonder where she would go after losing her home?

"As Peggy Barker's story illustrates, there is a difference between violating the law and violating our sense of common decency."

Peggy Barker was not Wray's neighbor, and did not lose her home because of the actions of Sanders, Brady or Wray. She was asked to leave by a host who was allowing her to stay without charge. None of them had any reason to believe that she eventually would become homeless, wandering Lawndale Avenue with her belongings in shopping bags, if indeed she did.

Wray did offer to help her, he said, but he couldn't force her to accept it.

As Ahearn's column illustrates, violating truth also violates our common decency.