Can you imagine what it would be like to be convicted of a crime you didn’t commit? Or to spend two decades in prison serving time for someone else’s crime? Unfortunately, this was a reality for Darryl Hunt, a man convicted of raping and murdering a newspaper reporter back in 1984. This Thursday, HBO will air a documentary, titled ‘The Trials of Darryl Hunt,’ which recounts his story.
Hunt was convicted of raping, sodomizing and stabbing reporter, Deborah Sykes in Winston-Salem, NC back in 1984. There was no physical evidence to prove that Hunt was the murderer but he was convicted nonetheless. He was 19 years old at the time. Ten years went by before a DNA test was done which proved that Hunt did not rape Sykes. While this definitely raised questions about Hunt’s involvement in Sykes’ death, it took another decade and the hard work of Mark Rabil, Hunt’s determined attorney for the truth to come out.
As Hunt was a black man accused of murdering a white woman, the issue of racism in our justice system comes into play during the telling of this story. The documentary digs into the issue of race and whether or not we really are all equal in the eyes of a justice system that is supposed to be colorblind.
The documentary will debut on HBO on THURSDAY, APRIL 26 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.
Check out these clips below:
