McKoy Supporters Ask Officials for Second-Look at Case

Lamont McKoy was convicted in 1990 of the drug-related shooting death of Myron Hailey in Fayetteville. Police found a Honda Accord crashed in some trees off Rowan Street. The car had two bullet holes in the back, and Hailey was dead.

McKoy claims he didn't commit the crime.

Law students at the Duke University Innocence Project are also behind McKoy.

Investigators found no physical evidence linking McKoy to the crime. Instead, jurors convicted him largely based on a police interview in which McKoy said, "I know it" and on witness testimony from Bobby Lee Williams.

On Saturday, Darryl Hunt spoke out for McKoy’s innocence.

Hunt was convicted twice in the 1984 slaying of Deborah Sykes, a newspaper copy editor in Winston-Salem. DNA evidence proved in 1994 that Hunt was not the man who had raped Sykes, but it was not enough to win Hunt a new trial on the murder charge.

He was released from prison only after DNA evidence led to a new suspect, a man who police and the State Bureau of Investigation say acted alone in killing Sykes. Hunt was exonerated in February 2004 and pardoned by Gov. Mike Easley a couple months later.

So far, courts and the district attorney have refused to reconsider McKoy’s case.