Murderer up for parole recalls meeting

M ention the other day of a murderer up for parole in Fayetteville made my ears perk up. Then when I heard the name of the murderer, it gave me a sensation I have heard described "as if someone just stepped on my grave."

Stephen Silhan. When I heard the name, I recalled another time I had that same sensation. I was a reporter-photographer for the Fayetteville Times in the fall of 1977 when I stopped at a local lake to take a photo. A young man was walking his dog around the lake and I shot a view of him walking along the lakeshore. As he got to me, I stopped him and asked him his name, explaining that I had taken his picture for the local paper.

The young man smiled, gave me his name and told me he was a sergeant in the Army at Fort Bragg. The photo ran in the next day's paper and I forgot about Stephen Silhan - at least for a while.

A short while later, an arrest was made in a grisly murder, rape and attempted murder case. When I heard the name, that "somebody stepped on my grave" feeling came over me.

Stephen Silhan. Seems Silhan was out on bond when I saw him that day walking his dog for kidnapping and sex charges committed in September 1976 in Chatham County.

And shortly after I took his picture, on Sept. 13, 1977, Silhan kidnapped two teen-age girls in the woods near Spring Lake. He raped and murdered Mary Jo "Nancy" Coates, 14, and stabbed and left for dead her friend, Barbara Davenport, 16.

But though he had slit Davenport's throat and stabbed her twice in the back with a military assault knife, she managed to stagger out of the woods and collapse on the pavement on Manchester Road. She was flown by helicopter to Womack Army Hospital and survived.

Davenport was the key witness in identifying and prosecuting Silhan, whose trial was moved to Columbus County due to pre-trial publicity - in which I played a small part. In October 1977, Silhan was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes in Chatham County, where he kidnapped a couple fishing on the Cape Fear River, bound and gagged the husband and forced the wife to perform oral sex on him.

In March 1979, Silhan was convicted in Columbus County for the Spring Lake crimes. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Coates. He got an additional life sentence for the rape of Coates, and got 20 years for attempting to murder Davenport.

In 1981, the state Supreme Court overturned Silhan's death sentence and ordered a new trial. He was convicted again of Coates' murder, but this time was sentenced to life.

But a life sentence, as we all know well, doesn't mean life in prison. On June 25, the N.C. Parole Commission reviewed Silhan's case to decide whether he should be considered for release. And the most vocal critic of this process is the one big mistake of Silhan's life of crime - the victim he didn't kill, Barbara Davenport, now Barbara Gomez, a Cumberland County sherrif's detective.

G omez testified at a June 12 hearing of the parole board, but Silhan's crimes against her will not be the focus of the commission when it meets on Monday to consider whether Silhan should go free. Because in the judicial system's odd reasoning, Silhan has already served his 20 years for the attempted murder of Gomez.

But Gomez is leading a drive to stop the release of Silhan, urging people to write, call or email the Parole Commission to protest any consideration to let him go free. She barely survived Silhan's attack, and testified against him as an 85-pound teen kept alive by blended food forced down a tube through her scarred throat which he severed.

She became a sheriff's deputy in 1991, and worked her way up to a detective's role in the Major Crimes division. But though she has largely conquered the fears that plagued her for years after Silhan's attack, Gomez said she stills feel paranoia rise every Sept. 13, the anniversary of the day she was almost murdered.

If you would like to join Barbara Daveport Gomez in her drive to keep Silhan, now 47, behind bars, do as I have done. Call, write or phone the N.C. Parole Commission at 2020 Yonkers Road, 4222 MSC, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-4222, telephone 919-716-3010, email parole@doc.state.nc.us and urge them not to release Stephen Silhan.

If Silhan is released after 24 years in prison, I fear that he will have learned one lesson for sure during his time to reflect on his crimes. Don't leave any witnesses alive. His biggest mistake in his brief life of crime was leaving Barbara Davenport Gomez alive.

I pray he will never be released to get another attempt to "perfect" his murderous skills.