September 14, 2002

Anniversary of a crime that justice didn't fail

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

September must be the month for bad news anniversaries. I just got an e-mail about a Sept. 13 anniversary I had forgotten.

The subject line in the e-mail caused a chill down my neck.

Stephen Silhan. I heard that name for the first time in 24 years last summer when I saw it in a local newspaper. I wrote about that strange episode in a column last year, how I happened to take a picture of a young Army sergeant out walking his dog along a lakeshore in the Fayetteville area.

Silhan was out on bond when I met him that day in the fall of 1977. He was awaiting trial 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 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.

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 N.C. 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 in prison.

But a life sentence, as we all know well, doesn't mean life in prison. It really means 20 years, more or less, depending.

On June 25, 2001, the N.C. Parole Commission first 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. She is now a Cumberland County sheriff's detective, assigned to Major Crimes.

Davenport is leading a drive to stop the release of Silhan, urging people to write, call or e-mail 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. But though she has largely conquered the fears that plagued her for years after Silhan's attack, Davenport said she still feels paranoia rise every Sept. 13, the anniversary of the day she was almost murdered. She sent me an e-mail just before this anniversary.

"You'll be pleased to know that Silhan failed to make parole at his hearing this past June. He will be reviewed every June now until he maxes out, I'm guessing," Davenport wrote.

Davenport said Silhan has already served full sentences for his other crimes, but is still serving life for Coates' murder. He first came up for parole in June 2001 for that crime and was denied, and was also denied parole this past June.

But he will be considered again every year in June by the parole board. Davenport's worst nightmare is that he will be released, and she is doing what she can to make sure he stays in prison.

"You're absolutely right about him," she added. "All prison has taught him is how to get away with it if he gets another opportunity."

If you would like to join Davenport in her drive to keep Silhan, now 48, 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, e-mail parole@doc.state.nc.us and urge them not to release Stephen Silhan.