The ''Twin-City Sentinel'' was the name of the afternoon
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
published in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...
. The ''Sentinel''s masthead was dropped in 1985 when operations were absorbed into its sister paper, the morning ''
Winston-Salem Journal''.
''Twin City'' derived from the fact that Winston and Salem began as separate cities.
One of the ''Sentinel''s most popular columns was "Ask SAM," a forum for readers to submit questions. "Ask SAM" debuted in 1966. Bill Williams, the first "Sam," answered readers' questions for over two decades.
When the ''Sentinel'' quit publishing, the column was moved over to the ''Journal''. David Watson took over the column when it began appearing in the ''Journal'' in 1985, and the acronym SAM, which originally stood for "Sentinel Answer Man," was changed to "Straight-Answer Man."
Watson continued writing the column until his death in March 2000. ''Journal'' editor Ronda Bumgardner picked up the column, and the acronym was changed again to "Straight-Answer Ma'am."
Deborah Sykes, a 25-year-old
copy editor
Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual of ...
at ''The Sentinel'', was
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
d,
sodomized, and
stabbed
A stabbing is penetration or rough contact with a sharp or pointed object at close range. ''Stab'' connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others. Stabbing differs fro ...
to death in a
public park a few blocks from the newspaper's offices on the morning of August 10, 1984.
Darryl Hunt
Darryl Hunt (February 24, 1965 – March 13, 2016) was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young whit ...
was convicted of the crime, but cleared in 2004 on
DNA evidence.
JournalNow Special Report
References
External links
Journal Now, the Winston-Salem Journal's Web site
{{NorthCarolina-newspaper-stub
Defunct newspapers published in North Carolina
Mass media in Winston-Salem, North Carolina