Thomas P. Murphy said yesterday his life changed for good the day Deborah Sykes was beaten, raped and stabbed to death.
Sitting in an easy chair during an interview at his home, Murphy said that he will never forget the ordeal that led him to testify in the first-degree murder trial
He had just completed three hours of testimony, which came to a climax when he pointed to Darryl Eugene Hunt as the man he saw with Mrs. Sykes the morning of Aug, 10.
Murphy, the key witness against Hunt, testified Hunt had his arm around Mrs. Sykes; neck when he saw them about 100 feet from where her body later was found.
After dozens of death threats, at least 60 telephone calls in the middle of the night and countless bad dreams, Murphy said he wants to put the last 10 months behind him.
"It's something I'll never be able to walk off and leave," Murphy said. "I've gone through more torture of the mind in the last 10 months than he'll get in the next two to three years."
Murphy describes himself as a born-again Christian and recovered alcoholic. He lives in a working-class neighborhood in the southeast section of town. He asked that his address not be published.
Murphy was driving on West End Boulevard about 6:25 a.m. on his way to work when he saw a black man with his arm around the neck of a white woman. he said that he slowed his car to less than 5 mph and stared at them because it bothers him when black and white people date each other.
The woman did not appear to be in trouble, he said. "If she had just waved her hand or anything, I would have stopped," he said, adding that he had in his car a .44-caliber revolver for protection.
When the woman didn't signal trouble, Murphy said, he assumed they were drunk together. Murphy, who testified he joined the Ku Klux Klan for a year in 1973 during a bout with alcoholism, said he complained alter that day to a co-worker that such a pretty white woman was with a black man.
"It was like a monkey on my back all day long," he said in the interview. "I just knew something was wrong."
Murphy called the police later that day when he heard on a television news break that a woman had been murdered, He recognized the victim's car as one he had seen a woman leaving every day that week.
After weeks of searching through police photographs, Murphy picked out one he said looked familiar. He asked to see the man in person. The man was Darryl Hunt.
"He had that smirky look on his face that morning," Murphy said of the morning Mrs. Sykes was killed. "That's what I was looking for."
When news of Murphy's identification was made public, he said, the threats against him began.
"People would call and threaten to burn my house down," he said. "Or you'd look out the window and see a car sitting out there, or a van driving by real slow. Someone once held a knife to my throat and told me I'd better not testify."
Murphy took steps to make sure his family was safe. But never once did he try to back out as a witness.
The prospect of the nearly $17,000 in reward money might encourage some people to endure the abuse. but Murphy, who contacted police before any reward money was offered, said that he has never discussed it.
"It would buy a lot of Bibles to go overseas," he said. "I wouldn't want to keep it."
Murphy stayed in court yesterday only long enough to testify. He sat with his wife, Susie, through part of the trial on Monday until Mrs. Sykes' mother left sobbing during a description of the attack.
"I wish we could tell her the we're sorry." Mrs. Murphy said. "We don't know what to say or we would tell her ourselves."
"I'll never forgive myself for not stopping," Murphy added. "I feel frustrated. I came within a few inches of stopping, but I didn't."