The Attack at the Silk Plant Forest

NAVIGATION

Marker returns to testify in trial

Woman who was severely beaten during robbery may be able to identify her attacker

By Christopher Quinn

JOURNAL REPORTER

WINSTON-SALEM

December 2, 1997

Jill Marker returned to Winston-Salem from Ohio yesterday on a chartered medical flight eight days short of the second anniversary of the robbery and beating that has left her in a wheelchair.

She can't talk. Her left arm is paralyzed, and her body is withered. She has to be fed through a stomach tube, and she breathes with the help of a tracheotomy.

Marker, 36, flew in to testify in the trial of Kalvin Michael Smith, who is charged with robbing Silk Plant Forest, where she worked, and bashing her head into what an emergency medical technician described in the first day of the trial as "mush."

Walter "Bud" Hoisington, Marker's father, said yesterday that his daughter's mind has been catching up to the world that she nearly left in 1995. She knows what is going on around her. She remembers. She can write words or short sentences and nod in answer to questions. Her heart is broken over missing her baby boy, who was still growing inside her when she was assaulted.

Her testimony about who beat her Dec. 9, 1995, is crucial: She is the only witness.

Prosecutor Mary Jean Behan said in her opening statement yesterday in Forsyth Superior Court that Smith, 26, entered Silk Plant Forest in Silas Creek Crossing that night after 8:30. She said that Eugene Littlejohn was with Smith but stood at the door. She told jurors that Littlejohn will testify that Smith walked up to Marker and demanded money.

Behan told the jurors that they will hear how Littlejohn fled as Smith grabbed Marker and dragged her toward the back of the store. Littlejohn was not charged.

Darlene Baxter, a nurse, was shopping that night and went into the store at 8:55 looking for some garland. Sandra Peterson, another shopper, walked in at the same time.

Baxter said she heard a low moan from the back of the store.

"It almost reminded me of a retarded child," she said.

She and Peterson walked back to look. Baxter was chilled by what she saw.

Marker lay partially on a fake tree. Her frosted brown hair was matted in blood. Her face was covered in blood. The back and left side of her skull had been crushed by repeated blows with a heavy object. That object has not been found.

"I wasn't even sure what color she was, what race she was, until I looked at her hands," Baxter said.

Marker was semiconscious.

Baxter said, "She said: `Help me. Help me.' "

Marker tried to sit up. Then as Baxter tried to stanch the flow of blood with paper towels, Marker said she was pregnant.

Marker continued to blurt out short sentences until she reached the hospital, though she did not answer police officers' questions about who did it and who took $295 from the store. It was a question that remained unanswered in police records for 13 months.

Marker fell into a coma. She was in a vegetative state in April 1996 when she delivered a baby boy. Aaron Marker, her husband, moved them to Ohio weeks later to be near family.

She slowly began recovering. Police from Winston-Salem visited her twice and continued working on leads here. Police finally got a break when they say an angry girlfriend of Smith's told them that he knew something about the case.

Smith was charged Jan. 24 with armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. Police say that Smith told them that he was there during the robbery but that he wasn't the one who beat Marker.

However, Behan said that Smith bragged to Littlejohn and two women one night that he had to beat Marker to leave the store.

William M. Speaks Jr., Smith's attorney, told jurors to wait before making up their minds. The police have no physical evidence tying Smith to the scene.

What they have are statements of people who have changed their statements to police several times. And, Speaks said in a motion hearing before the trial, he plans to present evidence that someone else did the beating.

Marker and her parents arrived yesterday afternoon. The flight cost $7,000 and was paid for by the state. Aaron Marker did not come.

Hoisington said that Aaron, who has custody of the child, rarely visits the nursing home where Jill lives. The Hoisingtons have guardianship of Marker.

Tom Keith, the district attorney, said that doctors in Winston-Salem were scheduled to examine Marker yesterday. He said that other injured victims have testified before.

"But this is the most extreme case I can remember," he said.

Keith expects doctors to testify about what Marker's mental capacities are to qualify her to identify her attacker. But Judge Peter M. McHugh will decide whether she testifies. "She's the only person who really knows what happened," Keith said.

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