Medill Prof. David Protess and five students are not giving up their search for justice for a man they believe was wrongfully convicted for sexually assaulting a young girl.
Protess and his students had been investigating the arrest of Patrick Sykes in the Girl X case. Sykes, 29, was convicted April 4 on four counts of sexual assault on a then-9-year-old girl in January 1997 in the Cabrini-Green public housing project.
Protess and his students believe the verdict wrongfully robbed Sykes of his freedom and prematurely ended the police search for the actual perpetrator.
“This isn’t just about justice for Patrick Sykes, it’s also about justice for Girl X,” Protess said.
“Team Protess” met the day after Sykes’ conviction and decided they would continue their investigation. Although he could not disclose specific details of the group’s work, Protess said they would be focusing their investigations on a suspect he believes is far more likely than Sykes to have committed the crime.
Medill seniors Jenny Bastian and Christine Oliva spoke to Sykes Friday during visiting hours at the prison. Bastian said that although Sykes always tries to act upbeat around her and the other students, she could tell that his mood had changed after the verdict.
“It was a little awkward at first because when we first went in there we didn’t know what to say to him,” she said. “It was different, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
Bastian and Oliva, along with Medill seniors Diana McCarthy, Tori Jones and Erica Bray will be graduating at the end of the year. But Protess said the investigation would be renewed at the beginning of Fall Quarter with new students if he believed there were still substantial leads.
“Our goal is truth,” Protess said. “Truth isn’t always found quickly, and rarely is it found within the confines of the quarter system.”
McCarthy said the group formed a bond from constantly working together.
“We would always meet and divide up tasks, and there were always at least two people going together,” she said. “Everyone just jumped in and gave their all.”
The students began their investigation at the beginning of Winter Quarter, when they walked into Protess’ classroom and saw the names of four cases on his chalkboard.
The five girls all signed onto the Girl X case and within three weeks began sifting through “more than 10,000 documents,” McCarthy said.
“We learned about the facts of the case … and it opened up avenues that we wanted to investigate ourselves, like alternative suspects,” McCarthy said. “You have to know the background before you can start talking to people, and it gave us the background knowledge we needed for the case.”
After about a week spent pouring over paperwork, the students went to Cabrini-Green to re-enact the scene of the crime. Bastian said the group had to recreate the scene in front of room 304 instead of Sykes’ apartment, 504, because the housing project is being shut down and only the first three floors are open.
Still, Bastian said that being at the scene of the crime made the team skeptical of the state’s claim that Sykes lured Girl X into his apartment after he saw her coming up the stairwell.
“When you stand in his doorway, all you see is brick wall; to the left you see some mesh fencing; to the right you see an extension of the hallway; and you don’t see down the stairwell, which the state claimed Patrick did,” Bastian said.
The group also conducted on-tape interviews with several key figures in the case, including Girl X’s mother, Belinda Bowlar; an alibi witness, Eddie Adams; and an alternative suspect. Bastian said the interviews were difficult because she had to travel to Chicago’s more dangerous parts, but she learned to set aside her fears for the sake of the investigation.
“It was just scary because we obviously didn’t fit in there,” she said. “All I wanted to do was go back to Evanston, but you have to get over it because you know you can’t go back to David and tell him you didn’t get the interview because you were scared of knocking on the door.”
