Investigators return to Wynn home

By Jason Beck
Staff Writer

Though it’s been more than a month, no arrests have been made in the beating death of Rosemary Wynn. However, the violent killing is still fresh on the minds of investigators with the Hoke County Sheriff’s Department.
Yesterday investigators re-visited the scene of the crime, trying to put together a more accurate idea of what happened on the night of June 4 that left the Hoke County woman dead.
Wynn was found early the next morning by her 10-year-old son. She had been badly beaten and was unconscious in her home on East Lake Ridge Road. She died later in the hospital from massive head injuries.
Inside the home, investigators found signs of a struggle, blood on various items and a bloody roll of paper towels shoved in the trashcan.
Immediately, detectives named Wynn’s husband, Rev. Sam Wynn, pastor of Hollands United Methodist Church in Raleigh, as a person of interest in the case. Still, investigators made no arrests and the pastor was promoted to district superintendent over the Fayetteville district of the United Methodist Church a week after his wife’s murder.
Since then, things have been quiet in the case. That doesn’t mean investigators haven’t been hard at work said Captain John Kivett, the lead detective on the case.
“We are still conducting interviews on the case and still waiting on stuff to come back from the lab,” he said. “We are still very active in the case.”
He said yesterday’s trip back to the home, with District Attorney Kristy Newton, gave investigators a chance to re-examine parts of the house and measure exact distances. The home has been placed back in Mr. Wynn’s possession, but he consented to a search without a warrant.
Kivett said there is more than one person of interest in the case, including Mrs. Wynn’s adult son, Anthony Jackson.
“We have (considered him) all along,” Kivett said. “The son has always been there for us to look at. We went ahead and conducted a polygraph with him.”
Kivett said Jackson was cooperative and came from out of state, where he traveled for his job, to be questioned.
He said investigators are still considering Mr. Wynn too, but aren’t focusing on any one possible scenario.
“I don’t want to get tunnel vision on anything or take anything for granted in the case,” he said. “Any crime scene – you have got to go where the evidence leads you.”
Wynn said sometimes police drama television shows give people a false sense of the difficulty of solving crime.
“I’ve had victims’ families (in other cases) call me in middle of the night and tell me how to collect DNA because they have seen it on CSI,” he said. “CSI has really given people a false lead in some of things we can do and can’t do.
“Sometimes the lab gets us stuff back very quickly, sometimes it can take months to get stuff back from the lab,” he said.
As those close to the victim look for closure and answers about Wynn’s death, Kivett said his department is doing all they can to solve the case.
“Our condolences go out to the family and we aren’t going to rush to judgment on this thing,” he said. “We are going to make an arrest on this thing, but we aren’t to that point yet.”