Dominique Thorpe

The Crime

At approximately 5:00 p.m. on August 26, 2007, Steve Yarborough was found murdered in his home in Roxboro, North Carolina. His body was found in the bathtub and blood was all over the interior of his home. A large area of smeared blood supported the theory that Yarborough had been stabbed in the living room and dragged to the bathroom. The autopsy concluded that Yarborough died from “multiple stab wounds,” and a rape kit was collected by the medical examiner.

Despite an intensive initial investigation conducted by the Roxboro Police Department, officers did not make any arrests in the immediate aftermath of the murder. However, RPD’s initial investigation did identify numerous suspects in the case, including Dominique Thorpe, Quentin Royster, and Kenneth Snead. Thorpe was interviewed by the NC State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) in 2007 and denied any involvement in the murder, adding that he had never been inside of Yarborough’s home. Royster was also interviewed in 2007, when he, too, denied any involvement in the murder and voluntarily provided a DNA sample to law enforcement. Royster was interviewed again in 2008 when officers falsely told him that his DNA and fingerprints had been found inside Yarborough’s home. Officers continued to lie to Royster by telling him that Thorpe had confessed and incriminated him.

After failing to induce confessions from Thorpe or Royster, or any of the other suspects, RPD considered Yarborough’s murder to be a cold case.  In 2012, in response to pressure from Yarborough’s family members, the case was reopened.

With the addition of incentivized statements from jailhouse informants, Thorpe, Royster, and Snead were indicted and arrested for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in November of 2013. Thorpe went to trial first and, after seeing the outcome, Royster and Snead both took Alford pleas so they could maintain their innocence but plead guilty to avoid a harsher sentence.

The Trial

At trial, the State’s theory was that Thorpe and Royster had gone to Yarborough’s home to perform sexual favors in exchange for money, which they then used to purchase drugs. The State alleged that when Yarborough stopped paying the two men, they became angry, sexually assaulted Yarborough, and then killed him. According to the State’s theory, Yarborough was murdered sometime after 11:30 p.m. on August 25, 2007.

The State offered the testimony of various individuals from the neighborhood who placed Thorpe near Yarborough’s home.  Darrain Torain testified that he heard Thorpe and Royster having a conversation around 11:30 p.m. on August 25th where Royster told Thorpe “I got it. I got it.” and Thorpe responded, “I’m going with you.” Torain then apparently saw the two men walk towards the direction of Yarborough’s home. Kimwon Street testified that he saw Thorpe and Royster sitting on Yarborough’s porch drinking a beer either late that night or early the next morning. Street also told law enforcement that Thorpe told him he went to Yarborough’s to get more money and that Yarborough had “stopped opening his door.” Maurice Wilson testified that he thought he saw Thorpe and Royster leaving Street’s home around midnight on August 25th and that Royster had a pocketknife with him.

The State also heavily relied on the testimony of two jailhouse informants, Everette Walker and Joseph Moore, who testified that Thorpe confessed to them while imprisoned. Walker was incarcerated with Thorpe in 2014 and claimed he heard Thorpe say he made Yarborough engage in both oral sex and anal sex with him, and that afterwards, he had to kill him so as not to leave any witnesses behind. Moore, who was also incarcerated with Thorpe in 2014, testified that Thorpe admitted to killing Yarborough “over drugs and money and things of that nature,” after Yarborough stopped giving Thorpe money to purchase drugs.

Finally, the State offered the testimony of Blanche Smith, who spoke to Detective Hughes in October of 2012 and claimed that during the weekend of Yarborough’s murder, she saw Thorpe standing outside a neighbor’s home holding a bloody Izod shirt. Smith further claimed that she saw Thorpe in New York a couple of months later, and Thorpe told her he needed to get away and admitted that Royster had killed Yarborough.

Thorpe’s trial attorney attempted to attack the credibility of State’s witnesses, most notably Blanche Smith. Smith’s interview with Detective Hughes, an interview that the State placed a significant amount of weight on, came immediately after Smith was arrested for selling drugs. At trial, Smith acknowledged that at the end of her statement to Det. Hughes, she told him that she didn’t want to lose her apartment and expected something in return for her statement. Unsurprisingly, Smith was released from jail eight days later. Furthermore, when Smith began having financial difficulties, she received $1,165 of financial help from RPD along with the $5,000 Governor’s reward. Prior to her testimony in Thorpe’s case, Smith had been convicted of several assaults. On the morning of her testimony, she pled guilty to selling and delivering marijuana, possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and conspiracy. She only received supervised probation for these crimes.

At the conclusion of the trial, Thorpe was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder by a jury comprised of eleven white jurors and one black juror. Thorpe was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Postconviction Center Involvement

When the NCCAI became involved in Thorpe’s case, it identified various innocence “red flags” involved in his conviction. First, one of the most important aspects of the State’s case was Everette Walker’s testimony, which alleged that Thorpe admitted to forcing Yarborough to have both oral and anal sex. To support this theory, the State offered the medical examiner’s testimony regarding the shallow tearing at the corners of Yarborough’s mouth. Despite this testimony, the oral swabs and smears from Yarborough’s rape kit were never tested before trial. The Center obtained postconviction testing of this DNA evidence and the results failed to reveal any of Thorpe’s DNA in either the oral swabs or anal smears. If Thorpe’s trial attorney had obtained testing of this DNA before trial, she would have been able to expose Walker’s testimony as false and undermine the State’s entire theory of the case.

In addition to this, Thorpe’s trial attorney failed to properly investigate and challenge the time of Yarborough’s death, which was an immensely important aspect of the State’s case. As was previously mentioned, the State’s case alleged that Yarborough was murdered after 11:30 p.m. on August 25th. However, when the Center requested that the medical examiner re-review the case and give an estimate of the time of death, the best estimate was that Yarborough died between “18 and 48 hours prior to his body being discovered.” This would mean the latest time that Yarborough could have died would be at 11:00 p.m. on August 25th, which is before many of the State’s witnesses allege they saw Thorpe go towards Yarborough’s home. An independent pathologist also estimated time of death closer to 48 hours prior to discovery of the body.

Thorpe’s trial attorney also failed to challenge another suspect in Yarborough’s murder, Maurice Paylor, on his false testimony. Paylor had been interviewed at least seven times prior to Thorpe’s trial and portions of his statements were inconsistent with each other, with the evidence at the crime scene, and with his trial testimony. Immediately following finding Yarborough’s body in the bathtub, Paylor claimed that he called 911 from Yarborough’s bedroom, but Yarborough’s phone bill shows no calls being made from his home after August 22nd.

Finally, although Thorpe’s co-defendants, Royster and Snead, were not able to testify at Thorpe’s trial because of their looming charges, they both signed affidavits asserting both their innocence and Thorpe’s innocence in the murder of Yarborough. Royster’s affidavit also refutes a key part of Blanche Smith’s testimony, raising further concerns about the truthfulness of her trial testimony. Kimwon Street has also recanted his trial testimony, signing an affidavit stating that he “felt pressured by law enforcement to testify” and that he “told them what [he] thought they wanted to hear.” Street stated that he was told that if he failed to testify against Thorpe, his probation would be revoked.

In response to these findings, the Center filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief on behalf of Thorpe, requesting that the Court vacate Thorpe’s conviction. An evidentiary hearing was held in August 2024 and Thorpe and the Center await a decision.