II.

Born in Ottawa and raised in Oakville, Ont., Twyman was 15 when his father, then a furniture buyer for Sears Canada, moved the family to Winston-Salem, the biggest city in Forsyth County, N.C. Donald Twyman had purchased a furniture shop nearby, and the expanse of well-to-do neighbourhoods with names like Pleasant Garden and Summerfield made sense for a young family.

When Twyman heard of his father’s plans, he thought of the old TV series The Andy Griffith Show, which was set in the idyllic, fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry. While his three older siblings managed to adjust, Twyman floundered. He felt estranged.

“It’s tough to fit in, and then you start trying to fit in,” Twyman explains. “Lots of times you make some bad decisions and pick the wrong people to stick around.”

By his late teens, Twyman was living fast. He had a fascination with high-end cars, and the crew he hung around with liked to party. Before long, they were resorting to petty theft to support the lifestyle. That devolved into greater criminality, and in 1984, while he was still a juvenile, Twyman landed in front of a judge for the first time.

He was convicted of several burglaries, as well as the arson of an empty house, and ordered to begin a 14-year sentence at the Polk Youth Institution, a facility that now houses the state’s first “supermax” unit. There, he met Jason Southard, a fellow juvenile offender who, according to Twyman, became “as close to a friend as you can get in prison.”

Twyman, left, with his brother Kevin in childhood. (Kevin Twyman) Twyman, left, with his brother Kevin in childhood. (Kevin Twyman)

Prosecutors would later allege that the pair plotted their first crimes together while serving time on the same block. At any rate, once they were paroled in 1988, the duo — now both in their mid-20s — got back in touch.

* * *

Jan. 12, 1989, marked the beginning of a spree of burglaries in the tony suburbs of Forsyth and adjacent Guilford County. Police testimony shows the burglars targeted precious metals that could be melted down and sold anonymously to local pawn shops. Sometimes they walked out with a few hundred dollars’ worth of silverware; other times, the loot was valued in the tens of thousands.

Investigators sensed that the homes had all been scoped out before they were hit, since the perpetrators always managed to avoid the owners. Many of the victims were upper-middle class professionals, and as the spree carried on into the spring, pressure on police started to escalate.

A detective working the case instructed all of the pawnshops in both counties to buy up all of the sterling silver that came through the door — and get the license plate of whoever sold it.

On May 15, Jason Southard stepped out of a Mercedes and into a little outfit called The Silver Shop. When police ran his plate, they discovered the luxury sedan was registered to a family business in Winston-Salem called The Colonial Furniture Shop.

Derek Twyman was arrested a few weeks later — as it turned out, police had got to Southard early and cut a deal. He had implicated Twyman in at least 10 burglaries, identifying specific houses and dates to detectives in convincingly granular detail. When officers searched Twyman’s Mercedes, they found his cell phone and flashlights in the trunk, as well as a scanner tuned to police channels.

While Twyman sat in custody, Southard’s story expanded. He and his wife, also implicated in the saga, painted Twyman as a sinister manipulator who’d plied Southard with alcohol and warped his vulnerable mind. Southard insisted that he himself had been a moderating influence in the scheme, even vetoing acts of violence.

“It wasn’t like they were implying,” Twyman recalls now, saying he and Southard did “maybe four or five” burglaries together. In the end, though, Twyman was charged with 54 felonies: 26 counts of second-degree burglary, 20 counts of larceny and eight counts of breaking or entering.

“By the time they came to arrest me, they didn’t want to know anything about nothing. They had their story,” Twyman says. “They had a rich kid from another country that they could pin it on, so it didn’t matter.”

* * *

With Twyman in custody, his family recruited criminal defence attorney John Hatfield, Jr. Hatfield was unequivocal: The state had amassed a formidable case and the only conceivable way Twyman could “salvage” his life was to enter into a plea agreement. Hatfield said the North Carolina parole commission had determined that a carefully crafted plea deal would see him free within 10 years.

“I know that is a long time but it is also a sure-fire way to resolve this problem,” Hatfield wrote in a letter dated Oct. 27, 1989. But by November, the attorney’s tone had grown more urgent. He warned the case was scheduled to be heard by a retired judge with a “reputation for heavy sentencing.”

Then, a glimmer of hope. Hatfield said if Twyman entered into a plea agreement, his case could be heard a few weeks later by a “young, smart, fair and willing to listen” judge named Thomas W. Ross. While Hatfield cautioned that many of the victims “will be personally known to” Ross, he assured Twyman that it wouldn’t amount to a life behind bars.

Still unwilling to plead, Twyman parted ways with Hatfield. But his new counsel wasn’t convinced he should change tack. He advised Twyman to take the deal, do the time and leave prison with enough of his life left to make something of it.

Exhausted, frustrated and running out of options, Twyman resigned himself to a decade behind bars. But what transpired inside the Guilford County courthouse that December was remarkable.

Twyman sat in silence as an assistant district attorney laid out the circumstances of each burglary he was charged for, as well as the details of all his past crimes. Several victims made the drive to Greensboro to give statements, including a local defence lawyer.

"I'm thinking, 'What is this guy talking about?'"

He told the court that his home had been burglarized while he and his family were at church, and that it amounted to a “rape” of their privacy. Then, addressing the judge directly, he requested that Twyman be sentenced “as harshly as the court may possibly do.”

“At this point, I wasn’t even really paying attention to it, to be honest,” Twyman says, reflecting on the day. He assumed his lawyer had his back. “I’m going to get 10 years, then I’m out — that’s what I was relying on.”

But the judge had other plans. Twyman was a “professional criminal” who took part in premeditated offences, and there was no reason to believe that given the chance, he wouldn’t do it again. Citing Twyman’s crimes as a juvenile, a perceived lack of remorse and his apparent lack of interest in helping recover stolen items, Ross sentenced Twyman to 120 years.

“There are times when individuals present such a danger to society that it’s the Court’s obligation to do whatever possible to protect society, and that has to outweigh any other purpose behind sentencing,” Ross said.

Twyman’s mind raced as a sheriff’s deputy took him quietly into custody. The weight of what had just happened had not yet settled on him.

* * *

Four hours later, the deputy suddenly returned. Ross had summoned everyone back to court. He wanted to change the sentence. Twyman thought maybe the judge had had second thoughts and decided to amend the sentence, shortening it to something closer to what his lawyers had anticipated.

Instead, Twyman says, “I go in and find out, he’s giving me 40 more years.”

Ross said that in his six years serving on the state bench, he’d never taken such a step before. “I do it on this occasion only because I feel so strongly about it.”

Twyman’s release date was now 2056.

He was breathless. “I’m thinking, what is this guy talking about? The lawyer, he’s not saying anything. He’s just standing there looking crazy at me.”

In a separate trial some months later, Southard was sentenced to 50 years for his role in the burglaries. (He would be paroled after having served fewer than 20 years.)