Kalvin Michael Smith—convicted in the brutal 1995 beating of Jill Marker at Winston-Salem’s Silk Plant Forest store—is working on yet another appeal.

Court papers filed in this latest appeal reveal that the lead Forsyth County police detective used a racial epithet to describe Smith:

Don Williams told his brother, Ricky Williams, in 2002 that he believed a white man who had been a suspect might have been involved in Marker’s assault Dec. 9, 1995, at the Silk Plant Forest store where she worked but that Smith, who is black, was likely guilty of something. Don Williams was referring to Kenneth Lamoureux, who had been a suspect early during the investigation. Witnesses said Lamoureux had been at the Silk Plant store the night of the attack. Lamoureux, who died in 2011, had a history of violence.

“If the nigger didn’t do this, he’s done something else,” Williams told his brother, according to court papers. Ricky Williams was interviewed by the SBI.

Ricky Williams told the SBI that Don Williams “took the ‘racist’ and shortcut way out of the case,” according to the court papers filed by Smith’s attorneys.

The court papers also reveal that Williams also referred to Smith as a “known crack dealer,” although—according to Smith’s attorney— there has never been any evidence that Smith sold crack cocaine.

Smith is still serving his 29-year sentence for Marker’s assault. His latest effort at appeal was shot down in 2014 when a Forsyth Superior Court judge denied a motion to vacate a previous denial of Smith’s appeal at the time.