... totally off topic ... an amazing and uplifting story ... please share with family and others as you see fit ...
Ken Wilson
A rape victim regrets role as witness
By Helen O'Neill Associated Press, 10/1/2000
Burlington, North Carolina - Jennifer Thompson was the perfect student, perfect daughter, perfect homecoming queen. And when her perfect world was ripped apart, the 22-year-old student became something she could never have imagined.
The perfect witness.
Police had never seen a victim so composed, so sure. Hours after she was raped, Thompson sat in a police station with Detective Mike Gauldin, combing through photos, working up a composite.
She picked out his eyebrows, his nose, his pencil-thin mustache, his photo.
A week later, she sat across a table from six men holding numbered cards. She picked number 5.
''That's my rapist,'' she told Gauldin.
In court, she looked directly into the expressionless face of the suspect and stated: ''He is the man who raped me.''
His name was Ronald Cotton, who had served 18 months in prison for attempted sexual assault. His conduct during the investigation and trial did not help him. He was nervous. He got his dates mixed up. His alibis didn't check out. A piece of foam was missing from his shoe, similar to a piece found at the crime scene.
But it wasn't circumstantial evidence that brought Cotton down. It was Thompson.
With a knife at her throat on that night in July 1984, as her attacker shoved her down on the bed, pinning her hands behind her, Thompson knew exactly what she would do.
She would outsmart her rapist. She would remember everything: his voice, his hair, his leering eyes. She would trick him into turning on a light. She would study his features for scars, tattoos, anything that would help identify him later.
Thompson has told the story many times, but the most powerful was the first time in court. Cotton could feel the jury sympathize. He sympathized himself.
On Jan. 17, 1985, Cotton was sentenced to life in prison.
In prison, Cotton spent his nights writing letters to lawyers, newspapers, anyone who would listen. He spent his days pounding the punching bag. He joined the prison choir. He read the Bible. He tried to believe what his father kept telling him - that someday justice would prevail.
One day, about a year after Cotton was convicted, another man joined him working in the prison kitchen. His name was Bobby Poole. He was serving consecutive life sentences for a series of brutal rapes, and was bragging to other inmates that Cotton was doing some of his time.
Soon, Cotton learned that he had won a second trial. Another woman had been raped just an hour after Thompson: same neighborhood, same kind of attack. Police were sure it was the same man. An appeals court had ruled that evidence relating to the second victim should have been allowed in the first trial.
At the new trial, the witnesses would get a look at Poole, who was subpoenaed by Cotton's lawyer. Finally, Cotton thought, he would be set free.
He had forgotten the power of Jennifer Thompson.
Back on the stand, she was as confident as ever. She looked directly at Poole and she looked directly at Cotton. Fifteen feet away he could feel the hatred in her heart.
Cotton is the man who raped me, she told the jury.
The second victim was less convincing, but she pointed to him, too.
Cotton hung his head. He had no words left inside him, just a burning disbelief. With the judge's permission he sang a song, a lament of innocence penned in his prison cell.
''Decisions I can no longer make, because my future is so unknown to me and that I could no longer take,because during the day I wonder, At night I hurt with fear...''
The court fell silent as Ronald Cotton was sentenced to a second life term.
The knock on the door of her Winston-Salem home came out of the blue. Gauldin hadn't just dropped by casually to say hello. It had been 11 years since the rape. Standing in Thompson's kitchen, Gauldin struggled to break the news.
''Jennifer,'' he said. ''You were wrong. Ronald Cotton didn't rape you. It was Bobby Poole.''
There was new evidence, Gauldin was saying. DNA tests. Scientific proof that had not been available before.
Eleven years of nightmares, of Cotton's face taunting her in the dark. Eleven years of struggling to move on, of building a life with her husband and children. Eleven years of being wrong.
Gauldin tried to comfort her, pointing out that others had also been at fault, including two juries, two judges, detectives, himself. The whole system failed when it condemned Cotton, Gauldin said, but it was about to be set right.
Only an extraordinary sequence of events had made that possible: Cotton's persistence in proclaiming his innocence, a law professor's curiosity, the fact that sophisticated DNA tests could now be used.
The law professor, Richard Rosen of the University of North Carolina, had taken on the case, troubled that a man had been sentenced to life based almost exclusively on eyewitness testimony.
''In so many cases, eyewitnesses can be unreliable,'' Rosen said. ''At that point, I had no idea how strong and compelling Thompson was. I'm not sure any jury in the world would have acquitted him in the face of her testimony.''
For two years after Gauldin's visit, Thompson never stopped feeling ashamed. Then one day, she decided what to do.
Gauldin knew as soon as she called.
''You want to meet Ronald Cotton,'' he said.
''Can you help me?'' she asked.
A few weeks later, she drove 50 miles to a church in the town where she had been raped. She asked her husband and the pastor to leave. Trembling, she opened the door. She had prayed for the strength to face this moment.
''I'm sorry,'' she told Cotton. ''If I spent every day for the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn't come close to what I feel.''
Cotton was calm and quiet. Finally, he spoke.
''I'm not mad at you,'' he said softly. ''I've never been mad at you. I just want you to have a good life.''
For two hours they talked while their families paced outside. She asked him about prison. He asked why she had been so sure.
I don't know, was all she could say. You just looked like the man who raped me.
They talked about the pitfalls of memory, the power of faith, the miracle of DNA. They talked about the tortuous journey that had brought them together. They talked about Bobby Poole. We were both his victims, Cotton said, and Thompson nodded.
As dusk fell, they made their way out of the church. In the parking lot, their families weeping, Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton embraced.
After meeting Cotton, Thompson wrote to Poole in prison and asked if he would meet her.
''I faced you with courage and bravery on that July night,'' she wrote. ''You never asked my permission. Now I ask you to face me.''
If Cotton could forgive her, she could forgive Poole. After all, she reasoned, something must have gone terribly wrong in his life to make him the monster he became.
Poole never responded. He died of cancer in prison this year.
Thompson has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, using her newfound celebrity to talk about the unreliability of testimony. She appears frequently on television talk shows. She is considering writing a book.
She and Cotton talk often. She says he has taught her about forgiveness, and healing, and faith. He has taught her not to feel like a victim anymore.
She has helped him too, lobbying to change laws so that Cotton would be entitled to more than the $5,000 the state offered as compensation. Eventually, Cotton got a settlement of nearly $110,000.
Cotton's first job after his release was with the DNA company that conducted the tests that exonerated him. He now works second-shift for a company that makes insulation. He married a co-worker, and they have a baby girl, Raven.
When she is old enough, Cotton will tell Raven about the 11 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And one day, he will introduce his daughter to Jennifer Thompson.
This story ran on page A18 of the Boston Globe on 10/1/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. |
