March 26, 2018 • 62 mins
In July 1984, an assailant broke into Jennifer Thompson-Cannino’s apartment and sexually assaulted her; later that night, the assailant broke into another apartment and sexually assaulted a second woman. Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, then a 22-year-old college student, made every effort to study the perpetrator’s face while he was assaulting her. Ms. Thompson-Cannino first chose Ronald Cotton as her attacker in a photo lineup. Soon after, she chose him again in a live lineup – she was 100% sure she had the right man. In January 1985, Ronald Cotton was convicted by a jury of one count of rape and one count of burglary. In a second trial, in November 1987, Ronald was convicted of both rapes and two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison plus fifty-four years. Ronald was unsuccessful overturning his conviction in several appeals, but in the spring of 1995, his case was given a major break: the Burlington Police Department turned over all evidence, which included the assailant’s semen for DNA testing, to the defense. When the DNA test results were reported in May 1995, the district attorney and the defense motioned to dismiss all charges. On June 30, 1995, Ronald Cotton was officially cleared of all charges and released from prison after serving over 10 years. In July 1995, the governor of North Carolina officially pardoned him. Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton met for the first time after his exoneration and immediately became good friends. They appear together on *Wrongful Conviction *and travel around the country working to spread the word about wrongful convictions and reforms – especially for eyewitness identification procedures – that can prevent future injustice.
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
America has two point two million people in prison. If
just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
If the system want to take you out of society,
they will do it no matter what laws they have
to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
they're breaking the lord.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
of a crime that I did not commit, and then
hear my family break down behind me and not be
able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
crushing weight that was.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
A lot of times we look and we see something
happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said,
that could never happen to me, But.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
They can. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful
(01:16):
Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today's episode is one of a
kind because I have two people here who are truly
one of a kind, both individually and together.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Their story begins in nineteen eighty four, when Jennifer was
a college student in North Carolina. A man broke into
her apartment.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Even as she was being raped. Jennifer summoned the strength
to study her attacker. She tried to memorize his face,
his eyes, his hair.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Jennifer eventually escaped, eventually made her way to the police,
where she used that image burned in her mind for
an artist to create this sketch. That guy, she says
she was one hundred percent sure about, was Ronald Cotton.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Ronald Cotton was twenty two years old and worked at
a seafood restaurant near Jennifer's home.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Ronald went to trial Jennifer again I d'd him in court.
It took a jury four hours to convict him, and
a judge sentenced him till life. Eleven years went by.
Cotton maintained his innocence.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Scientists were able to isolate a tiny fragment of sperm
that they could test. The results confirmed what he had
been saying all along. The DNA did not match. On
June thirtieth, nineteen ninety five, Ronald Cotton walked out of
the Alamance County Courthouse a freeman.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Without further ado. Ronald Cotton, Welcome to rafel conviction.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Thank you pleasure to be here today.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And with him is Jennifer Thompson. Welcome to raful conviction.
Speaker 7 (02:45):
Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Let's go back to the beginning first of all, but
talking about North Carolina and Jennifer's that where you grew up.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
Yes, yes, I grew up in Winston Sale, North Carolina.
But the crime happened in Burlington, North Carolina when I
was a college student.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And of course it's a client that Ronald was wrongfully
convicted of. But at the time it seemed like an
open and shutcase. And that's one of the things that
makes this story so important. Again, Let's go back to
that time. You were a twenty two year old girl
becoming a woman. You sort of had the world at
(03:23):
your feet, so to speak, right, and everything to look
forward to until one horrible night. Yes, and can you
tell us about that night and how this all started?
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Sure? Sure, I had gone to bed on July twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty four alone. I had had a headache that evening,
so my boyfriend that I was dating at the time,
we were talking about getting married, took me home. I
went to sleep around nine o'clock and didn't really hear
anything that was going on in the community. There was
police kind of circling the neighborhood. They were looking for
(03:55):
someone who had attempted to break into a neighbor's house.
We know now that they couldn't find him because he
was hiding out in my apartment. So around three am
on July twenty ninth, I heard a noise in the bedroom,
like feet moving across the carpet. Of course, I lived alone,
and as I kind of woke up and that in
between place of being awake and asleep, I saw the
(04:18):
top of a person's head beside my mattress and I
quickly asked, who was that? Who's there? And a man
jumped up on my bed. I screamed. He covered my
mouth with a gloved hand and put a knife to
the left side of my throat and told me to
shut up. He was going to kill me.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It's literally a horror movie like this.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
Oh yeah, it's a horror movie. There's several things going on, right,
I mean, you're trying to figure out what's happening. It's
that that place where you're you're wondering if this is
a dream or this is really happening, and then you
realize that you are in terrible danger. I knew, I
knew that he was going to rate me. That was
very clear. But what you don't know, no survivor ever knows,
(04:58):
is was he going to kill me? And I honestly
believe that I'd probably not live, that he would slip
my throat, that he would, you know, beat me. And
you start wondering in those moments, how quickly will I
be able to die? And while I feel it as
I'm dying, will it be painful? Will it you know?
Will it just be quick and over with? And you
start thinking about your parents, You start thinking about your future,
(05:20):
You start thinking about the things that you're going to miss,
and you you know, the things you wish you had said,
and that was what was happening, and that you know
that moment when when you realize that this could be
the last thing that ever touches your skin.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Be cliche about your whole life lashing before your eyes,
It's really true, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
It's really true. It's really true.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
And I know you've spoken about how you at that
moment you made a commitment to do everything you could
not only to survive, but to memorize every detail of
your assailant, your attacker, your your torturer, so that you
could identify him. I mean that's some very amazingly sort
(06:08):
of clear thinking at a time of utmost terror. Right,
you were a clear eyed college student. You weren't high
or stoned, you hadn't been out drinking that night. You
were perfect for this particular task that now lay in
(06:28):
front of you. When this attack finally ended, And how
long did it go on for?
Speaker 7 (06:33):
By the way, well, from the beginning of when he
woke me up to when I was able to escape
was probably around twenty minutes. The assault lasted probably five
and I was able to talk him off of me
after part of the assault had happened, because I knew
that I needed to find a way to escape. But
(06:53):
during that time, when I was trying to figure out
a plan, I was able to stand close to him,
to gauge his height, to gauge his weight, to remember
his clothing. I mean, everything became important to me that night.
And I'm glad you said task because that's exactly what
was happening in my head. I was very task driven,
I mean, a survive, find a way to live and
(07:13):
be watch him rotten hell for the rest of his life.
So I was making a very concerted effort to pay
attention to everything even listening to his voice as he
began to talk to me, trying to pick up any
details that he might you know, kind of drop, and
I could remember in getting myself into different positions of light.
It was all, you know, part of that need to survive,
(07:35):
and that task gave me that need and will to
survive until I was able to escape after about twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You made this amazing commitment to this process right when
I think most people would have just been focused on
getting out of there. Right, and if this wasn't enough
of a horror movie scenario, your sailing had cut the
phone line as well. Right, He had.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
Cut the phone line. He had been in my apartment
for hours, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer out of my refrigerator.
He'd stolen money out of my wallet. He'd even gone
through a photo album and taken photographs of me out
and actually asked permission. He said, I hope you don't mind,
but I took some of the photographs of you to keep.
I mean, it was it was a mental, physical torture,
(08:24):
and you know, it was sexual assault and violence. It
is a forever thing. And he changed me that night
in ways that I that you know, the girl was
just the girl died that night. She she was gone.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You did manage to escape, obviously and run down the road,
which was a very brave thing to do, not knowing
you know, he could have come after you, and he
did come after me.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
He chased me through the.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Dark, unreal. But you out ran him. Is that basically
how to come down?
Speaker 7 (09:07):
I outran. The trick for me was I knew I
had to get to light, and I knew he wouldn't
come under light with me. So I found a carport
that was on at a house that I didn't know
who lived there. I just kind of prayed that people
were there, but I knew he wouldn't come underneath that
carport because if someone was home, they would see him.
So that kept him away from me. As I banged
(09:28):
on the door, and fortunately the husband and wife and
the family were there, and the woman recognized me. She
was a professor at the college I was attending. I
didn't take any of her classes, but she had seen
me on campus and they let me in and basically
saved my life.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Well, what a story I have any words? Now, Ronald,
let me turn to you for a second. So did
you live in the same town I did yes. And
in the days and weeks prior to your arrest, were
you aware of this was this big local news?
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Well, I guess it was. The week before I got arrested.
Me and my brother were standing on the Sweet corner
and I let a newspaper, local newspaper down and in
the rapper. I pulled it out the rapper on the
front page and there was this SketchUp guy and it
described him and showing a picture of him and instruction
(10:26):
that he committed a crime upon this female and it
was Jennifer. I didn't know Jennifer, you know. I just
read the article and I told my brother then that
I don't know who the guy is. But when they
get him, I said, he's through, you know, he's done.
And uh. Well, that following Monday, I went home from
not staying in the hotel with my girlfriend, and my
(10:47):
mother and boyfriend told me as I approached the door
that the police had been looking for me, and I
went down to find out for that particular crime.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Now, prior to this nightmare unfolding in your life, how
was your life before that? How old were you?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
I was about the same age. Well, I had been
working at local restaurants and you know, seafood places and uh.
And at the particular moment in the time, I was
not working. I was unemployed. I was in the process
I building that application here and there, you know, trying
to become employed.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
But that particular time, I had been in the fast
lane running the bars. And you know, I had quit
school and and I was working. I was just enjoying
life in general. Once my mother boyfriend instructed me that
the cops were looking for me, I had walked inside
the apartment. I know. It was a paper there on
a television. It had named on it. So I took
(11:48):
the paper. I read it, and instruction on it was
how this individual had entered the Stompson apartment and committed
to scrime upon her. And I said, no, they got
the wrong guy. And some of my mother boyfriend said, well,
you all gonna get it straightened out. And so I
walked outside and I looked across the road and I
noticed my neighbor Patricia was standing on the front board sweeping,
(12:11):
and I walked over and asked her to bought her
car to drive down the police apartment and see what's
going on in this matter. I said, well, I take
my sister Tuoty with me just in case they locked
me up, and that way she can bring your car back.
So on our way there, we buried off and went
by my girlfriend Teresa's place, and she come running to
the car and crying, holling Ryan and Ron the police
(12:33):
been over here looking for you, saying that you rate
this woman. And she said, I know you didn't. I said, no,
I did not. I said, baby, we're all getting ready
to go to the police department right now and trying
to get this minter taken care of. So I want
to ride. So we all hopped in the car and
went down and pulled in the parking lot. I exited
the car. I was approaching the police apartment and I
(12:53):
looked up. You know, it was about two three stories high,
and the older cops that was I saw him looking
at the window. Rush away from the wonder and run
downstairs and met me at the door. And out the
door pops Mike Golden, and uh, he saidthing detected, Mike Goldan.
I said, yes, I heard you. I've been looking for
me for a crime in the community that I need committed.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
He said, well, come on inside and let's talk. About it,
and uh, you know, trying to get this thing worked out.
So I went inside and the alibi that I gave
them was totally different, because you know, I parted a
lot and I wasn't keeping up with everything.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
So how long after the actual crime was this taking place?
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Augustry? First?
Speaker 7 (13:32):
Three days?
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Oh, sub short time.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Augustr first around about twelve thirty, and we went upstairs
and they began to ask me a question about Jennifer.
You want They ended, I want in this woman apartment,
committed all the acts un her, and I said, I
kept telling him, no, I did not. I said, my
reason for coming down here, for trying to get this
matter taken care of. And then the police chief he
(13:55):
told me that, yeah, I took a flashlight and held
it in a woman's facing rape, which I was I said,
I convict him. Happened that night as well. I told him, Noah,
I said, you got me wrong. You know I did
not commit this crime. He said yeah, he said, you
think you missed the big stuff going around town swim
white women. I said, sir, you're totally wrong. I did
(14:15):
not commit these crimes. Then they was instructed to take
me in a room and lock me up, you know,
photograph me, fangle print me, and they took me down
to that Damans County jail, put mine one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars bail.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And there was no way you could post that.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
No, I was there ontil due date.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
A trial actually didn't walk out for eleven years. Yes,
I mean that night you spent in the motel was
the last night you spent as a free man. Yes,
until this whole thing was finally resolved all those years later. So, Jennifer,
(14:57):
you had now seen his picture see Royn's picture in
a photo array, and you had identified him, and now
they had him under arrest, so you must have felt
a huge sense of relief I did.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
I mean, there had been another rape immediately after mine,
and we knew it was the same person. An hour later,
a mile down the road, there's another woman who's assaulted,
and I felt that we had a serial rapist in
the community and he needed to be removed. So yes,
I thought a huge sense of relief after I knew
that he had been arrested and of course would be
(15:34):
held over for probable cause and we would go to trial,
which became a next task.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
How did they know that it was the same person.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
It was a description of the clothing. Both of us
had said that the person who had attacked us had
had on a navy blue shirt with three white stripes
that went along as biceps. He had on khaki tight pants.
He had white gloves that were knit. I mean, both
of us had the same exact description. And as he
was running from the second rape survivor, police were being called,
(16:05):
and he actually passed the police, so there was a
police that actually got a short glimpse of the assailants,
so we knew it was the same person. It was
the same person who had attempted to break into the
woman before me, because she had said the same thing
and arm was coming through her door, blew shirt with
white stripes, nick gloves. She just happened to be awake
and called the police. So he never assaulted the first woman.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
The other woman who was raped, Was she involved in
this process in any way? Did they show her the
same photo array and if so, did she identify ron
as well?
Speaker 7 (16:40):
They did show her the same array, and she was
much older than me. And during her assault, he hit
her and bitter and put a flashlight in her eyes
and put a pillow on her face when he raped her,
So she was not able to get the same kind
of description and details that I was able to get.
And so when she went to the photographic lineup and
physical lineup, she wasn't sure. She said that I think
(17:03):
it's number four, but it could be number five. And
so the district attorney made the decision to not try
the cases together, that they would only try my case
because basically they had a better conviction with just my identification.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right again, yours was perfect, seemingly right right.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
I literally was called the perfect witness.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, so you're in prison. You're getting some sleep now,
hopefully by not really, where were you staying, by the way,
when this rapist was still on the loose.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
I was staying about three miles off campus in a
condominium complex.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
But you didn't stay in your own apartment after this?
Speaker 7 (17:38):
Oh no, I never returned, just only for my things.
And you know, again, the thing about being an assault
survivor is when when you're broken, like I was broken,
you can't ever return to that place that you were before.
And I talk to people, your lens that you look
at through the world becomes distorted and everything you choose
(18:01):
becomes seen through that distortion. Your place in the world
is now distorted. What value do I have?
Speaker 6 (18:08):
You know?
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Where do you go from here? Because who you were
before is no longer an option and it's now trying
to recreate this new person. But you have no support.
So people didn't want to hang out with me. My
family wouldn't talk to me about it. My boyfriend said
he just couldn't handle it, so he broke up with me.
I mean, literally everything in my world was gone, and
(18:33):
your task now with trying to somehow recover. And I
use that like with a big sigh, because it is
a forever recovery. It's just as long as you live,
you're still in recovery.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It's hard for me to adam how those particular people
who were so close and intimate with you made exactly
the wrong choice ron back to you. So you are
in crazyland now, right because you can't possibly understand I
imagine why this is happening. And now all of a sudden,
you find yourself in the situation that you had just
(19:09):
been discussing with your brother, right, you had just predicted
your own fate actually right, because you had said, whoever
they get well of this guy's going down whatever, right,
that's right, and now it's you. The day of the
trial comes. How long had you been held by then?
Speaker 6 (19:23):
About four months?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Four months, so you had been in for quite a while.
And the jail. I don't know how that jail was,
but we know that a lot of the jails in
America are even worse and even more dangerous and scary
than the maximum security prisons. Was this jail one of those?
Speaker 6 (19:40):
I wasn't one of those. Just a lot of guys
talking jump and you know, if you wanted to make
a stand, you know, you took a chance, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So, Jennifer back to you. So the day of the
trial comes, you're there hoping to get some closure, right.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Well yeah, closure is such an interesting part. Well yeah,
I mean you're looking for justice, is what you're looking for.
And that's what I was looking for. I was looking
for him to be held responsible for what he had
done to not just me, but the other woman who
wasn't going to be able to tell her story and
other women who could never find justice. So it was
like kind of this thing I needed, I really needed
(20:17):
it to move to the next place of my life.
And the trial was over, two weeks long.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Wow, Yeah, that's a long trial. I'm actually surprised it
was that long. But by now you had identified ron
in a photo array and in a lineup, and it's
important to highlight the fact that he was the only
person that was featured in both the photo array and
the lineup that is correct, which is obviously going to
(20:43):
have some impact on your perception, your memory, right.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
And of course what we know now is that the
perpetrator was never in any of the lineups.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So it seems like they did what they could in
a very imperfect system to try to be in harshall.
Was that accurate?
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Not?
Speaker 7 (21:02):
Really. They had thought before I went down to do
the photographic lineup, they had believed that Ronald Cotton had
actually committed these crimes. So during the first lineup, which
was the photographic lineup and what they call six pack,
and I had been given some instructions to take my time,
not feel compelled to choose anyone, which was pretty modern
(21:22):
thinking in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Eighty four, right, that's what I was referraing.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Yeah, but when I picked Ronald out of the photographs,
they did tell me, good job. That's who we thought
it was. Of course, what we know now is that
just gave my certainty that confirmation I needed, and boy,
my certainty went out the roof once they said that
to me, Ronald Cotton, that photo became the rapist.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
And we were dealing in this case with a cross
racial identification, which we know are the least reliable of
all the different forms of I would identification. It's been
proven in every study that's ever been done just how
unreliable I woulds identification is. And we know that it
(22:09):
goes up in cases in which either the victim or
the witness is in mortal danger, which you certainly were.
Of course, it triggers all sorts of chemical reactions in
your brain, which in turn caused your memory to play
tricks on you. It's odd, right, you were the perfect witness,
(22:31):
but it was also the perfect storm because you had
this particular case, had all of those factors right, You
had again the cross racial identification problem, you had the
mortal fear problem, for lack of better the weapon focus, right,
that's the best term for it. And so what should
have been really an open and shut case was anything but.
(22:54):
But we didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Now, we thought we were doing things best practices at
that time in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
We know now that it all went horribly wrong, and
so you now had identified him in the photo array
and in the lineup. You were given a positive reinforcement
in both of those cases. Now the day the trial
comes and you're asked to identify the perpetrator in the courtroom, Yeah,
(23:26):
that's great.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
I was on the stand for two days Jesus having
to just over and over and over again talk about
what had been done to me, well literally over and
over again, in front of my family, in front of strangers.
I mean, it was really awful. And then the rape survivor,
so the defense attorney is beginning to assassinate my character,
basically blaming me for inviting my own rape because I
(23:49):
had the audacity to go to bed that night in
just my underwear, and so didn't I know that's what
led people to rape women. And so there's a lot
of things happening.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
What are you supposed to wear a coat of armor?
Speaker 7 (24:02):
Well that was my point. My point to the defense
attorney was basically, so if I had gone to bed
in a sweatsuit, and he would have looked at me
and said at I don't think, so it's just too
much trouble, is that what you're saying to me? And
of course it shut that down immediately. But I was
so angry. I was so angry that somehow me going
(24:22):
to bed as a twenty two year old woman and
my underwear had been the cost of my own sexual assault. Yeah,
that's not And of course it didn't help ron honestly
with a jury. The jury was really angry at the
defense attorney for even suggesting that. So there were some
things that.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Happened that must have made you feel uncomfortable to ron
to have that line of questioning. I mean, here's this
woman that you've never met, that you don't know what
happened or why you're in this situation that you're in.
You're four months and five months in jail, whatever it was,
So your head's fitting around in all different directions, right,
and now you know your own team is acting in
(25:03):
a way that I can't imagine you would ever act.
The whole situation is just wrong, and ultimately you're asked
to make a positive identification. And what happens.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
I looked straight over at Ronald and I said, he's
sitting at the defense table as the man who raped me,
and the jury deliberated four hours and came back with,
of course, a guilty verdict on all charges.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And what was that moment, like Ron, I mean, that
had to be the worst moment of your life.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
I just couldn't believe it. You know, I just shook
my head. You know, I looked at my atturneys and
I looked I recollect the judge and the foreman and
the jewels and Kurt reporter, and once a verdict was
read from the jeurid form, I just I said, no,
that's what I'm saying to myself. I said, they have
(25:51):
it wrong. And so the judge I said, if I
had anything to say to the court, and I said yes.
I told him that I would like to have this
permission to sing a song that I have written in jail.
And so I stood up and I sang the song.
And as I was singing that song, you know my
turn is, you know, they saying with the head dropped,
(26:11):
you know, as if though I put him the shame.
But I didn't care anything at that particular time because
I had just been found guilty for crime or did
not commit and.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
You sang a song. Can you sing it now.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Yeah, if I can remember word for word, I'll try
to anyway. It was a boem written to my girlfriend,
but I changed the words and wrote a gospel song. Whatever,
and they want something like this. The sit insa I
can know no longer me because my future so one
down to me.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And then.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
I could no longer say he.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
Because during that day I wonder at not a heard
with fear call his name, suddenly tears appear.
Speaker 9 (27:04):
Until God came in my life. Until God came in
my life, I was often alone and people I really conface.
I just didn't know what to do before I feel
(27:25):
so wild a place. How many time as I say
this before you agree, there's no other God whoever loved
of you, not quite as much as Lord God. Believe me, everyone,
(27:46):
because God will change your life. And that is a fire,
because I will pave of night and day until you.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
God, oh bye.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
To me.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Yeah yeah, hey, all those words too. I just don't
sound like that.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Oh God, that's beautiful. Your life is literally coming to
an end, and then you get up and sing a
damn song. Unbelievable. Now things start to get crazier because
you're in prison. What steps did you take and what
(28:35):
hope did you have?
Speaker 6 (28:37):
Well, I had uh entered the prison system with life
in fifty four year prison term. Immediately they pointed me
a guidance counselor in the prison and I went in
and met him, took tests, talked with him about my
being in prison, and uh, you know the crime that
I was in there for, but he said, we're not
(28:58):
here for that, We're here to keep So you know,
I know it was a lost couse I was fighting,
and so it was all upon me to do what
I had to do to survive, and that was to
stay in contact with my trial lawyers, which still continued
to fight my case on a pill.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So you actually had a competent attorney in this case. Yes,
it would have needed OJ's dream team, and you probably
might have still gotten convicted. I don't I don't know
that there's a lawyer on this planet that could have
gotten you out of this.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Now, I was fighting a lost court, but you know
it was a battle field that I was in that
I couldn't give up. Uh, you know. Immediately, you know,
I put myself in the school, I buried the central
prison and start filing motions from inside the prison and
which didn't do any good at all. And so one
day I was on my way to the gym to
(29:43):
work out, and I recognized this inmate being escorted inside
the prison, and he looked very familiar to me, So
I started thinking. I said, I saw this guy before,
you know, as I'm walking, and I went on continued
that process of working out, and I went back to
my dorm that night. You know, they had him finished
(30:05):
processing him inside the prison, and I went to him
the next day as I recognized him from being outside
in the recreation yard. I was playing a handball game
I was in and immediately I had someone to come
and relieve me from that game, and I made an
approach on him and I asked him where was he from,
and he told me he was from Burleton of Cardine also,
(30:26):
and I said, well, you look like they're drawing up
from part of the schedule rap that was committed in
Burlton that I'm in prison for. That you commit the crime,
And immediately he told me no, he did not, but
you just had a feeling. Yes, I had to feel,
because he resembled to drawing. You know, I had to
cut it out the local newspaper because I had my
hands from the newspaper in the count of jail, and
(30:48):
I cut it out and put it in my possession.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Now, finally destiny. So that throws you a bone, right,
because this guy, if he hadn't come to your prison,
you wouldn't have had any idea if you had to
cross paths with him at that particular time, you might
not have had that same feeling, that instinct that you had.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
Right, that is correct.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But here he goes and he denies it. You have
this instinct, this feeling. It turns out he's from the
same town. He denies it. So you're basically back where
you started. Accept it. Now you're under the same roof
with the guy who's responsible for destroying both of your lives.
But there's nothing you can really do about it. But
(31:27):
that all changed one day as a result of a
conversation that you had with another inmate, right, And can
you tell us how that started, because this is a
really amazing part of the story.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well, this guy, he began to lust after me in prison.
I told him one night as I was in a shower,
you know, I was washing my hair and shallow curtain
I heard slide, So I lifted up my hair because
I had an e f ro at the time, and
he was standing out lust and you know, telling me
what a beautiful body I had, And I told him
(31:58):
I'm not trying to hear that need to keep moving,
you know, and he kept on. I said, well, I'm
not gonna want to try to fight a guy, you know,
in the nude. You know, I might slip and fallow
my head, you know, bump on the floor or something,
getting knocked out unconscious, and you know, got do me in.
So I just chilled. And the next day I was
in the gym shooting pool a guy from Greensboro named Roger.
(32:20):
He told me to cott now Kenny and the kids
and talking junk about you, you know, And I said, well,
I'm tired of this stuff. I'm gonna get this man
straightened out right now. So I'm hand in my pool
stick and I chug a log up to the kitchen.
He was in the parking paying the area with his
back turn. When I approached. I stopped so many feet
from him and I called his name out and he
(32:42):
turned around he said yeah. I said, look, man, you've
been talking junk about me for so many months. I'm
tired of it. You let my name taste like crap
in your mouth. And he proached me and said you
better get up my face for I kill you. He
put his hand on me and I said, oh, you
want to fight, right, I said, okay, let's go. So
he walked around in the corner and get off a camera,
you know, and we falled and I ended up breaking
(33:05):
his jaw and put them down, and you know, and
they got bou off of him, and he goes to
surrogation and I do not because you know, they prism
stewards in the kitchen had heard me telling this guy
to leave me alone. So you know, they they got
on my side. And so he went the hole for
thirty days. And after thirty days he come out. I
was sating in my dorm. I was sitting in the corner.
(33:27):
Come my bump was in a corner wall. I kept
three chairs lining up along the wall. And he walked
up to the window and he said cott and I
said yeah. He said, let me holler at you man.
I told him come on. Then you know, he comes
in my dorm and I told him to have a seat.
He sit down and he span he said, I'm sorry
to fight you. He said, you're fighting, dude, And I said, no,
I'm just not gonna go for that bull, you know.
(33:48):
So he said, I apologize. I just wanted to become
your friend. I said, well, becoming a friend and don't
approach me in that way. And he said, well, I
just want to tell you that mister Poole told me
that he committed the crime you in prison for. And
I said, well, thank you. And so he gets up
and he walks off. And so later that night, I
(34:09):
go to my locker and I put out my legal
pad and a pen, and I set up about two
o'clock in the morning, and I wrote my lawd your
feel most and I told him what had been told
to me. And so a week or two went by,
he wrote me back and instructed me, well, then we're
gonna look into it, you know, but right now we
got to go through the process of the pills. And so, uh,
(34:32):
I just went head on. And about the next week
mister Poole approached me. He said, cause he worked, he
got a job in the kitchen as well. He said that. Uh,
he said, I know you got a lot of sisters, man. Uh,
he said, why don't you let me write one of
your sisters. I said, what, I don't normally let guys
in prison write my sisters. And uh, I said, but
with view two with exception I consider. I said, but
(34:55):
first of all we have to do I said, we
have to take a photograph together. And uh, I a
letter and I sent it to my sister. I said,
she see what you look like. She'll write your back.
If she doesn't, I don't know what to tell you.
And so we took the photograph. Anyway, I didn't send
that letter to my sister. I sent it to my lawyer.
(35:16):
He liked what he saw, Yeah, that it really got
the ball kind of rolling. Well. I was transferred on
through the prison and I ended up in Mason, Tennessee,
and I wrote the quartover ap pills from there, you know,
by listening to the OJ trial, you know, I took
my legal paths shot taking notes on the DNA and
when I felt I had enough evident and information written
(35:37):
down on my legal paths, I said, well, it's time
for me to write to the Court of Appills and
Requests for this DNA test. So once I wrote the
letter and send it out, Tiger Harner from Raleigh. He
wrote me a letter and told me that. He said,
you got a good case. The pills caught we Uh,
he said, they turn it down, but we're gonna continue
(35:59):
looking at it. So he forwarded my letter to law
school at UNC, and wasn't long after that they wrote
me a letter from the legislator, I mean the lawyer,
and he told me, I said that Cotton. Uh, we're
gonna do your request and send you and you have
a DNA done. They didn't send me to do it,
(36:20):
but they're gonna have it done. Said, we'll do your
DNA testing, but if the tests come back stating that
you committed to scribe, you're gonna spend the rest of
your life in prison. What do you want us to do?
I didn't hesitate for one moment. I immediately I sent
a letter back out do the test, because come back
stating anything other than innocent, guilty, realant, I said, because
(36:45):
I'm an innocent man, I said, the Good Lord knows them.
I know in my heart that I did not commit
the scribe.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Jennifer, were you aware of this, any of this stuff
going on at this time?
Speaker 6 (36:54):
No?
Speaker 7 (36:55):
Not at that time, and we had gone through a
second trial nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Did Bobbypool to fight that trial.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
Well, in nineteen eighty seven, they had told me that
there was this new name out there, Bobby Pool, that
you know, Ronald had been claiming that he had confessed
to it. But don't worry about it. We know that
we have the right guy. So in the second trial
they brought Bobby Pool into the courtroom under wardeer. They
had removed the jury, so the jury never knew about
(37:24):
Bobby Pool. And of course in the court Bobby Pool
denied it, said he had never said anything, he didn't
commit the crime. And by that point three years had
gone by and there was no memory of Bobby Pool
in my head or the second survivor who was in
the courtroom, and both of us said that we did
not recognize Bobby Pool. And then we were asked again,
(37:46):
did we see the person in the courtroom who had
raped us? And we both pointed out Ronald Cotton. So
you go to put your life back together again as
best as you can. You know, life moves on. I
had gotten married, I had gotten pregnant, I gave birth
to triplets the spring of nineteen ninety I had two
little girls and a baby boy. And by you know,
(38:10):
nineteen ninety five, my babies. I have three five year olds,
and I'm busy. You know, I'm a busy mama.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I'm halfway surprised you even showed up with a child, because,
I mean, you said you were busy, and you were
absolutely certain that the justice had already been done. Why
would you even want to go back that you weren't
forced to come back, were you? No?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
But you want to make sure that the person that
you think tried to kill you stays in prison, all right,
So you have a vested interest in this.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So you were there not to learn anything but to
reaffirm what you already knew, and to you know, make
sure that nothing went wrong and that he was ever
free to prey on anybody else.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Absolutely absolutely, And you know, by ninety five, when they
came to me and said that there was this thing
called post conviction DNA testing, something I had never heard of.
I knew what DNA was, but I had never heard
the word exoneration or wrongful convictions. It wasn't part of
my life. It wasn't part of my story.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It wasn't really part of anybody.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
It wasn't it was really it wasn't anybody's story at
that point we're talking about nineteen eighty five. But my
blood from the rape kit had dissolved and sintegrated after
those eleven years, and at some point the courts would
probably require me to give a new blood sample. And
I said to them, I said, you know, I've got
five year old triplets, and I'm busy, and I'm a
(39:23):
mama now, and that's my job and that's what I
want to do. So I went to the lab that
day and I had my doctor take blood, put it
in a vial, give it straight to the ADA and
Mike Golden, who now was captain of the Burlington Police Department,
and I said, run the test because I can't do
this anymore.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And then and then we had hit the.
Speaker 7 (39:46):
Fan pretty yeah much. I mean it was three months later,
which in legal time, three months is like two seconds lightning.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah yeah, probably not when you're in prison.
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Not when you're in prison. But you know, some of
these tests take years and years years, and this one
was three months. And they came to my house and
told me that the DNA had completely excluded Ronald Cotton
but had been a direct hit on Bobby Pool.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
You you must have been florid.
Speaker 7 (40:19):
It was one of the worst days of my life.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I'm getting the shells done. So when they told you this,
did you immediately realize that, in fact, this was true
and that you had been wrong all this time?
Speaker 7 (40:36):
Well? I think what happened for me was part of
my degree had been science. So I understood DNA like
I understood DYNA in relation to human memory. I got
that that human memory is fallible. DNA was pretty dang
spot on. I understood it like I understood that Ronald
(40:57):
was now going to be exonerated, understood that Bobbypool had
committed all these crimes, that a mistake had been made.
The best I can say is it's like the earth
opened up and it swallowed me, and everything became black
and dark, and I dissolved. I felt paralyzed. I felt
(41:24):
like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function. I mean, you know,
I try to talk about this in terms of I
could do my day to day things like I could
make a peanut butter sandwich, and I could put the
clothes from the washer into the dryer. But I couldn't function.
And when it got quiet and I was left by myself,
I just was debilitated with fear and guilt. It just
(41:49):
suffocated me and I stopped functioning for two years, two years,
two years. I just couldn't got in, you know, what
to do.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
Right.
Speaker 7 (42:01):
There's nobody was talking about these issues. Nobody was even
talking to me about rape and what happened to me,
but they really weren't talking about wrongful convictions. And I
had nobody to turn to. There was nobody for me
to talk to. You know, Ronald was on the Larry
King Show and in People magazine, and I understood that,
(42:21):
like I understood that, but there was nobody that cared
about me. And not only did they not care about me,
but they were blaming me right.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
And that's a crazy phenomenon too.
Speaker 6 (42:33):
It happens to.
Speaker 7 (42:34):
All of our crime survivors. We get blamed for something
that should never have been our fault. Like we're the
first person harmed. There is someone to blame, it's the perpetrator.
Because not only did Bobby Poole destroy my life and
the second survivor, but he sat there and watched an
innocent man go to prison, and he committed over two
(42:56):
dozen other crimes that fall of nineteen eighty four, in
the spring of nineteen eighty five, before he was ever apprehended.
He raped many women, sexually assaulted them, broke into their homes,
terrorized them for months, and yet somehow the media and
the general public felt that it was okay to bludgeon
(43:19):
me to a bloody pulp for something that was never
my fault. Like, there's no survivor in the world that
wants to get this wrong. No, no, we want the
person to go to prison who committed the crimes against
us or murdered our families. Nobody wants to get this wrong.
I mean, it was wrong, but it wasn't my fault.
(43:42):
It was just Jason for me to explain. I mean,
I got death threats, people who would say people who
said to me, if I find her, I will kidnap her,
I will rape her, I will slit her throat from
ear to ear, and I will watch her die and
bleed to death in a ditch lock.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Is that all about, I mean, blaming me.
Speaker 7 (44:03):
For something that was never my fault, something that Ron
didn't even blame me for.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Well, then that's a very very important part of the story, obviously.
I mean, the grace of this man who's sitting in
front of us is impossible to exaggerate or describe accurately,
And we'll get to that part of the story in
a second. But yeah, it's so it's so bizarre because
now you've got to deal with the guilt of having
(44:32):
convicted an innocent man, which I know has such a
profound effect on you and still does. And also the
idea that you were now in a situation where you
had not done the thing that was most important to you,
which was to correctly identify your assailant, which led to
(44:53):
these terrible outcomes for all these other women. It seems
like to me, like every where you look, it's just bad.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Well, first of all, I want to make sure everybody
understands that I did not.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Convict Ronald count Well, you can't convict anybody.
Speaker 7 (45:10):
Exactly, I mean, but that's something that gets narrated in
a way that is not right. Like the state of
North Carolina indicted Ronald and press charges and convicted Ronald.
Jennifer Thompson had no power to convict anybody. Did I
pick Ronald out of a lineup?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I did?
Speaker 7 (45:28):
And I can explain to you how those kind of
things happen, how memory kind of contaminates itself over time.
But there was no way for me to adequately explain
what was happening to me. For the exonery and their families,
an overturning of a conviction is the day they've been
(45:50):
praying for. Is that they're happy ending for a crime survivor,
for murder victim, family member who thought that the system
had given them justice, which is what they promised to
do for a victim, and find out that the system
had failed to give me justice. It had failed my family,
(46:12):
it had failed Ronald, it had failed Ronald's family, it
had failed the other women in the community. I have
not come up with a word yet that can actually
explain what that looks like and what that feels like
for those of us they get impacted, except it is
an additional nightmare. So for Ronald, he's home, he's with
his family. They've supported him, they're embracing him. The community
(46:36):
is celebrating this man who comes back to freedom, and rightly,
so that's exactly what should be happening. The crime survivor
should be cared for as well. And I've talked to
lots of police and prosecutors in training and talking about
these things, and they'll come up to me at the end,
and they say, you know, oh my god, I totally
(46:56):
forgot about the victim in these cases. And it shocked
me because for every wrongful conviction.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
There's a victim, right, and even if that victim is
someone who was killed, that there's a family, and we are.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
Ignored and we are placed aside and our harm is
not validated. And then on top of it, the media
places to blame and says things such as rape survivor
falsely accuses innocent man and sends him to prison not once,
but twice. And there's everything wrong with that sentence.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Right, as if you were doing it deliberately, that this was.
Speaker 7 (47:34):
To kill a mockingbird, and I was just making.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Up a story, right, And so then the most amazing
part of this story, I would say, the positive part
starts right, which is Jennifer reaches out, and how did
that happen?
Speaker 7 (47:48):
I actually called Mike Golden at the police department and said,
I am not doing well. It's been two years. I
haven't moved forward at all. I need you to set
up a private meeting. Because Ron was the first dnags
honery in North Carolina. I mean he was about twenty
third I think in the country. So everybody was trying
to find the girl. Everybody wanted to find the girl.
(48:11):
So I asked him to set up a private meeting
where journalists couldn't find us because they were all trying
to find me. So they set it up at a
church that was about a mile and a half from
where I had been raped thirteen years before that. And
he didn't know where he was going, and I didn't
know where I was going, so we couldn't accidentally leak
it to anybody. And I found myself at the pastor
study and looking out the window, I see this humongous
(48:36):
six foot four man kind of walking towards the building.
And I remember thinking, as I looked at him, because
his wife was seeing him beside of him, who is
my height? And the first thing I thought of was,
my god, he's too tall. That my attacker had never
been that tall. Now now it hit me because I
had that relation right, I'm looking, I'm thinking, oh my god,
(49:00):
he's huge, and he was five inches taller.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
What'd you say? What did you say? How did what happened?
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Well, my wife she didn't want me to go in
the beginning, but I had to determine that I was
going anyway. She said, no, you're not going. I said, yes,
I am, I said, because there would be a book
closed brain closure. So, you know, after I got dressed
and I looked at my wife, she was there, and
she said, well, I'm going too. So we jumped in
(49:29):
my truck and we pull up and I'll get out
and she gets out, and we met to take the
goll and my lawyaf Tom Blambert, and Jennifer's husband was there.
And so as we were getting ready to enter the
room to go in to talk, Jennifer instructed that her
husband stayed back and wasn't nobody but me, my wife,
and Jennifer in the room. So when I walked in
(49:50):
the room, Jennifer sitting just like she's sitting down with
a Jane outfit on, and she had a nervous expression
on her face. And I walked up and looked at her,
and she looked at me and she said, I'm sorry.
She said, I don't know how, I don't know what
to call you, mister Cotton, Ronald Cotton, and she said
(50:12):
I'm sorry, you know, and I said, I forgive you,
and I hugged her, and you know, I she stood up.
I hugged her. She cried, I cried, I said, grown
me and nothing cried. But that's a lie. You know,
you got it hard to have sympathy for people. You
know you're gonna cry. You know, I don't care who
you are. You know, you try to be hard all
you want to. You know, people walk over you, you know,
(50:33):
walk on you. And uh so after that, Jennifer and
my wife, they stepped to the side, said the little
private things that women say together, you know, to encourage
each other to be strong and carry on. So then
me and Jennifer, you know, after we went outside to
leave the premises, but before that we exchanged phone numbers
(50:54):
and you know, that way we can stay in contact
with one another as time went by, and it was
it's like a good story coming to an end, and
you know, but we continue to stay in touch. And
this book that he'll come about it. You know. I
went on to be on Larry King Live and all
those shows, you know, and people back and saying, but
(51:16):
I didn't let it blow my head up become My
head is already big enough, you see, had so I
just went on with my life and she went on
with her you know. But so it was one thing
after another. You know, I met the kids and all,
and she met my daughter after she come into this world,
and it's just been an amazing thing, you know, to
(51:38):
know that this book has been written and it's out
and come together and it's been blossoming year after year.
You know, it's been over thirty years now and they
still talking about Peking Cotton and I believe my picking
every day.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
You know, I'm a close I do want to get
your perspective and your memories of that most incredible moment.
I think it's a very brave thing that you did
in a lot of ways. So what was that moment
like for you.
Speaker 7 (52:08):
I went in thinking that probably the best case scenario
out of this meeting is going to be Ronald looking
at me, going okay, thanks for saying that. You know,
I don't want you any harm, but just go away,
Like that was going to be the best scenario. The
worst was going to be, yeah, I'm screaming at me
and wishing me death and destruction and terrible things. What
(52:32):
I didn't expect was what happened, and that was you know,
really looking at him sincerely, and I was sobbing telling
him that if I spent the rest of my life
telling you how sorry I am. Can you ever forgive me?
And Ronald literally took my hands and started to cry
and he said, I'm not angry at you. I forgave
(52:54):
you years ago. And Bobby Pool did this to both
of us, and we were both victims of this man.
And it was really that foundation that we were able
to love each other. And we spent the next two
hours asking each other questions I think that we had
wanted to ask each other all those eleven years. You know,
(53:14):
why did you think it was me? And you know
my question was, well, then if that if you weren't there,
then where were you? You know, that type of thing,
like trying to peel back the layers of the truth.
And he really truly gave me back pieces of myself
that I had lost and for the first time and
(53:38):
thirteen years, there were parts of my spirit and my soul,
my heart that kind of found a way back. And
you know, by watching Ronald and his just incredible love,
my next task was to find a way to let
go of what Bobby Pool had done to me all
those years ago, and you know, find a way to
(53:59):
take my pack power back. Where do I want to
give my power, and it sure as heck wasn't gonna
be the Bobby Pool.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
So Bobby died in prison three years later after.
Speaker 7 (54:10):
He was exonerated.
Speaker 6 (54:12):
Yeah was he was he killed or he I had cancer. Yeah,
I wanted to kill him though. I made me a weapon,
and I was going to do it, you know, until
my father payment visit, and uh, I told him what
my intention were. And my father said, son, he said,
don't do that. He said, you tell me you're a
innocent man. I believe you're in it, he said, but
(54:32):
if you kill him, he said, you're gonna be guilty.
And so I walked away thinking of that for two weeks.
You know, this guy he slept in the same dormitory
that I slept in, maybe from here to over there,
you know, the next room, and he walked by my
bunk every day two or three times a day or
maybe more, and worked in the same kitchen. And you know,
(54:54):
it was hard for me not to do it. But
I'm glad I didn't do it, you know. But I
said a prayer to the Good Lord for me to
forgive Jennifer making a costly mistake on my life. That's
how I was able to face her without saying any
bad things toward her. You know, I wanted to give
her love Strent and lift her up in the world,
(55:14):
you know, because you know, she had been down just
like myself. So y'all were down during time. She was
down in heart and in pain. I just had to
put one foot in front of the other and keep
on walking and you know, not be sad, but just
continue living my life as I am today. But my
life today is more in freedom and crime free.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing thing. I never get tired
of hearing these stories. It puts a lot of gratitude
in my attitude, so thank you for that. I wanted
to talk about compensation because it's a very bizarre system
that we have in America because it varies wildly from
state to state. And in your case, you were given
(55:59):
ten thousand dollars a year, which is the North Carolina
statute for or eleven years in present, one hundred and
ten thousand dollars. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 6 (56:09):
Well, I felt bad about it at the beginning, but
I had to accept it. You know, I would have
fought for it, but it wouldn't have done any good
you know, they already had their mind made up. I
accepted and I walked away. You know, it's like they
give me a little bit and packed on the shoulder, say,
you know, enjoy life, Jason.
Speaker 7 (56:30):
It's important to note, though, that when he got compensated,
the laws hadn't been changed for fifty years, so he
was actually eligible for five hundred dollars a year with
a cap of five thousand.
Speaker 6 (56:42):
Ye.
Speaker 7 (56:42):
So Mike Goalden and I lobbied the legislature has changed
that to ten thousand dollars a year, and we thought
we'd done this amazing thing. And then North Carolina changed
it again in the early two thousands, two thousands to
fifty thousand dollars a year with a cap of seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But they and make it
retroactive to Ron.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
Well, I never understand that. So Jennifer, tell me about
the work you've been doing with Healing Justice, because it's
from what I've read, it seems like an extraordinary mission
and it looks like it's making a real change.
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (57:15):
We launched Healing Justice three years ago because I became
frustrated why we weren't addressing this long term damage done
to everybody that gets harmed by a wrongful conviction. I
would listen to crime survivors. I'd listen to family members
of Exoneries and the ex Hooneries, and I would hear
the stories about what they had lost. And you keep thinking,
right that Pennsylvania is going to step up and fix
(57:37):
the problems they created with ex houneries in Pennsylvania, and
they weren't doing it. So I launched Healing Justice in
twenty fifteen. And what we do is really look at
the total harm done in our wrongful conviction and who
gets impacted by it, and finding ways that we can
address that harm in a myriad of ways, but probably
(57:59):
the cornerstone program we do is we host healing retreats
four times a year and we bring together about twenty
five exgneries and their family members and crime survivors for
a weekend. We pay for all of it, We fly
them in, and we do healing circles. We have art,
we address the harm, not the cases. We literally have
(58:22):
people kind of unfold the grief sitting in a safe
space with people who get it. Because unless you've traveled
a road like Ron and I have traveled, you can't
understand it, and so being in space with people who
understand it, you don't have to explain why you feel depression,
why you've had substance abuse issues, why you have family problems,
(58:45):
like we understand it. So it's really a way of
looking at the concentric circles of harm when the system fails.
So the other thing we do is training for police
and prosecutors about how do we address the aftermath of exonerations.
You know, we're really we're not an innocence project. We
(59:05):
really work on the aftermath, bringing folks together after the
harm's been done. How do we heal from that place?
I'm using restorative justice principles, using peer support. It's very
unique and its kind because everything we do is driven
by those who have lived it. So all of our
expertise is being given to us by folks that have
(59:27):
been impacted and harmed.
Speaker 3 (59:29):
And how do people get involved? How do they.
Speaker 7 (59:32):
Support www dot Healing Justice Project dot org. Do we
really need the financial support to continue kind of expanding
our work and bringing in more people. You know, we've
got twenty two hundred wrongful convictions, so we have a
lot of work ahead of us. We're excited about.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
It all right, So I'm going to give and I'm
going to ask everybody else to do the same. And
then we have a tradition here at Wrongful Conviction to
turn the mic over to you for any closing thoughts. Ron,
We're going to save you for last, Jennifer, the mic
is yours.
Speaker 7 (01:00:09):
I really want people to understand that when a wrongful
conviction happens, at the center of all of it is
a perpetrator. And when we don't get it right, we've
left the perpetrator on the streets to commit further harm,
something that I refer to as wrongful liberty. And everybody
needs to care about that. Everybody needs to know that
when a wrongful conviction happens, the system has failed every
(01:00:33):
single person except the perpetrator, and he is the only
person who wins.
Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
Rod Well, when someone tells you that they are innocent,
having an open ear and open eye to reach out
and touch and love very much, because just putting on
foot in front of it, you can't walk your way out.
(01:01:02):
You have to work your way out. It's easy to
say it than done. But I've learned my lesson. God,
I've been there, I know how it is. I keep
my head to the sky every day because I'm not
ashamed from where I've been yet not knowing where I'm going.
I'm on the road that I'm leading in the hands
(01:01:22):
of the Good Lord because he knows best, and I
will not follow the rest.
Speaker 10 (01:01:28):
Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
It really helps.
Speaker 10 (01:01:40):
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Go to Innocence Project dot or org to learn how
to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
the show is by three times pronominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Jason Flamm is a production of
Speaker 10 (01:02:11):
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
one
America has two point two million people in prison. If
just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
If the system want to take you out of society,
they will do it no matter what laws they have
to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
they're breaking the lord.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
of a crime that I did not commit, and then
hear my family break down behind me and not be
able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
crushing weight that was.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
A lot of times we look and we see something
happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said,
that could never happen to me, But.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
They can. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful
(01:16):
Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today's episode is one of a
kind because I have two people here who are truly
one of a kind, both individually and together.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Their story begins in nineteen eighty four, when Jennifer was
a college student in North Carolina. A man broke into
her apartment.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Even as she was being raped. Jennifer summoned the strength
to study her attacker. She tried to memorize his face,
his eyes, his hair.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Jennifer eventually escaped, eventually made her way to the police,
where she used that image burned in her mind for
an artist to create this sketch. That guy, she says
she was one hundred percent sure about, was Ronald Cotton.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Ronald Cotton was twenty two years old and worked at
a seafood restaurant near Jennifer's home.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Ronald went to trial Jennifer again I d'd him in court.
It took a jury four hours to convict him, and
a judge sentenced him till life. Eleven years went by.
Cotton maintained his innocence.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Scientists were able to isolate a tiny fragment of sperm
that they could test. The results confirmed what he had
been saying all along. The DNA did not match. On
June thirtieth, nineteen ninety five, Ronald Cotton walked out of
the Alamance County Courthouse a freeman.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Without further ado. Ronald Cotton, Welcome to rafel conviction.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Thank you pleasure to be here today.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And with him is Jennifer Thompson. Welcome to raful conviction.
Speaker 7 (02:45):
Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Let's go back to the beginning first of all, but
talking about North Carolina and Jennifer's that where you grew up.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
Yes, yes, I grew up in Winston Sale, North Carolina.
But the crime happened in Burlington, North Carolina when I
was a college student.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And of course it's a client that Ronald was wrongfully
convicted of. But at the time it seemed like an
open and shutcase. And that's one of the things that
makes this story so important. Again, Let's go back to
that time. You were a twenty two year old girl
becoming a woman. You sort of had the world at
(03:23):
your feet, so to speak, right, and everything to look
forward to until one horrible night. Yes, and can you
tell us about that night and how this all started?
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Sure? Sure, I had gone to bed on July twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty four alone. I had had a headache that evening,
so my boyfriend that I was dating at the time,
we were talking about getting married, took me home. I
went to sleep around nine o'clock and didn't really hear
anything that was going on in the community. There was
police kind of circling the neighborhood. They were looking for
(03:55):
someone who had attempted to break into a neighbor's house.
We know now that they couldn't find him because he
was hiding out in my apartment. So around three am
on July twenty ninth, I heard a noise in the bedroom,
like feet moving across the carpet. Of course, I lived alone,
and as I kind of woke up and that in
between place of being awake and asleep, I saw the
(04:18):
top of a person's head beside my mattress and I
quickly asked, who was that? Who's there? And a man
jumped up on my bed. I screamed. He covered my
mouth with a gloved hand and put a knife to
the left side of my throat and told me to
shut up. He was going to kill me.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It's literally a horror movie like this.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
Oh yeah, it's a horror movie. There's several things going on, right,
I mean, you're trying to figure out what's happening. It's
that that place where you're you're wondering if this is
a dream or this is really happening, and then you
realize that you are in terrible danger. I knew, I
knew that he was going to rate me. That was
very clear. But what you don't know, no survivor ever knows,
(04:58):
is was he going to kill me? And I honestly
believe that I'd probably not live, that he would slip
my throat, that he would, you know, beat me. And
you start wondering in those moments, how quickly will I
be able to die? And while I feel it as
I'm dying, will it be painful? Will it you know?
Will it just be quick and over with? And you
start thinking about your parents, You start thinking about your future,
(05:20):
You start thinking about the things that you're going to miss,
and you you know, the things you wish you had said,
and that was what was happening, and that you know
that moment when when you realize that this could be
the last thing that ever touches your skin.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Be cliche about your whole life lashing before your eyes,
It's really true, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
It's really true. It's really true.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
And I know you've spoken about how you at that
moment you made a commitment to do everything you could
not only to survive, but to memorize every detail of
your assailant, your attacker, your your torturer, so that you
could identify him. I mean that's some very amazingly sort
(06:08):
of clear thinking at a time of utmost terror. Right,
you were a clear eyed college student. You weren't high
or stoned, you hadn't been out drinking that night. You
were perfect for this particular task that now lay in
(06:28):
front of you. When this attack finally ended, And how
long did it go on for?
Speaker 7 (06:33):
By the way, well, from the beginning of when he
woke me up to when I was able to escape
was probably around twenty minutes. The assault lasted probably five
and I was able to talk him off of me
after part of the assault had happened, because I knew
that I needed to find a way to escape. But
(06:53):
during that time, when I was trying to figure out
a plan, I was able to stand close to him,
to gauge his height, to gauge his weight, to remember
his clothing. I mean, everything became important to me that night.
And I'm glad you said task because that's exactly what
was happening in my head. I was very task driven,
I mean, a survive, find a way to live and
(07:13):
be watch him rotten hell for the rest of his life.
So I was making a very concerted effort to pay
attention to everything even listening to his voice as he
began to talk to me, trying to pick up any
details that he might you know, kind of drop, and
I could remember in getting myself into different positions of light.
It was all, you know, part of that need to survive,
(07:35):
and that task gave me that need and will to
survive until I was able to escape after about twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You made this amazing commitment to this process right when
I think most people would have just been focused on
getting out of there. Right, and if this wasn't enough
of a horror movie scenario, your sailing had cut the
phone line as well. Right, He had.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
Cut the phone line. He had been in my apartment
for hours, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer out of my refrigerator.
He'd stolen money out of my wallet. He'd even gone
through a photo album and taken photographs of me out
and actually asked permission. He said, I hope you don't mind,
but I took some of the photographs of you to keep.
I mean, it was it was a mental, physical torture,
(08:24):
and you know, it was sexual assault and violence. It
is a forever thing. And he changed me that night
in ways that I that you know, the girl was
just the girl died that night. She she was gone.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You did manage to escape, obviously and run down the road,
which was a very brave thing to do, not knowing
you know, he could have come after you, and he
did come after me.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
He chased me through the.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Dark, unreal. But you out ran him. Is that basically
how to come down?
Speaker 7 (09:07):
I outran. The trick for me was I knew I
had to get to light, and I knew he wouldn't
come under light with me. So I found a carport
that was on at a house that I didn't know
who lived there. I just kind of prayed that people
were there, but I knew he wouldn't come underneath that
carport because if someone was home, they would see him.
So that kept him away from me. As I banged
(09:28):
on the door, and fortunately the husband and wife and
the family were there, and the woman recognized me. She
was a professor at the college I was attending. I
didn't take any of her classes, but she had seen
me on campus and they let me in and basically
saved my life.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Well, what a story I have any words? Now, Ronald,
let me turn to you for a second. So did
you live in the same town I did yes. And
in the days and weeks prior to your arrest, were
you aware of this was this big local news?
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Well, I guess it was. The week before I got arrested.
Me and my brother were standing on the Sweet corner
and I let a newspaper, local newspaper down and in
the rapper. I pulled it out the rapper on the
front page and there was this SketchUp guy and it
described him and showing a picture of him and instruction
(10:26):
that he committed a crime upon this female and it
was Jennifer. I didn't know Jennifer, you know. I just
read the article and I told my brother then that
I don't know who the guy is. But when they
get him, I said, he's through, you know, he's done.
And uh. Well, that following Monday, I went home from
not staying in the hotel with my girlfriend, and my
(10:47):
mother and boyfriend told me as I approached the door
that the police had been looking for me, and I
went down to find out for that particular crime.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Now, prior to this nightmare unfolding in your life, how
was your life before that? How old were you?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
I was about the same age. Well, I had been
working at local restaurants and you know, seafood places and uh.
And at the particular moment in the time, I was
not working. I was unemployed. I was in the process
I building that application here and there, you know, trying
to become employed.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
But that particular time, I had been in the fast
lane running the bars. And you know, I had quit
school and and I was working. I was just enjoying
life in general. Once my mother boyfriend instructed me that
the cops were looking for me, I had walked inside
the apartment. I know. It was a paper there on
a television. It had named on it. So I took
(11:48):
the paper. I read it, and instruction on it was
how this individual had entered the Stompson apartment and committed
to scrime upon her. And I said, no, they got
the wrong guy. And some of my mother boyfriend said, well,
you all gonna get it straightened out. And so I
walked outside and I looked across the road and I
noticed my neighbor Patricia was standing on the front board sweeping,
(12:11):
and I walked over and asked her to bought her
car to drive down the police apartment and see what's
going on in this matter. I said, well, I take
my sister Tuoty with me just in case they locked
me up, and that way she can bring your car back.
So on our way there, we buried off and went
by my girlfriend Teresa's place, and she come running to
the car and crying, holling Ryan and Ron the police
(12:33):
been over here looking for you, saying that you rate
this woman. And she said, I know you didn't. I said, no,
I did not. I said, baby, we're all getting ready
to go to the police department right now and trying
to get this minter taken care of. So I want
to ride. So we all hopped in the car and
went down and pulled in the parking lot. I exited
the car. I was approaching the police apartment and I
(12:53):
looked up. You know, it was about two three stories high,
and the older cops that was I saw him looking
at the window. Rush away from the wonder and run
downstairs and met me at the door. And out the
door pops Mike Golden, and uh, he saidthing detected, Mike Goldan.
I said, yes, I heard you. I've been looking for
me for a crime in the community that I need committed.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
He said, well, come on inside and let's talk. About it,
and uh, you know, trying to get this thing worked out.
So I went inside and the alibi that I gave
them was totally different, because you know, I parted a
lot and I wasn't keeping up with everything.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
So how long after the actual crime was this taking place?
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Augustry? First?
Speaker 7 (13:32):
Three days?
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Oh, sub short time.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Augustr first around about twelve thirty, and we went upstairs
and they began to ask me a question about Jennifer.
You want They ended, I want in this woman apartment,
committed all the acts un her, and I said, I
kept telling him, no, I did not. I said, my
reason for coming down here, for trying to get this
matter taken care of. And then the police chief he
(13:55):
told me that, yeah, I took a flashlight and held
it in a woman's facing rape, which I was I said,
I convict him. Happened that night as well. I told him, Noah,
I said, you got me wrong. You know I did
not commit this crime. He said yeah, he said, you
think you missed the big stuff going around town swim
white women. I said, sir, you're totally wrong. I did
(14:15):
not commit these crimes. Then they was instructed to take
me in a room and lock me up, you know,
photograph me, fangle print me, and they took me down
to that Damans County jail, put mine one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars bail.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And there was no way you could post that.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
No, I was there ontil due date.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
A trial actually didn't walk out for eleven years. Yes,
I mean that night you spent in the motel was
the last night you spent as a free man. Yes,
until this whole thing was finally resolved all those years later. So, Jennifer,
(14:57):
you had now seen his picture see Royn's picture in
a photo array, and you had identified him, and now
they had him under arrest, so you must have felt
a huge sense of relief I did.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
I mean, there had been another rape immediately after mine,
and we knew it was the same person. An hour later,
a mile down the road, there's another woman who's assaulted,
and I felt that we had a serial rapist in
the community and he needed to be removed. So yes,
I thought a huge sense of relief after I knew
that he had been arrested and of course would be
(15:34):
held over for probable cause and we would go to trial,
which became a next task.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
How did they know that it was the same person.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
It was a description of the clothing. Both of us
had said that the person who had attacked us had
had on a navy blue shirt with three white stripes
that went along as biceps. He had on khaki tight pants.
He had white gloves that were knit. I mean, both
of us had the same exact description. And as he
was running from the second rape survivor, police were being called,
(16:05):
and he actually passed the police, so there was a
police that actually got a short glimpse of the assailants,
so we knew it was the same person. It was
the same person who had attempted to break into the
woman before me, because she had said the same thing
and arm was coming through her door, blew shirt with
white stripes, nick gloves. She just happened to be awake
and called the police. So he never assaulted the first woman.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
The other woman who was raped, Was she involved in
this process in any way? Did they show her the
same photo array and if so, did she identify ron
as well?
Speaker 7 (16:40):
They did show her the same array, and she was
much older than me. And during her assault, he hit
her and bitter and put a flashlight in her eyes
and put a pillow on her face when he raped her,
So she was not able to get the same kind
of description and details that I was able to get.
And so when she went to the photographic lineup and
physical lineup, she wasn't sure. She said that I think
(17:03):
it's number four, but it could be number five. And
so the district attorney made the decision to not try
the cases together, that they would only try my case
because basically they had a better conviction with just my identification.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right again, yours was perfect, seemingly right right.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
I literally was called the perfect witness.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, so you're in prison. You're getting some sleep now,
hopefully by not really, where were you staying, by the way,
when this rapist was still on the loose.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
I was staying about three miles off campus in a
condominium complex.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
But you didn't stay in your own apartment after this?
Speaker 7 (17:38):
Oh no, I never returned, just only for my things.
And you know, again, the thing about being an assault
survivor is when when you're broken, like I was broken,
you can't ever return to that place that you were before.
And I talk to people, your lens that you look
at through the world becomes distorted and everything you choose
(18:01):
becomes seen through that distortion. Your place in the world
is now distorted. What value do I have?
Speaker 6 (18:08):
You know?
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Where do you go from here? Because who you were
before is no longer an option and it's now trying
to recreate this new person. But you have no support.
So people didn't want to hang out with me. My
family wouldn't talk to me about it. My boyfriend said
he just couldn't handle it, so he broke up with me.
I mean, literally everything in my world was gone, and
(18:33):
your task now with trying to somehow recover. And I
use that like with a big sigh, because it is
a forever recovery. It's just as long as you live,
you're still in recovery.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It's hard for me to adam how those particular people
who were so close and intimate with you made exactly
the wrong choice ron back to you. So you are
in crazyland now, right because you can't possibly understand I
imagine why this is happening. And now all of a sudden,
you find yourself in the situation that you had just
(19:09):
been discussing with your brother, right, you had just predicted
your own fate actually right, because you had said, whoever
they get well of this guy's going down whatever, right,
that's right, and now it's you. The day of the
trial comes. How long had you been held by then?
Speaker 6 (19:23):
About four months?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Four months, so you had been in for quite a while.
And the jail. I don't know how that jail was,
but we know that a lot of the jails in
America are even worse and even more dangerous and scary
than the maximum security prisons. Was this jail one of those?
Speaker 6 (19:40):
I wasn't one of those. Just a lot of guys
talking jump and you know, if you wanted to make
a stand, you know, you took a chance, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So, Jennifer back to you. So the day of the
trial comes, you're there hoping to get some closure, right.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Well yeah, closure is such an interesting part. Well yeah,
I mean you're looking for justice, is what you're looking for.
And that's what I was looking for. I was looking
for him to be held responsible for what he had
done to not just me, but the other woman who
wasn't going to be able to tell her story and
other women who could never find justice. So it was
like kind of this thing I needed, I really needed
(20:17):
it to move to the next place of my life.
And the trial was over, two weeks long.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Wow, Yeah, that's a long trial. I'm actually surprised it
was that long. But by now you had identified ron
in a photo array and in a lineup, and it's
important to highlight the fact that he was the only
person that was featured in both the photo array and
the lineup that is correct, which is obviously going to
(20:43):
have some impact on your perception, your memory, right.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
And of course what we know now is that the
perpetrator was never in any of the lineups.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So it seems like they did what they could in
a very imperfect system to try to be in harshall.
Was that accurate?
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Not?
Speaker 7 (21:02):
Really. They had thought before I went down to do
the photographic lineup, they had believed that Ronald Cotton had
actually committed these crimes. So during the first lineup, which
was the photographic lineup and what they call six pack,
and I had been given some instructions to take my time,
not feel compelled to choose anyone, which was pretty modern
(21:22):
thinking in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Eighty four, right, that's what I was referraing.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Yeah, but when I picked Ronald out of the photographs,
they did tell me, good job. That's who we thought
it was. Of course, what we know now is that
just gave my certainty that confirmation I needed, and boy,
my certainty went out the roof once they said that
to me, Ronald Cotton, that photo became the rapist.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
And we were dealing in this case with a cross
racial identification, which we know are the least reliable of
all the different forms of I would identification. It's been
proven in every study that's ever been done just how
unreliable I woulds identification is. And we know that it
(22:09):
goes up in cases in which either the victim or
the witness is in mortal danger, which you certainly were.
Of course, it triggers all sorts of chemical reactions in
your brain, which in turn caused your memory to play
tricks on you. It's odd, right, you were the perfect witness,
(22:31):
but it was also the perfect storm because you had
this particular case, had all of those factors right, You
had again the cross racial identification problem, you had the
mortal fear problem, for lack of better the weapon focus, right,
that's the best term for it. And so what should
have been really an open and shut case was anything but.
(22:54):
But we didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Now, we thought we were doing things best practices at
that time in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
We know now that it all went horribly wrong, and
so you now had identified him in the photo array
and in the lineup. You were given a positive reinforcement
in both of those cases. Now the day the trial
comes and you're asked to identify the perpetrator in the courtroom, Yeah,
(23:26):
that's great.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
I was on the stand for two days Jesus having
to just over and over and over again talk about
what had been done to me, well literally over and
over again, in front of my family, in front of strangers.
I mean, it was really awful. And then the rape survivor,
so the defense attorney is beginning to assassinate my character,
basically blaming me for inviting my own rape because I
(23:49):
had the audacity to go to bed that night in
just my underwear, and so didn't I know that's what
led people to rape women. And so there's a lot
of things happening.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
What are you supposed to wear a coat of armor?
Speaker 7 (24:02):
Well that was my point. My point to the defense
attorney was basically, so if I had gone to bed
in a sweatsuit, and he would have looked at me
and said at I don't think, so it's just too
much trouble, is that what you're saying to me? And
of course it shut that down immediately. But I was
so angry. I was so angry that somehow me going
(24:22):
to bed as a twenty two year old woman and
my underwear had been the cost of my own sexual assault. Yeah,
that's not And of course it didn't help ron honestly
with a jury. The jury was really angry at the
defense attorney for even suggesting that. So there were some
things that.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Happened that must have made you feel uncomfortable to ron
to have that line of questioning. I mean, here's this
woman that you've never met, that you don't know what
happened or why you're in this situation that you're in.
You're four months and five months in jail, whatever it was,
So your head's fitting around in all different directions, right,
and now you know your own team is acting in
(25:03):
a way that I can't imagine you would ever act.
The whole situation is just wrong, and ultimately you're asked
to make a positive identification. And what happens.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
I looked straight over at Ronald and I said, he's
sitting at the defense table as the man who raped me,
and the jury deliberated four hours and came back with,
of course, a guilty verdict on all charges.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And what was that moment, like Ron, I mean, that
had to be the worst moment of your life.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
I just couldn't believe it. You know, I just shook
my head. You know, I looked at my atturneys and
I looked I recollect the judge and the foreman and
the jewels and Kurt reporter, and once a verdict was
read from the jeurid form, I just I said, no,
that's what I'm saying to myself. I said, they have
(25:51):
it wrong. And so the judge I said, if I
had anything to say to the court, and I said yes.
I told him that I would like to have this
permission to sing a song that I have written in jail.
And so I stood up and I sang the song.
And as I was singing that song, you know my
turn is, you know, they saying with the head dropped,
(26:11):
you know, as if though I put him the shame.
But I didn't care anything at that particular time because
I had just been found guilty for crime or did
not commit and.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
You sang a song. Can you sing it now.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Yeah, if I can remember word for word, I'll try
to anyway. It was a boem written to my girlfriend,
but I changed the words and wrote a gospel song. Whatever,
and they want something like this. The sit insa I
can know no longer me because my future so one
down to me.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And then.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
I could no longer say he.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
Because during that day I wonder at not a heard
with fear call his name, suddenly tears appear.
Speaker 9 (27:04):
Until God came in my life. Until God came in
my life, I was often alone and people I really conface.
I just didn't know what to do before I feel
(27:25):
so wild a place. How many time as I say
this before you agree, there's no other God whoever loved
of you, not quite as much as Lord God. Believe me, everyone,
(27:46):
because God will change your life. And that is a fire,
because I will pave of night and day until you.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
God, oh bye.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
To me.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Yeah yeah, hey, all those words too. I just don't
sound like that.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Oh God, that's beautiful. Your life is literally coming to
an end, and then you get up and sing a
damn song. Unbelievable. Now things start to get crazier because
you're in prison. What steps did you take and what
(28:35):
hope did you have?
Speaker 6 (28:37):
Well, I had uh entered the prison system with life
in fifty four year prison term. Immediately they pointed me
a guidance counselor in the prison and I went in
and met him, took tests, talked with him about my
being in prison, and uh, you know the crime that
I was in there for, but he said, we're not
(28:58):
here for that, We're here to keep So you know,
I know it was a lost couse I was fighting,
and so it was all upon me to do what
I had to do to survive, and that was to
stay in contact with my trial lawyers, which still continued
to fight my case on a pill.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So you actually had a competent attorney in this case. Yes,
it would have needed OJ's dream team, and you probably
might have still gotten convicted. I don't I don't know
that there's a lawyer on this planet that could have
gotten you out of this.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Now, I was fighting a lost court, but you know
it was a battle field that I was in that
I couldn't give up. Uh, you know. Immediately, you know,
I put myself in the school, I buried the central
prison and start filing motions from inside the prison and
which didn't do any good at all. And so one
day I was on my way to the gym to
(29:43):
work out, and I recognized this inmate being escorted inside
the prison, and he looked very familiar to me, So
I started thinking. I said, I saw this guy before,
you know, as I'm walking, and I went on continued
that process of working out, and I went back to
my dorm that night. You know, they had him finished
(30:05):
processing him inside the prison, and I went to him
the next day as I recognized him from being outside
in the recreation yard. I was playing a handball game
I was in and immediately I had someone to come
and relieve me from that game, and I made an
approach on him and I asked him where was he from,
and he told me he was from Burleton of Cardine also,
(30:26):
and I said, well, you look like they're drawing up
from part of the schedule rap that was committed in
Burlton that I'm in prison for. That you commit the crime,
And immediately he told me no, he did not, but
you just had a feeling. Yes, I had to feel,
because he resembled to drawing. You know, I had to
cut it out the local newspaper because I had my
hands from the newspaper in the count of jail, and
(30:48):
I cut it out and put it in my possession.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Now, finally destiny. So that throws you a bone, right,
because this guy, if he hadn't come to your prison,
you wouldn't have had any idea if you had to
cross paths with him at that particular time, you might
not have had that same feeling, that instinct that you had.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
Right, that is correct.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But here he goes and he denies it. You have
this instinct, this feeling. It turns out he's from the
same town. He denies it. So you're basically back where
you started. Accept it. Now you're under the same roof
with the guy who's responsible for destroying both of your lives.
But there's nothing you can really do about it. But
(31:27):
that all changed one day as a result of a
conversation that you had with another inmate, right, And can
you tell us how that started, because this is a
really amazing part of the story.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well, this guy, he began to lust after me in prison.
I told him one night as I was in a shower,
you know, I was washing my hair and shallow curtain
I heard slide, So I lifted up my hair because
I had an e f ro at the time, and
he was standing out lust and you know, telling me
what a beautiful body I had, And I told him
(31:58):
I'm not trying to hear that need to keep moving,
you know, and he kept on. I said, well, I'm
not gonna want to try to fight a guy, you know,
in the nude. You know, I might slip and fallow
my head, you know, bump on the floor or something,
getting knocked out unconscious, and you know, got do me in.
So I just chilled. And the next day I was
in the gym shooting pool a guy from Greensboro named Roger.
(32:20):
He told me to cott now Kenny and the kids
and talking junk about you, you know, And I said, well,
I'm tired of this stuff. I'm gonna get this man
straightened out right now. So I'm hand in my pool
stick and I chug a log up to the kitchen.
He was in the parking paying the area with his
back turn. When I approached. I stopped so many feet
from him and I called his name out and he
(32:42):
turned around he said yeah. I said, look, man, you've
been talking junk about me for so many months. I'm
tired of it. You let my name taste like crap
in your mouth. And he proached me and said you
better get up my face for I kill you. He
put his hand on me and I said, oh, you
want to fight, right, I said, okay, let's go. So
he walked around in the corner and get off a camera,
you know, and we falled and I ended up breaking
(33:05):
his jaw and put them down, and you know, and
they got bou off of him, and he goes to
surrogation and I do not because you know, they prism
stewards in the kitchen had heard me telling this guy
to leave me alone. So you know, they they got
on my side. And so he went the hole for
thirty days. And after thirty days he come out. I
was sating in my dorm. I was sitting in the corner.
(33:27):
Come my bump was in a corner wall. I kept
three chairs lining up along the wall. And he walked
up to the window and he said cott and I
said yeah. He said, let me holler at you man.
I told him come on. Then you know, he comes
in my dorm and I told him to have a seat.
He sit down and he span he said, I'm sorry
to fight you. He said, you're fighting, dude, And I said, no,
I'm just not gonna go for that bull, you know.
(33:48):
So he said, I apologize. I just wanted to become
your friend. I said, well, becoming a friend and don't
approach me in that way. And he said, well, I
just want to tell you that mister Poole told me
that he committed the crime you in prison for. And
I said, well, thank you. And so he gets up
and he walks off. And so later that night, I
(34:09):
go to my locker and I put out my legal
pad and a pen, and I set up about two
o'clock in the morning, and I wrote my lawd your
feel most and I told him what had been told
to me. And so a week or two went by,
he wrote me back and instructed me, well, then we're
gonna look into it, you know, but right now we
got to go through the process of the pills. And so, uh,
(34:32):
I just went head on. And about the next week
mister Poole approached me. He said, cause he worked, he
got a job in the kitchen as well. He said that. Uh,
he said, I know you got a lot of sisters, man. Uh,
he said, why don't you let me write one of
your sisters. I said, what, I don't normally let guys
in prison write my sisters. And uh, I said, but
with view two with exception I consider. I said, but
(34:55):
first of all we have to do I said, we
have to take a photograph together. And uh, I a
letter and I sent it to my sister. I said,
she see what you look like. She'll write your back.
If she doesn't, I don't know what to tell you.
And so we took the photograph. Anyway, I didn't send
that letter to my sister. I sent it to my lawyer.
(35:16):
He liked what he saw, Yeah, that it really got
the ball kind of rolling. Well. I was transferred on
through the prison and I ended up in Mason, Tennessee,
and I wrote the quartover ap pills from there, you know,
by listening to the OJ trial, you know, I took
my legal paths shot taking notes on the DNA and
when I felt I had enough evident and information written
(35:37):
down on my legal paths, I said, well, it's time
for me to write to the Court of Appills and
Requests for this DNA test. So once I wrote the
letter and send it out, Tiger Harner from Raleigh. He
wrote me a letter and told me that. He said,
you got a good case. The pills caught we Uh,
he said, they turn it down, but we're gonna continue
(35:59):
looking at it. So he forwarded my letter to law
school at UNC, and wasn't long after that they wrote
me a letter from the legislator, I mean the lawyer,
and he told me, I said that Cotton. Uh, we're
gonna do your request and send you and you have
a DNA done. They didn't send me to do it,
(36:20):
but they're gonna have it done. Said, we'll do your
DNA testing, but if the tests come back stating that
you committed to scribe, you're gonna spend the rest of
your life in prison. What do you want us to do?
I didn't hesitate for one moment. I immediately I sent
a letter back out do the test, because come back
stating anything other than innocent, guilty, realant, I said, because
(36:45):
I'm an innocent man, I said, the Good Lord knows them.
I know in my heart that I did not commit
the scribe.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Jennifer, were you aware of this, any of this stuff
going on at this time?
Speaker 6 (36:54):
No?
Speaker 7 (36:55):
Not at that time, and we had gone through a
second trial nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Did Bobbypool to fight that trial.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
Well, in nineteen eighty seven, they had told me that
there was this new name out there, Bobby Pool, that
you know, Ronald had been claiming that he had confessed
to it. But don't worry about it. We know that
we have the right guy. So in the second trial
they brought Bobby Pool into the courtroom under wardeer. They
had removed the jury, so the jury never knew about
(37:24):
Bobby Pool. And of course in the court Bobby Pool
denied it, said he had never said anything, he didn't
commit the crime. And by that point three years had
gone by and there was no memory of Bobby Pool
in my head or the second survivor who was in
the courtroom, and both of us said that we did
not recognize Bobby Pool. And then we were asked again,
(37:46):
did we see the person in the courtroom who had
raped us? And we both pointed out Ronald Cotton. So
you go to put your life back together again as
best as you can. You know, life moves on. I
had gotten married, I had gotten pregnant, I gave birth
to triplets the spring of nineteen ninety I had two
little girls and a baby boy. And by you know,
(38:10):
nineteen ninety five, my babies. I have three five year olds,
and I'm busy. You know, I'm a busy mama.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I'm halfway surprised you even showed up with a child, because,
I mean, you said you were busy, and you were
absolutely certain that the justice had already been done. Why
would you even want to go back that you weren't
forced to come back, were you? No?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
But you want to make sure that the person that
you think tried to kill you stays in prison, all right,
So you have a vested interest in this.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So you were there not to learn anything but to
reaffirm what you already knew, and to you know, make
sure that nothing went wrong and that he was ever
free to prey on anybody else.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Absolutely absolutely, And you know, by ninety five, when they
came to me and said that there was this thing
called post conviction DNA testing, something I had never heard of.
I knew what DNA was, but I had never heard
the word exoneration or wrongful convictions. It wasn't part of
my life. It wasn't part of my story.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It wasn't really part of anybody.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
It wasn't it was really it wasn't anybody's story at
that point we're talking about nineteen eighty five. But my
blood from the rape kit had dissolved and sintegrated after
those eleven years, and at some point the courts would
probably require me to give a new blood sample. And
I said to them, I said, you know, I've got
five year old triplets, and I'm busy, and I'm a
(39:23):
mama now, and that's my job and that's what I
want to do. So I went to the lab that
day and I had my doctor take blood, put it
in a vial, give it straight to the ADA and
Mike Golden, who now was captain of the Burlington Police Department,
and I said, run the test because I can't do
this anymore.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And then and then we had hit the.
Speaker 7 (39:46):
Fan pretty yeah much. I mean it was three months later,
which in legal time, three months is like two seconds lightning.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah yeah, probably not when you're in prison.
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Not when you're in prison. But you know, some of
these tests take years and years years, and this one
was three months. And they came to my house and
told me that the DNA had completely excluded Ronald Cotton
but had been a direct hit on Bobby Pool.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
You you must have been florid.
Speaker 7 (40:19):
It was one of the worst days of my life.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I'm getting the shells done. So when they told you this,
did you immediately realize that, in fact, this was true
and that you had been wrong all this time?
Speaker 7 (40:36):
Well? I think what happened for me was part of
my degree had been science. So I understood DNA like
I understood DYNA in relation to human memory. I got
that that human memory is fallible. DNA was pretty dang
spot on. I understood it like I understood that Ronald
(40:57):
was now going to be exonerated, understood that Bobbypool had
committed all these crimes, that a mistake had been made.
The best I can say is it's like the earth
opened up and it swallowed me, and everything became black
and dark, and I dissolved. I felt paralyzed. I felt
(41:24):
like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function. I mean, you know,
I try to talk about this in terms of I
could do my day to day things like I could
make a peanut butter sandwich, and I could put the
clothes from the washer into the dryer. But I couldn't function.
And when it got quiet and I was left by myself,
I just was debilitated with fear and guilt. It just
(41:49):
suffocated me and I stopped functioning for two years, two years,
two years. I just couldn't got in, you know, what
to do.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
Right.
Speaker 7 (42:01):
There's nobody was talking about these issues. Nobody was even
talking to me about rape and what happened to me,
but they really weren't talking about wrongful convictions. And I
had nobody to turn to. There was nobody for me
to talk to. You know, Ronald was on the Larry
King Show and in People magazine, and I understood that,
(42:21):
like I understood that, but there was nobody that cared
about me. And not only did they not care about me,
but they were blaming me right.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
And that's a crazy phenomenon too.
Speaker 6 (42:33):
It happens to.
Speaker 7 (42:34):
All of our crime survivors. We get blamed for something
that should never have been our fault. Like we're the
first person harmed. There is someone to blame, it's the perpetrator.
Because not only did Bobby Poole destroy my life and
the second survivor, but he sat there and watched an
innocent man go to prison, and he committed over two
(42:56):
dozen other crimes that fall of nineteen eighty four, in
the spring of nineteen eighty five, before he was ever apprehended.
He raped many women, sexually assaulted them, broke into their homes,
terrorized them for months, and yet somehow the media and
the general public felt that it was okay to bludgeon
(43:19):
me to a bloody pulp for something that was never
my fault. Like, there's no survivor in the world that
wants to get this wrong. No, no, we want the
person to go to prison who committed the crimes against
us or murdered our families. Nobody wants to get this wrong.
I mean, it was wrong, but it wasn't my fault.
(43:42):
It was just Jason for me to explain. I mean,
I got death threats, people who would say people who
said to me, if I find her, I will kidnap her,
I will rape her, I will slit her throat from
ear to ear, and I will watch her die and
bleed to death in a ditch lock.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Is that all about, I mean, blaming me.
Speaker 7 (44:03):
For something that was never my fault, something that Ron
didn't even blame me for.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Well, then that's a very very important part of the story, obviously.
I mean, the grace of this man who's sitting in
front of us is impossible to exaggerate or describe accurately,
And we'll get to that part of the story in
a second. But yeah, it's so it's so bizarre because
now you've got to deal with the guilt of having
(44:32):
convicted an innocent man, which I know has such a
profound effect on you and still does. And also the
idea that you were now in a situation where you
had not done the thing that was most important to you,
which was to correctly identify your assailant, which led to
(44:53):
these terrible outcomes for all these other women. It seems
like to me, like every where you look, it's just bad.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Well, first of all, I want to make sure everybody
understands that I did not.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Convict Ronald count Well, you can't convict anybody.
Speaker 7 (45:10):
Exactly, I mean, but that's something that gets narrated in
a way that is not right. Like the state of
North Carolina indicted Ronald and press charges and convicted Ronald.
Jennifer Thompson had no power to convict anybody. Did I
pick Ronald out of a lineup?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I did?
Speaker 7 (45:28):
And I can explain to you how those kind of
things happen, how memory kind of contaminates itself over time.
But there was no way for me to adequately explain
what was happening to me. For the exonery and their families,
an overturning of a conviction is the day they've been
(45:50):
praying for. Is that they're happy ending for a crime survivor,
for murder victim, family member who thought that the system
had given them justice, which is what they promised to
do for a victim, and find out that the system
had failed to give me justice. It had failed my family,
(46:12):
it had failed Ronald, it had failed Ronald's family, it
had failed the other women in the community. I have
not come up with a word yet that can actually
explain what that looks like and what that feels like
for those of us they get impacted, except it is
an additional nightmare. So for Ronald, he's home, he's with
his family. They've supported him, they're embracing him. The community
(46:36):
is celebrating this man who comes back to freedom, and rightly,
so that's exactly what should be happening. The crime survivor
should be cared for as well. And I've talked to
lots of police and prosecutors in training and talking about
these things, and they'll come up to me at the end,
and they say, you know, oh my god, I totally
(46:56):
forgot about the victim in these cases. And it shocked
me because for every wrongful conviction.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
There's a victim, right, and even if that victim is
someone who was killed, that there's a family, and we are.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
Ignored and we are placed aside and our harm is
not validated. And then on top of it, the media
places to blame and says things such as rape survivor
falsely accuses innocent man and sends him to prison not once,
but twice. And there's everything wrong with that sentence.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Right, as if you were doing it deliberately, that this was.
Speaker 7 (47:34):
To kill a mockingbird, and I was just making.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Up a story, right, And so then the most amazing
part of this story, I would say, the positive part
starts right, which is Jennifer reaches out, and how did
that happen?
Speaker 7 (47:48):
I actually called Mike Golden at the police department and said,
I am not doing well. It's been two years. I
haven't moved forward at all. I need you to set
up a private meeting. Because Ron was the first dnags
honery in North Carolina. I mean he was about twenty
third I think in the country. So everybody was trying
to find the girl. Everybody wanted to find the girl.
(48:11):
So I asked him to set up a private meeting
where journalists couldn't find us because they were all trying
to find me. So they set it up at a
church that was about a mile and a half from
where I had been raped thirteen years before that. And
he didn't know where he was going, and I didn't
know where I was going, so we couldn't accidentally leak
it to anybody. And I found myself at the pastor
study and looking out the window, I see this humongous
(48:36):
six foot four man kind of walking towards the building.
And I remember thinking, as I looked at him, because
his wife was seeing him beside of him, who is
my height? And the first thing I thought of was,
my god, he's too tall. That my attacker had never
been that tall. Now now it hit me because I
had that relation right, I'm looking, I'm thinking, oh my god,
(49:00):
he's huge, and he was five inches taller.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
What'd you say? What did you say? How did what happened?
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Well, my wife she didn't want me to go in
the beginning, but I had to determine that I was
going anyway. She said, no, you're not going. I said, yes,
I am, I said, because there would be a book
closed brain closure. So, you know, after I got dressed
and I looked at my wife, she was there, and
she said, well, I'm going too. So we jumped in
(49:29):
my truck and we pull up and I'll get out
and she gets out, and we met to take the
goll and my lawyaf Tom Blambert, and Jennifer's husband was there.
And so as we were getting ready to enter the
room to go in to talk, Jennifer instructed that her
husband stayed back and wasn't nobody but me, my wife,
and Jennifer in the room. So when I walked in
(49:50):
the room, Jennifer sitting just like she's sitting down with
a Jane outfit on, and she had a nervous expression
on her face. And I walked up and looked at her,
and she looked at me and she said, I'm sorry.
She said, I don't know how, I don't know what
to call you, mister Cotton, Ronald Cotton, and she said
(50:12):
I'm sorry, you know, and I said, I forgive you,
and I hugged her, and you know, I she stood up.
I hugged her. She cried, I cried, I said, grown
me and nothing cried. But that's a lie. You know,
you got it hard to have sympathy for people. You
know you're gonna cry. You know, I don't care who
you are. You know, you try to be hard all
you want to. You know, people walk over you, you know,
(50:33):
walk on you. And uh so after that, Jennifer and
my wife, they stepped to the side, said the little
private things that women say together, you know, to encourage
each other to be strong and carry on. So then
me and Jennifer, you know, after we went outside to
leave the premises, but before that we exchanged phone numbers
(50:54):
and you know, that way we can stay in contact
with one another as time went by, and it was
it's like a good story coming to an end, and
you know, but we continue to stay in touch. And
this book that he'll come about it. You know. I
went on to be on Larry King Live and all
those shows, you know, and people back and saying, but
(51:16):
I didn't let it blow my head up become My
head is already big enough, you see, had so I
just went on with my life and she went on
with her you know. But so it was one thing
after another. You know, I met the kids and all,
and she met my daughter after she come into this world,
and it's just been an amazing thing, you know, to
(51:38):
know that this book has been written and it's out
and come together and it's been blossoming year after year.
You know, it's been over thirty years now and they
still talking about Peking Cotton and I believe my picking
every day.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
You know, I'm a close I do want to get
your perspective and your memories of that most incredible moment.
I think it's a very brave thing that you did
in a lot of ways. So what was that moment
like for you.
Speaker 7 (52:08):
I went in thinking that probably the best case scenario
out of this meeting is going to be Ronald looking
at me, going okay, thanks for saying that. You know,
I don't want you any harm, but just go away,
Like that was going to be the best scenario. The
worst was going to be, yeah, I'm screaming at me
and wishing me death and destruction and terrible things. What
(52:32):
I didn't expect was what happened, and that was you know,
really looking at him sincerely, and I was sobbing telling
him that if I spent the rest of my life
telling you how sorry I am. Can you ever forgive me?
And Ronald literally took my hands and started to cry
and he said, I'm not angry at you. I forgave
(52:54):
you years ago. And Bobby Pool did this to both
of us, and we were both victims of this man.
And it was really that foundation that we were able
to love each other. And we spent the next two
hours asking each other questions I think that we had
wanted to ask each other all those eleven years. You know,
(53:14):
why did you think it was me? And you know
my question was, well, then if that if you weren't there,
then where were you? You know, that type of thing,
like trying to peel back the layers of the truth.
And he really truly gave me back pieces of myself
that I had lost and for the first time and
(53:38):
thirteen years, there were parts of my spirit and my soul,
my heart that kind of found a way back. And
you know, by watching Ronald and his just incredible love,
my next task was to find a way to let
go of what Bobby Pool had done to me all
those years ago, and you know, find a way to
(53:59):
take my pack power back. Where do I want to
give my power, and it sure as heck wasn't gonna
be the Bobby Pool.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
So Bobby died in prison three years later after.
Speaker 7 (54:10):
He was exonerated.
Speaker 6 (54:12):
Yeah was he was he killed or he I had cancer. Yeah,
I wanted to kill him though. I made me a weapon,
and I was going to do it, you know, until
my father payment visit, and uh, I told him what
my intention were. And my father said, son, he said,
don't do that. He said, you tell me you're a
innocent man. I believe you're in it, he said, but
(54:32):
if you kill him, he said, you're gonna be guilty.
And so I walked away thinking of that for two weeks.
You know, this guy he slept in the same dormitory
that I slept in, maybe from here to over there,
you know, the next room, and he walked by my
bunk every day two or three times a day or
maybe more, and worked in the same kitchen. And you know,
(54:54):
it was hard for me not to do it. But
I'm glad I didn't do it, you know. But I
said a prayer to the Good Lord for me to
forgive Jennifer making a costly mistake on my life. That's
how I was able to face her without saying any
bad things toward her. You know, I wanted to give
her love Strent and lift her up in the world,
(55:14):
you know, because you know, she had been down just
like myself. So y'all were down during time. She was
down in heart and in pain. I just had to
put one foot in front of the other and keep
on walking and you know, not be sad, but just
continue living my life as I am today. But my
life today is more in freedom and crime free.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing thing. I never get tired
of hearing these stories. It puts a lot of gratitude
in my attitude, so thank you for that. I wanted
to talk about compensation because it's a very bizarre system
that we have in America because it varies wildly from
state to state. And in your case, you were given
(55:59):
ten thousand dollars a year, which is the North Carolina
statute for or eleven years in present, one hundred and
ten thousand dollars. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 6 (56:09):
Well, I felt bad about it at the beginning, but
I had to accept it. You know, I would have
fought for it, but it wouldn't have done any good
you know, they already had their mind made up. I
accepted and I walked away. You know, it's like they
give me a little bit and packed on the shoulder, say,
you know, enjoy life, Jason.
Speaker 7 (56:30):
It's important to note, though, that when he got compensated,
the laws hadn't been changed for fifty years, so he
was actually eligible for five hundred dollars a year with
a cap of five thousand.
Speaker 6 (56:42):
Ye.
Speaker 7 (56:42):
So Mike Goalden and I lobbied the legislature has changed
that to ten thousand dollars a year, and we thought
we'd done this amazing thing. And then North Carolina changed
it again in the early two thousands, two thousands to
fifty thousand dollars a year with a cap of seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But they and make it
retroactive to Ron.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
Well, I never understand that. So Jennifer, tell me about
the work you've been doing with Healing Justice, because it's
from what I've read, it seems like an extraordinary mission
and it looks like it's making a real change.
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (57:15):
We launched Healing Justice three years ago because I became
frustrated why we weren't addressing this long term damage done
to everybody that gets harmed by a wrongful conviction. I
would listen to crime survivors. I'd listen to family members
of Exoneries and the ex Hooneries, and I would hear
the stories about what they had lost. And you keep thinking,
right that Pennsylvania is going to step up and fix
(57:37):
the problems they created with ex houneries in Pennsylvania, and
they weren't doing it. So I launched Healing Justice in
twenty fifteen. And what we do is really look at
the total harm done in our wrongful conviction and who
gets impacted by it, and finding ways that we can
address that harm in a myriad of ways, but probably
(57:59):
the cornerstone program we do is we host healing retreats
four times a year and we bring together about twenty
five exgneries and their family members and crime survivors for
a weekend. We pay for all of it, We fly
them in, and we do healing circles. We have art,
we address the harm, not the cases. We literally have
(58:22):
people kind of unfold the grief sitting in a safe
space with people who get it. Because unless you've traveled
a road like Ron and I have traveled, you can't
understand it, and so being in space with people who
understand it, you don't have to explain why you feel depression,
why you've had substance abuse issues, why you have family problems,
(58:45):
like we understand it. So it's really a way of
looking at the concentric circles of harm when the system fails.
So the other thing we do is training for police
and prosecutors about how do we address the aftermath of exonerations.
You know, we're really we're not an innocence project. We
(59:05):
really work on the aftermath, bringing folks together after the
harm's been done. How do we heal from that place?
I'm using restorative justice principles, using peer support. It's very
unique and its kind because everything we do is driven
by those who have lived it. So all of our
expertise is being given to us by folks that have
(59:27):
been impacted and harmed.
Speaker 3 (59:29):
And how do people get involved? How do they.
Speaker 7 (59:32):
Support www dot Healing Justice Project dot org. Do we
really need the financial support to continue kind of expanding
our work and bringing in more people. You know, we've
got twenty two hundred wrongful convictions, so we have a
lot of work ahead of us. We're excited about.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
It all right, So I'm going to give and I'm
going to ask everybody else to do the same. And
then we have a tradition here at Wrongful Conviction to
turn the mic over to you for any closing thoughts. Ron,
We're going to save you for last, Jennifer, the mic
is yours.
Speaker 7 (01:00:09):
I really want people to understand that when a wrongful
conviction happens, at the center of all of it is
a perpetrator. And when we don't get it right, we've
left the perpetrator on the streets to commit further harm,
something that I refer to as wrongful liberty. And everybody
needs to care about that. Everybody needs to know that
when a wrongful conviction happens, the system has failed every
(01:00:33):
single person except the perpetrator, and he is the only
person who wins.
Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
Rod Well, when someone tells you that they are innocent,
having an open ear and open eye to reach out
and touch and love very much, because just putting on
foot in front of it, you can't walk your way out.
(01:01:02):
You have to work your way out. It's easy to
say it than done. But I've learned my lesson. God,
I've been there, I know how it is. I keep
my head to the sky every day because I'm not
ashamed from where I've been yet not knowing where I'm going.
I'm on the road that I'm leading in the hands
(01:01:22):
of the Good Lord because he knows best, and I
will not follow the rest.
Speaker 10 (01:01:28):
Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
It really helps.
Speaker 10 (01:01:40):
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Go to Innocence Project dot or org to learn how
to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
the show is by three times pronominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Jason Flamm is a production of
Speaker 10 (01:02:11):
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!