The Toronto Star

By HELEN O’NEILL

BURLINGTON, N.C. — Jennifer Thompson was the per­fect stu­dent, per­fect daugh­ter, per­fect home­com­ing queen. And when her per­fect world was ripped apart, the petite blonde with the dark expres­sive eyes became some­thing she could nev­er have imagined:

The per­fect witness.

Police had nev­er seen a vic­tim so com­posed, so deter­mined, so sure.

Just hours after her ordeal, after a doc­tor swabbed her for semen sam­ples in a hos­pi­tal, she sat in a police sta­tion with Detective Mike Gauldin, comb­ing through pho­tos, work­ing up a composite.

She picked out his eye­brows, his nose, his pen­cil-thin mous­tache. She picked out his photo.

A week lat­er, she sat across a table from six men hold­ing num­bered cards. She picked num­ber 5. That’s my rapist,” she told Gauldin.

In court, she looked direct­ly into the sus­pec­t’s expres­sion­less face. He is the man who raped me,” she said.

His name was Ronald Cotton and he was her age. Local man, head­ed down the wrong road, had already been in trou­ble. Served 18 months in prison for attempt­ed sex­u­al assault.

She was white. He was black. Police knew he liked white women.

When Thompson picked him out of the line­up, every­one was sure they had the right man. Everyone, that is, except Ronald Cotton.

Cotton is tall and hand­some, with baby-smooth skin and a warm, engag­ing smile. Confronted by Thompson, his nor­mal calm failed him.

He was petrified.

Why are you so sure it was me?” he ago­nized silent­ly as she told her sto­ry in court. But he said noth­ing, betrayed no emotion.

Cotton’s actions and past had­n’t helped his case. He was ner­vous, got his dates mixed up. Alibis did­n’t check out. A piece of foam was miss­ing from his shoe, sim­i­lar to a piece found at the crime scene.

But it was­n’t cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that brought Ronald Cotton down. It was Jennifer Thompson.

The knife at her throat was cold, the voice menacing.

Shut up or I’ll cut you.”

Even as she screamed, even as her attack­er pinned her hands behind her, even as her head explod­ed with revul­sion and fear, the 22-year-old col­lege stu­dent knew exact­ly what to do.

She would out­smart her rapist. She would remem­ber every­thing: his voice, his hair, his leer­ing eyes. She would trick him into turn­ing on a light, study his fea­tures for scars, tat­toos, any­thing to help iden­ti­fy him later.

In the ter­ror of a sum­mer night, Thompson made a vow. She would sur­vive. She would track down this stranger, and if she could­n’t kill him, she would do the next best thing, send him to prison for the rest of his life.

In court Cotton could feel the jury sym­pa­thize. He sym­pa­thized him­self. In ter­ror, he watched as the sys­tem labelled him a rapist. I’m 22 years old, he thought, and my life is over.

On Jan. 17, 1985, the day Cotton was sen­tenced to life, Thompson toast­ed her vic­to­ry with champagne.

In prison, Cotton spent his nights writ­ing let­ters to lawyers, news­pa­pers, any­one who would lis­ten. He spent his days pound­ing the punch­ing bag. He joined the prison choir. He read the Bible. He tried to believe what his father kept telling him — that some­day jus­tice would prevail.

One day, about a year after Cotton was con­vict­ed, anoth­er man joined him work­ing in the prison kitchen. His name was Bobby Poole. He was serv­ing con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences for a series of bru­tal rapes.

And he was brag­ging that Cotton was doing some of his time.

Cotton hat­ed Poole, even planned to kill him. Cotton’s father begged him not to. Put your faith in God, his father said. If you kill Bobby Poole, then you real­ly do belong behind these bars.

So Cotton put his faith in God. And when he learned he had won a sec­ond tri­al, his heart filled with hope.

Another woman had been raped just an hour after Thompson: same Burlington neigh­bour­hood, same kind of attack. Police were sure it was the same man. An appeals court had ruled that evi­dence relat­ing to the sec­ond vic­tim should have been allowed in the first trial.

At the new tri­al, wit­ness­es would get a look at Poole, who was sub­poe­naed by Cotton’s lawyer. Finally, Cotton thought, he would be set free.

He had for­got­ten the pow­er of Jennifer Thompson.

Back on the stand, she looked direct­ly at Poole and direct­ly at Cotton. Cotton is the man who raped me, she told the jury.

The sec­ond vic­tim was less con­vinc­ing, but she point­ed to him too.

Ronald Cotton hung his head. He had no words left inside him. The court fell silent as he was sen­tenced to a sec­ond life term.

The knock on the door of her Winston-Salem home came out of the blue. The detec­tive had­n’t just dropped by to say hel­lo. It had been 11 years.

Standing in Thompson’s kitchen, Gauldin strug­gled to break the news.

Jennifer,” he said. You were wrong. Ronald Cotton did­n’t rape you. It was Bobby Poole.”

There was new evi­dence, Gauldin said. DNA tests. New sci­en­tif­ic proof that had­n’t been avail­able before.

Eleven years of night­mares, of Cotton’s face taunt­ing her in the dark. Eleven years of strug­gling to move on, of build­ing a life with her hus­band and chil­dren. Eleven years of being wrong. There must be some mistake.

Ronald Cotton was the man she had fled from that ter­ri­ble sum­mer night, wrapped only in a blan­ket, col­laps­ing on a neigh­bour’s porch. Ronald Cotton was the man who had invad­ed her body, her mind, her life. How could she have been wrong?

Gauldin tried to com­fort her, point­ing out that oth­ers had also been at fault: two juries, two judges, detec­tives, him­self. The sys­tem failed when it con­demned Ronald Cotton, Gauldin said, but it was about to be set right.

In the end, Gauldin told Thompson, the sys­tem worked. An inno­cent man would be freed. Ronald Cotton, Gauldin said, is a very lucky man.

How do I give some­one back 11 years?” she cried.

For two years after Gauldin’s vis­it, she nev­er stopped feel­ing ashamed. What of the man whose life she had ruined? Now that he was free, did he hate her as much as she hat­ed herself?

One day, she stopped cry­ing. She knew exact­ly what to do. Gauldin knew as soon as she called. You want to meet Ronald Cotton,” he said.

A few weeks lat­er, she drove 80 kilo­me­tres to a church in the town where she was raped. She asked her hus­band and the pas­tor to leave. Trembling, she opened the door.

I’m sor­ry,” she said. If I spent every day for the rest of my life telling you how sor­ry I am, it would­n’t come close to what I feel.”

Ronald Cotton was calm and qui­et. Thompson thought he seemed so very tall. Finally, he spoke.

I’m not mad at you,” he said soft­ly. I’ve nev­er been mad at you. I just want you to have a good life.”

Tears falling, Thompson looked into his eyes and knew she would nev­er see him in her night­mares again.

For two hours they sat and talked while their fam­i­lies paced out­side. She asked him about prison. He asked why she had been so sure.

I don’t know, was all she could say. You just looked like the man who raped me. But she knew that was­n’t good enough. The only resem­blance between Cotton and Poole is that they are both black men.

They talked about the pit­falls of mem­o­ry, the pow­er of faith, the mir­a­cle of DNA. They talked about the tor­tur­ous jour­ney that had brought them togeth­er. They talked about Bobby Poole. We were both his vic­tims, Cotton said, and Thompson nodded.

As dusk fell, they made their way out of the church. In the park­ing lot, their fam­i­lies weep­ing, Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton embraced for a long, long time.

A few days after meet­ing Cotton, Thompson wrote to Poole in prison. She asked if he would meet her. Poole nev­er respond­ed. He died of can­cer in prison ear­li­er this year.

Thompson has become an out­spo­ken oppo­nent of the death penal­ty, using her new celebri­ty to talk about the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. Now 38, the moth­er of triplets appears fre­quent­ly on TV talk-shows.

She talks often with Cotton, whose first job after his release was with the DNA com­pa­ny that con­duct­ed the tests that exon­er­at­ed him. He now works for a com­pa­ny that makes insu­la­tion. He bought a house in Mebane, 100 kilo­me­tres east of Winston-Salem. He mar­ried a co-work­er. They have a baby girl, Raven.

One day Ronald Cotton will intro­duce his daugh­ter to Jennifer Thompson. He will tell her that the woman who was once the per­fect wit­ness is now his friend.