By HELEN O’NEILL
Associated Press

When the worst hap­pened, she fought back by mem­o­riz­ing her assailan­t’s face. That pow­er­ful tes­ti­mo­ny sent a man to prison for 11 years. Unfortunately, it was the wrong man.

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 jad­ed 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 mus­tache. She picked out his photo.

A week lat­er, she sat across a table from six men hold­ing num­bered cards. There was no one-way mir­ror to shield her. Each walked up and repeat­ed the words, ​“Shut up or I’ll cut you.” Thompson picked num­ber five. ​“That’s my rapist,” she told Gauldin.

In court, she put her right hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth. Then she looked direct­ly into the expres­sion­less face of the sus­pect. ​“He is the man who raped me,” she said.

She had nev­er been so sure of anything.

His name was Ronald Cotton and he was the same age as she. Local man, head­ed down the wrong road, had already been in trou­ble with the law. He had been arrest­ed on first-degree bur­glary charges and had served 18 months in prison for attempt­ed sex­u­al assault. Cotton had insist­ed that the rela­tion­ship result­ing in the assault charge was con­sen­su­al and that he was being unfair­ly tar­get­ed by police because he liked to date white women.

When Thompson picked him out of the line­up, every­one was sure they had the right man.

Cotton is tall and hand­some, with baby-smooth choco­late skin and a warm, engag­ing smile. Confronted by Thompson, his nor­mal calm failed him. He was pet­ri­fied. But he said noth­ing, betrayed no emotion.

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

But it was­n’t cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that brought 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 shoved her down on the bed, pin­ning 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 about this night: his voice, his hair, his leer­ing eyes. She would trick him into turn­ing on a light. She would study his fea­tures for scars, tat­toos, any­thing that would help iden­ti­fy him later.

In the suf­fo­cat­ing ter­ror of a shat­tered sum­mer night, Thompson made a vow. She would sur­vive. She would track down this stranger who had smashed into her life. And if she could­n’t kill him, she would do the next best thing. She’d send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Thompson has told the sto­ry many times, but the most pow­er­ful was the first time in court. Cotton could feel the jury sym­pa­thize. I’m 22 years old, he thought, and my life is over.

On Jan. 17, 1985, the day Cotton was sen­tenced to life in prison, Thompson toast­ed her vic­to­ry with cham­pagne. ​“It was the hap­pi­est day of my life,” she said. 

A Second Chance

“I say the truth will come to light and the Lord knows I am an inno­cent man. Someday, some­where, the truth is going to come out in my case. Thank you. Ronald Cotton.”

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 to oth­er inmates that Cotton was doing some of his time. Cotton hat­ed Poole. He describes how he fash­ioned a blade out of a piece of met­al and 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 threw his blade away and he 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 neigh­bor­hood, same kind of attack. Police were sure it was the same man. An appeals court had ruled that evi­dence relat­ing to the sec­ond vic­tim should have been allowed in the first trial.

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

He had for­got­ten the pow­er of Jennifer Thompson. Back on the stand, she was as con­fi­dent as ever. She looked direct­ly at Poole and she looked direct­ly at Cotton. Fifteen feet away he could feel the hatred in her heart. Cotton is the man who raped me, she told the jury. Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure.

The sec­ond vic­tim was less con­vinc­ing, but she point­ed to him, too. Cotton hung his head. He had no words left inside him. Just a burn­ing dis­be­lief and a bro­ken­heart­ed song. With the judge’s per­mis­sion he sang it, a high-pitched, waver­ing lament of inno­cence penned in his prison cell.

“Decisions I can no longer
make,
because my future is so
unknown to me,
and that I could no longer
take,
because dur­ing the day I 
won­der,
At night I hurt with
fear..”

The court fell silent as Ronald Cotton was sen­tenced to a sec­ond life term. 

Eleven Years in the Wrong

The knock on the door of her Winston-Salem home came out of the blue. The detec­tive had­n’t just dropped by casu­al­ly 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.”

For a moment noth­ing reg­is­tered in her mind, noth­ing but the deep blue walls of her kitchen and
the yel­low chick­en pic­tures that her chil­dren had paint­ed. They were hang­ing right behind Gauldin’s head. Then every­thing start­ed spin­ning — blues and yel­lows, the fuzzy glint of his police badge. And those words, thun­der­ing round and round in her head: 

“You were WRONG…”

There was new evi­dence, Gauldin was say­ing. 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.

She could still hear his voice: ​“Shut up or I’ll cut you.” She could still see his face in her head. She could still feel the hot flush of hatred in the court­room as he sang that sickening song.

Ronald Cotton was the man she had fled from that ter­ri­ble sum­mer night, wrapped only in a blan­ket, col­laps­ing on a neigh­bor’s porch. Ronald Cotton was the­man who had invad­ed her body, her mind, her life. Ronald Cotton was the rapist she had put away forever.

How could she have been wrong? She was still so very sure.

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

Only an extra­or­di­nary sequence of events had made that pos­si­ble: Cotton’s per­sis­tence in pro­claim­ing his inno­cence, a law pro­fes­sor’s curios­i­ty, the fact that sophis­ti­cat­ed DNA tests, which had­n’t been avail­able 11 years ago, could now be used.

The law pro­fes­sor, Richard Rosen of the University of North Carolina, had tak­en on the case, trou­bled that a man had been sen­tenced to life based almost exclu­sive­ly on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. ​“In so many cas­es, eye­wit­ness­es can be unre­li­able,” Rosen said. ​“At that point, I had no idea how strong and com­pelling Thompson was. I’m not sure any jury in the world would have acquit­ted him in the face of her testimony.”

Rosen’s prob­ing led to DNA sam­ples from Cotton and Poole. The police, by some fluke, had saved sheets and oth­er evi­dence from the rape scenes — evi­dence usu­al­ly destroyed after a case is decided.

In the end, Gauldin told Thompson, the sys­tem worked. An inno­cent man would be freed.

Ronald Cotton, Gauldin said, is a very lucky man.

But Gauldin had no answer when Thompson turned to him, face wracked with anguish. ​“How do I give some­one back 11 years?” she cried. 

Memory, Faith and DNA

Jennifer Thompson nev­er stops. Never stops wash­ing and iron­ing and bak­ing, nev­er stops dri­ving Morgan and Brittany and Blake to soc­cer and Scouts and piano, nev­er stops fill­ing her home with love.

For two years after Gauldin’s vis­it, she nev­er stopped feeling ashamed.

It was still Cotton’s face that haunt­ed her, even though sci­ence had proved that it was Poole who raped her. Over and over, she won­dered: How could she have made such a ter­ri­ble mis­take? And what of the man whose life she had ruined? All those years, locked away from his fam­i­ly, locked away from his life. Now that he was free, did he hate her as much as she hated herself?

Then 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. ​“Can you help
me?” she asked.

A few weeks lat­er, she drove 50 miles to a church in the town where she was raped. She asked her hus­band and the pas­tor to leave.

Trembling, she opened the door. She had prayed for the strength to face this moment. She had
prayed for the strength to face this man. ​“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, and 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. Cotton and Poole bore only a super­fi­cial resem­blance. Except that both were black men.

Thompson and Cotton talked about the pit­falls of mem­o­ry, the pow­er of faith, the mir­a­cle of DNA. They talked about the tor­tu­ous jour­ney that had brought them togeth­er. They talked about Bobby Poole.

We were both his vic­tims, Cotton said.

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

They held each oth­er for a long, long time.

A few days after meet­ing Cotton, Thompson wrote to Poole in prison.

She asked if he would meet her. ​“I faced you with courage and brav­ery on that July night,” she wrote. ​“You nev­er asked my per­mis­sion. Now I ask you to face me.”

If Cotton could for­give her, she could for­give Poole. After all, she rea­soned, some­thing must have gone ter­ri­bly wrong in his life to make him the mon­ster he became.

Poole nev­er respond­ed. He died of can­cer in prison ear­li­er this year. 

A Special Song

Jennifer Thompson is curled up on her sofa in pow­der-blue paja­mas. Her 10-year-old triplets trail in and out, hunt­ing for hugs and kiss­es and bed­time snacks. It’s the end of a long day and the 38-year-old mom is exhaust­ed. School, home­work, din­ner, a tele­vi­sion appear­ance, a few hours’ vol­un­teer work with an agency that helps abused chil­dren. And phone calls, end­less phone calls — from strangers who believe their loved ones are wrong­ly impris­oned, from the media ask­ing for interviews.

Thompson has become an out­spo­ken oppo­nent of the death penal­ty, using her new­found celebri­ty to talk about the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. She appears fre­quent­ly on tele­vi­sion talk shows. Last June she went to Texas to demon­strate against the con­tro­ver­sial exe­cu­tion of Gary Graham, whose death sen­tence was based large­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of one eye­wit­ness. She recent­ly appeared on ​“Oprah.” She is con­sid­er­ing writ­ing a book.

While she hates the time away from her fam­i­ly, she says, ​“It’s some­thing I just feel I have to do.”

She and Cotton talk often. Recently, after a joint tele­vi­sion appear­ance on the West Coast, they spent a day togeth­er, just the two of them, see­ing the sights of Seattle. ​“Ron just calls to make sure I’m doing okay,” Thompson says. ​“He is an amaz­ing human being. He has been a real good teacher for me.”

He has taught her about for­give­ness, and heal­ing, and faith. He has taught her not to feel like a vic­tim any­more. She has helped him too, lob­by­ing to change laws so that Cotton would be enti­tled to more than the $5,000 the state orig­i­nal­ly offered as com­pen­sa­tion. She wrote let­ters to leg­is­la­tors. She gave end­less inter­views. Cotton got a set­tle­ment of near­ly $110,000.

Cotton’s first job after his release was with the firm that con­duct­ed the DNA tests that exon­er­at­ed him. He now works sec­ond-shift for a com­pa­ny that makes insu­la­tion. He bought a house in Mebane, 62 miles east of Winston-Salem. He mar­ried a co-work­er. They have a baby girl, Raven.

When she is old enough, Cotton will tell Raven about the 11 years he spent in jail for a crime he did­n’t com­mit. He will tell her how he once melt­ed M & M’s over a flame in a prison toi­let bowl to make choco­late milk, how he sang love songs for oth­er inmates when they were miss­ing wives and girl­friends, how he wrote let­ter after let­ter pro­fess­ing his inno­cence. He will sing his spe­cial song. And he will tell her that things won’t always hap­pen the way she wants them to, but if she has faith they will work out in the end.

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.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company