Memory can Lie

In July 1984, 22-year-old college student Jennifer Thompson was the victim of a break-in and rape in Burlington, North Carolina. Not far away, another victim reported an identical attack, in which the assailant broke into her apartment, cut her phone line, raped her and then pawed through her belongings, taking money and other valuables.Thompson worked with police to come up with a composite and soon positively identified her attacker as Ronald Junior Cotton. Cotton was also 22, but unlike Thompson, who had the perfect life to go with her perfect smile, perfect grades, and apparently perfect memory, he’d already served 18 months in prison for attempted sexual assault. Ronald Cotton was arrested on August 1, 1984, for both rapes. A jury convicted him on one count each of rape and burglary in January 1985. The jury was never told that the second victim had picked a different man out of the police lineup. Though family members supported Cotton’s alibi, his nervousness, police record, and a damning piece of foam missing from his shoe that was similar to a piece found at one of the crime scenes, didn’t help his case. And the witness was certain she had her man. A year later, Cotton met another inmate while working in the prison kitchen. Bobby Poole was serving consecutive life sentences for a series of vicious rapes. And he bragged to other inmates that Cotton was serving time for his crimes. Ruling that evidence concerning the second victim should have been allowed in the first trial, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned Cotton's conviction. A new trial, in November 1987, disallowed Poole’s comments as evidence, though Cotton’s lawyer subpoenaed Poole and asked Thompson to identify him. She said she’s never seen him before. Cotton was convicted of two rapes and two counts of burglary and received life plus 54 years.

In 1994 two new attorneys were assigned to Cotton’s case. They requested DNA testing, which was a fairly new science.

The DNA request was granted. The lab found that one victim’s sample was too deteriorated to be useful. The other’s, however, determined conclusively that Cotton was not a match. The defense requested the results be run through the State Bureau of Investigation's DNA database, which contains DNA fingerprints of all violent convicts in North Carolina.

A match: Bobby Poole pled guilty to both rapes and on June 30, 1995, Ronald Cotton walked out of prison a free man.