At around 945 on the night of April 25th, 1976, the 54-year-old widow of a Canon mill's

executive was at her home in Concord, North Carolina, when a man grabbed her from behind.

She fought him, scratching her attacker so hard that her nails bent backwards.

But ultimately, he overpowered and raped her.

She described her as silent as a light-skinned black man with no mention of facial hair, wearing

a dark leather coat and a beanie hat.

A rape kid was done, and the police carefully collected a mountain of forensic evidence.

Meanwhile, across town, 19-year-old Ronnie Long was at home with his mother on the phone

with the mother of his own two-year-old son until 10 p.m.

A few days later, Ronnie received a court summons for trespassing in a park after hours.

He was wearing a dark leather coat at the time.

Police would ask the rape victim to be present in court to see if her attacker was present

on the day Ronnie, the owner of a dark leather coat, was scheduled to appear.

Disguised, she sat in the gallery for two hours in Ronnie's presence, only to identify

him as her attacker when his name was called.

The state would present a case without any of the collected forensic or biological evidence,

only resting their case upon this extremely unorthodox and totally unreliable cross-racial

identification, and Ronnie's unscratched leather coat.

For that, Ronnie has been in prison for 44 years.

This is Ron Paul Conviction with Jason Flamm.

Welcome back to Ron Paul Conviction.

Today's case will...

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