With the rise of dual income households throughout the 80s and 90s, an unprecedented number of

families were relying on near-strangers for child care. Subsequently, a wave of child

sex abuse hysteria began in which any claim at all from a child was granted credence,

no matter how outlandish or provably false they were. At this time, Howard Dudley and

Diane were were jointly raised in their daughter Amy, but were never married. Eventually,

Howard found a renewed sense of fate that his wife had had two sons. Even though Howard

paid child support and maintained a presence in Amy's life, one could imagine that Howard's

new willingness to settle down was not well received by the mother of his first child or her family,

including Amy's babysitter, Lydia May Starky. On October 13, 1991, Amy allegedly told

Miss Starky that her father was, quote, nasty. Already primed to believe the worst about Howard

and demanding an explanation, Starky began a series of suggestive questioning and Amy allegedly

claimed sexual abuse. To look out for Amy's best interest during the social services investigation,

she was assigned a guardian ad lightem who determined that Amy's story was untrue. Nonetheless,

the trend demanded that credence be granted to the child's claims, triggering Howard's arrest.

The prosecution ignored and hid the guardian ad lightem's recommendation,

and even though Amy recanted her allegations immediately after trial, Howard's been nearly

25 years in prison as a child sex offender. This is wrongful conviction.

Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to share this story

because it's unique in terms of the almost 300 episodes we've done, but it's not unique because

it was a common story at the time that it was happening. It's the story of a man named Howard

Dudley who was convicted of a crime that never happened and who spent almost three decades

incarcerated because of a series of lies, superstitions, hysteria that sort of swept the nation.

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