83: The Rape of Jennifer Thompson, Wrongful Conviction of Ron Cotton & Their Enduring Legacy

Southern Fried True Crime

Erica Kelley

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 10.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2020

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To start off Black History Month, I wanted to highlight an extremely moving and important case of the wrongful conviction of a black man. The rape of Jennifer Thompson was horrific. But police procedures at the time, in 1984, caused her to accuse the wrong man. When he was finally exonerated by DNA, Jennifer didn’t just apologize. She and Ronald Cotton became close friends and Jennifer became an activist about the fallibility of eyewitness identification and the power of forgiveness.

Written, hosted and produced by Erica Kelley
Researched by Erica Kelley
Edited by Chaes Gray
Suggested Reading: Picking Cotton by
Suggested by Suzanne Link
Original Graphic Art by Coley Horner
Original Music by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio

Sources: https://www.southernfriedtruecrime.com/83-the-rape-of-jennifer-thompson-wrongful-conviction-of-ron-cotton

Major Resource: https://www.pickingcottonbook.com/

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Transcript

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0:30.7	Southern Fried true crime covers cases that are not suitable for young listeners
0:35.2	and there may also be some explicit language used.
0:38.4	Today's episode is about sexual assault so I would like to emphasize listener discretion.
0:49.2	Mark Twain once said nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eye witness.
0:55.8	Of course he died in 1910 when eye witness testimony mattered most.
1:01.3	Blood typing wouldn't be used in courts until the late 1930s and of course DNA wasn't widely used
1:07.3	until the late 1990s.
1:10.1	Even after blood typing began, eye witness testimony was considered the most important evidence,
1:16.0	second only to assigned confession.
1:19.0	Unfortunately, that's a myth and one that endures even into the modern age.
1:24.4	Though we are getting better.
1:27.0	In late July of 1984, a college student in Burlington, North Carolina was raped at knife point
1:33.2	in her apartment. Jennifer Thompson refused to give in to her fear and rage.
1:38.9	She remained calm and memorized every detail of his face.
1:43.3	She was determined to not only survive this attack but to make sure that this man would not
1:48.2	escape justice. She would be called the perfect witness, smart, calm and collected.
	...

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