A False Police Report Leads to the Conviction, and Imprisonment of an Innocent Man
Cathleen Crowell accused a man of rape in 1977. She took twenty-five years away from an innocent man. He was the first person to be exonerated by DNA in the US.
On July 9th, 1977, a police patrol officer saw a young girl standing on a curb near a shopping centre in Homewood, Chicago. Cathleen Crowell worked at the mall at a fast-food restaurant. She was dishevelled and told the officer that she had been walking through the parking lot, and a car with three young men in it stopped.
Two men jumped out and grabbed her, and threw her into the back seat. She described being assaulted in the vehicle and a man carving letters into her stomach with a broken beer bottle.
The officer took her to the hospital, her lacerations were treated, and a rape kit was performed, with DNA collected.
She later stated that that police pressured her to identify one of her attackers from a mugshot book. She selected a man who somewhat matched the composite sketch police had created, based on her description. His name was Gary Dotson.
Although she said the man who attacked her was clean-shaven, Dotson was arrested anyway, even…
