Jennifer Thompson Case

They say that it is better that ten guilty men go free then one innocent man be wrongly convicted. On a 60 Minute broadcast, reporter Lesley Stahl did a story regarding the wrongful imprisonment of an innocent man based off of a rape victim’s eyewitness identification. The man convicted of the crime was sentenced to life plus fifty years at the age of twenty-two for a crime he never committed. Eleven years later, his innocence was finally proven when DNA was able to exonerate and clear his name. On July 28th, 1984, in Burlington, North Carolina, a young college student by the name of Jennifer Thompson was raped at knife point in her off-campus apartment at three in the morning. The man broke into her apartment, snuck into her bedroom and raped Ms. Thompson for a little over twenty minutes. During the rape, Ms. Thompson was aware that trying to fight off her attacker would not end in her favor because she was only five feet-one inches tall and a hundred pounds. Therefore, Ms. Thompson decided to fight with her mind by trying to memorize every feature and identifying mark, such as scars and tattoos that her assailant might have. She was beyond determined to

In the 1930’s, Dillinger belonged to a group known as the Terror Gang. They were responsible for robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Ralph Alsman had no dealings with Dillinger, but had a resemblance to him that included a mole near one of his eyes, a scar on his left wrist and a cleft chin just like Dillinger. Both men lived within fifty-four miles of each other in Mooresville, Indiana. Unfortunately, Alsman was arrested seventeen times total because of Dillinger’s actions. The only thing that stopped his nightmare of constantly being confused and charged for Dillinger’s crimes was that Dillinger was gunned down and killed by Federal Agents on July 22,