If nothing else, Jennifer Thompson was positive about one thing in the weeks following her sexual assault — she knew the face of the man who had raped her.
Thompson, now a New York Times best-selling author, was a 22-year-old student at Elon College in 1984 when she was raped at knifepoint in her off-campus apartment. Yesterday, Thompson told about 100 audience members at the Universities at Shady Grove how she identified the perpetrator as a man named Ronald Cotton, saw him convicted and then learned 13 years later through DNA testing she had accused the wrong man.
While the courtroom drama of Cotton v. North Carolina is fairly well known, Thompson — who in 2009 wrote a book with Cotton — told yesterday’s audience about the power of forgiveness: Cotton’s journey to forgive Thompson and Thompson’s struggle to forgive herself for putting an innocent man behind bars.
Although the event was not held on this university’s main campus, university officials sent out messages on university websites informing students of buses that would shuttle people to and from Shady Grove. About half of the audience members yesterday were students, including several from this campus.
Thompson said she feels especially passionate about visiting college campuses, given their high rates of sexual assault. In an oft-cited statistic from the U.S. Justice Department, one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college, and of those victims, only 5 percent will report it. And Thompson said these high numbers are largely because the issue is kept in the dark at institutions of higher education.
“We know it’s happening, but we’re just not talking about it,” she said. “No one wants to talk about sexual violence, so I talk about it.”
Yesterday, that’s exactly what she did, taking the audience back to the night of her assault.
At 5-foot-2, 103 pounds, Thompson was unable to fight off her attacker, who had broken into her apartment in the middle of the night. Otherwise powerless in the situation, Thompson said she knew she had one weapon: the power to identify him. During her assault, Thompson said she studied the man’s face to ensure that when — or if — she escaped, she would make sure he never raped another woman.
“My most overriding emotion was, ‘I want to live,'” she said yesterday. “I thought, ‘If he kills me, he’ll have to catch me and find me first. I won’t lay here and die.'”
Thompson ultimately escaped out the same door her attacker had broken into and immediately reported the incident to police. Two days later, she identified Cotton out of a photo lineup and then later selected him in person as the man who assaulted her.
“I told police, ‘I remember everything about this man. Let me help you find him,'” Thompson said. “I had to keep the streets of Burlington, [N.C.,] safe. He couldn’t hurt another woman.”
Cotton denied any involvement in Thompson’s rape from the beginning but was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Ten years later, with the help of DNA testing, he became the first prisoner ever exonerated by DNA evidence in North Carolina. A convicted serial rapist, Bobby Poole, was ultimately found guilty of Thompson’s and others’ rapes.
It took two years for Thompson to meet Cotton in person, but she said once she did, everything changed.
“I said to him, ‘Ronald, if I spend every minute of every second of every day for the rest of my life apologizing for what I did, would you forgive me?'” she said yesterday. “And he did the one thing I never expected. He took my hand and said, ‘Jennifer, I forgave you years ago.'”
Now, Thompson said she and Cotton share an unexplainable friendship, one that has helped her overcome her assault, forgive Poole, forgive herself and move on with life.
Junior criminology and criminal justice major Jeremy Jones said he was sexually assaulted while in high school and felt empowered by Thompson’s story.
“This is an issue that’s always hidden behind the curtain,” he said after the event. “People just don’t talk about it. It’s one of those things people like to ignore. Ignorance is bliss. But I found her story amazing. It was really moving.”
Sandra Martins, a junior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said she was surprised to learn of the high prevalence of sexual assaults that involve acquaintances: According to the U.S. Justice Department, in 75 percent of all sexual assaults against women, the victim knows her attacker.
“It’s scary to know, but I’ve never thought about it,” she said. “You think the campus would be safe. It feels like a sense of security.”
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