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Victims of crime

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. For free advice contact Victim Support.https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/

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Original poster

Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

47 replies

HolidaysAreHolidays · 26/11/2021 08:02

people.com/crime/man-exonerated-1981-rape-alice-sebold-author/?amp=true

An interesting and tragic story.

This man served his sentence and was released at the end of it. Now his conviction has been overturned but his life has been ruined.

I'm interested in what might happen next in this story. I wonder if there is additional evidence to review to find the real attacker.

According to the report, the evidence was flawed at the very least. Sebold initially identified another man as the attacker but at trial identified this man.

OP posts:

JacquelineCarlyle · 02/12/2021 22:10

@OppsUpsSide

She was the victim of a violent rape, the fact the wrong man was convicted is not her fault. The fact she picked the ‘wrong man’ from the line up (barring in mind they were all the wrong man!) isn’t unconscious bias it’s trauma. What happened to him is deplorable, what happened to her is deplorable. They are both victims of another mans crime and have both been let down by the justice system in America.

I completely agree with this!

Felldownabackdonhole · 02/12/2021 22:12

@Lazydaisydaydream

Interested to know if anyone knows why the hair test is discredited now - does it not work on DNA?

I believe this was pre DNA testing. It was a hair type test. A rape kit was used but it was destroyed several years after the conviction so not DNA evidence can be obtained.

Eyewitnesses testimony in criminal cases is extremely unreliable but having read the book there is something off about her story as she thought she saw him in the street months later and then couldn’t pick him out of a line up. The police deliberately framed him.

Lazydaisydaydream · 02/12/2021 22:12

Sat thinking about this more, I’m sure there was a suggestion in the memoir that he had been in trouble with the police before - that they were “glad to get him for something” sort of thing. Has anything been suggested or reported about the police officers who were involved at the time being investigated in light of this?

Lazydaisydaydream · 02/12/2021 22:15

Thanks @fellbackdownahole cross posted there, and seem that it is as I thought about the possible police involvement leading to him being the man identified/convicted. I wonder if he cares about that, or if he’s just desperate to move on. He’s never going to get those years back now is he. And as Alice Senior mentions in her statement, this means the man who did actually rape her has been free all these years (and potentially harmed others)

Gearedtoyou · 02/12/2021 22:16

The police didn't "decide to convict him". He was convicted on the evidence she gave in court. She failed to identify him in the first line up but she did identify him in court.

MarshaBradyo · 02/12/2021 22:17

@Faffandahalf

‘They’ didn’t pin it on him though. She did.

They may have guided her that way but in the end she just saw a scary black man and said it was him when she probably knew it wasn’t. As we know she initially identified someone else.

Her apology is very removed from herself. She talks about the flawed justice system and the terribleness of what he has endured. But she doesn’t really apologise for choosing him as the man who raped her when he clearly wasn’t the man who raped her. She doesn’t say I got it wrong, I sent an innocent man to jail.
If she had said no that’s not the man who raped me the other evidence would not have been enough to convict.

I thought this on hearing her statement

Although I didn’t know any details, just looking at context now on this thread

OppsUpsSide · 02/12/2021 22:19

The victim in any case doesn’t ‘convict’ anyone, that is the whole point of the justice system.

Sashimimimi · 03/12/2021 13:15

I’m sure there was a suggestion in the memoir that he had been in trouble with the police before - that they were “glad to get him for something” sort of thing.

He didn’t have a criminal record. Sebold might have implied that he did in her book (I haven’t read it) but if she did, it was untrue.

Sashimimimi · 03/12/2021 13:18

The producer who looked into it said Sebold falsely claimed Broadwater had a criminal record.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10239771/amp/How-Netflix-movie-Alice-Sebolds-Lucky-exposed-wrongful-rape-charge.html

Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

Gearedtoyou · 03/12/2021 13:23

@Sashimimimi

I’m sure there was a suggestion in the memoir that he had been in trouble with the police before - that they were “glad to get him for something” sort of thing.

He didn’t have a criminal record. Sebold might have implied that he did in her book (I haven’t read it) but if she did, it was untrue.

The police told her that he did that that he had brought a friend who looked just like him into the line up. When in fact he didn't know the man she picked and they didn't look alike.

There were lots of horrible failings by the police, but ultimately she did identify him in court as the man who raped her.

SoupDragon · 03/12/2021 13:28

She failed to identify him in the first line up but she did identify him in court.

Identifying him in court means nothing - it's not like there is a choice of people!

Gearedtoyou · 03/12/2021 13:29

@SoupDragon

She failed to identify him in the first line up but she did identify him in court.

Identifying him in court means nothing - it's not like there is a choice of people!

Well it means quite a lot when that's the evidence the jury gets

SoupDragon · 03/12/2021 13:32

It's not evidence is it?

Gearedtoyou · 03/12/2021 13:38

She was asked when questioned in court if she could identify the rapist and she did. What else was it?

Illequiped · 03/12/2021 13:39

There wasn't just her evidence in court. There was the hair analysis that the police also used to convince her that he was the right man, despite the line up fail.

As far as seeing him on the street - she saw a man on the street who she believed to be her rapist. She called the police. The police couldn't find him, but a patrol officer said 'oh, that sounds like Anthony' and then the police pick him up, line up, hair analysis, tell Alice that he's definitely the guy. The DA probably coaching her on what she needed to say in court etc.

It's been a long time since I read her memoir. But I remember a fair bit of wrestling with racism, about her guilt that, due to the trauma of her rape, she couldn't initially be alone with a black man, any black man (a bit like if you were raped by a man in a bright orange top, you might be triggered by men wearing orange). She suffered from PTSD or similar and had therapy to overcome it.

Perhaps there was some subconscious racism in that the race of her rapist became a trigger. Eyewitness testimony is one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, there's lots of studies on it yet everyone thinks you do it on purpose. The hair analysis was supposed to be scientific proof it was him - it can't just be this man's conviction that is unsafe because of the use of a flawed technique. Does anyone remember when that DNA lab was fined for giving ridiculously high match probabilities?

TinaYouFatLard · 03/12/2021 13:40

This is a terribly traumatic situation for all involved.

I do remember how the lawyer made a point of saying what an excellent witness Alice was.

ancientgran · 03/12/2021 13:44

@drwitch

She was raped (not her fault). She saw a man in the street that she thought was her attacker and went to the police (what she should have done). The police put a suspect in a line up and asked her to identify him. She couldn't but picked someone she felt scared of (evidence of racism unconscious bias but also a clear wish to find the culprit and get closure so mixed). The police should have let him go then. Instead they moved ahead and prosecuted him. (now she could have stopped it but hands in your hearts how many of us would given we were attached and the police were convinced that they had the right man). So she is partly to blame but not deserving of all the hate she has been getting

Having failed to identify him at the ID parade she said it was him in court. She seems to blame the police for that but she said it.

Martinisarebetterdirty · 03/12/2021 13:48

This poor man, it’s awful. And this poor woman who has been raped, who has hopefully managed to put it behind her and is now not only having to relive it but having vitriol poured over her. I feel so sorry for them both.

ancientgran · 03/12/2021 13:52

@SoupDragon

She failed to identify him in the first line up but she did identify him in court.

Identifying him in court means nothing - it's not like there is a choice of people!

But hasn't she said she only identified him because the police said it was him. So it was a lie under oath when she said she could identify him as the rapist.

drwitch · 03/12/2021 14:08

Memories are really strange things though. She saw someone in the street who she thought was the rapist. Thus the image of the person in the street will have merged with the image of her attacker in her head. Then this image will have merged with the man in the line up. This she could honestly have believed that it was AB who was the attacker.

Snoopsnoggysnog · 04/12/2021 09:16

Huge sympathy for both victims here. But the Lovely Bones is the most awful, ridiculous book I’ve ever read.

DingDongDenny · 04/12/2021 23:53

The police are guilty of failings here and I think it is real victim blaming to lay the guilt at her door.

Of course there is human error when identifying someone in those circumstances, race may have played a part, but equally it wouldn't be unusual for this to happen anyway, especially during a traumatic incident

My facial recognition and memory isn't the best and that's not related to trauma or race. For example, I had been working with two colleagues for several years who looked similar and thought they were the same person, until they both turned up at the same meeting. Both white males. I'd make a terrible witness

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