Kind of a ready-made for Netflix true crime story. A producer working on an adaptation of Sebold's memoir "Lucky", about the author coming to terms with her rape, discovered some discrepancies in the book itself that suggested that the wrong man had been convicted of the crime. He left production (or was fired, news unclear) and hired a PI to corroborate his suspicions. The PI confirmed them, they got in touch with an attorney and they began a process to revoke the man's sentence 40 years after the fact, having already served 16 years in prison.
Alice Sebold was raped while in college, somewhere near campus. A few months later she ran into someone whom she identified as her rapist. Police picked him up and put him in a line up for Sebold to identify again - only she identified another man the second time around. Apparently she was then 'coached' into identifying the first man again - who was then convicted of rape. A year afterwards Sebold published her memoir Lucky, where she still identified the man, Anthony Broadwater, as her rapist. He was jailed in 1982 and released in 1998.
Cut back to the present time, the man's conviction was overturned earlier this week after a judge deemed “serious flaws” had occurred in the original prosecution. Primarily that the conviction had been based on some faulty CSI regarding hair DNA, and that the identification was no good either (in part, at least) because it was cross-race. Sebold is White, Anthony Broadwater is Black.
www.nytimes.com
I'd watch that docuseries.
Alice Sebold was raped while in college, somewhere near campus. A few months later she ran into someone whom she identified as her rapist. Police picked him up and put him in a line up for Sebold to identify again - only she identified another man the second time around. Apparently she was then 'coached' into identifying the first man again - who was then convicted of rape. A year afterwards Sebold published her memoir Lucky, where she still identified the man, Anthony Broadwater, as her rapist. He was jailed in 1982 and released in 1998.
Cut back to the present time, the man's conviction was overturned earlier this week after a judge deemed “serious flaws” had occurred in the original prosecution. Primarily that the conviction had been based on some faulty CSI regarding hair DNA, and that the identification was no good either (in part, at least) because it was cross-race. Sebold is White, Anthony Broadwater is Black.
Man Is Exonerated in Rape Case Described in Alice Sebold’s Memoir (Published 2021)
Anthony J. Broadwater was convicted of the 1981 attack in Syracuse, N.Y., in a case the district attorney and a state judge agreed was flawed.
I'd watch that docuseries.
