#525 Jason Flom With Willie "Pete" Williams Wrongful Conviction podcast

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#525 Jason Flom with Willie "Pete" Williams

2d ago 34:21

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On April 5, 1985, around 11 p.m., a woman exiting her car in her apartment complex parking lot just north of Atlanta, GA was approached by an African-American man. The man asked her if she could help him find "Paul." He then pulled out a gun and told her to move into the passenger seat. He drove to a nearby dead-end street where he raped the victim. After the attack, he drove her back to the parking lot and left on foot. She reported the attack to the police and helped them draw a composite sketch of the perpetrator.

Five days later, another woman exiting her car in her apartment complex was approached by an African-American man. This parking lot was on the same street in the same area as the other crime. The man asked her if she could help him find "Carol." He then put a razor blade to her throat and got in the car. He demanded sex and tried to pull off her clothes. She was able to talk the man into leaving her car. The police showed the second victim the first victim's composite sketch, and the second victim immediately identified the sketch as resembling her attacker.

Later that month, Willie “Pete” Williams, a 23-year-old part-time painter, was in a car pulled over for a traffic violation when police noted that he resembled the composite sketch of a serial rapist in a nearby neighborhood. The officers included Pete in a line-up, and two victims and a witness identified Pete as the perpetrator. The actual rapist was not included in the line-up.

Based solely on faulty eyewitness identification, and despite arguments Pete’s attorney made about an alternate suspect, a jury convicted Pete of rape, aggravated sodomy, and kidnapping. The judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison.

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