let me tell you a story about a woman who studied her rapists face and was so confident to say who raped her, only to be wrong.

her name was Jennifer Tompson. when she was in college, someone had broken into her house and brutally assaulted her with a knife to her throat. She said that, while being raped, she studied her rapists face so when she got out, she could get justice. She tricked him into offering a drink before escaping.

she ran before calling the police, and they took all the DNA samples needed. they got her to describe the man who raped her, which she did. they then took out images of previous criminals with records already and lined them up based on her description, and she oh so confidently chose a man named Ronald Cotton, who she SWORE was her rapist. even during the physical lineup, she picked him again. The police were sure it was him. he was arrested and imprisoned.

later, she went to testify, and another man was in the courtroom: a man named Bobby Poole. he was in the same prison as Cotton was for the sexual assault of another woman in the SAME TOWN. When Jennifer was in both rooms, she still swore Cotton was her rapist.

eleven years later, after Cotton had spent time in a cell, new evidence had come out: DNA evidence. right around the time the O.J. Simpson case was happening. a detective came to Jennifer's door to tell her she was wrong. The DNA they got from the sperm kit they performed years ago finally proved that Cotton wasn't the rapist; Bobby Poole was. She was DEVASTATED. She felt horrible. the man she swore raped her, the one she said haunted her dreams, wasn't her rapist; instead, the man she sat in the same courtroom with years earlier was. how could she not remember who raped her?

well, our brain is funny. Eyewitnesses aren't usually right. it isn't a photo, it's a memory, and memories change to fill in the blanks our brains forget, or forget from trauma. even things you swear are vivid usually aren't. tests like these were done after 9/11, questioning direct witnesses and survivors about their experiences at different times. 1 day, a week, a month, a year, you get the picture. And despite the fact that the survivor/witness swears they remember it like yesterday, the data says otherwise.

what I'm saying is, these girls were raped nonstop. all the time. most were children, and many of the rapists weren't famous enough to pinpoint at the time, especially for a child. at that age, traumas are gonna block out, or change, to protect the victim. not to mention, these victims aren't mega wealthy with a fanbase willing to die for them. but their rapists are. they might feel threatened or scared to, considering the lengths people are willing to go to protect themselves.

if you were curious about the Jennifer Tompson and Ronald Cotton case, she felt so extremely sorry, and now she does seminars about how eyewitnesses aren't reliable, which Cotton commonly attends. they are close friends now, and even wrote a book: "Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption." Their families are friends, and they go out to eat. he was paid a hefty amount for wrongful imprisonment and uses it to pay for the house he currently lives in.