American Notes Chicago

Gary Dotson was a young landscape worker in a Chicago suburb when Cathleen Crowell, then 16, told police in 1977 that she had been abducted, beaten and raped. Based on her testimony, Dotson was convicted and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in jail. He has spent the past six years in an Illinois state penitentiary. But last week Crowell confessed that she had made up the story. Awaiting a hearing that could result in his release this week, Dotson, now 28, found reason to praise his false accuser. Said he: "I just want to thank her for showing that some people's consciences do bother them about things they've done in the past."

Crowell says that she panicked after having sex with a boyfriend. Fearing that she might be pregnant (she was not), she decided to avoid disgrace by claiming she had been raped. When her description of her imaginary assailant resulted in Dotson's arrest, she went through with the lie; a jury deliberated only 96 minutes before convicting him. But Crowell, now a wife and mother in New Hampshire, could not forget the sight of the innocent man weeping as he was taken away, and she finally told her minister about the hoax.