Statue Honoring Fort Worth Prison Exoneree Presented This Week

As officials prepare to unveil a statue honoring a man who wrongfully died in prison for a rape conviction, the victim who accidentally misidentified him said she struggles with her own feelings.

Michelle Mallin was a Texas Tech student in 1985 when she was raped at knife point in her car. She later picked Tim Cole out of a photo lineup that authorities later said was presented incorrectly.

It wasn't until after Cole had died in prison that DNA testing revealed who actually committed the rape — a case that led to Cole's posthumous pardon and statewide reforms meant to prevent wrongful convictions.

"I feel terrible what happened to their son and their brother," Mallin told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, referring to Cole's family. "They've been really, really nice. I didn't know if they'd even want to have anything to do with me after everything that happened."

The Associated Press typically does not identify the victims of sexual assault, but Mallin came forward publicly several years ago to clear Cole's name and discuss the case.

The city of Lubbock will unveil a statue of Cole this week in a ceremony featuring Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials.

Perry granted the posthumous pardon to Cole and later signed a law named for him that provides exonerated former inmates with $80,000 for each year they wrongly spent in prison, as well as other benefits. It is the most generous inmate compensation law in the country.

Cole was given a 25-year prison sentence in 1986 after jurors heard Mallin point to him as the man who raped her.

It wasn't until 2008 that Mallin found out that DNA testing proved she had misidentified her attacker. Testing linked the attack to Jerry Wayne Johnson, a convicted rapist who sent letters starting in 1995 — four years before Cole's death from heart complications — confessing to attacking Mallin.

"I felt guilty because I hadn't really learned everything at that point; what the police had done, but (Cole's family) just told me, `It's not your fault. This isn't anything you did,"' Mallin told the newspaper. "As I learned more I started to believe that, but I still felt terrible."

Charles Baird, the state district judge who heard the case after the new DNA testing, said Mallin wasn't to blame at all for the police's "improper conduct" with the photo lineup.

"This has just devastated her life," Baird told the newspaper. "I just don't know how she can overcome the grief and sorrow that she feels."

Cory Session, Cole's half-brother, recalled his mother, who died last year, comforting Mallin when the two met.

"She said, `You were a victim just as my son was and it will be OK,"' Cole said. "It was not her fault at all."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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