Networked Knowledge - Media Report

This version of the report has been prepared by: Dr Robert N Moles

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On 20 May 2008 Ray Quintanilla of the Chicago Tribune reported “Woman who recanted '79 rape charge dies”.

He said woman who recanted '79 rape charge dies. Cathleen Crowell Webb, a former south suburban woman who in the mid-1980s recanted a rape allegation that sent Gary Dotson to prison for eight years, died of breast cancer at her home in Harrisville, N.H., her husband confirmed Tuesday. "Her faith is what got her through a 6-year battle with cancer," David Webb said. "The issue with Gary was more painful for her, I believe, because she didn't know what would happen to him after she came forward and tried to make things right."

Webb said his wife, 46, a receptionist at a local religious school, died in her sleep May 15. She died knowing she had done the right thing for Dotson, he added, even though coming forward took six "grueling years of her life." The couple has four grown children. Mrs. Webb came forward in 1985 to acknowledge that she had lied about being raped by Dotson in 1979, when she was 16. She later told police she did it to cover up a possible pregnancy after consensual sex with her boyfriend. Dotson was serving a 25-to-50-year sentence for rape and kidnapping when Mrs. Webb admitted lying.

Televised hearings on the case, chaired by then-Gov. James R. Thompson, gripped the Chicago area and brought Dotson national attention—especially among those launching wrongful-conviction campaigns that would later free many inmates across the country. Charges against Dotson were dropped in 1989. Dotson was the first person in the U.S. exonerated by DNA evidence.

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