'The Innocence Files': 18-year-old Thomas Haynesworth spent 27 years in prison for rape over mistaken identity
Richmond, Virginia in 1984 was a very different city from what it is now. It was dotted with confederacy statues, consistently reminding the African American community of their struggle with racism. There was a surge in crime in the city between 1982-84, with multiple robberies, assaults, and murders, and the residents were wary of stepping out. On January 3, 1984, when 20-year-old Janet Burke, working at a childcare program, came in in the morning, she found a note from her colleague stating that they would be late. As Burke kept the note down and looked up, she heard a noise and saw an African American man wielding a knife standing in front of her. The man raped her as she lay there stunned, looking at his face, trying to memorize it. After the ordeal, Burke filed a police complaint and a hunt for the man ensued.
A few days later, another white woman heading to work in the morning was assaulted in a similar manner; a week later another complaint came, and in the first week of February, one more similar incident was reported. All victims described an African American man wielding a knife. The neighborhood was terrorized by the series of sexual assaults, with white women wary of venturing out even in the morning.
Nearly a month later, an African-American teen, 18-year-old Thomas Haynesworth, was running a routine errand for his mother, buying sweet potatoes. That is when one of the victims saw him and alerted the authorities, saying he looked like the attacker. Although she was not certain whether the teen was the actual perpetrator, the authorities called in Burke, who saw his image in a lineup and was convinced that Haynesworth was the one. She had memorized his face. All the four victims eventually pointed him in out in a lineup.
Haynesworth, who came from a normal family, and never had any run-ins with the police, was eventually convicted and sentenced to 74 years in prison. There was no DNA testing at that time. Shortly after his arrest, there was another series of similar attacks on white women. Police were convinced that the new perpetrator, who called himself the "Black Ninja," was a copycat.
By this time, Haynesworth attempted to tell authorities that his neighbor, Leon Davis, could have been the real perpetrator, and not him. The teen recalled meeting Davis a month ago when the latter was limping. When he asked Davis what had happened, he told Haynesworth that he was trying to "mess" with a white girl and a few men chased him and he fell. Haynesworth found his account similar to one of his alleged victims and joined the dots. Authorities, however, rubbished his claims as an attempt to get out of prison.
The teen was terrified of prison but relented to his fate. Nearly 16 years went by and it was time for parole; when authorities asked him to confess to the crime to get parole, Haynesworth denied the opportunity, continuing to maintain his innocence. Years later, when DNA testing became available, DNA exoneration cases gained popularity.
The Innocence Project was set up by two attorneys who saw an opportunity to help those in dire need behind bars. The nonprofit legal organization is committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through DNA testing. After the organization proved the innocence of one person behind bars for life, the state Governor in 2005 ordered the audit of thousands of such cases.
Haynesworth saw this on television, and hope sparked in him. He began writing letters, and nearly 25 years after his conviction, the Innocence Project took up his case. A DNA test was run in the two rape cases where some DNA had been preserved; the results came out and Haynesworth was eliminated in both the cases in 2009, including that of Burke's, who had claimed to have had memorized the perpetrator's face.
The DNA test, however, was run through the donor database and one positive match was found: Leon Davis. The other two cases against Haynesworth were solely based on eyewitnesses, the victims. He was later absolved of the two based on mistaken identity.
Haynesworth was finally exonerated at the age of 46 after spending 27 years in prison for the crimes he did not commit. He had lost his mother while he was in prison. Haynesworth was not permitted to attend the funeral. His father after his release revealed that the 46-year-old kept opening and closing the fridge at home because he had not seen one in nearly 30 years.
Although difficulty to differentiate between black faces is suggestive of racism, researchers have found that members of one community find it hard to discern features within members of other communities if they lived in homogenized society, without much exposure to people of other culture or race. Mistaken eyewitness identification is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions proven by DNA. Nearly 700 people have been exonerated in similar cases in America.
Netflix's 'The Innocence Files', releasing on April 15, shines a light on the untold personal stories behind eight cases of wrongful conviction that the nonprofit organization the Innocence Project has uncovered and worked tirelessly to overturn.