Word: dotson
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After serving six years for kidnaping and rape, Gary Dotson, 28, seemed suddenly to be a technicality away from freedom when Cathleen Crowell Webb, his alleged victim, came forward to confess that she had made up the story. But last week, after listening to Webb recant her testimony in a Cook County court, Judge Richard Samuels upheld the original jury verdict and ordered Dotson returned to prison. As a stunned Dotson was taken away once more, Webb sobbed, "He's wrong! Gary Dotson is innocent...
Webb's original testimony was critical to Dotson's conviction. The other evidence offered in the 1979 trial was inconclusive. The doctor who examined her on the night of the alleged attack could not say without a doubt that she had been raped, though she certainly had suffered bruises and lacerations. A hair found on her body and semen on her underwear might have belonged to Dotson, but the results of those tests were also uncertain...
...hearing that she had claimed she was raped because she feared she was pregnant after having sex with her boyfriend (she was not). To make her tale believable, she said, she had torn her clothes and inflicted the cuts and bruises. When her description of her assailant led to Dotson's arrest, she said, she stuck...
Judge Samuels, who presided at the original trial in 1979, found Webb's new testimony less credible than that of a seemingly terrified 16-year-old girl who had told a brutal tale of kidnaping, assault and rape. Also troubling were parts of Dotson's testimony last week. While a friend testified that he had spent the evening of the attack with Dotson and two others, Dotson said that he had spent much of the time sleeping in the back seat of a car while his companions were stopping at parties. He might have been separated from the group...
...Dotson's conviction is not overturned, he must wait until 1988 before he is eligible for parole. Warren Lupel, his attorney, said that he will appeal the decision and ask Governor James Thompson to grant clemency. In the wake of the ruling, scores of sympathizers have called or wired the Governor's office. Said Lupel: "The battle isn't lost...