It took lower than a day for the detective to surrender on the case. A patrol officer had reported a harrowing, violent midnight rape in a Syracuse, New York, park. Hospital data recounted that the sufferer, an 18-year-old freshman at Syracuse College, was “crying uncontrollably.” Her face was bruised, and he or she had scratches on her neck. Her hymen had been lacerated in two locations. Her urine was “grossly bloody,” in keeping with the hospital report, and there was semen inside her.
At 8 on the morning after the assault, after the sufferer regarded fruitlessly by way of books of mug pictures in hopes of figuring out her assailant, Syracuse detective George Lorenz interviewed her. She had been awake many of the night time for a primary police interview, adopted by forensic and medical exams: every part from gathering bodily proof of the rape to X-rays of her cranium as a result of the attacker had pounded her head on a brick walkway. To alleviate the ache from her accidents, she had been given Demerol, a robust opioid.
Lorenz, a burly 17-year veteran of the division who had labored as a meat cutter and truck driver earlier than changing into a police officer, appeared aggravated that she had hassle staying awake, in keeping with her subsequent account. “That’s inconsequential, simply the info,” he barked when he thought she was offering extraneous element.
The detective was doubtful {that a} rape had occurred, in keeping with his preliminary report. “It’s this author’s opinion, after interview of the sufferer, that this case, as introduced by the sufferer, shouldn’t be utterly factual,” he wrote. After talking to the male scholar whom the sufferer had been visiting earlier than she was attacked, the detective checked the crime scene for something his colleagues, who had recovered a knife and the sufferer’s glasses, may need missed.
That was the totality of Lorenz’s investigation. 5 hours after receiving the case, in a report marked 13:00 on Might 8, 1981, he positioned it within the “inactive file pending additional information.” The results of that call are nonetheless taking part in out almost a half-century later.
Alice Sebold returned to campus for the autumn semester that 12 months, conscious that no person was in search of her rapist. She occurred to come across a person on the road and, with a jolt of terrified recognition, was sure she acknowledged her attacker. Sebold introduced him to the eye of the police. Her testimony convicted the person, who spent 16 years in jail and almost 23 extra as a registered intercourse offender.
Sebold was no bizarre survivor. At a time when few even reported rapes, she publicly described her expertise in searing element — in op-eds, on “Oprah” after which in a memoir concerning the assault and its aftermath — inspiring others to talk out quite than dwell in silent disgrace. That memoir, “Fortunate,” was printed in 1999, then bought one million copies after her first novel, “The Beautiful Bones,” grew to become a publishing phenomenon and, later, a Hollywood film. Years after that, an try to show “Fortunate” right into a film led screenwriters and producers to look at the badly flawed police work and prosecution stemming from the assault of Sebold. The small print had been sitting in plain sight in Sebold’s memoir.
The case publicly disintegrated in 2021 when a decide vacated the conviction of Anthony Broadwater and Syracuse’s district lawyer mentioned in court docket that the prosecution “ought to by no means have occurred.” Involving, because it did, a white girl accusing a poor Black man of rape, and coming again to court docket a 12 months after the convulsions brought on by the homicide of George Floyd, the information detonated within the media, with Sebold vilified even after she apologized to Broadwater. The case was yet one more reminder, if reminder was wanted, of the racism within the U.S. justice system. And what had as soon as been a central id for Sebold — an individual who had constructed a voice and a profession out of standing as much as sexual violence — all of the sudden turned on its head.
As all of these particulars unspooled in court docket, on tv, and within the pages of The New York Instances and the Syracuse press, two former colleagues of mine started to report on the case. One element misplaced within the frenzy raised the query of what number of different victims had been left behind and what else the police may need missed: The district lawyer mentioned in court docket that there had been different rapes in the identical park the place Sebold had been attacked, together with one just a little over per week after Broadwater’s conviction. The DA expressed frustration that “no person may need put two and two collectively again then.” My former colleagues moved on to different initiatives and publications.
Finally my editors requested me to select up the place they left off. What may we uncover if we tried immediately to analyze the case that the Syracuse police by no means actually investigated — Sebold’s — in addition to any others that will have been associated? Might we untangle how issues went so fallacious and maybe even level to a possible offender? And if the authorities had bungled the case this badly, what errors had they made in different instances and what may very well be discovered from these errors?
As an investigative reporter with nearly twenty years at ProPublica, a lot of these years centered on felony justice, I’ve delved into numerous instances gone fallacious. On one event, I got down to report an article on a person unjustly convicted of homicide — a case the place an appeals court docket had belatedly discovered prosecutorial misconduct severe sufficient to overturn his conviction — solely to have the person confess to me that in truth he had pulled the set off. He recounted the sufferer’s dying phrases and informed me, “I did what I needed to do.”
Sebold’s case would grow to be much more complicated than that one, and its layers and results far broader than what emerged within the wake of the exoneration. There have been much more turns — together with civil litigation that continues to at the present time — in what was already a baroque narrative.
Or so I’d be taught after I launched into what grew to become two and a half years of reporting, attempting to excavate the Syracuse felony justice system in an period earlier than DNA proof and cellphones, earlier than the Police Division even had computer systems, a time by which cities everywhere in the nation have been grappling with an enormous rise in violent crime. Reconstructing the reality many years after the very fact, evidently, is even more durable than attempting to pin it down within the second.
What’s clear is that no a part of the system in Syracuse on the time may very well be relied on. Police dismissed rapes. Prosecutors bungled confessions or have been defeated at trial. Judges ignored irregularities. And one of the highly effective establishments within the metropolis, Syracuse College, appeared extra fascinated about suppressing information of a rape epidemic than fixing it. There have been police stories of sexual assaults close to the campus marked “no press.” A former detective testified that the information have been marked that method on the college’s request.
On this environment, not less than one serial rapist was on the streets — and sexual assaults that intently resembled Sebold’s continued for years, even whereas Broadwater was behind bars. In the meantime, the case gnawed at former Syracuse detective Paul Clapper. He questioned whether or not the fallacious man had been despatched to jail. After he left the drive, he raised the title of a confessed and convicted rapist who intently matched the bodily description of Sebold’s assailant however dedicated most of his crimes indoors quite than exterior.
That man’s report was prolonged and violent. I finally discovered myself knocking on his battered door, questioning whether or not, in the end, I had discovered the true perpetrator. Or was I falling into the identical entice that the Syracuse felony justice system had tumbled into when it wrongly convicted Anthony Broadwater 44 years in the past?
1
When Alice Sebold arrived as a university freshman in 1980, Syracuse was a metropolis in decline. It had risen a century and a half earlier due to its proximity to the Erie Canal, then for many years was the location of factories for corporations like Basic Electrical and Service Corp. By the Nineteen Seventies, these corporations have been closing amenities. Poverty climbed and town’s inhabitants dwindled, emptying rows of Victorian properties that had housed generations of working-class households. Syracuse’s downtown, already severed by the interstate freeway, withered.
One establishment, nevertheless, was flourishing: Syracuse College. Enrollment surged, its sports activities groups excelled and new buildings rose. The college was a bubble inside town, in keeping with former college students.
Sebold was drawn by the varsity’s distinguished poetry program. Raised in a family of voracious readers in suburban Philadelphia, her father a professor of Spanish on the College of Pennsylvania and her mom having labored for magazines, Sebold disdained the college’s frat tradition. She most well-liked to skip the keg events in her dorm and as a substitute lounged within the basement of the artwork constructing, ingesting countless cups of on the spot espresso and studying Emily Dickinson.
Simply after midnight, on Might 8, 1981, the final night time of her freshman 12 months, she was attacked. Sebold was crossing by way of Thornden Park on her method again to her dorm from a buddy’s house. A stranger grabbed her from behind as she walked alongside a brick path. He put one hand over her mouth and threatened her with a knife. “I’ll kill you in the event you scream,” he mentioned. Over a interval of greater than an hour, in keeping with police stories and Sebold’s memoir, the assailant bludgeoned Sebold along with his fists, pounded her cranium into the brick and choked her.
Sebold frantically looked for phrases to discourage him: She informed him she was a virgin, then an orphan. She supplied him the $8 she had in her again pocket. He laughed and mentioned he wasn’t fascinated about that.
He compelled her to kiss him, then to undress. He made clear she was not his first sufferer. “You’re the worst bitch I’ve ever achieved this to,” he mentioned.
Then, when he was achieved, he fell asleep on high of her. She tried to flee, however he awoke and supplied a tearful apology. “You’re a superb lady,” he mentioned. “I’m so sorry.” He informed her to kiss him good night time and known as her stunning. “It was a date to him,” she wrote in “Fortunate.”
Simply as rapidly, he reverted to hostility. The attacker pocketed her $8 in any case. He let her go, then requested her title as she walked away. “Alice,” she informed him, writing later, “I didn’t have a reputation aside from my very own to say.”
“Good realizing you, Alice,” he mentioned. “See you round someday.”
2
Thornden Park, the place Sebold had been assaulted, was each a refuge and a menacing locale adjoining to the college. As soon as the property of a salt baron, the rolling 76-acre park had broad fields — with tennis courts, a pool and an earthen amphitheater — in addition to dense clusters of maple and oak bushes that supplied darkish, remoted enclaves the place an assault would possibly go unnoticed.
The park had been the location of two sexual assaults seven months earlier than Sebold’s rape. A 3rd had occurred a block away. The stories in these instances had additionally been rapidly consigned to the inactive file.
One girl had informed police {that a} man dragged her right into a wooded part of the park. When she resisted, the report said, he “started to punch her within the face” and “ordered her to take away her pants.”
As with Sebold’s case, the police report was dismissive. One officer asserted that the sufferer was “retarded” and had run away from a close-by midway home. The workers there mentioned that she had complained of an analogous incident two weeks prior and that she was having “problem adjusting.” The case was placed on ice simply hours after it had been reported.
4 days later, one other younger girl was making her method throughout Thornden Park when a person in a ski cap grabbed her by the neck and put a knife to her face. As she squirmed and tried to push him off, the person struggled to tug off his pants and hers. The lady all of the sudden realized the weapon was only a desk knife, so she screamed as loud as she may and he ran away.
There was no indication within the police stories that these assaults may need been related. Nor was there a lot proof of public alarm. I discovered no articles about any of those October 1980 assaults in newspaper archives.
Attempting to piece this info collectively was daunting and complex. My colleagues and I made greater than two dozen requests for all method of legislation enforcement data from the Syracuse district lawyer’s workplace, Police Division, the state jail system, native jails, archives and courts. Many have been initially denied. After appeals, I wound up with 1000’s of pages of paperwork. There was little or no group amongst them, and a few have been scrawled in just decipherable handwriting. Even the redactions have been haphazard, with some names nonetheless seen.
I began to map out the assaults round Thornden Park, utilizing police stories and stray newspaper clips for a few of the later ones. The numbers and proximity have been jarring. Greater than a dozen girls reported being raped or attacked by strangers inside half a sq. mile over 4 years.
Ladies have been being sexually assaulted of their dorm rooms and in scholar residences, strolling out of grocery shops or on their technique to the library. A nursing scholar was attacked on the identical spot as Sebold, on the identical day that her roommate was raped of their shared house. A freshman was raped in a sorority home by a person who broke in by way of a window. The descriptions of the perpetrators have been usually eerily comparable. They incessantly carried a knife. And a number of other have been roughly the identical top, weight and race.
It appeared that there was a public security disaster emanating from the park space, with no signal of urgency from legislation enforcement.
3
Syracuse’s felony justice system was chaotic through the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s. One prosecutor would get right into a scuffle, on dwell TV, with a candidate who had simply gained the race for DA. The police crime lab would lose its accreditation. The physician who led the county medical expert’s workplace resigned after an investigation discovered he had routinely eliminated organs from corpses with out consent from the victims’ households. His workers had posed playfully for images over the physique of a girl who had died by suicide.
Given the extent of dysfunction — and the truth that DNA proof hadn’t but come into use within the early ’80s — rape was notably troublesome to analyze. Survivors have been cautious, corroborating proof arduous to seek out. The Syracuse Police Division had no separate intercourse crimes unit on the time, and officers have been nonetheless utilizing typewriters.
“We have been doing every part from murder to robberies,” one supervisor of detectives throughout this period informed me. He remembered nights with 18 felonies and fewer than a dozen detectives to work them. “An individual with a knife of their again or a man who acquired shot goes to take precedence over a two-week-old rape case,” he mentioned.
“An individual with a knife of their again or a man who acquired shot goes to take precedence over a two-week-old rape case,” one supervisor of detectives mentioned.
There was one other obstacle in these days: Syracuse College. I discovered a police report from 1980 on which somebody had scrawled the phrases “NO PRESS.” A 19-year-old college scholar had been strolling close to Thornden Park when she, too, was attacked by a person with a knife. She acquired away by biting him when he tried to drive her to carry out oral intercourse.
The “no press” designation on police stories was commonplace, in keeping with deposition testimony by Clapper, the previous Syracuse detective, who would play a vital function within the Broadwater saga. “No press,” Clapper testified in 2025, “signifies that Syracuse College put their foot down and mentioned no press for any form of rape, theft, housebreaking that’s anyplace within the space of Syracuse College.”
The college had affect within the Police Division, in keeping with Clapper, and an apparent curiosity in making the campus appear secure: “In case your little daughter needs to go to highschool at SU and calls the police, and says, How is the crime round Syracuse College? ‘No crime round there.’ There’s 5 women raped inside, let’s say, a six-month interval … between campus and Thornden Park. And if it’s marked ‘no press,’ it’s prefer it by no means occurred.”
4
Sebold’s case had been positioned within the inactive file. That meant the police weren’t looking for her assailant. However she couldn’t assist herself. Based on Sebold’s memoir, she walked the college campus, “in search of Him.”
“I used to be very conscious that he may very well be round any nook,” she informed me many years later. A way of “hypervigilance” coursed by way of her like “a bunch {of electrical} wires,” she mentioned.
5 months after the crime, Sebold noticed a person on a avenue crammed with eating places and bars close to the college. She felt a sudden, visceral certainty: “proper top, proper construct, one thing in his posture.” She wrote that the person walked as much as her and mentioned, “Hey lady, don’t I do know you from someplace?” He then started nonchalantly chatting with a police officer throughout the road. (Each Broadwater and the officer would testify that they mentioned “don’t I do know you” to one another.)
When Sebold reported the sighting to the authorities just a few hours later, Clapper acknowledged himself because the cop she noticed and Anthony Broadwater as the person he was speaking to. Broadwater, then 20, had grown up as one in all six youngsters of a janitor who labored for Syracuse College. After a quick stint within the Marines, he was working as a phone wiring installer. Rising up, Broadwater informed me, he’d had run-ins with the police and had served time in juvenile detention for theft. (Clapper had recognized Broadwater since he was a boy, he would testify years later. When requested if he had ever recognized him “to be concerned in something like rape,” Clapper replied, “No.”)
Broadwater was arrested. He vociferously protested his innocence and did no matter he may to show it. He volunteered a pubic hair for comparability to at least one discovered on Sebold after the rape, and he agreed to take part in a lineup.
When Broadwater noticed the opposite lineup contributors, he started to fret. None of them regarded very similar to him. They have been all too tall or had a lighter complexion or each. He advised that one other inmate nearer to his top and construct be included to make it extra truthful. Broadwater’s court-appointed lawyer acquired the jailer to carry one other man down from the detention facility above the police constructing.
Sebold regarded on the row of males and picked the one that had simply been added to the lineup. The person was standing subsequent to Broadwater.
The case ought to have ended then and there, within the view of the DA immediately. “You understand, she didn’t pick the fallacious man. She picked out the man. She picked out the man that she thought had raped her. And it wasn’t Anthony,” Onondaga County District Lawyer William Fitzpatrick informed ProPublica. “Case is over. Cease.”
But it surely didn’t cease.
5
The prosecution of Broadwater had been assigned to a younger assistant district lawyer named Gail Uebelhoer (pronounced EE-bull-hair). Sebold wrote that she felt a right away connection to Uebelhoer, whom she described as “stable and feminine” with “glowing, clever eyes.” As Sebold put it in “Fortunate,” “She needed what I needed: to win.”
After Sebold did not establish Broadwater within the lineup, she may sense that Lorenz, the detective who had overseen the method, was sad. (Lorenz died in 2017.) Sebold mentioned she had been scared and confused, torn between the lads in positions 4 and 5. As an alternative of in search of out extra proof, Uebelhoer requested Sebold to draft an affidavit on the spot, explaining what had occurred. Sebold wrote within the affidavit that she had picked No. 5 as a result of that particular person had been her. Broadwater was in place 4.
The prosecutor then informed her it was solely pure that she would make such a mistake, in keeping with Sebold’s memoir. “They actually labored a quantity on you. He makes use of that buddy or that buddy makes use of him, in each lineup they do,” Sebold mentioned Uebelhoer informed her. “They’re useless ringers.” Each males are adamant that that they had by no means been in a lineup earlier than.
Inside three hours of the botched lineup, Uebelhoer introduced the case towards Broadwater to a grand jury. Sebold wrote that she placed on “one of the best present” of her life and a number of other grand jurors “fought again tears.”
Not less than one in all them was uneasy concerning the method by which Broadwater had been recognized, in keeping with a transcript. “When somebody is picked out of the lineup, doesn’t it should be completely positive that the person who they picked out of the lineup is the one they’ve seen earlier than?” one grand juror requested Clapper whereas he was on the witness stand.
“That’s right,” Clapper mentioned.
Uebelhoer quashed the dialogue. “He actually can’t provide you with an opinion on that,” she informed the juror, including that Clapper hadn’t been current for the lineup.
The juror requested about it two extra occasions, however Uebelhoer saved deflecting. Broadwater was indicted on each rely she had introduced, together with rape, sodomy and theft.
Illustration by Vanessa Saba for ProPublica
6
When Broadwater’s case was set for trial, Uebelhoer was visibly pregnant. It was handed to William Mastine. Mustachioed, 6’6” and pugnacious — Mastine is the prosecutor who would scuffle with the DA-elect just a few years later — he was recognized for his swagger and courtroom theatrics. Fitzpatrick, then a fellow assistant district lawyer, would dub Mastine the “Rubbish Man” in a newspaper profile for his potential to carry instances with scant proof or, as Fitzpatrick put it to me extra pungently, “take shit and make it hit.”
This was no minor consideration. Acquittals in rape trials have been frequent on the time in Syracuse. At one level within the Nineteen Eighties, an area information article reported that the district lawyer’s workplace had suffered 9 trial defeats in a row. Uebelhoer was quoted saying “juries are in search of an ideal sufferer, however they don’t exist.” She noticed Sebold as a standout, writing in a memo because the case was transferred to Mastine: “Good luck. Sufferer is superb witness.”
Sebold’s testimony could be essential at trial, because it was almost the whole thing of the proof. Mastine repeatedly emphasised that she was a reputable witness. She had been a virgin, he identified, arguing that it could extra firmly cement the picture of her rapist in her thoughts. He mentioned her research of drawing as a highschool scholar outfitted her to recollect facial traits. She was shaken through the lineup. The identification on the road was what mattered, he argued.
Uebelhoer noticed Sebold as a standout, writing in a memo because the case was transferred to Mastine: “Good luck. Sufferer is superb witness.”
Except for Sebold’s identification, the one different piece of proof was the pubic hair Broadwater volunteered, which was in comparison with a hair discovered on Sebold after the rape. The 2 hairs have been examined below a microscope by a lab skilled who testified that they have been “constant” with one another. That basically meant that each had come from a Black particular person. There have been roughly 27 million Black Individuals at the moment. (Within the absence of DNA know-how, the prosecution may have examined the semen present in Sebold to find out its blood sort, however it by no means did. That will have narrowed the checklist of doable perpetrators to solely these with the particular blood sort.)
The trial was peppered with irregularities. Broadwater and his lawyer had opted for a bench trial, hoping {that a} decide would see the paucity of proof and wouldn’t be swayed by emotion. However the decide appeared to have a mushy spot for Sebold. Throughout a break within the proceedings, he spoke to Sebold privately, in keeping with her memoir, expressing concern about how she was holding up and asking about her household. Had a juror achieved such a factor, they might seemingly have been kicked off the jury and a mistrial would possibly’ve been declared. (The decide died in 2009.)
In a last, extremely uncommon flip, Uebelhoer took the stand herself, as a witness for the prosecution. She testified that Broadwater was sad with one of many folks within the lineup and that he managed to swap that particular person out for the person Sebold picked. She appeared to suggest that Broadwater was liable for any confusion within the lineup course of.
When it was over, the decide didn’t even go away the bench to deliberate. He discovered Broadwater responsible immediately after Mastine completed his closing argument.
Mastine defends the trial and the decision. Once I reached him by telephone, he famous that he was introduced onto the case after the indictment had been handed up. Mastine in any other case repeated what he’d mentioned on the time: that Sebold’s identification of Broadwater on the road trumped the one within the lineup room, so it was applicable to take the case to trial.
Mastine mentioned that Fitzpatrick anointed him the “Rubbish Man” after his work on the Sebold case and congratulated him on the victory. Mastine denied that he felt any strain in gentle of the defeats his workplace had endured. “A trial lawyer has to have a tub thoughts,” he informed me. “Throughout trial, you fill the tub up. When the decision is available in, you empty the tub and begin another time.” (Years after the Broadwater trial, Mastine, by then in personal follow, pleaded responsible to possessing a examine on which he cast a shopper’s signature. He agreed to surrender his legislation license.)
By way of her lawyer, Uebelhoer declined to be interviewed. In a 2025 deposition, she testified that she may bear in mind little of the Broadwater case. She mentioned repeatedly that she may neither admit nor deny what Sebold had recounted in her memoir. However Uebelhoer emphasised that she had no method of realizing whether or not the person Sebold picked had appeared in a lineup with Broadwater earlier than. “How would I do know that?” she testified. “I’m not down there for each lineup.”
Responding to Fitzpatrick’s assertion that the case ought to have been dropped after the lineup, Uebelhoer testified that he seemingly would have been at conferences the place the case was mentioned however “registered no objection.” (Fitzpatrick denies this. “I’m not saying I don’t have a recollection of the assembly,” he informed me. “I’m saying that assembly didn’t happen.”) Uebelhoer, for her half, added, “I assumed that I did my job by placing all of it in entrance of the grand jury to allow them to hear and see in the event that they discovered her to be plausible or not.”
Two months after the responsible verdict, Broadwater was sentenced to eight 1/3 to 25 years in state jail.
7
Broadwater was sitting within the native jail after his trial, he informed me, when a Syracuse newspaper reported that one other girl had been raped in Thornden Park. “I informed you it wasn’t me! It by no means was me,” he mentioned he informed his lawyer. “That man continues to be on the market doing it.”
A police report appears to line up with Broadwater’s description. The assault occurred on Might 27, 1982, and resembled the rape Broadwater had been convicted of simply 9 days earlier.
At about 9 that night, a 19-year-old actress was jogging by way of a wooded part of the park when she heard somebody behind her. Abruptly she was within the grip of a person dragging her by the neck behind a cluster of bushes. He compelled her to carry out oral intercourse, then pulled her sweatpants down and raped her. She reported that her assailant was Black, about 5’9”, 140 kilos, muscular and round 16 years outdated.
These particulars didn’t draw plenty of discover on the time. However they match the outline of a rapist who would quickly turn out to be well-known to the Syracuse police. Solely 4 months after Broadwater was discovered responsible, a excessive schooler named Thomas Weakfall admitted raping 5 girls. The crimes had begun in late 1981, he mentioned in a press release taken by Clapper. 4 of them occurred lower than a mile from Thornden Park. Weakfall, in keeping with police stories, had supplied “sure info solely the perpetrator would have recognized.”
“I informed you it wasn’t me! It by no means was me,” Broadwater mentioned he informed his lawyer. “That man continues to be on the market doing it.”
Weakfall appeared at warfare with himself, aware of the brutality he inflicted. “I fall asleep Tommy Weakfall,” he would say in a single confession, “after which in the midst of the night time I get up in a chilly sweat. … I really feel this strain pushing me to exit aspect and do one thing.” He admitted burglarizing homes and raping girls. When he was achieved, in keeping with an account Clapper gave years later, Weakfall would “wrap them in a blanket, maintain them in his arms and inform them he was sorry he did it.” Lots of the police stories I examined, together with Sebold’s, famous that the rapist had apologized to the sufferer.
There’s no proof that Weakfall assaulted Sebold, however there’s no denying he matched key parts of the outline she gave. Sebold had informed police her rapist was Black, 16 to 18 years of age, about 5’7” and 150 kilos. Weakfall was Black, 16 years outdated, 5’9” and 140 kilos, in keeping with police stories. Broadwater was 20, stood 5’6” and weighed about 175 kilos.
Regardless of Weakfall’s confession, the rape case towards him collapsed. Officers discovered — after taking his assertion with no protection lawyer current — that he was being represented by an lawyer on an unrelated housebreaking cost. Weakfall’s confession wouldn’t be admissible in court docket.
He ended up pleading responsible to second-degree housebreaking. Weakfall’s sentence wouldn’t require a single day of jail time. He acquired 5 years of probation and remained on the streets.
8
On the morning of Sept. 29, 1983, a person matching Weakfall’s description led police on a dramatic foot chase by way of downtown Syracuse after being interrupted whereas trying to rape a girl inside her automotive.
Data present Weakfall was arrested for the offense and launched on Oct. 11, 1983. 4 months later, he pleaded responsible to a lesser cost, tried sexual misconduct, and was sentenced to at least one 12 months.
Through the 4 months that Weakfall was nonetheless free, there was one other notable assault. Sebold’s roommate was raped that November within the house they shared. She was one in all 5 girls attacked in the identical cluster of blocks over 5 months, in keeping with information accounts on the time. Police suspected that one man had dedicated the crimes. The properties had been burglarized and the ladies had been raped at knifepoint and overwhelmed; some have been additionally certain and gagged.
These parts matched Weakfall’s strategies, although the stories advised a noticeably taller, older perpetrator. A number of survivors have been requested to take a look at {a photograph} of Weakfall as a part of an array of mug pictures, however they didn’t establish him.
Sebold’s roommate informed police that after the rapist broke into the house, he gagged, certain and blindfolded her, then grew to become “very mild” and “took his time.” She added that “he didn’t discuss avenue discuss both. He had a superb use of the English vocabulary.”
He led her into Sebold’s room, put a “skinny metallic object” to her throat and informed her, “I simply need you to be good.” When he completed raping her, he tossed her denims to her and coated her with a blanket.
The roommate additionally reported an alternate that advised her rapist could have encountered Sebold previously. After the assault, she tried to get him to depart by yelling out that her roommate was coming residence. The assailant replied: “I do know her, we had a factor, we had a deal previously.”
Clapper considered this as important sufficient that he put it down in capital letters in his report. However he by no means adopted up, Clapper testified years later. The perpetrator was seemingly fabricating a connection that didn’t exist, he mentioned. Clapper by no means suspected that it was Weakfall or that the identical man raped each Sebold and her roommate. He mentioned the outline didn’t match Weakfall, and Broadwater was locked up by then. He acknowledged that victims typically get these descriptions fallacious, however he had one more reason for ruling Weakfall out: “I believe he was incarcerated then,” Clapper testified. However the data I had seen confirmed that his reminiscence was incorrect: Weakfall had been a free man on the time Sebold’s roommate was attacked.
9
In 1985, three years after Broadwater’s conviction, Clapper encountered Weakfall once more. The detective recognized him in a surveillance {photograph} of a person utilizing a stolen financial institution card at an ATM. Clapper interviewed him once more. As soon as once more, Weakfall confessed.
The police stories, together with the signed confession, spelled out in chilling element how Weakfall had raped not less than three girls between September and November of 1985. He would spot a susceptible location — an accessible window, a girl residence alone — and climb in quietly, first ransacking for valuables, then threatening them with a knife, typically beating or tying them up in the event that they resisted.
When Weakfall was achieved, some girls acquired an apology. One mentioned he was “mushy spoken” and didn’t use “slang or avenue sort language.” He saved calling one other one ma’am. Others acquired nothing however raging hostility. He informed one girl that he felt understood by her, then threatened to burn her home down if she known as the police.
Weakfall went on to say, successfully, that he had raped so many ladies in so many various locations that he couldn’t bear in mind all of them. Within the last paragraph, he made a garbled cry for assist. He described sexual violence as a compulsion. The rapes have been “accidents,” he mentioned, and the courts “haven’t helped me in any respect.” He hoped that the subsequent decide would get him some counseling.
This time Weakfall’s confession held up. He pleaded responsible to 3 rapes and a housebreaking and was sentenced to a most of 18 years. He served 12. Whereas in jail, Weakfall participated in a remedy program meant to cease folks from committing sexual violence.
Illustration by Vanessa Saba for ProPublica
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Accusations towards distinguished males finally started bringing the difficulty of sexual assault to the forefront in Syracuse. In 1986, a star Syracuse College soccer participant was accused of rape. He pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor and was initially allowed to stay on the staff. An uproar ensued, prompting the college’s chancellor to intervene and droop him for 5 video games.
Then, in November 1988, got here one other assault with a notable defendant, against the law that will encourage a second rape memoir by a Syracuse College scholar. The guide describes how Laura Grey-Rosendale, a 20-year-old sophomore, had fallen asleep whereas finding out in her bed room when 23-year-old Michael Holm broke in, then certain and beat her. “He raped me each method somebody may be raped,” she informed ProPublica. “It was excruciating to be in my physique.” A roommate known as the police and officers kicked down Grey-Rosendale’s door, discovering Holm with a screwdriver in his hand, standing over Grey-Rosendale, as he pulled his pants up. Her arms have been tied and he or she was bare from the waist down. Holm tried to flee, injuring three officers, earlier than they lastly subdued and arrested him.
The defendant was white, the grandson of Melvin Holm, a former chairman of the college’s Board of Trustees who had been the CEO of Service Corp., one of many metropolis’s largest employers and the eponym for the college’s domed stadium. In her guide, “Faculty Lady,” Grey-Rosendale recounted getting a telephone name from a college administrator who informed her the Holm household made main donations to the college. “I’m like, why are you telling me this?” she mentioned. “However I do know why. … She’s attempting to dissuade me from testifying.”
In an interview, Grey-Rosendale described having a “full breakdown” within the months after the assault and mentioned that seeing “anybody who resembled [Holm] bodily could be like a set off and ship me right into a full out panic assault.” By way of years of remedy and writing her memoir, she finally discovered therapeutic. However, she mentioned, “I used to be by no means the identical.”
Regardless of being caught mid-assault, Holm pleaded responsible to housebreaking. The phrase rape didn’t seem in his plea allocution. He in the end served eight years in jail. (ProPublica couldn’t find him to hunt an interview. His lawyer declined to remark.) “I used to be very glad that he acquired jail time,” Grey-Rosendale mentioned of Holm. “However … that time period, housebreaking. It didn’t in any method account for the a number of crimes that he dedicated, and that caught with me then, sticks with me now.”
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Stress was constructing in Syracuse. In 1989, six rapes had been reported within the first two months of the varsity 12 months, together with one on the chancellor’s entrance garden. College students started marching, organizing nighttime campus patrols and pressuring college officers. Grey-Rosendale informed the college’s trustees at a campus assembly on sexual violence that she had been raped by one in all their grandsons. “I’m not a statistic,” she mentioned. The turmoil attracted the eye of media starting from discuss present host Geraldo Rivera to The New York Instances.
Lastly, that 12 months, the college convened a process drive and started to implement safety measures that advocates had been demanding for years, together with enhancements to transportation providers off-campus, the growth of “blue gentle” emergency telephones and the supply of counseling providers and public talking occasions on sexual assault.
In response to detailed questions concerning occasions from the Nineteen Eighties, a spokesperson for Syracuse College mentioned in an electronic mail that “we aren’t ready to talk to the actions or selections of prior administrations,” however the college is now outfitted with “complete insurance policies, a steadfast dedication to stopping sexual and relationship violence and strong assist buildings to assist each survivor that comes ahead.”
By this level, town had turn out to be the vanguard of a nationwide subject. In March 1990, a Syracuse College scholar named Kristin Eaton-Pollard testified earlier than a congressional subcommittee in Washington. She described being raped as a freshman in 1988 in Thornden Park, which she “later discovered was infamous for its frequent incidence of violent crime, positioned solely about 100 yards from my residence corridor.”
Eaton-Pollard criticized the college for being too gradual to understand the necessity for the brand new safety measures. “The packages at Syracuse College ought to have been initiated of their very own accord a very long time in the past,” Eaton-Pollard mentioned. Her testimony helped encourage the passage, that very same 12 months, of the Jeanne Clery Act, laws named for a Lehigh College freshman who was raped and murdered by a fellow scholar. The legislation requires all faculties that settle for federal monetary assist to publicly report campus crime statistics yearly.
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Broadwater was unaware that the difficulty of sexual violence was roiling Syracuse. He remained in jail and had by no means stopped attempting to show his innocence. He saved a transcript of his trial with him as he was shuttled amongst 13 prisons within the 16 years he served for the Sebold conviction. He would present it to gang leaders to show he shouldn’t be there.
“Rape costs right here,” a cousin and fellow inmate had warned him when he entered Attica state jail, “they kill you.” As Broadwater places it, “I caught holy hell” whereas incarcerated. He took to wrapping his torso with copies of Nationwide Geographic journal in case an inmate got here at him with a knife. In a riot, he noticed a buddy stabbed to dying, took 12 stitches and almost misplaced a watch attempting to defend himself.
He filed myriad appeals and requests to reexamine the proof, some with out the assistance of a lawyer. Every was rejected. One petition was handwritten, laying out his logic in angled handwriting throughout lined pocket book paper. Broadwater raised a few of the arguments that finally acquired him exonerated. He wrote, for instance, that Uebelhoer’s testimony missed the purpose: “Whether or not or not I do know the person … or was completely satisfied concerning the composition of the lineup had nothing to do with the sufferer’s failure to select me out.”
“Whether or not or not I do know the person … or was completely satisfied concerning the composition of the lineup had nothing to do with the sufferer’s failure to select me out.”
4 occasions Broadwater got here earlier than the parole board. 4 occasions he was denied. He refused to go to his fifth scheduled look. Commissioners needed an request for forgiveness, not claims of innocence, and Broadwater wouldn’t apologize. He didn’t come residence till Dec. 31, 1998. He was 38.
Broadwater was free however unable to flee the shadow of a rape conviction. Even members of his household shunned him. He was required to register as a intercourse offender, which made it unimaginable to get any however essentially the most menial job. Broadwater finally managed to get a place on an meeting line, stamping the brand of Syracuse China on dishware from 6 p.m. to six a.m. He appreciated that he needed to punch in, and that the manufacturing facility was crammed with safety cameras. Broadwater needed to work at a spot that at all times documented his whereabouts in case anybody tried to accuse him of one thing.
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For her half, Sebold had struggled to get her life on monitor through the years. Rootless and experimenting with medicine in her 20s — heroin was her favourite, by her personal account — it was solely as she confronted the results of the assault that she slowly started to grapple together with her trauma. She started by writing an op-ed for The New York Instances on the rape in 1989, then later appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Present.” By the mid-’90s, she had began work on a memoir about her assault and the aftermath.
Sebold returned to Syracuse to analysis the guide. She nervously walked round Thornden Park whereas her then-boyfriend stood by and took snapshots. And Sebold met with Uebelhoer on the district lawyer’s workplace.
Uebelhoer helped her achieve entry to data, together with a field of proof from the unique case. Each Uebelhoer and Sebold recall seeing the clothes Sebold had worn the night time of the assault, and Sebold remembers seeing the pubic hair that was key to Broadwater’s conviction. (It was yet one more instance of the scrambled Syracuse justice system: An proof log said that all the proof within the case had been destroyed within the late Nineteen Eighties, however each girls have mentioned they noticed the field of supplies years after that.)
The prosecutor helped promote Sebold’s memoir when it was printed. Uebelhoer’s sister created a packet of publicity supplies that, in keeping with Sebold, included a shiny 8-by-10-inch {photograph} of Uebelhoer. Uebelhoer, who had left the district lawyer’s workplace by this level to clerk for a decide, spoke at guide golf equipment and launched Sebold to debate the guide on a panel at a legislation enforcement convention in New York Metropolis. “She was extremely proud,” Sebold mentioned.
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Sebold and Broadwater weren’t the one individuals who couldn’t let go of the case. There was a 3rd particular person: Clapper, the veteran Syracuse detective who’d been chatting with Broadwater when Sebold first recognized the person she thought had assaulted her.
Lanky with putting purple hair and a cocky demeanor, Clapper was dogged and revered by his fellow cops. He would keep on instances for months, scouring for witnesses, checking in with informants, interviewing anybody he may discover. Clapper’s work was threaded by way of the wave of Syracuse rape instances. He had investigated most of the assaults in and round Thornden Park and elicited Weakfall’s confessions.
Clapper initially indicated he was open to an interview for this text, then demurred, saying he’d had solely tangential involvement within the Broadwater case. Once I saved urgent, he finally despatched me a sprawling, 13-page assertion that spanned the 50-odd years of his profession. It was crammed with brackets and parentheticals, written in several fonts and colours, a lot of it in capital letters, directly detailed and cryptic.
Clapper emphasised that he had been by way of quite a bit since Sebold was assaulted. Over time, he had labored undercover, participated in a whole bunch of drug busts, been stabbed and “struck over the top with bats, wine bottles, and fallen down a number of flights of stairs.” He spent the higher a part of 9 years caring for his sick spouse and immediately, at age 74, his hair nonetheless thick however now snowy white, he works as an investigator for a district lawyer in one other county. Given all that, his assertion maintained, it could be “near ridiculous” to imagine he may recall the particulars of Sebold’s case or different crimes with a lot specificity.
Nonetheless, the doc supplied revealing particulars, together with one which hinted on the disturbing scale of Weakfall’s crimes. Not lengthy after Broadwater’s conviction, in keeping with Clapper’s assertion, he had turn out to be conscious of Weakfall’s “first sequence of rapes” and gotten him to admit. He had pushed Weakfall round Thornden Park, throughout which Weakfall identified 23 buildings the place he had raped and robbed girls. Weakfall wasn’t charged in a number of instances, Clapper defined, as a result of most of the survivors “simply needed to neglect it” and refused to cooperate.
Clapper mentioned Weakfall willingly admitted raping girls inside buildings close to the park however “flatly denied any involvement” in crimes open air on the park. Clapper discovered that distinction persuasive. Noting that the crimes Weakfall dedicated indoors concerned rapes, burglaries and stabbings, he mentioned, “Why would Weakfall truthfully admit to all of those different [more serious] instances and never take credit score” for these in Thornden Park?
Weakfall was at all times below scrutiny, Clapper would say in a 2025 deposition. “I do know this man higher than I do know my very own brother,” he testified, repeating that Weakfall by no means admitted to any rapes within the park.
One after the other, the lawyer questioning Clapper acquired him to acknowledge the similarities between Sebold’s rape and those who Weakfall had confessed to: that she had been threatened with a knife, that her rapist took a small amount of cash from her, that the rape occurred blocks from others that he mentioned he had dedicated at across the identical time, and that afterward, her rapist held her and apologized to her.
The legal professionals requested Clapper about 4 different instances of sexual assault in or close to the park, three inside months of Sebold’s, the opposite 9 days after Broadwater was convicted. All concerned Black assailants, not less than three aged between 15 and 20 and almost the identical top and weight as Weakfall or Broadwater. Clapper pursued a number of of them however by no means thought to attach any to Sebold’s rape.
“Why would I?” he mentioned.
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It’s one of many many oddities of this decades-long saga that Sebold’s memoir of her assault — a 1999 guide that portrayed Broadwater’s conviction as righteous — is what would in the end result in the unraveling of his conviction.
Sebold’s memoir, which in the end bought 1 million copies after “The Beautiful Bones” grew to become a success, finally generated curiosity in Hollywood. Producers needed to make a movie model of “Fortunate,” and a number of other contacted Clapper as a part of their analysis for writing a script.
Laurie Parker, a producer then working with director Jane Campion as a part of a venture that Sebold was cooperating with, reached Clapper in 2013. Parker mentioned Clapper emailed her that there have been questions concerning the case: No. 1, was the precise particular person arrested? No. 2, was Sebold a superb witness? No. 3, if DNA testing had been obtainable, would there have been the identical final result? Parker tried to get him to elaborate, however he didn’t reply.
Clapper himself regarded into getting a DNA check achieved on the pubic hair greater than 20 years after Broadwater’s conviction, in keeping with his assertion. However when Clapper known as the Syracuse police crime lab, he was informed the hair had been destroyed.
Parker, tasked with writing a script based mostly on “Fortunate,” grew to become more and more consumed with doubts: “I had a sense, a really robust feeling, that at finest it was an unlawful conviction and at worst, they acquired the fallacious particular person,” she mentioned. Her script was rejected in 2014. (The director had gotten busy with different initiatives, in keeping with Sebold.)
Illustration by Vanessa Saba for ProPublica
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The subsequent 12 months, in 2015, got here an unrelated occasion — unknown to Broadwater — that additional undermined the credibility of his conviction. The FBI, working with the Division of Justice and two advocacy teams, launched the findings of a nationwide overview of instances by which hair proof had been used. The research reported that skilled hair testimony in 90% of the five hundred trial transcripts they’d examined included “inaccurate statements” and famous that the FBI now not used such proof. The research “strongly” inspired states to overview previous convictions by which hair evaluation had performed a job.
On the time, Fitzpatrick was on a state fee that units requirements for crime laboratories. He was additionally feuding with the Syracuse Police Division. The 2 sides publicly savaged one another, with dueling allegations of mishandling forensic proof, amongst different issues. The Police Division, Fitzpatrick informed me just lately, was run by “fucking morons” again then and its lab was antiquated. Shawn Broton, a deputy police chief on the time, mentioned Fitzpatrick had used the state fee as a “weapon” towards the Police Division and labored to consolidate energy for himself.
On account of the FBI overview, Fitzpatrick’s workplace examined New York instances that had used hair proof. However that effort didn’t unearth Broadwater’s case. It relied on digital searches for the phrase “hair” in appeals court docket opinions. The appeals court docket opinion in Broadwater’s case — all of two paragraphs lengthy — didn’t point out the phrase. Fitzpatrick informed me that his workers had additionally reviewed all of the instances by which the hair analyst in Broadwater’s case had testified, however it focused on defendants who have been nonetheless incarcerated. Broadwater had been out of jail for greater than a decade by then. One other probability to disclose the issues in his case had been missed.
The research reported that skilled hair testimony in 90% of the five hundred trial transcripts they’d examined included “inaccurate statements” and famous that the FBI now not used such proof.
Finally, a second film producer acquired fascinated about Sebold’s story, and like the primary producer, he started delving deep into the case. The producer acquired suspicious sufficient that he in the end employed a personal investigator to look into it. (The producer in query, Timothy Mucciante, has a backstory that would fill its personal film: He’s a disbarred lawyer who served time in jail on an array of weird fraud costs. He promised cash to finance the film model of “Fortunate” however by no means delivered, then tried to make his personal documentary concerning the debacle known as “Unfortunate,” which additionally fell aside. Mucciante didn’t reply to requests for remark.)
The personal investigator, Dan Myers, known as Clapper, who left him with the robust impression that he thought Broadwater was harmless and Weakfall was responsible. Clapper denies he went as far as to say Broadwater was harmless. Nonetheless, Clapper acknowledged in his assertion that he spoke “cop to cop” with Myers, a former officer, and informed him, “Like ANY investigator, you marvel ‘if’ Weakfall was concerned.”
That dialog had a domino impact. Myers acquired two Syracuse legal professionals, David Hammond and Melissa Swartz, concerned. (Swartz had beforehand labored within the DA’s workplace below Fitzpatrick.) They have been shocked by what they learn within the guide and the trial transcript. They filed a movement to vacate the conviction in 2021.
In a matter of weeks, the long-stalled strategy of inspecting the conviction was resolved. Fitzpatrick joined within the movement to vacate the conviction, and in a quick listening to on Nov. 22, 2021, the decide agreed.
On the protection desk that day, Broadwater, sporting a grey pinstripe go well with, choked again sobs and hugged his legal professionals. At 61, with hints of grey in Broadwater’s cornrows and a cane in his hand, it was arduous to image the 21-year-old he had been when a decide had discovered him responsible.
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In contrast to Broadwater, who has no felony report since his launch in 1998, Weakfall discovered it more durable to remain out of hassle. He acquired out of jail in November 1997. Six months later, he was caught stealing audio system and money from the house of a girl he had simply met. He informed police the housebreaking was “meant as a joke.” Weakfall pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor cost of felony trespass and served 135 days in jail. He was arrested 4 extra occasions by way of 2015, pleading responsible on separate events to patronizing a prostitute and resisting arrest. Data present police responded to a number of allegations of home violence towards him by way of 2017, however the victims all declined to press costs. His report reveals no involvement with the police since then.
Weakfall nonetheless lives in Syracuse, in an space some former officers consult with as “the Intestine.” I made my technique to his door on a Saturday within the fall of 2024. His house was on the bottom flooring of a clapboard constructing alongside a block of dilapidated properties surrounded by overgrown weeds. A gaggle of stray cats curled up towards each other across the nook from his entrance door, which had a bumper sticker on it that learn “Let’s Pray for America.”
After just a few knocks, the face I acknowledged from the New York state intercourse offender registry poked out. He was bald with a full beard. Effectively-built for a person of 60, with a scar throughout his higher stomach, Weakfall was sporting nothing however royal blue boxer-briefs. He mentioned he had simply gotten out of the bathe.
I knew I would by no means get one other shot to talk to him, so I began speaking with out giving him an opportunity to dress. We spoke for greater than an hour. He by no means opened his door greater than a foot.
Weakfall was, fairly moderately, skeptical of me. He saved saying, “You’re catching me off guard right here, dude.” He mentioned he carried plenty of guilt over his crimes and was “disgusted” with himself. He informed me he had discovered faith and wasn’t inclined to revisit a interval of his life that he had left behind. Weakfall additionally mentioned he realized throughout his 12 years in jail that he could not have served as a lot time had he not been so open with the police. He didn’t need to make the identical mistake once more. I assured him I wasn’t a cop.
After some time, Weakfall appeared to loosen up. He spoke softly in gushes of data adopted by sudden pauses. He described rising up with no father in a troublesome neighborhood; the strain of dangerous influences resulting in medicine; a commencement of types from shoplifting to residence invasion, then sexual assault, or, as he put it, “violating somebody” when he occurred to discover a girl residence alone.
He acknowledged raping girls. However he mentioned that when he started to make admissions, the police noticed him as a scapegoat and tried to place “all of the load on one particular person simply to fulfill the group.” As soon as in custody, he mentioned, he was “scared out of my boots.” He mentioned the police had dragged him out of his cell repeatedly, driving him to locations he had by no means been and asking him about rapes he mentioned he hadn’t dedicated. “Man, that they had me admitting to issues that I do know I didn’t do,” he mentioned.
Stuffed with contradictions, Weakfall spoke in loops that have been arduous to observe. He mentioned that he had confessed truthfully to the rapes he dedicated in 1985, however that the confession in 1982 was coerced by the police. (He later mentioned one thing that appeared to undercut that assertion: “What they didn’t perceive in 1982 is that in the event you’re not likely giving me any counseling … it’s certain to occur once more.”)
Once I began to ask about Thornden Park, describing what occurred to Sebold, he lower me off. “Extra of my encounters was invading a house, in the event you do the search,” he mentioned. He vociferously denied assaulting any girl in a automotive and mentioned the police “combined me up with different people who have been doing issues on the identical time.”
This didn’t strike me as implausible, given what had occurred with Broadwater and all I’d discovered concerning the Police Division on the time, to not point out the sheer quantity of assailants and assaults again then.
I saved urgent, asking if he could be prepared to undergo every case with me. He mentioned no. He wouldn’t be capable of bear in mind them anyway, he mentioned. I introduced up the rape of Sebold’s roommate and a number of other others, however the entire train started to really feel futile. I thanked him for his time, handed him my card and requested if we may communicate once more after he had a while to assume. He mentioned he’d pray on it.
Weakfall known as me the subsequent morning. He was rattled and rambling. Extra aggravated this time. He began denying issues that he had both confessed to or that have been well-established within the felony data: He claimed he had by no means stolen anybody’s ATM card; he had by no means taken property from anybody’s residence; he had by no means apologized to any of his victims.
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I returned to Syracuse twice extra in 2026 and spoke with Weakfall every time. He acquired extra sweeping and extra adamant in his denials. By the third go to, he was insisting that he had confessed to just one rape and that the police had embellished or fabricated the remaining.
Once I known as Fitzpatrick, the Syracuse DA, to debate what I had discovered in my broader reporting, he was at a loss. “It escapes me, truthfully. I imply, it’s simply staggering,” he mentioned of the police and prosecutorial failures within the Nineteen Eighties. “The extent of misattention to element. I simply don’t have a proof.”
However now it was too late. One of the best shot at making a conclusive dedication on who raped Sebold would come by way of DNA evaluation of the bodily proof. However the proof from her case is gone.
Even when proof that implicates a perpetrator have been to show up in a hidden nook of a dusty warehouse, Fitzpatrick couldn’t do something. The statute of limitations on these rapes expired many years in the past. Prosecution could be out of attain, he mentioned.
Because it occurs, one authorized continuing continues within the Broadwater saga. After his conviction was vacated in 2021, Broadwater filed two civil lawsuits, one towards the state of New York for wrongful imprisonment and a second towards Syracuse and its surrounding county for constitutional rights violations in his prosecution. The state settled its case in 2023, agreeing to pay Broadwater $5.5 million.
However the metropolis and county are contesting the claims. The legal professionals declined to remark for this text, citing the litigation. However skilled witnesses they’ve retained are defending the conduct of the police and prosecutors, questioning the accuracy of Sebold’s guide and arguing that there was no sample of rapes in and round Thornden Park worthy of disclosure to the protection.
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I met Sebold on a current, drizzly morning at her residence in San Francisco. We sat in a room appointed with an ornate rug, positive images and uncommon works of literature hugged by putting geode bookends.
All the time an introvert, Sebold sank deeper into isolation after Broadwater’s exoneration. She went from hero to villain in a single day. Strangers yelled at her on the road. A tabloid reporter badgered her on digital camera as Sebold, sporting a COVID-era masks and gingerly carrying a bag of canine poop, walked her sick French basset to the vet.
Afterward, she mentioned, she didn’t step out of her home for a month. Even now, 5 years on, she will be able to’t carry herself to depart town limits. “There’s one thing concerning the security of being close to my residence,” she mentioned, “which has turn out to be more and more vital to my sense of psychological well being.”
As I laid out what my reporting had uncovered, she betrayed little shock on the variety of sexual assaults in Syracuse; she thought there may be extra. “It’s my nature to imagine that there’s extra violence than folks wish to admit to, particularly again then,” she mentioned. It supplied no consolation to be taught that the police had failed different girls, too.
Now absolutely satisfied of Broadwater’s innocence, Sebold seems to be again on the complete episode with deep mortification. She feels disgrace that she was ever raped. And she or he now questions her resolution to go to the police. “What if I hadn’t reported my rape?” she mentioned. “None of this is able to have occurred.”
Sebold just lately accomplished a letter to Broadwater. She declined to share a replica however described its contents. It’s extra private and regarded, she mentioned, than the apology she launched proper after the exoneration, which was criticized as tepid and which she mentioned was unexpectedly written. Sebold mentioned the letter takes accountability for her function in Broadwater’s wrongful conviction and provides particulars about her current life, her canine and the Dao, the Chinese language philosophy she has come to depend on. The letter describes, she mentioned, “the deep sorrow I maintain for what occurred.”
It took her 4 years to compose these three pages. “I’ll by no means write something ok,” Sebold mentioned. It’s “in all probability, in my thoughts, an important factor I’ll ever write.”
By way of intermediaries, Sebold and Broadwater have broached the opportunity of assembly. Like Sebold, although, Broadwater is afraid of touring. He’s fearful one thing dangerous will occur if he leaves New York state. He has floated the concept of assembly in Niagara Falls. Neither of them have been there earlier than.
I final met Broadwater at his lawyer’s workplace in Syracuse. Now fixing up a modest farmhouse he purchased exterior city, he had taken a break from his passion of barbecuing and nonetheless smelled faintly of candy smoke from a batch of child again ribs.
He retains his distance from folks, too. He informed me that some who shunned him after he went to jail at the moment are reappearing in his life. They tease him about all of the media consideration he obtained. Their questions additionally set off his paranoia, making him assume they acquired phrase of his civil settlement and need a piece of it.
Broadwater mentioned the stigma of being a convicted rapist was nonetheless arduous to shake, even after his exoneration. “I’m nonetheless embarrassed that I used to be convicted and despatched to jail for rape for 16 and a half years,” he mentioned, his mild voice catching as he reached for a Kleenex. He likened the expertise to being scalded with boiling-hot water. The exoneration, the celeb, the settlement, it’s like “a pores and skin graft” over a festering wound, he mentioned. “Nonetheless ain’t regular. Ain’t by no means gonna be regular. How may or not it’s regular?”
