Polly Poskin, executive director of the Springfield-based Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, hopes to see schools respond more compassionately toward rape victims. Photo BY PATRICK YEAGLE Julia Dixon only knew her attacker a few hours before her exciting new college experience became a nightmare. It was her second weekend at college, and Dixon, then age […]
rape
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Getting it right
Brian Banks spent five years in prison for a rape that never occurred, but he was freed with help from the California Innocence Project. Banks is shown here carrying petitions calling for the release of another prisoner in California whom some believe to be innocent. PHOTO BY BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/MCT Brian Banks had the […]
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Will police torture set convicted rapist free?
No one disputes that Stanley Wrice was beaten by Chicago police to extract a confession. Now, the state Supreme Court will decide whether the beating and subsequent forced confession is grounds for a hearing that could ultimately result in Wrice being set free after serving nearly 30 years of a 100-year sentence. His supporters say […]
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Hunted in the Heartland
Bonney Hogue Patterson saw her neighbor’s killer twice in the days surrounding a brutal sexual assault and murder that in 1978 shook the town of Marion, where Mt. Vernon native Patterson had moved just months before the homicide. The first time, the stay-at-home mother of two watched the serial killer – at that point just […]
