The Lovely Bones’ Author Alice Sebold Apologises To Man She Wrongly Identified As Rapist After 40 Years
If you’ve heard of the best-selling novelist Alice Sebold famous for the book The Lovely Bones, you’d know that when she was a student in the university she was raped by a man and she had reported the incident to the police. Five months later she passed Anthony Broadwater on the street and identified him as a possible rapist. Later, even though she couldn’t pick Broadwater out of the police lineup, he was tried in the court anyway and convicted. He was convicted on the basis of Alice’s account and the hair analysis which later turned out to be flawed. In fact, he even ended up spending 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It was only last week that Anthony Broadwater’s conviction was overturned after they re-examined the case because the details didn’t match and the case had many flaws.
On Tuesday, after Anthony Broadwater was exonerated, Alice Sebold, the US author, apologised to him for wrongly identifying him as the rapist. The 58-year-old author in her book ‘Lucky’ described the sexual assault that she went through at the age of 18 when she was a first-year student at Syracuse University, New York.
In her apology to the 61-year-old man, Alice Sebold said, “I want to say that I am truly sorry to Anthony Broadwater and I deeply regret what you have been through… I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you, and I know that no apology can change what happened to you and never will.”
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As per reports, Anthony Broadwater who after everything still maintained his innocence but was still convicted of being the rapist who raped Alice Sebold in 1981. She further added in her apology how grateful he was that he was finally absolved.
Alice Sebold also added that nothing will change the fact that 40years ago another young, black man was abused because of the US’ flawed legal system. She clarifies that 40 years ago her motive was to just get the justice she deserved and not to intentionally change some young man’s life by the crime that had changed hers.
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The best-selling US author, Alice Broadwater concluded her apology to Anthony Broadwater, the man she misidentified as her rapist, saying, “I hope most of all that you and your family will be granted the time and privacy to heal.”
I am happy that Anthony Broadwater who was wrongly convicted of being a rapist got justice after all these years. But I can’t help but think of how many other black men must have gone through this and never got justice. I can’t imagine the trauma and suffering they and their families must have to endure. And all of this because they were people of colour.
