Jennifer Thompson Cannino
In 1984, Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she was sleeping. She escaped, and in the course of reporting the crime, eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her rapist in a photo array and subsequent physical lineup. There was only one problem: Ronald Cotton was innocent of the crime. This is the story told by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton in Picking Cotton (St. Martin’s Press; March 2009) the remarkable true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the innocent man she sent to prison. Jennifer Thompson Cannino lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with her husband and three children. She is a homemaker and activist against mistaken eyewitness identification and capital punishment.
