'He Was a Victim, and I Was a Victim'
Woman Revisits Attack After DNA Clears Man

by Brendan Sager, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 9, 2005

She spent Thursday morning staring at the two mug shots in the newspaper.

One of the men, Robert Clark, had spent 24 years in prison after he was mistakenly convicted of raping her.

The other was the man authorities now believe committed the crime.

"Don't they look alike?" she asked, "I mean, their faces?"

The woman, who is not being identified by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution because she is a victim of sexual assault, said the news has forced her to relive the attack — and to consider how she could have been so wrong.

"I'm not an inhumane person," she said. "I would hate for 24 years to be taken away from my kids, and my family. I feel really bad."

In 1981, when she was 29, the woman was abducted from an East Atlanta fast food restaurant, taken to Cobb County and raped repeatedly. Clark was found guilty a year later.

"I will never forget the face, the skin color and his voice," the woman told the jury during Clark's trial in 1982.

Today, the woman is 53 and lives with her mother in DeKalb County. Her daughter, who was 11 years old when the woman was attacked, now has two children of her own.

A month ago, prosecutors called the woman and told her Clark had taken a DNA test several months before.

The test cleared him; the wrong man had been convicted.

The news left the woman dumbstruck.

"It wasn't dark when he first kidnapped me — in July it wasn't dark. I guess it's just ... I don't know," she said Thursday. "He took my car and left me naked. ... At the time it happened, I was convinced it was Clark."

Shortly after the attack, the woman sought counseling to cope with the trauma and wouldn't have made it without her faith and her family, she said.

"I am a Christian and my faith helped me get through it. My faith and my family," she said.

And what would she say to Clark today?

"All I know is that I'm just really sorry," she said. "I'm very sorry about the time out of his life.

"He was a victim, and I was a victim. It's just a very sad situation."