Innocent man served 16 years for rape: when truth was revealed, ‘victim’ apologized – full story

Today, Alice Sebold is known around the world as a popular American writer and bestselling author of The Lovely Bones.

And in 1981, it was an ordinary girl, an 18-year-old student at Syracuse University in New York, who unfortunately suffered a terrible thing – she became a rape victim. A few months after the terrible incident, Alice met a guy in the park whom she recognized as her rapist. It turned out to be Anthony Broadwater.

This fleeting encounter turned into a nightmare for Siebold. Anthony walked up to her, smiled and asked, “Do we know each other?” To Alice, who had not yet recovered from her injuries, these words sounded especially mocking. She quietly hurried to hide and immediately ran to the police.

But during the identification, Sebold pointed to another person and already claimed in court that Anthony Broadwater attacked her. As proof of the man’s guilt, the investigation also attached a microscopic analysis of the hair to the file. Today, for example, this evidence would not be sufficient for a verdict. But in the 1980s, things were different.

The court found Anthony guilty and sentenced him to 16 years in prison. The man served them all, and when he was released, he ended up on the sex offender database. At the same time, Broadwater has not stopped insisting on his innocence.

After the tragedy, Alice Sebold poured all her pain into her autobiographical book Happy. The memoirs were published in 1999. The book resonated with readers, and then Alice decided to become a writer.

Three years later, she published her second book, a fictional novel called The Lovely Bones. The story of a little girl raped and murdered by a maniacal neighbor who follows her family after her death became an overnight bestseller and one of the most popular books of 2002.

In 2009, a bestseller was filmed: the film of the same name was even nominated for an Oscar.

In 2007, Alice published her third and final book, again a murder novel but this time without the rape, called Almost Moon.

Anthony’s single life was also not sweet. As a person with a criminal record whose name is added to the sex offender database, he could not get a normal job. Many relatives and friends turned their backs on him once they learned of the allegations. He was lonely and unhappy, but he couldn’t change anything.

The truth was revealed, one might say, by accident. In 2021, Netflix plans to film Siebold’s autobiographical novel Lucky. During pre-production, film adaptation executive producer Timothy Mucciante found several significant inconsistencies when reading the book and the finished script.

Timothy had many questions about the lawsuit, and in search of answers, he hired private investigator Dan Myers to examine the evidence against Broadwater.

As a result, it turned out that the main evidence was the microscopic analysis of hair (since 2015, the US Department of Justice recognizes this method of forensic examination as unreliable). Prejudice against Anthony by the police also played a role, including because of his racial background. For example, when during the investigative experiment Sebold pointed to another man, the police tried to convince the girl that she was mistaken and Broadwater was the criminal (by the way, Alice herself emphasized in her book that she was not sure about any of the boys for sure).

As a result, Mucciante and Myers went to court seeking a review of the case. And on November 22, 2021, the New York Supreme Court recognized the merits of the guilty verdict and acquitted Broadwater entirely and formally rehabilitated him. It is simply impossible to watch Anthony’s emotions when announcing the decision without tears…

Of course, the information about the acquittal also reached Alica Seboldová. The writer publicly apologized to Broadwater.

“Most of all, I regret that the life you could have led was unfairly taken from you, and I know that no apology will change what happened to you,” Alice said.

“I have to accept the fact that my abuser was most likely not identified, he could have gone on to rape other women and not served time in prison like Mr. Broadwater,” the woman added.

Anthony Broadwater, now 61, accepted his “victim’s” apology, saying he was “relieved by her apology”. The book “Happy” has already been withdrawn from sale and is planned to be reissued only after editing.

The producer, thanks to which the honorable name Anthony Broadwater was restored, noted that he admired the generosity of the man and added that Alice Sebold is not to blame for what happened.

Also read: She killed her husband, spent 18 years in prison and … happy: the story of Patricia Gucci

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