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unu hear dat she a recant har story~~ ohhh God why????
US woman recants testimony in sexual assault case
Megan Williams, an African-American, told authorities in 2007 that she'd been raped and stabbed by six white captors
<span style="font-weight: bold"> The case of Megan Williams produced revulsion across the US two years ago. She had recounted to the police how she had been held in a ramshackle trailer on a remote hillside in West Virginia for more than a week and raped, stabbed, doused in hot water and forced to eat rat, dog and human faeces.
An African-American, she said she had been subjected to racial insults throughout the ordeal by her captives, men and women, all white.
In a country where race remains a raw issue, Williams became a cause celebre, winning the support of prominent African-Americans such as the civil rights leader the Reverend Al Sharpton.
But Williams this week threw the legal system into confusion when she said she had fabricated most of the evidence, mainly to get back at her boyfriend, one of those jailed, Bobby Brewster.
"The reason she is coming forward now is that she wants to right the wrong perpetrated on these six individuals. She can't continue to live this lie," her lawyer, Byron Potts, told a press conference in Columbus, Ohio yesterday.
He added that she claimed her wounds had been self-inflicted.
Six people, including Brewster and his mother Frankie, are serving long jail sentences. Both Brewster and his mother had criminal records, including Brewster's conviction for shooting dead his father.
The prosecuting attorney in Logan county, West Virginia, John Bennett, did not immediately return a call today over whether the case will have to be reopened. Nor did lawyers for the six in jail say whether they will call for the case to be dismissed. In the end, a judge will have to rule on it.
But Bennett's predecessor, Brian Abraham, publicly said he was mystified by her recanting her testimony. "It's a little absurd given the other evidence in the case and what she'd said before. There's no basis for her recanting her testimony."
Abraham said the case remained solid as the investigators early on realised they could not rely on the testimony of Williams, who has learning difficulties, and that the defendants had been convicted on their own statements and physical evidence. None of the six have appealed against their sentences, an almost automatic move by those jailed in the US.
"These defendants were convicted not based on what she said, but the evidence," Abraham said.
Williams was due to recant in person at the press conference but failed to appear, citing death threats. Aged 22 and living in Columbus, she has opened herself up to prosecution for lying to investigators but her learning difficulties might rule this out.
Although the case at the time received widespread media attention, some African-American groups claimed there would have been more of a public outcry if the victim had been white. African-American leaders such as Sharpton took up her cause. He spoke at rally for her and gave her a personal donation of $1,000 (£600).
Sharpton sent a letter this week to the Logan county prosecutor asking him to look into the case in the light of her recanting her testimony. "If Ms Williams has, in fact, fabricated her story, then I urge your office to vindicate any wrongfully convicted individuals," Sharpton wrote.
Sharpton was a vocal supporter of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who two decades ago made a bogus claim about being kidnapped and raped by white men.
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US woman recants testimony in sexual assault case
Megan Williams, an African-American, told authorities in 2007 that she'd been raped and stabbed by six white captors
<span style="font-weight: bold"> The case of Megan Williams produced revulsion across the US two years ago. She had recounted to the police how she had been held in a ramshackle trailer on a remote hillside in West Virginia for more than a week and raped, stabbed, doused in hot water and forced to eat rat, dog and human faeces.
An African-American, she said she had been subjected to racial insults throughout the ordeal by her captives, men and women, all white.
In a country where race remains a raw issue, Williams became a cause celebre, winning the support of prominent African-Americans such as the civil rights leader the Reverend Al Sharpton.
But Williams this week threw the legal system into confusion when she said she had fabricated most of the evidence, mainly to get back at her boyfriend, one of those jailed, Bobby Brewster.
"The reason she is coming forward now is that she wants to right the wrong perpetrated on these six individuals. She can't continue to live this lie," her lawyer, Byron Potts, told a press conference in Columbus, Ohio yesterday.
He added that she claimed her wounds had been self-inflicted.
Six people, including Brewster and his mother Frankie, are serving long jail sentences. Both Brewster and his mother had criminal records, including Brewster's conviction for shooting dead his father.
The prosecuting attorney in Logan county, West Virginia, John Bennett, did not immediately return a call today over whether the case will have to be reopened. Nor did lawyers for the six in jail say whether they will call for the case to be dismissed. In the end, a judge will have to rule on it.
But Bennett's predecessor, Brian Abraham, publicly said he was mystified by her recanting her testimony. "It's a little absurd given the other evidence in the case and what she'd said before. There's no basis for her recanting her testimony."
Abraham said the case remained solid as the investigators early on realised they could not rely on the testimony of Williams, who has learning difficulties, and that the defendants had been convicted on their own statements and physical evidence. None of the six have appealed against their sentences, an almost automatic move by those jailed in the US.
"These defendants were convicted not based on what she said, but the evidence," Abraham said.
Williams was due to recant in person at the press conference but failed to appear, citing death threats. Aged 22 and living in Columbus, she has opened herself up to prosecution for lying to investigators but her learning difficulties might rule this out.
Although the case at the time received widespread media attention, some African-American groups claimed there would have been more of a public outcry if the victim had been white. African-American leaders such as Sharpton took up her cause. He spoke at rally for her and gave her a personal donation of $1,000 (£600).
Sharpton sent a letter this week to the Logan county prosecutor asking him to look into the case in the light of her recanting her testimony. "If Ms Williams has, in fact, fabricated her story, then I urge your office to vindicate any wrongfully convicted individuals," Sharpton wrote.
Sharpton was a vocal supporter of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who two decades ago made a bogus claim about being kidnapped and raped by white men.
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