Seeing the real world after twenty-nine years

In 1981, Raymond Towler was arrested and convicted for the rape of an 11-year-old girl. As so often happens in such cases, Towler insisted he was innocent, but he had no way to prove it. So Towler went to prison, where his sole exposure to the world was through a small television in his cell.

In 2004, with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project, Towler applied for DNA tests. He also had to apply to make sure the physical evidence in his case wouldn’t be destroyed. It took about five years, but Towler received permission for his tests, in March of 2009. Another year passed before the court agreed to hear the results of the tests, which proved what Towler had said all along, that he was innocent. Then two more months went by before the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court overturned Towler’s conviction, allowing him to finally walk free, no longer viewing the world through a small glass screen.