Tim Cole was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the rape of Michele Mallin. Courtesy of the family of Timothy Cole

Today in an Austin, Texas, courtroom, convicted rapist Timothy Cole’s family and the victim he is accused of raping, will ask a judge to clear the dead man’s name.

In 1985, Cole, who was a student at Texas Tech high school in Lubbock, Texas, was accused of raping sophomore student Michelle Mallin.

On the night of Sunday March 24, 1985, Mallin told police that while she was parking her car, a black man approached her and asked her if she had jumper cables because he was having some car problems.

“All of a sudden,” she said, “The man opened the door of my car and forced himself in and then he put a knife to my throat at the same time, and pushed me over into the passenger seat and started to drive away.”

She told police that her attacker drove her car without gloves and smoked the entire time he was driving the car.

The only description that Mallin was able to give Texas police was, her attacker was a black man, who was a chain smoker, drove her car without gloves and had a knife to her throat.

Texas police later showed Mallin a picture of a young black man, and thinking that they had more evidence, she identified the man in the picture as her attacker.

On the same night that Mallin was raped, Texas police saw Cole waiting for a friend who was working at a pizza parlor near Texas Tech, which was a few blocks from where Mallin was raped, and took a picture of him.

Prior to meeting his friend at the pizza parlor, and at the same time that Mallin was raped, Cole was studying in his apartment while his brother was playing cards in the living room with several people.

Although everyone who were playing cards testified that Cole was studying, and, authorities had medical records that said Cole suffered from asthma, and his fingerprints were nowhere on the car, Texas police arrested  him for the rape of Mallin.

During his trial, the district attorney attacked Cole’s witnesses as brash, slick liars who would say anything to save their friend.  In the end, the jury convicted Cole to 25 years in prison.

While in prison, Cole told his sobbing story to inmate Jerry Wayne Johnson.

Johnson, who was a chain smoker and was serving time for raping two women, one, a 15 year-old white student that he snatched from her high school, holding a knife to her throat, listened very carefully to Cole’s story.

Johnson waited until the statute of limitation ran out and in 1995; he wrote a letter to the district court in Lubbock, Texas, confessing to raping Mallin.

Not receiving any replies, he wrote another letter asking for an attorney so that he could legally confess.  Again, he was ignored.

In 2007, he tracked down Cole home address, and thinking that Cole was paroled, he wrote the young man a letter with his confession.

Cole’s mother, Ruby Session, opened the letter, read it, and just could not believe her eyes.

After going to the media with the letter, Lubbock D.A’s office announced that it would run modern DNA tests.

When the results came back, it was Jerry Wayne Johnson’s DNA on the swabs in the rape kit, not Cole’s.

The Innocence Project of Texas tried to get a court to clear Cole’s name, but no judge in Lubbock would grant them a hearing.

They went to a state judge in Austin with their facts, and a hearing for relief was granted, for today, Thursday February 5, 2009.

On December 2, 1999, Cole died in prison at the age of 39 from an asthma attack.

Rape victim Mallin said that she would take the stand to clear Cole’s name, “Even though I know I did everything I could in my heart of hearts to do the right thing.”