January 14, 1985: Two men allegedly break into the Philadelphia home of Muriel Stein.
This one is truly amazing.
Stein was an archaeologist, so clearly a highly intelligent woman. She was also a volunteer at the Philadelphia rape crisis center run by Women Organized Against Rape.
John Goodson was no angel, and had been convicted of a serious (non-sexual) offence in 1978. More importantly, in 1984, his brother had appeared in court on a sexual assault charge. Goodson had attended the hearing with him along with other family members. Stein had attended the court with the victim. This was a very serious offense, and Jimmy Goodson was convicted.
On the night in question, Stein claimed to have been beaten and orally raped. She identified Goodson but failed to identify her other alleged attacker. She said also that a week before this attack she had received an anonymous note that read “Rape, threat, you die”.
Goodson was convicted, and spent 318 days behind bars, but to their credit, the District Attorney’s Office conducted a thorough reinvestigation which led to his release. Legrome Davis of the specialist rape unit said Stein had manipulated the system, but declined to press charges against her. A series of telephone threats received by WOAR had been made by her!
After the charges against Goodson were dropped, Stein refused to cooperate further.
After Goodson filed a lawsuit against her, she testified that she remembered nothing about a sexual assault, and that a psychiatrist had told her she was suffering from selective amnesia – a well-known euphemism for lying.
In 1991, Goodson settled with WOAR for an undisclosed sum; in November the same year he was awarded a $350,000 judgment against Muriel Stein, who by that time had decamped to New Mexico. The article below gives some of this background; the rest was gleaned from NewsBank.
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