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\nOn April 20 \, 1989\, the body of a woman is discovered in Central Park\, her skull so badly smashed that nearly 80 percent of her blood has spilled onto the gr ound. Within days\, five black and Latino teenagers confess to her rape an d beating. In a city where urban crime is at a high and violence is freque nt\, the ensuing media frenzy and hysterical public reaction is extraordin ary. The young men are tried as adults and convicted of rape\, despite the fact that the teens quickly recant their inconsistent and inaccurate conf essions and that no DNA tests or eyewitness accounts tie any of them to th e victim. They serve their complete sentences before another man\, serial rapist Matias Reyes\, confesses to the crime and is connected to it by DNA testing.
\nIntertwining the stories of these five young men\, the p olice officers\, the district attorneys\, the victim and Matias Reyes\, Sa rah Burns unravels the forces that made both the crime and its prosecution possible. Most dramatically\, she gives us a portrait of a city already b eset by violence and deepening rifts between races and classes\, whose law enforcement\, government\, social institutions and media were undermining the very rights of the individuals they were designed to safeguard and pr otect.
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