Innocence Blog

Reunited After Exoneration, Part 2

Posted: October 27, 2009 2:42 pm

Visit CNN.com today to read and watch the second segment of Dean Cage and Jewel Mitchell’s inspiring story of overcoming injustice. Cage, an Innocence Project client, served more than 12 years in Illinois prisons for a rape DNA proves he didn’t commit. He and his fiancée, Mitchell, had become engaged just a few months before he was arrested.

Today’s story begins on the day in 2001 – more than five years into his 40-year sentence – that Cage told Mitchell in a prison visiting room to give up on him, to move on with her life. She refused. She knew he was innocent and she trusted that she would see him free.

In 2008, DNA testing finally proved Cage’s innocence and he was set free. The two now live together in Chicago and plan to get married soon.

"She makes me feel good," Cage told CNN. "She makes me feel happy. I don't think things would be the same without her. I don't know if I could've kept the faith all those years."Read the two-part story here.