Guilty Before Proven Innocent: 5 Women Who Were Wrongfully Convicted

By Courtney Hardwick

When a woman is accused of a shocking crime, the judgement she faces reaches far beyond the courthouse. Long before a verdict is handed down, the public often forms its own opinion about guilt—and sometimes, assumptions about her personality, appearance, behaviour or lifestyle become part of the case against her.

Was she emotional enough? Did she behave the way a grieving mother “should”? Was she too attractive, too sexual, too confident—or simply not what people expected an innocent woman to be?

History has shown that public perception, media coverage, questionable expert evidence and stereotypes about women can contribute to a powerful narrative of guilt, regardless of evidence. The following five women experienced extreme public scrutiny and judgement throughout their murder trials, and although they were all eventually exonerated, their assumed guilt still hangs over them in the court of public opinion.

Lindy Chamberlain

On August 17, 1980, Lindy Chamberlain was camping with her husband and their three children in Australia’s Northern Territory when her nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, disappeared from the family’s tent. Chamberlain immediately reported that a dingo had taken the baby. An initial inquest agreed with her account, but public suspicion quickly grew.

The story became one of Australia’s biggest media spectacles as the public became convinced that Chamberlain was responsible for her daughter’s disappearance. Her demeanour was repeatedly scrutinized and she was mercilessly criticized for appearing unemotional. Her family’s Seventh-day Adventist faith also became the subject of bizarre rumours and speculation. With no evidence, people speculated that Chamberlain must be a religious extremist who sacrificed Azaria as part of a dark ritual.

Chamberlain was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison based on circumstantial evidence and an elaborate theory that the dingo story was a coverup for murder. The prosecution also used forensic evidence that was later shown to be flawed. Most famously, a substance in the Chamberlains’ car that prosecutors claimed was fetal blood was actually sound-deadening material used during the car’s manufacture.

Three years in prison later, a missing piece of Azaria’s clothing was discovered in a dingo den, and Chamberlain was formally exonerated in 1988. In 2012, a fourth inquest formally determined that Azaria had died after being attacked and taken by a dingo. 

Amanda Knox

In 2007, Amanda Knox was a 20-year-old American exchange student living in Perugia, Italy, when her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was murdered. Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the scene, was convicted of Kercher’s murder, but Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were also convicted with the prosecution arguing that they helped Guede murder Kercher. Knox’s conviction went through several stages of appeal before Italy’s highest court definitively acquitted her in 2015. 

During the trial, the media ignored the evidence (or lack thereof) against Knox and instead fixated on her appearance, relationships and sexuality. She was given the nickname “Foxy Knoxy,” and tabloids portrayed her as a sexually liberated, manipulative femme fatale. Her “unusual” behavior was scrutinized with reports focusing on her doing cartwheels in a police station, smiling and appearing carefree, and seeming unbothered by her roommate’s death. Her sexuality also became a recurring theme in coverage of the case.

Even after her eventual acquittal, the narrative surrounding the case was less about who Knox actually was and more about what people believed a young, attractive and sexually active woman might be capable of. Knox has since talked extensively about how she was treated by Italian authorities and how the media attention impacted her. 

Sally Clark

In the late 90s, Sally Clark lost two infant sons within two years to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and instead of being able to grieve an unimaginable tragedy, she was convicted of murdering both boys and sentenced to life in prison. The prosecution’s main argument was based on medical expert testimony that the chance of two babies from an affluent family dying from SIDS was approximately one in 73 million. The statistic was widely reported and gave the impression that the possibility of two natural deaths was virtually impossible–so, the only other explanation was that Clark must have killed her babies. 

When the case was examined later, it became clear that the statistical evidence had been misleading. The prosecution also failed to disclose medical evidence that showed one of Clark’s sons had been suffering from a serious bacterial infection. In 2003, after she had spent over 3 years in prison, Clark’s conviction was overturned and she was released. Her family said she never recovered from the experience, and she died in 2007.

The misuse of statistics as evidence didn’t just wrongly convict Clark in court, but it painted her as one of the worst things a woman can be—a bad mother. The media fixated on a statistic that had nothing to do with Clark’s case and in the end, no one bothered to look at actual evidence that would have proven Clark innocent. 

Angela Cannings

Similar to Sally Clark, Angela Cannings lost three of her four children to SIDS when they were each only a few months old. While the death of her first child, a daughter, was officially ruled sudden infant death syndrome, Cannings was charged with murder in the deaths of her two sons. Again, the prosecution relied heavily on statistics from Dr. Roy Meadow, the same medical expert that testified in Sally Clark’s case and contributed to her wrongful conviction. Based on this testimony, Cannings was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. 

During her appeal, new evidence suggested there could be a genetic explanation for the deaths. A medical genetics expert pointed to a history of unexplained infant deaths in Cannings’ family, while other evidence suggested that several factors could have increased the babies’ risk of dying from SIDS. In December 2003, Cannings’ convictions were overturned, and she walked free after serving more than 18 months of a life sentence.

Canning, a mother who tragically lost three children, faced the public assumption that she was somehow responsible for her children’s deaths, with the jury’s verdict asserting that she repeatedly chose to have children in order to kill them. Her case, along with Clark’s, contributed to a broader reassessment of the use of controversial medical expert evidence in cases involving infant deaths.

Joyce Ann Brown

In May 1980, two armed women robbed a Dallas fur store. The owner was shot and killed, and the robbers escaped in a car rented under the name Joyce Ann Brown. The problem was that there was more than one Joyce Ann Brown. When police searched Dallas criminal records, they found a local woman with a prior prostitution charge and included her photograph in a lineup. The victim’s wife identified her as one of the robbers. When Brown learned she was a suspect, she went to police herself, believing she could clear up the misunderstanding. Instead, she was arrested and charged with murder and aggravated robbery.

The car’s actual renter was another Joyce Ann Brown, who lived in Denver and had lent the vehicle to a friend, Renee Michelle Taylor. Investigators found stolen furs, pink clothing matching a witness’s description and a .22-caliber revolver in Taylor’s apartment. Taylor was later arrested, pleaded guilty to the robbery and maintained that the Dallas woman had not been her accomplice. Investigators also uncovered evidence that another woman, who resembled Brown, had been associated with Taylor in an earlier fur-store robbery. Yet the case against Brown continued.

Brown was convicted in October 1980 and sentenced to 25 years to life. Although Brown had an alibi (she was at work at the time of the crime) corroborated by multiple co-workers, prosecutors argued that a 36-minute gap during her workday gave her enough time to commit the crime. 

Because of her earlier prostitution charge, Joyce Ann Brown was perceived as someone who was capable of committing the crimes. Assumptions about a woman’s respectability—and whose word is considered credible—influenced how police and prosecutors handled Brown’s case, leading the wrong person to spend a decade behind bars.

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