Dean Cage: Could You Stand By Your Man?
It’s any woman’s worst nightmare. In 1996, Jewel Mitchell of Chicago was about to marry the love of her life, Dean Cage. Then the unthinkable happened: he was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Jewel knew Dean was innocent, since he was sleeping in bed next to her while the crime was being committed. Dean’s attorney argued that there was absolutely no physical evidence to link Dean to the crime; it was a case of mistaken identity.
According to CNN, Jewel never gave up hope that she and Dean would be reunited and get to live the life they planned. “I love him,” she would say. “It’s as simple as that. He was good to me and my girls. He’s a good man.”
Would you be able to do it? Many relationships don’t last when one partner goes to prison; one study shows marriages are three times more likely to fail when a man is incarcerated. ”It was almost like he was dead,” Jewel says. “That’s how bad it hurt.” But she would not stop loving Dean, visiting him in prison whenever she could. And she would not consider seeing other men, rejecting matchmaking offers from her friends.
A wrongful conviction is an unimaginable difficulty for a couple. Would you keep trying to get your man exonerated, or would you give up and move on with your life?
