a. Victor Burnette lived in Richmond, Virginia, in 1979. He cared for his blind, arthritic grandmother at night and prepared to begin his career. However, everything changes on August 5 of that year, when a local woman identifies him as the man who raped her. When DNA testing was carried out in 2009 it confirmed that he was not the attacker. It took 20 years for Burnette to clear his name. [Detail of the exemption case. 2014] Mary Jane Burton, a state forensic analyst, testified on Burnette's trail that she examined pubic hair from the rape kit and the victim's bed sheet. He announced that one hair matched Burnette, others matched the victim, yet the others were consistent with neither Burnette nor the victim. He also determined that sperm were present on the vaginal swab from the rape kit. However, serological tests only showed the presence of type A antigens in the blood. Burton testified that the victim was type A and Burnette was a non-secretor, meaning his blood type could not be determined from body fluids. While Burnette's story has changed a bit, he said his grandmother heard him come home early that morning. The jury convicted Burnette of rape and burglary. [Detail of the exemption case. 2014]b. Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim. This can cause problems with normal physical, emotional, cognitive and interpersonal behavior. [Rape Trauma Syndrome, 2014] The stress at the time no doubt affected the victim's memory of her attacker. When stressed, the brain isn't at its best when it comes to memory formation and retrieval. When the body is stressed it starts pumping the adrenal glands like there is no tomorrow. The trauma of actually being ra… middle of paper… the stress and depression they may face after seeing a crime. When an eyewitness faces depressive situations, they tend to have high stress levels and damage to their brain cells, these are some of the factors that can cause such disruption and thus source error can occur. Another problem that can interfere with an eyewitness's memory is retroactive interference. This usually occurs when new information is processed which hinders the retrieval of old information. [Retroactive Interference Defined, 2014]. The most common source of interference that can occur after the event of a crime is the reporting of the crime. Police investigations often involve suggestive interrogations, which can create confusion for the eyewitness. Processing new information can disrupt or entirely replace old information. [Rawlings, Maren Skouteris, Helen, 2004.]