From a small alcove to my left, a man in disguise appeared and  shoved a small revolver in my stomach. “Sorry you came in at the  wrong time,” he said. I smiled and looked to my right where Steve, my soon-to-be husband, and a few others were already lined up in the opposite alcove near the cash register. An older woman who had worked in the store a long time said, “This is not a joke, Honey.”

On an ordinary Saturday morning, we were in town to deposit our weekly paychecks and to make a quick stop at a small, family-owned  jewelry store to register for our wedding. Instead, we walked into an  armed robbery.

As I stood there, I wondered if Steve and I were going to have to give up our checks. Then suddenly another unsuspecting man entered  the store diverting attention from us. The robber told him to get his wallet out. The man said he didn’t have a wallet, to which the robber responded, “Don’t mess with me. Get your money clip out.” Next, the
robber told the owner to remove the family ring he was wearing. When the owner said he was struggling to get if off, the robber said, “You 
better find a way or I will shoot it off.”

As we stood, as still as possible, worried about what was going to happen next,  I knew the only thing I could do was study the man with the gun and try to remember as much about him as possible. I judged his height, weight, skillful maneuvering of the revolver from one hand to the other, his muscular build and the elements of his disguise.

We ended up locked in the safe as the man with the gun made his escape.

My story is wildly different, but the decision to try to identify the perpetrator is similar to that of Jennifer Thompson-Cannino who visited ECU this fall to courageously tell her story to an attentive audience in Wright Auditorium.

Jennifer was raped at knife point in the middle of the night by a man who had gotten into her bedroom. Clinging to the hope of survival, all she could do was try to remember every detail about him. The full account of that awful night and the years after is captured in the book “Picking Cotton — Our memoir of Injustice and Redemption.”

Jennifer picked, the unsuspectingly cooperative, Ray Cotton out of a line up and sent him to jail for 11 years before it was discovered his DNA was not a match. Remarkably Ray travels with Jennifer as they retell how their lives became entwined. The look-alike picture in the book of Ray beside the real rapist reveals that Jennifer, in fact, did a remarkable job of describing her assailant.

In the book, Jennifer and Ray relate the many intervening factors that ultimately shed light on the precariousness of life events. Telling their story has brought much needed attention to the difficulty of identifying someone of a different ethnic background — Jennifer is a white woman and Ray is a black man. Legal procedures have been reexamined because of this story of mistaken identity. The authors’ insights about survival and forgiveness are even more profound.

It is important to realize, except for an incident one horrible night, the lives of these two people likely would be just another version of many of our lives. They are not extraordinary. They are honest with one another and all of us.

Read this book it will remind you to live with caution and an open heart.

Nancy Ballard, a former public relations professional, is the wife of ECU Chancellor Steve Ballard. Her column about ECU and community people and events appears on an occasional basis in this space.

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