Shortly before 5 p.m. on November 30, 1983, 18-year-old Pamela Pope returned to her car after Christmas shopping at the Western Hills Mall in Fairfield, Alabama. As she got to her car, two men wearing stockings over their heads grabbed her and forced her into the vehicle. They drove the car into some woods in neighboring Bibb County. The two men began drinking beer and smoking marijuana and forced Pope to take part.
Pope, who would later allow herself to be identified by name, was then told to undress. When she refused, she was burned with a cigarette and the younger of the two men began ripping her clothes off. She was raped several times by the younger man. At one point, when she was trying to fight back, one of the men punched her in the face, breaking off a tooth. After five or six hours, she was driven to the freeway, where the men left her in her car. They told her not to get up at the risk of harm to her “pretty little girl.” At the time, Pope had a 3-year-old daughter.
After a short time, Pope got dressed and drove to the police station in Bessemer. After her injuries were photographed, she was taken to a hospital, where a rape kit was taken. She said that her attackers were both white men in their 20’s and that one had a lot of hair on his chest and his back.
Several days later, Pope’s purse was found about a mile from the location of the assault.
In January 1984, police received an anonymous tip made through Crime Stoppers that 22-year-old Dale Mahan was in a tavern bragging about the rape and that his brother, 36-year-old Ronnie Mahan, told him to shut up. The police created photographic lineups that included the brothers’ photographs. Pope identified them as her attackers, saying that she recognized them because they had lifted their stocking masks from time to time when they were drinking beer and smoking marijuana.
On January 20, 1984, the brothers, who lived in McCalla, were arrested. They were charged with first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping.
In June 1986, they went to trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court. Pope described the abduction and sexual assaults, and she identified the brothers as her attackers. She said Dale Mahan was the one who raped her.
A forensic analyst from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified that the brothers had the same blood type and that their blood type was present in the semen.
Wayne Burrow, an evidence technician with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, testified that he examined three hairs that were found in the bag that contained Pope’s clothing that was taken from her at the hospital. Burrow said that two of the hairs were similar to Pope, but the third “was consistent with the pubic hair of Dale Mahan.” However, he conceded, “I cannot say that hair came from him and only him.”
Both brothers testified and denied committing the crime. Both took off their shirts to bare their chests and backs to show the jury that they had very little body hair.
A police investigator testified that he had dusted Pope’s car for fingerprints, but only found one print, on the rear view mirror, that was suitable for comparison. It was not from either brother, the investigator said.
Several witnesses testified for the defense that Dale Mahan was working on a painting job on the day Pope was abducted. Witnesses testified that the brothers were together at a tavern named Duke’s from 5 p.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. that day.
On June 23, 1984, the jury convicted both Dale and Ronnie of first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping. Ronnie, who had prior convictions for burglary, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Dale was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
In October 1986, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed their convictions and sentences.
In 1997, the Innocence Project was able to gain access to the biological evidence and obtained a court order for DNA testing. The swabs from the rape kit were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. In November 1997, the brothers’ attorney reported that they had been excluded as the source of the semen in the rape kit and on Pope’s clothing.
On December 1, 1997, the brothers’ convictions were vacated, and they were released from prison on bail. The prosecution vowed to retry them after Pope then said for the first time that she had had sex with her husband on the day of the attack and that Dale Mahan had not ejaculated. By that time, Pope and her husband had divorced.
When further DNA testing excluded her former husband, Pope said she had sex with a boyfriend on the day of the crime. She identified the boyfriend as Toby Tyler, who had been beaten to death in 1992 by police in Waveland, Mississippi. A vial of Tyler’s blood had been saved after his autopsy. DNA testing confirmed that the DNA profile from the rape kit matched Tyler.
As the prosecution prepared for a second trial, pubic hairs collected from the rape kit were submitted for DNA testing. Those tests excluded the Mahan brothers, Pope’s ex-husband, and Tyler and revealed an unidentified male DNA.
On November 30, 1998, the prosecution dismissed the charges, still insisting that the brothers were guilty.
Neither man received any compensation.
Dale Mahan died in 2002, after he drove through a police license checkpoint and, when pursued, flipped his vehicle. Ronnie Mahan died in 2006.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 03-13-2026
