In the early evening of Thursday 22 September 1988, a woman was raped at a local train station in Chicago in the presence of several people.

A brief account of the incident appeared that Sunday in the New York Times, based on what the police had said on the Friday. The salient feature of the incident in this account was that nobody had moved to help the victim, and her cries had gone unheeded – for all that the rape took place during the rush hour. As Detective Daisy Martin put it: ‘Several people were looking and she asked them for help, and no one would help’.

A longer account which likewise appeared on the Sunday in the Chicago Tribune placed the matter in a very different light. Quoting what the police had said on the Saturday, the article began by stating that six bystanders were to be recommended for citizen's awards for their work in helping the police arrest and identify the suspect. The account that followed emphasised two features of the situation which did not emerge from the notice in the Times. The first was that the rape took place in a part of the station to which access was blocked by an exit-only turnstile. The second was that the bystanders were confused in their understanding of what was going on: the rapist had ordered his victim to smile, which she did.