Dr. Phil reintroduced a video clip from a 2008 episode of his talk show last week, highlighting the incredible story of a Chicago woman who was brutally raped at 15 and whose mistaken identification of the suspect sent an innocent Black man to prison for more than a decade.
When the clip resurfaced, the woman received very little sympathy from social media users who accused her of “playing the victim” after falsely accusing Dean Cage, who spent 14 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Dr. Phil, the popular television personality, author, and psychologist, whose real name is Dr. Phillip C. McGraw, revisited Cage’s wrongful conviction for his July 16 episode in which he revealed another recent case of mistaken identity.
However, the old video footage of Cage and his accuser on stage together unintentionally revived many people’s memories and sparked a wave of strong opinions that hadn’t emerged at the time of the interview 16 years ago.
During the emotionally charged show, Cage finally confronted his accuser face-to-face after serving 14 years in prison following his wrongful conviction for rape.
The alleged victim, a white woman named only as Loretta, tearfully apologized to Cage on the show after DNA evidence proved he was not her attacker, leading to his exoneration and release from prison in 2008.
Before the show aired, Dr. Phil sat down with the woman off-camera to explain how Cage was not guilty of her rape in 1994, but the woman didn’t seem to accept the truth.
Dr. Phil then tested the woman’s courage by asking her to come on the show to meet the man she condemned to prison, as Cage had graciously agreed to come on and meet her.
The meeting was awkward and quickly turned heart-wrenching, with both individuals appearing uncomfortable next to each other, leaving them at a loss for words.
As Loretta came on stage with her husband, she was already crying and barely holding it together.
When Dr. Phil asked Loretta to explain how she felt sitting next to the man she wrongfully accused.
“I’m scared,” she said weeping. “To see his face again, it’s scary.”
At this point, Dr. Phil asked her if she could rationally understand the cognitive dissonance between seeing Cage’s face in the media and in court and recognizing that he was not the man who attacked her in the alley.
The woman said she was having trouble reconciling the two conflicting thoughts but told Dr. Phil that she understood the difference despite her initial certainty of Cage’s guilt.
Despite everything that had happened to him, Cage was contrite and forgiving during the show. When Dr. Phil asked him how he felt about his own ordeal, he chose not to focus on himself but instead expressed regret over the trauma the woman had suffered.
“I just hate that you had to go through something like this,” Cage said, his voice stammering but remaining composed. “I hate that I had to go through something like this because of this situation. But I hope and pray that we both can get closure in this.”
His accuser wept quietly, prompting criticism from viewers.
“The way Women fake cry. Instead of taking accountability Needs to be studied,” @_VishwajitPatil wrote on X, reflecting the harsh sentiments that many people expressed throughout the day.
The gripping moment was quickly followed by prolonged silence, leaving the studio audience and people at home on the edge of their seats.
Dr. Phil then turned to the woman and asked how she felt about Cage’s remarks.
“I’m sorry,” she told Cage, sobbing, “that you lost so …” — but before she could finish, her voice trailed off and she broke down in tears before collapsing into the arms of her spouse.
But social media users were unimpressed with the woman’s tearful apology, with many saying she was “fake-crying” and looking for sympathy points while blaming her for destroying the prime years of a man’s life.
At this point, the audience began cheering and applauding at the extraordinary display of empathy and reconciliation, underscoring the emotionally charged atmosphere in the room.
After the applause died down, Loretta pulled it together, returned to Cage, and said again, “I’m sorry.” After a brief pause, she continued. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted to tell the truth. I’m so sorry.”
Cage looked down and away from Loretta as she spoke, and for a moment, he appeared unaffected by the tears rolling down her face.
Cameras panning the audience captured some observers using tissues to blow their noses and dab their eyes.
Dr. Phil then spoke directly to Loretta about some of Dean’s feelings that she might not have been aware of previously.
“I think you need to understand, some of the things that you haven’t heard Dean say, but he gets that you were 15 and he gets that you were hurt really, really bad by somebody, and he hates that for you,” Dr. Phil said before opening the floor back up to Cage to speak his mind again.
“I hate you had to go through something like that,” Cage said, repeating what he said moments earlier but now looking in the woman’s direction. “I hate that, now that you have children, that your kids had to go through something like that. And I hope and pray each day that you can get closure. And this day, I accept your apologies.”
The audience erupted in applause again, and Cage wipes his eyes again with a handkerchief. Neither he nor Loretta make a move to shake hands or embrace each other on the stage. She continues holding hands with her husband while facing Cage with tears still flowing.
Noticing the discomfort in her face, Dr. Phil asked the woman, “What’s the hardest thing about this right now, Loretta?”
But when she answered this time, the woman sounded ambiguous about Cage, casting him more as a suspect.
“Being here, next to him,” she answered the host.
“What makes that hard?” Dr. Phil asked.
“Cause I feel ashamed. I feel like I did something wrong,” her voice cracking.
After many years, her moment of honesty became a flashpoint when Dr. Phil resurfaced the video clip on YouTube last week, as a whole new generation of social media users found themselves triggered by the woman’s sudden about-face on the show.
“Why is she crying and acting like the victim? She should be locked up for 14 years like he was,” one user wrote.
Many voices accused the woman of trying to deflect her culpability for Cage’s wrongful incarceration, even though she was the victim of a rape. While many commenters accused the woman of flat-out lying on Cage, suggesting of mistaken identity. Many voices said the woman should face penalties for what happened to Cage.
Very patiently, Dr. Phil tried again to reason with the woman, explaining that Cage was innocent.
“Have you accepted in your mind that this is not the person that did this to you?” he asked.
“After talking to you and my husband, yes,” Loretta said to another round of applause.
The crime occurred almost 30 years ago, on Nov. 14, 1994, when the 15-year-old Chicago girl missed the school bus around 6:20 a.m. and decided to take the subway instead.
The sky was still dark as she walked to the station. After a few minutes, she noticed a Black man in a black leather jacket and a hat walking toward her. Just as the two passed each other, the man punched the girl in the face and dragged her to the back porch of a nearby house. There, the girl was sexually assaulted and forced to rub dirt on herself to conceal the evidence.
The man fled the area, while the young victim ran to a newspaper vendor and called authorities. When police arrived, they found the girl’s clothes had been completely torn off during the attack, leaving her dressed only in a winter coat.
At the hospital, the victim provided police with a description of her attacker, identifying him as a Black man, 25 to 30 years old, about 6 feet tall, with a beard. The following day, she assisted officers in creating a composite sketch of the suspect.
The sketch was released to the public, and a week later, police received a tip that a man matching the description worked at a local meat market. Police took the victim to the meat market, where she identified Dean Cage as the attacker. She later said she recognized his voice during a police lineup.
Cage was arrested five days after the attack but immediately proclaimed his innocence.
For Cage, it was only the beginning of what would become a 14-year nightmare.
For the first two years, Cage waited for a trial in Cook County Jail.
Finally, on October 21, 1996, Cage went on trial before Judge Michael Bolan, who would decide his fate without a jury. The victim testified that she was certain Cage was the attacker, while Cage and his fiancée testified that he was with her at the time.
Despite this, the judge convicted Cage and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.
Social media commenters also took issue with the judge’s final determination on the facts, arguing that the case exposed significant flaws in the American court system.
“When they say the justice system is weaponized against black men, the circus [clown emoji] starts trying to refute the fact,” wrote @emperordavid2044 on YouTube.
More commenters expressed sympathy for Cage rather than for the woman who was raped but wrongfully accused him of doing it.
Throughout his 14-year ordeal, Cage maintained his innocence and filed numerous appeals, all of which were rejected.
In 2005, the Innocence Project took on his case and sought DNA tests on evidence from the crime scene. They found the rape kit and the victim’s clothing, and in 2006, the Cook County State Attorney’s Office agreed to DNA testing.
The tests revealed male DNA on the evidence that did not match Cage. Proven innocent, Cage was released on May 27, 2008, after nearly 12 years in prison and two years in jail. He was reunited with his supportive family in Chicago.
