Elizabeth Loftus Rape Case

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Elizabeth Loftus was born on October 16th,1944 in Los Angeles, California. Her father was a doctor and her mother a librarian, However her mother passed away when she was just 14 due to a drowning accident. Growing up Elizabeth wanted to be a math teacher, but while attending UCLA she discovered the subject of psychology. She went on to get her BA in math and psychology at UCLA. She married Geoffrey Loftus and applied to graduate school at stanford. During her time at stanford, the study of long term memory grabbed her attention. She also at stanford got her M.A in 167 and her Ph.D in 70. Elizabeth later went on to be a psychology professor at the university of washington, this is where she met Geoffrey. Like I said before, Long term…show more content…
Since then she has testified and advised on hundreds of criminal cases. She makes sure that the judges and jurors to consider the fallibility of memory. Elizabeth Loftus worked on a legal case that involved a false accusation of rape. The man accused of rape was Steve Titus and he was engaged to a girl named Gretchen. On their way home from a date, he got pulled over because his vehicle looked like the car that a recent rapist had used and Steve looked liked the rapist. The Police took a photo of him and put his photo into a photo lineup. At first the rape victim said that he's the closest. Then when steve titus was put on trial, the victim said that she was “ absolutely positive” that he was the man. Titus was convicted, and he lost complete believe in the legal system. While in jail,he contacted a local newspaper who eventually found the actual rapist. A rapist who actually admitted to the rape, then titus was finally let free. However, Titus lost his job, and he lost his wife and decided to file a lawsuit. A couple of days before his day in court Titus died of stress related heart attack. Cases like this interest Elizabeth loftus and inspires her to work in the field of memory. The rape victim went from “he's the closest” to “ I am absolutely positive” and unfortunately this eventually led to the death of Steve Titus. In fact, there are many more cases where people have been convicted based on false accusations and this is not
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