Even while imprisoned for a rape he didn't commit, Tim Cole never stopped acting like a big brother.
"He would send us letters, telling us what classes to take, telling us to look out for a subscription to Money magazine he was sending us," brother Cory Session remembers.
Cole was a student at Texas Tech when he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of 20-year-old Michele Mallin.
In 2009, DNA would exonerate Cole, but not until a decade after he died in prison, at age 39, from heart complications related to his asthma.
To those who loved him, Texas can never right the false conviction, but the Lubbock City Council wants to make sure Cole and his case are not forgotten. The city unveiled a statue of the Fort Worth native across the street from the Texas Tech campus on Wednesday afternoon and dedicated the area where the bronze likeness will stand as the Tim Cole Memorial Park.
Behind bars, Cole refused to lose faith, telling his sister Karen Kennard -- the only African-American enrolled at Texas Tech's law school at the time -- not to give up pursuing her law degree.
"I still believe in the justice system, even if the justice system doesn't believe in me," he once wrote in a letter.
Kennard finished her degree and went on to become the city attorney for Austin, Texas.
His brotherly attitude extended beyond his kin as well. His family wouldn't learn about it until later, but Cole used the money he earned from his GI Bill to make thousands of dollars in charitable donations from behind bars.
