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NEW YORK (CBS) ― It started and ended with the opposing forces of faith and mistrust. The white, female banker felt comfortable running almost every night. Then on April 19, 1989 the Central Park Jogger was found in a ravine, raped and near death.

Central Park jogger found raped and left for dead.

From the begining, many mistrusted police accusations that five Black and Latino teens were the attackers, even though they had confessed. By the end - 13 years later - the victim, the accused and the city were changed forever.

Around midnight, the jogger was found, left for dead, in a ditch near Central Park's 102nd Street transverse. Others came forward saying they too had been attacked in the same area of the park: mugged, punched, harassed by a marauding gang of young men.

The woman's name was withheld by authorities and the news media. She became known as "the Central Park jogger." She was 28 years old at the time, an investment banker with Salomon Brothers investment firm.

Central Park jogger suspects in court.

The horror of the crime immediately wound the city into a tense knot threaded with feelings about race and class. New York City in 1989 was already seeing the horrible effects of the crack epidemic. Ed Koch was finishing his tenure as mayor and tensions having to do with race and class were simmering.

Jogger slowly recuperates while city's wounds worsen.

Six teenagers from Harlem were picked up and brought in for questioning. They said they were roaming the park attacking people at random. News reports quoted the boys as saying they were "wilding," a term police said they had not heard and which the boys later denied.

At the police stationhouse, their parents watched as they confessed on videotape. None of the teens or their families had secured a lawyer.

Five teenagers were tried in two trials. Kevin Richardson, 15, Raymond Santana, 15, Yusef Salaam, 16, Kharey Wise, 17, and Antron McCray, 16, pleaded not guilty and said the cops forced them to confess.

Legal experts at the time said the prosecution had no case unless the jury accepted the confessions. DNA evidence found at the scene and on the victim did not match any of the young men.

All of them were were convicted of the attack against the woman and were sent off to prison.

Thirteen years later, a convicted rapist serving time for four rapes and the murder of a pregnant woman said he and he alone attacked and raped the Central Park Jogger. Matias Reyes was 17 years old in 1989. He said he attacked the jogger and then left, walking slowly home.

The DNA was matched to Reyes.

In fact, Reyes was tied to eight rapes over seven months, including one in Central Park on April 17, two days before the jogger attack.

It took several more months, but in December 2002, the five teenagers - now men - were exonerated, all charges dropped and their names eventually removed from the sex offenders list.

Real rapist confesses and teens are exonerated.

Throughout the years, the defendants' families proclaimed their innocence. After the charges were dismissed, the families strongly critisized the police, prosecutors and news media.

Families of exonerated young men vent their anger at NYPD, prosecutors.

As for the jogger, she later wrote a book, "I Am The Central Park Jogger." She wants people to know who she is, Trisha Meili. She doesn't remember anything of the attack or the six weeks she spent recovering in Metropolitan Hospital. She did reveal that while in the hospital four of the suspects' families sent her flowers.

Trisha Meili today remains active.

Today Trish Meili continues to jog and to work for causes that help women and the disabled.

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