An unbelievable story of rape

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An Unbelievable Story of Rape is an article published in 2015 about a series of rape that occurred in the US between 2008 and 2011 and the subsequent police investigation. The article was written by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller and was the result of a collaboration between the American non-profit news organizations The Marshall Project and ProPublica. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2016 and the George Polk Prize for Justice Reporting in 2015.

The article alternately tells the true story of a young woman named Marie, who reported a rape in August 2008, and the two policewomen Stacy Galbraith and Edna Hendershot, who tried to catch a serial rapist in 2011.

The article later became the basis for the Netflix series Unbelievable . Miller and Armstrong later wrote an entire book on the case: False Testimony: A True Story.

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In August 2008, an 18-year-old girl named "Marie" reported to the police in Lynnwood, Washington, claiming that she had been raped. When questioned, she reported that a masked man had broken into her house and tied, gagged and raped her with a knife held in front of her. The police didn't believe her. After officers pressured Marie about inconsistencies in her testimony, she said it might have been a dream, and later admitted that she made up the incident. In March 2009, she was charged with a criminal offense and fined $ 500.

In January 2011, detective Stacy Galbraith in Golden, Colorado was investigating the case of a woman who claimed to have been handcuffed by a masked man and raped at gunpoint for four hours. The man had filmed everything with a digital camera and threatened to post the pictures online if she reported the crime. When Galbraith began working on the case, she discovered similarities to two cases in Westminster, Colorado , where women aged 59 and 65 had been raped in a similar manner. The case of a break-in in Lakewood, Colorado , in which a masked man tried to handcuff a 46-year-old woman, also appeared to be related. The woman was able to save herself by jumping out the window, breaking three ribs and suffering serious internal injuries. The four known cases occurred in different suburbs of Denver . Despite the perpetrator's efforts not to leave DNA behind, genetic traces were found at three crime scenes. Analysis of the DNA showed that the perpetrator belonged to the same paternal family tree in all three cases.

During the investigation into the case of “Marie” in 2008, indications were found that someone had entered her house through the veranda, Marie also had bondage marks on her wrists and bruises on her thighs and vagina. Sperm was not found because the perpetrator used a condom. Marie told her foster parents about the incident, but due to her calm and detached behavior, they were unsure whether her statement was true. One parent reported their doubts to the police. Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn, the cops on the case, wondered if Marie had lied. After the parent's testimony and Marie's contradicting report on whether she called a friend before or after she cut her bonds, they made the victim repeat his story. Rittgarn put pressure on Marie and said she invented rape. He asked her if the perpetrator was real and she answered quietly "no". Without notifying her of her right to remain silent , the officers instructed the girl to confirm in writing that she had faked the crime. First, she wrote that she had dreamed the incident because she had since become unsure whether it was real. After asking for hours, Marie finally agreed to write that she had lied.

In February 2011, a detective alerted investigators to a witness who reported a suspicious vehicle in June 2010 (three weeks before the attempted rape in Lakewood). The car was registered to the former soldier Marc Patrick O'Leary , whose description matched that of the attacker. FBI agents monitored O'Leary's house and discovered that he was living with his brother Michael. Through a coffee mug, the investigators got to Michael's DNA, which proved that one of the brothers must be the rapist.

In August 2008, Marie announced to senior investigators that she had been pressured. She wanted to repeat her testimony, and also take a polygraph test. Rittgarn threatened that she would be locked up and lose her home. Marie then withdrew the statement. After she was forced to tell the other participants about her alleged false testimony in group therapy, she even had suicidal thoughts. Marie later received a complaint from Mason accusing her of false statements and was convicted. The case received some coverage in the local media. As a result, Marie was exposed to hostility and a hate website was created about her on the Internet. She quit her job after the charges.

In October 2008, Marie's foster mother saw a television report about a 63-year-old woman in Kirkland, Washington , who had suffered exactly the same as Marie. The parents called the Kirkland investigators, who first followed up the lead, but gave it up after the Lynwood police assured them several times that Marie was a liar.

In February 2011, a search warrant resulted in the arrest of Marc O'Leary, who had the same birthmark the victims described. Investigators discovered a lot of evidence in his home, including a mask, gun, camera and a collection of women's underwear that matched the victims' reports. Photos of his victims have been saved on O'Leary's hard drive and Marie is identified in one of these photos.

Mark O'Leary had broken into over a dozen homes before the attack on Marie. He observed women for hundreds of hours and broke into their homes several times to gather information before he raped them.

In December 2011, O'Leary was sentenced to 327.5 years in prison for the rape in Colorado. In June 2012, he received an additional 38.5 years in prison for the two cases in Washington.

After O'Leary was linked to Marie's rape, the Lynnwood Police Department reviewed the case. In a report, investigating officer Gregg Rinta wrote that the victim was "coerced into testifying that she invented her rape." It is not surprising that Marie retracted her testimony, wrote Rinta, given the "bullying" and "baiting" she was exposed to. Jerry Rittgarn's threats to Marie that she would go to jail and lose her home were described as "compulsive, cruel and incredibly unprofessional." An internal review concluded that Mason and Rittgarn's behavior "was designed to trigger a confession of false testimony." In 2015, the commander of Lynnwood's Criminal Investigations Division described the case as a "major failure" and stated that changes had been made to the practice since then. Despite all this criticism, neither Mason nor Rittgarn were punished. Mason apologized personally to Marie, Rittgarn did not. Marie's $ 500 fine has been refunded and she was awarded $ 150,000 following a lawsuit . At the time of this writing, Marie was married with two children.

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The article won the 2015 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, and also won the 2016 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting , presented by the University of Colorado Boulder and the Denver Press Club . In 2016, he was a finalist in the National Magazine Awards in the Feature Writing category .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. An Unbelievable Story of Rape | The Marshall Project December 16, 2015, at themarshallproject.org
  2. Article: "Unbelievable": Incredible, but unfortunately true (Bayrischer Rundfunk, 2019)
  3. Book: false statement: A True Story (2019) ISBN 978-3-442-71625-8 Original title: A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America
  4. Article: Lynwood Woman made up rape story, police say (The Herald, 2008 )
  5. Article: Lynnwood to pay rape victim $ 150,000 in false-claim suit (Seattle Times, 2014 )
  6. The Marshall Project Wins Polk Award for “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” , February 14, 2016 on themarshallproject.org (English)
  7. The Pulitzer Prize winner, 2016 (english)
  1. ↑ An Unbelievable Story of Rape. December 16, 2015, accessed December 3, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk Vanessa Schneider: Series // "Unbelievable": Incredible, but unfortunately true . September 19, 2019 ( br.de [accessed on December 3, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Ken Armstrong, T. Christian Miller: False statement: A true story . btb, ISBN 978-3-442-71625-8 , pp. 352 (Original title: A False Report: A True Story of Rape in Ameria .).
  4. ↑ Lynnwood woman made up rape story, police say. August 15, 2008, accessed December 2, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Lynnwood to pay rape victim $ 150,000 in false-claim suit. January 14, 2014, accessed December 3, 2019 .
  6. ^ The Marshall Project Wins Polk Award for "An Unbelievable Story of Rape". February 15, 2016, accessed December 3, 2019 .
  7. ↑ The Pulitzer Prizes: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. In: Pulitzer. Retrieved December 3, 2019 .