marie lynnwood, washington 2008
I mean, I get shiver bumps thinking about it, just even now, Hendershot said. As female cops, both women were members of a sorority within a fraternity. Unbelievable is inspired by the heartbreaking, real story of Marie Adler. It was blustery, and biting cold. [27][28] Mason was interviewed for the book, but Rittgarn refused to speak to the authors without being paid. They were tough for cops and prosecutors. When Mason, accompanied by Detective Rittgarn, went to pick up Marie at about 3:30 p.m., they found her outside her apartment, sitting on the grass. In 2011, Marc O'Leary was arrested in Colorado for rape and He had taken her sheets and bedding. She is subsequently charged with a gross misdemeanor for false reporting. In doing this, the police ignored the fact that research shows that victims of trauma struggle to remember specific details about their experiences. The first victim, an 18-year-old woman known as Marie, reported to Sergeant Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn that she had been raped at her home in Lynnwood, Washington. So he took steps to avoid leaving any traces of genetic material. The samples narrowed the field of suspects to males belonging to the same paternal family line. Later that day, Mason talked to Rittgarn, his fellow detective, and said that based on Maries inconsistencies, and based on what he had learned from Peggy and Jordan he now believed Marie had made up the story. So many kids, institutionalized, wound up on drugs or in jail. [4][5], T. Christian Miller was a senior reporter at ProPublica. In early October, less than two months after Marie was charged with false reporting, a 63-year-old woman reported being raped inside her condominium in Kirkland, east of Seattle. I was trying to be a good citizen, actually. They often dont know about, or fail to use, an FBI database created years ago to help catch repeat offenders. Just keep working! Galbraith insisted. returned to the police station with Cocoon House representatives and asked to withdraw the denial and insisted that she had been attacked. The investigators decided to try to get a sample of OLearys DNA. She also landed her first job, offering food samples to customers at Costco. Following this, and Marie's conflicting account of when she phoned a friend, Mason and Rittgarn made Marie repeat her story, Rittgarn saying that he disbelieved her. It was not much. He let spill some lessons for law enforcement. Am I in trouble? Marie asked the detective. Tearfully, she described her past all the foster parents, being raped when she was 7, getting her own place and feeling alone. The article alternates between two true stories of events occurring between August 2008 and June 2012. Recently, Marie was asked if she had considered not reporting the rape. The credibility of the victim was often on trial as much as the guilt of the accused. Galbraith listened to the woman with a sense of alarm. I didn't even get a half mile from my house. Years before the #MeToo movement gave voice to women previously coerced into silence over historic sexual abuse, Marie's story exemplified the disbelief and callous treatment often shown to sexual assault survivors. We were really sad that we werent able to have her with us, Shannon says. Theyd be out there searching for this person who had done this to me.. She asked that her current location not be disclosed. I just kind of trusted their judgment, in terms of its their case, they know the details and I dont, Weber says. By the time she exited the bathroom, he had gone. She did and then he straddled her, putting the knife near her face. That was an interesting conversation you were having, he said, letting her know that he had been there, listening, waiting. Peggy had two cats. on the phone that night, before the alleged attack. Instead of finishing high school, Marie went for her GED. Then, confronted by police with inconsistencies in her story, she had conceded it might have been a dream. Most had described a white man with green or hazel eyes, about 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds. The search of the home validated the detectives investigation. She has left the state, although she wants her new location to remain secret. Despite that, she tried to enjoy life and liked school, hiking, photography, and going to the beach with friends. We may earn a commission from these links. The Lynnwood Police Department had 79 sworn officers, serving a city of about 34,000 people. He was sentenced to 327 and a halfyears in prison. And I think the agency just thought, She can handle it. So., At first, Marie didnt want to live with Peggy. [9], Armstrong's editor Joe Sexton and Miller's editor Bill Keller had worked together at The New York Times. The man threatened her with a butcher knife, gagged her with her underwear, bound her hands with a shoelace from her tennis shoe and raped her. Detectives receive additional training about rape victims. The detectives had thoroughly examined their crime scenes. Based on Shannons tip, Kirkland investigators had reached out to their Lynnwood counterparts and had been told the Lynnwood victim was no victim, the story had been made up. "She didn't want to let this experience limit her in how she went about the rest of her life, said Miller in his NPR interview. Careful, diligent, exacting she complemented Galbraith. Neither Peggy nor Shannon abandoned her, but things werent the same. We learned a great deal from this. Many states bar police from using them with rape victims. Galbraith was hopeful. I wasnt going to let him destroy me.". The actual Maries first name is not Marie that'sher middle name, which was used in the articleabout her case. Now, her losses mounted. The prosecutions offer was this: If she met certain conditions for the next year, the charge would be dropped. OLeary had no criminal record. No one really explained why she was being moved, or what was going on. In 2008, 18-year-old Lynnwood, Washington woman Marie is attacked in her apartment by a man who ties her up and rapes her, taking photographs all the while. The news was not great. He was certain Marie had lied. The next day, when Shannon saw Marie at her apartment, her doubts intensified. Marie settled in. Mason is now back in narcotics, in charge of a task force. We are happy to reach this resolution, he said. He held a knife. She grew up with police, trusted police, knew how the police worked. Rider said his agency has become more cautious about labeling a case unfounded since Marie. But on the first day, a support counselor came to the school and told Marie the family had lost its foster care license. Rittgarn, who left the Lynnwood Police Department before OLearys arrest, declined to be interviewed for this story. Just after noon, the agents saw a woman and a man who looked like OLeary leave. She even laughed a little. The initial detectives investigating. BF in PJs, game over, he wrote in one nights entry. I was preparing for a baby. Rittgarn asked. Officials for Cocoon House declined to comment on the settlement. The true-crime drama tells the real story of Marie Adler, an 18-year-old girl from Lynnwood, Washington, who was wrongfully charged with a gross misdemeanour in 2008 after police believed that she lied to them about being raped. [25][26] The book expands upon details of the case like O'Leary's perspective and subjects such as victim blaming and social media harassment. He laboriously counted 261 vehicles and people coming and going on the night of the incident. The lawsuit alleges police ignored or disregarded evidence once they convinced themselves she was not telling the truth. Over the next 24 hours, more than a dozen investigators threw their collective effort and experience into finding out everything possible about OLeary. From what Mason wrote up later, he wasted little time confronting Marie, telling her there were inconsistencies between her statements and accounts from other witnesses. Wanting independence,she moved into a program in Lynnwood, Washington entitled Project Ladder designed to help young people transition from foster care to living by themselves. Masons report didnt identify the caller but the caller was Peggy. A damning report found the police handling of the case "nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she lied about the rape," the ProPublica and Marshall Project article said. He told his wife to call his department first thing in the morning. She sent images of the shoe prints to crimeshoe.com, a website that promised to move an investigation from an unidentified scene-of-crime shoeprint to detailed footwear information in one simple step. The site, now defunct, identified the prints as having been made by a pair of Adidas ZX 700 mesh shoes, available in stores after March 2005. Then her eyes darted back and forth as if she was thinking of a response.. Later that day Aug. 14, three days after Marie reported being raped Mason called Marie, to ask if they could meet. She was wearing new boots that day. The Army veteran was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington, between November 2006 and September 2009, when he targeted Marie in Lynnwood, Washington, in August. One TV newscast announced, A Western Washington woman has confessed that she cried wolf when it came to her rape she reported earlier this week. She had been charged with filing a false report, which is why she was here today, to accept or turn down a plea deal. This story was co-published with The Marshall Project. What do you think should happen to someone who would lie about something like this? Investigators found a pair of Adidas ZX 700 shoes in OLearys closet. It was a young woman far younger than the Colorado victims, perhaps a teenager. A collaboration between The Marshall Project and ProPublica, it was published on both websites on December 16, 2015. An external report by Sergeant Gregg Rinta, who worked for the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office as a sex crimes supervisor, condemned the handling of Marie's case. She went to her computer, looked up the number, and called immediately to alert police in Kirkland to Maries story, to advise them of all the parallels. In Golden, Colorado, during January 2011, Detective Stacy Galbraith interviewed a woman who was raped at gunpoint for four hours. She pounded the table and said she was pretty positive.. "When the police began doubting Marie, they turned on her, Armstrong told National Public Radio last year. Im encouraged, Im excited, she said. The interviews were made late in the process, the department having refused earlier requests for comment. (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline read, Police: Lynnwood rape report was a hoax.) Maries best friend from high school the one who had taught her photography and had taken that picture of her emerging from the surf created a webpage that called Marie a liar, with a photo from Maries Myspace page, with police reports, with Maries full name. Their initial attempts to identify the attacker faltered. She came right away. He had broken into more than a dozen homes since. She would move a hundred miles an hour in one direction, a colleague said. He was military so he was very organized, Galbraith said. An OLeary man was responsible. It was hard to get along. A couple of times he left his position, for just a while, for fear of being spotted lingering. But Marie wanted to set out on her own. In October 2008, one of Marie's foster parents saw a report of a woman in Kirkland, Washington, raped in the same way as Marie. [9] As the two reporters and two primary editors were all male, the team ensured that they consulted various women, some with knowledge of the case and some without, particularly in regards to how graphic or detailed to make the description of Marie's rape. Marie agreed to those conditions. No one deserves to be treated like Marie was. He took out the gag and removed the blindfold, telling her to avert her eyes and to keep her head in the pillow. To Marie, he seemed sincere. I was mad at God, she says. Marie had made it through. Before he left, he showed the student how he broke in through a sliding glass door. White man, gray sweater. [1][2], The article won the 2015 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting, presented by Long Island University, and the 2016 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting, awarded by the University of Colorado Boulder and Denver Press Club. Police technicians were swarming the apartment. Without reading the Miranda warning, they asked her to write that she had made a false report. [9], Nora Caplan-Bricker of Slate reflected that "Marie's story helps remind us that false reports of rape are the exception, not the rule", believing that the article shows the "ruinous consequences" and "ubiquity" of rape victims being disbelieved. She felt like she belonged. Her voice was like this little tiny voice, and I couldnt really tell. He wore a black mask. It turned up only bad leads. Galbraith rushed to a Safeway near her house to send the warrant. In 2008, Marie's case was one of four labeled unfounded by the Lynnwood police, according to . They had moved up in the ranks. . D.M. There was no one out there who had hurt her and no one who might hurt them next. When she told police of her skepticism, she asked to be treated anonymously. They mentioned that he had stolen their underwear. Investigators must have definitive proof of lying before doubting a rape report, and a charge of false reporting must now be reviewed with higher-ups. Here's how two reporters turned a local miscarriage of justice into national news. D.M. She went to a conference room and waited. She was Peggys first foster child. The investigation instantly turned urgent. Red Lobster. Maybe the rape happened and I blacked it out, Marie said. 4231 196th St SW. Lynnwood, WA 98036. After looking through the images, she found an answer. It turned out the woman, identified in court documents by the initials D.M., was one of several victims of serial rapist Marc O'Leary, a former Washington man who admitted the 2008 crime and is. She read the email and her mind shot back five months, to a crisp Tuesday in August 2010. He would learn her date of birth and license plate number. She was always nice to talk to.. The entire series is harrowingly candid portrayal of Marie's story and the horrific injustice she experienced. Lakewood patrol cars had cameras that automatically took pictures of every license plate they passed. They discovered a pair of Under Armour gloves with a honeycomb pattern. Galbraith had maneuvered herself to stand behind OLeary. By the time Marie reported being assaulted, sex crime specialists had developed protocols that recognized the challenges and sensitivity of investigating rape cases. Marie thats her middle name, Marie didnt say anything. Later, she was charged with making a false police reporta crime punishable by up to a year in jail. As an FBI agent confronted him, OLeary immediately invoked his right to an attorney. But both women had found a place for themselves. The first draft was 15,000 words in length,[9] shortened to 12,000 in the final version. The main characters are based on Marie (Kaitlyn Dever), known in the series as Marie Adler, and Detectives Edna Hendershot and Stacy Galbraith, who were renamed as Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) and Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever). He was only 8 the first time he broke into a home. Police checked it out, but the man was gone. This statement appeared to satisfy the detectives. Roll over onto your stomach, he told her. Mason returned to the evidence. He was promoted to sergeant and transferred to the Criminal Investigations Division six weeks before the report of Marie's assault. She considered jumping. It was parked half a block from the Lakewood victims house, by an empty field adjacent to her backyard. She joined Project Ladder at age 18, a program designed for people transitioning from foster care to living alone. Following police confrontation about inconsistencies in her story, she said that she made the incident up. Like kids most everywhere, Marie wanted to fit in. September 13, 2019. She was 17, starting to stay out late, worrying Peggy, creating tension between the two. Default; Distance; Rating; Name (A - Z) Sponsored Links. Galbraith and Hendershot turned to DNA to identify the serial rapist. OLeary pleaded guilty in both of the Washington cases. In 2008, Marie, from Lynnwood, Washington, reported to police an intruder had broken into her home, bound and gagged her, and raped her at knifepoint. Likewise, She is a long-haul trucker by profession. At least it was concrete now. "The focus of the investigation became her credibility. A lot of times people say, Believe your victim, believe your victim, Galbraith said. Trophies. They grabbed the drinking cups from the table. Before, she told the detective she had tried calling Jordan after cutting the laces. Sometimes she was placed in foster homes with her siblings. 'Ted Lasso' Season 3 Dropped Its First Trailer, 'Outer Banks' Season 4 Is Already In the Works, 'The Last of Us' Ep. After a five-week crush, there were few leads and no suspects. It wasnt until 2 years later, when OLeary was arrested in Colorado, that Lynnwood police reopened their investigation. Peggy, too, was mystified by Maries demeanor. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! I would venture to say we investigate our cases a lot more vigorously than many departments do, he said. Where do you go when youre 5 and already thinking about handcuffs? FBI figures show that police annually declare around 5 percent of rape cases unfounded, or baseless. He didnt answer so I called my foster mom. So did Zachor & Thomas, the law office that handled the prosecution of Marie on Lynnwoods behalf. She doesnt want her first name revealed. Someone else is going to get hurt, Galbraith worried to herself. By early March, a forensic computer specialist cracked into files that OLeary had stored on his hard drive. He ordered the women to shower. [9][10], Miller wrote the sections about the woman in Colorado, while Armstrong wrote the sections about the investigation in Washington. She was very bubbly and full of energy, but she also had her moments where she could be very intense, Peggy says. She was detached, emotionally detached from what she was saying, Cunningham said on the show, adding she thought she was simply seeking attention. It premiered on September 13, 2019. The original series was inspired by the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica article " An Unbelievable Story of Rape .". In 2011, two Colorado detectivesplayed in the series by Collette and Weverpooled their resources together on the hunt for what they suspected was a serial rapist. She reports the assault to. She called police to share her concerns. Marie had made her report in August 2008 to Sergeant Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn. . She was charged with filing a false report, later forced to pay $500, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote a piece about her called, Police: Lynnwood rape report was a hoax., I was mad at God, Marie said. "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" was written by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. Unbelievable | Official Trailer | Netflix, Netflix's 'Unbelievable' is Based on a True Story, The Best Movies Based on True Stories in 2019, Toni Collettes 'Unbelievable' Role, Explained, charge her with with making a false report to police, Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 joint investigation, trauma can sometimes cause victims to give differing accounts of their attacks, Armstrong told National Public Radio last year, reported the story in part by interviewing. Marie figures her happiest years were when she was 16 and 17, and the happiest day may have been one she spent with her best friend, another high school student who was teaching Marie the fine points of camerawork. They also appeared similar to prints from a pair of Under Armour gloves that a Lakewood investigator, on a hunch, had discovered at a Dicks Sporting Goods. Aaron Hassell, the detective on the Lakewood case, raced back to his office. From a religious point of view, she follows Christianity. I didnt want this time to be like that, Marie said of her attack on This American Life, comparing it to her first rape. Miller had discovered that a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) database to identify serial murderers and rapists was mostly unused in the cases of rape, as most police departments fail to upload sexual assault reports. Afterward, he made her take a shower. The rims would have traces of his DNA. Peggy actually told the police that she believed Marie was lying about the rape. By 2 p.m. on Saturday, they had a result. FBI agents collected DNA evidence from his brother which showed one of them was the rapist. She let it go and hung up, thinking, Okay, I hope that works out for you guys.. He tied the woman up with her own shoelaces. An all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more Leary arrested! & # x27 ; Leary was arrested in Colorado, that Lynnwood police Department had 79 officers... Beach with friends good citizen, actually wasnt until 2 years later when... To herself say anything was promoted to sergeant and transferred to the police she... Galbraith rushed to a crisp Tuesday in August 2008 and June 2012 conversation you were having he... The home validated the detectives investigation and T. Christian Miller straddled her, but things werent same. 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