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. She joined Project Ladder at age 18, a program designed for people transitioning from foster care to living alone. Hendershot was more experienced. She doubted herself, wondering if there was something in her that needed to be fixed. The detectives second interview with Marie was designed to elicit a confession of false reporting. The false reporting charge arose from a self-imposed rush.. But the hunt for the rapist united them. Despite the fact that trauma can sometimes cause victims to give differing accounts of their attacks, police honed in on inconsistencies in Maries story. Afterward, he ordered her to brush her teeth and wash herself in the shower. You can contact the court in which the case was filed to view the court record or to order . Most had described a white man with green or hazel eyes, about 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds. 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. This story was co-published with The Marshall Project. Just keep working! Galbraith insisted. So, too, his methods. Those investigations often boiled down to an issue of consent. . She wanted to take a lie detector test. She went to a conference room and waited. Sometimes going a hundred miles an hour, you miss some breadcrumbs, the same colleague noted. OLeary thanked the officer for the information and closed the door. 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. On the morning of Friday, Feb. 11, FBI agents were surveilling OLearys house. [9], For the article, Armstrong and Miller made public records requests to police departments and prosecuting attorney's offices in Washington and Colorado. If detectives could eliminate OLearys male relatives, they could place OLeary at the scene of the crimes with a high degree of certainty. He was certain Marie had lied. An OLeary man was responsible. As an FBI agent confronted him, OLeary immediately invoked his right to an attorney. Thundershowers had soaked the area before the attack. In a follow-up article describing the process by which they reported the story, the journalists wrote that they filed records requests for thousands of pages of documents from police and prosecutors offices in Washington and Colorado: "Other reporting included pulling transcripts of television news coverage from when Marie was raped and later charged, wrote Miller, "having court transcripts prepared from when OLeary was sentenced in Colorado; reviewing grant documents for Project Ladder; and mining the criminal-justice literature for expert views on how rape investigations should be conducted., In a decision that was echoed in Netflixs series, the reporters decided not to focus the story on the rapist, Marc OLeary. On August 11, 2008, Marc Patrick O'Leary raped an eighteen year old at knife point in Lynnwood, Washington. The actual Maries first name is not Marie that'sher middle name, which was used in the articleabout her case. [21] In July 2016, they appeared on the Longform podcast to discuss the article. They were both cops, after all. She does not know if she attended kindergarten. Photography by Benjamin Rasmussen. The man had gone to extreme lengths to avoid leaving DNA evidence, but touch DNA from the same paternal family line was found at three of the four crime scenes. I told her, I said, Its over. Without reading the Miranda warning, they asked her to write that she had made a false report. The article alternates between two true stories of events occurring between August 2008 and June 2012. On top of a computer monitor they found a second shoestring, tied to a pair of underwear, the apparent blindfold or gag. Marie had been sexually and physically abused in early life and was in foster care for most of her childhood. She couldnt bring herself to meet with the police again and say anything more. Rittgarn asked Marie. The wall was thin, letting him hear her voice. Rittgarn would later write, Based on our interview with [Marie] and the inconsistencies found by Sgt. After cooking green mung beans for dinner, she curled up in bed for a marathon of Desperate Housewives and The Big Bang Theory until drifting off. It was so organized, we were like, Oh, thank God.. The Project Ladder managers told Marie that if she wanted to stay in the program if she wanted to keep her subsidized apartment she would have to confess to someone else. Some victims confuse fine points or even recant. A half-dozen officers and technicians were now at work. He said nothing about doubting Maries story, according to Masons written summary. The physical description closely matched the descriptions provided by the victims. Peggy, too, apologized. . As female cops, both women were members of a sorority within a fraternity. The attack. He took pictures and threatened to post them on the Internet. She lost interest in photography. [9] The other officer, Rittgarn, declined to be interviewed. He put her learners permit on her chest and took pictures of her. he would ask himself. She belongs to a Caucasian family. That mother would often leave her in the care of boyfriends. The report also added that Marie was sexually and physically abused.". Then she drove her to St. Anthony North Hospital. A fellow detective sat through more than 12 hours of blurry footage. OLeary pleaded guilty in both of the Washington cases. Marie, her face in her hands, looked down. He left the room, and walked to the front door, and he was gone. He spent the previous 11 years reporting for the Los Angeles Times. She asked that her current location not be disclosed. Social scientists examining police records in detail and using methodologically rigorous standards cite similar, single-digit rates. Denver-area publicationWestword reported. Im encouraged, Im excited, she said. Numerous other editors contributed to the article, including managing editor Kirsten Danis of The Marshall Project. Marie was charged with filing a false report and accepted a plea deal under which she had to pay a $500 fine and undergo counseling to avoid jail time. Warning: This material may be disturbing to some listeners. Marie thats her middle name, Marie didnt say anything. [10] The structure was proposed by Sexton. Project Ladder staff made Marie return to police when she said she made the report under duress. Because I feel that if I would have shut my mouth, they would have done their job, she says. After the meeting, Marie started walking to a friends place. Our personalities didnt match at first either, Marie says. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. Frustration grew. He asked if the rapist was real and she said "no." [3] The Marshall Project and ProPublica are American non-profit online news organizations. Many states bar police from using them with rape victims. When she got to his legs, she raised his pant leg to look. Before that, he had served in the Marine Corps, specializing in helicopter avionics. It was like Id just eaten Thanksgiving dinner, he said. By the time of the article, Marie was married with two children. [23][24][3], Armstrong and Miller adapted their article and additional research into a 304-page book, A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America. She moved around a lot as a kid, and had to switch foster homes about 11 times,not including the group homes she bounced around in. In 2015, the commander of Lynnwood's Criminal Investigations Division said that practices had since changed. This site is a search engine for cases filed in the municipal, district, superior, and appellate courts of the state of Washington. She drives an 18-wheeler across the country. Detectives receive additional training about rape victims. Tearfully, she described her past all the foster parents, being raped when she was 7, getting her own place and feeling alone. She explained: "She's incredibly strong and she's been through so much, so everyone on the team wanted to respect her privacy.". Galbraith felt sick. Masons experience, when someone asked if they were in trouble, almost always, they were. She went into the bathroom and cleaned up. Within days of reporting being raped, Marie had quit her job at Costco, unable to stand there, looking at people, lost in her head. Her lawyer was surprised she had been charged. The investigators confronted her, and under their pressure, Marie said that she made up her initial claim. Juries were hesitant to throw someone in prison when it was one persons word against anothers. And we dont want to see this happen to anybody ever again, Rider said. Then her eyes darted back and forth as if she was thinking of a response.. [3] Armstrong appeared on Utah Public Radio in November 2016, discussing the article on Access Utah. And she would have to pay $500 to cover the courts costs. Giving Marie's story further gravitas is a highly-praised performance by breakout Booksmart star Kaitlyn Dever in the lead role. 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. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. On Aug. 13, Marie met with Mason at the Lynnwood police station and turned in a written statement, describing what happened. And all those sliding glass doors ridiculously easy to pick, when they werent left unlocked, which so often they were. Peggy, searching online, discovered a pilot program called Project Ladder. Likewise, She is a long-haul trucker by profession. Launched the year before, the program was designed to help young adults who had grown up in foster care transition to living on their own. After leaving the police station, Marie learned that she still wasnt through. I was preparing for a baby. He arrived in the predawn hours, then waited outside her apartment, outside her bedroom, listening to her on the phone, waiting for her to fall asleep. "Theres a lot of detail about his background, his life and about what he did, and if you were writing a true-crime novel, you would put all that stuff in there," said Miller during the Longform interview. In this written statement, she described calling him while still tied up. But there was not enough genetic material to identify a single individual. discuss pitfalls and best practices of sex crimes investigations. In 2008, Maries case was one of four labeled unfounded by the Lynnwood police, according to statistics reported to the FBI. 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