Marie also confronted the police who handled her original case and they apologised to her just like in the series. He would learn her date of birth and license plate number. . And she is resilient. He was not a registered sex offender. On Aug. 12, the day after Marie reported being raped, Sgt. To Peggys mind, Marie had spent the afternoon trying to get attention so much so that Peggy now wondered if this was more of the same, only more desperate. He boasted of the countermeasures hed taken to avoid getting caught. It didnt sound real to me. Frustration grew. He suggested she put a dowel into the bottom track to keep out future intruders. Golden and Westminster were middle class bedroom towns wedged between Denvers downtown skyscrapers and the looming Rockies. After repeated interrogation by the police, who do not believe her, she says that her report was false. She had a social circle. I didn't even get a half mile from my house. What happened next serves as a harrowing. After a pause, OLeary opened the door. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Lynnwood, Washington, U.S. Mar, 2009 Marie Charges In March 2009, she was charged with a gross misdemeanor: she was fined $500, put on probation and made to attend counseling. The analyst turned up an incident in Lakewood, another Denver suburb, that occurred about a month before the rape in Westminster. There was more. She let it go and hung up, thinking, Okay, I hope that works out for you guys.. Marie Adler was born in 1990. Afterward, he made her take a shower. We would always hug and she would look you right in the eye. In the bedroom, Marie seemed casual, with nothing to suggest that something horrible had happened there. She belongs to a Caucasian family. They wondered whether it contained photos of his victims. The investigators confronted her, and under their pressure, Marie said that she made up her initial claim. At home, her husband David had done the dishes and put the kids to bed. MARCH 12, 2009 LYNNWOOD, WASHINGTON No one came to court with her that day, except her public defender. D.M. But she went through the story again only this time, saying she believed the rape had happened instead of saying it for certain. Later, she was charged with making a false police reporta crime punishable by up to a year in jail. Galbraith recognized them by sight. He was the rapist. However, when the lawsuit was filed in June, the programs CEO, Cassie Franklin, issued a statement saying Our hearts go out to D.M. Her department was small a little more than 40 officers serving a town of about 20,000. The interviews were made late in the process, the department having refused earlier requests for comment. At Elle Marie Hair Studio, we believe your experience should be empowering and transformative. He let spill some lessons for law enforcement. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Galbraith pulled him to the side and patted him down. Galbraith rushed to a Safeway near her house to send the warrant. [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. Had the woman said yes? The trail started in Aurora, east of Denver, on Oct. 4, 2009, with the 65-year-old woman. Rittgarn, who left the Lynnwood Police Department before OLearys arrest, declined to be interviewed for this story. She wanted to be honest. Michaels appearance was confounding. You should know better than to leave the door unlocked, he told her. Westminster crime scene investigators had discovered similar marks on the window of the victims apartment. She called the judge who was on duty for the weekend. So who was the real-life Marie? Could the detectives connect OLearys Mazda with the blurry image of the white Mazda in the surveillance footage from Golden? 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. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Kaitlyn Dever as Marie in "Unbelievable. 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. A couple of times he left his position, for just a while, for fear of being spotted lingering. 7. On the bed officers found a shoestring used, apparently, to bind Marie. They sank down on separate couches in their living room. On August 11, 2008, Marc Patrick O'Leary raped an eighteen year old at knife point in Lynnwood, Washington. The initial detectives investigating the case questioned inconsistencies in her story, and her credibility was also called into question by her foster parent and an ex-boyfriend. We have no doubt that Marie's story will inspire many viewers and hopefully encourage police departments to have more rigorous training when it comes to dealing with rape victims. It was just nice to be on my own and not have all the rules that I had had being in foster care, Marie says. Winning $150,000 in a lawsuit against Lynnwood WA, Marie gets the fuel she needs to leave Washington and start anew. Tall, winter-bare trees towered above the roof. He knew to avoid leaving his DNA at the scene. In this written statement, she described calling him while still tied up. Just keep working! Galbraith insisted. The first narrative is about a woman in Lynnwood, Washington, known pseudonymously as "Marie", who reports being raped to the police. No one deserves to be treated like Marie was. . His longest law-enforcement stint had been with a small police department in Oregon, where he served for almost nine years and received a medal of valor. And for him to know that we figured you out.. 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. Juries were hesitant to throw someone in prison when it was one persons word against anothers. Tuesday 7:00am - 9:00pm By the time of the article, Marie was married with two children. Marie became the subject of media reports and an attack website. Shannon, a real estate agent and longtime foster mom, had met Marie through meetings for kids with troubled pasts and had sensed a kindred spirit. For me it seems like people read me differently than I see myself, Marie said in the written piece about her struggle. According to a later report, the bullying and . But when the man looked away, the woman jumped out of her bedroom window. Defendants included Rittgarn, Mason and Lynnwood Police Chief Steven J. Jensen. Shut down. 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. Marie, Armstrong and Miller were consulted during the production. She was accompanied by her foster mother, Peggy Cunningham, and by Wayne Nash, her case manager with Project Ladder. Because she craved normalcy, she would bury the hurt. Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com. Marie never did. [28][29] However, though Rosita Boland of The Irish Times enjoyed the early sections of the book, she found it to have a "curiously flat style overall, without any distinctive voice". Peggy, too, was mystified by Maries demeanor. He was sentenced to 327 and a halfyears in prison. 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. The man introduced himself. Their suspicions were based on comments from three people who said that they doubted her story, according to the suit. Armstrong and Miller reported the story in part by interviewing almost everyone involvedMarie, her one-time foster parents, the Colorado detectives who solved the case and one of the Washington cops who bungled it, and the rapist. The technicians recovered three samples of so-called touch DNA, as few as seven or eight cells of skin that can be analyzed with modern laboratory techniques. 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. Masons report didnt identify the caller but the caller was Peggy. Shannon said she did, too. Just weeks after she was charged, another Seattle woman reported being raped in her home by an assailant who tied her up and photographed her. They needed more information. According to the ProPublica story, on Aug. 11, 2008, an 18-year-old woman who was identified in court documents as D.M. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. Hendershot did not want to be too hasty. Aaron Hassell, the detective on the Lakewood case, raced back to his office. 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). Why would a rapist use shoelaces to tie her up? Police guidelines advised that rape victims should not be interrogated, as they may be uncertain of details or report conflicting information. [6] The teams decided to collaborate. Or even that Michael and Marc had worked together. The article also provided the basis of Miller and Armstrong's full-length book A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America (2018). Both were outgoing. Based on her answers and body language it was apparent that [Marie] was lying about the rape, Rittgarn later wrote. By the time Marie reported being assaulted, sex crime specialists had developed protocols that recognized the challenges and sensitivity of investigating rape cases. HOURS. She would need to keep straight, breaking no more laws. But not enough.. in a police car and took her to the station, where Rittgarn told her there were inconsistencies in her story. But years later, she was vindicated. The statement was only one page. He had been punctilious. You can also read more about how ProPublica and The Marshall Project reported this story. She joined Project Ladder at age 18, a program designed for people transitioning from foster care to living alone. A Lakewood patrol car had snapped a picture of OLeary standing by his white Mazda in the driveway of his house only two hours after the August attack on the widow in Westminster. The license plate was unreadable. So did Galbraith. commented on the changing definition of rape used by the FBI. D.M. When Galbraith talked to her husband, also a police officer, he observed similarity with an incident reported to his police department in Westminster. He was 32 years old and 220 pounds. Thats five times the national average of 4.3 percent for agencies covering similar-sized populations during that same period. It led to a back porch, with a wooden railing that was covered with dirt except one part, about three feet wide, where it looked like maybe someone had brushed the surface while climbing over. 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. Maybe the rape happened and I blacked it out, Marie said. Roll over onto your stomach, he told her. But both women had found a place for themselves. Marie wrote that the attacker said she could untie herself once he was gone: After he left I grabbed my phone (which was right next to my head) with my mouth and I tried to call Jordan back. OLeary pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and associated felonies in Colorado. When she read the story, she cried. And instead of interviewing Marie as a victim, they began interrogating her as a suspect.". According to police reports and statements filed with the lawsuit, D.M. We all got into this job to help people, not to hurt them. Lynnwood Sgt. Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. [21] In July 2016, they appeared on the Longform podcast to discuss the article. In 2015, the commander of Lynnwood's Criminal Investigations Division said that practices had since changed. The detectives had thoroughly examined their crime scenes. One Sexual Assault Survivor's Quest To End The Shocking Backlog Of Untested Rape Kits. Marie left Shannons home after a couple of weeks to move in with Peggy Cunningham, who worked as a childrens advocate at a homeless shelter and lived in Lynnwood, a smaller suburb about 15 miles north of Seattle. After looking through the images, she found an answer. [8] Extracts of an external report made of the police department that investigated Marie's case were made public for the first time in the article. On the form she filled in her name, address and Social Security number, and then she wrote, in part: I was talking to Jordan on the phone that night about his day and just about anything. Red Lobster. Then, confronted by police with inconsistencies in her story, she had conceded it might have been a dream. Now, her losses mounted. He knew that the Army had a sample of his DNA. It was a small, single-story home with gray siding half a block from a gas station, an auto body shop and a carniceria in a beat-down neighborhood. Monday 7:00am - 9:00pm. 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. I walked in, and she was super happy to see me, and I told her. But there was still the issue of the womans story. PeopleFinders is the best people search for contact info and public records. 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. When the detectives returned, they saw that Maries new statement described the rape as a dream, not a lie. 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. There was one possible lead. She was detached, emotionally detached from what she was saying, Cunningham said on the show, adding she thought she was simply seeking attention. After finally falling asleep, she was awakened by a man with a knife and then tied up, blindfolded, gagged and raped. . She reports entering foster care at age six or seven.". She knew exactly what she was looking for. Investigating Marie's report, police found evidence of an assailant and abrasions to Marie's vagina and wrist. The prosecutions offer was this: If she met certain conditions for the next year, the charge would be dropped. He put her learners permit on her chest and took pictures of her. They talked about being tied up. She could have stayed with Peggy, provided she abided by certain rules. also reached a settlement with Cocoon House, a private, nonprofit at-risk-youth program where she was living when the assault occurred. told police that, early on Aug. 11, 2008, she awoke to find a stranger in her apartment. The attack seemed to last a long time, Marie told police, but she couldnt say for sure. Rather than write competing pieces, the two journalists teamed up. Six hours on her feet didnt bother her. 4231 196th St SW. Lynnwood, WA 98036. If you're in the UK, you can visit Rape Crisis or call 0808 802 9999. For Marie, Shannons home had long provided an escape or respite. In a recent interview, Steve Rider, the current commander of Lynnwoods Criminal Investigations Division, called Maries case a major failing that has left members of the department with a profound sense of regret: Knowing that she went through that brutal attack and then we told her she lied? Were consulted during the production about a month before the rape in Westminster judge! A writer and editor for Esquire, where she was accompanied by her foster mother, Peggy Cunningham and! Developed protocols that recognized the challenges and sensitivity of investigating rape cases Maries demeanor and public records bedroom... 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