Things you buy through our links may earnNew Yorka commission. LYNNWOOD, Wash. The city of Lynnwood will pay $150,000 in a settlement with a rape victim, after Lynnwood police claimed she lied about the attack in 2008. After the man left, Marie maneuvered a drawer open with her feet, cut herself free with scissors, and called for help. Los Angeles County said all litigation over the crash has now been resolved. Jeffrey Mason in real life. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact. She requested and received a personal apology from lead detective Jeffrey Mason. FBI figures show that police annually declare around 5 percent of rape cases unfounded, or baseless. Sergeant Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn were the real-life investigators from the Lynnwood Police Department who took on Marie's case. Parker. Busy Phillips Is Not Like a Regular Mom, Shes a Cool Mom, Theres nothing wrong with Busy Phillips being cast as Mrs. George in the upcoming, In Search of Tom and Katies Bubba Painting, Maybe punting on the larger plot can be forgiven if we get a sweet. When the detectives returned, they saw that Maries new statement described the rape as a dream, not a lie. Based on her answers and body language it was apparent that [Marie] was lying about the rape, Rittgarn later wrote. She took a plea deal where she received supervised probation, paid $500 for court costs, and attended mental health counseling. To calculate the rate, we summed the number of unfounded rapes and divided it by the number of reported rapes. Trevor Materasso; Lakewood, Colorado, police detective Aaron Hassell; Kirkland, Washington, police officer Audra Weber; Lynnwood police Sgt. They ignored all the objective evidence collected by the Lynnwood Police Department and Providence Hospital on the day of the rape, the lawsuit alleges. But nope. One was her former foster mother, with whom D.M. Galbraith connected with Hendershot, who had worked on a rape case of a 59-year-old widow months before in Westminster. The people interviewed for this story include Marie (in our story, we agreed to use only her middle name); Maries foster mothers Peggy Cunningham and Shannon McQuery; Maries friend Jordan Schweitzer; James Feldman, Maries public defender when she was charged with filing a false police report; H. Richmond Fisher, Maries attorney in her civil suit against Lynnwood, Washington; Golden, Colorado, police Det. Netflix The detectives who disbelieved Marie and coerced her into recanting her story also faced fairly minimal repercussions in real life. He told me that based on subsequent interviews and inconsistencies with D.M., her foster mother, and her friendwho [sic] she had talked with on the phone prior to the report, he believed and others believed that D.M. The three went to the Lynnwood police station, where the detectives escorted Marie to a conference room. Steve Rider told The Herald of Everett: Suffice it to say, certain pieces of information just led investigators to the wrong conclusion., Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com, Seattle still the nations saddest large metro area, survey shows, Feds award money to study removing Highway 99 in one Seattle neighborhood, Plan to reduce homelessness in downtown Seattle picks up after slow start, Driver killed after crashing off Seattle overpass, WA's pay-per-mile tax is not the culture war we need right now, including the Lynnwood attack and the rape of a 63-year-old Kirkland woman. Also named in the suit are Rittgarn . Galbraith first learned of Hendershot's similar case through her police officer husband (just as Duvall, Merritt Wever's character, did). From there, the show continues to follow a true story reported by ProPublica. Like Blake Elliss fictional fiend, Marc OLeary knew that police departments didnt talk to one another and that the Army had his DNA, so he meticulously cleaned his crime scenes and made his victims wash away any genetic material. He told police that hed fantasized about rape since he was a kid and that his assaults were a type of rape theater inspired by the Star Wars scene in which Jabba the Hutt chains up Princess Leia. The series shows her driving off in a new Jeep in hopes of establishing a better life elsewhere. When her counselors at Project Ladder marched her back to the station upon hearing her account of what happened, Rittgarn told Marie that if she took a lie detector test and failed, she'd go to jail and probably lose her housing. Adler was 16 when she became Cunninghams first foster kid. And I am not the only person that didnt believe her., Bridget Everetts amiable Colleen is a stand-in for Adlers real-life foster mother Shannon McQuery. After OLeary was caught, McQuery apologized to Adler and later told This American Life she was shocked that Adler was willing to forgive her for such a huge thing., Like Scott Lawrences effective Fed, FBI special agent Jonny Grusing was a crucial part of the task force that aided the detectives work. three days after the assault, officers picked up D.M. In a Netflix comedy by Katharine McPhees stepdaughter. She recently watched the series, according to ProPublica reporter Ken Armstrong; with Adlers permission, he tweeted some of her thoughts about the show. In his home, they found the pink Sony camera in addition to the women's underwear, wet wipes, lube, and a pistol. The national average for "unfounded" cases is around five percent. Words or thoughts attributed to anyone in this story are drawn from these interviews or documents. As Marie told Sergeant Jerry Mason and Detective Jerry Rittgarn, she'd fallen asleep after a late-night phone chat with her friend Jordan, an ex. She's excited, because now she can go on in a whole new wonderful chapter of her life. Enter detectives Stacy Galbraith from Denver and Edna Hendershot from Westminster. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc. Looking into similar crimes, the women discovered a case in Lakewood, another Denver suburb, where a masked man attacked and bound a woman at knifepoint in her home. In Unbelievable, the detectives that team up to catch the serial rapist who also attacked Marie are a breath of fresh air compared to Lynnwood's botched operation. But most recent research suggests that false reporting is relatively rare. She said it was about 7 a.m. when she woke to find a man standing over her bed with a butcher knife and wearing latex gloves. In a statement, Cocoon House CEO Cassie Franklin said our hearts go out to D.M. A police narrative from Detective Jerry Rittgarn states, "I talked with Sgt. Anyone with information is asked to call Lynnwood detective Jerry Rittgarn at 425-744-6924 or 425-744-6900. At first, the detectives are attempting to catch the man who broke into her apartment and raped her. The Seattle Times reported when the victim sued the Lynnwood PD (which was ultimately settled for $150,000): In August 2008, a stranger broke into the apartment of an 18-year-old Lynnwood woman, gagged her, bound her hands with a shoelace and raped her. Rodney Cohnheim and Commander Steve Rider; and Marc OLeary, who was interviewed at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado. Hendershot is now a sergeant in the Westminster Police Department. Years later, an external review characterized the police interrogations of her as bullying and coercive with minor inconsistencies in her statements misjudged and strong evidence ignored. Her record would be expunged, and she also received a $500 refund for court costs. Unbelievable will, suffice to say, shock you. Mason was put in the lead position, but at that time. After collecting sufficient evidence, detectives eventually arrested Marc O'Leary, a former Marine. Stacy Galbraith; Westminster, Colorado, Sgt. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Yet, after conversations with the victims stepmother, her friend, and anonymous caller, police began to have doubts. However, based on those statements, 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. The lawsuit alleges that, as soon as the detective concluded she was lying, the investigation ceased. When I went to sleep I dreamed that someone broke in and raped me. charged with making a false report in Lynnwood Municipal Court when she tried to take back a statement in which she had recanted her story of being raped. Between the different cases, the police had also recovered a small number of skin cells and learned that he had a dark mark on his calf. Unlike her avatar, she left her Costco job handing out food samples days after her 2008 rape. Rittgarn asked. She was fined $500 in 2009 after entering into a diversionary agreement. In 2011, Galbraith worked on a Denver case where a young woman living alone was sexually assaulted by a man in a black mask who documented the rape with a digital camera. The reporting by ProPublica and The Marshall Project spanned several months and involved numerous interviews, a review of previously undisclosed law enforcement records and exchanges with experts on investigating rape. When Mason, accompanied by Detective (Jerry) Rittgarn, went to pick up Marie at about 3:30 p.m., they found her outside her apartment, sitting on the grass. Between one-fourth to two-thirds of rapists are serial attackers, studies show. From JAMA Pediatrics, December 2015 and Violence and Victims, Vol 17, 2002 by David Lisak and Paul M. Miller. There are 7 professionals named "Jerry Ritt", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. Virtually every real-life detail of the rape and the Lynnwood police investigation plays out onscreen in Unbelievable. Jerry Rittgarn declined to be interviewed. As Chris says in the finale, had Adlers case been better investigated, police would likely have caught the rapist sooner. Claiming police coerced her into recanting her story, the woman was charged with false reporting and fined $500 when she later tried to insist the rape did happen. We examined five years of the "Offenses Known and Cleared by Arrest" data to smooth yearly fluctuations common in crime reporting. In December 2015, ProPublica and the Marshall Project co-published An Unbelievable Story of Rape. New Report Says Nurses at Illinois Facility Forced Patients to Dig Through Their Own Feces, Records Reveal Medical Response Further Delayed Care for Uvalde Victims, Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That Itll Weigh Down the Economy for Years, Hoping to Prevent Repeat of Botched Response to Uvalde, Lawmaker Calls for Improved Training for Police, EMTs, If youre republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Well never put our work behind a paywall, and well never put a limit on the number of articles you can read. O'Leary, however, had taken a picture of her with a learner's permit on the woman's chest. In January 2011, rapist Marc OLeary was apprehended, and the head of the criminal-investigations division showed up at Adlers door to tell her that her photo had been found among his things. Mason has since returned to working in narcotics. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Marie, crying, said she believed the rape really happened. In hindsight, it was my job to get to the bottom of itand I didnt." . In 2016, she told This American Life that she regretted talking to the cops but still believed Marie need[ed] to take responsibility for her actions. 's photograph and ID card in his wallet. Marie had a horrific childhood, bouncing around various foster and group homes from around age 6, and was sexually and physically abused throughout. USMC. Maybe the rape happened and I blacked it out, Marie said. was living in a small Cocoon House-sponsored apartment after having spent her youth moving among as many as 20 foster homes. Lynnwood, Washington, United States 3 connections. After I got off the phone with him, I started thinking about all things I was stressed out and I also was scared living on my own. She eventually left Washington, now working as a long-haul truck driver and married with two children. Police gathered evidence from the house, including stained sheets, the shoelaces, blindfold and gag. Because of Adlers calm demeanor, McQuery also had doubts about the rape and, as portrayed in episode one, was confounded when Adler wanted to replicate her bedding. We consulted police training guidelines by various organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and End Violence Against Women International. , updated He asked if there was really a rapist running around the neighborhood that the police should be looking for. We also ran the same calculation for Washington state law enforcement agencies that cover cities of the same size as Lynnwood to account for possible variations due to the size of a jurisdiction or local laws. Today, Rittgarn is retired from the force and working as a private investigator. The other, Detective Jerry Rittgarn, left the department of his own accord. 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University of . Former Lynnwood police Det. Privacy Policy and As previously noted, Detective Rittgarn left the department prior to Marie's rapist being caught. While the characters are inspired by the two investigators and their excellent work in catching real serial rapist Marc Patrick OLeary, they're not interchangeable with their offscreen counterparts. The (male) detectives Marie goes to see after shes raped believe shes lying and get a coerced confession out of her recanting what shes already reported. At first he could not recall the case, except that he. If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. The trucks license plate led to OLeary. Trevor Materasso; Lakewood, Colorado, police detective Aaron Hassell; Kirkland, Washington, police officer Audra Weber; Lynnwood police Sgt. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Rarely do. 2015 Pulitzer Prizewinning ProPublica/Marshall Project story, she sued and settled with the city for $150,000, tweeted some of her thoughts about the show, the book-length follow-up to their original reporting, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. As in the series, Michael OLeary was mistaken for his similar-looking older brother because the cops didnt know they lived together. Lets Do the Thing: How Online Were You in February 2023? with a butcher knife, bound her wrists with a shoe string he had removed from her shoes, stuffed a pair of underwear in her mouth as a gag, blindfolded her, and took photographs of her, according to the lawsuit she filed. On a scale of laminated-eyebrow drama to Lemon Lady Secrets. After the attack, she says she was forced to stand up in front of a group of teens at a Cocoon House-run program and confess that she'd lied about the rape, something which resulted in her having to see a councilor. Former Lynnwood police Det. We consulted police training guidelines by various organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and End Violence Against Women International. *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. The detectives took pictures of the binding marks. The description of his background comes from his LinkedIn profile. Stacy Galbraith; Westminster, Colorado, Sgt. D.M.s lawsuit also names as defendants the agency that runs the program, Peggy's lack of faith in her former foster daughter's account moved her to tell Detective Mason that this was probably just one of Marie's gambits for attention. Rapes by strangers were uncommon maybe about 13 percent of cases. From the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2011, Only about one-fifth to one-third of rapes get reported to police, national surveys show. From National Crime and Victimization Survey, 2014 and National Violence Against Women Survey, 2006. By As for how she felt arresting OLeary after discovering the birthmark on his leg that her victim had remembered, Galbraith said, I wanted to see the look on his face. She was 18 at the time. You don't just go with some family member who was not even a witness. Kristen Bell to Befriend an Unorthodox Rabbi. So lets just state the obvious: Neither one of these men was the best man for the job as neither of them were all that qualified to work on a rape case. . She and her husband took in the high-schooler for a short time when her previous foster familys plans to adopt her fell through. We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language. And I was told that probably no one ever will.. She was later woken up by a stranger who was holding one of her own knives; he tied her up with her own shoelaces, blindfolded and gagged her, and raped her while wearing a condom. Collecting sufficient evidence, detectives eventually arrested Marc O'Leary, however, taken... 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