She was always nice to talk to, Jordan says. Credited as a collaboration with The Marshall Project and ProPublica, it debuted on February 26, 2016. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Marie, crying, said she believed the rape really happened. She's based (and born and raised) in Brooklyn, New York. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! She explained: "She's incredibly strong and she's been through so much, so everyone on the team wanted to respect her privacy.". He told Marie that her description of calling Jordan was different from what Jordan had reported. 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. In 2008, an 18-year-old woman was brutally raped at her apartment in Lynnwood, Washington, gagged and bound by an intruder in the middle of the night. It was like Id just eaten Thanksgiving dinner, he said. She was 18 years old, charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. Galbraith recognized them by sight. Marie had a horrific childhood, bouncing around various foster and group homes from around age 6, and was sexually and physically abused throughout. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. He said he felt stupid, that it had looked better in his head. As for what her attacker looked like, Marie could offer few details. She wanted to remember everything she could. In the snow, they found a trail of footprints leading to and from the back of the apartment through an empty field. Mason told Marie she needed to go to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. For the next half hour or so, while she slept, he got ready while talking himself into following through. Seven cops stood behind her, pressed against the house, their guns drawn. Hendershot remembered that while investigating her case, an officer had alerted her to an incident in October 2009 in Aurora, a suburb on the other side of Denver. For Galbraith, it was important to be the one who made the arrest. The night was dry, letting him settle in. ", Discussing whether Marie was involved in making the series, Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Marie, told Good Housekeeping that she wasn't. In OLearys house, investigators turned up a black Ruger .380-caliber pistol, a pink Sony Cyber-shot camera and a large backpack, along with wet wipes and lubrication. In the spring of 2008, Marie turned 18. I was in group homes, too. When Jordan didnt answer, Marie called her foster mother, then her upstairs neighbor, who came down to Maries apartment and called 911. This didnt square with what Marie had previously told Mason. He said he could come and pick her up, to take her to the police station. Sitting close to her in the front seat of the car, Galbraith carefully brushed the womans face with long cotton swabs to collect any DNA traces that might remain. Hendershot asked one of her departments crime analysts to scour nearby agencies for similar crimes. In 2008, Maries case was one of 10 rape reports the department fielded; with so few, the Criminal Investigations Division didnt have a separate sex crimes unit. Police found Maries purse on the bedroom floor, her wallet on the bed and her learners permit, for some reason removed from her wallet, on a bedroom window sill. But on the first day, a support counselor came to the school and told Marie the family had lost its foster care license. But now, Marie wouldnt give. And much like the detectives, who hunted the rapist separately before joining forces, Miller and Armstrong initially reported the story on their own before collaborating. The report on Maries life written by a mental health expert who interviewed her for five hours is written with clinical detachment, describing her life before she entered foster care She reports not knowing much about her biological mother, who she said would often leave her in the care of boyfriends. It was a pink Sony digital camera a description that fit the model stolen from the apartment of the Westminster victim. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Marie got her GED at age 17 in 2008. Really, it was as simple as that. But in fresh light, it appeared very much like a failed rape attempt, committed by an attacker who closely resembled the description of the rapist. Usually, a DNA analysis took months. What had attracted the analysts attention was the location of the pickup. They grabbed the drinking cups from the table. Now he was 30, an Army veteran infantry, two tours in South Korea who had enlisted in the Reserves, only he hadnt appeared for duty in months. 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. Investigators at the scene uncovered a few, tenuous pieces of evidence. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. We could laugh at each other and make fun. In the living room, he removed the laces from her black tennis shoes and put the shoes back. The same person was at work. She wasnt his type, not really. Apartments didnt offer the privacy of a house, but still, there were advantages. So did Galbraith. It didnt sound real to me. A newNetflix series, which takes on the real-life tale of how a serial rapist was tracked down and captured, dedicates a lot of its screen time to one of his victims in particular:a teenage girl who wasnt believed when she came forward with her story to the extentinvestigators actually charged her with filing a false report. It was blustery, and biting cold. The judge signed it at 10 p.m. on Saturday. The article alternates between two true stories of events occurring between August 2008 and June 2012. It was a collaboration between two American, non-profit news organizations, The Marshall Project and ProPublica.The article was written by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. In June 2012, he was sentenced to 40 years for the rape in Kirkland and to 28 years for the rape of Marie in Lynnwood. But it was so strange because I sat down next to her, and she was telling me what happened, and I got this Im a big Law & Order fan, and I just got this really weird feeling, Peggy says. They began to collaborate, with Armstrong writing about Marie's story in Washington and Miller writing about the police investigation in Colorado. Before he left, he showed the student how he broke in through a sliding glass door. Peggy had two cats. She called police to share her concerns. She drives an 18-wheeler across the country. The DNA from the cup matched the DNA collected from the victims. Among the items Colorado detectives found in OLearys possession were photographs of D.M. Rittgarn told Marie that if she took the test and failed, she would be booked into jail. Neither had known Marie to be a liar to exaggerate, sure, to want attention, sure but now, both knew they werent alone in wondering if Marie had made this up. [21] In July 2016, they appeared on the Longform podcast to discuss the article. And she would have to pay $500 to cover the courts costs. So he took steps to avoid leaving any traces of genetic material. The detectives had thoroughly examined their crime scenes. Then she admitted making the story up. The rules about life, Marie says. [18][19], In December 2015, ProPublica published a podcast episode where Miller and Armstrong discussed the article. Westminster Detective Edna Hendershot had settled into her morning with her Starbucks usual: a Venti, upside-down, skinny caramel macchiato. Find Marie Day in Lynnwood, WA - phone, address, email. Or fabricating a ruse to cover a sexual encounter gone wrong? At least it was concrete now. Hendershot seized on them. Juries were hesitant to throw someone in prison when it was one persons word against anothers. The dog, outside, had tracked to the south, toward an office building, but was unable to lead officers to anything that might identify the rapist. Her story hadnt hurt anyone no suspects arrested, or even questioned. Roll back over, he told her and she did, and then he raped her, and while he raped her he ran his gloved hands over her. He was military so he was very organized, Galbraith said. The next day, when Shannon saw Marie at her apartment, her doubts intensified. Mason, then 39, had spent his years mostly in patrol and narcotics. I told her, I said, Its over. He also realized police departments often did not communicate. The eight-episode series, entitled "Unbelievable," isan adaptation of the 2015 Pulitzer-winning ProPublica and Marshall Project in-depth story about the case. It was like she was telling me that shed made a sandwich. That Marie wasnt hysterical, or even upset, made Shannon wonder if Marie was telling the truth. 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. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Kaitlyn Dever as Marie in "Unbelievable. Seattle still the nations saddest large metro area, survey shows, Plan to reduce homelessness in downtown Seattle picks up after slow start, Former Seattle deputy mayor heads to Biden administration, Microsoft employee charged with attempted murder in unprovoked stabbing, Seattle's lowland snow was hit and miss expect more of the same this week, claimed Lynnwood detectives disregarded evidence. We learned a great deal from this. Our personalities didnt match at first either, Marie says. The odds of that happening are pretty long.". As well as watching Netflix's new drama, premiering globally Friday, the original article, "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," is a must-read. An OLeary man was responsible. Netflixs Unbelievable tells the story of a horrifying crime and stunning miscarriage of justice. Rarely do misdemeanors draw notice. Three weeks before the attempted rape in Lakewood, a woman had called police late in the evening to report a suspicious pickup truck parked on the street with a man inside. 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 Hendershot right away recognized the potential in collaborating and in using every tool possible. Galbraith suggested that she and the victim escape the icy gusts in a nearby unmarked patrol car. Police. She kept in touch with previous foster families. Lakewood patrol cars had cameras that automatically took pictures of every license plate they passed. Golden police obtained a surveillance tape showing the entrance to the apartment complex where Galbraiths victim had been attacked. It was like, I felt like she was telling me the script of a Law & Order story. Part of it was what Marie was saying. "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" was written by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. She married, and in October she and her husband had their second child. I pretty much just cried, Marie says. The piece states: "[Marie] does not know if she attended kindergarten. Though the degraded DNA lifted from the crime scenes could not definitively match OLearys DNA, it could show that a male from his family line had most likely committed the crime. In the bathroom was a black headwrap, tied to serve as a mask. Mason is now back in narcotics, in charge of a task force. He tied the woman up with her own shoelaces. Their suspicions were based on comments from three people who said that they doubted her story, according to the suit. A couple of other officers were already there, protecting the crime scene. There were few slots, but Marie secured one. She had a social circle. This content is imported from youTube. BF in PJs, game over, he wrote in one nights entry. Over the next 24 hours, more than a dozen investigators threw their collective effort and experience into finding out everything possible about OLeary. "I just got thisreally weird feeling. The article was later adapted into the Netflix series Unbelievable (2019), which has received critical acclaim. Based on her answers and body language it was apparent that [Marie] was lying about the rape, Rittgarn later wrote. He knew that the Army had a sample of his DNA. Neither Mason nor Rittgarn were disciplined. When she read the story, she cried. In hindsight, it was my job to get to the bottom of it and I didnt.. The attacker had left behind the tiniest traces of himself. He had previously worked only one or two rape cases. As an FBI agent confronted him, OLeary immediately invoked his right to an attorney. Marie and Shannon would walk in the woods, or take out the boat, then, at days end, crash in Shannons home. I guess you wont leave your windows open in the future, the man told the woman, who had recently been widowed. This reluctance stems from the belief that in rape cases, the biggest problem is not false reporting, but no reporting. [11] Keller and other editors recommended cutting down on the ending of the article, yielding a short epilogue. Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong after six months of communication. Marie, Armstrong and Miller were consulted during the production. He will never be released. They sank down on separate couches in their living room. 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. Galbraith and Hendershot turned to DNA to identify the serial rapist. You can also read more about how ProPublica and The Marshall Project reported this story. And on the long, fraught trail between crime and conviction, the first triers of fact were the cops. She did what she always did when under stress. WARNING: This article could contain triggering descriptions of sexual assault. She asked to take a polygraph testthough such tests do not provide reliable evidencebut declined when Rittgarn threatened jail and loss of housing if she failed it. Marie had been sexually and physically abused in early life and was in foster care for most of her childhood. 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. She now wishes she had never shared her doubts with police. The perpetrator of the serial rapes, Marc O'Leary, was also interviewed. She remained close with Shannon, who would joke that she and Peggy were raising Marie together Shannon the fun one (lets go boating), Peggy the disciplinarian (be home by ). I would spend hours at the beach watching the sunset go down and that was one of my favorite things. (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. After Marie left, accompanied by her foster mom and case manager, the detectives helped process the scene. Galbraith had maneuvered herself to stand behind OLeary. Following police confrontation about inconsistencies in her story, she said that she made the incident up. Masons judgment was unduly swayed by Peggys phone call. He was just being neat and orderly, the way he was with everything. 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. Marie broke down, experiencing, all at once, shock, relief and anger. They spraypainted the prints fluorescent orange to make them stand out, then took pictures. Rittgarn, who left the Lynnwood Police Department before OLearys arrest, declined to be interviewed for this story. Marie had made it through. Afterward, the paperwork went to a small law firm that Lynnwood had hired to prosecute misdemeanors. I didnt want this time to be like that, Marie said of her attack on This American Life, comparing it to her first rape. DMV records showed OLeary sat for a drivers license mugshot about four hours after the Westminster attack. Police checked it out, but the man was gone. A half-dozen officers and technicians were now at work. If detectives could eliminate OLearys male relatives, they could place OLeary at the scene of the crimes with a high degree of certainty. She quit her Costco job and considered suicide. 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. T. Christian Miller joined ProPublica in 2008 as a senior reporter. Galbraith listened to the woman with a sense of alarm. For me it seems like people read me differently than I see myself, Marie said in the written piece about her struggle. She stopped crying. In Lynnwood, Washington, an 18-year-old woman, referred to as "Marie," reported being bound, gagged and raped at knifepoint to police. Shannon said she did, too. Throughout 2015, he had been reporting on the failure of law enforcement to trace rapists, including the case of Darren Sharper, a football player who raped nine women. He was only 8 the first time he broke into a home. Tall, winter-bare trees towered above the roof. Detectives receive additional training about rape victims. This was never meant to happen. In the kitchen, he went to the knife block and removed a black-handled blade from the top row, far left. He had prowled before and broken into womens homes before, but following through was another matter. As she headed home that night, Galbraiths mind raced. In June 2012, he was sentenced to an additional 38.5 years for two incidents in Washington. Marie Adler - Birth, Parents, Siblings & Education. Because she craved normalcy, she would bury the hurt. Kaitlyn Dever plays Marie, a young woman with a tough life who experiences a horrific ordeal: The first episode depicts Marie's rape,an attack by a knife-wielding man wearing a mask, in flashbacks. I have had a lot of stressful things going on and I wanted to hang out with someone and no one was able to so I made up this story and didnt expect it to go as far as it did. 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