Unlike her avatar, she left her Costco job handing out food samples days after her 2008 rape. If anyone is at all (still) curious as to why so many sexual assaults go unreported, this should be exhibit A. I have watched videos of police officers planting evidence on innocent people that are less infuriating. Detectives Pruitt and Parker are based on real people named Sgt. By using this website, you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement and Privacy Policy, and understand your options regarding Ad Choices. Stacy Galbraith; Westminster, Colorado, Sgt. We may earn commission from the links on this page. We examined five years of the "Offenses Known and Cleared by Arrest" data to smooth yearly fluctuations common in crime reporting. Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. 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. She agreed, so they left her alone for a few minutes. Marie had a horrific childhood, bouncing around various foster and group homes from around age 6, and was sexually and physically abused throughout. Rittgarn told Marie that her story and the evidence didnt match. She was charged with filing a false report and went through court-ordered counseling for lying to police. D.M. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. And we dont want to see this happen to anybody ever again.. Mason wasnt fired and now leads a narcotics task force. Then there was an investigation. He had only worked on "one or two rape cases" before this, according to ProPublica. The victim, now 23, is living out of state and engaged to be married, according to her attorneys. As with Merritt Wevers compassionate detective, it was a fluke that Galbraiths police-officer husband, David not the karaoke-singing Max the Knife remembered that his Colorado department had seen a similar rape in which the attacker had made his victim shower and scrupulously cleaned her. Professionalism, vigilance, community, my ass. .css-ssumvd{display:block;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.0625rem;font-weight:bold;line-height:1.25;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-ssumvd:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-ssumvd{letter-spacing:0rem;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}Gayle Says March Is a Good Month for TV Lovers, Sheryl Lee Ralphs Definition of True Love, What We Know About The Little Mermaid Remake, Oprah Congratulates Kimmel on 20 Years of His Show, Nikole Hannah-Jones on "The 1619 Project", Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Wakanda Forever Podcast, Oprah Is Acting in Tyler Perrys Next Netflix Film, Gayle Wears the Same Dress on CBS 11 Years Later. And I was told that probably no one ever will.. At first he could not recall the case, except that he. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google The series shows her driving off in a new Jeep in hopes of establishing a better life elsewhere. Rittgarn left the police department before Marie's rapist was caught in 2011, while Manson simply moved back to his position at narcotics. No, Marie told him, her voice soft, her eyes down. The woman, identified only as D.M., was gagged, bound and sexually assaulted in her Lynnwood, Washington, home by Marc O'Leary in 2008, Claims detectives Jerry Rittgarn and Sergeant Jeff Mason discounted her story and ignored evidence including doctors reports and DNA samples, She was later fined $500 when she again insisted the rape did take place, Case was reopened two years ago when O'Leary was found with her ID, He was later convicted of a string of rapes and is serving a 327-year sentence in a Colorado prison. For more information about canonical metadata, You cant edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. Galbraith first learned of Hendershot's similar case through her police officer husband (just as Duvall, Merritt Wever's character, did). The third doubter was an anonymous caller. The article earned a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, and eventually became a book called A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America. Cocoon House CEO Cassie Franklin told the Seattle Times this week: 'Our hearts go out to D.M. Of course, they weren't the only factors: The case wasnt helped by the fact that Maries foster mothers called to tell the police they also believed Marie was lying about the rape. Netflixs latest true-crime series, Unbelievable, follows a group of detectives who try to get to the bottom of a string of rapes in the mid and northwest, along with figuring out if one girl whos reported a rape is telling the truth or not. After OLearys arrest in Colorado in February 2011, Lynnwood police Cmdr. 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. Heres how ProPublicas T. Christian Miller and the Marshall Projects Ken Armstrong wrote about this fateful day in their Pulitzer-winning article: In Sgt. But she'd stayed in touch with two of her former foster mothers, Peggy Cunningham and Shannon McQuery, and had finally found hope for some permanence with an apartment and life of her own through a transitional program called Project Ladder. (Jeff) Mason concerning his follow-up case. In hindsight, it was my job to get to the bottom of it and I didnt.. three days after the assault, officers picked up D.M. This story was produced in collaboration with ProPublica. D.M. She is charged with false reporting, ostracized from friends and family, and made a pariah by local media. With mounting pressure from the police, she recanted her statement and said she made. We may earn a commission from these links. 2 yr. ago The LinkedIn profile looked abandoned to me, but he does show up on other sites. She says the officers bullied her for hours, without a lawyer present, into recanting her account and, when she later tried to insist the rape did take place, she was charged $500 for false reporting. What do you think should happen to someone who would lie about something like this? filed a federal civil rights suit against the city of Lynnwood, Rittgarn, Mason and Lynnwood Police Chief Steven Jensen. She was 18 years old, charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. We ran this calculation for all departments that met our criteria on a national level. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Former Lynnwood police Det. 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. 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. When I went to sleep I dreamed that someone broke in and raped me. The events of Unbelievableand what Marie went through, in particularare jaw-dropping, and they're all based on a true story. KIRO 7 News Seattle facebook feed(Opens a new window), KIRO 7 News Seattle twitter feed(Opens a new window), KIRO 7 News Seattle youtube feed(Opens a new window), Woman loses $29K after being targeted by banking scam with victims in 9 states, Driver killed after car goes off overpass in Georgetown, Tacoma police looking for two alleged retail thieves, Man caught with nearly $3K in stolen fragrance, allegedly planned to trade for fentanyl pills, Cheerleader performs solo after team quits before state championships. Its okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. She got married and has two kids, and they live "somewhere in the middle of the country" as of 2018. Michael was tailed by members of Grusings team to get his DNA. Jensen refused to comment to the newspaper because of the litigation and Rittgarn, who has since left the Lynnwood Police Department and now lives in San Diego, said he was unaware of the lawsuit and couldn't remember the case. Mission accomplished. You\'ll receive the next newsletter in your inbox. Meanwhile, several years and states away, detectives Grace Rasmussen and Karen Duvall (Toni Colette and Merritt Wever) merge their investigations in a skilled search for a serial rapist. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. We went to the ocean, it was like 7 oclock at night, I dont know what we were thinking, I got in there and I jumped out and swung my hair back.". At first, the detectives are attempting to catch the man who broke into her apartment and raped her. Helen Pow Rittgarn wrote that, Based on her answer and body language it was apparent that D.M. Knowing that youre behind us means so much. And even if you decide there's not enough evidence to convict, you don't go after an alleged rape victim, Ward said. According to the ProPublica article, after Marie's rapist was apprehended, the Lynnwood. OLeary was 33 when he was sentenced to 327 and a half years for the Colorado attacks and an additional 68 and a half years for the two Washington rapes, including Adlers. Unbelievable's parallel cases demonstrate how there's no one way all real rape survivors react to what's happened to them (since, you know, no two people are exactly alike). One of the officers named in the lawsuit, Mason, still works for Lynnwood police. According to an outside review of the investigation after Marie was cleared of her false report misdemeanor, "the manner in which she was treated by Sergeant Mason and Detective Rittgarn can only be labeled as bullying and coercive." Rittgarn, on the other hand, had been a detective for 11 years, but had a background in helicopters and the aerospace industry. Yet, after conversations with the victims stepmother, her friend, and anonymous caller, police began to have doubts. Mason told ProPublica, "It wasnt her job to try to convince me. In 2008, an 18-year-old from Lynnwood, Washington claimed that she was raped by an intruder in the middle of the night. Donations from readers like you are essential to sustaining this work. 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. Did Cirie go too far by bringing family matters into the game? The description of his background comes from his LinkedIn profile. This case is where I went full-on ACAB. Galbraith had admired her new partner, Edna Hendershot, from a distance ever since their paths crossed at a police briefing for a big drug bust Hendershot had taken part in. 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. The real Marie sued the Lynnwood Police Department, according to the Seattle Times; she claimed the officers had disregarded evidence and bullied her into recanting. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. (For example, yesterday can be changed to last week, and Portland, Ore. to Portland or here.), You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. The lawsuit also states that the Cocoon House, a place for at-risk youth, threatened D.M. In August 2008, the victim, identified only as D.M., was in transitional housing after being in foster homes. We reviewed Maries civil suit against Lynnwood, which included such legal exhibits as the medical report from the day she reported being raped and case notes from Project Ladder, the transitional housing program to which she belonged. Jerry Rittgarn declined to be interviewed. She named Mason and. Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn, pressed on the inconsistencies in her story. 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. Parker. We just want to dive into a pool without having to hold onto our bottoms. The woman, identified in the lawsuit by the initials D.M., says she was forced to undergo counseling when Lynnwood police told managers of the at-risk youth program where she was living in 2008 that they didnt believe shed been raped, according to court documents. T. Christian Miller is a senior editor for ProPublica. Edna Hendershot and Sgt. Now a married mother of two who turns 29 this year, shes a long-haul trucker, driving an 18-wheeler cross-country. A pariah by local media a senior editor for ProPublica raped her told... 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