Marie sued the city and settled for $150,000. She recalled the camera that the attacker had used to take photos. In December 2011, O'Leary was sentenced to 327.5 years in prison for four incidents in Colorado. 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. We learned a great deal from this. OLeary was put in a patrol car and transported to the Jefferson County Jail. This is actually shown to be the case in the Netflix series too,. When Galbraith talked to her husband, also a police officer, he observed similarity with an incident reported to his police department in Westminster. Without reading the Miranda warning, they asked her to write that she had made a false report. 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). Rapes by strangers were uncommon about 13 percent of cases. I wanted to see the look on his face, I guess, she said. 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. Police, walking around Maries apartment, discovered that the rear sliding glass door was unlocked and slightly ajar. The attack seemed to last a long time, Marie told police, but she couldnt say for sure. He tried to bind her wrists. Marie Theresa Arzer Obituary. Bar name changes for certain characters, Unbelievable is an incredibly loyal interpretation of the award winning The Marshall Project article which inspired it: An Unbelievable Story of Rape. He had since broken into her place twice, both times through that same glass door. 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. She wanted to be honest. There was no time to waste. At home, her husband David had done the dishes and put the kids to bed. If detectives could eliminate OLearys male relatives, they could place OLeary at the scene of the crimes with a high degree of certainty. In the living room, he removed the laces from her black tennis shoes and put the shoes back. By the time of the article, Marie was married with two children. But Hendershot right away recognized the potential in collaborating and in using every tool possible. said Miller during the Longform interview. Lie-detector tests are especially unreliable with people who have been traumatized, and can destroy the victims trust in law enforcement. It had cost her the newfound independence she was savoring after a life in foster homes. A friend from 10th grade called to ask: How could you lie about something like that? When Marie called her on that first day, before the police arrived, she was crying and I could barely hear her, Peggy says. I didnt want them to waste their resources on something that might be, you know, this personal drama going on.. Sort:Default. She had spoken to a friend on the phone for several hours early Aug. 11, 2008, finally going to bed around 5:30 a.m. She said she left the sliding-glass patio door ajar. Galbraith ruled out the brothers father he was too old and lived in a different state. The man introduced himself. The Project Ladder managers instead reached out to Sgt. 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. It was awesome.. He spent the previous 11 years reporting for the Los Angeles Times. If there was sympathy in the room, Marie sensed it from only one person, the young woman to her right. 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. For the next half hour or so, while she slept, he got ready while talking himself into following through. The journalists behind that piece obtained a report written by mental health expert who interviewed Marie for hours, which states that she only met her biological father once and that she knows very little about her biological mother. At a little before sunrise, he heard the phone conversation end. Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong after six months of communication. But when the man looked away, the woman jumped out of her bedroom window. 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. Numerous other editors contributed to the article, including managing editor Kirsten Danis of The Marshall Project. This time, though, there was something different. Monday 7:00am - 9:00pm. ProPublica and Marshall Project in-depth story. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Kaitlyn Dever as Marie in "Unbelievable. Nor should police get lost in stereotypes believing, for example, that an adult victim will be more believable than an adolescent. The credibility of the victim was often on trial as much as the guilt of the accused. His work included coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign and three years as a bureau chief for the Times, responsible for 10 countries in South and Central America. Marie never did. [18][19], In December 2015, ProPublica published a podcast episode where Miller and Armstrong discussed the article. He planned to install a surveillance camera nearby and wanted to make sure that nobody was around. (A later edition has been retitled, Unbelievable: The Story of Two Detectives Relentless Search for the Truth.). And it seems like every time I talk to her she's in a different state. The woman told Galbraith she was 26 years old, an engineering student on winter break from a nearby college. Through friends, Marie met Jordan Schweitzer, a high school student working at a McDonalds. "The focus of the investigation became her credibility. This made it the seventh-most viewed television series on the platform from August 2018 to September 2019. The police had spent a lot of resources chasing that lie. An investigating officer had to figure out if the victim was telling the truth. In her lawsuit, the woman claimed Lynnwood detectives disregarded evidence of the assault, bullied her into saying it didnt happen and then threatened to have her thrown out of her apartment when she insisted it did. Marie had been sexually and physically abused in early life and was in foster care for most of her childhood. A little before 9 on a Monday morning, two Lynnwood police detectives responded to a report of rape at the Alderbrooke Apartments. But leading law enforcement organizations urge caution in filing such charges. ", "I dont want to cower in the corner," Marie herself told ProPublica in early September. Juries were hesitant to throw someone in prison when it was one persons word against anothers. Masons telephone rang. Both laces had come from Maries black tennis shoes, in the living room. But not enough.. She went into the bathroom and cleaned up. 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.. 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. D.M., who now lives in Wyoming, said through her attorneys Yvonne Kinoshita Ward and Rich Fisher that she was glad for the settlement and ready to move forward in the next chapter of her life.. Later that day Aug. 14, three days after Marie reported being raped Mason called Marie, to ask if they could meet. Marie became the subject of media reports and an attack website. The morning after the rape in Golden, Galbraith hurried to work to follow up her husbands lead. On Aug. 13, Marie met with Mason at the Lynnwood police station and turned in a written statement, describing what happened. Hed realized that before while peeping into her bedroom. This story was co-published with The Marshall Project. Warning: This material may be disturbing to some listeners. The next day, when Shannon saw Marie at her apartment, her doubts intensified. OLeary pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and associated felonies in Colorado. He told his wife to call his department first thing in the morning. David Galbraith was used to such bleak stories. 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. View Michelle Marie Barnes results in Lynnwood, WA including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. She apologized and agreed to write another statement, leaving no doubt it was a lie. One Sexual Assault Survivor's Quest To End The Shocking Backlog Of Untested Rape Kits. [1], After seven months of email and phone communication with Marie's lawyer, Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong. They gave her an envelope with information on counseling for rape victims. And all those sliding glass doors ridiculously easy to pick, when they werent left unlocked, which so often they were. A second came from the victim in Golden. After 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. There, a 65-year-old woman told police that she had been raped in her apartment by a man with a black scarf wrapped around his face. Like kids most everywhere, Marie wanted to fit in. Masons report didnt identify the caller but the caller was Peggy. Who Is John Dutton's Grandfather in '1923'? People are calling it the most "infuriating" true-crime drama of all time. The attack was so heinous; the attacker so practiced. She found her in a back corner, eating dinner alone. But in this case, they worked through the night. Golden and Westminster were middle class bedroom towns wedged between Denvers downtown skyscrapers and the looming Rockies. Tearfully, she described her past all the foster parents, being raped when she was 7, getting her own place and feeling alone. I didnt want it to get back to Marie, Peggy says. It had her name. 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. [9], For the article, Armstrong and Miller made public records requests to police departments and prosecuting attorney's offices in Washington and Colorado. Marie accepted a plea deal that sentenced her to counseling, probation, and a $500 payment for court fees, but no jail time. She takes off in her car. One was her former foster mother, with whom D.M. At 8:15 a.m., Galbraith knocked on OLearys door. Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. One of the last things he said was that he was sorry. I ran home. At home she avoided the bedroom, choosing to sleep on the couch with the lights on. Or fabricating a ruse to cover a sexual encounter gone wrong? Thundershowers had soaked the area before the attack. He stuffed cloth into her mouth to muffle any sound. She was eighteen years old, charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year. It won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and the 2015 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting. It described the officers' behaviour as "bullying" and highlighted threats of jail and housing assistance removal as "coercive, cruel, and unbelievably unprofessional." 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. "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" is a 2015 article about a series of rapes in the American states of Washington and Colorado that occurred between 2008 and 2011, and the subsequent police investigations. But investigators could not yet rule out Michael as a suspect. He documented the assault with a digital camera and threatened to post the pictures online if she contacted the police. "Unbelievable" recounts the true story of how the teenager reported to Lynnwood police in 2008 that she was raped at knifepoint by a masked intruder in her apartment and how she later. She even called the lead detective on the case the day after and questioned Maries validity. Shannon said she did, too. He wore a white T-shirt. [27][28] Mason was interviewed for the book, but Rittgarn refused to speak to the authors without being paid. Danis of the crimes with a digital camera and threatened to post the online... 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