She went to analternative high school where she met her boyfriend, Jordan Schweitzer, who later told the journalists behind the piece that she was just a nice person to have around. They cracked fast jokes and smiled fast smiles. 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. The stranger wore gloves. Rodney Cohnheim said of Marie, She was victimized twice., Sgt. No one really explained why she was being moved, or what was going on. The caller related that [Marie] had a past history of trying to get attention and the person was questioning whether the rape had occurred, Mason later wrote. She made the connection by working with a Washington state criminal analyst to search a database for unsolved cases similar to OLearys crimes. Then she drove her to St. Anthony North Hospital. In 2008, an 18-year-old Marie, fresh out of foster care, reported that she'd been raped by a man who entered her apartment in Lynnwood, Washington while she was sleeping. A Kirkland detective eventually called Shannon back. and her family. But something. said Miller during the Longform interview. Then, confronted by police with inconsistencies in her story, she had conceded it might have been a dream. Later that day Aug. 14, three days after Marie reported being raped Mason called Marie, to ask if they could meet. She wrote instead that she had dreamed the incident, now unsure of what happened. Between one-fourth to two-thirds of rapists are serial attackers, studies show. [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. By the time Marie reported being assaulted, sex crime specialists had developed protocols that recognized the challenges and sensitivity of investigating rape cases. 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. Just keep working! Galbraith insisted. The three went to the Lynnwood police station, where the detectives escorted Marie to a conference room. Galbraith spotted the victim standing in the thin sunlight outside her ground floor apartment. It was just nice to be on my own and not have all the rules that I had had being in foster care, Marie said, according toProPublica. An OLeary man was responsible. By late January, the detectives decided they needed to broaden their scope. She had no family nearby. But both women had found a place for themselves. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Gina Marie Maki (Marinucci), age 46, passed away peacefully and surrounded by the love of her family on Saturday, February 18, 2023 at EvergreenHealth Hospice Center in Kirkland, Washington from Stage IV colon cancer. In the 1600s, Englands chief justice, Matthew Hale, warned that rape is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused. Judges in the U.S. read the so-called Hale warning to juries until the 1980s. In February 2011, a report was unearthed of a suspicious vehicle registered to army veteran Marc Patrick O'Leary, who lived in Lakewood, Colorado, and whose description matched the attacker. They tailed the pair to a nearby restaurant, and watched them eat. After Marie became a teenager, her years of upheaval appeared at an end. For the last two or three months, the woman told police, she felt as if someone had been following her. Default; Distance; Rating; Name (A - Z) Sponsored Links. 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. He took pictures and threatened to post them on the Internet. Galbraith and her husband David once again faced each other on the couches in their living room. Six hours on her feet didnt bother her. Hes going to be hard to find, she thought. The police officers walked her downstairs, where the Project Ladder representatives asked if she had been raped. 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. Self-esteem gave way to self-loathing. Her story hadnt hurt anyone no suspects arrested, or even questioned. At Elle Marie Hair Studio, we believe your experience should be empowering and transformative. They talked about being tied up. He was just being neat and orderly, the way he was with everything. Later that day, Mason talked to Rittgarn, his fellow detective, and said that based on Maries inconsistencies, and based on what he had learned from Peggy and Jordan he now believed Marie had made up the story. Warning: This material may be disturbing to some listeners. When Detectives Stacy Galbraith and Edna Hendershot found Marc O'Leary (Christopher McCarthy in the show) guilty of raping 27 women, only then did they learn that one of those women was Marie. Mason in some of the statements we were confident that [Marie] was now telling us the truth that she had not been raped.. The detectives doubled back to what she had said before about being stressed, being lonely and, eventually, Marie appeared to relax. In the snow, they found a trail of footprints leading to and from the back of the apartment through an empty field. The detectives had thoroughly examined their crime scenes. But the hunt for the rapist united them. Those investigations often boiled down to an issue of consent. [8] A brief audio recording of Marie describing her rape is included in the article.[2]. She was accompanied by her foster mother, Peggy Cunningham, and by Wayne Nash, her case manager with Project Ladder. 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. The article alternates between two true stories of events occurring between August 2008 and June 2012. "I didnt want it to ruin the rest of my life. He stole her pink Sony Cyber-shot camera and used it to take pictures of her. Afterward, the paperwork went to a small law firm that Lynnwood had hired to prosecute misdemeanors. Our personalities didnt match at first either, Marie says. Marie also confronted the police who handled her original case and they apologised to her just like in the series. I walked in, and she was super happy to see me, and I told her. The perpetrator of the serial rapes, Marc O'Leary, was also interviewed. Unexpectedly, a man came to the door. She reports entering foster care at age 6 or 7. Rittgarn had been with the department for 11 years, the last four as a detective. But the man was familiar with the ways of law enforcement, perhaps even a cop. That seemed very strange, Shannon says. She didnt have to be pushed out the door to school. Rittgarn told Marie that her story and the evidence didnt match. But he spent so much time hunting (thats what he called it, hunting), hundreds of hours, maybe even a thousand, that he conditioned himself to incorporate as many women as possible, young or old, into his fantasies. He was promoted to sergeant and transferred to the Criminal Investigations Division six weeks before the report of Marie's assault. How would she find justice for her? She would need to get mental health counseling for her lying. This was never meant to happen. 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. He wore a black. Labs were taken for hepatitis, chlamydia, HIV. When he was finished, he said that if she told the police, he would post the photos online so that her kids, when she had kids, could see them. "I just got thisreally weird feeling. In August 2008, 18-year-old Marie (her middle name) called the police in Lynnwood, Washington, to report . 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). Open the door, she shouted repeatedly. The samples narrowed the field of suspects to males belonging to the same paternal family line. Tuesday 7:00am - 9:00pm Marie couldnt wait for it. Marie, crying, said she believed the rape really happened. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Kaitlyn Dever as Marie in "Unbelievable. 'Ted Lasso' Season 3 Dropped Its First Trailer, 'Outer Banks' Season 4 Is Already In the Works, 'The Last of Us' Ep. Police. 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 ). Marie received Zithromax and Suprax for possible exposure to sexually transmitted diseases, and an emergency contraceptive pill. In the kitchen, when Shannon walked in, Marie didnt meet her gaze. But there was not enough genetic material to identify a single individual. And all those sliding glass doors ridiculously easy to pick, when they werent left unlocked, which so often they were. Her voice was like this little tiny voice, and I couldnt really tell. In August, he learned of the case of Marie and contacted her lawyer, discovering that Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project was already working on a similar story. 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. Best of all, Project Ladder provided subsidized housing, with each member getting a one-bedroom apartment. They began to collaborate, with Armstrong writing about Marie's story in Washington and Miller writing about the police investigation in Colorado. But then her life changed. He put her learners permit on her chest and took pictures of her. Receiving it crushed Marie. He had been punctilious. The second narrative details the police investigations into a serial rapist in Colorado, who is known to have raped four women and made a fifth attempt. Why didnt you write that you made the story up? She was 17, starting to stay out late, worrying Peggy, creating tension between the two. And it was fine. The four known cases took place in different suburbs of Denver. She then found the Kirkland victims name on OLearys computer, attached to an encrypted file. Ken Armstrong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who previously worked at The Seattle Times and Chicago Tribune, where his work helped prompt the Illinois governor to suspend executions and later empty death row. 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. Sign up for ProPublicas Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published. A week later, Galbraith, Hendershot and Aurora Detective Scott Burgess gathered around a conference table in the Westminster Police Department. A 59-year-old woman told her that she had been asleep in her home when a man jumped on her back. . Marie backed down. She agreed, so they left her alone for a few minutes. One officer suggested a bathroom break. The descriptions of the attacker were similar. The Marshall Project article reports that "Marie left the state, got a commercial drivers license and took a job as a long-haul trucker. Credited as a collaboration with The Marshall Project and ProPublica, it debuted on February 26, 2016. 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. also reached a settlement with Cocoon House, a private, nonprofit at-risk-youth program where she was living when the assault occurred. This site is a search engine for cases filed in the municipal, district, superior, and appellate courts of the state of Washington. Years before the #MeToo movement gave voice to women previously coerced into silence over historic sexual abuse, Marie's story exemplified the disbelief and callous treatment often shown to sexual assault survivors. Looking for a condom or its wrapper, Rittgarn checked the bathroom, trash cans and a nearby hillside, but came up empty. He wore a white T-shirt. The rules about life, Marie says. No, Marie told him, her voice soft, her eyes down. [1], After seven months of email and phone communication with Marie's lawyer, Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong. She was eighteen years old, charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year. She stopped crying. Project Ladder staff made Marie return to police when she said she made the report under duress. When I went to sleep I dreamed that someone broke in and raped me. Rapes by strangers were uncommon about 13 percent of cases. But investigators could not yet rule out Michael as a suspect. All those windows, for one thing. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. I ran home. At home she avoided the bedroom, choosing to sleep on the couch with the lights on. David Galbraith was used to such bleak stories. Hassell transmitted the image to Galbraith. [7], By August 2015, Miller was working on a report about the Washington and Colorado serial rape cases, with focus on the woman who recanted a report of rape after intense police interrogation, proven true years later by the rapist's convictionknown in the article by her middle name "Marie". ProPublica and Marshall Project in-depth story. In December 2011, O'Leary was sentenced to 327.5 years in prison for four incidents in Colorado. Marie sued the city of Lynnwood and the . The counselor couldnt offer any more details. Rittgarn asked. I was preparing for a baby. The unbelievable story of how a rape victim in Lynnwood, Washington was charged with falsely reporting the crime and how two female detectives, who believed her, teamed up to find the serial rapist responsible: Marc Patrick O'Leary. But which one? It described the officers' behaviour as "bullying" and highlighted threats of jail and housing assistance removal as "coercive, cruel, and unbelievably unprofessional." Had the woman said yes? A month after that the 59-year-old widow was raped in Westminster, some 10 miles to the north. Shed gone through so much already. Despite the reviews tough language, no one in the Lynnwood Police Department was disciplined. How would she identify her? Marie left the state, got a commercial drivers license and took a job as a long-haul trucker. She couldnt live with them anymore. In doing this, the police ignored the fact that research shows that victims of trauma struggle to remember specific details about their experiences. So many kids, institutionalized, wound up on drugs or in jail. On Aug. 18, one week after she reported being raped, she met with the two Project Ladder managers and insisted she had signed the recantation under duress. I got off the phone with her and tried to untie myself. The average law enforcement agency in America is about 13 percent female. Mason told Marie she needed to go to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. [34] The program was nominated for numerous awards, including four nominations each at the Golden Globe Awards and the Critics' Choice Television Awards, with one win at the latter. "Theres a lot of detail about his background, his life and about what he did, and if you were writing a true-crime novel, you would put all that stuff in there," said Miller during the Longform interview. Peggy had two cats. She was young, dressed in a brown, full-length coat. It was all a blur. One was her former foster mother, with whom D.M. How am I going to find him? Galbraith often volunteered to take rape cases. The law said her lie was a crime. Marie had been sexually and physically abused in early life and was in foster care for most of her childhood. After cooking green mung beans for dinner, she curled up in bed for a marathon of Desperate Housewives and The Big Bang Theory until drifting off. During the exam, the medical report said, Marie was alert and oriented, and in no acute distress.. She was Peggys first foster child. She is subsequently charged with a gross misdemeanor for false reporting. Shut down. In 2011, her rapistMarc OLeary pleaded guilty to raping three women, including Marie, and trying to rape a fourth in Colorado. The rims would have traces of his DNA. [4][5], T. Christian Miller was a senior reporter at ProPublica. 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. Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com. He had broken into more than a dozen homes since. News coverage, criminal justice guidelines and court transcripts were also consulted. The medical report noted abrasions to Maries wrists and to her vagina. 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.. 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