Notes
This book is based on interviews, documents, and data.
The people we interviewed for the Washington thread of this story included Marie; her foster mothers Peggy and Shannon; her friend Jordan; James Feldman, Marie’s public defender when she was charged with filing a false police report; H. Richmond Fisher, Marie’s attorney in her civil suit against Lynnwood; Sergeant Jeffrey Mason, Sergeant Rodney Cohnheim, and Commander Steve Rider from the Lynnwood Police Department; Corporal Jack Keesee and Detective Audra Weber from the Kirkland Police Department; and the grandmother in Kirkland who was sexually assaulted.
For the Colorado thread, we interviewed, among others, Detective Stacy Galbraith and computer analyst John Evans from the Golden Police Department; Sergeant Edna Hendershot, Officer David Galbraith, Sergeant Trevor Materasso, crime analyst Laura Carroll, crime scene investigator Katherine Ellis, and victim’s advocate Amy Christensen from the Westminster Police Department; Detective Aaron Hassell, crime analyst Danelle DiGiosio, and criminalist Sheri Shimamoto from the Lakewood Police Department; Detective Scott Burgess and crime analyst Dawn Tollakson from the Aurora Police Department; Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Weiner and Public Information Officer Pam Russell from the Jefferson County district attorney’s office; Special Agent Jonathan Grusing and Public Affairs Specialist Deborah Sherman from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Sharon Whelan, the neighbor who made note of the white pickup truck parked across the street; and Melinda Wilding, Marc O’Leary’s philosophy professor.
Some of these interviews were conducted while the authors were doing reporting for “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” published by ProPublica and the Marshall Project on December 16, 2015.
For insight into investigations of sexual assault, we interviewed current and former police officers, detectives, prosecutors, victim’s advocates, and academics, including Cassia Spohn, director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University; Rebecca Campbell, a professor and researcher at Michigan State University; Jennifer Gentile Long, chief executive officer of AEquitas, a prosecutors’ organization focused on violence against women; former sergeant Jim Markey and crime analyst Jeff Jensen from the Phoenix, Arizona, police department; Major J. R. Burton, commander of the special investigations division for the sheriff’s office in Hillsborough County, Florida; Ritchie Martinez, former president of the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts; Anne Munch, a consultant and former prosecutor for the Denver district attorney’s office; Detective Carrie Hull from the Ashland, Oregon, police department; Sergeant Liz Donegan from the Austin, Texas, police department; and Lisa Avalos, a law professor at the University of Arkansas.
We interviewed Marc O’Leary at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado.
We also interviewed people with expertise in rape investigations or a historical role in the development of investigative tools, including Joanne Archambault, Kimberly Lonsway, and Susan Irion.
For reporting on the FBI’s ViCAP program, we interviewed, from ViCAP, Art Meister, former unit chief; Timothy Burke, acting unit chief; Nathan Graham, crime analyst; Kenneth Gross, supervisory special agent and chief division counsel; Kevin Fitzsimmons, supervisory crime analyst; and Mark A. Nichols, assistant section chief. We also interviewed Patricia Cornwell, a novelist, for information on ViCAP.
We received more than ten thousand pages of documents through public-records requests filed with the police departments in Lynnwood and Kirkland, Washington; the police departments in Golden, Westminster, Aurora, and Lakewood, Colorado; the prosecuting attorney’s offices in Snohomish County and King County, Washington; the prosecuting attorney’s office in Jefferson County, Colorado; the City of Lynnwood; and the FBI.
These documents (and additional records found in municipal, county, and federal court) included crime scene photographs; surveillance footage collected by law enforcement agencies; medical and psychological records; a videotaped interview of O’Leary conducted by the FBI; O’Leary’s military records; police personnel files; Project Ladder case notes; police interviews with victims and witnesses, either summarized or transcribed; a record of O’Leary’s debit-card spending; and internal and external reviews conducted of the Lynnwood Police Department investigation of Marie’s case. On occasion, we had documents specially created—for example, ordering a transcription of O’Leary’s sentencing hearing in Colorado.
With the help of the Marshall Project and ProPublica, we conducted our own analysis of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data, allowing us to place Lynnwood’s number of “unfounded” rape reports into national context.
CHAPTER 1: THE BRIDGE
Documents: Lynnwood police reports filed by Rittgarn, Mason, and others; Project Ladder case notes for Aug. 18, 2008; Marie’s written statements to the police; and written transcripts of newscasts about Marie’s recantation, along with video of the Aug. 15, 2008, KING 5 newscast.
“A western Washington woman has confessed…” Northwest Cable News, Aug. 16, 2008, 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. newscasts.
“Police in Lynnwood now say…” KING 5 News, Aug. 15, 2008, 6:30 p.m. newscast.
“Another in a seemingly endless cavalcade…” “Another Motiveless False Rape Claim Exposed,” Community of the Wrongly Accused, Aug. 21, 2008, falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2008/08/another-motiveless-false-rape-claim.html.
following a Georgia teenager “An International Timeline of False Rape Allegations 1674–2015: Compiled and Annotated by Alexander Baron,” accessed on Feb. 5, 2017, infotextmanuscripts.org/falserape/a-false-rape-timeline.html.
“As will be seen from this database…” Alexander Baron, “An International Timeline of False Rape Allegations 1674–2015: Introduction,” accessed on Feb. 5, 2017, infotextmanuscripts.org/falserape/a-false-rape-timeline-intro.html.
a bitch and a whore. “Anatomy of Doubt,” This American Life, episode 581, Feb. 26, 2016.
CHAPTER 2: HUNTERS
Documents: Public records from the Golden, Westminster, and Aurora police departments and the FBI. Readers interested in more information about police investigations of sexual assault may consult the training modules for End Violence Against Women International, a comprehensive collection of best practices; John O. Savino and Brent E. Turvey, eds., Rape Investigation Handbook, 2nd ed. (San Diego: Elsevier Science, 2011); Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault: Inside the Criminal Justice System (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014); and Rebecca Campbell, Hannah Feeney, Giannina Fehler-Cabral, Jessica Shaw, and Sheena Horsford, “The National Problem of Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs): Scope, Causes, and Future Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice,” Trauma, Violence & Abuse (Dec. 23, 2015): 1–14.
A national government survey found Jennifer L. Truman and Lynn Langton, “Criminal Victimization, 2014,” published by the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“Not every complaint is founded…” Savino and Turvey, Rape Investigation Handbook, p. 25.
“Start by Believing” was the slogan “Start by Believing: Ending the Cycle of Silence in Sexual Assault,” End Violence Against Women International, accessed Feb. 22, 2017, startbybelieving.org/home.
Golden was best known “Coors Brewery Tour,” MillerCoors, accessed April 22, 2017, millercoors.com/breweries/coors-brewing-company/tours.
About nineteen thousand people lived “Golden History,” City of Golden, accessed April 22, 2017, cityofgolden.net/live/golden-history/.
Galbraith’s first call “CDOT Encourages Public to Comment on I-70 East Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” Colorado Department of Transportation, Aug. 27, 2014, codot.gov/projects/i70east/assets/sdeis-i-70-release-082614. CDOT describes the average daily traffic as up to 205,000 vehicles per day, which works out to 8,541 per hour.
CHAPTER 3: WAVES AND PEAKS
Documents: “Disclosure of Expert Opinio
n,” an evaluation of Marie by Dr. Jon R. Conte, dated Oct. 18, 2013, filed as a lawsuit exhibit; Lynnwood police reports filed by Mason; and Snohomish County grant documents regarding Project Ladder.
the program sought to reduce homelessness “Homeless Grant Assistance Program (HGAP) 2007 Project Summary,” a three-page Snohomish County document generated in October 2007.
“financial literacy” “Homeless Grant Assistance Program (HGAP) 2006–7 Project Documentation,” a four-page Snohomish County document that provides context, anticipated outcomes, and a timeline for the project.
“laid end to end…” Judith M. Broom, Lynnwood: The Land, the People, the City (Seattle: Peanut Butter Publishing, 1990), p. 49.
CHAPTER 4: A VIOLENT ALCHEMY
Documents: Public records from the Westminster and Aurora police departments, the Boulder County sheriff’s office, and the FBI. For a thorough discussion of false reporting of sexual assault, please see Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault: Inside the Criminal Justice System (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014).
She spent her childhood in Arvada “Fun Facts about Arvada,” City of Arvada, accessed April 22, 2017, arvada.org/about/our-community/arvada-fun-facts.
A police surgeon in England Philip N. S. Rumney, “False Allegations of Rape,” Cambridge Law Journal 65 (March 2006): 125–58.
The feminist Susan Brownmiller Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975), p. 387.
Researchers who specialized in sexual assault Kimberly Lonsway, Joanne Archambault, and David Lisak, “False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault,” The Voice, published by the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, 2009.
she set the bar high. Edna Hendershot, Alverd C. Stutson, and Thomas W. Adair, “A Case of Extreme Sexual Self-Mutilation,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 55 (Jan. 2010): 245–47.
Many could no longer recall events in chronological order. Rebecca Campbell, “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” a Dec. 3, 2012, seminar presentation sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, transcript accessed on June 13, 2017, nij.gov/multimedia/presenter/presenter-campbell/Pages/presenter-campbell-transcript.aspx. Some scholars have questioned whether women’s advocates are overstating trauma’s effects on the brain in an effort to reduce investigators’ skepticism about rape victims’ memories. See, for instance, Emily Yoffe, “The Bad Science Behind Campus Response to Sexual Assault,” The Atlantic, Sept. 8, 2017.
Psychologists have documented the role Dorthe Berntsen, “Tunnel Memories for Autobiographical Events: Central Details Are Remembered More Frequently from Shocking Than from Happy Experiences,” Memory & Cognition 30, no. 7 (Oct. 2002): 1010–20.
CHAPTER 5: A LOSING BATTLE
Documents: Public records from the Golden Police Department, the FBI, and prosecutor’s offices in Jefferson County (Colorado), Snohomish County (Washington), and King County (Washington).
He was an alpha. “Understanding the ASVAB Test,” US Army, accessed April 22, 2017, goarmy.com/learn/understanding-the-asvab.html.
Their name derived from the unit’s “9th Infantry Regiment (United States),” Wikipedia, accessed April 22, 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States).
The most notorious of these Jon Rabiroff and Hwang Hae-Rym, “ ‘Juicy Bars’ Said to Be Havens for Prostitution Aimed at US Military,” Stars and Stripes, Sept. 9, 2009.
CHAPTER 6: WHITE MAN, BLUE EYES, GRAY SWEATER
Documents: Lynnwood police reports written by Miles, Nelson, Kelsey, Mason, and Rittgarn; Mason’s personnel file with the Lynnwood police; Rittgarn’s profile on LinkedIn; crime scene photographs taken by Miles; and medical records from Marie’s rape exam, attached as an exhibit in her lawsuit against Lynnwood. The quotations of Marty Goddard—as well as many of the details about the earliest rape kits—come from an oral history taken by the University of Akron; Goddard was interviewed on Feb. 26, 2003, in Sacramento, California. The transcript can be found at vroh.uakron.edu/transcripts/Goddard.php. In researching the history of rape kits, other sources that were helpful included: Bonita Brodt, “Vitullo Kit Helps Police Build Case Against Rapists,” Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1980; Jessica Ravitz, “The Story Behind the First Rape Kit,” CNN, updated Nov. 21, 2015; and Chris Fusco, “Crime Lab Expert Developed Rape Kits,” Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 12, 2006.
Chicago made him nervous Ravitz, “The Story Behind the First Rape Kit.”
twenty-six hospitals in the Chicago area Brodt, “Vitullo Kit Helps Police.”
“I remember doing some strange things Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, Rape: Crisis and Recovery (West Newton, MA: Awab, 1979), p. 36.
“I am so sore under my ribs,” Burgess and Holmstrom, Rape: Crisis and Recovery, p. 36.
215 hospitals in Illinois Brodt, “Vitullo Kit Helps Police.”
produced a comprehensive online course Kimberly A. Lonsway, Joanne Archambault, and Alan Berkowitz, “False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault,” End Violence Against Women International, May 2007.
While investigating child-abuse cases Joanne Archambault, T. Christian Miller, and Ken Armstrong, “How Not to Handle a Rape Investigation,” Digg, Dec. 17, 2015, digg.com/dialog/how-not-to-handle-a-rape-investigation#comments.
The public wanted the police Archambault et al., “How Not to Handle a Rape Investigation.”
During training she plays a 911 tape Ronnie Garrett, “A New Look at Sexual Violence,” a Q&A with Joanne Archambault, Law Enforcement Technology, Sept. 2005.
“Research shows the more intimate Garrett, “A New Look at Sexual Violence.”
“The victim’s response to the trauma “Investigating Sexual Assaults,” Model Policy, IACP National Law Enforcement Policy Center, May 2005.
CHAPTER 7: SISTERS
Documents: Public records from Golden, Westminster, and Aurora police departments and the FBI. Those interested in further reading on the ViCAP program may be interested in Richard H. Walton, Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques (Boca Raton, FL: CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2006); and Don DeNevi and John H. Campbell, Into the Minds of Madmen: How the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit Revolutionized Crime Investigation (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004). There is a crime fiction series based on ViCAP, beginning with Michael Newton, Blood Sport (Clinton, MT: Wolfpack Publishing, 1990).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation runs “Frequently Asked Questions on CODIS and NDIS,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, accessed April 22, 2017, fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-analysis/codis/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet.
best known for its Herculean labor Matt Sebastian, “JonBenét Investigation the CBI’s Largest Ever,” Daily Camera, Feb. 3, 1999.
Lewis had been forced Joanne Archambault, Kimberly A. Lonsway, Patrick O’Donnell, and Lauren Ware, “Laboratory Analysis of Biological Evidence and the Role of DNA in Sexual Assault Investigations,” End Violence Against Women International, Nov. 2015.
female cops have been building “Alice Stebbins Wells,” International Association of Women Police, accessed April 22, 2017, iawp.org/history/wells/alice_stebbins_wells.htm.
Wells’s argument that women brought Penny E. Harrington, Recruiting & Retaining Women: A Self-Assessment Guide for Law Enforcement, National Center for Women & Policing, a Division of the Feminist Majority Foundation, 2000.
a 1985 study found Robert J. Homant and Daniel B. Kennedy, “Police Perceptions of Spouse Abuse: A Comparison of Male and Female Officers,” Journal of Criminal Justice 13 (Dec. 1985): 29–47.
A 1998 study of a nationally representative Carole Kennedy Chaney and Grace Hall Saltzstein, “Democratic Control and Bureaucratic Responsiveness: The Police and Domestic Violence,” American Journal of Political Science 42, no.
3 (July 1998): 745–68.
And a 2006 study Kenneth J. Meier and Jill Nicholson-Crotty, “Gender, Representative Bureaucracy, and Law Enforcement: The Case of Sexual Assault,” Public Administration Review 66, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 2006): 850–60.
“What is absolutely clear Joanne Archambault and Kimberly A. Lonsway, “Training Bulletin: Should Sexual Assault Victims Be Interviewed by Female Officers and Detectives?,” End Violence Against Women International, Feb. 2015.
Despite the benefits of gender diversity Harrington, Recruiting & Retaining Women.
The result is that no police Lynn Langton, “Women in Law Enforcement, 1987–2008,” Crime Data Brief, Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2010.
In the late 1950s, Brooks United States Congress, “Serial Murders: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session, on Patterns of Murders Committed by One Person, in Large Numbers with No Apparent Rhyme, Reason, or Motivation,” July 12, 1983.
Brooks told a rapt Senate Judiciary Committee United States Congress, “Serial Murders: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary.”
They referred to the oddball collection Don DeNevi and John H. Campbell, Into the Minds of Madmen.
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