A False Report
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The basement was a dark Stanley A. Pimentel, “Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI Roger L. Depue (1968–1989),” Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/nlem/oral-histories/FBI_Depue_interview.pdf.
Research had shown that rapists Robert J. Morton, ed., “Serial Murder: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators,” Federal Bureau of Investigation (Behavioral Analysis Unit-2, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime), fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder.
Studies had found that between one-fourth Kevin M. Swartout, Mary P. Koss, Jacquelyn W. White, Martie P. Thompson, Antonia Abbey, and Alexandra L. Bellis, “Trajectory Analysis of the Campus Serial Rapist Assumption,” JAMA Pediatrics 169, no. 12 (Dec. 2015): 1148–54.
two-thirds of rapists David Lisak and Paul M. Miller, “Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists,” Violence and Victims 17, no. 1 (2002): 73–84.
Only about 1 percent of murderers Morton, “Serial Murder: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators.”
database was a tragically unfulfilled promise. T. Christian Miller, “The FBI Built a Database That Can Catch Rapists—Almost Nobody Uses It,” ProPublica, July 30, 2015.
CHAPTER 8: “SOMETHING ABOUT HOW SHE SAID IT”
Documents: Lynnwood police reports filed by Mason and Rittgarn; Marie’s written statements—the one turned in on Aug. 13 and the two on Aug. 14; Mason’s personnel file; Rittgarn’s LinkedIn profile; external and internal reviews of the Lynnwood police investigation; Project Ladder case notes for Aug. 15 and Aug. 18; and correspondence between the Lynnwood police and state Crime Victims Compensation Program. The Mason and Rittgarn reports described in detail the back-and-forth between detectives and Marie when she was questioned on Aug. 14 and Aug. 18. The part about Marie being confronted with doubts attributed to Jordan and Peggy comes from our interview with Marie. (Jordan also said Marie called him afterward to say the police told her he didn’t believe her.) Researching the Reid Technique, the following sources proved helpful: Fred E. Inbau, John E. Reid, Joseph P. Buckley, and Brian C. Jayne, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, 5th ed. (Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2013); Fred E. Inbau, John E. Reid, Joseph P. Buckley, and Brian C. Jayne, Essentials of the Reid Technique: Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, 2nd ed. (Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2015); Douglas Starr, “The Interview,” New Yorker, Dec. 9, 2013; Robert Kolker, “A Severed Head, Two Cops, and the Radical Future of Interrogation,” Wired, May 24, 2016 (published in partnership with the Marshall Project); Robert Kolker, “ ‘I Did It,’ ” New York, Oct. 3, 2010.
“across the United States, Canada, Mexico…” Inbau, Essentials of the Reid Technique, p. viii.
“a kind of powerful folk wisdom…” Kolker, “A Severed Head, Two Cops, and the Radical Future of Interrogation.”
“Never allow them to give you denials…” Starr, “The Interview.”
“An interrogation is conducted only when…” Inbau, Essentials of the Reid Technique, p. 5.
“Deceptive suspects generally do not…” Ibid., p. 83.
“In this case, the subject, literally…” Ibid., p. 83.
“The more often a guilty suspect denies…” Ibid., p. 138.
“It is psychologically improper to mention…” Ibid., p. 21.
CHAPTER 9: THE SHADOW WITHIN
Documents: Public records from Golden, Westminster, and Aurora police departments and the FBI. For a discussion of the concept of the shadow in C. G. Jung’s writing, please see Stephen A. Diamond, “Essential Secrets of Psychotherapy: What Is the ‘Shadow’?,” Psychology Today, April 20, 2012.
Jung described the shadow C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East (The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11), 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 76.
There was the Tic Tac routine Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 80.
women are “targets.” Mystery and Chris Odom, The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women into Bed (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 96.
scanning OkCupid one day “Marc O’Leary’s Ex-Girlfriend: ‘Something Was Off Between Us,’ ” 48 Hours, Nov. 19, 2016. This segment extra can be found online at cbsnews.com/news/marc-patrick-oleary-48-hours-hunted-the-search-colorado-serial-rapist/.
CHAPTER 10: GOOD NEIGHBORS
Documents: Public records from Golden, Westminster, Aurora, and Lakewood police departments; the King County, Washington, prosecuting attorney’s office; the FBI; and Jefferson County, Colorado, district court case no. 11CR430.
He’d gone to Cedarville College “Why Cedarville,” Cedarville University, accessed May 3, 2017, cedarville.edu/About.aspx.
Antioch College was the quintessential “About” page, Antioch College, accessed May 3, 2017, antiochcollege.edu/about.
“serious psychological and emotional problems…” 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.
CHAPTER 11: A GROSS MISDEMEANOR
Documents: False-reporting citation issued to Marie; the case’s court docket in Lynnwood Municipal Court (the file itself has been sealed, but the docket was saved and submitted as a lawsuit exhibit); Lynnwood police reports; FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data; Kirkland police records regarding the Oct. 6, 2008, sexual assault, including Keesee’s transcribed interview with the victim; and Washington State 2008 annual caseload report for courts of limited jurisdiction. For more on how false reporting is prosecuted, see: Lisa Avalos, “Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences of Police Failure to Investigate Sex Crimes in Britain and the United States,” Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 23, no. 1 (2016): 1–64. See, too: Lisa R. Avalos, “Policing Rape Complainants: When Reporting Rape Becomes a Crime,” The Journal of Gender, Race & Justice 20, no. 3 (2017): 459–508.
shows that while forty-two states Lisa Avalos, Alexandra Filippova, Cynthia Reed, and Matthew Siegel, “False Reports of Sexual Assault: Findings on Police Practices, Laws, and Advocacy Options,” draft report of an advocacy paper prepared for Women Against Rape, Sept. 23, 2013, p. 9. This report can be found online at womenagainstrape.net/sites/default/files/final_paper_for_war_9-23.pdf.
There, the crime, called “perverting the course of justice…” Avalos, “False Reports of Sexual Assault,” pp. 8, 57–58. Avalos’s research did not turn up any instances of the Crown levying the maximum, but she tallied thirteen women in the United Kingdom who had received two or three years for falsely claiming to have been raped.
One journalism institute named Craig Silverman, “The Year in Media Errors and Corrections 2014,” Poynter Institute, Dec. 18, 2014, poynter.org/2014/the-year-in-media-errors-and-corrections-2014/306801/.
lawsuits filed by both the fraternity T. Rees Shapiro, “Fraternity Chapter at U-Va. to Settle Suit Against Rolling Stone for $1.65 Million,” Washington Post, June 13, 2017.
“into the face of institutional indifference…” T. Rees Shapiro and Emma Brown, “Rolling Stone Settles with Former U-Va. Dean in Defamation Case,” Washington Post, April 11, 2017.
been sentenced to eight days in jail Peyton Whitely, “Woman Pleads Guilty to False Rape Report,” Seattle Times, March 19, 2008.
CHAPTER 12: MARKS
Documents: Public records from Golden, Westminster, Aurora, and Lakewood police departments and the FBI. For more information on the debate over abandoned DNA, see Elizabeth E. Joh, “Reclaiming ‘Abandoned’ DNA: The Fourth Amendment and Genetic Privacy,” Northwestern University Law Review 100, no. 2 (2006): 857–84; and the US Supreme Court decision Maryland v. King, docket no. 12-207, decided June 3, 2013.
Such remnants were called “aban
doned DNA” Kevin Hartnett, “The DNA in Your Garbage: Up for Grabs,” Boston Globe, May 12, 2013, bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/05/11/the-dna-your-garbage-for-grabs/sU12MtVLkoypL1qu2iF6IL/story.html.
CHAPTER 13: LOOKING INTO A FISH TANK
Documents: Videotaped FBI interview with O’Leary; Mountlake Terrace Police Department field notes for the April 3, 2007, stop of O’Leary as a suspicious person; police reports from Golden and other Colorado law enforcement agencies; US Army records for O’Leary, for both active and reserve duty; and Lynnwood police records. The law enforcement records included an accounting of O’Leary’s debit card purchases; these showed where he shopped and ate, and allowed us to reconstruct his trip from Washington to Colorado.
CHAPTER 14: A CHECK FOR $500
Documents: Correspondence between Golden and Lynnwood police; Golden police reports written by Galbraith; Kirkland police reports; court records for the Kirkland case filed in King County Superior Court; email correspondence between Galbraith and a King County senior deputy prosecuting attorney on Sept. 8, 2011; Mason’s personnel file, which includes his academic transcripts; Lynnwood police reports filed by Cohnheim; and Project Ladder case notes.
In 2004, the NCIS created Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LInX) Information Brief, prepared by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Oct. 29, 2009.
“You were never there…” Mika Brzezinski, “Child Who Was the Victim of a Kidnapping Is Further Victimized by Police Detective in Minnesota,” CBS Evening News, Feb. 23, 2004.
“owes this community an apology.” Catie L’Heureux, “Police Thought This Gone Girl–Like Kidnapping Was a Hoax Because the Woman ‘Didn’t Act Like a Victim,’ ” The Cut, Aug. 3, 2016.
“You are going to hell…” Gabriella Paiella, “Woman Falsely Accused of Faking Her Gone Girl–Like Kidnapping in 2015 Says She’s Still Being Harassed Online,” The Cut, Jan. 4, 2017.
“All I did was survive…” Paiella, “Woman Falsely Accused of Faking Her Gone Girl–Like Kidnapping in 2015 Says She’s Still Being Harassed Online.”
He made up a story about Bill Lueders, Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice (Madison, WI: Terrace Books, 2006), pp. 59–60, 123–25.
“What she’s being presented with…” Lueders, Cry Rape, p. 126.
“I felt they hurt me Scott Shifrel, “Victim’s Vindication: Con Admits Raping Queens Girl,” New York Daily News, March 19, 2004.
“I feel happy that Fancy…” Scott Shifrel and Leo Standora, “Rape Strains Family Bond; Mom’s Doubts Scarred Teen,” New York Daily News, March 20, 2004.
“His first question to me was…” Natalie Elliott (Q&A with Sara Reedy), “I Was Raped—and the Police Told Me I Made It Up,” VICE, Jan. 8, 2013.
“And he actually went to the extent…” Elliott, “I Was Raped—and the Police Told Me I Made It Up.”
“Not a very impressive record,” Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975), pp. 365–66.
“A police officer who does not believe…” Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 366.
a BuzzFeed News investigation found Alex Campbell and Katie J. M. Baker, “Unfounded: When Detectives Dismiss Rape Reports Before Investigating Them,” BuzzFeed News, Sept. 8, 2016.
a social work professor in Michigan published Rachel M. Venema, “Police Officer Schema of Sexual Assault Reports: Real Rape, Ambiguous Cases, and False Reports,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 31, no. 5 (2016): 872–99. This article was first published online in 2014.
told a local television station Natalie Shaver, “Local Sheriff Reacts to Rape Kit Legislation,” KIFI (LocalNews8.com), posted March 17, 2016. See, too: Salvador Hernandez, “Idaho Sheriff Says ‘Majority’ of Rape Accusations in His County Are False,” BuzzFeed News, March 16, 2016.
CHAPTER 15: 327½
Documents: Public records from Golden, Westminster, Aurora, and Lakewood police departments and the FBI; Jefferson County, Colorado, district court case no. 11CR430. For an in-depth examination of the factors affecting prosecutors’ decisions to file charges in sexual assault cases, please see Cassia Spohn and David Holleran, “Prosecuting Sexual Assault: A Comparison of Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases Involving Strangers, Acquaintances, and Intimate Partners,” National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 2004. The quotations in the Bedlow case come from a trial transcript with a rather unwieldy title: “Report of the Trial of Henry Bedlow, for Committing a Rape on Lanah Sawyer: With the Arguments of the Counsel on Each Side: At a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City and County of New-York, Held 8th October, 1793 / Impartially Taken by a Gentleman of the Profession.” It can be found online at tei.it.ox.ac.uk/tcp/Texts-HTML/free/N20/N20224.html.
The son of an FBI agent John Meyer, “A Balance of Career, Fitness—on the Run,” Denver Post, April 30, 2007.
At forty-two, he’d finished “Boston Marathon Race Results 2007,” Boston Marathon (plug the name Robert Weiner into the search box), accessed April 24, 2017, marathonguide.com/results/browse.cfm?MIDD=15070416.
Researchers call it “downstreaming” Cassia Spohn and David Holleran, “Prosecuting Sexual Assault: A Comparison of Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases Involving Strangers, Acquaintances, and Intimate Partners.”
the “cherished male assumption…” Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975), p. 369.
“by far the most renowned…” Gilbert Geis and Ivan Bunn, A Trial of Witches: A Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft Prosecution (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 3.
“So resplendent, in short…” John Bickerton Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings, of Sir Matthew Hale, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of England (London: Jackson and Walford, 1835), p. viii.
“It must be remembered, that…” Sir Matthew Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae: The History of the Pleas of the Crown, ed. Sollom Emlyn (London: Printed by E. and R. Nutt, and R. Gosling, assigns of Edward Sayer, Esq., 1736), vol. I, p. 635.
“with so much indignation…” Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae, p. 636.
“If she cannot govern…” Matthew Hale, Letter of Advice to His Grand-Children, Matthew, Gabriel, Anne, Mary, and Frances Hale (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1816), pp. 30–31.
“If she be kept in some awe…” Hale, Letter of Advice, p. 31.
“for they will make too deep Ibid., p. 30.
“The whole constitution of the people…” Ibid., p. 15.
“make it their business to paint…” Ibid., p. 116.
“great cuckold.” Alan Cromartie, Sir Matthew Hale 1609–1676: Law, Religion and Natural Philosophy (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 5.
“the ruin of families.” Hale, Letter of Advice, p. 119.
“There is…evidence that Sir Matthew Hale…” Geis, A Trial of Witches, p. 119.
“Indeed, the Salem witch-hunts…” Ibid., p. 7.
only with “great pain.” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, Julian P. Boyd, ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), p. 602.
“on account of the temptation…” Ibid., p. 604.
accomplished in twelve languages William R. Roalfe, John Henry Wigmore: Scholar and Reformer (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1977), p. ix.
“perhaps the greatest modern legal treatise,” George F. James, “The Contribution of Wigmore to the Law of Evidence,” University of Chicago Law Review 8 (1940–41), p. 78.
“the best legal friend that psychology had.” James M. Doyle, “Ready for the Psychologists: Learning from Eyewitness Errors,” Court Review: The Journal of the American Judges Association 48, no. 1–2 (2012), p. 4.
“Modern psychiatrists have amply studied…” John Henry Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence, 3d ed., rev. by James H. Chadbourn, vol. 3A (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970), p. 736.
“No judge should ever let…” Wigmor
e, Wigmore on Evidence, p. 737.
“repressive and misogynist position,” Leigh B. Bienen, “A Question of Credibility: John Henry Wigmore’s Use of Scientific Authority in Section 924a of the Treatise on Evidence,” California Western Law Review 19, no. 2 (1983): 236.
“If there is a single source…” Bienen, “A Question of Credibility,” 241.
“Although the woman never said ‘yes,’ People v. Hulse, 3 Hill (NY), 316.
“aggressive overtures by the man…” Quoted in Peggy Reeves Sanday, A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 158.
In 1670, two indentured servants Estelle B. Freedman, Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 15.
two women in Maine reported Sharon Block, Rape and Sexual Power in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 38, 92.
“archaic and misogynistic doctrine.” Lisa Rein, “Comments on Rape Law Elicit Outrage,” Washington Post, April 6, 2007.
Kathleen Dumais tried for the ninth time Catherine Rentz, “All-Male Panel Ruled on Rape Bill During Maryland’s Legislative Session,” Baltimore Sun, April 17, 2017.
In fifteen years on the bench “First Judicial District—District Judge,” Colorado Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation, accessed April 24, 2017, coloradojudicialperformance.gov/retention.cfm?ret=987.
EPILOGUE: EIGHTEEN WHEELS
Documents: Court records from Marie’s lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington; memos provided by H. Richmond Fisher and Lynnwood’s attorneys to the mediator; settlement records for Marie’s lawsuit, including an invoice from the insurer; internal review of the Lynnwood Police Department’s handling of Marie’s case; peer review of the Lynnwood investigation, conducted by Sergeant Rinta; Mason’s personnel file; training materials now used by the Lynnwood police; and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data. For more on the You Have Options program, see: Katie Van Syckle, “The Tiny Police Department in Southern Oregon That Plans to End Campus Rape,” The Cut, Nov. 9, 2014.