“A risk management decision was made,” Diana Hefley, “Lynnwood Settles with Rape Victim for $150K,” Daily Herald (Everett, WA), Jan. 15, 2014.
“Rittgarn…said he was unaware…” Mike Carter, “Woman Sues After Lynnwood Police Didn’t Believe She Was Raped,” Seattle Times, posted June 11, 2013.
“Unfortunately, interrogating victims and challenging them…” 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.
“This was a big move…” Eli Hager, “The Seismic Change in Police Interrogations,” Marshall Project, March 7, 2017.
John Reid, the technique’s namesake Douglas Starr, “The Interview,” New Yorker, Dec. 9, 2013.
Parker was formally exonerated Todd Henrichs and Peter Salter, “State Apologizes, Pays $500K to Man in 1955 Wrongful Conviction,” Lincoln Journal Star, Aug. 31, 2012.
“furred with dust.” Anna Clark, “11,341 Rape Kits Were Collected and Forgotten in Detroit. This Is the Story of One of Them,” Elle, June 23, 2016.
investigation tallied seventy thousand untested kits Steve Reilly, “70,000 Untested Rape Kits USA Today Found Is Fraction of Total,” USA Today, July 16, 2015.
dedicated nearly $80 million Eliza Gray, “Authorities Invest $80 Million in Ending the Rape Kit Backlog,” Time, Sept. 10, 2015.
Hull knew that many victims Avery Lill, “Oregon Detective Pioneers New Sexual Assault Reporting Program,” NPR, Sept. 22, 2016.
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our deepest thanks to the many people who helped us on this journey. It began with the editors who encouraged us to pursue the reporting for our piece, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” Bill Keller and Kirsten Danis at the Marshall Project; Stephen Engelberg, Robin Fields, and Joseph Sexton at ProPublica; and copy editor Amy Zerba shaped the narrative and honed the writing to a fine polish. We were fortunate to have a third partner in the reporting for our original story—This American Life, the industry standard for wise, thoughtful radio. Our thanks to the episode’s producer, Robyn Semien, and to the show’s host, Ira Glass.
Our agent, Mollie Glick, and her colleague at Creative Artists Agency, Michelle Weiner, helped turn our story into a project worthy of a book. They supported us and encouraged us at every step of the way.
Molly Stern, Rachel Klayman, Emma Berry, and Matthew Martin at Penguin Random House’s Crown Publishing Group had the vision and courage to take on a difficult topic. They nurtured our efforts from start to end, providing us editing, oversight, and wise counsel. Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon consulted with us and shared ideas. Titles can be tough.
We enlisted friends and relations to read early drafts. Our thanks to Ruth Baldwin, Ramona Hattendorf, Lyn Heinman, Anna Ly, Leslie Miller, Maureen O’Hagan, Serene Quinn, and Craig Welch for allowing us to punish them so, and for their invaluable feedback.
We would like to thank the librarians at the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington for entrusting us with old and brittle books. Librarians are the best.
Reporting can be expensive. The Fund for Investigative Journalism—which, in its first year, helped pay for Seymour Hersh’s work exposing the My Lai massacre—kindly provided us with a grant to defray our research costs for this book. So many journalists owe the FIJ a debt of gratitude. Count us among them.
About the Authors
T. CHRISTIAN MILLER joined ProPublica as a senior reporter in 2008. Before that, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, where he covered politics, wars, and was once kidnapped by leftist guerrillas in Colombia. His first book, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, was called one of the “indispensable” books on the war. He teaches data journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and was a Knight Fellow at Stanford University.
KEN ARMSTRONG, who joined ProPublica in 2017, previously worked at the Marshall Project and the Chicago Tribune, where his work helped prompt the Illinois governor to suspend executions and empty death row. His first book, Scoreboard, Baby, with Nick Perry, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for nonfiction. He has been the McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
They have both won numerous awards, including a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for their article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.”
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A False Report Page 28