Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong after six months of communication. (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline read, Police: Lynnwood rape report was a hoax.) Maries best friend from high school the one who had taught her photography and had taken that picture of her emerging from the surf created a webpage that called Marie a liar, with a photo from Maries Myspace page, with police reports, with Maries full name. If this could affect you, please read with caution. Marie had been sexually and physically abused in early life and was in foster care for most of her childhood. When Marie called her on that first day, before the police arrived, she was crying and I could barely hear her, Peggy says. Thus the results couldnt be entered into the FBIs nationwide DNA database to check for a match to a suspect. As well as watching Netflix's new drama, premiering globally Friday, the original article, "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," is a must-read. Hendershot was more experienced. Am I in trouble? Marie asked the detective. Open the door, she shouted repeatedly. But there was not enough genetic material to identify a single individual. It had cost her the newfound independence she was savoring after a life in foster homes. [1], After seven months of email and phone communication with Marie's lawyer, Marie agreed to speak to Armstrong. told police that, early on Aug. 11, 2008, she awoke to find a stranger in her apartment. So he deliberately committed each rape in a different jurisdiction. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. And she is resilient. After the meeting, Marie started walking to a friends place. Best of all, Project Ladder provided subsidized housing, with each member getting a one-bedroom apartment. Despite that, she tried to enjoy life and liked school, hiking, photography, and going to the beach with friends. Afterward, Shannon took Marie for a walk in the woods, and told her, Im so sorry I doubted you. Marie forgave, immediately. But on the first day, a support counselor came to the school and told Marie the family had lost its foster care license. They also appeared similar to prints from a pair of Under Armour gloves that a Lakewood investigator, on a hunch, had discovered at a Dicks Sporting Goods. She has left the state, although she wants her new location to remain secret. Police guidelines advised that rape victims should not be interrogated, as they may be uncertain of details or report conflicting information. But she did go online and look up what happened to the woman in Kirkland. The report detailed how a 46-year-old artist had been accosted in her home by a man with a knife. She was detached, emotionally detached from what she was saying, Cunningham said on the show, adding she thought she was simply seeking attention. It turned out the woman, identified in court documents by the initials D.M., was one of several victims of serial rapist Marc OLeary, a former Washington man who admitted the 2008 crime and is serving a 327-year prison sentence in Colorado for raping three women there. The article alternates between two true stories of events occurring between August 2008 and June 2012. Marie, Armstrong and Miller were consulted during the production. 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). Sometimes she got to be with her siblings, but most often not, according to the ProPublica report. The next morning, Mason went to Jordans home to interview him. Before that, he had served in the Marine Corps, specializing in helicopter avionics. The fear of false rape accusations has a long history in the legal system. At home, her husband David had done the dishes and put the kids to bed. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Shannon called Marie and suggested she also contact the Kirkland police. FBI figures show that police annually declare around 5 percent of rape cases unfounded, or baseless. So did Zachor & Thomas, the law office that handled the prosecution of Marie on Lynnwood's behalf. Thundershowers had soaked the area before the attack. When Mason, accompanied by Detective Rittgarn, went to pick up Marie at about 3:30 p.m., they found her outside her apartment, sitting on the grass. No one deserves to be treated like Marie was. The same person was at work. In 2011, two Colorado detectivesplayed in the series by Collette and Weverpooled their resources together on the hunt for what they suspected was a serial rapist. Unbelievable is inspired by the heartbreaking, real story of Marie Adler. Celebrate the life of Marie Arzer, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information. Her case was one of 4,859 filed in 2008 in Lynnwood Municipal Court, a place where the judge says the goal is to correct behavior to make Lynnwood a better, safer, healthier place to live, work, shop and visit.. Marie, as directed, told her fellow participants in Project Ladder that she had lied about being raped. She recalled the camera that the attacker had used to take photos. Marie Adler was born on 01 Jan 1990. But Marie wanted to set out on her own. I would spend hours at the beach watching the sunset go down and that was one of my favorite things. Marie thats her middle name, Marie didnt say anything. Police checked it out, but the man was gone. Rittgarn told Marie that her story and the evidence didnt match. After looking through the images, she found an answer. Marie was then charged with a gross misdemeanour for lying and lost friends, family and work after her story made the news. I think its listen to your victim. They compared investigations. Shannon and Marie were both kind of goofy, Shannon says. 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. He said he felt stupid, that it had looked better in his head. A little before 9 on a Monday morning, two Lynnwood police detectives responded to a report of rape at the Alderbrooke Apartments. The descriptions of the attacker were similar. She looked calm, unflustered. The police had spent a lot of resources chasing that lie. The detectives, Sgt. Lynnwood, Washington 98037. Kaitlyn Dever plays Marie, a young woman with a tough life who experiences a horrific ordeal: The first episode depicts Marie's rape,an attack by a knife-wielding man wearing a mask, in flashbacks. He knew to avoid leaving his DNA at the scene. But she remembers being kind of shocked to learn that they had charged Marie. So many kids, institutionalized, wound up on drugs or in jail. [39], series of rapes in the American states of Washington and Colorado, Washington and Colorado serial rape cases, "The Backstory of How the Pulitzer-Winning "Unbelievable Story of Rape" Came to Be", "Marshall Project Kicks Off With Look at Legal Delays", "The FBI Built a Database That Can Catch Rapists Almost Nobody Uses It", "How We Reported 'An Unbelievable Story of Rape', "Notable Narrative: Ken Armstrong, T. Christian Miller and "An Unbelievable Story of Rape", "Coaches' Corner: The story behind 'An Unbelievable Story of Rape', "New York Times Journalists Among Winners of 2015 Polk Awards", "Team wins Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting", "T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project", "A Haunting Story That Shows the Consequencesand the Ubiquityof Doubting Rape Victims", "National rape story has Madison parallels", "Covering failures in the justice system with patience for facts and sensitivity to victims", "A Brutal Crime, Often Terribly Investigated", "How Almost Getting Scooped Brought Two Competing Reporters Together", "Constructing the narrative: An unbelievable story of rape", "Revisiting Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Ken Armstrong On Tuesday's Access Utah", "Listen to Our First Collaboration with "This American Life", "A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America By T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong", "A False Report review: a powerful story about a serial rapist that falls flat", "Review: 'A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America,' by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong", "The Lesson Here Is Listen to the Victim", "The true story behind 'Unbelievable,' Netflix's gripping new drama about the women who solved a serial rape case", "How a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigation Became Netflix's 'Unbelievable', "Netflix has revealed its most-watched content. It had cost her sense of worth. He suggested she put a dowel into the bottom track to keep out future intruders. But which one? Maries account, in her own words. He had since broken into her place twice, both times through that same glass door. She said it was about 7 a.m. when she woke to find a man standing over her bed with a butcher knife and wearing latex gloves. The eight-part limited series is based on the real-life story of 18-year-old Marie, who, in 2008, reported that she was raped at knifepoint, later recanted her story amid police skepticism, and ended up charged with filing a false report. She could carry on a conversation with adults. He told the man he was canvassing the neighborhood to warn of a burglar in the area. 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 ). When the woman reported the attack to Lynnwood. He looked like Marc OLeary. This content is imported from youTube. If Washington had just paid attention a little bit more, I probably would have been a person of interest earlier on, OLeary said. [31][32][33], Netflix reported that "Unbelievable" had garnered 32 million views by the end of September, where a "view" entailed watching at least 70% of an episode. I would venture to say we investigate our cases a lot more vigorously than many departments do, he said. It was hard to get along. Rittgarn asked Marie. 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. She was eighteen years old, charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year. When the woman reported the attack to Lynnwood police, she says detectives Jerry Rittgarn and Sgt. Just keep working! Galbraith insisted. The rules about life, Marie says. Lets do what we can do to catch him.. OLeary had no criminal record. 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. He left the room, and walked to the front door, and he was gone. When she got to his legs, she raised his pant leg to look. The Lynnwood Police Department and Cocoon House agreed to the settlement last month. While the agents were following the man believed to be Marc OLeary, another FBI agent knocked on the door of the home. Marie's foster parents and police in Lynnwood have since apologized to her. The investigators confronted her, and under their pressure, Marie said that she made up her initial claim. She just listened, then hung up. But not perfect. Shannon saw an account of the attack on the television news and was taken aback. Afterward, she could. He wore a gray hoodie, baggy gray sweatpants and gray slip-on houseshoes. (A later edition has been retitled, Unbelievable: The Story of Two Detectives Relentless Search for the Truth.). If you - or anyone you know - needs help, please contact the following: If you're in the US, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE and you can also visit RAINN. Marie ended up suing the city of. At the hospital, medical staff collected more than a dozen swabs from Marie. She was still emerging from the mental and physical suffering she endured during the attack. Red Lobster. Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report. That mother would often leave her in the care of boyfriends. The report also added that Marie was sexually and physically abused.". [9] As the two reporters and two primary editors were all male, the team ensured that they consulted various women, some with knowledge of the case and some without, particularly in regards to how graphic or detailed to make the description of Marie's rape. He liked trees, for the cover they provided, and the Alderbrooke Apartments had plenty of them. He had first spotted her a couple of weeks before, through a window, while lurking outside her apartment. . 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. [9][10], Miller wrote the sections about the woman in Colorado, while Armstrong wrote the sections about the investigation in Washington. It's a tragic story, made even more difficult to watch knowing it's based on a true story. "These days she's a long haul truck driver. Default; Distance; Rating; Name (A - Z) Sponsored Links. . In 2008, an 18-year-old woman was brutally raped at her apartment in Lynnwood, Washington, gagged and bound by an intruder in the middle of the night. In Sgt. He would rifle a targets personal documents. I have no qualms with asking for help, Galbraith said. On the morning of Friday, Feb. 11, FBI agents were surveilling OLearys house. He was sentenced to 327 and a halfyears in prison. Rapes by strangers were uncommon about 13 percent of cases. Three years later, two female detectives from Colorado, Stacy Galbraith (Karen Duvall in the show) and Edna Hendershot (Grace Rasmussen in the show), validated Marie's case, after working to catch a serial rapist and learning that he'd raped Marie too. They were tough for cops and prosecutors. discuss pitfalls and best practices of sex crimes investigations. In 2011, Marc O'Leary was arrested in Colorado for rape and She was good at empathizing with the victims, who were overwhelmingly women. The search results can point you to the official or complete court record. She was just moved. Rarely do misdemeanors draw notice. In the kitchen, when Shannon walked in, Marie didnt meet her gaze. The rest was awkward, excruciating silence. There was no one out there who had hurt her and no one who might hurt them next. 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. She reports entering foster care at age six or seven.". Hendershot asked one of her departments crime analysts to scour nearby agencies for similar crimes. The Project Ladder managers instead reached out to Sgt. After Marie became a teenager, her years of upheaval appeared at an end. According to police reports and statements filed with the lawsuit, D.M. It was parked half a block from the Lakewood victims house, by an empty field adjacent to her backyard. Two heads, three heads, four heads, sometimes are better than one, right? she said. on the phone that night, before the alleged attack. "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. He has been the McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. In the kitchen, he went to the knife block and removed a black-handled blade from the top row, far left. I was trying to be a good citizen, actually. He held a knife. With Marie now proven honest, Lynnwood police conducted an independent investigation into the handling of her case. We have him.. She grew up with police, trusted police, knew how the police worked. That seemed very strange, Shannon says. Marie said the knife was hers that it had come from the kitchen, and was what the rapist had used to threaten her. She would need to go on supervised probation. Westminster crime scene investigators had discovered similar marks on the window of the victims apartment. In this written statement, she described calling him while still tied up. However, when the lawsuit was filed in June, the programs CEO, Cassie Franklin, issued a statement saying Our hearts go out to D.M. I had a crib and they gave me a 16-year-old, Peggy says, with a laugh. He threaded one of the shoelaces through a pair of underwear. Or even that Michael and Marc had worked together. He used wet wipes to clean up his ejaculate. Her voice was like this little tiny voice, and I couldnt really tell. She is strong. 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. But in fresh light, it appeared very much like a failed rape attempt, committed by an attacker who closely resembled the description of the rapist. However, two of Marie's former foster parents began to disbelieve her due to her seemingly calm demeanour, one reporting doubts to the police. Thats awful. The man introduced himself. Because she craved normalcy, she would bury the hurt. In 2008, Maries case was one of four labeled unfounded by the Lynnwood police, according to statistics reported to the FBI. In August 2008, a stranger broke into the apartment of an 18-year-old Lynnwood woman, gagged her, bound her hands with a shoelace and raped her. MARCH 12, 2009 LYNNWOOD, WASHINGTON No one came to court with her that day, except her public defender. 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. Mariegot her GED at age 17 in 2008. No one really explained why she was being moved, or what was going on. He tied her hands with a ribbon. But I havent made my decision yet, that yay, weve got the guy.. For me it seems like people read me differently than I see myself.. He put her learners permit on her chest and took pictures of her. adult caregivers and professionals coming in and then out of her life, some distressing or abusive experiences, and a general lack of permanency. For the last two or three months, the woman told police, she felt as if someone had been following her. The statement was only one page. Why would a rapist use shoelaces to tie her up? It only made sense to join forces. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion, What Netflix's 'The Spy' Gets Wrong About Eli Cohen, Netflix's 'The Spy': Eli Cohen's Remains Still a Mystery, Kathleen Zellner Explains $100,000 Reward in Steven Avery Case. White man, gray sweater. He tied the woman up with her own shoelaces. After OLeary was linked to Maries rape, Lynnwood Police Chief Steven Jensen requested an outside review of how his department had handled the investigation. By the time Marie reported being assaulted, sex crime specialists had developed protocols that recognized the challenges and sensitivity of investigating rape cases. She clutched a bag of her belongings in one hand. One detective later wrote in a report, The shoes were lying next to each other near the end of the couch and the bedroom door, on the soles as if placed there (not disturbed).. Marie said on an episode of This American Life in an episode devoted to this case entitled Anatomy of Doubt that she was raped as a child, but notedshe didnt talk about it much and pretty much suppressed that it had happened. Hendershot asked for a comparison. There was one possible lead. Gregg Rinta, a sex crimes supervisor with the Snohomish County Sheriffs Office, wrote that what happened was nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she lied about the rape., That Marie recanted wasnt surprising, Rinta wrote, given the bullying and hounding she was subjected to. Turn away, he told Marie and she did. In the snow, they found a trail of footprints leading to and from the back of the apartment through an empty field. He was not a registered sex offender. So did Galbraith. Galbraith had maneuvered herself to stand behind OLeary. The lawsuit alleges police ignored or disregarded evidence once they convinced themselves she was not telling the truth. Confused, the agent fell back on a practiced ruse. She had turned up something. Neither Peggy nor Shannon abandoned her, but things werent the same. And instead of interviewing Marie as a victim, they began interrogating her as a suspect.". She saidshe found it strange that Marie wanted the same bedspread set that she had before the rape. Winning $150,000 in a lawsuit against Lynnwood WA, Marie gets the fuel she needs to leave Washington and start anew. Golden police obtained a surveillance tape showing the entrance to the apartment complex where Galbraiths victim had been attacked. 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. Investigating Marie's report, police found evidence of an assailant and abrasions to Marie's vagina and wrist. OLeary pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and associated felonies in Colorado. This story was co-published with The Marshall Project. Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn, found the victim, Marie, on a couch, in a blanket, crying off and on. It was blustery, and biting cold. BF in PJs, game over, he wrote in one nights entry. He had learned from past failures one time, a guy walked in as he stood there, mask on, outside the bedroom door of the woman he planned to rape so now, he did painstaking surveillance: peeking in windows, breaking in beforehand, gathering information. Hold it in. It was him. [1][2], The article won the 2015 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting, presented by Long Island University, and the 2016 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting, awarded by the University of Colorado Boulder and Denver Press Club. Find Marie Day in Lynnwood, WA - phone, address, email. Following police confrontation about inconsistencies in her story, she said that she made the incident up. They discovered a pair of Under Armour gloves with a honeycomb pattern. He told them the evidence didnt support Maries story, and that she had taken her story back. Marie was charged with filing a false report and accepted a plea deal under which she had to pay a $500 fine and undergo counseling to avoid jail time. She married, and in October she and her husband had their second child. Sitting close to her in the front seat of the car, Galbraith carefully brushed the womans face with long cotton swabs to collect any DNA traces that might remain. He laboriously counted 261 vehicles and people coming and going on the night of the incident. Its huge, she said. "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. Without reading the Miranda warning, they asked her to write that she had made a false report. Marie said she really had been raped and began to cry, saying she was having visions of the man on top of her. The man threatened her with a butcher knife, gagged her with her underwear, bound her hands with a shoelace from her tennis shoe and raped her. So, too, his methods. And all those sliding glass doors ridiculously easy to pick, when they werent left unlocked, which so often they were. But to Mason, there was one critical passage. In 2008, Marie's case was one of four labeled unfounded by the Lynnwood police, according to . YEARS IN BUSINESS (425) 672-1137. [4][5], T. Christian Miller was a senior reporter at ProPublica. 7: Caught in a Bad Romance, Brandon Sklenar is the Baddest Dutton of Them All, The 'Outer Banks' S3 Finale Is Intense as Hell. Her birthplace is Lynnwood, Washinton, United States, and her age is 32 years old. To Marie, he seemed sincere. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. They didnt need to worry, she told the group. She could have stayed with Peggy, provided she abided by certain rules. From there, her record was expunged and police returned her $500. Why would you want to have the same sheets and bedspread to look at every day when youd been raped on this bed set? Shannon thought to herself. The detectives elevated minor inconsistencies common among victims into discrepancies, while ignoring strong evidence the crime had occurred. Hassell typed in the license plate number from the Lakewood report: 935VHX. Lakewood patrol cars had cameras that automatically took pictures of every license plate they passed. [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. On Aug. 12, the day after Marie reported being raped, Sgt. Westminster Detective Edna Hendershot had settled into her morning with her Starbucks usual: a Venti, upside-down, skinny caramel macchiato. They matched the footprints in the snow outside her victims apartment in Golden. So who was the real-life Marie? Flipping the switch was a relief and it would let her leave. Galbraith spotted the victim standing in the thin sunlight outside her ground floor apartment. . Nobody collects such data. She called police to share her concerns. Marie Theresa Arzer, age 77, of Redmond, Washington passed away on Saturday, February 11, 2023. She did and then he straddled her, putting the knife near her face. "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" was written by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. In the predawn hours, a white Mazda pickup truck appeared 10 times. She doesnt want her first name revealed. The DNA from the cup matched the DNA collected from the victims. Investigators found a pair of Adidas ZX 700 shoes in OLearys closet. As the weeks passed, the dead ends continued. Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com. The media wrote about Marie being charged, without identifying her. Yvonne Kay Hagen, age 62, Towner, ND Background Check. She reports entering foster care at age 6 or 7. In early October, less than two months after Marie was charged with false reporting, a 63-year-old woman reported being raped inside her condominium in Kirkland, east of Seattle. The physical description closely matched the descriptions provided by the victims. Cops must work as hard to prove a falsehood as they do to prove a truth. 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. And the reporters who made her story national news are still in touch with Marie, who, in 2014, settled a lawsuit against the city of Lynnwood for $150,000. He wore a black. The treads matched the footprints in the snow in Golden and outside the window in Lakewood. "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 to ProPublica. You can also read more about how ProPublica and The Marshall Project reported this story.
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