Knowing that youre behind us means so much. The woman, identified in the lawsuit by the initials D.M., says she was forced to undergo counseling when Lynnwood police told managers of the at-risk youth program where she was living in 2008 that they didnt believe shed been raped, according to court documents. Mason was put in the lead position, but at that time. Lets Do the Thing: How Online Were You in February 2023? Please contact. Mason is still with the Lynnwood Police Department. At the hospital, a doctor noted injuries to both her wrists and abrasions on her genitals. He also told her he had taken photos of her and knew her name, and left. View the profiles of people named Jerry Rittgarn. The victim was too attacked by a man in a black mask who took her pink camera to shoot pictures of her before forcing her to shower. Netflixs latest true-crime series, Unbelievable, follows a group of detectives who try to get to the bottom of a string of rapes in the mid and northwest, along with figuring out if one girl whos reported a rape is telling the truth or not. three days after the assault, officers picked up D.M. We reviewed Maries civil suit against Lynnwood, which included such legal exhibits as the medical report from the day she reported being raped and case notes from Project Ladder, the transitional housing program to which she belonged. He told police that hed fantasized about rape since he was a kid and that his assaults were a type of rape theater inspired by the Star Wars scene in which Jabba the Hutt chains up Princess Leia. D.M. Jerry Rittgarn declined to be interviewed. After claiming police coerced her into recanting her story,. In hindsight, it was my job to get to the bottom of itand I didnt." But most recent research suggests that false reporting is relatively rare. The character of Detective Pruitt (played by Bill Fagerbakke) is loosely based on Jerry Rittgarn, who was the one who first blatantly told Marie he didn't believe her story. But she went through the story again only this time, saying she believed the rape had happened instead of saying it for certain. The records obtained through these requests included investigative reports filed by detectives in Lynnwood and elsewhere; crime-scene photos and surveillance footage collected by the various law-enforcement agencies; the two case reviews of how the Lynnwood police handled the investigation of Maries rape report; and video of Marc OLeary being interviewed by police after his arrest in Colorado. Also named in the suit are Rittgarn, Mason and Lynnwood Police Chief Steven J. Jensen. Former Lynnwood police Det. In this report a sex crimes supervisor noted that Marie's situation was nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she lied about the rape. The investigation concluded that bullying and hounding led to Marie's admittance of false reporting. None of the evidence police collected linked him to his brothers rapes. Rittgarn asked. Rittgarn, on the other hand, had been a detective for 11 years, but had a background in helicopters and the aerospace industry. And what might be the most unbelievable part of unbelievable is that the detectives who believed Marie was lying weren't reprimanded whatsoever, even though they deeply damaged this young woman emotionally. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurers Inner Workings. Its okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. In 2008, an 18-year-old from Lynnwood, Washington claimed that she was raped by an intruder in the middle of the night. The victim of the Lynnwood attack last week filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city of Lynnwood, claiming detectives disregarded evidence of the assault, bullied her into saying it didnt happen and then threatened to have her thrown out of her apartment when she insisted it did. (Warning: Unbelievable spoilers below). Some of his computer files remain encrypted. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. From there, the show continues to follow a true story reported by ProPublica. Looking into similar crimes, the women discovered a case in Lakewood, another Denver suburb, where a masked man attacked and bound a woman at knifepoint in her home. Grusings search for similar rape cases turned up an old unsolved burglary (Lillys story) with evidence the honeycomb glove pattern, the Adidas shoe print, and the white Mazda pickup truck that connected all the known rapes. Meanwhile, several years and states away, detectives Grace Rasmussen and Karen Duvall (Toni Colette and Merritt Wever) merge their investigations in a skilled search for a serial rapist. By Professionalism, vigilance, community, my ass. Michael was tailed by members of Grusings team to get his DNA. The description of his background comes from his LinkedIn profile. We just want to dive into a pool without having to hold onto our bottoms. Heres how ProPublicas T. Christian Miller and the Marshall Projects Ken Armstrong wrote about this fateful day in their Pulitzer-winning article: In Sgt. It explains the background and ins and outs of the case concerning Marie (whos identified as Marie in the story was well its the real victim's middle name), along with other rapes in the area of Lynwood, Washington. He had only worked on "one or two rape cases" before this, according to ProPublica. Thats five times the national average of 4.3 percent for agencies covering similar-sized populations during that same period.". , updated This story was produced in collaboration with ProPublica. You cant republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. We received thousands of pages of documents through public-records requests filed with the following agencies: the police departments in Lynnwood and Kirkland, Washington; the police departments in Golden, Westminster, Aurora and Lakewood, Colorado; and the prosecuting attorneys offices in Snohomish County, Washington, King County, Washington, and Jefferson County, Colorado. The reporting by ProPublica and The Marshall Project spanned several months and involved numerous interviews, a review of previously undisclosed law enforcement records and exchanges with experts on investigating rape. Former Lynnwood police Det. He was strategically stalking and attacking women who lived alone. You cant use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements. USMC. When the woman reported the attack to Lynnwood police, she says detectives Jerry Rittgarn and Sgt. The series shows her driving off in a new Jeep in hopes of establishing a better life elsewhere. Doctors also collected DNA specimens, according to the lawsuit. Detective Jerry Rittgarn, who declined to be interviewed for the original news story, said he'd talk for the book "only under monetary compensation contract" a quid pro quo the authors. Unbelievable, a Netflix original series that debuts on September 13, is "a story about a rape investigation gone horribly wrong, and then a rape investigation gone brilliantly right," as showrunner .css-9cezh6{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#E61957;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-9cezh6:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Susannah Grant puts it. In it, a young woman named Marie (played by Booksmart's Kaitlyn Dever) tells police she's been the victim of rape by a masked stranger who broke into her home. Rasmussen and Duvall catch the serial rapist, and Marie's original report is proved to have been true. Jeffrey Mason in real life. You do a full investigation. The police on her case, Sgt. We consulted police training guidelines by various organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and End Violence Against Women International. It went to the FBI lab [in Quantico], Galbraith told 48 Hours in 2017. Sgt. As in the series, Michael OLeary was mistaken for his similar-looking older brother because the cops didnt know they lived together. Claiming police coerced her into recanting her story, the woman was charged with false reporting and fined $500 when she later tried to insist the rape did happen. In January 2011, rapist Marc OLeary was apprehended, and the head of the criminal-investigations division showed up at Adlers door to tell her that her photo had been found among his things. She named Mason and. When Marie's rapist was caught, Detective Rittgarn had already left the Lynnwood police department. had been arguing, and the other a friend who had spoken to D.M. Rittgarn told Marie that her story and the evidence didnt match. The lawsuit alleges that, as soon as the detective concluded she was lying, the investigation ceased. To calculate the rate, we summed the number of unfounded rapes and divided it by the number of reported rapes. A stranger, later known to be OLeary, entered her Lynnwood apartment, threatened plaintiff D.M. It follows the initial investigation into a the assault of a young woman named Marie. LYNNWOOD, Wash. The city of Lynnwood will pay $150,000 in a settlement with a rape victim, after Lynnwood police claimed she lied about the attack in 2008. After I got off the phone with him, I started thinking about all things I was stressed out and I also was scared living on my own. The article earned a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, and eventually became a book called A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America. For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter. They themselves took those pictures. After collecting sufficient evidence, detectives eventually arrested Marc O'Leary, a former Marine. Well never put our work behind a paywall, and well never put a limit on the number of articles you can read. Marie had a horrific childhood, bouncing around various foster and group homes from around age 6, and was sexually and physically abused throughout. While the other survivors of Marc OLearys crimes have been anonymized in Unbelievable, their experiences also reflect the true stories that allowed the detectives to connect their cases. A police narrative from Detective Jerry Rittgarn states, "I talked with Sgt. After the Lynnwood, Washington, police coerced her recantation and charged her with a "gross misdemeanor," Adler took a plea deal and paid a $500 fine. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following: Copy and paste the following into your page to republish: International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault in Los Angeles City and County, How the Wealthy Save Billions in Taxes by Skirting a Century-Old Law. She is charged with false reporting, ostracized from friends and family, and made a pariah by local media. She and her husband took in the high-schooler for a short time when her previous foster familys plans to adopt her fell through. Social scientists examining police records in detail and using methodologically rigorous standards cite similar, single-digit rates. From research and studies summarized in a Department of Justice-funded study, Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault in Los Angeles City and County, 2012 by Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis and from an analysis by ProPublica and The Marshall Project of FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program data, 20082012. He told me that based on subsequent interviews and inconsistencies with D.M., her foster mother, and her friendwho [sic] she had talked with on the phone prior to the report, he believed and others believed that D.M. The records obtained through these requests included investigative reports filed by detectives in Lynnwood and elsewhere; crime-scene photos and surveillance footage collected by the various law-enforcement agencies; the two case reviews of how the Lynnwood police handled the investigation of Maries rape report; and video of Marc OLeary being interviewed by police after his arrest in Colorado. 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Come for the Seinfeld references, stay for the Producers references. But most recent research suggests that false reporting is relatively rare. We examined five years of the Offenses Known and Cleared by Arrest data to smooth yearly fluctuations common in crime reporting. In 2011, Galbraith worked on a Denver case where a young woman living alone was sexually assaulted by a man in a black mask who documented the rape with a digital camera. She's been inspiring to me.. Rodney Cohnheim and Commander Steve Rider; and Marc OLeary, who was interviewed at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado. But, as they continuously press the young woman to repeatedly tell her story.css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}as she's showing clear signs of someone traumatized by the assaultthe detectives grow suspicious and eventually coerce a false confession out of her that she made up the assault. The real-life counterpart of Bill Fagerbakkes hard-hearted Detective Pruitt, Jerry Rittgarn threatened Adler with jail if she failed a polygraph. The police on her case, Sgt. Lynnwood, Washington No one came to court with her that day, except her public defender. If you share republished stories on social media, wed appreciate being tagged in your posts. But even before it received the Netflix treatment, the narrative emerged from "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," a seminal piece of reporting from The Marshall Project and ProPublica that earned writers Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller the Pulitzer Prize. Claiming police coerced her into recanting her story, the woman was charged with false reporting and fined $500 when she later tried to insist the rape did happen. We have official accounts for ProPublica on. The whole show is in a silly, goofy mood. The women of, Sam Levinson and the Weeknd Allegedly Turned, Theres No Red Button You Can Push to Stop. The Lynnwood detectives, Pruitt and Parker, are Jerry Rittgarn and Sgt. Trevor Materasso; Lakewood, Colorado, police detective Aaron Hassell; Kirkland, Washington, police officer Audra Weber; Lynnwood police Sgt. Though she found it hard to watch, she said the series was excellent and even encouraged both of her foster moms, with whom shes still in touch, to watch it. "I would spend hours at the beach watching the sunset go down and that was one of my favorite things," she said. But shes actually telling the truth; she really was raped. Jensen refused to comment to the newspaper because of the litigation and Rittgarn, who has since left the Lynnwood Police Department and now lives in San Diego, said he was unaware of the lawsuit and couldn't remember the case. The rapist, Marc OLeary, is currently serving a 327 1/2-year sentence in Colorado for raping multiple women, including the Lynnwood woman and a Kirkland woman. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 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