Washington and Colorado serial rape cases

"Marc O'Leary" redirects here. For people with similar names, see Mark O'Leary (disambiguation).

Between 2008 and 2011, a series of rapes in the suburbs around Seattle and Denver were perpetrated by Marc Patrick O'Leary,^[1] an Army veteran who had been stationed near Tacoma.^[2] 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.^[3] According to a later report, the bullying and hounding of her by the detectives led Marie to recant her statement, resulting in her being charged with making a false report of rape.^[1][3][4]

O'Leary went on to rape five more women in a similar manner, one in Washington and four in Colorado.^[1] O'Leary was arrested in Lakewood, Colorado in February 2011, following 40 days of investigation by a team of detectives from several departments.^[5] The investigators used similarities in the attacker's methods, along with photos found on O'Leary's computer, to link O'Leary to the five rapes in both states.^[1] He pleaded guilty to several counts of rape and was sentenced to the maximum 327+1⁄2 years in prison in Colorado^[1][3] and a total of 68+1⁄2 years in Washington.^[1][6] As of 2019^[update] he was imprisoned in Colorado's Sterling Correctional Facility.^[7][8][9]

Between 2008 and 2012, Lynnwood police labeled 21 percent of rape cases as "unfounded", five times the national average for similarly sized municipalities.^[1] An outside review of Marie's case by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office found that she had been "coerced into admitting that she lied" and that the police had ignored strong evidence of the crime to focus on "minor inconsistencies" in her account.^[1] Lynnwood police have since adopted new training methods for sexual assault investigations,^[10] and must have "definitive proof" of lying before questioning a rape report.^[3] Despite the review, no Lynnwood police officers were professionally disciplined; in 2014, the city of Lynwood settled with Marie for $150,000 (equivalent to $185,000 in 2022) for the mishandling of her case and the false-claim charge by their police department.^[1][4]

T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for their "examination and exposé of law enforcement's enduring failures" in the rape investigations.^[11][12] Their work, titled "An Unbelievable Story of Rape", was used as the basis for an episode of This American Life, narrated in part by Armstrong, and the Netflix series Unbelievable.^{[11][13][14][15]}

See also

•  United States portal

• Post-assault treatment of sexual assault victims

References

1. Miller, T. Christian; Armstrong, Ken (December 16, 2015). "An Unbelievable Story of Rape". ProPublica, The Marshall Project. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
2. Burnett, Sara (September 14, 2011). "Rape suspect in custody in Colorado linked to case in Washington state". The Denver Post. Retrieved September 14, 2019. O'Leary was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., from November 2006 to September 2009, according to military records.
3. Smith, Merril D., ed. (2018). "Stranger Rape". Encyclopedia of Rape and Sexual Violence, Volume 2. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 440. ISBN 978-1-4408-4490-4.
4. Carter, Mike (2014-06-14). "Lynnwood to pay rape victim $150,000 in false-claim suit". The Seattle Times. from the original on 2021-04-18. Retrieved 2022-04-08.
5. Roberts, Michael (February 15, 2011). "Marc O'Leary, accused serial rapist, held on $5 million bond as cops search for more victims". Westword. Denver. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
6. Rodriguez, Carrie (June 11, 2012). "Serial rapist serving life sentence gets 40 more years for raping Kirkland woman". Kirkland Reporter. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
7. Dorwart, Laura (September 13, 2019). "How two detectives tracked down a serial rapist—After police didn't believe his first victim". Real Crime. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
8. Armstrong, Ken; Miller, T. Christian (December 16, 2015). "How We Reported 'An Unbelievable Story of Rape'". The Marshall Project. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
9. Sorren, Martha (September 14, 2019). "The real rapist from Unbelievable won't be able to hurt another woman again". Refinery29. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
10. Bryan, Zachariah (September 27, 2019). "Lynnwood police chief reflects on 'Unbelievable' rape case". The Everett Herald. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
11. Bazelon, Emily (March 6, 2018). "The Lesson Here Is Listen to the Victim". The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
12. "The 2016 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Explanatory Reporting". The Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
13. "Anatomy of Doubt". This American Life. February 26, 2016. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
14. Butler, Bethonie (September 17, 2019). "The true story behind 'Unbelievable,' Netflix's gripping new drama about the women who solved a serial rape case". The Washington Post.
15. Armstrong, Ken; Miller, T. Christian (September 5, 2019). "Netflix Series Based on Our Work Explores Costs of Not Believing Rape Victims". ProPublica. Retrieved September 14, 2019.

Further reading

• Armstrong, Ken; Miller, T. Christian (December 16, 2015). "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" – via The Marshall Project.
• Miller, T. Christian; Armstrong, Ken (2018). A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5247-5993-3.