Netflix’s Unbelievable tells the story of how a young woman retracts her account of rape after not being believed. Only her story was believed in an unexpected events years later.
The eight part series is based on a true story. The series will tell the story of Marie Adler. who at the time as 18-years-old, who was charged with a gross misdemeanour after retracting her claim that she was raped at knifepoint in her apartment in Lynnwood, Washington. It was only two years later in 2011 when a detective investigates the assault of a 26-year-old student that the connection between the students and Marie’s story are connected.
Marie Adler reported being raped by a man at knifepoint in her apartment who had blindfolded her and tied her with her own shoe-laces. The attack happened around 4am, and before the attacker left, he had taken photos of her with a digital camera.
“I moved a lot when I was younger,” Marie explains in an interview. “I was in group homes, too. About two of those and probably 10 or 11 foster homes. I was on like seven different drugs. And Zoloft is an adult drug – I was on that at eight.”
After the attack Marie called her foster mother Shannon McQuery to explain what happened and she alerted the police. Shannon did have initial doubts of Marie’s case of what had happened. Marie’s other forster mum Peggy told the police how she thought Marie was lying and wanted her claims to be anonymous.
In 2011, in Colorado Detective Stacey Galbraith was investigating the rape of a 26-year-old engineering student at her apartment. The young woman had been rapped at gunpoint and the man had taken images on a digital camera. This case was then linked with a case from 2010, 2009 and then eventually Marie’s case.
The man behind these attacks was Marc O’Leary, he pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and on December 2011, almost a year after his arrest, he was sentenced to 327½ years in prison for the Colorado attacks.
Marie was cleared of the gross misdemeanour charged and got apologies from detectives who took on her case at the beginning.
Lewis Walker
