On Friday, September 13, Netflix released Unbelievable, which is based on a true story about an 18-year-old woman named Marie.

The story was first documented in the Pulitzer-prize-winning article An Unbelievable Story of Rape.

Actress Kaitlyn Dever (who plays Marie) talked to GoodHousekeeping.com about being in the cast for the Netflix series.

Netflix's latest true crime series Unbelievable is based on the real-life story of an 18-year-old woman named Marie, who was charged with a gross misdemeanor after police came to the conclusion that she had lied about being raped. Known as "Marie Adler" in the series (though we don't know her real last name), her account was eventually validated after two female detectives Stacy Galbraith (known as "Karen Duvall" in the show) and Sgt. Edna Hendershot (or "Grace Rasmussen") linked her story to a string of other similar crimes. In the end, Marie's rapist, Marc O'Leary (known as "Christopher McCarthy" in the show), was found and sentenced to 327 1/2 years in prison.

Marie's backstory

Kaitlyn Dever portrays Marie Adler in Netflix’s Unbelievable. Beth Dubber/Netflix

While the main details of Marie's story are explored in the Unbelievable series, more can be found in The Marshall Project and ProPublica's Pulitzer-prize-winning piece An Unbelievable Story of Rape. The Netflix series is based around that reporting, which details the lives of Marie and other sexual assault survivors.

According to the article, Marie only met her biological father once and doesn't know much about her biological mom, other than she often "left [Marie] in the care of her boyfriends." Her upbringing involved moving around to different foster homes, as well as sexual and physical abuse. She told reporters that when she was younger she was on roughly "seven different drugs. And Zoloft is an adult drug — I was on that at eight."

The story states, "[Marie] does not know if she attended kindergarten. She remembers being hungry and eating dog food. She reports entering foster care at age six or seven."

When Marie was 18, she joined a pilot program called Project Ladder, designed to help young adults get on their feet after living in foster care. Soon after, Marie moved into a one-bedroom apartment monitored by the program. It was there, at the Alderbrooke Apartments in Lynnwood, Washington, that police responded to the report of rape a little before 9 a.m. one day in 2008.

The investigation

Marie recounted her story of what happened that day to Sgts. Jeffery Mason and Jerry Rittgarn ("Detective Parker" and "Detective Pruitt" in the series). She said she was awakened by a man who gagged, blindfolded, and raped her in the apartment. Soon after Marie told her story, two of her foster moms (identified in the series as "Judith" and "Colleen") began to express doubts.

“There was just no emotion. It was like she was telling me that she’d made a sandwich," one of her foster moms recalled in the ProPublica piece. She became more suspicious when she took Marie to get new bedding — Marie's had been taken in for the investigation — and she became really upset that she couldn't find the same set of sheets. "Why would you want to have the same sheets and bedspread to look at every day when you’d been raped on this bed set?” she had thought to herself.

Marie (Kaitlyn Dever) is questioned by Detective Parker (Eric Lange) and Detective Pruitt (Bill Fagerbakke). Parker and Pruitt portray real-life investigators Sgt. Jeffrey Mason and Jerry Rittgarn. Netflix

"Colleen" and "Judith" confided in one another, both thinking that Marie's behavior seemed suspicious. This led to "Judith" confidentially telling the police about her doubts.

Although research shows that it is common for people who experience severe trauma such as sexual assault to have a hard time recalling specifics, detectives weren't giving up on one inconsistency: Marie had said she used her feet to get ahold of a pair of scissors and cut herself free before calling her former boyfriend Jordan. But in her written statement, Marie said that she had called Jordan while still bound, dialing his number using her feet.

When police confronted her about the discrepancy, Marie, under pressure, ended up saying she made the whole thing up, and she was charged with a gross misdemeanor.

Marie's lawyer was surprised the police had charged her, but concluded it was probably because the police felt "used." She ended up paying a $500 fine for court costs and took a deal that she would get mental health counseling for lying while going on supervised probation.

As viewers of Unbelievable eventually find out, Marie was vindicated two and a half years later. Stacy Galbraith and Sgt. Edna Hendershot successfully tracked down the serial rapist and arrested him. After merging their resources, they traced a suspicious white pickup truck to one owner (Marc) and used DNA evidence to narrow down the suspects to one paternal family line. In February of 2011, Stacy knocked on Marc's door and placed him under arrest. She confirmed he was the rapist after seeing a large dark birthmark on his left calf — a feature one of the victims had recalled about him.



Marc pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and associated felonies. He was sentenced to the maximum allowed by law — 327 1/2 years, without a chance of parole.

After getting ahold of the rapist's hard drive, Stacy found a photo of Marie and immediately contacted Lynnwood police.

Lynnwood police found Marie south of Seattle, Washington and told her what had happened. From there, her record was expunged and police returned her $500. Marie ended up suing the city of Lynnwood and settled for $150,000.

It was later revealed that Marie had been "coerced into admitting that she lied about the rape," by the police. Despite both external and internal reviews on how Marie's investigation was handled, no one in the Lynnwood Police Department was disciplined.

Where Marie is today

While Unbelievable ends with Marie getting a new car, ready to move on with her life, the ProPublica article goes on to report that Marie eventually became a long-haul trucker. She also married and had two kids, but asked that her current location not be disclosed.

What does Marie think about the depiction of her story on Netflix? Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Marie in the series, tells GoodHousekeeping.com that she considered reaching out to Marie before filming began. But ultimately, executive producer Susannah Grant and the rest of the Unbelievable team decided not to.

"We basically came to the conclusion that I really didn't need to know how her voice sounded or do a carbon copy of her because we just wanted to tell her story, and you don't need to know her specific mannerisms to do that," Kaitlyn explains. "She's incredibly strong and she's been through so much, so everyone on the team wanted to respect her privacy."

Kaitlyn adds that there was no way to mentally prepare for such a tough role. But her thoughts were always with the survivors.

"I wanted to come at it with respect and care and literally give it everything I've got because I wasn't ever really thinking about me anymore, I was thinking about Marie and all of these survivors," she says. "I think once people see this out in the world, she [Marie]'s going to be inspiring for a lot of people."

If you or someone you know needs help or has been affected by sexual assault, call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. You can also visit online.rainn.org to receive support via confidential online chat.

Kayla Keegan News and Entertainment Editor Kayla Keegan covers all things in the entertainment, pop culture, and celebrity space for Good Housekeeping.

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