Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman's Harrowing Quest for Justice

8. The Confession

8 The Confession Patty arrived at police headquarters in an upbeat mood. Misty had dropped her off, and she arrived carrying a wrapped birthday present for Brenda, whom she planned to see later. Woodmansee met Patty inside the building and led her down a hallway to a room with a small table and large windows. After a few minutes he took her to a tiny room in the building’s basement. It was a former jail cell, with cement block walls and no windows. It contained a table and chairs, a sink against one wall, and a toilet. Woodmansee introduced Patty to another detective, Linda Draeger, who would be sitting in. Patty was glad to have a woman present. Discussing a sexual assault with a male detective was difficult, and she assumed a woman would be more sympathetic. She was in for quite a surprise. Woodmansee got coffee for everyone and closed the door behind him. Draeger asked about the wrapped package on the table, and Patty explained that it was a birthday present for her sister. It was just a T-shirt, she said jokingly: “Cheap, but a gift nonetheless.” No one laughed. The detectives got right to the point. “I know who did this,” Woodmansee announced. Patty was heartened, thinking this was the good news she was hoping for. Then he lowered the boom: “You did.” Patty laughed. She thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Woodmansee said he believed Patty made a false allegation, that there had been no sexual assault . “I know you made this up.” Patty was thunderstruck. She had no idea this was coming. She began breathing heavily. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I’m scared to 58 sleep in my room.” How could the police not believe her? “There was someone in there,” she insisted. “He was in there a long time.” Woodmansee had had enough. He told Patty he had worked many hours on her case and produced many pages of reports, all of which led him to the same conclusion: it didn’t happen. Meanwhile, he had put off investigating several other cases—child abuse cases, she remembered him saying. This made her feel guilty. “I know, I know it was for nothing,” she said, according to his report. Woodmansee said he knew Patty suffered from depression and had seen a counselor in the past. He mentioned her past suicide attempts and the fact that her brother and nephew had taken their own lives. He brought up her past history of sexual abuse as a child. She and Mark were not getting along, and she had problems with Misty. She had lied to her daughter about having named Dominic as a suspect. And Mark had given him reason to believe she was capable of making up the whole thing. Patty asked that her case be assigned to another detective and was told this would not happen because the rape did not occur. She offered to take a lie detector test or undergo hypnosis to prove she was telling the truth. Draeger said Patty could hire a polygraph examiner if she wanted, but police had no need for this information because they knew she was lying. Woodmansee proceeded to cite the inconsistencies and lack of evidence that led him to conclude the rape did not occur. Blood was not found where he thought it should be. The alarm clock times did not add up. The closet she claimed to have stood in was full of stuff. She could not see the suspect, yet seemed to have no trouble picking up the knocked-over grill. Her vision, said Woodmansee, did not appear to be noticeably bad. Patty, typically, agreed with this attempt to minimize her disability: “I don’t think it is that bad.” The state crime lab, Woodmansee told Patty, found no evidence of sexual assault. All of the other detectives he talked to thought she was lying. He said the sexual assault nurse at Meriter found no sign of trauma. All of Patty’s injuries were consistent with self-infliction. There was no sperm on the cotton swabs, no stray pubic hairs, nothing to prove she was raped. “There wasn’t even any rubber residue,” Woodmansee told her, explaining that a test for latex residue from the condom she claimed her assailant used had come back negative. This was a The Confession 59 • complete fabrication...