What kills me is that after the report wrote this story, I presume an editor or two read it. Didn’t they ask the reporter questions like “did you check this out?”
Really a lot of people at RS have a lot to answer for.
And this story sure as hell doesn’t make Jackie’s Three Friends look very good either. The struck me as some gonzo creepy shit that the Three Friends were getting into there.
Another article from a local newspaper.
For fucks sake!!!
Not sure what you’re referring to here…
This could also be explained by the friend lying to one of those publications, or by Jackie lying to Rolling Stone about his contact info, resulting in the two magazines speaking to two different people.
The theory is that Jackie lied about the contact info so that she could pretend to be him refusing to be interviewed.
Around the internet, mainly on conservative sites, people are looking at everything that Sabrina Erdely has published over the years. It seems fairly clear that quite a lot of it is either outright fiction or greatly embellished facts. She seems to have a strong penchant for stories of a victim, sometime of rape and sometimes of something else, who gets abused by the system, shunned by family and friends, and totally screwed by almost everybody. Among her highlights:
[ul]
[li]A story about rape in the military where the plot line is virtually the same as the UVA story.[/li][li]An investigation of a Catholic sexual abuse case in Philadelphia with some far-fetched claims.[/li][li]A story about four gay teens in Minnesota who were supposedly forced to suicide by heartless, right-wing school administrators.[/li][/ul]
In short, she thought she could get away with this one because she got away with so many others.
Damn! This “Jackie” is diabolical! (Figured I’d better start putting her name in quotes. Who knows? Cosby could be at the bottom of this in a desperate attempt to draw the media spotlight away.)
Looks like multiple lines of evidence are zeroing in on a plausible theory concerning a particular bad actor.
Similar to the Cosby case.
I suppose it could. But in my OP I singled out the alleged conversation with three friends as being the most unrealistic thing in a highly unrealistic article. Both the syntax and the nature of the conversation clearly show that it’s fictitious. Throw in the fact that Erdely has a long history of fabrications and it seems eminently likely that she just made it up.
My working hypothesis is this. Jackie arrives at UVA in 2012, makes friends, and for some reason decides to play a prank involving a fake boyfriend, complete with text messages and a picture. On the night of the 28th something bad happens to her, maybe a sexual assault, maybe not. For unknown reasons she exaggerates it into a story about being gang raped at a frat party. Over time she repeats the exaggerated version to friends and support group so much that she loses touch with what really happened.
Two years later, Erdely shows up looking for a juicy story about rape. The UVA employee connects Erdely to Jackie, who tells her the exaggerated version of the night’s events. Erdely then alters details to make the rape more horrifying and everyone’s reaction more callous and uncaring.
This may not be what actually happened, but it seems to explain the facts better than anything else.
In a way I feel sorry for Jackie, if she got caught up in a prank that spiralled out of control. Now she may have ruined her life. A police investigation started right after the RD article was published. If she lied to the police, she may even face jail time. On the other hand, the real victims are the boys in the frat that age falsely accused, and to a lesser extent everyone whose work or education was interrupted.
This refers to that newer story in Washinton Post, linked above. Here it is again.
When Jackie first started dating her Prince Charming in the chemistry class, the Three Friends made it their business to get his phone number and started txting him to check up on him. It sounds like one or more of them kept up an on-going conversation with Prince Charming about him and Jackie, behind Jackie’s back. They tried to do research on him.
Creepy.
Jackie has Borderline Personality Disorder written all over her, but her friends sound almost as fucked up. I don’t think it was an innocuous prank so much as a maneuver intended to procure Randall’s favor. Recall the imaginary guy she was dating texted her friends (including Randall) that there was a guy she liked who wasn’t interested in her. Then this imaginary guy ‘‘victimizes’’ her - to draw sympathy from Randall?
And I don’t think the friends were merely ‘‘curious’’ about the date - I think they knew it was a load of horseshit and were trying to catch her in lies.
Whatever the truth, it’s starting to sound every bit as fucking bizarre as the original story.
[QUOTE=Frylock]
Looks like multiple lines of evidence are zeroing in on a plausible theory concerning a particular bad actor.
[/QUOTE]
I agree if by “a particular bad actor” you mean “a writer as well as multiple editors and factcheckers at Rolling Stone Magazine, and perhaps others at other publications where Erdley has published in the past.” The editors have said *they *confirmed that “Drew” was a real person, as well as other things that have turned out to be false. Either they lied, or they accepted Erdley’s word as surely as she acceted Jackie’s.
Also, I haven’t followed all the stories, but AIUI, some of the questions about her work have been raised before. This is institutional failure.
:dubious:
How is it creepy? She gave them the contact info. Kids today pretty commonly meet online/via text and only later IRL. It makes sense that they’d go looking on Facebook to see the “guy” they were texting.
CNN has its own interview up now with “Randall”, “Andy”, and “Cindy”, who have now agreed to use their real names - Ryan Duffin, Alex Stock, and Kathryn Hendley.
Some interesting points that I don’t think have been previously reported yet;
- The name Jackie initially gave to her assailant, “Haven Monahan”, does not match the name of anyone known to be living in the United States
- “Haven” continued to correspond with Randall/Ryan after the night of the alleged incident, including sending him a letter purportedly by Jackie in which she talked about how great Ryan is; Ryan now believes the texts and emails he got from Haven may have been written by Jackie, and Haven’s email address is no longer active
- Ryan and Alex/Andy, contrary to the depiction in the article, tried to convince Jackie (who was not visibly injured) to call the police and she refused
- Cindy/Kathryn, who Rolling Stone quoted as saying “Her reputation will be shot for the next four years” if Jackie talked to the police, was not even part of the initial conversation; she sat 25 feet away while Jackie talked to Ryan and Alex because Jackie didn’t want her to know what had happened
I think the true story is starting to fall together now; Jackie has a crush on Ryan, who doesn’t seem interested. She concocts a hot older boy to make him jealous, and uses a second phone line and a throwaway email address to “prove” he exists. When she realizes she’s going to have to introduce her friends to “Haven” at some point, she concocts a sexual assault story to explain why he’s not around anymore (and make Ryan feel sorry for her?), then has Haven send Ryan the email a few days later not remembering that she also had Haven as the mastermind of her assault.
Over the next two years she finds herself having to keep telling the rape story in order to keep the lie intact and because she’s become acquainted with actual rape victims, and finds herself embellishing the tale with things she’s heard from other people’s stories or thought up as a way to make it sound more dramatic and/or garner more sympathy. Finally, enter Ms. Erdeley, who wants to write a dramatic story about campus rape, and is told by one of her contacts that she knows a girl who underwent one hell of an experience…
I think you nailed it, Smapti.
I don’t even think it requires one sociopath, let alone with a lot of influence. Just the right set of circumstances and random, not too ethical, people.
No, I’m not extremely optimistic about human nature, why do you ask?
Couldn’t the defamed person obtain damages that she would have to pay when she will have assets?
Well, since the context of this comment was this specific story, I should probably clarify that I was really referring so a situation as horrific as the one Jackie made up.
If someone says, ‘‘grab its leg’’ I think it’s a safe bet at least one of the people involved is a sociopath.
But no, I’m not terribly optimistic about human nature, either. Or maybe I am, because I believe you don’t have to be evil to do an evil thing. I’m not sure what’s the darker view, believing that there are more evil people in the world or believing that most evil is perpetrated by normal humans. 
It’s difficult to keep a judgment alive for more than a few years, and the person ordered to pay would just take bankruptcy in any event.