An alleged late-night rape of a female motorist who was changing a tire on I-15 near American Fork in September has turned out to be a hoax.
An investigation of the incident by detective from the Department of Public Safety turned up lead after lead of false information, DPS Sgt. Fred Baird said.After repeated conversations with the alleged victim, the 19-year-old woman finally admitted to fabricating her story, Baird said.
Investigators will now take the case to the Salt Lake County District Attorney Friday and ask for criminal charges against the woman, Baird said.
Filing a false report is a class B misdemeanor carrying a penalty of up to six months in jail and/or $1,000 in fines.
"We'll take it to the county attorney and see if he wants to play," Baird said. "I don't know what's going to happen, but I think something should be done. She wasted a lot of people's time."
DPS investigators had literally hundred of telephone calls from citizens and law enforcement officers around the state in response to information and composite drawings of the alleged suspects that were distributed.
The woman had given investigators incredibly detailed information of the Sept. 28 incident, right down to license plate numbers from the car and the "cowboy hat shaped air freshener hanging on the rear view mirror."
A medical examination performed on the woman at a hospital that same night also proved that she had engaged in some kind of sexual activity that night. At the time, Baird said, she was clearly distraught over the incident.
With so much detailed information, investigators initially had no reason to doubt that the report was valid, Baird said.
DPS offered a reward for information leading to an arrest. And officers even felt so badly for the woman, that they dug into their own pockets and bought her a new tire for her car, as she didn't have the money to replace it.
Now, it's hard to say what really happened that night, Baird said.
"I had some concerns early on. On that freeway, with how busy that is and you know the troopers are out there, you would think somebody would have seen something," he said. "We're just guessing at what really happened. Apparently she did really have a flat tire sometime that night, but it's hard to know what to believe."
Baird wants other motorists to know, however, that if they are victims of a crime, they should still come forward.
"I hope that this doesn't deter anyone from reporting a crime. We would approach it very seriously and do a full investigation just as we did with this one," he said.
Baird also hopes the computer generated composite photos of the two men the woman said raped her has not caused problems for anyone.
"We would hope that if those pictures really resemble anybody, they would understand that we were following the lead of a so-called victim," Baird said. "We would certainly apologize to them."