July 2, 1996: Around 7pm, a married woman is kidnapped from a parking lot at Florence, Kentucky; she is raped and robbed. At least that is what she tells the police. Shortly, she recants. Her father-in-law reported her missing shortly before midnight the same night, and she was found at 2.15am the following day. Reading between the lines of the report below, she had rough sex with a stranger after taking illicit substances. According to NewsBank, said report by Jeanne Houck was published in the Final Edition, page 11A.
September 13, 1996: Deborah Sterling of Independence, Kentucky, is charged with false reporting. The mother of four pleaded no contest the following day, Saturday, at Hamilton County Municipal Court. She claimed to have been abducted, held for days, and raped repeatedly at knifepoint. She was actually staying with a friend, and using crack-cocaine. Some friend!
The article cited below contains the usual flim-flam about the low incidence of false rape reports but also an interesting and undoubtedly truthful observation. The airhead concerned is Ann McDonald of Cincinnati’s Women Helping Women; the following is the staff writer’s quote:
“the increase in drug abuse in the general population has produced more women addicts and sometimes they lie about rape to cover their drug habits.”
[The above is based largely in a report in The Cincinnati Post, September 16, 1996, Final Edition, page 6A, (accessed here through NewsBank).]
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