Netflix's great true crime binge of 2019, Unbelievable, tells the devastatingly true story of 18-year-old Marie Adler. In 2008, Marie (played by Booksmart's Kaitlyn Dever) was threatened with a knife, tied up, blindfolded, and raped in her apartment. She reported it to the police, but they didn't believe her. Marie started doubting herself and recanted her sexual assault accusation. She was fined $500 for false reporting. But her story wasn't false.
Kaitlyn's spot-on portrayal of the real Marie's heartbreaking story on screen earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination and a Critics Choice Television Award nomination.
The Netflix limited series is based on two reported stories about Marie: The Marshall Project and ProPublica's Pulitzer Prize award-winning piece An Unbelievable Story of Rape by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, and on an episode of This American Life, Anatomy of Doubt.
Armstrong kept in touch with the real-life Marie, and revealed in a Twitter thread that she told him she watched the Netflix series. "“I did cry quite a bit," she reportedly told him, but she also called the show "excellent." She called the scene in which Marie recants her confession to the police "perfect."
While Unbelievable shares a pretty accurate depiction of Marie's story, there are a few differences between the real Marie and Marie Adler on the show:
Her name wasn't actually Marie Adler.
In both Unbelievable and The Marshall Project/ProPublica report, the young woman whose story is being told is referred to as Marie. However, Marie isn't actually her first name. It's her middle name. Marie's real full name is still unknown. But according to the Denver Post, the court documents identified the 18-year-old raped by Marc O’Leary, as D.M.
Take an inside look at how Unbelievable tells Marie's story:
Marie actually did want to sleep on the same sheets in real life.
In both Unbelievable and reality, Marie's sheets were taken by police as evidence. But what made Marie's foster's mom begin to doubt her story was that Marie wanted to sleep on those same exact sheets afterward.
The Marshall Project and ProPublica piece recalls a moment when Marie and her foster mom, Shannon, went shopping for new bedding. "Marie became furious when she couldn’t find the same set," the report stated. Shannon couldn't help but wonder, "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?"
But there's no evidence the real Marie tried to commit suicide.
Spoiler alert: The first episode of Unbelievable ends on cliffhanger, with Marie attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, there's no concrete evidence whether or not this happened in real life.
It was reported that Marie had been taking antidepressant medication since she was child. “I was on like seven different drugs. And Zoloft is an adult drug—I was on that at 8,” Marie told a mental health expert, according to ProPublica. However, a suicide attempt was not described in the article or reported elsewhere.
The investigation that led to Marie's exoneration actually happened two years after her sexual assault.
In Netflix's limited series, it seems like the rape investigations of Marie Adler and the other sexual assault survivors are happening simultaneously. But, according to The Marshall Project and ProPublica story, Marie's rape occurred in March 2009. It wasn't until 2011 that Detective Stacy Galbraith was having a conversation with her husband that would connect a rape case she was investigating in Colorado—just like Marie's, though Galbraith didn't know that yet—to another, similar rape case in the state.
The 2011 victim was able to remember that the perpetrator had a birthmark on his left calf. Without a full DNA sample, however, investigators began piecing evidence together from multiple crime scenes, eventually finding footage of O'Leary's truck at one of the victim's apartments.
During their investigation, authorities also found a collection of women’s underwear that O’Leary had taken from his victims, the camera he'd used to take their photos, and pictures of all his victims, including Marie. This would eventually lead to Marie's vindication and the return of her $500 fine.
Later, in 2013, the Lynnwood Police Department paid Marie a $150,000 settlement for a lawsuit she brought against them based on the way officers assigned to her case had treated her.
The real Marie forgave her foster mothers.
Per Armstrong's Tweets, he says, "The series shows how two of Marie’s former foster moms doubted her account. Both later apologized to her. Marie forgave both. She kept ties with both. After finishing the series, Marie called both, to reassure them: The show doesn’t demonize you. She encouraged both to watch."
The real Marie currently works as a long-haul truck driver.
It's unclear what Marie's future holds at the end of the Netflix series, but Armstrong still keeps in touch with the real-life Marie Adler and told NPR that she's currently working as a long-haul truck driver. "She drives an 18-wheeler across the country. She and I speak fairly often. And it seems like every time I talk to her she's in a different state. She is strong. And she is resilient," he said.
Alexis Jones is an assistant editor at Women's Health where she writes across several verticals on WomensHealthmag.com, including life, health, sex and love, relationships and fitness, while also contributing to the print magazine. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University, lives in Brooklyn, and proudly detests avocados.
Jennifer Nied is the fitness editor at Women’s Health and has more than 10 years of experience in health and wellness journalism. She’s always out exploring—sweat-testing workouts and gear, hiking, snowboarding, running, and more—with her husband, daughter, and dog.
