If suggestions that the alleged victim (AV) was dancing at the Platinum Club
of Hillsborough as early as four days after the alleged rape, according to
former bouncer HP âFatsâ Thomas, or 10 days later, according to club owner
Victor O. Olatoye, then the case is essentially over.
Since Sergeant Mark Gottlieb & Officer Benjamin W. Himan interviewed the
AV on the 16th, and had radically differing accounts of the interview, with
Gottlieb's notes (written after the fact from memory) describing the victim as
being in great pain and unable to sit comfortably, and since D.A. Mike
Nifong described the AV as being too traumatized to even discuss the alleged
rape, the suggestion that she was dancing 10 days later, let alone the day after
the interview, blows a hole in the case which is almost certainly irreparable.
The defense will pick the two accounts apart and rip the AV to pieces.
Certain to come up is her visit to UNC hospitals on the 16th, when she
complained of intense neck pain. But if these new allegations hold up, her
story, already stretching credulity, is about to fall apart.
Which leads to a question, the most basic question possible: why? If in
fact she wasn't raped, why would she put herself in this situation?
We got a possible answer from a reader who made a very interesting
suggestion. If he's right, it could answer a lot of questions.
We need to stress that this is a hypothesis, and we are speculating from here
on out. That said, here goes.
There are a few dots which by themselves don't make sense.
- Flexeril and heavy drinking
- The AV's alleged request to be marked up by Kim Roberts
- The trip to the detox/dryout center
- The trip to UNC Hospitals
There have been differing reports on how much alcohol she drank, but we can
tell you this from first-hand experience: Flexeril is a very potent muscle
relaxant. We've used it for muscle spasms, and on one occasion, we forgot
we had taken it and drank a beer.
Big mistake. It was hard to stand up and focus, much less actually do
anything.
As we said, there are differing accounts of how much she drank, but one
suggested two 20 ounce beers. You'd have to have a pretty high tolerance
to manage yourself at that point. Quite high.
Then what of Kim Roberts' allegation that the AV wanted to be marked
up? What's up with that?
The easy answer is that it would support rape allegations. But there's
another possible answer: bruises would help in an emergency room bid for
narcotics.
The first time the AV alleged rape was when the police took her to a county
facility, where she would be detained for a time. This would be bad in a
number of ways, most obviously in that she would be separated from her
children. But what if she had another concern?
Finally, the trip to UNC Hospitals. If everything we now know holds up,
she wasn't raped. So why would she go to the ER? And why all the way
to Chapel Hill?
There's one possible explanation for these four issues which would make sense
and tie them together. And we stress again that this is a hypothesis:
Heavy drinking and Flexeril? A desire for injury? A panic at the
prospect of a detox stay? A trip to a second hospital when no rape
occurred (and therefore no injuries)?
This could easily describe the behavior of an addict.