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Letter to the editor

Fake attack is buzz among neighbors

Some wonder why the Sheriff's Office isn't bringing charges.

By RODNEY THRASH, Times Staff Writer
Published January 11, 2008

WESTCHASE 

They still remember the rumble of the helicopter overhead, the night in late December that shattered their sense of security.

Just before 8:30 p.m. Dec. 19, a 39-year-old Westchase woman told authorities that a masked man attacked her and tried to pull her into the woods while she jogged on Countryway Boulevard.

Before her neighbors would learn it was all a hoax, they would hear theunsettling details:

That her attacker punched her, banged her head into a tree, tried to strangle her. That she clung to that tree long enough that he gave up and fled.

The woman was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital and treated for cuts on her arms and forehead.

She described her attacker in great detail: 6-1, 210 pounds, white man, age 25 to 30, wore gloves, a dark jacket with a drawstring hood and dark pants.

The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office dispatched its canine unit to the scene. The dog retraced the jogger's steps through the Harbor Links neighborhood, the Westchase Golf Course and the parking lot of Glencliff Park.

Nothing.

Authorities figured the suspect fled by car.

The story of the woman's ordeal and her spirited defense made the top of nightly television newscasts.

For three days last month, this seemingly safe suburb with its half-million-dollar homes, precision-cut lawns and wrought-iron gates didn't seem safe.

And then on Dec. 22, homeowners learned everything was a lie.

The woman did jog that night. But there was no masked attacker and the wounds were self-inflicted. There were domestic issues between her and her husband and "she felt a need to go to the extreme measure to make up a story," sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callawaysaid at the time.

Fear turned to venom for the woman; sadness for her children; and anger for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, which decided it would not press charges against the woman.

"There was no criminal intent on her part," sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said this week.

Online message boards lit up with anonymous posts from people who worried no punishment sent the wrong message: that there are different forms of justice for the haves and the have-nots. Some urged bloggers to call the State Attorney's Office and demand charges, even prison time. At the very least, others said, the woman should reimburse the county the cost of its investigation and physical effort.

Many of the comments, posted on sites such as Westchaser.com, TBO.com and tampabay.com, came from people inside, not outside, of Westchase.

"She filed a false report," said Joe Manion, who has lived in Westchase for 15 years and started the discussion thread on Westchaser.com. "Could I use that excuse if I got pulled over for a speeding ticket?"

The discussions have infiltrated parties, morning conversations among neighbors.

"We all felt compassion toward the victim and concern about our own safety so to find out it was all made up was shocking," said Cynthia Keenan, who has lived in Westchase for four years. "And then I have to say sad that somebody - whatever the circumstance - felt compelled to make up the story."

"A lot of us have talked about it," said Hiedi Kerr, who has lived several houses down from the jogger for 11/2 years. "We're all concerned. Why would she say something if in fact itdidn't happen?"

The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office has been reviewing the case. "It's a pending investigation," Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi said this week.

Neighbors, wishing they knew more, have become suspicious.

"It makes you wonder: Are you not being told something," Keenan said. "I wish we had more information. I want to trust there was no reason to charge her, that there were extenuating circumstances."

Carter, the sheriff's spokesman, said that there are extenuating circumstances. After the woman recanted her story "and during the course of the investigation, detectives discovered some other determining factors that we're not going to get into now," Carter said. "Based on their findings, it was the discretionary decision of the detectives not to charge her."

She said the search for a suspect cost taxpayers nothing. "Helicopter was already up on routine," she said. "K-9 works out in the district anyway, so no cost incurred there."

The search may not have cost taxpayers anything monetarily, but it cost in other ways, said Manion, who teaches women's self-protection and child abduction prevention classes. One of his neighbors walked his dogs along the route the jogger said she was attacked. He switched his route the day after the now fictitious attackwas reported.

"That changed normal life for a few days," Manion said.

Rodney Thrash can be reached at 813 269-5303 or rthrash@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 10, 2008, 07:16:25]