Posted on 09/11/2009 6:20:15 AM PDT by csvset
NEWPORT NEWS – When police got the call, they dropped everything. Cases went on the back burner; the focus of every available detective shifted to the Windsor Great Park neighborhood where an 18-year-old said someone put something around her throat, pulled her from her car, dragged her into an easement, and tried to rape her.
“She was very distraught, and she was very upset, and it helped to add to the credibility of the story that she gave,” Captain Marvin Evans tells 13News. The head of the Newport News Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Bureau says officers would find out that what Megan McLane gave them was a story of the fictitious kind.
“The taxpayers absorbed a pretty hefty bill for all those resources being tied up, for what ended up being a false report,” Evans says. Newport News officers say McLane, who lives in the neighborhood where the attack supposedly happened, admitted she lied about the attack. Police found out she had a confrontation with another driver as she headed home to Newport News from York County on Denbigh Boulevard. The Windsor Great Park community sits off of Denbigh. The two had verbal exchange. Things did get a little physical. In an attempt to get the other driver into trouble, detectives say McLane tore her own clothing and injured herself in order to make the claim of attempted rape look real.
Dozens of police were part of the investigation Wednesday afternoon, including members of the K-9 unit and forensics team.
"They could've been out there taking care of somebody else, and they're just running around 'cause some little girl had attitude," says Alison Cooper. The easement into which McLane said the attacker dragged her runs behind Cooper’s house. "She put the fear in me, and made me fear for my children," Cooper says, “just ‘cause she got some little attitude about something, you know?”
Lonnie Colson was among the pack of neighbors watching the swarm of officers Wednesday, and worrying. “When a lady is involved and says she’s been attacked or any young person’s been attacked, then your heart just sinks through the floor, and, so, that’s where the community was, so fearful and concerned.”
13News stopped at McLane’s house early Thursday evening. Despite the fact that there was movement inside the home, as well as voices, no one came to the front door. Outside the house sits the car from which McLane said someone dragged her. Something inside that car that forensics team members found was key in letting police know there was something not right about McLane’s report about a crime that never happened.
"She made a bad choice, and it's gonna hurt her,” says Colson. “It's gonna hurt the family, and, of course, it hurts the City because of the cost."
The Newport News Police Department is in the process of doing the number crunching. It will let the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and the City Attorney’s Office know the final tally. That way, a civil suit can be filed against McLane in an attempt to recoup the money taxpayers paid for police response.
As for the criminal charge against her, McLane could get as long as a year in jail and a fine that could be as much as $2,500 if found guilty.
Throw the book at the little runt (replace the R with a C).
Send the little bitch to jail. Same sentence as what a rapist would get.
Yes, a cunning runt.
WTF is the point of this sentence? "And we'll tell you what they found...tonight at 11" ?
Not that much time. This is just a false police report. Get her the year on a road crew and the max fine. It does not sound as if an arrest was made based on the false charge.
Whatever they found is now part of the criminal case against her. They want to keep the smoking gun under wraps until she has a defense lawyer. Based on some quotes in the story, I think the police may be doing everything they can to avoid a racial angle being brought in as part of the defense.
THere needs to be a special law for this with harsh penalities.
(and I am not an advocate of creating new laws)
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