The woman, whose name was withheld because she was promised anonymity by the police, said that the man removed her gold wedding band, Seiko watch and gold chain, and took $133 from her purse. Then, using pieces of duct tape, he bound her hands, sexually molested her with a tire iron and forced her to perform oral sex.
Police spent the next twelve days investigating the highly publicized rape after putting together a composite portrait of the alleged rapist that Union-Tribune writer Sharon Jones says "resembled President Bill Clinton."
Then, as Southern California feminists were charging that no
institution in society was free of rape, the supposed victim failed a
lie detector test. DNA tests of stains on the sweater she was
wearing—she claimed that she had spit out the rapist's
ejaculate—showed the semen to be her husband's.
Confronted by San Diego police investigators with this fact, the woman said that she always carried her husband's semen in her purse because it was useful as a facial cream to prevent wrinkles and was indeed carrying a vial of it on the night of the attack and that the rapist found it and spilled it onto her sweater.
By this time the police realized that they had something bizarre on their hands. After further interrogation, the "victim" admitted that she had staged the entire event, including molesting herself with the tire iron and using some of her husband's semen to substantiate her allegation.
Told about the hoax, Sherry Arndt, identified by the Union-Tribune as "coordinator of California's foremost sexual assault response program" said: "That woman is a victim of something. She's crying out. She probably was molested as a child."
